What's the difference between baptist, methodist and orthodox?

[Dave L]

Of course the holocaust happened. No church was actively participant in the holocaust, as far as I know (with the possible exception of the Deutsche Christien occupied German Protestant Church). But Christian complacency allowed much of the holocaust to happen, either by ignorance or "ignorance" or by being complicit. There were Christians who goose-stomped to Hitler's barking orders, and there were Christians who opposed--Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, are numbered among some of the victims of the holocaust. The churches were both complacent, sometimes complicit, but also in opposition. There is no simple single answer to this question.

Perhaps you could explain what this has to do with the Trail of Blood fiction?

-CryptoLutheran

What do you think about the Lutherans and their relationship with the Anabaptists following the Reformation?

 

[dzheremi]

What does any of this have to do with the thread topic? The OP doesn't ask anything about Lutherans.

 

[Dave L]

What does any of this have to do with the thread topic? The OP doesn't ask anything about Lutherans.

He was denying persecution and martyrdom of the non conformists Christians throughout history. The Lutheran/Anabaptist relationships are an example of how the institutional churches wreaked havoc leading up to the reformation and after it.

 

[ViaCrucis]

He was denying persecution and martyrdom of the non conformists Christians throughout history.

I said the Trail of Blood is fiction, I didn't say that groups didn't face persecution. Big difference.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Dave L]

I said the Trail of Blood is fiction, I didn't say that groups didn't face persecution. Big difference.

-CryptoLutheran

What do you base your conclusions on? What historical resource(s) etc.?

 

[ViaCrucis]

What do you base your conclusions on? What historical resource(s) etc.?

All of them? All the historical material available concerning groups like the Cathars says they were a Manichean-like group with Manichean/Gnostic teachings. That doesn't justify the brutal mistreatment and genocidal extermination of the Cathars, nor do I deny that the Albigensian Crusade took place in which that mistreatment and extermination took place.

It's not up to me to prove a negative, if you want to argue that the Cathars weren't heretics, but were simply some variety of "True Christian(TM)" then the burden of proof rests on you.

That said: Cathar texts such as The Book of John the Evangelist, and contemporary statements from their opponents, are our chief historical sources.

Here is an excerpt from the Book of John the Evangelist:

"And I asked the Lord and said: What shall be in that time? And he said to me: From the time when the devil fell from the glory of the Father and (lost) his own glory, he sat upon the clouds, and sent his ministers, even angels flaming with fire, unto men from Adam even unto Henoch his servant. And he raised up Henoch upon the firmament and showed him his godhead and commanded pen and ink to be given him: and he sat down and wrote threescore and seven books. And he commanded that he should take them to the earth and deliver them unto his sons. And Henoch let his books down upon the earth and delivered them unto his sons, and began to teach them to perform the custom of sacrifice, and unrighteous mysteries, and so did he hide the kingdom of heaven from men. And he said unto them: Behold that I am your god and beside me is none other god. And therefore did my Father send me into the world that I might make it known unto men, that they might know the evil device of the devil.

And then when he perceived that I had come down out of heaven into the world, he sent an angel and took of three sorts of wood and gave them unto Moses that I might be crucified, and now are they reserved for me. But then (now) did the devil proclaim unto him (Moses) his godhead, and unto his people, and commanded a law to be given unto the children of Israel, and brought them out through the midst of the sea which was dried up."

What is being said here is that it was the devil who made the world, it was the devil who sent his angels to Adam, Enoch, and others, it was the devil who gave Moses the Law.

Now, I don't know about you, but I'd call that pretty heretical.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Dave L]

All of them? All the historical material available concerning groups like the Cathars says they were a Manichean-like group with Manichean/Gnostic teachings. That doesn't justify the brutal mistreatment and genocidal extermination of the Cathars, nor do I deny that the Albigensian Crusade took place in which that mistreatment and extermination took place.

It's not up to me to prove a negative, if you want to argue that the Cathars weren't heretics, but were simply some variety of "True Christian(TM)" then the burden of proof rests on you.

That said: Cathar texts such as The Book of John the Evangelist, and contemporary statements from their opponents, are our chief historical sources.

Here is an excerpt from the Book of John the Evangelist:

"And I asked the Lord and said: What shall be in that time? And he said to me: From the time when the devil fell from the glory of the Father and (lost) his own glory, he sat upon the clouds, and sent his ministers, even angels flaming with fire, unto men from Adam even unto Henoch his servant. And he raised up Henoch upon the firmament and showed him his godhead and commanded pen and ink to be given him: and he sat down and wrote threescore and seven books. And he commanded that he should take them to the earth and deliver them unto his sons. And Henoch let his books down upon the earth and delivered them unto his sons, and began to teach them to perform the custom of sacrifice, and unrighteous mysteries, and so did he hide the kingdom of heaven from men. And he said unto them: Behold that I am your god and beside me is none other god. And therefore did my Father send me into the world that I might make it known unto men, that they might know the evil device of the devil.

And then when he perceived that I had come down out of heaven into the world, he sent an angel and took of three sorts of wood and gave them unto Moses that I might be crucified, and now are they reserved for me. But then (now) did the devil proclaim unto him (Moses) his godhead, and unto his people, and commanded a law to be given unto the children of Israel, and brought them out through the midst of the sea which was dried up."

What is being said here is that it was the devil who made the world, it was the devil who sent his angels to Adam, Enoch, and others, it was the devil who gave Moses the Law.

Now, I don't know about you, but I'd call that pretty heretical.

-CryptoLutheran

But we still do not know if "trail of blood" is true or not. We do know many perished at the hands of the institutional state churches, and the numbers accommodate as many sects and groups as you can find.

 

[dzheremi]

I think there may be a certain intellectual trend out there that has bought off pretty much completely on the Bauer/Ehrman hypothesis regarding the historicity of early Christianity, and hence discards even very the notion that there may have been anything which could be rightly called orthodox or heterodox in an Early Church context, even though such a distinction had been standard for centuries by the time of the Albigensian Crusade, with works written before any of the major Church schisms (meaning those of Ephesus, Chalcedon, or of the Chalcedonians from one another) like St. Irenaeus' Against Heresies (c. 180 AD), St. Hippolytus' Refutation of All Heresies (early 3rd century), St. Augustine's various works against the Manichaeans (fourth century; notable because he calls them heretics despite Manichaeism having arisen outside of the Christian church), St. Epiphanius of Salamis' Panarion (374-377), and many, many others bearing witness.

Such people could do worse than to read The Heresy of Orthodoxy by Andreas J. Kostenberger and Michael J. Kruger (2011), which meticulously and thoroughly demolishes this baffling yet popular ahistorical way of thinking. Kostenberger is the senior research professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina, while Kruger is president and Samuel C. Patterson professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Reformed Theological Seminary, also in North Carolina (and also an ordained Presbyterian minister). I trust these associations prove their dispassion in dealing with the material, as such men would certainly not be stumping for either Rome or Constantinople (or Alexandria, or Edessa...just to cover everyone!), or their sectarian views regarding who's right in any particular context. The take home of the research isn't even about that, so much as it is a testament to how the incontrovertible evidence found in the early Church itself utterly destroys the viewpoint of those who would blame an 'institutional church' largely of their own making for whatever imagined problem may have come to this or that people in its zeal to defend a made-up 'orthodoxy' from made-up 'heretics'.

In reality, neither were made up, but the "Trail of Blood" theory certainly is. Not that it is the best of all possible sources, but the general reference website Wikipedia doesn't place it in the category "Pseudohistory" for nothing.

 

[Newtheran]

What's the difference between baptist, methodist and orthodox?

Also, keep in mind that there may be some degree of variance in how these denominations are described in an encyclopedia or dictionary and they way they exist today in the real world.

Particularly Methodism, which may seem good on paper, doesn't actually practice anything close to historic Christianity - or historic Methodism - for the most part anymore. Within Baptist circles, you'll find a variation where independent fundamental baptists adhere most closely to the historic baptist faith and message, Southern Baptists are probably next, but drifting quickly, and American Baptists are running down the road chasing the Methodists yelling "Hey, wait for me!" Orthodoxy is the closest to the first century church today, but even within Orthodoxy there are stronger branches (Russian and Antiochian) and weaker ones (Greek).

 

[Newtheran]

But we still do not know if "trail of blood" is true or not.

We pretty much know that it's not.

I'm not Catholic, but this document does a good job of saying why it's not.

https://www.catholicconvert.com/wp-content/uploads/Documents/TrailOfBlood.pdf

 

[dzheremi]

Orthodoxy is the closest to the first century church today, but even within Orthodoxy there are stronger branches (Russian and Antiochian) and weaker ones (Greek).

With due respect, calling these individual churches/jurisdictions 'branches' is inaccurate. They're autocephalous, equal members of the same communion, just as the members of the Lutheran World Federation make up distinct churches within the worldwide Lutheran communion, no matter if they're bigger or smaller or whatever (e.g., the Church of Sweden, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, etc).

 

[Dave L]

We pretty much know that it's not.

I'm not Catholic, but this document does a good job of saying why it's not.

https://www.catholicconvert.com/wp-content/uploads/Documents/TrailOfBlood.pdf

We do know however the visible institutional state churches killed many. Fox's Book of Martyrs and Martyrs Mirror give names of the victims.

 

[Newtheran]

With due respect, calling these individual churches/jurisdictions 'branches' is inaccurate. They're autocephalous, equal members of the same communion, just as the members of the Lutheran World Federation make up distinct churches within the worldwide Lutheran communion, no matter if they're bigger or smaller or whatever (e.g., the Church of Sweden, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, etc).

You're right, I tend to refer to things using typical protestant or evangelical phrases, but it's the autocephalous equal membership of Orthodoxy that preserved it after the Roman church went into schism in 1054.

 

[Newtheran]

What do you think about the Lutherans and their relationship with the Anabaptists following the Reformation?

Here's the real issue. Prior to 1054, there was a single unified Christian church. Sure, there were heresies then just as there are today. In 1054, the Roman church went into schism over the filioque. 500 years of papist innovation later, we had the reformation. The reformation was like trying to rebuild a wrecked car, and different reformers of that time had different levels of success in trying to reconstitute the original. The anabaptists were perhaps the least successful and added their own brand of baptism that ignored a millenium and a half of infant baptism among other things; Luther I think was perhaps the most successful and likely given his correspondence with the MP early in the reformation. Since then, Rome has added another 500 years of innovation until it has reached the place it is today, essentially a church that has been captured by sodomites. Several protestant denominations suffered the same fate, to be sure so I'm not only picking on Roman Catholics.

But now, as we look back in time to try and capture (instead of re-create) authentic Christian worship and truth, the Orthodox have a lot to teach us. The LCMS/WELS has also undone some of that Roman innovation and is probably best positioned among the protestant world to offer safe haven to authentic, sincere Christians who are serious about not compromising with a fallen culture.