Which Protestant Church / Group is the most Catholic?

[rockytopva]

I believe all churches CF accepts as Christian are alike these days in that we all face the challenges of the Laodicean age. Especially in recovering in these COVID times.

 

[Bruce Leiter]

Thought this might make for some interesting discussion / opinions.

Which Protestant Church / Group is the most Catholic?

And why?

In other words, which one comes closest to Catholic teaching or practice?

It depends on your definition of the word "Catholic." To me, it means "universal." As a result, I think that most churches, Catholic and Protestant, believe in the same, Triune God, in Jesus as both divine and human, and the Bible as God's Word. However, the tradition that the Roman Catholic Church has added to the Bible with its hierarchical church government is probably mostly followed by the Anglican Church. You'll have to ask some Anglicans if my impressions are true.

 

[HatGuy]

Being in communion with the Bishop of Rome is a central part of the Catholic belief system and experience. If you are not actually in communion but also want to follow all the teachings of Rome then in the end it is just a superficial shadow of the Catholic Church.

This is an excellent point - that really made me think and made me realise some things I never realised before.

This is really the contention, isn't it? The authority of a magisterium / the Bishop of Rome. One can believe everything Catholics teach but not believe in that authority, and I guess that would never make them truly Catholic.

Given that, and given your Lutheran background, I've always felt that Lutheranism offers a sort-of closest you're going to get to Catholicism given its sacramentalism.

Who is more sacramental? The Anglicans or the confessional Lutherans? I almost think the latter but I could be wrong.

From a pure liturgy perspective, though, I suppose I could see the High Anglicans taking the cake there.

There have been some very interesting responses here, and some great tongue-in-cheek ones too!

 

[zoidar]

Thought this might make for some interesting discussion / opinions.

Which Protestant Church / Group is the most Catholic?

And why?

In other words, which one comes closest to Catholic teaching or practice?

I think Angelicans, but I don't know too much about them. My home church is Lutheran but sermon-wise we could almost be mistaken for Catholics. There are of course differences. No prayer for intercession of the saints. And differences in theology.

 

[chad kincham]

Thought this might make for some interesting discussion / opinions.

Which Protestant Church / Group is the most Catholic?

And why?

In other words, which one comes closest to Catholic teaching or practice?

My reply: don’t care. The RC is nothing to me, whatsoever, and couldn’t care less about the pope.

 

[Philip_B]

I think Angelicans, but I don't know too much about them. My home church is Lutheran but cermon-wise we could almost be mistaken for Catholics. There are of course differences. No prayer for intercession of the saints. And differences in theology.

Thankyou for the compliment - Angelicans. Similar to a comment made by Pope Gregory 1.

Anglicans are likely to have some strong connection, given that our origins as a separated Ecclesial Jurisdiction came about for political concerns, and then there followed a period of acceptance of more reformed doctrinal positions, as seen in the 39 Articles. Structurally the Anglican Church is much like the Catholic Church or the Orthodox Churches, and doctrinally we have been influenced by, without wholesale adoption, many of the Key Reformation Principles. The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral outline our four sticking points, Scripture, Sacraments, Creeds and the Historic Episcopate.

Key Principles would include, Common Cup, All required doctrine to be in line with Scripture, Justification by grace through faith not of works, Liturgy and Scripture to be in the language of the people.

 

[Anthony2019]

It is a difficult question to answer as there are a wide variety of Christian denominations.
I would guess that Anglicanism is probably one of the denominations that is most closely related to Catholicism. Many of its churches, and indeed nearly all cathedrals, are Anglo Catholic in theology and practice - to varying degrees.
I go to a local Anglican parish church which is very much at the Catholic end of the spectrum.
We use Catholic liturgy for our worship.
We place an important emphasis on the centrality of the Eucharist, which like Catholics, we refer to as the Mass.
Our services include Marian devotions.
We include the Angelus during our service of Mass which commemorates the Incarnation.
Individual confession is not obligatory, but it is available for those who seek it.

 

[Basil the Great]

I think that if we look at the issue carefully, the answer must be the Anglicans. Conservative Lutherans might be in some sense. However, I believe that they are much too different from the Vatican II Catholic Church's teaching on salvation, compared to the Anglican Communion. I could be wrong, but I believe that most conservative Lutherans are firm that one probably must accept Jesus in this lifetime in order to be saved. I do not believe that most Anglicans would hold to this more narrow view of salvation. Since salvation is such a key doctrinal issue, I must choose the Anglicans over conservative Lutherans for my answer to the OP's question.

Now having said this, I still think that we are still misleading if we make too much of such a claim. Catholics are still Catholics and Anglicans are still Protestants, at least from the view of the Catholic Church. Now the RCC does consider the Eastern Orthodox Church to be a "particular church", a rather odd term in my view. They take this position as they believe that the Orthodox have valid sacraments. The RCC though does not view Anglican Communion clergy as having valid Holy Orders, as the Anglicans supposedly changed the formula for ordination or so the 1896 Papal Bull decreed. However, the RCC views the Orthodox as being "wounded" as "they are not in union with Peter". I think the better comparison would be to totally forget all Protestants in this discussion and simply say that the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox are the closest to the Catholic Church. All three are certainly big on asking the saints for help in intercessory prayer and especially in their view of Marian devotion. All three hold that there are seven sacraments and that confession to an ordained priest is necessary, at least under certain circumstances. All three have a high view of Holy Tradition.

Whenever I think of Anglicans, I always think back to the famous Anglican line that essentially proclaims that "all that is necessary for salvation is contained in the Scriptures". Such a position is very much different from the RCC, the EOC and the OOC. While the Anglicans are like the Catholics in some respects, when it comes to the classic Protestant position of the primacy of Scripture, they certainly side with all other Protestants.

 

[PaulCyp1]

Lutherans and Anglicans, since they both defected directly from the Catholic Church, rejecting only a few of the truths Jesus Christ gave to His Church. Many other Protestant denominations have defected from a denomination that defected from a denomination that defected from a denomination, etc., etc., rejecting more and more of true Christianity with each defection.

 

[The Liturgist]

It depends on your definition of the word "Catholic." To me, it means "universal." As a result, I think that most churches, Catholic and Protestant, believe in the same, Triune God, in Jesus as both divine and human, and the Bible as God's Word.

I was waiting for someone to say that. In this respect you are quite right.

However, the tradition that the Roman Catholic Church has

…

is probably mostly followed by the Anglican Church. You'll have to ask some Anglicans if my impressions are true.

Also I would add the Lutheran Churches in Scandinavia, particularly, especially, the Church of Sweden, with extreme sacramental Lutherans like the Archbishop of Uppsala*, which historically was the most high church Protestant entity prior to the Tractarian Movement in the Church of England in the 19th century, and possibly, earlier and more obscure movements in Anglicanism, such as the non-juring Episcopalians who refused to swear an oath to King William and Mary on the basis of the oath previously sworn to the Stuart monarchs, who made upper high church modifications to the Book of Common Prayer, like inserting the epiclesis from the Divine Liturgy of St. James into the communion service, and from whom portions survive in the form of the Episcopalian Church USA and all high church and Anglo Catholic derivatives thereof, and the Scottish Episcopal Church. However, I believe they became extinct in the North of England.

Of course we must now return to the elipsis, in my opinion it is unfair and also delegitimizes Presbyterian and Congregational churches, to say that hierarchical polity is extrascriptural. Even most Quaker meeting houses now in existence, with the exception of the holdouts who stick solely to waiting worship, some of whom have become Universalists, have some kind of hierarchy even if it is more like a churchwarden or vestry than a bishop. What is more, when people dogpile on the Roman Catholic church for various things, they are often unaware of the existence of similar things in the various churches of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Assyrians, each of which becomes progressively more different and alien to Western theology (except with regards to the Assyrians and vestments; the only authentically Assyrian vestment in use is the Shashta, or fez-like headgear worn by their bishops, related but distinct from the Chaldean Shash). This fact is rather sad as it is the result of the severe persecutions inflicted on the Assyrian Church of the East by the Iranians, Mongolians and Portuguese (at one time, the Assyrian Church of the East was the largest in the world, stretching from Baghdad to Beijing and Sri Lanka to the southern border of Siberia).

 

[The Liturgist]

I think that if we look at the issue carefully, the answer must be the Anglicans. Conservative Lutherans might be in some sense. However, I believe that they are much too different from the Vatican II Catholic Church's teaching on salvation, compared to the Anglican Communion. I could be wrong, but I believe that most conservative Lutherans are firm that one probably must accept Jesus in this lifetime in order to be saved. I do not believe that most Anglicans would hold to this more narrow view of salvation. Since salvation is such a key doctrinal issue, I must choose the Anglicans over conservative Lutherans for my answer to the OP's question.

Now having said this, I still think that we are still misleading if we make too much of such a claim. Catholics are still Catholics and Anglicans are still Protestants, at least from the view of the Catholic Church. Now the RCC does consider the Eastern Orthodox Church to be a "particular church", a rather odd term in my view. They take this position as they believe that the Orthodox have valid sacraments. The RCC though does not view Anglican Communion clergy as having valid Holy Orders, as the Anglicans supposedly changed the formula for ordination or so the 1896 Papal Bull decreed. However, the RCC views the Orthodox as being "wounded" as "they are not in union with Peter". I think the better comparison would be to totally forget all Protestants in this discussion and simply say that the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox are the closest to the Catholic Church. All three are certainly big on asking the saints for help in intercessory prayer and especially in their view of Marian devotion. All three hold that there are seven sacraments and that confession to an ordained priest is necessary, at least under certain circumstances. All three have a high view of Holy Tradition.

Whenever I think of Anglicans, I always think back to the famous Anglican line that essentially proclaims that "all that is necessary for salvation is contained in the Scriptures". Such a position is very much different from the RCC, the EOC and the OOC. While the Anglicans are like the Catholics in some respects, when it comes to the classic Protestant position of the primacy of Scripture, they certainly side with all other Protestants.

And the Assyrian and Ancient Church of the East, and the Polish National Catholic Church... Two very different exceptions covered in at least the case of the Assyrians by the Code of Canon Law of the Eastern Catholic Churches, which permits intercommunion, and I believe a few Papal Bulls like Ex Oriente Lumen.

By the way, as an educated scholar of the liturgy I am aware a portion of the Good Friday service (the Trisagion I think) is in Greek, given the number of Greek scholars the Roman Catholic Church has it would probably help ease the process of ecumenical reconciliation if some official Bulls and Encyclicals were authored in Ecclesiastical Byzantine Greek with a Latin translation, and vice versa.

 

[The Liturgist]

It is a difficult question to answer as there are a wide variety of Christian denominations.
I would guess that Anglicanism is probably one of the denominations that is most closely related to Catholicism. Many of its churches, and indeed nearly all cathedrals, are Anglo Catholic in theology and practice - to varying degrees.
I go to a local Anglican parish church which is very much at the Catholic end of the spectrum.
We use Catholic liturgy for our worship.
We place an important emphasis on the centrality of the Eucharist, which like Catholics, we refer to as the Mass.
Our services include Marian devotions.
We include the Angelus during our service of Mass which commemorates the Incarnation.
Individual confession is not obligatory, but it is available for those who seek it.

Out of curiosity, are you “Missal Catholics” like the legendary ultra Anglo Catholic parish of St. Magnus the Martyr, or “Prayer Book Catholics” or do you use Common Worship with various emendations?

 

[Anthony2019]

Out of curiosity, are you “Missal Catholics” like the legendary ultra Anglo Catholic parish of St. Magnus the Martyr, or “Prayer Book Catholics” or do you use Common Worship with various emendations?

Hi TheLiturgist
We use the Missal in our main services on Sunday. Personally I miss using the BCP and Common Worship, because I have always been more familiar with them.

 

[The Liturgist]

Hi TheLiturgist
We use the Missal in our main services on Sunday. Personally I miss using the BCP and Common Worship, because I have always been more familiar with them.

Still, depending on which missal you are using (e.g. the English Missal of 1916) your parish could be something of a liturgical rarity, an unknown gem. I would also argue, and many would on this point disagree with me, but I feel the main success of the BCP was the Divine Office, the manner in which it attracted people back into church for Evening Prayer, which is something that the Roman Catholic Church has been struggling with ever since the “devotionalization of the Breviary” which one could argue dates as far back as the initial consolidation of all of the prayers and hymns of the divine office into one multivolume manuscript. Although unfortunately one could argue that era has ended, perhaps, with some irony, due to people listening to superior performances of Choral Evensong from the great cathedrals on BBC Radio 3.

 

[tampasteve]

This is an excellent point - that really made me think and made me realise some things I never realised before.

Thank you for the kind words.

This is really the contention, isn't it? The authority of a magisterium / the Bishop of Rome. One can believe everything Catholics teach but not believe in that authority, and I guess that would never make them truly Catholic.

Bingo. The primacy of the Pope, the chair of Peter, is the central defining doctrine of the RCC in opposition to other denominations.

Given that, and given your Lutheran background, I've always felt that Lutheranism offers a sort-of closest you're going to get to Catholicism given its sacramentalism.

Who is more sacramental? The Anglicans or the confessional Lutherans? I almost think the latter but I could be wrong.

Hmm, it can be, but also not so. Lutheranism (particularly Confessional) is similar to the RCC in that it has a defined document (Book of Concord for Lutherans and Catechism of the Catholic Church for Catholics). Lutherans only believe in two sacraments (Baptism and the Eucharist), but hold other "sacraments" that the RCC has in high esteem. Lutherans have a high regard to marriage, practice unction, have confession (both one on one and corporately), the liturgy, etc.

Anglicans would be similar in this regard as well. Lutheran's in general do not really "do" devotions to saints or Mary. We do hold her in very high regard, but you really won't find Marian devotions. Some Anglicans follow the Catholic perspective on this. The thing with Anglicans is that they are very broad in beliefs, so you will find a spectrum of them. Both Lutherans and Anglicans have monastic communities, but Anglicans have a longer history of them.

Anglicans hold to Apostolic Succession, but not all Lutherans do. I do, and the ELCA does, but not in quite the same understanding as RCC or Anglicans.

I was Catholic through conversion, but eventually I left for the Lutheran church, it was an easy decision when I studied the Lutheran position on many theological issues.

From a pure liturgy perspective, though, I suppose I could see the High Anglicans taking the cake there.

Broadly, yes. There are some places that have a quite high Lutheran liturgy, but that is not as common as one finds in the Anglican churches.

 

[The Liturgist]

This is an excellent point - that really made me think and made me realise some things I never realised before.

This is really the contention, isn't it? The authority of a magisterium / the Bishop of Rome. One can believe everything Catholics teach but not believe in that authority, and I guess that would never make them truly Catholic.

Given that, and given your Lutheran background, I've always felt that Lutheranism offers a sort-of closest you're going to get to Catholicism given its sacramentalism.

Who is more sacramental? The Anglicans or the confessional Lutherans? I almost think the latter but I could be wrong.

From a pure liturgy perspective, though, I suppose I could see the High Anglicans taking the cake there.

There have been some very interesting responses here, and some great tongue-in-cheek ones too!

Among Western Christians, I do think it probable that traditionalist Anglo Catholics such as the Forward in Faith bishops of the Church of England do “take the cake”, or rather, share it with the traditional Latin mass communities in the RCC. But there are some very good Lutheran parishes. And these three denominations cannot be said to have a monopoly on liturgical Christianity in the West.

 

[tz620q]

State churches are official, and some countries have them. However, in the Christian world, other churches are permitted and "dissenters" from the state church are free to belong to them.

This reminds me of why most of the English religious dissenters were coming to the 13 colonies. England allowed dissenting churches and you could even tithe to your church. The only caveat was that you had to give 10% to the Church of England before any money went to your own church.

 

[Albion]

This reminds me of why most of the English religious dissenters were coming to the 13 colonies. England allowed dissenting churches and you could even tithe to your church. The only caveat was that you had to give 10% to the Church of England before any money went to your own church.

That's good, but if we were going to explore this angle, I think we'd need to know what the situation is with state churches today. In Sweden, for example, or an Eastern European or Latin American country, if one of them has what could properly be considered a state church.

 

[tz620q]

That's good, but if we were going to explore this angle, I think we'd need to know what the situation is with state churches today. In Sweden, for example, or an Eastern European or Latin American country, if one of them has what could properly be considered a state church.

Yes, it gets murky to classify what one would call a state church. While I pointed to the Church of England, religious toleration was more along the lines of the Roman Empire. They tolerated you as long as you did not revolt or seem to be working against the crown. Then tolerance quickly changed to oppression. And the church in favor passed from the Anglican church, briefly to the Puritan church under Cromwell. So history is rarely a straight arrow. I would contend that if one looks at the Investiture Controversies of the 900-1300 timeframe, even Middle Age churches rarely had complete control of state and church. I suppose one notable exception would be the Papal States. So maybe the only truly state church is one founded on a theocracy.

 

[Albion]

I had in mind checking the current examples of state churches.

Vatican City of course qualifies, but that's such an oddity that it doesn't help explain what the conditions are for non-members of a state church in a (Christian) country which has a state church these days.