Why are you a protestant today?

[Dominus Fidelis]

In another thread on this forum, I read this...

The Reformation was against what the reformers saw, at the time, as corrupt church practices; the selling of indulgences, placing tradition higher than scripture, the message that works lead to salvation rather than salvation leading to works, non-scriptural practices (the addition of salt and spit during baptism for example), the lavish lifestyle of the Bishops, etc.

The Reformers did not want to split from the church, they only wanted the church to get rid of the false doctrine and practices, to come closer to the church described in the Bible.

If I saw these practices during my time, I would be upset as well, and I would want to clean up the Church as well.

But assuming the claim that the reformers wanted to stay in the Church is true...what do you make of the counter-reformation, which the RCC did itself in response to the reformation, to clean up its admittedly bad practices?

We do not tolerate the sale of indulgences anymore...the Papacy is not abused anymore...etc.

In other words, if the Church was good enough for the Reformers to try and clean up, and if it is now cleaned up, why are you a protestant today?

Thanks!

 

[II Paradox II]

But assuming the claim that the reformers wanted to stay in the Church is true...what do you make of the counter-reformation, which the RCC did itself in response to the reformation, to clean up its admittedly bad practices?

In other words, if the Church was good enough for the Reformers to try and clean up, and if it is now cleaned up, why are you a protestant today?

A couple of things:

1) In some respects, the CC has put itself even further away from estranged protestant, coptic and EO churches through it's continued definition of new dogmas. Papal infalliblity, the IC and the assumption have just added to the burden of things seperating all of us. IMO - each one of these makes any kind of reconciliation with any of these three groups less and less likely because we are all skewing away from the similar foundations we once had.

2) The issue of tradition in relation to scripture and salvation has yet to be settled. With regard to tradition and scripture, the CC has made the split wider with it's new dogmas. With regard to the salvation issue, I do believe that in some ways we are getting closer, especially as the ecumenical movement continues it's gradual erosion of the theological hostility built of from the reformation (for instance, recent Luther scholarship within the Roman theological community has been getting considerably more friendly in the last 50 years, nothing like what it has ben in the past.)

3) Some of it is simply historical inertia. It is a lot harder to put back what has been broken apart. I would love to have a unified church again, but it's never going to be easy when there has been so much water under the bridge.

ken

 

[Drotar]

It totally wasn't JUST indulgences.

Read EVERYTHING Luther wrote. Calvin. I don't even remember Calvin TALKING about indulgences.

The issue for me is authority. I simply will not listen to anyone speak and believe his words to be equal to the word of God- not as an LDS, not as a JW, not as anyone. Sola Scriptura.

Because of this, I've come to accept the doctrines that I hold to as evidence from the Scripture. I've spent a lot of time and gone on a long journey, and now I'm greatly pleased and at peace with the Bible with what I believe. TTYL Jesus loves you!

 

[Ben_Hur]

Praying to Mary and the "Saints," having to confess regulary to a Priest, calling the Priest Father, amillenialism, having to do certain things in order to take communion. While I love the Catholic people, I can't subscribe to these things. I either can't find them in the Bible, or I find just the opposite taught.

 

[Higgaion]

It's all about the Solas, baby. Rome has never reformed to the point of embracing them. That said, I'm a protestant by virtue of the impossibility of the contrary, to paraphrase the esteemed, late Dr. Gerstner.

 

[eldermike]

I am in God's will, I have peace with that.

 

[TCapp]

Let's see, I found a list of doctrines they've adopted over the years. Some predate reformation and counter-reformation by centuries, so I don't know if they still subscribe to all of them or not.

Prayers for the dead; veneration of angels and dead saints; the mass as a daily celebration; priests start dressing differently than layman; exaltation of Mary ("Mother of God"); purgatory; prayers directed to Mary, angels, and dead saints; kissing the pope's foot; worship of cross, images and relics officially authorized in 786 AD; holy water; worship of St. Joseph; celibacy of priesthood; rosary; confession of sins to priest rather than God; transubstantiation - power to bring down God out of heaven into a cup and wafer; adoration of the wafer; layman officially forbidden to have or read the Bible (I feel confident that's not the issue anymore ... but it still doesn't sit too well that it happened at all); protection by a piece of cloth; layman forbidden to drink the cup at communion; doctrine of seven saints is affirmed on pain of mortal sin (I don't know what that means); tradition declared to be equal in authority with the Bible; the apocryphal books are added to the Bible; immaculate conception; the syllabus of errors; the absolute infallabilty of the pope in all matters of faith and morals; assumption of Mary; Mary as the "mediatrix of mankind" and "co-redemptrix of the world" ...

If some of those are not true, or have been revoked, or are a strawman, I apologize. Some of those I don't have a major gripe with, but most of them, I do. But if it floats their boats, they are welcome to it. It's just not for me, that's all.

 

[InquisitorKind]

In other words, if the Church was good enough for the Reformers to try and clean up, and if it is now cleaned up, why are you a protestant today?

Thanks!

The Church is always worth reforming. But if the Roman Catholic Church isn't going to be revoking its position on justification due to the heavy weight of infallibility, I can't really do much to "try and clean [it] up."

I'm Protestant because I find the teachings of Protestants churches to be most in line with the Scriptures. The Roman Catholic violations of the text aren't something I can conform to.

~Matt

 

[Ken]

Exactly Matt... that is the bottom line.... all the other practices that are based on Tradition (Marian Co-Redemptrix etc) are all serious issues, but until Rome recants of its position concerning the article on which the church stands or falls... there can be no (re)union.... for Rome has the Gospel itself wrong, and if that is wrong, well, you just do not have to look any further as to why one ought to be a Protestant..... I have always appreciated how Michael Horton put it:

"Referring to the schism of the 14th and 15th centuries, one scholar observes,

"For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side. The Church no longer offered certainty of salvation; she had become questionable in her whole objective form--the true Church, the true pledge of salvation, had to be sought outside the institution. It is against this background of a profoundly shaken ecclesial consciousness that we are to understand that Luther, in the conflict between his search for salvation and the tradition of the Church, ultimately came to experience the Church, not as the guarantor, but as the adversary of salvation."
I hope that the credibility of this historical assessment will not be called into question, as it comes to us from the pen of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, current head of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for the Church of Rome. (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, trans. by Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) p.196).
As the gavel came down to close the final session of the Council of Trent in 1563, Rome had officially and, according to her own commitment down to the present moment, irreversably, declared that the Gospel announced by the prophets, revealed in and by Christ, and proclaimed by the apostles, was actually heretical. The most relevant Canons are the following:

Canon 9. If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone..., let him be anathema.
Canon 11. If anyone says that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins,... let him be anathema.
Canon 12. If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy (supra, chapter 9), which remits sins for Christ's sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, let him be anathema.
Canon 24. If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of the increase, let him be anathema.
Canon 30. If anyone says that after the reception of the grace of justification the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out to every repentant sinner, that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be discharged either in this world or in purgatory before the gates of heaven can be opened, let him be anathema.
Canon 32. If anyone says that the good works of the one justified are in such manner the gifts of God that they are not also the good merits of him justified; or that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ...does not truly merit an increase of grace and eternal life... let him be anathema.

edited under protest....

blessings all!

 

[Higgaion]

Amen and amen.

 

[Preachers12]

Let's see, I found a list of doctrines they've adopted over the years. Some predate reformation and counter-reformation by centuries, so I don't know if they still subscribe to all of them or not.

Prayers for the dead; veneration of angels and dead saints; the mass as a daily celebration; priests start dressing differently than layman; exaltation of Mary ("Mother of God"); purgatory; prayers directed to Mary, angels, and dead saints; kissing the pope's foot; worship of cross, images and relics officially authorized in 786 AD; holy water; worship of St. Joseph; celibacy of priesthood; rosary; confession of sins to priest rather than God; transubstantiation - power to bring down God out of heaven into a cup and wafer; adoration of the wafer; layman officially forbidden to have or read the Bible (I feel confident that's not the issue anymore ... but it still doesn't sit too well that it happened at all); protection by a piece of cloth; layman forbidden to drink the cup at communion; doctrine of seven saints is affirmed on pain of mortal sin (I don't know what that means); tradition declared to be equal in authority with the Bible; the apocryphal books are added to the Bible; immaculate conception; the syllabus of errors; the absolute infallabilty of the pope in all matters of faith and morals; assumption of Mary; Mary as the "mediatrix of mankind" and "co-redemptrix of the world" ...

If some of those are not true, or have been revoked, or are a strawman, I apologize. Some of those I don't have a major gripe with, but most of them, I do. But if it floats their boats, they are welcome to it. It's just not for me, that's all.

TCapp, Peace be with you.

Just curious, but where did you get this list from?

God Bless,
P12

 

[Ken]

Hey Higgaion... it does me good to see you refer to Dr. Gerstner, even if in passing... I just love listening to his Handout Theology series!!!

 

[TCapp]

Preachers12.

I got it from Amazing Facts. It is an SDA organization, so I try to take their info with a grain of salt (hence my partial disclaimer/apology). It is an article talking about the sabbath and has a list of a lot of the doctrines adopted by the Catcholic Church since circa 300 AD. It was quite extensive and I did not include everything.

 

[Dominus Fidelis]

Thanks for your answers.

While I believe that every single one of your objections is answerable, I do not wish to debate in this forum, and I wish you all the best.

God Bless

 

[middo]

Why am i a protestant? i was bought up in a protestant church and through my journey and study of the bible i feel that it is closer to the teachings of the bible. I also still have some issues with the Pope and cannot find anywhere in scriptures us being told to worship Mary, or to pray to Mary or have to confess my sins to a priest. Nothing wrong with confessing them to someone else as i believe there is a scripture telling us to confess our sins to each other also, but i truly believe we should and can confess them directly to God first.

 

[ABDIarise]

In another thread on this forum, I read this...



If I saw these practices during my time, I would be upset as well, and I would want to clean up the Church as well.

But assuming the claim that the reformers wanted to stay in the Church is true...what do you make of the counter-reformation, which the RCC did itself in response to the reformation, to clean up its admittedly bad practices?

We do not tolerate the sale of indulgences anymore...the Papacy is not abused anymore...etc.

In other words, if the Church was good enough for the Reformers to try and clean up, and if it is now cleaned up, why are you a protestant today?

Thanks!

I am neither catholic nor protestant, but just a simple Christian. With that, I guesss I have nothing much to comment except for maybe implying that the protestant views (at least as much as I know about protestants) seem to fall closer in line with God's living Word.

 

[Bruce S]

Let's see, I found a list of doctrines they've adopted over the years. Some predate reformation and counter-reformation by centuries, so I don't know if they still subscribe to all of them or not.

Prayers for the dead; veneration of angels and dead saints; the mass as a daily celebration; priests start dressing differently than layman; exaltation of Mary ("Mother of God"); purgatory; prayers directed to Mary, angels, and dead saints; kissing the pope's foot; worship of cross, images and relics officially authorized in 786 AD; holy water; worship of St. Joseph; celibacy of priesthood; rosary; confession of sins to priest rather than God; transubstantiation - power to bring down God out of heaven into a cup and wafer; adoration of the wafer; layman officially forbidden to have or read the Bible (I feel confident that's not the issue anymore ... but it still doesn't sit too well that it happened at all); protection by a piece of cloth; layman forbidden to drink the cup at communion; doctrine of seven saints is affirmed on pain of mortal sin (I don't know what that means); tradition declared to be equal in authority with the Bible; the apocryphal books are added to the Bible; immaculate conception; the syllabus of errors; the absolute infallabilty of the pope in all matters of faith and morals; assumption of Mary; Mary as the "mediatrix of mankind" and "co-redemptrix of the world" ....

Amen Brother!

All of the "extra's" the RCC has incorporated into the belief system, WITH what they feel is justification, has burdened the faithful with a works based system of salvation, faith in Christ is supposed to be, as we see it, a simple system, that one is not.

I had a long talk the other day, hours, with a dear friend, about the emphasis place upon the Marian veneration, she, was a woman deeply devoted to Mary, and gently, I showed her a printout from the following site, to show the massive emphasis on Mary, and the degree to which, Mary has been raised from her biblical role, to a role, some think, almost equal to Jesus himself.

In 1997, Newsweek ran a cover story on the Virgin Mary. In the article they write: "In many ways, the 20th century has belonged to Mary. From almost every continent, visionaries have reported more than 400 ‘apparitions’ of the Virgin - more than in the previous three centuries combined.… Taken together, these visions point to what the Marian Movement believes is a millennial ‘Age of Mary.’" (18)

www.harpazo.net/Queen.html

 

[Bruce S]

And the creation of "Saints" those Godly people, that most likely are in heaven, of course no one actually knows that, but the RCC believes that certain people, because of their Godly lives deserve to be raised to a level where ordinary people, still here on Earth, can safely call upon them for Divine Intervention.

This Pope, JP2'nd has moved both Marian veneration, and Saint creation, to levels unheard of in recent history...

But this is not so surprising—if you consider John Paul II's record over the past 25 years. According to the Vatican's official website, the current pope has presided over the canonization of a whopping 476 saints, many of whom are non-European. All other popes in the twentieth century canonized a total of 98 saints.

Many of these new Saints, like Juan Diego, are thought, by even the RCC clergy, to be PHANTOM Saints, even by those within the RCC. Christianity Today did a good story on the Saints who might be Beatified without cause, some for the tourist attraction money [thier words, not mine] that they bring to the places where the faithful come to venerate.

Pope John Paul II will travel to Mexico later this month to confer sainthood on Juan Diego, a peasant to whom the Virgin Mary reportedly appeared in 1531. For some, it will be a dream come true—finally, the large Catholic population in Latin America will have its own indigenous saint. For others, though, the dream is soured by the knowledge that Juan Diego may be a figment of fantasy, or worse, propaganda.
In the early sixteenth century, Spanish Conquistadors labored to convert native Mexicans to Catholicism. The Spanish managed to overthrew Mexico's Aztec rulers in 1521 but continued to battle resistance to Spanish culture and religion. Then, according to the oral history on which the Vatican is basing the canonization, Mary appeared to Juan Diego and told him she wanted a shrine. To reinforce the message, Juan Diego was given a cloak that was originally full of flowers but later unfolded to reveal a beautiful image of Mary.

Unfortunately, a church-appointed expert has deemed the cloak a fraud. He says that Mary's image was painted by humans, not illustrated by a divine hand.

​

LINK TO Christianity Today story: http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/newsletter/2002/jul12.html

LINK OUT to site very PRO Juan Diego, with full story of this event, as promoted by the faithful:

http://www.ourladyofguadalupe.org/saintjuandiego.htm

 

[Bruce S]

Having PERSONALLY worn a medal of St.Christopher for a few years of my life, I was surprised to learn this one, this morning, while following links for my posts in this thread.

When Pope Paul VI revised the canon of saints in 1969, some traditional saints were downgraded because of doubts about their stories, if not necessarily their existence. Saint Christopher, for example, is thought to have been martyred under the Roman emperor Decius in the third century, but nothing else is known about him. The well-known story about his having carried the Christ child across a river--the kid supposedly became staggeringly heavy because he bore the weight of the world--is now recognized as pious fiction.

Darn. I sorta believed that one myself.

 

[Miss Shelby]

I'm praying for you Bruce. Come home.

Michelle