Why don't protestants make the sign of the Cross?

[Cis.jd]

Well, the truth is, if we're specifically talking about the gesture, there is no direct and clear historical evidence that Christians of say, 43 A.D., were using the Sign of the Cross.

Moreover, to simply do what too many Protestants do by applying faulty Hermeneutics and extrapolate from some one or two selected verses in the Bible isn't going to historically "prove" that Christians in 43 A.D., or 63 A.D., or 93 A.D., were in fact using the Sign of the Cross.

I never made an argument as to what year. It doesn't matter if it started or was popularized before paul died, the fact is this has been a christian tradition, not "catholic made".

Tertullian wrote, "In all our actions, when we come in or go out, when we dress, when we wash, at our meals, before resting to sleep, we make on our forehead the sign of the cross. These practices are not committed by a formal law of scripture, but tradition teaches them, custom confirms them, and faith observes them".

He died around 200AD. He talks about it as a norm, and even in his timeline he calls it tradition. That is clear indication that the sign of the cross has been practiced done a long time before he passed away.

So, we should be very circumspect in the sort of historical claims that we make in regard to the Christian Faith. Still, if the Sign of the Cross developed over time after the 1st Century A.D., I see no reason why it can't be used if Christians want to use it as an expression of their faith.

Personally, I place very little reliance upon what I would term "Ongoing, Post-1st Century Tradition" in my own faith. Am I an apostate in your eyes if this is the case?


Sure, some things in overall Tradition may be legitimate historically. However, we don't want to commit another fallacy where we equivocate the term "tradition" as seen in a scant few verses in the New Testament with EVERYTHING that is claimed to be "Tradition" that came after the 1st century, or even the 2nd century.

............ again, through my own scholarly viewpoint I'm of the mind that anything which is not mentioned (or justifiably inferred) in say, the first 100 years after Christ, isn't required for faith. It may be useful; it may be insightful. But it's not required.

Surely, you don't want to identify ME as an apostate. I'm pretty sure I'm not.

And if folks think they'll be the 'prophets' who will land into me, then I'll find it more than convenient to make difficulties everywhere.” ―

Well, the main thing i'm trying to point out is the objections or reasons for protestants not doing it has a lot of the same reasoning as the heretical cults as you saw in that link. "It's catholic. It's not in the Bible". There're posts from others in this thread as well is in the article.

 

[bbbbbbb]

I do like how eclectic Anglicans are. I like how they merge the best of both worlds, I guess on the earlier days of my exploration I could have been anglican, the only thing that really turned me off was how they postered their political views. I've seen LGBT, BLM, and I think i've even seen some who were right wing with the trump stuff and I just found it too cringy. I mean, if you support lgbt or whatever, fine.. but you don't need to make your churches an art gallery of that.

Let's focus on spirituality here and not politics

Agreed. Fortunately, not all Anglican churches are that way. There are some in which I could be comfortable.

 

[JSRG]

Anglicans are the largest Protestant denomination, and Lutherans are the second largest Protestant denomination,

Can you clarify what you mean by this? Lutheranism is normally not considered a denomination; things like the North American Lutheran Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod are what one normally counts as denominations.

That said, "denomination" can have several different meanings, so we could be talking about denominations in the sense of ethos/tradition/theology, in which case we would have things like Anglicans, Lutheran, Reformed, Pentecostalism, Methodist, and so on. Under that idea, Lutheran is a denomination. But if we do that, I'm pretty sure the largest denomination is neither Anglicans nor Lutherans, but Pentecostals/Charismatics.

https://www.gordonconwell.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2024/01/Status-of-Global-Christianity-2024.pdf

According to this, there are 2.5 billion Christians in the world, 1.3 billion of which are Roman Catholics and 257 million of which are Orthodox. The linked page lists the Protestant count as 625 million without clearly specifying what counts as Protestant (the number of Pentecostal/Charismatic is actually higher than that, so it must be referring to just a particular kind of Protestant). But if we count someone as Protestant if they are Christian but neither Catholic nor Orthodox, we end up with about 1 billion Protestants. And of those Protestants, a whopping 644 million are identified as Pentecostal/Charismatic. If we're talking ethos, then that is clearly the largest Protestant denomination given it's the majority of Protestants (almost 2/3, in fact), though the largest single Pentecostal denomination is the Assemblies of God at about 70 million.

If we're talking denomination in regards to what one normally considers denominations, as in a more specific organization rather than a general ethos, then it again depends a bit on how we define it. If we're talking international bodies, which include various smaller denominations, then (according to Wikipedia's article on the largest Protestant groups) it looks like the largest is indeed the Anglican Communion. But if we do it that way, the second isn't any Lutheran group, but the World Communion of Reformed Churches, with the Lutheran World Federation in third (fourth is the Assemblies of God). However, it looks to me like both the World Communion of Reformed Churches and Lutheran World Federation are leaving out a lot of Reformed and Lutheran churches, given both seem to be largely made out of liberal ones but not the more conservative entities.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Can you clarify what you mean by this? Lutheranism is normally not considered a denomination; things like the North American Lutheran Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod are what one normally counts as denominations.

That said, "denomination" can have several different meanings, so we could be talking about denominations in the sense of ethos/tradition/theology, in which case we would have things like Anglicans, Lutheran, Reformed, Pentecostalism, Methodist, and so on. Under that idea, Lutheran is a denomination. But if we do that, I'm pretty sure the largest denomination is neither Anglicans nor Lutherans, but Pentecostals/Charismatics.

https://www.gordonconwell.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2024/01/Status-of-Global-Christianity-2024.pdf

According to this, there are 2.5 billion Christians in the world, 1.3 billion of which are Roman Catholics and 257 million of which are Orthodox. The linked page lists the Protestant count as 625 million without clearly specifying what counts as Protestant (the number of Pentecostal/Charismatic is actually higher than that, so it must be referring to just a particular kind of Protestant). But if we count someone as Protestant if they are Christian but neither Catholic nor Orthodox, we end up with about 1 billion Protestants. And of those Protestants, a whopping 644 million are identified as Pentecostal/Charismatic. If we're talking ethos, then that is clearly the largest Protestant denomination given it's the majority of Protestants (almost 2/3, in fact), though the largest single Pentecostal denomination is the Assemblies of God at about 70 million.

If we're talking denomination in regards to what one normally considers denominations, as in a more specific organization rather than a general ethos, then it again depends a bit on how we define it. If we're talking international bodies, which include various smaller denominations, then (according to Wikipedia's article on the largest Protestant groups) it looks like the largest is indeed the Anglican Communion. But if we do it that way, the second isn't any Lutheran group, but the World Communion of Reformed Churches, with the Lutheran World Federation in third (fourth is the Assemblies of God). However, it looks to me like both the World Communion of Reformed Churches and Lutheran World Federation are leaving out a lot of Reformed and Lutheran churches, given both seem to be largely made out of liberal ones but not the more conservative entities.

To complicate matters much further we have the situation of Christianity in China. The government of China, which operates networks of churches for both Catholics and non-Catholics (aka Three-Self Churches) as part of its bureau of religion (superstition is also the same meaning of the word in Chinese as religion). It is widely believed that the government statistics for the number of Christians in China are seriously under reported simply because there is a large body of professing Christians who are not affiliated with the Three-Self Churches. In the West these unaffiliated Christians are commonly called the Underground Church. A minority of these believers are professing Roman Catholics in full communion with Rome. Rome, on the other hand, has had a great struggle over the government's control of their churches. The vast majority of unregistered Christians in China are not Catholic. That is all that can be accurately said about them. If you wish to pigeonhole them into neat denominational categories you will fail utterly. To be certain, there is very strong influence from American Christianity of all persuasions and there is also work going on by American cults such as the LDS as well as several homegrown cults. The fact is that nobody has a clear idea of how many actual people constitute this body of professing believers in Jesus Christ in China. Together, they could easily outnumber most, if not all, other Protestant divisions worldwide. We could simply label them as a new "denomination" - the Chinese Church.

 

[Jamdoc]

"In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit"

I wonder why Protestants do not do this? I know that it's not made a rule in scripture, but I feel it's a part of christian history that should never be broken. It shows that our faith was always the Trinity, despite the lies that many cults and other religions claim. For example, Islam, Jehovah's wittness, Iglesia Ni Cristo, Mormons, etc all claim an original Christian church that never believed in Christ's divinity or the Trinity, but this sign serves to be a historical remembrance that we always did.

The reason why I have made this question and why I ended up thinking that this gesture has to be universally expressed by christians is mainly because of my experience with christian cults. I've been to JW's and the Iglesia Ni Cristo services, and they are very frightening and disheartening.. and despite them teaching false things about the Bible and rejecting the divinity, they for some reason end their prayers with "In Jesus' name", the way protestants do.
These cults will never end with the sign of the cross, they will never say "the Father, Son, and HS" because they fully reject the truth of God. Because of this, I feel that the sign of the cross gesture has to be seen as important to protestants as well.

Because ritual gestures aren't in the bible.

 

[Cis.jd]

Because ritual gestures aren't in the bible.

@2PhiloVoid another example.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I never made an argument as to what year. It doesn't matter if it started or was popularized before paul died, the fact is this has been a christian tradition, not "catholic made".

I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. I wasn't intending to imply that you made an argument. Rather, it is I who am making that argument. And, as an existentialist and evidentialist who has a high regard for Historiography, Hermeneutics and Philosophy, I think we have to be careful with handling the theological notion of "tradition." This is one reason I do not identify specifically with any one denomination, but at the same time, I can appreciate most of them for whatever strengths they each may have in relation to holding our common, Trinitarian faith.

Tertullian wrote, "In all our actions, when we come in or go out, when we dress, when we wash, at our meals, before resting to sleep, we make on our forehead the sign of the cross. These practices are not committed by a formal law of scripture, but tradition teaches them, custom confirms them, and faith observes them".

He died around 200AD. He talks about it as a norm, and even in his timeline he calls it tradition. That is clear indication that the sign of the cross has been practiced done a long time before he passed away.

But to assume that what Tertullian meant by the term "tradition" is or was identical in all respects in denotation and reference to what Paul the Apostle meant by "tradition" is to risk the possibility of committing an informal fallacy; and I think it is all too easy to commit more than one fallacy if we're not careful. We all need to be cautious with how our theological formulations of ideas and terms may or may not reflect what essentially was taught in the 1st century.

And, what's more, quoting Tertullian is no safeguard or Archimedean Point by which what we should believe or not believe some specific doctrine. It's not as if we are to simply accumulate ideas about the Christian Faith derived by various Christian voices as we go through the many centuries since the 1st. To assume that it's 'spiritually cumulative' is to assume way too much. None of us actually does this and due to the fact that we as humans beings have limits to our knowledge about almost anything, none of us has the 'last and final and absolute authoritative word' on the Bible or the Gospel. The Christian Tradition is an open inquiry for all of God's People, with but a few small fragments of truth posited among us since the 1st Century that most of us can (and should) recognize about the nature of the Trinity. The rest is open for thoughtful discussion, even where valuing the 'Cross' in view.

Well, the main thing i'm trying to point out is the objections or reasons for protestants not doing it has a lot of the same reasoning as the heretical cults as you saw in that link. "It's catholic. It's not in the Bible". There're posts from others in this thread as well is in the article.

Yes, I agree with you that some Protestants make the opposite error by dismissing everything outside of the Bible, pushing away all of the bastions of history, cultural studies, or any other scholarly knowledge, reading and applying the Bible in a sort of exegetical vacuum. That, too, is a fallacy.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Because ritual gestures aren't in the bible.

Sure they are.

St. Paul says that he desires that men lift up holy hands in prayer (1 Timothy 2:8). This is known as the Orans posture, and was a ritual gesture of prayer common in the first century, and has been retained in Christian usage up until the present. You will still see the Orans in traditional churches in regular usage, and it is a ritual gesture of prayer explicitly mentioned in the New Testament.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[The Liturgist]

Can you clarify what you mean by this? Lutheranism is normally not considered a denomination; things like the North American Lutheran Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod are what one normally counts as denominations.

That said, "denomination" can have several different meanings, so we could be talking about denominations in the sense of ethos/tradition/theology, in which case we would have things like Anglicans, Lutheran, Reformed, Pentecostalism, Methodist, and so on. Under that idea, Lutheran is a denomination. But if we do that, I'm pretty sure the largest denomination is neither Anglicans nor Lutherans, but Pentecostals/Charismatics.

https://www.gordonconwell.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2024/01/Status-of-Global-Christianity-2024.pdf

According to this, there are 2.5 billion Christians in the world, 1.3 billion of which are Roman Catholics and 257 million of which are Orthodox. The linked page lists the Protestant count as 625 million without clearly specifying what counts as Protestant (the number of Pentecostal/Charismatic is actually higher than that, so it must be referring to just a particular kind of Protestant). But if we count someone as Protestant if they are Christian but neither Catholic nor Orthodox, we end up with about 1 billion Protestants. And of those Protestants, a whopping 644 million are identified as Pentecostal/Charismatic. If we're talking ethos, then that is clearly the largest Protestant denomination given it's the majority of Protestants (almost 2/3, in fact), though the largest single Pentecostal denomination is the Assemblies of God at about 70 million.

If we're talking denomination in regards to what one normally considers denominations, as in a more specific organization rather than a general ethos, then it again depends a bit on how we define it. If we're talking international bodies, which include various smaller denominations, then (according to Wikipedia's article on the largest Protestant groups) it looks like the largest is indeed the Anglican Communion. But if we do it that way, the second isn't any Lutheran group, but the World Communion of Reformed Churches, with the Lutheran World Federation in third (fourth is the Assemblies of God). However, it looks to me like both the World Communion of Reformed Churches and Lutheran World Federation are leaving out a lot of Reformed and Lutheran churches, given both seem to be largely made out of liberal ones but not the more conservative entities.

My numbers include the confessional Lutheran churches, and show the Reformed churches in third place, after the Lutherans.

 

[Jamdoc]

Sure they are.

St. Paul says that he desires that men lift up holy hands in prayer (1 Timothy 2:8). This is known as the Orans posture, and was a ritual gesture of prayer common in the first century, and has been retained in Christian usage up until the present. You will still see the Orans in traditional churches in regular usage, and it is a ritual gesture of prayer explicitly mentioned in the New Testament.

-CryptoLutheran

You're right, and I suppose sometimes I do this gesture when in prayer while standing or in worship, so I suppose but that's not "making the sign of the cross". I guess you could say since this pose is in scripture we probably should do that more, but making the sign of the cross, kissing crucifixes, kneeling or praying to statues, and using prayer counting beads for repetitious prayer are not things Paul said to do (and the last is something Jesus said not to do).

Like that's one of the things about Protestantism in general was that instead of seeing the bible as a book of Church traditions and so all Church traditions are held in the same regard as scripture, within Protestant denominations... I'd say in particular Baptists, scripture is considered the inerrant word of God and "Church traditions" if they are not found in Scripture are not requirements or really encouraged, but if the bible doesn't forbid it it's not sin and so it can be done if you desire, but again, that last one, Jesus said not to pray in vain repetitions, believing that the "much speaking" gets God's attention.

I don't think anyone has to stop making the sign of the cross, it's a thing that some people do, some don't. I just don't see it in scripture so don't see a need to do a sign of the cross.

I guess it's obvious I think that the Rosary is pagan in origin though, repetitious prayer.
and well, biblical water baptism is believer's baptism by immersion so I do want people to can the sprinkling and go back to what's in scripture.

 

[FenderTL5]

But to assume that what Tertullian meant by the term "tradition" ..

Just curious, what other definition of "tradition" do you have in mind that would mean something other than a custom that was well established and/or being handed/passed down?

 

[Cis.jd]

But to assume that what Tertullian meant by the term "tradition" is or was identical in all respects in denotation and reference to what Paul the Apostle meant by "tradition" is to risk the possibility of committing an informal fallacy; and I think it is all too easy to commit more than one fallacy if we're not careful. We all need to be cautious with how our theological formulations of ideas and terms may or may not reflect what essentially was taught in the 1st century.

And, what's more, quoting Tertullian is no safeguard or Archimedean Point by which what we should believe or not believe some specific doctrine. It's not as if we are to simply accumulate ideas about the Christian Faith derived by various Christian voices as we go through the many centuries since the 1st. To assume that it's 'spiritually cumulative' is to assume way too much. None of us actually does this and due to the fact that we as humans beings have limits to our knowledge about almost anything, none of us has the 'last and final and absolute authoritative word' on the Bible or the Gospel. The Christian Tradition is an open inquiry for all of God's People, with but a few small fragments of truth posited among us since the 1st Century that most of us can (and should) recognize about the nature of the Trinity. The rest is open for thoughtful discussion, even where valuing the 'Cross' in view.

First of all, you are losing site of the discussion. I'm not asserting all traditions such as "the sign of the cross" existed in Paul's time, so this isn't whether or not Tertullian and Paul had the same list of traditions in mind. Focus on the common denominator I mentioned: both certain Protestant denominations and Unitarian cults claim traditions are "Catholic made, not in the Bible." This reasoning is flawed and shows a lack of understanding of their own faith, and they indirectly disassociating themselves from Christians additionally, it also fuels cults like JW and INC, which reject Christian beliefs such as the Trinity under the same logic.

If you look into the INCmedia site i gave and read about why they reject the trinity, it's because "it's catholic made, and not in the Bible". Same thing with the JW's and even Islam.

Now read the history of their founders: Charles Taze russell was part of Congregational Church and got dissatisfied with traditional Christian teachings and starting his own Bible study group. Joseph Smith was of the Methodist, Felix Manalo was of the SDA, GT Haywood was Pentacoastal.

I referenced Tertullian to show the sign of the cross was practiced early on because he already considers it a tradition. This sign of the cross shows that we believed in the Triune God even before we had an official bible. Yet now, many protestants think this sign is a "catholic thing" and not a christian thing.

 

[bbbbbbb]

First of all, you are losing site of the discussion. I'm not asserting all traditions such as "the sign of the cross" existed in Paul's time, so this isn't whether or not Tertullian and Paul had the same list of traditions in mind. Focus on the common denominator I mentioned: both certain Protestant denominations and Unitarian cults claim traditions are "Catholic made, not in the Bible." This reasoning is flawed and shows a lack of understanding of their own faith, and they indirectly disassociating themselves from Christians additionally, it also fuels cults like JW and INC, which reject Christian beliefs such as the Trinity under the same logic.

If you look into the INCmedia site i gave and read about why they reject the trinity, it's because "it's catholic made, and not in the Bible". Same thing with the JW's and even Islam.

Now read the history of their founders: Charles Taze russell was part of Congregational Church and got dissatisfied with traditional Christian teachings and starting his own Bible study group. Joseph Smith was of the Methodist, Felix Manalo was of the SDA, GT Haywood was Pentacoastal.

I referenced Tertullian to show the sign of the cross was practiced early on because he already considers it a tradition. This sign of the cross shows that we believed in the Triune God even before we had an official bible. Yet now, many protestants think this sign is a "catholic thing" and not a christian thing.

Joseph Smith never joined any church prior to creating his own. In fact, according to the LDS narrative, he was perplexed as to which church to join until God appeared to him and informed him that all churches were completely apostate and that he (Joseph) was to "restore" the true church to the earth.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

First of all, you are losing site of the discussion. I'm not asserting all traditions such as "the sign of the cross" existed in Paul's time, so this isn't whether or not Tertullian and Paul had the same list of traditions in mind. Focus on the common denominator I mentioned: both certain Protestant denominations and Unitarian cults claim traditions are "Catholic made, not in the Bible." This reasoning is flawed and shows a lack of understanding of their own faith, and they indirectly disassociating themselves from Christians additionally, it also fuels cults like JW and INC, which reject Christian beliefs such as the Trinity under the same logic.

If you look into the INCmedia site i gave and read about why they reject the trinity, it's because "it's catholic made, and not in the Bible". Same thing with the JW's and even Islam.

Now read the history of their founders: Charles Taze russell was part of Congregational Church and got dissatisfied with traditional Christian teachings and starting his own Bible study group. Joseph Smith was of the Methodist, Felix Manalo was of the SDA, GT Haywood was Pentacoastal.

I referenced Tertullian to show the sign of the cross was practiced early on because he already considers it a tradition. This sign of the cross shows that we believed in the Triune God even before we had an official bible. Yet now, many protestants think this sign is a "catholic thing" and not a christian thing.

Do you know who you're talking to???????????????????????????????????????????????? Apparently not.

What I'm attempting to give you is an olive branch, but you keep swatting it away while not realizing this. What's more, I'm trying to offer you a subtle suggestion that I already understand what you're saying and that, on a lesser level, I agree with you, but even so, I'm a bit more advanced on these issues than I'm willing to take the time to write out at the moment.

We all know that "the Trinity" ISN'T solely a Catholic thing. Only those who refuse to become better educated claim they can't see the Trinity, usually because the don't want to apply critical thinking/philosophy and they assume (nay, prefer) everything to be presented in an easy to open package, something no bigger than the size of a typical birthday gift.

So, I think we can set that to the side as a non-issue and, being so, I'll continue to push my point that one doesn't have to align with Roman Catholic theological praxis in order to still reside within the Pail of Orthodoxy. And to become a cultic by-product residing outside the Pail of Orthodoxy takes MORE THAN simply to disagree with Catholic brethren on a few points.

Am I beginning to make myself any clearer, or do you want me to say more? I'm afraid to say more because...............some of you may not like what I may bring into the debate and out of charity, I'm trying my best to offer a neutral, conciliate ground of discussion.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Just curious, what other definition of "tradition" do you have in mind that would mean something other than a custom that was well established?

I'm going to be the one who says that, where 1st century definitions are concerned, we need to be very careful about the meaning we impute into those terms via our chosen exegetical praxis. I take a more or less agnostic view of some of Paul's terminology. Why? Because 1) We don't have time-machines by which to go back and ask Paul what he meant specifically for things he didn't more fuller explicate, 2) while we do have additional 1st century data that can sometimes illuminate the outside social contexts of the New Testament writers, these are not iron-clad indices, and 3) Hermeneutical word-studies should be seen as very limited ways by which to bring out deeper meanings in any biblical texts.

So, what do I think "tradition" is?? It is more or less whatever we can glean by applying Historical Study to our 1st Century deposit, and not assuming that anything after, say, the 2nd century fully and accurately reflects all that the New Testament writers may or may not have intended to convey for us to believe. Fromw what I can tell, this has two implications: 1) that Protestants reduce things too far, at times, and 2) Cathollics and Orthodox extend things too far, at times.

What is Tradition? These days, sitting as we are in the 21st century, I'm not sure any of us fully knows, but we can all discuss it. One thing I do know, it's at least more than simply what the New Testament writers had time put down in writing.

 

[JSRG]

My numbers include the confessional Lutheran churches, and show the Reformed churches in third place, after the Lutherans.

What are the numbers? As noted, if the data I looked at is correct, it seems like right now Pentecostals/Charismatics make up the majority of Protestants worldwide.

To be fair, some differentiate Pentecostals and Charismatics, and while it is true there are a lot of similarities, they aren't strictly speaking identical (there are separate subforums for Pentecostals and Charismatics on Christian Forums). But even if we were to separate them, I think they still top Anglicans, Lutherans, and Reformed in terms of numbers

 

[FaithT]

First of all, you are losing site of the discussion. I'm not asserting all traditions such as "the sign of the cross" existed in Paul's time, so this isn't whether or not Tertullian and Paul had the same list of traditions in mind. Focus on the common denominator I mentioned: both certain Protestant denominations and Unitarian cults claim traditions are "Catholic made, not in the Bible." This reasoning is flawed and shows a lack of understanding of their own faith, and they indirectly disassociating themselves from Christians additionally, it also fuels cults like JW and INC, which reject Christian beliefs such as the Trinity under the same logic.

If you look into the INCmedia site i gave and read about why they reject the trinity, it's because "it's catholic made, and not in the Bible". Same thing with the JW's and even Islam.

Now read the history of their founders: Charles Taze russell was part of Congregational Church and got dissatisfied with traditional Christian teachings and starting his own Bible study group. Joseph Smith was of the Methodist, Felix Manalo was of the SDA, GT Haywood was Pentacoastal.

I referenced Tertullian to show the sign of the cross was practiced early on because he already considers it a tradition. This sign of the cross shows that we believed in the Triune God even before we had an official bible. Yet now, many protestants think this sign is a "catholic thing" and not a christian thing.

What’s INC?

 

[bbbbbbb]

What are the numbers? As noted, if the data I looked at is correct, it seems like right now Pentecostals/Charismatics make up the majority of Protestants worldwide.

To be fair, some differentiate Pentecostals and Charismatics, and while it is true there are a lot of similarities, they aren't strictly speaking identical (there are separate subforums for Pentecostals and Charismatics on Christian Forums). But even if we were to separate them, I think they still top Anglicans, Lutherans, and Reformed in terms of numbers

Nah. You are both completely wrong. The Chinese Church is, by far and away, the largest body after the Catholics.

 

[Valletta]

First of all, you are losing site of the discussion. I'm not asserting all traditions such as "the sign of the cross" existed in Paul's time, so this isn't whether or not Tertullian and Paul had the same list of traditions in mind. Focus on the common denominator I mentioned: both certain Protestant denominations and Unitarian cults claim traditions are "Catholic made, not in the Bible." This reasoning is flawed and shows a lack of understanding of their own faith, and they indirectly disassociating themselves from Christians additionally, it also fuels cults like JW and INC, which reject Christian beliefs such as the Trinity under the same logic.

If you look into the INCmedia site i gave and read about why they reject the trinity, it's because "it's catholic made, and not in the Bible". Same thing with the JW's and even Islam.

Now read the history of their founders: Charles Taze russell was part of Congregational Church and got dissatisfied with traditional Christian teachings and starting his own Bible study group. Joseph Smith was of the Methodist, Felix Manalo was of the SDA, GT Haywood was Pentacoastal.

I referenced Tertullian to show the sign of the cross was practiced early on because he already considers it a tradition. This sign of the cross shows that we believed in the Triune God even before we had an official bible. Yet now, many protestants think this sign is a "catholic thing" and not a christian thing.

Saint Basil the Great, Doctor of the Church, said that the Apostles taught the sign of the cross.

 

[JSRG]

Nah. You are both completely wrong. The Chinese Church is, by far and away, the largest body after the Catholics.

You made this claim before:

To complicate matters much further we have the situation of Christianity in China. The government of China, which operates networks of churches for both Catholics and non-Catholics (aka Three-Self Churches) as part of its bureau of religion (superstition is also the same meaning of the word in Chinese as religion). It is widely believed that the government statistics for the number of Christians in China are seriously under reported simply because there is a large body of professing Christians who are not affiliated with the Three-Self Churches. In the West these unaffiliated Christians are commonly called the Underground Church. A minority of these believers are professing Roman Catholics in full communion with Rome. Rome, on the other hand, has had a great struggle over the government's control of their churches. The vast majority of unregistered Christians in China are not Catholic. That is all that can be accurately said about them. If you wish to pigeonhole them into neat denominational categories you will fail utterly. To be certain, there is very strong influence from American Christianity of all persuasions and there is also work going on by American cults such as the LDS as well as several homegrown cults. The fact is that nobody has a clear idea of how many actual people constitute this body of professing believers in Jesus Christ in China. Together, they could easily outnumber most, if not all, other Protestant divisions worldwide. We could simply label them as a new "denomination" - the Chinese Church.

However, there are some serious issues with this. As noted before, we seem to have more than 600 million Charismatics/Pentecostals. China has about 1.4 billion people. For them to top that, China would need nearly 50% of its population to be Protestant (remember, we're not counting Catholics or Orthodox). And while I would tend to agree with you the number of Christians is underreported, it is utterly absurd that half of the Chinese population is secretly Protestant (which is addition to any Catholics or Orthodox).

Even if we were to eschew categories and talk specifically about organized denominations, that would require there to be more Chinese Christians than the Eastern Orthodox. My previous link put the number of Orthodox at about 291 million, but of course for a proper comparison we would need the number of Eastern Orthodox and to not count the Oriental Orthodox. Looking at several sources, it looks like the number of Eastern Orthodox would be at about 200 million. I haven't seen any estimates of Protestants in China--again, we exclude Catholics and Orthodox--as being that high (and yes, I am sure the numbers are underreported, but I'm not talking about surveys here, but rather estimates which usually go higher). One of the higher estimates seems to be Asia Harvest, which at Anhui - Asia Harvest puts the estimate of non-Catholic Christians at 109 million, which falls well short of the Eastern Orthodox, though it does beat out every organized denomination outside of Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

But that is comparing two different things, because the Chinese Church isn't all one big organized group. It isn't really possible to get a good read on how they shake out in terms of ethos (e.g. how many would fit with Anglicanism, Reformed, Lutheranism, Methodism, Baptist, Pentecostalism, etc.), but it's unlikely that they're all so different from the other standard Protestant traditions that they'd all be put into their own category. Most likely they're split among all of the different Protestant traditions, which would mean none of them are likely to get an inordinate push.

Causing further problems is the fact you group them as a Protestant group completely separate from the rest. While it might not be possible to get a good grasp on how the various non-Catholic Chinese Christians shake out in terms of ethos, it is highly doubtful to me that they are so different from the rest of Protestantism you cannot classify at least a significant portion of them among the more common Protestant groups (Lutheran, Reformed, Pentecostal, Baptist, Methodist, Anglican, etc.)

So I don't think it makes much sense to say the Chinese Church is the biggest after Catholics. The higher estimates don't beat the Eastern Orthodox, and the only way to get those high estimates higher than any other Protestant group is to unfairly compare them; it might be enough to beat out organized Protestant groups, but the Chinese Church (in its entirety) isn't organized either! Even if we suppose that every Chinese Protestant belongs to the same ethos and it's so diametrically opposed to every other notable ethos that we can't fold it into them, there's still other ones it doesn't top.