Why I'm discontent with my Protestantism

[actionsub]

Jesus Christ is risen. Alleluia.

Much of this 'praise and worship' music you hear on the radio is Protestant. But then Matt Maher is Catholic. And you can tell by listening closely to his music. And other Catholics make this kind of music too, but don't always get time on Protestant radio stations. Sometimes but not commonly.

[/MEDIA]

As are Phil Keaggy and John Michael Talbot, the latter being very intentional about using the medium of contemporary folk music to communicate his Catholicism.

 

[actionsub]

Wouldn't that be the beginning of the emergent movement?

The way it started even was different than the "awakenings" that lead up to that period. So it would indicate a different era.

Far from it. The Pentecostals are probably more historically connected to a series of post-Civil War "restoration" movements in Protestantism that sought to get back to some sort of minimalist version of the church by looking at the New Testament for guidance. Among these movements were the Church of Christ/Disciples/Independent Christian Churches, some strains of Baptists, and to a lesser degree the Latter-Day Saints. Another such movement was the "holiness" movement which sought to reform Methodism, feeling it had departed from the spirit of John Wesley's teachings. This gave us the Free Methodists, the Church of the Nazarene, various churches known as "Church of God", and the Pentecostal movement.

The charismatic movement in mainline Protestantism and Catholicism developed in the late 50s and early 60s out of desire for a deeper experience of Christ, adopting many Pentecostal beliefs and practices.

The emergent movement, on the other hand, was influenced by the impact of post-modern philosophy and worldviews in our culture in the mid 1990s.

 

[Jude1:3Contendforthefaith]

Happy Easter! He is Risen!

If you've been following my other musings the past couple days, you probably know a little of what I'm going through... how I'm questioning my Protestant heritage, and struggling with how to read Church history and remain a Protestant. If you're new to me, hi -- a little about me: I was raised in a small, conservative Southern Baptist church where my family has a long tradition. I love my church, because I love my family, but I've made the mistake, maybe, of reading too much history, and now I'm having some serious questions about Protestantism. You may all think I'm really down on Protestantism, but I'm really not. So I wanted to make this post to try to give a more balanced picture of where I'm at. (This proved to be longer than I expected, so at risk of ending up with unbalanced audiences, I may wait until another post to tell in detail why I feel drawn to more apostolic forms of faith.)

What I love about Protestantism (by which I mean my Baptist Evangelicalism)

• The simplicity. Honestly, reading about Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, even Calvinism -- it's really complicated! A lot of hard, confusing, and even troubling things. Growing up I can just open my Bible and read and understand (though often, when I don't understand, my eyes just glaze over and I say, "Okay, God") ... and go to church and love one another and live my faith and everything is fine. All I have to do is have faith ... no other expectations really.
• The worship. I go to a little tiny church, with traditional worship, but I love our hymns and singing together. But I also, just recently, am getting to contemporary worship music on Internet radio, like Chris Tomlin and Crowder and Matt Maher and Jeremy Camp and Bethel Music and Hillsong. And it seems like that's a mostly Protestant thing?
• My own history. I complain sometimes about the history of the Protestant Reformation (which I'll do more below), but my own history is something I love. It's the history of how faithful pioneers came to the hills of North Alabama and founded a church. There are a lot of regaling tales of early ministers, early church minutes to peruse, and especially my own family history -- the histories of my church and my family are largely intertwined for like 6 or 7 generations.
• The people. I love the people -- because they are my family, my friends, my loved ones.
• The belonging. Because this is my church, I am her daughter -- I belong and am accepted and have a place. I can minister (I teach V.B.S., among other things) and really feel I am serving.

What I don't like about [my] Protestantism (or, why I'm having problems)
Over the past few years, as I've gotten deep in studying Church history and theology and languages and read a lot on my own, I've gradually grown more discontent. This lays out my basic problems.

• Lack of historical foundation. This may be more a problem of my own upbringing than of Protestantism in general, I don't know -- but I feel disconnected from history. Before I started high school, I knew almost nothing about the history of Christianity. Just Bible stories, then BAM! Martin Luther is nailing something to the door! And POW! The church comes to Alabama! There were anecdotes scattered here and there in sermons about "great Christians"... Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, maybe a few others... but these were disconnected dots on a blank sea. And I really didn't realize how empty it was, until I opened a book and saw everything that was there.
• Lack of theological rigor. Growing up, I don't think I ever heard the word theology. My Church taught the Bible and the Bible alone, just the Gospel and that's all. I didn't understand until much later (I was homeschooled and didn't have any friends outside my immediate community until high school) that there is more than one way of understanding the Bible and the Gospel. At first I was floored. Then I started studying theology and languages, and the idea that different people could have different interpretations made more sense. I discovered that my church lives in a sort of quasi-Calvinist-Armenian limbo. Preachers can appeal to either, but avoid the objectionable points of both. But the bottom line is, there's no rigor. Our theology is a wet noodle. And maybe that's okay? But it feels very intellectually unsatisfying.
• Fascination with the Early Church. As I said previously, when I read the New Testament growing up, it was mostly with a confirmation bias, seeing in it a vision of my own church experience. It wasn't until I started reading excerpts of the Church Fathers that I started to get the feeling that this doesn't actually look anything like my church. And let's not get distracted by arguments about sola scriptura or relying on Scripture -- it really doesn't. Whether you believe this is because the post-Apostolic Church quickly fell away from the truth of the faith, or because our modern tradition is just a really long way from the second century -- it really doesn't.
  
  What I admire about the Early Church is more than just the visible things like the liturgy, the way they have church (which you can see in early writers like the Didache and Justin Martyr) -- it's an overall feeling. In our modern Christianity -- especially once you get outside the walls of my little church -- there's a lot of disagreement about faith and practice, what to believe and do; a lot of argument about interpretation of Scripture; a lot of divisions and numerous different denominations. And that's just not what I see in the Early Church. Sure, eventually there were doctrinal questions and crises and schisms, and even in the second century there were heresies -- but to the orthodox faith (and yes, I think that's something that can be objectively seen, not just something that is decided by the victor), there was unity and certainty. These people were sure in what they had been taught, by people who knew or had been taught by the Apostles. And when there was a controversy with these heretics (I'm reading Ignatius and Irenaeus here), they didn't appeal to "Scripture alone" and argument over interpretation, they appealed first to the authority of the bishop, and his agreement with every other bishop in what had been received from the Apostles.
  
  And all of this is getting long, but it's just to say that I admire that certainty of orthodoxy.
• Disillusionment with the Protestant Reformation. And I got to the Protestant Reformation in history, and rather than finding the glorious scenes of Martin Luther rediscovering the true Gospel from corruption and restoring the true faith, I was appalled. I had grown to like the Catholic Church, with all the popes and monks and saints -- not that I necessarily agreed with it, but I liked it. So I was disappointed, first, that things in that were becoming corrupted. But it still seemed like a good thing that could be fixed, right? Of course I knew that wasn't where it was going...
  
  And then the Reformation very quickly got ugly. Luther calling the pope "antichrist," everybody writing nasty letters to each other, revolts and people getting killed... And then everybody else starts jumping on board, and it seems like a free-for-all, and political opportunism in a lot of cases more than anything else... And before long, anybody with a beef against the Catholic Church, for any reason, is breaking away and grinding their own axe... And then martyrdoms (murders) on both sides, and wars... Christians killing Christians... And this is not a glorious picture at all.
  
  And I just think, again and again, to Jesus's prayer "that we all might be One" (John 17:21). And I just think none of this is what Jesus wanted at all.

So this is really long, sorry about that, and more emotional than I really meant for it to be. But this is my heart. Go easy on me, ok?

Your story reminds me of my own OP. I grew up in a Small Town Baptist Church also :

Everything that has brought me closer to Christianity in General has brought me closer to Orthodoxy

 

[trophy33]

I tend to think all Christians have to bear that guilt to some extent.

No, you bear only our own guilts, sins and evils.

Yes, I know there was corruption, and reform was necessary. But why was division and murder and war necessary?

If you really study the history, you know who attacked first - the RCC. Also, reformators were from the RCC, it took time to put away all the 1000 years old mindset. They could not be perfect from the first day. Was Luther an aggresive guy? Yes, but if he was not, maybe he would end up dead as Jan Hus. God uses various tools.

What I really want to do is follow's Jesus's path.

And now you can, thanks to the religious freedom brought by protestants.

Really? Evil in the pursuit of good? "The ends justify the means"? I have a really hard time with that. What happened to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you"?

Of course, why else would God allow evil in the world?

No, but I would like to follow the model Jesus set up for His Church as closely as possible.

And now you can, thanks to the reformation. You have freedom.

And Ignatios is not Jesus. Also, you do not have those bishops Ignatios had. What would Ignatios do or write in the 15th century? Always think about the historical context. Church does not live in the 1st/2nd century anymore, we must react to our conditions.

 

[Monk Brendan]

Happy Easter! He is Risen!

If you've been following my other musings the past couple days, you probably know a little of what I'm going through... how I'm questioning my Protestant heritage, and struggling with how to read Church history and remain a Protestant. If you're new to me, hi -- a little about me: I was raised in a small, conservative Southern Baptist church where my family has a long tradition. I love my church, because I love my family, but I've made the mistake, maybe, of reading too much history, and now I'm having some serious questions about Protestantism. You may all think I'm really down on Protestantism, but I'm really not. So I wanted to make this post to try to give a more balanced picture of where I'm at. (This proved to be longer than I expected, so at risk of ending up with unbalanced audiences, I may wait until another post to tell in detail why I feel drawn to more apostolic forms of faith.)

What I love about Protestantism (by which I mean my Baptist Evangelicalism)

• The simplicity. Honestly, reading about Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, even Calvinism -- it's really complicated! A lot of hard, confusing, and even troubling things. Growing up I can just open my Bible and read and understand (though often, when I don't understand, my eyes just glaze over and I say, "Okay, God") ... and go to church and love one another and live my faith and everything is fine. All I have to do is have faith ... no other expectations really.
• The worship. I go to a little tiny church, with traditional worship, but I love our hymns and singing together. But I also, just recently, am getting to contemporary worship music on Internet radio, like Chris Tomlin and Crowder and Matt Maher and Jeremy Camp and Bethel Music and Hillsong. And it seems like that's a mostly Protestant thing?
• My own history. I complain sometimes about the history of the Protestant Reformation (which I'll do more below), but my own history is something I love. It's the history of how faithful pioneers came to the hills of North Alabama and founded a church. There are a lot of regaling tales of early ministers, early church minutes to peruse, and especially my own family history -- the histories of my church and my family are largely intertwined for like 6 or 7 generations.
• The people. I love the people -- because they are my family, my friends, my loved ones.
• The belonging. Because this is my church, I am her daughter -- I belong and am accepted and have a place. I can minister (I teach V.B.S., among other things) and really feel I am serving.

What I don't like about [my] Protestantism (or, why I'm having problems)
Over the past few years, as I've gotten deep in studying Church history and theology and languages and read a lot on my own, I've gradually grown more discontent. This lays out my basic problems.

• Lack of historical foundation. This may be more a problem of my own upbringing than of Protestantism in general, I don't know -- but I feel disconnected from history. Before I started high school, I knew almost nothing about the history of Christianity. Just Bible stories, then BAM! Martin Luther is nailing something to the door! And POW! The church comes to Alabama! There were anecdotes scattered here and there in sermons about "great Christians"... Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, maybe a few others... but these were disconnected dots on a blank sea. And I really didn't realize how empty it was, until I opened a book and saw everything that was there.
• Lack of theological rigor. Growing up, I don't think I ever heard the word theology. My Church taught the Bible and the Bible alone, just the Gospel and that's all. I didn't understand until much later (I was homeschooled and didn't have any friends outside my immediate community until high school) that there is more than one way of understanding the Bible and the Gospel. At first I was floored. Then I started studying theology and languages, and the idea that different people could have different interpretations made more sense. I discovered that my church lives in a sort of quasi-Calvinist-Armenian limbo. Preachers can appeal to either, but avoid the objectionable points of both. But the bottom line is, there's no rigor. Our theology is a wet noodle. And maybe that's okay? But it feels very intellectually unsatisfying.
• Fascination with the Early Church. As I said previously, when I read the New Testament growing up, it was mostly with a confirmation bias, seeing in it a vision of my own church experience. It wasn't until I started reading excerpts of the Church Fathers that I started to get the feeling that this doesn't actually look anything like my church. And let's not get distracted by arguments about sola scriptura or relying on Scripture -- it really doesn't. Whether you believe this is because the post-Apostolic Church quickly fell away from the truth of the faith, or because our modern tradition is just a really long way from the second century -- it really doesn't.
  
  What I admire about the Early Church is more than just the visible things like the liturgy, the way they have church (which you can see in early writers like the Didache and Justin Martyr) -- it's an overall feeling. In our modern Christianity -- especially once you get outside the walls of my little church -- there's a lot of disagreement about faith and practice, what to believe and do; a lot of argument about interpretation of Scripture; a lot of divisions and numerous different denominations. And that's just not what I see in the Early Church. Sure, eventually there were doctrinal questions and crises and schisms, and even in the second century there were heresies -- but to the orthodox faith (and yes, I think that's something that can be objectively seen, not just something that is decided by the victor), there was unity and certainty. These people were sure in what they had been taught, by people who knew or had been taught by the Apostles. And when there was a controversy with these heretics (I'm reading Ignatius and Irenaeus here), they didn't appeal to "Scripture alone" and argument over interpretation, they appealed first to the authority of the bishop, and his agreement with every other bishop in what had been received from the Apostles.
  
  And all of this is getting long, but it's just to say that I admire that certainty of orthodoxy.
• Disillusionment with the Protestant Reformation. And I got to the Protestant Reformation in history, and rather than finding the glorious scenes of Martin Luther rediscovering the true Gospel from corruption and restoring the true faith, I was appalled. I had grown to like the Catholic Church, with all the popes and monks and saints -- not that I necessarily agreed with it, but I liked it. So I was disappointed, first, that things in that were becoming corrupted. But it still seemed like a good thing that could be fixed, right? Of course I knew that wasn't where it was going...
  
  And then the Reformation very quickly got ugly. Luther calling the pope "antichrist," everybody writing nasty letters to each other, revolts and people getting killed... And then everybody else starts jumping on board, and it seems like a free-for-all, and political opportunism in a lot of cases more than anything else... And before long, anybody with a beef against the Catholic Church, for any reason, is breaking away and grinding their own axe... And then martyrdoms (murders) on both sides, and wars... Christians killing Christians... And this is not a glorious picture at all.
  
  And I just think, again and again, to Jesus's prayer "that we all might be One" (John 17:21). And I just think none of this is what Jesus wanted at all.

So this is really long, sorry about that, and more emotional than I really meant for it to be. But this is my heart. Go easy on me, ok?

I believe it was John Henry Newman who said that to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.

 

[FireDragon76]

I believe it was John Henry Newman who said that to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.

He's definitely a challenging thinker. He was basically chased out of Anglicanism but later many Anglicans themselves reached similar conclusions. At the time, Tractarianism was highly controversial. This was an age when anti-Catholic bigotry was respectable in England.

 

[chevyontheriver]

As are Phil Keaggy and John Michael Talbot, the latter being very intentional about using the medium of contemporary folk music to communicate his Catholicism.

I didn't mention John Michael Talbot because he has become more contemplative and I had heard he had stopped touring. But I just checked and he is touring again. Wonderful. We have several of his CDs.

I had never heard that Phil Keaggy was Catholic. In a brief search I could not substantiate it either. Can you provide any evidence? I know he once attended a church called 'Love Inn'. I found one reference that he grew up in a Catholic family of ten children. So it looks like he may have started Catholic but I see no evidence that he is Catholic now. Still, great music that has influenced me, mostly back in the 1970's and 1980's.

Rich Mullins, the writer of 'Awesome God' and other great even awesome music, was going to officially enter the Catholic Church but died in a car accident just days before. Rich Mullins, Asymptotic Catholic | Patrick C. Beeman

 

[Gregory Thompson]

Far from it. The Pentecostals are probably more historically connected to a series of post-Civil War "restoration" movements in Protestantism that sought to get back to some sort of minimalist version of the church by looking at the New Testament for guidance. Among these movements were the Church of Christ/Disciples/Independent Christian Churches, some strains of Baptists, and to a lesser degree the Latter-Day Saints. Another such movement was the "holiness" movement which sought to reform Methodism, feeling it had departed from the spirit of John Wesley's teachings. This gave us the Free Methodists, the Church of the Nazarene, various churches known as "Church of God", and the Pentecostal movement.

The charismatic movement in mainline Protestantism and Catholicism developed in the late 50s and early 60s out of desire for a deeper experience of Christ, adopting many Pentecostal beliefs and practices.

The emergent movement, on the other hand, was influenced by the impact of post-modern philosophy and worldviews in our culture in the mid 1990s.

The previous awakenings would change entire regions and result in people becoming aware of their sin and needing to repent.

After the Azusa Street revival, there was an emotional, and psychological type of revival. Entire regions were not influenced as before, the same pattern followed with the charismatic groups as well.

I was illustrating a difference, since there is a noticeable one.

I also note in the 1990s, a charismatic revival spread throughout many of the denominations, and the impact of that is still felt today.

I was just noticing that without the pentecostal type faith groups, the emergent movement would not exist due to antithesis effect. It's kind of like a second reformation.

It is possible however, that The pentecostal groups are an interim step (and not the root of the current tree) like the adventist groups of a greater time line.

which is why I questioned whether pentecostals and related groups should be considered "protestant" since it seems to be another type of expression of Christianity completely.

 

[Concord1968]

But I also, just recently, am getting to contemporary worship music on Internet radio, like Chris Tomlin and Crowder and Matt Maher and Jeremy Camp and Bethel Music and Hillsong.

Actually, Matt Maher is Catholic. Charismatic Catholic, but Catholic none the less.

Btw, my wife and I listen to that sort of music almost exclusively.

 

[FenderTL5]

Happy Easter! He is Risen!

If you've been following my other musings the past couple days, you probably know a little of what I'm going through... how I'm questioning my Protestant heritage, and struggling with how to read Church history and remain a Protestant. If you're new to me, hi -- a little about me: I was raised in a small, conservative Southern Baptist church where my family has a long tradition. I love my church, because I love my family, but I've made the mistake, maybe, of reading too much history, and now I'm having some serious questions about Protestantism. You may all think I'm really down on Protestantism, but I'm really not. So I wanted to make this post to try to give a more balanced picture of where I'm at. (This proved to be longer than I expected, so at risk of ending up with unbalanced audiences, I may wait until another post to tell in detail why I feel drawn to more apostolic forms of faith.)

What I love about Protestantism (by which I mean my Baptist Evangelicalism)

• The simplicity. Honestly, reading about Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, even Calvinism -- it's really complicated! A lot of hard, confusing, and even troubling things. Growing up I can just open my Bible and read and understand (though often, when I don't understand, my eyes just glaze over and I say, "Okay, God") ... and go to church and love one another and live my faith and everything is fine. All I have to do is have faith ... no other expectations really.
• The worship. I go to a little tiny church, with traditional worship, but I love our hymns and singing together. But I also, just recently, am getting to contemporary worship music on Internet radio, like Chris Tomlin and Crowder and Matt Maher and Jeremy Camp and Bethel Music and Hillsong. And it seems like that's a mostly Protestant thing?
• My own history. I complain sometimes about the history of the Protestant Reformation (which I'll do more below), but my own history is something I love. It's the history of how faithful pioneers came to the hills of North Alabama and founded a church. There are a lot of regaling tales of early ministers, early church minutes to peruse, and especially my own family history -- the histories of my church and my family are largely intertwined for like 6 or 7 generations.
• The people. I love the people -- because they are my family, my friends, my loved ones.
• The belonging. Because this is my church, I am her daughter -- I belong and am accepted and have a place. I can minister (I teach V.B.S., among other things) and really feel I am serving.

What I don't like about [my] Protestantism (or, why I'm having problems)
Over the past few years, as I've gotten deep in studying Church history and theology and languages and read a lot on my own, I've gradually grown more discontent. This lays out my basic problems.

• Lack of historical foundation. This may be more a problem of my own upbringing than of Protestantism in general, I don't know -- but I feel disconnected from history. Before I started high school, I knew almost nothing about the history of Christianity. Just Bible stories, then BAM! Martin Luther is nailing something to the door! And POW! The church comes to Alabama! There were anecdotes scattered here and there in sermons about "great Christians"... Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, maybe a few others... but these were disconnected dots on a blank sea. And I really didn't realize how empty it was, until I opened a book and saw everything that was there.
• Lack of theological rigor. Growing up, I don't think I ever heard the word theology. My Church taught the Bible and the Bible alone, just the Gospel and that's all. I didn't understand until much later (I was homeschooled and didn't have any friends outside my immediate community until high school) that there is more than one way of understanding the Bible and the Gospel. At first I was floored. Then I started studying theology and languages, and the idea that different people could have different interpretations made more sense. I discovered that my church lives in a sort of quasi-Calvinist-Armenian limbo. Preachers can appeal to either, but avoid the objectionable points of both. But the bottom line is, there's no rigor. Our theology is a wet noodle. And maybe that's okay? But it feels very intellectually unsatisfying.
• Fascination with the Early Church. As I said previously, when I read the New Testament growing up, it was mostly with a confirmation bias, seeing in it a vision of my own church experience. It wasn't until I started reading excerpts of the Church Fathers that I started to get the feeling that this doesn't actually look anything like my church. And let's not get distracted by arguments about sola scriptura or relying on Scripture -- it really doesn't. Whether you believe this is because the post-Apostolic Church quickly fell away from the truth of the faith, or because our modern tradition is just a really long way from the second century -- it really doesn't.
  
  What I admire about the Early Church is more than just the visible things like the liturgy, the way they have church (which you can see in early writers like the Didache and Justin Martyr) -- it's an overall feeling. In our modern Christianity -- especially once you get outside the walls of my little church -- there's a lot of disagreement about faith and practice, what to believe and do; a lot of argument about interpretation of Scripture; a lot of divisions and numerous different denominations. And that's just not what I see in the Early Church. Sure, eventually there were doctrinal questions and crises and schisms, and even in the second century there were heresies -- but to the orthodox faith (and yes, I think that's something that can be objectively seen, not just something that is decided by the victor), there was unity and certainty. These people were sure in what they had been taught, by people who knew or had been taught by the Apostles. And when there was a controversy with these heretics (I'm reading Ignatius and Irenaeus here), they didn't appeal to "Scripture alone" and argument over interpretation, they appealed first to the authority of the bishop, and his agreement with every other bishop in what had been received from the Apostles.
  
  And all of this is getting long, but it's just to say that I admire that certainty of orthodoxy.
• Disillusionment with the Protestant Reformation. And I got to the Protestant Reformation in history, and rather than finding the glorious scenes of Martin Luther rediscovering the true Gospel from corruption and restoring the true faith, I was appalled. I had grown to like the Catholic Church, with all the popes and monks and saints -- not that I necessarily agreed with it, but I liked it. So I was disappointed, first, that things in that were becoming corrupted. But it still seemed like a good thing that could be fixed, right? Of course I knew that wasn't where it was going...
  
  And then the Reformation very quickly got ugly. Luther calling the pope "antichrist," everybody writing nasty letters to each other, revolts and people getting killed... And then everybody else starts jumping on board, and it seems like a free-for-all, and political opportunism in a lot of cases more than anything else... And before long, anybody with a beef against the Catholic Church, for any reason, is breaking away and grinding their own axe... And then martyrdoms (murders) on both sides, and wars... Christians killing Christians... And this is not a glorious picture at all.
  
  And I just think, again and again, to Jesus's prayer "that we all might be One" (John 17:21). And I just think none of this is what Jesus wanted at all.

So this is really long, sorry about that, and more emotional than I really meant for it to be. But this is my heart. Go easy on me, ok?

Echoing what I posted in your earlier thread: Godspeed your journey.
I was a raised in the Independent (fundamental, missionary minded, KJVonly) Baptist Church and later, when on my own, ventured Southern Baptist.
I went through a similar journey, only for me it started by questioning "if the KJV is from 1611, what was the Bible before that?" as a pre-teen. There's were numerous stops along the way but I finally came to Orthodoxy at the tender age of 51. The more I studied the Bible, teachings and history, and started venturing back through the church fathers and councils; I finally realized there was no other place for me than the Orthodox Church. God Bless, I pray you find your way home.

 

[Just_a_Christian]

Happy Easter! He is Risen!

If you've been following my other musings the past couple days, you probably know a little of what I'm going through... how I'm questioning my Protestant heritage, and struggling with how to read Church history and remain a Protestant. If you're new to me, hi -- a little about me: I was raised in a small, conservative Southern Baptist church where my family has a long tradition. I love my church, because I love my family, but I've made the mistake, maybe, of reading too much history, and now I'm having some serious questions about Protestantism. You may all think I'm really down on Protestantism, but I'm really not. So I wanted to make this post to try to give a more balanced picture of where I'm at. (This proved to be longer than I expected, so at risk of ending up with unbalanced audiences, I may wait until another post to tell in detail why I feel drawn to more apostolic forms of faith.)

What I love about Protestantism (by which I mean my Baptist Evangelicalism)

• The simplicity. Honestly, reading about Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, even Calvinism -- it's really complicated! A lot of hard, confusing, and even troubling things. Growing up I can just open my Bible and read and understand (though often, when I don't understand, my eyes just glaze over and I say, "Okay, God") ... and go to church and love one another and live my faith and everything is fine. All I have to do is have faith ... no other expectations really.
• The worship. I go to a little tiny church, with traditional worship, but I love our hymns and singing together. But I also, just recently, am getting to contemporary worship music on Internet radio, like Chris Tomlin and Crowder and Matt Maher and Jeremy Camp and Bethel Music and Hillsong. And it seems like that's a mostly Protestant thing?
• My own history. I complain sometimes about the history of the Protestant Reformation (which I'll do more below), but my own history is something I love. It's the history of how faithful pioneers came to the hills of North Alabama and founded a church. There are a lot of regaling tales of early ministers, early church minutes to peruse, and especially my own family history -- the histories of my church and my family are largely intertwined for like 6 or 7 generations.
• The people. I love the people -- because they are my family, my friends, my loved ones.
• The belonging. Because this is my church, I am her daughter -- I belong and am accepted and have a place. I can minister (I teach V.B.S., among other things) and really feel I am serving.

What I don't like about [my] Protestantism (or, why I'm having problems)
Over the past few years, as I've gotten deep in studying Church history and theology and languages and read a lot on my own, I've gradually grown more discontent. This lays out my basic problems.

• Lack of historical foundation. This may be more a problem of my own upbringing than of Protestantism in general, I don't know -- but I feel disconnected from history. Before I started high school, I knew almost nothing about the history of Christianity. Just Bible stories, then BAM! Martin Luther is nailing something to the door! And POW! The church comes to Alabama! There were anecdotes scattered here and there in sermons about "great Christians"... Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, maybe a few others... but these were disconnected dots on a blank sea. And I really didn't realize how empty it was, until I opened a book and saw everything that was there.
• Lack of theological rigor. Growing up, I don't think I ever heard the word theology. My Church taught the Bible and the Bible alone, just the Gospel and that's all. I didn't understand until much later (I was homeschooled and didn't have any friends outside my immediate community until high school) that there is more than one way of understanding the Bible and the Gospel. At first I was floored. Then I started studying theology and languages, and the idea that different people could have different interpretations made more sense. I discovered that my church lives in a sort of quasi-Calvinist-Armenian limbo. Preachers can appeal to either, but avoid the objectionable points of both. But the bottom line is, there's no rigor. Our theology is a wet noodle. And maybe that's okay? But it feels very intellectually unsatisfying.
• Fascination with the Early Church. As I said previously, when I read the New Testament growing up, it was mostly with a confirmation bias, seeing in it a vision of my own church experience. It wasn't until I started reading excerpts of the Church Fathers that I started to get the feeling that this doesn't actually look anything like my church. And let's not get distracted by arguments about sola scriptura or relying on Scripture -- it really doesn't. Whether you believe this is because the post-Apostolic Church quickly fell away from the truth of the faith, or because our modern tradition is just a really long way from the second century -- it really doesn't.
  
  What I admire about the Early Church is more than just the visible things like the liturgy, the way they have church (which you can see in early writers like the Didache and Justin Martyr) -- it's an overall feeling. In our modern Christianity -- especially once you get outside the walls of my little church -- there's a lot of disagreement about faith and practice, what to believe and do; a lot of argument about interpretation of Scripture; a lot of divisions and numerous different denominations. And that's just not what I see in the Early Church. Sure, eventually there were doctrinal questions and crises and schisms, and even in the second century there were heresies -- but to the orthodox faith (and yes, I think that's something that can be objectively seen, not just something that is decided by the victor), there was unity and certainty. These people were sure in what they had been taught, by people who knew or had been taught by the Apostles. And when there was a controversy with these heretics (I'm reading Ignatius and Irenaeus here), they didn't appeal to "Scripture alone" and argument over interpretation, they appealed first to the authority of the bishop, and his agreement with every other bishop in what had been received from the Apostles.
  
  And all of this is getting long, but it's just to say that I admire that certainty of orthodoxy.
• Disillusionment with the Protestant Reformation. And I got to the Protestant Reformation in history, and rather than finding the glorious scenes of Martin Luther rediscovering the true Gospel from corruption and restoring the true faith, I was appalled. I had grown to like the Catholic Church, with all the popes and monks and saints -- not that I necessarily agreed with it, but I liked it. So I was disappointed, first, that things in that were becoming corrupted. But it still seemed like a good thing that could be fixed, right? Of course I knew that wasn't where it was going...
  
  And then the Reformation very quickly got ugly. Luther calling the pope "antichrist," everybody writing nasty letters to each other, revolts and people getting killed... And then everybody else starts jumping on board, and it seems like a free-for-all, and political opportunism in a lot of cases more than anything else... And before long, anybody with a beef against the Catholic Church, for any reason, is breaking away and grinding their own axe... And then martyrdoms (murders) on both sides, and wars... Christians killing Christians... And this is not a glorious picture at all.
  
  And I just think, again and again, to Jesus's prayer "that we all might be One" (John 17:21). And I just think none of this is what Jesus wanted at all.

So this is really long, sorry about that, and more emotional than I really meant for it to be. But this is my heart. Go easy on me, ok?

The most serious question you must ask yourself, not just you, but everyone whether they are within Catholicism, Orthodox or whatever, is this: "Is this church the church that Christ shed His blood to establish?". All one has to do is read Revelation to know beyond a doubt that a group of believers can fall into apostasy. You, yourself, have already given an affirmation to that fact. The great schism concerning indulgences gave rise to Orthodoxy. Another crucial component of your post is this, you already recognize that the church you read about in the New Testament is different than your small Baptist church. Is Orthodoxy or Catholicism the church you read of in the New Testament? Relying on anything other than the God inspired writings is relying on "the created" and not the Creator to solve a spiritual dilemma. A casual reading of God's word reveals that man does not have it within himself to please God much less know the mind of God. We are most wholly and completely dependent upon God for ALL spiritual Truth.
There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.
Proverbs 14:12
The Christ, the Head of the Church, has told us how we are to live and have our being.
But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”
Matthew 4:4
Substituting history, man's wisdom or anything in place of God's instruction is not, only taking a chance, but inviting death. Not mortal death but spiritual death. The church for which Christ suffered unimaginable horrors to create is here but via Satan and man's folly it has become a little difficult to locate.
In Him

 

[Albion]

The great schism concerning indulgences gave rise to Orthodoxy.

Say what?

 

[Just_a_Christian]

Say what?

Orthadoxy came out of an apostate church via repenting of the false doctrine of indulgences. Great, I applaud that!! Was the doctrine of indulgences Catholicism's first deviation from God? Did Orthadoxy return fully to sound doctrine provided by God?
In Him

 

[FenderTL5]

The great schism concerning indulgences...

...is called the Reformation.
The Reformation had nothing to do with Orthodoxy.

 

[Just_a_Christian]

...is called the Reformation.
The Reformation had nothing to do with Orthodoxy.

Orthadoxy split from Catholicism.
In Him

 

[FenderTL5]

Orthadoxy came out of an apostate church via repenting of the false doctrine of indulgences...

You and accuracy are not even in the same hemisphere.

 

[Albion]

Orthadoxy came out of an apostate church via repenting of the false doctrine of indulgences. Great, I applaud that!!

No, it didn't. You apparently have confused some very different moments in church history.

 

[Just_a_Christian]

You and accuracy are not even in the same hemisphere.

Prove it.

 

[Just_a_Christian]

No, it didn't. You apparently have confused some very different moments in church history.

Ok, enlighten me. How did Orthadoxy come to be.
In Him

 

[Albion]

Prove it.

Ok, enlighten me. How did Orthadoxy come to be.

East-West Schism | Summary, History, & Effects