The use of insulting epithets like "Romanist" and "Popish" is no act of love. It's childish and a poor Christian witness.
Seeing how the only people to have used those terms on this thread are Catholics, perhaps you should to clean your own house first.....
Oh, you ever hear about bearing false witness? Very poor Christian witness indeed.
3. It is lawful for all sorts of people to marry, who are able with judgment to give their consent. Yet it is the duty of Christians to marry only in the Lord. And therefore such as profess the true reformed religion should not marry with infidels, papists, or other idolaters: neither should such as are godly be unequally yoked, by marrying with such as are notoriously wicked in their life, or maintain damnable heresies. (Westminster Confession of Faith, 24:3)I like how the WCF lumps papists in with "other idolaters".
http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/a120.htm
33,000+ denominations of Protestantism and counting
I was at the library one day researching something, and I saw the much talked about Protestant reference, the World Christian Encyclopedia by David B. Barrett, George T. Kurian, and Todd M. Johnson (2001 edition). I thought I’d see for myself what it says. This is what I found....
David Barrett, et al, does indeed refer to “over 33,000 denominations in 238 countries.” (Table 1-5, vol 1, page 16). This refers to his unique definition of a “Christian denomination” but does not include small ones (congregations of a couple hundred or less), which would dramatically increase this number beyond all imagination. Barrett also states there are 242 total Roman Catholic denominations (year 2000 numbers). So I looked into what he believed these denominations were.
Barrett breaks down his encyclopedic reference by country. So I looked up how many Roman Catholic denominations are within the U.S. according to Barrett. Much to my surprise, Barrett shows ONLY ONE Roman Catholic denomination for the United States.
So I wondered where the heck are these 242 denominations? I looked in Barrett’s reference for Britain, and again he listed ONLY ONE Roman Catholic denomination. I thought surely that of the 238 countries within his encyclopedic reference there must be a country that had more than ONE Roman Catholic denomination. There wasn’t. I could not find one country listed by Barrett that had more than ONE Roman Catholic denomination.
So, what does Barrett mean when he states there are 242 Roman Catholic denominations? It seems Barrett is counting each country as it’s own denomination. So, for Barrett, the Roman Catholic Church of the USA is a different denomination than the Roman Catholic Church of Canada. I don’t know how he got 242 denominations from 238 countries listed, however. Some numbers from Barrett’s...
Denominations / Paradenominations:
1970: 26,350
1995: 33,820
Under U.S. Country Table 2, of the 6,222 US denominations, there’s only ONE Roman Catholic denomination listed, and there’s 60 Orthodox denominations. Barrett labels the rest of the denominations: Protestant, Anglican, Independent, and Marginal. The more commonly accepted classification of Christianity used even by Protestant scholars, such as Leslie Dunstan in his book Protestantism, Christianity consists of: (1) Catholic, (2) Orthodox, and (3) Protestant. So, using this more commonly understood classification....
Number of U.S. Denominations
Catholic 1
Orthodox 60
Protestant 6,161
Remember, the above numbers are derived using Protestant sources only. Barrett differs from other Protestants such as Dunstan as to what constitutes a Protestant denomination. What Dunstan would call Protestant, Barrett describes as:
Barrett’s classification:
Protestant 660
Anglican 1
Independent 5,100
Marginal 400
That’s just for the U.S. Yet, there’s but ONE Catholic denomination in the U.S., either by Dunstan or Barrett’s standard.
Another way of looking at it is not to use Barrett’s fuzzy understanding of denominations at all. What does Webster call a denomination? Let’s see... Webster calls a ‘denomination’ a “a religious organization uniting local congregations in a single legal and administrative body.” The category called “Protestantism,” since it does not actually “unite” any local congregation into a “single legal and administrative body,” is more accurately a grouping of denominations rather than a denomination, according to Webster’s definition. How does one know if their “denomination” is of the Protestant kind?
You might be a Protestant if....
(1) You believe the Bible consists of only 66 books
(2) You believe authority rests with Scripture Alone (Sola Scriptura)
(3) You believe justification is by Faith Alone (Sola Fide)
How many of the “denominations” listed by Barrett fall into this category? I’m betting over 33,000. Let’s look at it this way, of the 33,000 that Barrett classifies, which ones refute the pillars of Protestantism shown above? (a) Catholic Church, (b) Oriental Orthodox (5th century schism), (c) Eastern Orthodox (11th century schism). Any others? Perhaps I’ve missed a few. Even if you break apart the Orthodox Churches into separate Patriarchates (Bishops), that doesn’t reduce the BIG number of 33,820 by very much, does it? Some would say, “well that number is completely inflated” based upon Barrett’s fuzzy definition of “denomination.” On the contrary, I would say that it is a MUCH LARGER NUMBER of denominations using Webster’s definition of “denomination.”
Even within the Catholic Church, the most diverse forms of Catholicism, the Latin and Eastern Rite, share the same government, the same “religious organization uniting local congregations in a single legal and administrative body.” In other words, Canon Law for the Eastern Rite and Canon Law for the Latin Rite come from the same single government, chaired by the same Vicar.