Making bets right now that this will be a very interesting discussion. Debating about the Ecumenical tag. Can we discuss it without slamming one another?
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Liberal protestants deserved to get slammed. You don't really have any problem with slamming liberal Catholics, do you?
So let's try to keep focused on the target here, and jointly nail folks that try to hijack the thread.
From my studies, I have concluded that the very existance of protestantism is due to this. They did not like this or that about the Catholic Church, ie, king henry and wanting an anullment, Martin Luther and his 95 Thesis, The anabaptists, Calvin, Jan Hus, etc... All removed elements ABC and from there, followers split to remove through XYZ until it no longer represented anything of the original.
We now have mega churches refusing to take a stand on any issue that is divisive (Joel Osteen) to only preaching on the one or 2 issues that they, as their own pope feel are relevant (John Hagee).
I feel comforted to know my church is the same yesterday, today, and always; steeped the the scripture and Tradition of millenia past, given to Peter by Christ. As to liberal catholics, they are self excommunicated whether they like it or not if they hold a gravely moral belief and live in opposition to the church on the issue,ie abortion, homosexuality etc. It is not rocket science, and I do not understand for the life of me why they would want to belong to a church that does not preach what they hold so sacred.
In this country especially, we are all free to believe what we choose. We do NOT have to change our beliefs or our time honored faith to accomodate the new age or their belief system. It is the ultimate oxymoron, you are not catholic if you do not believe what catholics believe. We are not obligated to change our beliefs to fit yours since you are the one who changed.
In this world of political correctness gone awry, I thank God the church is moving, albeit slowly, back to its core and correcting the misconceptions and poor catechesis stemming from Vatican 2.
” (3) To atone, so to speak, for this weakening of doctrine, it intensifies its moral commitments.”
....Presbyterian Church(USA)is right in the forefront of this which is why the church is going down the tubes....civil rights, VietNam, nuclear disarmament, the Sandinistas, abortion rights, gun control, ordination of gays, marriage of gays, global warming...ect ect. whatever the liberal cause de jour they’ll embrace it.
Liberal Christianity = ISLAM
I'm all for open minds and open hearts, but not to the point where we start discarding the tenants of our own religion to try and swell our ranks and to gain approval from the secularists.
This article explains perfectly why me and countless others are abandoning the “mainline” churches for churches that won't discard Christ and the Bible in order to be popular or to be “modern” (even though Christianity is supposed to be Timeless).
It's called, "Doublethink", per Orwell.
Ping to respond to later
"...These two world views [Christian theism vs naturalist, impersonal matter or energy shaped by impersonal chance] stand as totals in complete antithesis to each other in content and also in their natural results--including sociological and governmental results, and specifically including law.
It is not that these two world views are different only in how they understand the nature of reality and existence. They also inevitably produce totally different results. The operative word here is inevitably. It is not just that they happen to produce different results, but it is absolutely inevitable that they will bring forth different results..."
- Francis Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto, page 2.
Who can be surprised, then, that the Protestant denominations that have been seriously infected with liberalism (the so-called "mainline churches") are rapidly declining in numbers, not just in relation to the national population generally but even in absolute numbers?
And who can be surprised that American Catholicism, many of whose members turned in a theologically liberal direction after Vatican II, is also declining? The Catholic decline, to be sure, is masked by the sloppy way in which American Catholicism counts its members. You're counted as a Catholic if you were baptized Catholic. That means that millions and millions of people are counted as Catholic who are quite indifferent, and in many cases downright hostile, to Catholicism. If, more realistically, we count as Catholic only those who continue to be somewhat serious about the religion -- for example, by going to church once a week -- we'll see that there has been a steep decline.
"...Ours is a post-Christian world in which Christianity, not only in the number of Christians but in cultural emphasis and cultural result, is no longer the consensus or ethos of our society. Do not take this lightly! It is a horrible thing for a man like myself to look back and see my country and my culture go down the drain in my own lifetime. It is a horrible thing that sixty years ago you could move across this country and almost everyone, even non-Christians, would have known what the gospel was. A horrible thing that fifty to sixty years ago our culture was built on the Christian consensus, and now this is no longer the case..."
- Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster
“Liberal” Catholics are nothing more then heretics and blasphemers.
They really should leave the church, and take their pick of the pleathera of watered down dumbed down theologies already wandering about the wasteland.
Liberal Catholicism is Protestantism.