Posted on 01/15/2009 9:50:50 AM PST by NYer
Interesting statistics.
Which means 40% are still lacking in good catechesis about their faith.
It must take a lot willpower to be a loyal Protestant.
I believe just the opposite may be true. It is as a result of willpower that protestant churches have branched off into ... what is the present number? 35,000+? ... denominations. The one fidelity they all share is belief in Jesus Christ as the Messiah.
But they can't all agree on what He said, or meant when He said it.
Could it possibly be because there are fewer brands of Catholicism than of Protestantism?
In my experience, as a Protestant, I see too many people who don’t bother to understand their particular denomination’s teachings. This might actually require reading the bible and (gasp) additional literature related to that particular denomination’s teachings. People don’t bother to have convictions anymore b/c it takes too much effort. Most people just go where the music is upbeat and there are tons of programs for their children.
Protestants are more apt to see religion as something to feel comfortable with, a social phenomenon and if it doesn't validate them they will just move on to a church where they are more "comfortable."
Interesting
There is only one brand with 22 different flavors.
"The Catholic Church is the work of Divine Providence, achieved through the prophecies of the prophets, through the Incarnation and the teaching of Christ, through the journeys of the Apostles, through the suffering, the crosses, the blood and the death of the martyrs, through the admirable lives of the saints. When, then, we see so much help on God's part, so much progress and so much fruit, shall we hesitate to bury ourselves in the bosom of that Church? For starting from the Apostolic Chair down through successions of bishops, even unto the open confession of all mankind, it has possessed the crown of teaching authority." - St. Augustine of Hippo ("The Advantage of Believing" 4th century A.D.)
If it makes you more comfortable to believe that, by all means do.
>> Protestants are more apt to see religion as something to feel comfortable with, a social phenomenon and if it doesn’t validate them they will just move on to a church where they are more “comfortable.”
Nonsense.
SnakeDoc
The interesting question would be, how many Protestants would consider converting to the Catholic Church, and vice versa, if that were the only option in town. As it is, this survey is no news at all, since obviously switching between Protestant demonimations is not exactly a life-altering event in most cases.
As a side remark, we Catholics tend to exaggerrate the importance of “30,000” denominations in Protestantism. My observation is that the majority of them are quite interchangeable for a Protestant. A significant divisions are liturgical vs. low church and calvinist vs. arminian. My intuitive feeling is, most Protestants have high loyalty to either of these four groups, but would switch inside the group rather painlessly.
Another factor is that a Catholic would make a distinction between visiting a Protestant denomination — even as often as weekly — and converting to Protestantism. I remember a conversation we once had with a new neighbor down the street, a couple with grown children. “We are Catholic. But we mostly go to the Calvary chapel. It is kind of nondenominational. We like it”. But when the husband passed on, the funeral was in a Catholic Church; they moved, and a year later I bumped into the widow in a supermarket. “Tell your wife, I returned to the Church”, she said. In other words, the identity remained Catholic all along, — the inclusive, non-credal Calvary chapel environment did not seem to challenge that.
>> It must take a lot willpower to be a loyal Protestant.
No more than it does to be a Catholic.
SnakeDoc
It seems to work that way with probably 2/3 of the Protestants I know and I live in a mostly Protestant town.
IMHO (and not being Catholic, someone correct me) Catholics by and large believe that the Catholic church is the only legitimate denomination/church. So, of course they aren’t going to be open to switching denominations when their basic belief is that there is only one denomination to begin with.
Protestants believe that any group of believers can get together and form a legitimate denomination/church (”For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”)
I don’t what to start a debate about what is/isn’t a legitimate church, just to point out that the suvey results are predictable based upon the fact that Catholics and Protestants generally have differing opinions on the subject.
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