How Many Protestant Denominations Are There? [vanity]

[metmom]

Well...there’s likely plenty of Protestant Denominations...no different than all the various catholic denominations...though they of course never call them that.

Yup. They just call them *rites*, and claim their unity is being unified as Catholic.

*Protestants* acknowledge them as denominations and claim their unity is being united in Christ.

Telling difference, isn't it?

[MamaB]

Thanks. Was thinking the same thing. They are dead! They just need to pray to the source-—Jesus.

[Alex Murphy]

Protestants like Francis because he acts more protestant than Catholic and talks a lot about homosexual “gifts” and no one needing to convert. Imagine a pope that is loved by liberal Catholics and adored by all protestants, and despised by real Catholics.

Have you been thinking about Protestants again? I thought that never happens?

Imagine a pope, fitting your description, who was elected by cardinals who themselves were elected by previous popes, and all of them hold each other to be Catholic.

The Sedevacantist Catholic Church welcomes you, NKP_Vet.

[NKP_Vet]

Will they apparently didn’t know how much of a crackpot Francis is. I am a Catholic and I call it like it is. The Catholic Church has survived bad popes before and it will survive this one.

[Alex Murphy]

...they apparently didn’t know how much of a crackpot Francis is.

And you, who have (presumably) never rubbed elbows with, never met, never corresponded, never worked with, and never fraternized with Jorge Mario Bergoglio since he was born in 1936, you know differently?

I am a Catholic and I call it like it is.

Catholic, or Real Catholic? I don't know about you being a Catholic, but you qualify as a True Scotsman.

The Catholic Church has survived bad popes before and it will survive this one.

It will almost certainly survive True Catholics, too.

[Dutchboy88]

"And you know what?

IT DOESN’T MATTER!!!!!!

This thread is proving the very thing it attempted to disprove."

Agreed...

[Dutchboy88]

There is no “final biblical interpreter” for any true believer in Jesus. The text is the text and our job is to handle it carefully. Some do a good job at this, others not so good. But, clearly, the RC cult has done a poor job of it, skewing it to support all kinds of spurious doctrines. That brings the real believers in Jesus to reject Rome as false organization. And, incidentally, there was no such thing as the “Catholic Church” until about 320AD. Perhaps you would like to review your history.

[GeronL]

Well said.

[imardmd1]

Please prove from an infallible source that what the Catholic Church today calls tradition which is not found in scripture is what the apostles taught.

To me, this sentence is not quite clear. What it seems to me that you are saying is as follows:

>> Please prove that:
>> (a) that which is not found in Scripture, and
>> (b) which today the Catholic Church calls "tradition",
>> (c) was taught by the Apostles.

Have I got that right? Is that what you meant?

Thanks --

[tired&retired]

“the real question is who are true believers and who are wolves.”

Everyone goes through the stages of spiritual growth if they seek God. And they can’t find God without first meeting Jesus as the “Two are One.” Keep in mind that if we are One with Jesus through Communion, then the Father that is in Jesus is also in us. (paraphrase of John 17)

I’ve worked with Jews and Buddhists who met and experienced Jesus in their search for God. I’m not talking a public affiliation with a group, but a real experience and vision while they were alone in prayerful meditation that filled them with His Love and changed their lives. If you make the journey toward God you can’t help but meet Jesus no matter what path you start on.

Within any religion you have three stages of development.

First is dependency. Just as a child relies on their parent, many rely on their religious group for their strength and identity. Notice I said religious group and not God for their strength. These people tend to be very legalistic in accordance with their group guidelines. They usually do not think for themselves but always spout the group mind.

Second is “self identity” or self worship. The “I’m in control of my life” group. They seek validation of themselves in their religious group and often seek the intellectual knowledge of their religion without seeking the feeling of Love. They often feel the need to convince others that they are correct as by convincing others it allows them to believe it for themselves. Often they will build a taj mahal self identity that will create great pain in diminishing it in order to move forward.

The third group is the self transcendent group. I joke that these folks can wear plaid paints with striped shirts and care less what others think of them. Their identity does not come from what others think of them, or what they think of themselves. Their identity comes from their relationship with God. They often do not attend church service but very few days will pass without their seeking direct experience with God through prayer and meditation. At this point a person has surrendered to God and lives their life as a servant.

There are two transition phases between the identity stages.

First is teenage transition where a person goes from emotional dependency to an ego identity. I joke that this transition phase is so tumultuous that their is a period of euphoria when a person is through it and places their toe on the threshold of the self identity stage. This is the “Hire the sixteen year old while they still know it all” point. Often people get stuck in this transition and surrender to peer groups, gangs, professional sports, or some other group identity as they cannot move toward a healthy self identity.

The second transition phase is the “Mid Life Crisis” or the diminishing of the ego self identity. It is a very painful process and it leads toward the Dark Night of the Soul” experience. I note that this transition phase is also tumultuous and just as the teenage transition has the sixteen year old euphoria point, this transition has the first God experience euphoria point when they pass through the Dark Night of the Soul and first place their toe on the threshold of the God experience. These people will feel they have made it and found God. They will need to write books and create a following. All this does is send a person back from the self transcendence experience where they return to the second stage of ego identity(now it’s a spiritual ego identity) and feel they are someone special as they “own” their experience as a valued possession. It’s all part of the process of soul growth.

[daniel1212]

How many cafeteria Catholics are there? Billion and billions....

Indeed, which so better, churches of people who are far more conservative and unified in basic values and beliefs, versus one who treats even proabortion, prosodomite, promuslim pols and supporters as members in life and in death, showing what she really believes in part, and whose overall fruit is those who support such.

And you have seen this one:

(http://www.friesian.com/popes.htm#pope)

The author (James Swan) of the second image states,

“The problem is obvious - Rome, sedevacantists, traditionalist Catholics, Pope Michael-ists, Eastern Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, and various other churches with incompatible teachings all appeal to this set and limited corpus of Scripture and Tradition. It would appear that the criticism against Sola Scriptura of multiple denominations applies to the Roman and EO rule of faith as well.

The Romanist or Orthodox might object: "But we're not in communion with those schismatics/heterodox/heretics!" Now, what if I were to reply, as a member of a Southern Baptist church, that, have no fear my non-Sola Scripturist friends, my church holds that everyone who's not a member of a Southern Baptist church is a schismatic/heterodox/heretic too? Would that make our Romanist or Orthodox friends feel better?

Or would that make them criticise us even more strongly: "See? You Sola Scripturists can't even hold communion with each other!"? Yep, my money's on that one, too. We're darned if we do and darned if we don't, but somehow if the Romanists or Orthodox don't hold communion with these other churches, that's just fine. Such special pleading is just...special...

If you want to compare unity and disunity, compare the adherences to the competing rules of faith. Or compare churches, like the Roman Church to the Southern Baptist Convention or the Pope Michael Catholic Church to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. What do we find, if we do this?” (http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2009/12/special-pleading-of-sola-ecclesia-ists.html)

Also ,

Over on my own blog, I have my own occasional feature called, Blueprint for Anarchy. What I've been doing is simply keeping track of all the times I come across Rome's zealous defenders disagreeing with each other, or pointing out the lack of clarity within Roman Catholicism as well as the confusion.

Robert Sungenis recently stated Rome's scholars are worse than Protestant liberals. Jimmy Akin recently chastised the interpretation of his priest saying, "This isn't exegetical rocket science." Steve Ray had some similar problems with a priest and concludes the church is "Always reforming, always in need of reform." Mark Shea accuses Robert Sungenis of lying. Sungenis says Scott Hahn misunderstands of the whole issue of justification. Over on the Catholic Answers forum, they recently had a heated discussion as to whether Scott Hahn teaches "prima scriptura." Tim Staples says he went to a mass in which the priest led the church in "the wave." Jimmy Akin says you can pray to whoever you want to, even if they aren't saints. Art Sippo says Mary should be Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of all Graces. Patrick Madrid disagreed with him. Karl Keating states, "Many Catholics are confused because some priests tell them contracepting is immoral, while others tell them the practice is morally neutral; some priests speak as though Mary had only one child, while others imply that she was the mother of the 'brethren of the Lord', some priests correctly explain the meaning of the Real Presence, while others refer to the Eucharist as only a symbol. Priests are authority figures, and lay people expect them to know and teach the faith accurately- not a safe assumption nowadays." Jim Burnham stated on Catholic Answers that Seventy percent of Roman Catholics do not understand the Eucharist.

I could go on and on. I didn't even mention any of my "We Have Apostolic Tradition"- The Unofficial Catholic Apologist Commentary " posts. In those posts, you can see that Catholic apologists disagree with each other when they interpret the Bible. Then there are the big issues, like evolution. If you want to see diversity of opinion, simply try and nail down a Catholic apologist or a Catholic theologian on it. You would think Catholic theologians could at least be unified on Luther and the Reformation. Some say Luther was sent by Satan, others think he wasn't such a bad guy.

Shall we conclude that an infallible interpreter + infallible tradition + infallible scripture = harmony? The facts speak for themselves

[Gamecock]

They both rebelled against the concept of “closed communion” for they saw and believed that Jesus offers communion and it is not for a denomination to make its own rules on whom among believers in Christ Jesus would be allowed to take communion.

As a conservative Reformed church guy, who has been a member of both Scottish and Continental variants of this corner of Christianity, I must say the table is ALWAYS fenced. But thusly (or something close): "If you put your faith in Jesus as your Savior and are a member of a church that preaches the Gospel, you are welcome to the table." I think that is pretty much wide open for all Bible believers.

I remember attended a Reformed Baptist church one Christmas Eve and they had a communion service after the main service and the deacons examined the participants. We stuck around note being sure if they would admit paedobaptists to the table. He asked me why we should be able to partake and I told him, answering for my entire family, that we put our trust in Jesus alone for our Salvation. He inquired about our church membership and I told him we were members of "Acme" Presbyterian, PCA. He shook my hand and welcomed us to the table. I understood why they fenced the table, out of concern for those who may be taking it wrongly. But the question was quite simple and they clearly weren't excluding other Christians.

[Gamecock]

**Or would that make them criticise us even more strongly: “See? You Sola Scripturists can’t even hold communion with each other!”?**

to 192.

[Syncro]

To Heart-Rest

“Your views about the Catholic Church and the Scriptures are quite skewed and erroneous, so I will share with you some links I’ve accumulated over the years...”

Typical. You weren’t allowed to derail the thread of the discussion away from the comparison that is uncomfortable to you, so you claim my views are skewed (although I quoted your own catechism to illustrate your church’s stance!), and then run off...

Just like the Mormons do.

In this case, Catholic Doctrine is posted and it's called "quite skewed and erroneous."

What's skewed, erroneous and out side of Biblical truths is Catholicism. He's right there...

“Your views about the Catholic Church and the Scriptures are quite skewed and erroneous, so I will share with you some links I’ve accumulated over the years...”

Typical. You weren’t allowed to derail the thread of the discussion away from the comparison that is uncomfortable to you, so you claim my views are skewed (although I quoted your own catechism to illustrate your church’s stance!), and then run off...

[Salvation]

**Over on my own blog, I have my own occasional feature called**

There you go again — making us go to your blog.

[MamaB]

I have only heard of 2 of them. They had nothing to do with my salvation. Only Jesus and the Bible do that. For people who say they believe it, some show they do not have a clue. It seems like y’all are trying too hard to make your point. Why not post “good news” threads instead of trying to divide people. Isn’t there enough bad news in the world today without y’all adding to it? Think about it. I am a Protestant and proud of it and nothing said on here will ever change that.

[MamaB]

Amen.

[MamaB]

That poster said ever church she had been in. I can say the same thing. I had only heard of 2 and those were years after I became a Christian.

[MamaB]

I have been thinking that for months. They have enough trouble without trying to tell others what to believe.

[zot]

As Barton Stone — one of the founders of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) — said, we are not the only Christians, but we are Christians only.