Actually I suspect my friends are behind the times since most of them aren’t exactly what could be called practicing Catholics.
I do have some problem with how it is possible to read the Bible without at the same time interpreting it, at least to some extent.
AFAIK, in the catholic church, the Virgin Mary is elevated to such a degree as to almost be a “co-redeemer” han in hand with Christ.
Protestants generally regard Mary and the saints for the most part irrelevant. The Trinity alone is focused.
The single major difference Luther emphasised(and he didn’t ever want to create a new religion, he was just trying to reform what he saw as corrupt) is the concept of special middlemen between God and man. Basically that the only liason we have with God is Jesus. He felt that putting the priests, Bishops, Pope, Mary, and the saints in special positions to communicate with and speak for God was wrong. Many of his other points (like indulgences and other corruptions are bad) have been accepted within the Catholic church since his time.
Oh, that’s too rich. I’m gonna use it.
And by the way, Catholics can’t sing worth a tinker’s cuss…
Forgot that I had a little brochure about my denomination, The Foursquare Gospel Church. So I’ll share here (kinda long - sorry):
What the Foursquare Gospel Church believes in…
The Holy Scriptures - We believe the Bible is god-inspired. (2 Timothy 3: 16, 17)
The Eternal Godhead - We believed God is Triune: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. (2 Corinthians 13:14)
The Fall of Man - We believe that man was created in the image of God, but that by voluntary disobedience he fell from perfection. (Romans 5:12)
The Plan of Salvation - We believe that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us, signing the pardon of all who believe on Him. (John 3:16; Romans 5:8)
Salvation Through Grace - We believe that we have no righteousness and must come to God pleading the righteousness of Christ. (Ephesians 2:8)
Repentance and Acceptance - We believe that upon sincere repentance, and a whole-hearted acceptance of Christ, we are justified before God. (1 John 1:9)
The New Birth - We believe that the change which takes place in the heart and life at conversion is a very real one. (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 2:20)
Daily Christian Life - We believe that it is the will of god that we be sanctified daily, growing constantly in the faith. (Hebrews 6:1)
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper - We believe that baptism by immersion is an outward sign of an inward work (Matt. 28:19). We believe in the commemoration of the Lord’s Supper by the symbolic use of the bread and juice of the vine. (1 Corinthians 11:24, 25)
Baptism of the Holy Spirit - We believe that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is to endue the believer with power; and that His incoming is after the same manner as in Bible days. (Acts 2:4)
The Spirit-Filled Life - We believe that it is the will of God that we walk in the Spirit daily. (Ephesians 4:30-32)
The Gifts & Fruit of the Spirit - We believe that the Holy Spirit has gifts to bestow upon the Christian; and that we should show the spiritual fruit as evidence of a Spirit-filled life. (1 Corinthians 12:1-11; Galatians 5:22)
Moderation - We believe that the experience and daily walk of the believer should never lead him into extremes of fanaticisms. (Phillipians 4:5)
Divine Healing - We believe that divine healing is the power of Christ to heal the sick in answer to the prayer of faith. (James 5:14-16)
The Second Coming of Christ - We believe that the second coming of Christ is personal and imminent. (1 Thessalonians 4:16,17)
Church Relationship - We believe it is our sacred duty to identify ourselves with the visible church of Christ. (Acts 16:5; Hebrews 10:25)
Civil Government - We believe that rulers should be upheld at all times except in things opposed to the will of God. (Romans 13:1-5)
The Final Judgement - We believe that all shall stand some day before the judgement seat of God; and there receive eternal life or death. (2 Corinthians 5:10)
Heaven - We believe that heaven is the glorious eternal home of born-again believers. (John 14:1-3; Revelation 7:15-17)
Hell - We believe that hell is the place of eternal torment for all who reject Christ as the Savior. (Revelation 20: 10, 15)
Evangelism - We believe that soul winning is the most important responsibility of the Church. (James 5:20)
Tithes and Offerings - We believe that the method ordained of god for the support and spread of His cause is by giving of tithes and free-will offerings. (Malachi 3:10; 2 Corinthians 9:7)
[my summary of other info in the brochure]
The term “Foursquare” stands for the four-fold ministry of Jesus Christ as the Savior (Romans 10:9), Baptizer with the Holy Ghost (Luke 3:16), Healer (1 Peter 2:24), and coming King (Acts 1:11)
The Foursquare denomination was founded by a woman, Aimee Semple McPherson, in 1923. We don’t compete with or compare ourselves to other denominations.
What I’m totally missing from Protestant Christianity is the feminine dimension. Once you take Mary out of the picture, you’re left with an exclusively masculinist religion. Even Judaism and Islam have an explicitly feminine side of God… and Mary is revered in Islam too… and in other religions there are goddesses, or The Goddess… but I’ve never seen a religion that so totally cuts the feminine out the way Protestantism does. If anyone can demonstrate that I’m wrong, I’ll be grateful.
OK, I can think of one, but only one, exception: the Shakers. They were founded by Mother Ann Lee who claimed she was the Second Coming of Christ. Too bad they’re extinct now. One major drawback of banning sex altogether is that your group becomes extinct.
However, in many protestant denominations, women can be clergy at any level, so it is not at all exclusively masculine. I know more about Presbyterianism than others, and they have had female ministers for years. I kind of like that.
Generally, the protestant (and Orthodox) denominations also permit, and in some cases encourage, their clergy to marry. As a result, IMHO, they usually have no problem with birth control; while they certainly don’t encourage divorce, they generally permit it and have no problem with a divorced person remarrying.
I have attended Congregational and Presbyterian churches, and in my experience there was no recognition of the Pope as anything other than a religious man who was at the head of the hierarchy of another religion. There was no expectation that we would pay any more attention to his opinions or beliefs than anyone else’s. We certainly had no obligation to obey his directives.
IIRC Protestant comes from “pro testare” - Latin for “for the testament (i.e. the Bible)” and comes from the idea of reforming the church by turning back to the Bible as the direct word of God, rather than the interpretation given by the Church. At the time, the Church discouraged reading of the Bible by the laity, and several early reformers were punished or executed for translating and/or distributing the Bible. This led to one of the basics of Protestant religious belief, which is that the individual must interact directly with God/Jesus, without the priest as an intermediary.
First, you’ve got to stop using “British” and “English” as if they’re interchangeable. They’re not.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is composed of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Within the U.K., there are two established churches: the Church of England (which for this purpose includes Wales), and the Church of Scotland. Although they have similar names, they’re quite different in their organization and related theology. In particular, the Queen is supreme head of the Church of England, but has no role at all in the Church of Scotland.
The organization of the Church of England is similar in many respects to that of the Roman Catholic Church. It’s hierarchical in nature, and continues the belief in the Apostolic Succession, similar to the RCC. There are the three orders: bishop, priest and deacon. It is the mother church of the Anglican communion worldwide.
One point where Anglicanism parts company from the RCC is on the status of national churches. We believe that the church is universal (one of the meanings of catholic), but that does not mean that there must be one person at the head of the church for the entire world. Rather, individual nations can have their own Anglican church, in communion with the other Anglican churches and sharing traditions, theology and so on, but without any one person as head of the entire church.
In addition, bishops in most of the national Anglican churches are elected, by some combination of votes by the laity and clergy of the particular diocese. In most of the churches, they are not appointed from the top.
Getting back to Her Majesty, the Queen is the “only supreme head on earth, under Christ” of the Church of England, but only for the Church of England. Other Anglican churches choose their own head in their own way. For example, the Anglican Chuch of Canada elects one person as Primate, by means of a General Synod of the entire national church. But the Primate is not equivalent to the Pope. He is the administrative head, charged with keeping the organizational structure of the ACC going, but he’s just “first amongst equals” in relation to the rest of the bishops of the ACC. He does not have any special status in establishing church doctrine.
If you envisage Anglicanism as a federation of national churches, each of which is a federation of regional dioceses, you’re getting close to how this particular church operates - and that organizational structure, lacking one dominant person at the top, and with bishops elected in part by the laity, is one of the key differences from the RCC. So it’s inaccurate to say that Anglicanism doesn’t “believe” in the Pope. Rather, it’s just that in our view he is the Bishop of Rome, not the head of the Church universal.
Oh, and getting back to the Church of Scotland, which as far as I know is still the established church of Scotland: in spite of the similarity in name to the Church of England, the Church of Scotland is not part of the Anglican communion. It’s a presbyterian church, meaning it rejects the Apostolic Succession and places the authority in local elected bodies called presbyters, with regional and national assemblies. I don’t know much more than that; perhaps one of our Presbyterian posters can elaborate.
Since the Church of Scotland rejects the Apostolic Succession, and places authority in the elected church bodies, the Queen has no role in the Church of Scotland.
Then, there is a Scottish Episcopalian church which is part of the Anglican communion. However, it is not established, and the Queen does not have any special role in it, as far as I know.
And finally, in Northern Ireland there is no established church. There is a Church of Ireland, which is anglican, and Presbyterian churches, but HM does not have any special role in relation to any of them.
If you want to find out more about the Anglican communion, I would suggest you check out Polycarp’s thread over in GD: I’m Proud of my Church
This seems to be a bit of folk etymology.
It is true that the original Latin form of the word meant to “call forth to testify,” However, by the late Middle Ages, each of its cognates in the various European languages had already picked up the meaning of “denying another claim.” The word Protestant (or its German cognate) was originally used by (or of) the German princes who declared their protest agains the 1529 Diet of Spires, which had reaffirmed the RCC condemnation of Luther’s proposed reforms, first condemned at the Diet of Wurms.
Whoops! I made a mistake in my last post: Wales has its own separate Anglican church, which is in communion with the Church of England but has separate dioceses and its own Primate. It’s not established.
I’m not sure why you even brought this up, Jomo Mojo, maybe you’re just playing devil’s advocate.
Most modern theologians, and most ancient theologians anyway since the time of Christ, have argued that God is beyond gender. Most Protestants agree (with the exception of the Mormons, IIRC). The line especially familiar to Anglicans “God is spirit, you shall worship him in spirit and truth” is important here. If God is spirit only, and not body, how can he have a gender?
Furthermore, Jesus explained that in the Resurrection gender will be a thing of the past, since all will be like the angels of heaven.
So, I’d argue that Christianity is essentially about transcending gender. It doesn’t matter if there is no “feminine” element to Protestantism, since it is in the long term of no consequence.
UnuMondo
If you say Jesus is God, and Jesus is a man, then sorry, that is a gendered God. Also the Father and the Son—where are the Mother and the Daughter? You have not even begun to resolve these difficulties for me. Your assumption of my being Devil’s advocate is unwarranted. These are serious questions.
My problem with all this, with all due respect, is that if Man was created in God’s image pre original sin, and fell from grace after the conscious decision to sin…
…then the original model of Man must have included the will to sin, thereby rendering it something less than holy. How could beings created in God’s likeness sin?
Since the Son was eternally begotten of God the Father then Jesus was not a man for a long time. His incarnation was brief, and could only have been in one gender, so there was a 50/50 chance it was going to be a male. Once Jesus ascended to heaven it really doesn’t matter about his physical form, since he was reunited with the Father, so when Christians pray it isn’t to a “man”.
“Father” and “Son” because the culture in which these terms sprung were patriarchal. But it doesn’t really matter, since God is without gender. You might as well use the phrases “Mother, Son, and Holy Spirit” if that’s what you want to do, because they are just as (in)accurate of God’s true nature as “Father” and “Son”.
Incidentally, your assertion that Protestantism is inherently entirely masculine is false. There are plenty of Protestants who support the making of inclusive Bibles in which God is address as our “Heavenly Parent” and so forth.
But why try to inject gender issues in religion? All it would do is lead to division because then people would think that there is actually some meaningful difference between men and women in the really long term. Since the Resurrection will transcend gender, Christians should try focusing on that instead of trying to carefully manipulate their faith to produce a balance of “masculine” and “feminine” qualities. Do people honestly think that just because they address God in masculine terms, then God is somehow less able to help them?
UnuMondo
Since the Son was eternally begotten of God the Father then Jesus was not a man for a long time. His incarnation was brief, and could only have been in one gender, so there was a 50/50 chance it was going to be a male. Once Jesus ascended to heaven it really doesn’t matter about his physical form, since he was reunited with the Father, so when Christians pray it isn’t to a “man”.
“Father” and “Son” because the culture in which these terms sprung were patriarchal. But it doesn’t really matter, since God is without gender. You might as well use the phrases “Mother, Son, and Holy Spirit” if that’s what you want to do, because they are just as (in)accurate of God’s true nature as “Father” and “Son”.
Incidentally, your assertion that Protestantism is inherently entirely masculine is false. There are plenty of Protestants who support the making of inclusive Bibles in which God is address as our “Heavenly Parent” and so forth.
But why try to inject gender issues in religion? All it would do is lead to division because then people would think that there is actually some meaningful difference between men and women in the really long term. Since the Resurrection will transcend gender, Christians should try focusing on that instead of trying to carefully manipulate their faith to produce a balance of “masculine” and “feminine” qualities. Do people honestly think that just because they address God in masculine terms, then God is somehow less able to help them?
UnuMondo
I guess I wasn’t humorous enough talking about cannabilism; you did the same thing and took what I said as literally true! Also, I’m not a preacher and I like to let everyone live their own (my wife’s Catholic, and I don’t try to stop her from her cannibalism) – my “you can’t do this” wasn’t me speaking to any specific you; rather I was paraphrasing the views of certain groups.
So, to kind of address the OP again, there are differences even in Catholic churches. Down in Mexico the services (err… masses) are really traditional, kind of like the Catholic churches you see on TV in the USA. But the few Catholic churches here in the USA I’ve gone to are, uh, too much like the various protestant churches I’ve gone to. Stand up, sing, sit down, stand again, sing, and so on. Finally the padre gets to the lecture, then some more standing, singing, and sitting, and everyone else does the communion thing. I don’t, and my wife doesn’t since she thinks she’s living in sin (me not being Catholic) and can’t confess. Some other people don’t, either, but a whole lot do. Do ALL the people really confess in the last week before taking their communion? In any case, man, if the guy could just do the sermon we’d only be there like 20 minutes.
Oh, even though I liked the Mexican Catholic masses better, one thing always upset me: all of the Catholic priest slave-driver gold that’s everywhere. And just recently I was at a wedding down there; they passed the collection plate around! What the hell?
I’m protestant not affiliated with any particular group, but firmly enough to say I’m not Catholic.
You mistake “image” for “likeness”. Very different things.
nitpick: it was the sale of indulgences (and falsified documents claiming to grant indulgences) that was condemned by Martin Luther, and which the Catholic Church has since rejected (indeed, it had already been wrestling with the problem before ML showed up).
Indulgences in themselves are still very much a part of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, even though you don’t often hear the word nowadays.
Here’s the feminine side of God:
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (Genesis 1:27, KJV)
God created the human race (called “man” here) in his image, and that image was both male and female.
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28, KJV)
In Christ, gender/sex makes no difference, any more than race makes a difference.
In any case, I think this belongs in its own thread, rather than hijacking this thread 