Nice discussion. Thanks, Northern Piper, for picking up on my thread and on the Anglican Church of Wales – especially since Archbishop Williams is AFAIK the first man since St. Athanasius to move from being Primate of one national church to Primate of another.
I must differ with the position that “we don’t worship the man Jesus but God” since every Orthodox and Catholic church and the ovwerwhelming majority of Protestants subscribe to the definition of the dual nature of Christ made at the Council of Chalcedon. God the Son, according to that, became man for our sakes. In the words of a saint of the church, “He became as we are in order that we might become as He is.”
Just pointing out that at least some of the confusion over infant baptism seems to be that the Baptists do not practice this; many (most?) other Protestant divisions do.
I grew up in the Reformed Church of America (Dutch Reformed), and they baptized infants. Members had their equivalent of “confirmation” when they felt old enough to understand the meaning of acceptance of belief in what was taught, usually in the pre-/early teenage years. It isn’t automatic at a certain age, unlike what seems to be the case in Catholicism.
Gah, now I think of this - I didn’t see it mentioned before, but the “Catholic Bible” is different from the “Protestant Bible”. As far as I’m aware (there may be exceptions), no Protestant Bible includes the books known as the Apocrypha. Can’t think of them off the top of my head, but this includes Maccabees.
Also, the liberalism vs. conservatism on social issues really can’t be assumed. The Reformed Church of America - at least the church I was in as a child - was extremely conservative. Voting for a female usher or deacon would have been nearly unheard of, much less having a female minister. Pamphlets on pro-life/anti-abortion marches were available in the lobby. The Mother’s Day sermon that our minister did included all the classic subordinate arguments. Meanwhile, the United Church of Christ allows for the ordination of not just women, but also gays and lesbians; the rest of the social issues climate seems to swing much more towards the “liberal” end of the spectrum as well.
Note that some of this could be just local variations, but looking at the general tenets of the version of Protestantism can give you a good idea of what it’s like.
Another difference one might notice in a Protestant service vs. a Catholic mass is that the Protestants have an additional line in the Lord’s Prayer (aka “Our Father”). It ends with “For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever, Amen”. Protestants don’t make the sign of the cross before prayer or any other time that I have observed.
While Catholics omit that line in most recitations of the Our Father,
they do include it in the mass. After the congregation recites the line “…deliver us from evil,” (usually the last line in the Catholic version), the priest says “Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” The congregation then responds with “For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever.”
Probably a bit too simplistic, since Catholics and Orthodox also believe that we believe that we commune directly with God.
There are earlier threads identifying the role of the priest in the liturgy, and this thread is about Protestant belief, but the idea that Catholics have a “middle man” is a distortion.
I’m sorry for sounding scolding or condescending, but in order to answer the OP’s question, you need to have either lots of direct experience of many Protestant churches, or be very well read on the subject, or at least have had one or more college level courses on the subject. Otherwise, you’re simply giving your general impressions based on your limited experience and hearsay.
IOW, most of the responses in this thread are utter bullshit.
Those who’ve posted what their Protestant denomination is all about are correct inasmuch they know their own denomination’s teachings, but they do not answer the question with regard to all of Protestantism.
The problem in answering the question is that Protestantism is so diverse, that almost any generalization will be wrong, for one can easily find a Protestant denomination that is the exception to the rule, whatever rule you come up with.
For example, let’s take the American Heritage Dictionary’s definition of Protestant:
WRT the bible as the sole source of revelation: Not true for the Anglican churches. They’ll accept pratristic sources, tradition, and reason as sources of revelation.
WRT justification by faith alone. This is also true of Roman Catholic theology. A recent joint document of the RCC and the Lutherans attest to this.
WRT universal priesthood of all believers: The RCC also believes this. In addition to the universal priesthood of all believers, the RCC also has an ordained, institutionalized priesthood, but so do the Lutherans.
And so, you see, defining Protestantism isn’t easy. Whatever generalization you come up with is either true also for RCC (against whom, Protestantism is usually defined), or not true for a particular denomination.
Another problem is the term ‘Protestant.’ It refers to those who protested (rebelled, left, seceded) from the RCC beginning with Martin Luther’s break from Papal authority. Some Protestant denominations (or more precisely, some members of some denominations) don’t like the term because they see themselves as reformers and not rebels. And so, some within the Anglican, Episcopal, and Lutheran traditions prefer to call themselves Reformed Churches and also proudly call themselves Catholic. Indeed, their liturgies (services) are almost indistinguishable from Catholic liturgies.
Other denominations see themselves as definitely very, very different from Catholicism and proudly use the term Protestant (such as the Methodists, Baptists, and evangelical Churches). These denominations tended to adopt practices very different from the RCC precisely because they were different.
And so, you have Protestant churches that are very ‘Catholic’ and some that are very, very different from Catholicism.
They best you could do to answer this question is to read and study a bit about the major Protestant denominations, for any generalization is bound to be an overgeneralization.
The Shakers may be down numerically from their mid-19th-century peak of 5000 or so members, but they are not yet extinct. One community, Sabbathday Lake in Maine, survives to this day.
A theological distinction that was made by Luther between the Protestant and Catholic doctrine is **Justification by faith ** vs. Justification by good works. Good works in the time of Luther often meant doing penance, often in the form of giving large sums of money to the Church. The poor were terrified they would go to Hell because they could neither do the penance - “Crawl 20 miles on your knees”, nor could they buy the indulgence to free them from the penance. Indulgences were only available to the rich.
This is explained eloquently in Paul Johnson’s majestic History of Christianity. What an excellent book!
The theological debate continues. I am an Episcopalian, and justification by faith is central to my belief. Here are some Catholic-based references for this on-going debate.
I was christened as a baby and chose to accept that as my baptism (which would have been similar) when I joined the Cumberland Presbyterian Church at age ten.
Communion services there were only on the fifth Sunday of a month – or on special occasions such as Easter or Maundy Thursday. What I really like about this particular communion service is that as a symbol of the priesthood of all believers, we pass communion one person to the next. The bread is on a plate which we offer to the person sitting next to us. The grape juice is in very small glasses in a tray that holds them securely. Again, we hold the tray for the person next to us. I really like that expression of community.
For a while I attended Unity Church (not Unitarian). They refer to God as “Father-Mother God.” And they baptize “in the spirit” without water, but with the laying on of hands.
My membership is in the Episcopal Church. I love the ritual, the traditions, and our willingness to grow. The Episcipal Church allows its bishops to be either women or men – single, divorced, married or living in openly committed homosexual relationships.
It is the church which is most like the Roman Catholic Church. But we are not required to confess our sins to anyone other than God. (Just one difference.) Our Bibles do contain the Apocrypha.
