OK, what’s the deal with the different denominations of protestantism?
A pal of mine who’s a Catholic insists that it’s all procedural and ‘on the margins’…that all Christians of any sort are saved and therefore get into heaven.
That conflicts with some of the things I’ve seen from others both reasonable and looney.
So what’s the deal? In the Christian mind-set will there be methodists standing next to baptists standing next to catholics in heaven or what?
In general, Christians of all “flavors” believe that what counts is belief in Jesus Christ, acceptance of His grace, Atonement, and forgiveness, and the doing of His will – that anyone who does so, regardless of denominational affiliation, will be saved in His mercy. (You could get into long involved discussions about which specific elements of that italicized phrase are absolutely necessary – suffice it to say that nearly everyone would agree on the overwhelming majority of Christians who do all three to their ability, and that a long GD-style thread would be needed to get into the reasoning behind why parts of it are not mandative.)
At one time, it was a commonplace of lay Catholic thought that only Catholics were saved – the actual teaching of the Church was otherwise, but was not publicized. Present Catholic thought has grace mediated through the Church and extended to all who follow Christ, even if they don’t find themselves called to become Catholic. Orthodox take a similar nebulous-edge view of things – “We know where salvation may be found [i.e., in the Orthodox Churches]; we do not claim to know where it may not be found.” (Kallistos Ware, quoting a Church Father whose identity I don’t recall.)
There are a number of small Protestant groups who claim to be The Only Group with the Right Answer – and that everybody but them is doomed. I trust you can guess what the overwhelming majority of Christians, from the Southern Baptists to the U.C.C., think of that claim.
But in general, the divisions lie in a willingness to disagree about elements of doctrine and practice, considered as discretionary, not mandatory, belief, while conceding that the groups with whom you disagree are also Christian and that believers belonging to them are undoubtedly saved. A Presbyterian, a Lutheran, an Anglican, and a Methodist will have certain emphases in doctrine and in worship practice that are important to him/her, but has no doubt that the others are doing the right thing as well.
Does that help clarify matters?
The old joke is that a person dies, arrives in heaven, and is being given the tour by St. Peter. They pass a building full of people at a somewhat boisterous party, having a great time. The newcomer asks “Who are they?”, and St. Peter responds “They’re the Catholics.” Then they pass a building full of people who are more subdued, having a party but noticeably quieter. Asked “Who are they?”, St. Peter says “They’re the Methodists.” Next they come upon a building full of people who seem rather dour, no merrymaking to be seen. The new arrival asks “And who’s in there?” St. Peter says “Shhh – they’re the Baptists, but keep it down – they think they’re the only ones here.”
Substitute whichever denominations fit the stereotype, in your view. As Polycarp mentioned, certain denominations (not necessarily Baptists, and I’m sorry I don’t know which ones, but they exist) espouse the belief that they alone are meeting the requirements to meet God and Jesus in heaven. Most, however, have the view that the various denominations are simply on somewhat different paths to heaven.
Probably because that’s what we learned in Catholic school. The nuns I was taught by told us you don’t get into heaven unless you’re baptized, and only a Catholic can baptize you “officially”. I really do think the nun practice their own peculiar brand of Catholicism-- or at least they used to when I was growing up.
For my upcoming wedding (in the Catholic Church) I had to present them with a certificate of baptism. The priest already had the form filled out that they use to grant waivers of this policy, so when I showed up with a certificate pointing out that I was baptized Methodist, he was surprised. He asked me a few questions about my comfort being married by a priest (vice a preacher or pastor) and said that my Christian faith was “good enough” for The Church and the proof I’d put forth was “more than they usually get.” So the Catholic Church, as exclusive as they may have been, tend to accept other Christians.
In theory, the Catholic Church has “closed” Communion, where only a baptized Catholic who has recently had confession may partake of the body & blood. In practice, I’ve never been baptized Catholic, and I’ve never been to confessional, although I think the practice is interesting. I show up to Mass infrequently and partake with the rest of them. There isn’t a nun with a ruler checking IDs or anything. Most other churches I’ve been to practice an “open” Communion where you are invited to partake especially if you haven’t before. If it’s your first time the pastor or preacher may ask you to stay up front, and publicly welcome you aboard the bus to heaven (in a manner of speaking). At that point you are usually handed over to the care of one of the lay leaders who will go buy you a Bible and come over to read the scripture with you.
All the same I have Protestant and Baptist friends who believe that Catholics practice idolatry (because they pray to the saints as well as the Trinity) and are therefore going to Hell. Catholics, because they have so many other books to read, and have to keep up with what the Pope has ruled on Issue X or Question Y, tend to understand that other Christians are equally “saved.”
This is somewhat of what inspired me to ask the question, actually.
Several years ago I attended a wedding at a Catholic Church in which we went through the whole mass et al. The bride was catholic and the groom was not.
When time came for communion the priest claimed that ‘because of a 400 year old argument’ there would be no holy communion today’.
I was raised in the Church of Christ. It was stated in no uncertain terms from the pulpit, in Sunday school, and in casual conversation among members that everybody who was not Church of Christ was going to hell. That included Hindu, Muslim, the Catholics (especially the Catholics!), the Methodists, the Baptists, and Church of God. When I asked in Sunday school what happened to the people lived before Church of Chirst was established, I got no answer.
What amazed me at the first Catholic wedding I went to was that the priest made sure not a crumb of “bread” nor drop of wine was “wasted”. He finished off all that the bride didn’t have (non-Catholic groom).
As a Methodist, all the churches I’ve gone to have used some commercial-brand grape juice for “wine” and some round-loafed bread. So the grape juice is symbolic of the wine that is symbolic of the blood of Christ. 
I went to a wedding in a Catholic church recently where the bride had been converted. There was no Communion as part of it, and I surmised that it may have been because her family would be uncomfortable.
Jurph, definitely other Christian baptisms are “good enough” for the Catholic Church. When someone is received into the Church and doesn’t know for sure about their baptism, the priest will say, “If you have not been baptised before, I baptise you in the name of the Father…”
What is your reasoning behind receiving Communion when it is, as you say, “closed”?
AWB, Yep, the wine is finished off but the hosts can be saved in the tabernacle. (I had to confirm that on Google and was disconcerted by the “Find Extra Communion Hosts on Ebay” search result :eek: ) After consecration, if a host falls on the floor it should be picked up and eaten, and if wine spills it should be wiped up and the cloth burned.
Don’t the two flavors of Lutheran differ on open and closed communion as well?
Saying “I was raised Baptist” isn’t very informative, since it’s such a wide-ranging set of beliefs, but I was. We were schooled that no one but us was going to make it in and the existence of a special circle in hell was implied for those evil papists. :rolleyes:
That’s the crux right there. Catholics don’t believe that the host/wine are symbolically the body/blood of Christ, but the ACTUAL body/blood of Christ (once they are consecrated by the priest). You can’t throw it away…
I can’t speak for any of the other flavors of Lutheranism (Wisconsin Synod, Missouri Synod, etc.). I’m an ELCA Lutheran, and our standard invitation (paraphrasing) is “all *who have been prepared by their church and * who accept the presence of Christ under the bread and wine are welcome to participate”. (My former Pastor included the italicized bit; my present Pastor does not).
The last Catholic wedding I attended was my sister’s. I asked the Priest how he felt about Lutherans communing, as I’m aware there is some discretion on the part of the individual Priest. This fellow told me that, if I had no problem with it, then neither did he.
Jurph wrote
I’m far from expert, but my experience is different from this. As a kid, I had a friend, and we would sleep over at each others houses pretty much every weekend. When I stayed at his house, it was mandated that I go to Catholic Church. I didn’t take communion, as I wasn’t baptized. It’s true noone was checking ID, and nobody announced “the non-pure shall stay in the pews!”, but it seemed to be accepted that non-baptized didn’t partake.
Also, every Christmas, I go to a Catholic church with my Catholic mother, sister and others in my family, and the same seems to be true. Us lessers stay behind while the indoctrinated get the crackers.
I should add that as an atheist, not getting communion doesn’t really mean anything to me and I haven’t pushed the issue. I’m just there to enjoy the company of my Christian loved ones in a ceremony that’s important to them.
The ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of Amerca) practices open communion.
The LCMS (Lutheran Church, Missouri synod) practices closed communion except for
or extraordinary emergency situations.
Unfortunately, I don’t have time to wade through the 73 PDF files that “Pulpit Fellowship” pulls up on the LCMS site, so I don’t know who they are in fellowship with.
A Catholic friend of mine told me once that the only reason that there were non-Catholic Christians was that “they just don’t want to do what God says.”
A Church of Christer friend of mine once told a Mennonite friend of mine that she (the Mennonite) was going to hell if for no other reason then only because she had been baptized by sprinkling and not full dunking.
After my family left the Roman Catholic church when I was about six we went through several denominations and often hear the Chickesque lessons about how Catholics were all going to hell. I was actually rebaptized as a teenager in the Southern Baptist church. There was this unspoken understanding that R.C. infant baptism didn’t count. Some people don’t believe in infant baptism but I’ve actually seen it. 
I’m past that now, but in the ELCA, and the one thing I know is that God mas more compassion, wisdom and understanding about what is in our hearts than we ever could. I expect heaven will be filled with an awful lot of people who thought there were insurmountable gulfs between their religions.
Except the mormons of course who will be in Celestial heaven. 
JK of course, I couldn’t resist a South Park joke.
As Genghis Bob said ELCA has open communion for all believers and in my congregation we have nonordained members give communion along with our pastor. We keep it simple and use juice, not becaue we are prigs about alcohol, but so children and those in recovery can commune too. I’ll leave the transubstationation argument to others but I do believe in the presence of the holy spirit at our commuinon.
FTR we use wafers and just store the leftovers until the following week. I’ll have to ask what is done with leftovers when we use regular bread as we haven’t done that when it’s been my turn to prepare communion. Leftover juice was poured on the ground but we now have a special area for communion prep with it’s own sink that drains directly into the ground rather than the sewer.
I never recieved my official fist communion as R.C. but went to Easter service with a woman I was dating a few years ago. The priest had this palm frond that must have held a gallon of water and he was blessing us but good. Hairdos were ruined, mascara was running like a river in the aisle. I got soaked pretty good and I took it as a good sign that my skin didn’t blister and peel off so I took communion with no fear of being struck dead.
IIRC, there have been some particularly dour sects who believed that the number of the Elect who shall be saved is already known, and is limited to 144,000 … so, not only would everybody outside their particular congregations be damned, so would all of their own members who drew, as it were, tickets numbered 144,001 and above …
Personally, I’ve always leaned towards the doctrine of Universal Salvation, myself.
A Catholic “rule” that I recall hearing from my Catholic grade school religion teacher was that non-Catholics were supposed to leave Mass after the Intercessions, namely before the part of the Mass that leads up to the transubstantiation and Communion. Not that there were ever any announcements to that effect. She was “old-school”, perhaps that was a pre-Vatican II rule.
In later years, I would come to realize why she spent so much time over at the rectory. At least our local priest wasn’t doing the altar boys. Though he was embezzling from the collection plate…(he was defrocked, convicted, and served some time under house arrest…) The parish became quite “dysfunctional” after this came out…
Us, too. One of my 15-yr-olds will be dispensing alcoholic beverages at a Christmas Eve service.
We offer both but my wife, a former Methodist, is a prig the other way, saying that Jesus didn’t hold up a mug or Welch’s. But since our first transubstantiation argument ("He didn’t say, ‘This wine symbolizes my blood.’ He said, “This is my blood!’”) I’ve learned which topics to avoid, especially now that we’re Lutherans we’re supposed to be consubstantiationists, a compromise that makes neither of us happy.
Our leftover bread gets broken up for birds and wine gets poured under the same tree they’ve been pouring it under since the '40s. Wife, being on the property commission and responsible for getting the grass growing again under that tree, has yet to complain about that practice.
I’ve used the same test and recommend it to others when asking they join us at the altar. As I have mentioned here before, one of my favorite things about the ELCA is that I have never heard the words, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you,” the ELCA attitude being that nobody needs communion quite like us sinners.
Growing up southern Baptist our criteria for communion was “anyone who’s saved.” I have seen other Baptist churches (not southern, another kind) that kept it solely to members of that particular church.
I figure if all Christians are going to be at the marriage supper of the Lamb, there’s no reason to not partake together now. But that’s just me.
The phrase “unworthy manner” seems to be interpreted differently when it comes to taking communion. Growing up I was half afraid to take it because what’s the criteria for unworthy manner? I still don’t like taking it, really, because I always have this nagging feeling going “you know you’re not good enough” etc.