Divide between Catholics and Protestants? (Asking why)
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36 comments
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The Divide is Deep… It’s nearly impossible for us, Protestants to unite with Catholics ever again not when Pope Francis is busy in trying to bring back all religions including Pagan religions together under one fold,i.e, One World Religion…
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Protestants can be relationally inclusive but we have to remain doctrinally exclusive.
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Source of authority. The Bible says scripture is inspired by God, and makes the man of God complete and thoroughly equipped for every good work. While Catholics are required to believe it is inspired, they do not believe it is sufficient to make the man of God complete, or thoroughly equipped for every good work. As Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum states, Catholics must “venerate” (one of their weird words basically meaning worship lite) scripture and “sacred tradition” equally.
By definition, there is no “Protestant” Church. A Protestant is just a Christian that doesn’t believe the dogmas of the Catholic Church. Some definitions specify that this only applies to denominations that arose after the Reformation. Point being, the emphasis a Protestant puts on tradition is entirely down to the individual, and the Church they happen to follow. Personally, I don’t even identify as Protestant. I don’t believe tradition has any authority at all, save the ones preserved in inspired scripture. Since scripture came long before there was a Catholic Church to protest, it makes no sense to call myself a Protestant. You might as well call me an atheist because I don’t believe in Allah.
By contrast, as I said, Catholics believe their traditions (or at least the ones currently held by their Church, but like all man made religions, their Church evolves) are sacred, and pay lip service to the idea that they are equal. Of course, as scripture constantly disagrees with their “sacred” traditions, they CANNOT put this into practice. Unfortunately, when Catholics find such a conflict, the Bible pretty much always loses. They obey/believe the tradition instead of the Bible. Sometimes, this leads to relatively harmless beliefs, like the perpetual virginity of Mary. It doesn’t matter what you believe about Mary’s relationship with her husband after Jesus was born, so even though the Bible clearly says Joseph kept her a virgin until she gave birth to Jesus, Catholics are safe to believe they never consummated their marriage even then. Others of their beliefs, such as salvation via the sacraments as opposed to salvation by grace through faith, not of works (see Ephesians 2:8-9), are absolutely fatal, and make it 100% legitimate to say one cannot be truly Christian and truly Catholic.
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Nasty, nasty history. Similar to what we see between Suni’s and Shiites in the Middle East today. We have come far in tolerating one another over the last 150 years. The animosity can still be picked up in certain settings with traditions and sacraments being involved in the Catholic church which were not prescribed the Apostles and early church Father’s. Hence Protestants, adhering to sola scriptura, look to the Bible as their primary authority through which to learn how to live as Christians.
Catholics rely on scripture, but also the office of the Papacy, which is claimed to have come from Peter himself, has the ability to create, alter, or remove practices and traditions upon the earth.
Based on what we see in the text Jesus was fairly anti-establishment when it came to hierarchical sects of religion. Often being much harsher with the elitist religious Jewish orders, like the Pharisees. That being said, I don’t think the Lord would condone or be interested in the make ritualistic tradition based ideas in Catholicism.
Jesus’ life style, while active during his ministry years, was more communal and had a hippiesque, spontaneous, organic and having campouts all over Israel, Galilee and even into Samaria.
I have a hard time seeing a solid parallel which would suggest either Church is 100% God approved on doctrine, values or tenants. They even differ on the Lord’s Super. Of the two camps Evangelicals and other Protestants are particularly focused on the scripture in the Bible. Roman Catholics have the bigger more structure hierarchical system, plus they dialog a lot better with culture to find solutions to hard questions. Like the Big Bang or Evolution.
Let us not forget the Eastern Orthodox. The first church fracture of Rome.
Religious red tape is the cause of much bad blood and animosity. I can see why Jesus disliked it so much. Splitting hairs over doctrine isn’t the central place to build our trenches. We can practice the old saying towards one another ‘In the Essentials unity, non-essential liberty, but in all things Charity/love”. At the very least, we ought to practice the Golden Rule with one another. Being right about Baptism or whether or not transubstantiation makes the bread and the wine the literal body and blood of Jesus are not going to bar anyone from the redemptive work of the cross. Not even asking Mary or some other Saint to intercede God on your behalf is going to alter God’s saving grace through Christ. If it could, and we had to have our doctrinal ducks in a row in order to be heaven bound I don’t think anyone would make it.
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Catholic gives important to rituals protestant gives important to Bible
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The history of the Catholic church is horrendous, judge them by their fruits and wow, that’s some nasty rotten fruit they have to explain away at every turn, not to mention their ongoing idolatry of men and graven images. They are scripturally ignorant, placing the traditions of men before the Word of God.
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It breaks down to the work of Christ: for protestants He completed the work on Calvary when He said “it is finished”! Catholics don’t believe such so He must be re-sacraficed continuously. In their defense Catholic doctrine teaches that they aren’t resacraficing Jesus, but mystically joining in that sacrifice as it happened….hence it is literally the body and blood of Christ that they offer their members
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The first two of the Ten Commandments.
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I’m neither.
I go to non-Protestant Churches -
I’m Protestant and catholic…what’s the problem?
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Well, catholics believe in praying to Mary and the saints, they believe in infant baptism, they believe that priests can forgive sins, they believe in purgatory, they believe the pope is infallible I could go on and on
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When I was in phoenix I was a part of the John 17 movement. It gives me hope for better ecumenical dialogue.
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This post shows how lost people are with today’s world.
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You have 20 religious people. Half of them are Catholics the other half are Protestants. 20 divided by 2 equals 10
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I have known some of the most faithful people in both Catholic and Protestant and the most fake in both as well. For me, the Bible tells us that We are all sinners and so we must believe the only way to our Father is through Jesus…not Mary, not Peter or John or any other saints, but Him. That’s the core of what we should be believing.
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I left the Roman Catholic Church many many years ago because Sister Superior told my three little daughters , if they didn’t get their parents to play Thursday Night Bingo, they were all going straight to HELL. The following day they were in Public school. Catholics dogma teaches Their way is the only way to Heaven. Please DON’ T believe the lie. Lies only come from one place, that’s the Evil One. Jesus is my Savior not my Religion. He came for ALL who will believe in Him.
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There already is
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Simply put, Catholicism is a teaching of Christ-insufficiency.
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This predates even Martin Luther. The reformation was already in progress at the time Luther wrote his famous “95 Thesis” and nailed it on the door at the church in Wittenberg. The issue is frankly this simple. Luther saw the blight on the church with the selling of indulgences.
He, (Luther), wanted to sit down and discuss his points. The Pope and his envoys wanted Luther scrouged and dragged to Rome to become the main source of heat as they burned him at the stake.
To recap. Luther. Let’s have a discussion about these issues.
Pope. You dare to question me? Burn him.
The end.
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I’m classified as a Protestant Christian and was an Atheist for several years before getting Saved. I grew up Catholic. A LOT of Protestant Christians hate Catholics. Catholics don’t really pay attention to be honest so they don’t really hate back.
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Protestants: sola scriptora, sola gratia, sola fide
Catholics: saved by faith plus works plus church traditions and dogmas, plus seven sacraments plus saint worship plus purgatory and only then you can go to heaven. I know, I used to be catholic myself. -
Why??? Because the Roman Catholic church has nothing to do with true Christianity …. the Catholic church does not possess the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Roman Catholic church has been an abomination from the beginning….
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Read your Bible, you’ll understand.
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Catholics left the bible and started making up man made dogmas.
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Google 95 theses
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I think depending on the country, things might differ. Things seem to be better now. I am definitely biased and believe that Rome needs more reformation, but I don’t think I hate them. Maybe just look down on them a little.
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For me personally, is Pope infallibility, purgatory, priestly celibacy, intercession of the saints, statues, and the very oddly elevated status of Mary.
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Pope, Mary worship on the same or even higher level than Jesus, celibate presets, statues.
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Catholics straight deny Sola scriptura and Sola fide, I’ve been called a heretic for only using the Bible as a reference against what others have said but ya know that’s just life
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I used to be Catholic myself. I eventually left as I studied the Bible and found the doctrines to be unbiblical and sinful. I later heard about the scandals that was inside the church and it disgusted me
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Faith.
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Not sure maybe cause most every doctrine is different. RCC said those who believe in faith alone by Christ alone are anathama.
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For more information on the differences, I highly suggest going to http://www.proclaimingthegospel.org and joining a safe Facebook learning group called “Former and Searching Catholics Connect”. God bless and happy learning.
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