A Question Towards Protestants

[Prodigal]

NOTE: This is not directed towards a Catholic/Orthodox thing. This is directed at Protestants, Anabaptists, Anglicans, Restorationists, ect.

How would you defend your religion separating from Catholicism? And after that, why not Orthodox? And in addition to that, why not any of the other reformation Christian churches? This is just an interest and I want to see what people think. Thanks guys.

[Boer]

Simple, because the founders of the different Protestant felt that the pre-existing religions were imperfect/wrong/flawed in some way(s) and that they could create a "better" religion. Your question is a bit like asking Americans to defend their countries separation from England, and after that, why not France? In addition, why not any of the other already established countries/governments?

[cfmonkey45]

NOTE: This is not directed towards a Catholic/Orthodox thing. This is directed at Protestants, Anabaptists, Anglicans, Restorationists, ect.

How would you defend your religion separating from Catholicism? And after that, why not Orthodox? And in addition to that, why not any of the other reformation Christian churches? This is just an interest and I want to see what people think. Thanks guys.

Differences of theology. Martin Luther only wanted to reform the church, not break from it. However, he was excommunicated. His movement, however, inspired others, although he wasn't the first. Calvin had his own doctrine, Calvinism, which taught, among other things, unconditional election based on Predestination.

Eastern Orthodoxy at the time had been completely enveloped by the Ottoman Empire. They also didn't support doctrines that Luther did, and Calvin had much more radical reformations. The remainder just grew out of there.

[Prodigal]

Eastern Orthodoxy at the time had been completely enveloped by the Ottoman Empire.

You're forgetting about Russia, but I understand your point.

[Zenith Darksea]

And after that, why not Orthodox?

Because they hadn't heard of the Orthodox. People in Western Europe at the time were mostly so ignorant that they either didn't know that the Orthodox Church existed or, if they did, they probably assumed that it was just the same thing as the Roman Catholic Church. Even today most Protestants live in complete ignorance about other Christians and Christian history. Those Protestants who do learn about the Orthodox Church often convert (in the USA alone at least two million Protestants have become Orthodox so far). I'm one of them, in fact.

[CtrlAltDe1337]

Because they hadn't heard of the Orthodox. People in Western Europe at the time were mostly so ignorant that they either didn't know that the Orthodox Church existed or, if they did, they probably assumed that it was just the same thing as the Roman Catholic Church. Even today most Protestants live in complete ignorance about other Christians and Christian history. Those Protestants who do learn about the Orthodox Church often convert (in the USA alone at least two million Protestants have become Orthodox so far). I'm one of them, in fact.

Not really true. The Lutherans tried to build a relations with the eastern (Orthodox) Church but their efforts ultimately failed, of course. But people knew about the eastern Churches; they just had a hard time contacting them through Catholic and Muslim lands.

[bushbush]

isn't religious salvation about you and god? why bother with this my sect is older than yours crap.

[Zenith Darksea]

It's not about sects. Orthodoxy isn't a 'sect'. It's about truth. If the Orthodox Church is the same historical body as that founded by Christ, and if it preaches the same truth, then it matters. But it's not about which competing modern interpretation or sect is slightly older than another.

[bushbush]

It's not about sects. Orthodoxy isn't a 'sect'. It's about truth. If the Orthodox Church is the same historical body as that founded by Christ, and if it preaches the same truth, then it matters. But it's not about which competing modern interpretation or sect is slightly older than another.

you have ur truth, they have their truth. I don't see the point of this thread lol. R u trying to convert ppl over internet? it never happens.

[Prodigal]

you have ur truth, they have their truth. I don't see the point of this thread lol. R u trying to convert ppl over internet? it never happens.

I have. But, no, that isn't the purpose of this thread, I was truly interested.

[boofhead]

I was raised Protestant, and now am more Protestant than I was ever raised as. Because I protest the claim that Catholics or Orthodox follow the Bible exclusively. Or that they have a justification in claiming to be the original church. I've read it cover to cover many times and I still can't see any claim that RC or anyone else is the sole holder of the Truth. It's the ''wisdom of men'', something that is warned against.

Thank God someone had the balls to have the Good Book translated for the common man and interpretation not remain in the shackles of the priesthood.

This is exactly the same thing we have with muslims these days and the Arabic language. Someone who understands it will always turn around and claim you know nothing. Bollocks.

Jesus very often spoke against the Pharisees, who promoted Law and Rules over heartfelt understanding. I see the same in the massive modern denominations. And I think let's bring it back to where Jesus said it belonged a little. It belongs to the children, and the innocent in heart, and the man who seeks it of his own volition.

I've recently read Bede's history of the English church etc written in the 7th or 8th century and already the fascination with hierarchical authority, relics, praying to dead saints is entrenched. Where is that in the Bible?

It isn't.

[AngryTitusPullo]

This is exactly the same thing we have with muslims these days and the Arabic language. Someone who understands it will always turn around and claim you know nothing. Bollocks.

boof,

You really can't leave muslims out even on this topic, can't ya ?

Isn't learning including languages which is not your own one of good virtue, preached by all religions ?

Okay, off me go. Back to your brethren wars.

[boofhead]

Isn't learning including languages which is not your own one of good virtue, preached by all religions ?

Yes, but not purposely.

The world is getting smaLLER.

[basics]

When Jesus Christ said that He came not to diminish the Law but to establish it are we to assume then that there is now a change in the Law that would allow images of God to become normal for believers?

If we look to Pentecost and those Jews who were on that day converted would that experience have made them adopt images of God to replace that which was always to them forbidden?

The answer to both the above is obviously no. But that is not what others determine in their quest to have a face put to God, directly against any commandment ever written. Nowhere in all Scripture were wall paintings depicting God ever seen until men introduced them after most if not all the original disciples were dead.

Why is that? Because no Jew would ever break the Law that saw the Almighty brought down to the imagination of man. Even though as Christian where they were dead to the Law would they go back under the same Law that demanded no images of God ever to be made.

The reason being that what they were dead to would become real once more by their insistence of not being in fulfilment of that Law. They would be back under condemnation. This, the champions of images or icons cannot grasp.

A Christian who needs a picture of God is not a Christian if only because God forbids images of any sort to be associated to Himself. Some one hundred and thirty times in all Scripture are warnings given about this, thirty of them being mentioned in the New Testament.

When the champions of iconism talk of the church, they mean the church that was some hundreds of years away from the original Pentecostal wonder. Not one disciple’s name can be put to the worship even the introduction of icons.

But them assumed to be saints, even named as such, are those used to authenticate this idolic introduction into the church of the living God. Where we were taught that faith alone saves us these men assume that faith, their form, and idols is what keeps us safe. Yet when one has to look to a picture to see God, that is not faith.

Of course the modern idolater can say it is traditional to do these things but it was not traditional before Pentecost nor after to the church that Jesus Christ was building then and is still building. Not one particle of the Law was to be changed in His eyes and that includes the second commandment, which the idolater conveniently ignores to his peril.

So why do they do it? One can only assume the absence of the Holy Ghost is one reason, perhaps even the most important reason. We know that the nations did similar to enthuse their followers yet here is a curiosity that the Muslim also absolutely forbids idols because it is written as such.

And here lies another problem because it has been said that it is only pictures of Jesus that have been iconised, but the question they must ask themselves is Jesus Christ the Lord not God? Was it not Him that gave the commandments about idolatry in the first place? If we believe He is God perhaps we then should listen to what He says.

[Zenith Darksea]

I've recently read Bede's history of the English church etc written in the 7th or 8th century and already the fascination with hierarchical authority, relics, praying to dead saints is entrenched. Where is that in the Bible?

It isn't.

Well, it isn't in the Bible when you phrase it and mischaracterise it in those Protestant terms. If you take the time to try to see the Orthodox perspective, you'll see that it's not all as bad as you think it is.

Take 'praying to dead saints', as you put it. We don't pray to 'dead' saints (how can saints be dead, anyway, if they are in Heaven with God?). We ask people to pray to God for us. It's in the Bible, as clear as day, that we are to pray for each other. And we do that regularly. It is a common practice of Orthodox Christians to pray for one another. It is also clearly stated that "the prayer of a righteous man availeth much". So why shouldn't we ask the saints to pray for us as well? Are we to say that just because their physical bodies have died, then somehow they live in complete separation from the rest of the Christian Church, which cannot be divided? Of course not. The saints can and do still pray for us, and in theory there is nothing to stop us praying for the saints, either. And, as you see, all of this is following clear statements in the Bible.

You see, when you actually try to see it from the Orthodox perspective, rather than from the perspective of Protestant mischaracterisations of the Roman Catholic Church (which isn't even relevant to Orthodoxy), all of a sudden things start to appear a lot more reasonable. And it's the same with all the other issues you raise there. Stop trying to raise objections to an irrelevant Roman Catholic straw man that Protestants have created, and start trying to understand what Orthodox Christians actually believe and practise for themselves.

[boofhead]

Well, it isn't in the Bible when you phrase it and mischaracterise it in those Protestant terms. If you take the time to try to see the Orthodox perspective, you'll see that it's not all as bad as you think it is.

Take 'praying to dead saints', as you put it. We don't pray to 'dead' saints (how can saints be dead, anyway, if they are in Heaven with God?). We ask people to pray to God for us. It's in the Bible, as clear as day, that we are to pray for each other. It is also clearly stated that "the prayer of a righteous man availeth much". So why shouldn't we ask the saints to pray for us? You see, when you actually try to see it from the Orthodox perspective, rather than from the perspective of Protestant mischaracterisations of the Roman Catholic Church (which isn't even relevant to Orthodoxy), all of a sudden things start to appear a lot more relevant. And it's the same with all the other issues you raise there.

From my protestant perspective it doesn't say anywhere that dead people are anything but dead in the scriptures, until we are all raised. We are all dead until that day. I don't understand this idea of some being eternal parallel with those still in this mortal coil. One state is timeless, where is the connect?

Someone spoke to a dead Samuel in the OT. We all know about that, don't we?

[blackwatersix]

[QUOTE=Zenith Darksea;6174027]Well, it isn't in the Bible when you phrase it and mischaracterise it in those Protestant terms. If you take the time to try to see the Orthodox perspective, you'll see that it's not all as bad as you think it is.

Take 'praying to dead saints', as you put it. We don't pray to 'dead' saints (how can saints be dead, anyway, if they are in Heaven with God?). We ask people to pray to God for us. It's in the Bible, as clear as day, that we are to pray for each other. And we do that regularly. It is a common practice of Orthodox Christians to pray for one another. It is also clearly stated that "the prayer of a righteous man availeth much". So why shouldn't we ask the saints to pray for us as well? Are we to say that just because their physical bodies have died, then somehow they live in complete separation from the rest of the Christian Church, which cannot be divided? Of course not. The saints can and do still pray for us, and in theory there is nothing to stop us praying for the saints, either. And, as you see, all of this is following clear statements in the Bible.

Wow. that's the shortest defense of the communion of saints i've ever read. I've always wanted to explain to my protestant friends how its not "praying to saints" but asking them to pray for us and stuff. I'm RC btw.

I hope no one finds offense at this but... there's a reason that it's really cool to study the scripture in the original aramaic or greek translations and it's a rational reason: Everyone who's multi-lingual knows that something is always lost in translation. I think that's the reason the muslims don't translate the koran (the translated version I saw had the original arabic on one half and english on the other) Also, the original scriptures were written by divinely-inspired men in the context of their times.

It didn't start out as a conspiracy against the "common man," so that he couldn't "interpret" it for himself. It's just that to fully understand the scripture you have to know the history and the culture...

The Bible wasn't written by 1st century men to relate to 21st century men. The wrote the Scriptures in contexts they could understand to spread the Good News to people who understood the same contexts that they did.

[basics]

" Take 'praying to dead saints', as you put it. We don't pray to 'dead' saints (how can saints be dead, anyway,"

blackwatersix,

You are quite correct that there are no dead saints because if they were not in heaven where would they be in order to pray to them?

But that is not the point. When Paul asks for people to pray for him both are alive and on the planet at the time. But another example is when Jesus gave a prayer to the disciples it begins as directed to the Father and ends in the name of the Lord. Nowhere does it ever say anything else.

Father because His Father is now our Father too and as He is the only mediator between the Father and us, we do it in His name. His name because we as yet are not in heaven so the Father sees us in Him just as He sees Him in us.

A believer can pray for whoever he or she wants whether they are alive or dead but there is no precedent Biblically to pray to saints. And there is no precedent that saints have ever answered any prayer Biblically speaking. But if you can give details I'll obviously have learned something new.

[Miracles]

I'm a Catholic yet I'm compelled to give my opinion. Nobody own God so nobody has the right to say they own the teaching of Jesus Christ! And God doesn't need representation on earth and nobody could represent God because God is not human. The sole purpose of the organizational church is to be the place to nurture bonds between believers. As for personal relationship with God it doesn't have to and will not always or even it's rare to happen in the church(as in building). Just have a relationship with God be true and faithful. Love God with all your heart and love our neighbor as much as we could.

[boofhead]

I'm a Catholic yet I'm compelled to give my opinion. Nobody own God so nobody has the right to say they own the teaching of Jesus Christ! And God doesn't need representation on earth and nobody could represent God because God is not human. The sole purpose of the organizational church is to be the place to nurture bonds between believers. As for relationship with God it doesn't have to and will not always or even it's rare to happen in the church(as in building). Just have a relationship with God be true and faithful. Love God with all your heart and love our neighbor as much as we could.

Amen.