Where Have All the Protestants Gone?

Has anyone noticed the almost complete disappearance of Protestants from our nation? "What!" I can hear my readers exclaim, "Storck has really gone off his rocker this time. Why, just down the street there's an Assembly of God church and two or three Baptist churches and the Methodists and so on. My cousin just left the Catholic Church to become a Protestant and my niece just married one. Moreover, evangelical Protestants have many media outlets of their own and they have great influence in the Bush Administration. They're everywhere." All this, of course, is true. Except that for some time, they no longer call themselves Protestants, but simply Christians, and increasingly they've gotten Catholics to go along with their terminology.

I recall over 10 years ago when I was a lector at Mass, for the prayer of the faithful I was supposed to read a petition that began, "That Catholics and Christians…." Of course, I inserted the word "other" before "Christians," but I doubt very many in the congregation would even have noticed had I not done so. Just the other day I saw on a Catholic website an article about a Protestant adoption agency that refused to place children with Catholic parents. The headline referred not to a Protestant adoption agency but to a Christian one. And how often do we hear of Christian bookstores or Christian radio stations or Christian schools, when everyone should know they are Protestant ones?

Now, what is wrong with this? Well, it should be obvious to any Catholic -- but probably isn't. Are only Protestants Christians? Are we Catholics not Christians, indeed the true Christians? About 30 years ago, Protestants, especially evangelicals, began to drop the term Protestant and call themselves simply Christians as a not too subtle means of suggesting that they are the true and real Christians, rather than simply the children of the breakaway Protestant revolt of the 16th century. This shift in Protestant self-identification has taken on increasingly dramatic proportions. A recent Newsweek survey (Aug. 29-Sept. 5, 2005) found that, between 1990 and 2001, the number of Americans who consider themselves "Christian" (no denomination) increased by 1,120 percent, while the number of those who self-identify as "Protestant" decreased by 270 percent.

But perhaps I am getting too worked up over a small matter. After all, are not Protestants also Christians? Yes, I do not deny that. But usually we call something by its most specific name.

Protestants are theists too, but it would surely sound odd if we were to refer to their radio stations and bookstores as theistic radio stations and theistic bookstores. Language, in order to be useful, must convey human thought and concepts in as exact a way as it can. And, in turn, our thoughts and concepts should reflect reality. As Josef Pieper noted, "if the word becomes corrupted, human existence will not remain unaffected and untainted."

Moreover, words often convey more than simple concepts. A certain word may seem only to portray reality, but in fact it does more. It adds a certain overtone and connotation. Thus, it is not a small matter whether we speak of "gays" or of homosexuals. The former term was chosen specifically to inculcate acceptance of an unnatural and immoral way of life. When I was an Episcopalian, I was careful never to speak of the Catholic Church, but of the Roman Catholic Church, as a means of limiting the universality of her claims. I always called Episcopal ministers priests, again as a means of affirming that such men really were priests, in opposition to Leo XIII's definitive judgment that Anglican orders are invalid and thus that they are in no sense priests. Perhaps because of these early experiences, I am very aware of the uses of language to prejudge and control arguments, and I am equally careful now never to call Episcopal ministers priests or refer to one as Father So-and-So. And I think we should likewise not go along with the evangelical Protestant attempt to usurp the name Christian for themselves. They are Protestants, and public discourse should not be allowed to obscure that fact.

Apparently, though, it is the case that some Protestants call themselves Christians, not out of a desire to usurp the term, but out of an immense ignorance of history. That is, they ignore history to such an extent that they really don't understand that they are Protestants. Knowing or caring little about what came before them, they act as if their nicely bound Bibles had fallen directly from Heaven and anyone could simply become a Christian with no reference to past history, ecclesiology, or theology. The period of time between the conclusion of the New Testament book of Acts and the moment that they themselves "accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior" means nothing. Even Luther or Calvin or John Wesley mean little to them, since they can pick up their Bibles and start Christianity over again any time they want. These souls may call themselves simply Christians in good faith, but they are largely ignorant of everything about Church history. They do not understand that Jesus Christ founded a Church, and that He wishes His followers to join themselves to that Church at the same time as they join themselves to Him. In fact, one implies and involves the other, since in Baptism we are incorporated in Christ and made members of His Church at the same time.

So let us not go along with the widespread practice of calling our separated brethren simply Christians. They are Protestants. Let us begin again to use that term. It is precise. It implies Catholic doctrine in the sense that it suggests that such people are in protest against the Church. Moreover, it forces them to define themselves in terms of, rather than independently of, the One True Church. And if we do resume referring to our separated brethren as Protestants, perhaps a few of them might even be surprised enough to ask us why -- and then, behold, a teachable moment!

Apparently you don't get a 'to post #' on your FR screen. I responded to you post 568:

Hold on- how is it irrelevant that so many "Catholic" are extremely selective in what they believe. Hmm, sounds like what you are criticizing in those you would call Protestant. I once asked Alain SA why he goes church-shopping amoung his local RC parishes, but I did not get an answer.

To which I replied:
Anyone not confessing the full doctrine of the church is heterodox.

Since you used the example of Catholics; If a Catholic professes abortion is ok, or should be legalized that are anathema, they are heterodox, and they are not part of the Catholic church.

There is no need to defend those who are automatically anathema since regardless of what they may assert or to whom they may donate they are no more a part of the church than are protestants. Protestants hold false doctrines, and these folks who claim themselves to be Catholic also hold false doctrines. Further none of these folks is here defending their false doctrines; protestants are.

You should have enough of a grasp of your own posts so as to recognize responses to them. If not perhaps you're posting more than you're thinking.

Full Court, in the post that brought my comment on, said: "We don't need a group of weak and fallible men to interpret SCRIPTURE for us. We have the HOLY SPIRIT in us to guide us and convict us." In other words, he is claiming that all believers should be able to tap into the Holy Spirit's guidance and inerrantly interpret Scripture. But this is self-evidently not true when one sees the multiplicity of differing Scriptural interpretations coming from people who equally hold to this theory. Therefore, since he seems clear enough that he believes he is guided by the Holy Spirit in some special way, he has anointed himself to be his own magisterium. This is a natural outflow from the basic Protestant doctrine of the "perspicuousness of Scripture." Therefore I called upon him to notice the refutation of the idea from simple observation of the conflicting Scriptural interpretations around him.

With "Cafeteria Catholics," the situation is quite different. When they act as if they are their own, self-anointed magisterium, they manifestly act in opposition to their Church's teaching on the matter. The Church makes no claim that each and every individual believer is so endowed by the Holy Spirit, and it is thus not guilty of furthering an obvious misunderstanding of the Holy Spirit's role in these matters.

Since I was pointing out that his erroneous understanding of his ability to interpret Scripture is derived from the concept of scriptural perspicuousness, which Catholics don't share, I said that Cafeteria Catholics are not a good parallel case to cite, and are irrelevant to what I said.

###"In the second place it is the Catholic church who has left his teachings. How much money have you had to pay out to protect your child molesting priest yet you maintain them on your payroll. Paul condemns homosexually but the Catholic church protects it. And you call yourself the mainstream of Christianity?"###

What you are saying is that sin prevails? It also prevails in Protestant denominations and as well as secular organizations.

"According to a report in Denver's Rocky Mountain News, the list revealed teachers “who prey on grade-schoolers, plying them with love notes…Teachers who download pornography on their desktop computers while students sit before them…Teachers who encourage students to meet them surreptitiously after school, on out-of-town trips, and who give them marijuana or alcohol in exchange for sex.”

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=5988

Read the following: "Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services, Inc. Newsletter, July, 1996. Copyright © 1996

It is commonly believed that clergy sexual abuse is an exclusively Catholic problem that does not happen in other churches. In a 1983 doctoral thesis by Richard Blackmon, 12% of the 300 Protestant clergy surveyed admitted to sexual intercourse with a parishioner and 38% admitted to other sexualized contact with a parishioner.1 In separate denominational surveys, 48% of United Church of Christ female ministers and 77% of United Methodist female ministers reported having been sexually harassed in church.2 Although the actual extent of the problem is unknown, the significance of clergy sexual abuse is acknowledged by the denominational leaders of all Christian churches.3"

There is also a report by Hofstra University showing the high incidents in public school child molestation. Space limits me posting it.
You are wrong in signaling out the Catholic Church and failing to signal out other Churches and secular groups.
We should neither judge nor condemn as we might be judged and condemned. Best thing for them is prayer

There are none so blind as those who will not see. I fear that at least some of these folks demonstrate sufficient familiarity with the exposition of the Truth - and then refuse to embrace it - that they imperil themselves more than they know. And they'd have little excuse if they did so imperil themselves; they accuse us of "legalism" exclusivity and triumphalism when we talk about what we know to be the objective requirements for salvation, yet they cheerfully damn every non-Christian to Hell without a hearing on every bit the legalistic mindset they accuse us of! If God uses their own logic and bumps it up one rung of the ladder to accuse them out of their own mouths, it is very possible that He will hold them to a stern accounting for their lack of sanctifying grace after a death without access to absolution. Not my job to so declare, of course, but it *is* a logical outcome based on His own objective norms.

It is done by both the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholics to a degree. The decrees in Exodus on the various rituals (Passover, harvest festival etc) were not continued into the Christian tradition, even though the Exodus decrees were "for all time". Even the Apostles (in the first council in Acts) agreed with that (that the old law could not be binding on Gentile converts).

There were quite a few among the early church fathers who wanted the OT books to have strictly a symbolic interpretation, which in part they obviously do. The problem was that if you remove the possibility of any literal meaning, you can draw anything out of the text you want. Fortunately, the over all view was that the Scriptures have both a literal and a symbolic meaning.

You are right that it leads to confusion and problems though. In North America, it has also led to problems with the local synods with the parent synods.

What, then, are they? They are not angels. If kerryusama's contention is correct that there are only three humans in Heaven mentioned by Scripture, then what is left to explain the presence of these elders?

In every single case in the Bible where the word "elders" is used, it refers to human beings. What else could it be here? Besides, Revelation 7:13-15 not only mentions one of these elders again, it also has him asking St. John a question: "Who are these clothed in white robes, and whence have they come?" John relpies: "Sir, you know." And then the elder responds: These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him night and day within His temple..."

Please, what could be plainer? Not only is the elder spoken to by St. John clearly a human, but he makes direct mention of a multitude of martyrs (definitely not angels!) who "are" before the throne of God (i.e.: in Heaven), *before* the end of the world, as the seventh seal hasn't even been opened yet. Check out also, if you please, the reference to this host of people in Rev. 7:9-10, immediately preceding John's conversation.

It is simply ridiculous to suppose that Heaven will be uninhabited by the souls of humans before the End.

As I sit here in a hotel in Memphis fixin' to check out and fly home, I can't help but ponder how many of these other Tennesee folks have been infected by this theology of yours, Tenn2005.

When I first read the Revelation, one thing really bothered me. It did not look like hell existed. So I ask my wife, "Honey, does hell exist?" and she replies, "Of course not, have you been drinking?"

So I searched to find out how I was so wrong for so long. The immortality of the soul, like so many other errors in modern Christianity, came from pagans from a long time ago like Plato. These guys felt earth was hell because of its constant chaos. They laid down on the ground and looked up and decided that the stars beyond the 7 planets that they could see was heaven or the pleroma or spirit world. The planets themselves were demi-gods, and spirits descended from the pleroma at birth and there mission was to shake off the earthly things, become heavenly, beg the demi-gods to help them, and re-ascend to the pleroma. When Paul went to Rome and the rest of the generally Hellenistic world and started to preach - and then left, this nonesense started creeping in.

Now, I ask you, Tenn2005, whart kind of God would we serve if we were first in heaven, then tossed out to try to live a righteous life in this sin infested world, only to die and have our "spirit" rise back to heaven, only to be tossed out again into the sinc infested world at judgement day? What kind of God would we serve if our loved ones were in heaven looking down at our suffering and watching us sin against God?

No. God knows that we are prone to sin, error and failure. He foreknew that breaches would come in His Church's unity. He encompassed that in His Providence. But He would NOT have allowed such errors to overcome His Church *immediately* after He founded it and gave it its set of original "operating instructions." That is blasphemy to even say, since it says, in effect, that He was too incompetent to even get His Church off the ground on the right footing. The Parable ofm the Wheat and the Tares (Matthew 13:24-30) has more than one application, of course, but certainly one of the applications is the state of affairs the overall Chritian community finds itself in with respect to so much division. He knew it would come, but He Himself did NOT instigate it with murkiness and obscurity in His own words.

"It does not have a group of weak and fallible men claiming to be the only ones who can accurately interpret SCRIPTURE. Your institution is obviously man made and prone to error as all man made things are.
Backatcha."
_____________________________________
Thank you for agreeing that the Magisterium is prone to error.

This point is a perfect example of how different Christians and Catholics are. Christians will leave a church and form a new one, or join another denomination if they find doctrine contrary to SCRIPTURE. Catholic's, on the other hand, will defend to the death their church even when they know it's wrong.

Is this dichotomy because Catholics are taught that defending their church is the same as defending their faith, or is it because the church claims to control their justification?

Thank you. The Pro-Life position (which you spelled correctly in my opinion, capital "P" and "L"--wish the FR spell checker reflected this) is a noble and moral courageous stand. You are right to make a strong stand against euthanasia.

I'm not your enemy.

As far a vanity is concerned, I also accuse myself of the same.

In pointing out errors, homosexual Catholic Bishops and priests are to blame for the pedophile, rape, and corruption of young boys and men. But, connecting the heresy of Protestant Liberalism to the abominations of divorce, abortion, contraception, homosexualization, etc. are so historically evident that it's impossible to ignore it or cast it aside as non-existent. What Satan could never do externally with Protestant Revolt, Masonic Lodges in Europe, Mexico, etc., he couldn't do internally with open rebellion even within the ranks of the Vatican. Yes, the Church has had disastrous popes just as the nation of Israel has had disastrous kings. Yet, Jews and Catholics thrive in spite of human weakness. Likewise, all Christianity thrives in spite of human failings. The Holy Spirit makes it so.

Some say of the same Poles (accuse them of vanity) who prove time and again that Stalin and the Soviets were responsible for the mass murder of Katyn Forrest? It was Stalin who promoted the tactic "deny everything". Where is it that they go too far? Proving the crime, or demanding an apology? Personally, I think that the Poles today would get a better warm and fuzzy if Putin just says, "Mass murder is wrong in all cases, including what the now defunct Bolshevik Soviets did at the Katyn Forrest and Gulags. We'll never support or condone such violence nor tolerate it from our own or our neighbors." Putin wouldn't have to make promises of going after those NKVD responsible knowing that it would rip the internal order of Russians; and, Poland would be wise to not demand that (as it would create an unstable, possibly even hostile neighbor).

Thus, President George W. Bush has given American Catholics (who follow the strict orthodox of Catholic Dogma), solid confidence in Presidential leadership in spite of his not being Catholic...and even defeating a Senator who merely pretends to be Roman Catholic!

I try to be forthcoming with my errors the same way the late Pope John Paul II apologized for the misdeeds of Catholics. I accuse myself of vanity, but I doubt I'm wrong about Protestant Liberalism and its connection to the errors of the spirit of this world. What influenced such rebellion was the same spirit that encouraged the fall of man.

I don't hold you accountable for my Irish ancestors' losing their property or lives because of what Protestants did. I don't even want an apology. I wouldn't even hold you accountable for the friction my parent's Catholic and interracial marriage experienced by living as a young military family in the South (friction that could not have happened without Protestants feverishly backing the xenophobic KKK, heavily anti-Catholic even more so than it was against Jews in America, historically cannot be ignored).

Thus, it's neither frustration, rage, nor vanity that I point at was has created extreme anxiety in my life. But, Praise Jesus, the Sacraments Reconcile it; and, I even offer your attacks against me as part of the shared suffering on the cross in trying to expose errors. I hope this ends the spirit of the words you chose in describing me or my posts.

So, give me a source that says it's different than it was the last time a pope referred to "separated brethren".

The Catechism of the Catholic Church

838 "The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter." Those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church." With the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound "that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord's Eucharist."

From orthodox wiki:
Traditional Christianity affirms that the laws or Torah of the Old Testament is the word of God, though many Christians deny that all of the laws of the Pentateuch apply directly to themselves as Christians. The New Testament indicates that Jesus Christ established a new covenent relationship between God and his people (Hebrews 8; Jeremiah 31:31-34) and this makes the Mosaic covenant in some senses obsolete (Hebrews 8:13). A change of covenant can imply a change of law. Many have interpreted Mark's statement, "thus he declared all foods clean" (Mark 7:19) to mean that Jesus taught that the pentateuchal food laws were no longer applicable to His followers. The writer of Hebrews indicates that the sacrifices and the Levitical priesthood foreshadowed Jesus Christ's offering of himself as the sacrifice for sin on the Cross and many have interpreted this to mean that once the reality of Christ has come, the shadows of the ritual laws cease to be obligatory (Heb 8:5; 9:23-26; 10:1). On the other hand, the New Testament repeats and applies to Christians a number of Old Testament laws, including "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18; compare the Golden Rule), "Love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul and strength" (Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shema) as well as every commandment of the Decalogue or Ten Commandments (Exod 20:1-17). In fact, in Matthew 5:17, Jesus said that He did not come to abolish the Law.
While some Christians from time to time have deduced from statements about the law in the writings of the apostle Paul that Christians are under grace to the exclusion of all law (see antinomianism), this is not the usual viewpoint of Christians.An example of one more common approach is found in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) which divides the Mosaic laws into three categories: moral, civil, and ceremonial. In the view of the Westminster divines, only the moral law such as most of the Ten Commandments directly applies to Christians today. Others limit the application of the Mosaic laws to those commands repeated in the New Testament. In the 1970s and 1980s a movement known as Christian Reconstructionism (Theonomy) argued that the civil laws as well as the moral laws should be applied in today's society as part of establishing a modern, theocratic state. Others are content to grant that none of the Mosaic laws apply as such and that the penalties attached to the laws were limited to the particular historical and theological setting of the Old Testament, and yet still seek to find moral and religious principles applicable for today in all parts of the law. The topic of Paul and the law is still frequently debated among New Testament scholars.
In the late 20th century some Christian groups, primarily those found in or influenced by Messianic Judaism, have asserted that Torah laws should be followed by Christians. Due to a different understanding of Biblical passages such as those referenced above, dietary laws, seventh day Sabbath, and Biblical festival days are observed in some way within such segments of Christianity. As with Orthodox Judaism, capital punishment and sacrifice are not practiced because there are strict Biblical conditions on how these are to be practiced. Christians who attempt to follow Torah law do not do such works in order to achieve salvation, but rather because they believe is it a way of more fully obeying God (see Sermon on the Mount and Matthew 5:17). See sources below (Lancaster and Berkowitz).

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.