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Compare your church rolls with active attendance and see how many “members” never come to church. Now go share the Gospel with them and see how many say, “I’m okay. I’m a member of such and such church.” Membership, not active faith, has become the basis of their assurance. That sounds an awful lot like what Luther confronted.
1 posted on 06/12/2009 5:58:20 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
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To: Alex Murphy

I(n 1680 my French Huguenot ancestors baked their Bible into a loaf of bread in order to smuggle it out of Francer as they fled for their lives ...

First to England...

Where they ate the loaf and read the Bible...

And then to America...where they founded a Huguenot/Christian town...

They wouldnt recognize England, the US, or their town today...

Thank goodness the Bible is still the same...

Now if we would reverence the Words within the same as they did...

And worship the God who wrote the Words the same as they did...


2 posted on 06/12/2009 6:07:30 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana
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To: Alex Murphy

Truth is instinctive. It is Lucifer who breeds the lie.


3 posted on 06/12/2009 6:09:40 AM PDT by fortunate sun (Tell me what books you want to ban and I'll tell you what type of politics you hold.)
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To: Alex Murphy

Luther believed that as long as you had faith in the power of your baptism, you could do pretty much what you liked.

Calvin believed that people were predestined to be damned or saved.

If Protestants have shrugged off those two incubuses, it only shows their good sense.


4 posted on 06/12/2009 6:11:47 AM PDT by agere_contra
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To: Alex Murphy
"I’m afraid the Reformers would hardly recognize the Protestant church they struggled to birth."

Nor would they recognize or revile the Catholic Church they would encounter today. I am pretty much sure that, if alive today, Luther would have remained a Catholic priest.

6 posted on 06/12/2009 6:18:50 AM PDT by Natural Law
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To: Alex Murphy

This article is unintentionally very damning towards Protestantism as a concept:

“And, I’m afraid the Reformers would hardly recognize the Protestant church they struggled to birth.”

Hey, thanks for admitting that your sects were founded by men and not God.

“Five hundred years [later]... we’ve surrendered the gains gotten.”

No, you’re still holding on to our property. You didn’t gain much else.

“Our pastors act like priests.”

Your pastors were always just actors anyway. It’s not like they were sent by God or something!

“If we have a biblical question, we don’t struggle to find the answer. We twitter the pastor. He’s the spiritual expert.”

What? You mean you’ve discovered that hierarchy and specialization were part of God’s plan and happen naturally anyway?

“Last, and certainly the worst, the public exposure of the raucous sexual sins of so many pastors would surely remind Luther of what he saw in Rome during his infamous visit to the so-called Holy City.”

Would they remind Luther of his own sins?

“Our people have given up the Bible.”

Your people never had it. Even Martin Luther knew that:
“We are compelled to concede to the papists that they have the Word of God, that we received it from them, and that without them we should have no knowledge of it at all.”
Martin Luther, Commentary on St. John...

“And to think, Wycliffe and others were willing to die so we could ignore the Bible in our own language.”

Wycliffe was willing to die for a vernacular Bible? Says who? He died of a stroke at his country parish essentially in internal exile. He didn’t die nor did he ever really risk death for anything. This is damning to Protestants just because it shows they have no idea what they’re talking about.

“Our churches are full of people who are not Christians.”

When was that ever different for sects?

“Compare your church rolls with active attendance and see how many “members” never come to church. Now go share the Gospel with them and see how many say, “I’m okay. I’m a member of such and such church.””

Strange, my experience with Protestants is very different. I always get, “I believe in Jesus. That’s all that matters. I can do what I want. I don’t have to go to church. I’m saved.”

“If you look closely, you’ll find that many Protestants are far more Catholic than they’re willing to admit.”

No, if you look closely, you’ll discover that those Protestants are just being MORE Protestant. They’re doing what they want to do. That’s what Protestantism has always been about: a false belief in total freedom, a self-directed and subjective view of salvation based on feelings, etc.


8 posted on 06/12/2009 6:31:41 AM PDT by vladimir998 (Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. St. Jerome)
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To: Alex Murphy

“We have Luther and others of that generation to thank for that great blessing. Yet, most of us don’t actually read our Bibles. Statistics suggest that only a woefully small segment of the evangelical world reads the Bible with any regularity at all.”

This is the part that will affect us all. We now have a society that no longer has a biblical world view. Rampant immorality, ignorance, no discernment, following corrupt spiritual vacuums like Obama, etc. Dark days ahead.


12 posted on 06/12/2009 7:10:01 AM PDT by Augustinian monk
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To: Alex Murphy
I ranted on this subject a while back.
16 posted on 06/12/2009 7:49:47 AM PDT by Lee N. Field (Come, behold the works of the LORD, how he has brought desolations on the earth.)
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To: Alex Murphy
This article is full of anti-Catholic bigotry, which frankly is offensive.

The Catholic Church "giving up" on the Bible?!?!? That is ridiculous. At least 25% of EVERY CATHOLIC MASS is filled with the reading of direct Scriptures, both OT and NT. A Catholic who attends Mass every day will hear the entire Bible in Mass over a three year period. No Protestant Church can claim as much or more sustained and pervasive attention to the whole of Scripture.

If Protestants are abandoning their Bible, they are falling farther from the truth taught by the Catholic Church, not coming closer to it.
22 posted on 06/12/2009 8:47:25 AM PDT by bdeaner (The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? (1 Cor. 10:16))
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To: Alex Murphy

Sorry, this entire piece is so full of Straw Men that it’s not worth pondering. In my church, a “normal” contemporary Evangelical church with expositional preaching and contemporary music, it’s understood that the gospel is Christ, not attendance. Our senior pastor does not act like a priest, but is a fellow sinner simply unpacking Scripture and guiding the conversation.

Is my church so unusual?

Oh, I must add: Thank God for His Reformation of His Church. May He increase and may Rome decrease.


25 posted on 06/12/2009 8:53:45 AM PDT by Theo (Global warming "scientists." Pro-evolution "scientists." They're both wrong.)
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To: Alex Murphy

**Protestants today have confused church membership with salvation as well.**

Do you believe this is true?


60 posted on 06/12/2009 9:59:12 PM PDT by Salvation (With God all things are possible.)
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To: Alex Murphy; informavoracious; larose; RJR_fan; Prospero; Conservative Vermont Vet; ...
+

Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:

Add me / Remove me

Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.

Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment

Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

62 posted on 06/12/2009 10:07:25 PM PDT by narses (http://www.theobamadisaster.com/)
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To: Alex Murphy

The issues described may be problems, and they may be similar to some problems being experienced in the Catholic church, but they are no more identifiable with Catholicism than aging and eating too many carbs are with protestantism. (Also, not a very accurate description of priestly behavior.)

Honestly, where do you come up with these things?


71 posted on 06/13/2009 7:37:44 PM PDT by Huber (And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. - John 1:5)
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