The atheists are rather unified. The Muslims only have 2 different sects. The Mormons only have 2 that I know of. The Buddhists only have one. From the Catholic logic that the ones that are most unified wins would make all of them better then Catholic wouldn’t it?
Hmmmmm...good point, but next comes the power in numbers claim. The One Billion plus “Little Flock”....
Yes, it would seem so. The thing some of "them" don't get is that they can bully and bluster and threaten until the cows come home but the jig is up, the mask has been torn away and they have no temporal power anymore to force anyone to do anything. The truth that the Reformation brought out - and was never really hidden to the remnant - is that the "church" is and has always been a called-out assembly and a spiritual body. As such, it cannot be confined into a single entity or institution. The unity Jesus prayed for was the unity of the faith - the Christian faith in Christ as Savior.
The reason they were able to get away with so much starting in the early centuries after Constantine is they were granted the backing of the power of the state. Ever since then, that entity - that may have at one time really consisted of genuine Christians - no longer had that personal faith as a requirement and the power of the position is what attracted many. Instead, someone was born into it - being christened as an infant - and nurtured in the ways and rites, never having been required to make a personal confession of faith. The very idea - as we see being expressed by some here - that it even is a personal relationship is mocked, denied and anathematized. Instead of willful obedience to the commandments of God - which are meant to glorify him and prove our faith and love to the world - they have made it a prerequisite to remain in the body of Christ. It is as if the sacrifice of Christ for us had no purpose other than to merely "open a gate" so that the rest of the work to attain perfection to make it the rest of the way becomes our job alone.
Christianity is set apart from all the other religions of the world by the very fact that it is not us binding ourselves back to God by our own efforts, but that God binds us back to him by the sacrifice of Christ in our place and his offering us eternal life as a gift of his grace. God set the punishment and payment for sin as death and then came down and made the payment for us, in our place. It doesn't matter if the religion is Hinduism, Buddhism, Shamanism, or any other ism and it doesn't matter what the final goal is - nirvana, god consciousness, happy hunting grounds - every religion that is man made requires the man to do something to earn it. Every one BUT Christianity but here we have a religion that claims it is the original Christian but it is no different than the isms. It is STILL what we must do to earn, merit, work for, deserve or pay. That is NOT the Christianity of the Bible, it is not the Christianity taught by Jesus Christ or the apostles. Instead it has been perverted and is condemned as accursed because it is no longer the Gospel.
I know these threads get heated and feelings get hurt but it is SO critical and SO important that the true Gospel gets preached that sometimes it means some people get their "ox" gored. And that ox had to be gored because it was a deceiver of men's hearts and it is more important that the Gospel be made clear than people's feelings get spared. Nobody likes to be wrong, no one enjoys criticism. We must speak the truth with love, and the love sometimes is tough love, but it has to be proclaimed. All glory to the Lord!