Protestants no longer the majority in U.S.

For the first time in its history, the United States does not have a Protestant majority, according to a new study. One reason: The number of Americans with no religious affiliation is on the rise.

The percentage of Protestant adults in the U.S. has reached a low of 48 percent, the first time that Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has reported with certainty that the number has fallen below 50 percent. The drop has long been anticipated and comes at a time when no Protestants are on the U.S. Supreme Court and the Republicans have their first presidential ticket with no Protestant nominees.

Among the reasons for the change are the growth in nondenominational Christians who can no longer be categorized as Protestant, and a spike in the number of American adults who say they have no religion. The Pew study, released Tuesday, found that about 20 percent of Americans say they have no religious affiliation, an increase from 15 percent in the last five years.

Scholars have long debated whether people who say they no longer belong to a religious group should be considered secular. While the category as defined by Pew researchers includes atheists, it also encompasses majorities of people who say they believe in God, and a notable minority who pray daily or consider themselves "spiritual" but not "religious." Still, Pew found overall that most of the unaffiliated aren't actively seeking another religious home, indicating that their ties with organized religion are permanently broken.

Scripture explicitly says that you are to seek the elders of the Church and abide by their decisions in order to resolve disputes.

I seriously doubt you can show me chapter and verse on that which contains your implied qualifier, namely, that the orderly behavior of believers renders their leaders unaccountable to the preeminent authority of Scripture.

As for the other question, I prefer an explicit discussion of the point, and you have neatly avoided it again. I did not ask why you became Catholic. I asked whether your decision to become Catholic was infallible. It is or it isn't.

Again, I do not wish to be a stick in the mud, but I am a busy man and I live by billable hours. These conversations are literally expensive for me. I do not wish to waste either your time or mine by allowing myself to be denied important elements of my argument. I am an attorney after all.

So while I do respect your civil tone, I must demur from further conversation until you provide me with the information I seek. No hard feelings. Just being practical.

Peace,

". . .renders their leaders unaccountable to the preeminent authority of Scripture. "

ROTFLMAO . . . riiiight.

Prior to 1931, all Protestant denominations taught that contraception was a sin and that Scripture clearly stated that contraception was a sin. In 1931 all of the “traditional Protestantism” folks agreed with the Anglican Church in reversing what they taught regarding contraception and not a single denomination that can be considered to be part of "traditional Protestantism" teaches the same thing regarding contraception today as they taught prior to 1931.

All denominations that are a part of "traditional Protestantism" claim to base everything they believe and teach on "the preeminent authority of Scripture" and guidance by the Holy Spirit.

Did their leaders ignore "the preeminent authority of Scripture" when they reversed what they taught, did Scripture itself magically change when "traditional Protestantism" reversed what they proclaimed to be the truth based on Scripture, or did the Holy Spirit reverse what it led those same “traditional Protestantism” folks to believe was the truth up until that time?

Or is the doctrine "traditional Protestantism" calls "Sola Scriptura" actually just a smokescreen hide the fact that they really believe in preeminent authority of Self Alone?

Start of Acts 15.

“Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question.”

Nice passage. How is it relevant to your point? No traditional Protestant rejects the valid use of authority in the church. The Bible itself recognizes the gifts and the roles of leading and teaching. Honestly, can you try to explain to me how said leaders somehow become exempt from being held accountable to God's revealed truth? Isn’t that exactly what Paul was doing by challenging the legalists? I do not see how this advances your premise at all.

But more importantly, what am I to think of your decision to follow Rome? Is it infallible, or is it not? Is it that you don't know the answer, or that you are unwilling to say? I am genuinely curious.

Peace,

Does refusing to answer direct questions and pretending to be incapable of understanding simple sentences make you sleepy or do you bill folks for the time you nap?

I read Aquinas the other Church Fathers during the past year and know Aquinas well enough to be positive you don't understand ninety percent of what he wrote.

Like everything else you filter it through the preeminence of Self Alone right along with Scripture. Thank you for providing the perfect example of your inability to understand simple sentences when you don't want to admit the truth.

You did that just now when a clear, simple, portion of Scripture that directly addresses a question you asked was posted in response and you just evade the truth once again with the feigned inability to read of, "Well, duh, how does that apply to my question".

When someone posts a crystal clear portion of Scripture and you pretend you can't understand it, there's no life in you.

Sorry I bothered you, I thought you interested in Christ and Christianity but you're just interested in your little games. Get comfortable with the idea of hearing, "I never knew you" from Christ Himself.

Who appointed Paul and Barnabas to resolve the dispute? The magisterium has the authority to resolve these disputes

Why are you arguing a point I am not, in principle, contesting? Protestants do defer to leaders in the churches to resolve disputes. But nowhere is it taught or inferred that any such magisterial action becomes immune to direct challenge by the God-breathed Scriptures when they flatly contradict the same. And no church is above the possibility of losing its candlestick.

And I really want to pursue that further with you, but you are preventing me. I guess we have very different understandings of what I mean by my question on your fallible/infallible decision to follow Rome. I do not regard what you said to me as a direct or useful answer. I do not wish to know why you changed. Only whether you regard your decision as infallible.

In fact, in court, I would at this point ask the judge to consider you a hostile witness. You have multiple times evaded a direct, yes or no answer by trying, it seems, to paint yourself as being totally passive in the process. Being Catholic just happened to you. One day you were an Anglican just standing there and presto, the next day, there you were, Catholic. Really? Is that your answer?

Or were you a voluntary participant in your own conversion? I have long been told that is the Roman view of conversion. If you weren’t a voluntary participant, are you then a Catholic Calvinist? But if you were a voluntary participant, you did make a decision, didn’t you. And if you made a decision, it was fallible or it was infallible, wasn’t it.

That’s the answer I want, and you are not providing. It’s simple. Yes or no. Infallible or fallible. But that's OK. I get why you wouldn't want to answer that. It does, however, end our conversation, for reasons stated earlier.

Peace,

“But nowhere is it taught or inferred that any such magisterial action becomes immune to direct challenge by the God-breathed Scriptures when they flatly contradict the same.”

That’s what I was looking for. Thank you. The Catholic church doesn’t teach that they have the authority to contradict scripture. Scripture and tradition work together. Infalliability in faith and morals also will not contradict scriptures.

“I guess we have very different understandings of what I mean by my question on your fallible/infallible decision to follow Rome”

This is why it’s so important to get the correct understanding of papal infalliability - you’ve got a misconception about it in that it permits a pope to say things that are contrary to scripture. Just the opposite. Anything that is infalliable will cohere with scripture.

Also - it can only apply to the pope, only on issues on faith and morals, and only when he speaks ex cathedra. All three have to be fulfilled in order for the pope to invoke infalliability.

Since I’m not Benedict XVI - none of what I say is infalliable. It doesn’t apply to actions whatsoever. That’s why I wanted to get the correct understanding of infalliability out first before answering your question.

“One day you were an Anglican just standing there and presto, the next day, there you were, Catholic?”

In a court of law, this is a very bad tack to take. I hope you’re not a lawyer. You have nothing to gain by raising this line of questioning.

I used to be an anglican. My bishop endorsed homesexual marriage. So yes, I had to make a decision. I chose to leave. I eventually (after about 4 years or so), decided to become Catholic. Why? Because they were the first and they are the Church founded by Jesus Christ.

“Or were you a voluntary participant in your own conversion? I have long been told that is the Roman view of conversion”

You’re belabouring on quite a few misconceptions. The difference between Catholics and protestants has to do with several differences in what they believe. The conversion process is the same (with a few differences wrt sacraments).

Your response, and I do appreciate it, is a good reflection of why Protestant and Catholics have such problems communicating. I know perfectly well what the Roman position is on qualified infallibility and its theoretical harmony with Scripture. It’s not that I don’t get it; I just don’t accept it. Which is why I continue to ask for the information that is essential to solving the epistemological circularity problem of any claim to human infallibility, no matter how carefully qualified. Rome is merely one among many such claimants. For you, or anyone, to arrive at the conclusion that Rome is right, you have no choice but to make many unwarranted assumptions, each of which requires any potential “persuadee,” to make a leap of faith in his own infallibility, just to make that first trip across the Tiber.

But I cannot get you to confront the issue. So we are stalemated.

And yes, I am an attorney, with a good track record of winning. I am not sure what you don’t like about my inquiry into your original presentation (which you may freely share with me – I am always trying to improve my game). It had gaps that I needed to fill in. You were describing why, when I needed to know how. You left out the how. I was prodding you to let me in on your secret epistemological insight that allowed you, an admittedly fallible human, to trust your own judgment that Rome was the right next step after Anglicanism.

Anyway, we have resolved exactly nothing from my perspective. Your first step into Catholicism required you to do an act of private judgment, which, as you have for all intents and purposes admitted, is subject to error. So your decision to follow Rome could be wrong, for the same reason my belief in the meaning of a given Biblical passage could be wrong. Only God doesn’t make mistakes.

As for whether infallibility may be limited only to certain things said by certain religious persons, that is a logical fallacy called begging the question. You are presuming I will blindly use and accept an eclectic definition of a term that implies the correctness of your position. I have no reason to do that. Infallibility is a term of general use that may be applied to a wide range of things, including the possibility of wrong decisions. You have given me no reason to limit the term in the manner you have suggested.

Therefore, the question becomes, from a Protestant perspective, how does one deal with the possibility that at any given point, I could be wrong? Or you could be wrong? We are human. We are sinners. Our hearts are deceitful. There must be some objective reference point, something not subject to human error, which can reliably lead us out of error. You resolve that problem by presuming to judge the history and claims of one flawed human institution as better than the history and claims of some other flawed human institution. But you do so, necessarily, as an act of your own fallible, private judgment. You don’t just wake up a Catholic one day. There is a process and you participate in it. But to participate, you must make that first private judgment that you have found truth, the very thing you say we should not do.

And that is why traditional (aka confessional) Protestants view the Scriptures, not as some sort of magic soup out of which one may pull anything to suit the occasion (as we have at times been unfairly accused), but as that objective rule, the gold standard of Christian faith and practice, to which all believers, beginning with the leadership, and down to the least of us, are to be held accountable and to hold others to account, as did Paul with the Bereans, and Paul with Peter, and Jesus with the Pharisees, and Athanasius with the Arians, and on and on it goes, all through church history. If anything, that is where you will find the continuity of truth, not in particular groups that can lose their candlestick, but in God Himself …:

“…who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, [2] Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;” (Heb 1:1).

Peace,

“to make a leap of faith in his own infallibility, just to make that first trip across the Tiber.”

That’s a very good question. Why Rome and not anybody else? It is, at it’s core, an issue of authority. If I am unreliable and even with reason I cannot make that leap (as Kant teaches), how then can we be sure that which is true?

Honestly - I don’t believe that the Roman Catholic church, or Christianity in general is 100 percent infalliable. What I do believe is that Christianity is more true than anything else out there. Call it a skeptic’s faith. I cannot come to the point where I can actually apprehend truth in it’s fulness, I am limited in my own understanding. But what I can understand is right and wrong, and more right and more wrong.

So, why Catholicism? I was a protestant for many years. Many of the flaws that I saw and see in protestantism comes from elevating the will over that of doctrine. Errors such as homosexuality, abortion, have crept in and continue to creep in. Why do these doctrines take hold?

The problem is in some of the basic assumptions. Say - priesthood of all believers. If there’s no one at the helm - then the Church will blow with the zeitgeist - the spirit of the age. Which isn’t working well.

The Roman Catholic church is the only one that has remained firm on abortion, on contraception, on homosexuality, on female priests. That raises the question - why? Why have they withstood what others have not. Again we go back to the structure. They have the pope - they have the bishops and they do not feel the need to accommodate the age- because they are not of this age.

There is nothing out there - save maybe a few things here or there - that have seen Rome come about. Rome precedes everything else.

“I am not sure what you don’t like about my inquiry into your original presentation”

It’s not that I don’t like it - it really doesn’t help you. Every argument you make should have something that you would gain from it. I’m not quite sure what you have to gain from asking me about my conversion. I have no problem answering the question - but it’s not really me you should be concerned about. :)

“So your decision to follow Rome could be wrong, for the same reason my belief in the meaning of a given Biblical passage could be wrong. Only God doesn’t make mistakes.”

Unless you believe that contraception is good, I cannot see how Rome is wrong and the rest are right.

“Therefore, the question becomes, from a Protestant perspective, how does one deal with the possibility that at any given point, I could be wrong? Or you could be wrong?”

Well, that’s again a very good question. My answer is to look at the Church, to look at the traditions of the Church, to look at Scripture - to look at the Magisterium and what they have written about the issue. I have access to everything that’s been written about Christianity over the last 2000 years should I wish to study it.

The harsh reality is that even if I devoted all my time to it 100 percent, is that I will never know all there is to know. But I know enough and that is sufficient for my purposes.

“You don’t just wake up a Catholic one day. There is a process and you participate in it. But to participate, you must make that first private judgment that you have found truth, the very thing you say we should not do.”

The first question is ‘what is the truth’. ‘What is right’ ‘What is the core of the faith’. You’re right. It took me 4 years to convert over, and I had to examine each one of these questions. Some of the answers to my questions came from the Catechism, some from Rome Sweet Home (which is an excellent book), some from Chesterton, and yes, some from Tolkein.

“the gold standard of Christian faith and practice”

It’s a commendable approach. I have nothing against holding Scripture to be authoritative. You’ve challenged me to prove my own faith and my beliefs through Scripture, and wherever possible I have done so.

You’re a lawyer. You wouldn’t go into a case, into court, without studying the precedents. What did they argue, and why? What was successful and what was not. Yes the constitution is the centrepiece, but you’ve got hundreds of years of decisions that you can draw upon to assist you.

It works the same way with the Catholic Church. Yes, Scripture is the centrepiece, but we have all this other stuff too - that helps us to interpret and come to understand scripture. We call that tradition. Scripture and tradition.

“If anything, that is where you will find the continuity of truth, not in particular groups that can lose their candlestick, but in God Himself”

God is not a liar is he? He promises that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail.

Why Rome and not anybody else? It is, at it’s core, an issue of authority.

First let me say I appreciate all you have said. But of course we still see things quite differently. I used to say exactly what you just said, that authority is the key. Of late I have thought differently. Authority is certainly important, but there are deeper assumptions at work.

For one thing, I think there are two different views of God involved. I’m still working through this, so bear with me, I’m thinking out loud. As one who firmly believes in the sovereignty of God, I see God as totally in control, yet without binding our will to act against our true wishes. So God, as sovereign, has no need of human institutions except as they suit His purposes. He can keep track of all those who are faithful to Him, He can build HIS church, regardless of whatever building or bureaucracy they end up in. The Lord knows those who are His.

So, from our point of view, the whole notion that God is somehow required to sanction only one human organization, regardless of how many wrong turns it takes, is just ludicrous. It denies a fundamental freedom of God, as expressed in Revelation, to manage all his churches as meritocracies, institutionally speaking. Individual salvation is all of grace, but individual churches keep their candlestick by remaining faithful to their first love. As He said to the church at Ephesus:

Rev 2:4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. [5] Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

It cannot be denied that the church at Rome began as just one among many individual churches, not even worth a direct mention in list of churches in the Revelation. The Biblical text provides no hint that the assembly at Rome would or should become the defining center of Christianity on earth.

Furthermore, that God should be less interested in geography or history than individual faithfulness is supported by his previous acts. What was the Samaritan woman concerned with? The place of worship. What was Jesus concerned with? The quality of worship. Geographical location? Irrelevant. Religious history (Pedigreed Judeans versus mongrel Samaritans)? Irrelevant. Spiritual worship, offered in truth? Highly relevant.

And this capacity of God to keep his own good records even when human institutions had failed goes back to old Israel. Remember Elisha thinking he was the last true believer? And yet God comforts him that he is not alone:

1Ki 19:18 Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.

To which religious institution did these 7000 belong? First Church of the Remnant of God? In what town were they all headquartered or ruled from? Did God use human institutional criteria to either identify or gather them? No? What then? Faithfulness, an individual quality of worship.

To make a long story short, it is not a sense of pride or reliance on human will that focuses the mind of a Protestant on Scripture. It is simply an understanding that God doesn’t require our help in finding those who are faithful to him, or even making sons of Abraham from stones when necessary. What is important is that we remain faithful to His testimonies, and thus to Him.

Therefore He is our authority. And if we say some man may be our priest, and by force of that role lead us where the Scriptures do not take us, we have denied God’s authority. If we say such interpositions of man are necessary, or there will be moral chaos, we have denied His ability to manage His own affairs and to keep track of His own results. We insult His sovereignty.

Such arguments are defective for yet another reason: They are a form of consequentialism, judging what is truth based on pragmatic, utilitarian results. That’s all well and good in the hard sciences, but not in theology or morality. If I want a certain outcome that I consider good, I am not free to get that result at the expense of truth. That is ends-justifies-the-means reasoning and it flows directly from the same moral relativism that is corrupting our nation.

Which is why my initial question to you is so very important, though I have not succeeded yet in getting you to understand why. In the Protestant view, finding and obeying the truth about God is the highest form of worship we can offer to God. That absolutely requires us to be brutally honest with ourselves about how we discover truth. If a Mormon or a Moonie or a Monastic approaches me with their claims, their history, their theology, I have no moral option but to consider what they say against the measure of Scripture. And to do that, I must take the mind that God has given me and use it. I must think and decide. It is no more self worship or will worship when I do it than when any Catholic does the exact same thing, as they must, even to become Catholic.

So I hope you now begin to see why I labored so hard to keep the focus on that question. There is no difference between Protestant and Catholic on this point. Each of us decides what truth is. We have no choice. It is how God made us, and how he expects and wants us to act, only honestly. Thus the Berean model is the Protestant model. They are us. We are them. We do not decide incorporeal truth based on corporeal results. God is the sole judge of that, and it is presumption to set ourselves up in that role. Our job is to search the Scriptures, to see if these things be true, and if they are, to follow after them, and thus Him, with all our heart mind, soul and body.

Peace,

“So God, as sovereign, has no need of human institutions except as they suit His purposes”

You’re right - except that God did set up a human institution - his Church. God didn’t need to do it, God isn’t ‘required’ to do anything. But he chose 12 disciples. And the disciples became the Apostles. He gave St. Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven - and gave him the power to bind and loose. St. Peter was the first bishop of Rome.

“God is somehow required to sanction only one human organization”

You leave out the fact that God did indeed establish his Church and chose the 12 to serve him.

“It cannot be denied that the church at Rome began as just one among many individual churches”

Then why did he choose Peter? Why did Peter establish the church at Rome? If scripture is true - he esteemed Peter beyond the others and gave him authority over the rest of the Apostles.

“God doesn’t require our help in finding those who are faithful to him”

Also true - but you ignore the fact that God chose people to serve him and be his Church.

“In the Protestant view, finding and obeying the truth about God is the highest form of worship we can offer to God.”

My complaint isn’t that the protestant devotes himself to God - my complaint is that the protestant does not do what he says he does. He doesn’t follow scripture. Everything I’ve posted here is in scripture. Yet, you don’t follow it. You don’t obey it. Why?

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