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To: annalex; Dahlseide; Forest Keeper; HarleyD; P-Marlowe; blue-duncan; ItsOurTimeNow; Alex Murphy; ...
They do not form a church inasmuch as they do not have a community of believers that strive for unity, maintain the sacraments of Holy Orders and Eucharist, and preserve the historical deposit of faith given the Apostles and the fathers of the Church, and in a specific way given St. Peter.

So Protestants are really just a sort of vague social club?

I would rewrite your erroneous job description as the following:

They form Christ's church on earth who are a community of believers that strive for unity, maintain observe the sacraments of Holy Orders and Eucharist the Lord's Supper and Baptism, and preserve the historical deposit of faith given the Apostles and the fathers of the Church Holy Scriptures as given to all believers in the inerrant word of God, and in a specific way given St. Peter who are led by the sure and certain hand of the Holy Spirit.

Saved by grace alone.

641 posted on 01/07/2006 9:36:14 AM PST by Dr. Eckleburg (an ambassador in bonds)
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To: Dr. Eckleburg

"They form Christ's church on earth who are a community of believers that strive for unity, observe the the Lord's Supper and Baptism, and preserve the historical deposit of faith, Holy Scriptures, as given to all believers in the inerrant word of God, who are led by the sure and certain hand of the Holy Spirit."

I think you forgot the pot luck suppers that Harley and I were talking about.


642 posted on 01/07/2006 9:46:23 AM PST by blue-duncan
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To: Dr. Eckleburg
So Protestants are really just a sort of vague social club?

Obviously not; is is a community of faith that has produced and continues to produce good fruit, even though some of its members, and especially its leaders seem to spend more time protesting what they don't understand rather than sustaining the deposit of faith that has not been violated by Luther and his followers.

At the same time, Protestantism is a form of institutionalized anticlericalism as it denies most elements of the Church: priesthood, sacrametality and historicity. You should not feel slighted when your ecclesiological philosophy is taken seriously enough not to call your communities Church.

It is of course, common and unobjectionable parlance to refer to the Protestant houses of worship as churches.

792 posted on 01/09/2006 1:12:02 PM PST by annalex
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