Gamecock wrote:
I think it speaks a lot of each individual as to what/who they choose to spend their energies defending —an organization, or the person of Christ Jesus and His Truth, He who is the Word made flesh.
verdadjusticia ANSWERS:
That is your personal opinion of one. Christ Jesus and His truth NOT! You are giving your own opinions and calling them truth.
The Catholic Church in 2000 years has confronted and decided pretty much every question that one could come up with.
So-called Protestantism (which is not a religion or an organization)has not decided on an definitive answer to ONE SINGLE QUESTION! In almost 500 years it still has not even decided if Jesus Christ is God, or if you must be baptized to be saved.
CORRECTION:
Lupe wrote:
I think it speaks a lot of each individual as to what/who they choose to spend their energies defending —an organization, or the person of Christ Jesus and His Truth, He who is the Word made flesh.
verdadjusticia ANSWERS:
That is your personal opinion of one. Christ Jesus and His truth NOT! You are giving your own opinions and calling them truth.
The Catholic Church in 2000 years has confronted and decided pretty much every question that one could come up with.
So-called Protestantism (which is not a religion or an organization)has not decided on an definitive answer to ONE SINGLE QUESTION! In almost 500 years it still has not even decided if Jesus Christ is God, or if you must be baptized to be saved.
I think it's great that the Presbyterians are "Christian", however, they are simply a denomination that came along apprx 1,500 years after Christ had already founded his Church.
verdadjusticia, it is good to see that there is at least one among those on this forum who knows everything. And btw, answers to questions does not assure correctness, or the “Truth” in those answers. Then, of course, the Inquisitors were right, because they had the blessings of the Pope and the Bishops.
Your argument is non-sensical, as, every group claiming to be Christian also claims to have the best (or only) understanding of truth.
To say Protestant groups haven't agreed on everything, therefore that makes them all false, is like an atheist saying, "All religions for thousands of years have not decided on an definitive answer to ONE SINGLE QUESTION! Therefore they must ALL be false!" That's a statement which I know you'll agree, is ridiculous (even though that's what your typical agnostic/atheist will say...).
I think what gets lost in the whole "Protestantism causes divisions" argument is the plain fact that RELIGIOUS LIBERTY (as most vividly illustrated in the American experience) 'causes' divisions--and the only times and places in history without divisions among Christians, is when and where there was no religious liberty--and heretics were subject to burning at the stake.
Is it a coincidence that most of the world's major cults (Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, Christian Science, etc.) started in the USA where full religious liberty was finally realized? Until coming to America, most of the larger Protestant Churches were, like the Roman Catholic Church before them, state churches (Lutheran, Presbyterian, Anglican) and the free churches here(in early America, Methodists and typically various baptistic sects) were persecuted minorities back in Europe.
Historically the only proven alternative to divided Christian groups--is a state enforced official religion (which until the 1500s was Roman Catholicism in western Europe) something which no true American lover of liberty will endorse.