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Protestanism!
What do u think about protestant theology??
What does our Church think about it??
Defender!
What does our Church think about it??
Defender!
Comments
1. No Seven Sacrements
2.No Holy Communion
3.No intercession
4.Everyone is a saint
5.No Confession, no repentance
6.You will go to heaven anyways if ur baptized
I disagree on most of what they say, especially when it comes to the point where they make fun of Coptic Theology or Popes.
Defender!
pray for me
Defender!
the question that the Holy Spirit PROCEEDS from the Father
no traditions (no canons or ecumenical councils)
they believe in salvation by faith alone
none of the sacraments (as already mentioned)
no public fasting
they omit books from the old testament
no monastacism
no intercessions
no prayers
no icons
no churches in the name of saints
no alters/sanctuaries
the believe that they can speak in tongues
no theology
and particularly pertaining to St. Mary...
they say she doesn't have a perpetual virginity
they don't believe in her assumption
they don't celebrate her feast
they don't believe she's full of grace
she's just the Mother of Jesus.. not God
which leads into their views on Christology... but yea.. i guess this wasn't so quick of a list... :)
Defender!
i feel sorry for people who dont understand the importance of Communion and confession.
Defender!
Main 7 diffrences between Coptic Orthodox Church and protestant church:
1.The Seven Sacrements
2.The intercession of saints.
3.Salvation through faith and deeds
4.Tradition
5.Rituals
6.The possibility that a believer may perish
7.An Apostolic Chain
Defender!
7.An Apostolic Chain[/glow]
Defender!
what does that mean?
Defender!
theres some stuff i never knew here
nice job :D
U get the point, right? ;D
Ok, Pray a lot for me!!
Defender!
jk jk... but thats awesome that u guys stand up for what u are and what u believe in...
keep it up!
lol
Defender!
Ok, here it goes, when i think of protestanism and how they operate I feel they are trying to convince people that if you believe and then go drink have sex or do whatever u like, you will go to heaven but you will lose to the devil on earth!!!!!!!!!!!
They live by the flesh and declare they live by the spirit!
Defender!
we all have a certain limit to how long we can sit in front of a computer, and as much as i like this website and would like to read all the threads, its hard too because there's like 5000 posts bout the same thing
dont get me wrong, i dont mind u posting, just say something beneficial to us all in them, plz
thanx :-\
General Information
Protestantism is a movement in Western Christianity whose adherents reject the notion that divine authority is channeled through one particular human institution or person such as the Roman Catholic pope. Protestants look elsewhere for the authority of their faith. Most of them stress the Bible - the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament - as the source and the norm of their teaching. Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians also stress the authority of the Bible, but they also look to tradition, and, in the case of Catholics, to the pope as a source of authority.
The Reformation
Although reform movements have been a feature of the Christian church throughout its history and were particularly evident in the 14th and 15th centuries, most Protestants date the beginning of their movement to 1517, when the German monk Martin Luther posted for debate a series of theses that challenged Roman Catholic teaching. Protestantism took its name from the "Protestatio" issued by reformers at the Diet of Speyer in 1529.
Within two decades the Reformation had spread through most of northwest Europe. In England, King Henry VIII repudiated papal authority over the church, and the Church of England was set on a course of reform that made it essentially a Protestant body (although Anglicans, also called Episcopalians, are often classified separately). In Switzerland, France, parts of Germany, Scotland, and the Netherlands, a second style of non - Lutheran reform, influenced chiefly by the French - turned - Genevan John Calvin and the Swiss leader Ulrich Zwingli, began to take shape.
At the same time a more radical style of Protestantism appeared on the left wing of the movement. Anabaptists, Mennonites, and others rebaptized Christians and initiated them into a movement that drastically rejected Catholic practices even where Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anglicanism did not.
The Reformation spread from these bases into Scandinavia and central Europe, but it rarely penetrated Russian and southeastern Europe, where the Orthodox church prevailed, or southern Europe, which remained staunchly Roman Catholic. After a series of religious wars from the mid 16th to the mid 17th century, most Protestants (except the radicals) and Catholics settled for the principle that the rulers of a region should determine the religion of that province or state. Separation of church and state, a principle that other Protestants came to hold late in the 18th century, began to break the purely Protestant hold on northwest Europe. In the latter part of the 18th century and throughout the 19th century into the present, Protestant missionaries spread the movement into most of the world.
Protestant beachheads were established on many Asian and African shores but not until recently in Catholic Latin America. From 1607, when Anglicans arrived in Virginia, until late in the 19th century, after large - scale immigration from southern Europe and Ireland, all of North America except Quebec was thought of as a largely Protestant domain.
The Authority of the Bible
Protestants have always made much of the Bible, but acceptance of its authority has not led to unanimity among them. Differing interpretations of the same Bible have produced the most divided movement of any in the great world religions, as hundreds of sects in at least a dozen great Protestant families of churches (Anglicanism, Congregationalism, Methodism, Presbyterianism, Lutheranism, the Baptist churches, and the like) compete in free societies. Attitudes toward the Bible in contemporary Protestantism range from belief in its literal truth on the fundamentalist end of the spectrum (Fundamentalism) to extremely free interpretations among liberal Protestants.
Justification by Faith
Second only to belief in the Bible as a mark of Protestantism is the conviction that humans are not saved by their merits or good works, as the 16th century reformers heard Catholics claiming, but only "by grace, through faith." According to Protestants, God took the initiative in saving the world from sin through his activity in Jesus Christ, and even the faith that led people to believe in this activity was a gift, not an achievement. Nonetheless, however consistent Protestant teaching on this subject may be, Protestant cultures have often produced earnest strivers after God - sober and hard - working people who try to prove that they are God's elect (Predestination) and preachers or other leaders who seem as legalistic in their approach to church life as the 16th century Catholics were.
Sacraments
Most Protestants share faith in the divine Trinity - God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; most of them keep alive the ancient creedal witness to the fact that Jesus Christ was and is both divine and human; most of them celebrate two Sacraments (sacred acts they believe were instituted by Christ): baptism and the Lords Supper. They are divided over whether to immerse the baptized in water or to apply water in other ways; over the age at which to baptize people, although most practice infant baptism; over whether baptism imparts grace or is a sign of response and obedience. Some Protestants believe that Jesus is somehow really present in the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper (Eucharist), whereas others consider this sacrament an act of remembrance and obedience.In their worship Protestants more than most other Christians stress the preaching of the Word of God as an agent for building faith.
Church Polity
Protestants allow for many styles of church government, from the episcopal, where bishops rule, to the congregational, which acknowledges no earthly authority beyond the local. Accenting "the priesthood of all believers," they have assigned an important role to the laity, although in practice many Protestant churches are quite clerical in outlook. Increasingly during the past century and especially in recent decades, Protestant churches have ordained women to the ministry and have encouraged them to take lay leadership roles.
Protestantism, more than Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy, has faced two recurrent problems. The first relates to the internal unity of the movement. From the Reformation until the present, Protestants have sought concord but more often than not have remained in dispute. In the 20th century, however, the Ecumenical Movement has gathered strength. In addition to the organic mergers of separate bodies that have taken place, movements of federation, councils for cooperation, and coalitions for common tasks have been formed.
The second problem involves civil authority. Orthodoxy and Catholicism found alliances with the throne congenial, but Protestants were restless about their early decisions to keep such alliances. Movements for religious toleration were most aggressive and successful in Protestant countries. The act of separating church and state (in most countries) has made it difficult for Protestants to produce coherent views of how Christians should live with both spiritual and civil responsibilities. This problem was presented in its most acute form in the dilemma of the Confessing church in Nazi Germany
Cultural Impact
The rejection of the Catholic tradition and in some instances a tendency toward iconoclasm militated against the development of a specifically Protestant style in the visual arts, although many great artists have been Protestants. In general the Protestant contribution has been a simplicity, even austerity, of design and decoration. This is particularly true of the Calvinist tradition.
In music and literature the Protestant contribution has been enormous. The vernacular versions of the Bible, such as Luther's and the King James Version, played a formative role in the development of modern German and English literature. Emphasis on preaching and lack of strong centers of doctrinal authority contributed to a diversity of opinion and expression, as reflected, for example, in the work of John Milton. A strong musical tradition developed out of the encouragement of hymn singing and the use of the organ and other instruments, reaching its pinnacle in the work of Johann Sebastian Bach.
The lack of central authority and thus the acceptability of divergent views has also borne fruit in a rich theological tradition, which embraces such figures as Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, and Paul Tillich in the 20th century.
In its broadest sense Protestantism denotes the whole movement within Christianity that originated in the sixteenth century Reformation and later focused in the main traditions of Reformed church life. Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist / Presbyterian), and Anglican - Episcopalian (although Anglicanism par excellence claims to be both Catholic and Protestant), Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, and many others, down to modern African Independent churches.
The term derives from the "protestation" submitted by a minority of Lutheran and Reformed authorities at the German Imperial Diet at Speyer in 1529 in dissenting from a clampdown on religious renewal. The "protestation" was at once objection, appeal, and affirmation. It asked urgently, "What is the true and holy Church?" and asserted: "There is no sure preaching or doctrine but that which abides by the Word of God. According to God's command no other doctrine should be preached. Each text of the holy and divine Scriptures should be elucidated and explained by other texts. This Holy Book is in all things necessary for the Christian; it shines clearly in its own light, and is found to enlighten the darkness. We are determined by God's grace and aid to abide by God's Word alone, the holy gospel contained in the biblical books of the Old and New Testaments. This Word alone should be preached, and nothing that is contrary to it. It is the only truth. It is the sure rule of all Christian doctrine and conduct. It can never fail or deceive us."
Lutherans and other advocates of reform thus became known as Protestants. The English word originally had the force of "resolute confession, solemn declaration," standing for gospel truth against Roman corruption. "Essentially Protestantism is an appeal to God in Christ, to Holy Scripture and to the primitive Church, against all degeneration and apostasy." The narrowing of "Protestant" to mean anti - or non - Roman has led some to prefer "Evangelical" (though in continental Europe this normally designates Lutherans) and "Reformed" (more commonly used of Calvinist Presbyterians).
Fundamental Principles
The fundamental principles of sixteenth century Protestantism included the following:
Soli deo Gloria
the justification of God's wisdom and power against papal usurpation and manmade religion, honoring God's sovereign transcendence and providential predestination.
Sola Gratia
redemption as God's free gift accomplished by Christ's saving death and resurrection. This was articulated chiefly in Pauline terms as justification by faith alone, as in the Augsburg Confession: "We cannot obtain forgiveness of sin and righteousness before God by our own merits, works or satisfactions, but receive forgiveness of sin and become righteous before God by grace, for Christ's sake, through faith, when we believe that Christ suffered for us and that for his sake our sin is forgiven and righteousness and eternal life are given to us." Assurance of salvation is therefore a mark of Protestant faith, grounded in the promise of the gospel and released from all pursuit of merit.
Sola Scriptura
the freedom of Scripture to rule as God's word in the church, disentangled from papal and ecclesiastical magisterium and tradition. Scripture is the sole source of Christian revelation. Although tradition may aid its interpretation, its true (i.e., spiritual) meaning is its natural (i.e., literal) sense, not an allegorical one.
The Church as the Believing People of God
constituted not by hierarchy, succession, or institution, but God's election and calling in Christ through the gospel. In the words of the Augsburg Confession, it is "the assembly of all believers among whom the gospel is preached in its purity and the holy sacraments are administered according to the gospel." The sacraments appointed by Christ are two only, baptism and the Lord's Supper, and may be spoken of as "visible words," reflecting the primacy of preaching in Protestant conviction.
The Priesthood of All Believers
the privileged freedom of all the baptized to stand before God in Christ "without patented human intermediaries" and their calling to be bearers of judgment and grace as "little Christs" to their neighbors. Pastor and preacher differ from other Christians by function and appointment, not spiritual status. (Later Protestantism has forgotten this perhaps more than any other foundation principle.)
The Sanctity of All Callings or Vocations
the rejection of medieval distinctions between secular and sacred or "religious" (i.e., monastic) with the depreciation of the former, and the recognition of all ways of life as divine vocations. "The works of monk and priest in God's sight are in no way whatever superior to a farmer laboring in the field, or a woman looking after her home" (Luther). None is intrinsically more Christian than any other, an insight obscured by phrases such as "the holy ministry."
Protestant Developments
Protestantism has developed a distinctive ethos in each of the several traditions derived from the Reformation and also within their historical, cultural, and geographical variations. On some issues, such as the manner (not the reality) of Christ's presence in the Supper, Protestants have disagreed from a very early stage, while agreeing in rejecting transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass and insisting that living faith alone feeds upon Christ's flesh and blood. On others, such as church order, diversity of practice has not always involved disagreement in principle. In this and other areas Protestantism's scriptural principle has itself been articulated in different ways, both to sanction the retention of traditions (e.g., episcopacy) not repugnant to Scripture (a typically Lutheran and Anglican approach) and to debar from the church's life anything not explicitly warranted in Scripture (a tendency of Reformed Protestantism implemented most consistently by Puritanism and some derivative traditions).
Nothing has so much promoted the disunity of Protestantism as the inroads of post - Enlightenment rationalism and its offspring in theological liberalism and modernism, which have gravely eroded Protestantism's Reformation and biblical foundations.
Another pattern of Reformation in the sixteenth century, generally called Anabaptist or Radical despite its diversity, sought to restore the precise shape of apostolic Christianity. Pentecostalism has a similar aim, along with other movements, including some Baptists and (Plymouth) Brethren. Some African Independent churches have pursued a restorationist approach even to the OT. Although Anabaptism gave birth to no major Protestant tradition (but note the Mennonites), its rejection of the Constantinian state - church and all its works (endorsed unreservedly by all three primary Protestant traditions) became in time the common property of most of Protestantism, especially outside Europe. (E Troeltsch has stressed the revolutionary significance of later Protestantism's abandonment of its early ideal of all - embracing church - civilization, a reformed Christendom.) The Anabaptist "protestation," though persecuted by the authoritarian Protestants, Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican, is increasingly regarded as a parallel pattern of pristine Protestantism, with perhaps more to contribute to its future than any other pattern.
Despite its divisions the community of Protestantism is still discernible in cross - denominational movements, e.g., missionary expansion, Bible translation, biblical criticism and modern theological study, welfare and relief agencies, and the ecumenical movement itself. Protestants are also held together by common convictions, chief among them the acceptance of the Reformation as an indispensable part of their history. For no Protestants does this exclude a lineage going back tothe apostles, but continuity with patristic and medieval Christianity would be variously prized in different Protestant traditions.
Protestantism's scriptural principle finds expression in the axiom Ecclesia reformata sed semper reformanda, "a church reformed but always open to further reformation." Subjection to the word of God means that no traditions or institutions, secular or religious, not even Reformation or Protestant ones, can be absolutized. Paul Tillich regarded "the Protestant principle" as "the prophetic judgment against religious pride, ecclesiastical arrogance and secular self - sufficiency and their destructive consequences." This was nobly exemplified in the Barmen Declaration of the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany ("Confessing" here being a good modern synonym of sixteenth century "Protestant"). Intellectually, "the co - operation of uninhibited inquiry and religious faith, of theology and science, is possible only on Protestant territory where all human traditions and institutions stand open both to man's scrutiny and to God's" (J H Nichols).
Finally, Protestantism seeks to draw its life from the gospel of God's grace in Christ. True to its heritage it can tolerate no do - it - yourself Christianity, no ground for human self - confidence before God's face. It will ultimately always value the Christ of faith more than the church of history.
This is all about protestants, their believe which does not go with ours!!
Sorry Sms for posting 2 word messages!! Same thing with Marys
Defender!
(btw, this is not a two word post!!)
The denomiantion rotates around attacking the Roman church which is very similar to ours.
Defender
I am in a protestant school and I think some of their beliefs are:
1. No Seven Sacrements
2.No Holy Communion
3.No intercession
4.Everyone is a saint
5.No Confession, no repentance
6.You will go to heaven anyways if ur baptized
I disagree on most of what they say, especially when it comes to the point where they make fun of Coptic Theology or Popes.
Defender!
:)hey i agree with some things but they do not think they are saints they dont even believe in it you c i also go to a protestant school they dun belive hardly anyfing they dont belive in communion properly dey have it as memories coz they think we r re-sacraficing christ, and i also agree i HATE it when the make fun of us
god bless
sleepy
Defender
But, that's just my opinion.
sleepy
This is just a random question about Protestanism, but is the Episcapalian Church another branch of Protestanism? One of my friends told me that she is Episcapalian, when I asked what that was she really had no clear answer for me. Can someone please help me?
ps. I don't know if "Episcapalian" is spelt right.
*~YmS~*
sleepy