Protestantism: Critique and Debate Thread

[magoo]

In order to remain Catholic, it is absolutely necessary to stay away from the Novus Ordo. The problem with the SSPX is that while rejecting certain aspects of the new religion, they still recognize value and authority in the hierarchy that gave us Vatican II. The integral profession of the Catholic faith demands that we stay away from the Novus Ordo and from the SSPX. Catholics should seek valid and LICIT Sacraments, if they wish to preserve their faith intact.

I believe in the Holy Catholic Church. This is the article of faith which the SSPX - all the false "trads" who recognize Francis and his Vatican II predecessors as legitimate popes - have turned into an empty name.

DIVIDE ET IMPERA

There´s no grey protestant shit in the Catholic Church. If you reject the Pope. You are not roman catholic. Either it´s black or white. There are no greys. As simple as that. You are a protestant. I don´t know what protestants are. Because there´s so many. But probably you are a protestant. Some conservative faction. They seem to don´t like the Pope. Transgender priests are ok though. Pope nope.

Jews don´t have a pope. Jews don´t have a central authority. Imagine this. I would have never guessed. They would have the same type of structure than protestants.

 

[Samseau]

This thread is so there is a place where off-topic Prot debates can be moved. Also, for those in general who want to square the circle of relativistic universalism of Protestantism.

 

[scorpion]

Without faith there is no salvation - but 'faith alone' is not sufficient for salvation. It must be a living faith, that us, we must add to it good works pleasing to God and must be ready to confess it openly.

Read that again and tell me that works don't matter, and that works play no role in our salvation.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. - Ephesians 2: 8-9

It's hard to imagine a passage of scripture being more crystal clear than this. There is no "failure to interpret" this correctly. It plainly says exactly what it says. Paul continues in verse 10: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." (emphasis mine)

The good works we do are not of ourselves or to our credit in any way, they are simply the manifestation of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, which is given to us as an undeserved gift by grace through our faith in Christ. We are no in way earning salvation or credit with God by performing good works, we are merely giving evidence (both to others and ourselves) of the regenerating salvific work He has already accomplished in us. Good works are therefore not a component of salvation, they are the product of it.

 

[magoo]

Some cath people I know went to a protestant service (this is how they call mass) in London. They were disgusted. They said it looked like a concert. Without any relation to christ. The mother was specially offended. She said something like. It was meaningless. There´s no meaning. Will tell her daughter to attend a transgender. Woman will have a heart attack.

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

Paul says that the Law shuts the mouth up and makes the whole world guilty in Romans 3. How does it do this? Whenever you try to reconcile yourself to God on the basis of your own works, instead of trusting in His grace, you are trying to justify yourself. It is self-righteousness. Not Christ's imputed-righteousness. You say you've repented, you say you're ontologically perfect, but you cannot even keep the Law that God has already set. Indeed, you cannot even keep it for one day. So what hope is there for you who seek to turn the Gospel of Grace into a New Law?

 

[GoodShepherd]

A major difference Iv noticed in my experience between protestant church and orthodox church is that the protestants are very confident of their salvation and everyone elsea salvation, as mention here in the comments even at funerals they tell the family members that they are sure the dead loved one is saved.

In the Orthodox church we dont really hear anyone claiming they are saved and neither are we 100% sure that we ouselves are saved but we hope so. When we have memorials we pray for the souls of the departed that God might have mercy on them, we dont make a statement of where they are because its a mystery to us, saint Paisios I heard once that he wasnt too happy that people thought he was a living saint because he said that when he died then those people might not pray for his soul.

In our prayer books I cant remember reading thay we are gauranteed heaven, the prayers are more inline with forgivness, have mercy on me etc, we have to wait for the great judgement day to see what God decides to do with us and I hope He will be mercyful with me.

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

A major difference Iv noticed in my experience between protestant church and orthodox church is that the protestants are very confident of their salvation and everyone elsea salvation, as mention here in the comments even at funerals they tell the family members that they are sure the dead loved one is saved.

In the Orthodox church we dont really hear anyone claiming they are saved and neither are we 100% sure that we ouselves are saved but we hope so. When we have memorials we pray for the souls of the departed that God might have mercy on them, we dont make a statement of where they are because its a mystery to us, saint Paisios I heard once that he wasnt too happy that people thought he was a living saint because he said that when he died then those people might not pray for his soul.

In our prayer books I cant remember reading thay we are gauranteed heaven, the prayers are more inline with forgivness, have mercy on me etc, we have to wait for the great judgement day to see what God decides to do with us and I hope He will be mercyful with me.

The reason Orthodox do not know if they are saved is because they view salvation as a legalistic set of requirements that the individual must accomplish in order to be saved. They do not view it as the free gift of God freely bestowed on the believer. That is what determines your assurance of salvation. If you believe that you earn salvation, then rightfully, you will never know you are saved.

1 John says that he wrote what he wrote so that those who believe in Jesus may know and have confidence that they have eternal life and that God will grant them their desires if their desires are according to His will. Notice how the emphasis in 1 John is on God, not on man.

 

[magoo]

A major difference Iv noticed in my experience between protestant church and orthodox church is that the protestants are very confident of their salvation and everyone elsea salvation, as mention here in the comments even at funerals they tell the family members that they are sure the dead loved one is saved.

In the Orthodox church we dont really hear anyone claiming they are saved and neither are we 100% sure that we ouselves are saved but we hope so. When we have memorials we pray for the souls of the departed that God might have mercy on them, we dont make a statement of where they are because its a mystery to us, saint Paisios I heard once that he wasnt too happy that people thought he was a living saint because he said that when he died then those people might not pray for his soul.

In our prayer books I cant remember reading thay we are gauranteed heaven, the prayers are more inline with forgivness, have mercy on me etc, we have to wait for the great judgement day to see what God decides to do with us and I hope He will be mercyful with me.

It´s because they have no guilt. Plain and simple. If you take away the stop sign.

 

[Genealogist]

(emphasis mine)

is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

 

[Rax Moscow]

Really? I'm coming from a Lutheran background and I'd say it's less legalistic than Reformed/Calvinistic but Lutheranism is still legalistic in it's framing (no one was able to break that frame from Rome). The whole justification/imputation/approbation is all legalistic wording and assumes a legalistic mindset. Orthodoxy (as far as I can tell) is based on communion and theosis which is much more organic.

North I have zero experience with Lutheranism, though I am halfway through the excellent Stone Choir podcast made by 2 based Lutherans. They had a particularly bizarre episode where they critiqued Orthodoxy and it was mostly about meditation and prayer and how yoga is summoning demons or something. They also had a very bizarre episode where they insisted the moon landing was real (why did we need an episode about this?) So they can get a little nutty but overall I find them excellent.

As they are my only experience with Lutheranism (other than reading a bit of Martin Luther, who was based and Christpilled), what is your experience with the modern Lutheran church? I was raised Methodist and they just had a schism this year and most of the church left due to gay marriage issues. How is the mainstream Lutheran church today? Are women pastors allowed? Gay flags? Progressivism?

 

[GoodShepherd]

The reason Orthodox do not know if they are saved is because they view salvation as a legalistic set of requirements that the individual must accomplish in order to be saved. They do not view it as the free gift of God freely bestowed on the believer. That is what determines your assurance of salvation. If you believe that you earn salvation, then rightfully, you will never know you are saved.

1 John says that he wrote what he wrote so that those who believe in Jesus may know and have confidence that they have eternal life and that God will grant them their desires if their desires are according to His will. Notice how the emphasis in 1 John is on God, not on man.

Its in the scriptures that the grace God is a free gift I understand that, I think the difference between our theology would be the definition of what salvation is, where in the protestant world salvation basically means saved from hell and depending on what group you belong to they would usually believe in once saved always saved. I think the Christianity that believes in works salvation alone without Gods grace they can also tend to boast and be "sure" of their salvation because they doing everything right it can go both ways.

If we also look at the demons, satan and the jews we get an example that you can be a part of God and then lose it and be seperated, the same with Adam and Eve, if I think about these stories they didnt lose communion with God because of works or lack of works but it does show that we can cut ourselves off or be cut off from Gods grace but there is also always room for a reuniting back to God and yes its by the grace and mercy of God.

Regarding works, someone who has faith will demonstrate their faith by their works, sometimes the person might not even be aware that they are demonstrating works and at the same time other mighy be very aware of their good works but they are not genuine, I think in the scriptures its called dead works.

There also seems to be degrees of Gods grace that each individual receives as they go. The sacrements help us here on earth in mortal bodies to partake of God like the holy communion for example, we read apostle Paul talk about it in book of Corinthians if taken in an unworthy manner it can make Christians sick and cause premature death.

As someone mentioned on the comments already sometimes people receive Gods grace without sacrements like the thief on the cross, he repented for his sins and recognised the Lord but the other guy his friend didnt repent and recognise the Lord, we can say it was a sacrement of confession maybe? If God wants to save people thats His business too I have no issue with that Im sure we will be very suprised

 

[GoodShepherd]

It is easier to sin and get away with it in the protestant world that I can admit and agree on, in the Orthodox church we have to go to confessio when we sin and discuss our sins with our priest and to partake of holy communion we would like to do it with a clean concience so we supposed to go to confession first before holy communion if we have fallen into sin, you will notice that not everyone partakes of holy communion at church as some havent maybe fasted or they not ready yet due to confession or whatever, I once went to a service and only 1 guy went to the front to take the Eucharist everyone else stayed back, other times the majority go,some people arent allowed to go for a few years maybe for whatever reason. So it does make you think twice before sinning because there is more accountabiluty.

The little I know about Martin Luther is that I think he would fit in more with the Orthodox church than modern Protestant churches as he still believed in confession, the Eucharist, icons, priests and sacrements he also didnt believe in an invisible church etc, the protestant church has evolved a lot and rejected a lot of Church customes and traditions of God and this is very dangerous.

 

[JCSteel]

I believe True Biblical Christianity exults Christ above our own efforts, while proclaiming that salvation is primarily new spiritual life within us, since spiritually dead men can't have communion with God.

Protestants focus heavily on the forensic side of being reconciled to God through Christ's death, insisting that there is nothing we can bring to the table to merit our salvation. I don't know any Christian who would argue against that.

Trusting in ourselves, as if we are acceptable before God without Jesus, is something to be guarded against, but not at the expense of other aspects of salvation. I get the sense from some Protestants that they feel it's a zero sum game between Christ and man's repentance/new birth. I acknowledge there is a range of views on this issue within Protestantism and Evangelicals.
Some Orthodox Clergy I've spoken with have a high regard for John Wesley and his soteriology.

 

[Thomas More]

It is easier to sin and get away with it in the protestant world that I can admit and agree on, in the Orthodox church we have to go to confessio when we sin and discuss our sins with our priest and to partake of holy communion we would like to do it with a clean concience so we supposed to go to confession first before holy communion if we have fallen into sin, you will notice that not everyone partakes of holy communion at church as some havent maybe fasted or they not ready yet due to confession or whatever, I once went to a service and only 1 guy went to the front to take the Eucharist everyone else stayed back, other times the majority go,some people arent allowed to go for a few years maybe for whatever reason. So it does make you think twice before sinning because there is more accountabiluty.

The little I know about Martin Luther is that I think he would fit in more with the Orthodox church than modern Protestant churches as he still believed in confession, the Eucharist, icons, priests and sacrements he also didnt believe in an invisible church etc, the protestant church has evolved a lot and rejected a lot of Church customes and traditions of God and this is very dangerous.

I think this is the same for protestants, but instead of going to a human priest, we go to Christ directly. He is our intercessor and high priest.

We still have to confess our sins in prayer, and repent of them. This forces contrition. You can't just confess them knowing you will keep doing it, and thinking that is ok. You have to sincerely recognize, before God, that it is a sin, and must stop. You have to lay aside your pride, and come to terms with your sinful nature and dependance on God's forgiveness and strength.

In the case of sins where you are weak and know you will likely do it again, but want to stop, you pray for strength to be able to stop.

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Sometimes the cleansing process involves suffering. You have to submit to God and continue to seek him through the suffering.

As for communion, it is indeed a serious matter. The warnings against partaking in an unworthy manner are very serious, and these passages are routinely read before communion. You must examine your heart before God and fully repent and ask forgiveness before partaking.

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

where in the protestant world salvation basically means saved from hell and depending on what group you belong to they would usually believe in once saved always saved.

We are saved from our sin, hell, and ultimately the wrath of God. In Orthodoxy, the concept of being saved from the wrath of God seems to be missing. Once saved always saved can be cheap or profound depending on how you define it. Generally, we don't believe you can lose your salvation because we don't view it as something that we acquired, we view it as the promise of God given by His grace. We believe Jesus is the one who keeps us in Him, the way a shepherd keeps a sheep in the fold.

If we also look at the demons, satan and the jews we get an example that you can be a part of God and then lose it and be seperated, the same with Adam and Eve, if I think about these stories they didnt lose communion with God because of works or lack of works but it does show that we can cut ourselves off or be cut off from Gods grace but there is also always room for a reuniting back to God and yes its by the grace and mercy of God.

We believe that the nature of the New Covenant is unique, and that God will keep us as members of the New Covenant. He will not allow a true member of the New Covenant to apostatize. If someone apostatizes, he demonstrates that he was never a member of the New Covenant.

There also seems to be degrees of Gods grace that each individual receives as they go. The sacrements help us here on earth in mortal bodies to partake of God like the holy communion for example, we read apostle Paul talk about it in book of Corinthians if taken in an unworthy manner it can make Christians sick and cause premature death.

In our sanctification, we are being transformed from one degree of glory to another. The Reformed believe that the sacraments are a means of grace, but they are not the only means of grace. The chief saving grace that God has given for men to take hold of Christ by faith is the Scriptures.

It is easier to sin and get away with it in the protestant world that I can admit and agree on

If it is up to us to pay for our sins, then we will pay for them forever in hell. We believe Christ suffered the penalty for our sins in our place, in order to save us, and that God would be both just and the justifier.

The little I know about Martin Luther is that I think he would fit in more with the Orthodox church than modern Protestant churches as he still believed in confession, the Eucharist, icons, priests and sacrements he also didnt believe in an invisible church etc, the protestant church has evolved a lot and rejected a lot of Church customes and traditions of God and this is very dangerous.

Read On the Bondage of the Will. Luther could never be Orthodox because he believes man is fallen. He did not reject Original Sin, another key doctrine missing in Orthodoxy. Every Reformer believed in, as Augustine taught, the invisible-visible church distinction.

 

[Northumber]

As they are my only experience with Lutheranism (other than reading a bit of Martin Luther, who was based and Christpilled), what is your experience with the modern Lutheran church? I was raised Methodist and they just had a schism this year and most of the church left due to gay marriage issues. How is the mainstream Lutheran church today? Are women pastors allowed? Gay flags? Progressivism?

The Lutheran Church in the US had a major split in the 1970s. Since then two groups have been diverging. In the largest Lutheran body (ELCA) you will find women pastors/bishops, gay flags, and every kind of progressivism imaginable.

I grew up in the conservative and next largest Lutheran body, the LCMS. No woman pastors, no gays, no progressivism, but covid revealed a split between the normies and the based. There has been no official schism because of it but the groups now know who each other are. We had a great pastor during that time. He basically said the government had no say about what we do, no mask mandate, kept communing with the common cup, etc. If you look at the LCMS website it is very normie however. Some parishes and pastors were pretty pathetic during covid. I'm not sure what the percentage is on normies vs based in the LCMS. Maybe 20% based, 80% normie. But more or less all conservative. There are smaller Lutheran bodies than the LCMS as well, and for the most part they trend more conservative.

The little I know about Martin Luther is that I think he would fit in more with the Orthodox church than modern Protestant churches as he still believed in confession, the Eucharist, icons, priests and sacrements he also didnt believe in an invisible church etc, the protestant church has evolved a lot and rejected a lot of Church customes and traditions of God and this is very dangerous.

"The Greeks [Orthodox] . . . are not heretics or schismatics but the most Christian people and the best followers of the Gospel on earth.”
-Martin Luther

 

[budoslavic]

As if there aren't progressive Orthodox churches?

Are there examples of "progressive Orthodox churches"?

Your entire post is bashing on Protestants

That's because of extreme woke-ism and progressivism in some of the Protestant Denominations/Churches. We will call them out for promoting and supporting that kind of garbage infestations.

and talking up the Orthodox Church, you guys don't come across as very humble to me. You are free to say Orthodoxy is better in every way. But I am also free to point out that it is worse (less Biblical) in every way.

How many and what bible book(s) does the Protestant Churches currently use?

There was no Orthodox tradition to appeal to in the days of the Apostles.

Huh? What does this even mean? Does your Protestant Church follow any culture and tradition? What is your definition of "tradition" as a Protestant?

My grandparents - from mother's and father's sides - brought their Eastern Orthodoxy religion to America from Eastern Europe (EE) in the 1900's. They inherited their Orthodox Christianity and Slavic language - Russian & Old Church Slavonic - and culture from their ancestors' EE homeland, thanks to Christianity teachings and missionary work from Saints Cyril and Methodius in 863 A.D.

There was only what the Apostles taught orally (which we do not possess) and what they wrote (the Scriptures). The Orthodox tradition, starting from Palamas onwards, is an add-on and non-essential to the Biblical faith. Worse, the deeper you dive into Orthodoxy, the more you are going astray from what the Apostles

Didn't the Protestant eliminate or remove a bunch of bible books' scriptures to break away from old church tradition?

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

Are there examples of "progressive Orthodox churches"?

You guys have a thread dedicated to that.

That's because of extreme woke-ism and progressivism in some of the Protestant Denominations/Churches. We will call them out for promoting and supporting that kind of garbage infestations.

That's good. They deserve to be called out. Just don't bundle me in with them.

How many and what bible book(s) does the Protestant Churches currently use?

See the Sola Scriptura thread. That's already been hashed out.

Huh? What does this even mean? Does your Protestant Church follow any culture and tradition? What is your definition of "tradition" as a Protestant?

Here's what I mean: nothing that is distinctly Orthodox that relies on Tradition was present in the early days of the Church. There is no reason to assume that the oral and written traditions were not consubstantial.

Didn't the Protestant eliminate or remove a bunch of bible books' scriptures to break away from old church tradition?

See the Sola Scriptura thread. That's a prejudicial framing. It's like saying "didn't Catholics add a bunch of books to the Bible in order to legitimize their tradition?"

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

"The Greeks [Orthodox] . . . are not heretics or schismatics but the most Christian people and the best followers of the Gospel on earth.”
-Martin Luther

For a long time, learning Greek to study the Bible was frowned upon by the Catholics because Greek was seen as the language of the heretics. Reading the New Testament in Greek is one of the primary reasons why Luther began to question his Catholic presuppositions (see Luther on the understanding of metanoia (repentance) vs. penance). When it became clear that the Roman church would not repent, Luther corresponded with the Orthodox. If Orthodoxy was comprised of such men as Cyril Lucaris in Luther's time, then I am not surprised that Luther would say what he said about the Greeks.

Here is what Cyril Lucaris, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople had to say about the Reformation:

There was a time, when we were bewitched, before we understood the very pure Word of God; and although we did not communicate with the Roman Pontiff… we abominated the doctrine of the Reformed Churches, as opposed to the Faith, not knowing in good truth what we abominated. But when it pleased the merciful God to enlighten us, and make us perceive our former error, we began to consider what our future stand should be. And as the role of a good citizen, in the case of any dissension, is to defend the juster cause, I think it all the more to be the duty of a good Christian not to dissimulate his sentiments in matters pertaining to salvation, but to embrace unreservedly that side which is most accordant to the Word of God. What did I do then? Having obtained, through the kindness of friends, some writings of Evangelical theologians, books which have not only been unseen in the East, but due to the influence of the censures of Rome, have not even been heard of, I then invoked earnestly the assistance of the Holy Ghost, and for three years compared the doctrines of the Greek and Latin Churches with that of the Reformed… Leaving the Fathers I took for my only guide the Scriptures and the Analogy of Faith. At length, having been convinced, through the grace of God, that the cause of the Reformers was more correct and more in accord with the doctrine of Christ, I embraced it.

Here is a full video that goes into depth on Cyril Lucaris:

 

[M.Balakirev]

We are saved from our sin, hell, and ultimately the wrath of God. In Orthodoxy, the concept of being saved from the wrath of God seems to be missing. Once saved always saved can be cheap or profound depending on how you define it. Generally, we don't believe you can lose your salvation because we don't view it as something that we acquired, we view it as the promise of God given by His grace. We believe Jesus is the one who keeps us in Him, the way a shepherd keeps a sheep in the fold.

I understand that the Orthodox Church is at odds with this teaching, in that to quote from one of Fr. Seraphim Rose's books "Protestants believe they are infallibly saved".

I can understand this concern, as I just feel there is often far too much 'celebration' in the liberal Protestant churches, which is why I very much understand why Baptist services are conducted with the utmost reverence, with the position that we are 'debtors', and so our praise should exhibit a good amount of humility in regard to what we are being saved from: Hell.

If someone rescued you from falling off a cliff because it was your own fault, you'd be eternally grateful in a humble fashion and not jumping for joy.

Also about getting saved. I believe someone is saved if they make a true confession of their wrong-doing and that believe that Jesus is Lord and Saviour where the individual actually experiences a change at that given moment, or shortly after. I believe this validates their salvation which is reinforced with sanctification.

My father, because of the trauma of the effects of his first marriage followed by many problems encountered in his second, wanted to know Christ under his own volition. He revealed that it was a tremendous experience at the moment of confirmation in the presence of an Anglican Bishop. So these experiences affirm that coming to faith is true, so long as you sincerely believe it.