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ÁŖA summary of Protestant views on homosexuality should be started on the new page discussing Religion and homosexuality.
What's the best way to mention the oft-heard usage, "Catholics and Christians" whereby Christians refers to Protestants or some supposedly authentic subgroup, and Catholics wind up sounding non-Christian? -- Ed Poor
The best way would be to just say "Christians." The usage "Catholics and Christians" is meant to make Catholics sound non-Christian. The usage "Catholics and Protestants" is meant to make both the Catholics and those who originated from them sound like non-Christians.
English seems to lack a word for Christian denominations which have never been a part of the Roman Catholic Church, such as some of the Syrian churches, the Saint Thomas Christians of India, and the Ti-Ping movement. These are often called Protestant but the useage is not correct because they did not protest against and leave the Roman Catholic Church in the first place, but formed separately.
RUBBISH .68.153.37]] 19:43, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I like classifying things into categories when possible. It makes them easier to remember and refer to. Here are some ideas, many of which are probably wrong (or worse, useless):
Here are some labels, which may or not be useful:
Note that many Christian groups do not consider themselves "denominations" although that's a handy way to describe them. -- Ed Poor
*Christian vs. Catholic (do Catholics employ this division too?) No, Ed, the narrow-minded among Catholics refer to 'Catholics and non-Christians'. It might be better, rather than making lists, to write entries explaining why people think a 'vs.' is useful. --MichaelTinkler
What we're currently listing as denominations are really categories, types or groups of denominations, not the denominations themselves. The actual number of distinct Protestant denominations runs into the tens of thousands. I'd like to suggest that we call the list here something like "Categories of Denominations" and pretty much leave the list, except maybe delete Free Methodist; it's actually specific. If someone wants to list or create an entry for an actual, specific denomination, it can be listed on the Baptist or Methodist page. If it fits in more than one category, perhaps Baptist and Calvinist, there's no harm in listing both. I just don't think we want the list on this page to risk growing into dozens or hundreds.
So, any strong feelings about what to rename the list? -- Wesley
Wesley: I agree, but instead of the terms "categories" or "groups", I'd prefer to say "families of denominations" or "Protestant traditions", or something like that. (Just think it sounds nicer.) -- SJK
"Families of denominations" sounds good to me. I wasn't really comfortable with any of my suggestions, and I'm glad you thought of something better. -- Wesley
I added a brief explanation of various categories of Protestantism that can cross denominational lines. I also added to the list of well-known Protestants, but now I'm wondering if Desmond Tutu should be on the list, because he's technically Anglican. I'm not Catholic, but I too think of most non-Catholic, non-Orthodox Christians as Protestant, even though that may not be technically correct.
I would say keep Desmond Tutu. John Wesley was an Anglican, but no one really asks whether or not he was a Protestant. :-)
charleschuck
Not sure about the distinction between mainline (mainstream) protestants and evangelicals. It sounds like you're classifying liberal as mainstream, which is not necessarily representative of protestantism worldwide. In the Anglican communion, for instance, the US Bishops seem more "liberal" than African Bishops.
To my mind there's more of a spectrum:
Liberal.....Evangelical....Fundamentalist
We should have something on the page on Henry VIII and the Church of England, no?
It doesn't seem appropriate to put somebody even Google hasn't heard of, under Well known protestants - mkmcconn
Why have the many Wikipedians who write on religion not collected the hundreds of articles on religion on the List of religious topics page? Did the creation of that page escape everyone's notice, or is it just not considered a good idea?
Regarding the paragraph on sola scriptura, someone wrote this:
I think I prefer the current paragraph as it is, but that may be because of my own bias in that direction. It seems that while Protestantism does attempt to rely on the Bible alone for instruction in the faith, they also place the privilege and responsibility for interpreting scripture with the individual, according to their understanding of the "priesthood of all believers". Perhaps there's a way to add the above alternative instead of replacing what's there? Wesley 14:11 24 May 2003 (UTC)
First, I certainly acknowledge that Orthodoxy is not monolithic. Among the groups you mentioned are even a few schismatic groups, such as the Nestorians and ROCOR. Orthodoxy and Protestantism differ both in government and in ecclesiology; even here, there is some diversity within Orthodoxy as well as in Protestantism. For what it's worth, I think the jurisdictional problem in North America is on its way towards being resolved, at least among the OCA and the Antiochian and Greek North American arch-dioceses; but of course that doesn't affect your main point. Having acknowledged that, here is what I think is the text in question, regarding Sola Scriptura:
How should it be changed to avoid caricature? Should it should be qualified by saying that many Protestants also look to the church fathers without giving them as much weight? Or do you favor the change that was suggested at the beginning of this thread:
In short, I'd like to return the discussion here to improving the article itself. I'd be glad to continue the discussion on a more general level via email if you like. Wesley 21:02 29 May 2003 (UTC)
"Against the Catholic view which decided orthodoxy by interpretation of the writings of the Fathers and doctors of the church, through the decisions of councils and the declarations of the bishop of Rome, the Protestants argued that the Bible alone is the Word of God, self-interpreting, and the foundation and test of authority for the Church. How should it be changed to avoid caricature? Should it should be qualified by saying that many Protestants also look to the church fathers without giving them as much weight? Or do you favor the change that was suggested at the beginning of this thread:
Against the Catholic view that faith comes from the teaching of the Church (which the Bible written by the Church is the most excellent example of), Protestants believe that the Bible alone should be looked at for instruction in the faith. "
The reason why I sudgested the first change, was not because of the way it seemed to carictarize Protestants as tottaly ignoring scripture, but rather the wording is of a non-NPOV strawman arguement used commonly against Catholics by Protestants: using the premise that it is taken for granted that the Bible is divinely inspired, and that the argument is over who should interpret it and how. It is the Catholic Church's position that it is nothing should be taken for granted, and that you only know that the Bible is true because the Catholic Church has told you, because it witnessed it first hand and passed that knowledge on. Thus the main issue is belief in the Bible vs. belief in the Church.
This is true. Catholics believe that the Church (meaning their church, their sucsession of apostles through their bishops headed by their pope), is the infallible teacher. Although not writing the Bible directly, it "canonized", or approved which books are in it, essentially and practically causing its existance as a whole. The Catholic church thinks of itself as basically the author of the Bible. Now Protestants come along and say as their first premise, that the Bible is the only source for faith. They read it and say "look, you catholics are doing the wrong thing, you should believe such and such". But to the Catholics, thats like trying to tell Steinbeck what the REAL meaning of grapes of wrath was. The nature of the strawman argument though, is the protestants saying "look, you catholics and us we agree that the bible is the source of faith (implying here that this is the basic postulate of the faith), show us where in the bible it says the catholic church is the only place that knows the true meaning!". The catholics can try, quoting things like "the church is the pillar of truth", or "upon peter i build my church", etc. but they really can't argue in a completely logical way when they have to accept that premise (catholics usually DO though however, assumming that protestants will not respond in a debate to the denial of the idea that the scriptures in and of themselves are the source of faith (ie. they feel the debate or dialogue would go nowhere if they say "why do you believe in a stupid book for no reason? We wrote the book, get your hands off it, we know what we meant when we wrote it")). Rereading what was originally written, it doesn't sound too bad, although it does seem to subtle infer the strawman paradigm of "catholics believe they should interpret the scriptures, we believe everyone should (again assuming the scriptures in and of themselves in both cases are the foundation).
I wrote a way too long paragraph there ;)
I've tried to understand the points you're making, and I think I'm getting there. If you want to be "fairer" to the catholic position by mentioning the origin as well as the interpretation of scripture, you should probably also add an account of a protestant view of their origins, perhaps along these lines:
Hopefully experts can tell me if I have misrepresented the positions - assuming there is still any need to repoen the issue. If everyone is already happy, my apologies. Paul
I'm pulling this POV statement about Catholocism to here from the Protestanism page. I'm not sure what to do with it, but I'm convinced it doesn't belong here; it's not about Protestantism:
Is there anyone familiar enough with both Protestant and Catholic theology to make any sense of it? Pollinator 03:15, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
Catholics do not believe themselves to be worshiping saints is the point here I think. I'll put appropriate language regarding such in the appropraite place in the article.-- Samuel J. Howard 03:24, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
Ok...hoping I haven't stepped on anyone, I reformed :) the description of Sola Christus to its most basic statement of belief. I also tidied Sola Scriptura to clean up the Catholic theology and the protestant response and to remove the limited view of some protestants that scripture is self interpreting. There's a lot in this article that needs going over, as it is a general article on protestantism and it seems to be frequently written from a very limited protestant viewpoint, limited even within conservative protestantism. It also ignores modern developments such as the Catholic Lutheran concordant of grace and phrases thinhs as if they were written by Boettner. Sometimes this has been mitigated by very aggresive Romanization which isn't always entirely correct or is specific to one theological position within Catholicsm-- Samuel J. Howard 03:48, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
While "recent" developments such as the Catholic Lutheran concordat are not representative of the whole of protestantism, and may be seen by some as a "blurring" of traditional Protestant teaching, I'd like to see some further discussion of them. Possibly initially in talk... - Paul 16:12, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Every biblical reference cited in the Tenets section is for the Catholic position, and the `sola gratia' section contains only one clause on the Reformers' position and two on the RC one! On citing chapter and verse for doctrinal positions, we should either (1) not do it at all, (2) cite the verses Protestants appeal to in the Protestantism entry and cite the verses that Catholics appeal to in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation entries, or (3) we can go whole hog and cite both positions and defenses here as well. I support (2).
This RC-centrism is in amusing evidence in the comment that the "magisterial Reformation" derives its name because the Protestants were objecting to the teachings of the Magisterium! Of course, this etymology is nonsense; 'magisterial' refers to magistrates, not the teaching office of the Roman Catholic Church. That the latter was simply assumed is revealing.
I've repaired the 'magisterial' silliness but would be interested in comments before I revise the doctrine section.
AlexKepler 20:47, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
AlexKepler 22:01, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Am I the only one to be uneasy with by the sentence:
introduced by 207.192.130.197, along with some traditional Catholic views of Protestant doctrine, later in the article?
We may need a discussion of protestant views of apostolic succession (ranging from reformed rejection of the concept, to qualified high anglican acceptance - amplification welcome here), but a throw-away remark in the introduction is probably not the place. It also sits poorly with the preceding sentence, and its characterisation of protestant groups as "sectarians" is rather tendentious. Indeed it is too fimly rooted in Catholic terminology, assumptions and frames of reference for an article on Protestantism. - Paul 16:12, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Is there any rationale for the order of the names? It doesn't seem to be chronological, denominational, or alphabetical (by first or last name). Any preferences? I'd suggest alphabetical, since it's easier... Views, before I jump in? - Paul 16:12, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
---
"Protestantism in the strict sense of the word is the group of princes and imperial cities who, at the diet of Speyer in 1529, tried a protestation against the Edict of Worms which forbade the Lutheran teachings within the Holy Roman Empire." This is clearly not a correct statement about the current meaning of the word Protestant in English, in a "strict sense" or any other sense. It is a statement about the historical origins of the word. This paragraph should be amended accordingly. Adam 02:31, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I have added a section "Environmentalism and religion" to the Environmentalism article. Perhaps someone familiar with Protestant theology could add to it. -- Erauch 19:05, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I've added a dispute notice, because of the difficulties in the article in the presentation of Catholic theology. This may be a POV dispute as well, and it may be appropraite to make it "totally disputed" instead-- Samuel J. Howard 03:45, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)
The page's opening paragraph stated that Protestantism can be subdivided into "Reformed" and "Restorationist" camps; Methodism is neither. Other groups could make the same claim. I removed this inaccurate sentence. KHM03 22:49, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
Can "1 Definition, 2 Origins of Protestantism & 3 Basic theological tenets" be rationalised with the Protestant Reformation article and the links between the two articles made clear. Paul foord 07:39, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
A dispute was logged on this article over a month ago with no specifics (see above) -- because of supposed "difficulties in the article in the presentation of Catholic theology." I'm new to Wikipedia, but this dispute seems inappropriate, especially since no specifics were identified. The content of the article seems fairly accurate and informative, as well as NPOV, to me. What has to be done to remove the dispute?? Jim Ellis 18:37, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
What specifically needs to be changed to end the dispute? KHM03 10:39, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Hello, my name is Chris. I am relatively new and inexperienced with Wikipedia. I have previously made changes to this page, especially the sola scriptura section. In fact what is there right now is probably 90 percent my creation, and is the basis for the dispute. I previously (until today) was not a member. I am the one who has made changes being designated "64.66.84.102" and "24.164.213.231". Now I suppose it will just be my name that shows up. Entering into the immediate conversation ... I don't think there is any anti-Catholic bias or any erroneous assertions in the sola scriptura section. Contrasts are necessarily made. And the Pope does consider himself an Apostle, by the way. The major change I made was in April when I attempted to remove what I believed was a Rome-centric attitude in the sola scriptura section. It seemed to misunderstand evangelical/Protestant belief, and described the evangelical/Protestant view in terms of Roman Catholicism. Christopher Erickson
Let me personally thank you for your comments. You are welcome to make changes as are any of us. We all should strive for factual NPOV in the article. Jim Ellis 01:06, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
The Pope does not consider himself an apostle. The Bishops are, collectively, considered the succesors of the Apostles, but they are not considered Apostles. Hence, we speak of the Apostolic age, which ended when the last of the Apostles died. I'll try to add some more problems with the article tonight.-- Samuel J. Howard 03:05, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
Here's another. Catholics do believe in the "priesthood of all believers" so it is at the very least confusing to contrast the Protestant and Catholic views by saying, "Protestants believe everyone is a priest".
In addition, the focus on the "Sola"s presents an extraordinarily fundamentalist view of Protestantism. It may have seemed like a good conceptual framework, but I think it gets hijacked away from it's purpose of a succint presentation of the issues. Furthermore, it removes the argument to the level of sloganeering. Then, an entirely ahistorical modern interpretation of these "reformation slogans" is read back into the reasons for the division of Christendom.-- Samuel J. Howard 03:10, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
I think we may say that: “Protestants believe everyone is a priest while the Roman Catholic Church recognizes the hierarchical priesthood” or “according to the Roman Catholic Church only the ministerial priesthood is a means by which Christ builds up and leads his Church”.
For Catholic Church priests are only the ordained people, even deacons are not priests, so we certainly cannot say that everyone is a priest. The words priest and priesthood have different connotations. Maybe I’m wrong, but I have a feeling that as you think that it’s better that everyone is a priest, you are afraid to say that for Catholics it’s different not to diminish Catholic religion. But we know it’s different and we like it this way, so there’s nothing wrong in noticing the differences.
Here are relevant fragments from Catechism (please, read ESP the last paragraph):
The priesthood of the Old Covenant 1539 The chosen people was constituted by God as "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." But within the people of Israel, God chose one of the twelve tribes, that of Levi, and set it apart for liturgical service; God himself is its inheritance. A special rite consecrated the beginnings of the priesthood of the Old Covenant. The priests are "appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins."
1540 Instituted to proclaim the Word of God and to restore communion with God by sacrifices and prayer,9 this priesthood nevertheless remains powerless to bring about salvation, needing to repeat its sacrifices ceaselessly and being unable to achieve a definitive sanctification, which only the sacrifice of Christ would accomplish.
The one priesthood of Christ 1545 The redemptive sacrifice of Christ is unique, accomplished once for all; yet it is made present in the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Church. The same is true of the one priesthood of Christ; it is made present through the ministerial priesthood without diminishing the uniqueness of Christ's priesthood: "Only Christ is the true priest, the others being only his ministers."
Two participations in the one priesthood of Christ 1546 Christ, high priest and unique mediator, has made of the Church "a kingdom, priests for his God and Father." The whole community of believers is, as such, priestly. The faithful exercise their baptismal priesthood through their participation, each according to his own vocation, in Christ's mission as priest, prophet, and king. Through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation the faithful are "consecrated to be . . . a holy priesthood."
1547 The ministerial or hierarchical priesthood of bishops and priests, and the common priesthood of all the faithful participate, "each in its own proper way, in the one priesthood of Christ." While being "ordered one to another," they differ essentially. In what sense? While the common priesthood of the faithful is exercised by the unfolding of baptismal grace --a life of faith, hope, and charity, a life according to the Spirit--, the ministerial priesthood is at the service of the common priesthood. It is directed at the unfolding of the baptismal grace of all Christians. The ministerial priesthood is a means by which Christ unceasingly builds up and leads his Church. For this reason it is transmitted by its own sacrament, the sacrament of Holy Orders.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c3a6.htm#1546 -- SylwiaS 15:24, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I am disputing the article. The dispute is a fact. The abuse is the repeated removal of the notice. Yes, a dispute notice discredits the article. That is entirely correct, as the article is not creditable, but contains factual innacuracies. More important than the reputation of the article, however, is the reputation of the Wikipedia as a whole. That is damaged when there is an article with factual innacuracies that is not flagged as having such. If there are substantial factual problems, the article should be flagged until they are fixed.--
Samuel J. Howard 16:00, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
-- Samuel J. Howard 17:40, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
End of Dispute Offer
When I first read the article it was because I wanted to learn more about Protestantism. Not what other Churches think about Protestantism, but what Protestants think and believe in. The article was very informative and it gave me good insight on Protestants' view. I don't think and never thought that the article was POV. I also think it should be much more subjective than it is now. There is no objectiveness in religions and no one should expect otherwise. I agree that there are some incorrectness, but deleting them only spoils the article. My proposition is to revert the article to it's richest form and list the things, which are incorrect. They can be easily changed. If there was a bad definition of a pope, it can be changed with just couple words, but the fact that Protestants reject the pope remains and it's the most important here. I know, who my pope is, what I want to learn here, is what the Protestants think. I want to thank Jim Ellis for encouragement, but I would never dare to change an article, which doesn't concern my religion. Therefore, I would like to encourage Samuel and all the others, who may find some things in the article disputable to list them here and give their suggestions of changes. I will be glad to also join in providing correct definitions. I understand that what we consider incorrect refers only to Catholic religion. We may come to an agreement here and then the particular sentences may be changed. I believe that everyone here would like to see the article correct, but still I don't think the "dispute notice" is necessary. I read yesterday couple articles about Infallibility and I also think they are not perfectly correct, but they are not disputed. -- SylwiaS 16:56, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, bad wording, I didn’t mean to revert “literally”. I also want to explain, what I meant by more subjective view. I didn’t mean encouraging POV view, which I would consider judging in this case. I only meant that when there were more comparisons between Protestantism and RC the issue of the article was easier to understand for a non-Protestant. I don’t think that comparisons are bad if they show only differences without tending to supremacy, which I think was the case here. I have also a question. I’ve noticed there are no Bonhoeffer’s pictures attached to his article. As in April there was 60th anniversary of his death, there are now many articles about him on Polish internet sites including his pictures. As well as sites devoted to all the three great religions together as separate Lutheran and Catholic sites use the same pictures. There is no information about copyrights attached and since they were made before or during WWII, it’s possible that the authors are unknown. Does it mean that I can put the pictures here? I’m new in Wikipedia, so I have no practice. -- SylwiaS 21:37, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"Protestants are often considered to be another people "of the book", in that they adhere to the text of the Bible,"
Either this implies that non-protestant christians are not people of the book, or it ignores the fact that the "book" in question is revered by both protestants and other christians. The phrase was either coined or at least greatly popularized by Muhammed and islamic learning. Therefore, it could not have referred to protestants to the exclusion of Catholics in its early application since protestants did not at the time exist. So this doesn't make any sense.
It was ok with me. Maybe the word “book” is just no the best (my Lutheran friend suggested “message”) but still for Protestants the Bible plays bigger role than for Catholics. Also in everyday life we don’t quote the Bible so often and we certainly don’t have to refer to it in theological aspects. The Polish theologian I mentioned before also suggested that the importance of Bible for Protestants influenced the intellectual aspect of their religion. E.g. for Protestants the “word” meaning sermon and rational reasoning is the most important aspect during a mass, while for Orthodox it would be singing and for Catholics the Holy Communion. So maybe it would be better to develop it showing also present attitude of Protestants to the Bible. -- SylwiaS 22:58, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I understand that it may be seen as a controversy, but I didn’t see it before reading the article as a text about Protestantism. -- SylwiaS 00:22, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
That’s exactly the case. It’s not supreme for us but equal. It may be quoted of course, but in practice the Protestants read and quote the Bible much more often. It’s ok to be a Catholic and not to read the Bible at all. In practice one can take all the knowledge only from parts of it or priest’s or parents’ words, which may refer as well to the Bible as to e.g. lives of saints. A Catholic may also not be interested in all the things at all and only live in an agreement with the Decalogue and Church’s commandments, which mainly say that a Catholic has to attend the masses and receive a Holy Communion once a year on Eastern. So the emphasis for us is put elsewhere. I’ll give you also another example, when the Protestant reformation started many Polish nobles turned to Calvinism, while almost all peasants remained Catholics. Since people couldn’t read and the masses were in Latin they didn’t really care too much about understanding the faith and they didn’t need to. Also the church liked keeping the precious knowledge to itself. Of course it looks much different today, but we all know, what those times looked like. Today church cares about teaching but still it’s not necessary the Bible. To receive the first communion one must know only some things and many of them don’t come from the Bible. Before receiving the marriage sacrament, one will be taught mostly the church’s view on marriage, but it isn’t supported by the Bible only as well. Then for Catholics the Protestants are people who read the Bible. -- SylwiaS 01:00, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It was late, when I was writing that and it seems I put too big effort on showing the contrast by description, instead of citing sources. Here’s from our Catechism:
79 The Father's self-communication made through his Word in the Holy Spirit, remains present and active in the Church: "God, who spoke in the past, continues to converse with the Spouse of his beloved Son. And the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the Gospel rings out in the Church - and through her in the world - leads believers to the full truth, and makes the Word of Christ dwell in them in all its richness."
II. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRADITION AND SACRED SCRIPTURE
One common source. . .
80 "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal." Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own "always, to the close of the age".
. . . two distinct modes of transmission
81 "Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit."
"And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching."
82 As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, "does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence."44
Link to the above: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a2.htm#81
Only traditions of local churches are not part of the Holy Tradition until Vatican decides otherwise. We don’t think that the Scripture is the only written proof of God’s deeds on Earth, because we believe that he is still present and active then the miracles are his deeds as well. I’m not saying that the Bible is not important, but the balance is different. I think we may add to the definition of Sola Scriptura that according to the Roman Catholic Church Tradition holds equal authority to Holy Scripture and link to the wikipage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradition#Traditionalism -- SylwiaS 13:17, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
One more thing. Maybe the most important, after all it’s all about salvation. I think that since Luther wanted to make the church better and less dependable on priests, he wanted to teach people, how to take the decisions personally. To achieve it, they had to learn, how to understand their faith. Sola Fide - if it’s the only reason for salvation, Protestants have to understand it. A Catholic doesn’t. One may, if he likes, find the theology very intellectual activity, but generally it’s enough to believe, one doesn’t have to understand and know the reasons. If you think about films showing Latino Americans i.e. “Romeo and Juliet” with Leonardo DiCaprio, there is difficult to see a Bible there, instead there are everywhere pictures of
Divine Mercy of Jesus Christ - a heart with rays. The cult of it comes solely from the Tradition. In 1931 Jesus showed himself to a Polish nun
Faustyna Kowalska. Anyhow, since we have the purgatory and in no way the church promises salvation to Catholics, the Divine Mercy is our main hope for ever going to Heaven. Another very important cult is Mother Mary, half of our prayers are to her. Still not even close to the Bible. Bibles in every hotel room is the Protestant custom, the Catholic would be rather a picture of Christ or Mother Mary. In fact, the differences between the two religions are much bigger than people usually think. Since Protestants don’t have the Tradition, it’s difficult for them to see, how big the differences are. From the other hand, as Catholics cannot really tell the difference between the Bible and the Tradition without longer thinking, they assume that Protestants have many things which they don’t. I assure you that many Catholics don’t really know that Protestants don’t have the cult of Mary, it’s just too natural for us, as well as they don’t have to know, that the cult of Mary comes from the Tradition, not from the Bible. --
SylwiaS 02:36, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, it seems the book is not yet available in Poland, but I hope our Orthodox Church will publish it soon. I gave the example with Mary especially as it partly derives from the Bible and many religions have different approach to her. It’s also significant that cult of Mary is different in various countries (e.g. she is called the Queen of Poland-Lithuania since 17th century, but also there is the French Lady of Lourdes, Lady of Fatima, Queen of Ireland and many others) while the official place in the Tradition was given her in 19 and 20c -- SylwiaS 13:56, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"priestly caste"
use of "caste" in this way is derogatory. Priests do not constitute a caste in the literal sense anyways.
"In a broader sense of the word, Protestantism is the collective name for numerous denominations of Western European origin, that broke with the Roman Catholic Church as a result of the influence of Martin Luther, founder of the Lutheran churches, and John Calvin, one of the founders of the Reformed movement."
Factually innacurate. There are denominations, such as the protestant American Episcopal Church and the Methodist church that were not begun as a result of the influence of Luter or Calvin (or Zwingli), but for political reasons and later from that Church which had been founded for political reasons or which later broke off from the Anglican Church which had been founded for political reasons, therefore not founded by splitting with the Catholic Church.
"the great dissemination of protestant beliefs occurred with the translation of the Bible by Protestants into native tongues from Latin, Greek and Hebrew and their quick spread with the help of the new technology of the printing press."
Wrong on basic facts and their interpretation. Implies Bible was not previously translated into vernaculars.
See: http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1270 (and that's just English, and also leaves aside that Latin was a vernacular translation when first made).
Here's more:
"The first book that issued from the press was the Latin Bible (popularly known as the Mazarin Bible), published by Fust and Gutenberg in 1456. For the Latin Bible (the form in which the Scriptures had hitherto been mainly known in Western Europe) there was indeed so great a demand, that no less than 124 editions of it are said to have been issued before the end of the fifteenth century; but it was only slowly that scholars realized the importance of utilizing the printing press for the circulation of the Scriptures, either in their original tongues, or in the vernaculars of Europe. The Hebrew Psalter was printed in 1477, the complete Old Testament in 1488. The Greek Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament, was included in the great Complutensian Polyglot of Cardinal Ximenes, printed in 1514-17, but not published till 1522. The Greek New Testament (edited by Erasmus) was first published by Froben in 1516, the Old Testament by the Aldine press in 1518. In the way of vernacular versions, a French Bible was printed at Lyons about 1478, and another about 1487; a Spanish Pentateuch was printed (by Jews) in 1497; a German Bible was printed at Strassburg by Mentelin in 1466, and was followed by eighteen others (besides many Psalters and other separate books) between that date and 1522, when the first portion of Luther's translation appeared. In England, Caxton inserted the main part of the Old Testament narrative in his translation of the Golden Legend (which in its original form already contained the Gospel story), published in 1483; but no regular English version of the Bible was printed until 1525, with which date a new chapter in the history of the English Bible begins."
from: http://www.bible-researcher.com/wyclif3.html
So we have a number of printed vernacular Bibles before the reformation begins.
The way this is put suggests, in a NPOV way, that the very fact of the translation of the scriptures caused protestant belief to spread. Certainly this is not the case in the consideration of any protestant orthodoxy. It is more accurate to say that the spread of Protestant beliefs occured with the propogation of vernacular translations reflecting Protestant interpretations and commentary. (Not to mention protestant works of theology.)
"and suggest a return to the simplicity of the Gospel"
assumes Catholic doctrine does not reflect the "simplicity of the Gospel". Even with the addition of "percieved difference", still implies that Protestant theology is somehow simpler than Catholic theology. Something without foundation in the article and highly debatable.
It’s true. Warsaw Catholic Theology University explains to their students that since the role of priests was to be diminished there was a need to make the Protestant theology understandable for everyone. It’s absolutely not the case in RC, even John Paul II, when asked difficult theology question used to say: I don’t know, go to Ratzinger. We have all the monks and bishops to study it for us, and still they don’t know everything. 2000 years of Tradition to learn after all. -- SylwiaS 23:27, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"From the beginning, Protestantism was in agreement against the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation, which teaches that the substance of the bread and wine used in the sacrificial rite of the Mass is transformed into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ (see Eucharist). However, they disagreed with one another either concerning the manner in which Christ is present in Holy Communion."
Generally, "in agreement", I think not! Of course, some do hold this view, (certain High Anglicans, for instance), so it would be wrong to say that they disagree with it too.
"Lutherans hold to an understanding closest to that of Real Presence (often misidentified as consubstantiation), which affirms the true presence of Christ "in, with, and under" the bread and wine. Lutherans point to Jesus' statement, "This is my body", while refusing to delve past Christ's words in order to describe just how this takes place. Lutheran teaching does, however, insist that Christ is present physically, rather than in a purely "spiritual" sense."
It seems wrong to say "misidentified" clearly Lutherans argue that Jesus is "with" the Bread and Wine, hence in he is consubstantially there whether they prefer that term or not. Certainly I agree that it is anachronistic to describe the Lutheran view as "Consubstantiation", but it is also wrong to say that this is a misidentification.
I don’t understand the anachronism of the word “consubstantiation”, but as I know the Lutheran view here is the closest to Catholic with two differences, first, they don’t see it as a sacrifice, second the change lasts only during the rite. For Catholics once the change is made it’s for ever. The bread, now body of Christ is held in “tabernaculum”, which is placed in the back of the altar. That’s why Catholics have to knee and make the sing of cross every time they pass the middle of a church. See also http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/Lord%27s%20Supper -- SylwiaS 00:10, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"A Protestant holding a popular corruption of the Zwinglian view"
Not NPOV, pro-Zwinglian to suggest that a view contrary to the Zwinglian is a "corruption".
"Within the Roman Catholic Church, this debate was officially concluded by the Council of Constance (1414-1418), which executed Jan Hus even though he had come under a promise of safe-conduct, "
Implies mendacity on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities. Truth is more ambigious as the article on Jan Hus notes:
"Sigismund promised him safe-conduct, guaranteeing his safety for the duration of his journey; as a secular ruler he would not have been able to make any guarantees for the safety of Hus in a Papal court, but this was probably not made sufficiently clear."
"16th century
* Martin Luther, 16th Century * John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli, 16th Century * Anabaptists and the Radical Reformation with an emphasis on Millenarianism, 16th Century"
What happened to the protestant reformation in England?
"The Methodist movement in the 17th and the 18th centuries"
Methodists in the 17th century?
"Evangelicalism 18th Century"
"In 1846, eight hundred Christians from ten countries met in London and set up the Evangelical Alliance. They saw this as "a new thing in church history, a definite organization for the expression of unity amongst Christian individuals belonging to different churches." However, the Alliance floundered on the issue of slavery. Despite this difficulty it provided a strong impetus for the establishment of national and regional evangelical fellowships."
"Fundamentalism 20th Century
"See main article Fundamentalism
"In reaction to liberal Bible critique, Fundamentalism arose in the 20th century"
This one is possibly too late. Though the name came later, fundamentalism arguably begins in the late 19th century among evangelicals as a reaction to modernism. See Fundamentalism and also: http://logosresourcepages.org/Positions/timothy_5.htm.
"Ecumenism mid 20th Century
"See main article Christian ecumenism
"The ecumenical movement has had an influence on mainline churches, beginning at least in 1910 with the Edinburgh Missionary Conference."
"and some are so unorthodox as to be questioned by most"
Questionably NPOV.
How about "the beliefs of some are so unusual that their orthodoxy is questioned by most."
(UTC)
-- Samuel J. Howard 17:25, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
There is a new page for this topic which could use expansion by someone with expertise in that area. KHM03 11:42, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
This is a judgement A Protestant holding a popular corruption of the Zwinglian view, not NPOV better A Protestant holding an extreme position, not sure how to reference Paul foord 16:03, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The five solas are not the total of the reformers tenets. This part needs expansion and that may mitigate the dispute issue /balance is wrong at present/ - I put in a sub-heading. Can someone look at other theological issues of importance. The Real Presence (not Lords Supper can be another) maybe ordination/ holy orders. Do we need something about practices to pick up other aspects. Paul foord 17:08, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Please help me to understand why the "Theological tenets" section should be moved prior to the history. Mkmcconn (Talk) 17:24, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
But 3.4 Methodist movement and Pietism 17th Century - 18th century 3.5 Evangelicalism 18th Century 3.6 Pentecostalism 20th Century 3.7 Fundamentalism 20th Century 3.8 Neo-evangelicalism mid 20th Century 3.9 Ecumenism mid 20th Century are not Theological tenets Paul foord 18:02, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Paul foord, Puritan Movement late 16th century - early 18th century appears to belong under the Reformation in England. Do you agree? Mkmcconn (Talk) 19:47, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Paul foord 03:11, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
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Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
ÁŖA summary of Protestant views on homosexuality should be started on the new page discussing Religion and homosexuality.
What's the best way to mention the oft-heard usage, "Catholics and Christians" whereby Christians refers to Protestants or some supposedly authentic subgroup, and Catholics wind up sounding non-Christian? -- Ed Poor
The best way would be to just say "Christians." The usage "Catholics and Christians" is meant to make Catholics sound non-Christian. The usage "Catholics and Protestants" is meant to make both the Catholics and those who originated from them sound like non-Christians.
English seems to lack a word for Christian denominations which have never been a part of the Roman Catholic Church, such as some of the Syrian churches, the Saint Thomas Christians of India, and the Ti-Ping movement. These are often called Protestant but the useage is not correct because they did not protest against and leave the Roman Catholic Church in the first place, but formed separately.
RUBBISH .68.153.37]] 19:43, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I like classifying things into categories when possible. It makes them easier to remember and refer to. Here are some ideas, many of which are probably wrong (or worse, useless):
Here are some labels, which may or not be useful:
Note that many Christian groups do not consider themselves "denominations" although that's a handy way to describe them. -- Ed Poor
*Christian vs. Catholic (do Catholics employ this division too?) No, Ed, the narrow-minded among Catholics refer to 'Catholics and non-Christians'. It might be better, rather than making lists, to write entries explaining why people think a 'vs.' is useful. --MichaelTinkler
What we're currently listing as denominations are really categories, types or groups of denominations, not the denominations themselves. The actual number of distinct Protestant denominations runs into the tens of thousands. I'd like to suggest that we call the list here something like "Categories of Denominations" and pretty much leave the list, except maybe delete Free Methodist; it's actually specific. If someone wants to list or create an entry for an actual, specific denomination, it can be listed on the Baptist or Methodist page. If it fits in more than one category, perhaps Baptist and Calvinist, there's no harm in listing both. I just don't think we want the list on this page to risk growing into dozens or hundreds.
So, any strong feelings about what to rename the list? -- Wesley
Wesley: I agree, but instead of the terms "categories" or "groups", I'd prefer to say "families of denominations" or "Protestant traditions", or something like that. (Just think it sounds nicer.) -- SJK
"Families of denominations" sounds good to me. I wasn't really comfortable with any of my suggestions, and I'm glad you thought of something better. -- Wesley
I added a brief explanation of various categories of Protestantism that can cross denominational lines. I also added to the list of well-known Protestants, but now I'm wondering if Desmond Tutu should be on the list, because he's technically Anglican. I'm not Catholic, but I too think of most non-Catholic, non-Orthodox Christians as Protestant, even though that may not be technically correct.
I would say keep Desmond Tutu. John Wesley was an Anglican, but no one really asks whether or not he was a Protestant. :-)
charleschuck
Not sure about the distinction between mainline (mainstream) protestants and evangelicals. It sounds like you're classifying liberal as mainstream, which is not necessarily representative of protestantism worldwide. In the Anglican communion, for instance, the US Bishops seem more "liberal" than African Bishops.
To my mind there's more of a spectrum:
Liberal.....Evangelical....Fundamentalist
We should have something on the page on Henry VIII and the Church of England, no?
It doesn't seem appropriate to put somebody even Google hasn't heard of, under Well known protestants - mkmcconn
Why have the many Wikipedians who write on religion not collected the hundreds of articles on religion on the List of religious topics page? Did the creation of that page escape everyone's notice, or is it just not considered a good idea?
Regarding the paragraph on sola scriptura, someone wrote this:
I think I prefer the current paragraph as it is, but that may be because of my own bias in that direction. It seems that while Protestantism does attempt to rely on the Bible alone for instruction in the faith, they also place the privilege and responsibility for interpreting scripture with the individual, according to their understanding of the "priesthood of all believers". Perhaps there's a way to add the above alternative instead of replacing what's there? Wesley 14:11 24 May 2003 (UTC)
First, I certainly acknowledge that Orthodoxy is not monolithic. Among the groups you mentioned are even a few schismatic groups, such as the Nestorians and ROCOR. Orthodoxy and Protestantism differ both in government and in ecclesiology; even here, there is some diversity within Orthodoxy as well as in Protestantism. For what it's worth, I think the jurisdictional problem in North America is on its way towards being resolved, at least among the OCA and the Antiochian and Greek North American arch-dioceses; but of course that doesn't affect your main point. Having acknowledged that, here is what I think is the text in question, regarding Sola Scriptura:
How should it be changed to avoid caricature? Should it should be qualified by saying that many Protestants also look to the church fathers without giving them as much weight? Or do you favor the change that was suggested at the beginning of this thread:
In short, I'd like to return the discussion here to improving the article itself. I'd be glad to continue the discussion on a more general level via email if you like. Wesley 21:02 29 May 2003 (UTC)
"Against the Catholic view which decided orthodoxy by interpretation of the writings of the Fathers and doctors of the church, through the decisions of councils and the declarations of the bishop of Rome, the Protestants argued that the Bible alone is the Word of God, self-interpreting, and the foundation and test of authority for the Church. How should it be changed to avoid caricature? Should it should be qualified by saying that many Protestants also look to the church fathers without giving them as much weight? Or do you favor the change that was suggested at the beginning of this thread:
Against the Catholic view that faith comes from the teaching of the Church (which the Bible written by the Church is the most excellent example of), Protestants believe that the Bible alone should be looked at for instruction in the faith. "
The reason why I sudgested the first change, was not because of the way it seemed to carictarize Protestants as tottaly ignoring scripture, but rather the wording is of a non-NPOV strawman arguement used commonly against Catholics by Protestants: using the premise that it is taken for granted that the Bible is divinely inspired, and that the argument is over who should interpret it and how. It is the Catholic Church's position that it is nothing should be taken for granted, and that you only know that the Bible is true because the Catholic Church has told you, because it witnessed it first hand and passed that knowledge on. Thus the main issue is belief in the Bible vs. belief in the Church.
This is true. Catholics believe that the Church (meaning their church, their sucsession of apostles through their bishops headed by their pope), is the infallible teacher. Although not writing the Bible directly, it "canonized", or approved which books are in it, essentially and practically causing its existance as a whole. The Catholic church thinks of itself as basically the author of the Bible. Now Protestants come along and say as their first premise, that the Bible is the only source for faith. They read it and say "look, you catholics are doing the wrong thing, you should believe such and such". But to the Catholics, thats like trying to tell Steinbeck what the REAL meaning of grapes of wrath was. The nature of the strawman argument though, is the protestants saying "look, you catholics and us we agree that the bible is the source of faith (implying here that this is the basic postulate of the faith), show us where in the bible it says the catholic church is the only place that knows the true meaning!". The catholics can try, quoting things like "the church is the pillar of truth", or "upon peter i build my church", etc. but they really can't argue in a completely logical way when they have to accept that premise (catholics usually DO though however, assumming that protestants will not respond in a debate to the denial of the idea that the scriptures in and of themselves are the source of faith (ie. they feel the debate or dialogue would go nowhere if they say "why do you believe in a stupid book for no reason? We wrote the book, get your hands off it, we know what we meant when we wrote it")). Rereading what was originally written, it doesn't sound too bad, although it does seem to subtle infer the strawman paradigm of "catholics believe they should interpret the scriptures, we believe everyone should (again assuming the scriptures in and of themselves in both cases are the foundation).
I wrote a way too long paragraph there ;)
I've tried to understand the points you're making, and I think I'm getting there. If you want to be "fairer" to the catholic position by mentioning the origin as well as the interpretation of scripture, you should probably also add an account of a protestant view of their origins, perhaps along these lines:
Hopefully experts can tell me if I have misrepresented the positions - assuming there is still any need to repoen the issue. If everyone is already happy, my apologies. Paul
I'm pulling this POV statement about Catholocism to here from the Protestanism page. I'm not sure what to do with it, but I'm convinced it doesn't belong here; it's not about Protestantism:
Is there anyone familiar enough with both Protestant and Catholic theology to make any sense of it? Pollinator 03:15, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
Catholics do not believe themselves to be worshiping saints is the point here I think. I'll put appropriate language regarding such in the appropraite place in the article.-- Samuel J. Howard 03:24, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
Ok...hoping I haven't stepped on anyone, I reformed :) the description of Sola Christus to its most basic statement of belief. I also tidied Sola Scriptura to clean up the Catholic theology and the protestant response and to remove the limited view of some protestants that scripture is self interpreting. There's a lot in this article that needs going over, as it is a general article on protestantism and it seems to be frequently written from a very limited protestant viewpoint, limited even within conservative protestantism. It also ignores modern developments such as the Catholic Lutheran concordant of grace and phrases thinhs as if they were written by Boettner. Sometimes this has been mitigated by very aggresive Romanization which isn't always entirely correct or is specific to one theological position within Catholicsm-- Samuel J. Howard 03:48, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
While "recent" developments such as the Catholic Lutheran concordat are not representative of the whole of protestantism, and may be seen by some as a "blurring" of traditional Protestant teaching, I'd like to see some further discussion of them. Possibly initially in talk... - Paul 16:12, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Every biblical reference cited in the Tenets section is for the Catholic position, and the `sola gratia' section contains only one clause on the Reformers' position and two on the RC one! On citing chapter and verse for doctrinal positions, we should either (1) not do it at all, (2) cite the verses Protestants appeal to in the Protestantism entry and cite the verses that Catholics appeal to in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation entries, or (3) we can go whole hog and cite both positions and defenses here as well. I support (2).
This RC-centrism is in amusing evidence in the comment that the "magisterial Reformation" derives its name because the Protestants were objecting to the teachings of the Magisterium! Of course, this etymology is nonsense; 'magisterial' refers to magistrates, not the teaching office of the Roman Catholic Church. That the latter was simply assumed is revealing.
I've repaired the 'magisterial' silliness but would be interested in comments before I revise the doctrine section.
AlexKepler 20:47, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
AlexKepler 22:01, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Am I the only one to be uneasy with by the sentence:
introduced by 207.192.130.197, along with some traditional Catholic views of Protestant doctrine, later in the article?
We may need a discussion of protestant views of apostolic succession (ranging from reformed rejection of the concept, to qualified high anglican acceptance - amplification welcome here), but a throw-away remark in the introduction is probably not the place. It also sits poorly with the preceding sentence, and its characterisation of protestant groups as "sectarians" is rather tendentious. Indeed it is too fimly rooted in Catholic terminology, assumptions and frames of reference for an article on Protestantism. - Paul 16:12, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Is there any rationale for the order of the names? It doesn't seem to be chronological, denominational, or alphabetical (by first or last name). Any preferences? I'd suggest alphabetical, since it's easier... Views, before I jump in? - Paul 16:12, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
---
"Protestantism in the strict sense of the word is the group of princes and imperial cities who, at the diet of Speyer in 1529, tried a protestation against the Edict of Worms which forbade the Lutheran teachings within the Holy Roman Empire." This is clearly not a correct statement about the current meaning of the word Protestant in English, in a "strict sense" or any other sense. It is a statement about the historical origins of the word. This paragraph should be amended accordingly. Adam 02:31, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I have added a section "Environmentalism and religion" to the Environmentalism article. Perhaps someone familiar with Protestant theology could add to it. -- Erauch 19:05, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I've added a dispute notice, because of the difficulties in the article in the presentation of Catholic theology. This may be a POV dispute as well, and it may be appropraite to make it "totally disputed" instead-- Samuel J. Howard 03:45, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)
The page's opening paragraph stated that Protestantism can be subdivided into "Reformed" and "Restorationist" camps; Methodism is neither. Other groups could make the same claim. I removed this inaccurate sentence. KHM03 22:49, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
Can "1 Definition, 2 Origins of Protestantism & 3 Basic theological tenets" be rationalised with the Protestant Reformation article and the links between the two articles made clear. Paul foord 07:39, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
A dispute was logged on this article over a month ago with no specifics (see above) -- because of supposed "difficulties in the article in the presentation of Catholic theology." I'm new to Wikipedia, but this dispute seems inappropriate, especially since no specifics were identified. The content of the article seems fairly accurate and informative, as well as NPOV, to me. What has to be done to remove the dispute?? Jim Ellis 18:37, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
What specifically needs to be changed to end the dispute? KHM03 10:39, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Hello, my name is Chris. I am relatively new and inexperienced with Wikipedia. I have previously made changes to this page, especially the sola scriptura section. In fact what is there right now is probably 90 percent my creation, and is the basis for the dispute. I previously (until today) was not a member. I am the one who has made changes being designated "64.66.84.102" and "24.164.213.231". Now I suppose it will just be my name that shows up. Entering into the immediate conversation ... I don't think there is any anti-Catholic bias or any erroneous assertions in the sola scriptura section. Contrasts are necessarily made. And the Pope does consider himself an Apostle, by the way. The major change I made was in April when I attempted to remove what I believed was a Rome-centric attitude in the sola scriptura section. It seemed to misunderstand evangelical/Protestant belief, and described the evangelical/Protestant view in terms of Roman Catholicism. Christopher Erickson
Let me personally thank you for your comments. You are welcome to make changes as are any of us. We all should strive for factual NPOV in the article. Jim Ellis 01:06, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
The Pope does not consider himself an apostle. The Bishops are, collectively, considered the succesors of the Apostles, but they are not considered Apostles. Hence, we speak of the Apostolic age, which ended when the last of the Apostles died. I'll try to add some more problems with the article tonight.-- Samuel J. Howard 03:05, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
Here's another. Catholics do believe in the "priesthood of all believers" so it is at the very least confusing to contrast the Protestant and Catholic views by saying, "Protestants believe everyone is a priest".
In addition, the focus on the "Sola"s presents an extraordinarily fundamentalist view of Protestantism. It may have seemed like a good conceptual framework, but I think it gets hijacked away from it's purpose of a succint presentation of the issues. Furthermore, it removes the argument to the level of sloganeering. Then, an entirely ahistorical modern interpretation of these "reformation slogans" is read back into the reasons for the division of Christendom.-- Samuel J. Howard 03:10, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
I think we may say that: “Protestants believe everyone is a priest while the Roman Catholic Church recognizes the hierarchical priesthood” or “according to the Roman Catholic Church only the ministerial priesthood is a means by which Christ builds up and leads his Church”.
For Catholic Church priests are only the ordained people, even deacons are not priests, so we certainly cannot say that everyone is a priest. The words priest and priesthood have different connotations. Maybe I’m wrong, but I have a feeling that as you think that it’s better that everyone is a priest, you are afraid to say that for Catholics it’s different not to diminish Catholic religion. But we know it’s different and we like it this way, so there’s nothing wrong in noticing the differences.
Here are relevant fragments from Catechism (please, read ESP the last paragraph):
The priesthood of the Old Covenant 1539 The chosen people was constituted by God as "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." But within the people of Israel, God chose one of the twelve tribes, that of Levi, and set it apart for liturgical service; God himself is its inheritance. A special rite consecrated the beginnings of the priesthood of the Old Covenant. The priests are "appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins."
1540 Instituted to proclaim the Word of God and to restore communion with God by sacrifices and prayer,9 this priesthood nevertheless remains powerless to bring about salvation, needing to repeat its sacrifices ceaselessly and being unable to achieve a definitive sanctification, which only the sacrifice of Christ would accomplish.
The one priesthood of Christ 1545 The redemptive sacrifice of Christ is unique, accomplished once for all; yet it is made present in the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Church. The same is true of the one priesthood of Christ; it is made present through the ministerial priesthood without diminishing the uniqueness of Christ's priesthood: "Only Christ is the true priest, the others being only his ministers."
Two participations in the one priesthood of Christ 1546 Christ, high priest and unique mediator, has made of the Church "a kingdom, priests for his God and Father." The whole community of believers is, as such, priestly. The faithful exercise their baptismal priesthood through their participation, each according to his own vocation, in Christ's mission as priest, prophet, and king. Through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation the faithful are "consecrated to be . . . a holy priesthood."
1547 The ministerial or hierarchical priesthood of bishops and priests, and the common priesthood of all the faithful participate, "each in its own proper way, in the one priesthood of Christ." While being "ordered one to another," they differ essentially. In what sense? While the common priesthood of the faithful is exercised by the unfolding of baptismal grace --a life of faith, hope, and charity, a life according to the Spirit--, the ministerial priesthood is at the service of the common priesthood. It is directed at the unfolding of the baptismal grace of all Christians. The ministerial priesthood is a means by which Christ unceasingly builds up and leads his Church. For this reason it is transmitted by its own sacrament, the sacrament of Holy Orders.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c3a6.htm#1546 -- SylwiaS 15:24, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I am disputing the article. The dispute is a fact. The abuse is the repeated removal of the notice. Yes, a dispute notice discredits the article. That is entirely correct, as the article is not creditable, but contains factual innacuracies. More important than the reputation of the article, however, is the reputation of the Wikipedia as a whole. That is damaged when there is an article with factual innacuracies that is not flagged as having such. If there are substantial factual problems, the article should be flagged until they are fixed.--
Samuel J. Howard 16:00, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
-- Samuel J. Howard 17:40, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
End of Dispute Offer
When I first read the article it was because I wanted to learn more about Protestantism. Not what other Churches think about Protestantism, but what Protestants think and believe in. The article was very informative and it gave me good insight on Protestants' view. I don't think and never thought that the article was POV. I also think it should be much more subjective than it is now. There is no objectiveness in religions and no one should expect otherwise. I agree that there are some incorrectness, but deleting them only spoils the article. My proposition is to revert the article to it's richest form and list the things, which are incorrect. They can be easily changed. If there was a bad definition of a pope, it can be changed with just couple words, but the fact that Protestants reject the pope remains and it's the most important here. I know, who my pope is, what I want to learn here, is what the Protestants think. I want to thank Jim Ellis for encouragement, but I would never dare to change an article, which doesn't concern my religion. Therefore, I would like to encourage Samuel and all the others, who may find some things in the article disputable to list them here and give their suggestions of changes. I will be glad to also join in providing correct definitions. I understand that what we consider incorrect refers only to Catholic religion. We may come to an agreement here and then the particular sentences may be changed. I believe that everyone here would like to see the article correct, but still I don't think the "dispute notice" is necessary. I read yesterday couple articles about Infallibility and I also think they are not perfectly correct, but they are not disputed. -- SylwiaS 16:56, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, bad wording, I didn’t mean to revert “literally”. I also want to explain, what I meant by more subjective view. I didn’t mean encouraging POV view, which I would consider judging in this case. I only meant that when there were more comparisons between Protestantism and RC the issue of the article was easier to understand for a non-Protestant. I don’t think that comparisons are bad if they show only differences without tending to supremacy, which I think was the case here. I have also a question. I’ve noticed there are no Bonhoeffer’s pictures attached to his article. As in April there was 60th anniversary of his death, there are now many articles about him on Polish internet sites including his pictures. As well as sites devoted to all the three great religions together as separate Lutheran and Catholic sites use the same pictures. There is no information about copyrights attached and since they were made before or during WWII, it’s possible that the authors are unknown. Does it mean that I can put the pictures here? I’m new in Wikipedia, so I have no practice. -- SylwiaS 21:37, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"Protestants are often considered to be another people "of the book", in that they adhere to the text of the Bible,"
Either this implies that non-protestant christians are not people of the book, or it ignores the fact that the "book" in question is revered by both protestants and other christians. The phrase was either coined or at least greatly popularized by Muhammed and islamic learning. Therefore, it could not have referred to protestants to the exclusion of Catholics in its early application since protestants did not at the time exist. So this doesn't make any sense.
It was ok with me. Maybe the word “book” is just no the best (my Lutheran friend suggested “message”) but still for Protestants the Bible plays bigger role than for Catholics. Also in everyday life we don’t quote the Bible so often and we certainly don’t have to refer to it in theological aspects. The Polish theologian I mentioned before also suggested that the importance of Bible for Protestants influenced the intellectual aspect of their religion. E.g. for Protestants the “word” meaning sermon and rational reasoning is the most important aspect during a mass, while for Orthodox it would be singing and for Catholics the Holy Communion. So maybe it would be better to develop it showing also present attitude of Protestants to the Bible. -- SylwiaS 22:58, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I understand that it may be seen as a controversy, but I didn’t see it before reading the article as a text about Protestantism. -- SylwiaS 00:22, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
That’s exactly the case. It’s not supreme for us but equal. It may be quoted of course, but in practice the Protestants read and quote the Bible much more often. It’s ok to be a Catholic and not to read the Bible at all. In practice one can take all the knowledge only from parts of it or priest’s or parents’ words, which may refer as well to the Bible as to e.g. lives of saints. A Catholic may also not be interested in all the things at all and only live in an agreement with the Decalogue and Church’s commandments, which mainly say that a Catholic has to attend the masses and receive a Holy Communion once a year on Eastern. So the emphasis for us is put elsewhere. I’ll give you also another example, when the Protestant reformation started many Polish nobles turned to Calvinism, while almost all peasants remained Catholics. Since people couldn’t read and the masses were in Latin they didn’t really care too much about understanding the faith and they didn’t need to. Also the church liked keeping the precious knowledge to itself. Of course it looks much different today, but we all know, what those times looked like. Today church cares about teaching but still it’s not necessary the Bible. To receive the first communion one must know only some things and many of them don’t come from the Bible. Before receiving the marriage sacrament, one will be taught mostly the church’s view on marriage, but it isn’t supported by the Bible only as well. Then for Catholics the Protestants are people who read the Bible. -- SylwiaS 01:00, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It was late, when I was writing that and it seems I put too big effort on showing the contrast by description, instead of citing sources. Here’s from our Catechism:
79 The Father's self-communication made through his Word in the Holy Spirit, remains present and active in the Church: "God, who spoke in the past, continues to converse with the Spouse of his beloved Son. And the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the Gospel rings out in the Church - and through her in the world - leads believers to the full truth, and makes the Word of Christ dwell in them in all its richness."
II. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRADITION AND SACRED SCRIPTURE
One common source. . .
80 "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal." Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own "always, to the close of the age".
. . . two distinct modes of transmission
81 "Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit."
"And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching."
82 As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, "does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence."44
Link to the above: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a2.htm#81
Only traditions of local churches are not part of the Holy Tradition until Vatican decides otherwise. We don’t think that the Scripture is the only written proof of God’s deeds on Earth, because we believe that he is still present and active then the miracles are his deeds as well. I’m not saying that the Bible is not important, but the balance is different. I think we may add to the definition of Sola Scriptura that according to the Roman Catholic Church Tradition holds equal authority to Holy Scripture and link to the wikipage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradition#Traditionalism -- SylwiaS 13:17, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
One more thing. Maybe the most important, after all it’s all about salvation. I think that since Luther wanted to make the church better and less dependable on priests, he wanted to teach people, how to take the decisions personally. To achieve it, they had to learn, how to understand their faith. Sola Fide - if it’s the only reason for salvation, Protestants have to understand it. A Catholic doesn’t. One may, if he likes, find the theology very intellectual activity, but generally it’s enough to believe, one doesn’t have to understand and know the reasons. If you think about films showing Latino Americans i.e. “Romeo and Juliet” with Leonardo DiCaprio, there is difficult to see a Bible there, instead there are everywhere pictures of
Divine Mercy of Jesus Christ - a heart with rays. The cult of it comes solely from the Tradition. In 1931 Jesus showed himself to a Polish nun
Faustyna Kowalska. Anyhow, since we have the purgatory and in no way the church promises salvation to Catholics, the Divine Mercy is our main hope for ever going to Heaven. Another very important cult is Mother Mary, half of our prayers are to her. Still not even close to the Bible. Bibles in every hotel room is the Protestant custom, the Catholic would be rather a picture of Christ or Mother Mary. In fact, the differences between the two religions are much bigger than people usually think. Since Protestants don’t have the Tradition, it’s difficult for them to see, how big the differences are. From the other hand, as Catholics cannot really tell the difference between the Bible and the Tradition without longer thinking, they assume that Protestants have many things which they don’t. I assure you that many Catholics don’t really know that Protestants don’t have the cult of Mary, it’s just too natural for us, as well as they don’t have to know, that the cult of Mary comes from the Tradition, not from the Bible. --
SylwiaS 02:36, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, it seems the book is not yet available in Poland, but I hope our Orthodox Church will publish it soon. I gave the example with Mary especially as it partly derives from the Bible and many religions have different approach to her. It’s also significant that cult of Mary is different in various countries (e.g. she is called the Queen of Poland-Lithuania since 17th century, but also there is the French Lady of Lourdes, Lady of Fatima, Queen of Ireland and many others) while the official place in the Tradition was given her in 19 and 20c -- SylwiaS 13:56, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"priestly caste"
use of "caste" in this way is derogatory. Priests do not constitute a caste in the literal sense anyways.
"In a broader sense of the word, Protestantism is the collective name for numerous denominations of Western European origin, that broke with the Roman Catholic Church as a result of the influence of Martin Luther, founder of the Lutheran churches, and John Calvin, one of the founders of the Reformed movement."
Factually innacurate. There are denominations, such as the protestant American Episcopal Church and the Methodist church that were not begun as a result of the influence of Luter or Calvin (or Zwingli), but for political reasons and later from that Church which had been founded for political reasons or which later broke off from the Anglican Church which had been founded for political reasons, therefore not founded by splitting with the Catholic Church.
"the great dissemination of protestant beliefs occurred with the translation of the Bible by Protestants into native tongues from Latin, Greek and Hebrew and their quick spread with the help of the new technology of the printing press."
Wrong on basic facts and their interpretation. Implies Bible was not previously translated into vernaculars.
See: http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1270 (and that's just English, and also leaves aside that Latin was a vernacular translation when first made).
Here's more:
"The first book that issued from the press was the Latin Bible (popularly known as the Mazarin Bible), published by Fust and Gutenberg in 1456. For the Latin Bible (the form in which the Scriptures had hitherto been mainly known in Western Europe) there was indeed so great a demand, that no less than 124 editions of it are said to have been issued before the end of the fifteenth century; but it was only slowly that scholars realized the importance of utilizing the printing press for the circulation of the Scriptures, either in their original tongues, or in the vernaculars of Europe. The Hebrew Psalter was printed in 1477, the complete Old Testament in 1488. The Greek Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament, was included in the great Complutensian Polyglot of Cardinal Ximenes, printed in 1514-17, but not published till 1522. The Greek New Testament (edited by Erasmus) was first published by Froben in 1516, the Old Testament by the Aldine press in 1518. In the way of vernacular versions, a French Bible was printed at Lyons about 1478, and another about 1487; a Spanish Pentateuch was printed (by Jews) in 1497; a German Bible was printed at Strassburg by Mentelin in 1466, and was followed by eighteen others (besides many Psalters and other separate books) between that date and 1522, when the first portion of Luther's translation appeared. In England, Caxton inserted the main part of the Old Testament narrative in his translation of the Golden Legend (which in its original form already contained the Gospel story), published in 1483; but no regular English version of the Bible was printed until 1525, with which date a new chapter in the history of the English Bible begins."
from: http://www.bible-researcher.com/wyclif3.html
So we have a number of printed vernacular Bibles before the reformation begins.
The way this is put suggests, in a NPOV way, that the very fact of the translation of the scriptures caused protestant belief to spread. Certainly this is not the case in the consideration of any protestant orthodoxy. It is more accurate to say that the spread of Protestant beliefs occured with the propogation of vernacular translations reflecting Protestant interpretations and commentary. (Not to mention protestant works of theology.)
"and suggest a return to the simplicity of the Gospel"
assumes Catholic doctrine does not reflect the "simplicity of the Gospel". Even with the addition of "percieved difference", still implies that Protestant theology is somehow simpler than Catholic theology. Something without foundation in the article and highly debatable.
It’s true. Warsaw Catholic Theology University explains to their students that since the role of priests was to be diminished there was a need to make the Protestant theology understandable for everyone. It’s absolutely not the case in RC, even John Paul II, when asked difficult theology question used to say: I don’t know, go to Ratzinger. We have all the monks and bishops to study it for us, and still they don’t know everything. 2000 years of Tradition to learn after all. -- SylwiaS 23:27, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"From the beginning, Protestantism was in agreement against the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation, which teaches that the substance of the bread and wine used in the sacrificial rite of the Mass is transformed into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ (see Eucharist). However, they disagreed with one another either concerning the manner in which Christ is present in Holy Communion."
Generally, "in agreement", I think not! Of course, some do hold this view, (certain High Anglicans, for instance), so it would be wrong to say that they disagree with it too.
"Lutherans hold to an understanding closest to that of Real Presence (often misidentified as consubstantiation), which affirms the true presence of Christ "in, with, and under" the bread and wine. Lutherans point to Jesus' statement, "This is my body", while refusing to delve past Christ's words in order to describe just how this takes place. Lutheran teaching does, however, insist that Christ is present physically, rather than in a purely "spiritual" sense."
It seems wrong to say "misidentified" clearly Lutherans argue that Jesus is "with" the Bread and Wine, hence in he is consubstantially there whether they prefer that term or not. Certainly I agree that it is anachronistic to describe the Lutheran view as "Consubstantiation", but it is also wrong to say that this is a misidentification.
I don’t understand the anachronism of the word “consubstantiation”, but as I know the Lutheran view here is the closest to Catholic with two differences, first, they don’t see it as a sacrifice, second the change lasts only during the rite. For Catholics once the change is made it’s for ever. The bread, now body of Christ is held in “tabernaculum”, which is placed in the back of the altar. That’s why Catholics have to knee and make the sing of cross every time they pass the middle of a church. See also http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/Lord%27s%20Supper -- SylwiaS 00:10, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"A Protestant holding a popular corruption of the Zwinglian view"
Not NPOV, pro-Zwinglian to suggest that a view contrary to the Zwinglian is a "corruption".
"Within the Roman Catholic Church, this debate was officially concluded by the Council of Constance (1414-1418), which executed Jan Hus even though he had come under a promise of safe-conduct, "
Implies mendacity on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities. Truth is more ambigious as the article on Jan Hus notes:
"Sigismund promised him safe-conduct, guaranteeing his safety for the duration of his journey; as a secular ruler he would not have been able to make any guarantees for the safety of Hus in a Papal court, but this was probably not made sufficiently clear."
"16th century
* Martin Luther, 16th Century * John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli, 16th Century * Anabaptists and the Radical Reformation with an emphasis on Millenarianism, 16th Century"
What happened to the protestant reformation in England?
"The Methodist movement in the 17th and the 18th centuries"
Methodists in the 17th century?
"Evangelicalism 18th Century"
"In 1846, eight hundred Christians from ten countries met in London and set up the Evangelical Alliance. They saw this as "a new thing in church history, a definite organization for the expression of unity amongst Christian individuals belonging to different churches." However, the Alliance floundered on the issue of slavery. Despite this difficulty it provided a strong impetus for the establishment of national and regional evangelical fellowships."
"Fundamentalism 20th Century
"See main article Fundamentalism
"In reaction to liberal Bible critique, Fundamentalism arose in the 20th century"
This one is possibly too late. Though the name came later, fundamentalism arguably begins in the late 19th century among evangelicals as a reaction to modernism. See Fundamentalism and also: http://logosresourcepages.org/Positions/timothy_5.htm.
"Ecumenism mid 20th Century
"See main article Christian ecumenism
"The ecumenical movement has had an influence on mainline churches, beginning at least in 1910 with the Edinburgh Missionary Conference."
"and some are so unorthodox as to be questioned by most"
Questionably NPOV.
How about "the beliefs of some are so unusual that their orthodoxy is questioned by most."
(UTC)
-- Samuel J. Howard 17:25, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
There is a new page for this topic which could use expansion by someone with expertise in that area. KHM03 11:42, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
This is a judgement A Protestant holding a popular corruption of the Zwinglian view, not NPOV better A Protestant holding an extreme position, not sure how to reference Paul foord 16:03, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The five solas are not the total of the reformers tenets. This part needs expansion and that may mitigate the dispute issue /balance is wrong at present/ - I put in a sub-heading. Can someone look at other theological issues of importance. The Real Presence (not Lords Supper can be another) maybe ordination/ holy orders. Do we need something about practices to pick up other aspects. Paul foord 17:08, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Please help me to understand why the "Theological tenets" section should be moved prior to the history. Mkmcconn (Talk) 17:24, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
But 3.4 Methodist movement and Pietism 17th Century - 18th century 3.5 Evangelicalism 18th Century 3.6 Pentecostalism 20th Century 3.7 Fundamentalism 20th Century 3.8 Neo-evangelicalism mid 20th Century 3.9 Ecumenism mid 20th Century are not Theological tenets Paul foord 18:02, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Paul foord, Puritan Movement late 16th century - early 18th century appears to belong under the Reformation in England. Do you agree? Mkmcconn (Talk) 19:47, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Paul foord 03:11, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)