The Westernization of Christianity

Author: Sir.Lancelot
Christianity

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#1
Sir.Lancelot
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This post is about Orthodoxy vs Catholicism vs Protestantism, and it's directed towards christians.

In my personal studies, I've noticed the divide in these denominations. And it's by no means uncommon for the denominations to talk smack about each other. 
The differences that caused these splits was always due to church politics and tension over differences of scriptural interpretation. 

Where do you stand on the side of church politics, if you are Christian?
If you are a christian that believes all churches are universally acceptable, so long as you have faith in God, then this post doesn't apply to you. 
Protestants, evangelicals, orthodox, catholic... I want to hear from all of you what denomination/church you represent and why it appeals to you the most, versus other branches of christianity.
#2
AdaptableRatman
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I am blessed to have had a Catholic Church near enough to me to visit weekly. A lot of the world does but not enough yet.

However, the fact is it is the OG church and only Coptics rival it in age afaik.

It is also the only church to blatantly claim to be founded by Jesus himself rather than a second one later. The Nicene emperor that sort of 'founded it' being finalsied doctrinally duebto the first Nicene council being catholic in thinking vs later ones that became Byzantine, hence eastern orthodox, did not name himself as founder. In fact they considered St. Peter the first Pope.

Catholics are why we have hospitals human rights and most science vs what the Greeks did.
#3
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@Sir.Lancelot
@AdaptableRatman
HaHa.

For sure, we have a reasonable knowledge of how human society has developed of the previous 2 or 3 millennia.

Though in order to substantiate theistic/deistic baloney, firstly you need to prove that Abraham and his crew weren't off their heads.

Shamanism has always had it's mind altering inclinations.


And of course, Empiricism has always bought along it's own baggage.

Though It's thinking people that move and shake, irrespective of their religious tags.
#4
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@zedvictor4
Why are you on a thread for Christian to discuss their sect or denimination and why they adhere to it and ridiculing it?

Stay out of it, you do not need to agree, just leave this thread. Your post did not even address anything I said.
#5
Sidewalker
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@Sir.Lancelot
This post is about Orthodoxy vs Catholicism vs Protestantism, and it's directed towards christians.

In my personal studies, I've noticed the divide in these denominations. And it's by no means uncommon for the denominations to talk smack about each other. 
The differences that caused these splits was always due to church politics and tension over differences of scriptural interpretation. 

Where do you stand on the side of church politics, if you are Christian?
If you are a christian that believes all churches are universally acceptable, so long as you have faith in God, then this post doesn't apply to you. 
Protestants, evangelicals, orthodox, catholic... I want to hear from all of you what denomination/church you represent and why it appeals to you the most, versus other branches of christianity.
I don’t think such exclusivity of truth is a tenet of the Christian faith and I do not believe it is Biblically derived.  The central commandment of Christianity is that “The Lord our God is one Lord” which expresses a divine unity, and we must “love our neighbors as we love ourselves”, there is no other commandment greater than these in Christianity. To love our neighbor as we love ourselves, we must necessarily recognize that his religion is to him, what our religion is to us.

The basic Christian epistemological postulate is that God transcends human understanding, the limiting distinctions and categories of normal human thought just do not apply; human knowledge is "finite" knowledge and the way we "know" is a function of our limited capacity to know. The true reality is much more, perhaps infinitely more, than we think it is, probably much more than we are even capable of thinking. God is transcendent to human knowledge; we can never have perfect understanding of God; He is as “seen through a glass darkly” such that “no man knows as he ought to know”.  I think you can broadly characterize religious cognition as such that there is a direction involved the journey and characterize the associated epistemological development as an ascent of religious discernment. 

If you stand the various religions side by side you can draw lines horizontally between them and find great differences, but these are the surface level differences, cultural differences of form rather than content, solely exoteric differences. But there is another way to draw the lines, you can draw them vertically along a graded scale of ascending religious discernment in esoteric recognition that every religion has, underlying their various and conflicting literal meanings, a transcendent dimension, which is essential, primordial and universal.  Ontologically speaking, there is a transcendent Divine Unity, commonly referred to as God (but not always); and using the vertically graded scale of the Christian worldview it can be said that “above” the religions converge, and “below” they differ. I think it can also be said that epistemologically speaking, and on the same Christian vertical scale that I referred to as ascending religious discernment, that cognitively, religious discernment unites also.  Each religion approaches the transcendent reality from different cultural directions or frames of references, but they do essentially converge on this understanding of the epistemology of knowledge. 

Man’s mind cannot imagine a Divine Unity that excludes nothing any more than it can visualize light that is simultaneously wave and particle, or an electron that moves from place to place without traveling the distance between those two points, but that is the way the authorities of physics tell us the underlying reality is. In much the same way, the Absolute Unity that is referred to with the word God defies visualization or even consistent description, and the Philosophia Perennis which is being imparted by those who wrote the Bible is in fact, represented in a variety of cultural contexts, it is one and the same Spirit that is presented in a variety of different forms in all of the great religions of Mankind.  The Divine Unity in all its fullness cannot in any way be circumscribed or even exhaustively defined by any single tradition, to circumscribe is to bound and limit, and “the word of God is not bound”.


#6
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@Sidewalker
Do you love all your site neighbours here as you love yourself?
#7
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@AdaptableRatman
I am blessed to have had a Catholic Church near enough to me to visit weekly. A lot of the world does but not enough yet.

However, the fact is it is the OG church and only Coptics rival it in age afaik.

It is also the only church to blatantly claim to be founded by Jesus himself rather than a second one later. The Nicene emperor that sort of 'founded it' being finalsied doctrinally duebto the first Nicene council being catholic in thinking vs later ones that became Byzantine, hence eastern orthodox, did not name himself as founder. In fact they considered St. Peter the first Pope.

Catholics are why we have hospitals human rights and most science vs what the Greeks did.
To worship a church is idolatry.

"You shall have no other gods before Me” - 1st Commandment
#8
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@Sidewalker
Yeah you got me there, I think the Catholic church is G-

Ahhh Im excommunicated by my own church for that.
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#9
Sir.Lancelot
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@AdaptableRatman
What are your thoughts on the debates regarding church history? 

In the Orthodox Study Bible, there’s a passage that describes the history of The Catholic Church before they split from the Orthodox about how one division wished to recognize a universal bishop, and how this division excommunicated someone against the approval of the clergy members. Resulting in the separation. 

There’s definitely arguments of which came first. Orthodox say they came first, and vice-versa.
#10
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@Sir.Lancelot
There’s definitely arguments of which came first. Orthodox say they came first, and vice-versa.
The Roman Catholic Church came first.
#11
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@Sir.Lancelot
That split is gaslighting, saying caths split from Ortho is misleading. EO were a mutation of the Nicenes and stem from a shift from OG Nicaeans to Byzantines. Caths moved west but kept tje same principles of papacy and the structure while EO made it fit cukture rather than God.
#12
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@Shila
🙏🙏✝️⛪
#13
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That split is gaslighting, sayuing caths split from Ortho is misleading. EO were a mutation ofnthe Nicenes and stem from a shift from OG Nicaeans to Byzantines. Caths moved west but kept tje same principles of papacy and the structure while EO made it fit cukture rather than God.
The church split came because of Martin Luther and the Lutheran church.
#14
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@Sir.Lancelot
All the invention of man. Westernization and Christianity.
#15
Mall
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@Shila
Man invented.
#16
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@AdaptableRatman
Where you in the so called Catholic Church?
#17
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@Mall
Man invented.
The split in the church into different denominations was man invented.
#18
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@Shila
The church split came because of Martin Luther
Well, because of the people who excommunicated him.
#19
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@Mall
What
#20
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@Shila
No. Luther was 1500s prot.

EO vs Caths began much before that as Byzantines vs Roman Caths.
#21
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@AdaptableRatman
Where.  ....... you .......in .......the ......so called .......Catholic Church?
#22
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@Mall
Somewhere in Europe.
#23
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At the very least the muslims being in control of all traditional Orthodox lands and persecuting them should cause them to reflect and see that they split from the true church and are being punished for it.
#24
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@WyIted
You are confused at 1 thing. So, the northeast african typenof rotho are fundamentally different tonthe east european and I dont mean culturally I mean doctrinally.

First of all, North East Africa is called Oriental Orthodox. The Oriental wordnis to separate them form thenonesnwe cal EasternnOrthodox. Oriental orthodox often believe in modal heresy. Eastern Orthodox thinknal is from and bu father andnthebothe 2 are from him alone.
#25
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No. Luther was 1500s prot.

EO vs Caths began much before that as Byzantines vs Roman Caths.
Yes, Martin Luther, a German monk, broke away from the Catholic Church, which sparked the Protestant Reformation in 1517. He disagreed with the Church's teachings, particularly on indulgences and papal authority, and challenged its practices. In 1521, he was excommunicated by Pope Leo X and condemned as an outlaw by the Holy Roman Empire, solidifying the split.
Key Points of the Split:
Indulgences:
Luther criticized the sale of indulgences, which were believed to grant forgiveness for sins in exchange for payment.
Papal Authority:
He questioned the Pope's power and authority, arguing that the Bible should be the ultimate source of religious truth.
Salvation:
Luther's teachings emphasized salvation through faith alone, rather than through good works, as the Catholic Church believed.
Excommunication:
Pope Leo X excommunicated Luther in 1521 for his views and refusal to recant his teachings.
Diet of Worms:
In 1521, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V condemned Luther at the Diet of Worms, declaring him an outlaw.
The Protestant Reformation:
Luther's actions and ideas led to a widespread religious movement known as the Protestant Reformation.
This movement challenged the authority of the Catholic Church and resulted in the formation of new Christian denominations, including Lutheranism.
The Reformation had a profound impact on European history, influencing politics, culture, and society.

#26
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@Shila
The split in the church into different denominations was man invented.
Nope, it cane far earlier - by centuries -  than Luther's Reformation. By the time of Constantine [3rd century B.C.E., the schism between Rome and the Eastern Orthodoxy was already mature.  And while the Western Roman Empire was crumbling in Rome, and Constamtone wanted a cohesive translation of the various  and separate texts, and his translators, though certainly familiar with Greek, as many of them were Greek, themselves, their familiarity with Hebrew sufficient for more than dictionary-to-dictionary comparison-type translation was doubtful, yet, they tried. Meanwhile, the Roman Church already had its Latin Vulgate, but how familiar were its developers with either Greek or Hebrew? Dunno. And by the time King James was about ordering a new English Translation [The Brit Catholics already had their Latin Vulgate, and the Gutenberg, the Protestants had an English 36-book O.T. [the Latin Vulgate had 6 more] and the 27-book N.T., but it was not yet the KJV until 1611, and the Quaker's used the Geneva Bible, the Bishops' Bible and Tyndale's New Testament.  None of these among all Christians were identical translations, so they were as confused then as we are now.
#27
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@Sir.Lancelot
I've mentioned before that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints [used to be referred to as Mormons, but it was others opposed to us in the early 19th century who gave us that moniker, and we now eschew it as an acceptable moniker]. It was given to us because of our introduction of a new body of scripture, the Book of  Mormon, which we have in addition to, not as a replace for the Holy Bible, which we also refer as the Word of God. We also have the Doctrine & Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price; additional scripture. We believe God has not stopped speaking to man, and that there is much more to be revealed to us from God. We are accused of not being Christians, but we are, decidedly and firmly so. We are criticized because we believe we are not only expected to strive to be like Jesus Christ, but that also we are enabled to become like him, to become, eventually, in a distant time ahead of now, become gods and goddesses, ourselves, that wee are on a path of eternal progression, inhabirting perfect, resurrected bodies of flesh, bone, and spirit, just as now, but incorruptible, once resurrected.
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#28
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@fauxlaw
You’re Mormon? 

That’s exciting tbh. 
Would you be interested in doing a debate with me where I defend Protestantism or Orthodoxy and you defend Mormonism? 
#29
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PROUD CATHOLIC
#30
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@Sir.Lancelot
On a more serious note:

Orthodox is still good, I mean dont get me wrong, they still need to accept Latin rule, but not bad by any means.

High Church Protestantism: Bad, but not the worse, AT LEAST they accept Apostolic succession.

Low Church Protestantism: Evil, how can ANYONE look at the 5 tenets of Calvinism and tell me that is life-giving and good.

The only reason why I am catholic is because I was raised Catholic, and I owe it up to my family to do so. If I came from a different heritage I would just as steadfast in my beliefs, but it would be different.