Is There Unity in The Protestantism Sects?

[Joshua]

Hi this particular writing is just describing why Protestant sects are not the church of Christ, I mean no offence by offending protestant but I only speak the truth.

The reason I say this, is because The Church is the bride of Christ as we all know how can he marry all of these churches?... Lord Jesus prayed to his Father and asked that they ( the church ) may remain one like he is with the father, also many other passages say so...

You may say " the Church" is not Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant but the spiritual beliefs of everyone having faith in Lord Jesus.
But that must be wrong. It is also condemned in scripture by Lord Jesus when he states that a kingdom divided against itself cannot last.
Therefore we conclude that the Church must be ONE, and remained ONE since the BEGINNING... what church has remained ONE in LORD JESUS since the BEGINNING... They is only one church that can trace it's history right back to the BEGINNING... The Catholic Church!




Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is ONE BODY, AND ONE SPIRIT even as ye are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, etc.---Eph. 4-3 to 5-3:



The Church of Christ Is and must be only ONE (Rom. 12:5, 1 Cor. 10:17, 12:13

Jesus established only one Church, not a collection of differing churches (Lutheran, Baptist, Anglican, and so on). The Bible says the Church is the bride of Christ (Eph. 5:23–32). Jesus can have but one spouse, and his spouse is the Catholic Church.

His Church also teaches just one set of doctrines, which must be the same as those taught by the apostles (Jude 3). This is the unity of belief to which Scripture calls us (Phil. 1:27, 2:2).

Although some Catholics dissent from officially-taught doctrines, the Church’s official teachers—the pope and the bishops united with him—have never changed any doctrine. Over the centuries, as doctrines are examined more fully, the Church comes to understand them more deeply (John 16:12–13), but it never understands them to mean the opposite of what they once meant.

According to "The Christian Sourcebook" (1986 pg.326), there were "21,000 denominations in 1986, with 270 new ones being formed each year." All of these are Protestant. As of January, 1997, there were more than 28,000 Protestant denominations. Each of these denominations are certain that they are the only group that understands God's revelation, and that no one else in the last 2,000 years has found the true teaching of Jesus.

The Protestant Churches Have Not Unity. In the sects taken all together or individually there is no unity because there is no common teaching and ruling authority to which members must submit. Hence, there is no bond of unity. All the sects together do not form one society. They differ widely and marvelously in faith, and are independent of each other.

Each sect taken by itself has no unity. The members do not know what to believe, and in following the principle of private judgment they have lost the very principle of unity.

In ruling they have no unity. The rule of the leaders in each sect is little respected, easily rejected, and advisory rather than a legislative, judicial and coactive power.

Such must be the type of the only possible leadership or rule which is left them, for the members of each sect guide themselves, not by what the rulers say or direct, but only by their own private judgment. This is the foundation of Protestantism and renders obedience to authority, and even the very existence of authority, impossible. If each individual can judge what he is to believe, an how he is to guide himself according to those individual beliefs, how can any central authority direct individual beliefs, how can any central authority direct individual? If private judgment is the norm for each individual, no other authority can exist. "Baptism, the Eucharist, Penance, Marriage, the sacrifice of the Mass, the historicity and inspiration of the Scriptures, the Resurrection of the Christ Our Lord, His very Divinity—and we might add almost indefinitely to the list—are all doctrines on which an approved and acknowledged member of the Church of England may believe almost anything he chooses. And he is free to do so because he has no authoritative teacher to whom all must listen. No doubt, there are the Holy Scriptures, the early Councils and tradition, which many Anglicans hold in unquestioning reverence. But where is the living authoritative interpreter? Who is to apply the dead rule to present issues? As matters stand, it must be each man’s private judgment. Synods and Convocations, whether or York or Canterbury, of Ireland, or the United States, or even or all the Anglican Churches, make no claim to an infallible authority. Formularies are dead things; and there is no living judge of controversies. No wonder that the very foundation of the Faith are so uncertain, that there is such diversity of belief, and such vital and never-ending differences. And no wonder we fail to find in such a Church that Kingdom of Christ on earth, which He promised should be ever on in faith, in worship and in government."

BELLOW WE LIST THE SUBDIVISIONS AND SPLINTER GROUPS OF SEVERAL MAJOR PROTESTANT SECTS

Lutherans

Reformed Church
Anglicans
Presbyterians
Baptist
Methodist


Lutheran: The name of an heretical sect founded by Martin Luther, who was born at Eisleben, Germany, Nov. 10, 1483; attended a Catholic Latin school at Mansfeld, and in 1497, when fourteen years old, entered another Catholic University of Erfurt in Thuringia, in 1501, where he became a Master of Philosophy at the age of twenty. On July 17, 1505 he entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt, and in 1507 was ordained a Catholic priest. In 1508 he was made professor of philosophy at the new Catholic University of Wittenberg, visited Rome in 1510 or 1511 on business of his Order, and sometime after his return began to lecture on the Scriptures. On Oct. 31, 1517 he nailed his 95 theses against indulgences to the door of the church in Wittenberg. On Sept. 21, 1520 he was excommunicated by Pope Leo X. Later he married an ex-nun, Catherine von Bora, and finally died in 1546.

Luther denied tradition; the divine authority of the Papacy; that councils were infallible; that original justice was a supernatural gift; that human nature remained essentially the same in its powers after the fall of Adam; that man, after the fall, can produce any good works; held that man sins in whatever he does; that the sins of the just are covered by faith and not done away with; maintained that all works of sinners are sins; denied free-will; all the Sacraments except Baptism and the Eucharist; transubstantiation; the Sacrifice of the Mass; purgatory and the utility of praying to the Saints; he maintained that vows are made to the devil; that concupiscence is invincible; that the sensual instincts are irrepressible, and held that the gratification of sexual propensities is as natural and inexorable as the performance of any of the physiological necessities of our being. Lutheranism in general and all the Protestant sects that developed from it were condemned by the Council of Treat (1545-1563).

1818 - Ohio Lutheran Synod
1930 - American Lutheran Church
1988 - Evangelical Lutheran Church of America
1820 - General Lutheran Synod
1863 - United Synod South
1867 - General Lutheran Council
1918 - United Lutheran Church in America
1962 - Lutheran Church in America
1988 - Evangelical Lutheran Church of America
1847 - Lutheran Church Missouri Synod
1976 - Association of Evangelical Lutherans
1988 - Evangelical Lutheran Church of America
1854 Iowa Lutheran Synod
1930 - American Lutheran Church
1988 - Evangelical Lutheran Church of America
1860 - Swedish Augustana Synod
1962 - Lutheran Church in America
1988 - Evangelical Lutheran Church of America
1872 - American Evangelical Lutheran Church
1962 - Lutheran Church in America
1988 - Evangelical Lutheran Church of America
1890 - Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church
1962 - Lutheran Church in America
1988 - Evangelical Lutheran Church of America
1896 - United Evangelical Lutheran Church
1960 - American Lutheran Church
1988 - Evangelical Lutheran Church of America
1900 - Church of the Lutheran Brethren of America
1988 - Evangelical Lutheran Church of America
1918 - Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod
1929 - Apostolic Lutheran Church of America


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Reformed Church: Guido de Bres, a Dutch reformer of Brabant, together with others, wrote in 1561 the statement of faith, called the Belgic Confession, which formed the doctrinal foundation of the Reformed Dutch Church.

These heretics believed in predestination; denied the supremacy of the Pope; free-will; the Sacraments; good works; purgatory; the forgiveness of sin, and considered the Scriptures the only rule of faith.

1628 - Dutch Reformed Church
1857 - Christian Reformed Church
1926 - Protestant Reformed Churches of America
1867 - Reformed Church in America
1628 - Puritans/Congregationalists
Evangelical Protestant Church of North America
1931 - Congregational Christian Churches
1957 - United Church of Christ
1790 - Universalists
1961 - Unitarian Universalist Association
1793 - German Reformed Church
1826 - Churches of God in North America
1869 - Reformed Church in the United States
1934 - Evangelical and Reformed Church
1957 - United Church of Christ
1801 - Christians/Churches of Christ
1832 - Christian Church/Disciples of Christ
1807 - Disciples of Christ
1832 - Christian Church/Disciples of Christ
1849 - Evangelical Synod of North America
1934 - Evangelical and Reformed Church
1957 - United Church of Christ

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Anglican Branch: Members of the Church of England, which was founded by Henry VIII and established as the national church of that country in 1534 by an act of Parliament. Henry decided to establish his own church because the Catholic Church would not allow him to divorce his wife and remarry. In his Bull "Apostolicae Curae" published Sept. 18 1896, Pope Leo XIII declared Anglican Order to be invalid.

The Anglicans, as they are commonly called, believe in justification by faith alone ; hold that the Bible is sufficient for salvation and that it is to be interpreted privately; deny the supremacy of the Pope and hold the King supreme in spiritual matters; deny the doctrine of Transubstantiation, purgatory, and condemn the Veneration of the Saints.

1787 - Protestant Episcopal Church
1861 - North Protestant Episcopal Church
1865 Protestant Episcopal Church
1873 - Reformed Episcopal Church
1861 - South Protestant Episcopal Church
1865 Protestant Episcopal Church
1873 - Reformed Episcopal Church

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Presbyterian Branch: A religious denomination that owes its formation to John Knox, who was born at Gifford, East Lothian, Scotland, in 1505. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1530. In 1542 he sided with Protestant movement, and thereafter, until his death at Edinburgh in 1572, was most active in attacking the Catholic Church.

1706 - Presbyterian Church
1741 - New Side Presbyterian Church
1758 - Presbyterian Church
1741 - Old Side Presbyterian Church
1758 - Presbyterian Church
1810 - Cumberland Presbyterian Church
1837 - New School
1870 - Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.
1937 - Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Bible Presbyterian Church
1956 - Bible Presbyterian Church
1965 - Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod
1982 - Presbyterian Church of America
1837 - Old School
1861 - Presbyterian Church, Confederate States
Presbyterian Church in the United States
1973 - Presbyterian Church of America
1983 - Presbyterian Church, USA
1870 - Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.
1937 - Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Bible Presbyterian Church
1956 - Bible Presbyterian Church
1965 - Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod
1982 - Presbyterian Church of America
1752 - Reformed Presbytery
1833 - Reformed Presbyterian Church of No. America (Covenanters)
Associate Presbyterian Church
1858 - United Presbyterian Church of No. America
1958 - United Presbyterian Church, USA
1983 - Presbyterian Church, USA
Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church
1822 - Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (Covenanters)
1958 - United Presbyterian Church, USA
1983 - Presbyterian Church, USA
1774 - Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America
1965 - Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod
1982 - Presbyterian Church of America

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Baptist Branch: Founded by John Smith, at one time pastor of a church at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, England, that had separated from the Church of England. About 1606, to escape persecution, he and his flock emigrated to Amsterdam. Smith died in 1612.

Taught only baptism of immersion t be valid; predestination; denied free-will; good works ;purgatory; the Sacraments, and the forgiveness of sin.

1639 - British Separatists
1672 - Seventh-Day Baptists
1727 - Free Will Baptists
1770 - Old Lights
1787 - General Association of Separatists Baptists
1814 - Baptist Missionary Convention
1827 - Primitive Baptists
1845 - Northern Baptist Convention
1932 - General Assoc. of Regular Baptist Churches
1947 - Conservative Baptist Assoc. of America
1950 - America Baptist Convention
1770 - New Lights
1780 - Free Will Baptists (North)
1827 - Primitive Baptists
1910 - Northern Baptist Convention
1814 - Baptist Missionary Convention
1845 - Southern Baptist Convention
1895 - National Baptist Convention of America
1915 - National Baptist Convention of the U.S.A., Inc.
1961 - Progressive Baptist Convention
1905 - American Baptist Association
1895 - Northern Baptist Convention of America
1932 - General Assoc. of Regular Baptist Churches
1947 - Conservative Baptist Association of America
1950 - American Baptist Convention

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Methodist: Founded by John Wesley, who was born at Epworth, Lincolnshire, England, June 17, 1703. He was ordained a clergyman of the Anglican Church in 1728, and in 1736, when he visited Savannah in Georgia, came into contact with Moravian doctrines. He organized the first Methodist Society in 1739. Shortly after he left the Anglican Communion and organized his own church.

The Methodist doctrine is borrowed from the Anglicans and Calvanists. They hold Scripture to be the sole and sufficient rule of belief and practice; teach justification by faith alone, although the practice of good works is commended; condemn works of supererogation; admit only two sacraments; condemn the invocation of the Saints and the veneration of sacred images and relics; and deny purgatory.

1784 - Methodist Episcopal Church
1816 - African Methodist Episcopal Church
1821 - African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
1830 - Methodist Protestant Church/Bible Protestant Church
1939 - Methodist Church
1946 - Evangelical Methodist Church
1968 - United Methodist Church
1843 - Wesleyan Methodist Church of America
1968 Wesleyan Church
1844 - Methodist Episcopal
1860 - Free Methodist Church
1908 - Church of the Nazarene
1939 - Methodist Church
1946 - Evangelical Methodist Church
1968 - United Methodist Church
1844 - Methodist Episcopal Church (South)
1870 - Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
1897 - Pilgrim Holiness Church
1968 - Wesleyan Church
1800 - Church of the United Brethren in Christ
1946 - Evangelical United Brethren Church
1807 - Evangelical Church
1946 - Evangelical United Brethren Church
1829 - Primitive Methodist Church
1886 - Church of God (Cleveland, TN)
1923 - Tomlinson Church of God
1943 - Church of God (Queens Village, NY)
1953 - Church of God of Prophecy
1957 - Church of God of All Nations
1886 - Church of God
1922 - Original Church of God, Inc.
1886 - United Holy Church of America, Inc.
1898 - Fire-Baptized Holiness Church
1953 - Emanuel Holiness Church
1911 - Pentecostal Holiness Church
1918 - Pentecostal Fire-Baptized Holiness Church
1899 - Pentecostal Holiness Church
1911 - Pentecostal Holiness Church
1901 - Pentecostal Union
1917 - Pillar of Fire
1914 - Assemblies of God, General Council
1914 - Church of God by Faith, Inc.
1914 - Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc.
1924 - Pentecostal Church, Inc.
1945 - United Pentecostal Church, Inc.
Pentecostal Assemblies of Jesus Christ, Inc.
1917 - Pentecostal Church of Christ
1918 - International Church of the Foursquare Gospel
1919 - Pentecostal Church of God of America, Inc.
1919 - International Pentecostal Assemblies
1919 - Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, Inc.
1957 - Bible Way Church, World-Wide
1919 - Bible Standard, Inc.
1935 - Open Bible Standard Churches, Inc.
1932 - Open Bible Evangelistic Association
1935 - Open Bible Standard Churches, Inc.
1932 - Calvary Pentecostal Church, Inc.
1947 - Elim Missionary Assemblies


Catholic Apologetics - Joshua

[Cathar1950]

I have to question any first Christianity that can be found as even by the time of Paul it had either splintered or at least had many factions.
Between Paul and the fall of Jerusalem up until the second century there is largely silence and questionable traditions.

[Cathar1950]

The reason I brought this up was that I don’t think they can ever go back to the origianl Christian faith; they can only move on. There just isn’t an origianl Christianity to return.
From the very beginning there were differences and I can’t see that they could all believe the same so dogma and doctrine will always be an issue. Maybe they will mature someday and take a cue from their sister religion Judasm with no demand for proper theology and maybe someday even Athiests can be Christians too.




“Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church� by S.G.F. Brandon is a great book on the effects of the First Jewish war and the Christian beginings. Acts is largely a pious fiction or idealized history that rehablitates Paul and deals with the Gentile Christians while dismissing the Alexandia Jewish Christians and those that were not Pauline. I hunted for this book for years until I found one under $200.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._G._F._Brandon

His thinking on New Testament themes grew out of The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church (1951). His most celebrated position is the controversial one, that a political Jesus was a revolutionary figure, influenced in that by the Zealots; this he argued in the 1967 book Jesus and the Zealots: A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity.[1] It has generated much in the way of opposing views.[2] The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth (1968) raises again, amongst other matters, the question of how the Fall of the Temple in 70 CE shaped the emerging Christian faith, and in particular the Gospel of Mark.
He was a critic of the myth-ritual theory, writing a 1958 essay The Myth and Ritual Position Critically Examined attacking its assumptions.[3]

The Jewish leadership of the Christians disapears with the Temple and Brandon makes a good case for many Jewish Christians being caught up in the war.

Until the second century we really don’t have much information except questionable traditions where they started apologies and many of the writings were being more widly circulated.

I even doubt there were 12 disciples as the only ones mentioned are the Pillars of the Church Peter James and John mentioned by Paul. The 12 were a representation of the 12 tribes.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -3,00.html

Religion: The Rise & Fall of Heaven
Dreams of Paradise. Brandon starts his story in the Upper Paleolithic Age, when bodies were tinted red ocher before burial —an attempt to replace through magic the blood that seemed to be missing.
Then, in rich chapters, he describes the virtually inexhaustible variety of answers that man has proposed to the question of what follows death. Islam preached an afterlife of sensual pleasure for the true believer; some Hellenic religions gloomily warned of a dark, shadowy Hades. The Sumerian faith of ancient Babylon and the primitive Yahwist faith of Israel also preached an afterlife of agony rather than ecstasy—which was still apparently preferable to believing that death was merely obliteration.
One of man's most amenable interpretations of death and destiny emerged from the rich civilization of later Egypt. Bodies were mummified; food, clothing and jewelry were stored in crypts; slaves were slaughtered to serve their dead masters in the new world. By "ritual assimilation'' with the god Osiris, it was believed that the dead could share in his resurrection and live happily ever after. Judging by the drawings found in pyramids, the Egyptian vision of Osiris' kingdom was as sensuous as Mohammed's fleshly dream of a Paradise filled with soft-eyed houris, serving exquisite wines to the eminently deserving servants of Allah.
Accident of History. An expert in the history of the early church, Brandon has some iconoclastic ideas about the evolution of the Christian understanding of destiny. In effect, he argues that the form in which that understanding came down to the present day is largely the result of an accident of history—the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. The Christian teaching that a Saviour God redeemed sinful man by his death on the Cross and will return at the end of history to judge the world, he points out, contains echoes of Greek, Jewish and Egyptian teaching. So elaborate a doctrine must have emerged only after decades of theological argument. To most Christian laymen, the story of this development is disguised by the seemingly natural arrangement of the New Testament: the life of Jesus in the Gospels is followed, in Acts, by an account of the early church, then by an elaborate theological explanation of the Christian message in Paul's Epistles.
In reality, as Brandon and others before him point out, the earliest New Testament documents are the Pauline Epistles, written before A.D. 68. In these letters to young churches, Paul is defending his interpretation of Christ from attacks by unnamed enemies. These opponents, too powerful for him to criticize openly, were almost certainly the Apostles James and Peter, who governed the mother church of Christianity in Jerusalem. Brandon argues that these first disciples thought of Jesus exclusively within the context of Jewish history. To them, the Messiah was simply a national hero, who would bring Israel to glory at the imminently awaited Parousia (second coming); his message was meant primarily for the Jews. But Paul, a Roman citizen and a cosmopolite familiar with Greek learning, reinterpreted Jesus, on the authority of his own private revelations from God, as the Saviour of all mankind.
The Jerusalem church censured Paul in A.D. 56 for the heresy of believing that gentiles could be saved. But 14 years later, Roman troops destroyed the city and dispersed its inhabitants. Since the church of Jesus' own disciples was so fortuitously wiped out, Paul's interpretation of Jesus gradually was accepted by other congregations as the authentic teaching.
The Gospels, which were all written after the fall of Jerusalem, reflect this Pauline view of Jesus as Lord of History, rather than the original apostolic understanding of him as Jewish hero.
Science's Effect. In the writings of Augustine, Aquinas and other church fathers, Pauline Christianity flowered into what Brandon feels was man's most completely satisfying attempt to explain the nature of man, the world and divine judgment.
Now that flower is sadly wilted. Brandon blames that old devil science. Christianity taught that man was saved in a universe where God's grace was present. Yet science explains the world "as the field of the interplay of impersonal forces, where man and his needs and aspirations appear completely irrelevant." Brandon sees the intense interest in the works of thinkers like Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin as an indication of Christian man's need to escape from his present cultural schizophrenia by finding a viable explanation of the teleological character of the universe.
Every eschatology, Brandon concludes, is an effort by man to provide himself with "spiritual security" against the passage of time. Unlike the lower animals, which live only in the present moment, man is conscious of time, and thus of death. Stoicism and Epicureanism—faiths for the Greco-Roman intellectual elite—accepted death as the final end to life with equanimity. But man generally has rebelled against this kind of blunt pragmatism, instinctively seeking "some state in which he will be secure from the everlasting menace of time's destructive logic." Brandon tacitly admits that he has some trouble juggling his Christian faith and his academic findings. "My findings as a professor lead me to recognize certain things," he says, "and if these clash with my views as an Anglican then I must not panic but evaluate them properly, balancing one side against the other. I believe we have inherited a form of Christianity which one may well question as to whether it was original, and whether it has developed on the right lines."

[Choir Loft]

Hi this particular writing is just describing why Protestant sects are not the church of Christ, I mean no offence by offending protestant but I only speak the truth.

There is one truth and then there is another. Your truth is your own and if you want to understand what is going on in the world you need to understand what other people are doing and why...and along the way maybe also try to find out how God is involved in the process.

For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.
1Co 12:12

The body of Christ is one, but is composed of many different members. Even within a single denomination such as the Roman Catholic, there are different groups.

All may be different, but all serve Christ and all are served by Him.

This is a spiritual truth and not easily understood especially by those which preconceived notions and hardened understanding.

[cnorman18]

Just for the record, this material seems, once again, to have been largely lifted from this site, which I invite everyone to take a look at.

Type "Jews" into the search function and see what you find.

But have a wastebasket nearby, in case you vomit.

This site is nothing if not fanatically sectarian and horribly antisemitic. I don't consider it, or anything that comes from it, to be reliable unless it's verified by a less bigoted and hateful source.

Find another website, Joshua. I'm going to nail you for posting from this one every chance I get. It's vicious, contemptible, and filled with hateful falsehoods.

[Heterodoxus]

Issue: "Is There Unity in The Protestantism Sects?"

I dunno. Is there unity within the Catholic Church?

Heal thyself, quack!

[Catharsis]

Joshua is right. In terms of doctrines and beliefs protestantism is not united, which I think was the basic point he was trying to make. Protestantism has disintegrated into thousands of different and often dogmatically opposite denominations within itself.

[MagusYanam]

Joshua is right. In terms of doctrines and beliefs protestantism is not united, which I think was the basic point he was trying to make. Protestantism has disintegrated into thousands of different and often dogmatically opposite denominations within itself.

Eh, that's what happens when you turn Scripture into an idol with doctrines like sola scriptura. Scripture is narrative, and how one reads it is as much a reflection on oneself as it is a proper reading. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's still better to approach Scripture in the firmer groundings of Church tradition and reason.

I'm still slightly 'protestant'-ish in that I still think it's wrong to defer one's interpretation of Scripture entirely to any one man, though, even if he does give himself a title like 'Pope'. The more so if such subjugation is demanded in the name of 'unity'; the Kingdom of Heaven - in which the last are to be made first and the first last - is not a dictatorship.

[Catharsis]

I'm still slightly 'protestant'-ish in that I still think it's wrong to defer one's interpretation of Scripture entirely to any one man, though, even if he does give himself a title like 'Pope'. The more so if such subjugation is demanded in the name of 'unity'; the Kingdom of Heaven - in which the last are to be made first and the first last - is not a dictatorship.

I agree with all your points, and I'm Orthodox; I have a couple of questions for you since you stated that you don't subscribe to sola scriptura, nor to pope's (or any one man's) primacy and infallibility. Please do not think I'm testing you in any way - I'm just trying to learn your thoughts and beliefs on this subject.

Since you don't believe in sola scriptura or man's (pope's) infallibility - Who interprets the Scripture for you? Where do you place your trust? Do you read it and interpret it Yourself?

[MagusYanam]

I agree with all your points, and I'm Orthodox; I have a couple of questions for you since you stated that you don't subscribe to sola scriptura, nor to pope's (or any one man's) primacy and infallibility. Please do not think I'm testing you in any way - I'm just trying to learn your thoughts and beliefs on this subject.

Since you don't believe in sola scriptura or man's (pope's) infallibility - Who interprets the Scripture for you? Where do you place your trust? Do you read it and interpret it Yourself?

No offence taken, I know you're on the level!

Scripture is a primary authority in matters of faith, and individual interpretation can be important. But I'm just like any other human being groping blindly in the dark, and I believe I have to defer to the traditions of the Church - casting back to the early Church and the body of works of the kerygmatic Church Fathers - and to the common exercise of reason within the Church community in order to keep myself and my notions accountable to God. Hence, Richard Hooker's dialectic of Scripture, reason and tradition.

[Catharsis]

I have to defer to the traditions of the Church

Which Church is this?