Hello and good day everyone! Kind of a silly post, but I was genuinely intrigued on what mainline protestants might think on this topic. As I understand it the end goal for the church is to someday, hopefully soon, reunify. Now, to be quite frank, I really don't see this happening without significant dialogue, and as a result of dialogue significant changes to doctrine on both sides of the denominational spectrum. That being said, and though we can only speculate, I thought it might be a little bit fun to suggest possible concessions from either side. As it stands, here are my terms.
Catholics
Mainline Protestants
Again this is meant to be largely unserious, and is only really meant to encourage dialogue amongst us Christians. I recognize reading through this that my bias is apparent, and that I have been largely unfair in my requests. However, as it stands these are my terms. If you have any suggestions for concessions for either side feel free to note them down, or if I you think I have absolutely misunderstood the nature of ecumenicism let me know. God Bless.
So, I'll first say few things before my actual question. So, my flair says 'non-christian' as I am not fully Christian, more like Christian-curious. Also English is not my 1st language. And most importantly, I am not a bible expert, and I do not claim to be one.
So, after few 'disclaimers' to my actual question.
So, Bible somewhat clearly states that homosexual acts are wrong, even though there are people, even theologians that disagree on that, but they are minority.
There are lot of things that are listed as sins in the bible, such as murder, gluttony, envy etc.
With all of those, it's really easy to see why they are bad, you can see easily see it in real life. Murder deprives the victim literally from everything, and causes massive distress and grief to the victim's family, and also causes psychological distress to assailant too. (Regret, PTSD etc.).
Gluttony can have very bad, objective, measurable consequenses for one's health. (Obesity, diabetes..)
Envy is a feeling that makes you resent others, and causes you to appreciate your own life and yourself less.
With sin of homosexuality, which is talked about a lot in this day and age, (or homosexual acts) there are no negative consequenses that we can clearly see in the 'real world' so to speak, that are directly related to homosexuality.
Like, in my whole life, I have never heard a logical explanation for immorality of homosexuality. Most explanations only work on theoretical level, or are otherwise lame excuses. Such as claim that unnatural somehow automatically equates immoral.
So my question is, what is your take on this?
And how should we approach a situation where a claim or teaching of The Bible contradicts with logic, or our observations in real life?
Cessationism does not deny the Holy Spirit. It denies that the apostolic sign gifts were intended to continue beyond their redemptive-historical purpose.
The confusion today comes from people reading Acts as though it were written primarily as a manual for ongoing church experience, instead of recognising it as a historical transition from Old Covenant Israel into the establishment of Christ’s New Covenant church through the apostles.
The miracles, tongues, healings, and signs in Acts were not random spiritual experiences distributed equally across church history. They were tied directly to:
\- the revelation of Christ
\- the authority of the apostles
\- and the expansion of the Gospel into the covenant nations and peoples foretold in Scripture.
Jesus first sent the disciples out in limited form during His earthly ministry as His authorised messengers. But Pentecost becomes the formal public inauguration of the New Covenant age through the Holy Spirit.
Acts itself unfolds progressively and covenantally as the fulfilment of Christ’s prophecy in Act 1:8 as He declares:
\[8\] But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Acts 1:8
And these are the examples of that fulfilled prophecy, in every way. They are not examples of the continuation of tongues as Pentecostal and Charismatic leaders profess.
\- Acts 2 — Jews
\- Acts 8 — Samaritans
\- Acts 10 — Gentiles
\- Acts 19 — God-fearing disciples connected to John’s baptism
These are not repetitive patterns establishing a permanent doctrine of ongoing sign gifts. They are major covenantal transitions showing the Gospel reaching the peoples Christ said it would reach.
The signs authenticate the messengers and confirm the transition.
Hebrews 2:3–4 explicitly says God bore witness to the apostolic message through “signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit.” The signs were attached to revelation and apostolic authority.
This is why Ephesians says the church is:
“built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.”
A foundation is laid once.
The modern Pentecostal and Charismatic movements often treat Acts as though every visible manifestation must continue indefinitely as normative Christian experience. But Scripture itself never says that.
In fact, the New Testament repeatedly treats the apostolic era as foundational and unrepeatable.
Even Corinth the church most appealed to by continuationists was not being praised for its chaos. Paul was correcting disorder, immaturity, competition, interruption, and misuse. The entire tone of 1 Corinthians 12–14 is corrective.
And importantly, tongues in Acts were known human languages connected to covenant witness and judgment, not modern ecstatic speech patterns detached from intelligible nations and interpretation.
1 Corinthians 13 also explicitly says the gifts were partial and temporary:
“as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease.”
The question is not whether they cease, but when and why.
From a redemptive-historical cessationist perspective, the “perfect” is tied to the maturity and completion of the apostolic foundation and revelatory era, not to a future end-times revival movement.
The canon is complete.
The apostles are gone.
The foundation has been laid.
You do not continue laying foundations after the building stands.
None of this means the Holy Spirit stopped working.
The Spirit still:
\- regenerates the dead sinner
\- convicts of sin
\- grants repentance and faith
\- sanctifies believers
\- illuminates Scripture
\- comforts the church
\- seals believers in Christ
\- produces holiness
\- empowers preaching
\- sustains the saints
The Spirit has not become inactive. Rather, the revelatory and foundational sign gifts fulfilled their covenant purpose in establishing and confirming the apostolic Gospel.
Cessationism therefore is not a rejection of the Holy Spirit. It is the belief that the Spirit now works primarily through the completed Scriptures He inspired, the Gospel He established, and the church built upon the finished apostolic foundation.
God is not still revealing new doctrine.
Christ is not still building new apostles.
The foundation is not still being laid.
The sign gifts belonged to the establishment of the church.
The ordinary means of grace belong to its continuation.
Today I want to suggest that one of the most consistent patterns throughout Scripture is that covenant people repeatedly drift from God’s truth while still maintaining outward religion that does not reflect the truth, and in our case it’s the truth of the gospel today.
That pattern begins long before the New Testament church and continues all through redemptive history.
Israel had the covenants.
The temple.
The priesthood.
The sacrifices.
The Scriptures.
The prophets.
And yet again and again, the nation drifted into compromise while still claiming covenant identity.
That typology becomes important when thinking about the modern church because the New Testament repeatedly warns that visible covenant communities can outwardly continue while inwardly departing from truth.
This is not merely an Old Testament problem, it’s a problem for today, because we are going headlong into the very same moment in time.
When Israel drifted into apostasy, the problem was rarely outright atheism at first.
The problem was ‘mixture, compromise and corruption.’
Adding surrounding cultural ideas into the worship of God while still maintaining religious identity.
That is exactly what happened repeatedly under the kings.
Baal worship entered Israel gradually.
False prophets multiplied. Truth became blended with emotion, spectacle, nationalism, and outward religion.
The prophets continually confronted this reality.
“They honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”
That pattern reaches its climax in Christ’s confrontation with the religious leadership of His own day.
Outwardly, first-century Israel still possessed: the temple, sacrifices, priesthood, Scriptures, the traditions,
and covenant language.
Yet Jesus repeatedly says they had lost the heart of God’s revelation while maintaining religious appearance.
That covenantal pattern is enormously apparent in its repetition when we step back and view the modern church in its present state and diversity of beliefs, theology, and practices.
The New Testament was repeatedly warned that the churches themselves could and would drift from apostolic truth while still retaining Christian language and outward structure.
Paul warns the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:
“From among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.”
Likewise, Paul tells Timothy:
“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching…”
Noticeably, the danger comes from inside the visible church, not from pagan, non Christian influences outside the church, but from those very same people coming inside dressed as wolves, and both Christian’s and the Apostles warned us because they don’t know they are wolves! They think they are regenerated. And Paul’s comment, they. Left us because they were not one of us is the evidence of the warning. And I would suggest that those who left truely believe they were Christians during their time in the church.
So we can see that the issue is not pagans attacking Christianity externally.
It is professing believers no longer tolerating doctrinal truth internally.
This becomes important when examining much of modern evangelical culture.
The concern many people raise is not simply stylistic preference between “high church” and “low church.”
The deeper concern is whether modern evangelicalism has often replaced doctrinal depth with emotionalism, entertainment, personality culture, and experience-driven spirituality.
In many cases, churches become centered around:
music,
charisma,
platform personalities,
experiences,
personal empowerment,
or signs and wonders,
while systematic theology, church history, catechesis, repentance, and doctrinal precision gradually disappear.
That mirrors Israel’s recurring problem remarkably closely.
Israel constantly wanted visible excitement, immediate power, and religious experiences detached from covenant faithfulness.
The golden calf incident is one of the clearest examples.
The people did not suddenly abandon Yahweh for atheism. They attempted to reshape worship around visible experience and emotional immediacy.
That same temptation exists constantly in church history.
And this is where the discussion about tongues and modern charismatic theology connects directly into the broader issue of doctrinal drift.
Acts presents tongues as covenantal signs attached to apostolic revelation and the once-for-all expansion of the Gospel into new covenant territory.
But much modern evangelical and charismatic theology detaches those signs from their redemptive-historical purpose and recenters them around personal spiritual identity and emotional experience.
The focus subtly shifts:
from Christ’s finished work,
to personal encounter;
from doctrine,
to sensation;
from covenant fulfillment,
to repeated experiences.
That does not mean every evangelical or charismatic believer is insincere.
Far from it.
Many genuinely love Christ.
But Scripture repeatedly shows sincere religious people can still drift doctrinally when experience begins governing interpretation instead of the Word of God.
Israel sincerely believed many things while wandering into idolatry. The Pharisees sincerely believed they defended God while rejecting His Messiah.
That is why the New Testament constantly calls believers back to apostolic doctrine.
Paul repeatedly emphasizes “sound teaching.”
John warns believers to “test the spirits.”
Jude urges Christians to “contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.”
Even Revelation’s letters to the churches focus heavily on doctrinal compromise, false teaching, corruption, and spiritual adultery inside visible churches themselves.
That covenantal language intentionally echoes Old Testament Israel.
The church inherits the same warning Israel received: that is outward religion without covenant faithfulness leads to corruption.
This is also why covenant theology often produces a far more stable ecclesiology than modern revivalistic evangelicalism.
The ordinary means of grace become central again:
the preached Word,
the sacraments,
prayer,
discipleship,
and steady sanctification through Scripture.
The Christian life becomes less about chasing spiritual highs and more about enduring faithfulness under Christ’s present reign, and yes: He is reigning now, seated next to the father bringing all His enemies unto Himself as He brings us to Himself, until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled.
That means the Spirit is working primarily through the means Christ Himself established rather than through endless pursuit of visible manifestations.
Israel repeatedly chased signs while neglecting obedience, the Pharisees said, show us a sign, and then said His signs were from Satan.
Jesus even says:
“An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign.”
As a warning to falling into apostasy.
One of the great dangers in modern evangelicalism is that Christianity can slowly become shaped more by revival culture, personality-driven movements, emotional experiences, and entertainment structures than by careful submission to apostolic doctrine.
And once doctrine weakens, almost everything else eventually follows:
anthropocentric worship,
shallow repentance,
confusion about sin,
therapeutic preaching,
celebrity pastors,
prosperity theology,
mysticism,
and unstable eschatology.
That is not fundamentally different from Israel’s recurring covenant problem.
The forms change.
The human heart does not.
Which is exactly why the New Testament repeatedly calls the church to perseverance in truth until Christ returns.
I know some stuff about catholic and orthodox faith and also evangelicals. What I mean by evangelical is low church protestants like baptists, non demoms, pentecostals, charasmatics, etc.... I barely know anything about high church protestants lol. So those of you that are the high church protestants, why are you not evangelical?
Interested to hear your take on this argument that credobaptists should make the decision to not rebaptise people who were baptised as infants, and to do so whilst maintaining distinctly credobaptist convictions.
So my wife and I have been going through a rough time in our current church learning that we have massive doctrinal belief differences, including but not limited to denying Nicene Christianity. That’s a whole different story though.
I have always really enjoyed theology and have looked into many different traditions. I have now read the Augsburg Confession, Small and Large catechism, and reading through the Smalcald articles and the about to start the Formula of Concord. Needless to say, I have truly found Lutheran theology to be what seems to see the truth. We have an extremely traditional Lutheran church near us that she has said she feels like is weird and feels wrong. (Coming from an extreme low church tradition with no Liturgy). However though, there is an LCMS church near us as-well that has both a contemporary and a Traditional service. I would be okay with going to the contemporary service and the traditional service like 50/50, but also really don’t like the contemporary service since it doesn’t follow the LSB.
I have loved the pastors of this church already from just a few visits. I really don’t like the contemporary service and would love to get her to love the traditional service, but I’m sure it would just take time. I don’t want her to go reluctantly and just because I want to go though.
Any suggestions?
Currently I’m in the ACNA but I’ve been deeply interested in the reconquista (now operation reformation) I’ve talked to my local episcopal church rector and it didn’t go very well. I’ve asked would I be received if I don’t agree but am willing to be cooperative and she kept trying to argue with me
My current priest had tried to get ordained in TEC but was denied due to the same issue. It seems this movement is better for laymen than those seeking to be clergymen.
What is likely the move I should do? It seems my only option is ACNA or agree with female ordination.
2 Peter 2:20-22 (ESV)
^(20) For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.
^(21) For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
^(22) What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”
1 John 2:19 (ESV)
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.
Jude 1:3-4 (ESV)
^(3) Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
^(4) For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 10:26-31 (ESV)
^(26) For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
^(27) but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.
^(28) Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.
^(29) How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?
^(30) For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.”
^(31) It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Hebrews 6:4-6 (ESV)
^(4) For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit,
^(5) and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,
^(6) and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.
Mathew 12:43-45 (ESV)
^(43) “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none.
^(44) Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order.
^(45) Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”
Not sure how many of you on here keep up with internet apologetics but I recently watched the David Wood-Andrew Wilson debate and it was absolutely abysmal. Abysmal and embarrassing and I see this across all corners of internet Christianity including, unfortunately, in this corner at times. The spirit of the Corinthian church is alive and well in the spirit of the internet Church. I'm so tired of it all. Something needs to change. But how do we change it?
>The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
>But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
Let me know if this isn't okay to ask here!
I was thinking about this today because my pastor was spitting straight bars this morning in church. My congregation gets to see the sermon, but no one else benefits from it except the five people who watch the livestream. And I realized that that's true for most churches in most places. Our pastors work hard every week to teach us, but then we don't really do anything with it afterward.
These days most churches post their services online, and I really enjoy watching sermons and things on youtube, so I thought that some of you might be willing to share.
Recommendations from famous pastors who aren't yours are also fine and appreciated, but generally I was much more interested in seeing sermons from regular pastors who don't get that sort of recognition.
Any denomination is fine. And it doesn't actually have to be his "dopest" because that's probably really hard to find lol.
Thank you!
(Oh, and if the video is a whole service, please give a time stamp of the sermon.)
Edit: I forgot to say I'm not doing this to judge other people's pastors, so please don't do that!
Edit2: I realized after posting that most people probably (very wisely) don't want to say where they actually go to church on reddit, so I'll expand the prompt just to your favorite sermon recs from anywhere, and you can ignore the other stuff I wrote above.
basically kinda like the Episcopal Church, no one has to compromise in their beliefs, and we becone one body in order to furtger the kingdom of god together with more resources to do so.
I was really inspired by reading Luther’s argument that the burning of heretics is against the will of the Spirit, which I consider to be the greatest moment of the whole reformation when Pope Leo denounces that view.
But now I would like to pose the question back to Luther (or Protestants as a whole): is it the will of the Spirit for there to be Protestants, not in the temporary as a resistance movement against Papal abuses, but in the permanent? I’m not simply asking whether the Reformation was justified, but whether the grand schism and the dozens of schism of schisms following it is grievous to God?
Appealing to Scripture, it was Christ Himself that prayed “That they may be One, as We are One.” Not once but twice in John 17 (Our God! How great is our God!) And “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven”. So that same will for the Church in Heaven is the will of the Spirit on earth, and that will is that we be One even as Christ is one — that is, one in perfect unity and will, which seems to mean a unified body.
This line of thinking has directly led me to inquiry into the Orthodox Church, because if this is against the will of the Spirit, certainly that means every Protestant everywhere has an obligation to recommune with the apostolic traditions and be members of one body. This is evident in that anything against the will of the Spirit is influenced by demons and is to be rejected at all costs.
And yes, because Protestants broke apart from the One Catholic Church it is clear they would be called to recommune rather than vice versa.
Let me preface by saying I am attending a nondenominational/evangelical church. Modern worship, especially in evangelical/nondenominational spheres of church has many common themes which I find problematic. My primary concerns are lyrical concerns, and “Seeker sensitive” concerns.
Many worship songs sing false hopes, or falsehoods, and use God’s name to sponsor them. I am not the first one to point out that in the past few years worship teams have been obsessed with singing songs about how God is going to break down the walls of Jericho in our lives. It’s a fantastical idea. The story of Jericho is most certainly one to be admired, and God should be praised for it, but applying it to our life is where the problem gets made.
“My Jericho is coming down My victory is coming now” - “Jericho” first pentecostal church of north little rock
Lyrics like these I find quite problematic. This is a nice sentiment, but it could very easily be false. Who told you that YOUR jericho is coming down? Who told you, that you know your jericho? What appears like Jericho to you, may not be a problem in God’s eyes. Have you not read the story of Jericho? Before the walls came down, one generation of israel had sinned against God, and they had to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.
How do you know, that you’re entering Jericho, and not just wandering? The answer is, you probably don’t. If your “worship” consists of speaking falsehoods over yourself, and slapping God’s name on it, then it falls short of what true worship should be.
Many people might interpret “My Jericho” as a tragic event happening. Imagine you’ve got a sick relative, and you’re singing about how God is going to knock down your Jericho (heal the person) and he doesn’t. You made a statement about what God is going to do, and he didn’t do it. In John chapter 4, we’re told to worship in spirit and in truth. Focus on the “truth” aspect. Worship divorced from truth is incomplete. Too many worship songs attribute actions to God that he may or may not take.
We should make worship songs on these topics
I’m not saying it’s bad to sing about what God can do for your life, but I think we should try to stay away from singing about what we think God will do, and focus on what he can do if we’re going to sing about future miracles.
Perhaps instead of singing about how God is going to decimate each and every problem in our life (he’s not) we should sing about how God is powerful, just, and caring, and therefore we need not worry.
God’s word tells us that we need not worry for those very reasons, but God’s word does not tell us that he’s going to “break down all of our Jericho’s” or something.
Another massive fault that I identify is the “seeker-friendly” nature of worship. At church people will say things like “Worship wasn’t that good today” or “I liked worship last week better”
We aren’t worshipping you bro!!!
The fact that we feel as though we are in a position to complain about how we felt about a particular instance of worship says alot about how we’ve been taught to view worship. The only reason the worship wouldnn’t be good, is because you didn’t do it in spirit and in truth, as Our Lord tells us to in John chapter 4.
I understand that not all music is going to be equally appealing to your ears, but if that’s one of your primary concerns you have absolutely lost the point.
Worship is for God, not for you. It would be nice if all worship songs appealed to us on an equal level, but they don’t. The songs should not be for you, they are for God. The modern worship experience seems tailored towards the congregants instead of towards Our Lord. The job of a modern worship leader is to make sure the congregation enjoys worship. That’s why they choose the songs they do. They ask “which songs elicit the best reaction from the audience.”
The question is rarely “What form of worship is most pleasing to God?”. Seriously, if you’re a worship leader, when was the last time someone in one of your meetings asked a question like that?
God clearly has ways that he would like to be worshipped. He’d like to be addressed as though he is holy because he is holy. The entire book of leviticus preaches this point to us. Just because the law has been fulfilled does not mean we can approach God as being any less holy. Being our friend, and being available does not negate his holiness. God has intentions for worship.
In the new testament, the greek word for worship is “proskuneo” which literally translates to “prostrate” it means to bow. There is nothing about bowing that is seeker sensitive, the bow is entirely for the one bowed to, not for the one bowing. We cannot forget this posture in our worship.
We must worship in spirit, and truth.
So I know there are multiple answers going about on this question depending on whom you ask and what christian background they have.
Question 1:
Is it possible for someone who does not believe in god but is a good person in respects to christianity able to go to heaven? Let us say they have learned about christ but chose not to follow him but are still a good person.
Question 2: (similar but not the same)
Is it possible for someone who does believe that there is something out there (not specifically god but like a general idea of god) but is a good person in respects to christianity able to go to heaven? Let us say they have learned about christ but chose not to follow him but are still a good person.
And yes, all church types are doing this.
The Rev. lwk melts RZ's argument on ELCA. What are your thoughts?
God bless the LCMS!