Should i become protestant

There are various reasons why you would want to become a part of any of the various traditions within Christianity. Some are personal preferences, what your family does, etc. All traditions within orthodox Christianity and by orthodox I mean universally-accepted Trinitarian Christianity offer a lot of truth. In fact, in my website at ChristLifeDecal. Compared to other religions, cults, and heretical offshoots of Christianity—Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants have much more in common than we do not.

I recommend learning as much as you can about the history and beliefs of each. I believe they all have a lot of truth.

But there is only one absolute truth. Stay away from thinking that one is true and the others are false. At least not from within the Christian Body. Just look for the one tradition you believe to be the most true. Obey your conscience, live faithfully, pray diligently, keep learning more and more, and continuously humble yourself and be willing to change your mind—allowing the Holy Spirit to guide you into the truth. Be willing to keep changing your mind, as long as you are doing it with the intention to honor God by remaining as close to His Truth as possible.

At the end of the day, or life, this is all that matters. Not your personal beliefs, not your personal preferences, not what people you respect told you to do. Your relationship with God is the most important thing. What you do with your life that glorifies Him is what you should focus on. This is no diatribe against Roman Catholicism.

I like Catholicism—its spirituality, its universality, its wild and madcap diversity; I consider myself Catholic in every ancient sense; and I would become a Roman Catholic in a heartbeat if they would simply make certain accommodations for my, shall we say, Protestant convictions. Here are 95 reasons. No, just kidding, only the first five. Maybe not the best five reasons in the world, but my top five.

I am fully aware of the can of worms that Martin Luther and his fellow reformers opened when they advocated the idea that every believer should have full access to the scriptures and understand its meaning for themselves. Absolutely shocking. And yes, deeply problematic in innumerable ways.

However, it ultimately proved uncontrollable, spawning developments that few at the time could have envisaged or predicted … that gave rise to an unparalleled degree of creativity and growth, on the one hand, while on the other causing new tensions and debates that, by their very nature, probably lie beyond resolution.

Crazy dangerous, and yes, divisive and sometimes even deadly. Why that was in our church library I will never know. And still, I believe that its power and beauty and meaning simply must be appropriated by the individual, not mediated. Sometimes not. Perhaps this surprises you. Number one is to be expected. Number two sounds quite Catholic. But as I said, I consider myself Catholic in all the ways that the ancient church would have recognized.

And thus I cling to the Tradition of the Church, expressed most fully in the lived Tradition of worshiping Jesus Christ as Lord, and expressed particularly in the reflections and experiences of countless voices through the ages who have meditated long on the scriptures and have directed me to vistas of faith and the love of God I could never have found on my own.

There is a paternalism and a patriarchalism and a sexism to professional ministry both Catholic and Protestant!! Yes, we need order and functionality within the Church, and yes we thus need some who are appointed to certain tasks.

But these my brother priests and pastors are servants of the same Grace and, like them, I am a dispenser of it as well, when and as God so works in my life. I like to sing, and I like all of us singing together, and I like the old Protestant hymns. My experiences in hymn-singing in Catholic churches have been, well, less than satisfying. I am fortunate enough to come from a vital stock of godly Protestants.

They are mine, and I am theirs. Some of us have been dysfunctional believers, to be sure. But we share parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, and perhaps much farther back, of solid, rooted Protestant faith.

I treasure the shared experiences—past and present—too much to abandon them. These are not going to satisfy you theologically, I am sure. Get newsletters and updates Close. Also, send me the General Christian Newsletter and special offers. Also, send me the General Christian Newsletter.