I've really learned a lot from you all on these inquisitive threads. I thought I might as well ask readers who once were Protestant but now aren't: what made you leave?
As longtime readers know, I was raised Methodist, but there was little doctrinal content to it. Just good people. I drifted away from religion entirely in high school and college, and when I came to faith as an adult, Catholicism was the only form of Christianity that made sense to me. I believed, and always have, that the Reformers were right to speak truth to the power of the corrupt Renaissance RCC, but that theologically, Reformed Christianity was untenable. Reading "The Seven Storey Mountain" opened my eyes to a depth and breadth of Christianity (in Roman Catholicism) I'd never even imagined. It went from there.
Again, I don't want to start fights with this thread. I would just like to know why readers who were once Protestant chose to leave, either for some other form of Christianity, another religion, or atheism. What I'm hoping to get at, as in the by now lengthy "What makes an ex-Catholic?" thread, is to discern some common themes among those making the journey out of Protestantism -- and what Protestants might do to retain those considering leaving.
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A longing for:
1) Apostolic faith
2) historicity
3) Living, efficacious Sacraments
4) Liturgy (which the Church absorbed from its Jewish roots early on and which my evangelical background had abandoned
5) Consistency in faith (even if not always in practice)
6) Authority
7) A system of bishops, priests/prebyters, deacons, etc. resembling the hierarchy of the early centuries of the Church.
8) A balance between faith & works and Scripture & Tradition
9) A realization of the communion of the saints
Rob G.: "ds0490 -- no argument from me there. The problem with "Progressive" Christianity, however, is that it tends to downplay right belief at the expense of right behavior. My point is simply that both are equally important -- there is a synergy between them. If either aspect is missing, the whole thing goes off the rails."
For some time we have watched people starve while "good Christians" insist on enacting laws against homosexuality and abortion from the pulpits of their glorious cathedrals and mega-churches. Perhaps it is time we err on the other side of the equation for a few centuries and feed some of the hungry folks who have been waiting on the church to quit being so full of itself and start being full of the holy spirit.
If God chooses not to open the gates of heaven to me because of it, so be it.
The statement you quote doesn't have enough cognitive content to be considered either heretical or orthodox. It is subject to too many conflicting interpretations.
Yeah, right.
'The statement you quote doesn't have enough cognitive content to be considered either heretical or orthodox. It is subject to too many conflicting interpretations.'
"Yeah, right."
Well then explain it, genius. I'm all ears.
What an excellent discussion! It's refreshing to discover that others have become disillusioned with Evangelical Protestantism like myself. I would have to ditto much of what all of you have said with regard to its deficiency. For a while, I thought this discovery would lead me to Roman Catholicism. But, unlike others who have taken this route, I cannot reconcile various RC teachings with the Early Church nor defend particular doctrines from Holy Scripture. High on this list of indefensible doctrines are Papal Infallibility, Purgatory, Indulgences, and the Immaculate Conception. What has especially deterred my leap over the Tiber is the concept of the development of doctrine in the RC. What the Magesterium has defined as necessary to be believed by all faithful Catholics has changed over the centuries. While Catholics may or may not have believed in Papal Infallibility, the Immaculate Conception or the Bodily Assumption of Mary prior to the 19th Century, now these are dogmas classified as necessary to be believed if one is a Roman Catholic. What will happen should the RCC acquiesce to the demands of certain Cardinals and add the teaching of Mary as Co-Redeemer and Mediatrix of All graces to the list of required beliefs for all faithful Catholics? One can look into the Early Church Fathers and discover quite readily that there was not a unanimous concent regarding some of the doctrines I've already mentioned.
Thus it is that my journey has led to an impasse. I've been studying the Orthodox faith and appreciate its roots in antiquity. The Orthodox seem to approach their faith with an understanding that we can't explain it all in rational terms, thus we are left with mysteries that can be apprehended through trust, hope, and love. That is comforting to my tendency toward an extremist rationality which needs logical answers for all that I believe theologically. "For now we see in a glass dimly."
I'm thankful that my journey away from Protestantism has brought me to a realization that the mystical Body of Christ exists in many faith traditions. While elitism may have served to assure me that I was "saved" unlike many of those in most churches, it eventually narrowed down the participants to a scant few and caused me to come to terms with the deficiencies of my own belief system.
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