Protestant Church

Protestant Church questions and answers

Find more information on the Protestant Denominations @ The Adherents Religion Website.

Q: Can I attend a protestant church sometimes?
I want to attend a protestant church sometimes without being confirmed or baptised. I want to go like twice every few months. Will that be allowed?

A: You can attend any church you want...We all serve the same God...it doesn't matter what religion you may be, we all have one master and I'm pretty sure he doesn't care what religion you are as long as you praise him.

Q: Why does a Catholic church resemble a palace and why does a Protestant church resemble a courtroom?
Why does a Catholic church resemble a palace with a king (a kingly pope, people kissing the pope's ring) and why does a Protestant church resemble a courtroom (a minister dressed in a black robe, the congregation looking like a jury)?

A: The Catholics have had over four times as long to decorate. Ok, but seriously, it really does just have to do with the obvious fact of the history. Catholicism is a product of a time when ostentatious display of wealth by authorities was not only acceptable but was expected and was a sign of their being authorities and a key to their remaining such. Catholicism is also massively syncretistic in the sense that they had to absorb many more beliefs, and to absorb another peoples religion you must absorb or replace their art. Protestants have not had to absorb any traditions and have only had to reject one. Probably a lot of people will try to explain the difference as a consequence of the different takes that Catholics vs. Protestants have on things like original sin and salvation by faith ... they'll try and say that it's a result of psychological consequences that flow from this or other theological differences. I'm not saying that there aren't differences like this but that decorating style is probably not one of them. Moreover, it's really just not true. Many Anglican churches for example look more "Catholic" than many contemporarily-designed Catholic churches do. It's just that you're probably more accustomed to seeing Catholic churches that were designed and built many decades ago vs. Protestant churches designed and built within perhaps only the last couple decades. So it's like asking why the Empire State building looks one way and the World Trade towers looked another, or you could make even more dramatic architectural parallels. Since institutional religion is essentially a conservative enterprise, the tendency I think is for a style not to change unless there's need for it to change. An ecological approach to thinking about this might be useful. Protestants on the continent needed to differentiate themselves from Catholics to maintain a distinct identity. One way of doing this was by art, clothing, architecture, etc. The simplest way of accomplishing this was with minimalism which, quite fortunately, could be passed off as an adherence to primitive Christianity. Anglicans did not need to differentiate themselves since they just stole from and killed the Catholics, quite literally taking their place. Today, with religion in decline, Catholics and Episcopalians need to actually compete with Protestants for the faithful ... the ecological niche has narrowed so to speak. So they've actually begun to adopt more of a Protestant appearance (as with Vatican 2 and many other things).

Q: How come most protestant churches make up the Church of Christ?
As in, Paul said that He gave some to preach, some evangelists, some to do miracles, etc. Well, the baptists preach, the evangelists evangelize, and the pentacosts are said to have miracles in their church. And as Paul said "there are difference in ministries, but the same Lord". So how come protestant churches together make up the Church of Christ? Padre Pio can't heal any man, it is Christ.

A: The original meaning of the word "Church" is a body of believers not a denomination nor a building. Good question. GBU

Q: why,during the 16th century, did many christians leave the catholic church to join a protestant one?
also what were the basic religious beliefs taught by the protestant churches?

A: One person replied: "Mostly because their entire countries were forced to convert." Now for the full story. In western europe there had been literally hundreds and hundreds of years of repression and totalitarian reign by regemes kowtowing to the authority of the Catholic Church. There had been literally 500 years of the Inquisition and other malicious practices of the Catholic Church. Hundreds of thousands of "heretics" were executed and even entire towns were wiped out. (And this does not even include the Crucades, some of which wiped out entire CHRISTIAN cities in eastern Europe at the instigation of the reigning pope because they balked at the pope's authority). Let us also indeed look at England. Just one minor example: the first person there who translated the Bible from Latin into English was imprisoned for the act. Sure there were a few "martyrs for the faith" but the very overwhelming vast majority were just quite happy to get out from under the repression and horrific policies and deliberate pain and suffering inflicted upon the poeple by the Catholic Church and those operating under their imprimator. In some later centuries it was in part the 300 years of witch-hunting, the burning and incarceration of heretics, and other practices which R.H. Robbins called "the shocking nightmare, the foulest crime and deepest shame of western civilization," that ensured the european abandonment of the belief in magic. And the authority of the Catholic Church. In part, the Church created the elaborate concept of devil worship and then used the persecution of it to wipe out dissent, subordinate the individual to authoritarian control, and openly denigrate women. All through the ages the Catholic Church and its adherents spoke of women as barely human. Even Thomas Acquinas stated that woman was a "mistake of creation." And witch-hunting was only a part of the story. Please read some history which is rampent with the totalitarian barbarisms off the Catholic Church. Both Protestants and Catholics are very good at rewriting history to suit their purposes, but in main it was just a ripe time for countries and the people in those countries to finally wrest authority (expecially temporal authority) away from a weakening Catholic Church. To give a modern day equivalent to what happened. Look at what happened in most of the countries in Eastern Europe during the fall of the Soviate dominance of that area of the world. No one today would even pretend to contend that all these poor people were "FORCED TO RENOUNCE COMMUNISM." The situation during the Reformation (and counter Reformation) was drawn out over a much greater time but the motivation of the people was similar.

Q: If a Catholic person is baptized a second time, but this time in a Protestant Church, what happens?
Like suppose if the person was baptized as a Catholic when he/she was a child, but later gets baptized again in his/her adult life as a Protestant, is the person classed as Protestant, or still considered a Catholic?

A: All Christan's recognize baptism, so it is only done once. Once baptized always baptized. Never to be done again. There is no need. God bless you.

Q: Does the Protestant church think that easter is the most important festival in the christian year?


A: I don't know if the church has an "official" stance on it, but really all of Christianity is based off of Jesus' resurrection. So personally, I think it's the most important. :)

Q: How does the Protestant Church celebrate Good Friday?
Please use little language, its for a school project!

A: Some Protestant churches do not observe it at all. Other Protestant groups, such as the Episcopal Church, do observe it. I've been to Episcopalian Good Friday services, and they are very close to the standard Roman Catholic observance. There are prayers and Scripture readings; in some churches, the crosses are draped in black, and the altar is bare (the altar is stripped the day before, on Maundy Thursday). It is a very solemn occasion.

Q: What is the difference between baptism in the catholic or protestant church?
If you were baptized as a protestant, do you have to be rebaptized if you convert to Catholicism?

A: Catholics baptize by immersion or pouring water over the head. Some non-Catholic Churches accept only baptisms by full immersion. If you were baptized as a non-Catholic Christian by immersion or pouring water over the head with the words: [name], I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." then the Catholic Church recognizes your baptism. With love in Christ.

Q: why was martin luther successful in establishing the Protestant church?
I don't mean martin luther king.

A: Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis on the church door of the middle-German town of Wittenberg in 1517:He publihed his opinion against the practices of the catholic church,especially that all your sins could be forgiven if you would only PAY a for a written document which was said to have the power to make all your sins forgiven.This was just a trick of getting lots of money for the Pope in Rome and the clerical hierarchy in Germany. LUTHER stopped speaking Latin in the churches ,but spoke the language of the ordinary people so that his prayers could be UNDERSTOOD for the first time! And his greatest action to do was to translate the Holy Booky into German and reaching two aims at the same time: (a) God's word could be understood by anyone and was not dependent from the interpretation of the catholic clergymen, and (b) his translation created the basics for ONE German written language,wherever the Protestants lived. They were called protestants,because they protested against the catholic church which at that time was far away from the needs of the ordinary people. Luther had a wife and children - and didn't he do the most natural thing on earth to found a family? (Think of latest events in the other large church.) HySt2812 (Germany)

Q: Why are catholic churches open for mass everyday and protestant church only on sunday morning?


A: A Priest is required to perform mass everyday, even if no one else is there, its one of the vows he takes upon his ordination. Most Catholic Church's are open for weekday mass so a)the faithful can receive Christ in the Eucharist and b)So the Priest can fulfill his vow of performing at least one mass a day. Protestant churches do not believe in the real presence, so there is no need to offer communion everyday. I usually go every Monday, thurs, and friday. My priest has three churches he tends to, but he only performs morning mass at two of them, and when he is at the closer one, I go. I also have the honor of serving at those masses!

Q: Where can I find drawings of a Catholic church and a Protestant church from the 16th century?


A: Every church built in England prior to 1530 was originally a Catholic Church that was seized by the English crown and transferred to the Church of England. So any drawing of one of these churches will be both "a Catholic church and a Protestant church from the 16th century." With love in Christ.

Q: Why did John Calvin {1509-1564} start another protestant church?


A: Short answer: He didn't! Calvin was a "second generation" Reformer, and the churches were already separate when he joined (though he did help to ORGANIZE the Reformed church in Geneva) There is, unfortunately, a lot of misinformation about John Calvin and his teaching, and a lot of caricatures. Why separate churches? It was NOT so much because Luther and the others split from each other. In fact, there were separate, parallel reformation of churches in Switzerland at the same time as Luther was active in Germany (ca. 1515 through the 520s), in which Ulrich Zwingli played the largest role. In other words, though Luther got the press, Reformation was already going on in Switzerland at the same time (and not launched by Luther). Now these various Reformers SHARED in the goal of Reforming the church according to the Word of God. And there was a desire among the Reformation churches to be united in their teaching. In fact, there was a great deal of agreement... more than people realize. For example, ALL the Reformers were Augustinian and had a strong belief in doctrines of predestination and election -- this was NOT something that Calvin added! (In fact, Luther wrote th strongly predestinarian work "The Bondage of the Will" -- as a rebuttal of Erasmus's teaching about the freedom of man's will. Luther's point [as that of other Reformers] is NOT that people are puppets who don't make choices, but that as SINNERS they are not 'free' to choose to do good, BECAUSE they do not WANT to!) And for that matter, Calvin did not give this teaching anything like the time and attention he did to other things (esp. the teaching of justification), contrary to the claims of modern-day critics. The sticking point turned out to be the view of what was happening in the Lord's Supper. While all the Reformers believed much superstition had crept into the Roman Church's belief and practices, Luther held a view much closer to the Catholic church of Christ's "presence" in the Supper than did Zwingli LATER Reformers in Switzerland, including Martin Bucer and John Calvin, made great efforts to bridge the gap. Bucer and then Calvin in more detail emphsized common points all shared and taught a "middle" view of the "real presence" of Christ. But unfortunately they were not able to bring the two sides together. In other words - Calvin's teaching on predestination did NOT divide, and in the areas where different branches of the Reformation differed Calvin was a UNITER. (Actually, though his efforts on the Lord's Supper did not succeed in their original goal, they did do some good in bringing understanding between groups.) Some material on the timeline of the Swiss Reformation, and the Lord's Supper controversy (esp. Calvin's efforts): http://history-switzerland.geschichte-schweiz.ch/reformation-switzerland-calvin.html http://www.theology.edu/h373.htm http://demo.lutherproductions.com/historytutor/basic/reformation/genknow/lords_supper.htm http://homepage.mac.com/shanerosenthal/reformationink/jcsupper.htm