re: How is it possible that some Protestant churches support gay marriage?

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If salvation is entirely the work of God alone (monergism) rather than the cooperative work of man and God (synergism), then we can have full faith and trust that God will preserve us to the end. If He is the one who elects us, calls us, justifies us, sanctifies us, and glorifies us (Rom. 8:29-30), then we can give God all glory for saving us by His mercy and we can have assurance that He will keep us.

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I’m curious, do you consider belief or faith to be a kind of work? In other words, do you believe that since salvation can’t be earned, your faith must have been given to you entirely by God, without involving your free will? If that’s the case, then that’s where our fundamental disagreement lies. I don’t believe that choosing to follow Christ is something you earn, just like when someone gives you a gift. Accepting the gift doesn’t mean you earned it; it was still freely given. You simply had the choice to receive it or not.

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That’s actually what Roman Catholics do. They claim a monopoly on church history and exact uniformity with the early church while ignoring the many different beliefs that the early church fathers actually had. They hold Protestants in disdain and it helps them justify their beliefs.

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Good point. It's Orthodoxy that has preserved that uniformity with the early church.

And for what it's worth we really don't hold Protestants in disdain since we really give them very little thought. There isn't really any reason to get involved in the petty bickering and sniping between the Protestants and Catholics.

That being said, the Catholics are far closer to that early church than any Protestants could ever hope to be.

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I’m curious, do you consider belief or faith to be a kind of work? In other words, do you believe that since salvation can’t be earned, your faith must have been given to you entirely by God, without involving your free will? If that’s the case, then that’s where our fundamental disagreement lies. I don’t believe that choosing to follow Christ is something you earn, just like when someone gives you a gift. Accepting the gift doesn’t mean you earned it; it was still freely given. You simply had the choice to receive it or not.

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No, I don't consider belief/faith a kind of work because it is something we receive, not something we do.

I believe that when the Scriptures say "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Eph. 2:8-9), it is contrasting faith as a gift, and works. This seems to be supported by Romans 4:4-5 which says, "Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness".

I see the contrast as faith is a freely given gift and works are things we do to earn a wage. As Eph. 2 says, if we contribute to salvation through works, we can boast, and faith as a gift is supposed to dispel that thought by giving all praise and glory to God, the giver of the free gift. I believe the concept of liberterian free will for fallen human beings turns faith into a work by emphasizing the response of the recipient rather than the gift of the offeror.

In my experience, the difference between calvinistic and arminian soteriology stems from a disagreement between free will and total depravity. If there is an issue with unconditional election, particular redemption, irresistible grace, or preservation of the saints, it usually stems from this first point, and logically so.

I believe that libertarian free will robs God of this glory of mercy even in the gift of faith, because the onus is on the receiver of the gift to accept it, not on the giver of the gift. If everyone around me is offered the same gift but I'm the only one who accepts it, then I have something to boast about if the difference between me and the others is my right use of my free will, making the right choice when others made the wrong one. However, if none of us has the power or desire in ourselves to accept that free gift due to our sinful nature unless God mercifully empowers us to receive it (through the new birth), then even my reception of the gift is ultimately due to God's mercy.

What is more merciful in your own mind? Someone about to drown being thrown a life raft to grab on to or choose not to and die, or someone who has drowned and is recovered, pulled ashore, and given life-saving CPR? That's the difference between these two teachings. One is merely an offer of life that a person must take for themselves, and the other is essentially raising the dead to life. I believe when God saves someone, He raises them from spiritual death to spiritual life. We see this pictured in the resurrection of Lazarus, where he is dead in the tomb and cannot hear anything and obey in himself, but when Jesus calls him, he is raised to life and made capable of obeying the command, and he does so out of the natural desire to follow the voice of the Lord who gave him life.

I'd love to have a further discussion about the biblical support for total depravity (that original sin has corrupted even our wills and that we cannot choose that which is spiritually good without being "born again" by the Spirit) in particular, but this post is already getting long. That doctrine, however, is at the heart of our disagreement, as I see it.

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That being said, the Catholics are far closer to that early church than any Protestants could ever hope to be.

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Depends on your grading and what you consider early church. 335 AD, absolutely.

80 AD I don't think so, the early church had no real structure, it was many house churches all at risk of falling under control of local leaders who were themselves at risk of heresy.

Paul repeatedly mentioned this.