re: United Methodist Church closing 26 churches in Alabama: declining attendance

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Not all Methodist churches are bad but yeah some are really bad.

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Covid broke them and they completely went insane. We left our UMC church in Atlanta in 2021 and have been denominational nomads ever since. Looking for a new home.

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They have abandoned God’s word as their ultimate authority and instead have become a social advocacy group. It’s sad to see.

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I believe the Bible called them The Great Whore

I’ll just remind people there was a schism not long ago and most of the powerful and wealthy churches left to do their own thing without the woke crew and are thriving.

The ones that don’t often couldn’t afford to or their property or buildings were owned by the UMC.

I’m not a Methodist, but most all of the organized denominations are facing lots of doctrinal heresy infiltrating it’s doors and polluting the Gospel message these days, the alphabet garbage being just one of many. Most are not nearly so overt, but damaging just the same.

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Protestantism can not survive because it was created by humans The Catholic Church was created by Christ while its members are all sinners it is the one true Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. Many young people are converting to traditional Catholicism while the mainline Protestant churches are disappearing and fracturing because they have no true authority just each ministers own interpretation of the Bible as translated in English a few hundred years ago picking and choosing whatever verses he wants for the week

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Yep, protestantism have become an Americanized entity. Where everybody can interpret the Scriptures to be whatever they mean. Which leads to all this confusion and chaos within their churches they become their own God. The Catholic Church and the orthodox are truly the only two choices. Over 5000 different Protestant denominations proves this point.

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You cannot even validate your own doctrines with your own bible, much less know what scripture says instead of the traditions of men. Everyone should put their faith in the finished work of Christ alone, not in man’s institutions. The Pharisees themselves once thought they were heirs to all truths, until Christ showed them they weren’t.

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The funnier thing is that you couldn’t even validate anything you believe without the Catholic Church being there. Because for the first couple hundred years, there was no set Canon. Guess what all of those people believed, they were all Catholic. There was no secret protestant church hiding out.

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Protestantism can not survive because it was created by humans

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I think you, like most Roman Catholics I've engaged with, completely misunderstand Protestantism. If you think reforming the Church is the same thing as breaking away from it, you don't understand what the Reformation was about.

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The Catholic Church was created by Christ while its members are all sinners it is the one true Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.

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You are conflating the expression of Christianity centered in Rome with the universal Church of Jesus Christ, which is comprised of many branches and expressions.

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Many young people are converting to traditional Catholicism while the mainline Protestant churches are disappearing and fracturing because they have no true authority just each ministers own interpretation of the Bible as translated in English a few hundred years ago picking and choosing whatever verses he wants for the week

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Many young people are also converting to the traditional Orthodox church, which is still broken away from Catholicism. Be careful not to judge faithfulness and truth by simple numbers, as Islam has been growing for a long, long time and yet it is absent the truth of the gospel.

All will be judged by Christ on the last day. I would rather be faithful to the Head (Christ) than to the body (the Church) when the two are in conflict. Even so, I do recognize that Christ founded His Church, and I belong to a faithful expression of it, submitting myself to its authority, which is subordinate to the Scriptures as the highest authority. There is no authority except that which is from God, and all must submit to the authority of Christ above all others.

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Stitches

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We've been through this before. While I'd be happy to discuss again the inconsistencies of the early church fathers to show that the modern RCC is not the same in substance as what was taught early on, I'll just leave it at this: there are good reasons why the Protestant Reformation taught that the Scriptures are the only infallible rule for faith and life, and not the Church, or the early fathers, or the Pope.

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The funnier thing is that you couldn’t even validate anything you believe without the Catholic Church being there. Because for the first couple hundred years, there was no set Canon. Guess what all of those people believed, they were all Catholic. There was no secret protestant church hiding out.

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Catholic is a term derived from the Greek word to indicate universal faith. You adopted it as if you coined the phrase, but that certainly does not mean you hail from the foundation of Christ’s church. Christ founded His Church upon a foundation of truth about Himself that Peter uttered, not Peter himself. It’s not a physical church. It’s the Gospel, and it is in the hearts of those who believe solely upon Jesus Christ for everything, including and especially Salvation.