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

They got what they asked for!

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well let me help understand who wasn't around 2000 years ago, protestants, enjoy he11!

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Could anything else say it all any better?

Probably time to lay off any more of that bottle of whatever you have going on

don't forget the protestant jump over the broom stick approach to marriage.

and you know that because we translated bible into plain english and you protestant heretics found a whole bunch of gooky stuff that nobody had found in the bible for 1600 years.....i get it preacher says

there's a reason my grandmother called you white trash hicks!

then you tell me ellie may what protestant religions were around 2000 years ago.

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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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Pope francis disproves your entire point.

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but because you white trash hicks didn't show up for another 1600 years ….

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Good grief. User name checks out.

Easiest thing ever to see coming.

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A doctrine that cannot even get off the ground, because scripture doesn’t tell us what constitutes scripture, nor does it tell us that it is the only infallible rule for faith and life. In other words, it (sola scriptura) fails its own test.

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No it doesn't. There wasn't some infallible church that ruled what the Old Testament Scriptures were, and yet Jesus held the leaders of Israel accountable to them, as if they should have known what they were and what they taught.

The doctrine of sola scriptura is derived from good and necessary consequence from the Scriptures, themselves, as they testify to their own authority from God, and being authoritative, they are to be the very basis for testing all other teachings.

The Scriptures are the only God-breathed revelation we have in our possession as the Church today. Nothing else we possess has that quality, and since only that which is God-breathed is of the highest authority, the Scriptures, therefore, are of our highest authority.

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Also, I find it odd that prior to the invention of sola scripture 3/4 way through church history,

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The Latin phrase may have developed at that time, but it was based on a principle from the Scriptures and developed over the course of history.

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there were basically 2 schisms leading to 3 churches (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox). After the invention of sola scripture, you see the “churches” who adhere to it schism into thousands of “churches” in 1/4 the amount of time.

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Yeah, it's no wonder that when your church doesn't say that they are the only true church of Christ and that you will be damned to hell and potentially even executed for leaving, that you find more fluidity in membership and expression of the Church.

Protestants do not claim that their churches are the only true Church of Christ, but say that they are part of the larger true Church of Christ. The Roman and Orthodox say that they alone are the true Church. That factors in to it, too.

Another thing to consider is the changing landscape of politics during and after the Reformation. Prior to it, the Church and State were one and the same in a lot of ways. When a country had the power of the sword to quell religious dissent, there wasn't going to be a lot of factions like we see when there is no enforcement by the State. Even the split between the East and West had great political contributors. There were a few Reformation-era offshoots of government supported Christianity, mostly in the German Lutherans, English Anglicans, and Scottish Presbyterians, with others here and there, but the large divergence in Protestantism seemed to occur after the Church and State were more or less divorced.

You see this in America with the Presbyterians, which had a couple of branches in the beginning, but more occurred with splits over positions on things like slavery.

Without a singular government forcing people to remain in whatever religious sect they are in, you'll see a lot more movement. It's why you see a lot more Roman Catholics leaving Catholicism today than they did prior to the Reformation. They either kept their apostasy a secret, or they were excommunicated and likely killed for their disagreements.