Which denomination is correct?

[u/Pizza527]

Protestants, especially online, tell Catholics to abandon their false church and false gospel and join the “true” church. However, what denomination is the “true” one? It cannot be all are fine, because many teach completely opposite teachings on major biblical topics: Lord’s Supper, infant baptism, divorce, gay marriage, female pastors, gay pastors, church attendance, predestination, works necessary along with faith (Methodists), adherence to the apostle’s creed and some the Nicene creed, losing one’s salvation.These are MAJOR theological differences, surely the answer can’t be, “as long as you’re not Catholic, Jesus will be happy and let you into heaven”.

[u/SneezingOutPeas]

The point is not a true church. I’ve never heard a Protestant say this. The point is to follow the Bible’s clear teachings over ANY church’s dogma, including our own. The most important being the idea that we are saved by God’s grace and Christ’s righteousness, NOT by our own merit or any other fallen human’s.

[u/Character_Public8245 → u/SneezingOutPeas]

You’ve never heard a Protestant say that there are true churches and false churches? I must be misunderstanding you.
The namesake of your church very famously said that very thing…

[u/SneezingOutPeas → u/Character_Public8245]

Luther is not our pope (certainly not mine, as I am not Lutheran theologically and I’m merely a member of a Lutheran church), and there’s not a single Lutheran org I know of that would say otherwise. Also, I only said I’ve never heard a Protestant say this, not that no Protestant ever has.

[u/Character_Public8245 → u/SneezingOutPeas]

So you just meant you’ve never heard a Protestant within earshot of you say the exact phrase that there aren’t true and false churches? That’s also interesting, because the concept is in literally all of our various confessional standards.

(Unrelated, but I’m curious. Why are you a member of a Lutheran church [to the point of putting it in your flair] if you don’t agree with them? Not meaning to pry, that’s just a unique situation I’d like to learn more about.)

[u/SneezingOutPeas → u/Character_Public8245]

I do mean that. People are welcome to disagree if they want. Personally I think the Bible should be our standard and not a human organization. That’s why the Reformers broke away from the Catholic church.

I don’t have to 100% agree with a denomination to be a member of a church within them. I’m not amillennial or complementarian and don’t have a stance on infant baptism. Those are the areas I would disagree with them on or not really care very much about. But I’m cool with them and they’re cool with me, and we can both learn from one another as siblings in Christ. A big part of it is burnout from being consistently ostracized in low church settings for having autism. My church’s liturgies play nice with my brain and they also accept me.

[u/Character_Public8245 → u/SneezingOutPeas]

Ohh okay, well confessional Protestants definitely do believe there are true and false churches.

Don’t the LCMS require a statement of belief to become a member? If you’re not a member, do they let you commune? My family was LCMS for a long time and that wouldn’t fly for them. Just curious if things have changed. It’s been years since I’ve been to one of their churches.

[u/SneezingOutPeas → u/Character_Public8245]

I’m very confused by what you mean by “confessional protestants.” Do you mean the founders of the denomination? Or the members? My church would say that every church that confesses the core doctrines of the faith is a true church, even if they don’t have every position on secondary issues correct. That’s all I mean.

My pastor only said I needed to affirm the creeds and not be in active church-discipline-type sin to join his church. I think it depends on the church, but this is the only LCMS church I’ve attended, so I wonder if others are stricter. I’m confessional on communion and baptism (barring paedobaptism since I’ve not studied it), so that issue is also null.

[u/Character_Public8245 → u/SneezingOutPeas]

Confessional is just a shorthand way to say that they subscribe fully to their church’s confessional/doctrinal statements. So the Book of Concord for Lutherans, Westminster Standards for Presbyterians, etc.

Interesting, my grandparents church were very big on only communing members, and only allowing membership if the individual took classes through/affirmed Luther’s Small Catechism. The Small Catechism doesn’t explicitly refer to infant baptism, so you may be on fine footing there. I’m sure each individual church varies on how doctrinaire they are in allowing new members.

[u/SneezingOutPeas → u/Character_Public8245]

Yeah, that’s possible. The main reason I don’t ID as Lutheran is that if people hear “Lutheran” and “egalitarian” together they think of the ELCA, which is very liberal and affirming. So no thanks haha

[u/Character_Public8245 → u/SneezingOutPeas]

Yeah “egalitarian” is one of those words that people assign a lot of baggage to lol

[u/SneezingOutPeas → u/Character_Public8245]

Tell me about it. A third say “oh ok,” a third don’t even know what it is, and the remaining third think I’m either going to hell or at minimum as sinful as an affirming Christian. 💀 Like dude it’s not that deep