Do you think the Protestant denominations and the Catholic Church will unite?

Question

Why?

And if, When?

Answer 1

The Catholic church still claims the protestant churches as their own. There are prophecies in the Book of Revelation that state they will reunite.

Answer 2

I think some will. There is a serious effort under way in the Evangelical Lutheran Church to reunite with the Catholic Church. The biggest issue is emotional not theological. There is very little difference between the Lutheran and Catholic Church. It isn't enough to justify separation.

The biggest challenge between the Catholic and Protestant Churches is the truth determination mechanism. Protestants get to vote in conference what they believe. The consequence of this is that they can change their beliefs with a vote, implying that truth is a moving target and not constant. Truth becomes what you want it to be. This is a side effect of sola scriptura. Scripture isn't clear on any topic, if it were, there wouldn't be 46,000 Protestant denominations. Trying to unite with a Protestant body is trying to unite with a moving target as far as beliefs go.

The truth mechanism in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches is apostolic tradition. The question is what has the Church believed across all time and professed in all places. No aspect of truth is up to a vote, except to make clear what the apostolic tradition is. Further, once decided it may not be revisted. The vote of a council must still be approved by the pope and accepted by the faithful. A number of councilliar decisions have failed to receive papal endorsement or failed to be accepted by the faithful. The faithful basically held the sense that the bishops were wrong and so that item wasn't a true reflection of the apostolic tradition.

Catholics don't get to start their own denomination. None of us are bright enough to do that. It doesn't matter whether you are an illiterate farm worker or the pope, none of us are bright enough to start our own group. We just take what the apostles handed on and pass it on to the next generation. Protestants, I have noticed, know little of their own churches history but know lots about Catholic history but selective parts.

If we cannot look history in the face with honesty, reunion will be impossible. Most Protestant history, especially the early history, is quite ugly. Quite a bit of it looks like the Catholic Inquisition but without the restraint. You almost have to get into the mindset of the Taliban to understand any of the actors of that time period. Both sides were like that. It was a very primitive group of people in many ways. It is frightening that people take ideas created in that time period as true without critical thinking. If some of them had been created today, they would be ignored, but you cannot ignore the founding ideas of a denomination.

The challenge for Protestants is to stand for something and hold to it for more than a few years. The challenge for Catholics is to be charitable and be reflective on Catholic history. I think unity is easier for Catholics than Protestants because the word Catholic means "all embracing." If that is your driving principal, unity is easy, you just have to accept diversity. If your driving principal is rebellion and protest, then it is hard to stop.

Answer 3

I don't think they will ever unite. Just because we believe in different things, Catholics believe things that we cannot accept as true. There are way too many differences for us to unite. I mean, we can co-exist, unlike the past when we killed each other, but unite? Not really...

Answer 4

it will not happen. just consider, beside catholic church there is the orthodox one (very present in eastern europe, russia etc) . Don't think in the american manner, forgetting this unification should include important and unsolvable debates in he whole christian world. maybe protestants would like to unite the orthodox in a country like mine!!!!!

Answer 5

Yes. Under the one world ecumenical church, during the tribulation.

Answer 6

Outwardly and in our time, probably not.

Can't unity be achieved now at a personal level?