If Protestants don't think popes know anything, then why do they perpetuate old, Catholic dogmas?

Question

Shouldn't you all be rewriting Christianity from the ground up and paying no heed to any ideas that come before the formation of your denomination?

Answer 1

Pastor Billy says: what's missing in the previous two answers is the historical fact that acceptance of Christian scripture in itself is in fact still acceptance of Roman Catholic authority for it was a Catholic council that decided the closed canon of the Christian bible. Luther attempted to fill the authority void by replacing the authority of the apostolic bishop(s) with this idea of final authority in scripture but first realised he had to change the canon or all was for not. This is why Protestantism today has less Old Testament books in the Protestant bible. Luther however also attempted to remove books from the NT (Revelations, Hebrews, James) but Luther's equals wouldn't allow it and so Protestants today are still using a Roman Catholic New Testament canon thereby accepting Roman Catholic authority.

The moral of the story "you can't have your cake and eat it too!"

Answer 2

Most Protestant church do just exactly that, going to the Bible as the only source for their doctrine. But because much of Catholic doctrine agrees with the Bible, the two are often going to reach the same conclusions. For example, the Cathlics and the Bible both say there is a God. The Catholics and the Bible both say there is a Jesus who died on the cross. The Catholics and the Bible both say that God so loved the world he gave his son. So if course both churches will be in agreement on those and other doctrines.

I don't know of many Protestants who would say the Pope does know ANYTHING. But the Protestants do not accept him as the final authority on doctrine. That positions is given to the scriptures.

Answer 3

I believe it stems from religious competition, they all simply want a peace of the pie, religion today is nothing more than big business, the more parishioners a denomination gets the more money they make, just remember the names "Jesus and God" are the greatest money making names the world has ever known, that's my opinion anyway.