I Couldn’t Care Less!

A reflection on the consequences of Sola Scriptura and private judgment in Protestant denominations

I remember that some years ago, while visiting some forums in which I took part, I came across a comment by Daniel Sapia[1] which said:

“Although we attend a Baptist congregation, we do not consider ourselves ‘Baptists,’ but Christians. The ecclesial denomination is something that, for us, is not of great importance, provided that the doctrinal BASIS is the one we have accepted as our rule of faith, according to what is revealed in Sacred Scripture. I have had the grace of sharing services of praise and worship with other brothers in other denominations, and I have truly felt ‘at home,’ among family, in one same spirit. Moreover, on the occasions when I have had the honor of being invited to preach from a pulpit, it was in non-Baptist Christian communities.”

The truth is that I did not know whether to laugh or cry, although his attempts to cover the sun with one finger were certainly commendable. I remember that this began to become evident to me when, while visiting evangelical forums, I started finding not only secondary differences within Protestantism, but profoundly central ones.

On one occasion, for example, I was studying infant baptism with some evangelicals from the now-defunct forum Contracorriente.org. They repeatedly asked why Catholics baptized babies. The first thing I pointed out to them was that not only Catholics did this, but also the Orthodox, as well as two of the oldest evangelical denominations: the Lutheran denomination (whose number of faithful exceeds 80 million) and the Presbyterian Church (whose numbers are estimated to be twice those of the Lutherans). To prove it, I showed them what is stipulated in their official confessions of faith:

“They teach that Baptism is necessary to salvation, and that through Baptism the grace of God is offered. They teach that children are to be baptized, who, being offered to God through Baptism, are received into God’s grace. For this reason they condemn the Anabaptists, who reject the Baptism of children.”[2]

“Not only those who do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ are to be baptized, but also the infants of one or both believing parents.”[3]

“Dipping of the person into the water is not necessary; but Baptism is rightly administered by pouring or sprinkling water upon the person.” [4]

At that time I imagined that, since Lutherans and Presbyterians were also evangelical Christians, this would lead them to reflect and would perhaps leave them with the concern to study the matter more deeply. After all, if other evangelicals who claimed to be governed by “the Bible alone” recognized infant baptism as biblical, there must be some reason. Yet I received some very striking replies:

“…even if all evangelicals went mad and baptized children, that would not give them any legitimacy. The reason is the will of God, not how many people do I don’t know what things….”

In short, the general opinion about how relevant to them was the opinion of brothers who, according to Daniel, are in “one same spirit,” was summed up in the words uttered by an angry forum participant:

I don’t give a damn!!!

I don’t give a damn what the Lutherans think!

One of the pastors participating in the forum told me:

“…Bear in mind that not all of us have the same doctrine and I differ greatly from those texts written by the Lutherans….”

So while for Daniel Sapia they all have the same “doctrinal basis that they have accepted as their rule of faith,” this pastor was telling me exactly the opposite.

What is the reality?

On Baptism

Now, someone might think that the opinion of those forum participants was an exception, or perhaps that although there are differences, they are merely secondary; but that is not the case either.

In the specific case of Baptism, for example, in the Augsburg Confession (cited above) the Lutherans “condemn” the Anabaptists for not baptizing children. They certainly would not condemn them if this were for them “a secondary difference.”

On the Eucharist:

I have taken this example from a Lutheran catechism based on Luther’s teachings:

“Our catechism tells us: ‘It is the true body and the true blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ This means that it is Christ’s real, natural body and his real and natural blood. Why does our catechism emphasize this? It does so because of the false prophets and churches that do not want to believe the mystery of the Holy Supper. Especially the Reformed churches, the sects, the Methodists, the Pentecostals, indeed all the other Protestant churches outside the Lutheran Church, teach this way. They do not want to believe these words of Christ; they do not want to believe that the body and blood of Christ are really present in the Holy Supper and that those who come to the sacrament really eat and drink these things. It is truly a wonderful mystery. We cannot comprehend it by our reason. It seems impossible to us. Consequently, those churches teach that Christ’s words must be taken figuratively, understood in another sense. According to them, Christ did not mean that the Holy Supper really was his true natural body, but only that the bread signifies his body, that it depicts it. He was referring only to Christ’s spiritual body. Christians must receive this spiritual body in the Holy Supper, that is, Christ and his benefits, by faith, while the Lord’s true natural body is seated in heaven. Against these false prophets, who rely on their own reason, our catechism says: It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.” [5]

Here again the difference is not, at least for the Lutherans, “merely secondary,” since denying the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist leads them to place the Reformed churches, the Methodists, the Pentecostals, and even all other Protestant churches outside themselves on the level of “false prophets.”

On salvation:

Even on this point the evangelical churches do not agree: some affirm that man is saved by faith alone; others that he is saved by faith and then works; some affirm that salvation can be lost, others that it cannot. Some, even starting from the errors of denying free will, reach the extreme of teaching double predestination, in which they affirm that God does not want all men to be saved, but rather predestines some, from before creation, either to heaven or to hell by an “inscrutable” decree.

We have an example in an evangelical pastor who expresses his sorrow because another pastor holds a completely contrary position to his own on this point:

“Some [referring to other evangelical pastors] teach that salvation can indeed be lost… The truth is that such statements contradict the total revelation of the Bible.”[6]

“On one occasion, while I was talking about this subject with a person who sadly pastors an evangelical church… he assured me without thinking much about it: ‘salvation is by faith and works,’ just like that. I tell you that when I heard those words my soul was saddened; I could not believe what I was hearing, but for this person it was easier to add ‘works’ to salvation than to abandon his tradition.”[7]

The Catholic-Lutheran agreement signed in 1999 itself also “is not worth a cucumber” to many evangelical churches. And it cannot be objected that the subject of justification and salvation is something secondary, much less for Protestants, for whom the doctrine of Sola Fides was the battle cry of the Reformation.

The sacraments

While some evangelical churches affirm that Christ instituted 3 sacraments (those that follow the Augsburg Confession), others say that he instituted only 2 (those that follow the Westminster Confession), and others say that the sacraments are a human invention that does not appear in the Bible.

On ecumenism

The attitude of evangelical brothers toward ecumenism is also very diverse: while for some it is “the religion of the Antichrist,” for others it is a priority that the Church seek unity according to Christ’s will that we may be ONE. Not long ago, when by chance I visited the evangelical forum Ekklesia Viva, I read comments like this:

“The biblical ecumenism indicated by the Bible is not Roman Catholic ecumenism, nor the one that many evangelical leaders and, as you rightly say, dear brother Carlos Calcina, (pseudo-evangelicals) want us to believe it is. That ecumenism so longed for by several prominent Christian leaders such as Billy Graham, Charles Colson, Bill Bright, Swindoll, and others will only strengthen Roman Catholicism more doctrinally and politically … causing this Babylon of Revelation 17 to reach its greatest power and spiritual authority (which is of course a false authority, but many evangelicals and pseudo-evangelicals believe it is biblical and legitimate). It seems unbelievable that such prominent and recognized Christian leaders now say that the Catholic gospel is biblical and that it agrees with the Bible and evangelical Christianity; they show tremendous ignorance; that is nonsense.

Luis Palau, a prominent evangelical leader, is also in favor of ecumenism with Roman Catholicism. How bad it is that Christian leaders who know the biblical gospel that saves call a false gospel true… Not to mention pseudo-evangelicals such as Paul Crouch, Benny Hinn, and others who have religious empires and promote an authority and merchandising that is curious but looks very much like the Vatican. For a reason the Bible says that as the Mother is, so is the Daughter (Proverbs): Rome is Mother of the Harlots, and many harlots are her daughters, of which many pseudo-evangelical churches testify to the fulfillment of this word and identify more with the VATICAN than with Christianity.”[8]

Of course, anyone who reads comments like this and has previously read Sapia’s comments cannot help asking how they can be united in the same spirit with one another when they think that the churches of their brothers in the faith are “pseudo-evangelical” and daughters of the Harlot of Babylon.

Homosexuality

Not content with disagreeing about all the above, more and more evangelical churches approve homosexual marriages every day. In 2009 the Lutheran Church of Sweden hit bottom by celebrating homosexual marriages; in the same year the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America approved that gays and lesbians could enter the pastorate (it was worldwide news that, at the moment the resolution was approved, a tornado formed that nearly devastated the church and ended up knocking down the 800-pound cross from the bell tower, leaving it upside down).

That same year Spain inaugurated its first gay evangelical church, and the following year it was approved that homosexual evangelical pastors in Bavaria could live with their partners, according to an agreement approved by an absolute majority of the synod of the Evangelical Church in that Land. The meeting of this body approved the measure with 98 votes in favor, five against, and five abstentions, thus following the previous recommendation issued by the Evangelical Council of the State of Bavaria.

But not only in countries such as the United States, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark is the marriage and ordination of homosexuals among evangelicals now common; it is also beginning to happen in Latin America. The United Evangelical Lutheran Church (IELU) of Argentina has recently accepted blessing homosexual relationships of male or female couples and has proposed that other evangelical churches in Uruguay do the same. This path had already been traveled by the Anglicans, who for a long time have had an openly gay bishop.

More information at Luther’s children marry gays in the USA, Scandinavia and now in Argentina

Abortion

Not long ago the news echoed of the murder of George Tiller, a Wichita physician specializing in aborting fetuses at an advanced stage of gestation. The well-known abortionist was murdered at the door of a Lutheran church (belonging to the ELCA) to which he had been admitted after having been excommunicated from his former church, also Lutheran, the LCMS, which unlike the former condemns abortion.

How is this possible? Because the number of evangelical churches (Lutheran, Presbyterian, Waldensian, etc.) that approve abortion is also increasing every day. We have an example in the following pronouncement of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

“Induced abortion, the act of intentionally ending the life that is developing in the mother’s womb, is one of the issues on which members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have serious differences… Our differences are deep and potentially divisive.”

“This church recognizes that there can be sound reasons for ending a pregnancy through induced abortion… In ethical reflection on what should be done in the case of an unintended pregnancy, the state and condition of the life in the mother’s womb must be considered. We also need to consider the conditions under which the pregnancy occurred, and the implications of the pregnancy for the woman’s life….

A woman should not be morally obligated to continue a pregnancy if it occurs between parties who did not voluntarily consent to sexual relations. This is especially the case in rape and incest. It may also be the case in situations where women are so dominated and oppressed that they have no choice regarding sexual relations, together with scarce access to contraceptive methods. Some conceptions occur under dehumanizing conditions that are contrary to God’s purposes.

There are circumstances of extreme fetal abnormality that would result in severe suffering and early death of the child. In such cases, after competent medical consultation, the mother (and father) may responsibly choose to terminate the pregnancy. Whether they choose to continue or to end such pregnancies, this church supports the mother (and father) with compassion, recognizing the difficulty involved in such a decision.”

Reflecting

Of course, all this cannot but call us to reflection. After all, can one fail to ask how it is possible that a church which says it bases itself solely on the Bible, guided only by the Holy Spirit, can conclude that living as in Sodom and Gomorrah is right? Is it right to murder babies in the mother’s womb and say that one bases oneself on the “Bible alone”?

All these fundamental differences are nothing other than the terrible consequence of the doctrine of Sola Scriptura and the free interpretation of the Bible. When Luther, by rejecting the authority of the Church, proclaimed that each believer had the supreme authority to interpret the Bible, rejecting magisterial pronouncements and ecumenical councils, Pandora’s box was opened and has led them into such great chaos that they simply can no longer turn back.

And meanwhile our fundamentalist friend Daniel can continue trying to cover the sun with one finger, while many others more perceptive have already realized this, as the former Presbyterian pastor Scott Hahn commented: “While Protestants are arguing over the menu, we are enjoying the banquet.”

“First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” 2 Peter 1:20-21

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Matthew 16:17-18

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