Let's talk about evangelizing!

[Case]

it's the old right-wing christians like catholics, orthodox, anglicans, lutherans and such that believe that it is a sacrament. most left wing protestants-- which would include the CRC-- seem to view baptism as a rite of membership into the visible church.

protestant quakers have made the backwards step into establishing a class of priests, defined by credentials and ordination, who alone are permitted to perform baptism. as with the catholics and anglicans, the rite is reserved only for those spiritually authorized.

Left-wing Protestants? What do you mean?

[kevin]

historically starting from the conservative traditionalsts on the right and moving towards radical departures on te left

roman catholics...lutherans...anglicans...congregationalists...baptists...quakers

lotsofother gradatios,but baptists are as far left wing as you can get and not be a quaker

ive left outanabaptists pentecostalists and many protestants. these are just big divisions

[Case]

Interesting. I've never heard anyone call the Reformed Church left-wing. Historically, the Magisterial Reformers (Lutherans, Reformed) were the center between traditionalist Catholics on the right and the Radical Reformation (Anabaptists) on the left. In his book Interpreting John Calivin, Ford Lewis Battles paints Calvin as a radical centrist, posed between Catholic-leaning Luther and Anabaptist-leaning Zwingli on the topic of sacramental theology.

I've never heard the Reformed referred to as left-wing, but I suppose the term is relative.

[Case]

The more I think about it, the more I question whether a 2-dimensional spectrum is useful at all as an aid in understanding church divisions. What criteria are used to determine each position in the spectrum?

[eyeshaveit]

There's only one useful division: you are "in Christ" or you are not.

[kevin]

all discriminant functions are limiting. the real world is always mutivariate.

anabaptists arent protestant, in the strict sense, any more than are quakers.

there are always more axes. but for limited comparisons along a single axis, a line works fine.

[Case]

I would consider most Anabaptists to be Protestant. Why wouldn't you? I'd consider any church tradition that split from Roman Catholicism to be Protestant. Although, in some ways I think anabaptist churches resemble Catholicism more than mainstream Protestants because believe in a centralized church authority and it's interpretation of doctrine and Scripture.

[kevin]

the anabaptists didn't split from the catholics. they split from the reformed protestant church in switzerland. they're different from catholics, sure, but that's not the same as being descended from them via schism.

if they were considered protestants, i don't think everybody would have been as enthusiastic about killing them.



in my opinion, only the lutherans and those who directly disputed with catholics can really be considered protestant. i don't consider traditional quakers protestant, for example, because catholicism was mostly irrelevant to their genesis.