Is there something in the water in Scandinavia? Do they just have a natural inclination to the absurd? A year after a minister in Denmark's Evangelical Lutheran Church was suspended for denying the existence of God, he's back, since as his supervising bishop indicates, "although he disagrees with Grosboell's views there should be room for him in Denmark's state church."
I think we are witnessing the final death throes of the Protestant Reformation--in spite of all the problems in the Catholic Mother Church. I mean look at the U.S. Episcopalians. They promote to the office of bishop a man who threw his wife and children overboard so he could have a male bunkmate. Earlier they had made a bishop a man who makes a living by writing books trashing the Bible (Spong).
I don't know, Deacon -- we're certainly witnessing the slow-motion collapse of the mainline Protestant churches in the U.S. (My pre-Catholic background was with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.) The situation in the state-supported Protestant churches is different, but they are still in steep decline.
On the other hand, Evangelical and Pentacostal Protestants continue to make converts in Africa and Asia, and (more worryingly) they have made inroads in Latin America. Maybe it's better to say that "classical" Protestantism is on the way out?
...which is frightening, since it's evangelical and Pentecostal Protestants who are so fond of calling our Church the "Whore of Babylon."
I understand the growth of Evangelical and Pentecostal Protestant groups--but many are losing that "Whore of Babylon" attitude toward the Catholic Church--especially since the choice of a pope who the secular media is trashing for writing a document claiming Jesus is Lord and the one saviour of mankind. I live not far from Gordon College--a very influential Evangelical college and recently went to two programs there featuring the Protestant Christian historian
Philip Jenkins (author of "The New Anti-Catholicism") and his talks were both extremely pro-Catholic including praising the charismatic movement in the Catholic Church (He even gushed over the fact the biggest and fastest growing Charismatic movement is Catholic and based in the Phillipines.) Also Evangelical teachings don't have the intellectual depth of the classic Reformation church's. Maybe that is why Gordon professor Tom Howard became a Catholic and two of its top students are now Catholic Evangelists=Scot Hahn and Jerry Matatics.
Very few evangelicals use the "whore of Babylon" language. Those are truly the extremists who jump to insane eschatological conclusions based on poor scriptural interpretation.
The broader and more mainstream evangelical Protestant community is much more ecunmemical and Rome-friendly, shall we say.
So Ken, how do we make "Rome-friendly", "Rome-loving Romanists" ? Inquiring minds want to know.
THE best way to attract evangelicals is to emphasize the Bible. I know a lot of deacons who want to be able to anoint the sick or dieing--and I agree the Church has the authority to allow such---however, the Bible only mentions the presbyters, the priests- doing such. So I think it would be prudent to not change the rule, for when legitimate Church authority exercises its rights--but makes the Church look less and less Biblical--the harder it is for Bible loving evangelicals to be attracted.