All Denominations and Churches Are Bashed

[Christian Believer]

Please do not reply to this post, until you have carefully read it.

Catholic Church (including Greek Orthodox):
They got the Nicene Creed right. And the Eucharist is good, as a symbolic re-enactment of the last supper. Jesus did say for us to eat His flesh and drink His blood using those terms verbatim, in the 2nd half of John Chapter 6.

Otherwise, the Catholic church and their side-kick the Orthodox church teachings, for hundreds of years, have been mostly unbiblical:

• In Catholic churches, there's little to no spiritual maturity. The Catholic church is still running with the same original antiquated plan since the 3rd century: The church (its priests), supposedly study the Bible, then turn around and teach it to the people who are illiterate and can't read or understand the difficulty of the Bible for themselves." Maybe this was acceptable in 325AD, but now in 2022CE/AD, I think we can do it ourselves and don't need bishops anymore. We have no excuse not to, except laziness.

• The Catholic church does not encourage people to read the Bible! Many Catholic people actually "hate" studying the Bible, for these confessed reasons: "Oh no, Protestants do that; we don't!"; "We have priests and bishops to do it for us, and we trust them."

• The Catholic church over the years has been riddled with abuse scandals, almost daily stories in the news, here's today's.

• The church concentrates only on the new-testament Bible, and treats the old-testament scripture as myths. Even though Jesus referenced a lot of old-testament verses.

• The usual Catholic sermon Bible reading time is nice stories from the new-testament. Followed by a message from the priest about "let's all be good and nice".

• Purgatory; where is that in the Bible?

• The ascension of Mary into heaven became Catholic doctrine in 1950, officially declared by Pope Pius XII. Continued here.

• Mary the mother of God, as in higher level than God!

• The pope is constantly in the news making some political statements, announcing "sweeping reforms", changing the canon law, and taking the church further away from God. These people at the Vatican since the 4th century cannot possibly be the ones that Jesus meant to hand the church to. It was true in the early church days when He handed it to His disciples who witnessed His miracles, and were truly filled with the Holy Spirit. But it's been going downhill since, as human nature takes over.

• So many Catholic people are also praying to a variety of humans they call "saints". Some get on their knees before the statue of so and so, and others lay face down at the feet of another. The Catholic church may claim this is not their teaching. Well the church must be doing something wrong; and certainly not doing anything to stop it. The church is careful not to upset people, but is ok with upsetting God!

• Must also see this! It'll make you smile.

Protestants (including Baptists, Evangelical, etc.):
Good preaching from the Bible, but crucial truths are missing, examples:

• Some would tell their new members: "You're saved now, that's it; there is nothing else you need to do", based on few verses in the Bible. And missing the whole Jesus preaching on spiritual growth!

• They're always preaching safe unoffending subjects in their sermons. No preaching about Spiritual Maturity to remain saved. Most preach it is impossible to become "unsaved". But the reality is, the Bible disagrees. See Born Again?.

• Many don't recite the Lord's Prayer in their sermons! Protestants would spend a whole sermon on the subject of Tithing; digging up verses all the way back from Leviticus, and making sure that people tithe the whole 10%, not 9% or 8% because "they'd be stealing from God." But would not expend the due-diligence on really understanding God's new-covenant. See here.

• Most would explain that Jesus meant the Lord's Prayer for the Jews, but the 10% tithing? That carried over to the gentiles! When in fact tithing was modified by Paul in the New Testament to: "Any gift is good" Philippians 4:14-17. To all Protestant churches: Collecting tithes is acceptable, but only when the teaching is correct, not when missing crucial truths like the Lord's Prayer!

• Protestants are solely going by Paul's message as the one for the gentiles, but they've missed the mark by a mile, see here. Any discrepancy between Jesus' message and Paul's is usually brushed off as something like: "well Jesus meant that for the Jews; Paul's message was for the gentiles who became Christians later..." This is so dangerous on so many levels, disrespectful to God, and causing spiritual-death to so many people! Those churches missed the following scripture from Jesus after His resurrection talking to His Jewish disciples:

Matthew 28:17-20
When they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations... and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." That is "everything Jesus commanded His disciples the Jews". Any church who preaches otherwise, makes it no different than the Pharisees who crucified Jesus, despite knowing He was the Messiah. All of Jesus teachings are for all people, not just the Jews. And Paul's teaching is a supplement to Jesus'. Any discrepancy between Paul's and Jesus' messages means, that Paul's was meant as high-level message because he did not see the detailed 4 Gospels! See here for more details. And must also see this! It'll make you smile.

Calvinists
"Watch out and be on your guard for the yeast of the" Calvinists. Ok so I reused Jesus' words here (as in Matthew 16:6). I'm sure Jesus won't mind.

• Calvinists are even worse than the regular Protestants, in the "do nothing" message. They take it a step further to tell their members that no matter what they do, God already decided who will be saved and who won't. Calvinists don't encourage reading the Bible either. They do however encourage to read some books from famous Calvinist leaders! They also try to put words in the scripture's mouth; make it seem that "the Bible did not really intend to say 'that', but rather it meant to tell us 'this'..., based on psychological human behavior..." Ok so you get the picture. They're in the same league with Mormons, Jehovah's witnesses, etc..

• For example they teach: "any biblical reference to 'the whole world' actually means 'the whole world of the Elect', not the actual whole world." I can understand human deficiencies can lead to misinterpretations, but this? I don't see how their church members can swallow it!

• I see thousands of violent internet forums and debates raging on between "Calvinists" and "Arminians". People treating this like a sports game; who will win? When instead, we should all be Christians, and direct our efforts to seeking God. But the competitive-sports-minded people, which we have ample supply of in this country, chose to run with it for the win.

More here: Predestination Demystified.
And more here.