Data shows that disagreement over specific doctrines is not the main reason some Catholics become Protestant (Reese, 2011). Doctrine is not that important either to those who become Protestant or to those who stay Catholic. Some Catholics who become Protestant claim to have a stronger faith now than when they were children or teenagers. The number of people who have left the Catholic church is huge. If all of those people who left created their own denomination, after Catholics and Baptists, it would be the third-largest denomination in the United States (Reese, 2011). The reasons that people are leaving their church isn't just because of a change of their belief, it is also because of the different ways that the church is teaching. Which …show more content…
In order to answer this question one needs to know: Who is being converted and why are they being converted? Some data shows that the majority of Catholics whom become Protestant do so before they are the age of 24 (Reese, 2011). Fifty- five percent of people said that a reason to leave would be because the Catholic church didn't spiritually meet the needs of the followers (Reese, 2011). Others would say that they disagree with the church's teaching on birth control, women priests, and divorce (Reese, 2011). Finally, another important issue driving parishioners away from the Catholic church is the mishandling of the child molestation scandals that have recently come to …show more content…
More than one out of five people who were raised as Catholics leave their church nine percent go to Protestantism, four percent to the cults, and nine percent don't have any religious interest (Scalon and Greely, 2003). Catholics who convert to Protestantism are more devoted, more moral, less anticlerical, and are more Protestant than those who remain Catholic (Scalon and Greely, 2003). Some data shows that the religious affiliation are unstable (Scalon and Greely, 2003). "Seventy- one percent of Brazilians are Catholic, eleven percent are Protestant... eleven percent have no religious affiliation but believe in God... six percent belong to cults... and less than one percent say that they do not have a religious affiliation and do not believe in God" (Scalon and Greely, 2003). Are these reasons the same for the rest of the
All of Europe used to be united under one religion, Catholicism. Europe started inching away from Catholicism during the 13th - 15th centuries. The church leaders started to only think about money and the power they held, instead of the real reason they were supposed to be there, God. This caused an uprising of people who no longer wanted to be a part of the Catholic church, nicknamed Protestants because they protested the ways of the catholic church. The Protestant Reformation was caused by corruption in the church, Martin Luther and John Calvin’s ideas, and the clergy and their preachings.
To begin with, it must be remembered that Catholic culture and Catholic faith, while mutually supportive and symbiotic, are not the same thing. Mr. Walker Percy, in his Lost in the Cosmos, explored the difference, and pointed out that, culturally, Catholics in Cleveland are much more Protestant than Presbyterians in say, Taos, New Orleans, or the South of France. Erik, Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, points out that the effects of this dichotomy upon politics, attributing the multi-party system in Catholic countries to the Catholic adherence to absolutes; he further ascribes the two-party system to the Protestant willingness to compromise. However this may be, it does point up a constant element in Catholic thought---the pursuit of the absolute.
Born in Germany, in 1483, Martin Luther went on to become one of western history’s most significant figure. Luther spent his early life as a priest and a lawyer. He was also the professor of theology. Considering his background it was a total surprise that Luther protested and criticized the catholic church. Even more surprising since he was a priest. However, Martin Luther didn’t want to destroy the church after all he was a priest. He just wanted to reform some of the church’s perceived abuses. There are different reasons that sparked Martin Luther’s protestant reformation, namely. 1) salvation or getting to heaven, was won by faith alone, 2) the selling of indulgences, 3) the bible
The major divisions of the Protestantism are Baptist, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Methodist, Lutheranism, Unitarianism, and Quakers (www.encyclopedia.com). Even the very first Protestant Reformers were unable to maintain a unity of faith or purpose. The divisions of Protestantism are just an example of the continued fragmentation of the churches. The tendency towards this divineness is a strength to the Protestantism religion.
The Christian religion, like all other religions has its strengths and weaknesses in our modern society. Perhaps the strengths out weight the weaknesses as this is one of the largest religions in the world. Hundreds of people follow the Catholic/Christian religion yet still a greater number follow yet other religions. Perhaps this is because they see the weaknesses or perhaps it is simply because their parents have taught them that it is a sin to follow this religion.
What happens when people start to break away from the entity that bound an entire civilization together for over a thousand years? How does one go from unparalleled devotion to God to the exploration of what man could do? From absolute acceptance to intense scrutiny? Sheeple to independent thinkers? Like all revolutions preceding it, the Protestant Reformation did not happen overnight. Catholics had begun to lose faith in the once infallible Church ever since the Great Schism, when there were two popes, each declaring that the other was the antichrist. Two things in particular can be identified as the final catalyst: a new philosophy and simple disgust. The expanding influence of humanism and the corruption of the Catholic Church led to the Protestant Reformation, which in turn launched the Catholic Reformation and religious warfare.
Having a religion change, many times, takes a toll on those who follow. This would include the hardships of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Reformation. Religious tensions were spreading throughout Europe, starting from the Protestant Reformation. Some of those who followed the Catholic church began to question how much was true and how many lies they were told to believe in. Many important Leaders of the Reformation stated their opinions about that Catholic church. These opinions would then be evaluated in the Catholic Reformation, The Council of Trent. Beliefs would be revised and practices would be evaluated. The core beliefs would still be Catholic, thus still different from a protestant beliefs. This led to officials of states
The Protestant Reformation was a period of time (1500-1700) where there became a change in Western Christendom. This reformation was caused by the resentment from the people because the Catholic Church abusing their powers for political and economic advances. In this time the church was selling pardons for sin and indulgences to forgive sins, decrease days spent in purgatory and save the dead from damnation. The reformation was when people became more aware with the back hand dealings with the church and men like Martin Luther and John Calvin created their own churches to what they believed was not corrupt unlike the church. Unfortunately there many consequences as far at the Roman Catholic church attempting to bring people back to the church,
Protestantism and Pentecostalism has risen to 15% of the population. Their members are mostly poor or part of the working class. Their ministers are from the same social class as its members, unlike catholicism where most priests come from the elites of the neighborhood. The rise of evangelicals has surprised the region and has grown exponentially.
There has been a lot of change in religious adherence since the end of the Second World War. At the end of the war many Australians still had British ancestors and so most people were Christian. With immigrants arriving in Australia after the war we started to see new religions grow. Orthodox Christians came from places like Greece, for example. The Catholics have continued to grow in numbers while some other Christian faiths have decreased in size. One reason why the Catholic Church is growing is because of the arrival of immigrants from places like Africa and the Philippines.
"Religions of the World: Numbers of Adherents; Growth Rates." ReligiousTolerance.org by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. Web. 27 July 2010. .
Catholics and Protestants share a fair amount of fundamental ideas and concepts from the Christian faith, but there are critical differences which continue to make prominent and contrasting differences between their beliefs and practices. Those differences are just as important in defining the religions today as they were during the Protestant Reformation. In the sixteenth century, the Protestant Reformation began and religious leaders such Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and others that protested against some of the practices and abuses of the Catholic Church. The protest is actually what spawned the name of Protestantism; the root of the word is Protestantism is “protest.” The main purpose for the protests was to reform the church from within; they saw a need for reformation to eliminate the blatant corruption and the abusive practices, such as “indulgences.” But as the years passed by, it became abundantly clear that their movement was unable to coexist with the Rome Catholic ideology, so those with Protestant beliefs/views broke away and organized their own church hierarchy and structures, this purge from Catholicism and new
The Protestant Reformation: What it was, why it happened and why it was necessary. The Protestant Reformation has been called "the most momentous upheaval in the history of Christianity." It was a parting of the ways for two large groups of Christians who differed in their approach to the worship of Christ. At the time, the Protestant reformers saw the church- the Catholic church, or the "universal church- " as lacking in its ways. The church was corrupt then, all the way up to the pope, and had lost touch with the people of Europe. The leaders of the Reformation sought to reform the church and its teachings according to the Scriptures and the writings of the Apostles. They sought to simplify the church by returning to its roots, roots long lost by the Catholic church at the time, or so the reformers believed. After the fall of the Roman Empire, life in Europe declined rapidly into the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages were a time of misery and darkness. There were only two socioeconomic classes: the very rich nobility or the very poor peasants. Small kingdoms popped up everywhere, and were constantly at war with one another. Whole libraries were destroyed, and the only people who remained literate were the clergy of the Christian church. Life became such a struggle to survive that, for a period of five hundred years, very little artwork or literature was produced by the whole of Europe. Eventually, around the year 1000, the conditions in Europe began to get better. This marked the beginning of the Middle Ages. The Crusades began as an effort to revitalize the spirits of the people. However, things still weren't very good. Plagues ravaged the land, carried by rodents and destroying whole villages. With th...
...tholics and Protestants must understand the history and development of the Reformation movement. Only after both sides begin to listen and try to understand one another can they reach out to one another, and then only with the help and grace of God may the Church be united and restored.
What would make someone abandon their own religion for another? There are many different reasons for someone to change their religion. Since we are more accepting of cultural differences these days, the conversion of religion is on the rise. Globally, the main religion that most people convert to is Islam. The reason being, is that it is known to lead to happiness, tranquillity and inner peace.