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What Does the Bible Say About...Denominations?

What does the Bible say about Catholicism and Baptists, Protestants?

Answer

The Bible does not say anything about the Roman Catholic, Baptist, or any other Protestant churches. The reason is that those churches did not exist for over a thousand years after the Bible was written. In the New Testament there is only one church. It has no name, but is described as the churches of Christ, the church of God, the body of Christ, and a number of other descriptions. The Roman Catholic church, as such, did not come into existence until about 1054 A.D., when the bishop of Rome chose to leave the doctrines of the Eastern Orthodox church. Both had left the pattern of churches in the Bible years before. Around the 1500’s a number of people thought the Catholic Church had started doing things that could not be found in the Bible. They protested certain practices, and thus were called Protestants. That name has been given to most churches growing out of what is called the Reformation Movement, trying to reform the Catholic Church. This would include the Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, and many others. In the 1800’s in Scotland, Ireland, and the United States a number of people decided it was time to restore New Testament Christianity, not just reform the churches that already existed. From this Restoration Movement came a number of groups, most notably those who call themselves the churches of Christ and the Christian church. These people try to go back to the Bible as their only authority for anything in religion. They even chose not to take names for the church, but to use the descriptions that could be found in the Bible.