#If you're curious: yes there's 'the pope' you know but that's just the Roman Catholic guy.

[bijoumikhawal]

honestly it's so funny to me that ds9 tells me "Bajorans have one religion and live on multiple planets and they all listen to the Kai". Buddy, there are at least 3 papal offices on the one planet I live on, and not everyone belongs to that religion.

[prolifeproliberty]

Hey, you seem really cool! I like a lot of the stuff that you post on here.

That said, I'm not entirely sure what you mean that you are not Protestant or Catholic. You said you are a Confessional Lutheran, so you're not Orthodox. In my understanding, Protestantism is defined by protesting against the Catholic church. So... do you believe in the authority of the Roman church as Christ's true Church? Anything other than yes means you're a Protestant (unless you're Orthodox, but that's just a smaller brand of OneTrueChurchism and I think you're clearly not that.)

I'm just curious, because it the concept of 'i'm not either' evades my understanding of things quite a bit. I want to be clear, I'm just trying to understand. I always love learning about the beliefs of my fellow brother and sisters in Christ.

My question is, really, what does it mean to be a Confessional Lutheran? I don't know, because I haven't heard of y'all much.

Thank you!

See here’s the issue: if you reject the Pope, you’re Protestant - unless you’re Orthodox.

There are really two options here:

1. Protestantism has a definition that includes some general commonalities in theology and/or practice among the various denominations

2. Protestantism means “not Catholic or Orthodox” - essentially “your particular branch of Christianity split from Rome after the 11th century” and has nothing to do with theology or practice

The first definition would not include Lutheranism, as Lutheran views on major issues such as Baptism and Holy Communion are markedly incompatible with mainline Protestant denominations and are much closer (though not identical) to the Catholic views. Also, Confessional Lutheran church services are far more similar to Catholic Mass than to the average Protestant service.

The second definition is so broad and arbitrary as to be functionally useless for discussing theology.

Clearly, in everyday speech, the vast majority of people are operating on the first definition, even if they don’t have a clear picture of what those common beliefs and practices are. They only switch to the second definition when I say I’m not Protestant.