Can you reasonably belong to ANY Christian church if you condemn "Man-made traditions and Dogma."?

One doesn't have to believe in dogma to be a Christian, in my opinion. But your definition of what constitutes a "True Christian" probably differs from mine. For me, anyone who self-identifies as a Christian and who can demonstrate some overlap between his/her beliefs and historical Christianity qualifies as a Christian.

If someone tells me they believe that Jesus died on the cross and is now an ascended master along with the Buddha and Confucius, I'm okay with that. I'll let that person call her-/himself a Christian. You might want to nitpick at that, though.

A JW who draws an (artificial) distinction between "Man-made traditions and Dogma" and "THE BIBLE (New World Translation)" does so because of their own *cough!* dogma. However, they don't see their dogma as dogma.

It's like the Christians who say "Christianity isn't a religion--it's a RELATIONSHIP!" Well, friend...no. You have scriptures. You worship a dude. You believe there are rules that everyone has to follow. You want your scriptures to be interpreted in a particular way. You try to get other people to believe the same way you do. That, pal, is a religion.

And you're right. The JW guy decrying dogma has dogmas of his own. He's just pretending he doesn't.

If you reject all man-made traditions, you have to be a solipsist. After all, even the language to talk about the problem is man-made.

Jesus said, "On this Rock (playing on the nickname Peter, translated Rock), I will build my church." By implication, Jesus built only one church. The others are built by those "protesting" against Jesus, and much, much later--beginning in the 16th century, about 1500 years after the founding of Jesus' church. The Jehovah Witnesses organization was built in the late 1870s.

Jesus church must be the organization dating to the first century. After the great schism in 1054, it has been divided into the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. But by then, nearly all the important questions about theology, morality, and sacraments had been settled by the Fathers of the Church.

Criticisms of the Bible, traditions, and creeds being man-made is just silly. Of course written artifacts are man-made. The question is whether they are guided and inspired by God. In the case of the doctrines given by Jesus to his church, the answer has to be yes.

Cheers,

Bruce

I think it used to be somewhat possible in the Congregational Church before the merger with the Evangelical and Reformed Church, which formed the UCC. But that's going back about 50 years.

But then you're stuck with individual interpretations and that hampers the indoctrination process (just one reason why I realized I was an atheist). I think the only way (that I know of) a Christian can practice his/her faith in a formal setting without being subjected to dogmatic pressure is to join a Unitarian church.

But, Tinman: Jesus never read the Bible. He was confirming the Torah. You Christians are doing it ALL wrong!

The two main principals of protestantism, going all the way back to Martin Luther are faith alone and Solo scriptora (scripture alone). So, anything outside of the Bible with regard to Religion is viewed with a certain degree of skepticism, which is not to say it is always incompatible, but not to be accepted at face value as divinely inspired or spiritually legitimate (according to this view)

Of course protestants have their own traditions that they believe to be solidly based on scripture, but one could argue that not all of them really are. This is not only a common criticism of the Catholic Church, but protestants accuse each other of it (other denominations, or reformers within a particular denomination)

Except that Jesus Himself condemns what you say.

It is a man-made tradition that the Bible is not the Word of God. you are confused but I think you are trying to pass some evil off 'under the covers'. Your whole view of Jesus comes from the NT and Church you are condemning.

The ten commandments were actually penned by the hand of God. So if Christian denominations followed those, we should be okay right?

If people were honest with themselves, and applied the same standard they judge others with to themselves, no.

I believe the "honest" walk with Christ, the purest form of what Jesus explains for us other humans to do in "following" him, is to try and imitate his character as it applies to our individual and myriad lives. This will take many forms, and look different ways, so the instruction I find straight from Jesus' lips, and those who lived with him and passed on his message is: do your best and don't judge others and don't look down your nose at them.

It's about time Christendom woke up and smelled the roses, friend. Thanks for bringing that to our attention. Rock on!

hypocrisy at its finest! just goes to show the hatred that is taught by the non Rcc denominations. the people that parrot the brainless comments have been mislead and lied to so in a way, i feel sorry for them.

Any non denominational Church

Catholic Church if you "love" children