Monday, November 16, 2009

The List of Evil Protestant Inventions.

Occasionally that list of "Catholic Inventions " will still pop up here and there. You know Catholics baptized bells on date x and such.

When Catholic Apologotics got more sophisticated anti Catholics stopped using that for the most part. Also fellowship that Catholic and Evangelcals have had over the decades has done much to get rid of musunderstandings.

Still the infamous " list" comes up from time to time. Mark Shea has a nice and fun post on this at
Looks Like I Need Elocution Lessons

As he points out sometimes the best way to deal with this is a tad of lighthearted humor that also makes a point. He list this tongue and chick list of "Protestant" inventions that one might wish to reply with if you are confronted with the infamous "List".

AD 90 Sunday worship taught by Didache
AD 180 God first declared as a “Trinity” of three persons by Theophilus
AD 381 Prayer to the Holy Spirit authorized by Council of Constantinople
AD 397 Book of Revelation (till now dubious) proclaimed to be “Scripture”
AD 400 Augustine invents “original sin”
AD 418 Salvation apart from Jesus declared heretical by Pope Zosimus
AD 431 Ephesus declares Mary’s human son to be God himself
AD 525 Calendar for Easter Sunday instituted
AD 950 Invention of Bible in English
AD 1215 Declaration that God created the world “out of nothing”
AD 1455 Scheme for printing the Bible invented by Gutenberg
AD 1760 Singing of “Amazing Grace” instituted by John Newton
AD 1776 Protestant Founders of America downgrade Blessed Trinity to “Nature’s God”
AD 1825 Altar calls instituted by Charles Finney
AD 1863 U.S. government enforces Thanksgiving to God as official state holiday
AD 1864 Mammon worship first authorized by United States government. “In God We Trust” stamped on U.S. money
AD 1900 Light bulbs used in worship services
AD 1929 Wednesday night Bible study invented
AD 1951 Preachers begin to dress in polyester suits
AD 1959 Televangelism instituted by Pat Robertson
AD 1965 “Four Spiritual Laws” promulgated by Bill Bright
AD 1969 Unbiblical phrase “Accept Jesus Christ into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior” popularized
AD 1970 Overhead projectors used in worship service
AD 1978 Abortion declared to be a grave sin by Evangelicals and Fundamentalists
AD 1991 “Promise Keepers” founded on pattern of neo-pagan “men’s groups”
AD 1998 Sale and commercialization of WWJD bracelets
AD 2001 “Faith-based” government founded by George W. Bush.

As Shea Points out
"His list is, of course, a deliberately silly concoction of inconsequential items, legitimate developments of doctrine, sinister-sounding (but harmless) adaptations of the Christian life to different cultural circumstances, and laughable twisting of fact. However, it’s also an instructive rejoinder that points out an important truth: We do need to think for ourselves—particularly about what “everybody knows” concerning the “pagan origins” of Catholic teaching. For this peculiar pattern of endlessly circulating and re-circulating absurd and sinister-sounding “facts” about the Catholic faith is very common in Evangelicalism when it comes to Catholic beliefs about Marian devotion and doctrine."

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