How Different Denominations See Each Other

Status
Not open for further replies.
. . . I have no intention of purposefully evangelizing certain sections of our community just so we won't be so white. That kind of guilt-driven evangelism I left behind in the mainlines.

Duh.

Misreading of my post, Ben? If you phrase it that way, the answer is too obvious to warrant any response. My 50+ years in the mainlines found me fighting ethnic quotas at the local, regional, and national levels as well. But, does anybody believe that Biblical evangelism of a true Gospel should produce lily white congregations in communities that are radically mixed racially? When I was an American Baptist, our big libs pushing "race" pastored congregations that were 99% white while calling some of us anti-quota people racists even though we were in racially mixed congregations with no single ethnic majority. If the geographic reach of your church is a population that is 99% white, fine. But, if it is nearly 50% Chinese and nearly 40% Hispanic like mine, then a "white" church would strike me as missing the point somewhere.

Nate is an example of what I was thinking. My experience with church people is that we get all too comfortable with our own group of close friends and seldom reach out to people at all -- of any color!

Nate pastors a congregation in one of the "less than gigantic" Reformed groups. If his fairly small congregation can reach and assimilate a "Chilean, a number of Mexican-Americans, a Philipino, an Indian (India) family, an Israeli married to a Mexican, a family from the UK and the husband is Ukranian and the wife is Coptic Egyptian, a family from the Netherlands, people from Singapore," then he would be an exemplar of what I was calling for in my post.

If Calvinism is true, you would think that it would to be represented by more than upper middle class white people.
 
I'd like to see how Baptists see Presbyterians, and vice versa.

I'll take the bait...

As%20seen%20by.png
 
What's with Reformed as seen by Reformed? We see ourselves as nice, white, middle-class folks?

Exactly. With our loving, perfectly obedient covenant children in tow.

Covie kids! Of course.

I was trying to figure out Lutherans, and it's difficult to come up with how they'd see other groups. They don't seem to make distinctions between Reformed, Evangelical, and Charismatics--we're all just rolling around in the isles in fits of holy laughter.
 
Nate pastors a congregation in one of the "less than gigantic" Reformed groups. If his fairly small congregation can reach and assimilate a "Chilean, a number of Mexican-Americans, a Philipino, an Indian (India) family, an Israeli married to a Mexican, a family from the UK and the husband is Ukranian and the wife is Coptic Egyptian, a family from the Netherlands, people from Singapore," then he would be an exemplar of what I was calling for in my post.

Dennis, I see your point and it certainly makes sense, but let's not forget that Pastor Eshelman pastors a church in Los Angeles, CA, one of the largest and most diverse cities in the U.S. I think it's a bit more likely that Mexican-Americans, Philipinos, Indians, Israelis and Ukranians would be found in his church than in a church in Ellisville, MS.
 
I'd like to see how Baptists see Presbyterians, and vice versa.
If speaking of Reformed Baptists and Reformed Presbyterians would it not look like this?



.....
Reformed Baptists​
Reformed Presbyterians​
seen by Reformed Baptists ........View attachment 2349 View attachment 2348

seen by Reformed Presbyterians: .......1689..........1646..........

Your additioanal comment Ben and Tims original post are Both comical and very observant!!!
 
I was trying to figure out Lutherans, and it's difficult to come up with how they'd see other groups. They don't seem to make distinctions between Reformed, Evangelical, and Charismatics--we're all just rolling around in the isles in fits of holy laughter.

They'd lump Anglicans in there too, actually. Funny how each group divides the theological world differently.
 
Nate pastors a congregation in one of the "less than gigantic" Reformed groups. If his fairly small congregation can reach and assimilate a "Chilean, a number of Mexican-Americans, a Philipino, an Indian (India) family, an Israeli married to a Mexican, a family from the UK and the husband is Ukranian and the wife is Coptic Egyptian, a family from the Netherlands, people from Singapore," then he would be an exemplar of what I was calling for in my post.

Dennis, I see your point and it certainly makes sense, but let's not forget that Pastor Eshelman pastors a church in Los Angeles, CA, one of the largest and most diverse cities in the U.S. I think it's a bit more likely that Mexican-Americans, Philipinos, Indians, Israelis and Ukranians would be found in his church than in a church in Ellisville, MS.

I agree. That is why I said that if your outreach area is 99% white (or any group), you can hardly be faulted for sinful exclussion if you do not have hordes of non predominant folks. However, other than Koreans who seem to be genetically engineered to be Presbyterians, many of America's Reformed congregations make it seem as if Providence and predestination prefer pasty white people. My hope is to see the resurgence of Reformed Christianity make significant inroads into every ethnicity. Why cede Hispanics to the RCs or South Americans to the charismatics?

My wife and I purchased a home in Fort Wayne this year. I was back there doing home improvement and getting 9 stitches in my hand where the saw bit me last week. We deliberately chose a home on the South Side for a few reasons:

* Just blocks away from our only grandaughter (the beauty in my avatar) out of 7.5 grandchildren
* 2x bigger than any place we had ever lived in the past (a full 1/4 acre!)
* About 1/8 the cost of a similar home in my Alhambra CA (just 13 minutes from Nate E.) area
* It was racially diverse (34% non-white in my zip code) with the largest population of Burmese outside of Burma, a goodly number of Hispanics, and a pretty large population of African Americans. My neighbor to the South is white, to the north is African American, and next to him is a Vietnamese. This feels almost like So.Cal. to me!

It was VERY disappointing to discover that in both of the churches I have attended during my few fix-up-the-house visits, they look like somebody sprayed whipped cream over the whole congregation! Actually, given the propensity for Fort Wayne people to be "ample" and rotund (it must be all of those Sunrise Samplers at Cracker Barrel?), it looked more like the Pillsbury Dough Boy at prayer. One church was a large "broad" evangelical mega church (at least they had an African American as one of the staff pastors) and the other was a confessional LCMS group just 350' from my back door! Even in that racially mixed neighborhood (34% non white), these Bible-believing, inerrancy upholding, conservative confessional Lutherans looked, well, ah, er, as "Germanic" as ole Martin himself.
 
Last edited:
:rofl::rofl::rofl:

It also lacks a column for fundamentalists:

Roman Catholics as seen by Fundamentalists = [the devil]
Mainline Liberals as seen by Fundamentalists = [the devil]
Reformed as seen by Fundamentalists = [the devil]
Evangelical as seen by Fundamentalists = [the devil]
Charismatics as seen by Fundamentalsits = [the devil]

Other Fundamentalists as seen by Fundamentalists = [question mark]

so true :D
 
I'm a reformed Baptist, and I don't understand the pictures either Mark or Benjamin used :-(

The area I live in is very segregated still, it is sad.
 
I'm a reformed Baptist, and I don't understand the pictures either Mark or Benjamin used :-(

The area I live in is very segregated still, it is sad.

The pictures were of C.H. Spurgeon (One of the greatest Reformed Baptists Preachers in History In my humble opinion) and John Knox (The Leader of the Reformation in Scotland and the one who brought Presbyterianism from Geneva to the UK.)

The numbers without pictures were the dates of the London Baptists and Westminster Confessions respectively... they were rather placed without pictures intentionally.

I certainly hope this did not bring one bit of offence to either my reformed Baptist, or Presbyterian brothers and sisters. It was simply my observation.
 
The pictures were of C.H. Spurgeon (One of the greatest Reformed Baptists Preachers in History In my humble opinion) and John Knox (The Leader of the Reformation in Scotland and the one who brought Presbyterianism from Geneva to the UK.)

Thanks. I rarely recognise any pictures haha. I could at least assume they were prominent figures. Now Mark's uniformed man with something in his mouth...that I am completely at a loss about. :D
 
Thanks. I rarely recognise any pictures haha. I could at least assume they were prominent figures. Now Mark's uniformed man with something in his mouth...that I am completely at a loss about.

That would be Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
 
Very funny picture. Reminds me of the quote in the movie A River Runs Through It, "Methodists are Baptists who know how to read."

As for the racial issue, we need to be careful not to assume racism in a church that is dominantly one color. Growing up, I went to a mostly white Baptist church, but it was mostly white because the area in which I lived was mostly white: nothing more. Same thing with the Presbyterian Church I attend on Wed. night for Bible study; it's simply the location and the racial makeup, not because there's a "No Minorities allowed" sign on the door or racist attitude among the parishoners.

That people are segregated in and of itself due to incidental cause is not the issue. When people intentionally segregate with ill attitudes toward others of a different ethnicity--regardless of who is doing it to whom--then you have a problem, and a spiritual problem at that.
 
I'm a reformed Baptist, and I don't understand the pictures either Mark or Benjamin used :-(

Ah, that is my fault, not yours. Yes, as Jeremy points out, I chose MacArthur to be the Baptist of Baptists in our modern era. Moving clockwise around the grid, I chose a screen shot of an underwater baby to highlight the sacrilege of infant baptism. I chose the Ark of the covenant for the Presbyterian grid, stressing our covenantal understanding of everything, and of course, we see baptists like good ol' craaaazzy John the baptist wearing camel skin out in the middle of nowhere faithfully preaching the word of God. There are probably better, more offensive images to use, but I hope I still offended everyone equally.
 
Very funny and much appreciated! My only dig was that the reformed-reformed square seems rather man-centered.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top