Protestations

Don't you love to hear Christians talk about the phrase "the Bible alone."  These Christians tend to repel from tradition, the oral and written transmission of theology.  I personally think that people avoid tradition because they may be surprised at what they may find there.  For the sake of this brief blog spot, lets avoid tradition and look at history.  Do you realize that if you were a  Christian and lived between the death of Jesus and about 1500 A.D., you would have been a Catholic (Muslims and Jews are not Christians)?  Does that one piece of history not give you concern?  The bible had been composed and set in stone for over 1500 years.  Protestant interpretations of the bible did not materialize until the lives of Martin Luther and John Calvin among others.  Isn't it amazing that the phrase "the Bible alone" appeared right after their deaths.  If you don't want to read tradition, read history.  History will reveal to you that the discovery of the New World, the invention of the printing press and a German revolt against the Holy Roman Empire created Protestantism, a man-made religion.  This "freedom of religious expression" flourished in America and morphed into the 30,000 or so different groups of believers we call Christians today.  God weeps.