<originally posted  on: March 09, 2006, 10:54:45 PM>

First, here are some links that I found regarding the contiuence of Christ's church from the beginning to now.

http://www.baptistpillar.com/bd0547.htm

http://members.citynet.net/morton/baptist.htm

http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/anabapt.htm

http://www.ritchies.net/p4wk4.htm


As a sub-thought. I hope that my statments about the Baptists are not mist-taken.

I am certainly not saying that only those who join a Baptist church will be saved. That is rediculas and I am not saying that at all.
My point that there has been a contineous (non Roman Catholic) presence of the church at all times, since the first church till now.

Jesus is our High Priest (Hebrews 7:26-28). He is the authority and the head of the church. Believing in Him (John 3:16-17) is what constitutes salvation.

Paul preached to 7 churches, all with different traditions and different names. In Revelations there is also 7 churches that are spoke of.


There is no 1 religion that is the ONLY true religion.

Christ's church has many members (1 Cor 1, 1 Cor 12).


References:

I used this as my guide: http://www.baptistpillar.com/bd0547.htm

Then I went to the encyclopedia and looked each of these historical religions up for reference.
Below, what you have is a continueous history, of churches that followed Biblical Christianity, and are non-Roman Catholic.

They weren't protestant, because they started before there was a heretical church to protest. Their history is linked and can be followed back to the first church.
These churches didn't follow modern day guidelines of registering their church with the government. So their official name is less than important, since it was never official (Christ never named His church either, it was just "The Church")


The Montanists
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/m/montanis.asp

The Novatians
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/n/novatian.asp

The Donatists
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/d/donatism.asp

The Britons
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/englandch_history.asp

The Celtic Churches Of Ireland
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/c/celticc1h.asp

The Paulicians
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/p/paulicia.asp

Petrobrussians
http://www.reformed.org/sacramentology/lee/anab_002.html

Albigenses
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/albigens_beliefsandpractices.asp

The Waldenses
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/w/waldense.asp

Anabaptists
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/a/anabapti.asp

For more information, I used http://www.encyclopedia.com, and cross referenced everthing between other hard-backed Encyclopedia's.

Other references:

http://www.ritchies.net/p4wk4.htm

« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2006, 09:41:40 PM »

Hi Rick,

  Im actually not a "Baptist".  I was just showing the Baptist FT lineage, to show a consistent non-RCC Christian history that dates back to the first church (2000+ years).

I don't believe Christ established denomination, or a religion.  I believe His church is a relationship that anyone can have with Him. 
(John 3:16-17).

I have a relationship with Him, and not a religion.

But I am interested in what you have to say.  Exspecially about RCC faith traditions.

I would agree that having faith is more important than having a religion. I would not discount having a religion however. Having a religion is a way to help focus and direct our faith. It helps to keep unity among believers. Organized religion can better serve in the missionary field, helping to evangelize, and to help with social justice. I think a religion, so long as its direction is toward Christ, is a good thing to have. I personally could not imagine reading the bible and trying to interpret for my self. I don’t know if I would be that confident that I was getting it right. So for me, I like having a religion.

Peter

Hi Brian

I guess I am defining a religion as an organized system of beliefs and practices.

Peter

i couldn't get the encyclopedic links to work but googled define: montanists
they may have been false prophets, and i only got one wiki page but it says their history doesn't actually link up with but is similar to modern Pentecostal church, and that was also my impression.  that's as far as i got tho.  back when i first became a Christian i also sought out this history, with whatever resources i could find.  i can't remember why, i may have thought it would lead me to the best type of church or to understand the origins and where schizms occurred, but i didn't find enough solid info except a sneaking suspicion that it might involve the Catholic church, which was intriguing but also disturbing at the time, because it's foreign to me.  it wasn't until i actually came to this site that i even realized the Catholic church had a claim to this descent.