World Religion Report

World Religion Report

World Religions Report

Name

HUM/130

Introduction

I had the pleasure to sit down and discuss religion with a Presbyterian Minister for the final project in my World Religions Class. I talked with several friends before finding who I thought would be the right person for this interview. I chose a friend of a friend and it turned out to be a most interesting discussion. I will tell the details of that conversation in this paper.

Interview with Ben Allen, Presbyterian Minister

  Where did the Presbyterian Church originate?

      To begin with I was told by Ben, this is a loaded question. All churches began with Jesus Christ, and to start with, there were no denominations, just Christian churches (congregations).   Paul’s letters in the New Testament were written to some of those churches.   These were Presbyterian congregations – and Roman Catholic congregations and Baptist congregations also. The simple fact, all Christian church history is Presbyterian Church history. Presbyterian Church history would not have been possible without some Roman Catholic monk named “Martin Luther” or something of the sort who objected to some of the practices of the church in his day (selling indulgencies).   He didn’t think that someone could cough up some money and get his sins wiped out by the Pope. He developed a weird idea from reading Romans that God would wipe out sins for nothing, if you admitted them and repented of them.   Cut the Pope out of the process entirely. Not a popular idea at the Vatican, and got Luther in major trouble---therefore Lutheranism and the Lutheran Church began in about 1517.
      Then a few years later there was another fellow, John Calvin, with some similar ideas to Luther who lived a few miles West of Luther (Luther lived in Germany and Calvin in Switzerland).   They were both good Christians but not so good as Roman Catholics.   Calvin was doing his thing in Basil, SW. and in Geneva, SW. in about
  1536 – 1538 for starters.   What...