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Have you looked into Orthodoxy? I had similar issues with Catholicism and found a home in the Orthodox church.
See, I really don't like how exclusionary the Eastern Orthodox tend to be. Why not recognize Christ's body throughout the world, even as it's racked by various grevious schisms? Why worsen them? At least the Roman Catholics are sort of willing to recognize the other church bodies, especially post Vatican II. And the ecclesiology seems kind of broken with the way that schisms happen—e.g. was the entire East not part of the church for taking the wrong side during the Acacian schism? And then just became, at once, the church again when they reconciled? And, like, then you have to disclaim the Church of the East evangelizing China in the first millenium just because they didn't follow Ephesus.
I'm quite happy over here with my Protestantism that's willing to recognize the entire community of the faithful, regardless of nation, as assemblies of my brothers in Christ, and parts of his single visible church.
I belong to a very exclusionary tradition and from my perspective orthodoxy is, yes, exclusionary, but without rhyme or reason. There doesn’t seem to be the most common thread uniting the Russians and Greeks and Syrians in contrast to… the other Syrians. But at the same time they exclude eastern Catholics who, in practice, are distinguished by venerating JPII as a saint and having moral theology which is stricter than the mainstream but definitely within bounds for the EOC, and exclude the oriental orthodox churches whose differences are basically those of rite and canonization lists.
Catholics at least have the pope(and it cannot be overstated the degree to which nobody likes sedevacantists and Catholics grasp at no true Scotsmans to exclude them). I really don’t know what Eastern Orthodoxy’s unity is, especially with the recent splintering.
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I feel the same. I’m happy with conservative Anglicans on the more traditional end of things. I can recognize other Christians even if I have disagreements in (though I have various degrees of separation depending on how far you get from the traditional understanding of Christianity and the sacraments.
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Hmm I think the schisms are a tough one man. On the one hand yes I do think being inclusive is good... on the other hand the OP was complaining about how churches are too inclusive and that has been a big problem. I think Protestantism is the shining example frankly. Once you throw open the doors to including other churches, you lose the ability to have real standards on what represents the actual Church.
Oh, I'm not saying anything goes. I'm just saying to recognize your fellow Christians as such. I agree that the Protestant world is too splintered, and has diverged from its foundation in various problematic ways (e.g. most modern protestants don't care about the Eucharist).
But it's not the case that you lose all ability to have standards. I mean, consider when Protestant churches were generally national churches. That probably doesn't have much of the problems you have in mind, since Eastern Orthodoxy is also organized in a national-ish way.
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