Through the rabbit hole. A dangerous proposition.
Posted on 10/08/2014 11:39:09 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
Why would intelligent, successful people give up their careers, alienate their friends, and cause havoc in their families...to become Catholic? Indeed, why would anyone become Catholic?
As an evangelist and author who recently threw my own life into some turmoil by deciding to enter the Catholic Church, I've faced this question a lot lately. That is one reason I decided to make this documentary; it's part of my attempt to try to explain to those closest to me why I would do such a crazy thing.
Convinced isn't just about me, though. The film is built around interviews with some of the most articulate and compelling Catholic converts in our culture today, including Scott Hahn, Francis Beckwith, Taylor Marshall, Holly Ordway, Abby Johnson, Jeff Cavins, Devin Rose, Matthew Leonard, Mark Regnerus, Jason Stellman, John Bergsma, Christian Smith, Kevin Vost, David Currie, Richard Cole, and Kenneth Howell. It also contains special appearances by experts in the field of conversion such as Patrick Madrid and Donald Asci.
Ultimately, this is a story about finding truth, beauty, and fulfillment in an unexpected place, and then sacrificing to grab on to it. I think it will entertain and inspire you, and perhaps even give you a fresh perspective on an old faith.
(Excerpt) Read more at indiegogo.com ...
"I"; huh?
I got better than that!!
1 John 2:1
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
Non-Catholic teaching: words in the Bible.
No, you do not.
If she does autocratically say so herself, but it is easily seen that she has engaged in progressive deformation of the NT church to the point that the church of Rome is basically invisible in the NT, as described .
Which made them more precious, yet we see abundant evidence of the reading of them by the Jews, so that even children could know them, and of it being the supreme standard for Truth:
And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 3:15)
And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, (Acts 17:2)
These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. (Acts 17:11)
For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ. (Acts 18:28)
And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening. (Acts 28:23)
And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, (Luke 24:44-45)
Which again presumes that the NT church was Roman Catholic, which it manifestly was not, and that being the historical instrument and steward of Scripture renders one the perpetual supreme authority on it, which it manifestly does not,
But how can this be? Surely you could not be looking to wholly inspired Scripture as the supreme standard for Truth, but must look to a man, since RCs does so.
As the church is RCs supreme object of security and affection, they are compelled to defend it no matter how many times and how much their assertions and polemics are refuted.
The books that you just said they had.
Scripture.
Legal documents.
Receipts.
Anyone in business would WANT to be literate.
People WANT to be literate.
WOW. Catholics make such a pariah of Luther, as if that invalidates all of Protestantism, and when it's a POPE, it gets hand waved away as irrelevant. As usual.
So then. Luther wasn't perfect.
One man out of 2,000 years of true Christian church history.
Big deal.
So you see, whenever the protestant Catholic attempts to discredit the Catholic Church Reformation by bringing up "bad" popes reformers, they are just engaging in projection.
Thanks for doing the jousting here. Was still licking my wounds from yesterday when this came to me:
Jhn 8:41
(Jesus said) “You do the deeds of your father.” Then they said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father—God.”
Jhn 8:42
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me.
Jhn 8:44
“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.
Oddly enough, these words boosted my resolve and reminded me who and what we are standing against (with the encourgement of others on FR).
But what is missing is the verse titling NT pastors "priests," and any believer addressing created beings in prayer to Heaven, and a promise of Mary being bodily assumed into Heaven and crowned before the Lord returns, and of any apostolic successor for James, (Acts 12:1,2) as for Judas, which was to maintain the original 12 before the church formally began, and of an infallible magisterium being essential or promised, or of a clear example of an infant being baptized, etc .
Thus the efficacy of forgeries in R. Catholic history.
7The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: 8But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;
Which is simply another example of your spurious attempts at psychology and or an inability to be objective. If you read some of the criticism of the behavior and attitude of the Jews in the middle ages by your own church, and Luther and contemporaries, then you would - well, you could if you allowed it - see it was not a matter of "declining to convert or simply disappear." But it seems you are one of those who thinks eating a hot dog is antisemitic.
Do you believe the behavior and attitude of the Jews makes them unlovable as a race, both in Luther's time, Hitler's time, and in our day ? I'm all ears, so to speak. I think it is rather that the Jewish people are a perpetual testimony to the LORD God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, and serve some kind of corporate function to bring out the best and worst of man's nature across the whole earth. Eating a hot dog is not antiSemitic, per se. Serving a non kosher hot dog could be antiSemitic, depending on circumstances(trying to deceive or force a Jew to eat non kosher food). Meanwhile, though we are supposed to be following Luther like a pope according to some RCs, evangelicals, including myself, are the most pro-Israel non-Jewish religious group in America.
I hear this often. The Jewish mistrust of it comes with the exclusion of the Jews, where the proponent yearns for, and loves, Israel only as a sign of the return of the LORD Jesus Christ, with the actual Jews themselves cast away as a prop as if they have no other function then to be a trigger for a premillenial rapture, as a lamb for slaughter, for the Antichrist to come. Now, your group, which you have not named, may in fact be one of those good groups who lay down their own lives for the Jews. I know people like this, who understand that they cannot, at this time, pierce that veil of blindness and see Jesus as the Messiah, and love them anyway (which you will agree Luther did not). We know this occurred in the Holocaust, and we know from Matt 25 that those Catholics/Protestants/Others are sheep. To love the Jews themselves, in the Diaspora, or in the land of Israel, is often left undone since they themselves are blinded and unlovable. The lack of love for the least of Jesus' brethren, who are often religious enemies as far as the Gospel is concerned, is a stunning indictment with respect to Matthew 25. Just who was Jesus talking to, and about ? Hence, one can see why I forgave the Catholic Church when that frail old man, blessed John Paul II, walked up to the Western Wall to put a prayer to God for forgiveness in one of the cracks. And what did Jesus teach about the second greatest commandment ?
I see the Catholic Church, in my day, and I was surprised, reaching out to the Jewish people in love, without making it a precondition that they convert to Catholicism. Protestantism, or Otherism first; just love for elder brethren who are divinely blinded to Jesus being the Messiah, sitting right now on a throne at the right hand of God the Father. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
That statement is sad on so many levels it's difficult to know where to begin. If you were trying to convince me that the Catholic Church was a cult and had it's followers totally brainwashed you have succeeded.
You are surely on a roll! Your proclaimed "Catholics" couldn't read or write but yet you want us to believe it is those illiterars who wrote the scriptures. I find it incredibly sad that that makes sense to you.
I posted a link from a neutral site, so to speak. Perhaps you have another that shows which Historical Protestants, other than AnaBaptists who Luther condemned for heresy in writing, and who were killed for it. Most Christians belong to denominations that practise infant baptism.[3] Denominational families that practise infant baptism include Catholics, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, some Nazarenes,[4] the United Church of Christ (UCC), Moravian Church, Metropolitan Community Church, Wesleyans, Episcopalians, and Reformed churches. You could explain which historical Protestants do not practice it today and show when that originated. I might learn something if you name names. I'm already aware that Independent Fundamental Baptists are not Protestant and never practiced infant baptism.
So how are you doing on this one?
Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
In the late Fall of 1980, when I repented and cried out to God and accepted the truth and believed that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed The Christ and the Son of the living God, and began my tottering walk in His footsteps, one of the first changes was how completely my heart for the Jews (”They killed Christ”) was given a fresh start full of love for and wishing to reach out to every Jew I worked with.
And there were quite a few there and one commented how he could tell I had changed drastically for the better. I still remember that virtually all of the first believers in Jesus Christ were Jews and that the Gentiles (after responding positively to the Word) were grafted into the Vine.
But I knew then as now that it was not me myself or I; any good to be found in me was Christ, the Hope of Glory.
And I discovered more of just how much God loves His little children. And He has not forgotten Judah or Israel.
Just felt like telling ya; hope it helps somehow.
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