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Here's What First Baptist Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress Actually Said About Catholics — In Context
Dallas Observer ^ | Stephen Young

Posted on 11/14/2017 2:24:54 PM PST by nickcarraway

Robert Jeffress spent Wednesday with Donald Trump, supporting the president during his fundraising visit to the Belo Mansion in downtown Dallas. On Thursday, the First Baptist Dallas pastor and Trump's biggest evangelical supporter had to do something a lot less fun — take to the Fox News airwaves to defend himself from charges that he is anti-Catholic.

Word of Jeffress' potentially anti-Catholic views bubbled to the surface this week when a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders about her boss's continued praise for the Dallas demagogue, given Jeffress' controversial statements about the Catholic church. Sanders said that she wasn't "aware of Robert Jeffress being anti-Catholic" and that she knew that he worked with Texas Catholics on events like the anti-abortion rights demonstration March for Life.

On Fox News, Jeffress repeated Sanders' line, confirming that he works with Catholics against abortion, and said that the characterization of his thoughts about Catholicism was inaccurate.

"What they did was they went back and recycled old quotes from years ago that were either completely manufactured at the time or ripped out of context," Jeffress said.

The Observer believes that Jeffress deserves a fair hearing about whether he was taken out of context, so we've taken the liberty of transcribing, in their entirety, Jeffress' comments about Catholicism and the Roman Catholic Church from a 2010 segment on his radio show Pathway to Victory.

"This is the Babylonian mystery religion that spread like a cult throughout the entire world. The high priests of that fake religion, that false religion, the high priests of that religion would wear crowns that resemble the heads of fish, that was in order to worship the fish god Dagon, and on those crowns were written the words, ‘Keeper of the Bridge,’ the bridge between Satan and man.

"That phrase, Keeper of the Bridge — the Roman equivalent of it is Pontifex Maximus. It was a title that was first carried by the Caesars and then the emperors and finally by the Bishop of the Rome, Pontifex Maximus, the Keeper of the Bridge.

"You can see where we’re going with this. It is that Babylonian mystery religion that infected the early church. One of the churches it infected was the church of Pergamos, which is one of the recipients of the Book of Revelation. And the early church was corrupted by this Babylonian mystery religion, and today the Roman Catholic Church is the result of that corruption.

"Much of what you see in the Catholic Church today doesn’t come from God’s word; it comes from that cultlike, pagan religion. Now you say, ‘Pastor, how can you say such a thing? That is such an indictment of the Catholic Church. After all, the Catholic Church talks about God and the Bible and Jesus and the blood of Christ and salvation.’

"Isn’t that the genius of Satan? If you want to counterfeit a dollar bill, you don’t do it with purple paper and red ink. You’re not going to fool anybody with that. But if you want to counterfeit money, what you do is make it look closely related to the real thing as possible.

"And that’s what Satan does with counterfeit religion. He uses, he steals, he appropriates all of the symbols of true biblical Christianity, and he changes it just enough in order to cause people to miss eternal life."

Basically, Jeffress believes that Catholicism is a counterfeit of genuine Christianity, descended from a Babylonian fish-worshiping cult. Its resemblance to the real article shows Satan's genius, Jeffress says. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the faith practiced by 70 million Americans.


TOPICS: Local News; Religion; Society
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To: Chainmail
Pretty goofy stuff. I have never heard any Catholic attack Protestant teachings or the members of Protestant faiths. We are just content with our faith and don't feel any need to demean anybody else.

With all due respect, that must be due to ignorance.

In just the space of 3 years RCs were posting such open threads as:

Protecting God's Word From “Bible Christians” - Free Republic Book Review: The Protestant’s Dilemma: A Review (Part One, Two, and Three): The Papacy

There Is No Salvation Outside The Catholic Church (Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus)

Divinum Officium: Whoever does not embrace the Catholic Christian religion will be damned

Why Catholicism Is Preferable to Protestantism

The Protestant’s Dilemma: A Review

Protecting God’s Word From “Bible Christians”

Why do Protestant lay people hate clergy?

Protestants: It’s time to come back

From Fundamentalist Baptist to Catholic

EWTN - The Journey Home - November 10, 2014 - Dale Ahlquist, convert from being a Baptist

The Trouble With Calvin – Pt. 1

Why would anyone become Catholic?

In Defense of the Immaculate Conception: Part 2

The Nature of the Mass and the need for Sacrifice

The Hail Mary of a Protestant

500 Years of Chaos: Protestantism’s Anniversary

And we have seen such things from Catholics as thanking God the Spanish Inquisition was up to the task,

that Protestantism is belief in ones self, and absolutely alien to Christianity, and that,

Protestants are mostly biblically illiterate,

intellectually dishonest,

evil fruit, who don't have the Holy Spirit, and

are not part of the Body of Christ, and

who have no foundation for their understanding of Christianity, and

will not be saved unless they become Catholic, and

who are by nature vandals who should be eradicated from the face of the earth, etc. But that Catholics never put down or challenge beliefs from protestants, and that,

there never has been a bit of anti-protestant bigotry on FR, .

41 posted on 11/14/2017 8:22:01 PM PST by daniel1212 (rust the risen Lord Jesus to save you as a damned and destitute sinner + be baptized + folllow Him)
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To: nonsporting
Jeffress is not anti-Catholic. He wants Catholics to be saved. He cares about their eternal disposition, even if they do not.

Which itself is enough to earn one the title of "anti-Catholic." Seeing as Catholic distinctives are manifestly absent from the inspired record of what the NT church believed (just where is the practice of praying to created being in Heaven, etc.?) , and too contrary to it, then the Holy Spirit can be saic to be "anti-Catholic."

42 posted on 11/14/2017 8:27:52 PM PST by daniel1212 (rust the risen Lord Jesus to save you as a damned and destitute sinner + be baptized + folllow Him)
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To: Steve_Seattle
The press and the Democratic Party hate the Catholic Church, too, but they give themselves a pass for their own hate and bigotry. Actually seeing as about half of self-ID Catholics testify to bewng liberal, and Rome treats such as being members in life and in death, then the press and the Democratic Party and devout RCs see evangelicals as their greatest ideological enemy. And they are.
43 posted on 11/14/2017 8:32:17 PM PST by daniel1212 (rust the risen Lord Jesus to save you as a damned and destitute sinner + be baptized + folllow Him)
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To: daniel1212

You left off: The de-horning and tail docking of Evangelical Christians


44 posted on 11/14/2017 9:13:35 PM PST by Kartographer ("We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.")
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To: Fantasywriter
Christians must hate the sin but love the sinner, without exception.

Stop kidding yourself. You are repeating another false doctrine.

God hates both Sin and sinners. He sends both the author of it (Satan the Devil), his fallen angels, and all of Sin's practitioners first to Hell, and finally to the Lake of Fire. God's Bible says so.

Doubtless fewer humans are true Christ-followers than one thinks.

45 posted on 11/14/2017 11:06:29 PM PST by imardmd1 (Fiat Lux)
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To: imardmd1

Matthew 5:

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.


46 posted on 11/15/2017 1:03:17 AM PST by Fantasywriter (Any attempt to do forensic work using Inernet artifacts is fraught with pitfalls. JoeProbono)
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To: nickcarraway

Any group whining and playing crybaby victims considering the war were in for the survival of America and western civilization is not worth much to me

And only place I see Catholics crying is here

That said

Catholic theology by the extension of its militarized adherents saved said western civilization from a number of invaders most notably Islam

So hat tip Rome

And modern Catholics had zip to do with it..

And catholic clergy preserved written history as well pre Gutenberg

Hat tip plus two

Catholics today are like Jews to me as an observer

It’s important to them that they are born into the tradition of generations especially potato people but they are not very religious anymore

It’s a fraternity

I wish they were as religious as Catholics as southern baptists or Pentecostals are

We’d be much bette off as a nation

Another observation

The worst catholic bashers here are ex Catholics not original Protestant

For the record I’m a godfather .....

I do not like the fighting Irish....


47 posted on 11/15/2017 1:13:09 AM PST by wardaddy (As a southerner I've never trusted the Grand Old Party.....any questions?)
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To: Chainmail
Pretty goofy stuff. I have never heard any Catholic attack Protestant teachings or the members of Protestant faiths. We are just content with our faith and don't feel any need to demean anybody else.

You must be new to the Religion board on FR....and have not read any history.

48 posted on 11/15/2017 4:07:02 AM PST by ealgeone
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To: maxwellsmart_agent
Why do all these religions feel it is necessary to bring down the Catholic Church? The Catholic Church is not attacking them. The Catholic Church is what it is.

Which is simply absurd. When a church claims to uniquely be the one true church,

and that all Prot churches are not even worthy of the proper title "church" (thus they are referred to as "ecclesiastical communities),

and excludes from salvation (if subject to interpretation) all those who knowingly (at least) reject submission to the pope,

and its most committed members typically promote and defend their church with cultic devotion, and attack and denigrate evangelicals who dare oppose their hubris and propaganda,

Then you have a Catholic Church is attacking us. And we give it back , by the grace of God.

49 posted on 11/15/2017 4:24:54 AM PST by daniel1212 (rust the risen Lord Jesus to save you as a damned and destitute sinner + be baptized + folllow Him)
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To: Chainmail
2. As a Catholic, I respect Martin Luther and other reformers because the Catholic Church needed reformation in those days. The Reformation strengthened Christianity and got vastly more people involved in thinking about their faith.

I assure you that if a evangelical posted that then they would likely face outrage by certain devout RCs since it disturbs their cherish fantasy of their5 church-god.

But Luther certainly needed reformation himself, though the reformation the recalcitrance of Rome required was indeed needed, and which must yet continue.

3. I love the Catholic Church and always have - but that doesn't give me any position to try to tear down another's approach to faith and his/her connection to Our Savior.

Then (as traditional RCs charge) the Catholic Church you love is at variance with its past history, which,

• Pope Eugene IV and the Council of Florence: "The sacrosanct Roman Church...firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that..not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life but will depart into everlasting fire...unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock; and that..no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.” — Pope Eugene IV and the Council of Florence (Seventeenth Ecumenical Council), Cantate Domino, Bull promulgated on February 4, 1441 (Florentine style), [considered infallible by some]

50 posted on 11/15/2017 4:42:22 AM PST by daniel1212 (rust the risen Lord Jesus to save you as a damned and destitute sinner + be baptized + folllow Him)
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To: the OlLine Rebel
We don’t all agree on specifics but personally I don’t have much problem with anyone who basically believes Jesus is the son of God.

Which as a claim includes everything from Mormons, to (so-called ) "Jehovah Witness" to "Christian Scientist disciples and those of Santeria and more

If you draw a line you are already being divisive. If your grown children were converting to such as the above how would you feel.

51 posted on 11/15/2017 4:46:35 AM PST by daniel1212 (rust the risen Lord Jesus to save you as a damned and destitute sinner + be baptized + folllow Him)
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To: panzerkamphwageneinz
I thought Catholics were just above Mormons for being attacked. At least on this site.

It's hard to say that Catholics on this site are being attacked when just about 9 out of 10 posts on this site are Catholic articles.

52 posted on 11/15/2017 5:22:47 AM PST by HarleyD ("There are very few shades of grey."-Dr. Eckleburg)
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To: daniel1212
There Is No Salvation Outside The Catholic Church (Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus)

Pfft! Old news!!!


"One indeed is the universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved, in which the priest himself is the sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine; the bread (changed) into His body by the divine power of transubstantiation, and the wine into the blood, so that to accomplish the mystery of unity we ourselves receive from His (nature) what He Himself received from ours."

--Pope Innocent III and Lateran Council IV (A.D. 1215)

 

53 posted on 11/15/2017 5:23:58 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: panzerkamphwageneinz
I thought Catholics were just above Mormons for being attacked. At least on this site.

Guess what MormonISM teaches about Catholics AND Protestants...



 
 
Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).
 
 

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).
Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).
 
 
 
Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).
 
 
 
 
Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses , vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).
 
 
President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).
 
 
 
James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).
 
 
 
President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).
 
 
 
More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).
 
 
 
President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).
 
 
President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

54 posted on 11/15/2017 5:26:35 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Dr. Ursus
As a Catholic,I’d never say that Southern Baptists are out drinkin and whorin on Saturday nite and amenin in the pews on Sunday morning!

As a Proteastant, I’d never say that Catholics are out drinkin and whorin on Saturday nite and confessin' in the box on Sunday morning!

55 posted on 11/15/2017 5:28:39 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: marron
In the current era, catholic and protestant believers find themselves on the same side of battle after battle, and have a new-found appreciation for one another.

Apparently Jeffress didn't get the memo.

56 posted on 11/15/2017 5:31:28 AM PST by DoodleDawg
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To: Campion
It’s a made-up Catholic bashing screed.

I just HATE it when Catholic bashing gets exposed!


57 posted on 11/15/2017 5:31:49 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Chainmail
I have never heard any Catholic attack Protestant teachings or the members of Protestant faiths.

You need to get a new hearing-ear dog!

58 posted on 11/15/2017 5:32:39 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Buckeye McFrog
I’m Catholic and I don’t regard anyone who has honest disagreements with the Catholic Church as being “anti-Catholic”.

Could you define what 'honest' means to you?

59 posted on 11/15/2017 5:33:29 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Chainmail
Do I take it that there are some sort of religious wars going on there?

No.

We take tea daily and sip it while praising one another about the uniqueness of various faiths: all of which lead to GOD.

60 posted on 11/15/2017 5:35:23 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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