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.
Could you imagine Paul being told that he shouldn't "attack" the Galatians for their Judaizer doctrine or the Corinthians for their loose interpretation of the Lord's Supper?
Part of being a Christian is to correct others about their doctrine. Paul had no problem in confronting Peter, James and others in the church when they strayed from the path. Holy men who wish to live a godly life will listen to such reproof and search the scriptures to see if they are conforming to God's divine Word. If they feel they are not in error they should be able to give a good answer for their interpretation. It is in this way iron sharpens iron.
Those who do not want to investigate whether they are in error really need to investigate whether they are in the faith.
It used to be MormonISM 'friendly'; too; but then some of our FR Mormons got REALLY aggressive.
And the BEST way to do THAT is to call upon his Mother for help.
--Wannabe_Catholic_dude(Hail Mary!!)
Just what a SPY would say...
maxwellsmart_agent
No; it is NOT!
Part of being a Christian is to correct others about their doctrine. Paul had no problem in confronting Peter, James and others in the church when they strayed from the path. Holy men who wish to live a godly life will listen to such reproof and search the scriptures to see if they are conforming to God's divine Word. If they feel they are not in error they should be able to give a good answer for their interpretation. It is in this way iron sharpens iron. Those who do not want to investigate whether they are in error really need to investigate whether they are in the faith.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BINGO!!!!!!
And you're posting on FR RF?
Have you been living under a rock, with all due respect?
I can send you links to several posts that show otherwise.
Matter of fact, just read some of the more recent threads on Luther.
Chainmail.
Evidence presented....
I rest my case.
Well; Joel; it seems you've taken time away from your best selling book writing to blest us with you wisdom on FR!!
Matthew 23: 8-10 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ.
Consider these verses.....
Romans 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:10-11 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
If God hated sinners, He would not have loved the world and died to save it and then offered, even commanded, all men everywhere to repent.
That's cause they don't confess on Sunday Morning. They confess on Sat afternoon and then have to try to be good and not sin until communion on Sunday morning.
Q: What's the difference between a Catholic and a Baptist?
A: A Catholic will say hello to you in the liquor store.
Good one!
11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the
earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were
opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead
were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to
their works.
13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered
up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to
their works. 14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
=======
The same Jesus of Matthew 5:45-48 is the One sitting on this throne, and it is He that sends sinners to an everlasting painful end.
The "love" (in English) is not affectionate care. It is, like rain or sun, that which the Father sends, charity--a grace for general distribution if a person will accept it. The application to individuals bears a little more thought.
Ponder on this for a while. Would you admit a Charles Manson into your home?
From one of your "saints,"
• St. Frances Xavier Cabrini: "Many Protestants have almost the same practices as we, only they do not submit to the Holy Father and attach themselves to the true Ark of Salvation. They do not want to become Catholics and unite themselves under the banner of truth wherein alone there is true salvation. Of what avail is it, children, if Protestants lead naturally pure, honest lives, yet lack the Holy Ghost? They may well say: 'We do no harm; we lead good lives'; but, if they do not enter the true fold of Christ, all their protestations are in vain." St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, "Travels", Chicago: 1944, pp. 84, 71.
From Scripture:
But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. (Galatians 4:29)
Your intent is noble, but the means are erroneous. The NT church essentially began with disagreements over theology, in dissent from very conservative leaders who believed in God, and even had valid authority, who who presumed they were above Scriptural reproof and rejected the itinerant Preacher and His followers who opposed and corrected them thereby.
While not being Christ, our (as evangelical Christians) disagreement with Rome is basically the same, except her claim to supreme authority is bogus. Faced with a religious system which denies justification by imputed righteousness, but who
imagines the very act of sprinkling= baptism (properly administered) regenerates a person even without repentant faith which this requires and testifies to, (Acts 2:38; 8:36,37; 10:43-47; 15:7-9) which thereby makes them actually good enough to enter Heaven, but (since the sinful nature remains and manifest itself) after death usually requires the baptized to become actually good enough to be with God via purifying torments in RC "purgatory;"
And that this state of salvation is procured thru Catholic sacraments giving souls the grace they need to finally obtain this required practical perfection (which is what "by grace thru faith" means to them), especially the Eucharist,and (depending on what century you live in) normally requires submission to the pope, and damns souls who resist this command, and excludes Protestant churches from being worthy of that proper name;
And with traditional RCs promoting this system as being uniquely True, and attacking those who expose her fallacies, and would become as Muslim oppressors if given the power (which Rome was forced to relinquish);
Then manifest disagreements over theology are not silly but required, as they were in Scripture.
Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. (Jude 3)
And the faith which was once delivered unto the saints shows that Catholic distinctives is not what is manifest in the inspired substantive record of the NT church .
As where, successfully? Must have missed it.
You seem like an honest fellow (or lady sorry don’t know which) so I would like to comment on this issue of “earning one’s salvation”.
First, I don’t know if you were saying that that is what the Catholic Church teaches, but if you were, then please let me try to explain how this is not the case.
The Church does teach that good works are required for salvation (unless one repents at the end of a sinful life of course like the Good Thief but that’s another subject really). But assuming one comes to have faith in Christ while one still has life left on this earth to lead, then yes, good works are required for his salvation. The Church also teaches though that our good works are not what save us, by themselves or more precisely She teaches that we can’t earn our way into Heaven by doing good works.
So how can this be, one may ask, isn’t it a contradiction to say on one hand Catholics don’t earn their own salvation by doing good works but also to say good works are required for salvation? Which is it, are they required for salvation or are they not?
They are required for salvation because, as the Church strictly teaches, by doing good works and not bad works (sinful works) one cooperates with the saving grace of God. She teaches, in other words, that the good works we do are only possible for us to do because God helps us do them by His Grace.
Let me conclude by putting this concept a third way, which may be of help to you and/or others: when we sin, that’s by definition a “bad work”. Sin, or bad works separate us from God, all because of the Original Sin (and the stain it left on all souls called “Concupiscence”, which makes us more prone to sin than do good things). The opposite of sin is “good work”, or work that does not separate us from God and indeed does the opposite, they draw us closer to God. Examples of such would be prayer (“pray unceasingly”) or visiting the sick and caring for the poor (“when you have done these things you have done them to Me”). These things draw us closer to God.
Now, we are human beings living in a temporal existence. We only have so much time in the day to do things. We all find time to sin (“all have fallen short”), so the problem is that we spend time sinning, drawing us away from God, and not doing good things that draw us closer.
This is where the concept of “good works are required for salvation” comes in as part of Catholic teaching. It’s not that the good works in of themselves save us, it’s that when we cooperate with God by accepting His Grace first, that we are then able to do good works instead of bad works. And thus, since we have only so much time during the day, if we spend more (ideally all but whoever does that since again we all sin) time daily doing good works instead of bad, then we slowly over time become transformed into what God intends which is for us to be an image of Him, of Christ on Earth. Not that we become literally God of course, but that the good works limit and eventually, ideally, eliminate the time we can spend sinning. (again done with His help, because without His help we’d, at most, only rarely want to do them)
This is how they are “required” for salvation yet still aren’t somehow work done in expectation of a reward. Put quite simply they are done to save us from our fallen tendency to sin. Of course that’s not always successful, for anyone from the Pope to any Saint in history to anyone. We all eventually fall. But that’s what Confession is for, to set us right again so we try the next time and the next and the next. Always trying, with God’s help, to avoid sin, but not just avoid it by sitting around doing nothing because that would be impossible. It’s always impossible to just stop sinning. You have to find something else to do with your time or else your fallen tendency is to sin. “Idle hands are the devil’s playground” is not just a cutesy euphemism.
Hopefully this helps. I’m sure this will engender a response from all the usual anti-Catholic (doctrine) folks on FR (and there are some of those kinds of “nutters” here too, to use a word another FReeper used upthread.). I don’t care about that though and won’t be responding to any of their vile. Hopefully though this has helped you because you seem like an honestly ignorant person (and I don’t use that term “ignorant” pejoratively.). It’s a spiritual work of mercy to inform the ignorant after all.
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