Kosta: "They have no business in Christian countries."
Kolo: "None whatsoever."
Mary: "How many countries are Christian? Not many."
I have had this discussion pretty recently and I think they would say any country in which most of its citizens were baptized as infants into either the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Churches. (In several countries/cultures, "everyone" is baptized into an Apostolic Church as a matter of course.) At that point they believe that their respective Churches own the infants, regardless.
Now, of course many of these infants grow up to have no discernible (or real) faith in God at all. They would say: "That's my clergy's problem to fix". That is, even though there is no where near the manpower or resources to do so. To them that is irrelevant and I have been told, in essence, that they believe it would be better for the person to rot in hell having never believed, than to be led to the Lord by a Protestant missionary.
And even though I have been told this, the way I interpret it is that they think that a solidly converted Protestant is still less likely to get into Heaven than a total non-believer (who was baptized in an Apostolic Church) and who has one breath of life left in him, because he still might be reached by an Apostolic clergy. IOW, THEY are willing to take the chance ON BEHALF of the lost person. They believe that is THEIR right. If that sounds incredible to you, and extraordinarily unbiblical, it does to me also, but unfortunately, they are very serious about this.
“If that sounds incredible to you, and extraordinarily unbiblical, it does to me also, but unfortunately, they are very serious about this.”
Indeed, completely serious.
Yet we are having tremendous success south of the border. This thinking indicates a lack of confidence to evangelize those that come. Yet they claim an exclusivity to the truth.
IIRC, Scripture tells us about the vine that does not bear good fruit. I think it gets cut off and the branches that will bear fruit get grafted in.
How sad is that? Sending a person to hell is better than coming to know the true and living Lord through a missionary? How heretic is that????
I DO think that the Catholic Church (kindly note the absence of “Roman”) is the royal road, so to speak. And I certainly think that those whose proselytizing includes a heavy dose of “Ho of Bab’lon” might need to do a gut-check or something. Using untruths to sell the truth is parlous at best.
But if somebody tells me that He's invited the Lord into his life and has repented of his sin and all that, I'm going to rejoice for and with him.
THEN I'll tell him that Roger Williams is the “Ho of Rhode Island.”
Okay, I didn't mean the last part. I'll just point out the polyester double-knit and let him draw his own conclusions.
(And I'd try to distract him when a priest came in with a tacky gold lame vestment -- or some tie-dyed monstrosity.) Seriously, I think sheep-stealing is not likely to bring peace. I know a fluttery Little Old Catholic Lady who didn't take up a personal relationship (or wasn't granted the consolation of a personal relationship) with IHS until rather late in life, and I would say that all here sort of "ruled-based" religiosity has only strengthened that turn in her life. Consequently, I have become even more patient with the tempo of other people's dances, and am not going to conclude too quickly that just because they haven't done this one thing or experienced this one experience that they're wasting their time.
HOWEVER I do think that the vulnerability of some of the Catholic sheep to other missionaries should be taken as a wake-up call to some Catholic preachers. The Gospel always makes a fine sermon, IMHO.