When my rancher, neighbor wants to visit, he pulls his feed truck up to the barbed wire fence and honks the horn. I prefer the horn. He uses an old air raid siren to call his cattle.
I walk up the road to his truck and we visit across the fence. He runs a large cattle ranch. My husband and I are building a house. So, we talk about stuff.
We talk about growing old. We talk about the future, where we will spend eternity. We talk about the Lord Jesus and what we think about Him. We talk about the Word of God and what it says to us. We talk about our souls and our faith.
I’ve read this long thread. Too bad the most important things in life and eternity aren’t being discussed without anger and name calling on this thread. My neighbor is Catholic and I am Protestant and we are friends, it can be done.
I’m a Catholic, my husband was a Protestant.
It’s only those who must cut others down to rationalize their own beliefs who don’t get along. Look at this thread. Only a couple of people are tiffing.
Most love each other.
I love those images.
Congrats to both of you.
I’m, I like to think, close Friends and Brothers to several of the RC’s hereon. I won’t embarrass them by naming them. I think they know who they are.
And, I occasionally respond warmly to some of the rabid folks who typically throw me only mean-spirited fiercely bitterness dripping bile.
Some of the rabid folks beg for being tweaked . . . their self-righteousness, arrogance, smugness, the theologically degreed and well trained, the pontifically self-important, etc. etc. etc. just beg to be tweaked. And, I confess, I’m frequently happy to oblige.
Have been telling it like it is to spiritual leaders, internationally known evangelists, internationally known prophetic types, etc. for many decades. They rarely seemed to appreciate the feedback either! LOL. Though they did typically eventually get the point when God followed through accordingly.
No point in stopping now.
Some of the rabid folks are boringly predictable. Their buttons are hard-wired to hair-trigger fire-works explosions of puffery.
Some are just soooooooooooooooooooooooo utterly convinced that THEIR pristine, pure, paragonly perfect construction on reality is the ONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNLY CORRECT ONE that anything LESS, in their view, is automatically cause for instant and intense frothing at the fingers in response.
I don’t know if those folks are funnier for their super silliness or distressingly pathetic. Perhaps all of the above.
Some are soooooooo mean spirited and fiercely filled with bitterness, bile and multiple thread-stalking vengeance, that I’m having to increasingly write them off as too boring, too beyond the pale or just toooooo off the wall to even think of risking contributing to their finger frothing sins by responding at all.
In any case, the tableu of human variety stirred vigorously with RELIGION hereon . . . is certainly an education in psychology and sociology.
Occasionally one learns some worthwhile things about theology.
LOL.
In terms of Roman Catholics/ Vatican affiliated folks being able to be Christians?
OF COURSE THEY CAN.
I think the gauntlet they have to run to establish and maintain a GOD FOCUSED RELATIONSHIP in that context has to be a lot more troublesome and difficult than in the best Protestant congregations. However, many Protestant congregations are ABOUT as bad on such scores.