Posted on 07/25/2010 3:35:08 AM PDT by GonzoII
Evangelical Protestants are taught to recruit Catholics by exploiting their lack of Bible knowledge, but use Scripture out of context to make Catholic beliefs look flawed.
This is the claim of Catholic apologist Steve Ray, in Perth from the United States of America earlier this month as part of a national tour. Mr Ray used to take on this role.
“We were trained to evangelise Catholics – we believed you are not saved, that you are going to hell as you follow the Pope instead of Jesus, you pray to Mary instead of God, you have tradition instead of Scripture, you thought you got saved by doing good works instead of by faith in Jesus,” he told about 60 people on Thursday, 8 July, at Trinity College, East Perth.
“It was our job to get you saved and become real Bible Christians. This is what Evangelicals think – most of them, even in Australia.”
He said that he was taught the right questions to ask and memorised up to 15 verses that “were good to use with Catholics”.
Mr Ray, married to Janet for 33 years with four children, said he and his wife went from being “anti-Catholic Baptists” to “crossing an uncrossable chasm and becoming Catholics”.
The Rays were not alone. They opened their home for two years to people seeking to discuss their differences with Catholics and explained why they converted, “even if people hated Catholics”.
In that time, Mr Ray said over 200 people joined the Catholic Church.
Addressing several key issues that cause the at-times vicious divide, especially in the United States, between Protestants and Catholics, Mr Ray said he achieved “great success” by asking carefully selected questions and backing them up with isolated Scripture quotes.
(Excerpt) Read more at therecord.com.au ...
But if I ask Mary to ask Jesus for help, then the request carries more weight?
Do you think that Jesus would disregard the Commandment to Honor his Mother and Father? I also noticed that you did not address the questions I posed to you" WOW, did you think about this before you wrote it? Does your mother have more influence with you than others do, Do you honor your mother above other women? You also realize that it is the Queen Mother that is the queen, not the wives of the king. You might want to get on that
So Mary truly is a mediator for you guys ...
Heck yeah, and not just her. I pray to the Holy Spirit, I ask the people in my family to pray for me, I ask the people in my parish to pray for me, I ask the Pastor and the Monsignor.
I am surprised that you don't ask others in your church to mediate for you, every prot/ evangelical church I have been in they have a list of people to pray for.
Your doctrine is satanic. There is BUT ONE mediator between us and God: the Lord Jesus Christ.
Actually you left out the other half of that:
1Ti 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
1Ti 2:6 who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony borne at the proper time.
The thought is completed in the next verse. What it actually says is that there is one mediator that died for us. That does not prohibit others from being a mediator.
Do you recall the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-30 The rich man is interceeding/mediating for his 5 brothers. Even tothe point of asking God to Send Lazarus back to speak to them:
Luk 16:27 "And he said, 'Then I beg you, Father, that you send him to my father's house--
Luk 16:28 for I have five brothers-- that he may warn them, lest they also come to this place of torment.'
How about the apostle Paul:
1Ti 2:1 First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men,
Col 4:3 praying at the same time for us as well, that God may open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned;
: 1Th 5:25 Brethren, pray for us.
So the Bible telling us to pray for others, and asking them to pray for us is "Satanic", I don't think so I think it is Biblical.
You need to take a deep breath and relax, go back and re-read Grey's post to you that is not what he said at all, You owe him an apology
Tell you what: Cling to Rome. See if Rome saves you. As for me, I will look to Christ, my crucified Savior. The Church is the Body of Christ, The Catholic Church that He started on Peter the Rock:
Eph 1:22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church,
Eph 1:23 which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all.
As well as other verses
I hate Rome. I hate what it does to people. I hate how it turns people against other believers. I hate how it twists people to hate other Christ-followers. I hate Rome for how it divides the Bride of Christ, how it pollutes the beauty of Christ and His Bride.
That's funny because Jesus is Love, and it does not twist Catholics to hate others. before you respond take a good look in the mirror and see if you are acting like the best Christian you can.
I hate Rome. I hate what it does to people. I hate how it turns people against other believers. I hate how it twists people to hate other Christ-followers. I hate Rome for how it divides the Bride of Christ, how it pollutes the beauty of Christ and His Bride.
Really, full of Grace!
Were you truly "full of Grace" there would be no room for hate. If you really hate the Catholic Church that much perhaps it is hate you are full of.
Why would James say the prayers of a righteous person avail much if they did not avail any more than anyone else's?
Well, I still don’t like the word, literal, and I wish those guys wouldn’t use it. Even Rush misuses it all the time. If somebody says, “I was literally stunned with surprise,” what the words mean is that he was knocled out, collapsed, had to be revived, etc.
The words “really” and “truly” are problematic enough, while substantially has so declined that it now means, NOT substantially but merely sorta kinda more or less.
I would say we really, truly, substantially eat and drink the body blood soul and divinity of Christ — and that’s quite confusing enough without adding “literally.”
I mean, once we’ve said that, we still hardly know what we’ve said! We are not physically nourished or refreshed, not by the body and blood but by the appearances/accidents. So what kind of “literal” is that? How do you eat and drink a spiritual body? I have no clue, myself, but I’m guessing not literally, even if really and truly.
I’m guessing (Is that the Inquisition at the door?) that the ‘calculus’ we “Romans” use would have to be along the lines of God is the REAL, TRUE Father, and we human daddies are pale imitations. Similarly, partaking of IHS in the Sacrament would have to be the REAL TRUE eating and drinking while scarfing down pizza is the pale imitation.
Maybe it’s like chaste and loving sexual intercourse in that the physical part is ALMOST a mere ‘index’ of the REAL union being affirmed and strengthened. Yes it’s a very wonderful and delightful ‘index’ and it is an essential aspect of the whole deal, but the physical joining is not the only or even the most important aspect of the total joining.
The problem with a theology which arises in controversy is that the things contended about are not always the most important things, or the most important aspects of the things.
My mind and fingers both are plagued with ‘accidents’ this AM. May God bless your day.
And this is partially why I think the awful disagreement need not be quite so awful as it is. But I don’t see how eating and drinking, even if it is
But Middle Age stupidity? I am beyond Middle Age myself and even stupider. But in my stupidity I know enough about the Middle Ages to KNOW that the popular notion that they were full of superstition and ignorance is just flat wrong.
Just for instance, Catholics and others didn't get into burning witches until AFTER the Middle Ages! It was in the Middle Ages that some guy wrote that if someone comes presenting as if he has a demon, first get a good medical exam for him before you consider exorcism. (I can't source that anymore. It's something I read in the early '70s -- when I was a Protestant, BTW --and, as I said, I am beyond middle aged stupidity now.)
The popular history, the one we learn in 4th and 5th grades usually has the Spanish coming to America for glory God and gold, and focusses on enslavement of indigenous peoples and forced conversions. It almost entirely neglects the Dominicans and others who risked their own safety in opposing the Spanish here in this hemisphere and who travelled back and forth to Spain to argue before the King that indigenous peoples had "natural" personal and national rights even if they were not Christians. Yeah, the 16th century is hardly "Middle Ages", but it's close enough.
In the 13th Century, Albert the Great (1207-1280) was arguing that you rally can't do Natural Science without basing it on careful and rigorous observation. YEAH he believed in Alchemy, because he was early in the development of theoretical science, but he got the basic Baconian idea down long before Bacon.
Benedictines were practicing really good agriculture, draining swampy land, managing water flow, using breeding programs with their livestock, etc.
When you think about it, most of our early History instruction is about Greece, Rome, maybe a little about Vikings, and then zip to Columbus and the Reformation. This is not a complaint, just an observation, most of US culture is BASED on anti-Catholicism. If we learn Latin in school, it's 'classical' with 'classical' pronunciation. We just don't learn about the ebb and flow of tribes, peoples, and cultures around the Mediterranean from, say, 100 AD to 1492. We know Ferdinand and Isabella bankrolled Columbus and drove out the Jews, but we don't know the tumultuous politics of the region -- that's all it was until F + I -- of Spain, the threat of Islam and all the rest.
This may not be intentional, but it leaves us REALLY ignorant of the Middle Ages, the period when the very idea of the University was first brought to birth!
So, PLEASE do not diss the Middle Ages too easily. It's quite amazing how much they accomplished in the midst of all the fighting going on around them.
So while they sting, theo's barbs cannot make me TOO angry at him. It is good to love the Gospel, to rejoice in the unmerited Love, and to recoil from anyone who would seem to sneak works-righteousness and all the frustration, guilt, vanity, "phariseeism" and the rest back into the Gospel.
It is better to learn to discern between "seeming" and "being", while holding onto the archaic and always new proclamation of the Gospel.
Theo, do you know the "Morning Offering"? It's all papistical and marian and everything, but in essence it's a little prayer one says as soon after waking as it occurs to one, and it's about offering the whole day, the good and the bad, to Jesus, to do with as He pleases.
The unregenerate could SO easily make that a burden. "Oh, I HAVE to say this prayer. Aren't I good, I said it! Oh noes! Ceiling cat is mad at me because I didn't say teh prayerz! (see lolcats for explanation)"
But I am just grateful that God kept my silly mind going and started it up when I awoke and put the impulse in there to thank Him for the morning and for the joy of being able once again to offer Him myself and all I have. It's like kissing your spouse. Burden? I don't think so.
But I certainly see enough unhappy people, Catholic and non, who still haven't experienced the happy moment of realizing, "Oh, when it says he loves sinners, it means 'as in ME!' WOW!"
And truth be told, I see enough parents, teachers, and a few clergy -- again Catholic and non -- who seem unable to focus on that simple and wonderful notion but instead run around tying burdens on backs. I remember a Mennonite mother putting this HUGE burden of guilt on her 5 year old -- all about how VERY SAD Jesus was because the five year old was practicing some, ah, creative recollection. Just using Jesus and guilt to control behavior. What does she think that kid is going to remember about Jesus? Catholics by no means have a monopoly on that. I was brought up non-Catholic, after all, and it took a long while for the love to sink into this reprobate skull.
But please at least entertain as a fantastic notion that some of us 'practicing Catholics' engaged in all our mummery and whatnot are doing these silly things because we are happy in the love of God, rather than to earn a single thing.
(right after I wrote “even if it is” the caffeine drained right our of my head. Sorry.)
“Thank you for not reading my post and my link (i wrote it), and interacting with it, but simply restating your belief, which is too typical of many ,..”
I scanned it. I’ve read others positing something similar although you have a lot of work tied into your distinctly anti-Catholic beliefs. There is no agreement with your belief. We believe Christ meant what he said. What you are trying to prove flies in the face of 1600 years of Eucharistic belief and His own command.
In some of your exegesis, you are taking typology and extending it to Christ’s plain statements and contending that he is just creating another typology.
Everything in the Old Testament foreshadows this moment.
He is the fulfillment and culmination of it all.
We disagree on this and probably always will.
Have a blessed day.
Yes, the truth will set you free. It's a shame that as far as Catholicism is concerned, you are as far away from the truth as can be. My goodness, what a set of whoppers you believe in! Maybe you can educate yourself on the truth - if you dare: Catholic.com - Anti-Catholicism tracts.
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LOLOLOLOLOLOL!
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Excellent point.
You asked, “Does your mother have more influence with you than others do, Do you honor your mother above other women?”
No, she does not. I am married, and have left my parents’ home and now live with my wife and children. I honor my wife above other women.
If my mother asked me to do something, I’d consider it just as if some lady from church asked me to do something. I love and honor my mother, but I am not required to obey her.
Um, you’re referencing Luke 16 to support your contention that there is more than one mediator between us and God? You might want to re-read that section. His mediation was ineffective.
You twist my words. I am not saying that it is wrong to ask others to pray for us, or to join us in prayer. I’m saying that it’s creepy to ask dead people to pray for us, and unbiblical to contend that Jesus’ mother’s prayers are/were any more effective than my mother’s prayers.
I suppose you have to rely on lies and deception to support your doctrines.
Then you don't understand love. God loves, and hates. Parents love their children, and they hate any source of harm. I love Christ, and hate what the Roman Church is doing to its members -- instilling false doctrine, and turning members' hearts against other Christ-followers.
God bless you!
11. Show where the sinner’s prayer is in the Bible.
Not my point, just reiterating it, but glad to see it is posted again.
Should be posted again and again!
“”I think it’s inherently bad and imprudent theology to speculate on “what God would have done had [other conditions occurred]”. We don’t know what God would have done. God hasn’t revealed to us what he would have done, and that’s the only way we could know””
The return to Catholicism would perhaps indicate you were never truly "born-again." The new birth is a supernatural internal transformation. Catholism focuses primarily on the externals. Same problem the Scribes & Pharisess had.
- What if in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus Christ and His Father had determined that the cup could pass and we could just remain unsaved?
- What if the crowd had chosen Christ and let Barabbas be crucified?
- What if nobody had ever gone to his Tomb and discovered the Resurrection?
What if games make no sense because, as has been pointed out, we don't know what God would have done and it doesn't matter in any even because the "what if" NEVER HAPPENED.
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