Posted on 05/30/2014 10:23:23 PM PDT by NKP_Vet
The president of the Evangelical Theological Society, an association of 4,300 Protestant theologians, resigned this month because he has joined the Roman Catholic Church.
The May 5 announcement by Francis J. Beckwith, a tenured associate professor at Baptist-affiliated Baylor University in Waco, Tex., has left colleagues gasping for breath and commentators grasping for analogies.
One blogger likened it to Hulk Hogan's defection from the World Wrestling Federation to the rival World Championship Wrestling league.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I looked into his background a bit and see that he was sympathetic to “moderate” Baptists in a struggle they had against fundamentalist Baptists. Fundamentalism holds five things: the inerrancy of Scripture, the Virgin birth, atonement through Christ’s sacrifice, the historical truth of Jesus’ miracles, and the fifth escapes me at the moment and I don’t want to lose what I’ve written to check, perhaps it’s about the resurrection, but in any case I know it’s something that Christians have believed in since Jesus’ time. That he would reject that says a lot to me. And what “leaders” do, especially famous ones in today’s America, is to be looked at very carefully. Many preach the Gospel from other motives, and they are often under the influence of the cares and riches of this world. And last of all, this man’s decision doesn’t change the truth. For one thing, I do believe literally in the Creation account, while the Catholic Church doesn’t. That’s one thing. I also pray to (speak to in the spiritual realm) Cont’d
No apology is necessary. We all get incensed.
Peace be with you today.
only the Lord, see and feel absolutely no reason to pray to anyone else instead, and in fact believe it is wrong to do so. And there are more things that I believe are wrong in Catholicism, and if I have time I’ll get back to them, but I have to leave off here.
If Billy Graham were to convert to the Catholic Church I am sure you would say the exact same thing about him. He didn’t didn’t have a strong faith, he was not rooted in the truth, and he was never much of a believer to start with.
For ever one Mexican that leaves the Catholic Church, the Church picks up five more on the continent of Africa.
Much to your chagrin, The Catholic Church is growing, not shrinking.
No, there is nothing prior to the gift of Faith. Thinking that Faith is established upon some prior basis, like human reason, or private interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures, is a form of rationalism, and it is the principle fault of protestantism. So you are hitting the nail on the head here, if you can understand this fundamental difference between the Catholic view of Faith and the protestant view, you will be a long way towards making an informed choice.
Any “church” can be measured by the four marks. This is an example of using human reason as a negative rule of Faith, reason does not tell you what you must believe, but it can tell what does not belong. St Francis de Sales covers this in exquisite detail in his book “The Catholic Controversy”.
When I walk into a church in Louisville, and see that it is guarded by centurions from the third century (short little guys!!), I get the immediate sense that the Catholic Church is a family, a family that is one, holy, universal, and apostolic. When I receive the Body of Christ in holy communion, I know that He is with us all days, and that the gates of hell will never prevail against His bride, the Church.
If you think my Faith is superficial, you should probably read my other posts. The one thing that must be kept in mind, despite all the caterwauling that comes from outside the Church, the amount of things one must assent to in matters of Faith and Morals is quite small. As He said, My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.
“For ever one Mexican that leaves the Catholic Church, the Church picks up five more on the continent of Africa. Much to your chagrin, The Catholic Church is growing, not shrinking.”
Hate to break it to you, but there aren’t many “Mexicans” in Africa!
:-)
“If Billy Graham were to convert to the Catholic Church I am sure you would say the exact same thing about him. He didn’t didn’t have a strong faith, he was not rooted in the truth, and he was never much of a believer to start with.”
I’d quote you - “he was poorly catechized!”
Protestants don’t get “catechized”. Try again.
Try again. And please explain to me the explosion of new Catholics in Africa if the Catholic Church has gotten so lazy at evangelizating. And where are the good ole boy evangelicals on the continent of Africa. And if they are there why are the majority of the new Christians of the Catholic faith and not protestant. Inquiring minds want to know.
That hasn’t happened, but if it did, what would that change? I read the reasons that this man gave and they weren’t convincing. All the time I encounter born-again Christians talking about the things we should do, as the Bible says. It’s not a matter of people saying, “you’re still saved, now go back to your life and forget about the Lord for awhile, and when you want to know if you’re still saved come back and we’ll tell you that again.” The belief is, if you’ve died and been reborn with Christ, you should live for Him. I wonder, too, what you say about Catholics when they leave Catholicism?
One other thing, also, is that as I said, I don’t look at church leaders today in America as definitely above most Christians in spiritual authority. Jesus said leaders should serve, and be last, and that the last shall be first, so today’s prominent leaders often seem to serve themselves. One example is Charles Swindoll. I’ve appreciated some of his teaching in the past, but I now turn off his radio program and Cont’d
Ok. First prove your claims and then we can talk. What proof do you have??
Of course they do silly!
see what’s being said on the Catholic station instead because of a few things he’s preached (like that Christians shouldn’t be involved in politics) and that like a lot of other well-known pastors he sells time with himself on cruises here or there, and exalts himself in doing so. Paul said some preached the Gospel to enrich themselves, but he still was glad that the Gospel was heard. Yet there is reason to always beware of leaders or anyone else who says something is true. Is it really what God says, or are they speaking from their own hearts and putting words in His mouth? That’s the question.
Sigh? "individual autonomy"? No, this is about the truth, which includes that ecumenism from perspective of the Roman Catholic Church always, in spite of the true openness and acceptance of the validity of "other" Christians and their faith, has the canon lawyers and the Romanist supremecists seeking how they may browbeat as many as possible into submission to the RCC.
As opening salvo -- you go for the personal-like insult (not truly understanding myself personally, much at all) while in the course of the remainder of the reply -- do not in the least disprove the central contention, while back-sliding into the lecturing on how wonderful the "borg" is, which I took pains to request that you not do, but instead address the supposition -- which you have not.
I didn't put it like that at all, for if that was the intent (or my own belief/understanding, in the slightest) I would have pointed to that aspect among the Orthodox and including them also as "borg", while doing much of the same for the "High" Anglicans also.
Yet though there is liturgy which is in some form shared with many of the various Orthodox, they do not have the same sacerdotalism in regards to what they view as priesthood, with the difference of the attitudes among them (if you could but understand them) to be central difference between East and West (West in this = the Church of Rome) with an echo from the East (in how they view each member as something of priest, all them corporately together asking for the Holy Spirit to inhabit the consecrated bread) reverberating in the far West (among Protestants), showing even there how everyone is out of step, except our boy Luigi (Rome).
There is an infinite supply of red herrings in it.
Yes, you see that correctly.
Which rather precludes there be any real conversation, doesn't it?
I cannot but assume that is much the point of the exercise, whether the strutting bigot(s) have enough self-realization to understand that aspect, or not.
What do house-guests and fish have in common? After two or three days...one desires them to be out of the house.
But Protestantism hasn't *failed*.
Unless, of course, you mean success is liberal, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual laity who ignore the teachings of their church almost wholesale, a corrupt priesthood which is infiltrated by homosexual offending child molesters, whose leaders looked the other way when they knew what was going on and whose answer was to shuffle them from parish to parish instead of dealing with it in the Scriptural manner as prescribed in 1 Corinthians 7 in the very Bible that the RCC takes credit for giving to the world.
THAT'S success?
Now please don’t ignore this post, tell me why if the Catholic Church is so bad, why are so many in Africa converting to the faith........at an astronomical rate.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/03/12/catholic-church-africa/1963171/
As the number of regular churchgoers drops in Europe and the United States, the number of faithful in Africa has risen dramatically, greater here than anywhere else in 50 years. In Africa, between 1978 and 2007, the number of Catholics grew from 55 million to 146 million, according to the Vatican.
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