| This thread has been locked, it will not receive new replies. |
|
Locked on 07/15/2014 4:28:23 PM PDT by Admin Moderator, reason:
Flame war and childishness |
Posted on 07/14/2014 9:20:18 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
To my Protestant brothers and sisters:
It's time to come back to Mother Church. We want you, we need you, we love you.
I've spent a lot of time in dialogue with activist atheists recently, and the direction we are going is not pretty. We are witnessing a rapid cultural decline into amorality.
Satan seeks the ruin of souls through the destruction of marriage and family, and the quickest route to his goal is the profanation of sex. The truth and meaning of human sexuality is our era's cultural fault line, and unfortunately, Protestant denominations have been tumbling into its widening crevace at an alarming pace.
The first cracks denying the sacred nature of human sexuality began mere decades ago with the first tentative acceptance of contraception by a Christian church (the Anglicans). After 1,900+ years of unbroken Christian teaching on the immorality of contraception (including 400+ years of unbroken Protestant teaching), a moral evil was suddenly declared good. The entirety of Protestantism, although horrified at first, soon followed suit.
"Woe to those who call evil good" -- Isaiah 5:20
Then came other issues -- sterilization, masturbation, abortion, fornication and cohabiting, homosexual activity and homosexual "marriage". One by one, Protestant communities have broken from Christian teaching and sided with the secular culture. Many Protestant communities do not accept all the aforementioned evils as good, of course, and some are making a valiant attempt to fight one or more of them. However, there is no guarantee that those denominations won't eventually accept other sexual sins in the same way they accepted contraception, sterilization and masturbation. A majority vote by church leaders could launch an unsuspecting Protestant from the Spirit of the Gospel right into the spirit of the age -- the Planned Parenthood age.
Look where you are standing. Unless you stand with the Catholic Church, you may already have one foot off the cliff.
How to guarantee that you'll stand firmly on the ground of moral Truth? Come back home to the Catholic Church.
For over two thousand years:
The Catholic Church has never taught that contraception is a moral good, and she never will. The Catholic Church has never taught that sterilization is a moral good, and she never will. The Catholic Church has never taught that masturbation is a moral good, and she never will. The Catholic Church has never taught that abortion is a moral good, and she never will. The Catholic Church has never taught that fornication is a moral good, and she never will. The Catholic Church has never taught that homosexual activity is a moral good, and she never will.
The moral teachings of the Church have never changed, and they never will.
Human sexuality is transcendent, life-giving and sacred, and the Catholic Church will teach that Truth till the last day.
Dear Protestant, a church with a changing morality is a church built on shifting sand. If you want to build your life and eternity on something solid, build it on the Rock of Peter. Don't be carried about by every wind of social change; come back to the Catholic Church and stand strong with us -- one united Body as Jesus intended.
America may not survive many more generations at the rate we are going, but the Church and her teachings will stand regardless, speaking the same Truths, undisturbed, till the end of time. Believe me, it's a really nice place to be in a storm. Extremely peaceful.
So, come on. You'll like it here, living in peace and joy and certainty. It's your rightful home anyway.
Come back to Holy Mother Church. It really is time.
Your premise does not support your conclusion. First, while a hermeneutic that always makes what a mortal person is recorded as advising into being a command from God would be problematic, yet in the light of doctrinal texts we see that what Mary said was sound counsel, but which simply does not support praying to her.
For nowhere did the Lord whom Mary says to obey teach that we are to pray to angels or departed saints, but instead, in actually teaching how to pray, He stated the one addressed was "Our Father" not "Our Mother who art in Heaven." (Mt. 6:9)
And the Lord is the only one ever addressed in all the prayers that the Spirit of God inspired in Scripture, while also only explicitly teaching that Christ is the only heavenly intercessor, (1Tim. 2:5) and showing that there is no insufficiency in Him as being so, from accessibility to empathy, to ability. But He alone is set forth as the one who was "tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin."
And thus by this merciful and faithful high priest who is gone "into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us [believers]," believers are to come boldly unto the throne of grace, having direct access thereto by His sinless shed blood, that they may "obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." (Hebrews 4:15,16; 9:24; 10:19 )
The fact that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself can be addressed in prayer is a mark of His divinity, while making angels and saints in Heaven the object of incessant multitudinous prayers from earth requires ascribing an ability that only God is shown having, and not any created being.
Moreover, any interaction btwn created beings from each realm addressing each other required one or the other to be in either Heaven or earth, even if by a vision.
And offering up prayers as a memorial (Rv 5:8; 8:3,5; cf. Lv. 2:2,15,16; 24:7; Num. 5:15) is not that of hearing prayer addressed to them. And as these are simply nonexistent in Scripture, then they would have none to answer.
Faced with actually zero evidence of any prayers addressed to angels or saints in Heaven, or for created beings being able to hear virtually infinite prayers addressed to them in Heaven, the Catholic is reduced to arguing from silence, and extrapolating support from interaction btwn mortals on earth. But which, besides the slippery slope of this insufficient basis for doctrine, is contrary to what we do read on prayer, as well as interaction btwn created beings from each realm.
Thus the issue is that of Catholics attempting to present prayer to departed saints as being based upon Scripture, but which fails to actually teach it, and instead it comes from tradition, with the basis for its veracity resting upon the presumed infallibility of the church.
And thus as usual, that premise, and its specious presuppositions, is the real issue.
? Are the ad-hoc prayers of a protestant eccesial community explicitly laid out in Sacred Scripture?
That is not simply not the same issue, as it is not the words of a prayer but the person being addressed that is at conflict. Believers are to pray "after this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name," (Mt. 6:9) and thus the object is the Father, as only Deity is ever addressed in prayer to Heaven, and to whom the Spirit Himself cries, "Abba, Father," (Gal. 4:6 - not something like, "Mamma, Mia." And thus "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,.."(Ephesians 3:14)
Protestant prayers must also be according to the Biblical model, most of which can be seen here
It doesn't matter if it was ONE.
It does not invalidate anything Talisker has said.
The story is in Acts 8:26-39
Go ahead and trust a church. I’ll keep trusting Jesus.
Good morning.
In the fwiw dept, there were approximately 1M people both Catholic and Protestants at the March for Life last October in DC.
5.56mm
Popcorn Placemarker
“I think they thought they were Christians.”
They were not Christians. And Mormons and JWs think they’re Christians so that’s hardly a road map to what’s Christian.
“But we can’t ask them about it anymore, because they were all murdered.”
We don’t need to ask them because we know what they believed and what they did. Also, they were not murdered. Most Cathars died of natural causes like old age and disease. Some were murdered by their fellow Cathars (endure), some were killed in the Albigensian crusade, and some were later executed after an inquisitorial trial. Most, however, died in their beds of old age and disease.
“But we CAN ask the Church that murdered them, and what a surprise, it says they weren’t Christians and they deserved to be murdered.”
Actually, no, the Church never murdered any of them and all - all - reputable historians agree they were not orthodox Christians.
“Well that settles that.”
Yep, all reputable historians agree - including the Protestant ones. http://www.amazon.com/Baptist-Successionism-James-Edward-McGoldrick/dp/0810836815
“Should we all just pretend the OP didn’t say:”
Here we go with the usual Protestant anti-Catholic bait and switch.
This: “If you want to build your life and eternity on something solid, build it on the Rock of Peter. .... So, come on. You’ll like it here, living in peace and joy and certainty. It’s your rightful home anyway.”
Is not this: “Did Ms. Miller not mean to implicate “Protestants” as lacking in a Christian life and eternity or not being “home” because we aren’t Roman Catholics like her?”
Those are two DIFFERENT things. Saying that Protestants lack a solid foundation does not mean they don’t have something of a Christian life nor does it mean they will go to hell.
“Here’s a clue...don’t pity non-Catholic Christians.”
How can I not?
“Don’t condescend that we lack the “fullness” of the faith and need to “come home” in order to know Christ in all the ways we can and which He provides.”
But it’s true - you lack the fullness of faith. That’s just a fact. I can’t pretend otherwise. Maybe you can. I can’t.
“If you cannot present the truth you are so sure of without insulting, mocking and twisting others’ words so that you can assert your superiority, then don’t bother.”
I’ve read your posts for years. Are yours really any different than what you just posted?
“You won’t be winning any souls over to your cause.”
But I already have - and I have always posted the same way. So, when you tell me I won’t win any souls but I know I already have, I can’t believe you because what you’re saying goes against what is known to me.
“You will be nothing but a clanging cymbal.”
Only to those who have hardened hearts - and that’s many of the Protestant anti-Catholics here.
“Well; MOST people would probably look in the bible; since it IS the most sold book in this country every year.”
Okay, let’s test that: If you wanted info on the JWs, you would go to the Bible, right? Oh, wait. If you wanted info on the Lutherans, you would go to the Bible, right? Oh, wait. All groups that claim the name Christian, use the Bible so the Bible is not the first place you would go to learn the specific teachings of a specific group of Christians. The reason is simple - unless that group produces a “denominational” Bible, that Bible will not explain the specific beliefs of that group. That’s true of your sect as well. So, if your sect believes in once-saved-always-saved you can look in any Bible and you won’t find a detailed explanation of OSAS anywhere in the Biblical text because none exists. Now, there are certain Catholic Bibles that go a long way in that direction of explaining the beliefs of Christ’s Church in detail. This is one of them: http://www.amazon.com/Ignatius-Catholic-Study-Bible-Testament/dp/1586172506
Another will be published in October: http://www.amazon.com/Didache-Commentaries-Catechism-Catholic-Church/dp/158617973X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405432491&sr=1-2&keywords=didache+bible
And if you doubt my reasoning above than simply post the name of your sect, and the Bible you use.
So, where would you go, Elsie? Where would you go?
“I am SO confused...”
I am not surprised.
We are not to pray to either Mary or Jesus. Jesus Himself instructed us on how to pray, and He specifically said who to pray TO in Matthew 6:9.
Since we are not to pray to Jesus, praying to Mary is a waste of time, effort, and adoration.
As long as your rely upon attacking "Protestants" with your convenient idea of what it is (and which even ignores prolife, anti-contraceptive statements of founders), and applies to the likes of me, while dismissing the liberal majority of Catholics whom Rome counts and treats as members in life and in death, then your rants are irrelevant. That is your liberal church and you must own it as your church is your supreme authority on earth, which is not the same with a real Christian, but Scripture is.
Meanwhile, if consistency is what validates a present movement, then it disqualifies Rome, which has hardly been so in issues from slavery to extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. us.
Now tell me again how “conservative” protestant faiths are again. And please don’t cite a bunch of statistics showing what percentages believe in this and that.
Oh? and why not, since these abundantly substantiate the reality in both definition and evidence, and refute your reactionary Roman rants.
The Catholic Church is the most socially conservative faith in the world.
That is absurd. Scripturally what one does and effects constitutes what one believes, not what they profess, and the reality that you deny is that besides cultic devotion among a relative few, what Rome mostly foster liberalism wherever she predominates, honoring even notorious impenitent public heretics as Ted Kennedy as members in life and in death, which actions speak far louder than her perfunctory conservative pronouncements.
Some other RCs at least recognize this, but all devoted cultists like you can do is dismiss or marginalize such and reiterate propaganda, and attack "Protestants" while ignoring the beam in your own eye.
That these RCs apparently think this blind devotion defends Rome rather than being repulsive to honest souls, and to God, is further testimony to the cultic devotion Rome also fosters, besides liberalism. Keep it up; it is working.
If one reads the text in the Greek one would understand that your salvation is secure in Christ.
In my opinion this is where all churches fail today by not using the original language to explain these very basic, yet most important, understandings of Christianity.
Protestants gave this country abortion on demand. Protestants were aligned with baby-killing democrats all through the 70s. Facts are facts. Now live with yourself.
If not for protestants abortion would not be legal.
Post too stupid to be taken seriously. Catholics started the pro-life movement in this country and Catholics remain the MAJOR denomination at all pro-life events in this country.
You you really need to get out more.
If the track I’m “off” is yours, I’m pleased and honored to be “off” it.
Still waiting on Metmom’s apology for flat-out lying about Roe v. Wade when she said Catholics gave the country abortion. Will that apology ever come? From her track record, hell will freeze over first.
“I grew up Southern Baptist. They did not support abortion”
http://juicyecumenism.com/2013/01/31/protestants-and-abortion/
“If one reads the text in the Greek one would understand that your salvation is secure in Christ.”
The evidence is overwhelming that OSAS is a false doctrine. This is made abundantly clear in the Greek or in any reputable vernacular translation. Even many Protestant anti-Catholics realize that OSAS is bogus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCfDHrwSA0g
“In my opinion this is where all churches fail today by not using the original language to explain these very basic, yet most important, understandings of Christianity.”
OSAS is NOT a “very basic, yet most important, understanding of Christianity”. It’s a heresy, a fraud, a Protestant invention.
“Quick talking and start walking!”
... said Elsie while posting on the internet.
H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.