Posted on 06/21/2018 9:48:25 PM PDT by boatbums
Over the years, I’ve had several Catholic friends and converts ask why I ultimately didn’t convert to their denomination. During my first two years of college, I spent a significant amount of time with Catholics, including at the (then?) US Opus Dei headquarters in NYC. I attended these gatherings with a good friend, who eventually decided to convert from Evangelicalism. I came close to converting, but ultimately decided against it. This has surprised some Catholics. I suspect this is because the standard narrative is that Protestants, especially Evangelicals, are crossing the Tiber in great droves.
Statistically, the narrative isn’t quite so neat: in recent years, Catholicism has lost millions of adherents, most of these converting to a kind of nonreligious spiritualism/secularism or to Protestantism, while millions more Protestants remain Protestant. For every one person who converts to Catholicism, about six leave the church.
Still, the notion that Catholicism is attracting large numbers of Protestant converts, with no movement in the other direction, can create the impression that there is something irresistible about Catholicism to anyone who studies it. My reasons for remaining Protestant haven’t changed a great deal, although they have become more refined, especially since seminary. I would like to share some of them here.
(Excerpt) Read more at medium.com ...
And again, this encouragement to read the bible only came after and along with the historical critical assumptions.
About what?
What good does it do to encourage people to read the bible if you insist it's nothing but fairy stories?
Why follow a book of fairy tales and myths, as your church teaches? You really should read the original article.
That was before your church taught evolution and historical criticism.
“No one ever told anybody in my large Catholic family nor the large Catholic grammar school and HS and nursing school I attended to not read the bible...”
Wonderful for you. I was speaking to my own experience in my town.
(metmom: You warned me this would happen. :)
I don’t believe in Catholic ‘Sacred Tradition,’ especially since it contradicts actual revealed Scripture so much, so it’s not like I would like it anyways.
But I was referring to traditions, not some capital-t Tradition that supercedes Scripture.
Yes I’m snarky.
I don`t either so i will just ask, what difference does it make if you are a member of the Mother harlot or her daughters.
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Oooo, someone can’t come up with a good answer so he has to be childish and petulant. Isn’t that nice?
Ignore the religion forum, it’s an embarrassment to FR. It’s populated by a small group of people who have, by just a rough observation of their time spent posting there, saying I’m right and you’re wrong, have wasted years of the precious life He gave them in a way that sullies the name of Jesus. The calumny and libel thrown around against fellow Christian Americans with such gleeful self-righteousness is truly breathtaking.
Oooo, someone can’t come up with a good answer so he has to be childish and petulant. Isn’t that nice?
childish and petulant,Oh? do you read the scripture as a serious subject or like you would read a kindergarden fairy tale?
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Thank you for proving my point that you’re acting childish and petulant.
If you had any actual thought-out criticisms of the article you’d have posted them. Instead you’ve gone into insulting people and throwing tantrums.
Typical Romanist response, really, so I’m not at all surprised.
If you had any actual thought-out criticisms of the article you’d have posted them. Instead you’ve gone into insulting people and throwing tantrums.
I did post what i thought but it seems you are just too ignorant to understand anything.
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Yeah, and the way you posted you thought is petulant and childish!
Your personal insults in every post prove it.
You are welcome to visit and hear the Gospel that gives salvation and assurance of salvation.
You make a very broad generalization that is false.
Just how many non-roman churches have you visited in the past 10 years?
That’s so funny. It “sounds Protestant”. Sounds sort-a like ... the BIBLE. (They don’t “do” the Bible.)
If anyone says that not only the increase of faith but also its beginning and the very desire for faith, by which we believe in Him who justifies the ungodly and comes to the regeneration of holy baptism -- if anyone says that this belongs to us by nature and not by a gift of grace, that is, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit amending our will and turning it from unbelief to faith and from godlessness to godliness, it is proof that he is opposed to the teaching of the Apostles, for blessed Paul says, "And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:6). And again, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8). For those who state that the faith by which we believe in God is natural make all who are separated from the Church of Christ by definition in some measure believers.
How is the author equating himself to Jesus Christ? Also, do you think we are never to make judgements about anything?
Ummm...isn't wine made from the juice of GRAPES???
Do you think your choice of being a "member" of a local church is what saves you? Faith in Jesus Christ as Savior is what saves and it is this faith that places us in His universal body. I would think where you choose to worship with others is secondary to that.
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