That's correct.
Posted on 02/19/2008 11:55:18 AM PST by NYer
I know that I was not the first Protestant to learn the truth about the Catholic Church; I am sure that this is a story you could probably hear from countless other people, changing only the names and places. I know that many have walked the road that I have; that road which leads home, to Rome!
I was born in 1975 to two God-fearing Southern Baptists in Dallas, Texas. My father had grown up Methodist, but became Baptist when he married my mother in 1968. From what my father has said, his family was mostly Methodist. His father and his paternal grandfather were both Thirty-Third Degree Masons. My father's paternal grandfather's father was even the founding pastor of the First Methodist Church of Dallas. Though I have heard the history of my father's family, I myself knew only a very few of them. A great majority of my mother's family was Baptist, with a smattering of Methodists here and there. I am fairly certain of one thing, however: there were no Catholics.
Since a very young age, I can remember going to church and Sunday school on Sunday mornings to listen to the preacher and my Sunday school teachers talk about Jesus, and how He would save us from the fires of Hell. Every Sunday morning, my parents and I would sing in church and listen to the sermons. Though we didn't usually attend the Sunday evening services, I knew that once a month on a Sunday evening, an event called The Lord's Supper would happen. At this Lord's Supper, the preacher would begin passing around large round trays made of chrome. One of the trays had tiny crackers on it, and the other one had little cups of grape juice. I can remember that before I was baptized I wanted to take part in this event, but my parents would not let me. They did not explain why I shouldn't, other than I hadn't been baptized yet. Just as it is in the Catholic Church, Baptism is an initiation of sorts into the active life of the church community. (Of course, to a Catholic, it is that and much more. I would not know this until much later.) A few years went by, and when I was about eight years old, I decided that I wanted to be "saved" and get baptized. To get "saved," you would pray a little prayer like, "Dear Jesus, please come into my heart and forgive me of all of my sins. I ask you to become my personal Lord and Savior. All these things I pray in Jesus' name. Amen." From a Baptist viewpoint, being baptized is only a symbol, and nothing more. In other words, for a Baptist, baptism isn't really necessary for salvation. After I got baptized, I was able to partake in the Lord's Supper. I asked my father what the Lord's Supper meant, and he said that it represented the body and the blood of Jesus. That is to say, it represented the sacrifice that He made for us on the Cross. My father then read the passage from a King James Bible that told about the establishment of what we called The Lord's Supper: "And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you. (Luke 22:19-20, KJV)" I asked why it was that we only did this once a month, and even then at the evening service (most people went to the morning service). My father thought about it for a minute, then he said that the Catholics do it every Sunday at all of their services. (In actuality, most Catholic churches have at least one Mass every day except Good Friday; Catholics are bound to attend Mass only on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation.) He said that perhaps we do it less often so as not to imitate them. As you can imagine, I did not understand this for what it was. The Baptists, and many other Protestant groups, were concerned that the "Lord's Supper" would become the focus of the church service rather than the sermon. Though there are some Protestant churches that have communion every Sunday, none of them place the same importance on the Eucharist that the Catholic Church does.
My father had nothing personal against Catholics; in fact, of all the people in my family, he probably liked them more than anyone else in our family did. My mother had a problem with the Catholic Church, but if you asked her why, she really couldn't tell you. She would give the same rote answers that many Protestants had been giving for centuries. "They worship the Pope, Mary, and the Saints." "They think a person can forgive their sins rather than God." She couldn't explain why she believed these things, or in the case of the last statement, she couldn't explain why a person couldn't say that your sins are forgiven. When I finally asked her why she thought a person could not forgive sins after the Bible said that Christ gave that power to the Apostles, she said she'd just rather confess directly to God. I believe that the real reason that she did not like Catholicism was because her father did not like it. I really believe that was the main reason. For some reason, my maternal grandfather (whom we have always called "Smittie") has a fairly wide streak of anti-Catholicism in him. Even as a child, I remembered him complaining every time the Pope was on television or in the newspaper. Whenever we were at a restaurant or shopping and we saw someone with a large family (four or five kids or more), he would often joke that they must be Catholic. The ironic thing about his dislike of the Church is that virtually all of his friends (excepting those from his church) since he became an adult were Catholic. I don't think that he had anything personal against individual Catholics; it was the Church that bothered him. Smittie was in England during World War II, and he found many friends there, all Catholic. He always spoke highly of them. He missed them all very much, too; all but a few of them had been killed in the war and those few survivors had died since. To this day, I do not know what makes Smittie think that the Church is somehow diabolical or at the very least, misled. I've often wondered if it had something to do with his association with Freemasonry. By the way, he is a Third Degree Mason (Master Mason), though he has not been an active Mason for many years.
Now you can see where I came from. A Southern Baptist upbringing with lots of anti-Catholic influence from just about everyone in my family and my church, with the possible exception of my father. If, when I was in high school, someone had told me that I would one day become Catholic, I would have literally laughed in his face. By the time I was fifteen, I had truly learned to have contempt for the Catholic Church. Not Catholic people, you understand, just the beliefs of and possibly the clergy of the Church. I figured that most Catholics were simply misled, and too ignorant to realize it. After all, "everyone knows" that Catholics are forbidden to read the Bible, right?! [a common Protestant myth]
I entered high school and turned fifteen at about the same time, and high school was a much bigger place than the middle school where I had attended. I decided to get involved in some of the clubs in school to make friends, and one of the clubs was called Raiders for Christ (the Raiders was the school mascot). This club was made up of mostly Protestant and "Evangelical" Christians of various denominations. In the meetings, we talked about "witnessing" to people, getting "saved," and how we should carry our Bible around as a good example to others. I decided that I would try to talk to people in classes and invite them to church with me. From some people, I got a fairly good response. Some would say they had already been "saved," and currently attended another church. Some would say that they had been "saved" and that they felt that church was not necessary because they read the Bible often anyway. I had no problem with these people. However, I ran into some that caused problems. As you can guess, these were the Catholics.
Many Catholics that I met did not know their faith very well, but they did go to Mass every Sunday. I derided them for not knowing why they believed the things that they believed. I said that it was apparent that the Catholic Church was based on blind faith and that reason was nowhere to be found. I told several people that if they did not renounce the Catholic Church and accept Christ as their "personal Lord and Savior," that they would most certainly go to Hell. I'm sure that these people did not appreciate what I was saying, and I am quite thankful that they were more charitable to me than I was to them. One particular Catholic with whom I made friends was a teacher at the school. In fact, she was one of the sponsors of an extra-curricular organization of which I was a member for three years. She knew her faith VERY well, and for that I am glad. I admit, however, it was quite frustrating at times. After all, I couldn't win a debate with her. While she did not convert me to Catholicism, she did put me on the right track. I quit harassing the Catholics so much and tried to see them as fellow Christians rather than "the enemy."
I graduated from high school, still a Baptist, though not a particularly devout one anymore. I didn't go to church very often, and I had begun to lose faith; not so much in God as in being Baptist. I felt that there were contradictions between what the Bible says and what the Baptists teach. For instance, Baptists teach that once you are "saved," you are always "saved." That is practically a dogma of the Baptist Church, as well as some other Protestant churches: "once saved, always saved." The problem here, is that there is no support in the Bible for this position. Scripture does refute this position: "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. (1 Corinthians 10:12, KJV)" (If you notice, I quote from the King James Version of the Bible because it is the universally accepted version of the Bible in Protestant churches.) Considering that a favorite saying of the Baptists was "No creed but the Bible," you can see why I was beginning to be skeptical. Here are some more (though certainly not all) doctrinal paradoxes:
|
The Baptist Myth |
What the (King James) Bible Says |
"Alcoholic beverages are inherently bad." |
"Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities. (1 Timothy 5:23, KJV)" "So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. (John 4:46, KJV)" |
"Dancing is bad." |
"And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. (2 Samuel 6:14, KJV)" |
"Salvation (being saved? occurs in an instant." |
"Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. (Phillipians 2:12, KJV)" |
"We only need Scripture, not traditions." (This is an attack on the Catholic belief in Sacred Tradition. It is a pillar of the Protestant Reformation known as Sola Scriptura) |
"Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us. (2 Thessalonians 3:6, KJV)" |
"Everyone can interpret Scripture for him/herself." (In other words, we don’t need an authoritative body like the Magisterium, or teaching office, of the Catholic Church to interpret for us.) |
"Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. (2 Peter 1:20, KJV)" |
"Faith alone, not works, will get you saved." (This is one of the other main principles of the Protestant Reformation: it is called Sola Fide) |
"For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. (James 2:26, KJV)" |
The list is seemingly endless, so I’ll stop here. As you can see, many of the beliefs of both the Protestant Reformation in general as well as the Southern Baptist Convention were at odds with the Bible. And not just any Bible, but even the one that the Protestants so cherished! (Rest assured, these verses are not much different in a Catholic Bible.)
At any rate, I was nineteen years old, and attending a major public university. I was exposed to many things that I had never been around before, mostly because my parents were somewhat over-protective of me. I felt quite far from God during my first year in college. Toward the end of my freshman year, my girlfriend from high school, whom I had been dating for over three years, and I broke up. I started dating a younger Catholic girl who lived in the Dallas area. Her uncle was actually a bishop in the northeastern United States. She was not particularly devout, but at the time, it didn’t matter to me. Actually, I figured that if we ended up together it would be easy to convert her to Protestantism and away from the Catholic Church. After we had been dating for about a month, her sister was graduating from high school, so I went to see her sister’s baccalaureate Mass. I had never been to a Mass before; I had been inside a Catholic church maybe once or twice before in my whole life. When I got home that night, I cried because I thought that since she was Catholic, she would be doomed to Hell if I couldn’t help her "see the light". However, the more I thought about what I had seen, the more intrigued I became.
First of all, the Mass was not what I had been told that it was: a pagan ceremony. To those of you reading this who are Catholic, this may seem humorous, but many Protestants, especially those leaning toward "fundamentalism," seem to think that Catholics are pagans or Satan worshippers or something along those lines. I don’t know where this myth got started, but I would sure love to put it to rest. For those of you not familiar with the Mass, here is the basic structure:
In my opinion, the catholic church is of Satan and the pope is the antichrist.
Tell you what, while you're at it, why not sprinkle some water on me. I sure that will do as much good as praying for me to the dead gods and people that you are praying to.
You know I must say that I have been in a great many debates on here with my Protestant brothers in Christ. There are a number of Evangelicals with whom I am in complete agreement on every issue except certain differences between Protestantism and Catholicism. They know where I stand and I know where they stand. I have zero doubts that they are true Christians and that their Salvation is assured and I would like to think that they feel the same about me.
However, in all of our debates, I have NEVER seen any of them use the type of rhetoric I see here, because if I did, I would have a very difficult time even being cordial with them on other threads. I've seen people join FR, both Catholic and Protestant, who are so militantly myopic that they soon ostracize themselves even from those who agree with them and I must say that it is pathetic to watch.
And what is the source of this opinion?
I was reading the Hahn's book, "Rome Sweet Home," and the question occurred to me ... how do Catholics explain Mary and the saints being able to hear and respond to thousands of prayers at one time?
With Christ Himself, it is not an issue, because of His divine nature ... but how about our brothers and sisters in Christ in heaven ... how can they listen to tens of thousands of prayers at once?
Dear Catholic friend (yes, you are still Catholic),
Is the Bible the "pillar of truth" in the Christian religion? No. According to the Bible Itself, the Church is the "pillar of truth" (1 Timothy 3:15), not the Bible.
Is private interpretation of the Bible condoned in the Bible Itself? No, it is not (2 Peter 1:20). Was individual interpretation of Scripture practiced by the early Christians or the Jews? Again, "NO" (Acts 8:29-35). The assertion that individuals can correctly interpret Scripture is false. Even the "founder" of Sola Scriptura (Martin Luther), near the end of his life, was afraid that "any milkmaid who could read" would found a new Christian denomination based on his or her "interpretation" of the Bible. Hence, there are now 20,000+ denominations and growing!
Can there be more than one interpretation of the Bible? No. The word "truth" is used several times in the New Testament. However, the plural version of the word "truth" never appears in Scripture. Therefore, there can only be one Truth. So how can there be over 20,000 non-Catholic Christian denominations all claiming to have the "Truth" (i.e., the correct interpretation of the Bible)? For that matter, aren't ALL non-Catholic Christians as individuals claiming "infallibility" when it comes to interpreting the Bible? Catholics only believe in the infallibility of the Papacy as an office. Which is more believable - one office holding infallibility or 400 million non-Catholic Christians who can't agree on the interpretation of Scripture all claiming "infallibility?" Now, in the case of Catholics, the Church which Christ founded and is with forever (Matthew 28:20) interprets the Bible, as guided by the Holy Spirit, (Mark 13:11) for the "sheep" (the faithful). The Church (not individuals) interpret Scripture. In Catholicism, Scripture is there for meditation, prayer and inspiration, not for individual interpretation to formulate doctrine or dogma.
Is the Bible the sole "teaching from God?" No. The Bible Itself states that their are "oral" teachings and traditions that are to be carried on to the present-day (2 Thessalonians 2:15; 1 Corinthians 11:2; 2 Timothy 2:2; Romans 10:17; 1 Peter 1:24-25). These teachings are what the Catholic Church considers "Sacred Apostolic Tradition."
Did the early Christians have the Bible as we know it? No. The Bible as a whole was not compiled until the late 4th century and then it was compiled by a Catholic saint (St. Jerome) at the request of a Catholic pope (St. Damasus I). So how were the early Christians saved if they did not possess the entire written "Word of God" to follow His teachings? Well, naturally, they were the Body of Christ and were taught through "oral" teachings by the Church, not by writings.
Is the Bible to be taken literally - "word for word?" No. The Bible doesn't state anywhere that It should be taken literally. The Bible was written by different authors with different literary styles at different times in history and in different languages. Therefore, the writings should be interpreted with these circumstances in mind. The Bible is a religious book, not a scientific or a history "textbook."
Does the Bible state It is the sole or final authority of Christianity? No. Neither this statement nor anything even close to it appears anywhere in the New Testament. In fact, Christ said that the Church is to resolve disputes among Christians, not Scripture (Matthew 18:17).
Dear friend, you are always welcome home!
Depending on which list is used there have been somewhere around 267 popes in just under 2000 years.
If the pope were the “antichrist,” that would mean that every seven and a half years on average this “antichrist” would die and be replaced with another “antichrist.”
This should create a great dilemma for the YOPIOS crowd when you consider that the Bible never hints of “succcessive” antichrists and that NONE of the New Testament descriptions of an antichrist (denying the divinity of Jesus, denying that Jesus is the Son of God, denying that He came in the flesh, claiming to be Christ, etc.) has EVER been ascribed to ANY pope even by the most hateful anti-Catholics.
Right on, Wiley.
Spurgeon said it well when he said:
“With what indignation must the Lord look down upon that
apostate harlot, called the Romish Church, when, in all her
sanctuaries, there are pictures and images, relics and statues, and poor beguiled beings are even taught to bow before a piece of bread.
I have seen thousands adore the wafer, hundreds bow
before the image of the Virgin, scores at prayer before
a crucifix, and companies of men and women adoring a
rotten bone or a rusty nail, because said to be the relic
of a saint.
Let us, above all, never have any complicity with this
communion of devils, this gathering together of the sons
of Belial: and since our God is a jealous God, let us not
provoke him by any affinity, gentleness, fellowship, or unity with this Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the earth.
Renounce, my brethren, every ceremony which has not
Scripture for its warrant, and every doctrine which is not
established by the plain testimony of the Word of God.”
Just because they are no longer "of this world" does not mean they don't "talk" to God. The saints in heaven are not "separated" by death from the community of the Church (Romans 8:38-39) as we are all one Body in Christ (Romans 12:5; 1 Corinthians 12:12) and Christ "abolished death" (2 Timothy 1:10 ). Therefore, the saints in Heaven can pray for us just as anyone here on Earth can. In fact, better, as they are presently in His Presence. The Virgin Mary asking God to help you should "carry more weight" so to speak than having your best friend on this earth praying for you. In fact, Christ's first public miracle was performed upon the "intercession" of His own mother (John 2:2-11).
I'm a Protestant in the Reformation tradition - Presbyterian to the core. What WileyPink posted makes me sick to my stomach. Any Protestant who thinks Catholics are satanic (or vice versa, for that matter) simply hasn't spent enough time around truly different religions.
I would submit this question: When the bullets are flying, would you rather have a Catholic (or a Protestant, for the Catholics reading this) in the foxhole with you, or a Muslim? Whose prayers would you rather have going up next to yours - a fellow Christian's or a Hindu's?
As I say, I'm sure Catholics have an answer for this ... but as I was reading the Hahns' book and trying to explain to my wife the Catholic teaching on praying to Mary and the saints, I wasn't sure what the answer was.
“You know I must say that I have been in a great many debates on here with my Protestant brothers in Christ. There are a number of Evangelicals with whom I am in complete agreement on every issue except certain differences between Protestantism and Catholicism. They know where I stand and I know where they stand. I have zero doubts that they are true Christians and that their Salvation is assured and I would like to think that they feel the same about me.”
I certainly hope that is more true than I often see here.
It seems standard OP on FR much of the time for alot of vitriol to be directed both at Catholics and Mormons (please excuse if you have great objections to the latter especially). And I mean vitriol. While I don’t see enough threads, I have yet to see that heavy and endemic vitriol hurled in other Christian directions.
As a Lutheran who was raised by a Catholic, and still is pretty wishy-washy either way, I have alot of respect for the latter. In fact Lutheranism being the 1st Protestant church still holds to alot of ways of the Catholics. So I guess maybe my opinion doesn’t count.
Bottom line, I just don’t see the need for all the hatred. I can see disagreements, but I don’t understand people acting as if Catholics were Buddhists or (gasp) Moslems.
A false convert joins an apostate church. He’s no better for it and the SBC is no worse.
That's correct.
I almost posted this to another forum until I read this:
It has also been suggested, that “Mr. Wesley is a very laborious man:” not more laborious, I presume, than a certain active being, who is said to go to and fro in the earth, and walk up and down in it:2 nor yet more laborious, I should imagine, than certain ancient Sectarians, concerning whom it was long ago said, “Woe unto you Scribes, hypocrites; for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte:”
I cannot support anyone who would compare John Wesley to Satan. How shameful.
Oh, that Calvinists might have the theology of a Calvin and the heart of a Whitfield.
Something else Mr. Pink might want to consider is that nobody can seriously debate the proposition that Western European civilization is laid upon a Catholic foundation. (And if you wish, that Catholic foundation is laid upon a classical Greco-Roman foundation.)
To claim that the Catholic Church is Satanic and all Popes are antichrist is effectively to claim that the roots of Western culture and civilization are Satanic. (Can a Godly culture be built on a Satanic foundation?)
It's to claim that the church that first translated the Scriptures out of Greek and Hebrew is Satanic.
It's to claim that the church that preserved those Scriptures until the late Middle Ages -- as even Luther himself testified! -- is Satanic.
It's to claim that the culture that brought about the first stirrings of human freedom in modern times, things like the Swiss confederation and the Magna Carta, is Satanic.
It's to claim that the culture that invented modern musical notation, without which we would have neither the cantatas of Bach nor the hymns of Wesley, is Satanic.
It's to claim that the culture that invented movable type, without which the Reformation would not have happened, is Satanic.
And all of that gives Satan way more credit than he deserves, IMO. He's neither that good, nor that creative.
I see now that Toplady was a contemporary of Wesley, so that might explain the passion. After all, Charles Wesley at the time was spouting “Calvin was the first born son of the devil”. I’m sure they all have time to reflect on this now in God’s presence where no doubt Wesley is being schooled by Whitfield, Calvin, Augustine and the Apostle Paul. ;-)
Seeing how the Methodist church has turned out, Whitfield and Wesley both probably regret that the Methodist Calvinists didn’t take over the denomination.
I would submit this question: When the bullets are flying, would you rather have a Catholic (or a Protestant, for the Catholics reading this) in the foxhole with you, or a Muslim? Whose prayers would you rather have going up next to yours - a fellow Christian's or a Hindu's?
I don't totally agree with his sentiments and I don't doubt that there are truly born again believers within the Catholic system, but surely you don't mean to suggest that the Romanist church is not apostate? If you do, then how can you call yourself Reformed? What was the point of the Reformation?
Surely, some of the statements made by the Reformers themselves were just as bad as those made by WileyPink.
Is it any less shameful, or more charitable, to compare the Pope to Satan?
Ps 133:1. John 17:20-23. 1 Cor 1:10.
Division and discord displease God.
Consider whether the sort of "unity" displayed on this thread is really the unity for which Christ prayed in John 17.
I do not believe that the RCatholic Church is of Satan and that the Pope is the antichrist.
I never have, and I consider it a poor reading of scripture to come to such a conclusion.
Mystery Babylon will find power in Rome, but it will be a new, Occultic, Post-Christian pagan perversion of the Bride of Christ.
The anti-Christ will be an individual and not an office.
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