Posted on 04/22/2008 2:00:13 PM PDT by annalex
“And there lies the rub. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. Who is a “believing Baptized Christian?” Are Mormons? Jehovah’s Witnesses? Are Jews saved if they do not recognize Christ? Is it impossible for a Muslim to go to Heaven, if they never really hear the Gospel?”
I don’t think that is a “rub” with any major Christian denomination.
So, in your opinion, God leads people to sin and damnation, and the Mother of God has inspired a cult?
By which I mean, all major denominations deem a Baptism to be with water, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
(Even Baptists (who like to dunk) recognize that their dunking practice is a denominational quirk and not a “saving grace” requirement.)
Exactly the kind of bickering that is not constructive.
Shhh.
But that is exactly what it is - who is a Christian? There are almost 13 million Mormons in the world. Obviously they have very different beliefs than most Christian denominations. I just get so confused when people say a "believing Baptised Christian" will go to Heaven.
I do think that anyone who is willing to study the Holy Scripture without preconditioning will end up Catholic or Orthodox. However, we are not capable of abstracting the scripture from our own cultural lens, unless we read it with the fathers of the Church. What usually happens when people read the scripture thinking it is “just them and the Holy Spirit” is that they remain what they are: middle class Americans, while the scripture was written for 1 century “Greeks” and Jews.
He started it...
Right up there with Dr. Scott Hahn's experience.
Scott Hahn’s The Lamb's Supper - The Mass as Heaven on Earth.
Foreword by Fr. Benedict Groeschel.
Part One - The Gift of the Mass
Hahn begins by describing the first mass he ever attended.
"There I stood, a man incognito, a Protestant minister in plainclothes, slipping into the back of a Catholic chapel in Milwaukee to witness my first Mass. Curiosity had driven me there, and I still didn't feel sure that it was healthy curiosity. Studying the writings of the earliest Christians, I'd found countless references to "the liturgy," "the Eucharist," "the sacrifice." For those first Christians, the Bible - the book I loved above all - was incomprehensible apart from the event that today's Catholics called "the Mass."
"I wanted to understand the early Christians; yet I'd had no experience of liturgy. So I persuaded myself to go and see, as a sort of academic exercise, but vowing all along that I would neither kneel nor take part in idolatry."
I took my seat in the shadows, in a pew at the very back of that basement chapel. Before me were a goodly number of worshipers, men and women of all ages. Their genuflections impressed me, as did their apparent concentration in prayer. Then a bell rang, and they all stood as the priest emerged from a door beside the altar.
Unsure of myself, I remained seated. For years, as an evangelical Calvinist, I'd been trained to believe that the Mass was the ultimate sacrilege a human could commit. The Mass, I had been taught, was a ritual that purported to "resacrifice Jesus Christ." So I would remain an observer. I would stay seated, with my Bible open beside me.
As the Mass moved on, however, something hit me. My Bible wasn't just beside me. It was before me - in the words of the Mass! One line was from Isaiah, another from Psalms, another from Paul. The experience was overwhelming. I wanted to stop everything and shout, "Hey, can I explain what's happening from Scripture? This is great!" Still, I maintained my observer status. I remained on the sidelines until I heard the priest pronounce the words of consecration: "This is My body . . . This is the cup of My blood."
Then I felt all my doubt drain away. As I saw the priest raise that white host, I felt a prayer surge from my heart in a whisper: "My Lord and my God. That's really you!"
I was what you might call a basket case from that point. I couldn't imagine a greater excitement than what those words had worked upon me. Yet the experience was intensified just a moment later, when I heard the congregation recite: "Lamb of God . . . Lamb of God . . . Lamb of God," and the priest respond, "This is the Lamb of God . . ." as he raised the host. In less than a minute, the phrase "Lamb of God" had rung out four times. From long years of studying the Bible, I immediately knew where I was. I was in the Book of Revelation, where Jesus is called the Lamb no less than twenty-eight times in twenty-two chapters. I was at the marriage feast that John describes at the end of that very last book of the Bible. I was before the throne of heaven, where Jesus is hailed forever as the Lamb. I wasn't ready for this, though - I was at Mass!
Yup. This underscores one typically Catholic thing: while to an Evangelical faith is what he thinks, to a Catholic faith is what he does.
A great memory.
********************
Thank goodness I have a box of tissues nearby.
“This underscores one typically Catholic thing: while to an Evangelical faith is what he thinks, to a Catholic faith is what he does.”
That's why to Catholics, the dichotomization of faith and works is false.
sitetest
“For example, a conversion to Catholicism should be treated like a sincere journey of faith of an intelligent human being, not like an impressionable youth being fooled by bells and smells. “
Should a conversion from Catholicism to Evangelical Christianity also be treated like a sincere journey of faith of an intelligent human being, not like an impressionable dolt who converts simply out of ignorance of his Catholic faith?
“Exactly the kind of bickering that is not constructive.
Shhh.”
Hey, MeanWestTexan, you don’t happen to be selling sheet music versions of “Kumbaya” - do ya?
“As I saw the priest raise that white host, I felt a prayer surge from my heart in a whisper: “My Lord and my God. That’s really you!””
I’ve been reading and studying the Bible, as a Christian, for 25 years. And I mean this without a desire to provoke, but the above statement sounds utterly alien in concept to the Scripture I’ve learned. Nowhere in all of Scripture does anyone ever point to any inanimate object and call it “God”. The most radical event in the Scripture is when people called a man “God”.
The disciple said, “And he became flesh, and dwelt among us”. They didn’t say, “and he became bread and dwelt among us.”
“That’s why to Catholics, the dichotomization of faith and works is false.”
Are you referring to forensic justification?
Eiher you believe it, or you don’t believe it.
No one can MAKE you believe it. Belief in the Eucharistic Body and Blood of Jesus Christ is an article of Faith.
Only God can give you that faith.
We can’t.
“Eiher you believe it, or you don’t believe it. No one can MAKE you believe it. Belief in the Eucharistic Body and Blood of Jesus Christ is an article of Faith. Only God can give you that faith.”
I would believe it if I found it in the Scriptures. I know that Jesus refers to the elements and “his body”, but he also refers to himself as “the door” - yet the Scripture doesn’t want us to believe he’s made of wood.
Paul, when speaking to the Bereans, counseled them to go and search the Scriptures to see if what he said was true. He wasn’t expecting to Divine act to suddenly cause them to believe whatever he said.
You seem to treat faith as if it is some Kierkegaardian leap in the dark. Faith is a product of hearing and understanding the Scriptures.
And you seem to worship a book, rather than the living God whom the book was written about.
“And you seem to worship a book, rather than the living God whom the book was written about.”
What gives you that impression?
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