This isn’t Protestant bashing. It is stating Catholic teaching. Anytime a Catholic leaves and becomes a Protestant, that is apostasy. Plain and simple.
There isn’t a single day here that goes by where the Catholic Church is NOT denounced by Protestants as a “cult.”
But it seems that many Evangelical-types resort to cult-like tactics to engage in sheep stealing.
So who is calling whom a cult.
I come from a Protestant family, so I don’t hold any personal animosity toward individual Protestants. What I reject, however, is ex-Catholics being held up as examplars of why Catholicism is wrong.
I became a Catholic for intellectual and theological reasons rather than I was sick of the PC in the ELCA.
Had I not done my own research and thought for myself with an open heart and mind, I’d probably be a proud member of the LCMS or WELS today.
**Anytime a Catholic leaves and becomes a Protestant, that is apostasy. Plain and simple.**
Even though by their Baptism they are still a Catholic; just not a practicing one.
They can always come back to the Church. All they have to do is sit down with a priest and get their questions answered.
But never was apostasy so good...
I became a Catholic for intellectual and theological reasons rather than I was sick of the PC in the ELCA.
And that is completely understandable to me...
I am confident that you would not make the claim that you called on Jesus to come into your life and trusted Jesus to be your Saviour while being a Protestant...
So that leaves you with a book and a religion that you can't relate to...What else could you do but hunt for people in the same position who claim to have knowledge about God and his religion that you could understand...The same intellectual knowledge you claim to have...
The thing you can't grasp that many Protestants and former Catholics know is that conversion is spiritual, not intellectual...
1Co 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
What person with any self esteem wants to have and would accept some person telling him that in the eyes of God, he's a useless piece of flesh and there's absolutely nothing he can do to merit heaven???
The article you post was good in the sense that it shows Catholics that by prayer, preaching and bible study they will find and come to Jesus...They move from the bondage of your religion right into the arms of Jesus Christ...
They develop a personal, spiritual relationship with the God of creation instead of a physical one where they must eat a wafer to have any (temporal) contact with Jesus...
A relationship where they know they can come and stand right there at the Throne of Grace in the presence of Jesus...With the confidence that Jesus listens to every word they speak...Without having to go thru another mediator to get there...
But thanks for the article...I think it will encourage Catholics to seek out the Lord of the scriptures...