Why I Am Still an Evangelical Protestant [And Not Roman Catholic]

Chris Castaldo ^ | March 15th, 2013 | Chris Castaldo

[.45 Long Colt]

Any one sin will send you to hell. That’s what I meant by mortal. Mortal and venial sins are categories unknown to Scripture.

[HarleyD]

Also, one might also wish to consider the following:

Gal 3:1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

Gal 3:2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

Gal 3:3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

There is a reason we became Protestants.

[metmom]

James 2:9-11 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

[Colonel_Flagg]

I understand. Any one unredeemed sin is quite capable of doing just that. I just think of 2 Peter 3:9 and feel better.

[Ann Archy]

Oh God....Venial sin doesn’t separate us from God like MORTAL SIN does....really....who taught you these things??? EVRYONE had VENIAL SINS....we ARE venial.....but not everyone ever has a MORTAL sin.

[Iscool]

I just have no hate or contention with Catholics.

None of us hate Catholics...Do you share a burden for their souls, or are they just on a different train to heaven than you are???

[Ann Archy]

Not hyperbole, but COMMON SENSE!!! WHO the HELL doesn't KNOW the difference between a MORTAL SIN that if you die with that on your soul you will go to HELL, and a VENIAL sin.

Where in the Saint James Bible do you read such a thing????? We would ALL GO TO HELL if that was the case!!!

[.45 Long Colt]

Amen to that.

[Ann Archy]

And THAT is the same as telling a little white lie that tells your spouse they look great!!!

[Legatus]

Er, calm down.

[Ann Archy]

God DOESN:T abhor ALL sins the same way!!!!! Geesh....Have you NEVER read the part about a sin against the HOLY SPIRIT CANNOT be forgiven????

[Ann Archy]

I will NOT calm down when Jesus’s teachings are TWISTED!!

[Campion]

Every sin is mortal, FRiend.

1 John 5:16-17 explicitly says that you're wrong.

[Salvation]

One day he will come home.

[Campion]

There is a reason we became Protestants.

Maybe you ought to re-read Galatians. It's a polemic against Judaizing, not a manifesto for anti-nomianism. When Paul says "law," he means "the Law of Moses".

[Legatus]

Shouting in ALL CAPS isn’t going to make your point any more valid.

[karatemom]

When I was first saved... I was the contentious one.

[Campion]

A buddy invited me to his home to talk with his Catholic colleague who is struggling with religious guilt, feeling that he is never quite acceptable to the Father. This colleague described his experience in his Catholic parish as “salvation on probation,” a relationship with God that depended upon his ability to observe the precepts of the church (i.e., abstaining from meat on Lenten Fridays, holy days of obligation, auricular confession). Therefore, despite his best efforts, our friend bemoaned the fact that it was only a matter of time before he fell short of the church’s expectations and thus lost his eternal hope.

I'll bet you dollars to donuts that this friend (a) never actually goes to "auricular confession"; (b) regularly ignores "Lenten Fridays"; and (c) can't even name the holy days of obligation.

It's funny, though. There are plenty of Protestant churches which impose all sorts of strange rules and regulations to keep from "losing" one's salvation. (Did you know that Jesus never drank alcohol? Even when the Bible says he turned water into wine, it was really grape juice. So I've been told. Dancing is a big no-no, too. Did you know a waltz with your wife could send you to hell? Me neither.)

How many threads have you posted from former members of those churches about the difficulty they had living up to their man-made rules? Any? Ever?

[Salvation]

MORTAL SIN

An actual sin that destroys sanctifying grace and causes the supernatural death of the soul. Mortal sin is a turning away from God because of seriously inordinate adherence to creatures that causes grave injury to a person's rational nature and to the social order, and deprives the sinner of a right to heaven.

The terms mortal, deadly, grave, and serious applied to sin are synonyms, each with a slightly different implication. Mortal and deadly focus on the effects in the sinner, namely deprivation of the state of friendship with God; grave and serious refer to the importance of the matter in which a person offends God. But the Church never distinguishes among these terms as though they represented different kinds of sins. There is only on e recognized correlative to mortal sin, and that is venial sin, which offends against God but does not cause the loss of one's state of grace. (Etym. Latin mors, death.)

All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

[Salvation]

VENIAL SIN

 

An offense against God which does not deprive the sinner of sanctifying grace. It is called venial (from venia, pardon) because the soul still has the vital principle that allows a cure from within, similar to the healing of a sick or diseased whose source of animation (the soul) is still present to restore the ailing bodily function to health.

Deliberate venial sin is a desease that slackens the spiritual powers, lowers one's resistance to evil, and causes one to deviate from the path that leads to heavenly glory. Variously called "daily sins" or "light sins" or "lesser sins," they are committed under a variety of conditions: when a person transgresses with full or partial knowledge and consent to a divine law that does not ablige seriously; when one violates a law that obliges gravely but either one's knowledge or consent is not complete; or when one disobeys what is an objectively grave precept but due to invincible ignorance a person things the obligation is not serious.

The essence of venial sin consists in a certain disorder but does not imply complete aversion from humanity's final destiny. It is an illness of the soul rather than its supernatural death. When people commit a venial sin, they do not decisively set themselves on turning away from God, but from overfondness for some created good fall short of God. They are like person who loiter without leaving the way.

All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.