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Apologists Concerned About Rick Warren's Alignment With 'Holy Father'
Charisma News ^ | 12/3/14 | Mark Andrews

Posted on 12/10/2014 6:32:20 AM PST by marshmallow

"Christian unity" is one of those terms that stir up a whole spectrum of—sometimes emotional—opinions.

On the one hand, we know that Jesus prayed to the Father concerning future believers "that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you" (John 17:21a, NIV).

On the other hand, charismatics know it is almost pointless to discuss the gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12, 14) with Baptists or most anyone else from a mainline denomination. And Protestants of just about any stripe get riled up when they hear Catholics talking about papal infallibility or their adoration of the Virgin Mary.

It's on this latter point that Rick Warren, senior pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, and successful author, has waded into a hornet's nest of controversy by telling a Catholic News Service interviewer that Protestants and Catholics "have far more in common than what divides us" and that Catholics do not "worship Mary like she's another god."

Regarding Warren's view that Catholics do not worship Mary, Matt Slick, writing on the website of the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry, goes into great detail with material from Roman Catholic sources that say Mary is "the all holy one," is to be prayed to, worshipped, that she "brings us the gifts of eternal life" and she "made atonement for the sins of man."

If that's not putting her in the place of Christ as a god-like figure to be worshipped, then what is it?

"We believe in Trinity, the Bible, the resurrection, and that salvation is through Jesus Christ. These are the big issues," Warren says. "But the most important thing is if you love Jesus, we're on the same team."

To Warren's point about being on the same team, Slick.....

(Excerpt) Read more at charismanews.com ...


TOPICS: Catholic; Ecumenism; Evangelical Christian; Theology
KEYWORDS:
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To: terycarl
Can't separate the two.

Sure you can.

Or are you trying to tell us that Mafia hit men are Christian?

Or all those popes that Elsie posts lists of?

Or Kennedy? Pelosi? Biden? Chavez?

All the pro- abortion, pro-homosexual marriage supporting Catholics? They're all Christian?

Seems that you have a different definition of what being a Christ follower is than God does.

1,841 posted on 12/14/2014 3:14:37 PM PST by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: terycarl

I did personally accept Jesus.

He is dwelling in my heart by faith, not be eating a wafer to pass through my digestive tract.


1,842 posted on 12/14/2014 3:16:26 PM PST by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: terycarl
Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

Jesus came to set us free. Not put us back under the bondage of the Law.

1,843 posted on 12/14/2014 3:20:41 PM PST by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: Resettozero

As usual and expected.


1,844 posted on 12/14/2014 3:21:20 PM PST by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: Resettozero

I think I can count on one hand the number of Catholics who outright, directly answer a question that everyone knows the answer to.

There is nothing in Scripture to support the RCC’s claims and so they deflect, thinking, apparently, that someone will not notice that they didn’t answer the question or address the topic.


1,845 posted on 12/14/2014 3:23:00 PM PST by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: nicmarlo
BEING Catholic does NOT mean one is born again. Where did Christ say “ye must be a Catholic to enter the kingdom of God”?

sure it does, you must be baptized to be a Catholic....in fact if you were properly baptized ANYWHERE, by ANYONE, then you are a Catholic and hence, born again as Christ promised that you'd be!!!!! Isn't that exciting?? And knowing that He founded the Catholic church (there was none other for 1,600 years) I think that it is safe to assume that He wanted us to seek Him and salvation and the Eucharist through the church THAT HE FOUNDED!!! reasonable assumption I'd say.

1,846 posted on 12/14/2014 3:23:32 PM PST by terycarl (common sense prevails over all)
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To: af_vet_1981
I was surprised by the vehemence of your comments against the Catholics. You are not by chance a baptized Catholic are you ?

Asks the inquisitor. I gave my testimony here more than once, sorry you missed it! Either deal with that i said or call the local Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. Maybe they can get more info than you.

Is it like Calvary Chapel ? Is it charismatic ? I take it that you have considered the claims of Fundamental Baptists and found them wanting, as also the claims of the Reformed Theology assemblies and Pentecostals.

Just what is your problem? They all are evangelical, in which souls are saved, unlike Rome overall, while this is all irrelevant, and is simply a diversion in avoiding dealing with the log in the eye of your own church.

I take it the pastor and assembly are not antiCatholic. Are they Evangelical but eschew the label Fundamentalist ?

You sure seem anxious to know? Are you looking for a friendly evangelical church? But your judgment is faulty, as whoever out of love for the Truth does not support Rome, and opposes heresies of Rome qualifies for the antiCatholic label according to the trad. RC sect, who also excommunicate the majority those whom Rome calls and treats as members. Maybe you fit in one to these two camps, or subsets.

Do you know why you do this on the first day of the week and not the seventh day of the week ?

Oh yes inquisitor. For you see that is the only specific day that the NT church is shown esp. setting apart, which happened before a wafer-worshiping, demigoddess praying, infallible caesario-papacy, salvation by merit preaching, etc, organization claimed to be the same church.

More info on this group will require use of the Rack or similar device. There may be an indulgence in it for you, in addition to one RCs seem to think they obtain by engaging in diversions which avoid what Rome is exposed as being.

Perhaps you need this as evidence in case you are ever named as a suspected heretic if Rome ever is able to resurrect the medieval Inquisitions.

1,847 posted on 12/14/2014 3:26:47 PM PST by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: Syncro
All born again non Catholic (don't want to speak for Catholics) love Mary and respect her the same as Jesus did.

I wish this were so.

Of course she is family, just as are all Christains. Including those in the old testament who saw who Christ is/was and followed him centuries before his physical birth as Jesus.

Always a caveat;

It will be great to embrace Mary when the dead in Christ are raised!

Catholics love and embrace her, and the other saints, now. We are all one in the Messiah. Enoch, Moses, Elijah, Lazarus, and many saints already rose from the dead or were translated somehow. It is a light thing for God to raise his beloved from the dead. If you are unable to believe, allow those that do their faith in peace.

1,848 posted on 12/14/2014 3:29:52 PM PST by af_vet_1981 (The bus came by and I got on, That's when it all began.)
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To: Syncro
Catholicism is the first Protestant denomination because the protested against the Orthodox about a thousand years ago because the Orthodox preferred Jesus as their leader instead of a pope.

didn't quite happen that way..the schism occured when the eastern church left the original Roman church. However, both eastern and western Catholics are still in communion with one another....some internal things to overcome but both share the same faith essentials.

1,849 posted on 12/14/2014 3:30:25 PM PST by terycarl (common sense prevails over all)
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To: af_vet_1981; Resettozero
If people are shy, embarrassed, secretive, ashamed, or just unwilling to honestly share the group they think is a genuine church and with whom they assemble to share their faith, it makes me wonder why the bother attacking Catholics and their faith, which happens here every day.

Nothing like tainting the discussion before it begins.

Making presumptions about people and treating them as factual is underhanded debate techniques, and people do recognize what is happening there.

All those presumptions about people's motives are completely baseless as nobody has ever given any indication that those are the reasons they don't give out information on their church affiliation.

On the contrary, they HAVE given reasons why they don't and those reasons are never addressed, but rather summarily ignored.

It seems to me reasonable that those baptized as Catholics are doing it, trying, as it were, to scrape off that indelible mark at any cost.

There is no indelible mark. That is a fantasy cooked up somewhere by someone to try to own anyone who was once baptized as a baby.

LIke I said, a religion of control freaks. They just have to own everyone and every thing and tell them what to do and how to live.

Rome does not cede control readily.

So there's no *scraping off* any *mark* as there was never a mark to begin with. It's calling the RCC on its attempt at a power grab and exposing it for the falsehood that it is.

And the RCC and RC's don;t like it. Too bad.

The RCC doesn't own me and never did.

I belong to Jesus.

1,850 posted on 12/14/2014 3:31:25 PM PST by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: Syncro

“No, of course I didn’t.”

You did if these are your words: “Debate via youtube?...Without backup for your claims, you post a south park video??”

And you’re now saying, “No, of course I didn’t” [say it was a South Park video]

So you say it was a youtube video and you said it was a South Park video. And now you say, “No, of course I didn’t” [say it was a South Park video]

Let’s directly compare your statements:

1) “Without backup for your claims, you post a south park video??”

2) “No, of course I didn’t” [say it was a South Park video]

“See the question marks? It was a QUESTION, not a claim.”

No, it was a question about me supposedly posting a South Park video which would only make sense if I did so or if you believed I had done so. I didn’t. Look at your quote:

“Debate via youtube?”

See that? When you see “youtube” in this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M8szlSa-8o you can’t possibly be asking if it is from youtube BECAUSE IT SAYS IT IS FROM YOUTUBE. No, your question was about me supposedly engaging in “debate” using youtube.

In the same way, your question, “Without backup for your claims, you post a south park video??” means you are saying that the video was a South Park video. It’s just that simple. And if someone writing that didn’t believe it was a South Park video then it is even worse because that can only mean something was known to be untrue (it was not a South Park video) but it was stated as if it were...which you acknowledged when you said: “You will see you fell for my wording so I could find out what the video was about. It worked quite well!”

I posted a link to a video.
You claimed it was one thing when it was another.
The question mark in your claim as to what the video is is immaterial because you yourself admitted what you were doing in a later post, “you fell for my wording”. Remember that?

There’s no way out of this for you. As John Henry Newman wrote: “Protestantism False Witness is the principle of propagation.”

“Noticing your apparent propensity for obtuse absurdity, I just took a guess and asked you a question.”

Syncro wrote: “you fell for my wording”. That is clearly an example of “obtuse absurdity”.

“See how I asked you a question, no making a claim there. I don’t deny what I wrote, note your seemingly lack of reading comprehension.”

My reading comprehension is fine. But when someone posts in such a way that they later say about their own writing, “you fell for my wording” what does that tell us?

“As in this case. You are wrong.”

No, your words told me you were wrong: “you fell for my wording”.

“Redundant, already shown to be “misunderstood.” Giving you the benefit of the doubt...”

Benefit of the doubt? “you fell for my wording” Who is creating doubt with that sort of comment?

“Redundant X 2, explained already.”

Oh, it was explained - “you fell for my wording”

“Nope. It wasn’t false...”

Really? “you fell for my wording”. That is a false way to write.

“So it’s literal meaning is that it was a question.”

It was in the form of a question. But it was written so that “you fell for my wording”. Those are your words after all.

“Well let’s see if anyone else doesn’t know what a question mark means.”

Do they have meaning for you? When someone writes so that “you fell for my wording” how can any punctuation convention they use be trusted that it is used in the right way? Seriously, does “you fell for my wording” speak of a clear form of communication?

“From seeing the nature of your posts, it was simple to guess that you were attempting to debate with a South Park video.”

Oh, so now it wasn’t a simple question but a guess toward something in particular? Wow, your story seems to keep changing. How will you next explain, “you fell for my wording”?

“Bad guess, and I still did not watch the link you provided to apparently a Tom Hanks clip.”

As this goes on, it seems more appropriate by the post and not even for the reasons I originally had.

“Go ahead and use Newman’s take on False Witness, I prefer the Biblical take.”

If I keep using it, it is because it is so appropriate.

“From Exodus:
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.”

And yet you wrote “you fell for my wording” so how would anyone know you really are taking the commandment to heart?

“P.S. Five times you post the same quote from me, and 5 times I patiently showed you how to properly understand it.”

No. I posted a link to a video. You claim you never went to the video. Early on, however, you wrote, “Debate via youtube?...Without backup for your claims, you post a south park video??” That clearly says it was a South Park video. The import of the question - if we’re following the standard rules of English usage is - “You have nothing to back up your claims so you post a South Park video.” It would be the same as if someone said, “You had no money so you robbed a bank?” No one would say that if they were asking if the man had no money (no “backup” for my claims). They already know the man has no money. They would only ask that question if someone actually had robbed a bank (post a South Park video). In other words, to any normal English speaker out there the import is the idea that someone did something for a particular reason. You were asking me if I posted a South Park video because I (supposedly) had no evidence for my claims. Then you said you never went to the video link. Then you said you only said what you said so that I would tell you what the video is without you going to see it. You said you wrote it so I would fall for your wording = “you fell for my wording”.

“And I wish to thank you for referencing the post # for documentation. That was very gracious of you and I thank you.”

No problem.

“It vindicates this poster.”

Nope. Not even close. “you fell for my wording”


1,851 posted on 12/14/2014 3:32:07 PM PST by vladimir998
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To: boatbums
What

Utter

blasphemy!!!

How anyone denies that that is worship is beyond me.

1,852 posted on 12/14/2014 3:35:07 PM PST by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus)
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To: CynicalBear

“You were wrong”

No. Candles are not paganism. I know plenty of Protestants who use them, for instance, and they would laugh in your face if you told them that candles = paganism. Seriously, it is ridiculous. I don’t laugh much as these bizarre things, however, because to me the very existence of ridiculous accusations such as candles equaling paganism shows how damaging to common sense public school education really is. It’s sad that people can so easily be deluded into falsely equating one thing with another.


1,853 posted on 12/14/2014 3:37:13 PM PST by vladimir998
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To: terycarl; nicmarlo
>>reasonable assumption I'd say.<<

Only if you have been so indoctrinated into the cult of Catholicism that you are blind to the truth of scripture.

1,854 posted on 12/14/2014 3:39:03 PM PST by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus)
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To: af_vet_1981
...honestly share (with) the group...

Group? How many are you, af_vet_1981?
1,855 posted on 12/14/2014 3:39:41 PM PST by Resettozero
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To: daniel1212
Just what is your problem?

Apparently I ask too many questions that require straight forward answers. Instead, I'm just supposed to believe whatever everyone tells me without question. If I question, they become angry with me and cast their darts to extinguish those questions.

1,856 posted on 12/14/2014 3:40:36 PM PST by af_vet_1981 (The bus came by and I got on, That's when it all began.)
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To: metmom
Sure you can. Or are you trying to tell us that Mafia hit men are Christian? Or all those popes that Elsie posts lists of? Or Kennedy? Pelosi? Biden? Chavez? All the pro- abortion, pro-homosexual marriage supporting Catholics? They're all Christian? Seems that you have a different definition of what being a Christ follower is than God does.

yup, sinners all, but if they are baptized they're all Christians..There would be no need for Christianity or the salvation of Christ if there were no sinners....

Catholics don't believe that you can live whatever lifestyle that you please and yet have no concern about salvation because Christ died to atone for all sins....Doesn't work that way...we are all free to reject salvation and obviously many have. They are not classified as non-Christians, they are classified as sinners. Catholicism teaches, as you know, that we do have personal responsibility for our sinfulness and must atone for our shortcomings through the Sacrament (instituted by Christ) of penance. Of course Christ died for our sins but we have a responsibility to knock off the bad behavior and express our contrition for having offended Him.....some of those naughty popes may have done that, some not, we don't judge, Christ does.

1,857 posted on 12/14/2014 3:41:06 PM PST by terycarl (common sense prevails over all)
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To: CynicalBear; terycarl

Exactly. There are NO Scriptures which state “YOU MUST BE CATHOLIC” for ANYTHING


1,858 posted on 12/14/2014 3:41:20 PM PST by nicmarlo
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To: vladimir998

The Catholic Church says they have incorporated paganism. Deal with it.


1,859 posted on 12/14/2014 3:41:37 PM PST by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus)
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To: metmom
I did personally accept Jesus. He is dwelling in my heart by faith, not be eating a wafer to pass through my digestive tract.

unless you eat of the flesh of the son.....oh well, you know that and if you choose to ignore it....good luck, I'd never even dare to do it.

1,860 posted on 12/14/2014 3:44:09 PM PST by terycarl (common sense prevails over all)
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