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Posted on 08/09/2020 7:46:24 AM PDT by MurphsLaw
We should stop trying to evangelize Protestants, some Catholics say. “Let’s get our own house clean first, before we invite our fellow Christians in,” someone commented on a recent article of mine that presented a Catholic rejoinder to a prominent Baptist theologian. Another reader argued that, rather than trying to persuade Protestants to become Catholic, we should “help each other spread God’s love in this world that seems to be falling to pieces before our eyes.” As a convert from Protestantism, actively engaged in ecumenical dialogue, I’ve heard this kind of thinking quite frequently. And it’s dead wrong.
One common argument in favor of scrapping Catholic evangelism towards Protestants is that the Catholic Church, mired in sex-abuse and corruption scandals, liturgical abuses, heretical movements, and uneven catechesis, is such a mess that it is not, at least for the moment, a place suitable for welcoming other Christians.
There are many problems with this. For starters, when has the Church not been plagued by internal crises? In the fourth century, a majority of bishops were deceived by the Arian heresy. The medieval Church suffered under the weight of simony and a lax priesthood, as well as the Avignon Papacy and the Western Schism, culminating in three men claiming, simultaneously, to be pope. The Counter-Reformation, for all its catechetical, missionary and aesthetic glories, was still marred by corruption and heresies (Jansenism). Catholicism has never been able to escape such trials. That didn’t stop St. Martin of Tours, St. Boniface, St. Francis de Sales, St. Ignatius Loyola, or St. Teresa of Calcutta from their missionary efforts.
The “Catholics clean house” argument also undermines our own theology. Is the Eucharist the “source and summit of the Christian life,” as Lumen Gentium preaches, or not? If it is, how could we in good conscience not direct other Christians to its salvific power? Jesus Himself declared: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” (John 6:53) Was our Lord misrepresenting the Eucharist?
Or what of the fact that most Protestant churches allow contraception, a mortal sin? Or that Protestants have no recourse to the sacraments of penance or last rites? To claim Protestants aren’t in need of these essential parts of the Catholic faith is to implicitly suggest we don’t need them either.
* Moreover, in the generations since the Reformation, Rome has been able to win many Protestants back to the fold who have made incalculable contributions to the Church. St. John Henry Newman’s conversion ushered in a Catholic revival in England, and gave us a robust articulation of the concept of doctrinal development. The conversion of French Lutheran pastor Louis Bouyer influenced the teachings of Vatican II. Biblical scholar Scott Hahn’s conversion in the 1980s revitalized lay study of Holy Scripture.
Another popular argument in favor of limiting evangelization of Protestants involves the culture war. Catholics and theologically conservative Protestants, some claim, share significant common ground on various issues: abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, euthanasia, religious freedom, etc. Secularism, the sexual revolution, and anti-religious progressives represent an existential threat to the survival of both Catholics and Protestants, and thus we must work together, not debate one another. “Let’s hold back any criticism of them,” a person commenting on my article wrote. “Believe me, in the times that we are in, we need to all hang together, or we will definitely hang separately on gallows outside our own churches.”
This line of thought certainly has rhetorical force: we don’t have the luxury of debating with Protestants when the progressivists are planning our imminent demise! Ecumenical debate is a distraction from self-preservation. One problem with this argument is that it reduces our Christian witness to a zero-sum game – we have to focus all our efforts on fighting secular progressivism, or we’ll fail. Yet the Church has many missions in the public square – that Catholics invest great energy in the pro-life movement doesn’t mean we shouldn’t also focus our efforts on other important matters: health-care, education, ensuring religious freedom, or fighting poverty and environmental degradation. All of these, in different ways, are a part of human flourishing. Even if we consider some questions more urgent than others, none of them should be ignored.
Besides, there is a vast difference between mere polemics and charitable, fruitful discussions aimed at resolving disagreements. The former can certainly cause bad blood. The latter, however, can actually foster unity and clarity regarding our purposes. Consider how much more fruitful our fight against the devastation of the sexual revolution would be if we persuaded Protestants that they need to reject things like contraception and the more permissive stance towards divorce that they have allowed to seep into their churches. Consider how non-Christians could learn from charitable ecumenical conversations that don’t devolve into name-calling and vilification.
Finally, abandoning or minimizing the evangelizing of Protestants is to fail to recognize how their theological and philosophical premises have contributed to the very problems we now confront. As Brad Gregory’s book The Unintended Reformation demonstrates, the very nature of Protestantism has contributed to the individualism, secularism, and moral relativism of our age. A crucial component to our Catholic witness, then, is helping Protestants to recognize this, since even when they have the best intentions, their very paradigm undermines their contributions to collaborating with us in the culture war.
I for one am very grateful that Catholics – many of them former Protestants – persuaded me to see the problems inherent to Protestantism, and the indisputable truths of Catholicism. My salvation was at stake. I also found and married a devout Catholic woman, and am raising Catholic children. The Catholic tradition taught me how to pray, worship, and think in an entirely different way. It pains me to think what my life would be like if I hadn’t converted to Catholicism.
Why bother to evangelize devout Protestants? Because they are people like me.
None are as blind as those who will not see....
Hahahaha.
HAHAHAHA.
Once again, your argument comes down to, “Catholicism is the one true religion because Catholicism says so, just like this Catholic website says!”
You offer no proof. No evidence. No arguments beyond circular logic and endlessly repeating the same evidence-less statements over and over.
Why should I believe anything you say? Give me some proof that’s not name-calling. Give me some proof beyond appeals to an authority that only you accept.
Well, he obviously has no proof beyond logical fallacies; I’m just showing it off.
Catholic apologists can’t threaten people into complying any more; it’s the silver lining to the secularism cloud.
The poster ought be forgiven for its fraudulent claims of authority, since it does not actually know the One True Church, a spiritual Body made up of ALL who do as God requires ... they believe on Whom He sent for their sqalvation, so that The Lamb of God is the ONLY ONE deserving the glory, not the work-based demonic religion(s). Without knowing Who is the One True Church, satan can plant in the prideful mind that one is in the ORG which will bring them through to eventail salvation and eternal life. GOD never appointed an ORG so adherents could eat divinity. That is a pagan belief inveigled early in the growth of the OR, Catholicism.
And Rome makes doctrinal statements like Hobb's little buddy constructs a Calvinosaurus.
Are you trying to convince me that your ECF’s were WRONG in their statements?
So; you are stating that THEE and THOU are ALWAYS used in the singular?
Y'all can do better than that!
Was this before or after Jesus called Peter SATAN?
Oh but I do!
It's just that the HISTORY shows quite clearly that Rome has taught erroneous stuff from day; well; maybe not 1; but at LEAST as early as the Asian churches.
Maybe it is you who needs to study your Catechism since my point had to do with the statement:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.
I did seek God with a sincere heart and He moved me by His grace to understand the truth of the gospel which was/is contrary to the false gospel I had been taught as a Roman Catholic. The dictates of my conscience are how I know I have eternal life by the grace of God through faith and not by my works because this is what God's OWN word tells me. To go back to the bondage of a false religion would violate my conscience and would NOT be the right thing to do. I had no choice in what religion I was born and raised into but as a thinking adult I CAN choose. I choose life and I choose Christ and Him crucified. Try not to look down on me.
1 Peter 4:11
If anyone speaks, he should speak as one conveying the words of God. If anyone serves, he should serve with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.
“ There are many videos that explain the Catholic Faith better than I do.
Your posts habitually make assertions and truth claims, but never support these claims with evidence.
Ergo, they are just your opinions and wishes.
Any luck yet on what “Untier of Knots” is supposed to mean???
That passage is not ‘convenient’ to the mythos of Catholic ORG empowerment. It is rejected by that Other Religion.
Well that is the basic tenant of Protestantism. You said it.
I think it’s foolish too.
You are in a cult.
They cannot allow that genuine Christians exists outside of the RCC. This very thread is intended to needle non-Catholic Christians in order to pull them into Roman Catholicism. There isn't any consideration that the believer may be a better Christian out of Catholicism than within it. The inherent smugness behind this goading is blatant but not in the slightest bit successful. My trust is in Christ and not Christians - even the fake ones.
What is the basic tenet? Being "born again"? Are you calling Jesus foolish?
But the blades on scissors are very similar, and for all intents and purposes, equal to each other. That’s not how it is with faith and works.
The Lord inspired Paul to give the best explanation in Ephesians 2. Bottom line, we are saved by grace through faith and NOT by works, lest we would something to boast about. Being born again and being saved mean being RECONCILED to God.
It’s something like a criminal filled with hate and anger who doesn’t care about hurting people with his crimes - and who is therefore very untrustworthy - one day having a genuine change of heart so he truly now cares about others and so wants to obey good laws. That criminal is like a different person. And in fact being reconciled to God through Christ commonly reforms many criminals in prison. A well-known example is David Berkowitz.
Becoming sorrowful and regretful for our sin against God and appreciative of His mercy and grace and the rightness of His will for us makes it in our new nature to want to obey Him.
And Paul further explains that it’s Christ living in him who does the good works.
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