Should we Evangelize Protestants ?

The Catholic Thing ^ | August 9th, 2020 | Casey Chalk

[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.

[ADSUM]

From someone that rejected God’s Word, the Catholic Church, Catholic faith and many more revealed God’s Truth.

The Catholic Catechism is based on the authority that Jesus gave His Catholic Church to preach and baptize all nations and is based on the teachings of Jesus and is free from doctrinal or moral error.

May God have mercy on you.

[Mom MD]

May God have mercy on you leading your flock into human based error and away from the Truth of the Scripture. Although the Scripture you like to hold inferior to your catechism and that actually is God breathed and without error pretty clearly states there is not much mercy for the wolves that lead the flock astray. I hope you become acquainted with actual Truth and avoid that fate

[MHGinTN]

Aw, you so dull. Go get some more ‘divinity’ from one of your pedophile or homo priesthood. Eat that wafer as your work to earn. You will remain clueless, eating and drinking unworthily. Your gut is not getting Christ in you, for your gut is part of the flesh (body and soul interface) not the spirit. Jesus applies HIS blood to the spirit not the dead flesh. But you just keep working to obtain while you scoff and mock ‘Hell ain’t half full’, as the old preacher used to say.

[MHGinTN]

You don’t even know what is The One True Chruch, so how is it that you arrogantly tell someone ‘may God have mercy’? You are ignorant by design, satan’s design. You havesquandered the GRace offered to you by insisting your ORG is what Jesus established. You are in horrivle danger, eternal danger! We keep warning you and showing you what is God’s Truth and you keep pointing to your chosen ORG. Wake up before it is too late for you. Be born again in the now and have God abiding in you (1 John 3:9). Without HHis life abiding in you, your spirit cannot resonate when Jesus returns to gather His Body of Believers to Himself and return tio the Father’s House while the seven years of testing befalls the earthdwellers. Don’t be an earthdweller, be born again in the spirit of HIS PRESEMCE in your spirit.

[Luircin]

Considering your blatant falsehoods about what I believe, I have to wonder if you can handle any kind of truth.

How about you stop using strawmen? I know telling the truth about other Christians is a hard thing for Catholics, but you can do it if you try.

But as for now, you’re only adding evidence to the theory that that Catholicism is the Whore of Babylon because your defense of it rests entirely on a foundation of untruth.

[MHGinTN]

Note to self: stop trying to post from a little phone keyboard. Fingers too big for that.

[Mom MD]

LOL. i have the same problem

[MHGinTN]

My Jitterbug hates me

[ADSUM]

Please show me your Lutheran truth and the authority that it is God’s Truth. Show me the error in the Catholic faith, instead of a general statement with no facts.

From past posts you claimed to be a Lutheran that was established by an excommunicated Catholic priest for heresy that established a new religion and subsequently has split into Over 40 different Lutheran denominations currently exist in North America.

How can your church have so many different doctrines about God’s Truth? Some or perhaps most are false based on man’s views.

The Lutheran Church is primarily based on the teachings and beliefs of the 16th-century German friar, church reformer and theologian, Martin Luther. While there are many distinct bodies of the Lutherans throughout the world, each one to a certain extent follows the theology of Martin Luther and his Protestant Reformation from the Catholic Church.

Lutherans promotes the concept of justification “by grace alone through faith alone on the basis of Scripture alone”, the belief that the Bible is the ultimate authority on all issues of faith.
https://www.christianity.com/church/denominations/lutheran-church-15-facts-to-know-about-martin-luther-history-and-belief.html

Nowhere in the Bible is stated by faith alone or scripture alone. Perhaps Luther added the word “alone”.

4. Worship: Unlike most Protestant religions, Lutheranism retains many of the outward symbols and liturgical structure of Catholicism. For instance, most Lutheran churches have altars, and their clergy wear vestments similar to those worn by Catholic priests. However, Lutheran churches aren’t bound by a central authority to follow any particular format, so you can often find differences between one church and another.
https://www.newsmax.com/FastFeatures/lutherans-protestant-beliefs-apart-protestant-christians/2016/07/12/id/635789/

I see false prophets and false teachers out side of the Catholic faith. There may be a few in the Catholic Church, but the Catholic faith itself is true to God’s Word.

Did Jesus give any authority to start a new religion with new teachings to Martin Luther? Yes, there were errors and corruption in the Catholic Church over indulgences (which were corrected) but Luther denied his faith and broke away.

[Luircin]

Oh hey, ADSUM isn’t just a mind-reader, but he’s a TEMPORAL mind reader too!

We’ve discovered the first superhero and he can read the mind of a German doctor 500 years ago. Worst superpower EVER.

That or he’s setting up yet another strawman that only total morons would believe.

[Luircin]

And the Catholic once again has to resort to DUH, MY OPPONENTS ARE STOOPID.

Martin Luther was a doctor of the faith, and that was in the day when a Doctorate was more than just repeating whatever the Pope de jour claims is true.

To claim that Luther “didn’t understand” a point of Catholic doctrine when he earned a doctoral position at Wittenberg is moronic at best and outright deceptive at worst.

Betcha didn’t know that Martin Luther could well have been His Eminence Cardinal Luther if he’d wanted it.

Instead he chose God’s Word. Exchanged a life of luxury for quite possibly being executed by the state.

[Elsie]

...the Blessed Mother Mary, the first among all disciples,

Can I add THIS to my list??

[metmom]

BKMK

[Elsie]

There is so much ya’ll think you know about the one true faith that is just plain wrong.

Uh; like what?

---

While the rosary, the Memorare, and other prayers are wonderfully powerful ways to intercede for others, Our Blessed Mother decided, in 1840, to help us get a little more creative in regards to how we pray for healing and spiritual conversion for the people in our lives.

 

https://www.catholiccompany.com/getfed/green-scapular-devotion-6141

 

Exactly six years later, Mary appeared again, and Sr. Justine asked her these important questions. Our Lady’s reply was surprisingly simple and rather intriguing:

“This scapular is not like others [it is not based on a religious habit] but merely two holy images on a single piece of material. Therefore, no special formula is required to bless it or enroll someone in its use. It suffices that it be blessed by a Catholic priest and worn by the one whom we desire to benefit by Our Lady’s intercession. If, on the other hand, the person is unable, or even unwilling, to wear it or carry it, it may even be slipped, unknown to them, into their clothes, possessions, home or work environments, etc."

 

 

 

[Elsie]

You keep quoting the Roman catechism.

So do I!!

[Elsie]

My intention is to inform about God’s Word and contradict false statements about the Catholic faith and God’s Word.

Go for it!!

---

Call no man father.

[Elsie]

The Catholic Catechism is based on the authority that Jesus gave His Catholic Church to preach and baptize all nations and is based on the teachings of Jesus and is free from doctrinal or moral error.

Golly!

How do you explain the FACT that the evidence shows they did a REALLY poor job from the getgo??

[Elsie]

Show me the error in the Catholic faith, I

Why?

You 'explain' it away or ignore it.

---

1. Call no man father
2. "What more shall I teach you than what we read in the apostle?
For Holy Scripture fixes the rule for our doctrine, lest we dare to be wiser than we ought.
Therefore I should not teach you anything else except to expound to you the words of the Teacher."

 Augustine  (De bono viduitatis)

[Elsie]

Nowhere in the Bible is stated by faith alone or scripture alone.

You really have that short of a memory??

---

John 6:22-36

²² The next day the crowd that had stayed on the opposite shore of the lake realized that only one boat had been there, and that Jesus had not entered it with his disciples, but that they had gone away alone. ²³ Then some boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the people had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. ²⁴ Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus.

 

²⁵ When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

²⁶ Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. ²⁷ Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

³⁰ So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? ³¹ Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’^[c]”

³² Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³ For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

³⁴ “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

³⁵ Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶ But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.

 

 

---

1 John 3:21-23

Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

 

 

[Elsie]

 

One day during the FR religious Wars, a Catholic apologist and his fellow comrades were patrolling through the theologically mountainous terrain at FreeRepublic.

Suddenly, they get a reply from one of their daily screeds about CatholicISM's superiority:

 

"One Protestant can take out 10 Catholic apologists!"

 

The Catholic apologist leader smirks, then sends 10 of his buds onto their keyboards.

A brief flamewar ensues, and then everything goes quiet...

 

"One Protestant can take out 100 Catholic apologists!"

 

The Catholic apologist leader is rightfully impressed, so he laughs and sends 100 of his minions over the 'Net to finish the job.

A large flamewar is heard over the thread that lasts much longer than the previous fight.

Finally, everything calms down...

 

"One Protestant can take out 1000 Catholic apologists!"

 

The Catholic apologist leader is furious, and sends over 1000 of his best Catechism trained; Saints in waiting; to annihilate these upstarts. 

A massive and lengthy battle takes place; with a mod or two getting involved.

During the fight, a wounded apologist comes crawling back over the hill toward the Leader.

 

"Sir! Do not send any more of us! It's a trap! THERE'S TWO OF THEM!!"