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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.
I never heard either of those things when I was a catholic. It looks like, maybe this was added after I left, or maybe it just wasn’t emphasized in my Catholic Church.
Someone said, and it may very well be true, that Mary is not mentioned in scripture, beyond being with the disciples, because God knew some would try to turn her into a demigoddess, and He didn’t want to give that false doctrine any credence at all. Just my opinion, but for those who say they don’t worship Mary, I would say, if they believe she is anything MORE, than just a mortal sinner, saved by grace, THAT is worship. 🤗
The mother-son co-god belief is very common among many pagan “faiths”.
So you get called out on referring to Mary as divinity, and your response is to cop to it, and then literally take the glory that is due to Christ alone and give it to another AGAIN?
Dude, you already let slip that you worship Mary when you accused metmom of blasphemy specifically against her. All the backpedaling in the world isn’t going to weasel you out of that one.
Better to confess that you were worshipping a false goddess and repent of it than insist that you didn’t REALLY mean it.
Yes it is. I think I have previously mentioned, that the false catholic doctrine, of Mary worship (yes, it’s worship) originated with Nimrod and Semiramis. The name was Semiramis, but changed, in different cultures and different languages. Now, a certain religion, which will remain unnamed, though we all know what it is, call the false queen of Heaven, Mary. The queen of Heaven was mentioned in Jeremiah, but I believe the name was Semiramis. Of course, I didn’t know this when I was a catholic. They didn’t advertise it, cuz they didn’t want their stuff exposed.
Asherah too.
Perhaps you should return to 3rd grade so that you can learn to comprehend the written word?
And your written word is not logical and contains lies.
When MomMD states in 231 “Wow. Your Jesus is so impotent He has to ask mommy to appeal to people on His behalf?” Blasphemy consists “in uttering against God - inwardly or outwordly - words of hatred, reproach or defiance.”
You should treat the Mother of God with respect and not make false statements that Catholics worship her.
Peace.
I am not sure they are word for word, taught they are better than everyone else, but the other factors you mentioned, surely indicate it’s true. Now, me personally? I never really thought I was personally superior, and maybe that is another reason why I had no problem leaving the Catholic Church. 😁🤗🤣👍
HA! This was about the physical Ark of the Covenant in the Jewish Temple. NOT about Mary.
How much more would he want his Word—Jesus—to have a perfect dwelling place!
Here is where you went off the Biblical rails, making up things that are not in Scripture.
In Revelation 5:8 John saw the Lamb, Christ Jesus, on a throne in the midst of four beasts and 24 elders. When the Lamb took the book with the seven seals, the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb in worship, “each one having a harp and golden bowls of incenses, which are the prayers of the saints.”
NEITHER passage says ANYONE EVER prayed to a saint. It simply says the elders presented incense, which were the prayers of the saints.
Further, no Apostle EVER prayed to a departed saint in Scripture.
Totally made up by people after paganism entered the Roman religion.
This is a beautiful image of how the intercession of the saints works. Because the saints are so close to the fire of God’s love and because they stand immediately before him, they can set our prayers on fire with their love and release the power of our prayers.
Totally made up again.
The doctrine of the Assumption of Mary began with a historical event to which Scripture alludes and that been believed in the Church for 2,000 years. It was passed down in the oral tradition of the Church and developed over the centuries, but it was always believed by the Catholic faithful.
Never in Scripture ever. Totally made up. Convenient no one ever wrote this down when it purportedly happened. No Apostle taught it. No writings before 100 ad reference it. Bogus.
Your whole post is just made up things ADSUM.
What part of the Spirit in Jesus did the Catholic Mary contribute to?
Can you prove no Catholics worship mary? No.
Adsum may be fooling his flock and even himself with his fancy semantics about veneration vs worship but you know who he is not fooling? God
Hahaha.
As a great man once said, “If they call the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household!”
Thank you for confirming that we’re in the right.
It’s awfully easy to get under your skin; don’t like being reminded that you outright admitted to idolatry?
The Dormition of the Mother of God is a Great Feast of the Eastern Orthodox,
Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches which commemorates the "falling asleep"
or death of Mary the Theotokos ("Mother of God", literally translated as God-bearer),
and her bodily resurrection before being taken up into heaven.
(She got to move to the head of the line...)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dormition_of_the_Mother_of_God
Sheer breathtaking blasphemy and apostasy
Says who?
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