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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.
“ So how do you know that the Blessed Mother was a sinner? You don’t have that knowledge. If you rely on Romans 3:23, Not all without exception is clear: Christ, children below age of reason,mentally challenged and tradition holds that Mary, by the grace of God was conceived without sin(Scripture) and lived her entire life unstained by sin.”
....
Christ was God and man - the only human who was born sinless and the only human who committed no sins by omission nor commission.
All other humans are born with a fallen nature... the life of Adam.
All other humans commit sins.
It is likely God will cover the sins of children and mentally challenged.
But the too we’re born separated by a fallen nature through Adam and will need to be forgiven by the blood of Christ.
Mary was both born only human with the life of Adam and committed sin. Scripture makes no Mary exception. And she herself says Christ was her Savior. She needed on!
“ and the truth that Jesus established the Catholic Church”
Totally reject this assumption of yours, since your church adds paganism to scripture and subtracts the Gospel of Grace that leads to salvation.
When I was a catholic, I committed 5 mortal sins a minute. I couldn’t stay in the state of grace. 😁🤗 Now, the truth. EVERY sin, is a mortal sin, and it only takes ONE sin in a person’s life, to send them to hell. JUST ONE. I think this so called sin unto death, refers to physical death. 👍
And we know that all sin kills.
Any sin is disobedience to God.
The issue isn’t the particular sin we commit. The issue is the holy God to whom the sin is an affront.
James 2:10-11 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of 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.
There you go again, just assuming that what you believe is already true without offering an iota of proof for it and then condescending to everyone around you.
I’d rather stick with what my Lord and His Apostles actually say, as recorded in Scripture, than what you claim is true. Especially when your claims are heretical against what the Lord Christ and the Apostles actually taught and preached and wrote.
It’s kind of funny that Catholics LOVE James so much only to completely ignore him when he contradicts what they’ve already decided is true.
The RCC has a huge problem.
The Law involves the flesh
Sin results from breaking the Law
To attempt to follow the Law in order to be justified is impossible because that system is completely flesh based.
And by the flesh shall NO MAN BE JUSTIFIED.
If you are trying to keep the Law to be justified before God, you can only count on your works of your flesh. God says that you will never be justified by the Law, works.
Why is this so hard to understand?
Easy to understand.
Impossible to believe without intervention from the Holy Spirit.
After all, before the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, we were dead in our sins. Not dying, not in danger, but dead. And a corpse can do nothing but decay.
How do you know Semiramis, oops, I mean Mary wasn’t? You don’t have that knowledge. Actually, I DID mean Semiramis, wife of Nimrod, was the first Queen of Heaven. Her name changed, through different cultures and languages. Diana of the Ephesians, was another one. Mary, just happens to be the latest queen of Heaven. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out, why religions need female deities. There are others, like in India, but it’s false doctrine. Why do people believe false doctrine? Maybe they think Jesus isn’t strong enough to accomplish the plan of salvation by himself. Maybe they have too much pride, and like to think it’s nice to be able to help God. He DOESN’T need anyone’s help.
I respect the Mary of scripture, but the Mary of scripture is different than the queen of Heaven. I choose NOT to worship Mary. (dictionary definition of worship) If others want to worship her, I fail to see where that is my problem. 😁 I hope you are in the right crowd of people, at the great white throne judgment. It will be much better, if you are a witness for the prosecution, than a defendant. That’s your choice bro. I am comfortable where I am. 👍
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Well, it’s not hard for you and I to understand, since we have now been enlightened. As you know, those who are natural men (and women) are spiritually blind, and cannot possibly comprehend spiritual principles under any circumstances. I mentioned, when I was a catholic, I was completely spiritually blind. I even believed in evolution, which is the epitome of spiritual blindness. Now, I have spiritual insight, but certainly not when I was a catholic. 👍
Satan loves it when these in their religion go on and on about cleansing the flesh because it is avoiding The Turth of the Gospel of Grace which cleanses THE SPIRIT and has GOD ABIDING therein thereafter.
Your statement:”I won’t say, “Blessed Mother”, ‘cause that’s blasphemous.”
So you reject God’s Word in Scripture. Luke 1: 42-48 That is rejecting Jesus Christ.
There is mortal or deadly or grave sins and that is also in the Bible that will prevent one from entering Heaven. They are not automatically forgiven. You should note that the sin against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come (Purgatory).
How does it benefit you to call the Blessed Mother a sinner? There is no way that you can know. So you are saying that God can’t take away sin before it has a chance to be committed? The Blessed Mother was given special graces and she was perfectly obedient to God’s will. (So you can prevent God from allowing her to be Holy and free of sin?) At the very least you may be making a false statement and perhaps a mortal sin of calumny (telling lies about another). This opinion must come from Satan.
May you find and believe God’s Truth before your death. Rejecting the Blessed Mother is what Satan desires and may affect your salvation.
The text says that Mary is counted as blessed among women. It gives her no title of “Blessed Mother.”
I’ll credit you for actually citing the text for once, even if you have to stretch the text far beyond what it actually says in order to try to prove your point.
Amen. “Ye workers of iniquity” takes on a special meaning. They think their works justify. But their works are filth and the height of pride and evilness before God.
It isn’t people doing bad things, it’s people doing good things with bad intentions- trying to impress God and exchanging His way of reconciliation with their own way of reconciling their life to a Holy God.
A “sin unto death” is a mortal sin (by definition).
Not all sins are “unto death”. It’s really quite simple.
If there are not mortal and non-mortal (venial) sins, what does the passage mean? The distinction is quite clear, i think.
No, I do not have a list.
P.S. I am not Roman Catholic.
Heck; I don't even know how many unknown ones I have!
Your comment: “The number of unconfessed sins in our lives is irrelevant.”
That is just what Satan wants.
Christ dying on the cross open the Gates of Heaven if we can find the narrow gate and Keep His commandments. Christ did not forgive your future sins. We are required to repent, confess and do penance for our sins. Catholics have the Sacrament of Reconciliation to restore us to friendship with God after confession for mortal sins. All baptized Catholics can and should make use of that forgiveness of sins.
You should read the life of many saints such as St Augustine that were serious sinners and came to the truth of the Catholic faith and through a process became holy. Even St Paul was a serious sinner.
Swim in the wrong ocean and you make face Great White Shark judgement!
Amen!
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