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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.
Then Jesus is simply used by Catholics to achieve an end. He’s just become a means to an end for them.
That was no proof, just personal false opinion supported by the devil. Wake up before it is too late.
I am born again, by the Grace of God in Christ. My spirit cannot, that is CAN NOT sin because it is God abiding in my born again spirit. Does my flesh sin? YES! You will never comprehend the Grace of God unless you come to realize that sinning is something you cannot stop doing, but GOD Who dwells within your spirit expects you as a member of His family to follow HIS direction, HIS directing from your now sinless spirit.
As you do submit to HIS directing your sinning will diminish dramatically, but so long as you are in the body inherited from Adam, you have a behavior mechanism which trained to sin that is destined for discarding when GOD gives your sinless spirit a new body and behavior mechanism. The soul of deadness due to sin is not disappeared, but it has a new master.
You have been given the following on more than one occasion but apparently you reject it. Here goes anyway:
There are three aspects to Salvation. First is Justification that happens the instant you turn your will to trust in Whom God sent for your salvation. The instant of Justification your soul and spirit are no longer interfacing. The word of God, being sharper than any two-edged sword, has separated soul and spirit in you.Once your spirit has been made SINLESS and God is abiding (not coming and going, abiding) in your spirit, you can begin the next aspect of Salvation, Sanctification.
Sanctification is the remainder of your life process of behavior changes which reflect the Life that is now abiding in your spirit.
The transformation is directly attributable to the degree to which you submit to GOD directing your behaviors. But this is not an earning of Justification, it is the new life being lived out before the rest of the world. CHRIST is living in you and it shows to the degree that you let HIM do the leading and not your sin-trained behavior mechanism.
The third aspect of Salvation is what you want to reject as real, Glorification, the event when GOD transforms your flesh into incorruptible and you have a new body and behavior mechanism and are Gathered unto HIM in the air.
Your religion doesn't believe in The Rapture of all Born Agains, so it is difficult for you to comprehend the reaches of His Grace. HIS WORD shows us that the Body of Christ made up of ALL believers in Whom God has sent for their Salvation are in Heaven with The Lord Christ, The Lamb of God, when HE, The Lamb, begins opening the seven sealed scroll / book.
There is no purgatory trip for the Born Agains because Jesus redeemed their spirit, not the filthy soul. That filth will be left behind either in death or in The Rapture of The Body of Christ transformation in the twinkling of an eye. And that event is very near, now. Please, don't reject Him Alone as the only gate to the open door John saw in Rev 4:1.
Okay, if Christ’s atoning death isn’t enough to forgive our sins, what is?
What heresy!!!!.
That in complete denial of what Scripture teaches about Christ and His atonement.
“ just personal false opinion supported by the devil.
You keep referring to the Scripture as from the devil.
It doesn’t work that way.
So then; when WILL He forgive them?
What rituals do I have to perform to get His attention?
Call no man father.
According to poipe Gregory you must go through purgatory ... well, unledd you can get ‘Catholic dude’ to petition the Catholic Mary, with enough payment and prayers, to shorten your tormenting.
Is a false opinion supported by the devil to point out that Scripture records that Mary confessed to being a sinner by bringing a sin offering before God?
don’t be silly. That’s just scrioture. What you really have to pay attention to is the made you mythology of the Roman Church. It has more authority than scripture because the Roman church says so
They might tell you to ask his mom, by praying 10 Hail Marys. 😁🤣🤪🤗🤑😊
They knew the risk, the bought their tickets — I say, LET EM CRASH
“ By then, I was already a little bitter, knowing I had been deceived for all those years. It took me several years to get over my bitterness, from being deceived.”
Agree. I was shocked they never shared the Gospel of grace, but substituted useless rituals God never included in Scripture. Once I read the Scriptures, I realized they didn’t.
When I reviewed the courses required at Catholic seminaries, I understood how little training priests receive in Bible.
How little training? I don’t think they got ANY Bible training at all. I mostly disagree with their interpretations, as you can see on this thread. Maybe they might say, I follow the doctrines of Satan. 😁🤣😊🤗🤑🙀😆🙃😞☝️ Actually, I am beyond caring what false religionists think. 🤗 I just do my thing. 👍
Well here is my thoughts on that. I always thought, they can’t tell someone about something they haven’t got themselves. Make sense?
For the same reason Jesus was baptized by John, though he had no sins to repent. Mary fulfilled the Law.
According to Leviticus 12:2-8, a mother was purified forty days after the birth of a son, and she was required to offer a lamb as a burnt offering and a young pigeon or turtledove as a sin offering. A poor woman could substitute another pigeon or turtledove for the lamb, thus offering two of them.
The purification had to do with ritual uncleanliness and didn’t imply a moral fault in childbirth. As Jesus would later, Mary fulfilled all the precepts of the Law, which, clearly, wasn’t written to make allowances for a sinless man (the Messiah) or his sinless mother.
” as a sin offering” is the operative phrase.
SIN offering.
So you’re telling me that Mary is a liar.
your question; “Okay, if Christ’s atoning death isn’t enough to forgive our sins, what is?”
Christ’s suffering and death was the instrument of salvation.
Jesus, the Son of God, was sent by the Father to restore the harmony between himself and humanity that had been disrupted by sin. He came to teach and show us love. We are here to know God, accept his Truth and love Him and our neighbor.
Baptism is our initial acceptance of the Trinity that forgives original sin and any personal sins at the time of Baptism.
After Baptism, we can and do commit sins including mortal sins that destroys the relationship with God.
Jesus while on earth forgave sins of individuals, even on the cross. Christ in His Mercy can still forgive sins when one repents and offers perfect contrition.
AS Catholics, Jesus gave us the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession) and authorize the bishops and priests (John 20:21-23)to forgive our sins when we confess our sins and do penance. The priests give us absolution as forgiveness of our sins but not necessarily removes the punishment for our sins.
Every sin has consequences. It disrupts our communion with God and the Church, weakens our ability to resist temptation, and hurts others. We need healing after the forgiveness of our sins from temporal punishment. Prayer, fasting. almsgiving and other works of mercy can take away or diminish this temporal punishment. Purgatory is for the purification of any remaining venial sins and temporal punishment before we enter Heaven.
We need to be free from the stain of sin in order to enter Heaven. The Blessed Mother is our example that she was obedient to God and she can help all of us in our journey.
Why wouldn’t non Catholics want this Sacrament for the forgiveness of sins? My understanding is that non Catholics have limited means of receiving forgiveness of their sins and their assumption that Christ’s death on the cross forgave all future sins is not Biblical and may lead to their loss of salvation.
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