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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.
Yes. Jesus knows all. Catholics pray together at Mass and we pray together with the Blessed Mother and the Saints in Heaven (who are alive in Heaven) as Jesus told us.
When I was a catholic, I was playing a legalistic game. I asked several priests, what exactly WAS a mortal sin? The best they could do, was to say, if it’s of a serious nature, it’s probably a mortal sin. Serious nature? Probably a mortal sin? Are they kidding me? That is about as stupid, as saying he doesn’t interpret scripture, he just reads it and tells me what it says. 🤯 I wanted to sin, but I only wanted to commit venial sins, up to, but just short of mortal sins. I wanted to avoid the big M. 🤣😁 How about them apples?
After years of that, I found I couldn’t resist committing mortal sins anymore, I just wanted to avoid committing mortal sins of sacrilege, or the new one I just learned about a few days ago, a mortal sin of calumny. I was looking at a catholic site, and it also mentioned the sin of detraction. Maybe it’s a mortal sin of detraction. 🤗 Who knows for sure. When I knew I couldn’t resist even those SPECIAL mortal sins, I gave up and sinned till I was blue in the face. 😁 Things are different now. 👍 I was never a woke catholic, however. I did not attribute to Satan, almost everything other people said. We never hear that, do we? 🙃🤑🤣🤪😆😉😔
Gee whiz bro, I don’t do the catechism, the sacraments, or Catholic answers. All I want to know, is WHERE do you plan to spend eternity? 🔥 A rather simple question, I would suspect. Calling all ex catholics. Being an ex catholic is a beautiful thing. I am comfortable being outside the Catholic Church. I am sure my friends are too. 👍😆😊🤑🤣🤪
Are you into necromancy bro?
Who cares about his opinion?
This is EXACTLY what the RCC teaches!!
"One indeed is the universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved, in which the priest himself is the sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine; the bread (changed) into His body by the divine power of transubstantiation, and the wine into the blood, so that to accomplish the mystery of unity we ourselves receive from His (nature) what He Himself received from ours."
--Pope Innocent III and Lateran Council IV (A.D. 1215)
"We are compelled in virtue of our faith to believe and maintain that there is only one holy Catholic Church, and that one is apostolic. This we firmly believe and profess without qualification. Outside this Church there is no salvation and no remission of sins, the Spouse in the Canticle proclaiming: 'One is my dove, my perfect one. One is she of her mother, the chosen of her that bore her' (Canticle of Canticles 6:8); which represents the one mystical body whose head is Christ, of Christ indeed, as God. And in this, 'one Lord, one faith, one baptism' (Ephesians 4:5). Certainly Noah had one ark at the time of the flood, prefiguring one Church which perfect to one cubit having one ruler and guide, namely Noah, outside of which we read all living things were destroyed… We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff."
--Pope Boniface VIII, Bull Unam sanctam (A.D. 1302)
Great is Diana of the Ephesians!
It’s like when your it teachers asks you whether you read the assignment or the Cliff Notes about it!
Ecclesiastes 9:1-6
1 But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him.
2 It is the same for all, since the same event happens
to the righteous and the wicked,
to the good and the evil,
to the clean and the unclean,
to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice.
As the good one is, so is the sinner, and
he who swears is as he who shuns an oath.
3 This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. 4 But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. 6 Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun.
But they REALLY know what the church’s head is supposed to say and do!
No doubt.
Then there are the replies directed your way that do not even receive the time of day.
I think that shows a certain lack of worthiness on your part.
O...
K...
Do you think that Diana and the Catholic Mary, are essentially the same? I realize both are false, non existent Demigoddesses.
Your mother should wash your mouth with soap.
How can you call yourself a christian and make disgusting images of God? Get behind me, Satan.
You should read St Faustina’a Diary about $10 where Jesus showed her Hell which could be your future home when one dies in mortal sin.
Get triggered much bro? How is asking you, if you are into necromancy, making disgusting images of God? Praying to Mary and the saints, is essentially, necromancy. I am not into that. 😁🤪 Besides, how do you know the “saints” are actually in Heaven? Many of them, might actually be in Hell. Why would you want to pray to someone in Hell?
You should read St Faustina’a Diary about $10 where Jesus showed her Hell which could be your future home when one dies in mortal sin.
Sorry bro, I am not into these visions, especially when they contain false doctrine. There is no such thing as “mortal sins.” I have no doubt this person may have seen some sort of vision, like the Mormon Joe Smith, but if she did, it was probably a fallen angel, masquerading as an angel of light. The people at Fatima saw fallen angels, claiming to be Mary. Sorry bro, I just don’t accept catholic doctrines. I gave it up, years ago. I am comfortable with that. 👍😁🤗😆 You didn’t answer a previous question. Where do you plan to spend eternity bro? 🔥 And stop calling everyone who disagrees with you, Satan. I could say the same about you, but it makes the accuser look really foolish. 👎 Callng ex Catholics. 🤑
Why would Jesus show any of His Children hell?
SMH...
Any apparition of “Mary” is demonic.
They get fooled by the same old trick every time.
You should read St Faustina’a Diary about $10 where Jesus showed her Hell which could be your future home when one dies in mortal sin.
I forgot to mention. When dealing with people in false religions, we have to clarify, what Christian freedom is. Many of them think that freedom means you are free to live like hell. ABSOLUTELY NOT. It means we are free, and no long slaves to the bondage of sin, and are free to do as we should, not as we please. In no way, does it authorize us to live like hell. I think that is what they would like to do, but that won’t cut the mustard. 👍
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