A different point of view from my Baptist friend

[7_Sorrows]

To pjm: thank you for those verses. I will look them up.
In fact, I am supposed to call my friend tomorrow.
Sometimes I have mailed her catholic books to read but she doesn’t like to talk about it too much. I am not trying to convert her but trying to give her an idea of what the catholic faith is about.

 

[boomerang]

You are right. We should not judge based on one experience but looking at this thread and others, it is clear that Baptist are the biggest “offenders” of criticism of the Catholic Church. If you look at most of my posts you will see that I generally do not criticise other religions except the Baptist. In one of my posts I even praised a Lutheran on saying something good of the Catholic Church. One Baptist convert to Catholicism even said that in his former church the pastor used to criticise the Catholic Church in all his sermons. I have never heard a Catholic priest say something bad about other religions in their sermons.

I agree wholeheartedly.

 

[weekendevents]

You are right. We should not judge based on one experience but looking at this thread and others, it is clear that Baptist are the biggest “offenders” of criticism of the Catholic Church. If you look at most of my posts you will see that I generally do not criticise other religions except the Baptist. In one of my posts I even praised a Lutheran on saying something good of the Catholic Church. One Baptist convert to Catholicism even said that in his former church the pastor used to criticise the Catholic Church in all his sermons. I have never heard a Catholic priest say something bad about other religions in their sermons.

In responds to your post, My grandfather was a Baptist, my mom and dad were Baptist so I can tell from experience Baptist do not care about the Methodist Church down the street or the Presbyterian.Church around the corner or the Catholic Church two blocks down.

Their only interest is in worshiping and in praiseing God.

 

[sallybutler]

I know Catholics who have the same attitude towards the suffering and less fortunate.

How many Christians (Catholic and non-Catholic) have you heard say the following

They made their bed, they can lay in it.

They should pull themselves up by the bootstraps.

No one helped me and look how I turned out. Why don’t they just work harder.

It’s their own fault for making bad choices.

They won’t change anyway, so why should I bother.

It is not limited to any one group.

 

[exnihilo]

What do we have to learn from them??? So they have committees big deal—they also have 300 churches because they can’t even agree with each other. This First Baptist church believes this and the Second Baptist church the one right down the street from the First believes that and the New Reformed Baptist church one just three blocks down doesn’t believe half of the stuff the other two churches believe in. So please save that “we can learn a lot from them” from someone that believes all that happy clappy stuff.

But here you are getting the fundamental weakness or from the catholic point of view flaw in the Protestant church. There is no visible church and there is no identifiable dogma. As a result each person or church can decide what dogma is and based on that it often leads to breaks. You are bringing up the root problem in order to convert anything good in a Baptist church to bad. I don’t think everything about the Baptist church is bad. I think there is some great good in it. It does no harm to the Catholic church to recognize good in other things.

Here’s what I learned in my research—baptists ONLY believe in the Bible and ONLY what THEY want to believe. If it’s not a part of what they want to believe in they tear out that page and those books. Even though I answered her questions with Scripture, the Catechism and the Church documents some dating back to 70 ad she still thought it great fun to tear down Catholicism and the Church. This was suppose to be a friend—she contacted me with this stuff. I never confronted her about being a baptist. But let me tell you this—through my research I have absolutely BONED up on baptists and this summer when they pull into my driveway to confront me on my St Francis statue by the pasture gate, I will be loaded for bear.

A lot to learn from them indeed.

I know plenty of Catholics who disagree with their church and it would seem believe things that are contrary to what their church teaches. You could say the same about them as what you say about Baptists. I know of Catholics who speak against their church on issues I agree with it on. I know Catholics who promote same sex marriage, birth control, and priestesses.

It is unfortunate if your friend was only interested in talking and not in understanding. There are plenty of people like that to be found in every institution. When I talk to atheists or anti-Christians I find the same thing. They typically just want to throw out insults and have no interest in really learning anything or understanding. I try to be as charitable as I can with them and suffer their ignorance. I don’t expect them to suddenly change their mind because I’ve seen that happen so rarely. What I can do is pray for them and hope that someday the seeds I planted may grow through God’s grace.

 

[weekendevents]

Tell your Baptist friend that even their founder John Smyth did not believe he was right. He left the Anglican priesthood to form the Baptist church. Three years before he died he realised that the Baptist church was all wrong and joined the Mennonites. All other founders of protestant churches died in the church that they founded - Martin Luther, Henry VIII, John Calvin, John Wesley, etc. John Smyth is the only one who left the church that he founded and died in another religion

Baptist have no one founder. Baptist congregation began to appear during the first half of the seventeenth century in the Netherlands, England and in Rhode Island in America. Richard Blunt and Samuel Blacklock started the Baptist movement in England and in Providence, Roger Williams organized the First Baptist Church

 

[andrewstx]

Baptist have no one founder. Baptist congregation began to appear during the first half of the seventeenth century in the Netherlands, England and in Rhode Island in America. Richard Blunt and Samuel Blacklock started the Baptist movement in England and in Providence, Roger Williams organized the First Baptist Church

Roger Williams did not remain Baptist either. I actually admire Mr. Williams and the early Baptists to a degree. But sometime afterwards the Baptists changed from the champions of church and state separation and religious freedom to wanting the church (their church) to run the state.

Now in places in the south and southwest the Baptists have become de facto state churches. Baptists don’t like drinking so they vote entire counties “dry”. Large funerals of popular people are often held in First Baptist church. Even the mayor of my town a Presbyterian minister was buried from First Baptist odditorium. Around here streets are blocked off at public expense to create superblocks for the Baptists.

 

[McCartney]

In responds to your post, My grandfather was a Baptist, my mom and dad were Baptist so I can tell from experience Baptist do not care about the Methodist Church down the street or the Presbyterian.Church around the corner or the Catholic Church two blocks down.

Their only interest is in worshiping and in praiseing God.

Good to hear that there are some Baptist who do not go around criticising the Catholic Church. Like I said before, from so many posts and the title of this thread, it is clear that there are a significant amount of Baptist who criticise Catholics.

 

[McCartney]

Baptist have no one founder. Baptist congregation began to appear during the first half of the seventeenth century in the Netherlands, England and in Rhode Island in America. Richard Blunt and Samuel Blacklock started the Baptist movement in England and in Providence, Roger Williams organized the First Baptist Church

Sorry but I do not agree with you. They were many founders of different Baptist churches but the first one was John Smyth in 1609. Please see the links below.

patheos.com/Library/Baptist/Origins/Founders.html

spurgeon.org/~phil/history/trail.htm

One of the articles also confirms what I said about him leaving the Baptist church and joining the Mennonites.

One site says that Roger Williams founded the first Baptist church IN AMERICA in 1638. This is long after John Smyth founded the Baptist in 1609. The site also confirms that he too left the Baptist church.

 

[andrewstx]

Weekendevents does have a legitimate point to make. Baptists are all in independent congregations and other than conventions to pay for missioners have no overhead organisations. Each individual Baptist congregation stands completely on it’s own.

They have no bishops not even Presbyteries. It is a mistake to think that all Baptists are the same.

Even though I said I admire Williams in a way. I could never ever be a Baptist. I do not think that believers baptism by submerrison is the only valid way to baptize. Nor do I believe that “getting saved” sans baptism is the way to go.

 

[McCartney]

Weekendevents does have a legitimate point to make. Baptists are all in independent congregations and other than conventions to pay for missioners have no overhead organisations. Each individual Baptist congregation stands completely on it’s own.

They have no bishops not even Presbyteries. It is a mistake to think that all Baptists are the same.

I agree. That is why I have said in my post that there many founders of different Baptist churches but John Smyth was the first. Roger Williams was the first in America.

 

[McCartney]

Baptist have no one founder. Baptist congregation began to appear during the first half of the seventeenth century in the Netherlands, England and in Rhode Island in America. Richard Blunt and Samuel Blacklock started the Baptist movement in England and in Providence, Roger Williams organized the First Baptist Church

I have looked up the names Richard Blunt and Samuel Blacklock on Google. Although people with such names do exist, they are not founders of Baptist churches.

I am happy to be corrected on this.

 

[andrewstx]

I agree. That is why I have said in my post that there many founders of different Baptist churches but John Smyth was the first. Roger Williams was the first in America.

Very true. Maybe weekendevents is American?

 

[weekendevents]

I have looked up the names Richard Blunt and Samuel Blacklock on Google. Although people with such names do exist, they are not founders of Baptist churches.

I am happy to be corrected on this.

Richard Blunt and Samuel Blacklock are included in Baptist history because they practiced believers baptistism and symbolic communion

 

[Sarcelle]

Just because a person calls themselves a Baptist or a Catholic or even a Christian does not mean that they are truly a Christian so don’t be judging all Baptist or Catholic by what one person does.

This is what to keep in mind, we cannot extrapolate one or a few people’s behavior to the entire group.

 

[McCartney]

Richard Blunt and Samuel Blacklock are included in Baptist history because they practiced believers baptistism and symbolic communion

OK, but it is strange that they do not come up in Google. I must say that I do appreciate when you tell me that your Baptist parents and grandparents do not criticise Catholics. I wish more Baptists would be like that.

 

[andrewstx]

To be honest my Gramma was a Baptist. she was raised in the Arminian Free Will Baptist church. They wash each others feet as an ordinance every time they have the Lord’s Supper.

When my dad was dating my mom she took him to her Southern Baptist church. He was surprised that they had the Lord’s Supper without washing feet.