Are we losing the evangelization race to Protestants?

[SurlyMermaid]

Thanks!

 

[benjammin]

I said falling pray to evangelical proselytism- not evangelicals. And why should I be happy that members of my church are pulled away from the church, and by nothing more than misrepresentation of their faith by those who try to convert them? Sorry that offends, but it’s preying on the ignorance of Catholics and I have no problem calling it so.

Okay, I agree with you, but let me play devils advocate. Would you be just as offended if you were evangelical and people were leaving to go to the Catholic Church? I know I would. Just as there are catholics out there who are ignorant and become evangelical, not all protestants become catholic because their faith grew (though I do see this more). Some do it because of a spouse, or because they don’t get a lot out of their church. To be honest it’s sad, but it happens. What would you recommend instead, that we say that if you are born into a certain faith you should stay in it till you die? or that you can’t convert people?

 

[Marybeloved]

Okay, I agree with you, but let me play devils advocate. Would you be just as offended if you were evangelical and people were leaving to go to the Catholic Church? I know I would. Just as there are catholics out there who are ignorant and become evangelical, not all protestants become catholic because their faith grew (though I do see this more). Some do it because of a spouse, or because they don’t get a lot out of their church. To be honest it’s sad, but it happens. What would you recommend instead, that we say that if you are born into a certain faith you should stay in it till you die? or that you can’t convert people?

I dont know why you are asking me for those suggestions. Did you follow the conversation that lead to my post that you quoted? Im not the one who was offended, that poster complained that I was likening evangelicals to hell, I wasnt. I merely stated a fact that if we put our catechesis in order, catholics would not so easily fall prey to proselytism aimed at their ignorance then she got offended. I replied that I didnt understand why she expects me to be happy about catholics being pulled away by lies about the church. so im sorry, but your post makes little sense to me. Do you see me asking people to stop converting catholics? Or do you expect me to say that its a good thing that catholics are lured away and be happy about it? I dont get your last questions to me, unless you show me where in my posts I even suggested that people should be forcefully prevented from converting catholics. Do you equate the suggestion that we should get our catechesis in order to forcing people to remain in the church? And yes, evangelicals can be offended that others join the CC from their pews, sure, but you dont see me protesting that they have no right to try to find ways to stem the trend, do you?

 

[benjammin]

I dont know why you are asking me for those suggestions. Did you follow the conversation that lead to my post that you quoted? Im not the one who was offended, that poster complained that I was likening evangelicals to hell, I wasnt. I merely stated a fact that if we put our catechesis in order, catholics would not so easily fall prey to proselytism aimed at their ignorance then she got offended. I replied that I didnt understand why she expects me to be happy about catholics being pulled away by lies about the church. so im sorry, but your post makes little sense to me. Do you see me asking people to stop converting catholics? Or do you expect me to say that its a good thing that catholics are lured away and be happy about it? I dont get your last questions to me, unless you show me where in my posts I even suggested that people should be forcefully prevented from converting catholics. Do you equate the suggestion that we should get our catechesis in order to forcing people to remain in the church? And yes, evangelicals can be offended that others join the CC from their pews, sure, but you dont see me protesting that they have no right to try to find ways to stem the trend, do you?

I’m sorry if I misunderstood you, and you should be unhappy catholics fall victim to this. I guess I was just saying most protestants probably see it the same way. Trust me, I even invited one of my evangelical friends to a mass, and other people happened to hear about it. Well his pastor was told and basically asked him if he didn’t get something at there church. My point is your post just sounded a little whiny and anti evangelical. While sometimes evangelicals prey on catholics due to said catholic being terribly catechized , I feel sometimes its just that they don’t feel welcome.Sorry if I did offend you though

God Bless.

 

[Trebor135]

Hello, Trebor.

Hi, MaryBeloved!

Been a long time since I’ve “seen” you. How you doing?

Indeed. I’m starting classes as an Eastern Orthodox inquirer in a few weeks, and am looking forward to being chrismated (i.e., confirmed) before the end of the year. Three cheers for the sacramental economy!

You are right. In Nairobi, Kenya’s Capital, there’s a sizeable Orthodox population. There’s a Coptic Church and Hospital, and many Ethiopian Orthodox Christians (mostly refugees from Ethiopia, but they are enough to be visible to the rest of the City inhabitants). There’s a Greek Orthodox Church, which is small but thriving, I’m sure there will be several parishes in a few years because people are going there. But in general, right now, Eastern Orthodoxy is almost unknown. I didn’t know about them until recently. Their Archbishop is often in Catholic functions that are performed by the top Catholics in the hierarchy. He’s white (or Arab, I don’t know)- But I suspect that the church has not been here long enough to have indigenous hierarchs, which is probably why I had never known about them until a few years ago.

All of that is very interesting. I’m glad to hear the Byzantines and non-Chalcedonians are on good terms with the Latins.

It’s little surprise that the Eastern Orthodox bishop of Kenya is white–His Eminence Makarios Tillyrides was, after all, born in Cyprus. But the Church of Constantinople, via its patriarch in Alexandria, has in fact been making converts in East Africa since before 1950–as I’ve read, some of them were key figures in the Kenyan independence struggle. It does seem odd that the Oriental Orthodox presence in Kenya is such a recent development: given that Ethiopia is directly to the north, one wonders why Alexandria and Addis Ababa–the former being the “mother church”, the latter actually gained autocephaly only in 1959–have not missionized in the country. With Swahili so widely spoken, the work of evangelization would seem relatively feasible in Kenya, especially in contrast to Somalia–a fortress of Islam probably with an engrained allergy to the Oriental Orthodox faith of the next-door neighbours in Ethiopia, and an area where the indigenous tongue has so many varieties, going from north to south, that prospective missionaries essentially must learn two or three separate Somali languages if they wish to reach more than one part of the country.

You know, it’s very interesting. Seriously, Catholics here would not know where to begin with that, lol! They are very very poorly catechized, just like other parts of the world.

Well, there goes my scheme to fix the ailing state of Christian devotion in the West.

I can’t fully explain the phenomenon I’ve noticed in the past few years, but the numbers are on the rise. Perhaps it’s because Our society as a whole values God and religion, so that the Church is not suffering from much of the anti-Catholic, anti-Christian secularist movements so much like in the West. Here, church and mosque are generally good things. We do have those fights like when passing law about abortion, sodomy, prostitution etc, and people will have those debates that seem to b e copy-pasted from the western conservative-liberal culture wars, but if you ask the average person, the answer will be- -No to abortion unless necessary to save mother’s life, absolutely no discussion on any idea of anything remotely like gay marriage (This, I believe, is more due to the African traditional values than religion, though Muslims and Christians will definitely oppose it if people ever muster the guts to bring it up in parliament)

All of that is very encouraging to learn. Don’t hesitate to export some of the pro-faith sentiment over here–a recent poll suggested that a majority of my compatriots are pro-death under some or all circumstances, a datum which strongly indicates that a miracle is required to turn public opinion around in Canada. Even groups of ill-catechized East African youth saying the rosary in public would probably get the attention of folks with open hearts. It’s amusing for me as a Canadian to hear that Kenyans on both sides are saying the same things in their “culture war” polemics–there’s nothing new under the sun.

Continued in next post.

 

[Trebor135]

Picking up from where I left off in post #105 on the previous page of this thread…

Unfortunately, I think that’s worse here. I say this because I’ve suffered quite a bit of this prejudice here, but I once said it here at CAF and many Catholics strongly opposed me on it, so I thought maybe in the West, Christians have been forced by the strong secularist attacks to be better friends to each other.

And here I was, labouring under the delusion that African Christians were more reasonable. Unfortunately, anti-Catholic bigotry and misconceptions are par for the course in some segments of North American society. They’re what prompted Karl Keating to launch Catholic apologetics back in the 1980s. And I’ve encountered uncharitable, near-slanderous nonsense from Protestants in my own life, spurring me to join CAF two years back. It may be the case that I’m converting to Eastern Orthodoxy now (the dogmas of Vatican I seem to be an insurmountable stumbling block), but I will always repel the sometimes-vicious attacks from parties unable or unwilling to do their homework and get their facts straight on Catholic doctrine.

(Forgive the tangent. What I’ve dealt with has left permanent scars.)

Here, the Orthodox are the best because those I’ve met have this assumption that they are not so different from us.

Haha, great. And in comparison to the Seventh-Day Adventists, they’re definitely quite close.

In fact, many Ethiopians simply attend the Catholic mass out of convenience, not many churches of their own here.

Interesting. What’s brought all these Ethiopians to Kenya? Aren’t there huge language barriers? Do they partake in Catholic sacraments?

But the charges here are usually about the book of revelations and the CC and Pope being Babylon mystery religion and the anti-Christ, worship of idols and the Virgin Mary and dead people, and confessing to a mere man instead of directly to God. People say that Catholics are taught to be drunks and that celibacy is false teaching etc.

Are the Kenyans who make these accusations being taught by fire-breathing American preacher-“missionaries”, or do these factious folks all come up with the same specious arguments independently, or a mixture of both?

Many Catholics do fall prey to these things, (some employed by Muslim apologists too)

sigh

those who don’t simply cling stubbornly to their Church and their devotions- Perhaps these devotions is what keeps them here. Like I said the numbers are steadily but slowly on the rise. I used to attend the fourth mass in our church which was usually a third full, and even then scattered. I noticed that that fourth mass is now full.

That’s certainly encouraging.

Islam is spreading fast! They employ the same tactics, hitting where Christians are vulnerable- lack of information, poor doctrinal understanding and the mediocre discipline enforced in Catholic churches and others. Mostly it’s this- How can these three you worship be one God?, explain it; And how can God become a man, or a man become God?- etc. Generally, making the poorly formed Christian believe that his faith is pure nonsense, madness or polytheism.

We can take it as a given that the nature of the trinity and the deity of Jesus are misunderstood by over ninety-five percent of all Christians. So, I’d be surprised if other arguments were commonly being used.

In conclusion, failing to study in depth the faith of one’s audience and deploying shallow sophistry to win over the ignorant–these appear to be the hallmarks of both Islamic da’wa and Evangelical outreach in Kenya. You seem to be a very well-informed Catholic–have you considered becoming a lay itinerant catechist/evangelist?