Catholic vs. Protestant debate...HELP!

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jeckert79

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I became a Catholic again back in April and wrote a paper on my conversion (you can read it @ www.myspace.com/superjetjoe it is titiled I’m a Catholic…you’ll probably understand her perspective better). I lent this out to a fellow Protestant teacher and got attacked on all angles of it. She said, “their are big holes/leaps in your arguements.” She is a great debater and trapped me in corners that I could not get out of. I don’t know the 2000 yrs of the faith; I just came back to the Catholic church in April and am greatful for the knowledge the Lord has blessed me with.

She said she’d read one of my Catholic books…I am going to lend her a book I have NOT read yet…Karl Keating “Catholicism and Fundamentalism.”

So 2 Q’s?
  1. Is their a better book out there?
  2. What is your opinion of this book regarding my friend?
Thank you!
Joe
****😃
 
C&F is a great book. It got me interested in apologetics and broke my cradle catholic shell. Here’s my advice for you…

Fisrt…PRAY!!!
Don’t lend the book to her…yet.
Read it first for yourself. After reading it, you’ll gain a better understanding of non-Catholics who have an agenda against the Church. A lot of the arguments she may have are most likely addressed in there. There are other books out there for you to read to. Check out the store on the CA website.

Read C&F, debate her, and when she realizes that the Catholic answer to her objection is not only a good answer but is an unanswerable answer, you’ve planted a seed. Then after you’ve read the book and have gone toe to toe with her, lend her C&F.

You got truth on your side. You’ve already won!🙂
 
Also, feel free to bring up some of her objections on the forums and you’ll have a legion of well-learned Catholics to help you out 😉
 
Catholicism and Fundamentalism is one of the best books you can give someone, if they are honest this will make them think.

You can give them the “Perversion of Protestantism” if you want to shock them into examining their position.
www.lulu.com/arm

Also you can check out that link if you want to learn how to defend the faith, once you are a Catholic and know your faith (just study a little and trust in God) then you cannot lose any discussion of the faith.

God Bless
Scylla
 
Aggh! Stupid Websense! I can’t even go to my own blog anymore let alone anyone else’s!!
 
If your friend is leans towards reading univeristy level books, check out the works of Joseph Fitzmyer.
 
I’ve had many run-ins with my mother-in-law who is a fundamentalist protestant. She used to always makes ridiculous comments about the Catholic Church. I read Catholocism and Fundamentalism to better prepare myself for her next attack. It was amazing!! It clearly and methodically disects every attack against Catholocism. After I read it, I gave it to her to read. She mailed it back to me a few months later. She wrote a few comments in the margins of the first few pages (typical prot objections…faith alone…), which if she read the rest of the book, were eloquently refuted. She did not comment on the real issues addressed in the book and I haven’t heard another word from her about the matter. She either got frustrated and did not read the rest of the book, or read it and won’t admit the errors in her thinking and doesn’t want to discuss it anymore. I don’t think she ever realized that Catholics have any responses to the attacks we usually get. I’m glad I gave her the book, but I think I should have had a more open conversation with her first.

Anyway, it’s a great book, and is very well documented.
 
junostarlighter said:
Also, feel free to bring up some of her objections on the forums and you’ll have a legion of well-learned Catholics to help you out 😉
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That would be fun. I would start by asking her why God what let his Church be in error for 1,500 years?
 
LIMolly0721, you should send her Sungenis’ “Not By Faith Alone.” That is an excellent book dealing with the doctrine of justification.

Karl Keating said, “The notion of ‘justification of faith alone’ is so alluring that countless good people have been convinced by the (weak) arguments in favor of it. Robert Sungenis turns those arguments on their head and shows what the real biblical doctrine is. It may not have quite the pizazz of the position espoused by Martin Luther, but it has one great advantage: It’s true.”
 
You guys ROCK! 👍

Thanks for the support. I’m still active in the Protestant Church passing along my conversion paper (hopefully, scattering seed:confused: ), but many Q’s arise…so I’ll take you up on that offer and you’ll hear back from me!

**If anyone read my myspace conversion paper (1st post), did you feel that my arguements were weak? If so, please explain and I’ll need to polish up on it.
 
jeckert79 said:
You guys ROCK! 👍

Thanks for the support. I’m still active in the Protestant Church passing along my conversion paper (hopefully, scattering seed:confused: ), but many Q’s arise…so I’ll take you up on that offer and you’ll hear back from me!

**If anyone read my myspace conversion paper (1st post), did you feel that my arguements were weak? If so, please explain and I’ll need to polish up on it.
Click to expand...
First impression - clean up the spelling and grammar.

First impressions are incredibly important. You want to look like you spent some time thinking this through. Good grammar and good spelling convey, “I’ve thought about this a lot, and I’m taking this very seriously.”

Okay - now I’m going to actually read it. I’ll let you know my second impressions. 🙂
 
Okay, second impressions - here goes.

First, give examples of what you are talking about. For example, if you say, 'Protestants say this," or “Fundamentalists do this,” give an example of when they would say or do that.

Also say which Protestants and which Fundamentalists do this or say that. “Billy Graham teaches …” or “When I was attending XYZ Baptist Pentecostal Church during the late 1990s, Pastor Whosis often reminded us, …” Be specific, and be accurate. You can also say, “In my experience, this is typical of Fundamentalist thinking,” but show where your experience of it comes from.

When discussing Catholic teaching, tackle one idea at a time, and let the ideas build one upon the other. Right now, you have kind of a “scatter-gun” approach that is difficult to follow.

When recommending further research, give some clues about where to find more information. For example, “Just read church history” doesn’t tell me very much. But if you say, “William Jurgens’ survey of early Christian thought in his series The Faith of the Early Fathers shows that Catholic ideas about Purgatory, the role of Mary, the Eucharist, and the hierarchical priesthood with the Bishop of Rome as universal leader of the Church were generally accepted in Christian communities world-wide, long before the so-called “apostasy” that is thought to have taken place during the time of Constantine.”

I hope I’m not coming across as too harsh - I think your ideas are very, very good, but these are some areas for improvement that I’m seeing right now.
 
One book that is outstanding " Suprised by Truth" by Patrick Madrid, 11 Converts give the biblical and historical reasons for becoming Catholic.
a quote by Fr. Mitch Pacwa about the book:
I’m privileged to know personally several contributors to Surprised by Truth. Each is deeply committed to Jesus Christ: each relentlessly sought him and was amazed at where they found him.
I have enjoyed this book so much, it truely makes me feel good that I’m in the one true chruch that Jesus started! 👍
 
Two of the best books I’ve ever read defending the Catholic Faith are: “The Faith of Our Fathers” by James Cardinal Gibbons and “A Biblical Defense of Catholicism” by Dave Armstrong. They’re awesome and I highly recommend them.

And a great book on the history of the Catholic Church is: “Church History, A History of the Catholic Church to 1940.” by Fr. John Laux, M.A.
 
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