Catholics Trying to convert Protestants

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suethenurse said:
I hope I have the intelligence to explain my thoughts here! I am an ordained United Methodist minister. I do not feel it is my job to “convert” Catholics to my denomination. I do feel that it is my responsibility to lead non-believers to Christ. For me to lead a member of another denomination to my church because I personally feel mine is right and theirs is wrong would be morally wrong on my part. I have, actually, urged Catholics who are estranged from their to church to return to their church to try to resolve their issues.

Once I was confronted by an acquaintance who said that the Bible I used was not valid. I then defensively explained that Jesus did not use the words “thee” and “thou.” (This person belonged to a denomination that accepted only one particular version of the Bible as authentic.) When I finally got her to understood that Jesus spoke Aramaic and actually did not speak English and did not use the terms “thee” and “thou,” she cried. She felt her church had lied to her and she stopped going to church. What I said damaged her faith. It was not my intent to damage her faith, but I did. Nothing I said could undo the damage. I really had to question my own motives–and I came up short. I asked her forgiveness, but she thanked me. It was no victory for me. We have to be careful. There is a difference between wisdom and intelligence.
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Powerful story Pastor.
 
suethenurse said:
I hope I have the intelligence to explain my thoughts here! I am an ordained United Methodist minister. I do not feel it is my job to “convert” Catholics to my denomination. I do feel that it is my responsibility to lead non-believers to Christ. For me to lead a member of another denomination to my church because I personally feel mine is right and theirs is wrong would be morally wrong on my part. I have, actually, urged Catholics who are estranged from their to church to return to their church to try to resolve their issues.

Once I was confronted by an acquaintance who said that the Bible I used was not valid. I then defensively explained that Jesus did not use the words “thee” and “thou.” (This person belonged to a denomination that accepted only one particular version of the Bible as authentic.) When I finally got her to understood that Jesus spoke Aramaic and actually did not speak English and did not use the terms “thee” and “thou,” she cried. She felt her church had lied to her and she stopped going to church. What I said damaged her faith. It was not my intent to damage her faith, but I did. Nothing I said could undo the damage. I really had to question my own motives–and I came up short. I asked her forgiveness, but she thanked me. It was no victory for me. We have to be careful. There is a difference between wisdom and intelligence.
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That had to be a bad day at the office.😦
I never realized the pressure clerical people are under until reading this post. I’m starting to feel bad about the list of questions I left for the priest at the parish I go to most often now.😊 Maybe I should tell him we can talk it over at breakfast after Mass someday and then just change the subject to regular stuff.👍 He may need a break from all this stuff. I think I just look at pastors/ministers as answer men. That’s wrong on my part.
 
Guyonthestreet said:
Cut and pasted from here:
  1. What positive proof have you that the Catholic Church is the only true Church?
The proof lies in the fact that the Catholic Church alone corresponds exactly to the exact religion established by Christ. Now the Christian religion is that religion which — (a) Was founded by Christ personally; (b) Has existed continuously since the time of Christ; (c) Is Catholic or universal, in accordance with Christ’s command to go to all the world and teach all nations; (d) Demands that all her members admit the same doctrine; (e) Exercises divine authority over her subjects, since Christ said that if a man would not hear the Church he would be as the heathen.

freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2266524/posts

Cut and pasted from here:
  1. What is the opinion of the early Fathers on Apostolicity?
St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, who died in the year 202 A.D., had no doubts on this subject. “We must obey those in the Church,” he wrote, “who have true succession from the Apostles; for with their episcopal succession they have received the gift of certainty in the truth according to God’s holy will. We must suspect all those who are cut off from this original succession, whoever they may be.”

geocities.com/timothyc1/qtruechu.html

Are you completely and totally incapable of forming your own answer to anything without plagiarizing everyone else’s work and cobbling it together to make it look like your own?

Do you really have so little to contribute???

Do you really not have a single original thought, idea or expression to share???

Apparently not.

You have been asked this so many times before, but when you use someone else’s work, give them the credit for it.

It’s just the right thing to do. Ya know. And it’s not hard. If you need help with referrencing things properly just ask - tons of us here will be willing to help you.

But please, for the umpteenth time of asking, stop plagiarizing from other peoples work and other websites and passing stuff off as your own thought-out reply when it isn’t, You’re just mimicing what others have said.

Let’s hear what you have to say. Give it a shot - you might surprise yourself - and us !!!
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I’m just mimicing what others say now. Before I was “plagerizing”. Instead of worrying about me, look to your own soul and the church you should be in, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic church.
 
I do not post many threads so NO DISTRACTIONS OVER RUDE COMMENTS:mad:😃

Anyway, I will say it but no one really has. I have come to the conclusion that I believe that it is acceptable to try to talk someone into your beliefs. It has to work both ways I believe to be consistent. My thoughts anyway…does not mean I actually do that but I understand why others do.
 
BrianH said:
I do not post many threads so NO DISTRACTIONS OVER RUDE COMMENTS:mad:😃

Anyway, I will say it but no one really has. I have come to the conclusion that I believe that it is acceptable to try to talk someone into your beliefs. It has to work both ways I believe to be consistent. My thoughts anyway…does not mean I actually do that but I understand why others do.
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In real life, I say go for it.
On this forum, I say one should follow the rules of the forum.👍
 
BrianH said:
I do not post many threads so NO DISTRACTIONS OVER RUDE COMMENTS:mad:😃

Anyway, I will say it but no one really has. I have come to the conclusion that I believe that it is acceptable to try to talk someone into your beliefs. It has to work both ways I believe to be consistent. My thoughts anyway…does not mean I actually do that but I understand why others do.
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Let the Protestants come at me! I can take whatever they dish. If they bring up a point I have not heard before, it only makes me have to learn more (always a good thing! LET THEM COME! LET THEM ALL COME! :knight1::knight2::knight1::knight2:
 
nsper7 said:
Let the Protestants come at me! I can take whatever they dish. If they bring up a point I have not heard before, it only makes me have to learn more (always a good thing! LET THEM COME! LET THEM ALL COME! :knight1::knight2::knight1::knight2:
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I think that is different, you are welcoming challenges put forth to your faith. That can be done at CAF in apologetics.

But, this thread is not about that. It is about Trying to convert people.

Sort of a different thing really, isn’t it?
 
BrianH said:
Is there an OFFICIAL Catholic view on this?
Let me elaborate. On some threads, you get a distinct sense that trying to talk a Protestant into becoming a Catholic is a very good thing. However, on some other threads, Protestants will be criticized for trying to convert Catholics. So…IS there an official view on this. Private interpretation strictly prohibited 😃
jk opinions are fine as well
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Three things:​

  • Proselytism is forbidden
  • **Evangelism **is allowed
  • Evangelisation is preferred
And:
  • The Orthodox are no longer regarded as people whom Catholics should try to get to become Catholic
  • Neither are Jews
At the same time, if the Orthodox & Jews want to be received into the CC, they are not prevented from doing do.

The CC no longer speaks of converting other Christians, but of receiving them into full communion with the Church.

IMV&AO, the CC is being gutless & needs a … good kicking - but this just my opinion. Which brings us naturally enough to the the Feast of Blasphemy of 1986, AKA the Assisi get-together.

The trouble with modern ecclesiology is, that by being so expansive & ecumenical, it has knocked the stuffing out of denominational loyalties. If God gives Methodists all He gives Anglicans, why bother about having an episcopate ? If He gives to Anglicans all He gives RCs, what is the point of being Catholic, unless to shoulder all; the obligations & opprtunities to get in trouble for doing what Rome objects to, but other Christians don’t ?

The old position, in which Popes called down anathemas & excommunications on all those godless Protestant heathens who had the temerity to stay outwith the ample arms of Mother Church may not have been terribly gracious, but it did at least have the virtues of consistency with the past & preparedness to be well-hated for being (as it saw the matter) faithful to that past. Pius V may have been a spectacularly intolerant old so-and-so, but his theological position would have been recognisable to Sylvester of Rome, Gregory the Great, Boniface VIII & Pius X; whether that of JP2 would have been, is another matter.

Ecumenism has, in effect, created Post-Denominational Christianity; Rome seems not to have tumbled to this yet. The result ? Inconsistency. The Orthodox have not gone this way: & I suspect that this is one of their attractions for Catholics.

For more, see the Balamand Declaration:
[http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/ (http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/) contains a good deal on the subject, as well as the text of the declaration; I don’t know how representative of Orthodox attitudes it is. :o
 
Good insight…as always… Gottle.

On a side note…of sorts…
Google United Methodist apologetics…it does not exist
Google Catholic apologetics 680000 hits
We have lulled the opposition into complacency!!😃
 
BrianH said:
Good insight…as always… Gottle.

On a side note…of sorts…
Google United Methodist apologetics…it does not exist
Google Catholic apologetics 680000 hits
We have lulled the opposition into complacency!!😃
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Are you making fun of your own denomination? :confused:
Maybe no one cares what United Methodists think.🤷
 
It is either ok for Catholics to try to talk Protestants into Catholicism or it is not. If it is, then conversely Jehovah Witnesses, LDS, Fundamentalists should be able to do the same?
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Probably not. They aren’t the original church that Jesus founded on Peter.
 
StrawberryJam said:
I think that is different, you are welcoming challenges put forth to your faith. That can be done at CAF in apologetics.

But, this thread is not about that. It is about Trying to convert people.

Sort of a different thing really, isn’t it?
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Yeah, a bit.

I think what nsper was saying was that any Protestant who tries to convert him won’t sway him away from the Catholic faith.
 
StrawberryJam said:
Are you making fun of your own denomination? :confused:
Maybe no one cares what United Methodists think.🤷
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Its two pronged. One, Methodists do not do apologetics. Two, We do not get apologetics done to us usually.
So yes, I am poking fun at my church…why not?😃
 
Guyonthestreet said:
But please, for the umpteenth time of asking, stop plagiarizing from other peoples work and other websites and passing stuff off as your own thought-out reply when it isn’t, You’re just mimicing what others have said.

Let’s hear what you have to say. Give it a shot - you might surprise yourself - and us !!!
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OneTrueCathApos said:
Of course you agree with her, she is just like you, a non-Catholic. Only she has more class.👍
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Ok maybe not.

It appears that when you strip out all the plagiarized material in your posts, all that’s left is rudeness, insult and lack of charity.

I’m sad for you.

I will keep you in my prayers.
 
Timbothefiveth said:
Probably not. They aren’t the original church that Jesus founded on Peter.
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But from their perspective…you are not either. But certainly that is not the issue. The issue is not whether who thinks they are right though; the issue is whether people willingly afford others the same thing they do. In other words, it seems to me consistency is good. If not, just be upfront and say “I can try to convert others to my faith but you cannot do the same”. Or, what I think is more consistent…
“I can try to convert others and so can you”.
 
SSTeacher said:
It seems, then, that the playing field really is level. Utterances by individual Catholics such as,

This is a Catholic forum so Non–Catholic views have no place here and by daring to state them you’re being disrespectful and in any case I already know people like you only come here to annoy me,

aren’t actually endorsed by the CAF Statement of Purpose. So it seems to me that if it’s OK for a Catholic to try to talk a Non–Catholic into becoming a Catholic then it’s OK for a Non–Catholic to try to talk a Catholic into becoming a Non–Catholic.
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HAHA no. Trust me they get really sensitive about people trying to convert Catholics, just try to correct MISCONCEPTIONS about a non-Catholic faith is seen as a conversion attempt. Being to good at debates can also land you in hot water.
 
Guyonthestreet said:
Ok maybe not.

It appears that when you strip out all the plagiarized material in your posts, all that’s left is rudeness, insult and lack of charity.

I’m sad for you.

I will keep you in my prayers.
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Will you please get over it?? I don’t plagerize and I resent you for saying this. There are numbers of people here who take paragraphs and stories from accredible sources because that’s what you do in order to learn things…🤷
Like I said, worry about you own soul. You have not an ounce of charity on these forums. I do not need any prayers from you. You have a serious problem. Who died and made you boss??
 
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