Evangelical writes "why are all my smart friends becoming catholic"

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Adamski;10713301]Below is a link of a interesting article
  1. Despite the glossy pictures Scott Hahn, and most other Evangelicals-turned-Catholics, paint of the Catholic Church, the grass is never greener on the other side. Just watch the news.
Wolves in sheep’s clothing and scandals were both predicted by our Savior, both of which are found in all churches regardless of denomination. Jesus only promised one thing: doctrinal truth, as per the holy Bible - John 16.
  1. Nothing annoys cradle Catholics and alienates Evangelicals more than an eager beaver Evangelical-turned-Catholic: they tend to be unbendingly dogmatic (“The magisterium says it, I believe it, that settles it”), liturgically strict (“I’ve got a fever, and the only prescription is more incense”), and fundamentally evangelical in attempting to convert their friends and family, not to mention prideful of discovering “the true Church.”
Unbendingly dogmatic i.e. obedient to Jesus’ church, just as the bible tells us. One of many examples: “Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you.”

The incense comment is rather silly and insulting, as if that is the primary reason…So is the prideful comment… 🤷
  1. The Eucharist is the sacrament of unity. But, it is the beginning of unity, not the end, as if Jesus were some prize who is withheld until one bends the knee to a certain list of criteria. Do a husband and wife agree on everything before they consummate their relationship? No. So why is it asserted that ecclesial relationships must matter on all points of doctrine before unity is consummated in the Eucharist?
No strict criteria. Simply stated: My flesh is real food…my blood is real drink… Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life…For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.
  1. Simply replacing Evangelical individualism with Catholic hierarchical structure doesn’t solve all your Evangelical frustrations. It just creates a different set.
The first is a sola-scriptura mindset, found nowhere within the pages of the NT. The second is clearly scriptural…No problems, if in fact, a person is willing to put their trust in Jesus and His ability to ineffably guide His church and protect His Body from the gates of hell: Matthew 16.
  1. Appealing to the early Church as a water-tight apologetic for all things Catholic is not straightforward.
Why not, would be my question?
What you do with the early Church is a matter of prudent retrieval of the tradition and not an undeniable apologetic “proof” that Rome is right. History is more complex than it seems.
Prudence - absolutely. Logically, what those closest to the apostolic age believed is certainly more important than what those Christians, 1500, 1700, 1800 years removed from the apostolic age, believed.
  1. Lots of Protestants become Orthodox and believe they have found the “true” Church. Lots of Orthodox have become Catholics (and vice versa) and thought the same. And lots of Catholics and Orthodox have become Protestants and thought the same.
So why not complain about those cases too. LOL…
  1. Don’t assume that becoming Catholic is as easy as switching from a Baptist to a Vineyard church. It requires a complete change of mind-set, assumptions, actions, language, and obedience.
You betcha…
  1. I cannot bend to considering other Christians churches as merely ecclesial communities and nothing more.
Agree, just as the CCC reminds us. Just genuine churches established by mere men well after the apostolic age, basing their beliefs on sola scriptura.
  1. Think all your vexations about Evangelical worship will be solved? Search YouTube for “Clown Mass” or “Star Trek Mass” and think again.
Abuses have always existed; always will, e.g. the indulgence abuses. Is that reason enough to give up on Jesus’ one church and His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist, in favor of a man-made church that will also experience their share of abuses, on some level?
  1. Christianity is the sum total of a rich and generous retrieval of the Great Tradition, from the Early Church to the present day, not a singular expression of any one particular tradition.
Rich and generous retrieval of the Great Tradition = truth is relative.

Singular expression = the opposite, thanks to the perpetual guidance of God in terms of preserving and transmitting doctrinal church via Jesus’ church, to which He is the Head and Savior.
 
I’m not really sure how to react the article, I find it a bit aggressive. The article seems to sneer at Evangelicals converting to Catholicism, but then fails to properly address why that phenomenon happens.

Yes, new converts to Catholicism are going to be especially passionate or radical in their beliefs. But then again that is true of all converts to any faith. New converts to Evangelicalism can be just as zealous as a new Catholic.

Yes, there are clown and Star Trek masses. And certainly, this has to be addressed, as does the fact that a lot of masses (from what I’ve witnessed) seem bland and empty. But that’s not a sufficient reason to reject conversion. There are Evangelical worship services that do things I’ve found horrifying.

I also think that the writer completely failed to address the point of the Church Fathers. It’s not enough to just dismiss them as being “part of a great Christian tradition” and nothing more. If we want to know what the Church should be, we would presumably want to be as close as to what Christ intended. Wouldn’t therefore, what the early Christians believed and taught, be the expression of Christianity we would follow, since the faith was once and for all handed to the saints? Wouldn’t what they believed then be most likely what we should believe?

Perhaps not. Perhaps Evangelicalism is correct. But I’d like a good reason on why a theology that only originated in the 1700s would somehow be more accurate than the faith expressed by the earliest Christians. You can’t simply state “oh history is complex” and ignore the question.
 
So you can see where the article is coming from here is a video of the author’s pastor
At minute 3-4 he misrepresents confession to a priest

Check out this video on YouTube:

youtube.com/watch?v=JHXGHxr1B8Y&feature=youtube_gdata_player
:hypno: I just don’t know what to think of the phenomenon of people learning about truth from outside sources, in this case, about the Catholic Church from an ex-Catholic.🤷

Did you catch the metaphor of rehab being our worldly purgatory? :eek:

The confusion and apprehension from the OP blog reference is now completely understood.:rolleyes:
 
I found the article was written by someone who didn’t quite get it. Before I became Catholic I tried finding an Evangelical view of early church history. Basically Evangelicals assume that Christianity started in 1517 and ignore the 1500 years in between. There is more then “Augustine and Aquinas.” I wanted a logical historical continuity from Jesus to Calvin. It is not there, but I have had my Evangelical friends deny that or say it didn’t matter.

I learned to not appreciate the anti-intellectualism of Evangelicalism. I could go about other matters but that isn’t the whole of why I converted. I find I am thinking more and more like a Catholic.

In re: the YouTube video can someone explain to me why ex-Catholics have such a different view of Church teachings then what the Church teaches? :eek: That explanation of confession is what I have experienced or have been taught. Sorry for rambling.🤷
 
In re: the YouTube video can someone explain to me why ex-Catholics have such a different view of Church teachings then what the Church teaches? :eek: That explanation of confession is what I have experienced or have been taught. Sorry for rambling.🤷
He portrays the confession as somewhat a truthful experience until he gets to what the priest says. He says the priest says “I declare you forgiven, I forgive you”. This is incorrect form which you can look up.

The question will always remain did the priest actually say these words, which I guess could be possible and would be tragic, or is this guy misrepresenting what his priest actually said to help make the point of his sermon? Either way, the misrepresentation this video presents is damaging to orthodoxy.

Peace!!!
 
  1. Catholic girls are gorgeous.
I believe this is one evidence of many that supports the truth of the Catholic Church. Women with the true Faith are far more gorgeous than those without. 👍 😉
 
In re: the YouTube video can someone explain to me why ex-Catholics have such a different view of Church teachings then what the Church teaches? :eek:
That is a profound question today; Every ex-catholic I have come across always has a different view of the Catholic Church and her teachings.

I recall one ex-catholic who was convinced that he never once heard the gospel read or taught in Mass, and that Catholics don’t learn from the bible at Mass, another said he never got anything out of going to Mass.

From my experience these ex-catholics hardly ever attended Mass, and or goofed off during their catechism classes, or were poorly catechised.

These ex-catholics somehow find their way into a protestant or evangelical church, they become motivated and entertained by the thundering preachers who teach them what their past Catholic Church teaches and believes. Thus these ex-catholics come back to us practicing Catholics and try to convince us, that what their non-catholic preacher taught them about what the Catholic church believes and practices is wrong. The ex-catholic should know better because the ex-catholic used to be a catholic.

We engage these ex-catholics who make the claim how long they were Catholic and how they recieved all their sacraments etc… and how Jesus changed their lives around and Jesus took them out of the Catholic Church, the whore of babylon and placed them in a non-catholic church that teaches from the bible.

The born again ex-catholic begin to falsely inform Catholics that what we believe is wrong, that we should stop worshipping idols and statues, and Mary was never a Virgin because Jesus had brothers, and then the ex-catholic will say, when I was a Catholic I used to do all these things such as worship the virgin Mary and pray to statues and worship idols like the bread and the wine.

In short the ex-cathoilc never got his catechesis from the Catholic Church, the ex-catholic got his false view of the Catholic Church from his/her non-catholic “christian” Church.

Peace be with you
 
People who do not study the scripture and believe on it have a hard time accepting God’s plan of salvation. They tend to bounce around from denomination to denomination looking for the word or men rather than the Word of God.

God’s Plan of Salvation:

Mark 16: 15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.

ROM 10:9 because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Ephesians 2:8
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God

Many Churches today will not correct their doctrinal errors.

2 Timothy 3:16
All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
 
Mike SoCal;10722993]People who do not study the scripture and believe on it have a hard time accepting God’s plan of salvation. They tend to bounce around from denomination to denomination looking for the word or men rather than the Word of God.
God’s Plan of Salvation:
Mark 16: 15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.
Mark reveals Jesus commissioning the 11 apostles the infant church. Notice that Jesus attaches the condition of baptism to faith (believes).

In the same episode John has Jesus breathing on them and giving them the power to forgive sins, while from the synoptic Gospel of Matthew has Jesus possessing all power in heaven and on earth commissioning the apostles and giving them the formula of the baptism to baptise all nations.

If Peter and the apostles are the unified Church in Christ as one? And 1Timothy 3:15 reveals that this Church is the pillar and foundation of Truth.

Taking all of scripture and not setting one aside; Where is that Church today that Jesus founded upon Peter and the Apostles Matthew 16:16-19?
ROM 10:9 because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
To confess Jesus with one’s lips as Lord was against the Jewish law and secular power. What Romans is teaching is the confession each Christian makes that Jesus is their Lord that is attached to baptism, which Catholics having been making this profession of faith with baptism from our creed since apostolic times. In order to be saved Jesus says one needs both the profession of faith and baptism. The confession of faith does not save alone.
Ephesians 2:8
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God
Amen, that is why after our profession of faith in Jesus, we recieve the sacrament of Jesus baptism in the blesssed trinity formula, for it is Jesus via the sacrament of baptism that saves us, it is never our doing.
Many Churches today will not correct their doctrinal errors.
If you recieved your doctrine directly from Jesus and his apostles in the Holy Spirit, then there is never need to change what is Rock because a Rock cannot change on it’s own, when it is God himself who gives the gift of the Rock to His Church.

If your doctrine is proved to come from man/woman then it is these doctrines that moved by every wind of doctrine and are subject to change.
2 Timothy 3:16
All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness
Amen, but let us not forget the Traditions that were first given to us long before the New Testament was written and were handed down to us from the apostles themselves;

1Corinthians11:1 Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. 2 I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold fast to the traditions, just as I handed them on to you. see also 2 Thes.2:15, and 2 Thes.3:6

Peace be with you
 
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