Evangelicals & Catholics Together

[Bennie_P]

Have any others read this statement; Evangelicals & Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium and the follow up statements?

It’s full text can be found at firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=4454

What do you think of it?

Before I decided to come into full communion with the Catholic church, my protestant pastor gave me a copy of it to show me that my leanings toward the Catholic Church were OK in his eyes. (I was raised as a Baptist, but I’m married to a Catholic, since 1987, now my wife is married to a Catholic too.) At the time I was attending a class he was teaching about what our church taught about faith and salvation.

During that period my faith was growing and I was seeking deeper understanding on what I believed, and my family was attending church at our Parish and at my church at the time, real busy Sunday mornings, since I was also a Sunday School teacher at the time. The Pastor knew this and he flat out told me it is alright to be Catholic, and that my family should be attending one Church together.

This is just one of the factors in my decisions to come into full communion.

That same month I started attending RCIA. April 15th will be my first Anniversary in being in full communion.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Welcome home!

I have worked in the vineyard with an evangelical. I was very favourably impressed with his humility, solid knowledge of the Gospel, and team spiritedness.

I have attempted to work in the vineyard with other Catholics. Often I have been impressed by the abundance of personal agenda, lack of knowledge of the Gospel, and lack of team spiritedness.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that Catholics are like this. They aren’t. I know there are many faithful, willing Catholics.

What makes it so difficult for them is a layer of dissenting so-called Catholic laity who want to run things but who are not interested in finding out what it is they are running. I have found the pro-life movement and the educational system infected with this spirit. Unfortunately.

 

[Della]

Many Evangelicals are coming to a better understanding of the teachings of the Catholic Church, but certainly not all. Nor are all, Catholics and Evangelicals, open to seeing one another as fellow Christians–there are Fundamentalists on both sides who have put themselves above their respective leadership/Magisterium to judge their fellow believers as “doomed to hell” because they differ in beliefs.

I am astonished, but glad your former Evangelical pastor approved your becoming Catholic and put no obstacles in your way. Most of those on this forum who left Evangelical churches for the Catholic Church did not have such a good experience. Let us hope that more Evangelicals see the validity of Catholic teaching and practice. It might mean the reintegration of many of them into the Church, may it please God.

 

[Bennie_P]

Many Evangelicals are coming to a better understanding of the teachings of the Catholic Church, but certainly not all. Nor are all, Catholics and Evangelicals, open to seeing one another as fellow Christians–there are Fundamentalists on both sides who have put themselves above their respective leadership/Magisterium to judge their fellow believers as “doomed to hell” because they differ in beliefs.

I am astonished, but glad your former Evangelical pastor approved your becoming Catholic and put no obstacles in your way. Most of those on this forum who left Evangelical churches for the Catholic Church did not have such a good experience. Let us hope that more Evangelicals see the validity of Catholic teaching and practice. It might mean the reintegration of many of them into the Church, may it please God.

Sometimes, I think he is himself on the Journey Home. There are many from my previous church that were stunned that I made the journey, but many are very understanding. One thing that has happen though is that I get alot of “ex-Catholics” coming to talk with me about my journey. I still have good relationship with the men from a men’s prayer group I once was in and I still meet with many them for coffee and talk on a semi-regular basis. God is good.

 

[Dale_M]

Have any others read this statement; Evangelicals & Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium and the follow up statements?

It is vital that Evangelicals and Catholics (and Orthodox and all Protestants) come together to serve Christ. To quote the document:

There is a necessary connection between the visible unity of Christians and the mission of the one Christ. We together pray for the fulfillment of the prayer of Our Lord: “May they all be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, so also may they be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.” (John 17)

*n our so-called developed societies, a widespread secularization increasingly descends into a moral, intellectual, and spiritual nihilism that denies not only the One who is the Truth but the very idea of truth itself.

We enter the twenty-first century without illusions. With Paul and the Christians of the first century, we know that “we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6) As Evangelicals and Catholics, we dare not by needless and loveless conflict between ourselves give aid and comfort to the enemies of the cause of Christ. *

 

[Brian_C]

I have found most of my Evangelical friends and family very receptive of my conversion a year ago. About the most difficult thing to explain is the Eucharist…but even more so is my Holy Hour in the Adoration Chapel…

“You go to Church at 12 am to do what???” is a common response. But when you explain the biblical basis for belief in the Real Presence, it silences most folks objections, I’ve found. I’ve often wondered what the former pastor of my former Baptist church (now Provost at a Southern Baptist college) would think…

But most people I know measure the person and not the denomination…

I’m glad this seems to be the case with me, at least. Orthodox Catholics and the various denoms and even other faiths need to cooperate to fight radical secularism.