Fellow Protestants, please help...

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sdenko said:
Wow. So much for me finding much help on these boards.

I come on here, yes, as a closet Catholic, but a very reluctant Closet Catholic at that.

Since I’ve grown up in the Baptist church I’ve been inundated with the notion that Catholics are not saved and are destined to eternal damnation. However, now I’m not so sure of that premise.

The case remains, however, is that I don’t want to become Catholic if it does not possess the Truth of God. That being said, so far, everything that I have read has convinced me that the Catholic Church is the one true holy apostolic church. Nonetheless, there is still the reluctant part of me to essentially go against everything I was led to believe when I was younger. So in a sense, no I don’t want to become Catholic (which is why I merely posted on these boards to ask a question of fellow Protestants to help me explain away these quotes in hopes of proving them wrong…instead I get criticized for “spending too much time on Father Luther”…whatever that means)

I didn’t start this topic to debate anyone. I just started to ask a simple question of help from Protestants to understand these quotes which I had found and to help me explain them away as nonsense or to be confronted with the reality that Luther said these.

I’ve found neither.

Oh well…I’ll try elsewhere.
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Welcome to the “kicking and screaming” club! – those of us who come into the Church “kicking and screaming” because although we pray, “Lord, I will do whatever you want me to do and go wherever you want me to go,” we hold the reservation in our hearts "as long as it’s not the Catholic Church. But then, we’re pretty safe because we KNOW that the Catholic Church is absolutely out of the question.

Then one day, we surrender. We pick up the phone and make that call that changes our lives forever.

It took me decades. No two people are on the same time schedule with this. People who have not experienced the depth of anti-Catholic sentiment in some Protestant traditions have NO IDEA how ingrained this is, how it clouds our reason. Truly, only the grace of God can extract us.

God love you!
 
sdenko said:
Hi, I am a protestant who is very much interested in the Catholic Church yet at the same time I am hesitant because I have almost always understood the Catholic Church to be not Christian. Please help me understand these quotes from Maritn Luther. They seem to be very contradictory to what most people portray ML as. I’m just trying to figure out if I’m misinterpreting these quotes.

Thank you!
If indeed these words came out of Maritn Luther, then how can I claim to be following the Truth when I am part of a movement that was not intended by the originator? These quotes are thoroughly convicting me and I am hoping there is a logical explanation for these!
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Sdenko,

Welcome, I am also a protestant who is looking home.

Here are my (limited) thoughts about these quotes:
sdenko said:
“I never approved of a schism nor will I approve of it for all eternity…That the Roman Catholic Church is more honored by God than all others is not to be doubted…Though nowdays everything is in a wretched state, it is no ground for separating from the Church. On the contrary, the worse things are going the more should we hold close to her, for it is not by separating from the Church that we can make her better…There is no sin, no amount of evil, which should be permitted to dissolve the bond of charity or break the body of unity of the body.” (letter of Martin Luther to Pope Leo , January 6, 1519, more than a year after the Ninety-Five Theses; quoted by Patrick O’Hare in The Facts about Luther, 356)
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Luther was protesting what he saw as abuses of power. Much as in the movie “Dogma” the definition of a Papal Indulgence was misunderstood as was the use of a Pardon. Luther did not intend to be schismatic or a heretic, but he went about it the wrong way. Just as we are warned not to show the effects of fasting to our fellows less that be our only reward, Luther went public with his theses instead of taking them up within the Church and thus gained his reward in this world instead of the next. Many of his theses had merit but were overstated and involved items that were not direct policies of the Vatican but were instead were abuses at the far ends of Christiandom. But by seeking fame by a bold public act, Luther threw out the baby with the bath, to over use a metaphor.
sdenko said:
“We concede––as we must––that so much of what they [the Catholic Church] say is true: that the papacy has God’s word and the office of the apostles, and hat we have received Holy Scriptures, Baptism, the Sacrament, and the pulpit from them. What would we know of these if it were not from them?”
(Sermons on the Gospel of John chaps. 14-16 (1537), in vol. 24 of Luther’s Works [St Louis, Mo.: Concordia, 1961], 304)
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Luther was an educated man who knew the truth of the Church. His issues are not new today and neither are his solutions. I’ve a cousin who belongs to a church that is a schism from a schism from the Southern Baptist church. They and other got mad at the minister and left to form their own church and thus became schismatics from a schism from a schism from a schism. Christ commanded that a Church should be formed, not that we created a few thousands and see what we like in each.

To carry Luther’s logic to it’s own conclusion is to find oneself in a lifeless hole of insanity and nonsense. Luther was educated by the Catholic Church. He then set about creating a schism from Mother Church. By doing so he set about denying the authority of Rome, but without the authority of Rome, he himself would have no education capable of making enough theological sense to make that evaluation.
In essence: Rome taught me right from wrong. I have decided that Rome does not know right from wrong. Listen to me because I know right from wrong because Rome taught me right from wrong.

Bryan
 
Reformed said:
Are you saying your church pot lucks are not very fun?
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:rotfl:
Definitely.
Pentecostal potlucks “potfaiths” were the bomb.

Of course we have donuts.

I recently visited the parish I grew up at.
After evening Mass, wine and cheese.
How cool is that? 😃
 
sdenko said:
Hi, I am a protestant who is very much interested in the Catholic Church yet at the same time I am hesitant because I have almost always understood the Catholic Church to be not Christian. Please help me understand these quotes from Maritn Luther. They seem to be very contradictory to what most people portray ML as. I’m just trying to figure out if I’m misinterpreting these quotes.

Thank you!
“We concede––as we must––that so much of what they [the Catholic Church] say is true: that the papacy has God’s word and the office of the apostles, and hat we have received Holy Scriptures, Baptism, the Sacrament, and the pulpit from them. What would we know of these if it were not from them?”
(Sermons on the Gospel of John chaps. 14-16 (1537), in vol. 24 of Luther’s Works [St Louis, Mo.: Concordia, 1961], 304)

“I never approved of a schism nor will I approve of it for all eternity…That the Roman Catholic Church is more honored by God than all others is not to be doubted…Though nowdays everything is in a wretched state, it is no ground for separating from the Church. On the contrary, the worse things are going the more should we hold close to her, for it is not by separating from the Church that we can make her better…There is no sin, no amount of evil, which should be permitted to dissolve the bond of charity or break the body of unity of the body.” (letter of Martin Luther to Pope Leo , January 6, 1519, more than a year after the Ninety-Five Theses; quoted by Patrick O’Hare in The Facts about Luther, 356).
If indeed these words came out of Maritn Luther, then how can I claim to be following the Truth when I am part of a movement that was not intended by the originator? These quotes are thoroughly convicting me and I am hoping there is a logical explanation for these!
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A great Deal of What Martin Luther said is taken out of context. Just watch the News today the media miss qoutes people all the time. God Chose Martin Luther to reform the Church. 500 years latter we still have Apolgist miss qouting Luther because if and when they do they can sell more of their books and CD’s Every catholic family has a memeber that has left the Church or has Protestant in laws So If the Catholic apologist can rally the troops by attacking non Catholics every protestant son in law in the country is going to get a Catholic Dvd For Christmas.
 
sdenko said:
Wow. So much for me finding much help on these boards.

I come on here, yes, as a closet Catholic, but a very reluctant Closet Catholic at that.

Since I’ve grown up in the Baptist church I’ve been inundated with the notion that Catholics are not saved and are destined to eternal damnation. However, now I’m not so sure of that premise.

The case remains, however, is that I don’t want to become Catholic if it does not possess the Truth of God. That being said, so far, everything that I have read has convinced me that the Catholic Church is the one true holy apostolic church. Nonetheless, there is still the reluctant part of me to essentially go against everything I was led to believe when I was younger. So in a sense, no I don’t want to become Catholic (which is why I merely posted on these boards to ask a question of fellow Protestants to help me explain away these quotes in hopes of proving them wrong…instead I get criticized for “spending too much time on Father Luther”…whatever that means)

I didn’t start this topic to debate anyone. I just started to ask a simple question of help from Protestants to understand these quotes which I had found and to help me explain them away as nonsense or to be confronted with the reality that Luther said these.

I’ve found neither.

Oh well…I’ll try elsewhere.
Click to expand...
I thought I explained what that meant fairly well.
One true holy catholic Church? Well you only got a couple of options on that IF THAT is your starting point. You take a creed and find a church that fits it? You need to come out. You are already a Catholic if that is your starting point. If you hate the idea join the Oriental Orthodox or Eastern Orthodox then.
 
Poor Sdenko. I don’t know why our Protestant brethren go off track like that, but it happens a lot. Shame on me for being uncharitable; it happens to us, too. Some threads stay on track for days; others get de-railed with the 2nd or 3rd post.

Don’t give up! lurk awhile on the apologetics boards and you’ll learn that we are indeed Christians, and like most other churches, we have our pew-warmers, our over-reactors, our members with the name but not the attitude, or the name but not the knowledge. And we all have our good days and our bad ones.

The Catholic church, being some 2000 years old, has a lot of depth. There’s a lot to learn if you want to know her really well. But the thing that brought me to her is that she is the most Christ-centered church there is. It’s all about Jesus, the sacrifice He made for us, and the things He taught. That’s what I was looking for, and here is where I found it.

Welcome to CAF!

God bless you,

Ruthie
 
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