StawberryJam: I am missing the connection between these marketing ploys you link to, with the Foursquare church. But I checked the site linked and did a quick search for “foursquare” on the main page linked. I found nothing. The
wikipedia article on the Foursquare Church carries no mention of jewels, and most of their statements of belief as given there fit Catholic Orthodoxy with the necessary qualifiers.
To everyone: I have no doubt that many Protestants (see CARM) go overboard in how they view Catholics, and that this probably includes, as attested in the experience of some of the posters in this thread, some of the Foursquare people of varying official capacity. I guess I was left wondering if the notion implied by some here, that the Foursquare Church teaches Catholics are damned, is actually true of that church in its official capacity, or not. So, I did some research and found
this, their official declaration of faith in fuller form, on their
official website. I do not find anything there which by direct implication suggests that Catholics are damned; therefore pending further evidence I’m not sure it’s been established that this is really what they teach
as a church. It is probably, sadly, true that certain, perhaps many, of their pastors preach this.
But to pretend that this is the official teaching of their church on that basis, would be akin to, though certainly not the same level of error as, a Protestant acting as if the official church interpretation of
extra ecclesiam nulla sullus was “Protestants are damned,” just because some Catholics voice an opinion to that effect. It’s an understandable error in either case, and though nothing in official Foursquare teaching appears to actually speak against it (as there are official Vatican nuances against harsh interpretations of
extra ecclesiam, it is in both cases a false conclusion from the data given.
EDIT: BONUS: I looked through some of their web-site with the keyword “Catholic.” While I do think it’s clear that they view Catholicism as an inferior form of Christianity, it is not clear to me that they view Catholics as being non-Christians and/or damned; some of their documents seem to go in that direction in places, but the language is muddy enough that if a Four-Square person wanted to, I don’t think they’d have to go that far. If anyone has any other links to official documents that could shed more light on that issue, I’d love to see them, because I’m deeply curious. /end EDIT
P.S. Strawberry: I shall pray that God continues to guide you towards the Truth of our Lord!
