Friend with Made Up Gospel

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Pixle_Catholic

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I always wondered this…

I have a friend who is extremely Bible Christian. He submits to no denomination/church and has, in the most basic sense, made up his own faith from his understandings of the Bible. (It is very inaccurate)

He so often try’s to explain to me how I’m wrong as a Catholic. That the Catholic Church was created by the devil and the next pope shall be the anti-Christ.

So, here’s my question. Would his sureness and trust in this ‘gospel’ he follows count toward him as righteousness? For trying his best to convert people to what he believes to be true about God?

Does the church even have a position on situations like this?
 
The Church might recognize him as a “separated brethren”, a term used for Protestants or those who’ve become separated from the Church, generally as a result of the foundation laid by the Reformers centuries ago who held heretical positions and caused widespread division within-or from- the true Church. As such he could still be “imperfectly united” to the Church that he apparently hates. IMO God would recognize and could still be pleased by his faith, even though it’s not particularly well informed. There’s lots of pop-mythology out there in any case and little that’s more detrimental to the unity of Christian beliefs than another maverick and his bible.
 
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Pixle_Catholic said:
Would his sureness and trust in this ‘gospel’ he follows count toward him as righteousness? For trying his best to convert people to what he believes to be true about God?

Does the church even have a position on situations like this?
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CS Lewis (an Anglican) had an interesting illustration in one of his novels about the limitations of relying on ‘honest motives’ to save us in the end.

I believe Lewis’s phrase is: “Honest motives dishonestly come by.”

Basically… like how culpability for a sin might be reduced (or even obviated) if we were drugged against our will with some substance that induced us to commit a certain evil. But if we knowingly, willingly take said substance, knowing in advance that there’s a risk it will induce us to certain evil action? We become culpable for those later actions even if we’re technically ‘out of our minds’ at the time we commit them. Because we weren’t ‘out of our minds’ when we chose to take the substance that would send us out of our minds.

The thing is, you’re a human third party here. You’re not in a position to judge whether your friend has arrived at his current religious convictions (however sincerely held now) through purely honest motives, or (at some point or points in the domino chain) through dishonest motives. That’s a tangled mess for God to help him sort through. Your friend may well be righteous indeed (according to the best he’s been given the graces to achieve)… or he may not be. You, personally, probably aren’t going to find out the answer to that on this side of the grave (unless, e.g., your friend has a radical conversion, experiences sudden insight about his past motives, and shares them with you). Your lot is to keep praying for him, I’d expect. And be willing to keep sharing the truths of Catholicism with him, if the moment seems appropriate. But recognize that yes, your friend is on his own journey with God, and in the end, God will judge him (and your friend will acknowledge whatever judgement as just at that time; no one at the final judgement fails to see our own culpability for sin, even if we sneakily conceal or willfully forget certain of our sins before the grave).

If you’re curious about the novel (maybe your friend might even like it) it’s called 'The Great Divorce’.
 
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I feel bad for your friend. It is great in one sense to be the Lone Ranger; you can make up your Christianity to suit yourself. In another and larger sense it is tragic. You run the risk of living within a form of Christianity no bigger than your own mind, unwittingly fenced in by your own prejudices, blind spots, mistaken impressions and intellectual limits.

I loved my years in evangelicalism. But the power of one individual to shape (and inadvertently restrict) the faith always left me frustrated. Faith in the Catholic world is so big, so much more than any one human mind can wrap itself around. And God seems so much bigger here than when I was evangelical.

I like having a God (and a church) far bigger than I can wrap my mind around. We will find Him endlessly fascinating forever.
 
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I’ve noticed that Christians that leave their church to form their own version…always find a Christianity that agrees with them 100%. It’s just amazing how so many others don’t see it their way…so many great theologians got so much wrong and hoodwinked so many millions. Just amazing, yes? 😱😱😱
 
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