Help Preacher Tryn' To Save Me

[mercygate]

Fundamentalist Evangelical Catholic. I like it!

Exactly! Right on the same page as B-16.

 

[theweeper]

okay i’m not a teen and i am a girl. but the preacher is a friend of a friend who is worried about my soul 'cuz i want to join the Church. here is our next email
it was very nice to read your responses.

can you give me dates, documents, or any writings that support this line of thinking?<

I am not sure what line of thinking you mean. I am not trying to persuade or dissuade you from anything.

Since you have internet access, you could likely look up much of the history online. I just typed “catholic canon” into a search engine and came up with this site (which is a Roman Catholic site):

newadvent.org/cathen/15030c.htm

Most all of the “divisions” that exist between “Protestant” and “Roman Catholic” churches are a result of the Council of Trent and protestant responses to that council, which you can read about at that site.

I have books you can peruse, but the answers to the questions you are wanting answered are fairly complicated and involved, and really what you have asked has not begun to scratch the surface of the differences between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. For the record, I do not consider myself a protestant as I am not protesting anything. I simply advocate biblical faith in Christ.

I think you stated earlier why you were considering Roman Catholicism, that God was calling you to that. If that is the case, then that is where you should be. He perhaps wants to use you in that venue, but history is what it is and is not subject to our preferences…either catholic or protestant. Both movements have at the same time done great and terrible things in the name of Christ. The practice of Christianity has never always been consistent with what the Bible teaches (catholic or protestant), and that is really the issue, what is the Holy Spirit teaching you as you study His Word?

It is He that will lead you into all righteousness, so if this move is His leading, go with that.

 

[J_Beau]

Wow … you need to put some writings of the early church fathers in this guys hands. I bet he might be open to it.

 

[mercygate]

okay i’m not a teen and i am a girl. but the preacher is a friend of a friend who is worried about my soul 'cuz i want to join the Church. here is our next email
it was very nice to read your responses.

can you give me dates, documents, or any writings that support this line of thinking?<

This guy seems pretty cool. His history is cockeyed but his heart isn’t poisoned. He’s right. You can find this history pretty easily on the Internet and a lot of it is on Catholic Answers home page in the library section.

Be nice to this guy. He may need you one day!

 

[Sinke]

Well, preacher is at least not harash in his interpretations.
However, let’s stick to the topic of apologetics…

can you give me dates, documents, or any writings that support this line of thinking?<

I am not sure what line of thinking you mean. I am not trying to persuade or dissuade you from anything.

Since you have internet access, you could likely look up much of the history online. I just typed “catholic canon” into a search engine and came up with this site (which is a Roman Catholic site):

newadvent.org/cathen/15030c.htm

Most all of the “divisions” that exist between “Protestant” and “Roman Catholic” churches are a result of the Council of Trent and protestant responses to that council, which you can read about at that site.

This “site” is actually an online version of Catholic Encyclopedia. While you are free to research given article, I doubt this will help if you are not much into History or Theology. To make a long story short: Council of Trent is where Catholics said Protestants aren’t part of their Church and that their beliefs are in contradiction with the Bible. What Protestants wanted is removal of certain parts of the Bible which were strong in affirming Catholic beliefs of purgatory and prayer for the dead ( which Protestants don’t have ). Catholics refused to accept this change and because of that the Bible of the Catholics is the same as the Bible of the apostoles, while Protestants lacks certain parts.

Preacher, in original post, said

" Therefore, such books as 1 and 2 Maccabees do not appear in the protestant Bible. However, as I mentioned, those books and several others were not canonized by the Roman Catholic Church until after the Reformation began.

This is not true. His lack of success to provide evidence that Bible was Protestant-like before the Reformation is the proof he is either ignorant or ignoring facts.

Catholics, on the other side, can give tons of documents and historical facts that Bible in the Catholic Church is the same since beginning of the Christianity. To read these facts, go here:
catholic.com/library/Old_Testament_Canon.asp

I have books you can peruse, but the answers to the questions you are wanting answered are fairly complicated and involved, and really what you have asked has not begun to scratch the surface of the differences between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. For the record, I do not consider myself a protestant as I am not protesting anything. I simply advocate biblical faith in Christ.

If he read those books, he should have better arguments. As for being not Protestant- I guess Lutheran fundamentalists ( Lutherans were the “original” Protestants ) can easily say only they are true Protestants and everybody else is just people who have a very strange idea of what Reformation is all about.

Protestant is every person which accepts Luther’s interpretation of Christianity. They were protesting during the Reformation, and because of that they are named “Protestants”- they are not named today for their protests. They believe that you can be saved only by accepting Jesus ( not leading your life how Christ taught ) and that Bible is the only way to understand Christianity generally.

I think you stated earlier why you were considering Roman Catholicism, that God was calling you to that. If that is the case, then that is where you should be. He perhaps wants to use you in that venue, but history is what it is and is not subject to our preferences…either catholic or protestant. Both movements have at the same time done great and terrible things in the name of Christ. The practice of Christianity has never always been consistent with what the Bible teaches (catholic or protestant), and that is really the issue, what is the Holy Spirit teaching you as you study His Word?

It is He that will lead you into all righteousness, so if this move is His leading, go with that.

This is nice to hear. Do what he claimed, but if you have problems reading Bible consider Catholic teachings before preacher’s. There are many Catholic webpages, and you can always post here! I wish you blessing in your Christian life , and I hope we will all be in Heaven one day- preacher included. Why not?