How attractive is catholicism?

[akilan_i]

Hi All,

Recent days, In southern India, I see lot of conversion and affinity towards protestant and its related groups. Reason is, protestant evangelists are more pragamatic. Thier preachings are attractive and consoles troubling minds. I watched their prayer broadcasted in regional television(owned by StarTv). How catholic church is going to handle this? In fact,Catholic chruch is doing lot more service to people than protestant brothers.

-Akilan

 

[ckempston]

Hi All,

Recent days, In southern India, I see lot of conversion and affinity towards protestant and its related groups. Reason is, protestant evangelists are more pragamatic. Thier preachings are attractive and consoles troubling minds. I watched their prayer broadcasted in regional television(owned by StarTv). How catholic church is going to handle this? In fact,Catholic chruch is doing lot more service to people than protestant brothers.

-Akilan

Really? I tend to think that Catholics are more pragmatic than Protestants on the whole, though I’m not Catholic. I agree with your assessment that some evangelical churches are emotionally fulfilling, but emotional fulfillment does not equal truth. Nor does doing more than anyone else.

I tend to think that God is moving to make men reach out and perhaps find him from both Protestant and Catholic churches, and it shouldn’t be looked at as a competition. You can only worry about what you yourself are doing to do God’s will. He’ll work out all the other details.

 

[rep140]

I agree with your assessment that some evangelical churches are emotionally fulfilling, but emotional fulfillment does not equal truth.

I couldn’t agree more. I think that the Catholic liturgy directs your thoughts away from yourself and towards Christ and The Father, which is where they ought to be. Evangelical
preaching that I have heard directs my thoughts toward me, which is not where the truth is going to be found.

 

[grace_singh]

i would say it’s about the preaching. many Protestant denominations and churches come in, preach the Gospel very simply and basically, emphasize a personal relationship with Christ, and also serve the poor and needy while sharing Christ with them.

other churches (including Protestant ones) have come in and emphaisized the church itself (participation in sacrements, attending worship services, the authority of the church hierarchy) as what one needs to be grafted to as a Christian, and from what i understand this tends to strike people as a bit colonial and authoritarian.

whereas other churches simply preach Christ, emphasize a personal relationship with Him, emphasize repentance and discipleship, may demonstate miraculous healings in Jesus’ Name through prayer for individuals, may even heal people from demonic power in the Name of Jesus, and distribute Bibles and tracts for people to read at their leisure. the emphasis is more on Christianity on a personal level, not so much Christianity through the Church.

 

[fisherman_carl]

I don’t see any problem here. There was a member on here that said in his signature quoting someone, “I wish that ever person would become a Christian and that every Christian a Catholic.” That’s about sums up how I feel about it. But I would add the words of Jesus, ‘that they all may be one’. Ideally, we would all be one, Catholic (universal), holy church.

 

[surritter]

Many forms of Protestantism appeal to emotion, which is not necessarily wrong.

However, Catholicism appeals more to the intellect.

People on this Earth know there is something about humanity that is injured. Of course, Jesus is the answer to that. But we can either preach a “be baptized and be saved instantly” emotional appeal, or we can preach about baptism and the continual growth in a relationship with Jesus and His Church.

I think if all the issues are laid out, Catholicism will win the intellect and the emotional needs.

 

[graceandglory]

Hi All,

Recent days, In southern India, I see lot of conversion and affinity towards protestant and its related groups. Reason is, protestant evangelists are more pragamatic. Thier preachings are attractive and consoles troubling minds. I watched their prayer broadcasted in regional television(owned by StarTv). How catholic church is going to handle this? In fact,Catholic chruch is doing lot more service to people than protestant brothers.

-Akilan

Hi dear friend,

I have spent much time on the receiving end of evangelical preachers. The way I see it is they are Christians, who are also motivational speakers. The last church I was in before I came back to the Catholic Church was a mega Church. It spent great amounts of money on advertising and printing, and shows, and concerts, and recording studios and coffee shops, and programming, the same way a popular motivational speaker does. If you spend time listening to their message, it is mostly a lot of pop-psychology, like how to get along with your family, how to get rid of stress, how to manage your money. There’s nothing really wrong with these messages, but it’s not worship. The Catholic Church has Jesus, plain and simple. Jesus is here, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. No program or catch-phrase, or gimmick is needed.

Our Church is more interested in the corporal works of mercy: feeding the hungry, healing the sick, clothing the poor, and visiting those in prison than they are in coming up with a great advertising campaign. That’s just my take and my experience.

***“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” ***
1 Corinthians 13:11

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"For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity,  will accumulate teachers  and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to myths."***

2 Timothy 4:3-4

 

[grace_singh]

Surritter:

But we can either preach a “be baptized and be saved instantly” emotional appeal, or we can preach about baptism and the continual growth in a relationship with Jesus and His Church

.
actually, the Protestant missions i’ve come into contact with who opperate in the Subcontinent do emphasize growth, discipleship, Bible study, bearing fruit, and maturing as a Christian, and deeply.

many missions may essentially baptize the person and then just expect to see them in church, but many others do emphasize a relationship with Christ, day by day, which is expected to deepen, and mature, and they guide the believers in that process.

 

[PJM]

=akilan_i;6082508]Hi All,

Recent days, In southern India, I see lot of conversion and affinity towards protestant and its related groups. Reason is, protestant evangelists are more pragamatic. Thier preachings are attractive and consoles troubling minds. I watched their prayer broadcasted in regional television(owned by StarTv). How catholic church is going to handle this? In fact,Catholic chruch is doing lot more service to people than protestant brothers.

-Akilan

***The logic, the very reason for this is quite simple.

Protestants have targeted “feel good people” as a prime theology and philosophy, while the Catholic Chuech, correctly and rightly continues to stress Chrsit first, second and always, and only then… try to make it personal with a much needed reltionship with Christ.***

Love and prayers,

Pat