I think you’re being a bit harsh James.
I have a very good friend - one of the first ones I had where we were both very committed to Our Lord and shared spiritual excitement and Bible discoveries. I have always been a firmly believing Catholic (except for a brief period, early on, where I lost faith in Jesus) and she was an OSAS Baptist. (We have both since moved, thus less communication; and she now attends a Lutheran Church.)
I can assure you that the motivation you describe in the first paragraph was not the basis of her belief in OSAS. It was because she truly believed that was what Scripture taught. (Unfortunately, she would not discuss areas of doctrine where our faiths differed because she felt it might affect our friendship.) At one point, due to marital problems, she was preparing to seek divorce - she had even contacted a lawyer. With all the anguish involved, she was often seeking help and guidance in Scripture. And I remember when she told me that as she read Scripture, she suddenly realized that it really was important to God what we did. (This was a new concept to her! - even tho she had a degree in Biblical studies.) And that divorce was contrary to His will. So, she did not divorce her husband.
Even with all that, to my knowledge, she is still an OSAS (Lutheran).
And she is now, and was before, someone who loves God and tries to do His will.
I’m right with you tho when you say, “Prayer needs to be the primary weapon”; followed up by our example.
Nita
Too harsh?
Not by St. Paul’s standards.
Gelatians 1:9
As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!
And not by the same consistent Apostolic Catholic Church’s Standards either (which takes St. Paul at his word to propagate his same apostolic curse):
Council of Trent Anathemas which utterly annihilates OSAS:
The Council of Trent - The Sixth Session
The canons and decrees of the sacred
and ecumenical Council of Trent,
Pages 30-53.
Definition of Anathema:
a·nath·e·ma (-nth-m)
n. pl. a·nath·e·mas
- A formal ecclesiastical ban, curse, or excommunication
.
2. A vehement denunciation; a curse: “the sound of a witch’s anathemas in some unknown tongue” Nathaniel Hawthorne.
3.
One that is cursed or damned.
4. One that is greatly reviled, loathed, or shunned:
[Late Latin anathema,** doomed offering, accursed thing, from Greek, from anatithenai, anathe-, to dedicate : ana-, ana- + tithenai, to put; see dh- in Indo-European roots.]
On Justification
CANON XII.-If any one saith, that justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ’s sake; or, that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified;
let him be anathema.
CANON XIII.-If any one saith, that it is necessary for every one, for the obtaining the remission of sins, that he believe for certain, and without any wavering arising from his own infirmity and disposition, that his sins are forgiven him;
let him be anathema.
CANON XIV.-If any one saith, that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because that he assuredly believed himself absolved and justified; or, that no one is truly justified but he who believes himself justified; and that, by this faith alone, absolution and justification are effected;
let him be anathema.
.
CANON XV.-If any one saith, that a man, who is born again and justified, is bound of faith to believe that he is assuredly in the number of the predestinate;
let him be anathema.
CANON XVI.-If any one saith, that he will for certain, of an absolute and infallible certainty, have that great gift of perseverance unto the end,-unless he have learned this by special revelation;
let him be anathema.
.
CANON XIX.-If any one saith, that nothing besides faith is commanded in the Gospel; that other things are indifferent, neither commanded nor prohibited, but free; or, that the ten commandments nowise appertain to Christians;
let him be anathema.
CANON XX.-If any one saith, that the man who is justified and how perfect soever, is not bound to observe the commandments of God and of the Church, but only to believe; as if indeed the Gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life, without the condition of observing the commandments ;
let him be anathema.
CANON XXI.-If any one saith, that Christ Jesus was given of God to men, as a redeemer in whom to trust, and not also as a legislator whom to obey;
let him be anathema.
CANON XXIII.-lf any one saith, that a man once justified can sin no more, nor lose grace, and that therefore he that falls and sins was never truly justified; or, on the other hand, that he is able, during his whole life, to avoid all sins, even those that are venial,-except by a special privilege from God, as the Church holds in regard of the Blessed Virgin;
let him be anathema.
CANON XXIX.-If any one saith, that he, who has fallen after baptism, is not able by the grace of God to rise again; or, that he is able indeed to recover the justice which he has lost, but by faith alone without the sacrament of Penance, contrary to what the holy Roman and universal Church-instructed by Christ and his Apostles-has hitherto professed, observed, and taugh;
let him be anathema.
We have a moral obligation to be frank with our neighbors who are facing almost certain damnation if they die impenitent in grave sin while holding to the false hope of OSAS.
James
