If you talk to a protestant to try out the Catholic church, what you say?

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Pathway2

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I am in my thinking phase, so before I explore what Eastern Orthodoxy is about ( I’ll get there sometime). I am convince that there is nothing different between protestant and Catholics in a way. I history of the pope and the engaging theology (when I first read it).
 
In certain aspects there is no substantial difference between Catholic Christians and mainline (Anglican, Methodist, Episcopalian, etc) Protestant Christians. We are all Christians.

Theologically, Catholics are VERY close to Protestants in our Christology, our reverence of Scripture, our moral theology, our ethics, things like that.

But then there are issues where Catholics differ, to different degrees depending on which Protestant group you speak of, from Protestants. These areas of theology include hamartiology, soteriology, sacramental theology, Mariology, Angelology, Ecclesiology, Eschatology, and various others.

So in the grand scheme of things, there is usually more we have in common then things we disagree on. These things we have in common — most especially our mutual adoration of Christ Jesus, our reverence for the Word of God, our commitment to Christian morality and ethics — these are the starting points for dialogue and ecumenism which may end in reconciliation and reunification.

There are, however, substantive differences, and these differences are what need to be dealt with in our dialogues with each other.
 
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Christ told me to let my light and my good works shine. That is how I do it.
 
I’ve said it before. I wouldn’t be here if my family was catholic. As the son and grandson of Lutheran ministers. Which is what I tell my mother in law about why I won’t go to the Catholic Church.
 
I would tell them that Protestantism has a lot of Truth in it, it has the Bible, most people who call themselves Protestant or some Protestant denomination believe Jesus Is God, they believe in the atonement and the Virgin birth. I would affirm what is true, but I would also tell them that the Catholic Church has the fullness of the Christian faith.
 
The Difference between Protestant and Catholic. I suggest you get several bibles (i.e. KJV, New American, RSV and maybe one or two others, and read the 6th chapter of the Gospel of John, particularly from about verse 50 to the end. Absorb what Jesus is actually saying, and then ask the difference between the two denominations. As Pope John Paul II said, the Eucharist is the source and summit of our (RCC) faith.

That might be the best starting place
 
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I’m not being argumentative here. Just offering a different idea.

There’s a “whole other way” to do apostolate…and it doesn’t involve talking to a Protestant about “trying out” the Catholic Church.

That may work for some.

This other way involves “deep, quiet, costly friendship” with those people that God puts in your life…coworkers, neighbors, PTA friends, etc.

We must “become better friends to our friends”.

This idea is built on the following premise: Matters of the soul are so intimate that without a deep friendship, one risks turning people away from God. It becomes a sell job, a convince her job.

Unhurried friendship, sincerely desiring to serve the other, is an alternative.

Over time, the conversation moves from superficial topics (food, weather, events, recipes, sports) to substantial topics (family life, education, formation of the young, marriage, "the good, the beautiful, and the true), and then…and only then with a natural friendship in mind…after they see you living your Catholic life to the full and heroic and generous “full” will they start asking a bit more supernatural questions…“why do you have so many children…why are you pregnant again…how do you do it…why do you smile so much, why do the neighborhhood children congregate on your front porch?”

These are solid questions…but it requires that we’re really really living out our faith well…but with a trusting friendship in place…and with a base of “actuals” in place…then we can help our friends understand what happens at the Holy Mass, why we go to Confession, etc.

There are different approaches…and I am simply laying out a slow cook…sincere approach done at “God’s speed”.

5 years from now those neighbors may never have gone to our church…and they’ve moved to another neighborhood…and they run into another Catholic family…and the questions continue.
 
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But the few differences are significant differences.
A significant reason why I’m not Catholic is faith vs. works. I can accept the Real Presence, I can even see how the Intercession of the Saints can be compatible. But faith vs. works profoundly affects, for example, how one sees baptism.
 
Kei said:
History is a great place to start
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@Pathway2. Probably this is the main thing - history. Delve into history of the Church to get an overview of Christianity.

It is good also to listen to testimonies by many Protestant converts to Catholics. These may strike you because many of them are former Protestant pastors, religious scholars, theologians, historians who hold doctorate degrees. In their search into history, they found out information which was not available to them from their own churches or pastors, which more often than not, designed to put Catholic in bad light in order to spruce up their own belief.

Here is a testimony by a Protestant Historian who converted to Catholic. - A. David Anders, Ph.D.

The Protestant Reformers had justified their revolt by an appeal to “Scripture alone.” My studies in the doctrine of justification had shown me Scripture was not as clear a guide as the Reformers alleged. What if their whole appeal to Scripture was misguided? Why, after all, did I treat Scripture as the final authority?

When I posed this question to myself, I recognized that I had no good answer. The real reason I appealed to Scripture alone was that this is what I had been taught. As I studied the issue, I discovered that no Protestant has ever given a satisfactory answer to this question. The Reformers did not really defend the doctrine of “Scripture alone.” They merely asserted it. Even worse, I learned that modern Protestant theologians who have tried to defend “Scripture alone” do so by an appeal to tradition. This struck me as illogical. Eventually, I realized that “Scripture alone” is not even in Scripture. The doctrine is self-refuting. I also saw that the earliest Christians knew no more of “Scripture alone,” than they had known of “faith alone.” On the issues of how-we-are-saved and how-we-define-the-faith, the earliest Christians found their center in The Church. The Church was both the authority on Christian doctrine as well as the instrument of salvation.

By the time I finished my Ph.D., I had completely revised my understanding of the Catholic Church. I saw that her sacramental doctrine, her view of salvation, her veneration of Mary and the saints, and her claims to authority were all grounded in Scripture, in the oldest traditions, and in the plain teaching of Christ and the Apostles. I also realized that Protestantism was a confused mass of inconsistencies and tortured logic. Not only was Protestant doctrine untrue, but it bred contention, and could not even remain unchanged. The more I studied, the more I realized that my Evangelical heritage had moved far not only from ancient Christianity, but even from the teaching of her own Protestant founders.
 
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Modern American Evangelicals teach that Christian life begins when you “invite Jesus into your heart.” Personal conversion (what they call “being born again”) is seen as the essence and the beginning of Christian identity. I knew from my reading of the Fathers that this was not the teaching of the early Church. I learned studying the Reformers that it was not even the teaching of the earliest Protestants. Calvin and Luther had both unambiguously identified Baptism as the beginning of the Christian life. I looked in vain in their works for any exhortation to be “born again.” I also learned that they did not dismiss the Eucharist as unimportant, as I had. While they rejected Catholic theology on the sacraments, both continued to insist that Christ is really present in the Eucharist. Calvin even taught in 1541 that a proper understanding of this Eucharist is “necessary for salvation.” He knew nothing of the individualistic, born-again Christianity I had grown up with.
 
"You too deserve a beautiful church to pray in. Mary is not staring meanly at you. Just look at her. "
⛪
 
For many Protestants, baptism is an outward sign of something that’s happening in a person. The baptism itself doesn’t save, rather it’s the faith of the person.
 
Heehee you Anglicans have beautiful churches. Cathedral of York to name one, tallest Gothic cathedral. But think of protestants who only have to see a barn on Sundays… Because the place of worship’s luxury they are convinced is simony. In that respect I was talking …
 
I like the stain glass windows in the churches and the Gothic work I really enjoy looking at. the presentation of light with the colours, I enjoy. what is with this barn?
 
The light and the colors? What does that stained represent that you are looking at? What is it that the light can come through?
 
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