Is there a concern among "Protestants" of sounding "Too Catholic"?

[JRKH]

If you would… could you please explain to me how your father (or anyone else, for that matter) could possibly think the Catholic Church is satanic? I have heard all the B.S. about the whore of babylon, and the antichrist; but how can anyone who has ever attended a Catholic mass or even have just the most basic knowledge of it ever think that? In the late 20th and early 21st century we supposedly live in an enlightened age. Where does the hatred come from??? Anyone? I have never been able to figure it out…

I think that this (inclusive of the post you quoted) could make a very interesting thread of it’s own and perhaps garner a wider (name removed by moderator)ut.

If you decide to start a thread though - let me know…I’m quite interested in this as well.

Some time back on a protestant board I had a very long - and I do mean long - discussion in an attempt to overcome the erroneous idea that “Catholics teach a Works based salvation”…
It took many many posts back and forth but I finally was able to get others to understand that Catholicism is faith based and not works based.

I’m sure that the sort of thing you mention above - people having even a basic exposure to Catholic teaching - stems from the same sort of truly basic misunderstanding…and even mal-understanding (is that a word??) - I mean a deliberate misunderstanding.

Peace
James

 

[Izdaari]

I have attended Assemblies of God, Pentecostal Church of God, United Methodist, Independent Baptist, Church of the Nazarene, Several non-denominational churches, Pentecostal Charismatic churches and a Messianic(Torah observant) synagogue. In all of these congregations, I encountered anti-Catholic bias ranging from mild to militant. The pastor who mentored my Dad in the AoG hated Catholics and believed Catholicism was satanic. So, this bias extends from the fundamentalist to the lunatic fringe. It greatly saddens me, but does not in any way change my love for the Church our Saviour founded or my decision to join the Catholic Church. It hurts me to see these divisions. But one thing I have noticed is this: when I meet a true follower of Christ, I don’t have to ask if they are, I know because the Holy spirit bears witness. It is like meeting long-lost family.
Sorry for being so wordy-my gift of gab even infects my keyboard!

Former AoG member here. I have nothing against AoG, and I still think it’s pretty good as flavors of conservative evangelicalism go, but I’m Episcopalian now, due to cultural and doctrinal differences.

My AoG church had nothing negative to say about Catholicism, at least not from the pulpit, and our pastor would occasionally mention that he’d visited a Catholic church. OTOH, some members had varying degrees of anti-Catholic prejudice.

 

[Izdaari]

I would think it comes from old arguments of Luther. In his point of view, his reforms were necessary and correct, and the Pope refused to implement them so he must be satanic and antichrist. Today, some of those opinions still are around, but for the most part the Protestants I know ignore the existence of the Catholic Church. I’m not sure if active hatred or willful ignorance is worse.

Luther did tend to be a bit extreme in some of his rhetoric. But now that the CC has implemented many of his reforms, he might feel better about it.

 

[ADZ]

If you would… could you please explain to me how your father (or anyone else, for that matter) could possibly think the Catholic Church is satanic? I have heard all the B.S. about the whore of babylon, and the antichrist; but how can anyone who has ever attended a Catholic mass or even have just the most basic knowledge of it ever think that? In the late 20th and early 21st century we supposedly live in an enlightened age. Where does the hatred come from??? Anyone? I have never been able to figure it out…

All the reformers taught that the Catholic Church system is the Anti-Christ system. The protestant churchs exist today because of this. But now with the teaching and new doctrin from a Catholic Jesuit they now look to the future for a coming Antichrist.

In order to remove the papacy of the Catholic Church from consideration as the Antichrist (as an act of countering the Protestant Reformation), Ribera began writing a lengthy (500 page) commentary in 1585 on the Book of Revelation (Apocalypse) titled In Sacrum Beati Ioannis Apostoli, & Evangelistiae Apocalypsin Commentarij, proposing that the first few chapters of the Apocalypse apply to ancient pagan Rome, and the rest he limited to a yet future period of 3½ literal years, immediately prior to the second coming. During that time, the Roman Catholic Church would have fallen away from the pope into apostasy because of the Reformation cry stating that “the papacy is the seat of the true and real Antichrist.” (Martin Luther, Aug. 18, 1520). Then, he proposed, the Antichrist, a single individual, would:

Persecute and blaspheme the saints of God.
Rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.
Abolish the Christian religion.
Deny Jesus Christ.
Be received by the Jews.
Pretend to be God.
Kill the two witnesses of God.
Conquer the world.
To accomplish this, Ribera proposed that the 1260 days and 42 months and 3½ times of prophecy were not 1260 years as based on the year-day principle (Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6), but a literal 3½ years, hence preventing the arrival of the deduction of (i) the 1260 years to be related to the Dark Ages (according to the Historicism (Christianity) interpretation of eschatology from 538 A.D. when the papal power was fully established in Rome until its political blow in 1798 A.D., when Louis-Alexandre Berthier the general of Napoleon captured pope Pius VI as prisoner to Valence, France) and (ii) the Antichrist to be related to papacy.