So I was talking with a very good friend of mine and he had many reasons for hating the Church. He speaks about how Popes have directed the killings of innocent people in the past, starting holy wars and cursaides. He talked about how during the Protestant reformation people who tried to translate the bible were burned at the stake. I explained to him that even Popes have free will and people in the Church can do bad. He said the core of the religion is bad. It celebrates pagan holidays teaches of the Trinity and Popes and the whole Church was doing bad. Can you help me to better explain this. He also showed me the scripture 2 Thessalonians 2: 6-12 trying to say that the Churcg has turned away from God and lost God’s favor because after the apostles have died the Church was torn up by apostates and wolves. He thinks the whole congregation apostised and that Jehovah’s Witnesses have God’s spirit.
I even explained that the Cannon of the bible was put together by Catholics and there would be no Bible without Catholics.
I was once one of Jehovah’s Witnesses as a youth, but now I have returned to the Catholic faith I was baptized in.
Your Witness friend is using flawed logic on you, flawed logic he accepts, but flawed nonetheless. I can demonstrate how none of his objections matter because of my being Catholic of Jewish ancestry.
The history of my people the Jews is not one of a nation of saints. We have had periods in our history where we have been unfaithful to God. Why, even while Moses was bringing the Ten Commandments to us, what were my ancestors doing? They were worshipping an idol calf of gold!
Our first king, Saul, was unfaithful. Solomon, the son of King David, turned from worship of the true God to false gods. The prophet Jeremiah had to preach among a nation that had lost its faith, lost its way and even persecuted him for his faith!
Now, did my people stop worshipping the Lord because of what unfaithful ones in their midst did? Did Jeremiah give up worshipping as a Jew because other Jews were unfaithful? Did this make him abandon his religion?
Let’s go further into history. On my father’s side we have discovered evidence that shows members in my family line lived and practiced Christianity during the time of the apostles in first century Jerusalem. Neat, huh?
Just a couple of years ago, as part of the work on uncovering my family’s past brought to light, I read documents wherein members of my family were called before the Spanish Inquisition–some tortured, some killed, the rest made to leave Spain. We were persecuted by the Church because of our heritage, on the fact of being Jews, even though members of my family were and had been Christians before the Gentiles had come in.
And what did my family do after they were expelled from Europe by the Church for being Catholics of Jewish heritage? Did they leave the Church? NO!
Like Jeremiah of old, they did not leave their faith just because others in their religion were unfaithful. After 15 years of research my family has uncovered a history which contains great persecution from our own Church as well as unshakable fidelity to the very same.
And guess what? About two years ago Spain issued a law of return for Jews–or their descendants–who were sent away during the Inquisition. Now the world realizes how wrong it had been. The Church too acknowledges this. But if they were wrong, that means the stand my family took had been right in the first place!
And my family never left the Church. We also still hold many of our ethnic Jewish customs intact too (nothing that violates Catholic practice however) for we never saw ourselves as becoming less Jewish because we accepted Christ. Why, accepting the Messiah is the epitome of what it means to be a Jew!
God’s truth does not stop being truth just because people lose faith in it. “God be true though every man a liar.” (Romans 3:4) Take for example what the Bible says about his people, even when they are disobedient:
“All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”
I ask then, has God rejected his people? By no means! … The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.–Romans 10:21-11:36.
This goes for any of God’s people, be they Jews or Christian. God doesn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses do. Your JW friend may think it’s a good reason to abandon your religion because of what unfaithful members do within it. But that shows what kind of constitution he has. Obviously he is all about giving up when it gets rough.
That kind of faith can’t save anybody.
