As a “temporary protestant” I was fond of claiming the Catholic Church taught the “different gospel” Paul referred to. By the grace of God, I now know better.
The simple, easy to explain message of evangelical witness appealed to me. I thought, “That makes sense- believe and get saved. The rest is just details…” I could blab on and on but allow me to share two things that led me back home.
First, as you hang out in evangelical circles (God bless them!), you inevitably encounter folks who “backslide,” or seem to be living in sin, uninterested in God and/or unrepentant. This of course is a problem for someone who teaches instant regeneration and “once saved-always saved.” Some will explain it by saying even a “saved” person can slip into serious sin and need correction. Others will take the more dramatic stance that the struggling person simply was not “saved” to begin with. Either case is a problem. If we can slip into serious sin after being born again and “saved,” what to we do next? With the second approach, it leaves us with the shocking possibility that people are walking around believing they are saved when they are actually headed to hell! As I said, either case is really not a great answer. These situations illuminate holes in protestant theology and folks who are willing to look, will see them everywhere.
The second factor (among many) that led me home was in finally reading the early church fathers, I learned that the church had always taught real presence, confession of sins, authority of bishops, etc. I saw that it was not the Catholic Church that invented new doctrines but the evangelicals! In 1560, Martin Luther believed we could lose our salvation, the bread is truly the body of our Lord and baptism is desired for children. He also encouraged honoring Mary. If you look at most protestant churches today, they have thrown out the real presence, confession of sin, prayers to the saints (including Mary), and more.
I realized the Catholic Church had not changed- it was the evangelicals who had written their own theology and started more and more churches.
It’s a big topic. But in my opinion, the most effective thing one can do is to lovingly suggest the protestant friend read the early church fathers. Thanks to some recent books, they don’t have to dig through thousands of documents in Latin or Greek themselves! They can buy one or two books and read the topics in which they are interested. Lots of great resources around here!
Pray about it.
God bless you!
