Protestant Ministers

[Apologia100]

Not to sound too catty, but I’ll put my priest up against any minister out there in a scriptural study. At least the Catholic will be working out of a full deck, so to speak, versus one that has had important elements intentionally cut out of it.

BTW, for those that don’t know, Billy Graham has tremendous regard for Pope John Paul II and considers the pope to be the moral leader of the world. Just a bit of trivia.

 

[Melchior]

Little Mary:

Hello Mel. Thank you for your perspective. I completely understand your final paragraph, where you state that many pastors become pastors because they are concerned for souls and want to feed the sheep. I believe that most of these men are sincere and God bless them for that. And I am sure they are good at what they do.

I have a couple questions about your first paragraph, however. You stated that when a Catholic priests studies in seminary, his focus is mainly on the Mass. I don’t know how familiar you are with a Catholic Mass but the entire celebration is scripture based. Did you know that if you attend Mass every Sunday and Holy Day for one year you will have covered pretty much the entire bible? And if you attend Mass every Sunday and Holy Day for three years, you will have literally read the entire bible. Where did you learn that in general, pastors come out of seminary more knowledgable about scripture than a priest? I’d be interested to read up on that.

Finally, you might be interested in an earlier post by funkyhorn on May 28th. (scroll up!). While it may be true that protestant seminaries are studying, say, St. Augustine, it seems that they are only including information that supports their protestant beliefs, and omitting other, more “catholic” information.

Thanks again, and God bless you,
Little Mary

I meant no disrespect at all by my comments about the seminary focus. I think the liturgical year and liturgy is a far better way to conduct church than the way most protestants do. What I meant was that certain protestants focus more on biblical exegesis and interpretation than do Catholic Priests. For example you will hear tons of scripture in the Mass. Bu tin a Presbyterian church you are more likely to get a 45 mintue to an hour sermon on the meaning of passages of scripture. Many Protestant minister preach expositorally. That is they go through th Bible or books of the bible systematically and teach the meaning to the congregation. My old pastor spent ove 30 hours a week study for his sermon. He would go to the original langauge and consult commentaries etc. to accurately give th contextual meaning of the chapter he was teaching/preaching on. I have never met a Catholic Priest who does anything close to that. The homilies are usually brief sermonettes. Honestly, I would rather hear an Old, Testament, Epistle and Gospel reading every Sunday with a mor brief sermon than I would an hour long lecture with no church year. That is why I am a Lutheran. We do it just like the Catholic Church does. So I am with. I was just trying to highlight the different focuses.

As for the seminaries that study only parts of the Fathers - shame on them. That is how Fundamentalist Baptists tend to do things. But I can assure you that at Lutheran Seminaries and some other Protestant ones don’t edit St. Augustines and other Fathers writings. In fact I could argue as a Lutheran that there is alomost nothing I disagree with in St. Augustine’s teachings. Broadly Evangelical Protestants of the Baptistic variety have no sense of Church history. But that is not the case for Reformational Protestants. Calvin and Luther were well versed in the Fathers. That is not to say they were correct on everything. But it is not fair to paint all Protestants with a borad brush. Us Lutherans are far closer to Catholics than we are to Baptists. I would be Catholic in a heart beat before ever being a Baptist again. If you won’t baptize my babies you ain’t getting me in your pew! :tsktsk:

I hope that helps clarify a bit.

Mel

 

[Chris_W]

Protestant seminaries could indeed be perceived as focusing more on Scripture than Catholic, but it should be stated differently: Protestant seminaries focus more exclusively on Scripture. Whereas Catholic seminaries are not limited to Scripture, since the Catholic Church also has the fullness of Apostolic Tradition to consider, and being a unified Church, we also must consider official doctrine and Cannon Law and the Liturgy. The Catholic Church offers a comprehensive approach to the revelation of God.

 

[Little_Mary]

Melchior:

I "…My old pastor spent ove 30 hours a week study for his sermon. He would go to the original langauge and consult commentaries etc. to accurately give th contextual meaning of the chapter he was teaching/preaching on. I have never met a Catholic Priest who does anything close to that. The homilies are usually brief sermonettes. Honestly, I would rather hear an Old, Testament, Epistle and Gospel reading every Sunday with a mor brief sermon than I would an hour long lecture with no church year. That is why I am a Lutheran. We do it just like the Catholic Church does. So I am with. I was just trying to highlight the different focuses.

As for the seminaries that study only parts of the Fathers - shame on them. That is how Fundamentalist Baptists tend to do things. But I can assure you that at Lutheran Seminaries and some other Protestant ones don’t edit St. Augustines and other Fathers writings. In fact I could argue as a Lutheran that there is alomost nothing I disagree with in St. Augustine’s teachings. Broadly Evangelical Protestants of the Baptistic variety have no sense of Church history. But that is not the case for Reformational Protestants. Calvin and Luther were well versed in the Fathers. That is not to say they were correct on everything. But it is not fair to paint all Protestants with a borad brush. Us Lutherans are far closer to Catholics than we are to Baptists. I would be Catholic in a heart beat before ever being a Baptist again. If you won’t baptize my babies you ain’t getting me in your pew! :tsktsk:

I hope that helps clarify a bit.

Mel

Hi Mel

Please forgive me if I came on too strong…I am new to these forums…a cradle Catholic here primarily to learn more and maybe someday be able to defend my faith accurately and charitably. Thank you for your clarification. I just want to make sure I understand what you are saying…

When you said you’ve never seen a Catholic priest come anywhere close to, say, a 30 hour prep for a 1.5 hour sermon, you were referring only to the length of the sermon within the service, right? Because priests are devoted to scripture and are well studied on original languages, any historical data, etc. in order to fully understand it within context. If you arranged a meeting with a priest, he could speak to you at length on any given part of scripture because he has already spent many hours studying. They are not slouches. But I understand now that you were specifically referring to the length of the sermon within the church service. Right?

Also, please forgive me for “painting all protestants with a broad brush” That was not my intention. I understand that there are more similarities between Catholics and Lutherans than between Catholics and, say, Baptists.

Regarding Fundamentalists Baptists evangelical protestants and other protestant faiths who “have no sense of church history”, I find myself back at my original question. To put it another way, don’t these people who attend the… well… I’ll call them incomplete seminaries for purposes of this discussion, people who have all the best intentions at heart, who spend as you said yourself, 30 hours a week researching scripture in order to better understand it, don’t they eventually stumble across the truth? . I am not asking from a view point of "Why doesn’t everybody just convert? so much as I am asking “If these people are so very well educated and well studied, why are there so many misconceptions about the Catholic faith ?”

 

[bengal_fan]

Apologia100:

From my understanding, BIlly Graham never went to seminary, he is self taught in the KJV. The others all had some form of theological training, then reinvented it to suit their own concept of the gospel.

Billy Graham went to Wheaton College and Seminary. it is in Illinois. he has had plenty of training and does personal study. he purposely focuses on the things that don’t divide denominations (other than the assurance of salvation). i know that he works with the churches in the areas that he does his crusades and even invites catholic priests since he knows that many catholics attend his crusades.

 

[Malachi4U]

The last Baptist church I attended had a preacher that started preaching when he was 15 years old. He just got up in front of the congregation (with permission) and began. He preached ever since. Over the years he went to ‘schools’ to get his degrees and finally received his Doctorate in his 60’s. He believed he was inspired and therefore did not need any formal training to begin preaching Gods Word. Self-interpretation was good enough for him.

I do not know if he ever changed his mind on some of what he preached as he learned from others as this subject never came up. I do feel that one should learn from others before preaching Gods Word. The apostles spent 3 years with Jesus before He sent them out on their own for good. The apostles also asked questions of Jesus for those 3 years too. Self-interpretation can have disastrous results on Faith.

By the way, how old was Joseph Smith when he started with the Mormon stuff? 14?

Before I became RC I wanted to attend a protestant seminary and this is what I found out. Many of the ‘non’-denominational ones I checked out just let you pick what you want to believe. If you attend some of these ‘schools’ you can come out with one degree in one sect and the guy next to you can have a degree in another sect. What kind of ‘truth’ is that? A professor teaching you one thing and the ‘preacher’ next to you something else? Are you or are you not a Calvinist? Sola Scripture or Tradition and Scripture? Faith alone or Faith with Jesus’ commandments? Imagine an engineering degree in which the professor let you decide which laws of physics were true and which were not? Would you walk cross a bridge designed by an engineer that ‘choose’ which laws of physics to believe in and which not to? You go to school to learn, not to tell the instructor what to teach. Needless to say, this began to turn me off to protestant “truth”. Who knows what that is?

Some schools did appear good to me and these were the Lutheran and Episcopalian ones that taught one truth and no picking or choosing. I might still consider some courses in these schools.

The Coming Home Network has many great stories of protestant ministers that tell their story of seminary/school education and what was taught, not taught, miss taught, overlooked or just misinterpreted. How they discovered the truth and the difficulties they had in coming home. One of the greatest difficulties is indeed money. If you preached for 19 years and had not yet gotten your retirement would you become Catholic and loose your retirement? Have no job skills that you can use? Not know how to feed your wife and children? Money is significant.

These preachers also explain how they were discouraged by all the sects out there and only one had the ‘truth’ in it. How they overlooked what was in Scripture and never even considered a Catholic interpretation of it.

Watch the EWTN Network and see these preachers tell their story, it is eye-opening.

 

[Little_Mary]

Malachi4U,

I am responding to your last post, but did not want to re-copy it here.

You touched on something that is very close to what I asked in my original question. You said that you attended some non-Catholic seminaries (or one of them) that let you pick what you believed and that professors were teaching different things virtually from one classroom to the next. It’s crazy.

It’s too bad we can’t monitor what is taught in these seminaries, or maybe a better word would be to regulate what is taught . Regulate- sounds like we’re talking about banks. Point is that if they are going to teach on a certain subject, they have an obligation to teach that subject completely and accurately, whether they like it or not, or else they are commiting some type of fraud against the person who has paid for that education. They’re not getting what they paid for and they don’t even know it.

Particularly regarding the Catholic religion. They’d better teach it accurately whether they agree with it or not. Don’t represent one’s own twisted belief as something Catholic. How much longer will this be allowed to go on? Do two medical doctors argue in the hospital corridor about whether the heart is located behind the left ear or under the right arm because their respective universities taught them differently ??

I know I’m rambling again but I just can’t find the right words. :banghead:

 

[Malachi4U]

Little Mary:

…You touched on something that is very close to what I asked in my original question. You said that you attended some non-Catholic seminaries (or one of them) that let you pick what you believed and that professors were teaching different things virtually from one classroom to the next. It’s crazy…

Little Mary,

I did not attend one - yet. I found this out when I researched them and listened to students who had been in them. We have a “buffet line” seminary right here in Salt Lake City. How can we have one truth in theology when the seminaries don’t teach one truth?

They do skip parts of history or edit them out of textbooks. Try being a Baptist instructor and teaching a student that the first 1,500 years of the Church were ALL Catholic years? Why teach the Church Fathers? Just skip them or only quote what seems to support your ‘opinions.’ Ask a Baptist when the History starts that they read about and they will almost always tell you they never studied anything from the time of the apostles until the 1500’s. They ignore those years with few exceptions like the “INQUISITION” and how they wrote the “First English” Bible?

You must also remember that many of the instructors themselves have never read some of the books or subjects that prove Catholicism. If they do, they just read over the parts that are Catholic and ignore them. I did the same thing when I read the Bible for 27 years and never saw anything but an ‘assurance’ of salvation and ‘faith alone’ in Jesus saves us now and forever. I could be a NAZI guard at the ovens in Auschwitz and still go to heaven since I accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and savior before I started murdering Jews and Catholics. When I read that St. Paul walked in ‘fear and trembling’ for a ‘hope’ of salvation I ignored it.

I could never teach someone “buffet line” theology as I know someday Jesus would ask me why I did not teach His truth instead of letting everyone pick their own truth and ignore His. I want to put words into my Advocates mouth for my defense and not into Satan’s!

How can seminaries be regulated when we have 33,000+ so called truths in the US alone? I just put my Faith in the hands of God and the Church He established in 33 A.D. and promised to be with until the end of time. Praise God!

 

[Serafin]

Hello:

In response to he original question ;

Have you though that Protestant clergy and well educated laity, who have been exposed to unedited readings of the early Church Fathers and the Councils do not become Roman catholics because they are unconvinced about the claims of the RCC?

I know very well educated clergy and laity, who are not anti RC’s or biggots but are sincerely in disagreement with the RCC about a variety of things. Some are dogmatic…Papal Infallibility and the Immaculate Conception doctrines not explicitly present in the early Church. Others are discipline related…celibacy was not mandatory in Scripture and the early church as such. Then there is the mass…beautiful experience liturgically , but the preaching seems a bit light to Protestants.

There is a variety of reasons why well informed, non prejudiced, not Anti-Catholic Christians do not convert…I should add this includes meeting RC laity who are uninformed and “unenthused” about their faith…

Blessings

Serafin

 

[Malachi4U]

It sounds like many of these people are confusing Commandments by Jesus with Church rules or its operating procedures. Jesus never described how to make a printing press but we still use it to make Bibles. Should we stop printing Bibles?

To start we must understand where the authority for the protestants comes from. If it is the Bible, then we must find out its history, who wrote it, etc. Is the Bible inerrant or inspired? When we study the ‘true’ history of Scripture we find out the Catholic Church produced it. This is the conclusive evidence that the Church is the authority Christ left on earth and not Scripture. Scripture is a part of the Church and not vice versa. Jesus promised to be with His CHURCH till the end of time.

The Church has many different things it talks about like “Faith and Morals”, Dogma, Tradition, laws, etc… Before you can even talk to protestants you must make sure they are familiar with what each item is, how it works, what it does and does NOT do, how it relates to the others, etc. You must also define the words used as protestants have different meanings for the same words Catholics use like worship and pray as examples.

For example many protestants do not understand what ex Cathedra means or how it works or what the Immaculate Conception means or how it was derived, etc.

The Catholic Church has 2,000 years of history, learning, documentation, etc. It is like a huge pyramid with writings at the bottom that support writings built upon them. Many protestants misinterpret Catholic writings because they do not understand the work written earlier that gives it context. Sometime they don’t even know Catholics had earlier writings on the subjects. Catholic knowledge is like a huge growing pyramid and often protestant knowledge is like a one or two story building that gets torn down and rebuilt with each new preacher.

The Catholic Church has 2,000 years of experience whereas many protestants have just 30 or 40 years of experience (the life of the preacher) repeated maybe 12 times. (Since 1517A.D) Which is greater, 2,000 years of experience or someone with just 40 years that can never grow beyond that? Many protestants repeat the same experience over and over since each preacher is often independent and fails to build on others. Catholics gain new experience as all the Doctors of the Church build upon the foundation of knowledge left to them. Catholic experience is a growth of wisdom, protestant is often just a small chunk repeated indefinitely.

How could they even consider understanding a complex idea like ex Cathedra with only a small amount of experience?

 

[Gertrude]

James_2:24:

I suspect the answer is different for each. I cannot judge a specific individual, but I always suspect that MONEY has a big part to due with it. In one of two ways:

1. This would be the worst way: A pastor starts a Church first and foremost for money reasons.
2. A pastor starts a Church with good intentions but after finding out that the Catholic Church is true is still tempted to fight against it for fear of losing his/her only source of income and throwing away years of study.

There are many other reasons why pastors don’t come home… this is just one that always comes to my mind…

I hope you’re kidding. I really have to disagree with you on your two points; most of our dearest friends are Protestant ministers and their wives in various ministries. They love the Lord with their lives and their families, but for some reason they just have a different understanding of what the Bible teaches–they don’t have the benefit of Tradition: an anchor for understanding. They usually attend the seminary of their denomination so learn what they believe, and Catholicism is not taught in a positive light. It’s hardly mentioned at all, unless it’s in stereotypes and misinformation. Also, most of them are quite poor and are used to being given things others don’t want in “care packages” but they count it all joy.

 

[Khoria_Anna]

Having attended a liberal Protestant divinity school, the Catholic professors teaching in such institutions tend to be of a super-liberal bent, therefore the serious Protestant seeker will look a) toward reforming the situation in their own Protestant denomination – trying to make it more “Catholic” or b) to Orthodoxy. I left protestant seminary with the idea that “those Catholics don’t know what they believe!” It took me 12 years to begin to see the truth!

 

[GoodME]

I think there is something to the fact that most of these bodies of believers a) do not accept a central authority of the Church (even if it is a protestant church), and place too much emphasis on local congregations for discernment of belief, b) do not accept the need for an apostolic Church and apostolic succession and c) do not accept any inkling of history or tradition in the formulation of their framework of beliefs.

I think this is what leads to some of the defensiveness and tenacity in their beliefs. They don’t have enough tools to refute what they believe, given that they discard so much of what is required for accurate discernment to formulate a belief.

Just a layman’s opinion.

 

[Little_Mary]

Serafin:

Hello:

In response to he original question ;

Have you though that Protestant clergy and well educated laity, who have been exposed to unedited readings of the early Church Fathers and the Councils do not become Roman catholics because they are unconvinced about the claims of the RCC?

I know very well educated clergy and laity, who are not anti RC’s or biggots but are sincerely in disagreement with the RCC about a variety of things. Some are dogmatic…Papal Infallibility and the Immaculate Conception doctrines not explicitly present in the early Church. Others are discipline related…celibacy was not mandatory in Scripture and the early church as such. Then there is the mass…beautiful experience liturgically , but the preaching seems a bit light to Protestants.

There is a variety of reasons why well informed, non prejudiced, not Anti-Catholic Christians do not convert…I should add this includes meeting RC laity who are uninformed and “unenthused” about their faith…

Blessings

Serafin

Please forgive me if I have offended you. It is not my intention to offend anyone.

Yes, Serafin, I’ve thought of those things. That is what brought me to my question. Just how many of them are really exposed to un-edited materials. Just how do they disagree? If they are in fact very intelligent and educated people (and I am not saying they are not) then how can they study everything and still not understand/agree without turning a blind eye? In this case, I question whether they truly were given a complete set of materials.

Papal infallibility, the Immaculate Conception, celibacy, the Mass, are all covered thoroughly for those curious enough to look. The Church’s teachings are not fly-by-night decisions set at the whim of the powers that be. You are looking at 2,000 years of research and study and historical fact. If the preaching on Sunday seem light there are other avenues of fulfillmlent. The Catholic Church is steeped in them.

Yes, there are reasons why these good people do not convert and I question the soundness of those reasons (see my original post).

The fact that some, or most of these people have made decisions based on misinformation is the basis of my question.

 

[Little_Mary]

Gertrude:

I hope you’re kidding. I really have to disagree with you on your two points; most of our dearest friends are Protestant ministers and their wives in various ministries. They love the Lord with their lives and their families, but for some reason they just have a different understanding of what the Bible teaches–they don’t have the benefit of Tradition: an anchor for understanding. They usually attend the seminary of their denomination so learn what they believe, and Catholicism is not taught in a positive light. It’s hardly mentioned at all, unless it’s in stereotypes and misinformation. Also, most of them are quite poor and are used to being given things others don’t want in “care packages” but they count it all joy.

I don’t think James 2-24 was being cynical when he referred to money being a reason for some people staying where they are.
…
Gertrude,

You touched on my point exactley when you said that "**for some reason they just have a different understand of whtat the Bible teaches and they don’t have the benefit of Tradition. " ** You said, - for some reason - my question is What is that reason???

You also partially answered that question yourself when you said that they usually attend the seminary of their denomination so learn what they believe and Catholicism is not taught in a positive light, etc.

MY POINT EXACTLY! When will it end? Good people who have devoted their lives to God yet they don’t have the whole truth but they think they do because they were taught by someone they trusted and that someone was taught by someone he/she trusted and so on and so on and so on…Do you see the endless cycle??

 

[Little_Mary]

GoodME:

I think there is something to the fact that most of these bodies of believers a) do not accept a central authority of the Church (even if it is a protestant church), and place too much emphasis on local congregations for discernment of belief, b) do not accept the need for an apostolic Church and apostolic succession and c) do not accept any inkling of history or tradition in the formulation of their framework of beliefs.

I think this is what leads to some of the defensiveness and tenacity in their beliefs. They don’t have enough tools to refute what they believe, given that they discard so much of what is required for accurate discernment to formulate a belief.

Just a layman’s opinion.

GoodME

In response to your first paragraph, my question, is, Why don’t they? Is it because they don’t want anything to stand in their way of being the head of their own little religion? Or have they been taught, through the generations, that it is OK to be that selective?

In response to your second paragragh, well said. :clapping: I think that statement could apply to several other threads in these forums.

 

[Little_Mary]

Another way to ask this question might be “What can we, as Catholics, do to stop the mis-representation of our faith in non-Catholic seminaries and from non-Catholic pulpits?” Well, the answer is right here, in these forums, apologetics, and living our faith with love and charity.

My concern is not with those who are mean-spirited and purposely lash out at Catholicism (see some of the anti-Catholic websites threads). My concern is with good, honest, well-meaning Christian people who do not realize that they don’t have all the information, or that they might have some erroneous information. For instance, I encountered a well meaning in-law the other day who firmly told me that it is grace, not works that saves us. I explained to him that the Catholic church does not teach salvation by works alone, etc. While he was a little taken aback because he was not expecting my response, he admitted that he had been taught otherwise. While he meant well, he initially came across as arrogant and judgmental because he was so certain of the information that he had. To that end, I see many posts on these threads by non-Catholics that sound, to me, to be arrogant and judgmental themselves. They are entitled to their own beliefs, but charity should prevail.

So, forgive me if I came across as arrogant or judgmental in this thread. That was not my intention at all. While I am deeply rooted in my own faith I do not claim to be certain of anybody else’s beliefs .

Notwithstand that… It might be easier to “catch a cloud and pin it down” but I would love to see the Catholic faith accurately presented in classrooms and non-Catholic churches, whether people buy into it or not. Maybe then, mis conceptions and misunderstandings would not be so widespread. However, I have been accused of being an idealist.

 

[hawkeye]

Little Mary:

There are so many protestants who devote their lives to God by becoming ministers (reverends) in their respective denominations - they study for years in seminaries and achieve degrees in Divinity - after studying all that history and related subjects, why don’t they immediately come home to the Catholic Church upon completing their education? Do they deny the truth or are they not taught the truth?

A mixture of pride and hatered of everything Catholic has something to do with it.

 

[Calvin]

hawkeye:

A mixture of pride and hatered of everything Catholic has something to do with it.

Do you guys have a charism of mind-reading you haven’t told us about yet?

-C

 

[hawkeye]

Calvin:

Do you guys have a charism of mind-reading you haven’t told us about yet?

-C

Maybe