I have a question for Protestants…
Are you no sinless?
I’m also gonna make this interesting.** Don’t use Scripture**. Let us use reasoning. I like to see how good you are in Apologetics.
I know I am sinful, and my only hope rests in the mercy of God.
I read it in the bible, in catechism books, and heard it from many other sources, but I only understood it when I encountered Christ, through the worship, liturgy and tradition of the Church…He cannot be limited, but the Church, his Body is the place He ordained to meet us face to face, among His Body on Earth. I cannot explain it in 10 dollar words, but I can tell you the story of encountering Christ. and how with tenderness and mercy He revealed my sickness unto death, and by the Grace I received through baptism, I was able to respond.
I had been a Protestant all my life, and the Bible, the sermons, all the books on doctrine (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox…were dead words to me. Not until I received the “Living Word”, through the proclamation of the Church and her Liturgy, and got my fist glimpse of the fullness of the Kingdom of God, did I realize I was at the wedding feast, and was not had no garment fit to allow me to be there.
The entire story of salvation was laid out before my eyes and into my heart through the Living Tradition, the words of the Liturgy. The realization of my own unworthiness grew in proportion to the love and mercy of God as it was revealed to me;
No one told me I needed to confess my sins, It was with gratefulness that I submitted and received absolution; and am grateful that reconciliations is available to me, as I will certainly fail many times.
As for the type of apologetics that is practiced here, it scared the heck out of me…I was no match for your words, and more often than not, I felt cornered, like the woman caught in adultery (I knew in my heart I wasn’t whole), all the stones of truth, thrown “in love and concern for my salvation”, only wounded me more.
I am not sure Christ ever won anyone over with clever apologetics; and I think many of us are picking up bad habits from the Protestants with all this proof texting (Scripture, Church Fathers, history…).
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No one can Confess that Jesus is the Christ, by reason alone…in fact, the unanswerable arguments, even if true are dead words, especially the ones about submitting to the Church; it was like salt in my wounds that the Spirit, I think , had to work overtime to heal, and actually delayed my very slow and cautious approach to Christ’s promptings.
Forgive the many errors; my words are poor; but stories and parables seemed to work best for Christ, and I am the first to admit, I am an ignorant woman, and I know I am leaving words that will probably be torn to pieces, but I pray my understanding and knowledge increases as i grow into Christ, and partake of the Graces that the Church makes available to me.
Apologetics has become what used to be what was saved until after you came to knowledge and were ready to renounce the world and confess Christ…then the learning and growing in mysteries commenced. I think we, without malice, throw are pearls before swine; it is universal these days, as we have lost touch with how the Church initiated converts.
Now, many of those same words I hunger and thirst for.
It’s not a bad thing to understand your faith, but just like I could have cared less what made my husband tick, and what all his little wonderful surprises that married life brings, would have meant nothing apart from first falling in love with him.
It was through meeting, and knowing Christ (knowing him in the "Adam knew his Wife:, not knowing every nuance of the Law and the Scriptures, that changed peoples lives.
Apologetics was the wall the Pharisees built around themselves, and, sadly, in their pride, cut themselves off, and the flock that trusted them, from the very One they were waiting for.
"It was not we ourselves who were moved towards God, nor did we ascend to Him; but it was He who came and descended to us. It was not we who sought, but we were the object of His seeking.
The sheep did not seek for the shepherd, nor did the lost coin search for the master of the house; He it was who came to the earth and retrieved His own image, and He came to the place where the sheep was straying and lifted it up and stopped it from straying…
…As the prophet says, “He bowed the heavens also, and came down.” - St. Nicholas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ
BTW, your post was addressed to Protestants. I am Eastern Orthodox; but I have been recently informed by CAF that since I am not in communion with Rome, that is some mutation of Protestantism, and that’s why we were banished here, to the non-catholic ghetto., so I thought it was allowable to answer your query.
lucy
