Southern Baptists are everywhere

[Teflon93]

I would like to say to FlJames that all Fundamentalist which btw aren’t all Protestants, are not “fear driven” as you said. Using words like “all” can be dangerous and extremely unfair.

What would they have to fear? I mean, when you grow up being taught that OSAS what else is there to fear once you have made a profession of faith?

There is the fear of being shunned in your community, which Southern Baptists are legendary for down here in the Bible Belt.

It is the heart of an old joke: “What’s the difference between a Methodist and a Southern Baptist?” “A Methodist will look you in the eye at the liquor store.”

We have some dear friends of ours who experienced this phenomenon recently. Their family is Southern Baptist; they converted to Catholicism at the same time my wife and I did and were in our RCIA class. At their daughter’s baptism, their grandmother turned her back on the assemblage and wept, refusing to acknowledge her baptism. She was clearly only their because her husband insisted.

A short time after, our friends told us that someone in their old community started the rumor that he was beating his wife. No one would talk to either of them in the face of this ridiculous accusation.

They weren’t surprised—one of the reasons they’d left the Southern Baptists in the first place was the tendency to shun people suspected of sin, as though we weren’t all sinners.

Southern Baptists are by no means unique in this regard, but it is quite something to hear them condemn Catholics for penitential practices.

 

[gr8full]

Wow, I’m reading a lot of generalization. As someone in RCIA and who has also tried to always be open to the Catholic Church long before I ever even considered converting, it really bothers me that I’m seeing so much talk about what is demanded from the Baptist from people whom if I’m not mistaken have never been a part of the church.
Baptist are not perfect by any means that is for sure, but I have never once had anyone demand anything of me in church. I grew up in the Baptist church and never saw anyone humiliated or ridiculed. If someone in a family did so, thats a shame. I am certain that when someone leaves their church for something new, it’s hard on the ones left behind.
If everyone would take time to listen to others and to investigate what is actully believed and taught by the church in question then a whole lot more can be accomplished. One reason the Catholic church has gotten such a bad rap from other denominations is because people make a lot of assumptions based on what their neighbor or coworker,etc. says but they don’t go to the source and find out the truth of what is actually supposed to be taught.
This turned from a thread that I was encouraged by to one that has made me sad to see the judgemental attitudes and ideas coming forth.

 

[Teflon93]

Living in an area with an enormous Southern Baptist population certainly helps, though, doesn’t it?

I have no intention of joining an anti-Catholic group for the purpose of learning more about it. We shall know them by their fruit, the Apostle said, and Southern Baptists have a reputation which precedes them, fairly or unfairly, on the basis of a lot of fallen fruit.

As for what they teach, well, there have been many threads on this where we’ve tried to get to the bottom of it. It has been a chimera.

I personally find the testimony of converts from their ranks to be dispositive, as well as the virulent anti-Catholic bigotry which pervades that community.

Others mileage will surely vary.

Has the Southern Baptist Convention renounced “Trail of Blood” yet?

 

[ericka1701]

It is difficult to get an idea what a “congregationalist” denomination teaches, since what is taught at “First Baptist Church” of Town 1 teaches can be completely different than what “First Baptist Church” of Town 2 teaches. Unfortunately, stereotypes exist because of some bad apples. It seems that I personally do encounter more of the bad apples than anything else, but at the same time I have a couple of Southern Baptist friends who don’t try to “evangelize” me, and who have done some research on their own, and aren’t as misguided as their fellow Baptists. I have also warned them that learning about the Catholic faith can lead to conversion (happened to me, and to quite a few others I know).

God Bless!

Ericka

 

[Letchitsa1]

Wow, I’m reading a lot of generalization. As someone in RCIA and who has also tried to always be open to the Catholic Church long before I ever even considered converting, it really bothers me that I’m seeing so much talk about what is demanded from the Baptist from people whom if I’m not mistaken have never been a part of the church.
Baptist are not perfect by any means that is for sure, but I have never once had anyone demand anything of me in church. I grew up in the Baptist church and never saw anyone humiliated or ridiculed. If someone in a family did so, thats a shame. I am certain that when someone leaves their church for something new, it’s hard on the ones left behind.
If everyone would take time to listen to others and to investigate what is actully believed and taught by the church in question then a whole lot more can be accomplished. One reason the Catholic church has gotten such a bad rap from other denominations is because people make a lot of assumptions based on what their neighbor or coworker,etc. says but they don’t go to the source and find out the truth of what is actually supposed to be taught.
This turned from a thread that I was encouraged by to one that has made me sad to see the judgemental attitudes and ideas coming forth.

I’m glad you’ve never experienced such maltreatment - it’s a shame that more people cannot say the same.

My entire family is a mix of Methodists, Baptists (of the independent fundamentalist type), Church of Christ (the non-musical instrument branch) and Church of the Brethren. Within the family, there has been a few minor issues over Catholicism, but nothing like that described by some posters here.

Outside the family - boy I can tell some doozies, but when it gets right down to it - what’s the point? Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who just are not Christian in spite of what they profess to be - and they are in every single Protestant denomination as well as in the Catholic Church. If you doubt me - just spend some time around here and you’ll see the ugliness of some of the so-called Catholic “Christians” who post here. The best we can do for any of them is pray for them - that they will be truly converted in their hearts. And when they hurt us - we can pray for them some more - for their conversion, but also for our ability to forgive their hurtful words to us, and the ability to not give in to human instinct and hurt them as they have hurt us.

 

[Teflon93]

And when they hurt us - we can pray for them some more - for their conversion, but also for our ability to forgive their hurtful words to us, and the ability to not give in to human instinct and hurt them as they have hurt us.

Perhaps you could share some examples from your experience as to how Catholics have hurt Southern Baptists, that we may properly repent of it.

Here is a link to the “Trail of Blood” pamphlet I referenced earlier:

siteone.com/religion/baptist/baptistpage/Distinctives/Trail_of_Blood.html

Here’s a representative bit:

1. Let’s go back just a little.** The Catholic Church by its many departures from New Testament teachings, its many strange and cruel laws, and its desperately low state of morals, and its hands and clothes reeking with the blood of millions of martyrs, has become obnoxious and plainly repulsive to many of its adherents, who are far better than their own system and laws and doctrines and practices**. Several of its bravest and best and most spiritual priests and other leaders, one by one, sought most earnestly to reform many of its most objectionable laws and doctrines and get back, at least nearer, to the plain teachings of the New Testament. We give some striking examples. Note, not only how far apart and where the reformatory fires began, but note also the leaders in the reformation. The leaders were, or had been, all Catholic priests or officials of some kind. There was, even yet, a little of good in the much evil. However, at this time there was probably not one solitary unmarred doctrine of the New Testament retained in its original purity – but now note some of the reformers and where they labored.

1. It is well to note, however, that for many centuries prior to this great reformation period, there were a number of noted characters, who rebelled against the awful extremes of the Catholic – and earnestly sought to remain loyal to the Bible – but their bloody trail was about all that was left of them. We come now to study for awhile this most noted period – the “Reformation.”

 

[gr8full]

I’m glad you’ve never experienced such maltreatment - it’s a shame that more people cannot say the same.

My entire family is a mix of Methodists, Baptists (of the independent fundamentalist type), Church of Christ (the non-musical instrument branch) and Church of the Brethren. Within the family, there has been a few minor issues over Catholicism, but nothing like that described by some posters here.

Outside the family - boy I can tell some doozies, but when it gets right down to it - what’s the point? Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who just are not Christian in spite of what they profess to be - and they are in every single Protestant denomination as well as in the Catholic Church. If you doubt me - just spend some time around here and you’ll see the ugliness of some of the so-called Catholic “Christians” who post here. The best we can do for any of them is pray for them - that they will be truly converted in their hearts. And when they hurt us - we can pray for them some more - for their conversion, but also for our ability to forgive their hurtful words to us, and the ability to not give in to human instinct and hurt them as they have hurt us.

Good advice. I think I will just pray and let it go. I will not change the minds of people who have had bad experiences with other denominations because one size doesn’t fit all, Just like the minds of those who have the wrong idea about the Catholic Church will not be changed unless the Holy Spirit works on their hearts.

 

[Georgia]

As I come from a background as a former Baptist of a church that considered the Southern Baptists too liberal, I have to make a couple of points here. Most active Baptists I have known carry a picture of the Catholic Church that is wildly off base. It is far better to explain what the Catholic Church believes than to argue. Accurate and kind explanations go very far. They tend to be very good people, salt of the earth, and they love God with all their hearts.

My pre-Church life may be typical in some ways. I had an arrogance that I knew all there was to know about the Bible. After all, I had grown up in the Baptist Church, was in Bible Memory Association, went to Sunday School every Sunday, went to Baptist Training Union, played piano for who knows how many church functions and it goes on. There were very few Catholics in my town in Georgia and we hoped they would be someday led out of the darkness into the light of true Christianity. We really felt sorry for them.

When I met my the woman who is now my wife and a cradle Catholic, I thought the Church was, at best, silly and that it did not really believe in the Bible. As we dated and I went with her to Mass, I found something I never knew existed. If I were to write what I thought the Catholic Church was, people reading this would think me too much. I was never pushed into the Church, but I crossed the Tiber in 1990 and cannot express my joy. It was a case of seeing the truth presented without being beaten over the head with it.

Loving statements of the truth go far, especially in towns such as my home town. Baptists outnumber Catholics at least 100 to one. They have the support of all their friends and family claiming some level of membership in the Baptist groups. Unfortunately, many are people who were baptized as adolescents and never set foot in church as adults. Really, the obits in by home town newspaper list such as “He was of the Baptist faith.” They do that because so many are cultural Baptists and cannot identify any particular church as their church home.

Any of those are potential members of the true church, if they are not offended along the road. Charity will go far.

 

[Letchitsa1]

Well stated, Georgia.

Also one thing I have noticed within the Baptist churches - a large number of individuals who were raised Catholic and eventually wound up as Baptists for any number of reasons. Baptists of this ilk will be even harder to convert than the Baptists who were raised Baptist because the former Catholic types usually have had an incomplete knowledge of their Catholic faith to begin with (40 years of poor catechesis, anyone?) and many of them left because of some bad experience with the Catholic Church - real or perceived.

As I noted earlier - never underestimate the power of prayer. As Georgia noted - charity goes a long way. Know your faith and know how to explain it without seeming judgmental of non-Catholics and you will plant seeds you never knew you planted.

 

[Teflon93]

The Southern Baptists clearly have their defenders, even when they preach anti-Catholic bigotry from the pulpit (remember John Hagee?).

Perhaps one day the Bride of Christ will be allowed her defenders, even those who do not take “do not give offense” to be Christ’s chief commandment.