The 'New Evangelization' for Catholics ... why not join with the Protestant Evangelicals ?

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For the lurkers out there I am going to cut and paste the old responses I gave to brb:

I see there seems to be some confusion as to the difference between the terminology of the Catholic Church (which has been around for 2000 years) and the terminology of evangelical Christianity (which is a latecomer).
Speaking as a former Protestant minister, I always had problems with the ‘sinners prayer’ even as a preacher. And I might add, many other Protestant pastors have a problem with it as well, so it is not a peculiar reaction relegated to one side of the River Tiber.
A little history:
Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875) was a minister, a lecturer, a professor, and a traveling revivalist who held heretical views on the Atonment. He invented the practice which he called the Anxious Seat, and developed a theological system around it. Finney was straightforward about his purpose for this technique and wrote the following comment near the end of his life:
“The church has always felt it necessary to have something of this kind to answer this very purpose. In the days of the apostles, baptism answered this purpose. **The gospel was preached to the people, and then all those who were willing to be on the side of Christ, were called out to be baptized. It held the place that the anxious seat does now **as a public manifestation of their determination to be Christians”
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That underlined statement by Finney is significant.
He intended the anxious seat/invitation/sinner’s prayer to replace Baptism. Which it has in evangelical/fundamentalist churches. So, in a sense, it is a ‘Baptist sacrament’ in the embryonic sense of the word, but they (Baptists) do not look at it that way. They have taken the supernatual elements (which Episcopals agree with as well) away from the traditional Sacraments and created thier own “sacrament” they insist is supernatural, though they deny this reality to Sacramental christians.
The Anxious Seat was considered to be a **psychological technique **that manipulated people to make a premature profession of faith. It was considered to be an emotional conversion influenced by the preachers’ magnetism.
The system that Finney admitted had replaced biblical baptism, is the nucleus for the popular **plan of salvation **that was made normative in the twentieth century.
It was popularized by Dwight L. Moody. It was standardized by Billy Graham.
Finney’s opponants were from his side of the Tiber. And they had good reason to be concerned. These names might mean nothing to Catholic scholars, but they should to Reformed Protestants.They included:
John Humphrey Noyes (1811–1886)
George W. Gale (1789–1861)
Lyman Beecher (1775–1863)
Asahel Nettleton (1738–1844)
Arthur (1786–1865) and Lewis (1788–1873) Tappan
Asa Mahan (18??–1889)
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834 –1892)
David Martin Lloyd-Jones.
Ian Murray’s “Revival & Revivalism” (which used to be in my library) is a wonderful resource book looking the damage Finney’s teachings have done to American Protestantism. The ‘invitation’, ‘sinner’s prayer’ are innovations that is not even compatable with conservative Reformed principals, let alone Catholicism.
 
Want a “sinners prayer”?
Try this on for size:
“O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy”.
Given by the Blessed Mother at Fatima.

Who…I believe…outranks Charles Finney.
 
JustaServant said:
He intended the anxious seat/invitation/sinner’s prayer to replace Baptism. Which it has in evangelical/fundamentalist churches. So, in a sense, it is a ‘Baptist sacrament’ in the embryonic sense of the word, but they (Baptists) do not look at it that way.
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Thanks for the explanation. I was raised in the Baptist church & I wondered (after becoming Catholic) why there were no baptisms in all the years we went there. There was no “anxious seat” either - you couldn’t find a better place for middle class values. 🙂

To this day I remember the astonishment I felt when my 6th grade SS teacher mentioned, rather shyly, that she had prayed at home about a particular issue. I remember thinking, “She actually believes all this!”

That was the first hint I had that there was more to spirituality than going to church on Sunday.
 
Bonnie said:
Thanks for the explanation. I was raised in the Baptist church & I wondered (after becoming Catholic) why there were no baptisms in all the years we went there. There was no “anxious seat” either - you couldn’t find a better place for middle class values. 🙂
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“Anxious Bench, or Seat” is what Finney called it. They evolved into the “altar” where the sinner would come to “accept Jesus into his heart”. Ever sing, or hear sung in a Billy Graham crusade “Just as I am”? That’s what it evolved into.
Catholics have an “altar call” every week, where we recieve the Lord Jesus.
To even compare the two, as brb does, is mind boggling.
That’s why over the years, myself and others, have come to doubt much of what she tells us.
 
JustaServant said:
“Anxious Bench, or Seat” is what Finney called it. They evolved into the “altar” where the sinner would come to “accept Jesus into his heart”.
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I remember that one of the churches we attended was an old German Baptist church. Absolutely gorgeous! Below the pulpit was an altar (tho at that time we really didn’t know what it was) that had the letters IHS carved into the front. We didn’t know what that meant either, so we (the kids, never thought to ask an adult) decided the letters stood for In His Service. 🙂
 
Bonnie said:
I remember that one of the churches we attended was an old German Baptist church. Absolutely gorgeous! Below the pulpit was an altar (tho at that time we really didn’t know what it was) that had the letters IHS carved into the front. We didn’t know what that meant either, so we (the kids, never thought to ask an adult) decided the letters stood for In His Service. 🙂
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Our people went nuts when a rumor started that IHS was Catholic!!
:eek:
 
brb3 said:
Pope Francis on Wed. 22, May encouraged Catholics to ‘work with’ those of other Christian denoms … so, that would certainly give us the go-ahead to engage in joint Evangelization endeavors with our Protestant brethren.

Text taken from Mark 9:38-40 … where Christ says if others are doing good deeds, and not working against us … then, they are ‘with us’ !

Many of the Protestant Evangelicals fit this description — those we can be united with / work with … since they are ‘with us …IN CHRISTOS’ !
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Perhaps you can give us a link to his words? If you are talking about this news story

the Pope is talking about good works, and that all people of good will can join together for common good. This is not the same as joining Protestants in evangelical conversion methods.
jmcrae said:
And text taken from your link show that they are indeed working against Christ’s Church, and trying to get Catholics to join false churches.
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I think brb3 has a blind spot, and can’t "see’ that part of the text. 😉
 
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