Tim Tebow's dad wants to convert Catholics in the Philippines?

[KathleenGee]

I think Catholicism can be summarized here as ‘Do this…’…‘whoever perseveres to the end will be saved…’…‘do not stand on street corners…’…‘go to your closet where no one can see you except the Father…’…

I was at a neighborhood Bible study headed by this Nazarene group…wonderful neighbors, and they had members from their church attend…Their approach to studying Scripture was the English dictionary…whereas we would use historical and anthropological resources. They would pause on words and comment on the different meanings of the English words.

Three of us were Catholics. We sat next to each other on the sofa…we would hear and reflect on the word…and I could sense the belief of the Eucharist at work in the persons sitting on both sides of me…and the same impulse…hearing and reflecting on the word…'Do this!"…first reaction to go out and live the Word…

BTW, a priest who was on the cruise ship that was damaged off the West coast of Italy said when it looked like the boat was sinking, he ran into the chapel and retrieved the Blessed Sacrament, and put away into a safe the money and other assets placed under his care by passengers…and he said 1/3 on the ship were Filipinos…and most likely all Catholic.

 

[Saint_Kevin]

I think it’s probably because Catholics don’t witness to people and dont spend a lot of time reading scripture. I know my Catholic buddies and parents don’t know the first thing about the Bible and that’s really sad.

 

[PRmerger]

I think it’s probably because Catholics don’t witness to people and dont spend a lot of time reading scripture.

Careful, Saint Kevin. You are making a provocative statement to lots of Catholics who are, well, witnessing to people, and who do spend lots of time reading the Scriptures.

(BTW, the Bible is a Catholic book, written by Catholics for Catholics.)

I know my Catholic buddies and parents don’t know the first thing about the Bible and that’s really sad.

It is sad indeed. :sad_yes:

 

[stewstew03]

Funny that I did a word search on the article and did not encounter the word “Catholic” once.

Let me help you - click here.

 

[KathleenGee]

Kevin,

Are you speaking of Catholics who go to Mass on Sunday’s…or were baptized, went to church as children, didn’t go to Catholic schools…but left?

How are you relating Scriptures to Catholics?..showing them your misperceptions of the Church using the Bible? They wouldn’t answer you.

Our premise in understanding Scripture is Christ, not even looking at Protestants or any other branch of religion. If you tell me if I know Luke 12 or something…I do not know what you are talking about…ask a Catholic priest if he knows the passage of such and such a book and a particular passage, and off the top of his head, he won’t either.

But if you begin to share the happenings and events of Christ, of the various figures of Scripture, the specific exhortations of Scripture…without using them to disprove Catholicism…or better yet, you do a Bible study together…you will find that the Catholic does know Scripture but in a life - relating way.

We just don’t relate to Scripture in text form, but in the oral tradition and in context of the Church…through homilies given by our parish priests. We don’t memorize Bible quotes and relay them. We go more into the deeper meaning of Scripture passages and apply ourselves to them through the Holy Spirit.

Priests know Scripture. And can go into great depths and context of Scripture…

Give us the event or the saying…and most likewise, we already know what the passage and context is…but are focused more on living out our faith.

If a Catholic were to go to daily Mass for 3 years, he would have studied all of Scripture…in the context of Christ…nothing more.

 

[melekali]

We certainly know what his dad thinks of Catholics in the Philippines:

More…
btea.org/theplan.asp

Well, he is a Baptist, so what do you expect? The best way to teach him what real Catholics are is to live the faith in front of them. That is the best preaching anyone ever did.

 

[CopticChristian]

Let me help you - click here.

btea.org/newsletter/july2009pg3-4.pdf

T

iffany Gray: One day, we got back
to the hotel early and had the
opportunity to share the gospel with
the hotel staff. I approached two men
at the front desk and told them we
were in the Philippines, sharing the
gospel at schools, and would also like
to share with them. One of them was
Catholic and the other, a Mormon.
They were very interested in what I
said and seemed shocked that eternal
life is a free gift rather than something
you earn. After they both accepted
Christ as Savior, they had very large
smiles!

Jessica Watkins: One day, my team and I
decided to stop by a private Catholic high
school to see if they would let us share the
gospel. They agreed to let us share our
message and assembled the students in the
Catholic church by their school. I shared with
the first and third year high school students
and saw most of them trust in Christ!

Angela Latch: While playing basketball
one afternoon, I met a young man. Through
small talk, I found out he was Catholic. I
wanted to explain the good news, and
before we left, I got the chance. I took a
friend with me, and we were able to explain
the love of Jesus. He asked Jesus to come
into his heart and to be his Lord and Savior!

Jean Oman: Upon arriving at an elementary
school with 233 students, we found there was no
adequate place for an assembly. Adjacent to the
school was a Catholic church. The caretaker was
there, and the head teacher asked him if the
children could assemble there, to which he
agreed. Over 200 children prayed to receive Jesus
as their Savior in the Catholic church!
While sharing at another elementary school, some
students were distracted, but the ones directly in
front of me were hanging on every word. After
the prayer of invitation, one young boy exclaimed
joyfully as tears streamed down his face, “I am on
my way to Heaven! Thank you for coming to tell
me about Jesus!”

This is certainly phenomenal. Catholics do not know Jesus. No wonder Bob Tebow is doing so well. He must be encountering Pelagians there that think they can work their way to heaven…What I want to know is how you created the link with the word “here”…I have asked and no one has told me…can you tell me?

I cannot wait to call Bob Tebow and see if they can speak to me and get my thinking straight on Jesus…

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

I cannot wait to call Bob Tebow and see if they can speak to me and get my thinking straight on Jesus…

Reading those testimonies, I can tell they’re nice but sadly misguided people. As much as I appreciate their sincerity, I hope these people don’t try to do this to me and treat Catholicism as if it was outside Christianity. I might just pull an evil Alexander Anderson impression (complete with Scottish accent).

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

It is very sad and I don’t think you sound arrogant about it at all. But as I have mentioned in my previous post, I could not speak for what is happening in the Philippines since I never had the opportunity or means to visit my mother’s homeland. I left it to those who live there, work or visit often to give a better view of what is happening in that country rather than someone like me who would only be going from what I hear or read.

Yeah I suppose. I hope you don’t mind me speaking then.
My real point actually is that it’s just as bad over here. Besides, at the very least Filipino Catholics in the US seem to have it better financially at least. I mean my uncle was an odd-jobs worker over there but he came home with an iPod, a flat screen TV, and gifted me 40 bucks. T_T

Do you have any idea how much stuff I could buy here with just that? D:

 

[ltwin]

Not all Africa is black. Can you provide a resource for this African desire to evangelize?

Planting churches is a Protestant phenomenon and assumes that all provide the same information and are on equal footing.

Certainly, off the top of my head this New York Times article is informative. Part of it says,

Africa is the world’s fastest-growing continent, and Ajayi-Adeniran belongs to one of its most vigorously expansionary religious movements, a homegrown Pentecostal denomination that is crusading to become a global faith. In the course of just a few decades, the Redeemed Christian Church of God, founded in a Lagos shantytown, has won millions of adherents in Nigeria while building a vast missionary network that stretches into more than 100 nations. “The rate of growth,” Ajayi-Adeniran says, “is becoming exponential.” As the man coordinating the Redeemed Church’s expansion in North America, the pastor spends his days shuttling from his home base, a storefront church in the Bronx, to the denomination’s continental headquarters, a 550-acre compound in Texas, and to mission outposts scattered from Vermont to Belize. This places him at the vanguard of a revolution in worldwide Christianity, one that it is quite literally changing its face, as a faith that was once exported by white missionaries from Europe and America comes to draw its strength from the peoples of the Southern Hemisphere.

 

[ltwin]

I too am anxious for you to answer that question Itwin.
What are those assumptions?

That persons who were born into a church, but have minimal contact with that church in later life is to put simply fair game. To say, “I’m not gonna witness to that person because he/she is already affiliated with another church,” would be seen as missing an opportunity to help that person.

I don’t mean to offend anyone, and I certainly do not advocate placing Catholics outside of Christianity. However, I can see the situation is really complex.

I am not unsympathetic to the concerns expressed on this forum and there are evangelical Protestants who do take this into consideration. In the words of the Pentecostal theologian Frank Macchia, Protestant missionaries and evangelists should take into account that “infant-baptized persons not currently active in the church have already in a profound sense been laid claim to by God in the bosom of the historic church.”

I would agree with him. At the very least, I would wish Mr. Tebow get more realistic statistics.

 

[Church_Militant]

I think it’s probably because Catholics don’t witness to people and dont spend a lot of time reading scripture. I know my Catholic buddies and parents don’t know the first thing about the Bible and that’s really sad.

Yeah, right…My Grandmother, (God rest her soul) knew more of the Word of God than most people I have ever met. I too read the Bible regularly and have read it completely several times over. (All 73 books of it!). Your friends may not be very faithful or know much, but then I know a number of n-Cs who are just as bad if not worse. I taught Sunday School in an AoG church and the level of scriptural ignorance was really pretty appalling. Most couldn’t even cite scripture to support why they believed Jesus was God.

And witnessing…forget it. I knew who they partied with and all the other junk they did and though they would tell you they were “saved” in a heartbeat, they weren’t living it and never seemed to break open a Bible unless they were at church.

It’s pretty easy to knock someone else’s faith community for the failings of some of the less than stellar individuals among them, but that’s comparing apples and oranges…the so-called best of n-Cs to the worst of Catholics and vice versa. It’s fallacious and biased, and I assure you that you are not among the worst of Catholics here at CAF.

Most of us are like a K-Mart radio…we don’t play.

For example look at the following 2 poll threads on Bible reading among us.
Poll: Catholics: When did you last read the Bible?
Poll: Catholics and the Bible:Update.

 

[JustaServant]

That persons who were born into a church, but have minimal contact with that church in later life is to put simply fair game. To say, “I’m not gonna witness to that person because he/she is already affiliated with another church,” would be seen as missing an opportunity to help that person.

I believe the reason you believe them to be “fair game” finds its roots in the confusion many evangelicals have about salvation. You believe salvation to be a one-time past “event”, a “Holy Zap” it you will. Historically and Biblically, for 1500 years, the Church has said salvation is a life-long process, not an “event”.
Here is the problem evangelicals face:
A person (lets say they are a Baptized Catholic) prays the “sinners prayer” and is now assured he will go to Heaven. Nothing can separate him from God.
Now let’s say this same person shows no fruit in his Christian life. The ‘event’ of salvation took place. They got their lifeboat out of Hell and their ticket to Heaven. This ‘event’ is sealed and the Christian is “Once saved always saved”. What happens? The person loses thier fear of God. Why must he live a holy life? Why get upset over sin? The ‘event’ made him right. It creates a spiritual laziness. A presumption.
It creates a dilemma that must be explained. The Christian who “Falls away”.
In order to explain a “Christian” who falls into sin or has no spiritual fruit, they come up with another phrase: “never saved in the first place”.
The ‘event’ really didn’t happen and must be replaced with a genuine ‘event’.
It is the ‘event’ that is at the heart of it all.
The foundation for many who accept OSAS is a fear of falling away. If salvation is a ‘one time “crisis” “event”’ that is in the past tense, and I believe I can never fall away because God said so (or putting words into God’s mouth) than I can never be convinced otherwise. To think otherwise is to doubt God.
Once I 'know 'I’m as ‘sure for Heaven as Jesus’, (actually heard a preacher say that once) I sit on my laurels and pretty much do nothing. Good works? Why? I’m heading for Heaven. It stifles any good done on this earth the end has already been decided.
IF HOWEVER, my entire foundation of salvation is incorrect, (a process, not a one-time event), than what the believer in OSAS is shaken. The whole house of cards comes crashing down and I realize my part in my salvation.
The bottom line is responsibility.
Tebow’s daddy is not trying to create better Catholics. He spreading “event”, past tense, Holy Zap Gospel to those poor dumb Catholics who have fallen away.
The Catholic Church invites those fallen away Catholics to come Home and resume the process of working out thier salvation with fear and trembling.

 

[JustaServant]

I think it’s probably because Catholics don’t witness to people and dont spend a lot of time reading scripture. I know my Catholic buddies and parents don’t know the first thing about the Bible and that’s really sad.

 

[Contarini]

If I understand what you are trying to say here is that Mr. Tebow is insinuating that the Catholic Gospel is no gospel and the one that he is preaching is the only gospel?
The Philippines is a mostly Catholic country from what I understand. and maybe the out lying islands have not heard the gospel.

I am well aware that Protestants tear down Catholicism at every chance they get but I think you are putting words into Mr. Tebow’s mouth here and if he is trying to “convert” Catholics IF he gets any it will be because they didn’t believe the truth in the first place.

I think the website pretty clearly implies that Catholicism doesn’t preach the Gospel. You have to learn evangelical code language.

On the other hand, many evangelicals take the approach of a college friend of mine who went on a short-term mission trip to South America–he said that he was happy for the Catholics to convert the Catholics, but someone needed to!

In other words, there is a lot of “nominal Christianity” in many culturally Christian countries (whether Catholic or Protestant). Evangelicals fall on a spectrum in terms of how much they are hostile to Catholicism, and how much they just want to bring people into a “personal relationship with Jesus” by any means necessary.

At the ecumenical end of the spectrum is a guy I heard speak a few years ago, who has spent years as an evangelical missionary in France working with the local Catholic churches to help them evangelize more effectively!

But I don’t think Tebow is anywhere near that end of the spectrum. The transition from “a history of abuse and conquest” to “never heard the Gospel” clearly implies an unspoken “Catholicism is a religion of abuse and conquest in which the Gospel is unknown.” Catholics on this forum are sometimes paranoid, but I don’t think that’s the case here.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I believe the reason you believe them to be “fair game” finds its roots in the confusion many evangelicals have about salvation. You believe salvation to be a one-time past “event”, a “Holy Zap” it you will.

That’s a caricature–true for some evangelicals, but unfair as a generalization, just as “Catholicism is a religion of guilt in which people try to earn their salvation” characterizes the attitude of some Catholics but not Catholicism as a whole.

Evangelicals want to help people have a living, ongoing relationship with Jesus. They don’t see this in a lot of cultural Catholicism. I think Catholics would do well to acknowledge that there’s some basis for this perception, even though of course there’s also a good deal of solid Catholic piety that goes unrecognized by evangelicals because it doesn’t take forms they acknowledge.

I think that evangelical proselytization in Catholic areas is generally good for Catholics. That doesn’t mean that I condone anything that further divides the Church. But in fact it probably helps Catholics be more fervent and well-informed. God brings good even out of evil, remember! (Also, ironically this kind of activity is probably worse by my ecclesiology than by yours. I believe that Catholics and Protestants should be united. You guys want to convert people to Catholicism and help them be more committed to Catholicism. These priorities often coincide, but not always!)

Edwin

 

[ltwin]

I don’t believe OSAS, and I know tons of Protestants that would find that picture of their Christian life as foreign. I condemn OSAS and “event” and “past tense” and “Holy Zap Gospel” salvation as heartily as you do.

 

[JustaServant]

I don’t believe OSAS, and I know tons of Protestants that would find that picture of their Christian life as foreign. I condemn OSAS and “event” and “past tense” and “Holy Zap Gospel” salvation as heartily as you do.

Great to hear that Itwin!

 

[PRmerger]

What I want to know is how you created the link with the word “here”…I have asked and no one has told me…can you tell me?

It’s called a hyperlink.

When you click on “QUOTE” to respond to another’s post, you’ll see the hyperlink icon above that has an image of an earth with a chain link. (It’s on the same line as where you Bold and Italicize and Underline)

So if you want to hyperlink you type the word you want to be hyperlinked,
example:

here

then right click on the URL that you want to link to
(example: Apologist Mark Shea’s blog)

then click on the hyplink icon and paste the URL.

Voila!

 

[hvadney]

Please let’s not start deifying a flesh-and-blood man who has been blessed with gifts and is certainly making the best of them. This entire Tebow-phenomenon is navigating perilously close to idolatry and for all of the worst reasons. He’s blessed with gifts (including Jockey and Nike contracts), he’s blessed with wealth (what’s he making, anyway), he’s blessed with great showmanship (Watch me pray! Ain’t that great?), he’s blessed with health and youth (for now). But he’s not a Christ or a Buddha, Thank you! Until the inevitable hubris and the attendant scandal? Probably. How long will his “divinity” last, I ask? Modern mankind chooses its idols very carelessly, and doesn’t seem to learn when they finally totter and topple, as do so many of the sports, political, and other pseudo-“heros.”

But really, to start drawing Scriptural parallels with this guy’s coïncidental–or worse, contrived, figures is not only blasphemous but idiotic! I’ve posted my “official” take on Tebow on my blog at Tebow Mania…Or Idolatry in Process?

Here are some Scriptural parallels for you: Matthew 6:6. How about some pharisee and publican lore, Luke18:9-14.

Prayer is simple, private, and intimate not something we flaunt in a modern liturgy of professional sports. Consider for a moment, if you will, the fourth moment or ingredient of Lectio Divina is contemplatio or contemplation. This is a concept with a lot of history behind it and not a few difficulties connected to it. We can use a more sown-to-earth term that is difficult to misunderstand understandable: rest. At this point we are invited to enter into the mystery of God. It is no longer necessary to think holy thoughts, or to speak but simply to rest in God. “Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.” (Matthew 11:28-30).

Ever wonder what he’s actually praying for? Maybe some humility or modesty perhaps? Only his god knows for sure. Check out my blog posting.

Peace and silent contemplation,

Harold