What Do Baptists Think of Catholics?

[Celia]

I don’t know too many Baptists. I went to Catholic schools and lived in a largely Catholic area, so most of my riends now fall in the “cafeteria” Catholic category, unfotunately. But I do have one friend that converted to the Baptist religion from Greek Orthodox. She is never insulting directly, but sometimes she lets stuff sneak in every now and then like, “well, we believe that we aren’t saved just from doing good works” or “I have a personal relationship with my Savior, I don’t need to go through other means to talk with him”

Once I mentioned that I had went to confession that weekend, and I thought she was going to bust. Finally she came out with, “you know you are forgiven, you don’t need to tell some guy what is between you and Jesus” I was just like, umm… ok there. I’ve had to gently explain things to her that she obviously did not understand about the Catholic faith. (faith/works, etc.) And that’s what bugs me most, is when people that don’t know what they’re talking about make unfounded accusations about Catholicism.

Other than that she’s a completely sweet person and I love her dearly. She never intends to offend, but she does it anyway kind of unwillingly.
So anyway, that’s my experience with the one Baptist I know.

 

[masondoggy]

mellysue:

My husband’s side of the family is Catholic, but he isn’t and never was.
At first I was slightly worried that my MIL might make me have a preist at our wedding. (my mother’s side would freak out. Lots of older generation baptist there. The ‘rock & roll is the devil’s music’ kind of baptists. But that’s generally a generation gap more than a religious one.)

NEWay. No preist at the wedding…
I’m still just a little nervous about when we have kids. Will they pressure me to baptise our children? All the other grandkids are baptised. But I’m just going to take it day by day. And not be confrontational.

Having a priest at your wedding and having your kids baptized is highly unlikely since your husband isn’t Catholic. It doesn’t matter if his whole family is Catholic or not, if HE (or you) isn’t Catholic, he won’t be able to have the kids baptized in the Church. At least one of the parents must be a practicing Catholic to have the child Baptized. It certainly isn’t up to your MIL.

On a side note, if you are an adult and married, why are you worried about what other family members would think or say?

 

[mellysue]

To respond to your side note:

Out of respect for them. I didn’t have drinking at my wedding, but not because I believe drinking is bad, but because it would offend my grandparents and older aunts/uncles. If it was something that meant alot to me and dh then we would have risked the offense or alerted my relatives beforehand.
DH & I love to swing dance. I was GOING to have dancing at my wedding, even if my baptist relatives think dancing is the devil’s work. But the dancing was done in good taste and everyone who might have been offended was told and had it explained to them before.
Had my dh been Catholic and having a priest meant alot to him/me, then it could have been dealt with the same way.
I didn’t know that the child couldn’t be baptized unless the parents were Catholic. I wasn’t sure if the grandparents could override that or something… Thanks.
I’ve been to weddings where a priest and a preacher co-officiated the wedding. Granted, this wedding would not be recognized in the catholic church.

 

[heisenburg]

While I know this is probably not representative of all baptist, all of my experiences have been poor.

• Effectivly removed from an elected position in a “christian” study group when they found out i was catholic. (wasnt invited to any more administration meetings)
• The President of this same group was reluctant to pray for my priest who was undergoing surgery when it came time for “prayer requests”
• My dad converted from Baptist to catholic when I was young and his side of the family looked at him suspiciously for many years…
• My wife grew up baptist (though born catholic) and to this day we alwasy get into arguments over the church… (all of her friends + her are in the ‘Pope = antichrist’ group

Anyway. thats jsut been my experience, I am sure there are good non catholice hating baptist out there, this has sadly been my experience though…

In christ

 

[catholiclvr]

I hope the pastor was tricked too. It would really be sad if he participated under false pretenses.

Hang in there.

---

I dont know how bapitsts feel about Catholics, When I went to awana they memorized verses and the poster in that room said the lords prayer and i could not understand the last sentence ( I think AWANA was in a baptist church) and they don’t do the sign of the cross soi think baptists differ a lot from Catholics.

 

[MarieCB]

Hello-

Sometimes I wonder about the socio-economic status of anti-Catholic Baptists.

I grew up lower middle class in a small southern town. I caught hell from the lower middle class Baptist kids, but not from the more affluent Baptists.

Ever notice anything similar?

Nope, the Baptists I knew were educated and wealthy - lots of engineers, lawyers, doctors, etc., in the congregation, and it was located in the middle of a major Canadian city. Several multi-generational families where every adult had a doctorate. And the general consensus was that Catholics were not Christian, that the RC church was evil, and that having anything to do with Catholics was dangerous to one’s soul.

 

[DLClark]

Baptis view Catholics in light of the Wrod of God. If what they teach agrees with the bible great. If not then they have a problem. Here is one issue that they have a difficult time with. Sola Scriptura. Jesu said that we should not live by bread alon but by every word that proceed aout of His mouth. Jes is the Word incarnate. The Word of God is our authority in matters of faith and not man. They do not believe that fallible man (the teaching magistrate of the church) is a guide. The in fallible Holy Spirit must be our guide for all things, through the Word of God, John 16.
John 16:13-15
13 "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He willguide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14 "He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. 15 " All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.
NASU

 

[Catholic1954]

My mother-in-law told me that she believed that some Catholics could be “good people.” (Not mentioning any names, of course!) She was okay with my husband marrying me, until 20 years later, when he became Catholic. My brother-in-law, the Baptist preacher, is so smugly anti-Catholic, that he tries to pretend that he isn’t. We hardly hear from that side of the family any more.

 

[allhers]

I recently was asked by Baptist’s friends if I wouldn’t go with them to their service on Sunday instead of to Mass, when I said no that I wouldn’t they further pressed me on the issue and informed me that God really doesn’t mind, that it would be alright, so I said, “In that case, you come with me then!”
They didn’t like that idea at all.

 

[losh14]

One thing about Baptists - no two are alike. Feel lucky and good if you have no ill feelings from your Baptist sect family and friends. Ugh-Rah for ecumenism!

Related question, then. I have a friend at work who is taking a class in Systemic Theology at a local SBC-affiliated Church, and who espouses the Way of the Master. We had a good theological talk, in which I professed my faith in and love of Christ and tried to rebutt his concerns that I wasn’t “saved”. A few weeks later he sends me a video from Kirk Cameron’s website, and I expressed my wonder at why he’d send me something like this, to which he responded “Oh, I know you’re saved. I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t. I just wanted to share this.” Yesterday he says we should get together for a good serious talk.

So what’s he doing? In college, the proselytizers would usually be satiated once I expressed my faith in Christ. Sometimes I’d have to take them to Mass. Is he just saying he believes me but is going to walk me down the Roman Road again? I had time for this in college, but I’m in my thirties, have a kid on the way and a full-time job. I really don’t have the energy to keep up in theological debates all the time anymore.

The AWANA club teachers would try to “SAVE” the lost Catholic children (without parental knowledge). The church members would say horrible things about Catholics and teach the kids that Catholics were NOT saved and NOT going to heaven.

There are some groups I’ve encountered - especially the ICC - that engage in such deceit. There was one organized at my high school as a “Conservative Values Club”. When I came home asking questions about Catholic worship, my mom was happy to answer. When I said these questions were from a minister at Homewood Family Church (then SBC-affiliated, now it’s non-denom), she called the school, was informed that the club wasn’t registered, and the club was disbanded at the next meeting, with the minister escorted off-grounds by security (we had a strict policy against adults who weren’t faculty or staff being on school grounds).

Baptist ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ who were my close "friends" told my wife to divorce me lest I take her to hell too when I was coming home to the Catholic Church! Boy, now that’s Christian.

I hate to admit it, but I socked a guy in my Bible Study once when he said I needed to give him my then-girlfriend’s (now wife) number so she could meet a real Christian guy. I felt bad about it, but that’s a combination of low insults and being 22. He was a non-denom, went to the Lakeside Church in Springfield, IL. Pastors from that church headed the ONLY Christian group on campus (Sangamon State U.). I tried to get a Catholic group started, but the school admin was a Berkely grad who was oblivious to differences and kinda said “Oh, we already have a Christian group.” These pastors were vehemently anti-Catholic, and doing Bible studies with them only bolstered my Catholic faith because they challenged me to defend it, and hence I had to learn it. So I learned it, challenged the leadership of the groups, and even found myself on Ash Wednesday at a dawn service sitting across from one of the pastors, Todd, and we exchanged a look. That look was because I was reading David Currie’s “Born Fundamentalist: Born Again Catholic” and he was reading a book simply titled “Luther”.

PS, don’t sling the mud or throw stones. We Catholics live in a glass house too. Hatred is a two way street. I am only talking about Baptists atrocities here, I bet we could find an example of a less then perfect Catholic if we looked hard enough? I don’t know any off hand though…

It’s the hardness of men’s hearts that cleft the Church into so many denominations, and it’s the same hardness that keeps us apart. One day our divisions will disappear into Christ.

 

[losh14]

My mother-in-law told me that she believed that some Catholics could be “good people.” (Not mentioning any names, of course!) She was okay with my husband marrying me, until 20 years later, when he became Catholic. My brother-in-law, the Baptist preacher, is so smugly anti-Catholic, that he tries to pretend that he isn’t. We hardly hear from that side of the family any more.

You know I really hate to hear this. I don’t think it’s only among Baptists (certainly our branch of the family that was converted to Jehovah’s Witness hasn’t spoken with us in nearly three decades), although I do think there’s a special animosity among some Baptists against Catholics due to history. Historically, Baptism is the branch of Christianity that most closely identified with immigrants from countries that had staunch political motivation to decry Catholicism. While Anglicans didn’t love us in the 16th century, they also didn’t spread as strongly in the U.S.

Also, many of the inroads made during the Catholic wave of migration in the mid 19th century was into areas of the nation that were heavily restorationist (in which Baptists had a strong role, as well as Pentecostals and others), and in a reaction that was perhaps as much nativist as ideological, these restorationist groups dug up centuries-old propaganda and repackaged it as something new. Pseudo-theologians like Alexander Hislop started writing books, and social movements such as the Know-Nothings and KKK opposed Catholic immigration as part of Nativist sentiments. I think that cultural history has to be at least brought to light before we see the animosity decrease. This is also the only reason why I can conceive that groups who are so Scripture-dependent (such as the KJV-only groups) would embrace such patently non-Canonical documents as Chick tracts and “A Woman Rides the Beast.”

 

[MarkBrown]

Mark,

I’m pretty sure it was planned, when the pastor sat us down they seem to have already picked out the verses from their bible for me and my fiance to look up… For their (the pastor, my FIL and MIL-to-be) comparison to the catholic religion…

To be fair to the pastor, I think there is a chance he did not know until the last minute.

Why could he go quickly and directly to scriptures for “comparisons” etc…

Baptist, especially pastors, are trained in a system of pulling bible verses. Sitting down
with a catholic…oh use this pattern of verses. Oh a JW…this pattern. Unchurched/not saved? Romans road or the ABC’s. So it could appear he was laying in wait for you.
Then again, he maybe a good Baptist Pastor and knows the different scripture methods.

I am a former SBC Pastor, who is going to be ordained to the diaconate this Saturday in the Anglican Church. I knew the systems and used them. I never laid in wait for a catholic and did not know too many who did.

As to what baptist think about catholics…the old joke is but 5 baptist in a committee and get at least 7 opinions, with no agreements

 

[losh14]

But I do have one friend that converted to the Baptist religion from Greek Orthodox. She is never insulting directly, but sometimes she lets stuff sneak in every now and then like, “well, we believe that we aren’t saved just from doing good works” or “I have a personal relationship with my Savior, I don’t need to go through other means to talk with him”

Your friend reminds me of a very dear friend who left the Catholic Church under the influence of some Baptist friends and has since stopped worshipping with them and joined an evangelical free church.

I took her leaving the Church with a grain of salt - maybe she was mad at a priest. Then she called me crying because her grandfather had written her a letter she felt was unfair. He wrote the letter in response to a letter she wrote to him decrying the Catholic faith, calling the Eucharist a mockery of Christ, and condemning her family for baptizing her as an infant against her will. It was a militant letter and I know it hurt her grandfather - who was the deacon who had baptized her as a baby.

They had since restored their relationship (and he’s now passed away), but that initial militance and smirking is something I’ve only experienced from a handful of denominations, and I think alot of it has to do with a cultural history of enmity.

 

[losh14]

I’ve been to weddings where a priest and a preacher co-officiated the wedding. Granted, this wedding would not be recognized in the catholic church.

Why not? Is there some dispensation that has to be given. My cousin married a Methodist at a ceremony that was jointly officiated by his priest and her minister. It was alot of fun - even good natured when the Methodist kept shouting “Halleluja!” during the priest’s part of the sermon. But he’s married in the eyes of the church as much as my wife and I are (an entirely Catholic wedding except for my groomsmen, who are Jewish, Evangelical, Presbyterian and Greek Orthodox).

 

[DLClark]

Sure some Baptists can just as Catholics can be unloving towards those who are not of their faith. This does not prove anything other than we are looking at people to try and prove that one religion is better than another. This is the wrong way to go about it. We must look at what is taught by both religions in light of what the Bible says. If what one group teaches is clearly found in the Bible then that teaching is correct.

Here is one issue that has no biblical support for it. In John 6 where Jesus said John 6:29-30
29 Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you **believe in Him whom He has sent."
NASUJohn 6:35-36
Jesus said to them, " I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes **in Me will never thirst.
NASU
John 6:47-48
47 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. 48 " I am the bread of life.
NASU
John 6:52-58

52 Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54 "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 "For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. 56 "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 "As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. 58 “This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.”
NASU

The Jews totally missed what Jesus was saying here. Jesus was using a metaphor for faith or belief. To eat and drink was not literal but used metaphorically to mean faith as shown from the context of the whole passage. Jesus was asking the Jews to digest what Jesus was saying and not to eat of His flesh. The whole subject of the passage is faith in Christ will saves. The passage is not teaching the basis for the Holy Eucharist.

So, if a religion teaches that which is biblically correct then we go with that and what the religion is teaching and not base our opinion on the veracity of a religion on how people act.

 

[Bill_Pick]

I’m in the same boat. My family was very supportive, even my deacon grandfather, though he will occasionally get a troubled look on his face and say,“Now I know you’re saved, but…” before launching into some question or misconception about the Church. I know they don’t possess the fullness of truth and I know that only the Catholic Church holds Christ’s mandate to BE the Church on the Earth, but I know many good, holy, and charitible Baptists who love Our Lord deeply.

It was the holy rollers that always gave me grief over being Catholic, ie, “I was Catholic, too, but then I got saved…”

My daughter is Baptist and a few years ago I was in the hosp. for 34 days and this Man and wife came to see me 14 days in a roll. The pastor at their church name was Joe and My priests name was Joe and we keep talking about Joe all the time well one day they ask what church I went to and I said the church down the road and the next dat they ask what is the name of your church and I said St.Luke and they did not know the church,then they said is it a baptist church and I said no its Cathloic, have not seen they people to this day. My daughter a Baptist is still laughing

 

[DLClark]

Too bad. This does not mean that the baptist religion is wrong. The same thing happens with Cahtolic priests when they have visited baptists.

 

[losh14]

The Jews totally missed what Jesus was saying here. Jesus was using a metaphor for faith or belief. To eat and drink was not literal but used metaphorically to mean faith as shown from the context of the whole passage. Jesus was asking the Jews to digest what Jesus was saying and not to eat of His flesh. The whole subject of the passage is faith in Christ will saves. The passage is not teaching the basis for the Holy Eucharist.

And by what standard is your taking of this passage as pure metaphor correct? If the Bible were purely self-interpretive, we would all come to agree on the same point, but we do not. We Catholics see the Eucharist as true doctrine. Likewise, we do not see the Passion, Crucifixion or Resurrection as metaphors, nor do we take the promise of Eternal Life as a metaphor.

Why use metaphor for what could be stated plainly? Jesus often stated plainly the call to repentance as well as to faith. Why veil it in metaphorical language and belabor the point among the Jews?

Moreover, is there some precedent in Scripture for the use of flesh and blood or of eating and drinking as symbols of faith? I cannot think of any, perhaps you would know. But if Jesus were speaking entirely in metaphor in a symbol that his contemporary audience would not understand, how are we who read this 2 millenia later to know that He is speaking symbolically? And if this symbolism is not explained elsewhere in Scripture, by what standard are we to interpret it?

Finally, and this for me is compelling, if Jesus was speaking only metaphorically, and the doctrine of the Eucharist is a misunderstanding of the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper as an ordinance, why the emphasis placed on the requirement of partaking in it as a requirement for salvation? Also, Paul’s warning in 1 Cor 11:27 makes no sense if the Body and Blood are only symbols - how can we offend Christ and incur guilt if we only offend mere symbols of Christ?

If we look for evidence of how early Christians understood and taught this passage, we find abundant evidence for the Catholic position. If we treat extra-biblical sources from the late 1st and early 2nd centuries as historical documents regarding how Christians at the time interpreted Scripture, we see that the bishops such as Clement of Rome (third bishop of Rome), Ignatius of Antioch, Iraneus and others preached John 6 to mean that the Eucharist was truly the Body and Blood of Christ.

 

[scooter469]

I have never met a Baptist that hates Catholics

 

[DLClark]

*Finally, and this for me is compelling, if Jesus was speaking only metaphorically, and the doctrine of the Eucharist is a misunderstanding of the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper as an ordinance, why the emphasis placed on the requirement of partaking in it as a requirement for salvation? Also, Paul’s warning in 1 Cor 11:27 makes no sense if the Body and Blood are only symbols - how can we offend Christ and incur guilt if we only offend mere symbols of Christ? *

The idea of eating and drinking here has nothing to do with salvation. Jesus had already mention that salvation is by faith alone in Christ read verse 47. Remember the purpose for why John wrote this book. John 20:30-31
*
Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these have been written so that you **may believe **that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and **that believing you may have life **in His name.*NASU

If communion or baptism were needed for salvation in addition to faith then John had a great opportunity to say so right here. But all he said was that the pupose for which he wrote his book was so that people might believe in the Jesus and by believing have life or be saved. Communion, water baptism, or church membership do not save us. John said right here in his book that he wanted people to be saved by faith in Christ. That is all that is needed.

Eph 2:8-9
For by grace **you have been saved **through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
NASU
.