What Do Baptists Think of Catholics?

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Most of my family is Southern Baptist. When I converted everyone was cool about it. My mom, bless her, really supported me as she realized that my conversion call came from God. Because it is could be a sticky issue with my family (and because we’re about 2,500 miles away from each other) I was curious is anyone here could tell me how the Baptists view Catholics.

Thanks! :confused:
 
All of my friends are Baptist, or at least Protestant, and they’ve never been anything but supportive of my faith…I know that many Baptists I’ve met, even several of my closest friends, questioned my salvation when they first met me because I was Catholic…but now that we’re closer, I think they don’t find Catholics so scary. One of my friends told me that he questioned my salvation because of stuff he’d been raised with and taught. once he learned from me how incorrect it all was, he started to think of Catholics in a very different light.

The best way to maintain tolerance between our two churches is by striving to learn more about each other…too many times opinions are based off of horrible misconceptions. If we educate ourselves about our fellow brethren, then I really believe we’ll start to see things more eye to eye.
 
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CheesusPowerKid:
All of my friends are Baptist, or at least Protestant, and they’ve never been anything but supportive of my faith…I know that many Baptists I’ve met, even several of my closest friends, questioned my salvation when they first met me because I was Catholic…but now that we’re closer, I think they don’t find Catholics so scary. One of my friends told me that he questioned my salvation because of stuff he’d been raised with and taught. once he learned from me how incorrect it all was, he started to think of Catholics in a very different light.

The best way to maintain tolerance between our two churches is by striving to learn more about each other…too many times opinions are based off of horrible misconceptions. If we educate ourselves about our fellow brethren, then I really believe we’ll start to see things more eye to eye.
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I totally agree w/ the last paragragh. As representatives of Christ’s Church on Earth, we need to effectively evangalize and the first step is often to allay misperceptions.

Rhetorically, I ask if you then question them (after they start to think that Catholics aren’t so evil) about how they reconcile being in a religion that teaches inaccurately about the largest Christian denomination in the world and if they shouldn’t maybe question the other teachings of their faith? 😉
 
Well, there are Baptists, and then there are Baptists.

On the one hand, I can think of two families we know who are Baptist, attending different churches in different Baptist conventions. No problem.

Then, there is another Baptist church nearby, whose members hold that my older daughter (she worshipped with them for a while) is no longer a Christian since she chose to complete her initiation (by confirmation/first communion) in the Catholic Church, and who have offerred their services to provide a “Christian Club” at the local Catholic high school.

So it depends on which “flavour” of Baptist one encounters It seems there’s a good deal of variance.
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Blessings,

Gerry
 
Most baptists I’ve known believe the only Catholics that will make it to heaven are those that don’t believe all the Church teaches. They feel Catholics are idol worshippers and ignorant of the Bible and their own faith. I was raised baptist and this is what I thought as did my family. My Grandfather and 2 uncles were baptist preachers.
 
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!

Now for the rest of the story…

I was attending a Baptist sect church in Tooele, UT. The preacher often cut down Catholicism from the pulpit. The Sunday school teachers cut down Catholicism. 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. Hum? (I guess the not saved part is right since we Catholics follow Jesus and what He taught, we live in HOPE for salvation. You could say we have been and are being saved and live in HOPE for future salvation - a subject for another thread though.)

My old Baptist churches I attended often passed out anti-Catholic propaganda from Baptist Press and Chick Publications. Did you know that the Catholics murdered close to one-hundred-million Baptists in the Inquisition! Got that from a Baptist Press tract.:whacky:

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.😦

Every Baptist Forum I have been on has either denied me access or has kicked me off when they found out I am Catholic.:tsktsk:

My wife’s grandmother offered to pay my wife a large sum of money and to leave her some expensive property in the will if my wife would not marry me.

See the following links:

chick.com/default.asp

baptist.org/

baptistboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

Sooo many more horror stories and web sites too! Check out some of the other threads here.

JMJ

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…:whistle:
 
All the Baptists I’ve met have been really kind people.
 
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koda:
Most of my family is Southern Baptist. When I converted everyone was cool about it. My mom, bless her, really supported me as she realized that my conversion call came from God. Because it is could be a sticky issue with my family (and because we’re about 2,500 miles away from each other) I was curious is anyone here could tell me how the Baptists view Catholics.

Thanks! :confused:
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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…”
 
Koda, that’s great that your family, especially your mom is supportive of your conversion.

When I told my parents I was taking RCIA, you would have thought I told them I was entering a Moonies cult! Or worse! :bigyikes: (Though my mom has soften up. My dad on the other hand rarely speaks to me . Funny thing though is that his favorite cousin is Catholic and their best friends are too. )
As others have said, Baptists come in all types. Some are more accepting, others are not. Though I have had to deal with the old “Catholices are not Christian” thing for a long time (and that’s before I ever started RCIA). Not to mention other stuff that has happened. 😦
 
My mom used to go with me a lot to RCIA and she really like the people she met, which helped a lot. I have an uncle and a second cousin who are Baptist ministers. We are talking Southern Indiana, Central Kentucy here (though I was raised in Nashville, TN). My grandparents moved from KY to Evansville, IN before I was born. I can trace my grandmother’s ancestry back to England in the 1600’s when they left for the colonies. I’m guessing they were pretty Puratanical because my grandparets were very anti-Catholic. Ironically, there are a lot of Catholics in Evansville (my husband is from there) and my grandparents bought quite a lot of Christian art from Goodwill, etc… a lot of which was Catholic (though I didn’t know that until I converted). I was very close to them and they had passed on before I got my conversion call. I have an old friend in Nashville who recently asked me why I didn’t go to a Christian Church! I informed her that Catholics are not only Christians, we are the first Christians! She knows nothing about it -asked me if we belive in the Trinity. :confused:
 
I live in a community that has a large presence of fundamentalist “christians”. In high school, I was often told by the “christians” that I was not a “christian” soley because I was Catholic. I found the wiser thing to do was to keep the peace by keeping my mouth shut. In reality, the baptists and brethren church members were some of the most condescending, arrogant, anti-Catholic persons I’ve ever known in my entire life. Most of them were nice to the “non-christians”, but felt it was their obligation to insult or put others of different faiths down. My basic philosophy is to continue to be as nice to them as possible in the hope that one day they will realize the truth. Quite honestly, fundamentalist christians are intellectually lazy and go to church so that they can feel good about themselves when they leave. In other words, it is my opinion that a lot of them can be extremely self-centered.
 
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koda:
Southern Indiana, Central Kentucy here (though I was raised in Nashville, TN). My grandparents moved from KY to Evansville, IN before I was born.
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Hey Koda…your family is from my neck of the woods…I am from Owensboro Ky…have relatives in Evansville and Newburgh… 😃
funny enough I live really close to Nashville now (bowlingreen)…small world…

Anyway…my husbands Baptist family are mixed…I only have real problems with one Aunt…and It was a doozey…she told a bunch of folks visiting at her home, while my daughter was there mind you that, “At least Baptists know God, and can talk straight to him…not like the Catholics”
 
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Malachi4U:
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!

Now for the rest of the story…

I was attending a Baptist sect church in Tooele, UT. The preacher often cut down Catholicism from the pulpit. The Sunday school teachers cut down Catholicism. 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. Hum? (I guess the not saved part is right since we Catholics follow Jesus and what He taught, we live in HOPE for salvation. You could say we have been and are being saved and live in HOPE for future salvation - a subject for another thread though.)

My old Baptist churches I attended often passed out anti-Catholic propaganda from Baptist Press and Chick Publications. Did you know that the Catholics murdered close to one-hundred-million Baptists in the Inquisition! Got that from a Baptist Press tract.:whacky:

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.😦

Every Baptist Forum I have been on has either denied me access or has kicked me off when they found out I am Catholic.:tsktsk:

My wife’s grandmother offered to pay my wife a large sum of money and to leave her some expensive property in the will if my wife would not marry me.

See the following links:

chick.com/default.asp

baptist.org/

baptistboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

Sooo many more horror stories and web sites too! Check out some of the other threads here.

JMJ

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…:whistle:
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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?
 
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koda:
I was curious is anyone here could tell me how the Baptists view Catholics.
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Koda,
I’m not exactly sure how Baptists view Catholics but my FIL and MIL-to-be are baptist and they seem to have such a huge problem with Catholics or at least my Fiance becoming a Catholic… Please see my thread: “My in-laws are trying to convince my fiance to become baptist…” They went as far as tricking me and my Fiance into meeting with their Pastor…
 
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Nicci:
Koda,
I’m not exactly sure how Baptists view Catholics but my FIL and MIL-to-be are baptist and they seem to have such a huge problem with Catholics or at least my Fiance becoming a Catholic… Please see my thread: “My in-laws are trying to convince my fiance to become baptist…” They went as far as tricking me and my Fiance into meeting with their Pastor…
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I hope the pastor was tricked too. It would really be sad if he participated under false pretenses.

Hang in there.
 
mark a:
I hope the pastor was tricked too. It would really be sad if he participated under false pretenses.
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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…
 
Ok… I am a baptist so I will tell you what I think.

Some common misconceptions of Catholics that Baptists make:
  1. They don’t read/study their bible
  2. They can easily sit in church and feel holy because of the surroundings/rituals but not really change their lifestyle (what we protestants call ‘Churchianity’, but this really is true of any major christian religion I’ve found)
  3. They can do whatever they want to and say a few Hail Mary’s and everythings ok.
  4. They focus too much on the death of Christ instead of the resurrection
  5. They blindly follow anything the pope/church tells them to because they believe them to be infallible.
  6. They worship Mary/statues/saints etc…
I have at one time of my life been guilty of some if not all of these things. But I have matured and through working/living with some Catholics my misperceptions have changed.

I never questioned a Catholics state of soul (saved, not saved, etc).
First of all, I think Catholics and Baptists have enough in common to agree that we worship the same god and generally have the right idea about how to get to heaven. So whether you pray to Mary and I don’t is small potatoes in my book. We both believe in the diety of Christ, the trinity, the virgin birth, the sacrifice on the cross and the need for faith/grace for salvation. I figure if we can agree on those items we can agree to call each other christian.
I apologize on behalf of all baptists to all the Catholics out there who have been wounded or scorned by members of our group. They were wrong and do not necessarily constitute the majority of us all and frankly, they weren’t acting very christ-like.

That being said, there are several things that I definately disagree with the Catholic church on. But I have found that arguing does little good. I enjoy a healthy debate from time to time (I once dated a Catholic) but in the end we usually just agree to disagree and go our own ways.
 
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.
 
My wife is a baptist,and up until about two years ago i did not know how anti-catholic she was. She is one of those" as long as catholics don’t do what they do they may get saved" types.

For a year she refused to let me baptize our daughter, no matter how much i cried, begged or tried to explain, she wouldn’t budge.
She had always been taught infant baptism was not valid.

I finally baptized her myself.

I only say this because , if your husband ever returns to the church( like i did) , it’s one thing to agree to disagree with someone every once in a while. It’s another thing to lie in the same bed with someone who hates what you believe. Or at the very least calls you brainwashed.
 
Many of the Baptists that I know are worried about me, because I’m Methodist. I don’t know what they think of Catholics; my guess is that it is 😦 pretty bad.

I’m serious about the thing over Methodists. Some years ago, before my present pastor came to our church, a Baptist preacher stopped in at the Methodist parsonage. When my then-pastor opened the door, the Baptist announced that he was there to “convert you folks :eek: from Methodist to Christian”. Pastor said, “Boy, I’m glad my wife isn’t home. I don’t think the church carries enough insurance to pay for what she’d do to you for that remark”…The guy left real fast.
I have wondered whether or not this guy went to other churches…and, if so, what reaction he got. My guess is that he probably hit at least the Catholic & the Episcopal, but I never heard that part of the story.

I think this is really sad. And totally infuriating, especially since it is my observation that these kinds of prejudiced people have :nope: never bothered to find out what the churches they are so against…They don’t know what the actual beliefs & practices are. They get it all “canned” from some :whacky: wayout source…
 
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