What do main stream protestants and catholics have in common?

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I am trying to approach main stream protestants on a positive note. By starting with what we have in common. Could you answer the above question? Is there a book or CD?
 
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I don’t know, but there’s a series of books, called the Bible that we have in common. Our views of what books are in the Old Testament are a little different, but the New Testament is pretty much the same.
 
Thanks Adam. I see that you are a night owl as well! Could you provide me with the author? I googled the name and nothing appeared.
 
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I’m not a night owl, I’m a time traveler. I am asleep right now, but I came from yesterday to today, only took about an hour. Let’s see, there’s is Zechariah, Isaiah, Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. There’s this guy named Paul. James, Jude , I think there was a Beatles song about him. David, and some others.
 
Common ground? We believe in God. We believe in Christ.
We believe that Christ is God and son of God. That He was crucified to save us from hell and open the way to heaven.
We believe the Bible is the Word of God.

Beyond that there are so many Protestant denominations it’s hard to define things that we can be sure apply to Protestants as a whole. If you plan to be dealing with any specific group I suggest you do some homework on that group in particular…
 
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In all seriousness, if you want to, the coming home network has videos where former Protestants will sometimes talk about what their former Protestant group have in common with Catholics. I’m not sure I would consider Pentecostals main line, but Paul Thigpen has a very good video about that.
 
What will be important in evangelizing will be what that particular protestant has in common with you. You have to connected with them on a level that allows them to talk about their faith, so that you know where they are at. Their denominational label doesn’t yeild a specific set of ahas that will lead them to us.

Still, I would say Jesus in the Gospels is always a great place to connect.
 
The two sides have so very much in common! Beautiful truths that we both embrace and believe with all of our hearts. We have the Trinity, we have the holy Scriptures, we even have consciousness of the importance of giving our whole lives to God. But for myself, I’m Catholic because I believe that the fullness of the faith is here. That doesn’t mean I believe that every non Catholic Christian church is completely wrong. I don’t. I’ve seen so much good in non-Catholic Christian churches. But the fullness is here.

As you engage non-Catholic Christians, just be aware of the ways that they will sometimes distort what the church really teaches. I believe that most of the non-Catholic Christians who do this, are doing it out of ignorance. They’ve heard wrongly from others, and are in good faith passing on what they think is true, although it is often very untrue. Just be aware it’s out there.
 
I’ll also say this. I do not feel that the gulf between the two sides is justified by the issues. We are divided much more by semantics than by substance. And it really deeply bothers me that we so completely disregard Jesus‘s prayer in John 17, when he prayed over and over that we would be one. I don’t know how to fix it, but the dividedness really really bothers me.
 
We have the Trinity and Christ in common. His death and resurrection. I have come to appreciate this from my protestant relatives when coming in contact with people of other faiths, such as Jews and Muslims.
 
Thanks Dan. We also read the bible in church. My Baptist friend said that they believe in the body of Christ which I never knew.
 
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I would say that the sum of things that Catholics and mainstream Protestants have in common is much greater than the sum of things that separate us. In common, we have the Bible (with a small amount of disagreement about the canon), the Church Fathers, the first seven ecumenical councils, the creeds, broadly similar liturgies, and in many instances broadly similar understandings of apostolic succession and holy orders. Things that separate us would include disagreements about validity of apostolic succession and holy orders, papal authority, understanding the precise meaning of the Eucharist, purgatory, saints (to a limited extent), the Immaculate Conception, and some different views on divorce, remarriage, and birth control.
 
It bothers me as well. I had a Baptist friend stay at my house. A lovely lady who had been evangelist in her youth. The more we spoke the more I realized we had in common. They even believe in the body of Christ. She quoted scripture about faith and I said we agreed. We just do not believe in faith alone. I just wish there was a book giving the commonalities.
 
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I am trying to bring unity more than evangelize.

Thanks … mary
 
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