Roostah,
Abide,
Explain my misunderstanding as you see it.
JRKH,Wow Coptic…Pretty blunt my friend…:nunchuk:…
Something is bothering me though…While as Catholics we do believe our non-Catholic brothers are in error, I can’t quite figure out the jump you make in the last paragraph. Seems to me that in the realm of abortion and homosexuality we Christians should cease bickering and form a united front, a united voting block.
Such an alliance does not nullify other areas of disagreement, but it could certainly be beneficial to thousands upon thousands of babies.
But perhaps this is all getting a bit off topic…
Peace
James
Aid,
The bolded especially is pretty spot on. I encountered this just yesterday. You will often hear some speaking against a “religious spirit.” Or, you will hear people say, “That’s religion, not relationship.” And again, a while back one spoken word poet gained some notoriety with his screed, “I love Jesus but hate religion.” Religion, it seems, is defined as anything formal that does not arise spontaneously from your own thoughts and emotions. So, there’s no liturgy, for instance, and no Creeds confessed. In some circles, while there might be a common confession of certain beliefs (like, “We believe the bible is important,” you might well find a reluctance to dig too deeply into doctrine.
The rules certainly provide a clear path toward God. But they are commonly perceived by non-Catholics (as well as a lot of immature Catholics) to be ends rather than means. This misconception has been caused, in part, by the lack of preaching on conversion of heart within Catholic parishes. So there are many cradle Catholics who others truly perceive as going through the motions without having any real change of heart. They then conclude, “People who are into all that religion don’t really love God, they just do all this stuff out of habit or because they never thought about it.” Been there, got the T-shirt.
Good point!Aid,
People that kill babies want to be called Pro-Choice…that does not change what they do.
Homosexuals want to be called normal variants but that does not change who they are and what they do.
Accept that someone that says that they are not Protestant and they are just Christian…then you accept that they do not have a history, a belief, a departure. I believe that unfortunately you need to keep this word in the dialogue otherwise where does the conversation go.
Christian? Ok…how do we define a Christian…and then you are off to the races…
Protestant Christian. I am sorry for that, however it is historically accurate. Chrisitanity has a history and that history of division 500 years ago in my opinion is an invention…nothing like it on the planet at the time of Christ until CATHOLICS…notice that they were CATHOLICS that departed…they did not just join those guys over there that were believing and professing riding along in time with the Catholic Church…they were all Catholics…and then you can point out why they have similar beliefs to the Church they departed from and then you can have a conversation…
There is nothing in history that is akin to this form of CATHOLIC thought, wrong, but originating from CATHOLICS, prior to 1600.
You choose how you want to proceed with your friend…
When I was a protestant I had a similar mind set.
Well…what is the Lutheran faith?
Hey Coptic…JRKH,
Do you designate things that are truthful as grades of truthful?
If something is true, it is true. Do you disagree or agree?
If something is wrong, is it wrong a little, alot or just wrong? Do you agree or disagree?
Can you be a little bit pregnant?
Can you be sort of sinful?
Can you profess kinda the truth?
Do you draw the line in professing something when it comes to Morals or professing the Fatih…because the Catechism, outline 4 elements of Revealed truths…
Profession of Faith
Sacramental Life
Life in Christ
Prayer…
If someone focuses on Christ, Modeling Christ, being like Christ, living like Christ, professes charitable acts and professes a three headed God…is this OK?
If someone focuses on Christ, Modeling Christ, being like Christ, living like Christ, professes charitable acts and professes Abortion and Homosexuality as Ok…is this Ok?
If someone focuses on Christ, Modeling Christ, being like Christ, living like Christ, professes charitable acts and denies His work, the Church that He founded and the Scripture that was given to His Church…is this Ok?
Where do you draw the line when looking at what it is we are to know
A little of the Profession of Faith
A portion of Sacramental Life
Kinda Modeling Christ
Praying and celebrating because this is our focus…
If you believe that God is good, God gives us all He wants us to know through Revelation and someone says…hey…let us just focus on Prayer and celebrating and doing works of mercy…are you doing as God commnands to be one?
If you believe that what you have is greater as the real Good News and you fail to share it and point it out, are you really doing the work to farm the seeds…as we are fellow co-workers…do you just tend to the Prayer and celebration and let the other crops whither in preference to what is comfortable…
You tell me how blunt and harsh I am and whether or not others should be as well…
The Nestorians of yesterday are now Chaldean Catholic…did we just join hands with the Nestorians and say…hey what is one point of Doctrine among Christians…yippeee for what you do agree on…by no means, shall it never be…
Is the Real Good News not worth sharing and demonstrating as a greater good than the so called Good News of the Evangelical, that is Protestant and descendants from Error filled thought…you tell me…
Just because I’m kinda anal…
… the actual quote is:Hi Pablo–May I respectfully request that we stick to discussing Evangelicalism instead of going off on too many other subjects?
It is because many non-Catholics say live and let live; let them be homosexual and let them have abortions, Jesus doesn’t care about that stuff. So they wouldn’t stand with the Church but rather against it.
But Evangelicals stand with Catholics on this. This is a thread about Evangelicals, so I didn’t understand either how Coptic made that jump at the end of his post.
Yeah, evangelicals are pretty consistent on both abortion and sexuality.
Hi, Aduro Fire. I’m fairly well versed in church history, but I’m not a historian by profession.
If you’re interested in non-Catholic CAF members’ answers in some detail, there are a number of older threads asking for responses.Roostah,
Welcome to the boards. Very nice first post.
I think that we can agree on this…but such does not make those people right…and in fact, in following the tradition and example laid down in Acts 15…Such people would be like Judaizers who refused to accept the findings of the Council of Jerusalem.
Would you consider such people to be good Christians who dissented from the decision of the council - who dissented from that which, “seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to (Church leaders)…” (Acts 15:28)?
The “Alliance of Church ans State” that you mention is looked at negatively by some in the protestant world. But such people fail to see the great blessing that occurred after the legalization of the faith. It permitted the Church to come together openly in great councils, just as Holy Scripture itself instructs and describes, to deal with various issues and questions. All sides were able to then “Tell it to the Church” and to “Listen to the Church” to whom Christ gave authority to Bind and Loose “Whatever” (Mt 18:17-18) and through whom It is the good pleasure of our God to make known His Wisdom (Eph 3:8-12)
If there were those who chose to defy the decisions of the councils…then they could only be described as like those who St John refers to as, going out from us but never truly being of us…(1John 2:19).
Such ones were people who rejected that which “…seemed good to the Holy Spirit…”(Acts15:28)
Personally I find it impossible to put any faith in such people or groups who acted in such a unbiblical fashion and I cannot give much credence to groups today who seek to embrace such groups and/or ideas.
Peace
James
