Posted on 11/14/2017 2:24:54 PM PST by nickcarraway
Robert Jeffress spent Wednesday with Donald Trump, supporting the president during his fundraising visit to the Belo Mansion in downtown Dallas. On Thursday, the First Baptist Dallas pastor and Trump's biggest evangelical supporter had to do something a lot less fun — take to the Fox News airwaves to defend himself from charges that he is anti-Catholic.
Word of Jeffress' potentially anti-Catholic views bubbled to the surface this week when a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders about her boss's continued praise for the Dallas demagogue, given Jeffress' controversial statements about the Catholic church. Sanders said that she wasn't "aware of Robert Jeffress being anti-Catholic" and that she knew that he worked with Texas Catholics on events like the anti-abortion rights demonstration March for Life.
On Fox News, Jeffress repeated Sanders' line, confirming that he works with Catholics against abortion, and said that the characterization of his thoughts about Catholicism was inaccurate.
"What they did was they went back and recycled old quotes from years ago that were either completely manufactured at the time or ripped out of context," Jeffress said.
The Observer believes that Jeffress deserves a fair hearing about whether he was taken out of context, so we've taken the liberty of transcribing, in their entirety, Jeffress' comments about Catholicism and the Roman Catholic Church from a 2010 segment on his radio show Pathway to Victory.
"This is the Babylonian mystery religion that spread like a cult throughout the entire world. The high priests of that fake religion, that false religion, the high priests of that religion would wear crowns that resemble the heads of fish, that was in order to worship the fish god Dagon, and on those crowns were written the words, ‘Keeper of the Bridge,’ the bridge between Satan and man.
"That phrase, Keeper of the Bridge — the Roman equivalent of it is Pontifex Maximus. It was a title that was first carried by the Caesars and then the emperors and finally by the Bishop of the Rome, Pontifex Maximus, the Keeper of the Bridge.
"You can see where we’re going with this. It is that Babylonian mystery religion that infected the early church. One of the churches it infected was the church of Pergamos, which is one of the recipients of the Book of Revelation. And the early church was corrupted by this Babylonian mystery religion, and today the Roman Catholic Church is the result of that corruption.
"Much of what you see in the Catholic Church today doesn’t come from God’s word; it comes from that cultlike, pagan religion. Now you say, ‘Pastor, how can you say such a thing? That is such an indictment of the Catholic Church. After all, the Catholic Church talks about God and the Bible and Jesus and the blood of Christ and salvation.’
"Isn’t that the genius of Satan? If you want to counterfeit a dollar bill, you don’t do it with purple paper and red ink. You’re not going to fool anybody with that. But if you want to counterfeit money, what you do is make it look closely related to the real thing as possible.
"And that’s what Satan does with counterfeit religion. He uses, he steals, he appropriates all of the symbols of true biblical Christianity, and he changes it just enough in order to cause people to miss eternal life."
Basically, Jeffress believes that Catholicism is a counterfeit of genuine Christianity, descended from a Babylonian fish-worshiping cult. Its resemblance to the real article shows Satan's genius, Jeffress says. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the faith practiced by 70 million Americans.
‘I have never heard any Catholic attack Protestant teachings or the members of Protestant faiths.’
Just go on the Religion Forum and say, “Luther.”
Then stand well back bc the hate, it burns.
The press and the Democratic Party hate the Catholic Church, too, but they give themselves a pass for their own hate and bigotry.
Sounds like something I should avoid.
My Dunker Baptist great-great grandfather donated the land for the Catholic Church in Lisbon Iowa in the 1880s.
We need to focus on Christ - again.
The 500th anniversary of the Reformation has brought out a nutter brigade posting all manner of wild things about Martin Luther and Protestants in general. It’s been going on for years, though.
Avoiding that kind of unpleasantness has its merits. Otoh, there is an argument for involvement as well. For example, here is something I have never seen posted on the RF: It’s okay to disagree with and/or reject Luther’s critique of Catholicism, but it’s not okay to hate Luther, the man. Christians must hate the sin but love the sinner, without exception.’
Coming from an Evangelical, such a comment would likely be ignored. Coming from a Catholic...well, it’s impossible to say. It’s never, to my knowledge, been tried.
Bump
Oh, please....
“I have never heard any Catholic attack Protestant teachings or the members of Protestant faiths. We are just content with our faith and don’t feel any need to demean anybody else.
Stop by the Religion Forum here.
I actually like Jeffries, but like so many other Protestants he is essentially a moron when it comes to the concocted idea that the Catholic Church is the Babylonian Mystery Religion. Even a complete doofus like Ralph Woodrow - with the patient aid of a high school history teacher - was able to go from this stupidity:
to this step in the right direction:
Most Protestants who believe in this trash are simply too dumb to understand that their belief in all this relies on ONE BADLY RESEARCHED AND BIGOTED BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/Two-Babylons-ORIGINAL-Alecander-Hislop/dp/1542455634/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1510703529&sr=1-4&keywords=hislop+babylon
Why do all these religions feel it is necessary to bring down the Catholic Church? The Catholic Church is not attacking them. The Catholic Church is what it is.
1. Religion is a private thing, between a person and God. If someone wants to discuss faith, great. If someone wants to get pugnacious about faith, I avoid them.
2. As a Catholic, I respect Martin Luther and other reformers because the Catholic Church needed reformation in those days. The Reformation strengthened Christianity and got vastly more people involved in thinking about their faith.
3. I love the Catholic Church and always have - but that doesn't give me any position to try to tear down another's approach to faith and his/her connection to Our Savior.
As I said earlier, we need to be united and expanding, not bickering amongst each other.
I went through lots of religion classes where there was no bad-mouthing of other religions. When the Protestant Reformation was taught there was just a statement of fact that so and so left and then so and so left. But I was never treated to a blow-by-blow bad-mouthing.
Agreed.
I’m Lutheran with Catholic underpinnings.
In any case, I’ve never understood the vitriol even evidenced on FR sometimes that one kind of Christian has for another. Geesh. I’ve witnessed enough.
We don’t all agree on specifics but personally I don’t have much problem with anyone who basically believes Jesus is the son of God.
Not every Catholic will see Heaven and not every Protestant will see Heaven. God’s not impressed by which church you go to. What He wants for us to have a personal faith-based relationship with Jesus Christ as the savior for their sins. I have met Catholics that I very much believe have that relationship. I have met Protestants that I very much believe have that relationship.
It’s human nature to condemn what you don’t know. Not knowing Jesus is the surest way to condemnation.
Me too
Catholics don’t believe in the Bible....wow
And concern for my soul is a rather endearing trait.
What is unacceptable is libel, moral defamation and outright historic fabrication. That's what I see in Jeffress' quoted remarks.
If Jeffress wants to rethink, repent and retract, I will gladly rejoice and reconcile!
Then we can talk about sincere doctrinal differences and not his fevered misconceptions, which just demonstrate that he doesn't know jack chick about Catholicism.
I am a Catholic, former Baptist. I respect all those who accept Jesus as their savior, regardless of their uniforms. We, the different denominations, are not the enemy of each other. We know who the enemy is, and they aren’t fellow Christians. We can all hang together or be hung separately by the non-believers, Muslims,atheists, and the other usual suspects who are out to abolish us. Disagreements over theology are silly compared to the alternatives.
Wow. You have no idea. Over the years it is safe to say these have typically seen the most responses, hundreds and sometimes even thousands. Catholics usually started the most lengthy it seems, with some provocative article, even like "Hugo Chavez died 'in the bosom of the Church' : Catholic News Agency (CNA)" or "Theologian: Shared Communion With Protestants Would be Blasphemy ," and it goes from there.
Some Catholics whine in response a "victims," but when a hurch claims to uniquely be the one true church, and poster uphold it as so, then it warrants correction, which by God;'s grace it has seen plenty of here.
Then you have the traditionalists RCs attaching Francis.
You mean, unlike Mormons, Catholics are above every faith for being advertised and promoted on this site, with traditionalists upholding her elitist presumptions, then wanting reproof of her to be silenced.
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