Posted on 02/19/2008 11:55:18 AM PST by NYer
I know that I was not the first Protestant to learn the truth about the Catholic Church; I am sure that this is a story you could probably hear from countless other people, changing only the names and places. I know that many have walked the road that I have; that road which leads home, to Rome!
I was born in 1975 to two God-fearing Southern Baptists in Dallas, Texas. My father had grown up Methodist, but became Baptist when he married my mother in 1968. From what my father has said, his family was mostly Methodist. His father and his paternal grandfather were both Thirty-Third Degree Masons. My father's paternal grandfather's father was even the founding pastor of the First Methodist Church of Dallas. Though I have heard the history of my father's family, I myself knew only a very few of them. A great majority of my mother's family was Baptist, with a smattering of Methodists here and there. I am fairly certain of one thing, however: there were no Catholics.
Since a very young age, I can remember going to church and Sunday school on Sunday mornings to listen to the preacher and my Sunday school teachers talk about Jesus, and how He would save us from the fires of Hell. Every Sunday morning, my parents and I would sing in church and listen to the sermons. Though we didn't usually attend the Sunday evening services, I knew that once a month on a Sunday evening, an event called The Lord's Supper would happen. At this Lord's Supper, the preacher would begin passing around large round trays made of chrome. One of the trays had tiny crackers on it, and the other one had little cups of grape juice. I can remember that before I was baptized I wanted to take part in this event, but my parents would not let me. They did not explain why I shouldn't, other than I hadn't been baptized yet. Just as it is in the Catholic Church, Baptism is an initiation of sorts into the active life of the church community. (Of course, to a Catholic, it is that and much more. I would not know this until much later.) A few years went by, and when I was about eight years old, I decided that I wanted to be "saved" and get baptized. To get "saved," you would pray a little prayer like, "Dear Jesus, please come into my heart and forgive me of all of my sins. I ask you to become my personal Lord and Savior. All these things I pray in Jesus' name. Amen." From a Baptist viewpoint, being baptized is only a symbol, and nothing more. In other words, for a Baptist, baptism isn't really necessary for salvation. After I got baptized, I was able to partake in the Lord's Supper. I asked my father what the Lord's Supper meant, and he said that it represented the body and the blood of Jesus. That is to say, it represented the sacrifice that He made for us on the Cross. My father then read the passage from a King James Bible that told about the establishment of what we called The Lord's Supper: "And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you. (Luke 22:19-20, KJV)" I asked why it was that we only did this once a month, and even then at the evening service (most people went to the morning service). My father thought about it for a minute, then he said that the Catholics do it every Sunday at all of their services. (In actuality, most Catholic churches have at least one Mass every day except Good Friday; Catholics are bound to attend Mass only on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation.) He said that perhaps we do it less often so as not to imitate them. As you can imagine, I did not understand this for what it was. The Baptists, and many other Protestant groups, were concerned that the "Lord's Supper" would become the focus of the church service rather than the sermon. Though there are some Protestant churches that have communion every Sunday, none of them place the same importance on the Eucharist that the Catholic Church does.
My father had nothing personal against Catholics; in fact, of all the people in my family, he probably liked them more than anyone else in our family did. My mother had a problem with the Catholic Church, but if you asked her why, she really couldn't tell you. She would give the same rote answers that many Protestants had been giving for centuries. "They worship the Pope, Mary, and the Saints." "They think a person can forgive their sins rather than God." She couldn't explain why she believed these things, or in the case of the last statement, she couldn't explain why a person couldn't say that your sins are forgiven. When I finally asked her why she thought a person could not forgive sins after the Bible said that Christ gave that power to the Apostles, she said she'd just rather confess directly to God. I believe that the real reason that she did not like Catholicism was because her father did not like it. I really believe that was the main reason. For some reason, my maternal grandfather (whom we have always called "Smittie") has a fairly wide streak of anti-Catholicism in him. Even as a child, I remembered him complaining every time the Pope was on television or in the newspaper. Whenever we were at a restaurant or shopping and we saw someone with a large family (four or five kids or more), he would often joke that they must be Catholic. The ironic thing about his dislike of the Church is that virtually all of his friends (excepting those from his church) since he became an adult were Catholic. I don't think that he had anything personal against individual Catholics; it was the Church that bothered him. Smittie was in England during World War II, and he found many friends there, all Catholic. He always spoke highly of them. He missed them all very much, too; all but a few of them had been killed in the war and those few survivors had died since. To this day, I do not know what makes Smittie think that the Church is somehow diabolical or at the very least, misled. I've often wondered if it had something to do with his association with Freemasonry. By the way, he is a Third Degree Mason (Master Mason), though he has not been an active Mason for many years.
Now you can see where I came from. A Southern Baptist upbringing with lots of anti-Catholic influence from just about everyone in my family and my church, with the possible exception of my father. If, when I was in high school, someone had told me that I would one day become Catholic, I would have literally laughed in his face. By the time I was fifteen, I had truly learned to have contempt for the Catholic Church. Not Catholic people, you understand, just the beliefs of and possibly the clergy of the Church. I figured that most Catholics were simply misled, and too ignorant to realize it. After all, "everyone knows" that Catholics are forbidden to read the Bible, right?! [a common Protestant myth]
I entered high school and turned fifteen at about the same time, and high school was a much bigger place than the middle school where I had attended. I decided to get involved in some of the clubs in school to make friends, and one of the clubs was called Raiders for Christ (the Raiders was the school mascot). This club was made up of mostly Protestant and "Evangelical" Christians of various denominations. In the meetings, we talked about "witnessing" to people, getting "saved," and how we should carry our Bible around as a good example to others. I decided that I would try to talk to people in classes and invite them to church with me. From some people, I got a fairly good response. Some would say they had already been "saved," and currently attended another church. Some would say that they had been "saved" and that they felt that church was not necessary because they read the Bible often anyway. I had no problem with these people. However, I ran into some that caused problems. As you can guess, these were the Catholics.
Many Catholics that I met did not know their faith very well, but they did go to Mass every Sunday. I derided them for not knowing why they believed the things that they believed. I said that it was apparent that the Catholic Church was based on blind faith and that reason was nowhere to be found. I told several people that if they did not renounce the Catholic Church and accept Christ as their "personal Lord and Savior," that they would most certainly go to Hell. I'm sure that these people did not appreciate what I was saying, and I am quite thankful that they were more charitable to me than I was to them. One particular Catholic with whom I made friends was a teacher at the school. In fact, she was one of the sponsors of an extra-curricular organization of which I was a member for three years. She knew her faith VERY well, and for that I am glad. I admit, however, it was quite frustrating at times. After all, I couldn't win a debate with her. While she did not convert me to Catholicism, she did put me on the right track. I quit harassing the Catholics so much and tried to see them as fellow Christians rather than "the enemy."
I graduated from high school, still a Baptist, though not a particularly devout one anymore. I didn't go to church very often, and I had begun to lose faith; not so much in God as in being Baptist. I felt that there were contradictions between what the Bible says and what the Baptists teach. For instance, Baptists teach that once you are "saved," you are always "saved." That is practically a dogma of the Baptist Church, as well as some other Protestant churches: "once saved, always saved." The problem here, is that there is no support in the Bible for this position. Scripture does refute this position: "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. (1 Corinthians 10:12, KJV)" (If you notice, I quote from the King James Version of the Bible because it is the universally accepted version of the Bible in Protestant churches.) Considering that a favorite saying of the Baptists was "No creed but the Bible," you can see why I was beginning to be skeptical. Here are some more (though certainly not all) doctrinal paradoxes:
|
The Baptist Myth |
What the (King James) Bible Says |
"Alcoholic beverages are inherently bad." |
"Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities. (1 Timothy 5:23, KJV)" "So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. (John 4:46, KJV)" |
"Dancing is bad." |
"And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. (2 Samuel 6:14, KJV)" |
"Salvation (being saved? occurs in an instant." |
"Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. (Phillipians 2:12, KJV)" |
"We only need Scripture, not traditions." (This is an attack on the Catholic belief in Sacred Tradition. It is a pillar of the Protestant Reformation known as Sola Scriptura) |
"Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us. (2 Thessalonians 3:6, KJV)" |
"Everyone can interpret Scripture for him/herself." (In other words, we don’t need an authoritative body like the Magisterium, or teaching office, of the Catholic Church to interpret for us.) |
"Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. (2 Peter 1:20, KJV)" |
"Faith alone, not works, will get you saved." (This is one of the other main principles of the Protestant Reformation: it is called Sola Fide) |
"For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. (James 2:26, KJV)" |
The list is seemingly endless, so I’ll stop here. As you can see, many of the beliefs of both the Protestant Reformation in general as well as the Southern Baptist Convention were at odds with the Bible. And not just any Bible, but even the one that the Protestants so cherished! (Rest assured, these verses are not much different in a Catholic Bible.)
At any rate, I was nineteen years old, and attending a major public university. I was exposed to many things that I had never been around before, mostly because my parents were somewhat over-protective of me. I felt quite far from God during my first year in college. Toward the end of my freshman year, my girlfriend from high school, whom I had been dating for over three years, and I broke up. I started dating a younger Catholic girl who lived in the Dallas area. Her uncle was actually a bishop in the northeastern United States. She was not particularly devout, but at the time, it didn’t matter to me. Actually, I figured that if we ended up together it would be easy to convert her to Protestantism and away from the Catholic Church. After we had been dating for about a month, her sister was graduating from high school, so I went to see her sister’s baccalaureate Mass. I had never been to a Mass before; I had been inside a Catholic church maybe once or twice before in my whole life. When I got home that night, I cried because I thought that since she was Catholic, she would be doomed to Hell if I couldn’t help her "see the light". However, the more I thought about what I had seen, the more intrigued I became.
First of all, the Mass was not what I had been told that it was: a pagan ceremony. To those of you reading this who are Catholic, this may seem humorous, but many Protestants, especially those leaning toward "fundamentalism," seem to think that Catholics are pagans or Satan worshippers or something along those lines. I don’t know where this myth got started, but I would sure love to put it to rest. For those of you not familiar with the Mass, here is the basic structure:
Hatred usually comes out of childhood junk . . . at least at its roots.
But a LOT of fierceness is taken hereon as hatred when it’s not—NOT AT ALL. It’s just a fiercely intense style of saying profoundly emotional and profoundly important RELIGIOUS/spiritual things.
I think in those cases, folks need to roll with the punche and go on. Either they believe what they believe for good reasons or not. If not . . . change. If so, what does it matter how fiercely intense someone’s communicating style is???
People have mocked, derided, been haughty and hostile and even demeaning, insulting and satirical about Pentecostalism all my life. So what. They don’t know. Many times they haven’t a clue what they are talking about. They certainly haven’t traveled my path in my shoes. They certainly weren’t there the many times God has met me and my need rather dramatically and miraculously. They weren’t there the many times God confirmed a lot of very interesting and startling things in my life. So what.
I’m not going to convince them. And I don’t need to take things overly personal.
A lot of RC folks have responded to a lot of my dramatic fierce statements as hatred, etc. etc. etc. But I haven’t felt a microgram’s worth of such feelings toward ANYONE hereon—at all.
Much of my life is fiercely intense—just the way I’m made. And, I have a very intense pointed fierce communications style—particuarly about things I care deeply about—spiritual things.
But I’m that way teaching my classes—very in-students’-faces—literally—horseshoe seating . . . walking around a lot —off the wall demonstrations and surprises—role playing—satire etc.
But the students know I’m serious, play for keeps AND PARTICULARLY THAT I LOVE EACH ONE OF THEM. Not sure how all that successfully gets across but it does.
Doesn’t so easily get across in this text medium. But surprising numbers of even lurkers have noted that it’s there.
So, I end up coming back to the conclusion that too many RC’s have too thin a skin to detach themselves from the issues and icons and rituals and whatever ENOUGH to take someone else’s intense whatevers at it with a grain of salt or whatever.
I find MarkBsnr’s hostile stuff toward Prottys ABOUT AS INSULTING, DERISIVE, . . . . whatever . . . that he and his buddy find my words about some RC stuff.
It’s just differently put . . . but about as intense and IF I HAD A CHIP ON MY SHOULDER OR THIN SKIN—I’D HAVE JUST AS MUCH CAUSE to get and stay all irate, indignent etc.
But it’s not worth it. It’s not where my heart is at. Jesus is a Big Guy. He can take care of His priorities far better than I can.
I can speak out as well as I feebly can when I feel so moved. But it’s all just noise. Some of it is hopefully noise of some use to some lurkers and maybe some others occasionally. But that’ God’s affair.
Anyway—I hope you get some rest. If you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t well take care of anyone else!
I don’t know what to do with “bigots” and “fanatics” besides conclude that they evidently believe some things more rigidly and more intensely than I do.
Blessings,
I’m not going to give you the Catechism answer, just something to think about. The saints are with God! It is ONLY through CHRIST that they are in Heaven.
Let’s take a purely secular analogy. Say you work at a huge conglomerate and you are at the bottom of the rung, making minimum wage, you have no power or prestige, you are just a little nobody. Then, one day the CEO sees you and just knows that you are someone so he takes you under his wing to show you the ropes. Everyone knows that you’re in the office next to the big boss and you are communicating about everything, when you speak everyone listens because they know that, ultimately your words are coming straight from the top. People can ask you for favors because they know you and the boss are tight because the boss chose you to be where you are.
The saints are in Heaven. They are no longer bound by human frailties, they are in the heavenly realm that human minds can’t even comprehend. They SEE God! They have power THROUGH GOD! NONE of the saints are in Heaven by their own power but by the grace of God. There is no power besides God but we know that God uses people on earth to further His kingdom, why would he not use the saints in heaven? Emmanuel, God is with us and NOTHING separates us, nothing, God is with us, the saints are with God and therefore with us also.
'Even So then at this Present Time Also there is a Remnant According to the Election of Grace.
And if by Grace, then is it No More of Works; Otherwise Grace is No More Grace.
But if it be of Works, then is it No More Grace: Otherwise Work is No More Work.' (Rom.11:5,6)
OMG, I know just what you mean. I had already felt it with some Fundamentalist friends that I had but they don’t have the anonymity of the internet to let it all hang out.
Hey Quix,
did you ever read Eusibius and his History of the Church?
Do yourself a favor and read what he so painstakingly documented on Christian life in the first and second centuries. It is a real eyeopener.
Regards
Lurking
I don't know what "confession" you're talking about, so I don't know how to answer that questiion.
What about the public school teacher that tried to publicly humiliate my wife as a child because she knew "Son of God" means "God incarnate" and he, as a lifelong Baptist, didn't?
What about him? Are you expecting me to defend his public humiliation of your wife or something? Or is that supposed to somehow "prove" that the Bible has errors?
Of course these things aren't going to change the good things you know, just as I will keep the good things I know.
Maybe not, but it wouldn't hurt the two or three Catholic FReepers who do believe in total inerrancy to speak out once in a while instead of allowing the errantists and evolutionists to be the public face of the Catholic Church on FR.
Of what value is holding a doctrine of total biblical inerrancy when it manifests itself as our functionally illiterate brother boldly standing up to proclaim Acts 7:54 of the King James Bible *clearly* proves the Sanhedrin where so mad at Steven they actually bit him!
Anyone functionally illiterate would be unable to read the verse you cite (or any other verse), so I don't understand your point there. But one thing I do believe is that the Catholics of past ages who didn't read the Bible much (note that I didn't say there were "forbidden" to read the Bible; I said they "didn't read it much") were better off for acknowledging that G-d does not lie than the modern Catholic who reads the Bible every day--along with higher critical commentaries written by the likes of Raymond Brown--so that however well he knows the contents he ascribes them to ancient Babylonian mythology adapted much later and then dishonestly attributed to Moses (or Daniel, or whoever). It is one of the greatest tragedies of the Catholic "Biblical movement" that Biblical literacy has been indelibly polluted with "higher criticism." Yes, Catholics who read the Bible but believe it's a forgery are in much worse shape than people who never picked it up but who believed it was inerrant. I suppose you want to argue with me?
Would to God we all took Paul's advice about meat sacrificed to idols as a general instead of a specific.
And now I have no idea what you're talking about.
What about him? I suspect the lifelong Baptist knew that Jesus didn't become incarnate to take multiple wives and father multiple children...
Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them,
that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.
And the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”
There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.- Genesis 6:1-4
Alex,
I think this is the first time I can remember, when the “Neverending Story” between Calvinists and Catholics has not occupied the majority of the recent posts on the Religion Forum. It appears the Evangelical Protestants v. Mormons is now the leading battle.
We’ve been supplanted, I’ll admit, I am ambivalent, lol.
God Bless
I notice that you place all the burden on Fundamentalist Protestants. Have you ever considered that it is possible for a Catholic or a mormon to be a bigot? Or is this that "poor little minority vs. the masses of illiterate hayseeds" thing again?
It's not as if Fundamentalism owns conservatism. I'd say if conservatism had rulers those rulers would be Catholic rather than Fundamentalist--whether considering William F. Buckley Jr. or the place the Catholic Church holds in the hearts of the "palaeo" worshipers of "western civilization." In fact, the traditional Catholic hostility to Jews and Israel was very dominant in conservatism for a long, long time, despite the fact that pro-Israel Fundamentalists outnumber Catholics in the United States.
I don't suppose the fact that so many Catholics think that people who insist on total Biblical inerrancy are brain-damaged or retarded bothers you in the least? But I forget, I'm addressing the inventor of "Billy Bob's Glory Barn." I forget myself! Blacks can't be racists, and Catholics can't be bigots (except in Spain)!
No, the context was He insisting that my wife's assertions about the Incarnation were wrong.
I did neglect to mention the dispute was in the context of the identity of Christ. Thanks for pointing out my oversight.
Where are you getting this idea that most Catholic Freepers believe in evolution?
I’m puzzled.
**. In fact, I was Catholic for six years.**
Didn’t know this about you. You can always come home.
Only a few paragraphs, I think.
Maybe a few pages.
Do you have a handy link.
What would you hope I’d get from such reading?
Your "denomination" or "tradition."
What about him? Are you expecting me to defend his public humiliation of your wife or something? Or is that supposed to somehow "prove" that the Bible has errors?
It is intended to demonstrate theological ignorance is not solely a Catholic fault.
Maybe not, but it wouldn't hurt the two or three Catholic FReepers who do believe in total inerrancy to speak out once in a while instead of allowing the errantists and evolutionists to be the public face of the Catholic Church on FR
You are assuming the Bible is as foundational to Catholics as it is to you: that would be a mistake.
Anyone functionally illiterate would be unable to read the verse you cite...
"Functional illiterate" is not the same as "illiterate." The latter can't read at all, the former can read the words, but doesn't know what they mean.
And now I have no idea what you're talking about.
Paul writes in Corinthians about some brothers being critical of others either because their faith is not as strong, or stronger than our own. This is typified by the controversy over "meat sacrificed to idols." A good modern analogy would be something like the use of alcohol.
Sure, it's possible, but that's not relevant to my point.
Ever heard of the "religious right"? Who do you think wags the tail of that particular dog? It isn't Catholics. Perhaps it should be, but in the real world of real American politics in the late 20th and early 21st Century, it isn't.
I'd say if conservatism had rulers those rulers would be Catholic rather than Fundamentalist
Buckley is hardly a "ruler" of conservatism, unless you conceive of conservatism as some sort of dry intellectual exercise conducted in the pages of a magazine. I don't. Who else? Buchanan? A fringe goofball any more. Sobran? Ditto. Brownback? Good guy, but how far did he get? Nowhere. Who else? Anyone? Buehler?
Know how many Catholic Presidential or Vice-Presidential candidates the Republican party has ever nominated? Oh yeah, that would be *zero*, right?
So much for "ruling" conservatism.
In fact, the traditional Catholic hostility to Jews and Israel was very dominant in conservatism for a long, long time
Yeah, it was accompanied by the traditional country-club Republican hostility to Catholics, or didn't you notice that?!?!.
Sometimes I wonder what world you live in, ZC.
But I forget, I'm addressing the inventor of "Billy Bob's Glory Barn."
Speaking of which: Wrong, buddy. My only connection with that was that I found someone else's joke amusing. I guess I've now morphed in your mind into the inventor of same. Whatever.
Of course it is possible for both to be true. HOWEVER, most Catholics and Mormons on this site came here with the same opinion I did - that we are all of a piece, and that our similarities far outweigh our differences. I still feel that way about Mormons and the mainstream Protestants on this site, but I no longer believe that about Fundamentalists; I feel that I have been rudely awakened as to the truth of the Fundamentalist movement. The simple fact is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to have a Catholic thread around here without some virulently anti-Catholic Fundamentalist barging in with a "whore of Babylon" story or other. I assume the same is universally true on Mormon-related threads. You will not find such to be true on the Fundamentalist threads. The fight-picking around here is nearly always done by Fundamentalist Protestants on threads dealing with Catholicism. Perhaps if you steered clear of Catholic threads and talk amongst your own we wouldn't have these issues? Like Campion, I out-of-hand rejected voting for Mike Huckabee for exactly the samer reasons he stated.
I don't regard Fundamentalists as idiots. Prior to my joining FR, I regarded you as my fellow Christians. Now I regard you as dangerous to the ideals of American democracy. And as I said, I hope that view is only formed by the few uninformed Fundamentalists who troll every Catholic thread looking for trouble, but you have all formed that view in me. So be it.
What about the letters to the 7 churches mentioned in Revelation? How do you view those?
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