Posted on 04/04/2008 11:01:22 AM PDT by Gamecock
Last week I received the following e-mail, and I felt it would be best to share my response here on the blog.
Dear Mr. White, For someone considering converting to Catholicism, what questions would you put to them in order to discern whether or not they have examined their situation sufficiently? Say, a Top 10 list. Thanks.
When I posted this question in our chat channel a number of folks commented that it was in fact a great question, and we started to throw out some possible answers. Here is my "Top Ten List" in response to this fine inquiry.
10) Have you listened to both sides? That is, have you done more than read Rome Sweet Home and listen to a few emotion-tugging conversion stories? Have you actually taken the time to find sound, serious responses to Rome's claims, those offered by writers ever since the Reformation, such as Goode, Whitaker, Salmon, and modern writers? I specifically exclude from this list anything by Jack Chick and Dave Hunt.
9) Have you read an objective history of the early church? I refer to one that would explain the great diversity of viewpoints to be found in the writings of the first centuries, and that accurately explains the controversies, struggles, successes and failures of those early believers?
8) Have you looked carefully at the claims of Rome in a historical light, specifically, have you examined her claims regarding the "unanimous consent" of the Fathers, and all the evidence that exists that stands contrary not only to the universal claims of the Papacy but especially to the concept of Papal Infallibility? How do you explain, consistently, the history of the early church in light of modern claims made by Rome? How do you explain such things as the Pornocracy and the Babylonian Captivity of the Church without assuming the truthfulness of the very system you are embracing?
7) Have you applied the same standards to the testing of Rome's ultimate claims of authority that Roman Catholic apologists use to attack sola scriptura? How do you explain the fact that Rome's answers to her own objections are circular? For example, if she claims you need the Church to establish an infallible canon, how does that actually answer the question, since you now have to ask how Rome comes to have this infallible knowledge. Or if it is argued that sola scriptura produces anarchy, why doesn't Rome's magisterium produce unanimity and harmony? And if someone claims there are 33,000 denominations due to sola scriptura, since that outrageous number has been debunked repeatedly (see Eric Svendsen's Upon This Slippery Rock for full documentation), have you asked them why they are so dishonest and sloppy with their research?
6) Have you read the Papal Syllabus of Errors and Indulgentiarum Doctrina? Can anyone read the description of grace found in the latter document and pretend for even a moment that is the doctrine of grace Paul taught to the Romans?
5) Have you seriously considered the ramifications of Rome's doctrine of sin, forgiveness, eternal and temporal punishments, purgatory, the treasury of merit, transubstantiation, sacramental priesthood, and indulgences? Have you seriously worked through compelling and relevant biblical texts like Ephesians 2, Romans 3-5, Galatians 1-2, Hebrews 7-10 and all of John 6, in light of Roman teaching?
4) Have you pondered what it means to embrace a system that teaches you approach the sacrifice of Christ thousands of times in your life and yet you can die impure, and, in fact, even die an enemy of God, though you came to the cross over and over again? And have you pondered what it means that though the historical teachings of Rome on these issues are easily identifiable, the vast majority of Roman Catholics today, including priests, bishops, and scholars, don't believe these things anymore?
3) Have you considered what it means to proclaim a human being the Holy Father (that's a divine name, used by Jesus only of His Father) and the Vicar of Christ (that's the Holy Spirit)? Do you really find anything in Scripture whatsoever that would lead you to believe it was Christ's will that a bishop in a city hundreds of miles away in Rome would not only be the head of His church but would be treated as a king upon earth, bowed down to and treated the way the Roman Pontiff is treated?
2) Have you considered how completely unbiblical and a-historical is the entire complex of doctrines and dogmas related to Mary? Do you seriously believe the Apostles taught that Mary was immaculately conceived, and that she was a perpetual virgin (so that she traveled about Palestine with a group of young men who were not her sons, but were Jesus' cousins, or half-brothers (children of a previous marriage of Joseph), or the like? Do you really believe that dogmas defined nearly 2,000 years after the birth of Christ represent the actual teachings of the Apostles? Are you aware that such doctrines as perpetual virginity and bodily assumption have their origin in gnosticism, not Christianity, and have no foundation in apostolic doctrine or practice? How do you explain how it is you must believe these things de fide, by faith, when generations of Christians lived and died without ever even having heard of such things?
And the number 1 question I would ask of such a person is: if you claim to have once embraced the gospel of grace, whereby you confessed that your sole standing before a thrice-holy God was the seamless garment of the imputed righteousness of Christ, so that you claimed no merit of your own, no mixture of other merit with the perfect righteousness of Christ, but that you stood full and complete in Him and in Him alone, at true peace with God because there is no place in the universe safer from the wrath of God than in Christ, upon what possible grounds could you come to embrace a system that at its very heart denies you the peace that is found in a perfect Savior who accomplishes the Father's will and a Spirit who cannot fail but to bring that work to fruition in the life of God's elect? Do you really believe that the endless cycle of sacramental forgiveness to which you will now commit yourself can provide you the peace that the perfect righteousness of Christ can not?
LOL, or I need to stop working.
Or just leave the defending to better people.
Mary: Icon of Religious Unity and Peace
The modern theological appeal of Mary is a growing phenomenon which needs to be addressed biblically. The Marian appeal has spread far beyond the traditional borders of the Roman Catholic Church. Mary has been exalted to a place of universal attraction with thousands of commemorative shrines dedicated to her around the whole world, even in regions unrelated to Catholicism. She is quickly becoming the revered Queen of ecumenism,” someone through whom diverse religions can worship without offending respective theologies. She seems to be the one entity that can unite all of mankind under one religious umbrella. People from all Christian denominations are reaching out to the Virgin Mary as a comforting conduit of spirituality and a symbol of peace in troubled times. It’s not just only Catholics who are venerate Mary and follow the admonitions of her many apparitions anymore.
Surprisingly, apparitions of Mary even appear in Islamic countries, where multitudes of Muslims turn out to honor her. For example, in the late 1960s thousands witnessed “a lady composed of light” who was holding a baby as she seemed to be moving across the roof of a Coptic Orthodox church on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. Thousands of Muslims fell to their knees on prayer rugs and wept before the glorious form of Our Lady from Heaven. While such a reaction may seem puzzling to western Christians, there is a substantial religious basis for it Marian exaltation within the world’s religions. An entire chapter (Maryam) in the Koran and numerous other verses as well as hundreds of hadiths, pay homage to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Islamic scholars attest that Mary is esteemed above even the most revered women of the Muslim faith, including Muhammad’s two favorite wives Khadija and Aisha, and his daughter Fatima. One Muslim hadith quotes Muhammad as saying he would take Mary as one of his wives in heaven: “The Messenger of God said, “God married me in Paradise to Mary”,
From the perspective of the classical Muslim scholars, Mary, in the Qur’an and Sunna, is a symbol that brings together all revelation. As a descendant of the great Israelite prophets, the bearer of the word, the mother of Jesus, and as traditional Sunni Islam’s chosen woman of the worlds, Mary is symbolic of the Qur’anic message that revelation has not been confined to one particular people.
In addition, the fact that an apparition claiming to be Mary appeared near a place named for Muhammad’s favorite daughter has endeared millions of Muslims to “Our Lady of Fatima.” The Fatima Crusader reported that more than half a million followers of Islam turned out to honor a statue of the Fatima Mary in Bombay, India. It would seem that at least some apparitions of Mary share the Muslim’s respect for the Islamic faith. Our Lady of Medjugorje, communicated to admirers gathered at her shrine there, Muslims and Orthodox, and Catholics, are equal before my Son and I. You are all my children! Pope John Paul II fervently believes predicted that Mary not only save his life, but that she would be the key to reconciling the faiths of Rome and Mecca. Mary has played a key role in the interfaith dialogue that Pope John Paul has orchestrated and extended to all religions. Many interfaith attendees pray the rosary and come to the conclusion: I am a child of God. I don’t just have God as my Father and Christ as my brother; I have His Mother for my own. More and more Protestants also are becoming attracted to Mary. Will Protestants and Catholics and Muslims someday be united through Mary?”, but a more basic question must be asked: “Mary who?” The Mary of the Orthodox Church was sinless but not conceived immaculately. The Mary of Islam is confused with Miriam, sister of Moses and Aaron, whose father was Amram. She is not the Mother either of God or of the Son of God (”Allah has no son,” Surah IV:171). The Mary of Catholicism was immaculately conceived, the Mother of God, a perpetual virgin, Mediatrix between God and man, and the Queen of Heaven.
She has been around before. Israel encountered her 2800 years ago.
But, Then there’s the real Mary of the Bible
For anyone who has an interest in learning the truth about Mary, the only trustworthy account is to be found in the Holy Scriptures, where the information presented is by those who actually knew her personally and, more importantly, whose writings were under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Fewer than 90 Bible verses address the life of Mary. In them we find a wonderfully humble servant of the Lord who rejoices in Him as her Savior (Luke 1:47). Obviously her heart was not “immaculate” nor was she conceived without sin because her Son, her Savior, came not for the sinless but “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). The Catholic Church seems to be confused over the issue of Mary’s sin-lessness because it considers her to be the woman of literal woman of Revelation 12, “clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.” (This error is consistent with Replacement Theology) This specific imagery is reflected on innumerable statues of Mary around the world. Yet the Bible says this woman gave birth in pain and travail (Revelation 12:2), and pain and labor are part of God’s judgment on sinners (Genesis 3:15-16). So either the (recently beatified) “infallible” Pope Pius IX, who engineered her immaculate conception into Church dogma, was wrong about Mary’s sinlessness, or the “infallible” Pope Pius XII and numerous other Catholic theologians were wrong about Mary being the “woman” of Revelation 12:1-2.
Mary’s ministry was simply the birth and nurturing of the child Jesus. Once He reached adulthood, she played no influential part in His earthly service. It’s at the wedding feast of Cana, which began the public ministry of Jesus, that her last words are recorded. Fittingly, she tells the servants, “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it” (John 2:5). There is no doubt that she is exemplary among biblical saints as a model of obedience and submission to the will of God, especially in the appointment to which she was called. In keeping with the words of John the Baptist, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30), Mary faded into the background. Search the Scriptures as you will and you will find no leadership role for Mary among the Apostles. She taught no doctrine. We never hear of the Apostles seeking her out for counsel. Other than the gospels, Mary is mentioned only once in the New Testament, where the Book of Acts tells us of her simple participation in a prayer meeting along with her sons. The teaching that Mary was a perpetual virgin is also contradicted by many other verses (Matthew 12:46; Mark 6:3; John 7:3,5; 1 Corinthians 9:5; Galations 1:19; Psalms 69:8; etc.).
When you compare what the apparitions around the world say and do in claiming to be Mary, you get find a different Mary, “one completely contrary” to the one presented in Holy Scripture. In subtle ways the apparitions partake and indulge themselves in self-aggrandizement and self-promotion, and always to the devaluation of Jesus, and their instructions are often un-Biblical and promote the very system of the anti-Christ. The “Mary” who spoke to Father Gobbi, the founder of the Marian Movement declared, “Each of My statues is a sign of a presence of Mine and reminds you of your heavenly Mother. Therefore my presnce must be honored and placed in places of greater veneration. The apparition invokes all admirers to consider Our Lady of Fatima: “Say the Rosary every day to obtain peace for the world, Pray, and pray repeatedly and often the Rosary, and make sacrifices for sinners, because many souls go to hell because they have no one to make sacrifices for them. Mary conveys to her worshippers that God wishes to establish in the world a devotion to Mary’s immaculate heart, teaching them that if people do what Mary says, then many souls will be saved and there will finally be world peace. The Pope has consecrated the entire peace of the world to Mary’s Immaculate heart!
This is not the humble and submissive Mary of the Bible. The rosary invokes prayers to Mary and rarely ever mentions praying to our high priest, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Prince of Peace; and only his once-for-all sacrifice saves souls from hell. Mary’s heart is not immaculate, nor are we to be spiritually devoted to anyone other than our Lord and Savior. The Marian apparitions establish a status for Mary which is without support the Holy Bible. The Apostle Peter, a contemporary of Mary and regarded by Catholics as the first pope, wrote nothing about her. The Apostle Paul, through the Holy Spirit, gave more specific instruction in living the Christian life than any other writer in the Bible, yet he made absolutely no mention whatsoever of the alleged importance of devotions or reparations to Mary. In contrast to the apparitions appearing as Mary, they claim to have been “conceived without sin. The Bible portrays Paul as being “the chief of sinners,” yet God made him the most productive figure of the New Testament after Christ, and not Mary. The Apostle John, who wrote the last book of the Bible and was given the care of Mary by Jesus himself, says nothing about venerating her. One would think that John would have produced volumes of work on Mary if she was the one Jesus pointed to for veneration. The apparitions clearly are not the actual mother of Jesus, although they make every attempt to be perceived in that way. Millions of people around the world get real emotional about the prospect of seeing the Mother of God. It can be awfully difficult to defame an entity that appears to be Christ’s Mother. And who wants to pick on Mom! Many of the apparitions appear as a young woman bearing an infant. The infant in her arms is tantalizingly portended to give th appearance as though Mary still oversees her son. Jesus was in His thirties when He returned triumphantly to the right hand of his Father. Obviously, the apparitions of Mary are intended to convey that Mary still has the superior position in their relationship! Moreover, rather than perpetuating Jesus as a helpless babe, the Bible conveys that Jesus as the King of kings, Lord of lords, Creator of the universe, the glorified Son of God, God manifested in human flesh, and born of a virgin who simply submitted herself to the will of God!
As mankind is being drawn into every kind of spiritual deception in these last days before the return of Jesus, it is particularly blasphemous and sad that the earthly mother of Jesus, is so terribly misrepresented thereby drawing millions, not to but away from the Son of God. The Queen of Heaven is the handiwork of Satan.
Darrell G. Young
Copyright©2002
That's funny....RCs claim protestants use circular logic in defending sola scriptura. It's dizzying... :-)
The intent of this post is not to make comparisons between RCism and Mormonism.
Eighty years a Catholic, yet never attended Mass?
Praise God!
I suspect many here will confuse the Gospel (Good News) with the Gospel writings.
Jumping through hoops is for circus animals, not the saints of God.”
It is sad to see such a sad, shallow, and ignorant view of the sacraments in this statement.
Another example of a non-Catholic Christian who thinks they need to justify their inability to ever partake of the sacraments.
Catholics really do not care to argue the complete lack of the sacraments in Protestant sects and they do not need to defend their Church's teaching of the Sacraments. The fact is, the Catholic Church simply never abandoned what was taught, by the apostles themselves, from the 1st centuries regarding the sacraments. The Eucharist is a perfect example of this. And just because you cannot partake of it outside of the Catholic Church is no reason to attack it from the outside.
Funny how these non-Catholic protestants attack the unmerited grace attained through the sacraments in the Catholic Church, but in the same sentence, will defend their system of “Baptism” which requires not God's Grace alone to infuse the soul, but rather the work of the individual to decide when he or she becomes “Christian”. I thought that God chose us, not us who decides when we choose him.
The Sacraments are Biblical through and through. The only offer required by a Catholic to partake of any Sacrament is FAITH in Jesus Christ alone. If you find yourself in a Church devoid of the Sacraments, there is a very good reason for that - you belong to a faith that severed itself from the one Church and Priesthood that could ever administer the Sacraments. If that is your choosing, great, but please avoid attempting to discredit something which will continue to the end of time in the Catholic Church only because you have denied yourself of these teachings.
We have people worshiping aliens from space, people worshiping trees, and worse yet people worshiping devils and demons. We have children in one cult (yes a cult as in a cult started in the 20th century) that rejects Christ utterly, who are filed into “church schools” where they are warehoused, and neglected.
EVERY TIME R.M. this devolves into my brothers and sisters in faith ripping each other with dull knives until people start taking it personal and make snippy remarks. Look at the history, there is no exchange of ideas, just people having petty little Internet arguments, playing Internet tough guy.
I guess we want to continue to snip and fight.
Why don't we get some black powder, wheel lock pistols and pikes, and we can fight the 30 years war over again people, and let Obama sweep over this nation and make it safe for Sharia law. No problem, at least you get you ego rubbed for being King Internet Tough Guy.
See how long that lasts when they impose the Internet Fairness Doctrine by President Obama, where every other article on FR must be posted by an approved DU member.
It makes me ashamed as a Christian and a conservative to see people waste a perfectly good gift that Jim Robinson gave us here, and that people donate money to keep going.
These posts serve to make FR less effective in the fight to keep America a Christian nation, preserve the original Free Republic, and a nation devoted to freedom of the individual over the Nanny-State.
I suggest we stop it now. Somebody is going to put out an eye.
[partake of the sacraments.]
Bible believing Christians don’t need to partake of the sacraments of the Roman Church as we were saved by grace through faith when we were yet in our sin, indwelled by the Holy Spirit of God the moment we believed how that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose again the third day and fully purchased our salvation by His own blood. The Holy Bi ble teaches us the doctines of God and His Christ and no church denomination or affiliation had anything to do with our salvation by grace through faith, paid for at the cross and sealed by the Holy Spirit of God. We simply believe unto salvation by the finished work of Christ when He arose from the dead the third day, the sacraments of men are vain to us, His Word and sure mercies are everything to us. The doctrines of the Roman Church and many prostestant cult groups are heresies to Bible believing Christians and an affront to the Christ of God since they are not of God.
And so we believe as we are commanded of God, not of man.
1 Peter :
1. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,
2. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.
3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
4. To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,
5. Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
So my dear FRiend, you are now the arbiter on the proper use of bandwidth?
Now we must seek your approval for what is acceptable?
What makes your stamp of approval more palatable than that of a DU member?
Tyranny takes many forms.
Great for you! Enjoy your faith in whatever Church you belong to. You need not attempt to further proof text the scriptures to make your own argument in justifying your inability to partake of the sacraments. I could just as easily provide volumes of scripture and writings of the Church fathers that absolutely support the truth of the Sacraments. There is little interest in me attempting to convince you of anything. That can only be accomplished by God's Grace.
Having recently made the trip, I'll bite.
"Do you believe God's word or the magisterium's word?"
God's word, of course. But what you Protestant's have forgotten is that although the Bible is indeed the inerrant Word of God, it doesn't contain ALL of the Word of God. The Bible is the SECOND book God wrote. The FIRST book, written by His own Hand, is the Universe. But God's language in that Book is exceedingly difficult to understand. Man has indeed figured out a few letters and perhaps words of that Book, (in our lingo, that's called "science"), so God wrote a second Book, in man's language. But even there, God's meaning is hard to understand (witness the fragmentation of the Protestant church into thousands of sometimes mutually incompatible parts). The magisterium exists to reconcile these different viewpoints, and "..lead us into all truth...", which the Bible itself says is the function of the Church. And that is why the RC church is a going and growing concern after 2000 years, while the Orthodox have stagnated for the same period of time, and the mainstream Protestant churches are rapidly sinking into apostasy.
"Are you more comfortable approaching Christ directly or through various dead intermediaries?"
"Do you want to go directly to God with your fears and problems and hopes and prayers, or do you want to make some stop-overs with some dead human beings, somehow hoping they can be of benefit even though Christ has already told us to come to Him alone?"
Any Roman Catholic has both options. But those intermediaries are not dead---they are directly in the presence of God--provably so, by documented miracles as a result of their intercession. And the only reason you folks think "..Christ has already told us to come to Him alone..." is because Luther butchered the canon of the Bible, and discarded any books that said otherwise.
"Do you believe Christ paid for all your sins on Calvary, or did He just put a down-payment on them and you have to scrape up the rest?"
Of course Christ paid for all our sins on Calvary--which is what the Catholic Church teaches. That you think otherwise proves you don't understand the Church's doctrines.
"Do you believe pastors are "another Christ" as the RCC teaches or does this seem like blasphemy to you?"
Again, you mis-understand Catholic teaching. Christ acts THROUGH the clergy. Any action undertaken is solely by Christ's.
"Do you want to swear allegiance to a man on earth or the Triune God in heaven?"
All Catholics (including the Pope) "swear allegiance" to the Triune God (which doctrine is a matter of the Catholic tradition you folks are so fond of denigrating). Again, you either don't understand or are misrepresenting Catholic doctrine.
"Will you fall down to the stock of a tree, or will the idea of that act repell you and send you to your knees before God alone?"
Not sure what this means. If you are somehow implying that the Church's use of images and statuary are "idolatry", you are again mistaking Church teaching. All such images serve as a means to focus the attention during meditation before God.
You are wonderful! Thank you so much. However, what you forget is that to some this is sport. And to others watching it is sport.
When you get threads posted just to point out what’s wrong with another denomination during Holy Week, you can’t expect that it will stop at any other time.
God Bless you for your pleas. Many others have tried it here. But it continues and is allowed to continue. Sad but true. (look at the reaction you got to your kind words)
Some of these threads I liken to the kids in the back of the car yelling “He touched me!” They are silly.
The late R. J. Rushdoony, one of the giants of the faith on the Reformed side, spoke respectfully of the astute Pius X. Seeing the writing on the wall, this pope erected the doctrine of papal infallibility as a firewall against the floodtide of secular humanism. And that protective barrier held for nearly a century, until Vatican II.
You are so correct.
Some of them ARE just plain silly. And a waste of time. And a waste of bandwidth.
And much of it would be a source of scandal to a lurking unbeliever.
The open threads are like a town square. They can be contentious and offensive as posters challenge, ridicule and condemn beliefs, religious figures, authors and so on.
But open threads are the most popular threads on the Religion Forum.
Closed threads are treated like meeting behind the closed of a church. The assembly will not be disturbed.
I can and do intervene to keep posters from "making it personal" - the usual first step in a flame war.
But there is nothing I can do to keep posters from "taking it personally."
Thin-skinned posters should stay on the closed threads.
Posters on the open threads should remember that their own cherished beliefs may be an abomination to someone else. And both have an interest in speaking up in the town square.
As I have said before, look at the bright side, at least the town square is not an arena filled with hungry lions.
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