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<”My Southern Baptist friends are among the very most knowledgeable about what Scripture says of all of my friends. They also have the least understanding of what Scripture means. An example:
“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ “>

Southern Baptists understand that passage in the same way that Stephen understood those words as he was being stoned,”Father lay not this sin against them”. Or the way Christ asked his father ,”Forgive them for they know not what they are doing...” In both instances, they had “forgiven” their enemies and asked God to seal that forgiveness.

The southern Baptists I know and I’m one as well, also understand the Catholic view, that Christ’s admonition to “receive the Holy Spirit” and to “forgive or retain sins” gives the Catholic clergy divine authority to pronounce parishioners’ sins “forgiven or retained”. Many understand it, but they don’t always agree with the Catholic interpretation of that passage. As for me, it would depend on the spiritual condition of the clergyman doing the “pronouncing”.

Southern Baptists see the passage of “retention or forgiveness” as a the responsibility of each individual member; for as we interact with the world daily we endure the slights and personal hurts of others. Christ has admonished all of us to “love our enemies and to do good to those who have persecuted us”, and many other exhortations in maintaining a Christian testimonoy of the glory of God. I do differ with them in that I believe that Clergy of all faiths, having a divine calling to declare the gospel, do have divine authority in the matter of discipline and “retaining or forgiveness” of sins. Even Christ, when forgiving the lepers and healing their lesions, told them to show themselves to the priests so that they might be declared “clean” and fit to be among the people. The Baptist churches I have been a part of generally had good process for restoring an erring member to the faith with the pastor and elders praying with such an one with the one asking forgiveness of God and any others he may have wronged. The Catholics have their own process as well which I DO UNDERSTAND is more involved then just stereotypically confessing in a booth and the priest just gives you absolution.

So I do challenge you on your notion that Southern Baptists have more knowledge of scripture but understand least what it says...I’m not sure of what your metrics are?
So Catholic ignorance of scripture makes them more understanding of what little scripture they do know as compared to many SBC’s encyclopedic knowledge of scripture?

You know it was the broad study of the Bible and comparing what it teaches do that of the excesses of the Catholic church doctrine and practices by the 15th century that lead to the great schism, right? The established church indeed had great divine authority to preach the gospel and “forgive or retain”. Yet wolves entered into church leadership who over the centuries had abused abused and debased that authority to the point that even littlest ones up even until this present day were being sexually molested and others left spiritually for dead under the aegis of this so called church of Christ. Looking over history and the Bible, Narses, could you not have expected God to move to humble Roman Catholicism and to graft in “off shoot branches” so that the work of Christ might continue upon the Earth?

Yet, the whole of Christendom, is now under attack and committed christians from all Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant persuasions may find themselves more and more as “strange bedfellows” needing to co-operate with each other. For the evil ones of this world have attempted to infiltrate the upper leadership positions of these various branches of faith to lead the laity astray at the same time of the neo Muslim ascendancy would destroy western society and democracy. I pray Christ that he will raise up bold new uncorrupted men of faith from all traditional faith persuasions who will lead those who have left that house of Harlotry, that all nations have become drunk with! I mean not the Catholic church, or Protestant, or Orthodox per se, but rather drunk with that spirit of religiosity that has no power, (and is morally situational and not biblically transcendent in its root doctrine) which has taken root in the hearts of the leaderships of these three branches.
Christ’s true church are those spirit filled believers who come from every tribe, tongue, nation. No matter what faith persuasion...across time and dimension. They are all his that does the “will of his Father in heaven”...they are his “brother, mother, sister and father”.