Posted on 07/29/2008 4:39:52 PM PDT by annalex
Evangelicals have been going through a major change of heart in their view of Catholicism over the past 15 years or so. In the 80’s when I was in college I lived in the Biblebelt and had plenty of experience with Evangelicals–much of it bad experience. The 80’s was the height of the “Are you saved?” question. In Virginia, the question often popped up in the first 10 minutes of getting to know someone. As I look back, Isurmise that this was coached from the pulpit or Sunday school as it was so well coordinated and almost universally applied. It was a good tactic for putting Catholics on the defensive even before it was known that they were Catholic—”ummmm, uhhh, well no, I’m not sure, I’m Catholic.” Then a conversation about works righteousness or saint statues would ensue. Yeah, nice to meet you, too.
Thankfully, those days are pretty much over. We now have formerly rabid anti-Catholics apologizing and even praising the pope. Catholics and Evangelicals have both learned that we have much in common and need each other to face the secular culture with a solid front. But, where did this detente come from? I think there is a real history to be told here and a book should be written. Let me give my perceptions of 7 major developments since 1993, which I regard as the the watershed year for the renewal of the Catholic Church in the United States.
1. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1993. When this document came out, it was uncertain that even Catholics would read it. We should have known that something was up when the French version hit the top of the bestsellers charts in France and stayed there for months. The English version did the same in the US. Catholics were reading the Catechism, forming study groups and challenging errant professors in the classroom.
2. World Youth Day, Denver 1993. Catholic youth and youth ministers woke up. Suddenly, Catholic youth ministers realized that the youth loved the pope. And they loved him all the more because he did not talk down to them or water down the faith. He challenged them. Gone now were the pizza and a video parish youth nights. Furthermore, youth and young adults took up the challenge to evangelize. One of those youth heard the message and started a website, New Advent. Catholic youth were now becoming zealous for the Catholic faith in its fullness and were not going to be swayed by an awkward conversation that began with “Are you saved?”
3. Scott Hahn. While the Catechism is great for expounding the Catholic faith, it is not a work of apologetics itself. It is not written to expose the flaws of Evangelical theology. It is not written to defend the Church against the attacks of Evangelicals per se. It just would not let them get away with misrepresenting the Catholic faith. But Scott Hahn hit the scene at about the same time with Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 1993). I first heard his testimony on cassette tape in 1996. It blew my mind. Suddenly, Catholic apologetics, which is as old as the Catholic Church itself, got a leg up and there was an explosion of books, magazines and websites that effectively undercut the arguments of the 5 Solas. For the first time, there was a cadre of Catholics well enough informed to defend their faith.
4. The Internet. The Net started exploding from 1993 to 1996. I had my first account in ‘94. Compuserve was horribly basic, but by ‘96 I had AOL and the religion debates raged instantly. Catholics who had just been given the most powerful weapon in the arsenal in the war against misinterpretation of their teaching were learning to type on a forum while balancing their catechisms on their laps. Of course, online versions came out, as well. But, no Evangelical bent on getting Catholics out of the arms of the Whore of Babylon could expect to do so without himself have a copy of the Catechism, knowing it inside out and pouring over it for the errors and horrors he would surely find. Evangelical apologists were confronted with a coherent and beautiful presentation of the Catholic faith that they were ill equipped to argue against. They learned that Catholics, too, loved Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The Catechism had arrived providentially just before the internet and had turned the tables in just a few short years. With the apologetic movement hitting at the same time, Evangelicals were also confronted with Catholics who could argue from the Bible defending their faith and demonstrating the weaknesses of Evangelical interpretations of scripture.
5. Early Church Fathers. One fruit of the Apologetics movement has been a flowering anew of Catholic interest in Patristics. This is happening at every level from armchair apologists to doctoral studies. It is suddenly all about Patristics, whereas in the 70’s-90’s the academic focus had been on Karl Rahner and Liberation Theology.
6. Evangelical Third World Experience. Evangelicals have had a field day in Latin America among the poor who are not part of the internet conversation and are distant from the study of apologetics. But, Evangelicals have learned from their experiences abroad an essential aspect of the Gospel they were missing: the Works of Mercy. Once haughty with their criticism of “works righteousness,” they have learned one cannot attend to the spiritual needs of the poor without attending to their bodily needs. Catholic have always understood this. Now, the Evangelicals are coming around. I haven’t heard an Evangelical Televangelist speak on works righteousness in many years.
7. Secularism. With the collapse of the Mainline churches as the backbone of American religion over the past thirty years (since about 1975), Catholics and Evangelicals are the only ones left standing in this country to present the Gospel. Secularism is on the rise and is ruthless. Evangelicals are now learning that only Catholicism has the intellectual resources to combat the present secular age. And, with the pope, we have a pretty effective means for communicating the faith and representing it to the world. There is nothing an Evangelical can do that will match the power of one World Youth Day.
With such an array of Providential developments, Evangelicals as well as Catholics have come to appreciate the depth and the breadth of the Catholic faith. It is far more difficult for them to honestly dismiss Catholicism as the work of Satan as once they did without qualm. There have been apologies and there have been calls for a new partnership. Let us hope these developments will bring about a new moment of understanding for the Glory of the Lord.
You just claimed invalid the baptism of about a billion people, and you have the gall to imply I’M arrogant?!?
Are you saying that a ‘good’ Muslim or Buddhist or whatever, can go to heaven without receiving Christ in his or her life because they are loving and kind? Maybe they don’t know the scriptures about Christ but they still have to know HIM, and the Bible is the source that teaches them about God and Christ in the first place. What you say is somewhat confusing...
The HS only writes His law on the Christian’s heart, not the heathen.
You sound as though you believe they will only be saved if they find the Catholic church. Heretical thinking. NO church can save anyone. It’s through Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross. The Catholic Church had NOTHING, nada, zilch, to do with anyone’s salvation. Dear Lord!
How dare you belittle Christ like that!
A filthy lie borne of one's misguided rejection of free will.
Jean Cauvin strikes again.
Y’all almost make me a Calvinist. LOL.
Oh, really? What makes you think that the Catholic Church has it right???
If a billion people depended on baptism for their salvation, then they’re lost. Simple as that.
God gives everyone sufficient Grace to be saved or God is NOT love,man can freely reject this love.
The design of man has to be for the purpose of love or God's essence is not love.
The design of man also must include free will or man could not love God,thus, it would be God loving Himself through man
Creation of love must therefore APPLY to EVERYONE from the moment we became a thought to God.
I would say that the biggest mistake the reformed make is neglecting the fact that God is the first cause of all things.
If God does not give each and every one of us the opportunity to be saved than the first cause would be imperfect since the creation of any man without possibility of being saved would be a first cause.
We can only go to hell by sinning,thus it would mean that sin is included in the first cause of God in some human creation ,thus making God the author of sin and making evil part of God's essence. This just CANNOT be possible ,Dear Brother.
The following from Aquinas should make sense to you?
That in God there can be no Evil
ESSENTIAL being, and essential goodness, and all other things that bear the name of ‘essential,’ contain no admixture of any foreign element; although a thing that is good may contain something else besides being and goodness, for there is nothing to prevent the subject of one perfection being the subject also of another. Everything is contained within the bounds of its essential idea in such sort as to render it incapable of containing within itself any foreign element. But God is goodness, not merely good. There cannot therefore be in Him anything that is not goodness, and so evil cannot be in Him at all.
3. As God is His own being, nothing can be said of God that signifies participation. If therefore evil could be predicated of Him, the predication would not signify participation, but essence. Now evil cannot be predicated of any being so as to be the essence of any: for to an essentially evil thing there would be wanting being, since being is good.* There cannot be any extraneous admixture in evil, as such, any more than in goodness. Evil therefore cannot be predicated of God.
5. A thing is perfect in so far as it is in actuality: therefore it will be imperfect inasmuch as it is failing in actuality. Evil therefore is either a privation, or includes a privation, or is nothing. But the subject of privation is potentiality; and that cannot be in God: therefore neither can evil.
This truth also Holy Scripture confirms, saying: God is light, and there is no darkness in Him, (I John i, 5) Far from God impiety, and iniquity from the Almighty (Job xxxiv, 10).
Does this mean that you believe that every non Christian baby is a heathen and will neve have the ability to love?
Perhaps you should think deeper,dear sister?
People can love in the natural. It’s an emotion all of us have and it doesn’t mean the HS put it there. He writes his law on Christian hearts. The HS only inhabits Christians when we ask the Lord Jesus to come into our hearts to save us from eternal damnation. The heathen haven’t done that, yet. Hitler loved Eva Braun. He was a heathen when he died and faces eternal damnation. That love did him no good for the HS wasn’t in it. And I’ve thought deeply enough about these things, my brother in Christ.
All I can say is WOW!
Do they not understand that ALL good comes from God? All love?
“People can love in the natural. It’s an emotion all of us have and it doesn’t mean the HS put it there.”
What you are saying is that natural law is not Divine.
Lots of platitudes, but not a lot of scripture.
In fact, no scripture.
Thanks for the platitudes.
How do you know?
It could not have been love if hitler had sexual relations with her since they were not married.
I think you don't understand what true love is.
Christ tells me so.
THAT is not what I said.
What is it with the anti-Catholic tendency to misunderstand language?
It seems you must have overlooked this part of the post,Dear Brother.
Holy Scripture confirms, saying: God is light, and there is no darkness in Him, (I John i, 5) Far from God impiety, and iniquity from the Almighty (Job xxxiv, 10).
If an interpretation of scripture DOES NOT support God as a loving God than you're misinterpreting the scripture
Let me say this again: I DID NOT SAY THAT.
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