Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
I ask if Catholics are Christians since they include works as part of
justification. So would it be proper to evangelize Catholics as one would any
unsaved person? Also, doesn't purgatory deny the sufficiency of the cross?
As far as evangelizing Catholics, most won't even lend an ear. They are very much brainwashed and believe they are the only ones who are in the true church.
The Romish church is not Christian. I was trained by it and ordained in it. Purely pagan.
Roman Catholicism in the states looks very different than it does in Mexico. One of the claims people make in defending Rome is that it is 'one' church, as opposed to the fractured assortment of Protestant denoms and churches; but I know staunch RC's in the states who not recognize, and would be utterly appalled by, the RC church we saw in Mexico. I believe some Catholics can be Christians (though of all the Catholics I have spoken to in the states, only one seemed to evidence any understanding of salvation by faith alone in Christ alone: the rest evidenced various degrees of hostility to this doctrine); but I do not believe the church is a Christian church because they have departed from the sole standard of the Word of God, have set up Mary as an idol --an intercessor, with more mercy and power than Christ (many in the states worship her just as fervently, though not so disgustingly, as they do in Mexico), and have added to salvation until they neither go into God's kingdom themselves nor allow other people to go in. Many of our congregants in Mexico were saved out of lives of flagrant sin (because the RC church makes provision for this) or terrible, lifelong guilt (if you aren't enjoying the cheapness of your sin and expiation, you're feeling guilty for how you can never atone for it) in the RC church. If this question came up there, with people living in a largely Catholic country, who have lived in the church, you would get a much stronger reaction. Indeed if many others had seen firsthand at a funeral service how they comfortlessly recite prayers from their prayer book to 'Mary the wife of the Holy Spirit', go about under a terrible burden of having to get their loved one out of purgatory, pay money (we know of one family where the living children went shoe-less while the priests took money to say masses for the dead) to save their and other loved ones' souls, buy and sell and crawl across courtyards for and bow down and worship their idols of Mary, there would be a stronger reaction against RC in protestant circles (perhaps even in some RC circles). This is what they really are wherever they can get away with it.
Those that consider themselves Catholic, and adhere to the teachings of the Catholic Church are not Christian. The Catholic Church preaches and believes a different Gospel, and that is foundational.
However, some who consider themselves Catholic don't actually adhere to Catholic teaching.
It's been my experience that there are more lifetime "Protestants" defending the Catholic cause than there are exCatholics. I've known people who actually believe that they were delivered from Babylon and false religion (out of the RCC) when they were saved.
Not too long along I spoke with a priest about salvation (he's a pastor of a church in Milwaukee). He told me that salvation is found only in Christ and nothing else. I don't remember all of the particulars of the conversation, but he told me that there was nothing else (or no one else) necessary for salvation, only faith in Christ.
Rare bird, I suppose.
If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema.
As far as evangelizing Catholics, most won't even lend an ear.
As far as evangelizing Catholics, most won't even lend an ear.
I'm bothered by this statement. There are quite a few ex-RC's on this board. I'm one of them. If you had said, "most unbelievers won't even lend an ear" I would agree with you. Wide is the way that leads to destruction. Don't get down on RC's. They are just as likely to come to faith as a Mormon or Buddhist.
Catholics are trusting in the Roman church and their own works to save them.
And while they're doing that, they're worshipping graven images and praying to Mary, the saints, and even loved ones that have died. Many have very worldly lifestyles.
As far as evangelizing Catholics, most won't even lend an ear. They are very much brainwashed and believe they are the only ones who are in the true church.
Members in the past have been banned only after sufficient warning and repeated violations of Board Rules, behavior unbecoming a Christian and/or espousing heresy (such as the Federal Vision, Roman Catholicism or Modalism).