I Was Wrong

Mike,
To be accurate, it is the Roman Catholic church you speak of. The catholic church is the universal church of Christ, which all born again believers are part of.

The apostles creed, which generally is accepted across the denominational parameters, speaks of the 'Holy Catholic Church'. It is not refering to the Romish sector.

 

Mike,

Good for you.



Joseph Botwinick

 

Praise the Lord, Mike. It takes a lot of fortitude for a man to say he was wrong!!

God Bless You!!!

Tam

 

I've known many people who have gone to Catholic schools who never really knew the teachings of the Church. Sure, they understood what Catholics believed, but, they do not understand why they believe. I believe it all stems from the parents not practicing the Faith and just sending their kids to Catholic school to let someone else instruct their kids. If kids see their parents living a life contrary to what they are reading about in school, it will have little if any effect on the way they shape their conscience.

Mike I am not implying this is the case with you, as I dont even know if you were raised Catholic. I just firmly belive that if you were taught the Faith properly, you would never leave or abandon it anymore than you would Jesus Himself.

Peace...

 

I echo the sentiments of Joseph and Tam. Praise the Lord.
DHK

 

I have believed I shall go to my grave and never have come across a Roman Catholic who renounced the RCC and accepted true Christianity - Protestantism.
Now I may rest assured I was wrong, and thank God for it!
I am myself a convert to true Christianity - from legalism to free grace. I know what it is like. I know what it is to be set free, and be caught up and be hid in Christ in God through grace and the love of God.
Go free, my brother, into everlasting life, you're in Christ now, in God, and before men. Let no one despise your youth in Jesus Christ - in Him you are more than a mature man; in Him you are found perfect, and wanting in no respect! Christ being your Prize.

 

No denomination is without error. We each chose the error that is acceptable to us.

 

Some folks make the mistake of putting out desire for acceptance by others ahead of the Truth. We want everyone to like us and sacrifice the truth for "tolerance", "political-correctness", "favorable press coverage", etc.

Did you just come to this conclusion? Then in all fairness,Mike I can understand your desire to defend the false religion. If you dont mind me asking, what was the crux of the dicussion that made you see the light?

 

Mike,

I agree with the rest that this is a point of courage on your part.

May I ask what teachings of the Catholic church were particularly "noticable" from your POV as being in error as you discussed them with active Catholics?

As you can observe from this board - there are a wide variety of views on a great many topics and obviously they can not "all be right". Which means that we live in a "Sea of error" and are not aware of that part which is "ours" in some cases.

You are one of the rare ones to see error in your own hand rather than simply blindly defending whatever you believed yesterday.

What things stood out? Had you never looked at them before? What allowed you to be critical and objective with your own system of beliefs?

In Christ,

Bob

 

MikeMcK,

Add to that the fact that the Catholic Church vehemently denies the truth of justification throught alone, and just a vehemently proclaims a flase gospel of justification through faith + works.

Here are a few of the cursings from the Council of Trent...

"CANON XIII.-If any one saith, that it is necessary for every one, for the obtaining the remission of sins, that he believe for certain, and without any wavering arising from his own infirmity and disposition, that his sins are forgiven him; let him be anathema."

CANON IX.-"If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema."

CANON XII.-"If any one saith, that justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ's sake; or, that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified; let him be anathema."

CANON XX.-"If any one saith, that the man who is justified and how perfect soever, is not bound to observe the commandments of God and of the Church, but only to believe; as if indeed the Gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life, without the condition of observing the commandments ; let him be anathema."

Mike

 

But Mike, all these things took place on this board. Remember good ole Carson Weber, Tryingto understand, CatholicConvert and all the rest who gave us Baptists fits? They all basically said the same things. I have always found that arguing with Roman Catholics is like trying to hit a moving target. They talk out of both sides of their mouth and use alot of doublespeak. Nothing ever seems to mean what you think you read. It all seems to be designed to mean whatever they want it to mean at the time or age, or the present geopolitical situation. Like I always said here on this board and I hate to keep on beating the same old dead horse, but grace, sanctifacation, baptism, justification and all those other theological words mean entirely different things to Romanism than to a Bible Believer.

 

A young man by the name of Pope Cleghorn went forward after our second service today and renounced the RCC, accepting Christ as his Savior. Pastor Rick had been witnessing and talking with him and he'd been attending our church for about a year. I had his son, Trey, in S/S last year. Pope is the president of a local bank and his wife wept as he proclaimed his need for Jesus. He'll be baptized next Sunday with a good sized group. We had a total of 5 accept Christ this morning in the two services.

 

Ya gotta love a man with a name like Pope Cleghorn. He sound mora like a snake oil salesman than a banker.

 

Greetings Mike,

First, I'm glad Catholic School helped make an impact on your life. Second, the Church does not now, nor, has it ever taught that tradition or Tradition is more important than Scripture. Ask these certain Catholics on the other board where you can look up this teaching. They won't be able to show you because it does not exist.

Baptismal regeneration is clearly taught in Scripture and has been the constant teaching of the Christian Church since the first century. You won't find any teachings different until after the 16th century.

The Church teaches that Christians outside of the Catholic Church are not condemned to hell. In fact, a priest who did teach this, was excommunicated (He later repented and realized his error).

All I ask is to judge their teachings (and I mean what they really teach) in light of Scripture.

 

ps104_33...

Used to? Where have they gone? Were they banned?

Mike