As the son of a Baptist pastor in Texas, who went to Baptist churches his whole life and spent 5 years living on the campus of East Texas Baptist College, I would like to tackle your very real concerns about how the Catholic Church could be very, very wrong.
Originally posted by DHK:
It may not deny the deity of Jesus Christ. However:
There is no salvation outside the Catholic Church.
True. However, Catholics believe that the Church includes all of Christianity. Those who are not baptized as Catholics represent separated brethren, who are still a part of the Church, if in an imperfect way by their view, they are out outside of the Church. So, even though they do believe that salvation is not guaranteed outside of the Church, they also believe that all Christians are within the Church.
To be saved one must be baptized into the Catholic Church.
True. However, any triune baptism (in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit) is considered a valid Christian, thus Catholic baptism. The baptism need not take place in a Catholic church to be considered valid. All properly constituted baptisms (triune) are considered valid. In fact, my baptism at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Clute, Texas is considered completely valid in the Catholic Church... As are all Christian baptisms.
All doctrine originates from one source (not the Bible), but the magesterium.
That's not really how they teach it, but that is a way that it is commonly distorted when taught to us in Baptist churches. The Catholic Church recognizes Holy Scripture (the Bible) and Sacred Tradition (notice upper-case 't')... there are traditions and Traditions... Traditions are considered sacred, while traditions (small t) are considered changeable ways of doing things. Do you suggest other churches have no traditions that are not listed in the Bible? I'd love to discuss that topic separately. Do Lutherans have traditions or Traditions? What about Episcopals?... Orthodox Christians? Are they also cults by your description? Since most of the Christian world (by a large margin) is Catholic or Orthodox, does that mean most Christians really are not Christians?
All doctrine must have only one interpretation (that of the magesterium).
The Bible is not the final authority, rather there is another authority to appeal to--Oral Tradition.
The Bible is not a user's manual for Christianity, and Catholics are not really told they have to just sit and wait for the magisterium to interpret. There are plenty of Catholic study bibles and Catholic bible studies with no clergy present. Anyway, the Bible is quite silent on many topics....many very basic and important ones (not just modern issues). Do you suppose that our Lord Jesus Christ never insructed the Apostles on anything other than what was written down in the Gospels?... Do you suppose the Gospels are a compete record of his ministry on earth? The Bible says:
"And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen." John 21:25 (KJV)
The Apostles witnessed these things, they spoke with him, and they passed the traditions and teachings down to us... We have them today. The Bible itself expresses its inability to record every possible thing. So, should we only perform traditions directly found in the Bible, and assume that Christ never taught the Apostles anything else that he wanted us to know about how to worship or live our lives?
[The gospel is another gospel--a gospel of works which Paul calls anathema.
Well, Cathlics and Protestants (including Baptists) do agree in the innerancy of the Word of God in the Bible... and... The Word of God says:
"What doth it profit, my brethren,
though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so
faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and
I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But
wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and
by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then how that
by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. James 2:14-24 (KJV)
The Word of God is clear... If one doesn't show his faith through his actions ("works"), then is there really any faith at all?.... Don't get caught up in a symantecs game. Do you believe that someone can say they're a born-again Christian who is faithful to God, yet do nothing but unrighteous acts and never show their faith by their actions and deeds?
It is not a gospel of grace through faith.
Grace is redefined.
Please be specific so I can understand what you mean. Quotes and references preferred. Grace is a very small word, with a very big meaning, don't you think?
Grace supposedly works through "sacraments" which the Bible knows nothing of.
So.. The Bible doesn't teach Baptism, Christian marriage, Communion, confessing sins, or ordination of clergy, or anointing the sick?
I'm confused, as I'm pretty sure the Bible must teach those things, because my dad taught me those things in a Baptist church as the pastor of that Baptist church... he was ordained as a Pastor in the Baptist church, and he taught me that I needed to confess my sins in order to accept Christ, I needed to go through the church for a proper Christian marriage, I needed a proper baptism once I had accepted Christ, and my dad regularly went to visit the sick and pray over them... So, really the Sacraments are quite valid as far as I can tell from what I learned as a Baptist about being a Christian. Is it the term 'sacrament' that bothers you? Doesn't Christ use these physical, perceptible signs to show his love for us?
The belief that Christ paid the full penalty for our sins is denied, in that one has to pay part of that penalty in purgatory.
Phew, thank goodness! Thankfully all Christian groups believe this. Purgatory is not taught by the Catholic Church as a place of punishment. That's a way in which we were lied to somewhere down the line and it has been allowed to persist. If you get your theology information from The History Channel, then you might get confused like this. Truth is, Purgatory is considered by Catholics to be a place of cleansing and purification (purgatory, purge, purify) before standing before God. Of course Christ has died for our sins already, but do we not continue to sin? Surely we should be purged fully from those sins before we stand before the throne of God.
The sacrifice of Christ was not sufficient, therefore he must be resacrificed again and again.
That's not really what Catholics believe, either. Here's a quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: 'The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.' 'And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner. . . this sacrifice is truly propitiatory.'" CCC 1367
How many times must Christ be re-sacrificed until his sacrifice is sufficient enough to pay for our sins??
Thank our Lord Jesus Christ, only once! Catholic simply believe that the priest makes the one and only one sacrifice of Christ immediately present for them in the mass. God created time and space... Don't you think he can manipulate it and do with it as he pleases? In any case, the Catholic Church only does what Christ instructed.
All the above puts the RCC in the realm of a cult. You cannot believe in the above doctrines and be a Christian at the same time. It is an impossibility.
DHK [/QB]
Thankfully those are all mis-construed or inaccurate beliefs... I agree, if people believed that, they wouldn't be Christians. Thankfully, Catholics are very much Christian... Without the Catholic Church, there would be no Christianity... Without the Catholic Church, Christianity would have ended when Christ was put in the tomb.
-Michael
[ April 22, 2006, 06:21 PM: Message edited by: ZeroTX ]
