Your View On The Roman Catholics

You deny that there are Baptists with extra-Biblical and borderline heretical beliefs?

 

So are you saying trusting in Christ is not enough, that they also have to have a proper understanding of all things?

Couldn't someone (sadly) stay an immature Christian and barely move past that point?

 

Please enlighten us- what is the RCC definition?

 

Ok, then, if you want to nit-pick:

You deny that there are Christians with extra-Biblical and borderline heretical beliefs?

 

Just how many of those things sends them to hell? Lets us make a hypothetical. Supposed someone you believed to be saved and also believed basically all the same things you did, but you find out for some odd reason also believed in Mary's assumption, are they bound for hell because of this one difference?

 

I have known many. One of my best friends mom growing up was a dear woman that IMO was saved. Her husband was always a devout catholic, and she although she was not raised a catholic, joined because of him. Although obviously not the wisest and most biblical thing to do (marrying a catholic), she chose to follow her husbands leadership. I don't know about the rest of the family, but I always thought she was saved. Am I to just believe she couldn't possible be for the sole reason because as you say she stayed in the catholic church with her husband and family?

 

I would no more say that ALL Catholics are lost any more than I would say that ALL Baptists (Presbys, Bible Church, etc.) are saved. Most folks are saved IN SPITE OF being church members, IMHO.

I have personally known Catholic people who gave a good testimony of salvation by faith in Christ and yet they saw no need to leave the church. One was a doctor who worked with a Baptist medical missions team that came to our city in Mexico every year. He would even say amen when I preached the Gospel.

 

Good night.

 

Ann, I think everything on Baptist4life's list is Catholic dogma, although he has recited them in a rather derisive manner.

 

Ironically I probably agree with much of what you believe about the RCC.
But when you make absolutes like these with absolutely no wiggle room is when you lose me.

"I do not believe Roman Catholics are Christians"
"I DO NOT believe a truly saved person would STAY in a RCC"


After reading your post about your wife's family, I think maybe that explains, and is understandable why you have such strong personal feelings about this and why you have formed such rigid absolutes. Probably explains why you feel the need to start a post like this as well.

 

Very astute statements.

 

My personal exposure to Catholics, and I am speaking only of the Catholic faithful, is that they are very devout in their beliefs and the observance of their faith. They love God and have a disciplined prayer life, although most of their prayers are liturgical, e.g., the rosary. For the most part they are lacking in knowledge of the Bible. They are also not very good at explaining their faith to others, probably because they don’t understand it very well themselves. If you ask a Catholic why they do a certain thing, he will most likely say, “Because the Church says so.” I find this somewhat perplexing because most of the faithful have attended Catholic schools where time is allotted exclusively to religious education.

I have listened to EWTN radio in my car about 50 minutes a day for more than four years, and have concluded that the Catholic Church does indeed teach a true gospel. These people speak of cultivating a faithful prayer life, of having a closer and more personal relationship with God, of studying the Bible, of regular worship attendance, of opposition to moral depravity, abortion and homosexual unions and of many other things advocated by Baptists. To be sure, they also speak of prayers to saints, the sacraments, the Virgin Mary, and the pope who they usually call the Holy Father. Some of these things are consistent with scripture, although Baptists usually ignore or gloss over that scripture. Others cannot be found in scripture, although nothing they teach actually contravenes scripture.
From this 800-900 hours of listening to Catholic radio, I must conclude that only one of the following can be true:

1. The people on EWTN don’t understand Catholicism;

2. The people on EWTN understand Catholicism and are lying; or

3. The Catholic faith is just as Christian as the Baptist faith.