Your View On The Roman Catholics

Your are saying exactly that, because you qualify it by stating any person that is saved would always leave without exception, so in other words you are saying that you believe without exception that there are no individuals that are saved and are still catholic.

As far as calling it just another Christian denomination, just go back and read Donna's post that I just agreed with, and tell me how any reasonable person could possibly read that and come to that conclusion.

 

That is factually incorrect, as demonstrated by the fact that many persons here are associated, acquainted, or friends with practicing Roman Catholics who are saved. There are also several persons here on this bbs who are practicing Catholics, whose salvation is not in question.

 

Earlier in this thread I posted of one such example, and you never responded to it. I'll re post it again.

 

This thread is being discussed on catholic answers.

I'm finding myself in general agreement with the OP and his followups. A person is a Christian if they confess their sin and place their faith and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of sin. There are no doubt some catholics who meet this requirement and some Baptist who do not. However, a person who belongs to the modern roman catholic church will not make this confession based on anything they learn or hear in church.

I as others have, have many family members in the RCC. The main thing that you need to know about the RCC is that they believe that the church was given the power to decide the perameters of the faith and that only those who are members of that church have the true faith. Evangelicals believe that salvation is a gift, given to those who exercise simple faith, catholics believe that salvation is the reward for following a complex list of rules and ritual.

While I don't consider myself a strict 5 pointer, I do believe that man is totally depraved and that at some point God put a desire in my heart to go out, purchase a Bible and study it, apply it and He then brought people into my life to help when I needed it. Not because of anything I did, it was all 100% God's doing.

Catholics on the other hand give themselves personally much of the credit for their salvation which basically boils down to doing what you are told and then collecting the reward. 90% of what the modern catholic believes or does in practice is at best not in the Bible or in some cases forbidden behavior or practice.

 

Sorry for your loss. It doesn't change the fact that you're 100% wrong.

 

Sorry to hear of your loss.

We do need to share the Gospel with Roman Catholics if they will listen. People are telling Bruce on this thread to compromise with the papacy for the love of his wife.

But I say to Bruce, love God more than your wife and children and friends. Continue to teach your children the Holy Scriptures, even if your wife tries to disuade the children from your teaching by telling them that they are being brainwashed by Daddy.

Rebuke your wife lovingly and patiently for her devotion to idols and Antichrist. Do not be angry with her. She is an enemy of Christ and so yoru enemy...so love your enemy and do good to her, even if she says she hates fundamental bible-believers.

Persever my brother!

 

You hit on the key of the matter. Where is the person placing their trust. In the example I gave, unlike your mother-in-law I think she trusts in Jesus not the RCC. You see you can't view everyone through the lens of your in-laws, which you seem to do. You are basing everything on your first hand experience without leaving open the option that there could be other experiences with different people.

 

What you fail to understand is not everyone is as devout as your in-laws are. You fail to consider that someone could be very weak and immature in their faith and sadly not move past that.

I personally believe most sincere Christian would regularly pray, regularly attend a church, and regularly read their bibles. Sadly though there are some that rarely do these things, they never grow, never mature and stay immature in their faith for years. While it may raise some red flags for self examination on their parts, I don't think anyone would declare them absolutely to not be Christians. Well just like these immature Christians I believe there could also be immature Christians that for a variety of personal reasons might stay a catholic. You seem to always bring the argument around to a catholic that is devout and strong in beliefs of the RCC. Your are not considering any other circumstances. It is probably understandable, but I think you only see your wife's family whenever the subject of a catholic comes up.

 

Whatever happened to contending for the faith?

Ga*1:8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
Ga*1:9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.


I have never read where Paul or the apostles instructed the church to pray to Mary, or believe the bread and wine became the literal body of Christ, or placed anyone in the position of Pope, or collected money (indulgences) to pay the priests for praying people out of purgatory, or purgatory for that matter.

All these things, plus many, many others done by the Catholic church are no question a "different gospel" that was NOT received from the apostles.

No wonder the church is in such bad shape these days. Is there anyone really brave enough to actually contend for the faith?

 

I haven't seen anyone defending the practices of the RCC. My only point in this entire thread is that I think it is wrong to declare and judge ever single catholic as going to hell. I think there can be some exceptions in spite of the beliefs of the RCC.

 

If you believe that a person can be saved by a different gospel than what Paul preached, then you are most definitely defending the practices of the RCC.

 

I don't believe that, and you are both putting word in my mouth and changing the debate.

 

You're not alone. The practices of the RCC cannot be defended. It is a different gospel than that of Paul and I'm willing to be :tonofbricks: for proclaiming it.