No, I'm assuming that for the sake of argument.
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bastasch8647 — 9 years ago(December 30, 2016 05:11 PM)
Yes, Catholics are Christians. I know because I spent the first 28 years of my life as a devout, practicing Catholic.
I look at it like this: there are Baptist Christians, Presbyterian Christians, Methodist Christians, Eastern/Russian/Orthodox Christians, and there are Catholic Christians. The earliest extant documents of the Patristics, church historians and heresiologists witness to, if not Catholicism, then a form of proto-Catholicism. The Church was seen as the arbiter of biblical issues; some notion of the Real Presence in the Eucharist was believed in - and there were as yet no "Protestant" debates or objections to that doctrine; the priesthood as a ministerial class existed very early, simultaneous with the belief that all Christians served in a priestly role - etc. As the Catholic apologists point out, there is nothing in the Bible itself that declares it open to private interpretation, or that a sinner is saved by faith in Christ only; nor does the Bible state that only the individual is saved - as with the covenanted people of Israel in the Hebrew Bible, so too for the Catholic Christian, salvation is also a corporate matter - a matter of a community being saved as "God's people" as a whole.
I have found that objections to Catholicism, especially from fundamentalists and "Bible church" members, are 95% based on misconceptions and even willful ignorance (i.e., Catholics worship Mary and the Saints, Catholicism is a "works religion, etc.). You know - the kind of cowflop that was spewed by the late Jack Chick.
If you want to criticise and condemn Catholicism, then do it based on what the Church really is and what the Church really teaches. If you condemn the Church based on fundamentalist misconceptions and Reformationist lies, then you've committed the sin of bearing false witness. -
coachdobbs — 9 years ago(December 30, 2016 05:15 PM)
As the Catholic apologists point out, there is nothing in the Bible itself that declares it open to private interpretation, or that a sinner is saved by faith in Christ only; nor does the Bible state that only the individual is saved - as with the covenanted people of Israel in the Hebrew Bible, so too for the Catholic Christian, salvation is also a corporate matter - a matter of a community being saved as "God's people" as a whole.
That's true. Except for everything in the Bible that completely contradicts that
http://www.ilsoftballreport.com/Gallery 11/DS11145.jpg -
gottaluvafriend — 9 years ago(December 30, 2016 06:45 PM)
Christians are those who obey Jesus' commands. Jesus said "judge not lest you be judged". So-called religions tend to encourage people to segregate others from themselves as enemies do, but Jesus said to "love your enemies" and "them that hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use you."
In their zeal but ignorance many Christians presume that Christians of a different denomination from theirs are mislead. The differences between denominations are in terms of ritual (which matters little to God, IMHO) and relatively minor doctrinal issues. The main Christian doctrine is that a person is a Christian who believes that Jesus Christ the Only Begotten Son of God died for him/her and that He was raised from the dead to rule the Universe, and then that person tells others what s/he believes.
The birth of denominations and the enmity between the Catholic church and future Christian churches was when Martin Luther broke away from the Catholic church due to his conviction that the church was misleading its members by teaching unbiblical doctrine. Hence, Protestants' ongoing, and unfair, bias concerning Catholics.
I wish your relative had not said what he said to your mom since I believe it untrue.
