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Date Posted: 21:21:04 09/03/99 Fri
Author: Tim Ouellette
Subject: Re: Can Evangelicals and Catholics Reconcile?
In reply to: Peter 's message, "Can Evangelicals and Catholics Reconcile?" on 19:57:17 09/03/99 Fri

> Will there ever come a day when the break between
> Protestants and Catholics ever be healed?
>
> The gulf that is fixed between Roman Catholicism and
> Evangelical Protestantism is so vast that it would
> take throwing out the majority of Catholic dogma to
> even begin to attempt any negotiations with Bible
> believing Catholics. The differences that separate the
> two is no small matter:
>
> For instance, when examing the biblical requirments of
> salvation, the Roman Catholic vehicle frustrates the
> grace of God, because it interprets "saved by grace
> through faith"
> as something that is open to negotiation. And they in
> turn insert their own definition of grace and how
> faith has to cooperate with works to be justified.
>
> Example: INFANT BAPTISM
> According to Roman Catholic doctrine, a person must
> cooperate with the grace of God. And that when an
> infant is baptized, grace is infused into their soul,
> regenerating it. This is contrary to true Biblical
> teaching because the prototype and example of true
> baptism is full immersion as an adult, at the age of
> reasoning. The fact that Roman Catholicism states that
> grace must be ccoperated with is contradicting because
> an infant is not cable of cooperating with the grace
> of God because he or she has not reached the age of
> reasoning.
>
> Justification by faith is obvious in the Bible. One
> acknowledges themselves as a sinner and believes in
> the atoning work of Jesus Christ and is saved. Might
> sound simplistic, but nevertheless is, without
> controversy, the humble road that God has chosen for
> every believer to walk down and the only effective
> vehicle of Salvation. There are no substitues!

On 9/3/99 Peter wrote the following:

The gulf that is fixed between Roman Catholicism and
> Evangelical Protestantism is so vast that it would
> take throwing out the majority of Catholic dogma to
> even begin to attempt any negotiations with Bible
> believing Catholics.

This statement shows a marked misunderstanding of the relationship between the Catholic Church and its members...to be a faithful Roman Catholic is to be a 'Bible believing Catholic'...to 'throw out' the majority of Catholic dogma is to 'throw out' Trinity Dogma, the Dogma of the Incarnation, mankinds perception of Sacred Scripture as Inspired, etc, for all these biblical tenets are, in one way or another, products of Roman Catholic Councils, guided by the Holy Spirit.

I believe that it is possible, one day, for Protestants and Catholics to unite in Faith and Practice...and that one way is in the Person of Jesus Christ, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the Eucharist...only through the conversion of the Protestant Church to Christ's Catholic Faith will true unity ever be realized.

I find it very curious that Peter refers to the practice of Infant Baptism without refering to it's Old Testament type, Circumcision, and it's necessity for inclusion in the Old Testament Church, the Nation of Israel...in Genesis, God commands Abraham and his descendants after him to be circumcised as the rite of incorporation into the People of God, the Nation of Israel...Col 2:7-9 discusses the anti-type, or fulfillment, of Old Testament Circumcision...it's still circumcision, but it's spiritual circmcision, the circumcision of Christ...baptism.

Peter makes the process of justification and salvation sound as simplistic as 'saying the Sinner's Prayer', or 'making an Altar Call', as if these Protestant traditions were actually found in Sacred Scripture as the foundation for salvation...again, the problem has turned back to the need, in the Protestant Churches, to over-spiritualize faith all things pertaining to faith, and reject the reality of the Incarnation, the Sacraments, a visible Church, The Real Presence, etc.

Any and all 'substitutions' have simply been introduced by those who would protest against the reality of the Cross, the reality of the empty tomb, and the reality of Christ's Real Presence in the world today.

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