Presbyterians Turning Roman Catholic

Status
Not open for further replies.
Originally posted by Peter
Yep, I'm sure some of the worst torments in hell await Mattatics a la 2 Pe 2:20-22, and Heb 6.

I remember that debate remotely. Didn't Bahnsen keep saying that Mattatics argued like a Presbyterian Catholic b/c Mattatics wattered down popish doctrine to make it more palatable? Quite the opposite now, Mattatics is a foam at the mouth traditionalist.
Click to expand...

Little background behind that debate. Bahnsen was told he was going to be debating Patrick Madrid, and prepared accordingly, and then five minutes before the debate he finds out that he is debating Mattatics. Thus, he has to alter months of preparation to a new scenario. That is why the first part of the debate wasn't that exciting. Granted, Mattatics argued from a "yeah, but you're stupid" standpoing and kept interrupting Greg. But Bahnsen got his game back later on in the debate.
 
It was funny when Mattatics and Manning debated Greg Bahnsen. Mattatic's views on Mary were so weird that not only Bahnsen took him to task, Fr. Manning did as well! Manning was weakening Mattatics case!
Click to expand...
Matatics' views are fairly standard in Older Catholicism. Even Hahn makes essentially the same case in his Hail Holy Queen. As i recall (and it has been awhile since I read it), I think he gives some early sources for the view. Anyway, I think it was prety widespread for awhile. I doubt it is as pevalent in Catholic liberalism.
 
Originally posted by rmwilliamsjr
i have a note that 12 PCA Teaching Elders have publically converted to Roman catholism over the last 25 years, but have never found confirming evidence. has anyone else seen numbers of this magnitude for the problem?
Click to expand...
I don't know about numbers but our presbytery had one conversion (the TE was a military chaplain) about a year or two ago. It is helpful to remember that there are conversions from RC to protestantism too. See, for example, Far from Rome, Near to God: Testimonies of Fifty Converted Roman Catholic Priests. There is even one ex-Catholic priest on the Puritan Board. He goes by the handle Globachio.
 
Originally posted by Scott
Jeff: If you want a flavor of Matatics' thinking on a key issue, sola scriptura, see this.
Click to expand...

Thanks Scott. I am finishing up a debate on the same issue between Matatics and James White.

It is so sad to see a foundational doctrine such as this being rejected and argued against by a former "member" of the Presbyterian Church.
 
The thing about Matatics is that someone who buys his arguments will in the end have to buy into a fairly extensive end-times theory of the corruption of the papacy and the falling away of nearly all of the Roman Catholic Church (presided over by a false Pope). Sounds a bit like historicism (corrupt papacy leading most to damnation), except that the solution is reversed (return to Tridentine Roman theology, as opposed to protestant theology).
 
Originally posted by Draught Horse
Originally posted by VirginiaHuguenot
John Wayne is said to have gone from Presbyterian to Catholic.
Click to expand...

I thought John Wayne had a deathbed conversion?
Click to expand...

That's what the article says: raised Presbyterian, married a Roman Catholic, converted to Romanism two days before his death, according to his son.
 
Originally posted by Scott
Originally posted by rmwilliamsjr
i have a note that 12 PCA Teaching Elders have publically converted to Roman catholism over the last 25 years, but have never found confirming evidence. has anyone else seen numbers of this magnitude for the problem?
Click to expand...
I don't know about numbers but our presbytery had one conversion (the TE was a military chaplain) about a year or two ago. It is helpful to remember that there are conversions from RC to protestantism too. See, for example, Far from Rome, Near to God: Testimonies of Fifty Converted Roman Catholic Priests. There is even one ex-Catholic priest on the Puritan Board. He goes by the handle Globachio.
Click to expand...

I think there are many more who are converting from Romanism than to it.

The host of EWTN's "The Journey Home", Marcus Grodi, also converted from Presbyterianism, but I think he was PCUSA minister who went to Gordon-Conwell.

http://www.chnetwork.org/marcusconv.htm

[Edited on 3-24-2006 by Pilgrim]
 
Originally posted by Pilgrim
Originally posted by Scott
Originally posted by rmwilliamsjr
i have a note that 12 PCA Teaching Elders have publically converted to Roman catholism over the last 25 years, but have never found confirming evidence. has anyone else seen numbers of this magnitude for the problem?
Click to expand...
I don't know about numbers but our presbytery had one conversion (the TE was a military chaplain) about a year or two ago. It is helpful to remember that there are conversions from RC to protestantism too. See, for example, Far from Rome, Near to God: Testimonies of Fifty Converted Roman Catholic Priests. There is even one ex-Catholic priest on the Puritan Board. He goes by the handle Globachio.
Click to expand...

I think there are many more who are converting from Romanism than to it.

The host of EWTN's "The Journey Home", Marcus Grodi, also converted from Presbyterianism, but I think he was PCUSA minister who went to Gordon-Conwell.

http://www.chnetwork.org/marcusconv.htm

[Edited on 3-24-2006 by Pilgrim]
Click to expand...

Right, Rome exagerrates their claims.
 
their was one PCA pastor in my county who converted to romanism. His searching for continuity in a church led him there along with some serious family problems. He is one of the smartest men I know but has bought in to Hahn's theology. He even told me to go catholic. It is a sad problem going on in the church. I heard that franky schaeffer went eastern orthodox. We need a serious revival.
 
Originally posted by bigheavyq
their was one PCA pastor in my county who converted to romanism. His searching for continuity in a church led him there along with some serious family problems. He is one of the smartest men I know but has bought in to Hahn's theology. He even told me to go catholic. It is a sad problem going on in the church. I heard that franky schaeffer went eastern orthodox. We need a serious revival.
Click to expand...

Correct on Schaeffer. Gary North wrote a great essay, "Frank Schaeffer, shut up!"
 
Perhaps the appeal of Roman Catholicism has less to do with theology and more to do with the cultural situation of modernity. Regardless of all the talk of postmodernism, I still believe western civilization is but on the precipice of a new and unknown epoch. In other words, these are exciting times but they are still largely modern times.

A symptom of modernity, following the philosophy of Descartes, has been to bifurcate reality into individual parts. Like a firework, the cultural holism of the medieval period has exploded into brightly burning, though individuated parts. As our now disassociated embers fade, many long for a return to the whole. Having soared into the metaphorical air of the abstract, we seek a return to the dark earth. These generalities are perhaps most poignantly demonstrated through the works of authors like Dostoevsky, whose grotesque novels express a culture in desparate need of incarnation, physicality, and institutional unity. This, as I now see it, is the problem of modernity. We have made reality too abstract, ethereal, and ideal. We need instead the concrete, earthy, and real.

For many believers, the Catholic church provides just such a connectedness to the physicality of human existence. Practices commonly perceived as superstitious, such as prayer to saints, the crucifix, transubstantiation, and liturgical ceremonies, are appealing precisely because they are not abstract. Rather, these practices emphasize the concrete in a way that modern culture thirsts after.

Perhaps we Protestants would do well to study the Catholic playbook.
 
Thus saith the "Duke":

1. Always keep your word.
2. A gentleman never insults anybody intentionally.
3. Don't go around looking for trouble. But if you ever get in a fight, make sure you win it.


Not Bad....;)



Originally posted by VirginiaHuguenot
John Wayne is said to have gone from Presbyterian to Catholic.
Click to expand...
 
Originally posted by weinhold
Perhaps the appeal of Roman Catholicism has less to do with theology and more to do with the cultural situation of modernity. Regardless of all the talk of postmodernism, I still believe western civilization is but on the precipice of a new and unknown epoch. In other words, these are exciting times but they are still largely modern times.

A symptom of modernity, following the philosophy of Descartes, has been to bifurcate reality into individual parts. Like a firework, the cultural holism of the medieval period has exploded into brightly burning, though individuated parts. As our now disassociated embers fade, many long for a return to the whole. Having soared into the metaphorical air of the abstract, we seek a return to the dark earth. These generalities are perhaps most poignantly demonstrated through the works of authors like Dostoevsky, whose grotesque novels express a culture in desparate need of incarnation, physicality, and institutional unity. This, as I now see it, is the problem of modernity. We have made reality too abstract, ethereal, and ideal. We need instead the concrete, earthy, and real.

For many believers, the Catholic church provides just such a connectedness to the physicality of human existence. Practices commonly perceived as superstitious, such as prayer to saints, the crucifix, transubstantiation, and liturgical ceremonies, are appealing precisely because they are not abstract. Rather, these practices emphasize the concrete in a way that modern culture thirsts after.

Perhaps we Protestants would do well to study the Catholic playbook.
Click to expand...

:down: :worms:

That Rome hasn't succumbed to modernism is a myth. Vatican II was Rome surrendering to relativism, it simply took them a few decades longer than the protestant liberals. Rome is far more relativistic than is confessional Protestantism, or even the Southern Baptist Convention, for that matter.

But you are correct in a sense that this is what the RC apologists are selling. I've seen in several places (perhaps the Journey Home, but not sure) where former protestants, after converting, find themselves in ultra liberal parishes. Perhaps these "believers" wonder if they've been victim of a bait and switch.

Retreat from sola fide is often accompanied by an increase of symbolism and "non abstract" forms of worship. Thanks but no thanks. What you are advocating is also of the same essence as seeker sensitive ministry, ministering to "felt needs".

[Edited on 3-25-2006 by Pilgrim]

[Edited on 3-25-2006 by Pilgrim]
 
I am a convert from Roman Catholicism to broad Evangelicalism to the Reformed faith. If I had a nickle for everybody in a Reformed Church that used to be RC then I would have tons of nickles. Conversely, I still have family in the RC Church and they can only point to one or two people they've actually met that came from broad Evangelicalism. I've never personally run into a Calvinist turned RC. The fact that we even talk about it shows how exceptional it is. That so many RC's start reading the Scriptures and become Reformed is practically taken for granted.

The interesting thing about the modern RC Church in America is how much it resembles Evangelical faith today. Prior to Vatican II, RC believers NEVER engaged in Bible Study. They do now but many of the RC Churches that do so have a Charismatic and neo-Pentecostal flavor to them.

I would say that the reason that many Evangelicals are attracted to the RC Church has to do with not sensing a difference between the pietism they are hearing from the pulpit (Purpose Driven stuff) and the warmed over Roman Catholicism found in many parishes today. The RC Churches do praise choruses now too and even lift their hands in worship. Say, this is just like Calvary Chapel but this is BETTER. They've got bells and smells and a history. I'm tired of modernity without content....

I really don't see a transition doctrinally for most of those people. Many are going from a "faith" devoid of doctrinal content to another "faith" devoid of content. They're just going to what makes them feel "fuzzier" when they worship. Honestly, I've been to many a mainline Protestant Church that was indiscernible from the Roman Catholic Church I grew up with. I guess, in the end, I don't "count" humanists moving from one feel-good place to another.

As for the real "converts" I believe Hahn and Matatis were never really "of us." Anyone who ever apprehends the idea that true Protestantism and says "Christ is not my righteousness" never even approached getting the Gospel in their blood.
 
Originally posted by SemperFideles
As for the real "converts" I believe Hahn and Matatis were never really "of us." Anyone who ever apprehends the idea that true Protestantism and says "Christ is not my righteousness" never even approached getting the Gospel in their blood.
Click to expand...

:ditto:
 
:ditto: Rich. Liberal liturgical "Protestant" churches often have many of the same characteristics that give people the warm fuzzies. I was raised in one.

And depending on how you want to define abstract, transubstantiation is as abstract a concept as you can get.
 
Originally posted by Draught Horse
Originally posted by Pilgrim
Originally posted by Scott
Originally posted by rmwilliamsjr
i have a note that 12 PCA Teaching Elders have publically converted to Roman catholism over the last 25 years, but have never found confirming evidence. has anyone else seen numbers of this magnitude for the problem?
Click to expand...
I don't know about numbers but our presbytery had one conversion (the TE was a military chaplain) about a year or two ago. It is helpful to remember that there are conversions from RC to protestantism too. See, for example, Far from Rome, Near to God: Testimonies of Fifty Converted Roman Catholic Priests. There is even one ex-Catholic priest on the Puritan Board. He goes by the handle Globachio.
Click to expand...

I think there are many more who are converting from Romanism than to it.

The host of EWTN's "The Journey Home", Marcus Grodi, also converted from Presbyterianism, but I think he was PCUSA minister who went to Gordon-Conwell.

http://www.chnetwork.org/marcusconv.htm

[Edited on 3-24-2006 by Pilgrim]
Click to expand...

Right, Rome exagerrates their claims.
Click to expand...

They tend to focus on a handful of former Reformed and evangelical preachers. Most of the other converts are nominal protestant/evangelicals who married into a RC family and became nominal members of that church to please their spouse, their in-laws, etc.
 
Brothers and Sisters,

I feel I need to clarify my previous post. Please do not misconstrue my statements about Roman Catholicism to mean I advocate Catholic theology. My desire is only to broaden our perspective from theological debate to the broader movement of western civilization. Regardless of what one thinks about the Catholic church, we have lost the holism it provided. At first, secular thinkers believed this to be a good thing. Now, in the aftermath of the twentieth century during which Utopian political philosophy has led to Fascism, the modern city to anonymous living, and physics to a mechanistic understanding of reality, we experience a general yearning for the concrete, the communal, and the organic. I think that many Christians find what they are looking for in the Catholic church, and that is why they remain in it or convert to it. My hope for the evangelical church is that she will responsibly meet these cultural challenges, and provide an organic community that roots believers in the narrative of the Bible, the history of the Church, and the incarnation of Christ.
 
Originally posted by weinhold
Brothers and Sisters,

I feel I need to clarify my previous post. Please do not misconstrue my statements about Roman Catholicism to mean I advocate Catholic theology. My desire is only to broaden our perspective from theological debate to the broader movement of western civilization. Regardless of what one thinks about the Catholic church, we have lost the holism it provided. At first, secular thinkers believed this to be a good thing. Now, in the aftermath of the twentieth century during which Utopian political philosophy has led to Fascism, the modern city to anonymous living, and physics to a mechanistic understanding of reality, we experience a general yearning for the concrete, the communal, and the organic. I think that many Christians find what they are looking for in the Catholic church, and that is why they remain in it or convert to it. My hope for the evangelical church is that she will responsibly meet these cultural challenges, and provide an organic community that roots believers in the narrative of the Bible, the history of the Church, and the incarnation of Christ.
Click to expand...
Assuming you were Reformed, I understood what you were saying the first time. In a world that is very disconnected and discordant, the RCC provides the illusion of communion and the organic. The problem is that it is just that - an illusion.

The issue of who "owns" the term Evangelical complicates your prognosis for improvement. Real communion is centered around the Gospel. Most Churches have opted to be cheap imitations of modern culture to lure the pagan into the seats. Messages centered around self-love and self-improvement do much to ensure they remain pagans. Those who are converted by the accidental proclamation of the Gospel wonder why they constantly feel malnourished. Those who were never converted experience the restlessness of soul that is common to man.

They see a religion that promotes itself as ancient and connected to the true Apostolic Church. As they become aware of the self-centeredness that surrounds their Evangelical station they are attracted to something that seems bigger than them. That's all they understand. It's frankly not hard for a RCC "apologist" to point to the ridiculous things that go on in so many Evangelical Churches and demonstrate that they are a more Biblical form of semi-Pelagianism.

The question is, however, will these "Evangelical" Churches reform? Will they begin to see the Word as central to converting and that interpretive dance, drama, and other circus performances will never change the heart? Will they begin to understand that their restlessness is not because they don't have the right "Purpose Driven" formula but because they don't have the Gospel preached?

With God all things are possible.

For my part, I am gratified that there are Confessional Churches that one can encounter Christ and Him crucified really and not in a counterfeit way.
 
The reason a lot of these guys convert to RC and EO is for epistemological certainty. They see liberal Protestant Biblical scholarship and they go "Uh oh! How do I even know what my Bible is?!?!". RC and EO have an answer: Tradition.

The same thing goes for doctrine. How do I know what to believe? There are so many different views! Answer: Tradition.

[Edited on 3-25-2006 by tellville]
 
Originally posted by SemperFideles
Originally posted by weinhold
Brothers and Sisters,

I feel I need to clarify my previous post. Please do not misconstrue my statements about Roman Catholicism to mean I advocate Catholic theology. My desire is only to broaden our perspective from theological debate to the broader movement of western civilization. Regardless of what one thinks about the Catholic church, we have lost the holism it provided. At first, secular thinkers believed this to be a good thing. Now, in the aftermath of the twentieth century during which Utopian political philosophy has led to Fascism, the modern city to anonymous living, and physics to a mechanistic understanding of reality, we experience a general yearning for the concrete, the communal, and the organic. I think that many Christians find what they are looking for in the Catholic church, and that is why they remain in it or convert to it. My hope for the evangelical church is that she will responsibly meet these cultural challenges, and provide an organic community that roots believers in the narrative of the Bible, the history of the Church, and the incarnation of Christ.
Click to expand...
Assuming you were Reformed, I understood what you were saying the first time. In a world that is very disconnected and discordant, the RCC provides the illusion of communion and the organic. The problem is that it is just that - an illusion.

The issue of who "owns" the term Evangelical complicates your prognosis for improvement. Real communion is centered around the Gospel. Most Churches have opted to be cheap imitations of modern culture to lure the pagan into the seats. Messages centered around self-love and self-improvement do much to ensure they remain pagans. Those who are converted by the accidental proclamation of the Gospel wonder why they constantly feel malnourished. Those who were never converted experience the restlessness of soul that is common to man.

They see a religion that promotes itself as ancient and connected to the true Apostolic Church. As they become aware of the self-centeredness that surrounds their Evangelical station they are attracted to something that seems bigger than them. That's all they understand. It's frankly not hard for a RCC "apologist" to point to the ridiculous things that go on in so many Evangelical Churches and demonstrate that they are a more Biblical form of semi-Pelagianism.

The question is, however, will these "Evangelical" Churches reform? Will they begin to see the Word as central to converting and that interpretive dance, drama, and other circus performances will never change the heart? Will they begin to understand that their restlessness is not because they don't have the right "Purpose Driven" formula but because they don't have the Gospel preached?

With God all things are possible.

For my part, I am gratified that there are Confessional Churches that one can encounter Christ and Him crucified really and not in a counterfeit way.
Click to expand...

Great post, Rich. Thanks for clarifying some of my own underdeveloped opinions.
 
"Here Greg Bahnsen's The Road to Rome. It is him at his rhetorical and analytical best."

I thought it was good overall. However, I think Bahnsen misrepresents Romanism when he suggests that Romanism teaches that everyone who believes the doctrines of grace are anathema. He admits that in Romanism the Pope of Rome is the ultimate interpreter of doctrine, but he does not then allow the Pope to interpret Trent. If he did he would find that the Pope considers the anathema to apply only to the original Reformers.
 
Originally posted by SRoper
"Here Greg Bahnsen's The Road to Rome. It is him at his rhetorical and analytical best."

I thought it was good overall. However, I think Bahnsen misrepresents Romanism when he suggests that Romanism teaches that everyone who believes the doctrines of grace are anathema. He admits that in Romanism the Pope of Rome is the ultimate interpreter of doctrine, but he does not then allow the Pope to interpret Trent. If he did he would find that the Pope considers the anathema to apply only to the original Reformers.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, but the last sentence reeks of postmodernism (on Rome's part). Granted, they do this all the time. Did Trent view their anathemas as always binding (which would seem logical, given Trent's vitriol towards Geneva)? If so, then it really doesn't matter what the Pope now interprets it to be. (Yes, I know that the Pope says he can do that. I agree: you are representing their views accurately, but I still think Rome is being postmodern on that regard).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

JesusIsLord
  • Locked
Roman Catholic Exorcism
2 3 4
Replies
104
Views
7K
Dachaser
D
RamistThomist
  • Locked
VII and Roman Catholic Apologetics?
Replies
9
Views
2K
WrittenFromUtopia
W
T
  • Locked
Why the Roman Catholic Church taught geocentrism
Replies
6
Views
2K
johnny
johnny
jwithnell
  • Locked
Why go Roman catholic and why now?
2
Replies
37
Views
5K
Miss Marple
Miss Marple
TryingToLearn
Reformed Works on Roman Catholic Miracles?
Replies
9
Views
1K
Charles Johnson
Charles Johnson
Back
Top