As a young man I was saved in Protestant church. When I married and expecting to child. I had another crisis my mind became focused on childhood lessons as Catholic. This was a surprise. I began to read Catholic books and then those lessons began to sense. But the new child made this urgent to make sense of my thoughts. So I reverted to become Catholic again. I knew I was home again immediately. This is the short version of this true story.
One of the most insightful and illuminating episodes yet. Thank you for continuing to offer this good work. Hopefully Mr. Douglas writes a book one day. If so, then I will be sure to purchase a few copies.
Albert Einstein on The Catholic Church “Only The Church stood squarely across the path of hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in The Church before but now I feel a great affection and admiration because The Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess what I once despise I now praise unreservedly” - Time mag. 23 December, 1940, Pg 38.
Keith, thanks so much for all you do. I learn so much from listening to the stories of Catholic converts or reverts. It is wonderful watching the Holy Spirit in action in people's lives! This was especially interesting with his discussion of an integrated life. Very moving. I look forward to your new episodes. Keep up the great work. God bless!
I wish they had monastic programs like that for people my age. I would love to do something like that with the prayers and the teachings and the lifestyle of monastic life ❤
There are third orders that allow participation in their orders: 3rd Order of St. Francis, Oblates of St. Benedict, 3rd order of Mt. Carmel. It is a working assignment ... and not everyone is called to serve there... but pray to our Lady and have her direct you.
@@_ready__ There is but one Gospel in the Bible. See: John 17:20-23 20 “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. 22 The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me. And from Saint Paul: Ephesians 4:1-6 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all. If you are going to suggest there is more that one Gospel or that Saint Paul taught a different one to any of the other Apostles you need to provide scripture to prove it.
@@_ready__ So say you ... and yet they do have a chance ... if God sees they fit His criteria for establishing an eternal positive relationship with Him. Archbishop Sheen once said something to the effect that most people who hate the Catholic church are those who have false ideas about what the church actually is. Understanding the church and what it holds for us is to discover what true love is.
When you look at culture and see it embracing anything other than what Christ taught you see how the world keeps turning its back on our loving creator. The focus needs to be on developing personal holiness and getting ever closer to the Lord ... Our enemy wants nothing more than to be preoccupied with his activities. But ... the Lord is pimple-ing his existence and works ... for the final lance. Check out the 'Surrender Novena" for a daily meditation. You'll be glad you did.
@jmakers: Protestantism "IS" the "other gospel" that Paul warned of. The sooner you realize this - as millions have - the better off you will be. You'll stop trolling for one.
👍🏻🙏🏻🍷🍞⛪️🔑✝️ great videos as always. You should hve the young convert. Called THE CATECHUMAN. HE also has a TH-cam channel. He was a baptist now a educated CATHOLIC. 👍🏻✝️📿
Here's what I might say Ben: two great cultures that are easy to see within the American Catholic experience just in the 20th century are the Irish culture and the Mexican culture. These are not only ethnicities, but also distinct cultures that have influenced what Americans think of when they think of Catholic culture per se. However, St. Abert the Great would hardly recognize the American Catholic culture, because the Catholic culture he was familiar with, in the 12th-13th century, was in the family of Gothic Catholic cultures. However, St. Ambrose would not have recognized any of the above, because his Catholic culture was still a Latin Hellenism, when he lived in the 4th century. Yet again, the Blessed Mother would not have recognized the Catholic culture St. Ambrose lived in, because she lived in a Catholic cultural context that was still Judaic. Yet all of these Catholic cultures - 20th century Irish or Mexican, 12th century Gothic, 4th century Hellenist, or 1st century Judaic, had the Eucharist at their heart, so while they represent different cultures being transformed by Christ, they do also share a central cult.... and so are united in a great family of historical Catholic cultures. But because it's a family and not a monolithic unity, it really is a multicultural phenomenon. And the Catholic family of cultures is more like a family of adopted members who were their own things first and were then brought into the family - not each organically Catholic from the start. Even within the modern rites of the Catholic church we see multiple cultures, like the Ukrainian culture vs. the Latin culture vs. the Lebanese Maronite cultural traditions.
@@davidarthur6268 My first experience of the faith was a combination of Italian, English/Irish and Maronite where I grew up in the Lebanon. Followed by more English in London then in Sussex with both Italian and Irish influence. In that the Catholic culture does not seem to have varied a great deal. There are no doubt differences between each one, but that is more nuance. You can see that in America how there is both commonality of culture amongst Americans whose families have been there for generations but who have different interests.
I suppose it could be helpful for you to define culture and what differentiates it from ethnicity, Ben. Using Our Lady as an illustration, she was ethnically Jewish. However, she lived at least the second half of her life in a Jewish Catholic culture, which was Jewish-culture-being-made-increasingly-Catholic-too. It shared an ethnic ground with non-Catholic Jews, but it was becoming something culturally related but different. I think you and I would recognize some things about her Catholic culture - which is not just her religious worship at Mass of course but includes the character of the communities she moved in, the food they ate, the language(s) they spoke, the art they made, and so on. Of course though, there would be things we would not recognize. That's because we're from a different culture than she was, even though we're Catholics and she was too.
I was raised Catholic and convert to Evangelical Christian in my adult years, never felt God to be so real until a became a Christian and for the first time I understood the bible.
How well were you raised Catholic? Most people who leave the Catholic faith because they were poorly catechized. The Bible is not the source of authority and without the Catholic church, you wouldn’t have the Bible. Then there’re sacraments especially the Eucharist which Protestantism doesn’t give you.
@@valwhelan3533 Welcome home my friend. I think it is 100% accurate to say, the protestants that come into Full Communion are in terms of theology already solidly orthodox when they come home. Catholics who go protestant are the most poorly catechized Catholics. In reality, many of them become Apostates because they wind up in groups that because of sola scriptura split from historic protestants starting in the early 1800's due to the so called Great awakening. Groups such as LDS (Mormon), JW, Oneness Pentecostals, Dispensationalist/Rapture protestants and more recently the prosperity gospel protestants (Copeland, Olsteen) all have Trinitarian or Christological non orthodox beliefs. Thanks for your testimony, Cheers and God Bless
David has a very skewed view of the printing press. The first book was the Bible (although in Latin). But shortly the Bible was printed in vernacular languages and the gospel got out to the people. It's the word of God that changes everything!
A Protestant response. The only conversion that matters and the only one that has eternal consequences is the conversion to Christ. Christ alone is our redeemer. All the redeemed are fully united to Christ and His Church. This is simply moving from one Christian tradition to another. It does not have eternal consequences for the already redeemed.
And which church is the only church of Jesus Christ started from day one of Pentecost please reveal the indisputable truth let all the world and humans know with OUT A DOUBT?
What you say is true, in a sense: that is why one who receives Trinitarian baptism in a Protestant denomination is not rebaptized if he becomes Catholic. Such a person is already freely justified by the grace of Christ in God's sight. However, the Reformed theologians acknowledge that after that initial justification there is a life of sanctification that must follow--living in the Lordship of Christ, growing in holiness, living discipleship, fruitfulness. So the Catholic claim is not that Protestants aren't Christians but that the fullness of Christian truth and all the means of sanctification and visible unity are only found in the visible Catholic Church. And most evangelical Protestants will acknowledge that there are saved believers within the Roman Catholic communion but consider them to be ignorant or even dishonest or disobedient to scriptural truth if they remain Catholic after a serious personal conversion to Christ. They say that a Catholic should leave the Catholic fold and join a Bible-believing fellowship where he can grow spiritually rather than remaining in fellowship with a corrupt and unbiblical church. In other words, join a church or denomination that has preserved truth and offers sanctification. Justification and sanctification are not really separable, from either a Catholic or a Reformed standpoint. It's not "triumphalism" on either side. There are conflicting truth claims.
Also, evangelical Protestants devote vast resources to converting Catholics to Protestantism in Latin America. And they don't only seek to convert mere cultural nominal Catholics or unbelievers or people who say they are Catholic but are actually followers of indigenous religions. No, the Protestant missionaries wish to convert all Catholics and to lead them out of the Catholic Church. And they've had astonishing success at doing so. They certainly don't regard Catholics in Central and South America as fellow Christians who merely have some different styles or traditions. The Protestant missionaries regard Catholics as pagans and idolaters, desperately in need of conversion. We Catholics are just trying to defend ourselves against a very aggressive attitude by evangelical Protestants. That's not triumphalism: it's self-defense and a witness to God's truth. If the Catholic claims are true, then it would be sinful ingratitude on the part of believing Catholics not to witness to that truth to everyone, including Protestants.
A Protestant response. He isn’t converting to the Catholic Church, because as a redeemed person, he is already fully united to Christ and His Church. He is simply moving from one Christian tradition (Evangelicalism) to another Christian tradition (the Church of Rome or Roman Catholicism). This isn’t like some kind of promotion. He already has the fulness of Christ. This isn’t like a step up spiritually. He continues to be what he already was in his move to Roman Catholicism, namely a member of Christ’s church. Particular Christian traditions don’t hold exclusive claim to Christ’s church. His Church is much broader than a particular tradition like Roman Catholicism for example.
I’ve seen you make this same argument under other videos-nothing new in your argument here. I don’t think you’re right either, but I also don’t think you realize how lacklustre your argument is to someone who has read the Bible deeply (all 73 books), has read the works of the early church fathers deeply, etc. It would take God to open your eyes to what you are missing by rejecting the church he created (and no, branch theory is a scam and isn’t legit at all). So my prayer for you is that God will open your eyes to the scam-whatever it takes and in His time.
@@marcib6767 My argument must not be that “lackluster”. After all it compelled you to respond to it. I think it is quite the opposite. I think my argument is effective because it challenges your long held suppositions and makes you uncomfortable. So you have to critique the quality of my argument as a way to discredit what I am saying. I made no slur against Roman Catholicism here. If there is any cause for offense here, it is the impliication (unintended perhaps?), that Evangelicals are somehow second class or second tier Christians because now they are “coming home”. BTW I have read the Bible all 73 books (to include completing a series of lectures on each of the deuterocanonical books). I have studied the church fathers, I have read important Roman Catholic theologians and I have studied Christian history extensively. What historic and significant Protestant theologians and church historians have you read? So I realize a lot more than you would appreciate. I am not the sectarian here you are. Note: I do not subscribe to the branch theory. Like the reformers, I believe that there are true believers in all the various Christian traditions (including Roman Catholicism) and I believe that true local, visible expressions (or congregations/parishes) of Christ’s one true church can be found in all Christian traditions or communions. Again, you are the sectarian being scammed into thinking that your particularly communion and Christ’s church are synonymous. I FULLY embrace Christ’s Church. You do not.
There is one God, one Truth, and one Church. That one Church is the Church Christ declared and established upon the person of Peter: the Roman Catholic Church. Everyone who is validly baptized, whether they realize it or not, is baptized into this one, Catholic Church. However, many immediately fall away to follow false teachers, thereby plunging themselves immediately back into sin. (They often don't realize this and don't know any better, but it is the fact nonetheless.) Until they repent of this sin and bring themselves back into full communion with Christ, their immortal souls remain in danger.
Perhaps you would like to reread John chapter 6 again and ask hard questions on why Christ tells the followers to eat his body and drink his blood 3 times and did not budged when many walked away! Then you may want John chapter 20:23 and asked what Christ meant when he declared to Peter and the apostles "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”. Who did he give that authority to? Do your Church have that authority?
@@marcuslow1386 The power of the keys was granted to all the apostles and then further still to the entire church who then delegates that authority to pastors of local churches who exercises the office of the keys on behalf of their congregation or parish. All the Reformers taught the real presence. Along with the reformers, I believe in the real presence. I believe I feed upon the resurrected Christ in Holy Communion. I do not use transubstantiation as a way to explain how the real presence happens. Transubstantiation as a way to explain real presence was unknown in the primitive church. It wasn’t declared Roman Catholic dogma until the Council of Trent.
As a young man I was saved in Protestant church. When I married and expecting to child. I had another crisis my mind became focused on childhood lessons as Catholic. This was a surprise. I began to read Catholic books and then those lessons began to sense. But the new child made this urgent to make sense of my thoughts. So I reverted to become Catholic again. I knew I was home again immediately. This is the short version of this true story.
Welcome home!
❤
🙏💞🌏🙏
One of the most insightful and illuminating episodes yet. Thank you for continuing to offer this good work. Hopefully Mr. Douglas writes a book one day. If so, then I will be sure to purchase a few copies.
Glad you enjoyed it so much! Thanks for watching!
Albert Einstein on The Catholic Church “Only The Church stood squarely across the path of hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in The Church before but now I feel a great affection and admiration because The Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess what I once despise I now praise unreservedly” - Time mag. 23 December, 1940, Pg 38.
Keith, thanks so much for all you do. I learn so much from listening to the stories of Catholic converts or reverts. It is wonderful watching the Holy Spirit in action in people's lives! This was especially interesting with his discussion of an integrated life. Very moving. I look forward to your new episodes. Keep up the great work. God bless!
I wish they had monastic programs like that for people my age. I would love to do something like that with the prayers and the teachings and the lifestyle of monastic life ❤
There are third orders that allow participation in their orders: 3rd Order of St. Francis, Oblates of St. Benedict, 3rd order of Mt. Carmel. It is a working assignment ... and not everyone is called to serve there... but pray to our Lady and have her direct you.
Thank you! So inspiring!
Fantastic interview. In particular I liked the emphasis on immersion in Catholic culture especially as opposed to the culture of the world.
Even worse. At least the worldly still have a chance
@@_ready__ There is but one Gospel in the Bible.
See:
John 17:20-23
20 “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. 22 The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.
And from Saint Paul:
Ephesians 4:1-6
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all.
If you are going to suggest there is more that one Gospel or that Saint Paul taught a different one to any of the other Apostles you need to provide scripture to prove it.
@@_ready__ So say you ... and yet they do have a chance ... if God sees they fit His criteria for establishing an eternal positive relationship with Him. Archbishop Sheen once said something to the effect that most people who hate the Catholic church are those who have false ideas about what the church actually is. Understanding the church and what it holds for us is to discover what true love is.
@@michaelpcooksey5096 I understand better than most Catholics. I was one. I have the rule book. Ready for some questions?
@@michaelpcooksey5096 do you follow the 10 commandments to attain salvation? Yes or no?
This was a truly fascinating interview.
How do you attain salvation? Do you follow the 10 commandments to attain salvation? Yes or no?
This was great and would like more information from him on the history and how society is fighting against the Church
When you look at culture and see it embracing anything other than what Christ taught you see how the world keeps turning its back on our loving creator. The focus needs to be on developing personal holiness and getting ever closer to the Lord ... Our enemy wants nothing more than to be preoccupied with his activities. But ... the Lord is pimple-ing his existence and works ... for the final lance. Check out the 'Surrender Novena" for a daily meditation. You'll be glad you did.
Nice podcast. God bless your ministry.
Thanks for watching!
Great interview. Enlightening and entertaining as well.
Thanks for watching!
@jmakers: Protestantism "IS" the "other gospel" that Paul warned of. The sooner you realize this - as millions have - the better off you will be. You'll stop trolling for one.
Excellent! Humility opens eyes.
Indeed!
Thanks!
I definitely heard of leopnard ravenhill when I was a pentecostal
👍🏻🙏🏻🍷🍞⛪️🔑✝️ great videos as always. You should hve the young convert. Called THE CATECHUMAN. HE also has a TH-cam channel. He was a baptist now a educated CATHOLIC. 👍🏻✝️📿
Yes most def!
A Protestant reaction. Triumphalism and gloating is not a good look.
@@paulsmallwood1484 As is prideful rebellion - especially when it is against Jesus Christ himself
@@paulsmallwood1484 So stop it. Christians do not troll.
He’s on my radar! Thanks for the reminder!
Great interview so far.... But I would dispute that the Catholic Church is multicultural. Multi ethnic? Absolutely. But the culture is very Catholic.
Here's what I might say Ben: two great cultures that are easy to see within the American Catholic experience just in the 20th century are the Irish culture and the Mexican culture. These are not only ethnicities, but also distinct cultures that have influenced what Americans think of when they think of Catholic culture per se. However, St. Abert the Great would hardly recognize the American Catholic culture, because the Catholic culture he was familiar with, in the 12th-13th century, was in the family of Gothic Catholic cultures. However, St. Ambrose would not have recognized any of the above, because his Catholic culture was still a Latin Hellenism, when he lived in the 4th century. Yet again, the Blessed Mother would not have recognized the Catholic culture St. Ambrose lived in, because she lived in a Catholic cultural context that was still Judaic. Yet all of these Catholic cultures - 20th century Irish or Mexican, 12th century Gothic, 4th century Hellenist, or 1st century Judaic, had the Eucharist at their heart, so while they represent different cultures being transformed by Christ, they do also share a central cult.... and so are united in a great family of historical Catholic cultures. But because it's a family and not a monolithic unity, it really is a multicultural phenomenon. And the Catholic family of cultures is more like a family of adopted members who were their own things first and were then brought into the family - not each organically Catholic from the start.
Even within the modern rites of the Catholic church we see multiple cultures, like the Ukrainian culture vs. the Latin culture vs. the Lebanese Maronite cultural traditions.
@@davidarthur6268 My first experience of the faith was a combination of Italian, English/Irish and Maronite where I grew up in the Lebanon. Followed by more English in London then in Sussex with both Italian and Irish influence. In that the Catholic culture does not seem to have varied a great deal.
There are no doubt differences between each one, but that is more nuance. You can see that in America how there is both commonality of culture amongst Americans whose families have been there for generations but who have different interests.
I suppose it could be helpful for you to define culture and what differentiates it from ethnicity, Ben. Using Our Lady as an illustration, she was ethnically Jewish. However, she lived at least the second half of her life in a Jewish Catholic culture, which was Jewish-culture-being-made-increasingly-Catholic-too. It shared an ethnic ground with non-Catholic Jews, but it was becoming something culturally related but different.
I think you and I would recognize some things about her Catholic culture - which is not just her religious worship at Mass of course but includes the character of the communities she moved in, the food they ate, the language(s) they spoke, the art they made, and so on. Of course though, there would be things we would not recognize. That's because we're from a different culture than she was, even though we're Catholics and she was too.
@@davidarthur6268 You seem to half understand the commonality of culture in Catholics but want to concentrate on what are minor differences
I thought you said this was interesting, 31 minutes into it not so
An Evangelical case for converting to reality would be a much better idea. Religious mania is unhealthy.
I was raised Catholic and convert to Evangelical Christian in my adult years, never felt God to be so real until a became a Christian and for the first time I understood the bible.
Opposite here - raised Baptist now Catholic and feel that I understand my bible more now.
How well were you raised Catholic? Most people who leave the Catholic faith because they were poorly catechized. The Bible is not the source of authority and without the Catholic church, you wouldn’t have the Bible. Then there’re sacraments especially the Eucharist which Protestantism doesn’t give you.
Reverted to catholicism... Bible makes way more sense! Brent Pitre's books are phenomenal, as well as the catechism, in helping unpack scripture
@@valwhelan3533 Welcome home my friend. I think it is 100% accurate to say, the protestants that come into Full Communion are in terms of theology already solidly orthodox when they come home. Catholics who go protestant are the most poorly catechized Catholics. In reality, many of them become Apostates because they wind up in groups that because of sola scriptura split from historic protestants starting in the early 1800's due to the so called Great awakening. Groups such as LDS (Mormon), JW, Oneness Pentecostals, Dispensationalist/Rapture protestants and more recently the prosperity gospel protestants (Copeland, Olsteen) all have Trinitarian or Christological non orthodox beliefs.
Thanks for your testimony, Cheers and God Bless
@@CocoWynn Catholics who leave are not well catechised, something the Church needs to work on. Many Protestant churches are snippet Christians.
there is no compelling reason
David has a very skewed view of the printing press. The first book was the Bible (although in Latin). But shortly the Bible was printed in vernacular languages and the gospel got out to the people. It's the word of God that changes everything!
A Protestant response. The only conversion that matters and the only one that has eternal consequences is the conversion to Christ. Christ alone is our redeemer. All the redeemed are fully united to Christ and His Church. This is simply moving from one Christian tradition to another. It does not have eternal consequences for the already redeemed.
And which church is the only church of Jesus Christ started from day one of Pentecost please reveal the indisputable truth let all the world and humans know with OUT A DOUBT?
@@johnchung6777Jesus didn't start a church. His message is "Who do men say that I am?" Not "What is the real church? That is not the message.
What you say is true, in a sense: that is why one who receives Trinitarian baptism in a Protestant denomination is not rebaptized if he becomes Catholic. Such a person is already freely justified by the grace of Christ in God's sight. However, the Reformed theologians acknowledge that after that initial justification there is a life of sanctification that must follow--living in the Lordship of Christ, growing in holiness, living discipleship, fruitfulness. So the Catholic claim is not that Protestants aren't Christians but that the fullness of Christian truth and all the means of sanctification and visible unity are only found in the visible Catholic Church.
And most evangelical Protestants will acknowledge that there are saved believers within the Roman Catholic communion but consider them to be ignorant or even dishonest or disobedient to scriptural truth if they remain Catholic after a serious personal conversion to Christ. They say that a Catholic should leave the Catholic fold and join a Bible-believing fellowship where he can grow spiritually rather than remaining in fellowship with a corrupt and unbiblical church. In other words, join a church or denomination that has preserved truth and offers sanctification. Justification and sanctification are not really separable, from either a Catholic or a Reformed standpoint.
It's not "triumphalism" on either side. There are conflicting truth claims.
Also, evangelical Protestants devote vast resources to converting Catholics to Protestantism in Latin America. And they don't only seek to convert mere cultural nominal Catholics or unbelievers or people who say they are Catholic but are actually followers of indigenous religions. No, the Protestant missionaries wish to convert all Catholics and to lead them out of the Catholic Church. And they've had astonishing success at doing so. They certainly don't regard Catholics in Central and South America as fellow Christians who merely have some different styles or traditions. The Protestant missionaries regard Catholics as pagans and idolaters, desperately in need of conversion. We Catholics are just trying to defend ourselves against a very aggressive attitude by evangelical Protestants. That's not triumphalism: it's self-defense and a witness to God's truth. If the Catholic claims are true, then it would be sinful ingratitude on the part of believing Catholics not to witness to that truth to everyone, including Protestants.
@@jeromepopiel388 And what did Jesus say to Peter in all truth and authority he said you are Peter and upon this rock I will build MY CHURCH?
A Protestant response. He isn’t converting to the Catholic Church, because as a redeemed person, he is already fully united to Christ and His Church. He is simply moving from one Christian tradition (Evangelicalism) to another Christian tradition (the Church of Rome or Roman Catholicism). This isn’t like some kind of promotion. He already has the fulness of Christ. This isn’t like a step up spiritually. He continues to be what he already was in his move to Roman Catholicism, namely a member of Christ’s church. Particular Christian traditions don’t hold exclusive claim to Christ’s church. His Church is much broader than a particular tradition like Roman Catholicism for example.
I’ve seen you make this same argument under other videos-nothing new in your argument here. I don’t think you’re right either, but I also don’t think you realize how lacklustre your argument is to someone who has read the Bible deeply (all 73 books), has read the works of the early church fathers deeply, etc. It would take God to open your eyes to what you are missing by rejecting the church he created (and no, branch theory is a scam and isn’t legit at all). So my prayer for you is that God will open your eyes to the scam-whatever it takes and in His time.
@@marcib6767 My argument must not be that “lackluster”. After all it compelled you to respond to it. I think it is quite the opposite. I think my argument is effective because it challenges your long held suppositions and makes you uncomfortable. So you have to critique the quality of my argument as a way to discredit what I am saying. I made no slur against Roman Catholicism here. If there is any cause for offense here, it is the impliication (unintended perhaps?), that Evangelicals are somehow second class or second tier Christians because now they are “coming home”. BTW I have read the Bible all 73 books (to include completing a series of lectures on each of the deuterocanonical books). I have studied the church fathers, I have read important Roman Catholic theologians and I have studied Christian history extensively. What historic and significant Protestant theologians and church historians have you read? So I realize a lot more than you would appreciate. I am not the sectarian here you are. Note: I do not subscribe to the branch theory. Like the reformers, I believe that there are true believers in all the various Christian traditions (including Roman Catholicism) and I believe that true local, visible expressions (or congregations/parishes) of Christ’s one true church can be found in all Christian traditions or communions. Again, you are the sectarian being scammed into thinking that your particularly communion and Christ’s church are synonymous. I FULLY embrace Christ’s Church. You do not.
There is one God, one Truth, and one Church. That one Church is the Church Christ declared and established upon the person of Peter: the Roman Catholic Church. Everyone who is validly baptized, whether they realize it or not, is baptized into this one, Catholic Church. However, many immediately fall away to follow false teachers, thereby plunging themselves immediately back into sin. (They often don't realize this and don't know any better, but it is the fact nonetheless.) Until they repent of this sin and bring themselves back into full communion with Christ, their immortal souls remain in danger.
Perhaps you would like to reread John chapter 6 again and ask hard questions on why Christ tells the followers to eat his body and drink his blood 3 times and did not budged when many walked away!
Then you may want John chapter 20:23 and asked what Christ meant when he declared to Peter and the apostles "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”.
Who did he give that authority to?
Do your Church have that authority?
@@marcuslow1386 The power of the keys was granted to all the apostles and then further still to the entire church who then delegates that authority to pastors of local churches who exercises the office of the keys on behalf of their congregation or parish. All the Reformers taught the real presence. Along with the reformers, I believe in the real presence. I believe I feed upon the resurrected Christ in Holy Communion. I do not use transubstantiation as a way to explain how the real presence happens. Transubstantiation as a way to explain real presence was unknown in the primitive church. It wasn’t declared Roman Catholic dogma until the Council of Trent.