LETTER TO SOMEONE ABOUT TO LEAVE THE CHURCH - OR WHO HAS LEFT
"Dull homilies - no inspiration -- dull Masses -- they mean
nothing to me - so I go to the Evangelicals, where they are
friendly, and I can see people being converted. I have found Jesus.
The Catholic Church did not give Him to me. But I found Him
anyway."
Such are the <feelings> of some today. I underlined feelings,
for it is just a matter of feelings. Not a matter of being
rational, or having real proofs that the Evangelicals have found
the truth.
What if they have miracles every weekend? Do they ever have a
tight scientific examination of such things to prove they are real?
The Catholic Church at Lourdes, which has been open over a century,
where thousands of cures are reported, has checked and approved
only a bit over 60 cases. We should demand real proof. Not just
feelings.
But feelings are not the bottom line anyway. What proof do
these Evangelicals have that they are right? Not a bit. Jesus in
Matthew 16 promised the keys of the kingdom to Peter. In John 6 He
insisted we must eat His flesh and drink His blood or we will not
have eternal life in us. Can an evangelical prove he has authority
from Jesus to change bread and wine into the body and blood of
Jesus? He could not begin. In John 20 He said: "Whose sins you
shall forgive, they are forgiven them. But cannot someone just ask
God to forgive Him? God is very willing to forgive, but God has set
His own terms and conditions for forgiveness. To say: I will not
pay attention to the conditions you set, I will just ask for it
outside them. Can you imagine Him granting it?
All Evangelicals stem in various ways from Martin Luther. Luther
wrote, in his Commentary on Psalm 130: "If this article --
justification by faith - stands, the church stands. If it falls,
the church falls". We have news for him. It never did stand! The
poor man never really tried to find out what justification and
faith mean.
As to justification: St. Paul said in 1 Cor 13. 12 that in the
next life we will see God "face to face." God does not have a face
- a soul does not have eyes. It means we will see Him directly,
even more directly than I now see you. When I see you I do not take
you into my head - I take in an image of you. That works with you,
for your are finite or limited, and so is an image. But to come
before God - no image will work, He is infinite. So it must be that
He joins Himself directly to the human soul without even an image
in between. Will He do this if the soul is completely corrupt as
Luther taught? In Malachi 3. 2: "He is like a refiner's fire. Who
can stand when He appears?" If a soul as corrupt as Luther thought
tried to join itself to God, that refiner's fire would burn out the
corruption -- and we hope something would be left. Luther thought
nothing would be left, we are completely corrupt. He urged us to be
corrupt. In his Epistle of August 1, 1521 to his great helper
Melanchthon (see it in the American Edition of Luther's Works, vol.
48, p. 282): "Be a sinner and sin boldly. No sin will separate us
from the Lamb (Christ) even though we commit fornication and murder
a thousand times a day." What a foul person. He thought the Church
Christ founded and promised to protect was teaching the wrong way
to salvation for most of 15 centuries. Then Christ would be a fake.
And to think Christ would send so immoral a man to correct it!
What about faith? Luther jumped to the conclusion that faith
just means believing Christ has paid for my sins, or taking Christ
as my Savior. But He should have read all of St. Paul. If he did,
he would find Paul includes three things in faith: 1)believe what
God teaches, 2)be confident in His promises 3)obey. -- But Luther
thought that even though faith includes obedience, if he had faith
he could disobey 1000 times a day! Can you believe Luther said
this? Then look up a large Protestant reference work, the
<Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Supplement>, p. 333. It
describes Pauline faith just as we have now done, not the way
Luther did. They should have said he was all wrong. They did not
have the courage and honesty to say that.
All forms of Protestantism have no rational foundation, they
cannot prove any commission from Christ to teach. They cannot even
prove which books are part of the Bible. Nor do they have even one
scientifically checked miracle. So please do not sell your the
inheritance Christ has left you for a mess of pottage - or worse.
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