So often when I\u2019m out on a speaking engagement people will tell me about their relatives who have left the church to join an evangelical sect, and they express their bewilderment and frustration at not being able to answer the evangelical\u2019s challenges.<\/p>\n
The problem is complex, but underneath it all is the fact that the Protestant and Catholic view the Christian faith from a very different perspective and they have a whole different set of priorities and have a different authority system and use a very different vocabulary. Furthermore, the Catholic usually senses that this is true, while very often, the Evangelical is not aware of it.<\/p>\n
Thus, the Evangelical will say something like, \u201cHave you ever accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?\u201d not realizing that this is actually a specialized sort of language peculiar to his type or religion. To the Catholic it sounds as odd as it might be for the Evangelical to be asked, \u201cAre you in a state of grace?\u201d<\/p>\n
So what to do? I advise Catholics first of all to be aware of the underlying culture and language gap, and not to accept it on the Evangelical\u2019s terms. You can ask them to define their terms, \u201cWhat exactly do you mean by \u2018accepting Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior?\u201d If they can explain it, that helps the Evangelical to move away from cliches and discuss the faith from a new perspective. Secondly, I suggest that the Catholic agree with the Evangelical about everything, but then clarify it from a Catholic perspective.<\/p>\n
So, the Catholic, when asked, \u201cAre you a born again Christian?\u201d should say, \u201cYes indeed! I was born again in baptism and faith in Christ.\u201d On this one you can quote the very chapter from John\u2019s gospel (ch.3) which is where the term \u2018born again\u2019 comes from, and show how the Lord says you must be born \u2018of water and the Spirit\u2019. This won\u2019t really satisfy the fervent Evangelical\u2013indeed it will probably frustrate him, but it does you both good because now you\u2019re in a real discussion.<\/p>\n
This tactic, of accepting their challenge, then turning it allows you to put the Catholic point of view without being ugly. Another example is when the Evangelical will try to engage you in a Bible verse shoot out. It seems to you that they know their Bible backward and forward, and some of them do. However, in fact most of them don\u2019t. They just know certain proof texts which they take out of context. Call their bluff on this and say something like, \u201cLook here. I\u2019m not going to engage in swapping Bible proof texts with you. That\u2019s not how we Catholics use the Bible. Instead we study the whole Bible along with the teachings of our church in order to understand the whole.\u201d At the same time, Catholics who are engaged in apologetics should know their Bible and have some of the excellent resources (Pat Madrid\u2019s books are especially good on this) in order to show that you do know the Bible and that it supports your faith.<\/p>\n
The last point is to be positive and upbeat and loving. When someone says, \u201cWhy do you Catholics worship Mary?\u201d Don\u2019t go all defensive or ashamed, but bounce back with a big smile and say, \u201cWe don\u2019t worship Mary, but we venerate her. However, I have a question for you. Why do you Protestants hate Mary so much?\u201d The Protestant will then be wrong footed and say that he doesn\u2019t hate<\/i> Mary. You can then ask him just what he does think about Mary and why and once again you\u2019re past the misconceptions and cliches and you\u2019ve got yourself into an interesting discussion.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So often when I\u2019m out on a speaking engagement people will tell me about their relatives who have left the church to join an evangelical sect, and they express their bewilderment and frustration at not being able to answer the evangelical\u2019s challenges. The problem is complex, but underneath it all is the fact that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n