John MacArthur Wrong On Catholicism

[debrand]

I don't know anything about this pastor but his take on Catholicism is wrong. What is worse is that it doesn't take much research to discover that he is wrong.

He says that Catholics believe that God is reluctant to save people. That he is a harsh god. Jesus is semi reluctant. Because Jesus can't deny his mom, Catholics go to her for salvation.

You can jump past the first minute when he begins to talks what about Catholic's believe.

[Cran]

If I'd been given 10 cents for every time any fundie is wrong about the catholic church, I could live comfortably.

And this issue of whether god is reluctant in the view of the church is in my opinion not as bad as other things heard frequenly, just dropping the "beast" and "babylon" bombs...

[debrand]

If I'd been given 10 cents for every time any fundie is wrong about the catholic church, I could live comfortably.

And this issue of whether god is reluctant in the view of the church is in my opinion not as bad as other things heard frequenly, just dropping the "beast" and "babylon" bombs...

Its the only youtube video I've seen by this person. LOL He might have others. The oddest one is that the Church represents the antiChrist because of the verse about seven hills in Revelation. The problem is that the Vatican does not sit on seven hills, ancient Rome did.

I've found that there are some people who hate the Catholic Church not because of its stance on abortion or women priests but because they hate an imaginary Catholicism. No amount of facts will change their minds.

[CanticleoftheTurning]

I've found that there are some people who hate the Catholic Church not because of its stance on abortion or women priests but because they hate an imaginary Catholicism. No amount of facts will change their minds.

I find the kind of fundie hate toward the Catholics sad and amusing at the same time.

Your statement reminds me so much of what Fulton Sheen said.

There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church — which is, of course, quite a different thing.

There's plenty of things to hate/dislike about the Catholic Church without having to invent some of our "sins." Sometimes I wonder if these fundies are so dead set against the RCC because they're afraid that if they quit fighting, they might join up, or something like that. Almost like a thread we had a while back about fundies becoming Catholic.

Oh, another thing--wouldn't it be hilarious if one of the Duggar boys decided to join the Church? And become a priest? And become a Jesuit priest? The reaction would probably be far worse than what Gerard Manley Hopkins got from his family... :lol:

[snarkykitty]

I don't know anything about this pastor but his take on Catholicism is wrong. What is worse is that it doesn't take much research to discover that he is wrong.

He says that Catholics believe that God is reluctant to save people. That he is a harsh god. Jesus is semi reluctant. Because Jesus can't deny his mom, Catholics go to her for salvation.

You can jump past the first minute when he begins to talks what about Catholic's believe.

If any of those who believe this listening to the prayer, "Hail Mary," they'd discover that we are asking her to PRAY FOR US - as in "pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death". We are not praying TO her, nor going to her for salvation. We ask for intercession.

You know, I don't mind criticism or questions - heck, I have many questions - but at least get it right.

[Brainsample]

John MacAruthur is one of the most arrogant and ascerbic ministers around and he appears to me to hate nearly everyone who doesn't come to lick his feet. I don't believe that he graduated from ther, but he attended Bob Jones University at one point and may have picked up the IFB nastiness and elitism. He's also had some doctrinal problems concerning central and core doctrines (the Trinity/the Doctrine of God), and with that consideration, I do not understand why he is so popular and revered. He stands arm-in-arm with the teachers that claim that women are the indirect and derivative Image of God (made directly from men so are once removed from God in essence). He's said some outright hateful things about women -- that they should not ever tell other people about their spiritual experiences in Christ or share their faith or even read Scripture. I find most of what I've heard from him outlandish.

I first heard him on the radio, three days in a row, in '88. On that third day, though it was inconvenient for me, I went to great trouble to turn off the radio. (He was sandwiched between shows that I either liked or did not bother me.) His show is called "Grace to You," and as I turned off the radio, I said aloud that it didn't sound like he had any grace for anyone, certainly not me.

On top of everything else, he sounds and looks angry all the time. And it's not the "firey preacher" who is driving home the truth with fervent conviction. He just always sounds plain and outright mean, and much of the content is cruel and rigid. (He is big on systematic theology, and I believe that is the source of much of the problem in the fundie/evangelical church today. But what do I know, considering that I'm a woman who should not speak of such things, let alone evaluate the things that he says.

I really do not understand how people can overlook that about him. I just take most of what he says with the understanding that he has some very good training and knowledge, but the material on the surface makes it far from worth the effort for me. I've asked others who really like him, and they say that he is a very good expository teacher and that they never heard thoughtful teachings like this in their Baptist churches. Funny, but I heard better expository sermons in the Pentecostal church at nearly every single service as I was growing up.

[Brainsample]

If any of those who believe this listening to the prayer, "Hail Mary," they'd discover that we are asking her to PRAY FOR US - as in "pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death". We are not praying TO her, nor going to her for salvation. We ask for intercession.

You know, I don't mind criticism or questions - heck, I have many questions - but at least get it right.

His issue is not so much an issue of the content of the prayer but that the actual Bible itself teaches that the only persons to whom one should pray according to the canon of Scripture that MacAruthr recognizes are the Father and Jesus Christ, the Son. Those Scriptures accepted by Protestants never teach or advocate prayer to anyone else. No one approaches God, save through Him, and that refers to prayer as well as the seeking of right standing with God. In the Gospels, Jesus also says, "Who is my mother or my brothers, save those who do my commandments," or something reasonably close to that.

From this position on doctrine based on what is contained in the canon only, it is an act of idolatry to pray or petition anyone who has died, including Mary. It doesn't matter what content that a living person might direct to Mary or anyone else who has died, it is the act of prayer to anyone else but God Himself directly which is sacrilegious to a Protestant. And some flip out when people address the Holy Spirit directly ("Help me, Holy Spirit!"), for this is not modeled or taught in the canon of Scripture. It is seen as some to be dangerous if not perverse, so prayer to Mary is definitely off limits.

[Brainsample]

We are not praying TO her, nor going to her for salvation. We ask for intercession.

Your issue here is not with MacArthur but with Protestants and their belief that NO ONE can make intercession for another, save for Jesus Christ through His own sinless Blood that was shed on the Cross.

Catholics believe that priests are needful to make intercession for them so that they can be made right with God. Martin Luther attested that all that was needed for an individual to approach God was faith in God, and God receives that sinful person through grace, unmerited favor. The Book of Hebrews in the New Testament declares that in Christ, there are no longer any priests needed because Jesus becomes the one and only priest, the High Priest, after the order of the first identified priest in the Old Testament, Melchizedek who was Abraham's priest. Luther taught from the Book of Hebrews that every person was a priest unto God through faith and under Christ's Blood directly. It is a doctrine called the "Priesthood of All Believers" and was a grand part of the protest statement that Luther hammered into the door of the Church at Wittenburg, protesting the abuses of the Catholic Church. They withheld the Scriptures from the people and made themselves wrongful go-betweens, mediating and interceding for them before God. Luther protested this (as he was privileged to study the Bible), asserting that the Catholic Doctrines withheld this right of the priesthood of the believer, all believers, from those in the church. And they could not even learn about it because they were not permitted to have access to the Scriptures.

Protestants stand strongly against all intercessors or intermediaries, save for Jesus. At least in this instance, MacArthur is sticking to standard Protestant doctrine.

[Beb]

......however, thyere is somewhat of a Scriptural basis for the intercessory prayer of the Holy Spirit. I can see how people could get the idea to go there.

"Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should what pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according the to will of God."—Romans 8:26,27

[Cran]

Catholics believe that priests are needful to make intercession for them so that they can be made right with God.

But this is not the base catholics have for prayer to the saints.

a) The priesthood of all believers is also known to catholics, it is only seen differently than in protestant denominations.

b) The priest is not needed to "get right with God" but to distribute the sacraments. Prayer can be made directly to God.

c) Saints are not needed to get right with God, either. The idea is that in heaven, ther eis a community of believers just as there is one on earth in the christian communities. Asking saints to pray is to a catholic like asking a good friend "Pray for me", jut as protestants do, too.

The confusion arises, imho, because "intercessor" is used in two entirely different meanings, the intercession of Christ, which is unique and grants the believer community with God, and intercessory prayer of the saints, which is on an entirely other and lower level.

[debrand]

Asking the saints to pray for you is no different than asking a member of your church to pray for you. As has been mentioned before, Catholics believe that both living and dead Christians are a community of believers. In order to stand against all intercessors, Protestants would have to never ask one another for their prayers.

[Turtle]

Asking the saints to pray for you is no different than asking a member of your church to pray for you. As has been mentioned before, Catholics believe that both living and dead Christians are a community of believers. In order to stand against all intercessors, Protestants would have to never ask one another for their prayers.

This. Although I've seen people try to explain this to Protestants who are particularly anti-Catholic, and it doesn't seem to sink in. I don't understand how it is complicated at all.

I was raised Baptist and once in high school I had to take a class on cults, which included Catholicism. The amount of misinformation was remarkable. Even in my younger, more brainwashed state, I could recognize that as BS.

[ADoyle90815]

Asking the saints to pray for you is no different than asking a member of your church to pray for you. As has been mentioned before, Catholics believe that both living and dead Christians are a community of believers. In order to stand against all intercessors, Protestants would have to never ask one another for their prayers.

This. Those who are anti-Catholic don't get that when they ask their church to pray for someone, they're doing the same thing that Catholics do when asking saints to pray for them.

[Brainsample]

Protestants believe that it is very different and reject the idea that you can talk to those who have died after they have died. God knows our needs before we have need of them and knows how many hairs we have on our heads. The Book of Hebrews says that God holds all things together by the power of his Word, and as the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent God, He really doesn't need any help keeping up with things.

Jesus talked with Elijah once while he was on earth, and he told of the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. But that was Jesus, the Son of God. We are not to communicate with the dead, neither through necromancy like Saul did when he went to the Witch of Endor or through prayer to anyone but God. (God let Saul talk to Samuel through the Witch of Endor, and Saul reamed him out for it.) The author of Hebrews says that we are to go boldly to the throne of grace, the throne of our Intercessor, the only intercessor.

If it was common, acceptable, and orthodox practice to talk with the dead through prayer, one would have to find it in the canon of Scripture. It is not found there. Peter, Paul, Timothy, Luke, James, John, etc. didn't instruct people to pray to the dead in the New Testament, and it is not recorded anywhere in the canon (the only sacred writings accepted as holy writ) that these men prayed to the dead. Saul was reprimanded for trying to conjure Saul. It was strictly forbidden in the Old Testament.

Protestants and Catholics disagree on many points of doctrine, and this matter is one of the more significant ones. It is what it is, and I've explained the underlying reasons why MacArthur does not accept prayer to Mary and why Mary is not venerated over anyone else, save for the blessing pronounced over her at the Annunciation. I know that many Baptists hate Catholics, and perhaps this accounts for the other strange things that MacArthur said about Catholics' perception of Jesus and his disposition towards people, not ready to forgive sinners. (??? This is not Protestant doctrine.) I don't know what in the heck he's talking about there. But I'm just trying to explain that on this point of praying to Mary or anyone else who has died to ask Jesus or the Father to help them here on earth, MacArthur has based that on very traditional and standard Protestant beliefs, those very beliefs that the Reformers defended against the Catholic Church.

Perhaps my purpose for posting here has been misunderstood. I'm not here to try to convince anyone one way or the other, and it's not a discussion that I'm interested in arguing. (I'm an evangelical who played guitar and sang in the mass at my RCC college as an undergrad, and with liberty, I share in the Eucharist with RCs. The Sisters of Mercy gave me liberty to partake with them, and I have no axes to grind in this discussion.) I'm just trying to explain the Protestant understanding explaining the rejection of praying to the dead and why this point, at least, represents Protestantism and not the rest of MacArthur's cruel elitism. If other people want to follow religious practices that are different from my own, whatever they do is between them and God.

I doubt that there are few who dislike the demeanor and many of the doctrines of John MacArthur, and I think he's pretty hateful to many Protestants as well as Catholics. But he shouldn't be faulted personally on this specific point of rejecting the concept of praying to people who have died, Mary or otherwise. That's a conflict between the doctrines of Catholicism and Protestantism. So many of these guys make strawmen out of their critics to unfairly manipulate these kinds of discussions. I don't want to see anyone here stooping down to their level by doing the same thing. I don't believe that this point makes MacArthur exempt for the other stupid things he said in that video, however.

[Brainsample]

But this is not the base catholics have for prayer to the saints.

a) The priesthood of all believers is also known to catholics, it is only seen differently than in protestant denominations.

b) The priest is not needed to "get right with God" but to distribute the sacraments. Prayer can be made directly to God.

c) Saints are not needed to get right with God, either. The idea is that in heaven, ther eis a community of believers just as there is one on earth in the christian communities. Asking saints to pray is to a catholic like asking a good friend "Pray for me", jut as protestants do, too.

The confusion arises, imho, because "intercessor" is used in two entirely different meanings, the intercession of Christ, which is unique and grants the believer community with God, and intercessory prayer of the saints, which is on an entirely other and lower level.

Cran,

The sacraments are another point of conflict between Catholics and Protestants, as are the benefits that they confer on the Believer. Protestants only recognize only two sacraments: baptism and the eucharist (and there are a great many ignorant Protestants who literally think that the term "Eucharist" is a filthy and unholy "Catholic thing"). They disagree strongly on what baptism and the other sacraments actually do for the Believer (because Catholics merge forensic justification and ongoing sanctification, and Protestants believe that they are separate events). Then there are the disagreements regarding the elements of the Eucharist (the discussion of transubstantiation) and what it confers.

The doctrines are very different. In many ways, we are talking about apples and oranges because Catholics and Protestants define these terms (priesthood of the believer, intercession, ect.) very differently.

Again, I'm not trying to moralize anything here but rather explain why the doctrines are very different and why there has been so much historical conflict between the groups.

[emmiedahl]

Revelation 5:8 kind of indicates that the saints can pray in an intercessory manner.

Necromancy refers to much more than asking someone to pray for you. It usually refers to getting information from the dead. Especially so in your example from Samuel.

[CanticleoftheTurning]

Just to throw another group into the discussion--don't forget about Episcopalians. They're like a mix between Catholics and Protestants, with a range even within the denomination between the high church and the low church traditions.

And since we're on the subject of intercessory prayer, the Episcopalians gladly ask Mary to pray for us, not to mention all the saints. So, it's not only a "Catholic" thing.

[Cran]

Cran,

The sacraments are another point of conflict between Catholics and Protestants, as are the benefits that they confer on the Believer.

Being a former Lutheran and former Catholic, I am wewll aware of it. I only wanted to point out that your argumentation you cited for Protestants not agreeing with Catholics on the topic of intercessory prayer was incorrect.

[buddingmedievalist]

Perhaps my purpose for posting here has been misunderstood. I'm not here to try to convince anyone one way or the other, and it's not a discussion that I'm interested in arguing. (I'm an evangelical who played guitar and sang in the mass at my RCC college as an undergrad, and with liberty, I share in the Eucharist with RCs. The Sisters of Mercy gave me liberty to partake with them, and I have no axes to grind in this discussion.) I'm just trying to explain the Protestant understanding explaining the rejection of praying to the dead and why this point, at least, represents Protestantism and not the rest of MacArthur's cruel elitism. If other people want to follow religious practices that are different from my own, whatever they do is between them and God.

Brainsample, with all due respect, those who are not Catholic are not allowed to receive the Eucharist, no matter what they might be told by a nun. We do not participate in intercommunion, not because we want to be unkind or exclusionary, but because the fundamental beliefs between Catholics and Protestants regarding the Eucharist are different. We believe that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ, not just a symbol, so it's not right for those who do not believe as we do to participate. The sisters who allow(ed) you to participate should not have done so.

I know that it can be hard not to participate when everyone else is doing so, but please don't, out of respect for our beliefs. You are, however, allowed to go up with everyone else and cross your arms over your chest to receive a blessing; not quite the same, I know. A good friend of mine is coming into the Church at Easter and we go to Mass together; I know that it's difficult for him to just receive the blessing when I get to receive the Eucharist, but he's holding out until he finishes RCIA and comes into the Church as a full member

[Brainsample]

Brainsample, with all due respect, those who are not Catholic are not allowed to receive the Eucharist, no matter what they might be told by a nun. We do not participate in intercommunion, not because we want to be unkind or exclusionary, but because the fundamental beliefs between Catholics and Protestants regarding the Eucharist are different. We believe that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ, not just a symbol, so it's not right for those who do not believe as we do to participate. The sisters who allow(ed) you to participate should not have done so.

I know that it can be hard not to participate when everyone else is doing so, but please don't, out of respect for our beliefs. You are, however, allowed to go up with everyone else and cross your arms over your chest to receive a blessing; not quite the same, I know. A good friend of mine is coming into the Church at Easter and we go to Mass together; I know that it's difficult for him to just receive the blessing when I get to receive the Eucharist, but he's holding out until he finishes RCIA and comes into the Church as a full member

They discussed it with the priest there which is why I approached them about it, knowing full well the issues associated with it from both perspectives, out of respect for everyone involved. Sister Honora who ran campus ministry approached our resident priest with the issue. They were very Vatican II at that time, but I have no idea what goes on there now. I guess I'm damned and going to hell according to everybody!

ETA: I just had to come back to edit this. This is no kind of chronic problem, and I was 17 years old at the time. It's approaching 30 years ago. Because of my participation with campus ministry, I respectfully approached them and asked about the issue. I complied with them. What more was I supposed to do?

[buddingmedievalist]

They discussed it with the priest there which is why I approached them about it, knowing full well the issues associated with it from both perspectives, out of respect for everyone involved. Sister Honora who ran campus ministry approached our resident priest with the issue. They were very Vatican II at that time, but I have no idea what goes on there now. I guess I'm damned and going to hell according to everybody!

ETA: I just had to come back to edit this. This is no kind of chronic problem, and I was 17 years old at the time. It's approaching 30 years ago. Because of my participation with campus ministry, I respectfully approached them and asked about the issue. I complied with them. What more was I supposed to do?

No, I misunderstood--I thought this was something that you were currently doing, which is why I addressed it. I apologize if it sounded like I was blaming or faulting you; I was a tad annoyed at the sisters (and I assumed) priest who violated the rules, so I tried to keep it respectful and not critical of you, but obviously I didn't, so again, I apologize.

[lizzy]

They discussed it with the priest there which is why I approached them about it, knowing full well the issues associated with it from both perspectives, out of respect for everyone involved. Sister Honora who ran campus ministry approached our resident priest with the issue. They were very Vatican II at that time, but I have no idea what goes on there now. I guess I'm damned and going to hell according to everybody!

ETA: I just had to come back to edit this. This is no kind of chronic problem, and I was 17 years old at the time. It's approaching 30 years ago. Because of my participation with campus ministry, I respectfully approached them and asked about the issue. I complied with them. What more was I supposed to do?

No you are not. The sin was on the priest and nun who knew better and chose to disobey Church teaching.