By the late Keith Green
A young Catholic believer recently asked me, “What are Protestants still protesting about anyway?” The question caught me off-guard, and at the time I had to answer, “I don’t really know . . . nothing, I guess.” Well my on-the-spot answer really bothered me, and it started gnawing away at me. What were Martin Luther, the Hugenots, the Anabaptists, the Quakers, and the multitudes of others protesting anyway when they broke away from the Church of Rome? What did they suffer untold persecutions and martyrdoms for? I had to find the answer. . .and when I found it, I knew I had no choice but to share it.
So beginning with this issue, we are publishing a series of articles dealing with the Roman Catholic Church. Never has a more frightening task been set before me than editing this series of articles.
THE ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT
There has never been such wide-spread acceptance of Catholicism among Protestants and evangelicals as there is today. I don’t mean that there are large numbers of main line evangelicals becoming Catholics. But today, for the first time in church history, an increasing majority of Protestants are regarding the Roman Catholic Church as simply another valid christian denomination. Meanwhile, gleeful shouts of “unity” are being heralded world-wide in ecumenical gatherings, festivals and conventions. (This is especially true among charismatics.)
I believe there has never been such a crucial need to ask these possibly disturbing questions: “Are the heresies of Romanism that brought about the Reformation still alive in the modern Roman Church, or are these doctrinal discrepancies now settled?” Or worse yet, ”Should the scriptural issues that brought about the spilling of oceans of martyrs’ blood now be considered unimportant’?
In pursuing this subject, I want to make it completely understood that neither I nor anyone else at Last Days Ministries have anything at all personally against Catholics. we know of many loving, committed and sincere believers among their ranks. In fact, there are quite a few who receive our newsletter, even a priest in New England who corresponds with me regularly (and if you’re reading this now I love you!). No, it isn’t Catholics themselves that we will be taking an in-depth look at, scrutinizing in the light of Scripture, but the Roman Church as a whole her history, doctrines, theology, and traditions.
It’s not that all the many so-called “Protestant” denominations have such perfect doctrines or spotless histories there are crazy theologies galore, a few even bordering on heresy. But nowhere has such departure from scriptural truth been so tolerated, accepted, and made into tradition and pillars of church doctrine as in the Roman Catholic Church.
I can already hear the cries of “division!” And l am grieved to the heart that many will see this effort as such. But I am convinced in my spirit that we have nothing at all to fear from the truth, for Jesus has promised that it will set us free! (John 8:32). We are not attacking, but examining. We are not angry but deeply concerned. We are not on the ”war-path”, but on the path of the search for what is right. And we are not out to divide anything but to ”divide accurately the word of truth” (II Tim. 2:15). To read the rest of The Catholic Chronicles by the late Keith Green, click here.
A comment about The Catholic Chronicles from a LT reader:
Hi folks,
Just a quick comment on your article “The Catholic Chronicles by Keith Green.” My understanding is that the Baptists were never part of the RC church. Also, they are not to be considered Protestants. Their history goes back to the Montanists during the 3rd century and before. Thanks, D.K.
Related Articles:
A Debate: “Mariology: Who Is Mary According to Scripture?”
The Missionary Goal of the Catholic Church
SPECIAL REPORT: The Jesuit Agenda and the Evangelical/Protestant Church
Below: Taken from the powerful film, The Radicals, based on the true story of Michael and Margaretha Sattler, who defected from the Catholic church and who were martyred for their faith in Christ.
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