CajunRick wrote:
But what is the Protestant term for bingo? 


Apostasy!

Sorry... that was my inner BoJo... sometimes he just kind of slips one out there when I'm not paying attention.

Back to the topic at hand...

A Catholic convert from Pentecostalism once clued me into something that really nailed a lot of this down for me...

When a Protestant says "faith" they mean "faith, hope, and love." By "faith" we *certainly* don't mean "intellectual assent" as in "we are saved by simply intellectually assenting to the proposition that Jesus is the Son of God and nothing else." When we talk about faith, we mean something that's down in your heart as well as your mind. It's "belief with passion" if you will. It's not just something we accept. It's something we're personally invested in.

Another thing that slipped me up for a long time when talking to Catholics is that what I mean and what you'ns mean by "salvation" are two different ends of the same process. When we say "I'm saved" that means "I'm justified." If you were to say, "I'm saved" you'd mean that you're perfectly sanctified and already in heaven with Jesus and that would seem just about as presumptuous to us as it would to you. It's obviously not just a semantic issue, but a lot of confusion could be avoided if we were all more precise with our language.

Finally, what's catholic for "pot luck"?

Last edited on Tue Apr 15th, 2008 01:18 pm by MichaelStEdmund

Last edited on Tue Apr 15th, 2008 08:20 pm by Intercessor

Last edited on Wed Apr 16th, 2008 12:54 pm by BeProf

Protestants, particularly those in evangelical denominations . . . have been raised to regard any sort of veneration as idolatry . . . Mary is mentioned in Protestant churches only during Christmastime, in reference to the manger of Bethlehem, and perhaps occasionally at Easter . . . she has no special role to play in the Christian story . . . Many of the dogmas of the Catholic Church, while profound and vigorous spiritual truths, are couched in technical theological language that sounds quite bizarre to Protestant ears. Here is what your Protestant friend may be hearing when you try to explain the Blessed Virgin the way she was explained to you:

The Catholic says: Mary is ever-virgin.
The Protestant hears: Mary is a pagan earth-goddess. (The non-Catholic remembers the vestal virgins of Rome.)

The Catholic says: Mary was conceived without sin.
The Protestant hears: Mary is the equal of Jesus. (He remembers that Jesus was sinless.)

The Catholic says: Mary was assumed into heaven.
The Protestant hears: Mary is the equal of Jesus. (He remembers that Jesus ascended into heaven.)

The Catholic says: Mary is Co-Redemptrix.
The Protestant hears: We don't feel that Jesus is adequate for salvation.

The Catholic says: Mary is our intercessor.
The Protestant hears: We don't believe that Jesus can do it all.

The Catholic says: Mary is the Mother of God.
The Protestant hears: Mary gave birth to God the Father. (He uses the word "God" to refer only to God the Father.)

The Catholic says: Mary is the Queen of Heaven.
The Protestant hears: Mary is God's wife. (Since God is the King of Heaven, Mary must be His wife.)

These interpretations may sound ludicrous and blasphemous, but they are exactly how your Protestant friend will interpret your words. Raised in a world without saints, he cannot conceive of spiritual contact with anyone but a god. You will leave him with the unfortunate misconception that Mary is the chief goddess of a Roman Catholic pantheon, and that Jesus has a minor, almost negligible, role in the Catholic plan of salvation . . .

("Introducing Mary to Protestants," in The Catholic Answer Book of Mary, edited by Rev. Peter M.J. Stravinskas, Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor, 2000; 88-91; quote from 88-89)