Russell Brand announces that he has been Baptized
(twitter.com)
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“…we’ll know them by their fruits…”
I personally like Brand, he’s very charismatic and could lead many to Christ. That is supposing he stays the path.
Seeing some of the anti-Catholic responses coming from this community is a little discouraging to me. Here’s why I think that…
I think the average anon enjoys looking for the truth. Many times that leads into a real deep dive into certain historical topics. That is exactly what led me to the Catholic Church.
TL DR: convert, became Catholic while trying to prove them wrong.
First visit to a Catholic Church nearly 20 years ago. Looking back, I attended what is called a sung mass. I’m not evien a Christian at this point but thinking wow this is weird. Went a few more times but it never caught on. Few years later I’m invited to a Protestant church. The sermon really spoke to me, I left a different person. My love for Jesus and the Bible grew. Eventually this church wasn’t feeding my desire to grow deeper in my faith. Found another church… they would preach on one book of the Bible for months. Ex We studied Romans for 6+ months. We stayed here for nearly 10 years.
Along the way all I knew is anything beyond what we learned here isn’t right. And specifically Catholic are just as bad as jehovah witness. I had no reason to question it, I trust the Bible and our pastor has a doctorate, reads scripture in many languages. I basically just followed whatever was taught.
Eventually had an opportunity to send my kids to what is considered a good Catholic school in the area. My wife went there as a kid so we’re like… it’s a little weird but it’s about the education, we can combat any Catholic nonsense they bring home.
We think we’ll swat down any ridiculous Catholic stuff that comes our way. After a few months the kids start coming home telling us about Mary, etc. We tell them why it’s wrong, and move on. BUT are curious WHY, and that’s where I’d challenge many of you. So we took the time to dig into some of these topics that we blindly say that’s wrong. This led us through an interesting trip through church history.
The breaking point for me is Sola Scriptura. As someone who believes that the Bible is literal truth, I had a difficult time grappling with how a Protestant can stand behind this yet say Jesus meant something else than what he literally said. I had started to consider things like how most churches as we know them started after the reformation, and even after that many still believed in things like the Eucharist. So now we’re swimming in literally thousands of different denominations.
I’m looking for multiple sources here, I don’t want bias opinions. The more I research the more I start considering how maybe I’ve been wrong. It was a huge identity crisis for my family and also just this gigantic red pill.
Seriously after you take this deep dive you can’t go back after you know the truth. And I’ll be completely honest, life was a lot easier as a Protestant. There is a lot we miss, but it’s artificial and lacking compared to what we have now.
I could rant on for days because there is just so much. But for someone interested in really intellectual spiritual reading, look into Thomas Aquinas. Hes basically considered everything you could think of and explained it.
I guess what I’m trying to say is for non Catholics there is a lot you’re missing out on my shutting yourself out. Challenge yourself and ask are these my thoughts or do I only believe rh because someone taught me to think this way. If you haven’t taken the time to ask some hard questions you’re no better than someone who just “trusts the science “.
Maybe I can give you this take on the Eucharist, and see what you think:
Many, many ancient cults were built around blood rituals, cannibalism, and human sacrifice, especially child sacrifice. This was happening all around the world.
One of the most important things about the spread of Christianity was that it halted these practices. Now do you understand why the worldwide psychopaths have such a hatred of Christianity?
The people were told, in essence, "You no longer have to sacrifice your children, or any other humans, in an effort to appease your gods. God did that for you when he sent His only son to earth to serve as the final sacrifice. It's no longer necessary, so stop doing it."
The Eucharist is puzzling to many. Some ask, "Why would we drink his blood? Why would we eat his flesh?"
The answer is: We aren't. That's the point.
The bread and wine take the place of the human flesh and blood, because Christ instructed us to substitute them. The bread and wine are just as good ("this is my blood you drink, this is my body you eat") as long as we remember the sacrifice that Jesus made so we do not sacrifice - and consume - an actual human ever again ("if you would remember me when you eat and drink.")
Christ was the final human sacrifice and it's supposed to stay that way. That's why He was called "the lamb of God." It was not because he was weak or foolish, as sheep are usually seen as being. It's because lambs were very commonly sacrificed in the rituals of Jesus' time, whenever humans (especially children) weren't being used.
You said all that and didn't say what was so significant that you changed your mind about catholicism?
if meant for me, it were many factors over time. the big one was the Eucharist as mentioned above. as a Protestant we're taught that everything in the Bible is very literal, besides this particular passage. They say, this is figurative. Jesus didn't "really" mean that, what he meant is.... (who are we to assume he meant something other than what he said..).
This passage goes on to explain how many of his followers left after he said this, saying these are hard teachings, who can accept this. So to them, who left him, they believed it was literal and they weren't about to consume human flesh because that was against the law.
Well elsewhere in the Bible, if a parable was given and the audience was confused, Jesus would give them another one. But in this instance, he doubles down with what he said saying, amen amen. also, the original translation of this text when talking about eating, is "to gnaw". again, doesn't really translate well into figuratively speaking. Not only this but for quite some time, this was just the accepted belief. It wasn't until some 500 something years ago where we're like wait... everyone was wrong up until now...
There are also many Eucharistic miracles that haven't been explained. This would be a perfect opportunity for Catholic haters to show them whats up, but these things remain miracles.
Mary was a difficult one to grasp. It's funny, I could accept this bread was Christ true body but Mary... I dunno now that's a tough one. Eventually I came around. One thing that helped me was to consider how she is the Arc of the New Covenant. Now think back the old testament, where God gave very specific instructions on what the Arc should look like, just how perfect it should be. This was to hold the word of God. Fast forward, then you have God's mother in the flesh. It stands to reason that as she is to should be perfect if she is to give birth to God in the flesh. So as God's mother she should have a large degree of reverence. It was Mary who asked Jesus to perform his first miracle which he did.
Basically the more I dug into these things, the more they made sense than didn't.
And yeah, I can appreciate how people are upset about centuries of corruption in the church. But what they've done or said, doesn't really change our focus on Jesus. And many of these events have little to do with church doctrine. It's unfortunate that people leave the church because a priest or pope did something despicable, etc etc. It's still the same church Jesus started.
Jesus didn't start the catholic church. And to clarify what you said, you now believe Mary is perfect?
If she is perfect, she is not human. Multiple passages speak of human sin nature, and that not even one of us is good. In Mark 10:18, Jesus Himself said nobody is good, only God / the Father in heaven. Here is how various translations translate that passage. https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Mark%2010:18
Some people leave the church for other reasons than those you cited.
Well perfect may not be the right word but Catholics do believe she is without sin. It’s a complex topic but the short of it is she was saved just like everyone else but it just so happened it was before she was born and that grace continued throughout her life.
When considering all these things it helps to put everything in perspective. If you’re a believer you already believe in Jesus miracles; instantly curing disease, walking on water, raising the dead, dying then coming back to life. It’s like, how could something like Mary being sinless be more difficult to accept than some of these other things.
The problem with Catholicism will always be that it has a singular head, and that singular head has been proven to be false quite a few times throughout history, most infamously (though not necessarily the worst offending example) would be Pope Alexander VI and the corruption he brought.
For such a person to be "chosen by God", at least how it used to be viewed, they should be above the sins that the Papacy has been known to commit.
So now hopefully you understand a small piece of why Catholicism is not always met in a very positive light.
I don't fault people on good faith; it's not like Catholicism promises X number of virgins for Y number of lives taken like a certain other religion.