What to Make of Conservative Roman Catholics?

 Jack,

Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you on the Catholic question yet.

I’d better do so, before hearing Matt Walsh in person this Saturday – I’ll probably be prejudiced to him after!

 

Here are a couple of thoughts.

 

Many Protestants see Rome as a cult or paganly superstitious.  Neither is true.  To be in the Roman Catholic church does not make one a nutjob, fruitcake.  It is true, though, that there are instances of 3^rd world syncretism between Roman Christianity and local pagan practices.  But this isn’t the usual problem facing American Christians.

 

Rome does teach serious error.  They have officially rejected biblical doctrines, and formally adopted unbiblical ones.  The Council of Trent in the 1560s explicitly denounced salvation by faith alone, for example.  And in the 1800s, Rome asserted the infallibility of the Pope.  These are false teachings that warrant calling people out of the Roman religion.

 

On the other hand, we are justified by our faith, not by believing in justification by faith alone.  This is a key distinction, that applies to many of the Catholic faithful.  Many Catholics trust Jesus, more than their church, to save them.  Their church is asking them to trust the church too much.  Likewise, many Protestant churches wrongly, subtly, ask their people to trust their own works too much (your political advocacy, purity of life, having the right opinions, etc.).

 

When hearing Catholic teachers whom we respect on the political right, we ought to take care not to assume they are right with God, just because they agree with our political convictions.  Ben Shapiro, an orthodox Jew,  on his current course will be in Hell for rejecting Christ as his Savior.  Yet we can be grateful for his advocacy for biblical ethics in the public square!  We should be as grateful for Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles, and remain graciously agnostic about the state of their soul before God.  Leave that to Him.

 

When interacting with Catholics personally, we should respect their faith and search out where it truly lies.  My family is memorizing 1 Peter 2:13 right now: “rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”  Encourage them to rest in Christ, not in their church’s authority, nor in the sacraments they receive at the church, outwardly.