As a Southern Baptist—rapidly becoming a Reformed Calvinistic Baptist—I’ll disagree with your statement that Baptists hold to the idea that it is man’s own faith that brings salvation–that he is able to save himself. What I’ve always been taught (and believe)is that we each must choose to accept what Christ did for us on the cross—we choose to accept His grace–and by accepting, we fortify our belief. Our faith, as well as our salvation, is only through God’s grace. So—our thoughts on salvation are apparantly not that far apart.

BTW—we’ve wandered off the topic a little—Wyman’s work on Church Discipline is wonderful. I agree with David, his books and website are a tremendous reference for any church.

Grace, to Catholics is God working in our lives. Our salvation, Catholic believe is not based on our personal merits or vitures, but on God’s grace.

Thus, we are not “saved by OUR faith” according to Catholics, but rather we are saved by Grace. It is Christ’s (unmerited by us) offering of His body, blood, soul, and divinity on the cross — where he was crusified for our sins — that makes salvation possible (Catholics believe).

I think where Catholic most dissagree with Baptists is on the Baptist idea that a person is saved through his own faith; as if a person was able to save himself. Rather, Catholics would argue that salvation is through God’s grace alone. Namely, that it is only through God’s grace that salvation is made possible. That Faith, Hope, and Love are only possible because of God’s grace. That we can choose to accept or reject this grace. We accept the grace when we accept Jesus’s offering upon the Cross: His body, blood, soul, and divinity – which are pressent in the Eucharist. John 6:66 describes what happens to those who do not accept Christ’s offering upon the Cross.

Agreed too. But I do not think you will find yourself outside the camp by being a confessing Evangelical (aka Lutheran)

Lito

I again long to see the Scripture Truth taught, the resultant faith, zeal, and changed lives that followed, and the unabridged love and holy living that marked the believers of that era, but, alas, those days are gone.

I must however be encouraged. Christ is head of His church, and not I. Therefore preach Christ!

I want to agree with Lanier here. So much of our emphases are determined by where we come from. Had I had your experiences, I would probably be none-too-keen on hearing people talking about wanting to appropriate elements of liturgical worship and things along those line. But many of us have grown up in a Bible belt evangelicalism that is shockingly a-historical in its worship and seems to care little for a healthy catholicity. We’re coming from the other extreme. Some of us have also grown up with a myopic anti-Catholicism and we are just now realizing that not only was some of what we were sold untrue, but that there are, in fact, elements of Catholicism that we see now could really help us as Protestants in coming to a fuller understanding both of the Church and of Christ.

So I’m not in any way trying to refute your own convictions. I suppose, again, that I would feel just like you had I walked in your shoes. But I did want to try to explain why some of us yearn for an escape from a mindset that we see now has hindered our progress as believers and as a Church.

You are correct, it is shallow evangelicalism to which I am referring. However, why flirt with Troy because I find “Trojan Horses” in my camp?

I think what you’re seeing happen is that many of us are fed up with the shallow evangelicalism that you are describing. We also shake our heads in wonder that anyone could sit through a communion service or a recitiation of a creed and do it coldly as a mere formality. What we are trying to do is take the substance of evangelical faith, which is Christ, and recapture the best of Christian tradition as a means of honoring Christ through public reading of Scripture, confession of sin, confession of faith, prayer, and celebration of the Lord’s Supper (see Acts 2:42-43). The goal in using these traditions is to give Christ central place, not push him to the margins.

The surrounding community in which we lived was predominantly Catholic and Orthodox. Most were for all practical purposes agnostic, and the remainder believed what the church believed, even though they could not articulate their faith. Life style was reflected by their faith or lack thereof.

The contemporary church has essentially succumbed to something similar to dead catholicism that existed in my community. Instead of faith in the church and baptism for salvation as the Catholics practice, they have substituted the rite of accepting Jesus, whatever that is supposed to mean. In place of Catholic worship, ritual, art and form, they practice what they call praise and worship, which is essentially self gratifying and sensuous. That is why so many so called evangelicals are enamored with the traditional dead churches. Emotional gratification has replaced doctrinal substance, and ccm has replaced True faith. Where is Jesus in this hodge podge of Charismaticism and traditionalism?