Instead of finding what is wrong with someone else’s tradition I suggest we do two things.
1. Tell me what you love about your tradition. How it speaks to you. Don’t say anything about another tradition.

2. Ask yourself,”Am I a Christian? Am I living it out in my life. Could anybody tell?”

“From what I have seen, in Catholic circles, Catholic membership and personal faith in Jesus Christ have little in common. The majority of the Catholic and Orthodox people I know believe almost nothing.”

Comments such as the above posted on this blog thread illustrate the need for Catholic apologists to be actively promoting what Catholicism is and who Catholics are.

And comments like that show a lack of the new Catholic apologists’ understanding of the far greater ‘apologetic’ strength of someone like Merton or John Paul II. I wish more Catholics would understand that it’s not things like “Catholic Answers” or convert-apologists that make the Catholic church attractive to Protestants. In fact, quite the contrary. It is things lik unity, liturgy, history, stability, devotion, sacrament and many other goods left alone to their own witness that make Roman Catholicism attractive.

It’s a shame. Where have you gone Thomas Merton?

Comments such as the above posted on this blog thread
illustrate the need for Catholic apologists to be actively promoting what Catholicism is and who Catholics are.

The fact that a Catholic and a Protestant (or Christians of any stripe) try to convert each other does not mean that each believes the other to be a non-Christian. And the mere fact that someone else is a Christian is not enough of a reason to disengage any attempt to bring that person over to one’s own understanding of what is more true.

The clincher here is that these kinds of discussions most fruitfully take place in the context of personal relationships in which love and respect can be assured, in which each party can see when it might be appropriate to back off. The wide-open and nearly anonymous Internet is very unsuitable for this kind of discussion. The Internet is very suitable for polemics, and it attracts polemicists and would-be experts of all kinds. Anyone who expounds a viewpoint on the Internet should take it as a matter of course that people will want to argue.

If you don’t want to argue with the Internet polemicists, it’s best to just ignore them and go on saying what you have to say without regard to them, even if they are maligning you.

Nicholas: Thanx 4 that. Overall, theoretically, I can give what you wrote a hearty amen, tho except for the first paragraph, those things apply more to someone who gets to live a while longer after their conversion, wouldn’t you say?

Stated another way: when I first put my faith in Christ, I had yet to read the Bible thru (which I promptly greedily did), so my “doctrine” was limited to knowing that God was holy (knew that in my bones somehow from childhood on—probably a case of ROMANS 1), and that thru His Lamb of God 4giveness, Jesus had opened the door for us to draw near to the Father. In the decades since, my understanding has increased exponentially (altho my trust is the same caliber as day one). Still, I contend that had I died the day after my conversion, I’d have been saved just as much as now. (Otherwise, if we can “increase” in justification, aren’t we then in effect agreeing with Romanism?)

Is this a healthy practice? Should I dismiss all of those (fill in your own blank here) just because the last one I met was such a jerk/hypocrite/etc? Christ Himself said to do what the Pharisees said in temple, as long we avoid their hypocrisy.

I will respond by repeating the conclusion of a paper I wrote a number of years ago;
It can be argued that a 200 horsepower tractor is a 200 horsepower tractor whether it has worked 20,000 hours or non at all. It need not perform but must be capable of performing as designated. But if that tractor never was capable of working to the designated data, no matter how it looks or sounds, it simply is not a 200 horsepower tractor.
The four essential ingredients of saving faith are Truth, Knowledge, understanding and Trust. It must contain Revelation, recognition, and response. Saving faith must be based on Truth. It must contain not only knowledge and rational assent to that Truth, but also volitional assent. True faith is a change of allegiance. To have true faith in God, one must have a correct view about the Father, the Son, Jesus, and The Spirit, believe that knowledge, be willing to trust that knowledge when that trust is required, and yield to the knowledge which one believes to be true (Saving faith ultimately is allegiance), both to the known and the unknown. This will result in following Christ in baptism, in good works, and fellowshipping with other true believers. Though these acts in themselves are not necessary to becoming a believer, nevertheless, they are not options for the believer either. The emphasis was not that baptism would initiate faith but rather that a preceding faith would initiate baptism. At the point of Salvation, Truth, the understanding of that Truth, the acknowledgement of that Truth, and salvific faith/trust in that Truth unite as one entity. That is saving faith.
Abraham did not know where he was going, but trusted God and followed. Moses did not totally know or understand what God required of him, but believed God and followed. Rahab did not know much about the God of Israel but believed Him to be the Supreme God, and, because of it rejected her own people and followed God’s people. Likewise with Ruth. One could go on and on.
I see little of this type of faith and resolve in contemporary nominal Christians.