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Reply to a Critic: Am I Un-Ecumenical & Anti-Protestant?

Reply to a Critic: Am I Un-Ecumenical & Anti-Protestant?

Last updated on: June 22, 2020 at 4:25 pm by Dave Armstrong

Reply to a Critic: Am I Un-Ecumenical & Anti-Protestant? 2020-06-22T16:25:36-04:00 Dave Armstrong

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These comments and my replies occurred underneath my article, “The Absurdity of Claiming That the Mass is Idolatrous” (National Catholic Register, 6-17-19). I originally posted it exactly a year ago today on Facebook (6-22-19). Words of my critic (whose nick was “Casting Crowns”) will be in blue.

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Hey Dave, I typically find converts like yourself to be among the most militant. Your articles seemingly have a propensity to cast all denominational and non denominational Protestants into one category. Please lighten up. You need not have to keep justifying your conversion to the Catholic church.

Simply because one Protestant writer claims the Mass is idolatrous is no reason for you to indict all Christian people not of the Catholic doctrine. Some of the most godly Christian people I know have never expressed their view of the Mass to be idolatry.

Dave, a word to the wise. Stop looking for arguments that keep dividing followers of Christ and focus more on areas of which unite us. You would thus be doing the work of the Lord. Right now, I don’t think you are.

It might help if his articles attempted to find more unity in the essentials of faith in Jesus Christ. You will, after all, recall in the gospel that Jesus had to correct his own 12 apostles about this same attitude of “us versus them.”

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[2nd comment by the same person] My point is that Dave Armstrong frequently has articles highlighting division between Catholics and other Christians. Mr. Armstrong is a convert. No problem with that. However, he seems predisposed and obsessed to center on why his conversion is correct while other Christian people are not just wrong—- but bigoted against Catholicism. Personally that is not my experience with non-Catholic Christians I know of. I am just a bit tired of his bias.

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You obviously are dimly acquainted with the full range of my writings: particularly the more ecumenical ones:

My Respect for Protestants / Catholic Ecumenical Principles [2001; addendum: 1-8-03]

My Conversion: Not Due to Hostility to Evangelicalism [9-9-06]

Common Ground: An Exciting Ecumenical Venture (DVD and Book) I’m Privileged to Have Been Part Of [6-3-07; updated on 1-21-10, at Internet Archive]

Reply to Michael Spencer’s “Five Questions For Roman Catholics” [9-26-07]

Gratefulness for My Evangelical Protestant Background [3-18-08]

Catholic-Protestant Common Ground (Esp. Re Good Works) [4-8-08]

The “Catholic-Sounding” Luther: 25 Examples [6-16-08]

What I Like About Calvinism and Calvinists [June 2009]

50 “Catholic” John Calvin Views [3-18-10]

+ many many more along these lines. I even have papers defending John Calvin and Martin Luther against scurrilous charges. Not all Protestants accuse us of idolatry, as I noted, but it is not all that uncommon, either, even in mainstream Protestantism.

After all, John Calvin in his Institutes repeated it over and over; so does the Lutheran Book of Concord (binding on Lutherans): which compared the Mass to “worship of Baal.” The Anglicans also have something similar in their creeds, no doubt.

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Photo credit: one of my more obvious ecumenical efforts is this book in which I collected citations from Martin Luther where he agreed with Catholics.

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