Out of Their Own Mouths!

Miles McKee Ministries

PO Box 541, Kingston Springs, TN 37082

Out of Their Own Mouths!

Karl Keating is a Roman Catholic apologist. In other words, he has given himself to defending Roman Catholicism. He has a book that has a rather interesting title to say the least: CATHOLICISM AND FUNDAMENTALISM… The Attack on “ROMANISM” by “Bible Christians!” What follows are some quotes from Keating’s book. You will note that any and all Bible Believing Christians are categorized as “Fundamentalist.” Please read this article very carefully and more than once! (For emphasis, I will place some words and/or phrases in bold.)

Here are quotes from Keating’s book:

"Few orthodox Catholics can imagine themselves leaving their religion for another… To convert to mainline Protestantism, or to collapse into agnosticism, does not occur to them even in nightmares… A change to Eastern Orthodoxy or Anglo-Catholicism is more an adjustment than a real switch… But fundamentalism? To embrace it is to reject Catholicism outright, because fundamentalism does not just modify, but discards, the sacramental and liturgical core of Catholicism. One might as well subscribe to an obscure Eastern cult.”

“But the allure of fundamentalism should be taken seriously, if for no other reason than that hundreds of thousands of Catholics have taken it so seriously in the last few years that they have joined “Bible-believing” churches. Many of them have become not just non-Catholics, but anti-Catholics, because such an attitude is the natural result of the logic of their position. They perceive a duty to bring into “real Christianity” the family and friends they left at Mass, and bring them they have.”

“Fundamentalists regard the Bible as the keystone of their faith. Their understanding of inspiration and inerrancy comes from Benjamin Warfield’s notion of plenary-verbal inspiration, meaning that in the autographs all of the Bible is inspired and the inspiration extends not just to the message God wished to convey, but to the very words chosen by the sacred writers.”

“First to catch one’s eye is the fundamentalists’ reliance on the Bible to the complete exclusion of any authority wielded by the Church. (The Roman Catholic Church is the Church to which Keating is referring.) The second is their insistence in a faith in Christ as personal Lord and Savior. “Do you accept Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?” they ask. “Have you been saved?” they ask. This is unalloyed Christian individualism… It is a one-to-one relationship, with no mediators, no sacraments, just the individual Christian and his Lord.”

“Adoration of the wafer (host), decreed by Pope Honorius III, 1220AD. What the reader is supposed to think, apparently, is that Catholics worship the bread used at Mass. They do not. What they worship is Christ, and they believe the bread and the wine are turned into the actual Body and Blood, including not only His human nature, but also His divine nature. If Catholics are right about that, then surely the Host deserves to be worshiped, since it really is God.”

“Cup forbidden to the people at communion by Council of Constance… 1414AD… The Catholic position has always been that after the Consecration (By the Priest) the actual Body and Blood of Christ are contained in the smallest particle of the Host (The wafer) or the tiniest drop from the cup… In giving the cup to the laity there was a chance the contents would be spilled, so out of respect, the restriction was imposed.”

“As heirs of the Reformers, fundamentalists work on the basis of sola scriptura, and they advance this notion at every opportunity… The Catholic method of finding the Bible to be inspired begins this way. It is not, at first, presumed to be inspired… The Catholic Church… tells us the Bible is inspired, and we can take the Church’s word for it precisely because the Church is infallible… The Catholic believes in inspiration because the Church tells him so—that is putting it bluntly—and that same Church has the authority to interpret the inspired text.”

“Fundamentalists say the Bible is the sole rule of faith… Catholics, on the other hand, say the Bible is not the sole rule of faith and that nothing in the Bible suggests it was meant to be… The notion of sola scriptura arose when the Reformers rejected the papacy. In doing that, they also rejected the teaching authority of the Church. They looked elsewhere for the rule of faith and thought they found it in the Bible.”

“Tradition means the teachings and teaching authority of Jesus and, derivatively, the apostles. These have been handed down and entrusted to the Church… which means to its official teachers, the bishops in union with the Pope.”

“D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones… Lloyd-Jones’ trouble, the trouble of all fundamentalists, is that he labors under the misconception that the Scripture has the last word and that Tradition built on oral teachings counts for nothing.”

“There is no more confusing topic, when fundamentalists and Catholics sit down to talk, than salvation… Fundamentalists… conclude from the Bible that Christ actually promised that heaven is theirs in exchange for a remarkably simple act. All they have to do, at just one point in their lives, is ‘accept Christ as their personal Savior’… It comes down to Galatians 2:20: ‘The Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’ Christ is seen as one’s personal Savior, and that is why these words are a favorite with fundamentalists… For Catholics salvation depends on the state of the soul at death. Christ has already redeemed us, unlocked the gates of heaven, as it were… He did his part, and now we have to cooperate by doing ours… As Catholics see it, anyone can achieve heaven, and anyone can lose it...”

“The Catholic Church has always understood baptism… as a sacrament that accomplished several things, the first of which is the remission of sin… Did Christ leave us any means within the Church to take away sin? The Bible says he gave us two means. Baptism was given to take away the sin inherited from Adam [original sin] and any sins [called actual sins because they come from our own acts] committed before baptism. For sins committed after baptism, a different sacrament is needed… Cyprian writes that the forgiving of sins can take place only ‘through the priests’.

“The inability of the Church to teach error is infallibility… It means what is officially taught will not be wrong… Rome has spoken; the case is closed… In 1950, Pope Pius XII, in an exercise of papal infallibility, defined that Mary, ‘after completion of her earthly life’—note the silence regarding her death—‘was assumed body and soul into the glory of heaven’… True, no express Scriptural proofs for the doctrine are available… Still, fundamentalists ask, ‘Where is the proof from Scripture?’ Strictly, there is none… The mere fact that the Church teaches the doctrine of the Assumption as something definitely true is a guarantee that it is true… Mary is the Mediatrix of all graces because of her intercession for us in heaven… grace is not conferred on anyone without Mary’s cooperation. True, Scriptural proofs for this are lacking.”

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This final quote is from a little Catholic booklet,

MY FIRST COMMUNION CATECHISM:

“Every day Jesus makes the same offering that He made on the cross. He offers Himself to God the Father. He does this in the Sacrifice of the Mass… I cannot see Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Jesus is hidden in the Host. The white Host looks and tastes like bread, but it is not bread. It is Jesus…”

SOME CONCLUDING THOUGHTS/RESPONSES:

1. I don't care for titles... but by Keating's standards, I have been identified-- I am a Fundamentalist!

2. Mr. Keating clearly understands the vast difference between Roman Catholicism and Bible-believing Churches / Fundamentalists. He clearly understands that both cannot be genuine expressions of true Christianity. That reality is something that many Fundamentalists have abandoned. Have you?

3. All around the world, God’s amazing grace continues to save numbers of folk out of the bondage and blindness of Catholicism. Indeed, lost religionists fill the rolls of all “flavors” of churches and denominations—It’s all a part of the present day Mission Field!

4. Many will say, “But I know some ‘Evangelical Catholics’…even priests-- They do not believe all this stuff that Keating has stated.”

(a) It is common for cults to try to appear Christian and Evangelical.

(b) Keating has stated Catholicism’s case accurately.

(c) The Holy Spirit has a consistent habit of leading even brand new Christians according to the pure, infallible written Word of God, the Bible.

(d) Once enlightened by the Holy Spirit’s ministry of quickening the Word of God, for a person to refuse to renounce and leave Catholicism is no different than for that person to claim to be saved, yet refuse to leave and renounce Mormonism, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.

5. In commendable honesty, Karl Keating plainly states the TRUE Catholic position:

"To convert to mainline Protestantism, or to collapse into agnosticism, does not occur to them even in nightmares… A change to Eastern Orthodoxy or Anglo-Catholicism is more an adjustment than a real switch… But fundamentalism? To embrace it is to reject Catholicism outright, because fundamentalism does not just modify, but discards, the sacramental and liturgical core of Catholicism. One might as well subscribe to an obscure Eastern cult.”

6. THE OPPOSITE IS, LIKEWISE, TRUE:

To embrace Catholicism is to totally reject Bible-believing Christianity.

To embrace Catholicism is to totally reject Salvation by grace alone through faith in Christ alone.

To embrace Catholicism is to embrace a different gospel from that which is found in the Bible.

These facts being true, shouldn't Bible-believing Christians LOVE and LOVINGLY SHARE THE GOSPEL OF GRACE with Catholic family, friends, associates?
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Blessings!
James Bell
Jwillie123@aol.com