Christians and Catholics. How do you defend your faith?

Question

I'm Catholic and was wondering if you have ever cleverly defended your faith. What happened, and how did you do it?

Answer 1

I am Catholic too (as well as Irish & German!) and yes, I had to defend my religion with someone who was of another "Christian" faith. Actually it was a pastor of a local Lutheran church and he was badmouthing Catholics, the Pope, etc. He also said that Martin Luther was the first full-fledged Lutheran. I told him Martin Luther remained a devout Catholic/Jesuit priest until the day he died & that he should understand HIS own religion better before badmouthing mine! I respect whatever religion you choose to worship--just don't try to convert me & don't bash my religion!

Answer 2

The Bible talks about casting you pearls to the swine. Some times it does no good to try and defend your faith. Some that want to try and look so smart by bringing up different things to make you question your faith are trying to do just that. The fall of man was brought on by a question that the serpent asked Eve. The question brought confusion and compromise from what God had commanded. Jesus sets the best example when satan tempted Him"It is written." The bible says Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. The more you read and hear the word the more built up you will be. The best way to defend your faith is to walk it and not talk it. If you are not moved by what others say, don't get upset with what they say and love them the way God does they will have nothing they can say to prove that God is not working in your life. Jesus is Lord!

Answer 3

Yes, I have. With rational people, you can make a good defence of Catholic faith, and get an interesting dialogue in which you exchange knowledge with someone who has a different belief. I've learned a lot from some Hindu and Muslim friends I've had over the years. On my blog, I had a fascinating dialogue with an atheist over the anthropic principle, and I really learned from that exchange without it ever getting acrimonious.

On the other hands, it helps to know when to just drop it, too. Sometimes you will run into someone who is a walking Jack Chick tract or Dawkins addict, who is convinced the Pope wears a "fish hat" from Babylon, and who is unwilling to hear any differently.

In such circumstances I just take the advice of Jesus - "do not throw to dogs what is holy" and "shake the dust off your feet." It is not worth your while to throw pearls before swine, so to speak... so if you run into someone ornery, just don't bother getting into an argument. :-)

Answer 4

Pastor Billy says: heck just look at my picture and you'll get the picture. I'm a Catholic who uses humor to evangelise and defend the faith. I've discovered our separated Protestant brothers can in many cases be alittle high on what they consider their bible knowledge and tend to ignore Catholics who make comments to them. I now use humor and have the ability of speaking to them in "evangelese" they have their own language don't you known. In the harder cases I use alittle mockery simply because non-Catholics have employed it for years when dealing with us Catholics it's like shock treatment.

Anyway the strongest defence is as the old saying goes having a strong offence and to do that you have to know your bible better than they do. Word of advice Catholics are first Christian so I'm assuming you knew that and really meant to ask Protestants and Catholics.

I'll leave you with a story, an old friend of mine who claims to be a bible believer never really entered into deep debate with me about being Catholic so out of interest I attempted to start discussions with him. I soon discovered he was not open to any truths I wished to discuse but would have been extremely open to me getting interested in his faith tradition. Basically we had no meeting of the minds as he (a very intelligent man) was entirely closed to any fair examination of Catholicism. I therefore decided to quiz him on the bible being that he claimed he was a "bible believer" and my church was not. Very cleverly I began to question him about the various persons named as apostle in New Testament (as there are more than 12). The end result was he had a great hero in St. Luke the disciple of St. Paul and was demanding Luke was one of the first twelve apostles. Knowing full well he wasn't I asked my friend to prove it to me from any of the several lists in the gospels that he being a bible believer was correct and I was wrong because of course my church isn't a bible believer church according to him. Well needless to say he discovered he was wrong and didn't know the bible as well as he wanted to. The moral of the story be the bible christian that you can be as a Catholic afterall, the Christian bible is a Catholic book and there is nothing in it when taken in context that contradicts Catholic authority, practice or belief.

Answer 5

Anti-Catholicism is an entire container of learn. it quite is not basically ignorant Protestants, it quite is area of our lifestyle. there's a sort of non secular sadism occurring with them. the real root reason for particularly ill style of anti-Catholicism is self hatred. there replaced into one question the different day in regards to the Pope and that i discussed 8 posts as hate speech. i think in case you have faith on my own you do no longer must be ethical. I make as many comments as i will that of course violate the community rules. POOF!!! it quite is long gone from my demonstrate screen. i'm getting hate mail. maximum i do no longer hardship answering through fact a bigot isn't involved interior the reality and you may tell via the tone that they don't seem to have an interest in any respect, they only opt to get their hate fix for the day. particular, anti-Catholic literature is addictive, it quite is religious pornography, yet it relatively is yet another subject depend. i've got had 3 comments against me this previous week.. I win my appeals. one in each and every of my positioned up replaced into no longer something better than a quote from Dei Verbum* ( financial disaster III, paragraph 12, thirteen) and that i had to take it to the 2nd point of charm in the past the alternative replaced into rescinded in my want. If anti-Catholics opt to record me, I say convey it on. i'm going to be around as long as YQ&A does not evaluate quoting Vatican information a contravention of community rules.

Answer 6

I like to use 2 Timothy Ch3 Vs16-17
If you don't understand God's word
,how can you explain the faith that lies with in you.
Or the gift of salvation?
Be clear about the main things not clever.
Many people are smart, but not wise towards God.
Some plant ,some water ,some harvest!

Answer 7

Yes I did. I started to debate the idea of the reality of a judgmental punishing God in about the third grade.

This never got me a very good grade in religion class but my faith was strong in the real unconditionally loving God.

It still is in spite of all of the years of religious nonsense that tried to get me to believe that God was a judgmental jerk.

Love and blessings Don

Answer 8

Why do you feel that you have to defend your faith?

I seriously, seriously doubt that ANYONE has EVER made a compelling argument one way or the other concerning religion/faith. In other words, what could ANYONE say to you to make you abandon your faith? For me...nothing.

Answer 9

We do on here all the time, but if you've ever noticed we think out our answers, or look up something in the Bible to back up what we say, therefore our answers are farther down and aren't read by as many people.

Answer 10

It's like this...
We have rebelled against God and are in need of his grace because our sin separates us from him.
God love is so great that he sent Jesus to pay our price, a price we could not pay ourselves, and through his sacrifice we can have abundant and eternal life through faith.

I have had a dying man find Christ (and great happiness in his last days) through acceptance of the Gospel, and I know he is in heaven. We prayed together to accept Jesus...