Dan Nelson 01/22/2021

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CATHOLICS, PROTESTANTS, AND BAPTISTS

Many people do not understand the difference between Catholicism, Protestantism, and Baptists. Catholics believe in the tradition of the church through centuries as a higher authority than the Bible although those practices or not taught and even rebuked by the Bible. They believe in the magic of the sacraments in primary transubstantiation saying the elements are changed to the body and blood of Christ. They believe in the Pope as the ultimate authority of the “Church”. They believe in a works salvation through keeping the sacraments. They believe in the priestly intermediator between God and man with confession, absolution of sins, and prayers for them. They believe in purgatorial remission. That is one goes to purgatory when they die and has to be prayed out or bought out by indulgences. They believe in the deification of Mary, the veneration of the saints who have been approved by the church. They believe in one universal church which is supplemented by various parishes that are not churches. They believe in the celibacy of the priesthood for priests, monks, and nuns. They believe in the marriage of the church with the state who has been their ally in the past and has been used to persecute and slaughter dissenters. They believe in infant sprinkling which gives a false assurance they are Christians when they are not. They have suppressed the Bible and groups who oppose those teachings. There are many more practices too numerous to mention here which have not only led to an ignorance of the masses about biblical Christianity but persecution and silence of those who believe in it.Protestants came out of the Reformation believing in biblical authority and justification by faith. There are certain vestiges of Catholicism still retained to some degree or another in their faith and practice. Many mainline groups still sprinkle infants. They have a hierarchical church government that appoints local congregation church leaders and patterns church faith and practice. They believe in a Universal church that requires only faith in Christ to get into; whereby they in essence create two churches; the universal and local. They have traditionally been in league with the state leading to persecution of Baptists in martyrs like Felix Manz being drowned in Switzerland and others like Balthazar Hubmaier being chased and caught by Catholics who burned him, Michael Sattler, and Jacob Hutter plus a host of others. In America, they banished Roger Williams, imprisoned over 40 pastors in one decade in Virginia. They have a loose view of church membership that filters into many Baptist churches. Generally, there is at least one practice or more that can be traced back to Catholicism. A Baptist is someone who believes the church is a visible assembly of baptized believers joined together for the faith of the gospel. A Baptist believes in believers’ baptism by immersion as the only mode and purpose of baptism. That baptism needs to be administered by and under the authority of a New Testament church. A Baptist does not believe in a state church or civil government controlling and restricting religion. A Baptist believes in a free independent congregation ruled by the Lordship of Christ and governed by that local congregation under the Spiritual leadership of the Pastor called of God. A Baptist believes in individual accountability when it comes to conversion. No one can be sponsored or come into the Kingdom of God and church by their parents are others coattails. We will all be individually accountable to God for our souls as we understand the gospel. A Baptist, ministers in a local congregation and does not hire a designated clergy to minister for them, for the interpretation of Scripture, witness, and serve for them in the body of Christ. A Baptist does not substitute tradition, personal revelation contrary to Scripture, denial of the basic teachings of God’s Word, and diminishment of its teachings to fit the contemporary culture for the Bible. They believe the Bible is God’s Word without error and our only authority of faith and practice. The head of any Baptist Church is our Lord Jesus Christ born of a virgin, God in human flesh, who lived a life without sin, died as a substitutionary sacrifice for our sin on the cross so that when we believe in His atoning work God imputes His righteousness to us and sees us in Him. He rose bodily and visibly from the grave. He ascended into heaven after authorizing His church and sending them into the world with the gospel. He empowered them by the Holy Spirit and is coming back again to establish His kingdom on earth as well as heaven. Baptists are biblically oriented with the Bible as our only Authority and Christ as our only head. If you don’t understand these differences who just don’t understand Christian History and who Baptists are. Yet, to know all this gives you liberating freedom to continue the work God has given us till Christ comes again.