WorldNetDaily.com has given James Rutz, chairman of Megashift Ministries, a free hand to proclaim his version of the truth, which appears to be very similar to that of Jack Chick. His article is filled with the usual anti-Catholic propaganda, and doesn’t seem to deal much in facts or accurate statistics; nor does he seem interested in substantiating his claims.
On the downside, Catholics still persecute Protestants worldwide much more than vice versa, they don’t know their Bibles as well, and they are far more apt to have a syncretistic faith mixed with native religions. As a result, their annual growth rate (1.24 percent) barely keeps up with world growth as a whole. In fact, on any given Sunday in Latin America, you’ll now find more Protestants in church than Catholics. The typical Catholic is also less likely to be a born-again Christian. If “born-again” confuses you, it means someone who, meeting a cement truck head-on, would go to Heaven instead of Hell.
Not only does he make up statistics that he’d find hard to prove, but he makes a judgement on the state of salvation of people he doesn’t even know, saying Catholics are less likely to go to heaven, seemingly comparing them to Protestants.
Catholics are less likely to be born again … born again means you go to heaven if you die … pretty clear judgement there.
The Bible says, regarding judging another person in that way:
(Mat 7:1 KJV) Judge not, that ye be not judged.
(Mat 7:2 KJV) For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
(Luk 6:37 KJV) Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:
Seemingly, he’s simply being politically correct – anti-Catholic rhetoric and Catholic-bashing is the “in thing” these days. When it comes to bashing Catholicism, being economical with the truth certainly makes for a good article.
Also, he’s promoting his book … makes one think, doesn’t it?
In the mean time, if you want to read a book that deals with this sort of propaganda, try Karl Keating’s book “Catholicism & Fundamentalism”.
Karl Keating runs the website at Catholic Answers, and you can find pretty much all of the specific answers there … but I really recommend his book – it gives an excellent analysis of what this problem is really about, as well as many good answers.
The book can be found via Catholic Answers (where I got mine) or Ignatius Press or Amazon.com.
Finally, view a discussion on this at the Catholic Answers forum [CAF is now defunct].
