Thus far, every time a friend or family objects to or questions my Catholic faith, it encourages a dialogue and/or reasoning through study. Every single time, I leave the exchange even more passionate and solidified in my faith, and in love with Him and His church. ✝️

I appreciate your perspective and input! And glad that we can have open discussion about this. All love Josh! Cheers brother! 🙏

Thank you again for engaging. Just to build on this; I went to your church’s site, opened the Baptist Faith & Message 2000, and read it slowly. (bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000) I didn’t find a rejection of works. But I found commands, duties, obligations, and progress — all flowing from grace. We may be closer than you think. It says there; IV. Salvation – C. Sanctification - “Sanctification is the experience, beginning in regeneration, by which the believer is set apart… and is enabled to progress toward moral and spiritual maturity through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit…” That’s grace-enabled growth, not self-effort. Same with: XI. Evangelism – “It is the duty of every follower of Christ…” XIII. Stewardship – “They are under obligation to serve Him with time, talents, and possessions…” XV. Social Order – “All Christians are under obligation to seek to make the will of Christ supreme…” XV. Family - "A husband is to love.. provide.. lead.. Parents are to teach, discipline, model.." Progress. Duty. Obligation. I guess I struggle to see how these aren't works as fruit of faith. We both reject salvation by self-effort. We both affirm works as necessary fruit. Right? Faith through grace, reflected in works. Sola Gratia. 🙏

I love this conversation and forgive me if I'm mistaken here, but even Luther himself initially said: “We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone." And “Faith is a living, busy, active, mighty thing… It is impossible to separate works from faith, quite as impossible as to separate heat and light from fire.” Trent Canon 9 doesn’t reject justification by faith, but justification by faith alone in the sola fide sense that excludes grace-enabled works as part of the process. We’re saved by grace alone, through faith that is never alone—it’s living, obedient, and fruitful (James 2:24; Romans 2:6–8). Works don’t *earn* salvation; they’re the fruit of grace (Eph 2:8–10). Pre reformation consensus,from what I can tell, was pretty clear on this. Id quote Clement of Rome or Augustine for example; “Grace, unless we do what God commands, does not justify.” From what I can tell no one in the first 1,000 years of the church taught sola fide as “faith apart from obedience.” They all saw faith, hope, and love as a living unity. In the end, I'm not seeking forgiveness only. But transformation - that my faith can work through love. By all means, happy to keep hearing your perspective here—iron sharpens iron and this is very similar to my internal debates I had with myself coming into this. God bless. 🙏

Hey thank I'll look into it and add this to my list. I'm curious as which tradition you mention explicitly rejects the gospel? I've been reading more scripture and history surrounding it than I ever have in the past. I would hope anybody making a decision to publicly proclaim their faith does so on an informed basis, at least to the best of their ability. I'm not exactly rejecting everything I was taught in Evangelical congregations, I actually really appreciate a lot of what it taught and gave me as a young man.

Good afternoon #nostr Hope you're having some good fun this weekend. I've been gone a while, stacking good days on good days. Anniversary trip out to the Smokey Mountains a few weeks ago. We spotted a few trout but didn't quite have the time to snag them - just this little warpaint shiner. 🫡 Weather and season was straight out of a calendar though. We also spotted several black bear, eagles, otters, deer and bucks. Ate some solid BBQ. Watched the sunrise over the mountains from our cabin. Good reading and classic movie watching. Really healthy on the soul.