[OBW]

Harold,

I think you've taken a little too much of the evangelical position on the RCC to heart. I don't disagree with many of the faults of the organization. And they have recently been showing their tendency toward getting directly involved in government and politics (4th verse, same as the first on that count).

But we gloss over the tremendous stability of teaching and doctrine. (A trait that has been both good and bad — hard to bring in error, but once it is there, hard to eradicate.) It took them some time (centuries) yet they now agree with Martin Luther on most of his theses.

And while they are not likely to ever move to an evangelical mode of "salvation," that is such a late-comer to the dance that we should understand it less as the God-ordained way and more like another way to come to faith.

Learning for a life-time and somewhere along the way realizing that you have come to believe has been the way for most of Christian history. No, it was not as common in the first days since there was no opportunity to learn. But they also baptized the whole family when the head of the house believed.