141: Understanding Catholicism with Phylicia Masonheimer

Phylicia Masonheimer is a wife, mom of 3 littles, national bestselling author of Stop Calling Me Beautiful, speaker, podcaster, and blogger. She joins me on the Home and Hearth podcast for the third time, this time to chat all about Catholicism and how Protestants and Catholics ought to interact. 

What we Chat about in This Episode

~The DM I received which led to this conversation

~Catholic theology 101

~The beginning of the Catholic church; Peter as the first Pope

~How the legalization of Christianity by Constantine in the 300s affected and changed the church into an entity with political power; how this led to problems Luther later addressed

~The church split between the Eastern Orthodox church and the Western Roman Catholic church in 1066

~What church history reveals about the Catholic church

~The oftentimes vitriolic discord between Catholics and Protestants today and what we should do about it

~The good (and not so good!) aspects of the Reformation

~Good that has come from the Catholic church

~The crucial importance about being honest about church history

~The Catholic church's own inside Reformation

~The importance of willingly calling sin sin - no matter what camp it is coming from

~Answering the question of whether or not there are Christians in the Catholic church

~The similarities and differences between the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent and the Catholic Church today; the implications of Vatican II in the 20th century

~How the nominal approach to Christianity which Catholics are accused of is also prevalent in the Protestant church, as well

~Similarities between certain issues in the Catholic church and certain of the same issues in the Protestant church

~How we as Protestants are too often guilty of misrepresenting what Catholics actually believe; the importance of basing our view of Catholicism on Catholic sources and resources themselves, rather than on mere hearsay

~The existence of bias in all of us

~The prejudice that can exist between Catholics and Protestants; how knowing actual church history can help us with this

~Being willing to be an honest critical thinker as opposed to running to the traps of legalism and extremism

~Our call to do good works as the hands and feet of Christ

~Being very careful what we do and do not label as a cult

~Being willing to be slow to speak, quick to listen, and quick to understand; the huge impact this can have on our interactions with people we do disagree with

~The existence of variations of belief among Catholics, just as there are among Protestants

~Bringing down straw man arguments

~And more!

For full shownotes, head to www.hargraveshomeandhearth.com/podcast