spiritual warfare differences QUESTION from Wes February 26, 2000 cool site!, I plan on being a missionary, I'm Baptist (but really just consider myself Christian) It's intresting the way the two denomanations handle spiritual warfare the youth/young-adult mission team I'm on now is going through a book on spiritual warfare called the bondage breaker mostly the protestant(sp?) churches seem to hold we have the same authority and victory through Christ, and any born-again Christian has the authority to cast out demons (as opposed to only a Priest) we were givien the power to cast them out. Just a comment, And I liked finally being able to find a site to answer my questions about your denomanation, all my Catholic friends told me to ask, Why my I ask did you change denomanations?
ANSWER by John-Paul Ignatius, O.L.S.M. on March 1, 2000 Dear Mr. Wes:
I am glad you like our website.
Yes there are some differences in the understanding of Spiritual Warfare between Catholic Christians and Protestant Christians. Much of the difference is in the different ways Catholics and Protestants interpret Scripture as it relates to the Church and Church authority.
Catholics interpret the Scripture literally and take Jesus at his word about this subject. Protestants do not interpret the Bible literally on this subject but mis-interpret it according to pre-conceived ideas and usually come up with various non-literal interpretations to try to explain away the plain sense of Scripture on this subject.
That, by the way, is why I converted to the Catholic Church -- I discovered that the Catholic Church is the only Chruch on the planet that is truely honest and literal about the Scriptures. But that is another story. My Conversion story will be online in a few months.
The Bondage Breaker is a great book. It wsa written by an acquaintance of mine, Neil Anderson. If fact the book is so great that I have been planning on asking Neil if I may revised the book and publish a Catholic edition. There is very little that would have to be changed to make it Catholic, but there are some things.
I am leaving this afternoon for an International Conference on Spiritual Warfare in Souix City, Iowa where I originally met Neil Anderson. I was going to ask him about a Catholic edition to his book while at dinner. But, alas, he is not able to make this year's conference so I will have to contact him at his office in California.
I do recommend the book and also the other books that Neil Anderson has written, especially for you as a Protestant.
But for Catholic readers, remember that Neil is a Protestant. His books are great, but there are a few items that would need to be changed to make them consistent with Catholic teaching.
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