The head of the Southern Baptist Mission Board spoke to a meeting of the agency’s trustees in May, and the Board’s website reports what he had to say about Catholics:
MISSIONS IN CATHOLIC COUNTRIES
In his president’s report to trustees, Rankin noted the passing of Pope John Paul II, a man beloved by millions of Protestants and evangelicals “for his zeal, his personal warmth and his unyielding stand for human dignity, the sanctity of life and many other moral convictions shared in common.”
Rankin added, however, that nearly 1,200 Southern Baptist missionaries continue to serve in 65 predominately Roman Catholic countries where 852 million people live. “Why would we invest such efforts in Catholic countries? The answer is quite simple: It is because they are lost,” Rankin said. “The people may be identified as cultural Christians since that is their socio-religious profile, but most of them do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ…. They, too, deserve an opportunity to hear, understand and respond to the life-changing message of the gospel. They cannot be ignored in our commitment that all peoples would know our Lord Jesus Christ.”
His diagnosis probably does apply to many Catholics, but the solution to that problem should be scripturally sound evangelization: the Gospel with a visibly united Church, with the Sacraments instituted by Christ, with a link to the apostolic authority Christ established.
A man I knew who was the son of a Northern Baptist minister said that as a teenager he had been on a mission trip…to Malta ! I could only think, “hasn’t somebody already done that ?”
(BTW, when I met him, he was in the process of becoming Catholic.)
Malta! Isn’t that one of the most Catholic countries in the world?
But Catholics aren’t truly Christians. Didn’t you know that, bud?