Notes

Class date: 6/3/18

Brief history

Founded: 1879 by Charles Taze Russell

Background:

Before he got his religious career well underway, Russell promoted what he called "miracle wheat," which he sold at sixty dollars per bushel. He claimed it would grow five times as well as regular wheat. In ...

Class date: 6/3/18

Brief history

Founded: 1830 by Joseph Smith, Jr.

Background: As a young man, Smith was confused by all the competing varieties of Protestantism (apparently Catholicism was out of the question for him).

Founding:

• Smith claimed that in 1820, in immediate response to prayer, he saw ...

Class date: 6/3/18

1. The qualities of infallibility, authority, and indefectibility are closely intertwined.
   • Authority means __? (Christ gives Church power to act in His name to teach, govern, and sanctify.)
   • Infallibility means __? (When teaching ex cathedra, the Pope is protected from error by the Holy Spirit. A similar ...

Class dates: 5/6/18 and 5/20/18

1. Develop your understanding by reviewing the cheatsheets from class.
2. Invite questioner to pray with you – ex: “may the Holy Spirit lead us into all truth”
3. Keep focus on finding the truth, not on winning the argument.
4. Stay on topic – one topic at a ...

Class date: 5/6/18

• Begin with prayer

1. “Sound Arguments” article

2. Scandals of one kind or another often figure into fallacious arguments or replies to arguments.
   1. Examples:
      
      1. Crusades
      2. Inquisition
      3. sex abuse scandal
      4. Galileo case
      5. grossly immoral lives of certain Popes
   2. The accuracy of claims about these topics varies, but often older events ...

Class date: 4/22/18

Not only was "sola fide" one of the slogans of the Protestant Reformation, the differences in understanding the closely-related concepts of justification and salvation often lie at the root of other disagreements, for example the necessity and value of Purgatory.

Salvation / Justification / Faith Alone

A ...

Class date: 4/8/18

The class watched and discussed several sections of the Tim Staples video Defending Your Faith: How to Counter Standard Objections to Catholicism. Tim is a dynamic speaker who covered several hot topics, including Confession, statues, the role of works, and calling priests "Father."

He also shared ...

Class date: 18 Mar 2018

Purgatory & Prayer for the Dead

• Open with prayer

1. How are purgatory and praying for the dead related? (Praying for the dead only makes sense if there is a Purgatory, i.e. a place where the dead can be helped by our prayers.)
2. What does the ...

Class date: 3/4/18

We began with the amazing conversion story of our guest speaker, Ms. Corban. Contact me for the recording if you missed class!

How to engage with Protestant questioners

• Prayer: Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit

1. Introduction
   1. So far, we've looked at a lot of Scriptural evidence because ...

Class date: Feb 18, 2018

• Prayer: Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit

1. Communion of Saints – Study Guide p. 27
   1. During the Creed at every Mass and at the beginning of the Rosary, we say that we believe in the “communion of saints.” Can someone tell me what we mean ...