This Month in Prophecy – January 2023 – Part II – State of the Church

Last Wednesday, the Pope held an audience in Rome. He addressed a gathering for his General Audience where he said that ‘convincing someone from another religion to become a Christian is a pagan practice.’ So, to ‘evangelise’ is not to ‘proselytise’. To proselytise is something pagan, it’s neither religious nor evangelical. What does he mean by ‘proselytise’? What he means by ‘proselytise’ is what you and I understand by ‘evangelise’. It means to try to persuade somebody who is not a Christian to become a Christian, to tell someone who may be a Muslim or a Hindu or even Jew to believe in Jesus as Saviour. That’s what the Pope is attacking and he’s saying that that’s a pagan practice. He goes on to say, ‘you mustn’t do this, especially if you’re talking to somebody who already has a religion.’ Are you Jewish, Muslim, Hindu? He says the church should grow by attracting people with the beauty of God’s love. Sounds good! Apparently, this love means accepting everybody as they are, not trying to change their mind to become Christians, but loving them so they might become happy children of God. Sounds quite appealing to today’s kind of world, wouldn’t you say? Mentality, what it means, is that the church must accept all kinds of ideas and all kinds of people without trying to change them. These include anti-Christian ideas and lifestyles. The church, according to the Pope, must accept all people and never try to change their minds, ask them to repent and believe the Gospel. It should just talk about love and, as it talks about love, then people are going to be attracted to the church and, if they’re attracted to the church, then they are accepted as they are, they don’t have to change.