In the Catholic Church you find what is best from every other religion and denomination. It is syncretistic in practice without being syncretistic in dogma.
Do you like the austere asceticism and counter cultural life of the Mennonites and Amish with their odd clothes, old fashioned lifestyle and prophetic and pastoral way of life? We got monks.
Do you find Hinduism intriguing and fun with its flowers and candles and statues and temples and little festivals and offerings and devotionals? Catholics have all that without the idol worship.
Do you like Anglicanism with beautiful buildings, sophisticated educated people, fine music, sumptious liturgy and a spendid history? We’ve got all that.
On the other hand, do you like down to earth worship with folksy people involved in fellowship, peace and justice and making the world a better place? There sure plenty of that in the Catholic Church.
What about scholarship? Are you impressed with the bookishness of Protestants, the erudition of the Jewish scholars and the love of Bible learning among sincere Evangelicals? Catholics have it too.
What about Eastern religions? Are you drawn to esoteric spiritualities? Mystical experiences? Meditation? Monasticism? Catholicism offers a rich banquet of 2000 years worth of spirituality.
Closed communion like the Plymouth Brethren? It’s Catholic. Tolerance and acceptance of other religions and seeing what is good about them like Protestant liberals? That’s Catholic too.
Of course, it could be argued that all the bad stuff about other religions you will also find in the Catholic Church, and I suppose that would be true up to a point–at least to the point of admitting human failure, hypocrisy and defeat, but hey, let’s accentuate the positive.
Hmmm, How about someone who is not only Anglican but also holds to the classic Reformed position of TULIP?1. Total Inability. The “natural man” not only will not come to God on his own he actually hates God, even though in his innermost being he “knows” God exists, he hates and despises God so he seeks out other things to replace God in order to silence that inward knowledge.2. Unconditional Election. Those chosen to be saved are chosen by God not based on His foreknowledge, but on His good pleasure. God is not “obligated” to save anyone. We all deserve His wrath and Judgement as sinners fit only for Hell. It is out of His Divine Love that He has in fact chosen some.3.Limited Atonement. While the Atonement of Jesus Christ is SUFFICIENT for All people it is only effectual for those whom God has chosen and elected to salvation.4. Irreistable Grace, Since it is God who Elects to salvation and because it is Grace from Him and therefore by its very nature it is effectual to move the will in the elect to come to God and be saved. God is not a divine “rapist” or “mugger” who forces someone against their will to come to Him, He moves the Human will to allow and make the Human Will willing to have Faith and by Grace do those things pleasing to Him. The reprobate or “damned” are not positively chosen by God to be damned, He passively allows them to perish in their own sin. The damned are damned because they damn themselves.5. Preservation ot also called Perseverance of the Saints. “He Who began a Good Work in you will bring it to completion, for God is at work in you, both to will and work for His good pleasure.” Once Elect we can have confidence in God that He will bring us to Himself, that by Grace through Faith trusting in God’s promises He will never leave us or forsake us. But we also by Grace must examine ourselves to take heed lest we be puffed up with pride and presumption and to make our calling and Election sure by following Jesus and by Grace do His Will and keep His commandment to love one another. If we do this then we can have confidence that the Lord will keep us.Sorry to digress. I don’t know if you can call the above “Reformed” per se, but it is what I hold to based on my reading the Sacred Scriptures, Augustine and Thomas Acquinas. An Augustinian/Thomist Tulip? Why not.
TULIP is the partial truth, but when it is expressed as the only truth it is heretical. That is because all heresy is not totally untrue, it is just part of the truth paraded as the full truth.1. Catholics believe in original sin. Mankind’s personality is grievously wounded by sin, and without grace is unable to apprehend God. However, God’s grace is flowing in many ways and through human reason, man is able to understand some of God’s actions and begin to see that there is a God even though without divine grace he cannot understand or accept divine revelation.2 and 3. The extreme views are balanced by the other Scriptural truths that God is not willing for any to perish and that Christ died to save all men in his unconditional love, who is ‘elect’ and who is not ‘elect’ is a fruitlessly academic question since that is known to God alone.4. While this is true to a point, it is balanced by the belief in human free will. People can reject God’s love or accept God’s love according to the free will he grants them.5.Perseverance is not only God’s grace at work in us, but also our co operation with God’s grace. God give us a free will. We must use it.In this respect, the point of my post stands. We affirm all that the Calvinist affirms. We simply do not deny what they deny, and it is in what they deny that the extreme Calvinist drifts into heresy.