Recorded on May 15, 2017 in London: Do the Catholic Church’s Teachings on Mary Constitute Authentic Christian Doctrine? James White debates Peter D. Williams at the London Oratory in St. Wilfrid’s Hall.
Aside from a few technical hiccups and a bit of wandering about, spent pretty much the entire hour on Rome’s Marian teachings, looking in particular at where they came from. I read from such sources as the Odes of Solomon, the Ascension of Isaiah, and especially from The Protevangelium of James. Be warned! Some of this material is a bit difficult to listen
After some brief comments about some of the insanity in the world at the start, focused the rest of the hour upon the comments made by Tim Staples on yesterday’s Catholic Answers Live program where he talked about Mary and her role as co-redemptrix. Important stuff during this 500th anniversary of the Reformation! Here is the YouTube link:
I just received my set of Mark Shea’s three volume set, Mary, Mother of the Son. I began looking through it a bit Tuesday evening, and noticed no personal references in the indexes. But, as I looked at his attempt to force Revelation 12 into one of the few supports for the edifice of Marian theology I noted that either
I have added Mark Shea’s Marian series to the Ministry Resource List. I would dearly love to see some of the major Roman Catholic apologists come out of hiding, in essence, and engage in a robust debate on the claims Rome makes about Mary, but the past five years have shown a Roman Catholic apologetics community in disarray and retreat.
Took the first half hour to deal with an issue from the Marian Dogmas debate in London, specifically, the citation of Ephiphanius related to the Bodily Assumption. Then in the second half hour I went through a number of corrections of the narrative being promoted by a number of folks relating to the dialogue with Dr. Yasir Qadhi, correcting, reproving,
More specifically, I no longer see the Reformed doctrines of Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide as faithfully reflecting what the Bible teaches, which is why I will, Lord willing, be received into full communion with the Catholic Church sometime in the next several months. Let’s ponder this a moment. Scripture never directs us to a higher authority than God’s own
This morning I read through the first contribution (aside from his conversion story) by former OPC minister Jason Stewart, who has joined the “Called to Communion” blog. For those who are not familiar with it, this blog ostensibly exists so that formerly “Reformed” converts to Rome may ply their trade in calling others into Mother Church. It is a regular
Today is a “holy day of obligation” in the Roman Church. Followers of Rome are obliged to participate in Mass on such days (exceptions, of course, exist). The reason for today’s obligation? The definition by the Roman Church of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. I will not, in this brief article, go back over all of the many problems
Today is October 31, Reformation Sunday, a far more important date to note than the one being celebrated by the world, to be sure. Though no one who awoke on November 1, 1517 had any idea at all that anything of moment had taken place the day before, hindsight is powerful. I will not in this article address the issue
Over at Called to Communion, in the comment box, Bryan Cross wrote: In the first century, no one needed to confess that Christ is homoousious with the Father. But after the fourth century, to deny the homoousious is to fall into heresy. This is dead wrong and gets things exactly backwards. It has always been heresy to
Peter Stravinskas is threatening to bring legal action against us. Why? For a single blog article and my reporting that the proposed debate between us was cancelled. You can find the discussion of what happened and how I reported it here. Notice the terrible and libelous things I said there! I said the debate had been “scrubbed.” I said Stravinskas
That Sola Scriptura Thing The most eye-opening portion of Return to Rome for me was Beckwith’s self-admission that he had never held to a serious, confessional, historically and biblically grounded doctrine of sola scriptura. As one who has defended this divine truth against leading Roman Catholic apologists for most of my adult life, I found the ease with which Frank
This morning I was directed to a new feature of the Catholic Answers website, their video wall, found here. And what to my wondering eyes should appear right at the top of the “wall” but a video I reviewed over two years ago when Steve Ray linked to it by one Russ Rentler. At the time I produced the video
Five years ago now I decided to celebrate my birthday by riding up South Mountain three times. The goal was simple enough: climb 100 ft in ascent for every year of my age. So, today I did that for the fifth time. Obviously, as the years have passed, each effort gets a little harder, partly due to the simple rules
I have been away this week attempting to do some studying on various topics, and writing on projects that I have simply not been able to get to while at home. I am working on a chapter in response to Frank Beckwith’s arguments in denial of sola fide, and I am also working on the expansion of the book refuting
Many had been wondering when RC Sproul would comment on the MD, and as most of you know, he has finally broken his silence. He strongly asserts a direct connection between the MD and the ECT, citing from comments made by Colson which I had not read. Colson, one of the leading voices bringing confusion to the nature of the
I could never be a Roman Catholic apologist. It is just not in me to know that my arguments have been shredded repeatedly and yet to continue on repeating them, relying the whole time on the bare hope that the people I’m talking to just don’t care enough to look closely enough to know I’m selling them used and expired
James Swan sent me about ten clips of Shea defending his a-historical Marianism that I hope to get to on the DL soon. Today Shea posted a blog article that makes brief reference to my comments on his attack on the perspecuity and sufficiency of Scripture (found here). As is often the case with our friends on the far side
Years ago in a written debate on the claims of Roman Catholicism I pointed out the bankruptcy of the constantly repeated slogan that states that Rome is the church of the past 2,000 years. The fact that Newman had to create his development hypothesis proves that the claim is empty: the early centuries did not embrace, as part of their
Why aren’t you a Roman Catholic? That probably seems like an odd question to many of you. Yet, have you ever considered it? If you are a former Roman Catholic, you might have an answer to that question. But is it a valid answer? A solid answer? If it is an answer that involves “Father Mike was mean to me”
Catholic apologists often let us know how crucial it is to have an infallible magisterium and church Tradition in order to interpret the Bible correctly. With so many Catholic apologists now commenting on sacred scripture, I thought it would be interesting to provide their commentary on the Bible. Let’s see how they’ve been able to rightly divide the word of
Just a couple of quick notes. We will be continuing our review of the 1993 sola scriptura debate on the Dividing Line tomorrow. I have to chuckle when I see people commenting on the video, “Hey, let it go! It was 15 years ago!” The double standards are amazing. Madrid is free to make claims about the debate that simply
Started the program 30 minutes early today for a total of 90 minutes. Listened to clips by Tim Staples and Patrick Madrid, covering all sorts of subjects such as the Marian dogmas and sola scriptura.
A caller asked Steve Ray about the Protevangelium of James, one of the early “infancy gospels” from the end of the second century that became the basis for later Marian dogmas (such as the concept of the perpetual virginity of Mary). Here’s a review of his comments.
As I have looked over my archives I see that almost three months have passed since my last installment in response to Steve Ray’s attempt to defend the concept of the Bodily Assumption of Mary from Scripture. Of course, this 30 page pdf, cobbled together from various sources, is only partly on the subject of the Assumption. A large portion
(Click here for media bios and photos.) Publications Books The Fatal Flaw (Crowne Publications, 1990) Answers to Catholic Claims (Crowne Publications, 1990) Letters to a Mormon Elder (Crowne Publications, 1990, reprinted by Bethany House, 1993) Justification by Faith (Crowne Publications, 1990) God’s Sovereign Grace (Crowne Publications, 1991) Drawn by the Father (Crowne
It seems Dr. Bauman has concluded his participation in the thread noted earlier. But his means of doing so has surely left me bewildered. Evidently, charity in accepting a revert’s confession of faith is a good thing, but it seems to leave no charity left for anyone who would dare to ask you biblical and logical questions concerning your position.
For those working in the Islamic field, Lane’s huge 8-volume lexicon is now on line here. The hard-bound set is quite impressive, but take it from me…it also gives off an odd odor. Seriously. Its permanent home in my library is only a few feet from my keyboard. Frank Beckwith, apart from showing up on blogs quoting the Council of
In a previous entry, I explored the alleged parallel in the development of the Roman Catholic Marian dogmas and the Trinity. Recall, Catholic apologist Steve Ray recently sought to validate the Marian dogmas as developing like the Trinity developed. To hear Ray’s assertion, listen to this recent Dividing Line broadcast. I pointed out the Marian dogmas are not mined from
After this past Thursday’s Dividing Line, I’ve been looking around for any type of response from Steve Ray or his supporters. One person on Ray’s discussion board at the “world premier” quipped, “There was also some guy named J. White on the guest list, but he never showed.” Well, at least this may indicate some of his Ray’s supporters at
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