Archive for category: Roman Catholicism

    This image expresses what I have been trying to say for a few days now. This image appears in rotating fashion at www.catholic.com, the Catholic Answers website. A number of years ago I wrote the following in my book, Mary–Another Redeemer?: It is general knowledge that Pope John Paul II is highly devoted to the Virgin Mary. He credits

…at least from an “apologist.” This just appeared on Dave Armstrong’s blog. You remember Dave Armstrong. Yes, he’s the fellow who kept stealing Angel’s artwork, having a four-year old butcher it, and posting it on his blog. Same fellow who melted down into a puddle of apologetic goo when I finally invested the time to start working through his book,

The posting of my sermon from yesterday (mp3) has generated an incredible response, both positively and negatively. Combined with the blog entries over the past few days, our incoming e-mail has been hot and heavy. But so also have been the Roman Catholic web boards. While Steve Ray shut his down, the Catholic Answers forums and those at Envoy Magazine

Yesterday morning I chose to “take the risk,” scrap the message I had been prepared to deliver, and speak to the folks at Cornerstone Baptist Church about the gospel and John Paul II. Not knowing the congregation, it truly was a bit of a gamble, but the fine folks I had talked to gave me the confidence to go through

A certain set of folks will surely chalk this up to my innate stupidity, blindness, and general lack of in-depth knowledge of the sewing methods of French nuns in the northwestern corner of France in the year 1219, but I just read Peter Leithart’s comments on the death of John Paul II, and I am once again launched off into

I arrived in Detroit from speaking at the Toledo Conference and I get a text message from our massive AOMin headquarters high atop the AOMin towers (uh, yeah), “The hate mail is pouring in.” Seems one of my comments from yesterday was posted on the Steve Ray “Catholic Convert” message board. Now, if you’ve ever visited that web-board, you know

Sit back and start taking notes. How many, anywhere, even in “Christian media,” will address the only relevant issue regarding the death of John Paul II? And that issue? Well, it isn’t the length of his Pontificate, one of the longest and most stable in centuries. It isn’t the fact that as far as Pontiffs go, he was a great

I just listened to Pat Robertson throw the gospel in the trash heap. The stampede to make sure the gospel is utterly irrelevant to salvation is on. Watch as evangelicals go on record as non-Protestants.

A Vatican official just said that we need an intercessor in heaven who understands the problems of the 21st century on earth. He was talking about John Paul II going to heaven to be an intercessor. I assure that official that the Lord Jesus knows all about the troubles of the 21st century.

We are hearing a great deal about the Pope dying in peace. And for what reason? Because he has suffered. You will be able to see, and hear, just how badly understood the gospel is amongst evangelicals and others as you listen to the commentary on the Pope. The specifics of the gospel will be buried under the emotionalism of

As most of you know, various news sources are reporting Pope John Paul II has died, while others, including the Vatican, are denying this. However, the Vatican has confirmed that he is dying, and that it is only a matter of time. I am in Toledo, Ohio, preparing to speak this evening at the Toledo Reformed Theology Conference, so I

Want further evidence of the decline of every form of “Protestantism” that abandons sola scriptura? Jimmy Akin of Catholic Answers noted the Time magazine article(s) on the changing views of Mary in “Protestant” churches, something they are a bit behind the curve on, but hey, they are MSM (MainStream Media) so what do you expect? But note his own words:

I was looking up a reference in the CCC today and happened upon the following two sections: 1114: “Adhering to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures, to the apostolic traditions, and to the consensus . . . of the Fathers,” we profess that “the sacraments of the new law were . . . all instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord.”

OS_X in channel wrote this one and said I inspired it, so I could used it: Answer: Seven PLUS one Protestant. One Protestant to nail a sign to the door of the monastery in Latin, explain 95 reasons why the light is burned out, THEN, one Catholic to call Rome and ask if it’s okay to change the bulb, one

But let us hurry to the real issue: Armstrong wrote, “…Christians were, therefore, bound to elements of Pharisaical teaching that were not only nonscriptural, but based on oral tradition, for this is what the Pharisees believed.” Armstrong assumes no distinction between practice, interpretation, or doctrine, regarding the teaching of the Pharisees, ignoring the function of the seat of Moses in

Regular readers of this blog are already well aware of the fact that in almost every instance of apologetic conflict with the various religions of men the issue comes down to either the validity and accuracy of the Bible as the Word of God, or, to the proper exegesis of the text of the Bible itself. And surely that is

Dave Armstrong “shows his cards” so to speak, and in so doing reveals the true motivation behind his use of Matthew 23, in these words: Thirdly, because they had the authority and no indication is given that Jesus thought they had it only when simply reading Scripture, it would follow that Christians were, therefore, bound to elements of Pharisaical teaching

At this point Armstrong opines, It reminds me of the old silly Protestant tale that the popes speak infallibly and ex cathedra (cathedra is the Greek word for seat in Matthew 23:2) only when sitting in a certain chair in the Vatican — because the phrase means literally “from the bishop’s chair” — whereas it was a figurative and idiomatic

I would like to expand, momentarily, on a thought with which I closed the last installment in this series. Mr. Armstrong is right to say that the text does not provide us with a direct listing of what the Pharisees did or did not teach when speaking in the synagogue. That can only be determined on the basis of other

We continue reviewing Dave Armstrong’s comments on Matthew 23. He continues with a citation from my book, The Roman Catholic Controversy, p. 101, on p. 47 of The Catholic Verses. However, he does not provide some key elements of the material he is citing, so I will provide the paragraph, but will bold what was skipped, or not included, in

In the previous installment of this series I provided an introduction and the comments I made in The Roman Catholic Controversy regarding the use of Matthew 23:1-3 by Roman Catholic apologists. Let’s make sure we understand what is required of the Roman Catholic apologist in order to substantiate their claims. First, there needs to be an identifiable oral tradition regarding

The Great Debate X will be June 9th. I will be debating Bill Rutland, a lay Catholic apologist, on the topic of salvation as laid out by the modern Roman Catholic Catechism, in particular, in passages such as these: 841 The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first

This will be my final installment in response to Dave Armstrong’s The Catholic Verses. It is not that there are not many more passages that could be addressed, it is just that there is so very little actual exegesis in the book that the real essence of its self-enunciated claim to provide a defense of the Roman Catholic exegesis of

As we were working to set up the next debate on Long Island we had contacted Tim Staples about joining the long list of Catholic apologists who have, over the past ten years, engaged in The Great Debate series. We were informed that he was joining the staff of Catholic Answers, and that they wanted him to take a year

I had not seen the sample pages of the CASB (the Catholic Apologetics Study Bible) at Sungenis’ website, but Eric Svendsen started poking around and comments on one of the offered notes here. I looked at the other pages, and since none of the interesting notes had enough context to really comment, I have to ask myself: do I want

…then why do we find Roman Catholics debating about the nature of the central act of worship in Roman Catholicism? This is one debate I may well find time to attend myself. Sungenis vs. Matatics on whether the Novus Ordo Mass is valid. But Rome is all united because of its tradition and the Papacy, yes? Hopefully a few Roman

I recently invested a few blog articles in demonstrating that Mark Bonocore of The Catholic Legate is an unrealiable source of apologetic argumentation. Immediately following the section on Isaiah 22, Bonocore, in his own inimitable style, responded to a statement I had made. My words come first: You wrote: “Now, while it is true that, in Matt 18:18, Jesus bestows

I continue reviewing the attempted defense of the modern usage of Isaiah 22:20-22 by Roman Catholic apologists, responding to Mark Bonocore. In our previous installments we have examined Bonocore’s use of patristic sources in reference to Irenaeus and John Cassian. We continue with his presentation: I believe the reason we don’t see Isaiah 22 used more extensively is that it’s

Context, context, context. Cassian is writing against the Nestorians on the Incarnation. In chapter 11 of Book III he transitions from a primary use of Pauline texts to some derived from the Gospels. He briefly alludes to Martha’s confession of Christ in John 11:27, but quickly moves to Peter’s testimony in chapter 12, from which Bonocore quotes. Let’s look at

I return now to my response to the articles by Mark Bonocore, noted in the blog responses on Dave Armstrong’s page. The article that was sited was on Apolonio Latar’s site (http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/num18.htm). But since it had been a very long time since I had taken the time to track down what Mark Bonocore was up to, I did a little

   HUMOR ALERT! HUMOR ALERT! Granite-faced Calvinists and frigid cold Catholics need not continue reading, or even look! As some of you know, Dave Armstrong at first tried to reply, somewhat, to my review of his book, The Catholic Verses. Then he pulled the plug on responding to “anti-Catholics,” again, as he has done in the past, as Eric Svendsen so