Owen Bears More False Witness

Presbyterian scholar and professor at Montreat College Paul Owen continues bearing false witness in his public writings. After writing to Roman Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong that he would indeed be able to worship alongside a Roman Catholic “much more easily than with James White or David King” (Owen has said before he would rather see someone in a Catholic Church than a Baptist) and that while he doesn’t agree with the Mass, it’s just not one of his “issues,” Owen states, “Folks like White and King get along fine with Baptists, and hate Roman Catholics.” I would simply like to point out two really obvious problems with Dr. Owen’s statement: first, I do try to get along with Baptists, because I am one. Secondly, it is a lie, plain and simple, to say I hate Roman Catholics. This is the same ploy used by those in our society who refuse to engage issues but instead seek to inflame passions by construing disagreement as hatred. I have a long history of ministry regarding Roman Catholicism (Owen has none), and unless we adopt his post-modernistic way of thinking, he has no basis for such a slanderous allegation. It is troubling to note that in the very same paragraph Owen noted the use of the death penalty by some of the Reformers for Anabaptists (the difference, of course, between an Anabaptist and a modern Reformed Baptist or a Southern Presbyterian having been swept conveniently under the rug) but failed to voice any condemnation of the use of capital punishment. One is truly left to wonder.