the more they stay the same. That’s the old adage. And in a sense, it is quite true.
Recently the topic of Roman Catholicism has been front and center on Twitter. Taylor Marshall, a convert to Roman Catholicism (of some sort, anyway, though surely not the same sort as Pope Francis holds), has been posting short, sort of “in your face” tweets that are very clear in demonstrating some of the key errors of the Roman Catholic system. I have responded to a few, and will be using others on the Dividing Line as jumping-off points.
But I am more interested in this short little missive to note the kinds of responses I have seen provided to Marshall, and other Roman Catholics. Some are solid, of course, but most show an abysmal knowledge of Roman Catholic theology, and even less of Roman Catholic apologetics. It is self-evident that most today who are not Roman Catholic are so not out of a knowledgable conviction, but out of their own “tastes” and traditions. Of course, the large majority of the Roman Catholic world is made up of nominal Catholics who almost never attend church, do not take the teachings of the church seriously, do not live in obedience to such teachings, etc. That’s the human condition.
But to be a non-Roman Catholic in the West is to buck the trends, so to speak, and that requires one to be knowledgable, and committed, to one’s beliefs.
It is not that we have not addressed pretty much every topic that is being bandied about on social media today in the past, especially in our many debates with Roman Catholic apologists dating back to August of 1990. It is rather humorous when I hear young RC apologists and zealots dismissing all of those debates as “just too old to be relevant” or “that is just so 90s.” These same young folks do not recognize the massive difference between JPII and Francis, either, but the rest of us have lived through those very different epochs. But the doctrinal issues, especially as they relate to historical claims, have no changed in the brief few decades since 1990.
I hope today’s zealous evangelicals will get a firm grasp on where they stand in the line of church history, and come to understand Rome’s best arguments, and the best responses thereto. Right now, most of those I see responding to Roman claims are giving shallow, not overly-challenging replies. I hope to have a hand in helping to ground them more firmly in the faith as we continue to respond to Rome’s claims.
