Tag: Catholicism

Spam Evangelism

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I just had a loooooong comment added to my article explaining the meaning of “IHS”:

What is the difference between a Christian and a Protestant. If we are to FULLY lean on God’s Word, we are to be called “Christian” 3 times in the NT. Obviously, we are no Jewish/Hebrew, and we are the bride, NOT the chosen people of God. I have been called a Protestant and never understood why, as it is a title, NOT a belief. I believe in God’s Word, that Jesus (who is God in the flesh) became man to die for our sins and ONLY through his sacrifice, I am saved, by grace NOT by works “lest any man should boast”. So, biblically speaking, there are only 2 kinds of people; believers and non-believers, aka “sheep and the goat’s. Not sure if I may have missed it in the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic of being called a Protestant, but there is that.

Scripture is the authority, as it IS Jesus (John 1:1) and if you do not accept that verse, then you have issues you need to figure out before discussing any scripture or claim (generalization, NOT a finger point). So, if Jesus IS the Word of God, and is God, within his Word (himself) he promises to preserve His Word and never changes. Would we agree on that? Now, if we agree with that, then we can logically conclude, only 1 version of the Word of God that is among men is correct. That meaning; certain versions have pieces added to and others have some taken away. So, then, which ones?!

Now, my next question(s) are as follows, how would a Catholic respond (with scripture and other sources) for the following information:

For the first 280 years of Christian history, Christianity was banned by the Roman Empire, and Christians were terribly persecuted. This changed after the “conversion” of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Constantine provided religious toleration with the Edict of Milan in AD 313, effectively lifting the ban on Christianity. Later, in AD 325, Constantine called the Council of Nicea in an attempt to unify Christianity. Constantine envisioned Christianity as a religion that could unite the Roman Empire, which at that time was beginning to fragment and divide. While this may have seemed to be a positive development for the Christian church, the results were anything but positive. Just as Constantine refused to fully embrace the Christian faith but continued many of his pagan beliefs and practices, so the Christian church that Constantine and his successors promoted progressively became a mixture of true Christianity and Roman paganism.

Most Roman Catholic beliefs and practices regarding Mary are completely absent from the Bible. Where did those beliefs come from? The Roman Catholic view of Mary has far more in common with the Isis mother-goddess religion of Egypt than it does with anything taught in the New Testament. Interestingly, the first hints of Catholic Mariology occur in the writings of Origen, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, which happened to be the focal point of Isis worship.

The Lord’s Supper being a consumption of the literal body and blood of Jesus is not taught in the Bible. The idea that bread and wine are miraculously transformed into the literal body and blood of Jesus (transubstantiation) is not biblical. However, several ancient pagan religions, including Mithraism, which was very popular in the Roman Empire, had some form of “theophagy” (the eating of one’s god) as a ritualistic practice.

Roman Catholicism has “saints” one can pray to in order to gain a particular blessing. For example, Saint Gianna Beretta Molla is the patron saint of fertility. Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of animals. There are multiple patron saints of healing and comfort. Nowhere is even a hint of this taught in Scripture. Just as the Roman pantheon of gods had a god of love, a god of peace, a god of war, a god of strength, a god of wisdom, etc., so the Catholic Church has a saint who is “in charge” over each of these and many other categories. Many Roman cities had a god specific to the city, and the Catholic Church provided “patron saints” for cities as well.

The idea that the Roman bishop is the vicar of Christ, the supreme leader of the Christian Church, is utterly foreign to the Word of God. The supremacy of the Roman bishop (the papacy) was created with the support of the Roman emperors. While most other bishops (and Christians) resisted the idea of the Roman bishop being supreme, the Roman bishop eventually rose to supremacy, again, due to the power and influence of the Roman emperors. After the western half of the Roman Empire collapsed, the popes took on the title that had previously belonged to the Roman emperors—Pontifex Maximus.

Many more examples could be given. These four should suffice in demonstrating the origin of the Catholic Church. Of course, the Roman Catholic Church denies the pagan origin of its beliefs and practices. The Catholic Church disguises its pagan beliefs under layers of complicated theology and church tradition. Recognizing that many of its beliefs and practices are utterly foreign to Scripture, the Catholic Church is forced to deny the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.

The origin of the Catholic Church is the tragic compromise of Christianity with the pagan religions that surrounded it. Instead of proclaiming the gospel and converting the pagans, the Catholic Church “Christianized” the pagan religions and “paganized” Christianity. By blurring the differences and erasing the distinctions, the Catholic Church made itself attractive to the idolatrous people of the Roman Empire. One result was the Catholic Church becoming the supreme religion in the Roman world for centuries. However, another result was the most dominant form of Christianity apostatizing from the true gospel of Jesus Christ and the true proclamation of God’s Word.

Second Timothy 4:3–4 declares, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”

Blog Comment

The comment is what I call “Spam Evangelism”. This is where someone goes around pasting the same text on any website they can find. It usually begins as a simple question but quickly degenerates into a confusing long list of challenges to Catholic doctrine which jump from topic to topic. In this case, it wasn’t even posted on an article which related to Catholic doctrine! When I respond, 99% of the time I never receive a reply…

Fortunately for the person who posted this, Heath, I have a policy of always answering questions! Additionally, I want to provide a resource to anyone else who has this posted on their blogs or social media pages…

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Responding to the rock

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I came across a series from a local large evangelical church called “The Rock”. The series is called “True Religion”:

While Pastor Miles seems nice, his explanation of Catholicism leaves a lot to be desired. In general, he offers a surface explanation of Catholicism and then a simple prooftext to counter its claims.

The Protestant Tradition

For example, when he speaks about the importance in Catholicism of tradition, he neglects important passages which support this, such as the following passage where St. Paul places the importance and authority of his letters (Sacred Scripture) with what has been passed on to the Thessalonians orally (Sacred Tradition):

So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.

2 Thessalonians 2:15

Now, Pastor Miles might disagree with the interpretation of this verse, but to omit it entirely from the discussion is to present the Catholic case poorly.

Another common pattern in his presentation is that he makes an assumption without justification. For example, he (quite correctly) says that if a tradition conflicts with Scripture then the tradition is wrong:

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die.’ But you say, ‘If any one tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father.’ So, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God.

Matthew 15:1-6

This is all entirely true…but to successfully make the case he is trying to build, he must first prove that particular Catholic Traditions conflict with Scripture.

Historical Fiction

As expected, Pastor Miles tells the usual canards concerning Constantine, suggesting to me that Pastor Miles hasn’t read any serious books concerning Church History.

He cites the Edict of Milan as the turning point at which all these non-Biblical traditions crept in. However, a brief survey of the Church prior to the birth of Constantine shows this not to be the case.

He cites Johann Tetze as though his claims were official Catholic teaching. His explanation of the Council of Trent, which he keeps calling a “Conference”, was also lacking.

Faith and Works

Pastor Miles makes the quite a mess of his section concerning faith and works. Aside from the fact that he conflates “works” and “works of the law”, he seems to think penance is earning forgiveness, as are indulgences, neither of which is correct.

Although it wasn’t clear, it seems that Pastor Miles holds to Once Saved, Always Saved.

Saints Alive!

In his presentation, we were told that Catholicism leads to idolatry, with the usual complaints about the Saints, skipping over the Catholic distinctions between worship and veneration, as well as the Scriptural evidence of the Saints in Heaven praying.

He made a poor argument from St. Paul in an attempt to discredit the idea of Saints praying:

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus

1 Timothy 2:5

He claimed that Mary didn’t remain a virgin, using Matthew 13:55 in an attempt to show that she had at least seven children. At this point it became clear to me that Pastor Miles doesn’t seem to have ever read a Catholic defence of this doctrine, otherwise he would know the Biblical references which show his claim to be untenable.

The usual stuff about repetitious prayers was said, which I found a bit amusing, since I’ve been to his church and sung along with his congregation which likes to sing choruses over again and again.

Sola Scriptura

Naturally, the fatal assumption throughout his presentation was Sola Scriptura. He would talk about a Catholic doctrine and ask “Where is that in the Bible?”. That is a doctrine which must first be proved.

He didn’t really talk about where the canon of Scripture comes from. There’s just a throw-away comment about Catholics adding books to the Bible, once more confirming that history isn’t Pastor Miles’ strong suit.

Purgatory

Pastor Miles claimed that “The Catholic tradition offers the false hope of purgatory to cleanse unforgiven sins while the Bible teaches that Jesus alone is the forgiver of all sin”. Clearly he hasn’t read the two paragraphs in the Catechism about Purgatory.

He asks how on earth someone could become a Christian and not be perfectly purified. I would have thought a little bit of self-examination should answer this question. I’d be very surprised if Pastor Miles said that he was perfectly free from all sin and attachment to sin. If that’s not the case, then he needs further purification. I think another problem is that he conflates purification and unforgiveness.

Conclusion

All-in-all, this was a rather lacklustre rebuttal of Catholicism. Pastor Miles demonstrated his lack of familiarity with Church History and Catholic teaching. If he were to do this again, I would recommend that he “steel man” the Catholic position, offering arguments, history and Scripture before attempting to refute it.

Why the Byzantine Liturgy is great For kids…

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This past week, a friend of mine visited my Byzantine Catholic parish. Afterwards, she admitted that she had been rather apprehensive about how her small child was going to react to the whole experience. After all, she knew that the Byzantine Liturgy was typically ninety minutes long, rather than the forty-five minute Mass which her son had previously been used to experiencing.

Even though I have no children of my own, I offered the somewhat counter-intuitive claim that the Byzantine Liturgy is in some ways better suited to children than a Novus Ordo or Tridentine Mass. A bold claim, I know, but I stand by it! So, here are my top ten reasons why I think the Byzantine Liturgy is great if you have small children…

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Frank Turek’s Blind Spot

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I enjoy a lot of Frank Turek’s apologetics and listen to his weekly podcast, but he really does have a few blind spots. I recently came across this video which shows that the canon of Scripture is one such blind spot…

What he says here concerning the discernment of the canon isn’t entirely false, but he offers a very insufficient description of what took place. It was the Catholic Church who determined the canon in the early centuries of the Church. In fact, it’s a bit embarrassing that it’s the questioner who is the first person to bring up these councils!

His statement about the Protestant Bible lining up with the Jewish Old Testament is too simplistic, so much so that it’s misleading. The Protestant Old Testament matches the canon of the Jews today… but not of all the Jews in the First Century! After all, there were a number of different Jewish sects in the First Century, such as the Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes. Each of these groups had a different canon of Scripture…

Now, the Protestant canon matches the canon settled by the rabbis in the Second Century, following the establishment of the Church and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. However, this begs the question: why should Christians accept the opinion of this particular Jewish group? After all, these are the successors to those who rejected that Jesus was the Messiah! If they didn’t recognize the Word incarnate, why would they necessarily correctly recognise the written Word of God? Not only that, wouldn’t they have motivation to exclude books from the canon which very clearly prophesy the suffering of Jesus?

The really egregious error in this video is Frank’s assertion that Roman Catholics added books to the Bible at the Council of Trent. That claim is patently false and honestly I’d expect more from an apologist of Frank’s calibre. Catholics did not add books to the Bible at the Reformation, the Protestants removed them. This is just one of the worst arguments used against the Deuterocanon. Incidentally, Luther even tried to remove books from the New Testament, such as the Epistle of James because he couldn’t reconcile it with his novel theology of Sola Fide…

The Catholic Bible aligns itself to the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament which is the translation most often quoted by the New Testament authors themselves. The Catholic Canon was declared by the early councils of the Church, as well as later ones such as The Council of Florence (AD 1431). You don’t have to wait for the Council of Trent (AD 1545). For further proof of this, just ask a Coptic or Eastern Orthodox Christian if they have the Deuterocanonical books in their Bible. These Churches separated from the Catholic Church long before the Reformation, yet still have these Deuterocanonical books…conclusive proof that what Frank said here is incorrect.

Go East, young man!

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Those of you who know me, or who read this blog regularly will know that my parish is a Byzantine Catholic parish. The Catholic Church is often perceived as a uniform, monolithic structure. It is, in fact, much more diverse than most people realize. It is a communion of Churches which, while united in the one Faith, possesses a variety of liturgical and theological expressions known as “Rites”.

In this post I would like to tell the story of my discovery of the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church and how I came to find myself a member of a Byzantine parish.

There And Back Again

I was baptized into the Catholic Church as a baby at a typical Latin Rite parish back in England. After receiving my First Holy Communion, I became an altar server, a role which I took very seriously. As I entered Senior School at the age of thirteen, my family started going to Mass at the Benedictine Abbey which was connected to my School.

At University I had an awakening in my faith, after which I started really diving into Sacred Scripture. Unfortunately, after I graduated, I became disillusioned with the Catholic Church and spent several years attending non-Catholic congregations. However, after a few years, I began to see the fundamental problems with Sola Scriptura and the challenge of The Early Church, so I stopped attending non-Catholic congregations and once again returned to embracing Catholicism fully.

Church Visiting

At this time in my life, I was living in London, awaiting a long-term visa so that I could move to the United States. Most of my friends in London were Protestant Christians and several of them had invited me to visit their parishes. There was something about visiting other Christian communities across London which I really enjoyed. I loved “reading”, so-to-speak, the language of their liturgy.

Now, many of these congregations would have vociferously asserted that they didn’t “do” liturgy, but the truth is that every Christian community has a liturgy, whether they choose to call it that or not. For example, at my former Anglican parish, despite regular comments by the pastors that anything could happen when we gathered together, there was a very predictable pattern to each and every Sunday service.

So, regardless of whether the parish acknowledged that they had a liturgy of not, I was fascinated by what their services said about how the Christians there viewed themselves, how they viewed God, as well as their relationship to Him.

The Best of the Best

One of the Protestant parishes which I visited in London was especially interesting. The music was contemporary, but without the vacuous or insipid lyrics commonly associated with that genre of music. Instead, I noticed that the content was often strongly theological. The band was top notch. It was clear that, rather than any Eucharistic sacrifice, they saw singing as their principal act of worship. This is why I was surprised to see nobody in the congregation raising their hands in praise. Having previously been a member of a charismatic church, it took a good deal of self-control to keep my hands firmly at my sides!

Probably my favourite aspect of that congregation’s Sunday service was a segment which they called “The Heroes of Faith”. This was as close to the honouring of Saints as I’ve ever seen in an evangelical context. What would happen was that a member of the congregation would offer a 5-10 minute presentation on a Christian from history. They freely claimed pre-Reformation Saints as their own, as well as fathers of Reformation such as Martin Luther.

No Common Meal

While I enjoyed visiting these different communities, one aspect of these trips was a cause for sadness. On the occasions I attended somewhere which celebrated Holy Communion, I would have to abstain. It is pretty well-known that non-Catholics should not receive the Eucharist at Mass, but it is less well known that, in a similar fashion, Catholics should not receive Holy Communion in non-Catholic communities.

As I travelled home after one such service, with the weight of the Reformation on my mind, there was a vague spark of a memory which told me that there was another part of the Catholic Church where the liturgy was different from the Mass with which I was familiar, but which was also still Catholic, so I would be able to receive Jesus in Holy Communion. When I got home, I fired up my computer and did some very vague googling. After a few minutes it transpired that my brain had been trying to remind me of the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Churches. I opened a new browser window and then searched for Eastern Rite parishes near me. Fortunately, since London has a large immigrant population, I found quite a few within relatively easy reach.

A Tour of the East

Like most Western Catholics visiting an Eastern Catholic parish for the first time, I was rather nervous. I didn’t know what strangeness I might encounter! Both before and during the service, I checked and re-checked that this was, in fact, a legitimate Catholic parish in communion with the Bishop of Rome.

The first parish I visited was a Melkite congregation who celebrated the Divine Liturgy in an Anglican church. Since they were borrowing another denomination’s building, the interior wasn’t very eastern, although I do remember there being two large, beautiful icons of the Lord and the Theotokos which made a makeshift iconostasis. The Liturgy was in Arabic, but I could follow along somewhat using a book which had the English and Arabic side-by-side, much like the dual text you might use in a Tridentine Mass. At that Liturgy I received a foretaste of the Eastern emphasis on penance, with the entire homily devoted to the subject of fasting. This was then juxtaposed with the East’s love of feasting! As I left the building, a deacon was standing by the door holding a basket of what looked like bread. I froze, uncertain as to what was being presented to me. “What…or who…is this?”, I asked. “It’s not the Eucharist”, he replied, “It’s just blessed bread…we just like to keep the celebration going!”. My journey through the Eastern Rites of the Church now began in earnest…

The next parish I visited was a Maronite congregation, a parish which had a larger congregation than the Melkites I had visited and who shared a building with a Latin Rite parish. I was still nervous visiting, but once again I was warmly welcomed by the pastor. The Liturgy was also in Arabic, but this time the Arabic and English translation were projected onto the wall at the front of the church, which made it even easier to follow along. To my surprise, rather than handing out blessed bread at the end, we received a small, sweet pastry, something akin to baklava.

My visa for the USA came through around this time, but before I left London I had the chance to visit a Ukranian Byzantine parish. This was the largest Eastern parish I had visited so far. Seating was on two levels, but even then it was so full that I had to stand for the whole Liturgy. As with the previous parishes, the Liturgy was not in English, which meant that I had to rely on the “Liturgical Body Language” to understand exactly what was going on. It was a bit of shame that I couldn’t understand Ukrainian, because I remember the priest preaching very enthusiastically and wishing that I knew what he was saying.

Finding the East out West

When I moved to the United States, it didn’t even occur to me that Eastern Rite parishes might be found here too, so upon arrival I just set about finding myself a home in the Roman Diocese. Unfortunately, I soon found myself split between more than one parish, such as playing the music for the youth Mass at one parish and running the young adult group at another.

Fortunately, LifeTeen Mass did not take place during the school vacations. Realizing that I was at liberty to visit other churches, it suddenly occurred to me that I might be able to visit another of those Eastern Rite parishes. To my great delight, I discovered one close by. You can read more about my visit here, but it is safe to say that I quickly fell in love with this parish. Not only was the parish of Holy Angels covered wall-to-wall with stunning iconography, I experienced the Byzantine Liturgy in English for the first time. I was almost giddy at how often the Early Church Fathers were mentioned. I loved that we sang virtually all the prayers, the chant being both beautiful and relatively easy to learn. For the longest time in my faith journey I had struggled with Marian devotion, but in the Byzantine Church I discovered a kind of love for Mary which came very naturally to me, helped, I would suggest, by the clear Christological focus in its Mariology. The parishioners noticed that I was a newcomer and came over to welcome me. On top of all this, the Pastor, Fr. Robert, was exceptionally kind to me and more than willing to answer my many, many questions.

At the end of the Summer, I returned to playing at the LifeTeen Mass, but over the coming months I took any opportunity to return, to attend Byzantine Vespers on Saturday night, as well as the occasional weekday service. I can’t quite remember how long I continued like this, but I think it was for about a year. Eventually, I became fatigued by being split across several parishes. I decided that I needed a single parish home. The choice was obvious. So, for the first time in my life, I officially registered at a parish, Holy Angels Byzantine Catholic Church.

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