The People's Pope, The Man of the Year

Once there was a boy so meek and modest, he was awarded a Most Humble badge. The next day, it was taken away because he wore it. Here endeth the lesson.” And here endeth the opening quote from TIME’s story to announce Pope Francis as the Person of the Year for 2013. Nancy Gibbs continues:

How do you practice humility from the most exalted throne on earth? Rarely has a new player on the world stage captured so much attention so quickly—young and old, faithful and cynical—as has Pope Francis. In his nine months in office, he has placed himself at the very center of the central conversations of our time: about wealth and poverty, fairness and justice, transparency, modernity, globalization, the role of women, the nature of marriage, the temptations of power.

For all of these reasons and more, he is a natural and obvious choice for this distinction.   Continue at Tim Challies

Some Thoughts on Pope Francis

It’s another week and thus another interview with Pope Francis. This one, I’m sorry to say, is more than just confusing. It’s a theological wreck.

 

In an interview with La Repubblica, in response to a question about whether there is a “single vision of good,” the Pope said, “Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place,” and “The Son of God became incarnate in the souls of men to instill the feeling of brotherhood.” When the reporter commented, “Some of my colleagues who know you told me that you will try to convert me,” the Pope also said “Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us.”

From Augustine’s Confessions to “Well, everyone has his own ideas about good and bad…” is a mighty long path.   Continue at Russell D. Moore

Is the Pope Christian?

Last week Pope Francis ventured above his his pay grade with a fallible gaff of historic proportions. In his Wednesday public homily, which usually includes unscripted comments, the Pope announced for the first time in Catholic history, that even atheists can go to heaven by doing good works.

Admittedly, this pontification wasn’t pronounced ex cathedra, meaning he wasn’t sitting in his “I’m infallible, so this is God’s truth even if it contradicts the Bible” seat, but still, one would expect the leader of a religion to preach a message congruent with the most elementary tenets of his own faith.

I understand that in Catholic doctrine the Pope holds the keys to the kingdom and that whatever he binds on earth is bound in heaven. But contemplate the implications for a moment. On Wednesday (May 22, 2013), heaven suddenly got bound into admitting entry to atheists. Historically, not even Baptists got into heaven, but apparently now God is obligated to let any do-gooder in, even those who don’t acknowledge Jesus at all. How ironic that he declared this on the Feast of St Rita (the patron saint of impossible things).

Here’s a quote from his sermon…    Continue at Clint Archer

The Humble Pope

If you know anything at all about the new Pope, Pope Francis, you must know this: he is the humble Pope. From the day of his election he has been widely praised for his humility. A recent article from The Washington Post is representative, lauding him for his humble deeds.  

Over the past two weeks, with one act of humility after another, Pope Francis has proven he's willing to break with tradition. Just after being named the new pontiff, he asked the faithful to pray for him, rather than the other way around. He's refused to stand on the customary platform above other archbishops and dressed himself in simpler vestments than his predecessors. He's made a practice of shunning the rich trappings of the position, from paying his own hotel bill to opting out of the palatial apartment popes have lived in for a century in favor of simpler digs.

On Maundy Thursday it is traditional for the Pope to wash the feet of a dozen people. Where Popes have traditionally washed the feet of priests, Francis chose to wash the feet of twelve juvenile inmates. Such deeds are consistent with his legacy from Argentina where he was reputed to fly coach instead of first class and to ride public transit between home and office. These are the deeds that have proven so attractive and that stand in stark contrast to many of his predecessors.  Continue at Tim Challies

Exposing the Heresies of the Catholic Church: The Pope

One of the major, early catalysts in the Protestant Reformation was a book by Jan Hus, a Bohemian Christian who preceded Martin Luther by a full century. The book was De Ecclesia (The Church), and one of Hus’s most profound points was proclaimed in the title of his fourth chapter: “Christ the Only Head of the Church.”

Hus wrote, “Neither is the pope the head nor are the cardinals the whole body of the holy, universal, catholic [i.e., true] church. For Christ alone is the head of that church.” Pointing out that most church leaders in his era actually despised the lordship of Christ, Hus said, “To such a low pitch is the clergy come that they hate those who preach often and call Jesus Christ Lord.”

Hus’s candor cost him his life. He was declared a heretic and burned at the stake in 1415.

More than a hundred years later, and already at odds with the papal establishment, Martin Luther read De Ecclesia. After finishing the book, he wrote to a friend, “I have hitherto taught and held all the opinions of Jan Hus unawares; so did John Staupitz. In short, we are all Hussites without knowing it.”

As the head of the Roman Catholic Church, the pope is often called the “Holy Father” and the “Vicar of Christ”—names and roles that only apply to God. He claims the ability to speak ex cathedra, exercising Godlike infallibility to add to and augment Scripture (Revelation 22:18). He wields unbiblical, unholy authority over his followers, usurping the headship of Christ and perverting the work of the Holy Spirit.

The Reformers understood that and declared it with unashamed boldness. As Martin Luther wrote to a friend, “We here are of the conviction that the papacy is the seat of the true and real Antichrist. . . . Personally I declare that I owe the Pope no other obedience than that to Antichrist.”

In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin said:    Continue at John F. MacArthur Jr.

What is the Greatest of All Protestant “Heresies”?

Let us begin with a church history exam question. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) was a figure not to be taken lightly. He was Pope Clement VIII’s personal theologian and one of the most able figures in the Counter-Reformation movement within sixteenth-century Roman Catholicism. On one occasion, he wrote: “The greatest of all Protestant heresies is _______ .” Complete, explain, and discuss Bellarmine’s statement.

How would you answer? What is the greatest of all Protestant heresies? Perhaps justification by faith? Perhaps Scripture alone, or one of the other Reformation watchwords?

Those answers make logical sense. But none of them completes Bellarmine’s sentence. What he wrote was: “The greatest of all Protestant heresies is assurance.”

A moment’s reflection explains why. If justification is not by faith alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone — if faith needs to be completed by works; if Christ’s work is somehow repeated; if grace is not free and sovereign, then something always needs to be done, to be “added” for final justification to be ours. That is exactly the problem. If final justification is dependent on something we have to complete it is not possible to enjoy assurance of salvation. For then, theologically, final justification is contingent and uncertain, and it is impossible for anyone (apart from special revelation, Rome conceded) to be sure of salvation. But if Christ has done everything, if justification is by grace, without contributory works; it is received by faith’s empty hands — then assurance, even “full assurance” is possible for every believer.   Continue at Sinclair Ferguson

The Pope on Gender and the end of Western Civilization

Every year in December, the Pope delivers an address to the Roman Curia. The annual speech has been dubbed “The State of the Union” for the Roman Catholic Church. The Pope gave this year’s address earlier today, and it is already making waves—for all the right reasons.   

News reports and punditry have focused most of their attention on the speech’s implications for gay marriage—namely that the Pope opposes same-sex unions of any kind. Nevertheless, the focus on the legal question of gay marriage is a rather shallow analysis of the speech. Make no mistake. The Pope’s words are nothing less than a broadside against any notion of same-sex marriage. But what he said actually goes much deeper than that.

He argues that there is a “crisis” threatening the very foundations of the family in the western world. The crisis is not merely about a particular social construct, but about what it means to be “authentically human.” The family is in crisis because mankind in the western world has forgotten what it means to be created in the image of God as male and female. The Pope takes on not merely homosexual marriage, but the entire foundation of modern gender theory—the idea that gender is something that you choose, not something that you are. I think it’s worth quoting him at length on this point:   Continue at Denny Burk

Meeting Muslims and Islam: On Love and Discernment

Eboo Patel is the author of  Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice and the Promise of America and founder and president of Interfaith Youth Core.  He recently penned an opinion piece for CNN entitled “How Evangelicals Can Learn to Love Muslims.”  Caught my eye.  Patel marvels at the evangelical political embrace of conservative Roman Catholics, a group that just 60 years ago would have faced the same kind of suspicion and scrutiny that Mormon presidential candidates deal with.  In the piece, Patel describes Islam as “the new Catholicism.”  To make his point, Patel quotes no less an “evangelical” authority than Norman Vincent Peale:

“Our freedom, our religious freedom, is at stake if we elect a member of the Roman Catholic order as president of the United States,” Norman Vincent Peale told a conference of evangelical leaders in September 1960.

Materials handed out at the Peale conference claimed ‘Universal Roman Catholicism’ was both a religion and a political force whose doctrines were ultimately incompatible with the American ideals of freedom, equality and democracy.

Then Patel makes his analogy:

Replace “Roman Catholic” with “Muslim” and “Church hierarchy” with “caliphate” in those pronouncements and today we are witnessing a similar energy directed against a different faith community using largely the same categories.

In today’s parlance, Kennedy was part of a stealth jihad meant to replace the U.S. Constitution with sharia law and practicing taqqiyya to mask this dawa offensive.  Continue at Thabiti Anyabwile

See also: Christ & Islam

The Coming Catholic Ad Blitz

It is coming. Among the largest religious media blitzes in U.S. history---scheduled to air more than 400 times during a three-week run---these commercials will depict humanity's experience of hopelessness before presenting redemption in Jesus Christ as the answer. Millions will view them on major television networks from December 16 through January 8. The program is called Catholics Come Home.

The primary audience---men and women who grew up Catholic, and are now inactive or "lapsed"---is 27.5 million strong, according to the Pew Forum. They constitute roughly 10 percent of the U.S. population, making them the second-largest religious demographic in America behind Roman Catholics at 77.7 million and ahead of the Southern Baptist Convention (at 16 million plus). These former Catholics are among your church's elders, nursery workers, and often compose a sizable portion of your congregation.

The Message of Catholics Come Home

If you have watched one of the commercials or visited the website, you were probably impressed by the "evangelical" tone. It is unmistakably warm and inviting with a refreshingly clear focus on the person of Jesus. These programs are the fruit of the Second Vatican Council's vision for mobilizing the laity for outreach (see the encyclical, Evangelii Nuntiandi, by Pope Paul VI), along with recent statements such as John Paul II's Redemptoris missio and the current agency dedicated to evangelism.  Keep Reading >>>

Before you Convert to Roman Catholicism

Roman Catholicism has a gospel that does not give peace, because it fundamentally violates the Scriptural teaching on how one is made right with God. Rome has a false gospel that cannot save, hence, I have no reason to abandon the peace I have with God through Christ’s perfect atonement for the treadmill of Rome’s sacramental system of salvation… the person who has embraced the gospel of grace has not only landed his boat on the far side [of the Tiber River], but has torn the boat apart to use the wood as a pulpit from which to proclaim freedom in Christ to those trapped on the other shore. – Dr. James White

 

At his blog at www.aomin.org, Dr. White also writes: 

Last week I received the following e-mail, and I felt it would be best to share my response here on the blog.

Dear Mr. White, For someone considering converting to Catholicism, what questions would you put to them in order to discern whether or not they have examined their situation sufficiently? Say, a Top 10 list. Thanks. Read them HERE

Indulgences – Alive and Well in the Roman Catholic Church

John Paul II’s recent declaration did not come as a shot out of the blue. In fact, indulgences were affirmed by the Council of Trent, called in the 16th century to answer the Reformation. As recently as 1967 Pope Paul VI released an encyclical defining an indulgence as “the remission in the sight of God of the temporal punishment due to sins which have already been blotted out as far as guilt is concerned; the Christian believer who is properly disposed gains it on certain conditions with the help if the Church which, as the minister of redemption, authoritatively dispenses and applies the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.” He also extended this to the dead, whose punishment in purgatory can be relieved through the intercession of the living.

Extending the matter even further, in 1985 John Paul II allowed indulgences to be granted to those watching a service by television, who otherwise met the requirements of those physically present. In his jubilee bull, the Pope listed a wide range of acts which could earn an indulgence, ranging from a sacred pilgrimage to Rome, the Holy Land, or to the cathedral or other stipulated church in their area, or by acts of service to others, by even one day of abstaining from “unnecessary consumption” (including alcohol or tobacco), or by donations to the poor. Read the rest HERE

John Owen on the Authority of the Pope

Yesterday I gave a paper on Puritan Attitudes Towards Rome Reloaded to the Bradford on Avon Ministers' Fraternal. Here's an excerpt:

One of Cane’s main arguments in the Fiat Lux was that before England departed from Rome during the reign of Henry VIII, the nation was at peace with itself. Since relinquishing the authority of the pope, however, the country had been beset by terrible divisions between the various Protestant sects. There was nothing for it but to return to Rome, only then all would be well again, ‘we have no remedy for our evils, no means of ending our differences, but by a return unto the rule of the Roman see.’

The legitimacy of the pope’s authority was one of the key points at issue between John Owen and his Roman opponent, John Vincent Cane. He deployed five main lines of argument against the Roman Catholic claim that the pope has universal authority over the Church. Continue Reading>>>

Resources for Evangelicals Tempted By Rome

Of Catholics, Evangelicals, and Rome (1)
 
Of Catholics, Evangelicals, and Rome (2)

The Beginning of the End of the Reformation?

Was the Reformation A Big Misunderstanding?

Was the Reformation A Big Misunderstanding (2)

Trent, Sungenis, Shepherd, and the FV

Is the Reformation Over?

The Pope A Protestant?

ECT: A Post-Mortem

How A Two-Kingdoms Doctrine Could Have Prevented ECT

Goodbye 2010! But Here's a Look Back

It is that time of the year when people compile top ten lists reflecting upon the events of the past year.  Here are a few I thought you might find interesting.
 
1).  We begin with a list of significant church/theology events for the past year.  Top 10 Church/Theology Stories

2).  Here's a "list of lists" devoted to the best Christian books released (or read by the list producer) last year.  These lists sure don't match mine.  A List of Christian Book Lists

3).  This one is sad--a list of the top ten crimes of 2010.  Not only is our society filed with personal tragedy, keeping up with it is a cottage industry.  This is the stuff that keeps Geraldo and Nancy Grace on the air.  Is it just me, or does anyone else think Nancy Grace is the most obnoxious person on TV?   Top Ten Crime Stories

4).  Here's the annual list of those celebrities who died this past year.  I'll miss a couple of them.  I won't miss those on this list of whom I've never heard.  Celebs Who Died

5).  Here's a fascinating list of those things Americans hold sacred:  Ten Things We Believe

6).  One of my personal favorites--a list of the top political gaffes of 2010.  Top Ten Political Gaffes

7).  Here's a list of the top sports stories of 2010.  Did Tiger, Farve and LeBron make it?  Not a great year for sports, although my Lakers did beat the Celtics:  Top Ten Sports Stories 

8).  The Pope's trip to London topped the Vatican's top ten for 2010: Top Ten Pope Stories

9).  Finally, here's a top ten list of the most important products from Apple.  I bought an iPhone.  Don't know how I lived without it.  Top Ten Apple Stories

HT: Riddleblog

Romanticism’s Revenge: The Pope Makes a Visit to the United Kingdom

Judging by recent news reports, Pope Benedict XVI like so many pontiffs before him suffers from the malady often passed down from one bishop of Rome to the next: he is a consummate Anglophile. Like Paul in anguish for his people, one could say that the Roman pontiff has “great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart” for British Protestants. Today, he begins his four day trip to the United Kingdom, extending in the process an implicit call for the British to return to the Roman Church. Though short, his visit to her Majesty’s realm resonates with a subtle but powerful message: the vision of the via media, the “middle way” often invoked by the clergy and laity of the Church of England, can only be found in the Church of Rome.
The Pope’s four day excursion in bonnie Scotland and merry England is not a courtesy call: there is serious business afoot. There will be many meetings and even a joint prayer service together with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in Westminster Abbey. But the primary reason for Benedict’s appearance is the beatification of the Church of England’s most famous defector: John Henry Newman. It behooves us as careful observers of current events to consider the content of the life and character of this man to understand the message of the Pope’s visit. Continue reading>>>

See also Papal Protest

Seven Characters of False Teachers

A couple of years back I spoke on "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Heretics" at the Eccentric Ministers Conference. At the time I wasn't aware that the Puritan Thomas Brooks (1608-80) had beaten me to it.

Brooks is very quotable. Here are his headings and some highlights taken from his pastoral masterpiece Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices published by the Banner of Truth Trust:

"Satan labours might and main, by false teachers, which are his messengers and ambassadors, to deceive, delude, and forever undo the precious souls of men."

He cites Jer. 23:13; Micah 3:5; Matt. 7:15; Philippians 3:2; Prov. 7

"Now the best way to deliver poor souls from being deluded and destroyed by these messengers of Satan is, to discover them in their colours, that so, being known, poor souls may shun them, and fly from them as from hell itself." Read it all HERE

Explaining the Heresy of Catholicism

Praying to Mary, celebrating the Mass, venerating the Pope—you won’t find those doctrines in the Bible. And yet more than one billion Roman Catholics throughout the world follow such practices in line with the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.

With that many Catholics around the globe, it’s likely you know some of them as relatives, friends, neighbors, or co-workers. Find out what they don’t know—the origin and error of Catholic doctrine—so you can help the Catholics you know out of the darkness and into the light. Listen and Read 8 of JMac's sermons HERE 

The Inquisition Isn’t Over, It Just Changed Clothes

RNS has a story today about the Vatican’s policy of “pontifical secrecy.” Read the story. The approach Rome is taking toward the problem of sex abuse by priests reminds one of the policies followed in the inquisition. What was established for the preservation of truth (and abused especially by Spain) has become a vehicle for what looks like a corporate cover-up.

Rome claims to be “the” holy, apostolic church. We don’t have to guess, however, how the actual apostolic church handled immorality in the church. Read 1 Cor. Paul mentions people by name who’ve erred and gone astray as did Jude. They didn’t cover-up. They protected the church by practicing church discipline.

There’s another point to be made here, beside the prima facie implausibility of Rome’s claim to be apostolic or even genuinely catholic and that is the lesson that we can all take from the horrible way Rome has handled this scandal. Read the rest HERE

Pope Asks Forgiveness, Offers No Solutions

The Roman Catholic Church seems unable to shake the sex abuse scandals that have plagued her over the last decade and more. The incidents of abuse have undoubtedly rocked the church and, more seriously, devastated many individuals and their families.

I’ve not followed the Church’s dealings with this matter very closely. I’m certain others have more astute observations. But reading The Times coverage of Pope Benedict’s comments, I’m left with a few quick thoughts.

1. Promises to “do everything possible” absent concrete plans and actions amounts to a failure to repent. There must be deeds in keeping with repentance or the Church’s credibility on this matter is completely shot. Read the rest HERE

Seven Characters of False Teachers

A couple of years back I spoke on "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Heretics" at the Eccentric Ministers Conference. At the time I wasn't aware that the Puritan Thomas Brooks (1608-80) had beaten me to it.

Brooks is very quotable. Here are his headings and some highlights taken from his pastoral masterpiece Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices published by the Banner of Truth Trust:

"Satan labours might and main, by false teachers, which are his messengers and ambassadors, to deceive, delude, and forever undo the precious souls of men."

He cites Jer. 23:13; Micah 3:5; Matt. 7:15; Philippians 3:2; Prov. 7

"Now the best way to deliver poor souls from being deluded and destroyed by these messengers of Satan is, to discover them in their colours, that so, being known, poor souls may shun them, and fly from them as from hell itself." Read it all HERE