Pope Tells “Christians” to NEVER Try to Convert Unbelievers

The Roman Catholic church has always taught, contrary to the Bible, that salvation is attained via sacramental grace and merit. Back in time, the Catholic clergy taught that only baptized Catholics could possibly merit Heaven, but in the modern era, that stance has softened, and the RCC now grants that all “good” and sincere religionists – Protestants, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. – can also possibly merit Heaven. Pope Francis has said on several occasions that even “moral” atheists can merit Heaven.

Last month, Francis met with a group of Italian high school students and advised the (c)hristians among them to NOT to try to convert* those of other faiths. Below are some quotes from Francis’ remarks:

• [Speaking of having Jewish and Muslim friends]: “We are all the same, all children of God.”
• “It didn’t occur to me, and it doesn’t have to be like, saying to a boy or a girl: ‘You are Jewish, you are Muslim: come, be converted!'”
• “We are not in the times of the crusades.”
• “In front of an unbeliever the last thing I have to do is try to convince him. Never.”
• “But listen: Never, never bring the gospel by proselytizing.”
• “If someone says they are a disciple of Jesus and comes to you with proselytism, they are not a disciple of Jesus.”
• “The Church does not grow by proselytism.”

None of the above is surprising in light of Catholicism’s wide-is-the-way teaching that EVERYONE is a child of God. Contrary to what the pope claims, God’s Word declares that only those who trust in Jesus Christ as Savior by faith alone and are born again spiritually in Christ become God’s children:

“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” – John 1:12

Should we believe the pope or God’s Word?

Let’s see what evangelist, Ray Comfort, has to say about the pope’s un-Biblicalness in the 15-minute video below:

For more information, see the news article here.

*Please, no angry letters. I readily agree that it’s the Holy Spirit Who converts, not Christians, who merely sow the Gospel seed. I’m only conveying the pope’s words.

Throwback Thursday: Walter Martin was no admirer of Catholicism, but dropped the ball in “The Kingdom of the Cults”

Welcome to this week’s “Throwback Thursday” installment. Today, we’re going to revisit a post that was originally published back on October 7th, 2015 and has been revised.

The Roman Catholic Church in History
By Walter Martin
Christian Research Institute, 1960 edition, 87 pp.

Most of today’s younger believers have never heard of Walter Martin (1928-1989), but the man played an important role in modern evangelicalism. Martin wrote the booklet, “The Roman Catholic Church in History,” in 1958, two years prior to the founding of his once-influential evangelical apologetics ministry, Christian Research Institute (CRI). This booklet is extremely critical of Roman Catholic theology as it examines the papacy, the preeminence of tradition over Scripture, Mariolatry, confession and penance, the mass, and purgatory. While Martin implies there is no salvation in works-based Catholic legalism, he regrettably does not address the primary issue of justification directly.

Martin’s “The Kingdom of the Cults,” published initially in 1965 and still in print and widely available, is considered the most important reference on cults over the last 55 years. Surprisingly, there is hardly any mention of Catholicism in that book. I wonder what happened that caused Martin to retreat from his uncompromising criticism of Catholicism in his 1958 booklet to accommodation and silence? The current director of CRI, Hank Hanegraaff, teaches that Catholicism has many un-Biblical doctrines, but is, fundamentally, a Christian church.

Because Hanegraaff and CRI would like to forget “The Roman Catholic Church in History” was ever written, the booklet has not been republished since 1960 and copies are nearly impossible to find. However, I was able to obtain a photocopy from Christian Answers of Austin, Texas (biblequery.org). See here.

Martin’s accommodation and compromise with Roman Catholicism was one of many contributing factors to the rampant ecumenism we see today. For more details, refer to a subsequent post, “How Walter Martin sowed the seeds for the current Hank Hanegraaff controversy,” published on August 7, 2017, here.

Addendum: People are still curious about Walter Martin. The original, 2015 posting of “Walter Martin was no admirer of Catholicism, but dropped the ball in ‘The Kingdom of the Cults”‘ continues to receive visitors regularly and is this blog’s third-most-viewed post with 1866 all-time hits currently.

Christian unity? But at what cost?

Seventy-years ago, following the ravages of the Second World War, people across the world were scandalized by the divisions within “Christianity.” They saw the thousands of denominations as defiance of the prayer of Jesus Christ in John 17:20-23 that all believers be united. To that end, the World Council of Churches (WCC) was created in 1948 and the National Council of Churches (NCC) was founded here in the U.S. in 1950. In 1964, at its Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic church reversed its former militant approach and issued the document, “Unitatis Redintegratio” (Restoration of Unity), which called for the unity of all Christians. In the decades that followed, nominal Protestant denominations have increasingly joined together and with Rome in an effort to unite all “Christians”

What are Gospel Christians to think about these ecumenical efforts? The mainline Protestant denominations that comprise the NCC and WCC drifted into liberalism/modernism generations ago. They no longer hold to the Bible as the Word of God and they no longer teach the Gospel of salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. As for the Roman Catholic church, it teaches a false gospel of sacramental grace and merit. And while it pleads for unity, the “unity” that it refers to equates to eventual submission to the Roman pontiff:

“…when the obstacles to perfect ecclesiastical communion have been gradually overcome, all Christians will at last, in a common celebration of the Eucharist, be gathered into the one and only Church in that unity which Christ bestowed on His Church from the beginning. We believe that this unity subsists in the Catholic Church as something she can never lose, and we hope that it will continue to increase until the end of time.” – Unitatis Redintegratio, Section 4.

Gospel Christians may differ on various secondary beliefs, but WE ARE UNITED in the Gospel of salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. God’s Word warns us not to join with false teachers and pseudo-Christians who propagate false gospels.

“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” – Matthew 7:15

“If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting.” – 2 John 10

Christians should NEVER join together with religious unbelievers who call themselves “Christians,” but who propagate false gospels. We need to evangelize these lost souls, not embrace them as fellow believers.

Preacher, writer, and teacher, Will Graham (photo above), recently contributed the five excellent short articles below to Evangelical Focus magazine that summarize the guiding principles to Christian unity. When it comes to uniting with others who profess to be Christians, we must never, never, never accommodate false gospels or compromise Biblical truth.

A Manifesto of Church Unity – Introduction: Part One of Five
http://evangelicalfocus.com/magazine/4766/_A_Manifesto_of_Church_Unity

Church Unity is Unity in the Truth – Part Two of Five
http://evangelicalfocus.com/magazine/4800/Church_Unity_is_Unity_in_the_Truth

Church Unity is Unity in the Light – Part Three of Five
http://evangelicalfocus.com/magazine/4817/Church_Unity_is_Unity_in_the_Light

Church Unity is Unity in the Spirit – Part Four of Five
http://evangelicalfocus.com/magazine/4834/Church_unity_is_unity_in_the_Spirit

A Manifesto of Church Unity – Conclusion: Part Five of Five
http://evangelicalfocus.com/magazine/4847/A_Manifesto_of_Church_Unity_Conclusion

Throwback Thursday: Popular and influential evangelical, Joni Eareckson Tada, endorses ecumenical “First Things”

Welcome to this week’s edition of “Throwback Thursday.” For today’s installment, we’re going to revisit a post that was originally published back on October 8th, 2015 and has been revised.

I used to have a 25-minute drive to work each morning back when I was employed and while I was in my car I really enjoyed listening to a local Christian radio station. Oh, it was a blessing to hear about the Lord at the start of every day! One of the scheduled messages broadcast each morning was a 5-minute clip from Joni Eareckson Tada. I’m sure many of you have heard of her. Joni, a quadriplegic, provides daily messages of hope and encouragement for Christians who are struggling with challenges of all kinds.

However, one morning, my ears perked up when Joni cited “First Things” monthly journal as an excellent publication and strongly encouraged her listeners to check it out. Well, “First Things” was started by influential Catholic priest, Richard John Neuhaus, in 1990. It describes itself as an “inter-denominational, inter-religious, ecumenical” journal featuring the writings of a broad spectrum of “Christians” (Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant) and Jews. All of the declarations issued by Chuck Colson’s and Neuhaus’s ecumenical “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” project were initially published in “First Things.”

The ecumenical spirit of “First Things” mirrors the teaching of Roman Catholicism, which says all can be saved if they “seek the truth and do the will of God.”

“Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery. Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.” – Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1260.

The Catholic hierarchy once taught that only Catholics could be saved, but, because they believe in salvation-by-merit, it was entirely predictable that they would eventually recognize all other works-righteousness religious systems – Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. – as legitimate pathways to God. Making the already-broad path even wider, Pope Francis has said EVEN ATHEISTS will be saved if they follow their conscience and pursue “righteousness.”

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.” – Mark 10:18

But genuine believers are well aware that God’s Word clearly proclaims that salvation is ONLY by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. There is NO other way. Bible verses which state that salvation is only by accepting Jesus Christ as Savior can be found here.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ has nothing in common with the works-righteousness false gospel of Roman Catholicism and the ecumenism of “First Things.”

So why would a high-profile evangelical Christian, like Joni Eareckson Tada, irresponsibly recommend “First Things” and its ecumenical message to her unwary and trusting listeners? What goes through her head? Does she believe the Gospel of salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone or not? Respected Reformed theologian, Carl Trueman, also inexplicably lends his support to the wide-is-the-way mission of “First Things” as one of the journal’s regular contributors. The postmodern heresies of pluralism and relative truth continue to spread like cancer and more and more evangelicals ignore Biblical doctrine and succumb to accommodation, cooperation, and compromise.

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 10/26/19

• Reformation Wall in Geneva vandalized

I somehow missed this news report from back in July about how LGBT radicals vandalized the Reformation Wall monument in Geneva, Switzerland with the requisite colors of the LGBT rainbow. LGBT activists will not rest until Gospel Christians deny/ignore the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality. As a side note, the men who are memorialized by the monument – John Calvin, William Farel, Theodore Bèze, and John Knox – would have strongly objected to being glorified in such a fashion.

• Conservative Catholics remove pagan naked fertility goddess statues featured at Vatican Amazon synod
• Progressive Jesuit: Conservative Catholics who threw Pachamamas in Tiber have‘hatred of the foreigner’

Liberal Catholic prelates are using the current three-week-long Amazon synod at the Vatican to push their progressive reforms. The synod has featured some “interfaith” events promoting the syncretism of Catholicism and indigenous Amazon paganism that included pope Francis blessing statues of naked “Pachamama” Amazon fertility goddesses (see photo below). Some conservative Catholics, offended by the accommodations to the pagan idols, absconded with them and then unceremoniously dumped them into the Tiber River. Hmm, the Vatican is already home to thousands of idolatrous and blasphemous statues and paintings including many naked characters. What’s a few more? Can anyone imagine Jesus Christ or even the apostle Paul “blessing” pagan idols?

Pope Francis “blessing” Pachamama fertility goddess idol

• Decline in Hispanic Catholics a ‘direct challenge’ to the Church in the US

The U.S. Catholic bishops were counting on Hispanic Catholics to pick up the slack as non-Hispanic Catholics increasingly abandoned the church, but newly-released statistics show that Hispanics are also stepping off the legalistic religious treadmill.

• Vatican cash crisis: Sex abuse scandals are ‘driving away donations and have lost the Holy See €44m in a year’
• Vatican: More Troubling Financial Irregularities Exposed

The Vatican’s finances are once again under scrutiny. Expect this latest financial scandal to mushroom.

• Conservative Catholic journalist: Cardinal Sarah’s dilemma, and our own
• Pope Francis May Not Change the World, But He Is Reshaping the Church
• The Crisis of Catholic Leadership

As pope Francis and his progressive allies pragmatically institute their liberal reforms in an effort to make the Catholic church more “relevant,” they bend Catholic doctrine to suit their agenda. Catholic conservatives, heretofore passionate defenders of the papacy, are caught in a dilemma from which they cannot extricate themselves.

• Catholic source: Reformation disputes largely gone, but many don’t realize it

Besides many other important doctrinal differences, Gospel Christians and Roman Catholics are irreconcilably opposed in regards to the doctrine of justification. Catholics claim souls are justified by sacramental grace and subjective sanctification, i.e., actually becoming intrinsically “good enough” to merit Heaven. Gospel Christians proclaim the Biblical teaching that souls are justified only by the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, imputed to them at the moment they accept Christ as their Savior by faith alone. Despite the accommodations and compromises of modernist mainline “Protestant” denominations, the Reformation continues. Unfortunately, Christians who attend “seeker-friendly” McMega churches hear very little (or nothing at all) about the Reformation or comparative theology.

• A Biological Male Raced A Bunch Of Women—You Won’t Believe What Happened Next! (SATIRE)

Secular society is elevating ludicrousness to new extremes.

Brother Lawrence our example? Really?

I’ll begin by saying it’s grievous to have to write this…

One day last week, as I was preparing to do some work on our powder room, I set up my iPhone to play that day’s radio message from evangelical pastor, Alistair Begg (photo left), via the Truth for Life website. I used to listen to pastor Begg regularly, but I remember being put-off by some of the people he referenced in his sermons, C. S. Lewis being one of his oft-mentioned favorites. But I had recently taken to listening to pastor Begg again. During the course of this new sermon (“True Friendship,” broadcast 9/30/19), pastor Begg said something that was upsetting to hear.

But before I get into the meat of this post, let me start with an observation. We evangelicals live in a bubble. We tend to think we’re the only people who pray and the only people who write passionately and lovingly about our faith. I hate to break it to you my friends, but committed Hindus and Muslims write passionately about their religion as well. Likewise, members of pseudo-Christian cults, like the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, are passionate about their religion. They too have devotional materials filled with lofty prose meant to motivate their membership to worship and praise their nonexistent faux deity. Writing pious words about Jesus does not make the writer a Christian. That being said, let’s return to pastor Begg.

As I was listening to the sermon, pastor Begg expounded on our Savior, Lord, and Friend, Jesus Christ. We thrill at being Jesus’s friend, but, as Begg points out, friendship with Christ is not just a doctrinal truth of objective, forensic position, but also experiential. Begg quotes John 15:14:

“You are my friends if you do what I command you.”

Begg then refers to several authors who wrote about obeying Jesus. The first writer Begg mentions is Brother Lawrence (photo right). At the 18:20 mark, Begg says:

“If you read the writing, for example, of Brother Lawrence in “The Practice of the Presence of God,” and you say, now this is an inkling of what’s involved here.”

So what’s the problem? Well, Brother Lawrence (1614-1691) aka Nicolas Herman was an unordained lay brother of the Roman Catholic Discalced Carmelite religious order who resided at a monastery in Paris. Brother Lawrence lived his entire life as a faithful Roman Catholic and fully adhered to his church’s false gospel of salvation by sacramental grace and merit.

Since Brother Lawrence adhered to Rome’s false gospel of sacramental grace and merit, I’m curious why a popular evangelical pastor like Alistair Begg would hold up such a person as a Christian example? Does he believe Brother Lawrence was a genuine Christian because of his pious religious prose? But what of Lawrence’s legalistic and anti-Gospel beliefs and religious practices that were not mentioned in “The Practice of the Presence of God”? Has Begg forgotten the cause and necessity of the Reformation, which began only 97 years before Brother Lawrence was born? What was going through Begg’s mind as he was writing this sermon and decided to extol the writings of a committed Roman Catholic to his audience as an exemplary resource on Christian obedience? Does Begg not consider the effect of recommending a Roman Catholic writer to his evangelical audience or is he well past that point? Can we also expect pastor Begg to recommend the eloquent devotional writings of other false gospel, works-religionists such as Charles Taze Russell, Joseph Smith, Jr., or Mary Baker Eddy? Can anyone imagine a Charles Spurgeon or a Martyn Lloyd-Jones recommending from the pulpit a book written by a committed Roman Catholic to their congregations?

All of the above questions are obviously rhetorical. Ecumenical accommodation and compromise are rampant in the Body of Christ. There’s more than ignorance and carelessness at work here.

Leonard Feeney opposed Catholicism’s drift into Universalism

One of the fundamental doctrines of Roman Catholicism is baptismal regeneration. The Roman church teaches that water administered in conjunction with the recitation of the trinitarian baptism formula actually cleanses a soul (in Catholicism, usually an infant) of all original sin and by which a person is alleged to be “born again.”

“Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission.” – Catechism of the Catholic Church, para. 1213

The Roman church teaches that baptism is absolutely essential for salvation. However, accommodations were made for two distinct cases:

1. In the case of individuals who had been martyred, but had not yet been baptized, the Roman church made an exception and declared that those individuals had experienced a “baptism of blood,” that their bloody death had served as a legitimate baptism.
2. Then there was the case of individuals who had been studying/preparing to be baptized and enter the church, but died before they could be baptized. The church declared that such persons were covered by “baptism of desire” (baptismus flaminis).

For 1500 years, the Catholic church taught that only people who were physically baptized as well as those two exceptions – unbaptized people who died as Catholic martyrs or people who died while desiring Catholic baptism – could possibly merit Heaven. But as modernism entered into the Catholic church in the 20th-century, the second accommodation began to be understood much more broadly among Catholic theologians and prelates. The notion that baptized Protestants could also merit Heaven was increasingly accepted by Catholic leadership and along with that accommodation came the belief that Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and those of other religions could also merit Heaven. The argument was that “good-hearted” people of those religions would desire Catholic baptism if they understood its importance, so, theoretically, they would also be covered by “baptism of desire.” These further accommodations were made official at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) via the declarations, “Unitatis redintegratio” and “Nostra aetate.” Pope Francis has since stated, although without a formal declaration to this point, that even “good” and “moral” atheists are covered by “baptism of desire.” Catholicism now upholds an impossible dichotomy; that a person MUST be baptized to possibly attain Heaven, and that a person needn’t be baptized to possibly attain Heaven if they don’t understand baptism’s significance.

Not all Catholics accepted this new, modernist-universalist understanding. Jesuit priest, Leonard E. Feeney (1897-1978), had been a very popular author and apologist for Roman Catholicism in the United States for twenty-years. However, he ran afoul of modern-leaning prelates, especially archbishop, Richard James Cushing of Boston where Feeney lived, when, in the 1940s, he began to publicly oppose this evolving new interpretation of “baptism of desire.” Feeney strongly defended the traditional, literal Catholic teaching of extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (outside the church there is no salvation). Interestingly, it was Robert F. Kennedy, a young, Harvard undergraduate at the time, who led the campaign to censure Feeney. For his very public obstinacy, Feeney was formally excommunicated from the church in 1953, but was reinstated in 1972 in his old age and declining health.

The new Vatican II accommodations to Protestants and other religionists took many years to spread through the church and become accepted. I can vividly remember a specific incident while attending Bishop Kearney Catholic High School in Rochester in the early 1970s. Irish Christian Brother, John “Cookie” Gilchrist, was teaching our religion class and reiterated the traditional Catholic teaching that only baptized Catholics had a chance of meriting Heaven. One of my classmates, Dennis Kennelly, strongly challenged Gilchrist, stating that a Protestant friend of his was a “good person” and had as much of a chance at Heaven as anyone else. Gilchrist’s face turned scarlet as he struggled to control his anger. He insisted that the church taught that only baptized Catholics could possibly merit Heaven. Amazingly, the Catholic religious instructor was not aware of the Vatican II ecumenical reforms ten years after the fact!!!

Many conservative and traditionalist Catholics believe, as Jesuit Feeney did, that the RCC deviated into error at Vatican II by declaring that non-Catholics could also merit Heaven. However, neither the traditional Catholic teaching on baptism or the modern one are the genuine Gospel of salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone.

I intend to continue studying the Feeney controversy. To see the interesting Wiki article on Leonard Feeney, click here.

Ecumenicity, Evangelicals, and Rome

Ecumenicity, Evangelicals, and Rome
By John Warwick Montgomery, Ph.D.
Zondervan, 1969, 113 pp.

While reading a booklet on the errors of Catholicism, “What’s Happening in the Roman Church?: A Report from Rome” by William C. Standridge (see my review here), I took note of the author’s favorable reference to what looked to be an interesting book, “Ecumenicity, Evangelicals, and Rome” and immediately ordered a copy from an Amazon third-party used book seller.

At the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the Catholic church changed its stance regarding Protestants from confrontational militancy to conciliatory cooperation. Protestant theologians were quite surprised by the dramatic change and many were eager to enter into ecumenical dialogue with the RCC.

In this book, published in 1969, John Warwick Montgomery (1931-, photo right), a theologian affiliated with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS), takes a look at the rising tide of Protestant ecumenism with Rome.

Friends, I’m a Theology 101 type of guy and this book was written for Theology 401 types. The academese is so thick that the lay reader must use a fork and knife to labor through it. Difficulties aside, what I catch from the grandiloquent prose is that Montgomery definitely favors dialogue with Rome. However, he doesn’t view ecumenical discussions as accommodation and compromise, but supposedly as opportunities to witness on behalf of the genuine Gospel of grace to Roman Catholic theologians with their false gospel of salvation by sacramental grace and merit (p. 42). What Montgomery and other overly-optimistic and naive evangelical theologians failed to consider was that ecumenical dialogue is a two-way street and Roman Catholic theologians also relished opportunities to advance their false gospel.

Below are the chapters of the book with some comments from myself:

• Evangelical Unity and Contemporary Ecumenicity

The author notes the change to the RCC’s approach to Protestants and argues for the value of ecumenical dialogue as a chance to witness for the Gospel. Montgomery strangely devotes several pages to complimenting Eastern Orthodoxy for its emphasis on subjective mysticism, but he ultimately rejects it in favor of the absolute authority of God’s Word.

• Sixtus of Siena and Roman Catholic Scholarship in the Reformation Period

Montgomery is highly complimentary of Catholic theologian, Sixtus of Siena (1520-1569), and his encyclopedic overview of the Bible in his “Bibliotheca Sancta” (1566), but finally renounces the scholarship of Sixtus for his intellectual approach to Scripture rather than embracing the spiritual message of the Gospel therein.

• The Approach of New Shape Roman Catholicism to Scriptural Inerrancy: A Case Study for Evangelicals

Montgomery notes the rise of “New Shape” theologians within the Catholic church by which higher-criticism/modernism was introduced into the RCC in the 20th century. As a result, Catholic theologians (and also, prelates and priests) increasingly viewed the Bible as myth and allegory rather than God’s literal Word.

• Rome and the “Death of God”

Modernist RCC theologians of the “New Shape” argued that the church was “progressively unfolding” and was not anchored to “ancient manuscripts” (i.e., the Bible). The RCC’s untethering from Scripture has always allowed it to place its magisterium and its evolving “sacred traditions” above God’s Word.

• Three Reviews: Hans Kung, Alonzo Schokel, Nathan Soderblom

Montgomery cites three books that were influential in promoting ecumenism and points out their particular faults.

This is a VERY strange book. Montgomery welcomes ecumenical dialogue while simultaneously warning against Rome’s heterodoxies. Via the efforts of theologians like Montgomery, ecumenism gained a foothold within evangelicalism and eventually reached a point where the author’s cautions and objections back in 1969 were no longer voiced or even considered (see William Lane Craig, Ravi Zacharias, Lee Strobel, etc.). Ecumenism with Rome always, always, always results in accommodation, compromise, and betrayal of the Gospel. What looked to be an interesting book turned out to be a big disappointment.

Throwback Thursday: Another evangelical pastor caves to ecumenical apostasy

Welcome to this week’s edition of “Throwback Thursday.” For today’s installment, we’re going to revisit a post that was originally published back on October 3th, 2015 and has been slightly revised.

Back in 2010, Pastor Robert Jeffress (photo above) of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas stated the Catholic church was an apostate church corrupted by the pagan Babylonian mystery religion:

“It is that Babylonian mystery religion that infected the early church, one of the churches it infected was the church of Pergamos, which is one of the recipients of the Book of Revelation. And the early church was corrupted by this Babylonian mystery religion, and today the Roman Catholic Church is the result of that corruption.”

Hear Jeffress’ 2010 remarks about the Catholic church here.

Now, let’s fast forward to 9/24/15. During pope Francis’ visit to America at that time, Jeffress appeared on Fox News’ Sean Hannity Show and revealed quite a change in his views on Catholicism:

“I have great respect for Pope Francis. He’s a humble Christ follower. We all can learn from him…With the differences we might have with Pope Francis on some of these secondary issues, I’m not going to quibble about that because, here’s the fact, as this world becomes increasingly darker I find myself having much more in common with my Catholic friends than I even do with liberal Baptists because the fact is we are fighting together against a common enemy, the kingdom of darkness.”

See the video of Jeffress’ 2015 remarks about pope Francis and the Catholic church here.

Wow! Jeffress radically changed his views between 2010 and 2015 and compromised the Gospel of grace by joining a number of other evangelical pastors in embracing works-righteousness Catholics as co-belligerents and fellow-Christians in the conservative political crusade to “Reclaim America for Jesus.” At some point in those five years, Jeffress decided that temporal American political concerns were more important than the Gospel. Shame on him. Lost Catholic souls need the Gospel of grace, NOT crusaders for political conservatism.

Throwback Thursday: One of those old and angry ex-Catholics?

Welcome to this week’s edition of “Throwback Thursday.” For today’s installment, we’re going to revisit a post that was originally published back on October 9th, 2015 and has been slightly revised.

[The information in this post is closely associated with the “Throwback Thursday” post that was published just a few weeks ago. See here.]

In 1994, Chuck Colson’s and, Catholic priest, Richard John Neuhaus’s ecumenical “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” (ECT) alliance issued its first declaration; “Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium.” The gist of the statement was that both camps recognized the other as “Christian” and resolved to join as allies in the culture war against secularism. Several notable evangelicals supported the statement, but perhaps the most surprising signatory was J. I. Packer (photo above), an influential Reformed theologian best known for his book, “Knowing God.” Packer’s endorsement of ECT was met with shock and strong criticism from many evangelicals.

One year later, ECT leadership released “Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Toward a Common Mission,” a collection of articles defending the ECT declaration, written by six of the document’s signers, including Packer. In his article, Packer argued that his endorsement of ECT was not an approval of the doctrines of Catholicism. He stated, in so many words, that if Catholics are saved, they are saved in spite of their church’s standard theology, not as a result of it. But, as I noted in a previous post, as a signatory of ECT, Packer was quite willing to give every Catholic the benefit of the doubt.

In defending himself from his critics, Packer wrote:

“The most poignant expressions of these criticisms come from middle-aged and elderly individuals who found Christ and spiritual life in evangelicalism after failing to find either in the Roman Catholicism of their birth and who cannot believe that Protestants who back ECT know what they’re doing” (p.156).

Packer’s statement is condescending at best and insulting at worst. Well, J. I., who best to comment on a false religious system than one who was once held in bondage by it? Who best to answer whether Christ and spiritual life can be found in Catholicism than ex-Catholics who have accepted Christ and come out of that church with its false gospel of salvation by sacramental grace and merit? On the one hand, Packer readily admits that salvation cannot be found in the standard theology of the Catholic church, but then he turns around and backhands the ex-Catholic critics of ECT as being a bunch of bitter, old fogeys! Well, it’s easy to see that J. I. was quite stung by the well-deserved criticism of his participation in ECT and lashed out irrationally and uncharitably.

In some cursory readings, I see Packer was always a bit of an ecumenist, being an ardent admirer of C.S. Lewis, which eventually led to his break with David Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Lloyd-Jones! Now there was a man of God who knew the danger of cozying up to Rome and wasn’t afraid to speak about it!  To read Lloyd-Jones’ sermon, “Roman Catholicism,” see here.

It’s been twenty-one years since the first ECT document was published and the fruits of Colson’s, Packer’s and other ecumenists’ efforts are everywhere. It’s a rising tide. A recent survey found that 58 percent of self-identified evangelical Christian pastors agreed that pope Francis was a fellow Christian and a “brother in Christ,” while another 19 percent responded that they were not sure. What that means is only 23 percent of the evangelical Christian pastors who were polled disagreed with the statement that the pope is a fellow Christian and a “brother in Christ.” I shouldn’t be surprised at the rising apostasy. The Bible does speak about it. And, no, I shouldn’t be hateful towards Packer and other misguided evangelicals who embrace the RCC and serve as the Vatican’s “polezni durak” (useful fools). However, I love my Catholic family members, friends, and Catholics in general who endlessly toil to be “good enough” to merit Heaven. Ach! What a rat race they run! They need evangelicals who will confront them with their sinful state and present them with the genuine Good News! of salvation by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. They don’t need accommodating and compromising evangelicals like J.I. Packer, who betray them and the Gospel.

“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” – Isaiah 1:18

I’m clothed with my Savior’s imputed perfect righteousness. Now THAT’S something to REJOICE about! Yep, I am a HAPPY guy! Repent of your sin and accept Jesus Christ and trust in Him as your Savior by faith alone, not in your own efforts or the man-made traditions your church.