Repenting of parachurch, Baptist childhoods; Home Sweet Romans...

Dear STB,

Good question, and clearly the one that has led many to cross the Tiber from Biblical faith to Roman heresy.

As a lover of church history, it is clear that the Biblical reformed and evangelical church is that church closest to the Scripture and even the Early Church Fathers. This is the point Calvin makes across his Institutes. Which is to say today's Romanists bear much less resemblance to Cyprian and Augustine and Bernard of Clairvaux than Biblical reformed and evangelical believers do.

Read Scripture and the Institutes and you'll see not the slightest resemblance to the new heresy anchored to the millstone of the Council of Trent.

Love,

Dear Pastors Bayly,

Not only is there denominational suicide, but the Christian marital suicide (AKA divorce) rate is 50%. 75% of covenant children apostatize. Christian nursing homes report unprecedented adultery, fornication and STD rates. There are 52 million clinically-aborted children in the U.S. alone. There are also 70 million chemically-aborted (via abortifacients) children.

With this river of blood and sin, even in the pew, are you seriously going to clobber a brother with Calvin's Institutes if, in good conscience, he swims the Tiber with all his might for the banks of the Roman Catholic Church?

Pax Christi,

"Never judge a philosophy by its abuse."
-Saint Augustine

Although the Roman Catholic Church has some abusive clergy and sinners, are these in accordance with the Church's teaching or diametrically opposed to it?

"The road to hell is paved with the skulls of erring priests, with bishops as their signposts."
-Saint John Chrysostom (347-407), Doctor of the Church and Preeminent doctor of the Greek Church and the greatest preacher ever heard in a Christian pulpit.

If these wicked child-abusing priests do not repent of their sins, then they're damned just as you and I would be for our own sins. The Catholic Church abhors sin and abuse, especially the abuse of the least of these. The Roman Catholic Church is about the business of making saints, not sinners.

Last, if a PCA brother made a break for it, Holy Bible (all 73 original books included) in hand, and swam with all his might (by the power of the Holy Spirit) for the Roman Catholic Church would he suddenly be damned once he touched Vatican soil? Hardly.

What's his alternative? Stay in the decadent PCA or try to locate a slightly less decadent OPC somewhere?

>The present Seated One has issued a book in his prior given name arguing that the Jews don't need to come to the Father through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Which, in a sense, means when you return to Rome you wind up with John Hagee.

Which version? WCF & LSC: 1646? 1789? 1903? 1910? 1973? 1981? They're on the floor soaking in blood of their authors. Which one do you choose?

>>Me?

Chuckling with love,

"Not only is there (a.) denominational suicide, but the Christian (b.) marital suicide (AKA divorce) rate is 50%. (c.) 75% of covenant children apostatize. (d.) Christian nursing homes report unprecedented adultery, fornication and STD rates. (e.) There are 52 million clinically-aborted children in the U.S. alone. (f.) There are also 70 million chemically-aborted (via abortifacients) children."

Although these are all moral failures, the panoply of Protestant theology is guilty of the following sin:
(a.), (b.), (d.), (e.); (f.).

Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church has a scandal of its own:
(b.)*

* A modern flood of U.S. Annulment applications with Tribunals issuing a large percentage of Nullity Letters. This is in stark contrast to the 1960s and before when few applications were received and far fewer Annulments granted.

Last (and again), if a PCA brother made a break for it, Holy Bible (73 original books included) in hand, and swam with all his might (by the power of the Holy Spirit) for the Roman Catholic Church would he suddenly be damned once he touched Vatican soil?

I apologize if my previous post came across as a commercial for Anglicanism. It wasn't meant to be that.

Sue,

I don't look to Anglicanism as any solution. AMiA is a mess, holding an impossible position on WO. the same goes for all the groups associated with ACNA. then there is the Anglo Catholic Church which holds to everything Rome does save Rome's authority.

Kamilla

According to The Bible Answer Man on Wednesday:

A caller said he'd recently reverted to the Roman Catholic Church and was uncertain if it was the correct decision.

Mr. Hanegraaff asked him a few diagnostic questions to determine if he was saved, then proceeded to tell him that there are many saved Catholics and many unsaved Protestants. Hank ultimately assured this caller that being in the Roman Catholic Church is a-okay.

www.oneplace.com/ministries/bible-answer-man/listen/questions-and-answer...

Since The Bible Answer Man, himself, with a worldwide platform, millions of books sold and member in good standing of the orthodox Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) validates that many Catholics are saved, then why all the hand-wringing to the contrary on this thread?

A Catholic (or Christian of any stripe) is saved by grace through faith in Christ. Period. To then pull the rug out from under their salvation by arguing that Catholics have more "graven images" or that they are worse "idolaters," wouldn't Protestants only be shooting themselves in the foot?

Since being a soundly-saved Catholic is great news to the PCA's, perhaps best-known member, Mr. Hanegraaff, why is your PCA opinion the opposite: "Home Sweet Rome? No, never"?

David,

Be careful when you sling around words like apostasy, idolatry (Per Calvin we're all "fabricum idolarum") and heresy.

The Roman Catholic Church maintains a good memory of the many 4th Century Christological and Trinitarian heresies. That's why they formulated the Nicene Creed and recite it in every Mass to remind the Christian faithful who God is, who the three persons of the Trinity are and, of the three especially, who Jesus is.

Conversely, the Nicene Creed contains the Gospel boundary markers identifying heresies. Although, the 16th Century Reformers would have wished that "imputation" were in the Creed, curiously their heirs, after almost 500 years, never added it.

Without Protestant leaders regularly teaching from and reciting this Gospel litmus test, how would their followers avoid these heresies by merely reading the Bible? With an ignorance of the Nicene Creed, why wouldn't a Protestant assume he knows who Jesus is and that, according to his leaders, Jesus is "in love" with him?

Is there any wonder that even average Catholics emerge as those best able to defend the Christian faith in an antinomian age when heresy runs wild? If a denomination never recites the Nicene Creed, aren't they breeding vast armies of heretics making the 16th Century sale of indulgences seem rather parochial?

Reformed Baptist Pastor, Trevor Hammack, describes these issues here:
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=101011178222

And what is it with all these people who want to share their thoughts while hiding their names?

David Gray (and Baylys):
Sorry if I started poorly, using only my initials. I do however include my real e-mail address when I post, and a link to my own web-log, and can be easily known there.

"Although, the 16th Century Reformers would have wished that "imputation" were in the Creed, curiously their heirs, after almost 500 years, never added it."

The Nicene Creed is the Gospel in a nutshell -- bar none. Neither the Reformers nor their progeny added the word "imputation" (or its synonym) into the Nicene Creed nor did they develop a creed that supplanted it.

Therefore, although it's good that you use the Nicene Creed in worship, it doesn't include the Protestant gospel -- Sola Fide -- "The article upon which the Church stands or falls" (Dr. Luther).

What are the PCA/OPC/Calvinists doing to insert Faith Alone into the Nicene Creed (or devise a new creed) so that we all recite this article every week? Without Faith Alone, all that remains is the faith of our fathers from 1,600 years ago.

If this statement of faith was good enough for them, as written, why would it not be for us?

I had the opportunity to sing at an Anglican Church (Anglican Church in North America) here in Northern VA recently. I didn't know what to expect, as I wasn't aware of their recent break from the Episcopalian Church. I was blessed and pleasantly surprised. Their worship was sweet, humble, and exalting to Jesus. Yes, they still had all the bells and whistles as Rome does, which is what I expected. But the preaching was expository and dealt with the sin of our culture. I'm sure there are issues that many here could easily take up with that particular denomination (rightfully so, no doubt). But I just wanted to share my recent experience with them, compared to what I was expecting. And now that I'm thinking about it, is it possible to look at a denomination like the PCA and despair of it's progress toward liberalism, but at the same time take a look at a denomination like Anglicanism and see their progress toward biblical truth (especially in their break from the Episcopal church?) Just a thought.

Brothers, allow me a few responses, although they must be hopelessly brief considering the weight of these matters.

>>Be careful when you sling around words like apostasy, idolatry (Per Calvin we're all "fabricum idolarum") and heresy.

We are careful. That is, careful--very careful--to keep them alive. The proper word to use concerning Roman Catholicism is 'heresy'. Read Joe Brown's "Heresies." Reformed pastors and elders use this word following our Reforming fathers's example because Roman Catholicism is a system of doctrine that leads souls to Hell. Systematically.

The center of Rome's system is the merchandising of salvation through the church's "treasury of merit," and it's all fueled by the engine of denial of justification by faith, alone, that keeps the souls under Rome's oppression busy earning what they may only freely receive from the Holy Spirit.

People always focus on tangential issues like Mariolatry and papal infallibility. I'll never forget listening to my seminary friend, Scott Hahn (Scott Hahn, David Bayly, Tim Keller, Marcus Grodi, and Tim Bayly are all GCTS grads within a few years of each other), say on an evangelistic tape he did for the Roman heresy that the biggest problem Evangelical Protestants have with Roman Catholicism is the infallibility of the Pope.

No. Our largest problem is the Roman Catholic church's formal damning ("let them be anathema") of those souls who believe Scripture's doctrine of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone:

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10)

God's Word is so very clear on this, as is also man's propensity to turn aside from the straight and narrow path to rituals, his own works and self-righteousness, and ceremonies. There are many, many other parts of Rome's dogma that directly attack Scripture, but every time I have another Godly friend who yearns for the bells and smells of fellow pro-fecundity, pro-natal, pro-children, pro-life, anti-abortion Rosary mantra fellow abortuary picketers, I remind them that Rome's Council of Trent anathematized God's Word, and now they're in a bind. They can hold all the meetings they want with self-appointed Protestant grandees J. I. Packer and Bill Bright and Os Guiness and Dick Mouw and John Woodbridge and Max Lucado and Chuck Colson and Herb Schlossberg and Mark Noll in Richard John Neuhaus' Big Apple offices issuing breathy statements of imminent Christian unity they've discovered after almost five centuries of failure by much better men than themselves, but it don't matter. At all. Rome is not going to repudiate one of her much-vaunted "Ecumenical councils." Ever.

(By the way, did anyone else notice the abbreviation for Neuhaus's group Evangelicals and Catholics Together, "ECT," is also the abbreviation for something serendipitously called, "Electroconvulsive Therapy." Which is a fair description of the inspiration ECT provided Jim Kennedy and RC to start Knox Seminary.)

Sure, many worship at Roman Catholic masses and are publicly identified as "Roman Catholic" without holding, personally, to the central Roman Catholic dogmas. Some are pro-abortion and others are pro-salvation by grace alone, through faith alone--not by works lest any man should boast.

Also, there are undoubtedly many, many Protestants, Reformed Protestants, Evangelical and Reformed Protestants, PCA and OPC Evangelical Reformed Protestants whose fruitlessness and lack of fear of God demonstrate that they have not been saved by grace alone, through faith alone. Men today feel no need to believe or live in a way that is consistent with their publicly affirmed doctrinal commitments, so who's surprised?

But to conclude that doctrinal commitments don't matter is to give in to that demonic Spirit of our age endlessly attacking every distinction and rendering them meaningless. "What does it matter that one soul subscribers to the Tridentine (Roman Catholic) infusion heresy and another the Westminsterian imputation doctrine of Scripture? We all love Jesus!"

Really? So Luther and Calvin and Knox and Edwards and Lloyd-Jones and Machen and the Apostle Paul were wrong? Really? Can we truly be this foolish and proud? Can we really despise the souls God has given us to guard and protect so very much? Can we really love the lost so little? Can we really be so very heartless toward our wives and sons and daughters? Can we really hate God and love ourselves so very much that we are willing to enter the Day of Judgment clinging to our menstrual rags (Isaiah 64:6) rather than Jesus' blood and righteousness?

Now, at this point there will be many Protestants--not Roman Catholics--who will think, "Tim's gone off the reservation on this one." But in fact, those of you having that thought are yourselves the ones who have gone off the reservation. You stand absolutely alone across all salvation history because you believe that good intentions matter more than the Word and words of God.

Man does not live on good intentions and sincerity and authenticity and passion, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

>>The Roman Catholic Church maintains a good memory of the many 4th Century Christological and Trinitarian heresies.

Of course they do. Why shouldn't they? They received those creeds from the true Christian church and it would be extremely unwise for Rome to allow their Tridentine apostasy to grow to the further repudiation of Biblical doctrines she inherited intact from the true Christian Early church. If Rome started to add an attack upon the Trinity to her attack upon the sufficient and perfect righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ, even dense and somnolent souls might wake up and smell the fire and flee for their souls.

>>That's why they formulated the Nicene Creed…

What? WHAT? "They," sir, had nothing--absolutely nothing--to do with formulating the Nicene Creed. And if you changed your statement to "The Holy Spirit used them to put down in writing what He had already revealed in Holy Scripture," I'd still be filled with indignation at your blatant falsehood.

The Roman Catholic heretics had nothing to do with the Council of Trent. Rather, the Council of Trent was a council of the Christian Church, that glorious Mother of us all in which we have the unity of the Spirit in the bond of love. To cede the first fourteen centuries to those who lie and cheat and steal in the Name of Jesus Christ is to connive at lies that boggle the mind. The Vatican has nothing to do with Bernard of Clairvaux, let alone Jon Hus or Peter Waldo or Augustine or Irenaeus or Cyprian or Perpetua or Polycarp or Stephen or the Apostles Peter and Paul.

Or our Glorious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world.

>>Although, the 16th Century Reformers would have wished that "imputation" were in the Creed, curiously their heirs, after almost 500 years, never added it.

No one of us has ever wished any such thing. Imputation is all through the Bible and all through our summaries of the Bible known as "catechisms" and "confessions." For instance, here is Chapter XI of the (1646) "Westminster Confession of Faith":

* * *

I. Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth: not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone; not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.

II. Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification; yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love.

III. Christ, by his obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are thus justified, and did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction of his Father's justice in their behalf. Yet inasmuch as he was given by the Father for them, and his obedience and satisfaction accepted in their stead, and both freely, not for any thing in them, their justification is only of free grace, that both the exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners.

IV. God did, from all eternity, decree to justify the elect; and Christ did, in the fullness of time, die for their sins and rise again for their justification; nevertheless they are not justified until the Holy Spirit doth, in due time, actually apply Christ unto them.

V. God doth continue to forgive the sins of those that are justified; and although they can never fall from the state of justification, yet they may by their sins fall under God's Fatherly displeasure, and not have the light of his countenance restored unto them, until they humble themselves, confess their sins, beg pardon, and renew their faith and repentance.

VI. The justification of believers under the Old Testament was, in all these respect, one and the same with the justification of believers under the New Testament.

* * *

Impututation and the denial of the Roman Catholic church's Tridentine counterfeit, infusion, are all through every Biblical catechism and confession ever written. And yes, I mean "Biblical" in the sense of denying the Roman Catholic church's Tridentine counterfeit, infusion. It's circular with the Lord Jesus Christ and His perfect righteousness Alone at the center. No man or woman nearby, but Christ Alone. Praise Him!

>>Without Protestant leaders regularly teaching from and reciting this Gospel litmus test, how would their followers avoid these heresies by merely reading the Bible?

A better question would be how would the Church ever have been able to declare the Nature of the Trinity and avoid all the heresies that deny It unless they had read and studied, and then summarized the Bible's Trinitarian doctrine?

>>With an ignorance of the Nicene Creed, why wouldn't a Protestant assume he knows who Jesus is and that, according to his leaders, Jesus is "in love" with him?

A very valid question today when many, many Protestants, including conservative Evangelical and Reformed Protestants, have not the slightest commitment to the Word of God or the summaries of Scripture we have inherited from twenty centuries of faithful fathers. Like Roman Catholicism, Reformed and Evangelical Protestantism today is awash in cheap grace and false emotion and the absence of compunction of conscience. This is due to the refusal of pastors to preach the Word in dependence upon the Holy Spirit rather than our own hip factor, famous associations, cultural acumen, and antinomianism. Thus our sheep are headed for Hell being bound with chains in an error that Martin Luther, having just been rescued by God from the error of Roman Catholicism, called "the error worse than all those hitherto prevailing."

When we preach forgiveness without repentance, the Gospel without the Law, he said, we will create a people "without compunction of conscience," and this is "an error worse than all those hitherto (prior to the Reformation) prevailing."

>>If a denomination never recites the Nicene Creed, aren't they breeding vast armies of heretics making the 16th Century sale of indulgences seem rather parochial?

Like many, many Biblical churches, we recite the Nicene Creed regularly.

>>Is there any wonder that even average Catholics emerge as those best able to defend the Christian faith in an antinomian age when heresy runs wild?

You're absolutely right, and thus many discouraged souls turn to the Roman heresy. Discouragement over the silence of Biblically reformed pastors preaching and shepherding through both God's Law and His Gospel--or better, through the grace of the law and the law of grace--could cause any of us to turn to Satanic despair and throw in the towel, repudiating our Lord Jesus Christ by embracing the Pope.

Luther came close to this in his death throes back in July of 1527 (he ended up living on more than twenty years, to everyone's surprise). He wrote of his death-bed temptations to despair:

* * *

For more than a week I have been thrown back and forth in death and Hell; my whole body feels beaten, my limbs are still trembling. I almost lost Christ completely, driven about on the waves and storms of despair and blasphemy against God. But because of the intercessions of the faithful, God began to take mercy on me and tore my soul from the depths of Hell.

* * *

And when the Black Death swept through Wittenberg a short time later, Luther wrote:

* * *

Satan himself is raging against me with all his might….He affects me with indescribable spiritual weakness….My hope is that the fight will benefit many, although there is nothing in this misery that my sins have not deserved….But I know that I have taught the Word of Christ purely and truly for the salvation of many. That is what the Devil is angry at, that is why he wants to crush me together with the Word.

* * *

And this also from Apostle Luther (that's what Calvin called him):

* * *

World and reason have no idea how difficult it is to grasp that Christ is our justification, so deeply embedded in us--like a second nature--is the trust in works.

* * *

So, dear brothers and sisters, it has always been difficult for depraved man to turn to Christ Alone. Luther had difficulty himself, as has every other true follower of Jesus Christ. Our pride is insatiable, but praise God, we have a jealous God Who will brook with no competitors! Thanks be to God!

Right now Christians do it, but One Day soon, every man will come to an end of Himself and declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God The Father. Hallelujah!

Love,

>>Rather, the Council of Trent was a council of the Christian Church, that glorious Mother of us all in which we have the unity of the Spirit in the bond of love.

Council of Nicea?

But the point is the same I made. Rome doesn't get to claim formulating the canon or the early ecumenical creeds. They are a common heritage of the church catholic and some churches are much more faithful to the creed than others. And if you wanted to operate as he did on a continuing heirarchy basis of ownership he still loses to the Eastern Orthodox who split with Rome 500 years before Luther was expelled by Rome.

(1.) You interpret Ephesians 2:8-9 your way, relying on Luther, Calvin, Knox, Williams, Wesley, etc.

(2.) Catholics interpret Ephesians 2:8-9 through understanding the Book of James and the Whole Counsel of God.

(3.) "He who earns his living by his faith will eventually lose one or the other."

Brother Todd writes: "Are you saying that infant baptism right or wrong?"

Neither; I'm making a smaller (or larger) point using infant baptism as one anomalous placeholder among a number of better placeholders for a certain, in my estimation largely regressive, pilgrimage. But since you ask, yes, I believe infant baptism is a proper fulfillment of our Lord's command to baptize His disciples.

Love,

Kamilla,

I'm not very familiar with AMiA's position but I think it's that their current female deacons can be "grandmothered" in, but that they will not ordain any new ones. They do not ordain female priests.

In the ACNA, there are whole dioceses that joined the ACNA that had a policy of not ordaining women to the diaconate or priesthood. They do not have to change their position. This is also true for whole smaller denominations who joined the ACNA as a group.

Conversely, other dioceses that joined the ACNA allowed either female priests and/or deacons and they could keep this position as well. But churches in these dioceses aren't pressured to call female clergy or recommend women from their parish for ordained ministry if they think this wrong.

Other dioceses formed on the basis of geography are probably are a mixed bag. Their churches have the choice to call female priests and/or deacons according to what they think the Lord has directed them to do.

I think there is also the opportunity for churches within a diocese that allows women's ordination to be put under the authority of a diocese that does not allow this if they oppose women's ordination.

As to bishops, this office is open to males only.

I realize this seems like a split-personality position to you and many others and why you believe it is wrong.

My opinion is that the day when the ACNA starts requiring all dioceses to ordain female clergy and require parishes to include female clergy when they are searching for a priest or deacon is the day where I think there is a serious problem. Until then, I am comfortable with the decision to let dioceses and/or parishes follow the dictates of their consciences on this matter.

I also think that in general, any denominations that believe that women serving as ordained deacons, ministers, or priests is wrong should stick to their guns.

My .02,

Sue
:) putting on flame-proof jammies now

>> Until then, I am comfortable with the decision to let dioceses and/or parishes follow the dictates of their consciences on this matter.

When what the Apostles and prophets and the Holy Scriptures are comfortable with differs from what we ourselves are comfortable with, how tempting it is to follow our own comfort.