Gospel e-Letter

The authority of the Roman Catholic Church depends on the apostolic succession of the Pope. The Pope should be obeyed as the universal and infallible ruler, the Catholic teaching insists, because his authority has been transmitted over the centuries from the apostle Peter in an unbroken lineage of Popes. Let us then briefly examine this claim from a historical and biblical perspective. It is not particularly edifying to go through all the filth and corruption of papal history. A few examples should suffice. Pope Honorius was condemned as a heretic by the Sixth Ecumenical Council. Pope Christopher became pope by forcibly dethroning his predecessor, Leo V, and putting him into prison. He was then driven from the chair by his successor, Sergius III. Pope John XII was a coarse, immoral man, whose life was such that the Lateran was spoken of as a house of prostitution, and the moral corruption in Rome became the subject of general odium. Pope Benedict IX sold the papacy to Pope Gregory VI...

(Or, How to stifle genuine religious communication) Keep on asking questions Inundate your opponent with questions of all kinds on many different subjects. It doesn’t matter if you repeat different versions of the same question over and over again. When he answers, launch a new set of questions – preferably similar to the previous ones. This approach guarantee that your opponent will ultimately become exasperated… when he gives up, claim victory – see, he lost the argument because he cannot answer! Even better, you can even predict the outcome. Insist on chapter and verse Pretend that an answer is truly biblical only if it is a direct quotation from the Bible complete with chapter and verse. Disregard the fact that Satan was not at all biblical when he quoted directly from Scripture to tempt Jesus in the wilderness. Ignore the fact that the foundational Christian doctrine of the Trinity is robustly biblical even though we can’t give a single chapter and verse that defines and proves th...

The following six questions were asked by a Catholic apologist, John Martignoni. 1) Could the Holy Spirit, through the universal Church (which is the Body of Christ), have enabled believers – particularly the Bishops (the successors of the Apostles), in the first few hundred years of the Church, to faithfully and accurately pass along the traditions Paul taught by “word of mouth”? Yes, or no? Yes. But they could have also mixed the apostolic teaching with much error, just as God's people of old did before to the teaching of the Prophets. "Could" implies possibility not certainty! Could God have created a 3-legged creature on Pluto? Yes. Did he? Perhaps he did, but I'm pretty sure he didn't. 2) Are you infallible in your interpretations of Scripture? Was Martin Luther infallible in his? Or John Calvin? Yes, or no? (Note: this question concerns not your personal infallibility, but the infallibility of your scriptural interpretations. No, no, no, and so will any sens...

Protestants, as well as Catholics, confess their belief in one church. But the two groups understand church unity differently. According to a recent document published by the Vatican, the church of Jesus Christ is identified with the church “governed by the successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him”. Christian unity is conceived as a world-wide organized society under the leadership of Catholic bishops and headed by the bishop of Rome.  According to this theory, the Orthodox and Protestant churches “suffer from defects”; the latter are merely “ecclesial Communities” and not “churches in the proper sense” -- primarily because they do not submit to the headship of the Pope, the bishop of Rome. However, there is no convincing biblical evidence that Peter was appointed supreme pastor and ruler of the whole church. We know from the New Testament that Peter was considered a pillar in the early church, but he shared this reputation with two other apostles. “James, Peter, an...