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Below is a set of theses from the late Dr. Marquart, posted here in honor of the Reformation. Originally written for class and perhaps a conference, they speak of what exactly Sola Scriptura means and what it means for the church. Blessed Festival of the Reformation! Verbum domini manet in aeternum. The two focal points of the Reformation conflict were the Gospel’s core content (justification) and the Gospel’s authority (Scripture alone—sola scriptura).“Sola scriptura” means to assert the sole authority of Christ over His church, to the exclusion of all other powers and authorities. IESOUS KYRIOS (Jesus is Lord, I Cor....

Kochi - Christianization of India – and not Indianization of Christ – is the major goal of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. Any attempt to derail this goal should be defeated through solidification of faith through spiritual campaigns, says a study document on protection of faith prepared as part of the Year of Faith observance by the Catholic Church In the particular context of the strengthening of several smaller Christian sects, especially in Kerala, the document says that measures will have to be adopted to avoid the splintered sects, including the Protestants, influencing the faithful belonging to the Syro-Malabar Church. It...

According to a new study by the Pew Forum, Protestants are, for the first time in history, not a majority in the United States of America. I don’t think that’s anything for evangelical Protestants, or anyone else, to panic about. Several years ago, I pointed out here that studies were showing a declining Protestant majority, and projections were being made for this very reality. Now, the surveys says we have a 48 percent plurality of Protestants. I wasn’t frantic about that several years ago, and I’m still not. When working toward our “God and country” badges, my childhood Boy Scout...

This is an incredible ad the Catholic Church is running for values. http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=D9vQt6IXXaM&hd

NEW YORK –  For the first time in its history, the United States does not have a Protestant majority, according to a new study. One reason: The number of Americans with no religious affiliation is on the rise. The percentage of Protestant adults in the U.S. has reached a low of 48 percent, the first time that Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has reported with certainty that the number has fallen below 50 percent. The drop has long been anticipated and comes at a time when no Protestants are on the U.S. Supreme Court and the Republicans have...

Pastors, I'd like to propose some hypotheticals for you. Imagine a scenario in which the president of the United States used his bully pulpit to declare to the country that divorce was a good thing, beneficial to spouses and good for kids who would be saved from contentious households. Certainly some people feel that way. Or, imagine if the president of the United States told the country that monogamy was unnatural and that it was not actually our urges that needed to be overcome but our petty jealousies over sexual exclusivity. I'm certain there are people who share those sentiments....

Attention white Anglo-Saxon Protestants: Your days of running things are over. You have jumped the shark. But there's no need to feel bad for WASPs. They've had an amazing run. Every single president in our nation's history, except for John F. Kennedy -- a Catholic -- and Barack Obama, has been a white Protestant. Except for a handful of exceptions, for over 200 years the presidential nominees of both major political parties have been WASPs. WASPs had almost as many victories in a row as The Harlem Globetrotters. But it's over. Look at this year's presidential tickets: A Mormon, an...

One of the great battle cries of the Protestant Reformation was “sola scriptura!” Many thought that the Catholic Church had cluttered up the simple Christian faith by adding all sorts of practices, customs and doctrines over the centuries. They thought the Church in their day was guilty of exactly the same Pharisaical obsession with traditions condemned by Jesus in this Sunday’s gospel (Mark 7:1-23). The solution, it seemed, was simple. Let’s purify the Church by ditching all these traditions and keeping the Bible alone. But if we read this portion of the Bible closely, the Lord is not telling us...

EXCERPT: Just because Christians believe something does not mean that the government needs to make a law to enforce that belief. To put it bluntly, in America it is legal to believe things that could compromise your own eternal salvation. The state will not stand in the way of incorrect theology. And it would be wrong for the state to assume such power, because, in Protestant thought, spiritual actions and even knowledge without an internal change of heart are worthless. Conservatives who often express great concern about an emerging "nanny state" ought to take specific note of religious rules coming...

There is controversy in advance of a televised church service on 17 June on ZDF (Cathcon- German equivalent of BBC). The reason: during the service of the Evangelical Free Church congregation (Baptist) in Kamp-Lintfort work where Christians and Muslim work alongside eachother in the mines, there will be a reading from the Koran. As the Baptist pastor, André Carouge explained, Christians and Muslims have maintained close relationships in Kamp-Lintfort since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 in the United States.

Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has the media pulling their hair out. And that is no surprise. Rick represents old fashioned American politics that is 180 degrees away from the anything-goes, high-tax, high-spend, blame-Christians philosophy that they support. But there is one story they don't want to tell. And that is how Evangelical Christians are happily supporting Mr. Santorum, because they feel that he best represents their interests. And the fact that he is a Catholic doesn't matter to them at all. This is a sea change that is incredibly beneficial to the movement to conserve America. With Protestants and Catholics...

WEDNESDAY, May 25 (HealthDay News) -- Older adults who say they've had a life-changing religious experience are more likely to have a greater decrease in size of the hippocampus, the part of the brain critical to learning and memory, new research finds. ...or conversely, those who had no religious affiliation, had more hippocampal shrinkage (or "atrophy") compared to people who identified themselves as Protestants, but not born-again. ...SOURCE: Duke University, news release, May 19, 2011

The preserved heart of Dublin's patron saint has been stolen from the city's Christ Church Cathedral, officials say. The thief would have needed metal cutters to prise open the iron bars protecting the wooden heart-shaped box holding St Laurence O'Toole's heart. Police believe it happened some time between Friday night and about 12.30 GMT on Saturday. "They specifically targeted this, they wanted the heart of St Laurence O'Toole," a church spokeswoman said....

Bishop William Lori testifies about religious liberty at a House subcommittee hearing. Washington D.C., Feb 16, 2012 / 04:12 pm (CNA/EWTN News).-  Individuals from a variety of religious backgrounds testified at a congressional hearing about the threat to religious freedom posed by a new federal contraception policy. Bishop William E. Lori of Bridgeport, Conn. explained that the debate is not about whether contraception should be illegal but whether religious employers that object should be “forced to pay for it.”At a Feb. 16 hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Bishop Lori joined other witnesses to testify...

This essay is part of today’s symposium of lay Catholic opinion on immigration. For other contributions see this piece by Mark and Louise Zwick, this one by John Zmirak, and this news report from Zenit. For Deal Hudson’s view, see this article in The American Spectator. In the nineteenth century, German Catholics came to America by the millions, with surges following the revolutionary unrest of 1848 and the unification of Germany in 1871 that brought on Bismarck’s persecution of Catholics during the Kulturkampf. With them came heroic religious orders and devout laymen like those who founded Der Wanderer, a Catholic weekly...

Thick clouds of diesel smoke fill the air outside a rundown guest farm, three hours’ drive east of Johannesburg. As the stench dissipates, a group of boys, aged between 13 and 19, spill from the bed of a rusty truck, lugging huge bags full of military clothing. 'There are old bloodstains on my uniform,’ one of them says, as he trades his trainers for army boots. Shouted orders ring out. Groaning, the boys raise 15ft tent poles among the cowpats dotting the grassland. The large army tent that they put up will be their home for the next nine days....

VATICAN, November 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – One of the highest ranking cardinals in the Vatican has said that the United States is “well on the way” to the persecution of Christians. Cardinal Raymond Burke Cardinal Raymond Burke, former Archbishop of St. Louis and now the head of the Vatican’s highest court, told Catholic News Agency that he could envision a time when the Catholic Church in the U.S., “even by announcing her own teaching,” is accused of “engaging in illegal activity, for instance, in its teaching on human sexuality.” Asked if the cardinal could even see American Catholics being arrested...

The Bible & Birth Control The Bible and Birth Control by Charles D. Provan Monongahela, PA: Zimmer Printing, 1989 97 pp., $5.95reviewed by Scott HahnAs a recent convert to Roman Catholicism, I am frequently asked by friends and family to explain how my theological studies led me out of the Protestant ministry into the Catholic Church. After tossing out a few of their favorite stock objections and discovering to their suprise that at least one Catholic has solid scriptural rebuttals, they usually back off. After all, listening to a convert-friend “explain” his new-found faith can put two otherwise close...

Last Friday, Rev. Robert Jeffress, the Dallas pastor who introduced Gov. Rick Perry at the Values Voter Summit, spoke derisively about the Mormon faith of Mitt Romney, making the case that “Mormonism is a cult.” Two days later, he chided Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism as “false religions.” Last year, Rev. Jeffress said the Roman Catholic Church was the outgrowth of a “corruption” called the “Babylonian mystery.” He continued, “Much of what you see in the Catholic Church today doesn’t come from God’s word. It comes from that cult-like pagan religion. Isn’t that the genius of Satan?” Catholic League president Bill...

A European team of researchers led by the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom postulates that the 'Protestant work ethic' that emerged in the 19th century may have helped to propel the economies of northern Europe over their southern neighbours. The study is presented in two articles published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Scandinavian Journal of Economics. Lead author Dr Sascha Becker, the deputy head of Warwick's Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE), collated data to determine if Max Weber's Protestant Work Ethic theory - that Protestantism encouraged hard work as a duty...