Free Republic

Recently I picked up The Protestant's Dilemma: How the Reformation’s Shocking Consequences Point to the Truth of Catholicism (San Diego: Catholic Answers Press, 2014). In the preface of the Kindle edition, an unidentified author states that the primary author, Devin Rose, has put forth a book looking to engage in "dialogue" specifically"with members of the thousands of Protestant sects." The book is said to raise issues that a Protestant "has never considered before," not simply to have dialogue for the sake of mutual understanding, but rather to have "conciliar" dialogue in which the goal is to show the logical inconsistency of Protestantism...

The United States started out mainly Protestant -- however due to the schisms in Western Europe, with a strong bent towards religious tolerance of other denominations. Coupled with this, the American War of Independence gave a strong bent to non-hierarchical thinking...therefore a suspicion of stratified, formalized churches (primarily Catholic) as Orthodox churches were concentrated in Russia and Eastern Europe and demographically underrepresented among the settlers. Coupled with this, historical ignorance (America as a “melting pot” formed explicitly upon socio-political theory rather than accidents of blood, war, and geography) coupled with dependence upon breakaway denominations (Lutheran, Calvinist, Evangelical) led to a...

In a new video, megachurch leader and author Rick Warren is calling for Christians to unite with Roman Catholics and “Pope Francis,” who Warren recently referred to as the “Holy Father”—a move that is raising concerns among Christians nationwide and is resulting in calls for Warren to repent. Warren made the comments following his visit to the Vatican last month, where he spoke at an interfaith conference on the “Complementarity of Man and Woman.”...

Featured Term (selected at random:REFORMATION A religous, social, and polititcal upheaval (1517-1648) that divided Western Christendom and created world Protestantism. Its causes were manifold: weakening of papal authority through long residence in France and the worldliness of some popes; disloyalty to Rome of many bishops who were really temporal rulers; excessive reservation of ecclesiastical appointments to the Roman Curia; intellectual and moral unfitness of many priests; wealth of some of the monasteries and dissension in their ranks; superstition and ignorance among the laity; social unrest brought on by the disentegration of the fuedal system; support given by political power to...

The Trouble With Calvin – Pt. 3 In my last two blog posts, we examined the first two of the “five points” of Calvinism popularly known by the acronym, TULIP, which represents 1. Total Depravity 2. Unconditional Election 3. Limited Atonement 4. Irresistible Grace 5. Perseverance of the Saints (“once saved, always saved”). In this post, we will tackle the third point:Limited AtonementNo Christian that I know of would deny that some doctrines are more or less clear than others in Scripture. When it comes to the atonement of Christ, the Scriptures are most clear: Jesus Christ died on the...

With the in-your-face display of greed and arrogance of the so-called pastors on the reality show Preachers of L.A., I began to wonder: when will black Christians wake up and say enough is enough?  Although there are some white pastors of mega-churches who have a net worth of almost triple their congregants as well, I want to focus on the plight of the black saints who sit under the ministry of black pastors (and some white pastors) Sunday after Sunday and continue to live paycheck to paycheck.After some years of attending mega-churches pastored by both black and white men and...

“You’ll find our text this morning in the Old Testament…” I know this is a rare announcement on a Sunday morning, but when you heard it last, what did you think? “Oh no! Not another historical lecture.” “We’re going to get a whipping with the law today.” “Why? I came to church to hear about Jesus.” “What’s Israel and Babylon got to do with my family struggles?” Or maybe you didn’t just think it. You said it or emailed it to the pastor afterwards. And pastors are feeling the pressure. Some surveys put the ratio of Old Testament to New...

The Trouble With Calvin – Pt. 2 In my last post, I began a series of critiques of John Calvin’s famous “five points,” most often referred to using the acronym, TULIP, which represents Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistibility of Grace, and The Perseverance of the Saints (“once saved, always saved”). In this installment, we’ll deal with Unconditional Election.Calvin’s idea of Unconditional Election simply means that God “elected” certain men for salvation and others for damnation from all eternity, rooted in texts of Scripture, as we will see below, like Romans 9:10-12:And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived...

Coming Soon? A More Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu and Less Christian America By Julio Severo There’s no doubt that the United States had a Christian beginning, first with the Pilgrim Fathers. Later, from the independence and on, America was a Protestant nation with Catholic and Jewish minorities. She was able consistently to keep this religious profile until the mid-20 century. America was seen as the most Protestant nation in the world, and U.S. missionaries often taught about the divine blessings on a predominantly Protestant nation. America was cherished by us, by the example and sermons of missionaries, as a nation...

In 2017, we will witness the 500th anniversary of one of the most important, influential and regrettable events in Church history: the Protestant Reformation, or the Protestant Rebellion, as some prefer to call it. Indeed, the latter term would suit me better, too. But, being German, I am used to the former expression and should I ever refer to said event as die protestantische Rebellion, people would think me some sort of radical. On that thought, perhaps it is worth noting that rebels are often quite radical themselves, which is one thing we can definitely say of the so-called "Reformers"....

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.

Full Title: Predestination: Should We Even Talk About It? Is the doctrine of predestination an obstacle to the usefulness of preaching? I’d like to begin a series on—get ready—predestination. Yes, I said that word. I know this is not the most popular topic to bring up among polite company; in fact, it’s downright divisive, isn’t it? In the fifth century, Augustine recounted in his letters that some said, “The doctrine of predestination is an obstacle to the usefulness of preaching.” And who wants an obstacle? In the sixteenth century, John Calvin had to go out of his way to state...

For Protestantism to make much sense, the Church must have, at some point, abandoned the truth and become apostate. Otherwise, Protestantism has no license to exist. But when was this "Great Apostasy"? Protestants offer varying opinions, but none of them hold up to scrutiny. Was it right after the deaths of the Apostles?A view most supported by Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses is that, after the Apostles, the Church quickly fell into apostasy. This would be a massive blow at both God's promise to guard His Church (Joshua 1:5; Matthew 16:18) and all of the doctrine mentioned hereafter. But if this...

......"The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life has put hard numbers on the anecdotal evidence: One out of every 10 Americans is an ex-Catholic. If they were a separate denomination, they would be the third-largest denomination in the United States, after Catholics and Baptists. One of three people who were raised Catholic no longer identifies as Catholic........."Thankfully, although the U.S. bishops have not supported research on people who have left the church, the Pew Center has. Pew’s data shows that those leaving the church are not homogenous. They can be divided...

Karlo Broussard does a very good job of explaining the sacraments without the distortions or misrepresentations of Protestants who never even walked the earth until more than 14 centuries after Christ established the sacraments.

Did God provide for the salvation of sinners that he chose to be saved, or did God provide a way of salvation and then it is up to sinners to choose it? Wrong question that has been asked... The question that SHOULD be asked: Did God know which choice we would make (as to salvation) when He created this universe and bring into existence that choice to be saved, or did He bring into existence His choice for whom He would save when He brought this universe into existence? Is the ultimate, final answer to this either/or, neither/nor, or both/and?...

Thursday, November 14, 2013 The Fallible Prophets of New Calvinism by Michael John Beasley From the website: This book examines Dr. Wayne Grudem's controversial teaching on fallible prophecy in view of various lexical, exegetical, and historical points of analysis. It also addresses the teaching's popularity and continuing advancement through many charismatics within the "New Calvinism" movement. The doctrine of fallible prophecy is neither benign nor harmless, rather it constitutes a troubling strange fire for the body of Christ and continues to spread through the advocacy of popular continuationists like Wayne Grudem, D.A. Carson, John Piper, and Mark Driscoll: 1. Chapter...

I could just say: “Read this magnificent post.” but being long-winded I cannot. American Protestants, especially Evangelicals, are not loved by “outsiders.” Nobody writes romance novels about them they way they do about the Amish. Nobody thinks they have cool hair, the way they admire Orthodox beards. No movie like the “Bells of Saint Mary’s” has ever featured a pop star like Bing Crosby as a noble Calvary Chapel pastor . . . no “Pit Band of The Gathering” will ennoble the pop-religion of those strip mall churches. Atheist wrath is so often directed against Evangelicals that popular atheist debaters...

CALVINISM’S FALSE DOCTRINE Posted on September 14, 2007 by Cathy “Calvinism” is very popular and many Christians, though they would not identify themselves as Calvinists, may have embraced some of Calvin’s doctrine without realizing it. The doctrine is named after a man named John Calvin, a reformer, who lived in the 1500′s. Calvinism propagates error. Knowledge of error helps us to be discerning when listening to or reading Christian material. If a teacher is a Calvinist, all that they teach will be taught through the lens of Calvinism. The result of this Calvinistic “bent” will be teachings that are dangerously...

Question: It is obvious that Mary had children after Jesus was born. As long as Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, why was it necessary that Mary have no previous children? I am not asking why it was necessary that Jesus be conceived by the Holy Spirit—I understand that. I guess my question is, Why would it matter that Mary had other children first, as long as Jesus was conceived by the Spirit? Answer: I agree with you that from what is said in Scripture, it appears to be "obvious that Mary had children after Jesus was born. "...