The God Fearin Forum

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3

Were the Letters of Ignatius Forged?
2008-05-21 06:40:00
As I have mentioned a number of times, Calvin viewed the Ignatian epistles as spurious (for obvious reasons). I have also been in the habit of mentioning that he has since been proven wrong. A reader asked me how certain this really was and pointed to the book "The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious" by W. D. Killen (Presbyterian minister). This book was written in response to Lightfoot whom I was mostly resting in when I said that it was an accepted fact these days that the epistles were genuine. I'm sure Killen's work has been dealt with adequately by others; as far as I can tell, Protestant and Catholic Patrologists alike take the authenticity of the seven Ignatian epistles for granted these days. But for fun, I threw together this quick and sloppy response to his book.In point of fact, the letter of Polycarp, as a genuine production of the second century, occupies an incomparably higher position than the Ignatian Epistles. The internal evidence in its favour is most sat...
More About: Letters

Why Sola Fide Isn't Good Enough For Anyone
2008-05-20 20:30:00
John 3:16 and its few parallels are the target of my present discussion. I won't even argue from the context of John 3 which is routinely ignored by proponents of sola fide. In fact, I'm going to approach this from a nearly Protestant stand point (that is, something like NT Wright does). I have argued here that there is far less division between good Protestant doctrine on the issue and the official Roman Catholic position than we typically admit so keep that in mind moving forward.What I'm concerned with at the moment is Jesus' very command, in and of itself: "believe in Me". We could start by reminding ourselves that one must read "fidelity" while reading "fide" and "faithfulness" while reading "faith". That is to say, fidelity doesn't just naturally and necessarily follow from fide, it is intrinsically part of fide (in the Biblical usage). Faithfulness doesn't just spring from faith, it is true faith! when the Scriptures speak of faith (excepting James 2), we can near...
More About: Good

Music From My Old Band - The Gray Brothers
2008-05-19 00:39:00
Just for fun - here are some songs from my old rock band. We stopped playing together in 2003. I sang lead vocals and played keyboards (which included bass on the left hand most of the time). Another guy did background vocals and usually guitar but occasionally bass guitar. The drummer was well out of our league (and age range --- he used to play with Sammy Davis Jr.) This one ended up being our most popular original:This one was kind of eclectic - we wrote it on an out of tune piano with a guitar de-tuned to the piano. (The piano playing here is in tune though, it's a keyboard):This one was recorded live at the Double Door Inn 8/17/03.. Before this band, the guitarist and I played in a Latin rock band with 2 brothers from Panama City so we took some of our Latin influence into the new band. This song was much longer, I modified it down to fit within the 10 minute Youtube time limit (mostly cutting from the insanely long drum solo..).. I had a bad case of bronchitis that night...
More About: Band , Music , Brothers , Gray

Do You Hear the Gospel at Mass?
2008-05-16 16:16:00
This is in response to the comments over at Path of the Weis.I don't think the gospel is hard to hear at mass. I think it's hard not to hear it. If you sat at the foot of Calvary, would the gospel be hard to hear? Would it be hard to hear at Pentecost or in the Upper Room? The gospel wasn't written by Paul but when Protestants say "the gospel" what they really mean is a post 16th century reading of the Pauline epistles - ignoring much of the actual gospels and the rest of the New Testament. Is Billy Graham's gospel hard to hear at mass? Yes, it's very hard to hear. But who says Billy Graham has it right?If the gospel at mass was a snake it wouldn't just bite you, you'd be biting it! If "the gospel" is hard to hear in the mass, then the gospel is hard to hear in the Scriptures and then we must ask - what actually is the gospel? As my Protestant friend remarked to me, "You Catholics have more Scripture embedded in your liturgy than we even read in our services".. Yea, and ...
More About: Hear , Gospel , Mass

Me @ Work
2008-05-16 15:21:00
This is a dinner we had for work last week. For those of you who don't know, I work at a gospel rescue mission. Hah! A Catholic surrounded by Protestants and Protestant theology all day long. God must have a sense of humor. (I was a Protestant when I started working here).
More About: Work

Church Infallibility & Conversions to the Catholic Church
2008-05-15 22:05:00
This was my recent post in the combox over at JP Manzi's blog:Pope Benedict said (while he was still Cardinal Ratzinger) on Church infallibility:This doctrine obviously needs to be understood very precisely within its correct limitations, so as not to be misused or misunderstood. It doesn't mean that every word that the ecclesiastical authorities say, or even every word said by a pope, is infallible. It certainly does mean that wherever the Church, in the great spiritual and cultural struggles of history, and after all possible prayer and grappling with the truth, insists that this is the correct interpretation and draws a line there, she has been promised that in this instance she will not lead people in to error. That she will not be turned into an instrument of destruction for the Word of God, but remains the mother, the living agent, within whom the Word is alive and truly expresses Himself and is truly interpreted.The Scriptural model for this is found in Acts 15. There was a...
More About: Catholic Church , Catholic

The Arrogance of the Emergent Church's "Mere Christianity" Fantasy
2008-05-14 17:16:00
This is partially in response to Bryan Cross' recent post evaluating the recent "Evangelical Manifesto". He has more nice things to say about it than I would I think. I look at a rotten apple and I don't notice the parts of the apple that are still edible. To me, it's just that: a rotten apple! I throw the whole thing away.One of my co-workers remarked "My church doesn't call ourself Catholic or Protestant or Baptist or anything... We're just Christian". Yea. You're just full of it. That's what you are.I used to think the same thing of myself. I was just "Christian". In reality looking back, I can see how wrapped up in self-pride that statement is. It is _I_ who embody and personify true Christianity .Christ isn't a member of Israel or one of Israel's sects: He's not a Pharisee or Sadducee etc... He is TRUE Israel. That's what we think of ourselves when we start talking like that. "I'm above being categorized into any certain systematic doctrine of Christianit...
More About: Fantasy , Emergent , Arrogance

Polycarp's Kitchen
2008-05-14 03:42:00
The wife and I have purchased a small "restobar" in Quezon City, Philippines. Quezon City (2.5 million people) is adjacent to Manila. When we had to change the name, I chose "Polycarp's Kitchen " after my patron saint, Polycarp. If you ever happen to be in metro Manila, stop in for a beer on the house :) Just tell them you're there for the God Fearin Forum special... they'll know what you mean. Actually they wont, so don't try it.

Patristic Carnival XI
2008-05-13 15:58:00
Phil Snider has Patristic Carnival XI up and running. Lot's of stuff - where does one find the time!And be sure to let Phil know if you're willing to host the next one. It's a fun project and drives traffic to your blog.

3,000 Assyrians Return to Full Communion With Rome
2008-05-12 20:36:00
H/T Principium Unitatis. Rorate Caeli has the story.
More About: Rome , Return , Full

Pentecost, Reconciliation, Popery & Tertullian
2008-05-12 03:46:00
The year is 219 AD, Zephyrinus' right hand, the archdeacon Callistus had just been elected pope which led to the great Roman priest and theologian Hippolytus electing himself as anti-pope. Tertullian had already been a part of the Montanist heresy for more than a decade and had officially split from the Church some 8 years ago (Harnack) or possibly 7. The controversy was two fold. First, Hippolytus accused Callistus of following in Zephyrinus' indecisive ways concerning Monarchianism, especially Modalism. There's lots of names for various beliefs here so to keep it simple, I'll just summarize that in various forms they overstressed the unity of the Father and Son to the point where they taught it was permissible to say that the Father had suffered on the Cross. Zephyrinus refrained from pronouncing on this as their errors weren't entirely clear yet. (This is long before Nicaea had laid out the Trinity). In fact, Tertullian became the first Christian to use the word Trin...
More About: Pentecost , Reconciliation

An Old Friend Puts His Swimming Trunks On & Gets Ready to Cross the Tib
2008-05-10 17:15:00
For those of you who know him, JP Manzi has announced that he is preparing to convert to the Catholic Church. JP & I didn't get off to the best of starts.. I guess it was a year or more ago when I "met" him in the combox of another blog and replied pretty harshly on some topic I can't remember. He kept a level head about it though and after some discussion I think we realized we weren't saying such different things after all. I haven't been keeping up with his blog lately but he's been through quite an intellectual ride over the past year or however long. Glad to see the "Return of the Prodigal Catholic" (formerly the "Prodigal Blogger").
More About: Swimming , Cross , Friend , Ready

Traditionalist Order Seeks Reunification With Rome
2008-05-09 19:06:00
Real Clear Religion has the story. This is thanks to Pope Benedict XVI's liberalization of the Tridentine mass. Long live the pope!
More About: Rome , Order

More on the Body as the Image of God
2008-05-08 21:07:00
In our previous discussion on the same topic or more properly: reconciling theistic evolution with the body as the image of God, we didn't fully arrive at any definite conclusions but I think interesting points were brought up on both sides. Since then, I've had a little time to think of it and my perspective is shifting.My thoughts were still formulating (not yet ready for a post) when I ran across this article:CONCORD, N.H.(AP) Since they first walked the planet, humans have either buried or burned their dead. Now a new option is generating interest _ dissolving bodies in lye and flushing the brownish, syrupy residue down the drain.If the human body loses its dignity at the departure of the soul, then why does that paragraph strike me as an affront to the image of God? And not surprisingly:"We believe this process, which enables a portion of human remains to be flushed down a drain, to be undignified," said Patrick McGee, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mancheste...
More About: Body , Image , The Body

John McCain on Human Trafficking
2008-05-08 04:52:00
Opinionated Catholic has a nice post on John McCain's recent speech bringing attention to the grave evils of human trafficking often overlooked by the Western media. I'm impressed.
More About: Human , Human Trafficking , John McCain

Anglican Arguments for Women's Ordination
2008-05-05 19:07:00
This is an old post I stumbled on but I wanted to respond to a few of the errors (My replies in Red):The priest is a sign, the supernatural effectiveness of which comes from the ordination received, but a sign that must be perceptible, and which the faithful must be able to recognize with ease. The whole sacramental economy is in fact based upon natural signs, on symbols imprinted upon the human psychology: “Sacramental signs,” says Saint Thomas, “represent what they signify by natural resemblance.” The same natural resemblance is required for persons as for things: when Christ’s role in the Eucharist is to be expressed sacramentally, there would not be this “natural resemblance” which must exist between Christ and his minister if the role of Christ were not taken by a man: in such a case it would be difficult to see in the minister the image of Christ. For Christ was and remains a man.Leaving aside the fact that women are as “perceptible” as men, this leads to a k...
More About: Anglican

Ecclesiology in the Earliest Creeds
2008-05-05 04:13:00
Various sources confirm that creedal statements were employed by the early Church on the baptism of converts. This practice continues today of course but her creeds took some time to develop. The earliest form of what we now call “The Apostles Creed” was most likely something very similar to the following creed found in a second century Gnostic text:“I [believe] in the Father almighty, - and in Jesus Christ, our Savior; -and in the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, in the holy Church, and in the remission of sins.” However close this was or wasn’t to the earliest orthodox creeds, we can notice one thing about what data we do have on the matter. In addition to the Godhead and the remission of sins, all of our samples in the earliest creeds contain a reference to “the Church”. This deserves our attention (as does anything which the early Christians ranked among the Godhead and forgiveness of sins in terms of essentiality to Christianity). What this point demonstrates is th...

Theology on Crack
2008-05-04 07:48:00
On Friday, I did something I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever do. I went out for a beer with my sponsor from RCIA. This may seem like something small to you but you don't know the whole story. See my sponsor and I met a little over two years ago and we've said from the beginning "we need to get up and have a beer sometime" and we never did it. Almost every conversation over two years ended with that tag line. All of the sudden, I had an epiphany: why don't we just literally schedule a time to go out and have a beer?Well we invited a few others. In fact I think there were seven who showed up. Thats a holy number, it proves something. Funny my sponsor and I didn't even really talk that much. So we need to schedule another one to make up. Here's where I'm going with all of this...There's something called "Theology on Tap" where young Catholics get together and listen to a speaker talk about a certain point of theology. Well Charlotte no longer has "Theology on Tap...
More About: Crack

Why Protestant Funerals Expose Some of their Worst Theological Errors &
2008-05-02 04:15:00
In an unexpected and bizarre twist of tragedy, a co-worker of mine had her son murdered by a drive-by recently and today was the funeral which I attended. I have another friend who's an elder in an OPC ecclesial community and he often remarks to me that funerals are where you'll consistently hear the most horrific mutilations of the gospel this side of Hades. (I want to reply 'thats cause you're always going to Protestant funerals')It was a sad day for all involved but we needn't add insult to injury by spewing painfully bad doctrine from the pulpit. If it happened once, his soul was pronounced in Heaven more than a dozen times. I'm not for a second going to comment on this young man's character (I didn't know him) but even if I did, I'd assume nothing but the best and I assume he was an upright Christian on good terms with God and man. But what is sad is that through this terrible doctrinal error, this man's soul is the beneficiary not of humble and contrite praye...
More About: Expose , Errors , Theological

Evolution and the Image of God
2008-05-01 16:21:00
The Church says she is open to the possibility of evolution but I don’t know of anywhere she has wrestled with trying to explain how it could be reconciled with Christian theology, she just says “it can”. I have several major problems with evolution which I have never heard a satisfactory answer to. 1. Death and suffering existed prior to the fall and in fact were not really related. 2. Sin, in this model, seems to be reduced to the mental capacity to do wrong3. God did not create animals to reproduce after their own kind as said in GenesisThose are all theological objections, but I have scientific ones as well, irreducible complexity etc… The issue I want to try and bring up here is another theological one and that is that man was made in the image of God. The body is sacred according to Catholic theology because it is the image of God, but given Theistic evolution, we have to carefully re-word why and how it is sacred. I’ve seen theologians remark that it’s not “...
More About: Evolution , Image

Raymond Brown & Matthean Priority
2008-04-30 19:08:00
This is a quote from Raymond Brown found here in this debate. I wanted to respond to it (my words in red).As explained in Chapter 6, This INTRODUCTION works with the thesis that Matt and Luke used Mark. Yet for many centuries the dominant view was Augustine's thesis that Mark was little more than an epitome of Matt; and recently attention has been given to the (modified) Griesbach hypothesis wherein Mark drew on Matt (p. 113 above). It is instructive to test the theological consequences of positing Marcan dependence on the other Synoptics. For instance, Mark would have omitted the Lord's Prayer and the four beatitudes that Matt and Luke agree upon.And John omits Christ raising the Synagogue ruler's daughter from the dead (whereas John himself was one of only three present when it happened) and the virgin birth. You can see how unhelpful this sort of reasoning is for Christians.As for christology, if Mark was written after Matt and drew on it, at a period when the title "God" fo...
More About: Priority

Black Church Tradition
2008-04-28 17:14:00
WASHINGTON - The Rev. Jeremiah Wright says criticism surrounding his fiery sermons is an attack on the black church.Ok first of all, there is no such thing as “the black church”. “Church ” in any meaningful sense of the word cannot be categorized by ethnicity. Shame on you. Secondly, how is it an attack on your entire racially based ecclesial community when someone criticizes you personally?Barack Obama's longtime pastor says he hopes the controversy will have a positive outcome and spark an honest dialogue about race in America. Honest dialogue about race? That’s the last thing you want. You want honest dialogue about race? Here it is – this has nothing to do with race! It has to do with you making comments which would be unwelcome anywhere much less in an ecclesial building. The truth is you’re not being criticized because you’re black, you’re being criticized because you’re dead wrong. And that’s something I doubt you can come to grips with.…He sai...
More About: Tradition , Black

The Word "Pope" in The First Century
2008-04-24 02:37:00
This is the follow up to my previous post: The Word "Pope " in the Second Century . It has come to my attention that the Greek word sheds some very interesting light on this discussion.First, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Greek word closely associated with the Latin word "papa" (from which we derive the word "Pope") is "pappas" or "papas". Neither of which appear in the New Testament. I was disheartened at first, hoping to find some Scriptural paradigms for the use of the word which the Church at Gaul used to address Pope Eleutherius.Thanks to this awesome link though, (thank you for the hat tip Mike Aquilina), I discovered that the word Eusebius records for us is "pater" not "papas"! That's Strong's #3962 if you have a Lexicon handy. Now listen to what Thayer's Lexicon says of the word:“the author of a family or society of persons animated by the same spirit as himself”As used in Romans 4:11-12,16, 1 Maccabees 2:54. Reminds me of:"The college or body of bi...

The Word "Pope" in the Second Century
2008-04-23 17:19:00
Not being one to shy away from controversy, I thought I'd bring up the letter from the Church in Gaul to Pope Eleutherius (or Eleutherus or Eleutheros) which even mentions the word itself. In my previous discussion, Finding the Papacy in the Early Centuries, we had a nearly heated discussion of the historicity of the papal roots in the early centuries. When I brought up the quote from Irenaeus showing that all Churches must agree with Rome because of her primacy, the counter argument was "yea but he doesn't mention any bishops so he's not thinking of the pope". So then (knowing it was futile) I provided the context for his quote - which any student of antiquity should know includes the oldest chronology of the popes we have (probably based on Hegesippus' lost work). So naturally the counter argument was "so what if he mentions bishops I didn't see him say pope". You can see how endless and pointless arguing with such stubborn logic can be. But if it's "pope" you want, it...
More About: Word , Century

Was the Doctrine of Transubstantiation Borrowed From Aristotle?
2007-12-13 23:28:00
To continue a somewhat ongoing (if sporadic) discussion that Kenny Pearce and I have been having about the supposed difference between Transubstantiation of Trent versus the undeniable Real Presence of the early Church, I found this excerpt from Lutheran Church Historian, Jaroslav Pelikan (at least he was Lutheran at the time he wrote it) in "The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition" (emphasis my own):The victory of orthodox Christian doctrine over classical thought was to some extent a Pyrrhic victory, for the theology that triumphed over Greek philosophy has continued to be shaped ever since by the language and the thought of classical metaphysics. For example, the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 decreed that "in the sacrament of the altar... the bread is transubstantiated into the body [of Christ],and the wine into [his] blood," and the Council of Trent declared in 1551 that the use of the term "transubstantiation" was "proper and appropriate." Most of the theological expositions...
More About: Aristotle

Skeptical Scientists Urge World To ‘Have the Courage to Do Nothing' At UN
2007-12-13 01:38:00
Global warming nut jobs are dealt yet another embarrassing blow. Read the whole thing.BALI, Indonesia - An international team of scientists skeptical of man-made climate fears promoted by the UN and former Vice President Al Gore, descended on Bali this week to urge the world to "have the courage to do nothing" in response to UN demands. Lord Christopher Monckton, a UK climate researcher, had a blunt message for UN climate conference participants on Monday."Climate change is a non-problem. The right answer to a non problem is to have the courage to do nothing," Monckton told participants."The UN conference is a complete waste of our time and your money and we should no longer pay the slightest attention to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,)" Monckton added.You know the good thing about not believing in global warming is similar to the good thing about believing in God: even if you're wrong it doesn't matter. In the case of God - if it did turn out that everythi...
More About: World , Scientists , Skeptical , Urge

Free Bible Audio
2007-12-12 23:55:00
Free Audio bibles including Catholic versions. To get the OT you have to purchase it on CD I think.
More About: Bible , Free

Bible Translation & Fundamentalism
2007-12-11 23:42:00
From livescience.com:The translation of the Bible into English marked the birth of religious fundamentalism in medieval times, as well as the persecution that often comes with radical adherence in any era, according to a new book.The 16th-century English Reformation, the historic period during which the Scriptures first became widely available in a common tongue, is often hailed by scholars as a moment of liberation for the general public, as it no longer needed to rely solely on the clergy to interpret the verses.Yup.. all those English speaking peasants in the 100s & 200s living in the Middle East had to rely on the big bad Catholic Church to dictate what the Scriptures said. And how foolish of Jerome to translate the Bible into Latin when the common language in the Roman empire during the 3rd, 4th and 5th centuries was Swahili.Although there are some valid points in this article, I simply had to take issue with this (though it might be true depending on how you read it, it'...
More About: Fundamentalism , Translation , Mentalism , Amen

New Study Says Global Warming Not Caused by Man
2007-12-11 20:30:00
This stuff is pretty much old news by now and should be common sense anyhow. H/T Pro Ecclesia
More About: Global Warming , Study , Global , Armin

Did Jesus Baptize Peter?
2007-12-11 00:21:00
The words of St. Clement of Alexandria are preserved in the following passage (the original work which the author is quoting no longer exists):Yes, truly, the apostles were baptised, as Clement the Stromatist relates in the fifth book of the Hypotyposes. For, in explaining the apostolic statement,"I thank God that I baptised none of you," he says, Christ is said to have baptised Peter alone, and Peter Andrew, and Andrew John, and they James and the rest.John 3:22After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized.Whereas John 4:2 says:although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.Especially given 3:22, John 4:2 doesn't seem to completely disprove the possibility of Jesus baptizing Peter if it was indeed only Peter whom He baptized and for specific theological reasons. Yet this is the earliest mention I know of such a tradition (CofA) probably around 200 AD. So the tradition obviously extend...