The Catholic Argument from History

There are a lot of ways of establishing that the Catholic Church is correct. One way is to show that the New Testament Scriptures describe a single, visible, authoritative Church capable of settling disputes. When we find that governance in the Church was headed by the Apostles, with one Apostle (Peter) guiding the other Eleven, that's good evidence that the Catholic Church was the Church Christ founded (Mt. 16:17-19) and intends us to be part of (John 17:20-23).

For some people, that'll do the trick. They'll read John 6 on the Eucharist, or notice Apostolic Succession in Acts 1, or Petrine primacy in Matthew 16 and Acts 2 and Luke 22 and so on, and they'll have a Eureka! moment - asking themselves, 'how have I read these Scriptures so many times, and never noticed that?' It's an "Emmaus" moment, when you suddenly discover a Truth you'd never seen before in Scriptures you may well have memorized. But there are other Christians who look at passages of Scripture which I think spell out core Catholic doctrines, and they just don't read them that way. For those folks, let's look at a different way of establishing the Catholic Church.

For the rest of this article by Joe Heschmeyer, click here

The Two Brothers; or, Why are you a Protestant? Part 2

Last month I posted the first of four parts to this engaging story (if you're into being engaged with this kind of story, that is : ).  Here is the second.  If you haven't already read the first, would like to read them all at once, or at least before I 'time-release' them, you can find them linked in the right hand side-bar of the blog under the heading 'Check This Out'.

How Quickly Catholic Heresy Took Over the Church (Immediately)

Pentecost

Brantly Millegan at ‘Young Evangelical and Catholic’ has recently posted this thought provoking article below. I have provided it in it's entirety here on our blog. If you'd like to check it out at it's source, you can find it here.


UPDATED: After having interacted with a few people over the original post, I have added "A.D. 110 - the necessity of bishops to the Church, and the necessity of submitting to bishops" to the list of dates and the supporting quotes from St Ignatius of Antioch, as well as 3 more paragraphs of comments, and adjusted the order of my comments. The original post is still up.

UPDATED: How Quickly Catholic Heresy Took Over the Church (Immediately)

Tertullian, Against Praxeas, ch 2 (~A.D. 200):

“That this rule of faith has come down to us from the beginning of the gospel, even before any of the older heretics, much more before Praxeas, a pretender of yesterday, will be apparent both from the lateness of date which marks all heresies, and also from the absolutely novel character of our new-fangled Praxeas. In this principle also we must henceforth find a presumption of equal force against all heresies whatsoever—that whatever is first is true, whereas that is spurious which is later in date.”

Below is a list of the year of the earliest (of which I am aware) extant extra-biblical witness of various Christian doctrines.

Ecclesial Deism

In my humble opinion, this thesis put forward by author, Bryan Cross, ought to be worked through by every non-Catholic holding to a bible-only position, and to the concept of a merely invisible church: which denies the reality and necessity of the visible nature of the Church.

The article which is referred to in the podcast linked above, written by Bryan, can be found here.

Hermeneutics and the Authority of Scripture

Here is another podcast I found worthy of consideration from www.calledtocommunion.com.

The Canon Question

I have the type of job which, at times, allows me the opportunity of listening to something on my iPhone while working . It is an option for which I am very thankful because outside of my work schedule, I would not have the time for much of what I am able to gain access to in this way. Recently, I have been listening to a number of podcasts from www.calledtocommunion.com. I have posted links to a couple of these podcasts already, and have just listened to a couple more. I will post links to them here and in subsequent posts.

The question of the canon of Scripture, or which books belong to Scripture and how we know this, has been a critical question in my journey of faith. In this podcast, the beginnings of this subject are discussed in an accessible and, I think, thought-provoking way.

If any of you who do not subscribe to the Catholic view of the canon have sources or arguments against the Catholic viewpoint which you believe satisfactorily answer the Catholic perspective, please let us know.

Peace to all!

A Presuppositional Apologist Becomes Catholic

Greg Bahnsen, left.

Here is another story of a Protestant whose journey overlaps with mine in numerous aspects: particularly in his Calvinism, Presbyterianism, appreciation for Dr. Greg Bahnsen, theonomic way of approaching ethics, presuppositional method of apologetics, and line of questioning which led us both to the Catholic Church. From the title and description of this podcast, it may be tempting to think it is highly nuanced and going to focus on this, perhaps, little known method for defending the Christian faith called Presuppositionalism (and for this reason, bore the listener to death, or at least be a good reason NOT to listen : -). On the contrary, while this topic is discussed and finds it's way back into the story from time to time, many other critical subjects are touched on in Marc's well-told story. Adding to the interest, he does it all with a Southern draw : -) You can find access to the podcast here.

Independent Baptist becomes Catholic

For a story about a recent convert to Catholicism after being raised Independent Baptist and evangelical, click here. Numerous facets of his story cross paths with ours, and indeed, with some of our other family members who remain non-Catholic. The story is in interview form recorded on podcast. You can either listen directly from the page linked or save as mp3.