I thought I would spend this next article responding to Walid Shoebat's article "Them Damned Catholics". While it's a little late, I feel compelled to write this in response to him. So here goes.
"Throughout the Church’s history, it has warred with Islam. Yet, it has nothing to offer us today. This is the typical answer I get when I discuss Christian history with many Evangelicals. They tell me that beyond the Bible, there is nothing else we need. So next time you have a fire in the house, read the Bible, don’t forget to pray while you forget dialing 911 and enjoy the smoke and fire billowing inside the house."
While there are some evangelicals who may dismiss history, There are those who are interested in getting back to what the apostles taught and such would include reading the early fathers, seeing if what they say does reflect that of the apostles. It is one thing to stick to the Bible when it comes to doctrine, but it's another to dismiss history simply because the Bible doesn't mention it. Also Shoebat's statement about reading the Bible while ignoring a fire, is just plain insulting.
"I find it difficult to even ask questions: What was Christian history like, that withstood Islam’s evil and defeated it in Europe? Why and how did Christendom lose Egypt and Asia Minor to Islam? And what are we doing in our days to emulate or not emulate from that history?
The one million dollar question that no one can answer – although I will get many remarks from people damning me as a heretic – is this: Why did God choose Catholics to stop Islam in its tracks in all the major battles intended to destroy Christendom? Anyone who has the answer, please step forward."
God can use any individual he pleases to accomplish his purposes, he used Nebuchadnezzar and Sennacherib as an instrument of judgement on his people Israel, yet he has punished both their nations for their evil. Why would God using the Catholic church as an instrument to prevent the spread of Islam prove Modern day Rome to be true? It doesn't.
"What do most spirit-filled evangelicals know about the Battle of Lepanto, Battle of Tours, The Battle of Vienna, and The Battle of Malta?
Had the ‘damned’ Catholics not fought the Battle of Tours, all of Europe would have been Muslim today, like in Asia Minor. It would have been the end of Christianity, as we know it. Today, Turkey (Byzantium) is 99% Muslim and looks very likely to produce the Antichrist while Evangelicals still think that Antichrist and the Harlot is the Roman Catholic Church."
One can speculate about the Anti-Christ's identity. He may appeal to all groups. He may claim to be the Messiah of the Jews, the Mahdi of the Muslims, the Matriya of the New Agers or claim to be the fulfillment of another religious group. He may even masqurade as Jesus and claim to be him, misleading apostate churches astray.
Whoever the Anti-Christ will be, the true church will certainly know.
"Why is it so rare to find holy spirit-filled evangelicals that speak of such history, except paint it as Crusader, dark, warring and bloodthirsty? What difference then is there between the die-hard liberal and the spirit-filled evangelical? Both criticize this history. Even further, like many evangelicals and liberals, the Muslims also condemn this history. So why do we echo their interpretation as we damn the Catholic?
Why? Is it because of them ‘damned’ Catholics who defended Christendom and saved the Protestants from utter annihilation? Could it be perhaps the Catholics did something right, like fight them damned Muslims and thwart them from annihilating Christendom?
In all these battles there were no Protestants coming to help save Europe and Protestant states refrained from helping or even lifting a finger. They were too busy doing Bible studies on how them ‘damned’ Catholics were the Antichrist."
This may need to another article if the Lord Wills.
"Perhaps I need to exercise the typical American habit before speaking about such matters and prequalify my statements. I am not saying that all Protestants are evil, heavens no. Yet, every time I say the word “Catholic” and the whole church jumps up and down pin-pointing the leaven of the Catholics without" even looking into the piles of dung worth of heretical books produced by so-called evangelicals.
"Is the rich Catholic history such an evil subject that the Bible warned us not to touch and even beat down on the Catholic wars with Islam? Even during Nazism, there were many more of these ‘damned’ Catholics that chose to die in Hitler’s ovens than there were evangelicals and Protestants put together. Are these Catholics damned to hell despite making a choice to enter Hitler’s furnace? Which of the two is more pleasing to God, the sodomite loving pastor or the Jew loving Catholic who died in the infernos of Hitler’s crematoria?"
This is emotional rhetoric, The Catholics are damned to hell because of the heresies they hold to. Just because someone dies in the cause of Christ, what good is that if the person believes teachings that in doctrines of Satan?
If there were Protestants that would not be willing to be persecuted for Christ, they are cowards. Those Protestants who were willing to die were not cowards.
"So who will answer my questions? Will it be some unlearned, half-cocked, spikey-haired, tattooed, nose-pierced, ear ringed, mocking, useless, teenage brained heretic from The Free Grace Movement who will instantly obtain from his own authority to anathematize and excommunicate me since such homosexual sodomite sinners must be welcomed into the fold as Christians without repentance? Will such mutants be the future soldiers who will outdo the Knights of Saint John and fight to thwart the forces of darkness and the devil? What will they use to fight, the earrings of their noses and the spikes of their stupid looking hair? Or perhaps these are the very sons of the devil?"
No, true believers in Jesus Christ may answer your questions, those who condemn lawlessness and evil. A Christian is to fight in a spiritual war and maybe perhaps one day, he may have to defend himself physically.
"Must I denounce the Pope as a heretic while I remain silent on America’s pastor, this self-appointed son-of-the-devil-pope named Rick Warren who signs a treaty with Islam saying we “worship the same God”? Dare I say anything on that fattened whore who pussyfoots with homosexuality while he condemns the Crusaders in that very treaty?"
Rick Warren should be rightly condemned for the evil that he is propagating and it would be unbalanced if one attacks the Pope while letting Warren off Scot Free.
But this doesn't let the Pope off the hook, he is just as guilty, for different reasons, as Rick Warren is for leading people astray and into false teaching. Warren shouldn't be let off the hook, but Pope Francis and the other apostate Popes before him don't get off the hook either. In fact speaking of giving some credence to Islam, Can someone explain why former Pope Benedict the 16th kissed the Quran? Why should he kiss a book that condemns beliefs of Christians?
"Perhaps these things can aid in answering my question, which I’ve asked more than once and no one seems to have answered: During my two-decade walk in my Holy Spirit filled evangelical faith; Jesus said: “I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”. Well, in two thousand years, who was this church? Was the church lost from the time the authors of the New Testament departed until the time the holy Martin Luther showed up? Hitler used Martin Luther’s demonic writ, On The Jews and Their Lies, to help him rid Europe of six million Jews.
Evangelicals answer this dilemma by saying that the true Church was always there but it was persecuted by them ‘damned’ Catholics. Yet, such answers are impossible to prove. Perhaps some Jesus-style questions will help clarify this issue. So which Christian movement was it that them ‘damned’ Catholics persecuted? Was it the Montanists, Novationists, Donatists, Docetists, Cathars, Albigensians, Waldenses, Hussites, and the followers of Wycliff? Were these “The Church” that Jesus spoke about? Were these the true Bible-believing, evangelical-type, spirit-filled believers?
There is no historian who will tell you that these movements even fit into the definition of evangelical “spirit-filled” model. Such movements, which the Catholics squashed (thank God), were radically non-Christian, heretical, and gnostic. Only the Waldenses and the Hussites were somewhat Christian but even these were closer to Catholicism than they were evangelical. How would a common Holy Spirit-filled evangelical even know what these movements are all about? After all, we only need the Bible and the hell with history, right? To ignore history is to also ignore the Bible."
Defending our homes from Muslims and having an army for protection, is NOT the same as going out and massacring wholesale populations. The Catholics massacred the Waldensians and Cathars and though one individual from the Cathars attacked first, that is NOT a pretext to slaughter an entire people, they should only of brought to justice that one individual.
Sola Scripturists do NOT deny the usage of history. Sola Scriptura is NEVER used as a means of damning historical study. It is absurd to claim that this is such.
Keith Thompson in his debate with Walid's son Theodore, comments on the Cathars and the Waldensians specifically. The debate "Walid Shoebat’s Son Supports Catholic Massacre of Cathar Children & Women" can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opYYe8S-Clk
Also, Shoebat erroneously assumes that when early Christians called themselves Catholics, they must of been what Modern Rome is today, which is a form of anachronism being forced onto them.
The gates of hell did not prevail against the church and I tell you why, God himself preserved the church through individual believers, not necessarily after the Reformation only, but beforehand too.
The Roman Church and Eastern Orthodox Church may have been overcome, but not Christ's true church made of individuals that came out of those groups and abandoned their false teachings, icon veneration and idol worship.
As for the subject of Luther's treatise on the Jews. This would need to be looked into.
"Even Martin Luther and the Protestant movement, which came up with the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) that is adhered to by protestant denominations, in fact, aided the Ottoman Muslims and provided them with tin to build canons to destroy catholic states because in their view, the Catholic Church was the Harlot of Babylon and the Antichrist.
So important was this WCF that it was an essential doctrine of the faith and was non-negotiable. If the Trinity was essential, so was this belief regarding Catholics. Despite Islam’s overt denial of the Trinity, it was never even mentioned in the WCF while the Catholics who prevented the annihilation of Christendom, took precedence over Islam when it came to that document, despite Islam being the religion of Antichrist. Even Martin Luther himself came around on this issue to confess after reading the writing of the Catholic Riccaldo Di Montecroce in his wonderful work, Refutation of The Quran. As a result, Luther changed his views and even according to him Islam was the system of Antichrist, yet the WCF never even included it."
The subject of Islam was irrelevant to the point that the Westminster Confession of Faith was trying to make. Why address a point when it is not relevant? The Westminster Confession of Faith was not an anti-Islamic polemic because Islam was not the subject it was even addressing. Plus, the appeal to Martin Luther is nothing but grasping at straws and a red herring to divert attention away from the fact that Roman Catholicism was an apostate church and still is to this day. That doesn't change the fact that Rome is still an abomination, that still stands.
"And lest I get into grace versus works theology… One thing is certain; Jesus gave the example about the good worker and the gung-ho church-goers of His day when He chose the Samaritan over the Pharisee who walked by the persecuted beaten naked man and did nothing, claiming he was doing the Lord’s business. If we take that example, the Samaritan in that time would be viewed as the way we view a Catholic; ‘he was all screwed up and got it all wrong’. The Samaritan didn’t even follow Sola Scriptura and his canon of Scripture was missing many books. He even believed such madness that the Temple was on mount Gerizim and not Jerusalem. Yet, Jesus honored the Samaritan over the Pharisee who got both the Bible and Temple correct – but helped not, the persecuted.
When Jesus comes, He will throw in hell many ‘damned’ Catholics and them ‘damned’ Evangelicals for not helping persecuted un-damned Jews, un-damned Catholics and un-damned Evangelicals and other un-damned others (Matthew 25). Today, neither Catholic nor Protestant is doing much to save Christians slaughtered in Muslim countries. Name me the organization that rescues Christians today? There are NONE. We try and our supporters are predominately Armenian, Copts and Assyrians. Where is America’s pastor? Where are the American Evangelicals and Catholics? Perhaps I should follow the Copt, Assyrian or even Armenian and dump this modernized homosexual-loving, Americanized version of Christianity."
A false Christianity that is apathetic does need to be dropped completely and we need to biblically get back to Christ. The point about sola scriptura is an irrelevant point because Jesus' whole point with respect to the Pharisee is that the Samaritan in the parable actually went out of his way to help someone who regarded him as an outcast, whereas the Pharisees in Jesus' day didn't even lift a finger. It doesn't matter whether or not the Samaritan believed in Sola Scriptura or not, it wasn't even part of the point that Jesus was making in the first place.
"While we accuse these ancient churches of holding to deuterocanonical books like The Wisdom of Solomon, which Evangelicals reject, in less than fifty words, sums up the entire purpose of the Incarnation of the Son of God and why God became man:
“While all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her swift course, Thine almighty Word leaped out of Heaven out of Thy royal throne, as a fierce man of war, into the midst of a land of destruction.” (Wisdom of Solomon, 18:14-15)
Who is this “Thine almighty Word”? Who was “The Word”? When will He leap from out of Heaven and out of “Thy Royal throne”? When will He be this “man of war”? Is this not a prophecy about Christ coming to battle in the end of days? Who is He battling with? The Catholics, who preserved the Bible – including The Wisdom of Solomon? Has wisdom departed from earth that no man can point it out? Isn’t the Holy Spirit leading me to re-discover such prophecies struck out of the American evangelical Bibles? Is Polycarp who was the student of John unnecessary for study? Was Irenaeus his student so unimportant? Was the Coptic Church that was founded by Saint Mark of the Bible unimportant? Was it not Christ who built that Church in Egypt? Even when the Portuguese first entered India they found native Christians who, to their surprise, declared their apostolic succession to St. Thomas."
The Catholics didn't preserve the Bible but putting that issue aside, Yes the Church Fathers are important for study, but what you must realize is that they as men are not above being examined to see if what they say is in the inspired scriptures. Apostolic succession is to do with passing down biblical teaching, not carrying a supposed historical lineage.
"When I first became Christian, I entered an Evangelical Church that taught me that in Daniel chapter II, the two legs were the Eastern and Western churches (Orthodox and Catholic) and that these were the spirit of Antichrist. Yet, I never believed them because I examined the Word of God and discovered that Bible prophecies were speaking of Islam. Was I not following the Bible or were these Evangelicals misinterpreting the Bible? It was the Evangelicals who also misinterpreted many things in the Bible."
End time prophecy is one of the things that is often speculated about. I don't understand how this changes that fact that the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church are apostate. This again is nothing more than a red herring.
"I reject all doctrines that differ with the Bible but for centuries, Holy Protestants have pointed to several Popes as Antichrist, which have all turned out to be false. Is this not unholy slander? Did Jesus not warn about such damned slanderers?"
There are many things that show the Pope's to be an unholy abomination and Anti-Christ. Keith Thompson himself has written an article demonstrating the evils of Popes from across the centuries:
http://www.reformedapologeticsministries.com/2014/03/some-of-roman-catholicisms-worst.html
"We trumpet: “my people perish for the lack of knowledge” when we, the ones who trumpet such verses are perishing. There is a difference between knowing the Bible and doing the Bible.
But there is also a difference between emotionally loving Jesus and doing what Jesus says. We preach something. Yet, we follow the opposite; we continue in lacking knowledge.
As a result, we see things from a certain prism we think is holy and is not."
If you truly loved Jesus Christ Mr Shoebat, you and your son Theodore would be evangelising to the Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox and giving the Gospel. The fact you are refusing to acknowledge the heresies they hold to and pretty much sweep many of the abominations commited by the Roman Church under the rug, really casts doubt on your profession of faith.
Answering Judaism.
No comments:
Post a Comment