The Christian Vanguard

It is a common Catholic talking point that there seems to be no essential definition of Protestantism. It reduces to a kind of relativism, thus demonstrating the need for a magisterium. And the common reply is something like, "We are united in those doctrines necessary for salvation" or that "We are united on the obvious doctrines". Sometimes you hear "The main things are the plain things and the plain things are the main things."  It doesn't escape the issue being pressed. You ask different Protestants what's necessary for salvation and you'll get different answers. "Believe in Jesus." But which Jesus? The Jesus of Mormonism? I think not. "Sola Fide." Okay, does that include baptism being necessary for salvation? Protestants will disagree on that. Which is exactly the problem we're trying to highlight.  What of the "obvious" or "clear" issues like the Nicene Creed? Or the Trinity? Obviously you can...

 Having come from an anabaptist background, we believed in the necessity of baptism for salvation. But we also believed that there was only one baptism that we needed to partake in. One question that I had which made Catholicism more plausible to me was: how are your sins forgiven post baptism? Since baptism forgives sins, and you can only do it once, how is it that sins that you commit after your baptism are forgiven? You could confess to God, but surely you could do that before baptism as well. This made me believe the sacrament of confession made more sense. But if I were to remain a protestant anabaptist, how could I answer this?  One answer could be that baptism works preemptively to forgive future sins. But this leads to a doctrine similar, if not outright the same, to the Once Saved Always Saved. That is to say, once God has forgiven you and written your name in the book of life, you are there forever. But I suspect many anabaptist would recoil at this solution. What ot...

 What is the Church in Protestantism? A common answer is that it is like an invisible fellowship of believers. So if Adam, Bryan and Chad gather for worship and some Bible reading, that is a microcosm of a church. Small, sure, but still a church gathering. Contrast this with something a bit stronger, which claims a visible church. An institution which exists that has defined rules for membership like the sacrament of baptism for example. What are the defined rules of membership within Protestantism? It doesn't seem to have a good answer for this.  Take their common answer that it is an invisible fellowship of common believers. There are two red flags to be raised here. First, how do you defined what it is that is needed to believe? Second, what is it that does that if not a visible institution? So suppose the Protestant says you need to believe in the Trinity, and so a church is a fellowship of Trinitarian believers. Okay, first, why is it that the Trinity needs to be believed...

 Hey, it's been a while. Graduated school, and stopped some of my reading and writing. But I have few thoughts. Hopefully I can get this back up and running again. If not, whatever, a place to jot down some thoughts.  Suppose that the Catholic doctrine of the Papacy were false. Would it follow that Catholicism is false? Or would it follow that Catholicism isn't the place to be? On one hand, it would seem that the Papacy is one of the core or essential doctrines of the Catholic church, and yeah, to have that be false would seem to falsify the entire institution. But that may be too fast of a move. If it were false, then that would put Catholicism in the same boat as Protestantism. How do I mean? I mean that since Protestant churches do no claim to be infallible, then possibly some part of their doctrine is wrong. And most Protestants would agree that there is SOMETHING about their doctrine that is incorrect, even if they cannot currently identify exactly what that is. It would ...

A Protestant friend sent me this question. I give my answer. "I was wondering if you could help me with something. I've recently become more appreciative of liturgy and I'm wondering if it may be a beneficial aspect of our walks with God that Protestants have done away with too quickly. My question is, how sincere are you being when you recite prayers, and how often do you pray when you are not reciting a scripted prayer? I feel like these recitation could help me and my family, but I want to make sure I do it right. Hope that makes sense." My answer.  "I'm being fairly sincere. But there are aspects of these prayers that I really appreciate that I didn't get from the freestyle kind of prayers as a Protestant, namely, meditation. Not only are you supposed to be sincere, but part of the structured prayer is to help one meditate on the truths within the prayer. So not only do these pre formed prayers lift up your heart, but they also lift up your mind and i...

It is a common anti Catholic argument to point out that Pope St. Gregory (540-604 AD) denied the title of "Universal Bishop." If the Pope himself denied the title, then how can the Pope claim to have universal jurisdiction over the entire church? This argument has been around since at least the reformation, as we see it in John Calvin's Institutes , and it still made today by people like James White, Geisler and MacKenzie. So what exactly did Pope St. Gregory say? In a few different places, he says things like,  None of my predecessors has consented to bear this profane title, for when a Patriarch adopts for himself the title of 'universal' the title of Patriarch suffers discredit. No Christian, then, has the desire to adopt a title that would cause discredit to his brethren. And  Was it not the case, as your Fraternity knows, that the prelates of this Apostolic See, which by the providence of God I serve, had the honour offered them of being called Univers...

A protestant friend of mine was expressing his worry of the term "heresy" being thrown around too loosely among his other protestant friends. This is a fair worry. Even within Catholicism, the word gets tossed around too easily among the laity, in my opinion. However, there is a difference between my friend and I: our criteria for what counts as heresy. My protestant friend said, "If I am not contradicting any of the ecumenical councils, I am not a heretic." I pointed out he denies the Council of Trent. His response was that Trent was not ecumenical. "Which Orthodox bishops ratified Trent?" he asked me, which of course isn't really a question, but an argument. He believes that enough Bishops have to be present in order for a council to be ecumenical, and since the Orthodox were obviously not present in Trent, Trent cannot be ecumenical. This makes some sense. The big 7 ecumenical councils that all Christians believe, even the Protestants, were ratifi...

One argument that critics of the King James Only-ist movement give goes something like this: If you believe that the King James Version Bible is the only perfect inspired word of God, then you're going to have difficulty pointing to a particular Bible, because there are different versions of the KJV. The KJVO have a response, which goes something like this: Granting for the sake of argument that this is a difficulty, then you have the same difficulty because you can't point to a particular Bible that you think is a perfect word of God. And that's tantamount to just not believing the Bible is not really from God. You can see examples of that argument here and here . So because a critic can't point to an authorized version like they can, critics have no business raising the problem.  There are two possible responses. The first is that it isn't equivalent. Because the critic isn't making the same claim as the KJVO, they don't suffer the same problem. KJVO c...

My Anglican friend believes in open communion, that is that in virtue of him being a Christian, he should be allowed to partake in the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass. He has a great appreciation for the Church Fathers, and so I wonder what he will make of some of the following quotations (and I do intend to ask). St. Ignatius of Antioch views the Eucharist as a sacrament of Ecclesial Unity.  St. Ignatius in Letter to the Philadelphians 4  says,  Take care, therefore, to participate in one Eucharist (for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup that leads to unity through his blood; there is one altar, just as there is one bishop , together with the council of presbyters and the deacons, my fellow servants), in order that whatever you do, you do in accordance with God.   In his letter  Letter to the Smyrnaeans 8 , he writes, Only the Eucharist which is under the authority of the bishop (or whomever he himself designates) is to be co...

I was having an exchange with a Protestant friend of mine on Facebook on whether Peter is the rock Jesus says He will build His church upon. I took the time to copy some choice quotations from the book Jesus, Peter, and the Keys    which I have been meaning to keep on file somewhere because they're useful, but I finally managed it, and I am copying them here for future reference.  William Hendriksen, Th.D from Princeton, a Reformed Protestant Professor of New Testament Literature at Calvin Seminary writes, “The meaning is, ‘You are Peter, that is Rock, and upon this rock, that is, on you, Peter, I will build my church.’ Our Lord, speaking Aramaic, probably said, ‘And I say to you, you are Kepha,’ and on this kepha I will build my church.’ Jesus, then, is promising Peter that he is going to build his church on him! I accept this view.” - New Testament Commentary: Exposition of the Gospel According to Matthew, pg 647 Even some Lutherans, the original Protestants, h...

The following is a bible study I did for Newman. Feel free to use as you see fit. What Does The Bible Say About: Sola Scriptura? Definition: Sola Scriptura is the Protestant doctrine that the only infallible rule of faith (and practice) is Sacred Scripture. Biblical Data: 2nd Timothy 3:16-17 16 All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.  Discussion: All scripture is what by God? Inspired. What does inspired mean? This means that God, although he uses man to write the scripture, is ultimately the author of scripture. What is it useful for? Teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. What is the point of teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness? So that we as Christians can be proficient/equipped for every good work. Does this prove that scripture is therefore the only infalli...

My friend Kyle interviewed me on his podcast, where we discussed my conversion from atheism, to protestantism and into Catholicism, and asks me how I answer some common Protestant objections. Have a listen here .

The following is a reply to a Bible study a protestant sent to me. It is only an exercise for me concerning Catholic apologetics. Nothing I haven't said before, but I'll keep it up here just for reference.  The stated purpose of the Bible study outline is to aid those who wish to seek truth by having people compare the Catholic Church to the Bible. A protestant assumption is being made here, however, that the Bible alone is the measure of truth. It is not, for scripture itself says that the pillar and foundation of truth is the Church (1 Tim 3:15) and that we are supposed to hold fast the traditions passed on to us (2 Thess 2:15). Further, Christ comes to establish a Church and one that will not fall (Matt 16:18). While this is perhaps a great weakness for protestants, it is not the focal point of this study. As the quoted Constitution on Revelation says (which is properly entitled Dei Verbum ), we hold both the Church Tradition, or the deposit of faith, and scripture on the...

Just about all Protestants believe that the Eucharist is just a symbol, meaning, it has no real or literal significance. A flag may symbolize a country, but it is not the country itself. In the same way, Protestants believe that the Eucharist is a symbol of Christ's body, but is not Christ's body itself. It is not the real body of Christ, or it is not the literal body of Christ. If this is what Protestants want to claim, then they can have absolutely no support from the Church Fathers, nor could they in principle. The reason is because this view of the Eucharist is anachronistic, that is to say, it assumes a metaphysical view of symbols, namely nominalism, that didn't exist at the time and wasn't commonplace until the 16th and 17th century.  The Church Fathers tended to be Platonists, which is a kind of realism. Nominalism is an anti-realism. Platonism is not only a kind of realism, but on the more extreme part of the realism spectrum, which is why Platonism is som...

How is the "Our Father" prayer meant to be recited? Many of my protestant friends do not believe that when Jesus taught us how to pray this prayer, he didn't mean it word for word, but that he kind of gave us an outline. I have not heard any exegesis for this view. That is not to say that I have not heard and sound exegetical arguments for this view, but that there is no such argument put forth at all, and I have asked.  So, on the face of it, it just seems like we should pray it exactly as Jesus told us to. But history shows that this is how we are meant to pray this. The Didache is one of the oldest teachings of the Church in print, and probably predates even some books of the Bible (a fact which probably lead some to believe that it was inspired and belonged in the Canon). It's kind of like the first catechist book. This is what is says,  Neither pray ye as the hypocrites, but as the Lord commanded in His Gospel, so pray ye: "Our Father, who art in hea...

I have some friends on Facebook ( add me !). Many of them are Catholic, and there's this guy, Glenn Peoples, whom I've had some brief exchanges with. He's not a FB friend of mine, but we have a lot of mutual friends. I don't know much about him, but he seems like a nice and respectable dude (from exploring his website, I was impressed to see that he had too get through Edward Feser to receive his degree). So, on more than one occasion, I have seen him post this one post about the Canon  when debating my Catholic friends. It's long, and somewhat detailed, and from what I can tell, none of my friends have bothered to actually respond to it. So, I put it off and put it on my list of things I've wanted to set aside some time for and respond to. Well, I found some time, and here it is.

Converts tend to observe things that natives usually don't or take for granted. For example, an all-American boy may realize some of the formal subtleties in the Spanish language that a native Spanish speaker may have subconsciously forgotten. Or an immigrant can appreciate the virtues the USA better than what an American born citizen may have gotten accustomed to. I think the same can be said about religion. In this case, as I have come from Protestantism to Catholicism, I do want to point out some things about sex that I realize now as a Catholic is totally false about Protestantism, though at the time I didn't realize it.