Paul's Passing Thoughts

Tim Challies is a popular blogger among Protestants and a Bagdad Bob like publicist for the church. Here at TANC Ministries, we are not sure if he is comically delusional like most Protestants or deliberately lying. Though he has a Mr. Rogers like demeanor, the audacity of his  propaganda is closer to that of Joseph Goebbels. That’s the dilemma; if you know anything about church history and the doctrine of justification, Challies is both amusing and dark at the same time. Should we merely shake our head and chuckle like we did while watching Bagdad Bob on TV during the first gulf war, or should Challies’ overt misinformation make us angry?

In his latest blog series, Challies shares why he is not…(fill in the blank). We can actually combine why he is not an Arminian and why he is not a Catholic into one response. The hallmark of all deception is making what you are the enemy in the eyes of those you are deceiving. Protestants are both Arminian and Catholic. That’s a fact.

First, if you stop listening to a Protestant pastor/tyrant long enough to think and study for yourself, you will find that Martin Luther and John Calvin never left the Catholic Church. Luther’s conclusion of the 97 Theses (not to be confused with the 95 Theses), a founding document of the Protestant Reformation, makes this absolutely clear. The same can be said for Calvin’s 4th book of his Institutes. Furthermore, Protestant scholars claim St. Augustine as their undisputed Doctor of Grace…a Catholic.

Moreover, having the same Doctor of Grace, while disavowing the identity, results in the same gospel as one would suspect to be the case. Both churches, which are the same church, possess a progressive justification—salvation by church gospel. The only sticking point is the philosophical basis. The Protestant Reformation was really sparked by differences of agreement concerning something that medieval theologians considered to be a higher authority than Scripture: world philosophy; specifically, Plato versus Aristotle. The following is what sparked the Protestant Reformation: the Catholic Church moved away from its Augustinian Platonist roots; nothing more, nothing less, and there are documents galore that back that up. So, you thought the Protestant Reformation was actually ignited by scriptural disagreements about the gospel? Well, you are just adorable.

Secondly, forget about all of the Protestant window dressing concerning “election.” In Protestantism, you choose God’s election. Pretty cool, eh? Supposedly, those pesky Arminians are different because they choose God directly rather than choosing God’s election. There are several ways you choose God’s election for yourself, but we will focus on John Calvin’s “Power of the Keys.” Like the Catholic Church which is also the Protestant church but estranged until they get their Plato/Ari differences sorted out, the gospel at hand could be called “The Gospel of Authority.” In both cases, the church is an institution ordained by God that has sole authority over salvation on earth by proxy. Let me boil it down to simple form: if the elders like you, and they say you are in—you are in, period, end of discussion. Whatever the church binds on earth will be bound in heaven, and if you refuse to “submit to gawdly men,” whatever they loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. It’s damn good work if you can get it.

These are a few reasons why I am not Protestant, but another would be church history. As stated in “The Church Lie and the Biblical Alternative,”

However, though true regarding general publicity of the 19th and 20th century, that is, a more virtuous Protestantism, the big picture of history does not reinforce that perception. Whether Catholic or Protestant, from the abuse and molestation of orphans to the deprivation of liberties on an international scale, the church has never left any vestige of virtue undisturbed.

Challies is a foremost proponent and defender of orthodoxy in the face of overt evil in the church dominating the news headlines in our day. Christ put this in simple terms: “A tree is known by its fruit.”

True believers are not given over again to a spirit of fear; the church’s claims of authority over salvation should indeed make us laugh, while also making us angry.

paul