"Michael the Patriot Blogger" - Anti-Catholic Bigot
Monday, January 2, 2012 at 01:59PM It seems that Michael - author of the "End of the American Dream" and "The Economic Collapse" blogs - is a big Jack Chick fan.
I wrote a comment to Michael after he attacked what he sees as the "pagan" origins of Christmas in one of his blog posts (reproduced here: http://www.catholicthinker.net/christmas-is-pagan/). I also challenged him to take a look at the claims of the Catholic Church.
As is entirley typical of fundamentalist anti-Catholics, the discussion degenerated extremely quickly to Michael insisting that I didn't "have the Spirit" and wasn't really a Christian at all - at least, that is the direct implication of the Jack Chick tract he sent me making the argument that Catholics aren't Christians.
Also as is typical, Michael was clearly refusing to even take a look at *any* of the material I'd sent him. I am always careful to recognize that there is much honest ignorance regarding the Church (the work of the enemy) and one cannot judge the heart of others. However, when you encounter someone who knows absolutely nothing about the Catholic Church except that they hate it but absolutely refuses to look at any material from *Catholic sources*, is it reasonable to conclude that such a person is either blinded by emotion or not lacking true intellectual honestly? After all, is there anything more arrogant or foolish than insisting you are an expert on an organization and a group of people when you are completely unwilling to read anything this organization says about itself, relying instead completely on information from its enemies?
After a few rounds of him simply ignoring every single thing I sent and instead changing the subject with new sub-topics (meaning new links, to Chick and similar material), I gave up. I'm not going to post the whole exchange or any of his comments, which he might not wish to have public, but here is my last response to him:
Well, Michael, you've now sunk about as low as you can go, intellectually and morally. Sending me Jack Chick tracts! I really thought you were both more intelligent and more respectful than this. Chick is the worst of the worst brain-dead anti-Catholic bigots around, and you being such an apparently big fan of his puts you in the same camp.
I will now, once again, respond to your points, with some general comments, and then that is that - this will be my last response to you.
The first thing to note is that once again you responded to absolute none of what I sent you. Not even 10% of it did you address directly or in any way. If this debate of ours was in the context of, say, a high school debate class, people would have to wonder whether or not you understand the English language. You do *not* debate - instead, you constantly change the subject, ignoring everything I have to say and jumping to something else. Dodge-and-fire, dodge-and-fire, dodge-and-fire. Once again, while these tactics are *very* typical of anti-Catholic polemicists, they are not at all suggestive of a person on the other side honestly searching for truth.
You see, Catholic apologists of all types and levels are completely familiar with all the standard fundamentalist arguments you've been throwing out there - they are all old, and tired, and *all* based on misunderstanding and mischaracterization of actual Catholic teaching and/or lack of understanding of Scripture and actual history.
This is why I can call you out as someone not putting proper effort into learning the truth on these subjects: You will absolutely not read or respond to Catholic material! You insist upon getting ALL of your information about Catholicism from the *enemies* of the Church, whereas a reasonable person honestly interested in the truth would know very well that it is unfair and quite silly to pretend to be an expert on a group of people and an organization by not listening at all to what that organization says about itself! It is a preposterous way to behave, frankly.
Your overall presentation is dishonest & incoherent in another way as well, which I've already mentioned (but you continue with these tactics) - you're now claiming (implying by the Chick material you're sending me) that I'm not even a Christian - as that first tract you sent claims about Catholics, and as you implied before - even though before I drew you into a debate you attempted to disarm me with the comment "I'm a Christian too". So, Michael, do you really believe these ridiculous things you are sending now, or does being as offensive and low-brow as possible just suit you at the moment? (I couldn't really say which is worse.)
As I alluded to above, these are the two main issues that fuel anti-Catholics' misunderstandings:
1) They don't know or understand what the Church actually teaches (they have instead their misinterpretations and outright falsehoods which they cling to dearly).
2) They grossly misinterpret and misunderstand Scripture, and generally have no real knowledge whatsoever of the history of the faith.
I will delve into this a bit, one last time.
------------------------
Even though you have again ignored everything I've said about previous subjects and simply raised new ones, I will, as I have been doing, respond to your challenges.
I will first use your insistence that the un-Biblical teaching of sola fide ("faith alone") is actually a true & Biblical Christian teaching. It's actually quite antithetical to what Scripture teaches. (Which, to be necessarily frank, you would know if you read and understood *all* of Scripture as a whole instead of basing your doctrines on select verses pulled here & there ignoring context and the myriad of other verses that contradict your interpretation.)
http://www.catholicthinker.net/sola-fide/
A couple highlights:
"Sola fide is a false and unscriptural teaching, but, even so, it is not at all accurate to say that Catholicism teaches “works-based” salvation. The Catholic teaching regarding salvation is that it is, first of all, a free gift from God (grace) - no man can merit salvation. This can be readily verified from a catechism or any orthodox Catholic source. See the Catechism here:
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c3a2.htm
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13407a.htm
The Council of Trent states: "We are said to be justified by grace because nothing that precedes justification, whether faith or works, merits the grace of justification. For 'if it is by grace, it is no longer by works; otherwise,' as the apostle says, 'grace is no more grace’” (emphasis mine).
This does not mean, however, that good works do not play any role in salvation. Scripture demonstrates that faith & works are bound together in the mystery of salvation.
...
Since the notion that works do not contribute to salvation in any way does in fact flatly contradict Scripture, Luther had to actually change Scripture to support it, adding the word “alone” after “faith” in Romans 3:28! The reference to "faith" in Romans 3:28 had never before been translated as "faith alone" before Luther - nobody had ever contended that that was an accurate translation of the Greek. (And that's why mainstream Protestant translations such as the King James and NIV do not include "alone" in the verse.) (As astounding as such audacity is, it was far from his most egregious damage to Scripture - he removed six books from the Bible that had been in the Christian canon since the canon was formed, and were in Christ’s Old Testament (the Septuagint) as well. And that was not all - he also, of course, derided James, calling it "an epistle of straw" (because of how clearly it refutes his teaching) and relegating it to a different place in the back of his Bible. His justification for these things: “Luther will have it so!”)"
Other links explaining these things - debunking the 15th-century, new Protestant teaching of "faith alone":
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1999/9909chap.asp
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0303sbs.asp
http://www.scripturecatholic.com/salvation.html"
If you doubt the assertion that sola fide was essentially completely unknown in all of Christianity before the Reformation, find one single source for it. That is, a source teaching the doctrine that *works are completely irrelevant to salvation* - that's what "faith alone" in the way you use it means. You will find none. But, of course, there is absolutely zero evidence of any kind for the "Protestant" groups that supposedly existed before the Church was "paganized". Again, we have many thousands of documents from the early Church from hundreds of sources, all showing that the Church was entirely Catholic in every area: in terms of being structured as a single, visible, hierarchal Church built on Apostolic Succession, with Catholic teachings on the Eucharist, Purgatory, faith & works, confession, Church authority and infallibility, etc. (Of course, many of these doctrines developed over time but the seeds of all were present from the beginning - from the Apostles.)
Again, if you were interested, you could start perusing this vast body of material here: http://www.amazon.com/Faith-Early-Fathers-Three--Set/dp/0814610250/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1325455479&sr=8-3
------------------------
Another facet of the root issues of anti-Catholics is this blind and determined insistence that the way you interpret Scripture is correct and everyone else is simply wrong - the history of the Church be damned, logic be damned, Scriptural consistency be damned, and your own disagreements be damned. As I alluded to earlier, that's what the "I-have-the-Spirit" (and you don't) mentality fosters: every man for himself anarchy, the farthest thing from the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church visible in the New Testament. This is prideful foolishness, ultimately, when presented with so much evidence that it doesn't work and is so unBiblical.
Concerning the Inquisition - see here: http://www.catholicthinker.net/catholic-myths/
First, most of what you believe about the [Spanish] Inquisition is absolutely made-up nonsense (do you really think that Jack Chick is a _scholar_?), and, secondly, you fail to understand this important truism: the sins of people in the Church do not undo Christ's Church. Following this logic, you would have abandoned Peter after he denied the Lord. But the Lord built His Church on Peter nonetheless. And you would have been among those who rebelled against Moses as well.
Here's one more link for you - http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/02/is-catholicism-half-pagan.html
Dave Armstrong gives here perhaps the best & most succinct explanation I have seen regarding the confused accusations of people such as yourself regarding the Church being "paganized". One quote:
"We observe the Apostle Paul "incorporating paganism" in a sense when he dialogues with the Greek intellectuals and philosophers on Mars Hill in Athens (Acts 17). He compliments their religiosity (17:22), and comments on a pagan "altar with the inscription, 'To an unknown god.' " (17:23). He then goes on to preach that this "unknown god" is indeed Yahweh, the God of the OT and of the Jews (17:23-24). Then he expands upon the understanding of the true God as opposed to "shrines made by human hands" (17:24-25), and God as Sovereign and Sustaining Creator (17:26-28). In doing so he cites two pagan poets and/or philosophers: Epimenides of Crete (whom he also cites in Titus 1:12) and Aratus of Cilicia (17:28) and expands upon their understanding as well (17:29).
This is basically the same thing that the Church does with regard to pagan customs: it takes whatever is not sinful and Christianizes it. To me, this is great practical wisdom and a profound understanding of human nature. The frequent Protestant assumption that this is a wholesale adoption of paganism per se, and an evil and diabolical mixture of idolatry and paganism with Christianity is way off the mark. Hopefully, the above defense will answer this "reasoning" adequately. After all, the Apostle Paul is clearly guilty of mixing paganism and Christianity also. :-)"
------------------------
So, Michael, we're just about at the end here. To recap, here is a list of the things I've challenged you on that you have completely and totally ignored, multiple times:
- The Bible does not teach sola-scriptura - it teaches the opposite
- The New Testament teaches that Christ founded a single, visible Church built on the Apostles with Apostolic Succession that is divine in nature and would never fail. There are no examples whatsoever in the New Testament of Christians being outside of this Church, except for condemned heretics. There are no examples whatsoever of any leaders not ordained by the Apostles.
- The Bible teaches that Christ has ordered His subjects to partake of the Eucharist, and demonstrates that only ordained priests (properly ordained via the Apostles & their successors) can affect a valid Eucharist.
You claim you "have the Spirit" and nobody who disagrees with you does, but I've been among "Bible Christians" - I was almost one of you once - and I know from direct experience many of things you can't agree on. Is divorce acceptable? Christ says "no" flat-out, yet *most* "Bible Christians" - yet not all - say differently. Some say, yes, you can lose your salvation, but most take the opposite opinion. And much, much more. Your approach to religion is built on a foundation of sand that is, again, so completely and totally contradicted by Scripture Itself:
http://www.scripturecatholic.com/scripture_alone.html
http://www.scripturecatholic.com/oral_tradition.html
http://www.scripturecatholic.com/the_church.html
I say such blunt things to you because I want you to know the truth, and come to the fullness of truth in Christ's One, Holy, Universal and Apostolic Church, the divine institution He created on earth. I do this out of love for you as a fellow Christian, and out of concern for your soul.
What are the reasons the Catholic Church, the Church founded directly by Jesus Christ Himself, is so hated by some Christians? As I've spoken to, a great deal of it is due to ignorance, since so much falsehood is spread about the Church (which unfortunately you yourself now perpetuate - with intentional malice or not I cannot know). But, of course, there is much more to it than that. People hate the Church because the Church demands obedience - to Christ Who Himself demanded obedience to His Church. That's so un-individualisic and un-American, isn't it? And people hate the Church because the Catholic Church does represent *pure* - that is, *difficult* - Christianity: the *total* giving of oneself to Christ. This is why, I am sure, so many Protestants hate to read about the saints: they don't want to believe that such total giving of self is virtuous, but rather they so desire to cling to their easy, instant salvation fix. But, again, your Bible tells you it doesn't work that way: http://www.scripturecatholic.com/salvation.html
I could go on - again, you ignored every challenge of mine - every subject I broached. You simply changed the subject(s) each time by throwing out a few empty assertions and new links. I assure you that *every one* of your misunderstandings of Scripture and Catholicism has a very good answer, but I cannot devote any more time to this discussion, at least not now, because it is not fruitful, because you refuse to engage me or show the slightest interest in anything I have to say. Therefore, I say to you, if you have a change of heart, please explore the links I have given you, as a starting point. Yes, ALL your challenges - and then some - can be answered! If you ever decide you want to know the truth about Catholicism, start with tracts at catholic.com.
I have done my part here. I have spent hours composing responses to you even though you have given every indication from the very beginning of ignoring every single reference given to you, choosing instead to impinge my very Christianity.
My final thought: the Scripture says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" (Jer 17:9)
Yet you seem to believe you understand not only your own heart perfectly, but everyone else's as well.
I promise to say some prayers for you at some point.