Apologetics for the Masses - Issue #150

General Comments

The next YouTube video in my series, “Questions Protestants Can’t Answer” is out and ready for your viewing pleasure. The link is: http://www.youtube.com/user/CrimsonCatholic?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/LymcTHeLwHc. This will be the last of the ones that take the “Question Protestants Can’t Answer” from James chapter 2. There is just so much in James 2 that directly contradicts the Protestant dogma of Sola Fide – salvation by faith alone – that I needed to spend a little time there. Anyway, the next video will take its question from Romans.

I’ll be speaking tonight, 6:30 PM, at Our Lady of Sorrows parish in Birmingham, to a gathering put together by the Young Adult Ministry of the Diocese. Please say a prayer for me that all goes well.

And, next Sunday, Sept. 19, I’ll be speaking at St. Paul’s parish in Athens, AL at 1:00 PM. Would love to see any of you folks from the North Alabama area there.

The following weekend I will be speaking in Clovis, NM on Friday night the 24th, and then Saturday morning on the 25th. If you’re in the area, come on down…

Alabama vs. Penn State this weekend! Roll Tide!

Introduction

Okay, this issue is going to pretty much wrap up my doings with Mike Gendron. He has not responded to my last email to him, so what I’m going to do is just go back through what I’ve written about those articles on his website, and summarize all of the questions that I have asked him which have gone, and, I predict, will continue to go, unanswered by him.

I might still get a response from him in the future and, if I do, I will publish it. But, after the total absurdity of his private, fallible interpretation of 1 Cor 3:11-15 was exposed in the last issue, blowing huge holes in his argument against Purgatory and seriously damaging his entire case against Catholicism (since it is based entirely on his same private, fallible interpretations of the Bible), I don’t know how he could respond – except to completely ignore what I said or to launch a personal attack at me.

So, again, below I will summarize the major questions I have asked him in this series of newsletters where I have been dissecting a couple of the articles on his website, and challenge him to answer them.

Challenge/Response/Strategy

Questions Unanswered by Mike Gendron:

1) How do you know the Bible is divine in both "origin and inspiration"?

2) Who wrote the Gospel of Mark, and how do you know – did the Bible tell you?

3) How do you know the writer of the Gospel of Mark was inspired by the Holy Spirit – did the Bible tell you?

4) How are we to know the spirt of Truth from the spirit of error – by reading the Bible?

5) What is the pillar and ground of the truth – is it the Bible?

6) If, for the sake of argument, Catholics are right and what we call "Sacred Tradition" is indeed the "Apostles’ teaching" (Acts 2:42); and it is indeed the "Word of God" which the people "heard" from Paul (1 Thes 2:13); and it is indeed the "traditions" which the Thessalonians were commanded by Paul to stand firm in, whether they were received by "word of mouth or by letter;" then should they not be placed on an equal footing with the written Word of God?

7) Please identify the papal encyclical or the Church Council or any other official magisterial document of the Catholic Church that teaches, as you charge, that Catholics can buy and sell God’s grace?

8) If the Bible is infallible, and the world has only known, according to you, one infallible teacher, then how can the Bible be infallible if none of those who wrote the Bible were infallible?

9) If Jesus was the one and only infallible teacher, then how could He say to the disciples He sent out that, "He who hears you hear Me, and He who rejects you rejects Me?" If these disciples, when they taught, were teaching with the authority of Christ to the extent that the people who heard them were hearing Jesus, would they not be infallible in what they were teaching?

10) You stated: "The Bible is what God says and religion is what man says God says." Where does the Bible define religion in such a way (book, chapter, and verse)?

11) Does the Catholic Church teach of "the unique character of Christ’s sacrifice as the source of eternal salvation [Heb 5:9] and that "His most holy Passion on the wood of the cross merited justification for us." Yes or no?

12) By what authority do you teach what you teach?

13) Have you ever been ordained and, if so, can you trace the laying on of hands at your ordination back through a series of laying on of hands all the way back to the Apostles? In other words, who ordained the person who ordained you and who ordained that person and so on back for 2000 years?

14) Are you under authority to any church and, if so, which one?

15) Does the Bible say that just anyone can pick up a Bible and start preaching and teaching based on his own personal, fallible interpretation of the Bible?

16) What is the "perfect offering" that is being offered in all the nations from the rising of the sun to its setting in Malachi 1:11?

17) What was the difference between Mike Gendron unsaved vs. Mike Gendron saved…was it something that Jesus did or something that Mike Gendron did (remember, Jesus’ work was finished 2000 years ago on the Cross)?

18) If Jesus stopped bleeding 2000 years ago, then how is it you were saved by the blood of Christ? Was Jesus sacrificed again for you?

19) Are we to "labor for the food which endures to eternal life" or not?

20) Are there different levels of sin?

21) Can a person "abide" in Christ if they are not first "in" Christ?

22) If a person does not "abide" in Christ, will they be saved?

23) Can you name one passage in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that teaches about what man can do on his own apart from God (other than sin)?

24) Is it a good work to forgive others their sins?

25) If we do not forgive the sins of others, can we be saved?

26) In response to the question: "What good deed must I do to have eternal life," Jesus answered: "Keep the Commandments." Do you disagree with Jesus?

27) Was it the Catholic Church’s teaching on Purgatory that kept you Catholic all those years?

28) If we do something that is contrary to the Word of God, to living the life of Christ, should we not feel guilty about it?

29) Do we have to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily in order to be saved (Luke 9:23)?

30) How exactly is it we are being “changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another,” (2 Cor 3:18). How can we be changed from one degree of glory to another?

31) If Jesus’ work was finished on the Cross, then why is it a matter of degrees by which we are being transformed…why isn’t it all or nothing?

32) In the 4th century, what Church was it that you claim "thousands of pagans" came into?

33) Do you wear a wedding ring and, if so, do you realize that comes from a pagan tradition?

34) Do we need to be purified of all sin before we reach Heaven?

35) Did David have to suffer punishment due to his sin even after he was forgiven of his sin? Did Moses? Did Adam?

36) Does love cover a multitude of sins and, if so, how so?

37) Is it wrong for pastors to take money for preaching and offering worship services for their congregations?

38) How much money did a Catholic priest extort from you before he would say your father’s funeral Mass?

39) By who or what was the canon of the Bible set?

40) Exactly where is it that a man’s work is "burned in fire" and they suffer loss, yet are still saved?

41)Why does a man’s "spurious works" have to be purged by fire after a man is saved, but not his sins?

42) After a person is saved, does he have to repent of his sins and confess his sins for his sins to be forgiven?

43) If someone is saved, and they commit a venial sin after being saved, and they do not repent or confess that sin, do you contend that if they died immediately after committing that sin, they would not need to be cleansed of that sin before entering Heaven?

44) Since you are fallible in your interpretations of the Bible, will you admit that you could be wrong when it comes to your teaching on Purgatory and that the Catholic Church could be right?

45) Since you believe that being "perfected" (Heb 10:14) means being legally declared innocent, does that mean that mean that in Matthew 5:48 Jesus is telling us to be "legally declared innocent as the Father is legally declared innocent?"

46) Can someone "build on the foundation which is Christ" before they have been saved?

47) What is the exact nature of the fire that burns away the "spurious works"?

All of these questions came from my last several newsletters, so if you don’t remember the particular context of each question, or it’s not obvious from the question itself, you can go back to the "Newsletter" page on our website (www.biblechristiansociety.com) and re-read them.

Mike Gendron cannot give an answer to any of these questions, because if he does, the answer – no matter what it is – will cause him some logical and theological problems based on what he has already stated. His answers to any of these questions will, in some way or another, contradict either the Bible or what he has already said, or both.

And, you can use these very same questions, or a slightly altered version of them, in your conversations with non-Catholics. Ask them these questions, see what kind of answers you get. Pay attention to the answers you get, because I can guarantee that their answers to these questions will contradict what they’ve already said or they will contradict Scripture, or both.

Mike Gendron is one of the pre-eminent anti-Catholics in the country – speaking at churches and conferences both nationally and internationally. Yet, when his teachings are examined honestly, logically, and scripturally, they are shown to be ignorant at best – in regard to what the Catholic Church actually teaches and to what the Bible actually says – and deliberately malicious at worst. I hope these last few newsletters have helped to show you that no matter how nasty their rhetoric, no matter how much what they say may seem to make sense on the surface, and no matter how many Scripture verses they may quote – it doesn’t matter. When what they teach is examined in light of the teachings of the Catholic Church – the church founded by Jesus Christ – it is fairly simple to show how weak and lacking in substance their private, fallible interpretations of Scripture are.

In Conclusion

I hope all of you have a great week!

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