Dave Gass was an evangelical pastor for some forty years. He took to Twitter recently [but he has now restricted access] — starting on 4-30-19 — in order to proclaim that he had forsaken Christianity. I make replies to his claims below. His words will be in blue. I have no beef with him saying he’s sorry to his former congregants, etc., and so I will not critique those sorts of statements; only reasons he gives for his decision. ***** For... Read more
VicqRuiz was replying to one portion of my paper, Unanswered Questions for a Former Catholic Atheist, in the combox underneath it. His words will be in blue. ***** [me] 5. Could you have passed a quiz on the basic doctrines of Christianity(say, those agreed-upon by virtually all Christians: Nicene Creed-type beliefs): let alone the more specifically, distinctively Catholic doctrines? (Apologies if I’ve posted the comment below on your site before, I have raised this question several times on several different... Read more
Idolatry is a conscious act by nature or definition. Catholics are accused of substituting bread and wine as idols for the living God. I think virtually no Catholic who knows anything at all about his Faith would be stupid enough consciously to worship what he believes is still just a piece of bread. It may be regarded as mistaken worship, but it is still quite pious and non-idolatrous, just as we Catholics would say that Lutheran or Anglican worship is... Read more
A Reformed Baptist (Calvinist) argued that if Christ in fact died for all men, rather than the elect only (as Calvinists hold), this would result in His interceding in heaven as high priest for those He knows (in His omniscience and perfect foreknowledge) will reject Him and go to hell. It would then follow that His intercession failed, or (if there is any difference) was unanswered — an unthinkable state of affairs for God. The reply to this is, I... Read more
We have a 14 year-old son presently in confirmation classes (and a 16 year-old who went through it a few years back). I would never dream of making this optional, at his age (i.e., for frivolous teenager-type reasons: it’s “boring” or “uncool” or too time-consuming, and suchlike). My opinion is, “this is what Catholic teenagers do, as fundamental in the process of faith formation. And so my teenage children will do it (assuming that they accept the faith), and have... Read more
I believe these were originally notes jumbled together from various sources, so there is a lot of repetition. But that’s a good teaching tool, so I will leave it as it is. ***** The Incarnation is the Great Exception to the timelessness and immateriality of the Triune God, since in it God enters human time and takes on human flesh. It’s in time and isn’t eternal. God can interact with the temporal order without being subject to it. But God the Son... Read more
This is from a private Facebook thread, so I can’t cite others (too bad), but I wrote a lot there, and so would like to preserve it on my blog. It may be regarded as follow-up comments to my article, “David French’s Hit-Piece on Franklin Graham & Trump” (4-28-19). ***** I’m only describing what we see every day, and only one aspect of the Never Trumper: how they view Trump. It’s pretty much 100% negativity. That’s not judging the whole... Read more
Google Analytics Blows That Out of the Water Popular online atheist and anti-theist polemicist Bob Seidensticker and one of his clone-sycophants claimed that I was trying to use his site merely to drum up traffic on mine. Their words will be in green and blue, respectively. ***** This is the guy that I banned, and explained why in great detail (because he’s a big shot atheist online). Three days later I saw this nonsense. There was a huge flatulent fuss... Read more
See: “Franklin Graham and the High Cost of the Lost Evangelical Witness” (4-25-19). I don’t see that French succeeds in making his point of supposed rank hypocrisy on Graham’s part. Graham is not condoning sin. He wrote about the Stormy Daniels thing, as reported by an NBC article: President Trump I don’t think has admitted to having an affair with this person, and so this is just a news story, and I don’t even know if it’s accurate. That’s... Read more
“cowalker” wrote on my blog: I was raised Catholic, and went through what I think is the standard, messy de-conversion process. It started with intellectual rejection of what sophisticated theologians would say was not “real” Christianity. For example, Christians aren’t obliged to believe a man actually lived inside a fish for three days. That’s just metaphorical writing. But … it’s not clear where metaphor leaves off and literal description begins. For example some Christians accept the doctrine of the Transubstantiation,... Read more
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