Is the Church not the household of God (1 Timothy 3:15)—the house Christ built? Is Christ not more powerful than Satan (cf. 1 John 4:4)? No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods (Mark 3:27), but Satan plundered your theoretical strong man’s house! The Catholic Church’s Strong Man guards His household. It is true that Satan can conquer individual Christians who choose to indulge in mortal sin, and who apostasize themselves from His household (cf. Romans 11:22, Galatians 5:4, 1 John 5:16-17); but Jesus promised the visible, identifiable, and authoritative Church He would not leave her as an orphan (cf. John 16:16-18), but would be with her until the end of the world (Matthew 20:28 King James Version).
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COC #28: More Irresponsible “Proofs” for Catholicism’s Apostasy
The Scriptures do teach that many people will fall away, but they never indicate that there would be a Great or near-Great Apostasy. Many of your preferred proof-texts in fact teach that “many (not all, not most) will fall away”, which is exactly what the Catholic Church of Christ has consistently taught. Before my concluding remarks, I will quickly address the secondary passages your group uses to support its interpretation of the primary passages I have already reviewed.
Continue readingCOC #26: Argument: “2 Thessalonians 2:3 Proves Apostasy”
Your ministers counter the overflowing character of the gospel not with the “Bible only”, but with an anti-Catholic agenda, and then distort a passage to justify their theology, and then gather portions of other passages to prove a seemingly thought-out theology—a seemingly “biblical” apologia for the Great Apostasy (or near-Great Apostasy) theory.
Continue readingCOC #25: A Comparative Reflection on the Word “Apostasy”
Consider a sacramental reflection on the word “apostasy”, and how it relates to the full understanding of what “falling away” might mean—how it might reveal which Church, Catholic or “Protestant/Restored”, is more legitimate. The “falling away” (apostasy) is derived from the Greek word apostasai—a rather unique sounding word when transliterated (not translated) into English, and one that carries no historical connotations to remind its modern Protestant readers that a pre-apostate body existed. (St. Paul’s original audience certainly understood that the visible, institutional, and authoritative body of the Church existed.) In English, “apostasy” conjures, in the Protestant mind, a falling from an invisible mystical truth—infidelity to a theory—not a falling away from a visible body that is indeed the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Timothy 3:15).
Continue readingCOC #24: On Apostasy and Restoration
Non-Catholic Christians,
If the Protestant Church of Christ is following a pattern, it resembles that of the heretics—all of whom lifted themselves over the Scriptures as self-appointed arbiters of scriptural interpretation, and over the Church by claiming such authority; who then defined new orthodoxy, and called it old. The early proto-Protestant heretics of antiquity, with whom you would largely, but not fully, disagree with doctrinally, were at least as credible as your restorers. Why should we not believe that they, and not you, represent the Lord’s Church? And less credible than the first heretics were the original Protestants of the sixteenth century, who too believed they were restoring what had gone into apostasy; but you do not follow Luther, Calvin, or Zwingli. No, you follow men who followed such men; the Protestant Church of Christ is the progeny of disgruntled Presbyterian ministers who, for no reason, believed they could, by their own power, resurrect the mystical body of Christ from a supposed blasphemous death, which could never occur. In other words, there was no “Great Apostasy” and there was no “Restoration”; but there is a real Church of Christ that teaches, and actually believes: to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen (Ephesians 3:21).
Continue readingCOC #5: Responses to Three Anticipated Objections
(1) Defense of pattern theology
The Protestant Church of Christ’s defense of pattern theology is incapable of satisfying any query as to its communion with the early Church; patternism presupposes a body (not a collection of books) that must first establish any perceived pattern. So instead of providing evidence for its presence throughout history, scriptural verses removed from their ecclesial context are presented as red herrings to defend a pragmatic use of your theory (that patternism conjures authenticity), and not the facts of the topic at hand (origins and sequence).
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Patrick Vandapool 