Last week, I posted an article for the Aristophrenium entitled Was Mary Sinless?, which was a critical examination of the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Therein I compiled various pieces of biblical and historical evidence showing why Mary could not be regarded as immaculately conceived. Now, I deliberately chose to publish the article on the 26th of August because on the 28th of August, Dr. James White had a debate on this very topic against Christopher Ferrara, Roman Catholic lawyer from the American Catholic Lawyers’ Association. I chose to publish my article two days before the debate so that it can serve as a sort of “pre-emptive strike” that will equip other Christians beforehand so that they would know what arguments to expect. The interesting thing is that Ferrara quite predictably went to Luke 1 and egregiously misinterpreted the verses in it. He also threw up a few arguments that I didn’t address in my article. Of course, Dr. White was more than capable of refuting those arguments, but I think it’d be worth going through a couple of these arguments.

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(Continued from part two)

In the first part of this series, we discussed and debunked Balgrim Ragoonanan’s tirades against Christian exclusivism and evangelistic efforts as a form of Religious Bigotry and Exclusivity. In the second part, we refuted his misuse and misrepresentation of Jesus’ teachings in order to promote Hindu pluralism over against what he deems to be The Insidiousness of an Only Pathway to God. In this third part in the series, we will be looking at the third of Mr. Ragoonanan’s articles, entitled, The Whole Truth About Those who Debase and Derogate Other Religions.[1] In his opening paragraph, he writes,

Anyone who thinks that he/she has some kind of corner on religious and spiritual beliefs and practices, and believes he/she can take another person to task for exposing the falsehood of an only pathway to God are welcome to do so. I am prepared to defend the legitimacy of all religions as I research and understand them better, especially when God and religion are purely for the transformation of the human heart to the higher state of the divine. I have been doing studies ever since I joined the membership of the Trinidad & Tobago Online Community, when it was once fashionable to deride, derogate, defame and characterize Hinduism as being outside the frame of legitimate religions.

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Introduction

Because of the atmosphere of ecumenicism that has pervaded the Christian Church in recent decades, many Evangelical Christians are ill-equipped to properly handle the distinctive doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Mariology is one particularly sticky topic. Many misconceptions abound, and there are relatively few Evangelical writings that adequately handle this topic.[1] As such, it is necessary to tackle the Roman Catholic Marian Dogmas with care and accuracy, and this will hopefully be accomplished in this analysis of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

Although the Immaculate Conception has an interesting history that goes back to the Middle Ages, it is one of the more recent of the Marian dogmas to have been officially declared a dogma by the Roman Catholic Church. It was declared as such by Pope Pius IX during 1844 in the apostolic constitution entitled Ineffabilis Deus. It is worth looking at the text of this constitution to see how Rome defines this dogma:

From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for his only-begotten Son a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world. Above all creatures did God so loved her that truly in her was the Father well pleased with singular delight. Therefore, far above all the angels and all the saints so wondrously did God endow her with the abundance of all heavenly gifts poured from the treasury of his divinity that this mother, ever absolutely free of all stain of sin, all fair and perfect, would possess that fullness of holy innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even imagine anything greater, and which, outside of God, no mind can succeed in comprehending fully.

And indeed it was wholly fitting that so wonderful a mother should be ever resplendent with the glory of most sublime holiness and so completely free from all taint of original sin that she would triumph utterly over the ancient serpent. To her did the Father will to give his only-begotten Son — the Son whom, equal to the Father and begotten by him, the Father loves from his heart — and to give this Son in such a way that he would be the one and the same common Son of God the Father and of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was she whom the Son himself chose to make his Mother and it was from her that the Holy Spirit willed and brought it about that he should be conceived and born from whom he himself proceeds.[2]

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So I recently discovered some interesting corners of a web site I was aware of but never really explored before—Reddit.com. And I may have continued in my ignorance about this site, except that one of my various alerts told me that someone there had directed attention to the Aristophrenium. After I checked it out—someone pointing atheists to an article of mine and some colourful commentary following—I was intrigued to find out what other type of sections the site had besides Atheism.

One section that caught my interest (for the time being) is DebateAChristian, and one of the threads I chose to engage was titled, “More un-Christian advice from the word of God” by a gentleman we might safely assume is not a believer who presented what he considered a challenge for Christianity. He cited 2 John 1:9-11 and then contrasted it against Luke 5:29-32, following it with his challenging question, “How are we supposed to call sinners to repentance if we cannot welcome them?”

What follows is the brief conversation between Basilides and myself. (To be updated as the conversation progresses, so check back.)

Last Update: 24 August 2010, 12:45 AM.

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(Continued from part one)

This article is a continuation of a rebuttal to Balgrim Ragoonanan, a writer for the anti-Missionary website Crusade Watch which argues vehemently against Christian evangelistic efforts. In another one of his articles, entitled, The Insidiousness Of an Only Pathway to God,[1] he attempts to twist Jesus’ teachings in order to promote Hindu Pluralism. It would seem that the author believes that he can reconstruct Jesus in order to get around His clear teachings regarding salvation through Christ alone by reading into His statements things that He never taught:

Can it be true, according to the Bible, that God can only have one human form? The answer is obviously no, because Jesus said he will come again as a thief in the night, meaning that he will not be recognized in his new form, but only by his works they shall know him.

It is very clear that Jesus credits God with more than one human form and was fully aware of the principle of other forms of God. He was speaking about another one of his coming as God, consistent with the Hindu principle of the manifestation of God at other points in time for a special purpose at the time.

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For those who are unfamiliar with Crusade Watch, it is a website with multiple contributors who all write with the express purpose of denouncing evangelism and missions as an evil act that must be banned and legislated against. Of course, the vast majority of the articles published on this website have no real intellectual merit; being comprised primarily of shoddy logic, unwarranted assumptions and undocumented assertion after undocumented assertion. One of the recurring themes among the writers, though, is the idea of pluralism; the ideology that all all paths to God are equally valid, and that none of them can assert to be correct over and against any other path. In particular, it will be well worth documenting the claims of one Balgrim Ragoonanan, an author from Trinidad and Tobago who strongly favours Hindu ideas of plurality over and against religious exclusivity. The rest of this will be dealing with his article entitled, Religious Bigotry and Exclusivity.[1] We will begin by examining the author’s thesis, which appears in the first few paragraphs of his article:

This presentation may also reflect an aspect of the narrow and restrictive pathway offered for salvation by the Christians versus the broad and expansive pathway of the Hindus, although it is not the gist of the paper.

This paper is to be taken only as a working framework for further discussion against religious proselytizing and the Christian one way doctrine to salvation.

Those who do not support religious proselytizing can find the appropriate lawyers to develop a case against religious proselytizing as an abuse of human rights versus the freedom of speech and the freedom to practice a religion in peace without intrusions.

The freedom of speech argument is a false one when it comes to religious proselytizing and must be debunked at the onset. We know that although freedom of speech is sacred to many, it is still over-ruled under certain conditions that incite violence and family and community disturbances.

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I recently ran into this video by a fellow named Farhan who attempts a response to David Wood’s video entitled How Can God Die? I have decided to post a video response of my own, so here it is:

Please excuse the less than perfect video editing. I used a different editing program than I usually use for making this video.

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For those of us who have been following the unfolding saga about the arrest of the four Acts 17 Apologetics members at the 2010 Arab International Festival in Dearborn, MI, but who are not directly involved with the case, the whole issue should be practically resolved now. (Even in the courtroom, if justice retains any real meaning in the state of Michigan, the matter should be practically resolved.) Acts 17 Apologetics not only did nothing wrong, violating neither the rules of the festival not the laws of the City, but even the incident for which they were arrested and are facing trial, “the Williams incident” that they have released the video footage of, demonstrates no wrongdoing of any kind. As I had indicated to Yahya Snow, they have argued from one video release to the next that they never violated any rules or laws, from the moment they entered the Arab Festival until the moment they were arrested.

When Officer Brian Kapanowski took Negeen Mayel into custody for questioning vis-à-vis the criminal complaint, for no lawful reason the Officer In Charge Sgt. Jeff Mrowka ordered that all four should be arrested immediately for Breach of Peace. He claimed that it was “due to their behavior” and for preventing “a possible riot or some other type of violence from erupting.” For this and other reasons, Acts 17 Apologetics have released numerous videos proving that during their visit and up to their arrest they did nothing wrong and neither riot nor violence was impending (and to refute further accusations against them by others, e.g., Mayor John O’Reilly who alleged that they were blocking a key exit, that they refused to disperse on police orders, and so forth). Sgt. Mrowka took a gamble that the complaint from Williams and the eye-witness testimony of Amal Alslami were factually correct, ordering the arrest of Acts 17 Apologetics. He went ‘all in’, as they say, and his gamble lost. Alslami gave self-contradicting statements to the police and Williams’ version of the events were factually incorrect—as the video evidence shows. The Williams incident was the last card left for their critics to play and, just like every other accusation, it got trumped by the facts.

For a breakdown of the accusations contrasted against what actually happened, please watch the video for yourself. Any commentary from me would only be a repeat of what Nabeel Qureshi has already said.

• POLICE REPORT: “Acts 17 was harassing people, screaming at Muslims, and starting a riot!”
• MAYOR: “Acts 17 just wants to make Muslims look bad!”
• JUDGE: “Give them their cameras back.”
• DAVID AND NABEEL: “Here’s the footage, everyone. We told you they were lying.”
• MUSLIM: “Acts 17 is harassing Muslims? Let’s kill those guys.”
• CITY OF DEARBORN: “Here is David’s home address.”

Thanks, Dearborn. You just keep adding to your lawful conduct. It seems David Wood has discovered that the City of Dearborn has been releasing copies of the arrest reports with personal identifying information removed for everyone—except David Wood.

“Not long ago, someone forwarded me the report being released by the Dearborn Police Department. Nabeel’s address, Negeen’s address, and Paul’s address had all been taken out. My full name and home address, however, were prominently displayed on page six of the report!” Just when you think the City of Dearborn could not make themselves look any worse. They are piling up their legal miscarriages. Click here to read more from David Wood at the Acts 17 Apologetics blog.

Please keep David Wood and his family in your prayers. And remember that the God we serve is almighty and sovereign.

John 19:8-11,

When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, and he went back inside the palace. “Where do you come from?” he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?”

Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.
(James 2:14-26, ESV)

For many of those who reject the historic Protestant doctrine of Justification through faith alone (such as Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Churches of Christ, and Mormons, among others), James 2:14-26 is generally brought out the most commonly cited passage against Sola Fide in favour of a doctrine of Justification that includes meritorious works in addition to faith. Now, this verse (or at least the works-based interpretation of it) would appear to contradict other parts of scripture, such as Romans 3:28, which states that “a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.” This has even led some to conclude that James was actually trying to contradict Paul (ignoring the fact that James and Paul were addressing two different audiences with two very different problems at hand). Thus, the apparent contradiction between James 2 with other passages such as Romans 3:28 should be resolved by careful exegesis and looking at the entirety of scripture in its proper context. Perhaps this would be a good time to take a look at James 2 and how this relates to justification.

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