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.

Read the rest of this entry

(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.

Read the rest of this entry

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]

Read the rest of this entry

(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.

Read the rest of this entry

Mark Lamprecht wrote a curious article over at HereIBlog questioning how Christians should react to the building of an Islamic mosque near Ground Zero. And I deem that article “curious” because it largely escapes me how this calls for an internal reflection by Christians. In the final analysis, the matter is a political issue. While there may be something to be said about us being consistent with our Christian faith when it comes to engaging political issues—how we evaluate some legislation, who we consider voting for in elections, how we conduct ourselves in political office, etc.—I really don’t see how the Ground Zero Mosque poses a challenge for Christians and our biblical convictions. Unless, of course, that is precisely what Lamprecht intended with his question; that as followers of Christ we should be careful that we remain consistent with the gospel and our faith as we engage this controversial political issue.

Lamprecht said that his gut reaction was basically, “No way!” But then he walks that reaction back a little, suggesting that it may not be the best reaction. Okay, but why not? What was wrong about that gut reaction—one that is shared by several million Christians all over the United States and beyond? What issue of faith or doctrine does that reaction conflict with, thereby calling for his restraint and perhaps ours?

He does not cite any. Rather, he invokes the freedom of religious exercise protected by the Constitution, tempering the substance of his attitude by that. I have two problems with this. First, as Christians our orthopraxic ‘gut check’ is not predicated on human laws and legal documents. When it comes to tempering our attitude and behavior, the governing authority is the Word of God. In other words, if there is something not quite right about that reaction, we want to see the case made on Scriptures, we want to see something in the Bible which says that reaction is a bit off. Second, the controversial issue of the Ground Zero Mosque does not have anything to do with freedom of religion at any rate. Nobody is saying, “You cannot build a mosque in New York.” As a matter of fact, New York currently boasts at least 30 mosques. Rather, what people are saying is, “You should not build a mosque there in New York.” I have never heard anyone deny Muslims their right to build a mosque near Ground Zero. They most certainly do have that right. To invoke the vocabulary used by the President on this, the conversation is not about the ‘right’ but rather about the ‘wisdom’. When people (like New York City mayor Michael Boomberg) cite the First Amendment they are obscuring the issue with an irrelevant red herring.

Yes, they can build a mosque near Ground Zero; that is their right. No, they should not build a mosque there; that is not wise. And the reasons for why it is not wise are quite numerous, but I do not wish to explore them right now. When Christians react with a loud and strong “No way!” to the idea, it is neither wrong nor inappropriate; they are not in conflict with biblical orthopraxy, nor are they denying anybody their freedoms under the Constitution, for the argument is that the Ground Zero Mosque shouldn’t be built there, which is very different from arguing that it can’t be built there.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has worked hard to portray himself as a ‘bridge-builder’ in the eyes of the American public and the interfaith community, and the location being so close to Ground Zero “was precisely a key selling point” for him, as reported by Ralph Blumenthal with the New York Times. Abdul Rauf wants a presence that close to the World Trade Center “where a piece of the wreckage fell” because he thinks it will send “the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11.” However, I have got a message for Abdul Rauf: when the majority of the American public is opposed to the construction of the Ground Zero Mosque, and you proceed with your construction plans in defiance of them, you are not building any bridges. As Raheel Raza and Tarek Fatah from the Muslim Canadian Congress wrote for the Ottawa Citizen, “As Muslims we are dismayed that our co-religionists have such little consideration for their fellow citizens, and wish to rub salt in their wounds and pretend they are applying a balm to soothe the pain.”

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.

Read the rest of this entry

On July 2-4, 2010, there was an Islamic conference that took place in downtown Toronto called the Journey of Faith Conference. There were nearly ten thousand Muslims in attendance, plus a few non-Muslim visitors who they were doing “dawah” (propagation of the faith) to.

I (Fisher) and Bartimaeus decided to go in there to observe what is going on in the conference, hear what the Islamic side is saying, open up doors for interfaith dialogue and maybe pick up some literature on the way.

Here are our findings.

On the Dalnet IRC network there is a formerly popular chat room called #ChristianDebate (whose population has really thinned out over the last five years). There are a lot of regular visitors in that room but very few have a history there quite as long as that of Father Samuel L. Bassett (a.k.a. “FrSam”). A lot of things can be said about Fr. Bassett, for he has a very polarizing personality (but I have positive and fond memories of our long history), but one of the clearest things that can be said about him, all personalities aside, is that he truly loathes Calvinism! (It should also be pointed out that Fr. Bassett is with the American Catholic Union, which is an association of independent Old Catholic priests in California.)

Around the beginning of June this year I poked my head back in that room, which I do from time to time when the network I enjoy gets too quiet. During this recent visit a very brief conversation ensued over the subject of Calvinism and, in response to my seeming defense of it, Fr. Bassett directed my attention to an article he had published at his blog in 2006 entitled “Calvinism = Diabolism.” Definitely an attention-getting title, and after reading it I said that I shall have to comment on it.

And so I did. The following is the comment I submitted to the article:

Greetings, Fr. Bassett. As you posted a link to this article on IRC last night, I obliged you and gave it a read. It appears that your basic argument reduces to the following:

1. Calvinism teaches self-hate and hatred of others (“total depravity” doctrine).
2. Only the Devil symbolizes hatred of self and others.
3. Therefore, Calvinism is diabolism (influenced by or characteristic of the Devil).

If the Christian is to fight against lies with the truth (as your closing sentence encouraged), then we must be able to distinguish lies from truth. I am a little uncertain about the wording of your second premise, but I’m willing to grant it for the sake of argument because it is true enough for us to be in agreement about. So allowing that the argument is valid, the issue then would seem to focus on the first premise. Given the need to distinguish lies from truth, we need to see whether the first premise is true or not.

Can you please cite for us from any confessional standard where Calvinism teaches self-hate and hatred of others? For example, evidence in the form of a quote from the Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, Canons of the Synod of Dort, Westminster Confession of Faith, or the London Baptist Confession of Faith (any of which represent what “Calvinism teaches”).

Several weeks went by without my comment getting published. Although I would still visit the room from time to time, FrSam was never around—that is, until last night, when I was finally able to ask him about the matter. And his response speaks volumes.

Ryft: You never published my comment on your article.

FrSam: Nope. Nothing worth publishing.

Ryft: Okay.

I will let his article and his response to my submitted comment speak for the integrity of his polemic against Calvinism. And I will post here what he was unwilling to post there, and permit our readers to observe both sides. Draw your own conclusions.

Dear Richard Coords,

Somehow during an internet search on the subject of whether God’s electing activity is conditional or not (i.e., based on any human merit), your blog Examining Calvinism had placed well in the results and was one of the links I clicked through. I had a look at some of your articles, and left a comment on one of them. But what I am writing about today regards your article “Calvinists Are Sneaky” (2 May 2009; cf. your article by the same name at your site).

In another article elsewhere, you had cited a statement that Roger Olson had made in his book (Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities) which reflects a sentiment you have expressed yourself in different ways, which is that a person should make every effort to understand a position he claims to disagree with. As Olson put it, “We must make sure that we can describe another’s theological position as he or she would describe it before we criticize or condemn” (p.41), and that we could overcome the “harsh polemics” by simply “understanding each others’ real theological positions” (p.59).

The question I have for you is this: Do you honestly and genuinely feel that you have fairly represented, in your article, how the Calvinist would describe his own position? Do you truly believe, honestly, that a Calvinist could read your article and find that it reflects his real heart? Would you tell an inquiring mind that you wrote the article to help overcome the harsh polemics in the Calvinist-Arminian debates?

On what basis do you claim that Calvinists are being “sneaky”? In what sense are they engaged in “stealthful operations,” and what is the evidence for this? Are they being dishonest when they say that Jesus died for the ungodly, that he died for sins? Surely not, since that is what Scripture tells us. If a Calvinist tells a person that Jesus died for the sins of all those who repent and believe, is he being “intentionally vague”? If that’s what he truly believes, how is he being intentionally vague? Do you agree with Bob who you quoted as saying, “[They] intentionally mislead by using blanket statements and carefully constructed words”? Are they being misleading because they know that Jesus died for the sins of all mankind but pretend to believe otherwise?

You believe that man can obtain salvation (with God establishing the rules for how he can go about doing so). The Calvinist disagrees, emphatically, believing that the very reason Jesus came is because man cannot obtain salvation. Jesus Christ alone obtained salvation, satisfying the justices of God for all those who repent and believe. Calvinists agree with you that “the Father has decreed salvation for those in Christ,” and yet also with the apostles, that if anyone is in Christ it is by God’s doing. “It is because of God that you are in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Thes. 2:13-14, cf. 1 Thes. 1:4-5). So then the point arises immediately: If this is their genuine conviction, based on their study of the Scripture as God’s revealed truth, which they proclaim with sincere fidelity, then in what way are they being intentionally vague, sneaky, wilfully misleading, etc.?

Does the caricature you published reflect how the Calvinist describes himself, his heart and convictions, his real position? Can you honestly say that your article has helped to overcome the harsh polemics in the Calvinist-Arminian debates? Is this the spirit of the Society of Evangelical Arminians? Is your article consistent with your own sentiment that “in the tone of our dialogue with one another” we should remember that we are all Christian brethren? You might argue that the Calvinist is ‘wrong’ in his position, but accusing him of being dishonest and misleading, etc., is a very different thing, which does get personal and is not a Christian tone (cf. “Message to the reader”). It is my hope and prayer that you may take the high road and represent the Calvinist in a way that he or she would find recognizable, is consistent with your own biblical ethics, and may show what you find wrong about their view without assassinating their character.

In sincerity and brotherly love,

David Smart