Brandon Addison’s “Called to Communion” article, now in .PDF

Brandon Addison’s “Called to Communion” article, “The Quest for the Historical Church: A Protestant Assessment”, is now posted here in .PDF format, for your convenience. In this article, Brandon addresses the notion that the Roman Catholic Church is “The Church that Christ Founded™”, which is espoused in quite a thick way over there. Brandon systematically …

Bergoglio’s Gig, Part 3: Opposing Ratzinger

In one of his first major public addresses as pope, at St. Peter’s Square, Sunday, March 17, 2013, “Pope Francis” specifically cited Cardinal Walter Kasper’s book “On Mercy”: In the past few days I have been reading a book by a Cardinal — Cardinal Kasper, a clever theologian, a good theologian — on mercy. And …

Newman vs Leo. Or, “visible”, but in an “invisible” way. Or, “a new fiction”…

The gang at Called to Communion are fond of telling us that Christ founded a visible church. This article is featured as the lead article at their Papacy Roundup. It’s all so clear to them now — the perspicuity of Roman dogma leaves no room for question. But at the end of the 19th century, …

The Papacy: Changing in History, Theology, and Dogma

In previous blog posts, I’ve given some short history about the development and growth of the historical papacy. The papacy is 1600 years old, not 2000 years old The Crafting of the 4th Century Roman Church, Doctrine, and Papacy The Papacy: “Self-Consciously” Modeled After the 4th Century Roman State “Pope Leo the Great” When you …

How the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church Contradicts Called to Communion’s Interpretive Paradigm

The fellas over at Called to Communion (C2C) are behaving like young boys with a new bike.  And that new “bike” is what they describe as their “Interpretive Paradigm” (hereafter, IP).  Just as a shiny new bike makes a young lad feel superior to his friends – at least until the first scratch or dent …

Paradigms, Tradition, and the Lexicon, Part 1

Or, Jason Stellman’s “already-existing apostolic tradition” Bryan Cross and Jason Stellman have got a problem. Modern Biblical scholarship is locating the content of their “Tradition”. And it’s not what they think it is. First, let’s see what Bryan says about it, and let’s quote him precisely so he doesn’t get ticky about it. In his …

Jason Stellman on “Paradigms”

I’ve been asked to comment on Jason Stellman’s series on “paradigms”. From a blog post dated November 11, 2012, he introduces the topic: On Paradigms Protestant and Catholic: Anyone who has followed Catholic/Protestant discussions recently has undoubtedly heard more about “interpretive paradigms” than they care to recall. By the time one is five or six …

Liccione Quixote

Erick wrote, in response to Paul Bassett: The problem remains however that the universal church for 15 centuries did not understand the last word on any issue, doctrinal or disciplinary, to be in one’s individual interpretation of Scripture, or even a collective interpretation by a huge community in schism (Presbyterian, Baptist, etc). Obviously, reading the …

Into and Out of Roman Catholicism

Over at Green Baggins, a commenter named Rooney said: If a reformed person visits sedevacantist websites like MHFM [“Most Holy Family Seminary”], I think such a person would be hardened more against the current RCC and the chances of converting to the RCC will drop. Reading sedevacantist/traditionalist arguments was one thing that kept me from …

Called Out of Confusion

I received this unsolicited email yesterday: Hi John, You don’t know me, but I wanted to thank you for the work you are doing on Triablogue and in comment boxes on various reformed blogs across the internet. If you don’t mind, I’d like to try to encourage you and share what a positive impact your …