Safe Haven

The honesty is refreshing . And he's right, you know. Leithart is the biggest Reformed "heretic" there is, but for the fact that the word is meaningless in the hands of a visible body with no binding authority by its own admission and confession. The only reason he didn't get convicted--and I mean the only one--is that the relationship between that visible body and the church catholic (conceived of as fundamentally invisible) has never been established. He's the perfect Neo to The Matrix that is this whole Protestant paradigm. As long as he can say, "Prove it from the Bible that I'm wrong!" no court could chain him. Let me translate: "Prove it from the Bible (according to me) that I'm wrong!" Good luck with that. Speaking of the Reformers, Dr. Clark said: " They accused Rome of becoming a sect because she, for the first time in the history of the church, in council, anathematized the holy gospel. In so doing, she cut herself off ...

Here's this . But then, the same argument is here . Believe me, I sense the attractiveness of these arguments. But ad hoc is ad hoc. What is the principle by which these distinctions are made? If you find it, let me know. The Reformed world is opting for a "Magisterium" of expertise to hide the fact that this is the same Protestant paradigm offered by the Reformers, the same individualism at the heart of it, with respect to this question: "Who is the final arbiter of divine revelation?" If it's me, I can set up any number of appreciations and bookshelves to cover up the fact that I decide what counts as orthodoxy, in this paradigm. This is what Mathison couldn't see, and didn't want to acknowledge. Who decides what Scripture says? There are only two choices, ultimately: Either I do, or someone else does. If that someone else is a church of some kind, yet I still retain the right to decide when that body has gone wrong, it's still me.  Dress it up...

One of the great blessings of living on this rock is that sometimes, people fall in love. Yes, I get it, it's not like the movies, and blah, blah, all the usual things evangelicals always say to prevent themselves from actually enjoying anything. Anyway, love is awesome. I think I know this, even though I haven't tricked some poor woman into marrying me yet. Did you know that, barring death, we only get one crack at this? Let me take a deep breath...I beg your patience...THERE IS NO DIVORCE! There, I said it. Better said, there is no re-marriage. Look, I get it, that little snippet about "except for marital unfaithfulness" can trip you up. But if you read all the passages on this together, it becomes very obvious that the papists are on to something. And it's not that I want all people who happened to screw it up some way to be lonely forever on a technicality. It's just that, well, sex is a huge deal. HUGE. If you marry someone and share your whole self...

This.  For you, Jon Stogsdill.

Haven't I said this  47,000 times? Sooner or later, everyone sees the problem. There is an irreconcilable dilemma between the individualism inherent in Sola Scriptura, and ecclesiastical authority. Or, in the delightfully direct way I posed it to my own soul, "derivative authority is a sham." It's still a sham after we throw Keith Mathison under the bus, because it's another way to say it, my favorite sentence: "One cannot be both the arbiter of divine revelation, and a humble receiver of it at the same time." Dr. Greg Perry and Dr. Michael Williams both did their best to nuance it re: the canon, but the radicals carry the implications of Sola Scriptura to its (principled) logical conclusion. I realized very quickly: If I want the orthodox Christology of the first two ecumenical councils, I must submit in a principled way--that is, without qualification--to the authority which promulgated it.  Guess who that is? I hate it when that happens. Anything else...

5. If the offer isn't real, your good news is not a deal. 4. If you crash on the rocks, go to The Box. 3. If Jesus is your brother, Mary is your mother. 2. Talk to the saints; they'll hear your complaints. 1. If you don't have a priest, you don't have a feast.

5. That awkward moment when you say, "So that's why we have traditionalists!" 4. I want to walk right up to a neo-Calvinist and say, "Nestorius called; he wants his anti-Catholicism back." 3. I don't always agree with Fr. Robert Barron, but when I do, it's emphatically. Stay holy, my friends. 2. I think Paul VI would walk into most parishes and say, "This is not what I meant." 1. Arguing over whether the miraculous apostolic gifts of the Spirit have continued is close to pointless if you can't identify, much less hold, the catholic and apostolic faith.

5. C'mon, Tom. Your legendary hotness doesn't help my fantasy football team as much as a few touchdown passes would. 4. The definitive proof that Catholics do not worship Mary as a goddess or some other foolishness: If you put Jesus in the place where Mary is, and confessed the same things of him as we do of her, you'd be an Arian heretic. Instead, may Jesus, who is God Almighty, be adored forever and ever! 3. Denny's is awesome. I don't understand it, I just confess it. Like the Trinity. 2. No, you will not adorn my hash browns with cheesy, onion-y, grossness. But thanks for asking. 1. Fall Back. JASON WINS!!!