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In an article entitled Saint Patrick the Baptist?, Stephen R. Button tries to claim St. Patrick for Evangelical Protestantism... or at least disassociate him from Roman Catholicism. Button is hardly alone: you can find similar attempts by Don Boys and others, some of them dating back several decades. The argument tends to work like this. From Patrick, we have (in Button's words) only the “84 short paragraphs that make up both his Confession and his 'Letter to Coroticus.'” Baptist authors then mine these texts for any doctrines that Patrick doesn't mention explicitly, and then claim that he must have held...

Peek behind the curtain of some "progressive" or "hip" evangelical churches, past the savvy technology and secular music, and you will find more than just a contemporary worship service. You'll find faith leaders encouraging young evangelicals to trade in their Christian convictions for a gospel filled with compromise. They're slowly attempting to give evangelicalism an "update"—and the change is not for the good. It's painful for me to admit, but we can no longer rest carefree in our evangelical identity—because it is changing. No doubt you have seen the headlines declaring that evangelicalism is doomed because evangelical kids are leaving...

Justin Peters: an American Cessationist Teaching “Apologetics” to Brazilian Pentecostals By Julio Severo A guest speaker of VINACC (a Brazilian conference of evangelicals), an American evangelical made headlines by blasting preachers of the Prosperity Gospel as “false prophets.” Justin Peters gave his apologetics lecture at an Assemblies of God church in Campina Grande, Brazil in February 16, 2015. VINACC held in this church its Second International Apologetics Meeting of Paraiba. In the event, Peters said, “Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Joel Osteen, Myles Munroe, Joyce Meyer and others are, all of them, false prophets. What they teach is not the...

HOLY ORDERS St. Pius X on Priestly SanctityThe Ordination into the Priesthood is the Sacrament known as Holy Orders. This sacrament is administered by the 'laying of hands', the candidate Deacons for Priesthood, kneel before the Bishop. In silence the Bishop lays his hands upon the head of each individual candidate. The prayer belonging to the imposition of hands is said by the Bishop; by this, the Holy Spirit then enters the candidate imparting on him all Priestly powers. The Sacrament of Holy Orders confers Sanctifying Grace to the recipient. The Bishop, through his power of ordaining, is enabled...

My new book, The Protestant's Dilemma, shows in a myriad of ways why Protestantism is implausible. We sifted through many arguments to boil the book down to the most essential. A few chapters didn't make the cut but are still good enough to share. Here's one of them. If Protestantism is true, There's no way to know whether you're assenting to divine revelation or to mere human opinion about divine revelation. Protestants and Catholics both believe that God has revealed himself to man over the course of human history, culminating in his ultimate self-revelation in Jesus Christ. But whereas Catholics...

This is a continuation of my review of The Protestant’s Dilemma: How the Reformation’s Shocking Consequences Point to the Truth of Catholicism (San Diego: Catholic Answers Press, 2014, Kindle edition) by Rome's defender, Devin Rose. The book throughout presents caricatures of Protestant positions, illogical conclusions, shoddy documentation, assumes the truth of the Roman Catholic worldview without proving it, and demonstrates that the author did not apply his own criteria to his own position. Section 2 of TPD  is entitled, "The Papacy." It's a short chapter, under 1000 words. The temptation in reviewing it is is to respond at a much...

This is a continuation of my review of The Protestant’s Dilemma: How the Reformation’s Shocking Consequences Point to the Truth of Catholicism (San Diego: Catholic Answers Press, 2014, Kindle edition) by Rome's defender, Devin Rose. Part one can be found here (and also at the Aomin blog). The first part of the review examined the conversion story of the author. This current installment will deal with the author's notion of authority and church corruption. The book throughout presents caricatures of Protestant positions, illogical conclusions, shoddy documentation, assumes the truth of the Roman Catholic worldview without proving it, and demonstrates that the...

Author’s Note: If you’re wondering why this column begins with “#4” just go to my archive. This is Part II of a series. Part I described a new College Prep Course that is being offered by www.CrossExamined.org. Frank Turek, J. Warner Wallace, and I will be traveling the country offering the course starting in the summer of 2015. This column series provides an overview of my 10-step plan to help Christian kids prepare for life in college. 4. Google Is Not a Friend to Higher Ed. Some readers may remember my infamous “letter to Ed” that went viral on the...

Newsweek’s recent cover story on the Bible, as we expected, proved quite controversial, particularly among the evangelical community... Is it true that prominent Christian leaders in America are misusing the Bible to suit their own purposes?... Has the text of the Bible undergone such dramatic changes over the centuries that it bears little resemblance to the original teachings of Moses, Jesus, and Paul?.. ..does Newsweek paint an accurate picture of conservative evangelicals? Certainly not. More importantly, does Newsweek paint an accurate picture of the reliability of the Scriptures? Emphatically not...

I am pleased to announce that next summer I’ll be embarking on a new adventure with my friends Frank Turek and J. Warner Wallace. We’ll be touring churches across America with a one-day college prep course that is designed to help parents and children prepare for college so they will not lose their faith while they are there. Take a few minutes to go on to Frank’s website and see what we’re up to and how you can bring us to your town. Frank and J. Warner are world-class apologists. They will supply rich substantive information on defending the truthfulness of...

In case you haven't heard, despite all the noise we've been trying to make about it, I have a new book out, "Jesus on Trial: A Lawyer Affirms the Truth of the Gospel," and I'm excited about it. It is on Christian apologetics, which means it defends the Christian faith and its truth claims, but it also includes my personal journey from skeptic to believer and a discussion of basic Christian doctrine. What good is it to believe that Christianity is true if you don't have some idea what it stands for? Why would I, a lawyer and political columnist,...

The Marks of the ChurchCatechism of the Catholic Church Section 811 In the Creed we profess the Church to be one holy catholic and apostolic. These four characteristics, inseparably linked with each other, indicate essential features of the Church and her mission. The Church does not possess them of herself; it is Christ who, through the Holy Spirit, makes His Church one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, and it is He who calls her to realize each of these qualities. The Church Is OneJohn 17:11Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may...

Four Marks of the Church by Kenneth D. WhiteheadWe can show how the Church of the apostles resembles in all essentials the Church of today by showing how the early Church already bore the marks, or "notes," of the true Church of Christ which are still professed today in the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed declares the Church to be One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.Thus, the Church of the apostles was definitely one: "There is one body and one spirit," Paul wrote, "just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one...

Among Catholics and atheists, is easy to exchange convinced assertions: “The gospels are 100% God’s holy Word and every bit is historically accurate!” or “The gospels are fairy tales!” However there is a discipline called “Biblical scholarship” in which scholars do some very interesting work determining just which parts of the gospels they think are reliable and which they think are not. Their conclusions are, of course, debated. That’s what scholars do. Their work is fascinating and it is worth taking some time to look at just a smidgen of their methodology and conclusions. Bible scholars are most interested in...

For Catholics, the doctrine of Christ's divinity is central, for it is like a skeleton key that opens all the other doctrines. Catholics have not independently reasoned out and tested each of the teachings of Christ received via the Bible and the Church, but believe them all on his authority. For if Christ is divine, He can be trusted to be infallible in everything He said, even hard things like exalting suffering and poverty, forbidding divorce, giving his Church the authority to teach and forgive sins in his name, warning about hell (very often and very seriously), instituting the scandalous...

If you were given unquestionable proof that neither heaven nor hell existed – no rewards or punishment after death and no afterlife - how would you live your life? Would right or wrong really matter? Would morality be an issue or would amorality be the norm?

Sunday, June 21, marked the 90th anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Trial decision. The questions surrounding evolution—meaning, in particular, the origins of humans—still raise large and important questions for how we understand human nature and the doctrine of original sin. But Jason Stellman thinks that the obsession with our physical origins, though understandable, is perhaps theologically off-kilter. Where we've come from biologically is not as important as where we're heading. It's not the beginning of the journey, man—it's the destination. Stellman's The Destiny of the Species (Wipf and Stock, 2013) is a brief, rollicking, and readable apologetic, notable not...

On Monday, Michael Eric Dyson appeared on The ED Show on MSNBC, this time hosted by Joy Reid. He was introduced as someone knowledgeable in American history and Biblical theology. Dyson, a professor at Georgetown, then insinuated that the Bible's teaching regarding loving Jesus is “interestingly homoerotic.” Dyson said: Look through the Bible, there's a lot of interesting things. The same men who sat up in a church of all men -- 'I put my God, Jesus over all women, I love Him more than I love her!' -- Hmmm... do you really? That sounds interestingly homoerotic to people who...

Unlike all other religions that emphasize mysticism, myth, fables, legends, or even allegories, Christianity is a historical religion that upholds the facticity of its revelatory events that becomes the very object of faith. Not only is the crucifixion of Christ the most historically attested fact of the ancient world, but believe it or not, the resurrection of Jesus is not far behind. The test of faith in Christianity that so many have a hard time with is not that believing is a leap out into an irrational world of myth, but that believing is based on historical facts, the exact...

“Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22). “And the fifth angel sounded the trumpet, and I saw a star fall from heaven upon the earth, and there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit." (Rev. 9:1) In his Concise Commentary Matthew Henry identifies falling stars as tepid, indecisive, weak or apostate clergy who, "Having ceased to be a minister of Christ, he who is represented by this star becomes the minister of the devil; and lets loose the...