Free Republic

Near the end of my pregnancy, I went to my first breastfeeding support meeting, facilitated by La Leche League. I was excited at the opportunity to learn, and terribly nervous in a room full of strangers — I was a guy at a women-only peer-to-peer help group. When it came to be my turn to speak, I gave my carefully prepared spiel: "My name is Trevor and I am able to be pregnant because I am transgender. This means that I was born female but transitioned to male by taking hormones and having chest surgery. When my partner and I...

The Shepherd of Hermas is an early second century church document. We’re interested particularly in Visions 2.4 and 3.9, which indicate a plurality of eldership in Rome as opposed to a monarchical episcopate: But you yourself will read it to this city [Rome], along with the elders (presbuteroi) who preside (proistamenoi – plural leadership) over the church. (Vis 2.4) Now, therefore, I say to you [plural] who lead the church and occupy the seats of honor: do not be like the sorcerers. For the sorcerers carry their drugs in bottles, but you carry your drug and poison in your heart....

Roman Catholicism was 300 years too late to be “the stone that … became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth” (Daniel 2:35). [This is the third installment of a three part series.]When former Protestant, Taylor Marshall, wrote Eternal City, he sought to explain why Christianity is necessarily Roman. “The Church,” he wrote, “receives the Roman empire” from its previous custodians. But in concluding this, Marshall has mistakenly transposed two kingdoms—both of which Daniel addressed, and both of which Daniel set against the background of the rise and fall of four world empires. One kingdom is of earth...

Today is the birthday of John Calvin, Pastor, theologian and scholar .... One may disagree with his theology .. but his contribution to the church and the world can not be denied.. "In 1559, as part of his social reforms, Calvin founded a school for training children as well as a hospital for the indigent. His Geneva Academy attracted students from all over Europe and in 1564, when he died, had 1,200 on the roll. Education could inculcate values and morality. His pedagogy was quite progressive; teachers should not be authoritarian but “should join [and] walk with [students] as companions”...

The doctrine of Transubstantiation is the belief that the elements of the Lord’s table (bread and wine) supernaturally transform into the body and blood of Christ during the Mass. This is uniquely held by Roman Catholics but some form of a “Real Presence” view is held by Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, and some Anglicans. The Calvinist/Reformed tradition believes in a real spiritual presence but not one of substance. Most of the remaining Protestant traditions (myself included) don’t believe in any real presence, either spiritual or physical, but believe that the Eucharist is a memorial and a proclamation of Christ’s work on the cross...

For those who are circumcised do not even keep the Law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh. But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. - Galatians 6:13, 14Ideas have consequences. So does doctrine. That there are true Christians who trust the blood of Jesus Christ alone to make their garments white who worship in the Roman Catholic church is no less extraordinary for being true. They...

Recently there has been a surge in prominent Evangelicals calling for unity with Roman Catholicism. In one sense there seems to be strong foundational similarities that would justify these calls to unity. Catholics are baptized in the name of the Trinity. God’s revealed word in the Bible -- setting aside their addition of the Apocryphal books, for argument’s sake -- is foundational to their worldview. Catholics love Christ and believe that he died on the cross and rose again to provide grace for sinners. Obviously there are theological differences associated with the specific teachings of each one of these perceived...

Definition of Sola Scriptura Sola Scriptura: the reformed Protestant belief that the Scriptures alone are the final and only infallible authority for the Christian. This does not mean that Scriptures are the only authority (nuda or solo Scriptura), as Protestants believe in the authority of tradition, reason, experience, and emotions to varying degrees (after all, “sola scriptura” itself is an authoritative tradition in Protestantism). It does mean that Scripture trumps all other authorities (it is the norma normans sed non normata Lat. “norm that norms which is not normed”). Scripture is the norma normans sed non normata “norm that norms which is...

Ironically, this claim [“the body of Christ is queer”], by an ordained bi-sexual female, Layton E. Williams, in the PC(USA), appeared the day before the decision of the USSC to legalize same sex marriage in all fifty states. Culturally, this legal decision represents an historic moment for the United States. The Declaration of Independence, declaring that rights and laws are endowed by the Creator, has been rendered meaningless by a fake redefining of marriage, with no reference to the Creator or to any objective standards. The charade is over. This decision indicates that what has been happening for some time...

“I’m blessed!” “That was such a blessing!” “Wow, you are blessed!”Whether some financial profit, a good meal, an ideal day, or finding our lost keys, we’ve all said it. And those things are blessings. But, too often we risk throwing around benedictory phrases with a shallow, man-centered carelessness.What does it mean to be “blessed”? What does God consider “blessing”? God’s definitions of blessing might not always fit the pop-definitions. One in particular, perhaps, counter-intuitive blessing is described from what is considered the greatest sermon ever preached: the Sermon on the Mount. Christ opened it with the declarative blessing, “Blessed are the poor in...

Statues depicting the apparition of Mary to Benoite Rencurel at La Laus, France. One of the most fervent forms of devotion in Roman Catholicism is to the visions of Mary, commonly called “apparitions.” For many centuries, in many locations around the world, Mary is alleged to have appeared to visionaries of the Roman Catholic Church. These visionaries typically report conversations with Mary, and the apparition of Mary has many times delivered messages that have been documented through the official channels of the Roman Catholic Church. There have been many hundreds of alleged apparitions throughout history, but only a few...

On March 30, a major Harvard-affiliated hospital in Boston, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), expelled a well-respected urologist from its medical staff because he voiced concerns about the unhealthy nature of homosexual behavior and objected to the hospital’s aggressive promotion of “gay pride” activities. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a sprawling hospital complex in Boston. People trust the medical profession to protect them – on both the personal and public health levels. But in recent years, a nightmare has taken hold. Now, a medical doctor is being expelled from his hospital for telling the politically-incorrect truth about a...

Long before Jesus turned water into wine, He turned Mary’s amniotic fluid into meconium, and her breast milk into transitional stools. Anyone who has ever changed a child’s diaper knows that the resulting odor offends the nostrils greatly. As Jesus would later instruct us, “whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly” and ends up in the toilet (Matthew 15:17), or in His case as an infant, in the diaper. Thus did Jesus’ lower gastrointestinal tract operate as it must for all men, and thus did our Lord endure the gastrocolic reflex, as all we mortals do. We...

The purest form of religion on earth, says Rome, is to bow before a piece of bread and worship it. “The Eucharist is ‘the source and summit of the Christian life,’ ” and “is the heart and the summit of the Church’s life,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1324, 1407). And “the prayer of thanksgiving and consecration,” is “the heart and summit of the celebration” (1352). It is at the utterance of the consecration, the priest’s words, “This is My body,” and “This is the cup of My blood,” that the bread and wine are said to...

Taking his seat in the temple of God For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God…9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders (2 Thes 2:3-4,9).  There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ; nor can the Pope of Rome,...

Was The Papacy Established By Christ? (Part 2) Because neither the apostolic nor the earliest post-apostolic Christians refer to a jurisdictional primacy of the bishop of Rome, Catholics often cite references to any type of primacy of the Roman church. But a non-jurisdictional primacy of the Roman church doesn't prove a jurisdictional primacy of the Roman bishop. Even Peter himself isn't referred to as having papal authority among the early post-apostolic sources. Terence Smith explains: "there is an astonishing lack of reference to Peter among ecclesiastical authors of the first half of the second century. He is barely mentioned...

For those who don't have much familiarity with the dispute between Protestants and Catholics over the doctrine of the papacy, I want to post two introductory articles on the subject today and tomorrow. The first article, this one, will be about the Biblical evidence, and tomorrow's article will be about the early post-Biblical evidence. Roman Catholicism claims the papacy as its foundation. According to the Catholic Church, the doctrine of the papacy was understood and universally accepted as early as the time of Peter: "At open variance with this clear doctrine of Holy Scripture as it has been ever understood...

We concluded our last series on The Sacrifice Challenge with a few citations from Cyril of Jerusalem, so we thought it opportune to use him to demonstrate one of the ways Rome “finds” her doctrines in the Early Church. As we noted last week, Cyril’s Catechetical Lectures were part of a late-fourth century trend during which Rome’s novel Mass Sacrifice was invented. Catholic Answers used a few select quotes to prove Cyril’s belief in transubstantiation, but as we demonstrated, those quotes were truncated in order to isolate them from their context, and Cyril—even in the midst of his other errors—nevertheless...

If the doctrine of Sola Scriptura is true, then, as a system of theology, Roman Catholicism ought to be wholeheartedly rejected. This quick inference is not as simplistic as it may first appear. Sola Scriptura not only negates any form of authoritative tradition in Roman Catholicism, it also eviscerates any Roman Catholic doctrine or practice explicitly drawn from Scripture, since the truth of such doctrines is, according to the Council of Trent, only guaranteed by the "holy mother Church" who has the sole authority to "judge of their [the Scriptures'] true sense and interpretation."[1] Therefore, if Sola Scriptura precludes such...

To utterly despair of oneself is infinitely more difficult for a man than to invent some kind of good works.generated self-salvation project. Human beings irresistibly gravitate toward a works or karma-based system because it gives man the false hope that his redemption is within his own reach. But a salvation that is all of grace, a gift earned by Someone else, is so utterly offensive to human nature, so humbling to our pride, that only a supernatural work of grace will bring a person to yield to it.Contrary to popular and cultural concepts of God, the Bible declares that...