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My Take on the Complicated World Scene That Includes Ukraine, Russia, and Israel
Division Over Israel
What’s going on in foreign policy in the world is one of the most interesting variations of division that I’ve seen in my lifetime. Positions divide normal allies and unify former enemies. It’s a challenge even in theological circles with diverse interpretations of biblical prophecy. The event of October 7, 2023 with the brutal attack by Hamas on Israel also ratchets up emotions, making it more difficult to discuss.
When someone becomes settled, what I like to call “concrete,” in his position, he might take disagreement personally. Maybe very personally. It’s tough to talk issues when emotions run so high. Maybe you’ve seen various podcasts with arguments between an Israeli and a Palestinian. Heated doesn’t represent how hot the temperature gets. I’ve noticed very often, between school yard taunts and name calls, the same repeated accusations from both sides.
Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and the Democrat Party
Perhaps you heard about the skirmish now between Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens. The co-founder of Daily Wire called his employee an “absolute disgrace,” caught on video in a private meeting and went viral. She then sits down to comment to Tucker Carlson in an explosive interview. Shapiro has done very angry high energy rants about the expressed position of Carlson. I couldn’t possibly list every prominent ongoing debate, there are so many.
One can witness the variated division between the remaining Republican presidential candidates. A divide also exists among Democrats between university-type leftists, Pro-Palestinian, and traditional Democrat Pro-Israel stances, especially represented by Senator Chuck Schumer and others.
The Animosity Toward Israel
Hatred of Israel across the world validates biblical prophecy. Despite propaganda-like support from Hollywood and in the mainstream media for the Jews and against genocidal treatment, hatred reaches a recent high everywhere. Based on its mere size, Israel would not deserve or receive this animosity, yet it does. Why and how? Two reasons.
One, Satan opposes Israel still. He wants to throw a wrench into the ongoing plan of God in the world. He has strong influence on the easily manipulated lost nations and their leaders. Two, God still fulfills prophecy with chastisement of Israel. Israel does not have a statute of limitations on God’s reprimands. I wish for open eyes for Israel, although I don’t expect it. Yet, God still isn’t done with Israel; hence the continued discipline.
As an example of division, many reading this nod “no” in strong opposition to what I write here. Many both amillennialists and postmillennialists see God done with Israel, replaced by the church. When I say “church,” I mean their version of God’s kingdom on earth, made up of Christendom. They see Israel as an unbelieving, rebellious people, who deserves no special favor against the Arabs in Palestine.
Candace Owens, who professes Christianity, married a Roman Catholic. Maybe she leans that way now. She can find support from Reformed evangelicals with a similar view of the world. You look at the history of Roman Catholicism and even the European Protestant state churches, and you see historical anti-semitism. Tucker Carlson grew up Episcopalian and he seems right now to return to some version of Christian nationalism, as seen in his interviews of foreign Christian nationalists. I see Vladimir Putin himself a kind of Christian nationalist, more interested in the survival of his nation and culture.
Jewish Anger toward Hamas and Palestine
What I’m writing in this post would require book or dissertation level analysis. I’m not going to write that, even though it’s an interest.
I understand Shapiro’s anger. Hamas killed 1,500 Israelites and took 240 hostages. The United States is 33 times the population of Israel and had 3,000 killed on 9-11. That means this is at least fifteen times worse, and it’s almost immeasurable with the way Hamas did it.
Remove the religious and ethnic component, and even as an international incident, if Israel acts like any other nation, it would react more harsh than it even is acting. When I hear Shapiro defend Israel’s reaction, I agree with him. I’ve heard both sides of the argument in all their iterations and I support Israel’s argument. The United States should just let Israel do its thing and not get in the way. I would advocate for U.S. backing and support if international escalation occurred from prominent Israeli enemies like Iran.
Varied Points of View, Yet Still Supporting Israel
Support without Foreign Aid
On the other hand, I like the idea of not sending money to Israel. I’m in the proto-Republican anti-intervention, quasi-isolationist camp. This is more in the realm of a fresh realization of the Monroe doctrine. The United States solidifies its own security and borders, solves its own very serious problems first. It follows the Pauline view of bearing your own burdens before you bear those of others.
As a companion to everything else, I like firming up freedom of speech. Some of this relates to a reaction to January 6 compared to Antifa and BLM riots and the denial of a rigged 2020 election and the denial of 2016 election seen in the Russian Hoax and Hunter Biden laptop. I understand the concerns over any even questioning of Israel policy as anti-semitic. White people in the United States, Israel supporters, have felt left out of the concern over racism from American Jews in comparison with silence over Antifa and BLM. Apparent first amendment supporters should allow free expression of these inconsistencies without pulling an anti-semitism card.
Democrat support of Israel comes with obvious strings attached. American money brings American supervision or control. When America attacked Iraq after 911, relatively little criticism came for collateral damage, death of innocent civilians. This is the cost of war for American retaliation. Hamas uses children as human shields and Israel must pause its offensive, perhaps leaving Hamas intact. The United States should consider not sending monetary support and just allowing Israel free reign on its own security. American Democrat politics affect Israeli security, bouncing Israel around like a political volleyball.
Hatred from Jews for their Own Supporters
It is tough to bridge historical support of Israel with the typical woke politics among Jews in the United States and Israel. Almost 50% of Jews in Israel self-identify as secular. They support same sex marriage and other forms of moral perversion, not operating according to objective truth. 62 percent of the 7.6 million Jews in the United States are secular. 79% voted Democrat in the 2018 midterm elections.
Pew Research did a study on American Jews in 2020 and 81 percent of Orthodox Jews supported Trump. On the other hand, the same study said 73% of all Jews opposed Trump. This describes the difference between a secular and religious Jew in the United States. Recently, secular Jew Barbara Streisand complained that she would not live in the United States if Donald Trump became president again. She would move to England — you know, the place where 300,000 pro-Hamas protestors recently gathered on the streets of London against Israel.
Shapiro himself sometimes plays, I believe, to the secular Jew. Perhaps a form of self-preservation innate from hundreds of years of persecution explains. As a professing Orthodox Jew, attaching himself to the Old Testament in a prominent way, he uses profane language and tells dirty jokes in public. Then when an Owens or Tucker, whom I would see as supporters of Israel, albeit in a lesser way, he reacts in a ballistic manner. When questioned on Trump in a secular crowd, he throws Trump under the bus in a harsher way than he would George Soros or Bill Maher.
Support of Israel and Milquetoast Response
Part of the Abrahamic Covenant, which is still intact, is that God promised He would bless people that bless Israel. Among other reasons, that explains a strong support of Israel in the United States, including welcoming those 7.6 million Jews in the United States. A majority of those Jews have been sharply antagonistic with their chief supporters, many expressing intense hatred for them. This communicates the peculiar situation this issue provides. You can greatly dislike the Jewish worldview while really loving and bestowing support for Jews and Israel.
No group provides as sharp and hateful rhetoric toward Christians in the United States like Jews do. Israel’s protection in the Middle East greatly depends on this group of people mainly hated by Jews in the United States. In a personal way, I’ve received no greater disrespect than I have from Jews and on many different occasions. I’ve never treated a Jew in a bad way, always in a loving way. A small percentage of the Jews I’ve known return that favor. Of course, they might explain that they don’t like the reason why we love them so much.
Many forms of contradiction occur over the issue of Israel and Palestine. A Jew easily can confuse a Catholic from a Protestant from an Evangelical. Even on this blog, in the comment section some attack Israel for Christian reasons while we defend Israel for Christian reasons. They both can’t be right, yet they both exist.
More to Come
Roman Catholicism Versus Protestantism: Candace Owens Show (part three)
Worship, Roman Catholic or Protestant
Differences
Roman Catholic George Farmer debated Protestant Allie Beth Stuckey on the Candace Owens Show. Picking up midway of part two, Owens challenged Stuckey about the silliness in evangelical worship. I see this as a legitimate criticism of evangelicalism, not however a legitimate promotion of Roman Catholicism.
Everything about Protestantism does not not translate to modern evangelicalism. Worship and church growth philosophy are two of these. These relate more to the decaying culture of Western civilization and its effect on the church.
I imagine far less change in the formal tradition of Roman Catholic liturgy than what occurred to Western evangelicalism as an offshoot of Protestantism. Built into the formal liturgy of Roman Catholicism is a dogma of a transcendent imagination of God. Cavernous cathedrals, stained glass windows, robes, huge wood carved lecterns, sacraments, and pipe organs, even removed from sincerity and true spiritual reality, communicate reverence and seriousness more than evangelical practices today. Both are false, just like Judaistic and Samaritan worship had become in Jesus’ time.
Perversions in True Worship
Stuckey could not give a coherent answer to Owen’s criticism of evangelical worship. She doesn’t show understanding of the problem from a biblical or theological perspective. Stuckey made some good points about seeker-sensitive church growth philosophy and its effects on worship. It’s true that when churches become man-centered through strategies of church growth, it corrupts worship. She didn’t seem concerned about the issue, which is normal for evangelicals. Very few care that God isn’t worshiped by their worldly, irreverent, intemperate, lustful music and atmosphere. This shapes a false view of God that undermines true evangelism and biblical sanctification.
God calls on us to worship Him in the beauty of His holiness (Psalm 96:9). Beauty is objective. It is defined by God and His nature and the perfections of His attributes. Modernism, which includes modern evangelicalism, ejects from objective beauty and, thus, true worship of God. This changes the true God in the imagination of the worshipers to a false God. This corrupts worship in a significant way akin to the corruption authored by Roman Catholicism.
The Gospel
John 3:5
Allie Beth Stuckey then asks George Farmer what the gospel is. He starts by talking about baptism and the eucharist, first quoting John 3:5. Farmer says that this verse is explicit for baptism as a necessity for salvation. It reads:
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Farmer points to baptismal regeneration as sola scriptura, using John 3:5 and saying he depends on scripture for his doctrine of salvation. He argues this is salvation by grace, because the child can do nothing. At the moment of baptism, we do nothing, so that must be grace. He says the early church agreed with that argument, and I’m assuming he refers to the patristic testimony for it. Farmer follows the infant sprinkling as a means of salvation by speaking of the avoidance of mortal sin to stay saved. He doesn’t explain that, but that clarifies his view.
Ephesians 2:8-9 and James 2
Stuckey quotes Ephesians 2:8-9 from the ESV. She says his description of salvation is grace plus works, bringing merit or works to it. Stuckey explains the Catholic view of grace as an ability to earn the salvation. She continues with a mention of 2 Corinthians 5:21, that we become the righteousness of God in Christ.
Farmer rebuts Stuckey by saying that the Roman Catholic Church does not believe salvation by works. He compares infant sprinkling to irresistible grace. The child can’t resist. He says that as long as someone doesn’t commit a mortal sin from that point, he will go to heaven. Then Farmer brings in James 2, that God inscribes a person with grace and through works he receives more grace. He interprets James 2 as, you are not saved through faith alone.
Stuckey makes two arguments. She references election, that we’re chosen before the foundation of the world. Then she reinforces Ephesians 2:8-9 again. When Owens pushes back, she explains James 2. It is works that accompany faith, as seen in the context of the New Testament, all the clear passages for faith alone and grace alone.
Baptism and the Lord’s Table
The conversation comes back to baptism for Farmer. He says the person receives grace through baptism, so it is grace by which someone is saved. He quotes Chesterton to say that it is more than a symbol. This was the issue for Farmer for turning Catholic from Protestant. He sees baptism and the eucharist as more than symbols.
Stuckey had good things to say to Farmer, but it did not seem that she participated much in evangelism or apologetics with Roman Catholics. She needed refutations for the proof texts Farmer gave her. She also needed more verses on the contrast between grace and faith and works. Actually, Roman Catholics will almost never argue like Farmer. I can count with one hand out of thousands of Catholics, those who try to defend their beliefs. However, Church of Christ, Christian Church, and others will argue like Farmer or harder. They keep you sharp on the issues of the debate.
Farmer continued later with an explanation of the real presence of Christ in the elements. He said this is the earliest Christian teaching, found again and again in Christian writing. He taught baptism and the Lord’s Table as crucial to his becoming Roman Catholic. It is important to show that Roman Catholic history is not the history of true Christianity. False doctrine and practice already corrupted the church by earlier than the third century.
Final Comments
John 3:5
I don’t know what Stuckey thought about John 3:5. Farmer used it first and she said nothing about it. Many Protestants think “water” in John 3:5 is baptism. Martin Luther and John Calvin thought so, so maybe that’s why Stuckey wouldn’t touch it. Thomas Ross and I both believe it is natural birth, the water being amniotic fluid. In answering Nicodemus, Jesus described the second birth, born first of water and then second of the Spirit. He explains the new birth or being born again. A second birth is necessary, a spiritual one after a physical one. This reads clear to me and a quick exposition of this text would have been better.
James 2 and Romans 4
Stuckey should have dealt with justification, which is a good place to answer James 2. Abraham was justified by faith before God, as seen in Genesis 15:6 and Romans 4:1-6, the latter a good place to explain, also including Romans 3:20. Paul doesn’t mention baptism in Romans 3 through 5. In James 2, works justified Abraham before men, which means they “vindicated” him, another meaning of “justified.” A man shows his faith by his works. James explains this.
Galatians and Hebrews
I also think someone must go to Galatians and Hebrews to talk to a Roman Catholic, especially Galatians 2, 3, and 5, and then Hebrews 9 and 10. A good question to ask a Roman Catholic is if he believes he has full forgiveness of sins throughout all eternity. He should explicate four verses in Hebrews 9-10: 9:27-28, 10:10, 14. Through the one offering of Christ someone is forever perfected and sanctified. These are perfect tense verbs, completed action with ongoing results.
I like Galatians 5 to show that even adding one work to grace nullifies grace. Stuckey could have quoted Romans 11:6, which says if it’s grace it is no more works and if it is works, it is no more grace. Grace and works are mutually exclusive.
Preparation
This encounter between the three participants shows a need for regular evangelism. Stuckey seemed uncomfortable with boldness. She might not be able to be friends with the other two. And then maybe she doesn’t get the kind of show or podcast that she has. I don’t know.
Someone who does not in a regular way confront the lost over their false gospel or false religion may stay unprepared for a difficult occasion. It is hard to keep good arguments in your head if you don’t use them a lot through constant practice. Hopefully, as you listened to this conversation with these three, you were ready to give an answer for the glory of God.
Addenda
I wanted to add one more thing, which I thought about driving somewhere this afternoon. Farmer brought in infant sprinkling as salvation by grace. He said this was scriptural. Stuckey also should have pushed back against infant sprinkling. It’s not in the Bible anywhere. She could have gone to a number of places on this.
Obviously, Farmer could just bring the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope, and tradition. When you can make it up as you go along, you can believe anything. Not only is infant sprinkling not in the Bible anywhere, but it is refuted by several places. I think of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8, what doth hinder me from being baptized? Philip said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Infants can’t believe in Jesus, so they are still hindered from being baptized. Every example of baptism is believer’s baptism.
Roman Catholicism Versus Protestantism: Candace Owens Show (part two)
Why criticize in particular a debate between George Farmer, Candace Owens’ (Farmer’s?) husband, and Allie Beth Stuckey? On the other hand, why not find better representatives for a debate between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism? I say, George and Allie bring a teaching moment in this controversy. They deal with the issues on more a popular level, something the Daily Wire might appreciate.
Overall Part Two and a Little More Sola Scriptura
I decided this morning to write on part two of the debate because Stuckey’s inadequacy at unmasking false doctrine espoused by George for his Roman Catholicism. By George! Trigger alert. Women should not debate men, but Allie’s unwillingness to fight, to do necessary warfare, hurt the cause. I’m glad for her feminine instinct not to push in an authoritative way over a man. It explains a poor job with a commendable reason.
Overall, Allie Stuckey in the end parked on the two verses: Ephesians 2:8-9. This rescued her contribution with this brief, rare reference to scripture. Someone believing sola scriptura, however, should have reeled off incessant verses, pounding with the hammer of God’s Word. From watching her, one might think her positions don’t have much biblical support. Yet, they do. She just didn’t or couldn’t recall verses to use with Farmer. I saw Owens growing more Roman Catholic by the moment.
Owens started part two of the debate by informing that she got over sola scriptura easily because she couldn’t find it in the Bible. This might relieve her husband and their future relationship. Stuckey then compared the biblical support for sola scriptura to that of the Trinity, that it’s not explicit. This is utterly false. Scripture is explicit that the Bible is the only infallible authority or the ultimate authority for faith and practice. When Stuckey loses on this point, she really does lose the debate, because all the extra-scriptural writing comes into play for Farmer. He then uses this source material for the rest of his defense of Roman Catholic doctrine.
Mary, Mother of God?
Danger with Historical Theology
On the first subject after ending the sola scriptura conversation, Farmer shows the danger of perversion in one’s use of historical theology. He is crafty. He asks Stuckey if she believes Mary is the mother of God? It’s a tricky question. I’m sure the wheels were turning in her head: “Is Jesus God? Yes. Is Mary Jesus’ mother? Yes. So is Mary God’s mother?” It seems like, Yes, might be the right answer. It is a gotcha question.
Farmer said that the Protestants do not reject the Council of Ephesus. Why would Stuckey then do that if she is Protestant? The Council of Ephesus concluded Mary the mother of God. Yes, Reformers have supported the language, “mother of God.” That does not then mean that they receive Catholic teaching on Mary. They go as far as the reception of the hypostatic union of the Divine and human natures in Jesus, the view rejected by Nestorius. The Council then excommunicated Nestorius for heresy.
Excommunication?
As an aside, what gives a council authority to excommunicate someone? Jesus taught that an individual assembly only practiced church discipline, removing someone from that church (Matthew 18:15-17). The council of Ephesus isn’t a church. It was an unbiblical institution with no authority, not following the teaching of Jesus in church discipline.
Nestorianism and Two Natures?
Mr. Farmer teaches error when he says that Christ was one nature. Furthermore, he said, “You don’t want to split the natures of Christ.” Stuckey sat and nodded, yes, to this error. The error of Nestorius was that of “two persons,” that Christ was two persons sharing one body (prosopon), not two natures (hypostasis). Christ had two natures: divine and human. This is not Nestorianism. Christ was one Person with two natures. The hypostatic union is the mysterious joining of two natures in one Person.
Jesus was a Divine Person. When He died on the cross, He was not a finite Person but an infinite One Who could pay for infinite sins for all eternity. He needed to be God to die for all of mankind. By calling Mary the mother of Jesus, they thought they would be undermining the true incarnational teaching of Jesus, so they called her the “mother of God.”
Mother of God Ideas
“Mother of God” emphasized the divinity of Jesus, but it did nothing to extrapolate a divine nature to Mary, an immaculate conception of her, or veneration of her. Even if Reformers and some Protestants today agree with “mother of God” terminology in refutation of Nestorianism, they reject the pendulum swing away from scripture by Roman Catholicism about Mary.
A good book that traces the source of the Catholic version of Mary teaching is The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop. Much Roman Catholic teaching is neo-Platonic and proto-Babylonian. Worship of Mary takes a trajectory from Venus and Astarte, goddesses of Babylonianism.
John Owen and Scripture
The post-Reformation reformed John Owen, no relation to Candace Owens, did not approve of the terminology, “mother of God.” He wished the Council of Ephesus had “forborne it.” He spoke of the miraculous creation of the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit, which was a “fit habitation for His holy soul.” Owen called the Holy Spirit the “active, efficient cause” and Mary the “passive, material cause.” The “material cause” aspect of Jesus’ physical body traces to verses such as Galatians 4:4, “made of a woman,” and “made of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Romans 1:3).
Mary calls Jesus, “God my Savior” (Luke 1:46), and described herself as “the servant of the Lord” (Luke 1:38). This contradicts “mother of God.” True Baptists and New Testament Christianity reject both Catholic and Protestant teaching. Baptists may quote church councils for their history of doctrine, but they reject the notion of church councils. Pope Pius IX took mother of God to a further corrupt extreme when he called Mary sinless in his Ineffabilis Deus in 1854.
Saints and Intercessory Prayer
Saints
Farmer uses the term “saints” in an unscriptural manner. In Ephesians 1:1, Paul writes to the “saints at Ephesus” and he defines “saints” there as “faithful in Christ Jesus,” literally “believing in Christ Jesus.” Anyone with saving faith in Christ Jesus is a saint. This is the famous Granville Sharp rule. “Holy” (adjective, “holy ones”) and “faithful” (adjective) are connected by one definite article (tois). That means “saints” and “believing” (faithful) are the same people. All those in Christ are saints, not some special caste of characters designated such by a state church.
Praying to Saints or Mary
Next, Farmer moves to praying to saints and Mary as a kind of intercessory prayer. These “saints’ and Mary have been given a kind of veneration below that for God, but veneration high enough that Christians should pray to them. I won’t deal with the scripture he adduces in the debate to support this. Scripture does not evince this.
Farmer’s argument is praying to saints equals intercessory prayer. Nowhere in the Bible do we see praying to dead people. The best argument might be the faithless, perverse intercession of King Saul in a seance with the witch of Endor. I’m glad he didn’t use that one though.
I’ve never heard Stuckey’s view of intercession. She spoke of intercession as interceding with a fellow believer for prayer. Intercessory prayer is another believer praying to God on our behalf, not for himself. The intercession is not the asking for prayer. I understand the intercession of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit in prayer. Scripture teaches both of those. On the other hand, the veneration of dead saints and Mary, I see this as blasphemous.
Stuckey does right to quote 1 Timothy 2:5, that Jesus is the one Mediator between God and man. Not only is scripture silent on the mediation of Mary and “saints,” but the Timothy verse repudiates it. Believers, true saints, can pray for one another, but there is no doctrine of earthly ones praying to heavenly ones for them in turn to pray for the earthly ones. I’m sure there is a long explanation for this false doctrine somewhere, but I’ve never read it. I don’t find Roman Catholics usually who can name their seven sacraments, let alone break down why they pray to saints. They stray from scripture a lot, because it isn’t their only authority.
Evangelicals and Modernity Versus Roman Catholics
Candace Owens takes the conversation to the differences between Catholics and evangelicals in their modernity and trendiness. This took off of a little riff by her husband, when he used timelessness as an argument for praying to saints. Owens does not like the direction of the style (what I would call aesthetics) of Protestant evangelicals.
I don’t think Stuckey does great in dealing with the loss of beauty in evangelicalism and why. She doesn’t seem to get it. In my next post, I will come back to this. For awhile, I’ve seen this as one legitimate allure of Roman Catholicism. With all the faults of Roman Catholicism, they emphasize the transcendence of God more than evangelicals. Evangelicals feel proud of their worldliness. The nature of Roman Catholicism keeps a serious nature in line with scriptural worship. Catholics do not worship in truth, a requirement, but they come closer very often in beauty than evangelicals. I know some people who went back to Catholicism for this exact reason.
More to Come
Church Perpetuity, Sola Scriptura, and Roman Catholicism Versus Protestantism: Candace Owens Show
Many political conservatives and conservative Christians appreciate Candace Owens and Allie Beth Stuckey. Until one recent show, the subject of this post, I had never seen a whole Candace Owens program, just clips here and there. I had seen whole interviews by Allie Beth Stuckey on her podcast. She deals with some unique subject matter. Both are very popular, the former on Daily Wire and the latter with Blaze.
For a show episode included on youtube, Candace Owens invited her husband, George Farmer, a Roman Catholic, to debate Allie Beth Stuckey, a Protestant. I watched all of part one and thought it would be helpful and informative to provide an analysis of their interaction. Farmer grew up in England and attended Oxford. He tells this story in the episode. His dad converted to Christ from atheism, became an evangelical, and raised George this way.
Under the influence of a Roman Catholic scholar, George doubted the veracity of evangelicalism for Roman Catholicism. Before he married Owens, he became a Roman Catholic. Owens claims still to be a Protestant evangelical, leaning now Roman Catholic, attending Catholic church with her husband and children.
Allie Beth Stuckey grew up Southern Baptist, told the story that her family traces back Baptist in America for 300 years. She remains Southern Baptist, but now claims to be a Reformed Baptist. She considers herself a Protestant, Reformed, Baptist evangelical.
Perpetuity of Christ’s True Church
The Question
Farmer communicates his greatest conflict for staying Protestant and evangelical, a historical matter. To remain Protestant, he would say that Christianity was lost before 1500, essentially no one was converted or a true Christian when the Reformation began. In part one, Stuckey never addresses this seminal concern of Farmer. Farmer never explains this conflict. To start the debate, Candace Owens directed the debate by asking Stuckey what bothered her the most about Roman Catholicism, so they never doubled back to deal with the perpetuity of the church.
Before I move to what bothered Stuckey the most and Farmer’s answer to that concern, let me address perpetuity. I would like to know how Stuckey would answer Farmer’s perpetuity conundrum. I would join him in finding a problem with Protestantism or for Baptists, an English Separatist view. Is Protestantism a restorationist movement, like the Church of Christ, Latter Day Saints, Apostolics, and Charismatics assert?
The perpetuity question also becomes one of authority. How does the authority of God get passed to state church Protestants with their rejection of Roman Catholicism? If Roman Catholicism represents an apostate body, how do they call themselves Reformed or Protestant? Shouldn’t they make a clean break and repudiate Roman Catholicism as a true church?
The Answer
Protestants receive their authority from Roman Catholicism. They must see Roman Catholicism as a true church through which God passed His truth. By doing so, Protestants, including professing Baptist ones, also affirm a state church. I couldn’t be a Roman Catholic or a Protestant. Farmer exposes a major flaw in Protestantism. There is a better way, really a biblical, right way — the only way. Stuckey either doesn’t know it or doesn’t believe it.
The biblical, right way says true churches always existed since Christ, separate from the state church and known by different names. The true church is not a catholic church. It is a local, autonomous one. Those churches did exist and passed down the truth. They became known as Baptist churches. By not taking that position, professing Baptists and Protestants play right into Roman Catholic hands.
Baptist perpetuity is mainly a presuppositional position. Scripture teaches it. The gates of hell would not prevail against Christ’s ekklesia, His assemblies (Matthew 16:18). No one should expect a total apostasy until the saints of this age are off the scene, snatched up into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air (1 & 2 Thessalonians). Until then, only some depart from the faith (1 Timothy 4:1). True believers should just believe this happened. They did until modernism crept into the Southern Baptist Convention and invented a different view of history for Baptists.
Sola Scriptura
What Verse?
Stuckey says her biggest bother with Roman Catholicism is the pope and the authority issue. She asserts sola scriptura, the Bible as the only or final authority. How does Farmer answer her? He asks her for a verse or passage to prove sola scriptura. She can’t do it. She gives Farmer zero scriptural evidence.
I sat chagrined watching Stuckey’s non-scriptural support for her biggest bother. Ironic. Roman Catholicism doesn’t rely on scripture for its only authority and Stuckey has no scripture saying that’s wrong. She said she recognized the circular reasoning with providing scripture for sola scriptura. No way.
Farmer put Stuckey on the defensive and she tried to weave together some poor argument for sola scriptura from history. Was Stuckey right? Was there no answer to Farmer’s challenge?
Biblical Arguments for Sola Scriptura
What verse would you use? I thought of four arguments instantly. First, I thought 2 Timothy 3:16-17:
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
Scripture (1) throughly furnished unto all good works and (2) is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. Every good work comes from scripture, no more or no less. It is sufficient, that is, profitable for all of what verses 16-17 mention. Doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness should come only from the Bible.
Second, nothing should be added to scripture. It is the faith once and for all delivered unto the saints (Jude 1:3). Revelation 22:18-19 commands to add nothing to God’s Word. Adding to scripture brings severe warnings of terrible judgment from God.
Three, only faith pleases God and faith comes only by the Word of God (Hebrews 11:6, Romans 10:17).
Four, man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). The converse is true. Man will not live from something not the Word of God. That includes the pope, tradition, what someone might call the wisdom of men.
I don’t know why Stuckey could not give this as evidence to Farmer. She says she grew up in church and that the Bible is her authority, yet she couldn’t produce one scriptural argument about what bothered her the most about Roman Catholicism.
The Canon
As part of his argument against sola scriptura, Farmer used canonicity. He said the canon came from Roman Catholic Church authority in a late fourth century council. Stuckey sat there nodding, like she agreed. Conservative evangelicals are not today agreeing with that assessment of canonicity. I can say, however, that it was a typical Bible college and seminary presentation of canonicity thirty or forty years ago, maybe still today.
Farmer includes a separate church authority, making room to add the Pope and tradition as authorities with the Bible. He uses this view of canonicity, an unscriptural presentation of canonicity. Stuckey though sits and accepts this, by doing so encouraging viewers to turn Roman Catholic. Owens should have recruited a better representative for evangelicalism than Stuckey. She fails at her task, leaving viewers in greater confusion than when they started.
God used true churches, biblical assemblies after the model of His first church in Jerusalem and the early churches that one spawned, for recognition of the canon. They immediately recognized the true, authoritative New Testament books, even as seen in Peter’s endorsement of Paul’s epistles in 2 Peter 3:15-17. They hand copied those manuscripts and only those as a plain indication of their faith in them. Councils were not necessary. Today evangelicals often give too much credence to the Catholic councils as a perversion of biblical ecclesiology.
The Roman Catholic canon includes the apocrypha. When someone sits silent to these additional books, that helps undermine true scriptural sufficiency and authority. Accepting that Roman Catholic position of canonicity hurts sola scriptura.
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