I am going to be joining the Catholic Church this year through the Anglican Ordinariate so I am not opposed to anything you said in this podcast but I did have a question about a particular argument you used for prayers for the dead and the canon. You mentioned that the Apostle Paul quoted from 2 Macc. and this is evidence that he considered it to be inspired. I don’t doubt that 2 Macc. is in the canon and that Paul considered it to be inspired, but I’m not sure if this is a good argument, here is why. In the Epistle of Jude, there is a quote of 1 Enoch and The Assumption of Moses, since Jude quotes from these books, does this also mean he considers them to be inspired? If we are to believe Paul considered 2 Macc inspired because he quoted from it, does that mean Jude considered 1 Enoch and The Assumption of Moses to be inspired since he quoted from them?

Thanks for your time,

Michael Lofton

“In whom also you are circumcised with circumcision not made by hand in despoiling of the body of the flesh: but in the circumcision of Christ. Buried with him in baptism: in whom also you are risen again by the faith of the operation of God who hath raised him up from the dead.” (Colossians 2:11–12, D-R)

If God applied a sacrament to the infants in the Old Testament, why would He change His mind in the New Testament. Jews in the 1st century would be horrified to learn that their infants were excommunicated…

Taylor Marshall, PhD

The unity of the Church is a doctrinal issue, of course, yet, the essence of the Church is identification, or using Mr. Marshall’s word, participation, in Christ. Doctrine implies tenets of faith by which we understand the core concepts defining our participation in Christ. My understanding of the Catholic definition of our relationship with Christ fully depends upon our absolute surrender of every facet of our being to the Lordship of Christ, but not by will alone as an entity separate and outside of God, who by faith and doctrinal affiliation gives mental and volitional assent to His Lordship, but, by complete com-union. Our entire being, spirit, soul and body is yielded up to God in living sacrifice that He might fully indwell us. We become His temple, His physical body upon Earth. He becomes our all in all, and thus, through Him, with Him, and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, we live out our lives giving all glory and honor to our Lord, God Almighty.

Denominationalism destroys this unity by claiming alternative interpretations of scriptural issues and by separate authority. Denominations set themselves as separate authorities, claiming divine guidance in the process. Ultimately, each human being, by logical extension, becomes their own authority. This, every-man-is-an-island approach is the soul of disunity. Protestantism has thus become splintered into, according to Gordon Conwell Seminary, nearly 40,000 private denominations. To argue that this myriad of divergent approaches honors God by transcending all human institutions, yet claiming to be united in the Holy Spirit is so divergent from the passion of Our Lord’s final prayer in St. John, and the hope of the early Church, and the writings of the apostles, the Fathers, and every Christian mystic and saint, that support of it boggles the intellect. Such division, could only have been authored in confusion.

The various orders within the Church are not disunited by issues of authority but instead reflect the spectrum of purpose and mission to which the Church is called. There do arise persons within the institution who claim by their own authority the right to advance positions contradictory to the Church’s teachings. These, one must assume, are they who have compromised their commitment to the Lordship of the Holy Spirit. By defying the authority of the Magesterium, who exists to safeguard us from error, such individuals demonstrate their essential lack of understanding. They fail to comprehend the call to which they have been called.

Having read Scriptures for nearly 40 years from the Protestant, “faith alone” perspective, and then having recently re-examined them from the Catholic perspective, I have found myself in deep and sorrowful remorse for having every left the Catholic faith as a youngster. I have been deceived, but no longer. And I encourage all who might read this entry, to seriously re-examine your understanding should you be of Evangelical persuasion. My friends, it may cost you more than time.