Purify Your Bride

John Paul once said the church cannot impose anything. It can only propose the Catholic faith and pray that people accept it. I see that he and Benedict have done a good job of proposing the Catholic faith to Catholics. Many Catholics in the west had lost their faith or had seriously watered it down. Slowly I [...]

I was listening to John MacArthur again. He was talking about the importance of solid preaching. He said he get many complaints from people claiming they can’t find churches that consistently teach the word clearly and strongly. The trend now in many churches is to be creative and culturally sensitive with the message. So you get [...]

We just had a week of prayer for Christian unity. It is interesting because people will say such nice things about each other. They go on and on about what beautiful Christian people they can unite with in so many ways but they always seem to add a line about ‘while remaining within my current [...]

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Humane Vitae. In biblical terms 40 years is a generation so it is a good time to look back and analyze the reaction to that document. In my view that reaction has probably done more damage to the church than anything else in the last 40 years. God [...]

I wrote a reply to Jonathan Bonomo that I thought I would post here as well. I actually added to it. Anyway, he said:

I don’t see merely two options as you do. I see *at least* three: 1. An infallible authoritative magisterium; 2. a fallible authoritative magisterium; and 3. no magisterium. You seem to lump [...]

There is a post at Evangelical Catholicity in which someone tries to summarize a book by Schaff and Nevin called the Protestant Principle. I am likely a little out of my depth here in terms of scholarship but I thought I would comment anyway. Gabe Martini’s words are in red. Mine are in Green.

In [...]

Somehow this ad has been deemed offensive by the city of Hamilton. The story is here. The odd thing is the ad just tells people what the law is. That is all. The ad is only offensive because the law is offensive. Most Canadians don’t realize that there is no restriction on abortion even if [...]

I remember many years ago when I was helping organize an ecumenical prayer walk for church unity. Back then our definition of ecumenical didn’t include Catholics. We got a few evangelical churches together to pray for unity and evangelism. I was having breakfast with a pastor and he tried to explain why it was hard [...]

Throwback has a post about a few things. He makes one point I wanted to reflect on:
I have heard this attitude expressed in the assertion “surely God meant religion to be simple”. Well, just why should we think that? The universe that God made is certainly not simple. I don’t hear people complaining “astrophysics should [...]

Pope Benedict’s writing is so amazing. I was reading what he was supposed to say to a University in Rome tomorrow. That speech was cancelled due to protests but the text is here. It is quite thought provoking especially if you have been following the pope’s previous remarks on faith and reason. It was interesting to [...]

Update: PhatCat weighs in on this discussion here.
Yesterday I was thinking of writing a post on worshipping through icons. Last night I heard a few minutes of John MacArthur and guess what he was talking about? Biblical evidence that worshipping through icons was wrong. There is nothing that can build up you confidence in a [...]

Preach the Gospel; when necessary, use words.
Has there ever been a saying more disastrous for the church than that one? St Francis of Assisi is often claimed to have said it but there is never a citation. There is a good reason. It is not in any of his writings. There is no evidence he [...]

This story just seems incredible to me. Here is a group of people who are very bright and they choose to make a very public stand against the pope. What amazes me is how they manage to get it so far wrong. I mean saying the pope is opposed to reason and science is just [...]

Bp Carlson has a great letter on evangelization. I was very convicted with his advice to ask people about their faith. The idea that you will never know whether you can help with their internal spiritual struggles unless you break the ice and ask a personal, spiritual question. I am really bad at that. I am [...]

At Beggars All Fr Al Kimel says:
I do not expect my Reformed brethren to agree with the Catholic Church on all matters, but I do expect them–indeed, I demand–that they at least make an effort to understand and not to misrepresent the teaching of the Catholic Church.

and then Carrie replies:

I’m not sure what exactly you [...]