Audio only:
In this episode Trent examines how Protestant arguments against Catholicism can backfire.
The “Christian Avengers” on Catholicism (REBUTTED)
Transcription:
Trent:
Sometimes Protestant social media accounts will try to make Catholics look bad, but they end up either making Catholicism look good or they make themselves look like heretics. So in today’s episode, we’re going to look at five common ways Protestants end up dunking on themselves when they try to own Catholics on social media. Number one, awful is actually awesome. Some Protestant accounts like to share Catholic content that they consider unusual or off-putting and then use that to try and impugn Catholicism as a whole. One account that does this a lot is protest here, which to be fair shows absurdities across a wide range of Christian denominations. For example, here’s one video of which the account says. If someone asks you to describe protest his content, you can show them this video. A gay pastor dressed up as a Jedi singing Charles Wesley’s Servants of God. Your master proclaim to the tune of the Star Wars theme song, servants of God, your master proclaim and Publish Your Abroad is his wonderful name.
That’s bad. It’s even worse than the Life Day song set to the tune of a new hope from the 1978 Star Wars holiday special where you can see Harrison Ford dying on the inside as he has to sit through this monstrosity. A lot of protest yet is legit cringey content, and so when it comes to the Catholic Church, which has 1.4 billion members, you’re bound to find similar cringe somewhere on the internet. I’m looking at you hoverboard priest, but what many people think is cringe actually isn’t, for example, it’s not cringe to ask you to subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss out on our content and to support us@trendhornpodcast.com so we can keep producing all this great content sponsor free and it’s also not cringe to be a Catholic that can also have fun in the secular world. For example, here’s a post on protest here featuring the DJ priest from the Last World Youth Day, Padre GME remixing the Mario theme for a concert to me Mario. What’s funny is I know some Catholics who also do not like this, but far more non-Catholics would be impressed by this and want to learn more about the DJ priest in his faith. Next, here’s a clip they posted of children kissing a crucifix to honor Christ, which isn’t bad considering many people kiss pictures of their deceased loved ones. Or here we have this celebration in Europe of a float depicting Jesus meeting and embracing a float depicting his mother Mary and then everybody celebrates.
This is awesome and it kind of makes a nice argument for Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven because the only way Jesus could physically embrace his mother as any good son should would be if he took her body up to heaven along with her soul. Of course, some Protestants will still consider this cringe-worthy idolatry, but many Protestants are also likely to see this as intense love of Jesus and his mother manifested in rituals that the American evangelical mind can’t comprehend like churches using incense and worship, even though Revelation eight three says, an angel was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints, or this clip protest he posted of the Italian procession of the desal, which they say is a three hour funeral procession during Holy Week where hundreds of women completely covered in black mourn the death of Christ, sharing and participating in Mary’s desolation at the death of her son.
Okay, but what’s wrong with trying to enter deeply into the mystery of Christ’s passion? Nothing. Now, this may seem like extremism or superstition to some Protestants, but to many others who are starved of ritual in an increasingly sterile postmodern age, it’s a refreshing sign of a faith that desires to be radically lived out and shown to the entire world. Number two, oops. Protestants do that too. This happens a lot when non-denominational Christians and some evangelicals criticize Catholicism. They think Protestantism is just their megachurch and weekly Bible study at Caleb’s house, and so they ignore how many things they reject are also held by mainline Protestant denominations and groups who have a stronger connection to the Protestant reformation. For example, in this graphic on alleged Catholic traditions, not in scripture, it says among other things, the different dress of priesthood and laity. Even though many Protestant ministers wear vestments or collars, it’s only some evangelicals who rock the skinny jeans and cool glasses to seem hip and like everybody else.
In fact, the clerical collar often called the Roman collar was invented by a Presbyterian clergyman in 1865. Also, this graphic mentions baptism of bells, which I’ve seen other Protestant works complain about. This seems to be a reference to blessing church bells and according to the Catholic encyclopedia, one might as well be scandalized that the ceremonial usually followed in the launching and christening of a ship. The phrase baptism of bells is merely popular and metaphorical. This also happens when Protestants complain about Catholic errors like infant baptism, the priesthood celebrating Lent or the ability to lose salvation. Since many other Protestant denominations also practice or believe these so-called errors, many of the Protestant reformers and even some Protestants today hold to the perpetual virginity of Mary. So it’s doubly ignorant to call these distinctly Catholic errors because they are neither distinctly Catholic, nor are they errors. Now, to be fair, Catholics can be guilty of the same thing when they reduce all of Protestantism to Pastor Bob’s strip mall church.
Also, we really can’t use the pastor Bob Jab anymore, not that we should have used it in the first place because we now have Pope Leo the 14th, AKA Pope, Robert Preva, AKA Pope, Bob the Supreme pastor Bob of the entire church. Number three, I’d rather be a heretic than a Catholic. This happens a lot when you talk about Maryology and especially Mary being the Theotokos or mother of God. A while back I posted that Mary is the most important human person who ever lived. Now, in retrospect, I could have been clearer in making my point if I had said, Mary is the most important creature who ever lived because she bore in her womb the creator who redeemed us. But I kind of wanted to stir the pot and see if people could understand, find theological distinctions. So I said, Mary is the most important human person who ever lived in response.
I got a flood of comments from Protestants and even from a few Catholics saying that I’m a heretic because Jesus Christ is obviously the most important person who ever lived, but this has the potential to go into some very heretical Christology very quickly. Jesus Christ is the most important person who ever walked the earth, no doubt, but I said Mary was the most important human person, which is a distinct category from person in general. When the world did not exist, one God existed timelessly and perfectly as three divine persons, father, son, and Holy Spirit after the world was created, one of these divine persons, God, the Son who has a divine nature, took on another nature, a human nature and became man. This is the mystery of the incarnation. A divine person takes on an additional nature that is fully human without losing his divine nature or mixing the two natures.
One of the most important truths about God is that God does not change. God is pure actuality the source of all existence that sustains all things without needing to be sustained by anything else. But if you say Jesus was a human person, then that would mean the divine person of the sun who existed from all eternity changed and became a different kind of person. But God cannot change. Human nature changed forever when it was assumed by the sun, but the person of the sun did not change. If the person of the sun changed that the incarnation, then he wouldn’t be God because God does not change. James one 17 says, every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. And something similar happens when Catholics post about Mary being the mother of God and then some evangelicals try to dunk on them, but end up sounding like Muslims when they say things like God has no mother.
Jesus is a divine person. Mary gave birth to a divine person, therefore Mary is the mother of a divine person, or Mary is the mother of God. If you deny that Mary is the mother of God, you will almost always end up denying that Jesus is God and embrace the historian heresy that says Jesus was basically two persons, not one person. This is why the confessional churches from the Reformation condemned nestorianism, and it’s mostly modern evangelicals who unknowingly revive it. For more on that, see my episodes on Marius Theotokos link below. Number four, ignoring critical context. I covered this in a previous episode so I won’t go on about it at length, but this can be one of the sleaziest ways to try to someone and in the age of the internet where it’s really easy to find a source you’re misrepresenting, it rarely goes well for you.
In this case, I was saying that I don’t like the phrase Muslims and Christians worship the same God for the same reason. I don’t like the phrase Catholics worship Mary. Both are technically true based on older definitions of the word worship, but they’re so easily misunderstood that it’s not even worth using them in conversation. But then one Protestant account took me out of context and just ran with the idea that I said, Catholics worship Mary and purposely cut out the very qualification that is necessary, something nearly all the commenters noted. So this backfired on that poster. Since then, I also have a new example when it comes to language and context changing over time. Here’s the question, do Christians indoctrinate their children? The answer is yes, if you are using the older definition of indoctrinate to just mean teach, but the answer is no. If you’re using the newer definition of indoctrinate, that refers to uncritical submission. But now some atheists is going to clip me saying, do Christians indoctrinate their children? The answer is yes. I also want to point out though that some Catholics said that this was still my fault because real Catholics don’t say Catholics worship Mary, and so I’m just a hack theologian. Some people even sent me this video from Father David Michael Moses to kind of rub in my face.
CLIP:
When someone tells you Catholics worship Mary, they are lying. They’re bearing false witness. If you hear someone say this, it’s a clear sign that they’ve done zero research and they do not know what they’re talking about.
Trent:
Now, I like father’s content, but it’s risky to make universal statements like Catholics never say X because we have 2000 years of magisterial documents that may very well have X in them. For example, Pope Pius the 10 19 0 4 in cyclical on the Immaculate conception says for it to be right and good worship of the mother of God ought to spring from the heart. And Pope Saint John Paul II said in Redemptorist Modern that Mary occupies a privileged place in the worship of the ancient Oriental churches with an incomparable abundance of feasts and hymns. In both cases, the original Latin does not use the word laia or sacrificial worship and adoration given to God alone. However, these idiomatic English translations approved by the Vatican do reflect how many Catholic translators, especially older European ones, would use the term worship in a wider sense to mean venerating Mary as the most important of God’s creatures.
What’s interesting is that a version of this pitfall also exists for Protestants who try to dunk on Catholics. A Protestant might confidently say a Christian would never say X and then be surprised when X is in the Bible. For example, I’ve seen Catholics post this online during Lent in my flesh, I complete what is lacking in Christ afflictions for the sake of his body. That is the church. Some Protestants attacked this, but then the other shoe drops when it’s revealed that this is a quote from Colossians 1 24. I’ve even seen Protestant posters fall for this when Catholics post Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with the Luke 1 28, and Faith Without Works is dead. James two 17. So the lesson to learn is when you come across a shocking statement, be sure to get the context behind the statement before you make what could turn out to be a rash judgment in response to it.
And finally, number five, actually Catholics have a good point. Sometimes Protestants will leap onto a Catholic view they think is insane, but after a little bit of reflection they’ll see it actually makes sense. I’ve seen a lot of this recently online where Protestants would mock medieval Catholicism just a few years ago. But now after seeing how crazy the world has become, they abandoned things like the Baptist idea of separation of church and state and go full Deus volt integralist. Christian Nationalist or Protestants might dunk on Catholic morality but realize it’s a better application of Christian principles they already hold. For example, Indiana Bruner did that when he posted this on X Catholics being against IVF is no more rational than Christian scientists being against ibuprofen. Then some Catholic users pointed out to Indiana that many Protestants also oppose in vitro fertilization because it almost always involves the intentional destruction of embryonic human beings, something he as a devout pro-life Christian should oppose.
Indiana then posted this after receiving this clarification, I was unaware that embryos are discarded in the process. I’ve changed my mind thanks to everyone who respectfully informed me of my error. I have a family member who was born this way and seeing him take his first steps the other day made me sympathetic to the process for more on the evils of IVF that go beyond just the killing of human embryos. Check out these episodes below. Catholics don’t treat modern medicine as some kind of demonic deception. In fact, I forgot to post this verse from the Old Testament when I was discussing giving thanks to God for Laura’s healing through the highly skilled surgeons and oncologists who’ve helped her. It’s SERAC 38 verses one through four, which say this, honor the physician with the honor do him according to your need of him. For the Lord created him for healing comes from the most high and he will receive a gift from the king.
The skill of the physician lifts up his head and in the presence of great men, he is admired. The Lord created medicines from the earth and a sensible man will not despise them. But even if IVF could be done where all of the produced human embryos are implanted in a woman’s womb, that wouldn’t make it okay. I would ask Indiana and other Protestants who see no problem with IVF, would it be sinful for an unmarried Christian man to pay a sperm donor, an egg donor, and a woman to be a gestational surrogate womb and then have this child delivered to his front door once he or she is born? Should two gay men be legally allowed to use this same process to produce children for their households? If you think contraception is okay because the Bible does not condemn it, then good luck using the Bible alone.
To argue that IVF that doesn’t intentionally kill human embryos is also evil. If you as a Christian condemn IVF because it separates the good of procreation from the good of sexual union, then you should be against contraception for that exact same reason. But that’s tough to argue for while you’re trapped in what I call the straight jacket of Sola scriptura, which I explain more in my response to the Christian Avengers in that episode listed below. So those are five ways Protestants accidentally dunk on themselves when criticizing Catholics. But the same thing can happen to Catholics and really to anyone who is more concerned with getting somebody they disagree with instead of trying to get at the truth in the most careful way possible. And to help us do that here at the channel, I’ve enlisted help to review our episodes to make sure they’re accurate. So I’d like to thank Redeem Zoomer for his review of today’s script. I’d like to thank you all so much for watching, and I hope you have a very blessed day.