In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Joe Heschmeyer to discuss the controversial claim that the Catholic Church is the antichrist. Joe dives into the historical context of this assertion and the importance of tradition in understanding the Church’s teachings. Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation that challenges common beliefs!
Transcript:
Caller: The Church did not disappear. What the Church did. It went underground for the 1260 years that the Catholic Church reigned.
Cy Kellett: Thanks, Julian, for the call. Why aren’t you Catholic?
Caller: Well, every time you say something like the early church was a Catholic Church, it makes my stomach boil. It really does.
Cy Kellett: Joe said it.
Cy Kellett: That was Joe.
Caller: I know Joe said that, but here’s my question. So right before Paul left the earth or died, he said that grievous fools will come and destroy the Church and spread all kinds of heresies. And he also said that there would be antichrists. Many antichrists will come now. Antichrist from the angle of not particularly against Christ, but in place of Christ. And so I see that the Catholic Church has put itself in place of Christ and therefore Christ is sort of like in the background over there. His mother is elevated and all the other things that the Catholic Church is called for.
Joe Heschmeyer: Can I actually ask a clarifying question? Sure. When does this Antichrist Church replace the real Church in Julian’s view?
Caller: Well, the Antichrist, the word Antichrist doesn’t necessarily mean against Christ, but it also means in place of Christ, meaning the church puts itself on the throne of Christ and have, you know, the.
Cy Kellett: Right. Right. But I mean, historically, when do you think that happens?
Caller: Oh, right after, Right after the last saint I died.
Cy Kellett: Oh, wow.
Caller: After Paul died and all of that,
Cy Kellett: do you think the gates of Hell just like immediately overtake the church?
Caller: It was a slow thing. It was a slow death to choose.
Joe Heschmeyer: Well, I, I guess I’m trying to. I’m trying to pin down because it sounds like immediately after the death of the last apostle doesn’t sound like a slow death at all. I mean, if we say Christianity only lasts 70 years, I mean there’s. Think back 70 years from now, that was not very long. That would be a pretty failed movement, I guess. So I’ve got a few, a few thoughts about what you’re saying. The first is you’re absolutely right that St. Paul says in Acts 20:29, I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them. But then he tells them to therefore be alert. In other words, the notice to the Church is to be traditional, to not accept any new teaching. Like the reason that as Catholics we reject Protestantism is, is we know where Protestantism comes from and it’s not from the 1st century, from the 16th century, or depending on the denomination, even later than that. And St. Paul tells us to watch out for that. Like, if someone comes along and starts teaching something new, that’s a big red flag. And so St. Jerome makes the point that if you can trace where any Christian denomination comes from and it’s not to Jesus Christ, then you know it’s not the true church. You know, it’s not the church founded by Christ. You know, it’s one of the ones that we’re warned about in Scripture. So I like that you’re on the lookout because St. Paul tells us to be. But I think you’ve made a mistake in throwing out the one church that can claim to go back to the time of Christ. Second, your concern is that the church is putting itself in the place of Christ. But in actual fact, St. Paul says that the church is the continuation of Christ. So in Ephesians 1, he says that God, in verse 22, he says that God has put all things under Christ’s feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. In other words, the beauty of Christianity is that God takes on a body for the first time. That’s the mystery of the Incarnation. The second person of the Trinity takes to himself humanity. He takes a human body. And Paul’s point is that even after Christ is ascended into heaven, the Incarnation continues on in the Church, which is the fullness of Christ, who fills all in all. That’s what he says. That’s explicitly there. Ephesians 1:23. So the church isn’t putting herself in the place of Christ. She’s saying she is the body of Christ, that she is the bride of Christ and the two become one flesh, that she is totally united with Christ, such that to separate her from Christ would be like taking the head off of a body or trying to divorce a lawful union between man and wife who become one. It’s impossible. And it would be a sort of spiritual decapitation. That’s not us replacing Christ. That’s us being, you know, the fullness of Christ, you know, head and members, head and body. And then finally, this idea that the church immediately falls into apostasy and error would totally invalidate Christianity. In other words, if that really happened, that would be a great argument against Christianity. Go back to the Book of Acts and. And Gamaliel makes this. This challenge. And he points out that there are all of these people, or Gamaliel, I guess, is how people pronounce it. He points out there are all these messianic movements and the false ones peter out and they end. And so if Christianity is the real deal, it has to survive. It has to survive for more than a generation, because that’s what distinguishes it from a false messianic movement. You can find this in Acts 5, beginning in verse 34. He says, if this plan or undertaking is of men, it will fail, but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. So if you say that the devil overthrew the church and the Antichrist replaced the true Church, the logical consequence of that is you have to say Jesus isn’t really the Christ, because the real Christ will have a church not overcome by the gates of hell.
Caller: Well, I hear all Jewish saying, but here is the problem. The church did not disappear. What the church did, it went underground for the 1260 years that the Catholic Church reigned during what we call, as Protestants, the Dark Ages. So during those 1260 years, and again, according to the book of Revelation, the church went underground while the false church reigned for that time.
Joe Heschmeyer: Wow. So I think there’s two problems with that kind of theory. The first is that there’s just literally no historical evidence for an underground church for 1260 years. But the second is that Jesus explicitly tells the church, you are the light of the world, and a city set on a hill cannot be hid. Matthew 5:14. And he tells them to go out and make disciples of all nations. I mean, historically, it’s the Catholic Church who’s evangelizing Europe, the Catholic Church evangelizing North Africa, the Catholic Church evangelizing into India. This so called true church that failed to live out what Christ said to do doesn’t look or sound like the true Church. They’re not a light of the world, they’re not a city set on a hill. They apparently not only can be hid, they decide to be hidden. And they’re not living out the great evangelization for more than a thousand years like that. If such a group of Christians did exist, we could know definitively they were a false church. The true church, Christ says in Matthew 13, is like a mustard seed that flourishes, it flowers, it grows into a mustard tree, the largest of all of the plants in the garden. And so the true church explodes in size. And all the persecutions in the world are unable to stop true Christianity, the Catholic Church from growing into the largest church in the world and the largest church in all of history.
Caller: Well, I would say the church was hiding underground for its survival. And so we look at the world Endian Christians who the the false church or the anarchy Antichrist church persecuted and they had to go underground. Just like the church is hidden right now in places like China and places where they’re being persecuted. You cannot tell me that those churches in those countries that’s been persecuted are not shining their lights. Actually, their lights are shining even brighter through persecution.
Joe Heschmeyer: Oh, I, I agree that the churches in those places have, have. Their lights are definitely shining, but those are real places, places we know of the Christians in China. There’s plenty of historical evidence that they exist. The kind of imaginary, invisible church for 1,260 years. There’s no record of any such church existing because it’s not real. If you go back and read the early controversies within early Christianity, you’ve got conflicts from the Catholics against the Gnostics or against the Donatists or various other groups, but there’s no Catholics against like the Protestants in the early church. There’s, there’s nobody who looks and sounds like a Baptist or an Adventist or, or fill in the blank. Those people just, they don’t exist. And, or say, like the person claiming that they do, that there’s a 1260 year history. You should be able to point to that because we can point to the history of the underground church in China. We can, we can show that that church exists and that it’s doing good work on the ground. Even, even if it is, you’re, as you, as you rightly point out, doing it often very quietly. It is still living out this goal of being a city on a hill, still living out the goal of evangelizing all nations, even at the risk of their own life. A church that failed to do that, that just literally just for the sake of its own survival, didn’t evangelize, would be effectively an apostate church because it would just fail to be living out Jesus message by valuing their physical safety over the power of the Gospel.
Cy Kellett: I would just love to continue this conversation, but every single line is full, Julian, so I’m gonna have to leave it there and maybe some more. Maybe others will follow up with some other points related to your argument. I don’t know, but this is such a fruitful and helpful conversation.