Cy Kellett and Brayden Cook discuss how to respond to anti-catholic conspiracy theories.
Transcript:
Caller: So my neighbor across the street, he’s like, oh, you should come to my Bible study. I’m like, no. I mean, I returned to the Catholic Church. And then he was like, why? The Catholic Church was founded under King Nimrod. And I’m like, who’s that? So then he goes off. He goes off about that, and then he goes into, like, biblical eschatology. And then he talks about, like, Chuck Mintzler, who is like, this author. I’m like, I’m not really interested in this Chuck Minster. So how do I. How do I, like, stir this guy back to not seeing Catholicism as, like, pagan, I guess, or, like, Antichrist or whatever he’s trying to get at?
Brayden Cook: Yeah, yeah, that’s. That’s a great question. And sometimes dealing with this sort of objection can be kind of difficult because there’s a lot of things that you have to unravel. But put simply, I mean, the idea that the Catholic Church was founded by Nimrod, that’s not something that you’re going to find in Scripture or serious early Christian historians or historians in general. It’s funny, because this idea was. It was either made by or popularized by Alexander Hislop. He’s an author, the author of the two Babylons. And it’s this largely regarded as kind of spunk, spoof history. It became very popular. Jack Chick, if you’re familiar with Chick tracts, kind of based his stuff off of Alexander Hislop. But no historian takes this seriously. It’s not a serious claim. You don’t want to get into the rabbit hole. You don’t want to go into the weeds with this stuff. If you wanted to, you can kind of challenge him. Where are you getting this claim from? That sort of stuff. But I would honestly just try and steer the conversation back to the real historical question, which is, instead of talking about theories about Babylon and all these things, let’s just look at the Christians that we can actually document in the earliest centuries of Christianity. What do they believe? What do they believe about bishops, about baptism, about the Eucharist, about the authority of the church, these sorts of things. Because I think that in our desire to learn what Christ willed for his church and how he established his church and how the church thereafter began to live out her life, I think that question is something that we can kind of hold in common. Right? And so I would steer the question away from this sort of, like, really niche, kind of weird view that was. I mean, no credible historian. The vast majority of historians who have ever talked about this book have Said that it’s just a lot of made up stuff, right? And so, yeah, just kind of get the conversation going into the real historical question, kind of some of the pranks, primary reasons, right? Because we, you know, we know Jesus said in Matthew 16, upon this rock I will build my church. Right? He commissioned the apostles to teach and to baptize all nations. Matthew 28. Right. And we can demonstrate that Jesus did establish a church. He did establish a society with visible leaders. He commissioned the apostles, he gave them authority in Matthew 18, he gave them authority in Matthew 28. There are recognizable leaders that you have to listen to, right. In this, in this ecclesial community and going on into the, you know, in the first, into the early second, third centuries, fourth centuries, even before like Constantine arose, you will find very large trends and threads where the Catholic Church just is so explicit in those centuries. Right. So I would, I would try and avoid that conversation if you must. If he won’t let you move on from it, just ask him, you know, where are you, where are you getting that claim from? Because a lot of times, you know, apologetics can kind of be reduced to that question, what are you getting that claim from? Why do you believe that these sorts of things? Because a lot of the time, you know, the accusation Catholics are pagan, Catholicism was begun by Nimrod, it’s a Babylonian cult religion. Things like this, or Egyptian, it’s sold from Egyptian mythology and things like this. You can just ask the question, where are you getting that from? Because we know the truth. We know that Christ himself established the church, gave the authority to the apostles. And because we know the truth, we know that these theories, these often really weird conspiratorial theories aren’t going to have that much weight. What do you think about that?
Caller: So, no, I agree. Like, Matthew 16 is my go to quote for any Protestants I come up with.
Brayden Cook: Right.
Caller: So then the thing is that, like, I don’t know, like he said he’s kind of like based on the conversation we have, he’s probably like a solo scriptura guy. And like, I guess in order to even talk to him about certain things, it would have to come from the Bible. But then there’s a nuance. He said English doesn’t translate well when it comes to Aramaic and all the other in Hebrew and other stuff. And like, I’m never gonna win this conversation because he’s just like circling the drain with all these excuses like, oh,
Brayden Cook: no, yeah, that is tough. And I think you could ask, kind of press him on his, on his own Position. Right. So if you know Aramaic and Greek and Hebrew, they don’t translate well to English. So you have to go to this particular teacher and he’s really going to open your eyes about this sort of stuff. You can just ask him, like, how he can verify that this particular teacher is like the key to opening up the Scriptures. And you have to be a part of this specific movement that was started rather recently in church history.
Caller: Right.
Brayden Cook: And so, yeah, it can be. It can be kind of difficult. I think that you need to keep in mind that when. When someone makes these sorts of claims, it’s not up to us to immediately provide counter exam, counter evidence. They need to substantiate their claims. Right. And so these fantastical kind of theories are often just that, just fantastical. And they are. Are without merit. Right. And so, yeah, sometimes those. And I’ve had personal that. That have come to me with these sorts of questions before. And I’m a former Baptist and I know I knew some Church of Christ people, some Seventh Day Adventist people, et cetera, who would sometimes fall into these things. And sadly, it’s a misinformed view of history that can be. If you go into the positive historical evidence that we do have, we can make an extremely persuasive case for the
Caller: Catholic Church, but not everybody will listen to it. Arvin.
Brayden Cook: Yeah, exactly.
Caller: What do you think?
Brayden Cook: You get to the point where it’s like he’s not listening, then maybe it’s time to shake the dust off your feet.
Cy Kellett: It does seem almost miraculous when you think about that. There’s this total public history of the Catholic Church for thousands of years, and this one guy figured out that King Nimrod founded it, not Christ. It’s such an outrageous claim that you really do have to move the burden onto the person who would make that claim like that is amazing that literally hundreds of millions of people have missed this for 2000 years. The burden’s not on you to defend what everybody knows. The burden is on you, the person who says what everybody knows is not true.
Caller: So we’re going to piggyback on that comment you just made. Since the Protestant Reformation was in the 15th century against the Catholic Church. If the Catholic Church was founded by King Nimrod, aren’t they just like a branch of what it used to be, part of the King Nimrod religion?
Brayden Cook: If that’s the case, yeah, they’re a schism from King Nimrod’s denomination. There we go.
Caller: I don’t know. Wow. Thank you guys for your time.
Cy Kellett: Thank you very much. God bless you, Ivan. It was great talking with you. I know it’s Arvin. I’m just joking you. Oh, my goodness. I think he took that.
Brayden Cook: Come on.
Caller: He took that quite seriously.
Brayden Cook: Brandon. Ivan.
Caller: I know.
Cy Kellett: Terrible with my names today. Justin in Sheridan Lake, Colorado, you are up next. Why aren’t you Catholic, Justin?