The Dividing Line - Responding to Jason Reed

Welcome to The Divine Line. My name's James White. I'm looking for the sound control on my phone. I got a new one and the really cool quiet thing that I used to have has unfortunately disappeared someplace, so I guess I'll just have to ask that nobody call me during the program today, please, or that's going to go off and I don't know where the really cool...

You know what happens when you ask that on the air? Everybody starts looking for my phone number. I don't know where it went. I had a really cool thing and I guess that's the one thing I haven't figured out on this yet is where to turn that off at.

So that's going to be fun. Let's just hope it doesn't go off and we'll have to go from there. Anyways, that's what happens. New phone. Not sure where stuff is, but welcome to The Divine Line today. My name's James White.

Important subject today. Didn't mean to start off in a... I was rushing so much to get this sound file edited that I got done about 30 seconds beforehand, so I didn't have time to do anything else. Just back from South Africa and when you're gone for almost two weeks, everything you were supposed to be doing for two weeks backs up on you and if you've got emails in waiting for me to respond to them, I might get to them by 2014.

Right now, that's my best guess. I might get back to you by 2014. We'll see. I might have some time in January, maybe, before I go to Kiev. Anyway, while I was in South Africa, I received two emails from individuals, who will remain nameless, who asked me to review a video that had been posted by one Jason Reed, who has been a philosophy professor at Southern Evangelical Seminary.

Now, most of you know that last week, Dr. Richard Land, formerly of the Southern Baptist Ethics Commission thing, became president of Southern Evangelical Seminary, and I was just looking at a picture.

I was informed that one of the speakers at the installation of Dr. Land was Dr. Ergen Kaner. And I know that Dr. Land knows about the charges against Dr. Kaner, so I'm very disappointed in that and the fact that Dr. Kaner spoke at this conference.

There are other people that were very disappointed about that who were there as well. But politics are politics, and that is what we're dealing with here, is we're dealing with political alignments and people helping other people to cover things.

And so it's a shame that that happened, but politics are politics. And unfortunately, those politics are also infecting and affecting this situation as well. Some of you will recall, in fact, if I remember, I will post, when we post this video, I will post the video of my discussion with Dr. Howell at Southern Evangelical Seminary last February, when I debated Michael Brown on apologetic methodology.

I really hadn't been told that's what we were going to be doing. I wasn't told it was going to be a little mini-debate, so I had zero preparation for doing it, but it was still an interesting discussion.

And interestingly enough, toward the end, a number of the students raised the question about Roman Catholicism and Sola Scriptura and all those things relevant to that. And evidently, there is an entire wave of people who have been associated with Southern Evangelical Seminary who are entering into the Roman Catholic Church.

And so I talked about what the real issues are. The real issues are Rome's Gospel and the concept of authority, Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, the Atonement of Christ, the blasphemy of the Mass, things like that.

And I recognize that in most seminaries, those things are really not central any longer. And one of the issues that had come up in our discussion was Dr. Howell's defense of the primacy of philosophy over theology, and my assertion that theology and revelation is primary to philosophy in the Christian apologetic approach.

And so the key person philosophically at Southern Evangelical Seminary, of course, is Thomas Quinas. And Southern Evangelical Seminary was started by Dr. Norman Geisler. And some of you may know that Geisler put out a book on Roman Catholicism a couple years ago, and within one year, his co-author became Roman Catholic.

There have been many people over the years who have described Dr. Geisler as Roman Geisler. His PhD is from a Jesuit university, and I think you can get a PhD from a Jesuit. But the reality is that Dr. Geisler's synergism is not consistent with the Reformation.

I have said that all along, wrote a whole book, think I proved my point, given the fact that I think Dr. Geisler's synergism, as demonstrated in Chosen but Free, has produced far more Calvinists than he ever intended it to produce, as a result of their actually examining that book and its argumentation.

Dr. Geisler does come up in Jason Reid's testimony here, we'll hear that in a little while. It's a short testimony, it's certainly nothing new to those who are familiar with Roman Catholicism, but evidently what we have here are a number of people at Southern Evangelical Seminary who, I guess, have not been grounded or even informed of the key issues of the Reformation.

And is this due to Dr. Geisler's influence? I've heard Dr. Geisler make some pretty amazing statements about the Reformation. He is really not friendly toward the Reformers in any functional way. And is that what's coming out here?

I don't know. But what we're going to hear, we're going to play the key elements of Jason Reid's testimony, we're going to let him speak for himself, and then we're going to respond. And we're going to demonstrate there's nothing new here.

And I'm going to have to say some hard things about schools that make Thomas Aquinas their central core. I'm going to have to say some hard things about evangelicals who know nothing about their history.

And in particular, I'm going to have to reiterate something I've said, and there's going to be nothing new here from me at all. But I'm going to have to reiterate a statement I've made many, many times before.

And that is, if you are a quote-unquote anti-Catholic, but you are so out of ignorance, you are so out of tradition, you are so out of taste, but you are not opposed to Rome because you firmly believe that her gospel is a false gospel that robs people of peace with God, then you are a prime candidate for conversion to Roman Catholicism.

The anti-Catholic spectrum out there of people who are not convinced in their hearts that their only peace with God comes from the absolute righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is imputed to us. If you're not convinced of that, then you don't really have a really good reason not to be a Roman Catholic.

There are a lot of people who are not Roman Catholics, but they are not Roman Catholics for the wrong reasons. And we're going to hear exactly what happens when you are raised in a shallow evangelicalism that knows nothing of its history, knows nothing of what Sola Scriptura really is, has no passion for Sola Scriptura, has no passion for the singular glory of God in the revelation of his word and his truth, has no passion for the gospel, the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that these are just surface-level things that are sort of taken as a given but are not passionately held to.

You are a perfect candidate, if that describes you, for conversion to Roman Catholicism. You really are. And that's what's happened to Jason Reed and evidently about 15 other people who are making plans to swim the Tiber.

What they don't seem to understand is that they've never been on the other side of the Tiber. They've been paddling around the middle, and now they're just going to beach their boats. And that's what this program is going to be about.

Marian Devotion and the Blasphemy of Praying to Mary

The talk, however, began with an act of blasphemy. And you say, you're turning people off of that. Listen to it. A priest prayed to Mary. He praised Mary. By the way, praise is worship. All the pretended distinctions between Latria and Dulia and Hyperdulia evaporate when you actually listen to Roman Catholics worshiping Mary.

Because that's what it is. When you ascribe praise to someone, you are worshiping them in the context in which this prayer is offered. Listen to what the priest says. Now, it's really weird to me because it sounds like the guy keeps saying gods.

I don't know if he has a lisp or if the sound system was just catching something. I don't know, but it sounds like he keeps saying gods. It sounds like he's a polytheist, but I'm going to assume that that's not the case and it's just an artifact of the recording.

I don't know. But it's still clear enough to hear. Listen to the blasphemous ascription of activities and roles to Mary that the Bible nowhere ascribes to her and ascribes solely to Jesus Christ. This is an act of blasphemy, and it's what began Jason Reed's testimony.

Listen to this priest. I will actually play him at single speed, so I'll be playing Jason Reed at 1 .2 so we can get through a little bit faster, but I want you to hear what he has to say. Receive our gratitude, take our praises, and enable them to holy Mary, mother of mercy, help the miscible, intercede for all women consecrated to God.

Be ready to help us when we pray and bring back to us answers to our prayers. So there's how it starts. Did you notice the things that were ascribed to Mary? Take our prayers in an inner sanctuary. That's the function of the Spirit of God.

Win for us, pardon for our sins. I mean, this is utter blasphemy. There is no one on God's green earth that will ever be able to make that kind of idolatrous worship Christian. It's not biblical. There is no one who can say that's what the apostles taught.

So it's amazing to me that it starts off with this clear, obvious, I mean, no one in the early church believed in what Roman Catholicism has defined as dogma regarding Mary in only the past couple of centuries.

And they just can't see it. They just can't see it. It's just, oh, that's just, you know, later on you could say, well, this was just normative throughout the history of the church. Baloney it was. That's not true.

That's not factually true. You could never defend that statement in meaningful debate or in meaningful scholastic dialogue. It couldn't be done. There was nobody at the Council of Nicaea who believed what Jason Reed believes today about the Virgin Mary.

Nobody. Nobody. I stand by the thousand percent no one could ever refute me. Never could even try. And won't. And won't try. Because it's a fact. Why do you think Cardinal Newman developed the development hypothesis?

Because he knew it was the case. Has to be the acorn in the tree, you see. Got to come up with an excuse somehow. So it starts. It's amazing to me. It starts off with utter blasphemy. And then Jason Reed demonstrates that he never understood the centrality of Christian ministry and the place of the word of God in the worship of the people of God, and that he has now embraced a basically pagan view of the existence of God.

Listen to what he says. Wow. Every time I preach, we talk about the presence of God by his spirit amongst us. Every time I preach, we are proclaiming the word of God. We beseech God's presence amongst us by his spirit.

And one of the fundamental differences between Christianity and paganism is that paganism, you have your God locked up in a box in the temple. And evidently, Jason Reed is concerned because God's down the hall.

Well, Mr. Reed, every time we preach in the true Christian church, God isn't in a box down the hall. He is with his people. And if you never understood that, then I'm sorry, sir. I'm sorry. I can see why you've been attracted to Rome, if you had no idea that that's what was actually going on.

And if you're in evangelical churches, where worship is treated as if it's just something that men do to get the kids excited, and to get the ladies excited, and to make good, warm feelings, then I can understand that.

But a lot of us don't worship that way. They don't worship that way. We worship in spirit and truth, we do so biblically, and we do not believe that God is in a box down the road or down the hall. And I feel for anybody who has that view.

Mr. Reed tells us that he made a profession of faith in a Methodist church early on in life. However, he will say later on, he wasn't converted at that time. So he made a statement of faith, and unfortunately, especially if this was United Methodist Church at this particular point in time, the 1980s, the United Methodist Church had already gone into a major level of apostasy.

And probably, in most United Methodist churches, you would never have actually heard with clarity the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He then talks a little bit about what he thought about Roman Catholics, and he said he didn't know much about them, and still, interestingly enough, does not.

Yeah, right. No, fish is not off limits on Fridays. That's supposed to be a day of fasting, you're supposed to not do meat, and that's why there were fish fries, so you could actually do fish. So he had it backwards, and that's why I don't think anybody laughed at that one.

But then he tells about reading some—he was a baseball player, and so he read about Earl Hershizer and some other people, and so then you have his quote-unquote conversion to Christianity. But notice the last emphasis that is given.

I really don't. So, it was on July 28, 1992, in the basement of my house, I nailed down—. With my will. There you go. With my will, I convert to Christianity. Of course, from my perspective, you convert to Christianity when God wills, not when you will, but that's an issue that will come up a little bit later on as well, and it is relevant.

Ignorance of Roman Catholicism and the Reformation

Now, it's interesting, he then talks about going to a Baptist group called Salt Shakers, and listen to what he says. Now, again, what we're hearing each time that Mr. Reed talks about his view of Roman Catholicism is that he had no earthly idea what Roman Catholicism actually taught.

In other words, he knew nothing about the Reformation, he knew nothing about the solas, he knew nothing about the great conflict between Luther and Erasmus and nature of the will, justification by faith, imputation, the one-time finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross over against the perpetuatory sacrifice of the mass, and all that stuff not a part, evidently, of his upbringing.

And then, strangely enough, he's going to graduate from seminary—Southern Evangelical seminary—and still not know any of that stuff. Now, certainly, I know how that works. You can graduate from pretty much any seminary today, and you're not going to know about that stuff.

It's a sad reality, but it's reality all the same. But that's what he's saying. So his anti-Catholic stance is, as he's going to say, one of bigotry. Bigotry is an attitude against someone or some group that's ignorance.

It's not based upon knowledge. It's based upon ignorance. And he's going to admit, it really, really, really is something that was beyond his understanding. So at the very least, his conversion is of a person who never understood what the issues were in the first place, which should be relevant to the value, apologetically, for those people who are analyzing these things.

It's that someone who didn't know what the issues has made an emotional choice for Rome. Well, okay, that happens all the time. It happens all the time. Here's some more comment from Mr. Reid regarding Southern Evangelical and Aquinas.

So he said right there, yeah, I'm one of 10 or 15 who are converting. And he places that all within the context of, well, we all love Aquinas. Now, I've never understood, I'll be perfectly honest with you, I have never, ever understood the fascination that people have with Thomas Aquinas.

Bright guy, but there've been a lot of bright guys in history of the church. And silly me, I sort of think that if you're going to be impressed by people in the past, maybe you might want to start with the people who actually understood the gospel.

Maybe. I mean, you know, to me, it's applying the gospel to all of life. That's what's really impressive to me. But Mr. Reid's a philosopher. And this is primarily philosophical conversion, to be honest with you.

And if what you're looking for is, if you're impressed by big brains, then maybe you can be really impressed. I think there are some big brains on the other side. And personally, I think that taking your big brain and subjecting it to the gospel first is far more important.

But there you go. There's something about Aquinas. Then he goes on. Now, listen to these objections. You worship yeast. How about your doctrine of a propitiatory sacrifice of the mass that never perfects anyone is fundamentally detrimental to the biblical teaching of the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which perfects all those for whom it is made?

How about that? How about going to Hebrews and making application there? How about going into church history and tracing the development of the doctrine of transubstantiation, the necessity of Aristotelian categories of philosophy to come in, which means it clearly wasn't what the primitive church believed because they didn't have Aristotelian categories to utilize.

How about going there? You worship yeast? That's a jack-chick-level anti-Catholicism. It's unworthy of even being repeated, to be perfectly honest with you. We're not hearing anything about sola scriptura.

You'll never hear anything about sola scriptura in this discussion. It's just like, not even aware of it. Not even aware of it. You never hear anything about the supremacy of God's revelation, imputation.

Here is a man who never says a word about, you know, I was a real Protestant because I trusted that the peace I had with God when I awoke in the morning was due to the fact that there was nothing about me that made me right with God.

There is everything about my substitute. There is everything about the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, which was given to me, and that's why I have peace. Not a word. Not a word. Not a word. I continue on.

Extreme anti-Catholic, but it's all because I didn't know anything. So in other words, that's the bigoted anti-Catholicism, not the anti-Catholicism of the Reformation, which came from people who all themselves were former Roman Catholics and knew Rome's dogmas so very well.

All former Catholics is what I know. Well, you know, would have been good to ask them some questions about why they were former Catholics, because there are a lot of people who are former Catholics for really bad reasons.

If you're a former Catholic, and I've used the illustration many times, but there's going to be people who only see this one video, they only hear this one presentation, so okay. I have said that if you leave the Roman Communion, if you get in your boat and you cross the Tiber River the opposite direction, you wave to Jason Reed as he's going by.

If you don't get out on the other side of the Tiber River and then proceed to break your boat up so you can't go back and build out of it a pulpit from which you then begin to proclaim the gospel across the river toward those on the other side, then I question why you left.

I question as to whether you've actually gotten to the other side. There are people who leave the city of Rome, but they paddle around the middle again. Out there in the middle of the Tiber River, they actually haven't gone to the other side.

Remember I've said many times about Francis Beckwith, you look at his books, he never left Rome. He paddled around out in the middle, but he never felt that Rome's gospel is a false gospel, and as such they were never reformed.

They left for the wrong reasons. So going back is always a possibility because you've still got your boat, and it's all a matter of taste anyways, right? That's all there is to it. He goes on. So Norman Geisler says, go to graduate school, keep studying philosophy.

All right. Now I just have to point out, are we really shocked that when you immerse somebody in a philosophical context tinged with all sorts of non-reformed, non-biblical concepts from Roman Catholicism, and they say, hey, why don't you pursue a PhD in that area?

Are we really shocked that when you don't give them a solid foundation in theology, they end up going to Rome? I mean, seriously? I'm not shocked. Why should anybody else be shocked? I don't understand it.

It's like, yeah, that's probably what's going to happen, and that's exactly what happened. Now, then we have an amazing discussion here. Mr. Reid had not put any thought, even as a seminary graduate and PhD philosophy student, as to what defines a Christian.

I don't know how you get to this point without having thought about what defines a Christian. But that didn't come out very, very clearly here. Listen to what he says and how he came to the conclusion that Catholics are Christians by a single response from a Catholic priest on EWTN to a basic question.

And this says, well, it says a lot. Now notice, he's the one that said it. He says, I was a bigot. Well, what's a bigot? A bigot is a person who makes their decisions based upon ignorance. So his rejection of Roman Catholicism was not based upon knowledge of it, was not based upon a heartfelt commitment to the Gospel and the sufficiency of Scripture.

It was just, well, you know, that's what I was raised with. He said it himself. I didn't have to say it. Yeah, that's right. That's what he just said. Now think about just a minute. Mormons believe Jesus is the Son of God, even more literally.

Jehovah's Witnesses believe it. Almost every cult I know believes it. You have to define what it means. And is that all it takes? See, here's the mere Christianity-ism of so much of evangelicalism come to roost.

That's not enough. That's not enough. What if you believe Jesus is the Son of God but don't believe he died on the cross? What about the Gospel? That's not enough. Rome may affirm orthodoxy in regards to the deity of Christ, but we just heard a priest replacing Jesus with Mary and taking the prayers of God's people into the sanctuary.

And remember, according to the book of Galatians, all it took was one simple addition to the Gospel for Paul to anathematize those who were preaching it. And Rome has added a dozen things. Evidently, that wasn't discussed in the theology classes.

Maybe they were discussing Thomas Aquinas or something at that particular point in time. I do not know. Wow, I think you're a Christian, yeah. And now notice some of the things that attract him to Roman Catholicism.

They smoke pipes and cigars. Oh, this is great. I mean, for a philosopher, sitting around smoking pipes and cigars. I know some Reformed folks do that. I don't do that myself. As a long-distance cyclist, I actually honor my lungs and don't have any interest in that cool stuff, and hence miss out on some cool conversations, I guess.

But that's life. But pipes and cigars, there you go. We won't worry about that imputation stuff. No, let's not worry about the fact you can go to mass 20 ,000 times in your life and die impure. But they've got pipes and cigars, and that's really cool.

Okay, so there you go. There's his remaining objections. Marian devotion creeps out. The Pope ain't the head of the Church. And you don't eat Jesus. Now, again, there's truth in each one of those statements.

But what should be understood is not only what Rome teaches about Marian devotion, but the fact that she has defined so many dogmas that are utterly unknown to the early Church, utterly unknown to the Apostles, as being dogmatic affirmations you must believe.

And the Pope's not the head of the Church. Well, all right, then do you know how the papacy developed? Do you understand the role that forged documents play in the medieval period, in the establishment of Roman primacy?

Are you familiar with the historical developments that left Rome the one apostolic sea in the West? All those types of things. Did he take time to read the classical Protestant works, to even consider the real issues?

I don't get any evidence. I don't even get the evidence he's ever even read the Institutes of Christian Religion by John Calvin, to be honest with you. I got no feeling of that at all. It's just one of those, you know, didn't have time over the cigars and pipes to get there.

And again, listen to his own words. Now, he was being assigned to theology classes? This man who said, I don't know? He was being assigned to theology classes? Okay, all right. Okay, good, good thing.

I found myself unable to do it. Well, that should have caused him some real serious problems. And of course, the question we have to ask is, how did you graduate from seminary and find yourself in that position?

Maybe there was an imbalance here. Maybe there was a problem here somewhere. Maybe, you know, I mean, is it the school's fault? Is it his fault? Is it a mixture? I mean, I know lots of people who go to seminary and graduate with a degree in confusion.

I've said that many times. I watched that happen at Fuller Seminary. I watched people come into the program at Fuller Seminary and graduate with a master's degree in confusion. They came in knowing that they believed and went out completely confused.

Sad thing to see. I'd say that was the majority, not the minority. But that's Fuller, not SES. Not SES. Shouldn't be that way, should it? I would say not. Wow, I thought Jesus being the Son of God was doctrine.

How do you get there without special revelation? Hmm, that concerns me. That concerns me. Then he tells a really strange story. And again, it goes back to the fact that clearly he did not have what I would call a reformed understanding of the ministry of the Word of God in the church.

And he tells the story about the Lord of the Rings. You know what? I'm not even gonna play it. I'm just gonna summarize it for you. He talks about and how Gondor and the empty throne, and how in Roman Catholicism the priest's always over the side, but God's in the center in the monstrance.

But in Protestantism, man's in the center. A preacher. Two things. First of all, I have seen the Pope in the center many times. Does that make him God? Secondly, what you do need to understand, and again, this reflects upon primarily the degradation of Protestant views in quote-unquote evangelicalism, non-reformed understandings of worship that focus upon men rather than upon the ministry of the Word of God.

I have often, I have gotten in trouble. I've gotten in trouble for pointing out that I am sick and tired of hearing singers make a comment, well, the speaker's gonna come, gonna come up after we finish worship.

I had that happen once, ironically, in Chicago, prior to the writing of the Potter's Freedom at a conference that Norman Geisler was speaking at, and I was speaking at too. And I could not help, as they were leaving the stage, I got up and said, well, I just have to comment.

The worship has not finished. In fact, in some ways, it's only beginning. Because when you proclaim God's truth, that's when worship's really taking place. And you see, what evidently Mr. Reed did not understand is that when the Word of God is opened in the presence of the Spirit of God amongst the people of God, that's when worship takes place.

That's the central act of worship. It's not the singing. It's not the standing, or sitting, or kneeling, or anything else. It's the proclamation of God's truth amongst God's people. That's why we're there.

That's when he meets with us, in the most special and particular way. And so I'm sorry, evidently, Mr. Reed, you didn't understand that. But that's the truth. And so I'll just skip over that particular element.

Then he says this, an evangelical thinker. I cannot tell you what evangelical theology is. Well, I think he's probably reflecting what Carl Truman has said. Carl Truman would like to see that term disappear.

Because it is not specific enough. And if you heard my interview with Carl Truman on the Janet Mefford Show a couple months ago, basically what he said was, the pressure of Western culture, especially on the subject of homosexuality, is going to fracture, with finality, hopefully, this strange coalition of what's called evangelicalism.

And we're going to have to be much more specific about what we believe. And of course, I, as a Reformed Baptist, have been very specific about what I believe. And it's very clear what we believe. And it is important to be able to say those things, and to be able to define those things.

But certainly, when it comes to the conflict with Rome, once again, what Mr. Reed is saying is, I didn't know. I didn't know that the first written debate of the Reformation was between Luther and Erasmus.

I don't know what the issues were. I've not read the books. They're not philosophical enough. It wasn't part of my philosophical training. And no, I've actually never read the Institutes or anything like that.

So, Sola Scriptura versus the definition of tradition, the Church, and the issue of the papacy historically, all that. It's just not where I was. It's just not a part of my thing. And like I said, okay, you're not alone.

But it is no major surprise when you decide to, you're out there in the middle of the Tiber and go, yeah, I'm going to check out that side for a while. Okay. Not surprising. That's what happens to people who paddle around in the middle of rivers.

Eventually, they want to land. Eventually, they want to dock the boat. And that's what has happened. Then he gives, now listen to this. Here he gives the realm of evangelical theology. And what he's evidently thinking, I guess, is that these poor evangelicals, they can't figure out what they believe about these things.

Listen carefully. There is nothing he mentions that you will not find multiple views on amongst the Roman Catholic communion itself. You say, well, there's some of them that say there's clear doctrinal teaching.

Yeah. When was the last time Rome got rid of anybody for questioning any of these things? I mean, I just guess he hasn't had enough time to meet up with the liberal Catholics yet. The ones the Pope won't get rid of.

Could, but won't. I heard the one. Congratulations. Good. When the Pope shows up at Boston College and cleans house, I might listen to what he has to say. Till then, sorry, ain't interested. Ain't interested.

Because if you don't really believe what you believe strong enough to do something about it, when you've got the power to do something about it, why should I believe it? Because it makes me wonder whether you believe it.

You know? Anyways, listen to this realm of evangelical theology. Did you catch that? Creation versus evolution. Excuse me? What's Rome's official position on that? Where is the official leadership of the Roman Catholic church on that?

Pretty obvious, isn't it? There's no way to answer this. Wow. I can't think of a single one that we could not give a meaningful biblical response to without having to abandon ourselves to Rome. And it depends on which priest you talk to what answer you're going to get.

Amazing. Absolutely amazing. I mean, these 10 or 15 people are talking about going Roman. Why don't you go find 10 or 15 different priests and find out how many different answers you get to these very questions.

If you think that they're somehow going to give you the final word. And then of course, well, they're not infallible. Well, why don't you talk to the new Pope? He gives lots of really interesting answers now, doesn't he?

Well, you're really probably not going to get a chance to chat with him, but you never know. He is talking to newspaper reporters a lot. And then of course you get the very surface level, oh, the ancient church smells of Catholicism.

And then you just, you know, whenever I hear that, I just want to go, wow, what, you've been reading jurgens again? How about doing some serious reading of the early church and asking yourself the question, is this Rome?

Where's the immaculate conception? Where's the assumption? Where's the infallibility of the Bishop Rome? Where are these things that have defined Roman Catholicism to this day? They're just, it's not there.

They're not a functioning part of these things. And that's why Newman had to do what Newman did, is because he realized that. Wait a minute, they weren't debating apostolic succession? Really? You bet they were, the nature of it, what it meant, who had it.

There are all sorts of debates about that. But obviously when you talk about apostolic succession, which apostle taught what Rome teaches about Mary today again? Which one? Which one taught what Rome teaches about the papacy today?

Which one taught what Rome teaches about, oh, the priesthood, the priest being an alter Christus, any of that kind of stuff? How about let's talk purgatory indulgences. Let's give me apostolic succession for these utterly unapostolic teachings.

I mean, that is the weasel word. Well, you know, I believe all these things because, you know, if they've got apostolic succession, then they can do this. Which is more important, to follow what the apostles taught, or to follow people who claim that they're following after the apostles, but not teaching what they taught?

Which is real apostolic succession, is the real question that has to be asked. Now, listen to what comes up next. It's very short, but it's sad. The reformers are Catholic. Okay, just good evidence that Mr. Reid has never actually read the Institutes of the Christian Religion, but listen to the examples he gives.

And if you're listening while driving, please try to drive off the road. Catch that? Let me try it again, just in case you missed it. Really important. Okay, Luther believed in devotions to Mary. Which Luther?

At what point in his life? And what about the dogmas that had not yet been defined, Mr. Reid? Since, for example, I can show you popes who have taught against the concept of immaculate conception, and had not been defined until 18—was not defined until 1854.

How about bodily assumption, 1950? Did Luther ever say anything about it? No, he didn't. And then, this one, I'll just play it for you. Calvin did not believe that you could just interpret the Bible any way you wanted.

I understand. I understand why Mr. Reid does not ever mention solo scriptura in his conversion, because he had no earthly idea what it meant. No earthly idea. Anybody who thinks that solo scriptura means that you can interpret the Bible any way you like it has no earthly idea what any of the Reformers said, what any modern Protestants say.

This is someone who has never done their homework on the subject. It's amazing. And I can say that as someone who has defended that topic in debate since August of 1990. And we can prove it. I don't have to just make the claim.

We actually can show you recordings. This is a common misrepresentation. If you just read the Westminster Confession of Faith, if you just read the Savoy Declaration, if you just read almost any of the meaningful Protestant statements of faith, would any of them say, solo scriptura means you can just interpret the Bible any way you want it?

That is as bad a misrepresentation of one's former faith as a Roman Catholic saying, well, we used to say to worship the Pope. That's a misrepresentation, and you have other direction, right? Amazing.

Just amazing. If you think that's solo scriptura, then you've got some homework to do. You've got some homework to do. Clear evidence of a non-functional understanding of where he was coming from. So it's not shocking he ends up someplace else.

The faith I've been given was basically 200 years old. And yet, the Marian dogmas of the Immaculate Conception is only 160 years old, 159. It's dogmatic formulation and bodily assumption. That's not even 70 yet.

Papal infallibility, 1870s. Interesting. You've got to be careful when living in glass houses with that rock thing. Anyways, we continue on. Marian devotion is the historical norm. Really? When does history start?

Because, again, dogmatically, to be a Roman Catholic today, you must believe in all of the defined Marian dogmas. Show me anybody in your early church to believe what you believe about Mary, if that's the historical norm.

But it's, of course, not the historical norm at all. Oh, there's development over time. It's not biblically based. It's a degradation, not an advancement. But still, even at that, you cannot find the early church doing what you do and believing what you believe.

It can't be done. I know it can't be done. It's pretty sad. So as he's explaining that, out of ignorance, not having done any first-level study at all, all of a sudden he wants to engage in it. This is just pure emotion.

Emotion based upon ignorance, based upon bigotry. By his own words. I'm not making this stuff up. Now, there's only two sections left, and you might say, well, I thought you were going for an hour and a half.