How Low Will the Defenders of Rome Go?

A few weeks ago on The Dividing Line, I included the recording of the debate that I did with Patrick Madrid on the veneration of saints and angels. And during the audience question period, a gentleman wearing a Catholic t-shirt got up and very obviously cobbled together a question that wasn't a question.

He got up specifically to try to throw out into the audience the fact that my sister, Patricia Bonds, had become a Roman Catholic. And I responded to the question and demonstrated that the facts he tried to put into it were wrong.

Patrick Madrid, of course, rather than saying, wow, why don't we stay on the topic and that kind of thing is highly irrelevant, of course, played along with the Catholic. I felt it was a really low blow and very lacking in class.

And most of the people there did, too, and to this day as they watch it. And I'm going to provide that clip here in this video. But I wanted to comment on the reflection that this continued use of Patti Bonds by some, let me hasten to say, there are some Roman Catholic apologists who have never used this.

They're the only ones I have any respect for. Those that have, I have no respect for at all. What does it say about certain Roman Catholic apologists that they'd go digging around in your family history to try to find something like this, rather than providing full and compelling critiques of the argumentation that you provide?

I think the honest person will recognize that there is a dearth of meaningful responses especially from the biggest names in Catholic apologetics to the most compelling arguments against Roman Catholic theology and apologetics.

As I've said many times, most Catholic apologists don't even seem to take the time to, shall we say, stay up on what non-Catholic apologists are saying about their own presentations. But could you get any lower?

Could you get any less meaningful than trying to dig through people's family histories? It's never crossed my mind to go digging through family histories. The very idea of going, hmm, I wonder who Carl Keating's family is?

I wonder if I could get a phone book, or Steve Ray, or Patrick Madrid. It's never crossed my mind. Why would it? And what exactly is the value of a conversion anyway? I mean, I never said anything. I didn't say a word about my sister's conversion until she did so publicly, even though obviously I was well aware of it.

But once she did, I posted an entire email wherein I provided the first contact I had with her. I pointed out that she never talked to me about it. She sent me one anonymous email, and this was my response to it.

I posted this online. She never came to my church. She herself has said she had read maybe one of my books. She said she couldn't bring herself to listen to debates. What exactly is the value of this again?

Now, of late, some really disgusting, despicable Catholic apologists have been helping to spread lies and slander and all sorts of things like that. And these people know who they are. And I do find it interesting, the Catholic apologists who will stoop the lowest in their dishonesty and their spreading of lies and slander are the very ones who know they could never, ever, ever defend what they say in public against me in debate.

They know that. They'll never do it. They know they would be massacred, but they're the ones who will have to stoop that low because they know they have nothing else. They don't have truth. They can't defend themselves, and so they have to buy into other things.

It's a pitiful thing to see, but they will be judged. God will not be mocked. They will be judged for their activities. But be that as it may, what does it say that there is not a hue and cry on the part of Catholic apologists about this kind of despicable behavior?

You know, I mentioned on the dividing line that I was at a church in Southern California, I believe it was, I believe in February of this year, and I met Patrick Madrid's sister-in-law who left Roman Catholicism.

I didn't go looking for her. She happened to be a member of that church. I had been told beforehand by another good friend of mine that that's who she was, and we met at the church. But it never crossed my mind.

The only thing that crossed my mind was, when did this happen? This happened before the incident I'm about to play from the debate? Wow. So there sits Patrick Madrid knowing that there are people in his family who have gone the other direction, and yet he does what he does in this clip.

I cannot begin to understand this. It is truly amazing, and it really says a lot to me. It doesn't say anything about the truth or falseness of Roman Catholicism, but it says a lot about the kinds of attitudes and behaviors of those who defend it.

Probably who don't defend it very well, but those who defend it, it's an amazing thing. So take a look at this clip. It's a little bit dark because the camera is shooting back into the audience. It really wasn't designed to be lit properly to be able to see the audience questions real well.

But listen to this man's question. By the way, just in passing, I confronted this man out in the foyer. He apologized for this question, but he then tried to start arguing with me about Sola Scriptura, and when he eventually couldn't respond to me there, he threw his hands up and said, hey, I'm just a layperson.

You're the professional, and it stopped there. An hour later, as I was leaving, this man was arguing with somebody else, and as I walked by, I listened. He was using the very same arguments that I had just refuted in our conversation.

That kind of thing, again, just leaves me stuttering as to what people think, how they can behave in this way. I don't understand it, but that's the way it is. And so here's the audience question. Notice I tried to make something meaningful out of it, even though I knew it was nothing but a personal shot.

And you'll notice at the end, when Bill Shishko starts speaking, you'll hear me say to Patrick Madrid, that was a cheap shot. And it was, it remains that way. And here's the clip.

The Septuagint, the Catholic Canon, and the Apocrypha

Mr. White, you clarified tonight that the early church used a Septuagint. The Septuagint...

I said the Apostles used a Septuagint.

Okay, that's even better. Thank you. The Septuagint is the Old Testament, is identical to the Catholic Bible, listing all the books that are in it. Now that your sister has converted to the Catholic Church, does she use that Bible?

Two problems, two errors, and I don't know that she would know anything about this particular issue. You'd have to ask her. But the first error that you've made is that you assume that the canon of the Septuagint is identical to yours.

That's your first error. You're about 120 years behind in your scholarship on that point. If you would look, for example, at modern studies, you would discover that the distinction between an alleged Palestinian and Alexandrian canon does not exist.

Philo the Jew, for example, did not hold the apocryphal books. Then again, neither did Athanasius, Jerome, or Gregory the Great, Pope of Rome. But we did a debate on that, if you'd like to hear that, between myself and Jerry Matitix at one point.

But as to what my sister knows, all I know is she never talked to me about her conversion, and that right now all I'm hearing is just what she would read in This Rock magazine or something like that. I don't think she has any idea what the canon of the Septuagint was, so I'm not sure why you'd ask me that question.

Catholic Bible Claims and a Sister's Conversion Story

Mr. Madrid.

That's a very interesting question to ask. I certainly don't know what version of Scripture Patti Bonds used. Patti Bonds, by the way, is James' sister. She came to the Catholic Church a year and a half ago.

I don't know what version of Scripture she uses. Next time I talk to her, I will ask her that. But I can tell you she does use the Catholic Bible that contains the canon of Scripture that the Catholic Church teaches, includes the seven deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, as well as sections of Esther and Daniel that were omitted from the King James Bible.

The other thing I can mention is, given the point that James made about not knowing, forgive me for not being able to rephrase it exactly, but not knowing what her thought is on the matter, it's a point of interest, I think, that her conversion story, in which she is explaining what her reasons were for becoming Catholic and how she was raised in a Protestant home, and I think in a very thorough and also charitable way, she lays out her reasons for converting to the Catholic Church in the sequel to Surprised by Truth.

It's Surprised by Truth 3, which is coming out this fall. So anybody who has the least bit of interest in reading in her own words her reasons for that, you'll be able to do that in a few months. I want to remind you that the topic for the debate this evening is Prayer 2.

That was a pretty cheap thought. Now, we're answering the question that they posed. The topic is Prayer 2 and veneration of the saints, as well as the veneration of sacred images that represent them, is compatible with Scripture and Christian tradition, and your questions should reflect that topic of the evening.

The next questioner.