Responding to Patty Bonds and the Roman Catholic Apologists

And good evening and welcome to the dividing line yes, I did say good evening. This is a special impromptu edition of the dividing line. We normally would be in channel talking with folks, but we just got k-lined Too many connections somebody doesn't know who we are and just just k-lined us.

We are histoire. Someone's gonna have to somehow find some way of Doing something about that. That's just lovely anyways. Maybe some of the ops in the channel might go into the channels area and say could you please Unban the people who own your single most active channel in all of Starlink IRC we would very much appreciate that.

And please remember not to k-line them in the future again anyways. Just Just as we were coming on the air man boom we're gone, and we are we are banned from our own our own channel. That's just great anyways.

Special edition of the dividing line tonight because we are not going to be able to do it tomorrow at our normal time on Saturday and Then that's good confuse everybody completely because over the Sunday time all the rest of you play with your clocks.

Let's see this is the fallbacks for spring forest fallback, so I guess you fall back or something anyways like I said We don't play with our clocks and and you all go do your thing and and now we're going to be back in Mountain time or something like that, and there'll only be a two-hour difference between us and folks on the East Coast and so people are going to be Coming in an hour into the program or an hour early going what times program and this would be all Massive confusion and things like that, but anyways, so we're doing the program this evening.

So that we don't get Too many complaint letters because next the Saturday after that we're not gonna be able to do any program at all because that is the Saturday of the debate with John Sanders on the subject of open theism and that will be in Orlando, Florida and The Friday night before that will be a debate with John Sanders on inclusivism so two debates two nights in Florida on two extremely important subjects.

Inclusivism and open theism we continue to seek to uphold The truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I think it's very important. I think most of our friends know we do this but Some people may may wonder well.

You know it's one thing to go deal with the Mormons. It's another thing to do go and defend the Trinity against the Jehovah's Witnesses. Something else to go defend justification by grace through faith alone against the Roman Catholics.

But when you start turning your guns on your own people well, it's not a matter of turning your guns it's a matter of course of being consistent and if we're going to say for example that The Roman Catholics are an error for detracting from the glory of God for Introducing synergism.

Then we need to be consistent and when people on our side of the fence quote-unquote do the same thing. Then we need to be consistent. We it's the only way to do apologetics in a meaningful fashion. Unfortunately that generally results in a lot of people not liking what you're doing.

But you know that's just the way it is and that's how we're we're dealing with it, so anyways. We are dealing with those issues and that means that there won't be a dividing line next week so instead of going for two weeks, we're going to go ahead and do a live dividing line this evening and then of course make that available for people who tune in tomorrow on Saturday and Then we will not be able to do a program after that.

There'll only be one week that we'll be missing there, and and we'll go from there. So what are we going to be doing this evening well? I? Knew it was coming of course. And that is you may recall. Twice so far this year we have dealt with the subject of Patti Patrick bonds as she now calls herself Patricia bonds actually and her conversion to Roman Catholicism and the use of Her conversion to Roman Catholicism by Roman Catholic apologists.

We first addressed this issue if you go back in the archives of the dividing line February 16th 2002 when Patti appeared on EWTN's the journey home, and so if you go to straightgate .com slash AOM. You will see the archive listing for the real audio versions of the dividing line.

You'll see February 16th 2002. That's where we first addressed this up that point in time. We had to not address the issue. We'd had many people who are writing to us, but we chose to. I specifically demanded that.

We.

Respond in a proper way leave what is private private and If my sister chose to go public then we would respond to anything that she would have to say. Truth demands that. And so when she decided to do so in early February of 2002 then we responded February 16th Played sections of its and responded to the claims that were made there then.

After my Long Island trip and my debate against Patrick Madrid in July of this year Patti Patrick bonds appeared on Catholic answers live and of course we talked about that on August 3rd of 2002 and That archive is also available the same URL before straightgate .com slash AOM for August 3rd 2002 Responding to playing sections from the Catholic answers live Presentation.

That had been I think two days as July 10th as I recall the day before the debate with Patrick Madrid. And we responded to that and you may recall that I mentioned at that time at least I think I mentioned at that time maybe I mentioned after that I don't recall but I mentioned at that time that there had been a question and answer period at the end of the evening of the debate and a particular Roman Catholic individual had stood up and Had asked a question concerning the subject of My sister's converse actually hadn't.

Let's take that back. He asked. He asked a question that he tried to pretend was about the canon of Scripture. But it was actually just a pretense that would allow him to mention the issue of my sister's conversion and.

I.

Responded to his question and then unfortunately Patrick Madrid had chosen I think in a in a very classless fashion to take that opportunity in responding to my response to Promote a book that was to be coming out in October called surprised by truth 3 now We've addressed some of the issues in some of these surprised by truth series.

I continue to think that the titles Have been providentially ordained of God. Because that title surprised by truth can be read in two different ways. Obviously the intention on their part is that they were surprised by the truth of the Catholic Church.

But I think when you read these conversion stories You can read them another way and that is that these individuals would be surprised by truth if they knew what it was. They do not know what it is and the manifest subjectivity.

And confusion that is part and parcel of these conversion stories makes that very very plain unfortunately and The amount of subjectivism and emotionalism and everything else and we've reviewed some of these if you go to our website.

There are some reviews from the original surprised by truth the volume there that were written a long long time ago. So we are certainly familiar with them. It struck me a number of times that I remember back in the in the 80s when I first started Encountering the materials of Catholic answers that they sort of they talked down the conversion stories.

Because most the conversion story books were Roman Catholics who had converted from Roman Catholicism. And there are lots of books like that. It's not like these are anything new. And in fact, there's entire entire books of former Roman Catholic priests who have left the Roman Catholic Church and and The the Catholic apologists would talk those down.

Well who wants to go to former members? I mean they have an axe to grind and that's not that's not good apologetics. That's that's emotional and frequently there were there were emotional reasons and You know all the rest of stuff and now all of a sudden conversion books are all the rage you listen to EWTN.

That's all you ever hear. There's a problem with conversion stories though, of course most of them are extremely shallow by nature they have to be. Most these folks are brand new and it's not like they've had a whole lot of time to Study a whole lot of stuff.

And and so it's it's you know, how many volumes these can you put out? They start becoming extremely repetitive. How many times you say I found out solo scripture is not true. And every time you you know encounter these folks and press they've they've never given much of a thought.

They didn't know what soul scripture was before.

And.

So on and so forth and so it's it's it's an interesting phenomenon to watch. But anyhow Surprised by truth 3 was going to be coming out and So I knew that there was going to be a chapter in there from My sister and I was pretty you know, I I knew what it was going to be saying pretty much so and So it it did finally come out.

I was not sent a copy myself, but a copy was sent to my parents, which was immediately provided to me and I've had the opportunity of reading through the the materials and Would like to respond First of all this way mainly because I just don't have time to write Everything that I need to write on this particular subject right now.

With the debates coming up the the Dave Hunt book that said that I'm gonna be working on I now have the rest of mr. Hunt's materials and and so on so forth.

And.

I've just got too much to do before I can possibly sit down and write what I'd like to write in response to What mrs. Bonds says in this particular in this particular article? But I know that now the book is getting out of the bookstores that we're going to be getting emails and phone calls and so I want to respond to what it says and Then we can at least put together a URL link With the various programs the three programs we've done February 16th August 3rd and now this one.

And.

That way we will be able to You know provide the response it's at least for now and then provide a more written response before there is a. By the way there is a Written article as well on our website on the Roman Catholic section that deals at least with the situation back in February.

Interesting connections as well.

To.

The Roman Catholic apologists who interestingly enough in my sister's chapter she talks about how they are so kind and loving and and How they pray for me and everything else. And yet? We document on our website some of the Emails that have been sent by people like Steve Ray that demonstrate that well.

That's just not the case. The facts are very different than then the presentation. It's made there, and you know let them speak in their own words. When you when you read what they have to say for themselves.

It's pretty amazing stuff, so. Anyways first things first however as far as detail as far as developments since August 3rd of 2002. We we did that program while I was in. I mentioned this I believe on the August 3rd program while I was in New York.

I.

Took the time to Having listened to the Catholic answers program to drop into an AOL instant message chat With my sister, and I raised a number of issues in regards to claims She had made she was for example promoting a false gospel attacking Paul's doctrine of justification on the basis of James chapter 2 and things like that and and She was also confused about the thing she was saying she was saying she was a hyper Calvinist and she didn't know what hyper Calvinism was and and.

So on so forth and so I I began again as I have from the beginning to provide Factual refutation of the things the errors that she was making and from the beginning. That that effort has been construed to be mean-spirited and unkind.

The common response that I get to. And and I again I have all of our emails I've kept all of them have full archives and You know if need be could provide numerous examples of all of these things. But I will say well, you know you said X about early church father.

Why. But have you ever read what he said in such-and-such a resource where he contradicts your interpretation of him. Response why do you rail against the Church of God? Why are you so mean? Won't you accept that this is a work of God etc. Etc.

Now most people can realize that's not really response to what I was saying. But that's the kind of response. I've been getting over and over and over and unfortunately in this new chapter. The accusation has said that's everything that I've you know from the beginning I've been really angry and mean-spirited and all the rest of stuff and Anyone who's read the stuff on the website or has read any of the correspondence as people on both sides have Knows that just simply isn't the case well in August Our contact ended Completely and I'm the one that ended it and I'll tell you now quite openly the reason I did so.

Because she has published to this stuff in print as she started using legal terms that is I I sensed a threat of legal action against me and I don't have any reason to allow that kind of thing to happen.

I'm not going to expose my ministry or my family to someone who makes those kinds of threats and so I Just cut off all contact and in doing so said I will publicly respond to your To your accusations or anything that you say in public, but I'm I'm not going to Continue to have any type of contact with you because of what you're doing and so that has been the case and a few days later someone sent me the.

URL.

To an article on her website, and this is hosted by a fellow by name Apollonio and Phil Porvoznik. They are the ones that provide the website space for my my sister's website and It's dated August 19th.

A goodbye to my brother and Anyone who wants to track it down can do so. It's a letter vast majority of which is extremely personal and Again, I had avoided that. As I said, we didn't to go public. The people in the ministry will tell you they had asked me to long before we did.

I said we're not going to and We have been very specific in our responses in Responding to specifically what mrs. Bonds has said. Especially when she has made claims about the Bible early church history Roman Catholic apologetics.

I haven't gone into all sorts of things that I could have gone into. We've chosen to stay with the apologetic issues. Well, she chose not to and in her letter She talks about things from our childhood and the various and sundry things going into seeing Star Wars and all the rest is fun stuff.

All of which is very. You know, she mentioned she put she taught me to play chess which she did. And that then she never beat me again at chess, which is true that at least those those sections are definitely true.

And.

So on so forth so. Then she mentions going to Christian Emporium buying Imperials records those. And she has to mention because I know my kids are this way. The big black things that came before CDs for you youngins is what she says and that's true.

Kids don't know much about what records were that those wonderful vinyl things that here in Phoenix. Anyways, you weren't careful would melt before you got you got them Home if you weren't carefully had to sit them right in the blast of the AC to be able to Get them home actually, but anyways.

All those things are true. What that has to do with anything I do not know other than other people who've read it and and have said well, you know, this was her way of Pointing out that she was your bigger sister and she was she's six and a half some odd years older than I am and.

So then she the last three sentence of the last three paragraphs was the only thing that really having to do other than with history. And basically saying, all right, you know, we're not gonna have any more relationship and.

Then she says the see I still see you running down that road with your hands over your ears. Stubbornly not hitting the calls of your mother. The word mother is Capitalized she wants only what is best for you.

She wants your safety and salvation. But you will not hear her and you dig your heels in the road and stomp away in rejection of her care. It is into her prayerful care that I commit you James. Now, of course, she's talking about the Virgin Mary and I think we are starting to see in some of these things the fact that Mrs. Bonds is going into a very very conservative form Roman Catholicism more conservative.

For example, and I see Scott Hahn Representing even though she would consider him to be one of the main people that she would be following because the fact that. First of all, am I not a separated brother?

I thought Protestants were now separated brothers.

I.

Thought we were heirs of salvation. She wants your safety and salvation. Do I need salvation? Are we going back to the Council of Florence here? Who knows? I don't know but one thing's for certain the view of tradition.

That she presents in her new chapter is very much the part and part of view. It's very much the older view not the material sufficiency view. But the part and part of view. I'm not certain that she understands what those distinctions are as yet.

She continues to study her handlers continue to give her the vocabulary and to deal with certain of these issues. I don't know where where she's going to end up on this. My feeling is that she's could become very involved in Marian stuff and that does tend toward a much more conservative form of Roman Catholicism than a moderate or middle-of-the-road form of Roman Catholicism.

And so we have this discussion of the Virgin Mary and How my sister knows what the Virgin Mary would want to know one is able to know but the Virgin Mary has no idea that I exist, of course, and I'm very thankful for that and She does not want my safety and salvation because she doesn't know that I exist and she would be extremely concerned and extremely upset.

If she thought anybody Was entrusting me into her care. She knows there's only one person to entrust anyone into their care and that of course is into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ whom she is Completely absorbed in worshipping him now, and she is not thanks be to God aware of the millions of people who have been deceived into thinking that somehow their emotions are connecting them with her and.

So.

Anyways, she says to continue our back-and-forth arguments is wrong. Well, we haven't had any back-and-forth arguments. I've present arguments. She's responded with emotions. And again, I'm the one who owns the emails.

I'm the one who has the documentation. Those who have read the AOL instant message will tell you all the way through. It's well. You said John Henry, you know to go deep into history is to cease to be Protestant.

But.

Explain to me what you think about the fact that John Henry Cardinal Newman had to go back and rewrite His own historical works in the subject of honorius once the definition of papal infallibility was given.

Why do you attack me? Why are you so mean? Why are you so angry? Well, but you're the one that brought up John Henry Cardinal Newman. And and how can you say to go deep into history and cease to be Protestant?

When to go deep into history is to recognize that honorius is a glowing example of the refutation of papal infallibility. Just take off your Protestant glasses and and look openly and you'll see the glory of the church.

You're just so filled with hate. Well, you know, okay. Let's try another subject. James chapter 2. What is the the reformed response James chapter 2 since you claim to seem to know you are so angry I just wish you weren't so angry and that's just all the way through.

That's all it was. So there's been no exchange of arguments because you have to present facts and reasoning. To be able to have arguments so we haven't gone back and forth. I've presented arguments. She's refused to deal with those arguments.

I've presented facts. She's refused to deal with those facts. That's that's really been from the very first anonymous email that was sent to me. And and again, that was after She had already fallen in love with With Roman Catholicism and in fact now that the whole chronology is in print.

You get a really good idea of the fact that she had Already been in contact with people and there's a couple new things. I'll get to in a moment in this new this new chapter and so. That's that's just the brief response to this particular and then it says it says it ends goodbye Jimmy and She knows that I haven't been called Jimmy in a long time.

This is meant to be, you know the little kid type thing and I'm your I'm your big sister and you just know I'm wise and so on so forth and You know when she says it breaks my heart to know that we have been separated by circumstances.

Neither of us asked for I'm not the one that changed. I'm not the one who is doing what she's doing and So I don't accept that that idea at all.

She.

Knew that she could have come to me but throughout her thing to why I knew what he was that. No. She doesn't she doesn't know to this day what I would say to the vast majority of things and Has only started looking at my materials now that she is, you know, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and about as unbiased as.

As you know Carville is unbiased on Democratic issues or something along those lines. She had no idea at the time and of course, that's the problem is that her Catholic apologist friends if they're gonna milk this thing for what they can milk it for have to attempt to say that she did know.

Well, she simply doesn't and Didn't and even if she were to learn the future, you know, that's like closing the barn door after the horse has gone out. So it's really not exactly a relevant issue at that particular point in time.

And so that's the response there now the the new chapter.

It's.

Interesting title freed from anti-catholic bonds and I can guarantee you that came from Pat Madrid. Pat Madrid likes doing Things with names and puns and things like that and it's one of the longest sections in the book by by a long shot and Of course, her last name is bonds so freed from anti-catholic bonds, and of course again we have this, you know Anti-catholic anti-catholic.

I was such an anti-catholic. Huh, you know. If I converted I at least would have a pedigree, you know, I could at least point to something that I did. I'll never forget asking Jerry Matitix, you know when he was pushing how Anti-catholic he was and it's like so Jerry.

What books did you write? I didn't write any books. Well what articles do I didn't write any articles? What tracks did you write for handing out to Roman Catholics? I didn't write what debased. I didn't do any debates.

So what makes you an anti-catholic? I didn't like Catholicism. Well, congratulations. That makes every almost every single Roman Catholic that I know an anti Protestant. What's that supposed to mean?

I mean, what is the what is the relevance here? It's it's the I want to be like Paul on the way to Damascus story. I was out there doing my best and in fact Patty talks about I Repented of promulgating the Reformation.

Well, what in the world did she do to promulgate the Reformation? It's this this desperate desire. To to make it look like you were you're something that you really weren't. Okay. She didn't like Catholicism.

Well, congratulations. I I know lots of folks who the vast majority of folks I know that are Protestants and who are not former Roman Catholics don't like Catholicism because of what they've heard about it.

But they've never studied that themselves and the vast majority of Roman Catholics that I know don't like Protestantism. But they've never studied for themselves either. Does that somehow mean something?

I've not quite figured out what it means. But you know, that's that that's a house anti-catholic anti-catholic as if somehow some great thing has been overcome. That now now I'm something else. It amazes me the chapter starts off with a letter that was sent out to various of her friends.

And of course there is the quote I have found that to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant. John Henry Cardinal Newman and I already mentioned I'm gonna when I tried to Raise issues about Newman and Newman's opposition to papal infallibility and Anyone who's read a lot of Newman?

I enjoy listening to when we're in channel there'll be times that Skyman will post things and he'll point but never did respond to his own early days. Materials were before he converted. His in fact his development hypothesis was probably about the only way he'd get around many of the good arguments He presented when he was a Protestant against the Roman Catholic position.

But I.

Get absolutely no sense whatsoever That mrs. Bonds is aware of any of those things or has spent any time reading anything That Newman actually wrote or any of the historical context in which that was particularly found.

So as we continue on here I'm going to start reading some of these sections. I'm basically all I've done is I've looked at sections that either require Some sort of response or have something new that was not a part of what came up on The EWTN show or on the Catholic answers live or has not shown up on any of the web articles or things like that.

Because those are gonna be The things that people are gonna be asking us about and hence I want to provide that type of response. But we need to take a break and we'll continue here on the dividing line right after this.

Responding to the New Chapter in Surprised by Truth 3

And welcome back to the dividing line. We're providing a response to the new chapter. Well, it's a new book.

I'm not sure if it's a new chapter, but chapter in surprised by truth freed from anti-catholic bonds is the topic and.

And.

Starting I believe this looks like it's I've scanned this in so I'm somewhere around page 186 or so. We read the next summer my father baptized me at a neighboring church as I had been taught in the Baptist Church.

We attended. I viewed my baptism purely as a gesture of obedience that no effect on my Salvation eternal life came instead from the act of placing my faith in God. After that moment I believed I could never lose my salvation no matter what I did.

I had received an assurance of salvation It's often called by many Protestants. A person choosing to be baptized is thus already saved a point many Baptist pastors like to emphasize. I find that a little bit interesting.

From the Roman Catholic perspective this is when she was justified because this baptism was done the name of the Father Son Holy Spirit and hadn't X opera operato the sacramental work of Justification took place at that particular point in time and.

Then when it said I could never lose my salvation my way. I'd received an assurance of salvation. As it's often called by Protestants that sounds to me.

Like.

There are a couple things a number of things in this chapter where I just get the feeling that that the editors In in essence said you know we need to explain to our audience because many of the Many of the people in our audience don't understand the terminology and so we need to sort of explain Protestantism to our primarily Catholic audience and I think this is this is Where one of these things takes place a person choosing to baptize thus already saved well.

Yes, that's quite true. That is what the what the Bible teaches. Then the next section is called growing up anti-catholic and One of the things that is said is I remember my mother explained that Catholics believe they had to work their way into heaven.

I stopped there for a moment. I've met many a Catholic to believe that remember this is this this is back in the 1960s and It's totally unfair to transfer The type of Catholicism that was popular in the 50s and 60s And say well I know many Roman Catholics who read their Bibles today or something like that as if that says has something to do with what things Were like in the 40s 50s and 60s.

Most of the Roman Catholics that you would have talked to and in fact most Roman Catholic nominal Roman Catholics talk to today Which is still the vast majority of Catholicism do believe you have to work your way into heaven if you were to ask the vast Majority of them how do you get into heaven they would start talking to you about you do this you do this you do this.

You do this.

They don't read Scott Hahn. They they don't they're not reading these these folks who very carefully try to nuance things. It's it's works next thing that they prayed to statues.

Yeah, uh-huh.

No, it's ways about just as I'm not playing the statue. I'm praying to the one who represents it. Hey go down to South Phoenix right now. You're gonna find lots of folks praying to statues. And you can try to Explain that one away all you want doesn't change it that they said the same prayers over and over like pagans.

Well pagans do use repetitious prayers, and yeah, I still still agree of that. She was particularly critical of the Pope and the idea that man on earth would claim to be the head of the church. Well I'm particularly critical the fact that he would claim to be the head of church the Vicar of Christ.

The Vicar of Christ of course is the Holy Spirit of God and The Holy Father a term used only of course of God the Father by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Those are all titles of deity and I Think my mother was particularly right to be critical of the Pope and the idea that a man on earth would claim to be the head of the church.

Now notice this is under the the section. This is what defines anti Catholicism in other words if you disagree With Catholicism you're an anti Catholic, but see anti Catholic is the great buzzword. It's the it's the word that is meant to immediately invoke images of Jack chick see.

That's that's the great catch here. She said the Catholics didn't think for themselves. They let the Pope think for them. Well Sola Ecclesia certainly does end up with that very Result and how many people especially back then when you ask them.

Why do you believe? What you believe. Well because the priest told me. The priest told me to believe that the vast majority of Roman Catholics that my mother ever had contact with were nominal Roman Catholics.

And they didn't think for themselves on religious issues. They let the priest or the Pope tell them what to believe. There's no question about that. They weren't even allowed to read the Bible for themselves well again.

Over and over and over again. That has been a testimony of many of the Roman Catholics that I know who've left the Catholic Church. Who grew up in the 30s 40s and 50s man? They were they were discouraged from ever picking up that Bible because why.

Because it leads to difficult questions and it certainly does because you start reading about stuff like justification things like that and. So we continue on. Specifically. Just just I'm just looking at things that I've marked some going through here.

Catholics I have been taught and had come to believe most definitely did not have the truth and nothing could have convinced me otherwise. Well. Okay, but here's the issue. All right, she was convinced that Catholics did not have the truth had she ever studied Catholicism.

No. No are there many people who are right the Catholicism is false. But they don't know why they're right. They're right about something. They just don't know why. Well of course I mean, I think the vast majority of us are right about the laws of nature.

Gravity and.

How light works and things like that, but very few of us know Schrodinger's equation or can discuss the mechanics of gravity and and Molecular forces and all the rest that kind of stuff. You're right about the conclusion.

But you may not know a whole lot about the process by which that conclusion was derived. And so it's one thing to say. I definitely believe the Catholicism was wrong. Fine, but it was your conclusion a Knowledgeable one and the answer would be no.

And it would be no for a very simple reason. I mentioned this back in August.

I recall.

Making a note of this I asked my own father From whom my sister claims over and over again is the one that she learned all these things about a Roman Catholicism. And I said is it a fair statement? That you have learned Vastly more about the theology of the Roman Catholic Church from me over the past 10 to 15 years.

Then I could have ever learned from you, and he said well of course. He was a graduate of Moody Bible Institute. They didn't sit around and define Roman Catholic dogma or read Ludwig Ott's works. Or do anything like that?

It was indeed assumed at places like Moody back in the 50s that that Roman Catholicism was about as far off base as it could be. And again they were right, but it wasn't an informed rightness and.

So.

This conviction that was hers was a conviction based upon what she had been told, but it wasn't based upon actual study itself. No two ways about that. Well a little bit later on there's a fascinating little section.

About how a movement she got into in a local church prepared her for her conversion to Catholicism. Shades of Catholicism in discipling and. It's not overly surprising that I had criticized that very thing long before she converted to Roman Catholicism.

I I Would completely agree with her and in fact had made the statement. Myself and there are people listening right now who can confirm the fact that long before my the the thing blew up. And I got the call while I was in Florida that my sister was becoming a Catholic.