Why Are Evangelicals Becoming Roman Catholics?

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Michael Horton

five centuries

Tim Staples

ago, in taverns and public houses across Europe, the masses would gather for discussion and debate over the latest ideas, sweeping the land. From one such meeting place, a small Cambridge inn called the White Horse, the Reformation came to the English speaking world, carrying on the tradition. Welcome to the White Horse Inn.

Michael Horton

Hello and welcome to another broadcast of the White Horse Inn. We are in a series on why so many people seem to be leaving evangelical circles. What is so attractive about Eastern Orthodoxy? I discussed that, for instance, last week with Father Peter Gilquist of the Antiochian Orthodox Church. This week we have Tim Staples. Tim is a convert from evangelicalism to Roman Catholicism. He is currently the director of apologetics at St. Joseph Catholic Radio and he's on the staff at St. Justin Martyrs Roman Catholic Parish in Anaheim, California, and also comes to us as an all around good guy. It's a delight to have you with us, Tim.

Tim Staples

It's great to be here with you, Tim.

Michael Horton

Why don't we go ahead and start right out of the gate with your story. Tell us a little bit first of all about your background, growing up and your religious commitments and so forth.

Tim Staples

I was raised a Southern Baptist and I emphasize the Baptist with a B, A B, T, I, S, T. I'm from the south in Virginia, and in my teen years I got away from the Lord and I came back to the Lord through the Assemblies of God. So I got involved. I was with those Arminian folks and good people. I rededicated my life to Christ when I was 19 and actually later became an assembly of God youth pastor.

Michael Horton

No kidding.

Tim Staples

Yeah, and I went to a school that maybe a couple of you might have heard of, the Jimmy Swaggart Bible College. I don't know if you've heard of that.

Rod Rosenbladt

The name sounds familiar.

Michael Horton

Isn't he Jerry Lee Lewis cousin?

Kim Riddlebarger

Yeah, that's right. I remember him.

Tim Staples

But I went there back when he was in his heyday. You know, and that was quite an interesting story. But it was in the Assemblies of God that while I was in the Assemblies of God that I met a fellow, actually, while I was in the Marine Corps. I entered the Marine Corps and served for four years and met a fellow, a Catholic, who really knew his faith. He was from a very strong Catholic family. And he started giving me answers that I couldn't respond to. And that served as an impetus for me to dive in and start to read the Fathers of the Church and to really study. And so I started to read some of the higher Protestants and get into real study. And I found in my church there wasn't a whole lot of that going on in the Assemblies of God. You go to your pastor and ask him about St. Augustine and he says, who?

Michael Horton

So you say you went back, started reading some of the higher Protestants, such as, well, R.C.

Tim Staples

sproul. Who else did I read? I read some other evangelicals, like Josh McDowell, Dr. Walter Martin. The more I studied though, the more I started to see there were problems

Michael Horton

in this whole trajectory. Were you sort of introduced to church history and the writings of people before the founding of the Assemblies of God denominations?

Tim Staples

Yeah, a couple. One or two, yeah. You know, I read Augustine's Confessions and started reading the apostolic fathers as G.F. lightfoot's translation. And it was a real eye opener, as it is for so many. And I think that's one of the things that's happening today, and you guys are encouraging that is rediscovery. I think a lot of Protestants, especially from the evangelical camp, have the idea that church history began 500 years ago, you know, so I think it's great what you guys are doing in trying to get people to open up their minds and take a look at Christianity for 2000 years rather than 500.

Michael Horton

Tim, what were some of those questions you mentioned? There were some questions that you couldn't answer that this Roman Catholic friend of yours was asking. What were some of those questions?

Tim Staples

I think the key was the idea of authority of the Church and sola scriptura. Sola scriptura was a given for me.

Michael Horton

That's scripture alone.

Tim Staples

For those who might know the term, the belief that sacred Scripture, at least when we're talking about dogma, that is doctrines that are binding on the hearts and minds of Christians. The scripture is the sole rule of faith. That's something that I always just. It was a given for me. But my friend Matthew, just basically, he was a good Catholic guy. He knew his faith quite well, but he just started tossing out some ideas like where to the Bible come from? How do you know the Bible's inspired? And who says it's inspired? And who is the final arbiter of truth when, let's say we have a disagreement over 2 and 3 John, whether or not it's inspired or such, where do you go for answers? And he pointed to me verses of Scripture that seemed to indicate that the church has the final say rather than Scripture. And that was one of the keys for me. And then when I started to read in writings like Against Heresies by Saint Irenaeus, it's wonderful. I think you can deal with just about any heresy there is in those pages. But I started to see an appeal to tradition and then started to look into what exactly is this tradition that he's referring to and the authority of the bishops and in particular the Bishop of Rome.

Michael Horton

What is it about evangelicals, do you think that makes Roman Catholicism attractive?

Tim Staples

Well, I think just the chaos that seems to be characteristic of these churches. I mean, basically what you have in evangelicalism and fundamentalism is as many churches as there are people.

Michael Horton

The Church of Fred, Church of Fred

Kim Riddlebarger

number two, because they had a split.

Rod Rosenbladt

His second personality, beard issue, his church

Michael Horton

of fun, his alter ego started another church.

Tim Staples

But I think that's really the main thing that's getting so many evangelicals to think. And they end up going orthodox or going Catholic because they see. One of the things I saw, one of the first things I saw was the idea of apostolic succession. You know, the idea of going out and starting your own church is just absurd in the writings of the early Fathers. I mean, who in the world are you to go out and start your own church? I mean, that's absurd. And then when we start looking at some of these guys that are doing it nowadays. Not to pick on Brother Swagger, but I guess I'll pick on Brother Swagger. You know, this guy has an 8th grade education.

Michael Horton

Do you think that the view that you held as an evangelical of grace and justification was really clear and you abandoned that for Roman Catholicism? Or do you. Was that not one of the big issues?

Tim Staples

Justification by faith alone was huge. The authority of the church, I would say, was the biggest. But after that, I would say that justification.

Michael Horton

Why did that become a big issue for you?

Tim Staples

Well, how a person is saved and right relationship with God, I think, is central in Christianity, in the writings of the Fathers and so forth. So obviously for any Christian, this ought to be a central doctrine, and it's extremely important. I don't think it can be overemphasized

Michael Horton

Help us out here how you sort of came to understand justification differently.

Tim Staples

I joke with folks. You know, I've believed just about everything over the period of time that I was Protestant, I was Calvinist for about a month, and I ended up with a. I tended toward a more Arminian position. However, you know, I do see, and having studied and read men like St. Augustine and the fathers of the church, St. Thomas Aquinas, later on, a doctor of the church, I would say that from a Protestant perspective, the Arminian position is weak. I mean, in the tradition, I think there's no argument. Eventually you have to either go Calvinist or you have to go Catholic or with an orthodox understanding of justification. I think the folks in between are kind of confused. And when you really nail them down the issue of justification by faith alone, what does that mean? They end up saying, I believe in justification by faith alone. But then when you ask them, well, do you believe that you have to do works to be saved? Well, in some sort of way they're saying, yes, you do. So I would agree with you that there are very few Protestants, at least that I know outside of this room, that really understand the position of classic Protestantism. And at the same time, I would have to say there's not a whole lot of Catholics who know the true position of the Catholic Church as well. I mean, we do believe. I've said to my students, I teach seminars and apologetics classes and courses through St. Joseph Radio and at my parish as well. And I'll say things. Do you know that the Catholic Church teaches that we are justified by grace alone? Some will pick up stones and be ready because this. A Protestant hasn't fully converted yet to Catholics. So it's a huge issue today. Right now, I think this is an extremely important issue for me. I've read the end Quiridian that I have in front of me of St. Augustine and I've read Thomas Aquinas in the Summa. In fact, I was just reading him this morning on these issues. And at times things can really seem Calvinist. But in my own study I have found that both Augustine. Augustine's a little tougher, but with Aquinas as well as the other Fathers, there is a balance. Here we say that we're justified by grace alone. However, I think where we part company is, as St. Thomas points out in the prima segundae of the summon question 114, where he deals with the idea of grace, grace and that God is the first principle of all merit, so that man has nothing to boast about God is the first principle. However, he gives us that grace and then we have a real choice whether or not we're going to receive, accept that grace or reject that grace. I know there's a fine point there in as much as the Calvinists will say, well, we agree with you there, but the real difference is the idea of efficacy and sufficient grace. I think what's happened in Catholicism is at this point of departure where we say that man has to cooperate with God's grace. These are such fine points, but they blossom into huge disagreements.

Michael Horton

Yeah. You know, one of the things I know as we especially take a look at the Council of Trent that we as Lutheran and Reformed Christians notice is here we have grace being the moving thing here. This is not man moving himself as in Pelagianism, as is taught by a lot of evangelicals today.

Tim Staples

Exactly.

Michael Horton

This isn't man moving himself, it's grace moving man.

Tim Staples

I have to tell you that it's so nice for once not to be accused to be a Pelagian.

Kim Riddlebarger

Well, I. Semi Pelagian.

Michael Horton

Maybe now we can talk just to draw the line in the sand. Where our differences lie, I think is an important exercise as we read the New Testament and the Old Testament too. Grace peace is not something that is formed by us or even formed within us. It is God's favor toward us on account of Christ. So that justification is a once and for all forensic legal verdict. And it is not something that we attain, as the Council of Trent says, that we merit, that we actually merit our final justification. How can you hold the view that it is by grace alone and yet we merit our final justification in the light of Paul's remarks that if it's by grace, it is not by works. Otherwise grace is no longer grace.

Tim Staples

Well, I think there's a difference of belief here as to the nature of grace. Saint Paul also refers to eternal life as being one of the things that we would say we merit. In Romans chapter 2, verses 6 through 10, when Paul says that we will be judged according to our works, and one of the things that we receive as a result of our works according to those passages is eternal life. There in verse 9 or 10, I believe of Romans chapter 2, St. Thomas to refer to him as well as St. Augustine in Karidion talks about meriting, not only meriting eternal life for oneself, but Augustine right after giving us that great. I think he's accused of Calvinist discourse there in Coridian, he then talks about the idea of purgatory and meriting justice for one another. Which is.

Michael Horton

I'm sure he took that out in his retractions, of course.

Tim Staples

But anyway, we don't see that as a contradiction. In as much as God gives us the gift, the gift is absolutely free. So everything that he does so that we say in the Church that those who make it to heaven, it will be God crowning his own gifts that he gives. Nevertheless, somehow this is a mystery, to use a Catholic word there, somehow man's cooperation is involved. As far as Romans 11 that you referred to, not of works. I think the key is the context, from our perspective, where these people were teaching that it's great to believe in Jesus, but you also have to keep the Levitical law, keep the law of Moses in order to be saved. And Paul is saying, in essence that those who are trying to do that, you're working outside of the covenant. Whereas the works that justify that Paul had already talked about in Romans chapter two, are not the works of the Judaizers done apart from the covenant, but they are works done in him, with him, and through him, as he says in verse 36 of Romans 11, as we quote it in the Mass. In him, with him and through him. Those are the works that justify him.

Rod Rosenbladt

I'd like to go back to the question that we started with, and that is to talk more about what draws evangelicals to the Roman communion.

Tim Staples

Yeah.

Rod Rosenbladt

What is it about the Roman communion or Constantinople that draws today's evangelicals evangelical to it?

Tim Staples

Yeah, right, right. I think the idea of continuity in doctrine. I can recall when my Catholic friend. Now I met a very sharp Catholic fellow. In fact, I just did a conference with him this week, and I hadn't seen him in five years. It was great. And one of the things that he said to me, and he got me very angry because he was making sense to me. He took obscure passages and. And I remember Hebrews chapter 13. I think it's around six or seven there, where I've been Catholic too long, so I forget where these verses are. But there's the verse that talks about Jesus Christ being the same yesterday, today and forever. And he quotes that. I say, big deal. But he said right before that, in verse 6, he says that we are to submit ourselves 6 and 7 to the prelates who are over us in the Lord, considering the end of their conversation, which is Jesus Christ, who is of the Son, same yesterday, today and forever. Matt pointed out to me that biblically, it seems that the inspired authors are telling us that we should submit ourselves to the authorities over us in the Church, and that the church, everywhere in Scripture seems to be given this first Timothy 3:15. The church is the ground and pillar of the truth. These things were new to me. In fact, I remember telling him, that's not in the Bible. What does the Bible say? The church is the ground and pillar. And he showed me. I memorized half the New Testament, but not that one. And granted, there are evangelical responses to these things, but these were things that got me started. And when I investigated the evangelical responses, I didn't find them to be adequate. And I think this is what a lot of evangelicals are doing. They're seeing the place of the church in Scripture, and it seems that the church is pointing. The Bible is pointing to a church, and it's a church that we can submit to in view of the fact that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, which seems to imply that the church has the authority to speak for Christ infallibly. And I don't think that's a.

Kim Riddlebarger

We wouldn't make that leap.

Tim Staples

But just.

Kim Riddlebarger

You're right about the church being an important part in scripture that evangelicals haven't seen before.

Rod Rosenbladt

Yeah, maybe I'm thinking here more sociologically than theologically, but the ones that I've talked to who have gone to Rome, that's been part of the package, but it hasn't really been the major part of the package. Most of them, a lot of them that I've talked to, were yearning for something that didn't begin seven years ago.

Tim Staples

That's certainly part of it.

Rod Rosenbladt

A yearning for history. And today's American is so disconnected from anything historical. There's a yearning for, let's find our family genealogy, for heaven's sakes. Or I wonder if I'll ever be in a hotel that was built more than 20 years ago, that sort of thing. And Rome provides that.

Kim Riddlebarger

Well, one of the things that I think related to that, and I want your feedback on this, Tim, is the idea of transcendence. When you grow up in fundamentalism, you have the ugliest building imaginable, and you glory in the fact that the uglier it is, the cheaper it is, the more rundown it is, the more spiritual it is. You have Irma and her daughter, and they have the best of intentions, but they do the music every Sunday. Or in a good church, you have a praise team with Irma and her daughter and her two cousins.

Rod Rosenbladt

And if there is an organ, it's electronic electronics.

Kim Riddlebarger

But when you walk into a. A historical church that has a liturgy that points us to a God who's beyond ourselves. And I think that has a lot to do with evangelicals going to Rome. Am I right about that?

Tim Staples

Absolutely. I know what you're saying. I remember the first time I ever went to a Catholic church was when I was converting a young Catholic girl. And so this was when I was in the Marine Corps, and I went with her just to, okay, I'll go so to get her in my AG church. And I went and I looked and I saw as I walked in that church, it's like walking into another world. You know, there's something good about that. You know, when you go to church, you should be walking into another world. You should see things that lift you up to God.

Michael Horton

It didn't look like a corporate headquarters, Exactly.

Tim Staples

Right, right.

Rod Rosenbladt

Or a tennis club.

Tim Staples

Right. But for me, the first steps were not that. The first steps were theological.

Michael Horton

It wasn't just aesthetic, it wasn't theological.

Tim Staples

No. In fact, when I was first moved toward Catholicism, I thought of all that stuff as repugnant statues and the whole bit. And the idea of a historic Christian faith was not all that appealing.

Michael Horton

Rod, you had a concern or comment?

Rod Rosenbladt

Well, I was listening to one of Scott Hahn's presentations, and he was talking about some of the last stages of becoming Roman, and he brought up the issue of Mary. Now, he did not bring it up in the way in which it's usually done, in a kind of an uneducated way. He was talking more in a psychiatric vein and saying, I never imagined that the church could offer me a mother. And I discovered that the church did. Now, those of us who are living in contemporary America, where so many homes are broken, it's very common to hear today about fatherless homes, and that's a subject worthy of whole evenings. But specifically, I was remembering what Scott was saying about a mother, and I was thinking about this again in sort of psychiatric terms. If you have a psychotic mother or have never known a mother who nurtured in any way that you felt matched what you really needed, the church offers here in Mary an eternal mother. Is there anything to that, do you think, Tim?

Tim Staples

Sure. I remember going through that same process and those feelings. And I was actually, at the time, a student at jsbc, which you all know to be Jimmy Swaggart Bible College. But I remember that, and I remember it was Revelation, chapter 12, and the image there of the gune, the woman clothed with the sun, that traditionally the Church has referred to as being Mary first. And the church as well, is sort of a polyvalent understanding of that text. So it refers to both Mary as well as the Church in that we see this cosmic woman, Mary, who gives birth to spiritual children, not only to the Messiah in verse 3, but down in verse 17 that she continues to give birth. It says to all those who keep the testimony of Jesus Christ and keep his commandments. When I started to see that the Catholic claims that this is Mary and this is the Church, that she is our mother who gives birth to us in baptism, who nourishes us with the Eucharist and strengthens us with confirmation and heals us. There's beautiful images. I remember reading Father Eugene Boylan, a great book called this Tremendous Lover where he talks about if we fall, the young Jesus falling and nicking his knee, and Mary coming to heal that wounded knee. We too, as members of the body of Christ in a very real way have a mother that loves us. And when we fall, she comes to the rescue. And it's beautiful. To me, I started to see and this, this is speaking to the heart of one who had the understanding of church as negative church. The idea of church to me was an invisible mystical body that you can't really find anywhere in any sort of purity. As I grew theologically and started to understand and see the inner workings and get involved as a youth pastor and dealing with elders that, you know, you got two guys sitting on the podium. That one believes the Holy Spirit has a body as Brother Swaggart did and the Father has a body. You should see the looks on these guys faces in here right now.

Kim Riddlebarger

Finis Dake.

Tim Staples

Yeah, exactly. Oh yeah, I had a Dake study Bible. But what you start seeing, because there is no, there's no doctrine, there's nothing you can turn to, to really have an understanding of the truth here you start to get a negative view toward the church. And when you look. And when I looked and sought, I found more and more questions and pastors giving me different understandings and nervous about

Michael Horton

you even asking questions probably.

Tim Staples

Exactly. Yeah. What are you doing? Who cares what Augustine says? I remember asking my pastor. Great guy. Everybody seems to claim Augustine here. And I'm reading the Confessions and I'm reading things by him. Him. Was Augustine a good ag guy? What do we say here? Of course, Pastor. He had a good heart. He said, augustine who? What's his last name?

Kim Riddlebarger

Isn't there a city in Florida named for him?

Tim Staples

Yeah. So you develop a very negative view toward the church and you become a loner. You become of necessity trying to find. Okay, well then I guess I'm just going to have to plow this thing myself and I start to search. And what I found in the Fathers then was this idea of Church. Where St. Jerome, for example, St. Augustus. St. Jerome. I was just reading this morning in one of his letters talking about being in union. Now this gets into the Roman aspect, but when he talks about I want to be in union with none other than Jesus Christ, I may be butchering the actual quote there, but therefore I desire to be in union with you. That was Pope Damasus at the time, because I know that on this rock Christ has built his church. There was a confidence amongst the Fathers, certainly Jerome here as well as Augustine, that we go to the church and the church has answers. It was such a beautiful thing for me to see that there is a church like that. For me, it was the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church that had a sense of apostolic succession and connectedness that could really make that claim.

Rod Rosenbladt

Would you say then that one of the things that draws evangelicals to Rome is that aspect of the Church that you can be delivered from chaos, doubt and troubles, cognitive dissonance, because finally you have an institution that speaks fine, yes. Don't you think?

Tim Staples

Sure. And Rod, I'll add something to that. I remember in my own mind thinking, would God leave us in a situation where the mother of eight, after having diapered the last kid and done the last dish, and it's 10 o' clock at night and she's absolutely exhausted, is she to then get out her Greek and Hebrew lexicons and start to do exegesis to determine whether or not her pastor is teaching in union with the Council of Orange? There seems to be something very wrong with that. And the evangelicals are saying, in essence, without a church that's a mother that can teach us authoritatively something where we can have confidence that this is the truth. That's exactly where that mother of eight is left. And what I found is that Jesus gave us a church that you know in a dispute, as he says in Matthew 18:15, 17. Now we could talk about the disagreements there amongst, you know, the evangelical scholars will say, well, that's not really dealing with a doctrinal sort of thing. That's just if somebody, I had one fellow, I was debating a Calvary Chapel pastor, and he said in Matthew 18:15, 17, when Jesus says, if you have a dispute, go to your brother. If you can't settle it, you take two or three with you. If you can't sell it, you take it to the church. He says, that has nothing to do with a Theological dispute that's talking about something like if you get your car dented now, that's his quote.

Rod Rosenbladt

We'll grant you the other. You needn't, you needn't plumb this to the depths.

Tim Staples

So, I mean, I said, my gosh, I believe in context. Jesus in Matthew 18 is talking about, you know, if you lead one of the little ones astray, it's better to tie a stone around your neck and be cast into the sea. He's not talking about denning cars here. He's talking about serious issues where our eternal life perhaps is on the line here. That's the context of Matthew 18. And the final say seems to be with the church. And there when I started to see that historically this is what you find in the Fathers, you find a very high view of the church and that the church is the arbiter, in fact, I would suggest of the truth. And the Church loves us and cares for us and nurtures us. I think we were talking at the break about the idea that the church is our mother in the sense that we're baptized as an infant. She brings us into life with Christ and she nurtures us with the Eucharist and strengthens us with confirmation. And she's there through our whole life until the last sacrament when we're dying. It's a beautiful thing and it's extremely attractive to one who through experience has a very negative view of church. And in fact, church is to be distrusted. And let's test all things and hold fast which is true. Which is 1 Thessalonians 5:21. Good. But does that mean then that you, you or you, Rod, I mean, you're it. I mean, you're the arbiter of all truth and there's no church authority. I mean, how far do we take verses like that? And that seems to be where you're

Michael Horton

left, I guess, to sort of put this in context for us to respond a little bit. Wouldn't you guys. I'm looking over to Rod and Kim. Wouldn't you guys say that basically we're talking about three perspectives here, that evangelicalism does really represent an unchurchly spirit.

Tim Staples

Yeah, I agree with that.

Rod Rosenbladt

Trelch is. Yeah, it is Trelch, the sectarian sort. Granted, it's a sociological analysis and a little trivial at times, but yes, we're talking about the sect type church there. And it is the most common type of church in America.

Michael Horton

For instance, I think for myself growing up in evangelicalism, I. I have almost identical criticisms and the same frustrations propelled me into the Reformation.

Kim Riddlebarger

That's why I'm very sympathetic to your story, because with you, Mike, mine's very, very similar. I found different answers, Tim, than you did. But I'm fascinated because many of those same reasons are why I'm no longer an evangelical.

Michael Horton

Yeah, it really. I mean, we have creeds, confessions. We're bound to the same creeds you are, but we have confessions and catechism. Catechisms. I guess what distinguishes us when we're talking here about the church is we've already seen what the difference is on the Gospel. But when we're talking about the church, I suppose one of the main differences is you seem to be describing the church in the traditional Roman Catholic way, as if the Church were the magisterium and we would discuss the church. Church as the people of God, the whole body of Christ. And that's why we come together confessionally and communally, to understand the Word. So I can't. You're right, I can't come up, sit down, open up my Bible and come up with the Holy Spirit with a body. Why? Because my brothers and sisters haven't seen that anywhere in the Bible for 2000 years, so. But I can question my brothers and sisters because the Bible is still open. There's a sense that the whole church has to be in agreement here. That I think is a little bit closer in one sense to what you're talking about than to a lot of the evangelical sectarianism. Sectarianism.

Rod Rosenbladt

When we have confessions and creeds the way we have, there's a certain way in which aberrant pastors even are under the gun in a confessional church, or should be. Or should be. But they probably make them all the Confessions, because the Confessions define it. We define our exegesis of key passages, and it's public and it's on record and it's written. And when you sign ex cordae to those confessions, you're saying, I think this is sound exegesis, and is the faith once delivered to the saints. So Reformation people don't have that kind of atomism you find in the American evangelical.

Tim Staples

What happens now? Augsburg or Westminster?

Michael Horton

Augsburg.

Tim Staples

Augsburg, Belgic. Okay. What happens in your churches when someone disagrees with the confession? A point of the confession. How is it handled?

Rod Rosenbladt

Well, a layman, If a layman does. If a pastor does, we're going to go to those confessions and go to those passages. If he cannot sign those in good conscience, he ought not be a pastor of that church.

Tim Staples

Right. So then he goes, we have what's

Kim Riddlebarger

called A form subscription where. And you agree to, in public and in private, defend the three forms of unity in your teaching and things that you say off the cuff to your fellows. And if you have any disagreement with the Confessions, there's an aggrievance procedure spelled out that you're to follow and to not follow that is to come into Church discipline.

Michael Horton

It's not the greatest career in the world to live by lying, but a lot of our churchmen do it.

Tim Staples

Right? Of course. There are no Catholics that do that. Oh my God.

Kim Riddlebarger

It's a frightening thought.

Tim Staples

Yeah, it is. It is. But again, I guess the problem I would have with that system is that it seems to me, without someone to have a final say, it seems to me eventually you're going to have schism after schism. I mean, you got the Augsburg and the Westminster and then you have the splits off of them. Is there any one that has the final say or any church body? Or is it rather like you say, it's the whole body of Christ that makes these decisions? That seemed to me not to make sense because in Matthew 18, for example, we have the two or three disagreeing with each other and they seem to be going to some sort of authority that has the authority to speak for Christ. Now you're saying that here, it's the Augsburg Confession.

Rod Rosenbladt

Yes. As far back as we can go, we are not going to go to church in the way that the Roman goes to church. Finally, we are going to go to written confession. We are going to go to written words that define what we think the biblical faith is in detail. And the fellow is going to be asked yea or nay, because we believe

Michael Horton

that the Word gives birth to the Church, not vice versa. So we go to the Church to hear the Word. And if we are convinced that any particular church is not preaching the world Word, clearly showing us our need for redemption in Christ and showing Christ as the only one who fulfilled the law. For us, if that isn't clearly proclaimed, we don't believe that there is a Church because the Word is what defines and creates and sustains the Church.

Tim Staples

Right. So I guess then our basic disagreement is for us, we believe there is a Church that speaks for Christ. So that if I go to the Church, let's say the documents of Vatican ii, and I say, well, which we don't have this problem either. Today the Church decrees, we bequeathed a lot of that to you.

Rod Rosenbladt

You can thank us later.

Tim Staples

The Church decrees this. It's not a matter of me or any group of Catholics being able to say well, we believe that's a departure from the tradition, from the historic Catholic faith, which some have done, unfortunately.

Michael Horton

We've been talking to Tim Staples, director of apologetics for the St. Joseph Catholic Radio and also on staff at St. Justin Martyrs Roman Catholic Parish in Anaheim, California. And I think after the interview, we can attest to the fact he is an all around good guy. Tim, we really appreciated you taking the time to be with us.

Tim Staples

It's been my pleasure. Great.

Michael Horton

Kim and Rod, first of all, one of the things that sort of stood out from the conversation as far as I'm concerned, is how many. With all of our differences, how many things we share in common. And then you keep remembering. Yeah, but the things that we differ on, there may be one or two that are outstanding, and those one or two happen to be whether the gospel and whether the church really exists. Right. Are chasms.

Kim Riddlebarger

The ones where we disagree are chasms. But I sure empathize with Tim. I've had many of the same questions, and I know many people who are in evangelicalism now are dealing with the same issues. What do we do? The history of the Church, what do we do when we read the Church Fathers? And they're markedly different than much of evangelical practice today. There's a whole question about how much we want to appeal to the Church Fathers. And you can find Church fathers saying anything about everything, by and large. But what's the continuity with the saints that have gone before you?

Michael Horton

Yeah. If you have some kind of continuity with that heritage, you're going to be wiser when you come and reflect on the text of Scripture. And yet, at the same time time, there are very, very, very old heresies that have tried to interpret the Bible wrongly. Of course, Luther and Calvin really believed that they were recovering the best of the ancient church, but they were even bringing that to the bar of Scripture.

Rod Rosenbladt

Exactly. You'll read in our Confessions and here, even the great Augustine erred when he wrote such and such, because the apostle wrote so. Even the Fathers were read through the text, the text of the Scripture. And that's definitely worth noting.

Michael Horton

The other issue, I think, that came out that leaves us with our greatest chasm, and is the central chasm is justification by grace alone, through faith alone. No matter how much a Roman Catholic tries to argue the Augustinian line, as he did so well, that salvation is by grace alone, they cannot. They cannot get away from saying, as they're forced to say by an infallible Church, that we are justified by grace, enabling us to really be justified by merit.

Rod Rosenbladt

Yeah. Now here, our evangelical and Protestant listeners should take note. It is wonderful to know many passages of the English Bible that contain the word grace. It is incumbent on us to do it. But here in this conversation, you've got go a little bit further and say, what do we mean by the word? Yep.

Michael Horton

Yeah. And as Tim said, you know, we do have a different view of grace here. The Roman Catholic view of grace is that it's something put into us to energize us and we have to cooperate.

Rod Rosenbladt

It's medicinal. And the classic Protestants use the Latin phrase that grace is the favor DEI propter Christum, the favor of God on account of Christ. He is gracious to save sinners because of what he's accomplished in the cross. It's God's graciousness, his unbelievable benevolence that saves folks.

Michael Horton

I'll tell you, if the doctrine of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, and the Scriptures alone are not central in your preaching and teaching, in the diet that you get at your church, really, you're not losing anything by joining Rome. And we hope that you don't take that option. We hope that you would instead investigate the claims of historic evangelical Christianity, that you would pick up a book, say Martin Luther's commentary on Galatians or John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. Just take a look at these. They're rich with scripture and be like the Bereans, not just looking to what the church says or to what the Reformers say, but testing everything by the word of God. We'll be back next week on the White Horse Inn. The White Horse Inn is a listener supported broadcast. For more information about supporting our efforts, give us a call at 1-800-890-7556.

Tim Staples

That's 1-800-890- 7556.

Michael Horton

You can also visit us online at

Tim Staples

WhiteHorsesIn.org that's WhiteHorseIn.org thanks for listening to

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