I am a former Roman Catholic whom God in His infinite mercy delivered me from that evil organization, which has placed it’s own—never changed—anathema upon the very Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Do you seriously think that God merely winks at that? Do you seriously think He sees the brutal murders of His children during the Protestant Reformation as only oopsies on the part of Rome?

Sadly, the Christian community is awash right now with spiritual sissies who seem to have some new Missional Bible translation called Anything Goes Evangelicalism: How To Make The World Love You where Acts 15:1-2 has been reimagined:

Some inovative church planters came down from Judea and started teaching the Lord’s followers that they could not be saved, unless they were circumcised as Moses had taught. This caused lead apostle Paul and his missiologist bro Barnabas to include them in the next Extreme Passion conference so they could share how they had contextualized the gospel.

So it was decided to send Paul and Barnabas and a few others to Jerusalem to have a missions conference with the apostles and the church leaders there to teach them how the missional church planters were engaging the Jewish culture and bringing the church back to her Jewishness.

Well, Apprising Ministries believes you should know that for an alarming number of high profile evangelicals, e.g. Southern Baptists like Rick Warren and Beth Moore, the Roman Catholic Church has now become just another Christian denomination. The documentation of Warren’s sinful ecumenicism is clear here in Rick Warren And Teachings Of Demons.

Beth Moore goes even further as you’ll see in SBC’S Beth Moore Merely Pretending To Be Protestant, which contains the video clip below and the transcription to follow:

Transcription: “… to beg to differ with people that are ten times smarter than I am. But I want to say to you I see something different than that. I see God doing something huge in the body of Christ. I do not know why I have had the privilege to get to travel around, see one church after another…one group of believers after another, interdenominationally, all over this country, but I have gotten to see something that I think is huge.

And I’ll also suggest to you I am not the only one. And tonight I’m going to do my absolute best to illustrate to you something that God showed me out on that back porch. He put a picture…I’ve explained to you before I am a very visual person…so He speaks to me very often of putting a picture in my head.

And it was as if I was raised up looking down on a community, as I saw the church in that particular dimension– certainly not all dimensions, not even in many, but in what we will discuss tonight, the church, as Jesus sees it, in a particular dimension.” (Online source)

As I said before, I happen to have the series this is taken from. It comes from her 2002 series Believing God (BG), which as you can see below is still promoted by Lifeway, the publishing arm for the Southern baptist Convention:

(Online source)

Being that this LifeWay-sponsored BG Online Bible Study is from 10 years ago, we are safe to assume that the SBC doesn’t feel that what you hear from Beth Moore is out of line with this evangelical Protestant denomination. O yes we know, Moore is virtually hyper-charismatic while claiming that she’s receiving direct personal revelations from God and considers the apostate Roman Catholic Church merely a Christian denomination; but at least she’s not a Calvinist. The SBC can’t have that don’t you know…

The main point being, I know for a fact this wasn’t taken out of context. To anyone but the Moore-ites blinded by devotion to Beth the following is crystal clear: 1) Moore is speaking of the universal Church, i.e. the Body of Christ; 2) she’s claiming extra-biblical revelation via a literal vision God showed her, and 3) it enabled her to see the Church “as Jesus sees it.” There’s simply no way around this, period.

Here I draw to your attention that we’re experiencing much postmoden revisionist history going on today. This is then compounded by the evil impact of the neo-liberal cult within the Emerging Church aka the Emergent Church, as well as with largely pretending to be “Protestant” evangelicalism beginning its sordid lust affair with Roman Catholic mystics and their Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM).

CSM is producing a sappy sentimentalism trying to pass for the genuine and robust Christian faith. This article is designed to bring you some historical fact to cut through this postmodern fog. For example, following is the position of Church Reformer John Calvin who said of the Roman Catholic Church:

[F]alsehood prevails under the Papacy. Hence the Papacy is not a Church… There, instead of the ministry of the word, prevails a perverted government, compounded of lies, a government which partly extinguishes, partly suppresses, the pure light. In place of the Lord’s Supper, the foulest sacrilege has entered, the worship of God is deformed by a varied mass of intolerable superstitions; doctrine (without which Christianity exists not) is wholly buried and exploded, the public assemblies are schools of idolatry and impiety…

Therefore while we are unwilling simply to concede the name of Church to the Papists we do not deny that there are churches among them. The question we raise only relates to the true and legitimate constitution of the Church, implying communion in sacred rites, which are the signs of profession, and especially in doctrine. Daniel and Paul foretold that Antichrist would sit in the temple of God, (Dan. 9: 27; 2Th 2: 4); we regard the Roman Pontiff as the leader and standard-bearer of that wicked and abominable kingdom.

By placing his seat in the temple of God, it is intimated that his kingdom would not be such as to destroy the name either of Christ or of his Church. Hence, then, it is obvious, that we do not at all deny that churches remain under his tyranny; churches, however, by sacrilegious impiety he has profaned, by cruel domination has oppressed, by evil and deadly doctrines like poisoned potions has corrupted and almost slain; churches where Christ lies half-buried, the gospel is suppressed, piety is put to flight, and the worship of God almost abolished; where, in short, all things are in such disorder as to present the appearance of Babylon rather than the holy city of God.

In one word, I call them churches, inasmuch as the Lord there wondrously preserves some remains of his people, though miserably torn and scattered, and inasmuch as some symbols of the Church still remain – symbols especially whose efficacy neither the craft of the devil nor human depravity can destroy. But as, on the other hand, those marks to which we ought especially to have respect in this discussion are effaced, I say that the whole body, as well as every single assembly, want the form of a legitimate Church.[1]

It’s also beyond question that Martin Luther himself considered Roman Catholicism apostate. And…um, I’m actually being quite kind to put it that way. Here’s a small sample of what Luther said about the Church of Rome:

Since the papal church not only neglects the command of Christ but even compels the people to ignore it and to act against it, it is certain that it is not Christ’s church but the synagogue of Satan which prescribes sin and prohibits righteousness. It clearly and indisputably follows that it must be the abomination of Antichrist and the furious harlot of the devil.[2]

What kind of a church is the pope’s church? It is an uncertain, vacillating and tottering church. Indeed, it is a deceitful, lying church, doubting and unbelieving, without God’s Word. For the pope with his wrong keys teaches his church to doubt and to be uncertain. If it is a vacillating church, then it is not the church of faith, for the latter is founded upon a rock, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it (Matt.16:18). If it is not the church of faith, then it is not the Christian church, but it must be an unchristian, anti-Christian, and faithless church which destroys and ruins the real, holy, Christian church.[3]

You can read more of what Martin Luther had to say about the Church of Rome in Martin Luther With The Reformation View Of The Roman Catholic Church. And in contradistinction to the nauseatingly narcissistic preaching in too much of the Christian Church today consider the following from John MacArthur:

It is interesting to speculate what the church would be like today if Martin Luther had been prone to compromise. The pressure was heavy on him to tone down his teaching, soften his message, stop poking his finger in the eye of the papacy. Even many of his friends and supporters urged Luther to come to terms with Rome for the sake of harmony in the church. Luther himself prayed earnestly that the effect of his teaching would not be divisive.

When he nailed his 95 Theses to the door, the last thing he wanted to do was split the church.

Yet sometimes division is fitting, even healthy, for the church. Especially in times like Luther’s—and like ours—when the visible church seems full of counterfeit Christians, it is right for the true people of God to declare themselves. Compromise is sometimes a worse evil than division… (Online source)

Allow me to remind you of something Rick Warren, arguably the King of Compromise, said not too long ago in an article at Pastors.com, which has since vanished from there. However, I give it to you via Warren’s Christian Post piece The Five Stages of Renewal in the Local Church. Prophet Warren proclaimed:

A great spiritual awakening is on the horizon… Exciting days are ahead of us!…

I believe God is preparing the church for another reformation. The first reformation focused on what the church believed; this one will focus on what it does.

For too long we’ve separated the Word of God from the work of God. As the church, we’re called to be the body of Christ – the whole body. (Online source)

Then in Rick Warren Reversing the Reformation (RWRR) I showed you that he has also made his own personal position quite clear concerning the apostate Roman Catholic Church, “The small group structure is the structure of renewal in every facet of Christianity — including Catholicism.”[4] But in RWRR you’ll also read that at the same time out of the other side of his mouth Warren is telling us, “the First Reformation, begun by Martin Luther, was about the creeds (doctrine). Our doctrines were established by the First Reformation.”

Now, the question we need to ask here is: Which Rick Warren are we to believe? The one who says the Church of Rome with their false gospel is part of the Body of Christ; or should we instead listen to the Rick Warren who tells us, “Our doctrines were established by the First Reformation.” These statements are actually diametrically opposed; because as you’ve just seen, Reformers like Calvin and Luther most clearly called the Roman Catholic Church apostate (and worse). So Biblically we would really have to refer to Warren as being double-minded when it comes to the Church of Rome.

We cannot forget that the heart of the Protestant Reformation involves the very Gospel of Jesus Christ itself, which Warren—as a pastor who would be sent by the Lord—is supposed to preach publicly, not just privately affirm while meeting with his critics. The doctrine of salvation is no minor issue; and Warren also happens to be a pastor within the Southern Baptist Convention, which is still—at least for now—reputed to be a Protestant denomination. Further Warren has also even claimed he is a “Kuyper-Calvinist.”

With this in mind then, in his article History of the Doctrine of Justification Dr. John Gerstner begins by reminding us:

“The doctrine by which the church stands or falls.” So said Martin Luther about justification by faith alone. John Calvin agreed, calling justification by faith the “hinge” of the Reformation.

Dr. Gerstner then correctly informs us:

It was not until the Council of Trent (1545-1563) that justification was officially confirmed as a process based on human merit derived through divine grace. This was the article in Session VI, Canon 7 of the Council of Trent which led the Roman Catholic Church away from the orthodox teaching on justification. (Online source)

The doctrine of justification speaks to what happens because Christ Jesus rescues all sinners who will believe from death and hell. Let me give you a little working knowledge as we get set to wrap up this message. Here is a good brief definition for what the historic orthodox Christian Church means by justification. Dr. Charles Hodge (1797-1878), esteemed professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary before the Cult of Liberal Theology swallowed it whole, writes:

Justification is defined in the Westminster Catechism, “An act of God’s free grace, wherein He pardoned all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.”[2]

As simply as it can be stated—the Bible teaches that justification happens the nanosecond a human being by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, truly places his complete trust in the finished work on the Cross of Christ alone. And it is the act whereby God, as the righteous Judge, declares a guilty sinner instantaneously absolved of his sins by crediting the merit of perfect life of Jesus Christ of Nazareth to the believer.

But this proper Biblical Gospel preached by Christ’s Apostles is quite literally cursed by the Roman Catholic Church. As our expert witness, here I’ll call in Dr. Ron Rhodes; he even praises Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, and therefore could hardly be considered a hostile one. In his book Reasoning from the Scriptures with Catholics Dr. Rhodes tells us, “One of the greater challenges in engaging in discussions with Roman Catholics involves the issue of salvation.”

He then goes on to explain, “Certainly Catholics deny that their Church teaches a works salvation.” Now, leaving aside whatever diifferences we may have with Rhodes, it should now be clear that he believes the Roman Catholic Church preaches another gospel, just the same as did Luther and Calvin of the Protestant Reformation. And that would be the very same Reformation where Warren told us earlier our “doctrines were established.”

We now point out that even though he is supposedly a “Protestant” pastor, by embracing apostate Roman Catholicism as a viable Christian expression, Rick Warren is thereby saying that Calvin and Luther were in fact wrong. This is the critical issue that people don’t seem to understand: If the Roman Catholic Church is now to be considered as merely another Christian denomination then the Protestant Reformation was not of God; it was wrong, and should never have happened.

Rhodes continues:

[Roman Catholics] will talk about how their salvation is impossible apart from the grace of God. But though things start out by grace in the Roman Catholic system of salvation,…works do indeed get mixed into the picture. By virtue of the fact that a life of meritorious works is necessary to gain final salvation, it is clear that in reality the Roman Catholic view of salvation is works-oriented.[6]

And this is exactly what Reformers like Calvin and Luther correctly rejected as a false gospel by appealing to the Bible as their final authority when their “doctrines were established” through the leading of God the Holy Spirit; because He inspired our Scriptures. Dr. R. C. Sproul now puts all of this into perspective for us on The John Ankerberg Show, which concerned the Evangelicals And Catholics Together document:

the Catholic Church understood in the 16th century, and Trent and Rome placed its unambiguous anathema on the Protestant doctrine of “Justification by faith alone” and has never, in any magisterial sense removed that anathema. The Roman Catholic Church condemns “sola fide! (L.)” Now if, please understand this, if “sola fide (L.)” is the gospel, then the Roman Catholic Church has condemned the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, nobody who went to the Council of Trent, as a delegate, went there with the intention of condemning the gospel.

The theologians of Rome really believed that they were defending the gospel and that the Protestants had in fact committed apostasy. And I admire the Church, the Roman communion of the 16th century for at least understanding what apparently people don’t understand today, and that is what is at stake here. That they understood that somebody is under the anathema of God! And we can be as nice, and as pleasant, and as gentle, and as loving, and as charitable, and tolerant as we can possibly be, but it’s not going to change that folks. Somebody is preaching a different gospel!

And when Rome condemned the Protestant declaration of “Justification by faith alone” I believe, Rome, when placing the anathema on “sola fide (L.),” placed the anathema of God upon themselves. I agree with his [John MacArthur] assessment, that the institution [Roman Catholic Church] is apostate! (Online source)

So now I will ask the key question yet again: How is it that some of the most powerful and prominent teachers in the Southern Baptist Convention—ostensibly the largest Protestant denomination in America—flatly contradict the doctrine of the Reformation, which they also say they believe in, and no SBC leader has stepped forward to call them to account for their sinful ecumenicism?

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End notes:

[1] John Calvin (2010-06-21T04:00:00+00:00). Institutes of the Christian Religion (Kindle Location 19919, 19922-19925, 20106-20118). Kindle Edition.

[2] Ewald M. Plass, What Luther Says [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing, 2006], 1019)

[3] Martin Luther, Conrad Bergendoff, ed., Luther’s Works [Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1958], Vol. 40, Church and Ministry II, The Keys, 348.

[4] http://thinkexist.com/quotes/rick_warren/3.html, accessed 1/05/2012.

[5] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. III [Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008], 114.

[6] Ron Rhodes, Reasoning from the Scriptures with Catholics [Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 2000] , 121.

See also:

THE PUSH FOR A ROMAN CATHOLIC DENOMINATION AND THE SBC’S RUSSELL MOORE

CHARLES SPURGEON: THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IS THE MASTERPIECE OF SATAN AND THE QUEEN OF INIQUITY

LET’S LOOK AT THE GOSPEL