- Project 18:15
- Posts
- Saturday, June 22, 2024
Saturday, June 22, 2024
Catholics Worship Mary, Law Amendment Fails, and Paradise Moves
It's Saturday, June 22, 2024.
Today’s edition covers videos of Catholics “venerating” Mary, the Southern Baptist decision on women pastors, the Council of Ferrara-Florence, whether Christians go to “hell,” and much more.
“A scoffer seeks wisdom in vain, but knowledge is easy for a man of understanding.” (Proverbs 14:6)
Of Christian Concern
EVANGELICAL WATCHDOG MINISTRY CATALOGUES VIDEOS OF CATHOLIC DEVOTION TO MARY, WHICH LOOKS AN AWFUL LOT LIKE WORSHIP
Screenshots from videos of Catholics “venerating” Mary. (Protestia / X)
In what seems to be an online trend in recent months of renewed criticisms against Catholicism leveled by Protestants (and perhaps vice versa), the evangelical watchdog ministry Protestia shares several video clips showing Catholics venerating (or, as Protestants would argue, worshipping) Mary.
In one clip, a group of youth or young adults dressed in modern attire stand or sit around a statue of Mary singing a contemporary-sounding song in Portuguese, which translates in part to “Where my Mother is, I also want to be.” Protestia comments, “Hands raised, eyes closed, arms swaying, singing passionately. Take away the statue (and all the lyrics about Mary) and what does this look and sound like?”
Another clip shows a similar scene on the streets of what looks like Times Square, with onscreen text that translates as, “Through the heart of the virgin Mary, God teach me to be holy.”
A third clip shows a teenage girl, apparently in a worship service, holding the hands of a statue (almost like a large doll) of Mary and apparently laughing for joy while looking into the statue’s face. For a moment, she bows her head and touches her forehead to the statue’s abdomen. Portuguese text onscreen is a quote from São Luís Grignion de Montfort that translates as, "Being your devotee, O Most Holy Virgin, is a weapon of salvation that God gives to those he wants to save."
In a video from the same or a similar event, a series of cuts shows the statue of Mary being slowly carried around a room of worshiping teenagers who apparently relish the touch of the idol.
Other clips show Roman Catholics…
parading in the streets during the festival of Varia di Palmi (in Italy) during a reenactment of the supposed assumption of Mary (clip)
“basking in the train of Mary's robes/ veil during a church service at a basilica in São Paulo” (clip)
being covered (symbolically bound together) by Mary’s veil in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Montesanto (clip)
Responding to this last clip, Pastor James White of Apologia Church weighs in:
“I don't know how Protestia finds this kind of stuff.
“Hopefully most of you have noticed that no matter how obviously idolatrous these videos are, no matter how clear it is that the Apostles never even DREAMED of such things, there will be those who will defend it with a level of sophistry that boggles the mind.
“Theologically, we must realize that only the work of the Spirit can focus the mind upon God's truth, upon the centrality and the sufficiency of Jesus.”
Also Noteworthy
Image from Jack L. Richardson IV’s article responding to the Southern Baptist Convention’s decision on the Law Amendment. (Bluegrass Chronicles)
→ Louisiana passes a law requiring all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments.
→ Longtime Texas megachurch pastor Robert Morris resigns after allegations that he sexually abused a girl from age 12 to 16 in the 1980s.
→ The Law Amendment, an effort in the Southern Baptist Convention (the largest denomination in the United States) to permanently prohibit women from being pastors, narrowly failed. Only 61 percent of church representatives voted in favor of the measure (with 66.66 percent needed for the amendment to pass).
For a critical response to this decision, see attorney Jack L. Richardson IV’s article “What Is A Pastor?”
→ “Pride month” support is noticeably subdued in the retail world this year, suggesting last year’s boycotts against brands like Bud Light and Target for their LGBTQ+ advertising and merchandising were effective.
→ Around the world, by the numbers:
Content Catch-Up
Recent, notable content of Christian interest.*
Cover image of Ben Shapiro’s recent interview with John MacArthur. (Screenshot: Ben Shapiro / YouTube)
→ The Religious Decline of the West: Conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro interviews Pastor John MacArthur on, among other things, “the decline of religious life in the West and the degradation of biblical teachings in American churches.” (Video)
→ Are You A Christian Nationalist?: In a now-dated interview that was previously behind a paywall, Pastor Douglas Wilson quizzes Pastor Voddie Baucham on current cultural and political issues, including Christian Nationalism. (Video)
→ Has the Bible Been Corrupted?: Brandon McGuire of Daily Dose of Wisdom presents a clip in which Dr. Daniel Wallace succinctly debunks myths about the transmission and textual variants of the Bible’s manuscripts. (Video)
*Not necessarily an endorsement
Church History Tidbit
Ferrara-Florence and the Filioque (Say that Five Times Fast)
A 1493 woodcut from the Nuremberg Chronicle representing the Synod of Florence. (Public Domain)
The Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438–1445), a significant ecumenical council, was a continuation of the Council of Basel. Its primary objective was to bridge the gap between the Latin church in the west (Roman Catholicism) and the Greek church in the east (Greek Orthodoxy), which had been separated since 1054. The council, initially held in Ferrara, was later relocated to Florence due to a local plague, hence its name. The council’s agenda included resolving the conflict over Rome’s teachings on “the Filioque,” “purgatory, the Eucharist, and papal primacy.”
What’s the Filioque? It’s the Latin phrase “and the Son,” which the Western church added to the Nicene Creed to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son. This teaching was the primary cause for the east-west split in the first place because the Eastern church believed (then as now) that adding the term brought an imbalance of power into the Godhead, which was an assault on the Holy Spirit’s deity. (Notice: Scripture clearly teaches both truths—that the Holy Spirit is God [e.g., lying to the Holy Spirit is lying to God (Acts 5:3-4)] and that both the Father and the Son send the Spirit [cf. John 14:26 and 15:26].)
In the Council of Ferrara-Florence, the Greek church leaders signed a decree of union on July 6, 1439—two weeks shy of exactly 585 years ago—agreeing to adopt Rome’s statements on the aforementioned issues. When they returned home, however, many Greeks “repudiated the reunion,” and it did not last.
The Bible, Briefly
Do Believers Go To “Hell”?
The Penitent Thief on the Cross by Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528). (Public Domain)
Last week, we examined the four words in the Bible translated as “hell.” Two of those words—Hades and Sheol—refer to the place of the dead, which, we observed, has both a good side and a bad side. That raises a question: if Hades/Sheol is the place of the dead, with both a good and a bad side, does that mean believers who die go there?
To begin with, notice that in the Hebrew scriptures (the Old Testament), it is assumed that everyone—godly and ungodly alike—goes to Sheol:
Jacob said, “I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning” (Genesis 37:35) and “you would bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol” (42:38)
Job said, “Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath be past…” (Job 14:13)
David wrote, “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption” (Psalm 16:10)
Jonah prayed, “Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice” (Jonah 2:2)
So, it was assumed that everyone who died would go to the place of the dead. A person’s right relationship with God did not exempt him. Is that still true? This question can be answered by a careful look at what Scripture says happened after Jesus died. Pastor Doug Wilson of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, explains:
Paradise In Hades
“Jesus tells us that as Jonah was in the fish three days and three nights, so the Son of Man, He says, will be three days and three nights in the heart of the Earth [Matthew 12:40]. So, Jesus says where he's going to be.… But He tells the thief on the cross, ‘Today you'll be with me in paradise’…” (Luke 23:43).
So, if Jesus was going to be in the heart of the earth for three days, but the thief on the cross would be with Him in paradise that very day, then (by logical deduction) “paradise” must have been someplace in the heart of the earth. This “paradise,” Wilson concludes, must have been the good side of Hades—called Abraham’s bosom (or side) in Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-30).
To add to that, we might observe that after Jesus was resurrected, when He appeared to Mary near His empty tomb, He said, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father” (John 20:17). In other words, He hadn’t returned to heaven yet. He’d been dead for three days, but not in heaven. Where had He been? “In the heart of the earth”—in Hades.
Side note: the biblical testimony is that the place of the dead (Hades/Sheol) is in the earth’s center. Not only does Jesus affirm that in the statement above about Jonah, but it’s also indicated or implied in passages like Numbers 16:30-33, which records how the ground opened beneath a group of rebellious Israelites and they “went down alive into Sheol” (16:33).
Preaching In Hades
So, what was Jesus doing in Hades for three days? Peter writes that after Jesus was put to death, “he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared” (1 Peter 3:19–20).
So, while in Hades, Jesus spent at least some of His time announcing His victory to the spirits of the wicked people from Noah’s time. The word for “proclaimed” here, Wilson points out, “is kerusso, not euangelio.” That means Jesus was not preaching in the sense that His hearers would have an opportunity to repent (they had had that opportunity during their lifetime and rejected it); instead, He was announcing their final defeat.
Paradise Moved
In Ephesians 4:8, Paul quotes Psalm 68:18 to say, “When [Christ] ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” The Bible answer site GotQuestions explains one interpretation of this: “It may be that Paul uses the phrase led captivity captive [or “led a host of captives”] to refer to those who had died before and who awaited Jesus’ sacrifice for the forgiveness of their sin to have access to heaven. If that is Paul’s meaning, then, after Jesus descended to the grave (Sheol), Jesus would have led those who had been in captivity to death into the promised freedom of life with God.”
If that’s what happened, then there was a mass migration of the spirits of pre-Christian saints from Hades to heaven at that time. Indeed, the next occurrence in the Bible of the word “paradise,” after Jesus’ conversation with the thief on the cross, is when Paul uses it interchangeably with “the third heaven” (2 Corinthians 12:2-3).
“So,” Wilson summarizes, “I believe that Jesus died on the cross, descended into Hades, announced their final defeat to the spirits who were in Hades, then rose from the dead, led captivity captive, ascended into heaven, and gave gifts to men—such that, by the time of Paul, Paul was caught up into paradise. So, Jesus locates paradise in the heart of the earth, but by the time of Paul, paradise is associated with the third heaven.”
To conclude, we know from Scripture that, for the Christian, to “be away from the body” is to be “home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8), that is, with Jesus. Where is Jesus? He is “seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1), to which He ascended forty days after His resurrection (Acts 1:3-9). So, while believers before Christ’s resurrection went down to Sheol like the rest of humankind, believers after Christ’s resurrection go to heaven.
What did you think of today’s briefing?
Know someone who would enjoy this?Please SHARE this newsletter
Have some feedback for me? Reply to this email with comments or suggestions. I’d love to hear from you!
Why "18:15"? The name Project 18:15 is based on Proverbs 18:15: “An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.” The aim is for this weekly email—a Christian news briefing, a Bible study, and a Church history lesson rolled into one—to be one way you keep abreast of current events and acquire knowledge you might not acquire elsewhere.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Copyright (C) " target="_blank">unsubscribe.
Reply