It would be much more accurate to say, as Calvin does in the Institutes, that arising from under the all-seeing eye of the office of Pope, there had been voices who slowly began to catch visions of the arising theology that would blossom into the Reformation. These voices were not arising because of Romanism, but despite it. Rome was burning Protestant thinkers hundreds of years before term came into use.

In a recent article by Derrick Brite in Reformation 21   “William Perkins on Keeping It Catholic,” he calls for the adoption of what some are calling Reformed Catholicity. For hundreds of years this was an oxymoron. But a bold new world is being revived: “Those who adopt the term for themselves wish to retrieve the best of the catholic tradition, or perhaps seek to confess doctrinal truths with the Great Tradition.”
As someone who was brought to faith in Christ from deep within Roman Catholicism, who didn’t even know what a Protestant was at the time, and only heard the term when the priest cautioned me about reading the Bible, for fear that I might become a (dreaded) Protestant, I find the article by Brite deeply concerning.
There is much I would like to say in response. But I am determined to limit my comments to three problems with Brite’s understanding of Romanism.
First
It is very annoying, and I am suspicious of the motivation, as to why when it comes to the history and theology of the Vatican so many people plead benevolence. This happens within and without those who say they belong to the church. Because even a casual survey of the history of the Vatican reveals a level of corruption and intrigue which is unmatched anywhere in the history of the world. Yet, Brite includes himself among those who “wish to retrieve the best of the catholic tradition.”
So we must assume that the “best” he speaks of within the catholic tradition is not the Crusades. It is not the burning of hundreds of thousands of Christian martyrs. It is not the imprisonment of untold numbers of Bible believing Christians (like the godly Huguenots, Lombards, Hussites, Waldensians, Lutherans, Scots, etc., etc., etc.). this can’t be part of the “best” he wants us to remember. Ignore this.
It can’t be the thousand years of darkness Romanism held Western Europe under, so that most people lived hand to mouth under its heavy taxes to support its Holy Roman Empire. Henry VIII complained that the Vatican received four out of every five dollars in taxes from England. The Scandinavian countries took to Lutheranism very quickly, partly because it freed them from oppressive Vatican taxation.
The Pope, and this was strongly supported by Aquinas, said it was very sinful to die with enough money to leave to your offspring. Inheritance was a sign of someone taking the sin of greed to Purgatory with them. Aquinas called it Turpitudo; ugly, deformed, shameful. The Pope railed against it, urging the wealthy to buy his relics to escape the consequences of their greed in Purgatory.
Let’s see, what is the “best” that Brite wants us to think about? Could it be the doctrinal corruption that chained the minds of Roman Catholic subjects in darkness, a darkness from which they could not escape. How could they? Less than 3% could read at all, education was needless, and possessing a Bible illegal. Even most of their priests could not read. John Huss just wanted to teach the Bible to his Hungarian congregation the Bible, and for this he was tortured and executed. His promise of a safe passage was ignored (everyone warned him that they were lying, but he—foolishly—trusted them).
Maybe it is doctrine Brite has in mind? Or one has to ask if Brite ever read The Canons of Trent? These are the unchangeable doctrines of the Vatican. I urge you to read their lawyer-language piece-by-piece condemnation of Reformed theology. They are anathema. Believing even one Reformed doctrine, sends you to the depths of Hell. Alexander Hislop’s book, The Two Babylons, demonstrates that most of the Vatican teachings are rooted in Egyptian and Babylonian religions. So doctrinally, Brite can’t be referring to this.
Secondly
Perhaps by “the best of the catholic tradition” Brite urges us to grasp at is the straw of Rome’s apparent embrace of the doctrine of the Trinity? Brite lets his readers know that Perkins alerted his readers to the many theological corruptions within Rome’s Trent document, but he responds, “Yet there are many other issues (e.g., the Trinity, the two natures of Christ) that we can find true agreement on. These are doctrines that have not been wrecked by Trent’s touch.”
Let’s see if Brite is correct. Does Rome believe the doctrine of the Trinity, like they say they do? It is not hard to discover the answer.
Calvin summarizes the doctrine of the Trinity so well:
Say that in the one essence of God there is a trinity of persons; you will say in one word what Scripture states, and cut short empty talkativeness (Inst.I.XIII.5).
There is one divine essence and yet three persons. Clearly, this is not the same as what is termed monotheism. Jews and Moslems fit that category. Christians do not.
I have the RC catechism in front of me. It says, “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together they adore the one merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day (pt.842).
Similar things are said about the Jewish religions.
But Romanism does not stop at saying they are monotheists, too. It goes on to hold that members of any religion also worship the same deity;
“Those who, through not fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation” (pt.847).
Even there the Vatican does not stop. It also includes the Old Testament Canaanite deity Moloch. In October 2019 the Pope dedicated as huge statue of Moloch and placed it at the entrance of the Roman Colosseum.  In the same year he performed the dedication of Pachamama, a South American fertility goddess. One can see a high-ranking Cardinal worshiping it.
In fact, and this is where all this leads, on 6 March 2021, the Pope gathered the leaders of practically all the world’s religions to the ancient ziggurat in Ur, Iraq (they have been rebuilding it since 1999 for the occasion). There he told them that together they were all lights to the world, lights which God referred to when he told Abraham to look up at the stars: saying “so shall your offspring be.”
Therefore, to say that the Vatican holds to the doctrine of the Trinity is slightly true, as long as one realizes that it is but one in its pantheon of deities. Why would Brite not make his readers aware of this?
Lastly
We are then scolded by Brite for being so blind as not to see that we owe much of Reformed Theology to Thomas and other Dark Ages Roman Catholic theologians:
“Despite where your sympathies may lie, ignoring the historical reality that a majority of our reformed heritage has appropriated Thomas and other medieval catholic theologians is not an option.”
Brite claims that our refusal to see our debt to Roman doctrine is mere misplaced sympathies. That is, those who hold an opinion other than his, simply do not know their history, nor their theology. Logically, this is beyond absurd and insulting.
For example, literally no one knew church history better than John Calvin. He had memorized most of the writings of the Church Fathers. And in the Institutes Calvin gave credit where credit was due to the smattering of light that emanated out of the thousand years the Christian faith was almost completely corrupted before his day.
But still, the goal of the Reformation movement was not a revitalization of Popish doctrine they saw. Luther tried to do this, then realized that it was hopeless. Rather, all the Reformers saw that Rome was utterly corrupted, so badly that the True Church had to “Re-formed”—meaning started all over again. Any light which was there, was found much clearer in the Church Fathers.
Then, logically, how can anyone claim to have any thing to do with the Reformed faith, and say that Calvin, et. al., missed Brite’s points due to his misplaced sympathies? It was sympathies, and not the Bible and history? God help us from such twists.
Logically speaking, does it make any sense at all to say that “the majority of our Reformed heritage has appropriated Thomas and other medieval catholic theologians.” None whatsoever. Why? Because if that were the case then the anathemas of Trent against practically every point of Reformation Theology would in fact be a self-condemnation! It is ridiculous to think that Reformed doctrines were heavily dependant on Thomas, and that Trent theology, which was also depended on Thomas, then condemned Reformed doctrine. That would mean that Trent was condemning itself!
Brite either does not know what Trent says, doesn’t know Reformed doctrine, or neither of them. Or he has been speaking with a RC priest, and that is who is whispering in his ear.
Jesus told us to how to think as Christian leaders: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore, be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves” (Mt.10:16). Brite needs to be told what the word Vatican means; diving-serpent. (see Rome’s new Vatican Hall The Vatican’s Hell Hall: The Weird Mysteries of the Paul VI Audience Hall – Novus Ordo Watch).
Brite misses his mark when he appeals to pre-Reformation emerging lights (see Theologica Germanica, or the commentaries by—what is his name—which Luther was greatly appreciated). Dark Ages persons who believed what the Reformers later taught are to be thought of, not as representing Roman Catholic belief, but rather as those who tapped into Biblical theology before the Reformation could take hold. Many of these were at least threatened with the stake by the Pope.
It would be much more accurate to say, as Calvin does in the Institutes, that arising from under the all-seeing eye of the office of Pope, there had been voices who slowly began to catch visions of the arising theology that would blossom into the Reformation. These voices were not arising because of Romanism, but despite it. Rome was burning Protestant thinkers hundreds of years before term came into use.
I am now a Reformed pastor, and passionate about the Gospel. To suggest that the deep darkness which Romanism held me and other Roman Catholics I have led to Christ in as being anything remotely like a True Church is deeply disturbing. It must surely be true that Brite has never been used by God to bring someone out of Romanism into True Faith (Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 7), and then sat to listen to their experience.
Charles d’Espeville is a Minister in the Reformed Church in America.
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Written by D.A. Carson |
Tuesday, October 18, 2022
Jesus is outraged not because he has lost a friend [Lazarus], but because of death itself. Death is such an ugly enemy. It generates endless and incalculable anguish. And for anyone steeped in the entire biblical heritage, death itself is a mark of sin.

Expressions of Grief
Today it is considered good form to weep discretely, dab tears and turn away, to be quiet and subdued. We go into a mortuary, and our voices go down to a whisper as we talk quietly. We might well consider it good taste to let the bereaved family member go to the tomb in peace and privacy. But in many cultures in the world, including the Jewish culture in the first century, that was simply not the way it was. They expressed grief with loud cries and wails, often communally. You can still see something similar in various immigrant groups today: witness many Greek Orthodox and Muslim funerals, for instance. In the first century, not only did the mourners themselves wail, but they hired professional mourners to keep the noise and tears flowing. In fact, it was customary for even the poorest family to hire a minimum of two flute players and a professional wailing woman (Mishnah Ketubbot 4:4). The flute players would play dirges in minor keys to increase the solemnity and sadness of the occasion, and the professional wailing woman would increase the volume level every time it lowered.
Lazarus’s family was not a poor one. This was a posh family with lots of money. Who knows how many musicians they hired? Certainly there was a lot of noise. John tells us that when they see Mary slipping away, they think that she is going off to the tomb, and they think, “We’ll follow along to provide her with the appropriate support.”

So a great number of people from Jerusalem are there following Mary, along with the intimates from the village of Bethany. But Mary does not go to the tomb. She heads up the road to find Jesus and approaches him with exactly the same words that Martha used: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32). But this time round the conversation takes a very different turn. Who knows where it might have gone if the crowd had not been there? Perhaps Jesus’ conversation with Mary would have followed a line very similar to what ensued with Martha.

But “when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping”—this is noisy now; not quietly-dab-your-tears but first-class noise—“he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.” There is no way that the original text should be rendered that way. I hate to mention two translation mistakes in one passage, but this is just a plain flat-out mistake in translation. It means “he was outraged” (not “deeply moved”). That is what this verb always means whenever it is applied to human beings. Interestingly, all the German translations I’ve checked have it right; all the English ones I’ve checked have it wrong. (That fact, I suppose, shows how often there is a controlling tradition even in our Bible translation.)
“‘Where have you laid him?’ he asked. ‘Come and see, Lord,’ they replied. Jesus wept” (John 11:34–35). Probably the fact that Jesus wept is what has constrained some people to render the earlier verb “he was deeply moved.” but that is simply not what it means. Jesus was outraged? But why? And why did he weep? Why these responses? They seem so surprising. It surely was not because he was powerless and frustrated. He was only minutes from one of his most spectacular miracles. Nor is it that he feels forced into doing a miracle (although some commentators have suggested this slightly bizarre notion). This was the very reason he came down south to Bethany. Nor is it simply that he misses his friend Lazarus, as if Jesus’ tears at the loss of Lazarus are essentially analogous to our tears at the loss of a loved one.
It is impudent to try to put yourself in Jesus’ place, but so far as you can, do so in this instance. If you are crying because your friend has died when you know full well that you are going to raise him from the dead in about two minutes, how genuine would the tears be?
Remember the Context
It is important to keep reminding ourselves of the context. Jesus sees all these people weeping, crying, and wailing in the face of implacable death, and he is outraged. He is profoundly troubled, so emotionally worked up over it that he weeps. There is a compassion in these tears, but there is also outrage. Jesus is outraged not because he has lost a friend but because of death itself. Death is such an ugly enemy. It generates endless and incalculable anguish. And for anyone steeped in the entire biblical heritage, death itself is a mark of sin.
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Written by Allan C. Carlson |
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
Today, legal marriage is weaker than any contract and—except by coincidence—has no relation whatsoever to procreation and the rearing of children. Accordingly, relatively early marriage—designed to accommodate natural and healthy human fertility patterns—is no longer relevant. Indeed, judged against the Augustinian framework, legal marriage in America today means nothing…which may be why “same-sex marriage” crept in so effectively.

It is surely unhealthy to become depressed over statistics. As the modern proverb has it, there are lies, damn lies, and then come statistics. Still, I went into a funk six months ago after reading the results of a survey on parenting by the reliable Pew Research Center. The researchers asked two thousand active parents if it was important to them whether their children did certain things once they became adults. A stunning 88 percent said it was extremely or very important that they “be financially independent” and “have jobs or careers they enjoy.” In contrast, only 21 percent said it was extremely/very important that their grown children marry, and a mere 20 percent that they have children of their own.
One response is that perhaps the parents being queried will come to appreciate the merits of grandchildren a little later on (for as another modern proverb puts it, the only reason to endure parenthood is to gain grandkids). Or, on a perhaps more troubling note, we see here clear evidence of the triumph of capitalism over familism, of mammon over posterity. However, I prefer to see such numbers as signs of the repudiation of good St. Augustine.
These thoughts came back to me over the past weekend as I attended an extended-family wedding. The bride was lovely and glowing, the groom overflowed with joy, and the wedding was properly conducted, even in a “mainline” church dedicated, according to its pew cards, first and foremost to Diversity. Still, the event was, in a way, post-Augustinian. To begin with, and as is now normal, the couple had already been living together for several years. The post-Augustinian status could also be seen in the ages of the bride and groom: she was 35; he near 40. Today, that is only somewhat above the average for all first marriages. While I was told that they hope to have children, they probably know that for first-timers the biological deck is now stacked against them. In contrast, a half-century ago, when my wife and I were married, in the very last year of the Augustinian dispensation in America, I was 23 and she was 22; even then, we were on the old side for newlyweds. Children, moreover, were a reasonable expectation.
The Augustinian Tradition
Why drag Augustine into this? As in just about everything else of importance, Christian marriage owes its operational definition to his “mental universe” (a phrase borrowed from the legal scholar Charles J. Reid, Jr.). Writing at the end of the fourth century A.D., Augustine faced two challenges: the Manichaeans, a heretical sect which so focused on the spirit that they fully rejected reproductive intercourse; and the pagan Romans, among whom concubinage, adultery, prostitution, homosexuality, and easy divorce were common. Citing the innate “sociability” of humankind and “a natural companionship between the sexes,” the church father defined the “goods” of marriage as procreation, fidelity, and sacramental permanence. Rejecting both extreme asceticism and hedonism, Augustine affirmed that “the marriage of man and woman is something good.”
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