Are We Catholic-bashers?

In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call.  Here is this week’s question:  “Dear Dave and Tom, I’ve been listening to your program for a number of weeks now and although I rather enjoy it I detected what I would call an anti-Catholic bias from both of you.  Then I was in a Christian bookstore and was shocked to pick up a book by Dave Hunt called A Woman Rides the Beast.  There is no doubt that you are anti-Catholic.  Now I’m not or have ever been a Roman Catholic, but you seem terribly out of step with where evangelical Christianity is today.  I attend a fairly conservative evangelical church and I have never heard one word from the pulpit belittling the Catholic Church.  I believe you are hurting an otherwise edifying ministry by your stance on Roman Catholicism.”

T. A. McMahon:

Dave, you know we’ve had more than one or two letters with this regard and I remember a—

Dave Hunt:

You know Tom, you could avoid reading such letters and then it wouldn’t be so controversial.

T. A. McMahon:

Well, but that doesn’t help.  One time I got a call from a young man locally who was a Roman Catholic and he said, coming from a Catholic standpoint, he said that, yeah, he liked the program but he just was bothered by what he thought was a bias.  The only way I could respond to him was I said, What’s the name of the program?  It’s called, Search the Scriptures Daily.  I don’t care whether somebody is a Baptist, a Methodist, an Episcopalian—which we talked about  before—our heart here is to point to God’s Word and we keep encouraging people to check us out on that basis.  Now, I have to speak for myself on this.  I’m a former Roman Catholic.  I have loved ones; I have friends and family members who are Roman Catholic.  To call me anti-Catholic—it’s not just an insult, it grieves me because I love these people.  All I’m trying to do is point them to the scriptures God’s Word.

Dave Hunt:

Tom, the word, “anti” -Catholic bothers me.  I’ve had that thrown at me.  It’s amazing.  If you disagree with the Catholic Church you are an anti-Catholic.  Now they disagree with us, they have never been called anti-Protestants.

T. A. McMahon:

Somebody should just read the Council of Trent, pick out some of those anathemas.

Dave Hunt:

They have anathematized us more than one hundred times—damned us to hell.  Is that anti-Protestantism?  You see the issue is not anti-this or anti-that, in fact, when you throw that word up, you are avoiding the real issue.  The real issue is, is it the truth?  Am I anti-you if I try to tell that you’re doing something that isn’t right?

T. A. McMahon:

Or, it isn’t according to God’s Word.

Dave Hunt:

A doctor—Mr. Jones comes in to a doctor, the doctor examines him and says, I’m sorry, Mr. Jones, you have a ruptured appendix.  We’ve got to get you on the operating table.  Somebody says, that’s anti-Mr. Jones, that doctor is so anti-Mr. Jones.  No, he is trying to tell him the truth.  So, the issue is, as you said, search the scriptures daily, what is the truth?  It’s not a question of being anti-Catholic.  Jesus said, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.”  Was he then, anti- those people?  No, He was in favor of those people, He loved them and He wanted to correct them.

T. A. McMahon:

Let me just add to that.  Jesus rebuked the Jewish religious leaders.  Was he then anti-Jewish, was he anti-Semitic?

Dave Hunt:

See, so that word, anti, is not a fair word to put in.  It’s like a smoke screen.  It obscures the real issue.  The real issue is what is the truth?  So, let’s examine that.  Then I think the writer also said something about we are biased.  What was that exactly?

T. A. McMahon:

Well, this person does mention, which is an interesting point, that in their conservative evangelical church they have never heard one word disparaging Roman Catholicism from the pulpit.

Dave Hunt:

Okay, there’s another word, disparaging.  What do you mean disparaging?  That word has connotations of you’re putting someone down.  The doctor is not putting someone down when he says they have a ruptured appendix.

T. A. McMahon:

Actually, the word was belittling.

Dave Hunt:

Belittling okay.  Belittling—the issue again is the truth.  Is Roman Catholicism—For example, they anathematize us, just one anathema from the Council of Treat, if you say that you could be saved just by faith in Christ alone, without the sacraments of the Catholic church, anathema to you.  If you believe that Jesus finished the work on the cross and when you take the bread and the cup you are simply remembering a finished work on the cross and you deny that Jesus is still being offered, that we can turn this little wafer into the body and blood of Christ so that he is being offered again and again and that you don’t have to ingest Jesus into your stomach, anathema to you, on and on it goes.  Now, we talked about it earlier and we do constantly, the issue is the gospel.  How do you get saved?  Did Christ die for our sins?  Did He finish the work and is salvation through believing the gospel?  Or, is it through the sacraments of a particular church, that’s the issue.  It’s not a question of being, anti, or disparaging or belittling.  So, the very fact that a person uses that language indicates that they don’t want to examine the issues, they want to avoid them.  Now, a church that is a fine evangelical church and never warns anyone, never points out—For example, I carry a scapular in my Bible and sometimes I hold it up for an audience and I say, here it is.  On one end of the scapular it says, “Whosoever dies wearing this scapular shall not suffer eternal fire,” and I ask a simple question of the audience, does anyone who wears a scapular and trusts in that promise, have they believed the gospel?  I think it’s very serious that you would lead people astray to think that if they wear a scapular they will be delivered from eternal fire.  But the Pope has worn one since childhood and millions of Catholics do.  I think that’s the issue, what is the truth, what is the gospel?