The California Collection/TheCaliforniaCollection.cdr/his075/cath26.lzh/CATH26.TXT

Text File | 1991-06-30 | 5KB | 94 lines

CUL:A Correction to Karl Keating's book Catholicism & Fundamentalism

   Some of you have seen Karl Keating's book, CATHOLICISM AND
FUNDAMENTALISM. Although this was written before our debates he devoted
one chapter to the work of CHRISTIANS EVANGELIZING CATHOLICS.

   Here is one of Karl's statements: "Jackson lumps the Catholic Church
with the cults because 'Roman Catholics have added to the Bible. They
have no means of solid interpretation. Their present attitude towards
its inerrancy is thoroughly liberal, and they have through the years
been vocal in condemning God's Word. The Bible was placed on the Index
of Forbidden Books - they will tell you that it was only because of
erroneous Protestant translations - but it was first placed there in
1229, over 100 years before Wycliffe's first translation.'"

   [The above quote is supposed to be a quote from me; here is the
statement as contained in SATAN'S CAVALRY: ". . . The Bible was denied
to the laity - Catholics will now tell you that was only because of
erroneous Protestant translations - but this was in 1229, over 100
years before Wycliffe's first translation." There may have been an
earlier writing to which Karl referred, but if I did mention the Index,
that error has been deleted from my teaching on the subject. Now we
will continue with Karl's statement.]

   "These sentences contain some of the chief fundamentalist objections
to Catholicism . . . Then (Jackson) claims the Church has been 'vocal
in condemning God's Word' by placing the Bible on the Index of
Forbidden Books in 1229. Of course, the Index was first printed in
1543, more than three centuries after that, but no matter. The gaffe is
not entirely Jackson's fault. Here he was relying on Bart Brewer of
Mission to Catholics, who made the same claim in one of his tracts, and
Brewer in turn got the date from Loraine Boettner's ROMAN CATHOLICISM,
which gives no source for it."

   As much as I appreciate my friendship with Bart Brewer and admire
Boettner's monumental work, I did not get my material from either. Karl
Keating is correct in his assertion that what is now called "The Index
of Forbidden Books" dates from 1543, and my statement was "The Bible
was denied to the laity in 1229". Since Karl gave no reference for my
statements, I have to assume that they came from SATAN'S CAVALRY, where
I answered the question, "Is Roman Catholicism a Cult".

   The 13th century saw the Roman Catholic Inquisition against the
Albigenses, who are probably the most maligned pre-Reformation
Christian group ever in existence. The problem stemmed from the fact
that there were Christians in the vicinity of Albi, France at that
time, and there were also anti-Catholic heretics. The situation is just
the same today, as there are true Christians who oppose the teachings
of Rome, and there are also heretics who do likewise. One of the best
doctrinal books against Romanism was written by the Jehovah's
Witnesses, who Karl Keating called "fundamentalists" in his debate with
Bart Brewer.

   Just as the Catholic Church would like to include Jim Jones and the
Mormons in the category of fundamentalism, the Albigensian Christians
were lumped together with the heretics who were from the same
geographic area so were also called Albigenses. The Roman Catholic
Church, who controlled history for a millennium or more, has succeeded
in convincing even evangelical scholars that all of the Albigensians
were heretics. (e.g., CHRISTIANITY THROUGH THE CENTURIES, Cairns and
THE CHURCH IN HISTORY, Kuiper.) As Butler has written, "Although God
cannot alter the past, historians can. (EREHOME REVISITED, page 293)

   Other more careful historians have recognized the problem of a
history coming only through a culture's enemies, and have more
incisively looked at the Albigenses and seen, as even Priest Markoe
admits in THE TRIUMPH OF THE CHURCH, "(Albigensian) errors were: they .
. . rejected infant baptism . . . declared all penance useless." A
discerning person can see that in this area, orthodox and heretical
opponents of Romanism sprang up, much as there are cults today that are
vocal in their condemnation of Romanism.

   St. Dominic was the leader of the anti-Albigensian Inquisition. He
used the Rosary as his mighty weapon against this error, and one of the
big problems with the Christian Albigensians was that they had a
translation of the Bible which they used, as any Christian would, to
get the truths that nourished them as Christians.

   There was a historically-admitted crusade against the Bible in the
vernacular (language of the people), ostensibly because the Albigensian
Bible was a Bible of heretics, but those familiar with all of the cults
(including Romanism) will know that Bible-loving is not one of their
"weaknesses". There was a Synod held in Toulouse in 1229 (I made
reference to this in my third debate with Karl Keating) that forbade
people to use this Albigensian Bible

   It is a historical fact that the Synod of Toulouse condemned the
Albigensian Bible and forbade the laity to read the Word of God. So
even though there was no official "Index" in 1229, the Albigensian
Bible was forbidden. In order to cover their tracks, the Roman Catholic
Church them embarked upon a plan to discredit those faithful
pre-Reformation Christians who, like oursleves, were categorized with
movements with which they had nothing in common.