A Protestant Tackles Mortal/Venial Sins
For those who believe in the distinction between mortal and venial sin, 1 John 5:16-17 is often a go-to text. Even the Catechism of the Catholic Church references this text (1854) in support of its teaching on mortal and venial sin. Here’s the text: If anyone sees his...
Eat the Flesh. Drink the Blood. Really!
There is no shortage of counters to the literal reading of Jesus’ words “eat my flesh . . . drink my blood” (John 6:54-58). One form these counters take is showing that such a literal reading entails an absurdity. Protestant Pastor Todd Baker makes this kind of...
‘But Paul Rebuked Peter!’
Protestants often object to the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility by appealing to Galatians 2:11 where Paul records how he rebuked Peter because “he clearly was wrong” (NAB Translation). “You see,” the argument goes, “the Bible says Peter was wrong. Therefore,...
Did Jesus Have to Die for Us?
The Bible teaches that Jesus is “the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). This is the heart of the Christian message: Christ made satisfaction for our sins (paid a debt) through his death on the cross....
Don’t Exclude the Saints
Some Christians object to the practice of invoking the saints’ intercession because they think it takes away from the unique mediation of Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5—“There is one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ”). But those who invoke the saints counter that...
What Good is Hell?
When it comes to the Christian doctrine of hell, there is no lack of critics. One critique, espoused by David Bentley Hart, is that hell necessarily entails punishment without reform, which seemingly would be contrary to God’s goodness. In his book That All Shall Be...
When Jesus Got Mad . . . Twice
There’s no shortage of details in the New Testament that skeptics use to undermine the historical credibility of the Gospels. One is the timing of Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple. John places the event at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (John 2:13-22). The Synoptics,...
These Doctrines Aren’t Demonic
In 1 Timothy 4:1-3, St. Paul speaks of a time when some will turn away from the faith and “give heed to…doctrines of demons,” which he identifies as the forbidding of marriage and the consumption of meat. Some Protestants see this passage as a condemnation of the...
The ‘Natural’ in ‘Natural Family Planning’
Recently on Catholic Answers Live, a caller asked me about whether there are morally licit means for a married couple to avoid pregnancy while still engaging in sexual intercourse. I explained that sterilization and contraception are a no-go, and that natural family...
Women, Men, Means and Ends
Recently, Ohio governor Mike DeWine vetoed a bill (Ohio House Bill 68) that his own Ohio Republican party-majority House and Senate passed to ban “gender transition care” for youths under eighteen, which would include hormone therapy, puberty-blocker medication, and...
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© Karlo Broussard