Pope Francis and many modern Catholics no longer believe the only way to Heaven is via the Roman Catholic Church. Wonder what changed. Apostasy, the act of giving up your religion and leaving religion has always been disdained, but obviously, Catholic leaders, as well as Protestants, have been flirting with apostasy for decades.

Even well-educated people believe the Roman Catholic Church started with the Apostles and has a clear history of Popes from that time. Of course, that is not true as quick research will prove. The misinformation is believed because biased historians, kowtowing to an ever-growing authoritarian church carefully wrote a favorable, not factual history. As time passed, religious leaders got further from biblical truth and usurped authority not approved by Christ or the Bible. It took hundreds of years for a “universal” authoritarian church to emerge about 600 A.D. from the chaos of the crumbling Roman Empire.

Through the Dark Ages into the Middle Ages, Rome garnered support from political leaders throughout Europe. As the church’s power grew, so did its arrogance and pomposity followed by the exploitation of ordinary people. Slowly, as people became better educated through the invention of the printing press and reading of the Bible in their own language, they began to demand answers until a fire was burning all over Europe.

Then came the Reformers and the world experienced an unprecedented shock. Ordinary people realized that rulers, civil and religious, could and should be held accountable. While there were non-Catholic churches throughout history, the Roman yoke was broken as the light began to shine in Europe.

Rome is now trying to reconcile the “separated brethren” (rebels) and bring them back to Rome.

Compromising Lutheran leaders have almost pled with the Vatican to “fully heal their divide with Rome”; however, Luther was not consulted for his opinion since he is persona non grata. You may remember that Luther called the Pope, Antichrist. He gave credit to John Hus for that title, but Hus was not the first person to use it.

It goes back to 991, when Bishop Arnulf of Orleans, describing papal murder, lust, and intrigue, asked, “Are there any bold enough to maintain that the priests of the Lord over all the world are to take their law from monsters of guilt like these?” When a person so deficient in virtue sits on the papal throne, Arnulf suggested that he must “be the ‘Antichrist, sitting in the temple of God, and showing himself as God.’”

That was the assessment of a Roman Catholic official, who like Luther had nothing good to say about the Pope.

Luther is considered one of the major villains in the great split in the 16^th century, but the founder of the Lutheran Church in Germany has been rehabilitated—without his approval. In 1999, the Lutheran World Federation signed a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification with the Vatican. The major difference was the doctrine of justification, but that disagreement has been overcome. Bible teaching doesn’t seem to matter to dishonest, defective, and devious religious leaders.

Most present-day Lutherans are embarrassed at Luther’s bellicosity and would like to cancel the Reformation if possible. Being impossible, they will apologize for the courage and commitment and character of the Reformers. Luther’s character makes compromising Lutherans look like American Indian shamans or African witch doctors.

In October 2015, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s presiding bishop, Elizabeth A. Eaton declared, “Five hundred years ago, wars were fought over the very issues about which Lutherans and Roman Catholics have now achieved consensus.” However, the two groups are not meeting in a basement singing Kumbaya and drinking hot chocolate.  There are still some points of disagreement, but “much of the heavy lifting has been done already.”

Lutherans are rushing back to the fold although there are still principled leaders in all religious groups that are not willing to bow to Rome.

To produce a world church Rome must reconcile with the Eastern Orthodox that broke off in 1054 and then try to pull other wandering Protestants back into the fold. In 2007, the Catholic Church along with Lutheran, Orthodox, Methodist, Anglican, and Armenian-Apostolic churches in Germany all agreed to recognize each other’s baptisms as valid. Wow, they voted to undo the Reformation with a single vote. Then January 25, 2016, the Pope declared, “As the bishop of Rome and pastor of the Catholic Church, I would like to invoke mercy and forgiveness for the non-evangelical behavior of Catholics toward Christians of other churches.”

That’s nice but it doesn’t help the millions killed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. “The numbers given include 50 million, 68 million, 100 million, 120 million, and 150 million.” Of course, those deaths are not the responsibility of living Catholics today who are horrified at such genocide.

The Catholic Church is making great strides in its push for unity with other churches. The Orthodox Schism in 1054 gap is closing quickly. A Catholic can now receive communion in an Orthodox Church and, in many cases, vice versa. However, there are different offshoots of Orthodox Churches. The big disagreement revolves around the role of the Pope, but all the above religious leaders agree on his preeminence, but there is no agreement that he is the top honcho of all “Christians.”

The Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion have been courting each other with a passion—like two out-of-control teens who just recognized their raging hormones. In 2009, Pope Benedict xvi made it possible to allow “groups of Anglican clergy and faithful in different parts of the world” to return en masse to the Catholic Church. That included married priests who could remain in their own group. Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby fervently seeks a church marriage between Anglicans and Catholics even if a religious shotgun is necessary to make the union.

King Henry VIII, the founder of Anglicans in the mid-1500s, broke with the Roman Catholics because the Roman Pope refused to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon permitting his marriage to Anne Boleyn.  Henry ended up beheading his wives Boleyn and Catherine.  No, not the most principled reason to decide on church membership but then no one said Henry was a principled person. He was a gluttonous, obese, head-chopping despot. Not the best credentials to start a religion.

Whatever, Catholics and Anglicans (Episcopal in the U.S.) can now share each other’s communion, and married Anglican clergy can become Catholic priests. The fences are coming down and the rebels are going home! However, it is clear to everyone that any union “will be under the Pope of Rome.” 

America’s largest Presbyterian denomination, along with other major Protestant groups, signed an agreement with the Catholic Church in 2013 that recognized baptism reciprocity. The Pope met with major American clergy including Joel Osteen in 2014. Osteen is pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston with about 43,000 weekly attendants.

Of course, as Osteen goes, so will go lesser Evangelical leaders to the theological slaughter.

While Osteen was meeting with the Pope in Rome, his wife took 300 children to visit the Bronx Zoo. My opinion is that his wife had the more gratifying, biblical, productive, and most important meeting. Joel and Francis used each other: Joel got international attention and Francis made another push to get all the “separated brethren” to rejoin his church.

Osteen said it was a great honor to represent the pastors of America in the meeting with the pontiff, whom he described as warm, personable, and “full of joy.” Of course, Joel didn’t say that “the pastors of America” did not ask him to represent them. Joel is as arrogant as the Pope.

“I like the fact that this pope is trying to make the church larger, not smaller,” Osteen said. “He’s not pushing people out but making the church more inclusive. That resonated with me.” A few days earlier he and a group of others met with Vatican staff members, toured the Vatican, and attended the Convocation of Renewal at Olympic Stadium in Rome. At that convocation, more than 50,000 tongue-speaking Roman Catholics also attended the convocation where the Pope knelt and prayed.

The Pope is even making fervent overtures to other Evangelicals, including Pentecostals. In 2014, the Pope sent a recorded message to Kenneth Copeland Ministries, a large Pentecostal group, seeking unity. “Brothers and sisters, Luther’s protest is over. Is yours?” asked a speaker at the event. The Pope also beseeched the audience, “I am [yearning] that this separation comes to an end and gives us communion.”

While most denominations are willing to apologize for the Reformation and denigrate the brave reformers, the world uniters will never get authentic Baptists since they were never part of the Roman Catholic Church.

Two historians (not Baptists) admitted that fact when they wrote, “We have now seen that the Baptists, who were formerly called Anabaptists, and in later times, Mennonites, were the original Waldenses… On this account, the Baptists may be considered as the only religious community which has stood since the days of the apostles, and as a Christian society which has preserved pure the doctrines of the gospel through all ages.” Dutch Reformed historians Dr. Annaeus Ypeij (professor of Theology at University of Groningen) and Isaak Johannes Dermout, Chaplain to the king).

E. Gotch, in the Encyclopedia Britannica declared, “Baptists can be traced to 618 A.D., and it is presumed that they originated from the original source of the churches.”

Uneducated people often smile when they hear something that is completely new to them; moreover, they often put their foot far into their mouths proving they make judgments without looking at the facts. The truth is there were always non-Catholic churches all over the Levant and North Africa from the earliest days of Christianity.

It appears the Catholic courtship of wandering brothers is paying off. No doubt, thousands of martyred reformers are twisting in their graves. If not, they are observing such religious treason from Heaven and shaking their heads at shameful religious leaders.

It is shocking to see religious leaders succumb to such unabashed courting and more shocking that it is working. Current weak Protestants willingly overlook all the heresy their predecessors warned about for hundreds of years and meekly surrender to the authority of the Pope.

Furthermore, they are marching, almost running, lemming-like to produce what God rejects—a world church where truth doesn’t matter all for the sake of unity. Revelation 17 reveals the condition of Christianity in the last days when a world church has been established and will be known for its biblical and moral corruption. That world church will be established with the concurrence of political officials who will turn on it and destroy it.

During a convocation of one-worlders pushing, not only for a world church, but for one world religion, witches, earth worshippers, heretics, shamans, and pagans were present along with traditional “Christianity.” The evil religious conglomeration has said their holdouts and threats come from “Fundamentalists and orthodox Catholics.”

Evidently, Pope Francis does not seem to qualify as an orthodox Catholic; however, I gladly identify with the Fundamentalists who were never part of the Roman Church or the one-world convocation.

(Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives who ran a large Christian school in Indianapolis and wrote columns for USA Today for 8 years. Boys authored 20 books, the most recent, Reflections of a Lifetime Fundamentalist: No Reserves, No Retreats, No Regrets! The eBook is available at Amazon.com for $4.99. Other titles at www.cstnews.com. Follow him on Facebook at Don  Boys, Ph.D., and visit his blog.  Send a request to DBoysphd@aol.com for a free subscription to his articles and click here to support  his work with a donation.)

Each of the three Popes excommunicated the others.

The Church managed to survive that fiasco, the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Reformation, but will it survive the global sex scandal and the machinations of Pope Francis?

In recent days, it was revealed that Francis has been up to some hanky-panky when it was discovered that he “liked” a seminude model’s picture on Instagram. The Vatican announced today that it has launched a probe into the nudie caper.

It seems the Pope keeps stepping in it almost weekly. Maybe he believes any publicity is good publicity.

Many Roman Catholics think Pope Francis is a loose cannon that has broken away from its mounting and constitutes a danger to the whole Church as it shoots in all directions. Headlines in the Daily Mail blared, “Vatican at War!” Even cardinals are running away from his latest folly. His latest shot was an endorsement of civil marriages for the LGBTQ crowd, thinking that such action would help him win a global popularity contest.

And stop the bleeding of money and members or, more crudely, nickels, and noses.

The Pope’s goal is to bring us all together in an attempt to undo the sixteenth-century Reformation and have a world church supporting a world government and world economy.

Was the Reformation a mistake, or was it one of the most significant events in world history?

Most educated people don’t have a firm grasp on the world’s religious, political, economic, and social conditions in the Middle Ages. Nor do they know what has been the dream, some say nightmare, of globalists—a united worldwide church. After all, who will disagree with everyone getting along? Of course, no one will, but there is much difference in getting along with people and uniting with those with whom you have vast differences.

The Roman Catholic Church (RCC) has always considered Protestants as “separated brethren” even though the Roman Church declared for hundreds of years that there was no salvation outside the RCC. They always invite non-Catholics back into the fold with the understanding that the Vatican will still run things, and their peculiar doctrines and practices will prevail. Catholic officials are willing to overlook minor theological disputes and ignore them as a condition of bringing the breakaway denominations “back home.”

As long as they bring their checkbooks and don’t try to run things.

While Rome is willing to concede on minor differences, they will not concede on the veneration of Mary or the mass. During the 18th century in France, ordinary Frenchmen ridiculed the Roman Catholic Church (their national church) for their teaching of turning a piece of bread into God. However, Rome will not concede on the mass.

Get ready, folks, the world church is being formed with headquarters in Rome, but here is one Bible-believer who will never “return to Rome” since my crowd was never in her! Independent churches were publicly baptizing converts in huge tubs throughout Germany, Switzerland, and other European nations long before the Reformation. I will stay independent (as were all original churches) as a hog on ice and free as an eagle until shrimp learn to whistle and pigs learn to fly.

An all-inclusive, world church is not going back to the Bible but back to bondage!

According to LifeSiteNews of August 22, 2019, a multi-faith committee was announced “to implement the ‘Human Fraternity’ document signed by Pope Francis and a Grand Imam in February that stated, among other things, that a ‘pluralism and diversity, of religions, is willed by God.’”

But then, the only way we can know the will of God is what is revealed in His Word. The Bible does not endorse a world church but a definite coming out from among them. Not unity but separation. The Bible never teaches denominationalism or world church, but each local church is to be a group of simple, sincere, and scholarly Christians who meet to sing, pray, and preach without any interference from any government or denominational authority.

The Pope has no more biblical authority than an ordinary pastor or priest in an obscure village.

Francis is aware that his biggest problem in constructing the world church will be Muslims who are accustomed to running everything, including the guillotine. Also, the Jews have been around longer than anyone has, so they will not be quick to respond to this theological courtship or, more correctly, seduction. Some Jews even believe all non-Jews are of a different and inferior species! How will that play in Rome? Or Tehran?

So, headlines yell, “Vatican issues a happy Ramadan to all ‘Muslim brothers and sisters’”; however, traditional Muslims do not consider any non-Muslims as spiritually related. The Koran often identifies all non-Muslims as “polytheists,” “unbelievers,” “infidels,” etc., with which Muslims are not to be friendly. And for sure not to cooperate with them.

The Pope asserted, “We Muslims and Christians are called to open ourselves to others, knowing and recognizing them as brothers and sisters…. this way, we can tear down walls raised out of fear and ignorance and seek together to build bridges of friendship that are fundamental for the good of all humanity.”

When Reformers broke with Rome in the 16th century, they did not do so out of fear or ignorance but because of overwhelming convictions and intelligence. The Bible had been translated and was now available to everyone, and it was obvious that what Catholic leaders were teaching was not found in its pages. The Bible reader had been intimidated and harassed and had his pockets picked for centuries to construct massive cathedrals all over Europe.

With the translated Bible, they discovered that the Bible said nothing about Popes, archbishops, cardinals, holy water, rosary beads, hail Mary, the immaculate conception, lent, the sign of the cross, vestments, relics, statues, purgatory, limbo, penance, confession to a priest, elevation of Mary, indulgences, pilgrimages, etc.

When one gets rid of all that, he almost ends up with an independent Bible or Baptist Church!

The average Christian finally read in the newly translated Bibles that independent churches were to be filled with simple and sincere people, where someone read the Bible, another prayed. Then the preacher (not a priest) delivered a sermon followed by the singing of hymns. No liturgy, no ceremony, no mass, no richly dressed preachers. The Europeans could find very little in the Bible that reflected what they had experienced for a lifetime in their vast cathedrals.

While Pope Francis spoke of “brothers and sisters” and friendship, ordinary Christians were chaffing under sharia in Muslim nations. Many were being persecuted as Francis gushed platitudes to appease and impress Muslim fanatics. He did not demand religious freedom or even tolerance on the part of Muslims in the Middle East nations.

Francis demands that Protestants forget about the doctrines and practices that precipitated the Reformation but does not require or even suggest that Muslim leaders must make major concessions with Koranic commands that deal with hating and killing Jews and Christians or even making friends with them. No demands that female sexual mutilation is barbarity and must be stopped; no demand that honor killings are beastly; no requirements that killing any Muslim if he or she converts to Christ is criminal; and no demand for Islamic nations such as Saudi Arabia to permit Christian churches (not one in the whole nation). It seems Francis is quiet about the absurd and vile teachings of Islam.

But then, Francis is a bridge-builder; however, here is one dude who will never cross that bridge.

Pope Francis is a hypocrite who is more interested in public relations than helping the hurting and Gospel-deprived people under Islamic rule. But how can he give something he probably doesn’t have?

The Pope shamelessly speaks of building bridges rather than a hated wall to keep out unwanted immigrants while he lives behind a massive wall. Did I mention that Francis is a hypocrite?

But the Pope keeps trying. He is the only person in Europe who can give an order and see it carried out by non-thinking zealots. Only the Pope can break the barriers and usher in the World Church.

For sure, I’m not going to be a part of his world church, not even if I am promised the Pope’s tiara, the keys to his Popemobile, and the combination of the Vatican vault.

I had to struggle with the combination to the vault.

(Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives who ran a large Christian school in Indianapolis and wrote columns for USA Today for 8 years. Boys authored 18 books, the most recent being Muslim Invasion: The Fuse is Burning! The eBook is available here with the printed edition (and other titles) at www.cstnews.com. Follow him on Facebook at Don Boys, Ph.D.; and visit his blog. Send a request to DBoysphd@aol.com for a free subscription to his articles, and click here to support his work with a donation.)

Thinking people know that revolutionaries are fanatics that only have a revolution in mind. To enlist compatriots, revolutionaries will use any cause that will be accepted by people too lazy to work and too bombed to think.

Plus, they have the advantage of the U.S. having been softened up over the previous 50 years by socialist termites in the mainline churches, the public school system, higher education, and the media.

Jesse Jackson and his gang chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western culture’s got to go!” Yes, I know Jesse is a known opportunist using civil rights for self-aggrandizement and to fund his dubious civil rights organization. Yes, his immorality is documented, but remember he was a candidate for President of the USA in 1984 and 1988, and a few people think he is a legitimate religious and political leader. But he has shrinking credibility with sincere, thinking people.

People like Jackson have attacked America for decades, and even academics have bought their package of deception. And students and most Americans have paid the price by diminishing respect for what has taken thousands of years to develop—the greatest civilization in the world even with its flaws, fallibilities, and failures.

Removal and destruction of paintings and statues and flags are the symbols of perceived “racism” that are the objects of black hatred. The haters have no concern about the symbols; it is only an excuse to destroy America.

Black Lives Matter is not a group of kids with more time on their hands than brains in their skulls; it is a cluster of American-haters with a commitment to destroy America and replace it with a Marxist-style government. Antifa and BLM are only two of more than twenty communist groups who are using the unreasonable treatment of a black man as an excuse to loot, burn, and destroy our cities and nullify our Constitution.

No honest, informed person supports or defends BLM.

The leading cause of death of young black Americans is young black Americans. But it seems that does not concern the thuggish protesters. Moreover, maybe they should modify their signs to read, “Black Lives Matter So Defund Planned Parenthood.” After all, 247 black babies are butchered in the womb each day in America. But Black Babies Don’t Matter to the rabble.

However, more than our government is in the balance; our European-based Western Civilization is being threatened. The lowlifes throwing bricks and lighting fires are useful idiots doing the work of the check-writers safely standing in the shadows. These left-leaning leaders have a deep hatred for western culture.

The major universities in the U.S. in 1964 required all students to take a Western Civilization class, but by 2010, not one did. It seems Western Civilization had to be eliminated because Jackson, scores of professors, and other mental midgets demanded it.

There are two groups in America: those of us who know what we are losing and those who will have no concept of the loss until it is gone.

Western Civilization is all about who we are, the basis of what we believe. Solzhenitsyn remarked, “to destroy a people, you must first sever their roots.” America’s roots are being severed, so it is no surprise that the tree is dying.

Western Civilization is important because it is our roots and reflects the values developed over millennia. To understand the present, we must go back to the very beginning, which would be the Jerusalem model in ancient Israel. Ancient Jews provided a stable family, based more on commitment rather than romance. Instead of marrying the one they loved, they loved the one they married.

Marriages were always arranged by the father, often at a very young age, and this was true until modern times. Moderns don’t like that concept; however, how has the present system been working? Divorce was difficult, and adultery was punished by the death of the two culprits. Slavery was allowed, but not approved or authorized by Jehovah. The Jerusalem way was not a perfect system, and it has been cursed, challenged, and changed.

The trajectory of Western Civilization after fifteen hundred years jumped from Jerusalem to Greece for a few hundred years with much emphasis on democracy, then to Rome for a while. The course led back to Jerusalem (Christ and His challenge, command, and commission to His disciples to preach and change the world), then the shift was to Europe.

We can trace our ideas and ideals about democracy, civic responsibility, personal deportment, and freedom to Greece where the stain of slavery was still endemic to the world. Athens and Sparta had vast differences in training children and the treatment of the elderly.

So, the road to Western Civilization was slow and crude, taking centuries for desirable values to be ensconced into society. The upward path was somewhat improved when society shifted away from Athens and Sparta to Rome; even though slavery still thrived, perversion was still acceptable, and everyone looked to the government for protection and provision. The shift then went back to Jerusalem that impacted the culture, as the influence of Christ was so powerful, it forced the culture at least to frown on slavery.

They heard the Apostle Paul say to a slave owner about a runaway slave Paul was sending back: He has been a help to me so, based on our friendship, don’t receive him back as a slave or servant but as my son. Furthermore, if he owes you anything, “Put that on mine account.” The culture significantly improved with the command of Christ to treat others the way we want to be treated. And, forgive your enemies even if they mistreat you. Yes, something new was stirring in the world.

In Jerusalem, a light was flickering in the world’s darkness.

As missionaries took that light into Europe, discipline, order, love, respect in the home caught on followed by charitable living as hospitals were established, followed by universities, grammar schools, and homes for the elderly. A few hundred years followed with chaos in civic and church affairs going through the Dark Ages entering into the early Middle Ages, as the light began to shine with the Bible becoming available in the local languages.

The flickering light had become a beacon for the world.

During the Middle Ages, the culture had been vastly improved. People still lived ungodly lives with days of endless toil and nights of horror. As jobs and craftsmanship raised their status, they desired a higher quality of life. The Catholic Crusades (obviously a detour en route to civilization) introduced Europeans to different kinds of food, clothing, tools, furniture, etc. But the availability of the Bible and the accompanying Renaissance, when ordinary people thought more about the Bible, religion, and education, was a harbinger of a better day for Europe.

In Italy, there was a Renaissance but little Reformation.

Some courageous preachers in Germany, France, Switzerland, and elsewhere demanded a rejection of the Roman Church and a return to a simple and informal church based only on the Bible. The Reformation spread into northern Europe like a prairie fire and changed every facet of society while Italy had to settle for a significant advance in religious art, sculpture, and music.

The nations of Europe were totally changed in that it impacted education, family life, treatment of each other, their politics, work, and the way they did church. The light that flickered for hundreds of years was now so bright, it chased out much of the darkness and produced the Reformation, one of the most impacting events since the Flood.

Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and other leftists groups want to dismiss, denigrate, and disassemble Western Civilization, the effects of thousands of years of man’s slow climb from barbarism.

Western culture has produced success, safety, and security, while BLM is producing suspicion, spite, and separation.

(Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives who ran a large Christian school in Indianapolis and wrote columns for USA Today for 8 years. Boys authored 18 books, the most recent Muslim Invasion: The Fuse is Burning! eBook is available here with the printed edition (and other titles) at www.cstnews.com. Follow him on Facebook at Don Boys, Ph.D.; and visit his blog. Send a request to DBoysphd@aol.com for a free subscription to his articles, and click here to support his work with a donation.)

Since this is the 500th year of the anniversary of the Reformation, many have asked why so many groups split from the church that Christ established while others want to know what was the first authentic church. It is assumed by the uneducated that the Roman Catholic Church was the “mother church” but that is not an historical fact. Well, if not the Catholics, then who?

The first church was in Jerusalem and it was a Baptist or baptistic church! If not, what were they? My critics can tell me what the Jerusalem church believed and practiced and I will adjust to their beliefs and practices.

J. Porter wrote in 1914, “The first Baptist preacher was John the Baptist. We learn from the Scriptures that he was a Baptist and a preacher, and certainly it is impossible for a man to be a Baptist and a preacher and not be a Baptist preacher.” Can anyone argue with that statement? Since Christ was baptized by John the Baptist, did that make Christ a Baptist? Just asking.

The Encyclopedia Britannica revealed, “Baptists can be traced to 618 A.D. and it is presumed that they originated from the original source of the churches.”

In 1819, the King of Holland appointed Dr. J. Dermout and Dr. Ypeij to prepare a history of the Dutch Reformed Church and also to report on the claims of the Dutch Baptists. Following their research, they wrote: “We have now seen that the Baptists, who were formerly called Anabaptists, and in later times, Mennonites, were the original Waldenses…On this account, the Baptists may be considered as the only religious community which has stood since the days of the apostles, and as a Christian society which has preserved pure the doctrines of the gospel through all ages.”

The above account can be found on page 148, Volume I., of the work entitled History of the Dutch Reformed Church, by A. Ypeij, Doctor and Professor of Theology at Groningen, and I. J. Dermout, Secretary of the General Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church, and Preacher at The Hague, at Breda, 1819. Of course, they were not Baptists.

The best evidence for your position is when evidence comes from your enemy or opponent, and the Campbellites or Church of Christ people have been longtime opponents of Baptists. The following words of Alexander Campbell, founder of the Church of Christ movement, are taken from the authorized edition of the Campbell-McCalla Debate, “Clouds of witnesses attest the fact that before the reformation from Popery, and from the apostolic age, to the present time, the sentiments of Baptists and the practice of baptism have had a continued chain of advocates, and public monuments of their existence in every century can be produced” (Alexander Campbell, in debate with W. L. McCalla, held at Washington, Mason Co., Ky., Oct. 15, 1823, p. 378).

Baptists have been fervently opposed to government control or involvement in their church affairs even when it would have benefited them! In colonial Virginia, everyone was taxed to support the established religion of the Episcopal Church (Church of England); however, Baptists refused to support that error by not paying the tax.

Those Baptists were hassled, harassed, and hunted; then fined, whipped, and even imprisoned; but they prevailed. They would not pay taxes to support the local vicar of the Church of England. In fact, they were told that they could receive tax dollars to support their Baptist Churches, but the principled Baptists refused the free money! That resulted with the Anglican Church being disestablished in Virginia. Now, no tax dollars would support any church.

In our day, almost all groups are taking “free” money, even Baptists! Day cares, Christian schools, homeless shelters, etc., are being financed with tax dollars. And even Baptists have learned to live with the attached strings–later to be called, chains. The strings always begin very tenuously; but it must be remembered that what the government funds, it runs. Maybe not at first, but eventually with the government’s nickel comes a noose.

Baptist History is not without its blemishes and stains. Because of its independence, some peculiar people with peculiar teachings attached themselves to Baptist Churches and baptistic groups going back before Baptist was attached to a church name. The lack of a hierarchal organization without a “pope” required every single Baptist Church to police its own affairs. That system has worked rather well; after all, it is the biblical system.

Baptists have been the loudest voices for religious freedom and separation of church and state (although not separation of God and state) from the very beginning of this nation. Honest, informed historians credit Baptists for that reality.

L. W. Bacon, in A History of American Christianity, wrote of the Baptists: “….that we are chiefly indebted for the final triumph, in this country, of that principle of the separation of church and state, which is one of the largest contributions of the New World to civilization….” High praise indeed and well deserved from a Congregationalist and later Presbyterian!

Baptists are also responsible for the ten amendments to the constitution not only the first one! Cathcart tells us in his Centennial Offering that “Denominationally, no community asked for this change in the Constitution but the Baptists….The Baptists asked for it through Washington; the request commended itself to his judgment and to the generous soul of Madison; and to the Baptists, beyond a doubt, belongs the glory of engrafting its best articles on the noblest Constitution ever framed for the government of mankind.”

The separation of church and state was enshrined in the Bill or Rights in the U.S. Constitution because of a Baptist preacher named John Leland. The Bill of Rights is comparable to England’s Magna Carta signed in 1215.

The Constitution was approved in 1787 at the Philadelphia Convention and was sent to the states for ratification. Virginia was by far the largest and most politically powerful colony so there would be no Constitution without Virginia. Each Virginia County elected two members to the state ratifying convention. James Madison and James Gordon, Jr. were candidates from Orange County (and there were two other candidates opposed to the Constitution) and Madison thought he was a sure winner. He was warned by his father and others that the Baptists had turned the citizens against the Constitution because it did not have a Bill of Rights. Madison headed home from New York through Philadelphia and stopped to spend a few hours with the Baptist preacher John Leland who was the major Baptist in Virginia and Orange County, home also of Madison.

The Penn State Law Review declared that religious liberty concerns of Virginia Baptists particularly the concerns of John Leland “…played a substantial role in James Madison’s elections to the Virginia ratifying convention in March of 1788 and to the First Congress in February of 1789. Those elections, in turn, were key events in the ratification of the Constitution and in the adoption of the Bill of Rights.”

Leland was a friend of James Madison, James Monroe, and Thomas Jefferson, and because of that relationship, he was asked to preach to Congress with President Jefferson in attendance in the House of Representatives. Pastor Leland met with Madison, a candidate to Virginia’s ratifying convention, to convince him of the need for a Bill of Rights to be added to the newly approved Constitution of the United States. Madison was lukewarm to the subject.

The preacher and politician, both Virginians, later met near Orange, Virginia, in what is known today as Leland–Madison Memorial Park. During that four-hour meeting, Leland was successful in extracting a commitment from Madison for a Bill of Rights to the Constitution. During that meeting, it was understood that Leland would oppose Madison’s election if he did not commit to a Bill of Rights. Madison knew the Baptist pastor was very popular in his district and agreed to his request. (He also knew his party had been trounced in the previous election in Orange County.) Leland supported him strongly and the two pro-Constitution candidates won: Madison had 202; his fellow candidate 187 and the two opposing candidates 56 and 34!

Madison kept his word when he went to Congress in the first congressional election in 1788; and America became the most unusual nation in the world: the first nation having a written Constitution that guaranteed freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, etc.

America has a Bill of Rights because of a persistent pastor and a principled politician! This nation is short on both today.

Madison submitted twelve Constitutional amendments to the Congress about a month after Washington promised his help to the Baptists. Two amendments were rejected, but the ten original amendments were approved on September 23, 1789 after much opposition and were then submitted to the states for ratification.

The eleventh state had approved them by December 15, 1791 and America became the most unique nation on the face of the earth! We became a nation that guaranteed the people their God-given rights and limited the power of government, and we did it with a written Constitution and Bill of Rights–thanks to a Baptist preacher.

Historian of the Episcopal Church Dr. Hawks wrote in the Ecclesiastical Contributions: “The Baptists were the principal promoters of this work, and in truth aided more than any other denomination in its accomplishment.” Again, praise from a non-Baptist!

When Methodists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, etc., pass a Baptist church, they should doff their hats in respect and whisper a word of thanks for the freedom everyone is guaranteed because of our Baptist forefathers. Even non-Baptists agree that the Bill of Rights was a fantastic achievement in the annals of government.

The smallest Baptist church in America can swell with justified pride and appreciation of Baptist forefathers who believed in personal liberty for everyone–even the right to be wrong!

Now you know why Baptists are not Protestants and why I’m a Baptist.

Boys’ new book Muslim Invasion: The Fuse is Burning! was published by Barbwire Books; to get your copy, click here. An eBook edition is also available.

The Roman Catholic Church has received major body blows yet still survives. The early conflicts with the Greek Orthodox Church in Constantinople; the virulent, violent, and vicious Crusades against the Muslims and later against “heretics” within the church; the bloody Inquisition; some vile popes (as many as three at a time); the frequent battles with European emperors; and the uneducated, unspiritual, and uncontrolled priests who often bought their positions–all made the church bleed profusely.

Sexual immorality was one of the biggest complaints (along with the selling of indulgences) against the Roman Church as admitted even by Roman Catholic historians. It was common for priests to solicit sexual favors from women in the confessional! Historian Will Durant revealed the alarming fact, “Thousands of priests had concubines, in Germany nearly all. In Rome it was assumed that priests kept concubines, and some reports estimated the prostitutes there at 6,000 in a population not exceeding 100,000.”

He suggests that the convents and monasteries differed “little from public brothels.” It seems the Catholic clergy had a taste for good food and bad women.

Then entered the Reformers!

The early reformers were led by John Wycliffe (died 1384) of England and John Hus (executed in1415) of Bohemia and William Tyndale (executed in 1536) of England who were the forerunners of the Reformation with their emphasis on personal piety and producing the Bible in the common language. Wycliffe died in his sleep following a stroke in 1384 but his bones were exhumed in 1428, burned, and cast into the River Swift as ordered by the Pope.

John Hus was summoned to the Council of Constance and had received a promise of safe conduct by the Emperor and had that assurance from the Pope who declared, “Even if he had killed my own brother…he must be safe while he is at Constance.” The Pope and Emperor lied and Hus was arrested when he arrived at the council. Hus refused to renounce his alleged errors unless he could be shown otherwise from Scripture. To the council he said, “I would not, for a chapel full of gold, recede from the truth.” He was burned at the stake.

Wycliffe, Hus, and Tyndale are called “Pre-reformers” but they were more than that. They set the stage for the major Reformation in the 1500s led by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others. They were all Reformers and the world owes them much gratitude.

It should be remembered that while Reformers were great men, they were still men and made many mistakes in their lives and ministry. Those mistakes, not to be excused, must not negate the major contributions they made to the Reformation. Readers should realize that most great leaders are complex people whom God uses in spite of their “clay feet.” Just like today.

Martin Luther shockingly wrote in On the Jews and Their Lies, “What shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews. Since they live among us and we know about their lying and Blasphemy and cursing, we can not tolerate them if we do not wish to share in their lies, curses, and blasphemy. In this way we cannot quench the inextinguishable fire of divine rage nor convert the Jews. We must prayerfully and reverentially practice a merciful severity.”

His rant continued, “Perhaps we may save a few from the fire and flames [of hell]. We must not seek vengeance. They are surely being punished a thousand times more than we might wish them. Let me give you my honest advice.…their synagogues should be set on fire, and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it. And this ought to be done for the honor of God and of Christianity in order that God may see that we are Christians, and that we have not wittingly tolerated or approved of such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of His son and His Christians.”

I am appalled that a sane man would make such a statement, but for a Christian leader to do so is beyond the pale.

He added: “Let their houses also be shattered and destroyed…Let their prayer books and Talmuds be taken from them, and their whole Bible too; let their rabbis be forbidden, on pain of death, to teach henceforth any more. Let the streets and highways be closed against them. Let them be forbidden to practice usury, and let all their money, and all their treasures of silver and gold be taken from them and put away in safety. And if all this be not enough, let them be driven like mad dogs out of the land.”
He even said, “We are at fault for not slaying them!”

Obviously, good men say and do some stupid things.

In Luther’s Works, he wrote a letter stating, “If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly…as long as we are here [in this world] we have to sin….No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day.”

Luther was correct to make the point that nothing can separate a Christian from Christ; however, it is astounding, and abhorrent and not accurate to suggest that any truly born again person would “commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day.”

It is believed by many that Luther was given to hyperbole since he often spoke of God’s grace covering our sins. He was not saying, “Go out and paint the town red. Live it up. Eat, drink, and be merry.” Whatever he meant, it was a stupid thing to write.

Concerning his position on the Peasants Revolt, he wrote Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants urging, “Therefore let everyone who can, smite, slay and stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful or devilish than a rebel. It is just as when one must kill a mad dog; if you do not strike him, he will strike you, and a whole land with you.”

He added, “To kill a peasant is not murder; it is helping to extinguish the conflagration. Let there be no half measures! Crush them! Cut their throats! Transfix them. Leave no stone unturned! To kill a peasant is to destroy a mad dog! If they say that I am very hard and merciless, mercy be damned. Let whoever can stab, strangle, and kill them like mad dogs.”

By 1531, Luther believed that blasphemy was punishable by death and he included “false teaching” into that definition. He got that from his time in the Roman Catholic Church. In 1536, Philip Melanchthon drafted a memorandum demanding death for all Anabaptists and Luther signed it. Wow, now he’s getting close to me because my theological ancestors were Anabaptists.

Luther was not patient with the Roman potentates. He wrote, “We should take him—the pope, the cardinals, and whatever riffraff belongs to His Idolatrous and Papal Holiness—and (as blasphemers) tear out their tongues from the back, and nail them on the gallows.” It was one thing to point out the errors and crimes of the Roman Church but there was no excuse for Luther’s excessive ranting and encouraging physical violence. That’s what the Catholics were doing!

Luther’s problem was not only a problem of discretion but also one of doctrine. He wrote in On Marriage, “As to divorce, it is still a debatable question whether it is allowable. For my part I prefer bigamy to it.” In his Of Married Life, he wrote, “The word and work of God is quite clear, viz., that women are made to be either wives or prostitutes.”

“I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict the Scripture. If a man wishes to marry more than one wife he should be asked whether he is satisfied in his conscience that he may do so in accordance with the word of God. In such a case the civil authority has nothing to do in the matter.”

How would you react if your pastor taught those thoughts last Sunday?

Thomas Muentzer, usually identified as an Anabaptist, was a reformer in Germany and often was in opposition to Luther especially in the Peasants Revolt that Luther criticized and Muentzer championed. Muentzer wrote, “curse the unbelievers…don’t let them live any longer, the evil-doers who turn away from God. For a godless man has no right to live if he hinders the godly. The sword is necessary to exterminate them…if they resist let them be slaughtered without mercy…the ungodly have no right to live, save what the Elect choose to allow them…Now, go at them…it is time…The scoundrels are as dispirited as dogs…Take no notice of the lamentations of the godless! They will beg you… don’t be moved by pity…At them! At them! While the fire is hot! Don’t let your sword get cold! Don’t let it go lame!”

While we must remember the era in which these men lived, that is no justification for such outrageous and unchristian activities.

Muentzer was a leader in the Peasants’ War (1524-1525), and was later imprisoned by the Roman Church. He did not accept infant baptism and believed in additional revelation. He and his followers are usually described as Anabaptists, although there is no evidence that he re-baptized anyone. He recanted his “heresy” and accepted the Catholic mass just before his beheading, and his head was displayed outside the city for years as a warning to others. Muentzer is a good example to believers to be balanced in political matters and to keep one’s eyes on Christ and His teaching.

Ulrich Zwingli (died 1531) was a prominent reformer in Switzerland who had major personal problems. He had a brief affair with a barber’s daughter; slept with a woman from a previous church; was secretly married to Anna Reinhart which was commonly known. They were publically married three months before the birth of their first child. He defended his womanizing by saying he had never defiled a “virgin, nun or married woman.”

That is as bad as, “It depends on what the meaning of is is.”

Under Zwingli in Zurich beginning in 1518, Catholics were forbidden but so were Anabaptists. The city council declared, “It is our will, that wherever they be found, whether singly or in companies, they shall be drowned to death, and that none of them shall be spared.” Felix Manz was an Anabaptist who was arrested and executed for baptizing adults who had trusted Christ after having been sprinkled as babies.

John Calvin (died 1564) was a major reformer in France and Switzerland but influenced Europe and America. He was an intellectual, preacher, author, theologian, attorney, and statesman. His Institutes of the Christian Religion has made an incredible impact on the world. In 1541, Calvin was chosen by the city of Geneva to be their religious leader to supervise the religious education of the cities’ children and to implement his version of church order.

When Michael Servetus (medical doctor and preacher), who did not believe in the Trinity or infant baptism, mentioned that he would come to Geneva, Calvin wrote a letter to a friend noting that if Servetus were to come, “as far as my authority goes, I would not let him leave alive.” Strange talk for a Christian preacher.

Servetus went to Geneva and was arrested, tried, and found guilty of heresy. He was burned at the stake on the outskirts of Geneva. That was indefensible but Calvin’s followers make a feeble attempt to justify the murder. They still do!

While the Reformers were courageous and committed men, they were also challenged men who often failed in choosing to do right when faced with wrong.

The Reformers did their job that shook the world but their results have faded, after all, nothing lasts. Moreover, they failed when they formed state churches that still exist which should be disbanded today. Thank God for the reformers with all their flaws but with the modern sexual perversion endorsed by religious leaders, apostasy by all the mainline denominations, general unbelief and wicked rebellion of church members, it’s time for another Reformation!

It’s time to welcome the Reformers–again!

Boys’ new book Muslim Invasion: The Fuse is Burning! was published by Barbwire Books; to get your copy, click here. An eBook edition is also available.

Catholics tell us that veneration of relics, especially bones, is justified because the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit! So any bones or property of a “saint” or the Savior had miracle-working powers. In about A.D. 400, Augustine condemned the excesses and outright scam of the relic business, ridiculing “hypocrites in the garb of monks for hawking about the limbs of martyrs,” adding cynically, “if indeed of martyrs.”

Why the props? Isn’t the Scripture sufficient? The reason Catholics and others refuse to base what they believe on the Bible is because what they believe conflicts with Bible teaching. Hence, a need for props.

The New York Times published an article on Jan. 16, 1881 in which they condemned “the silly worship of relics” and recounted an amusing anecdote of two rival French monasteries. They each possessed a head of John the Baptist! The monks, with amazing mental gymnastics, explained this uncomfortable detail by saying that the first skull belonged to John as a man while the smaller skull was from “when he was a boy.” I have seen the adult skull of John in a Damascus mosque.

One expert whose work was financed by National Geographic said, “There are about eight or nine skulls of John the Baptist out there. He added with a massive understatement, “They can’t be all John the Baptist.” Even this Baptist preacher can understand that! Various monasteries proclaim that they have the right hand of John the Baptist while another church displays the left arm of John. If some enterprising monk got to work, he might be able to put John back together again.

In Bethlehem they claim to have a drop of Mary’s milk and a 17th century painting shows a statue of Mary holding baby Jesus as she squirts milk into the mouth of a male worshipper standing below! Great shot!

Calvin suggested that “if we were to collect all these pieces of the True Cross exhibited in various parts, they would form a whole ship’s cargo.” He also said that there were more relics of the “true cross” than three hundred men could carry! He wrote of His Holy Blood that was “exhibited in more than a hundred places.” That is not only relic-worship but blasphemy.

During the mid-fourth century, St. Cyril of Jerusalem (ca. 315-386) wrote that “already the whole world is filled with fragments of the wood of the Cross.” More than forty shrouds of Jesus exist, so the story goes.

Late at night, astute Catholics wonder about all those nails from the original cross that could shoe every horse in Kentucky and enough wood from the original cross to supply fuel for every fireplace in Alaska for a hundred years. Well, almost.

Exeter Cathedral displayed parts of the candle that the angel of the Lord used to light the tomb of Jesus and fragments of the bush from which God spoke to Moses! I must not forget the sop of bread given to Judas, also some hairs from the Lord’s beard. Astounding!

These relics are a “cash cow” for each church that has one and for many years, it was required that each church or monastery had to possess at least one relic. That kept ye old relic scam working. It was common for a monastery to “find” a relic when they needed to raise money from the faithful. Since each relic contained special powers, distraught, disabled, and diseased people showed their generosity when praying before such a relic. Historian Durant tells of relic mongers who sold to eager believers “some of that very bread which our Lord pressed with His own teeth.” Does any sane person believe such things?

However, the relic of all relics is the foreskin of Jesus that was allegedly preserved; however, a dozen monasteries’ claim to have the relic! I think not! Such a system is worthy of criticism, correction, and contempt by sincere, thinking people.

Is anyone surprised that the Reformation happened? Protestants are not doing much protesting in our day! Is it time for another Reformation among Catholics and Protestants?

http://bit.ly/1iMLVfY Eight minute videos of my lecture at the University of North Dakota on “A Christian Challenges New Atheists to Put Up or Shut Up!”

Copyright 2014, Don Boys, Ph.D.

The papacy was not established by Jesus nor prophesied by Isaiah and saying otherwise does not make it so. For about 300 years after Christ, very ordinary village priests were called pope (papa). (By the way, what of the Bible prohibition in Matthew 23:9 of calling any man “father” other than your own physical father?) Moreover, Peter was not the first pope of the Roman Catholic Church as some shallow historians loudly proclaim. Obviously, the Christian church was built upon Peter’s confession of Christ, not upon Peter. Peter was not a Catholic!

The Christian Reformers were on the march in 1544 giving the Roman Catholic Church leaders a perpetual heartburn. The reformers were shining the light upon the religious corruption, priestly incompetence (and wickedness), and numerous unscriptural doctrines that the Roman Church espoused. The Roman Catholic leaders determined to act and did so by calling the Council of Trent (in Trento, Italy) that lasted from Dec. of 1545 to Dec. of 1563. The Catholic Counter Reformation was on the move. Trent is considered one of Rome’s most important councils. It was 400 years before another council was held.

Trent decided that the Scripture alone was not sufficient and that truth would be decided by Scripture, the pope (and his bishops), and tradition. They decided that salvation was attained by faith and works in opposition to Luther’s demand for justification by faith alone as taught in the Bible.

All Protestants and Baptists who disagreed with the council’s decision were cursed as the Roman leaders hurled 125 anathemas (curses) at all who disagreed with their decisions. That meant that such people were out of the church and destined for hell.

Those who laugh at the thought that the Pope (or any other human) can ever be without error are condemned to eternal Hell, according to First Vatican Council.

If one does not believe that Purgatory is a reality since it is never mentioned in Scripture, he is to be cursed to Hell (Session 6). Purgatory has been an embarrassing, unscriptural fund-raiser for the Roman Church. If a Catholic pays money to his church, then a relative’s sins are forgiven and eventually the doors of Purgatory open so he or she can enter Heaven. However, Purgatory, like Limbo does not exist.

Session 7 declared, “If anyone says that baptism is …not necessary for salvation,” he is cursed. Well, that means all Baptists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Lutherans, Interdenominationalists, independents, and others are candidates for Hell even though John 14:7 clearly teaches that Christ is the only way of salvation. Water baptism is simply an outward sign of what happened inwardly.

In Session 12, the church leaders decreed that those who don’t believe that the bread and wine at the Lord’s Table are the actual body and blood of Christ are doomed to Hell. Church leaders insist that they are actually eating the body of Christ and drinking His blood! If one analyzed the bread and wine as it hits the tongue would it prove to be flesh and blood? Only a superstitious fool or religious fanatic would think so. Only 45% of Catholics believe that teaching. Acts 15 forbids the drinking of blood. Catholics would have us believe that Christ was saying as He held the bread, “This is my body that we will now devour together!” What an absurdity! Moreover, Christ had not yet died, so how could the bread be His body that was in the room with them?

It is incredible and a mangling of English to call Trent an “Ecumenical Council.” The churchmen showed no interest in genuine discussion of the doctrinal differences with the Protestants. The Roman leaders were determined to reinforce their agenda with some housecleaning to satisfy the protesters. It is interesting that no Baptists were even close to the council. They wanted nothing to do with either side. Baptists are neither Catholics nor Protestants!

When Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council (1962), he made a Declaration of Faith. He said that he accepted everything declared by the Council of Trent. He specifically said that he anathematized everything that contradicted it, a position that was reaffirmed by Pope Paul VI. It was said that Paul “sought dialogue with the world, with other Christians, other religions, and atheists, excluding nobody.” But that is not true. With a wink and a nod, he spoke of inclusiveness while he reinstituted the vile curses of Trent. It is time for the Roman Catholic Church to apologize for Trent and lift all curses. Of course, the curses have no effect on non-Catholics but it is a matter of principle that the curses should be lifted if the Church leaders sincerely believe in ecumenicity. They are hypocrites if they don’t.

This evil attack upon all non-Catholics cannot be relegated to the Middle Ages; it is as current as it was at Trento. All curses are still in effect! Hardly a gracious and inclusive thought. It is way past time to lift the curses. Will the new Pope do so?

An Augustinian monk named Luther hammered to his church door in Wittenberg his objections to Roman Catholic doctrine and other abuses, accelerating the necessity of Trent. It is now time for Rome to admit that the simple monk was right and lift their curses on those who agree with him.