Why Tim Challies is wrong to be a Protestant

Why Tim Challies is wrong to be a Protestant · ... on Church Authority and Saints

Answering, bit by bit, this video:

Why I'm Thankful To Be Protestant
Tim Challies | 31.X.2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOhZj_HgHGA

Here are my answers:

I

Come on ...

• when Luther nailed the theses he was still more Jansenist than Lutheran!
• and anyway he would not have approved your take on the "Lord's Supper" as we know from his dispute with Zwingli!

Plus, he was an admitted Bible translation forger (Romans 3:28).

II

0:49 Thanet.

Where St Augustine of Canterbury landed in 597 AD, on orders of Pope St Gregory the Great.

Have you been there?

Is it a root to you as English-speaking Christian?

If so, where was the Church in 597 AD? Were Sts Gregory and Augustine Calvinists? If they weren't, but Calvinism is still the real Christianity, where was the Calvinist Church back then?

III

1:54 Right ... the ex-Lutheran in me notes, Luther would not have been content with your take on Matthew 26.

IV

3:03 Instead he found just further despair ...

Because he was exceptionally clearsighted? Or because he was exceptionally deaf to God's mercy (up to shouting out his own take on it)?

I have my take on that one from back when CMI (I appreciate their Creationism, which is more often relevant than their Protestantism) was celebrating Reformation Day:

Creation vs. Evolution : CMI Strays into Protestant Hagiography Today (part 1 of series)
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2017/10/cmi-strays-into-protestant-hagiography.html

Great Bishop of Geneva! : What Luther Got Wrong More (pt 2 of series)
http://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com/2017/10/what-luther-got-wrong-more-pt-2-of.html

Great Bishop of Geneva! : Was the Bible For or Against Luther's Work? (part 3 of series)
http://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com/2017/10/was-bible-for-or-against-luthers-work.html

Great Bishop of Geneva! : Mercator and Geert Groote (excursus)
http://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com/2017/10/mercator-and-geert-groote-excursus.html

V

3:51 "a full one year plenary indulgence"

You must have recalled wrong.

An indulgence of "one year" is by definition a partial indulgence, which is less than a plenary one. So "a full one year plenary indulgence" is impossible.

Say you are trying to win an indulgence for your uncle who lived a bad life, but repented on his death bed and so is not out of question he could be in heaven sooner or later.

You fulfil the conditions of a one year indulgence (properly! including the full hatred of all sins you need to have yourself, which your uncle was defective in), he comes out of Purgatory one year earlier (whenever that may be, it could be nine years from now instead of ten years from now). If you fulfil the conditions of a plenary indulgence (your full hatred of all sins even more important), he comes out of Purgatory straight away.

There is a rumour that indulgences for monetary gifts were done away with at Trent, but it seems there was just a decision to better oversee the men in the position of alms collectors (like Tetzel was).

3:56 "for all the sins of the last year"

Ouch, that was a bad take on what the theology of indulgences means.

Years (usually one or three) or days (usually three or forty or hundred) are about time in Purgatory which is satisfied by the indulgence instead of by time there.

You can win indulgences for yourself too, but a plenary one is only valid as no purgatory for your previous already repented and forgiven sins (you can't win an indulgence while in mortal sin), and a one year is not for the last year before winning it, it is a ticket for one year off from Purgatory. And if you were anyway only getting forty days there, the rest goes to a soul on God's choice who would otherwise have spent longer time there, due to no one winning an indulgence for him ...

Ah, if it's a Holiday Plenary, if it is not a Holiday Partial Indulgence of One Year - that is what must have been the text you mangled ...

Not planning to do precisely the Scala Santa, though, as long as Bergoglio is that close by ...

(And while Santiago is also for indulgences, I actually made it as a petitionary prayer for my life on earth, not for an indulgence ...)

I am sorry, I missed that 300 days (the indulgence marked "300 giorni") is also a typical indulgence time for a partial indulgence.

VI

4:38 Are you sure St Francis Xaver's arm is mummified?

I'd credit him with being incorrupt ...

VII

5:06 Yes, it matters it is the Blessed Virgin, She is called "Hammer of All Heresies"

Why? Because Arians, Nestorians, Monophysites perhaps too, but certainly Arians and Nestorians, tended to get sth wrong about honouring Her - meaning that the ones honouring Her correctly were the ones who saved good Christology at Nicea I, Constantinople I and Ephesus.

Sure that one of the heresiarchs is not Voltaire?

I am not sure you aren't missing a point : the two men could be someone quite else, and Luther and Calvin added in the "book back margin" ...

I actually sent the Jesuits there that question. I mean, their considering themselves and Bergoglio as Catholics, erroneously, doesn't mean in any way that they can't understand basics on the artwork in their Church (I hope ...)

VIII

6:34 "and that's been a very deliberate move on the part of Roman Catholicism"

On the part of what?

You mean on the part of the Vatican II Sect!

I walked into the Cathedral of Tulle. Archbishop Lefèbvre had been archibishop there. In his time, the Church must have had the full Catholic artwork and looked like a Catholic Church should do, but since he was replaced, some things have changed.

Moveable walls were placed as bare walls or walls for pinning things, and they were hiding what was behind ... that is the Vatican II Sect which did that very deliberate move you were talking about, but please don't call that "Roman Catholicism", will you.

Apart from that, Tulle was nice, people were hospitable, meaning, he must have given good catechesis on alms giving and it was not quite forgotten ...

IX

7:01 "Because they return Scripture to the centre of our life and faith ..."

Return? You mean there was no Church in 1500 which placed Scripture where they did?

How then can that placing be Scriptural?

Matthew 28:20. All days means all days.

A Church that did not exist in 1500 or on 500 and anytime from then to our days cannot be Christ's Church.

A practise which did not do so can at least not be an obligatory one, except as replacing other obligations.

7:07 "they found in Scripture there is no support for the system of indulgences"

There is, here: Tobit 4 : [7] Give alms out of thy substance, and turn not away thy face from any poor person: for so it shall come to pass that the face of the Lord shall not be turned from thee. [8] According to thy ability be merciful. [9] If thou have much give abundantly: if thou have a little, take care even so to bestow willingly a little. [10] For thus thou storest up to thyself a good reward for the day of necessity. [11] For alms deliver from all sin, and from death, and will not suffer the soul to go into darkness. and same chapter, even clearer as to connection to indulgences for the dead : [17] Eat thy bread with the hungry and the needy, and with thy garments cover the naked. [18] Lay out thy bread, and thy wine upon the burial of a just man, and do not eat and drink thereof with the wicked.

It is not that they positively did find there is no support, they rather refused to find the support there is for indulgences (some resolved the problem by claiming erroneously Tobit is not Scripture).

X

When it comes to teachers I trust, they do not include either Luther or Calvin, they do include Sts Thomas Aquinas, Robert Bellarmine and Ignatius of Loyola.