Catholic Reacts to "The Christian Avengers" Podcast

0:00 so early this week George jenko uploaded a podcast where he assembled some of the most popular Christian influencers out there and they had a 3-hour long conversation talking about Christianity and more than a few times they touch on Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy I don't look at things that are dirt and put it to the Holiness of God when they take the Eucharist or they take this and they truly believe that it is actually his body and his blood it's a big not obviously I'm Catholic I submit to Rome Papa Francis and my channel is dedicated to explaining and defending the Catholic faith so today I will be reacting to some of their points of contention now before we begin I just want to say I'm a huge fan of Cliff Stewart rousin Bryce no shade of the others I just don't know him that well but these are the guys I watch the most and they're killing it especially rousin I'd say of all the

0:46 guests on this panel rousin definitely knows the most about Catholic and Orthodox Theology and it was really refreshing when the Avengers started strawmanning Catholicism and rousin who has interviewed many Catholic and Orthodox clergy clarified what we believe as you'll notice in this conversation rusin has a bit of a higher reform theology I believe there's real presence in the communion High Protestants believe in real presence in the communion I believe Jesus is really there with Community I don't believe the molecules change while the other guys are pretty low Church non-denominational last if any of the Avengers crew is watching this video I hope I don't come off as cocky or arrogant that's not my intention and if I did please don't let my behavior take away from my arguments also Christian Avengers gr up to me I have Cliff William Lane Craig Trent horn Jimmy Aken Sam Shimon and and father Josiah and maybe throw in Jay dire for

1:32 the wild card we'll be y'all's lineup I digress let's begin so the first topic I want to highlight is salvation pretty important more specifically can you lose your salvation here's a snippet of what George says the girl says that in the Bible it says that we're already perfected and it's done she goes so then why do I need to ask for forgiveness every time I sin if it's perfected moving forward all of my sins doesn't that mean that I'm not acknowledging that it's already perfected now I'm not going to try to guess the theology in fact as this conversation goes on you can see these guys have differing opinions but it seems like George is asking one of two things first what's the point of asking for forgiveness if you can't lose your salvation or maybe saying sure you can lose your salvation but why not just sin anyway cuz you can go back and confess that sin and God will automatically forgive you it's

2:17 almost like spiritual shampoo so let's address that first point for context the doctrine of once saved always saved was invented by John Calvin one of the reformers and there's a few problems first if you can't lose your salvation that means the moment you genuinely put your faith in Christ you lose your free will forever you're chained up you're a slave God forbid if you apostatize later denounce Christianity blaspheme by that logic you would still be saved but then calvinist might be like okay well that person wasn't really saved in the first place well nobody can predict the future so how can anyone know if they're saved or not that means there's a non-zero chance that you might not be saved because there's a non-zero chance in the future you might apostatize Therefore your salvation isn't guaranteed second there are multiple passages in Scripture that heavily suggest best you can lose your salvation for example in John 15

3:03 Jesus says he is the vine and anyone who does not remain in him keyword remain implying they were once with him will be thrown out wither and thrown into the fire Paul says in Galatians 5:4 you've been severed from Christ you who are seeking to be justified by the law you have fallen from Grace suggesting that you can have Grace and then lose it in the Catholic church we believe that to go to heaven you must die in friendship with God and we call this being in a state of grace now you could die with a very broken imperfect friendship with God but that's still some sort of relationship and God wants everyone to be saved and to address that other point of but why not just sin anyway because you can go back and confess that sin well once you confess something you also have to repent which means earnestly trying to not do that sin in the future you can't play games or somehow trick God doesn't work that way this is a

3:48 great segue into my next Point say I there's two versions of me one gives up marijuana and one doesn't give up marijuana my heart will always love God I will never not love God and to be honest there's a lot of people that smoke and they and they read their Bible and they're with God they're just a slave to this now I just keep using this as an example because I've walked through it what happened if God forbid I die and I was still sinning even though I knew he was sinning I think in his heart George knows that certain sins are grave and some aren't listen here if I die in road rage driving back to the hotel after this and somehow somebody says oh he died in road rage so his last action was he was ticked off so you died in Anger that type of Rage you're sending you right to hell no that would be putting everything on Works righteousness saying that it's all about your simple works good or bad that are

4:34 going to send you to heaven or hell for example killing someone is different than stealing a grape at a grocery store although they're both technically sins the distinction here is what Jesus says in 1 John 5 where he makes a distinction between certain sins that lead to death and some that don't what Jesus is speaking about here is spiritual death quick analogy just as we have a physical body we also have a spiritual one and a non-lethal sin is what the Catholic Church defines as venial sin they don't cut off your Sal it's more like a cut or a bruise you're not going to die but you certainly weaken your relationship with God now mortal sins on the other hand do lead to spiritual death in other words unless you repent of that sin and seek the sacrament of confession you have cut yourself off from God's sanctifying grace and you are going to hell that would be the spiritual death category that Jesus talks about now in the Catholic church we believe that to

5:19 commit aortal sin three conditions have to be met first you have to know that it's a moral sin so you can't do it out of ignorance second you have to fully agree to doing it no one can force you and third it has to be grave in nature so swearing no more like murder simony apostasy if you want to read more about different grave sins I'll put a link in the description so back to George's situation road rage wouldn't be a mortal sin at worst it' be a venial sin meaning it weakens your relationship with God but it doesn't completely sever it unless you're trying to actively murder someone then maybe next topic baptism I was baptized as a baby but my perspective of it is the way the baptism is viewed in my eyes which could be wrong because my heart is wicked is it's a proposal and that's that's why he uses the bride and and in the groom thing so many times but if it's a proposal

6:05 shouldn't it be my mouth that's proposing to God first I'm pretty sure everyone on this panel is a crob Baptist meaning they believe you have to consciously believe in Jesus Christ first before being baptized as opposed to PO baptism which is what Catholic Orthodox and other Protestants believe also quick history lesson the founder of the Protestant Reformation Martin Luther believed that baptism saves you and he also believed we should baptize infants in fact he viewed the an Baptists who rejected this as Heretics and they tried to kill each other which is really sad the man redeem Zumer Presbyterian also affirms infant baptism and its salvific properties so is baptism necessary for salvation or is it optional maybe just an ordinance as many Protestants like to claim now here's a common objection from Cliff does a man need to be baptized to go into the kingdom of God well if he

6:52 does then the thief on the cross who turned to Christ and said Lord remember me when you come into your kingdom and Jesus says I tell you the truth today he'll be with me in Paradise that dude ain't going to heaven because he didn't get down off the cross and get baptized so obviously my point is no you don't have to be baptized in order to go to heaven so in one Peter 3:21 Peter says and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also okay so the good thief wasn't baptized he's obviously saved what happened well first the Bible doesn't explicitly tell us that he was or wasn't baptized at best it's ambiguous furthermore we as Catholics believe that baptism is a normative path to salvation but not an exhaustive one you could be baptized by desire if you you want to be baptized but you don't have the means to perhaps you have Invincible ignorance or you could be baptized by Blood as a martyr here's another inconsistency I see many

7:37 Protestants committing if steuart has a genuine faith in Christ he will feed the hungry he will clothe the naked and he will be baptized they say sure baptism isn't necessary for salvation but then I'm like okay let's say I'm a new convert I profess Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior but I refuse to get baptized you know maybe I just don't want to get wet and ruin my hair well every Protestant I've spoken to said this would be a huge red flag and right this so they would say it indicates that I was never saved in the first place but wait you told me baptism is not necessary for salvation at least not normally necessary but now you're imposing it as some sort of requirement or criteria as a sign that you are saved you see what I mean next is the difference between baptismal regeneration versus what many Protestants claim which is that baptism is simply an outward profession of one's

8:22 Faith Catholics Orthodox and many Protestants believe there's some sort of spiritual regeneration that baptism is a key part of Salvation because it renews a person's life with the gift of the Holy Spirit the other day I was getting dinner with some Protestant friends and I told them if you had two twin babies you baptize one and you don't baptize the other and then you put them in an atheist household growing up I have a strong feeling that baptized infant would have a much stronger Affinity or attraction to God than the unbaptized infant even if he or she doesn't know it because they have the gift of the holy spirit it's a permanent Mark in their soul and I've noticed it personally I have some secular friends who have an unusual interest in Christianity and it turns out they were baptized as a baby but they never grew up with Christianity last infant baptism was practiced by the first Christians for example origin of Alexandria a third century Christian

9:08 scholar said the church received from the apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infant cyprine of Carthage a third Century Bishop said we should baptize infants at the earliest possible age and going back to scripture Jesus says let the little children come to me Colossians 2:1 Paul compares Baptism to circumcision and you know who the Jews circumcised infants I could talk about this all day but in the interest of time let's move on and if you want more info check out the links in the description so on the topic of works and salvation Cliff says if I put my faith in Christ yes I better feed the hungry clothe the naked and visit those who are sick and impr prison that is a genuine outworking of my faith and the point of Jane he's not contradicting Paul when he says faith without works is dead but what he is saying is there is

9:54 such a thing as a sincere Faith yeah and there's such a thing as an insincere faith so I actually 100% agree with him there's a huge misunderstanding that Catholics believe that you can somehow work and Merit your own salvation many Protestants dismiss baptism as a mere work and there's no amount of works we can do to buy our way to Salvation it's not like we can earn brownie points with God that's a heresy called pelagianism which was condemned in the Council of Ephesus rather baptism is not a work but a gift a reception or conduit to which we receive God's grace in other words we're saved by grace but accepting Jesus isn't a simple intellectual decision we have to actively live our faith out and cooperate with God's grace imagine if I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior and then I see my fellow neighbor dying on the street and I say peace be with you and keep walking I am not doing the

10:41 will of God and as James 21:17 says faith without works is dead therefore we aren't saved through works but works are a sign of true Faith most Protestants I talk to they agree this isn't a point of contention there's a difference in belief of versus belief in something belief in you have to actively walk and cooperate in in fact in 1999 the Catholic Church signed a joint declaration with the Lutheran World Federation saying we agree on justification in 2017 organizations representing 75% of Christians worldwide also affirmed this declaration including the world Methodist Council Anglican communion and the world communion of reformed churches so I hope it's clear we agree later in the conversation this gentleman says we should cut out the noise read the gospel it's so clear the water baptism is just symbolic of that

11:26 whether that's up to the families or not we we shouldn't worry about it causing division as long as we keep everything gospel Centric if you just keep it gospel centered if you just keep it Jesus Christ centered there is no division what he's speaking of is the doctrine of perspicuity a Protestant doctrine that affirms that the Bible is so clear on salvation any unlearned man or woman can pick it up read it and understand everything they need to be saved however there's a ton of problems with this the biggest being empirical evidence if that's the case why are there thousands of different Protestant denominations are reading the same book claiming to be enlightened by The Same Spirit but they can agree on who who's saved how we're saved why we're saved if baptism saves you what constitutes a valid baptism they can agree the most fundamental beliefs and they aren't in communion with each other the proof is in the pudding moreover many Protestants give the vibe of just believe in Jesus

12:11 bro and you're saved but then okay like can this Jesus be some sort of demigod like Hercules does God have to be a trinity for example the fourth Century Bishop Aras claimed Jesus was not God but some sort of demigod theorist believe that Jesus was two persons not one well many Protestants would agree these beliefs jeopardize your salvation but here's the problem these are complex issues that took Decades of debate among theologians Scholars Bishops and entire ecumenical councils to discern in a recent debate I use the argument against perspicuity and I have multiple debriefs discussing it in detail so if you're interested I'll link it in the description for context we as Catholics have the magisterium with a college of Bishops headed by the pope which is Guided by the Holy Spirit to protect us from error lastly they touched on intercession of the Saints take a listen there's one version of prayer that I see

12:57 a lot of my loved ones do and they pray to I just wanted to talk to Jesus I don't understand why you had to talk to the middleman like I didn't like that but Jesus says there is nobody that goes to the father besides me if you want to talk to him talk to me and then there's another Bible verse that says do not uh talk to the dead right and then there's some people that are like well are they dead because the thief on the cross said that today you'll be with me in Paradise so there might be some people that are alive that kind of threw me for a little spin I'm not going to lie so the first thing I say is that James 5:16 tells us the prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective and what better way to seek intercession than from the holy men and women who who have gone before us and are now in direct communion with God furthermore a saint is just anyone in heaven and the Bible says that God is the god of the living in other words the Saints are alive with God in heaven in fact I would argue they are more alive than we are moreover

13:43 scripture tells us that the Saints are aware of what's happening on Earth for example Hebrews mentions that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses and revelation 69-10 we see Martyrs before God's altar aware what's happening on Earth and praying for justice in Revelation 5'8 John mentions four creatures and 2 for elders presenting a bowl of incense to God which are the prayers of God's people here we can see the Saints in heaven directly interceding on our behalf the 24 Elders have a striking parallel to the 24 divisions of the levitical priesthood who are the intercessors of God's people now they bring up 1 Timothy 2:5 while this is true there's a difference between a mediator and an intercessor if asking for the Saints is mediation wouldn't they be committing that same error every time they asked their friends or family to pray for them in fact at the beginning of the podcast all of them prayed for each other so what's the difference why pray for each

14:29 other when you can directly go to God yourself the answer is that there's power in community and God wants us to support each other when we more gathered my name I'm present to help our brothers and sisters get to heaven 1 Timothy 2 1:3 says we should intercede for others the difference between mediation and intercession is that an intercessor helps conect you to someone or something they don't hold themselves while as a mediator is the one who actually holds his power for example think of Christ as the bridge between God and Humanity the mediator allows us to go to heaven intercession with would be like fellow Travelers walking along the bridge with you encouraging you guiding you supporting you as you guys walk on that bridge together but they aren't the bridge they would be useless without the bridge the bridge exists because of Christ but the support of others helps us find Christ helps us Foster our relationship with him and the whole point of reading about the Saints or

15:16 looking at icons is to remind us of the Holy lives they lived ultimately pointing us back to our creator if you want more info I have a deep dive on stly intercession go to scripture history at this point you should know Link in description now let's hear George's take on the Eucharist when they take the Eucharist or they take this and they truly believe that it is actually his body and his blood I need somebody to come with biblical terms and show me in the gospel because as of right now you're we're just taking dirt and worshiping it as if it's our presence of God and I just I can't wrap my head around that I can't wrap my head that like if the piece of bread falls to the ground legitimately Hell Breaks Loose in that church and they bow and pick it up with their mouth and they treat it like it is actually my God that's in that bread I can't get behind that so

16:01 obviously there's a lot going on here and I have to say I was actually pretty surprised with r's response you know I believe Jesus is really there with communion I don't believe the molecules change I don't believe do you don't believe that that that bread is his body I believe that Jesus's real presence is really with me in communion he appears to affirm some sort of real presence but I'm guessing he believes in consubstantiation rather than transubstantiation either way it seems like the rest of the panel only views communion as symbolic so to summarize quickly Catholics believe that bread and one are turned into the true body and blood of Jesus Christ through a process called transubstantiation St Thomas aquinus distinguishes everything in the universe as having its accidents or physical appearance and its substance or metaphysical identity for example my accidents light skin auburn hair super good-looking and my substance is well me

16:46 Randall I could dye my hair gain weight change my physical accidents or appearance but my identity will always be the same I can't change that with transubstantiation the reverse happens the accident or appearance stay the same but the metaphysical Identity or substance fundamentally changes they seize to become Bread and Wine turning into the body and blood of Christ this belief is based on the latter half of John 6 where Jesus says truly truly I say to you unless you eat the Flesh of the son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you and yes we can see throughout scripture Jesus used many metaphors I'm the door I'm the vine but this isn't the case he doubles down on their objections multiple times and in the gospels whenever Jesus says truly truly or amen amen we know he's talking about something very important in fact a few verses

17:31 later he says for my flesh is True Food and my blood true drink and this belief was held by the first Christian for example Ignatius of Antioch a disciple of the Apostle John wrote in 110 ad that the Heretics abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of Our Savior Jesus Christ furthermore the Catholic church has dozens of confirmed Eucharistic Miracles many of which are confirmed through independent Laboratories where the Eucharist miraculously starts to bleed and it's revealed to be heart tissue for more information links in the description George also says this isn't that blasphemy isn't that like idolatry at a whole different level when you're worshiping something I'm not trying to be disrespectful again I'm just learning so I understand where he's coming from but we don't worship bread we worship Jesus and we believe the Eucharist is Jesus we believe he is sacramentally

18:17 present in Luke 22:19 and Matthew 26:26 Jesus Takes the bread and says this is my body and as I mentioned in John he says it's his body and blood here's what i' ask George in response if God can take on human flesh without it being idolatry why couldn't he unite himself with the appearance of bread and wine if worshiping Jesus In the Flesh isn't idolatry then worshiping in the Eucharist isn't either next they raised this objection which I found really interesting they weren't saying let's go grab a p you know his knee and start eating it and and you'd also have to say that Jesus would be eating himself as well if you're going to make that claim nowhere in the gospels does it say that Jesus ate his own body and blood but I think it's heavily implied he partook in the Passover when he instituted the Eucharist so we can grant this assumption second cannibalism refers to decaying or dying flesh if you bite off

19:04 someone's finger that body part is in a state of dying transubstantiated flesh in the form of the Eucharist is categorically different Jesus is not hurt he's Fully Alive the comparison is apples to oranges lastly I'd say the Eucharist in many ways is a mystery and we can use the metaphysics of aquinus to try to understand it but at the end of the day it's a miracle and look I know this might sound like a copout but there are many things Christians in general take for granted that seem logically impossible like like the Trinity and when you look at scripture you look at what the first Christians believe what the early church taught the real presence is overwhelmingly clear for example the well-known Protestant early church historian J and D Kelly wrote Eucharistic teaching it should be understood at the outset was in general unquestionably realist I.E the consecrated Bread and Wine were taken to be and were treated and designated as

19:50 the savior's body and blood last I think cliff and George Touch on a really important point right here can a man have more teachings than the gospel so is should there be things that are not in the gospel or is the gospel perfect from cover to cover this is my way to Christ or is it a man and the Bible so it's Jesus Christ alone so if anybody contradicts the Bible or if any teaching contradicts the Bible I'm sorry we're parting company but if it's not in contradiction to the Bible if it's a different interpretation let's be real careful and that's why brother I appreciate the way you handle the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic distinction we as Catholics believe the Bible is the inherent inspired word of God while it conveys many moral truths the Bible isn't an exhaustive list of the answers to every moral question in existence for example

20:36 take modern evils like contraception or IVF where there's so much disagreement with Protestants if it's moral or not for example rand's mentioned he doesn't use contraception not sure about the rest of the crew but Protestants are split and these are pretty serious issues like IVF there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of IVF children sitting in freezers across the country and that's not to mention the countless ones which are discarded for not having favorable genetics in fact over 50% of embryos in the IVF process are discarded and in many ways I agree with Cliff we as Catholics base all our teachings beliefs salvations dogmas from the Bible now some beliefs might be more explicitly mentioned than others but they don't contradict scripture I absolutely love the work you guys are doing it's much needed in this post-christian country I say all of this in a spirit of charitable fraternal

21:21 correction let me know if you agree or disagree in the description I want to hear your guys' thoughts please pray for me and God bless