I'm Still Focusing On More Scholarly Methods in Refuting Roman Catholicism

I remembered a few years after I left the Roman Catholic system, I was fascinated by the world of conspiracy theories. I was hungry for the truth. After Billy Graham and Trinity Broadcasting Network were both huge disappointments, I landed with one anti-Roman Catholic conspiracy theory site after the other. I believed a lot of stuff that were written were all true. But there's one problem... some of them can't be verified to be true or they're just making up stories and mixing them up with the truth.

After several years of growing up as a Christian, nothing can be further than the truth that conspiracy theories is mostly based on speculations and shaky facts. They don't even help in soulwinning and they don't have a scholarly approach. Fortunately after many years of sticking with the "fundamentalist" approach, I got more into the reformed, scholarly approach. Many anti-Catholic sources may have good intentions but how scholarly are they? Many claims are still put at question or are not even important.

Instead, I thought of trying to be more scholarly with my approach in refuting Roman Catholicism. Instead of conspiracy theories, the more scholarly approach would be to get books like "Truth Encounter" by Anthony Pezzotta. The whole book by Pezzotta himself focuses more on the errors of Roman Catholicism instead of the more sensitive issues. Some allegations against Rome are simply written for sensationalism or because one's bitter about what happened. Sometimes, it's a emotional issue at a very personal level. Pezzotta doesn't go as far as to start talking about allegations that they can't prove but focuses more on doctrine.

Some Christian ministries do have good intentions and they love Roman Catholics. The problem is that they're actually doing it wrong in some way. Many of them tend to generalize Roman Catholics as criminals. As much as I believe that the Vatican still has a lot to answer for and these ministries do love Roman Catholics but they should focus on the Gospel. If anything should offend it should be the Gospel according to Jesus not allegations that you can't prove. If a Roman Catholic should get offended it's because they're told that their doctrine of faith plus works is unbiblical or that Mary can't intercede for them and not some conspiracy theory or any proven fact that's only appropriate for those who have already been born again. What the Vatican is doing behind the scenes isn't as important as preaching the Gospel.

One of the best methods to refute Roman Catholicism is to use the methods of James White's Alpha and Omega Ministries. Listening to his one hour conversation with a Roman Catholic apologist was more meaningful than focusing on speculations. I know I've spent a lot of time with unscholarly methods for several years. Others that I could use are Keith Thompson's approach in Reformed Apologetics Ministries, John F. MacArthur with Grace To You, Robert C. Sproul with Ligonier Ministries and Paul Washer with Heartcry Missionary instead of being a sensationalist. While it's true Billy Graham is indeed working with the Vatican but his own actions exposed himself. TBN exposed itself to be part of the Vatican by its own actions. While false teachers need to be rebuked but they must be rebuked in love. After all, weren't Christians once goats and wolves before they became sheep?