(Ray Fava – Evangelical Dark Web) Over the Christmas season, Gavin Ortlund decided to fully abandon the Reformation, and that’s no exaggeration. Once considered to be a premier Protestant apologist with a focus on countering Roman Catholic claims, Ortlund has lately descended into theological liberalism and far left political views. Now, he is completely undermining his entire apologetic ministry with a video he published called, “Are Catholics Christians? Why Protestants Can Say YES.” Gavin does so by making a three-part argument.
Historic Protestant Views
Ortlund starts off his video by claiming that the view of Catholics being Christians is the historic Protestant view. He does so by pulling various quotes from the reformers as well as some post-Reformation theologians. To be frank, it’s very dangerous to frame an argument this way….
It’s very easy to find quotations across church history that would seem to support this view or that. Catholic apologists do it all the time with the church fathers. Ripping a single line from John Calvin without recognizing the time and context in which he lived is not a proper way to analyze history. For one thing, both John Calvin and Martin Luther were dead by the time the dogmatic decrees of the Council of Trent were published. This ecumenical council of the Roman Church anathematized (cursed to go to hell eternally) in no uncertain terms anyone who believed in the true gospel of grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone:
Session 6, Canon 9. If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema.
CRN has compiled a list of false teachers and several other professing Christians we’ve warned you about over the years. The list also contains those we must keep an eye on plus movements, organizations and “frauds, phonies and money-grubbing religious quacks” to mark and avoid as per Romans 16:17-18 such as Gavin Ortlund.