# Ligonier's 'Roman Catholicism' course free to stream



## reaganmarsh (Sep 22, 2015)

Greetings PB brethren,

For the rest of September, Ligonier is offering their course on the RCC for free streaming access. 

You may click here: http://www.ligonier.org/store/roman-catholicism-download-and-stream/?mobile=off

Enjoy!


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## TylerRay (Sep 22, 2015)

Thanks, Reagan!


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## jandrusk (Sep 23, 2015)

Thanks. You can download the audio as well in case you run out of time with the streaming.


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## Bill The Baptist (Sep 23, 2015)

This is good stuff to be sure, but it always struck me as odd that Dr. Sproul seems to be nicer to Catholics than he is to Arminians and others who he would disagree with. Just an observation.


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## reaganmarsh (Sep 23, 2015)

TylerRay said:


> Thanks, Reagan!



Yes sir!


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## reaganmarsh (Sep 23, 2015)

Bill The Baptist said:


> This is good stuff to be sure, but it always struck me as odd that Dr. Sproul seems to be nicer to Catholics than he is to Arminians and others who he would disagree with. Just an observation.



Bill,

That strikes me as odd, too; I'll have to think about that! Interesting...


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## Semper Fidelis (Sep 23, 2015)

I think it was Spring of 97 when I heard R.C. on the radio talking about the Eucharist from this very series. I was still a Roman Catholic at heart who had been very devout but had also attended a Charismatic Catholic Church and so felt at liberty to attend a Charismatic Church outside the Roman Catholic Church. I literally thought the Reformation was over the issue of Catholics not being excited about Jesus and that Luther had made Christians excited about Jesus. I had been in Bible studies led by my Priest where I had hoped for the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the ability to speak in tongues and tried to live my Christian life by "discerning" the will of the Holy Spirit. I would walk into Charismatic services at a Church in Manassas hoping for a movement of the Spirit in my life that would eventually overcome my resistance. As I would walk out each week I would immediately be depressed and then feel a slave to sin and a failure for the rest of the week until the cycle continued.

Anyway, intrigued, I called up Lignoier and they were offering the Book, Faith Alone, along with the package set of tapes.

I read Faith Alone on a business flight to Okinawa, Japan.

My life has never been the same.

Thank you, Lord, for using the work of R.C. Sproul to bring me from spiritual death to life. Like me at the time, there are many "Evangelicals" who need to hear this.


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## Backwoods Presbyterian (Sep 23, 2015)

Most of Protestantism seems to have made peace with Rome and consider them no more than Methodists or Baptists. Just another denomination with a different message than ours.


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## Semper Fidelis (Sep 23, 2015)

Backwoods Presbyterian said:


> Most of Protestantism seems to have made peace with Rome and consider them no more than Methodists or Baptists. Just another denomination with a different message than ours.





I don't know if you ever listened to this interview but it's a great history of how the social gospel enveloped mainline Protestantism and how ECT was an attempt to re-capture the moral center of the culture.

http://www.albertmohler.com/2015/02/23/tip-jb/
Transcript: http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=34023&transcript=y



> I’m describing the historical fact that in the late 1980s and through the 1990s into the 2000s, the collapse of the mainline Protestant churches opened this hole in American public life, this moral vacuum. And the two largest groups of Christians who had always been kept on the outside were sucked in to fill the hole. And they were on the one side the Catholics and on the other the Bible-believing evangelical churches. And they met there, and a kind of ecumenism of the trenches developed in which the dying mainline became the center anti-Catholicism. The number of evangelicals who were anti-Catholic declined in massive amounts. And the Catholics who never really even considered the evangelicals before, who thought that their enemies were the mainline Protestants, were forced to encounter these evangelicals. And projects that I belonged to in those days that we all believed in, evangelicals and Catholics together, were arranged to see this possibility of some new kind of combination of Catholics and evangelicals could fill the hole, supply the missing leg to the American experiment that the mainline Protestants used to provide.



I participate in a group of people who come together for Bible Study in my area and around the Marine Corps near the various installations. One fellow posted on the Facebook group asking who had signed the Manhattan declaration and there were many who enthusiastically asserted they had signed it online. I was the lone person who said I hadn't because it confuses the Gospel and I was pilloried by a fellow who considered folks like John MacArthur to be basically living in the past and not understanding the moral crises that face our country.

You see, the *really* important thing is for Christian "values" to reign in America and the nature of the Gospel itself is a secondary issue.


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## GraceOverwhelmsMe (Sep 23, 2015)

Bill The Baptist said:


> it always struck me as odd that Dr. Sproul seems to be nicer to Catholics than he is to Arminians and others who he would disagree with.



I would argue that that's not the case at all. He still considers Arminians to be Christians in a state of grace. They just don't understand, properly, why they're in that state. He does not consider Roman Catholics Christians. He has as much animosity toward their teaching as he does toward antinomians. 

I'd take a read-through of his book Are We Together (also free right now - http://www.puritanboard.com/showthread.php/87834-Free-eBook-Are-We-Together) and you'll see that he is not kind at all to them. 

If you listen regularly to his daily Podcast "Renewing Your Mind," you'll find more than enough anti-Catholic content to satisfy you.

I've been listening daily for almost 2 years now, and here's what I've found are hot-topic buttons to him - in order:

1) Abortion - He loses is mind over abortion
2) Antinomianism
3) Roman Catholicism
4) People having the nerve to be angry at God
5) Atheists
6) Arminians

He is friends with Arminians - Billy Graham and he go back quite a ways. I don't know if he does much golfing with any Catholic priests.


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## Frosty (Sep 23, 2015)

Thanks a ton Rev. Marsh!


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Sep 24, 2015)

In general, R. C. Sproul will say that "Arminians are Christians...just barely".


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## reaganmarsh (Sep 24, 2015)

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> In general, R. C. Sproul will say that "Arminians are Christians...just barely".




Ha ha!


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## Semper Fidelis (Sep 24, 2015)

Bill The Baptist said:


> This is good stuff to be sure, but it always struck me as odd that Dr. Sproul seems to be nicer to Catholics than he is to Arminians and others who he would disagree with. Just an observation.


Strange. I've never seen that. His book _Faith Alone_ takes aim precisely at the idea of Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) on the point that it's not Rome abandoning a false Gospel but Evangelicals abandoning the Reformation principle of Sola Fide.

R.C. has noted that he lost many friends in his opposition to ECT. I think one of them was probably Chuck Colson. As a former Roman Catholic, it has always seemed to me that his theological guns are most focused against the RCC position. If anything, it seems that R.C. is anxious about Arminianism precisely because it pushes Evangelicals (who he sees as on his "side") back in the direction of Rome. He even quotes J.I. Packer to that fact that the signers of Dordt saw the Arminian conception of faith as a work and as a return to Rome on that issue.

I guess what I'm saying is that if he had more ire toward Arminians then he wouldn't be comparing them to Rome on issues but the other way around. 


GraceOverwhelmsMe said:


> 1) Abortion - He loses is mind over abortion



What do you mean by "...he loses his mind over abortion?

I've been listening to R.C. (either Tape of the Month) or broadcast/podcast for 18 years and don't recognize the order of issues myself. I think I've heard everything he's ever taught on the radio.


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## Toasty (Sep 24, 2015)

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> In general, R. C. Sproul will say that "Arminians are Christians...just barely".



He says that because he believes that their beliefs are not consistent with Arminianism. If their beliefs were consistent with Arminianism, then they would not be Christians.


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## GraceOverwhelmsMe (Sep 24, 2015)

Semper Fidelis said:


> What do you mean by "...he loses his mind over abortion?
> 
> I've been listening to R.C. (either Tape of the Month) or broadcast/podcast for 18 years and don't recognize the order of issues myself. I think I've heard everything he's ever taught on the radio.



The order is not based on the frequency that he speaks against these things, rather the intensity of how he speaks against them. 

When I say "loses his mind" I mean it is one of the few things that can incite him to anger on the issue. It is one of the only issues where he absolutely, positively will not mince words or try to soften the blow. If asked what the greatest sin this country is culpable for, he would, without hesitation, say abortion. Listening to some of his sermons where it comes up (like his teaching though Luke) you can just feel his animosity toward the subject.


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## Semper Fidelis (Sep 24, 2015)

OK, I agree with that but I wouldn't characterize that as "losing his mind". I think his assessment of the horror of abortion is a morally sane position.


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## GraceOverwhelmsMe (Sep 24, 2015)

Semper Fidelis said:


> OK, I agree with that but I wouldn't characterize that as "losing his mind". I think his assessment of the horror of abortion is a morally sane position.


My definition of "losing my mind" is when I get so upset by something, I can't not vent my frustration at the hypocrisy and absolute ridiculousness of the pro-death camp. I actually "lost my mind" earlier today on the subject lol.


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## reaganmarsh (Sep 24, 2015)

And this, brethren, is why Dr. Sproul's course is needful: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/vatican-get-time-off-in-purgatory-by-following-pope-on-twitter/


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## GraceOverwhelmsMe (Sep 25, 2015)

reaganmarsh said:


> And this, brethren, is why Dr. Sproul's course is needful: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/vatican-get-time-off-in-purgatory-by-following-pope-on-twitter/


Are you kidding me?


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## reaganmarsh (Sep 25, 2015)

GraceOverwhelmsMe said:


> reaganmarsh said:
> 
> 
> > And this, brethren, is why Dr. Sproul's course is needful: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/vatican-get-time-off-in-purgatory-by-following-pope-on-twitter/
> ...



I first saw it from Tom Ascol's post on FB being shared by a pastor friend...


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