Mastering the Fine Arts

by Timothy F. Kauffman

Strange days. With so many Evangelicals proclaiming allegiance to Rome, and many others actually crossing the Tiber to join her, we must face the very real possibility that the problem will not go away anytime soon. And to compound our disbelief, many of today's Roman Catholic apologists claim that they once were quite belligerent toward Rome and that their conversion was as surprising to them as it is to us. Such claims anticipate and therefore disarm the obvious objection: that they converted to Rome because they wanted to. We are happy to grant to these apologists the logical implications of their confession and we conclude, as they do, that they did not convert willingly, but were overcome by Rome's arguments. And since they were overcome by her, we think that their present position can only be as valid as the logic by which they arrived, and it is precisely this--and not the conversion itself--that we will happily address.

Scott Hahn announces before many a Roman Catholic parish that he never could have imagined 15 years ago that he would be standing before them to teach Catholic truth--especially Catholic truth about Mary and her role in the Church. But Mr. Hahn was overcome by the logic of Rome, and is all too eager to explain how. As a Protestant, Hahn could never have embraced Mary as the Queen of Heaven and Earth, but as a Roman Catholic, he cannot do otherwise. Citing the reference to the queen mother in the Old Testament (cf., 1 Kings 2:12-25), Hahn tells us how obvious it is that Mary is the Queen of the Christian Church:

"No wonder when the early Church recognized Jesus as the Son of David, the true and the new Son of David, establishing a kingdom, a new kingdom over a new Israel, as the new king of Israel, in the New Jerusalem, the Heavenly Jerusalem, Christ called to His right hand His own Queen Mother, crowning and enthroning her. And this became a common recognition in every branch of Christendom without any controversy, dispute or debate, in the first few centuries in a Church which was not prone to novelty [and] which was diligent about safeguarding the sacred deposit of faith that Jesus had entrusted to the apostles and their successors."(Hahn tape series on Mary, Tape 3, "Mary the Immaculate Conception," side 1)

We marvel at the logic by which Hahn arrives at this conclusion. Even if his premise was true (and it is not), his logic fails. For example, even assuming that the early Church had not been prone to novelty (and it was) does not give rise to the conclusion of which Hahn has convinced himself. Hahn sees in 1 Kings 2:12-25 (a passage in which Solomon sets up a throne for his mother, Bathsheba), the establishment of an official position of Queen Mother in Israel. Therefore, it makes sense to him that Mary, being the mother of the true King of Israel, would naturally find a glorious throne at the right hand of Christ in Heaven. But Hahn fails to see the broad context of the passage: Adonijah wrongfully attempts to obtain a favor from the king through the intercession of the Queen Mother(v. 16); the king refuses the request(v. 22); Adonijah is put to death for the offense(vv. 24-25); and perhaps most curiously, the Queen Mother is helpless to avert the catastrophe in which she has taken part. We find nothing in here to suggest a heavenly throne for Queen Mary. To the contrary, if we cared to do so we could use the passage to argue against the mediatorial mercies of an alleged office of Queen Mother that Hahn is ever eager to implore. But we do know from the Scriptures that there is only one ruler in the heavens, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom Paul describes as "the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords."(1 Tim 6:15) And if there be only one ruler according to the Scriptures, we need not search through traditions and novelties of the early Church to find out if perhaps there is another that God failed to mention in His Word.

Such logic notwithstanding, we must deal with the monumental assumption that Hahn makes in order to buttress his argument against attack: he assumes that the early Church was not prone to novelty, and therefore that we can accept the traditions which originated at that time. But is his primary assumption valid? Listen to what the Scriptures say of the early Church:

• "For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough."(2 Cor 11:4)
• "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel--which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. ...You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified."(Gal 1:6,7; 3:1)
• "As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God's work--which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm."(1 Tim 1:3-7)

"Not prone to novelty"? Hahn could not be further from the truth. "Prone to novelty" is precisely what the early Church was, and Paul found himself spending much of his time correcting those who were in fact prone to the very novelties that Hahn denies ever influenced the Church. But Hahn is correct about one thing: the early Church was willing to accept a great many doctrines and teachings "without any controversy, dispute or debate," and this is precisely the reason Jesus Christ rebuked them in Revelation 2 and 3. The church at Pergamos tolerated the doctrines of Balaam and the Nicolaitans "without any controversy, dispute or debate." The church at Thyatira tolerated Jezebel "without any controversy, dispute or debate." The church at Laodicea wouldn't "dispute or debate" anything. Indeed, the early Church accepted a great many novelties, not unlike those which Hahn and his cohorts "so confidently affirm," and that was their folly. Contrast that with the attribute of the only church to receive only commendations from Christ: the Philadelphians. Their trademark was their stand on the Word--something that no doubt averted the reception of such novelties as Hahn proposes. We are not convinced by his reasoning and we prefer to forge our faith from what the Word of God does say--and not from what the early church did not.

We make these observations with sober interest because Hahn and many other men like him are leaving Protestantism and joining the ranks of Rome in greater and greater numbers. And though we are sad to see people misled by them, these men perform a valuable service to the Church. They have truly been overcome by Rome, but as we have seen above, this small sampling of the logic to which they have yielded shows us how far one can go to defend that which defies reason. Their statements can therefore help us understand the mindset of the Roman apologist, a mindset which must be understood prior to engaging them in discussion.

Though Hahn and men like him are willing to defend their positions from Scripture, an examination of their conclusions demonstrates that their reverence for the Word is mere lip service, and defending their traditions is the ultimate goal. It must be, for that is their security. Jesus had words for such men as these, men who pretended to be honoring God but who defended traditions which were contrary to the Scriptures. The Roman Catholic translation states it well: "He went on to say, 'You have made a fine art of setting aside God's commandment in the interests of keeping your traditions! ...That is the way you nullify God's word in favor of the traditions you have handed on. And you have many other such practices besides.'"(Mark 7:9,13, 1970 NAB) These men have mastered a practice that Christ condemned; they have mastered the 'fine art' of defending their traditions at the expense of Scripture. But Jesus was not overcome by their faulty logic, saw no reason to tolerate it, and had no qualms with cutting right to the heart of the issue: their traditions. Two thousand years later the issue is still the same, and the Scriptures are no less capable of cutting through to the heart of the matter than when they first fell from the lips of Christ Himself. Therefore, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdomÉ"(Col 3:16), and "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ."(Col 2:8) For if anything can stem the tide of Roman conversions--and the endless stream of novelties and inventions that accompany them--it is the written Word of God alone.