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.
We don’t know how Calvin or Luther would have reacted to this, and that should be kept in mind when analyzing their prior statements. But at an even deeper level, we should not be making an appeal to authority in order to decide this question. These were fallible men who were products of their time and environment. Protestants have no pope, so instead we should appeal to the unchanging Word of God, while recognizing the great accomplishments of the Christian men that have gone before us.
The Complexity of Triage
This is where Ortlund’s liberal mask begins to slip. He uses liberal buzzwords like “complexity” and “nuance.” Those words should set off alarm bells in your mind. Ultimately, he says that Roman Catholicism contains a lot of errors, just not damnable error. Gavin would like to get away from black-and-white thinking where Catholics are either damned or just a different flavor of Christian. Notably, he bases this argument on his experience with Roman Catholics whom he claims “are far better Christians” than himself. But of course, this begs the question of assuming that they’re Christians to begin with.
No Protestant denies that it’s possible to be both upright externally among Second Table morals while also being a reprobate. The issue of course is whether they trust in the true gospel or not, but Ortlund avoids this question entirely.
What About Justification?
Finally, Gavin Ortlund completely goes off the rails by taking a “middle of the road” approach to justification. This is also very commonly referred to as appealing to an imaginary third way approach that solves all disagreements, very popular among woke Big Eva types. Ortlund makes the shocking claim that the nature of our disagreements with Rome about justification does not concern the entirety of the gospel because Protestants and Catholics use the word “justification” differently. So, in Gavin’s mind, the argument is akin to an American and a Brit arguing that “football” is the best sport. He says that both sides have valid arguments for what justification is, and so we should just live within that tension. Once again, we need to go to the Bible in order to determine what justification is and how to obtain it. Justification is in fact black and white, it is received through faith alone, and it is still the dividing line between Protestants and Catholics, just as it was 500 years ago. This is a primary issue of the gospel. If you don’t get justification right, you are not in fact a Christian.
.@gavinortlund posted a video “Are Catholics Christians? Why Protestants Can Say YES” where he completely collapses on the doctrine of justification.
— Defiant Baptist (@DefiantBaptist) December 23, 2024
👉Justification has a different meaning to Catholics and Protestant, and both definitions are valid.
👉A complete misreading of… pic.twitter.com/OV4IZOprXj
Conclusion
This 15-minute video ends up being a hyper-emotional argument to manipulate you into caving on the gospel of Jesus Christ. We can, certainly, be co-belligerents with Romanists on social issues, but we can never compromise on the gospel. Ultimately, Catholics are a mission field. They need to hear the good news, which they won’t get from theological squishes like Gavin Ortlund.
5 Responses
Gavin also made a video concerned about young men converting to Eastern Orthodoxy, but Gavin is at fault for it (his videos saying Protestants need to embrace the “real presence” and start calling Mary Theotokos).
And I would say conversion to Easteen Orthodoxy and Catholicism are exclusively “Reformed” phenomena (Anglicans, Lutherans, “Reformed” Baptists, Presbyterians) because non-“Reformed” Protestants tend to reject the council of Ephesus and believe Nestorius was a hero for opposing Mary worship right when it started with Cyril of Alexandria pushing the pagan title “Mother of God” beginning around 428 AD. That includes some Calvinist Baptists who aren’t “Reformed” in the more broad sense, especially John Macarthur, whose explanation of John 3 the Wedding at Cana is that Jesus addressed his mother there for the first time after his divine nature and in his divine nature considers her mere “woman” not mother, which is probably the first good explanation I’ve ever heard of why Jesus would call his mother “woman,” as usually pastors lie and claim it was respectful back then which only the braindead fall for.
I think the justification debate is wrong-headed. To say Catholics believe in justification by works is too simplistic and lacking in information and they can produce Vatican II and beyond documents saying otherwise like a document that is a joint delcaration on justification by faith that John Paul II signed with the Lutherans around 1999. Rather pointing out they believe in juatification by Marian Devotion is the way to go, but “Reformed” who are themselves heretical on this by accepting the Satanic council of Ephesus love to avoid this point, because they are weak on this and lean towards wanting to pray the rosary. This is a big weakness in the “Reformed” tradition, and non-Reformed Baptists are way better as a result than “Reformed” Baptist. The “Reformed” tradition needs to work on this and find a way to reject Ephesus. As a suggestion to start with I will point out that the Oriental Orthodox broke with the Eastern Orthodox over Chalcedon preciaely because they understood Chalcedon as contradicting Ephesus to exhonerate Nestorius; I understand it the same way. The Oriental Orthodox want to worship Mary, so reject Chalcedon, becauae Xhalcedon allows making distinction that certain attributes belong to the human nature or divine nature, like you can say Jesus sweat great drops of blood only in his human nature; but the side effect, or real reason for them saying this but the EO and Catholics hide it, is Chalcedon is exhonerating Nestorius, and you can say Mary is only mother of his human nature, only in his human nature does he see her as mother and to his divine nature she is mere “woma.” The Oriental Orthodox saw this right after Chalcedon and noped out of Chalcedon and thus broke with the Eastern Orthodox. What they should have done is whag I do, accept Chalcedon and throw Ephesus away as refuted by Chalcedon; and the “Reformed” need to make this move to sure up their people against conversion to Catholicism or EO, because if they think its ok to call Mary “Mother of God” then its no big thing to add Coredemptrix, Mediatrix, Queen of Heaven, etc., to pray the rosary and all prayers popes have attached indulgences to saying “Mary, Mother of God, all our hope is in you, save us” etc..
Baptists and other Reformed don’t like this, but if it isn’t a historically condemned heresy or contradicting the Nicene Creed, they are Christians. They may be very very off base on some things, and significantly less fruitful or under God’s chastisement, but they are Christians. Our camp is too quick to cut out large swaths of brothers and sisters in Christ.
The ticket is believing Jesus is the Christ and God, not getting justification right. Pretty sure the thief on the cross believed the former and was not so clear on the latter. And he went to Paradise.
The Judaizers in Galatia apparently acknowledged that Jesus is Christ and God, but they were condemned for preaching a false gospel, because they held that trusting in the work of Christ on the cross wasn’t enough for salvation–and that’s also true of the Roman Catholic Church.
The hwretics in Galatia were pushing kosher not Christian sacraments. This is why viewing the problem with Catholics as “works” rather than their Marian stuff is a mistake. “Works” in Paul means the ceremonial law of the Torah, not baptism or communion.