Parchment & Pen Blog

In honor of Reformation Day, I am once again submitting my Papal complaint. The primary reason that Catholics believe God provided the Roman Catholic Church as an infallible authority is for unity. Christ prayed in the upper room that His people would be one (John 17:21-22). This unification Christ prayed for would most certainly involve some degree of doctrinal solidarity. [...]

Transubstantiation is the belief held by Roman Catholics that the bread and wine at the Eucharist transform miraculously into the body and blood of Christ. While the accidents (the taste, smell, and all non-essential qualities) do not change, the substance of the bread and wine do change into the actual body and blood of Christ. [...]

This is the final installment of my Sola Scriptura series. The previous posts (post crash) can be found here. Or you can download entire series in rough PDF. UPDATE: I have already deleted about 10 comments today. Please don’t just spam with quotes from the church fathers. Had the poster who did read the entire [...]

Best of Parchment and Pen On the flight back from Athens last week, I sat in front of a gregarious Irish gentleman. He was a medical doctor in Dallas, but didn’t even come close to losing his native accent. We talked theology most of the flight. He was fascinated by CSNTM’s work of photographing ancient [...]

See updated version here. Protestantism is not perfect. No informed Protestant would claim such. Evangelicalism has major problems. This is nothing new. But Protestants have always thought the strengths of Protestantism outweigh the weaknesses. Otherwise, we would not be Protestant! While I often write about the weaknesses of our system, sometimes complaining about Evangelical shames, [...]

I know that the title is provocative, but please understand that I am serious in this question. At this point, I believe that it is very difficult for Roman Catholics who hold to Transubstantiation (is there any other kind of Roman Catholic!) to find harmony with a basic principle in the Definition of Chalcedon. In [...]

Well, not me necessarily, but all Protestants. We Protestants really never know whether we are in or out with the Catholic Church. At one council it seems that we are damned to the fires of hell, and then, at another, we are “brethren,” separated, yet real brethren! This all comes down to how the Catholic church [...]

Now I will start to give a brief positive defense of the Protestant doctrine of sola Scriptura. The Scripture implicitly and explicitly speaks of its unique authority and sufficiency. 2 Tim. 3:14–17 “You, however, must continue in the things you have learned and are confident about. You know who taught you and how from infancy [...]