Courier Conversations
This Podcast of Courier Conversations will be a conversation of topics with a variety of guests that concern, inspire and inform Christians about current events Worldwide. We hope you'll find our stories informing and encouraging in your daily walk with Christ.
Courier Conversations
The Pope's Chair: An Evangelical Perspective
The selection of Pope Leo XIV has captured global attention, prompting three Southern Baptist leaders to examine what this means for evangelicals in this thoughtful episode of Courier Conversations.
Jeff Robinson hosts Dr. Travis Kearns and Dr. Walter Johnson for a candid discussion about the theological implications of papal authority from an evangelical perspective. The conversation centers on a fundamental question: Should evangelicals celebrate the selection of a new Pope, or does the very office itself represent a theological problem?
The team dives deep into Matthew 16—the passage where Jesus tells Peter "on this rock I will build my church"—unpacking why evangelicals reject the Catholic interpretation that establishes papal authority. Dr. Kearns offers a compelling linguistic analysis of the Greek text, arguing that when Jesus says "this rock," he's referring to himself as the foundation, not establishing Peter as the first Pope. This distinction forms the cornerstone of evangelical objections to papal claims.
Historical challenges to papal succession receive equal attention, with the panel highlighting how the concept of papal supremacy developed gradually over centuries rather than existing from the beginning. They discuss problematic periods when multiple competing popes simultaneously claimed authority, raising questions about the Catholic notion of unbroken apostolic succession from Peter to the present day.
While maintaining clear theological boundaries, the conversation acknowledges the practical influence of the papacy on moral and political fronts. The panel reflects on Pope John Paul II's positive role in opposing communism alongside Western leaders and considers how Pope Leo XIV might influence contemporary moral issues where evangelicals and Catholics find common ground.
The discussion concludes with a powerful affirmation that Christ alone stands as the true head of His church—no earthly representative or vicar needed. Tune in to this thought-provoking episode for a balanced exploration of how evangelicals can thoughtfully engage with Catholic traditions while remaining grounded in biblical truth.
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Welcome to another edition of the Courier Conversations podcast. My name is Jeff Robinson. I am the president and editor-in-chief here at the Baptist Courier and Publishing Company, and with me are my two regular hosts. Sometimes there's one, sometimes there are two. Today we've got a full house. I've got Dr Travis Kearns, dr Walter Johnson you should probably know them by now if you don't want to let them explain that but today we're here to talk about the Pope. We have a new Pope. In fact, one week ago today, on May the 8th, the white smoke went up from the roof of the Sistine Chapel, signifying that we have a new pope, and we do. He is named.
Speaker 1:I started saying Louis XIV, leo, leo XIV. There we go, and so we want to talk about that as evangelicals today. Obviously, we're not Roman Catholics, we are Southern Baptist evangelicals, and so we just kind of want to bat this around a little bit today and talk about what we should make of that. There's a lot of seems to be a lot of celebration going on in the culture and a lot of goodwill and a lot of happy feelings about this. So should we be happy about this? Dr Johnson, I'm going to ask you first what should be our posture as evangelicals toward this news.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, for one thing it's we don't have a new pope. The Roman Catholic Church has a new pope, so it has no direct spiritual effect on us. It seems to me it does have practical effect because the Roman Catholic Church, regardless of what anybody thinks about it, for centuries has been a political influence and a moral influence in society. And so when that influence is positive and I mean positive, what we believe is in keeping with and allowing the gospel to flourish, we're excited about it because there's more truth in it than less at that time. But it really doesn't affect us, except that it does have some moral authority with it in a culture, and for that we're happy. It in a culture, and for that we're happy. But as far as it goes with, you know, the Roman Catholic Church, that is not something that evangelicals tend to applaud.
Speaker 1:Exactly right. He isn't our Pope, we are not Roman Catholics, and so you're right, we don't have a new Pope. But that was the announcement, the way the newspapers or the internet put it now, and so that's been the conversation now for one week. Travis, what's your take on this as a Southern Baptist? I will stay even a minute. Our pastor, who's a very faithful preacher, and your association as a matter of fact, addressed this in his sermon. It was an application point Sunday, and he's got a column about it today on the Baptist Courier website at baptistcouriercom. I commend that to the reading of our listeners. It'll be up, you know, from now on, as long as there's an Internet, and so you know. He argued there that this office is actually more of an emissary of the devil than it is good news for us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would not say that in any way, shape or form. Am I happy that they've named a new pope? A number of people are happy because it's the first pope from the US not the first pope from the Americas, but the first pope from the US. They're happy just because there's a new leader of the Roman Catholic Church but, as Dr Johnson said, it's definitely not our pope, it's their pope of the Roman Catholic Church. It really saddens me because of the emphasis placed on one man. Now, that emphasis inside Roman Catholic theology is rightly placed because of what they believe internally inside their own system, which we can talk about later if you want to, jeff, but it really does make me sad simply because they place so much emphasis on one human being.
Speaker 1:Well, we celebrate a king, a vicar, jesus Christ. He is our Lord. We have no pope. Jesus Christ, right, he is our Lord. We have no Pope.
Speaker 1:I know it's interesting that I worked in secular newspapers for a long time before I surrendered to ministry, back in the mid to late 90s, and it always fascinated me how the media would think Southern Baptists are a lot like the Roman Catholic Church. They would try to pin down who our Pope was and of course, for years, years it was Al Mohler. They just don't know how else to think. So it's this office and this leadership, these offices that define the Roman Catholic Church, have really trickled down into our culture to where, if you don't know evangelical Christianity or the way Southern Baptists work and some Southern Baptists don't know how Southern Baptists work, how the convention operates it can be quite confusing, but they automatically sort of put that trace that over evangelicals. I find so is this.
Speaker 1:I'm going to look at the column. This column today is by Donald Thomas, pastor of Abner Creek Baptist Church and my family's pastor, and just a very faithful preacher, expositor of the Word of God, and Sunday he's preaching Ecclesiastes and as one of his, I think, legitimate application point he spoke of and I asked him to write this. He said should we celebrate? I think that's the purpose of the question I'm asking Should we celebrate? And here he concluded. But what should a Protestant think about this appointment? Is there any cost for celebration? And so here are his thoughts. That may sound severe. He said the papacy is a wicked office that Satan has used throughout the years to deceive people into heretical teachings, distract the church from her true mission and rob God of his deserved glory. Dr Johnson, I think, was what do you think about that?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's well said. I do believe that there are Roman Catholic people, roman Catholics, that are saved. I do not believe that the Roman Catholic Church and its approach to its teachings, particularly on salvation, are conducive to leading somebody to salvation. It's almost like this person was saved in spite of being a part of that system. But I do think in the discussion, because I think your pastor makes the point exactly right from a spiritual, religious position, you have to talk about this one way, and I think he's exactly right. You know this is an obstacle to the gospel. I will quote scripture out of context. But it's rightly applied here.
Speaker 2:From the beginning it was not so. What they are teaching and the entire sacramental system that they have in place, if you ask the question from a practical standpoint again, are we as evangelicals wanting a pope? Even though we don't think there ought to be one, he does have a lot of moral persuasion and so we do have an interest in what kind of position this person is going to take. For us just to say, well, we're not Catholic, it's not going to affect us. It will not affect us in our religious system. It certainly could in our political goals, which we see as moral goals.
Speaker 2:But I think basically the question is is Roman Catholicism grounded in scriptural truth, are its claims grounded historically? And I think they're not. I think that's very questionable. That's very questionable. I think anytime you try to have a, to show a historical continuity through that length of time, you run into problems, just like you did from a Baptist perspective, with graves in the trail of blood. You're going to have to play loose with the facts and ignore some of the facts to make those kinds of historical connections. And so I just think the Roman Catholic Church is problematic, not only in its development but what it's teaching now and its capabilities of leading people astray. So it's you know, we don't rejoice that there is a Pope. I don't say and I don't say how we would want to join in saying we're celebrating this. I think that's problematic and I think the good pastor was exactly right.
Speaker 1:Well, of course the papacy has its roots in Matthew, chapter 16, peter proclaims that Jesus is. Jesus asks who do you say I am? Peter said you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And then Jesus, of course, says blessed are you, simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed that to you, but my Father is in heaven. I tell you you're Peter. Here it is. And on this rock, peter, they say, I will build my church and gates of hell when I overcome it. So Peter is the rock. This is their deduction, that Peter is a rock. And so from there, an unbroken perpetuity is the office of the papacy Travis. Why do we object to that? Why do we not? How do we, as evangelicals, take that passage?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's pretty simple. You know it's interesting. There's some New Testament scholars in evangelicalism, da Carson specifically, who believes that evangelical Protestants have simply overreacted to the Catholic interpretation of Matthew 16 and that Peter really is the rock. Carson argues that in the Expositors Bible commentary. I think Carson is wrong. I would say that to his face. I'd be a little nervous to do so, but I would say it to his face.
Speaker 3:Because throughout the New Testament, in the Gospels, one of Jesus' favorite self-designations is to use the demonstrative pronoun this. So when Jesus says you are Peter, he uses the word which would be a small rock, and then he says on this rock, the word for a large rock, I'll build my church. But when he says this rock, I would argue strongly, he's pointing to himself. So he points away you are Peter. He points back to himself and on this rock, on me, I'll build my church. The gates of hell will not overpower it. We know from other New Testament texts Jesus is the foundation of the church. You see that throughout the gospel proclamation text in the book of Acts. You see it in all of Paul's letters, you see it in Peter's letters, in John's, in the letter to the Hebrews. You see it in Peter's letters, in John's, in the letter to the Hebrews.
Speaker 3:This is a problematic thing. So back to what your pastor was discussing in that article. We don't celebrate, because it would be celebrating a complete eisegesis of the text of Matthew 16, rather than a proper reading of Matthew 16. We would celebrate the pope as much as we would celebrate a new president of the LDS Church, because both are equally non-Christian. That may be a controversial thing to say, but here I stand, I can do no other. If we're going to talk about the Pope, we've got to bring in Luther at some point. Of course, and probably somewhere in there, we have to call the Pope a dog because Luther was prone to do that he could comment on Psalm 23 and somehow work in the Pope as a dog.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I don't think we celebrate this. I think we interpret this text in Matthew 16 very straightforwardly, as the rest of the New Testament would interpret that text. We don't pull it out of context, we don't rip it to shreds. We read it for what it says, and that is Jesus is the foundation of the church. Period, End of story. It's not Peter, it's not his successor that sits on the throne in Rome or anything of the sort.
Speaker 1:And of course, the theology of the papacy which has been developed throughout Roman Catholic history, particularly in Vatican I, 1869, 1870, when they pronounced that the Pope was infallible and that his proclamations from the chair, when he speaks ex cathedra, then he is infallible. To me, that is one of the surest signs that we're speaking about a false church here. And of course the reformers and the Puritans after them would refer to the papacy as the Whore of Babylon and the Book of Revelation and I think would we be sympathetic to that.
Speaker 3:Do you want to take this one first?
Speaker 2:I would say sympathetic. It's interesting that Sam Waldron in his commentary on the 1689 Baptist Confession you know it says yeah, there's truth to that. I think I would say that differently somewhat today. But the point I think does remain. Whether you'd say it's the Antichrist, it is Antichrist in that it is against Christ. You know, when you put the article there, this is the Antichrist or whatever else. I think that's right. But again, I think the sentiment is certainly correct there that they were right, that it is a false system. It's led many people astray, it's claimed a power illegitimately and has utilized that power illegitimately through the years. But again, I think, to build on what Dr Kearns was saying, you've got the problem there in Matthew, but you've also just got the historical development of looking and saying Peter was not treated early on that way. This is not something that came until really solidly several hundred at least to 300 years later. And if he was treated, that way.
Speaker 3:Paul sure didn several hundred at least 300 years later and it was treated that way. Paul sure didn't seem like it in Galatians. Yes, he had a problem, correct.
Speaker 2:You certainly didn't have an infallible pope at that time.
Speaker 2:But, you know. So there's just all kinds of problems. Don't call any man father. I think you can have a big discussion on that and I realize there's disagreement on that. But and I realize there's disagreement on that but I just think the problem, big problem, is historical continuity. That even if a person argued for that passage in Matthew, you'd have to say historically it just did not unfold that way. The church just made it happen later. And for those intervening centuries there there's just no indication. The bishop at Rome was for a while, after a couple of centuries, treated as a you know of equals, but still one of them. Again, it's not until centuries later that that comes. And if they're going to validate that they're going to have to deal a lot stronger with those periods of history there. That's got all kinds of historical loopholes in them.
Speaker 1:And of course Vatican II from 1962 to 1965 represents a bit of a shift away from that sort of brittle proclamation of Vatican. I doesn't it that they considered us kind of erring brothers. Proclamation of Vatican. I doesn't it that they considered us kind of erring brothers. They granted that we had strayed, but we still were brothers in Christ. The Protestants were, and so it's interesting how that represents a bit of a step away from that, as ecumenism sort of was the flavor of the month during that time and seems to be now. Because, you see, the church seems strong, obviously in terms of just secular power, but in terms of theological force I don't see a lot of strength there in the culture today, but we would have to admit that there are—we hope that Pope Leo XIV will be conservative and he'll be more like Pope John Paul II than the Pope Francis who just died a few not but a couple of weeks ago, right.
Speaker 2:And again for religious purposes.
Speaker 1:It's not going to make any difference to us Right political purposes, or really ultimately to anybody Right but political.
Speaker 2:But on the moral landscape and to accomplish what we feel like the Lord has put us here to do, and that is to be salt and light and to make some kind of a difference. You know, we do have something at stake there, whether we would wish we did or not we actually do, but it has no impact on who we are as Christians. Where we stand before God is just not part of our system, and it's something that ought to be, something we're thankful for.
Speaker 1:Well, the reason I bring up Pope John Paul II.
Speaker 1:I grew up in the 70s and 80s and he became pope in the late 80s. And so on the world stage at that time you had Pope John Paul II, you had Ronald Reagan, president here in the United States, and Margaret Thatcher in England, all working against communism in Russia during what turned out to be the end of the Cold War, and so you know we could at least be thankful that I mean Pope John Paul was a force for political good and used his power that way. Really, throughout his time as pope and it seems that some have called the last pope Francis sort of the woke pope started to, it seems like, back up on things like marriage, transgenderism, these cultural issues that we're very keen on, even abortion. We've long been in co-belligerence, at least in terms of our view of being against abortion, seeing that as murder, with the Roman Catholic Church. So that's why I bring up John Paul II. Will he be conservative or will he be liberal, so to speak? Travis, you're flipping through the catechism book over here. You seem to have a point here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I brought here the current catechism of the Roman Catholic Church just so we could look and see what they say for themselves about the Pope. What do they say? Or who do they say the Pope is? So this is from section 882, says this quote the Pope, the Bishop of Rome and Peter's successor, is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful.
Speaker 3:And then this for the Roman pontiff by reason of his office as vicar of Christ and as pastor of the entire church, has full, supreme and universal power over the whole church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered. That's a pretty bold statement. So not only do they believe that he has power over the Roman Catholic Church, but they would argue that the Roman Catholic Church represents the entire church, universal and small c Catholic. So they are making the claim that not only is he the follower of Peter and holds that office as the rock on which the church is built, but he has the power, he is the guy over the entire church. And then that last phrase, a power which he can always exercise unhindered. That takes a papal bull a little bit further than sitting on Peter's throne saying this is the doctrine of the church. He could, according to the catechism, which John Paul II interestingly says a sure norm for teaching the faith. Says that about the catechism. He could do anything he wanted to and say I'm the Roman pontiff, this is how it's going to be.
Speaker 2:And it even goes beyond that at certain times, particularly in the Middle Ages, when you had popes like what Gregory VII, that would have basically argued not only supreme authority over the church, but Jesus is supreme ruler over governments as well, and so that also applies to government governments as well, and so that also applies to government. So they've always had that conflict with, or at least years ago. The Roman Catholic Church is backed off of that now. But what you've read there over the church, at one time the Pope would have actually argued over secular government as well.
Speaker 3:So what's interesting about that statement, though, is as well. First of all, no man has full, supreme, universal power over the church. Jesus has full, supreme, universal power of the church. Jesus is the pastor, so to speak, of the church. Secondly, when you've got historically, at one point at least three people recognizing themselves as the Pope, and they're all excommunicating each other, which one is the rightful heir to Peter's throne? So, again, as you mentioned a few minutes ago, dr Johnson, it's dealing with these historical issues that they just don't want to do. Yeah, so it's troubling, to say the least.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you've had. You've had times when one Pope had another Pope dug up from the grave and drug through the streets to show that he was a false Pope. He was a false, a vicar of Christ. Well, this has been, I think, a needed discussion. I wish we had a little more time, but we are out of time, unfortunately. Donald Thomas, in the sectional article finishes where you just did. Travis, who will be the true king of the church. It won't be a preacher, it will not be a pope, it will be Christ. He will be proclaimed as king, he will be exalted as savior and he will be accessible as a great high priest for the common man. That's all of us, and praise the Lord, that that's the truth.
Speaker 2:And he doesn't need a vicar or representative on the earth to do it for him.
Speaker 1:Amen, Right Amen. He has the church and he is Christ himself. So we do pray for the new pope. We pray that he will be a force for good and that his time as Pope will lead to more religious liberty and things like that that will help the gospel, the true gospel, go forth in power and strength. Well, thanks for listening. We hope you will like us. You can catch us on all the different platforms of social media. Like us, write a five-star review. Go to our website where we have daily. It's updated daily. At baptistcouriercom, you can read Donald Thomas's article and many other good things there updated daily. So thanks for tuning in. Look forward to seeing you in the next episode of Courier Conversations.
Speaker 4:We're glad you joined us for Courier Conversations, where we are informing and inspiring South Carolina Baptists and beyond. For more information about these topics and more, subscribe to our e-edition or go to our website at baptistcouriercom. The Courier is located in Greenville, south Carolina. As a multimedia ministry partner of the South Carolina Baptist Convention. To comment about today's podcast, email us at conversations at baptistcouriercom. This podcast, produced by Bob Sloan Audio Production,
