Yesterday I came across a video on YouTube by someone named Mike Gendron. You may have heard of him.

Mike—as nicely as I can put it—is a heretical, radical, fundamentalist who has dedicated his life to “evangelizing” Roman Catholics and all sacramental Reformed Catholic traditions as well.

Before I became an Anglo-Catholic, I saw him teach in person where he gave a presentation on how the Bishop of Rome was the false prophet of Revelation who would bring in the One World Religion of dispensational theology. Needless to say, I was skeptical at the time, despite still being deeply rooted in the false teaching of dispensationalism.

In the video I saw yesterday, Mike made two striking, and frankly, demonic claims:

1. We should NOT read the church fathers because they could be the false teachers that Paul warned against. Because of that possibility, we should only be reading the Bible—and people like Mike, I guess??

2. The Eucharist is a demonic ritual that will be central to the coming One World Religion.

After this, Mike went on to horrifically mispresent the Roman Catholic Church with the same old terrible straw-man arguments that have been put out by every radical, anti-ecumenical “innovator”: Mary is equal to Christ as mediator; Catholics believe they have to earn their salvation; they believe priests can forgive sins instead of Christ alone; etc.

I share this for two reasons. 1) to show that there are those in the world who reject everything both the Roman Church and the Reformation stood for, choosing to innovate rather than purify the Church—thus leaving the Church all together. And 2) BECAUSE people like Mike reject all authority beyond their own, they end up bearing horrific false witness against the Church, and specifically, against Christ.

One of the highest callings that we have as Christians is to represent others well. Slander and false witness are condemned in the strongest possible terms throughout the Scriptures. Not only does it hurt those who are falsely representing, it also has the potential to deceive others who may not have the understanding to see through the false witness being brought against whoever it is you are criticizing. In the case of Gendron, his tactic has more in common with the Accuser of the Brethren than it does with anything originating in Christ. I say this as someone who does have some strong disagreements with Rome.

The Scripture teaches us to be slow to speak and quick to listen. How often do we do this? In every story Mike shared, he did a lot of talking down to Roman Catholics, rarely did he say that he paused to truly listen to them. If we wish to be Christians in the world, one of the first ways we can do that is through listening and asking questions. It is what our Lord himself did. When we fail to do this, instead opening our mouths to speak, we run the danger of speaking without knowledge or understandings. In other words, we risk sin.

Be careful to speak authoritatively only regarding that which you know. Be meek and humble. And in all things, have charity.

In closing, I don’t need to point this out, but Mike falsifies his entire position by encouraging Christians to forfeit any regard for the early church fathers, insisting that they could be false teachers. According to Mike, Christianity really only began 250 years ago, with 1800 years being shrouded in lies. This is the same argument made by every cult and heretical “Christian” group. It also insists that the truth of the Gospel was lost for 1800 years—so much for a Church that would endure.

Heretics like Mike should be avoided, if for no other reason, because they are guilty of bearing false witness. But beyond that, because people like Mike make absolute truth claims standing on nothing other than their own authority masked as “the authority of God’s word.” Without recognizing it, Mike, and others like him, have made themselves the Pope, and used that power to claim special knowledge of the God’s word in a way that no one else in Church history has. That is a danger to be avoided.