Anti-Catholic heretic Mike Gendron is known for his horrific misrepresentation of Catholicism and his denial of Christian orthodoxy. For example, he is a Nestorian, denying that Mary is the mother of God. In addition to that, he is also a blasphemer who rejects the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, calling it a pagan cult ritual. These are just a few of the serious reasons that qualify my use of the word “heretic” — something I try to be conservative in using.

Anyways, in a newsletter, he wrote this:

“Catholics put their trust in the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church to accurately teach the Bible. This can be a fatal mistake because anyone who relies solely on the subjective teachings of men leave themselves open to deception.”

Note what he says. Essentially, he teaches that putting your faith in the Church is fatal because it relies on the subjective teachings of men to accurately teach the Bible. This MIGHT be a good point if it wasn’t so void of introspection. In other words, what exactly is Mike’s own teaching if not the subjective teaching of a man? The inability to see this obvious internal conflict is mind-boggling to me.

Mike is essentially teaching that listening to the corporate body of Christ, in order to understand Scripture, is subjective and bowing to the teaching of men but that listening to him isn’t subjective or bowing to the teaching of man. I guess he’s the Pope?

Mike’s own statement reveals the downfall of his own position. It fails to account for authority in Christianity and in doing so makes interpretation of Scripture entirely subjective and man led.

See, Mike misunderstands the nature of the Church. As Mike sees it, the Church is simply a group of men with funny hats that determine, by their own reason, what the correct teachings of Scripture are. However, more accurately, the Church is the body of Christ, the life of the Holy Spirit, guiding otherwise normal men into all truth. The Church is the life of God at work in the world. To deny its authority is to deny God his authority—for the Church possesses nothing more than Christ’s own authority.

Mike rejects Christ’s authority in his Church, and instead turns to his own authority and reason as the final arbitrator of the truth. Mike disguises this by proclaiming that his final authority is Scripture. However, his authority is more properly defined as “Scripture according to Mike.” This is demonstrated in his rejection of the historic, orthodox interpretations of Scripture that differ from his own—a blatant rejection of Christ himself, who in Holy Scripture declares himself as the truth, and through St. Paul, declares the Church, in his bodily absence, to be that reality in the world (1 Tim 3:15).

At the end of the day, you have two options: you either submit the Scripture to the Catholic Church, and align yourself with her authority—given by Christ! Or you reject the Church (and in doing so, reject Christ) subjecting Scripture to your own reason and intellect divorced from his body.

Mike has chosen the latter and his life demonstrates this reality. Not only has he abandoned the apostolic deposit of faith, he has also abandoned the teachings of the Reformers. Mike is a heretic, not simply by Roman, Eastern, and Anglican standards, but also by Lutheran, and Reformed Catholic standards. Luther would have denounced Gendron in the strongest words possible. When, quite literally, 2,000 years of church history disagrees with you and you continue to persist in your own arrogant self proclaimed Christianity—in the words of St. Paul— “you are anathema.”

Brothers and sisters, may we be guarded against the arrogance of the intellect which proclaims our right to be the final arbitrator of truth—a fundamentally modernist idea. Instead, may we open the Scripture, conscious that it does not fundamentally belong to us, but that it belongs to the Church, which through the ages has preserved it and interpreted it. May we willingly submit ourselves to her authority, bowing to the Church as we would the incarnate Lord himself—for she is his body, the pillar of truth, the life of the Spirit, the one who binds, looses, forgives sins, and protects the faith once for all delivered to the saints.