Tips for Spotting Bad Theology Online

There's no video to this one. You might have figured that out. Don't look for a video. You're not gonna find one. You're gonna be very disappointed.

Or you might be very joyful when you realize you don't have to look at my ugly face. I'm a little bit sick, and the show that I was, expecting to do this weekend, I have a funny feeling I am not going to have time or the energy to do that episode. So I just did a Twitter Spaces session, an x Spaces session, and I think I'm going going to make this the episode of Fire Branded for this week. And this is some tips, red flags you need to look for that tell you this is bad theology. The person telling you this message, this theology, you cannot take what they're telling you as trustworthy or credible.

In fact, they may be mistaken or they may actually be deceiving you on purpose. Okay. These so these are red flags you need to look for. Check it. You do not have to be a theologian or have a background in theology to follow this list.

This list is something everybody can apply. Alright? No matter what your level of experience in theology is. Again, it started out as a Twitter space damn it, as an x spaces session, and I decided, you know what? Let me just make that the episode of the podcast for this week.

I think you're really going to enjoy it. I'm sorry there's no video, but I don't think most of you spend time staring at my video anyway when you're listening to one of my podcasts. And before I go, I'm gonna from here, I'm gonna roll into the recording that I did on that xSpaces session. But before I do that, I just wanna remind you, I would love to have you as part of the crew over at The Forge. Check out theforge.fm.

Catholic commentary at the point of impact, and that means it's commentary that hits real TJ Haines everywhere on socials. Alright. So gonna get into this. This is about a half an hour long. I hope you enjoy it.

Please drop a comment, tap like, tap subscribe, do a backflip, do a somersault, do something that lets an algorithm somewhere know that this content is worthy of better attention. Okay? That really helps me a lot. And remember, it was a Twitter spaces session. I only plan to make it like a special episode of a something.

So you're gonna hear references like that. Like, I'm not sure what I'm gonna call this and this and that. Because as I was doing this this spaces session, I was not intending to make this an ordinary regular podcast episode, so just disregard all that stuff when you hear it. Okay. And on with the show.

God bless you, everybody. Here we go. Welcome, everyone. Welcome one and all to this ex spaces session. Also, a special episode of fire branded don't know what I'm gonna call this kind of a session. Fire Branded's Fire Branded Spaces. I I don't know. I have a couple of ideas in mind, but, it doesn't matter. Today, I'm talking to you a little bit about signs you need to look for that tell you this theology is bad. This theology is flawed.

The person voicing this theology is either in error, they're making an honest mistake, or if it's consistent, they're making dangerous mistakes perhaps on purpose, perhaps through deception. It could also be that they're consistently getting this bad theology from someone else and they're consistently passing it along to you. In either case, in any case, these are signs to look for that when you see them, know that the theology is bad, that the theology is flawed, and know that the voice behind it does not have you in their best interests. Okay? So I'm gonna go through a few of these, and I also have to tell you, I have to give you fair warning.

I have got a little bit of a cold, and it's the chesty, throaty kind. Okay? So on occasion, I'm gonna have to clear my throat. You might there might be a pause in the action. So just bear with me.

Okay? The first sign that you should look for now I want you to know, these are signs anybody can see. You don't have to you don't have to have a background in theology. Let me tell you where this came from first. And please don't tune me out because it comes to bear.

Where did this come from? I've been locked and wrestling with few different sources of bad theology on social media in the past almost two days. And it's quite a concentration of bad theology from various different players. Several of them or at least a couple of them seem pretty influential on social media, and they're spitting out bad theology, which I I just can't believe. If you follow me on social media, you can just see that for yourself.

Real TJaynes everywhere on socials, especially on X. I don't like to name names unless I really have to. I don't like to embarrass people. I don't like to hurt or harm people. It is not my style.

So unless I have to, I try not to name names. Okay? But if you're following me on socials, real TJaynes everywhere, you can see it for yourself. I have to tell you, when I have a cold, when I get when when things really start kicking up, it's when I'm when I'm on the air and I start talking and stuff. So just bear with me.

So that's where this came from. And I thought, man, you know, these people are fairly influential, and they're really dangerous. Like, nobody should be taking advice from these people. And so I sent out a little, sent out, like, a little blog post email. It's, you know, not quite an article.

It's it's not as fancy schmancy as an article, but it's not as, you know, cheap and flimsy as, like, a a regular old blog post. I sent that out to subscribers to the Catholic Fire Brand website, catholicfirebrand.com, and I told them the story. And now I wanna come over here. I'm not gonna tell you the story. You're not gonna be able to get what I sent to them, but I am going to tell you a few signs, a few red flags to look for that tell you this is bad theology or this is a bad player voicing this theology.

Okay? Number one, this is no in no particular order. It's just the order that I have them in, treats the magisterium as optional. If somebody out there implies that Catholics can personally decide which teachings of the church they accept and which teachings they can throw away or overlook, that's a red flag. Catholic theology, whether it's proper college level or graduate level theology, or it's it's or it's just personal casual study, research, reading, whatever, because what you're studying and researching is coming from actual theologians.

Okay? So there's real theology in the pipeline there, whether you're studying in college or you're doing personal study and research and reading. Catholic theology begins with the premise that Christ entrusted authoritative teaching to the church, not to the faithful. Serious theological discussion can examine or explain teachings, but it doesn't place private judgment above the magisterium. If you ever see that, if you ever hear that, witness that, that is a red flag.

What you wanna do with it is up to you, but I am telling you authoritatively, that is a red flag. Okay? Christ said to the to the apostles, who hears you, hears me. He didn't say that to any of the other disciples. That's number one.

Treats the magisterium as optional. You know, I'll give you an example where we just recently saw that. Well, you saw that with many of Pope Francis', encyclicals, which I guess there were two or three. I'm I'm off my game today. But, there were always people saying, we don't have to listen to this. This is not this is not this is not infallible. Therefore, it's not authoritative. Crazy. So you see that a lot. You saw that a a little bit.

I mean, I I I might be overworking the point by calling this magisterial, but it does belong to the ordinary magisterium. When the, not Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but whatever it's called now, Dykasteri for the Doctrine of the Faith, said Mary as coredemptrix is it's okay as a descriptor of the blessed virgin Mary, but it is not a title of the blessed virgin Mary. How many people were were intentionally using it as a title anyway just to snub the magisterium? It's stuff like that you have to look out for. Number two, diminishes or delegitimizes an ecumenical council.

I'm gonna simplify that and be very direct. Okay? This is one example of how you see this. When someone tries to downgrade the authority or the legitimacy of a council like say, oh, I don't know, the second Vatican Council, that is a major red flag. You're going to sometimes hear some, I I I don't wanna say valid criticisms, but for the sake of the conversation, we'll just call them valid.

Okay? There are things that you can say that are critical of the Vatican Council of of the documents in Second Vatican Council. For instance, the wording is a little bit too I wouldn't say watery, but it's not tight enough. The wording is not tight enough. I might be biased, but I think that's a legitimate analysis because it happens to also be my analysis.

I wish it were the language were tighter. Okay? But it isn't. It is what it is. You got you might hear some legitimate, valid, fair critiques or analyses like that.

But if anyone is sending the message that the council is not authoritative, it's not a true ecumenical council, we don't really have to abide by it, there's no new there's no new doctrines in there, There's no new teachings in there. Therefore, we don't have to follow it. That is false. That is false. It is a valid ecumenical council. It's an authoritative body of work. It is a work of the magisterium. Therefore, it's a work of the Holy Spirit. Or Jesus is a liar. Pick your poison.

Because it's a valid work of the magisterium of the Holy Catholic Church, Catholics are obligated obligated to to apply it, to receive it, to accept it. Okay? Catholics are obligated and called to to religious submission of the mind and will. To basic to make that very simple, that means it's binding. It's not infallible. It's binding. It's binding. You cannot reject it. You cannot say, well, this doesn't count because. So every time, any time now be again, I wanna make sure I'm I'm being clear.

You might might hear some valid criticisms of the Second Vatican Council. My opinion, doing this a long time, there are very, very, very few of them, so you'll almost never hear them. Most average Catholics will almost never hear the valid critiques. I'll say that, the critiques of the documents or or the substance or something like that. But you'll almost never hear them in ordinary Catholic circles.

Usually, the criticism you're going to hear is a criticism of the substance, theology, and and whatever it is that's being put forward in the Second Vatican Council. Okay? Maybe a bit of word salad, but as I said, just simply this. When you hear strong criticism of the Second Vatican Council, it might sound like this. Yeah.

It's a valid council, but we don't have to obey it. Well, just because someone said it's a valid council doesn't mean they actually believe that. Because once they say or imply, and folks, you know BS when you smell it. Once they say or imply that we don't have to follow it, it's a, quote, nothing burger or it's not authoritative whatever. It doesn't matter if they started that with it's a valid counsel.

It doesn't matter. Because I'm gonna tell you a lot of faux theologians out there, a lot of people who are BS ing you, they have sly and slithery ways like a snake to make this counter Catholic argument, this counter Catholic claim sound like Catholicism. One of the way I just I had this once. It was some time ago, but not that damn long ago. It's the sort of thing that I've seen a lot, still see this sort of thing to this day, where someone says, I believe Pope Francis or whoever the Pope was, I think it might have been Francis at the time that this happened.

I believe Pope Francis is a legitimate pope, but I don't believe he's a valid pope. I'm exaggerating, but only a tiny bit, because the two statements were not put together like that. It started out with, I believe he's a legitimate pope. But then further on in the conversation, what you get is a rejection of his primacy, a rejection of his authority, a rejection of his competency, which ultimately became he's not he's not technically valid because he teaches heresy. You have to be careful of that.

Okay? Diminishes or delegitimizes an ecumenical council, for instance, Vatican II. Man, I came up with a list of, like, eight or nine here, I'm not gonna be able to get through this whole list. So I'm probably just gonna stop at five or six. This is gonna be a short one today. Okay? Let me pick the juiciest ones here. Cherry picks old oh, yes. This is a fun one. Cherry picks all number three three.

Cherry picks old sources against the living church. You know what put this in my mind? I just experienced this last night. Someone who insisted on using the term insisted on you this was on X, insisted on using the term extreme unction instead of anointing of the sick. Now maybe they were not ill motivated.

I think they were given the tone and and substance of the of the exchange. But you will see that a lot, okay, using old terminology or cherry picking old sources. No. That's not terminology. That's sources.

Right? Old documents of the church against the living church. Okay? It's a common tactic. It's quoting older documents or the church fathers and pitting that against what the magisterium of the church teaches now, which is consistent with what the magisterium of the church taught in thirty four AD.

It is consistent, but they have slithery ways to maneuver out of that consistency with whoever's criticizing it. Okay? So they take an old document or something written by a church father, and I have seen this a billion times, and they pit it against the living magisterium of the church today as if the church today contradicts what the church of yesterday taught, held, believed, professed nonsense. And I'm gonna tell you personally, I encountered a lot of those arguments in my early twenties, And for for me, they were very devastating to my heart, you know, because they were so convincing. Like, this is it.

This is what Augustine said. This is what this old papal document said. And this is what the church says now. And that's just different. Well, let me tell you, the more you study and the more you know, the more you recognize that line for being BS.

Healthy theology understands that sacred tradition is interpreted by the living magisterium. It's not interpreted by a picture of what the church used to be last week even or ten years ago or a thousand years ago. So if someone sets a sixteenth century text or a third century church father against the church today, they're effectively claiming to interpret tradition better than the church interprets it. They're saying I can interpret tradition better than the church better than the magisterium of the church today can. You might be hearing this depending on your level of experience with theology.

You might be hearing this saying, well, damn, I don't know the theology that well. How am I gonna know the difference? You don't have to. I compose this list so that anyone can put it into practice. You don't have to know the theology.

Okay? All you have to know is if someone is taking an old church document, I mean, before Vatican two and and often way before Vatican two, and they're using that document to criticize the the authority and work of the living magisterium today, I am telling you run away, run far away, run as fast as you can because that is a deception. And I'm not telling you this from theory, my friends. I'm telling you this from experience. Been at this a very, very long time, and I've seen everything.

Just about. There's occasions that I see something that shocks me. Oh, god. God save us. Alright. Let me take a sip of tea, then we'll get to number four and five. Oh, yeah. Okay. The only problem I'm having here is which of these which of these do I wanna include first, because I'm not gonna get to all of them. I'll I'll I'll go here for number four.

Number four, use a conspiracy theory or conspiracy framing. Bad theological sources, folks often rely on narratives like the church, has been infiltrated or a narrative of betrayal of the church or a betrayal of tradition. The church was taken over. Right? You've have you heard that one before?

Popes are secretly undermining the faith. Bishops are, deliberately destroying Catholicism. This framing is powerful because it's emotional. And you have to be aware that it's a con when someone exploits your emotions to bypass your reason. They're not making arguments.

They're throwing down emotionally charged allegations, phrases, statements. And it undermines, and they do it to undermine the Catholic doctrine and the church's authority and credibility today. So when you hear conspiracy theories like that, I'm gonna I'm going to acknowledge flat out. There was a period in church history where there were a lot of, I'm pretty sure this is true. I'm pretty sure this is true.

Where there were a lot of communists or it might have been, Freemasons, I think it was communists. Really, they're kind of one of the same, but in Catholic seminaries. I think that's true. Okay? The conspiracy comes in when we say that the Holy Spirit allowed that allowed that to infect the church.

Do you know why I know that? Because we had heresies in the church that nearly tore the church apart. Arianism immediately comes to mind. Do you think the Holy Spirit allowed the church to be torn apart by that? Nope. Because here we are still. P. S. Arian is making a slow and careful return, by the way. Look for it.

So when you hear conspiracy theory, even if there may be true components somewhere in it, which nine times out nine and a half times out of 10, they are not true components, but sometimes you'll get one in there. But if they're using conspiracy theory to argue against the church, you don't even have to know the difference between the the facts and the fiction. The device, the strategy is already a marker. It is bad theology, and it is a bad player who's presenting it. Don't trust them.

They might not be trying to deceive you. It doesn't matter. Don't trust them. They might be doing it by accident. It doesn't matter.

Number five, relies on one personality instead of the Catholic church. We exist amidst a cult of Catholic personalities or a or a Catholic cult of personalities. It's I belong to Paul. I belong to Apollos. If you know that scripture, you know the the illusion. It's, you need to pay attention to this priest. He knows what's talk what he's talking about. Pay attention to this bishop or this influencer or that guy who's a who's an exorcist. When you hear that, the theology is bad. It's sour.

It's spoiled. Run away as fast as you can. As fast as your legs will carry you. Run away. Because if you're making an argument, you don't have to appeal to personalities. You can just make the argument by the facts. The church does not revolve around listen. I'm a huge, huge fan of bishop archbishop Fulton Sheen, soon to be, beatified, by the way. I have never said, you need to listen to Fulton Sheen. You need to go to YouTube.

I mean, I do think people would benefit tremendously going to YouTube and looking up his videos or reading all of his books, but you have never heard me say that. Right? If you're following my way, you have never heard me say, you gotta go to Fulton Sheen. You gotta go to Fulton Sheen. Go to Fulton Sheen.

You gotta go to Fulton Sheen. Where I make Fulton Sheen practically another pope or practically a church unto himself. You've never heard me do that Because I don't have to. I can just make the argument myself. I don't have to I don't have to appeal to bishop this or exorcist that with their secret knowledge that only they have.

And and and I've I've they've shared this secret knowledge with me, and now I'm secretly sharing it with you if you will accept it. Nonsense. Someone does that, folks. The theology is bad. Run away.

Run far, far away. Okay? You know, this is a Twitter Spaces session, but nobody has ever since since at the time Twitter launched Spaces, and I've jumped into trying to do Spaces, no one has ever showed up except one or two times. And I have literally had two people show up two different times who participated, who, you know, wanted to have something to say, And that's it. So there's nobody here in the Twitter spaces now.

Doesn't shock me at all. But you know what? If I had more followers and more engagement, that might change. It might be you who's in on a live Twitter spaces. It might be you who gets to jump in when I do these spaces and say a couple of words, share a few thoughts of your own. Follow me on x and everywhere else on socials at real t j hanes. There's an I in there. Don't make me British. There's an I in my name. Real TJaynes, everyone on socials, especially on X, super active on X.

Always getting into fights and everything. You'd love it. Okay. One more I think I have the energy to share, but I have to make this a good one. Give me a second. Yeah. That's a great one. I'm going to skip that one. That's going to be hard to explain now that I'm looking at it again. So I'll skip that one.

No, skipped that one. I guess that's the last one. Nevermind. I guess I'll just cut it there. Listen, if you'd like to get ahold of this list, I'll make this a post show note on, over at the forge, which you'll find at theforge.fm. I'll put this list together. It's not gonna be fancy. It's a post show note. Okay. So it's not gonna be like a long explanations and this and that, and then we'll flesh this out.

The post show stuff is just my notes. It's, extras it's extra content or or extra substance that I can't pass on to you through a microphone, but I can point you to the forge and you can get it there. Okay? So I'll do that maybe later on today, depending on when you catch this on demand. It might be there already.

Go to the forge.fm and, look for something that's called do a search for post show because all of the post show things that I post all start with the title post show. If it says post show 41, that's the post show note or article, whatever I offered for episode 41. This is not a proper episode of Fire Branded, so I'm not really sure what I'm gonna call this. I just maybe I'll just call it post show and then put whatever title there. So just do a search for post show, and you'll find it.

I'll put this list together. I'll, just dress it up. Just polish it up just enough so that it's not so rough around the edges. And you can get ahold of this list of what do I have? Eight things here that are red flags for you that when you it doesn't matter if you have no experience in theology.

It doesn't matter at all. You can you can look at this list and when you get it, when you see these signs, red flags, that's all you need to you'll be able to identify them when you encounter them out there in the digital world or in your real life. And when you do find these things, when these red flags do pop up, you should know bad theology is a common. Stay far away or just take what they're saying with a grain of salt for your own entertainment. But I highly, highly recommend you do not allow yourself to learn from these people who use any of those tactics, and you'll find most of them do more than one at the same time.

Alright, man. Let me get out of here. If you're catching this on demand on Twitter spaces, the audio quality is shite, so you're not hearing the music. But my on demand folks everywhere else at theforge.fm at catholicfirebrand.com, those are two different sites. And I hope you come on board.

At least if you only pick one. I mean, I do send some juicy stuff to my Catholic Fire Brand folks, but if you only pick one, come over to theforge.fm. Subscribe. It's free. You get great content sent right to your inbox. You don't have to worry about, an algorithm failing to send it to you. Okay? The algorithm is is is a gamble that you almost always lose. Hey, JD. You just missed it.

I'm about to sign off. The algorithm is a gamble you almost always lose, but, if you go to theforge.fm, theforge.fm, sign up for free. You get, you get the good stuff. You get the heat, baby, delivered to your inbox. I'm gonna take my cold, and I'm gonna get the hell out of here. Look for the post show, these red flags, these signs of bad theology. Look for this post show note over at theforge.fm. Give me about an hour or so, and I'll have it up there. God bless you. God be with you all.

Bye bye.