Monica Dennington
By Paul Baylis, Editor Marian Times.
A reply to Monica Dennington's video "Do
You Have The Blood of the Bride on Your Hands" at: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=19451260
Monica's writing is in normal black font,
mine is in blue.
Monica
Dennington is charming and erudite, a free spirit, a tender
soul. But a closer inspection of what comes out of her mouth
raises a bunch of flaming red flags and some serious credibility issues. I am one of the most disappointed of all to
say this, but she also displays a large degree of hypocrisy.
I honestly thought we had a new spirit-filled teacher on our
hands. Unfortunately, we have another blind guide leading
souls astray and dividing God's family.
(Remember, Monica's writing is in normal
black font and
mine is in blue.)
How we're allowed to use the Bible:
- Do not add to God's word
For He will rebuke you and call you a liar.
If you're conclusion is not in the Bible, it's not because
God forgot to put it in there, it's because it's not supposed
to be there.
Is Monica Dennington herself adding
to God's words? Apparently so, if we believe St. Paul in
2 Thessalonians 2:15 where he urges his followers to "stand
firm and hold onto the traditions which you were taught
by us, either by word of mouth or by letter". We shall
see more examples from Monica as we go along.
- Do not take away from the Word of God
The only way you can test something to know if it's what
God thinks is if it is written expressly in the Word of
God. There are some places (in the bible) that really cut
us to the quick and we try to dull that knife because it
doesn't make sense to us and it doesn't agree with our conclusions.
The bible says "Do not store up treasures on earth".
That's what it says and that's what it means. That's all
I'm going to say about that. If you diminish that scripture
and you say it doesn't really mean what it says and it's
not really as sharp as it seams to be YOU ARE TAKING AWAY
FROM GOD'S WORD! You are exalting your own word above His
and you're gonna be judged for it.
Is Monica Dennington taking away from
God's words. The following should "cut her to the quick"
to use her own phrase: 2 Thessalonians 2:15 - Paul urges
his followers to "stand firm and hold onto
the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word
of mouth or by letter".
This should also cut her to the quick. It's sharp. It's
controversial. John 6:53 - "I tell you the
truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink
His blood, you have no life in you". But Monica
would never think of saying "Well, it doesn't really
mean that". After all, as she rightly points out: "that's
what it says and that's what it means and that's all I'm
going to say about it". Except that I will remind her
of the only place in this world where this Bible
verse is indeed taken literally - the Catholic Church.
- We must not express spiritual truths in human
words
1 Corinthians 2:13 gives us this prescription: "This
is what we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom but
in words taught us by the Spirit expressing spiritual truths
and spiritual words." The Bible tells us what spiritual
words are. Jesus said this: "The Spirit gives life;
the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to
you are spirit and they are life." (John 6:63). Whenever
we expand on God's words, that's not spiritual. It's only
spiritual if we get it directly out of the Bible.
Despite what she warns everybody else NOT to do, Monica
Dennington makes a HUGE extrapolation and derives from John
6:63 that the only words that are spiritual are
those that we get out of the bible, despite the
fact that this is NOT what the verse says. It says that
Jesus' words are spirit and life, NOT that only
the Bible's written words are spirit and life,
and NOT that any words that the disciples enunciated (as
opposed to recording in written form) while filled with
the Holy spirit (as they were at Pentecost) are not spirit
and life. So Monica Dennington has immediately broken the
rule of not adding to God's Word. The verse says that the
Spirit gives life. The apostles received
this Spirit along with Mary at pentecost and we
should rightfully deem anything they say under the influence
of the Holy Spirit as Spirit-directed.
This point is further supported when we look at John 20:25.
"Now, there are many things that Jesus did such that
If they were all written down one by one, I suppose that
the whole world could not contain the books that
would be written".
And it gains even further validity (as if any further is
needed) if it is also read along with Paul in 2 Thessalonians
2:15, where he urges his followers to "stand
firm and hold onto the traditions which you were taught
by us, either by word of mouth or by letter".
Catholics are already obeying the Word of God. It is Monica
herself who is not and now, probably quite a few of Christ's
Bride who are listening to her today. What a tragic irony.
But the main overarching error is Monica's reliance on Sola
Scriptura in the first place, which is unbiblical. It is
not expressly supported ANYWHERE in the Bible and is, in
fact, repudiated soundly and convincingly. Monica with great
hypocrisy, after warning us NEVER to add to the Word of
God, essentially tells us that we must add the word "Only"
to the front of 2 Timothy 3:16, i.e. "[Only]
Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching,
rebuking error, correcting faults." And, again, Monica Dennington
must perhaps be tempted to remove, from the Word of God,
2 Thessalonians 2:15 where Paul urges his followers to "stand
firm and hold onto the traditions which you were taught
by us, either by word of mouth or by letter"
This is what this verse is saying: If we think we have a
spiritual truth, if we have been given a revelation by God,
or we think we have a deep spiritual insight into the Bible,
then we are not going to express that spiritual truth in
human words. We're not going to express it in our own words.
We're going to express those truths in words that are in
the Bible. You see, the word of God is flawless and if He
comes to you with a revelation, you are going to find it
in the word of God, in the written word of God. The Bible
says "Do not treat prophesies with contempt. Test everything.
Hold onto what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21).
This is the standard by which we test it [holding up her
Bible]. If you can find it expressly written in the Bible,
then it's from God. If we can't , we have no way of knowing
it's from God or not. And you cannot give it the authority
of the Word of God.
Sola Scriptura has already been shown
to add and substract from God's word, and therefore requiring
God's judgement. So, Monica Dennington's words cannot be
regarded as spiritual by her own standards. However, it
is interesting that Monica Dennington, as Luther was, is
forced to hold onto the doctrine of Sola Scriptura because
they have no visible Church to rely on to pronounce the
validity of any revelation. Neither Monica Dennington, nor
Luther, have recourse to Christ's gift to Peter of the keys
of heaven and the authority to bind and loose. We have the
visible Church precisely for this purpose, to validate all
kinds of revelations subsequent to the authoring of the
Bible.
Anybody who comes to you expressing what they claim to be
a spiritual truth in words of human wisdom that you can't
find in the Bible is lying to you and I don't care how good
their intentions are, the result is that you are going to
be deceived.
Monica Dennington has sadly been caught
in a serious hypocrisy here. And I honestly feel sad that
she is trapped so helplessly in this predicament. Up to
this point her words have been replete with obvious error
according to her own standards. Her words have been shown
to be lacking in spiritual truth because she has both added
to and taken away from God's word and she has carelessly extrapolated verses of Scripture to support her own beliefs. Everything she has
accused others of, she has done herself. Sadly, she is the
liar she accuses others of being. She is the one expressing
things that are not truth. I actually feel sorry for her.
I hope she will not sherk her responsibility to the Truth
for the sake of all the souls who are listening to her and
being led astray. For a millstone indeed awaits such a person.
- We are not to exhalt tradition above the Word
of God.
Colossians 2:8. (Good News Version given here as Monica's
words are intelligible at a certain spot) "See to it
that no-one enslaves you by means of the worthless deceit
of human wisdom, which come from teachings handed down by
human beings and from the ruling spirits of the universe
and not from Christ". So, the Bible tells us that tradition
is not exalted to the level of Christ. It is not to be exalted.
We see in Matthew chapter 15 where Jesus actually rebukes
the Pharisees and the teachers of the law because...now
understand that these were the religious leaders of the
day. They had been entrusted with all the scriptures and
... the temple of God was there...I mean if anybody had
a right to claim that their tradition was Holy it was the
Pharisees. So, if you think you have the right to claim
that your Church tradition is Holy, you need to listen to
this rebuke, because you know what Jesus said to these guys?
He said "You nullify the word of God for the sake of
your traditions" (Matthew 15:6b).
Again, I'm sorry to say that Monica
has been trapped by her own words and the hypocrisy is actually
unsettling my stomach. How? Well, at the beginning of her
speech, Monica went to great lengths to sternly warn everybody
against taking a single verse from the Bible and extrapolating
it into their own opinion to suit their own beliefs. Yet,
she has done precisely that right here.
Here, Monica uses Colossians 2:8 and Matthew 15 to renounce
tradition, and by doing so, she had added to the Word of
God. Clearly and without possible confusion, these verses
merely condemn erroneous human traditions.
The example given in Matthew 15:6b is of the Pharisees using
a loophole in the law to avoid obeying a commandment, i.e.
in order to avoid fulfiling their duties to their parents
under the 4th commandment, they presented the argument that
the things that were available to be given to their parents
actually "belonged to God", making them automatically
unavailable as gifts to their parents. CERTAINLY, this type
of behaviour (circumvention of a God-given commandment by
use of a loophole in the law) should be rebuked sternly
by Jesus. But Monica takes HUGE liberties by equating this
rebuke to an eternal, all-encompassing rebuke of tradition
in general. It DOES NOT refer to spiritual tradition - the
handing down of the Faith. It refers to traditions that
make God's word void.
Elsewhere, Jesus instructed His followers to abide
by traditions that are not contrary to God's commandments:
"The scribes and the pharisees sit on Moses' seat,
so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not
what they do; for they preach but do not practise."
(Matthew 23:2-3). Again, Christ only condemns traditions
that undermine Christian truths.
As for genuine spirit-directed tradition: Paul clearly
states in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 that his followers are to
"stand firm and hold onto the traditions which you
were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter".
So, what has Monica done? She has broken her own rules and
shown herself a hypocrite of generous proportions. Worse
still, others, perhaps impressed by her appealing manner
and words, are being led by this blind guide where God does
not want them to go. It is unfortunate because I have listened
to other videos by Monica Dennington that are truly inspiring
even to myself, a Catholic. Unfortunately, unless Monica
Dennington publically repairs her errors, I would have to
recommend that all Catholics, indeed all Christians, just
listen to the pastors or priests at their local Churches
rather than this "free spirit". Unfortunately
though, Monica has already dissuaded the faithful from this
by heartlessly condemning entire religious organisations
by virtue of the sins of a few.
I know that some of your churches even have in their doctrine
statements that Church tradition...I know the Catholic Church
is like this...that Church tradition has the same authority
as the word of God. That is a lie from the pit of hell.
And I'm not saying that to offend you, but listen....if
you want to argue with me, you're going to have to argue
with God's Holy Word. Understand this: If your church says
one thing and the Word of God says another, you've got a
choice to make - you've gotta choose which you're gonna
bow to. And you know what, most humans do. We bow to the
tradition because it's what we know, we figure that hey
these are holy people , these are priests, these are preachers,
they wouldn't tell me it was right if it there wasn't a
reason. There's probably some reason that I don't understand
that scripture correctly. Surely they wouldn't tell us to
do something that's against scripture. You guys....don't
exalt your religious leaders to the place of Christ. But
understand that they are just men, they are just people,
OK? And I'm not saying that they don't deserve any respect
at all, but I am saying that Jesus is the only one who deserves
to be bowed to. When you're given a choice, you better make
the right choice. Read the Bible, don't take anybody's word
for what it says. And don't give anybody authority because
men are fallible, tradition is fallible. Do you understand
that Church tradition is created over time by the habits
of men? Yeah, they are men that are in spiritual authority,
but have we not seen that some men that are in spiritual
authority can do vile evil things? Have we not seen this
in the Catholic Church? Priests who defile and harm young
boys? Molest them? Is that a holy thing? And yet, these
are the same people that you are giving authority to establish
a tradition that's going to exhalt itself above the Word
of God? No, no, no, no! Human tradition is not a clean,
holy, flawless thing, the Word of God is. Stick with the
Word of God and you will be judged innocent. This is what
you're going to be judged on, not a book of tradition. This
is the book you're gonna be judge on. Read it, my brothers
and sisters, just read it and obey what it says.
Monica seems to be intimating that
the Catholic Church can take either one or the other (tradition
or the Bible) according to our needs. This is simply not
true, But, let's assume Monica Dennington is saying that
Catholics place undue emphasis on apostolic tradition or
the Church's Magisterium and that anything extraneous to
the Bible is non-authoritative, unncessary or wrong and
may hinder souls from coming to God. This is also clearly
wrong and if Monica believes her own words that we must
not add or take away anything from Scripture, nor extrapolate
meanings according to our own designs, then she should also
be embarrassed by what we have to say.
Monica Dennington's view is repudiated in Scripture. The
TRUE RULE OF FAITH, as expressed in the Bible itself, is
SCRIPTURE + APOSTOLIC TRADITION. Monica tries to cultivate
in the term "tradition" the idea of transitory
customs or practices, which is perhaps slightly disingenuous
as it makes it appear completely unreliable. Apostolic tradition,
on the other hand, has been handed down and entrusted to
the Churches and it is necessary that Christians
believe in and follow this tradition as well as
the Bible. Luke 10:16: "Jesus said to His
disciplies "Whoever listens to you listens to Me, whoever
rejects you rejects me; and whoever rejects Me rejects the
One Who sent Me"". The truth of the faith has
been given primarily to the leaders of the Church (Ephesians
3:5), who, with Christ, form the foundation of the Church
(Ephesians 2:20). The Church has been guided by the Holy
Spirit, who protects this teaching from corruption (John
14:25-26, 16:13).
Paul Himself tells us what tradition is. It is essentially
a handing on of the Faith: "For I delivered you as
of first importance what I also received, that Christ died
for our sins in accordance with the scriptures....Whether
then it was I or they, so we preached and so you believed".
(1 Corinthians 15:3,11). The apostle praised thosed who
followed tradition: "I commend you because you remember
me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have
delivered them to you." (1 Corinthians 11:2).
Even the gospels themselves are oral tradition which has
been written down: "Many people have done their best
to write a report of the things that have taken place among
us. They wrote what we have been told by those who saw these
things from the beginning and who proclaimed the message.
And so, Your Excellency, because I have carefully studied
these things from their beginning, I thought it would be
good to write an orderly account for you. I do this so that
you will know the full truth about everything which you
have been taught." (Luke 1:1-4).
What's more, Paul does not quote Jesus only. He also quotes
from early Christian hymns, as in Ephesians 5:14. These
and other things have been given to Christians "through
the Lord Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 4:2).
Monica has abandoned any meaning or relevance to any "visible
church", certainly the Catholic Church, and does so
at her great peril, for it is through the magisterium or
teaching authority of Christ's Church that we are able to
discern which traditions and scriptures are apostolic and
which are merely human. Without the Catholic Church's teaching
authority, we would not know with certainty which purported
books of Scripture are authentic. It was the Catholic Church
which revealed to the world the canon of Scripture and it
can also reveal to us the "canon of Tradition"
by establishing which traditions have been handed down from
the apostles.
What the Word of God is used for:
The word of God judges the difference between what is evil
and what is good, and then it separates the evil off from
the good, so that the good can be saved, because as long
as they are intermingled, the good is gonna be lost with
the bad when it's judged. God is the only one that can do
this. Do you want just anybody doing heart surgery on you?
No. ...you better have a heart surgeon standing right behind
you telling you what to do. If you don't you're probably
going to lose some good heart tissue and probably even kill
the person you're trying to heal. God's word comes to separate
the evil from the good. We see that with the sheep and the
goats in Matthew 25. He does the same thing in the Body
of Christ. His weapon is very powerful....to demolish "strongholds".
Do you know what a stronghold is? A stronghold is a place
where evil has crept in to our hearts or into the body of
Christ and it has woven its way in and it's gotten a foothold.
It's like a disease in our heart. It's gonna take a master
surgeon to get that out without killing.
The master surgeon Monica prescribes for removing error
from the Church is indeed Christ Himself, who anointed others
in His stead: Luke 10:16: "Jesus said to His disciplies
"Whoever listens to you listens to Me, whoever rejects
you rejects me; and whoever rejects Me rejects the One Who
sent Me". And the surgery best practice manual is none
other than the magisterium of the Catholic Church, nourished
and protected from error by the Holy Spirit over 2000 years.
To depart from the magisterium is to carelessly toss out
your master surgery textbook and rewrite your own. Once
this is done, we can hardly expect Jesus Christ, original
master surgeon to stand behind our work!
If we use our own sword for this purpose [cutting out the
corruption from the soul and the body of Christ], we are
going to have a disastrous result.
The irony is gob-smacking! By adding
to and removing from God's word and by renouncing the true
seat of spiritual wisdom, Monica has constructed a very
crude and dangerous sword indeed. Keep away from me with
that thing!
Jesus tells us why we should not judge using our
own ways..our own words..our own sword...we let the Word
of God do the judging. Matthew 13:24b-30. "...Do you
want us to pull up the weeds? No. while you are pulling
up the weeds, you might pull up some of the wheat. Let them
grow together until the harvest..."
Each one of those stalks of wheat represents one of God's
children. Even if you have 20 kids, even if only one of
them dies, there is no way to ever replace that child. They
are priceless and He is not willing to let even one of them
be lost. If the servants had gotten their way, they would
have gone and judged prematurely. But....God knew the way
to cut and judge in such a way that not even one of those
sons or daughters of the Kindgom would be lost. If you look
around at the Church today...anybody looked around lately
and seen any weeds mixed in with this wheat [snears]? The
Church of God right now....we've got the sons of satan mixed
in with the sons of Kingdom, right? But, what we're tempted
to do is to pick up our own words and say "You know
what, I think it's time to do a little judgement"
Stomach-churning stuff! Monica has
just got done telling the world of the evils of the Catholic
Church and casting aspersions on the Catholic priesthood
in general by the sins of a few. Now, she issues a hypocritical,
heartfelt plea that we shouldn't start judging anybody.
It's particularly foul because of everything I've previously
mentioned about Monica's obvious adding and substracting
to God's word. Effectively, Monica has this ugly looking
deformed sword that she's already used to swipe carelessly
around Christ's Body, then she innocently and pleadingly
tells everybody else that they shouldn't do the same thing.
Absolutely unbelievable!
Listen very carefully brothers and
sisters [almost sobbing]... if you divide from another brother
and sister in Christ based upon your own words or the traditions
of your church, or based upon your wisdom or the way that
you think this war needs to be waged, you are gonna be guilty
before God of cutting one member from the Bride of Christ
from another. The Bible says that we are all one body, in
the Body of Christ - the Bride of Christ is one body. And
if you go in and start separating off people that aren't
supposed to be separated....it is likely going in and pulling
out your sword and hacking away and .... when you're done,
oh expert swordsman, you've got a mangled bride because
you know what you did in the process? You cut off her hand!
[sobbing again] You cut off her foot! You slashed her in
the side! And do you know what's going to happen
to you!? If you do this, woe to you! .....How dare
you divide the body of Christ! Do you know what He's going
to do to you if you cut the body of Christ to pieces? You
do not wanna be standing in front of God with the Blood
of the Bride on your hands. You're talking about His girl
and you're not going to get away with it!
Monica Dennington has just spent the last 5 minutes describing
her very self - an unauthorised separator who has gone in
with her crooked sword, even after Christ has told her to
wait, and hacked away. Again, she attacks tradition so negligently
that it makes me want to sob myself, as one whom God has
helped to understand the correct place of spiritual tradition
as prescribed in the Word of God. Monica feels that the
Catholic Church is hacking away at her and other non-Catholics.
But, while she's hacking away at the Catholic Church and
authentic tradition, she doesn't know the extent of the
souls she is leading away from the Truth. It's a totally
blind hack. She has no idea what she is cutting off and
how she has insulted the true Bride of Christ - the Catholic
Church. Monica, oh expert swordsman, do you know what is
going to happen to you?
OH DEAR...MORE MONICA DENNINGTON MAYHEM
References:
- Scripture and Tradition - http://www.catholic.com/library/Scripture_and_Tradition.asp.
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