Grodi1

Miles McKee Ministries

PO Box 541, Kingston Springs, TN 37082

Marcus C. Grodi Religionist or Rascal

by Miles McKee

Mr. Marcus Grodi, a former Protestant minister who claims to be more of a pastor than a scholar, converted some years ago to Roman Catholicism. One can read his testimony at the ‘Coming Home Network International’. He’s a genial fellow with a venomous bite who earnestly believes that all Bible believers should convert to Rome. And Mr. Grodi has more than a passing interest in assisting in this conversion process. He, in fact, heads the slick and well funded Coming Home Network which has helped dupe numbers of the ill-informed to join the ranks of the “Mother Church”.

Let’s take a look at the highlights of this tale of woe, this testimony of his and see if any sense can be made of it.

His childhood, he says, “was that of the typical American baby-boomer. I was taught to love Jesus and go to church on Sunday.” How excellent to have had these early advantages! Would that he had actually learned to love Jesus, then he would have not betrayed Him in later days!

But we must continue with his story. After a season of teenage rebellion he says he, “experienced a radical re-conversion to Jesus Christ and made a recommitment to Christ, accepting him as my Lord and Savior, praying that he would help me fulfill the mission in life he had chosen for me. The more I sought through prayer and study to follow Jesus and confirm my life to his will, the more I felt an aching sense of longing to devote my life entirely to serving him.” -----The ache was not the moving of the Spirit, otherwise he would have not exchanged it for a passion to serve Rome.

Eventually, Mr. Grodi became a Presbyterian minister but he was soon, “faced with a host of confusing theological and administrative questions. There were exegetical dilemmas over how to correctly interpret difficult biblical passages and also liturgical decisions that could easily divide a congregation. My seminary studies had not adequately prepared me to deal with this morass of options”.

Mr. Grodi-was hard done by! He thinks nothing of attacking his former seminary. Of course, I have no way of knowing what studies he pursued, but he is saying that his seminary did not ground him in Scriptures! But, even if this is so, it begs the question as to why, as a “dedicated follower of Jesus” he didn’t have the initiative to search the Scriptures for himself? Could it be that Mr. Grodi has always been the type of man who wants everything explained to him? Everything must have its tidy box? This, perhaps, is his favorite song,

“My church knows the way through the wilderness
All I have to do is follow!”

Lacking consistent answers, he began to view the break from Papal Rome, by the Reformers, as being more an act of anarchy than of freedom. It seems his attraction to Rome is that he supposes they have a system where everyone is uniform. He doesn’t like the fact that there are different ways of looking at things within the Bible believing world. In other words, he sees a danger and weakness in the freedom to think. He wants unvaried and standardized answers for everything. He could, of course, have found that consistency of thought in the Communist party but, since he is a theist, he doubtless found that to be an unsuitable solution.

He says he even found the “how to” books on his shelf didn’t help him! Well slap my back and call me Fred! Is he serious? We must ask, what was a minister of the Gospel doing reading “how to” books? He would have been better occupied searching the Scriptures but then again it was his low view of Scripture that got him into his mess. He even says that the best advice he could get from other ministers was to ‘reinvent the wheel’--whatever that means--and says that this, “reinvent the wheel as often as you need to” mentality--- is at the heart of Protestantism’s pastoral ethos.” To call what he says drivel and poppycock is an understatement. Mr. Grodi would have done well to read and absorb, ‘The Reformed Pastor’ by Richard Baxter or any of the other excellent works on Pastoral Ministry by solid Bible believing writers.

As I read of Mr. Grodi running frantically from this one to that one, I was reminded of the time that John the Baptist stood with two of his disciples and looked at Jesus as he walked. Then John said, “Behold the lamb of God.” Had Mr. Grodi spent more time looking upon Jesus and beholding the lamb, he would have found more help than he got from all his “to-ing and fro-ing.” But then again we learn from this passage that to look upon Jesus we have to stand still. That means all fleshly activity has to stop. It means we must, “not put our trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help” (Psalm 146:3), for our “help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:2). But Mr. Grodi was too busy to stand still!

Mr. Grodi then tells us the next thing that began to breach his Bible believing defenses was that he saw there were many differences amongst Bible believers. He discovered that beliefs held by Calvin, Knox and the Puritans clashed in some respects with those held by Lutherans, Baptists, and Anglicans. Why this should be an earth shattering problem is a mystery. Rule one of human existence—“Not everyone will see things the same way.” Among Bible believers there are varying ideas of Church Government, modes and subjects of baptism and other such matters. But Mr. Grodi fails to mention there is agreement on the essential matters such as salvation being in Christ Alone. There is widespread agreement that justifying righteousness that is imputed, not infused, that Christ is fully God and fully man and many other fundamental doctrines. It is obvious that Mr. Grodi was looking for a well-packaged system that had no room for dissent. His yearning was not for more of Jesus but for someone to tell him what to do.

Mr. Grodi is either naive or dishonest for he implies that Papal Rome is undivided! But is this true? What about Hans Kung and other dissidents? But doubtless Grodi would discount this kind of dissent for the likes of Hans Kung do not set the rules. They are not in power. The rules of Rome come from the top down! And how do we get the appearance of uniformity of belief? Why, that is a simple matter! Enforce the rules. Remove any Bishop who doesn’t play ball and replace him with one who will. It has happened many times! The truth is, there is huge disagreement among the Catholic rank and file over many issues and practices in Rome. Mr. Grodi does not notice this, and if he is being honest with us in what he says, we must conclude him, therefore, to be living in a delusion. Does he actually think, in face of the facts, which state otherwise, that Rome gains uniformity of thought by the work of the Holy Spirit? If that is the case, what need had she for the Inquisition or its present day and active successor, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith?

Mr. Grodi then says, “The true disciple, --- is willing to give up everything, even his own life, if necessary, to follow the Lord.” He then goes on to makes an astonishing and outlandish claim that Protestants are incapable of making good disciples! He says, concerning his former church, “The irony was that my Protestant theology made me impotent to call them to radical discipleship, and it made them impotent to hear and heed the call.” We would be the soul of generosity if we were to say that Mr. Grodi is, at this stage, only one sandwich short of a picnic! So, no Bible believers, if Mr. Grodi is accurate, was ever a committed disciple of Jesus Christ? What about Cranmer? I seem to remember Archbishop Cranmer being burnt at the stake by the servants of the Pope. His crime? Holding to Christ alone as the Savior. He was given an opportunity to recant but said to all assembled, "And as for the Pope, I refuse him, as Christ’s enemy and Antichrist, with all his false doctrine.” After this Cranmer was taken to be burned at the stake. According to Foxe’s Book of martyrs,

“Then was an iron chain tied about Cranmer and fire set unto him. When the wood was kindled and the fire began to burn near him, he stretched forth his right hand, which had signed his recantation, into the flames, and there held it so the people might see it burnt to a coal before his body was touched. In short, he was so patient and constant in the midst of his tortures, that he seemed to move no more than the stake to which he was bound; his eyes were lifted up to heaven, and often he said, so long as his voice would suffer him, "this unworthy right hand!" and often using the words of Stephen, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," till the fury of the flames putting him to silence, he gave up the ghost. (The Book of Act and Monuments, Book of Martyrs, by John Foxe – 1563)

So no Bible believers can make a good disciple? Mr. Grodi has obviously never heard of Adoniram Judson who sacrificed his entire life to bring the Gospel of Grace to Burma. And what of C.T. Studd who gave away his wealth and dedicated his life for the cause of Christ in Africa? And I suppose he has never heard of Moravians who sold themselves into slavery so that they could get the Gospel to other slaves. And what of David Brainard, Hudson Taylor, David Livingstone, John Patton, William Carey, James Chalmers and a countless host of others who spent and gave their lives for the cause of Jesus? Yet according to Grodi, no Bible believers can make a good disciple for Jesus. Mr. Grodi, Mr. Grodi! Don’t embarrass yourself by saying such silly and outlandish things!

As I read through more of his meandering denial of Biblical truth, I was tempted to feel sorry for this twisting and beleaguered soul —But I, instead, heeded the wisdom of the old hymn which says, “Yield not to temptation for yielding is sin”— So Mr. Grodi gets no sympathy from me. How does one feel sorrow for a dangerous man? But one is almost tempted to do so because, unlike the brash and narcissistic Scott Hahn, this man, Grodi, seems very genuine and mild. But alas, he is lethal in that, on the surface, he’s so plausible. However, look underneath and see that he oozes an insidious and sinister poison which if swallowed will lead away from Christ.

Another thing I noticed when I read and re-read his testimony was that his concept of God is very under-developed and immature. Whereas, Scott Hahn was busy discovering the God who is the head of the family, Grodi, is laboring under a system where God is the examiner. God is, according to Mr. Grodi, as it were, minutely examining each word spoken. Mr. Grodi does not seem to realize that yes, while we should strive for accuracy; there is no one infallible, that is an attribute of God, “let God be true, but every man a liar…”. (Romans 3:4) Mr. Grodi seems, however, to be unaware that God is more concerned with examining the motives of our hearts. Psalm 51:6 says,

“Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.” When, therefore, we give an account for our ministry the thoughts and the intents of the heart will be revealed.

Don’t get me wrong; we should strive to proclaim the truth which is in Christ Jesus. But Mr. Grodi seems to think that, while God is a God of precision, He requires the same exact precision in every thing we say as ministers. This is a terrible bondage under which to labor, and quite frankly this theory could unhinge those who adhere to it. Is this, in fact, what happened to Mr. Grodi? Imagine the bondage of having to know whether the tenth hour referred to in John’s Gospel 1:39 was 4 PM or 10 AM! It was either one or the other depending on whether the writer is following the Jewish or Roman clock. Is God going to get incensed if we get that one wrong? I say no!

But Mr. Grodi, over sensitive soul that he is, fretted over the lack of mandated denominational guidelines. He didn’t know what to wear in church or what to sing or how much to involve the congregation. Again we must observe, Mr. Grodi, even though a Presbyterian, was tailor made for Rome. He likes the fact that Rome makes the rules and thus the rule makers are the ones responsible to God! If he becomes a Papist, the pressure will be off when it comes to answering to ‘God the School Master’ who is meticulously checking and re-checking his work. How wrong he was!

Mr. Grodi worried about the lack of denominational mandates. He ought rather to have occupied himself with the Bible mandate to “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:2). Grodi is at this stage yearning for a religious system to guide him--he is a perfect fit for Rome.

But Mr. Grodi next becomes vexed by theological questions. He says, “I remember standing beside the hospital bed of a man who was near death after suffering a heart attack. His distraught wife asked me, ‘Is my husband going to heaven?’ All I could do was mouth some sort of pious but vague “we-must-trust-in-the-Lord” reassurance about her husband’s salvation. She may have been comforted but I was tormented by her tearful plea. After all, as a Reformed pastor I believed John Calvin’s doctrines of predestination and perseverance of the saints. This man had given his life to Christ, he had been regenerated, and was confident that he was one of God’s elect. But was he?”