 Okay. Hey friends, this is Dan and Stephanie Burke with Divine Intimacy Radio behind the scenes In a few minutes, we are going to have a good friend of mine Stephanie doesn't like him, but I do. His name is John Mardinoni. I like his wife Mardinoni He's gonna tell me how to properly pronounce his last name. I've only known him for like a decade and Blue collar apologetics. We're gonna be talking about in a minute and it's great stuff I mean, it's some of my favorite realm of apologetics is what John does. So we'll go there in a minute And before we jump in I want to tell you about one opportunity. Well, there's two One is the Avalos summit Bishop Strickland fathered McManus Dennis McManus Monsignor Rosetti who's written the Exorcist diaries the American the diaries in American exercise, which is phenomenal. Yeah Yeah, I think you can get an AWTN religious catalog as well. Yeah, if you've been following our Blog you will have been reading pieces of that diary He's got a huge following and we did a series of shows with him on it, too Yeah, he's doing amazing Kathleen Beckman Stephanie 9 Catholic University of America July 15th through the 17th We normally used to only have about 250 seats and we doubled that by moving it to CU a And so we hope you know go up there. We're almost sold out. Yeah, so don't wait, you know, go ahead It'll be beautiful in July up in DC. It's not gonna be like being in Alabama Cool, it'll be beautiful Venue we're gonna be having masses at the Basilica masses at the Basilica. Wow. That's such an if you've never been there Gorgeous, it's sort of like going to the shrine in Hensville, you know mother Angelica. It's I mean You could spend hours wandering through that place. It's so huge. It's just really beautiful. Yeah last thing And then we'll jump into the show with John Martinone blue collar apologetics Free webinar tonight Lent a path to deeper peace It'll be hosted by my beloved spouse Stephanie Burke. I'm so excited about this along with Simone Rizcala Christine Rich and It'll be recorded but you have to sign up to get the recording so for both of those opportunities and all of our events Go to spiritualdirection.com Forward slash events. I think people are excited about this because they're like, oh wow lints just around the corner So don't leave yourself unprepared. Yeah, come listen to our conversation And we have some awesome resources for you and make this lint like no other Right Yeah, once once a year we have this torrent of graces available to the people of God That's right to change the trajectory of their soul in their life. Yeah, and there's a lot of folks who are circling the drain and Don't want to be and feel bad about having Struggling with habitual sin and you know never really making spiritual progress You don't have to the entire divine economy is ordered so that you can come to union with God My favorite passage in the new catechism, right? which is chock full of truth and So hit that webinar tonight to get some more help with it Yeah, again spiritualdirection.com forward slash events register for it Even if you can't make it tonight, we'll send you the recording and join Thousands already that have signed up. Yeah, it's been really great people You know generally it's just like, you know people kind of hit it at the last minute But people have been excited about we have some special Exclusive content for you that you're gonna get if you sign up for that too. Yeah, that'll help you it'll make your lint Amazing. Okay, great start to show. Yep, and mark it set go. This is danna Stephanie Burke Welcome to divine intimacy radio Your radio haven of rest your hermitage of the heart your monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven To draw on the wisdom of the church the wisdom of the saints to help us Navigate this very difficult life that we're in and things are tough now Tougher than they've been for the entirety of my existence. Yeah, my yeah, huge I mean huge issues going on and I know A lot of people are struggling. Yeah, and so we're here to accompany you in that struggle Well to to walk the side to help to sojourn with you to dialogue No, not dialogue. Right. Listen. We're here to love you. There you go There you go. My wife's a musician. So forgive the echo Although I was reading a pre-conciliar document this morning or yet in the last few days And the word accompaniment appeared there and I thought okay, it's not you know Well, I mean, it's a beautiful thing because you know, what is it to accompany somebody? Yeah, to please to follow them around with a piano and play theme music behind them, right? But you take you You don't take your eyes off them. You're constantly listening. You're very very attentive, right? You know, you're you're following their movements. It is it's like a beautiful dance It's just overused by some goofballs. All right, so Uh, tell folks about our awesome guest Mr Martik Noni and ask him how to pronounce the first name Well, we want to welcome our friend. Mr. John Martinoni. I I know how it's said Um, his book blue collar apologetics is what we're going to be speaking about today He is the founder and president of the bible christian society former host of ewtn's open line radio program And john has spoken at hundreds of parishes parishes and conferences throughout the us His talks on various apologetic topics are available for free at his website Biblechristiansociety.com He writes a bi-weekly apologetics e newsletter Apologetics for the masses that has over 44,000 subscribers from all over the u.s And close to 100 countries worldwide, which you can sign up for at his website He is the author of blue collar apologetics how to explain And defend catholic teaching using using common sense Simple logic and the bible and it's published by sofia and ewtn publishing. Welcome john. Good to see you Good to see you. Stephanie and dan glad to be with you. So is the g silent or is it pronounced? The g is not pronounced. It's silent. Okay, most europeans know immediately pronounce it martin yoni Oh, there you go. That's you gave it a kind of a noble flair there. Yeah, there you go So I just want to say to folks about john Before we jump into some questions with him What he he delivers on his promise not everybody does that john What I've always who coined the phrase blue collar apologetics john. I don't know who did well it's actually I got it from three or four different People who are my newsletter subscribers. They were writing me emails And now they're calling you during the show. Yeah, they're calling me now They were writing me emails and different ones used it. They're completely You know not They weren't in concert with each other and and after the third or fourth when I said, you know I think I'll adopt that name And and the phone will go off and just rip it out of the wall john Yeah, so I It is true what I what I love about it is And I you and I've had this conversation. So guys like scott hon brilliant genius, right? Have the ability to dig deep in theology and make it beautiful glorious and systematic and all of that And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's important. It's a it's an aspect of Of the of the faith, you know, there's different Strengths that each of you guys have in the apologetics realm. I love trant horns debating Work. It's absolutely awesome But I think the territory you you you hold the best Ground in is is practical practicality of it Well, that's I've had One of the most common comments I get from people is they'll say john We love scott hon. We love tim staples You know, we love father mitch pakwa But we can't do what they do But we can do what you do You know and I take that as just a supreme compliment and it's and it's not a knock Like you said, it's not a knock against scott or tim or father mitch or anyone else who who gives you that the beautiful theology and understanding of the old testament new testament But like you said for in terms of practically Going out there and talking to members of your family or co-workers or friends About the faith who are asking you questions You can't repeat what what scott hon says or what father mitch pakwa says So I we're not everybody can right Well, yeah, I take what they say and I just I bring it down To to earth. I can't repeat what scott hon says, you know, I mean The man's like you said, he's a genius and his work is just absolutely beautiful and tremendous but For the average person Out there They need something that they can just that they can remember As well as repeat Yeah, it's really important I remember when I first started because I'm a revert right when I when I married dan I I started to lean back into my faith and I had a Reversion I had a true conversion. I think for the first time in my life And I remember when conversations would come up and questions would come up and you know, I laughed and Because you know, we need to have something besides a response that sounds something like Nuh-uh, you know, we be able to say something, you know coherent and intelligent Um, so because our our faith is so remarkable I was so awestruck when I discovered the faith that I grew up in that I knew nothing about Right, all I knew is if I didn't go to mass. I was in trouble with my mom, you know So this was this is really so practical and so helpful. Okay Amen. So so john In in terms of being practical, I'm curious Well, so I'm a convert And I'll I'll say this to our listeners. Some of them are going this is a spiritual theology show This is about the spiritual life, but here's the thing. This is the power of apologetics related to what we do here in the show It's it strengthens your yes. It helps you to understand more fully You know why you believe what you believe and that gives you more faith and strength and belief in your in your faith Especially when you're going through difficult times and you start to question things So it's applicable to everyone even if it's if it's not a common thing found in the spiritual realm john I find that that most catholics are confused about one thing as a convert Even good catholics and I wonder if you run into this too They think protestants know their bible front to back, which isn't true They think that it's really hard to evangelize that they Kind of like we've alluded to that you've got to know a ton And you really kind of come against those false assumptions in this book Absolutely. Yeah, I tell people number one To answer that former the former part of what you said there is the protestants know the bible Most protestants probably have more bible verses memorized than the average catholic So in that Yeah, okay, you could say they know the bible, but do they really because Most protestants don't have a guide to understand the bible So you talk to 20 different protestants about a particular section of scripture. Well, what is this verse mean? You could get 20 different Answers and and many of them could conflict with one another and contradict one another So they don't have this overarching view Of scripture and the story of scripture and the word of god and catholics get that Number one through the mass And and I tell catholics I say you know the bible better than you think you do because you're hearing it at mass all the time And I'm not talking about just just the readings. I'm talking about the prayers Everything in the mass is directly or indirectly from scripture. So yes, catholics Know the bible better than we think we do and protestants don't know the bible as well as catholics might think they do And even as well as protestants think they do The second part of that is that You're right that you don't have to know everything in order to go out and evangelize If I waited until I knew something 100 perfectly about the catholic faith before I went out and talked about it I would never go out and talk about anything about the catholic faith Okay, because I tell people look there are things about the catholic faith st. Thomas Aquinas didn't know So in this lifetime We will never plumb the depths of the catholic faith So if you wait until I've got my arms all you know all the way around Transubstantiation I can finally understand like that's not going to happen But so so what I tell people I said look All you have to do To to be a catholic evangelist Is go out and tell someone hey i'm catholic Or or you're at lunch With co-workers and you go in the name of the father and the son the holy spirit And they will come to evangelize you and then when they do that I give you techniques and strategies for how to how to handle that you know and the number one strategy And I've had people tell me john just You giving us permission essentially me giving them permission To do this strategy Has helped them to go out and evangelize anybody and that strategy is When someone asks you a question about your faith And you don't know the answer or maybe you know the answer but not you know you you want to be Better prepared you want to make sure you've got it just right All you have to do is say look That's a good question And I don't know the answer But i'm gonna find out and I'll get back to you on that And boom you're you're you're out of a potential jam You know if somebody says well, we're in the bible doesn't say anything about purgatory You know you catholics and purgatory All you guys well, you know, I've never really thought about that. That's a good question. Tell you what? I'm gonna go look it up. I'm gonna find out an answer and I'll get back to you And then that puts the ball in your court and you go you do your research You come back when you're ready You know and and you can come back to them when you're ready Whatever way you want to get back to them whether in person Email a text your phone call however you want to do it You're now in control instead of the other person being in control of the conversation And it just you know with with all the resources dan that we have out there now There is no excuse for a catholic not being able to go out and research and find the answer to a question Absolutely, you know, john, we're going to be heading into a break here when we get back I know Stephanie wants to dig in with you about some of these other strategies On how to evangelize, but I do love that If you don't know, uh, you just say hey, that's a great question And uh affirm them in their desire to understand Assume the best of them which always helps in how you comport yourself in in the conversation And then go do the research yourself and as you say eWTN by the way is an awesome resource for Doing research the website's huge and has a million different things that people can Look to and look up spiritualdirection.com for spiritual, you know purely on the spiritual life stuff. We've got over here too But uh, there's no excuse. We'll get when we get back from the break. We'll we'll do we'll talk more with john martinoni blue collar apologetics how to explain defend catholic teaching using common sense Simple logic in the bible and you can find that at eWTN's religious catalog. We'll be right back On your market said go Welcome back. This is dan Stephanie Burke with divine intimacy radio and john martinoni, what you you're curious about these Other strategies. I know yeah, you know, I was just thinking How I react when or how I used to act when react when people would ask me questions and I think What you said was so important of saying, you know, I'll get back to you. I'm not really sure I know that and uh, how the primary Nemesis in that situation is fear Because we kind of panic and we don't want to be embarrassed and and it feels a little bit like getting t-boned in the middle of an intersection When somebody springs that to you on they on you and sometimes it's done in in a Tone of love and sometimes it's done as a gotcha question. So what are The apologetic strategies other than saying I'll get back to you that you talk about in your book That's going to help us to deal with that and kind of get our emotion under control so that we feel like we're we're fully planted So that we can address what's been asked of us and uh and testify to this beautiful faith that we have Well, that's um and in what you said Stephanie's That's absolutely where I came from that's how I got into apologetics. I worked at a bank All these people, you know found out I was catholic and they started to ask me questions Well, why do Catholics do this? Why do Catholics do that? And I was like, what are you asking me for? And I was like, well, uh, you're catholic like, oh, oh, okay Well, I got to the point where somebody'd say something about uh, Jesus and I go, oh, look at the time I think my mom I got a call from my mom We got to get you know, and I I take off So learning these strategies helped me to Basically engage with anyone and that first strategy. I don't know but I'll find out and get back to you I call that the ignorant catholic strategy the second strategy of the four that I teach in the book is called how to be Offensive without being offensive You know, you don't want to offend somebody if you can avoid it Although a lot of times that you can't avoid it because truth can be offensive to people But you want to be able to get them to lower their defensive walls if at all possible Well, how do you do that? How do you be offensive without being offensive? Well, catholics are always on the defensive, you know, where in the bible does this anything about mary's immaculate conception? Where in the bible is purgatory? Where in the bible's infant baptism? Where in the bible is this or that? So you take that and you answer the question if you're able to if you're not you say I don't know but I'll find out and get back to you But then you come back with your own questions Yeah, I tell people I said raise the other person up to the level of the teacher And you lower yourself to the level of the student and what does a good student do? A good student ask questions. So somebody says, you know Where in the bible does it say anything about mary being assumed body and soul into heaven? You say well, you know, you could show them a virtue that Indirectly shows this or you could say well Where in the bible does it say she wasn't assumed body and soul into heaven? I mean, it's just a you know, you're taking their question and turning it around on them And it's it's it's a fair question. Where does it say she wasn't, you know, we've got Elijah is essentially assumed into heaven enic is assumed in heaven Why couldn't mary even though it doesn't say she was it doesn't say she wasn't So little things like that or or you know, most Protestants believe in salvation by faith alone So when they start talking about it, you can say well, where in the bible does it say That we're saved that were quote saved by faith alone unquote You know, they'll take you to this verse or that verse not a single verse in the bible says we're saved by faith alone And you know in fact the only verse in the bible that uses the phrase faith alone Is james 224 and it says We're saved not by faith alone You know, so The bible the word of god says the exact opposite of what they believe and you say well Why do you believe that if the bible says this you ask the questions and what you do by that and in the book I give you all sorts of questions that you can ask on various topics And and how to respond to the questions that you'll get asked as a Catholic So what you're doing is you're controlling the conversation The other person thinks they're evangelizing you but you're actually evangelizing them through your questions And and what I tell Catholics, I said it most places where Protestant theology differs from Catholic theology It's Protestant theology is razor thin So with just one or two questions You get down below the surface and all sudden The other person is having to examine what they believe and why they believe it And that's a good thing to make them do because a lot of Protestants have never gone through that exercise And well, why do I believe salvation by faith alone? Why do I believe once saved always saved and the Catholic through asking questions is making them examine their their fundamental beliefs and assumptions Yeah, I want to affirm something you said so I was a Protestant, but I was very well studied And I argued against the Catholic faith. It was very anti-Catholic for a long time And what John said I can affirm it's razor thin. It didn't feel like it on the other side But yeah, it didn't it did so it doesn't take much to unravel John. I want to shift a little bit to a Something that is I ran into this weekend at the marriage encounter. We did there was a guy there a great guy not marriage encounter marriage In marriage retreat and it was amazing and we had totally blue Yeah, right like we led the retreat. We did not go offensive. It was awesome Yeah, so there's a great guy there loves his wife broader there, but he's kind of on the outer edges of the church really and he I came he shared that the abuse rattled him, you know And I I wonder what you think about the approach I took and I'm fine if you disagree But one of the things that I was concerned with is, you know, I could tell that the guy had a heart And that that was and that his heart was broken For the victims of abuse And so I said to him I said I think you you're concerned about this matter because You're a good man and your your heart is broken for people who suffer and I could see he was tearing up And so I didn't you know, I I I didn't have much time with them. It was just over a meal But what I wanted to do is just and I did say, you know, don't let Judas keep you from Jesus, you know I mean it's it's pithy but Don't that these folks are imposters who are doing this sort of thing They're not the real church, but how do you how do you apply some of what you've written in this book to? Tough situations for Catholics who are struggling with the you know, a lot of the difficult issues we're facing today in the church Well, what I do Excuse me in that particular situation What I'll tell them I'll I'll ask a question Um, I said listen, what if you had a founder of a religion? and his top 12 lieutenants In you know in his greatest time of need One of them betrayed him One of them denied him And nine of the other ten took off for the hills when he needed them the most You would you wouldn't think much of this guy, right? Because well, obviously his His judgment of people is not very good because you know, 11 of the 12 that he picked handpicked that they just they they took off on him they betrayed him essentially and But then you think well, wait a minute and and everyone knows who you're talking about, you know This is Jesus and the 12 apostles say Here's the thing. It was after their conversion That they understood and came And so that's what's needed in the church is conversion and first and foremost conversion for the many of the bishops and priests because of their responsibility for their flocks And you know, like you said, it's a pithy statement. Don't don't leave Jesus because of Judas, but it is the essence. It's You do not let people You do not let flawed human beings Get in your way of truth to to the truth. Yeah, you know, that's the truth is what matters and in our church unfortunately, we have human beings And every human being that's ever lived save one has uh Is a sinner And so these sinners are going to do things Sometimes little things sometimes horrible things And we cannot let what people do Keep us from getting to Jesus Christ And and well said leave the church the truth If you leave the Eucharist because of these people Then satan not only won with what they originally did But he's winning by having an effect on you now as well And and that's that's how I talked to me. So so I asked I said, do you want to leave the truth? Because of what these horrible people did. Yeah, right. Well said. Yeah, so important I'm I'm so grateful that you brought up the idea the importance of conversion I'm having not converted until I was well almost close to 40 And it's just so necessary people don't understand that just I didn't know you weren't 40 yet Oh, god bless you. Um, okay. So here's a question. Let's let's make a In our in our little we have a couple of minutes left John So I noticed you have a chapter on atheism. So what kind of success have you had talking with atheists? Well, what I tell people first is before you get into conversations with atheists, especially online You need to prepare yourselves Because um when I've been in atheist websites and in what they call them the calm boxes the comment boxes Um It can get nasty in a hurry It's no matter how polite you are no matter how respectful you are You're a dumb ignorant stupid and blankety blank blank christian, you know And so you just have to be prepared for that and deal with it and but If you can stay the course And keep your wits about you and keep your peace about you You could potentially plant some seeds. I've I've had some success with people, you know I was talking one about god and and he's he's saying Well, he starts with the universe. He said I said, well, how did the universe start? He said big bang theory. I said, no, the big bang theory is about how the universe expanded not about how it started I said, how did what the big bang blew up? How did it get there? He's like, well, you know this I said, let me let me Posit this for you to think about and I asked so I said, can a tree recreate a tree from nothing Can a rock create a rock from nothing can a human being create another human being from nothing? He said, no I said so general principle is Material things the material cannot reproduce the material John I've got to I want to stop you there because we're going to run out of time And I don't want to forget to tell people where to find your your stuff So my apologies, but a bible christianssociety.com. Is that the best place? That is the best place great So pick up blue collar apologetics How to explain and defend catholic teaching using common sense simple logic in the bible you won't be sorry I think this is the most practical book on apologetics. I've ever seen it's absolutely fantastic EWTN's religious catalog got it for you fantastic Okay, until next time may the god of peace make you perfect in holiness May he preserve you whole and entire spirit soul and body irreproachable at the coming of our lord Jesus christ amen Amen Good good stuff. John. I think you got it. You got enough of that argument and uh, it was was very you peaked my interest I'm gonna go go read about it. Yeah, it's very it's very good. Look you'll find out the rest That's right. We look what do you mean? Bam, it's right there