The Knechtlegate Scandal: Vatican III and The Rise of the Christian Paw Patrol
April, 2025, Saturday in the Fifth Week of Lent
Music Listened to While Writing: Nikolai Medtner, Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 50 (1927) Click to Listen
Apparently, we’re doing Vatican III now — try not to sprain rolling your eyes. For those who can bear the cringe, gird thy loins and savour this deliciously amusing encounter between the father-son duo of Cliff and Stuart Knechtle and the beatifically serene Mihret Melaku (an Oriental Orthodox Deacon and Harvard student):
Besides the fact that Deacon Melaku ate Stuart for lunch, we can also observe that Stuart Knechtle speaks with the confused air of a man encountering his own thoughts for the first time. Of course, one should not be too severe. One can only know what one knows — and in Stuart’s case, that appears to be rather little. From the hallucinatory claim that Martin Luther was a Church Father to his touching astonishment that the Oriental Orthodox don’t accept Vatican I or II (and yes, somehow also that chimera of a Vatican III) we can rest assured that he has come to know the meaning of the phrase, “ignorance is bliss.”
While some may find the phrase “death-knell of Evangelical apologetics” unnecessarily melodramatic, I can only offer a languidly half-lidded shrug in response. One idly wonders how many public theological gaffes it takes for the average person to reassess their confessional allegiances. It is only April, and we’ve already been graced with James White’s charming little pipedream that Ignatius of Antioch might have never existed, as well as George Janko’s recent catastrophe of a podcast grandly entitled The Christian Avengers. More like The Christian Paw Patrol*.
In point of fact, it is increasingly difficult to turn a blind eye to the sort of theological slop being so brazenly flung around on an almost weekly basis. Consider the part of the video where Stuart derides the doctrine of the Real Presence by comparing it to dipping “a kneecap” of the Lord into His Most Sacred Blood. I’ve yet to decide whether this blasphemous napkin-sketch might even surpass George Janko’s viral moment in The Christian Avengers where he helpfully informs us that the Eucharist is basically dirt.
I hasten to add that I indulge in such asperity only to reinforce that such impious statements would have been universally regarded as scandalous offenses against Christian piety and sentiment in pre-Reformation days. And they still are, at least for some of us. Contrast Stuart’s jabbering with the words of St. Ignatius of Antioch, disciple of the Apostle John:
“Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God . . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes.” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]
As we can see here, St. Ignatius really does exist, although the same can’t be said for the version of Christianity Stuart so earnestly propounds. In any case, further instances of contemporary ignorance regarding historic Christianity are not difficult to find. Should we summon the strength to look beyond the Stuart Knechtle debacle and gaze into the abyss that is The Christian Avengers episode, we will find a veritable litany of baptismal heresies, the most egregious of which being the claim that baptism is non-salvific. Once more, I am compelled to ask: how, precisely, does this stand in any reasonable relation to the clear, unambiguous teaching found in, say, the Letter of Barnabas, a document commonly believed to have come from the Apostle Barnabas mentioned in the Book of Acts?
“Regarding [baptism], we have the evidence of Scripture that Israel would refuse to accept the washing which confers the remission of sins and would set up a substitution of their own instead [Ps. 1:3–6]. Observe there how he describes both the water and the cross in the same figure. His meaning is, ‘Blessed are those who go down into the water with their hopes set on the cross.’ Here he is saying that after we have stepped down into the water, burdened with sin and defilement, we come up out of it bearing fruit, with reverence in our hearts and the hope of Jesus in our souls.” (Letter of Barnabas 11:1–10 [A.D. 74]).
My point is, Evangelical Protestantism is having its moment, but it’s the kind that one might rather look away from. But of course, nobody is, and that’s what makes these sorts of situations so whimsically droll. In the end, what better name for this debacle than Knechtlegate? The sheer, blinding folly of it all: Stuart Knechtle’s star-crossed encounter with Deacon Melaku was a veritable Hindenburgian disaster for Protestant apologetics. And Twitter cries in response, “oh, the humanity!”
Perhaps a comparison can be drawn to another intellectual movement that once strutted, stumbled, and then quietly expired: the New Atheists. What a time it was. Like so many swine feeding in a troth, people flocked to the works of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris who eagerly supplied them with scraps of intellectual detritus garnished with a generous dallop of misinformed confidence. Although it was David Bentley Hart’s Atheist Delusions and Ed Feser’s The Last Superstition that first voiced a protest against this slovenly nonsense, it was Jordan Peterson who took the dog behind the shed and ended the nasty business. The New Atheists collapsed into ruin, a palpitating mass of non-sequiturs and half-witted philosophy.
And that’s precisely what’s happening with Evangelical apologetics. Though I must confess, despite having hopes that this shameless show-and-tell would be more entertaining than the New Atheist meltdown (in other words, a real fight, not a mere massacre), alas, Stuart dashed them this week. In the past, at least opponents of the Church had the decency to be well-read and formidable. Stuart, however, is neither. Instead, what we have here is a respected apologist (the adjective might turn in its advance notice any minute now) believing in the existence of a Vatican III while also being oblivious to which Ecumenical Councils the Oriental Orthodox actually accept. It can’t be said enough: mistakes of this sort always raise the question of whether Evangelicals are generally aware of traditions other than theirs. I’ll let the remarkably astute Protestant apologist Dr. Gavin Ortlund answer that for me: No.
So then, what are we to make of it all? Well, first, the average internet Christian is more likely to recognize theological rubbish when they see it. They now cringe when Cliff Knechtle solemnly opines on The Christian Avengers that Catholics believe Mary was born of a Virgin. They look for earplugs when Stuart Knechtle confidently announces the existence of a Vatican III. And, most of all, they start reading something besides their Bible. If they do that, it’s all over. It was for me.
Second, what is often presented as an expressively personal “Jesus-only” form of Christianity is really just theological defecation dressed up as orthodoxy. This sort of drivel is best left for the powder room, and I sincerely hope Stuart will have the decency to take his musings there in the future.
Third, if Evangelicals want to take a swing at Catholics, they must first acknowledge that Catholics are standing within the same Christian boxing ring as them. The irony of such a request is readily apparent to any student of Christian history. But, of course, that’s the last thing The Christian Avengers could be mistaken for. Our situation as Catholics is often akin to that of a Native American hesitantly asking if they might, perhaps, be permitted to consider themselves as the original settlers of the United States.
In the end, correcting these uninspired Protestant fairy tales — that Catholics aren’t Christians; that baptism is just jumping into the tub; that the Eucharist is mere Nabisco oyster crackers with Welch’s grape juice; that doctrine began with Luther and culminated in a podcast — is a Sisyphean task. It is not unlike trying to convince a child that Jack and the Beanstalk is a work of fiction, or that Humpty Dumpty never fell off the wall. Frankly, I’d rather grab another Guinness Stout and just let Deacon Mihret Melaku finish up the work — except, of course, for the fact that he already has. Anyways, I am done. Goodbye. Salve Regina.
*I owe a great debt to YouTube user A-ARonYeager for the apt comparison. Their original comment can be found in the comments section of Trent Horn’s rebuttal video regarding The Christian Avengers. My heartiest congratulations, most esteemed memer and wordsmith.
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This was a fun demolition to read, but I take exception to your likening the situation of Catholics to that of Native Americans who claim to be “the original settlers of the United States.” This confuses a status one is unavoidably born into with one that is voluntarily chosen (at least, when one reaches the age of reason). And today’s Native Americans are no more the original settlers of the United States than you or I. That job opening was filled a few thousand years ago.
Christian Paw Patrol is fantastic 😂