Robert Sungenis

Robert A. Sungenis (born 1955), is an American Catholic apologist. He is the founder of The Bellarmine Report, renamed from the Bellarmine Theological Forum in 2011. He is the president of CAI Publishing, Inc. Sungenis is known for his apologetic works critiquing the Protestant doctrines of sola fide and sola scriptura. More recently, he has become known for his advocacy of geocentrism and also for his beliefs about Jews and Judaism that have created controversy.

Biography

Robert Sungenis was raised in a Catholic family, but became a Protestant Christian at age nineteen.^{[1][dead link]} He held various posts (e.g., elder, preacher, adult Sunday school director) in several Protestant churches including a two-year employment under prophecy teacher Harold Camping of Family Radio.^[2] He obtained his B.A. in Religion from George Washington University in 1979, and an M.A. in theology from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1982. Sungenis obtained a Ph.D. in 2006 from the Calamus International University, a private distance-learning institution in Vanuatu which is noted according to Sungenis "for its academic freedom and alternative science and religious curriculum".^[1][3][4] His 700-page dissertation was on the subject of geocentrism^[5] and was then edited and published as the two-volume set, Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right.

Sungenis returned to Catholicism in 1992 at the age of thirty-seven. In 1994 he was the principal author of a book critiquing the eschatological views of Harold Camping and a number of prominent fundamentalist Protestant preachers.^[6] The story of his conversion to Catholicism is chronicled in the first of the Surprised By Truth books^[7] edited by Catholic apologist and author Patrick Madrid. He has debated many Protestant apologists, including James R. White, Dave Hunt, Michael Horton, Robert Godfrey and Robert Zins on doctrinal, theological, and historical issues such as sola scriptura, the papacy and papal infallibility, transubstantiation and the Mass, salvation and justification. He is the author of twenty books and over 100 published articles on theology and science.^{[citation needed]} Articles and reviews have been published in Our Sunday Visitor, The Catholic Answer, Catholic Faith and Family, The Coming Home Journal, Envoy Magazine, This Rock, Catholic Family News, The Remnant, Latin Mass Magazine and reviews in Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Touchstone Magazine, Culture Wars magazine and Salon.com.

He has also begun his own non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation and publishing company, Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc.^[8].

Views on Jews and Judaism

Sungenis has become known for controversial views of the Jewish people and Judaism that have been sharply criticized by some of his fellow Catholics and by the Southern Poverty Law Center as being anti-semitic.^[3][9][10] In 2002 he questioned the Holocaust, and according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, "repeated a series of ancient anti-Semitic canards" and later wrote about the involvement of Jews and Israel in a New World Order Satanic conspiracy aimed at world domination.^[10][9]

Sungenis has responded that he is against Zionism, but that he is not anti-semitic. "Anti-semitism is a hatred for the Jewish race. There isn't a bone in my body that feels that way about Jewish people," he wrote.^[11] In 2008, Sungenis' bishop, Kevin C. Rhoades, denounced his views of the Jewish people and Judaism as "hostile, uncharitable, and un-Christian" and required Sungenis to stop writing about them. He also directed him to stop using the word "Catholic" in his organization's name.^[3] Sungenis has stated that he will only comply with Bishop Rhoades' directive to stop writing about Jews and Judaism if he is forced to do so "under the aegis of a canonical trial".^[12]

Geocentrism

Sungenis has become known for his advocacy of geocentrism. He believes that physics and the Bible prove that the sun and all the planets orbit the Earth and that the Earth does not rotate. In support of his beliefs, Sungenis published the book Galileo Was Wrong in the hope that people will "give Scripture its due place and show that science is not all it's cracked up to be." Mainstream scientists reject this cosmological view as demonstrably false and untenable.^[13]

Publications

• Not By Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification, Queenship Publishing (1996), 774 pp. ISBN 1-57918-008-6
• Not By Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura, Queenship Publishing (1997), 650 pp. ISBN 1-57918-055-8
• How Can I Get to Heaven? The Bible's Teaching on Salvation Made Easy to Understand, Queenship Publishing (1997), 334 pp. ISBN 1-57918-007-8
• Not By Bread Alone: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for the Eucharistic Sacrifice, Queenship Publishing (2000), 450 pp. ISBN 1-57918-124-4
• The Gospel According to Matthew (Catholic Apologetics Study Bible, Vol. 1), Queenship Publishing (2003), 427 pp. ISBN 1-57918-236-4
• The Apocalypse of St. John (Catholic Apologetics Study Bible, Vol. 2), Queenship Publishing (2007), 544 pp. ISBN 1-57918-329-8
• The Epistles of Romans and James (Catholic Apologetics Study Bible, Vol. 3), CAI Publishing, Inc. (2009), 665 pp. ISBN 0-9818660-6-9
• The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1 – 11 (Catholic Apologetics Study Bible, Vol. 4), CAI Publishing, Inc. (2009), 692 pp. ISBN 0-9818660-7-7
• The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Catholic Apologetics Study Bible, Vol. 5), CAI Publishing, Inc. (2009), 423 pp. ISBN 0-9818660-8-5
• Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right: The Scientific Evidence for Geocentrism, fifth edition (CAI Pub. Inc, 2009, 653 pages). ISBN 0-9818660-4-2
• Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right: The Historical Evidence for Geocentrism, fifth edition (CAI Pub. Inc. 2009, 451 pages). ISBN 0-9818660-5-0
• Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right: The Abridged Version, (CAI Pub. Inc. 2010, 739 pages). ISBN 0-9841859-4-1
• Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right: A Synopsis of the Scientific and Historical Evidence for Geocentrism, (CAI Pub. Inc, 2010, 100 pages). ISBN 0-9841859-6-8
• Speaking in Tongues: Sign of Blessing: Sign of Judgment: A Critical Analysis of the Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, (CAI Pub. Inc. 2010, 80 pages). ISBN 0-9841859-5-X
• Catholic/Jewish Dialogue: Controversies and Corrections, CAI Publishing, Inc. (2010), 734 pp. ISBN 0-9841859-3-3

References

External links

• Bellarmine Theological Forum, Robert Sungenis' website
• Galileo Was Wrong, Sungenis' book on geocentrism
• Robert Sungenis profile and books on Goodreads