Do Marian Apparitions Prove Christianity? Protestant Response

This video is going to be about Marian apparitions and especially the events happening in Zetun, Egypt, from 1968 to 1971. If you don't know anything about that, that's fine. We'll introduce it all here. Cameron Bruzi is making some videos about these recently, and, uh, it's been much in discussion. Hopefully, you'll see why this is actually a pretty important topic to engage. Let's give a flavor from his first video.

Alex O'Connor just exposed a massive, and I mean massive, problem for Protestant apologetics. Even William Lane Craig doesn't seem to have a good answer to this. It's about the group appearances, like the 500 witnesses in 1 Corinthians 15. Christians love pointing to these as powerful evidence for the resurrection, and there's good reason to do that, right? It's like, the more witnesses that you have, the better the evidence. But here's the issue: If group appearances prove the resurrection, what do you do with Marian apparitions like Fatima or Zetun? Tens of thousands, sometimes millions, of people witness these events, including skeptics, including journalists, and including non-Christians. Are Protestants actually ready to accept these miracles, or is this the double standard that finally breaks their theology entirely?

Now, he tagged myself and William Lane Craig on Twitter or X, saying that we need to come up with a solution to this. I think William Lane Craig's response is a good solution, so I'm going to draw attention to some of his comments later because I think they're very important. Uh, after this, Cameron put out an interview with Travis Dumsday, who's a good philosopher who's written a fascinating book on this topic, which references the event at Zetun, Egypt, as the largest mass religious experience in recorded history outside of scripture. So maybe that will get your attention. If you don't know anything about this, this is fascinating. This is absolutely fascinating, and hopefully, you'll see why this topic is so important.

Thirdly, Cameron put out another video responding to some pushback from Jonathan McLain. "What if I told you we have better evidence for Christianity than what's in the Bible?" Now, this might sound weird, but I'm not talking about some abstract philosophical argument. I mean a real event backed by photographs, millions of eyewitnesses, and even a government investigation. It happened in Zetun, Egypt, and yet many Christians, especially Protestants, completely dismiss it. Take Jonathan McLain, for example. He argues that miracles like Zetun don't even come close to the resurrection because, according to him, we don't see Mary talking, eating, or physically interacting with people the way that Jesus did after he rose from the dead.

Now, at first, this might actually seem pretty reasonable. But what if I told you that his standard actually backfires and makes Zetun look even stronger? By the end of this video, you'll see why Christianity's best evidence might not be in ancient manuscripts. It might be in something far closer and far more undeniable.

So, this whole issue of Marian apparitions causes a lot of angst and a lot of questions for people. Uh, as you can see, it has a relationship to the arguments for Christ's resurrection, so it's important in those conversations. So, this is really important to address in this video. I want to make three arguments. Number one: The Zetun event is not greater proof of Christianity than the resurrection. It's far less so. I'm going to disagree with Cameron on that. Number two: The Zetun event is not ecclesial determinative. By that, I just mean that whatever conclusion you come to about what happened, it does not compel you to join one church versus another. I'll make that case. Second, and then third, I want to give some reasons, uh, why we should be cautious about Marian apparitions and why discernment is so important.

First, oh, before I dive in, I want to do a book recommendation. I was just reading this before I came up here. Uh, Jared Wilson's "Lest We Drift: Five Departure Dangers from the One True Gospel." Jared is one of my favorite authors to read. Uh, whenever he has a new book out, I at least get it and look through it. If I don't read the whole thing, I haven't even finished this one yet either. But, uh, he's been such a steady voice about gospel-centeredness over the years. This book is fascinating. If you're interested in the whole gospel-centered movement, um, it's sort of a diagnosis of that and kind of an evaluation of just where things are at. And he identifies five dangers. It's interesting because the dangers he's talking about are kind of both on the right and the left, so to speak. He talks about, uh, legalism, pragmatism, superficial faith, spiritual dryness, and victimhood as five ways we can depart from gospel centrality. It was encouraging for me to read. It's interesting if you're looking at the evangelical church today and all the fracturing. And to me, what I take away from it is gospel-centeredness is still the way forward, just as much in 2025 as it was in like 2007 or something like that when that movement was just taking off. I'll put a link in the video description. Really, uh, great book. Check it out.

So, let's work through these three points. Number one, the first question. This, this, this arises from Alex O'Connor's initial comparison, up through Jonathan McLain's recent post. And it's, "Are Marian apparitions like what happened in Zetun?" We'll investigate. I'm just going to call it a Marian apparition, so rather than an alleged Marian apparition, over and over and over. You'll see my own take at the end of this, and I don't have your hopes set up that I'm going to solve it all, because I have lots of questions and, um, many things I'm still not sure about. So don't expect me to tie down everything here, but I've thought about this and studied this a lot. But are Marian apparitions like what happens in Zetun a better argument for the truth of Christianity than the resurrection of Jesus, as Cameron is arguing?

Well, Jonathan says no, and he makes this point that there's really no serious comparison when you find an example of Mary participating in group conversations, engaging in extended discourses, inviting physical contact, cooking breakfast for groups of people, eating and drinking with groups, and being past objects like the broiled fish in Luke 24. Get back to me. Now, in his response, Cameron agrees that multi-sensory experiences are more powerful as a testimony against a naturalistic explanation. But he argues, "You have the same thing or more at Zetun." And Jonathan is arguing that because the resurrection included these kinds of interactions, it has a stronger evidential basis than what we see at Zetun. And again, the reason for this is because it helps to rule out alternative explanations. But the problem is that facts about Zetun also rule out natural explanations, just as effectively, if not more so.

Zetun was not some sort of vague vision. It wasn't a subjective experience that only a few people had. It was a public, repeatable event over years that engaged multiple senses. Sight: people saw a luminous figure of Mary, sometimes moving and responding to the crowd. They also saw doves flying around against the wind in different formations. They also saw strange, glowing red smoke surrounding the church. Sound: The apparition responded to audible cries and shouts from the crowd, shifting position or moving when addressed. Smell: Many witnesses actually reported the overwhelming scent of incense filling the air when the clouds of smoke were present. So, Zetun was not some sort of visual phenomenon. It engaged sight, sound, and smell, just like the resurrection appearances did. And just like with the resurrection, these multi-sensory elements make alternative natural explanations incredibly weak.

I'm always afraid to cut off someone at the wrong point. The more we do these interaction videos, the more, you know, people, it's, it's hard. So hopefully, I fairly captured at least one of the things he's trying to argue in response. Watch his full video to do his arguments justice. But I think there's a way to defend Jonathan's point here that I want to highlight. And let's call it the principle of recognizability. Recognizability, meaning how easy is it to recognize you. Um, so Jonathan's post was not just about whether Zetun is hard to explain on naturalism. It's about comparing the resurrection of Jesus to apparitions of Mary, specifically. So the question on the table is not just whether something supernatural is going on in Zetun. It's about whether, whether there's an apparition of Mary, because we're trying to look for a proof of Christianity. A supernatural, non-Maran explanation wouldn't necessarily be a proof of Christianity. So we have to look at this principle of recognizability. And this is where there are differences between the resurrection. I mean, this is one of the big areas I think where there are differences between the resurrection and Zetun. So let me highlight the two biggest ones: prior knowledge of the person and vocal conversation in close proximity.

The disciples had lived with Jesus for several years. They knew exactly what he looked like. He appears to them many, many times over more than a month. Acts 1:3 says he gave many proofs for a period of about 40 days. That's the time between the resurrection and the ascension. And he's talking to them at point-blank range on many different occasions. He's, you know, telling them to touch his body for the specific purpose of recognizing his identity. As Jonathan pointed out, he eats fish. That's actually a fascinating point that's relevant to our doctrine of the resurrection, that Jesus can digest food. Kind of interesting. But these conversations are happening very intimately, and they're life-changing conversations. So he reinstates Peter, he talks to John about the future, he challenges Thomas's doubt. They're not just talking at point-blank range. The conversations are some of the most important ones the disciples will ever have.

In contrast, at Zetun, the figure that is purported to be Mary does not say a word. There's over this roughly three-year period, there's not a single word that she said. She's seen at a distance, on the top of a roof, and she is only ever seen at night. Furthermore, she's seen by people who don't have a prior relationship with her and specific knowledge of what she looks like. So the recognition is based on much looser criteria, like raising hands to bless the crowd, look dressed in white, looking like a nun, things like this. Sometimes holding a baby Jesus. Things like, there's other things I'll mention. So the point here is simple: it's much easier to mistake the identity of a person when they're on a roof from a distance at night and they never talk to you, versus someone that you're touching, eating with, having long conversations with that change, that mark a turning point in your life, and so forth. And also, it's much easier to, um, misrec-, not recognize properly a person when you don't know what they look like. So I think Jonathan is right to say there really is no comparison here because of this dynamic.

Another way to state this is to say the evidence that Zetun is much stronger for a supernatural event of some kind than it is for the recognition of a supernatural event as an apparition of Mary. Uh, because, in other words, even if you think it is Mary, the evidence for that is much weaker than what we have with the resurrection. The disciples who are talking with Jesus, you know, picture them around the fire there. Um, there's actually several different episodes that are my favorite to think through what this would be like. But just imagine talking to the Risen Christ, and you can put your hand in the wounds and so on and so forth. They could be very confident they're talking to Jesus. Witnesses at Zetun would have a much more difficult time verifying the identity of this bright light that never speaks to them.

A metaphor you could say is, suppose you have a neighbor. Your neighbor's name is John. He's coming back from the hospital after surgery, and your wife says, "Is he home yet? I want to drop off a meal for him." And you're trying to determine whether he's back from the hospital yet. Yet scenario one is, you've never met John before, so you don't know what he looks like, and you see someone walking around on the roof of the house, but you never communicate with them verbally or approach them. So you're going to have one sense there. Scenario two is, John is your best friend. You see him every day. You go over to his house, you ring the doorbell, he opens the door, he invites you in, he brings you in for a meal, he opens, pulls up a shirt, shows you the scar, you touch the scar, and then you have a really lengthy, life-changing conversation. Obviously, scenario two is better proof that John is home because of recognizability. In scenario one, you have really good proof that somebody's there, but you don't know what your neighbor looks like. You've never talked to this person before, and therefore, it's unclear who this is. Hopefully, the point is clear there.

Now, one of the responses might be, "Oh, come on, of course this is Mary." Some of the points that Cameron brought up is, it's at a church dedicated to Mary. It's a female figure. She's blessing the crowd. And then there's various, uh, indications from her appearance that people derive that say, "This looks like Mary." But let me give a couple of reasons why I think we should be careful. Again, right now, I'm not trying to say it wasn't Mary. I'm trying to say this is very different from the resurrection. I'm comparing these two arguments, and it's important actually to make that comparison, I think, because we don't want to downgrade the resurrection.

One of the unsettling things that you want to cover as you look into Marian apparitions is how Mary looks different in many of them. There isn't just one traditional depiction of what Mary looks like. Her appearance often will reflect the cultural and ethnic characteristics of the people and the time where she is appearing. So this can include variations even in her color of skin and hair. So in Rwandan Marian apparitions, she's perceived to have very dark skin. But when there's a Marian apparition in Wisconsin, as there was in 1859, Mary appears with golden hair and light skin and so forth. When there's Marian apparitions in Mexico, she looks like a Mexican peasant. In Brazil, she looks Brazilian, and so on and so forth.

Now, sometimes the explanation for this is that Mary is adapting to the local culture, uh, because, uh, you know, she wants to convey closeness to that culture and that kind of thing. Now, I find this very strange. I'm probably not the only one. I mean, maybe if it was just cultural appearance like clothing, but when it's her skin and hair color, this just seems kind of strange. Uh, I'll say more about that later, actually. But the point for now is just again to compare this with Jesus. Jesus does conceal his identity from the disciples at times. His resurrection body is unique. You know, he can walk through walls, perhaps, and this kind of thing. But we don't have anything like Jesus looking like one person in one event and a different person in a different event. So I'm probably not the only one who finds this variability in the Marian apparitions an odd point, which we'll come back to later. The point for now is, it speaks to this issue of recognizability. How do you recognize? How do you know this is really Mary? In Zetun, there's no stable physical appearance by which to make comparisons. So you have to look at all these other more general criteria.

This leads to the next point. Even just looking at Zetun, leaving out all the other Marian apparitions, there's a fair amount of diversity in what people report. Those things that are most consistently seen, say, the bright light and the doves, are less obviously Marian. When it comes to the points that are most obviously associated with Mary, there's more discrepancy among the eyewitnesses. John McLain from the channel "What Do You Meme?" great channel name, great channel, uh, pointed this out in his comment on Cameron's channel. I thought this was a good comment, I wanted to draw attention to it. He said, "The second miracle, that's Zetun, with people seeing a light/bright silhouette that appeared above a Coptic Church, doesn't have the same weight of Jesus sitting, eating, and talking with people due to the ethereal and luminous nature of the figure. The observers had massively different interpretations of the event."

So, let's double-click on and zoom in on these "massively different interpretations." What are we talking about here? Cynthia Nelson was an anthropologist who taught at the American University in Cairo, and she visited this site on several occasions in 1968 and then subsequently published an article, I think in the early '70s, an academic article about her experience. And this is regarded as perhaps, if I'm not mistaken, and I think it is, the only academic treatment of this event from an eyewitness. So other people wrote about it and, you know, interviewed people, but she was actually there. Let's read her. There may be one or two others that I've not heard of. This is the only one I can find. So let's read what she experienced.

The first night she went there was April 15th, 1968. She didn't see anything. She went again a week later. She's talking to another woman, an Egyptian woman in her 50s, whose daughter had claimed to see Mary between the dome of the church and a palm tree. And Nelson writes, "As we were talking, the crowd began pointing to the palm tree and exclaiming, 'It's the Virgin! She looks like a nun and she is swaying to and fro as if she were blessing us.'" So this is one of those motions that is interpreted as a blessing. Um, so this is what others are saying. They interpret the swaying that way. Here's what Nelson experienced: "When I looked to where the crowds were pointing, I too thought I saw a light through the branches of the trees, and as I tried to picture a nun-like figure in those branches, I could trace the outline of a figure. But as I thought to myself, 'That this is just an illusion of the light reflecting through the branches,' the image of the nun would leave my field of vision. Still, there was no doubt in my mind that there was a light, and that if I looked for the image, it would come into focus. I immediately explained this perceptual experience as an illusion caused by reflected light, but the source of the light was a mystery, for the streetlights had been disconnected all around the church for several days, and within another week, all the trees around the church would be cut."

The woman beside me was convinced it was the Virgin, which reveals once again that what the eye sees is the consequence not so much of psychological processes, but of intellectual, emotional, and ideational concerns. Now, the final sentence that I underlined there brings up a point we're going to return to in a moment, that our expectations affect our perceptions. My point right now is not to say that Nelson's testimony is, you know, her experience was correct and the crowd was wrong, or vice versa. I'm not trying to interpret this at all, but it's just to draw attention to the difference of interpretation from multiple people looking at the same thing, which speaks to the issue of recognizability. Whatever is going on here, this is different from Luke 24. None of the disciples encountering the Risen Christ are trying to discern him through the leaves of a palm tree. Again, they're touching his body, eating with him, etc. It's true that Jesus can conceal his identity, and it's true that some of the disciples doubted. But that's different from Jesus showing up, and some of the people saying, "Oh, that's him," and others saying, "Ah, I can see if I, you know, try to trace a figure and see the outline in the darkness and so on and so forth." Again, in Luke 24 and in the related post-resurrection appearances, Jesus is not a silent figure on a roof in the distance at night.

Nelson goes back on June 1st of the same year. Here's her field notes. She says, "There were intermittent flashes of light, perhaps headlights." I inquired. I was told by the crowd that for the past two weeks, there had been no buses or cars allowed near the area. The crowd's response to these flashes of light was electric. They clapped and shouted, "There she is! There she is!" On the whole, the atmosphere seemed more subdued, reserved than in the early days of May. And then she proceeds to describe the crowd for a bit. So again, there is diversity in what is being experienced here. Uh, Nelson sees these flashes of light, and she just wonders if they're headlights, whereas the crowd is very getting really revved up and excited and clapping and saying, "There she is," and so forth.

Now, again, I'm not trying to interpret this. Uh, I'm certainly not saying it was car headlights, as you'll see. I think something supernatural is going on at Zetun, very likely, from what I can tell. So I guess I'm giving up my, my opinion early here. You'll, we'll get there. But the point I'm trying to make is this is very different from the disciples' encounter with Jesus with respect to recognizability. Not everyone at Zetun is seeing Mary. A lot of people are just seeing a light and don't know how to interpret that. And then of those who do see Mary, there's still a lot of variation. So, in fact, the one academic account we have from an eyewitness is very uncertain as to what exactly is being seen here. So that's Nelson's experience.

Now, in the interest of trying to show how strong the eyewitness testimonies of others are at Zetun, let me also put up her account of the reports of others, where you find these various different, uh, portraits of Mary that you can see emboldened here. And so I, I want to acknowledge there's a lot of eyewitness testimony. I am in no way trying to undercut the, the power of this cumulative eyewitness testimony, which needs to be reckoned with. Nonetheless, the point is, how do we account for these differences where you've got one person saying it's just a light, and another person not? This is something that comes up in other Marian apparitions as well, where sometimes some people can't see anything at all, and it's just certain people there who see it. That's really interesting. So how do we account for that?

Well, this leads us to William Lane Craig's point that he made on Sean McDowell's channel. I think here Alex is drawing our attention to a very important point, namely, the antecedent beliefs of persons, which would dispose those persons towards certain experiences. Like, Alex, I am skeptical of the Marian mass appearances. The person who experiences Marian visions are typically Roman Catholics, predisposed toward belief in the Virgin Mary. Now, I'll just play the portion of Cameron's response that concerns Zetun, since that's the focus right now.

"In Zetun, predisposition doesn't explain Zetun at all. In Zetun, thousands of Muslims, people with no cultural or theological predisposition to Marian apparitions, reported seeing the Virgin Mary appear above a Coptic Church. What's crazy is that the first two witnesses of the apparition were Muslims. Like, these appearances were documented with photos, eyewitness testimonies, and even live broadcast. In fact, at one point, the secular authorities cut the power in the area surrounding the church, and yet the appearances kept occurring. So, Fatima included skeptics, and Zetun involved tens of thousands of Muslims. Dr. Craig's response here actually collapses completely."

But Egyptian Muslims are not necessarily predisposed to reject Marian apparitions. Mary has a very exalted position in Islam. It, it depends on where you look, but Mary's role in Islam is very high. Um, the Quran talks about her 70 times, roughly. That's more than the Bible does. And it says Allah chose her and exalted her above all women. There are certain places in the world where Muslims and Christians, despite the theological disagreements they have about Mary, have a common devotion to Mary. That's true in Algeria, for example, where you can find Muslims praying to Mary in this basilica in Algiers. And it's true to some extent in Egypt as well. According to Nelson, the Virgin symbolizes for the Egyptians, both Christians and Muslims alike, a securing protective mother, the great prototype of the universal human experience who has the power to banish chaos and restore the benign shape of the world. And then she records the testimony of one Muslim who stated that she had seen the apparition, who spoke of an expectation among Muslims for Marian visitation. So Muslims in Egypt would not necessarily be disinclined to believe in a Marian apparition. You can totally imagine, you know, if word gets around that there's an apparition of Mary, both local Muslims and Christians can get very excited about this.

Cameron mentioned the first two people to see her were Muslims, but they didn't think it was Mary. The first two people there were bus mechanics. Look up and see this woman. They thought it was just some woman who's going to commit suicide by jumping off the building. And so they're shouting at her to not jump. And it's only after they start doing this, and a crowd forms, that the church custodian suggested it was Mary. And then from, and this excites the crowd, and then from that time going forward, it becomes this huge event and everybody's talking about it. And so this is a crucial difference. The people coming to Zetun have heard about a Marian apparition there. Many are coming, doubtless, hoping to see her. Contrast that with someone like Paul seeing the Risen Christ. Um, in his book on the resurrection, N.T. Wright argues that a bodily resurrection in the middle of history is not what the first-century Jews were expecting. You know, what Paul encountered on, uh, of the Risen Christ would have been his worst nightmare, not something he could possibly have anticipated, certainly not something he was coming to investigate. And so I think Dr. Craig's point about the difference here of expectation and predisposition is right on the money.

Now, let me clarify. I am not leveraging all of this to say that there was nothing going on in Zetun. My point right now is this is not comparable to the evidence for the resurrection. I think Jonathan McLain was right to point out these differences that concern recognizability. Um, there is no comparison between a silent figure on a roof at night and your dear friend that you eat and talk with at length. And the differing predispositions at play only add to that contrast. Now, granted, we would need to say a lot more to fully nail this point down. So, you know, if we're comparing Zetun versus the resurrection, we need to get into the gospel trustworthiness of the Gospels. I haven't done that in this video. We could do that, but I haven't done that here. But hopefully, what I've said makes clear why I think it's unhelpful to put Zetun above the resurrection in terms of its evidentiary value. The resurrection of Jesus is literally the backbone of our faith. It's the fulfillment of all prophecies of the Old Testament. It transformed the apostles. It launched the Christian church. It's the great event of history. And I'm concerned we don't, we don't downgrade that, because the, the case for it is also, uh, really unique, and really strong. So that's that point.

Now, for the second section of this video, let's ask this question: Okay, if Zetun isn't comparable to the resurrection as in terms of its evidence for Christianity, is it at least good enough to determine which church you should join? This is something that Cameron emphasizes in his video. Protestants seem to be stuck in a very serious dilemma here. Either they dismiss these miracles, weakening their own argument for the resurrection, or they accept them and face the fact that Catholicism or Orthodoxy offers a more consistent explanation. And we also heard in his first clip that I played the references to the apparitions as the double standard that breaks Protestant theology. He talks a lot about Protestants being desperate to explain this event. He closes that first video with a clip of Sean McDowell talking about whether Marian apparitions should mean a person should become Catholic and so forth.

So that leads to my second comment, which is: The Zetun event is not ecclesial determinative. What I mean by that is, however you interpret this, whatever you think happened, it doesn't promote one branch of Christianity over another. And I think there are three reasons for this. First, if, if the events at Zetun were to establish the truth of one branch of Christendom, the most natural candidate would be Oriental Orthodoxy, because this is, this is happening at a Coptic church. That's why I think it's odd for this event to be, have so much focus put on it over and against Protestants, as opposed to Catholics or something like that. Second, unlike some of the other Marian apparitions, which we're going to talk about, we don't have a particular church's theology being advocated here at this event. In fact, we don't have any theology being advocated. As we said, not one word is spoken by this alleged Marian apparition. Um, this is a more theologically generic kind of episode. And third, both Protestant and Roman Catholic leaders in Egypt at the time of this event affirmed it as a legitimate event. For example, the Reverend Dr. Ibrahim Sedeek, who was, he, uh, he was an interesting man. He founded a church. He was like a surgeon, too, I think. But he founded a church in Cairo, and it was a prominent Evangelical minister there, and he was the head of all Protestant Evangelical ministries in Egypt at the time of this event. These various apparitions, and he affirmed their legitimacy.

So, you know, someone, now, someone might say, "Well, the very idea of an apparition from a person in heaven is impossible because Protestants don't think deceased saints in heaven can communicate with us." Now, maybe some Protestants have said that, but that seems hard to insist upon. It's certainly true that we have more caution. Uh, what I've heard actually more from Protestants is more just uncertainty, like, "We can't have confidence about that." But the impossibility of it, I don't think that you have to believe that as a Protestant. Um, we have actually in scripture the example of 1 Samuel 28, where Samuel is summoned by Saul and the, the, and the Witch of Endor. And, um, now, granted, these are very different circumstances. It's not a good circumstance. But nonetheless, shows it's not impossible. I mean, most of the Protestant commentaries on my shelf think that this is really Samuel being recalled from heaven. So, I want to be clear here. I am not saying we should accept a Marian apparition right here. I'm just trying to set the stakes that if someone looks into this event and they conclude this was a genuine appearance of Mary at Zetun, that wouldn't mean they have to like become a Coptic Christian or something like that. Someone like Sedeek didn't come to that conclusion, and there's simply no reason why that would follow. Um, it's true that Mary is emphasized more in the non-Protestant traditions generally speaking. So an event like this might make you kind of start to look into all that more. But we want to avoid an all-or-nothing thinking here, as though either to take the Roman Catholic view: Mary is Perpetual Virgin, Immaculately Conceived, Bodily Assumed to Heaven, worthy of devotion and prayers, or she can't ever appear to people. And like, those are the only two options. Um, that's not, those are not the only two options. There's a lot of good reasons to question various aspects of these, uh, of this Mariology, like the bodily assumption and the Immaculate Conception. And I put out videos on these. I think the case is overwhelming against them. I just think, uh, for, for testimony, for a, something that goes back to the first century, the evidence for hundreds of years is uniformly against them both. So you might study that and say, "I don't believe these things," but maybe this is a genuine Marian apparition. That's totally possible. So my, my point is, I hope this point could depressurize the thinking a little bit, just to look into this with an open mind without feeling like, I think sometimes people put way too much focus on these Marian apparitions as though so much is at stake. And I, I know people convert from one tradition to another on the basis of these things. And I, I would encourage us to scale back the importance of these and just sort of seek the truth with an open mind. I do think it's an opportunity to lay aside our fears, which all of us have at times, about, "Wow, what do I do with this?" You know, and just say, "Hey, let me follow the truth." You know, and I think Protestants can just follow the truth about whatever the truth about Zetun is. Um, it's not an ecclesial pressure point or something like that.

Okay, third section of the video. I think there are good reasons to be very cautious about Marian apparitions. Let me explain what I mean by that. So if someone were to say to me, "Okay, um, maybe you're right that it's not better than the resurrection, and maybe it's not going to make you Catholic. But what do you think happened at Zetun? We, you know?" And my answer to that is, and I hope this won't frustrate people too much, I'll try to explain this, and I hopefully you'll feel my thought process a little bit. My answer is, I'm genuinely not sure. But I think we have really good reasons to be cautious. Let me explain what I mean.

Okay, let me, let me first explain why I think it's appropriate to be uncertain. So when I say, "I, when I say I'm, I'm genuinely not sure," I really mean that. I do not know. I'm just genuinely, you know, I'm not sure. It, it, and let me explain. So it seems to me that the only responsible way to work through these alleged Marian apparitions is to take them on a case-by-case basis. Okay? Because you start looking at them, and you realize some are very different from others in the strength of the evidence, in the theology that is conveyed, and so forth. So it's really hard to give a generic response to all Marian apparitions. You know, someone is expecting me to kind of give you a blueprint for how you should think about them all. In this video, you'll be disappointed. Um, I think you have to just look at each one in particular and just examine the evidence. And I actually think everybody can agree to that. Here's a little sound bite that might be of interest that might help us. Um, in the 20th century, there were 386 cases of possible Marian apparitions that were investigated in the Roman Catholic Church, and the, the, the church hierarchy affirmed only eight of them to have supernatural character. Some didn't make a decision, and many were denied. So only eight out of 386. Okay? So what that tells you is, even in Roman Catholicism, there's a lot of cases that are either bogus, or I think, I, I know lots of thoughtful Roman Catholics who will agree that, yeah, there can be demonic deceptions that happen. We'll talk about those in a second. Um, so the, the point for now is, we got to go case by case. We got to look at each one in particular. But doing that is really challenging, and it's hard to come to certainty because it takes a lot of time, and it takes a certain kind of skill set to kind of investigate these. You know, you're vetting these different eyewitness testimonies. You're trying to say, "Okay, here's what Nelson said. Here's what these other people said." Um, you're looking at the credibility of the miracles that are alleged. You know, you're trying to figure out these bizarre scientific explanations and so forth. These are the kinds of skills that, like, a sociologist or an anthropologist might be better positioned for, or even a scientist. I'm not those things. I'm a, I'm a theologian. My training isn't in these areas. And so this is why I've actually been, people have been asking me to do a video about Marian apparitions for several years, and I've been very hesitant. But I, I got really interested in it over the last month.

Another reason to be careful is that there's relatively little done on these things, especially outside of confessional contexts. So unlike other academic pursuits you can have, there's a much less to draw upon. Um, you know, other things I study, I can really pull from the, the great work that's been done before. So my point just now is to say, don't be too frustrated with me for saying I'm not 100% sure. Um, it's hard to come to a real solid opinion about these things. But I will say, as a layperson, it really looks like something supernatural is going on at Zetun. And so I can appreciate where Cameron wants to push back against those who just dismiss all, all of the, uh, possibility of this. There's a lot of eyewitnesses. Some of them are really credible, like high-level clergy verifying these events. There are also secular individuals and secular groups that are saying, "There is no naturalistic explanation for this. We don't know how to explain this." And the fact is, it's really hard to say, "Where is this light coming from?" You know, for portions of time, they've cut off all the power to that part of the city. And so, you know, so far as I can tell, again, as a non-expert whose opinion isn't worth too much on a question like this, um, it, it really looks like something supernatural is happening, or at least we should be really open to that until we find a better explanation.

So then, why would I say that we have good reasons to be cautious about this? And that's because it's less clear what kind of a supernatural event we're talking about. And two considerations really weigh upon me that urge a need for discernment here. I hope you'll see my thought process here and see, even if you don't agree, kind of where I'm thinking. The first is miracles in non-Christian religions, and the second is troubling aspects of Marian devotions, both theologically and spiritually. Let me explain both of these.

First, there are events in non-Christian religions that have some parallels to the apparitions of Mary. And, uh, they don't have all the same, you know, they don't have the same number of people involved potentially as Zetun, where there's so many, but they have the same kinds of evidence. And I'm concerned that, um, you know, based upon what we conclude from Zetun, what will that then mean for other religions? So, just to give one example, a friend of mine, uh, he's not really a friend, he's just someone who always comments on my videos, and I always say, "I like this guy's comments." Um, he was sharing about this event in Canada in 2014, where there was an apparition at a Hindu temple, and a group of worshippers are gathered. There's an image of this particular saint, as he is regarded among Hindus and some other groups as well, a kind of spiritual leader, uh, in India who had been dead for many, several generations. And, uh, this apparition lasted for several hours. It happened on two different occasions. It has living eyewitnesses, all of whom swear by what they saw. We have some photographs. Granted, they're kind of sketchy, it's hard to see, but the photographs from Zetun are also kind of tough to work through how much they, they've been doctored, and this kind of thing. Um, this was reported by the news. The experience of it was spoken about as incredibly powerful by those who attend it, and so on and so forth. And if you really don't like this particular example, actually, you can find other examples. It's actually not that hard to find, um, other alleged supernatural events that, it's like, it's hard to disprove. And so the question that it raises is, for those of us who are Christians, like myself, I think Jesus is the true revelation of God. How do we respond to these other episodes? It's hard to say that, you know, all these eyewitnesses are lying and this kind of thing. And I think what we have to come to terms with is that Christianity teaches that we live in a world filled with supernatural beings. And I think sometimes, as modern people in the West, we forget the diversity of different kinds of angels and demons and just how active they are in the world. Now, this is difficult to talk about because as soon as I mention that, you know, we talk about the possibility of either angelic or demonic influence in any, any of these events. If we talk about demonic influence, it can feel like we're insulting the people involved. That's not the intention. Everyone is made in God's image. We should treat members of other religions with respect, and we shouldn't be purely dismissive as though they're all just evil, fully, or something like that. Um, but nonetheless, um, angels and demons are so active in the world that it shouldn't surprise us to see lots of supernatural events of various kinds, including demonic ones. And that's consistent in scripture, and that's consistent throughout church history. So that's why it's so important to be discerning about them.

So, in other words, uh, yeah, it looks like something supernatural is going on at Zetun. What then follows is we have to be very careful to say, "What is this exactly?" Now, I am not saying for sure that all the Marian apparitions are demonic. I honestly don't know. I do think some of them are. And let me explain why. And by the way, again, um, many Roman Catholics will agree that some of them are. That's why so few are reported as legitimate. Because you're going to get into this, and you're going to see some of these apparitions where Mary appears to someone, she is telling them to read occultic literature. Okay? That's the kind of thing where your alarm bells should go off. Cameron's video was kind of dismissive of this demonic deception idea as though it's such a desperate reach. Let me explain why I think actually we need to slow down and really emphasize this point for discernment and caution.

First of all, um, as I just mentioned, you will find many Roman Catholics, many other Christians, and non-Protestant traditions who are very sensitive to this point. Because even if you think, you know, there's been maybe, let's say, you believe in all 16 Marian apparitions that have been approved formally by the Vatican, okay? That leaves a lot of others. And some of them have some kind of supernatural character. And I don't think anybody can get into this literature and not feel a bit spooked out at times, just to be completely honest with you. Okay? I mean, I, I, I mentioned this. Here's the example I was just thinking of, of where you'll, you'll find people talking about the entity appearing as Mary telling someone to read an occultic book. That's a great example of the need for discernment. And let me just emphasize this point, because actually, even if whatever your views are about Marian apparitions, I think this is a, just a general principle that is really important. We need to be discerning to test all things by the revelation God has already given. This is a very reasonable principle because it's based in the consistency of God. Um, present revelation will not contradict past revelation, and private revelation will not contradict public revelation. God doesn't say one thing on Monday and then a contradictory statement on Tuesday, because God is consistent. And this is why Paul's statement in Galatians 1 is so important. Um, and I really want to emphasize this, because we might assume, "Oh, it'll be obvious to know where there's demonic activity versus where there's angelic activity." One of the things I was sobered about a few weeks ago when I put out a video on Satan is how frequently Satan is called cunning and crafty and a deceiver and so forth. John calls him the deceiver of the whole world, and he's frequently put this way. He's deceptive. He's cunning. He's tricky. The words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 11 should really sober us. Just think about this for a second. He says, "Satan disguises himself as an angel of light." We should not assume that we will be able to tell the difference between demonic activity and angelic activity easily or glibly. That's why I'm trying to be so careful. For there's something like Zetun, where I'm not, I will not, there, I want to, and I'll come back to that in a second and talk about that, of just, we need to really go through a process of discernment. If Satan shows up, he's not going to look like a scary monster who's drooling and snarling at you. Most likely, he's probably going to look beautiful and shining, and he's probably going to mix in a bunch of true things with lies. He's very, very crafty.

So when we do that, what do we find, um, with Zetun? I'm honestly not sure. Because I think Cameron has a fair argument in principle that "spiritual fruit reveals a good tree." So he's saying, "Look, there's miracles and there's genuine conversions here." Um, the reason I'm still a little, just saying, not fully on board yet, but open and sympathetic to this argument, but just wanting, I basically just need more information, is because when you hear reports of people seeing the apparition of Mary at Zetun and remaining a Muslim, okay, obeying Mary, and yet they're still a Muslim. This kind of thing, it raises this question, and that's, "What are we really talking about here in terms of spiritual fruit?" How do we distinguish just a rush of excitement from true conversions to the true gospel? But

Since I just don't have enough information about that, let me just say, look, a Protestant can just follow the evidence. If this episode did really result in genuine spiritual fruits like conversions to the true gospel, then it is from God. I think we should say that, whether it's an angel or Mary or whatever it might be. Again, we can just follow the evidence.

But let me explain why I'm cautious about that and why I'm wanting to tap the brakes and say I don't think so. And that is because the Zeitoun event comes in the context of other Marian apparitions which have very troubling theology. And that includes, unfortunately, those that have been approved by the Roman Catholic Church.

Uh, let me explain this. And this is, uh, it doesn't give me any pleasure to say this, but, and I wasn't actually expecting to come to this conclusion when I looked into this, but I think we need to say that many of these events reflect a kind of Marian excess that underemphasizes Jesus and at times distorts the gospel.

Let me explain what I mean by this. And I'll just give this a label. I'm going to call it the displacement problem because this is going to come up so much as I work through some of this data. And this is basically the concern is Mary displacing Jesus. And sometimes people say, "Oh, well, you know, that can't happen because Mary and Jesus go together. The more attention you give to Mary, the more inadvertently you're also giving attention to Jesus and so forth." Um, I've explained in various videos why I, I don't think that works. And in these Marian apparitions, I think you'll see why it doesn't look like that.

Now, let me start by saying this is not a concern that is unique to Protestants. I'm going to read a quote from an Eastern Orthodox article where the author did a deep dive into Marian apparitions and then drew conclusions about the overall theology of this, whatever entities are appearing as Mary, whether it's Mary or something else. And kind of collated the various data points and kind of sketched out what's the theology that emerges from Marian apparitions. Um, now, different Eastern Orthodox Christians will have different views about Marian apparitions, but this author basically came to the concern, and this is an Eastern Orthodox Christian, that this is the displacement problem. Mary is not magnifying Jesus; she's taking over the show.

The overall conclusion that she draws in this article is that "the Virgin, not Christ, is the central figure. Heaven speaks through her, not him. Despite Rome's official teaching which still precludes placing Mary on a level with her son, she is predominant." Later, the article says, "The Lady of all the apparitions, by contrast, remains firmly center stage with the spotlight fixed permanently on herself." And then she lists some of the titles that she decrees for herself and that some of the demands that she makes. And one of the things she notes is that a theme throughout these Marian apparitions is that Jesus is very stern and angry and wrathful, whereas Mary is soft and gentle, and she's actually holding back the wrath of Christ. You can see various examples in this article that this Eastern Orthodox Christian gives where she's expressing this concern about this, that this is kind of weird to say Mary is holding back the wrath of Christ.

Now, uh, is that concern valid? I would have to say from my scour in through, I'm not an expert on this topic, but I've done a fairly deep dive looking, reading through, and I would have to say that even in the case of the approved Marian apparitions, this is a totally valid concern, this displacement concern. As you step back and you look at the big picture of Marian apparitions, including the 16 approved by the Vatican, some patterns emerge. Some of them are just a little odd. You know, why do they only happen in more recent centuries? Why don't we have it coincidentally right as Mariology has grown in certain ways? Why don't we have more evenly throughout history, like in the first millennium? Why is it so often children that Mary appears to? Why is the apparition so slow to reveal its identity as Mary? And then with such a vast array of physical appearances as we have noticed, why is she sometimes holding the baby Christ? You know, that's one of those strange things. It's like, Jesus is not a baby anymore. That's part of the displacement thing.

These are just curiosities that maybe have some explanations, but some aspects of these Marian apparitions are more ambiguous and even dark. If you look into this, I mean, again, I wasn't expecting to come to this conclusion. I think if you look into this, you might have some sympathy for where I'm coming from.

Maybe the most troubling feature that I have come to have been trying to come to terms with is how much the apparition purporting to be Mary demands for itself. It's demanding chapels built in her honor, lots of sacrifices and rosaries. You know, when this hit me, I was reading about an apparition of Mary, this is one of the approved ones in Belgium in the '30s to five children ages 9 to 15. You know what her final words were to the children? "Do you love my son? Do you love me? Then sacrifice yourself for me. Goodbye."

Now, that might seem just, you know, "Oh, that's one little thing." That's kind of a theme here. And some of the things that that these apparitions of Mary are demanding are kind of bizarre. The one in 1858 in Lourdes, France, uh, the apparition says to a 14-year-old girl, "Kiss the ground as an act of penance for sinners." And then later, uh, the girl named Bernadette recounts that the apparition instructed her to drink dirty water in a cave and then eat the grass. This just seems kind of weird. The apparition in Rwanda, as well, has these kind of odd demands of penance from the young girls that she is appearing to. Uh, I'm not trying to make this sound really weird; I'm just trying to represent some points here that this just seems really odd to me.

Now, let me give a flavor of this more fully from Fatima, Portugal. This is one of the most famous Marian apparitions here. The apparition appears on the 13th of the month for several months to these three children. Again, it's always children, not always, mostly children. And then this is prior to this famous miracle that occurs that October, uh, 1917. On June 13th of that year, the apparition says, "I shall take Jacinta and Francisco to Heaven soon." That's two of the children. "But you, Lucia, will remain a little longer since Jesus wishes you to make me known and loved on Earth. He wishes also for you to establish devotion in the world to my Immaculate Heart."

So, okay, you know, already you're just kind of noticing Mary is the one who takes these children to Heaven, but Lucia stays for the purpose of making Mary known and loved and to establish devotion to her. Um, you know, as I'm reading this, I remember thinking, it's actually hard for me to imagine something like this happening in the first millennium. You know, it just, it seems to reflect the Mariology of the times, this idea, even the vocabulary. But not just that, "I'm taking you, two of you, to Heaven. One of you will stay to make me known on Earth."

The next month, uh, July 13th, "Make sacrifice." This is what she says. "Make sacrifices for sinners and say often, especially when making a sacrifice, 'Oh Jesus, this is for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.'" Now, not don't, that last little phrase there. So, you know, they're, they're making sacrifices because of sins against Mary. So, uh, you can see how the concern can start to arise here of Mary being center stage. She's the one taking people to Heaven, she's the one you need to make known, she's the one you've sinned against.

After this, she shows the children a vision of Hell, and it's a little odd. You know, this is one of the things that you might say, "Well, okay, maybe she knew the children can handle this or something." But showing little children a vision of Hell and then basically making it sound like your prayers and your sacrifices are what are needed so people won't go there. This feels a little dramatic, but that, you know, there you could explain that. But what's really odd is what is said. "You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. It is to save them that God wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If you do what I tell you, many souls will be saved and there will be peace." So, see the second sentence there. Devotion to Mary saves from Hell. Do what I tell you. The apparition is, uh, asking for things like the country Russia to be dedicated to her.

The next month, on August 19th, she's asking for a chapel and various means of consecration to the chapel. On October 13th, just before the famous Miracle of the Dancing Sun, she says, "I want a chapel here built in my honor. I want you to continue saying the Rosary every day. The war will end soon and the soldiers will return to their homes." You see the reference to Christ being offended.

Um, I don't, I, when I have these conversations, I struggle to understand how people don't feel the value, the concern of the displacement problem. Because I, I'll bring up passages, people like, "Well, what's the problem?" I'm like, "H, how are you not concerned about this?" You know, Mary is the one that you want to spread throughout the world. Mary is the one who saves from Hell and so on and so forth. Whose honor is being promoted here?

Here's another one. Maybe this will get the point across. This is from Ecuador. This has approval from the local Bishop, but not a verdict yet from the Vatican, where the apparition purporting to be Mary commands a statue to be made. "Now I command, ask, and command you to have a statue to be made for the consolation and preservation of my convent." Now, skipping down to where I've been bolden, "First, so that men in the future might realize how powerful I am in placating Divine Justice and obtaining mercy and pardon for every sinner who comes to me with a contrite heart."

So here, this, you know, the statue is there because Mary is powerful in placating Divine Justice. And you note this little phrase, "every sinner who comes to me with a contrite heart." This is the displacement concern. Because, you know, let's state it simply, Jesus placated Divine Justice on the cross. So we go to God through the work of Christ on the cross. And if we're measuring Mary and apparitions by God's previous revelation, we have no foundation for anything like this. Mary is placating. Mary is the one, not only, you know, we, we spread Mary's honor throughout the world. She's the one to whom we come in contrition, and she's the one who placates, even at times, she's the one who placates Jesus. This is not a both and. You know, when I ask my friend on Earth to intercede for me, I'm not asking them to placate God's wrath. Only Jesus has done this on the cross.

In other apparitions, you have Mary as the subject of Genesis 3:15, which, uh, basically relies on the mistranslation from the Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible that "she shall crush his head." So this is another one of these points where, when, when the alarm bells don't go off on the other side, I just assume there's some kind of divide between us. We are coming from such different paradigms. Clearly, we don't understand each other. Um, I don't see how people can't be concerned by this kind of thing. It's not a both and. If you have a mistranslation of the Bible to make Mary do something that Jesus actually did, right?

So my point in working through just some representative examples here of where I'm seeing things that say this is problematic, um, and so my, my, my point is to say I think we have good reasons to be very cautious about Marian apparitions, and I think we need to be very discerning. What is the overall theology? Does it, uh, does it cohere with what God has already revealed in scripture? Does it, does it even cohere with the first millennium of church history? You know, that's the thing. If church history is always leveraged against us, but so much of this seems like it's kind of spiraling up more and more and more and more and more. The Marian excess just seems to stack up more and more. And I, I really don't understand how people don't have a concern about Jesus no longer being center stage. He's the atoner. He's the one we want to spread his fame throughout the world. He's the one who saves us from Hell and so on and so forth.

So I, again, want to keep clarifying. I am not saying that all the Marian apparitions are demonic. I don't know. I, I'm trying to emphasize the need for discernment on the basis of anything that goes against God's prior revelation. I'm not sure about all of them. Some of them, I think probably are.

Final thought. Uh, people often act like modern Protestants are kind of strange for making too little of Mary, as though it's odd for us to be concerned about this excess. And they make much of the fact that the Reformers retained various aspects of the Mariology of the medieval church. This is not as surprising as people make it out to be, though, because issues of Mariology were just not really on the at the forefront of the Reformation. However, I want to just conclude by noting that the Reformers did anticipate and articulate the essential Protestant concern of elevating Mary too highly and making her honor a matter of salvation.

Let me close by showing this from a, a sermon early in Luther's career, 1522. Already he's got the basic idea here. You can see it's a sermon on Matthew 1. He says, "We have an obligation to honor Mary, but be careful to give her the honor that is fitting. Unfortunately, I worry that we give her all too high an honor, for she has accorded much more esteem than she should be given or than she accounted to herself. So from this comes two abuses. First, Christ is diminished by those who place their hearts more upon Mary than upon Christ himself. In doing so, Christ is forced into the background and completely forgotten. The other abuse is that the poor saints here on Earth are forgotten. I would allow a high regard for Mary and her praise, just so long as you do not get carried away and consider making a law out of it, so that she must be honored as a condition for your salvation. For the scriptures have recorded nothing about her birth or life, so your hearts must not be placed upon her and she must not be exalted above her proper status. The monks invented all this abuse. They wanted to praise the woman. They have used Mary as an excuse to invent all kinds of lies by which she could be used to extinguish to establish their twaddle. They have used scriptures to drag Mary by the hair and force her to go where she never intended, for the gospel that is read today reveals Christ's Nativity, not Mary's. See how many lies have come out of this, which we can in no way tolerate. I can surely allow her to be honored, but not in the way that belies the scriptures."

That's the heart of it. You know, we conclude by this. Let us honor Mary. She is a great woman of God. Let us emulate her faith. We won't say anything against her, but let Christ be the center stage. He is the one who atones for our sins. He should be the focus. And if there is any need in the human heart for someone who is more gentle and receptive, that need has been fully met in the gospel. That is literally who Jesus is. You know, in the Gospels, there's one time where Jesus tells us what His heart is like, and he says, "I am gentle and lowly in heart." So if you ever find yourself tempted to, uh, think of Mary as like more approachable than Jesus or something like this, which this is one of the concerns on the table, we should remember we could not have a more gentle and perfect and approachable savior than Jesus. And His death on the cross is the full and perfect atonement for our sins. Nothing else is needed for the sake of reconciling us to God. Now, all we have to do is believe in that and live accordingly.

So hopefully that's a happy note to end on in this video. Woo, long one, longer than I thought. Let me know what you think. As you can note, uh, I, you know, much more to be said about all this, so we'll keep conversations going, keep study going. Hopefully, this will be one helpful volley in the conversation just because I know a lot of people wrestle with this and genuinely feel perplexed. So hopefully this will be helpful to folks out there who are wrestling with this topic. Thanks for watching. I will read the comments carefully. We shall see what they say. Thanks, everybody.

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