Lenten Exegesis: The Naturalistic Distortion of Sacred Scripture
[Pillar Catholic] Adam and the Ganache: A Lenten Bible Study. In a recent episode of the “Sunday School; A Pillar Bible Study” podcast, dated February 18, 2026, Dr. Scott Powell, JD Flynn, and Kate Olivera discuss the readings for the First Sunday of Lent—Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7, Psalm 51, Romans 5:12-19, and Matthew 4:1-11. The discussion frames the Genesis creation and fall narrative and Christ’s temptation in the wilderness through a lens of moral exemplarity and psychological insight, systematically omitting the supernatural, dogmatic, and juridical truths that constitute the integral Catholic faith. This approach is not mere simplification but a deliberate evacuation of sacred doctrine, aligning perfectly with the Modernist errors condemned by St. Pius X and the apostate spirit of the post-conciliar sect.
The Genesis Narrative: Stripping Original Sin of Its Dogmatic Force
The podcast’s treatment of Genesis 2-3 reduces the foundational account of human origins and the Fall to a story about “human choices” and relational dynamics, devoid of its essential nature as a historical, supernatural revelation defining the dogma of original sin. There is no mention of the divine institution of marriage (Gen 2:24) as a sacrament, nor of the consequences of Adam’s sin—the privation of sanctifying grace, the wound to human nature, and the transmission of a fallen state to all descendants. This omission is a direct rejection of the Council of Trent’s decree against the Reformers, which defined original sin as transmitted by propagation, not by imitation (Session V, canons 1-3).
The podcast states: “It’s a story about… the human condition, our tendency to… grasp at things that aren’t ours… the serpent’s question, ‘Did God really say?’… that doubt, that mistrust.”
This language is pure naturalistic moralism. It presents the serpent’s temptation as a universal psychological pattern rather than the objective, historical action of Satan, a personal devil who “by the envy of the devil, death entered into all” (Wis. 2:24). The discussion fails to affirm that Adam, as the federal head of the human race, lost for his progeny the supernatural destiny of the vision of God, a loss that necessitated the Incarnation and Redemption of the second Adam, Christ. The silence on the state of grace and the necessity of baptism for its remission is a denial of the most elementary Catholic teaching. This is the “hermeneutics of suspicion” in action, treating the sacred text as a mere human document reflecting “ancient Near Eastern motifs,” a proposition condemned by Lamentabili sane exitu, n. 12: “The exegete who wishes to fruitfully engage in biblical studies should especially reject any preconceived opinion about the supernatural origin of Holy Scripture, which he should interpret just like other purely human documents.”
Matthew 4: The Demonic Temptation Reduced to Inner Struggle
The analysis of Christ’s temptation in the desert is equally bankrupt. The hosts frame the event as a model for “our own desert experiences,” focusing on Jesus’s “human vulnerability” and “response to testing.” The word “temptation” is sanitized into “testing” or “wilderness experience,” eviscerating the text’s clear testimony to a personal, diabolical assault by Satan himself (Matt. 4:1, 5, 8, 11). There is no acknowledgment that Christ, as the God-Man, was tempted by a real being—the devil—who showed Him “all the kingdoms of the world” (Matt. 4:8), an offer only possible if Satan possesses a real, though limited, principality over the temporal order.
The omission is catastrophic. It denies the reality of the devil as a fallen angel, a truth defined by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and constantly taught by the Magisterium. By presenting the episode as purely internal or archetypal, the podcast aligns with Modernist proposition n. 24 from Lamentabili: “Faith in the Resurrection of Christ from the beginning concerned not so much the fact of the Resurrection, but the immortal life of Christ with God.” Here, the fact of the devil’s personal assault is replaced by a “symbolic” inner conflict. This is a direct assault on the integrity of the Gospel narrative. Christ’s victory was not over a vague “doubt” or “fear,” but over Satan, the “prince of this world” (John 12:31), whose defeat is the precondition for the Kingdom of God. The podcast’s silence on the eschatological significance of the temptation—that it is the first battle in the war Christ wages to restore the kingdom lost by Adam—reveals a complete captivity to immanentist, humanistic categories.
The Systematic Omission of Christ’s Kingship and the Social Reign
Both readings point inexorably to the Kingship of Christ, a doctrine solemnly defined by Pope Pius XI in Quas primas (1925). Genesis presents Adam as the vice-king of a creation ordered to God; his sin is a rebellion against that divine order. Matthew 4 shows Christ, the new Adam, triumphing where the first Adam failed, thus inaugurating His royal authority over all nations. The podcast makes no connection to this central dogma. There is no mention that Christ’s kingdom is “not of this world” in the sense of being merely spiritual and interior, but that it demands the subjection of all human societies—families, states, cultures—to His law.
Pius XI taught: “His reign… extends… to all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ… Let rulers of states therefore not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ.”
The podcast’s focus on personal “growth” and “insight” is the precise opposite. It reflects the secularist error condemned in the Syllabus of Errors (n. 39): “The State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits.” By reducing Scripture to a source of private spiritual lessons, the hosts implicitly accept the modern separation of religion from public life, a separation Pius XI called a “plague” that has “shaken the whole of human society.” Their silence on the duty of the state to recognize Christ as King is a tacit endorsement of the religious indifferentism (Syllabus, n. 15-16) that the conciliar sect has made its official doctrine.
The “Historical-Critical” Method as a Vehicle of Apostasy
The tone and method of the discussion are symptomatic of the Modernist synthesis. Dr. Powell’s academic credentials (“Dr.”) are invoked to lend authority to a presentation that studiously avoids any supernatural interpretation. The language is therapeutic, psychological, and demythologizing. This is the exact methodology St. Pius X condemned in Pascendi Dominici gregis (1907) and Lamentabili. Proposition n. 53 from Lamentabili states: “Christ did not intend to establish the Church as a community lasting for centuries on earth, as He believed in the imminent coming of the heavenly kingdom and the end of the world.” While the podcast may not state this explicitly, its reading of the Gospels strips them of any institutional, hierarchical, and sacramental purpose. The Kingdom becomes a mere “movement” or “consciousness,” not a visible, juridical society (the Church) with authority to teach, govern, and sanctify.
The focus on the “second creation story” (Genesis 2) as a “more intimate” account, without affirming its literal historical truth and its harmony with Genesis 1, plays into the Modernist error of dualism between science and faith. It suggests that the “true” meaning is a spiritual lesson beneath a “mythical” shell. This is condemned by Lamentabili, n. 9: “All the dogmas of the Christian religion are indiscriminately the object of natural science or philosophy, and human reason, enlightened solely in a historical way, is able, by its own natural strength and principles, to attain to the true science of even the most abstruse dogmas.” The podcast treats the Genesis text as a “mythical invention” (cf. Lamentabili, n. 7) to be decoded by modern psychology, not as a divinely revealed historical truth foundational to Catholic theology.
The Sedevacantist Diagnosis: A Church Without a Pope
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, which holds that a manifest heretic loses all ecclesiastical office ipso facto (St. Robert Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice), the authority of the interpreters is null. JD Flynn and Kate Olivera are ministers of the conciliar sect, the “abomination of desolation” occupying the Vatican. Dr. Powell, by participating in this forum, gives scandal by treating these usurpers’ interpretations as normative. The entire enterprise is conducted under the auspices of a paramasonic structure that has systematically dismantled the sacramental, hierarchical, and doctrinal integrity of the Church. The podcast’s content is therefore not merely erroneous; it is the fruit of a schismatic, apostate body.
The “Sunday School” format itself is a symptom. In the true Church, doctrine is taught by the hierarchical Magisterium, not by lay “experts” in a podcast. The very notion that laypeople can authoritatively dissect Scripture for a mass audience, independent of the teaching authority of the Church, is the democratic, naturalistic principle condemned in the Syllabus (nn. 19-24). It places the private judgment of the individual (“Dr.” Powell’s insights) above the authentic Magisterium. This is the spirit of Luther, not of St. Paul, who wrote: “How shall they believe him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Rom. 10:14). The preacher must be sent (Rom. 10:15), that is, have apostolic succession—a succession broken by the conciliar revolution.
Conclusion: A Call to Reject the Conciliar Hermeneutic
The “Pillar Bible Study” is a perfect microcosm of the post-conciliar apostasy. It takes sacred, dogmatic narratives and reduces them to anthropological platitudes. It speaks of “Adam” and “Jesus” while stripping them of their ontological and juridical roles as the federal head of the human race and the King of kings. It presents a Bible without a Church, without Sacraments, without Grace, and without a final judgment. Its God is a vague “higher power” of moral inspiration, not the Supreme Legislator whose law must govern nations.
This is not Bible study; it is spiritual sabotage. It prepares souls to accept the one-world religion of the Antichrist by emptying Christian revelation of its exclusive, supernatural, and juridical claims. The faithful are called to reject such poison and return to the unchanging doctrine of the pre-1958 Church, where Genesis is history, the devil is a personal enemy, and Christ is a King whose rights over society are absolute and non-negotiable. The only legitimate Bible study is one that bows before the Magisterium of the Catholic Church—the Church that existed before the apostasy of John XXIII and his successors. Anything else is the work of the “synagogue of Satan” (Apoc. 2:9), using scripture as a tool for its own subversion.
Source:
Adam and the ganache (pillarcatholic.com)
Date: 18.02.2026