7.22.2007 | a right to be wrong

Rod Dreher has written an essay which should be read by anyone who is offended by Pope Benedict's statement earlier this month (MSNBC story here). That statement reaffirmed ancient Roman Catholic teaching: that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true and complete Christian church.

Dreher's central thesis? It's far better for denominations to make forthright truth claims while still respecting the rights of others, rather than going along with the current "I'm OK, you're OK" pap that passes for ecumenicism. Or, in sound-bite terms, "people have a right to be wrong about God." From his essay:

Good relations among believers must be built, but only on a foundation of honesty. It does not follow that acknowledging theological differences – particularly the exclusive correctness of one church or religion – therefore requires a program enacting political or social superiority. In fact, the Second Vatican Council proclaimed that religious freedom is a fundamental human right. Acknowledging that people have a right to be wrong about God is a moral breakthrough for humanity, an idea that should be spread.

This is both powerful, and a little troubling. If I am wrong about what God expects of me on this earth, am I not in danger of eternal damnation? My gut reaction is, "yes, I am." And therein lies the problems of this two-edged sword.

On the one side, we must accept that human beings have free will, and will choose how, or even if, to worship God (ignoring, for the moment, some elements of Calvinism dealing with God's predestination of who, precisely, among us shall use their free will to choose correctly).

On the other side, we are all sinners, and often use our free will wrongly. What's wrong with a church making exclusive truth claims? Doesn't this help us to decide? It certainly can, and, with Rod Dreher, I respect a man, or a church, that stands up and forthrightly tells us what he or it believes to be true.

With the Catholic Church, however, its triumphalism has to be measured against its past, during which the same claim was made. And during which many, many "heretics" were tortured, punished, and put to death for the alleged sin of disbelief. Sorry, Benedict. We've heard this song before, and I won't dance to it.

Now, I don't believe that Benedict, or most other leaders of the Roman Church would bring back those bad old days. And I can't make any statement about whether a Catholic will be damned for his beliefs. Some things are just beyond a mortal man's reach.

So I won't repeat the error of the Catholic church's triumphalism. Let me just say that my statement to the Pope must be, "thanks for the tip, il papa, but I think I'll just go my own Protestant way."

7.09.2007 | A step backwards

First, a disclaimer: I love Pope Benedict. As a fellow Christian, and as a learned theologian. But I'm afraid he has taken a giant step backwards for the Roman Church in re-authorizing the Tridentine Mass.

What's wrong with Latin? Nothing, as a language, although it's got far too many verb forms... But why this fixation by so-called traditional Catholics on the Latin Mass? The usual answer, were they truthful, is that it's what they grew up with, or what their parents or grandparents grew up with.

Latin is not a language that Jesus or any of the Apostles or disciples would likely have chosen: that would have been, most likely, Aramaic, with gentiles probably native speakers of Greek.

The Last Supper, which is the prototype for the Mass, would certainly not have been in Latin. So, a traditionalist should insist on Aramaic? Don't hold your breath. My point is that the Latin Mass, like so much else in Catholicism, is man-made, an artificiality.

When I was growing up in the Bronx, the fact that the Mass was totally in Latin hindered my Catholic friends from ever understanding Scripture. The Latin Mass, which I've attended more than a few times, can be beautiful, and moving: if one bothers to study the English translation and meditate on the Scriptural basis for the Mass.

The Roman Church may do as it pleases, of course. I just wish they had not taken what appears to be a step away from spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. As against the "gospel" of a papal hierarchy that issues commands to the faithful.

6.25.2007 | Idolatry in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The image shows pilgrims on a trek up to "Apparition Hill" outside Medjugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina. What brings them, and why are they worshipping a statue of Mary?

From a front page article in today's secularist Washington Post, the basics:

People have been coming to this rocky slope since June 24, 1981, when six children said the Virgin Mary appeared to them here. The crowds have grown so rapidly that an estimated 1 million people will visit this year, part of a global surge in spiritual travel.

The WaPo article deals not just with these Catholic pilgrims, but with those of other faiths to other holy sites. Well, color me skeptical.

As Christians, we are to look to Mary as the best example of motherhood, and one of the best examples of taking God at His word, when the societal consequences could have meant her very life. But to make a pilgrimage because some children thought they saw an apparition of Mary? I don't think so.

This is in the same category as worshiping a bone from some saint. To kneel before a statue of Mary, who was a wonderful woman, but not a deity, well, there's a proper name for this: idolatry.

I'm not Catholic-bashing; used to be one, and I still love the Church. But I never, ever, accepted this cheap piety of bowing before a plaster statue. Catholics, including myself, bow before the Real Presence of our Lord in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. That's a manifestation of God's only Son, equally God, before whom every knee shall bow.

But a statue of Mary? No.

6.10.2007 | There's been a lot of that

"That" being the all-too oft used phrase, "sins in the service of the Truth." This is the Catholic Church's way of explaining away the Spanish Inquisition. Saying that the Church now condemns such officially-sanctioned terror doesn't quite cut it, but, hey, what are you going to do? Leave the Church?

Well, yes. One of the reasons I left the Church was because of the inability of many of the faithful to admit past errors, and to defend the indefensible. For example, the Spanish Inquisition. Leave it to Jesuits, a Spanish-founded order (a.k.a. "the Pope's Shock Troops"), to apply moral relativism in their flagship magazine, "America."

First, please understand that this is not a bash-everything Jesuit post. I love the order, and was catechized by Jesuits, which isn't the same as being raised in the forest by wolves but which does prepare one intellectually to defend the One True Faith.

What this post is, is an attempt to shed some light on the all-too-human desire to be forgiven for past sins. Unfortunately, to my mind, the Catholic Church, and the Jesuits who originated in Spain, have yet to properly admit their sin and condemn it.

As for the Inquisition, I well remember a Catholic colleague telling me that "it wasn't all that bad." After all, the total numbers of those burned at the stake, and tortured, was quite small as measured against the results of plagues and wars. And then he would trot out the depredations of Protestant monarchs in the 16th and 17th centuries, as if that justified the Inquisition. This is the "you're one too" argument, and it is also being used by the Society of Jesus.

The Jesuits are more refined than my old colleague, but just as blind to the sin of the Inquisition. What is written in the current issue of America is typical of those who need to establish a context, and thereby soften any criticism of the Inquisition:

the Catholic Church today regards as sinful behavior committed "in the service of the Truth"....for decades both civil and church officials, including popes, opposed the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition and attempted to limit the harm it could do.

Yes, the Catholic hierarchy just had its hands tied; what could they have done? This is nonsense on stilts. Perhaps excommunication of any who tortured and killed others in the name of the Prince of Peace? Just asking.

There is no excuse for using torture, for killing, for taking any action that is not based on peaceful persuasion against those who choose to not be Catholic. None. Not now; not in the 15th century.

Those who claim otherwise, or cite the un-Christian notion that different times require different means for defending the Church militant, I say: nonsense. Christ set the standard, for once and for all time. And He would condemn the Inquisition, and those who claimed to be His intermediaries on earth who stood by and watched.

6.07.2007 | Lapsed Catholic?

To anyone who keeps track of such things, I'd be counted as a lapsed Catholic. A former daily-goer-to-Mass and pray-er-of-the-Rosary Catholic, now a member of a Baptist church.

The point of this post is simple: to state, unequivocally, that if I write anything that is critical of my former church, it is out of love. And if I come across as mean-spirited, that is simply because I am a poor scribe. Not because of any malice in my heart towards the Church of Rome.

Even as a Baptist, I remain a brother to all Catholics. What we share, the Incarnation, the Passion, the Resurrection, and Pentecost so far outweighs what separates us that I am tempted to state, we are all Catholic.

Just as we are all Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, name your denomination. Wherever Christ is king, and not just an excuse to socialize in the parish hall after services.

5.21.2007 | More in common?

An article by David Howard in the Wall Street Journal on the conversion of Francis Beckwith, former president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), makes what has become a common claim: that Christians who are theologically conservative, whether Catholic or evangelical, have more in common than that which divides them.

At least that is the implied claim in this paragraph from "Rome-ward Bound":

A common element among these converts is a strong commitment to the Catechism and papal encyclicals. These Catholics are not generally in sympathy with the theologically liberal wing of the American Catholic Church but are enthusiastic supporters of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI's emphasis on orthodox teaching and practice. In short, they have more in common theologically with evangelicals than with liberal Catholics, and evangelicals themselves, in many respects, have more in common with traditional Catholics than with mainline Protestants. Especially on social and political issues, there is much room for common cause.

This may be overstated. While it is true that we share generally conservative social values with orthodox Catholics (and orthodox Orthodox, for that matter), there remains a huge stumbling block: Sola scriptura.

This can't be negotiable, and the Roman Church's history is proof of the errors that can be made when the wisdom of a hierarchy is substituted for the Word. Catholics are right about many things, and it is still true (at least to me) that what we have in common is far more important than that which divides us.

But that which divides us should be insurmountable to a Bible-believing Christian. In Mr. Beckwith's case, he chose to put aside sola scriptura. And, contrary to the essay, it isn't about the Apocrypha. It's the rock-ribbed truth of the Reformation, as expressed by ETS, that "the Bible alone . . . is the Word of God written."

The Bible is sufficient for me.

4.30.2007 | Not too much faith, however

As reported in the Washington Post, This from an academic who studies the role of faith in the public square: "We want people of faith, but we don't want them making decisions based on their faith." The issue at hand is the recent Supreme Court decision upholding the federal law banning partial-birth abortions.

Did you know that all five of the justices who formed the majority are...Catholic. Oh my God. Where's Guy Fawkes when you need some papists to blame for everything? The Post article asks, "Is it significant that the five Supreme Court justices who voted to uphold the federal ban on a controversial abortion procedure also happen to be the court's Roman Catholics?" It then goes on to report on several idiotarians-cum-bigots on the matter.

The article, surprisingly for the WaPo, actually sheds light on the anti-Catholic (anti-religious, actually) bigotry so prevalent among the abortion-on-demand left. What one academic (Stone, University of Chicago) wrote is illuminating:

What then explains this decision? Here is a painfully awkward observation: All five justices in the majority in Gonzales are Catholic. The four justices who are either Protestant or Jewish all voted in accord with settled precedent. It is mortifying to have to point this out...

[In finding that there was a moral reason for upholding the ban, Stone added, the majority failed] to respect the fundamental difference between religious belief and morality.

Well spoken, for someone who appears to know nothing about religion as actually practiced in the United States. I have to assume that Stone is an atheist, or, perhaps, attends a feel-good church or synagogue from which sins have been banished, and all are welcome and automatically forgiven.

It is mortifying to have to point this out, Mr. Stone, but from whence do you suppose morality comes? It is not necessarily Catholic (or Protestant or Jewish), but morality comes to our society from one essential source: religion. Not any particular denomination or liturgy. Rather, from the Bible. The Bible, that is, that is essentially the same (notwithstanding the Apocrypha, which don't alter the basic truths on morality) whether used by Catholics, Anglicans, or Protestants. And Jews, of course, share the same Hebrew Scriptures, and if one just wished to stop there one would still have the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) and love thy neighbor as thyself (Leviticus 19:18). Pretty firm foundation for morality; At least Jesus seems to have thought so...

One may argue as to whether non-Christian societies have the same morality, but whether they do is besides the point. Our morality happens to come from the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. Old, and New Testaments.

The notion that five justices of the Supreme Court are Catholic, and thus their opinions must not reflect the moral teachings of Roman Catholicism is bigoted. And should not be tolerated on the left, or on the right.

4.29.2007 | Do the Limbo Rock

"How low can you go?" is the refrain, in Chubby Checker's Limbo Rock. Back-wrenching rituals aside, the Catholic concept of limbo has come on some hard times. A wholly man-made creation, the Roman church has nonetheless denied comfort and burial in consecrated ground to countless generations of unbaptized infants who die without the benefits of a Catholic baptism.

What is truly vile about this practice? It that placed tradition, wholly man-made, not mentioned in Scripture, as what the laity could expect from their church. And it did so in the worst kind of top-down, hierarchical fashion. Cardinals, bishops, and priests in charge. The rest of you unwashed, just pray, pay, and obey.

It looks as if the Catholic Church has now seen, to a limited extent, the error of establishing limbo. Looks like Benedict XVI is going to allow the concept of limbo to recede into limbo. From a Washington Post article:

The Vatican commission stressed that there is no mention of limbo in the Bible and that it was never a part of church dogma. Nor, by the way, is the commission's own advisory opinion. But there is little doubt that Pope Benedict XVI agrees with its conclusion. In a 1985 book-length interview, "The Ratzinger Report," then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said limbo was "never a defined truth of faith," and "personally . . . I would abandon it, since it was only a theological hypothesis."

Indeed. "Only a theological hypothesis." As is, of course, the notion that baptism qua baptism has saving power. Without the baptism of a believer enabled by the Holy Spirit, baptism is just a bath. Or sprinkle; method isn't important. God knows what's in the believer's heart.

But then, I'm a Baptist, and you know how confused we can be...

2.03.2007 | The triumph of humility

Although it's been a while since I considered myself Roman Catholic, some things about that faith, both good, and not so good, linger. One of the good things is the liturgical calendar, with its varied events, great, and small, observed by the Christian church.

Yesterday, February 2^nd was the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, or, in the Anglican tradition, Candlemas. It's not the sort of thing you might find mentioned in a Baptist church; we're not big on the liturgical calendar, you might say. But there is a mighty lesson in the Presentation, and the one-line summary might be: the triumph of humility.

This is yet another of those "stumbling blocks" for those who expect, nay, demand, that their kings be mighty in appearance. That their messiah be clothed in the finest robes, head annointed with the most expensive oils, live in the most lavish palaces, and be served by legions of adoring disciples.

The reality is, of course, just the opposite. Jesus of Nazareth, fully God, chose to be born in the most humble of circumstances, to parents he knew would, in humility, nurture him as an infant. Not a lot of finery, just the poverty of a Jewish family living under brutal Roman occupation.

This is the lesson, for any Christians who believe that it is pomp and circumstance, together with the finest things that money can buy on this earth, that would mark our spiritual ruler. To God go all glory, because, in the person of Jesus, He knew us in our fallen, poorest form.

A contradiction? Yes. And, a mystery. But it should ever remind us, whenever we start to believe that we've got all the answers, or that we, somehow, rule the world with our earthly powers. We don't. He does.

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