Roots & Branches

A book you need to read: "The Edge of His Cloak" by Kevin Abell

2009-10-22T12:43:00.000-04:00

Hey there,

I recently read and then was excited to review a book called "The Edge of His Cloak" by Kevin Abell.

Below is an excerpt from my review. I encourage you to read the entire review (click here) and then purchase a copy of Kevin's book either from Kevin himself, through Amazon.com, or at Faith Community Church.

A quote from the review: "Abell possesses a strength of faith and a clarity of thought that is not only endearing, but also admirable. The book is a remarkable testament of a faith that is both simple and profound; it is a glimpse into the everyday life and extraordinary faith of a mechanic, father, writer, and ordinary Christ-follower. But most of all this is the glorious autobiography of someone who has seen the risen Savior, been wrecked in his gaze, and embraced the only source of true healing."

click here to read the rest of the review.

Michael Krahn
michael.krahn@gmail.com

The Ascent to Truth Genre: "Jesus is My Girlfriend" (Hillsong U and Kutless fans - please read)

The Pope on Hell

2007-04-07T15:16:00.001-04:00

Did you hear the news stories this week?

I came across quite a few that quoted him (suspiciously outside of quotation marks) as saying that hell is a place of literal fire. I figured this was a misrepresentation since I do know a thing or two about Catholic theology ;-) so I tried to find the direct text to no avail. It ain't there. The real story, and the official Catholic doctrine sounds a lot like a sermon I heard a certain Youth Pastor deliver recently.

This is from Mark Shea, a commentator knowledgeable of both Catholic and Evangelical theology:

The mere fact that the media report this as news shows the immense gulf between their grasp of Christian teaching and Benedict's. And indeed, even in getting it right, they *still* manage to get it wrong. To be sure, they (kind of) get the main point (Benedict says hell is real, not a symbol designed to scare you into obeying the gospel), but then they completely misunderstand him. Here's how:

Benedict takes great pains to say that, while hell is real, the scriptural imagery used to describe hell ("everlasting fire") is not to be understood literalistically.

He had wanted to reinforce the new Catholic catechism, which holds that hell is a "state of eternal separation from God", to be understood "symbolically rather than physically".

...

In 1999, pope John Paul II said heaven was "neither an abstraction nor a physical place in the clouds, but that fullness of communion with God, which is the goal of human life".

Hell, by contrast, was "the ultimate consequence of sin itself. Rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy".

So what does the media take away from this?

Hell is a place where sinners really do burn in an everlasting fire, and not just a religious symbol designed to galvanise the faithful, Pope Benedict XVI has said.

These guys can't seem to get it right even when the Pope holds the number two pencil in their hand and spells it out for them. They don't seem to grasp that something can be real without being physical. And so, they wind up giving the impression the Pope believes Hell is a big cave in a Far Side cartoon, full of fire pits and sulfur with the demons in red tights from central casting. It takes a special kind of inability to comprehend to write an story like that.

--
Michael Krahn
www.michaelkrahn.com
http://krahn.blogspot.com/

--
Michael Krahn
www.michaelkrahn.com
http://krahn.blogspot.com/

Martin Luther on the Rosary, Images of Mary, and Crucifixes

2006-08-31T20:50:00.000-04:00

Martin Luther on the Rosary, Images of Mary, and Crucifixes: " Our prayer should include the Mother of God . . . What the Hail Mary says is that all glory should be given to God, using these words: 'Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus Christ. Amen!' You see that these words are not concerned with prayer but purely with giving praise and honor . . . We can use the Hail Mary as a meditation in which we recite what grace God has given her. Second, we should add a wish that everyone may know and respect her . . . He who has no faith is advised to refrain from saying the Hail Mary.Whoever possesses a good (firm) faith, says the Hail Mary without danger! Whoever is weak in faith can utter no Hail Mary without danger to his salvation.(Personal Prayer Book, 1522 / Sermon, March 11, 1523)

CS Lewis on... PURGATORY

2006-03-01T07:05:00.000-05:00

"Of course I pray for the dead. The action is so spontaneous, so all but inevitable, that only the most compulsive theological case against it would deter me. And I hardly know how the rest of my prayers would survive if those for the dead were forbidden. At our age, the majority of those we love best are dead. What sort of intercourse with God could I have if what I love best were unmentionable to him?

I believe in Purgatory.

Mind you, the Reformers had good reasons for throwing doubt on the 'Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory' as that Romish doctrine had then become.....

The right view returns magnificently in Newman's DREAM. There, if I remember it rightly, the saved soul, at the very foot of the throne, begs to be taken away and cleansed. It cannot bear for a moment longer 'With its darkness to affront that light'. Religion has claimed Purgatory.

Our souls demand Purgatory, don't they? Would in not break the heart if God said to us, 'It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy'? Should we not reply, 'With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I'd rather be cleaned first.' 'It may hurt, you know' - 'Even so, sir.'

I assume that the process of purification will normally involve suffering. Partly from tradition; partly because most real good that has been done me in this life has involved it. But I don't think the suffering is the purpose of the purgation. I can well believe that people neither much worse nor much better than I will suffer less than I or more. . . . The treatment given will be the one required, whether it hurts little or much.

My favorite image on this matter comes from the dentist's chair. I hope that when the tooth of life is drawn and I am 'coming round',' a voice will say, 'Rinse your mouth out with this.' This will be Purgatory. The rinsing may take longer than I can now imagine. The taste of this may be more fiery and astringent than my present sensibility could endure. But . . . it will [not] be disgusting and unhallowed."

- C.S.Lewis, Letters To Malcom: Chiefly on Prayer, chapter 20, paragraphs 7-10, pages 108-109

Chesterton on... TRADITION

2006-02-28T12:03:00.000-05:00

"Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead." Chesterton goes on to say: "Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father."

The Emergent Delusion

2006-02-19T15:18:00.000-05:00

The following is a critique of Bob DeWaay's critique of Brian McLaren's book "A Generous Orthodoxy".

Confused? Read on.

I'm not sure with whom I disagree more - Brian McLaren or Bob Dewaay. As is common to so many of these types of critiques, the author dances around ever saying anything authoritative from scripture while insisting again and again that it is the ultimate authority. He takes many shots at McLaren for his patchwork faith, and that is certainly what it is, without ever saying what the "right" choices are. Does he believe that it is better to choose the one you believe is the most true? Or is his faith a patchwork as well, but from must better sources? He scoffs at McLaren for "gleaning the parts he likes from many sources", but is there any other way unless you are willing to commit to one exclusively?

It is wonderful to quote Francis Schaeffer and other stalwart Protestant thinkers, but what are they even saying exactly? Tell me things that all good Protestants believe, or at least accept on authority, to combat McLaren's patchwork. Otherwise we are all doing the same as he is but to a lesser degree. We all take parts of various confessions and adopt portions of them personally. The fact that very few Protestants will firmly stand on one set alone, to the exclusion of all others proves that they believe much like McLaren does: that knowledge about God is complicated and cannot be contained in a single, unified system.

DeWaay writes "So if I say that 'Orthodox means that which is in keeping with the clearly revealed truth that God has given us in the inspired Scriptures', the deconstructionist tells me that this is just code for my arrogant belief that I am right and others are wrong." Well, isn't that that exactly what he IS saying? Although it is out of necessity and not arrogance, to constantly make this claim while simultaneously supporting the idea of scripture plus individual conscience is to claim no less in every area of thought in which you disagree with other believers claiming the same orthodoxy. DeWaay implicitly denies his own professed affinity for Schaeffer's truth logic: "A is not non-A" when he claims that he, as an individual has some sort of superior insight into "clearly revealed truth that God has given". But again, in the context of this critique, he doesn't tell those of us who are, presumably, not as enlightened as he is what these clear truths are, only that McLaren obviously doesn't know anything about them, and by extension neither do the rest of us who do not believe exactly as he does.

The essence of this critique reminds me of the manner in which the political left lobs criticisms at political conservatives: they are all too willing to point out that we should not be in Iraq, should not be at war, should not have responded to 9/11 the way we did... but they don't say "Here's what we should have done..." The author employs the same strategy here; McLaren is wrong about a great number of things, but the DeWaay isn't saying what the correct choices of thought are. He simply says time and time again that the Bible is clearly not saying what Brian McLaren thinks it is. Well for goodness sake, please tell me authoritatively what he IS saying then!

This is not to say that I think McLaren is any more correct for his mosaic approach to personal theology, although to be fair I have not read much of his book so I can only make an incomplete judgment based on DeWaay's critique. The essence of this critique is that McLaren makes his quilt of too many and varying swatches of theological fabric where DeWaay draws his from more traditional Protestant sources. Because McLaren draws from Christian thinkers seen by traditional Protestants as theologically ambiguous, the validity of his beliefs are discounted.

The subtle criticism Thomas Merton is especially interesting, as it usually is from those who, rather than read his writings, are content to use third-hand conjecture about his investigation of Buddhist meditation to dismiss his entire body of work. DeWaay here lists Merton as a "key proponent of mysticism" and then defines mysticism as a way of "having a religious experience that does not require the theological distinctions and definitions" - those same distinctions and definitions that McLaren disparages.

"I do not at all regard mystical experience as an illusion." CS Lewis says in his book "Prayer: Letters to Malcolm", "I think it shows that there is a way to go, before death, out of what may be called 'this world' - out of the stage set." But then he asks and answers an important question: "Out of this; but into what? The lawfulness, safety, and utility of the mystical voyage depends not at all on its being mystical - that is, on its being a departure - but on motives, skill, and constancy of the voyager, and on the grace of God."

Mystical experience, from a Christian view, is not the search for nothingness but for a place of nothing but God's presence. "Departures are all alike;" Lewis continues, "it is the landfall that crowns the journey. The saint, by being a saint, proves that his mysticism led him aright." Surely DeWaay will not claim to know everything about God or even that everything about God CAN be known by solely intellectual means. The search beyond intellect is mysticism. Notice as usual the finer points of Lewis' predictably balanced perspective - anyone CAN be a mystic; that is not the difficult part. It is the preparation for the journey and its eventual destination that determines the validity of one's mysticism.

Similarly, Merton believed that there is a time for meditation and an emptying of the mind, but only for the purpose of filling it with truths that cannot be known intellectually. "Mystical prayer," Merton says in "The Ascent to Truth", "rises above the natural operation if the intelligence, yet it is always essentially intelligent."

This is a no less valid method of seeking Schaeffer's "true truth" than are intellectual pursuits. DeWaay and thinkers like him are so enamored with what can be known intellectually that they unknowingly disqualify themselves from the enrichment offered by non-intellectual means of finding truth. He seems to hold up, almost as an idol, what can be known about God - as if God could be limited by the feebleness of our minds in comparison to the full knowledge of him. Thus, we must clear out what we KNOW, especially those of us who - in both good ways and bad - know too much. Our minds are limited, so if our faith is based on what we can know, firstly it elevates those who have the intellectual capacity to know more, and secondly, because our minds are limited, so will our faith be.

Again, not having read McLaren's book in its entirety, I think one of the things that DeWaay is objecting to is mysticism as a starting point and on that point I would concur. Mystical experience can indeed be dangerous if one sets off on a journey without a map or the means to survive in the desert between "here" and "there".

The discussion ends up being one I have been spending a lot of time thinking about lately: does one need to choose a single entire system of belief or did God intend for each of us to be responsible to hammer out our own personal system? And what is the impetus either way? In that regard, the debate posed in this critique is one of degrees rather that opposites. DeWaay does not claim a single source for his belief system, so why should McLaren? To that, some will reply that DeWaay does claim a single source for his beliefs and that it is scripture. If there is one thing that frustrates me most, it is that Protestants are constantly agreeing that the Bible is their only, ultimate, and supremely authoritative source but they often can't seem to agree about what exactly it is saying. And what's worse is that few are willing to stand up and say "I am right and you are wrong!", and so divergent and opposing beliefs are allowed to sully the waters on which the adherents of each divergent theology attempt to sustain themselves.

In the Catholic mode of thinking, one's cup is never waiting to be filled with truth, but is rather awaiting clarification of truths already known and stated. A Catholic is not concerned with knowing truth, but is rather concerned with deepening his understanding of truths already known. Thus the burden of the perceived responsibility to know as much as one can is relieved by the fact that he trusts that what can be known, is already known, guarded, and passed on through the Church. (Again, it is worth noting that this is my understanding and not a belief to which I am yet committed).

Can you honestly say that you would rather base your faith on what you personally can know in a human lifetime rather than on decades, centuries, and millennia of those like you who have already pondered what you ponder, discussed what you discuss, and made decisions about things you are trying decide? Conversely, would you want future generations to cast aside truths that you have discovered in a lifetime of searching, study, and prayer out of some obligatory aversion to tradition? Should each subsequent generation "start from scratch" in order to avoid the error of relying on a tradition of belief?

Quite fundamentally, McLaren's philosophy of belief is just an amplification of DeWaay's. McLaren uses 30 patches to make his quilt while DeWaay uses only three. Is DeWaay's way better because his beliefs are informed by fewer sources?

It is interesting that DeWaay quotes Schaeffer's much used and clear, simple example of ultimate truth: "If some thing is A, it cannot be non-A". Indeed, if there was only one thing (and there are many more) I had learned from reading Schaeffer that would be the most significant. Ironically, as I have applied that thinking in my studies it has turned far more often against Protestantism as a whole than it has against Catholicism. Where Protestantism as a whole seems willing to tolerate a wide variety of both grossly divergent and slightly varying theologies, Catholicism at least has a recognized authority structure that says "This is right and that is wrong." What I have not yet decided is whether what they call right truly is right, and whether or not they truly have the authority to make and enforce those designations.

So what we are really talking about is a competition of premises. McLaren contends that we should take the best parts of everybody's theology to create our own unique theology. This seems to be what is being called "emergent". DeWaay's premise is that we should base our theologies, both corporate and personal, on scripture alone. What he is loathe to explain however is which specific systematic theology is based most truthfully on scripture, which one he endorses and why.

The Protestant problem is clear: the Bible tells us many things that are true about God, but it does not contain exhaustive truth. It guides us explicitly in many areas, but in others it speaks only in principles, and where there are principles, there must be interpretation. Unlike the constitutions of our North American countries, the Bible is a divine constitution and infallible. Its interpretation, however, should, like the interpretation of those great human constitutions, be left in the hands of those among us who know it best because they have spent a lifetime committed to its study

And so it is all about authority, as we've discussed before.

Thomas Merton on... SACRAMENTS

2006-02-14T09:16:00.000-05:00

"The sacraments are very special signs, differing from other signs not only in their divine institution, but above all in the fact that they signify a spiritual reality, and at the same time produce the reality which they signify."

Sola Scriptura

2006-02-14T06:49:00.000-05:00

From: http://www.protestanterrors.com/#9

To those who do not believe in Apostolic tradition, but in Scripture alone (Sola Scriptura):

The Bible was not put under one cover until the Councils of Hippo (393) and 3rd Council of Carthage (397) accepted the official list of books . Not for over 1000 years after these early Councils was the printing press invented (1450), so Bible manuscripts were quite rare and costly before the printing press came about. Between 397 and 1450 then, how did most people learn about the contents of Scripture, and who was the authoritative figure for the early Church during these centuries? The authority clearly could not have been the Bible, but clearly was the Church Herself who preached it to the faithful. So how can Scripture have been our only guide for the centuries before copies of the Bible were readily available, and were the people who lived during those centuries all damned because they did not have access to Scripture?

Pontificator quote

2006-02-11T21:05:00.000-05:00

Below quoted from the blog of The Pontificator:

"If both Catholicism and Orthodoxy are deemed apostate religions, then the revelation of Christ, if there ever was one, is irretrievably lost: the Church that was given the stewardship of this revelation has disappeared from history. It cannot be recovered by archaeology and certainly cannot be recovered by picking up a Bible: the only hermeneutical matrix in which the writings of the Bible can be read as Christian Scripture has disappeared along with the Church. One can, of course, create a new Bible-based religion, but it will not be Christianity. One can also create a new religion based on the Nag Hammadhi documents. It might be an interesting and edifying religion, but it would not be the same religion that originally lived by those documents."

http://catholica.pontifications.net/?p=1392

Accepting despair is no way to live

2006-01-30T21:44:00.000-05:00

There was a time when I embraced a comfortable resignation to the thought of the Church ever be officially one again. I believed that each denomination had some of the truth and not one had it all, so I was content to draw on all and commit to none. Then I watched "Luther", and I realized that this was no way to live. Oddly enough, what was a hopeful attempt to refocus myself on my Protestant roots turned out to be the beginning of a journey away. The movie helped me to begin to understand certain things about the Reformation as I never had before. That is not to attribute more influence to a movie than is actually possible - it was more a matter of the medium. I had read plenty but until I saw Joseph Fiennes as Luther, walking the roads Luther walked, in the very rooms he inhabited, making his journey to Rome, I never saw him as flesh and blood.

Luther was troubled but he was also a troublemaker. That is not to say that he was a fraud or that his earliest goals were ignoble, but the methods with which he went about things were inherently divisive. He did not set out for revolution of society, only the Church, as he wrote in to the Pope:

"It is a mystery to me how my theses... were spread to so many places. They were meant exclusively for our academic circle here. They were written in such a language that the common people could hardly understand them."

That admission may have been true at the time but it seems as though once the common people did lay hold of his theses, he did nothing to hold back the potential damage their proliferation might inflict. His greatest shortcoming, as is common to many a cultural revolutionary, may have been his lack of foresight. He should have sensed, given the economic and social conditions of the time, that there was great potential for rebellion and eventually bloodshed. And yet at the most crucial time, at the very genesis of the protest he inspired he hid away and busied himself with the translation of scripture into the mother tongue of the peasant masses. It is a credit to him that he was horrified at the actions of the most violent rebels, but it was a rebellion that he had handed to them. He was not the leader of his own movement.

As often as he is praised in Protestant churches as the hero of his time and the champion of "true Christianity", there is precious little said about the fact that he remained far more Catholic than almost any of the many Protestant denominations today. He still practiced infant baptism and services were based on liturgy. Those things don't seems to matter, and neither does that fact that Luther never wanted to stop being a Catholic, or that at first he wanted to reform only the hierarchy and not let loose the rebellion of the masses. He was the one that cracked the door open, the door that many millions after him came rushing through, trampling all that was good and bad in their path.

No sect is perfect, and neither is the Catholic Church. Christ's body is made up of fallible human beings and is therefore subject to all manner of sinful human corruption. But one side must own more truth than the other and I am inclined to believe that it is the side that has not changed its fundamental beliefs since the days when Christ established his Church on earth. I do not believe everything the Catholic Church teaches, but I find it easier to believe that their claims about being God's voice on earth are true because, while there are still dissenters, the Chuch speaks as one. I cannot trust a God who manifests himself in as many contradictory ways as the one I see in so many Protestant churches. That God is either false or he is schizophrenic, and I refuse to believe the God that came as Christ in the flesh and lives inside every believer is either of those things.

source material: 03/27/05

The war against tradition

2006-01-04T15:25:00.000-05:00

I can't figure out why there is such an aversion to tradition in Protestant churches. It seems to me we have traditions in all other areas of our lives, traditions that are both full of meaning and useful to us, and yet when it comes to our religion (another off-limits word it seems) we want all traces of tradition wiped clean. It is of course a futile pursuit for as soon as you have done something twice it is on its way to becoming a tradition. So is it only the oldest traditions that are to be expelled?

A tradition is merely a custom or belief handed from one generation to the next. It seems like a case of "If it ain't broke, don't use it". If something has worked for generations, why do we feel an obligation to stop using it, as if tradition is a communicable disease that we only wish we could be immunized against? It seems to me, and I believe this can be statistically confirmed, that wherever tradition is despised, the church (both Catholic and Protestant) is shrinking. In these time of pragmatism and utilitarianism you would think that this alone would inspire a return to tradition rather than a further spurning of it. But such is the way of our capitalist-inspired North American religious institutions. "Try everything until you find something that works, then re-invent yourself every 10 years or so" seems to be the ruling philosophy.

On the nature of truth, regarding Sola Scriptura

2005-12-17T13:55:00.000-05:00

"It was clear that if Scripture could mean whatever any individual wanted it to mean it had millions of different literal meanings. And that was as good as saying it had no meaning at all. Of what use is a public revelation made to the whole Church, if it has no one meaning which the whole Church can agree in accepting? "

- Thomas Merton "ASCENT TO TRUTH" P138

Declaring scripture alone to have authority in all matters seems a large miscalculated risk for Luther to have taken. Either the previous 1100 years of designating and affirming the canon were a mistake or Luther's actions in deleting the books he did was an error, and a bold declaration that one man "guided by the Holy Spirit through his conscience" might know better than 1100 years worth of his spiritual ancestors. This declaration is both the spark that lit the revolution and the fuel that continues to feed it, for as soon as Luther thought he might be wiser than all of those before him, others suspected that they might just as easily be wiser than Luther himself. After all, if one man could so boldly challenge the authority of the Church, how much easier would it be to challenge that single man? And so it continues today; every new sect is proof, as they appear, steadily, each claiming to be a reformation and a purification of preceding falsehood.

If Luther was right, if the entire millennium before him had somehow gone off course from the will of God, then everything from that period should be open to re-evaluation - including the books that make up the Holy Scriptures as we know them today. That is the scepter of Protestantism, its major premise that is denied and yet articulated between the lines of its golden promises. For as soon as a false Catholic doctrine was struck down by the Reformers, numerous others sprang up to take its place. The nature of truth, as we all know, is such that two opposing ideas cannot both be true, and so given the choice between one false Catholic doctrine and numerous false Protestant doctrines, there is a good chance that nearly as many Protestants were in error of belief as Catholics - assuming the Catholic doctrine was in error to begin with.

If one says that Sola Scriptura is THE doctrine upon which all your arguments will be based and that it is not open for discussion, you are short-circuiting the conversation completely. This is the doctrine from which all Protestant thought flows, the lens whose tint determines the hue of everything in its scope of vision.

I will not fault anyone for answering every question posed with a reference from scripture; that may be your way and a way you believe to be the only way, but that is that very doctrine I am trying to make a decision about. Was the outworking of Christian theology meant to remain in its infant form, never to develop, to flower, to grow as a tree from its roots? Or was there a directive given to the Apostles to grow and nurture the work that was started? Either the time to rely completely on individual conscience is at the moment we decide for or against joining Christ's Church or we are to use it over and over again for every issue and controversy we face. I suppose in simple form that is precisely the crossroads at which we find ourselves.

If it is scripture plus the Holy Spirit, why own commentaries? Isn't consulting commentaries and citing various authors really just the same thing as the Catholic system of relying on the tradition of belief of various clear thinkers throughout history? It is really not much different than the magisterial system except that you are not obligated to believe anything these trusted beacons of doctrinal fidelity are teaching. Why not? Do they not each claim to be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit? Do they not all claim to have spent a lifetime seeking, studying, and then teaching, all under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I think we all desire the comfort of absolutes, and so we choose a system because we need to. Whether we choose Catholicism, a particular strain of Protestantism, or make a hodgepodge of belief to call our own, I think we do it out of necessity. I have often been reminded these last months of these well-written lyrics by Emily Saliers of one of my favorite duos, Indigo Girls

"We're sculpted from youth

The chipping away makes me weary

And as for the truth

Its seems like we just pick a theory

Its the one that justifies our daily lives

And backs us with quiver and arrow

To protect openings

Because when the warring begins

How quickly the wide-open narrows"

Saying that we will, nay must, come to the same conclusions because we are working from the same source - intellect guided by the Holy Spirit - strikes as the same brave naivety that I have placed my faith in for so long. I wish it was true but the historical evidence is piled against it. Whenever we make this claim we consign one party or both to certain failure. Isn't this is the story of the Church for the last 500 years: one 'Spirit-led' man after another imposing his ideas upon people while in clear conflict with other "Spirit-led" men imposing their ideas on anyone who will listen and follow. How can this be explained? Who is to be believed and who has the authority to say who is to be believed? It smacks of spiritual schizophrenia, and one that was greatly exacerbated in the years immediately following the revolution that was begun begun, or was at least greatly accelerated by Martin Luther.

Contrast this system of truth determination with that of the Catholic magisterial system, something I don't claim to have a complete understanding of I admit, but from the basics I know does it not seem more like the system modeled in Acts 15. Don't you think if Jesus had intended for so much theological and structural variety in HIs Church (often referred to affectionately as "flavors" in Protestant circles) he would have made that clear to the Apostles , then sent them on their way with a list of which doctrines and practices were to be carried on precisely and which were open for modification? Instead, when a controversial issue rears its head, we see them coming together to reason, pray, and issue a unified, documented, doctrinal response - a decision which may not have been the consensus but became official doctrine nonetheless when Peter pronounced it to be so.

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The seeds of my searching - PART 2

2005-12-10T21:55:00.000-05:00

Not long before watching the movie "Luther", I had been part of a lively yet congenial e-debate between one Catholic and several of my Protestant friends. What ensued as the conversation unfolded was a defence of historical Christianity as I have seldom witnessed before. I monitored this debate for weeks as it "raged on", finding that 95% of what the sole Catholic was defending was resonating with me more than I expected. He really knew his stuff; he was "ready to give an answer". I had no idea such Catholics even existed, but I have since discovered that there are a great number of them.

This was an exciting development and yet it was causing me a great amount of stress. I knew, I know, and I am constantly reminded so as to be constantly aware that this path will not win me many friends, will displease my family, and will stretch my mental resources to the limit. Being in such anguish I decided to make an attempt at reforming myself and re-embracing my Protestant roots by watching "Luther" starring Joseph Fiennes. "Luther" is what really got me going on my latest drive, but watching this, quite surprisingly, had the exact opposite effect. I don't know - I thought the movie was going to bolster my 'faith' in protestantism, but the opposite happened. Although I grew up in a Mennonite church, I was not raised with, nor have I ever believed very strongly in much Anabaptist theology. Catholicism does appeal to me quite strongly - Thomas Merton, Marshall McLuhan, Malcolm Muggeridge, Chesterton, and of course Bill Mallonee have a lot to do with that. I always joke that the biggest announcement I could have made to my parents when I was a teen was : "Mom... Dad... I think I might be...... CATHOLIC!"

This turned on some lights in my head. The brightest was the fact that Martin Luther never intended to break away from the Catholic Church. My friend Andrew is a Luther seminary student and had this to say:

"Did Luther want to break away? Absolutely not! The concept was entirely foreign to him. The 95 theses are oft cited as the beginning of the reformation and the beginning of Lutheranism, but that is quite naïve. It was a common practice in L uther's day to post points of debate in public places like the castle church. In this case the film did a decent job as I recall they showed several other things already posted on said door. Lutherhad no concept of dividing the church, because he understood (rightly) that the Church is indeed already one as she is Christ's bride and Christ does not have several wives.

The Church's unity does not come through external commitments and shared budgets and manufactured confessions (though for the sake of defending doctrine to preserve the teaching of the Gospel confessions are often helpful tools)... the Church is one in Christ. Because of this Luther could never have thought in terms of splitting from Rome. He loved the church and feared for her and her people. He saw abuses of power within the hierarchy and believed that if he brought the errors to the attention of the Pope and theologians that the errors would be rectified (not to say that he was by any means an idealist, he was, after all, a German!) that being said Luther never left the church, but was excommunicated and forced from the church for teaching and preaching the Gospel. To his death he still considered himself a good Catholic.

The Lutheran church was "formed" by the formula of concord which was written to bring unity to the churches that were forced to choose between the pope and the truth. Now of course, coming from the background of an Anabaptist you may find that you would disagree with much of Luther's theology; primarily that Luther continued to teach and practice the sacraments."

So where does this leave me? Do you believe that I am self-deceived? There is no void in my life - and certainly not a God-shaped one - that I am trying to fill. My faith, as always, remains in Christ alone - that's the Sola we can all agree on: Sola Christo! I do not know the end of my journey. I do know that this process will probably make me a great champion of one side over the other. I will either be a most vocal defender of the Protestant reformation or the most evangelical and devout Catholic this side of Montreal.

Do not fear that I will leave this search in limbo, leaving myself in a state of constant doubt, becoming comfortable in that state, and claiming that there is not enough truth in either side to enable one to make a decision. I do not believe that to be the case. If you know me at all, you know enough to know that I like to get to the bottom of things, and when I have been there I am sure I will be able to say along with Madeleine L'Engle that "I have been to the bottom, and it is solid."

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The seeds of my searching - PART 1

2005-12-10T09:30:00.000-05:00

What has set me on this journey? A quest for truth and a belief that all truth be accepted regardless of the source. Don't you think Catholicism deserves a deeper look at least for the fact that 75% of history since Jesus' birth has been Catholic history?

I guess to answer the question honestly: "What are you looking for that you did not get while growing up in a Christian home?"... well, I would have to answer "Both sides of the truth." I was taught that Catholicism was an evil false religion, and yet the few glimpses I had of it in my lifetime didn't seem to confirm this to be true. My Catholic friends went to church as often as I did, were more moral than the general student body, were generally more respectfully dressed, believed in Jesus, prayed, had communion. So what was so different about them? I remember many stories, from many sources, of Catholics who did what they wanted during the week and expected to be forgiven every week at confession so that they could go out and "live like the devil" again for another week. As I grew older, I witnessed many Protestants with the same attitude, except they confessed much less frequently and were no longer counted as "one of ours" if they went astray. I guess those were some of the seeds of my inquiry.

I started to wonder why I was only being taught the last 500 years of history; it was as if - and this was my perception at the time - Martin Luther's times were dark ages from which Reformed Christianity arose. The deeper I looked, the more it seemed to me that the 1500 years preceding Luther had been hidden from me. The Church did not simply jump in time from the time of Christ to the time of Martin Luther, and if the Catholic Church was not the true church in those intervening years, then who or what was?

How is it that present-day Protestant churches acknowledge a book as solely authoritative that was woven together under the Catholic system of canonization? And after some 1500 of the Canon coming into being, how is that one man could omit books he found personally offensive and slander other books (the book of James he called "A book of Straw") he did not like, and only leaving those in his translation because he knew it would make him disastrously unpopular with those who exalted him as a saviour of the faith. It did not matter much in retrospect that he did not throw out the book of James since it was never held with due respect again - he might as well have ripped it out. It is clear why there was an attempt to rid the canon of these books: they clearly contradicted his developing ideas of Sola Fide, with their appeal to works in co-operation with grace as the road to salvation.

The older the truth, the truer it probably is

2005-12-08T20:48:00.000-05:00

I find it easier to believe the teachings of the Catholic church BECAUSE it is so old, mostly unchanged, and not subject to constant re-evaluation. I would much rather trust something that is 2000 years in the making than the opinion of one man who has been pondering such things for a mere 2 decades as Martin Luther had when he alone decided that words should be added to scripture and that some books should be deleted.

Basically, I'm saying that I can believe what the church believes because the church (billions of people throughout history) is smarter than I am (one person in the present age). Can the Holy Spirit act in the life of an individual? Of course He can but that doesn't mean that we were each meant to work out our salvation in isolation. Working it out means working together with others.

The method of my experiment has been to tackle each roadblock with a scale - Catholic thought on one side, Protestant thought on the other. In nearly every case the side of Catholic thought has tipped the issue its own way. I think for many Protestants, the Protestant side tips because of an ignorance of Catholic teaching. Even before you can weigh their differences you must first cancel out their similarities. You will then be left with the meat of the issue, where the two sides differ. The first shock for me is usually discovering how much the doctrines are the same as what I already believe. With Catholic teaching, there are so many fewer negotiables and this opens up time to put those non-negotiables into practice.

By this time of my life I have already spent many years trying to decide what I believe rather than trying to believe something that is true. I have probably spent more time (as a percentage of a lifetime) than most - being the son of a book-loving, knowledge-hungry Minister. But I have been seeking truth rather than meditating upon truth already accessible to me, truths that were already discovered for me before I was born. The Protestant process is to sample the various generally acknowledged best - and too often, sadly, that just means "best-selling" - Protestant thinkers/authors and cobble together a set of personal beliefs that encompasses as many of their divergent thoughts as possible. This leaves the oft-appealed-to habit of choosing the one that sounds best to us when met with a challenge on which they disagree. Therefore we become John MacArthur men or Swindoll men or, heaven forbid, Bill Gothard men. These are terms we use as Protestants to describe the main structure of someone else's beliefs; our own beliefs are always described as "Biblical".

It is going to be difficult for many of you to consider this, but take some time to allow the Church and faithful Catholics to answer in their own defence. All we have seen to this point in our lives is ardent Protestants (or worse - JACK CHICK) declaring Catholicism "The Whore of Babylon" but we have never taken the time to get to know even one faithful Catholic.

Merton on truth

2005-12-08T09:15:00.000-05:00

"A man of sincerity is less interested in defending the truth than in stating it clearly, for he thinks that if the truth be clearly seen it can very well take care of itself."

Thomas Merton, "No Man is an Island"

The authority of perfection

2005-12-05T15:18:00.000-05:00

Is the Word of God the final authority in our lives? Starting with that premise, most Protestant testimonies make perfect sense. Protestants commonly accuse Catholics of not using scripture as the sole and final authority. This accusation us unneccesary since Catholics never claim such. Nothing about Catholic theology contradicts the Word of God and what are called additions are only documented forms of what every Protestant denomination does in their individual churches - it is their spin on the gray areas which the Bible doesn't specifically address. From this perspective, the Catholic Church is at least no worse than a sect, and it is certainly not a cult.

It is dishonest to claim that scripture is the final and sole authority in the Protestant Church. If it was there would not be so many denominations and so many versions of the "truth" tolerated. Jesus gave power to the Apostles to bind and to loose - where is that power today? Is it in every pastor, elder and deacon in all 50+ Protestant churches in a given town, each leading his small group through God's will while clearly opposed to the leading of other churches claiming the same authority from God? To claim that this is what God intended for his church makes a fool of God. He is not the author of the confusion we see around us.

Neither side wins points in the perfection category. As has often been said: as long as there are people involved, any system will be imperfect regardless of the integrity of its ideals.

Rituals in Comparison

2005-11-28T20:52:00.000-05:00

You cannot compare "THE CATHOLIC CHURCH" with a single Protestant congregation or denomination. If you want to make fair comparisons, you must compare the Catholic church as a whole to the Protestant church as a whole. From that angle you can see that there is much more doctrinal fidelity on the Catholic side. When the early Protestants established that there was no greater earthly authority then a man's own conscience, they opened the door to what we have today: the approximately 40,000+ denominations which are still multiplying due to the general acceptance of the "let's agree to disagree" philosophy. So when one takes a swipe at the Catholic church for some scandal or shortcoming, it is easy to do if all you claim responsibility for is your own little crumb of the cracker, your one congregation or denomination which is merely one among tens of thousands. Try answering for the Protestant church as a whole and you'll be taken aback at what you must answer for.

If you want to make a comparison of an equal sized sampling, you would have to compare conservative Protestantism to conservative Catholicism. In both of these camps you would find doctrinally knowledgeable members who hold fast to traditionally teachings, live morally good lives, and share a disdain for corruption of their respective churches by Liberal ideologies. It is not fair to compare conservative Protestantism to liberal Catholicism just as it would be unfair to compare liberal Protestantism to conservative Catholicism.

Rituals, by the way, are a huge part of any relationship. A ritual is a set form of communication or a repeated pattern. We have them in church, we have them with our wives and children. So when you try to cast off ritual as the opposite of relationship then you are left with a relationship void of many meaningful repeated actions. Such a relationship would be sorely lacking in depth. The rituals we have with our families - the consistency with which we communicate with them, the predictable, willful, loving actions we perform for their good - are what causes them to love us, to depend upon us, and to trust us.

So many Popes

2005-10-20T16:17:00.000-04:00

For most Protestants its about giving up what they perceive as their autonomy. You don't agree with those in authority? Well, start your own congregation and have authority over others. It is ironic that they will complain endlessly about the false authority of the Catholic Church while maintaining that each man has authority over himself and then turning that authority towards others. So many popes!

A revolving magisterium

2005-09-07T08:40:00.000-04:00

There is in some ways a Protestant magisterium, one that does not claim divine appointment and whose members are added and deleted according to the mental assent or opposition of each individual's intellect with the teachings. Why so little unity? Each person is free to choose what to believe with complete disregard for maturity or soundness of reason. Why so many herisies? Each new "revelation" by claim has the same source; "God told me...", "I felt the Holy Spirit telling me..." are phrases not uncommonly heard in some Protestant denominations. That is not to say that God does not speak to individuals but the consistency with which he seems to speak to some and not to others is a bit alarming.

God speaks to us through his Word, through the Church, and by the wisdom passed down to us through generations. In rare cases He speaks directly to someone, but at this stage of the game if He's telling you something "new" (not personally new, but theologically new), then chances are it is not Him but rather someone posing as Him.

Misinformed and misunderstood

2005-09-05T21:39:00.000-04:00

There is an argument made by Peter Kreeft and Mark Shea (among others) that says that for the most part Protestants are merely confused or ignorant of Catholic teaching rather than informed critics of it. How else do you explain the glorious outworking of Catholic teaching in the lives of great Catholics, many of whom are recognized as such my both Protestants and Catholics? All of the great Protestants (willingly or not) began their own half-broken branches of the Christian faith and continue to do so at present. To claim as Ankerberg and Weldon do that each "genuine Christian church" has found general agreement in their common authority is a great insult and a grave testament to the validity of that authority. How can agreement about ultimate truth cause and tolerate so much division?

In this regard, each Protestant division is not so far off course in claiming that they are the possessors of the purest truth. With so much opposing teaching it is nearly incumbent upon each divided group to do so. Add to that that such a claim is nearly irresistible to the searching conservative literalist and you have a firm foundation upon which to build a new congregation - and cause further division. If scripture itself is the true authority by which each congregation or denomination forms its doctrine, then where they differ they must each claim to be right. Would it not be of more benefit and a testament to unity for the leaders of each of these to come together and, bathed in prayer and guided by the Holy Spirit, come to a consensus about those things which are in dispute?

Ankerberg and Weldon - "Protestants and Catholics: Do they now agree?"

2005-09-05T09:36:00.000-04:00

This book is filled with so many short, out of context, improperly referenced, ellipse-ridden, cobbled together quotes it is not difficult to imagine an audio document of the text would sound like a very thinly veiled and poorly edited hack job. In addition, there are many instances of words added to quotations in square brackets which completely alter the intended meaning (much like Luther did when he added the word "alone" wherever he felt it was necessary in his translation of the Bible).

It is difficult to attribute a sense of credibility to such a document but for the service of those desiring me to "look at both sides" (which really means "stop looking at Catholicism") I will comment on a few passages from this book.

P195 - "No Christian needs to feel guilty over leaving a church that is not Biblical. One's commitment is to Christ first, not a church."

P198 - "The thousands of churches who accept the inerrancy of scripture do, in fact, have an infallible authority for determining correct doctrine."

If that is true, then why are there so many opposing views and so little unity?

P198 - "All genuine Christian churches who accept Biblical authority have found general agreement on these issues without the assistance of the catholic Church."

And would the authors care to begin naming who the "genuine Christian churches" are?

Can one be saved by faith [alone] and perform no good works for the rest of his life and still be saved?

Is it possible to be saved and not perform a good work for the rest of one's life?

If faith without works is dead, how can we claim that works have no saving power?

If works are only a result of salvation and not a contributor to it, what is the value and responsibility or our wills?

If we do not choose God but rather He chooses us (or causes us to choose him), is He then unjust for not choosing everyone?

The Will

2005-09-05T09:26:00.000-04:00

Even if it is by His grace that He allows us to choose Him, we are still able to choose or reject Him. this should not be viewed as attributing God-like power or authority to man since he chooses at his own peril if he chooses to reject God. I see time and again the fleshing out of this belief in the writings of Thomas Merton: seek your self, but know that your true self is in God therefore seeking God and seeking the true self are twin pursuits. This is not a seeking of self for the purposes of vanity or greed or lust, but to co-operate fully with God's will and thereby find true joy and fulfillment - even if the road ends at pain and martyrdom.

And if we can choose God once, is that enough to perfect us? Or does it but put us on the road to perfection? Must we not choose Him again and again wherever and whenever a choice presents itself? Will two people saved by grace through faith [alone] enter heaven (let's put aside purgatory for now) and taste of the same reward if one has chosen God many times and the other but once?

If they will then you must fundamentally claim that you are responsible for your sins but not your good works. You must say "When I sin, its my fault but when I do good it had nothing to do with me - it was but Christ through me." But if you have no power to resist this irresistible Grace, then why would He not choose good for you each hour of the day?

If Christ always offers what is good to you (and I believe that He does) and yet sometimes you sin, you must be able to resist His goodness therefore you must be able to give assent to it at other times therefore co-operation with His grace has grand implications pertaining to salvation.

"It is true that God is the One Who produces in our hearts both our good desires and their effect, "for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to accomplish, according to Hid good will" (Phil 2:13). Nevertheless, if we do not ourselves freely desire and manfully carry out out His will, His grace will be without effect: since the effect of grace is to make us freely do His will."

Thomas Merton, P136 "No Man is an Island"

What's your market share?

2005-07-31T14:53:00.000-04:00

I've always had a desire to distinguish myself from the rank and file around me. When in my teens, it was because I thought I was better than everyone else; these days, I find myself trying to set myself apart from the worst of what I can be and act. One of the hallmarks of maturity is finding a way to get away from yourself, hopefully by seeking and finding divine help, and that's what I have tried to do in the years since.

When I look at the jagged landscape of Protestantism today I see so much unhealthy individualism and destructive self-love. Each church or denomination attempts to distinguish themselves from the others as if they are businesses competing for market share. See below for current market share percentages:

Top 10 religious denominations, Canada, 2001

Number %

Roman Catholic 12,793,125 43.2

No religion 4,796,325 16.2

United Church 2,839,125 9.6

Anglican 2,035,495 6.9

Christian, not included elsewhere¹ 780,450 2.6

Baptist 729,475 2.5

Lutheran 606,590 2.0

Muslim 579,640 2.0

Protestant, not included elsewhere² 549,205 1.9

Presbyterian 409,830 1.4

1. Includes persons who report "Christian", as well as those who report "Apostolic", "Born-again Christian" and "Evangelical".

2. Includes persons who report only "Protestant".

	Number	%
Roman Catholic	12,793,125	43.2
No religion	4,796,325	16.2
United Church	2,839,125	9.6
Anglican	2,035,495	6.9
Christian, not included elsewhere¹	780,450	2.6
Baptist	729,475	2.5
Lutheran	606,590	2.0
Muslim	579,640	2.0
Protestant, not included elsewhere²	549,205	1.9
Presbyterian	409,830	1.4
1. Includes persons who report "Christian", as well as those who report "Apostolic", "Born-again Christian" and "Evangelical".
2. Includes persons who report only "Protestant".

SOURCE: http://tinyurl.com/9xwdg

An attempt at rededicating myself to Protestantism is (quite ironically) what put my back on this road toward Catholicism. Martin Luther's regret at having enabled so many "little popes", admitting that this was the logical, albeit unintentional, outcome of his revolution. as I rededicated myself to this pursuit, I imagined what a truly re-formed (not de-formed as it is in its current state) church might look like. "Agreement in essentials" is thought by many to be the key to Protestant unity, but coming up with a solid list of essentials has proven a task too daunting for all of Protestantism to complete. Some find it difficult to get behind certain ideas that might decrease their market share while others have no interest at all in bowing to anyone else's definitions of religious concepts.

At first I felt guilty entertaining the idea of converting, today it feels more like a necessity with both the choice and its consequences becoming clearer every day. I am motivated by this search for truth and the possibility of finding solid truth that really is "of God" through His voice in this world - His church. I check myself for a rekindling of the old habit of trying to distinguish myself from those around merely for the sake of being different, and I admit that there is some of that in my motives. There is a certain appeal in identifying myself with the faith that Thomas Merton, Marshall McLuhan, Peter Kreeft, and G.K. Chesterton all converted to. Indeed, reason CAN be the devil's whole if she is not cared for properly; when she IS cared for she is a loving and submissive servant. This hate and mistrust of the intellect (largely distorted from Luther's original intent) has done much to decrease the depth of people's faith and their knowledge of God.

Where the Catholic Church is both deep and wide, Protestantism is both infinitely wider and yet infinitely shallower - so shallow in fact that when someone jumps in they are rarely covered from head to toe!

Geography lesson

2005-07-31T12:28:00.000-04:00

A fact that is commonly and rather conveniently overlooked is that the early church had no separators other than geography. When they were at odds about a particular issue, they came together to reason and find consensus.This became part of my vision, and indeed I believe it is the vision of many good-minded protestants concerned with unity: take all the Protestants in a given city, count their number, and divide them evenly into the largest existing buildings. Before all that of course we would have to come to a general agreement about certain things that have divided us for half a century. This plan is so unrealistic that it is instantly laughable. Why? Authority.

In order for Protestant unity to work many leaders, pastors, and teachers would have to relinquish positions of authority and come under the authority of others. This is a difficult practice in individual churches, never mind trying to do it across all the Protestant leaders in a geographic region. Imagine senior pastors becoming 'merely' teachers or assistants, mere laymen under the authority of those truly chosen by God to have authority. Many pastors take great pride in having so many spinning plates spinning simultaneously - imagine asking each of them to just spin one plate well. Imagine the increase in efficiency!

I guess a business analogy is not altogether useless in this regard. Looking at the problem from an organizational structure and resource management (such stuffy terms) - what business would have a dozen outlets in every city selling the same product with only slight variation. Can you see how confusion might enter the minds of its patrons? Trying to decide where to go, they settle on the one where the most of their friends are, or the one that has the most appealing version of the product at the best price... or should I say lowest cost?

We can barely bring two congregations together without the need for lawyers, and when we do pull off a joint service with a number of denominations involved, the more conservative groups cry "Ecumenism!" - as if it is some great evil to come together with those who believe differently about a few things. I mean it's not like we're having a joint service with the Masonic lodge here. Even though many differences are nearly indiscernible, it seems as though the greatest sin is giving up on our differences! It is seen not so much as a striving for unity as a compromise of those all-important small differences.

The other side of Grace

2005-07-29T12:52:00.000-04:00

Salvation by Grace is a sovereign work of God - man contributes nothing. And yet man must respond to that grace for it to have a saving effect. In addition man must continue to respond to grace in order to be further perfected, not in position but in practice. In order to progress, mature, etc., we must continually respond to the extension of grace. We will grow and mature in relation to the extent of our response. The actions themselves that lead us to those responses do not have saving power, but what we (in a sense) allow Christ to do in us determines the extent to which we will be perfected in practice.

So our salvational position is not determined by our works or responses - we are fully saved - but our practical, everyday position and the extent of our perfection (and one might reason - our reward) is.

Philippians 2:12-16 says:

    Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
    Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing.

Stonefaced at the Stable Door

2005-07-29T08:09:00.000-04:00

Stonefaced at the stable door

Confidence is bleeding

One road leads to Bethlehem

The Holy Mother pleading

Two dark shadows in your form

The slave and the hard master

Tidal waves of ill report

Bringing you disaster

Then comes the fear

And the shadow is afraid of its own self

Irony is laughing

You are nothing and there is nothing you can do

For some time you thought that you were something

The reflection of mirror within a mirror

But you're still...

Limping in your beggars shoes

The gifts you brought you're keeping

Turn your back on Bethlehem

And the Holy Mother weeping

Wise men pass you on your way

Offer them a smile

You were there but did not stay

With Mary and Her Holy child

Then comes the fear

And the shadow is afraid of its own self

Irony is laughing

You are nothing and there is nothing you can do

For some time you thought that you were something

The reflection of mirror within a mirror

But you're still...

Stonefaced at the stable door...

Merton Quote

2005-07-28T06:59:00.000-04:00

"God is more glorified by a man who uses the good things in this life in simplicity and with gratitude than by the nervous asceticism of someone who is agitated about every detail of his self-denial. The former uses good things and thinks of God. The latter is afraid of good things, and consequently cannot use them properly. He imagines God has placed all the good things of the world before him like a bait in a trap. He worries at all times about his own 'perfection'. His struggle for perfection becomes a kind of battle of wits with the Creator Who made all things good."

Thomas Merton

Protestant unity

2005-07-24T09:13:00.000-04:00

To accept the implied precepts of Protestant theology you have to accept that Jesus left nobody in official charge of the propagation and development and application of His teachings. Or even worse, that each individual is completely in charge as his conscience dictates (however seared or misdirected that conscience may be!). Does this not in one sense make each man his own God? Protestants will say that those flavours of belief and conviction which exist taste good in God's mouth, are good in His eyes. But He is not the author of confusion. And how will there ever be true unity as long as we agree to fail or to disagree?

The disjointed front of individual authority in Protestantism shield it from taking responsibility for its own scandals and sins. When a leader 'falls' or sins there is always the easy answer: "I guess he was never truly one of ours, or born again, so his failure does not count as a strike against Protestantism." In a sense this is true: individual sin does not count against either sin as an indictment of total error, but you cannot count sinning priests against Catholicism and NOT count sinning Pastors against Protestantism.

The poor, half-hearted unity of Protestant churches is almost comical. It is a unity in principle only, not in practice with each group claiming authority of itself "under Christ". But how can Christ, who IS THE TRUTH manifest himself in so many contradictions? "Hear the Spirit and obey" the preacher said yesterday. At every maturity level, just "hear the Spirit and act upon what you hear" - but without consultation? In fact, "if you believe it is from God, don't listen to anyone who would deter you from your course of action" seems is the underlying idea. It may be true that God does not speak more often to his Pastors and Priests, but they have devoted their lives to learning to hearing Him, so why would they not hear Him more often?

Homosexuality

2005-07-22T14:50:00.000-04:00

With regards to issues like homosexuality, I have always been able to find strong protestant arguments both ways (pardon the pun). The first time I read the sections on homosexuality in the Catechism however, I immediately recognized the position stated to be what I had been trying to articulate for some time. And knowing that position came about by 2000 years of Spirit-guided wisdom gave it a sense of infallibility far beyond what can be found in the ramblings of a flavor of the day liberal Protestant church leader.

FROM THE CATECHISM:

Chastity and homosexuality

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, ¹⁴¹ tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."¹⁴² They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

Mark Shea and Peter Kreeft

2005-07-21T12:44:00.000-04:00

Peter Kreeft's lecture on true Ecumenism is wonderful in the same way that C.S. Lewis "Mere Christianity" is.

Listen Here----> http://peterkreeft.com/audio/03_ecumenism/ecumenism.mp3

Mark Shea and Kreeft must be studying together. If I'm catching Kreeft's drift correctly, he's saying that devoted Protestants are actually more Catholic than they will acknowledge, or rather without their knowledge. I can see that. Shea and Kreeft are both more "evangelical" than I ever expected for Catholics. Is Shea a convert as well?

Other interesting points:

The distinction of the masculine character Protestantism and the feminine nature of Catholicism and the acknowledgement that both sides could use a whole lot of the other. The evangelical nature of Protestantism and Catholicism's seeming lack of desire to evangelize (at least in a way that is acceptable or up-to-par to most protestants) is probably the biggest sticking point for people from my background. That and the 'added' sacraments... and infant baptism... and the real presence... and confession of the non-kneeling-at-your-bedside nature. Yeah, there is a lot of stuff Mennonites object to.

Anne Marie and I stayed up late talking about all this last night. At one point she accused me of pursuing Catholicism because I "want it to be true", which I protested at first and later came to realize that of course I want it to be true! That there is an appointed voice of God on earth... that there is doctrine more than 25 years old which is also a work of the Holy Spirit... that there is something with such a rich history and heritage to be a part of... The prospect of NOT skipping from one sect to another as I become uncomfortable with their latest fad.

More Merton

2005-07-09T19:48:00.000-04:00

From "No Man Is An Island":

"A man who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly"

"We cannot make the best of who we are if we are obsessed with what we could be or what we could have been. We will make more of life if we are content with what we have rather than worrying about all that we might be missing. Admit that you will miss very much in this life."

"If we strive to be happy by filling all the silences of life with sound, productive by turning all life's leisure into work and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth"

Denomination selector

2005-04-12T14:08:00.000-04:00

Using the Christian Traditions Selector you will be able to discover in which denomination you would best fit. Don't worry, there are 48,000 to choose from so there must be one that's perfect for you!

A living and perpetual revolution

2005-03-26T15:30:00.000-05:00

Devoted Catholics are not concerned with what their own opinions are of every detail and implication of doctrine in scripture. This is quite possibly one of the keys to unity. They are roundly criticized for not knowing intimately the words of scripture, and in many cases they do not know them as well as they should. A good Catholic ( i.e. Mark Shea) will admit that to you. And yet this fierce defense of individual interpretation is the greatest and sharpest cause of the ongoing deformation of the Protestant church.

The Anabaptist message is powerful and proclaims itself, and can appear to be more Biblical. In a strictly literal sense it is more Biblical. They proclaim: "Here is the Book we should live by!" - and it is, but they carry on forgetting that it is more a book of wonderful principles than it is a narrow book of laws and rules and descriptions of eternal punishments and rewards... and if they really wanted to take it all completely literally, shouldn't they be wearing togas? That may sound facetious, but if you claim to be the truest incarnation of the early church, why only roll back your clothing habits to the 17th century? They do desire, rightly, to do those things mentioned in scripture and avoid, sometimes in good-intentioned error, anything not mentioned.

Were the first century Christians more keen on evangelizing than we are today? Absolutely, but insofar as evangelizing is spreading the good news of the Gospel, groups that claim to be closer to the New Testament Church are spreading old news. Before you jump on me for calling the Good News "old news", let me explain. News is only news as long as it is new. Is there anywhere in North American society that people are not familiar with the basics of the Gospel? It is rather a stretch to answer "yes" to that question. At the same time as the principles of Jesus life and work remain the same today, the way we deliver them to society must show a limited capacity for adaptation.

As an introduction to the chapter "Tradition and Revolution" in his book "New Seeds of Contemplation", Thomas Merton observed that " the biggest paradox about the Church is that she is at the same time essentially traditional and essentially revolutionary. But that is not as much of a paradox as it seems, because Christian tradition, unlike all others, is a living and perpetual revolution." The Anabaptists I know cling to a sort of "works don't save me, but they sure make me feel safer" mentality where the Catholics I know believe that their works are both a work of God's grace and an action of man's response. It is both, just like the Church is both traditional and revolutionary.

Christianity is the only true revolution, Merton says, because all other revolutions demand the destruction of someone else "but this one means the death of the man who... you have come to think of as yourself." The essence of Christianity is to join in God's will willingly. When His will becomes ours, we are truly free

source (03/26/05)

Radical Anabaptists

2005-03-26T14:52:00.000-05:00

Radical present day Anabaptism and its avoidance of all things it deems carnal is commendable yet fraught with error. They are in error in that they deem anything carnal that can be idolized by man. Thus they shun sports, alcohol, and all forms of entertainment - as if those things could never be enjoyed while at the same time being a loyal follower of Christ. To them, pleasure and amusement are activities we take part in to please a carnal nature and to avoid fellowship with God.

First Mass

2005-03-01T09:41:00.000-05:00

On February 27, 2005 we attended our first mass at Holy Angels in St.
Thomas. The first thing I noticed upon entry to the sanctuary is the
size, beauty and magnificence of the space. Towering wooden arches
frame a star patterned ceiling, stain glass colors the light of the
room and there are Biblical paintings on the wall every 12 feet. The
folk choir is located at the opposite end of the sanctuary as the
altar, high above the congregation in a choir loft, out of sight.
This is the first of many stark contrasts I noticed. In a modern
Protestant church, where good performance is a big part of good
ministry, a sort of subdued rock star magnetism drives the liveliness
of the worship.

I marked that I was noticing all of the little things that were an
impediment to the successful creation of that concert atmosphere by
which we judge the success of our worship services – the astounding
natural reverberation, the cheap speakers drooling out what was being
spoken into an even poorer microphone, and improper miking and
amplification of the few instruments actually used by the choir. How
could such an environment be attractive to a new or potential convert?
Maybe a bit of adoption of the world's methods of show and sell
really are necessary.

But isn't church for those who already believe? It's a mechanism for
equipping us to live our lives in the world, to convince others of the
truth and hope we have found, to display the actions and principles by
which we choose to live our lives.

There is much protocol to follow and if it is your first time at mass
you miss every cue and hope you don't look conspicuous. There are
numerous statement and answer sections, calls to stand, sit, kneel,
come forward for communion. I sat quietly through the kneeling
sections, stood quietly during the standing sections, and took part
wherever I could.

I didn't feel right participating in the Eucharist. I've been taught
an opposite doctrine all my life and right or wrong it still holds me.

"So what exactly about all this is attractive to you?" my wife asked
me. It was the first observation she made as we pulled out of the
parking lot.
"Not the worship service!" I answered, and it was true, but once again
it got me thinking about the purpose of the service. Indeed the
service had been unpolished to our eyes – eyes accustomed to a
programmed flow of excitement and entertainment. It contained no
fiery, well-delivered 20 minute sermon and nobody yelled out Amen! or
Hallelujah!, broke in with a word of prophecy or clapped at a
particularly well-delivered point.

Driving home we spoke further of the experience. Another thing I
found appealing, I told my wife, is the fact that Catholics are
largely unified in their doctrine, that they have taken the time to
formulate a position on every possible barrier a Christian might face
in the course of his life. There is a unity amongst millions of
Catholics around the world and it is based on 2000 years of study and
prayer.

Over lunch my Uncle and I discussed the usual – the protestant
position on authority, how many popes Luther had inadvertently put in
place – and I remembered that Luther had once said "Reason is the
devil's whore" and it "must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed." What
did he mean by this?

"Reason is the Devil's greatest whore; by nature and manner of being
she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil's appointed
whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under
foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom ... Throw dung in her face to
make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism... She
would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in
the house, to the closets."
— Martin Luther, Erlangen Edition v. 16, pp. 142-148

"Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample
underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees
must be put out of sight and ... know nothing but the word of God."
— Martin Luther

The realization of what that could mean and how it could be
misconstrued suddenly hit me. It could be the whole reason there is a
serious lack of educational foundation in the most conservative sects
of Protestantism. I can certainly attest to that phenomenon in my own
culture, that of the Mexican Mennonites. I read and respect far more
Catholic authors and intellectuals that Protestant, possibly because
there are so few Protestant intellectuals (?) !

Desperate Measures

2005-02-26T21:34:00.000-05:00

Something had to be done lest the church fall, as some claimed it already had, past the point of no return. The force and tenacity with which Martin luther put forth his disagreements was probably neccesary but he should have headed the transition and at least attempted to ensure that there was only one breakaway group and not hundreds. He could not have forseen the outcome of his obstinance, nor might he have been able to hold back the overwhelming tide of disgruntled peasants as they stumbled as though drunk in their new found freedom. He had inadvertently stirred up a giant wave of rebellion that he was now nearly powerless to direct.

I wonder what he DID expect to happen. I wonder which of his 95 theses he later wished he had not included.

Where is all begins

2005-02-26T09:32:00.000-05:00

I am trying to approach this honestly. There is a rather strong temptation to cast aside all I was raised to believe and there are a number of good and bad reasons for this. I am not at all sure where this writing will lead me; an early attraction to Catholicism may only be the opposite swing of a spiritual pendulum, but I don't belief at looking into things half way. I'll take it all and keep the good - if there is any good in it. Hopefully by this method I can stop much of the perpetual motion and find the calm center. Even as I write that last sentence I can't help by think I might be delusional to think this is even possible. What would I do with my mind if I stopped thinking about all this stuff?

Tomorrow I will attend a mass for the first time in my life - as an observer only. Having never been exposed to flesh and blood Catholicism, what can I expect but that which is portrayed in popular media: a beautiful cathedral, an over-dressed priest, plenty of call and answer, some Latin, and of course there's transubstantiation!

The end of this writing (if there ever is an end) may just leave me with whatever it was the first Anabaptists truly intended to get at, or it may lead me straight into the Catholic Church or somewhere in between. At this point I just want to get as far to the bottom of it as I can. I am not tortured in any way by this searching or these questions - in fact I face them with a great deal of excitement.

What Luther wanted

2005-02-17T22:10:00.000-05:00

...and so I started consulting the catechism – and it made more sense than I ever would have expected. I kept it in my book bag and refered to it during sermons, always taking great care not to expose the boldly lettered cover to any wandering Protestant eyes. I would also read it before bed as a variation of a songwriting theory – if you can meditate on a challenge or problem as you are falling asleep, your subconscious mind will work toward the answers while you are asleep. To date I haven't seen any clear results of the effectiveness of this practice but things did start falling into place shortly after I started. Why should every Christian be responsible for having a unique opinion about every difficult passage of scripture? Was it really sinful to put a bit of faith in the 2000 years of observations made by learned scholars? After all, these findings and doctrines were said to have been worked out in conjunction with the guidance Holy Spirit.

So another choice was upon me: did I want to accept the teachings and guidance of someone to whom the Holy Spirit had "revealed this to me just before the sermon this morning", or did I want to act upon those 2000 years of sacred teaching?

Martin Luther's intentions are entirely misunderstood by the average Protestant. He never meant to split from the Catholic Church, in fact he lamented the fact that this had happened. He only wanted purification and redemption for the Body of Christ he so cherished – not it's destruction and formation again from nothing. Of course the Catholic Church resisted his efforts, just as they had with similar efforts in the past. The difference this time was technology, namely the printing press.

He was excommunicated and out of necessity began his own fellowship. If only it had stayed at one other fellowship besides the Catholic Church, we might have avoided 500 years of murders, martyrs, and bickering. However, Luther had opened the mouth of a beast that was too large, and indeed perilous for him to handle. Perhaps the old adage "praise in public, criticize in private" would have been the best route to take, but that had be done several times before with no effect. Would the Church EVER have reformed if Luther hadn't taken his stand?

What a bloody business religion was in those days. There is a perception that is often used as proof of truth, that if someone was martyred for their beliefs, then those beliefs must be confirmed. But many martyrs died for opposing beliefs so how can one truth or the other be proven by martyrdom?

Where are the thinkers?

2004-07-24T12:59:00.000-04:00

The masses are not, and never will be readers, thinkers or intellectuals. People rely to often, probably more out of reflex or self-defence, resort to rhetoric, propaganda and personal attacks when faced with a divisive issue. I am not entirely free of this myself. Many people know what they've been told to think by whatever religious leader - some bigoted, some not, some insecure, some not - whose teachings they ascribe to.

We have added so much to the good news Jesus gave us. You supposed be a member of a certain church and serve within that church. You are supposed to support the "art" and businesses of other Christians regardless of the quality of the goods or services or the truthfulness of the art involved. Why? So that they will become so popular that those "non-believers" will like them too?