Tag Archives: controversy

Christianity without Christ?

25 Thursday Jun 2020

Posted by in Church/State, Early Church

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Gene Veith at Cranach had an interesting post yesterday on whether the Christian virtues can survive without Christianity. I think this ties in well to mine on NEO today on the immorality of Christian clergy supporting BLM, instead of continuing our own mission, the most successful in helping the disadvantaged in history, by far. Here’s part of Gene’s article.

The secular British historian Tom Holland has published a new book entitled Dominion:  How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (Basic Books).  Here is the summary from Amazon.com:

Crucifixion, the Romans believed, was the worst fate imaginable, a punishment reserved for slaves. How astonishing it was, then, that people should have come to believe that one particular victim of crucifixion-an obscure provincial by the name of Jesus-was to be worshipped as a god. Dominion explores the implications of this shocking conviction as they have reverberated throughout history. Today, the West remains utterly saturated by Christian assumptions. As Tom Holland demonstrates, our morals and ethics are not universal but are instead the fruits of a very distinctive civilization. Concepts such as secularism, liberalism, science, and homosexuality are deeply rooted in a Christian seedbed. From Babylon to the Beatles, Saint Michael to #MeToo, Dominion tells the story of how Christianity transformed the modern world.
His book shows just how different Christian values and ethics were from those of the Greeks and the Romans and how the Christian mindset has prevailed in Western Civilization even among his fellow secularists.  (Holland is an atheist.)  The Greeks, for example, considered compassion, for example to be a weakness, not one of the highest virtues as Christianity made it.  The principle from Christianity that all human beings have equal value was incomprehensible to the hierarchies of ancient Rome.  Today we assume that peace is better than war, a legacy of Christianity utterly foreign to the ancient Greeks, Romans, and European tribes.

It’s something that is easy to forget, and mostly we have.

Holland appears to think that it’s possible to have the fruits without the faith, to have Christian influence without the Christianity.  Strand, however, disagrees:
Christian ethics cannot be about merely upholding and claiming certain values that flow from the Christian faith. That would be to mistake the fruit from the tree. The very center of the Christian life is not what the cross teaches us morally but what the cross did for us in atoning for our sins and bringing us from life to death in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The transformation of the person from death to life and the ultimate union with the Triune God in the City of God is the goal of all Christians. Their works of mercy and sacrifice for neighbor and their culture-building over millennia are a testament of this transforming power. We make a mistake if we think the fruit is the goal or that we can separate the fruit from the tree that produced it.

I would say that although principles such as love, equality, compassion and the like are still dominant, even among the secularists, they are starting to fade.  Certainly those who no longer believe in the key Christian teachings of atonement and redemption will have difficulty with the concept of forgiveness, and we are seeing that.  Secularists today say they believe in equality, but they are also demonizing and deriding the worth of those with whom they disagree.  And the strange embrace of abortion on the part of so many secularists, even liberals and progressives, undercuts their claim to be compassionate and supportive of the powerless.  It is, in fact, a reversion to the Greco-Roman practice of infanticide, with everything else that implied about the value of human life.

I should at this point go on and add examples of my own, but two things, I think this is perfectly lucid, clear, and self-evidently correct. Our morality will never stand on its own, its foundation is in our hope of redemption, not in earthly values. To claim otherwise is sophistry and sophistry which history has shown to be false. Without the hope of redemption, we return to the dog eat dog world of Greece and Rome, where the only reason for doing anything is self-aggrandizement. We see that happening already in our so-called elites, who are mostly post-Christian, for not believing in God, they seem to only believe in earthly acquisition and what may be even worse, they seem to think this is a zero-sum game.

Well, Christ taught us better, as they will find out one day. After all, the Lord did say, “Vengeance is mine”. And as I’ve said a few times, without hell there can be no heaven.

7 Years.

15 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by in Faith, Julian of Norwich

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Seven years ago today, a humble little Christian blog raised its head up to look over the parapet at an increasingly hostile world. It has grown much and occasionally waned since that day, but has never lowered its head, nor has it changed its mission from that first day, as expressed in our tagline:

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you … John 13:34.

None of us who actively contribute here, were here that day. Scoop and I are probably the oldest contributors left, and I’m not very active at present, but my heart remains here.

If you are newer than we are, I’d recommend that you poke around in the archives, there is much to enjoy and much to learn, from many viewpoints.

All of those who are listed in our sidebar as contributors gave us much wisdom and remain in my thoughts and my prayers. Those no longer active are missed and I give thanks daily for those who have carried the load, before and now as well.

Mother Julian of Norwich, a great favorite of us here leaves us a couple of thought on this day.

  • “He said not ‘Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased’; but he said, ‘Thou shalt not be overcome.”

But also:

“All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” ..

Both are important to keep in mind.

So raise a glass and thank God, that there are those who keep their head up and their eyes on the prize of Heaven, and then drink to the next seven years, that they may see us continue the Lord’s work.

The Pennsylvania Priest Scandal; an Outside View

18 Saturday Aug 2018

Posted by in Church/State, Faith

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Perhaps it is time for me to say something about the scandal rocking the Catholic church. Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread, I suspect. My perspective is different, being a conservative, liturgical Protestant, a Lutheran, as it were.

First, a few caveats:

  • We have only a report from a grand jury, in one state, Pennsylvania. We do not have indictments, let alone convictions. Will they come? That remains to be seen. But there is enough smoke here for all the wildfires in California. Surely the other states, and yes, Europe as well should be looking into this. But it is not yet time to build the gallows.
  • However bad it may be, and it appears to be bad, indeed, it remains a small share of the clergy. Do not condemn with a 12″ roller when a trim brush is wide enough.
  • But to condemn and punish is not enough, why did this happen, and mind, this is not the first sex scandal in the Church. How to avoid it in the future is the key thing here. In a sense, the past really is prologue.

As I said above, I’m a Lutheran, one of the causes that led Luther to start the Reformation was the sexual conduct of priests in Rome. So it would be easy for me to say, more of the same. That’s a poor attitude, much as it’s a common one these days.

But Rome is the root of Christianity in the west, whether one is Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Baptist, or whatever else. That is where we all started, and but for the Grace of God, it could be (and sometimes has been) any of our churches.

Anybody remember Jimmy Swaggart? Yeah, didn’t do Christianity a lot of good, did he? How about Rev. Tom Bird, a Kansas Lutheran pastor who killed his wife when she became inconvenient to his affair with the church secretary. There are others, big and small. We are all fallen sinners, we can only try. And that’s why we need to weed out these things. And both of those examples, and others, were, they went to prison, as they should.

Matt Walsh, a Catholic, and a columnist for The Daily Wire said with characteristic bluntness…

The Catholic Church in the West is beset by a plague. An infection. A virus that must be rooted out and utterly destroyed. There must be a purge in the Church. And the purge must be ruthless and brutal and uncompromising.

Indeed so, and it must include the hierarchy that covered up the instances. In the examples above, there was little to no cover-up, and no lasting damage was done. As so often, it’s not the crime but the coverup.

He has a point, I suspect. Kim Hirsch, an LCMS Lutheran writes on Victory Girls Blog,

Many years ago, I read a book entitled, Goodbye, Good Men. Written in 2002 by Michael Rose, a Catholic reporter, it tells how these scandals come from the seminary, where liberals in the church have allowed homosexuality in the name of “tolerance.” There is also prejudice, he maintains, against traditional seminaries.

Here’s what Rose said in an interview with a Catholic publication in 2002:

In bringing the “sexual revolution” into the Church, liberals have welcomed—even preferred—radicalized active homosexuals to orthodox seminarians in the name of “tolerance.” Now that tolerance has been exposed as a toleration of criminal acts.

Mind you, this book is now 16 years old, and we’re seeing yet again another sexual scandal. The crisis will not go away.

Maybe, one of the underlying problems, since this is predominately a Catholic problem, is the celibate priesthood itself, combined with clericalism, of course.

Father Richard McBrien, who was a professor of theology at Notre Dame, believed the church should drop the celibacy requirement for priests. In 2004, he wrote why it’s a problem:

But that requirement of the priesthood will attract a disproportionately high percentage of men who are sexually dysfunctional, sexually immature, or whose orientation will raise the question – are they attracted to the priesthood because of the ministry, or because it is a profession that forbids one to be married?

And there is something else, most of these are young men, and do any of us really think young men do not run on hormones, and those drawn to leadership, more than most?

I don’t know, and as the saying goes, not my church, but some thoughts for you Catholics to mull over, which is my main purpose here. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, but do think why this is so much a specific problem in your church. Part of it is a powerful, traditional hierarchy, as well, I suspect, but the CofE has that as well. It appears to be a distinctive of, and a distinctive problem for, the Catholic Church.

And pray, of course, as we will be praying for your Church as well as our own.

An Anniversary

15 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by in Faith

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Six years ago, today, a new little blog poked its head up over the parapet of that desert mission above and made its first post. The founder of this blog and all who commented on that post, are rarely seen in the precincts today. But that post, quoted here in full, still motivates us.

This is a blog about Christianity under siege, and sometimes this Christian under attack. That’s not to say I think that in this country we are persecuted, but just that it can be difficult to make one’s voice heard above the clamant voices. This is my voice, for what it is worth. My first two posts appeared on another blog, and I am grateful to Jon for making them available here.

The spirit that Jessica showed in post number one, has been our constant guide here, ever since, as has been the tagline, she chose for us.

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you … John 13:34

Well, we all fall far short of the goal, but we keep trying, and given the troubles we’ve all seen here, I think we’ve done fairly well, with God’s help.

Some of us have been here since almost the beginning, some came here much later, it doesn’t matter. I’m glad you are here, and we will go forward together.

And so, here’s to the next six!

Secularism and Religion

16 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in Abortion, Church/State, Consequences, Education, Faith, Islam, Politics

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Many here are aware that the basis of western civilization is in our Judeo-Christian heritage. Often we merely assert this, since we have known it all our lives, but it can be examined fruitfully.

I admire Melanie Phillips greatly because not only is she a very good writer and speaker, she is fully capable of thinking through things. And she does so here. Yes, this is a long read, but I think you’ll find it valuable to read the whole thing.

It has become the orthodoxy in the West that freedom, human rights and reason all derive from secularism and that the greatest threat to all these good things is religion.

I want to suggest that the opposite is true. In the service of this orthodoxy, the West is undermining and destroying the very values which it holds most dear as the defining characteristics of a civilised society.

In truth, in the United States, we don’t hear it explicitly very often, but in Britain, it is quite common in my experience. Not to mention very strident, not only from the secularists, but from Randians, and other assorted libertine groups.

Some of this hostility is being driven by the perceived threat from Islamic terrorism and the Islamisation of Western culture. However, this animus against religion has far deeper roots and can be traced back to what is considered the birthplace of Western reason, the 18th-century Enlightenment.

Actually, it goes back specifically to the French Enlightenment. In England and Scotland, the Enlightenment developed reason and political liberty within the framework of Biblical belief. In France, by contrast, anti-clericalism morphed into fundamental hostility to Christianity and to religion itself.

“Ecrasez l’infame,” said Voltaire (crush infamy) — the infamy to which he referred being not just the Church but Christianity, which he wanted to replace with the religion of reason, virtue and liberty, “drawn from the bosom of nature”.

[…] Instead of God producing heaven on earth, it would be mankind which would bring that about. Reason would create the perfect society and “progress” was the process by which utopia would be attained.

Far from utopia, however, this thinking resulted in something more akin to hell on earth. For the worship of man through reason led straight to totalitarianism. It was reason that would redeem religious superstition and bring about the kingdom of Man on earth. And just like medieval apocalyptic Christian belief, this secular doctrine would also be unchallengeable and heretics would be punished. This kind of fanaticism infused the three great tyrannical movements that were spun out of Enlightenment thinking: the French Revolution, Communism and Fascism. […]

In the Sixties, the baby-boomer generation bought heavily into the idea propounded by Herbert Marcuse and other Marxist radicals that the way to transform the West lay not through the seizure of political or economic control but through the transformation of the culture. This has been achieved over the past half century through what has been called a “long march through the institutions”, the infiltration into all the institutions of the culture — the universities, media, professions, politics, civil service, churches — of ideas that would then become the orthodoxy.

From multiculturalism to environmentalism, from post-nationalism to “human rights” doctrine, Western progressives have fixated upon universalising ideas which reject values anchored in the particulars of religion or culture. All that matters is a theoretical future in which war, want and prejudice will be abolished: the return of fallen humanity to a lost Eden. And like all utopian projects, which are by definition impossible and unattainable, these dogmas are enforced through coercion: bullying, intimidation, character assassination, professional and social exclusion.

The core doctrine is equality. Not the Biblical doctrine that every human being is owed equal respect because they are formed in the image of God: equality has been redefined as identicality, the insistence that there can be no hierarchy of values of lifestyles or cultures. There can no longer be different outcomes depending on different circumstances or how people behave. To differentiate at all is to be bigoted and on a fast track back to fascism and war.

So the married family was kicked off its perch. Sexual restraint was abolished. The formerly transgressive became normative. Education could no longer transmit a culture down through the generations but had to teach that the Western nation was innately racist and exploitative.

Subjective trumped objective. There was no longer any absolute truth. Everyone could arbitrate their own truth. That way bigotry and prejudice would be excised from the human heart, the oppressed of the developing world would be freed from their Western oppressors and instead of the Western nation there would be the brotherhood of man.

All this was done in name of freedom, reason and enlightenment and in opposition to religion, the supposed source of oppression, irrationality and obscurantism.

At the heart of it was an onslaught against the moral codes of Christianity. Those moral codes are actually the Mosaic laws of the Hebrew Bible.

[…] What they [Western “progressives” and the Islamists] also have in common is hostility to Judaism, Israel or the Jewish people. The genocidal hatred of Israel and the Jews that drives the Islamic jihad against the West is not acknowledged or countered by the West because its most high-minded citizens share at least some of that prejudice. Both Western liberals and Islamists believe in utopias to which the Jews are an obstacle. The State of Israel is an obstacle to both the rule of Islam over the earth and a world where there are no divisions based on religion or creed. The Jews are an obstacle to the unconstrained individualism of Western libertines and to the onslaught against individual human dignity and freedom by the Islamists. Both the liberal utopias of a world without prejudice, divisions or war and the Islamist utopia of a world without unbelievers are universalist ideologies. The people who are always in the way of universalising utopias are the Jews.

Do read it all, and there is a deal more than I have given you. The full title is: Secularism and religion: the onslaught against the West’s moral codes. It is simply a superb examination of where our basic morality came from, and how it has allowed us to exceed former civilizations by orders of magnitude, and how it has come to be endangered.

Pharisees & Popes

25 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Faith, Pope

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falce-e-martello

Bolivian President Evo Morales (L) exchanges gifts with Pope Francis during a meeting at Quemado presidential palace in La Paz on July 8, 2015. Pope Francis, the first Latin American pontiff, arrived in Bolivia on the second leg of a three-nation tour of the continent’s poorest countries, where he has been acclaimed by huge crowds. AFP PHOTO/JUAN CARLOS USNAYO

“Three months ago, in a country, in a city, a mother wanted to baptize her newly born son, but she was married civilly to a divorced man. The priest said, ‘Yes, yes. Baptize the baby. But your husband is divorced, so he cannot be present at the ceremony.’ This is happening today. The Pharisees, or Doctors of the Law, are not people of the past, even today there are many of them. That is why we shepherds need prayers.”

Thus Pope Francis at Santa Marta last October.

As presented in the Gospels, the Pharisees were men who cared so much for the letter of the Law that the Spirit of it passed them by; one feels they were the spiritual predecessors of modern Health & Safety experts. Jesus was clear about the importance of not binding the people with extra burdens. Any priest who acted in the manner described by the Pope, should have recognised that his actions were not going to contribute to family stability, or even, perhaps, to the bringing of the cild to baptism. It is hard to know quite what the priest thought he was achieving.

In such circumstances, the ‘rigorism’ condemned by the Pope, seems to stand rightly condemned.

But then when, as last February, the Pope takes the line that rigorism includes priests who tell divorced people that they can remarry, he seems, to many of us, the ignore what the Lord Jesus says in Mark 10:1-12. To accuse any priest who upholds that teaching as a ‘Pharisee’ seems to take the word to that point of uselessness occupied by a word like ‘fascist;’ anyone of whom one disapproves, falls automatically into that category. It is a word for the polemicist, not the apologist.

No Catholic can cavalierly dismiss the insistence on dogma as pharisaism. The Laws of the Church derive from the teachings of Jesus. Yes, and of course, how easy it would have been to have been able to do as the original Pharisees could, and allow divorce on certain grounds; but Jesus was clear on this. We can, as many churches have, choose to caveat His words, and effectively allow divorce; but try as we might, we cannot pretend we are abiding by His words.

All of this is by way of prelude to Fr Thomas Weinandy’s thought-provoking article in In the National Catholic Register. A member of the Vatican’s International Theological Commission, Fr Weinandy spoke on the theme of the four marks of the Church: “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.” All of these were, he said, at risk, not least from the confusion created by the Holy See itself.

This is a theme we have considered here recently. There is certainly a place of robust discussion and deep questioning, and even for the sort of contrarianism which can make a seminar or lecture go with a swing, but it seems an unlikely role for the holder of the See of St Peter, not least in an age of instant communication. An septuagenarian who, by his own admission, does not read social media, may, perhaps, have an imperfect understanding of how his words are received by millions who do not spend their time in theological controversy. Fr Weinandy has a better understanding, and that gives him cause for concern.

In spite of all the controversy following Vatican II, there was never any doubt over where Blessed Paul VI, St John Paul II and Benedict XVI stood regarding the Church’s “doctrine, morals, and liturgical practice.” But, Fr Weinandy

“Such is not the case, in many significant ways, within the present pontificate of Pope Francis,” Father Weinandy continued. Praising the Pope for his personal holiness and his concern for the young and the marginalised, he goes on to observe:

that “at times” the Holy Father appears to identify himself “not as the promoter of unity but as the agent of division,” and that his desire to — in the Pope’s own words — “make a mess” in the belief that a greater unifying good will emerge, is a cause for great concern.

By doing nothing to calm the doctrinal division and moral discord within the Church caused by some of his own ambiguity, the Pope, Fr Weinandy suggests, may have transgressed has transgressed the foundational mark of the Church – “her oneness.”

It seems hard to counter Fr Weinandy’s thesis. Does that mark him out as a ‘rigorist’? Are there not, as suggested in the opening paragraphs, times when rigor is necessary? I would suggest that Fr Weinandy’s interesting lecture is read by all with a concern for these things. I would further suggest that attempts to write him off as a Pharisee miss the point. Dogma is dogma. doctrine is doctrine, and if one does not like them, then there are plenty of alternative ecclesial communities which will accommodate those of that point of view.

Whose Bourgeois Morality?

19 Thursday Oct 2017

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Church/State

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A Tweet last evening guided me to an important story – here it is.

Some of you are quite familiar with Professor Charmley, as I am, I consider him a close friend, but in any case, he is exactly correct. This is required reading for any of us who wonders what in the world the Catholic Church is thinking these days. Here is the link again, and here is a snippet.

[I]n the latest round of debate over Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation on marriage and the family, a fervent defender of the document sniffed at some of its critics that “the Magisterium doesn’t bow to middle-class lobbies” and cited Humanae Vitae as an example of papal tough-mindedness in the face of bourgeois cultural pressures. It was a clever move, rhetorically, and we may hope that it’s right about the magisterial kowtow. But I fear it also misses the point—or, better, several points.

At the Synods of 2014 and 2015, to which Amoris Laetitia is a response, the most intense lobbying for a change in the Church’s traditional practice in the matter of holy communion for the divorced and civilly remarried—a proposal the great majority of Synod fathers thought an unwarranted break with truths taught by divine revelation—came from the German-speaking bishops: prelates who represent perhaps the most thoroughly bourgeois countries on the planet. Thus, one does not strain against veracity or charity by describing the German-speaking bishops as something of a lobby for middle-class preoccupations. Passionate defenders of Amoris Laetitia might thus be a bit more careful when dismissing as a middle-class lobby those who raise legitimate concerns about the ambiguities in the document; what goes around, comes around.

There was, of course, far more going on in the 2014-2015 German campaign to permit holy communion for the divorced and civilly remarried than lobbying on behalf of the bourgeois morality of secular, middle-class societies. There was, for example, the ongoing, two-front German war against Humanae Vitae (Blessed Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical on the morally appropriate means of family planning) and Veritatis Splendor (St. John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical on the reform of Catholic moral theology). We are told, now, that a commission is examining the full range of documentation involved in the preparation of Humanae Vitae. One hopes that that study will bring to the fore what Paul VI realized when he rejected the counsel of many and reaffirmed the Church’s commitment to natural family planning as the humanly and morally appropriate means of regulating fertility.

Do read it all, and think about the implications. I’m no Catholic as you all know, but Rome has provided the best leadership on this since the Second World War, and we will all lose if they lose their voice, and even more, will the children who will never be born lose much more than their voice.

Intermission: Luther v Zwingli on the Eucharist

13 Friday Oct 2017

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Lutheranism, Salvation

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Phillip mentioned yesterday that Lutherans have a very clear doctrine of the Eucharist, which is certainly true, and that the controversy between Luther and Zwingli highlighted the differences. That too is true. I didn’t want to go into it on his post, it is a bit far off topic. It is interesting, though, and last night I found a concise summary of the differences by Trevin Wax. It also highlights how it differed from Luther’s contemporary Catholic experience.

Luther’s view

In the medieval period before the Reformation, the mass formed the centerpiece of Christian worship and devotion. Three centuries before Luther began teaching in Wittenberg, the fourth Lateran council of 1215 established the doctrine of transubstantiation, which holds that upon the priest’s consecration of the bread and wine, the accidents (according to the senses) remain the same, but the substance (the internal “essence”) is miraculously transformed into the physical body and blood of Christ.

The implications of this doctrine were widespread. Laypeople began to adore the bread and wine from afar or superstitiously carry pieces of bread back home to plant in the garden for good crops or to give to an ailing animal for good health. To avoid an accidental spilling of the wine, the priests began giving only the bread to parishioners, keeping the cup for themselves. By the 1500’s, even the bread was withheld in most churches.

The mass had turned into a show instead of a sacrament. Some parishioners feverishly hurried from church to church to obtain the blessing of seeing more than one host in a given day.

Luther objected to the extreme practices brought by medieval superstition, but he continued to regard the “images, bells, Eucharistic vestments, church ornaments, altar lights and the like” as “indifferent.”

Two things in particular bothered Luther about the Roman Catholic view of the Lord’s Supper. First, he disagreed sharply with the practice of withholding the cup from the laity. So strongly did Luther believe in the laity’s participation in the mass that he condemned the Roman Catholic practice as one way that “Babylon” holds the church “captive.” (It should be noted however that Luther did not believe that withholding the cup necessarily invalidated the sacrament or that the Christians who were denied the cup during the previous centuries had not received sacramental benefits.)

Secondly, Luther believed that the Roman Catholic understanding of the sacrament as a “good work and a sacrifice” was the “most wicked abuse of all.” Luther argued forcefully that the mass must be seen as a testament – something to receive, not a good work to perform. The only sacrifice at the Lord’s Table is the sacrifice of ourselves. The idea that a priest could sacrifice the body and blood of the Lord was especially appalling to Luther and he considered this belief the most abominable of Roman errors.  […]

Another area in which Luther remained close to Roman doctrine is in the doctrine of the “real presence.” Up until 1519, it appears Luther agreed with the official doctrine of transubstantiation. In 1520, he criticized the idea quite forcefully, painting it as needless speculation based on Aristotelian thought.

A popular misconception among Reformation students is that Luther affirmed and promoted “consubstantiation,” but neither Luther nor the Lutheran church ever accepted that term. Luther simply refused to speculate on how Christ is present and instead settled for affirming that he is there. The presence of Christ in the Supper is miraculous and thus defies explanation.

Roman Catholic theologians strongly emphasized the moment of consecration, when the priest would lift the bread and say “Hoc est corpus meum.” At that moment, bells would be rung and all eyes would be on the elevated host, which had magically been transformed into Christ’s body.

Luther similarly emphasized the words of institution, but only because Christ’s command leads to the change, not because the priest has made a special utterance. In this and other practices, Luther was content to alter the understanding behind Roman Catholic practice without feeling the need to actually change the tradition itself.

Luther believed that the fruit of the Lord’s Supper is the forgiveness of sins. Roman doctrine held that Communion was for the righteous, those who have confessed their sins to the priest. Luther believed Communion was for sinners, those who needed Christ’s incarnation the most.

 

Zwingli’s view

 

Zwingli did not see the need for a “sacramental union” in the Lord’s Supper because of his modified understanding of sacraments.

According to Zwingli, the sacraments serve as a public testimony of a previous grace. Therefore, the sacrament is “a sign of a sacred thing, i.e. of a grace that has been given.” For Zwingli, the idea that the sacraments carry any salvific efficacy in themselves is a return to Judaism’s ceremonial washings that lead to the purchase of salvation.

Whereas Luther sought to prune the bad branches off the tree of Roman Catholic sacramentalism, Zwingli believed the problem to be rooted at least partly in sacramentalism itself. […]

What Zwingli could not accept was a “real presence” that claimed Christ was present in his physical body with no visible bodily boundaries.

“I have no use for that notion of a real and true body that does not exist physically, definitely and distinctly in some place, and that sort of nonsense got up by word triflers.”

Zwingli’s theology of the Lord’s Supper should not be viewed as an innovation without precedent in church history. Zwingli claimed that his doubts about transubstantiation were shared by many of his day, leading him to claim that priests did not ever believe such a thing, even though “most all have taught this or at least pretended to believe it.”

Had Zwingli’s modified doctrine of the “real presence” been an innovation, it would probably not have been so eagerly accepted by his parishioners. The symbolic view spread rapidly because Zwingli had given voice and legitimacy to an opinion that was already widespread.

In Zurich, the mass was abolished in 1525. The Lord’s Supper was celebrated with a new liturgy that replaced the altar with a table and tablecloth.

The striking feature of the Zwinglian observance of the sacrament was its simplicity. Because the bread and wine were not physically transformed into Christ’s body and blood, there was no need for spurious ceremonies and pompous rituals. The occasion was marked by simplicity and reverence, with an emphasis on its nature as a memorial.

Zwingli’s denial of the “real presence” did not result in the neglecting of the sacrament that would characterize many of his followers in centuries to come. He saw seven virtues in the Lord’s Supper that proved its importance for the Christian life.

Do read the articles linked above. While what he says on Lutheran doctrine is in accordance with what I know and believe, and what I know of how it was derived, and I am sort of assuming that as an Evangelical he knows a fair amount about Zwingli, I don’t know enough to comment intelligently about it. My original church had a fair amount of Reformed in it, but it was long ago, and I’ve long since come to believe in The Real Presence myself, actually before I became a Lutheran. It is just more consonant with the Lord’s words and the disciples’ reaction to them.

Ps, the short form

Amoris Laetitia: a Lutheran View

05 Thursday Oct 2017

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Consequences, Faith, Heresies

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I admire tremendously the thought process that Philip Augustine described in his post Support the Pope. It is one of the most reasoned comments I have seen on the matter.

I’m not going to opine on it, it is something for Roman Catholics to settle, except to say that I too think the Pope should answer for the reasons Philip points out. But it does have ramifications for all of us. We Lutherans and Anglicans as well, as well as others, do indeed subscribe to the creed as the one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, some who profess Rome are not Christian, and quite a few who do not are, which is something to keep in mind.

I also note that, long ago, although not as long as it seems, our resident Baptist, Geoffrey, wrote about this phenomenon, as well. You’ll find that post here.

This month we will commemorate an Augustinian monk’s posting of ninety-five theses for discussion on reforming the Church, on the door of Wittenberg’s Castle Church, 500 years ago. Most of the reforms he called for, eventually happened in my Lutheran Church, but also in the Catholic Church. The Church, founded by the sinner St. Peter, like all organizations of men, is not sinless, and never will be. For all that, it is an institution that we all, Catholic and Protestant, look to often for leadership, not least because it has done better than most of us at preserving the things that we have always done, everywhere.

An observation, one thing that many of us have observed is that sometimes the Church appears, especially to outsiders as a bureaucratic, legalistic maze. It may or may not be, but sometimes it appears so to the rest of us. QVO yesterday said, “Amoris laetitia, in so far as it encourages a perversion of discipline re admission of unrepentant adulterers to Communion has a bearing on the external forum.” He’s  not wrong, but it begs the question of “How does he know whether said sinner is repentant or not? Surely that is for him and his priest to discern, not a legal document that applies to millions around the world. Guidelines, absolutely there need to be, but in the last analysis it is up to him and his God to resolve. Finally it is a matter of the communicant’s free will. I think we should give St. Paul the last word in  the matter.

“Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an
unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of
the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread
and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing
the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.”
I Corinthians 11:27-29 (NIV)

The other thing I want you to consider is this.  Like Philip, I urge you to read Amoris laetitia thoughtfully and prayerfully. I suspect you will find it says something very different from what you have seen reported. Again like Philip, I try to eschew terms like ‘liberal/conservative’ or ‘Modernist/traditionalist’ although sometimes we all end up using them, they do not help us to understand, this, after all, is not politics, this is about eternal souls. But for that very reason one cannot trust the media, many of whom are demonstrably Godless people, and as such do not have your, or my, best interests at heart. To take them at their word is neither prudent nor provident. On the other hand, it would be well if the Pope were to refrain from making off the cuff comments to people who may, or may not, have the best interest of the Church at heart. It is considerably more pernicious than President Trump’s Twitter feed,

I’ll leave you with a few words from William Tyndale, whose first translation of the Bible from  Greek into English is the basis of our favorite version. From his “To the reder” of his 1526 rendering of the New Testament.

Note the difference of the lawe/and of the gospell. The one axeth and requyreth/the wother perdoneth and forgeveth. The one threateneth/the wother promyseth all good thynges/to them thatt sett their trust in Christ only. The gospell signifieth gladde tydynges/and is nothynge butt the promyses off good thynges. All is not gospell that is written in the gospell boke: For if the lawe were a waye/thou couldest not know what the gospell meante. Even as thou couldest not se person/favour/and grace/excepte the lawe rebuked the/and declared vnto the thy sinne/mysdede/and treaspase.

Repent and beleve the gospell as sayth Christ in the fyrst of Marke. Applyee all waye the lawe to thy dedes/whether thou finde luste in the bottom of thyne herte to the lawe warde: and soo shalt thou no dout repent/and feale in the silfe a certayne sorowe/payne/and grefe to thyne herte: be cause thou canst nott with full luste do the dedes of the lawe. Apllye the gospell/that is to saye the promyses/vnto the deservynge off Christ/and to the mercye of god and his trouth/and soo shalt thou nott despeare: butt shalt feale god as a kynde and a merciful father. And his sprete shall dwell in the/and shall be stronge in the: and the promises shalbe geven the at the last (though not by and by/lest thou shuldest forgett thy sylfe/and be negligent) and all threatenynges shalbe forgeven the for Christis blouddis sake/to whom commit thy silfe all togedder/with out respect/other of thy good dedes or of thy badde.

And finally, I join  Francis and all people of good will in welcoming theinfiniterally as he joins us on our journey, to the Cross, and beyond.

Is the Pope Catholic?

27 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Heresies, Lutheranism, Pope

≈ 26 Comments

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Time for me to post something here, I reckon, and I think might do. The other day a document called “Correctio filialis de haeresibus propagatis“ (if your Latin is as bad as mine that translates as “A filial correction concerning the propagation of heresies”) was served on the Pope. What that document does is accuse him of teaching seven heresies. Not the kind of stuff that usually happens in the Catholic Church. In fact, the last time it happened was in 1333 to Pope John XXII. He later recanted his errors. I can’t really say that I see Francis doing that. I’m rather glad I’m not the recipient of that 25-page letter though.

Gene Veith over at Cranach spells out some of it, no doubt some of you know more than I do. He talks about the charges (for lack of a better description) and there is a link to the English translation of the document, I’ve only read the summary, so far. It’s copyrighted so I can’t give you much, but it concerns mostly this,  “It lists the passages of Amoris laetitia in which heretical positions are insinuated or encouraged, and then it lists words, deeds, and omissions of Pope Francis which make it clear beyond reasonable doubt that he wishes Catholics to interpret these passages in a way that is, in fact, heretical.”

[Emphasis in the original]

Lots of this has to do, I gather, with giving communion to the divorced and remarried, and beyond that I’m not prepared to go. We’ve discussed this at great length. Search for COMMUNION FOR THE REMARRIED in the search box above if you don’t already know what most of us think. It always leads to much heat and some hurt feelings, so let’s not overly rehash it still again.

The one count that Dr. Veith and I both found a bit amusing is that they are accusing him of being Lutheran, or at least under Luther’s influence. Part of the reason I find that a bit amusing is that so few Lutherans could actually be convicted of that. Dr. Veith adds this,

I tend to have sympathy with the conservative side of theological controversies, though not on this issue.  The sacrament is given specifically to sinners for the forgiveness of their sins (Matthew 26:28), and is not to be reserved only for those in a state of moral perfection. But that is one of the “Lutheran” teachings that Pope Francis has approximated and which the signers consider heretical.

But I still have sympathy for those who wrote and signed this letter.  Conservative Catholics, almost by definition, revere and obey the papacy.  To come to the conviction that the Pope is teaching heresy must be agonizing.

To believe that the Pope has violated the teachings of the Church Universal, that the papacy is not the protector of orthodoxy as has been assumed but a means of introducing innovative and problematic doctrines into the Church, can be a traumatic realization.  And to take a stand on this conviction shows great integrity and courage.

The signers may consider Luther to be a heretic.  But at least they know now how he felt.

Good thing it’s mostly bishops and academics signing this though. Henry VIII burned a few folks for that very thing, before he married one, of course. It was far from the longest marriage of his.

Indeed it must be a horrendous nightmare for any churchman to come to that feeling about any of his bishops, but the Pope! I don’t envy them, but I too admire them greatly. It must take great courage to put your name on that document.

They (whoever they may be) say that “May you live in interesting times” is a Chinese curse. I suspect we all understand why.