Tag Archives: Pope

Reformation Day, Millenarianism, and Saving the World

31 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by in Church/State, Faith

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Today is the 498th anniversary of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses on the door of All Saint’s Church in Wittenberg. It turned into a big deal, as we all know. But maybe the split of Protestant from Catholic wasn’t the biggest deal, insofar as our faith is concerned.

There’s a case to be made that the split between Luther and Zwingli is more important. For here is the real beginning of the split in the western church.

Firstly I doubt any will be surprised that I completely agree with what Chalcedon wrote yesterday in his post The Real Schism, I almost always agree with him. That said, perhaps we need to look deeper.

Lutherans (like Anglicans) believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist, in this we follow our Catholic brethren albeit we do phrase it somewhat differently. Yes, I do recognize that both churches have more or less split on this but that is what our doctrines say, and I would submit that the Catholic church has the same split although not mentioned aloud. why do I say this?

The Zwinglians believe not in the Real Presence but that the Eucharist is a remembrance. Seems minor, doesn’t it? It’s not.

Christ said clearly, “This is my body”. Seems sort of radical, how can God be bounded by something material like bread? That bothered Luther too, I suspect, leading to his formulation, “in, under, and around”. That says the same thing without imposing limits on God. In a sense, it’s a small point, but it leads to the point. if you had leprosy in Jesus’ time, you didn’t go out into nature and hug a tree to get cured, you went to Jesus, and his body.

That doesn’t contradict that God is everywhere, but the mystery of God-in-Flesh is that He came down to earth, where we are, “for us men and our salvation”.

When Jesus ascended into heaven, the Holy Spirit created the church. The church is the body of Christ. It is where we are baptized into His Body and commune with His body through the Eucharist.

God is everywhere, but outside His church, he is hidden in uncertainty, seen “through a glass darkly” as it were. We see him fully only through the Eucharist.

It’s pretty basic, but if Jesus is God-in-flesh for me, I am not. God is not me, I am not God. God is in me because He gave His body for me, even unto death. Three points here:

  1. He will always be outside me, not under my control.
  2. He will always be a gift, not something I imagine, but a gift of His own divine will. Grace, if you will.
  3. Administrating this gift will involve ordained things and people, water, bread, wine, clergy, and even formal words.

These implications horrified the ancient (and modern?) Gnostics. Why? Because this community created by and around the Eucharist created exactly the sort of political monstrosity that bound the Self. It, like other systems; marriage, family, and even the state, that thwart the unbound self.

If God can be separated from the Eucharist then man and God can proceed hand in hand doing great things, on their own terms. This is where the Millenarian cults come from.

These cults (usually of personality) were the first liberals, radicals, and progressives. Their paradigm was that If God transgressed the boundaries of Jesus (and the Sacrament), ti will also transgress the boundary between church and state. For those of us who are orthodox, the difference between God’s Kingdom and the kings of this world has always been clear. See also Luther’s two kingdoms, and every medieval altarpiece. It’s a very clear boundary.

When God is out of his containment in Christ and church, one gets a (un)Holy mess. One gets an ‘elect’ who believe they are God’s instrument to make His Kingdom on earth. The church becomes a political movement based on good deeds. Because the Holy Spirit worked directly in their hearts, they were to spearhead the new emerging age.

Churches that understand the Sacraments properly don’t ever believe they are “God’s hand in history” because they never confuse themselves with God. Their approach to God is prayer, not one of “how can I change the world”. That goes right back to understanding that one is not God, but God is in one.

The view is one that “views the world as a sinful place, rather than one to be molded into God’s kingdom on earth”.

Hegel was influenced by his Pietist upbringing. In true millenarian form, Hegel believed that “the heart, the sensitive spirituality of man…can and ought to take possession of the truth, and this subjectivity is that of all men.” He interpreted the Reformation in as wrong a fashion as could be imagined, believing that Luther had liberated minds from the tyranny of external ordering agents like the church. […]

Hegel explains from a philosophical perspective why an evangelical movement—which is to say millenarian, or Anabaptist, or Pietist movement—is “step one” in the gradual process toward a secular religion. It begins with the focus away from the external formalism of the church and its Sacrament toward internal psychological occurrences. From there, precisely because of the mechanisms Hegel identifies, evangelicalism tends to devolve into unitarian moralism and communitarianism. God leaks out of his containment in the church’s word and sacraments into my heart, and however I reconstitute him becomes a more “authentic” spirituality than what that fuddy duddy institutional church is telling me.

Much of this article is excepted from, and all quotes come from How Denying Christ’s Body And Blood Leads To Progressive Politics. I strongly recommend reading the full article.

To me, this brings us right back to the problem of our churches delegating part of our mission (Feed the hungry, …) to the state, and even more the problem of the Established Church which I spoke of here and here, in all its flavors.

We Will Always Have the Poor

20 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by in Faith

≈ 23 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

lordactonMark tells us that Jesus said, in chapter 14, 7 “For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.” And if that isn’t enough, our governments will redefine what it means to be poor to make sure enough remain so to justify the bureaucracy. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

Luckily for us the Pope wants to make sure, as well. Actually, that’s unfair because it’s not only the Pope, I’ve heard the same poppycock from the Anglicans, from many Lutherans, and most of the rest of the so-called Christian church. Recently, Pope Francis spoke at the World Meeting of Popular Movements, in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

Dylan Pahman had some thoughts on what he said, which I agree with.

Pope Francis boldly calls for “change, real change, structural change.” What change would Pope Francis like to see? He makes this clear: “It is an economy where human beings, in harmony with nature, structure the entire system of production and distribution in such a way that the abilities and needs of each individual find suitable expression in social life.” So far so good. Who doesn’t want that?

So what stands in the way, according to the pontiff?—“corporations, loan agencies, certain ‘free trade’ treaties, and the imposition of measures of ‘austerity’ which always tighten the belt of workers and the poor.” Really?

Business, credit, trade, and fiscal responsibility are marks of healthyeconomies, not the problem, popular as it may be to denounce them. Indeed, these are also marks of economies that effectively care for “Mother Earth,” whose plight the Pope claims “the most important [task] facing us today.” That’s right, more important than the plight of the poor, to His Holiness, is the plight of trees, water, and lower animals.

That moral confusion aside, is there any way we could study what policies correlate with the Pope’s laudable goals? As it turns out, there is. The United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) ranks countries based upon an aggregate rating of economic growth, care for the environment, and health and living conditions—precisely the measures the Pope seems to care most about. Yet of the top 20 countries on the most recent HDI ranking, 18 also rank as “free” or “mostly free” on the most recent Heritage Index of Economic Freedom.

The only two exceptions were Liechtenstein, which wasn’t ranked at all by Heritage, and France, which was ranked 20th of the 20 according to the HDI, and which once was far more economically free. The takeaway? Nearly all of the top countries that have the sort of economies the Pope wants are also characterized by fiscal responsibility, openness to trade, accessible credit, and generally business-friendly environments. That is, precisely the policies that the pope decries.

Now, it might be unfair of me to criticize Francis for not being an economist . . . or, for that matter, not even being familiar with the basic conditions of economic growth taught in any Econ 101 course. At least hedidn’t forget to mention Jesus. But it shouldn’t be controversial to say that he is still speaking outside of his competence and vocation. It is one thing to call attention to the moral roots of economic problems; it is another to pass judgment upon which prudential policies are the best means to moral ends.

Show Me the Way to Poverty – Online Library of Law & Liberty.

I mostly refrain from bashing the Pope on economics, for two reasons: Firstly: He’s a priest, a pastor, and I suspect a good one, that doesn’t require a good (or even indifferent) economic education. And Secondly: he’s from a part of the world where the writ of the law does not run, where like in Medieval France, the word of the King (despot, strongman, whatever) is the law, and economic freedom cannot exist without security of property, which if we are not careful, we in the United States and the United Kingdom may be about to learn, as our governments become increasingly unlawful.

In any case, Saint Pope John Paul II said in the 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus:

Can it perhaps be said that, after the failure of Communism, capitalism is the victorious social system, and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? Is this the model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World which are searching for the path to true economic and civil progress?

The answer is multi-faceted, but he cautiously answered yes, proposing that the free economy “ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World.” Far too many of these countries, including Latin America, are still waiting. And Pope Francis is increasingly part of the problem, not the solution.

Sabotage: The Christian Way

22 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by in Faith

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Persecuted-Middle-East-ChristiansThe author of this piece, Cultural Limits, is a friend of mine, and a co-author with me on The Conservative Citizen. She’s also as you’ll see both a serious Catholic and a well-trained singer. That makes her, to me at least, qualified to speak on music in church. Perhaps even better qualified than me! 🙂

In any case, I agree completely with her, whichever church we are speaking of. Here’s CL, from the DC Gazette

On Tuesday, the very day that the latest Pew Research survey came out that said Christianity is in decline in the United States, a certain pastor in a certain parish in a certain American Midwestern city known as the Rome of the West met with the choir director.  For the most part, he was very pleased.  However, there were some concerns.  His complaints: the choir sings too much choir stuff, too much Latin, too much of it is old, not enough modern pieces, the congregation sinks back to listen and then doesn’t have anything to do and doesn’t participate in other congregational singing, blah, blah, blah. (Never mind that half the people who come to that Mass do so to hear the choir sing all the old special stuff.  They tell us this.)

Earth to Monsignor: no Catholic congregation sings completely and you can’t make them…well, other than “Holy God We Praise Thy Name,” but we come out of the womb singing that.

On a not so heavy note, and perhaps a bit off-key as well, “Of course not, CL, if you want congregations to sing out, one goes to Anglican, Lutheran, or especially Methodist churches., It’s what we do best!”

In the Catholic Church, we call this affliction 70’s priests.  Most of them are good men who are good shepherds of their flocks, but they have a blind spot when it comes to Latin and REALLY good music at Mass as well as listening being a form of participation even when they are not speaking – and just because of the way Catholicism is, Mass is the center of public prayer, so this is a pretty hot topic.  In the time of the 70’s priests’ formation, the rebellion against “the establishment” and tradition was in full swing.  For whatever reason, they seem to think that to be relevant, music has to be fresh and new and constantly ephemeral.  Not that the traditional literature wasn’t ephemeral at one time, but only the cream of the crop survives.  (Music being something other than junk doesn’t seem to come into their consciousness.)

In the few days since that meeting between the choir director and Monsignor, who seems to forget that Latin is still the official language of the Church, the magnitude of the Pew Study sank in a bit (the one that pinned the Catholic Church as shriveling up), one millennial – the people we are assured are leaving the Church in droves – chimed in as to why.

  • The truth is, my relationship with you is still love-hate.

    • I love the theology, but I hate the expectations of pseudo piety.

    • Love the gospel, hate the patriotic moralism.

    • Love the Bible, hate the way it’s used.

    • Love Jesus, but hate what we’ve done with him.

    • Love worship, but hate Jesusy entertainment.

The piece is “Dear Church: An open letter from one of those millennials you can’t figure out.” It rambles and it does reflect the generation that hasn’t quite figured out that they’re not all that (and how the Church really uses the Bible, but that’s another matter), but there are insights there that the wider church, not just Catholicism, needs to know.  Basically, the young people can see through the bull$#@! of not being authentic and not teaching morality while living it at the same time, something they have in common with Mahatma Gandhi, actually.

The writer of that piece calls the entertainment aspect the bells and whistles, but it’s what he says farther down that’s more important.

Don’t expect a “worship style” to do your dirty work. Contemporary worship hasn’t worked. The longer we extend the life of this failed experiment, the more we see the results.

In my experience, contemporary worship brings in three groups. Baby boomers who are still stuck in their rebellion against the establishment, parents who mistakenly think that contemporary worship is the only way for their kids to connect to the church, and small percentage of young adults who haven’t left the church and haven’t known anything besides contemporary worship.

In modeling worship after commercial entertainment, you’ve compromised your identity, and we’re still not coming back.

And even if we did, would there be any church left? Would there be anything beyond the frills, the lights, the performance, the affected vocals? Would we still see a cross? Would we still find our place among the saints who have come before? Would we find reminders of our life-long need of grace?

Or would we have been hooked by something altogether different? Would we merely find your answer key for the great mystery of faith?

Answer key for the great mystery of faith….  Great line.  And the rock bands around the altar…uh, yeah.  There’s a reason traditional Mass is making a comeback in some places.

Using music as symbol of all that is wrong with religion and worship these days, as a classically trained, operatic soprano with over 30 years of training and experience whose choir was just told that we sing too many of the historic motets that I love so much (and too loudly, apparently, even if that church building was built before artificial amplification and it’s a professional challenge to be heard and understood without a microphone) this kid has a point.  All the “relevant” stuff comes off as fake, fluffy entertainment.  It’s not grounded, good, or lasting.  Not only that, it does not inspire to holiness, which is what the point of worship and religion should be – and that should be the same for any follower of Christ, not just Catholics.

She is very, very right here, I think. And here, too.

Another good piece on this same topic was published by Matt Walsh at The Blaze.

She ends this way, and I’ll let her here as well, for two reasons:

  1. I learned a long time ago that women like to have the last word, 🙂
  2. She is completely right!

And that’s how we ended up here. That’s it. That’s the problem. It’s plain as day, yet every time this conversation comes up,  we’re told that Christianity is declining because Christians are too religious, too bold, too outspoken, too moral, and too firm in their beliefs. That’s the conventional wisdom, but as we’ve seen a thousand times over, the conventional wisdom of an unwise society should never be taken seriously.

Read her whole article at The DC Gazette

The View From Across the Tiber

08 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Faith

≈ 50 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

looking-at-the-path-of-a-christian_tChalcedon’s article, here, struck a number of chords with me, and I thought maybe another perspective would be useful. His linked article on the liturgy from the forties and fifties just made me nod and go, “I thought he was talking about the Catholic Church, not my home church”. The order of worship hadn’t changed in at least one generation, the opening hymn was verse one of hymn #1 Holy, holy, holy, not that anybody got out the hymnal, we had all memorized it at our mother’s  (if not Grandma’s) knee, the Doxology was just that, The Doxology, and that’s all the program had to say about it. The program was one page of a folded letter size piece of paper. Given that this was back in the time of the one year Lectionary, I wouldn’t take a bet that the Preacher (and that is what he was called) didn’t read the one he had written 20 years before.

When he retired, we called one of those new-fangled pastors, and darned near had a mutiny when he substituted the Nicene Creed one Sunday for the Apostle’s Creed, I never even knew the Anthanasian Creed existed till I joined my church here. Now mind you this is the pastor that confirmed me, and on our class field trip, one of the people we met was a Rev. Wright in Chicago, you might have heard of him around 7 or so years ago. That’s the UCC, all things to all men, and that’s the Roman Catholic Church, The Anglican Communion (especially the Church of England, with the added fillip of being controlled by a mostly Godless Parliament, and the Lutheran church as well. It works (sort of) when there is good will on all sides  and that’s rare. When it doesn’t you get schism and sometimes religious wars.

By my count there are at least four churches calling themselves the Roman Catholic Church:

  1. There’s the hippy dippy, anything that makes you feel good church of Nancy Pelosi, ‘The Nuns the Bus’ and such.
  2. There is the church of the people who think every innovation is bad. this is our own QVO’s church and to a somewhat varying but lesser extent Servus, Chalcedon, and yes, me as well, although on the Lutheran side. We’re the people who think the word ‘novelty’ is a curse.
  3. Then there is the great middle ground, the great majority of whom may well be poorly catechized for one reason or another, or who are just too busy trying to make ends meet, working anything up to three jobs each, to really pay attention. This is, I suspect, most of the Catholic population world-wide. they know that Jesus died for them and is Risen, they likely pray, albeit informally, and let the rest go right over their head. But they try to do the right thing, and they are indisputably Christians. Some percentage of these (some reports say about 20%) actually regularly attend worship, Mass, whatever term you prefer. Another percentage are what Protestants call C&E Christians, which stands for Christmas and Easter, when they show up, and a lot never darken the door, but they claim some church or another. Actually, that is the majority in all our churches, I know them well, I was one of them most of my life.
  4. Then there is the bureaucratic church, the people who keep the light bill paid, St. Peter’s ceiling painted, the clergy on message, the cemetery mowed, and all the niggling little details that go into running the world’s largest organization. God bless them from the Curia right on down to the janitor at the soup kitchen, without them it would fall apart.

But where it all goes wrong for Rome (and to an extent Canterbury and Stockholm as well) is that we have one man, a Godly man, to be sure, but one lonely man sitting there, trying to control this stampede of millions around the world, and if that wasn’t enough, whatever the official doctrine says, you expect him to be infallible with the (unfriendly) press in the back of the plane.

And if that still isn’t enough, you expect him to be an economic genius, and expert on all the other religions of the world, and why they’re are wrong.

And then we Protestants chime in and expect him to function as the patriarch of the west, as well, simply because he can make himself heard over the world’s din.

The man born of woman has never yet been born in this world that can do this job. Maybe Jesus could but his team was often pretty fractious itself.

And maybe it worked better a thousand years ago simply because communication was slow and Rome far away. That where subsidiarity came from, few things went past the bishop at most because it simply took too long.

Lessons? Nope, not from me, I just want you to think before you yell, and pray for the Pope if any man needs all of our prayers, it’s him.