Posts Tagged “evangelism”

Why I’m Catholic (Reason 25)

Kenneth Hynek • 26th Jan 2010 • Religion, Catholicism, Religion, Christianity • , , , , , , , ,

From Dave Armstrong’s list:

has no way of settling doctrinal issues definitively. At best, the individual Protestant can only take a head count of how many Protestant scholars, commentators, etc. take such-and-such a view on Doctrine X, Y, or Z. There is no unified Protestant Tradition.

I’ve taken more than a bit of flack from a couple of atheists on recently over precisely this issue: that Christians — or, at least, Christians that these atheists have evidently observed and interacted with — can’t agree on various doctrinal issues…even basic ones like the , unfortunately!

(When you dismiss the Trinity as a mere “teaching of man,” you really have wandered too far into the wilderness of .)

Which, I suppose, goes to show that these atheists have principally debated Protestants, rather than Catholics.

But anyhow…the ability to resolve doctrinal disputes in a way that is both centralized and binding is one of the hidden strengths of , and is a powerful tool for and witness.

(I’ve been in debates where two or three Catholics have been able to mop up handily, against atheists and evangelicals alike*, simply because we were uniform in our arguments, despite having never met before.)

If you’re an atheist, you jump from evangelical to evangelical, asking for a theological opinion about a certain issue, and you can make quite the game (and no end of fun) of the myriad responses you receive. You can’t play that game with Catholics, typically.

And as an added bonus, Catholics — for the same reason as the above — don’t usually care if atheists try play that game with both Catholics and Protestants, nor are we likely to find it particularly convincing.

Because at that point, the atheists would basically be arguing against the validity of all fruit based on the difference(s) between apples and kumquats.

* * *

* of course, as someone once observed, what is an atheist except a fundamentalist Calvinist who has rejected all the usual Catholic trappings…and the remaining three as well (by which I mean: the Trinity)?

Two examples of how Calvinists couldn’t be more wrong

Kenneth Hynek • 14th Jul 2009 • Religion, Catholicism, Religion, Christianity, Religion, Protestantism, Religion, Theology • , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Mark Shea nails the first one, which I can likewise relate to:

Normal people do not pit against his good creatures this way. But (which Trent analyzed as a resurgent form of ) routinely does, at least in its anti-Catholic polemics. Of course, five centuries has done something to wear the edge of Calvinism into more demented hatred of creatures. Even the guy who wrote this would probably not slap his child if he sought comfort in the arms of his mother after a scraped knee or (like Calvin) have somebody flogged for praying at the grave of a loved one. Calvinists, after long exposure to normal human , have backed down on the creatures are absolutely worthless in providing help and comfort. They have figured out, at least on a day to day basis, that humans rightly seek help and comfort from creatures all the time. That’s why there aren’t any Calvinist Child Rearing Books urging parents to punish their children as godless infidels when they call for their mothers after a nightmare, or Calvinist counselors slapping grieving parents around for their sinfully misplaced love of their dead child or Calvinist marriage counselors urging couples to stop finding love and consolation in the idolatrous love of their spouses.

Instead, the Calvinist zealot now confines his denunciation of enjoyment, supplication, and love of creatures strictly and solely to those creatures who happen to be dead. That’s what that qualifier about the “spirit realm” is all about. My combox Calvinist knows, at some level, that it’s insane to shout “trust in God alone” to a child who wants his Mother. He senses at some level what non-insane people know: that one of the ways God mediates his love and help to us is through creatures like our mothers. So he doesn’t denounce people for honoring their mother or asking her help. But when it comes to the Mother of God, all the demented rhetoric comes out full throttle, even though it is no more crazy to ask for her help than it is to ask for the help of our earthly mother.

The other thing is something I’ve noticed. Calvinists have this thing about “planting seeds” (not that way, sicko), and I notice the phrase is used in many of the debates that take place in the Off-Topic Forum (and in the post-debate analysis conducted elsewhere). The dive-bombing evangelists come in, stir up anti-Christian vitriol with their whimsical, half-baked theological ramblings, and then — when , , and somewhat-more-sane Christians have dismantled their arguments and backed them into a corner — leave with a pithy comment about having planted seeds, and how the rest is in God’s hands.

This disgusts me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for . I’m just not for evangelism-as-a-means-of-damning-someone, which is why Calvinists mean (I think) with all this rhetoric about seed-planting. Banner images like this are not intended to actually compel people to seek salvation in ; they are made to use the reality of Christian as a weapon with which to sentence people to (or, at least, that is the intent with which they are used). The Calvinist believes that simply by yelling “ saves you, you damned rotten sinner,” at another person is a sufficient and fully legitimate mode of preaching the message of ; if the damned rotten sinner does not immediately go out and “get saved,” he deserves what he gets.

Of course, the person is vanishingly rare who will, upon hearing the above, go out and “get saved.” The Calvinist knows this, but spews forth his bilgewater preaching anyhow. The possibility that in so doing, said Calvinist is genuinely concerned for the salvation of the other is small, so small as to be non-existent against the statistical margin for error. The Calvinist can thus only be uttering his bilgewater preaching not to bring about the salvation of the other, but to ensure the damnation of the other (who, rightly, has indeed been informed of the truth).

Now, perhaps I am a Catholic pagan idolater infidel prostitute zealot, and a “Romanist” (17th century rhetorical polemics are just de rigeur, you see…) besides…but it seems to me that preaching to someone for the express purpose of ensuring his damnation is about as far removed from what is right, moral, and Christian as can be. Or nearly so.

Planting seeds from which can grow doesn’t mean spewing a venomous iteration of the message and then shrugging it off when nobody listens; it means preaching a message that actually speaks to others and encourages them to further explore a fledgling, nascent faith. It means teaching something which is true, and encouraging the other to seek after more and deeper truths from that starting point. Bellowing at someone that he’s a dirty rotten sinner destined for the Pit might make for good catharsis, but it’s actually counter-productive to spreading the Good News (actually, believe it or not, it makes the Good News sound like Bad News) and, moreover, sets up the one who bellows it out as a stumbling block in the other’s walk with Christ.

Jesus had something to say about stumbling blocks. It involved millstones.

Anyhow, it’s been a crazy day, and I haven’t had time to do much in the way of blogging, or to give complete and just answers to some threads in the CU. I’ll attempt to do so tomorrow, though I of course make no promises in this regard.

Not how I’d have chosen to spend Good Friday if I’d had the option…

Kenneth Hynek • 10th Apr 2009 • Religion, Catholicism, Religion, Christianity, Religion, Holy Days and Feast Days • , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

…but not a bad way to do so either. I wound up learning a fair bit more about Mormonism and the faith of those who call themselves Latter Day Saints, and even managed to have a quite polite discussion about principles of faith and particulars of Catholic teaching.

In a way, it was even somehow fitting to be defending the Church, and conveying with words the depth and meaning of the Eucharist, on the only day in the Catholic liturgical calendar on which Mass is hostless.

Not that I was able to make it to Mass, sadly. I suppose that’s the inherent danger of being a stranger in any land, even one so relatively close to home as Utah. So I contented myself with the observance of the meatless meal plan, and a bit of theological reading.

My co-worker, himself a Mormon, took me to see a couple of different sights, including “This is the Place,” a historical monument and park dedicated to the memory of the first LDS settlers to arrive in the valley now is the location of Salt Lake City. The second stop was, of course, Temple Square (which we had also visited the night before), the epicenter of Mormonism today.

I’ve never had a bad conversation with a Mormon; they are a uniquely pleasant lot, and the two young missionaries we met in a building called the Assembly Hall were no exception. They were of course happy to welcome a brother in faith (my co-worker), and engaged me in some pleasant Q&A about Catholicism and, in particular, the nature and source of my faith.

Which, of course, is a discussion that begins and ends with the Eucharist. But perhaps I shouldn’t get too far ahead of myself.

Mormons, especially the younger ones, have an admirable zeal for evangelism; would that Catholic youth were as strongly encouraged to be so open and so ready to try and spread the message of the true faith that is in the Church. And it was pretty apparent, after just a few minutes, that our two young hosts were trying to probe the limits of my faith.

I wasn’t really LOOKING to have a full-on debate, but I started drawing a few boundaries, and in particular began to focus on the Eucharist after one of the two missionaries drew a parallel between the symbolism of bread and water in the Mormon liturgy and the Catholic Communion.

And, to be fair, there is a large component of symbolism in the Eucharist. But there is also much more than just symbolism — there is Christ Himself, truly, literally, and substantially present in the consecrated bread and wine.

Which was my first objection in the debate. Our two hosts were focusing strongly on the “what if” aspect: “what if” the Book of Mormon is a new, truthful revelation from God? To which my first objection was: in the Eucharist, I already have the fullness of Christ and, as such, the literal entirety of the Word present before me; what other revelation can exceed or add to the totality of Christ?

The granularity of the discussion increased from there, and eventually came to what my co-worker had, the night before, identified as the crucial point of contention between Mormonism and mainstream Christianity. Under Mormon teaching, a great apostasy occurred about the same time that the last of the original Apostles died. Their contention is that, essentially, the transference of authority from Peter to Linus was an apostasy thad led, by measures, to the corruption of the original Gospel by the hand of man, because the selection of Linus was not made by a quorum of the twelve Apostles.

Of course, there’s a problem there, which I noted to our hosts: while Acts does tell of what is essentially the first church council, no book of the Bible that I can think of speaks of the necessity of a vote to approve leaders of any kind within the Church. Granted, that is the practice that now exists, and this has evolved gradually out of Sacred Tradition. But a quorum is, to my knowledge, nowhere mentioned in Scripture at all, let alone in such a way that would make Linus into an apostate.

More to the point, one notes that Christ Himself didn’t exactly put it to the other Apostles when he appointed Peter to be the rock upon which the Church was to be built. That promise of Christ’s is especially relevant here, because it includes the declaration that against the Church that proceeds from Peter, even the gates of Hell itself will not prevail.

If Hell’s own gates are powerless against the Church, how then can mere man prevail against it so as to effect a Scripture-corrupting apostasy which God then waited 1700 years (if not more) to correct?

To be fair to these two young Mormons, they weren’t really there in the Assembly Hall to tackle issues of deep theology. They didn’t have a direct answer for me on the above point, and returned to asking me about the possibility that the Book of Mormon might also be true.

Which, in it’s own roundabout way, brings us back to the Eucharist.

Because really, if the Eucharist is true, and truly Christ’s Real Presence, then there’s no need for the additional revelation of the Book of Mormon, even if it is true. In the Eucharist, there is nothing less than Christ Himself; nothing can exceed that, and nothing need be added to it. Catholics don’t call it the source and summit of their faith for no good reason!

As the conversation wound down, our two young hosts handed me dome pamphlets, and gave me a handful of readings to look up in the Book of Mormon. One of them, a missionary from England (Wales, actually), suggested that it might be possible for me to accept both the truth of the Church and the Eucharist, and also accept the validity of the Book of Mormon.

See what I mean about that zeal for evangelism?

Of course, the attempt to build a bridge didn’t exactly work; it isn’t theologically possible for both the Book of Mormon and the Eucharist to be true at the same time.

But perhaps the reasons why that is true are best left for another blog post.

So anyway, yes: hardly a traditional way to observe Good Friday. One might even say that it was not an optimal way to spend the day. But to be fair, it was impressive and a blessing to be reminded of the centrality of the Eucharist in my faith, and to remember again that everything else — Sacred Tradition, Apostolic authority, and even Scripture itself — proceeds from it.

Because it is Christ, whose sacrifice and death for our salvation from sin and death we mark today.

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Conversation with a Young Earth Creationist – part 2

Kenneth Hynek • 16th Sep 2008 • Religion, Catholicism, History, Religion, Religion, Theology • , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

As the Reader may recall from last time, what had begun as a conversation about dinosaurs and whether or not they were mentioned in took a very wrong turn; the Young Earth Creationist with whom I was debating the point shifted gears and began to attack me on the basis of my . I wish I could say that I was successful in returning us to the topic at hand, but as the following exchange demonstrates, I was anything but successful.

* * *

Me (from last time): As to the issue of the Pope, and my support for him meaning that I deny : how, exactly, is that the case? You claim that the Pope is not a Christian, that he is a liar and an idolater. You are engaging in an ad hominem attack here, which is typically indicative of a poor argument that you are attempting to hide behing a wall of insults.

But also…where is your evidence in support of these wild assertions? I hope you’re not going to throw some in my face here; Chick is not a credible source.

As to your assertion that the belief that we are not supposed to refrain from is not supported by Scripture: what the heck is talking about in 1 Corinthians 7, then?

Look, I actually like you — you’ve got spirit. I think, along the way, you’ve been brought into a goodly number of falsehoods and untruths, perhaps by well-meaning people or perhaps by people who don’t mean very well at all (don’t know ‘em, can’t say). Be that as it may; I like your passion for — it’s a commendable trait. But why do you mar it so, with these lies you tell? You do not even know Scripture well enough to know that is a Biblical teaching, and a condition of being highly praised by Paul.

Young Earth Creationist: Here are some examples of that un-Biblical thinking. Perhaps, rather than criticize others for using Scripture, you should worry about the unbiblical and even wicked past history of the popes.

Pope Gregory VII (1073-85): “The pope cannot make a mistake.”

Pope Paschal II: (1099-1118 ): “Whoever does not agree with the Apostolic See is without doubt a heretic.”

Pope Innocent IV (1243-54): described himself as “the bodily presence of Christ.” (presumably by a kind of at his election)

Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303): “Every human being must do as the pope tells him.”

“It is necessary to salvation that every man should submit to the Pope.” (Boniface VIII Unum Sanctum, 1303.)

Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903): “We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty.” PRAECLARA GRATULATIONIS PUBLICAE, (Encyclical Letter, June 20, 1894 p.304)

Pope Pius XI stated on April 30, 1922: “You know that I am the Holy Father, the representative of God on earth, the Vicar of Christ, which means that I am God on the earth.” (Revelation Four Views, A parallel Commentary, P 288 Edited by Steve Gree, Published by Nelson Publishers)

“God himself is obliged to abide by the judgment of His priests, and either not to pardon or to pardon, according as they refuse or give absolution…The sentence of the priest precedes, and God ascribes to it.” (Dignities and Duties of the Priest, Vol 12 Pg. 27)

“The Pope has the power to change times, to abrogate Laws, and to dispense with all things, even the precepts Of Christ.” (Decretal De Translat, Episcopal Cap)

Me: I appreciate the out-of-context quotes, but did you think I’d fail to notice that you just copy-and-pasted from an anti-Catholic resource? Not exactly original, nor very honest. Do be careful of such websites, as well; where Catholicism is concerned, their attitude is far from Christian, which is a pity.

More to the point, though: the above is not nearly so unbiblical as you think.

Okay, where to start? First, after half an hour on Google, I can’t find any official source for the above statement attributed to (the only known quotation from a “Catholic” source is from The Benedictine Network:link-icon:1). Indeed, the majority of sites I can find that quote this statement are anti-Catholic sites. Now, I don’t necessarily doubt that the quote is legitimate, but I might point out that in the finest tradition of Uncle Screwtape, the problem is not that the quote itself is a lie. The problem is that the quote hides a lie behind a truth by betraying a probable context.

Popes rarely say anything with brevity, especially when making official statements. This would certainly have been true of Pope Gregory VII, given that he presided over a rather hectic time in ‘s history — when dealing with heretics and anti-Popes, one should speak clearly and with detail. Which means that the quote above almost certainly has been excerpted from a larger document, and has probably been taken out of context.

What do I mean by that?

Consider this article for a moment. In the middle of it, this passage appears: “This does not mean that the Pope cannot make a mistake or commit a sin or that he can teach on any subject which strikes his fancy or that he is inspired by God. It does mean that under certain conditions the Pope is preserved from error…” It would be easy enough to pick out “the Pope cannot make a mistake” from that statement and cite it as “proof” of something, but of course to do so would betray context horribly, and would in fact completely reverse the meaning of the statement. And therein is the lie behind the truth.

Is that what has happened here? Hard to say — where is the source text from which this quote was excerpted?

It should also be noted that Gregory VII was something of an early reformer in the Church. He decreed, among other things, that clerics who had obtained any grade or office of sacred orders by payment should cease to minister in the Church, that no one who had purchased any church should retain it, and that no one for the future should be permitted to buy or sell ecclesiastical rights, that all who were guilty of incontinence should cease to exercise their sacred ministry, and that the people should reject the ministrations of clerics who failed to obey these injunctions.

Let’s move on to the next quote, attributed to . The problem that most non-Catholics have with this statement (it is true) is that they don’t understand what is. Only a baptized Catholic can be a Catholic heretic, because a heretic is one who rejects a core teaching of his or her religious denomination. To flip it around, I — being Catholic — am not a heretic to , because I have never been a Muslim. Obviously, I disagree with many core teachings of Islam, but since I was never a Muslim, my disagreements are not heresies in their own right.

Now, it might also do well to point out that Paschal II also presided over some rather troublesome times in the Church’s history; when dealing with severe problems in times when tensions are running high enough to lead to bloodshed, one needs to take a hard line…the same way a parent with squabbling children needs to be somewhat more of an absolutist than a parent with children who are playing together agreeably.

The point is, it’s not actually un-Biblical to say that someone who disagrees with a doctrine is a heretic. It’s simply a proper understanding and use of the term. And to speak in such a truthful manner is, I think, rather Biblical…wouldn’t the Reader agree?

Now, as to the quote from , I again cannot find a source for this statement apart from (not a trustworthy source, see 1) and several anti-Catholic sites. It is possible that there is some confusion here between the Catholic notion of alter Christus and what Innocent IV said, but absent the official source document for this statement, there is little to go on.

It is telling, though, that only those who already dispute the authority of the Pope are the only source for this statement, and in much the same way as the first quoted statement, one suspects that the real truth of the statement hides a sinister lie.

Now, the quote from is the first example of a statement which has more evidence for it. The source of this statement is a , Unam Sanctam:link-icon:, which was a statement on papal supremacy.

“The Bull lays down dogmatic propositions on the unity of the Church, the necessity of belonging to it for eternal , the position of the pope as supreme head of the Church, and the duty thence arising of submission to the pope in order to belong to the Church and thus to attain salvation. The pope further emphasizes the higher position of the spiritual in comparison with the secular order. From these premises he then draws conclusions concerning the relation between the spiritual power of the Church and secular authority. The main propositions of the Bull are the following: First, the unity of the Church and its necessity for salvation are declared and established by various passages from and by reference to the one Ark of the Flood, and to the seamless garment of Christ. The pope then affirms that, as the unity of the body of the Church so is the unity of its head established in Peter and his successors. Consequently, all who wish to belong to the fold of Christ are placed under the dominion of Peter and his successors. When, therefore, the Greeks and others say they are not subject to the authority of Peter and his successors, they thus acknowledge that they do not belong to Christ’s sheep. “

Now, how unbiblical does that sound? There is some expansion available on the above statement; let’s take a look at it:

“- Under the control of the Church are two swords, that is two powers, the expression referring to the medieval theory of the two swords, the spiritual and the secular. This is substantiated by the customary reference to the swords of the Apostles at the arrest of Christ (Luke 22:38; Matthew 26:52).

- Both swords are in the power of the Church; the spiritual is wielded in the Church by the hand of the clergy; the secular is to be employed for the Church by the hand of the civil authority, but under the direction of the spiritual power.

- The one sword must be subordinate to the other: the earthly power must submit to the spiritual authority, as this has precedence of the secular on account of its greatness and sublimity; for the spiritual power has the right to establish and guide the secular power, and also to judge it when it does not act rightly. When, however, the earthly power goes astray, it is judged by the spiritual power; a lower spiritual power is judged by a higher, the highest spiritual power is judged by .

- This authority, although granted to man, and exercised by man, is not a human authority, but rather a Divine one, granted to Peter by Divine commission and confirmed in him and his successors. Consequently, whoever opposes this power ordained of God opposes the law of God and seems, like a Manichaean, to accept two principles.”

The declaration, then, that it is necessary for salvation to be subject to the Roman pontiff stems from the belief that the authority given to Peter was of divine origin, and that this divine authority is conferred on each successor to Peter as the head of the Church. To stand in opposition to this is to stand in opposition of the divine mandate imposed by Christ, and in a sense is to put worldly concerns over the concerns of faith2.

Is this un-Biblical teaching? was the rock on which Christ founded the Church, the Church that the gates of hell cannot prevail against. Christ commissioned Peter to feed His lambs, tend His flock, and feed His sheep. Catholicism follows in apostolic succession (see: the ) from Peter, and the Catholic pontiff is charged with no less a responsibility than was Peter. How can this be disputed, without disputing the very commission Christ gave to Peter, and thus disputing the Bible itself?3

Now, let’s look at the quote from . Here again we see that Uncle Screwtape is at work, for this is indeed a most grevious example of ripping a quote clean out of its context and turning a truth into a vehicle for a lie.

Here is the complete text:link-icon: of (The Reunion of Christendom), one of many encyclical letters published by Pope Leo XIII. And here is the proper context of the quoted text above:

“A great deal, however, has been wanting to the entire fullness of that consolation. Amidst these very manifestations of public joy and Reverence Our thoughts went out towards the immense multitude of those who are strangers to the gladness that filled all Catholic hearts: some because they lie in absolute ignorance of the Gospel; others because they dissent from the Catholic belief, though they bear the name of Christians.

This thought has been, and is, a source of deep concern to Us; for it is impossible to think of such a large portion of mankind deviating, as it were, from the right path, as they move away from Us, and not experience a sentiment of innermost grief.

But since We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty, Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth, and now that Our advanced age and the bitterness of anxious cares urge Us on towards the end common to every mortal, We feel drawn to follow the example of Our Redeemer and Master, Jesus Christ, Who, when about to return to Heaven, implored of God, His Father, in earnest Prayer, that His Disciples and followers should be of one mind and of one heart: I pray . . . that they all may be one, as Thou Father in Me, and I in Thee: that they also may be one in Us. And as this Divine Prayer and Supplication does not include only the souls who then believed in Jesus Christ, but also every one of those who were henceforth to believe in Him, this Prayer holds out to Us no indifferent reason for confidently expressing Our hopes, and for making all possible endeavors in order that the men of every race and clime should be called and moved to embrace the Unity of Divine Faith.”

The statement “we hold upon this Earth the place of God Almighty” is a confession of the Church’s mission to spread the Gospel and Truth of Christ, its mandate of , and its desire that all might come to know Christ and be saved through Him. It is not a statement declaring that the Church usurps the authority of Christ, but rather an acknowledgement that, as humanity was made stewards of Creation, so too has the Church been made the steward of Christ’s Truth and Word in the world. Her mission is to see that all might be saved and know whatsoever is True, and her desire is unity with all her fellow Christians in Christ Jesus, to be an unblemished bride and a seamless cloak for the Lord.

The quote from is highly dubious; the only recorded source for it that I can find online is the website of “a former Catholic priest” who is now an ardent anti-Papist. Such entities are a dime a dozen on the , and I note that this one does not cite any sources for his wild claims about what various Popes have taught.

To be fair, the first three parts of the statement are all true — it is only the conclusion which is false. Of course, to this, we must ask whether this statement was uttered infallibly or not; if not, it is of no particular concern: the Pope is not immune from error in his normal speaking, nor even in his encyclicals (which are not statements of doctrine).

And that a human can be in error is not un-Biblical — indeed, it is a part of the reason the Bible exists!

As to the quote which reads, “God himself is obliged to abide by the judgment of His priests, and either not to pardon or to pardon, according as they refuse or give absolution…The sentence of the priest precedes, and God ascribes to it,” I think the best way to respond to this would be to turn to Scripture.

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of , and whatever you bind on shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Christ gave His authority to the disciples, who have passed that authority on to their successors through the tradition of apostolic succession. The above teachings are actually very Biblical, especially in light of a certain teaching in John 20:

[21] Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.”
[22] And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
[23] If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Here, Christ is explicitly commissioning his apostles (and, by extension, those who follow in the authority of the apostles) to forgive sin (by the power of Christ), and to lead His Church on Earth. If the apostles retain any sin of any person, Christ obligated Himself to consider that sin retained, because it is by His power that the sin is retained. Likewise, if the apostles forgive the sin of any person, Christ obligated Himself to consider that sin forgiven, because it is by His power that it is forgiven. On this verse rests the entire doctrine of the Sacrament of (or, as it is more commonly called, ). And from this same statement, the Church derives her authority, for it is an authority which Christ gave to her.

It is odd that supposedly biblical Christians fail to notice that the parallelism of the first sentence in the supposedly un-Biblical quote follows — directly — the parallelism of Christ’s own teaching. The concept itself is Biblical, and in this case the speaker made it really easy to pinpoint the exact Scriptural origin for the teaching. But evidently, some people are too blinded in their hatred to remember the truth.

Now, the last quote, ostensibly from something called Decretal De Translat, is one I’ve seen thrown around a fair bit in the past, and I note that — again — the only online mentions of “Decretal De Translat” that I can find are from anti-Catholic sites. I cannot find the source document itself in any form, and so cannot adequately analyze the context of the quote. This should give the Reader pause, of course, as to the validity of the statement as a condemnation of Catholicism as un-Biblical.

Of course, it’s also probable that the author of this statement was simply in error; the above is certainly not a statement of Catholic doctrine, and so is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not Catholicism is un-Biblical.

So let’s review: of the few statements above which can even be verified, none express opinions which are ultimately against what is taught in the Bible. And yet, you present them as though they were evidence of exactly that, and so express something which is patently false. Don’t you grow tired of telling lies at any point?

* * *

1) the Benedictine Network is a group of Catholics who identify as neither orthodox, Western, or Eastern. They don’t exactly seem to be fully faithful Catholics (having penned articles like “Zen Christ:link-icon:”) and I wonder at whether they are in full communion with . And they actually have a bit of an anti-Papist streak of their own; they take some issue with the Church’s structured authority.

What an interesting development this is! So desperate are some evangelical Christians to condemn Catholics that they would turn to the documents of liberal-minded, “ecumenical” Catholics to find statements. One wonders when will be cited to likewise further the cause of their misguided arguments??

2) Now isn’t that almost the most concise history of the Reformation ever written?

3) And one notes that many evangelicals do exactly this, turning to arguments which dispute the authority given to Peter in plain contradiction of Scripture. Even the watcher is not innocent in this regard.

Reader Mail: Atheism vs Christiantiy

Kenneth Hynek • 15th Apr 2008 • Religion, Atheism, Religion, Catholicism, Religion, Islam, Politics, Reader Mail, Religion • , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

joel writes in with a comment about this article (or, at least, that is the article I presume he is responding to).

As an atheist, I’ve noticed that, yes, does come under more attack than other s (at least in the U.S.)

There’s a couple reasons for that, though:

  1. In the U.S., Christianity is the biggest kid on the block. The biggest kid is always the biggest target.
  2. Christianity also likes to throw its weight around in . Intentional or not, its the christian worldview that has the strongest influence on our policies. Its actions in that realm make it a target, because its actions affect us all. simply doesn’t have that kind of power.
  3. Christianity is, as best I can tell, the only proselytizing religion in the US (that we don’t consider a cult). So, even walking down the street, or at our homes, it can intrude. Again making it a target.

You might argue that #1 and #3 are not fair (I think a case can be made on either side), but #2 is a real issue.

-j

In truth, O Reader, I would not argue as joel indicates. None of his points are particularly unfair, but all of them miss the point…so spectacularly, in some cases, that they seem almost specious.

The Biggest Kid?

To be sure, argument #1 is spurious, and meaningless in light of the other two points that joel makes above. Were we discussing, say, why most computer viruses seem to be targeted at Windows, it would be a valid argument — has most of the market share, and so is a natural target for people looking to cause a little chaos; were most viruses targeted at , the amount of chaos caused would be minimal indeed. And virus-makers are looking to cause chaos. Were we discussing the dynamics of the schoolyard (a slightly more apt example, although still not accurate enough to suit our needs in this analysis), however, we would observe that very often it is not the biggest kid who is the “biggest” target (biggest, in this latter sense, taken to mean “most often targeted,” essentially).

One tries, honestly, to limit one’s quantity of jokes about n myopia, but in this case a remark along those lines cannot be avoided. It is true that in the U.S., Christianity is the biggest kid on the block — that is safely beyond dispute. But of course, the world is much bigger than just America, and globally the “biggest kid” is probably (in fact, I seem to recall some trumpeting in the media, recently, about an admission by a official along these very lines).

So really, if the preferential targeting of Christianity by atheist apologetics has anything to do with the biggest kid on the block, then atheist apologists need to give their heads a shake and realize that Islam is the biggest kid (in terms of raw numbers). Yes, this may not be true in any individual Western country, most of which are derived from a Christian heritage. And perhaps that should be telling — in countries which are predominantly Muslim, one is substantially more at risk of losing one’s life for one’s atheism, after all. Perhaps joel can be forgiven for his myopia

Which is all to say nothing at all about the fact the West, by and large, ticks along on reserves of Catholic/Christian moral capital, and that it is this moral capital in Western culture that enabled an atmosphere of open inquiry — which in turn allowed atheism to flourish — to emerge at all.

And finally, as mentioned before, joel‘s first argument is invalidated by his other two arguments. That is not to say that the other two arguments do not capture aspects of what Christians in America (and elsewhere in the world) do; it is to say, however, that Christians are hardly the only ones, and it is to say that Christians do not present a sufficient danger in their attempts to justify the level of opposition that atheists bring against them. Islam is every bit as active, and in many cases more insidious, in attempting to work its way into the political fabric of Western nations — even the US — and the implications of its successes in this regard are much more dire than the imagined evils of an imaginary Christian theocracy.

Religiosity exists outside American borders, and yet pretty much everywhere one goes in the world, one can find atheists who are primarily opposed to Christianity. This is even the case in , in spite of the fact that English Christianity is rather subdued and not particularly involved in the day-to-day politics of the land (despite the fact that is the state religion of ; America has no official state religion). By contrast, Islam is surging in Britain, with no-go areas for non-Muslims, cousin marriage, and arranged/forced marriage of schoolgirls becoming more and more commonplace each year.

Throwing its weight around

Argument #2, joel asserts, is a “real issue.” On the face of it, I don’t see what he’s getting at in regard to Christianity. Having just pointed out that Christianity is the “biggest kid” in the American philosophical playground (and, indeed, the “biggest kid” in terms of population — most Americans are Christians of one variety or another) am I right to assume that he is then complaining that Christianity is too involved in the American political scene?

What a strange concept, O Reader: that a nation where a majority of people are Christian would have a political scene in which Christianity is a concept that appears from time to time. How very unheard of! Then again, perhaps I am being sardonic.

One wonders exactly what joel is suggesting here. Is he implying that only persons of a secular bent should be allowed into the American government? Is he implying, perhaps, that persons elected to government office in America should leave their religious convictions at the door (even though, for many religious people, their religion is the first and foremost consideration in their lives)? Is he say that he personally finds it odd/unacceptable that a religious philosophy held by approximately 80% (maybe a little less) of the American population occasionally appears, in mild ways, in the political discource of an elected, supposedly representative government?

Curious.

Additionally, joel gets a bit intellectually dishonest when he attempts to note that other religions don’t have the kind of power that Christians do. He cites, by way of example, Hinduism. And he’s right in a sense: Hindus don’t really have that much power in the American government. But joel is being myopic again — were we to travel to, say, India, we would observe that Hindus have quite a lot of power in government.

Moreover, Islam is making numerous inroads into the political scene in America, including openly violating the concept of separation of church and state that many Americans, secular and religious alike, uphold and value*.

And while the involvement of Islam in American politics has not yet reached an equivalent level to that of Christianity’s involvement, numerical quantity is not the sole consideration (although I realize that for many atheists, quantity — i.e. empirical measure — is all there is to go on). The quality of the interference has to be examined.

Setting aside obvious straw men (i.e. , the legacy of , and the Westboro nutters), the average Christian in America is, typically, fairly devoted to his/her family and country; most American Christians love America and what it stands for. They might have their reservations about some things (evolution, the military, capitalism) but they will tend, by and large, to abide by American ideals. If they run for election, almost all of them do so not because they desire to impose their Christian values on the rest of the nation (although in most cases, such an imposition wouldn’t hurt America at all), but because they want to serve their country, the same as most secular politicians would.

And yes, the fact that Christians get elected to political office in America does mean that American politics take on a Christian character of sorts. But that is something not only to be expected — that is something to be praised, in a certain sense, because it confirms that the government is at least somewhat “representative” of the people it governs. There shouldn’t be a dichotomy between the ideals of government representatives and the people they represent. And at any rate, the occasional debate about / in schools nonwithstanding, the “quality” of Chrisitian involvement in government is benign; they’re not there to see about imposing a theocracy or rounding up and shooting all the s.

joel‘s intellectual dishonesty, then, is his refusal to consider Islam, or even mention it by way of example, and his attempt to sidestep the issue by instead mentioning Hinduism.

The fact of the matter is, Islam is becoming more and more involved in the political scene in many Western nations, including America, and the tone of the political discourse is beyone merely worrisome. When the states, bald-facedly, that sharia is unavoidable in England, when a Canadian government agency apparently has ties to Islamist elements in Canadian society, when sharia banking begins to emerge at even mainstream banks, when incidences of violent rape attacks in communities rise in lockstep with an increase in Islamic immigrants living in the same community, and when honour killings happen in places like Lewisville, and atheists are still wasting their breath decrying the subversive Christian element in American politics, I call shennanigans.

(Indeed, the only active theocracies I can think of in the world today are Islamic, and Muslim nations are about the only places in the world I can think of where homosexuality is a crime punishable by death.)

Were atheists even remotely serious about standing up in opposition to the threat that religion poses in their view, they would be all over Islam like a dirt on a mud wrestler. That they are not, with the occasional exception of Christopher Hitchens (not exactly the best or most authorative voice out there) suggests that they are afflicted with either monumental ignorance or willful blindness (or else that they are cowards hiding in fear of a fatwa).

Who proselytizes?

In argument #3, the full magnitude of joel‘s intellectual dishonesty is made its most apparent. That is not to deny that Christians do not engage in . But then, so do atheists. So do s. So do Jehovah’s Witnesseses. joel makes exemption for religions that could be considered “cults,” which is an interesting bit of sleight-of-hand, given that I think the most active proselytizers are said “cults” (i.e. Mormons, Jehovahs, and the like) as opposed to mainstream Christian denominations. joel hasn’t quite said “Excluding Republicans, Democrats are the most hawkish of Americans,” but he has come close to doing so, and his statement is similarly misleading because of it.

And in fact, his statement is false (tautology is a wonderful thing). joel observes that, as far as he can tell, Christianity is “the only proselytizing religion in the US” that isn’t considered a cult. That would probably come as more than a bit of a surprise to the Muslims of America, many of whom engage in far more aggressive proselytism than their Christian counterparts. One cannot fail to note, for example, that Islam is the fastest growing religion among American prisoners; it would be the height of reckless ignorance to assume that similar conversion trends did not exist in the non-incarcerated portion of the American population. Islam is also the fastest-growing religion in .

Within my own lifetime, assuming trends do not shift dramatically, France will become a nation in which Islam is the religion of a majority of the population. joel objects to Christianity being a philosophy present in American politics, because within that governmental realm “its actions affect us all.” Myopic as ever, joel seems to spare no thought at all for how we all may be affected by the prospect of nuclear power France slowly and inexorably becoming the Islamic Republic of France.

Now, perhaps the likes of and have it exactly right — maybe Christianity is the threat after all. If so, I don’t see it. Maybe I’m just blinded by my own stake in the Christian . Somehow, though, I very much doubt it. Taking even one example, were I an avant-garde artist presenting my “Piss Kaaba Key” in a public forum, I’d be scared witless for fear of getting the Theo van Gogh treatment. Were I instead the artist presenting “Piss Christ,” I would have no analogous fear, except perhaps the fear that people would exercise in droves their right to not attend my art show.

Any reasonable, rational person should be able to discern where the real problem is to be found. That so many supposed rationalists choose instead to focus on a non-problem is curious, and also telling.

* * *

* even I value the concept for its original intent, which was to forbid the state from explicitly establishing any one church as “the official” church of the state (i.e. Anglicanism in Britain). I don’t value the concept for the ways it has been used to muzzle religious expression, however.