I’m slowly becoming catholic

April 30, 2007, 3:35 pm; posted by
Filed under Articles, Mike J  | 10 Comments

Not Roman Catholic, mind you. Just small-c catholic.

Catholicity has to do with understanding the church as universal, as full and complete. In a catholic vision, there are not multiple churches with which we may choose to cast our lots — there is one and only one church, fully God’s. While other churches may imitate and even reflect the light from the true church, there remains only one church.

So growing up, like most evangelicals, I was not catholic. I hoped people would join a church, not the church. I didn’t understand the full unity of the church as a goal worth pursuing — I mean, sure, it would be nice, I suppose, but it was not worth the expenditure of effort the ecumenical movement put into it. Now I’m a Baptist minister, among the group perhaps least concerned or committed to catholicity in the whole Christian spectrum.

But I find myself re-thinking catholicity.

I’m becoming catholic because of how tightly consumerism and denominationalism have become bound in our culture. Denominations (and now, frequently, congregations within denominations) have become brands competing for human souls. Don’t like the worship at my church? Go down the street, you’ll find one there more to your liking. If you don’t like that, if you like “smells and bells,” go visit the Episcopalians. If you like raising your hands, go visit the Pentecostals. Eventually, just like we all settle on a brand of deodorant we like, we all can have a church we like too.

I’m becoming catholic because I don’t know if we’ve ever considered how much this harms the gospel. When the church plays by a consumerist model like this one, the results are every bit as serious as heresy.

Why do I say this? Because the moral force of the church depends on beings something more than a spiritual Wal*Mart. Our ability to demonstrate and decry the dehumanizing effects of consumerism depends on our willingness to play by a different model.

Think of it this way: when have you grown the most spiritually? Likely it was during a moment of crisis, when you were forced to think differently about yourself than ever before. For some people, that comes during a life transition: the death of a parent leaves you next in line for the grave. The birth of a child makes you realize a spiritual responsibility for the next generation.

For other people, though, we are forced to think differently when we meet a challenging idea. I had a huge spiritual growth spurt when a mentor in seminary told me she had always considered me a very spiritual person. I was working so hard, desperate to prove myself an academic, and she saw a side of me that I never saw before. I didn’t want to see it at first but now it deeply shapes how I see myself.

We all run into these sorts of challenges — when an unfamiliar hymn is sung; when a preacher is more conservative or more liberal than we are used to; when a service does not seem Holy Spirit-anointed to our way of thinking and yet lays claim to God’s Spirit being there. In all of these times, our consumerist mindset tells us we need to go seek a new brand of worship, because this one is no longer satisfying.

Of course the reality is that spiritual growth only comes when we stay in those situations instead of running away. Spiritual growth depends on getting past the “fight or flight” reflex and dealing constructively with issues that confront us. This does not mean we are relativistic — on the contrary, when we rub up against differences, we find out who we really are and we begin to articulate it with conviction and depth.

Catholicity in this context is a virtue. Because it terrifies us, yet re-assures us, with the news that there is nowhere else to run. You cannot take the spiritually perilous step of looking for another church, because there is only the church. You cannot run away to find a more suitable brand, because there is only one brand, the Church.

We can question what form of catholicity is most authentic to the gospel. I do not believe that it means we all must become one church institutionally, or that it demands a rigid top-down hierarchy. This is why I’m still a Baptist and not a (Roman) Catholic.

Yet Protestants have to be more serious about thinking creatively about catholicity. What does an authentically catholic church look like? If not institutionally (as in Rome), what? How can our churches be more welcoming and hospitable to the idea of catholicity? How can we better work in concert with other churches, even churches with which we may disagree on important issues? These questions are especially important to free-church evangelicals; for one thing, it is our tradition that needs a heavy dose of catholicity, and for another, our way of thinking is so dominant in Western Christianity that for us to ignore the virtue of catholicity has major consequences.


Comments

10 Comments to “I’m slowly becoming catholic”

  1. Job on April 30th, 2007 10:51 pm

    If all the wheat in the world were grown in one giant field it would be
    A.) hard to distribute
    B.) more prone to catastrophic disease, fire, famine etc
    C.) would tire the soil out

    But the Spirit, as rain, falls on fields in every corner of the Earth and we grow. My allegiance is always to Christ and I’m small-c catholic in that sense too…but we must all agree that Christ’s name has often been mixed in with poison and discernment employed to separate the wheat from the chaff is a practice much endorsed by Paul, Peter and James. I think the catholic idea is one born post-apostles.

  2. Steve on April 30th, 2007 11:09 pm

    Well…only because the apostles STARTED all the churches that existed back then. You didn’t have to convince anyone of the importance of unity when they could all trace their salvation to one of the same thirty guys who knew Jesus in the flesh. Separating wheat from chaff, Job, is a metaphor best used for full-on false teaching, Koresh-style, not the way you baptize, take Communion, or worship.

  3. Job Tate on April 30th, 2007 11:48 pm

    Well let’s not bring Rome into this again…

  4. Marcus on May 1st, 2007 12:26 am

    I enjoyed this post, in part, because that terror-through-confronting-other-viewpoints is very compelling for me. I did not know, going into this Roman Church, that there were free-willers and compatibilists and mystics and married (Byzantine rite) priests and you-name-it. As one friend likes to remind me, we have “very wide tent poles.” Just this evening I had a lively, friction-filled discussion with a Dominican and a Fransciscan (two groups which are QUITE different). But I agree with Job’s second comment…. let’s (happily) leave Rome out of this one.

    In general terms, it seems that a spirit of unity can only get you so far, though, and that (practically speaking) you are going to identify yourself by the local label, e.g. “Methodist,” rather than label of the universal “catholic” church. Is it possible to get away from the notion of Churches (rather than one Church) if the union is NOT institutional? I’m willing to admit that it could be possible… I’m just having difficulty trying to envision it. How do you think it would work itself out?

  5. Dsweetgoober on May 1st, 2007 10:11 am

    Mark 9:38 And John answered saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us (boo, hoo): and we forbad him, because he followeth not us (whine, whine, whine). But Jesus said “What? Find the man and bring me his head on a silver platter!!!” Uh, no I mean he said “Forbid him not; for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our part.”

  6. Dsweetgoober on May 1st, 2007 10:16 am

    I notice in the above reference Jesus did not feel it neccessary to go rope this guy into his posse. I believe in the catholic church as I used to repeat in the creed in the Methodist church but I see no compunction to bring everyone under one government. And how do we foster this catholicism? It simply exists. We are, each believer, part of this true body of Christ. What could we possibly do to hinder or foster it? It seems any attempt to do anything but acknowledge it turns into an institutionalization process.

  7. Mike on May 1st, 2007 11:52 am

    A good mixture of responses!

    Job, I agree of course that within the Church and within churches there are wheat and chaff and so we can’t fully know who’s “in” the church and who’s not.

    Marcus, I like your perspective and the questions you raise. You remind us that Catholicism is a very wide tent, not a monolithic whole. I’m sure that’s aggravating every bit as much as it’s admirable.

    You ask what catholicity would look like if it’s not institutional. I don’t know–that’s the same question I’m asking in my post. I’m a Baptist, and so naturally I start by thinking grass-roots. It could be that catholicity can only bubble up from beneath: when pastors and worship committees bravely stand against consumerist approaches to worship, when local ministeriums (like my own, of which I’m the current chair) choose to worship and hold activities together, or when a community’s congregations jointly work on a ministry. Think of this as the “inch-by-bloody-inch” approach to ecumenism.

    The other thing to mention is that groups like
    “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” are doing in my mind the most vital ecumenical work today. It does not paper over differences but it also brings up real points of similarity and shared mission. This, I think, is quite Catholic.

    Dave, I hope it’s clear too that I don’t want to bring everybody under one church government; just to find ways to communicate our unity to a highly individualized, consumerist society.

  8. Dsweetgoober on May 1st, 2007 6:10 pm

    Yeah, I got that. I would have used a sarcostrophe to show that I was being sarcastic but this punctuation mark is still in the development stage.

  9. Djere on May 3rd, 2007 10:51 am

    Ahh, the sarcostrophe, alt+0222. àž

  10. Dsweetgoober on May 4th, 2007 8:58 am

    How did you make that? I’ll practice and see if I can get that little tongue-sticking-out effect.

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