33 Comments to “Sound Bite The Hand That Feeds You”

1. Marcus on April 25th, 2007 8:06 am

   You’ll have to forgive my wry smile. This post sounds so incredibly Catholic to me (even down to the “Roman” bit).

   I won’t go into the details of my theory for why they “neuter the gospel to match the desires of humanity” but a compelling case has been made for the Protestant church’s obsession with “individual belief” (over against Catholic “corporate/institutional belief”) and the subsequent rising of a “business mentality” within churches. Decisions are made by a board of directors whose main concern seems, at times, the popular opinion (demand) and the increased “production” of seeker-sensitive religious materials with mass appeal(the supply). In typical consummerist fashion, the product has to change with the times. It is no big surprise that, at the end of the day, the gospel looks different than it should.

   This is not a critique on Protestantism, per se, but more a lament about what happens when you let capitalism influence the belief structure of a religion–and we Catholics, especially in the West, are not immune to the influence of consummerism. In fact, the liberals among us are aware of this and have been infecting the higher ranks of clergy in hopes of dominating the Magisterium and thus swinging religious expression their (novel) way.

   This is not to say that I am anti-capitalist, but the constant need for novelty that keeps demand alive is NOT compatible with the exclusivist nature of Christian belief. There is no such thing as Diet Christ or New Christ or Crystal Christ (or even Post Vatican 2 Christ)–the beauty of the Incarnate Logos is that he is the correct “product” for every man in every epoch. There is no new gospel because the “goodness” of news could not possibly be increased. Christ is Christ in that same grammar-defying, timeless way that says God is an “I Am.”

   I realize you are speaking mainly about the un-churched, but it seems we need to “re-Rome” our fellow believers before we try to alter the secular public image of Christ. After all, there are few churches (in your camp or in mine) that have the same dogged faith that the earliest Christians showed.

   Ideally, of course, I’d like to see each and every one of you convert to Rome proper, but I would settle (in the meantime) for a general shift in all Christians from a culture-relevant articulation of faith to a faith-relevant articulation of culture. How often we choose to ignore that, if we’re correct, our tenets are not just personal belief but are historic, ontological fact. To re-Rome people is to teach them that this is not a head-game and that Christ is not a perception or symbol–He is a real person (of the godhead!). In order to remove the bad image of Christ from popular consciousness we need to first ensure that we have the RIGHT image in our churches.

2. Job on April 25th, 2007 8:36 am

   Crystal Christ! I love it! Let’s not forget Christ Zero or Christ with a twist.

   You make some terrific – and i’ll go ahead and call them compelling – points, Marcus.

   But the Catholic church reminds me of those cars rigged out with lights and signs saying “oversized load” that accompany houses when they’re being transported on the highway.
   Warning, in front of the trailer and behind it, that this is an oversized load. “Your own eyes can’t be trusted to see this, you need us to break it down for you and hey, it creates two more jobs in the process.”

   While I’ve got a lot of respect for what the Catholic church has been able to do within the fields of literature and missions, treating the prostestant church like the new kid on the block, when you know it hails back to Galilee in a way your bloated excess never could, makes me wince.

   But my overall point is that we are in America have found ourselves in the unsavory position of having to either defend or espouse “Christianity” leaving us preoccupied when it comes to defending or espousing Christ.

   I blame this as much on Colorado Springs as on Rome.

3. Marcus on April 25th, 2007 12:10 pm

   Ouch. “You know it hails back to Galilee in a way your bloated excess never could.” I think I am the one wincing here. As someone who once believed this statement as fiercely as you and YET has come to Rome, I have a response for this… what I do not have is time. But, just for you, I will have to come up with a post about my reasons for leaving “Luther’s Kids” and coming to Rome. I am not saying we are perfect or that the Protestant churches are entirely evil… but I will get back to you on this.

4. Steve on April 25th, 2007 12:29 pm

   Yes, Job, I thought you usually saved your harshest criticism for your own institutions.

5. Mike J on April 25th, 2007 3:25 pm

   As one of the few Baptists who has considered returning to Rome (this greatly upset my fundamentalist grandmother), I have to in general agree with Marcus. So magisterial, so deferential to tradition, so aware of the eternal quality of the Church, is far less susceptible to consumerism than the rest of us.

   Job et. al.–If you’re serious that American-style consumerism is a main, even primary, threat to the gospel in the West, then you at least have to consider Catholicism–even if, in the end, you can’t go there because you find too many things you disagree with.

   The other thing we evangelicals have to realize is that we owe a great deal to Catholic intellectual heft right now. Count the Catholic justices on the SCOTUS right now and guess their votes on the partial-birth abortion ban. Guess what happens when you replace O’Connor with Alito?

   The reason why many secularists are nervous about the future of Roe (and other things) right now has a lot less to do with evangelicals than it does Catholics, whose tradition has consistently elevated the life of the mind in a way our tradition hasn’t.

   At any rate, the most vital ecumenism happening today isn’t happening in the mainline traditions, which has become lowest-common-denominator ecumenism. It’s happening in Evangelicals and Catholics Together, where those two groups are getting together and talking honestly about differences and finding new ways to share ministry together. Hopefully, we’ll move beyond rivalry to a point where we can band together for strong ministry while also respectfully pushing each other on our differences.

6. Steve on April 25th, 2007 4:19 pm

   The tension between, on one hand, desiring to appeal to those outside the body of Christ through a means they understand, and on the other, changing the nature of the Gospel by that attempt, is an issue every church and every Christian should take seriously.

   “It’s not just a sign or a sacrament/it’s not just a metaphor for love/His Blood is real and it’s not just a symbol of/your Faith.” – S. Groves

   There is nothing new to the Gospel, nor need there be, but there are new ways to present it, and if IT is truly what is being presented, I see no problem there.

   Mike couldn’t be more right about the Catholic intellectual tradition — I’ve read quite a few articles, in law reviews and mainstream journals like the National Review, questioning why evangelical Christianity has not had anywhere near the impact on “the life of the mind” that it has on society as a whole. Note, for instance, the 26 Catholic blogs ahead of ours in the Best Religion Blog contest, compared to only 1 (run by the Executive Director of John MacArthur’s Grace to You program) that could be considered evangelical. I thank God for our Catholic justices, although I do not believe as some have claimed, that their opinions are a direct result of their faith.

   On the other hand, Rome’s focus (to me) on the historic, esoteric and complex has a way of enabling the innate laziness of the average person, creating the unfortunate spectre of parishioners who register but do not give, attend on Easter but never Palm Sunday, and put what confused faith they have for salvation in the power of the sacraments rather than the actual work of Christ — without which there can be no life.

7. Job on April 25th, 2007 4:25 pm

   Hmmm…at what point did I give the impression that I was talking about consumerism?

   And I can find a lot of “intellectual” allies in the pro-life movement in any number of religions and sects from Islam to Mormonism. But like the poem says
   “Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink.”

   For all it’s noise, tradition and heritage, it’s the guise of kinship with catholicism that makes it not a kinship at all.

   Sorry for being divisive on the subject, but that’s not always a bad thing. Compromise was a practice unpracticed by Jesus.

8. Steve on April 25th, 2007 4:37 pm

   Back up the truck, you’re arguing the saving power of Christ is not present in the Catholic Church, as you would argue about Mormons or Muslims?

9. Michael Jordan on April 25th, 2007 6:00 pm

   Steve–I agree with you that Rome has managed to “enable laziness” because it (at least historically) didn’t give people much of a role in working out their own salvation.

   BTW–I agree with you that all the justices were not motivated by their faith. I simply meant that the Catholic tradition has bred a way of thinking that treats the unborn as life, and I don’t know that those guys can shake it. Nor should they, by the way. It’s an illusion to think anyone can shear themselves of their religious commitments to make a secular decision.

10. Marcus on April 25th, 2007 6:54 pm

    Job is correct to remind us that he was not the one to bring up consumerism. That was me. I’m the one who asserted that the Protestant church, particularly in America, was fueled by the corporate/business model (which is so effective because it, like so many other American aspects, relies on individualism). This, I think, is one of the reasons that it grows as it does. Moreover, it is not counter-cultural in the same ways that Catholicism is. You can use Depo Provera and be considered a conservative Protestant. The only way a Catholic can use The Pill is if she is ignorant of the church’s teachings or is in defiance of them.

    Protestants ARE counter-cultural, let me say that plainly. There is an “insisted otherness” about them. They define themselves against the cultural backdrop. They take seriously Christ’s promise that they will be hated because He was hated. These are points I admire and, once upon a time, highly valued in my own Protestant articulation of faith.

    My point, though, is that Catholics are more noticeably “archaic” according to the standards of pop culture. One of the reasons for this is that we have not absorbed what I call the consumerist approach–we do not see the church as an organization that can mold itself to the present culture in the same way, for instance, a Protestant mega-church can. It is consumerism’s dependence on novelty and a congregation’s subsequent insistence on novel teaching/worship/what-have-you that I see in the Protestant church. This is what allows people to assume they have the freedom to jettison essentials for the sake of relevance and “the message.”

    While I say this is a fairly Protestant phenomenon, I must admit that the Post-Vatican II liberals have really tried to take the Catholic church in a more individualistic direction. Our celebrated corporate identity–which admittedly makes for many lazy and ignorant Catholics–is being chipped away by the so-called progressive fringe of clerics and laity.

    I have posted on my own blog some ramblings that you might find interesting and/or relevant (though I am less convinced of them than I am my older posts). As barbed as some of these comments are, I still find the discussion energizing. As to treating the Protestant church as the “new kid on the block,” I’d like to think that most of us see you as a disenfranchised relative.

    But Job, or anyone else on this forum, reserves the right to be offended by our exclusivist stance (that we are Christ’s authorized religious agent and you are the outsider). I voluntarily visit this site knowing tnat I open myself to just such an attack. Many of us feel a sadness about the Reformation because we recognize all the merits of your church but simply cannot recognize its validity.

    It IS a very high horse that we ride… but, to misquote the famous line, here we sit… we can do no other.

11. Steve on April 25th, 2007 7:14 pm

    Yes, and on those last two paragraphs I think I find both you (as the representative of Rome) and Job (in the place of Luther) to be unfortunately misguided. I see the exclusivist stance of the Roman Catholic church just as unbiblical as I do the one I suspect Job will soon make, for I find neither cause nor reason for any blanket assertion that the power of the Atonement is limited to only one side of the Wittenberg door.

12. Steve on April 25th, 2007 7:29 pm

    Yeah, Mike, I didn’t think you were arguing that Catholicism was the reason for the decision so much as an unquantifiable contributing factor. Some critics I’ve seen have blatantly accused the justices of placing their loyalty to Rome above the health and safety of women or their duty to the country, a ridiculous assertion given the facts of the case and the “inconvenient truth” (to coin a phrase) that the justices in the majority chose to uphold the expressed democratic will of the people.

13. Job on April 25th, 2007 10:50 pm

    Steve- I think a cursory re-read of my article will shine some light on the fact that I was saying, with no small precision, that the Church needs to shed its exclusivity and elaborate definitions and just be the bride.

    Marcus- Saying that we Protestants define ourselves agains the cultural backdrop is a very nice compliment indeed. A well-paraphrased take on “being in the world but not of it.”

    But I find it immensely confusing that you “plainly” say we are counter-cultural in one breath and then in the next write us off as trying to be a “church as an organization that can mold itself to the present culture”.

    It’s not that I need clarification from you, I just wish, rather, clarity for you.

14. Steve on April 25th, 2007 11:23 pm

    Oh, Job, I loved your original article and had no quibble with it.

15. Marcus on April 26th, 2007 12:46 am

    When I say that Protestants are counter-cultural, I mean it as a compliment.

    When I say that some among you (e.g., the mega-churches and the Emergent Church) are molding to the culture, I mean this as an insult… and not necessarily an insult directed at you.

    Those prone to give the message a cultural face-lift are too often the ones who inevitably throw out the heart of that message. Is this not what you were after when you discussed the danger of sound bites?

    Perhaps I was not as clear as I ought to have been, but your dismissive (and often insulting) tone makes me think that perhaps you are willfully misreading what I’d written–resorting to the ad hominem fallacy because the source is a deserter from your own ranks. But I did qualify that statement you quoted in TWO ways.

    First I said that we do not, in the main, view ourselves “as an organization that CAN mold itself to the present culture.” In other words, most of us do not entertain the possibility of making our faith “contemporary” (e.g., in the Emergent sense). We (with admitted obstinence) cling to what we see as the ancient culture of the belief and we feel no imperative to make everything “relevant” to today’s social mores. Do Protestants make similar claims about a NECESSARY lack of malleability?

    Second, I qualified my statement by saying that we do not “mold [our]self to the present culture in the SAME WAY.” I say this because I can’t speak for all Catholics and I must admit that some ARE pushing for cultural malleability. And as you might guess, I think that these folk are not good Catholics. Regardless, due to many theological and social reasons, the “contemporizations” of these liberals will not be articulated in the same way as the are in Protestant circles (e.g., we will longer insist on Latin liturgy, but we’ll never ordain women priests or allow contraception).

    Just as my statement about counter-cultural Protestantism was meant as a compliment for some (perhaps even for yourself), my statement about the possibility of (liberal Catholic) malleability is pejorative. I’d like to think that the Bweinhtributors are not “malleable to a flaw” and I’d also like to hope that I have the courage to live my extremely “archaic” understanding of Catholic religious culture. If we both are attempting to remain counter-cultural within our respective belief structures we are, at the very least, head and shoulders above the weak-kneed liberals in both of our camps.

    I feel it necessary to also qualify a previous statement. Official Catholic teaching is that grace can (and does) operate beyond our Roman walls. It is true that, as Steve said, “the Atonement is [not] limited to only one side of the Wittenberg door.” I look forward to meeting some Protestants in Heaven just as my Lutheran friends can hope to find me there too. When I say that Catholics cannot recognize your validity and that we ride a high horse, I mean that we cannot grant the *institutional* validity of non-Roman churches because of the repercussions of the Apostolic Succession argument that is at our core. For us there can be no churches, only one church–united in a spirit of communion as the Body of Christ.

    I will not tie the hands of grace and say that salvation is absolutely exclusive to the Catholic, but I can lament the spirit of schism that keeps that communion forever at arm’s length. I’m not entirely sure how to reconcile our insistence on unity with the possibility of salvation outside of that unified church, but as a firm Catholic I nonetheless believe both statements to be true.

16. Steve on April 26th, 2007 1:12 am

    Ah…I appreciate your clarification and withdraw the bulk of the complaint then. There’s a somewhat large array of beliefs among our members here, but I do think we have in common (among ourselves and with you) the desire to uphold the ancient — in truth, timeLESS — belief against the damaging power of compromise with the world. And I am, of course, quite glad to have your perspective on such topics; I think it does us all good to see them defended and espoused so well.

17. Djere on April 26th, 2007 5:11 pm

    Wait, wait, wait! What’s all this friend-making and over-smoothing! Let’s get back the indulgences! C’mon! Unbaptized babies go to limbo! There’s a more than just a tautological difference between mortal, grave, and capital sins! Mary died ascended into heaven a virgin and now reigns on high as the High Queen of Heaven! It’s worth fighting over!

18. Steve on April 26th, 2007 5:23 pm

    I’ll let you fight when you turn in an article and a Bible discussion on time!

19. Dsweetgoober on April 26th, 2007 5:23 pm

    I must admit that my views have softened in recent years but I still can’t see how anyone with a passing knowledge of history could regard the Catholic Church as anything other than the apostate Christian church; the church that fell from grace

    In The Last Battle, the last volume of The Chronicles of Narnia series, we find the world waiting for the arrival of the lion Aslan, a Christ type character returning to his world. If you have read the story you know that an ape finds a lion skin discarded by a hunter and places it over a donkey proclaiming him to be Aslan. He manages to perpetuate this ruse by keeping the donkey locked up until after dark and then parading it around to give orders that greatly benefit the ape and his allies.

    I have never seen a better analogy for the church that follows Constantine in the 4th century than this. It is the skin of the Christian church stuffed with paganism and idolatry. It’s not even close to Christianity. It is the reestablishment of a sacerdotal society in which a ruling priesthood lords it over the common man in the name of religion. It is the reestablishment of idolatry in the form of relics and graven images. Even the terms Pope and Pontiff are borrowed from paganism. The Priests, Bishops and Cardinals begin using their positions to amass wealth and temporal power slaughtering millions of people who get in the way.

    Believe, if you wish, that the Catholic Church has been through various “ups and downs”, times of corruption and renewal as it were, and that we now stand as two great allies The Catholic Church and The Protestant Church willing and able to do battle together, I accept that. But please don’t expect me to believe that Rome has some authority to rule over Christendom. Especially not the fabricated lineage of Apostolic Succession or the belief that men who bought the papacy with gold or bloodshed should still be respected as Christ’s agents on the Earth.

20. Djere on April 26th, 2007 5:25 pm

    Though I’ve been absent from the discussion thus far, I cannot but toss my hat into the ring as well.

    If Peter’s the pope, and the pope is infallible, why was ‘Cephas clearly in the wrong’ in Galatians in regards to the judaizers?

    Why does Paul call status quo Catholic dogma (forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth) ‘doctrines of demons’?

    Why should I say thirteen Hail Mary ‘prayers’ when Jesus commanded not to pray with ‘vain repetition like the heathen’? If ‘All have sinned’ how can Mary be sinless?

    I see far too many cracks in the foundation of Rome and far too much blood on the hands of the papists to ever become one. True, there’s blood on this side of the aisle as well, but none in my assembly.

21. Dsweetgoober on April 26th, 2007 5:33 pm

    Uh…I mean that in love.

22. Steve on April 26th, 2007 5:37 pm

    If Peter’s the pope, and the pope is infallible, why was ‘Cephas clearly in the wrong’ in Galatians in regards to the judaizers?

    I can answer that — the pope is only infallible, says the Catholic Church, when he’s speaking in his official capacity about faith and morals. And the doctrine is less than 150 years old.

23. Djere on April 26th, 2007 5:40 pm

    I see. The Pope hat, the Pope stick, the Pope throne, and the Popemobile hadn’t yet descended from heaven.

    But gosh darnit, upon that nugget of theology that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, will Christ build his church.

24. dsweetgoober on April 27th, 2007 8:31 am

    Lest anyone think I am anti-catholic let me say clearly that without the Catholic voice and there long labors here in America abortion would be out of control. The Catholics stood up against this great evil while many protestant denominations were still morally asleep and we owe them a debt of gratitude.

    I welcome Catholics as I do members of any legitimate Christian sect as brothers and sisters in the Lord without question. I do not hold them acountable for the atrocities of the Catholic church any more than I would expect them to hold me responsible for Luthers actions during the Peasant Revolt. I just cringe at the mention of “ancient” claims that in fact are rather spurious, not being put forth until the middle of the 5th century and based on what all historians agree was a fabricated lineage of Apostolic Succession.

    Come as brothers! I love you! I welcome you! I just reject the errant path of deceitful power lust set upon by Leo when the Emporer abandon Rome for the west and the Catholic church took up the Spirit of Rome attempting to rule the world under the guise of religion.

25. dsweetgoober on April 27th, 2007 10:01 am

    “Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him.”

    JRR Tolkien, The Fellowship of The Ring
    (noted catholic author)

26. Marcus on April 27th, 2007 3:51 pm

    While I currently bristle under some of the “arguments” here, I try to bear in mind that it was I who called down this whirlwind with my initial post. I do not wish to swap vitriol over the Catholic arguments for Apostolic Succession and I will attempt a calm, tranquil response. My blood is up, though, so forgive me if I became caustic at points.

    Perhaps I AM wrong and my church is an ass wearing a lion’s skin… but what Catholicism decidedly is NOT the strawman that dances through many of these comments. You cannot deny the weight of centuries of Catholic intellectual writing. You cannot, in good conscience, write off all of our antics as mere power-plays and “borrowings” from pagans. We, too have martyred ourselves for our faith… so it is not all smoke and mirrors and land-grabbing. Also, obviously not “ALL historians agree [in] a fabricated lineage of Apostolic Succession” (emphasis mine) since Catholic, Orthodox, and splinter-group historians have been arguing for it for centuries. Your carefully selected historians, no doubt, don’t support it… but let us not be so myopic.

    I’m not here to proselytize you. I have an appreciation for your intellectual history. The rise of the Protestant has forced Rome to examine herself (to productive ends). Moreover, as I said, better men than I have offered explanations of why an educated Christian can convert to Rome without being an ignoramus. I defer you to those authors.

    I am not denying Catholicism’s problematic past. Indeed my references to Rome have, if anything, been mini Jeremiads about the abuses within my religious institution. My reasons for visiting this site is because I recognize you as kindred spirits–men and women who seek the truth and who desire to have that truth dictate all aspects of their lives.

    Tradition:

    For me it is not a question of whether each dot and tittle of tradition is necessary for faith, but whether or not you believe that Christ’s giving the Keys of the Kingdom to man and his commissioning his disciples to be his advocates can be seen as more than poetic language.

    I believe that the Logos imparted a special power to his deputized few and that the Holy Spirit worked through them to guide the continuous articulation of nascent belief. New articulations of teaching function, at least in part, to develop a culture whose tenets guard against secularization in ways that the cling-to-the-nugget faith of others can’t.

    You cannot be a textbook Catholic and be an Easy Believe-ist, but I have met plenty of Protestants (even dated one or two in my day) whose faith is merely a lip service to Christ Lordship and whose daily life is indistinguishable from the dominant culture. I am not denying that we have those Protestants’ opposite numbers in our ranks, but our “legalism” is, for me, partially a response to lukewarm faith. The more strict the code, the less likely a nominal Christian will want to join up. Our problem is a laziness which hinders us from teaching our communicants solid teaching. If our priests were as committed to our standards as they should be, few would remain in Rome.

    On the Pope and Infallibility:

    I believe that St. Peter was a frail human and that no saint, pope, or priest has been perfect. They have all been the imperfect and undeserving vessels who nonetheless serve as Christ’s anointed representatives. Similarly, the church can (and does) err throughout the years and many of her flock can be hell-bound, but the Lord preserves a remnant within the branch that will not wither and will carry his gospel to all manner of men in all ages. Moreover, I feel that the Spirit will keep the dogma from being corrupted. The local traditions–e.g., priests and marriage etc.–can be bunk, but the heart of doctrine will stay as true as the Scripture because both are under the watchful eye of God.

    Incidentally, the Pope’s power is organizational (apart from his ability to speak Ex Cathedra… which has happened only twice) and he, the Cardinals, and the Bishops are (honored) governing functionaries more than anything else. The honored status of Rome’s bishop is very ancient. Perhaps the way that we have translated that honor into our internal politics seems foreign, but not if you already buy the Apostolic argument. I do not expect you to support the legitimacy of the pope, I am only trying to explain how the role is viewed from within the system. As to its articulation in the fifth century, my response is that it (like all of our dogma) is seen as nascent since day 1.

    The other “infallibility” I assume you’re alluding to is the binding nature of the decisions of Ecumenical Councils. Most Protestants feel that Nicaea was binding and Spirit-led. We just extend that “courtesy” to other councils.

    I am not going to waste my time on a point by point refutation of everything else that has preceded this post. I do not think it would be fruitful (or desired).

    Is there some elitism in my religion? Undoubtedly. If you turn out to be correct than I, by the admission of many here, may hope to see Christ face to face and if I am right, my system does not automatically discount you from the possibility of salvation either. My wager here, is Pascal’s… because no matter how you slice it, the odds of a conscientious Catholic making it in a Protestant system are significantly higher than your odds in my system. But regardless, we should all diligently and prayerfully seek truth and integrity. Who knows? Maybe someday that truth quest will lead me back to your camp or, dare I say it, bring you to Rome.

27. dsweetgoober on April 27th, 2007 11:15 pm

    “…better men than I have offered explanations of why an educated Christian can convert to Rome without being an ignoramus. I defer you to those authors.”

    This is your answer Marcus? The horror and corruption of the Catholic church laid out before your eyes by countless historians, inescapable and irrefutable, and that is your answer? Careful friend. It would not surprise me to find those words were used before. Maybe men like John Huss or John Oldham were sent to death with such words. “Better men than I have determined that you should be burned for your beliefs and I defer to their judgement.” Entire populations like the Huguenots mass murdered with the excuse that “Better men than I have decided that you should be thrust through, or hanged, or boiled in oil and I defer to them.” How many Lollards have that as their last memory of earth, “Better men than I have found you worthy of death and I defer to them”.

    You need not defer to any man Marcus but rather “Study to show yourself approved, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed”.

28. Steve on April 28th, 2007 1:30 am

    I think he only meant that he didn’t want to go to the trouble of making the case, both because many others have done so already and because his goal here is not to proselytize. I don’t think it’s possible to suggest, from his obvious intellectual depth, that Marcus’s journey to the Roman Catholic church was in any way a naive or shallow one, dependent on deference to others.

29. Steve on April 28th, 2007 1:33 am

    Outside of specific statements of doctrine and perhaps the elements of the wager in the last paragraph, I see very little to disagree with in Marcus’s last post, and even less reason to do so.

30. dsweetgoober on April 28th, 2007 11:29 am

    On the contrary I think it speaks directly to the error of the Catholic Church historically that there would arise this idea of “better men” to whom they defer. There is no priesthood in the New Testament church and for good reason; there now exists the Priesthood of all believers. When this idea invades the early church it becomes the death knell for primitive Christianity. I know it was not what Marcus was referring to but it speaks to the heart of the issue that Christians would allow a ruling class, whether priest, Pope, Bishop, Cardinal or theologian, to emerge and claim themselves to be above correction and not to be questioned by the common man.

    How else can men be compelled to slay other men in the name of Jesus? One of the early church fathers, Lanctantius (260-330 AD), himself said “The defense of our religion is not in killing, but in dying…” He goes on to say that when we kill in the name of Christ we do not uphold (How could we???) The gospel but sully it and bring shame upon our Savior. I thought long and hard before I made that last post and I did not post it for Marcus or anyone else. I posted it because of the tears I have wept while reading the pages of history where men like Wycliffe were burned at the stake by the church for the crime of translating the Bible so that common me…so that I… could read the Bible for myself and not trust to the judgement of these “better men” who were to obeyed under penalty of death.

    As silly as it may sound in our age of technology, far removed from those dark days, I feel like a traitor not standing up and being a voice for those whose blood was shed by blind men carrying out the vile orders of “better men” to whom they deferred. After reading about the life of Wycliffe Nearly 10 years ago I wrote this quote of his in the leaf of my journal:

    “God grant us grace to ken well and kep well Holie Writ, and to suffer joiefulli some paine for it at the last.”

    I apologize if you, or anyone, thinks my posts have been an overaction and I will do my best to stay away from this post and let things lie, but please do not believe that I am being mean spirited or argumentative. I still see what I saw in my spirit when I first read the account in Foxes Book of Martyrs, the white hair of an old man wreathed in flame. I’m not simply being hyperbolic when I say I wept and I still feel the tears welling up again as I type this. I feel deeply the blood of the martyrs and those words burn in my mind keeping me from rest; “Better men than I have determined…and I defer”.

31. Lydia on April 28th, 2007 10:34 pm

    Refering to the original post: I agree that we are to be “just the Church” and I will add from the intercultural perspective, that we are also to present “just the faith and just the gospel” this “organic idea” this universal truth which in and of itself can be present and powerful in any culture of the world. All too often it is given with a western perspective and twist that can effect its reach to all people.

32. Job on April 28th, 2007 11:00 pm

    Dave, please don’t ever recuse yourself from speaking truth! While we’ve done more donuts than an ’88 Honda Accord in a snowy Kmart parking lot within this post, it is all for profit I am sure.

    Marcus has made several great points and I can’t wait to hang with him up top, but pausing, reflecting and being willing to vigorously prosecute ideas we believe are right is nothing shy of our calling. To do otherwise – out of fear of offense or alienation – is nothing shy of a quenching of the spirit.

    Lydia- right on! Was it Sandy Patti that sang “love in any language”?

33. Mike J on April 29th, 2007 5:35 pm

    I’m still with Marcus (and Steve, I think) in all of this. I can’t hold Marcus accountable for the ills of the Catholic Church and I sincerely hope he doesn’t try to blame me for nutty Baptists. Remember, Calvin burned a few guys at the stake in his day too (the first Servetus reference will not be the last, Steve).

    Neither can I believe that his deferring us to other writers is a uniquely Catholic problem which also accounts for their inability to refuse to kill Protestants. Every Christian church has some sense of “better men,” people that we trust to guide us and shape our thinking. The Catholic Church does not have worse “better men” than the rest of us.

    I’m sure we’ll revisit this again!

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