The Pope is Catholic!

By now anyone reading this will know that the new pope is from Argentina and has taken the name Francis.  Presumably the point is that he values poverty and humility. I hope this bodes well for reform of the Vatican bank.

As you all know, this is a shift to the southern hemisphere and perhaps a move toward decentralization.  This move seems good given that the local grip in Italy might be part of the catholic problem that led Benedict to resign. He is 76, which doesn't suggest the kind of strength for battle Benedict may have preferred. He is a moderate, but no one expected big changes in theology.

I do want to use this as an excuse to talk about how compatible catholicism is with Wesleyanism.  For example, could a Roman Catholic of a particular kind teach at a Wesleyan college?  I'm pretty sure it has already happened.  In non-theology areas, it seems as plausible to me as having a Baptist, Pentecostal, or Lutheran teach at a Wesleyan school.

Several of us worked through the RC catechism last year and you can see our notes here.  I think our main take away was that you had to believe a lot more things as a catholic rather than that there were a lot of areas where Wesleyans flatly disagreed.  Here's why I think a particular kind of Roman Catholic could potentially teach at a Wesleyan college:

1. The most important value/qualification for a Wesleyan is a personal, active relationship with Jesus Christ as your Lord.  We are a revivalist tradition more than a creedal tradition like the Reformed. A Roman Catholic can be entirely sanctified just as well as a Christian from any other tradition.  A Christian of any denomination who has completely surrendered him/herself to God and has received the fullness of the Spirit might easily trump many card-carrying Wesleyans in this category.

2. The second most important value/qualification should be a life lived with the fruit of righteousness and the Spirit.  Does a Christian of any denomination demonstrate the Christian virtues of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? A Roman Catholic with a vibrant faith of a certain sort should trump a Wesleyan who never goes to church, never prays, and treats others like dirt.

3. But are there any Roman Catholic beliefs that are so in conflict with Wesleyan theology that it would preclude a RC, as at Wheaton? Certainly I don't think you would want a RC teaching theology or probably even church history full time at a Wesleyan college. But most of the "red flag" issues people raise usually involve a misunderstanding of some sort.

• Most Roman Catholics today don't pit the Bible against the Church.  They simply see their tradition as the best interpreters of Scripture--which is what Wesleyans, Baptists, Lutherans, and pretty much everyone else does.  Would we hire a Missouri Synod Lutheran minister to teach at IWU? They are supposed to listen to what their church says the Bible means just as much as a RC is supposed to. A RC can believe the Bible is inerrant just as much as a Wesleyan.
• Most of the differences in RC belief are "added" rather than contradictory. For example, nothing would keep a Wesleyan from believing in transubstantiation.  The overwhelming majority don't, but this is an example of where RCs do more while not really contradicting.
• RCs don't worship Mary or the saints.  They "venerate" them.  If a RC did worship them, they would be in violation of RC theology.
• RCs don't always agree with everything the RCC teaches any more than the Wesleyans in our megachurches that drink moderately.

4. Here are some instances where we are closer to the RCs than to other Protestants:

• We believe that how you live has a potential impact on your final salvation (we're thus closer to the catholics here than to Baptists, Lutherans, the Reformed, or Presbyterians).
• Wesleyans have practically the same view as RCs on human freedom (as opposed to the Reformed on predestination).
• Wesleyans have a similar view of abortion and homosexual practice.

I am not at all saying that all Roman Catholics could teach at a Wesleyan college.  I only suspect that there are some RCs out there who would be a better mission fit than some Wesleyans and certainly more than many a fundamentalist.

CT: Not All Evangelicals and Catholics Together

I found this piece sad. About half an InterVarsity college fellowship left because the national InterVarsity organization was talking too friendly-like to Roman Catholics. Say what you like about whatever baggage you think the Wesleyan-Methodist tradition has, but at least it doesn't have these issues.

One of the strangest things is that N. T. Wright is somehow invoked as pushing people catholic. The man has Reformed, evangelical Anglican written all over him. And they say this because he speaks positively about works in salvation, worships in a liturgical church, and has an emphasis on social justice. The first and last are thoroughly biblical. The second is not unbiblical and has much to commend it if one participates in liturgy with intentionality.

Thankfully this article seems so very far away from my life...

Friday Review: Is the Reformation Over?, Chapter 5

In chapter 5 of Noll's book, he discusses "The Catholic Catechism." This is a 756 page document commissioned by Pope John Paul II in 1986 and completed in 1992. The length of it is a reflection of the difference between Protestant traditions and the Catholic tradition. The Wesleyan Articles of Religion are dramatically short in comparison.

Roman Catholics know what they believe. It is spelled out clearly. This is a compendium based on 2000 years of tradition. Catholic priests know the Fathers, they know the literature, they know it in Latin. There is no changing of their Discipline in the way you can, admittedly with some difficulty, change the faith of my denomination. They can only reinterpret and wiggle narrowly around a tradition that is pretty much set in stone.

That last paragraph is of course me rather than Noll and Nystrom.

To me this is the best laid out and written chapter thus far. It is mainly divided into 1) areas of agreement, 2) understanding differences, and 3) Catholics and the church.

1. Areas of Agreement
a. orthodoxy
In a powerful layout, Noll and Nystrom present quotations from the Catholic Catechism that together form a kind of creed in outline. In other words, they excerpt what looks pretty much like the faith statement of any Protestant denomination.

Here are a few of excerpts that caught my attention:

1. "God is the author of sacred Scripture ... the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures." http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/107.htm

2. "Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven" http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/618.htm

3. "Our justification comes from the grace of God." http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1996.htm

4. "Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man." http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/162.htm

b. devotion to God
Apparently, the Catholic Cathecism reads like a devotional book. Here is a Byzantine prayer of ordination that Noll and Nystrom cite as an example.

c. holy living
In this section Noll and Nystrom talk about Catholic expectations with regard to things like Sabbath, respect for human life, sexual ethics, marriage and divorce, social ethics, and sin. My parents' generation would resonate strongly with almost everything here. Ironically, the current state of my church, the Wesleyan Church, is far more liberal than anything here.

2. Understanding Differences
a. Authority
Perhaps the key difference between the RCC and most Protestant traditions is in the relationship between Scripture and tradition. Most Protestants at least claim (I deny that it is as much the case as they think) that for them Scripture is the supreme authority for doctrine and practice. Scripture is to interpret tradition rather than tradition interpreting Scripture.

By contrast the RCC not only sees tradition to be accepted and honored "with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence," but further, "the task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him.

Those who know my hermeneutic will see an attempt to find a middle way between these two extremes. The typical Protestant equation is Scripture only (with unacknowledged traditions governing the way in which that Scripture is processed). The Catholic equation is Scripture and tradition as co-equal, with the Magisterium serving to arbitrate. My equation is to read Scripture with the eyes of the consensus of the church, with an eye to its original meaning and the moving of the Holy Spirit.

Where I thus differ from most Protestants is my acceptance that Scripture alone has no organizing principle by which to speak with a single voice. Further, we will not arrive at a Christian understanding of important doctrines like the Trinity or the dual nature of Christ without much that is not in Scripture.

I differ from Catholics in that the Western Church has not represented the church catholic for a 1000 years. Further, the Holy Spirit has seen fit to reverse consensus on a number of issues in the Reformation, using a crude yet appropriate measure of Scripture's original meaning. The consensus of the church is thus not static or absolute. Christ is the ultimate point to which reform might theoretically reverse before Christianity itself would deconstruct (at which point Christianity would revert to Judaism).

b. Mary
I will confess that I do not identify with the RC adoration of Mary. They do not worship Mary. She herself, though sinless, without original sin, and assumed directly to heaven, is these things because of the merits of Christ.

I'll need someone to show me why it is so bad to ask saints to help us. I don't do it. I don't feel the need to do it. I feel quite comfortable praying directly to the Father through Jesus. But prayer to Mary and saints seems more quirky to me than dangerous. Thoughts?

c. baptism
RCs of course baptize infants. Justification is a function of baptism. Faith follows rather than precedes. Baptism is considered essential for salvation, however, the current Catholic understanding holds out hope for unbaptized children. Limbo is not a current RC belief and never was an official belief.

Certainly the longest standing Protestant churches baptize infants: Lutherans, Reformed, Anglicans, Methodists. It is allowable even in the Wesleyan Church. However, it is allowable for Wesleyans on the assumption that baptism itself does not save. No Protestant would make a strict equation between baptism and justification.

d. salvation by works or grace
In this section Noll and Nystrom discuss the RC belief that a justified person might end up spending eternity in hell. They note that Wesleyan-Arminians agree. Calvinists of course disagree on this point.

Another point of difference is the typical Protestant sense that justification is an individual affair, while Catholics see the Church the way through which God justifies.

e. celibacy and saints
These are well known points of difference between Protestants and Catholics. Noll and Nystrom point out, however, how little is said in the new catechism about celibacy, almost as if it is something the Church has to live with because of the positions past Popes have taken.

The Catholic position on saints is also difficult for Protestants (and of course from a NT point of view). All Christians are saints, according to the NT.

f. sacraments
We've already mentioned transubstantiation and the sacraments in last Friday's post. There were some memorable lines in this section of this chapter, however:

"Many Catholics see Protestant worship services, when Communion is not celibrated, as little more than light religious entertainment accompanied by a motivational speaker" (144).

:-)

3. Catholics and the Church
Noll and Nystrom begin with what was apparently a common saying by Protestants in ecumenical dialog with Catholics: "The main difference between us and the Catholics is ecclesiology. They have one and we don't" (145). N & N end the chapter with this question: "Why do we not possess such a thorough, clear and God-centered account of our faith as the Catechism offers to Roman Catholics?" (150).

Here's my answer: Barth has written his; Tom Oden has written his; Jurgen Moltmann has written his. There is no single Protestant authority to write one. Of course the purist might say--we have had one for 2000 years... it's called the Bible. But as fun a retort as this is, I believe it is misguided. The Bible requires synthesis, interpretation, and appropriation such as the Catholic Catechism does for RCs.

However, I await someone to write an equivalent of the RC catechism that sets out the real consensus of the church with its variations. As usual, I am not qualified to write one, although I think I have some sense of what it would look like. It would sketch out all the areas that the vast majority of Christians have and continue to be in agreement. Then under each discussion it would catalog the points of disagreement.

This last paragraph suggests my agreement and disagreement with Catholic ecclesiology. The RC church considers itself the body of Christ. Its structure, its Pope and sacerdotal structure are the ligaments of that body. I am a separated brother.

With the smallest of changes, a perspective very similar and yet more appropriate comes into view. If the church be not identified with a specific ecclesiastical body on earth, we can nevertheless see the visible churches on earth as the visible body of Christ and the path through which God has primarily chosen to minister to His people.

That's this week's chapter review.

The Da Vinci Code

I finally saw the Da Vinci Code this week. In true Ken form, I only read a few pages of the book when it came out. Then I missed the movie when it was in the theater. My wife Angie on the other hand read the book when we were in Germany 2004 and saw the movie with my step-daugthers.

I guess the movie is a little different from the book (so the police chief is not Opus Dei in the book), but here are some thoughts.

Sheerly on the merits of the plot, clever. This is a kind of genius to be able to weave things together this way. Of course it is the same kind of genius that we see in conspiracy theories and Left Behind eschatology. But it is very clever indeed. It would be even clever-er if the historical facts were a little more accurate, :-) but more on that in a second.

I can see why many devout Catholics were offended. The book/movie basically pictures the RC church as systematically trying to squash the truth about Jesus being human and having children. Members of Opus Dei I imagine were particularly offended. My impression is that the movie toned down some of this anti-catholic rhetoric.

Is Brown yet another bitter ex-Catholic? The same kind of conspiracy theories were rampant in the early 90's over the Dead Sea Scrolls. People were arguing that the Church didn't want to let the scrolls out because they contradicted Christianity. Of course it all proved to be false hype. Then there was the movie Stigmata that took a similar schtick. This is a genre, the "The Catholic Church is evil and conspiring against you" genre.

Of course there are a number of historical "cheats," as Jim Garlow and many others have pointed out. For example, the Council of Nicaea was about the Trinity, not about what books belong in the canon or about the divinity of Christ. Nicaea was in 325 and we don't even have an instance of someone suggesting the current list of NT books until 369. And while Nicaea did debate whether Jesus was the first of God's creations, the gospel of John in the 90's already has a picture of Jesus that goes way beyond the one Da Vinci pictures being abandoned in 325.

As for Jesus being married or having children, I find nothing intrinsically heretical about that. He was fully human--no council denies it. Sex and human passion are not evil, nor is having children. Of course I don't think Jesus had any children and the Bible gives us no reason to think he was married. Then again, we wouldn't know that Peter was married if Paul hadn't made an off handed comment about it in 1 Corinthians 9.

More problematic from a Christian point of view is the sloshy, maybe humans are divine thing at the end of the movie. Reminds me of Star Trek V. New age-y.

So it was a very clever movie. I can see why it hit so close to home for so many. Reminds me of the meat offered to idols issue. Some people can watch these things and see it for what it is--a fiction. For others, the world it projects is just too unpleasant to enjoy, even as a novel.