keyboard theologians

To Men Who Style Themselves Chivalrous

2012-01-17T01:30:00.001-08:00

To men who style themselves chivalrous, or somehow or other defenders of women, including the author of this post, in what are probably his better moments, if also his more prideful:

If the essence of chivalry ever really was in a darkened alleyway, walking home a mother, sister, friend, or lover, this is no longer the case.

Chesterton said that fairy tales describe what sane men do in mad worlds, and modern psychological novels describe what mad men do in sane worlds. We are the heroes of modern psychological novels, we are trapped in the setting of fairy tales, and there is no hope for us but in Christ. America is a mad world if there ever was one, and we, with our ability to presume false victory over our own impulses, are mad men. Our first duty is to guard our own hearts; if we don't do that, we can only do so much in guarding the hearts of culture.

Our first duty is to pray to God that we regain what is left of our sanity, to avoid losing our sanity to the surrounding psychology of the world. Only when we can begin to remove the planks in our souls can we proceed to remove the planks (and they are planks!) from the soul of our culture; this leaves us with nowhere to begin but prayer. A bunch of people with planks in their souls can do nothing to help each other without the grace of God. Once we've taken the vital step of acknowledging that we cannot do this on our own, we can move on to practicality, a step which I think we will all find remarkably simple, if somewhat uncertain.

As a first practical step I suggest that what we choose to think, what we choose to say, how we choose to conceive of women be guarded carefully, lest we give quarter to lust and concupiscence or anything else which dishonors. Any thought we have that so much as hints that a woman is lesser for being a woman, anytime we even remotely think of another human being as an object to be used, not a subject to be related to...we must take captive those thoughts and make them obedient to Christ. Furthermore we must cultivate a positive Love of all things in our hearts, so as to leave less and less room for these demons, be they personal or actual, to maneuver. And we must do this all without losing the spirit of prayer. Will this be hard? Yes. But virtue is our goal—avoiding sin isn't good enough to be called good.

The battlefield is no longer a darkened alleyway. This may be the case in special circumstances, but for most the bulk of the fight is spiritual, not physical, as much against oneself as against strange attackers. It is, and probably has been for awhile, in subjugating our passions to our spiritual needs, in subjugating our wills to those of Christ. If chivalry is really the middle ground that we have left between male chauvinism and the newer radical feminism, we cannot find it other than by following Christ, who, if chivalry is a virtue, was and is by virtue of that fact a chivalrous man.

Furthermore I suggest that if we are to take this positive meaning of the thing one called chivalry, and make it mean the defense of the honor or the rights of the other, that it is does extended to us as men and our honor. Indeed, in guarding our minds as men we guard our own honor as well as that of the other sex. At the same time there seems a special and qualitatively different mode of defense across the line of sex, but we must not pretend that only men are made to defend or that only women need defending from. But that is perhaps another conversation for another time.

Sets, Possibility, Logic, Salvation

2011-12-27T00:23:00.000-08:00

[Edit: I feel kind of like a doof. This post is basically a systematization of a conversation Mike and I had in comments on a similarly-themed post I made awhile ago. Thus I feel I owe him at least in part for the basic thing about the sets and the possibilities of members vs wholes having been planted in my head, in the specifics of persons, humanity and salvation.]

1. Let x be an arbitrary member of the set A.
2. Let it be the case that for any given x, with x being part of A, it is possible that x has property q.
3. Then it seems to be the case that, it must also be possible that all x in A have property q.

What's the relevance to theology? Let's let x be an arbitrary person, and let our set A be the set of all human persons, past, present, and future.

4. The Scriptures seem to teach us that we must not despair of the salvation of a given person.
5. This means we must hold out the possibility of the salvation of a given person x in the set of people.
6. So for any given x, where x is a person, it is possible that person x is saved.
7. Then it seems to be the case that it must also be possible that all persons x are saved.

It seems then that on an intellectual level, holding out hope for any arbitrary member of the human race does imply that we hold out the possibility (though not necessarily the probability) of universal salvation.

This doesn't need to be a probability; for instance, I am skeptical that I will see Adolf Hitler in heaven, and I am skeptical of universal salvation due to the weight of Biblical evidence being, in my mind, against its realization. But per Christian Tradition, when I am being reasonable, it seems I cannot eliminate either possibility.

Thoughts?

Stupidly Contemplative Questions

2011-11-29T02:26:00.001-08:00

Disclaimer: Chances are that if you're reading this, you're someone who has asked, or been asked, one of these questions. Chances are I have asked them of someone, and I definitely don't disrespect anyone for asking these questions. They can be helpful, but they're also stupidly contemplative questions. Explanation to follow!

It seems like sometimes we Christians like asking holy-sounding questions more than we like doing useful things. I don't mean questions like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, though certainly the outer reaches of Scholasticism are not always the most immediately relevant. But at least those people will speculate on, and get somewhere, and the obscure scholastic questions don't have the side effect of inducing needless guilt. I mean questions that can easily freeze us with how holy and scary and challenging they sound, like:

(1) "What are we doing to prove that we love God most?"
(2) "How can we share our faith?"
(3) "Do I know that I love God?"
(4) "How do I grow in God?"
(5) "How do I clean my room?"

Okay, that last one is a bit not like the others. It's a couple of degrees more removed from Christian living. But the questions share some things in common. At the outset, all such questions seem like insurmountable obstacles in themselves. With the possible exception of the third, they all bring to mind a few possible answers, none of which quite seems to be adequate right off the bat. And they all have potential to lead to a question-freeze, where you stand there stunned by how unholy or lazy in the Lord's work you are instead of actually doing something about it (or, if you prefer to put the emphasis on Grace, letting God work through you to improve your unholy lot.)

(1) This sounds like a reasonable question until you realize that the only answer that will satisfy a scrupulous person (remember that "prove" is the verb here) is to intentionally enlist in an order of monks or nuns whose only vocation is to seek bloody martyrdom under Shariah law while converting Muslims in one of the stricter Muslim countries. People with lax, or looser, consciences wonder what it is that they should have to prove to anyone else. And the well-ordered-conscience people are probably too busy proving it, insofar as we humans can, to answer the question or give it the time of day.

(2) This one actually does bear some real reflection, and I can't really do it justice here. So here, in its stead, is the injustice I will do the question: I think when people say this they usually mean verbally. I don't care what they mean, as long as they mean visually, and here I imply that the world sees with all five senses. I think what sharing our faith means is to communicate our belief in Christ as Redeemer of all through some sure and unambiguous sign which those regularly around us will "see." Even that's a rather vague sketch. While I like this question better than the others, I think its major freezing point is that it can be, like everything else, much more of a guilt trip than a question.

(3) To be honest, in my more cynical-theological moments, I tend to think number three is a question asked more for the fun of seeming profound and galvanizing people into a moment of crisis where they feel compelled to reflect, than it is to ask to actually help anything. And then we get to do the same thing I do when my room is really messy and I don't know how to start cleaning it: Spend a couple of minutes frozen in that question, then put off the real work for another week.

(4) This is another one of those famous challenge questions. I don't know about you, but when someone asks this one (including me, right now, to myself) I get images of a Rosary a Day and at least two Holy Hours. Mass at least once a week. And Adoration, which I admittedly dread trying to cultivate the habit of, because I know I'm going to have to work on my horrible attention span. But even the parts of this one I should like, being more theologically abstract, like reading the lives and works of the Saints...I don't really do. It's probably the attention span again. In terms of real-world problems this one is probably the closest, for me, to cleaning one's room. So many places I could start, but will I really feel good until it's all in place?

(5) This one usually is more of an excuse than an actual question, but cleaning my room is a pretty good analogy for these questions, except that the spiritual room, for almost all of us, never gets acceptably clean until we're with God.In the end, though, these questions aren't that productive in themselves. I guess my big thing, my big beef with them, is that they seem to do more emotional harm and cause more mental anguish, at least for me, than they're really worth. And they provide a good out. Standing frozen by the questions for a couple of minutes is a great excuse not to act on them. With that in mind, I propose a remedy. I'm going to answer the questions. Each answer requires a bit of expansion, but said expansions will be simple. Format: "Question." Answer. Expansion.

(1) "What are we doing to prove that we love God most?"We're confessing "Jesus is Lord." Physical martyrdom is unlikely to happen to you. Idolatry is not. A simple question, for a given thing X. If I had to choose between Jesus and X, which would I choose?

Unfreeze by resolving to choose Jesus. Every time.

(2) "How can we share our faith?"With outward signs that are not hidden. Live your faith. Don't be afraid to wear a Crucifix around your neck or keep a Bible or Rosary visible in the sight of non-Christians.**

Unfreeze by resolving to live ethically and share your faith when asked, as a baseline.

(3) "Do I know that I love God?"No. Now stop worrying and love God. Because it's a surer sign of loving God if you're focused on serving Him, rather than worrying about whether you love Him. If you are paranoid, ask people who, in your view, love God and can tell a Christian when they see one. What do they see in you?

Unfreeze by admitting you don't know, but you've got a pretty good idea that the answer to the question "Do I love God?" is yes.

(4) "How do I grow in God?"Treat God like you'd treat a Lord, but seek to know him better as you would a trusted friend. You can't ask God questions directly, but you would want to get to know a friend. You'd want to experience this person. So experience God.

Unfreeze by thinking of a couple of different (concrete) ways to grow in God (not just fellowship with other Christians), then sticking to them.

(5) "How do I clean my room?"Clean it. Pick something doable and start with that. Kind of like (4).

In other words, unfreeze by cleaning your room, already.

By the grace of God, may we, even if frozen in bad fashion by these questions, unfreeze by answering them, and then acting on our answers, that we might go forth and better serve God. Otherwise we might wind up so paranoid about whether we can answer these questions, that we never get around to answering them in word or in deed.

Which is the reason these questions were asked in the first place, even if they don't always get us where they're supposed to.

--------------------------

* A portmanteau of "testimony" and "brag," that I first picked up from my friend Alicia on one of a few group trips to Christian Rock festival FreedomFest. I will decline to say whose bragimony she was referring to, save that it was none of our group.

** This is not an endorsement of violating workplace standards, as regards desk cleanliness or religious expression. But of course if your workplace can't tolerate an offhand mention of church...

On Becoming a Theologian

2011-11-12T10:08:00.001-08:00

So I read this article that a guy named Bruce Bethke put online, called On Becoming a Writer Those who know me know he had a hand in coining the term "cyberpunk," having made it the title of a short story about teenage computer hackers back in the 1980s. But he also wrote this, on his website, which I thought was fairly good. I also feel that if you substitute "theology" for "literature," and "theologian" for "writer," it functions pretty well.

Friend of the blog Catholic Nick is one such example. I had lunch with an old youth pastor the other week and he had brought Nick to mind by mentioning the notion that a theologian is defined by what one does, not one's training. As a theologian I have more 'formal' training than he does (Nick, not said pastor who is a Ph.D to trump my B.A.), but he is, in some ways, a better theologian than I am. In trying to work out what to believe as a Catholic he's read...many more sources than I including numerous papal documents. In trying to work out how and why the Church teaches what it does about the Scriptures, and in order to be able to better respond to Protestant criticisms of Catholic doctrines, he's always reading various Scripture scholars.

Granted there's something to be said for learning about the scholarly consensus on given issues in college, a consensus only proves so much; the only real relevant dis-analogy I can see here is that there's not necessarily a scholarly consensus on what makes literature in general good, though certain topics in theology have a consensus that helps render arguments more or less tenable. That said, I think theologians sometimes overstate the importance of the consensus, and that perhaps this can be a way of avoiding the better arguments and thoughts of people like Nick, who do more and possibly better theologizing than half the professional field.

Isn't that Enough?

2011-10-29T03:41:00.000-07:00

A college friend of mine made a statement once that bears reflection here, in the context of theological discussion. I can't remember exactly what triggered it, but as I recall it's something he said that tells people sometimes. I didn't have a great response in the moment, but it's stuck with me as something that I disagree with, for reasons I don't think I could have articulated well at the time.

"Christ died for me. Isn't that enough?"

It's hard to know how to respond to such a statement. Its simplicity screams for acceptance. Who doesn't like a simple Gospel? But clearly...

No. At least not for an Arminian-turned-Catholic like myself. If Christ dying for someone is enough, that would force me to take the step from universal atonement ("Christ died for all") to universal salvation ("all will be saved"). Not doing that.

Now I'm being pedantic here. While that could be what he meant, I'm guessing that even if he does hold to limited atonement ("Christ died only for those who are saved"), he probably meant something more like:

"Christ died for me, and I have accepted Him as Lord and Savior. Isn't that enough?"

Again the statement screams for our simple acceptance. Down with meaningless scholasticism, down with pointless theological debates. Or at least, down with the notion that they really matter up against the simple Gospel of acceptance of Christ as Lord and Savior.

But that's not enough.

Because if we try to go with just that personal relationship, we get a desire for more. We desire to know more, to know the Truth--the whole Truth and nothing but it. To go beyond the simple truth of Christ's death for us, of our following Him, because to follow Him we have to know how. To know how we need someplace to start. The proof is simple and observable: Simply watch a new Christian as they grow in faith: they will read the Scriptures and seek the counsel of those more grown in the faith than they are. If their new-found relationship with Christ were enough, these things would be superfluous.

But still that little voice objects: "Isn't that still enough to survive, spiritually speaking?" Oh, sure, it might be enough in the sense that a lifeboat is enough to keep you from drowning, or that a piece of bread to keep you from starving. But what starving person would live alone on the spiritual bread of this simple Gospel, if they had before them the feast of the Scriptures, theology, and--if I may--the consecrated Host in the sacrament of Thanksgiving?

Enough for survival? Yes. But enough for thriving, except in the most extenuating circumstances? No, because God has provided more, and wants more for each and every one of us, desiring that we might be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth.

Now I am not prepared, nor do I desire to attempt in this post, to build up the whole of Catholic theology starting from this point. But the mere simple Gospel many espouse is, quite frankly, more a starting point than something that can justly and simply be called "enough" for salvation as Christ fully intended it to be.

Christian Carnival: Oct 26, 2011

2011-10-26T23:45:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the October 26, 2011 edition of the Christian Carnival. The Carnival is open to Christians of Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant convictions. As such it should be expected and nearly goes without saying that I don't necessarily mean to endorse every written word in the posts below theologically.

Richard H. Anderson presents The Book of Zechariah and the Passion Narratives posted at dokeo kago grapho soi kratistos Theophilos, saying, "one in a series of articles on the priority of the Gospel of Luke"

Maryann Spikes presents Confident Christianity Conference in the Dallas/Fort Worth area posted at Ichthus77.

Jennifer in OR presents Two-Hundred-Proof Grace posted at Diary of 1, saying, "I consider how my sister’s Scotch was proof enough with just a whiff to convince me of its power and how just a taste sent my nagging cold into oblivion, and wasn’t grace good medicine, too, especially for ailments of the conscience?"

David R Wells presents A Modern Day Sodom? posted at Revelation 3:10 - Blog, saying, "From Genesis we learn that the city Sodom ran rampant in homosexuality, but from this passage in Ezekiel we discover so much more about who these people really were."

Josh presents Best Bible Verses to Share With Others posted at What Christians Want To Know, saying, "Do you have favorite Bible verses to share with others? Check out this list of ten good ones to memorize or write down so you can share them."

Cindy Jeffrey presents Prayer to God the Father that Souls Rest in Peace and for Love, Purity and Blessedness posted at Christian Prayers, saying, "I've had requests this week to pray for souls who died this week. This prayer asks for that, and that we, too, might be drawn closer to God."

sharon akinoluwa presents WEALTH AND RICHES » BIBLICAL PRINCIPLES FOR WEALTH CREATION posted at WEALTH AND RICHES, saying, "T he programme of God above all things is that you should prosper. Not above some things or few things but above ALL things. This is God’s ultimate desire for you. Prosperity is God’s will. That is His agenda for all believers including you. God is eternally committed to your prosperity. And the good news is that the devil cannot do anything about it…"

Carl presents When God is Silent posted at Theological Pursuit, saying, "Some along-the-road-of-life thoughts on God's silence."

Zowada presents The Central Issues and the Peripheral Issues. posted at Zowada Blog, saying, "What do the great debates such as "Calvinism vs. Arminianism" matter if we lose sight of love within the discussion?"

Christian Amit presents Jesus Heals Jairus’ Daughter - Miracles of Jesus posted at Bible Study Exposition Online, saying, "Bible Study on Healing miracles of Jesus Christ – Jesus raises Jairus’ Daughter. Who is the ruler of Synagogue? What was Jairus’ state of mind when he heard about his daughter’s death? Faith of Jairus. Jesus’ response to the Wailers. Life Applications."

Jason Price presents Is it “Good” to Spend Money on Yourself? posted at One Money Design, saying, "Consider a Godly perspective to spending decisions and find some peace to spend some on yourself."

True Stillwater presents Do You Believe in the Devil? posted at Letters, Messages, and Prayers, saying, "Blog on hope and fighting back with faith and prayer."

Kaleb presents Sound Like a Broken Record? posted at W2W Soul: Windows to The Woman's Soul, saying, "I can only imagine what I sound like to the Lord every time I go before Him with the same sin, the same struggle, the same failure. “Lord, I’m so sorry—so sorry—so sorry—so sorry—forgive me—forgive me—never again—again—“well, you get my point."

loswl presents Sold out for Jesus? posted at INSPIKS, saying, "I know there are some areas in my Christian walk that are still lacking, and it’s frustrating. I want to be 110% sold out for Jesus, but I’m not, and it’s seriously worry’s me, because what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?"

Isabel Anders presents “Interview with Fr. Malachi” about Chant of Death—A Clerical Detective Novel by Diane M. Moore and Isabel Anders | BlogHer posted at BlogHer, saying, "This "interview" with the hero of our mystery novel Chant of Death serves to introduce theological themes and information in a narrative format and also exposes readers to our writing style."

Chris Brooks presents Fostering Knowledge of the Gospel posted at Homeward Bound, saying, "Narrative doesn't really cover it. Sharing the good news -- and the bad news -- with children who need to hear it."

Ronnie Davis presents Love Beyond Service posted at Mission Blog, saying.

Aoide-Melete-Mneme presents Thoughts on 1 Corinthians posted at à la mode de les Muses, saying, "Waiting is a short-run solution for singles."

Melanie Slaugh presents 10 Bible Stories You Can Relate to FaceBook posted at Internet Service Providers.

I, Dan Lower present Pray Always over here at KBT.

If you'd like to participate next week, use our nifty carnival submission form.Find past and future hosts on ourblog carnival index page.

Pray Always

2011-10-25T01:38:00.000-07:00

You ever see those Facebook groups like "Pray for person X" or "Pray over event Y"?

You've seen them. Usually they come as a response to something we deem worthy of our prayer. And almost always, certainly, the thing in question is worthy of prayer.

If you're like me, you've kind of stopped joining those groups. Mostly because we're neurotic and feel that we're going to somehow guilt ourselves into never leaving them and winding up being "that guy" who's in 5,000 groups (or more recently, "likes" 5,000 pages) on Facebook. And I don't want to be that guy.

But it also seems like these groups are missing the point, or rather, that they paint an incomplete picture of things. I would submit that while it is always good to pray and make our intentions known to God, it is also good to make sure that we really pray without ceasing, to establish a rhythm of prayer which doesn't depend on tragedy or special blessing.

I'm terrible at this, by the way. My closest thing to a daily rhythm is a daily decade of Rosary and a "God, help me to be better tomorrow" before I go to sleep.

Anyone else have thoughts on establishing this rhythm? Anyone have ideas on how to do it other than brute force?

Live Action, Defining a Lie and Bible Stories

2011-10-16T11:47:00.000-07:00

It's about time I actually put down thoughts on the matter. Recently a conversation with a friend spurred me to want to read more, on each side of the issue.

For those not familiar, the debate basically concerns a sting operation Live Action did on a Planned Parenthood clinic. In said operation, two of their people entered said clinic dressed as a pimp and prostitute. It is clear as far as I am concerned that their stings have done some good in effect, but a question has arisen even among Catholic pro-lifers: did they tell a lie in the moral sense, that is, did they do something the Catholic tradition considers lying?

Before I continue further I ought to state my respect and admiration for what L.A. does. They go deeper and more proactively into what is, in actuality, a battle. As a man who (because he possesses a penis) is quite frankly too scared to get in the game on many fronts, I'm not going to sit here and say I think they should just back off of poor old Planned Parenthood, unless I think it direly necessary. And I don't, but I'll explain. Likewise, I should make it clear: I don't think that in any extreme deception-case, including the Live Action case, anyone will be going to hell for whatever deception they have committed. There's a big line between venial and mortal sin, and in my unprofessional opinion there's virtually no way, in any case, between their own views, right or wrong, and the situation's context, that L.A. crossed that line.

So why do we care? Because if we insist on being virtuous, that means examining ourselves even for the specks in our eyes if we ever hope to help heal the world. And if all boldfaced lies are wrong, then telling them--even in the service of the truths the pro-life movement offers--is also wrong, and a potential compromise to our witness. Now I won't be dealing here with the claims of certain people in the world that L.A.'s sting videos and even their official unedited versions are doctored. I don't much have the patience for that and, quite frankly, it may be a bit outside the scope of this blog. Maybe in the future.

Deception is not automatically lying. Visual deception, merely hiding something, is not telling a lie. Now it does muddy the waters some, and some extenuating circumstance does seem needed to justify it. But it's not the same, for the Catholic tradition, as uttering a boldfaced lie. Note that I will be focusing on verbal lying here; what exactly it means to "act" a lie seems a more malleable concept and in the Catholic tradition most "actions" that don't somehow equate to speech seem to get a free pass, even if deceptive, even from the more "conservative" side of the coin.

Definition: I tell a lie that is boldfaced if I state something with a high degree of clarity which is false. Thus a lie by innuendo, or a phrase commonly understood to be ambiguous, or an ambiguous phrase which is literally true, is not a lie.

E.g. checking the check-box next to "I have read and acknowledge the terms and conditions" on an internet form is hardly lying; someone correct me if I'm wrong, but its real culturally defined meaning is "I acknowledge your butt as legally covered by these terms and conditions," not "I have read with great care and concern each and every letter of these terms and conditions." Long story short: If the statement is such that a reasonable person might guess your employment of innuendo or ambiguity (even if you know they won't), the majority of Catholic theologians won't call that lying, even if they believe that what can be called a lie is always intrinsically wrong.

In the Catholic tradition the definition of a lie, in the sense that is a sin one may be culpable for, is one of two competing notions. The following definitions will help us explain. The word error as referred to here, will be taken to mean factual error. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, and let me know which thinker or authoritative source is saying it means moral error, so I can find out. The only ones I know of so far, for sure, for sure is the guy Tom who runs that Disputations blog and Steve Kellmeyer, though Dawn Eden took the opportunity to disagree with him in the comment box for his post which I shall reference later on.

Definition 1: I tell a boldfaced lie to person X in order to lead X into error.
Definition 2: I tell a boldfaced lie to person X, where X has a right to know the truth in order to lead X into error.

Now the weight of the Catholic tradition, including most authoritative speakers, seems to fall with Definition 1. I also hold to Definition 1 but I have serious sympathies with Definition 2, and to give full disclosure I should prefer it; it would solve many problems for me about getting a coherent concept of "lie."

So I read and/or re-read some stuff. Including the following articles which I'll present as my highlights:

* Truth, Love and Live Action by Christopher Tollefsen (The Public Discourse)

Tollefsen suggests that Live Action's actions, ultimately, were not loving. By my reading he may be overstating his case on this one, though he raises the excellent question about whether having truth (facts) on the pro-life side is undermined by using tactics in which we speak untruth (against the facts). For my personal taste, philosophically speaking, Tollefsen didn't focus enough on the specific tactics but more on the general tactics of L.A.

* In Defense of Live Action by Christopher Kaczor (The Public Discourse)

Kaczor suggests that Tollefsen has overstated his case and offers not so much a defense of Live Action's specific actions, as a suggestion (which in my opinion is fully defensible) that not all deception is in and of itself lying and that we need not condemn their general tactics. Kaczor also offers the brilliant suggestion that Live Action phrase its statements as hypotheticals. Instead of saying what they did say, that they were involved in sex work, they could say "say I were X." Since the statement doesn't positively state a factual error or attempt to lead anyone into moral error, I'm not sure how it could fit the Catholic definition of lying. Whether they can still wear the pimp and prostitute costume is something I'll leave to the philosophers.

* Why Live Action Did Right and we Should All Know That by Peter Kreeft (CatholicVote.org)

Kreeft appeals strongly to intuition in this article. I must say I wanted to agree, intuitively. I didn't, but I wanted to. Those who know me well enough know I don't consider my intuition to be at all infallible. However, I felt that (intentionally or no) some of the language Kreeft used insinuated that I and others in disagreement with him had broken moral intuitions, which put me off more than his general method of argument did. Kreeft made the claim that "[p]hysical hiding and verbal hiding are two sides of the same coin," which I'm pretty sure is false in Catholic moral tradition, though the two are clearly related. As far as I know Kreeft has yet to write anything along more "logical" lines that might help convince someone like myself who takes the other position and isn't convinced by this piece; I hope he does.

* Fig Leaves and Falsehoods by Janet Smith (First Things)

Here Smith suggests that Thomas Aquinas's prohibition on lying is based on a faulty exception to his general rule that things not permitted pre-Fall (as in Adam and Eve) may be permitted exceptions post-Fall. She offers a number of examples from cases like lying (e.g. stealing and killing) which have examples of exception post-Fall which she believes may justify (by analogy) exceptions to what would have been a pre-Fall prohibition on lying.

* The Case Against False Assertions by Tollefsen and Alexander Pruss (First Things)

This was essentially Pruss and Tollefsen attempting to correct Smith on her argument about Aquinas's prohibitions.

I also read some other stuff on CatholicVote that basically followed on Kreeft's heels and that, quite frankly, I didn't find too much worthy of noting beyond that. One last thing worthy of note might be Edward Feser's blog post Live Action, Lying, and Natural Law, which probably most adequately represents my position on the matter. I got a lot more heated about the argument itself than I can ever remember getting about Live Action's actions in and of themselves.

There are of course some Biblical considerations. Hat tip to Steve Kellmeyer in his blog post "A Rose by Any Other Name" for pointing out what is, in my opinion, the best one. There are a few Biblical examples of
"praiseworthy" lying I will be considering here.

1. First is the example of the midwives in Egypt, who refused to kill boys on delivery at the command of the government. While the Lord clearly rewarded them, the text explicitly says they were rewarded for choosing God over Egypt. Unless someone's got some exegesis showing otherwise, I'm not ready to accept that God was directly praising their lying.

2. Second is the example of Rahab, who hid Hebrew spies with material vaguely on/in her roof, and lied to soldiers about where they were, saying they had gone out. This one seems more convincing. There's not enough evidence for me to conclude that God directly praised the act of lying here, though the spies did bestow protection on Rahab as a result, which was apparently theirs to give. But given that of the spies was being called praiseworthy, Rahab could perhaps have said something like "the spies have left my house," since being on or in the roof could hardly be considered being in her house, without lying. I'm not going to consider myself competent to exegete whether she was being praised for lying directly. This example bugs me more than the midwives as a person who holds Definition 1, if only because in this story it's a bit more plausible that Rahab is praised for lying.

3. The third example, which Kellmeyer introduced me to, was Nathan the prophet's story to King David. God sends Nathan to King David to convict him of what he has done in essentially murdering Uriah so that he might claim his wife, who he has slept with, without complication. To be honest, reading the story in its "plain interpretation," I'm not convinced Nathan intended the story to be taken literally. But King David certainly took it that way, at least for a couple of seconds, and that gives me more pause than anything else here; if a prophet of God can lie to make a point, than can't a modern, quite possibly prophetic organization, do the same? Of course, whether Nathan really meant the story literally is a matter for exegesis beyond this post. But it's more fun and tests the waters more to assume he did.

Now for the sake of argument I will assume Definition 2 of lying. In this circumstance we have still one major consideration about L.A.'s actions. Given the allowance for their deception given that the Planned Parenthood employees have no right to know what's up, do they still act outside of the authority which is proper to exercise such deception? I am tempted to believe "no," in which case they would under Definition 2 be fine, perhaps mostly because our current government could not step in to do similar work with similar ends because it has clearly decided that either its founding document (the Constitution) or its interpretive body of persons, is not really interested in upholding life for all. The other major consideration, and this seems more problematic under Definition 2 (which as you recall adds the qualifier that person X has a right to know the truth), is whether proactive stings on a pro-choice organization disqualify the boldfaced deception from being a lie the same way that, say, a Nazi at the door and a Jew in the basement could.

In the long run I come down on the "safe" side, that it is never okay to lie and that Live Action did something erroneous, though they were not culpable of sin. I do, however, believe that they could safely clear themselves of the charge of lying, at least as our current "safe" side advocates define it, with one or two modifications in specific tactic. I assent thus to the conclusion that appears the current teaching of the Church, that a lie told falling under Definition 1 is a lie in the moral sense. I want to accept Definition 2; it would eliminate anything that seems Biblically or intuitively problematic about Definition 1 (the Nazi example, Rahab and Nathan, or Kreeft's more extreme example.) But regardless of what level of assent the safe teaching requires (I'm not good enough on theology of authority to say; opinions seem to be variable), it is not infallible and neither am I, and I look forward to the ongoing resolution of this open question.

Last note: I am struck by how many people particularly on the more rigorous and less permissive side identify as Thomists. I suspect this is not a coincidence.

I invite any of the other keyboard theologians, or any readers, to add their thoughts.

The Bible Tells Us

2011-09-09T00:45:00.000-07:00

The following is a reflection I wrote in the beginning of 2008 for the Faith and Leadership House of 2008-2009. With the caveat that standard Catholic modifiers now apply to everything I endorse, I still endorse what I had to say pretty much wholeheartedly. Anyway I dug it up, read it, and thought it worth sharing as a piece of blog.

The Bible Tells Us

The Bible, the Old Testament at any rate, tells us to stone people for all manner of offenses, including but not limited to sex outside the context of marriage. The Old Testament provides a few humanitarian measures on the matter, mostly attempts to account for rape, and the New doesn't seem to call for stoning on almost anything, but still: all these old laws. How do we decide which parts of the Law still apply, and in what way? (And this is not even thinking of which punishments should still apply?) If we choose one over the other, must we sacrifice the unity of Scripture to do so?

The Bible tells us to submit ourselves to the governing authorities. Does this command have any veto power over the others? What are we to do if we believe it is given to us in Scripture not to lie, and the governing authorities tell us to lie? For that matter, what if our parents tell us? Does that commandment have so much power that we should? Is this a situational thing? Common sense seems to say yes, to me, but common sense also tells me that dead people stay dead and virgins don't have babies. Christianity is not a common-sense religion.

The Bible tells us to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. But what if our rejoicing is their mourning, or vice versa? If both parties try and do the noble thing, they're still not following the command, because one is still mourning and the other is still rejoicing. So what is to be done? Do both parties alternate the mourning and rejoicing? If this situation even arises, does that mean one party has done something wrong?

It is not only a question of when the rubber hits the road, but what happens when the rubber hits the road. At what point do contradicting ethical orders, or even contradicting theologies--and I do believe they are in play in the Scriptures--overrule each other, and how do we decide which one gets priority if there is a conflict between two or more passages?

But wait! You might turn to me and ask whether the whole problem hasn't already been solved by Christ, the Incarnate Logos, Jesus of Nazareth, who boldly put forth a mere two commandments as the sum of the Law and the Prophets: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. And who is your neighbor? Not the common sense answer, not just that jerk who puts up a 10-foot fence between your property and his or the nice old lady who keeps bringing you copies of Watchtower magazine. No, your neighbor is every man and woman: friends, enemies, short, tall, black, white, you name it, and to that end it strikes as logical that all our interpretations of Scripture, perhaps most when we see a conflict between two passages, ought to be guided by two principles: love of God, and love of humanity.

Of course, we believe that at least to a degree the problem has been solved, even if we don't know the solution. Christ establishes a new covenant. It isn't necessarily the case that every six-hundred-odd laws are still in effect. But as evidenced by the wandering writings of Paul on just about anything where the word "law" is involved, the matter is not simple, and at any rate, Jesus of Nazareth never gave us a chart of which verses trumped which. Whether he could have is a topic for another day!

Even at our most theoretical and uninvolved as Christians (and may I say in particular as an amateur Christian theologian) we are forced to get our hands dirty. Inevitably, it seems the case that one piece of the Inspired Word of God trumps another. And perhaps that is part of the point. Christianity is not a clean religion. It is not common-sense. If even the biggest theologians of a faith must get their hands dirty to do their work, what does this say for the lesser? If we're not getting our hands, hearts, and minds dirty as Christians, it means we might have to reexamine whether we're really going for the gold.

Thankfully, because we believe in a New Covenant it is allowed to us to talk somewhat of these things being a mystery, of not having everything handed to us on a silver platter, but handed to us nonetheless, of the world's issues having been addressed to some degree at least, and Sin in some sense atoned for, even though we don't really know why or exactly how. But when we get into specifics about what to believe, what to do, and what the Bible tells us--and to decide what orthodoxy meant, thousands of early Christians already had to do this, and imagine doing it without a defined canon!--when we get into the question of what the Bible tells us, of what we ought to believe and do, we get our hands dirty. We do have one agreement among us, at least, as a house; this is that God dirtied a hand for us in a very personal way. I suggest that it is our job, an imperative as Christians, to get our hands dirty in turn: by figuring out what we ought to believe and do, and by believing and doing it.

But not necessarily in that order.

Moments of Recognition

2011-07-30T23:11:00.000-07:00

You ever have one of those moments that speaks to something universal in humanity?

I remember once in college when one of my mathematics professors, who was kind of a mean guy--mean in a soccer-coach-esque way, not really in a bad way--had a brief moment of confusion and stumbled while trying to finish a proof during a class.

I remember his disappointment with himself at the time. I remember getting an e-mail later on which finished the proof. It was a moment, as I recall, that spurred me to compassion, as I realized that all of us--even those of us who are normally quite confident and clear-headed about something--sometimes fail to be so. And our weaknesses are shown to the world.

It is good for all of us to recognize those moments in others, those moments of understanding, when hearts are, however briefly, worn on sleeves. But what do we do with that moment of understanding, when the weakness or ugliness or beauty of someone else is revealed in a way we're not used to?

Of course, the Scripture speaks of a time when all secrets will be revealed to God*--whether to the rest of us, it is unclear, or at least something I currently un-remember. Of course, one would suppose that at least for those of us in Heaven there will be no need to hide our hearts. But what do we do in the meantime, when we reach a moment of recognition, a secret weakness or ugliness or even beauty that we didn't know was there before?

I'm curious about the theology of secrets. In particular, does the Confessional have anything to teach to us (particularly those of us who are Catholic, but perhaps in other quarters) about secrets and secrecy vis-a-vis the divine? And how do we--or do we need to--reconcile the keeping of secrets that are ugly with the call to transparency?

Obviously I don't think it's so simple as "transparency trumps anyone's desire to keep a secret, ever," or I wouldn't be asking the question.

If anyone has a relevant verse or theological reflection to share relating to secrets, feel free. I'm curious to see where my explorations go.

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* I should clarify, based on a Facebook message from someone who was having trouble commenting, that I think I am thinking of the notion of having to give an account of oneself on judgment day, though I ought to add that if there's a Scripture which says this plainly, it's not coming to my mind right now.

Cynical Hope and the "O My Jesus" Prayer

2011-07-26T01:05:00.000-07:00

While this reflection concerns (partially) a prayer that is a part of Roman Catholic tradition (little-t), the author considers the "O My Jesus" prayer to be worthy of meditation and reflection in its own right and invites all readers regardless of denomination to try and follow the trains of thought running on all the twisted tracks in his mind in this reflection.

It is said that when the Virgin Mary appeared at Fatima, she gave the children who were the visionaries a prayer that, for a Marian apparition, might seem strangely Christocentric (though if we Catholics are right about the purpose of Marian devotion, we shouldn't necessarily expect otherwise.) This prayer also, for an appearance more associated with conservative Catholicism, seems strangely universalist in its hope, even though it hardly advocates universalism. I suppose in that respect it resembles the Scripture.

O My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy.

I would advise anyone who thinks that sounds universalist to remember that the same tradition has Our Lady instructing us all to pray for the conversion of Russia, indicating that the leading of souls to heaven is, to say the least, far from complete.

I am in one sense a rather cynical Catholic; I find myself somewhat unsure that the world will be able to recognize the truths of Christianity and its ethos until it's too late not to go to hell in a hand-basket. On other hand I am believer and I walk by faith in Christ, the Sacraments, and Resurrection--and so even if the world is going to hell in a hand-basket, even if we're past that point of no return, there can be salvation for its people. Thank God. Perhaps if we pass that point of no return, as a society or as a world, it will shock a few more people into seeing the beauty of Christ. Sometimes I think people need to be nauseated by the Gospel--or perhaps by the radical absence thereof--before they realize something is wrong with a Gospel-less life. I'm not going to lie, I often feel like I ought to be trying harder at the whole "evangelism" thing.

O My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy.

At the same time, the world created by God is surely good, and I hope, sometimes against my senses, that it isn't actually going to hell in a hand-basket. That maybe society hasn't passed that point of no return. But I guess with all the wars, strange relativism and culture of death floating around it's sometimes hard to be optimistic. And yet I do try, in accordance with good Christian hope, to hope for the salvation of all, and not to despair too much. After all, the creation is still beautiful, even if sometimes its beauty is obscured by the sinfulness of man.

O My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy.

As we draw further on in a given society, there will be those who serve Christ and life, and those who serve the Enemy and death. Those attempting to be 'tolerant' or in the middle will need to pick a side. There is a strange connection here to the personal "last things," as we continually near our deaths. Let us hope that as many as possible will find themselves on the side of life and Love in the end, both in their personal end and the end of their respective societies, if they are around to see it.

If the Lord wills, I will be, in the end, worthy of the Resurrection.

O My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy.

Christian Carnival: Wednesday, July 20

2011-07-20T23:30:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Christian Carnival for Wednesday, July 20th. Hope you all enjoy this.

Caveat: This is a Carnival open to Christians of Protestant, Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic persuasions. As such, it goes without saying that even as a host and as a Catholic I make no endorsement of any positions advocated in the linked posts; that's not to say I un-endorse them, so much as this is a Carnival of ideas, and there is certainly somewhere in these pages an idea with which I (or the Church to which I claim loyalty) will disagree. The Christian Carnival's Facebook page can be found at, well, here.

Scott Masters presents To Casey Anthony… We Are a People of Grace posted at The Jesse Lee Project, saying, "A Faithful perspective on the aftermath of the Casey Anthony Trial and acquittal"

Deano presents Discovering my test... Psalm 139 posted at My Jarrol Spot.

loswl presents The Eye is the Lamp of the Body – Part 2 posted at INSPIKS, saying, "I think a lot of Christians indulge in the sensual, thinking it is ok as long as they have not went far enough to commit the physical sexual sin."

Maryann Spikes presents Unintended Coincidences in the Bible by Tim McGrew posted at Ichthus77.

Createlive presents A Cross In The Sand posted at CREATElive.

Joe Plemon presents Book Review: Managing God’s Money by Randy Alcorn posted at Personal Finance By The Book, saying, "Randy Alcorn's newest book is, in my mind, a life changer. The review explains why."

Chris Price presents Ben Franklin, George Washington, and Christianity posted at American Church History.

Jason Price presents How Do You Define Generosity? [Christian Financial Alliance] posted at One Money Design, saying, "Christian finance articles help us learn the definition of generosity and explain it in their own terms."

Maryann Spikes presents Good without God? posted at Ichthus77.

Violet N. presents Treasure Book posted at Other Food: daily devos, saying, "Imagining life without the Bible makes one appreciate it more."

michelle presents oh that I will open the door? posted at going into all the earth....

Caffeine Coquette presents How Running Makes Me A Better Mother posted at The Caffeine Coquette, saying, "The strength I develop through running has benefits that go beyond physical. For me, running is like meditation, a way to connect to nature, grow closer to God, find inspiration and stimulate creativity."

Russ White presents The Modern Obsession with Confirmation posted at Thinking in Christ.

Ridge Burns presents The Power of Thank You posted at Ridge’s Blog.

Josh presents Bible Verses About Patience: 20 Scripture Quotes posted at What Christians Want To Know, saying, "Check out these 20 great Bible verses about patience."

Lastly, I (cheating a little, my post wouldn't have made it in under normal submission rules) am submitting from KBT, my entry, America the Beautiful - Appropriate for Church? in which the question on the tin is pondered and I humbly request your thoughts from within your particular "how we do Church" tradition.

America the Beautiful - Appropriate for Church?

2011-07-20T00:54:00.000-07:00

I'm still up in the air about the appropriateness of lots of different songs at Mass.

But a few Sundays ago we had..."America the Beautiful" as our...closing song?

Granted I think the Mass was technically ended at that point. Granted that there are a lot of songs that do get sung that are questionable and sometimes heretical. But still. It's patently an anthem to the country, not to God. Now I do think a similar criticism (an anthem to the congregants, not to God) could be raised for some of the songs we sometimes sing. But at least the nominal point of those songs is, nonetheless, to draw the people into the worship of God. I hope.

Singing a patriotic song, on the other hand, had no legitimate place at that Sunday Mass. Yes, the chorus mentions God. But you're singing to America, which, well...one of those songs was not like the others. And yes, technically, it wasn't Mass at that point, but given that to be "proper" I have to stay and am being encouraged to stay after that song to pray, I'm basically trapped with a non-worship song. Now I'm still up in the air about it, not because I'm an American, but because on further reflection the lyrics strongly imply that God is not done with our nation yet and petitions Him to do greater things for it. But again, on the other hand, if a song sung essentially to our congregation (even if in the first person plural) is inappropriate in that context, I'm tempted to say the same of a song sung essentially to our country (in grammar as well as in spirit.)

Thoughts? I'm curious about peoples' thoughts coming both from more liturgical and musically 'conservative' traditions as well as otherwise.

Dan Reads the Catechism: Paragraph 103 and the Kneeling Argument

2011-06-13T00:27:00.000-07:00

I remember having a huge argument once in the Faith and Leadership House. Actually, the argument was between the house and one of our directors over whether we should kneel at Mass. It was a pretty infamous incident for us and one that (still) stretches me on whether we were truly submitted to authority in Catholic fashion.

The authority in question was a professor at the University who asked us why we knelt during or near the consecration at Mass, and while we weren't all this vehement about it, she and one of the more staunch Catholics in our house got into a fairly intense debate about it. At one point, when she mentioned Christ being present in the reading Scriptures (the implication being, so far as I took it, we should kneel then).

Now the counterargument offered, and if I recall correctly it was at the time, was that there was a qualitative difference in these presences. (The authority this person exercised, by the way, was that of an official faculty director of our program, and the extended question was whether the instructions to Catholics in our area indicated we should kneel at the consecration or not. My question as to authority was whether we ought to have obeyed her recommendation despite believing we were right; what would Jesus do?)

But paragraph 103 says "For this reason, the Church has always venerated the Scriptures as she venerates the Lord's Body. She never ceases to present to the faithful the bread of life, taken from the one table of God's Word and Christ's Body" (source).

Now intuitively, going on history, it seems like the Real Presence in the Eucharist is a qualitatively different presence from Christ's presence in the reading of the written Word of God . After all, I don't recall any Early Church Fathers ever saying that the letters of Paul were "the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again" (source).

But paragraph 103 itself gives...little, if any, indication of such a difference. Perhaps some later paragraph (on the Eucharist, perhaps?) will clarify this for me. In the meantime I continue to be struck a tad confused by the lack of distinction drawn here. And it seems like the professor in question may have had, at the least, more intuition behind her thought than we wanted to grant at the time.

There's something about paragraph 82 that bugs me, too. I don't disagree with the paragraph. But it brought something to light that begs further investigation. More on that later.

So I'm Reading the Catechism

2011-05-15T23:41:00.001-07:00

Paragraph-for-paragraph. I hope to find lots of interestings.

Quiz question

2011-04-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

What, for St. Thomas Aquinas, is the hidden reality signified by the Eucharist?

Answer forthcoming...

Christian Carnival

2011-03-31T01:04:00.000-07:00

Christian Carnival! It's here. KBT is hosting.

The Carnival welcomes Christians of Orthodox, Protestant and Roman Catholic convictions. Posts are below, with author comments in italics:

Henry Neufeld presents Every Christian a Theologian ? an Equivocation posted at Participatory Bible Study Blog. If all Christians are theologians, as Karl Barth claims, why do I say I'm not a theologian?

Albert Rommal presents Elders Oversee the Making of Disciples posted at The Sovereign God.

Katrina Kaczmarek presents The Lion | Love Can Sit Anywhere posted at Love Can Sit Anywhere.

Maryann Spikes (Ichthus77) presents Just Love posted at Ichthus77.

Barry Wallace presents It?s not about Rob Bell posted at who am i?. What's at stake in the Rob Bell controversy?

Tyler A. van der Hoeven presents Christians and Money – The Struggle Within posted at INSPIKS. Is it right to gain a profit for my work through large companies or from my close friends and fellow believers? There are several answers to that question and I would like to share one with a story.

Kaleb presents Our Prodigal Father posted at W2W Soul. We all know the parable of the prodigal son told in Luke 15:11-32. To briefly recap, the parable tells of a son who squanders his inheritance, is forced to endure dire circumstances.

Rey Reynoso presents Get The Gehenna Out of Here? posted at Rey Reynoso. Part 3 in a series on Hell during Hell Week on The Bible Archive.

Jeremy Pierce presents Miroslav Volf on Muslims and Worship of God posted at Parableman. Miroslav Volf looks at whether Muslims worship the same God as Christians and spends some time thinking through the practical issues that (perhaps) follow from his stance on the issue.

Ridge Burns presents Unity and Working Together posted at Ridge’s Blog.

Paula Pant presents What The 7 Deadly Sins Can Teach Us About Money posted at Faith and Finance. I review the Biblical roots of the 7 Deadly Sins, and explain what each of these sins can teach us about money.

I apologize for not making/taking the time to do a more thorough job of hosting. Next time around I will. Please let me know if I missed anyone so I can add their post.

Liturgical Awesomeness

2011-03-23T07:21:00.001-07:00

The following link is to a lecture which was recently given at Catholic Univ. of America by Rev. Jeremy Driscoll, OSB. Fr. Driscoll teaches at Mt. Angel Seminary in Oregon and also at San Anselmo in Rome. He is also the author of the excellent book What Happens at Mass.

He speaks about a very interesting subject: logike latreia (Romans 12:1, commonly translated as 'spiritual worship', but the same words are found in Eucharistic prayers East and West as 'reasonable worship')

http://trs.cua.edu/news/events/quasten-award.cfm

(The audio is bad for the first minute or two of Fr. Driscoll's lecture, but you don't miss anything substantial)

Not a Theology Textbook: The Last Gentleman

2011-03-17T02:37:00.000-07:00

This is the second of a series of posts I started way too long ago about books that are theological, but not theology textbooks. Example of a theology textbook: Justo L. Gonzalez's The Story of Christianity. Example of a theological non-textbook: Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory. While a good non-textbook should mesh well with Christian teaching, it may not mesh equally well on all points and should not be read like a theology textbook.

The book I'll be talking about in this post is The Last Gentleman by Walker Percy. The book is about baptism. I'm only halfway joking. I find that with Percy novels thus far, I can pick a featured sacrament, "the modern world," sex, or hope, and say "this book is about X", and I'll be at least somewhat right. So for the fun of it, if nothing else, I insist that The Last Gentleman is about baptism.

The Last Gentleman concerns the adventures of Will Barrett, an amensiac engineer--custodian--who falls in love with a woman named Kitty Vaught at first sight and sets out to pursue her.

The book's theological tones become more apparent as the story picks up, and Will awkwardly courts Kitty. This leads to his eventual involvement in her family and their affairs, especially with her dying brother, Jamie and brother Sutter. Percy has a lot of things to say about love, hope, despair and sex as Will journeys from New England to the south.

Barrett's world is alienated, and he feels out of place. He is miserable when others are happy and only happy when things are going seriously wrong. When he falls in with the Vaughts he begins to find his place again.

At one point in his journey, Will meets a member of the family named Val Vaught, who has up and joined a nunnery after being influenced by a sister in a social work program. Val is said to be religious, though not in the conventional sense, and the reader discovers later on what this means. She is a gem of a Percy character, and expresses well a common Christian struggle:

‎I believe the whole business: God, the Jews, Christ, the Church, grace, and the forgiveness of sins [...] I'm meaner than ever. Christ is my lord and I love him but I'm a good hater and you know what he said about that. I still hope my enemies fry in hell. What to do about that? Will God forgive me?

One theme that is prominent is the theme of sacrament as a hope for the world. In his travels Will discovers pieces of a correspondence between Val Vaught and Kitty's other brother, Sutter. The correspondence he reads gives the reader a good dose of Percy's recurring theme of the world, really, needing the Church if it is to be human, and what the world will do if the Church is not available.

Ultimately the winding series of adventures that Will has come to their completion on the points of hope and salvation. Accidents and amnesiac incidences that turn out, in the end, somewhat providential or at least for the best, are a big element of the book.

If the book goes wrong it is in overemphasizing the usefulness of the paths of sin as providential. The book's use of the theme of hope may strike some Christian readers as being too vague, and some readers (this one among them, sometimes) may be uncomfortable with Percy's use of sexuality for his philosophical ends. The theme of sacrament is there, but it is milder and less obvious than may suit the taste of some readers. Percy is not a comfortable writer, and not everyone will be comfortable with this.

In the end Percy paints a wonderful portrait of a wanderer eventually finding his way to a sort of home and helping to bring some hope to others along the way. It is not an overtly religious journey, though it is spiritual and sacramental, and as I will insist, with at least some degree of seriousness, it is about the sacrament of baptism. In this novel Percy cannot contain his Catholicism, not that he would want to. Barrett's journey from a sort of homelessness to a sort of home, to a place where he can help give hope, and Percy's portrayal of faithful and philosophical Catholicism along the way, help make The Last Gentleman, in an awesome way, not a theology textbook.

Under What Circumstances: #1

2011-03-14T00:47:00.000-07:00

Is it acceptable to punch someone violently?

I'm not asking if it would be legal, I'm asking if there's a circumstance that would make it moral, or even obligatory, civil law aside. Note that the qualifier of violently is added to ensure we are not speaking of merely jovial and fraternal punches, which are a trivial case to my mind.

Let's play "construct the example" here. I'm not trying to argue for a non-Catholic ethic, and "punching people is intrinsically immoral" is an option, but I'm going to want a defense of that.

A Scary Prayer

2011-02-24T22:29:00.000-08:00

There's a line that I read recently in the context of Will Deming's Paul on Marriage and Celibacy (which, by the way, is now done). I actually only read the last half of it first, and while I'm 99% sure I've heard it before, it's still the most haunting line in Christian liturgy that I've ever heard. It's from the post-Eucharistic prayer in the Didache and it goes as such:

Let grace come, and let this world pass away.

Let grace come, and let this world pass away. There's something melancholy in those lines; such a lack of care for the present state of affairs. I realize intellectually that it has, at least on some level, the same implications as the intention "Come, Lord Jesus." But its tone differs.

When I saw the prayer again in Deming's survey, the only part he used for comparison (and thus the only part that I reread there) was the part of the intention that God would "let this world pass away." When you hear it like that it almost sounds despairing--"take this world away, God!" But the context of the sentence, if not the Christian liturgy itself, makes it clear that whatever this says of the value we place on the world as it is, the point is the greater value on the grace that comes...This world passes away, and we have a new heaven and a new earth...

Sometimes I think it's easier to have that prayer on our lips when things are going badly. Maybe what I need to do is get it on my lips even when things feel like they're going well. But still, in any case, that phrase haunts me...

Let this world pass away...

Fellow Catholic KJ Celebrates 1000th Post

2011-01-31T22:11:00.000-08:00

Friend of the blog (or at least this blogger, I think Mike knows him too or something) Kevin Johnston celebrated a milestone with his 1000th post today. This isn't totally postworthy but I figured I'd make one anyway. Check out the post here.

An early Eucharist, with a history lesson

2011-01-25T17:22:00.001-08:00

We rarely see historical accounts of actual celebrations of the Eucharist, but we do have one very early source for what the early liturgy might have looked like!

The service went as follows:

The celebrant talked until midnight.
A member of the congregation fell asleep on the windowsill, subsequently fell out of the window and died.
Celebrant brought him back to life.

The Eucharistic meal finally took place.

The celebrant, having learned much from the earlier debacle, talked until daybreak. (cf. Acts 20. Long winded homilists have an illustrious predecessor)

Many Church Fathers agonized over the issue of how best to keep people from the windowsills, since the problem of falling asleep during homilies seems to have been one of the great crises of the early Church. The early incident accounted above has been cited as possibly the strongest reason for the eventual movement from the house church (with the possibility of a second story), to a one story plan, to reduce the height of a possible fall. A group of third century heretics, however, referred to as the spatium superiorists, held that it was improper for the Eucharist to be held on any floor lower than the second, as the Last Supper had taken place in an "Upper Room", and that to celebrate it on the ground floor was contrary to the command of Christ. Sadly, their homilists did not break with the rest of the Church on the subject of homily length, and fatalities resulting from sitting at the Eucharistic celebration soon reduced their ranks to a level which left them merely as a footnote of history.

A later and more popular solution to the falling-out-of-windows problem, at least in the West, was to build the windows at a level higher than the people, or at least their rears, could reach. This eventually resulted in Gothic architecture. St. Bernard railed against this style, mainly due to his opinion that it was mortally sinful to fall asleep during a homily anyway, and that the design of the church building didn't need to bow to considerations such as coddling hardened sinners. He points out in various homilies that the word used to describe how one moves toward the ground from a higher position is also used for those who turn back to sin. A coincidence? Hardly!

The Protestant reformers took a new and innovative approach. They introduced a device called the pew, which was made to look more comfortable than the windowsill, thus attracting the worshipper away from flirting with death.

After the success of the original pew, many decided to attempt to attract more worshippers by sporting comfortable luxury pews, made to give a better sitting experience than could be found elsewhere in the known world. Pope St. Pius V is said to have quipped that he would have traded the Chair of Peter for any one of the new pews , made in northern Germany. Unfortunately, while fatalities were down, falling asleep during worship services became nearly epidemic.

As a reaction, a new movement formed, which was of the mind that pews should be as uncomfortable as possible, thus encouraging wakefulness. At the same time, in the comfortable pew confession, extant lectionaries show the increasing prevalence of readings regarding the disciples in the garden of Gethsemane, as pastors tried to find ways to address the problem.

In more modern times, various groups have tried to deal with this issue which has plagued the Church since the early days of Christianity. In many places, coffee was introduced to keep worshippers awake (note the coffee shops appended to modern megachurches). Unfortunately, in those traditions which have a pre-Communion fast, the coffee (with later appended doughnuts), was placed after the service, negating any positive effect. Following the mandate of the Second Vatican Council to deal with this problem in new ways, Pope Paul VI lessened the communion fast in the Catholic Church to one hour before receiving communion. The stated goal of this was so that coffee hours could occur before the celebration of the Sunday Eucharist, but this failed to catch on.

As can be seen, these issues have a long and twisted history, and one can only surmise what the next move will be as the churches continue to attempt to solve this long-lived problem.

On the Phrase "Sex-Positive"

2011-01-16T00:15:00.000-08:00

A term often used to describe conservative viewpoints on sex by feminists, especially secular feminists, is that they are "sex-negative." This term is often used to describe viewpoints that seem to put down sex, to subordinate it to other things and thus to limit it to less than its full potential with respect to human fulfillment and pleasure. Thus the conservatives are thought sex-negative because they see certain limitations on the proper use of sexuality and the body, and the feminists are thought sex-positive because they see, at the least, fewer limits on what can or should be considered the proper use of the same.

Of course as Chesterton notes, there is something disproportionate in human sexuality, such that "the moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant." But I think Chesterton was wrong on the details of what this means, if he meant exactly what he said. As soon as we attempt to elevate sex, to be "sex-positive," it is not sex which becomes a tyrant. Sex goes from being a servant of God and nature to the slave of lust, and we go from slaves of Christ to slaves of our passions.

The moment we attempt to be sex-positive, to rule by consent instead of by divine and natural intent, we become instead sex-negative and pleasure-positive. We become convinced that sexuality and our bodies are things that can be abused in the name of our pleasure; we treat it as something there for our pleasure, not for the purposes endorsed by the divine, which do not themselves conflict with pleasure but which include over and above enjoyment the unity of persons and the propagation of the species.

It seems then that the sex-positive feminists, in desiring to liberate sex, have liberated it from freedom and unto our abuses. If you don't believe me, watch where the world goes on matters of sexuality in the next few years. Observe the broken-hearted people who can't properly manage their "friends-with-benefits" relationships. Wonder why people who use consent, rather than divinely-ordered responsibility, as their barometer for acceptability, so often wind up with emotional messes on their hands. And then tell me that these people are the sex-positive and liberated ones.

Christian Carnival 361

2011-01-06T03:04:00.000-08:00

The Christian Carnival is open to Christians of Protestant, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic convictions. One of the goals of this Carnival is to offer our readers to a broad range of Christian thought.

Posts need not be of a theological topic. Posts about home life, politics, or current events, for example, written from a Christian worldview are welcome.

As the goal of this Carnival is to highlight Christian thought in the blogosphere, entries will be limited to blogs that share that goal.

We also expect a level of discourse that is suitable for a Christian showcase. Thus entries may be refused if they engage in name-calling, ad hominem attacks, offensive language, or for any similar reason as judged by the administrator.

The Posts

Jody Neufeld presents Beloved Children posted at Jody's Devotionals. Jody remarks: "Hell, negative consequences and being God's beloved children."

Henry Neufeld presents Praying Without Ceasing and Hyperbole posted at Participatory Bible Study Blog. Henry's comments: "Might there be a better translation than "pray without ceasing?" Can one really pray with ever stopping?"

Ali presents Can you believe in evolution and be a Christian? posted at Kiwi and an Emu.. Ali's summary: "Okay, this could be a contentious post. But I thought I'd throw it in there to see what people thought."

annette presents Bible Reading Plan posted at Fish and Cans. annette, apparently, has no further comment at this time.

Jason presents Feeling Busy? A Biblical look at “Busyness” posted at One Money Design. Jason's summary: "After the holidays we can all relate and know what busyiness is like. But, we need to keep in mind Biblical guidance and learn to slow our lives down."

Elsie presents Eerie Temptations posted at Elsie's Dating Adventure. "It's time for Christians to wake up to a serious problem!"

Timothy Payne presents A jesus, or The Jesus. | realityinred posted at realityinred. Timothy's summary: "Which Jesus do you serve? Is it THE Jesus of the Bible, or A 'jesus' of your own making? One is the Son of the Living God and God in the flesh, the other is an idol made in your own image. One can get you to Heaven, the other will lead you straight to Hell. Is it A 'jesus', or THE Jesus?"

Andrea @ Unfailingly Loved presents And My Word for the Year is ... posted at Unfailingly Loved.

michelle presents The Super Craziness of How God Speaks posted at And She Went Out....

Ridge Burns presents Psalm 15 posted at Ridge’s Blog.

Chris Price presents Vick Should Be Executed for Dogfighting? posted at Random Musings on Anything and Everything from a Biblical Worldview. Price's summary: "One conservative pundit thinks that NFL player Michael Vick should be executed for his execution of dogs. While Vick's behavior was reprehensible, there is no way that an animal's life should be valued over that of a human when looking at the issue from a biblical perspective."

Deb W. presents On Resolutions posted at All Things New. Deb's comment: "Rather than coming up with resolutions of my own for the New Year, I'm meditating on what Christ has already done and to what He has promised to His children."

FMF presents Prosperity, The Sneaky Side of Discontent, Part 1 posted at Free Money Finance. FMF's description: "How prosperity can make us discontented."

Scott Graham presents Cartoon Turns Muslims to Marauders posted at Iron Sharpens Iron. Scott's description: "This article describes the differences between the Christian & Muslim culture by focusing on a recent foiled terror plot."

The Caleb Community has The Richest Man who Ever Lived.

Lastly, our offering here at KBT is: Crazy Kids. A bit about marriage, culture and despair.

Other

Kevin Poulis presents LivingOnTheEdge.org – Helping Christians Live Like Christians posted at SiteTally.com. It's in an "other" section because I am still highly curious as to whether sitetally.com is in any way shape or form a Christian website.

Crazy Kids

2011-01-04T08:22:00.000-08:00

There's a strange impetus in our modern society against the idea that marriage really lasts till death. After all, only 50% of marriages do. What does that make the people who try and get married, who try and make it last? It seems like it makes them a bunch of crazy kids, setting themselves up against the "wisdom" of the world that these things just don't last. Even The Office, one of the more optimistically romantic shows on television, has an episode where a character in relationship with another, upon hearing that her parents are getting divorced, remarks that it was her parents, or his. Now it's true that in this case the good doesn't last forever. Marriage was only designed to last until the Resurrection. But it's nothing but cynical to say that the good shouldn't be expected to last as long as it ought to last, that is, until one partner is dead. It betrays a despairing lack of hope for the Sacrament of Marriage, and the love that can flourish between two people even in today's "modern world." I'm on the side of the crazy kids--the ones who say "one partner, one marriage, we'll make it till the end," and whether or not I ever become one of them I will remain on their side. Now it's true that perhaps marriages are more in danger nowadays, but that's a reason for caution, for being properly crazy and not marrying based just one one's feelings, for actually making a commitment to routinely take care of each other. It is not a case for despairing of actually making that lifelong commitment; that despair is the abdication of responsibility, not the sign. So I'm going to stay on the side of these crazy kids, warring against this Satanic cynicism that's been somehow disguised as wisdom.

Christian Carnival 359 up at Parableman

2010-12-23T11:18:00.001-08:00

Check it out here. Will edit this post to reflect reactions.

Barry Wallace's post just makes me glad for purgatory and absolution.

Diane R's post mostly depresses me. In particular the section where 89% of evangelicals disagreed about the importance of preaching and sacraments. Of course, to a certain technical degree, I kind of have to disagree too--the sacraments, aside from baptism, are thing you receive after a decision to convert; only Baptism is really part of what most people are probably thinking of as the conversion.

Jacob's Hip

2010-12-21T09:56:00.000-08:00

In John 20:29 (NIV), John tells his disciples, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

One thing that seems to be said by this passage is that a faith that does not require proof is a great gift. But what if there is a secondary blessing in not having tangible proof? When God touches people in tangible and measureable ways, the stories are scary. I sometimes wish I could have been there with Jacob, the Apostles, or Padre Pio, but to be there may have been too much for me.

There seems to be a horror in the Holy. Something in the Sacred can scar us. Perhaps we sinners are unfit to see or experience God as heavily as we sometimes do in this life. Maybe this is why the Saints who are closest to God so often carry symptoms which appear as misery to the world. Maybe if they have any misery left, it is not in reality a sickness or a stigmata, but complete conversion to Christ that cannot choose anything but faith and joy.

Dan Indulges in Dark Theological Humor

2010-12-14T09:53:00.000-08:00

The Dutch did not bring their kleats to the slippery slope. (See the Groningen Protocol if you don't believe me.)

But it's not like anyone else wants onto this slippery slope. Oh, wait...

Well, at least it hasn't made its way to the United States yet. Crap, I guess we lost that one. And where I live, too. Darn.

What's left now but to run out the clock on being European and see just how horrific things get before someone in the public arena stands up for life?

Apparently, more horrific than they have.

All aboard for the train of tenderness, folks! Next stop is the slippery slope! Hope you brought some good climbing gear.

Christ Jesus, and Mary and all the other Saints in heaven, pray for our world today.

Christian Carnival for Wednesday, November 17 (UPDATE: Late Submissions!)

2010-11-17T01:07:00.000-08:00

Hey y'all, welcome to this week's Christian Carnival! I'm afraid I'm on a 1:30-10:00 PM schedule this week (the next few weeks) and I haven't really had time to read all the entries, but what I've read, I like.

ON the other hand, deo gratias, I got a job!

Spiel, shamelessly copied from the Google Group:

The Christian Carnival is open to Christians of Protestant, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic convictions. One of the goals of this Carnival is to offer our readers to a broad range of Christian thought.

Posts need not be of a theological topic. Posts about home life, politics, or current events, for example, written from a Christian worldview are welcome.

As the goal of this Carnival is to highlight Christian thought in the blogosphere, entries will be limited to blogs that share that goal. Blogs with content that is focused on a business, that has potentially offensive material Christians may not want to link to on their sites, or has no reference to distinctively Christian thought may not be included in this Carnival. There are other Carnivals that would be a more appropriate venue for that material. I realize that this will be a judgment call on the part of the Carnival administrator, and being human she may make mistakes. However, as the Christian Carnival is getting quite large, and it is sometimes questionable whether the entrants are seeking to promote Christian thought, I find this necessary.

We also expect a level of discourse that is suitable for a Christian showcase. Thus entries may be refused if they engage in name-calling, ad hominem attacks, offensive language, or for any similar reason as judged by the administrator.

Ali presents Christians, Entitlement and Political Action. posted at Kiwi and an Emu.

annette presents November 11, 2010 - A Lesson posted at Fish and Cans.

Matt Rawlings presents If Some Christians are Blue like Jazz, then I?m Red like Metal posted at Pastor Matt.

Madeleine Flannagan presents Bovine Faeces and the Sexual Proclivities of Rocks at MandM.

Scottyi presents An Ideal Life posted at Sacred Raisin Cakes.

Russ White presents First Things First posted at Thinking in Christ.

Tom Gilson presents The Truth Holds Us (Short Version) posted at Thinking Christian.

Ridge Burns presents Revelation 2:5 posted at Ridge’s Blog.

Jeremy Pierce presents NIV 2011 and the singular "they" posted at Parableman.

FMF presents If You Want to Be Wealthy, You Need Understanding posted at Free Money Finance.

And I present an audience-participation-mostly post here called Canon Without the Canon. Please feel free to join in!

A Late Submission (or at least, I got it late):

Fadi presents Modern Day Prophecies posted at INSPIKS.

A Very Late Submission (Post was dated in October)

CChisholm presents God’s Existence: Proof from Biological Information | The Chisholm Source posted at The Chisholm Source.

Canon Without the Canon

2010-11-17T01:05:00.001-08:00

An old theology professor of mine used to talk about the "canon within the Canon"--those books we prefer implicitly over others in the Bible. Anyone out there have a "canon without the canon"--books they un-prefer over others? And willing to say what it is in comments?

Mine's Romans. Could also be said to be certain OT books, but that's mostly for lack of having read the OT all the way through in a comprehending fashion.

"You're Going to Hell"

2010-11-08T12:02:00.000-08:00

Most Christians should meet somebody who will tell them: "You are going to hell."

I say most because I don't know if we're all strong enough to handle it, but I think it would be healthy if we got a taste of how it is to be on the other side of our own beliefs about the afterlife.

I have many friends who are atheists or agnostics of some kind from college, and all through college I held to pretty conservative views of salvation. Still do. Now they've been tempered for a long time by a more inclusivist strand of thought, and an emphasis on not judging anyone's individual salvation. Still, I can't imagine I never inadvertently insulted anyone simply by believing what I did, which boiled down to, qualifiers or no, all other things equal: You're going to hell.

Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware that there are people who think I will spend my eternity in torment because I am a Christian. Oddly enough, though, the more memorable times I've actually gotten a full, realization kind of taste of it, have been on the Protestant-Catholic divide. The first time was back in high school when one of my Catholic friends made some comment (which did then, and still does, strike me as kind of theologically simplistic) that it would be necessary for salvation to believe that the Eucharist was really the Body and Blood of Christ.

And now that I am a Catholic, and I do believe all this nonsense about the Eucharist and Communions of Saints, etc., it's not even so much a moment, but merely having a friend who desperately tried to talk me out of it (actually, someone close to him did, but I don't think he disagreed), and whose church would seem to be teaching him--if it mentions the Papists at all--that my salvation is dubious. Now granted, that's just part of the divide that is a consequence of choosing communion with Rome. I should say that I am grateful and touched that he, and his friend, were loving enough and caring enough about my spiritual health, to say what was said. But it introduced a palpable divide that I can feel every time I see him, an awkwardness introduced into all those situations, that wasn't there before. And the phrase "you're going to hell" was never even used, or even necessarily implied. Just there, under the surface, a highly uncomfortable possibility for me in the theology of the other.

Now I always felt a little bit awkward if I knew I'd said anything directly to any of my non-religious friends about the afterlife. But I do wonder whether the way I feel around my friend now is the way they sometimes felt around me. It's a feeling of being on the other side, of knowing someone is seriously concerned about the state of your soul (in a way they wouldn't normally be, that is a healthy concern after all.)

And I wonder if maybe it's not a good healthy experience that most Christians should have, to go out and meet someone who makes them realize--not just know in some academic sense, that someone believes they are going to hell.

Thoughts from Theology on Tap (10-22-2010)

2010-10-22T01:18:00.000-07:00

Warning: I'm writing this, and I'm not a sacramental theologian. My thoughts are somewhat scattered; this should be taken as a slightly frustrated set of thoughts, and not as a well-structured argument. Please do not attempt to engage this as if it were argument.

Went to Theology on Tap tonight. Lots of good discussion. The priest who gave the talk that night was discussing the Eucharist and the Mass. Now one thing he'd said struck me wrong, which was that he almost seemed to suggest that the Eucharist being an object of adoration was wrong. (Someone, much to my relief, asked about this, and I was delighted by his clarification which seemed to suggest that he was more against people going to Mass just to adore the Eucharist and ignoring the fact that (a) it was also to be received, and (b) the Mass is not merely to be observed and wondered at but also taken part in. There was a lot of spirited debate because he said some things (not all of which were correct, or correctly phrased, in my mind) that seemed to denigrate the Tridentine Latin Mass. People of course stood up in defense of the TLM, and there was a lot of debate about things that in my mind don't hold so much water either way--things like how many of the faithful want, or would want, a TLM if it were offered at their parish, etc. Those things are important, but not the most important thing, I don't think. And I don't want to give the impression that I think only the TLM defenders were contributing to discussion that may or may not have been entirely fruitful. Lots of things the speaker said seemed questionable and were very hard to interpret charitably coming from where even I am coming from--and I am no Traditionalist.

At one point I have written in my notebook, from sometime in that whole exchange:

I wonder:

Would this be such a problem if were simply willing to fall in love with Jesus?

By "this" I think most of what I meant was "all this liturgical business about the N.O. vs. the TLM, etc. etc." I'll get back to that later.

Now to give some background, about a week ago a Deacon gave a talk on everyday spirituality. Somehow or other this connected with something G.K. Chesterton once said about St. Francis, in his biography of the same, which I remembered only imperfectly at the time but which I quote in full below:

The practical reconciliation of the gaiety and austerity I must leave the story itself to suggest. But since I have mentioned Matthew Arnold and Renan and the rationalistic admirers of Saint Francis, I will here give a hint of what it seems to me most advisable for such readers to keep in mind. These distinguished writers found things like the Stigmata a stumbling block because to them a religion was a philosophy. It was an impersonal thing; and it is only the most personal passion that provides here an approximate earthly parallel. A man will not roll in the snow for a stream of tendency by which all things fulfil the law of their being. He will not go without food in the name of something, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness. He will do things like this, or pretty like this, under quite a different impulse. He will do these things when he is in love. [...St. Francis] was a Lover. He was a lover of God and he was really and truly a lover of men; possibly a much rarer mystical vocation [...] as Saint Francis did not love humanity but men, so he did not love Christianity but Christ. (Italics mine, copied from an electronic copy on this webpage

Chesterton recognized that the oddity in much of Francis's behavior was that it was something one did when one was in love. So I'm trying to adopt this quality, to make it my own, to cultivate the quality of being in love with God and with the world. Going to Mass is one definite way of doing this, and surely a huge expression. If one believes that Christ is truly and specially present at the Mass, and one is in love with Christ, surely one goes where one's beloved will be? Would I not do this for another human being, if I felt I were in love with her? Why not, then, for God?

Quite frankly, I'm not a Traditionalist. Though I do consider myself pretty conservative, and my ballot will probably wind up backing that up. But I'm not really a TLM kind of guy. I have some Sundays--not all--that I like Holy Rosary's 11:00 AM Novus Ordo Mass in Latin, but that's not the TLM. I'd be lying if I said my reasons for the other Sundays got much holier than "some Sundays I like a folksy Mass" or "some Sundays I want a slacker Mass that lasts forty-five minutes and is said in words I understand immediately." At the same time I know some people prefer to meet Jesus in the TLM, and that's their deal. I'm not going to intrude, and it bugs me when other Novus-preference people want to, because they call it the Catholic Church for a reason. It's universal.

Anyway, I said I'd get back to that original note I made. So here goes:

Is it naive of me to believe that maybe if we all--that means people who are more liturgically 'liberal' and those who are more 'conservative'--simply focused on loving the Eucharist, with only a secondary focus on those technical details which pertain strictly to licitness, that much of this logistical debate would go away? That maybe a Church-wide revitalization of that reverence could be--even if saving the liturgy could help it--part of the process that catalyzes us to save the liturgy in the first place?

Of course, Legitimate concerns about validity of sacraments go strictly under reverence for the Eucharist and for God; an invalid Mass is not proper reverence. Legitimate concerns about licitness are also quite pertinent but sometimes get overstated in my book. Thus, I risk undervaluing them here because sometimes I think they just lead us to legalistic conversations and debates about pastoral needs that nobody in the audience or anyone speaking can verify. Maybe the new translation will help some. I hope it does, and maybe I'm overthinking the debate that happened tonight. It was certainly helpful and informative, and I don't mean to suggest that debates like that are useless. But I'm not entirely sure it was the most productive debate we could have had, and it seems like maybe the one guy's question about whether we should adore the Eucharist was the main point at which the more debate-like questions actually worked towards deepening our understanding of what happens at the Mass.

Of course I have relatively useless theological things I like to debate all the time, so maybe I've got some work do to, too.

Those are some thoughts Theology on Tap brought out for me tonight.

In Which I Respond to John Meunier's Question

2010-10-18T01:06:00.000-07:00

John Meunier has a good question up which I think is kind of a good one if we're at all trying to navigate the postmodern wilderness that is the world.

I invite anyone reading this to make their own response to my response, or to Meunier's question, here or on their own blog. (But if not here, please let me know where because I want to see it.) I of course invite the other KBT to respond with their own posts if they want.

[Later edit:] The question is "If you had the opportunity to preach to a crowd of nominal Christians or non-Christians in an informal setting – like John Wesley’s field preaching – what would you preach?"

Here's my response:

Ask yourself this question: "Am I good?" And if you answer yes, justify it. Without appealing to grace or any coherent and concrete concept of goodness that does not change with culture and goes beyond just what we think it is.

If you justified yourself, you probably don't really believe in good at all, at least, not good with a meaningful meaning. Maybe you're good thinking that goodness is relative, something that's not inherent in anything, or something we have to make for ourselves, but I'm not. It's not meaningful meaning if we can change it as we please.

If you couldn't justify yourself, then I guess you'll need some help to be good. Christ can help you with that. Sorry state that I'm in, you should see what state I get into when I close myself off to Him. And if you're at all interested in being good, even if you already think you're justified on that front or that all I'm saying is twiddle-twaddle, you owe it to yourself to see what kind of change Christ might make in you.

So really, just try and live like Him. Try and fall in love with Him, even if--right now--you don't know what you believe about Him.

I think you'd be surprised to see the difference.

Bad Christians

2010-10-10T09:34:00.000-07:00

In my view there are two ways to be a Christian.

(A) Be a bad Christian, and recognize and work to change it.
(B) Be a bad Christian, and deny it or downplay it.

I'm sure all of us do a little of (A) or (B) at some point in time.

I'm also pretty sure that (A) is the road to being like Christ, and (B) is the road to a complacent and dead spiritual life, if not, and we should hope not, an actual spiritual death.

Best Ritual Moment Ever

2010-09-29T16:57:00.000-07:00

From the former rite of confirmation (as found in the 1885 Pontifical):

"Next [the bishop] lightly slaps him on the cheek, saying:

Peace be with you."

(note: the word translated as 'slap' could also be translated as 'beat', 'cut', or 'slay'. And who knows how they interpreted that in the craziness that was the pre-Trent world?)

As an aside, since the tradition shows that slapping can be a legitimate sign of peace...

Spiritual Warfare Metaphors?

2010-09-20T22:21:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure how I feel about them. I'm not sure the phrase "prayer warrior" really applies to anyone who isn't at least a person who's had some real experiences praying against more concrete manifestations of dark forces. I feel like for most of us the effects aren't that direct. (This is not to be taken to mean they are not present, but let us note that war has many indirect effects on non-soldiers.) I believe in the unfortunate pervasiveness of dark forces but at the same time the ways they work, "war" seems too violent an image for the resulting conflict. Of course, the whole thing is a war, but I think of angels and exorcists as being more the warriors. I think most of us are more like homeland manufacturers or field support. So yeah, we're fighting a spiritual war. Nothing metaphorical about that. But I'm not sure we're quite as on the front lines as we sometimes might think.

Thoughts, anyone?

Robinson on the Puritans and Economic Justice

2010-08-17T15:49:00.000-07:00

Marilynne Robinson is a fairly solid cultural ally for consistently Christian conservatives as far as criticisms of modern cultural and 'scientific' excess. She's not a big fan of the overarching cultural narratives that seem to have developed in modern times. While I was reading her books of essays, The Death of Adam, I found a great resemblance between much of her mission, and the mission of the more conservative Catholics I have known, in terms of being truly faithful to one's faith tradition on all matters, including matters of economics.

Speaking first of the so-called Christian right and then of the supposedly hypercapitalist "Protestant work Ethic", Robinson says in the chapter on "Family:"

"My own sense of [the Scripture], based on more than cursory reading, is that the sin most insistently called abhorrent to God is the failure of generosity, the neglect of widow and orphan [...] I have heard pious people say, Well, you can't live by Jesus' teachings in this complex modern world. Fine, but then they might as well call themselves the Manichean Right or the Zoroastrian Right and not live by those teachings. If an economic imperative trumps a commandment of Jesus, they should just say so and drop these pretensions toward particular holiness [...] I know those who have taken a course in American history will think this merger of Christian pretensions and bullyboy economics has its origins in Calvinism and in Puritanism. [...] Go find a place where they are guilty of this vulgarization. Or [...] find a hundred or a thousand places where they denounce it, taking inspiration, always, from the Bible."

Elsewhere in this same chapter she bemoans the loss of the Sabbath to commerce and labor, and the inability of the lower classes to refuse an employer, among other things. There are definitely places where she differs from the Catholics, but she is very much an ally in terms of bringing back the Sacred. And one thing I think Catholics can and should get behind her on is people actually reading historical things they want to condemn, or at least, not thinking they know too much about them to read them--Robinson pretty rightly lists the entire Old Testament among these so-known-nobody-reads-it works. The way that this theme comes through here is in Robinson's exasperation that this sort of Capitalism gets assigned to the Puritans when, really, it is so not what they meant. Though her book focuses mostly on correcting our distortions of what Calvinistic strains of Christianity actually taught in their historical forms, she seems quite obviously an ally of the more truly conservative Catholics who would also very much like to recall traditions of economic justice and fair limits on enterprise--as opposed to just legislating on abortion and gay marriage.

Catholicism and the "Modern Notion" of Consent

2010-08-04T23:14:00.000-07:00

So bear with me. There's this "modern notion of consent" that we've seen some objections to, the one that had been given in the book Yes Means Yes, a group of feminist essays about dismantling cultures which aid and abet rape. In particular it seemed to run up against understandings about what it meant for a husband and wife to have a 'marriage debt' to each other. And a few weeks ago I finally got it formulated for myself as to what I don't like about the modern notion with respect to the Christian view of marriage. (In particular, a feminist friend of mine, and Eric, and others, have all served as sounding boards for my formulations.) I'm going to pull pretty heavily from commenters Eric, Nick and CJ to try and establish certain points. So enjoy.

Eric had said:

Your first question was what I meant by saying there is no analogy between modern "consentual sex" and marriage. I said this because your first post had a comment along the lines of "I would agree to such-and-such a statement in the book, provided its in the context of marriage." If you look up "marriage debt" you will see why there is no analogy.

The statement you're speaking of, I believe, is:

Obviously my stipulations about the proper and moral context of this initiative differ from that of secular feminism, but within a marital framework, if we truly consider the husband and wife equal in dignity, regardless of whether we're complementarians or egalitarians, is there any good reason not to treat the two as having an equal weight not only in consenting to their bodily union, which the serious thinkers on the subject in the Christian tradition has already taken seriously, but also in initiating it, in asking for that special bodily intimacy?

I need to write shorter sentences. I'm going to "trim the fat" a little, but I'm leaving the original there in case I trimmed something essential by mistake. (Please, someone let me know if I trimmed something essential.

[W]ithin a marital framework, if we truly consider the husband and wife equal in dignity [...] is there any good reason not to treat the two as having an equal weight not only in consenting to their bodily union [...] but also in initiating it, in asking for that special bodily intimacy?

I am in agreement that the modern notion of consent can't be applied here. Perhaps I spoke hastily or was slightly mis-phrased. What I do maintain is that reading Paul's injunction that a couple not deprive each other except by mutual consent does not imply that persons must, whenever asked, consent, except for the reasons Aquinas lists. Aquinas obviously has some major concerns about concupiscience--concerns with no small reason--but seems to overstate the case. The natural reading of the text seems to me, again, a guy with no Greek lexicon, to indicate that a marriage ought to have a healthy sex life unless there's some reason not to--not that every request must be met unless there's some reason not to. That said, I definitely don't think it's good for 'deprivation' to last longer than a few days without mutual consent; at that point I'd call it borderline; much further and I'd be willing to go as far as sin. I will say I think it's more important that two persons in a marriage have the same understanding of marriage debt, and that this understanding be consistently applied regardless of gender, than that every person who calls themselves Christian or Catholic has that same understanding. That is where I draw the line; if there is still disagreement, we will have to agree to disagree about this.

Now Nick had written, regarding the modern notions of consent:

The modern notion of consent operates in this framework: "You can only *use* me when *I* gain something from that *use*". That's prostitution. Pope Leo XIII called it "legalized concubinage."

I actually agree with what Nick is saying about the modern notions of consent; they do seem to (mostly) boil down to a mutual use. I think one big concern of the Yes Means Yes people is to correct hatever imbalances there might be in perceptions of the importance of male vs. female enjoyment of the act itself. That in itself is fine. I should hope the Church doesn't teach that one is more important than the other. And I don't at all think it would be Christian or loving to be unconcerned with how much one's spouse enjoys having sex. As a general pattern it does seem like the ideal presented by the Yes Means Yes crowd veers more in the direction of consenting mostly if not almost only when one is seeking pleasure. I should note that nowhere in the book have I actually read that said--but the overall tone suggests that consensual and pleasure-seeking sex is the ideal. And I sort of agree with them on that, but not really. I'll get back to that.

Nick went on to say:

The Catholic notion of "consent" (so-called) operates in different framework: "Through Charity (in which *I* love God and neighbor selflessly), *I* give myself to *You* in order that *You* grow in holiness and maturity as Spouse." (1 Cor 7, esp v3-5) Now, in a fallen world this is not easy for most of us, but it's a clear ideal, which the One True Church promotes and guards.

Yes. This goes along with what CJ had said in his response to Eric:

[S]ex within marriage must be understood [...] active consent, while not getting us all the way there, does reclaim some of that essence. It is an active giving and an active receiving. Yes, there is a marriage debt. But that marriage debt in light of the Christian Gospel is not to be fulfilled in the way we view, say, the ten commandments. These are, in fact, marriage debts owed by Christ's Church, his bride. But she is not to fulfill them because she has to, but because she wants to.

I actually agree with this, for certain definitions of "want." Of course forcing someone to go to Mass and take communion against their will would be wrong, but to convince them to will such so even if they didn't particularly desire it would not be. I definitely don't want to do service when I do in the sense of actively desiring it, but I do in the sense that I actively will it. Clearly there is a space in which we can will something, without wanting it in the colloquial sense, though in the sense of going to Mass or making love with our spouses desiring it is certainly the ideal.

So, as I see it, the things that are wrong with the 'modern notion' of consent seem to be:

1) It's tied up too much with seeking of pleasure in a hedonistic sense.
2) It does not, at least not prima facie, allow for consent to a reasonable sexual life with another person in the future.

So the overall tone of YMY, as I said above--and I have said this, and I may be wrong--but to me it suggests that consensual and pleasure-seeking sex is the ideal. And like I said, I sort of agree. I agree if we mean the pleasure of contemplating God, the pleasure of the proper union of spouses, the pleasure of two persons given to each other in Christ. In other words, pleasures that transcend the hedonistic. As for criticism (2), consent seems very much an immediate and for-the-moment thing in modern thought, and there is truth to this; a lack of consent for a sexual act makes it wrong. But in Christian marriage there is a sort of implied consent which does not imply one's consent whenever asked, but more of an agreement not to deprive one's partner of that facet of the relationship; there does seem to be an implicit agreement that one will consent in the future, sometimes, but not all of the time.

So with all of this in mind--here's my moral heirarchy. Here's what I'd call "good, passable, ehn, bad, worse, abhorrent" with respect to different uses or misuses of the 'marriage act'--specifically, here, the act within the Christian context of marriage. I think this does apply more or less to other marriage as well, but I can only claim to speak most fully about what I see as the ideal coming from my perspective as a Catholic.

Good: Husband and wife with a healthy sex life, because they want (desire) to have one.
Passable: The same, but because they want (will) to have one.
Ehn: The same, but just to pay their marriage debt. So, really, probably not as healthy as it could be.
Bad: Either a lack of sex that constitutes "deprivation" on the part of one partner or the other, without mutual consent for prayer. Here's where we cross the line into sin, as we've clearly violated a Scriptural mandate. (Again, I can't know for each couple when this line is crossed.)
Worse: Coercion on the part of one partner or the other under threat of sin.
Abhorrent: Marital rape.

I'm not sure if there's a giant difference between my descriptions for "passable" and "ehn." So I'm not sure exactly how else I'd construct Christian marital consent; obviously this was not a rigorous process for me, and quite frankly I don't know if it's something I want to try and construct with much more rigor unless I find myself breaking into academia and studying Catholic sexual ethics as part of my living. So there it is, for now at least.

Anyway, Hope you all have enjoyed this ride as much as me. Comments as usual are welcome. This will probably be the last Yes Means Yes post for quite awhile.

Consistency, Hope, Scripture

2010-08-02T00:27:00.000-07:00

(1) I generally hope, and I take this hope to be an action of the will, for the salvation of all; I find some encouragement in knowing that there is some sense in which God desires all to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.

(2) I doubt that this will actually happen, based on the weight of the Biblical evidence and a couple of rather conclusive-sounding things Jesus said about the narrow way and the wide gate, and the knowledge of some sort of predestination inextricable from the Christian tradition.

Is (1) consistent with (2)? (2), judging by the Christian tradition, certainly has more weight for our intellectual lives. Are they both consistent with the Scriptures?

How I'm Learning to Stop Worrying and Love the Eucharist

2010-07-22T02:31:00.000-07:00

For awhile I was on track to being one of those people who take the wrong kind of interest in doing Church right. I didn't hit rock bottom with my attitude at Mass. But I fell a bit. I already stunk at paying attention, and in the last few weeks I had been losing my focus on the center of the Mass! Instead I was getting cheap satisfaction through irritation at small things which may not even have been liturgically illicit, when I stunk at paying attention even besides those.

In my later Protestant years this was already a problem, but I think it might have been made worse by a liturgy with rules. Somehow I got the idea that I should take liturgy really, really seriously, all the time, even if I cheated the Eucharist in the process.

My increasing conviction, not at all the result of just my efforts, led to this Q&A: What's happening here? Jesus Christ is becoming Really Present. What should distract me from that? Almost nothing.

My new policy is twofold. (1) Only things that can affect the Eucharist are big enough to distract me. If it's illicit or lesser, I forget it or file it away. (2) I make an effort to explicitly thank Christ for His body at least twice while at Church.

Anyone else have this problem?

An odd sort of remembrance

2010-07-20T17:14:00.001-07:00

Dan brought me on awhile ago, and now, after much needed badgering, I'm finally getting around to writing stuff. I love studying liturgy, and the studying the Eastern Churches. I'm currently working on some posts concerning the 20th century reforms of the rites of the Latin Church, but I just wanted to start with an unrelated very interesting note.

A huge part of the theology of what goes on during the Eucharistic prayer (and the whole liturgy, really), is the idea of anamnesis. 'Remembering' in English doesn't quite give us the full sense. This is a sort of recalling and remembering that actually makes present- now- the event recalled (or, better yet, makes us present to the event). Anamnesis is the Greek term used when Jesus says in the various Last Supper accounts, to 'do this in memory/remembrance of me'.

Remembering is crucial to the Jew and the Christian. It can be seen to stem from the scene in Exodus where Moses pleads with God to remember his covenant, to remember the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so that He will relent and not destroy His people, Israel. In asking God to remember, we recall the covenant ourselves. We recall all that God has done for us, and recall how we have far from lived up to our end of the bargain.

An important part of most Eucharistic prayers then, is the act of recalling the great events of our salvation.

For instance, here is the version from the modern translation of the Roman Canon (aka Eucharistic Prayer I in the Missale Romanum):

"[Preceded by the words of institution]
Father, we celebrate the memory of Christ, your Son. We, your people and your ministers, recall his passion, his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into glory; and from the many gifts you have given us we offer to you, God of glory and majesty, this holy and perfect sacrifice: the bread of life and the cup of eternal salvation."

Or from Rite I of Holy Eucharist from the Book of Common Prayer:

"Wherefore, O Lord and heavenly Father, according to the institution of thy dearly beloved Son our Savior Jesus Christ, we, thy humble servants, do celebrate and make here before thy divine Majesty, with these thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto thee, the memorial thy Son hath commanded us to make; having in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension; rendering unto thee most hearty thanks for the innumerable benefits procured unto us by the same."

Everything I have said up to now is really just prefatory information. Now, on to the Really Neat Thing!

In the Byzantine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, during the anamnetic part of the Anaphora (Eucharistic Prayer), we find the following :

"Remembering, therefore, this command of the Savior, and all that came to pass for our sake, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven, the enthronement at the right hand of the Father, and the second, glorious coming, we offer to You these gifts from Your own gifts in all and for all."

Notice anything odd? Anything particularly different from the other two?

Let's look at the sentence taking out all the stuff that gets in the way of noticing this little oddity:

"Remembering, therefore...the second, glorious coming..."

Whaaattt?? How can we remember something that hasn't happened yet? How can we remember the future?

Partly because there's a certain already/not yet tension going on, for in the Eucharist Christ has come again to His people.

But the bigger reason seems to be that there is truly only one liturgy, the heavenly one, and all others are an inbreaking of the eternal liturgy into a particular time and place. For Christ has ascended to the Father and dwells in eternity, where all is present to God. Mystery!!!!

On a side note, in Eucharistic Prayer IV, which is modelled after an Eastern Anaphora, we get the following:

"Father, we now celebrate this memorial of our redemption. We recall Christ's death, his descent among the dead, his resurrection, and his ascension to your right hand; and, looking forward to his coming in glory..."

Which, needless to say, just isn't as awesome....

The Red and the Blue...

2010-07-08T14:48:00.000-07:00

Should be treated as apolitical. Basically this is a thought I've had laying around since my Senior year of college, at least. Now it comes out! Hopefully the graphs do all the talking so I won't have to. The case I didn't visualize, where the faith community is off on its own tangent, and the red and black lines converge, is definitely in some "bad" category. Where would you put it?

[June 26 UPDATE:] Things I'm Working On

2010-06-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

Sometime in the future, watch for posts on the following:

* Reading Johnson's Consider Jesus. Will be working on the appropriateness of labeling a Christology 'ascending,' and the proper place of feminist-theological thought and liberation-theological thought in Christianity. Almost done with this now.
* Reading an anthology of feminist essays called Yes Means Yes which a friend lent me. Judging from what I've read so far, I'll be thinking on the degree of conflict between the traditionally (and accurately) defined virtue of chastity, and feminist thought about sexuality. Definitely finished this and some posts have been made. Two to come, one on consent and one on sexuality and fatness.
* Finishing The Shack. It's not the best book ever written, but it is a book that's had an impact, particularly on my family, and so many people are decrying it as worse than it is. Finished it now. Two-sentence review: (1) If you're reading it naively and taking it theologically, you're reading it wrong. (2) Whether you're a foe or a fan, quit reading it wrong. Going to do an "NATT" on this.
* Reading Stuff Christians Like. Not sure if this one will get an "NATT" post, but either way I can say that I highly recommend this book. I actually don't know where my copy is or when it'll get done.
* Reading the documents of Vatican II. It seems clear to me that somewhere in wording, interpretation or implementation, something went wrong with this council. The question is "what, exactly?" I'm going to try and see if I can spot anything that may have gone wrong in that first part--in the way that the council documents were worded. I'm never going to be a Traditionalist, but the myriad objections of both Traditionalism and more mainstream Roman Catholic conservatism (especially with respect to implementation), as well as the way that persons on both sides of many political issues have taken upon themselves a right to dissent where the teaching strikes as much more essential than they want it to be...I'm smelling multiple rats, here.
* Finishing Deming's Paul on Marriage and Celibacy. It'll be interesting, mostly I think in terms of what the relationship of the idea of a celibate priesthood, especially in the early Church, might be to the Stoic-Cynic marriage debate.

More Yes Means Yes: Comments, Etc.

2010-06-24T15:53:00.000-07:00

So I've actually finished reading Yes Means Yes now. There'll be some more reaction-posts coming, but there are some comments that have been made that warrant a further reaction. If you want this post to make the maximum amount of sense you should probably go back and read the initial post on YMY and then the follow-up post where I discussed some of the questions/comments a friend had left on the first post. Please note that I am pulling comments from both threads; if you're wondering why nothing of Eric's comment on the first post is here, it's because the second post was intended to address that. I'm going to save some of Eric, Nick and CJ's commentary especially for another post, because I think their comments were helpful to me in probing what this "modern notion of consent" is that we dislike, as opposed to the general notion of consent that I would argue should be agreed upon by Christians. Still to come on the YMY front: I'm going to attempt to respond to a particular essay in the book that has yet to be mentioned on this blog. I'm also going to attempt a post about "modern notions of consent" that seem so controversial. If I have the energy and the development on this front I might also attempt some post about what a Christian model of sexuality might actually be, because I'm not satisfied with the feminists' model, as a Catholic, at least not the Yes Means Yes crowd's model. Commenters will be addressed in alphabetical order.

Commenters' words will be in bold.
My responses will be in normal text.

Enjoy!

Stuff CJ said:

Dan, good reasons why women shouldn't initiate? If that's the way the cookie crumbles in the relationship, far be it from me to limit the way God's love works in people; however, while most of these radical feminists will probably scoff at my suggesting this, I have rarely met a woman who doesn't wish for the initiate from a real man (I think you know how I mean this) and not just these p[r?]etty boys we find in today's society. Physical archetypes would be the reason I would cite, but many people find the interpretation of physical realities woefully close-minded (though still living by the die-hard line of scientific method and empiricism).

Either by socialization or by biology, there's bound to be truth to what you're saying. Not sure if it's quite as scientific and empirical as you claim. The main trap I now consider it part of my project to avoid is considering female sexual desire as lower than male. (I don't think you're doing that.) Note that I don't necessarily consider either desire to be really, really important, but that I am simply saying they seem to be equal in importance if the persons are equal in dignity.

Plus, I'm still not sure how to apply such a concept in modern times.

I think you lost me a little. Which concept don't you know how to apply?

Yes, I know Dan, I really need to proof these things before I post them.

Yes. Yes you do.

Stuff Eric said:

Marriage does necessarrily include the physical. If two people "marry" with no desire to have sex (or to do so without children) they are entering into something of a sham marriage.

I do agree with you on this point (and, I should note, not just you but the Church) but I feel like we need to discuss this in such a way so as to leave room for, well, not calling the marriage of Mary and Joseph a sham. (For any non-Catholics who might be reading this, this is an issue that Catholics such as Eric and I have to deal with that you might not, because Catholic Tradition insists that Mary and Joseph's marriage had no physical intercourse.

What I said is that the physical union of the spouses is not the ultimate end, or the high point, of marriage, no matter how many spiritual analogies modern Catholic sex educators use.

Agreement. But then what is its ultimate end? I'm not tied down to one answer to that question.

Regardless of whether or not you happen to like the language of debt, it's clear that sex in Christian marriage is not necessarrily consentual in the modern sense, even if it should not for that reason be forced (though it does not mean one can use force or coercion, it is in fact a serious sin to deny one's spouse).

I agree that it's not consensual in the modern sense, but I should expand on that later. Regarding "serious sin:" Do you mean that anytime one's spouse asks, it would be a sin to deny? Or do you mean it would be a sin to deny for a significant period of time, unless one was doing so for some purpose considered legitimate? The Pauline passage--on my admittedly naive and un-scholarly reading--doesn't seem to force a reading that every request must be met on pain of sin. It seems, prima facie, at least as reasonable to read it simply as the admonition that all marriages have a healthy sex life. Nonetheless the Pauline passage does point to an irreconcilable difference between Christian views and the modern views of sexuality, which I'll get to in a later post.

Cho's scenario does not make sense in the context of marriage, because a spouse giving in to the other even though he/she doesn't really want it is not necessarrily a bad thing in marriage, whereas it is in the logic of modern sexuality. I don't say of course that it's an ideal in marriage, but it is something of a duty as far as I understand it.

Yes. I'll try and give some more nuanced thoughts on the subject later. I do think--and I don't know if I said this in my first post--but I do still think it's worthwhile for Christianity to speak to situations that aren't marital, if only to see if--as a temporary measure, not as a solution--we can help move them further from being screwed up. Many of the reasons Cho gives in her testimony for having said yes were pretty awful reasons, and might have been even worse in the context of marriage.

I don't think it helps anything to praise consentual fornication, simply because it does not pile on other sins.

I'll take progress where I can get it. I don't intend, however, to praise it as if progress automatically meant a lack of sin. In this case, 'those other sins' refers to one of the few things condemned by the Church as being never, ever, okay. I don't praise consensual fornication. But it's closer to Truth than rape.

In fact, it may in some way be worse because it stabilizes the sin. Someone who is able to maintain a reasonably stable sex life because they've embraced the rules of consent may be much further from seeing how damndable the whole situation is. In fact, it may in some way be worse because it stabilizes the sin. [...] It seems to me that people in this situation are only questionably better off morally, and in terms of the possibility of conversion may be much further off.

I do share your concern. In some ways it reminds me of Lewis's caution in The Four Loves that sometimes love is most dangerous when it most approximates the love of God, and yet is not that love. Certainly there is the danger that in trying to reach into an incredibly sinful situation we might accidentally simply decrease the sin and make the lesser amount of sin seem more acceptable than it is.

That said, I would prefer the situation of consent to the situation of rape because the latter seems not only worse in degree but also in kind--there is a perversion there of sinning not just against one's own body but also against the body of another, in a way not present in simple fornication. The question that must be immediately answered, for me, is not which situation we prefer--it is what we say and where we stand when someone says "no" to the proposition of sex--or even when they answer in a nonverbal "no."

I did not say feminism created this problem on its own, but that it helps to create the grey areas that make it possible. Obviously the wickedness of man's heart is reason enough for any sin, but we now have a social space in which this sin can be normalized and even embraced as a "lifestyle."

Eliminating those social spaces is tricky. I'm not sure any one culture has ever done it.

I don't necessarrily reject every possible idea which has ever been called "feminism" [...] by some liberal definitions of the word, I am a muslim. [...] I see no reason to constantly redefine the term in such a way that it becomes completely disconnected from the historical movement which gave it its name.

Hence my irritation with modern redefinitions of fundamentalist to include anyone who takes religion seriously.

I'm quite certain that we don't agree completely about what being "just Catholic" means, but I'm also quite certain that we don't disagree in any way so big as to make us opponents in any fundamental sense.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I take a slightly more minimal approach. But it is good to remember that we are together on the fundamentals.

Stuff Nick said:

From the "traditionalist" standpoint (hehe), there is a reason why Popes over the last few centuries have (repeatedly) spoken out against the idea of the State taking over Marriage (in order to confine it to the secular realm). The problem is that it strips Marriage of it's Sacramental character and thus cuts off it's ultimate ends, which are supernatural (Mat 22:30).

Interesting.

A secular marriage becomes ordered towards what currently benefits society, with it's ends limited only to the present - which is likewise "guided" by the ever changing wind of "popular opinion."

This would seem to flow logically.

But it seems like some of the societal ends do still matter, or at least, that the stability is--even if it is only an "in the meantime" solution--better than instability.

This is one of the core reasons why separation of Church and State is impossible for the Christian, and without this foundation any dialogue with "others" (e.g. feminists, Protestants, "Republican Party Catholics") is ultimately futile. Without that foundation, you're conceding 'home field advantage' to the lost, confused, or even downright evil 'opponent' - and at that point it's an up-hill and no-win game for you.

I am not at all married to our Constitution; I should much rather see a state reordered to human dignity and the law of God. However, it seems rather pessimistic to assume it is simply "an up-hill and no-win game" to venture out of one's "home field." Certainly it makes things more difficult, but I think the consistency of Catholic moral philosophy can serve as a witness even when we're not in the home-field, if we really say not only that "I agree with you about XYZ," but also "You're wrong about ABC, because really, this is the way things should be." (ABC doesn't mean artificial birth control here, but it could!) Of course, for this witness to really work, we've got to be living as a people with hope in the Resurrection, and living the philosophy we preach.

When the ultimate end is to assist their partner in attaining Heaven, things such as rape, grey area, even consent, 'drop out' of the equation because they inherently oppose that ultimate end. The modern notion of 'consent' is inherently wrong because it is not formed by Charity (Love), because it is based on selfishly consenting only when the person consenting sees them self in a position to gain ("take") and not as an unselfish fulfillment of duty. Consent formed by Charity is only possible in the Sacramental context, but at that point it resembles nothing of what the secular reader can make sense of.

There is truth to many of the nuances Dan is speaking of, but they need to be re-framed into the Christian framework and not left 'hanging' as if applicable to the secular view of marriage.

Yes. At the same time, being able to speak Catholic truth into situations that aren't immediately Catholic, and in a way which encourages conversion, would be a useful endeavor if we can manage it.

Stuff Shawn said:

As the only female commentor as of this moment, I will say that intimacy (which, from my angle, is the point of relationship in general, and marriage specifically) is certainly not limited to sex/intercourse (nor is intercourse a requirement for intimacy). Arrogance and entitlement are intimacy killers. Consent and desire will both be augmented by a move toward intimacy, which is fed by respect, self-sacrifice, and having your beloved's back...emotionally/physically/spiritually.

You, being a non-Catholic, are in an intellectual sense freer than I am to take union as being the end of marriage. I, being Catholic, am free to take it as being an end of marriage. I do however think intimacy is bad phraseology for anything that is supposed to be "the point" of marriage specifically. I assume when you say intimacy you mean intimacy that is found in a sense of marital union--otherwise, if you just wanted intimacy, why wouldn't you just go monastic? A faith community is plenty intimate. Something about marital intimacy must be different. So if you meant to say that intimacy itself was the point of marriage specifically, I would have to say I think you're wrong on that point.

From where I'm sitting, many of the less savory components of "feminism" are essentially self-defense or at worst reactionary.

To be honest, most of the things I dislike most aren't even the reactionary things, they're the things that comes from a worldview that's very much outside of Christianity.

The sad part is that women felt the only way to be as valuable as a man was to be like a man. This should make us all sad..."femininity" was sacrificed on the alter of not being second class. Tragic.

To a degree, I agree. I don't think most women have actually made that switch in its entirety (or if they have, our culture is doing a poor job of showing us this shift.)

Feminism has had some unfortunate fall out, but it was necessitated by oppression (generally at the hands of men, often those who used religion and "headship" as a cheap crutch).

From where I'm standing, with my admittedly naive readings of Paul, it looks like headship exists, and that it does seem to be the husband's. That seems to be a reality that we've all got to deal with if we're seeking to be historically Biblical Christians. The question is what it means. I lean more complementarian on that than you do, but I have no fully formed opinion on it except that it definitely includes a strong sacrificial component.

To sum up my thoughts, I'm tickled pink (yes, it's a girlie color, and I LIKE it!) to hear men (primarily, so far) having this conversation. It gives me hope for a better future, where we all embrace the unique ways we were designed.

I suppose my big question would be whether a belief in uniqueness of the sexes puts any serious limitation on straight-up egalitarianism.

In general, some of the assertions you made in comments about abortion and dogma are not necessarily Catholic positions; I feel that at least for the present conversation I've addressed those sufficiently here.

A Snippit of Conversation from About the Time I Decided to Convert

2010-06-24T00:09:00.000-07:00

This is from mid-November of 2009. So that would've been about a month before I talked to Fr. Anthony about joining RCIA.

Dan:
well part of the problem was the fact taht [sic] miracles were drawing me to the church
and keeping me drawn to Christianity in general
i still think that's a good thing, but i know that miracles aren't supposed to be the thing you put your faith in

Pat:
but it is evidence

Dan:
but a few days ago i made the distinction between putting your faith in miracles, and miracles putting you over the edge to putting your faith in Christ

Pat:
if they weren't good God wouldn't have the,
good

Dan:
precisely. and i've seen too much evidence now to go back to the...dare I say atheism that may have inhabited my mind for even a few days, or even a few hours, at a time
(in addition to Fatima I've also done some reading on the case of Padre Pio...i still need to do more on lourdes, i should pick up a book)

Pat:
have one somewhere but that doesn't do you much good

Dan:
heheh :p
the big difficulty is i sometimes have the problem making the connection to 'hey, i believe that, okay'
but then when i really think about it something scares my brain
because it doesn't feel rational--it's mysterious
and like lots of people, i hate mystery
but when i look at the history, look at the evidence
it seems that there are moments in human history that ARE that mysterious, that horrific, that incomprehensible
One of those sorts of events recurs several times a day in Catholic and Orthodox churches all around the world
and it's disgusting, disturbing, and True
it sounds weird, but a lot of that connection, that disconnect I feel between my abstract thought and what goes on in the world...if the gap's going to be bridged, it seems like the Eucharist is the thing that does it
not that Jesus himself doesn't play a factor, but on an ongoing, daily basis that seems to be the major way
and also, of course, Jesus is still playing a factor in the sense that the bread/wine is Jesus
...gah, i dunno if you got anything out of that, sorry if it was just a jumbled mess of gah

Pat:
that is pure dan thought but I got most of it
just remember you can speak of the Eucharist and leave out Christ [Pat informs me that he meant to say "can't" here, but in the moment I had read "leave out Christ" as indicating simply "not mention Jesus explicitly"]
they are the same [from a Catholic perspective this is, at least for the purposes of this conversation, correct]

CAPTCHA

2010-06-17T12:09:00.000-07:00

It's here.

I'm sorry. I know it'll create a mild annoyance. I had thought about doing it for quite some time, because I'm sick of dealing with foreign-language spam ads masquerading as comments.

Some of you might be wondering what I'm talking about because you've never seen said comments. That's because I clean them up completely.

The other option here is comment moderation, but IMHO the CAPTCHA is preferable because (a) I don't have to deal with Japanese porn, or whatever the heck is being advertised, and (b) comments will show up when they are made, not later.

A Quick Misuse of Paul

2010-06-16T00:36:00.000-07:00

We've seen lots of awesome discussion on this blog recently. Some of it's been rather heavy. So to lighten the mood I'm going to purposefully and blatantly abuse a quotation from the Apostle Paul. Here's the famous passage where he told Christians to go get smashed (taken, minus verse numbering, from Biblegateway, NIV, 1 Thessalonians 5:6-7 (edit: actually it was chapter 5):

So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us [...] get drunk at night.

In case that's not enough context for you, let's have a little more. At this point it becomes clear that Paul is only recommending drunkenness implicitly:

"So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep [...] For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night."

Okay, so maybe that's not enough context.

So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night.

It should be clear that Paul is here recommending that at night we go out and get smashed with caffeinated liquor of some kind (for the alert-ness, and to help keep us from losing our moral reason.)

Of course at this point my abuse is blatantly obvious. Thanks for indulging me.

Some Questions/Comments on that First YMY Post

2010-06-13T14:39:00.000-07:00

I'd said some thing about my initial impressions of the book Yes Means Yes over in this here post.

In the comments below my friend Eric had left some interestings which I felt merited a post in response. If anyone else wants to chime in they may feel free to do so either in the original thread, or here. Eric's comments will be in bold, my responses will be in normal text.

Full disclosure, I feel that I owe some of my thought to correspondence with the friend who lent me YMY, much to correspondence with other people and Eric (outside of the comment I am responding to), and a bit to correspondence with the Catholic philosopher Alexander Pruss.

The logic of "consentual sex" is in no way something which can be applied to consenting to marriage.

I am not sure what you mean--do you mean we can't apply it to each act within marriage, or that we can't apply it to the consent one gives to be married in the first place? I disagree either way--a consent, an "I will," is important. Coercion, even if it was not forceful, would certainly cheapen the strength of that will, if not pervert it. "I do" does not indicate an "I will" for all future instances; the question is when in the future "I won't" is acceptable. I don't think you're advocating coercion or force, but certainly within the context of a relationship built on Love, neither ought to be allowed. And if a construction of consent helps to enforce that ban, I'm all for it.

First of all, consenting to marriage is about a union of lives. While modern Christians seem to obsess over the sexual ethics, with some theology of the body people going so far as to suggest that sex is the ultimate realization of the union of marriage, really it's not the main point.

With few exceptions (Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!) it's a pretty clear corollary of the Genesis definition of marriage, which seems to indicate a man and a woman becoming one flesh. A union of lives is certainly present but (again, rare exceptions) I'm not sure how that can not include the physical. I don't necessarily think you're trying to exclude the physical, but in terms of physical realizations, intercourse, aside from a man actually and literally laying down his life for his wife, does seem like it's pretty up there. There are of course other things.

Obsessing over sexual ethics obscures the reality of marriage, and applying the logic of "consentual sex" analogously to marriage adds fuel to the fire.

It's already been obscured. Everyone from Puritans and prudes to libertines and liberals have obscured it. Any husband who's ever beaten his wife or molested his children has obscured it. What the Catholic ethics people are attempting to do might add fuel to the fire. I don't care if it does. But if so their fire will be a cleansing fire, not a further obscurantist fire. I think the caution you've suggested already about not making sex the ultimate goal of marriage is a good one, especially given the counterexamples from the Church's Tradition. But for better or for worse, we live in a world where marriage has been obscured. If everything were clear, if everyone acted in the interest of Love, I think we could talk about an absorption of consent by Love in a similar vein to Wojtyla's talk of absorption of shame by Love--it's not that those things disappear or are not necessary, but that for a given relationship they no longer need to be discussed, at least not so directly, because both persons, acting in the interest of Love, will automatically practice them. If you in your marriage have reached that point, then I applaud that. Do I think some of the feminist movement and sexual ethicists have potential to do more damage in that area of obscuring, or even that they have? Yeah, but good Christian men who go home and do un-Christian things to their households have helped to create the reality that everyone has to wrestle with, which is that we're not yet at a point where Love can really be said to be absorbing anything.

Aside from the fact that agreeing to marriage is not the same thing as agreeing to use each other for pleasure, it should also be remembered that a married couple owes each other what's called the "marriage debt" which I'm sure would be horrifying to those who believe in "consentual sex" (though it should be remembered that men owe it to women as much as women to men).

I don't particularly like to use the language of debt with respect to sexuality. I do of course endorse the language of mutual ownership, but the fact remains the Love does not force. Paul's admonition on the subject--"do not deprive each other except by mutual consent for prayer and fasting" (not verbatim) seems to indicate that if there is that ideal, that if they're not setting aside a time for prayer and fasting, the marriage should indeed have a sex life. If a marriage has none, from a Catholic perspective, something is wrong. I agree; in that case something would be at the least seriously wrong. However, I don't think this justifies the use of coercion

You quote Cho as saying she has several times said yes to sex she actually didn't want to have.

For the record, I don't think that anyone, including Cho, really considers those instances of rape. When I read her testimony, I considered them to be instances of having sex for reasons that were at least less than ideal, if not actually wrong (either on her part and/or someone else's), and would have been less than ideal even if she'd been married.

Maybe by developing a more rigorous language of consent this could be somewhat limited, but if people are being asked to make this sort of decision on the spot the grey area is never going to go away.

A small emotional gray area (perhaps a small doubt of whether one wants to) can be taken along with an explicit willing for something to happen, as safely constituting consent in my book. The larger gray area is if coercion--verbal or alcoholic--is in any way present. So yeah, I'll agree that a small emotional gray is likely to be eliminated.

In fact, it is the sexual revolution that has created this grey area. When sex is restricted to marriage, there is no such "did she really want it... really?" type grey area.

I think we could easily imagine a scenario like Cho's more violent experience happening in a marital context. Doesn't mean it necessarily happens often, but it definitely doesn't close the question of whether a wife perpetually wants it, or perpetually wills it. It just might mean she's decided, oddly enough, to will something else, because it's less effort than going through with the deeper will, which is just "not tonight." And I think we could pretty easily imagine such a scenario having happened anytime in the middle ages just like it might happen today.

This will not go away unless sex outside of marriage on the whole is condemned. "Consentual sex" cannot solve this problem.

Agreed! But it's a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition. And in the meantime, until we have a cultural conversion with respect to sexuality, we're going to want to be able, if we can, to speak as Christians to less-than-Christian conditions. I definitely agree that until everyone is really asking themselves what Love requires--and until everyone has the proper understanding of what, at its basic level, that Love is--our problems, our sad necessity to even talk about what consent means (again, recall, in an ideal world, we wouldn't need to construct a meaning for it, because said need would be absorbed by person who relate to each other in Love)...Until we convert, until we are in a sort of societal sense, resurrected, it's not going to go away. I do condemn sex outside of marriage. But that doesn't mean I desire to see that sin compounded by other sins which are either qualitatively or quantitatively worse. It would be great if the old culture were be baptized and transformed into the new creation. But that's going to take time, and in the meantime, that old culture is going to need bandages.

It is in fact feminism and the sexual revolution which have in the first place made "date rape" and other such difficult middle grounds between consent and violent rape possible,

Great, but feminism didn't do that on its own. Coercion and un-Loving pressure are middle grounds that, while they don't necessarily constitute rape, were definitely there before. The question of date rape is a slightly different one to me, but I'm willing to bet that a number of other movements besides Feminism helped make it happen. Aside from whatever faulty teaching members of the Church--as opposed to the Church's teaching office--may have passed down, again we have the Puritans who, rightly or wrongly, are known for having overestimated the value of sexual shame, and the Libertines who are known for having done pretty much the opposite. I don't necessarily discount the idea that the feminist movement may have exacerbated some of the problems of society, or that said problems include complications relating to our idea of consent, of what it means to 'will' a sex act to happen.

and they will only go away when we reject feminism and the sexual revolution.

I am not ready to agree to this for all definitions of 'feminism,' but for all historically reasonable (that is, not deliberately redeemed by some Christian youth movement) meanings of 'sexual revolution' I would call this a necessary but not sufficient condition. We must invite God, to paraphrase an older Graham Kendrick tune: "Search [us], try [us], consume all our darkness." It's possible that somewhere along the line the Christian tradition began contributing to the confusion; certainly many of us in action, even if not in theory. That's part of the reason I think theory is important, why it's important to build a model of human sexuality that cautions us against coercion, even if it means re-phrasing (not re-interpreting, or mis-construing) our old ideas about what the Pauline injunction to regular physical unity actually means. I prefer to use less abusable language, language prone to--if anything--persuasion as opposed to coercion. I suspect the exact boundaries and lines that each couple must adhere to in order to respond to Love's demands will vary by the context of relationship, but as a general guideline I am more comfortable with the language of "should" than with the language of debt, and it is my belief that while either might be strictly compatible, one is much more likely to lead to bad practice--to moral untruth--than the other. I don't dispute that many couples take the phrasing of 'marriage debt' seriously and interpret it in a way which is not, in the context of their relationship, subject to abuse. And even a "should"--even a "debt," for that matter, has limits on proper method. At the risk of being overly subjective, something about a husband or a wife using the notion of a "debt" (or even a "should," but "should" seems less subject to this problem) doesn't strike me as a very resurrected situation for a marriage to be in. Neither does the notion of a celibate marriage, with few exceptions. It seems like the "should" might be more properly applied to what the two persons will in the first place, so that their wills in the matter move further and further in line with one another and so that neither ever tries--at least not badgeringly--to convince the other on the matter.* Let me be clear: I don't want to or will to excise the Pauline injunction from the Tradition. It can't be done. But I do not consider myself or any other Christian to be bound to the phrasing of "marriage debt," particularly, but not exclusively, due to the baggage it carries today and the abuse it has had over the years as a tool for abuse.

If we are Catholic, why should we draw or understanding of the proper ordering of gender within society from a bunch of largely atheist revolutionaries who have sought to destroy the norms of marriage, when the saints have already taught on the subject?

I'm not sure who precisely you're concerned about. My concern is to figure out where this movement might highlight moral truths that aren't--for whatever reason--talked about as much within the church. I have no desire to rewrite our narratives to match their goals. I do have a desire to see what the truth is in their results, and allow that truth to give further nuance to how I as a Christian construct my response to things, in particular my response to sexuality. But I guarantee you, I have no interest in rewriting the essential Christian narrative of sexuality and/or gender to include perspectives which aren't Christian. I have an interest in moral truth, no matter what its immediate source, and in seeing what the interaction is between that Truth, and our starting points. I have no interest in drawing my ultimate understanding of those things from anything other than an understanding of ourselves as creatures of God in light of the Resurrection.

And do the Saints discuss the subject of marital rape? Of childhood abuse? If so, those aren't exactly the popular or discussed passages. And if nobody's really putting it out there that the Saints have talked about this, and nobody's talking about what they've said, then (as far as me hearing what they've said goes) it doesn't do much to just say "the Saints have talked about this." This isn't just about gender and the basic meanings and contemplations of humans as sexual beings who are creatures of God. This is about how, building on that understanding, our specific conceptualizations of what a right relationship looks like influences our understanding of everything else. I guarantee you, in my mind, the feminist movement comes out substantially less than Good in the eyes of God. But that doesn't mean they haven't walked in shoes we've never walked in (female shoes, to start with) or experienced things we've never experienced (speaking only for myself without intending to imply anything about anyone else who gets involved in this conversation, I have never been abused)...and it doesn't mean--that feminists--even if they may have furthered the obfuscation of sexuality--have nothing valuable to say that can help us get out of the hole of obfuscation of sex that we've gotten into. Just like everyone else has nuances to contribute. Ultimately I do believe the constructions lending themselves most to proper service of Truth will come from the Catholic fold, and that the proper starting points are parts of the Catholic Truth that Christ preached and left to the early Church. That, by the way, goes for every area of life, including but not limited to human sexuality.

I see no reason, unless we are trying to impress the world by saying "don't worry, I'm not so crazy. I can be a feminist too." But why should we be trying to impress the world?

Hopefully, if we're trying to impress the world at all, it's by letting our light shine before it, so that it might see our good deeds and praise our Father in heaven. Don't get me wrong; I have problems with trying to be agreeable, and that's personal stuff that I need to work on for the sake of my relationship with God. It goes, by the way, with whoever I'm talking with, "conservative" or "liberal." But allow me to be very clear about this, lest anyone think otherwise:

I would gladly cast off any label other than Christian, and even that, if I felt it stood in the way of my commitment to Christ and to the Truth.

That said, nobody has yet applied the feminist label to me, and they're not likely to do so. I confess to erring on the side of dialog here (as I usually do), if I am indeed erring. Erring on the other side, however, might result in ignoring legitimate concerns of their movement, and that won't profit myself, the Church, or Christ at all, however, and it might do just the opposite; it might give credence to the view that Christianity that doesn't listen to those who are downtrodden and left-out. Some people are going to view us that way anyway, and that's their problem. But I'm going to do whatever is in my power to strip them of the stupid excuses they feel that 'religion' has given the to ignore it. Sometimes that duty will require me to speak up and correct, to declare what I believe is the wrongness of the world. Sometimes that duty requires me to listen.

My explicit statement in this matter of modern feminist thought, and in all others, is to claim a Catholic--not pre, post or simply modern, not Thomist or personalist, or anything else--Catholicism, in which I am hungry for the Eucharist, for Love, and for Truth and Justice, and with that as my banner and guide, spiritual home and philosophical home-base, to brave the postmodern wilderness and--if God can make me holy enough--help to convert that wilderness into something that looks more like the Kingdom of God.

* I see nothing prima facie wrong with the idea of persuasion on the part of either partner. The exact question of where coercion comes in is a good one, and I'm not sure a single line can be drawn that will be applicable to every individual marriage, because--as with many things--even the two persons and who they are will create a different context of relationship.

Yes Means Yes: Initial Impressions

2010-06-11T23:04:00.000-07:00

Yes Means Yes is a book of essays written by feminists which attempts to provide a remedy to some of the underlying assumptions and models of sexuality and persons that can provide cultural sanction for the practice of rape, especially in the united states. The essays aren't necessarily confined strictly to that objective, but everything discussed is at least of tangential relevance to that critique. All citations here are from the 2008 edition (for a visual description, the one with the red, black and yellow cover,) and will be given in the format of ("Essay," Section writer, page number), thereafter (Last name, page number).

This is the first of what will hopefully be many blog posts in which I am giving my theological and personal reactions, from where I come from as a Christian, to the issues and ideas raised by this book. This post just has some initial impressions.

Hopefully I can present a charitable enough picture of what this book has to say that whoever reads this will be able to make a good decision about whether or not to read it for yourselves. I don't necessarily recommend that every Christian I know read this book; many conservatives and even a few liberals would term it crass and crude in places, and rightly so; so I urge persons who are contemplating reading this book and think they might be offended to ask themselves first if being offended will help them grow, or just make them miss the point. And, among many other things, the book is quite obviously about sex. So use your discernment there.

That said, there's a lot of stuff I like in what I've read so far. Now I definitely don't share my religious framework with a lot of these writers, and (as a consequence) there are many things in the book that are problematic from a Catholic perspective. But many of the critiques of the culture, at their core, ring true, and (when I think about them) strike me as stupid just like they strike the secular feminist movement. One thing, right off, just in case there's any misconception at all: I do not believe these women are man-haters, and neither should you. They are not. However, I believe that a number of the assumptions that they make and a few of the resulting assertions are problematic from a Christian and, especially, Catholic perspective.

So I'm going to start with my worst initial impression, then move on to the good ones, which have arisen from the book as well as from discussions with the friend who lent it to me.

The idea contained in the first proper essay gave me my worst impression of the book. It was the idea that "an improved response to rape requires a broad-based approach, and involves challenging the entire right-wing agenda: the wars on sex, on women's bodies, on the poor, on people of color." ("Offensive Feminism," Jill Filipovic, 25) The part of that sentence I object to is probably obvious. I think it's safely said that at the least the "[war] on women's bodies" includes attempts to restrict access to abortion; I'm not sure what exactly these people would think of people like me who willingly converted to a religious perspective which, to some degree, teaches activism not just against abortion but also contraception. Now my friend has pointed out that the emphasis on autonomy signified in this passage can be limited by a religious perspective. I believe this; my issue with Filipovic's assertion stands. I realize that my religious perspective means that, for the movement which spawned this book, whatever response I make is likely to be a lower and less-improved response.

There's one other big impression that I had reading this which should be mentioned, because it's going to show up again. Earlier in her opening essay, Filipovic sates that "feminism and anti-rape activism challenge the dominant narrative that women's bodies aren't their own, they insist that sex is about consent and enjoyment, not violence and harm, and they attack a power structure that sees women as victims and men as predators" (Filipovic, 20). I'll sign my name to this sentence, depending on how we interpret that first "and". Do we mean activism that is feminist and anti-rape, or just activism that is either feminist or anti-rape? I kind of hope she means and, not or. If she means or, Christian challenges to rape must by definition be excluded from anti-rape activism on the basis of belief in a Creatorship of God which extends to ownership (even if persons also own themselves), to say nothing of what Christianity teaches about the point of sex.

Let's assume I can sign my name to that sentence, though, and move on to the deeper issue brought up, which is a dichotomy that Filipovic makes between sex being "about consent and enjoyment, not violence and harm." No matter what the secular feminist response to sex is, the Christian response can't be either of those. Obviously we can't seriously advocate, as Christians, a sexual model that promotes violence and harm. But we also can't speak about it just as a thing about consent and enjoyment. For the Christian tradition consent is a necessary condition for the morality of such an act, but it is not sufficient. Enjoyment certainly is a good bonus of sex, but it's not the point; in Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant sexual ethics it is subordinate to unity, in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox ethics subordinate to unity and to procreation. Some of the older (and more disgustingly spread, even if somehow not disgusting) models of sex have massive potential to aid and abet violence and harm that can be done to women. So what model should we be working for in Christian theology?

But let's get back to the consent piece, because it brings me to the first thing I really like and one of the big themes I've come to embrace from this movement.

The introduction to the book is a testimonial of a woman (comedian Margaret Cho) whose first time having sex was with a man who didn't quite get a no from her. But he didn't get a yes, either. Cho's description of the event should appall we who call ourselves Christians: "Before I knew it, he was on top of me. Then he was inside me. No ceremony, no foreplay, no warning, no consent. It never came up" ("Foreword," Margaret Cho, 2). Cho goes on to describe the various times and reasons that he has had "sex I have said yes to, and sometimes even initiated--that I didn't want to have" (Cho, 3).

As a key part of their solution to these problems of female sexuality, rape, and pressures to have sex, the Yes Means Yes movement has, appropriately enough, suggested that "if we established a model of enthusiastic consent instead of just 'no means no,' it would be a lot harder for men to get away with rape. It would be a lot harder to argue that there's a 'gray area'" (Filipovic, 21). This is the idea that I'm pretty enthused about, the idea of establishing a model of consent that is more active than passive.

There are a host of other little observations that are made in this book that I agree with. One essay, "An Immodest Proposal," asks the question of what the world would look like if women took more initiative in a sexual sense. Obviously my stipulations about the proper and moral context of this initiative differ from that of secular feminism, but within a marital framework, if we truly consider the husband and wife equal in dignity, regardless of whether we're complementarians or egalitarians, is there any good reason not to treat the two as having an equal weight not only in consenting to their bodily union, which the serious thinkers on the subject in the Christian tradition has already taken seriously, but also in initiating it, in asking for that special bodily intimacy? (If anyone thinks they have one, they're free to tell me. I'll respond as best as I can.) Another essay, entitled "Beyond Yes or No," talks about an improvement of communication between partners about what they do and don't like and enjoy as far as sex goes. Again, I have reservations with endorsing the same contexts for such things as the author of that essay, and I definitely don't endorse everything that they do as legitimate sexual practice, consent or no consent. But, in such a degree as a given practice is actually in-line with our dignity as persons and Divine intentions for sexuality, I don't see anything wrong with a husband and wife actually discussing what they like and don't like. Even the most conservative Christians shouldn't balk at this--Karol Wojtyla devoted the entire last chapter of Love and Responsibility to biological discussion and talked of the desire to satisfy the other person in terms of pleasure--not as a replacement of unity, but as an outcome desired by Love in a marital context.

Those are a lot of initial impressions, I know. I hope to continue posting these things; in the future they're going to be on an essay-by-essay basis. Look for more on the themes of the Christian response to sexuality, the 'commodity' model of sexuality that the feminist movement much despises (and with good reason), and places where I think Christianity plays nice--or doesn't--with secular feminism. Pray for me in this endeavor!

An Unanswerable Question about Waiting Till Marriage

2010-06-06T23:10:00.000-07:00

Is sex better if you wait 'till you're married?

My intuition says "no, at least not necessarily." And I've heard assertions of 'yes' and of 'no'--a little of both have come from Christians. But nobody really has the ability to say yes or no, because nobody is really capable of losing their virginity twice. Nobody has the capability of trying married sex both (a) having had sex before, and (b) not having had sex before. It's actually logically impossible to pull off.

A close second, hypothetically, would be this:
(1) Get some consenting volunteers to run an experiment.
(2) Have a way of inducing amnesia which is guaranteed to extend to past sexual experiences.
(3) Have lost whatever part of your conscience it is that would have prevented you from carrying out this experiment.

Now in seriousness, this question is, of course, largely irrelevant for Christians who take it seriously to be a command to wait--who cares if it's better or even worse in terms of pleasure, if it is commanded? But I still found it kind of a funny little thing that despite the bold assertions of yes and no, it is practically impossible to get a reliable answer.

Sacred Laws in a Secular World

2010-06-06T22:35:00.000-07:00

While I'm on a roll tonight, I figured I would bring up another sore point that has been on my mind recently. I think that most Christians have this view of law and society that doesn't really work. A very notable case to me is the idea of pornography being legal.
This was brought up to me by a friend--he said that he was in church, and the pastor said he wished that pornography was illegal. My friend does not use pornography, but he told me that he is glad pornography is not illegal because it reflects the citizens having rights to free speech.
Where does a Christian realistically draw the line between trying to make laws that fit their desired moral structure and trying to make laws that really represent the opinion and the desires of the populace? It's easy to argue that fornication is not the best idea ever. However, is it right to stop members of society from fornicating if they don't prescribe to the same world view as I do?
Let's move into two larger issues here. Abortion is a huge topic today. Most Christians I know would agree with me: I hate it. It diminishes the value of birth, the value of the human construction, the sacred protection of a baby within the womb, and a lot of other things. But as we know, not enough people in this country have a problem with it for us to make it illegal. I have a huge issue with abortion because it also involves murder, so that makes this particular topic a little bit more straightforward for me.
Here's the second larger issue: gay marriage. I don't think it's right, but I am also, for the sake of society, willing to accept the possibility of it becoming legal. I have a couple of gay friends, and I love them--but I would never wish that they would get married. I feel that strongly about it. However, if I were in the position to pass law regarding it, I would probably end up making it legal because that is what represents the desires of the populace best.
It seems like as Christians, we have a couple of hard things to remember when it comes to our country. First off, it's not my country, nor is it your country, nor is it the gay couple's country, nor is it anyone else's country. It is, collectively, OUR country. That means that our own impressions of morality and ethics (which, through the Word, are often correct) cannot be forced upon members of society just because we think it's better for them. That sort of law only creates division, hatred, and more lawbreakers.
In addition, it means that if we want to actually do something about the country we share, we can't simply go around trying to get laws passed. It's worthless. You have to change the minds of the people using love and truth, hand-in-hand. It's a lot less simple, but it's the only way I could see going about it.

Christian Ethics vs. Marijuana

2010-06-06T22:03:00.000-07:00

This post is prompted by some recent experiences I've had around marijuana. I whole-heartedly believe that the body is the temple of God and that it needs to be taken care of and respected. I also believe whole-heartedly in the enjoyment of alcohol. And on a third note, I believe whole-heartedly in the call to be sober. So, then, we know how alcohol falls into this place: don't have too much, but enjoy yourself. Too much is throwing up, losing your train of thought, headaches, all that jazz. Where does weed fall into this category?
I have heard some people argue that "there is no way to smoke weed and stay in moderation," but I have found that statement to be entirely untrue. So it is possible to stay within that parameter. In addition, it is possible to ingest the plant without any health risks associated (except maybe for the high-fructose corn syrup that the brownies are made of). So we are able to stay within the parameter of keeping your body healthy. Why is this such a hot topic?
I am not writing this post to provide a solution, but only to bring up the question. I think that for myself, abstention from marijuana makes sense because there are commands in the Word to obey your civil authorities. But what if I'm in Amsterdam? I have a feeling that if I were to go and peruse weed in Amsterdam, Christian friends would not be happy--even though it isn't illegal, isn't necessarily unhealthy depending on how you do it, and I wasn't necessarily high out of my mind. So what gives? Why is this different than alcohol? Thoughts are appreciated.

Worrying or Not Worrying

2010-06-01T12:10:00.000-07:00

When I was a Free Methodist I did have a fairly constant worry along the lines of "what if the Calvinists are right about XYZ in Scripture?"

Now that I'm a Catholic it seems most of those worries are done away with with the simple reply, "Well, I guess I'll be a Thomist, then, not a Molinist."

One of the weird side-effects I didn't totally expect from going Catholic, is that while I'm still interested in what the proper formulation of the intersection of predestination, foreknowledge, sovereignty, universal salvific intent and free will is, it is also the case that in a good way, I no longer care. I no longer have to worry about the weight of Biblical evidence about whether some grace intrinsically justifies or doesn't, or whether election is conditional or unconditional. I have boundaries that shouldn't be transgressed; truths that must be respected, and perhaps held in tension, but as long as they are held I needn't worry about the details.

Dignified

2010-06-01T00:19:00.000-07:00

I think many of us in the Christian tradition have some working idea of what human dignity is. All of creation, humanity in a sense qualitatively different from the rest, is stamped with the imago dei, or the image of God. Thus each creature of God has intrinsic worth, and, because humanity bears the image of God in a unique way (perhaps more special for the Incarnation) each individual human life is treated as having that same human dignity. This is a fine notion of what dignity means.

But there is another notion of dignity that needs to die.

I mean this strange dignity that means people looking dignified, or looking proper. Somehow we wound up on this planet with two things: Very physical and animal characteristics, and souls that yearn for God. We are spiritual beings, but also material beings, and so we will, at some point, do some material things. And there's this weird idea that we can look dignified while we do it. Think about when people are told to be proper.

Take eating. Who really looks dignified eating? We can chew our food with our mouths closed, but we are chewing. We are still material things devouring other material things. And don't even try to think about how that food gets processed. I was no biology major, but it's not really a dignified process, for the food or for our bodies, wonderful machines they are.

Following that, is there really a dignified way to use the bathroom? I'm certain some people have tried using the bathroom in a dignified way, and I'm nearly as certain that all of those people failed. And-—even in the context of fully Christian marriage—-is there really anything dignified about sex? It's a union, sure, but it's an animal union as well as a God-ordered one. It can't possibly look dignified to anyone. What about death? Sure, we see pristine looking and well-preserved loved ones at casket viewings. But, to quote a one-time character from an episode of Samurai Champloo, "Death leaves no beautiful corpses." Death of course can leave corpses that have some beauty, but the same corpses serve as reminders, the nearly certain fact that we will all die, and that the person who was there has passed on. Neither the act of dying, nor the earthly remains it leaves behind, are dignified-looking things.

The pattern seems to be that all we're really doing is covering up the 'undignified' part. But by design or due to the intrusion of sin, any mere attempt at looking dignified is ultimately just an attempt to dress up us soulful animals so that we look less ridiculous than we are.

Peter Kreeft, in his Fundamentals of the Faith (1988 edition, p.67) and on this webpage, states that:

Death is a crass, crude, vulgar, and materialistic problem. It needs a crass, crude, vulgar, and materialistic solution, like the resurrection of the body. What set the ancient world on fire was not faith in faith, a psychology, a philosophy, or an ethic, but the astonishing news that God became man, died, and rose from death to save us from sin and death.

The Word of God stepped down to the level of the strange combination of soul and animal. He embraced all the indignities that come with being human. Historically Biblical Christian tradition teaches that this did not include sex, but the fact of eating and using a bathroom should be enough, to say nothing of the Crucifixion. There's nothing that looks dignified about Crucifixion. Actually, forget the Crucifixion--what's so dignified about the Resurrection? Even if the Risen Christ was literally aglow, Christ still had the holes in his hands. Would that really be an appropriate visual at the dinner table? I doubt it.

So if even God gave up looking dignified (and sometime during the Passion, this definitely happened) to help rescue and redeem us from Death, it seems like the societal notion of looking dignified, as a general principle, has no real hold on us. But what does?

Returning to what I said before:

Because humanity bears the image of God in a unique way (perhaps made even more special by the Incarnation?) each individual human life is treated as having that same human dignity.

What if we tried on the basis of our worth as creatures of God to set our standards for what actions should be hidden and which would not? Certainly this might make things a little messier, introduce a little bit more context, and force us to judge on more than mere appearances. On the other hand, if we start with the notion of each individual human life--that strange unique mixture of soul and animal, and consider the implications of its dignity and worth for how it ought to live, and how it ought to be treated, we might just start to get a picture of how to put to rest all unnecessary stifling of laughter, put in proportion all table manners, and excercise reverence for God and not sanctimony. If all we do is try to hide our indignities, we'll never be dignified. If we start by realizing our status as creatures of God, we actually have a shot.

Christian Carnival is Up

2010-05-27T19:38:00.001-07:00

Over at Thinking in Christ. Enjoy!

Christian Carnival CCCXXVIII

2010-05-20T10:46:00.001-07:00

Up over at parableman. Peruse/enjoy.

A Response to this Gulley Fellow

2010-05-11T23:55:00.000-07:00

I got a tip on this from John Meunier. It's rewarding reading, because it's so wrong that the words I want to use are words a theology blog shouldn't use. It's forcing me to try and articulate why it's so wrong.

Readings of Scripture aside, I don't think I can square all the false implications he's made about the doctrine of original sin.

For starters, any Churches--the RCC I know for sure but I'd be willing to bet more than a few Protestant denominations--teach a kind of co-creation and co-operation of God and man that they see as being in perfect harmony with the notion of original sin. They might be wrong (I guess the Monergists might be right), but even if that be the case, they're still more biblically and historically Christian than this guy.

Apparently Gulley's never heard of all those joyous saints and philosophers whose belief in original sin combined with beautiful views of creation and God and humanity. Gulley's never read John or me, in our honest struggles to work out salvation in fear and trembling. If so, he should know better than this. But he doesn't know better. Most of this piece was crap, and most of the good advice can and has been acted on by persons who vehemently disagree with him. Maybe we're just too trapped in the unreasonable dogma of yesteryear to be enlightened like Gulley is. Maybe we're not the only dogmatists.

Looking at Grad Schools

2010-05-04T11:22:00.000-07:00

This is a serious question for anyone reading this post:

Any ideas about places I might go to grad school?

I'm looking to study historical theology at least for the master's level. I'm pretty sure if I ever break into academia my research interests will include theology of sexuality and the Christian concept of human dignity (I'm particularly interested in the ways in which 20th century authors, especially but probably not only Catholics, have used the world's concept of dignity as a negative definition of the Christian concept.)

So if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. I kind of already know what Catholic places I sort of want to apply to (for instance, CUA and Notre Dame are on my list, still thinking on the Catholic GTU schools in Berkeley because I think I might choke on the little-l liberalism down there.)

If anyone knows of good Protestant schools especially for historical theology I'd like to know. I know a couple of other Carnival people either are or have been grad students in the past, so if you'd have anything about those to offer, let me know.

Christian Carnival CCCXXV

2010-04-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

Hey all! It's time once again for the Christian Carnival! I'm excited that KBT has the honor of hosting this week. The Carnival, for anyone who doesn't know, is a hosting-rotated blog carnival open to Christians of Protestant, Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox persuasions. If you want to learn more about the Carnival you can go here. If you want to submit an article you can do so here.

Also, dude, this edition of the Christian Carnival also holds the distinction of being KBT's 100th post ever. Rock on. I was going to try and organize this week's posts into overly broad categories but most posts didn't fit so neatly in my neat little boxes, so I gave up on that. (There are three money-related posts this week, which makes me wonder if maybe God's trying to tell me something.)

There's lots of awesome stuff this week. I don't necessarily endorse every word of the posts below, but I found it to be all edifying overall, and challenging in those few places I disagreed. (However, I really hated that jerk Dan Lower. He never knows what he's talking about.) Twenty-five submissions in all this week! Special thanks to Jeremy Pierce of Parableman for being patient with my questions about hosting.

The Banditts
kilama gives us "The Death of a Nation," a piece on abortion in America with some interesting facts.

The Bible Archive
Rey Reynoso presents "Ethics Beyond Duty (1 of 4)" which is "guestblogger Xulon writ[ing] about ethics beyond duty." Lots of fun Scriptural-ethical connections here.

Boston Bible Geeks
danny presents "What Happened to Onesimus?" Some thoughts about the fate of the New Testament runaway slave. danny comments: "Philemon is an often overlooked book, could that be because we don't know how the story ends? This post looks for clues to tell us what happened to Onesimus."

A Christian Mommy
Siobhan McGirr gives us "Sleep Well, Christian Moms!" Siobhan reflects on the value of sleep.

Church Bible
Chad Maslak presents "Christian Praise and Worship," which contains some good thoughts on worship and praise.

Crossroads: Where Faith and Inquiry Meet
Diane R writes "Working with Generations in the Church," noting "here is a primer on what is really going on generationally." Diane definitely made a connection I had not been so aware of before.

The Dating Divas
Tara presents "Let's Grow Old Together....", saying "I think that the sacredness of marriage is getting thrown out the window! I think that our journey though life should #1 - be focused on the Lord and #2 - be WITH our best friend! My friends and I started up a blog on which we post (weekly) creative and fun dates that we have taken our husbands on. This is to encourage us (...and to help out with the 'What Should We Do?' part...) to continue dating our spouses even AFTER we are married. My husband and I have been having SO much fun dating each other lately that it really bothered me lately when I heard some co-workers complaining about their husbands. I decided to write a post about my thoughts...thus the article: 'Let's Grow Old Together...' Enjoy!"

Doug Boude (rhymes with 'loud')
Doug Boude gives his "Top 20 Life Lessons for Husbands and Fathers." Doug's summary: "In this post, I've compiled what I consider to be the top 20 things that I believe, when implemented and adopted, maximize the success of a husband and/or father in his role in his household. Being a father of 8 children, 4 step children, and 2 grand children, I kinda feel like I'm speaking from experience here :)" Doug is also asking for ideas in comments if you've got them.

Free Money Finance
Free Money Finance's "The Bible on Money" offering this week is "The Bible on Debt". FMF's summary: "The Bible doesn't have a positive perspective on debt." No it does not.

Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength
Weekend Fisher presents "Silencing Iago," which is "about politics, people who sow discord among brothers, and becoming peacemakers." WF makes some interesting connections.

IN HIM WE LIVE AND MOVE AND HAVE OUR BEING
NCSue presents "Mom and the doctor giveth, then mom and the doctor take away." The story Sue tells here is truly heartbreaking and raises lots of moral questions.

Journey Across the Sky
Allen Scott gives us "Gov. Regulation Fails to Regulate Bad Behavior." Allen's summary: "The sound of the word REGULATION gives a sense of safety. It makes people think there are people paid to keep an eye on certain industries and practices to make sure they operate within the law. But it turns out that those who are paid to keep watch are watching something else.These are hired hands, employees paid to be there, they have no vested interest in the people nor the families they are supposed to be looking out for. They are merely getting paid to do a job and when something bad happens they are quick to push the blame elsewhere. They have no concern over the well being of someone living hundreds or perhaps thousands of miles away. The halls of the government are cold and hollow." If Allen's right about regulation, something has gone seriously wrong.

keyboard theologians
I (Dan Lower) humbly offer "In the Meantime," a brief reflection on single-hood and discernment.

Mike Austin's Blog
Michael W. Austin reviews J.P. Moreland's The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism. Mike also gives some samples of ideas from Moreland's book.

Old Testament and Ecology
Justin Allison presents "God who brings rain in Zechariah | Old Testament Creation Theology," which he calls "part of my study on Creation theology in Zechariah."

Open My Ears, Lord
Janis Van Keuren writes "A Fragrant Praise to the Creator", noting, "the fragrant orange blossoms and the bee buzzing between flowers lift praise to God simply by existing." Wonderful reflection.

Other Food: daily devo's
Violet N. presents "Erecting memorials on our knees." Violet gives a touching reflection here. She remarks that "it’s comforting to think of petitions uttered on behalf of friends, kids, family members, communities, countries, leaders, even the world as little crosses beside the streets of heaven..."

Personal Finance By The Book
Joe Plemon writes about "Why to Build Wealth…Five Wrong Reasons and One Right One," with the teaser: "Is the phrase "wealthy Christian" an oxymoron? It all depends on the motives for building wealth."

Pillar on the Rock
Chris Krycho reflects on how God uses bad things that happen in life for the Good in "How Dirt Makes Us Clean."

Redeeming Riches
Jason asks the question of "How Much Should a Christian Give?" Jason summarizes: "Why is tithing such a polarizing topic!? Find out how much a Christian should be giving!" This is the first in a three-part series, and raises lots of questions--not all money related.

Rely on God in your personal development.
bewisest.com presents "Do your work with faith." The post has some good thoughts on faith in God and getting work done.

Taste{Full}
Tiffany DeLangie presents "Need a Little Inspiration?" Tiffany looks at some recent CCM CDs.

Thinking in Christ
Russ White gives us "Und Now, You Vill Be Healthy." Russ's comments: "The government is moving to regulate our salt intake with the explicit goal of 'changing our taste,' over time. What will be declared 'unhealthy' next?" This is a disturbing trend.

who am i?
Barry Wallace gives us "John Piper and Rick Warren." Barry's description: "Here are a few links to articles addressing the recent John Piper / Rick Warren controversy." It's well worth checking these links out. I'd heard a little about this controversy but they served as a good introduction to the issues at hand.

You Can't Mean That!
Steven Demmler presents "Karl Barth on Openness and Growth." Steven notes, "I let Karl Barth speak for himself on the topic of theological openness and growth."

I was glad for the opportunity to host this week. It was really interesting to read all the different submissions and immerse myself in the issues they raised. I should note that a guy named Dan presented "Jewish Chat and Israel Chat," but Dan and his blog are Jewish, so I couldn't include it in the Christian Carnival proper, but I figured I'd throw out the link in case anyone wanted to see it.

If you want to submit a post to next week's carnival, please follow this link. Again, the Carnival is open to the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics and Protestants. Posts submitted need not be directly about faith or theology (e.g., they could be, among other things, about politics, homemaking, teaching, or underwater basket-weaving) but posts should proceed from a Christian world-view.

In the Meantime

2010-04-27T20:53:00.000-07:00

These are some thoughts that started about a week ago when a TV show I was watching reminded me I was single. That was not a good day.

I don't know what my vocation is. Either it's marriage or it's some sort of consecrated single life (Holy Orders in that case, probably.) Anyway, I realized that day that I wasn't happy being single. I'm not sure why that is. Could be because I'm called to marriage, or it could be that I'm so afraid of turning into this guy* that I can't stop watching myself whenever I make a new friend of the female persuasion. Maybe I'm called to the Priesthood, but I'm really in denial (some of my reasoning for discerning away from the clerical state doesn't quite seem to hold up, to me.) Some days (not today especially) it's enough to make me want God to just slam one door shut, and open the other one wide. Just some kind of obvious sign. That'd be great.

Sometime, when I find and fulfill my vocation, I have a feeling that dealing with the fact of sexuality is going to get a lot easier. Because then I'll have a state I can accept, and live with; no more nebulous single-hood.

It'll come in God's time. In the meantime, please pray that I would be less neurotic when I meet women, and know when to relax and when to be vigilant. (Wojtyla's Love and Responsibility was a huge help in the way of a philosophical framework for living; book recommendations on the subject are good if you can think of any.) But if nothing else, prayer for discernment--in the immediate and in the vocational sense.

=========

* If this is your first XKCD comic, you might not want to browse the site. Sometimes it's a little less spiritual and a lot more offensive than that one. But that comic itself should be fine.

Christian Carnival CCCXXIV

2010-04-21T12:34:00.000-07:00

Other Food has Christian Carnival CCCXXIV. Peruse and enjoy.

Also, oh man, KBT is hosting next week. This'll be interesting.

Baptism and Open/Closed Communion

2010-04-16T10:20:00.000-07:00

John Meunier started some interesting discussion on his blog about whether baptism should be a prerequisite for taking the elements at communion. My choice of Church makes it obvious what I believe. But within a historically-minded Protestant framework like the Quadrilateral, I don't see the problem with saying "our communion is open to you if you have accepted Christ and been baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit." I certainly hope it's not unbiblical; as has been pointed out on Meunier's blog, this would be bad for the Early Church.

Christian Carnival CCCXXIII

2010-04-15T11:58:00.001-07:00

Up over at You Can't Mean That!

Declare your Heresy!

2010-04-12T15:28:00.000-07:00

A blog called Revolution is encouraging readers to add their names to a list of heretics the author has compiled from a couple of websites that he considers, quite frankly, to be poppycock. So far the list includes, among many others, "The Pope" (I assume the author took this verbatim from the site(s)), Brian McLaren, Rick Warren (?) Moody Bible Institute (!), and Mark Driscoll (!!).

I definitely signed myself up. I nominated Wesley, Arminius, St. Francis and G.K. Chesterton as potential historical figures who should be included. Maybe it's just a list for those of us whose souls could still be saved. Then again, I've gone Romanist, so maybe I'm irredeemable now.

Hat tip to holy heteroclite.

How I Am Still a Protestant (and How I Am Not)

2010-04-09T11:54:00.000-07:00

Warning: This post may be long. If you want the list for things I protest specifically in Catholics, see 1a,b and 3. If you want the list of things I see wrong with Protestant theology, see 1c and 4. But if you have the time, the whole list might be good because I'm sure some tendencies have crossed the Tiber to cross-contaminate one tradition or the other. While I'm sure some of them also have some of these issues, I'm not familiar enough with the Orthodox tradition to list anything specific to them here. If anyone has anything to add that I've missed, please tell me. I'm already thinking of stuff but I kind of want people who read this thing to have first dibs on the stuff that I've still missed as of this writing. I will give credit for suggestions in comments or e-mail.

I have remarked often both to Catholics and Protestants in my life that post-conversion I would still have a Protesant's theological mind. I think there is a good deal of truth to this. The question remains, if I am (like Peter Kreeft has said) striving to be more Protestant than the Protestants, against what do I protest? Surely I can't be more Protestant than Protestants without protesting something.

As a "newly minted Catholic" (as an atheist friend hilariously called me the other day), I am still a Protestant in the sense that I stand in protest against things that are not in line with the teachings of Scripture and the teachings of Christ. I am not a Protestant in the sense that I recognize the authority of something besides Scripture to interpret Scripture (at least in certain situations) without the possibility of error; this was, perhaps, the biggest thing, that a Protestant may protest, and a Catholic may not.

I daresay that it along with its logical implications (anything this authority declares to be true about the Faith, or declares to be apostolic teaching) are the only things I am really bound not to protest. A good portion of the things that Protestants were, at least in their minds, protesting in the first place, I am still not only allowed, but all but bound to protest, as someone who, at least in his mind, has some decent knowledge of theology. Thus I must protest:

1. Inefficient pastoral practices and outlooks related to things like Church discipline, or how the Church sees the world.
1.a In particular for the Catholics, it seems plain on the surface that more reform is needed in the area of how priests are disciplined for serious crimes against children, and in particular when and how they are handed over to police. I do acknowledge that lots of reform has been done, in part thanks to the current Pope Benedict XVI in his later CDF years, but I am still hopeful for more, especially on a local level.
1.b Also in particular for Catholics (related, sadly again, to the pedophilia issue): Some church officials have been too much whine, not enough work on the issue. I trust that many of them (especially current CDF head Cardinal Levada, and I really do trust this) will be working where they can see it necessary for reforms and to prosecute as much as they can within the current system of Canon Law.
1.c. In particular for Protestants, the sometime practice of "church splits" where a church splits over some doctrinal issue that really isn't that big. We're talking about something like drinking wine, or worship styles, more than something like gay marriage.
2. Bad liturgy. Lex orandi, lex credendi after all. Theologically questionable worship lyrics also go here, but they also occur plenty of the time when there's no liturgy proper happening.
3. Bad theological practice, including for Catholics:
3.a. Seeing the Protestant traditions in an uncharitable light, or not giving Protestants enough credit as Truth-seekers.
3.a.1. Treating all Protestantism as necessarily unhistorical. Most notable exceptions coming to mind: N.T. Wright and Justo L. Gonzalez, both of whom have studied Christian history considerably and yet somehow haven't come to endorse the Roman Pontiff as a theological leader.
3.a.2. Leading into the next point, acting like the Biblical cases for well-known Catholic doctrines (e.g. the Eucharist in John 6 and 1 Corinthians, or the Perpetual Virginity in the Lukan Anunciation) are so painfully obvious that nobody could possibly resist them but for fear of the Truth of Catholicism. While some undoubtedly resist for this reason, some people just don't see the arguments as easily. (And I, for one, am not entirely sold on John 6, though I see much potential for a double-layer of meaning there.)
3.b. Doing no investigation into matters, especially Scriptural matters, that the Magisterium has settled or the cases for these matters, thus leaving themselves wide open to the charge of being "unbiblical" by those Protestants who believe such.
3.c. Failing to read the Scriptures or interact with them outside of the Mass, leaving themselves somewhat legitimately open to the charge of not really engaging the Bible.
3.d. Misinterpreting the doctrines of sola scriptura and prima scriptura such that they sound more circular and baseless than they actually are. (I think there's definitely a truth to them, by the way, even though I think that prima and the Catholic viewpoint are more coherent with history.)
3.e. Treating (even if only in some quarters and/or for some purposes) Thomas Aquinas, like he is a minor Magisterium. He is awesome, but not even a minor infallible voice.
3.f. How we treat dissent, that is, improper lack of assent to Magisterial teachings.
3.f.1. Usually we crack down more on dissent we don't like, sometimes to a point where we raise the standard of orthodoxy higher than it was meant to go for a given issue (a conservative example would be pretending that anyone who uses NFP for anything less than a life-threatening condition is dissenting from proper church teaching on sexuality. A liberal example would be pretending that anyone who favors a more anarchic free market is automatically unconcerned for the poor.)
3.f.2. Usually we show more sympathy, sometimes too much, to dissent that arises from an overemphasis on those things we like to emphasize theologically. (A conservative example would be sympathizing too much with sedevacantists. A liberal example would be sympathizing too much with those parishes which neglect the rubrics for liturgy almost to the point of invalidating the Masses they celebrate.)
3.g. Treating Protestantism as not only lacking in the fullness of the faith, but in such serious error that every soul within it should be regarded as having a state of grace that is nebulous at best.
4. Including, for Protestants:
4.a. Calling everything "unbiblical" that does not resonate with one's particular interpretation of Scripture.*
4.a.1. Gathering that something must be unbiblical if it is taught only in Catholicism/Eastern Orthodoxy, even if it was taught by several of the Early Church Fathers.
4.a.2. Automatically classifying as unbiblical doctrine that teaches a cooperation of man with God in the project of Salvation (synergism.)
4.a.3. Believing and claiming proudly that one's own conclusions are the "clear teaching of Scripture," found without any tradition, even though the fact of debate presents a serious prima facie challenge to this assertion--and often without going the extra mile to counteract this prima facie case.
4.b. Being much more wary of the influence of philosophy than anything Paul said actually warrants us to be. Noticeable exceptions, I think, include persons as prestigious as Alvin Plantinga, a good number of Prosloblogion Protestants, and the Christian Carnival's own (well, also the Prosloblogion's) Jeremy Pierce.
4.c. Treating (even if only in some quarters and/or for some purposes) John Piper, or Brian McLaren if you're postmodern, or Rob Bell if you like Metrosexianity**, like us Catholics treat Thomas Aquinas.
4.d. Treating Catholicism not as a less Biblical form of Christianity but one which does not deserve to be called Christianity at all--and thus one which places all the souls it holds in peril. I was especially aggrieved, even with the qualification given in the ensuing article, that George Fox University claims to be the highest-ranked Christian college in the nation according to Forbes. Three or four recognizable Catholic schools rank higher on the Forbes list.***
5. For all Christians:
5.a. Conflating Biblical inerrancy and Biblical historical-scientific literalism.
5.b. Ignoring actual reasons that real and logical people might actually choose to reject the Truth, even if we believe that these are the results of a malformed reason and/or conscience, that does not equate to saying that all those who reject Christianity just want to have more fun in bed.
5.c. Fearing especially the philosophical 'modernist' and 'postmodernist' movements enough that one sometimes suspects we have not a real hope in the Resurrection.

5.d. Taking such a highly providential view of church membership that it almost seems to render obsolete any notion that the differences between the Protestant denominations with each other, with Rome, and with the Patriarchs, really matter. Why should those things matter if it is truly God's best ideal that one person be a Calvinist, and another an Arminian? (Given their coexistence under the roof of Rome with at least a provisional blessing to both, I do not feel the same applies, at least not in full force, to Thomist and Molinist accounts of predestination; also, Rome has never to my knowledge in one of her infallible moments said anything implying that one person might be called to be a Thomist and another a Molinist.)****
5.e. Running more than an acceptable risk of heresy in an attempt to exercise our Christian freedom, or to be relevant to the modern world.
5.f. Demanding that the teachings of one's accepted infallible source be not just accepted even in the face of doubt, but accepted without searching and question on the matters at hand, thus neutering the process of seeking the Truth.
5.g. While there is some room for trusting and assenting to doctrines not fully understood once a certain groundwork of doctrines has been laid, I believe it is imperative to most Christians at least to know why they believe what they believe. It may be that in God's design some are not bound to do so, at least not much, but more of them need to do so. (I especially wish more American Catholics would do this, as it might seriously drive down the amount of dissent.)

6. Ignoring social justice in our focus on the need of each individual for redemption from sin by Christ, OR Ignoring the personal aspects of the Life, atoning Death and the Resurrection of Our Lord in our drive to focus on the social gospel.
7. Thinking that a personal relationship with Christ must always be or feel close, especially as a matter of emotion.
8. Wearing the Cross on our faces every day and almost never acknowledging in our faces or our writings (at least, so far as tone can tell) that we are a people who have hope in the Resurrection. Big Offenders: Triablogue. Big Hopers: Al Mohler and Richard Mouw among the Protestants, Archbishop Tim Dolan among the Catholics. (The current Pontiff has an evil-looking face in general, but every non-evil picture of him is simply delightful.)
9. Trying so hard to be pragmatic and realistic that we wind up in cooperation with evil.
9.a. In particular, I think some people (Catholic and Protestant) did this with the recent health-care bill. Considering more fully the matters of abortion on which Catholics and (what I would call good) Protestants agree on, that is, that elective abortions at least, are wrong: I'm still not convinced that we aren't funding further the intrinsic evil of elective abortion. And if we are, at least from the Catholic ethical standpoint...we can be happy about the coverage, but we sure as heck can't be happy about the further intrinsic evil.
9.b. Also in particular, certain groups of Catholics and Protestants, many of them staunch in their traditions, have attempted to fudge on the torture issue, or on a reasonable definition of it, often out of a misguided sense of loyalty to country.
9.b.1. I fully acknowledge that certain people are genuinely uncertain as to whether waterboarding constitutes torture; while I think that in all relevant contexts it certainly does, it is not those people to whom I am speaking, provided they truly seek the Truth.
9.b.2. Kind of going along with this, treating our country like it is too special to really be at fault morally. Chesterton (someone I think we can all generally agree is decent to read), while quite a nationalist, was also apparently quite skeptical of nationalistic spirit that aimed in any way to elevate the expectations for the state below the typical standards for morality.
10. Making long and judgmental and possibly overly negative lists of things that we feel must be protested against which don't necessarily offer a ton of awesome solutions, even though they're highly critical of the churches we've grown up in, or grown into, when really, all we are is college-graduated kids with a theology blog and too much free time on our hands, and no real right to judge anyone at all, without taking the time to acknowledge...

That many of the things on this list are things we college-grads with blogs need to work on just like everyone else. Even if in some respects my eye has more of a speck than a plank, I must still search for the planks that can be removed--this will enable me more accurately to see the specks and planks in others' eyes.

Okay, so I got a little personal there. But I think in some ways it was good to get that list of things I do feel compelled to protest out there. And yes, I've stopped protesting the big thing. I no longer protest the notion of the infallible Magisterium, and in that sense I will never again be a Protestant. But I have brought with me something that the Catholic Church has perhaps been missing in the same numbers for a few hundred years, the hermeneutic of suspicion of structures and authority that is over-emphasized in Protestant Christianity, but too often under-represented by the Catholics. It is my hope that taking a largely Protestant theological mind with me into the Catholic Church will prove to be a sort of theological completion that will, eventually, help bring a real visible unity to fruition. Eventually, hopefully, the hermeneutic of suspicion and the overwhelming trust some Catholics place in the institutional church will balance out to the proper trust Christ intended. But to contribute to that that, I must continue to protest, and I must continue to suspect--even when it's uncomfortable. Even to those things which I assent, I must strive to know the reason. At any rate, someone must. It is certainly not my job to do this for every doctrine the Church holds true, but it is my job as a Christian to cover my basics.

And while it may have begun as an attempt to state things against which I still protest, and gathered the sum total of many of my frustrations along the way to its completion, this list--especially the part I made for Catholics--would be good to take into theological discussion as a reminder that some of my own bad habits are also on the list.

For instance, if my conviction about the Eucharist grows much stronger it will soon be easy to slip into the trap of the two subpoints of the first point on the Catholics. I pretty sincerely believe as a combined consideration of Scripture and history that if we desire to believe what the Early Church believed and taught, we must maintain a sense of real presence in the Eucharist in our theological worldviews. This does not qualify me to practice the incredibly un-Christian practice of uncharitably assuming that such things are blatantly obvious to anyone who has looked into them for even five minutes. Indeed, considering again Wright and Gonzalez, it definitely doesn't qualify me to assume that men and women who are well-studied like them in history and Scripture are deliberately or obstinately misreading anything to avoid being Catholic.

As far as feedback goes on this list, I'd love some. If I missed stuff, let me know. If you think I'm being unfair about something, let me know. I might not agree, of course, but that doesn't mean I don't want to know where I might be neglecting one thing or over-emphasizing another.

I hope as you read the list and post I have written that you read it charitably; I hope that you can take for yourself a sampling of what you might feel called most to protest within and without your own tradition. I hope it gives a decent understanding of the meaning I feel specifically as a Protestant gone Catholic. I hope that reading this will call everyone, including myself, to a greater self-examination and seeking of the Truth, as we seek to expand God's kingdom together.

And as I am often wont to say to people, please pray for me as I seek the Truth. I will do the same for you.

===========================

* Note that this is not meant to say that all claims on what God intends to teach us in the Scriptures are equally valid. It is merely meant to say that the waters are usually muddier than anyone really wants to admit. Really, sometimes they are muddy and sometimes they are clear. Providentially enough, the clearer portions, at least to staunch Catholics and Protestants, seem to be those which present us with serious admonishments to personal (and sexual) purity, even if the exact form of that purity is not always so obvious, and to work for peace in the world when possible, and to work for justice, including an avoidance of social justice, where we can. This whole section is really, truly, an attempt to euthanize the term "unbiblical" forever, because as both a Protestant and a Catholic I generally see that it gets us nowhere in our efforts towards Truth.
** Unless someone gets really offended, I'm so using that again. That said, while Rob Bell's tone does annoy me some (at least from the video I've seen) he appears to be one of the few people who's written actual cyberpunk theology, and I look forward to interacting with his ideas whenever I finally get around to reading him. I just find myself highly amused by how 'indie' and/or 'metro' some of the newer evangelical movers/shakers look, because, God help me, I don't understand it.
*** In my mind, the fact that the clarification has to be to a degree searched for makes this almost a claim by GFU, however unintentional, that Notre Dame and St. Mary's College of California are not Christian colleges. Last year's Obama controversy notwithstanding, I'm 99% sure they still are, what with the first being run by the Holy Cross order of priests, and the second run by the De La Salle Christian Brothers, they are still Christian.
**** This footnote is for the picture: I am thinking specifically of the type of Christian who might subscribe more to the ideals of Relevant magazine, and whether they'd really approve of what I'm writing here (obviously, I suspect not, but if such a Christian is reading this blog right now and approves of what I am saying in the paragraph directly right of said button, they should tell me. I'll probably be some combination of embarrassed and relieved.)

Christian Carnival for the Week is Up

2010-04-07T11:02:00.001-07:00

Over at Fish and Cans. Peruse and enjoy!

My Notes and Money-Quotes from Love and Responsibility

2010-04-06T00:11:00.000-07:00

My notes and quotations as found in my little notebook, amended with page numbers where possible, and amended to include the most awesome quotation in the book. Page numbers are for the Ignatius edition which can be found here on Google Books.

TYPES OF LOVE (Romantic Context)

Love as Attraction

amor complacentia: "Attraction is of the essence of love and in some sense is indeed love, although love is not merely attraction." [page 76]

Love as Desire

amor concupiscentia: love as desire "You are a good for me", vs. [mere] desire (sensual) which can lead to use of the person to fill a lack [page 81]

Love as Goodwill

amor benevolentia[e]: desire for the greatest good for the person [page 83]

reciprocity: love is a "between" [page 85]

[QUOTATIONS FROM THE REST OF THE BOOK]

The Person and Love: The Education of Love

"There is no need to be dismayed if love sometimes follows tortuous ways. Grace has the power to make straight the paths of human love." [page 140]

The Pers[on and] Chastity: [The]Struct[ure] of Sin

"If I believe that A is good, and I do A, I act well even if A is really bad." [page 163]

"'Authenticity' of feeling is quite often inimical to truth in behavio[u]r." [page 163]

"...to which true love ought to be particularly attractive, because it creates a real opportunity for the will to immerse itself in the good." [page 166]

The Pers[on and] Chastity: [The] True Meaning of Chastity

"True chastity does not lead to disdain for the body or to disparagement of matrimony and the sexual life." [page 171]

The Pers[on and] Chastity: Shamelessness

"Man, alas, is not such a perfect being that the sight of the body of another person, especially a person of the other sex, can arouse in him merely a disinterested liking which develops into an innocent affection." [page 190]

The Pers[on and] Chastity: Self Control and Objectivization

"Above all, continence cannot be an end in itself." [page 197, 'above all' didn't appear in original notes.]

The Pers[on and] Chastity: Tenderness and Sensuality

"Every human being is a limited good, and for that reason capable of disinterestedness only within limits." [page 203]

Justice Towards the Creator: Vocation

[Brackets within brackets within quotes are things I've added to the quotations in this blog post to clarify how I read them at the time.]

"This attitude is primarily a function of the person: [...[whether they are]] married, celibate, or even virgin [...[is]] of secondary importance." [page 258]

Please feel free to react to these quotations if you please.

A Rant on Media, Scandal, Correction, and Reform

2010-04-05T10:56:00.000-07:00

I'd been thinking for awhile that I really should say something about the recent scandals in the Church, and how they do or don't relate to the media, and how Catholics should correct the media and reform themselves...

Brother Charles says it all much more eloquently than I possibly could, and what he's written there gets my full endorsement, at least. Other relevant commentary, if anyone (especially anyone looking for good Catholic perspective on the issue) wants to know, Ross Douthat and John L. Allen are good on this one, even if I don't agree with all their conclusions, but in fairness some of the things I disagree with were written before all the...

Okay, time to get a little honest and ineloquent:

The Murphy case is such a screwed up ball of "Gah!" Don't wade in there unless you're willing to suffer lots of heartbreak. In the process your respect for Fr. Bertone (probably), Fr. Brundage (definitely) and even Archbishop Weakland (certainly) will grow, but your heart will break, and (if you're not already convinced) you will know why it is that I believe that there is that decent-sized kernel of truth to what the media is saying, that real reform is needed.

That said, stay away from Maureen Dowd or Sinead O'Connor. The latter especially ought to be strongly chastised for the spiritual irresponsibility of claiming to be a Catholic right as she urges her fellow Catholics to boycott...the sacraments. My reaction to such bafflegab is that it is, quite honestly, so devoid of a well-formed reason and conscience that the only sensible reaction is ajif del kesheg lerah grohak lah lafhul kufvea hacnel feveh zefihez ivanflihewef. Did that make sense? No? Still makes more sense than O'Connor's boycott (Dowd's "Nope" made marginally more sense than what I typed.)

I've got a list of articles and relevant commentary/source material going at my site, but I will eventually take what I find to be the most helpful from there and make a post here. I also won't be totally silent on the issue, but quite frankly I've felt a combination of "It's Holy Week" and "I don't feel qualified to blog about this yet" holding me back. (I did do some writing on a post last night that included some commentary on the issue, but it was more as a bullet-point than anything else.)

Anyone reading this who's Catholic (and anyone Protestant, probably) already knows this, but we in Papist-land could use your prayers right now. First for the victims, that they might heal and that the crimes committed might not keep them from Christ. Secondly for the hierarchy, that it would be filled with Truth-seekers who will change whatever needs changing about church processes. Benedict, if you trust the people who would know, is a good start.

And that, aside from the aforementioned links list and in-passing bullet-point commentary, is pretty much all I'm going to say on the issue, is that prayer is needed.

I hope everyone had a blessed Easter Weekend. I did, and I really sincerely hope everyone reading this did, too. Now the Feast begins, and it's longer than the fast. But just like Holy Week, it doesn't constitute a vacation from real problems in the Christian church and, specifically, the Catholic Church.

He is Risen!

2010-04-04T11:26:00.000-07:00

"Evangelicals and Catholics Together"

2010-04-01T21:32:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to reading the document "Evangelicals and Catholics Together" from back in 1992.

It's good reading and a refreshing attempt at ecumenism between Evangelical and Catholic Christians. I liked a lot of what was said. I kind of wonder if maybe the ancient creeds could've been searched more for agreeable items that could be put forth in a statement of faith (say, the Nicene Creed, sans (at least) filique and confiteor. I also (and considering the group that signed, I wouldn't think that this would be hard) might've appreciated an agreement not to question each others' fidelity to Christ or even to the Gospel, over different interpretations of sola gratia or over acceptance/rejection of sola fide. But maybe that's just me.

And okay. I'd be lying if I said that the language on baptism doesn't sound a little wishy-washy to me:

In the context of evangelization and "reevangelization," we encounter a major difference in our understanding of the relationship between baptism and the new birth in Christ. For Catholics, all who are validly baptized are born again and are truly, however imperfectly, in communion with Christ. That baptismal grace is to be continuingly reawakened and revivified through conversion. For most Evangelicals, but not all, the experience of conversion is to be followed by baptism as a sign of new birth. For Catholics, all the baptized are already members of the church, however dormant their faith and life; for many Evangelicals, the new birth requires baptismal initiation into the community of the born again. These differing beliefs about the relationship between baptism, new birth, and membership in the church should be honestly presented to the Christian who has undergone conversion. But again, his decision regarding communal allegiance and participation must be assiduously respected.

I realize this is a difficult statement to compose, what with the notions of whether baptism regenerates and whether it is what makes one a Christian 'officially,' but I have two concerns. One concern is whether the Catholics should really have agreed to such language, since it almost seems to imply that it's okay for non-Catholic churches to go around teaching that baptism doesn't regenerate--even though it's treated as a near-essential for salvation in Catholicism.* That sounds...not quite spiritually responsible. (Again, maybe that's just me.) But the thing I don't think is just me is that the language sounds a little "true for you but not for me." Example: "for Catholics, the baptized are X" but essentially also maintaining that "for Evangelicals, pre-baptized are also X." Just...sounds a little relativistic. To put it bluntly, it sounds like they stopped just short of saying "for some Evangelicals, baptism is not regenerating," and also "for other Evangelicals and Catholics, baptism is regenerating." While it is within the realm of theological possibility, the only reasonable solution I can see to the conflict seems to mean that baptism regenerates depending on whether or not we believe it does, which seems to get us absolutely nowhere on questions like infant baptism. I'm sort of in a mode of self-doubt on these points, however, because most if not all of the people who signed this thing are very relativism-averse. Kreeft, Mouw, and Glendon** to give brief examples.

I realize the thrust of this has been kind of critical, so I want to end by discussing what I feel the declaration did really well.

On the brighter side, this document does at least agree on the Apostles' Creed, which is a good starting point in addressing issues like what Christians agree on, or ought to agree on. (Some related discussion, in the mode of thoughts about heresy, can be found at the You Can't Mean That! post from this last week's Christian Carnival.)

It discussed Biblical mandates that would seem to tell us to be charitable to our brothers and sisters in Christ, and it discussed perhaps even more gravely that the consequence of ignoring said mandates is a compromise to our witness and a comfort to the dark forces, natural and supernatural, that would suppress Christianity:

While we are gratefully aware of ongoing efforts to address tensions among these communities, the shameful reality is that, in many places around the world, the scandal of conflict between Christians obscures the scandal of the cross, thus crippling the one mission of the one Christ. [...and later:] As Evangelicals and Catholics, we dare not by needless and loveless conflict between ourselves give aid and comfort to the enemies of the cause of Christ. The love of Christ compels us and we are therefore resolved to avoid such conflict between our communities and, where such conflict exists, to do what we can to reduce and eliminate it. Beyond that, we are called and we are therefore resolved to explore patterns of working and witnessing together in order to advance the one mission of Christ.

The document concludes optimistically, with a note that is, if a little idealistic, ultimately a pragmatic realization that in the end this isn't "evangelicals vs. Catholics," it is (if a versus of any kind) "Christians vs. 'the world'":

Nearly two thousand years after it began, and nearly five hundred years after the divisions of the Reformation era, the Christian mission to the world is vibrantly alive and assertive. We do not know, we cannot know, what the Lord of history has in store for the Third Millennium. It may be the springtime of world missions and great Christian expansion. It may be the way of the cross marked by persecution and apparent marginalization. In different places and times, it will likely be both. Or it may be that Our Lord will return tomorrow. We do know that his promise is sure, that we are enlisted for the duration, and that we are in this together. We do know that we must affirm and hope and search and contend and witness together, for we belong not to ourselves but to him who has purchased us by the blood of the cross. We do know that this is a time of opportunity-and, if of opportunity, then of responsibility-for Evangelicals and Catholics to be Christians together in a way that helps prepare the world for the coming of him to whom belongs the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

If anyone else has reactions, who's read the whole thing or even just on the immediate context/commentary I gave, please do tell! I really do want people to join on the conversation: I especially want to know if people think I'm off track about the baptism language, because I kind of suspect that I am, but any thoughts about the document or about any of my other particular thoughts on it are also welcome!

A blessed Holy Thursday to you all!

================

* Footnote: In the sense that if you know you ought to be baptized and aren't working towards it, you're kind of hosed.
** If you don't know who Peter Kreeft and Richard Mouw are, they are respectively a Catholic philosopher and Christian apologist at Boston College, and the president of Fuller Theological Seminary. Not exactly relativists. Mary Ann Glendon, is the woman who turned down the University of Notre Dame's Laetare Medal because of the justification given for President Barack Obama in all his pro-choice-ness being given a platform to speak at the same graduation ceremony and receiving an honorary law degree there. (Her presence, and her own opportunity to speak, were part of the University's justification.)

Christian Carnival CCCXXI

2010-03-31T23:45:00.000-07:00

...is up over at who am i?

Peruse and enjoy. In preparation for my actual turn hosting, (later on in April), I'm going to try reading these things systematically and commenting on each and every one of them if I can (one provides no comment-space). Already did two but that was rather unsystematic. I am particularly intrigued by the dialogue of "Throwing the Baby out with the Bath Water."

Eastern European Catholicism

2010-03-31T15:19:00.000-07:00

Can someone tell me how these eastern European countries keep getting away with infringing on the civil rights of Muslims? Not only that, but doing so while trampling on one of Islam's signs of modesty.* How are these countries Catholic enough to hate Muslims even though (soon enough) they won't be Catholic enough to believe in God?

As a general norm I refrain from cussing on the internet and almost totally on this blog, but, Lord help me, it's ox-crap like this that makes me want to abandon my strange notions about civility and politeness. Especially troubling is the fact that the proposal goes into Parliament after Easter Break. So after celebrating the Death and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior, some of these politicians are about to set out and make sure the world can see just how Christian they are, to legislate against the rights of Muslims--who could be powerful cultural and moral allies in our defense of Natural Law--in order, apparently, to appease public opinion.

Of course, it's the New York Times, so it's quite possible that they're exaggerating something. Still. I'm not happy about this, and I don't think Christians should be either, frankly. Even if you're tempted to celebrate the implicit repression of Muslims, remember the things we hold in common: we both, at the most fundamental level, acknowledge that there is something besides public opinion and a feeling of public 'security' to be served in the world. Something transcendent. If in a few years Belgium and France turn on the Catholics, and start making arguments against nuns' habits and public carrying of Rosaries...If in a few years they tell us Christians can't carry big Bibles, because they might be able to fit tiny bombs inside of them...Don't forget that you were warned.

=================

* Yes, yes, I know. The burqa may also be a sign of oppression and women kept down on a pedestal. I'm saying it's a sign of modesty, not that it's a perfect sign of modesty or that it's never been abused. Christian signs of modesty can be abused, too, but I'm trying to point out that a desire for such is something we hold in common with the Muslims, not something we should join Europe in attacking them for. I also don't mean to deny that there might be some security threats here, but that's where vigilance comes in. Banning a particular outfit because it makes identification harder is a lazy and prejudiced way to increase security. If they were willing to ban old-school nuns' habits and ninja garb as well, it might show that security was the real concern. No doubt some Muslims have carried out attacks in Eastern Europe. That is not an excuse to effectively ban faithfully Muslim women from public service--at least, those who feel that the burqa is part of their faithfulness. Those women, the ones caught in this cultural crossfire--. Vigilance is an answer; banning the burqa is a slippery slope, and Europe should tread very very carefully if it insists on treading even an inch down it.

Theological Worldview Quiz...Again!

2010-03-27T21:45:00.000-07:00

I took the (Christian) theological worldview quiz again. Everyone reading it should definitely take it right at this link. My top three don't surprise me at all, given my recent Tiber-crossing and the fact that many of the people who brought me up have had tendencies in the directions of neo orthodoxy and the emergent church.

Roman Catholic

100%

Neo orthodox

86%

Emergent/Postmodern

71%

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan

61%

Charismatic/Pentecostal

50%

Fundamentalist

46%

Reformed Evangelical

39%

Classical Liberal

39%

Modern Liberal

29%

So yeah, take it and post a comment, or make a post and let me know, I'll be keeping track here. If you tied, say which one you chose but please post your percentages if you can. I still find this quiz quite helpful in helping to determine where one's theological slants are. I think even if you already know what category you'll wind up in, you might find yourself somewhat surprised or illuminated where your other sympathies are.

Christian Carnival CCCXX Is UP

2010-03-24T14:03:00.000-07:00

And She Went Out... has the carnival this week. Enjoy!

Observation on Something I Picked up from Kevin Johnston's Blog

2010-03-23T20:27:00.000-07:00

Kevin Johnston is an awesome guy who I went to college with. He keeps a blog here called Sola Nobilitas Virtus. He usually has some kind of snappy quotation at the top and/or the side of the blog (the trend now is to have a more long-lasting one at the top and a quotation and picture on the right side that switch on a weekly basis.) Anyway, back when I think it was just the one on the right that changed, one of them was:

Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bells. I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.

I submit that this is a false dichotomy, and I stipulate that in saying such I am completely disregarding any intent it may have and focusing solely on its wording. There should be a church within a yard of hell, for parishoners who can brave it. We are after all a pilgrim church; we are not safe. And it seems that we can think many places that are almost borders between hell and earth (for reasons of physical poverty mostly, though I suspect we could identify just as many places where spiritual poverty was great enough.) And there are churches in them.

I'm not saying I should be one of those to go to that church. Though by going to church in America I may have already committed myself to such. In fact I suspect the commitment is really much easier to make even than that. In a sense, every square yard of this world that isn't the sanctuary of a Church is already within a yard of hell. I thank God that the sanctuaries and tabernacles have stayed almost totally inviolate, save for those intentional perversions which constitute crimes against God and humanity. But almost everything else--including, with sadness, the church meeting halls, the homes of Christians, even, have not. So it is not just a false dichotomy because the Church could be a rescue shop, in theory. It is an impossible distinction, because the Church cannot be a Church unless it is a rescue shop.

Ultimately, I suppose what this means is, ready or not, I'm called to go to that church! Will you come with me?

I's a Catholic

2010-03-22T11:31:00.001-07:00

Yes I am. I am now Daniel James Ignatius (of Antioch) Lower. :p

The Idiot

2010-03-22T01:45:00.000-07:00

The following is a revised version of a story I wrote awhile ago on this blog. The story has been revised to focus more narrowly on its intended themes. The label "theology in story" is the only one I've applied so that the reader might more easily discover the story's theme as they read. It was actually revised awhile ago--thanks to my friend Corban Monger who helped me with some typo/grammar-review and editing, and to my parents, and Austin, for giving some helpful critiques of the first story. I thought since I didn't have much else germinating in my mind, this would be a good thing to post this week.

There were once two Christians. Each knew his doctrine quite well—what it was at least, and between them they could prove it from the Bible. They both attended Jerusalem Community Church, in a small nonexistent town in the northwest somewhere. In this town most people were Calvinists, Catholics, or Calvinists who really were Catholics, except for belief in the perseverance of the saints.

These two men lived their respective lives and died their respective deaths. On the day of judgment, it seemed God's good pleasure that these two be brought in side-by-side to give an account of themselves. The Judge was dressed like Death, but he appeared the opposite of a skeleton, and underneath his hood was not darkness, but a cool light.

The first stepped forward. He was sad and wasted: A piece of modern art composed entirely of skin and bones. He looked at once hopeless and repentant, and barely made eye contact with the Judge as he spoke. “Sir. It is with great regret that I inform you that I am almost certainly damned. It is God's teaching that those who are not among the elect shall have no experiences of conversion, that they shall not be affected whatsoever by taking communion, or by their baptism.

“I know, then, that I am not among the elect. I have always felt a rush of emotion when old friends came to visit, and always felt ecstatic just to see a bee resting on a flower. But I did not feel anything at my baptism, and I never felt a thing on taking the bread and juice. Even when I first came to believe that Jesus Christ was Lord of my Life, I—I felt nothing. If Your hands are not truly bound by the Scripture You laid down, I ask you to have mercy on me, though I don't deserve it and have no right to expect it.”

The Judge nodded somberly and then turned to face the other man. He had aged well. He looked peaceful, at least mostly, and was well-dressed. The Judge motioned for him to speak. “Sir,” he said, “It is with joy that I stand before you in the hope of rising again. Like the other man, I know Your teachings. I can the rush of joy when I came to believe in Jesus Christ, and how ecstatic I was when I was baptized. I can recall how when I first took communion I felt not damned, but assured that I would persevere, because I had realized I was a sinner.

“So I ask You, O Lord, to please have mercy on me as well, though I also have no right to expect it and, certainly, do not deserve it.” The Judge again nodded somberly, the same curious nod as before. He looked back and forth between the two and then lifted up his hand, making a gesture with his fingers—what terrible fingers! And in walked an angel.

The angel was many-winged, many-eyed and otherwise incomprehensible. He looked at the two men, his many eyes making contact with each of them at once before announcing, “I am Gabriel.” He had been the messenger to a poor woman who had been the container for the Lord. But now he had a sadder job. He turned first to the well-aged man. “I have some bad news. The first is that you will not be entering Heaven—well, not right now, anyway. You see, you in your assured salvation didn't do much of anything at all for the church, except serve as an usher and sing on the worship team from time to time. That might seem like a lot, but how much time did you really spend seeking Truth, and seeking to live it out outside the building? Who in hell do you think you were to avoid this? Your pastor didn't use this lofty language, but he kept telling you to read the Scriptures for the truth or falsity of his words. He preached from James about the haughty rich, always exhorting the congregation to practice what was being preached in all Scripture. You almost always failed to actually serve God in what you did. Or need I remind you of all the female co-workers whose backsides you carefully examined, or the homeless people outside of your office building who you ignored, not just financially, but also when they said 'good morning'? As you did unto the least of these!

“Yes, your sins are many, and like this other man's they would under an unmerciful God disqualify you from the Promised Land. But if anything disqualifies you it is your overarching sin. You did not seek to love and serve the Lord.”

The Assured man gulped. “There is good news, however. The pastor of Jerusalem Community was quite wrong about Purgatory. It does exist. You were assured of salvation; this much is true. But it was too much fun for you, on earth, for it to be all that much fun afterward, and so you must be saved by passing through the flames. When your time is complete, you may join the other Elect in heaven.”

Upon this note a trap-door opened underneath the Elect man, and he disappeared down the hole before he could say “thank you.” Then Gabriel turned to face the damned man. “As for you. You are saved, though you are quite an idiot.”

The face of skin and bones brightened.

“You served the Lord your God with all the heart, soul and mind and strength you could possibly muster, though you believed He had almost certainly condemned you to an eternity in hell. But your life witnessed anyway—to the poor, to the rich, to the businessmen who were trying to push past you to get lunch at the burrito stand. You were there visiting Him in prison, handing Him breakfast on the sidewalk, by the grace of God. You served them all as if they were The Lord, and served them well—you took the Pastor's mandate of Love literally. You've done well, good and faithful servant. In your life, there were around three-hundred souls that you led directly to God, and around thirty-thousand souls in which you prepared the way of the Lord.

“You were, however, an idiot. You thought conversion experience meant conversion feeling. I fully admit that we up here have been trying to get the message to Christians for years that they ought to stop talking about conversion experiences and start talking about conversion history. But you still could've done your part, and realized that perhaps even though you felt nothing on taking communion, nothing on baptism, and nothing on realization that Jesus Christ was Lord, you were saved. Loving and serving the Lord day in and day out as you did, though you had no hope of Resurrection yourself, must have meant you actually did have hope. Therefore, you did still propagate the untruthof the 'conversion experience,' wherever you went even as you propagated the Truth of Christ. You propagated the lie that you yourself were unsaved, though you were. But it seems it is God's good pleasure to strike this particular blemish out of you without the pain of being put into that special class of Elect to which your Elect friend now belongs. Congratulations, and well done, good and faithful servant!”

At this point a trap-spring below the idiot sprung, propelling the mess of skin and bones upward to his reward, before he either could say “Thanks.” The angel shifted his eyes to the Judge. “I swear—well, I don't swear, but I do wonder, Father. Will they ever get it, really?”

Solid Quotation on Implications of Belief

2010-03-20T11:55:00.000-07:00

A website called amtheomusings has a post with a solid quotation from theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar about, well, practice of belief. I think language like this could go a way in a real dialogue on faith and works.

Christian Carnival CCCXIX, and the Dan Going Catholic Project

2010-03-17T14:35:00.000-07:00

Christian Carnival CCCXIX is up over at Thinking Christian.

In other news, my second confession is today. I'm not too nervous, but I should memorize or at least write down an act of contrition this time. I get received Sunday. To any who read this, prayers for discernment and wisdom are always appreciated!

Not a Theology Textboook: The End of the Affair

2010-03-10T11:47:00.000-08:00

So this is the first in what will hopefully be a decent series on books that I love or found useful theologically (most of them if not all of them will be books by Christians) but which are nowhere near being theology proper, or as a literal creed of their authors, and should probably not be read as such, even if the total amount of theological error attained by such a reading is small. Now you might ask, what do I mean by a theology textbook? I mean something that is either designed primarily to teach/explain theology and/or advance the work of theology proper in a non-narrative format. Thus, for instance, The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a theology textbook. St. Augustine's De Catechizandis Rudibus is a theology textbook. St. Augustine's Confesiones is not. That does not mean it's not beautiful theological writing, but its aims are more mixed between reflection/exposition/speculation than DCR, which is essentially a catechism, not a narrative.

The End of the Affair hit a bunch of key themes for me. Oddly enough, the meaning of Christian love between persons wasn't a theme that I felt was so big in the book. I think there's a fair amount of it that gets practiced by the characters (some of them, anyway) but that's not really so much the point. I think a bigger point is how we can come to Love God, even in circumstances which aren't always quite so awesome, or even if we're people (always!) who aren't quite so awesome. Now a relative of mine who read this particular book didn't seem to get much out of it except that the characters were all idiots. (I haven't spoiled anything there; this fact will be readily apparent to most readers within the first fifty pages.) And that's part of Greene's charm. These idiots are loved by God, and God uses their messed up lives to draw them closer to Him.

In that vein, one of the big ideas here is that faith in God need not start with Love for God, or even with belief. This is true intuitively true if we think about it. We have all heard of the more irrational sorts of atheist who declares to hate God, and might as such be just a step away from faith. But more-so I think many of us have either had, or heard of, the experience of having faith that God is there before we actually have faith that God can truly be loved and trusted. Another big theme of the book is how one can fight God every step of the way on something--even on being Loved, and still yield. We really don't want to give up control. In their idiocy these characters demonstrate that time and time again, but they also demonstrate how they are not actually beyond redemption. God's Love, for Greene, is bigger than the fact of our sin or our Original Idiocy. And it uses what's there; the old creation doesn't just get replaced by the new; it gets transformed, which means sometimes that bitterness and cynicism have to be transformed, slowly and painfully.

I happen to believe the error is smaller for Graham Greene's The End of the Affair than it would be for many other books--including much of the theology proper I've been assigned in my day--but that doesn't mean it's nonexistant. Some persons, at least according to his Wikipedia article, charge Greene with giving sin a "mystique," a charge which I sort of understand, even if I don't agree. I'm more than willing to bite the bullet and suggest that maybe Greene has done so somewhat, but I doubt he did it intentionally, and I'd invite critics along those lines to consider that that's part of how sin gets us at the outset: It projects a mystique. One of the things Graham does well, is show us what happens when that projection is broken.

Besides this, I suppose it is possible that Graham Greene has given us too much optimism about what God can do with a broken situation...wait, what am I saying? Too much optimism about the power of God? Nevermind!

I'm not going to pretend that I have more of a problem with this book than I do. Obviously in trying to find things to criticize, just to offset my praise of Greene's work, I'm going to run into error myself, unless I really know why I disagree with what I'm critiquing. I guess if there is any real criticism to be made, it's that at least here Graham Greene is focusing on the depths of sin and rebellion against God in a way that not everyone will really find helpful, and which might even be scandalous to people at the wrong points in their theological career. But that's okay, because it's intended to be a narrative about how Grace steps in to save us, not as an exposition of the same. It is, quite perfectly, not a theology textbook.

John Meunier is the Man

2010-03-06T12:37:00.000-08:00

John Meunier has really awesome stuff on his blog. It's one of the most readable things ever, the posts are short and concise and to the point, basically the opposite of most of mine, and almost everything he says has some relevance to almost every Christian, even those who don't share his particular concerns about his church, the UMC. The post linked is about Holiness and the Scripture, and in it he proves again, that he's the man. I would recommend his blogging time and time again to people of pretty much any theological persuasion, because (a) he thinks about what he's saying and (b) he almost always says it well.

Christian Carnival CCCXVII is up

2010-03-04T11:24:00.000-08:00

Over at Jevlir.com.

Architecture

2010-02-22T20:07:00.000-08:00

Over at Mere Orthodoxy, Matthew Lee Anderson has some interesting thoughts on church architecture, including a quotation from Chesterton.

He raises (with at least some intent, I think) the excellent point that some aspects of architecture which might seem gaudy or wasteful to us today (such as stained glass depictions or stations of the cross) are serving actual purposes, particularly for the mentally disabled who might grasp faith more easily in a picture than a Proslogion.* I would add to Anderson's explicit note about mental illness that for many centuries it was a practical issue for illiterate people to have pictures they could see so that they could learn the stories of the Scripture and the Saints more easily, without having to read them in books.

It's a good post with good thoughts. Check it out.

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* This sentence sounds so much like Chesterton to me that I went and did a brief internet search to see if I alluding to him. This was not the case, which I think means I'm only aping his style in a vaguely original way!

Christian Carnival CCCXV is Up

2010-02-18T14:33:00.000-08:00

...over at Ancient Hebrew Poetry. Peruse and enjoy.

A Letter to My (Formerly) Fellow Protestants

2010-02-17T20:13:00.000-08:00

A Letter to My (Formerly) Fellow Protestants,

This is something I am doing in service to the Truth. This is not something I would do to rebel, to make anyone angry, to incite controversy or for for any other stupid reason. (In fact, that was part of the reason I didn't convert two years ago, was to avoid doing so for stupid reasons.) I believe that the Roman Catholic Church is closer to God in that it is closer to Truth. I do not mean to say that I think Catholics are automatically closer to God on a personal level than Protestants; in fact I know many whose relationship with God, and virtue, hardly measure up to the median of the Protestants I have known. It is true that not all of my reasons for joining are purely logical. The chief reason that isn't purely reasoned, is that I feel more secure in the work of Christian evidences within a Catholic framework, than within a Protestant framework. And also, the first reason given here is perhaps mostly personal, but I believe it to be theological at least in part. The rest are mostly theological in nature, though of course like any theologian I have my own personal biases and preferences. This is summary, not argument.

1. Invisible unity in the church isn't enough for me anymore. The Catholic Church is the only church that's got the capability to take in and put in proper proportion the concerns and biases of all the others. As one example, it teaches both predestination and free-will, without falling into the traps of Calvinism or Pelagianism. There is room for pretty much every type of Christian in this Tradition, except for the Christians who want to be able to do as they please (and interpret Scripture as they please) regardless of what those in authority say. And even those Christians appear to be generally tolerated, so long as they're not really loud about how much they are defying authority. Mystical unity isn't enough for me anymore; I need more visible unity. And the more I see what happens when Protestants rejoin the Catholic Church, the more I believe that this is the way things will get better, and the world will see us Christians as unified in spirit and in truth.

A side-note here. One may ask the question whether the Catholic Church's visible unity means anything with the amount of heretics it does tolerate (which is quite a few, at least quite a few of the quieter ones.) This is an excellent question, and I can answer in the affirmative: It does matter. It might not look any more unified than Protestant Churches, but quite frankly it does have one thing they do not in its togetherness. In the umbrella of Protestantism there is, as in Catholicism, nothing to prevent a single church from calling itself Christian even if it preaches doctrine which is continually opposed to Scripture and to historical Christianity. But in Catholicism there is a single authority that can actually say that that church is wrong. You might be thinking that Protestantism has, or at least specific Protestant churches have, a similar authority. I do not share your belief; sola scriptura de-centralizes doctrine and the search for Truth on many matters.

2. Protestant approaches to the Scriptures strike me as untenable. The approaches to Scripture which can be classified as sola scriptura all leave one question scorching my tongue: What passages of Scripture tell us what books are to be included in the Scriptures? You might think that this is a small problem, but history suggests it is everything but. The Protestants, the Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox all hold different canons, and each of these camps in turn holds more books to be revealed Scripture than the one before it. The Canon itself as Catholics consider it was a couple hundred years in its most major developments, and a hundred or so more for the more minor adjustments. And several Christians throughout history have tossed out various books, or wanted to (most famously, Martin Luther wanting to exclude James and Revelation from the canon.)

It is, to my mind, not solid reasoning to simply assume we've got the right canon. In its weakest (and to my mind most solid) form, sola scriptura says that we must be able to find things in the Scriptures if they are to be called necessary for salvation. But what can be found in the Scriptures certainly depends on what books are included in the Scriptures, and so what's necessary for salvation winds up being dependent, ultimately, on a table of contents that is found nowhere in the actual sacred texts of the Christian tradition. Even if we could agree on the Canon, we could look around and find Christian churches in decent levels of disagreement about what was necessary for salvation. I don't know about you, but if I don't even know with some certainty what I have to be able to do to be able to consider myself saved, I'm in an interesting place. We might solve this problem by saying Jesus is the only essential, but I am skeptical of that very statement myself, at least in the way I have come to define the “essentials,” not to mention the fact that it immediately raises the question of what we mean by saying “Jesus.”
This is why I don't really think that we've got a systematic authority that allows us to say that, say, the Modalist Church down the road is actually in the wrong, no matter how much we'd like them to affirm that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are actually three distinct-but-not-separate persons: The Scriptures are wonderful. I love the Scriptures; with a little help, in fact, I can still recite the entire first chapter of James, and I've been studying them more seriously than ever before. But sola scriptura does not provide a solid centralizing authority for the Church.

The alternate possibility of prima scriptura (scripture as the 'check' for all doctrines) certainly appeals to me, some, but when we consider that prima scriptura can only screen out doctrines that actually run contrary to the Scriptures as being wrong, with the rest being (still) potentially essential, we wind up with a whole laundry list of things that, as historic Christians, we seem pretty much bound to believe, and yet most people who would get technical enough to even talk about the possibility of holding prima scriptura would deny them. On a practical level, whenever I start thinking along prima scriptura lines, I immediately start thinking about the early church, which immediately starts me down the road to Rome again. Which brings me to my next two points, both pretty well-related to historical doctrine:

3. The Roman Catholic Church affirms the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This might seem like a strange thing to be attracted to. And to be honest, it makes me queasy. It makes me uncomfortable. But if we study the bread of life discourse in John chapter 6, or the discourse on the Lord's supper in 1 Corinthians 11, they raise questions. Why, for instance, does Jesus switch to even stronger language about people eating his flesh, when people express discomfort with the idea, if it's purely symbolic to begin with? This certainly doesn't prove that it is literal, but it certainly raises the question. And why does the penalty for taking Communion unworthily—at least as seen by Paul—seem to be so severe, if it is merely a symbolic gesture? That the Early Church seems to have believed in a real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is further solidified for me by St. Ignatius, who in the very early second century A.D. preached among other things that denial of the real presence was something done by Donatists, and couched his impending martyrdom in gory Eucharistic imagery. Is the doctrine of real presence gross? Absolutely disgusting. Quite uncomfortable. Is it the truth? It would seem so.

4. The Roman Catholic Church affirms the historically and council-vindicated titles/roles of the Virgin Mary. I'm going to confess here that no, I'm not totally clear on exactly what vindicates the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary. But Theotokos and Perpetual Virginity have been around for, well, awhile. Theotokos (“God-bearer” or “Mother of God”) has been around since the Nestorian controversy, in which the Council of Ephesus made it a title of Mary as a matter of correct Christological thought. That's not Catholic bias, either; that's history, and a history that took place before the major council of Chalcedon, which clarified some Christological points and in at least one of its statements reaffirmed the phrasing of Theotokos. Perpetual virginity has apparently been around for quite a while. At least since the fifth century with some consensus, but even before. Tertullian opposed it, for what it's worth, but the bulk of historical Christianity seems to affirm it, over and against what strikes as the 'plain' interpretation of Jesus's brothers. So even though I'm not totally 100% feeling forced to believe the other Marian Dogmas right away, I'm willing to accept them on the basis that I'm already trusting of the others, and trust that reasoning will probably fall into place later.

5. Prayer to/through saints and to/through Mary is affirmed by the RCC. This might seem like a negative mark. What about 'one mediator between God and man'? But it is still pretty clear that the mediatorship of Christ is of a special and unique kind in Catholic theology; if it be the case that the RCC considers the Saints or Mary to be mediators, it considers them to be mediators not of the same level, if even of the same type at all. There is a general belief (repudiated nowhere that I know of in the Scriptures) that the dead in heaven can hear us, even in many Protestant circles. It certainly does have some basis in Scripture, most notably in Revelation where incense symbolizes the prayers of the saints. Asking them to pray for us (in my mind) doesn't really boil down to anything different from asking an especially holy person here on earth to pray for us. If we have the chance, why not? The reason I say to/through is because it is only proper to say we pray “to” saints in the sense of “I pray you, pray for me”: otherwise it might be best for clarity if we said we pray to God and through the saints.

And yes, it is true that veneration and devotion to both Mary and Saints can get out of hand. Yes, it can. So can veneration (though not so-called) of Rick Warren, N.T. Wright, Joel Osteen and numerous other figures still alive in today's Christian world. (I should not hesitate here to mention C.S. Lewis, Calvin and Luther, but they didn't fit the pattern of being still alive.) The point being, it might be more obvious but that doesn't really make it any more wrong, or any less avoidable. One of the big things about the RCC and ethics, is lots of things are about proportion. Veneration and honor is given to Mary and the Saints, but more honor must be given to God. Ultimately the Saints and the Blessed Virgin all point back to God. Praying 'to' saints is really just praying through them. We may say we pray 'to' them only if we mean we are actually asking them to pray for us; they are not to be treated as having any special ability in and of themselves, but only what they have by the grace of God. Prayer and devotion to saints seems a fairly worthy enterprise, and the semi-dogmatic opposition of at least certain Protestant groups to the practice appears largely unfounded in the Scriptures.

6. I am consistently wowed by the consistency of their ethic of life, sexuality and justice. This doesn't mean I'm always comfortable with it. Am I comfortable with the idea of (if I marry) abandoning artificial birth control? No. Do I think I really have a total handle on the difference between artificial birth control and the natural methods championed by the Church? No. Do I have an immediate and biblical justification for going beyond the direct text of the Scriptures, and asking “why” God may have permitted or forbidden certain things? No. I do believe there is definite historical vindication of the Catholic ethic of life, in that until very recently, most Churches stood together on the issue of birth control. I do believe that it speaks to something (more than many Protestants would like) that most of the early Church seems to have been pretty down on birth control, not as much as it was on abortion, but still. It seems to be more in continuity with the historical church, and (again) it does not contradict the Scriptures that I can see.

If you are currently wondering where the Song of Solomon has gone, rest assured, it's still there. And as soon as you find the famous proof-text for non-procreative sex contained therein, I'll happily take a look at it, but I'm willing to bet you won't. Even if you could find such a passage, it would prove the Catholic ethic wrong on proper sexual relations the exact same way that the passage in the Torah commanding a 'curse' (really a conditional abortion) on an unfaithful woman proves the Catholic (and conservative Protestant) ethic wrong on abortion. And by that, I mean not at all. Now I've found Catholic sexual ethics to be personally very helpful for ordering myself and seeking virtue in my definitively doomed attempt to offer myself as a living sacrifice and be transformed by the renewing of my mind. And I find it very professionally consistent. But it doesn't stop there. One section of the Catholic ethic quickly leads to another; sexual ethics tie with life ethics, which tie in turn with social justice ethics. Even if it were to eventually turn out to be a failure (I am confident it will not), the Catholic ethic, in its various statements, restatements, formulations and reformulations, is the best effort I have ever seen at truly achieving the ethical unity epitomized for believers in James 1:27, saying that “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: To look after orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

7. The primacy of Peter and Rome hasn't been rock-solid established for me (heh), but it's been established beyond most reasonable doubt. It's pretty clear by the marks of both staunch Catholic and conservative Protestant scholars that Peter was given some kind of primacy by Jesus. Additionally, the primacy of Rome was held by at least a few early Fathers, and the later Council of Chalcedon seems to imply it by making Constantinople second to Rome. Also, Rome had implicit veto power over at least one of the canons ratified in Africa near the turn of the fourth century to the fifth. Apostolic succession has been in development for awhile, but it seems a fairly solid doctrine. Not rock-solid yet, to me, but definitely there in essence if not totally obvious in presence.

8. I am pretty much sold as a matter of historical accuracy that the Canon of Scripture ratified by the early Church's African synods was the same canon that the RCC uses today. This includes the books Protestants would call “Apocryphal,” like Tobit and the Wisdom of Solomon. If you study the synods concerned, it seems that they did indeed ratify this Canon. It's commonly argued that it wasn't a dogmatic thing for Catholics until Trent in 15XX. However, this is as far as I know the earliest declaration by a synod, and it was replicated shortly after by another. Given this Canon, and even a prima scriptura standpoint, many objections previously held to Catholic doctrine (in particular, purgatory) begin to fall away. As a matter of intellectual honesty, does it bother me that this particular Canon wasn't ratified in the East as well as in Africa? Yes, a little bit. But that concern certainly doesn't push me back into Protestantism—the Canon which Eastern Orthodoxy eventually settled on has two or three more books than that of the RCC, in addition to those books that Protestants call Apocryphal.

9. God, in Catholic experience, is merciful, but also severe. Chesterton once said: “Those underrate Christianity who say that it discovered mercy; any one might discover mercy. In fact every one did. But to discover a plan for being merciful and also severe--that was to anticipate a strange need of human nature.” Chesterton was speaking, if I recall correctly, of a 'hate-the-sin, love-the-sinner' mentality, but his phrasing of merciful but severe, which in my mind is similar to being merciful yet perfectly just (even if the justice sometimes seems lenient, or the mercy seems harsh), seems a good marker on God as God is celebrated in Christianity. What I'm getting at mainly is (here I run the risk of getting into historical evidences) that the historical evidences I've seen put forth from the Catholic tradition seem to better embrace God as God of both the old, and new, testaments. I do not claim that it is a different God who works in the non-Catholic traditions, but there is something about the miracles that occur in Catholic contexts that points back to a Biblical unity. But the strange concoction called Catholicism also seems to contain the notion, somewhere in all of its Traditions and laws, that God is merciful and also severe. When was the last time you went to a Protestant church which, as a matter of weekly ritual, expected of its members a true confession of sinner-hood?

It is true that some of us need much more mercy than severity, and others much more severity than mercy (I often suspect I am of the second type), but Christian mercy must not be mere mercy, and Christian severity must not be mere severity.

10. Emotionalism and "reason"-ism are given proportional bounds. You are free to be emotional about faith so long as you do not pretend that emotion in devotion or worship, or "being drunk with the Spirit," is something absolutely necessary for saving faith. You are likewise free to be more "head-issue" centered about your faith so long as you do not pretend that emotion has no place in the life of a believer. Everyone is encouraged to cultivate devotional and rational aspects of their faith; nobody is permitted to ignore the validity of either approach as a primary means of experiencing the Divine. What is required is to seek God.

I have given my reasoning here. You are of course free to agree or disagree. I am attempting to be honest about what I know, and what I don't. There's a lot I still don't know, this is true. I'm still not sure where exactly Purgatory comes from, for instance. But what I've learned takes me away from where I started (the Free Methodist tradition, to which I am in great spiritual debt), and leaves me wandering. Eventually I come to the gates of the Roman Catholic Church, a humongous building the defies me to enter. I can almost hear the Crucifix mocking me, perhaps it is really the darker forces approximate to me, when I attend Masses: “Why don't you just leave? You've been thinking about this forever, and you're still just, here, standing in the gate-way, afraid to enter.” And the only answer I can really give, when I think about my desire for Truth, and the alternatives for finding it (putting it on shaky foundations, or just giving up the search entirely), is “Lord, to where else shall I go?”

And I assure you before God that I am not lying when I say this: My first allegiance is to my Lord Jesus, not just my Lord, but your Lord as well—Our Lord, if you will. This is an allegiance that I have discovered—painfully, in wrestling with it, at times even in trying to break it—an allegiance I am not free to disobey, a loyalty that I must respect. Free will notwithstanding, it is almost as if I no longer have a choice in the matter. My second allegiance is to Our Lord's Pilgrim Church on Earth. This does not mean that the work that has been done in me in Protestant contexts was bad—but it means I have come to believe that this work will be brought to a fuller completeness in the context of the Roman Catholic Church. Yes, this Church makes a claim to be the One True Church, but it does not declare that persons outside of it are untrue Christians. And I do not find myself compelled to no longer consider you Christians. Far from it! I will continue to pray for you and ask you to pray for me. I will continue to consider your counsel on spiritual matters. I will continue to hold massive respect for the Protestant subculture, especially those few and far between good Christian rock bands. I will continue to hold massive respect for Protestant theologians who serve the Lord well, which are a good deal greater in number than some staunch Catholics will want to admit. I will continue to love and obey my parents (and elders) in the Lord, and to be ever grateful for their raising me in the Lord. I will continue to be grateful to all of my family members who have faithfully done the same. I will continue to have massive respect for the Protestant pastors I have had in my life (shout-outs to Gene G., Joe W., Scott P., Mark M., Dave W., Matt P!) and my Protestant brethren who I know from New Vision Fellowship and other places, especially Chris C., the Palmers (and Shawn's awesome wife Alicia), Brent and Pam J., Billy A., Travis E., the Stevens family, Andy B., Colin C. and Chris B., Eben A., Dr. Will Deming, and Austin S. I will continue to read Protestant authors of all kinds, and seek the Truth wherever in their writings it be found—at the time of this writing, I'm still in the midst of C.S. Lewis's lovely The Four Loves. I will continue to read the Scriptures just as I used to (or, alternatively, will continue to fail at reading them just as I used to.) A part of my heart and mind will always feel and think distinctly Protestant about things even once I've 'crossed the Tiber,' as some call it, but this only strengthens point number one. I will continue to consider you brothers and sisters in Christ, whether you be my blood-relatives, or not. I will definitely be able to worship with you. On occasion I will even be able to come to Church with you. If you're further curious about why I've made this choice, you may feel free to ask further. This is the Truth I have found. And if you want to, I would be happy to discuss it with you.

In Faith, Love and Christ,
Dan “D.Lo” Lower

Plantinga's Advice for Christian Philosophers

2010-02-16T21:07:00.000-08:00

Alvin Plantinga gives some killer advice to potential Christian philosophers in this essay.

A link to CMR for an Interesting Story (Update: Day 2)

2010-02-15T19:00:00.000-08:00

Creative Minority Report has asked that people who follow them, and have blogs of their own, take some posts to follow the story of baby Gianna. I decided I'd do so. I know about as much as you do about the way the story ends (that is, none) but you can read part one here. It's tagged as "theology in story," so it should be noted that the story is true, not something written just for the sake of ideas. And I do know this for a fact after a quick Google search, but if you care about reading the story as a story I suggest not searching Google as it will probably result in you knowing, as I do, how it ends.

Decided to redate the post so it'll show up again each day, each day with an update to a little table of contents:

Part 1
Part 2

Tenderness in the Absence of God

2010-02-13T21:12:00.000-08:00

Catholic writer Flannery O'Connor once wrote that "In the absence of faith, we govern by tenderness, and tenderness leads to the gas chamber." Tenderness in this case means a desire that others not suffer needlessly, or a desire for their suffering to be alleviated if at all possible. Another Catholic, Walker Percy, picked up this theme in his 1987 sequel to Love in the Ruins, called The Thanatos Syndrome. Note that I don't take it as fully established that this tenderness necessarily leads to genocide, but historically it seems the case that this tenderness has indeed been a major cause of things like the holocaust. And get this. Not just they saw it. Lots of people saw it, and see it still, including theists and atheists, religious and nonreligious people. Perhaps notably, G.K. Chesterton saw it, though not so specifically, when he made his consistent warnings against Eugenics in the pre-World War II era. Let me repeat this again. Chesterton, who died in 1936, was frequently warning against the dangers of not only the slightly more obvious Nazi-ism, but eugenics. Again, G.K. went dust-to-dust in 1936, and as a bonus it might be noted that his major work Eugenics and Other Evils was copyrighted for 1922. Again, I am not suggesting a necessary link. I am suggesting that in all governing by tenderness--which is an ill-defined concept sans the Divine Love or some other objective measure of what the heck it means--we come out to a line in the sand, a line readily redrawn and moved. It has been described as a slippery slope; I find the line in the sand less suggestive of logical fallacy. But I do believe I say with no danger of fallacy that even if it be the case that we can get some traction on a slippery slope, it remains slippery. Again, I don't think it leads necessarily to genocide, but I can see how this can happen historically if not of necessity, and I am convinced that one morning we will get up, and this God-forsaking compassion will dress us and lead us where we do not want to go. [[EDITED FOR CLARITY: With that in mind I present a number of links exploring what tenderness in the absence of God can do to a society, followed by a few actual people who preach it in our society speaking in their own words, followed by what I think to be the only real solution to the problem--as opposed to solutions which are more temporary.]]

For further decent expositions of what the heck O'Connor and Percy were talking about, you can see this link, this longer article from Ingatius which fills in some of the gaps in how compassion can lead to gas chambers. For a good example of Chestertonian thought on the subject, one can check out this essay by G.K. himself, which might sound kind of flippant in places. But seriously consider what was said and when it was printed (1937).

It seems like some of the things in healthcare and philosophy nowadays are just too...convenient to ignore. Check out for instance, Peter Singer's article Why We Must Ration Health Care...granted that some rationing will have to happen if our country goes the socialization route. I have massive unease about giving his position anything resembling full support, though it is more than a little less abhorrent than I expected.* Next, check out Russia, where a journalist is writing articles that suggest newborns could be euthanise under the proper circumstances. Also, there's this monstrosity that appeared in the real live New York Times back in 2005 and also seems to be a piece of advocacy at least for tolerance if not outright acceptance of just "letting nature take its course" in certain cases.*** Not quite euthanasia, but getting there! I don't even need to mention the state of assisted suicide laws around the world (culled from pro-PAS sources in a time before Washington's Doctor-Assisted Suicide law passed.

Now of course, if the world were to be converted to a true ethic of life and Love, compassion fully under the dominion of Our Lord, or at least a reverence for Life and Love, lots of these problems would go away. At the risk of getting utopian, there would be no more worries about how much a life is worth, because with everyone living correctly (including proportionally correct donations by the rich and middle-class, to the poor) there would be a substantially lower need for rationing of any kind. Sadly, we are not yet living in the New Heaven and New Earth, the only places where this could really happen and (perhaps with a bit of irony) places where it won't be needed so much. That said, it seems a pretty obvious thing that we should be taking steps to bring as much of that Kingdom to reality here on Earth, and now, as we can. As with so many other things, fighting laws which cede to capitol-T Tenderness will help, fighting a political fight will help. But nothing, ultimately, will save us as a society or a world, as nothing saves a soul, but conversion.

ENDNOTES
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* I can't support it unless I can find some way of divorcing it from his other philosophical positions, including the main things he's known for, his proposal that infanticide is a lesser crime to that of killing a full-grown adult. Also, SuzyB, which also gets the hat tip for that particular article, makes some notes that remind me of my basic objection, which is that we shouldn't necessarily value lives differently. The thing is, there's no way to ration health care without eventually coming across like you're valuing lives differently.
** The original article doesn't appear to have a translation up; if someone finds a full translation tell me so I can link it.
*** I'll readily admit that I am still wrestling with the degree to which this constitutes "playing God," but if an infant is even remotely likely to survive in the long run it seems like measures should be taken to save him/her. Also, I will maintain that there is a qualitative difference between passively shortening the length of an infant's suffering and actively striving to end it.

Christian Carnival CCCXIV

2010-02-11T16:54:00.000-08:00

...is up over at You Can't Mean That! Check it out.

Aside: You Can't Mean That! gets my award for "Christian blog name I wish I'd gotten to first."

Inadvertently Insulting Group Names

2010-02-09T20:01:00.000-08:00

Has anyone ever run across a title for an organization or periodical that makes them slightly uncomfortable, or puts them off a little bit?

I've run across not a few groups or periodicals of this kind in the last lifetime, all of which fall under the general heading of the small-c church, and their names all bug me. I can easily see interpretations of them that aren't actually insulting, but I get the feeling that in striving to emphasize what they believe to be their missions, I think that these entities might be more polarizing of their theological not-totally-in-agreement comrades than they want to be.

The List

1. Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, which is a more liberal Catholic organization that focuses on justice and sometimes comes under fire for not talking enough about abortion. But are non-member Catholics not seeking the common good, or have they just not taken that crucial extra step of putting themselves in alliance with CACG.

2. Priests for Life, an organization of Catholic priests dedicated to a pro-life ethos. But are non-member priests, then, the 'Priests for Choice,' or 'Priests Indifferent to Life'?

3. Relevant magazine, which is some mixture of hip non-denominational Christianity and the emerging church, with some good pop culture satire. But are those people irrelevant who don't buy into the seeker-sensitive movement to a substantial degree?

4. The Remnant magazine, which is an orthodox Traditionalist-movement paper in Catholicism. The big question here is "the remnant of what?"

5. Focus on the Family. Is my vision of the family blurred if I disagree with, say, Dr. Dobson's views on corporal punishment?

Please feel free to chime in if you can think of other organizations that have interesting names like this. Also, if you have a decent way of interpreting the group's name charitably, please tell me.

Also, as I said, I am simply raising questions about how we name our groups. I realize that in varying degree each of these has a fairly obvious solution to how its name is to be interpreted, that doesn't do violence to charity by assuming ill-will or a grudge towards those who choose not to join the group or adhere to the ideals of the publication. But in trying to express what we do emphasize do we wind up denigrating people who aren't particularly wrong, but just don't emphasize the same thing as us. All of that said, if you have some further insight on what an organization might've been thinking in giving its name, or another organization's name that you don't see on the list, please do share! I realize I'm poking some fun at these names in even including them on such a list, and there's a point to that, which is to say that maybe we should be more careful in the implications of how we label ourselves. But please avoid needless degradation of the missions of these organizations: Every one of them has meaningful truths to emphasize to the church and the Church, and to simply shut them down is to ignore problems their emphases might point to in our own theological constructs, spiritual practices and personal lives.