Posted on 06/10/2007 3:02:20 PM PDT by NYer
Many modern people have the notion that the principal mission of the Catholic Church is to impose belief on unbelievers. The reality is that most of its time is spent trying to restrain belief in everything from spoon-bending to the aliens who allegedly speak to us through a cat in Poughkeepsie.
The riptides and cross-currents of religious enthusiasm in American culture are kaleidoscopic and dizzying. Cradle Catholics can be forgiven for just ignoring the whole thing and many of them do. But it’s still worth taking into account because some religious trends can have decided real-world effects.
Some of the effects of unrestrained belief can be amusing.
For instance, after five centuries of being told by Protestant polemicists that we “Romanists” do not trust the saving grace of Jesus Christ and ignorantly seek salvation by the works of the law, it is a weird thing for a Catholic to see the spectacle of kooky apocalyptic Protestants eagerly excited about the birth of red heifers because this will (they hope) be the prelude to rebuilding the Temple of Solomon and the re-institution of the Mosaic sacrificial system. Just how that Temple will be rebuilt when the Dome of the Rock is situated on the site of the Temple is not quite as clearly worked out.
Which brings me to something just as kooky, but less amusing.
Recently, James Dobson, a leading Evangelical and a usually sensible man, hosted on his show one Joel Rosenberg, author of something called Epicenter: Why Current Rumblings in the Middle East Will Change Your Future. Rosenberg claims to know “what the Bible says” about what is happening in the Mideast and is not shy about making “predictions regarding the fate of the Middle East regarding issues such as Iran’s nuclear threats against Israel, the arms race and ultimately ... Armageddon.” Here’s a snippet:
Dobson: “Well, Joel, let’s explain to everybody how Ezekiel 38 turns out, because Israel is about to be attacked, and a huge number of troops from Russia and Iran are coming toward Israel to destroy it, and what happens?”
Rosenberg: “Well, God is going to move. You won’t find in the Scriptures that the United States is coming to rescue Israel or the European Union, but God says he is going to supernaturally intervene — we’re talking about fire from heaven, a massive earthquake, diseases spreading through the enemy forces. It is going to be such a clear judgment against the enemies of Israel that Ezekiel 39 says that it will take seven months to bury all the bodies of the slain enemies of Israel. “
Such standard-issue Evangelical prophetic cocksureness is an excellent example of why a magisterium is so useful and necessary.
Not only does the magisterium help us know what is essential to the faith, it also helps us remain free of what is unessential. For the various species of Protestantism, in addition to denying real biblical truths such as the Real Presence or infant baptism, also have a tendency to invent “biblical truths” that do not exist and impose them by means of a sort of cultural pressure via charismatic preachers with pet theories who, in their own sphere, are granted an infallibility the Pope could never dream of.
Now, a Catholic is quite free to have a kooky private reading of Ezekiel 38-39 as a prophecy of the “coming resurgent Soviet Union” and its alliance with Muslims, communist Chinese or whoever, all in a vast Cecil B. DeMille battle against Israel. The Church has all sorts of room for eccentrics, and everybody needs a hobby.
But a Catholic is not free to go around telling everybody that “this is the clear teaching of the Bible” and demand it be believed. For the fact is, this kooky theory is emphatically not the clear teaching of the Bible, nor does it have any sanction whatsoever from the Church, the tradition, the Fathers, the councils or the popes. It is a pure novelty we can and should ignore.
What we should not ignore is Rosenberg’s claim that, “Given the events going on in our world today, people at the Pentagon, people at the CIA, people at the White House are asking to sit down and talk about these issues, to understand the Biblical perspective, because it is uncanny what is happening out there and it deserves some study.”
I suspect that Rosenberg is exaggerating his clout with the big cheeses in DC. I doubt that the Pentagon’s intel meetings are dominated by exegeses of Ezekiel 38.
But I do think it matters if a significant portion of the American polity drinks in such bizarre theories as if they were God’s revealed Truth.
Ideas have consequences, especially crazy ones. Most crazy ideas do no harm.
Crazy ideas about the Middle East, backed by the force of arms, stand a better than average chance of killing millions.
Given your pressing time constraints . . . I’m deeply humbled and blessed that you read that much.
THANKS TONS AND TONS.
Evidently, the main points were missed in all the words . . . Sigh.
I guess my stream of consciousness style of writing has it’s hazards. Sigh.
LUB
Blessings with Dad et al.
LOL
Mind, soul, heart-reading
does not impute hate
where there is none.
Thankfully.
Perhaps new glasses would help?
LOL
You’re so coy and innocent.
This may come as a shock . . .
But disagreement is
NOT hatred.
Even fierce disagreement is not hatred.
It may be the case that hatred in other realms and relationships has burned your sensors out on the matter and you are getting false readings.
But I assure you that disagreement does not equal hatred.
Thankfully, for probably most of the last 30 or so years, folks have rarely seen or heard me express or give any evidence of feeling hatred toward much of anyone . . .
except globalist traitors allied with satan . . . such as Shrillery. And, actually, I don’t even hate her as a person—I hate what she stands for and fights for.
There is another explanation . . . for the assessment of hatred . . .
in my experience and observation . . . we tend to see others as we see ourselves.
. . . at least . . . until we get more or less cured of that.
Sometimes I’m forced to guess.
I don’t always guess accurately.
But it’s hard to guess where hatred can be so seemingly easily read into such. Interesting.
But, I concede, you are a much better expert about strawmen, than I am. I salute you.
Check your posting history.
Evidently I’m much more aware of my posting history than you are. But I think I’ll let it drop there.
You can have the last word or the last 100, if you prefer.
You might be cautious about inaccurate judgments coming back to haunt, however.
I’ll never have the last word. Long after I’m gone, your anti-Catholic diatribes will roll on and on and on.
The style, the voice of your writing, is superb! It would, however, be helpful to me if after you streamed it all onto the page or post, you then broke it up into more easily ingestible serving sizes! I've been accused of watering the daisies with a firehose myself, Quix!
IN BRIEF
96 What Christ entrusted to the apostles, they in turn handed on by their preaching and writing, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to all generations, until Christ returns in glory.
97 "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God" (DV 10) in which, as in a mirror, the pilgrim Church contemplates God, the source of all her riches.
98 "The Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes" (DV 8 # 1).
99 Thanks to its supernatural sense of faith, the People of God as a whole never ceases to welcome, to penetrate more deeply and to live more fully from the gift of divine Revelation.
100 The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him. Article 3
Tradition, Scripture, and Magisterium lead the church. There are a lot of fine points which tell you how but that’s a lot of reading for someone just wanting to know a little. The Magisterium has the ability and authority to understand and teach the truths found explicitly and implicitly in Tradition and Scripture. Tradition and Scripture together make up the Sacred Deposit of Faith. Sacred Tradition is infallible, and it is the source of Sacred Scripture.
Thanks for your humbling and kind words and excellent suggestion.
I’ve been accused of watering the daisies with a firehose myself, Quix!
Yeah, been accused plenty of that! LOL.
Been accused of loving that way, too.
Wasn’t it Perot’s mother who said—”A little of you goes a long way!” LOL.
I don’t know how to get around the press to get it out there and done with long enough to edit. Or even arrange. And as a dear friend in Taipei found trying to help me shorten things . . . by having me edit them—they’d chronically get LONGER! LOL.
But I’ll certainly prayerfully ponder the excellent suggestion. I think our precious Angel-Gal may have given up on me on that score—with very good reason! LOL.
I should be able to at least chop it into thematic different posts. Will work on that next time such an urge strikes. Thanks.
A beloved pastor I knew used to have a rule of making only three points in a sermon because he said that was all the congregation could remember for a week. I'm not sure that such a rule would be necessary here since people do have the ability to bookmark, reread and such.
LOL . . .
THx.
My own current pastor . . . rarely limits to 3 points.
But even he can’t remember his own 3 MAIN points by 14:00 Sunday afternoon . . . most of the time! LOL.
Yeah, Praise God for book marking and hard drives. Now if the machine would only read my mind and behave accordingly . . . on the other hand . . . that might be far worse! LOL.
Thanks for your kind words.
LUB
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, NO!
And it is just this mangling of historical reality and spirituality which magiCSTERICALS on all sides of Christianity are so noted for. Though, on this score, the RC variety seems to excel above all others at mangling truth in History regarding Truth in Scripture. imho, of course.
That may well be true for the RC's.
However, from my perspective,
The Father, Jesus The Christ and Holy Spirit lead The Church Universal that my group is a part of. And they use Scripture well in doing it. They also use Gifts of The Spirit.
NO!
St Paul makes very plain the priesthood of all Believers. And, the authority of THE LOCAL CONGREGATION vis a vis I Cor 12-14 in deciding various issues. Beyond that, St Paul exhorts to find a humble wise old codger in the congregation to settle some disputes.
I'll take St Paul's leadership model over any magicsterical any day, week, year, decade . . .
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