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.
You either approach what is spirit?.. or start in with the hamina hamina hamina's like Jackie Gleason..
As to the physical conception/animation distinction, I don't know when the question of their being apart in time was settled but I'm pretty confident it was a question for a while there.
ALways my personal first choice.
I purposely do not use the word 'works' because of it's connection with 'the law'. A different concept -- giving of yourself in a selfless manner, letting the Lord work through us as if from ourselves. We do not do this for merit. Being of use through all our endeavors does open our spiritual eyes because the Lord is flowing through us by influx. It doesn't matter how menial the task, it's how we approach it.
This doesn't have anything to do with the traditional Christian belief of vicarious atonement.
We do believe in the 10 Commandments and when I said shunning evils as sin, that meant keep all of the Commandments both on a spiritual and natural level.
Reads pretty accurate, to me.
Thx.
I suppose it’s my . . . construction on reality again . . .
But I think St Paul made a tiny fraction of the fuss about such titles and roles
that most maticstericals make of them in most denominations.
However the ones who said,”Oh Lord, Somehow I seem to have ended up being your vicar. Keep me always in your will, do not let me go astray,” ...I’m less worried about their, uh, outcome.
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Good points.
It’s the jackass who thinks, “I moiself, by the might of my (in my case) left arm, have gotten for moiself the victory and the merit and all that.” The Lord has THAT jackass in derision.
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INDEED!
The first thing God does is give us a spiritual spring cleaning;
there is no possibility of pride left in a man after that.
SOME OF US have had such bad cases, we get vivid refresher courses annoyingly regularly . . . uhhhh . . . thankfully, regularly.
Sounds like a worthy prayer . . .
Lord, rebuke him, we humbly pray . . .
worth remembering and using!
They are? Joachim and Anna? "THE RCs" or "SOME RC's". WHO's bucking for this. I sho' ain't, AND this is the first I've heard of it.
Just following the logical conclusion of the magicsterical's line of most holy logic and infallible thought . . .
Christ was sinless from birth.
Well, obfiously God left out a key part--must have been overly busy with all the impending miracles, Crucifixion, Resurrection and all . . . and then all the bother with the early church and those ornery Disciples/Apostles. OBVIOUSLY, God left out a key part . . .
Well, we'll patch it together here . . . logic and our own political and fleshly affinity/affection needs will carry the day nicely as well.
Now, let's see . . . Christ was sinless from birth . . . Ah, so OBVIOUSLY, His mother Mary had to be sinless from birth as well. There, now. Doesn't that make things more tidy. Besides, think of all the rituals, adorations, dogmas and the like we can milk that for.
Oh, problem; that won't do. We'll have to declare that all her other children were cousins and uncles and that she never again had anything remotely like a sexual thought or focus the rest of her life. There. That will fix that.
That will mean, of course that she violated New Testament teaching on the marriage but Joseph will just have to understand. The magicsterical RULES!
But, ya know . . . that's still too anemic if we're going to get this Queen of Heaven thing and all the enriching dogmas and rituals off the ground . . . We'll have to declare that she didn't die and Ascended into Heaven bodily as Christ, Enoch etc. regardless of not a shred of evidence that she did so. That will make for another wonderful layer of dogmas and rituals.
And, OBVIOUSLY, since MARY was sinless from birth, how could that be unless HER PARENTS were also sinless from birth? Oh, this is getting more wonderful all the time. What a fantastic choir of sinless folks all in our little exclusive corner of reality. Ain't the Most Holy Catholic Church brilliant and grand! [cue smugness music.]
And, when this begins to be old news, we will OBVIOUSLY have to declare that her grandparents on both sides ALSO HAD TO BE SINLESS from birth. Oh, this gets richer and grander by the century. What a brilliant idea!
by way of explanation . . . from "True Myths My Mother Didn't Teach Me" . . . found in IVth Quix chapter 13.
The religious rulers of Jesus’ day were experts at such explanations. I think He accused them of rendering the Scriptures of no effect.
I think I’ll still construe reality as such that the verse has some applicable meaning in this current life.
Actually, I rarely get into titles much . . . unless it’s strongly called for in a given situation else I appear like a contrary curr.
And I never use Reverend. I would not use “Your Holiness.” . . . or a range of other such. I tend to use Brother, a lot.
And Pastor.
Battle cries and Slogans are kind of a nuisance, because one ends up defending them as though they were Scripture, and the contention gets simple-minded. “Faith alone” needs patient examination before it can be rightly understood in the context of Scripture or of one’s own spiritual life. RC doctrine however can be — ought to be — mocked before understanding.
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Slogans certainly end up simple minded far too often.
Things warrant being satirized, mocked IN ORDER
TO HIGHLIGHT THE ABSURD LENGTHS they’ve been taken to.
Sometimes, nothing else will communicate such clearly or emphatically enough.
Do Calvinists understand Pentecostalism enough to “fair-mindedly” satirize it? I doubt it. But there may still be some food for thought in their even hostile satires.
Do Proties understand RC stuff thoroughly and comprehensively enough to flawleslly and most righteously satirize same? I doubt it. Not any more than RC’s do a lot of proty stuff that they rail and pontificate about in the most shocking and insulting absolutist terms.
But for the one interested in wisdom and INCREASED UNDERSTANDING, prayerful pondering of even an enemy’s comments can be fruitful.
When such is lovingly thrown out onto the table . . . more fruitfulness can occur because there was caring involved regardless of whether the stark thing on the table is warm and fuzzy, or not.
The choice is in the hearer, reader at least as much as in the sender. Will I learn and grow—and avoid being unnecessarily offended, or not.
If I refuse, there’s likely a sacred cow lurking in the shadows.
I think I use such qualifiers MOST of the time--probably over 95% of the time?? Haven't counted. CERTAINLY THAT IS MY ATTITUDE as I write. I think that's discernable.
I think the net is a hot medium, and just impresses people as aggressive.
And, Dear Bro, all the more so when we have sacred cows and shoulder chips involved that we have a death grip on. And those hazards warrant some fierce highlighting whatever the means. imho.
I got contentious on the religion forum when I logged onto a thread and read someone completely mischaracterizing in an aggressive, hostile, and mendacious way our teaching on the Eucharist. The kindest possible construction that could be places on this was uncaring ignorance and a presumption that Catholic teaching ought to be condemned not understood, and any condemnation would do. Sweeping and sweepingly untrue statements couched in the rhetoric of certainty seem to be the norm
It's certainly a reasonable assertion that there's an overabundance of that.
We catch the same our direction.
And, frankly, the different constructions on reality have such perspectives inherently as part of them. And one has, objectively, more or less as much right to be stated forcefully as the other.
I think one of the reasons that I mostly leave The Lord's Supper alone . . . is that I recognize that the sensitivities are so extreme . . . and the 'sacred cowness' of the perspective s so intense . . . little to no dialogue is likely to be possible. And, I don't KNOW that it makes a lot of eternal difference for RC's to construe it their way and Proties to construe it ours. I think IF it were that crucial, God would have made it SUPER ABUNDANTLY CLEARER.
I don't prefer to get my whities in a wad over muddy theology based on muddy fuzzy Scriptural foundations.
A universe without comedy would be a joke..
Evil takes itself very serious as joy is prone to laugh..
I Cor 2;9 is a pregnant promise.. and a challenge...
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AMEN!
Very edifying, as usual.
Brings new meaning to hair splitting, imho.
Sheesh.
Frankly, I had never seen nor heard this argument. I have always thought conception was either a “1” or a “0”.
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Are you trying to assert that . . . computers were involved in some immaculate contraption?
Oh, Dear. Religion really is going to the dogs . . . errr, the black boxes . . . errr . . .
I know the RCC doesn’t teach anything about the “immaculate” status of Mary’s parents. You might be able to read such nonsense by St. Louis de Montfort or one of his current “friends” though.
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You mean I and my pontifications have just been kicked out of the RC magicsterical?
Oh, Dear. What will mommy say!
“About time!” If I know her!
Oh, that’s right, she’s already graduated . . . probably off planting Heavenly flowers somewhere and not to be bothered.
I’m sorry. I don’ tread colored posts anymore.
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