Posted on 03/28/2008 8:25:48 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
My niece's husband is a trainee Baptist pastor. Jimbo's hip, friendly, and fun to be with. He's smart and theologically savvy. I like him. He loves Jesus and believes the Bible, and on most moral and doctrinal issues I can affirm what he affirms. We agree on a lot.
But even when we agree, we don't see eye to eye. Somehow we seem to have reached our religious conclusions from different starting points and through different routes. A chapter in Mark Massa's book Anti-Catholicism in America illuminated the problem for me. Massa quotes an important theological work by David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination, in which he argues that, underneath our religious language, customs, liturgies, rules, and rubrics, there exist more fundamental ways of seeing.
Catholic Symbols
Tracy says that Catholics have a basic concept of religion that is analogical. To put it simply, Catholics use things they know to try to understand the things they don't. Catholics seek to know God and His work in the world through material things: water, wine, bread, oil, incense, candles, images, and so on. For Catholics, some of these things are more than just symbols -- they are sacraments. They not only point to God, they convey His power and grace to us through the mystery of the Church.
For Catholics, this way of understanding the world, God, the cosmos, and everything is rich and multilayered. The Church is not only a symbol of the Body of Christ -- it is the Body of Christ. The bread brought forward by the members of the Body of Christ becomes itself the Body of Christ to feed the Body of Christ the Church.
The Catholic imagination and the Catholic soul are nurtured in a multitude of different sacraments, sacramentals, signs, and symbols. As a result, all physical things are part of God's plan of salvation. Life in all its fullness abounds with the mystery of God's life and love working through the world. This analogical way of seeing is dependent on, and comes from, the basic fact of God's revelation -- the Incarnation of His son, Jesus Christ.
Protestant Systems
In contrast, my nephew-in-law Jimbo, as a good Baptist, shares a radically different perspective on the whole shooting match. Jimbo, like every Protestant, has grown up within a basic religious paradigm that is more systematic. Tracy calls this "dialectical language." He says Protestant theologians, rather than seeing how physical things and human culture connect us to God, emphasize the radical separation between God and the physical world. The Protestant focuses primarily on man's alienation from God, the fact of sin, the need for redemption, and the need for man's response.
The linear thought process is like any other dialectic process: "Thesis = we sin; antithesis = God says 'no' to our attempts to save ourselves; synthesis = God saves us when we confess the truth and justice of God's 'no' to our sin."
The Protestant dialectical process means that Protestants emphasize the individual's existential inner response to God rather than the idea that God is "with us" working to save us in and through the physical and historical world.
Therefore, the idea that a visible church, a historic apostolic succession, a priesthood, and sacraments are necessary is -- at the very root of Protestant thinking -- alien and dangerous. For the typical Protestant, the Catholic Church is, by definition, worldly. Its very nature is materialistic and compromising with the world, the flesh, and the devil. For the Protestant there is therefore no relationship between Christ and culture. The faith is set up in dialectical opposition to the wisdom of man and the ways of the world.
Massa quotes sociologist Andrew Greeley in summation:
Therefore the fundamental differences between Catholicism and Protestantism are not doctrinal or ethical. The different propositional codes of the two heritages are but manifestations, tips of the iceberg, of more fundamentally differing sets of symbols. The Catholic ethic is "communitarian"; and the Protestant "individualistic" because of the preconscious "organizing" pictures of the two traditions that shape meaning and response to life for members of the respective heritages are different. Catholics and Protestants "see the world differently."
So what does all this mean for Jimbo and me? It means that even when we agree, we don't agree for the same reasons. For example, Jimbo and I may both sign up to work at the soup kitchen on Saturday mornings. As a Catholic, I'm more likely to see that hungry tramp as part of my human family whether he is a Catholic or not. I should feed him because he too is created in the image of God. In feeding him I am more likely to believe that I am also feeding Christ, and that this, in itself, is not only worthy but part of my own salvation, and part of the salvation of the world.
Jimbo wants to feed the homeless too, but he is more likely to do so because he wants to be personally obedient to the commands of Christ. He sees the poor hungry tramp as a lost soul who needs not only a sandwich but a savior. In fact, it's likely that Jimbo will give him the sandwich because he is concerned for the tramp's soul and wants to share the gospel with him and make sure he is saved.
This basic disconnect between our ways of thinking affects virtually everything. Because of the different perspectives, the Baptist and the Catholic will worship differently, pray differently, read the Bible differently, vote differently, produce radically different literature, art, and music. The two may share the same moral values, but they will do so for different reasons. They may share the same essential beliefs, but they will see them from different perspectives.
When we are engaged in dialogue with Protestants over doctrinal or ethical issues, our discussions will be illuminated if we understand the underlying differences of perspective. Furthermore, in the culture wars in which we are now engaged, Catholics and Protestants need to be allies. For the alliance to be strong and positive, both sides need to understand the essential differences of perspective.
Good fences make good neighbors. Only when we understand what truly separates us will we be able to work together with Protestants for the salvation of our society and the ultimate unity of Christ's Church.
What are you? The moderator?
What are you? The person who says "my dog would never pee on your door step" while the dog is actually peeing on the doorstep at that moment?
“What are you? The person who says “my dog would never pee on your door step” while the dog is actually peeing on the doorstep at that moment?”
No. I have a much better vocabulary. I prefer the use of standard English rather than crass slang.
As they say in the Air Force.... you know you are close to the target when you start taking flack.
Unfortunately, my experience and observations of posts on the FR religious forum causes me to have to stand by my statement.
lol. Sadly, you've missed your chance. The Lord called Pastor Bahnsen home in 1995 after Bahnsen underwent his third open heart surgery. He was a terrific writer, teacher, pastor and preacher of the Gospel and a mighty debater of God's word. Many of his debates with atheists and Roman Catholics were taped, and are online.
Here's his bio from Theopedia...
And here's a wonderful testimony by Ken Gentry to his friend and mentor...
APPOINTED FOR THE DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL:
The Life and Ministry of Greg L. Bahnsen
And here's a short review of one of his most accessible books, "Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith."
Catholics believe Scripture is the inspired word of God and the Holy Spirit is God’s means of instructing men through His word.”
= = =
I gather that your point is that Prottys don’t believe that???
And what is your evidence for such an outrageous assertion/perspective?
A) I don't hate the RC edifice.
B) I certainly don't hate the authentic Mary, Mother of Jesus.
I do hate the snow job satan has achieved with the RC edifice along a number of lines involving:
1. rank, brazen, outrageous idolatry and blasphemy . . . as well as
2. raising political RELIGIOUS POWER MONGERING to an art form and calling it holy.
I'm thoroughly and utterly convinced that such things are from the pit in every group and denomination of any significant age whatsoever and all amongst the worst in the most !!!!TRADITIONAL!!!!, fossilized, calcified, rigid, narrow, spiritually ignorant of such RELIGIOUS organizations--of which the RC edifice is a prime example.
I didn't write THE STANDARD. God did. And against HIS STANDARD, the RC edifice itself indicts, accuses, demonstrates it's own guilt relentlessly, brazenly, wholesale across the planet in a myriad of ways.
It is not hatred to point out where God's standard is 180 degrees from an individual's or a group's persistently demonstrated lived walk, life, existence. On the contrary, there's likely much love in persisting in such courageous efforts.
Some of us don't hate much of anything except satan and his works.
Humans--all of us--are flawed works-in-progress.
Certainly some with some tenacious support of satan's schemes, memes, efforts, perspectives, strategies, deceptions, idolatries, blasphemies . . . can be annoying, frustrating and troublesome to deal with. But hate is not on the able--not for me, anyway.
C) Christ did not establish the RC edifice. There's no reasonable Biblical basis for it and no historical basis for such a conclusion. Rubber Bibles and Rubber histories do not count. Noise to the contrary is mere noise and myopic "IN-GROUP" blindness.
imho, the sickness is siding with satan in behalf of the very things Christ Himself most fiercely railed against.
The sickness is in making of Mary a blasphemous, idolatrous cartoon figure she herself would be furious about if God allows her to know about such travesties at all.
One day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of Lords and King of Kings. There will be NO Hail Mary's first; No rushing to Mary's presumed bosom for a quick consultation about whether such is kosher, or not; No looking back wistfully at the statue in the local grotto or alcove or altar.
Those who can wholeheartedly sing
ALL MY PRAISE TO CHRIST ALONE
Will gather at His feet. I'm not sure what He'll do with those double-minded sorts who give 80% of their time, energy and attention to a satanic blasphemous, idolatrous farce labeled in Mary's name. But I wouldn't want to place my bets on His pleasure with them.
And Praise God for that priceless distinction.
And which perspective is most suited to being deceived and consumed by the satanic globalists? One guess.
Contrast this with the author's assertion of the Catholic view that one can have all sorts of dfferent things and you can readily see the problem. Candles, beads, water, are all corrupt means through understanding God. Signs and symbols are meant to draw people away from God, not to Him. Only His word is given to draw us to Him.
You do know what a High Horse is don't you?
FR is not the universe. In the big picture it is meaningless.
By your own standards you qualify as a "Protestant hater".
I do like your position though. Ecumenism , by your terms, is not possible.
Orthodox Judaism has had its own "physical sacraments" for over 3300 years without reducing the Torah to mythology. Hmm.
That is, if I don't mess up.
The first thousand years were a disaster for Christendom? Apart from the tragedy of the separation of East and West, whose doctrine has deviated the most from that beginning in the past 500 years?
Of course I didn't say the first thousand years were a disaster for Christendom. I will say it became increasingly so as the power and wealth of the "Church" increased.
Do you think it was always a bed of roses? What happened to the first "heretics"? Were there any "Bad" Popes? Was there increasing corruption in this "Church"?
The first thousand years were a disaster for Christendom? Apart from the tragedy of the separation of East and West, whose doctrine has deviated the most from that beginning in the past 500 years?
None of the early "Christians" would recognize the RCC of today and for that matter, most of the Protestant Churches.
If I gave you a list of pejoratives for Catholic belief that I've seen, I really don't think you could match it.
It's not the list of perjoratives which are meaningful is it? If I damn you with one thousand different adjectives is it any different from damning you with one word?
The various Popes in history have had some loving words for "heretics" haven't they, not to say a thing about the fate of these "heretics".
Ecumenism means different things to different people and I believe it means "under the auspices of the Pope" to the RCC. Unless, of course, you can imagine the Pope being subordinate to a Christian Leader chosen by the "Council of Churches" for, lets say, a five year term.
Ping to #97
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