Posted on 12/14/2011 10:41:59 AM PST by Alex Murphy
Amid the hubbub surrounding the Gingrich surge, this is one question that has perplexed commentators of all religious and political persuasions. There’s no consensus about where to find the Catholic in Newt.
At this point, the question is not where it is exactly, but where to begin looking.
So, let’s review speculation about the Catholicity of Newt Gingrich. I’ll also advance my own hypothesis and give it a professorial flourish by using a suitably big word.
Hypothesis number one: The new Catholic Newt is simply being American.
Playfully characterizing Gingrich as a “religious flip-flopper” draws attention to how Gingrich, like many other Americans, has seemingly changed his religion to suit prevailing fashion. Perhaps there’s also an ironic part to this interpretation in that Gingrich has supposedly made use of the religious market place to embrace a religion that would take umbrage if treated as a “commodity.”
It might be reasonable enough to see Gingrich’s Catholicity as a kind of epiphenomenon reflecting American cultural propensities--after all, Newt is indeed American. But conversion as “flip-flop” seems to preclude understanding conversion as a turn toward something; it’s not just a lurching back and forth from one view to another. It also makes the Catholic in Newt hard to locate.
Hypothesis number two: Professor Newton Leroy Gingrich has recognized Catholicism’s intellectual appeal.
Reading oneself into Catholicism has a long and venerable history. For some generations, it was Karl Adam’s The Spirit of Catholicism or Ronald Knox’s The Belief of Catholics that opened up a new intellectual vista. For later generations, it was Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain or Malcolm Muggeridge’s Something Beautiful for God that made Catholic spirituality accessible and real.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
If one reads the scripture one learns the mind of God BTW
Maybe "one" does, but you do not appear to know much about the mind of God, based on your posts.
Wow! The Catholics sure put new converts through the ringer don’t they.
No matter how anyone tries to hide from it, Protestant and Protestant derived Christianity lead to an ever less Christian nation as individuals become more confident that they are in every way their own god and their own master with no reason at all to inconvenience themselves a bit. The majority of folks in non-Catholic churches will tell you that how they live makes no difference as far as whether or not they're going to be spared the flames of hell. So, the predominate religion is really, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you have a mansion in the burbs of heaven anyway.
Well said.
Pretty much.
Well, that leaves you out, then.
We all knew that Catholics exempt themselves from the kind of judgment and scrutiny they subject others to.
Thanks for confirming that.
Fortunately Catholic opinion on the matter does not come into play before the Judgment Seat of Christ.
I am clothed in Christ and in Him I live and move and have my being and NOTHING can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus, not even the Catholic church.
Baloney. You keep whining that the Church told you you’re going to hell. I’m just saying that as a Catholic in full communion with the Church, if that’s what you choose to believe, then great.
I’m not a pope. I’m nothing. What difference does it make that not every Catholic buys into the drama llama act you YOPIOS devotees cling to, as if daring Catholics to prove you AREn’t going to hell.
From where I stand, I don’t see a follower of Christ sitting in your pew.
Fine. You're special. I don't see it, I see something entirely different. But hey! What does a person clothed in Christ care? Because it's clear that some on your side just LIVE to feel injured. What a laugh!
**ringer^^
Horseshoes or the Bells of St. Marys?
Quoting atheists Christopher Buckley and the Washington Post to bash Christians. How low can FR go?
That brings up something that I have been wondering: what are some of the more conservative and liberal orders?
Jesus is my only judge, not any human and certainly not anyone who does not have spiritual discernment.
My salvation is not based on my relationship to the Catholic church but on my relationship to Christ.
Since he’s on his 3rd wife he might be a Roamin’ Catholic.
Do you know “that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ”?
Actually it is a huge target to a few fanatics, Dimocratic troublemakers and closet Moslems here on FR. The vast overwhelming majority of non-Catholic freepers are not like these few
under the non-Catholic/Orthodox/Oriental umbrella there are many many groups with divergent, disperse and contradictory beliefs.
For those religious groups that hold to the tenets of belief that are encapsulated in the Nicene creed (namely belief in ONE God: Father-Son-Holy Spirit, belief that Jesus Christ is Lord, God and Savior) we in orthodoxy say that these are not "going to heck" just because they were born into those faiths.
These -- and they include all traditional Anglicans, LCMS, WELS etc Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, etc. who believe in these beliefs, they "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church." -- that is what we believe
.
Now, there are other groups who either call themselves Protestants or are called that -- whether they be Adventists or Unitarians or something similar -- they deny these basic tenets of faith, denying Christ as Lord, God and Savior or ascribing Him as a secondary god or a created being. While we do not say "you gonna go to heck" as we do not know their hearts, we DO believe that the philosophy they hold to is hell-bound. To individuals -- we cannot read their minds so it is between them and GodAs SD pointed out, please do not say "you believe this" and then argue when we say "sorry, we do not, you are ascribing a wrong belief to us"
Carrying on with the theme from above — note that for instance some Baptists say they are not Protestants and many dislike (putting it mildly) creeds or call themselves non-creedal. Yet they believe in the same tenets (the Trinity, the divinity of Christ etc.) so retain these orthodox beliefs.
Can you deny this linkage which although there is not perfect (as in on all core aspects)?
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