If You Give a Gal a Bishopric…

R.C. Sproul Jr. ^ | 6-15-15 | R.C. Sproul Jr.

[ReformationFan]

The attempt to change God the Father to God the Mother is full bore idolatry—a syncretism of the spirit of the age.

I remember some of the most emotionally powerful moments of worship that I have experienced occurred in a context where there was the least amount of belief. There was a time in my life when I regularly went to worship at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, a beautiful church building that had this glorious liturgy. And it would be my habit to go there on Sunday morning and to sit in the pew and listen to the music and to work through the liturgy. And then when the pastor got up to preach I also would get up and walk out of the building because I knew what I was going to hear was not going to be faithful to God’s Word. I’m old, but I’m not old enough to remember when the Episcopal Church was a faithful church, generally speaking.

More recently, the Church of England has ordained their very first female Bishop, her name is Libby Lane. Not long after her installation as a bishop, she proposed some significant changes that would take away what yet remains the best part of the church of England: so much of the liturgy that is in the Book of Common Prayer. You see, that is why I loved that worship service, because that Book of Common Prayer was infused with Scripture and infused with sound doctrine even though the people saying it, the ones leading the liturgy, didn’t believe it. The actual words were the words of life.

But now comes Bishop Lane and she has some changes in mind for the Book of Common Prayer. It is not changing the doctrine of how we have peace with God, it is not changing the doctrine of man, it is not choosing Arminianism over Calvinism, she just wants “a few changes.” Instead of referring to God the way the Bible does, in masculine language, she would like to see it include some feminine language for who God is—referring to Him as Her, referring to our Heavenly Father as our Heavenly Mother.

Now the reasoning is pretty simple; her thought is that this would be more inclusive and make other people feel more welcome because, somehow, referring to God in the masculine is off-putting to a certain class of people. I agree. This class of people, however, are those who do not like God.

When we read through the historical accounts of the Old Testament, I’ve often argued that the most frequent sin that we see crop up among God’s people is idolatry. And that idolatry almost always takes the form of syncretism. That’s a big word but is really not that complicated of a concept. Syncretism is the blending together of two things. In this context, the blending together of the worship of the true and living God with the spirit of the age. With the children of Israel start worshiping Baal, they don’t say, “Yesterday we worshipped Yahweh, but this is not going well so let’s worship Baal instead.” Rather, what they did was that they would blend together the qualities, the characteristics, and the liturgies of Baal to mix them with the qualities and characteristics of the true and living God. Well, that should be instructive to us. The temptation isn’t going to be those who show up and say, “You know, that whole God thing, the whole Trinity thing, let’s try a whole different God.” Rather it is an attempt to redefine and reshape who we think God to be and to do so in a way that accommodates the broader unbelieving culture. That is exactly what we have in this proposal, in this suggestion.

If we can take the true and living God and we can reshape Him, remold Him, and in fact rename him, or put Him through the liturgical equivalent of the surgery of Bruce Jenner, we can turn Him into a Her, our God into a goddess. I wish Miss Lane would heed the wisdom of my favorite Anglican, C.S. Lewis. It was Lewis who told us that–recognizing that God in one sense transcends gender, God is not a man–God is so utterly masculine that all of us are feminine in comparison. Masculinity is essential to what God is. That is the reason that God is described to us as our Father, that is the reason His son is called the Son. There is a reality about who He is and we have to hold onto it and not accommodate or mold and shape God into our own image. We have to, being feminine, respond to His leadership. And when God says He is our Father, our calling is to say “Yes, Father” in return.

[HossB86]

So it's not like the Catechism is conferring approval on Islam. In fact, "Islam" (as a religious system) is not even mentioned: the point of reference here is "Muslims" --- the people themselves, not Muhammad, not the Koran, not their erroneous faith. Every religion has some garbled fragments of truth mixed in with it --- didn't Paul speak of this at the Areopagus? --- and we affirm only the fragments of truth: One God, Creator, Judge.

No. Not quite. It's a nice side-step, but still blasphemous. Equivocation of "Muslim" vs "Islam" is something Rome can do all day and it still does not change the fact that 841 says Roman Catholics and Muslims worship the 'same merciful God.' Say what you want... it will not change the fact that this statement says exactly what it says: but the problem is that it must work either one way or another.

To say that all religious systems worship the God of the Bible, but in some erroneous way or some fragmented way is not accurate. Do Satanists worship an erroneous fragment of God Almighty but confuse him with Satan? Heaven forbid! They worship Satan. Buddhists do not worship the God of the Bible in some erroneous form; they worship Buddha. A false god. As do Taoists, Mormons, Muslims, and seemingly (at least the way it's written) Catholics. To claim that Catholics and Muslims worship the same 'God' is to invite blasphemy because Muslims do NOT worship the God of the Bible in even an erroneous form; they worship Satan. That's the way it works: you either worship God, or you don't - and if you don't, who's left?

Right. The Devil.

Now, in Acts 17, they worshipped the "unknown god." They didn't know WHO they worshipped. Paul brought the Gospel and told them, using the altar there as a jumping off point...kinda like, 'hey -- you worship the 'unknown god' -- let me tell you about the REAL God...." The Greeks didn't worship the God of the Bible erroneously -- they worshipped false gods... and remember: if you're not worshipping God, who are you worshipping (in one form or another)?

Right. The Devil. Whether it's Juno, or Apollo, or Buddha, or the souls of the departed... or money, or status... it all has its roots back to the Devil.

CCC 841 sure does seem to indicate that Catholics worship some other god. And that's sad.

It does not say they hold the faith of Abraham, it says they "profess" to hold the faith of Abraham.

I say toe-may-toe, you say toh-mah-toe....it says what it says. By saying it implies that there is a conflation of faith. You don't have to like it, but that's what it says.

Again, error. Heinous error. Just like CCC 969. Mary is dead. She is in Heaven (no doubt), but she hears no prayer -- she provides no intercession and gives no grace and provides nothing in the way of salvation -- ALL of those things are done by Christ and him alone.

If 969 is wrong, and it is... and 841 is wrong, and it is, how much more is wrong?

Far, far, far too much.

Hoss

[Mrs. Don-o]

Is delight!

Thank you for such a good response.

I'm going to respond a little better, later. Right now it's past my bedtime. I feel a tremendous debt of gratitude, a "prayer debt" because so many people stormed Heaven for me, and my life was hauled back from the brink of death.

The EMT guy said he never expected to see me get out of the ER alive.

And when I had the courage, finally, to look up "septic shock" online, I learned that the mortality rate is 80%.

Thanks to the ICU and the Rehab people --- who should all get Congressional Medals of Honor --- I have made a wonderful recovery. I don't have all my strength and stamina back, but I am walking, breathing, sleeping, even singing, though my range is down half an octave. They tell me that happens when you're recovering from mechanical ventilation. I may have to quit the Altos and join the my husband in the Basses!

I garden, in a manner of speaking, and my garden is overrun with rampant, opportunistic, transgressive bindweed. That's because I can't weed: can't kneel and get up, though I'm getting better balanced for bending. I may let the bindweed stay, though. It looks better than the cultivars it invaded and smothered, and beautifully withstands the sustained heat that's wilted everything else.

More tomorrow.

G'Night, my friend.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"It can only be participation if it were ongoing." Not so. That is temporal thinking. God's actions are beyond time and space.

[HossB86]

"It can only be participation if it were ongoing." Not so. That is temporal thinking. God's actions are beyond time and space.

Not sure, but I can't find that statement anywhere in 121... Maybe supposed to be to another poster? Or have I forgotten what I wrote? :)

Hoss

[Mrs. Don-o]

"To say that all religious systems worship the God of the Bible...

I didn't say that, and neither did the Catechism. Rather, more accurately, it was that the monotheistic religions who worship the Creator of All, worship God, our God, He Who Is.

That would include Christians, Jews and Muslims. (Personal opinion: they're not mentioned in the Catechism, but I think it would also include the Bahai's, CaoDais and Sikhs, as well as some of the monotheist native America groups, those who worship the One Creator God under the name of Manitou.)

Many monotheists, nevertheless, though they know God as the One Creator, subscribe also to grave errors. Today's Rabbinical/Talmudist Jews explicitly reject Jesus Christ. Muslims honor "Īsā ibn Maryām" as a great prophet but not as God and Savior of the World, and deny the Trinity; and the more "observant" of Islam that they are, the more misled by error they are. Islam is one religion where increased "devotion" produces ever-deepening theological errors and moral corruption.

I did NOT say (and the Catechism did not say) that polytheists, dualists or pantheists worship the One God. Even they would not say they did. I'm guessing that would include Mormonism (eh, you'll get different opinions here, but the Catholic Church says they are outside of Trinity-monotheism), Hinduism, the Roman and Greek pantheons, Manicheeism and other dualisms, etc.

None of this suggests creedal indifferentism, or even syncretism. It's just a way of discerning what elements of truth may be present, and disentangling them from the elements of error. Even believers of Voudoun know that life is spiritual, which makes them more perspicacious than materialists like Ayn Rand or Carl Sagan.

It's not wrong to look for areas of agreement. Truth builds on truth. Jesus Christ is the unique, singular, only Savior of the World. I think you and I can agree on that.

[HossB86]

Just taking it from this:

Every religion has some garbled fragments of truth mixed in with it -— didn’t Paul speak of this at the Areopagus? -— and we affirm only the fragments of truth: One God, Creator, Judge.

Hoss

[CynicalBear]

>>That would include Christians, Jews and Muslims.<<

Well, that should make you right comfortable in chrislam.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Well, that should make you right comfortable in chrislam."

False assertion about me --- and dumb. The fact that Christianity, Judaism and Islam are monotheistic does not mean they are merge-able. YOU don't think they're merge-able, do you? Neither do I --- nor does anyone I know.

[Mrs. Don-o]

You quoted me correctly here. Did you want to comment?

[CynicalBear]

>>YOU don't think they're merge-able, do you? Neither do I --- nor does anyone I know.<<

It doesn't matter. You're "vicar of Christ" does.

[HossB86]

Every religion has some garbled fragments of truth mixed in with it

You quoted me correctly here. Did you want to comment?

Well, sure. Why not. If Islam has garbled fragments of truth, what truth? Which truth? God's truth? Then that is to conflate some aspect of Islam with God Almighty.

There is nothing there there... Mohammedans worship Satan.

"Every religion...." -- really? Not Buddhism. Not Taoism. They are NOT of God. And if it's NOT of God, who is it of?

Satan.

So it was an extrapolation of what you said -- if there are "garbled fragments of truth" then there must be some "garbled" worship of God. And there is not.

Better?

Hoss