Posted on 05/07/2002 8:19:40 AM PDT by logos
Author: Robert P. Mills
2002-05-06
It can only be described as a feeding frenzy. There is blood in the water. Victims are thrashing about. Predators are circling and their numbers are growing. The attacks are unrelenting. The scene is gruesome, but, given the nature of the beast, not surprising.
What began very recently as isolated allegations of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests years or even decades ago now has the mainstream media salivating. It is not just alleged acts of aberrant priests, and the lawsuits being filed in response, that now are being “reported.” Already, the larger issues of what Catholics believe and how they structure themselves for mission in and to the world have found themselves in the media’s maw. And the assault still seems to be gathering steam.
On television and in newsmagazines reporters opine that the pope should resign, that certain cardinals and bishops should be replaced, that celibacy should no longer be required for priests, and that the Roman Catholic Church should become more “democratic” in the way it determines acceptable belief and practice.
Why should these events concern evangelical Christians and confessing congregations? For several reasons.
First and foremost, Christians in confessing congregations should be concerned about the current situation in the Catholic church because others in the body of Christ are suffering. All Christians are members of one body, and “if one part suffers, every part suffers with it” (I Cor. 12:26). Their suffering is, or should be, (and perhaps will be) our suffering.
It is sad but true that for much of the last 500 years, Protestants and Catholics have inflicted much pain on each other. In recent decades, many of these old hatreds have been fading, but, like old habits of behavior, old patterns of thinking die hard. Now is the time for these historic animosities to be laid to rest.
To be sure, Protestant and Catholic understandings of the Christian faith vary considerably at key points. Yet while some important doctrines still divide us, many, many more bind us together. And as American society becomes increasingly secular, confessing (as opposed to merely nominal) Protestants and Catholics must remember how much they share in the Great Tradition of the Christian faith.
This tradition, rooted in the affirmations of the Nicene Creed and Chalcedonian Definition, comprises an understanding of God’s self-revelation that held the Church together for its first 1,000 years. As our current social situation approaches that which existed in the first three centuries of the Christian Church, Christians of all denominational affiliations would do well to look back to these historic articulations of the faith. For they may well prove the framework for reuniting what long has been divided.
In a postmodern, post-Christian world, confessing Christians cannot afford the luxury of ignoring the suffering of other members of the body of Christ, whether that suffering is taking place in Indonesia, Sudan, or the Catholic parish in our neighborhood. If there were no other reasons, this would be sufficient to merit our concern for what is now happening in the Roman Catholic Church.
But there are other reasons.
The need for holy living:
A second reason for concern involves the subject matter of the current controversy: sex, more specifically, sex outside the covenant of the marriage between a man and a woman.
The Confessing Church Movement in the Presbyterian Church (USA) now includes more than 1,200 congregations. Most of these have written or adopted statements that reaffirm historic standards of the Christian Church, including God’s demand that his people conform to his revealed standards of personal holiness.
Liberal Protestantism has long urged Christians to abandon the biblical sexual standards of fidelity and chastity. In particular, liberal Protestantism aggressively demands that all Christians find acceptable specific practices that God declares to be sinful: adultery, fornication, and homosexual behavior. In this effort, they have been ably abetted by the mainstream media, which also advocates acceptance of such behaviors.
And here an interesting, and, to put it charitably, under-reported fact comes to light: The majority of abuse allegations now being filed against Roman Catholic priests do not concern the molestation of pre-teen boys and girls, which is to say, pedophilia. Rather, they concern allegations of relationships between priests and teen-age boys, in other words, homosexual behavior.
Yet rather than risk unfavorable attention being drawn to homosexuals, the mainstream media continues to suggest that defrocked Boston priest John Geoghan, who did molest minors, is the norm in the current scandal. He is not. At the core of the current Catholic crisis are not priests who are pedophiles but priests who are homosexual.
Of course, to voice this truth in the public square is to risk being tarred with the label “homophobic,” a term of abuse liberally applied to any who believe that God said what he means and means what he said about human sexual behavior. But being subjected to name calling is a risk confessing Christians must take if we are to insist that God calls all his people – Protestant and Catholic, ordained and lay, adults and children – to holy living.
And it is not the only risk.
The Church in the crosshairs:
Any number of surveys have shown that only a small fraction the mainstream media’s members are Christian. As a result, most of those who produce the news and entertainment we receive in our homes have little personal awareness of what Christianity is all about, so they rely on caricatures created by their equally uninformed colleagues. Not a few of the media elite (Ted Turner comes quickly to mind) are openly hostile to Christian teachings.
That combination often leaves Great Tradition Christians, Protestant and Catholic alike, in the media crosshairs. The recent coverage of the Catholic church indicates a very itchy trigger finger. And the scorn heaped on Jerry Falwell for ill-timed comments in the wake of September 11 made it clear that many in the media hold evangelical Christians in greater contempt than they hold Muslim suicide bombers.
The saturation coverage of the current Catholic situation seems designed to portray those who accept God’s revelation as at best out of touch with the times, at worst menaces to society. Traced back to its theological root, the controversy is a battle for the Christian doctrine of revelation. Do Christians have the right to believe and teach that God has spoken, and that his speech include regulations for moral behavior? Or, when confronted with social policies that contradict God’s revelation, must confessing Christians abandon their belief that Jesus is the only Savior, that the Bible is God’s word to human beings, and that sex outside the covenant of marriage is always wrong.
This is not the first time Christians have faced such choices. Trends in Church and society suggest it won’t be the last.
What can we do now?
Given the situation as it now exists, what can confessing Christians do?
First, we can pray for the victims – all the victims. Children who are sexually abused often grow up to be deeply wounded adults. The healing of such wounds requires competent care and abundant compassion.
But there are other victims. The pervasive media coverage has helped create an atmosphere in which the most far-fetched allegations gain instant credibility, and thus the ability to damage or even destroy a ministry. Even the threat that a groundless charge might be leveled now carries considerable destructive potential.
Second, we can recommit ourselves, as individuals and congregations, to holy living. This may include submitting to accountability relationships with other individuals or confessing congregations. It may involve relinquishing some of our precious autonomy to regain the biblical perspective that we are merely members of the body of Christ, and eye or a foot, not the entire body.
Finally, confessing Christians and congregations can, indeed must, study the tactics now being used against the Roman Catholic Church and prepare ourselves for similar assaults. At present, confessing congregations in mainline denominations are barely a blip on the mainstream media’s radar screen. But as our numbers grow, and our denomination’s numbers shrink, we become more visible.
That shift will offer us enormous opportunities. And with those opportunities will come new dangers. In the unfolding environment, confessing Christians would do well to remember Jesus’ words to the angel of the church in Philadelphia:
“I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev. 3:11-13).
Robert P. Mills is theologian-in-residence at the Beall Study Center.
Either that, or I have posted an unwanted message... :)
Christians as a whole are ridiculed and belittled by the secular media. The Catholic Church takes the brunt of the attacks because we are the largest and oldest church preaching the Word of God. We haven't "caved" on important moral truths on abortion, homosexuality, contraception and sex outside of marriage; where some members have fallen, the Church Herself has consistently taught these truths.
Mr. Mills is right: it's only a matter of time before other Christian churches are denounced as vigorously as the Catholic Church. And know, my separated brethern, that you are in my prayers and will have my support when you are attacked for defending the moral truths as revealed by God.
God bless.
There is only one Christian church. It's the universal (catholic) church. ALL of it's members (both dead and currently alive) are regenerate and as such are ALL saints. They have ONE who intercedes for them with the Father in heaven and that is the God/Man, Jesus Christ who sits on his right hand. They have ONE "Holy Father", and he is in heaven.
Those who hate the true God will ALWAYS be against his true church. That is nothing new. But the most dangerous God haters are the impostors. The wolves in sheep's clothing ALWAYS appear as angels of light as they _add works_ to the grace that the CLOSED CANON of Scripture teaches.
God bless.
There is nothing democratic about Christianity. Jesus did not seek a vote from the 12 before preaching about anything. It is not the Church that needs to change ... it is the people.
Is that the same "spirit" that says there can be "unity" between light and darkness?
Is that the "spirit" that esteems "unity" more important than "truth"?
Which is the "spirit" of a "soothsayer" --- the spirit of truth or the spirit of unity?
Rodney King ... is that you??? :D
This doesn't mean that I think that the 33,000 Protestant denominations can claim to be the Church established by Christ or that I think that they were right and justified in splitting off from the one true church; it means that they are my brothers and sister, they are Christians, and they are searching for the Truth. I hope and pray they will find it in the Catholic Church, the one True Church, and I often post and debate, in love, with my separated brothers on this matter.
I didn't feel this was the appropriate thread for that, and inasmuch as Mr. Mills was "feeling our pain", for lack of a better phrase, I wanted to recognize and appreciate that unity.
God bless.
Do you consider the Roman Catholic faith "darkness"?
I know that the gospel is the "gospel of love". It is the "good news". Its message rings true and the "truth will set you free". It is also a gospel that transforms. It transforms the individuals that embrace the teachings of Christ. And His teachings call us to "unity in faith" among other things.
After reading both sides, I am very inclined to follow you to your Church, Gopack! Why? Because I hear and feel the teachings of Christ in your words. Thank you!
Your brother in Christ,
TM
This side of the parousia I suspect there are many points of theology, ecclesiology and polity you on which and I will decide to "agree to disagree". I choose not to engage in the time-honored mind game of "rearranging the furniture of heaven," however, as there are only two things about heaven of which I'm sure:
One, I will be amazed at all the things that are different than I suspected they would be, and...
Two, I expect to be even more surprised by who is there, and who is not.
I've no doubt that we agree on the one thing of most importance: that Jesus Christ is the living Son of the One True God, and that He lived, died and was resurrected so that we all might be reconciled with God.
Or, as Billy Sunday used to say, "Once you've accepted Christ as your savior, all the rest of theology is gravy - you've already got the biscuit."
That's not to say that differences in theology and opposing interpretations of Scripture aren't important - they are, if only so that as we contend for our points of view we are learning and building up our relationship with God. But when the day comes we are all under the gun, I somehow doubt too many of us will be asking "Do you kneel to pray?" or "Transubstantiation? What?"
God bless.
Neither I nor the author of this piece is making such a claim. The author is, however, stating that "democracy in the church" is one of the points being sought by the "feeding frenzy" media.
Oh, I know you're not claiming that. It's just something in the article that caught my eye and I think it's a problem that a lot of the other churches have encountered. It seems that democracy has crept into religion and it's making a mess of a number of denominations.
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