Posted on 02/18/2015 3:24:56 PM PST by NYer
You wouldnt think that anyone would fight about Ash Wednesday and Lent. For Catholics its part of what we do. For others its something they can use or not as they find it helpful, and increasing numbers do. Down-the-line Evangelical churches have started to hold special services for Ash Wednesday complete with ashes and to treat the Sundays after it as Sundays in Lent. Rather severely anti-sacramental Evangelicals now speak of giving things up and fasting on Fridays.
I find this cheering, but my friend Carl Trueman doesnt. Carl teaches Church history at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, the flagship of serious Reformed (i.e., Calvinist) Christianity in America. Hes a pastor in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. If youre thinking of the somewhat wooly-minded, generically Protestant Presbyterians in the church in middle of town, youre not thinking of Carls kind of Presbyterian. The mainline Presbyterians are the ones in tweed and corduroy; Carls type are in biker leathers. Hes one John Calvin would have recognized as a brother.
Writing on Reformation21, the website of the Alliance for Confessing Evangelicals, Carl notes that Evangelicals have started observing the season and then lets loose:
He is clearly not pleased and I can see why. The adoption by Evangelicals of some Catholic practices cheers me, however, because it is a gain for them, an expansion of their ways of living their faith, and one that reduces the gap between divided Christians. And, to be honest, because it opens a way for them to understand what the Catholic Church is about.
Carl is right that theyve picked pieces they like without enough thought about the thing from which theyre picking pieces, but as a Catholic I think thats a blessing rather than a mistake. He wants them to be more consistent and coherent Protestants and I would like them to be Catholics, and movement from one to the other requires some inconsistency and incoherence, the way a man wanders back and forth in the forest trying to find his way until he sees in the distance the place he is looking for.
The Church offers riches like an over-loaded wagon in a fairy tale, spilling gold coins every time it hits a pothole. Evangelicals can find in Catholic practice many things they can use just by walking along behind it. Though they have in their own tradition ways to express penance and forgiveness, as Carl notes, Ash Wednesday the whole rite, not just the imposition of ashes offers them a more dramatic way of hearing the truth and enacting it.
The question for them is how much they can take and adapt to their own purposes without having to face the claims of the Church from which theyre taking the things they like. I think rather a long way, because the Church draws upon a wisdom that it is not exclusively Catholic. You can enjoy the imposition of ashes without asking Who is Peter?
But there should come a point where you ask, What is this thing from whom Im always taking? What makes it a thing from which I can take so much? As Carl says, more pointedly: If your own tradition lacks the historical, liturgical and theological depth for which you are looking, it may be time to join a church which can provide the same.
FAR BETTER TO BE RIGHT TWICE A YEAR RATHER THAN NEVER...lol.
Enjoy! Be happy.
My Catholic friend is fasting on just water for Lent. He did it last year. Apparently some ailments he had for years disappeared.
That’s right just water for 40 days.
Luke 18:9-14 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.
But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner! I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
Isn’t betting breaking Lent?:)
Come on don’t gamble during Lent. It’s the most popular give up for Irish Catholics:)
The words of the priest as he put ashes in the sign of the cross on my forehead.
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”
Oh boy
LOL..The Catholic church had the ENTIRE truth one thousand six hundred years before there was a protestant....LOL again.
Well, there is Scriptural precedent about receiving a mark on your forehead and which side you're on.
I could see people getting duped into taking it with a *Do it this way and make it permanent. Show the world all the time who you're loyal to.*
I know.
Why are you telling me?
Bet you loved those ashes when you were a kid. And like the other poster said, can you find just one positive thing to say about Catholics? I don’t think you can. Why not prove me and the rest on FR wrong? The constant putdowns really get old when someone knows better.
I am not Irish.
So you really want to live according to the OT law, good luck.
James 2:10 New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.
It is an absolute fact thaat people who make bad decisions spend an inordinate amount of time trying to justify them....and it is mostly aimed at justifying the bad decision in their own mind.....PSYCHOLOGY 101
“For instance, in the Book of Esther, Mordecai put on sackcloth and ashes when he heard of the decree of King Ahasuerus (or Xerxes, 485-464 B.C.) of Persia to kill all of the Jewish people in the Persian Empire (Est 4:1).”
All the early pictures of Mordecai show him with an identical little thumb smudge of ashes in the middle of his forehead.
Will you also be donning your sackcloth - which is equally biblical by your standard - as you wear your smudge??
“Why not prove me and the rest on FR wrong? The constant putdowns really get old when someone knows better.”
And turn about is fair play NKP! Lead. Let’s hear you say some nice things about protestants and protestantism! :-)
Good luck with living according to OT Law. Don’t forget to have your bull, sheep, goat, and pigeon blood lined up also.
James 2:10 New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.
Ash Wednesday worship, like Palm Sunday worship, is a Christian tradition. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. The real measure of it is aligning it with a biblical view of Christianity.
That isn’t really very hard. It was roughly 6 months before the resurrection when the bible says that Jesus ‘set his face steadfastly toward Jerusalem’ (Luke 11). It reiterates that about 2 months (Luke 17) before his final Passover. He was on his way to the cross. He also instructs Christians to take up their cross and follow him. So, a period of cross-bearing prior to Easter seems biblically reasonable, contrary to nothing biblical I can think of, and not a bad tradition.
As you probably have detected over the years, I’m a strong advocate of true Christian unity. This service is something we all can share. My sense is we should celebrate such opportunities.
Apparently not COT made major changes to your denominations way to salvation, so no it wasn’t true for the past xx years.
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