Evangelical Angst About Ash Wednesday

Aleteia ^ | February 17, 2015 | DAVID MILLS

[NYer]

You wouldn’t think that anyone would fight about Ash Wednesday and Lent. For Catholics it’s part of what we do. For others it’s 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 doesn’t. Carl teaches Church history at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, the flagship of serious Reformed (i.e., Calvinist) Christianity in America. He’s a pastor in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. If you’re thinking of the somewhat wooly-minded, generically Protestant Presbyterians in the church in middle of town, you’re not thinking of Carl’s kind of Presbyterian. The mainline Presbyterians are the ones in tweed and corduroy; Carl’s type are in biker leathers. He’s 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:
 

American evangelicals are past masters at appropriating anything that catches their fancy in church history and claiming it as their own, from the ancient Fathers as the first emergents to the Old School men of Old Princeton as the precursors of the Young, Restless, and Reformed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer as modern American Evangelical.

 
He is a genial and liberal-minded man. His office bookshelf has very large Aquinas and Newman sections along with the works of Luther, Calvin, and their descendants. (He’s just written a book titled Luther On the Christian Life.) I have spent a pleasant night in the Truemans’ home after speaking at the seminary at his invitation. He is generous to Catholics. But Evangelicals observing Lent, this sets him off. “I also fear that it speaks of a certain carnality,” he continues:
 

The desire to do something which simply looks cool and which has a certain ostentatious spirituality about it. As an act of piety, it costs nothing yet implies a deep seriousness. In fact, far from revealing deep seriousness, in an evangelical context it simply exposes the superficiality, eclectic consumerism and underlying identity confusion of the movement.

 
They shouldn’t do this. Their “ecclesiastical commitments do not theologically or historically sanction observance of such things,” he writes in a second article on the website, “Catholicity Reduced to Ashes.” Ash Wednesday is “strictly speaking unbiblical” and therefore can’t be imposed by a church, treated as normative, or understood as offering benefits unavailable in the normal parts of the Christian life. That would be a violation of the Christian liberty the Reformation so stressed (against “the illicit binding of consciences in which the late medieval church indulged,” as he puts it).

The “well-constructed worship service” and “appropriately rich Reformed sacramentalism” render the observance of Ash Wednesday “irrelevant.” Infant baptism, for example, declares better than the imposition of ashes once a year “the priority of God's grace and the helplessness of sinless humanity in the face of God.” The Lord’s Supper does as well.

Worse, Carl argues, these Evangelicals pick from the Catholic tradition the parts they like when that tradition is an indivisible whole. In for a penny, in for a pound seems to be his understanding of Catholicism. He finds it “most odd,” he writes in the second article, that some might “observe Lent as an act of identification with the church catholic while repudiating a catholic practice such as infant baptism or a catholic doctrine such as eternal generation or any hint of catholic polity.” (The lower-case “c” is his but he means the upper-case.) “The notion of historic catholicity itself has become just another eclectic consumerist construct.”

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 they’ve picked pieces they like without enough thought about the thing from which they’re picking pieces, but as a Catholic I think that’s 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 they’re 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 I’m 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.”

[Cvengr]

It has always been a Satanic operation to encourage others to sin, while insisting they haven’t been forced to sin.

There is nothing wrong in focusing upon the work of Christ on the Cross, the Judgment, but thinking our work to avoid sin brings us closer to God, substitutes our work for His grace and is very sinful.

A better mechanism to advance in our faith is simply to persevere in faith in Him and let His Plan prevail.

[caww]

..."I suspect they’ll run to accept the Mark when it arrives"....

No doubt...they'll be under the deception God says He will send by that time so they'll just naturally go along.

As for the upside down crucifix ash markings...

Like this?

[caww]

I’ve never understood why people put ‘black” ash on their forehead....common sense tells you it’s just one more ritual catholic priests seem to think they have magic fingers to do for the membership.

I don’t see any connection to Jesus Christ using such means either...quite the contrary. It’.s black and it’s dirty no matter who touches it or wear it.

[caww]

....”Well, there is Scriptural precedent about receiving a mark on your forehead and which side you're on”....

The photos were intended to raise that very thought....when you examine the “behavior” of various religions you see them being primed for what's coming.

Even those not religious are into all sorts of tattoos today and body piercings....so people are quite accustomed and ready to accept the mark they will need to by and sell etc....and loyalty to that man of the hour.

These guys will be the first in line as they already wear their allegience on headbands over their foreheads but they will see that mark as a "seal of God"

[caww]

Jan 23, 2004...(NOTE DATE)...SmartCode created the prototype for an RFID microchip that is 0.25 millimeters square. ...that was 11 years ago....so you know what they have now is not visible to the eye.

[caww]

Makes ya think doesn’t it.... so many people are ripe for anything today...and they cannot see the obvious correlation of what’s happening from their smaller world to the wider picture happening.. and preparing people for... So the “tranformation” to what’s coming won’t even be debated.

[verga]

And turn about is fair play NKP! Lead. Let’s hear you say some nice things about protestants and protestantism! :-)< P>Let me go first:

1) Kathy Troccoli and Amy Grant, among others have given us some of the most amazing worship music ever.

2) Pastor Steve P. gave the most balanced and accurate views of Catholic and Orthodox views I have ever heard in his six week lecture series.

3) AMPU was wonderfully supportive in assisting me with a personal matter for a friend of mine. He gave very generously of his time making sure I had an accurate translation of several Greek verses and making sure I was reading them in context.

4) SR provides some very interesting insights on a number of topics.

5) a Number of (Non-Catholic) staff members were very helpful and supportive during a long term illness for a Catholic woman I know.

5) A number of protestant churches in my area have joined with the Knights of Columbus to provide Ultrasound machines to the "Womans's health care center" which is a solidly pro-life alternative e to PP here in town.

6) The Promise Keeper's" movement did a very good job of bringing family issues to the front an center when our country sorely needed it.

I could go on for another hour.

[Faith Presses On]

For one thing this may very well have to do with so many former Catholics being in a specific church. In a Baptist church I was a part of most of the members were.

[Biggirl]

Lent is a reminder of our call by Christ to follow Him during that time and always.

[Elsie]

Angst?

Why worry?

For the Apostles have PLAINLY shown in the Scriptures the CORRECT way to apply the ashes!

[Elsie]

The Church offers riches like an over-loaded wagon in a fairy tale, spilling gold coins every time it hits a pothole.

To reverse the old saying...

One man's treasure is another man's trash.

[Elsie]

Hi MM!

[Elsie]

Hey!

We Wesleyans 'celebrated' St. Valentine's day without a big todo about it; so why not Ash Wednesday; too?

http://www.wesleyan.org/1617/why-ash-wednesday

[Elsie]

I have been out of the church for twice as long as I was in it and even I would know that’s not true.

Oh?

Some High Ranking Catholics seem to disagree...

 

 

 

Bernadine: …all gifts, all virtues, and all graces are dispensed by the hands of Mary to whomsoever, when, and as she pleases. O Lady, since thou art the dispenser of all graces, and since the grace of salvation can ONLY come through thy hands, OUR SALVATION DEPENDS ON THEE.

Bonaventure: …the gates of heaven will open to all who confide in the protection of Mary. Blessed are they who know thee, O Mother of God, for the knowledge of THEE is the high road to everlasting life, and the publication of thy virtues is the way of ETERNAL SALVATION . Give ear, O ye nations; and all you who desire heaven , serve, honor Mary, and certainly you will find ETERNAL LIFE.

Ephem: …devotion to the divine Mother…is the unlocking of the heavenly Jerusalem.

Blosius: To the, O Lady, are committed the KEYS and the treasures of the kingdom of Heaven.

Ambrose: …constantly pray ‘Open to us, O Mary, the gates of paradise, since thou hast its KEYS.

Fulgetius: …by Mary God descended from Heaven into the world, that by HER man might ascend from earth to Heaven.

Athanasius: …And, thou, O Lady, wast filled with grace, that thou mightiest be the way of our SALVATION and the means of ascent to the heavenly Kingdom.

Richard of Laurence: Mary, in fine, is the mistress of heaven; for there she commands as she wills, and ADMITS whom she wills.

Guerric: …he who serves Mary and for whom she intercedes, is as CERTAIN of heaven as if he were already there…and those who DO NOT serve Mary will NOT BE SAVED.

Anselm: It suffices, O Lady, that thou willest it, and our SALVATION is certain.

Antoninus: …souls protected by Mary, and on which she casts her eyes, are NECESSARILY JUSTIFIED AND SAVED.

[Elsie]

Good one!

[Elsie]

Encourages people to tithe more than the Biblical tenth, even those who can ill afford it.

That would be a JEWISH tenth; would it not?

Still; it doesn't sound very CHEERFUL to me!

[Elsie]

Are you alluding to something that only the IN crowd knows?

[Elsie]

Or realizing that they need the truth of the Catholic Church.

I like the Catholic Church's truth!

I do NOT like all the EXTRA stuff that it has chosen to practice.

[Elsie]

The ashes are simply a reminder...”remember man that thou art dust...and to dust you shall return” it is not something that we parade around saying look at me I am ashes or fasting...

Then one of these beads should do that; right?

[Elsie]

...and fish barf; too!