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.”

[Not gonna take it anymore]

“I’m sorry, but I disagree that the Lutheran Church is evangelical.

The idea of following man made doctrines like Ash Wednesday is too questionable for traditional evangelical churches.”

LOL, this is just too funny.

You mean those ‘traditional’ evangelical churches which hate ‘tradition’?

There are so many of them, which one is yours? When was it founded? Is it 20, 50, 100 years old? Or was it started last week in a strip mall?

[Not gonna take it anymore]

No Mary, no Jesus.

No Jesus, no Salvation.

[miss marmelstein]

Didn’t any adult around you correct your notion of evil Ash Wednesday? A wonderful, ancient tradition. We never had crosses - only a black smudge on the forehead.

[CynicalBear]

>>C-B, I have never heard that the Catholic Church as said that those who have never heard of Christ are saved;<<

Yep, they do. Here's just one of the statements out of Vatican II.

The non-Christian may not be blamed for his ignorance of Christ and his Church; salvation is open to him also, if he seeks God sincerely and if he follows the commands of his conscience, for through this means the Holy Ghost acts upon all men; this divine action is not confined within the limited boundaries of the visible Church." [ "Dogmatic Constitution on the Church - Lumen Gentium." Chapter II, sections 14 to 16 discuss salvation of Catholics and others. 5 An "Assessment of this Council"]

It can be found here.

Section 16 is also where the statement is made that Muslims and Catholics serve the same god.

[RnMomof7]

No Mary, no Jesus.
No Jesus, no Salvation.

So God could not have used "Zelda"?

God ordained Mary to be the mother of Jesus ...She was not His mother because she DESERVED to be..but because God ordained it.. He could have ordained Zelda..

Mary is not the source of our salvation.. she deserves only our honor not our worship

[CynicalBear]

If your satisfied with the “full reward” (Matthew 6:16-18) of being seen publicly displaying some sort of pious ritual have at it. Many of us would much rather be rewarded by God for doing it in secret. Don’t be shocked however that we will show what God has to say on the subject rather than some religious organization.

[HossB86]

No Mary, no Jesus.

No Jesus, no Salvation.

OH.... so God couldn't have chosen to act miraculously? God has limits? Probably the same limits that the Roman Catholic Cult tries to put on Him.

Nice try, but fail.

Hoss

[HossB86]

If your satisfied with the “full reward” (Matthew 6:16-18) of being seen publicly displaying some sort of pious ritual have at it. Many of us would much rather be rewarded by God for doing it in secret. Don’t be shocked however that we will show what God has to say on the subject rather than some religious organization.

Amen.

Hoss

[aMorePerfectUnion]

What I posted is accurate.
If you disagree, please demonstrate any Biblical basis for Ash Wednesday.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

verga,
I knew you could notice nice things about believers who are not Catholic - and I enjoyed reading your list. You were kind to include the small help I gave you.

I was interested in hearing NKP say anything nice!

:-)

[Not gonna take it anymore]

Any Catholic who would worship Mary would be committing a mortal sin since worship is only for God.

We honor the mother of Christ, we do not worship her.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

“Acts 20:7, “On the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread ...”

The first day of every week! With the breaking of bread AND with the cup of wine (fermented fruit of the vine). ALL partook of both!

[metmom]

Oh, baloney.

Nobody is bowing down to Bibles and lighting candles to them, praying to them, making statues of them, etc......

If you’re going to demand that Bibles not be used as part of worship services, then musical instruments can’t be used.

I’m sure the enemy loves the denigration of the Word that happens on this forum regularly. he’d like nothing more than to get Scripture out of people’s lives.

Course, given that Catholics try to associate use of Bibles as pagan worship, they are condemning themselves as well, especially for all they brag on how much Scripture they allegedly read each year in mass.

[metmom]

That's funny...I'm not having any "angst" at all today. Now why would Roman Catholics care so much about what non-Catholics do or don't do in their faith?

Cause they're control freaks.

No angst on my part either.

[CynicalBear]

Venerate - Latin veneratus, past participle of venerari, from vener-, venus love, charm

Synonyms - adore, deify, glorify, revere, reverence, worship

[GreyFriar]

I would say that that scripture is not the sole preserve of Catholicism, but belongs to all Christians.

[rwa265]

I have never heard that the Catholic Church as said that those who have never heard of Christ are saved

---

From The Catechism of the Catholic Church:

847 Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation.

http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/epub/index.cfm#

[metmom]

C-B, I have never heard that the Catholic Church as said that those who have never heard of Christ are saved; but then I’m not Catholic. Just a Protestant who believes in Jesus and doing as He taught, as best I can.

Yup. It was doctrine before Vatican 2.

At Vatican 2 they made exceptions but still do teach that there is no salvation outside the Catholic church and it states so right in their Catechism of the Catholic church.

Scroll down about a third of the way and you'll see it right there in print between numbers 845 and 846.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P29.HTM

841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."330

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337

[metmom]

We never had crosses - only a black smudge on the forehead.

He does put the ashes on in the shape of the cross.

It only shows up as a smudge because the priests thumb is too big for the cross to show up clearly.