Posted on 08/04/2021 2:19:35 PM PDT by MurphsLaw
The promotion of Biblical interpretations serving secular, liberal political agendas of sex and race is only the latest manifestation of a centuries-old trend.
The Bible makes no explicit condemnations of transgenderism. It makes no claims as to the morality of abortion. It encourages racial reparations. Such claims can be found virtually everywhere in corporate media like the Washington Post, New York Times, or CNN, which seek to promote the various political objectives of the Democratic Party.
During his campaign for president, Episcopalian Pete Buttigieg argued that Jesus never mentioned abortion and that Bible verses censuring homosexuality were culturally conditioned, not eternal truths. The Washington Post, in turn, cites secular academics, who offer Biblical exegesis of a progressivist, feminist, and racial identitarian variety.
Of course, the Bible has always been a political document. The Old Testament was not only a religious and liturgical text but one that had much to say about the governance of the ancient kingdom of Israel. Jesus told his followers to respect and pay taxes to the Roman Empire. St. Paul described the temporal ruler as “God’s servant for your good.” (Romans 13:3-4)
For most of ecclesial history, the primary interpreters of Holy Scripture were not journalists, politicians, or secular academics, but the Catholic Church herself. Most early Church Fathers were priests or bishops. Ecumenical councils like Nicea, Chalcedon, or Lyon made determinations on theology, morality, and the meaning of the Bible.
But beginning in the fourteenth century, scholars like Marsilius of Padua and William of Ockham began questioning the hierarchy’s hold on biblical interpretation. Instead, they proposed, the Bible should be under the authority of scholarly experts supported by secular political authorities. Though it would take several centuries for their ideas to proliferate, this thinking came to fruition in the Reformation and Enlightenment, and inspire trends in scriptural exegesis to this day.
This story is the focus of Scott Hahn’s and Benjamin Wiker’s book, The Decline and Fall of Sacred Scripture: How the Bible Became a Secular Book. Less than three-hundred pages, the book summarizes the central arguments of the authors’ 2012 Politicizing the Bible: The Roots of Historical Criticism and the Secularization of Scripture 1300-1700, which is more than twice the size. This is a welcome development; it makes their important contributions accessible to a larger audience.
While the story begins with Marsilius and Ockham and their Erastian belief in the supremacy of the state over the Church, the reader will encounter many familiar faces. John Wycliffe, esteemed by Protestants as the “Morning Star” of the Reformation, argued that “the pope ought, as he formerly was, to be subject to Caesar.” The monarch would then employ “doctors and worshipers of the divine law” to interpret the Bible. Martin Luther also called for the German princes to wrest ecclesial power away from corrupt bishops and the Roman pontiff, and grant him unequaled interpretive authority. Indeed, Luther asked the prince of Saxony to expel fellow reformer Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt because of the latter’s radical teachings. Around the same time, Machiavelli viewed the biblical text as material for furthering secular political ends.
All of these men influenced the court of English King Henry VIII, who recognized that the Reformation offered an opportunity to consolidate his political power. Thus, he pursued the Act of Supremacy in 1534 to grant him “supreme” headship over the Church of England, followed by the dissolution of monasteries, closure of shrines, and seizure of Church wealth. His King’s Book then declared that individuals must be subject to the “particular church” of the region in which they live, and obey the “Christian kings and princes” to whom they are subject.
Other Englishmen would further endorse this thinking. In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes asserts that there is only “one chief Pastor” who is “according to the law of Nature. . .the civil sovereign.” Hobbes also rejected many of the supernatural elements of Scripture, as well as Heaven and Hell. John Locke, dismayed by the violence and distemper caused by the English Civil War, endorsed a state-controlled church whose most important feature would be “toleration,” since religious sentiments were private matters “of the mind.” For Locke, Jesus was ultimately a political messiah whose teachings focused on the perpetuation of a “civil morality.”
There are many other actors in this torrid tale – Baruch Spinoza, J. Richard Simon, John Toland – but enough is clear from the above to appreciate the consequences of these religio-political trends. Proto-Reformers called for dethroning the Catholic hierarchy’s supremacy over biblical interpretation. The Reformers, relying on princes and kings, put that wish into practice. And political philosophers and state-sanctioned scholars normalized it. Wherever the Catholic Church ceased to exert ecclesial authority, the state took up the reins.
There has always been this tension between Church and state. St. Ambrose excommunicated the emperor Theodosius because of his execution of 7,000 citizens of Thessalonica. Pope Gregory VII excommunicated the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV because of a dispute over investiture. And Thomas Becket’s resistance to English King Henry II’s attempts to control the Church resulted in his murder at Canterbury Cathedral.
There is actually something healthy about this tension: when the state and the Church both operate strong spheres of power and influence, they serve as checks upon one another. Kings and governments cannot pursue any policy without risking moral condemnation from ecclesial leadership that will undermine their popular support. And Church corruption and nepotism can be used by secular authorities eager to usurp power.
Hahn’s and Wiker’s history tracks the growing imbalance in favor of the state, a disparity whose roots can be traced back to the late Medieval period. The ubiquitous promotion of Biblical interpretations that serve secular, liberal political agendas related to sex and race is only the latest manifestation of this centuries-old trend. To reverse it requires a return to a more ancient understanding that the Bible is, before all else, the book of the Church, rather than the state or its acolytes in the media or the academy. Catholics need to support and celebrate churchmen who appreciate and seek to realize that essential mission.
You’re failing still to see Israel and the Church. I believe you made the claim elsewhere on this thread that Jesus was speaking to and/or what He said was to the Church. I would like to know how that could’ve been.
It is there if you read, and you yourself can be quite prolix, but a simple short statement without explanation and support is too little to ask for in a thread which has seen so much debate already, in which the minority answer needs logical substantiation.
No answer will be accepted unless it agrees 100% with him!
Sounds like you are not going to answer the question. That must mean that you don’t have an answer that will refute my claim that your position means that there is no penalty for unrepentant sin, and that is tantamount to a license to sin, if that saved person so wishes (and many do). You called me a liar, falsely. Then, you tried to cover it up by refusing to answer the question or saying you and your crew have answered it multiple times but I just don’t comprehend it or simply refuse to believe (more lies and bearing false witness) because you know what the answer really is. And, there goes your once saved, always saved, no matter what happens later in that life, creed. Yes, that means that you bore false witness against me. Some kind of Christian you are, aren’t you? You could have just answered the question and let the chips fall where they may. But then you would have been boxed into a corner, right? You probably figured that one out pretty quick, didn’t you?
I didn’t think Phil’s posting could get any more ridiculous. It has, and it has now gone into the ugly category also. And that ugliness aimed at a wonderful Christian lady.
Phil will not take the answers to the question he asked because he doesn’t like them and they don’t fit with his religious organization’s brainwashing.
Even Daniel gave a great response, as yours, MHG and Metmom’s have been, and was then told his answer was too long. I can only surmise that Phil doesn’t like the true answer to his question.
I asked him earlier if God knew when He saved a person that that person would later commit sins. As yet I’ve received no answer.
He’s pretty demanding on others and yet won’t answer questions asked of him.
I hope that all would come out of works-based religious organizations and come to Christ Jesus on His terms. I realize, however, that some like there status in such just fine and seem to believe that God is going to owe them Heaven.
Blessings to you, Boatbums. You didn’t deserve the ugly response ... especially since you are a Christian lady.
Glad if you read and appreciated it.
"I asked him earlier if God knew when He saved a person that that person would later commit sins."
Indeed, just as He knows what a person will do even before they are born, and though He is not willing that any should perish and delights not in the death of the wicked, yet He allows and enables souls to make choices, both the lost and the converted, and to both spurn His grace or receive it in vain, as believers are warned not to do, as explained.
Daniel, I read every single post you make that I happen upon.
Wouldn’t miss reading a one of them!
God bless you.
Well glory to God for what is good. We never know who all is reading what we write, but need to do so under the awareness that God is (and sometimes I would have changed some content, besides the typos)! And be willing to follow the Truth wherever it leads.
Except for this little crossdressing snippet:
A woman shall not wear man's clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman's clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.
--Deuteronomy 22:5 (NASB)
Source link (canon 3) https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/lateran4.asp
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