One request: When you share how pastoral care is done in your tradition, please do so from what you know, not from what “the instructions” say should be done. And be constructive and helpful.

Tell us a little about yourself, your journey as a Christian and your current ministry.

I grew up in the Midwest, in a moral, Protestant home, attending United Methodist churches. During my senior year in high school, after a move across the country that shook my foundations, I had a spiritual awakening and responded to an altar call in a Southern Baptist church, where I was re-baptized. I went to Lancaster Bible College in Pennsylvania. There, I became convinced of a call to enter the pastoral ministry. My wife and I were married after graduation, and our first congregation met in one of those historic, quaint, white steepled churches in Vermont, and there the people taught me much more about how to be a pastor than I taught them about Jesus.

After five years, we moved back to Chicago to go to seminary at Trinity in Deerfield. I was studying under some of the finest teachers in the world, pastoring a small church, our children were being born, and we had many wonderful friends supporting and encouraging us. However, there came a point after I graduated that I felt I needed some mentoring and more experience on a church staff. We also were trying to determine where we would put down roots as a family. So, when the opportunity came, we packed up and moved to Indianapolis. Here I served in a non-denominational church as the associate pastor with an emphasis on worship and music, but I also did a lot of pastoral care, teaching, and leading mission trips. Then I became the senior pastor in a sister congregation. After a rather difficult experience there, God opened up the opportunity to serve as a chaplain in a hospice program. Soon it will be five years since that journey began.

God used many past experiences to prepare and equip me for this work. In Vermont, our small church was a parish church. Because we were the only congregation in the village, I visited the sick and did funerals for all kinds of people, including complete strangers who’d had vacation homes in the mountains and wanted to be laid to rest there. We also had a significant population of older folks and shut-ins that I learned to love visiting. That was also true in the other churches where I served—I just seemed to connect well with the senior citizens. Also, while in seminary, I took my first CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) course, and was introduced to the inner workings of the hospital and how to serve patients. Since then, I have always appreciated the strong connection between medical and spiritual care.

I consider my grandmother to be one of my greatest examples for ministry. After my grandpa died rather early in life, she devoted much of her adult life to caring for her elderly neighbors, friends, and fellow parishioners. Her simple and faithful service showed me what it means to be the salt of the earth.

I have always believed that pastoral ministry is about prayer, proclamation, and people-work. As my favorite pastoral author, Eugene Peterson, says, it is not about “running a church.” Frankly, I am appalled at how these perspectives have gotten turned around in today’s church, and how little attention is given to foundational ministries like pastoral visitation. It is a forgotten art.

That is why I am glad to be in a position now where personal work can be my primary focus. Every day I visit individuals and families in their homes, in extended-care facilities, and in hospitals. My job is to enter their worlds, befriend them, show them kindness, listen to them, answer their questions when I can, and provide various kinds of spiritual support that may help them find peace at the end of life. I have often imagined that Jesus’ earthly ministry must have been like this, as he went from village to village and house to house, engaging people in their own settings, exhibiting compassion, providing healing, giving hope.

Another reason I love my job is that I work with a team of skilled and compassionate professionals who all do their parts to serve our patients and families with regard to their medical needs, psycho-social needs, personal care needs, and, after a death, needs associated with the grieving process. Hospice is a wholistic service—covering body, soul, and spirit, and respecting the processes involved in the final season of life and beyond.

1. I first thought of this interview when it occurred to me that evangelicals don’t seem to have anything close to the resources of other traditions when it comes to pastoral care of the dying? Am I right?

In my experience, most people and churches in the evangelical world have their focus on fellowship and activism. The kind of work I do doesn’t fit the model very well.

I can’t tell you how many times I have had an evangelical friend or pastor ask me, with a sour look on his face, “Do you really like doing that?” They recognize that caring for those who are seriously ill and suffering is a part of life, but it’s a part they would rather avoid and deal with only when absolutely necessary. Not a regular part of the “mission,” you might say.

They know how to put people on the prayer chain. They know how to make a meal and bring it to a family that is going through a hard time. If there is something active they can do, like get a list together of folks to help the family with errands or cleaning house, etc., they might be able to organize some practical assistance. These things can be quite helpful, and should not be looked down upon. However, beyond that, there’s not much in the paradigm, especially if you’re talking about pastoral visitation. And we haven’t even talked about ministering to dying people who are outside the church, which is not even on the radar of most pastors or congregations.

It certainly was not an emphasis in my education. We had few pastoral care courses in my evangelical Bible College and seminary. Nor is it emphasized in churches. I don’t know many evangelical churches that have programs like the Stephen Ministry for equipping believers in caring ministry. The more pervasive model seems to be that churches will support a parachurch ministry and expect the work to be done by them. It’s not really part of the church’s mission.

With regard to care for the dying, most pastors and people have not been taught that it is a good use of their time, that it is Christ-like and genuinely helpful, to simply sit with people, actively listen to their feelings, and not feel like you have to give “answers” or put the situation in an understandable theological framework so that folks might know the divine “reason” behind what is happening. Evangelicals don’t usually have a great deal of good language with which to pray for these folks, either, and it may be the rarest of things to find an evangelical worship service (or even funeral service) that contains rubrics for lament or recognition of grief and loss.

Don’t get me started on “mega-church” pastoral care. From what I’ve seen, it’s non-existent.

Now, I don’t want to be too hard on evangelicals alone here. Other traditions have more experience and better tools for being pastorally present with people, but that doesn’t mean it always happens. Mainline pastors often drop the ball here too. I’ve seen many a Roman Catholic priest do a perfunctory anointing of the sick and never really connect personally with the family. One can read the most beautiful prayer from the Book of Common Prayer without feeling or expressing any empathy whatsoever. Nevertheless, I have found that pastors and parishioners in the older traditions at least understand that this is one of the things the church and her ministers should be doing.

Ultimately, in my view, this is another area where the church (at least in the white, suburban culture with which I am most familiar) has become conformed to the death-denying, suffering-averse, productivity-centered world we live in. How is sitting with the dying gonna help build my church?

2. Is a significant part of this deficit because of evangelicals’ lack of liturgical resources?

That lack certainly doesn’t help. When most of our prayers begin, “Lord, we just want to thank you for…,” it signals that we might suffer from a lack of language to appropriately relate to life’s awesome mysteries. Purely spontaneous prayer doesn’t work because we simply don’t have words when we are in a situation that overwhelms us.

But why do we rely on that? After all, we claim to be Bible-believing people. No book on earth contains human expressions of sorrow, pain, anguish, grief, disappointment, anger, guilt, loneliness, or fear like the Bible. We just have to read it! But because we haven’t really internalized the Scriptures, we don’t know how to be human, we don’t know how to pray as real people dealing with real life before a real God.

Walter Brueggemann writes about “the formfulness of grief.” One thing we learn from Scripture is that, in the chaos of suffering, we need a sense of clarity and direction in the midst of our disorientation. So, we lament. The lament form gives us a pattern by which we may express our grief, contemplate our faith, and make a way through the wilderness of suffering. We usually don’t have the words. We’re too overcome. It hurts too much to talk. Appropriate liturgies give us profound words to speak when we can’t, words that in turn speak to us, give us perspective, and help us survive.

3. Do evangelicals have a model of a “good death” or does their theology move them in the direction of asking God for miracles?

Coming to grips with the terminality of a loved one is a process for everyone, not just evangelicals. The difficulty of the process also varies depending on the situation. Losing my 90 year-old grandmother is sad, but I probably would not suffer undue shock or dismay, especially if her death followed a normal course. I would be happy that she had lived a long life. I would rejoice in memories of what we shared in life together. I would be grateful that she was able to be comfortable and peaceful, with her pain and symptoms managed well at the time of her passing. Most of us would probably call that a “good death.” We would be concerned and sad, we would offer prayers for her and the family, but I doubt if we would be calling all-night prayer meetings asking God to intervene.

However, a young person, a woman in the prime of her life, a robust middle-aged man, a person who is not at peace with God or others…in such cases the diagnosis of a terminal condition throws us all out of whack. And it should. The question then becomes—What are our options at that point? I’m not sure there is a single “evangelical theology” that speaks to the situation.

Those whose tradition emphasizes miracles, divine intervention, and healing would likely view the situation as absolutely NOT God’s will and would marshal all their resources to fight the devil they blame for the person’s illness. Others would be more stoic and submissive. Some might emphasize trying to understand what is happening, looking for “reasons” to satisfy the Christian perspective. Most all people will bounce up and down on a roller-coaster process of anticipatory grief, needing someone to be with them for support and encouragement all along the way.

In my view, that is the bottom line. No matter where people are with regard to their specific reactions to end of life issues, no matter their theology or conditioned response to tragedy or loss, they need support. They need a calm, reasonable, caring human friend to sit with them, who is available to listen and support them. I have sat with families that have all kinds of reactions, and my approach has been fairly consistent—BE THERE. Period. Trust the process, rely on the active presence of God, and walk down the road with them.

4. At what point is it appropriate for a minister to talk about death when a family may be refusing to speak about it?

The subject usually comes up naturally if folks have access to the kind of support I just talked about—a calm, reasonable, caring human friend to sit with them, who is available to listen and support them. Occasionally, a compassionate minister or friend may need to help someone face reality and speak the truth plainly when it is being denied. But most of the time, it is clear that people know what’s going on, and they just need time until they can talk about it.

We have all kinds of people who come into hospice care, and they come from a variety of faith and non-faith backgrounds. Some are on-board and realistic from the beginning. Others say “Don’t mention death or use the word hospice. Hide your badge so mom won’t know you are from hospice.” Some refuse to sign “Do Not Resuscitate” orders because they can’t imagine not trying to bring dad back if possible. They put off making funeral arrangements or getting necessary documents together. Some don’t want the chaplain to visit. A friend of mine said he once had a patient who called the chaplain, “the sky-pilot,” the person you only see when you’re ready to be launched into the afterlife! Other folks struggle when grandma doesn’t want to eat anymore, and so they keep trying to force food into her. Many people refuse to give or take pain medications, especially morphine, because they view that as crossing the line and forsaking life.

So, in hospice we have to be gentle with people and respect their journey. We pretty much don’t force anything but emphasize giving good information and the kind of supportive presence that will give people permission to talk about things they’d rather not face. I’d recommend ministers and friends do the same. Again, it’s not efficient. It takes time. But it is loving, and the “small miracles” we see every day of people being helped and supported through some of the toughest experiences of their lives are worth as much as seeing Lazarus come forth.

5. You deal with many people with little or no faith resources for approaching death. What is your pastoral care strategy in that situation?

First, let me make a foundational statement about what a chaplain is and is not.

Because I am not a pastor in a local church but work for a healthcare organization, I must approach things differently than a minister would. A church pastor has a covenant relationship with his people and serves them with a whole system of theological understandings and expectations in place. A chaplain, on the other hand, must honor the spiritual and religious commitments of patients (even those that he might deem wrong), and serve them according to their own faith traditions. So, if I get a Buddhist patient, unless she wants to talk about the Christian view of God and salvation, it is not my job to force that on her. I will ask if she wants support from someone in her own religious community. Only if she asks me, or I get her permission, will I share my faith with her.

Secondly, let me lay a theological foundation for the way I approach everyone.

The doctrines that have guided me from the beginning in this work are the Bible’s teachings on creation and common grace. God created each human being in his image, and by his grace and providence he sustains us all. I meet and deal with people first based on our common humanity under God. Every person is my neighbor, and I am called, simply, to love my neighbor. Being a chaplain means involves specific ways of doing that. It’s more of a “love your neighbor” ministry than a “win the lost” ministry (though I’m not always sure about the dichotomy).

Furthermore, because I believe in common grace, I do not understand my job as bringing God to people. He is already with them, and he is already working, no matter who they are. To reference Eugene Peterson again, my duty is (1) to recognize that God has gone before me in every encounter, (2) to discover some of what God is doing in that person’s world, and (3) to figure out how to best cooperate with God in what he is trying to accomplish.

So, when I have a new patient and family without a faith background, I meet them on their turf as neighbor and friend. I do not have an agenda, other than to listen and learn how I might be of assistance. I tell them I am available as a spiritual and pastoral resource, if that is what they want and need, but my main job is simply to be there with them for support. I always offer to pray for them (and ask their permission to do so), and I try to make my prayers personal, filled with Biblical language, and focused on God’s love for people and his promises to be with us in Christ.

I find that this kind of approach often leads to more discussion about “spiritual things” than if I would try to force the matter. One joyful consequence is that I have been asked to do many funerals for un-churched folks, and at the funerals I always try to clearly present the story of Jesus, his salvation, and the hope of eternal life.

I’m not sure evangelicals in general think in these terms. We are often weak on creation and common grace. Instead we see God mainly at work within the community that is separated from the world. We also identify his work primarily with specific “spiritual” matters that we focus on. We sometimes don’t do well simply as human beings living among fellow human beings who are our neighbors, all walking together through the common experiences of life. We are often too “spiritual” for our own good, and for the good of others.

6. What sorts of things make the process of grief difficult for evangelicals?

In my first grief support group, I learned something as I listened to folks talk—It is hard to go to church after losing a loved one. I’ve heard that particularly from those who’ve lost spouses.

* First of all, nobody knows how to relate to Joe anymore now that it’s no longer “Joe and Mary.”
* Second, few know what to say, and this leads to many awkward and some hurtful encounters.
* Third, you (the bereaved) don’t know what to say either, especially when the song leader keeps telling you to smile and be happy in Jesus, and all your brothers and sisters keep saying over and over again, “Remember, she’s in a better place.”
* Fourth, you have to sit through something alone that you had always done together; and if your spouse ever sang in the choir or did something up front regularly, then it’s hard to be there and watch others take her place.
* Fifth, the church revolves around fellowship and activism. But you would rather be alone, and you don’t have the strength to teach middle-schoolers right now. You don’t fit any longer.
* Sixth, since the church is “focused on the family,” you feel like a fifth wheel all the time when you are around other adults.
* Seventh, you have to sit and listen to the “7-Day Sex Challenge” sermon series and other such silly talks from the pulpit.

I have heard some incredible stories. A woman I know lost her young son in a tragic accident. Not long afterward, she went to church and stayed in the sanctuary after the service, crying there in the pew. The pastor came by and said, “Now, now, let’s not forget our witness.” That may be the cruelest sentence I have ever heard pass between one human being and another.

Other clichés or stupid remarks well-meaning Christians use include,

* “She’s in a better place.” That’s right. By faith we trust that our believing loved ones are being comforted in God’s presence. But what about the bereaved? Is he in a better place?
* “God never gives us anything more than we can bear.” Really? Then why does Paul exhort us to “bear one another’s burdens”? Some things must be too heavy for one person to carry alone. Don’t throw it off on God. He may be asking you to lend a hand.
* “I know exactly how you feel.” No you don’t. Not even close. If you did, you wouldn’t say that, you’d probably just join the crying and give the bereaved a hug.
* “I remember when so and so died…” Guess what? No one wants to hear your story right now. This is not about you, or someone else. This is about someone drowning in loss.
* “Just call if I can be of any help.” Let me clue you in on something. This person does not have strength to pick up the phone and ask for help. This is time for others to take the initiative. Help or don’t help. But be quiet about it.

I tell grieving people all the time just to expect that people will say stupid things and not to take it too personally. Most folks are downright pitiful when it comes to knowing what to say at times like this. Add to that our discomfort with the whole death and dying thing, and the fact that it doesn’t fit into our paradigm of church activities, and the result is usually not a pretty picture.

The overriding issue is that we have lost all sense of the time and energy involved in the process of grief, and we have not allowed space in our lives to let people grieve the way they need to. There is usually a big rush of caring and expressions of sympathy in the first week or two after someone experiences a loss, but then, since we have to get back to our lives, we expect that the bereaved will somehow just magically “get over it” and get back to his.

Other faith communities have learned to do it better. For example, Orthodox Jews have an entire 12-month process of tradition and liturgy for the grieving, which is lived out by the bereaved and faith community alike. However, in evangelicalism the issue again becomes, “How does allowing someone the time and space to grieve fit into our paradigm of fellowship and activism?”

7. If death has come in tragedy, how can evangelical ministers acknowledge that kind of loss while also upholding hope?

As a hospice chaplain, I don’t deal with a lot of sudden deaths, accidents, and the like. I have as a pastor. In the moment, helping people in these circumstances likewise involves finding a way to serve with true human compassion. By God’s grace, I want to be that reasonable, levelheaded, quiet and supportive presence, who can walk faithfully with those going through the tragedy.

A woman in our church had a grandson who died in an automobile accident. She asked me to come to the home where all the relatives, friends, and church members were arriving to be with the family. This was a very expressive bunch, temperamentally and theologically, and the room was filled with wailing and crying and people letting out their emotions in unrestrained ways. What did I do? For most of the evening, I stood with my back to a wall, off to the side and was simply present. Every once in awhile I quietly greeted someone with a hug or pat on the shoulder, but that was about it. I literally did nothing. Yet, if you would ask that woman today what she remembers most about me being her pastor for more than 9 years, she would tell you it was all the help I gave her that night.

After a tragedy, it is important that the pastor and folks in the church realize that the bereaved who are left behind will need support that may require extraordinary attention in the short-term and consistent loving care for the long haul. Hope doesn’t come through words alone, but through a solid and reliable support group that sticks with the hurting.

Having said that, words are also important. Regular participation in the liturgy, which rehearses the fundamental truths of the Gospel over and over again, week after week, and which enables people to feed on God’s saving and sustaining presence through Word and Sacrament, can provide genuine help in reorienting those whose lives have become radically disoriented by tragedy.

8. How does the Gospel inform your work as a hospice chaplain?

The Gospel is the announcement that, in Jesus, God’s new creation has broken into this fallen, dying creation. Through Jesus Christ, the promised new day of God’s rule has dawned, and because of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Spirit, he has dealt the decisive blow to sin, evil, and death, and is creating a new people who will be with him forever in a new heavens and new earth. Until that new creation is revealed in its fullness, those made new by Jesus are called to live in this fallen world as God’s representatives. It is through his new people that God fulfills his mission of taking this Gospel to all the hidden corners of the world, announcing and creating newness everywhere.

That is a grand plan and vocation, but its outworking could not be more down-to-earth. Jesus said the Kingdom unfolds in small, hidden, subversive, often undetectable ways. A primary way it spreads is when one person made new humbles himself to serve another person in need. The Gospel doesn’t set us above other people, it sends us to kneel before them so that we might wash their feet. It doesn’t make us less human, but more fully human; doesn’t separate us from the world around us, but sends us into every part of that world to love and serve our neighbors.

And that’s why I love what I do so much. As a hospice chaplain, it is my privilege to go into places where people are hurting, crying, dying. By God’s grace, I pray that I may announce and create a bit of newness each day for those bound by sin and death. That’s Gospel ministry to me.

I wish I knew better how to translate this into counsel for every church, pastor, and Christian. In my view we need to abandon the misguided missions that intoxicate us, and come back to Gospel basics. Forget “building a great church.” Share the good news. Visit the sick. Give relief to the suffering. Sit with the dying. Comfort the bereaved. Be generous to those in need. Be hospitable. Love your neighbor. Live in fully human ways among your fellow human beings under God.

This is not a new “law,” but the Gospel lived out, the “Jesus-shaped” way that the Spirit constrains us to pursue.

My sincere thanks to Bryan Cross and all the commenters in this discussion. The majority of our discussion has been constructive and helpful. Of course, there are deep feelings at work in these issues and some commenters reflect various levels of understanding other traditions and various levels of being able to communicate without rancor.

This final post deals with three issues causing continuing disagreement: Marian devotion, the doctrine of purgatory and the nature of the Catholic Eucharist.

10. Most Protestants would see three major impediments to reunion: Tradition in relation to scripture, the Papacy and the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Laying these aside, give me a quick assessment of three other issues that may be less intractable:

1) Marian devotion

As you know, some Protestants are coming to appreciate more deeply the Catholic Church’s historical understanding of Mary’s significance. (See “Do Whatever He Tells You: The Blessed Virgin Mary in Christian Faith and Life, A Statement of Evangelicals and Catholics Together” in First Things, November, 2009.) Part of that, I think, is due to greater dialogue between Catholics and Protestants. Some Protestants are more sympathetic to understanding Mary as the second Eve, the ark of the New Covenant, and the theological implications of her being the Theotokos. Some are open to the possibility of her perpetual virginity. But the Catholic dogmas concerning Mary’s immaculate conception and assumption are much more difficult for Protestants. Part of this is because of the sola scriptura paradigm in which a doctrine needs to be taught explicitly in Scripture in order for it to be part of Christian belief or at least a required part of Christian belief. More importantly, perhaps, Protestants are concerned that focus on Mary could detract from focus on Christ. That’s why even terms like ‘Marian devotion’ sometimes elicit immediate negative emotional reactions from some Protestants.

From a Catholic point of view, anyone who loves Jesus, will love His mother, for His sake. And essentially that is what devotion is, i.e. love. Jesus was devoted to His mother, not just out of duty, but because as the perfect man He saw perfectly and continually the great gift she had given to Him, the sacrifice she made for Him. He loved her for what He shared with her, from her. He knew Himself more perfectly than any man ever has, and He loved Himself more than any man ever has. Knowing Himself, He continually saw her in Himself, in His humanity. And so she too is the object of His love, not just in His divine will as God, but in His human will as man. That is why loving Christ naturally includes loving His mother. He did not treat love for His mother as detracting from His love of Himself, but as part of the very expression of His perfect self-love. This is why Catholics do not view devotion to Christ’s mother as detracting from our love for Christ, but as an expression of our love for Christ. Because we (the Church) are Christ’s Body and by baptism are incorporated into His Body, therefore, in our baptism, Mary becomes our mother too. As Catholics we believe that when Jesus on the cross said to John, “Behold, your mother,” He was not only entrusting care of Mary to John. He was saying something more profound, to the whole Church, namely, “Behold, your mother.”

Honoring Mary honors Christ, because Mary is known to history only for the sake of her Son. She is known precisely because she is the Theotokos. So honoring her is a way of proclaiming the gospel that God became man. And since it is right to treat a thing according to what it is, so Mary deserves to receive the honor of Theotokos. Catholics and Protestants all agree that Mary is not divine, and therefore should not be treated as though she is divine. But we do not have to choose between treating Mary as divine or treating her as just any other woman. Mary is deserving of more honor than any other saint, but of course she is never to receive the adoration that is reserved exclusively for God.

Between Catholics and Protestants there is some disagreement concerning the meaning of “communion of the saints” in the Apostles’ Creed. Again this is partly due to the underlying difference regarding the sola scriptura paradigm, partly due to worries about necromancy, and partly due to concern that attention directed to the saints in heaven detracts from Christ’s unique mediatorial role. For reasons of time and space I cannot address those here, but I think there is good reason for hope for greater agreement on this point. Christ’s defeat of death and our union to Him through faith and baptism joins us in a mysterious way to all who are united to Him, even those whose bodies now rest in the earth. That’s a beautiful mystery, an amazing foretaste of the joyous reunion of all the saints when Christ returns.

2) Purgatory

Here too I think there is good reason for a convergence between Catholics and Protestants. More Protestant scholars are writing about the subject of purgatory as a completion of our sanctification. The standing Protestant-Catholic disagreement regarding this doctrine here again is partly based on the more fundamental paradigm difference concerning whether every doctrine needs to be taught explicitly in Scripture. But we all agree on two things: first, that we cannot enter heaven without being perfectly sanctified, and second, that at least most of those who die in a state of grace leave this earthly life not yet perfectly sanctified. So it follows that we all agree that for most of us who die in friendship with God, some kind of cleaning up has to be done between the moment of death and entrance into heaven. So the substance of the disagreement is about whether that cleaning up takes place instantaneously or takes some time. And at that point it seems clear that the disagreement is not a schism-justifying dispute.

The more difficult part of this disagreement is that from a Protestant point of view, the Catholic doctrine of purgatory seems to make Christ’s work on the cross incomplete or insufficient. It seems to suggest that Christ only paid for some percentage of my sins, and left the remainder for me to pay for in purgatory. And that seems to detract from the greatness of Christ’s work on the cross. From a Catholic point of view, Christ has graciously allowed us in this present life to participate in His sufferings, through the various sufferings we endure here. This is why our sufferings in this present life are not meaningless or pointless. The Protestant conception of Christ’s work is substitution-as-replacement, while the Catholic conception is more properly understood as substitution-for-participation. And in my opinion this difference is one reason why Protestantism is more susceptible to a Health & Wealth way of thinking about suffering than is Catholicism. In the Catholic mind, our present sufferings are a gift to us by which we are further sanctified and by which we are more deeply joined to Christ. And so Catholics see the period of cleansing in purgatory in the same way, not as detracting from the work of Christ, but as participating in it. There is much more to say here, but I don’t have space. I think as Protestants come to reflect more on the Catholic notion of participating in Christ’s sufferings, it will help overcome the concern that a time of cleansing after death would detract from the finished work of Christ.

3) the Eucharist as a true sacrifice

The disagreement here too is partly based on misunderstanding, and partly based on different conceptions of participation. These underlie the disagreement about what takes place in this sacrament. Some Protestants mistakenly believe that the Catholic teaching is that Christ is re-sacrificed at every Mass. And the notion of Christ being re-sacrificed seems clearly to be in conflict with what the writer of Hebrews says:

“By that will [i.e. Christ's] we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God . . . For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.” (Hebrews 10:9-14)

But here is how the Catechism explains the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist:

The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.” “And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner.” (CCC 1367)

The Catholic doctrine concerning the Eucharist is not that it is a re-sacrifice of Christ, but rather that it is our present participation in the very once-and-for-all sacrifice that Christ offered on the cross to His Father. How this takes place is a mystery. That is why it is called a sacrament, a word that means mystery. In the Person of the incarnate Christ, the eternal is conjoined with the temporal, without one eliminating the other. By that nexus of time and eternity upon the tree at Calvary, we now, through the sacraments Christ has instituted to be celebrated perpetually until He returns, are brought under that tree. In a mystery we are washed in the water that flowed from His side, and in a mystery we are nourished on His Body and Blood in an unbloody manner. Through these sacraments, drawn from the side of the New Adam while He slept, God the Father is forming a Bride for His Son. So for Catholics the Eucharist is the sacramental means Christ established by which we participate in His holy and perfect sacrifice, and by which we receive His divine life, i.e. grace, and by which we are knitted together in charity into His one Mystical Body. This is the meaning of St. Paul’s statement, “Since there is one Bread, we who are many are one Body; for we all partake of the one Bread.” (1 Cor 10:17) If the Eucharist were not a participating in His once-for-all sacrifice, but merely a remembrance of what He did, then in the Eucharist we would not receive His divine life, nor would it knit us together in His Mystical Body.

9. What should every Protestant know about Vatican II?

The Second Vatican Council took place from 1963-1965, and was the twenty-first ecumenical council, following the First Vatican Council in 1869-70. Vatican II produced sixteen documents; among the most well-known are:

Sacrosanctum concilium, Sacred Liturgy, 1963.
Lumen Gentium, On the Church, 1964.
Unitatis Redintegratio, Ecumenism, 1964.
Dei Verbum, Dogmatic Constitution On Divine Revelation, 1965.
Dignitatis Humanae, On Religious Freedom, 1965.
Gaudium et Spes, On the Church In the Modern World,1965.

The three most important documents with respect to Protestants are Lumen Gentium, Unitatis Redintegratio, and Dei Verbum. I’ll say a little about each of those three. In its first section Lumen Gentium contains the following statement about the identity of the Church:

This is the sole Church of Christ which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour, after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd, and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority, which He erected for all ages as ‘the pillar and mainstay of the truth.’ This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him” (Lumen Gentium, 8

Some people have misunderstood the meaning of the words “subsists in,” interpreting it to mean that Christ’s Church could or does subsist in many different institutions. But the Church clarified this in 2007, explaining that the Catholic Church governed by the successor of St. Peter is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church that Christ founded, and that nevertheless there are “numerous elements of sanctification and of truth” which are found outside her structure, but which “as gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, impel towards Catholic Unity.”

Protestants should know that the Catholic Church teaches in this document that whoever knows that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, and refuses to enter it or remain in it, cannot be saved. (Lumen Gentium, 14) This is not merely saying that whoever does not follow his conscience cannot be saved. It is saying something about the absolute uniqueness of the Catholic Church: whoever discovers that the Catholic Church is the Church Christ founded as necessary for salvation, cannot be saved without entering it and remaining in it. To the ears of some people that sounds arrogant. But we should recognize that the statement is arrogant only if it is not true. If it is true, then it is no more arrogant than Christ claiming to be the way, the truth and the life. At the very least, this statement in Lumen Gentium requires of all Christians that they investigate the claims of the Catholic Church to be the Church that Christ founded as necessary for salvation.

The document, Unitatis Redintegratio, on ecumenism, opens with this well-known paragraph:

The restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council. Christ the Lord founded one Church and one Church only. However, many Christian communions present themselves to men as the true inheritors of Jesus Christ; all indeed profess to be followers of the Lord but differ in mind and go their different ways, as if Christ Himself were divided. Such division openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages the holy cause of preaching the Gospel to every creature. (Unitatis Redintegratio, 1)

That summarizes perfectly the heart of ecumenism, from a Catholic point of view. The document goes on to discuss the Catholic principles of ecumenism, and how to implement them. It states that those who believe in Christ and have been truly baptized are placed in an imperfect communion with the Church. The second half of the document discusses the relation between the Catholic Church and the Eastern [Orthodox] Churches not in communion with the successor of St. Peter, and between the Catholic Church and Protestants. To be clear, the word ‘Church’ can refer either to a particular Church, e.g. a diocese, of which there are many, or it can refer to the Catholic Church, which is the universal Church Christ founded, and to which all particular Churches should belong. The Church at Rome is a particular Church within the Catholic Church, and the bishop of the Church at Rome holds the office of visible head of the Catholic Church. (CCC, 881-882) Unitatis Redintegratio draws a distinction between those Christians who have preserved apostolic succession and those who have not, because of the need for apostolic succession in order to consecrate the Eucharist validly. This is why Orthodox Churches are called Churches, and Protestant groups are not called “Churches,” but communities.

The last of these three documents, Dei Verbum, explained the relation between Scripture, Tradition and the Church’s Magisterium. In this document we see the Catholic paradigm regarding the role of the oral Tradition handed down from the Apostles to the bishops. For Catholics this Tradition is also authoritative and provides a hermeneutical context in which to understand Scripture. This is the contrasting paradigm to the Protestant paradigm in which something must be taught explicitly in Scripture in order to be doctrine. One notable paragraph relevant to the Protestant-Catholic dialogue has to do with the role of the Magisterium in providing the authorized interpretation of Scripture.

The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith. (Dei Verbum, 10)

This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the episcopal successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome. By Christ’s authorization through apostolic succession, it belongs to them alone to provide the authentic interpretation of the deposit of faith.

Finally, every Protestant should know two more things about Vatican II. First, Vatican II did not infallibly define any doctrine. It did not intend to do so. Any infallible teaching contained in the documents of the Council had already been infallibly defined previously. Second, Vatican II did not retract or deny any previous Catholic doctrine. In other words, Vatican II should be understood according to the hermeneutic of continuity, as developing and clarifying the received doctrine of the Church, not as retracting or denying any previous doctrine. Some Protestants seem to think that Vatican II moved the Catholic Church away from previous Catholic doctrines and toward Protestant positions. Based on this [mistaken] conception of Vatican II, these Protestants are holding out for the Catholic Church to become more Protestant in the future, and for the eventual reunion of Protestants and Catholics to take place by way of a recognition by the Catholic Church of the legitimacy of all Protestant denominations. This speculation is based on a serious misunderstanding of Vatican II. In Vatican II the Church developed in her understanding of the positive elements of the faith contained in Protestant traditions, and of the state of Protestants viz-a-viz the Catholic Church. But this is not the same thing as moving toward Protestantism, and should not be interpreted as such. The Church does not have the power to retract any doctrine on faith or morals, once defined by the Magisterium.

For a number of years now, thousands of Anglicans have been asking the Holy See to allow them to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving unique aspects of the Anglican tradition. One factor that held up that request was the possibility that the Anglican communion would move in a more traditional direction (and hence toward greater agreement with the Catholic Church). But when the vote at last year’s Lambeth Conference showed that Anglicans had chosen to accept female bishops, the Anglican communion showed itself to have chosen to move further toward Protestantism, and depart further from apostolic succession. Pope Benedict apparently decided that the present prospects for the reunion of Canterbury with Rome are such that they will not be significantly worsened by opening the doors to Anglicans who wish to preserve elements of their Anglican patrimony in full communion with the Holy See. Pope Benedict’s fundamental motivation here is just what he said in his first address as pope, “The current Successor [to John Paul II] assumes as his primary commitment that of working tirelessly towards the reconstitution of the full and visible unity of all Christ’s followers.” He is seeking to be a minister of Christ’s peace in the fulfilling of Christ’s prayer in John 17.

6. You do not impress me as being someone particularly impressed with all of the “convert apologetics” movement in the RCC. What’s your assessment of ministries like Catholic Answers?

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that there is some kind of “convert apologetics” movement in the Catholic Church. There are many converts to Catholicism, like myself, and understandably, we wish to share with others what we have discovered. We wish to see all Christians in full communion with the Church and with each other, and the present schisms resolved. Of course among some new converts there is zeal without sufficient knowledge. The solution to that problem, however, is not to reduce the zeal, but for such persons to develop a more thorough understanding of the faith, and a genuine sensitivity to the positions and personal situations of those who do not agree. Not everyone is called to be a professional theologian or historian or philosopher, but that shouldn’t prevent anyone from sharing his or her faith. In my opinion ministries like Catholic Answers have their proper place, because they are helping a great many people (Catholics and Protestants) find answers to questions about what the Church teaches and why she teaches it. That does not nullify the importance of academic work in these areas; over-simplification is a context-dependent term. In some ways, ministries like Catholic Answers can help serve as a bridge between lay persons and scholars.

7. Imagine that a large evangelical church brought you in to speak to the entire church on Protestant-Catholic relations/unity. What would be the main points you would cover?

I would first talk about the importance of unity as a constitutive element of the gospel itself, as I did to your earlier question. Then I would talk about the tragedy of the separation of Protestants and Catholics at the Reformation, and why love for Christ requires that Protestants and Catholics should be striving with all our effort to be reconciled in true unity and unity in the truth. Then I would talk about what I see as the fundamental reasons for the present division, first by laying out the two paradigms with respect to ecclesiology, ecclesial authority, ecclesial unity, and soteriology. These things cannot rightly be compared piecemeal; they have to be compared within their respective paradigms, and especially in view of the writings of the early Church Fathers. That’s why I think Protestants and Catholics need to understand both paradigms, in order effectively to reason together about them.

Here’s an example. In the Catholic paradigm, apostolic succession is a crucial component, because it is the basis for ecclesial authority, and thus for determining how other questions should be answered. Protestants do not accept apostolic succession, primarily because they do not find it in Scripture. So when Protestants find apostolic succession in the early Church Fathers, Protestants tend to view that as an accretion of some sort, not as an essential part of the deposit of faith. But from the Catholic point of view, the very stance of the Protestant who requires that something be clearly taught in Scripture in order to believe it, is already a departure from what has been the Church’s belief and practice since the beginning, that is, the practice of understanding Scripture as informed by those shepherds having apostolic succession. For this reason we can see that each side appears, from the point of view of the other side, to be begging the question, i.e. assuming precisely what is in question. In that sort of situation, cannot simply throw verses at each other; we have to step back and compare paradigms. I recently did something similar to that regarding the subject of justification, in my reply to “All the Romery People.”

8. What are some books or authors you would recommend to Protestants in the audience?

The following books may be helpful in clarifying the Catholic faith more fully for Protestants.

Where We Got the Bible: Our Debt to the Catholic Church, by Henry Graham.
The Early Church Fathers (Three Volumes), by William Jurgens.
A History of Christendom (Five Volumes), by Warren Carroll.
Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, by Louis Bouyer.
The Catholic Church and Conversion, by G.K. Chesterton
Evangelical is Not Enough, by Thomas Howard.
Upon This Rock, by Stephen Ray.
The Russian Church and the Papacy, by Vladimir Soloviev.
Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man, by Henri de Lubac.
The Life of Faith, by Romano Guardini.
Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition, by Matthew Lamb and Matthew Levering.
Covenant and Communion: The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI, by Scott Hahn.

2. Does Christian Unity mean “Protestants becoming Roman Catholics?”

In the Creed we refer to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. Those are the four marks of the Church. Unity as a mark of the Church refers to unity of faith, unity of sacraments, and unity of government. These three correspond to the three roles of prophet, priest, and king; all three roles came together in Christ, and remain together in His Church. Even if we share the same faith, and the same sacraments, until we are one in government we are still divided. This is why the Novatians and Donatists were in schism from the Church, not branches of the Church. Unity of ecclesial government requires unity under the bishop having the highest ecclesial authority. Jesus gave this highest ecclesial authority to the apostle St. Peter, when He gave to St. Peter the keys of the Kingdom. That is why the episcopal successor of St. Peter is the divinely established principle of unity for the Church. The only way to avoid being in schism is to be in full communion with the successor of St. Peter. For this reason the Catechism defines ’schism’ as “the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.” (CCC, 2089) Schism is a term rarely used today, but in order to pursue unity we have to recover an understanding of that term, and the unitive principle by which remaining in the Church is distinguished from being in schism from the Church. So the first part of the answer to your question is that full communion with the bishop of Rome is a necessary condition for Christian unity.

However, the Catholic Church includes within it the Latin Church and twenty-two Eastern Catholic Churches, all in full communion with the successor of St. Peter. Strictly speaking, Eastern Catholics are not Roman Catholics; Roman Catholic is reserved for the Latin Church. So in that sense full unity does not require becoming Roman Catholic, but it does require full communion with the successor of St. Peter.

3. There seems to be some tension in Roman Catholicism over the subject of Christian unity. For instance, many Protestants embrace Thomas Merton as a spiritual mentor, but I’ve found many Catholics who are suspicious of him. Are there differing approaches to unity among conservative and liberal tribes in the RCC?

I do not use the terms ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ to refer to orthodoxy and heterodoxy, because those former terms have political connotations that are misleading when applied to the Church. Different Catholic thinkers and writers sometimes emphasize different truths of the Catholic faith, but if they are orthodox, they give at least “religious submission of mind and will” to the teaching of the Church’s Magisterium (i.e. the Church’s living, teaching office). And that is fully compatible with recognizing and affirming what is good and true in other faith traditions, a quality for which Merton was known. As for matters concerning which the Church has not spoken, Catholics may hold any positions. Unfortunately there are some Catholics who either do not understand the Church’s ecclesiology or do not accept it. The errors can be found on both ends of the Church’s teaching. On one end there are a few Catholics who mistakenly think that perhaps no Protestants are saved. On the other end there are some Catholics who think either that all Protestants are Catholics-but-just-don’t-know-it, or that the Catholic Church is just one denomination among many. None of those is the Church’s teaching concerning herself. These errors are the result of poor catechesis, and they lead to confusion among Protestants concerning what the Catholic Church actually teaches.

The Catholic Church believes and teaches that she is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ, who renamed Simon as Peter, and designated him to be the rock upon which Christ would build His Church, and to whom He gave the keys of the Kingdom. Those four marks of the Church are essential to the Church, and cannot be lost. That entails that the Church can never be divided, because she can never lose her unity. The essential unity of the Church and St. Peter’s authority are interrelated. In every schism, should it endure for any length of time, whoever separates from the successor of St. Peter is, by that very fact, in schism from the Church. Whoever remains with the successor of St. Peter, by that very fact, remains with the Church. Since every schism is a separation from the Church, the Church’s unity is undiminished by schism. Nevertheless, Christian disunity is a stumbling block to the world. Full communion among the followers of Christ, from a Catholic point of view, means nothing less than being in the Church Christ founded, sharing the same faith, the same sacraments, and the same government. The teaching of the Catholic Church regarding her ecclesiology and unity can be found in the following documents, which are all available in English online: Satis Cognitum (1896), Mortalium Animus (1928), Mystici Corporis Christi (1943), Lumen Gentium (1964), Unitatis Redintegratio (1964), Ut Unum Sint (1995), Dominus Iesus (2000), Responsa ad quaestiones (2007).

4. Many Protestants come to a place where they view the Reformation as the greatest moment in church history, and many Catholics view it as an event entirely inspired by the devil. What is a balanced view of the Reformation that both Protestants and Catholics could work toward embracing?

What Protestants and Catholics should be working toward with respect to understanding the Reformation is the truth about what happened. The only path to true reunion of Protestants and Catholics is unity based on truth. There were in the Church abuses that needed to be corrected. Various bishops were corrupt, immoral and overly involved in civil government and acquiring personal wealth. The training of priests was in lamentable condition, and superstitions and ignorance were common among the lay people. The Church was clearly in need of reform, and the Reformers were correct to point out such things. These reforms were taken up by the Council of Trent, and when we read through the documents produced by each of the sessions of Trent, we see that not only matters of doctrine but also matters of reform were addressed in almost each session. And many people, including St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Philip Neri, St. Francis de Sales, and St. Vincent de Paul helped reform the Church from within, in what is rather misleadingly called the “Counter-Reformation.” So the Church most certainly needed reforming. That is true, and both Protestants and Catholics can and should agree on that.

Another truth that needs to be recognized universally is that a schism took place between Protestants and Catholics. Much more can be said about this than in this context, but the first step in reconciling the division is acknowledging that a division occurred. From a Protestant point of view, the gospel had been hidden from the people under ceremonies and traditions. Then at the Council of Trent the Church declared the gospel to be anathema, and so separation from the Catholic Church was necessary. From a Catholic point of view, even if the gospel had been hidden to some degree, schism from the Church Christ founded is never justified, and the Council of Trent gave a definitive clarification concerning what is the orthodox understanding of the gospel. There is no ‘balanced view’ possible on this point of disagreement, because on the matter of schism, and on the points of doctrine where they disagreed, either the Protestants were right and the Catholic were wrong, or vice versa. In the one paradigm, the Church at the Council of Trent fell into apostasy, and the pope became a kind of anti-Christ. In the other paradigm, the Council of Trent defined soteriological orthodoxy, and those who rejected Trent thereby showed themselves to be in heresy, just as had those who rejected prior ecumenical councils.

That’s what makes the schism seem at first to be irresolvable, and why it has endured this long. But there is a way forward, I think, and that involves finding the fundamental underlying causes for the disagreement, and the common ground by which to reason together to determine together who was wrong and who was right. Doctrinally, much common ground regarding justification has already been recognized in the Joint Declaration on Justification between Lutherans and Catholics in 1999. And the same is true of the 1994 Evangelicals & Catholics Together document. These are important steps forward in finding and affirming doctrinal common ground. We should also acknowledge the particular gifts that develop in the various Christian traditions, even while recognizing that these gifts can find their full and proper expression only in full communion. Diversity should not be confused with division, and full communion should not be conceived of as restricting the flourishing of various gifts within the Body of Christ.

To effect reconciliation between Protestants and Catholics, the fundamental underlying causes of the division must themselves be addressed, because the differences are not merely first-order differences (i.e. within the same paradigm), but meta-level differences (i.e. not in the same paradigm). These are fundamental differences upon which all the others depend. That’s why examining Scripture together will only get us so far; it won’t resolve the schism because the schism is rooted in paradigmatic differences we bring to Scripture. These fundamental differences involve different conceptions of the authority of the Church with respect to the interpretation of Scripture and the defining of doctrine, the basis for that interpretive authority, the nature of the Church as the Body of Christ, and the relation of Christ to His Church.

Resolving these underlying disagreements upon which the others depend requires, in my opinion, turning to history, to that time prior to the separation, when we were still united. Only if we look back (not in the sense of turning the clock back, but in the sense of remembering together) in history to the point where we were united can we then proceed forward discursively and evaluate together, from a shared conceptual point of view according to shared criteria, the actions of our ancestors in our respective ecclesial traditions. In my opinion, that requires going back much further than the 16th century; it requires nothing less than mutual investigation and understanding of the Church in the first four centuries after Christ. Protestants tend to think of the Protestant-Catholic differences as arising in the sixteenth century, but I think a careful study of the Church Fathers shows that many aspects of Catholicism presently rejected by Protestants go back even to the first century. And that requires us to consider in what way Christ remains with His Church until the end of the age, leads her into all truth and prevents the gates of Hades from prevailing against her so that she remains the pillar and bulwark of truth of which St. Paul speaks. My point here is that in order to go forward together, we must first look back together.

Part 3 on the way….

A few days ago I asked Catholic blogger and philosopher Bryan Cross to do an interview here at IM on the subject of Christian Unity. Bryan blogs at Principium Unitatis. Bryan is a prolific writer and was gracious to do the interview. He’s given me enough content for several posts, so I am going to divide the interview into three parts. In part one, Bryan will talk about his journey from Pentecostal to Calvinist to Anglican to Catholic. Then I’ll post his answer to my first question on his personal passion for Christian unity.

Bryan is a patient teacher and apologist. Obviously, many IM readers will disagree with parts of his presentation while others will applaud. Having given articulate Lutherans and Anglicans space this year, I want to give Bryan time to talk about his personal mission of promoting church unity and reunion in the Catholic Church.

Some of you may want to read Bryan’s response to the “All the Romery People” piece at Mockingbird.

Thanks for coming to Internet Monk.com for this interview, Bryan. Take a couple of paragraphs and tell us your basic story, what you are doing now and about your family.

Thanks Michael for the invitation. I’ve enjoyed reading Internet Monk.com for the last couple years. I’m grateful for the opportunity to contribute to it in this way.

I was raised in the Pentecostal tradition. On both my mother’s and father’s sides my family was involved in the early stages of Pentecostalism in the first part of the twentieth century. In our family it was considered essential to know Scripture. My siblings and I were consistently taught Scripture since as early as I can remember. We attended church twice Sunday, and Wednesday nights, and attended Sunday school every week. We went to all the revivals and all the vacation Bible-schools. So my family and the Pentecostal tradition gave me a thorough familiarity with the Bible, a healthy fear of God and a disposition to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit.

During my undergraduate education at the University of Michigan, I was exposed to Christians of all different traditions, and this raised a number of questions for me. By the end of my senior year, I was reading various books on theology, and I became convinced that Reformed covenantal theology was more biblical than the dispensational theology in which I had been raised. For the following three years my wife and I led an international student fellowship composed of students from Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan. During that time I continued to read books on Reformed theology. By the end of that three years, I came to see that if I was going to be a pastor, I needed much better theological training. So we moved to St. Louis where I studied at Covenant Theological Seminary for four years, earning an M.Div.

In my last year of seminary, I took a graduate philosophy class at Saint Louis University on the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas. Studying Aquinas raised many questions regarding the Reformed tradition. I couldn’t answer those questions at the time, but it was clear to me that there was at least a deep tension between the philosophical and theological positions and methods of the Reformers, and those of Aquinas. I had hoped that a rigorous study of the biblical languages and exegesis would provide the means to resolve interpretive disagreements between the Christian traditions. I had poured myself into exegesis with that hope, so much so that at graduation the seminary faculty honored me with the exegesis award. But I began to see the implicit role that philosophy was playing in our interpretation of Scripture. My belief as a seminarian was that other Christian traditions didn’t agree with us (Presbyterians) primarily because they didn’t know exegesis as well as we did. At the seminary we believed that exegesis was on our side, that it was exegesis that validated our position over and against that of all the other Christian traditions. But when I began to see the degree to which philosophy was playing an implicit role in our interpretation of Scripture, my beliefs that exegesis was a neutral objective science, and that it was sufficient to adjudicate interpretive disputes, began to crumble. So I decided to study philosophy, in order to get a better understanding of the relation of philosophy to theology throughout the history of the Church. If I couldn’t avoid bringing philosophy into exegesis, at least I was going to do my best to bring in true philosophy.

I completed the internship required for ordination and continued to teach Sunday school at the Presbyterian church we were attending. But at that point I decided not to pursue ordination, because for me there were too many theological questions unanswered. Two years after finishing seminary, my youngest daughter went through a very seriousness illness, and during the following year I went through what I would call an intellectual crisis concerning theology and the ecclesial practice of Christianity. It wasn’t a personal faith-crisis; my belief in Christ and love for Him was never in question. At the time, I couldn’t have explained exactly what was the problem. Anglicanism and Catholicism were not even on my conceptual horizon. I knew that I didn’t want to go to church to hear any more “man-talk,” i.e. opinions of men. If church were primarily about “man-talk,” I could go to the library and find much more erudite thinkers and writers. With what I was learning from ancient philosophers and medieval theologians, I found myself mentally refuting sermons point-by-point as they were being delivered during every service. Of course I knew we are not supposed to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, and yet existentially I couldn’t see any good reason to “go to church.” At one point I stopped going to church altogether because I was so frustrated with the whole scene, a scene that to me seemed spiritually vacuous and human-centered in its continual “man-talk.”

Eventually a friend of mine suggested that I visit an Anglican church, so I did. I went by myself. It was completely different. It was quiet and reverent before the liturgy began. The liturgy itself was beautiful, rich, and meaningful. Here for the first time I found freedom from “man-talk.” There was no personality at the front of the church with a microphone, saying whatever came into his head at that moment. There was no speculative exegesis or theological argumentation which I could critically dismantle. The liturgy is God’s speech spoken back to Him by His people or by one representing them. Of course Holy Communion is the climax of the liturgy, and it too is not “man-talk.” In this sacrament God was speaking to me not through words and propositions, but through a physical action, giving Himself to me in a very intimate way. This was not something toward which I could take a critical, disengaged stance. I could only receive it humbly and gratefully. In that respect, this sacrament almost bypassed my intellect and went straight to my heart. We received Holy Communion at the front of the church, on our knees. The very form of worship communicated something altogether different from the way of taking communion I had previously known. I found God to be present there in the beauty, reverence and silence of the liturgy. In that sacredness my heart, which had been starved under a diet of mere propositions, was drawn anew toward God.

The initial problem was that the Anglican church seemed to have no position on moral issues like abortion and homosexuality, matters on which we could not compromise. Eventually we found an independent Anglican parish that was in agreement with the natural law on these issues, and we were confirmed there in 2003. But I was still thinking about unity, and had started reading the Church Fathers. Already by the following year I found myself with serious questions about Anglicanism, as I sought to understand the underlying reason for the obvious disunity among Christians. I was reading everything I could get my hands on about the differences between Catholics and Protestants. Around that time I started to see ‘ecclesial consumerism’ for what it is.

My Anglican bishop seemed to have no interest in dialogue with the local Catholic bishop with a view to eventual full communion with the bishop of Rome. That troubled me. I knew from reading the Fathers that the bishop of Rome had a unique authority and role as the Church’s principle of unity, because of his succession from the Apostle Peter. When I asked myself why I was following this Anglican bishop, rather than the successor of St. Peter, I didn’t have a good answer. When I asked my Anglican bishop which ecumenical councils we [Anglicans] accept, his answer also troubled me. He said something like “we believe the first four, but are selective about what we believe from the others.” That seemed entirely arbitrary to me. How could we pick and choose from an ecumenical council, or from among ecumenical councils? Either we should treat them as good advice, or we should accept them all. Picking and choosing from them, and then saying that the ones we have chosen are authoritative, was to my mind self-deceiving. Finally, every Sunday while reciting the Creed, when we would get to the line “one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church,” I couldn’t say it, because my conscience was telling me that we (as Anglicans) weren’t saying the word ‘one’ with the same meaning that those bishops who wrote the Creed intended it. We were treating what was a collection of groups not in full communion, as though it were a true unity. But I had come to believe that this was not how the early Church conceived of the unity of the Church. Real unity meant full communion of the bishops, especially with the bishops in communion with the bishop of Rome.

On April 22, 2005 I reached the conclusion that the Catholic Church is the Church Christ founded, and decided that day to seek full communion with the Catholic Church. But my wife wasn’t ready, and it took her about a year to do her own reading, and be ready to enter the Church. Finally she and I and our two daughters were received into full communion with the Church on October 8, 2006. Presently I am teaching philosophy full time at Lindenwood University, while completing my dissertation in philosophy at Saint Louis University.

1. Your passion for Christian Unity is clearly a special part of your own understanding of the Gospel. Talk about how “unity” fits into your understanding of the Gospel.

When asked about marriage, Jesus refers back to the beginning. And here too, in order to understand the place of unity in Christ’s gospel, we have to look back at the beginning. When God made man, He established man in a unity, that is, an order consisting of various harmonies. There was friendship between God and man, shown by the fact that God walked with them in the cool of the day. They also enjoyed an internal harmony such that their lower appetites were ordered to reason, and their bodies were ordered to their souls so that they were immortal. They also enjoyed a harmony with the rest of creation; they exercised dominion over nature in a way that we do not presently enjoy. And finally they enjoyed a social harmony between the two of them. Had they not sinned, every child that would have come into the world would have become a participant in that social harmony, and in that way the initial harmony between them would have spread over the whole world, as a peace and harmony between all peoples. (CCC, 376)

Adam’s sin destroyed each of those harmonies. We see that in Cain’s murder of Abel, and especially at what happened at Babel. Origen points out, “Where there is sin, there is multiplicity, there are schisms, there are heresies, there are dissensions.” St. Augustine likewise, says, “Adam himself is therefore now spread out over the whole face of the earth. Originally one, he has fallen, and, breaking up as it were, he has filled the whole earth with the pieces.” The prophet Isaiah likewise says, “We had all gone astray like sheep, each of us was following his own way.” (Isaiah 53:6) The result of sin is described by the prophet as each one following his own way. Contrast that with Christ’s statement in John, where He refers to the Gentiles being joined to the New Israel, and says that they will become “one flock with one shepherd. (John 10:16)

God’s purpose in Christ is not only the salvation of the individual human person, but the restoration of the human race to unity in Him. We see this already at Pentecost. Peoples of all nations were present in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, and the Apostles were given the gift of speaking in all their languages. In this way Pentecost reveals how the Church is to be a reversal of Babel. Isaiah spoke of this, saying, “The mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it.” It will be a “house of prayer for all the peoples.” (Isaiah 2:2; 56:7) Being reconciled to God through Christ is also the means by which all human beings are to be reconciled to each other; it is in this way that the Church reverses Babel. We refer to this universal character of the Church, by which every division effected at Babel is healed in Christ, as the catholicity of the Church.

For this reason, unity is at the very center of the gospel of Jesus Christ, because the unity of God and man in Jesus Christ is at the center of His gospel, in the greatest union of all time, God united to man in the incarnation of Christ. Through union with the incarnate Christ, our friendship with God is restored, and so likewise is the social harmony between one another, as one family of God, the household of faith, the Body of Christ. In Christ God has reconciled us not only to Himself but also to one another. To become a Christian is to be incorporated into this unity, the New Israel, the Church. Christ’s desire for the unity of His followers can be seen clearly in John 17, where He prays infallibly that we would be one, as He and the Father are one, so that the world would believe that the Father sent the Son.

I am coming to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given Me, that they may be one, even as We are one. … I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. The glory that You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one even as We are one, I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You loved Me. (John 17:11, 20-23)

By our unity with one another, across every tribe, tongue, people and nation, we demonstrate to the world that something supernatural is at work here, because we transcend the sort of nationalism and racism that views others who are different as a threat to be defeated or subdued. When nations are joined to Christ in His Body, they no longer take up weapons against each other. Natural man tries to do this through the United Nations, but this can be done only by a supernatural unity, which is the Body of Christ. So the unity and catholicity of the Church are together a sign to the world that the One whose Name we bear as Christians was from God, because this kind of unity cannot come from man, but only from God. On the other hand, when Christians are divided against each other, we obscure the gospel and diminish its credibility. Disunity among Christians is an offense against Christ and His gospel, not only because it hides the gospel of Christ from the world, but especially because it contradicts the unity at the heart of the gospel, and in that sense denies the gospel.

(More of the interview coming….)

You can find the entire Mosaic Blog tour schedule here. Check out the various sites and all the questions and answers that have been published. The NLT Mosaic web site is a great resource. (Want a Christian year calendar for your Google Calendar?) You can buy the Mosaic Bible at Amazon. You’ll find all these links and resources behind the clickable ad on the sidebar.

So let’s get down to some of the questions contributed by IM readers for Keith and his answers.

How will the Mosaic Bible help someone coming from a Free-Church background (ie, Baptist) who is completely unfamiliar with the Christian Year as well as other elements of liturgical worship connect with broader Christian tradition and incorporate them in his or her devotional life?
I grew up in an independent Bible church that had virtually no connection to the church year or liturgical worship, and in fact I had very little exposure to the church calendar until 2003, when my wife and I were attending a church that incorporated some aspects of the church calendar in their worship. But in 2005, my wife joined the staff at a Lutheran church, complete with robes, lectionary preaching, liturgical reading and singing, Scripture lessons, standing and sitting, acolytes, and everything. I jumped into the church year with both feet, and had an amazing experience in the seasons of Lent and Easter, particularly throughout the Holy Week services. Since then the church calendar has had a prominent role in my spiritual life, even as we have moved on to an independent Baptist church.

This being my experience, one of my greatest hopes for Holy Bible: Mosaic is that it will help people from free-church backgrounds who have little or no exposure to the church calendar to get a taste of what it is like to orient your life to the rhythms of God’s activity in the world rather than letting the world of nature, education, or fiscal calendars dictate what time of year it is. Mosaic is a “soft” entry to the church year and lectionary; it doesn’t contain any of the complexities of the Book of Common Prayer cycles or the three-year Revised Common Lectionary system. Rather, we created a system that can be used in any year while still following the seasons of the church year and providing lectionary readings that were drawn from these traditional sources. Hopefully, this will help avoid some of the confusion that someone from a free-church background might experience if they were told that this week is RCL B-Proper 24 (29).

Considering that this version of the Bible is a paraphrase of the original text, why is it being used so heavily for study? Does this interfere with interpretation of scripture to the extent of impacting doctrine or major differences between traditions?
Bible translation is not simple, and there is quite a bit of misunderstanding and disinformation out there. We should be clear about one thing right up front: The NLT is a translation, not a paraphrase. A team of qualified, Christian scholars has worked diligently for 20 years to create a clear, understandable translation directly from the original languages into English. As such, the NLT is perfectly suitable for Bible study.

Different principles of translation are used for the NLT than those that were used for the ESV (for example), but those differences don’t make one “good” and the other “bad.” They don’t even make one good for in-depth Bible study and the other only good for devotional reading. The differences in English Bible translations simply offer English-speaking Christians with a God-given opportunity to have multiple entry points to his Word in their native language. That is something to celebrate, and it shouldn’t be used as an opportunity to criticize one translation over another.

What’s the difference between the NLT and NLTse? I had assumed the NLTse overrode the NLT.
The NLT was originally published in 1996, but the Bible Translation Committee, the body of scholars responsible for the translation, did not stop their work then. Over the next couple of years, it became clear that the committee wanted to make a number of significant changes to the translation—more than just a few changes here and there. For example, they wanted poetic sections to be set as poetry rather than in paragraphed form. So, a thorough revision process ensued, and in 2004 the revised text was released. This is often referred to as the NLTse (second edition), but in fact it is simply the NLT. The 1996 version of the text is no longer being published, so any new NLT since 2004 is the second edition. Another minor batch of updates were integrated into the text in 2007, but at this point we anticipate the text being stable for quite some time.

The first edition of the NLT had a version which included the Apocrypha. The second edition does not. Are there any plans to make avaliable a version of NLT 2 with the Apocrypha?
This is something that we have talked about more than once at Tyndale. While there are no actual plans to create a new edition with the apocrypha, there aren’t any philosophical objections to making one.

The arrangement of the Mosaic Bible is obviously influenced by the more liturgical church traditions such as Anglicanism and Lutheranism, however the NLT’s primary readership seems to be highest among more low-church evangelicals. What do you hope the Mosaic’s inclusion of church calendar-based devotions, art, and perspectives from ancient and modern thinkers will bring to the typical evangelical reader not accustomed to such?

I have great hopes that Mosaic will help orient low-church evangelicals to the church calendar, as my story above indicates. But I think that Mosaic has something to offer to Christians from every stripe. The art and quotes throughout are drawn from all over the map, literally and figuratively. So Christians from any tradition will find that the readings and art are drawn from a broader set of sources than they are used to. Hopefully this will lead to all of us learning to celebrate our unity as Christians while appreciating the diversity that can stretch our view of God and our shared faith. I wrote a bit about this on an earlier guest post in the blog tour here (http://www.katagraphais.com/index.php/2009/10/05/guest-post-keith-williams-on-christian-unity-and-the-holy-biblemosaic/).

As a pastor, WHY is the NLT a better choice for use at my church (pulpit, studies, etc.) than other translations (i.e. the ESV)?
I am convinced that the NLT would be an excellent choice for use as a primary church Bible for preaching, public Scripture readings, and private study as well as devotional reading. The NLT is clear and accurate, and is well supported by a growing line of reference tools like the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary series. Anyone who doubts the level of scholarship behind the NLT should take a closer look at the Hebrew and Greek word study tool in Mosaic (also in the NLT Study Bible and our new center column reference Bibles) as a taste of more to come on tying the English of the NLT to the original languages. As for advising pastors that the NLT is a “better choice” than another particular translation, I can’t in good conscience give that blanket advice. I believe all of the major English Bible translations are valuable, and every church is unique. But I would definitely encourage any pastor to consider the NLT—or reconsider it if they haven’t looked at it closely since before the 2004 revisions.

I have a NLT. I don’t really want to buy *another* Bible, but I’m always into other study guides. Are there any thoughts of just releasing the accompanying study guide?
There aren’t any specific plans at this point to publish the entirety of the Mosaic material as a study guide, but we have already produced two smaller pieces as standalone devotionals. Devotions for Advent (ISBN 978-1414335780) is already available and Devotions for Lent (ISBN 978-1414335810) will be available around the turn of the year. These devotionals are smaller in size and contain the complete content of their respective season from Mosaic plus Scripture portions covering the lectionary readings for each week. They are also very reasonably priced at $1.99 and $2.99 respectively, so they are a great gift or small group discussion guide.
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Keith will be monitoring comments here today. Feel free to offer a question or comment below and he will respond if he’s able. Thanks Keith and readers.

What’s the point?

1. Evangelicals are constantly mischaracterizing non-theists. We need to listen and not preach.
2. There is some common ground of concern here for many of us, especially in the area of the ethical practices of religions that seek to convert.
3. We need to measure our responses against reality. Some of our typical talking points aren’t very impressive, so we might consider retiring or reworking them.
4. I want to build a bridge. Dr. Tarico is very open to that kind of dialog.

Dr. Valerie Tarico is a former evangelical who now describes herself as a spiritual nontheist. Her book The Dark Side distills her moral and rational critique of Evangelical teachings. Tarico is a graduate of Wheaton College. She obtained a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Iowa before completing postdoctoral studies at the University of Washington. She writes regularly for the Huffington Post and hosts a monthly series on SCAN TV Seattle: Moral Politics – Christianity in the Public Square. Last year Tarico founded www.WisdomCommons.org, an interactive website with quotes, stories and poems from around the world all promoting shared ethical values. Her essays about society, faith, and family life can be found at www.spaces.msn.com/awaypoint.

Dr. Tarico, welcome to the Internet Monk.com interview.

1. Tell the Internet Monk.com audience the basic story of how and why you left evangelicalism. I’m particularly interested in any significant books or authors that were part of that journey.

Hmm. Books and authors. I think I ended up falling from faith mostly in spite of the books I was reading to shore up my faith! I grew up in a non-denominational Bible church, and my relationship with Jesus was at the very center of who I was. In high school I was proud to stump my biology teacher with ideas from the Creation Research Society, and when I arrived at Wheaton College I think I was more devout and conservative than the school was. (I mean, they let post-millennialists and Lutherans in the door.) Even so, I would say that from adolescence on I struggled to fend off moral and rational contradictions in my faith, evolving more and more idiosyncratic ways of holding the pieces together. In particular, I couldn’t understand how I was going to be blissfully, perfectly happy – indifferent to the fact that other people were experiencing eternal anguish.

The final straw came while I was completing a doctoral internship at Children’s Hospital in Seattle. My job was to provide psychological consultation to kids and families on the medical units. I was working with kids who were dying of cancer or enduring horrible, frightening treatments in order to survive it. As I listened to the explanations offered by people who believed in an all powerful, loving, perfectly good interventionist God, it seemed to me these “justifications” were comforting, but they didn’t make things just. I re-read The Problem of Pain, and the resident rabbi offered Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. Both rang hollow. Finally I said to God, “I’m not making excuses for you anymore.” And suddenly it felt like I had been holding my God together for so long with duct tape and bailing wire that all I had left was tape and wire. So I walked away. I didn’t really re-engage with Christianity in any systematic way until it became clear about five years ago that Biblical ideas were dictating social policy—and killing people.

2. Anti-theists (or non-theists) of various kinds are now making their numbers and voice heard in the public square. What are two or three of the primary myths/truths about non-theism that people of traditional religious faiths are going to have to get rid of and/or adjust to in the future?

Well, first of all let me say that not all nontheists are anti-theists. Most nonbelievers are simply not interested in religion. Many see it as a benign force that contributes to stable moral communities. Those who are vocally outspoken against supernaturalism are a minority. I think this is important to emphasize because the silent majority is—well–silent and so not noticed. Humanists who join inter-spiritual dialogue or nonbelieving parents who are busy reading bedtime stories and making cookies for school bake sales don’t tend to make their voices heard on these issues. Mostly they just want to be left in peace – to not have Christians witnessing to their kids or interfering with their medical decisions.

The myth I am confronted with most frequently is that non-Christians (especially those who have left the faith) are indifferent to morality or they reject the gift of salvation because they don’t want to be morally accountable. Because Christians self-perceive as a city on a hill, a light shining in the darkness, they assume they have the moral high ground. Some think that there is no basis for morality apart from the Bible and a redemptive relationship with Jesus. So what they fail to recognize is that much of the critique of Christianity is a moral critique, and much of the outrage is moral outrage.

Another myth is that non-theists broadly and anti-theists particularly have little interest in spirituality. In my experience many are profoundly concerned with issues not only of morality but also of meaning and unity and wonder: the small humble delights that that makes life a joy to live, the willingness to give yourself to something bigger than yourself, the beauties of love.

3. How do you feel about the high profile of atheists like Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens who consistently oppose religion of any kind as an unquestionable evil? Is there any feeling in the non-theist community that they are being portrayed as “fundamentalists” as well?

Those guys definitely are anti-theists and taboo breakers to boot, which makes people love to hate them. (“The Missionary Position”?) But I think they change the dialogue in important ways. To cite a provocative example, Dawkins has said that religious indoctrination of children is child abuse. In reality, all education of children is indoctrination at some level. Every parent or teacher has to wrestle with the balance of top-down mind control vs open inquiry. But if we push past knee-jerk reactions to Dawkins’ assertion, he raises a serious moral question for believers: Is Christian indoctrination abusive more often than people like to think? Psychologist Marlene Winell, who specializes in recovery from fundamentalism, would say yes with three exclamation points.

I personally find the “fundamentalist” label a bit of an eye roller when applied to Dawkins or Harris. It’s childish. “You stink.” “No, you stink.” The word fundamentalism has a specific history and meaning. It is about having a core set of dogma-based assertions that are nonnegotiable, and historically these fundamentals are the central tenets of Christian orthodoxy. It’s not a synonym for strident or uncompromising. A quick glance around any department store will give you an idea of how easily we humans confuse the quality of packaging with quality of contents. The same is true for communications. In my experience, Dawkins et al are more nuanced and thoughtful in their actual analysis than what the public reaction would suggest, and I wonder how many of their critics have actually read them vs reacting to their posture. Other atheist and agnostic writers love to define themselves by saying, “I’m not like those guys.” It’s a way of positioning as a moderate and gaining access to an audience that feels conflicted about the role of religion in society. Tangentially, I think that within Christianity, people often fail to recognize theological fundamentalism if it is wrapped in rock music and skateboard art or in warm, loving community.

4. Setting aside the obvious issue of breaking the law, at what point does an evangelical parent, in the religious training of their own children, cross the line into what you consider the abuse of that child?

Imagine you work in a mental health center and a woman says to you, “My husband says he loves me unconditionally and if I don’t love him back he is going to torture me to death as slowly as he can.” Some theologies are inherently abusive.

When I was a teenager my youth group showed a movie called “A Thief in the Night” about the rapture, and a few years back, churches were creating “hell houses” for Halloween. In both cases, the blood and gore and implied violence were meant to be shocking and emotionally traumatic – all justified morally because shock and trauma right now are better than having people tortured forever. But a therapist like Marlene Winell, who I mentioned before, routinely sees people who developed panic disorder or chronic depression and anxiety in reaction to hell and rapture threats. Because of my writing I sometimes receive stories that make me as a mom want to cry. One child became hysterical whenever he called out and his parents didn’t answer because he thought they’d been taken. Another repeatedly prayed the prayer of salvation — never sure that it had “taken,” until she ultimately became distraught and suicidal. I wonder how many children in the coming up generation were traumatized by being exposed to Mel Gibson’s blood orgy, The Passion. My mom’s old church took a busload including pre-adolescents – kids who largely had been sheltered from Hollywood violence and had no way to have hardened themselves against it. If it wasn’t a religious theme, the parents themselves would have thought it abusive.

Here’s the challenge, though: Causing trauma isn’t necessarily abusive. I had my appendix removed when I was five, and it was absolutely terrifying because I was in pain and tied to a hospital bed and left alone. But I don’t think of it as abusive because it was necessary. Is scaring people into salvation necessary or abusive? When you intentionally cause harm or trauma in order to prevent a greater harm, it’s not enough to be well intentioned. You also have to be right. And if you’re not, the rest of society has a responsibility to weigh whether you are causing trauma unnecessarily—especially when those being harmed are children.

5. When you see a church spending large amounts of money on children’s ministries and activities, do you believe this is ethical or unethical? Why?

If you heard that Scientologists were spending large amounts of money on outreach to kids would you believe this was ethical or unethical? What if they offered a subsidized summer camp to inner city kids like Child Evangelism Fellowship does? What if they had a storefront alcohol-free bar for underage skateboarders like City Church does in Ballard, Washington? What if they had teenage tutors slipping colorful invitation cards to kids in public middle schools like Foursquare Church does in Seattle?

Children are hard wired to be credulous, to believe what they are told by adults who have authority over them and who nurture them. It’s the only efficient way for them to pick up all the information they need. They can’t afford to question and test when we tell them stoves burn you or cars squish you, so they’re built to trust us. Because they are vulnerable in this way, we have a particular responsibility not to exploit or abuse that trust. If you believe the exclusive salvific claims of Christian orthodoxy, then the end justifies the means. That, I think is at the heart of children’s ministries. But it’s only fair to admit that children are being offered metaphorical candy – and the ultimate goal of conversion isn’t always up front. One Jewish neighbor sent her daughter to a playful, wholesome youth group at a local mega church because she thought “nondenominational” meant interfaith.

6. I’m sure that you’ve got a good response to the frequent evangelical contention that non-theists have no morals. What do you say? (And what is the mistake evangelicals are making with that objection?)

I’m kind of embarrassed for people who say this, because it means they know so little about morality and about child development. Morality doesn’t come from religion. Healthy human children come into the world primed to become moral members of society, just like they come into the world primed to acquire language. Moral emotions like empathy, shame, guilt and disgust begin to emerge during the toddler years regardless of a child’s cultural or religious context. A toddler may pat an injured peer or offer a grubby toy to an adult who is distressed. A preschooler may hide behind a couch to cover a transgression. As a child’s brain develops, moral emotions are joined by moral reasoning. By age five or six, kids can argue long and loud about fairness.

Research is just starting to show how our moral emotions and reasoning are guided by powerful moral instincts. I think these instincts are the reason that across secular and moral traditions we humans share some basic agreements about goodness. The golden rule appears in some form or another in every ethical system. Sometimes it emphasizes proactively doing good. Sometimes it is only about avoiding harm. Sometimes it applies to even the smallest sentient creature, sometimes only to males of a single religion, but it’s there. For the last year and a half I’ve been working on a project called the Wisdom Commons, an interactive website that gathers quotes and stories and poetry from many traditions as a way to “elevate and celebrate our shared moral core.”

7. Why would any evangelical want to read your book, The Dark Side?

Well, I have at least two siblings who would tell you that I’m a pawn of Satan, and you shouldn’t read it! On the other hand, several Christian friends read and provided feedback on the manuscript. Their perspective is that God doesn’t need us to cover for him or to hide from complicated realities.

I am a non-theist and my conclusions follow my thinking, but The Dark Side is less a challenge to Christianity than to bibliolatry. I was taught, and still believe, that to worship human decisions and creations is idolatry. So in terms of whether someone would want to read this text, I would ask: Do you really worship God or are you getting caught by the worship of traditions and texts? Which do you twist to fit the other? When your deepest best understandings of Love and Truth bump up against creeds and canons, which win out? Given that there are human handprints all over evangelical practices and teachings, how much time have you spent learning to spot them?

In reality, this kind of analysis and critique is very much in keeping with the Christian tradition. The writers of the Old Testament took the Akkadian and Sumerian traditions and asked themselves, Which pieces are merely human? What is our best guess about the divine realities that lie beyond? They gleaned and wrestled and kept some fragments of the earlier stories and said, “This is our best understanding of what is Real and what is Good and how to live in moral community with each other.” The writers of the New Testament look at what the Torah had become and saw idolatry. Again, they gleaned and culled in light of how they understood Jesus and then offered their best understanding of God and goodness. Same with the Protestant Reformation. The reformers scraped away at obviously human encrustations like indulgences and cult of saints until they came to what they thought was the heart of the revelation. I think that the deepest challenge of the spiritual quest is not to defend the answers of our spiritual ancestors but to do as they did—to dig and scrape and take ourselves into that uncomfortable space where growth happens.

8. How would you handle it if your child became a Bible toting member of Campus Crusade for Christ? In the same vein, how should evangelicals respond if their child takes the anti-theist road?

It would be hard. My daughters are both passionate about making the world a kinder place—primarily for weird animals like sharks and manatees and kakapos and factory chickens. But more recently they got wonderfully caught up in microcredit (through Kiva.org) and started directing their birthday money toward humans. I’d be grieved to see their passion and compassion channeled by an ideology. My biggest grief would be if one joined a religious organization that discouraged deep loving relationships with outsiders, including family. An elderly couple I met at a humanist gathering are not allowed to see their evangelical grandchildren because they are retired scientists with a secular world view.

When my younger brother came out as gay, it pitted my mom’s theological fundamentalism against her love for her son. Love won out. That is what I aspire to, and it is what is would hope for any parent in a similar situation.

9. Christian apologetics and cultural communication today have taken several major turns since your days citing creationists to Wheaton profs. For example, Tim Keller, a PCA pastor in Manhattan, has earned a broad hearing from the culture in his book “The Reason for God.” Keller is not Josh McDowell, it’s safe to say. Younger evangelicals are anti-culture war and many were pro-Obama. Many evangelicals accept evolution, although quietly, and many more distrust “Creation science.” Do any of the changes in apologetic methods and approaches since your loss of faith interest you when you are portraying evangelicals in print or speech?

You are right. Many of the conditions that pushed me to join the public dialogue have shifted, and when I engage secular audience I quite often bring up these changes. I love it that evangelicals like Jim Wallis are complicating that dialogue from a social standpoint, and a new generation of evangelical ministers like Rob Bell are complicating the dialogue theologically.

I see the theological dialogue as most important. Unless we understand that our theological agreements are provisional and open to growth, social change is just a matter of Christianity fluctuating in response to social conditions. There have been many times in history when the balance shifted between personal /doctrinal purity and compassion/love. Then conditions change and the pendulum swings back, in part because bibliolatry and what I call ancestor worship keeps people from growing beyond the understanding of the Bible’s authors and the councils that decided the creeds and canon. My hope is that we will come to understand our spiritual heritage and our own minds well enough that the cruelties perpetrated in the name of God become a part of history.
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I’d like to thank Dr. Tarico for her time and effort in helping all of us understand this new relationship between evangelicals and non-theists. I know the vast majority of my audience is appreciative as well. Hopefully, we will hear from Dr. Tarico again as some of these issues emerge in other contexts.

NOTE ABOUT COMMENTS AND DISCUSSION: I will ban- not moderate- but ban immediately anyone who is disrespectful in language or content in their comments. (IM commenting guidelines are under the FAQ tab, #10.) Angry evangelicals and angry non-theists be warned. I will not allow anyone to remain in the discussion who seeks to psychologically explain away another person’s experience, demean or insult a belief system, nor will we be evangelizing or ridiculing, etc. Further, I am not looking to sponsor the kind of debate that goes on with the Triabloggers, etc. This interview is about non-theists and their perceptions of evangelicals. Obviously, we don’t agree, but obviously as well, Dr. Tarico has brought up many points that concern many of us in this readership. Keep the focus on the interview and be respectful to the person and we will be fine.

UPDATE: Baptists might want to read this post on semi-Pelagianism, and enjoy the Tom Petty video

If you’ve been paying attention, you should have noticed that the most interesting blog out in the Christian/Reformation blogosphere is Mockingbird, the front page to the world of Mockingbird Ministries. Dead on, provocative stuff with the strong scent of Luther’s Law/Gospel cookbook in every post.

In addition to being Lutheranized Anglicans, Mockingbird has a major connection to my current theological hero, Paul Zahl. I’ve been enjoying the blog and all the resources available at Mockingbird, and I believe we’re looking at the ground floor of something very important and significant: the beginnings of a significant voice that balances engagement of the culture at many levels- not just as fans, but as thoughtful communicators and observers- with Lutheran flavored Reformation Christianity.

I asked Mockingbird posse member David Zahl- yeah, that Zahl- to answer five questions and get all of the IM audience up to speed. (David will point out some resources at the web site. You MUST download and enjoy the 2009 Conference audio. Priceless talks and not the same old same old.)

I’m very honored to have David Zahl from Mockingbird Ministries here at the IM Interview today.

1. Speak to the uninitiated: What is the entire Mockingbird empire, what’s the name, who are you, what are you trying to accomplish, and how are you doing it?

Haha, you flatter us! The minute we become an “empire”, let me know and we’ll disband… This is how I would define Mockingbird: we are a ministry that is seeking to connect the truths of the Gospel with the realities of everyday life in as down-to-earth a way possible. I realize that those are some loaded terms, so I’ll try to explain.

If you read our blog, you know that we like to throw around words like Justification, Law and Gospel, Imputation, Theology of the Cross, etc. These are concepts that we felt were self-evidently true, and the outworkings of which could be seen everywhere in the world around us, from the lives/music of Michael Jackson and Axl Rose to the ups and downs of the stock market to the latest Hollywood (and non-Hollywood) movie to the difficulties of marriage to the history of the church, etc. As you know, the power of the Law to crush and of the Gospel to give life – and their secular equivalents – touch us all where we actually live: which for some of us is pop-culture, some of us is relationships, or psychology, or economics, or theology, etc. We wanted to start a ministry where we could expose those connections and maybe even break down some of the walls between real people and Jesus “the friend of sinners”. Of course, we also wanted to have some fun in the process.

It began as a group of friends, some ordained and some not, and has grown into a larger network, which has been exciting to watch. The name was inspired the bird itself, i.e. we’re repeating the message we’ve heard over and over again – though hopefully not in an irritating way. But we definitely believe that we never move beyond our need to hear the basics. We’re also fairly obsessed with the historical distinction between the Law and the Gospel and are committed to making it more accessible, always searching for new illustrations, metaphors or synonyms like “judgment and love” (not perfect but you get the point).

I should add that we hold the unpopular belief that there’s not a whole lot that differentiates Christians from non-Christians, which I think makes it easier to connect with both groups. I suppose we’re just not that impressed with most Christians in the way that we’re apparently supposed to be, and we are interested in the historical theology that accounts for that discrepancy. The classic Anglican example of this comes from Article IX of the 39 Articles of Religion, that “(original sin) doth persist yea in them that are regenerate”. We see that playing out all over the place, from Ted Haggard all the way down the line to the Christian Joe Blow (e.g., us).

As we see it, much of the American evangelical landscape has its head in the ground with regards to the (obvious) fallen-ness of believing, devout Christians. So we gravitate toward Luther’s description of the Christian as simultaneously sanctified and sinful, rather than, say, the idea that the Christian life is characterized by some kind of growth process. It just rings true.

So part of Mockingbird is a response to the tendency described above of Christians “splitting” their lives into their “Christian life” and their everyday one, implicit being the fact that you cannot be a Christian and a human being at the same time. Coming to understand the proper distinction between the Law and the Gospel has been a freeing and inspiring experience for us in this regard, and we believe it could be for others too. Naturally we get painted with the “antinomian” brush occasionally, but that doesn’t bother me – who doesn’t that’s preaching the Gospel?!

The word “connection” is an important one for us. Mockingbird is looking mainly to connect, rather than, say, convert or convince. We want to demonstrate, to observe, to comment – that sort of thing – and let the Holy Spirit take it from there. If people are converted or convinced, that’s awesome, but it’s not our primary motivation. So there’s no hidden agenda and hopefully no patronizing attitude, which I think folks find refreshing, regardless of their background.

As far as “how” we’re doing this, we’re using as many mediums as possible: thus far it’s been primarily via blogs, books and conferences, and we’re planning to expand on that (see below).

So we are a message-driven ministry, albeit with a message that is deeply relational. And it seems to be resonating, praise God. Of course, there are some risks involved: growing too disembodied, or becoming pharisaical about Pharisees or just plain smug – it’s a slippery slope, so please pray for us! And if you’re in New York City and want to say hello, please drop us a line.

2. If we were going to locate Mockingbird on the theological map, with a few meaningful reference points (names, books, churches) where would you be?

Oh man. It probably sounds naïve, but we try to shy away from labels whenever possible. But when we have to spell it out we call ourselves Cranmerian Lutherans, or Anglo-Lutherans(!). That is, we’re pretty much all Anglicans of some stripe who share a commitment to Luther’s Law/Gospel distinction and his understanding of Justification. Calling us Reformation Protestants is probably the best catch-all.

As far as touchstones are concerned, off the top of my head I’d claim my father’s Grace In Practice, Gerhard Forde’s On Being A Theologian Of The Cross and Luther’s Bondage Of The Will as our “top three”. Rod Rosenbladt’s “The Gospel For Those Broken By The Church” was a big influence as well.

3. What is Mockingbird’s official and unofficial connection to any congregations around you?

Mockingbird has no official connection to any church or congregation, which is very much intentional. Given where we’re coming from denominationally, part of our founding had to do with the desire to be free of ecclesiological distractions and constraints of any kind. That said, we’re not anti-clerical. Our website has a list of where our contributors are serving or attending, Mockingbird-friendly congregations if you will.

Unofficially, here in New York we are quietly involved with Calvary St George’s Episcopal Church and St Paul’s Anglican Church. Christ Episcopal Church in Charlottesville has also served as a home-away-from-home.

I should also say that as our network has grown, so have the number of denominations involved, which has been really encouraging.

4. Tell us about the 2008 conference, why it was important and why we all need to download and listen to it?

Thanks for asking! So far, our conferences have provided much of our ministry’s life-blood and pulse. We’ll be doing more, and I hope people reading this will consider coming to the next one in Fall ’10 as they’re a total blast. This last one, the one you’re referring to, took place over three days this past March here in New York and the theme was “Grace in Personal Relationships”. Dr Steven Paulson (a noteworthy Lutheran theologian and a personal favorite) flew in to give three frankly amazing talks about the implications of a Law and Gospel understanding for all aspects of everyday life. His talks were accessible enough for people off the street, while sophisticated enough for all the armchair theologians in the audience. We heard from Dr. Dorothy Martyn, an extremely wise psychoanalyst, about how such an understanding might inform child rearing. Then my father treated us to a groundbreaking lecture on Grace in Literature, using Jack Kerouac, Thornton Wilder and Leo Tolstoy as his primary examples. Oh, and there was a stunning session on Grace In Addiction, exploring how the insights of Alcoholics Anonymous and the realities of addiction relate to the bondage of the will and Justification by Faith. And that’s not all – there were also great presentations on Grace and The Self and Grace in Marriage – we really couldn’t recommend it more! You can download it all (including some notes and handouts) for free on our website.

5. What is coming up with Mockingbird that we all need to know about?

We’ve got a lot happening right now. We’re about to release an expanded edition of our first book, Judgment & Love, a collection of 35 mini-testimonies about the power of Love in the face of deserved Judgment: marriage, car accidents, eating disorders, depression, legalism, the stories are varied enough that we believe something in there will speak to everyone. Then we’ve just sent the meatier counterpart off to a bunch of publishers, The Two Words Devotional. It brings our understanding to bear on the entirety of scripture in the form of over 250 daily devotional readings (from 40 contributors) in a way that seeks to speak especially to sufferers. You can order the preview, or teaser, on our website. We’ve also been fortunate enough to make two of our favorite out-of-print, “give-to-anyone” books available again this year, Who Will Deliver Us? by Paul Zahl and The Useful Sinner by J. David Hawkins, and we hope to find a couple more. Any suggestions?

If we can raise enough capital, we’re hoping to start a magazine this Fall, something like a cross between Paste and Modern Reformation (contact us if you want to help!) and get some regular podcasts going. We haven’t set a date for our third annual conference but it should take place in NYC sometime in the Fall of 2010. It’s worth saying too that our blog and website provide all kinds of stuff for those who are interested: talks and bible studies and sermons and tons of other great resources. We’re adding stuff to that side of our ministry daily. Stay tuned.

Thanks so much for the opportunity to share!


David Zahl
7/29/09

1. You’re obviously influenced by the rhetorical style of someone like Driscoll, in that you are communicating intensely, but with humor and pop-culture to counter-balance. Yet, you’ve managed to put the emphasis on the Biblical content, not on the style or the preacher. What would say to all those young preachers who want to imitate guys like Chandler and Driscoll?

Well, there are worse guys you could imitate. Some practical advice would be to mix it up. Don’t just listen to one or two guys. Listen to several, or many if you have the time. Take a breather from podcasting. You WILL pick up not just sermon points but actual vocal inflections and figures of speech and tics from these guys if you listen to them too much. I think young guys like me especially have a wiring to absorb and regurgitate, to ape. (It’s borderline autistic how we go through lines from Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Beavis & Butthead or whatever.) And we like rock stars. And we, like all people, are idolaters. And this can all happen really subtly.

Podcasting is a blessing and a curse. The technology is a blessing and a curse. I wouldn’t have experienced the gospel renaissance in my own life if it weren’t for Driscoll’s and John Piper’s message audio. I don’t say that lightly. I was in a church where Jesus sometimes made cameos in the sermons and I had no idea anybody could preach an entire message where Jesus was the point until I heard Mark Driscoll. (And I grew up in the church.) But it’s a curse too, because it has seriously spoiled us for appreciating our own pastors and the way God has designed us to deliver his word from the contexts of ourselves. I think we need to remind each other that every podcasted guy is the pastor of his church, not ours. Your church needs you to preach and pastor, not be the best version of Chandler you can approximate.

But again, if you’re gonna copy somebody, Chandler’s the dude.

A good rule of thumb is if you spend more time hearing someone else tell you what the Bible says than you do actually reading the Bible yourself, you’re out of whack.

2. This isn’t a Ben Witherington III Introduction to Jesus, but it rests on the scholarship of guys like Ladd and Wright. As a Gospel communicator, what do you find exciting about New Testament scholarship and how it can help us?

My perspective is unique (I think), because I don’t approach the use of NT scholarship as most writers of these sorts of books do, which is for the purpose of apologetics. You probably noticed there’s not much of that in the book (proving the virgin birth and the resurrection and the like), although there is some. And some folks assume this means the book is mainly for Christians, not non-Christians, for that reason. They are probably right, but not for that reason.

It’s fairly simple for me, because I don’t think it helps anybody to read the Gospels and not know what they mean. And scholarship helps us understand what they mean. This probably seems like an obvious or minor point. But Tom Wright helped me see what Jesus meant in the Olivet Discourse. Ladd helped me see what the kingdom is and isn’t. And they do this by teaching us about the culture and the history of that day, about the people and the places, about the language and the use of language. It helps us answer the question, “How would Jesus’ audience then have understood this?”

It isn’t revolutionary. How many Sunday school teachers explain the camel and the eye of the needle thing with some anecdote about a city gate a camel has to stoop through? That anecdote is wrong, by the way — that gate didn’t show up until the middle ages — but the teacher uses it to explain Jesus’ teaching. And that’s what good NT scholarship does. It helps us understand. You can’t believe Jesus or learn from Jesus if you don’t understand him. (And just assuming we understand him has caused a lot of the mess we’re in.)

3. I can hear someone out there saying, “This is a good series of messages, but you talk like every sermon has to be about Jesus. That’s simply excessive. We need to talk about parenting and finances, too.” How do you express what you mean by putting a constant focus on Jesus in preaching?

The best reference point itself is the Bible itself. If we learn from the best — Paul and the other apostles — they put the constant focus on Jesus. Ephesians is a great example, with the stuff on parenting and children and other practical lifestyle matters, with Christ towering over the whole thing and the gospel running throughout.

If we don’t make it “excessively” about Jesus, it just becomes law. Hebrews 12:2 tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus, which I take as permission to be fixated on him. Everything else is peripheral.

4. One thing you and I share is a desire to call evangelicals back to the Gospel. There’s evidence that we’re making some progress, but the situation is still dire in many quarters. What sorts of things exemplify for you the crisis over the Gospel in evangelicalism?

The data. The number of megachurches is increasing but the number of professing Christians is decreasing. Something’s not working, clearly.

That it took a methodological trainwreck and thousands of dollars spent for the good folks at Willow Creek to determine that Bible study is the best catalyst for spiritual growth is bizarre.

Joel Osteen, the head of the largest church in North America, saying on national television that Mormons are Christians too.

I’ll tell you what drove it home for me personally. Two years ago after preaching the Element Easter message in the evening a guy came up to me and said, “I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to hear about the resurrection on Easter.” I laughed, but he wasn’t kidding. I listened to the podcast of the church he attended that morning, and he wasn’t exaggerating. On Easter Sunday, there was a brief nod to the resurrection at the front of the sermon and then the message was about stepping through new doors and opportunities God presents to you in your life. So we’ve now replaced the eucatastrophe of the universe with some tips on personal lifestyle success.

You can’t even satirize this stuff any more.

5. You’ve described one of your personal missions as “reforming the discipleship culture” of the church. Can we produce disciples just by preaching and good books? If not, what else is needed that we still need to take seriously?

Well, I think preaching can create a disciple because I take Romans 10 seriously. But you can’t disciple anybody with preaching alone. Disciples follow Jesus. I look at what Jesus did to disciple, and I see he basically taught, went, and taught as he went. So I imagine we’ve got to do the same.

But we’re idiots, so we like one or the other. Guys in my tribe emphasize the teaching, not the going. In other tribes they’re huge on going but not on teaching.

I like to call this a two-fisted gospel. If you aren’t articulating the gospel of the kingdom regularly and also seeking to live the kingdom out, you aren’t discipling anyone in the way of Jesus.

The danger for most folks of my sort is that we really become admirers of the gospel, not treasurers of it. And admiring it is not really centering on it. When it’s got you forgiving your cheating spouse or serving people in the ghetto or even mowing your neighbor’s yard, it’s changed you.