A classic IM post by Michael Spencer (4/07), presented by Chaplain Mike.

Every time I feel like I have lost my way in the Christian life, I find myself back looking at monasticism, and the lessons I learned in two decades of reading Thomas Merton.

I’m not attracted to Catholicism, but I am very much attracted to the tradition of self-conscious, disciplined spiritual formation into a disciple of Jesus Christ. This is a great failing of our side of the church.

As much as we Protestants talk about being shaped by the Bible alone, most evangelicals are thoroughly formed and shaped by the communities where the Bible is handled, taught and practiced according to a “rule” or accepted authority, and by the media that supports and communicates the values of that community.

It is, without a doubt, one of the most appealing and positive aspects of Catholicism that it is self-conscious about its “rules” and authorities for spiritual formation. (Rule as in “way,” as in The Rule of Benedict.) It surely must be humorous to knowledgeable catholics to look at the various sects, denominations and varieties of evangelicalism and fundamentalism, all claiming to “just read the Bible.”

For a large portion of my recent evangelical journey, I have found myself wandering between three varieties of evangelicalism:

1) Southern Baptist fundamentalism
2) Evangelical Calvinism
3) Generic contemporary evangelical revivalism

All of these communities could be characterized as shaping the spiritualities of believers according to largely unwritten rules and authorities.

The closest thing you get to self-conscious spiritual formation among most evangelicals: Jabez, PDL, or an evangelism course. Or a cruise.

It’s occurred to me that at least two of these streams have done much to shape me in the belief that pursuing polemic argument is a primary expression of discipleship. I have been affected by this kind of spiritual “rule,” and when I step away from it, the effects are very obvious.

Lots of time is taken up in finding error, pointing out error, justifying the seriousness of the error (even if it is in a non-essential area), and responding to the error with the proper arrangement of Biblical material.

It’s amazing how many Christians conceive of almost the entirety of discipleship in terms of argumentation. This is seen in the pastoral models they choose, the books/blogs they write and the spiritual activities they value most (debate and classroom lecture.)

These largely unarticulated forms of spiritual formation can be seen in what is not important. I note with interest that one simply cannot say enough bad about most kinds of contemplative prayer, and any sort of silence among many of the reformed particularly. Any kind of intentional approach to spiritual formation, and any kind of intentional approach to discipleship (Dallas Willard, for example) is undertaken amidst a barrage of criticism. If the imagination is mentioned, all fire alarms are pulled and a search for Oprah Winfrey ensues.

Me thinks the lady doth protest too much.

The “fully formed” Christian in these traditions is not a person of silence, but of much talking, talking and more talking. Worship is lecture, a rally, or an emotion-centered event. The primary encounter with the Bible is exposition and lecture. Correcting theological error, moral error and ecclesiastical error is the main business of the church.

In other forms of evangelicalism spiritual formation is done under the guise of church growth and using ones “gifts” to grow the church. Or perhaps in the cause of righteous, upright living in the culture war. Again, the kinds of prayer, worship, community life and worship that are generated by these priorities are obvious to most observers, but largely invisible to the participants.

In all the years I was reading Merton’s spiritual direction writings, I can’t recall anything I would call polemic of any kind. He simply didn’t waste his life arguing with others. He read scripture constantly, but as the stuff of prayer, liturgy and meditation, not as the raw material for debate. He went through the “political years” when he was critical of his church for not living up to his standards of peacemaking and justice, but in the end it was the ancient life, the deep life of monastic rhythms that sustained Merton and made him a man and a monk. He worked on himself for a lifetime. Some will say because he didn’t believe in the reformation doctrine of justification. Perhaps. Maybe, however, the path of personal spiritual formation isn’t as instant, passive or automatic as we’ve been told.

I’m not holding Merton up as an ideal. Far from it. I’m simply saying that when one’s spirituality is formed by the pronouncements of pastors who are constantly chasing church growth, the culture war or the latest challenge to Calvinism, you are going to get one result, and when you go back to the sources, find the value of the ancient paths of formation, value silence, read, meditate, contemplate and seek to grow in love, you will get another result.

I can’t help but think there is an “internet Christian” spirituality as well. Formed by reading blogs. Expressing itself in writing. Concerned with all the perceptions of reality that run rampant on the net. I’m sure this isn’t a good thing either.

Spiritual formation happens in the real world. It’s not just reading, but it’s discussion and asking questions of those further down the road. It’s having leaders who are humble before the Word, and not leaders who take the word and become the pictures of arrogance. It’s seeing your sin in the light of holiness, not excusing your sin in the light of the latest crisis.

Much evangelical spirituality has become like fantasy baseball. We have our own league, our own team, our own statistics, our own insulated world in which all of this matters. We can give great speeches and write long posts (and I am the chief of sinners here) on what doesn’t matter much at all. These days, we don’t all get our 15 minutes of fame, but we can all worship a pastor, go to a winning church, opine on a blog, imagine our arguments are significant in the world.

Meanwhile, we start to look and act more like a fantasy league junky, and fewer and fewer people have any idea what we are talking about.

Here’s where I have come out on this:

Get the devotional books out. The old ones.

Read Peterson, and Nouwen, and Groeshel, and Bonhoeffer and Whitney. With a group of others who care about the same things.

Turn it all off for a couple of hours every day.

Find the silence.

Chew up, meditate over, digest the scriptures.

Repent of living in the community of unaware evangelicals who devalue spirituality and overvalue polemic, argument and debate.

Look for the sins that grow in this mess, and root them up.

From Chaplain Mike.

OK, so Mark Driscoll dissed “Avatar” calling it, “the most demonic, satanic movie I’ve ever seen.”

And Christianity Today didn’t like it, especially when he pointed to their review as an example of contemporary evangelicalism’s inability to exercise discernment.

This post is not about that.

For the record, I have not seen Avatar…yet. Though I plan to.

And that’s actually what got me thinking.

My big spiritual awakening happened when I was 17 years old. Within a couple of years, I was moving into ministry and had a conversation about going to the movies with my pastor one day. He was strictly old school. “I would never feel comfortable walking into a movie theater,” he told me. I don’t think he even thought much about the content of any particular movie; for him, the theater was simply a part of the “world” that ministers (and serious Christians) avoided.

The Bible college I attended had a clear “no movies” policy. Around that time, I recall the controversy when the Billy Graham Association released “The Hiding Place” in theaters. Schools like ours had to hold special meetings and consult with their constituents before granting a special exemption for students to go out and see it.

I know Christians for whom “Chariots of Fire” was the first film they ever saw in a cinema. Many of them were looking over their shoulders the whole time.

When Blockbuster and other stores began the video rental explosion, I remember hearing a young Joe Stowell, then president of Moody Bible Institute, tell a room full of pastors, “I don’t see how any Christian can walk around a video store and not feel extremely uncomfortable.”

(BTW, when I started following Christ seriously, television was also an issue for some believers. Our Bible college had one TV, in a public area. My future wife’s family did not have TV. When we got married, we didn’t have a TV for many years. Frankly, I’ve only had satellite for 5-6 years now, and part of that time we’ve had it turned it off. My kids laugh at us today for the pitiful 20″ screen on which we watch our shows.)

I don’t say any of this proudly or to make the point that the current evangelical concept of “engaging culture” is wrongheaded.

It’s just another one of those times when I am prompted to pause along the road of my journey, look back, and marvel at how things have changed with regard to Christian attitudes.

Hey, we live in a day when the nation’s leading evangelical Christian magazine criticizes a pastor for negatively evaluating the spiritual content of a Hollywood movie!

Does that make anyone else shake their head?

I am not now nor have I ever been a separatist in spirit. Even during the years when our exposure to things like movies and TV and, to a lesser extent, popular music was limited, I never thought it was absolutely necessary for us to approach things that way, nor did I suggest that others must live by a set of rules with regard to participation in pop culture. Our life was focused on other priorities, and such entertainments just weren’t as important. But I have always loved movies and TV and popular music, and have thought it silly for Christians to quarantine themselves from them as from the plague.

Separatism is certainly not the dominant evangelical view today. In the video that has gained so much attention, it was interesting to hear Mark Driscoll defend himself against the charge of being a “fundamentalist” with regard to involvement in culture. No “cutting-edge” Christian today wants that label. When some of you read what I’ve written here, you will probably think I must be some ancient geezer who grew up in the days when we hauled water from the stream and went to town in the horse and buggy.

Not at all. I’m a typical American baby boomer, who ate dinner in front of the TV. I went to the movies from the time I was a baby. Rock ‘n roll and I grew up together. For much of my life, I’ve enjoyed pop culture as much as anyone I know.

However, I remember when even my parents, who were absolutely not fundamentalist Christians, wouldn’t let me see “Bonnie and Clyde” because of its subversive tone and explicit violence. I recall them coming home early from certain movies because of the immorality and amorality that was depicted.

It’s not just evangelicalism that has become more “liberal” with regard to feeding on the offerings of popular culture and entertainment. The world has changed. And followers of Christ have changed with it.

So, for me, the fact that Mark Driscoll would have a negative review of “Avatar” isn’t the interesting thing here. It’s the new world of conversation the Christian community in America now inhabits.

Last year, here in Indianapolis, a four-year-old was taken by emergency personnel to the hospital with a gunshot wound. At first, it was not clear what had happened. The family told police the child had shot himself. The police weren’t sure that the preschooler was strong enough to have pulled the trigger of the suspected weapon by himself, and so they wondered if someone else had done it, perhaps a family member.

It turned out the family was correct. The little boy lived in a home with other relatives, at least one of whom had several guns. This uncle left one of his pistols on a bedside table and the child discovered it there. The preschooler picked up, played with it, and shot himself in the hand. Fortunately, his injuries were not life-threatening, though he did nearly sever one of his fingers. All in all, the whole family was lucky, including the little boy’s two siblings, neither of whom were hurt.

In evangelicalism, pastors too often play the part of the preschooler with the pistol.

The Bible is a powerful, explosive tool. When its power is used with wisdom and love, it brings healing, comfort, direction, and salvation. It forms people and congregations into the image of Christ. When its power is used recklessly and without discernment, the Bible can hurt, divide, and destroy. You can blow your own hand off, or someone else’s head.
At about the same time I read the account of that little boy, a friend told me a sad story about her small-town church, an established, independent Bible-believing congregation that has long prided itself for standing on the Scriptures and not the doctrines of men. They have a young pastor who has been with them only a few years. A while ago, he came to the “Biblical conviction” that they were not running their congregation according to what the Bible teaches about church polity.

At the time, they had a joint board of elders and deacons, which included women deaconesses as well. The board made decisions together as leaders of the church. The pastor did a study and concluded that elders alone should rule the church, that deacons should not be included in the decision-making process, and that in any case, women should not be allowed a vote as leaders on church matters. So, he put the congregation through an extended process to change this, and ultimately got his way through a congregational vote to alter the bylaws.

My friend was one of a vocal minority who spoke against this, and the pastor let her know that her lack of support had been noted. She didn’t tell me much about how others felt, or whether this situation threatened to divide the church. However, it was clear that she was troubled and concerned about the health of the church.

And then she told me the kicker—while all this was going on, the pastor has been actively pursuing a position in another congregation. He will be leaving soon, right after taking my friend’s church through this controversial process and forcing a change in the way they’ve done things for years.

I was reminded of the preschooler and the pistol. Here is a pastor who believes in the Bible, but does not appreciate its power, nor comprehend its wise use. His reckless application of God’s Word has wounded rather than healed God’s people. Now he’s going to walk away and leave it to someone else to stop the bleeding and clean up the mess.

Let me be clear—this is not about criticizing the decision this church made. People of faith can differ on church polity and women in leadership and a thousand other matters, and have for centuries.

No, my complaint is about a minister who does not understand Biblical priorities, who showed his lack of wisdom in elevating a matter of minor significance in the church so that it became a leading issue that now threatens to divide them.

The evangelical world has an authority problem. Protestants subscribe to Sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”) as our source of authority for faith and practice, but we have far too little appreciation for proper interpretation and wise application of the Bible’s teaching. And too many churches and pastors, especially in the nondenominational or independent Christian world have little or no guidance in the process. The pastor or a small group of leaders, with the explosive power of the Bible in their hands, can easily use it to wound others and harm the church.

This raises several questions:

• In an “autonomous” congregation, which eschews “tradition,” what theologically sound and historically proven practices are there to provide perspective, structure, and guidance to a pastor and members of the congregation?

• In a small-town congregation, what pastoral mentor or overseer is available to tell a young minister, “Look, you may think you’ve discovered something in the Bible, but with regard to scriptural priorities, this is way down the list of things for a minister in your setting and situation to be concerned about.”

• In a nondenominational congregation, what experience or counsel from the larger community of faith is available to help them work through an issue that other churches have dealt with already?

“Scripture Alone” does not mean “My Bible and Me Alone.” Scripture is meant to be studied, interpreted, and applied within a community of faith that honors and respects history and tradition, the larger Body of Christ, and the wise counsel of respected spiritual overseers.

Instead, we have too many maverick ministers recklessly taking what they find on the bedside table and firing into the crowd that gathers at the church.

By guest blogger Chaplain Mike

Spend any time at all around Internet Monk, and you will hear about the “post-evangelical wilderness.”

This is one of the phrases that first attracted me to Michael’s writings, and it is clear from reading those who have commented over the years that it has resonated with many.

What it means for me practically at this point is this: “church” is problematic for me right now.

Let me tell you why.

I served as a pastor in local churches for about 28 years. Starting out as a summer assistant in my home Southern Baptist Church right after Bible College, I helped the pastor during his recovery from back surgery. I moved to Vermont that fall to be near my fiancee, and was asked to serve an American Baptist congregation that had lacked a pastor for several years. We eventually moved to Chicago to complete my seminary training, and during my studies, I was asked to minister in an independent Bible church. After graduation, and failed attempts to get aligned with the Evangelical Free Church denomination in a pastorate, we moved to the Indianapolis area, where I served in two Community churches. These congregations were started by men from a United Methodist background (Asbury seminary), but were intentionally non-denominational and evangelical, with an emphasis on practical discipleship, missions, and church planting.

The second congregation I served here had been through a troubling experience, dismissing their founding pastor. I came in after him and was never quite able to turn things around. I was the proverbial “unintentional interim” pastor. After I resigned, we were suddenly homeless, ecclesiastically speaking. We wanted to stay in the community for family reasons, but there were no options for pastoral ministry. My ministerial ethics taught me that starting or serving in a church in the same community was bad form, so that was not an option. We were out of church; I was out of job.

Through a friend, God graciously opened a door into hospice chaplaincy for me, and this month marks five years in this good work. I love my situation, and feel in some ways that I have finally found a place where I can do true pastoral ministry, without the baggage that contemporary evangelicalism has placed on the pastor in a local church.

However, church is still a problem. These five years have forced me to do a lot of thinking about ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church). And as I write, I am still somewhere on the road out in the “post-evangelical wilderness” when it comes to feeling fully comfortable in church.

It affected our family. Upon leaving the ministry, for the first time in our lives, we were without a church home. This was especially hard on my wife, a classic “GUBA” (growing up born-again) who had been in evangelical churches since birth. To our children, who had struggled with being PK’s anyway, it was further confirmation that “church” was more about rules and people being judgmental than anything else.

To me personally, it confirmed doubts and fears that had been growing for years about the inherent insecurity of serving in non-denominational churches. There is no safety net. No structures to provide support, counsel, and guidance. No mentors on the “apostolic” level beyond the local church to help. I learned the hard way that what I had feared was true: the pastor in a non-denominational evangelical church—succeed or fail—is on his own. I had “failed” in the light of some unwritten standard so, vocationally, I was out in the cold with few options.

Pastoral issues were not my only concerns. For years, I’d had a growing dissatisfaction with evangelicalism’s lack of tradition, historical perspective, reverence and order in worship. I resisted its programmed approach to spiritual growth, its bourgeois commitments that blatantly disregard the NT emphasis on sacrificial service and inclusion of the poor and disenfranchised, its “temple” mentality that has little sense of serving Christ in daily life and instead revolves around what happens in the institution and its programs.

Evangelicalism’s lack of theological thoughtfulness and depth had bothered me increasingly over the years. I cringed at the moralism of its sermons, its “me and Jesus” approach to the spiritual life, the celebrity status of its pastors, the crass and unabashed commercialism of its media industries. The endless dissemination of Protestant groups, each claiming its own “biblical” way with no more authority than an open Bible and the assertion that the Spirit is leading strained all credulity that this was God at work.

Despite its name, I increasingly found little “evangel” (gospel) in evangelicalism. The place I thought was “home” proved no refuge, and we became homeless, launched on a journey of wandering through the evangelical wilderness.

Today, I’m still on the journey.

For some time now, we have attended a Lutheran church (ELCA). Long a fan of Luther and his grasp of the Gospel, I have found a place of rest in the Lutheran emphasis on grace. It has also become my confirmed belief that liturgical worship has it right. Those who practice the ancient forms of worship celebrate the Gospel. And no matter the weaknesses of an individual congregation or pastor, there is a place to stand and rejoice each week when we confess our sins, receive God’s mercy, confess the Creed, hear the Scriptures, are fed at the Table, and are sent into the world to live and serve in the grace of Christ.

However, despite strong historic connections and continuities, mainline churches like ours have their own serious and well-documented problems. This I accept. I have never been one to look for “the perfect church.” I know no such place exists, so my current restlessness and continuing sense of ecclesiastical disorientation springs from other sources.

For one thing, I  have enough “evangelical” in me that I still don’t feel like I’ve found my bearings in our current mainline setting. Serious Bible study, a strong emphasis on evangelism and missions, and other aspects that I still appreciate from my evangelical background and training are missing where we are.

I don’t worry that God is absent. He most definitely is not. But I am in one of those transitional places in life, one of those “in-between” places. I don’t fit in where I’ve been. And I’m not quite sure where I’m going.

Manna’s OK, but I long for milk and honey. It’s great that God keeps my shoes from wearing out, but I’m ready to kick them off in a place of real and lasting rest.

This is what the “post-evangelical wilderness” means to me.

What does it mean to you?

Please keep your comments as brief as possible. Feel free to express strong emotions, because this is personal. But stay respectful in what you say.

This will seem hard to believe, but I simply wanted a way to say I was moving past evangelicalism to something else, but that something else wasn’t what would cause me to say “non-evangelical,” at least using the generally accepted understanding of evangelicals. I wasn’t in any way trying to identify with post-modernism or the emerging church. The Ancient-Future Evangelicalism of Robert Webber really described me, but that label was unclear to me at the time and I still see it as being more ambitious than I ever want to be with “post-evangelical.”

The discernment blogosphere use of the term is synonymous with “apostate liberal in sheep’s clothing.” I notice a graphic at teampyro that says something about tours of the post-evangelical wilderness. Well, my post-evangelicalism is a way of navigating through the evangelical wilderness with the resources of the broader, deeper, more ancient church. I think the discernment blogosphere is talking about Mclaren, Bell, etc.

Let’s be clear about something: whatever post-evangelicalism means here at IM, it’s my own label used my own way, with a few friends along for the ride. There is no movement, no leaders, no conferences, no books. Tossing “post-evangelical” around as a term that describes the opposition from the reformed blogosphere’s point of view has nothing to do with me, unless you want to get down to issues like “are Catholics Christians?”, etc. My discontent with evangelicalism isn’t a rejection of the Protestant evangel.

2. How can you deny that the numbers of evangelicals are growing? How does that numerical growth affect your claim of a “coming evangelical collapse?”

First, if someone takes evangelicals seriously when they start talking numbers, they should know that at the sources, evangelical numbers vary wildly.

Second, what generally registers as an evangelical is someone who self-reports as an evangelical. Have you considered what this actually means?

What percentage of evangelical churches have membership? Meaningful church rolls? Are we talking about people who say they are evangelicals because when they do attend a church, it’s evangelical? Do they mean they vote for the GOP? Are they pro-life? Do they listen to evangelical media/ Like K-Love?

Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that we’re talking the evangelical niche-market and not a seriously definable group of people? Why do I have the feeling that evangelical conviction and American self-definition are being mistaken for one another?

One of the reasons I am convinced we are going to have a collapse is because I am convinced no one really knows if most evangelicals are “there” at all. If they are “there,” what is the level of their loyalty? How easily can they not be “there?”

It’s more than a bit optimistic to say that evangelicalism is growing because of reasons that actually forestall an eventual collapse. Evangelical growth among Hispanics and immigrants is undeniable. Growth in selected small segments of evangelicalism is true and good growth. But megachurch growth is transfer and re-affiliation growth. Much of evangelicalism is spin and “low loyalty.”

Look at the numbers in the SBC. The denomination “grows” in various ways, even as it moves closer to generational free fall and the loss of thousands of churches. I’m grateful for the kinds of growth we have in the SBC, but if you are SBC you know what’s actually going on in most of that “growth”: rebaptisms, baptizing children and adding ethnic congregations.

3. Did I hear someone say you would see a Baptist becoming a Lutheran as making a “post-evangelical” turn?

Yes. I believe that the move from evangelicalism to Reformation traditions, such as we saw in the creation of the Reformed Baptist movement starting in the 1960s, is an example of discontented evangelicals looking at the theology of the larger, deeper, more ancient church and making a move in that direction.

That’s certainly true with evangelicals moving to Lutheranism and Anglicanism.

So, ironically, some of the Calvinists who are the most vociferous critics of what I’m saying are examples of a move in a post-evangelical direction.

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….

The 9 Marks blog is increasingly, uh…interesting….from a post-evangelical perspective.

Jonathan Leeman writes about the danger of seminary profs being disconnected from the local church, a point that I fully agree with based on scripture and my own experience in a Christian school. But when you are reading reformed Baptists, you never get a free lunch. Along with his thoughts about seminary professors and churchmanship, Leeman comments on what he heard at a recent conference at Gordon-Conwell.

Most of the speakers seemed only too happy to treat Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox as “brothers and sisters in the faith,” as easily as a Baptist might refer to a Presbyterian. Now, I trust that some RC and GOs are Christians, but such unqualified, unnuanced passing remarks effectively dismiss the Reformation and jeopardize souls. Don’t you realize the effect your passing comments have on sheep?

As John H at the Boar’s head Tavern comments, this is the view of the reformation that prevails among the YRR: It was the true believers separating from the unbelievers.

John H quotes someone who might know a bit about the Reformation: Martin Luther. Luther’s view?

We on our part confess that there is much that is Christian and good under the papacy; indeed everything that is Christian and good is to be found there and has come to us from this source.

For instance we confess that in the papal church there are the true holy Scriptures, true baptism, the true sacrament of the altar, the true keys to the forgiveness of sins, the true office of the ministry, the true catechism in the form of the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the articles of the creed.

Similarly the pope admits that we too, though condemned by him as heretics, and likewise all heretics, have the holy Scriptures, baptism, the keys, the catechism, etc. [...]

I contend that in the papacy there is true Christianity, even the right kind of Christianity and many great and devoted saints. Shall I cease to make this pretence?

This no doubt explains why Luther hasn’t appeared on the program of Together For the Gospel.

Meanwhile, Pope Benedict the 16th takes one of the most bold steps in reuniting the church any of us will ever see by creating a way for faithful Anglicans who seek communion with Rome to remain Anglican under Anglican leadership. It’s a stunner, and a move that will probably result in thousands of Anglicans moving to Rome.

It will be interesting to hear TEC’s and ACNA’s response to this move.

The two visions are work here are compellingly different and need little comment. Benedict the 16th is making a historic overture that underlines what has happened in Catholic Christianity since Vatican II. My allowing Anglicans to be Anglican, he presents a new model of communion that holds substantial possibilities within world Christianity. It is an example of Christian vision that seem, at least to me, to be about the Gospel in ways that we should all be able to appreciate.

Could we all ask ourselves this question: How could I meet other Christians halfway, and not demand that they become like me to be legitimate?

Could we consider how long we want to be the ones dictating terms of “true Christianity” to the Catholic and Orthodox communions?

A growing Anglican church has a lot of evangelicals to educate in the basics of liturgy. Rev. Eric Dudley is a wonderful preacher and a fine teacher. In this presentation, he takes an hour to guide you through the basics of Anglican liturgy. Many of you in the IM audience will learn a tremendous amount about the larger, deeper tradition in the Anglican and Episcopal churches. Listen to his explanation of not being “sermon centered” and what is an “Anglican altar call.”

The Nuts and Bolts of Anglican Liturgy from St. Peter's Anglican Church on Vimeo.

Jeff: “More experienced, mature Christians who should be teaching the young about and sharing with them their great Christian heritage are instead asked to ‘get with it’ or ‘get out.’”

Imonk: “I’m watching a father bring his 5 year old (?) to mass, take his hand and dip it in the water, make the cross for him, then take him to his seat and show him how to genuflect. … I am especially impressed with how a small child and an 80 year old man are functioning within the same world of thought, ritual and understanding. … I see evangelicals doing less and less that will hold anyone in the faith into their 80s. If I were 80, I wouldn’t go near 99% of evangelical churches.”

I’ve noticed that much of the discussion along these lines in this thread has tended towards the “yes, it is tragic, without older people in the congregation we are losing the wisdom of the sages of the faith” line of thought. And I would agree that is certainly true. But I wonder if it is only half the tragedy of the the picture that contains very few elderly (and even somewhat younger than outright elderly).

I wonder if the other half of that picture is that the grandpa whose brain’s speech center has been ravaged by stroke can still teach his 5 year old grandson to make the sign of the cross and genuflect. (I’m having trouble coming up with anything non-verbal in my own protestant tradition.) The grandma suffering from Alzheimer’s still has the light go on when the hymn she learned as a child is sung. The aging man crotchety from arthritis pain or the aging woman fragile with osteoporosis or the person being consumed with cancer – who really aren’t able or suitable to pal around with the youth, or teach the kid’s classes, or even help stack the chairs or take up the offering anymore – can be in the midst of the congregation, seen and heard singing the Doxology in a way that can only come out of intense struggle with the meaning of the same words over and over in the midst of long term pain and hardship.

Of course, all of the above is a form of the older teaching the younger, too. But I doubt it is the first image of “teaching the younger” that comes to mind even to those younger folk sympathetic to the idea of older folk having a role in a congregation. And, in the current situation that iMonk describes for the elderly within evangelicalism, I also suspect that the loss is not just the younger missing out on the wisdom of the older. There is also the effect on the elderly who feel rejected for uselessness or who lose contact with younger people.

With my mostly non-liturgical protestant background, I struggled to come up with the examples I gave above. Is it easier for those of you with long-term liturgical formation to come up with examples of continued meaningful participation by the elderly that you have seen in real life? Or am I just seeing greener grass on the other side of the fence in hoping there could possibly be contributing place for me in the midst of some congregation somewhere if (when?) I end up a non-sagely, non-productive, frail, and/or mentally diminished elderly (or even not so elderly) person at some point in life? From my middle-aged vantage point, I’m not seeing a happy path forward at the present time.

I have some thoughts on all of this for later. For now, it’s off to Poe’s Tavern and a harbor cruise, then Charleston market and The Hominy Grill.

Please sit down, have a cup of tea or coffee…and listen.

I see that you’ve responded to some of us who are pilgrims in the evangelical community and who are on a journey within and perhaps beyond evangelicalism. You’ve offered up some “help” in the form of advice, comments, explanations and so forth.

If possible, I’d like to encourage you to consider a few matters that could prove useful to our shared ultimate goal of knowing the Trinitarian God and following Jesus.

1. It’s possible you may be able to claim a few of us for your particular church by arguing with us over the specifics of doctrine. There are some among us who are in the mood to be convinced. But you are making a mistake, in my view, in regard to most of us with this approach. Your assumption that we need to be battered with the clubs of better logic and more knowledge is not the pleasant experience you apparently remember it to be. Let us have a process that operates under our terms and with our perception of the leadership of the Holy Spirit. If this is an episode of Bounty Hunter, tell us.

2. If you are delighted to have laid down all your doubts and questions at the feed of the LCMS, the RCC or EO, that’s wonderful. Again, don’t assume that’s our journey or will be. There are many ways for persons like ourselves to appropriate and experience your tradition without joining. There is considerable evidence that a continual trail of “joining,” is not what many of us are looking for at all, as we have seen that in more than a few of our number, with less than impressive results.

3. Many of us share a suspicion that the submission of mind and curiosity to a specific authority or tradition may not be as easy for us as it has been for you. It is not a characteristic we all share when it comes to human traditions and institutions. Many of us can safely say we will never pray to Mary, believe in purgatory or practice closed communion. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t still on this journey. Louder announcements of circular authority claims have a similar problem. Your (or our) decisions to accept claims of a “pure Gospel” or an “infallible authority” don’t qualify as “pure” or “infallible” for many of us.

4. Our heroes in this journey are not always converts. They are often evangelicals who remained evangelicals or pilgrims who kept moving and never settled. We may find a “half-way house” in Anglicanism or the ELCA and stay there. We are not as interested in being the trophies of a tradition as we are in seeing some aspect of Christ that we can only see through something your tradition has preserved for us.

5. We are not fools when it comes to the Eucharist (or baptism.) We’re not looking at the obvious and refusing to see. Explain us as you wish, but we see what we see (and vice versa) for reasons that are a mixture of influence, environment, authority, education, exposure and consideration. There is nothing quite so frustrating as to be read, for the 500th time for many of us, the plain statements of scripture that have divided Christians for centuries, and to do so as if we’ve just never actually paid attention to what Jesus says in John 6. It’s a habit that should never appear in a discussion among friends. Take it for granted that we have examined the scriptures many, many times and will continue to do so.

6. Answer our questions as real questions, not as invitations to evangelize us.

7. Should we be wrong about your tradition in some statement we make, correct us with grace and a recognition that we are understandably at a disadvantage.

8. What was the answer to your journey is not going to be the answer to our own. If you send us a collection of convert essays to create conversion envy, or if you take a small move on our part as a sign that we are ready to sign up, you’ve misjudged.

9. What we value as good in our tradition- evangelism, missions, church-planting, preaching, singing, etc.- we are not likely to abandon for your version of the same thing without some lamentation and complaint. Whatever we take from you, realize that those of us who value where we’ve been and what God has done in our life in the past respect what formed us.

10. I learned long ago that two people may fight one another, but attack one of them and both will turn on you. We may be severe on our own evangelical tradition, but don’t assume that means we are ready to join you in your criticism of the same. That may be unfair, but it’s very human.

Thanks for listening,

Michael