Riffs 12:01:08: Post-Evangelical, Post Vatican II Common Ground: The Importance of Bible Study
December 1, 2008 by iMonk
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Internet Monk lurker Dave McGowan sends along this piece from America magazine (I know, I know) on the increased importance of Bible study in the Roman Catholic Church, and the opportunities presented by the study of the scripture in parishes, classes, ecumenical settings and individually.
Is it true that Catholics don’t read the Bible? Many don’t, but similar numbers of Protestants don’t read the Bible either. Catholics believe they get the Bible in Mass. Protestants think they get it in sermons and Sunday School. But I can tell you firsthand after 30+ years of teaching the Bible, that very, very few people actually read the book at all. Most know a view of various stories and teaching that couldn’t be substantiated by any serious presentation of texts. They just know that some preacher or family member assured them that this was “what the Bible said.”
When people actually read the Bible, they are always surprised. It’s never what they expected.
But the quote of real interest to me was this evidence of the increased influence of conservative evangelicals (converts and otherwise) on the RCC.
Moreover, while fewer believers know much about the Bible, one-third of Americans continue to believe that it is literally true, something organizers of the Synod on the Word of God called a dangerous form of fundamentalism that is “winning more and more adherents…even among Catholics.” Such literalism, the synod’s preparatory document said, “demands an unshakable adherence to rigid doctrinal points of view and imposes, as the only source of teaching for Christian life and salvation, a reading of the Bible which rejects all questioning and any kind of critical research.”
I have to admit that if you read what the Catechism of the RCC says about the nature and inspiration of scripture, I couldn’t be a bigger fan, and the reason is that since Vatican II, the church’s Biblical scholars and theologians have articulated a beautiful, elegant contemporary view of the Bible that will appeal to anyone who isn’t a literalist or fundamentalist. If you are a post-evangelical who needs to read a serious doctrine of scripture that engages with science, Biblical criticism and a Christocentric view of the message of scripture, it’s not done any better anywhere that I know of.
But apparently the recent Synod of Bishops working on the doctrine of the Word felt that the inroads of fundamentalism and literalism (spell that C-R-E-A-T-I-O-N-I-S-M) are serious enough to issue an unmistakable warning. Other coverage of the Synod reported considerable division and controversy over…..inerrancy. (Southern Baptist fundamentalists, your phones are ringing.) I think this means you won’t be seeing Raymond Brown or Joe Fitzmeyer on EWTN anytime soon. Enjoy Steve Ray.
Some evangelicals will, of course, say that a serious doctrine of inerrancy and literal interpretation will knock down some of the core doctrines of the contemporary RCC, and they would be right. The Roman Catholic doctrine of scripture works in relation to views on tradition, magisterial authority and papal authority that are undermined by the majority of evangelicalism’s views of scriptural authority. We believe in tradition, but tradition judged by scripture. We believe in authority, but not unerring authority in Rome.
Still, there is no doubt that many post-evangelicals and Roman Catholics can read the Bible together, engage in mutual Biblical studies and benefit from shared perspectives. We can learn a lot from the Catholic use of scripture in our scripture starved evangelical churches. We’re quite good at waving the Bible around, but how many churches that you know are teaching any kind of “Introduction to the Bible” or similar courses for adults?
Pope Benedict talked in the recent synod about doing away with the deadening effects of much of the higher critical methodology that separated the Bible from Christian faith. While many of us might have disagreements about the value of critical study, there’s no doubt that the call for a Christologically centered ministry of the Word and a view of scripture that brings us to understand the living Christ of faith is what all of us want to have and to share.
Rose:
The Gideons are seriously KJV ony in my experience here in Ky. I’ve never heard a story like that. Sure it wasn’t the Navigators or another group.
The Gideons are generally pretty hardcore everywhere, but the KJV-Only encounters in your experience might be more related to local Kentucky culture than the Gideons as an international organization. They also distribute the NKJV, and have in the past distributed the NIV and the Revised Berkeley. Apparently, in Britain, the Gideons pretty much only pass out the NIV. Though, with Internet sources, who knows how accurate that is.
Pax et bonum,
Sam Urfer
I agree with Joe the reform of the 60s did not do what it was suppose to, however I am not one of those who blames the Council (VII) but rather the people that implemented it. All that they did which the document of the council never sanctions was always followed up by “in the spirit of Vatican II,” when it should of been “in accordance to Vatican II.”
What good is it to them to be able to quote scripture if they lack understading of scripture?
>What good is it to them to be able to quote scripture if they lack understanding of scripture?
Giovanni:
Please explain the above statement. I’m really hoping it doesn’t mean what it appears to mean. Who is “them?”
I’m in Canada but it was definitely a red NAS Gideons bible. Perhaps Canada’s Gideons is a little less strict about translation choices.
Here’s the address for the Catholic Bibles in the picture.
http://www.clearlycatholic.com/Bibles.html
How about this for bible study?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTYr3JuueF4
iMonk: In this instance Catholics. However I would say this to anybody that can quote from the scriptures and yet shows no reverence for God.
Sam:
Your independent Bible studies sound great. I want to sign up.
Michael, it definitely was the Gideons who came to my school (and indeed, to the local third level technical college when I was there) to give out Testaments, and they definitely weren’t KJV translations.
Don’t ask me which version, because y’know, typical Catholic “Huh? There’s different translations? Who knew?”
Maybe KJV-only is a local tradition?
Obed said:
In short, the more I experience it, the more I love the lectionary and the mass-style worship service.
The Liturgy of the Hours is another great place where the person is immersed in scripture. I don’t only mean the praying of the psalms, but in the Office of Readings, you get a giant chunk of scripture and a related commentary, usually by some Church Father. Now that we’re in Advent, the Church immerses us in the book of Isaiah, and it’s sense of longing. And over the past 3 days, I’ve had commentaries by St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and today, St. Bernard of Clairvaux. You should check it out, if only for the readings. Although there is a significant chunk of change that needs to be spent. Conversely, you can get it on-line for free, here:
http://www.universalis.com/readings.htm
Although, seen as today is the feast of St. Francis Xavier, you get a letter of his, instead of the ordinary St. Bernard that I got (because I forgot it was his feast day). And I note that the bible translation they use there is…not my favorite.
Francis Beckwith tells about his recent return to the Roman Catholic Church in his new book, Return To Rome. In the final chapter (“Evangelical and Catholic”) he gives his arguments as to why he believes the Evangelical Theological Society should not remain exclusively Protestant. He believes there is much to be gained from Protestant and Catholic scholars who are committed to Christian orthodoxy and a high view of scripture, interacting in an academic setting in which they can learn from each other. His arguments as to why Catholics should be permitted to join ETS are, I think, irrefutable.
Though we Protestants “believe in tradition judged by Scripture, and though we believe in authority, but not unerring authority of Rome”, Beckwith demonstrates how profitable it would be if we would rethink our position and allow Evangelical Catholics to join us in the scholarly research of Scripture.
Permit me this somewhat lengthy quote from his book: “Put in terms of specific traditions, if the term ‘Evangelical’ is broad enough to include high-church Anglicans, low-church anti-creedal Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, the Evangelical Free Church, Arminians, Calvinists, Disciples of Christ, Pentecostsals, Seventh-Day Adventists, open theists, atemporal theists, social Trinitarians, substantial Trinitarians, nominalists, realists, eternal security supporters and opponents, temporal theists, dispensationalists, theonomists, church-state separationists, kenotic theorists, covenant theologians, paedo-Baptists, Anabaptists, and Dooyeweerdians, then there should be room [in the ETS] for an Evangelical Catholic.” Amen.
Junior:
I’m all for ecumenism, but Beckwith’s idea is….I can’t find the right word without being very negative.
At the end of the comparison, everyone on the quoted list rejects the authority of the pope and the magisterium. The evangelical view of scripture can’t include infallible men determining what the Bible teaches. Fallible men advocating what the Bible teaches? Yes, but there is a huge difference.
Beckwith impresses me as a cafeteria Catholic in the making. I’m afraid it’s not that easy. Why couldn’t Beckwith have remained an evangelical Catholic? Oh yeah…he has to be in communion with the bishop of Rome because it’s the only way to have Biblical authority. Should ETS include that? Sure about the time the Catholic theological Society invites over a few Protestants to be on equal footing.
peace
MS
Michael:
Beckwith deals with the very thing you mention. In short he says:
“Moreover, the Catholic Church does not hold…that the infallibility of the Magisterium and the ex cathedra papal pronouncements are of the same nature as the Word of God written. As Dei Verbum states (as transalated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church): ‘Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches what has only 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 expiunds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith.’”
He continues: “So, for the Catholic, the Magesterium and the Papacy are limited by both scripture and a particular understanding of Christian doctrine, forged by centuries of debate and reflection, and, in many cases, fixed by ecumenical councils. Consequently, the Catholic Church and its leadership are far more constrained from doctrinal innovations than either the ETS or the typical Evangelical megachurch pastor.”
Though “everyone on the quoted list rejects the authority of the Pope and the Magisterium” this should not prevent them from coming together for scholarly research in the scriptures. I think he and other Catholics (Peter Kreeft, for example) recognize that we can learn from one another even though we have what appears to be irreconcilable differences.
And whether Beckwith is “a cafeteria Catholic in the making” remains to be seen. I personally think he’ll bring some very good leaven to the kitchen, and God knows the Roman Catholic Church can use it…and so can we Protestants.
Peace.
I tend to agree with iMonk on Dr. Beckwith however I think that he is approaching this in a more academic point of view.
I would tend to agree with our esteemed iMonk also. While I certainly think there should be a place for evangelical and Catholic academics to come together and do exactly what Dr. Beckwith advocates, to make that place the ETS would seem to finally and completely gut a body that is already teetering on the brink of losing its original vision.
However, to start crystal-balling Dr. Beckwith’s future adherence to Catholic dogma seems a little…I can’t find the right word without being very negative.
I don’t know Rose, but I like her.
“It seems that evangelical Christianity is in almost the exact position that it lambastes the Catholic church for being in at the time of the reformation: biblically illiterate, strong arming culture, attributing things to Jesus that are not scriptural, building elaborate buildings and teaching the traditions of men as doctrine of God.”
Maybe not until after Christmas, but expect to see something along these lines at The Master’s Table before too long. Rose, you’re welcome at my blog anytime to drop some more of these jewels.
Frankly, Beckwith is at this point a neophyte and should not be quoted as any kind of source on the nature and character of Catholic theology. He’s been a Catholic for what, a year? His understanding of how papal infallibility works really isn’t very compatible with the actual way it’s worked over the centuries. You end up with some kind of clever, Newman-style “say what again?” verbal dance whereby Luther was a scurrilous innovator for interpreting “by faith apart from the works of the law” as “by faith alone,” but Hugo of St Cher’s “treasury of merit” out of which the pope grants indulgences isn’t really an innovation. I think he’s just going to adopt Newmanism (he’s already speaking Newmanese), which is ultimately unable to surmount any divide…and hopelessly boring
Joe, I honestly don’t think there’s any way out for the RCC without either dispensing with the infallibility claim so that it can reform its own dogma or retreating into 19th-C, Vatican I-style fundamentalism.
As for the Beckwith and ETS issue, and after looking at the list of groups acceptable to the ETS, it seems like people are focusing on Rome rather than the Bible. Isn’t this a rehashing of the old “enemy of my enemy is my friend” thing? So somehow groups who can read the bible and disagree with the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, eating meat, can’t really be as bad as those Catholics? Oh please; can you set me straight?
Josh:
If Beckwith is a neophyte Catholic and doesn’t really get it [the Catholic thing], and if Newman is just a clever bore, who’s the genuine article? Are all Evangelical converts so shallow? Must one be a cradle Catholic before he’s the real deal? And more on topic, are Beckwith and Newman so Biblically illiterate that we can so cavalierly dismiss them?
“Consequently, the Catholic Church and its leadership are far more constrained from doctrinal innovations than either the ETS or the typical Evangelical megachurch pastor.”
Oh please. We have von Balthasar and at least two most recent Popes who cannot even be sure a single soul is in Hell, against what for almost all readers are the very clear words of Scripture. That would hardly fly at a megachurch, although I am not so sure about all the players at the ETS.
What I do think is quite true is that even if Beckwith rattles of a list of many brands of Evangelicals, they as a species or group actually are far more homogenous of belief as a group, since common belief is the very thing that defines Evangelicals, whereas with Catholics it is membership. THE CCC is wonderful if read through Evangelically-trained theological senses, but the liberal RC establishment can adhere to it and read it with a liberal and faith-deadening lens where it means most anything at all. Can Evaneglicals do this with the Bible? Sure, but I’d argue there is indeed a more clearly defined Evan. faith. J.I. Packer & Thomas Oden’s “One Faith” argues this point to effect.
Well Joe the last time I checked it was not Von Balthasar or any Pope in history that was all knowing that is reserved for God.
There was a discussion of related matters in the now defunct periodical, Crisis Magazine, some years ago — a series on the Jesus Seminar by authors including N.T. Wright, William Farmer, Juhn Burger and Kenneth Whitehead. All-in-all, it was a sseries well-worth reading. I garnered the publisher’s permission to post these articles online in an independent blog entitled “Jesus Seminar Critically Examined” back in 2007. They should be read in reverse order chronologically (an Index can be found in the right sidebar if you scroll down a bit). Recommended.
“Juhn Burger” should be John Burger (above comment).
Junior, you said: If Beckwith is a neophyte Catholic and doesn’t really get it [the Catholic thing], and if Newman is just a clever bore, who’s the genuine article?
Really, you do have more options for assessing Catholic history and theology than the idealistic, romanticized ramblings a recent convert and a fellow who completely rewrote some of the most fundamental Catholic doctrines to make them more palatable to his sensibilities. My assessment is derived largely from primary and secondary historical sources rather than the agitprop of fresh converts and apologists. And Catholic history just doesn’t look like what it should if what Beckwith said is true.
By the way, I think Newmanism is boring because at the bottom, it’s little more than a series of word-plays and rhetorical games. So much of modern Catholic theology is a verbal minuet because of him. Now Robert Bellarmine, there was a real Catholic theologian. He actually told you what he thought and why.
Josh:
If you’re correct about Newman “rewriting fundamental Catholic doctrines” then your problem with him is not simply a matter of personal taste but fundamental belief. And if that’s the case, is it fair to assume that he won’t be canonized? I would assume that the Catholic theologians who have the oversight of such matters are smart enough to recognize his errors. And if he is canonized, how does that square with the infallibility of the Church? After all, rewriting fundamental doctrines is no small matter regardless of the ecclesiastical body one belongs to.
Your continued disdain of Beckwith (at least
that’s how you sound to me) is interesting. You sound almost as dismissive of his reversion to Catholicism as many of his Protestant friends. Should we assume that because he’s a new revert he’s shallow, idealistic and hasn’t really grappled with the marrow of the Catholic faith? Should keep his mouth shut? It’s one thing to be told that the RCC is THE Church, but it’s quite another to see what some people think when someone actually swims the Tiber and is thrilled about it. Is the water really that cold? Again I ask, must one be a cradle Catholic before he’s the real deal?
By the way, I’m a Protestant who has for several years grappled with the claims of Catholicism. I’m encouraged when I run into a Catholic who’s genuinely concerned about my soul (they’re rare, unfortunately). But I’m mystified when I run into Catholics who act as though not only do I not get it, but they’d be just as happy if I didn’t.
Thanks for the head-up on Bellarmine, I’ll check him out.
Peace.