The River is Deep; The River is Wide: How I Made My Peace With The Roman Catholic Church
April 5, 2005 by iMonk
NOTE: This piece is similar to an essay on Catholicism I wrote two years ago, but the differences are significant. Read them both. There has been some evolution in the meantime. My apologies to the Catholic bashers who will get upset at this piece. Maybe you shouldn’t read it.
I was born in 1956, so when I was in elementary school, I dimly remember the image of “good” Pope John XXIII appearing on the television, and the image of Paul VI is impressed in my mind from many pictures throughout my high school and college years. In those days, I couldn’t have told you what a Pope was or what Catholics believed, because I was still submerged in a world where the one thing my family and peers could always say to justify themselves as better than others was “We aren’t Catholic.”
My education regarding Catholicism ran something like this: Catholics aren’t saved, and if you marry a Catholic girl the priest will take your babies. Catholics worship Mary, not Jesus. They pray to dead people and worship statues. They baptize babies and speak in Latin. Anyone who used to be a Catholic and is now a Christian will tell you that Catholicism is a big racket to make money. They drink and play Bingo, then go to confession and expect everything to be alright. The Pope is dedicated to taking over the world and destroying all non-Catholics. They call church mass. Their schools make their kids dress up every day. They have to eat fish on Friday. Read this Chick comic book and it will explain everything, but stay away from Catholics yourself.
Further down the road, I picked up more substantial doctrinal differences than this caricature, but the preceding paragraph always furnished the bright, flashing background of what I knew of Catholicism, as it does for many of my friends and readers today.
Of course, in my town, a third of the residents were Catholics, so I was doomed to cross paths with them sooner or later. I knew a few Catholic kids at public school. We resented them because they took off days with the Catholic school kids. But I didn’t really know any Catholics well, until I became friends with the Ivey family down the street. Jim, their youngest son, was my age, loved basketball as I did, and soon became one of my constant companions.
Hanging around the Ivey household for several years, I can verify the following: Catholics do go to mass. They rarely go to confession. They do drink beer. They don’t understand a thing about the Baptist notion of “getting saved.” I never saw a Bible in the house. I heard no prayers to Mary. I did see pictures and small plastic statues of Jesus, Mary and some guys I assume were saints. There seemed to be a lot of fundraisers that involved barbecue. They were really serious about having their kids in Catholic schools and baptizing their grandchildren. They never tried to make me into a Catholic. They prayed before meals and seemed like very nice people. I took them all to a Billy Graham movie once and no one had the slightest idea what it meant.
I’ll admit that I went to mass with the Ivey’s on one occasion, the wedding of an older sibling. I was so freaked out by whatever was going on up front that I exited myself to the porch of the church as soon as possible. When people started going forward to receive communion, I assumed it was an invitation, and I wanted to be nowhere in the vicinity. If the rapture happened I was in the wrong place.
By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I was a new Christian, and some of the Christian kids in our “CSU” at school were Catholics. “Witnessing opportunity” was how I looked at it. So in the name of evangelism, I dated a Catholic girl, easily one of the more dangerous things I ever did. Carolyn was a great person, and we had a super time going out. So good, in fact, that I contemplated if I were willing to pay the price of coming out of the closet and revealing to my church and parents that I was dangerously close to offering up my babies on the altar of a possible relationship with a Catholic girl. Alas, we called the whole thing off. Too much pressure on both of us from the real world. She married a doctor, which I’m pretty sure was adequate compensation for losing me. (That’s sarcasm.)
Around the same time, the Charismatic movement entered our community, and through a strange series of events, I wound up going to a weekly charismatic prayer meeting at a Catholic church Parrish hall. While all denominations were present, the Catholics were the majority, and my long-ingrained prejudices were in trouble. These weren’t the Catholics I’d been told about. Nosirree Bob.
No mention of Mary and the saints. Bibles everywhere. Testimonies of experiences with God were common. Hands in the air. Choruses. Tongues. Frequent healing prayer and manifestations of “Pentecostal stuff” were common as well. The priest in charge was “on fire” for God, as we used to say. They sang songs to and about Jesus, not Mary. It was a Christ-centered, joy-filled time of prayer, worship and fellowship. These Catholics were acting like the evangelists at our church always tried to get us to act. Saved and happy about it. It seemed that combining Pentecostal theology with Roman Catholicism yielded real Christians.
My worldview was crumbling. First friends, then a girl, now my fellow Christians. All Catholics and all quite different from what I’d been told. The Pope was out to get me.
The next step was indeed sinister. Even as a young Christian, I was a reader of Christian books and a fan of contemporary Christian music, and I was particularly susceptible to the lure of the Christian bookstore. The local “Baptist Book Store” was my fix, but soon the plot thickened. A Catholic bookstore opened, and with the innocence of a Protestant wandering into a cathedral, I was lured in by the promise of John Michael Talbot albums.
I discovered two things. First, books. Excellent Catholic books, classical and contemporary. The names didn’t mean much at the time, but over the years I would become acquainted with many Catholic writers, as well as discovering that Catholics liked C.S. Lewis, J.I. Packer and many other Protestants authors. (I also noted a complete absence of polemical and poisonous anti-Protestant bile in print. Since I was used to seeing the anti-Catholic version of this at my church, I was impressed. The “chip on the shoulder” seemed to be a one-way street.)
Second, I discovered delightful Catholic people, who soon became my friends. The two ladies who owned the store were particularly friendly to me, and once they were aware that I was a Baptist prodigal wandering far from my own bookstore, they became as helpful as possible. They answered questions and recommended books, so that my ignorance was rapidly repaired. They became people I genuinely counted as sisters in the Lord.
Soon I discovered that almost everything I had been told was wrong, or at least perversely misstated; that the Catholic church was in a tremendous state of flux as it came to grips with the effects of Vatican II. Most shocking of all, I discovered that I was considered a Christian in good standing by my Catholic friends. Since I was still surrounded by a majority of family and friends who thought Catholics were rank unbelievers who only accepted those who kissed the papal ring as saved, this was quite a shock.
It was in this bookstore that I also discovered something that is intangible, but quite real to me, even to this day. The best way I know to describe it is with an illustration. The Catholic church was deep. Deep in history. Deep in spirituality. Deep in its appreciation of culture. Deep in its engagement with human life. The Catholic church seemed like a great river, the Mississippi perhaps. Deep and wide, with the accumulated brush and trash of many years, but with such a depth and volume of water that it was still majestic and powerful.
My own tradition seemed shallow. Like a creek or a stream. Yes, it might contain purer water (or not), but it was not deep and did not want to be deep. It bubbled and gurgled on the rocks of excitement. It seemed to want to be far away from the world, a small stream unconnected to the river. It was not, however, a river. The fact is, of course, the stream and the river are connected. They cannot deny the connection, even if they do not want to talk about it. If nothing else, both are headed for the sea.
My illustration breaks down in many ways, but I hope you understand the idea and feeling behind it. It’s quite subjective, but it is very real to me as I consider the Catholic church now. The greatness and vast scope of Catholicism dwarfed my own tradition. As a Landmark Baptist, I had been exposed to our own contrived version of Baptist history, invented for the purpose of countering the historical claims of Catholicism and Campbellism.
My Baptist tradition stressed evangelism to the point that everything else served the purpose and cause of evangelism. Prayer was evangelism or it was worthless. Worship was evangelism. Music was evangelistic. The spiritual life was the soul-winning life. The paradigm for all the Christian experience was winning others. This kind of “wretched urgency” was not present in the Catholic church, and I had been told that this was a great deficiency. In fact, it was a different focus and a healthy, dare I say, more Biblical focus on God. I had to admit that despite all I had been told, and all the flaws that I could observe myself, the Catholic church was seemingly far more God-centered than my own church.
Perhaps it was the fact that Catholics had not eliminated the arts. Perhaps it was the ancient spiritual tradition of monasticism I read about in Thomas Merton. Perhaps it was the obviously Spirit-filled people I was meeting as I tentatively explored the world outside of my Baptist ghetto. Perhaps it was the sense that the Catholic church somehow originally “owned” so much of the faith that we as Protestants were using, and we Baptists just couldn’t admit it. I can’t put my finger on it. All I know is that my encounter with the God-centeredness and depth of Catholicism stood in stark contrast to the shallow pragmatism and manipulative evangelism of my own tradition.
The great attraction of Catholicism for me wasn’t its doctrinal correctness. Like an elderly grandparent, the church believed a lot I could never believe. But I was attracted to its maturity and beauty. It’s confidence in God rather than in human urgency and zealotry. Even among those who were living lives of amazing sacrifice, there was a quiet, settled center that I found wonderful. Merton experienced it in his conversion, and I could sense it whenever I came near to Catholic spirituality and tradition.
“Tradition” is an important item in my enlightenment and acceptance of Catholicism. I knew that Catholic bashers never tired of pointing out that we believed only what the Bible taught, and paid no attention to tradition. “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” Right. “Tradition” was one of those words preachers spit out with disgust, right alongside “religion.” But I was far enough down the road now to realize that my Baptist experience had all kinds of traditions that we reverenced as untouchable, yet we did not want to admit the truth. We waved our Bibles around and then stayed safely within the traditions we’d received from our culture, our denomination and our churches. (Listing those traditions is another essay, or a comment thread, but if you haven’t figured out that Protestants of every kind are steeped in their own traditions, you need to wake up.)
I particularly benefited from coming to see that Catholics believed in openly acknowledging the interaction between scripture and tradition. Though they gave authority to church traditions and papal encyclicals that I could never agree with, I appreciated the fact that you could talk about tradition with Catholics. They understood that the Bible didn’t canonize itself, and that the doctrine of the Trinity isn’t explicitly found in the second chapter of Philemon. Holding scripture and tradition in a kind of tension, with both influencing the other, makes tremendous sense, and always has, even though in the end, I cannot agree with the position of the Catholic church on how the authority of tradition stands in relation to the authority of scripture. (It seems to me that the church has created for itself a conundrum where scripture can never correct tradition, and therefore the church is doomed to an accumulation of errors that can never be totally reversed.)
Bu the time I was out of college, I had begun going to two monasteries regularly for personal retreats. I was reading as much Thomas Merton as I could get my hands on. I took church history in seminary from Dr. Timothy George and saw the Catholic church from an intelligent, truly “catholic,” but reformed standpoint. I was attending mass several times a year in order to understand the liturgy and worship of the church. I came a long way under George’s astute guidance and through reading Catholic books and talking with Catholic friends. I especially found help in Catholic Biblical scholars like Raymond Brown, who were unsurpassed in their scholarly approach to the Biblical text.
I came to better understood the place of Mary in Catholic theology (bad) and devotion (not as bad), and the ambivalence of many American Catholics to Marian excesses in other countries. I finally understood the difference between veneration and worship. Sacramentalism began to become clearer to me. I came to see the saints as the teachers of the church down through the ages. I saw the hierarchy of the church not just as a chain of authority by-passing the Bible, but as pastoral leaders, teaching and shepherding the flock. I was confirmed in my disagreements with Catholic beliefs in many places, but I came to see that Catholics who believed their faith did, along with their errors, believe that Jesus Christ was the only savior, mediator and Lord, and that faith in that Christ was the essence of Christianity. I could say the Apostle’s Creed with my Catholic friends with confidence that we were part of one and the same church. While we would never agree on the precise understanding of justification, we believed that God was just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
I realize this puts me opposite many of my Protestant, Baptist and Calvinistic friends. I want to assure them that I have not overlooked the many errors and injustices perpetuated by the Roman Church. I understand them well. I agree that the church of Rome maintains the errors that prevent true unity among Christians, especially in maintaining the infallibility of the Pope. But Protestants have grievous errors of our own, and our insistence on sola scriptura does not erase the fact that it is the Catholic Church that gave us the first 400 years of Christianity, and all that comes to us in those early years. We may be a divided family, but we are a family. I cannot speak for the salvation of every Catholic, or every Christian, but I will continue to receive my Catholic friends as they have received me: as a brother in Jesus Christ.
Of course, I lived through the deaths of Paul VI and John Paul I. With more understanding of Catholicism, I identified greatly with what the church was going through in those tumultuous days. The selection of John Paul II was earthshaking at the time, and as I close this essay, I want to say a few words about what this Pope meant to my faith as an evangelical Christian.
The Pope is the most visible Christian leader in the world. It is in the interest of Christians everywhere that he be a man devoted to Jesus Christ and aware of the witness of the Gospel in this broken world. The Pope can be a bureaucrat heading up an organization, or he can be a witness and a shepherd of the flock. John Paul II was that witness and that shepherd. He was a deeply devoted Christian, unafraid to witness and ready to suffer. He was a hero to many of us, and I am not ashamed to say I aspire to live and die as well as he did.
Even with his traditional Catholicism and intense, mystical devotion to Mary, it was not hard to see that Christ and the cross were centerpieces in the Pope’s Christian vision. He was firmly committed to issues of life, justice and peace, and these commitments grew out of a definitively Christian worldview. He frustrated many of the liberal theologians and activists in America and Europe, because he not only refused to discuss the more liberal, radical currents of post-Vatican II Catholicism, he banned the discussion of many of those topics. After 26 years and thousands of appointments in the church, John Paul left the church far more orthodox and classically Catholic than ever before. The church is still wounded and embattled, but where would it be without him? In a secular, relativistic age, he was a prophet, standing against a cold wind of nihilism and materialism, lifting high the cross.
As a young man, I had been taught that Catholics prayed to saints and cowered before popes. I still understand that certain kinds of lay Catholicism can go to bizarre excesses in their adoration of human beings. What I didn’t understand then, and do understand now, is that Catholicism really believes in the presence of the Holy Spirit in the church, just as Protestants do. But the Catholic Church will point to those whose lives have given evidence of the presence of the Spirit, and direct the church to note those lives as windows and teachers of Christ. I am sure there are Catholics who don’t understand this and go to excess, like there are Baptists that don’t understand that walking the aisle isn’t salvation. Still, the whole of Catholic teaching says that the Christian can look at the lives of all those diverse saints and shepherds, and see the Holy Spirit at work in our world. The saints are “little Christs,” and I know few Protestants who do not, in some way, recognize this reality in some way.
In other words, the church isn’t designating people to be worshiped. It is telling the world that these lives proclaim the truth of the Gospel and show the love of God. Imitate them. Learn from them. Be inspired by them. Protestants don’t do this, of course. And as a result, we have our own “saints”: Christian celebrities, CCM artists, megachurch pastors, TV preachers and best-selling authors. Who would you rather be the examples for your church? The current CCM Top 40, or the saints whose days populate the Christian calendar?
The search for a Pope is a way of seeking God’s spiritual guidance and presence in his church now. It may seem to Protestants to be an insult to scripture, but I can recall pastor search committees whose rhetoric often sounded as serious as Cardinals seeking a pontiff. The Cardinals and all Catholics know that the Pope may not be a saint now or ever, but they are willing to gamble on God’s commitment to His church on earth. I think with John Paul II they did extremely well. God was with him. Errors and all- and yes, his Marian devotion was offensive- John Paul carried high the cross of Christ to more than 120 countries and before millions of people. I know that many evangelicals feel he was our Pope, too, because he stood for so many of the truths of the whole church and the true Gospel.
Catholic bashing is a sport that will always be popular among Protestants. It is the type of teenage behavior one expects from kids who leave home after a big fight. It’s not necessary, and even when we take stock of the many serious issues that separate us, we still say the same Apostle’s Creed, worship the same Trinity, share the same first four centuries of the church and believe in the same Christ of John 3:16. I prefer to acknowledge this unity. I don’t care if you don’t. I’m rewarded without applause on this one, I assure you.
Today, Catholic apologists like Scott Hahn are bringing more converts to Rome than ever before. I won’t be one of them, though when I walk in a Lifeway store and see more Prayer of Jabez books I have to laugh. Pope Rick Warren the Great rules in the Vatican City of evangelical publishing. The small streams of evangelicalism are sometimes so polluted that the river- with all its accumulated pollutants- still seems far more appealing. I have decided to wish the Roman Catholic Church well. I have decided to accept the kindnesses shown to me and to enjoy the status given me in the new Catholic Catechism- separated brother. As much as I can, I won’t be separated. I am part of the church Catholic, and I pray that the new Pope will be a shepherd and teacher of all Christians.
I believe one can be wrong about much doctrine, yet still trust Christ, know Christ, show Christ and belong to Christ. Chesterton. St. Francis. Augustine. Merton. John Paul II. Many of my Catholic friends. I expect to see them all in the Kingdom, and in the meantime, I count them as my friends here on the pilgrim way.
(If you haven’t read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, I suggest you purchase a copy, or read an online version, and discover for yourself what Roman Catholics believe.)
Michael:
Excellent! One comment and one question.
First, you said the Catholic church built Christianity for its first 400 years. What is the timeline there?
Second, nice list at the end of the essay but you forgot Tolkien!
Bravo, again.
Not quite sure what you mean by the first question, but I’ll try it. I consider the church of the first four centuries to be the catholic church, undivided. Then we have the East/West schism, and eventually the Reformation. So all of us share the first four centuries of the church, and that is the “catholic” years and the “catholic” church.
Yeah. JRRT is one low profile RC. Easy to miss. Apologies.
Oh, Michael. Wonderful. Wonderful. One of your best.
Thank you very much for this.
I am a Catholic simultaneously mourning the death and celebrating the life of our beloved Holy Father. I have been saddened and hurt over the past few days after reading comments by a few non-Catholic Christians on bulletin boards saying that the Pope is surely going to burn in hell because of his wrong theology. Your post is comforting and inspires me to a greater appreciation of the depth of tradition in the Church to which I belong.
Thank you for trying to understand the complexities of Roman Catholic theology and for respecting our form of faith. And thank you for sharing your reflections with other Christians. God bless you.
Ah, I was just teasing about the Tolkien part. And you totally answered my question. I had completely forgotten about the East/West schism. I’m mildly embarrassed at my lack of knowledge.
Thanks for sharing this with us, Michael.
About the East/West Schism: didn’t that take place in 1054? Or are there two E/W schisms?
I loved the river illustration Michael.
Love and Prayers,
Jenny
p.s. kids ate the cookies
Correct. Shouldn’t have implied it was that early. I simply meant that we had one church in the formative centuries of creed and canon. Thanks.
That makes more sense, especially since 1054 just officialized (is that even a word?) what had essentially already taken place.
Now I get it. It is Roman Catholic- pope-bashing to oppose their theology and their chief propagaters, but it’s okay that for 5 centuries they have condemned to Hell every Christian who believes in justification by faith alone.
What an epiphany! One has to feel sorry for poor ol’Martin Luther. He was so demented that the pope wanted him killed to put him our of his misery. Oh well, such is life for RC-bashers.
As for me, now enlightened, I will raid my wife’s craft supplies for some beads (colored ones ones, can’t stand black)and string to make me a rosary. I think I’ll see if I can get J. Arminius and Chuck Finney to intercede for me. Maybe Mary too, that is Mary Baker Eddy. Might as well cover all the bases and check in with ol’Joe Smith. And what is the name of that JW guy?
Later I’ll borrow someone’s scissors (I’m not allowed to that sharp instruments of my own.) so I can cut 2 Tim 2:5 from my Bible. I’m also going to have to give attention to the book of Hebrews.
I’m off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Rome!
Believing that only those in your church will go to heaven. Sounds vaguely familiar. Where have I heard that before? Hmmmmmm….
Hmmmmmmmm…Probably from the popes since they’re the ones who insist that the RCC is the only CHURCH.
I’m a fan of sarcasm, but the sarcasm of the recent posts suggests that you can’t argue this matter intelligently. It’s called being a troll.
Every church, denomination, whatever, has its theological hard-cases. But for every Trent-quoting Scott Hahn-ite, there are many other catholics who are probably closer to being Protestants than they may imagine. And there are many Protestants who are closer to being Catholics than they think…
As I have stated elsewhere, I have deep problems with the RCC’s official theological positions. (The ones iterated in iMonk’s original piece two years ago aptly describe them.) But instead of bashing any catholics I meet with the arguments and counter-arguments of Trent right off the bat (which most probably wouldn’t know anyways), I try to get to know *them*, what *they* believe, where *they’re* coming from.
Theology is great, but when you reduce a person to their theology (or even the theology of their church, which they may not be aware of), you paradoxically make them *less* human. And believe me, they can tell. They can tell…
troll noun
A supernatural creature…portrayed as a friendly or mischievous dwarf … that lives in caves, in the hills or under bridges.
Bill Mac, how does one argue intelligently with the unintelligible? Besides, if you think about it, it is not possible to conduct intelligent arguments on blog threads. Although many problems exist a major one I see is the inability to get an opposing party to adequately support assertions and deal with points one by one.
But, having said that I now step off into deep water and ask you this: Is it not intelligent to ask why is so much weal expressed for RC’s when “for 5 centuries they have [and continue to do so]condemned to Hell every Christian who believes in justification by faith alone”?
Trolly yours, Ol’Geezer
Doug wrote this: “As I have stated elsewhere, I have deep problems with the RCC’s official theological positions. (The ones iterated in iMonk’s original piece two years ago aptly describe them.) But instead of bashing any catholics I meet with the arguments and counter-arguments of Trent right off the bat (which most probably wouldn’t know anyways), I try to get to know *them*, what *they* believe, where *they’re* coming from.”
Amen!
Here’s the happy mystery, which Catholics are saved already (via their faith in Christ) and which aren’t? Can’t tell? Neither can I. Just keeping preaching the pure Word and let them sort it out with God.
OG -
“Troll” is actually Internet slang for a person who posts on discussion boards for the sole purpose of picking fights.
Troll is also a term for the rather large, mean, ugly creatures that fought for Sauron in LOTR.
I won’t attempt to apply either meaning to you. ;-}
I was raised in a Methodist church, but came to Christ in a real way in a Baptist church. During my spiritual journey over the last 30 years, I have been profoundly influenced by Jeanne Guyon, Francois Fenelon, St. John of the Cross, and Thomas Merton — all Catholics. I’ve hung around the “evangelical” church long enough to know that evangelicalism has enough problems within it that they shouldn’t throw stones at anyone.
‘ol Geezer:
If you have never met any Protestants who tend to officially or unofficially say they are the only true Church, you are indeed fortunate.
Short list:
Any Number of Independent fundamentalist Baptists
A fair number of hard core confessional Lutherans
Various versions of the “Church of Christ” esp in the midwest.
Any number of legalistic sects among Reformed or Pentecostal churches.
http://www.landoverbaptist.com That’s joke, but not by much.
Bravo for this essay! I am not a Roman Catholic, and I have serious issues with many of their doctrines. However, I suspect that I don’t know everything and God may have some serious issues with my doctrine as well.
Interestingly enough, in listening to Catholics speak and reading Catholic writers, particularly fiction writers, I often hear far more of Christ and the grace of God than in most Protestant circles.
“I believe one can be wrong about much doctrine, yet still trust Christ, know Christ, show Christ and belong to Christ.”
This statement sums up my view very nicely. Not too long ago, a church I was a part of pretty much saw itself as the pinnacle of God’s work on the earth. Other folks might make it to heaven, but they were in for some big surprises when they got there and found out we were right! In the last several years I have realized the amazing arrogance of this position and become disgusted that I ever held it.
I am reminded of Mark 9:38-40, and the fact that Christ Himself was apparently less concerned than we often are about our differences.
Ol’Geezer: perhaps you should, as Michael suggested, actually read some of the catechism of the Roman Catholic church. For instance:
“However, one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers …. All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church.”
I had that all copied and ready to paste, but he was having too much fun.
But who cares? Do you know what St. Bashaw of the Tundra said in 1308!!!?? (jn)
Doug, how was I supposed to know what Bill Mac meant if I can’t use a reliable reference? And what is LOTR? More jargon like lol? Laughing Out T(?) R(?).
And right Greg, unless our theology is perfect heaven forbid we critique any other theology no matter how bad it is. And in case you haven’t noticed “evangelicals” are not the least bit shy of throwing stones at other “evangelicals”, ala Osteen and Warren for example. Bad theology needs stones thrown at it wherever it is found, including mine.
iMonk: Yes, I am very fortunate indeed for I have never been involved “in reality” with those you’ve list. I have come across some of in “virtual reality,” but as soon as I recognize them I’m gone. Oh wait! I remember now.
About 50 years ago I met a young fellow at work who said that if one was not a member of a church which had Christian or Christ as part of its name he couldn’t go to heaven. Well, being a pagan raised in a baptist home I was stunned. I asked him if he really meant that a person who was a member of the Southside Baptist Church couldn’t go to heaven simple because the name of the church didn’t include the word Christian or Christ. He assured me that is exactly what he meant. I thought then that was the craziest thing I had ever heard of. I guess now that Ben was just confused about what they were trying to teach him at his Church of Christ.
To all, trolly yours (as defined in American Heritage and as relates to dwarves),
Ol’Geezer
BTW (see I do know a little I-net jargon), if justification by faith alone vs. by faith+works is unimportant why won’t RC’s concede the point?
Who said it was unimportant? In my five reasons I am not a RC, that’s #1.
Did you read what the catechism said? Don’t want you to overlook what IS the RC response to this issue.
And I certainly catch the mention of Osteen and Warren. So I have made peace with the RC in my personal journey and therefore forfeited the right to have any critique of my own evangelicalism.
Brilliant.
Ol’G: The “LOTR” that Doug mentioned was an abbreviation for “Lord of the Rings,” the epic fantasy work by J.R.R.Tolkien.
Jay, Yea or Nay. Has the RCC ever repuddiated the anathematizing by the Council of Trent those who assert that justification is by faith alone?
What you cite raises more questions. What does it mean to be “brought up in the faith of Christ” and “All who have been justified by faith in Baptism”? That was a rhetorical question.
I wasn’t brought up if that means raised as a child in the “faith of (one of those pesky preps that can create so many different meanings) Christ”. God, having elected me unto salvation in Christ, sovereignly regenerated me as an adult, which include the gift of faith. This faith, without anything added to it, I placed in Christ and in him alone for justification. I have no faith in baptism for justification. My baptism was my public confession of Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
My grief is not with the laity of the RCC, but with the powers that be. It seems to me they disguise their theology with flowery and convoluted language; always wanting to create a picture of sweetness and light and brotherhood. Even now the RCC is so sorry that in the past they taught that the Jews killed Jesus and now they ask for forgiveness from the Jews. But what does the Bible say? That Jew, St. Peter, the first pope of Rome of all people, laid the guilt of the crucifixion first on the Jew and then on the gentile. When Paul got through with the human race there wasn’t in all of time any hand that would not have the blood of the cross on it from having held the nails or swung the hammer. And that’s what makes grace so amazing, that God would deign so save even one of these cosmic rebels. To ask the Jews to forgive having once taught the truth, what a despicable way to treat our merciful Lord.
iMonk, I regret that you thought my comment about Osteen and Warren was critical of you, for that was not my point. I agree with you about them and your critque of them. My point to Greg was that evangelicals don’t just throw stones at RC theology but there are those who throw stones at bad evangelical theology.
As to who you critique and who you pass on, you have my permission to whatever you prefer (oh, I desparately need a smiley face emoticon)
I have no confidence that the RC catechism truthfully reflects RC theology in its clearest meaning.
I am a little late on commenting about the first 400 years of the church being united. Formally, the first split that lasted to today occurred after the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The Coptic, Armenian, and Syrian churches did not agree with the council’s conclusions and split, forming what is called “Oriental orthodoxy.” This church spread eastward all the way to China and India, but was greatly diminished and disrupted by the Mongols in the 12th century.
In reality, the church has always had divers theological opinions, as can be seen in the epistles. It can be argued that Paul’s Gospel and James’ were at odds, although they worked out a compromise that at least worked at a distance. There have always been these divergencies that have lead to pogroms and even Crusades of Christians angainst Christians. The losers are called “heretics” and the winners “orthodox.”
In recent years I have come to regard my relationship to RC believers the same way I regard my relationship to Baptists, fundamentalists, Methodists, Mennonite, Amish, etc. We disagree on various doctrines, but I know that if they confess Jesus as Lord we are brethern. Great post!
Sheeze. The iMonk has lost it. The next thing you know, he’ll claim that we Christians should acknowledge the Jewish influence on the Old Testament. Man, iMonk, dust off your Authorized Scofield Version and get back to the bible(tm)! Your eternal soul is in peril here!
I was writing a comment, but Dolan largely made my point for me. I believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, and infalliable. I also believe that there have been many ways of interpreting it. Many are obviously wrong, given my first assumption (Jesus wasn’t God; there is no such thing as Heaven or Hell; etc.) But within the Catholic Church, during the “5 centuries” when they “condemned to Hell every Christian who believes in justification by faith alone,” there was actually a huge ammount of theological diversity. Even Luther’s theses (which came arguably at the time when the Church was most corrupt) were not all rejected – the majority (narrowly, admittedly) were accepted as being debatable but not clearly wrong. To portray the Catholic Church as an edifice which was always the exact church of Luther’s time is to ignore a great deal of what I truly believe was God’s work in the world through His Church.
Randall:
Good point, but there’s one thing that I’ve always thought ironic. You say that you disagree with “fundamentalists,” but the term fundamentalist comes from a book written to establish a bare minimum of “fundamental” requirements which could be accepted as Christians (basically, confessing Jesus Christ as Lord). I think C. S. Lewis was right when he wrote about Satan’s Demonic Department of Linguistics.
My impression about the author upon reading this article was that he feels the same as someone who really doesn’t like his own family very much any more and thinks that he’d be much better off in another clan. That was my feeling, which very well may not be the right impression. That is all I will say.
I have to wonder how much of this new-found admiration for the “Roman Catholic Church” is for the “Catholic” Church and how much of it is for the “Roman” church?
For nearly all of my Christian life I have had little problem in admiring the good, the true and the beautiful that is in the RCC while acknowledging that it is in (serious) error. I even occassionally have my moments of doubt where I wonder whether Rome might have been right all along (or at least since Trent!). But these are like other moments of doubt Christians face. I return to the plain words of Scripture and am reassured that Christ by his once-for-all sacrifice made propitiation for our — yea, for my — sins.
How much of our troubles in what to think about the the RCC stem from conflating (like the Roman Catholics themselves do) the terms “Roman” and “Catholic”? It is in line with RC doctrine (dogma?) and common parlance to call Roman Catholics merely “Catholics” but I would think that any theologically minded Protestant would respectfully reject this conflation of terms.
If I’m not mistaken (and I’m not an expert when it comes to ecclesiology) Roman Catholicism claims that the universal (catholic) church subsists in the particular (Roman) church. This is a claim that I as a Protestant must protest. Like Roman Catholics I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church but unlike Roman Catholics I believe this one catholic church is comprised of several particular churches who do not have to be in communion with the Bishop of Rome. I am a member of this one holy catholic and apostolic church. But I am not a member of the Roman church nor in communion with the Bishop of Rome. In other words I am Catholic but not Roman Catholic.
I love the “Catholic” church and I am saddened that most Protestants have lost sight of what it means to be a part of this. There is sadly more than a grain of truth in the Roman claim about protestants being “schismatic”. As a Protestant I throw my hands up in despair at the state of the so-called “evangelical” churches of today. Most of modern “purpose-driven” Protestantism is arguably just as much (if not more) a “synagogue of Satan” as the Church of Rome ever was. The gospel of grace is far-removed from much of modern feel-good believe-in-the-power-of-self “evangelicalism”.
Is it any wonder when most protestants have lost sight of what it means to be truly catholic that many then look with longing to Rome? In short, the Church of Rome has retained many appealing remnants of catholicity while much of modern evangelicalism (as schismatic and a product of the Zeitgeist) is anything but catholic.
Don’t think from all this that I’m “Romeward-bound”. In the words of Article XIX of the Church of England (yes I’m an Anglican and an Evangelical Reformed one at that — a 5 point Calvinist if you really want to know!), “As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred: so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith.”
Article XXII continues, “The Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, worshipping and adoration as well of Images as of Relics, and also Invocation of Saint, is a fond thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture; but rather repugnant to the word of God.”
I could go on and on in citing Romish errors. “The sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said that the priests did offer Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits” (Article XXXI). You get the idea. I am no fan of Romish dogma. Much of it is repugnant to the Word of God.
Those (and other) statements on the RCC were true in 1562 and they are still true today. The Church of Rome is in theological error — serious theological error — especially when it comes to the gospel.
It’s a tricky question of how far you need to be in theological error before you lose claim to titles such as “catholic” and “Christian”. I don’t, for instance, count Mormons or JWs as “Christian” in any meaningful sense of the word. But I think there’s enough orthodoxy in the Roman church that this really isn’t an issue with the Church of Rome.
We are not saved by belief in sola fide, sola scriptura, sola gratia etc. We are saved by the substitutionary work of Christ once for all on the cross. So I (and I’m by no means the first to make this point!) have no doubt that someone can be Roman Catholic, have a false notion of what the gospel entails but still by faith in Christ be a truly “saved” Christian. All this is despite the mangled gospel of Rome.
Should we should point out the errors of the Church of Rome and do all we can to bring her and her children back to the faith once for all handed down to the saints? Absolutely. There is the obvious danger that Rome’s mangled gospel will lead many astray and that is surely reason enough. But do we really need to go any further than that and engage in what is commonly called “Catholic Bashing”?
And while we’re at it we could (and should) do a thing or two about getting our own house in order. It goes without saying that so-called “Evangelicalism” would do well to return to the faith once for all handed down to the saints — that is to say the “catholic” faith.
Grace and Peace,
David.
Sorry to say, but you missed the point completely. What do you understand about Marian excesses/Theology? How can you only write a few sentences about that? What about offering daily prayers to Mary; what about the 5th Marian Dogma (stating that Mary is a co-redemtor with Christ, also that she is a co-mediator with Christ)?
One more point! How can somebody elses righteouesness be imputed to us if we lacked righteouesness (The Treasury of Merit)? I thought Christ’s merit was enough/complete.
These two aspects are the most important in a hotbed of other issues.
Is this also now part of the new tolerance?
Quick Johan….tell me which of the Catholic errors you mentioned were doctrines I said I agreed with? YOU missed the point. It’s a personal essay about making my personal decision to accept my Catholic friends as Christians. You read it as an endorsement of all Catholic errors. If you are trolling for Catholic bashing, this is a poor choice. And if you are looking for an endorsement of Catholic errors, it’s a poor choice there as well.
David very interesting information, nevertheless the question remains: Is justification by faith alone or by faith plus works? If faith plus works then why not the work of circumcision? Or the work of praying toward Mecca? Or what ever one belives is necessary to add to the Cross in order to be justified? One is not saved by belief in sola fide, but one is saved only by believing sola fide. Otherwise, the New Covenant is a fraud and we of all people are the most to be pitied.
iMonk, yes we (mischievious dwarves that hid under bridges) all know you have made peace with the heretical Church of Rome. Likewise, we know that pointing out the heresies of Rome will cause you and others to drive that dagger called “Catholic-bashing” deep in our heart. Nevertheless, trolls by definition are supernatural so the dagger is not effective. The only way to stop trolls is to take away their keyboards.
Geezer….this isn’t what a comment thread is for. You’ve made your point.
I haven’t read all the comments (don’t have the stamina right now), so I don’t know if someone has brought this up yet.
The church of the first 4 centuries, while “catholic,” is a far cry from the Roman Catholic Church. I don’t think it’s fair to give them exclusive claims to the family lineage, as though we Protestants were the ones who departed from the original family tree.
Now, I’m not a Landmarkist, but I do believe that what the Reformers did was steer the church back to its roots. In my opinion, the churches of the Reformation more closely resemble the church of the first four centuries than either the late medieval Roman Catholic Church or the post-Trent Roman Catholic Church.
This is not a comment on your primary thesis about accepting your Catholic friends, just an observation about one of the comments made.
Ol’Geezer:
You put the question to me:
“Is justification by faith alone or by faith plus works?”
To which I reply: Scripture is very clear on the matter. Justification is by faith alone. So I believe in sola fide and I assume we are at one on this point. The Church of Rome in teaching otherwise diverges from the true (catholic!) faith.
You then said:
“One is not saved by belief in sola fide, but one is saved only by believing sola fide.”
To which I reply: Can you back this up by Scripture? I don’t see anything in Scripture on the point. Admittedly you give the argument that “[o]therwise the New Covenant [would be] a fraud”. But I’m not convinced that that is the case.
The very issue you raise also arose in 16th Century England. In the post-Reformational Church of England, Richard Hooker had in the course of one of his sermons said “I doubt not but God was merciful to save thousands of our fathers living in popish superstitions, inasmuch as they sinned ignorantly.” Was he a papal sympathiser? Or was he firmly convinced that justification was by faith alone, that the Church of Rome was in grievous error on this point but that God could still in his mercy have saved people of past generations who lived “in popish superstitions” but nonetheless had faith in Christ?
So the question at the time was: Were all people living in the centuries before the Reformation condemned to Hell because they did not (could not?) believe in sola fide? Or could God in his mercy have saved them?
A related question also arises for us today. Can God still save people living “in popish superstitions” today even though the truth of sola fide has been recovered?
At the heart of the matter is the question of how we are justified. Are we — as you suggest — justified by believing in sola fide and nothing else? In the words of Keefer, the puritans’ reply to Hooker was to say that “since the adherents of the Pope did not believe in justification by faith, they could not be justified by faith, which meant that they could not be justified at all, which meant that they were certainly damned, with no exceptions.”
(Keefer was not a 16th C. puritan. He wrote the introduction to Hooker’s “Learned Discourse on Justification” available online at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/hooker/just.html).
While I am a great fan of the puritans and owe them a great spiritual debt, I beg to differ with them on this point. Although not the easiest of reads, Hooker is definitely worth a read on this point. The issue is not confined to the 16th Century Church of England. It gets to the very heart of the Christian faith.
This is probably getting too long for a “comment” so I’ll leave it at that for now and let you reply if you want.
Grace and Peace,
David.
You say “It’s a personal essay about making my personal decision to accept my Catholic friends as Christians”. So, if they are Catholics and your friends, they are Christians?
Why I am I trolling if I dare to disagree with you?
Do you find out what your Catholic Christian friends believe – all the add-ons. Sorry, but Jesus plus anything to purchase our salvation is nothing, definately not becoming a Christian.
Johan…
So no one with errant doctrine is a Christian?
Saved by correct doctrine. Glad that works for you. Jesus seems to save all kinds of people with errant doctrine…or no doctrine…who trust him.
I have been lurking for awhile and have to be honest in saying that iMonk (as well as a few others) has a sharp tongue that takes stabs at some who would disagree with him. He promotes some hatred (with his words) towards those that disagree. Also, he makes fun of “Pope Rick” all the while pompously promoting himself and his “ability” to write creatively. I just have to wonder if he does not love the worship that he gets from a few here (Bill MacK!!) Maybe a few complaints to the PCA and to those that are to watch over him spiritually might help him to bring his arrogant attitude back in line.
Dear Sir
You choose not to hear me, do you? We all, you and me included, err somewhere in our doctrine. Nobody is saved by correct doctrine.
However, we are saved by the all sufficient work of Christ on the cross and only that. Let’s cut to the chase.
Since the 16th century the greatest contoversy in the church was about justification by faith alone.
SOLO CHRISTO!!
However, IF our justification is not solo Christo, “by Christ alone.” neither is it sola gratia, “by grace alone,” nor sola fide, “by faith alone.” Do you agree?
This is what it is all about. I would like to know your position regarding this one issue?
David, I guess I was too clever with the phrase “believing sola fide.” All I meant was that one’s belief is that salvation is by faith alone in the finished work of Christ. Having said that I feel sure that you don’t need me to furnish Scripture references to support the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
I couldn’t argue against Hooker’s proposition since OT saints clearly did not have the full knowledge of the New Covenant as set forth in the NT. Even in our day there are parts of the world where on could apply an analogy of Hooker’s proposition.
Nevertheless, if anyone believes (trusts in) that his works merit salvation (the Church of Rome theology of faith + works), the that person will not be justified, else what is the point of the Epistle to the Galatians and the Epistle to the Ephesians, especially Chapter 2?
One simple cannot say (logically)that justification is by faith alone, but if someone wants to add meritorious works that’s okay, for in doing so you’ve denied your own proposition.
Of course if one lives in a relativistic world where what’s true to me is true and what’s true to you is true, even when the “truths” contradict, then one can easily postulate faith alone and faith+works as both being true.
iMonk – great essay, and I’m sorry so many people missed the point.
NewGuy: It would seem that iMonk hasn’t cornered the market on arrogance. You lurk at a blog for a while and now you want to contact the PCA and “report” him? Are you in grade school or something? What do you want the PCA to do to him? Detention? How do you equate agreement on an issue to worship? That’s pretty offensive. Evidently you haven’t lurked long enough to see Michael and I spar over liturgy, sacraments, robes, baseball, and cornbread. If I worship him, I’m not very good at it.
iMonk says, “Jesus seems to save..”
‘Tis a sad day when all we have is Scripture and the Holy Spirit to inform us what is the true gospel. What a pity that Paul, James, Peter, John and Jude wasted so much time on doctrine and warning against false teachers. And why could’t Jesus just get along with the Pharisees instead of always insisting on his way or the highway?
Nevertheless, one might say (in fact some do) that Jesus seems to save Mormons, JW’s and Muslims, even if their doctrine is somewhat errant. I wonders if Jewish, Hindu, and Bhuddist doctrines are just too errant.
Newguy, get a life. iMonk is okay, he’s just a little weird. I mean, a Baptist school m’arm preaching in a Presbyterian church. Whatever. iMonk’s pieces always bring initial praise, but then a few dwarves show up to needle him. But Newguy, back off the personal attacks on iMonk. Save those for the big guys: the pope, warren and osteen or someone of your choice. A provocative statement about any well known person can derail any thread.
Did you know that a famous theologian said that Billy Graham is the anti-Christ. But another said it is John Piper. Who do you think is right?