An Evangelical Responds

One thing I've noticed over the course of my life is that I don't get to make any decision for free. What I mean by that is if I were to decide to double-knot my shoelaces, somebody would come along and demand an explanation as to why I dare have the temerity to not single-knot like everybody else does.

It extends to everything. My career choices, my romantic life, my hobbies, everything.

Coming from a Protestant background as I do, there's no reason to think religious issues should be any different.

I recently shared an article about Sola Scriptura on Facebook. I've made similar arguments myself, both on this blog and in other venues. Simply put, I find Sola Sciptura to be a logical dead end. If the Bible is one's sole source of religious authority... who put the Bible together and what gives them the authority to decide what is and is not canon?

Shouldn't the Sola Scriptura approach be to decide one's personal canon for oneself - or do Protestants already do that?

I wasn't necessarily expecting an outpouring of support, you understand. I just thought it was food for thought and left it at that. But that wasn't good enough for one Facebook friend.

I should pause here and say he and I aren't really "friends" at all. We have mutual friends from my old days at Southern Baptist Church #2 but we have no real relationship between one another.

The only reason he friended me on Facebook is because of the aforementioned mutual friends. He sent me a PM to ask why I never attend any SBC Church #2 functions or attend services there in spite of the fact that I remain a member of their Facebook group. I answered him as well as I could. "The answer I don't attend church there is because Catholic."

In reply I received a sort of invasive series of questions from this guy regarding my faith and Church membership. It wasn't exactly rude but it did seem a little nosy. Our brief correspondence wrapped up with an invitation back to SB Church #2 for some "ecumenical dialogue".

Now, I might've been born at night. But it wasn't last night. I'm next door to positive that if I were foolish enough to show my face at SB Church #2 again, quite apart from seeing a lot of faces from SB Church #1 (my original cause for leaving SB Church #2), I'd be immediately set upon by well-intentioned dunderheads demanding an explanation to some list of Questions to Ask Catholics someone Googled. I have no idea how this blog comes off but, trust me, I'm not apologist. This is a setup.

No thanks.

Besides, SB Church #2 only has services on Sunday morning. If my Sunday morning wasn't occupied by work, I'd attend Latin Mass at my FSSP parish. So no matter what, I'm not going back to SB Church #2. I love the people there but the Catholic faith is where I was always meant to be.

To get back on task though, this guy posted a series of comments to the Sola Scriptura article I shared. It ended up becoming a bit of a back and forth discussion between the two of us. Near the end (or is it merely a pause?) he shifted the subject from Sola Scriptura to Sola Fide.

In essence, he jumped from "the sole source of religious authority" to "the sole source of salvation". Which may be an interesting discussion to have some time. But that isn't the discussion at hand.

All of which is a very long way of saying this objector is the latest in a long line of opposition I've encountered. What makes this situation somewhat unique is that it comes from a complete stranger. Which I found to rather amusing in an aggravating sort of way.

Formal Prayer and How It's Done

In my history as a Christian (which, by my reckoning, only began in November 2004) my prayer life has always been pretty weak. I'm sure somebody out there had a worse prayer life than I did. But that doesn't somehow make my lackluster commitment to prayer somehow better.

As with a lot of other things, I blame this on evangelicalism. The reason for that is because evangelicalism places so much emphasis on extemporaneous prayer (nonsensical babbling, in most cases) and an abject lack of training on how to pray combined with a rejection of traditions (*cough* Catholic Church *cough*) which emphasize formal prayers. So it's maybe no wonder that my prayers were so pathetic and so infrequent.

This is another snowflake in a blizzard of practices and norms suggested by the Catholic Church which the Church then empowers you to do.

In my case, I'm still working on my Marian devotions. It's just not as good as it might be. But my prayers in general are a lot stronger now thanks to the Church-provided prayers to believers. I've got an app on my phone and iPad which contains basically every formal prayer the Church has authorized. Of those, I've bookmarked ten:

Glory Be

Our Father

Act of Contrition

Hail Mary

Alma Redemptoris Mater

Morning Prayer

Golden Arrow

Morning Offering

Magnificat

Nicene Creed

What I've noticed is that praying formal prayers first puts me into a prayerful rhythm where I can then pray extemporaneously (which evangelicals put so much emphasis on) and pray to God, Our Lady or the saints.

And hey, the fact is that you don't always have some pressing need to request or some aggravating sin to confess or some dire emergency going on. Sometimes you can just kneel and pray the formal prayers; worship God or thank Our Lord for His sacrifice or praise Our Lady for her obedience. You don't always have to request something and THAT'S OKAY. It's perfectly acceptable to just praise God's holiness and perfection without asking for something in return. And if you're doing okay right now, fine. Worship and adore, and then be on your way.

But when you need more, you've now got a basic foundation to build on to put your will in line with God, to focus your spirit on the Sacred Heart, to immerse your soul in the Spirit.

As a result, I pray the above prayers each morning before work and it really does alter the trajectory of the day. Whatever was going to happen... well, maybe it'll still happen, maybe it won't. But either way, I'm now in a better spiritual headspace to cope with it.

I don't want this blog to became an anti-evangelical rant but sometimes it's hard to not feel just a little torqued off about how misled I was all those years.

Holy Week (or "More Evangelical Goofiness")

I've written before about how evangelicalism really is a stripped down, unglued, incoherent photocopy of the Catholic Church but it feels like it's about time to revisit the topic.

It's come to my attention that Southern Baptist Church #2 for the first time in their entire history is offering a service on Good Friday.

I attended this and other Southern Baptist churches for several years and am here to say that basically anything related to Holy Week is pretty foreign to the evangelical model. But here once again we see evangelicalism swiping from the Catholic faith. It's almost as if they're beginning to understand that the faithful need time for sober remembrance of Our Lord's final words, scourging, crucifixion, death and burial prior to celebrating His resurrection. Also, it's not like SBC Church #2 is new to pilfering from the liturgical calendar.

But, why, that's crazy talk! Those are man-made traditions rather than God's Word!

The Coming Evangelical Collapse (Six Years Later)

"We're all Catholics now."
Mike Huckabee

The Coming Evangelical Collapse

You know, I've never been much of one to read the tea leaves. Generally speaking, I'm often the last one to get the memo about pretty much anything. I generally tend to believe in my own point of view until that awkward moment when reality rudely wakes me up.

But my record isn't all bad. Or even mostly bad. When I was teaching a small group at Southern Baptist Church #1, I saw first hand that modern Christianity was up against a lot of problems.

For one thing, it blew my mind how many of my supposed peers were absolutely ignorant of even the fundamentals of the faith. In the evangelical world, you are free to believe whatever you like about raptures and End Times and things like that but what's non-negotiable are big ticket doctrines such as the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection and other things. I wasn't asking the group members to know the order in which David, Moses, Elijah and Abraham lived (although it wouldn't hurt). I merely sought to give them the core essentials of the faith.

The Catholic Church would say I was trying to catechize them.

However, my efforts were largely for naught. Many of them were incapable of explaining even the basics of what they believe or, heaven help them, why they believe it. The point came where I stopped wondering why they were even bothering to come to church at all and started wondering how long my (then) beloved evangelical Christianity could survive in the face of such alarming ignorance and apathy.

I needn't have worried, of course, because in short order it stopped being my problem. Getting fired publicly has that effect. People so ignorant of their faith and so eager to embrace (rather than engage) the culture couldn't long be counted upon to stand up for evangelicalism. Thus it would be fair to say that by the start of 2010, I was very scared of what evangelicalism might look in ten years' time.

Oddly enough, I ended up helping fulfill that myself what with my journey to the Catholic Church, but I digress.

Apart from not reading the tea leaves, I've also never been one to get swept away with hyperbole and doom-saying. Any fool can predict catastrophe because havoc and mayhem are the natural states of the world. Indeed, the market is strong for predicting future calamities.

Still, when the source article I linked to up top first caused a stir, it was completely off my radar. But I tripped over it not long after I joined the RCIA program about a year ago. And even though the late author freely admits to being no prophet, he outlines an oddly prophetic vision of the problems that have engulfed evangelicalism. It's easy to buy into because I glommed onto it relatively late in the game. Comparing this man's predictions to what has already come to pass, indeed, it is chilling how accurate his vision has been. At least up to now.

To wit: Twenty and thirty years ago, the Southern Baptist Convention pretty much ran the board on all or most social issues. Politicians crossed prominent evangelical pastors and leaders at their own peril. It would be fair to say that evangelicalism enjoyed a cultural and political hegemony that the first century Church could only dream of. And the SBC was not ignorant of this. On the contrary, they rather enjoyed their positions of influence.

Today though, your average sub-35 year old evangelical can easily explain the supposed merits and importance of gay marriage but fails miserably when the subject turns even to simple, no-brainer questions like the names of the four gospel writers found in sacred Scripture. I could end up being proved wrong but I suspect that's no recipe for building a future.

My point is that my generation was raised on dc Talk and told to vote Republican; our parents hoped that just about covered it. Meanwhile, secular (and I daresay more hostile) sources have used mass media to propagandize the youth on the entire liberal agenda and, in so doing, explained WHY those causes are to be protected, justified and legalized.

A good example of what I mean is Rachel Held Evans. She's part of the breed of hipster Christians ("I'm a Christian but not the George W. Bush kind of Christian,") who abandoned evangelicalism in favor of greener, more LGBT-friendly pastures. And what she ended up finding is the Episcopal church, naturally.

As aggravating and Christian-chic as Evans might be, she's hardly unique. Her parents' generation worried about winning that next midterm election while little Rachel and everyone else her age tuned in to the Daily Show. And now that her generation has grown up, what did anybody expect was going to happen?

Now, I confess that I still carry a certain amount of anger and resentment toward evangelicalism because of my negative experiences from 2010. To deny that would be a transparent lie. And in just a few weeks, I'd become obligated to confess that lie. So I'll instead freely admit that part of me can't help feeling (A) partially vindicated for all the fears and concerns I had for the movement's future back in 2009 and 2010 and (B) a little happy that so many of these puffed-up evangelicals are being humbled.

They fell in love with the world. This is what they deserve.

What might that mean for the Catholic Church though? Honestly, I have no idea because, frankly, I've always found it a bit hard to believe that the young people really enjoy liturgy and more traditional expressions of Christianity. Or if they do, it's primarily a superficial fad. What will they do and where will they go when the novelty fades?

Well, the deceased blogger speculated that evangelicalism's inevitable collapse has at least short term benefits for the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. And he may even be right; I wouldn't know. But I could sooner envision the Liberal True-Believers dropping out of Christianity entirely rather than attending churches who have staked their credibility on the sinfulness of homosexual relations, the impossibility of female ordination and other liberal hot buttons.

No matter the outcome, all that's really happening in my view is that Christianity isn't "shrinking" as such so much as the Nominals and In-Name-Only's are abandoning a religion they never truly believed in anyway.

Assuming that process completely or mostly wipes evangelicalism out, the only real player on the table will be two choices- Catholicism and, to whatever degree of viability, Eastern Orthodoxy.

I must admit that it's quite possible that there'd some penitent evangelicals who might come home to the Mother Church in Rome. However, that process would involve a lot of thoughtful consideration and no small amount of pride-swallowing.

Since both of those things are abjectly foreign to most evangelicals, I suspect the immediate beneficiary could be Orthodoxy. And part of me would be okay with that. I don't know what the Church's official position regarding Eastern Orthodoxy is but the Orthodox seem to have valid Orders and valid Sacraments. Is Orthodoxy the full expression of Christian truth? Perhaps not. But it's a lot closer to the mark than the Southern Baptist Convention was on their best day.

Assuming evangelicalism truly does collapse and that it happens in the relatively near future (and, at risk of saying "me too", that appears to be something of an inevitability), I see it as a good thing, ultimately. Christianity in the United States is shrinking, as I said, but what we're losing are those who were never truly invested in the faith to begin with. And they're leaving behind a more obedient and committed Body. And this would likely be a body more unified in faith, purpose and Sacrament than any time in America's history.

Whatever growing (or more aptly shrinking) pains could lie in store, in the end, isn't that a basically positive thing?

Evangelicals Love the Catholic Church

Man, am I nailing multiple updates this week or what?

Anyway, so something that's captured my interest ever since I first started the process of joining the Catholic Church is the concept of Protestants making the switch. I think this is rather natural inasmuch as I was a Protestant. And I was making the switch.

Incidentally, I'm not a big fan of the term "convert" because I'm not switching from one brand name to another. In my mind, I've embraced the fullness of the Christian faith as expressed in and revealed through the Catholic Church. I'm filling in gaps that were always present in my religious acumen. Such an act isn't a "conversion"; it's a "completion".

What I've noticed though is a tendency to assume that "young people" joining the Church do so for the liturgy. I have no particular expertise on that subject. First, these are the same "young people" who support same-sex marriage in numbers approaching the ridiculous. So clearly they can't be too overly concerned with the Church's teachings. Second, I can't quite shake the suspicion of their fixation for liturgy as strictly novelty.

To wit: to whatever extent they're churched, they're predominantly familiar with worship services that are similar to U2 concerts. Any type of liturgy might be interesting to them because of the novelty factor. That doesn't necessarily make for an enduring conversion

In any case though, I came across an article less about the all-important Millennials and more about joining the Church point blank, particularly as it concerns older people in leadership positions within evangelicalism.

We dare not underplay the importance of that.

Do clergy leave the Church? Sure. Happens fairly regularly, I'm sure. But what's interesting to me is the concept of married evangelical pastors switching to Catholicism. In most cases, Catholic priests cannot be married. It's already costly for an evangelical to "convert" to Catholicism because implicit in that is the acknowledge that his previous affiliation was in error.

But the deeper issue is that many evangelical leaders and pastors and teachers who convert do so in the full knowledge that they'll have to find a new career, different ways to service in the Church and very probably live in a higher level of poverty than they might be accustomed to as relatively well to do evangelical ministers.

The importance of this is not to be underestimated. True, it may not be as flashy and impressive as refusing to recant the faith on pain of martyrdom. But I think we should bear in mind the prospects of a loss professional prestige, reduced income, unemployment and possible harassment when we consider what some evangelical leaders face in joining with the Church.

The other thing the article makes a special point of mentioning though is the intellectual reasons many converts to the faith have. I'd be the last one to deplore liturgy since I've written about it on many occasions. But at the end of the day, my reasons for joining the Church are because of history, reason and logic.

This is the Church founded by Christ. You can trace today's bishops in an unbroken line back to Our Lord Himself. The Church Fathers were CLEARLY Catholic. Catholicism offers the only intellectually coherent and logical case for salvation. Numerous other reasons too.

However, the same is not true in the inverse. Sure, evangelicals may join the Church for intellectual reasons. But Catholics leave the Church for evangelicalism for emotional reasons. It has nothing to do with the Protestants making a better case or presenting a stronger argument. In fact, you could reasonably guess that perhaps Protestantism itself isn't even the issue. Many Catholics leaving has more to do with the Church itself than it does evangelicalism.

So, to put it another way, evangelicals join the Catholic Church because of the Catholic Church. Catholics leave the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church.

I find this very fascinating.

More to follow.

Of Commissions and Synods

The end of RCIA draws ever nearer. I've only got just a bit more to work through with Father, not least of which is a one-on-one meeting to, I assume, work out the finer details of my baptism. True, I've been baptized before but (A) I can't prove that as I don't have a certificate and (B) I truly can't remember if it was done in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

So a conditional baptism it is!

There have been a few teachable moments in recent months though. I haven't had much chance to write about it but it's interesting to me to compare the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission conference on the LGBT movement over and against the Church's Third Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops.

In the case of the SBC, many people have interpreted comments made by a lot of their high muckety-mucks as a new direction in SBC policy. Change comes from the top and comes slowly but, so the expectation goes, in ten years, we might be looking at a very different SBC. This is based on remarks such as these by Dr. Albert Mohler:

"Early in this controversy, I felt it quite necessary, in order to make clear the gospel, to deny anything like a sexual orientation I repent of that."

And why not, the SBC is losing tens of thousands of members every year. These are predominantly those under the age of 35, for whom "LGBT rights" border on a sacrament. Push comes to shove, they're perfectly willing to turn their backs on Christianity in solidarity with their LGBT friends.

Compare this to the Church's Synod, where some bishops might've wanted to open the door a bit more for the LGBT community but the Church's Magisterium asserted itself and, in the end, the most you could say is that the Church repeated the existing policy of treating LGBT's with dignity and respect but not even coming close to "accepting" them in the ways that Protestant denominations have.

To be sure, this approach isn't necessarily winning the Catholic Church admirers in that same under-35 demographic either. But the difference is that the Church won't change their policy to fit the climate of the times. Homosexuality is a sin and, rise or fall, the Church will stand by her historic teachings in this regard. Nothing has changed. Indeed, nothing can change.

Think of this as another in a long list of things that Protestants have compromised to keep the lights on. For as big a deal as they make over it, it seems that scriptural authority is capable of being overruled by popular demand.

Who knew?

Crossing the Tiber by Steve Ray

I was hanging around the waiting room at an adjunct building the other week waiting for RCIA to start when I happened across the parish's book rack. Well, I say "book" rack; there were books, sure, but there were also pamphlets, CD's and some other stuff there too. But since we're talking about a book, calling the thing a "book rack" seems like the most relevant label.

Anyway, so I happened across the parish's book rack. Among other selections, Steve Ray's Crossing the Tiber stood out. I'd heard a lot about it thanks to the Catholic Answers podcast, where Ray is a frequent guest. The back of the trading card summary is that Ray started out as an evangelical Christian but slowly drifted away once he began, y'know, ACTUALLY READING WHAT THE CHURCH FATHERS WROTE. The drift eventually took him into the Mother Church's embrace, where he's been happily ensconced ever since.

The book, thus, is about how he made that transition. And as he goes through the matter, he makes it clear how often his evangelical friends looked at him askance when they discovered he was joining the Catholic Church.

There are other items I could mention but the major point is that it's a little eerie how his journey somewhat parallels my own. True, he left the evangelical world by choice whereas I was pretty much shown the door. He was a self-styled "Lone Ranger" Christian for what seems like several years while, in my case, that phase lasted only a few weeks (if that). But otherwise his study and reactions to his findings are a pretty close mirror to my own.

Understand, I'd been listening to the Catholic Answers podcast for a few weeks by the time I heard a Steve Ray episode. I thought of it as a nice little rounding out of my Anglican beliefs. My view was that the Catholics were only mistaken about maybe a handful of beliefs. And even there, it was a matter of degree more so than substance. So I could listen to Catholic Answers and filter out the Catholicisms of it as I went along.

Well, Ray made several comments that challenged me. So of course I checked out his sources... all of which were easily verified and, surprisingly, easily proven to be true!

Eventually I came to the same conclusion that Ray originally did. The Catholic Church is either the real deal, the Church founded by Our Lord and perpetuated through a succession of bishops or else the Church simply does not exist in this world. Considering the impossibility of the latter, that left only the former.

Thus I am enrolled in RCIA.

So in a matter of simple intellectual honesty, I must acknowledge Steve Ray as my unwitting entry point into the Catholic Church. And considering his own Protestant background, reading Crossing the Tiber was an immensely intriguing idea. And I must say that the actual book certainly doesn't disappoint.

So think of this as a recommendation. Protestants leave Protestantism sometimes. Or they think about it anyway. And it helps to know (A) other people have been through the same thing and (B) there are justifiable and intellectually honest reasons for doing so.

Of course, the edition of Crossing the Tiber I bought is abridged because it only cost $6 or $7. So I guess you get what you pay for in life. Still a good book though.

The Catholicism of the Southern Baptist Convention

As My Catholic Year is still somewhat on pause because of goings on with my priest and responsibilities he's had to attend to, now's probably a good time to talk about some other things.

I was a fire-breathing Southern Baptist for a lot of years there. The SBC appealed to me specifically because I've always been a little too independent for my own good. The doctrines of justification by faith, Sola Scriptura and others appealed to me because I prided myself on my ability to parse words and divine the intent of Scripture on my own, unfettered by "meaningless tradition".

The fact that my prayer life rarely lined up with that which I professed is neither here nor there, of course.

In particular, I never had much use for the Catholic notion of apostolic succession. What value is that when the Bible says what it means and means what it says?

Yes, I've learned better since then. Not the point. The point is that I understand the value of apostolic succession now in ways I didn't before.

One thing that always stuck in my craw though came when I began researching the chaos and mayhem the SBC went through back in the 1980's. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the fundamentalists (and I use the word with reverence and affection even now) essentially depended upon their own skewed version of succession to ensure doctrinal fidelity.

Several higher-ups in the Convention arranged the election of a series of conservatives (by their standards) as President of the SBC over the opposition for a period of ten years so as to fumigate the Convention of liberalism. Taking a page from the great Ronald Reagan's playbook, somebody high up the conservative movement's leadership evidently decided "personnel is policy", and voted accordingly. Then they did it again. And again. And again. And the rest is history.

The thinking went that electing several conservative Convention Presidents in a row would ultimately lead to changes in personnel, policy and, ultimately, doctrine that EVERYTHING would ultimately be able to be tied back to that first conservative President (Adrian Rogers).

Still, explicitly or implicitly, the SBC is now governed by its own standard of succession. And like so much else with Protestantism, it's a malformed, incomplete, imperfect and completely dishonest version of what the Catholic Church has been doing for millennia. It isn't apostolic and it's not divinely appointed but it all can ultimately be tied back to one man.

The SBC's order of succession rests it's doctrinal fidelity (as they define it anyway) on fallen, sinful, imperfect man while the Church looks directly back at an unbroken chain leading directly to Our Lord Himself, ultimately.

You tell me which is more trustworthy.

Work Training, RCIA and The Kids Today

As I said before, I've started training for a new job. Also as I said before, that's eaten up most of my free time lately. When I get home from work, all I feel like doing is eating and then going to bed. This won't last forever but it's how things are right now.

Still, there have been a few interesting developments lately.

First off, in my last post, I mentioned I'm not sure what my future is with RCIA because it will conflict with my work schedule once training ends. Unfortunately, I don't know any more now than I did when I first posted it because the outreach director at my local parish has been kind of incommunicado lately. No idea what will happen here.

Frankly, it irritates me because how hard can this possibly be to deal with? Surely they have issues like this pop up all the time. You'd think I'd have more to show for myself after an entire week of waiting for answers. But you'd be wrong.

Every once in a while, articles like this one pop up that make it sounds like The Kids Today are starting to embrace liturgical worship, this is the way of the future, evangelicalism is dead, etc.

Now, more and more it's hard for me to take evangelicalism as a form of church worship seriously. I can't deny that. At the same time though, you can't really underplay evangelicalism as a cultural force. I don't dispute that either.

What bothers me about articles like this is (A) the superficiality of them and (B) the abject lack of distinction between short term trends and long term cultural transformation.

Yeah, sure, The Kids Today might find liturgy interesting... today. But that doesn't say anything about what they've preferred over the past several years or where they're likely to stay in the years to come. It's simply right now that they dig going to Catholic Churches or high Lutheran places.

As interesting as that may be, it says nothing about what's happened in the past, what's likely to occur in the future and possible causes for this sea change in worship style.

It's just kind of there. And that's about it.

More to follow.

Considering Messianic Jews and Authentic Teaching

My church is doing missions stuff (likely in conjunction with Spring Break for several schools in the area) so there won't be RCIA this week. That doesn't mean there isn't stuff to talk about though.

For the past few years, I've followed a certain Messianic Jew's blog. We shall call her "Hannah". Now, "Hannah" started out in evangelicaldom like I did. And also like I did, she eventually got fed up with how they do things so she left in favor of a more ritualized form of religion.

That's about as much as our respective faith journeys have in common though.

Obviously I ended up in the Catholic Church. Or I will be in the Catholic Church by the end of April of this year. Same difference. "Hannah", though, ended up in Messianic Judaism. And, man, what a ride!

Now, I should pause here to say that I long ago learned that a small amount of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. That's not new information for me. But even with that truism in mind, the blog "Hannah" maintains really is in a class all by itself.

There are many points I could make and many examples I could cite. However, I ultimately decided to leave "Hannah" safely anonymous and instead deal with just a few issues that concern me.

First off, there's Messianic Judaism itself. I have a high regard for their commitment to studying God's Word. For whatever else I could say about the MJ movement, they don't mess around when it comes to study. That's the good news. The bad news though is they have reached all the wrong conclusions.

The entire thrust of the MJ movement is their selective adherence to the Mosaic Law. I suppose the Council of Jerusalem mentioned in Acts 15 wasn't specific enough for them vis a vis a Christian's religious requirements, be he Jew or Gentile.

The other issue though is that Messianic Judaism is ultimately designed to appeal to Jewish converts who expect (depend on?) a fairly strict code of religious obligation. As such, legitimate teaching authorities such as the Messianic Jewish Rabbinical Council tend to view Gentile converts as not only unnecessary but likely unbiblical.

Being a Gentile herself, that poses a pretty serious problem for "Hannah". When your own teachers and leaders think you shouldn't be there, you have to go through some pretty interesting logical contortions to justify your continued attendance.

In the case of "Hannah", she resolves this, first, by bad-mouthing the rabbis who teach on these matters and, second, by claiming that the early Church abided by Torah. But then the wicked Constantine came along and he ruined the whole thing, you see.

Apart from the fact that the historical record doesn't support her in any way whatsoever (and what's with Constantine being the Grand Central Station for blame for all the early Church's problems anyway?), it makes you wonder if Our Lord was only kidding when He said He would be with us always, even unto the end of the age. So, what, right around 330 AD, He went on vacation for a bunch of a centuries and only took an active interest in His Church again during the 1970's in America?

Now don't get me wrong, Protestants have to overcome similar hurdles. They have an easier time though because they can at least claim the Catholic Church operated properly for millennia but eventually fell into error. Luckily though, it was right around then that Martin Luther showed up to lead his rebellion revolution "reformation". The Protestants would say that the church never went away; it simply needed to be reformed.

Messianic Jews obviously can't claim even that much. As a result, many of them don't even try. Except obviously for "Hannah", that is.

"Hannah" recently closed down comments on her blog. She claimed that she was being inundated by annoying, pious, holier-than-thou-art wannabe Christians and rather than endlessly moderate the virtual deluge of vitriol and negativity, she's ended comment privileges altogether.

Now, it's impossible to know for sure what those other comments said. Or if they even exist. Because none of them were ever posted. The only comments "Hannah" approved tended to be flattery of her "expert" scholarship. On top of all that, and because of all that, the only vitriol and negativity visible on her blog was written by "Hannah" herself. Whether it was merely a different opinion or, for that matter, an innocent human error, "Hannah" shows no mercy when anybody dares say something she disagrees with.

For my part, I tried on two occasions to gently correct her misunderstandings of history. My opinion then and now was that a careful, honest review of history shows the Catholic Church to be on the right side. So rather than endlessly debate doctrines and Scriptural interpretations, I tried to stick with objectively true or objectively not true facts of history that anybody can verify for himself. The tone I went out of my way to take was polite and conversational. "Say, I don't know if what you wrote up there is true because there are records aplenty of early Church Fathers saying almost the total opposite of what you claim," or "Believe it or not, there is no record of ANY kind of holiday being celebrated on December 25 prior to Christianity. Claims to the contrary are sourced exclusively from Protestants with an axe to grind" and the like.

And shortly thereafter, "Hannah" began disallowing comments. It's hard not to see it at least in part as a reaction to the two comments I submitted.

Apart from a sketchy view of history, "Hannah" appears to hold to a rather bizarre view of Sola Scriptura (which is to say Scripture alone is the only infallible source to guide men's faith and religion). I say it's "bizarre" because the MJ movement is predicated on forms of tradition, which, by definition, cannot be found anywhere in Scripture. How does "Hannah" square the (seemingly selective) Sola Scriptura viewpoint with a movement so heavily founded on oral tradition? It's impossible to know because "Hannah" never spells it out.

Last of all, however, is the view "Hannah" has of End Time prophecy. This is perhaps where her roots in evangelicdom are strongest, as she believes we are IN the End Times. Now, many evangelicals believe we're "near" the End Times. Be it Hal Lindsey, Chuck Missler, Tim LaHaye or any hundreds of others, it's simply not difficult to find people who teach these things. To a man, they would all say we're "near" the End Times.

Where "Hannah" sets herself apart from the pack. She doesn't believe we're "near" the End Times. She believes that we are IN the End Times. For as extreme as the teachers and writers that I mentioned may appear to be, NONE of them (I've checked) have ever said that we are "in" the End Times.

Not. One.

Now, the purpose of this isn't to criticize "Hannah". In fact, it's not even to criticize Messianic Judaism. I mention this to say, ultimately, that this is how badly things can go wrong without a Magisterium to lead and teach the flock. Our Lord built His Church, promised He would never leave it and that the gates of Hell won't prevail against it. He must have been telling the truth or else he wouldn't be Our Lord. If you can't accept that fundamental premise, I question whether you even have the right to say you belong to Him.

More to follow.

Considering Liturgical Prayer

Back when I first began considering membership with the Catholic Church, if you'd told me that formalized prayer would come naturally, I'd have said you were crazy. I would've assumed that, of all decidedly Catholic practices, that would be the hardest thing to get into.

The above is what you might call "leading the witness" in a court of law. It's a standard practice in a lot of writing. The goal is to produce an unexpected dramatic reversal of what went previously in order to entice the reader to continue reading.

But oddly enough, I've gathered a few formalized that interest me and have begun praying those most mornings with surprising ease.

In terms of unexpected dramatic reversals, how am I doing so far?

Specifically these prayers are the Our Father, Act of Contrition, Hail Mary, Alma Redemptoris Mater and the Apostles' Creed. I chose them either for their frequent appearances in the liturgy or else because they're devotionals that are new and mostly unfamiliar to me but which I still feel I should make a priority.

The results have been as amazing as they have been immediate. These prayers first thing in the morning have so far really changed how I go about my days. I feel a noticeably stronger sense of peace at most times during the day. Now, it feels inappropriate to me to discuss feeeeeeeeelings because they can't be weighed, measured, quantified or even reliably reproduced. What I feel to be a sense of peace relative to my usual state could be a heightened sense of anxiety for some people or a horse tranquilizer for others.

Still, I have to acknowledge that there is room for an individual's personal experience in this. I'm usually reluctant to discuss these things in public though because my fear is being lumped in with those Emerging Church types. Still, I can't really discuss the efficacy of formalized prayer as practiced by the Catholic Church without mentioning my own personal experience with it. So please don't take this as the Emergent brand of oohey-gooey "spirituality" I so detest.

Now, I can't speak for anybody else but I at least don't get to make decisions on my own. Nope. Invariably I have to deal with a committee of rubes, pretenders and pseudo-intellectuals telling me why I'm wrong, hopeless, misguided, heretical or whatever else about anything I choose to do. Be it choices made in my professional life, love life, schooling, hobbies, choice of friends or anything else, there'll always be some jackass who just can't wait to tell me why I'm wrong.

In the case of Catholicism, it's an evangelical with some severely goofed up theology. We'll call him "Donald Bell". On the one hand, "Donald Bell" is a member in exceedingly good standing of a Southern Baptist church. On the other hand, his views and theology owe far more to the aforementioned Emerging Church brand of spiritual pap.

A great many of our conversations regarding religion that don't involve anti-Catholic myths and canards tend to revolve around the false dichotomy of formalized prayer vs. the pure heart and soul of (supposedly) non-liturgical forms of Christianity.

In the first place, I've come to realize that every brand of Christianity has some kind of liturgy. In a sense, what really separates the Catholics from the Baptists is that the Church is willing to put their liturgy in writing while the Southern Baptist Convention is not.

In the second place though, as I said, it's a false dichotomy. The mere fact that some Catholics "go through the motions" of formalized prayer tells me they don't understand the formalization or the prayer. That can't accurately be said of the Church at large though:

2700 Through his Word, God speaks to man. By words, mental or vocal, our prayer takes flesh. Yet it is most important that the heart should be present to him to whom we are speaking in prayer: "Whether or not our prayer is heard depends not on the number of words, but on the fervor of our souls."
-- Catechism of the Catholic Church

Mind you, that doesn't keep "Donald Bell" from leveling the accusation. But it simply isn't true. Further, it assumes that there's no room for extemporaneous prayer, which is just ignorant.

The other thing though, and again this relies on my personal experience, there's simply no comparison between my prayer life now and my prayer life as a Southern Baptist. To be fair, I've only committed to morning prayers over the last week or thereabouts so it's a pretty lopsided comparison. Still, the formal prayer schedule has been easy to abide by and spiritually beneficial for me. "Donald Bell" has frequently said (in approved Emerging Church fashion, I'm certain) that "nobody can argue with personal experience".

I'm very well aware of how anemic my prayer life was before I joined the Catholic Church. As much as I came to admire the Anglican church during 2013, all they really did was change how I viewed my worship. It was a radical change, to be sure, but it wasn't the complete spiritual tune-up I've gotten from the Catholic Church. As a Southern Baptist, prayer was usually what I did during moments of stress and crisis, or else it was done as I was falling asleep each night. Now it's become a vital and indispensable part of my spiritual life.

That's MY personal experience so by his own logic, which should be checkmate with "Donald Bell".

But I doubt it will be.

More to follow.

Ash Wednesday

Seems like I've always got more material to write about than I do time to sift through it all. I guess it's the way of all things. The way of the Force.

I've touched on the cake-baking stupidity (Dear Judges. "Free association". Look it up. XOXO, Magnus). Haven't gone near the Holy Father unintentionally dropping the f-bomb. The main reason for that is because the reaction to that has been overwhelmingly positive among non-believers and, from what I've been able to gather, completely silent among my side. The poor guy tripped over his words. Happens to the best of us.

But Ash Wednesday. That's a very topical thing for this blog considering it's supposed to be about my journey into the Catholic Church and stupid political issues keep coming along to trip everything up.

Anyway. Ash Wednesday. Attended a Liturgy of the Word, after which was the Imposition of Ashes. Pretty brief thing, actually. And to be honest, I'm not completely sure I understand what my obligations are for Lent. Being as I'm only an Inquirer, it's up for grabs precisely what's expected of me.

Still, I feel a weight of assurance. There's a rhythm to the seasons and feasts and holy days utterly lacking from anyplace else, including the Anglican church. The authority of the Church is more important than I ever dreamed possible back when I was lost in Evangelical Land. These men are called by God Himself to SERVE. It's their life's mission and they don't mess around with it.

So when the pastor challenged each of us to fully embrace the Lent season with our fasting, prayers and penitence, he wasn't just indulging in persuasive rhetoric. He was using the authority given him by Our Lord to guide us and lead us in life and in our faith.

Compare this to, say, either Southern Baptist church I used to attend, where the pastors thereof would use that as an opportunity to "lead people to Christ" or some such. Okay, fine, but THEN WHAT? What's supposed to happen AFTER they "decide for Christ"? The Southern Baptists CAN'T answer that because the Southern Baptists don't wield that sort of leadership and authority over their flocks. They throw the word "discipleship" around a lot but little or nothing goes on to truly guide people in their faith, challenge them to grow as Christians and help steer them through life's challenges. It's simply absent from the Southern Baptist Convention.

But it's an ever-present thing in the Catholic Church because we CAN'T do it on our own. We need an authority to guide us. So the pastor of my church said that I should embrace the Lent season, he threw out a few examples of what that might entail and then expected us to do it.

November 2013 is when I became persuaded by Catholic dogma. Ash Wednesday 2014 is when I became a Catholic.

Serving- You're Doing It Wrong

As a fire-breathing evangelical, one of the things I noticed pretty quickly was how unwilling some evangelical church members tend to be to get involved, monetarily support the church, serve in any type of role or much of anything else.

Kurt Cobain said it best: Here we are now, entertain us.

I find that attitude inexcusable in any context, but especially in evangelicalism because they offer more opportunities to serve and lead in greater numbers than I've seen so far in the Catholic Church.

And believe it or not, that isn't a criticism of the Mother Church. It's a criticism of evangelicalism. My view now is that ordained clergy should lead everything or, in things they simply can't because of time constraints, they nevertheless keep the lay-leaders on a tight leash.

But when I was an evangelical, I saw so many opportunities to serve in leadership that my mind was blown when people would whine about being unable to get involved. I guess they were waiting for the lead pastor and a group of deacons to visit their home and beg them to do something.

In any case, I served in various things. Initially, I handled Southern Baptist Church #1's podcast. It was easy work so I was happy to do it. I knew less about audio editing then than I do now, otherwise it would be even easier to do these days. Which is really saying something.

Speaking of brainless work, after that I was a member of a small group for 20 and 30-somethings and handled the group's attendance records. I passed around a spiral notebook into which everybody wrote their name and then filled in the blanks on the necessary form. As redundant as it sounds, there was a method to the madness for doing attendance in such a roundabout way. I just can't remember what it was.

Finally, as I've said before, I became that small group's teacher. That went fine for a while. And then all hell broke loose. But I've talked about that before.

Throughout, though, what I noticed was that church members were encouraged to get involved in such things. They had to be encouraged. Usually once or twice per month, the lead pastor of SB Church #1 would bring it up during his sermon, whether it was a casual mention in passing or if that was the entire point of his lesson.

What NEVER happened during my membership class though was someone affiliated with the church presenting a list of different options and asking me how I want to contribute. But during my last RCIA class, the Catechist told my group of Inquirers that when we're fully accepted into the Church, we'll be given a month or two or three to just be Catholic, after which we'll meet with somebody (a priest, a deacon, SOMEBODY), be shown a list of different things we can do and then asked which we'd like to consider.

Apart from being welcome at least to me, this was abjectly foreign to my church-going experience. I was accustomed to having the very highest levels of church bureaucracy practically begging people to get involved, mid-level church bureaucracy gumming up the works and apathetic members sabotaging anybody who tried to make an effort.

So the notion of the Church proactively reaching out to help the laity figure out where they can fit in and make a contribution beyond just writing a check was and is a new idea for me.

Apart from that though, the Catechist rattled off a few suggestions. Here's an incomplete list of what was already an incomplete list:

Extraordinary Eucharistic Minister- My parish has such a huge number of members that there's no way the priests can personally distribute Holy Communion so they use laypeople as extraordinary ministers. Not sure what to think of this, actually. I'm not opposed to it. And I definitely want to help. But part of me thinks it'd be weird for someone so new to the faith distributing Holy Communion to people who were knee-deep in the faith before I was even born. So I don't know.

Usher- This looks most attractive. It's a small but important task.

Catechist- Skipping the Church's lingo for just a minute, I'd be teaching again. No thanks. I don't do that stuff anymore. No.

Cantor- I can't sing so this one's out.

Lector- This is the second most attractive after the usher.

Those were what I can remember the Catechist mentioning but I'd imagine there are other choices. But as I say what impresses me is that the clergy from the get-go is extracting some kind of commitment and involvement from the new Church members. Everybody's expected to contribute something. That works for me as the Body of Christ is made up of many members who perform diverse functions. We should all be doing this.

To put it another way, Rome's bureaucracy works while at least SB Church #1's bureaucracy simultaneously begs for and chases off volunteers.

Unity and the 13th Standard

Guess I should probably talk about the video message Pope Francis sent via Tony Palmer to a Pentecostal congregation. But before I do, here it is for you to watch yourself.

Obviously this is a pretty moving video. No question there. And also obviously I have a place in my heart for evangelical Christians because I used to be one. And who doesn't want unity? We need it now more than ever.

It's interesting studying the reactions to this video. All manner of points of view have been expressed. Some Pentecostals have questioned why they should seek unity with statue-worshiping idolaters like the Catholic Church. I've even seen a few Catholics unintentionally confess they didn't know there's such a thing as Charismatic Catholicism. You may not like the fact that they exist. But exist they do. And they've received no rebuke from the Church so it's not my business or yours to criticize them.

There are some challenges here though. It's well and good to cheer for "unity" as an abstract concept but sooner or later we have to work to achieve unity if we're to be taken seriously. How do we define "unity"? If we mean that in the sense of one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church, things get sticky.

Putting aside the differences between your average Southern Baptist church and your average Pentecostal church, one key issue that evangelicals at large agree about is the illegitimacy of the papal office. Sure, there are other dogmas peculiar to the Catholic faith that evangelicals object to but the mere existence of the papacy is probably the most obvious.

For the Church to reunite with any evangelical denomination, one side or the other will have to do something drastic when it comes to the papacy. Probably to the entire concept of ordained clergy but, most obviously, the Pope. Either the Pentecostals will have to fully accept the Church's authority and teachings (which seems unlikely) or else the Church will have to abandon those things (which seems unlikelier).

One side or the other will have to effectively knuckle under to the other.

Now, I've studied a lot of history and, most recently, the writings of the Church Fathers. Their theology, beliefs and religious practices sound suspiciously like a fairly primitive, less nuanced and less developed version of the Catholic Church. Several key issues and doctrines may not have been fully hammered out just then but they were essentially Catholic. This is one of the main reasons I made the decision to join the Catholic Church last year.

Unity between the Church and evangelicals in the form of visible reunification means one side or the other has to put aside some of their most deeply held convictions. And I know where of I speak because it wasn't long ago I had to do that very thing myself. That's why I firmly believe that visible, institutional reunification is, humanly speaking, unlikely. Pride, if nothing else, will keep other evangelicals from even considering accepting Catholic doctrines.

And might I say that Tony Palmer is part of the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches? The CEEC is part of the Convergence Movement, which seeks to unify charismatic worship with liturgical sources like the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. The purpose is to ultimately move Catholics, evangelicals and charismatics more closely together.

On the surface that seems admirable enough, right? Like I said, who doesn't want unity? But it's like the old software programmer joke. You have two programmers sitting together when one of them complains about there being 12 different "standards" for a certain programming method. "TWELVE standards?! That's just INSANE! There should only be one! Let's you and me develop a perfect, unified standard that EVERYBODY can use to replace those twelve."

And thus is born the 13th "standard".

In CEEC's case, they're not connected to the worldwide Anglican Communion but they are connected to schism groups such as the Anglican Movement in America and the Anglican Church in North America. And those two groups aren't connected to the Anglican Communion either but they are in communion with certain member provinces of the Anglican Communion?

Confused yet?

Also, did I mention that the CEEC ordains women to the diaconate and the priesthood? And so do AMiA and ACNA? So IF unity is the intended outcome, what happens to those "female clergy"? The Church has taught infallibly that ordination is for men. Will the CEEC give way on that? Or is this another thing the Church would have to compromise on?

Now, I give the Holy Father kudos in the extreme for reaching out. His video message in essence is saying that the Church is keeping the door open for them. I'm not impugning his motives. But I do question the evangelicals who scream so loudly for unity. They're all "13th standards" waiting to happen... and they have a "13th standard" leading the charge in the form of Tony Palmer.

I actually find this more confusing and slightly offensive as a Catholic an RCIA Inquirer than I did as an evangelical. Maybe it's related to my political orientation but back in the old days, I didn't see the problem with having more varieties of Christianity in the religious marketplace. What's the harm? We're all worshiping the same God, depending upon the same Christ and praying in the same Spirit. Our unity is spiritual more than it is visible or physical.

But these days it bothers me inasmuch as I have been willing to put my ego aside and admit that I was wrong about the Catholic Church my entire life. So I wonder what makes my former-fellows think special exception should be made for them? What, the ancient Church should change just to accommodate THEM? Their mentality just strikes me as very American.

Anyway. And just think, the original topic I had in mind for today was Messianic Judaism. And one Messianic Jew in particular. Guess I'll save that for another time.

More to follow.

Considering the Magisterium

In a previous entry I questioned how Evangelicals or, really, any non-Catholic tradition can know the Bible is God's Word considering that much of the Bible's authenticity comes from sources Evangelicals don't adhere to and has been administered and protected by institutions the Anglicans and the Orthodox don't recognize as primal authorities.

But specifically with respect to the Evangelicals, I pointed out that their Sola Scriptura dogma (and yes, it IS a dogma, even if they choose not to use that word) is a sort of logical dead end in many respects.

I stand by it too. But I'll be continuing that theme somewhat today, this time by singling out the Anglican church.

Now, before I even get into this deeper, I must say that I have a tremendous regard for the Anglican church. Had it not been for them, I would never have given liturgical worship a chance. It would've been a bridge too far for me to switch from the Southern Baptist Convention to the Catholic Church. As much as I've always respected the Catholic Church, I would never have made that drastic a change in my faith. I needed the Anglican church to serve as a middle step for me. So, again, don't think of this as me picking on the Anglicans. I'm only trying to make a point here.

The Magisterium for me was initially a big problem for me when I began considering joining the Catholic Church. Partly because of the aforementioned Sola Scriptura doctrine, I was reluctant to place my trust too much in men. For my part, my error was in not correctly interpolating promises made by Christ.

In Matthew 16, Our Lord gave St. Peter the keys to the kingdom. That which is bound on Earth will be bound in Heaven. That which is loosed on Earth will be loosed in Heaven. The gates of hell and the power of death will not prevail against the Church.

Historically the Catholic Church has interpreted that as Our Lord ordaining Simon as Pope Peter and enacting the Magisterium. Superficially, it's a lot to ask to believe that ANY institution can be supernaturally protected from egregious spiritual and moral error. Why, that's crazy talk and anybody who claims Divine Guidance and Infallibility belongs in a looney bin, right?

But let's check the records, shall we? Let's compare what other traditions have done. It's a little tricky to do because none of them have a 2,000 year history comparable to the Catholic Church. But in the end I suspect that will only strengthen my argument.

Every ten years, the Anglican Communion assembles for the Lambeth Conference. The purpose of the conference is to express "the mind of the communion". There's no authority or obligation for the various territories to abide by opinions expressed at the Conference. Which is another problem all by itself but I'll spare you. Suffice it to say, Lambeth is useful for at least understanding what the Anglican Communion is thinking at any given time.

In 1948 the issue of ordaining women was addressed and "authoritatively" put to bed. It was considered that the ordination of Florence Li Tim-Oi "would be against the tradition and order of the Anglican Communion". The bishops in attendance said that this eliminates any need for further examination of women's ordination.

If you know ANYTHING about the Anglican Communion, odds are you're already laughing your head off. But please bear with me.

Lambeth 1968 recommended that women be ordained the diaconate and then recognized deaconesses appointed to those offices BEFORE official permission was ever even granted.

Think about that for a minute. The Anglican Communion cried foul when Florence Li Tim-Oi was ordained to their priesthood back in 1948. They then opined that the matter had been settled permanently. No need for further consideration. Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.

But ONLY twenty years later they somewhat reversed that decision that needed no further consideration by not only officially permitting women to be ordained to the diaconate but also decided not to pursue any disciplinary course of action takes by bishops who ordained women as deacons before that was technically permissible. As best I can tell, there wasn't even any sort of official reprimand!

As if that wasn't enough, the bishops also decided that assent to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (you know, the Church of England entire reason for being) was no longer necessary.

It doesn't get much better from here though. The worst is yet to come.

Lambeth 1978 recognized the autonomy of member churches to make their own decision as to ordaining women to the priesthood. So, again, the issue which was supposedly put to bed once and for all back in 1948 is now completely optional for members of the Communion. Thirty years.

You've come a long way, baby!

At Lambeth 1998, Resolution 1.10 declared that homosexual acts (but not homosexuality itself) are not compatible with the clear teachings of Scripture. This was enough to inspire 182 BISHOPS to apologize to gay and lesbian parishioners the world over for the Communion's "insensitivity". Of course, that statement came in an amendment that was only narrowly passed.

And keep in mind here that all we're talking about for the moment is calling a sin a sin. That's it! This conclusion had never been controversial anywhere in the history of orthodox Christianity. Lambeth 1998 broke new ground for the Communion.

So let's recap everything up to this point. In 1948, the "ordination" of Florence Li Tim-Oi was considered absolutely unacceptable and completely outside the Anglican tradition. The matter was "definitively" settled, never to be revisited.

In 1968, female "deacons" were permitted as a matter of course. Female "priests" were permitted just ten years later in 1978. And just twenty years after that, the Communion can't even coherently condemn homosexuality as a sin without bishops issuing apologies for some of their number communicating simple Scriptural truth.

Lambeth 2008 was controversial before it even started. Rowan Williams, then the Archbishop of Canterbury, refused to permit Resolution 1.10 to be revisited. Things were already tense enough what with four primates boycotting Lambeth because of the Episcopal Church USA's blessing of same-sex unions and more controversial figures like Gene Robinson, ordained bishop of New Hampshire in spite of the fact that he's openly gay.

The best the bishops could manage at Lambeth 2008 was to issue a report that expressed every point of view of the attendees concerning homosexuality and then call for "a season of gracious restraint" and humbly, politely, respectfully request that the Episcopal Church USA not ordain any more gay clergy or preside over any further same-sex union blessings. The report was in no way binding, it had no teeth and no penalties were called for in the event that the Episcopal Church USA continued on their present course.

Think about that! In sixty years, the Anglican Communion had gone from a fairly orthodox brand of traditional Christianity to being theologically and politically unrecognizable by its founders!

The Anglican Communion is the worst but they're by far not the only offenders. In 1968, key figures from the Southern Baptist Convention were quoted by mainstream news magazines not only permitting several forms of contraception but also permitting abortion under many circumstances. These days you'd have to go a long way to find a more faithful fellow traveler of the Catholic Church in the pro-life movement than the SBC. But things weren't always that way.

That's not the only stain on the SBC's name either. They once argued that the Bible permits and endorses the practice of slavery.

To be fair, the SBC no longer holds either position. And in fact, they have repented and apologized for their previous errors.

But all of these things lead to my ultimate point. There are cases when the Catholic Church has had some bad policies in the past. That much is definitely true. But you're hard-pressed to cite one occasion when the Catholic Church has signed her name and staked her credibility on moral and religious issues and then either been shown to be in error or otherwise reversed herself. There are no cases where the Church has had to "revisit" an official pronouncement made in the past and do a mea culpa. It's just never happened.

What are the odds of that? I cited several instances of the Anglican Communion reversing itself on several incredibly important moral issues in less than a century and two instances of the Southern Baptist Convention doing the same in less than fifty years! So how has the Church survived for 2,000 years without so much as one egregious error in faith or morals? And as I've said, there are no similar reversals made by the Catholic Church you can draw comparisons to in spite of the fact that the Church has an incredibly longer history.

The Magisterium and the concept of the Catholic Church being supernaturally guided and protected from error on faith and morals all of a sudden doesn't seem like such a crazy idea, now does it?

How Do Evangelicals Know the Bible Is God's Word?

I'm actually stumped about this. How DO evangelicals know the Bible is God's Word?

You see, any religious denomination is basically a series of dominos. Knocking one down generally entails several others getting knocked down.

For the purposes of making a point, I exempt Mormons from and include Catholics in this discussion. Mormonism in effect is a completely different religion while Catholicism is, whether anybody likes it or not, one choice among many when it comes to Christianity.

As a former evangelical, getting my head around certain Catholic doctrines and dogmas was a mixed bag. In some cases it was absurdly easy. In other cases, it was a tremendous pain in the neck.

But of all evangelical dogmas (and yes, that's what they are; the evangelicals can use whichever terms they like but they're no less binding than any Catholic dogma), the first and oddly enough easiest domino to fall was Sola Scriptura.

Sola Scriptura. The belief that the Bible is a complete revelation to man and is the first, last and only religious authority anybody needs for 99% of their spiritual needs and, beyond that, is the ONLY inerrant authority men have access to.

And like any good evangelical, I not only believed that but, God forgive me, taught it for years. Years. But even at my zenith as a fire-breathing evangelical, even I had to acknowledge that the Sola Scriptura doctrine was severely flawed.

For one thing, the Bible makes no such claim of being the only authority upon which man needs to rely for inspired spiritual guidance. This is a bigger problem than one may think. A doctrine that explosive would surely be codified in writing somewhere prior to the 1500's, right? But it isn't. It's nowhere to be found in the historical record.

That's a major logical flaw right there.

But another problem is that while the Bible is most assuredly God's inspired word, it is not a book of doctrines. In particular the New Testament is a series of stories, recollections, admonishments and other things. But a collection of doctrines, beliefs, dogmas and other things? Entirely absent.

This raises the question of, IF God intended the Bible to man's sole spiritual authority, why such omissions were permitted. That presented a serious interpretive challenge, to be sure, and it's one I carefully avoided whenever possible.

When I began studying Anglicanism, I recognized the doctrine of Sola Scripture as irreparably flawed. Perhaps I'll deal with the Anglican belief of Scripture, Tradition, Reason some other time but, in the short term, depending upon tradition to speak where the Bible was silent appealed to the armchair historian in me. The historicity of a certain practice doesn't guarantee that practice's validity, of course. It does, however, strongly suggest the practice is trustworthy.

So, whether it was appropriate or not, that was the death knell of my belief in Sola Scriptura. It really was that easy. Tradition is a reliable guide to religious custom and belief. Fine and dandy, thank you Church of England!

However, the Roman Church is the fullness of Christianity. And because of that, light's been shed on other limitations of and flaws with Sola Scriptura that had not occurred to me previously.

Sola Scriptura necessarily eschews tradition as a guide for religious custom. The Bible is ALL you need so the Bible is ALL you'll get. However, this presents a two-fold problem.

First, divorced from tradition and history, Sola Scriptura leaves interpretation of the Bible to the individual of the current moment. First, that approach subjects the Bible to the individual interpretation of millions of laypeople. And given that those individuals are products of their time, it effectively enslaves Christianity to the present culture.

Understand, the Bible must be read. And then it must be interpreted. On that much, Catholics and other churches agree. Where we differ is who should be doing the interpreting.

I cite as an example Matthew 16, where St. Peter confesses Our Lord as Messiah and Our Lord in turn renames him Peter and says upon this rock He will build His church. The Catholic interpretation of that passage is famous. It's what permits the papacy. Even poorly catechized Catholics will tell you that much.

On the evangelical side, things are nowhere near as cut and dried. Ask twenty different evangelicals what that passage means, you'll get twenty different answers. Or ten evangelicals. Or two. There is no unity there. None whatsoever.

Given the number of times the Bible calls for unity, does it really follow that the Lord would not institute an authority to interpret and teach His Word?

The second problem is logical in nature. Evangelicals believe in Sola Scriptura. They believe the Bible is the only inerrant authority. Fine. Track that out then.

How do you know what you're holding in your hands is God's Word?

Now, I can answer that rather easily. The Church first compiled the Bible and has been the custodian thereof for millennia. Holy men of God considered which books are canon and which ones are not, and pruned accordingly. Hence apocryphal books such as the "Gospel" of Thomas, the "Gospel" of Peter and others were left out while 1 Peter, 2 Peter, the four canonical Gospels and all the other books were accepted.

Why, one might suspect Providence was the guide in this.

But evangelicals can't make that argument. Not logically anyway. They eschew tradition. The Bible is their only authority. And as I've said, the Bible not only makes no claim to being the SOLE authority. In fact, I think it's the slim minority of passages that even claim to be God's Word. Recognizing those writings as God's Word requires interpretation and no small measure of Providence. Tradition says that the Church recognized these books as canon and that's that.

This is a Catholic's home turf. But, by definition, it's entirely foreign to evangelicals. They can't depend upon tradition as their guide. That's their rule; not mine.

So how do the evangelicals know the Bible is God's Word?

I Am the Ten Percent

Cruised the Fox News homepage a while ago and found this little gem- Is religion making a comeback in American popular culture?, a segment from The Five news/commentary show.

Based upon the success of The Bible TV miniseries, the pending theatrical release of Noah and growing church attendance, The Five unanimously believe that the trend is toward deep religious commitment in America. They don't do much to rationally argue their case, you understand. They simply posit that based on a few media factors and interpretation of statistics, religious adherence in general and Christian affiliation are growing in America.

I am skeptical.

Why? Well, for starters, the Protestant mainline is absolute smithereens. While a few may be true believers, those denominations have been engulfed by liberalism to the point where their churches are predominantly occupied by pot-smoking hippies and transgender "clergy".

Evangelical Christianity, specifically the Southern Baptist denomination, appears to be growing. According to the American Religious Identification Survey, there were approximately 33 million adult Southern Baptists in America in 1990 and 2001. That number rose to 36 million adults in 2008 (the most recent year for which we have data).

As for the Catholic Church, there's been a steady up-tick in numbers there as well. 46 million adults in 1990, 50 million in 2001 and 57 million in 2008.

The number of non-denominational Christians have risen as well. 194,000 in 1990, 2.4 million in 2001 and 8 million in 2008.

However, I submit to you that the numbers are incredibly misleading.

Dr. Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has been quoted as saying that only about 10% of Southern Baptist churchgoers are truly committed to the gospel.

Oddly enough (or not) that number is echoed by Fr. John McCloskey, who has reported that only about 10% of Catholics are "with the program". That is to say only that number will attend Mass on a regular basis, participate in confession at least once a year and other activities.

Those remarks tally fairly well with a 2008 Barna Research Group poll, which indicated that only 9% of those polled identify their relationship with God as the most important thing in their lives. To put that in perspective, 45% said family matters most while 17% said their money and career was most important.

So how do we account for the disparity between committed believers both among the Southern Baptist and the Catholic Church and the people who apparently are checking their bank accounts during the homily?

Rather easily.

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. ... Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
-- St. Matthew 7:14, 21 (KJV)

Incidentally, mainliners/non-Catholics/non-SB's may be bothered by the fact that they were virtually ignored through this entire discourse. But the reason for that is, as per the above, the Protestant mainline hasn't so much declined as completely atrophied. The Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians/Anglicans and others are simply not viable denominations anymore.

Not saying they'll disappear tomorrow. Even now America has a memory of what those denominations have meant to the country over the years. But the days of them being a real force in American life have come and gone. Soon the denominations themselves will be too small to even measure in most polls. They're simply not relevant anymore. They will only be less relevant as time goes on.

In fact, the obvious conclusion here is that Christianity in America is becoming increasingly polarized between the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention. Children born today probably won't considering mainline churches as viable options for church attendance when they come of age. In point of fact, the Protestant mainline may well be consigned to the history books by that point.

Nature abhors a vacuum. The mainline long ago negotiated away Truth and Authority to accommodate the culture. The dwindling numbers are their just desserts.

Also, consider the breakdown of numbers. 76% of those polled by the American Religious Identification Survey identified as "Christian". Of those, 25% identified as Catholic. 51% identified as non-Catholic Christian.

However, the Southern Baptist Convention's contribution to that 51% figure is 16%. Subtract their number and you're left with 35%. These are all other denominations most of which either don't even have churches in your local area or won't in ten years.

The Catholic Church is not only the largest single Christian tradition in the United States, it's the only one experiencing any type of growth. We may all be Catholics before this is over.

Considering Phil Robertson

Wow, lack of updates lately. The reason for that is because I've been sick with some crud and that sacked me out for the better part of a week. Combine that with the Christmas holiday and there's your delay right there.

So anyway. Facebook has absolutely blown up goings on related to Phil Robertson from Duck Dynasty. I shall not recap his comments. If you don't know what he said, Google is your friend.

It's been interesting reading the reactions people have had though. And I'm not talking about the media, Hollywood, politicians and so forth. I mean reactions from the rank and file. Specifically I refer to people on the conservative/Republican/Christian side of the argument.

For the first time it really feels like lines are being drawn about this issue. For the first time it feels like there are fractures in the opposition to "same-sex marriage". But I'll come back to this in a moment.

Earlier tonight I saw a friend-of-a-friend had posted a link to some crowd-source financing web page. The page is intended to collect funds so that a same-sex couple can leave the very deeply red state we live in and drive to California to get married.

This isn't a simple matter of challenging the law in the Texas Supreme Court in the hopes they find it unconstitutional. It would be pointless. The state's Supreme Court would have to rule against them because Texas didn't ban "gay marriage" with a bill signed in to law. Rather, the Texas Constitution was itself amended specifically to prevent not only "gay marriage" ceremonies from occurring within the state but also to prevent Texas from recognizing such unions performed in other states.

In other words there's simply no wiggle room here. If you reside in the state of Texas, there's simply no way for same-sex couples to get "married". There's no state law you can pass in Texas that will ever change that. Even if 100% of all citizens in Texas changed their minds tomorrow about "gay marriage" and decided to pass a law, it wouldn't do any good. The state's constitution would have to be modified. And that's a procedural pain in the neck.

I say all of that to draw an analogy. There's an entire segment of the supposed Christian community who are finally willing to "compromise" (ie, sell out) on this issue. This whole chimichanga related to Phil Robertson has brought at least that much into focus. There are craploads of people supposedly on my side of the aisle who have finally had enough. They're at their breaking points now.

Everybody? No, of course not. But a considerable number. I use the term "supposed Christians" up there (A) because these people are okay with their Protestant/evangelical churches officiating or in some way blessing same-sex unions, which is a patently anti-Christian attitude to have and (B) this even includes some Mormons I know. Mormons in general and these Mormons in particular may be good people but Mormons cannot be called Christians unless we either redefine the word "Mormon", the word "Christian" or both.

To be sure, Catholics far and wide may support "same-sex marriage" too but the difference is that the Church doesn't. And that I guess is the sum and substance of my point here.

Much like the Texas state constitution, the Catholic Church has taught infallibly that marriage can only be the union of one man and one woman. Period, end of discussion. Even if every single Catholic in the entire world up to and including any given Pope were to decide "same-sex marriage" is cool and totally onboard with God's plan, the Church's prior teachings on the subject are impossible to change.

The Catholic Church can't compromise on this. Can't. Cannot. Even if individual Catholics are more than willing to kowtow to the left about this issue, the Church herself can't.

But non-Catholic institutions lack the Church's authority and leadership. As with states which forbid "same-sex marriage" by law rather than Constitutional amendment, their own bylaws may forbid anything even remotely resembling "same-sex marriage" today but who knows what those bylaws might say tomorrow? Apply enough pressure and who knows? Maybe the Mormons and the Southern Baptists will accept "gay marriage" after all.

But the Catholic Church can't.

As a side note, let me say that in many ways I consider myself to be a sexual libertarian. In many ways, I don't care what people do or with whom they do it as long as (A) it's consensual and (B) it doesn't become my problem.

The issue with "gay marriage" is that any legal recognition of it will eventually become my problem in the form of my church being forced to recognize or perform "gay weddings". The gay lobby and its advocates can say anything they like to the contrary but let's cut the crap. Their movement isn't about "equality". If that's all they wanted, laws regarding civil unions could be modified as necessary to confer whatever legal benefits are conferred by marriage.

That isn't the issue. It's never been the issue. Ultimately the gay lobby wants society's blessing for that immoral lifestyle. Anything less is unacceptable. We've all seen the Internet meme of a picture of a "gay marriage" advocate holding a sign that says "I civil union you". The nonsensical sentiment is designed to illustrate the supposed absurdity and inequality inherent to civil unions over and against marriage.

It isn't about equality. It's about forcing everybody everywhere to accept the proposition of "gay marriage" simply because they desperately yearn for wholesale societal endorsement.

Not just "acceptance". Not just "tolerance". Endorsement.

Do you seriously think they'll draw the line at religious freedom? How's that working out so far? We've all heard the stories about Christian business owners being forced to participate in "gay weddings" in spite of the fact that theirs is a clear cut case of religious conscience.

The same gay lobby which has eaten those business owners alive in court will somehow spare churches and other religious groups? Fat chance!

When I express unequivocal opposition to "gay marriage", bear in mind that this is what I have in mind. When it comes to the "gay agenda", remember that I couldn't care less about the "gay" part. It's the "agenda" part that bothers me.

Of Prayers and Vain Repetitions

"Catholics pray in vain repetitions. The Lord said to never do that!" -- Uninformed Non-Catholic

This is likely a reference to:

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
-- Matthew 6:7 (KJV)

Apparently formalized prayer such as the Catholic Church prescribes is the vain repetition that has been prohibited. But did our Lord truly prohibit the practice?

And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.
-- Matthew 26:44 (KJV)

Apparently our Lord has no problem with it when He offers the same prayer more than once. But is that His privilege? Maybe the rest of us are not permitted to offer repeated, formalized prayer?

Did our Lord possibly forbid that?

And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.
-- Luke 11:3-4 (KJV)

So our Lord said not to offer vain repetition as prayer. But He prayed repetitiously on at least one occasion and also instructed His apostles to do the same thing with the Our Father prayer. So either our Lord violated His own instructions or else a bunch of Protestants misunderstood His instructions.

Which of those seems more likely to you?

Mind you, the Protestants haven't kept their noses clean about this themselves. I assume they pray the "Our Father" once in a while. Plus, ultimately prayer is praise. So is singing the same song in praise a vain repetition?

"O sing unto the LORD a new song: sing unto the LORD, all the earth."
-- Psalm 96:1 (KJV)

How many times have Protestants sung Amazing Grace?

To the Protestants: There is no need for a double standard; one will do nicely.

Advent (or "More Evangelical Goofiness")

Following a bizarre series of events, I found myself in a Southern Baptist church on Sunday morning. There's a story behind all this related to a car breaking down but nobody would find that in the least compelling so I shall skip it except to say that there was a very good reason for me to do this.

In any event, I attended a Southern Baptist church this past Sunday. In fact, it was Southern Baptist Church #2 (last mentioned here). And as obvious as this may be for some of you, I was once again struck by how evangelicalism really is a stripped down, unglued, incoherent photocopy of the catholic faith (which I use in the broad sense rather than specifically Roman Catholicism, although obviously that's the best application here).

For example, most catholic (lowercase "c") churches, particularly Roman Catholic and Anglican, have some sort of choir. And generally the choir members will wear traditional choir dress.

Well, obviously tradition (selectively) has no truck with the evangelicals so they usually skip that. Except that on some level, they still understand the value of a type of uniform for the choir, oops, sorry, the "worship leaders" so they generally try to dress them similarly to one another. Usually it's a dark color (blacks, dark grays, etc.) off-set by another color. Anybody care to guess which color it was this past Sunday?

Anyway, such was the case with SBC #2, and on zillions of previous occasions. So once again they claim they're skipping tradition ("that's not 'biblical'!") but then they attempt to sneak a watered down version of it in anyway. There's a very strange effort from evangelicals to replace tradition and liturgy with things that serve effectively the same aesthetic and practical functions but without the "burden" of centuries of observance behind it. Apparently the guiding philosophy is to change the names and a few particulars of traditional religious practice and hope nobody notices.

This is one of those things I never really paid much attention to when I was lost in evangelicaldom myself but which sticks out like a sore thumb now.

Apart from that silliness though, I've noticed a trend lately where evangelicals have started attempting to hijack the liturgical calendar. Selectively and piecemeal, of course, because that's how they do everything.

Case in point: Advent. SBC #2, which is as evangelical as the day is long, has started using the word the same way the catholics do. I'll cut the Presbyterians and Methodists some slack on this one since some type of Advent observance isn't a new thing for them. But it is foreign to the Southern Baptists; this I do affirm.

Of course, the "observance" of it is primarily confined to throwing the word itself around a lot. There was no real talk about penitence, of course. No, no, you have to call it "serious reflection". Same thing, more or less, just different words without centuries of authority and tradition behind it.

They also made sure to dress the choir, oops, "worship leaders" in black suits and violet dress shirts. The lead pastor got in on the fun too with a violet necktie. Big coincidences all, I'm sure.

When I was an evangelical, I was confused by how annoyed the Catholics could get about our Easter and Christmas services. It just didn't make any sense to me. Their attitude seemed to be that we were co-opting some of their traditions, customs and beliefs for our own use but without putting ourselves under any sort of real church authority. I found it absolutely baffling back then.

Suffice it to say, their outrage makes a hell of a lot more sense now.