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 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.

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?

The Religion of Secularism

I can't be the first one to notice the similarities between secularism and organized religion. In point of fact, I believe religion is the only way to explain the zealotry of the left. As I say though, I can't be the first. Still, I doubt there's as extensive a list comparing how much secularism resembles Christianity.

-- The Religion of Secularism
- Tithe
Taxes

- House of Worship
Cable News Networks
Internet Blogs/Facebook Groups

- Seminaries
College Universities

- Clergy
News Journalists
Supreme Court Justices
School Teachers/College Professors

- Sacred Scripture
Darwin's Origin of Species
Roe v. Wade

- Catechism
School textbooks

- Sacraments
Voting
Abortion
Pre-Marital Sex
Divorce

- Messiah
Barack Obama

- Mother Mary
Jane Roe/Norma McCorvey

- Prophets
Charles Darwin
Richard Dawkins
Christopher Hitchens
Bill Clinton

- Saints
Franklin Roosevelt
Celebrity Activists/Atheists

- Martyrs
John F. Kennedy
Matthew Shepard
Murdered Abortion Providers

- Representative of All Evil
President George W. Bush

- Religious Congregations
Congressional Black Caucus
National Organization of Women
ACORN
ACLU
Organized Labor

- Magisterium
Scientific Methods

- Religious Jargon
Separation of Church and State
Political Correctness

- Curia
US President
US Congress
Supreme Court

- Creation Myth
Evolution

- Eschatology/End Times
Global Warming

- Virtues
Taxing "the rich"
Universal Healthcare
Gay Marriage
Social Justice

- Holy Days
Earth Day
Labor Day

- Political Expression/Affiliation
Liberalism (Democrat Party)

- Apostates
Jane Roe/Norma McCorvey
Dennis Miller

So how exactly is secularism not a religion? And how is governmental implementation of secularism not establishing a religion?

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.