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?

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?

Hatred

Been thinking.

Obviously gay marriage is making a lot of inroads right now. And it doesn't matter what I think about that. It doesn't matter that it's completely artificial. It doesn't matter that what little "momentum" it has comes from a Presidential election where a major part of the electorate was repressed and kept away from polls.

What matters is that it's coming. And this genie isn't easily put back in the bottle, however illegitimate its origins.

This same group is basically openly at war with any semblance of organized religion. They've been less successful here, thanks primarily to a Supreme Court obsessed with freedom of speech. Under other circumstances, nobody's qualified to say what might be happening to America right now.

This is all mostly pushed by people who only love liberty and democracy when it suits their purposes. Otherwise, both are obstacles to their agenda. Obstacles to be eradicated.

And I'll be bluntly honest that it's hard to obey Our Lord's command to love those who hate me and do good to those who persecute me. My natural inclination is to be an absolute gadfly. If I have a chance to ruin a liberal's day, all too often I'm guilty of taking it. Even if it's something as petty as cutting somebody off in traffic with an Obama/Biden 2012 bumper sticker on their car. As long as it doesn't violate the law or result in physical injury, odds are it'll be a pleasure to completely screw some liberal over.

But Our Lord doesn't say to do that. He says to love those who hate me and do good to those who persecute me. This is what the Church did back in the first century when the Romans were using Christians as tiki torches in Caesar's garden. This is the approach that ultimately transformed Rome from barbaric paganism to enlightened Christianity.

This is the approach that changed the entire world.

But hate. Hate comes so easily, doesn't it? I see liberals everywhere destroying everything that makes this country great. And not only are they destroying it, they're reveling in their victories and successes. And I hate them for it. I regularly refuse to give them any measure of forgiveness, patience, kindness or, worst of all, Our Lord's love. I declared them enemies and never even attempted to reach them.

And my hate isn't restricted to liberals either. A fair amount of it is directed to evangelical Christians, obsessed with their little imaginary apocalypses; the ones who stayed home in 2012 and gave control over this country to a tyrant because they didn't like Mitt Romney out of some idiotic "principled stand".

This same principle didn't keep them from voting for President Bush back in 2004, mind you; it's only when Obamacare is set to destroy what's left of freedom in America that these fools decided to be conservative purists.

I say all of this to my shame. Because for as resentful, angry and downright hateful as I've been to those people, they're ultimately just PEOPLE who need Our Lord's love and sacrifice in order to be forgiven. And I've made absolutely no effort to be the light that shines the way.

Understand, in most respects I consider myself a sexual libertarian. I don't care who does what with whom as long as all parties consent to it. My opposition to same-sex "marriage" comes exclusively from the certainty that part of "marriage equality" necessarily entails putting the Church under liberalism's boot.

NOBODY can guarantee when gay marriage is the law of the land, priests, pastors and other religious leaders won't get sued into oblivion for refusing to perform "same-sex marriage" ceremonies.

That is where my opposition to same-sex unions begins and ends. Otherwise I couldn't care less about it and am amazed that things have gone as far as they have.

But that hasn't stopped me from anything. I originally didn't care about "same-sex marriage" supporters or their kooky cause. But now that they're in spitting distance of their goal, I not only hate them but the people they're advocating for.

And again, that's the complete opposite of what Our Lord intended.

Through this entire mess, I've come to realize that there's a better than average chance that this could result in a serious persecution, possibly up to and including martyrdom. And through it all, I've steadfastly refused to count the evangelicals as allies. By definition they've already rebelled against the Church's authority.

Why would they be counted upon to stand up for REAL truth when they've already rejected so much of it already by separating themselves from Rome?

But Our Lord said we should make peace with our brothers. I've never even attempted to do this. I've just assumed they're pompous, ignorant, proud and unreliable pretenders to the REAL faith.

There's a lot here that I've failed to handle properly. I've returned the favor (with interest) when liberals treat me like enemies. I've smugly dismissed any legitimacy of conviction (if not purity of doctrine) among the evangelicals and categorized them as misled sheep; simpletons and fools too stupid to crack open and read the writings of the early Church fathers to understand their supposed faith's TRUE origins.

I will do all in my power to repent. The hour is late. Probably too late to reverse any of this. But that's no excuse for not recognizing my error and working to repent and correct these problems.

Female "Clergy" and the "Church" of England

The Church of England votes to allow women as bishops

LONDON – The Church of England ended one of its longest and most divisive disputes Monday with an overwhelming vote in favor of allowing women to become bishops.

The church's national assembly, known as the General Synod, voted for the historic measure, reaching the required two-thirds majority in each of its three different houses. In total, 351 members of the three houses approved of the move. Only 72 voted against and 10 abstained.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said the long-awaited change marks the completion of a process that started more than 20 years ago with the ordination of women as priests. He called for tolerance and love for those traditionalists who disagree with the decision.

"As delighted as I am for the outcome of this vote I am also mindful of whose within the church for whom the result will be difficult and a cause of sorrow," he said in a statement.

Stupidity like this isn't the main reason I walked away from Anglicanism. But it was a consideration. The fact is that being an orthodox, traditionalist Anglican increasingly puts you at odds with what's left of Anglicanism worldwide.

When all's said and done, this decision accomplishes three things. First, it codifies what's long been unofficial practice in the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church USA "ordained" a female presiding archbishop back in 2006 or so. And they did it with absolute impunity because they knew that the Archbishop of Canterbury wouldn't lift a finger to stop them.

Speaking of the Archbishop, you really have to admire the strength of his convictions. Only after YEARS of conservatives abandoning the "church" in droves while the liberals shriek ever louder for female "clergy" does he express support for their cause. He should be a politician.

Secondly, it further alienates whatever traditionalists are still left in their "communion". I'd predict that the worldwide Anglican Communion might rupture over this, except they already ruptured over homosexuals being "ordained" as priests and bishops back in 2009.

But third, it might give those same traditionalists the final push they need to leave their pathetic excuse of a communion behind and come home to Rome. The infrastructure for doing so has existed for years now. So maybe there's some Anglo-Catholic parish or maybe even an entire diocese that's got nowhere left to go except Rome.

Speaking of which, I truly hope I never hear some Episcopalian wingnut wish for reunification with Rome.

Once again, the Catholic Church will absorb the faithful while the Anglican Communion loses more of the few people actually willing to actually tithe and do yucky stuff like feed the homeless and whatnot.

If this was a war, Rome would win by attrition.

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.

What Ecumenism?

I'm sure this is old news for some of you but I stumbled across this little news item from last year. Usually something this old is so dead that it's not even worth bringing up. But I see a few angles here I can't not comment upon.

Following the personal ordinariate instituted for Anglicans, Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller was quoted as saying essentially that the Church might consider a similar arrangement for Lutherans but only if they ask for one.

Seems simple enough, right? The archbishop is basically saying the Church won't go where she's not invited in this case. Well, leave it to the Lutherans to complicate a situation that isn't even all that complicated to begin with.

Martin Junge, general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, shot his mouth off by saying that the Church waiting for Lutherans to make the first move before thinking much about reconciliation "would have deep ecumenical repercussions".

Lutheran Bishop Friedrich Weber, effectively the Lutheran church in Germany's envoy to Rome, said that an ordinariate would be "an unecumenical incitement to switch sides."

Sometimes in life you read something so stupid that it hurts. Lewis Black, the standup comedian, reached a similar conclusion when he heard someone utter the phrase "if it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college." And because he's a standup comedian, he made several profane jokes about it. Which is why you're reading a summary of it here rather than watching an embedded YouTube video.

If I didn't know where he was coming from before, I do now.

See, in the weird, goofy, backwards world in which I apparently live, I'd always assumed the point of (to be polite) inter-denominational dialogue such as that which goes on between the Catholic Church and the Lutherans was hopefully to eventually reach some sort of understanding with one another. Unification is, I presume, the end goal. Otherwise why are we here? Surely it can't be to "learn from each other". I assume the reason representatives from the Church have occasion to speak to that misguided bunch of schismatics and heretics the Lutherans is for reasons other than a pleasant chat about the weather.

On that basis, how could the Church setting up an ordinariate possibly endanger ecumenical relations? Would that not be the entire point of ecumenical relations?

And of course, to even speak of an ordinariate is premature at this juncture since Archbishop Müller has said that the Holy Father won't even consider establishing one until and unless the Lutherans specifically ask for them to do so. So why are the Lutherans getting their panties in a twist?

It's a fair, if slightly rhetorical, question. Because I suspect I think I have an answer.

I just did a quick Google search. I found 175 different versions of Lutheranism. 175. And 36 of those are church bodies located in North America.

Perhaps it's a fitting bit of historical tragic irony (or maybe poetic justice) but Lutheranism is an incredibly fractured institution. They're so fragmented that maybe they should be having ecumenical dialogue with each other before they worry about the Catholic Church.

In any case, Lutheranism, like much of the Protestant mainline, has been waning for years. What that implies for their worldwide figures is beyond me and I'm too lazy to check but the current number is somewhere around 45 million. Worldwide.

To put that in perspective, there are 75 million Catholics in the United States alone. That works out to 25% of the country's population.

To put that into further perspective, 5% of Americans are Lutheran. 4% of Americans self-identify as gay.

So what's the REAL issue here? I've got a theory. It's just speculation. Don't give it any more credence than that.

2017 marks the 500th anniversary of Luther's Revolt the beginning of Protestantism. That means a lot of attention will be paid to the Lutheran church. Lots of free advertising. So how much do you think Lutheran bishops want to risk even the smallest possibility of headlines that they might reunite with the Mother Church right now? Why, that might divert attention from the 500th anniversary of Luther's Folly! No, no, we can't have that! The optics here are just BAD!

In all likelihood, the Lutherans know their time is up. My guess is they're desperately clinging to the small amount of relevance they have left in the hope that the magic 500 number will miraculously beef up their membership rolls.

Methinks there's a very real fear in Geneva that press coverage of the 500th anniversary will center mostly on what a monumental failure Protestantism in general and Lutheranism in particular both are. The reality staring the Lutheran church in the face every day is that the 500th anniversary is likely to be their swan song rather than a joyful, triumphant celebration or, in their wildest dreams, a return to the prestige and influence they used to enjoy.

The simple fact of the matter is that Geneva needs Rome more than Rome needs Geneva. Everybody involved knows that too but the Church is too polite to say so and the Lutherans are too proud.

Now, yes, I feel bad about the unwanted divorce the church suffered nigh 500 years ago. We should all be saddened by the schism and heresy Luther led his people into. So my snark and sanctimony are tempered by the sobering reality that Luther has endangered countless souls.

But then that's somewhat colored by the fact that my soul was indirectly one such and that angers me because the Protestants lied to me my entire life about the Church, her true teachings and her place in history.

The fact that their membership rosters have been utterly decimated by further divisions saddens me not one bit. If anything, I rather enjoy seeing the Protestant mainline be humbled.

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?

Celebrating the 500th Anniversary of Schism and Rebellion

*sigh*

Lutherans and Catholics bury the hatchet for Reformation’s 500th.

So let me get this straight. We'll just set aside how Martin Luther kickstarted the movement that's led millions of people into heresy because this is the five-hundredth anniversary of when he did so.

Yeah, seems legit.

Full disclosure- I'm very much an either or, black or white thinker. It's the rare question that has multiple correct answers. Either the Catholic Church is the way to salvation and those who rebel against her authority are heretics OR Martin Luther was absolutely right about every problem he had with church authority. Either or. One or the other.

I see no middle-ground on this.

This isn't to say nothing good came from the Reformation. Far from it, in fact. Luther's rebellion led to the Council of Trent where several of his grievances were addressed. Oddly enough, considering what I said above, it's not as simple a matter that Luther was right about everything he said or he was wrong about everything. The Church eventually concluded that he was factually correct about some of his points.

The issue though is that he was inexcusably wrong when he rebelled against the Pope's authority and leadership. His issues could've been worked out had he given the system a chance. He didn't. Instead he led an uprising in defiance of the Church's God-given authority.

I see nothing there worth celebrating. In fact, the anniversary is no small source of anger for me since I was sucked in my Protestant crap for most of my life.

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.