One of the Communing Callers came by yesterday and blamed Protestants for secularization. “Protestantism paved the way for secularism which is a battle the Catholic Church continues to fight. To ignore this truth is to ignore history.”
This is a curious point of view for those who claim to be standing in continuity with Christian history — especially that history BEFORE the Reformation. As the wonderful current three-volume study by Francis Oakley of medieval political theology is showing, secularization was hard wired into Christianity from the beginning:
The conception of the Kingdom of God, then, that Lies at the heart of the teaching of the Gospels on matters political is one that differs radically from that associated with the messianic views dominant in Jesus’s own lifetime. To that fact attests the evident bewilderment both of his own followers, at least one of whom appears to have been a Zealot (Luke 6:15), and of his Jewish opponents, who certainly were not but who at the end sough to convince Pontius Pilate that Jesus had at least to be something of a Zealot fellow-traveler. But Jesus’s negativity in matters political, his frequent disparagement of the kings and governments of this world and of their coercive methods, had little in common with Zealot attitudes. The less so, indeed, in that it was directed against all the governmental structures with which he had come into contact. Jewish no less than Roman. Nor should we miss the fact that that negativity was balanced, somewhat, by at least some measure of approval extended to governmental authority. Admittedly limited in scope, that approval finds practical expression in Jesus’s own obedience to the laws of the land and formal expression in his celebrated statement on the tribute money (“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”). If that statement evaded the trap being set for him by the Pharisees and Sadducees, it must certainly have scandalized the Zealots. For if the Things that were God’s had to be rendered unto God, the Tribute money, nevertheless, was identifies as Caesar’s, and Jesus indicated that it had to be rendered unto Caesar. That position was wholly in keeping with his insistence that the Kingdom whose advent he was preaching was “not of this world.” And both positions imply (in modern terms) an altogether novel separation of “religious” from “political” loyalties that stands out, in the broader context of the history of political thought . . . “Empty Bottles of Gentilism” (58)
Oakley goes on to quote approvingly Fustel de Coulanges (don’t worry, I didn’t know him either — a late nineteenth-century French historian):
Christianity completes the overthrow of local worship; it extinguishes the prytanea [sacred fire], and completely destroys the city-protecting divinities. It does more: it refuses to assume the empire which these worships had exercised over civil society. It professes that between the state and itself there is nothing in common. It separates what antiquity had confounded. We may remark, moreover, that during three centuries the new religion lived entirely beyond the action of the state; it knew how to dispense with state protection, and even to struggle against it. These three centuries established an abyss between the domain of government and the domain of religion; and, as the recollection of the period could not be effaced, it followed that this distinction became a plain and incontestable truth, which the efforts of even a part of the clergy could not efface. (59)
Oakley goes on to suggest that medieval churchmen played a substantial role in effacing the distinction that de Coulanges observed (and that Augustine elaborated in The City of God and was undone by the claims of a magisterial papacy):
. . . the Augustine whom one characteristically encounters in the Middle Ages is the Augustine of The City of God only insofar as that work was read or reinterpreted in light of what he had to say in his tracts against the Donatists. Medieval churchmen, after all, did not fully share his somber doctrine of grace; they rejected his sternly predestinarian division between the reprobate and the elect; they saw instead in every member of the visible Church Militant a person already touched by grace and potentially capable of citizenship in the civitas dei. More familiar with the anti-Donatist writings, in which Augustine had ascribed to the Christian emperor a distinctive role in the vindication of orthodoxy, than with the sober, limited and essential secular conception of rulership conveyed in his City of God, those churchmen were also apt, it may be, to assimilate the historical vision embedded in the latter to the optimistic Christian progressivism that Orosius had made (influentially) his own. They were led, accordingly, even while invoking Augustine’s authority, to depart from his mature and controlling political vision. That is to say, they broke down the firm distinction between the city of God and the Christian societies of this world that we have seen him draw so firmly in all but a handful of texts in The City of God itself. Instead, and what he actually had had to say about justice and the commonwealth to the contrary, they understood him to have asserted that it is the glorious destiny of Christian society — church, empire, Christian commonwealth, call it what you will — to labor to inaugurate the Kingdom of God and the reign of true justice in this world. (140-41)
This is why the CTC assessment of two-kingdom theology needs to go back to the drawing board and do a little historical investigation. Oakley’s interpretation of Christ and Augustine does sheds some light on CTC’s reading of the church fathers. They have precedent for seeing what they want to see.
Postscript: Orosius was an early fifth-century Spanish theologian who set out to do “nothing less than demonstrate “in every respect that the empire of Augustus had been prepared for the advent of Christ.” (Oakley, 116)
Old Life 
Daryl,
I am not sure how you concluded, from my evaluation of the Reformed Two Kingdoms debate, that “CTC … needs to go back to the drawing board and do a little historical investigation,” nor how the quotes from Oakely illustrate any special pleading sort of selectivity in citing the Church Fathers on the part of contributors to our website.
The tension that Oakely discerns in Augustine, between the anti-Donatist tracts and The City of God, can be accounted for by making some careful distinctions, which distinctions become manifest precisely by means of a little historical research. The relation between the two kingdoms is complex, in no small part because it is ever-changing. I discussed this relation in a summary fashion at CTC, in the post “Church and State: Some Impromptu Reflections.”
Andrew
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Andrew, I believe you need to go back to the drawing board because your church’s “social teaching” raises questions about how closely it is following one of the early church fathers and Christ himself. Your pieces simply lay out options. It’s like the New Catholic Encyclopedia. No sides taken. But if Christ and Augustine are right, it’s not simply a matter of describing.
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Cross may not be using “secular” (a bad thing) in the same way you use “secular” (a good or neutral thing). Then again, he might be playing Rick Reuschel to your Mike Schmidt on a day the wind is blowing out at Wrigley.
His point may be that The Reformation gave birth to Protestantism which gave birth to Liberal Protestantism, which is often just “unbelieving secularism” dressed up in religious garb. Before being too critical, however, he should consider liberal Catholics (including some Catholic politicians) who only go to church on rare occasions and mostly just tout their Catholicism when convenient.
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Erik, the thing is, secular is by its very nature a Christian idea. It refers to the saeculum, the period between Christ’s advents when things are mixed — unlike Israel which was a nation of believers and unlike the eschaton where the City of God will only include believers. So I don’t know how secular can be a bad thing. The West has no idea what secular is apart from Christianity.
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Daryl,
I did more than lay out options. I advocated both the “cultural integration” of Church and State, to the degree permitted by “historical circumstances and the capacities of the majority,” as opposed to both the corporate union of Church and State and the separation of Church and State. I also, in the piece to which you linked, advocated the distinction between secular and sacred, and indicated why the former is open to the latter, without being conflated with it.
In short, one could accept something like the relation between Church and State as presented in The City of God and that presented in the anti-Donatist tracts, because the State is both corporately distinct from and in some circumstances indirectly open to the eternal good which is the direct concern of the Church.
Andrew
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Andrew, and then you have a pope and magisterium advocating “social teaching” that would apparently be binding on all nations and governments because the pope, as you know, is Christ’s representative on earth. How to square social teaching with Augustine is anyone’s guess.
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I suppose secular is only bad if you are a fan of Christendom, All-of-Life, Christian Cultural Obedience Calvinism, Theonomy, Enthusiastic Wilsonian Postmillennialism, or WWJD Evangelicalism — in other words pretty much everyone but us. Maybe CTC & Dr. K can start a joint venture. Those folks would say there should be no such thing as secular since every square inch belongs to God and/or the Church that Jesus Christ himself instituted.
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What all these groups have in common is the human desire to play on the winning team. Jesus tries to turn this upside down by warning us that we will most likely be playing on what appears to be the losing time, at least for a time, but apparently we don’t like to accept that.
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Andrew,
Speaking from an empirical point of view, it seems that the various experiments in trying to juggle historical circumstances, etc., end up in power struggles. State wins or Church wins. This was true even in post-Davidic Israel. But it has also been true in the history of both East and West.
The theoretical reason for this is clear enough. Power is desirable, and those who desire it seek the seats of power. If there are two seats of power, the strong men atop each seat will seek, and have always sought, to best each other.
Now you suggest that “On the cultural integration model, the relation between Church and State is hierarchical without reducing one to the other, and so the relation between Church and State is ultimately intelligible without recourse to the last ditch expedients of either separation or consolidation. Granted what has been divinely revealed concerning the Church, and marking the rise and fall of earthly kingdoms over the past two thousand years, it is safe to say that the Church is stronger than the State, even when she is weaker. This strength is not absorbing nor repelling. It is sanctifying.”
The notion of cultural integration, however, cannot dodge the question of power. We cannot say, “Let us leave aside the question of who is the most powerful — it’s the Church, by the way — and just talk about sanctifying cultural influence.”
For culture is but another way to exert power (see: Rights movement, gay).
Ultimately, if the RC Church is going to speak authoritatively about culture in this world, it will need some way to back up and enforce its authority. Else it will end up with a host of members who disregard its teachings about culture.
Wait — that’s exactly what the RC Church has today.
What is responsible for secularization is not Protestant temptresses from the sidelines. It is the inability of Rome to enforce its teachings without become a State, without embracing the Inquisition. Sin nature meets realecclesiastik.
(and anyways, if the Catholic church wants to do something about culture, can we start by bringing a little sanctifying influence on Mardis Gras?)
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Andrew, I’m curious. I wonder what you make of Stellman’s take on the secular and two kingdoms. Here a couple of segments from his 2k book:
“I conclude, therefore, that Peter’s description of believers when they are gathered for worship highlights the peculiar and countercultural nature of their most holy faith. While Christians’ secular activity, such as their paying of taxes and obeying of the law, is not particularly remarkable, their sacred activity should set them as far apart from the world as possible this side of glory.” (25)
“…the two-kingdoms framework makes much more sense of such withdrawal than he commonly held transformationalist position referred to at the beginning of this chapter. For transformationists, cult and culture are not distinct in the way they are for those holding a two-kingdoms position. In the former’s understanding, secular activity is never really legitimate on its own terms; hence the transformationist’s desire to ‘redeem culture for Christ’ (after all, if creation were not inherently flawed, it would not need redeeming).” (58)
That’s pretty old school Protestant and not very Catholic (i.e. it’s grace renews nature over against grace restores nature, as in not very donum superadditum ). Given that, at least to my knowledge, he hasn’t retracted any of this or otherwise edited anything to align better with Roman Catholic dogma, it seems to me that you may have some thoroughly Protestant elements swirling about in CtCville. One option is to eventually see him distance himself from his 2k book or somehow disavow it. Another is to shoehorn Protestant Stellman into Catholic CtC. The former seems the most natural to me. I wonder what you think should happen, because until either happens from where I sit Stellman represents more evidence that Catholicism just doesn’t solve all CtC claims it can. I mean, a 2k Catholic? Maybe. But given the claims, that makes even less than the 30K denominations canard you guys throw at Protestants who don’t make the unity claims in the first place.
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Zrim,
I hope you got your copy signed before the conversion…
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Why does this remind me of Lynne Cheney’s 1981 racy novel, “Sisters”?
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Erik, I don’t indulge celebrity religion, Roman or Reformed. So no autograph.
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Daryl,
The Catholic Church’s social teaching is an extrapolation of biblical data concerning social justice, especially with regard to the poor. One can find social teaching in the prophets, the sayings of Our Lord himself, the letters of St. Paul, and even St. Augustine, whose understanding of the relation of Church and State, as summarized here, is pretty much what I affirmed in my post.
Jeff,
Both the Church and the State have authority and power in their respective realms. Sometimes, the two realms are conflated, hardly ever with happy results. I was not trying to dodge the question of power. Almost always, and certainly today, the State has enjoyed power over the Church in almost all temporal matters. But temporal power is not the only sort of power that is. The Church’s power, in her proper sphere, is like the power of the Cross, because the Church is visible and militant, existing in this world, as well as invisible and triumphant, abiding in heaven. Even when the Church does not have sufficient influence over the temporal powers, so to bring the “second sword” to bear upon obedience, she still has the power to sanctify. This power operates by means of the sacraments, the proclamation of the Gospel, and living in charity, ministering to the souls and bodies of people in need.
By the way, I don’t think that culture is “but another way to exercise power.” Culture is much more than that.
Zrim,
I read Jason’s book a few years ago, and enjoyed it very much. Basically, the Catholic Church is amillennial, and expects to endure a great tribulation, after many tribulations, before the Second Coming. Post-mil utopianism is simply not a part of the Church’s eschatology (cf. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 668-77). Much of what Jason had to say in Dual Citizens reminded me of Gaudium et Spes, 42:
“Christ, to be sure, gave His Church no proper mission in the political, economic or social order. The purpose which He set before her is a religious one. (11) But out of this religious mission itself come a function, a light and an energy which can serve to structure and consolidate the human community according to the divine law. As a matter of fact, when circumstances of time and place produce the need, she can and indeed should initiate activities on behalf of all men, especially those designed for the needy, such as the works of mercy and similar undertakings.”
[footnote (11): Cf. Pius XII, Address to the International Union of Institutes of Archeology, History and History of Art, March 9, 1956: AAS 48 (1965), p. 212: “Its divine Founder, Jesus Christ, has not given it any mandate or fixed any end of the cultural order. The goal which Christ assigns to it is strictly religious. … The Church must lead men to God, in order that they may be given over to him without reserve…. The Church can never lose sight of the strictly religious, supernatural goal. The meaning of all its activities, down to the last canon of its Code, can only cooperate directly or indirectly in this goal.”]
The cultural integration of Church and State is neither an inevitable outcome nor a divine mandate; rather, it is (in my view, and that of many others throughout the ages) an optimal arrangement in some circumstances, wherein the two kingdoms can benefit each other, without either taking up the mission of the other as its own proper, or direct, mission.
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Thanks, Andrew. Forgive what sounds like snark (ok, maybe a little), but that seems like the shoehorn option. And that’s because the RCC isn’t 2k the way Reformed Stellman conceived it, as in having its own city and zip code. 2k churches exist within secular spheres and use the zip codes therein. 2k also isn’t wild about Christendom, whereas the RCC tends to sound a lot like transformationists (even evangelicalism) in its social teachings. It just seems to me that if you really read that book closely you would have had more hestitation about its assumptions and claims.
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Andrew, writing about Israel’s justice is one thing. Writing about Christians’ duties is one thing. Writing about the world’s economic and political systems is another. Which explains why two-kingdom theology has no real place in Rome.
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Andrew, does this (Pacem in Terris) sound like Gaudium et Spes?
Please don’t use the phrase “development of doctrine.”
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Zrim says: And that’s because the RCC isn’t 2k the way Reformed Stellman conceived it, as in having its own city and zip code. 2k churches exist within secular spheres and use the zip codes therein.
Me: If I understand correctly, it appears that your perspective of the 2k church is based on the church as an institution, thus having its zip code in the secular sphere along with other institutions. Andrew, on the other hand, seems to view the church in Augustinian terms as a body of citizens voluntarily bound at the individual level by faith and not the institutional level, thus existing as its own city with its own zip code.
If this correctly represents your respective views, it would seem that you are ascribing your views of the church visible to Andrews views of the invisible church. Then again, I may have totally misunderstood both of your positions.
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Don, do you really mean to suggest that Roman Catholics view the church as something other than an institution? Have you consider what CTCers say about the pope and being in fellowship with the Bishop of Rome? I’m not sure of the zip code, but pilgrimages to Vatican City suggest something other than what you are suggesting.
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Being amillennial and being 2K are by no means the same thing. Lots of Neocalvinists are amillennial. One could argue that whenever the Pope speaks to the world as opposed to the church he is not being 2K. How “social justice” gets worked out in the political realm is a tricky question that I am not convinced the Pope has the expertise to answer. I would say the same thing about Warren Buffett, so I’m not just picking on the Pope.
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Darryl,
No, but since he appealed to Augustine I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he was referring to the invisible church. Of course when he says that the pope is infallible in matters of faith, he has, in my view, blurred the boundary between visible and invisible.
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Don, I affirm Kuyper’s institutional-organism taxonomy with an emphasis on the institutional. But given that there is such a place as Vatican City, it is odd to think our RC friend thinks more in organism than institutional terms. Still, I have always thought the Reformed have a higher view of the church than the Catholic. After all, we still maintain that outside of the true and visible church there is no ordinary possibility of salvation, whereas with V2 we are merely separated brethren (Trent makes more sense to me).
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Jeff,
Your analysis regarding power seems to make a lot of sense. The line between secular and sacred isn’t always clear.
Most (except for Kuyperians) would agree that certain activities are pretty much in the secular realm. The cable guy is coming to my condo on Monday morning to upgrade my internet modem. I don’t care whether he is a Christian or not, so long as I can download at 100 Mbps when he’s done. On the other hand, practically everyone agrees that the state has no business telling the RCC parish down the street how and to whom it should offer communion.
But there are a number of issues where the state and the church have an interest at stake, even if their technical jurisdictons in enforcing those interests are distinct. Take theft as an example. The church condemns theft, and so does the state. While each institution may condemn theft for different reasons, they both clearly condemn it. But the average person on the street doesn’t necessarily hold these separate reasons apart in his mind. In places where the church exerts a powerful indirect sway over a community (e.g., parts of the South), most people will probably explain their opposition to theft in religious terms rather than in non-religious terms. In a sense, these folks are practical theocrats, effectively viewing the state as little more than the handmaiden of the bishop. Of course, the state doesn’t (and shouldn’t) conceive of itself that way. And while this may be a problem at a theoretical level, it has no practical effect as long as the church’s and the state’s policy interests are aligned. Even if the church’s power recedes, theft will still be condemned, and soft-core theocrats can still comfort themselves in the church’s influence over the culture (even if it’s not really the case).
The tension is exposed, however, when the state comes to view a certain policy as lacking any substantial non-religious justification. In such cases, the church’s intersets and the state’s interests are misaligned, and a battle erupts in the public square. In places where the church’s power is not as strong, the former policy (e.g., banning same-sex marriage) becomes overturned by popular approval or by legislative action. But in places where the church’s indirect influence over the culture is still strong, policies may remain intact, even if there is no substantial non-religious justification for the policy. That’s where the courts step in.
So, when people talk about the sacred-secular divide, they are not really talking about the existence or non-existence of such a divide (save the Kuyperians). Rather, they are talking about whether it is appropriate for the bishop to exercise indirect authority over the state through the voting preferences of a Christian majority, especially where the non-religious justifications for a particular policy have waned and the religious justifications have not. In other words, it is a battle over the legitimacy of soft-core theocracy (i.e., church influence exercised indirectly through the voting preferences of a Christian majority). Few evangelicals are theonomists in the North-Bahnsen sense. But they are generally big proponents of soft-core theocracy, for example, in the Falwell-Dobson sense. So, the sacred-versus-secular question is this: What recourse should be available to a region’s non-Christian minority when it seeks to upend state policies that are continued primarily because the policies align with the religous convictions of the Christian majority? The proponents of soft-core theonomy want to limit the options for such recourse: They want to preserve for the bishop the option of exerting a fair measure of indirect influence over the state. The non-Christian minority, of course, disagrees. They, in contrast, would require every state policy to derive from a substantial non-religious justification, and would have courts strike down any policy that fails that test. Therein lies the tension.
There’s a bigger problem, though. The average non-college-educated citizen probably lacks the analytical reasoning skills to differentiate clearly between religious and non-religious justifications for something, at least in a consistent way. In fact, in many instances, the religious justifications are probably a lot easier for him to grasp than the non-religious ones. So, there is a very real sense in which the state still relies on the bishop’s influence in seeking to enforce their shared policy interests (e.g., condemning theft). But when those policy interests aren’t necessarily aligned, we get the Culture War.
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Aquinas in Summa Theologica says:
How would the RCC respond to this?
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Daryl,
There is a long history of Christian leaders commenting on the rights and obligations of man in temporal society (cf. Mark 12; Romans 13). The social doctrine of the Church is in line with that tradition.
Zrim,
It is not necessary to completely agree with an author’s position in order to enjoy his work and to appreciate the points at which it is compatible with one’s own position. Again, much of Jason’s perspective reminded me of GS 42, with its emphasis on the distinctive mission of the Church. Of course, Dual Citizens was written by someone who at the time embraced the assumptions and claims of Presbyterianism, and I have not only hesitation but outright objections to some Presbyterian assumptions and claims. But not all.
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Andrew – and I have not only hesitation but outright objections to some Presbyterian assumptions and claims
Erik – This reminds of a meeting I was once in back when I was a Baptist. The church was considering bringing a man on staff and there was a Q&A time with the congregation. One man, who had some mental limitations due to a motorcycle accident, asked “Do you agree with the teachings of the great Pope?”. After some awkward silence, the prospective pastor said that he did not for the most part agree with the teachings of the Pope (or something like that). I would assume that Andrew does not appreciate the Presbyterian position on the great Pope.
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This one’s not too far apart from The Westminster:
Sunday is a day that should be made holy by charitable activity, devoting time to family and relatives, as well as to the sick, the infirm and the elderly. One must not forget the “brethren who have the same needs and the same rights, yet cannot rest from work because of poverty and misery”.[613] Moreover, Sunday is an appropriate time for the reflection, silence, study and meditation that foster the growth of the interior Christian life. Believers should distinguish themselves on this day too by their moderation, avoiding the excesses and certainly the violence that mass entertainment sometimes occasions.[614] The Lord’s Day should always be lived as a day of liberation that allows us to take part in “the festal gathering and the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven” (cf. Heb 12:22-23), anticipating thus the celebration of the definitive Passover in the glory of heaven.[615]
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Andrew,
Thanks. I don’t mean “dodge” in a sneaky sense, but in a policy sense — indeed, in the sense of your first sentence: “Both the Church and the State have authority and power in their respective realms. ”
So now: is there overlap between the realms? Your post that I quoted suggested that there is overlap, in the realm of culture.
And that leads us right back to the power struggle, yes?
AP: I don’t think that culture is “but another way to exercise power.” Culture is much more than that.
I understand. I was thinking after I posted while shoveling the driveway, saying, “Jeff, you overstated your point there.” But then I thought, “Did I?”
Culture is in fact a way to exercise power. At its best, the power of culture is the power to bind together, to speak with a common language, to share common assumptions, to break bread together.
At its worst, the power of culture is the power to separate “us” from “them,” or else the power to enforce conformity on the unwilling. I experienced that when I moved (many years ago) from Texas to the East Coast. Some of my friends are just experiencing that in reverse as they have moved from here to “Cah-lina.”
So I might qualify it like this: Culture is but another way to exercise power, but its carrot is community and its stick is shame.
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Bobby,
Good points.
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Andrew, it’s not really my point that enjoyment and agreement have to go hand-in-hand. It’s that Reformed ideas and Catholic dogma don’t go hand-in-hand, particularly what both have to say about the secular. And so, again, the book seems like yet another example of how the RCC is more of a big tent reminiscent of evangelicalism that includes everything from RC Sproul to Benny Hinn. The problem for the RCC is the sorts of claims it makes about herself, because if they’re true then how could a Reformed ecclesiology like the one articulated in Dual Citizens find cover? Enjoyment or not, it just seems like it has to finally be rejected as out of step with the bishop of Rome.
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Andrew, none of those Christian leaders claim to be God’s vicar on earth. You’re not comparing JPII to Robert Lewis Dabney, are you?
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Hart has a small piece in the 1/13 OPC magazine “New Horizons” on four favorite books by Wendell Berry – “The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture”, “A World Lost”, “Hannah Coulter”, and “What Are People For?”.
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I was happy to see that John Gloucester, the first African American Presbyterian minister, made it into “Seeking a Better Country – 300 Years of American Presbyterianism”. I picked that up again last night and hope to finish it before I move onto something else. That’s my new method — only have one book/magazine by the bed at a time (as opposed to 40).
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Zrim,
There is no question of a Reformed ecclesiology finding cover in the Catholic Church–not unless, e.g., the dogmatic decrees of Vatican I are Reformed. What I am pointing out is that much of what Jason had to say in Dual Citizens, while a Presbyterian, is resonant with the distinction drawn in GS 42.
Daryl,
Christ, the Christian leader par excellence, was God on earth. The others, i.e., the apostles and their successors, where just following in his wake. And, yes, some of those leaders, e.g., St. Peter down to Benedict XVI, have been Christ’s vicar visible on earth.
Blessed John Paul II would be similar to Robert Louis Dabney to the extent that both commented on the rights and obligations of man in temporal society.
Jeff,
In my piece on Church and State, I made the point that there has been, almost invariably, a power struggle between the two. My point about cultural integration is, in part, meant to suggest that it is both permissible and in many cases preferable for the two kingdoms to abide together in harmony on earth. Because both share the same earth, this harmony will inevitably, and in my view rightly, involve cooperation at the level of culture, without conflating the respective ends and structures of the two kingdoms.
Your qualified description of culture seems jaded, if intended to be a definition over and above a description of your own experience. I am thinking of culture more generally, as the cultivation of the common good (which happens in myriad ways, under many auspices) in a given community. I have also been trying to think historically, as Daryl recommends, about the relation between the two kingdoms. Books like Christopher Dawson’s Religion and the Rise of Western Culture and The Historic Reality of Christian Culture have been helpful.
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1st par. of my response to Daryl: “where” should be “were,” and “e.g.” should be “i.e.”
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Darryl,
Ironically enough, I actually became convinced that the Reformation is to blame for the rampant secularism from M. Horton when he came to D.C. to teach a class on the Church and Postmodernity when I was at RTS. He taught that as fighting raged between Protestants and Catholics (as well as Protestants and other Protestants) many began to doubt the benefits of religion and instead turned to science as a new source for truth, unity, and progress. Would you disagree with Horton here?
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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Jeremy,
Anyone who “doubt(s) the benefits of religion” is coming at religious questions from the wrong angle to begin with. If these people had not become Unitarians or atheists the best they were going to do was to become Protestant liberals. The key question to ask about theological propositions is whether or not they are true, not whether or not they yield benefits to society. That was the point of the Reformation, asking the question, “What is the true Christian faith?” It seems to me that the Enlightenment led to people trusting in science more than Protestants and Catholics fighting. I realize you were just quoting Horton (or at least your interpretation of what Horton said).
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Jeremy,
How did your football team do this past season?
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Ultimately the question of the benefits of religion to an individual or to society in this life are secondary. The question to ask is, what happens to people after they die and are they in good standing with God? Atheists do not consider this to be a valid question because when people die they are just dead — no afterlife. Since they believe there is no afterlife they conclude that whatever ostensible good religion does in this life is outweighed by (1) the bad that religion does, and (2) the enormous expense of time and money that the maintenance of religion entails.
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Jeremy,
That process preceded the Reformation. The West suffered a significant loss of faith (and increase in superstition among the faithful) during the Black Death period.
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Andrew,
Perhaps we’re talking past each other a bit. By “power”, I am not speak pejoratively, but in a technical sense: the application of energy towards an end. That can be good or bad.
You hope for a wise use of the power of culture, the power to form community.
My point is that once power has been cultivated, there will inevitably arise a *power struggle*. So even if the goal of harmony is achieved in generation N, there will be conflict in generation N+2.
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Jeff says my point is that once power has been cultivated, there will inevitably arise a *power struggle*. So even if the goal of harmony is achieved in generation N, there will be conflict in generation N+2.
Amen Jeff, all societies are in flux. They are being “transformed” right in front of our noses. The 7 churches in Revelations were in flux, as are our personal lives, as are cultures and nations. Nothing is ever static. Paul compared the Christian walk with running a race.
Nations just like churches are either being conformed more by this world or are being renewed in the image of Christ. Christ sanctifies the nations he inherited in Calvary just like he sanctifies his sheep. The days are over when God winked at idolatry, now all men and nations must repent and believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. This is why we pray the Lord’s Prayer, in faith; God is in charge of changing hearts, in his time. (Transforming) But surely we can all agree that God is transforming not just our lives, but our family’s lives, and cities, states, nations, and yes the world!
God is a transforming God!
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So Doug, a thought to consider: Does every person who comes to faith start (at the moment of faith) at sanctification 0 or sanctification > 0?
If the former, then can societies be sanctified? If the latter, then aren’t we sanctifying people before we justify them?
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So, Jeremy, what is the theory here? Is that whatever has gone wrong in modern society (e.g. scientism) can be traced back to the Reformation? This seems like the flip side of the neo-Calvinists who like to think that whatever has gone well in modern society (e.g. literacy) can be traced back to the Reformation (or further, the advent of Christ). But conservative Calvinism has a view and interpretation of history that isn’t quite as religiously loaded as to make either villains or heroes of certain phenomena.
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Doug, so Jesus lived and died for more than his people–he lived and died for governments and cities and cultures? How do the latter become members of a local church?
And to add to Jeff’s question, can my sanctification really be passed down to my children (like my genes)? If so, then the notion of cultural transformation might hold. But since grace doesn’t really get passed along like my DNA, I can’t pass my sanctification along, which makes the transformation project seem like a lot of religious fantasy.
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Andrew, and where did Christ comment on political rights or economic policy? Why would God’s vicar speak more that God himself (or Christ or the apostles and prophets)?
HoustonRome, we have a problem.LikeLike
Jeremy, sorry but Mike is not a historian. Do you disagree with Francis Oakley? He’s in fellowship with the Bishop of Rome and he’s a good historian.
BTW, how could secularism be anything but rampant during the saeculum — the time between the advents of Christ?
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Doug,
I can follow you up to the point that you suggest that pragmatically defined political entities (e.g., states or nation-states) are to be judged in terms of whether they are conforming to the image of Christ.
First, I’m not even sure that I know what that means, or what it looks like. I know what it means in terms of nation of Israel prior to the coming of Christ, where Israel occupied particular covenantal significance. But I’m not sure what that means today. For example, would you envision that the State of Arkansas take upon itself the mantle of prosecuting people for blasphemy and executing them for it?
Second, I don’t think that we can necessarily assume that having a higher proportion of Christians in a state necessarily leads to more justice. That may be true if you measure justice simply in terms of a few hot-button social issues, such as gay rights and restrictions on access to abortion. But in terms of public corruption, states with a high number of born again Christians actually tend to have more graft. Moreover, I need not remind you that the white population in the segregated South was 90% or more Christian, and yet it took secularists and nominal mainline Christians from the North to bring an end to that injustice.
The error of theocracy is two-fold. First, it errs by overestimating the extent of the fall, and thereby underestimates the degree to which people can rely on natural reasoning to govern themselves and attain a fair measure of justice. Second, it errs by underestimating the extent to which the remnants of the fall still cling to the elect, and thereby underestimates the likelihood that they will read their own prejudices and predilections into Scripture and take them as commands of God.
As CS Lewis wrote: “If we must have a tyrant, a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point may be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely more because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.”
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Darryl,
Mike Horton is not an historian? My assumption was that Oxford Ph.D’s are well enough equipped to make simple historical observations. What about Brad Gregory? Is he a historian? Have you read his Unintended Reformation and the clear arguments he makes about the Reformation leading to secularism?
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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Jeremy – Have you read his Unintended Reformation and the clear arguments he makes about the Reformation leading to secularism?
Erik – Belt high, 80 mph curve ball that failed to break…
https://oldlife.org/?s=brad+gregory&searchsubmit=Search
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Darryl,
Aha, just found your review of Gregory from last November so nevermind. I have only read what you quoted from Oakley so I’m not qualified to say if I agree with him, but I don’t see him rejecting the thesis that the Protestant Reformation at least contributed to a secularized west (one that the Reformers themselves never could have imagined).
There is simply no escaping the fact that in the Reformation the individual gained confidence in his own ability to be the final arbiter of truth. Luther didn’t need the Church to interpret the Bible accurately he could do it on his own. A few generations later the sentiment changed to “we don’t need the Bible at all to discover truth, we can do it on our own.” The most salient qualities of both Secularism and Protestantism are eerily similar; skepticism and a rejection of authority. Protestantism embraced skepticism towards miracles, ongoing gifts of the Spirit, the infallibility of the ancient Christian creeds, the preservation of ancient relics (we could go on). Protestantism also inspires the rejection of authority and the truth is that today, the rejection of Papal authority is virtually the only doctrine that Protestants still universally adhere to.
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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Jeremy,
Is what you’re saying is that if there would not have been a Reformation there really would be such a thing as Christian plumbing? I think Catholic Social Teaching does aspire to such heights, does it not? The thing is, I know a lot of Catholic business and tradespeople and they don’t look any different than the Protestant business and tradespeople I know. There are only so many ways to sell a car or install PVC pipes in a new house.
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Jeremy,
The problem with your thesis is that the defects you cite can also be found within Catholicism today. How is the Reformation to blame for disobedient Catholic laypeople (including Catholic pro-choice politicians) and rogue Priests? I saw this this past week in the Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323301104578258321924207476.html
Much of “secularism” arose from the enlightenment and modernity and I don’t think you can just blame the Reformation for those (as if you know how history would have progressed without the Reformation). Besides, would you honestly rather be living in a pre-enlightenment, pre-modern world when it comes to technology? Add to this the fact that the only way that Catholic hegemony was going to be maintained indefinitely is by the power of the sword (burning heretics at the stake) and I am not convinced that the world we have is worse than the world we would have had without the Reformation.
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Jeremy,
You’re also question begging when you cite virtues like “preservation of ancient relics”. One man’s preservation of relics is another man’s violation of the Second Commandment.
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Erik,
When I am referring to a secularized west I am talking about the most radical changes in our society that any idiot can recognize; ignoring the Sabbeth, ignoring Christian sexual ethics, skepticism towards truth claims, ect. Let’s look at the basics first beore we begin to discuss the differences between believers and non-believers installing PVC pipes.
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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What’s wrong with secularism again? Monty Python’s The Spanish Inquisition is going through my head. Nice Lewis quote, Bobby.
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Our chief weapons are……………………………..an almost fanatical devotion to the pope.
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Jeremy, what in any of the following makes you think the PR birthed the sort of wholesale skepticism and a rejection of authority you suggest:
Belgic 31: We believe that ministers of the Word of God, elders, and deacons ought to be chosen to their offices by a legitimate election of the church, with prayer in the name of the Lord, and in good order, as the Word of God teaches.
So everyone must be careful not to push himself forward improperly, but he must wait for God’s call, so that he may be assured of his calling and be certain that he is chosen by the Lord.
As for the ministers of the Word, they all have the same power and authority, no matter where they may be, since they are all servants of Jesus Christ, the only universal bishop, and the only head of the church.
Moreover, to keep God’s holy order from being violated or despised, we say that everyone ought, as much as possible, to hold the ministers of the Word and elders of the church in special esteem, because of the work they do, and be at peace with them, without grumbling, quarreling, or fighting.
We believe that ministers of the Word of God, elders, and deacons ought to be chosen to their offices by a legitimate election of the church, with prayer in the name of the Lord, and in good order, as the Word of God teaches.
So everyone must be careful not to push himself forward improperly, but he must wait for God’s call, so that he may be assured of his calling and be certain that he is chosen by the Lord.
As for the ministers of the Word, they all have the same power and authority, no matter where they may be, since they are all servants of Jesus Christ, the only universal bishop, and the only head of the church.
Moreover, to keep God’s holy order from being violated or despised, we say that everyone ought, as much as possible, to hold the ministers of the Word and elders of the church in special esteem, because of the work they do, and be at peace with them, without grumbling, quarreling, or fighting.
Belgic 36: We believe that because of the depravity of the human race our good God has ordained kings, princes, and civil officers. He wants the world to be governed by laws and policies so that human lawlessness may be restrained and that everything may be conducted in good order among human beings.
For that purpose he has placed the sword in the hands of the government, to punish evil people and protect the good.
And being called in this manner to contribute to the advancement of a society that is pleasing to God, the civil rulers have the task, subject to God’s law, of removing every obstacle to the preaching of the gospel and to every aspect of divine worship.
They should do this while completely refraining from every tendency toward exercising absolute authority, and while functioning in the sphere entrusted to them, with the means belonging to them.
And the government’s task is not limited to caring for and watching over the public domain but extends also to upholding the sacred ministry, with a view to removing and destroying all idolatry and false worship of the Antichrist; to promoting the kingdom of Jesus Christ; and to furthering the preaching of the gospel everywhere; to the end that God may be honored and served by everyone, as he requires in his Word.
Moreover everyone, regardless of status, condition, or rank, must be subject to the government, and pay taxes, and hold its representatives in honor and respect, and obey them in all things that are not in conflict with God’s Word, praying for them that the Lord may be willing to lead them in all their ways and that we may live a peaceful and quiet life in all piety and decency.
And on this matter we denounce the Anabaptists, other anarchists, and in general all those who want to reject the authorities and civil officers and to subvert justice by introducing common ownership of goods and corrupting the moral order that God has established among human beings.
WCF 20.4: And because the powers which God has ordained, and the liberty which Christ has purchased are not intended by God to destroy, but mutually to uphold and preserve one another, they who, upon pretence of Christian liberty, shall oppose any lawful power, or the lawful exercise of it, whether it be civil or ecclesiastical, resist the ordinance of God. And, for their publishing of such opinions, or maintaining of such practices, as are contrary to the light of nature, or to the known principles of Christianity (whether concerning faith, worship, or conversation), or to the power of godliness; or, such erroneous opinions or practices, as either in their own nature, or in the manner of publishing or maintaining them, are destructive to the external peace and order which Christ has established in the Church, they may lawfully be called to account, and proceeded against, by the censures of the Church. and by the power of the civil magistrate.
WCF 23.4: It is the duty of people to pray for magistrates, to honor their persons, to pay them tribute or other dues, to obey their lawful commands, and to be subject to their authority, for conscience’ sake. Infidelity, or difference in religion, does not make void the magistrates’ just and legal authority, nor free the people from their due obedience to them: from which ecclesiastical persons are not exempted, much less has the Pope any power and jurisdiction over them in their dominions, or over any of their people; and, least of all, to deprive them of their dominions, or lives, if he shall judge them to be heretics, or upon any other pretence whatsoever
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I think Jeremy’s mindset is typical of the men at CTC in that he believes that unless there is one unquestioned referee (The Roman Catholic Church led by the Pope) then the only possible outcome is theological and moral chaos. I think this appeal to authority is probably the number one factor that had led to these men’s conversions.
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Erik,
I can’t speak for everybody at CtC, but I think many converts from all forms of Protestantism, have a moment where they realize they are the blind following the blind. When you scream out “Who is in charge around here?” and all you hear is your own echo it’s a bit unnerving. Of course Protestants respond “Jesus is in charge”, but then you’re left wondering why He’s leading different groups to different conclusions about the truth.
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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Zrim,
Thank you for the extensive cut and paste job. The problem of course is that the “three forms of unity” in the Reformed tradition; Belgic, Dort, and Heidelberg, have no divine authority to back up their interpretation of Scripture. These confessions, though offering a great deal of true and rich Scriptural truth, have no authority for the Lutheran, Baptist, Anglican, Methodist, ect, nor do their confessions have any authority for you. This is the tension that contributed to the secularization of the west. Christians could not agree on what the Bible taught which either led to fighting or to an “to each his own” secular attitude.
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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Jeremy, come on. When you guys can’t even rein in the liberals amongst yourselves, tough to do without the sword of the state, it’s a bit hollow to lay theological diversity at the feet of protestants. You guys do go to Mass with some sort of regularity, some of you every day even.
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Darryl,
You asked: “…and where did Christ comment on political rights or economic policy? Why would God’s vicar speak more that God himself (or Christ or the apostles and prophets)?”
1. Mark 12:13-17. Caesar has a right to exact taxes. St. Paul elaborates on this principle in Romans 13.
2. For the same reason that, say, the commentaries of John Calvin are way longer than the Bible itself.
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Jeremy: Erik, I can’t speak for everybody at CtC, but I think many converts from all forms of Protestantism, have a moment where they realize they are the blind following the blind. When you scream out “Who is in charge around here?” and all you hear is your own echo it’s a bit unnerving. Of course Protestants respond “Jesus is in charge”, but then you’re left wondering why He’s leading different groups to different conclusions about the truth.
Erik: I understand what you are saying, but the longing for unity and authority does not necessarily make unity and authority so. I can really want lot of things, but my lacking those things and really wanting them does not necessarily make them the answer to my problem. My biggest criticism of CTC is that you have done nothing more than try to throw off the circular reasoning of sola scriptura for the circular reasoning of an authoritative Roman Catholic church. You’re really on no firmer footing than you were before. If we can just all agree on this, then I am happy to live and let live. I just object to the “we’ve found the one true church that Christ founded” rhetoric. You may think you have, but you have no guarantee.
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If Scripture gives Rome it’s authority than Rome has to acknowledge that Scripture is primary, not Rome, and Rome has to not teach things that run counter to Scripture. If Rome gives itself authority than Rome has engaged in circular reasoning, which is no different than sola scriptura (which is Scripture testifying to the truth of Scripture).
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Erik
What’s ironic here is what you do know for sure. You know, for a fact, that Jesus did not establish the institutional Church where you are a member. You are part of an organization that shares similar religious convictions, but nobody in the PCA, OPC, or any other Reformed denomination tries to make the claim that Jesus himself founded that particular Church. While you’re making the case that Catholics can’t be positive we are in Christ’s true Church you are residing in a Church that does know that it is not the Church Christ founded. Odd.
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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There’s a mind-blowing thought: If Rome had not taught things that were either counter to Scripture or that went beyond Scripture, and if the church leadership had not behaved in ways that ran counter to Scripture, there may have been no Reformation. So who is to blame for the Reformation?
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Jeremy – What’s ironic here is what you do know for sure. You know, for a fact, that Jesus did not establish the institutional Church where you are a member. You are part of an organization that shares similar religious convictions, but nobody in the PCA, OPC, or any other Reformed denomination tries to make the claim that Jesus himself founded that particular Church. While you’re making the case that Catholics can’t be positive we are in Christ’s true Church you are residing in a Church that does know that it is not the Church Christ founded. Odd.
Erik – Set aside the rhetoric for a minute and you have to admit that you don’t know it either. Many presuppositions have to be believed and many dots connected for one to believe what you believe about the Roman Catholic Cchurch. If there is a chain of presuppositions that have to be true and the first one has a 50% chance of being true, the second one has a 50% chance of being true, and so on, the mathematical probability of the end result being true is very low. You are making a statement of faith that is no more verifiable than Sola Scriptura. I don’t see Scripture promising one visible, unified, institutional church on earth. I do see Scripture promising a remnant, persecuted, turmoil-filled church during this present age. What we see in Protestantism does not surprise me that much. I am encouraged that I find what appear to be true Christian believers throughout the Christian landscape (even within the RCC).
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And why couldn’t I make the claim that Jesus himself founded the OPC? He established the Christian faith, revealed the gospel in Scripture, and saw that it was passed down through faithful men throughout the centuries. I could draw a link from D.G. Hart, to Machen, back to Christ if I knew all the particular names. Men like Tyndale who were persecuted by Rome might even be a part of my lineage.
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Jeremy,
You have an apologetic that will work on a certain level to the right kind of people, but it will not work on people who are intellectually rigorous or who have a skeptical nature. Many of the people you convince are people who are already tempermentally uneasy with Protestantism. It is a limited apologetic for a limited audience. I think that some who come to Rome in this way will evetually come back out once they start to ask tough questions.
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Jeremy, I think that’s what’s called begging the question on authority. I understand we have what some call “different paradigms” on the nature of authority (mine high and Presbyterian, yours infallible and authoritarian). But what you are trying to do is lay certain social ills at the feet of Protestantism. Again, it’s the mirror error of golden age neo-Calvinism that ascribes all that is good to the same.
It still isn’t at all clear how those confessional statements on civil and ecclesiastical authority and obedience opened the way to reckless autonomy and individualism. Have you considered that scientism created scientism? And do you understand that older forms of Protestantism oppose newer forms of Calvinism that wanted to culturally and politically marginalize Roman Catholics because they drew the same straight lines you do from social ill to certain forms of religion? You should be thanking OldLife instead of antagonizing it.
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Erik,
So are you saying that serious Protestants have a skeptical nature? Zrim got onto me for making that point earlier.
Because that would be lying. Jesus gave authority to Peter (not Machen) and Peter then ordained his successors with the authority he had been given. Through the grace in the sacrament of holy orders the true Church of Christ is a living and divinely preserved organism that is fundamentally different than a simple collection of believers who all have a similar take on how to interpret Scripture.
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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Jeremy-“Because that would be lying. Jesus gave authority to Peter (not Machen) and Peter then ordained his successors with the authority he had been given. Through the grace in the sacrament of holy orders the true Church of Christ is a living and divinely preserved organism that is fundamentally different than a simple collection of believers who all have a similar take on how to interpret Scripture.”
Sean- Pure, unadulterated faith statement. Which is fine as far as it goes. I’m a big believer in faith granting comfort and hope and assurance, but until Rome subjects itself to the authority of original apostolic tradition, ala Paul in Gal. 1:8, I fear it’s a false comfort. BTW, I know more than a few roman clergy who snicker at such claims, but recognize them as ‘declarations of the faithful’.-meaning unavailable for scrutiny.
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Bobby, I’m not sure what it will look like either. First of all, throw the word theocracy out the window. How about nations that fear God? God judges the nations on his own terms. We do know from Scripture certain things that cause God’s anger to burn against a nation. (Idolatry, sexual depravity, and the slaughter of the unborn)
But we can’t be certain when God will move his mighty hand. Let’s pray that all nations would reverence the true and living God and hallow His name. Let’s pray that more people would bend the knee to Christ everyday! God will give his people the strength and wisdom to walk upright before him.
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Jeremy said: I can’t speak for everybody at CtC, but I think many converts from all forms of Protestantism, have a moment where they realize they are the blind following the blind. When you scream out “Who is in charge around here?” and all you hear is your own echo it’s a bit unnerving. Of course Protestants respond “Jesus is in charge”, but then you’re left wondering why He’s leading different groups to different conclusions about the truth.
I say: Is this supposed to be a warrant for picking Joe Ratzinger over Benny Hinn? Good luck with that.
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@Jeremy; Do you consider us Presbyterians your brothers in Christ?
@Sean, Do you consider Jeremy and Jason Spellman your brothers in Christ?
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Doug, I don’t pretend to be God, even at halloween, so I don’t pretend to know anyone’s heart. Not sure about Spellman but Spielman was a good backer back in the day, even if he’s a buckeye. The problem for me, as a prodigal, is they don’t consider me even worthy of separated brother status. At least Madrid doesn’t, but I don’t lose sleep over it.
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Jeremy Tate: What’s ironic here is what you do know for sure. You know, for a fact, that Jesus did not establish the institutional Church where you are a member. You are part of an organization that shares similar religious convictions, but nobody in the PCA, OPC, or any other Reformed denomination tries to make the claim that Jesus himself founded that particular Church. While you’re making the case that Catholics can’t be positive we are in Christ’s true Church you are residing in a Church that does know that it is not the Church Christ founded. Odd.
RS: Jeremy, you are speaking of an institutional Church rather than THE Church. In the New Testament the Church is defined as all of those in Christ and the body of Christ is the Church (see verses below). The institutional aspects of the Church can come and it does not change the number of the Church at all. Regardless of whether the Catholic (means universal) Church was the original name or not, the Church of Christ consists of the true believers in Christ. While the original universal (Church) was indeed called one, holy and Catholic, that does not mean that Roman Catholicism is indeed Catholic in the original sense. Neither does it mean that the Church which Jesus established through His work and through His apostles is identified with any specific institution, especially one that does not teach the same Gospel that the apostles did. The true Church cannot be separated from the true Gospel, but it can be separated from certain institutions. Once an institution has separated itself from the true Gospel, regardless of the name, it is no longer part of the true Church.
Eph 1:22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
Eph 5:29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are members of His body.
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Jeremy: I can’t speak for everybody at CtC, but I think many converts from all forms of Protestantism, have a moment where they realize they are the blind following the blind. When you scream out “Who is in charge around here?” and all you hear is your own echo it’s a bit unnerving. Of course Protestants respond “Jesus is in charge”, but then you’re left wondering why He’s leading different groups to different conclusions about the truth.
RS: But there is no question about who is in charge. Jesus is in charge of His body (the Church) which consists of all who are truly purchased by Him and truly follow Him. We are to walk by faith rather than by sight. If you want to walk by sight, then you can follow a self-appointed vicar if you think that is better than Christ Himself. The issue, then, is not about who is in charge. Surely you can understand why some of us think that Christ is our Prophet, Priest, and King and as such He should be followed rather than mere men.
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Jeremy – Jesus gave authority to Peter (not Machen) and Peter then ordained his successors with the authority he had been given. Through the grace in the sacrament of holy orders the true Church of Christ is a living and divinely preserved organism that is fundamentally different than a simple collection of believers who all have a similar take on how to interpret Scripture.
Erik – That’s question begging. Prove it to me. Draw the line from Peter to Benedict.
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Jeremy – “divinely preserved organism”
Erik – Just an aside, but when the Neocalvinists speak of church as “organism” they do not use the term in this way. They are talking not about the church as the institional church, but about Christian plumbing.
The problem you have with viewing the institutional Roman Catholic church as “divinely preserved” is the lack of visible glory (i.e. things like the clergy sex abuse scandal). I think Bryan Cross would say this critique is invalid (I believe he called it the “rigorist” error), but logic dictates that you shouldn’t be able to have it both ways. If it’s divinely preserved it should be extremely well-behaved as well.
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From last Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal:
“The newly released documents are just a preview of a much larger document release expected from the archdiocese in the next few weeks that will contain the personnel records of more than 100 priests. A Los Angeles County judge ordered those documents made public as part of a $660 million settlement reached with more than 500 abuse victims in 2007.”
$660 million dollars! We are talking about a very old & wealthy institution with vast real estate holdings. Kind of like Sears/KMart on steroids. Does this really square with Jesus who didn’t even have a place to lay his head?
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It’s not without reason that Scripture says that an overseer should be the husband of but one wife. A man who manages his family well. I find that men who have been married to the same woman for 20, 30, or 40 years and who has children who are doing well to generally be a solid man, worthy of trust. How are we supposed to make that assessment of a Catholic priest who has never been allowed to marry or have children? How is this not a commandment of men that has been added to Scripture to the detriment of the church?
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Jeremy, I’m not sure about the psychologizing going on, but I wasn’t onto you about Prots being of a skeptical nature. I was pushing back on the idea that Protestantism inherently undermines authority and tradition. If one reads the confessional statements, it’s a hard case to make. Still, what’s wrong with skepticism? It keeps people from falling into either cynicism or optimism.
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Jeremy, two can play this game. The similarities between CTC’s brand of Roman Catholicism and Soviet Communism are eerily similar. All submission to authority, if tensions or anomalies exist, we reject them with an ideological spin, and no room for individuals to question or reason anything from a superior.
You guys may want to enter the modern, post-Vatican 2 world. It’s scary. But it’s real.
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Jeremy, that same dilemma haunted many Americans during the 1930s who joined the Communist Party. A common refrain in CTC conversion narratives is that Christianity HAS to have an infallible authority. Who says? Where in the Bible do you find any evidence of the very people who wrote the Bible (including your first pope) ever having absolute authority or uniform order in the church? Was Israel the people of God? They didn’t have an infallible authority. Be careful where you go with that one. You don’t want to commit a form of ecclesiastical docetism where there was no church between Abraham and Jesus.
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Andrew, but why do the pope’s spend more time on social and political problems than on sin and grace?
We can keep this going if you like?
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Jeremy, how do you know Christ established your church? Did he travel to Rome the way Joseph Smith believed Christ traveled to upstate New York?
I understand your claims about Peter. But Palestine is a long way from Rome, especially before air travel. So why not back off the Christ-established-my-church jazz. It is poor history but it is the sort of thing a fundamentalist would say.
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Jeremy, if you diss skepticism, how does that not make CTCer’s by nature gullible?
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D.G,
This is very different from Joseph Smith. What city did Jesus personally call Paul to in Acts 23:11? As Taylor Marshall points out in his new book, The Eternal City, “The city of Rome… was explicitly shown to be integral to the divine plan.”
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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Jeremy, which is it? Was Peter the first pope or Paul?
Is Taylor Marshall any relation to Peter Marshall? Providential history may have run in the family.
It would be really pleasant if you guys asked as many question of your own faith as you do of Protestantism. But again, fundamentalists generally don’t play fair. They don’t make very good apologists either.
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D.G. – Is Taylor Marshall any relation to Peter Marshall? Providential history may have run in the family
Erik – That is EXACTLY what I was thinking. D.G. – How many kids from Christian homes have you had pull the providential nature of America on you as if it was an undoubted historical fact? I suspect this notion is present in a lot of homeschooling curricula. I’m not putting down homeschooling, just bad history.
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@Jeremy Tate: I notice you always end your posts by saying (peace in Christ); do you consider DGH and the men here at Old Life your brothers in Christ? Do you think we’re born of God?
Rest in his completed work,
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Darryl,
You asked: “Andrew, but why do the pope’s spend more time on social and political problems than on sin and grace?
We can keep this going if you like?”
1. They don’t. Just check out the encyclicals and browse around the current pope’s messages, homilies, and so forth.
2. Well, since you’re just asking rhetorical questions and making stuff up, which is easy, I don’t doubt that you could go on for a good long while. But I guess I’m done for now. I can’t sincerely say thanks for linking to my post, but I can sincerely wish you and the peanut gallery all the best, until next time.
Andrew
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Andrew, which encyclicals in particular would you have me go to for the popes’ teaching on sin and grace? The ones I’ve used in classes have to do mostly with protecting papal supremacy. You know about Unam Sanctum, right? And then there is that tricky matter of expositing God’s word.
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D.G.,
I really love Unigenitus and it falls well on Reformed ears; here’s a sample;
You will probably say this is too old though;
Here is JPII Dives in Misericordia from 1980;
What exactly did you have in mind? How are these encyclicals not about sin and grace?
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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Jeremy, and what happens when humans don’t cooperate with grace? It is possible on Rome’s view to lose the grace of salvation in baptism.
I grant those are teaching about sin and grace. But JPII is known for more than that (which includes the following):
If by the way the church’s teaching on sin and grace extends to saving social life, it is hard not to see how Rome has adopted a universalistic understanding of the gospel (which would seem to contradict the idea that someone can fall from grace).
Bottom line, Jeremy: you may have thought you found all the answers by communing with Rome. But the questions have only started (if you were honest).
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D.G,
I am not seeing the problem. Didn’t Calvin nearly eliminate homelessness in Geneva? Didn’t he actually redesign the sewer system as well? Calvinists brag about these achievements but when Catholics do good works we are told our Church is distracted from the gospel.
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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Jeremy, You’re not seeing a problem. Talk about an understatement.
Have you ever considered that a social gospel or ecclesiastical social teaching turns the eternal aspect of Christianity into something common and temporal? That would be a recipe for secularization of the church (and Rome’s former political occupations — remember, the pope was a prince with an army at his disposal — may have whet the appetites of western Christianity for the JPII’s and Tim Kellers of the world).
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Jeremy it’s not that they are distracted but that they conflate the two (social justice and the gospel). That’s providing the enormous assumption that they have the gospel correct. You affirm, We deny. Through it’s ‘liberation theology’ the RC church also diminishes, unintentionally, the imago dei by suggesting that it requires supernatural grace to perform and order temporal life. You affirm. We deny.
Which takes us back to a 2k theology, that while you may be amillenial, you by practice and rhetoric deny. We affirm. It’s another form of immanentizing the eschaton.
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D.G.,
I think the problem is that your not use to seeing the gospel in any holistic sense. Jesus shows us what holistic ministry looks like and he seems to be concerned about more than the guilt of sin and the need for grace but also the effects of that sin and the form that grace takes. Jesus healed whole people and the gospel proclaimed by the Catholic Church is for the whole person not just their legal status in a Roman court.
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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Jeremy, and you may not be thinking through how holistic that healing was. Think Lazarus or the woman at the well. Natural means only go so far with sinful bodies that need to die. You still believe in original sin, right? You still believe in hell, right? Economic rights are not going to fix those ailments.
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D.G.,
How much of the Catholic Catechism have you actually ever read?
Have you considered that it’s possible to care about both the eternal destiny of people and the current suckiness of their life?
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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Jeremy, glad to hear this about hell. I have read the catechism and many other writings of the church and believe it or not it is not as coherent at CTC alleges. So if unbelievers are going to hell, why spend so much time trying to do social justice? Of course, you can “care” about both eternal life and difficult circumstances of this life, but if you give people good drinking water it doesn’t produce eternal life. Just ask the woman at the well.
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Jeremy – Calvinists brag about these achievements
Erik – Not all Calvinists
The Pope needs to watch “The Wire” for a more nuanced view of good and evil, rich and poor. These are not simple questions and only God sees men’s hearts, which is where evil and greed truly reside. Reordering society does not get the job done.
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Jeremy – I think the problem is that your not use to seeing the gospel in any holistic sense. Jesus shows us what holistic ministry looks like and he seems to be concerned about more than the guilt of sin and the need for grace but also the effects of that sin and the form that grace takes. Jesus healed whole people and the gospel proclaimed by the Catholic Church is for the whole person not just their legal status in a Roman court.
Erik – Remove “Catholic Church” and I wouldn’t know if I was reading Jeremy Tate, Nelson Kloosterman, or the 19th century New School Presbyterians I was reading about last night. I’m really enjoying “Seeking a Better Country”. There are a few great quotes that I will reproduce here when I am done. Muether and Hart wrote it, but I can identify the Hart zingers from a mile away.
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D.G.,
This is a strange experience for me. Am I really debating a Christian pastor about whether or not the Church should spend its energy defending the poor and oppressed?
Maybe social justice doesn’t produce mass conversions, but shouldn’t we do it simply because God commands it?
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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Jeremy, I am not a pastor, let alone a Christian pastor. I am an elder in the OPC, but Oldlife is an extension of an informal group of people who talk about Reformed faith and practice.
What is odd to me is that I am having to remind someone who believes in hell and sin that poverty and oppression are not as important — eternity wise — as sin and salvation. “What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?”
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Jeremy, so with all that talk about a holistic gospel and ministry (apparently derived from premises of Catholic social teaching), what would you think of the suggestion that the RCC gave birth to the social gospel? I’m sure you’d take issue, which is not too unlike taking issue with the suggestion that Protestantism birthed the undermining of all authority, etc.
Didn’t Calvin nearly eliminate homelessness in Geneva? Didn’t he actually redesign the sewer system as well? Calvinists brag about these achievements but when Catholics do good works we are told our Church is distracted from the gospel.
Well, when neo-Calvinists brag about transformative achievements conservative Calvinists demure. Maybe it’s the former with whom you have a beef, but it’s the latter that have one with the pair of you.
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Defending the poor and oppressed in the 21st century West is also a tricky proposition. Since Rome is so huge and they don’t do a great job policing their own membership, are they really well positioned to do the tough work of determining why the poor and oppressed are poor and oppressed and to offer remedies that will truly deliver people from poverty and oppression? Most people who escape poverty and oppression in the U.S. have to make a conscious decision to be counter-cultural from where they grow up. When their friends tell them it is uncool to do well in school, they do it anyway. They avoid gangs, getting pregnant (or getting someone pregnant), they avoid drugs, etc. Does a church that is centered on The Mass and not on Christian discipleship assist poor people to be counter-cultural? I will say that Catholic schools in poor communities are a step in the right direction. I think our point, though, is that if you don’t get the gospel right, social justice is a hollow goal.
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Jeremy,
I don’t know enough about your pre-conversion to Rome convictions, but whereas Jason was likely an exception that proved the rule, maybe you already had a proclivity for marrying your religious(sacred) convictions to cultural concerns and so this more ‘holistic’ view of salvation dovetailed quite nicely into your concerns, convictions, and beliefs about religion and salvation and it’s ‘impact’ on the broader culture.
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D.G.,
There is no indication from the gospels that Jesus feels the tension you are expressing between good works/social justice and proclaiming the gospel. In fact, he directly connects hell/condemnation with the failure to do good/social justice;
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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This whole discussion points to the idea that Rome is more informed by it’s Thomistic tradition; the relationship of nature and grace, then a scriptural tradition.
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Zrim,
The worldwide leader in providing relief to the poor, oppressed, sick, orphans, marginalized, ect for the past two thousand years has been the Catholic Church. Again, it’s hard for me to get my head around why this is something to criticize in light of the divine mandate to do what the Church is doing, but I am trying to understand where you’re coming from.
Another irony in this debate is the lack of Reformed conversions. Most Reformed people either grow up Reformed or become convinced of Reformed theology through theological investigation (this is the story of many CtC btw), but few, I ackknowledge there are some, are simply lost people who hear the gospel proclaimed by a Reformed pastor and become believers. In fact, it’s guys like Tim Keller who you all seem to dislike who is actually seeing conversions in his church. So, I’m wondering why the OPC is a stagnant denomination with little or no growth if the gospel is being proclaimed so faithfully. Is God not converting hearts through the preaching of the gospel to the unbeliever or is the OPC simply failing to preach to the unbeliever? D.G. wants to keep his eye on the ball (just sin and grace) of what he sees as the gospel, but it’s not amounting to any more conversions than occur in the Catholic Church. In fact, since becoming Catholic I have met way more people with no religious background (or Jewish or Atheist) who became believers from the Catholic Church then I ever met in Reformed circles. They are actually some of the most theologically minded Catholics I know.
So I’m just wondering why they aren’t more conversions if you are so focused on the pure gospel? I’m not being sarcastic, don’t read into my tone. I’m just asking the question.
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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Jeremy, it’s a fair question. It’s also one asked us by the mega-church evangelicals. The assumption shared by both seems to be one that is fairly captive for numbers and strength. You may be trying to wrap your brain around the questioning of holistic gospel, but it’s hard for us over here to understand what’s the big deal about numbers and strength and high profiles and world-wide leadership. But I suppose it explains things like ECT.
Still, in contrast to both Catholics and evangelicals, the Reformed virtue is obedience, not results. The holy rollers of whatever variety may talk a lot about the Holy Spirit, but we actually do believe that the Spirit will do the work of conversion and that all we are asked to do is be faithful and obedient, which in some ways is actually a lot easier compared to sweating looking good. So while you and the evangelicals may look askance at our relative poverty in terms of results, it doesn’t really bother us the way is seems to you all. In fact, obedience may very well result in getting kicked in the teeth (or nailed to a tree). I mean, if you read the Bible closely enough you’ll see the counter-intuitive reality that those who are blessed aren’t exactly big and puffy. It’s actually the other way around.
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Jeremy, “My kingdom is not of this world.” “Render unto Caeser.” Someone can gain the world and lose their soul (again)? If you had converted to Eastern Orthodoxy where Caesaro-papism can conflate the secular and sacred more readily than in the West, you might in happier company.
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Zrim,
O.K., So when and where do secular unchurched people go to hear the gospel from the mouth of the OPC? There are hundreds of theology on tap groups around the nation where Catholic priests are reaching the unchurched on their own turf and many conversions have happened. I’ve spent too much time around Reformed people to totally buy what you’re saying.
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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Jeremy, and cutting my own spiritual teeth around results oriented mega-church evangelicals (born, bred and buttered in broad secular unbelief), I’m having a hard buying into the Catholic version of Willow Creek. But where can unbelievers go to hear the gospel? To church. At least even I, when still in unbelief, knew enough to assume that, as well as to be skeptical of those in the open air selling religion. But wait, I’m the one pushing a high ecclesiology here and you’re championing priests channeling Whitefield? Maybe you haven’t shaken off all the evangelicalism yet but have simply clothed in vestments.
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Zrim,
Zrim,
Honestly, I’m baffled. After all the “you don’t preach the gospel you don’t even know it” rhetoric thrown at Catholics now I am hearing you say, “oh, Uh, well… we reach the lost by expecting them to show up at an OPC Church service.” Really? Does that actually happen? I know and care deeply about many unchurched secular people and I don’t see them ever just showing up at an OPC Church. For a Church that represents less than 1 out of every 10,000 professing believers on the planet you spend a great deal of time condemning the other 99.9% I’m not sure I see how the OPC preaches to the lost or serves the poor and that should concern you enough to take a look in the mirror.
You condemned the Catholic Church for not keeping our eye on the ball of sin and grace and preaching to the lost. Then, you can’t tell me how and where your Church does what your accusing mine of not doing.
What was Paul doing on Mars Hill in Athens? Do you disagree with his tactics there?
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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Jeremy, first, I’m not sure where I’ve huffed and puffed, accused and and condemned anybody. Second, I’m not OPC but URC, though I guess your point still stands. Which brings me to C, which is that our local church and wider federation supports missionaries to bring the gospel to the unbelieving world. I don’t much about missionary work personally, but from what I do know it’s about getting people to church for Word, sacrament, and discipline. It’s ecclesiastically sanctioned, maintained and oriented from beginning to end.
Paul’s a bit of a special case, being the apostle called directly by Jesus himself. But I don’t think he was any less ecclesiastically oriented. I mean, he was planting churches. So the point at Athens would have been to get folks to church, not “meet them where they’re at or reaching the unchurched on their own turf.”
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Zrim,
What about here;
Where does the Catholic Church teach that it’s “results driven”?
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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Jeremy, looks like you’re interested in results:
“I know and care deeply about many unchurched secular people and I don’t see them ever just showing up at an OPC Church. For a Church that represents less than 1 out of every 10,000 professing believers on the planet you spend a great deal of time condemning the other 99.9% I’m not sure I see how the OPC preaches to the lost or serves the poor and that should concern you enough to take a look in the mirror.”
That is, small churches don’t matter, big ones with lots of programs do. I guess you found a home. But have you found peace in Christ (or church)?
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I’m slightly bewildered. I understand that evangelicalism got much of it’s ‘personal relationship with Jesus’ piety from roman catholicism. It’s just not the RC I grew up in. Now we’ve got protestants turned RC bringing conversion and conversion narratives back into the RC, while I’ve gone to a protestant piety that rightly devalues the conversion emphasis and narrative in favor of discipleship(Calvin-we’re converted a little at a time), which was the piety of the RC I grew up in. That’s what’s been odd about looking at this breed of RC, I don’t recognize you. You look and act and talk like the broader evanjellyfish I couldn’t escape from quick enough.
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Jeremy –
Who gained more converts, Charles Finney or J. Gresham Machen? Who would you rather have as your minister, Charles Finney or J. Gresham Machen? When conversions come easily we have to ask exactly what people are being converted to.
I suspect Joel Osteen has a bigger church than most local Catholic churches. What is he doing right thant the Catholics are doing wrong, using your logic?
Numbers mean nothing because it puts man’s response to a message as the factor that validates or invalidates the message. Show me in Scripture (or in Catholic teaching) where this is what we are to look at to determine truth.
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Jeremy – O.K., So when and where do secular unchurched people go to hear the gospel from the mouth of the OPC?
Erik – An OPC church?
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Jeremy – For a Church that represents less than 1 out of every 10,000 professing believers on the planet you spend a great deal of time condemning the other 99.9% I’m not sure I see how the OPC preaches to the lost or serves the poor and that should concern you enough to take a look in the mirror.
Erik – You’re starting to sound like someone debating theology on Facebook. Next we’ll hear how arguments about doctrine never fed a hungry child.
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Sean,
Look, act, and talk? Evangelicals go to Eucharistic adoration? Pilgramages? Take their kids to see true relics from the ancient Church? Teach them the Baltimore Catechism? Teach them “the prayers”? Try to avoid mortal sin like the plague? Go to confession? The only similarity I see is that their is a very real surge of passionate Catholics today. Evangelicals are passionate too so I guess that’s a similarity, but I am personally indebted to the Reformed tradition. It was in the Reformed world I learned to love authority of the Church (they just didn’t have one)
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
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Sean,
With your life story I don’t blame you for getting dizzy from time to time.
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Jeremy – Pilgramages? Take their kids to see true relics from the ancient Church?
Erik – Does the creation museum or those theme parks that I think the Bakker’s & Falwell might have bulit count? How about Clark W. Griswold taking his kids to Walley World?
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Jeremy,
Granted you’ve bought in to the sacerdotalism. I give you all the credit for understanding Rome is about the Mass, particularly the eucharist(where’s your Maryology btw, you don’t mention her near enough). But the rest of it quacks like an evanjellyduck, and for that matter reminds me of the evangelicals going emergent looking for profundity and transcendence and historical rooting, so even there you guys look more like evangelicals to me than the RC I knew and still know. As I’ve told you, I’m sure RCC is elated you are there. BTW, it’s also in the reformed world you learned to value the reading of the bible.
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Erik, I’m not near as interesting as I used to be. Thank God.
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We’ve never really contemplated the possibility that the Rev. Tim Tom could actually be a priest…
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If I converted to Rome and found it to be as pedestrian as evangelicalism I can’t tell you how disappointed I would be. I would expect something mysterious and old. I would be a William F. Buckley type Catholic, having a priest come to the house to perform the Latin Mass for myself and the household staff.
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What about here; Still, in contrast to both Catholics and evangelicals, the Reformed virtue is obedience, not results.
Where does the Catholic Church teach that it’s “results driven”?
Jeremy, I don’t see how that was accusatory and condemning. I am simply pointing out what I think is a significant difference between Reformed and Catholic/evangelical virtues. Or, if you like, “interpretive paradigms.” And I’m not talking about what the RCC teaches. I’m responding to what you have suggested, which is that don’t nobody get the converts and lead the world in transformative holistic gospel like the holy mother. Well bully for you guys. But having an ethic of obedience over results, yawn.
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Sean, also keep in mind that may of those evangelicals also had fairly scholastic views of biblical inerrancy. Now the CTCers have taken that scholasticism and applied it to — you guessed — the pope.
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Jeremy, it doesn’t look like you learned anything about 2 kingdom theology or the spirituality of the church.
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