The word in the media over the weekend (actually, the end of one week and the beginning of another), was that the Roman Catholic Church needs to maintain its orthodoxy or else it will experience what has happened to mainline Protestantism. Ethics and Public Policy’s Mary Eberstadt expressed just such a view in an interview with Scott Simon on NPR’s Weekend Edition:
SIMON: Before Pope Francis was selected, you wrote that you’d hoped to see the new pope deploy doctrinal orthodoxy. What do you mean by that?
EBERSTADT: Well, what I meant is that if you study the history of churches, over time the churches that have tried to lighten up the Christian moral code and put forth sort of kindler, gentler version of Christian as they see it, have not done well. They haven’t done well demographically and they haven’t done well financially.
Churches that stick to orthodoxy do better over time, in part because it’s only those kinds of churches that tend to create families that can be of size and carry on the Christian tradition. So, in saying that the pope would do best to stick to orthodoxy, I was talking in part about what it would take to strengthen the Catholic Church.
SIMON: So if I were to remind you about some of these polls we’ve all seen in recent days showing 66 percent of U.S. Catholics favor allowing women to become priests, 79 percent favor the use of artificial birth control measures, what does that mean to you?
EBERSTADT: Well, it means in part that you have to be careful about what you are calling Catholic. In other words, are you Catholic if you say you’re Catholic? Are you Catholic if you were baptized Catholic? Are you Catholic if you haven’t been in church in five years? What you tend to find is that the more observant people are, the more orthodox their opinions tend to be. That’s one point.
But the other point is that for Catholics like that, for Catholics who want married priests, women priests, who want again to lighten up the Christian moral code, there is a place for people like that. The place is called the mainline Protestantism. And the point is that mainline Protestantism is in serious disarray. The pews are graying, they have few children in them.
By contrast, the Protestant churches that have hued closest to a sort of strict Christian moral code have done best. Those would be the evangelical churches and churches like the Pentecostals are thriving, and not only in the United States but around the world.
I don’t mean to be precious, but are male priests, celibacy, and contraception really part of Christian orthodoxy? I could think of matters like Christology, God’s incommunicable attributes, or even closer to Rome’s home, transubstantiation or apostolic succession. I can also think of believers who are not Christian who come close to Eberstadt’s notion of orthodoxy — such as Orthodox Jews.
In which case, what is orthodoxy for Roman Catholics in the United States and how much has Americanization polarized the church into segments that mirror the larger culture war dividing the so-called orthodox party from the progressives (both transcending confessional and religious lines)? If Roman Catholics in the U.S. reflect the larger divisions among the American people, that is an ironic outcome of Vatican II’s aggiornamento.
Old Life 
It is interesting to see Roman Catholics hoping that the leadership of their Church would be orthodox. If one assumes Roman Catholic ecclesiology, isn’t the teaching magisterium orthodox by definition?
This is different then hoping that the pope and the other bishops would be godly, skilled, or good examples. These things all fall under the category of orthopraxy. By contrast, orthodoxy has to do with their official teaching. A person who believes that the Roman Catholic Church could become unorthodox in its official teaching has already abandoned the official Roman Catholic teaching on the nature of the Roman Catholic Church.
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Still, I feel vindicated. I was paying attention in class;
“What, now, of the pre-Conciliar Church? Like a stratified rock to the geologist, she was a fascinating object for the historian, not to say the antiquarian. She trailed strange clouds of glory from a past growing ever more remote and irrelevant—like the three crowns of the papal tiara. Her law was articulated on principles, not to say in a spirit, which were ultimately those of the Roman civil law. Her central administration was redolent of the familia of the Roman Emperors, as her ceremonial reflected that of a Byzantine court. It needed a critical eye to discern, in the action and theory of the papal primacy, what came from the gospel and what from Caesar.
It was as though the Council became conscious, as it looked beyond the walls of the city set on a hill, of friends, brothers, fellow disciples of the world’s Saviour, just outside those walls. The Church, in these separated brethren, seemed visibly to transcend its own limits. From this transcendence there springs a set of theological problems, which have left their mark not only on the Decree on Ecumenism but on Lumen Gentium itself. The Council had to turn back behind Bellarmine with his Counter-Reformation ecclesiology, behind St Thomas himself and the Fathers, to the biblical theology which governs the first two chapters of the Constitution on the Church.
The static element in her complex totality, the sacraments and especially the sacramental ministry, is subordinate to the dynamic moment whose immediate source is the charisms, the grace-gifts, of the Spirit of Christ, given—as Lumen Gentium reminds us—as and to whom God chooses, whether to pope or humble layman or woman—or, we may add, to a bushman to whom the gospel has never been proclaimed by human lips. The Spirit bloweth where it listeth, and it is impossible to foretell, from the present state and condition of the Church, what her history in the coming generations will be. But at least for the moment, without rejecting or denying her past, without any surrender of her patrimony, she appears to have changed her course.
To attempt to define this change would be hazardous, but I nevertheless would point to two moments in the Council’s life and work which, between them, seem to me to be suggestive.
The first is the reaffirmation, in Lumen Gentium, of a genuine sacramental episcopal collegiality, which had been thrown somewhat into the background by the work of the prematurely ended Vatican I. This seems to afford the basis for a recovery of the principle that the papacy—and now we must add the episcopate—is not the source of the actual life of the Church, but the coordinator of that life’s various and peripheral spontaneities. This principle of subsidiarity is carried through to the point at which the lay Catholic is seen as a genuine creative force in the life of the People of God; and to the further point where it is realised that the whole human family, insofar as good will prevails, is a theatre of the operations of the grace-gifts of the Holy Spirit, and is cooperating in the building up of Christ’s kingdom.”
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And what is the motivation for orthodoxy?
“Churches that stick to orthodoxy do better over time, in part because it’s only those kinds of churches that tend to create families that can be of size and carry on the Christian tradition. So, in saying that the pope would do best to stick to orthodoxy, I was talking in part about what it would take to strengthen the Catholic Church.”
Orthodoxy creates large families, and the church needs people! So I guess rejection of contraceptives is the lynchpin of orthodoxy. Maybe we’ve been too cavalier in our rejection of polygamy as well.
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M&M, if orthodoxy leads to families-of-size that explains these rural west Michigan Dutch Reformed pews filled with basketball team size clans. Still, what does it say about orthodox Reformed virtues of restraint, modesty, and human limitations? But here’s hoping Erik links Monty Python’s “Every Sperm is Sacred.”
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M&M, and Protestants are supposed to be the ones who aren’t sacramental. Looks like utilitarianism afflicts American religion generally.
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I just can’t, for my life, comprehend it! How can any complete, true Christian google “Peter A. Lillback HHS”, think about it, and then disagree with WTS’s recent action? Love in Christ, Bob Morris WTS 1954.
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Bob,
From your commenting track record it seems you have a problem with making distinctions, and then accuse those who do of sub-Christian behavior. The distinction is simple – while I don’t think you will find anyone here who agrees with the Obama Care mandate for religious institutions, the propriety of an institution so closely related to the church, in this case WTS, filing suit against the governments might create some biblical problems. The biggest issue is whether or not there is warrant for such lawsuits, and if there isn’t some wisdom for WTS to take a decisively defensive posture, by letting the government come after them and then defend themselves accordingly, as opposed to taking such a legally aggressive position. It appears that Lillback’s public statements point to a willingness to be assertive legally – how does this play toward the public witness of Reformed churches, many of which are headed by WTS grads?
The issue is more complicated than you make it out to be. And again, there is room for Christians to disagree on these matters – it’s called liberty. It is not as if we are questioning cardinal doctrines here, and the discussion is worth having. – Barely Christian Jed MBI dropout 2002.
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Old Bob, perhaps you’ve heard, it’s hard to teach old dogs new tricks.
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“Old Dog”, Darryl? I’d rather be called that than some of the names you imply @ OLT for many of your Christian and Reformed brothers. I don’t call you ” YOUNG dog”, here, but you are an older God-Image-bearer than I thought before I saw that b.1950. I thought you were only 56 or 57. Must be your good looks in your often displayed-by-you pictures. Maybe the wear and tear and great, missed-by-you, blessings of parenthood, etc. and 65 years of a great made-in-heaven, marriage have made me look like an OLD Dog of 85 summers? Four years @ WTS have aged my inferior brain, also! Listen to Old Pete Lillback and his great interpretations of Scripture and Cultural mandate implications—even though he is a bit younger. 53 or 54? I asked you many times what you think of your boss, Larry Arnn and his Hillsdale College. You never answered this (job security?) nor many other things I asked you about. Love in Jesus, Bob Morris P.S. Puh LEEZE—-(One of your favorite expressions)—- Don’t you and OLT fans chide me for my overused favorite print charachter— the hyphen! —-One of my favorite characters)!
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“Must be your good looks in your often displayed-by-you pictures”
Leave D.G.’s vanity and boyish good looks alone, Old Bob!
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This reminds me of an Onion article: http://scotteriology.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/the-onion-resigning-pope-no-longer-has-strength-to-lead-church-backward/
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Bob, where have you ever seen a picture of me (other than a scarred finger) at Old Life?
Have you not heard of adages? Old dogs is a metaphor. You are the one who repeatedly refers to your age.
I have actually responded about Larry Arnn. He’s arguably the best college president in the country.
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You have conducted yourself like a buffoon at Called to Communion, Darryl. I thought you were an academic.
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Brian, as the Dude said to Jackie Treehorn, “well, that’s like your opinion.”
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One man’s buffoon is another man’s wit.
What post were you commenting on? I have to read it now.
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Dr. Hart,
“I don’t mean to be precious, but are male priests, celibacy, and contraception really part of Christian orthodoxy?”
Mary Eberstadt was defining a portion of Catholic orthodoxy, not Reformed orthodoxy, in her exchange with the NPR interviewer as it related to women priests and birth control. You faulted her “notion of orthodoxy” and added celibacy to her list. You then questioned whether they were “really part of Christian orthodoxy.” Of course you know better. They are part of Catholic orthodoxy. You should have made that distinction rather than suggesting that Eberstadt was lacking in gravitas for not bringing up doctrines you considered more important. I’m sure, if asked, she could have responded very intelligently on the Catholic understanding of those theological subjects you mentioned.
As a Catholic, she is at least engaging the culture and telling the NPR host where Catholic progressives, who don’t like Catholic orthodoxy, could go – to the U.S. Protestant mainline. She even puts in a good word for evangelical churches that “hued closest to a sort of strict Christian moral code” and noted they have done well. Could you not give her a little credit for defending publicly those parts of Christian morality that we can all agree on, that fit into her (and our) category of a “strict Christian moral code”?
If you don’t want the Reformed to engage the culture with the Gospel outside the four walls of the church on Sunday, why criticize those who do care enough to defend their various “orthodoxies” in the public square when given the opportunity? Catholics, Islamists and secularists could be taken on with aplomb by our wise Reformed scholars, theologians and academics, if they were willing to address, in public forums as well as in the church, the cultural issues needing the answers that Christianity offers.
Machen energetically opposed Prohibition some decades ago. If he were living today would he not be even more righteously outraged about our cultural deterioration, particularly as displayed in abortion and the homosexual lobby and its fellow travelers’ attempts to redefine marriage? I believe he would be more than willing to address these crucial issues in any public forum, as a Christian academic and pastor speaking for the church, outside its walls, Monday through Friday. He would not tip-toe around these issues like many of our Reformed scholars and pastors. Is it legitimate to suggest they might be resisting and grieving the Holy Spirit by not speaking out in the wider world we inhabit outside the confines of our sacred Sunday precincts?
Your final comment is superfluous. Why even bother to question what exactly American Catholic orthodoxy is. Isn’t Catholic orthodoxy defined by the Magisterium of the pope and the College of Cardinals? It doesn’t matter in the end what liberal American Catholics say or want, or how accommodated they are to the culture. More important is for the Reformed perspective to get into the public square. Our disintegrating culture needs a true and dynamic Gospel witness. Nowadays, other viewpoints are being heard and respected. Islam is making vast inroads into American government and academic institutions, and Sharia compliance will not be far behind. Is the Christian church paying attention to these challenges? Not much. We need a revival of the basic principles and precepts upon which our county was founded, and the relevance of the Reformed heritage should be allowed to function dynamically as in the early years of our nation.
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June, thanks for your comment. If Eberstadt were really concerned about Roman Catholic orthodoxy, why would she have said anything good about Protestants (who are heretics and schismatics according to RC orthodoxy)? You seem to defend her because you agree with her morality. Fine. But Protestantism in the U.S. is littered with believers who want to make the nation safe for Christian morality, all the while cutting and pasting the confessions of their churches. You may want to consider that orthodoxy is what we confess about God, morality is what God requires of us.
But thanks for taking another jab at Islam.
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Darryl, I think June Engdahl said it all. yesterday. I wish you were correct when you wrote, “Protestantism is littered with believers who want to make the nation safe for Christian morality.” That is what I think Pete Lillback and WTS are trying to do. I think you, OLT and OPC are often “silent when we should be screaming!” (Words of R.C. Sproul long ago about infanticide (and euthanasia?), for folks like OB & Alexian friends). And now you go after the PCA! After nearly 50 years in the OPC, we will soon be joining a great PCA here on Signal Mountain, TN. I can’t keep up to it all, and don’t WANT to! Pete Lillback, sometime back, sent us a copy of his “The Wall of Misconception”— nice loving personal message to Elaine and me inside the front cover. Read it!How come you wont send me a copy of your book where you mention me? (1965 fuss with Morton Smith— when he was pro-slavery?) On second thought, don’t bother: I think I wouldn’t enjoy most of what you wrote. Get real, Darryl. Think more about the future of our 25 grandkids and less about cigars and booze! Love, OB @ Alexian
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BM, you mean the eternal future of our grand kids, you mean the future that laws can’t change? You mean the eternal things? Set your mind on things above, dude.
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Thanks Darryl, anyhow, for your typical mini-micro response. Glad I took you off my list of future reading: “Between The Times”. BOTH/AND reader of Scripture since right before WTS days. BM
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“God so loved the WORLD!” Not just His heaven, Brother Darryl. BTW, What is a Dude? Some title of respect for your elders? Love, OPC Elder for 30+ years, BM
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OUR grandkids? I thought Darryl never had any! See? Visiting OLT 3 times in a row is making me ugly! 🙂 OB
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Old Bob,
In what Hart book do you make an appearance?
I want your grandkids to have access to quality cigars and booze just as I hope mine do. No Bud Light or Miller Light like I was offered at my 2-year-old nephew’s birthday party today. My brother needs to be raising him in a better environment than that. At least buy some Sam Adams.
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BM, “my kingdom is not of this WORLD.”
BTW, be sure to read Seeking a Better Country. Pete Lillback endorses it.
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BM, I thought we were all children of Abraham.
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Erik, I am not 100% certain but I think Darryl himself once told me he mentioned me briefly in his “Between The Times”. In 1965 OPC’s The Presbyterian Guardian’s (Now New Horizons) editor, My personal friend, Bob Nicholas (I was interim pastor of his Bend, Oregon OPC, 1953), was fried by letter writers Morton Smith, David Moore and some others. Their complaint in part— Communists claimed to be integrationists. So did Brother Bob. Implication: Bob was a bit pink! I wrote a long article to the magazine which Bob published, I took the pro-slavery guys to task (with vigor!) for being un-Biblical. I pleaded several times for DGH to send me a free copy of his “Between the Times” Never got one. One reason I am sorta mad @ him. So I never read it! Pete Lillback sent me his great “Wall of Misconception”. Not the main reason I kike him! 🙂 Didn’t I say all this @ OLT? Am I breaking the Sabbath in going to my unfavorite website? Robert K. Morris
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Hey Darryl— YOU wrote “My kingdom is not of this world”, NOT BM!..Fits your Either/Or view of Church Vs. Culture. Before some OLT guy says it, I admit MY quoting “GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD” is not too impressive as a defense of the Kuyper Both/and view. (“Bad” Neo-Calvinist Guys) Love. BM 🙂 P.S. If Pete likes your book, Darryl, I MIGHT read it!
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Clarification: Darryl, it was in another of your posts, or comment where you wrote “my k. is not of this w. as backing your antipathy for involvement of the Christian in culture. If I ever (not likely) I wade through the scads of OLT stuff, I will reference the statement. BM
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Bob,
I’m a proud owner of a copy so I’ll look it up.
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BM, are you serious? You’re miffed because I didn’t send you a book? How many other authors are you mad at?
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Old Bob,
You do indeed make an appearance but it’s under the alias “Robert Morris”.
D.G. – Send me your cats or I will be perturbed with you.
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I did my best in this comment! Hi, OLTS folks, I have long promised a final BM comment. I think this may be IT! About DG’s denial of flashing his picture— I just now googled “Old Life Theological Society” No picture. When I clicked on first item: OLTS. (Second was “About OLTS”) Now I got the nice picture of Darryl I mentioned earlier. Also info: “Born 1950” & educational record. Then I went through the last 5 posts. Very quickly. Maybe I should have waited for one sure to come, today, 3/25? —– OK #5: “What a Difference a Day Makes”. 3/14, 222 comments!!! All I did was scan quickly looking for the comment where I said “For God so loved the WORLD” which I later admitted was an imperfect response to DGH’s “set your heart on things above”. Not strange that I would say something about his either/or emphasis in the 2Ks as I see them. Couldn’t find it. Maybe in an earlier Bob-comment? (A false idea I have is that some of y’all have followed my usually rather rare contributions to OLTS.) In these countless OL comments there seemed to be MANY from Erik C. Doug S. and several others, along with a bit fewer by Richard S. I find I often agree with much of RS’s offerings. He was kind to me! Found no BM comments. Missed one or couple? #4 was about a Bishop. 3/15. Only 19 comments, none from me. Boring post? #3 “Defining Morality (not down) Up” 3/18 31 comments. Some topics— Use of name “Dude” by DGH a time or 2, Long comment by June Engdahl. I loved it. Darryl was mostly nice to her. Erik asked me, here, about Darryl’s book: “Between The Times”—- where I think he mentioned me and a magazine article I wrote in 1965. Here, too, was a misquote by Darryl. I think. I had quoted an earlier quote by him about “things above”. #2 was about NBA 3/20 178 comments. Mostly boring to me! I might have commented, here, on subjects raised by commentators? #1 was about fixing the PCA, again. 3/23, 50 comments. I left some comment here! In all I am amazed at the negative character of OLTS. I have complained quite a few times about the much bashing of many good Brothers and organizations, ancient and modern! But not Hillsdale College 🙂 Also much less than heavenly stuff throughout, like sports, cats, stoggies and booze. I had hoped for a bit of encouragement for my attempts to comfort and witness to the many oldsters here at Alexian Vialage. BIG disappointment! Love, Bob Morris
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BM, I’ve finished holding my breath on your last comment.
Here’s about OLTS. No picture of me. And I wasn’t born in 1950.
Who you gonna believe?
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