The Fullness of Sausage

Published on by D. G. Hart

Mark Shea may fault with Rod Dreher for selectivity in reading the Christian past, but has he looked in the mirror lately? As I’ve written before, Protestants do not have the problem of history that Roman Catholics do for one because we don’t have all the history (and baggage) and for another because we don’t promote tradition the way Rome does, and for one more we don’t believe utterances from the past by church authorities are infallible (unless they are part of the canon). So complaints about the way Roman Catholics use and abuse history are inherently self-serving for Protestants.

Still, that does not explain why Roman Catholics keep appealing to the past as leverage against Protestants. Not only do Roman Catholic apologists have a lot of explaining to do about coziness with emperors, the politics of the curia and Rome’s powerful families, or the Crusades, for instance, but they also need to make past decrees square with contemporary ones. And development of doctrine just isn’t working when it comes to worrying about heretics and infidels leading the faithful to hell compared to praying with heretics and infidels.

Consider Shea’s recent celebratory post about religious freedom in the greatest nation on God’s green earth and whether Roman Catholics should embrace such freedom for non-Christians:

. . . the casual description of all non-Abrahamic religion as “satan worship” vastly over-simplifies things, just as the easy willingness to lump all expressions of Judaism and all expressions of Christianity together (presumably consigning Muslims to paganism and illegality) is tremendously simplistic. One pernicious lie embraced by many Catholics since 9/11 is to imagine that Muslims “worship another god” despite the obvious teaching of the Church:

841 The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”

Many Reactionary Catholics protest this teaching of the Church and try to pretend that God and Allah are “two different Gods”. . . . Here’s reality: Allah is just the Arabic word for the Deity, as Dieu is the French and Gott the German and Deus the Latin. Some will claim that because Muslims are non-Trinitarian, they don’t worship the same God as Christians. The problem is, Jews also reject the deity of Jesus, yet are mysteriously given a pass, as your friends demonstrate. That’s because such Christians are willing to recognize that you can worship God while having an incomplete understanding of him–if you are a Jew. But because of anger of 9/11 and other Muslim crimes, they refuse to cut Muslims the same slack–and wind up talking as though there are multiple gods and not one God who is understood in various levels of knowledge.

The Church’s habit is always to affirm what can be affirmed in common with any religious tradition while, of course, noting the differences as well. Thus, St. Thomas could find much of value in the thought of both the pagan Aristotle and the Muslim Averroes. But the Church has historically gone much further even with paganism. So we find Paul affirming what can be affirmed with pagans in Acts 17 as he speaks to Greek pagans on the Areopagus. Likewise, the Fathers made all kinds of use of Plato In our culture of polarization however, many find this very hard. Outlawing other religions would only massively exacerbate that–in addition to being both wrong and foolish.

Aside from a theologically weak defense of Islam and Judaism, can Shea really say with a straight face that the church has “always” affirmed what it has in common with “any” traditional religion. How did that work for the Council of Trent in its verdict on Christians who affirmed the Nicene Creed? Or what does that affirmative impulse do to the history of banning books and movies? As one of Shea’s astute readers noted, nineteenth century popes (a few steps above Shea’s pay grade) would not have described the church as Shea does:

We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that “there is one God, one faith, one baptism” may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that “those who are not with Christ are against Him,” and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him. Therefore “without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate.” Let them hear Jerome who, while the Church was torn into three parts by schism, tells us that whenever someone tried to persuade him to join his group he always exclaimed: “He who is for the See of Peter is for me.” A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been washed in the waters of regeneration. Indeed Augustine would reply to such a man: “The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?”

This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. “But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error,” as Augustine was wont to say. (Encyclical on Indifferentism and Liberalism by Pope Gregory XVI)

Accounting for history is hard. And the recent dust up between Bryan Cross and Brandon Addison proves the point. In a debate about apostolic succession and the rise of the Holy See (Rome), Addison pushed Cross to brand as heretical those who deny that the Bishop of Rome was a first-century historical reality:

. . . when Brandon in comment #23, says, “I wanted to point out that Catholics of good repute and in full communion with the Church share my rejection of traditional Catholic claims,” if the “traditional Catholic claims” he has in mind are or include either the claim that St. Peter was not appointed by Christ as prince of all the Apostles, or that it is not by the institution of Christ Himself that St. Peter has perpetual successors in the primacy over the whole Church, or that the papal office did not come from Christ through St. Peter, then such a Catholic is at least in material heresy, and is thus in that respect not in full communion with the Catholic Church. So for any Catholic scholar Brandon cites, if that Catholic is in [at least] material heresy regarding the aforementioned doctrines, then he or she is not in full communion. If, however, that Catholic is in full communion with the Catholic Church, then that Catholic disagrees with Brandon on these points. (footnote 8)

To which Addison responds with a logic that should have pleased Bryan:

Is this a claim that the following men are material heretics:

– Eamon Duffy
– Raymond Brown (and is Thomas Boland guilty of placing his Imprimatur on a work in which a material heretic is explicating his views which are tantamount to material heresy? What does that say about Boland?)
– Patrick Burke
– Bernad Dupay
– Francis Sullivan
– Klaus Schatz
– Allen Brent
– J.P. Meier

These men (among a litany of others) have published their views widely that they do not believe,

“that Christ appointed St. Peter to be the prince of all the apostles, and visible head of the whole Church militant, and that Christ gave to him primacy of jurisdiction.”

This is a point that I have tried to make with Bryan but Brandon makes it much more effectively. Whenever I’ve tried to point out that Jason and the Callers are out of sync with the dominant contemporary Roman Catholic historiography about their communion and its novelty after Vatican II, all I’ve gotten is “you haven’t proved anything.”

So what does Bryan say in response? Surprisingly, his logic goes squishy:

The purpose of our article was not to determine whether or demonstrate that any particular person’s position is material heresy. Rather, our purpose was to evaluate the argument presented in your essay, and present an alternative paradigm in which to understand the historical data.

So rather than comment on the implication of his comment for almost the entire field of Roman Catholic history, Bryan packs up his weapons and chooses a Protestant to critique.

Meanwhile, we hear of another Protestant convert to Roman Catholicism. Why is it that conversion narratives are so common among recent Roman Catholics? Could it be a carry over of the evangelical devotional practice of giving one’s testimony? That wouldn’t be very traditional.

It was difficult to explain my decision to become Catholic to many of my friends and family, most of whom were Protestant. Some of my friends who knew me during college weren’t surprised, since they had seen the progression of my journey and could see that I was heading in the direction of Rome. Other friends and family were surprised by my decision, and couldn’t understand my reasons for it. Many people assumed that it was a matter of taste or preference — as if I chose to become Catholic for the music, the liturgy, the incense, or the hats. But it was only because I was convinced of the truth of her teachings, and for no other reason, that I decided to come fully into communion with the Catholic Church.

Whatever the explanation for the rise of Roman Catholic testimonies, this woman’s sense of having arrived at the fullness of truth sure does not square with the forms of real historical denial in which Roman Catholic apologists must engage before eating the sausage.

59 thoughts on “The Fullness of Sausage”

  1. Darryl,

    As a member of the OPC (which separated from the mainline Presbyterians in 1936, and now numbers about 30,000 persons) who knows full well its history, and purposely and self-consciously separates himself to this day from the mainline (or “dominant”) Protestant denominations and the liberal conclusions of their scholars, it is special pleading to treat positions or arguments that are “out of sync” with “dominant” Catholic historiography as somehow ipso facto problematic, as though the argument from mere human authority is a good argument, let alone binding. The ad hoc appeal to authority (bad when others do not to submit to academics, but good when you do not do so) is fallacious. The arguments have to be evaluated on their own merits; the questions cannot rightly be answered by selectively or arbitrarily counting noses.

    In the peace of Christ,

    – Bryan

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  3. Bryan, but who says in the academic mainstream that the OPC is infallible, that it is the remedy to all the ills in the world, or that it never contradicts itself? My view of the OPC is not all that different from “regular” historians who know about it.

    But your problem is that you are surrounded by Roman Catholic historians, some of whom are priests, who have a very different understanding of Roman Catholicism and Roman Catholic history from you. But do you ever tell the would-be testimonialists about the discrepancy between the Communion to which you Call and real developments in Roman Catholicism?

    I didn’t think so.

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  4. ……………as long as Bryan is arbiter. Bryan, I want an open etter on CtC of your dissent after the the October synod. I’m keeping score.

    “If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing.Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God. Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‘security,’ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists­—they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies.

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  5. Darryl,

    Bryan, but who says in the academic mainstream that the OPC is infallible, that it is the remedy to all the ills in the world, or that it never contradicts itself? My view of the OPC is not all that different from “regular” historians who know about it.

    That question, and the truth of your following statement, are fully compatible with what I said above being true.

    But your problem is that you are surrounded by Roman Catholic historians, some of whom are priests, who have a very different understanding of Roman Catholicism and Roman Catholic history from you.

    What remains to be shown is that what you are referring to as a “problem” falsifies any claim we have made.

    But do you ever tell the would-be testimonialists about the discrepancy between the Communion to which you Call and real developments in Roman Catholicism? I didn’t think so.

    Have we talked about liberalism and dissent among academics in the Church? Of course. You yourself have linked to that post, so you know the answer to your own question. But there is no “discrepancy” between the Catholic Church and “real developments in Roman Catholicism,” nor have you demonstrated that there is. Dissent from dogma is not development. Dissenters by their dissent separate themselves from the Church in that respect.

    In the peace of Christ,

    – Bryan

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  6. Octubre, Bryan. I’m waiting. Cardinal Burke won’t be their to stem the tide. Your papi is talking to you, bend the knee.

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  7. Bryan, give it a rest. You create all sorts of thresholds for what qualifies as proof or falsification. Good. It works for you. But the people you’re calling don’t know how much sausage you have to overlook to come out smelling like a rose.

    Does that mean Rome is wrong and pernicious? No. Every institution has lots of skeletons. It goes with the turf of planet earth post fall. But you don’t know what most of the Roman Catholic Church knows and accepts — that the church has skeletons. You can’t acknowledge them because they weaken your call to a church superior to all others.

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  8. Darryl, he’s convinced himself that he’s only required to acknowledge those aspects of the sausage making that contribute to the ‘reasonableness’ of the historic viability of the RCC. As long as he can do that, he’s golden. It’s a bit like drawing round RC circles on a board, if you assume an RC mosaic in the lecture hall, then it fits and he’s met the ‘reasonableness’ criteria. He has moral certitude, which is the incestual kissing cousin of noumenalism. Abracadabra. My unbelieving jesuit profs were more honest.

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  10. Darryl,,

    You create all sorts of thresholds for what qualifies as proof or falsification. Good. It works for you. But the people you’re calling don’t know how much sausage you have to overlook to come out smelling like a rose.

    That doesn’t turn special pleading into good reasoning.

    But you don’t know what most of the Roman Catholic Church knows and accepts — that the church has skeletons.

    I’m quite aware of it.

    You can’t acknowledge them because they weaken your call to a church superior to all others.

    Actually, I can and do acknowledge the problems in the Church. The question isn’t about which Church is “superior,” as if ecclesial consumerism were true. The question is where is the one Church Christ founded. And problems within that one Church do not make her to be something other than the Church Christ founded, or change *schism from* the Church into something other than *schism from* the Church.

    In the peace of Christ,

    – Bryan

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  11. I wonder who the material heretic really is and how I could find out for certain. Do I have to rely on my own interpretation of RC doctrine?

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  13. The real challenge for DGH is whether he can write a post which elicits a BC reply which makes reference to every single logical fallacy, formal and informal. That would be cool, ipso facto.

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  14. Bryan Cross
    Posted July 9, 2014 at 9:37 pm | Permalink
    Darryl,,

    You create all sorts of thresholds for what qualifies as proof or falsification. Good. It works for you. But the people you’re calling don’t know how much sausage you have to overlook to come out smelling like a rose.

    —-That doesn’t turn special pleading into good reasoning.

    But you don’t know what most of the Roman Catholic Church knows and accepts — that the church has skeletons.

    —-I’m quite aware of it.

    You can’t acknowledge them because they weaken your call to a church superior to all others.

    —-Actually, I can and do acknowledge the problems in the Church. The question isn’t about which Church is “superior,” as if ecclesial consumerism were true. The question is where is the one Church Christ founded. And problems within that one Church do not make her to be something other than the Church Christ founded, or change *schism from* the Church into something other than *schism from* the Church.

    In the peace of Christ,

    – Bryan

    B-b-b-but Edgardo Mortara!

    And Michael Sean Winters!

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  15. Brian Lee
    Posted July 9, 2014 at 10:51 pm | Permalink
    The real challenge for DGH is whether he can write a post which elicits a BC reply which makes reference to every single logical fallacy, formal and informal. That would be cool, ipso facto.

    Or write a post without any, which would be even cooler. 😉

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  16. Joel,
    I don’t know how long you been watching the ping pong match with the material fideist/fanatic, but suffice it to say the performative material heretic is whomever Bryan says it is. It’s not that he’s materially a mental midget, but merely that he’s dishonest about the suppressed premises to his argument, which materially is: If Rome is infallible because Rome says it is and I am a Romanist, I cannot err, especially when defending Rome.

    Of course, Bryan will assert that’s all just performative material hand waving on our part, but it’s not like we is setting the performative material precedent.

    As per the self evident inference, nothing you can say is incompatible with delusions of grandeur and a psychosis his argument. Because as long as you got a phd. you’ve got a specious peace that performatively surpasses all material arguments, even Bryan’s. In the long run, that’s all that counts. Materially.

    Now say your rosary, pay for the masses, light the candles and remember, if it is any consolation, that you can catch up with anything you forgot in purgatory. Woo hoo, you mean as long as we go to confession we can skate now?

    Bryan in the meantime, will continue to be out there beating his paradigm drum, looking to snare naive protestants by appealing to their private judgement to recognize the divinely revealed infallible truth that the magisterium/tradition of the Roman church is divinely infallible.

    But Bryan is not the pope infallible or divine so how do we know his private judgement/opinion he understands this any better than any of the material heretics that might possibly read it?

    Ah, little grasshopper, to ask is to answer. Submission to Bryan’s material paradigm is paramount. Swear off for all popish practical purposes reading/taking seriously anybody besides Bryan the pope and any other other material heretics and all will be bliss.

    IOW come home to mama and papa immediately. Separated brethren are no longer materially anathema, Trent is performatively immaterial irrelevant and liberals are not material heretics. What’s not to like?

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  17. The arguments have to be evaluated on their own merits; the questions cannot rightly be answered by selectively or arbitrarily counting noses.

    Really/no kidding?

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    The question is where is the one Church Christ founded.

    According to Scripture, reason and history?

    Sorry to badger you on it, Bryan, but since you have yet to give us a reasonable summary of the reformed doctrine of Scripture – that you no longer agree with it is immaterial – why do you keep assuming that we must think you competent to the question of correctly, never mind authoritatively, expounding Roman dogma?

    Maybe it’s because if Scripture doesn’t equip us to every good work, even determining where Christ’s church is, choosing between you and the Mormons is Hobson’s choice, even for material heretics.

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  19. Necessity is the mother of invention and so sometimes new truths are created to meet current need. We do need to embrace religious freedom for nonChristians but that doesn’t mean that we need to create new truths to justify it. Such would eventually have drastic consequences.

    At the same time, Protestants, especially us reformed ones put more than a healthy amount of respect into tradition. All one needs to do to prove this point, other than to point to history, is to ask a variation of a Martin Luther King statement, could people like Luther, Calvin, and the Westminster Divines learn from people like Bonhoeffer, King, and Gandhi? King’s statement on which we are creating the variation is this:

    the western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach and nothing to learn is unjust (approximate quote)

    So our challenge in determining whether we have a similar enough problem with tradition that the Roman Church has is whether we acknowledge Luther, Calvin, and the Westminster Divines have something to learn and could be corrected by modern people. For too many times have I seen Reformed people exalt the past over the present as if to say they have everything to teach. And just forsaking the past because it isn’t up to date, it is a sign of idolatry to exalt the past over the present.

    Finally, we have to admit our own problems with history. Luther’s rants against the Jews, Calvin’s deadly persecution of heretics and witches, the Puritans persecution of Quakers, and the Puritans involvement with the ethnic cleansing of America’s indigenous people. And how many Reformed people were involved in slavery? And in the present day, how many Reformed people have failed to preach against American Imperialism as well as today’s neoliberal form of Capitalism?

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  20. Bryan, just to be clear:

    The Koran teaches that anyone who worships Jesus deserves the fires of hell:

    Indeed they are disbelievers who say, ‘Surely, Allah is none but the Messiah, son of Mary,’ whereas the Messiah himself said, ‘O children of Israel, worship Allah Who is my Lord and your Lord.’ Surely, whoso associates partners with Allah, him has Allah forbidden Heaven, and the Fire will be his resort. And the wrongdoers shall have no helpers.

    They are surely disbelievers who say, ‘Allah is the third of three;’ there is no God but the One God. And if they do not desist from what they say, a grievous punishment shall surely befall those of them that disbelieve.

    Will they not then turn to Allah and beg His forgiveness, while Allah is Most Forgiving, Merciful?

    The Messiah, son of Mary, was only a Messenger; surely, Messengers like unto him had indeed passed away before him. And his mother was a truthful woman. They both used to eat food. See how We explain the Signs for their good, and see how they are turned away.

    Say, ‘Will you worship beside Allah that which has no power to do you harm or good?’ And it is Allah Who is All-Hearing, All-Knowing. — Quran 5.73-77

    So you are comfortable with saying that there are some believing Muslims, affirming the above, who will die as believing Muslims and enter Purgatory?

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  21. Paradigms and stuff aside, Bryan — how would you react if asked to teach on this section of the new catechism to a small group in your parish?

    The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”

    Go ahead, impress us.

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  22. I think it’s humorous that we bother to have discussions with a guy who doesn’t have to reconcile with the truthfulness of his faith claims, just that they are ‘reasonable’. As in the the legal fiction of a ‘reasonable man’. IOW, if there is a WAY to interpret the data that is both coherent and ‘reasonable’ that agrees with or is conducive to a prior faith claim(noumenal) than that coherent paradigmatic opportunity allows him(Bryan) to maintain moral certitude and CHOOSE that interpretive path. It’s better than Klonopin.

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  24. Sean, Bryan doesn’t talk to you. He wants no part of a cradle Catholic badass who got a a great education, got right, and knows where the bodies are buried.

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  27. The question isn’t about which Church is “superior,” as if ecclesial consumerism were true. The question is where is the one Church Christ founded. And problems within that one Church do not make her to be something other than the Church Christ founded, or change *schism from* the Church into something other than *schism from* the Church.

    Right. Which makes some wonder why all the push back on the thumbnail characterization of sola ecclesia. This is the prevailing conversion narrative (and not a few cradle narratives)–the RCC is the church that Christ founded, warts and all.

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  31. @Jeff —

    The much more serious problem for them in those verses you clipped is the Christianity they describe. The trinity describes is the Father (Allah), Mother (Mary) and Son (Jesus) not the Father, Son and Holy Spirit of Catholic trinitarianism. Which means the author(s) of the Qu’ran are mostly familiar with Collyridian Christianity not Catholic Christianity. It is hard to find better counter evidence to there only having been one normative church in Christian history that when the Qu’ran authors write to criticize Christianity it ain’t Catholicism that they are talking about.

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  32. @TVD

    The question is where is the one Church Christ founded.

    In heaven like the bible says. But if you want to ask what were the earliest Christian churches then that becomes a question of history which we know your sect doesn’t win. It becomes a question like “which car company existing today is the original”. And we know the answer is none of them. Car companies like de Rivaz (ceased production in 1813 with a semi-functional model) are far earlier than any of the existent companies. But anyone look at the evolution of car companies of the early 20th century clearly understood the 19th century companies existed.

    I don’t know why you all keep trying to peddle this nonsense about being the first church. You simply couldn’t have been anymore, we know too much about the ancient world for your origin story to be true.

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  33. CD-Host,
    Is there evidence that Collyridianism was still around at the time of Muhammad? Or is it likely that Muhammad saw depictions of Mary being venerated and assumed that Mary was being worshipped because she was considered God?

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  34. Why does Bryan trust the Magisterium on theology but not the Magisterium approved-and-endorsed historians who would say his views of the early church are laughable? Sounds like he’s picking and choosing what to believe.

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  35. CD-Host
    Posted July 10, 2014 at 2:45 pm | Permalink
    @TVD

    The question is where is the one Church Christ founded.

    —In heaven like the bible says. But if you want to ask what were the earliest Christian churches then that becomes a question of history which we know your sect doesn’t win. It becomes a question like “which car company existing today is the original”. And we know the answer is none of them. Car companies like de Rivaz (ceased production in 1813 with a semi-functional model) are far earlier than any of the existent companies. But anyone look at the evolution of car companies of the early 20th century clearly understood the 19th century companies existed.

    I don’t know why you all keep trying to peddle this nonsense about being the first church. You simply couldn’t have been anymore, we know too much about the ancient world for your origin story to be true.

    I think this was addressed to Bryan Cross.

    However, it appears your contention is that the church Christ founded is nowhere here on earth. Which presents its own set of complications, and indeed perhaps presents its own theology.

    For one thing, I would think churches are unnecessary in heaven.

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  36. Interestingly enough Shea wrote that post nearly a decade ago. Since then Dreher has written extensively about EO, RC, clericalism, the ongoing cover ups of abuse (is it even fair to call it a scandal any longer), his conversion, etc… The series of posts on Dante have been particularly revealing writing. It seem’s that Shea’s predictions don’t hold up so well. I wonder what he would say now?

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  37. I think a lot of self-conscious converts that come our way really need the doctrine of infallibility. It’s first of all the power of declaring what is indisputable and secondly it prevents their tottering faith from crashing to ground. It’s one of things that make them objectionable. Theirs is a conversion to the solace of Red Tape, not a conversion born of suffering to know what is true.

    The pederasty scandal is probably what did his (Dreher) RCism in. But Rod isn’t by nature an “intellectual power pimp” so he was able to abandon infallibility with a clear personal and historical conscience. Enter Orthodoxy, warts and all. His conversion was born of suffering and there is humility and joy in it.

    While I read Dreher only sporadically his move to Orthodoxy has made him truer to Christ and a better man. Good fruit, it seems to me.

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  39. @Joel —

    Sure John of Damascus (676 –749 CE) wrote about them as contemporary to his life. So they even survived for a generation or two after the rise of Islam. Though I’d agree they were dying out by that point. Same as Judaism still exists today but is much less consequential than Christianity. There are a few scattered references well after John of Damascus that but given their geographically and temporally scattered nature I’d assume it was some sort of neo-Collyridianism rising from women spontaneously rather than the real thing (similar to what is happening in the Episcopal church now with a neo-Collyridian sect rising up).

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  40. @Tom van Dyke

    However, it appears your contention is that the church Christ founded is nowhere here on earth. Which presents its own set of complications, and indeed perhaps presents its own theology.

    That position that there was no earthly church founded by Jesus, except possibly Jerusalem and that God destroyed the Jerusalem church in part lest it become an idol in his show of support for local churches. This is the mainstream viewpoint among Baptists and Pentecostals which combined are very close to a majority of all Christians and a huge majority of all Protestants. I say plenty of controversial stuff, but that view is boring mainstream.

    If it is correct in any sense to call the aggregate of Baptist churches A church, where and what is the general organization? A number of machines placed in contact side by side do not become one vast machine: so the array of thousands and thousands of Baptist churches do not in fact or mental conception constitute one general church. They still remain what they were before,the churches of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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  41. sdb, does this help?

    You really should read the whole thing. Dougherty points out that Church history is full of popes going off the rails, and the faithful rebuking them. The Divine Comedy is filled with Dante reading the riot act to the popes of his time, accusing them of prostituting the Church for the sake of political power. Dante excoriated the popes to defend Holy Church — but he also defended the papacy quite strongly. In the Commedia, the great villain of villains is Boniface VIII, but Dante condemns the agents of the French monarchy for slapping Boniface around physically. As corrupt as Boniface was, Dante believed he was the Vicar of Christ, and deserved respect because of his office. But it is precisely that respect for the office of the papacy, and the sanctity of the Church and its teaching, that fueled Dante’s condemnation. (In Paradiso, he also lays into the corrupt Franciscans and Dominicans).

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  42. @dgh Yeah, that’s the type of comment coming from Dreher that suggests Shea’s prediction does’t hold up so well. I wonder what Shea would say now about Dreher’s conversion?

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  43. Darryl

    Bryan, But Jesus never went to Rome. Jerusalem Catholicism? Now you’re talking.

    Jesus did not have to go to a place in order for Peter to go there, and establish there the seat in which the keys he received from Christ are handed down. Nothing in Scripture or Tradition requires that Jesus must go to a place in order for that place to become the Seat of the New Moses in the New Covenant.

    In the peace of Christ,

    – Bryan

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  44. Bryan, but Peter went lots of places, including Antioch. He was there first.

    I get it. The elite Roman families enjoyed having a bishop to call universal.

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  45. Not skeletons, but Popes.

    To Edgardo Mortara and Michael Sean Winters you would have to add the acclaimed as orthodox Ratzinger, who declared Vatican II documents to be a COUNTER SYLLABUS even as he tried to insist their was continuity. Counter Syllabus… Continuity… Repeat until you are too tired to try too understand.

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  46. Nothing in Scripture or Tradition requires that Jesus must go to a place in order for that place to become the Seat of the New Moses in the New Covenant.

    One, nothing in Scripture requires that Tradition be included in, two, evaluating where Jesus went in order to for that place to become the Seat of the New Moses in the New Covenant.

    One, because Scripture equips us unto every good work 2 Tim. 3:17
    Two, because Tradition is mistaken in thinking that we are not under grace, but under the law for justification; that our works contribute to our salvation; that Jesus is the new Moses just as John was Elijah or Sinai is the new Jerusalem from above.

    But category errors abound when literalism, unbelief and disobedience rule.
    Still if Romanism is the new Judaism, it all works. Pharisees come in all ethnic flavors, if not that the natural man is naturally an advocate for works righteousness.
    Self righteousness appeals to Bryan’s ground of being. Bingo.

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  47. JM
    Posted July 12, 2014 at 5:34 pm | Permalink
    Not skeletons, but Popes.

    To Edgardo Mortara and Michael Sean Winters you would have to add the acclaimed as orthodox Ratzinger, who declared Vatican II documents to be a COUNTER SYLLABUS even as he tried to insist their was continuity. Counter Syllabus… Continuity… Repeat until you are too tired to try too understand.

    It seems to be a response to me, but this one’s all yours, Darryl. Might be some yummy fodder for your polemics. Might even get a twofer here–your “radical” Two Kingdoms theology plus your routine anti-papism catching the Magisterium in some sort of contradiction.

    Thank me very much. 😉

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  48. Darryl,

    Bryan, but Peter went lots of places, including Antioch. He was there first.

    I agree. But Peter did not have to stay in only in one place in order for the episcopal seat in that place to be the Seat of the New Moses in the New Covenant.

    In the peace of Christ,

    – Bryan

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  50. Bryan, but Peter didn’t make Rome the Seat of the New Moses — whatever that is. In fact, since Jesus ascended to heaven, shouldn’t our thoughts be with him, not with some earthly city? How could you go so carnal so quickly?

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  51. cw, not sure this is what Bryan had in mind:

    We now move ahead to the late 20th century. The Church that Christ went on to found, just weeks after the above instruction was given, has weathered nearly two millennia of trials and persecutions. Its Headquarters has gradually migrated from the Holy Land through Europe and the British Isles to the United States, by the late 1960s using the corporate name the Worldwide Church of God (WCG).

    In the wake of the death of Herbert W. Armstrong, apostasy sets in—spearheaded by his successors—and God’s people are scattered in many directions. Thousands leave WCG to join various “splinter” groups, with each offering a unique theology to justify its existence.

    During this process, a set of doctrines is born that maintains God’s people should not—in fact, cannot and must not!—leave the WCG, since, as it is portrayed, “God’s government is there.”
    One of the key doctrines set forth to support this idea takes Christ’s statement—“the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat”—and asserts that Mr. Armstrong’s successor and his accomplices (who by this time had rejected the true God, His law and nearly all of His doctrines) now “sit in Moses’ seat.”

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  52. How much easier it must be to focus on a flesh-and-blood man in a funny costume and a magic ceremony that turns ordinary wine and bread-like substance into real flesh and blood. Even if you’re a Romanist and disagree with much of the church’s teaching how much easier to disagree with a man than a catechism, council, or (more unlikely) the bible.

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  53. Darryl,

    In fact, since Jesus ascended to heaven, shouldn’t our thoughts be with him, not with some earthly city?

    That’s closer to the Montantist and Docetist positions than to the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles. The truth of Jesus’s “The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me” (Luke 10:16) did not expire at the Ascension. We don’t have to choose between Jesus and the Church, as your statement implies. On the contrary, we come to Christ through the Church, just as we come to the Father through the incarnate Son.

    In the peace of Christ,

    – Bryan

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  55. Darryl,

    Bryan, but not even Roman Catholics in Florence and Milan were as absorbed with Rome as you are.

    Even if that were true, it is fully compatible with the truth of what I said in my previous comment. Seven years ago you wrote, “the church’s decisions are to [be] received with reverence and submission not only if they agree with the Word, but as being an ordinance of God.” There, fully aware of the Ascension, you didn’t think listening to the Church meant not having your thoughts on the ascended Jesus.

    In the peace of Christ,

    – Bryan

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  56. Bryan, you know it’s ironic that you appeal to Jesus on the Seat of Moses for papal supremacy. The reason is the way that Matt 23 goes on to describe the Jewish hierarchy in terms that well describe the Renaissance popes:

    “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
    “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and pall uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
    “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and ascribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

    If I were you, I wouldn’t go there, peace of Christ or no.

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  57. Darryl,

    The reason is the way that Matt 23 goes on to describe the Jewish hierarchy in terms that well describe the Renaissance popes

    I don’t disagree. But again, that is fully compatible with the truth of everything I said above. Jesus wasn’t a Donatist, as Mt. 23:2-3 make clear.

    In the peace of Christ,

    – Bryan

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  58. In the FWIW/Exercise In Futility Dept.

    “In fact, since Jesus ascended to heaven, shouldn’t our thoughts be with him, not with some earthly city?”

    That’s closer to the Montantist and Docetist positions than to the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles.

    IOW so much then, for the Spirit of Christ speaking in Paul, who said:

    If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Col. 3:1-4

    The handwaving gig must be sweet. Where does one sign up? Or is it only for those who performatively understand sign language? The drama of the mass? Inquiring material heretics want to know.

    The truth of Jesus’s “The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me” (Luke 10:16) did not expire at the Ascension.

    Well yeah, nobody denies that Christ’s words to his disciples mean what they plainly appear to mean, but rather that reasonable interlocutors balk at his persistent interjection and performative shoehorning of the pope/Roman bishop/magisterium into the “you”, which clearly refers to the apostles.

    If Christ’s argument is:

    All those who listen to the apostles, listen to Christ.
    All those who reject the apostles, reject Christ, much more the Father who sent him.

    Bryan’s permutation essentially will be, as we shall see below:

    So too, all who listen to the Roman bishop, listen to Christ; much more those who reject the Roman bishop reject Christ.

    But the Roman bishop is not an apostle, being neither hand picked by Christ, nor an eyewitness to his life, death and resurrection. Can we say undistributed middle term? Of course, we can little grasshoppers.

    So then those who listen to little papa, listen to exactly whom, the so called apostolic charisma notwithstanding, if – for those who are listening – Satan can come disguised as an angel of light as the apostle Paul tells us in 2 Cor. 11:14?

    But it gets worse. The very same apostles Christ referred to, in Bryan’s quote from the gospel of Luke, went on to write the gospels and the epistles. As per again, Christ’s promise later in another gospel, John 14:26 and 16:13.

    So the argument arguably becomes:

    All those who listen to the apostolic gospels and epistles, listen to Christ.
    And all those who reject the apostolic gospels and epistles, reject not only Christ, but the Father who sent him.

    But Bryan’s argument would still fail, because Christ’s argument is not that all who listen to the Roman bishop in the gospel and epistles, listen to Christ.

    Nevertheless, Bryan then goes on to essentially hopscotch Scripture, even as he quotes it to start with, in the rush to put the (Roman) church in its place.

    We don’t have to choose between Jesus and the Church, as your statement implies.

    That the head, which is in heaven is not the visible body, which is on earth and one can be visibly joined to the body without being spiritually joined to the head does not seem to have occurred to our spiritual physician, who presumes what he needs to prove ala Petros Liehard: That baptism is baptism, despite not all Israel being Israel.

    On the contrary, we come to Christ through the Church, just as we come to the Father through the incarnate Son.

    IOW the Roman version of Romans 10:17 is “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of the pope.” Because the pope is vicar of Christ incarnate on earth Matt. 16:19 as well as Satan 16:23

    But in all the rush, Bryan forgets to mention that, never mind the church, we don’t have to choose between Jesus, the Word of God become flesh and the Scripture, the Word of God written as he implies. After all, he did quote Scripture before he tweaked the kaleidoscope and zoomed in on the church, which he wants to deify exalt above Scripture, even as he quotes from Scripture.

    But “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God” which the church is to preach to all men. Not preside over and pontificate about under the pretense that she is equal to, if not in fact above it. Her authority is ministerial, not magisterial; servant not master.

    Which is one of the cardinal sins of the Roman church, however much Bryan’s apologies exemplify it, even as he ignores it, when he‘s not explicitly denying it.
    But that doesn’t happen too often.
    Wouldn’t do to call attention to the obvious, implicit ignorance faith being what it is in the Roman pedagogical hierarchy, top dog.

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  59. Bryan Cross
    Posted July 15, 2014 at 5:13 pm | Permalink

    Darryl,

    The reason is the way that Matt 23 goes on to describe the Jewish hierarchy in terms that well describe the Renaissance popes

    I don’t disagree. But again, that is fully compatible with the truth of everything I said above. Jesus wasn’t a Donatist, as Mt. 23:2-3 make clear.

    But the salient distinction again, is that Jesus wasn’t a Romanist either. Which is incompatible with the thrust of everything you have ever said as an advocate of the Vatican.
    Choose you this day.

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