Tag: church authority

Charism vs. Expertise, Hierarchy vs. Democracy

Published on by D. G. Hart1 Comment

When the Second Vatican Council opened the Roman Catholic Church to the modern world, it may have bitten off more than it could chew. Not only would the late 1960s make the modern world look not so great (radical terrorists and sexual liberation) and so once again raise questions about the bishops’ discernment. But the modern world is one that is at odds with deferring to elites because of the latter’s authority, and with receiving the teaching of bishops simply by virtue of their office. When the church teaches something that collides with the views of a majority in the church or with the expertise of lay Roman Catholics, can church members and clergy simply expect conformity to church beliefs because the laity is supposed to pay, pray, and obey? In a pre-Vatican II world (more like a pre-1789) that might have been plausible. Rome’s episcopal and Vatican structures are more medieval than modern. But now that the church wants to come along side the modern world, that means accepting modern ideas like majority rule and authority based not on office but knowledge, learning, and study.

One of Bryan and the Jason’s contributors does not like what he sees in the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S.:

American Catholicism is certainly unique. A majority of American Catholics buck the global Catholic trend on capital punishment in their support the death penalty, according to the Washington Post. Yet it would be good for us to remember that we are but one, relatively small part of a global body of Catholics — about 6 percent.

We may be wealthier than Catholics in other parts of the world. We may even be better-educated than the average Catholic worldwide. But that doesn’t make us necessarily better Catholics, nor does it mean we have some outsized claim on commenting on church decisions. Indeed, a truer “conservative Catholicism” would be one that exemplifies humility and self-restraint, rather than self-importance and bluster.

Commentators in the coming weeks and months will continue to debate whether the pronouncement is a “legitimate development,” as one article termed it, or a “reversal,” as other commentators are labeling it. I’m uninterested in raising that debate here (although two of my favorite commentaries, demonstrating a more nuanced, reflective, and unemotive analyses of the decision, can be found here and here). Far more important, I offer, is the manner in which Catholics debate and analyze the Holy Father and the remainder of his pontificate.

One solution to the problem would be for popes and bishops to speak less and narrow their teaching to those matters related to the Creed. But since bishops continue to think they can teach about a whole range of issues and policies (thus substituting the temporality of the church for its spirituality), the church hierarchy will continue to run up against lay church members who may actually know more about banking or climate change or capital punishment than the pope.

And yet, the converts choose to double-down on papal audacity, when? When other church members have lost confidence in the bishops on matters of holiness and church discipline:

We are also angry. We are angry over the “credible and substantiated” report of Archbishop McCarrick’s abuse of a minor. We are angry over the numerous allegations of his abuse of seminarians and young priests. We are angry that “everybody knew” about these crimes, that so few people did anything about them, and that those who spoke out were ignored.

In addition, we have heard reports of networks of sexually active priests who promote each other and threaten those who do not join in their activities; of young priests and seminarians having their vocations endangered because they refused to have sex with their superiors or spoke out about sexual impropriety; and of drug-fueled orgies in Vatican apartments.

As Catholics, we believe that the Church’s teaching on human nature and sexuality is life-giving and leads to holiness. We believe that just as there is no room for adultery in marriages, so there is no room for adultery against the Bride of Christ. We need bishops to make clear that any act of sexual abuse or clerical unchastity degrades the priesthood and gravely harms the Church.

Wouldn’t Pope Francis be better off trying to remedy another sex scandal than to “develop” church teaching in a way that makes most nineteenth-century popes guilty of mortal sin (because they ran a state that executed criminals)?

Have You Guys Heard of Assemblies?

Published on by D. G. Hart1,415 Comments

Maybe not among the Eastern Orthodox bishops or the Anglican ones, but it’s not as if Protestants don’t regularly meet to find a consensus on what the Bible means. Even so, Alan Jacobs and Rod Dreher repeat the Roman Catholic charge that you need tradition to augment Scripture (when in fact tradition comes all balled up in the magisterium — read bishops).

Jacobs worries:

The elevation of method to magisterial principle was supposed to make it possible for scholars to discern, and then agree on, the meaning of biblical texts. Instead it merely uprooted them from Christian tradition and Christian practice — as Michael Legaspi has shown in a brilliant book — and left many of them unequipped to understand the literary character of biblical texts, while doing nothing to promote genuine agreement on interpretation. In fact, the transferring of the guild of interpreters from the Church to the University, given the University’s insistence on novelty in scholarship, ensured that no interpretative consensus would be forthcoming.

But if Christians are supposed to take their cues less from the university and more from churches, the latter still exist and provide interpretive consensuses. Maybe the mainstream media and scholars who identify with the academic guild are not impressed by church synods and councils (though they sure were attentive to the Ordinary Synod of Rome; maybe you need special get ups to gain journalists and scholars’ attention, or you need to meet in buildings suffused with Renaissance art — so much for poor church for the poor). But it’s not as if those assemblies even among Protestants have gone away. Given a recent reminder about the illusion of respectability, maybe the work that existing churches still do could receive more credit.

Rod makes Jacobs’ point with flair:

what Protestant churches and organizations are really doing in these debates are trying to find out if its membership wants to change, and if so, how much change will it accept. The truth is, says Beck, is that Protestantism is a “hermeneutical democracy,” in which the individual consciences of believers determine what is true and what is false. This, he says, is the “genius of the tradition,” and having to do all this “relational work” is a key part of what it means to be Protestant. The Bible doesn’t speak for itself; it has to be interpreted, and for Protestants, that means that everybody gets a vote.

“Own your Protestantism,” he says. “The ultimate authority in Protestantism isn’t the Bible, it’s the individual conscience.”

Well, it’s not as if hermeneutical democracy doesn’t afflict churches that have episcopal authoritative structures (where exegeting the Bible is not as important as reading the times’ signs). All churches, Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox are in the same boat of having members who regularly pick and choose, cafeteria style, what they believe and that they don’t. Having tradition, bishops, or councils doesn’t fix any of this. What would fix this is having magistrates who enforce religion and where civil penalties are bound up with religious teaching and practice. But wouldn’t that be Islamic?

At least give Protestants credit for trying to discern what God revealed through the prophets and apostles. Adding tradition to Scripture has generally meant the dog of tradition wagging the tail of the Bible.

There Goes Peer Review

Published on by D. G. Hart23 Comments

Peter Leithart warns about the danger of Christians taking their complaints before the court of bloggers:

Paul urges that it is better to be defrauded and wronged than to take a brother to court: “It is already a defeat for you, that you have lawsuits with one another” (v. 7). Paul urged the Corinthians to follow Jesus by suffering shame, rather than seeking vindication before unbelievers.

Many Christians today are resolved not to take a brother to a civil court, but try to solve disputes through arbitration or through church-courts. That is highly commendable.

Yet many Christians are perfectly content to take disputes with their brothers to the web, presenting them before the court of public opinion, before unbelievers.

What should we say about that? Does that come under the same Pauline strictures? The web, after all, is not only filled with unbelievers but is a notorious free-for-all. Civil courts have rules of evidence and mechanisms to confirm or refute allegations. The web has none of these controls, and taking a case to the web is like taking it to a court where everyone is judge, jury, and executioner. People who have no right to have an opinion get to express an opinion. Is that a good place for Christians to be wrangling with each other?

Is there a difference between public theological debate and public airing of grievances and complaints against a church or a pastor? Am I contradicting my own principle by blogging about this?

I understand the temptation to take it to the Court of Google. Resolving disputes through church channels is laborious, slow, unsatisfying. Church boards and courts make mistakes, and, as in civil courts, decisions often leave all parties frustrated and unhappy about the outcome. Many churches in the United States are nondenominational churches that don’t present any obvious way of resolving conflicts that are unresolved in a local church.

I get the point. If we lived in a world of Caesaro-papism, maybe all aspects of life would be overseen by the emperor/bishop.

But not taking every dispute to the church also pertains to a whole host of modern conveniences. Do we not solicit a second opinion about a surgery? Do church courts decide? Do scholars not seek publication in journals reviewed by experts in the field?

And why can’t the Internet just be a place to have a conversation? Do we really need to check with session or consistory about what the family might discuss over dinner tonight? Peter’s point seems a tad pietistic, which is surprising since I suspect he has frequently found himself, independent of church oversight, in a bar gassing on with friends about various foes.

Is This Constitutional?

Published on by D. G. Hart11 Comments

The similarities between neo-Calvinist and Roman Catholic transformers continue to be remarkable (at least to all about me). Adding to the remarkableness is that the inspiration for cleaning up public life or for motivating Christians to become involved can go in either politically conservative or liberal directions. What is more, the ideas don’t need to be tied directly to confessional theology — as in matters that rise to the level of dogma.

Consider two recent examples from the Roman Catholic world. First an appeal on the left to a version of the Social Gospel that goes cosmic:

“As Catholics, we must be continue to be involved the issues of world hunger, human rights, peace building and justice promotion,” Wenski said. “This social ministry is not opposed to the ultimate spiritual and transcendent destiny of the human person. It presupposes this destiny, and is ultimately oriented toward that end.”

“This Earth is our only highway to heaven,” he said. “And we have to maintain it. As Catholics we are concerned about ecology, both natural ecology but also human ecology. In other words, we have to make sure that to the best of our abilities this highway of life is cleared of the obstacles that sin, both personal and structural, has placed in the path of those traveling on it.”

Remarking on biblical figure Job, who’s friends “blamed him for his miseries,” Wenski said that, “today, in a world of increasing inequality, as Catholics we must struggle against what Pope Francis has termed ‘the globalization of indifference,’ and we must struggle against that tendency within American society, which we see especially today in the debate over immigration reform, to blame the victim!”

Then a call (not that one) for Christian statesmen to clean up the U.S.A.:

There are currently twenty-six Catholics in the Senate, although many are Catholics in name only. The House of Representatives lists 142 members who claim to be Catholic – the greatest number in our history, and at a crucial period of moral peril. But where is their witness to natural law, religious freedom, and enduring moral truths?

Happily, several (faithful) Catholics are considering a run for the presidency. We should hope that would include both parties. What a wonderful moment it would be if our once-great country were to produce a number of great Catholic statesmen ready and able to confront the great crises, moral and civilizational, threatening our nation (and the world) today.

This post comes with a citation of the Roman Catholic Church’s catechism about the work of God’s people (which I hardly regard as dogma):

898 By reason of their special vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will. . . .It pertains to them in a special way so to illuminate and order all temporal things with which they are closely associated that these may always be affected and grow according to Christ and may be to the glory of the Creator and Redeemer.

899 The initiative of lay Christians is necessary especially when the matter involves discovering or inventing the means for permeating social, political, and economic realities with the demands of Christian doctrine and life. This initiative is a normal element of the life of the Church: Lay believers are in the front line of Church life; for them the Church is the animating principle of human society.

Imagine if we heard imams in mosques telling Muslims the Islamic equivalent of these bromides. Maybe then the notion of secular society and the separation of church and state (not to mention the spirituality of the church) look a whole lot more appealing. But when Christians violate American habits of governance for Christ’s sake, it’s not only okay but great pretty good.

Meanwhile, which of the saints, whether overseers of the overseen, are worried about the teachers at church institutions that might be leading the people and the politicians astray (think Richard McBrien):

Although Fr. McBrien was often called fearless and broad-minded, he was frequently hypersensitive to criticisms of his own views. After he defended Mario Cuomo against possible ex-communication, for instance, McBrien complained about the letters he received, calling them “mean and vindictive.” Notably, though, he never used such language against politicians who took the lives of unborn children, much less theologians who provided cover for them.

The one thing most frequently said about Fr. McBrien—which he himself affirmed—was the least convincing: that he “never held back.”

In fact, he did hold back—on everything from the value of clerical celibacy, to the dangers of moral relativism, to the necessity of the Catechism, to courageous pro-life witness. He had the intelligence and gifts to take action, guided by the wisdom of the Church, but consistently let those opportunities escape him.

But why oh why do American Christians worry more about Washington, D.C. or debates at the United Nations Security Council than about faculty or pastors and priests within their own communion? Could it have anything to do with failing to heed the apostle Paul’s dualism, that distinction he makes in 2 Cor 4 between the seen and unseen things?

Does Bryan Need to Talk to John and Francisco?

Published on by D. G. Hart31 Comments

The way the Callers discuss infallibility you’d almost think that apostasy for the visible Roman Catholic Church is impossible. If truth is what the infallible magisterium determines, if a system of truth does not stand over the magisterium to which they need to conform, if Christian truth depends on the determinations of popes and councils of bishops, how could the Roman church ever be wrong?

But another strain of conservative Roman Catholicism doesn’t construe the truth the way Bryan does. John Zmirak, in fact, sounded very different from Bryan, even to the point of echoing Luther:

These men who are fracking the Church to produce the current “earthquake of mercy” are hungry for recognition and legitimacy. They want to be seen as leaders — which is why they dash out in front of every crowd, wherever it’s headed. But legitimacy is precisely what the bishops and even the pope will sacrifice if the Synod ends up approving the radical proposals that are before it.

If the pope permits divorced couples who now live in extramarital relationships to receive Holy Communion without repenting and promising celibacy, he will be sanctioning one of two things: adultery or polygamy. Marriage is, by Christ’s command, indissoluble. That was taught infallibly by the Council of Trent. If the pope denies that doctrine, if he re-shapes one of the seven sacraments so radically, he will be proving something that the Orthodox have been saying since 1870: That he is not infallible on matters of faith and morals.

That might not sound like such an enormous sacrifice; the Church got along quite well without that doctrine right up until Vatican I. But by flouting the Council of Trent, and proving that Vatican I was in fact mistaken, the pope would be doing much more. He would be demonstrating that such Councils themselves lacked divine authority — that they were not like Nicaea or Chalcedon, the early Councils that built up Christian doctrine. Instead Councils such as the Lateran, Trent, and Vaticans I and II, would be merely local Western synods, exactly as the Orthodox have been insisting since 1054. In other words, the pope would be proving that Roman Catholic assertions of papal authority are grossly exaggerated, and that the Eastern Orthodox have the better claim as the heirs of the twelve apostles.

There’s an irony here, since the Orthodox have permitted the quasi-polygamous “Kasper option” for more than 1,000 years. But the Orthodox make no pretense of wielding infallible authority. They accept the early Councils of the Church (which took place well before 1054) and argue among themselves over how to apply them. They could be wrong.

And on marriage, the Orthodox are wrong. But Rome has no such wiggle room. The claims of the papacy are brave, expansive — and empirically falsifiable. If Rome adopts the Orthodox practice of marriage, that will falsify them. The mouse will have died in the maze.

If this happens, it would not prove that Luther or Calvin were right. Instead it would show that papal claims are false, that God has not left the Church with a central authority for the interpretation of doctrine, and that the Orthodox model is the only viable choice for sacramental Christians.

In point of fact, such an outcome would prove Luther and Calvin correct because they made Christ and his word, not the bishops of the church, the standard for proclamation and ministry. The Protestant outlook on biblical authority winds up being so commonsensical.

Francisco Jose Soler Gil piles on with a reminder that popes can be “calamitous”:

When can we say that a Pope is calamitous? Of course, it is not enough for it that the Pontiff support false opinions on this or that issue. Because a Pope, as any other man, will necessarily ignore many matters, and have erroneous convictions on many others. And therefore it could happen that a Pope who is an aficionado on stamp or coin collecting could make grave mistakes regarding the value or date or certain stamps or coins. When rendering his opinion on matters that are not of his competence, a Pope has greater possibilities of erring than of being right. Exactly like you and me, dear reader. Therefore, if a Pope showed some inclination on making public his opinions on the art of pigeon-breeding, ecology, economy, or astronomy, the Catholic expert on such matters would do well in enduring patiently the outlandish blurbs of the Roman pontiff on matters that, naturally, are alien to his Cathedra. The expert will naturally lament the eventual errors, and more generally the lack of prudence that some declarations make evident. But an imprudent and loquacious Pope is not for this reason alone a calamitous Pope.

On the other hand, [a Pope] is, or can thus be, when he, by word and deed, causes damages to the treasure of the faith of the Church, temporarily obscuring aspects of the image of God and of the image of Man that the Church has the duty to defend, transmit, and deepen.

But can there be such a case as this?… Well, in fact it has happened already several times in the history of the Church. When Pope Liberius (4th cent.) – the first non-canonized Pope – gave in to strong Arian pressures, he accepted an ambiguous position regarding this heresy, leaving in the lurch the defenders of the Trinitarian dogma, such as Saint Athanasius; when Pope Anastasius II (5th cent.) flirted with the defenders of the Acacian schism; when Pope John XXII (14th cent.) taught that the vision of the God by the just does not occur before the Last Judgment; when the Popes of the period known as “Great Western Schism” (14th-15th cent.) excommunicated each other; when Pope Leo X (16th cent.) not only intended to pay for his luxuries with the selling of indulgences, but also to theoretically defend his power to do so, etc, etc, a part of the treasure of the faith remained obscured for a more or less lengthy period due to their actions and omissions, therefore creating moments of huge internal tension within the Church. The Popes responsible for these must be properly called “calamitous”.

One thing that is striking about Gil’s advice is how much it sounds like Machen’s counsel to conservative Presbyterians during the 1930s:

(7) Do not follow the instructions of the Pope in that which deviates from the treasure of the Church.

If a Pope would teach doctrines or would try to impose practices that do not correspond to the perennial teaching of the Church, summarized in the catechism, he cannot be supported nor obeyed in his intent. This means, for example, that priests and bishops are under the obligation to insist on traditional doctrine and practice, rooted in the deposit of the faith, even at the cost of exposing themselves to being punished. The lay faithful must likewise insist on teaching traditional doctrine and practices in their area of influence. Under no circumstances, not even out of blind obedience or fear of reprisals, is it acceptable to contribute to the spreading of heterodoxy or heteropraxis.

(8) Do not financially support collaborationist dioceses.

If a Pope would teach doctrines, or would impose practices, that do not correspond to the perennial teaching of the Church, summarized in the catechism, diocesan Pastors should serve as a wall of contention. But history shows that bishops do not always react with sufficient energy when faced with these dangers. Even worse, they at times endorse, for whichever reasons, the efforts of the calamitous pontiff. The lay faithful who lives in a diocese ruled by such a Pastor must therefore remove his financial support to his local church while the inappropriate situation persists. Obviously, this does not apply to aids that are directly destined to charitable ends, but it does apply to all the rest. This also applies to any kind of collaboration with the diocese, whether it be for example some kind of volunteer work or institutional position.

Of course, Bryan could be right and John and Francisco wrong. But he sure seems to be outnumbered.

I Wonder as Jason Wonders

Published on by D. G. Hart153 Comments

That’s one way of asking it:

As I continued wrestling through the issues of church authority and its relation to Scripture, one of the questions I kept returning to was that of likelihood. “All things being equal,” I would ask myself, “which is more likely: that Jesus had intended to establish his church in such a way that it was to be governed by Scripture alone (with leaders whose role was to interpret Scripture to the best of their abilities), or that he intended his church to be governed by leaders who, in some way and under certain conditions, were protected from error when exercising their authority?”

Here’s another:

All things being equal, which is more likely: that Jesus intended to establish his church in such a way that it was to be governed by pastors and elders who ministered and taught Scripture under the oversight of other church officers, or that he intended the church to be governed by a pastor in Rome (the city of the beast), far from the original churches in Jerusalem and Asia Minor where his chosen apostles labored?

That’s why we call them loaded questions (sort of like how would Jason know apart from Scripture of Christ establishing a church — oh wait, tradition — the pastor in Rome — told him).

Tribalists All

Published on by D. G. Hart31 Comments

While six middle-aged men continue to receive their comeuppance for challenging the soundness of rap and hip-hop, the imbroglio over whether Mark Driscoll plagiarized Peter Jones continues. (I don’t know why people are not debating whether Driscoll should even be writing books.) Miles Mullin writes a gloomy assessment of evangelicalism thanks to the structural problems that the Driscoll affair reveals:

Because of the personality-driven leadership inherent in contemporary evangelicalism, the tribalism it nurtures, and the reality that most of American evangelicalism subsists in some variation of the free church tradition, the final outcome of this story is clear. There is no authority that can adjudicate this matter other than the authority upon which both Driscoll and Mefferd have built their ministries: evangelical popular opinion. . . . Thus, regardless of whether or not Mark Driscoll truly plagiarized in A Call to Resurgence(and other books) or whether Janet Mefferd lied about Driscoll hanging up, their tribes will defend them to the end.

This is the troubling reality of the personality-based leadership that encompasses much of American evangelicalism. Often, charisma and dynamic communication skills trump character and integrity as popular appeal wins the day. And for those of us who wish it were otherwise, there is no court of appeal with the authority to hear our case.

I am not sure about the distinction between charisma and dynamic communication on the one side and character and integrity on the other. In the world of mass media no one has the kind of personal knowledge that allows us to tell whether a figure has any more character and integrity than he does charisma and rhetorical skills. Someone who actually holds an office of authority could function as an umpire in such a dispute. And said office-holder would have authority no matter what his gifts or integrity (unless of course he broke the rules that pertained to his office). In other words, an ecclesiastical officer could decide this matter (as well as an officer of the court) if Driscoll were part of a church overseen by officers who assented to church authority.

Now I can see where some might think this takes me, right in the direction of Jason and the Callers’ boy-have-we-got-a-solution-for-you appeal to papal supremacy. And that is exactly where I’d like to go since it seems to (all about) me that without temporal authority the pope’s spiritual office has descended to the levels of charisma, rhetorical skills, integrity, and character. Before Vatican 2 the papacy could claim greater authority and generally commanded it. But since the 1950s with the greater prosperity of Roman Catholics in the U.S. and greater academic accomplishments by Roman Catholic scholars, even papal supremacy does not command the conformity that it once did when the people prayed, paid, and obeyed. For instance, the Vatican’s power to police Roman Catholic universities has arguably never been weaker (despite Ex Corde Ecclesiae).

Here is one recent story where Roman Catholic professors are appealing to Pope Francis’ off the cuff remarks to challenge their administrations:

Pope Francis surprised many last month following the publication of his first full-length interview, in which he offered a less doctrinaire stance on issues such as homosexuality and abortion than any of his predecessors.

“I am no one to judge,” he said in response a question about gay people, echoing previous comments he’d made to media on the topic this summer and signaling to some that the Vatican was becoming more moderate. Somewhat similarly, the pope said that the church has grown “obsessed” with doctrine — at the expense of larger spiritual matters.

“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods,” he said. “I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that.”

But within days of the publication of the Vatican-approved interview, which appeared in the U.S. in the Jesuit magazine America, several American Roman Catholic institutions took a harder line on those exact issues.

The apparent disconnect led some faculty members at Santa Clara and Loyola Marymount Universities, which recently dropped coverage for elective abortions from their standard health insurance plans, and Providence College, which banned a gay marriage advocate from speaking on campus, to wonder whether their administrations had gotten the message.

Meanwhile, the theologians whom John Paul II tried to make more accountable through Ex Corde Ecclesiae are raising questions of their own:

An international group of prominent Catholic theologians have called the church’s teachings on marriage and sexuality “incomprehensible” and are asking bishops around the world to take seriously the expertise of lay people in their preparations for a global meeting of the prelates at the Vatican next year.

Church teaching on issues like contraception and same-sex marriage, the theologians write, are based on “abstract notions of natural law and [are] outdated, or at the very least scientifically uninformed” and “are for the most part incomprehensible to the majority of the faithful.”

Addressing next year’s meeting of church leaders, known as a Synod of Bishops, they say that previous such meetings involved “only carefully hand-picked members of the laity.”

Those meetings, they write, “offered no critical voice and ignored abundant evidence that the teaching of the church on marriage and sexuality was not serving the needs of the faithful.”

Of course, an apologist could say that this changes nothing. The pope is still in charge. Which of course is true in a sense. But his being-in-chargedness is not exactly evident in large sectors of the church, any more than Protestants have some way to adjudicate the Driscoll affair. And if we recall how popular Francis is compared to Benedict XVI, the categories of charisma and character turn out to be as crucial for a pope’s clout in the modern church as it is for celebrity pastors among Protestants.

Which is just one way of saying that in the modern world where churches are “merely” spiritual institutions, without backup from the state — the real power in contemporary affairs, Roman Catholics and Protestants are both shooting blanks. (Eastern Orthodox may be different when you can have titles like this one — His All Holiness, Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch.) And that may explain why so many popes, now regarded as being products of time and place, the ones who oversaw Inquisitions, abducted Jewish boys, and condemned all aspects of modern social life, had a point. If they were going to retain their power, it needed to be powerfully palpable and visible.

Demanding

Published on by D. G. Hart51 Comments

Speaking of the Land of Chocolate, the lead singer of Jason and the Callers has another defense of the magisterium as he understands it. In it is this assertion:

Because in order to distinguish between divine revelation and human opinion in a principled way, some visible body must exist with the authority to do so.

This is a frequent claim by ex-Protestants who go to Rome. Protestantism is in chaos and can’t resolve its divisions. Rome has unity and visibility and this is what you need to overcome Protestant fissiparousness. Possibly.

But who says that we need a visible body to distinguish between divine revelation and human opinion (not that Jason makes this distinction very clear since he keeps comparing the “interpretations” of the magisterium to the very revelation they are supposed to be interpreting; in other words, it’s one thing for the Bible to be hard to interpret, it’s another altogether for the visible and principled interpretations not to add up)? I know I am as a Protestant a Bible thumper. But I have no idea where Jason would derive this notion from the pages of Holy Writ (unless he wants to hang everything on Matt. 16 and 18 again and again and again).

For instance, the Old Testament saints had a single, visible authority, the Israelite monarchy, and it lasted for all of David and Solomon before splitting into the northern and southern kingdoms. Let’s not forget that the kings were not exactly models of interpretive fidelity.

Then we have Jesus’ own promise to his disciples in John 16 that when he leaves his Spirit will come who will lead the church into all truth. Curious that with Peter right there, Jesus didn’t say, and rest assured, Peter and his successors will lead you into all truth and rightly divide revelation from interpretation.

And then there is Peter’s own counsel to the church in his second epistle where he constantly warns about the danger of false teachers, and warns, and warns, and warns (pastors considering a series on 2 Peter be warned). If Peter knew what Jason pines for, that a visible body was around to distinguish opinion from revelation, why would he write to your average Simon and Hannah about the need to keep a lookout for false teachers? Why not write the first Christians about God’s great provision of the visible church and its capacity to direct the faithful into all truth?

Jason puts this assertion in a post about how grown ups talk. I wonder if he has considered the difference between childish wishes and adult resignation. I mean, some kids insist that Santa exists. What does that prove?

Let the Interpretation Resume

Published on by D. G. Hart102 Comments

Or Jason Stellman has some ‘splainin’ to do.

Jason is still justifying his realignment by trotting out the familiar refrain that sola scriptura doesn’t solve anything, thus making Protestantism the road to ruin and mayhem.

For the confessional Presbyterian, the reason the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches is “not a [true] church” is that its theology disagrees with the interpretation of the Bible espoused by confessional Presbyterians, and therefore CREC pastors are not truly ordained and thus ”don’t have the sacraments.” But of course, this is completely circular: “Our view is that the marks of a true church include properly understanding the gospel [or, agreeing with our interpretation of the Bible concerning what the gospel is], and since the CREC falls short in this regard, it therefore fails to meet our criteria of what a true church must be.” But this is a perfect recipe — indeed a license — for anarchy and schism. Any fallible group of people can now gather together, decide what counts as a true church, and then dismiss from that category everyone else who disagrees with them.

This is why Sola Scriptura — even in its more churchly expressions — ultimately fails. As long as there’s some sincere, Bible-believing Christian who disagrees with the church on some issue, all that will result from an ecclesiastical decision on that issue (even from a church’s highest court) is a never-ending “yeah-huh!” / “nuh-uh!”, he said / she said dispute.

In fact, it’s not just that this may be the result, it’s that it must be, for the irresolvability of any theological controversy is built into the whole Protestant system from the get-go. So even if the proper formula is not Solo but Sola, the “A” at the end still stands for Anarchy.

If Protestants suffer from interpretive discord, what is the affliction that Roman Catholics experience when confronted with the statements of their interpretive authority? For instance, I wonder if Jason believes the following affirmations and denials from various popes (or does he have to explain them)?

From Boniface VIII (1305) on the church’s supreme power which includes wielding both swords:

We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal. For when the Apostles say: ‘Behold, here are two swords’ [Lk 22:38] that is to say, in the Church, since the Apostles were speaking, the Lord did not reply that there were too many, but sufficient. Certainly the one who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter has not listened well to the word of the Lord commanding: ‘Put up thy sword into thy scabbard’ [Mt 26:52]. Both, therefore, are in the power of the Church, that is to say, the spiritual and the material sword, but the former is to be administered for the Church but the latter by the Church; the former in the hands of the priest; the latter by the hands of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest.

However, one sword ought to be subordinated to the other and temporal authority, subjected to spiritual power. For since the Apostle said: ‘There is no power except from God and the things that are, are ordained of God’ [Rom 13:1-2], but they would not be ordained if one sword were not subordinated to the other and if the inferior one, as it were, were not led upwards by the other.

From Nicholas V (1455) with global political power trying to arbitrate which Roman Catholic monarch gets to colonize the “new” world and vanquish the Saracens (i.e. Muslims):

The Roman pontiff, successor of the key-bearer of the heavenly kingdom and vicar of Jesus Christ, contemplating with a father’s mind all the several climes of the world and the characteristics of all the nations dwelling in them and seeking and desiring the salvation of all, wholesomely ordains and disposes upon careful deliberation those things which he sees will be agreeable to the Divine Majesty and by which he may bring the sheep entrusted to him by God into the single divine fold, and may acquire for them the reward of eternal felicity, and obtain pardon for their souls. This we believe will more certainly come to pass, through the aid of the Lord, if we bestow suitable favors and special graces on those Catholic kings and princes, who, like athletes and intrepid champions of the Christian faith, as we know by the evidence of facts, not only restrain the savage excesses of the Saracens and of other infidels, enemies of the Christian name, but also for the defense and increase of the faith vanquish them and their kingdoms and habitations, though situated in the remotest parts unknown to us, and subject them to their own temporal dominion, sparing no labor and expense, in order that those kings and princes, relieved of all obstacles, may be the more animated to the prosecution of so salutary and laudable a work.

Condemnations from Clement XI (1713) which repudiate the Augustinian convictions of the Jansenists:

41. All knowledge of God, even natural knowledge, even in the pagan philosophers, cannot come except from God; and without grace knowledge produces nothing but presumption, vanity, and opposition to God Himself, instead of the affections of adoration, gratitude, and love.

42. The grace of Christ alone renders a man fit for the sacrifice of faith; without this there is nothing but impurity, nothing but unworthiness.

43. The first effect of baptismal grace is to make us die to sin so that our spirit, heart, and senses have no more life for sin than a dead man has for the things of the world.

44. There are but two loves, from which all our volitions and actions arise: love of God, which does all things because of God and which God rewards; and the love with which we love ourselves and the world, which does not refer to God what ought to be referred to Him, and therefore becomes evi

Pius IX’s condemnation of the separation of church and state:

Others meanwhile, reviving the wicked and so often condemned inventions of innovators, dare with signal impudence to subject to the will of the civil authority the supreme authority of the Church and of this Apostolic See given to her by Christ Himself, and to deny all those rights of the same Church and See which concern matters of the external order. For they are not ashamed of affirming “that the Church’s laws do not bind in conscience unless when they are promulgated by the civil power; that acts and decrees of the Roman Pontiffs, referring to religion and the Church, need the civil power’s sanction and approbation, or at least its consent; that the Apostolic Constitutions,6 whereby secret societies are condemned (whether an oath of secrecy be or be not required in such societies), and whereby their frequenters and favourers are smitten with anathema — have no force in those regions of the world wherein associations of the kind are tolerated by the civil government; that the excommunication pronounced by the Council of Trent and by Roman Pontiffs against those who assail and usurp the Church’s rights and possessions, rests on a confusion between the spiritual and temporal orders, and (is directed) to the pursuit of a purely secular good; that the Church can decree nothing which binds the conscience of the faithful in regard to their use of temporal things; that the Church has no right of restraining by temporal punishments those who violate her laws; that it is conformable to the principles of sacred theology and public law to assert and claim for the civil government a right of property in those goods which are possessed by the Church, by the Religious Orders, and by other pious establishments.” Nor do they blush openly and publicly to profess the maxim and principle of heretics from which arise so many perverse opinions and errors. For they repeat that the “ecclesiastical power is not by divine right distinct from, and independent of, the civil power, and that such distinction and independence cannot be preserved without the civil power’s essential rights being assailed and usurped by the Church.” Nor can we pass over in silence the audacity of those who, not enduring sound doctrine, contend that “without sin and without any sacrifice of the Catholic profession assent and obedience may be refused to those judgments and decrees of the Apostolic See, whose object is declared to concern the Church’s general good and her rights and discipline, so only it does not touch the dogmata of faith and morals.” But no one can be found not clearly and distinctly to see and understand how grievously this is opposed to the Catholic dogma of the full power given from God by Christ our Lord Himself to the Roman Pontiff of feeding, ruling and guiding the Universal Church.

And Pius XII’s condemnation of evolution (complete with a reassertion of the loyalty that folks like Jason owe to the papapcy):

37. When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which through generation is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.

(19. Although these things seem well said, still they are not free from error. It is true that Popes generally leave theologians free in those matters which are disputed in various ways by men of very high authority in this field; but history teaches that many matters that formerly were open to discussion, no longer now admit of discussion.

20. Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: “He who heareth you, heareth me”;[3] and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the same Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians.)

Now maybe Jason agrees that the papacy holds both swords, the spiritual and temporal, or that the pope has power to grant the colonization of new lands around the world to European powers, or that something apart from grace prepares a believer for faith, or that church and state should be united, or that evolution is false and that the papacy has the power to rule on matters of science.

Or perhaps, he needs to interpret the very words of his source of supreme interpretation. Then again, he can always appeal to the theory and ignore historical reality.