Just kidding. This post will have little positive to say about Mr. Peale, the man or the theologian. If you wanted a blog that raved about Methodist Freemasons who advocated autohypnosis, you clearly took a wrong turn at Albuquerque. However, seeing as how in 1960, even men of that pedigree were opposed to a Roman Catholic running for President, the last fifty-five years have seen remarkable change in both this country and the peculiar Italian institution, no?
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To describe responses to the Papal visit to the New World this week as "mixed" would constitute an exercise in calculated understatement; at least among card-carrying members of the religious right. Such responses range from the chummy pictures of Rick Warren and TD Jakes (ok, I'm stretching the definition of "religious right" there) waiting anxiously to kiss the ring of the World's Greatest Climate Scientist (tm) , to the somewhat hysteria-tinged posts over at Pulpit and Pen. For the record, while the creation of the hashtag #StillProtesting was a nice touch, reading far too much into the typical vagaries Bergoglio had on offer to provide ammo for snarky Facebook memes about the "Man of Sin" is exactly the kind of imbalance that bolsters P and P's reputation for intransigent counter-productivity.
JD and Co. are not alone in this, of course. The gratuitous fawning that highlights Faux News' typical response to anything Papal had most Reformed folks' hackles up, myself included. However, even in the case of something this central to our pet peeves, it's important to think through the relevant issues, address contemporary realities, and come to conclusions that function in the real world of apologetics. The universe that starts on your doorstep and ends at your computer server contains real Catholics with real beliefs, to say nothing of the great crowd of the religiously abused and denominationally confused, and I'm concerned our typical battle plans will stand contact with the proverbial enemy even less than the average. With this in mind, three general themes to touch on as Catholicism enters the national consciousness for the typical fifteen minutes before we remember the backlog on our DVR: 1) the necessity and relevance of a Church Reformed and always Reforming. 2) Evangelistic pragmatism, it's pitfalls and positives. 3) The consequences of the fact that this is not your grandfather's Catholicism, nor that of your neighbor Ryan Ohoulihan's grandpappy Patches. In full confidence that that sidelong reference to "Dodgeball" will increase the popularity of "Notes" with the youth of America, I press on.
As this is, after all, a Presidential election season, I will start by throwing some red meat to the base. (Can a readership of seven people have a "base"?) To put not too fine a point on it, the Papacy is an institution built on a combo of historical fabrication, political expediency, and a whole lot of indulgence money bilked out of European peasants, which funds, I pause to note, are perfectly consistent with the soteriological backbone of Romanism, which is the heart of the matter. Men do not command Christ to render himself present, body and soul, on an altar. Neither should they appropriate the terms "Holy Father", "Prince of Peace", or "Alter Christus". Furthermore, Jesus is not honored when his gospel is swapped out for a system in which your eternal destiny rides on hoping a bus doesn't hit you crossing the street on the way to confess your latest lustful thoughts to one of these little christs. To the extent that Francis, and all other Roman priests, assume these powers and titles, the institution and it's teachings are to be rejected by Bible believers.
Opposition to Popery is not limited to abstractions or the occasional concern in the midst of jaywalking, either. For every non-Catholic Christian reading this blog, you have to ask yourself, with all apologies to James White, whether you are a Protestant of convention or commitment. (Incidentally, I would say the same in reverse to Catholics). The funny hats and smell of incense are not gospel issues. Whether or not the Roman Catholic mass is the same sacrifice as that of Christ, but similarly (by the theory in question) perfects no one, is. Whether the penalty for the sins of God's people was paid on the tree or must be absolved by a human priest, is. Whether Jesus Christ is a perfect savior who loses none of what was given to him most decidedly is. How we live, our eschatology, or ecclesiology, our relationship to each other and to our pastors, our very relationship to Christ and what we trust in for the security of our eternal soul (and how secure is that security, anyway?) hang on the differences between Catholicism and the Reformed faith. Not only that, but our answers must, and can be, as biblical and relevant to a fallen world here and now, as in 16th century Europe. So yes, the watchword is, has been, must be, Reformata et Semper Reformanda. There's a river flowing deep and wide, and it's called the Tiber. Tulips are lovely flowers. Be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within us, in contradiction to false hopes. Let there be Calvinism on Earth, and let it begin with me (and you).
Thus, the bait; now, the switch. It is true that the Rick Warren approach is demonstrably a betrayal of the Reformation. However, I trust the average reader of this blog to be able to spot capitulation on that scale when they see it. The flip side of the coin (all imbalances have an opposite tipping point) is the fact that smugly quoting WCF XXV.6 does not create Protestants, but rather pissed-of Roman Catholics. Lest those that know me best fear I have taken leave of both my senses and my Van Til at the door, I am not suggesting that the gospel be altered, redacted, shrunk, massaged, nuanced away, or fashioned into a feather with which to tickle men's ears. Paul said that those at Mars Hill worshipped those which are not gods, and we can say, in full confidence that the Spirit does as He pleases, that Catholics preach (to a lesser or greater degree) that which is not a gospel. That being said, as Paul's solution to the monument to the Unknown god was not to break out the jackhammers, we should begin at the beginning with a positive, affirming presentation of the plain truths of Jesus Christ crucified in the place of dead men and interceding now on behalf of the living. This stands in contradiction to the often more satisfying (and certainly more reaction-eliciting) tactic of snide comments about the person of the Pope, hastily composed imprecatory psalms against every Catholic in earshot, and Pharisaical invocations of the flames of perdition against worshippers of images. (Yes, I said Pharisaical, you too once worshipped those which are not Gods, and in our imperfect state of sanctification, we sometimes still do. Hypocrisy is most foul on the lips of the redeemed).
This does not make certain practices of Rome any less odious, particularly to any cradle Calvinists I may have in the audience. The virgin Mary is not anyone's mediator, and to insist otherwise invites personal spiritual calamity. What it does mean is that we are called on to proclaim the gospel unedited, but adorned. Don't emphasize Revelation: emphasize Romans, by which I mean chapter 5, not 9. Don't start with Mary, or transubstantiation, or even the historicity of the Papacy: if you have an apologist, amateur or otherwise, on your hands, they'll take you there anyway. Start with the peace with God that you experience through Jesus Christ, that masses and indulgences cannot give or buy. Catholicism is a girl with too much makeup: the frippery and trappings distract from the core insecurity, and apologetics is about core issues. This goes for all the religions of men, but doubly so for as complex but fundamentally anthropocentric a religion as Rome's. When I referenced the counter-productivity manifest in the Hall camp earlier, do not misread "productivity" as "decisionism": but also don't confuse effectiveness with compromise. As a former Catholic, I can tell you that no one was going to convince me to come out of Babylon by describing it as icky. Point to yonder wicker gate, and tell your Catholic neighbor to fix their eyes on it.
Finally, a related issue to that above, but one much closer to the heart and experiences of Dr. White than of JD Hall: many Calvinists, Dr. White less than some, are shadowboxing with Jesuits who have been dead for two hundred years. It should be self-evident (but often isn't, particularly to a neoconservative stream of Catholic thought) that Francis is not Pius X. Dr. White emphasized only a few days ago on the most recent podcast that we should not be hammering away at canned speeches by Francis before the American Congress, which can be parsed for "fallibility" and "reinterpreted in light of Church teaching" by the Vatican's seemingly endless team of spin doctors, both professional and unpaid. Rather, says the good Doctor, we should focus on the dogmatic teachings of Rome themselves: ex cathedra papal statements, conciliar documents along the lines of Trent, etc. He has a point, in that these are the historical grounds of the soteriological heart of Romanism, but Dr. White has for a long time been engaged primarily (sometimes only) with the most informed, trained, conservative and apologetically engaged camp within the big tent of Rome. I live in Washington State. With all due respect to the "good Catholics" that I know, (and I do), the number of Catholics I know who can name the sources of dogma, let alone have systematized the arcane web of teachings of historical Catholicism into a daily complex of belief is slim. Here, conservative Catholics are rare, informed ones rarer still. Tridentine informed conservative Catholics are a particularly argumentative unicorn. This has consequences for our engagement with the man or woman on the street.
At the demonstration against Planned Parenthood I attended recently, Catholics outnumbered non-Catholics by a factor of at least three to one, and the conservatives amongst them, in various states of knowledge regarding their own faith, did not shrink back from proclaiming their whole counsel to me. (One wishing to see the same in reverse was, typically, disappointed.) These nice (predominantly) ladies, upon learning of my prior experience with Rome and my belief that the modern Vatican constitutes a departure from historic Catholic orthodoxy, promptly issued lines about "yes, all of that may be true, but do you know how many bad Popes we've had". I lack time and space to describe exactly how and why that "defense" of the Papacy is underwhelming, but the enterprising among you will be able to fill in the gaps. My point is this: beyond the positive presentation of the Biblical gospel, I do not believe we should start with Trent, because modern Roman Catholics are no longer part of the religion of Trent. The conservatives among them, proportional to the degree that they know their history, will desperately wish they were. Most will say they are. They are beholden to an institution that has a vested interest in telling them that they are. But they are not. Don't battle transubstantiation: ask them when they last left a mass that departed from Catholic worship standards. Don't start in on the nature of indulgences: ask them when the last time they heard a priest teach the necessity of priestly absolution for salvation was. Don't begin with the nature of purgatory (although this may come up incidental to the finished work of Christ): ask them whether they believe that Trent's view aligns with the multitude of Papal speculations in recent years about "instantaneous purgatory" and the like. Expose self-contradiction. Expose the severing of a wide swath of Catholicism from it's roots. Describe a basic familiarity with their faith, and ask them whether the timeless march of their unchanging Church is delivering on it's promises. This should come secondary to your positive, Biblical presentation, but the goal is not a that-day "decision for Jesus" (anything that easy will fade easily) but the planting of questions about the Catholic's authority. As with the Reformed faith and it's absolute dependence on inerrancy, the claims of Rome will live and die with the trustworthiness of the men making them.
"All of this sure sounds like a lot of work", you grumble, secretly wishing I'd been more ruthless with my elimination of run-on sentences. "Who has time to learn all of this, and who gets argued into the kingdom anyway?" First, you do. I play video games and have a job. I know you do. Second, I did. Second redux, we have a duty to God to proclaim his gospel and give that answer for the blessed hope, and contrary to what you may have been lulled into believing, Catholics are not stupid, nor are they mere creatures of their environment (not the practicing faithful, anyway). They have ready-made answers to difficult questions, and this is not their first rodeo. (If it is, they have a friend for whom it is not). I'll close with some questions: how important is the gospel of Christ to you? Has it changed your life? Did it give you a new heart? How thankful are you, really? Is what is worth having, worth sharing? And, to echo the man seeking to justify himself (Luke 10:29), who is your neighbor?
No one expects evangelistic perfection, or even a flawless readiness to give an answer. I don't have either, and neither does anyone else. Jesus does expect that we take the Great Commission as marching orders, though. But hey, I understand if you're busy. There really are a lot of channels on TV.
~JS
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