tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76092032249610328742024-03-12T19:10:59.814-06:00Speak the Truth in LoveOnly in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity...Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. Pope Benedict XVIRandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.comBlogger681125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-34895419198287290682018-09-22T12:06:00.000-06:002018-09-22T12:06:58.434-06:00Bible Contradictions?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">From a I discussion with a guy name Michael on another thread:</span><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There's a verse in Matthew where Jesus says the pharisees of this generation will have no sign but the sign of Jonah. The equivalent passage in Mark 6, which is set at the same time and place, as is clear from the context, says they will have no sign at all. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">John says Thomas was not present at the first meeting between the resurrected Jesus and the 1 other apostles. This contradicts other gopsels which say the 11 were present at the first meeting, after Jesus met Cleopas and Simon. The oldest manuscripts of Mark omit Mark 16:10-20, which has details added in later to reconcile Mark with Luke. Some manuscripts of Mark omit the word "twice" from the quote "before the rooster crows twice, you will have denied me three times" in order to force Mark to match up with the later gospels.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These are examples contradictions that never bother Christians but atheists seem to bring them up endlessly. It is important to understand what Catholics claim about scripture and what they don't. I know many atheists get much of their information from fundamentalist sources or even from anti-Christian writers. There are a bunch of things being said about the bible that don't hold up to scrutiny. Still we don't need to defend every claim about the bible. As a Catholic I just need to defend the claims the church makes. So what are those?</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Essentially we believe scripture is written by human authors and inspired by the Holy Spirit. So the essence of what the Holy Spirit wants to communicate is presented without error but it does not mean no detail is ever incorrect. they are human stories as well. Human stories do get details wrong. Even the mistakes can be guided by the Holy Spirit to bring out deeper truths. The statement about 11 apostles could be pointing out the felt absence of Judas even though Thomas was also missing his absence was not felt the same way. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The fact that Catholics don't believe in the bible alone does become relevant here. This notion of biblical inspiration does leave more room for interpretation than some more literal notions. We believe that God guides our interpretations through sacred tradition and the leadership of the church. That means this does not make the bible wishy-washy. So, for example, you can't say the virgin birth might be a details that the biblical authors got wrong. No. Tradition says they did not.</span></div>
Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-79842336217224664492018-09-02T09:09:00.001-06:002018-09-03T21:46:03.931-06:00Discomfort<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am reading an interesting book. It is called <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Beauty-Discomfort-What-Avoid-Need/dp/1443449849">The Beauty of Discomfort by Amanda Lang</a>. People who watch CBC News will know her because she is on there a fair bit. It is an interesting book because she arrives at many of the same conclusions Christian writers arrive at, but does it in a very secular way. That is she looks at a society where people don't deny themselves any pleasure and they are not expected to walk through any pain and actually asks if this is a good idea. This is especially true of how we raise our children. Do we raise them too soft? We don't discipline them. We protect them from any potentially hurtful comment. Then we wonder why so many are unable or unwilling to overcome obstacles and really accomplish something in life. They just are not ready for the tears.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It goes further. It even tackles question like personal addictions from a discomfort point of view. Trying to look at that moment of temptation where you want but you know you should not. How can we do what we should do and not what our subconscious passions drive us to do? Interesting stuff. Many of the things she says echo what is in scripture and Christian spiritual writers. Yet she goes to science to justify it. For me it confirms with science much of what people of faith knew for a long time. Yet coming at it from another angle gives you a fuller picture. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">One big piece that is missing is grace. It is not explicitly stated that you cannot gain victory over sin by self effort. In fact, human effort seems like all she considers.Yet there are openings made to let God work. Without explicitly using God's name meditation could still become a form of prayer opening us up to God's grace. I know many people who came to Christianity through the 12 steps of AA. They say they experienced God's grace as a higher power before they came to know that Jesus is that higher power and all the 12 steps can be found in the bible. There is even the notion of <span style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.issuesetcarchive.org/issues_site/resource/archives/anonchrs.htm">Anonymous Christianity</a> where people never take that second step of realizing it was Jesus who saved them yet they cooperate with His grace and are saved. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What bothered me more about the book is the way it avoids the question of why. Why do we choose pain over pleasure? Not even why do we but why should we. She points out that sometimes it makes us happy. Sometimes great human achievements are made and great good is done. That is a good point. You can multiply examples of that. Yet the stories of these great people are the exception. They are not the rule. There is no guarantee that even in the long run the good will outweigh the bad. Actually many who do something great and arrive at a position of great comfort immediately embrace a new challenge that involves more discomfort. So they never win from a simple pain and pleasure perspective. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This is OK for a Christian because we know why we are pursuing virtue. We want to glorify God in this life and continue on the road heaven to get ourselves there and lead others there. That is what gives life meaning. If we know it is the path of holiness God has set for us then any discomfort makes sense because the goodness of God is just that good. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">She tackles the question of meaning in the last chapter and it is fairly lame. She tells the story of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar">Maher Arar</a> which is a very compelling story. Still what does it have to do with meaning? It is just that eventually his sufferings led to some good. OK, that might happen. But many are tortured like Arar and do not see their stories effect any change. One might even argue that Arar's story has not changed much. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It is unclear what is meant by "good." Is it just that there will be less pain and more pleasure for others in the future? If that is all it is then the argument contradicts itself. The whole thesis of the book is that comfort is not the highest good. It needs to serve some greater good. Yet what is that greater good? She won't go there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It seems to me that you need to start there. To know what is good enough to make you sacrifice your comfort. It should be good enough not just in the scenario where you end up changing the world because the odds of that are long. It should be good enough even if you fail by secular standards. That doing the right thing matters even when no human reason seems evident. But then you need some way to know it is right. Even if you do change the world how do you know you are changing it for good and not for ill? If you don't have clear answers to those questions it seems like facing the hard days of discomfort would be impossible. </span></div>
Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-73159531679731390882018-08-06T16:08:00.000-06:002018-08-06T16:08:40.873-06:00Our Focus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Christianity is big. It is under attack on so many fronts right now. It makes one wonder what is the most crucial. Of all the things we could work on what would have the most effect? I have been focusing a lot on logic. Making arguments for the Catholic faith and pointing out logical problems with Atheism and Protestantism. That has some value. I am wondering if it has the most value. There are actually not that many people who are logical. Everyone would describe themselves that way but very few actually change their life philosophy because someone made a good argument. They are more likely to get angry or question your motives if you prove to them their belief system is irrational. I know this. I was very hesitant to move from being protestant to being Catholic despite overwhelming arguments. I consider myself more of a thinker than the vast majority of people so if I was so slow to act on good arguments then how slow will others be?<br /><br />So then what is it? If we should not spend out time repeating sound arguments then what should we do? i am not positive. I think these 2 verses might shed some light.</span><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. John 17:20-21<br /><br /><br />A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. John 13:34-35</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Both these passages are quotes from Jesus where He tells us what we must do to spread the gospel. The first is unity. Christians have very little right now. They disagree about virtually every question of governance, doctrine and liturgy. It is a major source of doubt driving people away from Christianity rather than a sign of God's presence in this world. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Catholicism provides some real answers to the unity question but it has its own troubles with widespread dissent and disinterest. There is a faithful core but it can be hard to find. Sometimes even the faithful ones are timid and almost impossible to hear among all the other folks talking more loudly about their own brand of Christianity. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then there is the second verse. This has often been held up as the alternative to doctrinal unity. They will know we are Christians by out love so it does not matter if we get the theology wrong. The trouble is that it does matter. You do convince the public of something but that something often does not mention God at all. Our love for the poor and disadvantaged has taken hold in society but it has not led to a love for Jesus. It has led to the notion that all we need is a few moral principles and we can jettison the rest of Christianity. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The trouble is we have been taking these as an either/or. Either we focus on love or we focus on doctrine. When the church has been most effective it has done both. Looking at the early church and the way it converted the Roman Empire they were united not only in doctrine and liturgy but also in virtue. They lived together and died together and did so with joy because they loved God above all. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So what would that look like? If we try and be faithful to the teachings of the church and try to love everyone, how would this be different? I think it involved finding those who are also serious about living the one true faith and trying to build a community of love with them. There is talk of the Benedict option that involves doing this by withdrawing out of society and just living with fellow believers. I don't think that is required. Yet being intentional about loving those that embrace the faith. Yes we love everyone but that community of love believers are supposed to share needs to take it to another level. </span><br />
Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-38462153312408812242018-06-21T21:19:00.002-06:002018-06-21T21:19:43.260-06:00Eucharistic Debate Response<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The debate is elsewhere. <a href="http://matt1618.freeyellow.com/malakyeopening.html">Malakye's </a> invited me to respond. His works are in green. Mine will be in black<br />
<span style="color: #274e13;"><b>"SUPERSTITIOUS, REVOLTING, BARBARIC, DEGRADING, INDECENT, PROFANE AND ABSURD"</b></span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;">1) C.H. Spurgeon was probably one of the greatest preachers who ever lived. He left such a spirit-filled paper trail, there can be no doubt he went straight to heaven on a direct line. Because my opponent is taking the position that John 6 refers to the Eucharist, I thought it apropos to mention that the very first sentence of one of Spurgeon's sermons begins with, "Our Lord Jesus did not in this passage allude to the Lord's Supper, as some desiring to maintain their sacramental superstitions have dared to affirm!" My feelings exactly. He continues... </span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;"><i>"Understood literally, it is horrible and revolting to the last degree! That there are millions of people who accept so monstrous an error and believe in literally feeding upon the body of the Lord Jesus, is probably the highest point of profane absurdity to which superstition has yet reached. While we wonder that the Jews so misunderstood the Savior, we wonder a thousand times more that there should remain upon the face of the earth men in their senses not yet committed to a lunatic asylum who endeavor to defend such a dreadful error from Holy Scripture. Brothers and sisters...it is a gospel certainly more fitted for savages and madmen than for persons in the possession of their senses...[it is] absolute barbarism! We are not required, however, to believe anything so impossible, so degrading, so blasphemous, so horrifying to all the decencies of life!" </i>(Sermon 1288, delivered 4/9/1876). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is just terrible argument. I don't know how else to say it. Spurgeon is just asserting his interpretation is right and the Catholic one is wrong. He does not give any reasons. It is what we call begging the question. Then there are a bunch of insults thrown in. That is out of place in a discussion between Christians about what the Word of God means. So it is bad logic and uncharitable. I would like to offer a rebuttal to your argument but there is none. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It has certainly been my experience that protestants show huge confidence in the strength of their biblical arguments even when the arguments are not very strong. I have fallen for it. I have jumped to the conclusion that protestant arguments were much stronger than they are based on the widespread confidence I saw. It was only when I dug into things more deeply I realized the emperor had no clothes. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;"><b>AN INFALLIBLE CHURCH ISN'T ALLOWED TO ERR</b></span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;">2) Before anyone calls Spurgeon over-dramatic, the Council of Trent said (in their decree on the Eucharist) that any metaphorical view of Jesus' words was, <i>"satanic, godless, contentious and evil"</i>. How then can we determine whose righteous anger is justified? One way is to examine what the Roman Catholic Church says about the Eucharist under the magnifying glass of her claim to be infallible. To be infallible, Rome must not err while claiming to be guided by the Holy Spirit. If Rome makes even one mistake while claiming to speak infallibly about the Eucharist, then Jesus no more gave the gift of infallibility to Rome then there is a man in the moon. This then would classify Transubstantiation as an "unfruitful work of darkness" which must be exposed (Eph 5:11). </span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;"><b>BRINGING DOWN THE VATICAN GOLIATH </b></span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;">3) In the same way it took David to bring down Goliath with one stone, all it takes to bring down Transubstantiation is one word. That one, single, solitary word is, "truly". If it can be shown that the word "truly" has been used in a manner that is factually and indisputably incorrect, then the monstrous claim of infallibility must fall to the ground, and Transubstantiation right along with it. </span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;">Here is what I mean. Catholicism teaches that the Council of Trent was infallible (CCC 888-892). Trent announced they were being guided "day by day" by the Holy Spirit, (twice!) in their decree introduction on the Eucharist. They forbid anyone to even "dare" believe otherwise. The catechism quotes this council in #1376... </span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;"><i>"Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly His body He was offering under the species of bread".</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;">No, he did not say any such thing. </span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;">Let's unpack this statement. We notice that there are three distinct errors in this one sentence alone! Jesus did not <b>"SAY"</b> that he was "<b>OFFERING"</b> anything, let alone that the bread was "<b>TRULY"</b> his body. Trent's first error was the brazen lie of telling us Jesus said something, when he didn't.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You are finally sort of getting to a point. Sort of. You are objecting to the fact that the word used in the council is not the exact same as the word used in scripture? The last supper is in the context of the Passover so notion of sacrifice and offering is implied. Did Jesus use the word? He may have. If the council actually infallibly declared he used the word then it is easy to believe He did. Not all words Jesus used are recorded in scripture. Yet I don't think the doctrine of infallibility requires us to believe that. The Holy Spirit did protect the Council of Trent from error. Not so much in matters of technical detail but more in the theological teaching. For infallibility to apply to a specific detail then that detail must be stated quite emphatically. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;">Their second error declares Jesus offered himself in sacrifice right there at the dinner table in the upper room <b>before</b> he went to the cross. We are told that even though all eyes were fixed on him, he began to co-exist, simultaneously, in the bread and wine by some eerie, metaphysical process unknown to man. Trent teaches, <i>"At the Last Supper, on the night He was betrayed [He] offered up to God the Father His own body and blood under the form of bread and wine..." </i></span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;"><b>NO</b>! Such words are a direct assault on the space/time dimension wherein God deals with us. In practice and in precept, Jesus offered his body, chronologically, only once (i.e., at the cross) and certainly not at the Last Supper, and definitely not at any Mass going on today. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Again you are just rejecting something by simply asserting it is wrong and not saying why. The crucifixion is an even that occurred in time but it is also an event that transcends time. The Passover meal was one act with Jesus' suffering and death. Without Jesus' decision to offer Himself on Thursday we would never be able to see Friday as sacrifice for sin. We could only see it as a Roman execution. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Passover was also seen by the Jews as an event in history that transcended time. They really felt that God was delivering them from exile that night. The word they used to describe that concept is the same word Jesus used when He said, "Do this in remembrance of me."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;">The third offense was to shamefully put the word "truly" into the mouth of Christ at the Last Supper, where he did not "truly" affirm anything at all. No Bible on Earth records Jesus saying the bread was "truly" his body. With blood boiling in their veins in reaction to the Reformers, Trent was being guided by nothing more than their raw, unbridled emotions. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Have your read John 6 lately: </span><br />
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<span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.56px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">47 </span><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Truly, truly</b>, I say to you, </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn3.36" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn3.36?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 3:36 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">y</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">whoever believes has eternal life.</span> <a data-datatype="bible+esv" data-reference="John 6:48" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" rel="milestone" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; display: inline-block; height: 1em; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 0px;"></a><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.56px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">48 </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn6.35" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn6.35?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 6:35 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">z</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I am the bread of life.</span> <a data-datatype="bible+esv" data-reference="John 6:49" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" rel="milestone" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; display: inline-block; height: 1em; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 0px;"></a><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.56px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">49 </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn6.31" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn6.31?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 6:31 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">a</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Your </span><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">fa<span class="offset-marker" data-offset="4757161" id="marker7146664" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>thers</span><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> ate the manna in the wilderness, and </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn6.58" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn6.58?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 6:58 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">b</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">they died.</span> <a data-datatype="bible+esv" data-reference="John 6:50" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" rel="milestone" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; display: inline-block; height: 1em; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 0px;"></a><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.56px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">50 </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn6.33" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn6.33?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 6:33 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">c</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn6.51" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn6.51?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 6:51 </span></a><a data-reference="Jn6.58" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn6.58?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 6:58 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">d</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">and not die.</span> <a data-datatype="bible+esv" data-reference="John 6:51" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" rel="milestone" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; display: inline-block; height: 1em; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 0px;"></a><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.56px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">51 </span><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I am the living bread </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn3.13" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn3.13?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 3:13 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">e</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">that came down from </span><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">heav<span class="offset-marker" data-offset="4757361" id="marker7146665" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>en</span><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn6.57" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn6.57?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 6:57 </span></a><a data-reference="Lk22.19" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Lk22.19?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Lk 22:19 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">f</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">for the life of the world is </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn6.53-56" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn6.53-56?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 6:53–56 </span></a><a data-reference="Jn1.14" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn1.14?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 1:14 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">g</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">my flesh.”</span></div>
<div class="lang-en" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: "Times New Roman", times, serif; font-size: 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a data-datatype="bible+esv" data-reference="John 6:52" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" rel="milestone" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; display: inline-block; height: 1em; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 0px;"></a><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.56px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">52 </span>The Jews then <a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn9.16" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn9.16?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 9:16 </span></a><a data-reference="Jn10.19" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn10.19?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 10:19 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">h</span></a>disputed among themselves, saying, <a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn6.60" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn6.60?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 6:60 </span></a><a data-reference="Jn3.9" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn3.9?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 3:9 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">i</span></a>“How can thi<span class="offset-marker" data-offset="4757561" id="marker7146666" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>s man give us his flesh to eat?” <a data-datatype="bible+esv" data-reference="John 6:53" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" rel="milestone" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; display: inline-block; height: 1em; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 0px;"></a><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.56px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">53 </span>So Jesus said to them, <span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“<b>Truly, truly</b>, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn6.27" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn6.27?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 6:27 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">j</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">the Son of Man and drink his blood, you </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn20.31" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn20.31?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 20:31 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">k</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">have no life in you.</span> <a data-datatype="bible+esv" data-reference="John 6:54" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" rel="milestone" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; display: inline-block; height: 1em; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 0px;"></a><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.56px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">54 </span><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Whoever feeds on</span><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="offset-marker" data-offset="4757761" id="marker7146667" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span> </span><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">my flesh and drinks my blood </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn6.40" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn6.40?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 6:40 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">l</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">has eternal life, and </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn6.39" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn6.39?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 6:39 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">m</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I will raise him up on the last day.</span> <a data-datatype="bible+esv" data-reference="John 6:55" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" rel="milestone" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; display: inline-block; height: 1em; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 0px;"></a><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.56px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">55 </span><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.</span> <a data-datatype="bible+esv" data-reference="John 6:56" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" rel="milestone" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; display: inline-block; height: 1em; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 0px;"></a><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.56px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">56 </span><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn15.4" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn15.4?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 15:4 </span></a><a data-reference="Jn15.5" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn15.5?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 15:5 </span></a><a data-reference="1Jn3.24" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/1Jn3.24?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">1 Jn 3:24 </span></a><a data-reference="1Jn4.13" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/1Jn4.13?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">1 Jn 4:13 </span></a><a data-reference="1Jn4.15" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/1Jn4.15?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">1 Jn 4:15 </span></a><a data-reference="1Jn4.16" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/1Jn4.16?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">1 Jn 4:16 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="offset-marker" data-offset="4757961" id="marker7146685" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">n</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">abides in me, and I in him.</span> <a data-datatype="bible+esv" data-reference="John 6:57" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" rel="milestone" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; display: inline-block; height: 1em; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 0px;"></a><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.56px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">57 </span><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn5.26" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn5.26?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 5:26 </span></a><a data-reference="Mt16.16" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Mt16.16?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Mt 16:16 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">o</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">the living Father </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn3.17" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn3.17?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 3:17 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">p</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">sent me, and </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn11.25" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn11.25?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 11:25 </span></a><a data-reference="Re1.18" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Re1.18?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Re 1:18 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">q</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.</span> <a data-datatype="bible+esv" data-reference="John 6:58" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" rel="milestone" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; display: inline-block; height: 1em; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 0px;"></a><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.56px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">58 </span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn6.31" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn6.31?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 6:31 </span></a><a data-reference="Jn6.33" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn6.33?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 6:33 </span></a><a data-reference="Jn6.49-51" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn6.49-51?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 6:49–51 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">r</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This is the bread that came down </span><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">fr<span class="offset-marker" data-offset="4758161" id="marker7146686" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>om</span><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> heaven, not like the bread</span><a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en">Greek lacks <em>the bread</em><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">3</span></a><span class="words-of-christ" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #dd0000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”</span> <a data-datatype="bible+esv" data-reference="John 6:59" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" rel="milestone" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; display: inline-block; height: 1em; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 0px;"></a><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.56px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">59 </span>Jesus<a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en">Greek <em>He</em><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">4</span></a> said these things in the synagogue, as he taught <a data-content="<div class="resourcetext"><span class="lang-en"><a data-reference="Jn6.24" data-datatype="bible+esv" href="/reference/Jn6.24?resourceName=esv" class="bibleref"><span style="vertical-align:normal">Jn 6:24 </span></a><br /></span> </div>" data-resourcename="esv" href="https://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn6.41#" rel="popup" style="background: transparent; color: navy !important; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 10.56px; font-style: italic; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super;">s</span></a>at Capernaum.</div>
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<span style="color: #274e13;">Trent even contradicts the counsel of modern day Rome, when we read, <i>"In him [Christ], he [God] has said everything; there will be no other word than this one"</i> (CCC 65). Yet...Trent did indeed add a word, and it is by that single, erroneous word that exposes the "gift of infallibility" to be a farce. Catholicism has, <i>"boasted of a false gift [making them] like clouds and wind with no rain"</i> (Proverbs 25:14). This one, single, misapplied word is a crack in the armor of the Vatican when it comes to their claim of infallibility, and by extension, their instructions on the Eucharist. It results in a living nightmare of, "another jesus" per 2 Corinthians 11:4, a wolf in eucharistic clothing, who decides to shrink himself down to the size of a Ritz cracker so sins may be forgiven by consuming his physical body parts down to the last toenail. Essentially, this is nothing but salvation by a metaphysical form of cannibalism, which is, quite frankly, disgusting. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You really need to try and understand what Catholics mean by infallibility before you try and disprove it. Every faith needs a final authority. It is either yourself or it is God. If it is God then how can I tell when God is giving me that final answer? I know you will say scripture but scripture can be interpreted many ways. I can pick the one that suits me. Even if I try and pick the one that is most likely God's truth I can make a mistake. Ultimately it is my own sinful, fallible self making the choice. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The question is whether we really want to know God's word. Not just convincing yourself you are right about the bible but really knowing God's word. Do you think your opinion and God's opinion are the same? As a protestant, I would never have said that but I actually did think I was pretty close. When God suggested to me I might be wrong about the papacy and Mary and some other things i really had trouble believing my previous opinions could be that far off. I did not have an issue with the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. John 6 is quite clear. Still infallibility was the center. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;">4) <u>OBJECTION</u>: Trent did not quote Christ. They were simply paraphrasing what he said. </span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;"><u>ANSWER</u>: Anyone who knowingly paraphrases is obligated to reveal their intention at the get-go to prepare their audience that what follows is not word for word. Otherwise, we are to, <i>"Let your yes be yes and your no be no; for whatever is more than this comes from evil"</i> (Matt 5:37). Trent did not do this and so they are, by definition, "evil" when it comes to infallibility in general, and Transubstantiation in particular. They gave no indication whatsoever that they were trying to capture the literal meaning of "This is my body" with a paraphrase! They simply assert that Christ "truly" said the bread was actually his body, and leave it at that. But by doing so, they are guilty of adding to the Text. <i>"Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar"</i> (Proverbs 30:6, Deut 4:2, Rev 22:18). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By definition evil? What is your definition of evil? When a council of the Church does not comply with your arbitrary rules? When God speaks you can count of people being around to tell God He spoke all wrong. People do it with scripture. You do it with the Catholic church. Absolutely something I would expect with a truly infallible council. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;">Furthermore, the lack of quotes around what Christ allegedly "said" are, in fact, there by implication in the very same manner as anyone in the Bible who conveys what the Lord said---but with no quotes recorded around <b>THEIR </b>words. If the grandiose claim of Transubstantiation is on course, it should stand out like a ship in the night with the floodlights of Scripture to guide it without the need to misquote Christ. Based on the premise that, "<i>God is not a man that he should lie" </i>(Numbers 23:19), Trent is not free to teach that the Lord... <i>"said"</i>... the bread was <i>"truly</i>" his body to prove Transubstantiation is fact--- any more than I am free to report that he... "said"... the bread was not his literal body, to convey that Transubstantiation is false. Each of our respective cases must be based primarily on the biblical data without the need to put words in the mouth of our Savior so that the better argument is made manifest to all (1 Kings 18:24; Proverbs 18:17; 1 Cor 11:19). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You are begging a different question here. You are assuming that Tent should only speak based on biblical data. That is what is called Sola Scriptura. It is not a Catholic doctrine. So you can't complain when Catholics don't follow it. You also out yourself on the same level as the Church Father at Trent. You are not. You are a guy on the internet. They are the successors of the Apostles gathered together at the request of the successor of Peter. The shoudl speak with authority. You should speak with humility.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;"><b>THE EXACTITUDE OF GOD</b></span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;">5) The sanctity and exactitude of God's word is endorsed down to the last "jot and tittle" (Matt 5:18). That being so, the Holy Spirit would never...no, not ever... inspire Trent to misquote Jesus, even just a "tittle". Recall that God tells Moses to simply <b>speak</b> to the rock (Ex 20:8-12) promising to make water flow out of it. However, Moses changes just one word in that command, and instead, strikes the rock. This seemingly insignificant one word change, results in Moses not being permitted to bring the people into the Promised Land. The comparison with Trent's one word modification--- and what their consequences will be on Judgment Day, should be obvious. For if mere fallible human teachers will be judged more severely than the rest of us (James 3:1), how much more so will those who claim to speak infallibly for God? The Bible says, "<i>When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken" </i>(Deut 18:22). The same principle applies here in evaluating the claim of infallibility with regards to the Eucharist. By adding just one word into the mouth of Christ where it does not belong, Catholicism stumbles, and is guilty of breaking all the laws of infallibility in just the same way as anyone "<i>attempting to keep the whole law but stumbles at just one point, is guilty of breaking all of it" </i>(James 2:10). </span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;">In John 21:22, we read of a rumor that was going around based on something Jesus supposedly said. But in the next breath, the Text reports that he did not actually say that at all. It is conclusive therefore, that I am in perfect harmony with the Spirit of Truth who is in favor of what Jesus actually said, rather than what he <b>supposedly</b> said. </span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;">Having taken the Lord's advice to, "<i>investigate, search out and inquire thoroughly"</i> (Deut 13:14), I conclude the gift of infallibility is a sham and a hoax, and thus I would argue that Transubstantiation, as well as the entire Roman Catholic faith should be rejected, per Deuteronomy 18:22 and Jeremiah 23:30-40. </span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;">It is promised in those passages that all false prophets who recklessly wag their tongues by asserting, "The Lord says", (when the Lord did not say), will be swiftly cast out of his presence (cf. Jeremiah 14:14, 23:16-21). Ultimately, there are only two choices. Either Jesus was speaking literally in John 6 and the Last Supper, or he was speaking metaphorically in those places. Based on the fact that the RCC has told us something..."infallible"...about God which is incorrect (Job 42:7), there is no other option but to dismiss the Catholic view and accept once and for all, that Jesus had no intention whatsoever for anyone to consume his physical anatomy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You do like to go on and on about nothing. Is this the best you can come up with in opposition to the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist? Really? The statement you keep harping on is not even all that important. I have read many debates on this topic and I am not all that familiar with it. Now if you were talking about the words of John 6 that I quoted or perhaps the words, "This is my body" which Jesus said then I could see spending a lot of time on a few words. These? No. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;"><b>WHAT THEN DID JESUS MEAN BY EATING HIS FLESH? </b></span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;">6) The metaphorical "eucharist onion" that we're dealing with here has an outside layer of skin, "<i>describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable properties of faith" </i>(says Clement of Alexandria). <i>"Faith, which is the flesh of the Lord"</i>, says metaphorical Ignatius, shows that eating flesh and drinking blood is simply a mode of expressing one's faith that, <i>"The word was made flesh and tabernacled among us"</i> (John 1:14), not that he tabernacles in bread and wine for us to eat. When we peel back the layer of that onion, pungent fumes reveal that, <i>"the drink is the word of knowledge [that] Christ...suffered according <b>TO</b> the flesh",</i> says Origin, not that we are to actually eat his flesh. As Augustine said, <i>"To believe [in his flesh and blood achievement] is to eat the living bread. He that believes, eats"...</i> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You need to understand that the early church fathers interpreted scripture on many levels. So they could interpret a passage metaphorically without denying it was literally true. They did that with John 6. They never denied that the obvious literal interpretation was true. It was obviously those present heard. There were 3 groups who reacted to Jesus' words. All took him literally and Jesus never corrected them. You have the Pharisees, the faithful disciples and the disciples who leave Jesus over this doctrine. Especially the last group you would assume Jesus has a responsibility to clarify his words with them if they are leaving over a misunderstanding. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;"><u>OBJECTION</u>: But Augustine and others support Catholicism by saying.... </span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;"><u>ANSWER</u>: Who cares! The point is that the Protestant position has a pedigree that did not just pop up in the 16th century. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Actually No. There was nobody who denied the real presence for over 1000 years of Christian history. It was not as late as the 16th century. I think it was first suggested in the 11th. Still that is a long time for all of Christendom to believe something you ridicule as stupid and evil and whatever else. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;">When we finally cut to the core of the onion, we smell the strong odor of metaphorical usage regarding eating and drinking in the Old Testament as well, to which we now turn. </span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;">7) To suppose that the Savior means for us to consume his <b>physique, </b>is simply out of sync with the biblical precedent of "eating God" in a metaphorical sense. <i>"Hearken diligently to me and eat" </i>(Isa 55:2) is obviously metaphorical. The same goes for, " <i>Oh taste and see that the Lord is good"</i>(Psalm 34:8). The same goes for he being the <i>"Fountain of Living Waters</i>" (Jeremiah 2:13). The same goes for, <i>"everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters...and draw water out of the wells of salvation" </i>(Isaiah 12:3, 55:1; cf. Psalm 42:1, 63:1). The same goes for when Israel, <i>"drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ"</i> (1 Cor 10:4). God quenched their thirst in the wilderness, splitting rocks and causing streams of water to flow out (Psalm 78:15-16). However, the rock was not literally Christ, just as the bread was not literally his body. They "drank" from their spiritual Rock, <b>by faith</b>, who was Christ supplying their need. Today, we "drink" the supply of all his promises, <b>by faith</b> (John 7:35-7). Today, we "taste the kindness of the Lord" , <b>by faith</b> (1 Peter 2:2-3). Today, we "drink the pure milk of the word", <b>by faith</b> (1 Peter 2:2). Today, we all, "drink into one spirit" by embracing all of his benefits, <b>by faith</b> (1 Cor 12:13). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">All these scriptures point to the Eucharist. OK, some that are just about water really refer to baptism. The point is sacramental imagery is used all over the place. It does not mean the Eucharist is not real. It actually fits with a sacramental spirituality. Even putting the words <b>by faith</b> in bold does not mean what you think. We come to Christ in the Eucharist through faith. This is not something apart from being saved by grace through faith. It is part of how we receive God's grace through faith.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That is 7 points. I know you made 16. I just found it long a repetitive. So I quit. If you want to pick up on a few points in the remainder I can respond. </span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-63467285817070122132018-06-21T19:34:00.000-06:002018-06-21T19:34:10.996-06:00Rudolf Bultmann<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-we-cannot-use-electric-lights-and-radios-and-in-the-event-of-illness-avail-ourselves-rudolf-bultmann-109-64-65.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-we-cannot-use-electric-lights-and-radios-and-in-the-event-of-illness-avail-ourselves-rudolf-bultmann-109-64-65.jpg" data-original-height="376" data-original-width="800" height="187" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Just thinking about some of the developments is the scholarship around the early church. Bultmann is a key figure. What he did was really broke the connection between the faith of historical Christianity and the reality of Jesus and what the apostles experienced. He traced a number of stages of development in 3 major areas: </span><br />
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<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The change of Christian community from ad hoc small groups of Christians to a more hierarchical church structure. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Moving from a word and preaching based spirituality to a sacramental spirituality. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Moving from a low Christology to a high Christology. That is believing moving from seeing Jesus as a remarkable human being to seeing Jesus as being co-equal and co-eternal with the Father. </span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bultmann maintained that in these 3 areas Christianity changed over time from Palestinian Christianity and slowly evolved through several stages into what he called Early Catholicism. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Now it is difficult to overstate the impact his ideas had on modern scholarship. They were pretty much universally accepted. It is not hard to see why. They were perfect for Protestants because they asserted that the early church was basically protestant in nature. It seemed to address the objection that the reformation changed Christianity into something it had never been before. Of course the low Christology is not a protestant thing. They believe in the divinity of Christ. Still the principle they accepted. That the early church, the really early church, was nothing like the Catholic church. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Atheists loved the theory because it removes the supernatural elements from the story. It seemed to give a path by which you could get from a nice Jesus who did not do any miracles or rise from the dead to the deified Jesus that Christianity defined in the 4th century. It all sounded good. It still sounds good. You talk to any atheist on line and you will quickly get bold assertions that the New Testament developed over time and mostly would have been completely foreign to the Jews of the early 1st century. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The only trouble with this theory is it does not make any sense. It does not fit the data. There is simply nothing to indicate these stages happened. The earliest writings we have go back to the end of the 1st century and beginning of the second century. Clement of Rome, the Didache, Ignatius of Antioch, etc, etc. They are all clearly in the Early Catholic camp. So Bultmann has very little time for his 4 other stages. Really religions don't change their core beliefs that quickly and that silently. Even small changes happen slow and with much controversy. So it is massively implausible right out of the gate.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The evidence brought forward for such a proposal does not really work. The principle idea is the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke contain an earlier and lower view of Jesus. Except they don't. The Gospel of John contains more theologically explicit divinity claims like in John 1:1 and John 20:28. Still there are many things Jesus said and did in the synoptic gospels that point to His divinity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Anyway, what strikes me is how protestant thinking really leads to atheism if you take it to its logical conclusion. When we see that the earliest church we have evidence for is very Catholic in its belief and practise then what do we do? If we imagine the church changed so quickly and so radically because we don't want to put Catholicism in such a central place then you have opened to door to any imagined starting point. A church that is constantly rewriting its scriptures starts to make sense to people. The scholars who should be able to tell what is plausible and what is not end up being willing to accept pretty much anything. Anything but a Jesus who actually rose from the dead. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The fact is early Christianity came quite suddenly and changed the world quite dramatically. It is something that is not explainable in natural terms. By twisting the data for our own purposes we cause others to miss the significance of the incarnation and the resurrection. That Jesus really did bring something that humans could not have made on their own. That thing did not morph into the Catholic church. It is the Catholic church.</span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-5846308364575915252018-06-16T21:19:00.001-06:002018-06-16T21:22:53.535-06:00Jordan Peterson<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Peterson_Lecture_(33522701146).png/220px-Peterson_Lecture_(33522701146).png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Peterson_Lecture_(33522701146).png/220px-Peterson_Lecture_(33522701146).png" width="335" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I was reading Jordan Peterson’s book <a href="https://jordanbpeterson.com/12-rules-for-life/">12 Rules for Life</a>. He has a lot of interesting thoughts. I can see why people are fascinated by what he has to say. One thing that struck me is he does not have this artificial line between religion and non-religion that you see almost everywhere in our culture. Christians could learn a lot from him there. We tend to have religious conversations and music and movies and schools. Then we have secular conversations and music and movies and schools. We can live double lives. We can have people in our lives that we only see in a religious context and others who are barely aware we are Christian. Catholics are likely more known for this than Protestants. I have been the opposite. I was worse for this sort of thing in my Protestant days.<br /><br />Peterson will jump into religion frequently. He does it in a way that secular people can accept. He does not treat the bible as the Word of God. He treats it as a collection of human stories with their own largely-unknown histories. What do they say about the human condition? That is interesting and frustrating. Interesting because he has read a lot of scholars, and looking at scripture from that angle can bring out things we have never seen. It is frustrating because he never really deals with the question of is the bible the Word of God or not? Or the related question of is Jesus Christ what He claimed to be or not? He has such a style of being willing to ask the tough questions and even being willing to interact with some horrible potential answers to those questions. So why are these questions out of bounds? <br /><br />He does tread a strange middle ground. For example, when asserting we should do what is right he gives good reasons for rejecting the idea that nothing is right or wrong. He does a Pascal’s wager type of argument. If it leads to nihilism he just dismisses it with an assertion that if that is right everything is hopeless. So, he is not in line with any of the New Atheism thinkers. This is good because many people disillusioned by Christianity also find atheism problematic. Yet he rejects all the major religions as well. He has said he is a Christian, but he does not go to church anywhere. So, he is leaning a bit further in that direction but not hugely. In areas where Christians are counter-cultural he does not seem to take a clearly Christian position on any of those. He says if you are doing something you know is wrong then stop it. He does not say pornography is wrong so stop it. He does not even seem to tell us where he has personally landed on these questions.<br /><br />On the problem of pain, he does a good job of pointing out the atheist problem with pain. That the only real answer they have is suicide. Again, he uses Pascal’s Wager type reasoning to dismiss it. I did not know that Tolstoy said the only reason he did not kill himself was because he lacked courage. He really believed his life’s pain out-weighed its value. If a man as impressive as him can believe that, then who am I to say otherwise? Peterson details huge pain in his daughter’s life. Interestingly enough, he dismisses thinking as a response. He suggests maybe there is something higher than thinking. I thought he was going to say Faith. He doesn’t. He waffles again. <br /><br />Really when faced with such pain we need to either take the plunge of faith or let despair take over. We can choose to believe God is all-powerful and all-loving and this pain is not meaningless, or we can choose to believe God is either not loving or not powerful and judge him inadequate or even impossible. When life seems hopeless and God seems absent, we either accept that as the truth that or we refuse to believe that because it contradicts our faith. That in the end, God will give an adequate answer to evil and pain and injustice and everything else. In the meantime, we need to trust Him. <br /><br />I was struck but how he talked about one positive thing from his daughter’s life. She was given yet another terrible diagnosis. Yet something they thought was scientifically impossible happened. She got better. Not only did her ankle pain go away and not require surgery, but her knee got better as well enabling her to walk long distances. Quite something. I noticed how he did not want to use any language of grace or miracles to describe this.<br /><br />Anyway, we are already seeing some people talking about Jordan Peterson as a stepping stone towards Christianity. People follow him and that prepares them to follow Bishop Barron or others who previously they would never have come near because of all the God talk. I can see that. So many people today just shut down when you bring up the topic of God. If he can do it in a way that does not shut them down, then that is great. Yet they can’t really stop with him. He leaves them in the mushy middle and that is not a great place to be. We need to evangelize him for sure but also those who are following his thinking.</span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-51688398735510598572018-05-27T15:12:00.000-06:002018-05-27T15:12:05.896-06:00Incomplete Christianity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Last post I reflected a bit on what Christians teach about pain and suffering. How many Christians get the traditional Christian teaching wrong and that leads many to reject religion entirely because their wrong ideas don't pass the scrutiny of modern secular people. Andy Stanley saw this but he did not see the Protestant Reformation as being the ultimate source of many of these wrong ideas and the Catholic teaching on suffering as being right. He flirts with the Catholic notion on suffering but does not go there completely. Still he sees quite rightly that the incomplete answer is inadequate and causes people to lose their faith.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This pattern is more common. Sexual morality is one key area. The Protestant decision to accept artificial contraception has rendered their philosophy of sex incoherent. If it is OK to separate sex from child bearing then why it is not OK to separate it from marriage? You remove the one key piece and it become impossible to make the puzzle fit. So what most understand to be Christian sexual morality is really not it. It does not ring true to people because it is not true. True Christian sexual morality was abandoned by Protestants in the last 100 years. Catholics still teach it officially but many Catholics reject it as well. So modern man is rarely exposed to true Christian sexuality either in the form of teaching or in the lives of Christians. The rules are arbitrary and inconsistent and don't appeal to people at all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In my devotions I have been reading about spiritual dryness and the dark night of the soul. I start to realize that this can be another area where many people are not exposed to actual Christian teaching. Atheists point to Mother Teresa's admission of spiritual dryness as proof Christianity is false. Why? Because they Christianity they understand does not have an explanation for this. The conversion is everything and the struggles you experience later are not really talked about. You are saved and you are not committing any big sin so what is the issue? Yet you don't exactly have the joy and the fruitfulness that will make others want to become a Christian.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Mother Teresa had dryness but managed to have joy and fruitfulness anyway. Why? She was a Carmelite nun. She started her own order later but she was formed in the Carmelite way. So she would have been very familiar with the great Carmelite doctors of the church, St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross. These people understood spiritual dryness as a gift. It gives you the ability to choose Jesus not for the consolations you receive from Him but because you love Him. You have to live on faith and not on sight so you know your faith is real. This is something she would know about and expect as part of her walk with God. She did not expect it for as many years as it happened but that was just a surprise in intensity not in kind.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The trouble is that post-reformation Christianity has trouble getting past the ABC's of the faith. They disagree enough about those. Once you get past that you get so much disagreement that you are pretty much on your own. Lots of good advice. Lots of bad advice. All of it claiming to be biblical and most seem to take that seriously. So how do you find truth in that mess? You deal with spiritual dryness and you get a lot of answers. Some tell you to just lower your expectations of what religion is supposed to be. Some say to find a funkier worship experience and manufacture some excitement. Some will tell you to quite the ministry you and try something new. Good thing Mother Teresa did not do that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So what you end up with is Christianity looking very unimpressive to the outside observer. Lots of testimonies that say I found Jesus. Yet the strong feelings that are at the core of those testimonies often go away. Then what? Really it is like the Israelites. They had their huge experience of being saved from the Egyptians through the 10 plagues and parting of the Red Sea. They experienced God at Mt Sinai in a powerful way. Then what? There was 38 years in the dessert. Lots of hard days. They actually pointed out many days were harder than what they experienced in Egypt as slaves. Yet the reality was they were not slaves and that was a big deal. Yet wandering in the desert for so long is not is hard to take. People who were expecting something easier can get disillusioned. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The true Christian faith is beautiful enough and strong enough to attract people to it. Yet we need to get it right and we need to do it in enough detail to live it out. Stanley talked a lot about the Christians of the first few centuries. How they lived the truth despite persecution was such a strong witness and attracted pagans to the faith. How we live it actually sends people back to a modern version of paganism. Somehow we have lost the true faith. </span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-15359319520130506732018-05-19T17:14:00.002-06:002018-05-19T17:14:32.273-06:00The Problem Of Pain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Still moving through Andy Stanley's series on Who Needs God. Like I said, he does take seriously the problem of people choosing to give up on religion entirely. He things Christianity has done something wrong but he does not go deep enough. He sees that the way many Christians relate to the bible is not working but does not really ask where does that bible-centered thinking come from? The obvious answer is the reformation and he does not dare question that.<br /><br />Now he looks at pain and evil. Why are we shocked that pain and evil exist in the world? Many see it as a reason to reject Christianity. That has not always been the case. In fact, the church endured terrible suffering in the first few centuries. Their suffering actually brought them closer to God. Why does it move them away from God now? <br /><br />It comes back to heresy. People think they know the Christian answer to suffering but many do not. Many think the Christian answer is that suffering comes from sin and the answer is to stop sinning. That is part of it. The bible is full of statements that obedience produces joy and sin leads to misery. Yet that is a certain kind of joy and certain kind of misery. The more superficial and more visible joy and misery often work that way but not always. <br /><br />When I say more superficial I mean things that can be very intense. Heb 12:2 says, "For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." So Jesus' suffering on the cross was superficial. It was intense suffering but there was a deeper joy. So by comparison it can be called superficial but it can be intense enough to dominate your life. That kind of suffering can and does happen to Christians. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So if you leave aside the dynamic where we rebel against God's will and maybe we end up in jail or maybe we end up in addiction or in a broken relationship or whatever. That happens a lot but that is not all suffering. There is random suffering where someone get cancer or someone has a car accident or whatever. No obvious sin caused it. Then there is suffering actually brought on by living out your faith. Jesus' suffering on the cross. He was the first of many Christian martyrs. Maybe God calls you to make a painful decision. Often it ends up being much less painful than feared but not always. Sometimes it just hurts and that is the road we are supposed to travel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So what is the answer to the problem of pain or the problem of evil in those situations? There are 2 answers really. The first answer is, "Wait." God sees pain and sees evil. He is doing something about it. It is just taking time. We need to trust that God will right every wrong and wipe away every tear. His Kingdom is delayed because he wants to give us time to repent but His Kingdom will come. Then all the questions around the problem of evil will be answered. God's justice and mercy will be evident.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In some ways "Wait" is not a helpful answer. We have to live life now. Knowing that all this will make sense in the end helps but only so much. We need something more. The second answer God gives to this question is the cross. Now Andy Stanley got about as close as a Protestant can to talking about this. He seemed to realize the suffering of Jesus together with the suffering of the early church was the key. Still he stopped short of saying our suffering can become salvific. Just too Catholic an idea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Still the notion of really embracing the cross and seeing our sufferings as carrying our own cross. That can really transform the way we suffer. The infinite love of God can be made more powerful by our finite love. We can see that. It can touch others because we are human and human love is easier for human to relate with. Similarly the infinitely powerful suffering of Jesus can be made more powerful by our suffering. It can bring grace to our lives and the lives of those we know. God chooses to give our suffering meaning the same way He chooses to give the rest of our life meaning. He allows us to make a difference. Sometimes He allows us to make an eternal difference. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">St Paul says in Col 1:24, "<span class="text Col-1-24"><sup class="versenum"> </sup>Now I rejoice<sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-29490BJ" data-link="(<a href="#cen-NIV-29490BJ" title="See cross-reference BJ">BJ</a>)"></sup> in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions,<sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-29490BK" data-link="(<a href="#cen-NIV-29490BK" title="See cross-reference BK">BK</a>)"></sup> for the sake of his body, which is the church.</span>" What is lacking in Christ's afflictions? Not that they are not enough. It is that they are not applied to everyone at every time. Paul sees his suffering as allowing Jesus suffering to have full effect in the church and thus being meaningful. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That is the true Christian answer to the problem of pain. If we don't understand that answer and believe that answer then atheists will always have a point when talking about pain and evil. The criticism will ring true in the ears of many because our answer will necessarily be incoherent. </span></div>
Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-32354286172325028102018-05-06T15:45:00.002-06:002018-05-06T15:52:43.433-06:00Who Needs God?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">At our parish men's group we are watching the <a href="https://whoneedsgod.com/">Who Needs God</a> videos by Andy Stanley. They are quite well done. We have not made it through the whole series yet but he is making some of the same points I have made. He makes them a lot better. He is an exceptional communicator. The basic message is that the rise in atheism has nothing to do with the notion that atheism has suddenly become appealing. In fact, many who leave Christianity do not associate themselves with atheism. They call themselves the Nones. That is when asked which religion they are they don't say Atheist. They say None. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">He actually points out many of the conclusions many of the leading atheist thinkers have come to. They take seriously the possibility that there is no god and try to make sense of life. It is hard. We become the centre. All meaning is centred around what we feel is meaningful. All morality is centred around what we feel is right. Yet can we trust our feelings? The answer is No. We know people who based their life on what they felt is good and meaningful and got it terribly wrong. Do we have any reason to believe our own feelings are immune from such serious errors? No.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The conclusions that atheist philosophers draw are much worse. About free choice being an illusion, about love and beauty having no real value, about the human person being indistinguishable from animals and even machines. These are all out there but I am not sure he went over them in enough detail to convince anyone who was not already convinced. Still he does enough to show atheism, if true, is a terrible truth. It does not just declare God to be a delusion but it says anything you have ever thought worthwhile about your life or anyone's life is a delusion as well. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Then he moves on to his main point. He says the real problem is not that atheism is appealing but the real problem is that people are latching on to wrong notions of theism. What is being presented as authentic Christianity is actually an incoherent theology that people eventually reject for good reasons. He lists a number of these. He is mostly right. These ideas are out there. They do not make sense and they are not taught by traditional Christianity. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The trouble is he is declaring all these teachings to be heresy. He needs to do that. Yet he does not claim the authority to be able to do that. Andy Stanley does not claim to be able to define what doctrines Christians must believe and what heresies they must reject. Yet he does exactly that. He gets away with it rhetorically. You can always do that. You can say this other idea makes no sense or it is unbiblical or whatever. Yet if you put him side by side with someone who believes one of these ideas it would not be so clear which is the biblical one or which is the logical one. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">How can you make it clear? Typically the only way to make clear which is the orthodox teaching and which is the heresy is to appeal to tradition. To go back to prominent Christian thinkers from previous generations and show that what they are teaching is not in line with what Christians have historically taught and what you are teaching is in line with them. Yet that line of reasoning is precisely what protestants rejected in the reformation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This is why we have atheism. Christianity is a complex faith. It is important we get it right. If we distort it in some way we can end up in an incoherent belief system. Then we are asking people to spend their lives on something that does really make sense. They are not going to want to do that. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The controversies get harder. So far he has stayed away from the questions around sexual morality. I am surprised because he claims to base these talks on reading many de-conversion stories. That is stories of Christians losing their faith either to become an Atheist or become a None. I have read a fair few of those stories too. Many of them talk about sexual morality. That can reduce their credibility. Christians can dismiss them saying this guy just wanted to engage in a certain sex act and his faith told him No so he ditched his faith. Sometimes that is accurate but often it is not. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Even people who are married and faithful have questions. Can I tell someone who is not married and in a sexual relationship that they need to stop having sex or get married? Can I tell a woman who is pregnant and sees huge problems with having a child that she should not have an abortion? Can I tell someone who is same-sex attracted that sex is for marriage and marriage is for a man and a woman? For all these questions the answer may well be Yes but you don't want to say that unless you are sure you are right. Can we be sure we are right? Can we know God's truth on these questions with any sort of certainty? If not, then why bother with Christianity? If so, then what do you reply to all the liberal Christians who claim you are wrong? </span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-49581371062754969952018-04-07T16:53:00.001-06:002018-04-07T16:53:38.215-06:00Atheism and Modern Paganism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We see a lot of paganism about. My child loves the movie Moana which is about gods and demigods and being characters being told by the ocean what their purpose in life is. We see characters like Thor and Loki coming back. Wonder Woman has Zeus as part of her story. These religions have been discarded for a long time. Why are we as a society coming back to them? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What is happening is we have rejected the Christian story. Art wants to point to something true and good and right. Yet they are no longer able to point to explicitly Christian definitions of that. Why not? One big reason is that many people mistakenly believe Christianity can't stand up to logical scrutiny. That it is not true. Leaving aside for now why that is, it becomes a lot easier to say something comes from Zeus or Odin rather than from Jesus. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What they really want in most of these stories is a sense of purpose in life. Who are you? What are you mean to be? How can you tell when someone lies to you about who you are? How do you know your true purpose? The story tellers want these questions to have answers and for the characters to find these answers as the story unfolds. This makes sense. We love stories like this because we believe that our lives have meaning and purpose. We believe that we can get confused about what that purpose is. We believe that clearing up that confusion can change our lives dramatically for the better. It can be what one might call a conversion experience.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So what's the trouble? Well, the reason why we rejected the Christian story is because it did not stand up to logical scrutiny. Guess what? These stories don't stand up either. In fact, they do much worse. That is why they were rejected in favor of Christianity. So why accept these? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The reason is because atheism is unlivable. What would an atheist story look like? A young person has a restless heart because they feel they are meant for something more. Then he is told that feeling is a lie. He is not made for anything at all. He is just a random configuration of DNA. He thinks his life matters because his brain has evolved to make him believe that lie. He is just wrong. His birth, life and death are completely meaningless events. The end. So who would see that movie?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They say if you reject Christianity you don't end up believing in nothing. You start believing in anything. Deep down inside we know that the pathetic answers atheism give to life's big questions are not really true. So we pursue sex or drugs or Marvel movies as the answer. We know they are not but our hearts want to love something. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Does this prove atheism is false. Not logically. Yet is seems to make it inherently implausible. Why would the human person find the truth so intolerable? If that is the case it is a horrible state of affairs. The only way we an be happy is to tell ourselves a lie. Yet we inherently hate lies. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It eventually comes to a point where Pascal's wager makes sense. If atheism is true then we can never be truly happy. None of our friends or family can be truly happy either. Humans just have no place of peace. So we gain nothing by believing it. We just end up with a joyless life that ends in a meaningless death. So if atheism is true the truth is so horrible that we have almost no choice not to face it and try some sort of escape. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So why not try the escape that actually benefits you if atheism is not true? Why not embrace the greatness and joy Catholicism? If it turns out to be true you gain everything. If it turns out to be false you still gain. You have at least placed a bet that has a chance to win. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Why Catholicism and not some other religion? Of course that is a fair question that has a good answer. Not as hard as you would expect. Science and history go a long ways to eliminating other religions. Is it that hard to know Zeus and Thor are not candidates? People who seriously ask the question of which of the many religions has a real chance to be true typically arrive at Catholicism very quickly. Jesus stands out among religious figures. Catholicism stands out among all the flavors of Christianity. </span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-12593126585067297372018-03-25T11:36:00.001-06:002018-03-25T11:36:42.324-06:00Why Should The Devil Have All The Bad Music?<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is a time of you where Catholics are trying to walk with Jesus through the passion. We try to connection our suffering with those of Christ. That can not only make us feel better but give our suffering salvific significance. That is our pain becomes a powerful weapon is the spiritual battle to save souls, including our own. This is a doctrine protestants reject because they get salvation wrong. I won't get into that here but it matters in practice because much of our Christian music comes from protestants. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I recall something I read a while back about <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-sun-is-always-shining-in-modern-christian-pop/">Christian music being excessively happy</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This just documents what many have said. That is that Christian music is great when you are happy and feeling good. It is not so good when you are in pain. Now Christians should always have a deep underlying joy and our music should help us connect with that. It is good we have music that does that well. Yet we still have pain. We still have deep pain that we cannot just ignore for a while when we sing some happy clappy songs on Sunday morning. Even the lesser struggles we have that we can set aside, is Sunday morning a time when we should set them aside? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If your theology does not really have a place for suffering you have no choice. That is not true of Catholic theology but many Catholics don't really get it. We can slip into protestant thinking because we live in a sea of protestants. We have a very secular culture but to the extent we have a Christian subculture it is very much a protestant one. We get that we believe in the Eucharist and the pope and they don't. Yet other differences like the way we think about suffering come out in more subtle ways and impact us a lot.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One way it impacts us is we have no Christian art we can turn to in times of suffering. We don't even really think Christian art can address the subject. We can even go so far as to imagine Christian community cannot address it. It happens that someone who is in serious pain withdraws from Christian community because it does not go well. Often they can find secular art and secular community that can understand their pain. Yet the secular world has no answer. We need something that points us to the cross. Yet we have forgotten how to do that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So that brought me to the title of this post. Larry Norman had a song a while back called "Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What I am thinking has happened is the Devil has all the Bad Music. Not artistically bad but "bad" in the sense of music we listen to during bad times. Christianity needs to relearn how to write such music. It needs to relearn how to embrace the cross. </span></div>
Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-29257905298643138202018-03-18T20:02:00.000-06:002018-03-18T20:02:12.691-06:00Dying And Rising<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. <a href="http://biblehub.com/context/john/12-20.htm">John 12:23-26</a></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This is part of the gospel for this week. It is the story thing John records before moving into the crucifixion account in John 13. The homily we heard on it was about doing better morally and trying to make some incremental improvement in your life. It struck me how that is not at all what Jesus says here. Jesus call for a dying and rising. That is a radical change. It does not describe making a effort at an attainable improvement. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">One big difference between the two is that one requires faith and the other does not. Trying to become a better person is something an atheist can do. I would suggest they don't have a coherent answer to what it means to be a better person but that is another story. They do feel the impulse to improve themselves and many of them do. It is all based on human motivation and human effort that does not need to be connected with God at all. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Dying and rising, on the other hand, does not make any sense if God is not real. Dying means you are completely helpless and you need God to raise you up. If God is not there then you will die and that will just be the end of it. This is why this story is told in the context of Jesus' death and resurrection. We can die to sin and be sure of our resurrection precisely because Jesus rose from the dead.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">The objection to this is if you set your sights too high you will fail. Make the goal attainable and you are going to succeed. Is not some small victory better than one big defeat? First of all, you are not guaranteed a small victory. We can set our sights quite low and still fail to achieve the target. Secondly, and more importantly, failure does not have to leave us in a bad place. We tried to be a saint and we failed. That leaves us knowing we are sinners and still having a long way to go. So we need to do this conversion thing again and again. Our failure will remind us of our sinfulness again and again. This is good.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">The line that was repeated so often is that in order to be a disciple we need progress but not perfection. I am not sure this is true. We don't need perfection for sure but I am thinking we don't even need to make progress. Long term you would wonder about a person who never makes any progress. Still in the short term you might not achieve even a little bit. Someone who tries to quit drinking might not be very successful at all. Do you have to show progress to call yourself a disciple? I would say just the fact that you want to follow God in this is enough. The fact that you did not even make progress today is not important. Tomorrow is important. Do you try again or do you give up? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">It comes down to the difference between grace and works. Is God acting with our cooperation or are we acting and maybe getting some help from God? Christianity is very firmly in the former. We need God even for small progress. What follows is that difficulties are kind of irrelevant. Nothing is too difficult for God. What matters is whether we trust God. </span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-84126526799492418902017-11-19T23:03:00.000-07:002017-11-22T19:36:39.647-07:00Silence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It took me a while to watch this movie. I had heard it was not that great. It the story of some Jesuit priests in Japan who suffer persecution and eventually apostatise. That is they give up the Catholic faith entirely and start working to oppose it. Such people did exist. They shocked Europe. Jesuits folding under persecution was unheard of. Yet we never really fully understood why. This movie offers one scenario I guess.<br /><br /> One thing that seems implausible about this movie is the priests never remind me of real Jesuits. Now the actors went to Father James Martin, a modern Jesuit, and tried to learn something of Jesuit spirituality. The trouble is modern Jesuit spirituality is very different from 17th century Jesuit spirituality. Modern Jesuits would apostatise in a New York minute. In fact, Father James Martin is know for arguing very liberal views. Some might say he has already come close to apostasy without much persecution at all. Just a little social pressure from the liberal academic elite and he folds like a house of cards. <br /><br /> These characters are like that. It does not take any pressure at all to get them to question their faith. They express very serious doubts very early in the movie before any real persecution has happened. Even the title of the movie, Silence, comes from there repeated confusion over God being silent. I have never heard a priest talk like they do. So the shock that is supposed to take place when the apostasy occurs is just not there. We more have the feeling of why are these spiritual weaklings being sent into this very hard assignment with no support?<br /><br /> The thing that really bothered me about this movie is how pro-persecution it was. There was this constant narrative that Christianity was causing problems for Japan and nothing good was coming from it. That Japan was totally justified in using torture and murder on a large scale to deal with this problem. That religion can be effectively stamped out by getting the leaders to publicly oppose the cause of Jesus. Even when you do this using the worst forms of torture those turned leaders will still be effective in opposing the faith.<br /><br /> This is scary in today's day and age. Atheism is on the rise and one wonders how quickly our society can forget about freedom of religion. We have a society where many talk about how annoyed they are that Christians seem to cling to their beliefs. How could we deal with that? Could western society turn to violence to try and stamp out Christianity. If you are looking for movies that try and suggest that then you will like this one. It is all about how great it is when the state bans Christianity.<br /><br /> These Jesuits make none of the arguments you expect Jesuits to make in this situation. So many lame objections to the faith remain unanswered. You look at a Jesuit like St Edmund Campion who articulated the faith so well under the persecution of Queen Elizabeth I. Even a Jesuit like St Francis Xavier who founded the Catholic church in Japan and deserves a movie much more that these guys. <br /><br /> One idea that goes unchallenged in the movie is that the brutally violent rulers who stamp out the faith will suddenly become nice benevolent rulers once Christianity is gone. That state sponsored torture and genocide will stop on its own and human rights will start to be respected because these people gave up their faith. Nothing could be less likely. Evil does just go away. The way to defeat evil is the encounter Jesus. Without Him government brutality would continue without limit. <br /><br /> The movie does show the heroic martyrdom of many Japanese Christians. It repeatedly points out that they are simple peasants. Suggesting the problem is the people who have planted such ideas in their minds. The people actually doing the killing are not seen as the problem. Yet the beauty of their faith still comes through. You wish for the priest to find such courage but he never does.<br /><br /> If they theory is right and the reason the priests apostatised was because their faith was really not the Catholic faith but actually a 17th century version of the modernist heresy. If such a thing is even possible. If that is what happened in Japan then it is a sobering warning of what could happen in the west. The worldwide Catholic church cannot be destroyed but major countries can have the church wiped out for centuries at a time. Could that happen here? Could our clergy become open to the idea that the Christian faith is not something we should die for but rather something we should be pragmatic about? That there might be a better strategy to improve society than offering the word and sacraments of Jesus Christ? You would hope that with so many more priests and bishops that at least some would stand up to the pressure. Still the conversations between the Japanese inquisitor and Jesuit priest are not that hard to imagine happening in the west with liberal priests and secular politicians. </span>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Today we focus on <a href="http://biblehub.com/niv/matthew/25.htm">Matthew 25:1-13</a>:</span><br />
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The Parable of the Ten Virgins<br /><span class="reftext" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/25-1.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>1</b></a></span><span class="red" style="color: red;">“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.</span> <span class="reftext" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/25-2.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>2</b></a></span><span class="red" style="color: red;">Five of them were foolish and five were wise.</span> <span class="reftext" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/25-3.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>3</b></a></span><span class="red" style="color: red;">The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them.</span> <span class="reftext" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/25-4.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>4</b></a></span><span class="red" style="color: red;">The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps.</span> <span class="reftext" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/25-5.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>5</b></a></span><span class="red" style="color: red;">The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.</span><span class="reftext" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/25-6.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>6</b></a></span><span class="red" style="color: red;">“At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’</span><span class="reftext" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/25-7.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>7</b></a></span><span class="red" style="color: red;">“Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps.</span> <span class="reftext" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/25-8.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>8</b></a></span><span class="red" style="color: red;">The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’</span><span class="reftext" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/25-9.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>9</b></a></span><span class="red" style="color: red;">“ ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’</span><span class="reftext" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/25-10.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>10</b></a></span><span class="red" style="color: red;">“But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.</span><span class="reftext" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/25-11.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>11</b></a></span><span class="red" style="color: red;">“Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’</span><span class="reftext" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/25-12.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>12</b></a></span><span class="red" style="color: red;">“But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’</span><span class="reftext" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/25-13.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>13</b></a></span><span class="red" style="color: red;">“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here Jesus is giving us some final instructions and does so with 3 illustrations. Matthew 25 is the last chapter of the gospel before we go into the crucifixion and resurrection stories. So we are dealing with the final points of Jesus' teaching ministry. The 3 points are the stories of the 10 virgins, the talents and the sheep and the goats. All stories about people who seem to be on the road to heaven yet some of them make it and some of them do not. Do Jesus is giving us warning. Don't do these things. You might not receive the salvation you are expecting. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The story of the 10 virgins is quite simple. The foolish virgins have just enough oil to get them to the wedding banquet. The wise virgins have extra oil. They are virgins so they are not big sinners. They are waiting for the bridegroom so they are not without faith. Yet some of the virgins have just as much oil as they have figured out they need. The trouble is they miscalculate and end up missing out. It seems unfair.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You hear that a lot. People think they are doing OK with respect to religion and expect God will not condemn them to hell. After all they are descent people and they have not completely ignored religion. God is merciful. There is nothing to worry about. Jesus is suggesting there is something to worry about. The road is going to be longer and harder than you expect. If you think you will be OK you should think again. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In fact, Jesus goes one step further. He suggests in verse 12 that these 5 foolish virgins don't know God at all. How can that be? It is not like they brought no oil at all. The trouble is they asked how little they could do and still be saved. How could they avoid hell and still live fairly normal lives. That is the wrong question. That is the question we ask when we don't really know God. When we know God we ask how much can we do. We ask if there is anyway I could show more love for God or help my neighbour more. That is a question that will totally transform your life if we ask it and really mean it. Yet it is what we ask when we encounter God. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So in some ways the lack of extra oil is about faith expressing itself in works. Not expressing itself in doing some works but really expressing itself by dominating the life of the believer. It is precisely the kind of religion our culture refuses to accept. You can be Christian but don't be a fanatic. Spend you Sunday mornings any way you want but don't let it transform the way you look at the world. Accept what we accept. Be politically correct. Colour within the lines.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Personally we think that way as well. We want to be Christian but we don't want it to interfere to much with our fun. Do enough to get saved but you real source of joy is the things of the world. We get caught in that kind of thinking all the time. We don't really believe that. That is not our creed. Yet our hearts go there again and again. In some ways it is the root of all sin. </span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-46962268608755901972017-11-01T20:41:00.000-06:002017-11-01T20:41:12.090-06:00The Price Of Atheism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-atheism-is-a-disease-of-the-soul-before-it-becomes-an-error-of-understanding-plato-66-80-09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-atheism-is-a-disease-of-the-soul-before-it-becomes-an-error-of-understanding-plato-66-80-09.jpg" data-original-height="376" data-original-width="800" height="187" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What is important to you? The odds are if you become a consistent atheist you will have to rethink it. Does knowledge matter to you? Do you like to learn about science or philosophy? Knowledge means nothing if atheism is true. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Does love matter? Are the people closest to you the most important consideration at the end of the day? If atheism is true then love is an illusion. What about art or music? Do you see beauty as something worth sacrificing for and pursuing with great intensity? If atheism is true it is just a strange curiosity of evolution. What about meaning? Do you want to do something some day that really matters? With atheism is impossible even in principle for any human action or inaction to matter. What about goodness? Do you want people to say you always did what was right even when it was hard? That becomes incomprehensible with atheism.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sure Christianity ask you to surrender everything. Yet Christianity gives you those things back again in a much better way. Knowledge matters because it is ultimately knowledge of God. Everything becomes reoriented towards God and gains meaning and significance. With atheism everything becomes reoriented toward nothingness. Really it becomes re-oriented towards your own brain but as a defect in your brain. Something that gave humans a survival advantage at some point in history. We got those things the same way we got our appendix or our baldness. It is just the way the genetic ball bounces. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Satan offers us a deal where he takes our soul and offers us nothing in return. Really when we talk about a person's soul we are always talking about those things that seem to go deeper than physical reality. It is not that there are unrelated to anything physical but there seems to be more there. Atheism has to say sense we have is flat out wrong. They don't have evidence to prove it is wrong. They have to accept it because it comes with the metaphysical assumptions they have made. This is precisely what they ridicule Christians for when they say they believe something on faith. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So atheism seems like it costs you nothing. When you go deep you find it costs you everything. Christianity is the opposite. It seems to cost you everything but after you embrace it you are much richer than you were before. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">So why can't atheists see this? I mean the vast majority don't want to deny the importance of love and art and human dignity and whatever else. Why don't they see that rooting these things in the random processes of evolution is not going to give them the value they should have. Partly it has to do with a lack of philosophical training. People believe in human rights but they don't understand why they believe in human rights. It just seems clear to them. They don't see the connection to where we have traditionally said the human person comes from. All creatures are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. If there is no creator where do the rights come from? There is very little attempt to wrestle with such questions. There is no real understanding how not having a logic foundation for something will mean it can disappear any time it is challenged. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">The other reason is people just don't see Christianity as a viable option. They see it as anti-science and anti-sex and just not very respectable. They are wrong but it causes many to embrace atheism without any real reflection because they see not alternative. </span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-77648922806638940392017-10-14T14:12:00.001-06:002017-10-14T14:12:56.890-06:00What Do We Know For Sure?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was talking with a protestant about theology recently. His reflection was around this question of what do we know is from God and what is just human opinion. He didn't say so but I think it was as it relates to the LGBT questions. How much of what we think is Christian comes from God and how much has just been mixed in with Christianity over time? Now where he went from this is into a more liberal Protestantism in order to avoid claiming to speak for God on matters where we are not sure we know what God really thinks. I can see his point. Nobody wants to assert a moral principle and get it wrong. This is especially true when said principle puts more demands on other people than it does on you. Saying sodomy is intrinsically disordered does create more challenges for a same-sex attracted male than it does for me who has no temptation in that area. So we only want to say that if we are sure we are right.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The other point I can really see is that we don't know many things for sure if we assume a protestant approach. We have the principle of Scripture Alone and we have many different opinions on what scripture really teaches. One can always assert that those opinions that disagree with yours are avoiding what is clearly taught in scripture. Sometimes that is true. Still accusing people of that is uncharitable and in many cases unwarranted. People can arrive at many different conclusions with sincere hearts and sound reasoning. Yes some are just playing games with scripture but just excluding those does not eliminate the problem. Legitimate disagreements are very numerous and very significant. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So where does that leave us? Is liberal Protestantism the best answer? I found it untenable. You have to realize that this problem of uncertainty does not just apply to the question of the day. It applies to all questions. No matter what we are talking about we have some that see clear scriptural direction but we almost always have significant disagreement. Are there any exceptions? Certainly the list has grown a lot shorter during the last 50 years. If there is anything left where there is strong consensus you should not be surprised if even that breaks down at some point in the future. Differences of opinion about scripture are everywhere. If Christianity is to become agnostic on all these matters then that is quite a weakness. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So when we declare scripture to be inconclusive where do liberal protestants turn? In practice they turn to the culture. What does society say is the right answer to LGBT questions or anything else? Why not? The culture is strong. If your faith is not offering you anything solid then you end up in the same position as an atheist. You listen to what most people are saying and you go with that. If you don't you are going to be in for a fight and who wants to fight when one is not sure they are right?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The trouble is your Christian faith ends up being quite useless. Again and again you end up in the exact position as the atheist. Jesus said we would know the truth and the truth would set us free (<a href="http://biblehub.com/john/8-32.htm">Jn 8:32</a>). Yet we end up not knowing much truth at all. Is this really the way Jesus mean it to work? My conclusion was No. Jesus has provided a way to let us know the Word of God even when there is much disagreement. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">How do we get there? One way is to look at why people disagree about scripture. Mostly because they come from different traditions and bring different philosophical assumptions to the process of interpretation. Bryan Cross talks about that in this video as well at this <a href="http://www.calledtocommunion.com/">website</a>. Once we get that we can ask how Jesus tells us to avoid incorrect assumptions. Hint: it involves a role for the church. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-13100726074839330382017-04-16T20:21:00.001-06:002017-04-16T20:21:40.057-06:00Lenten Journeys<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Catholic spiritual leaders often invite the faithful to go on a journey during lent. I did one this year from <a href="https://www.paradisusdei.org/index.php/programs/tmiy/">TMIY </a>and it was very good. What strikes me now is that it is over. Why is that? The liturgical journey we are on is not over. We have 40 days of lent where we do penance and focus on our sin and our frailty. We need that. Sin runs deep in us and we need to take some serious time to deal with it. Yet that is not the whole story. Lent gives way to Easter. Easter is not just a party. It is a season of joy and victory. It is 50 days rather than 40. That is not just because we want to enjoy good things longer than we want to deprive ourselves of them. It is also because living the joy and victory is also a complex business. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Now that we have, hopefully, had some success in controlling our passions and dealing with the sin in our life the question of how to best use that freedom from sin. Consider these words of Jesus from Luke 11:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="reftext" style="background-color: #fdfeff; color: #001320; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 25px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/luke/11-24.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>24</b></a></span><span class="red" style="background-color: #fdfeff; color: red; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 25px;">“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’</span><span style="background-color: #fdfeff; color: #001320; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 25px;"> </span><span class="reftext" style="background-color: #fdfeff; color: #001320; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 25px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/luke/11-25.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>25</b></a></span><span class="red" style="background-color: #fdfeff; color: red; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 25px;">When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order.</span><span style="background-color: #fdfeff; color: #001320; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 25px;"> </span><span class="reftext" style="background-color: #fdfeff; color: #001320; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 25px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/luke/11-26.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>26</b></a></span><span class="red" style="background-color: #fdfeff; color: red; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 25px;">Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.”</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Jesus is explaining one danger of just focusing on fighting sin. When we win the battle against sin we can have a bit of a spiritual vacuum. If we don't fill that with virtue and positive activity then other vices or even the same vice can come back. The church gets this. That is why the journey does not end with Easter. It ends with Pentecost. Really it needs to continue into ordinary time because it is only when our ordinary life is changed that we know a permanent improvement has happened.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yet almost all the lenten journey stuff you see ends when the 40 days is over. The 40 days is not followed up with a 50 days that prepares you to launch into something really big and exciting. It is like we are done. We don't see Easter as a victory that changes the game in our favor but rather as something that ends the game. We keep saying we are a resurrection people but don't really think deeply about what that means. It does not help that Pentecost occurs at the beginning of summer. Churches are more interested in taking a break at that point than challenging people to start something new.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Now a lot of lenten programs get this. Then know that just focusing on sin and penance is not complete. Yet rather than add an Easter portion to their journey the incorporate much of that into lent. The trouble is the two parts of the journey need to be separated. Often we find one part easier than the other and we do that part well and neglect the other. Two spiritual seasons for two different aspects of growth makes sense. Yet we don't do it. People are willing to put out effort for the lenten season but they don't want to do much for Easter. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So what does Easter look like? Think of the disciples on the first Easter. Jesus dies. Jesus rises. There is immediate joy. Yet it is hard for them to figure out what is next. Jesus stays for a while and totally convinces them He is really alive. The He commissions them. Then He leaves. We go through the same sort of thing. We die during lent. If we did it right we rise again with new life. Yet what does it mean? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">First of all, it should strengthen our faith. When we embraced prayer, fasting and alms-giving we ended up not losing our life like common sense would indicate but gaining a richer life like Jesus promised. That is experiencing the truth of the gospel on a very personal and practical level. Often we end up breaking bad habits we once thought were unbreakable. Like the old song says, "You ask me how I know He lives, He lives within my heart." That kind of power acting inside our hearts should blow us away as much as seeing Jesus rise blew away the disciples.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Secondly, it should put us in touch with our spiritual gifts. When we rid ourselves of sin we don't lose our identity but we become who we are truly meant to be. We start to enter into the intimate communion with God we were created for. Think of the church in Acts 2 and the detachment they experienced from earthly goods and their hunger for the word of God and the sacraments. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Anyway, this is getting long. My point is that lent is not the end of the journey. It is step one. Often it is the hardest step. Still when you get it right you want to keep going.</span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-71908847120217466412017-04-15T15:49:00.001-06:002017-04-15T15:54:10.606-06:00God is Love<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As Christians when we thing about the words God is Love we tend to think of them as a statement of theology. 1 John 4 boldly states that God is love. In the face of all the pain and evil we see in the world it is a pretty audacious claim. One that changes the way we approach life. Still I have been thinking of it a bit different. I have been thinking of God is Love as a statement of philosophy. That is that we cannot have a coherent notion of love unless we believe in God. Christians can talk about the mystery of love forever. When they ponder it they often talk about what happened on Good Friday and Easter as the best example of unfathomable love. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Atheists are in a very different place. They believe in love. I mean they believe in the human experience. How could they not? Yet when they try and go deeper and explain exactly what it is, where do they go? They go to brain chemistry. They go to evolutionary biology. We have certain responses to certain stimuli because they created some survival advantage for us at some point in our evolution. That is what we call love. We value love not because it is inherently valuable but because of the random events of our evolution. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We enjoy love for the same reason a</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> shark enjoys killing. We evolved that way. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">St John Paul II said man cannot make sense of himself unless he gives himself away in love. I think most realize this is true. Yet is it a feature or a defect? An atheist would be forced to say even that meaning is an illusion. It is just that the feelings evolution gave us with respect to love are strong but they are not any more meaningful because they are strong. A Christian would say it is meaningful because when you love you connect with God. This is because God is love. So love can be meaningful if there is a God to make it meaningful. If there is no God then it can't be despite the fact that it really, really feels meaningful. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This is a place where the atheist has to make a choice. Either to believe, on faith, that love is meaningless despite his feelings or to stop being an atheist and say there must be something more than the material world. The other choice is to simply live the contradiction and not think about it too hard. The last choice is obviously the easiest. Yet if atheists pride themselves on anything it is their brutally honest rationality. Some have taken the second option. <a href="http://jenniferfulwiler.com/">Jennifer Fulwiler</a> is the name that pops to mind. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So love implies God. To say God is love you would also have to say God implies love. Does it really? Certainly people have believed in God's that didn't always love. Yet if we that love is the highest human value and acknowledge that it is that way because God made it so. Then would we not be justified to conclude that God must be love? <a href="https://www.magiscenter.org/">Fr Robert Spitzer</a> actually takes it a step further and suggests that God must be the greatest possible lover. That the Christian God should be seen as possible and even probable because it paints God as the greatest lover in giving His son to die for our sins. </span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-75571829047062846142017-04-08T21:07:00.000-06:002017-04-09T19:07:25.299-06:00Mary at Cana<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Just reflecting on <a href="http://biblehub.com/niv/john/2.htm">John 2:1-12</a>. The wedding</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> feast in Cana:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="reftext" style="font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/john/2-1.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>1</b></a></span>On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, <span class="reftext" style="font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/john/2-2.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>2</b></a></span>and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. <span class="reftext" style="font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/john/2-3.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>3</b></a></span>When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”<br /><span class="reftext" style="font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/john/2-4.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>4</b></a></span><span class="red" style="color: red;">“Woman,<span class="nivfootnote" style="color: #0066aa; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 1px;"><sup><a href="http://biblehub.com/niv/john/2.htm#footnotes" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;" title="The Greek for Woman does not denote any disrespect.">a</a></sup></span> why do you involve me?”</span> Jesus replied. <span class="red" style="color: red;">“My hour has not yet come.”</span><span class="reftext" style="font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/john/2-5.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>5</b></a></span>His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”<br /><span class="reftext" style="font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/john/2-6.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>6</b></a></span>Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.<span class="nivfootnote" style="color: #0066aa; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 1px;"><sup><a href="http://biblehub.com/niv/john/2.htm#footnotes" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Or from about 75 to about 115 liters">b</a></sup></span><span class="reftext" style="font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/john/2-7.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>7</b></a></span>Jesus said to the servants, <span class="red" style="color: red;">“Fill the jars with water”</span>; so they filled them to the brim.<br /><span class="reftext" style="font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/john/2-8.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>8</b></a></span>Then he told them, <span class="red" style="color: red;">“Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”</span>They did so, <span class="reftext" style="font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/john/2-9.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>9</b></a></span>and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside <span class="reftext" style="font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/john/2-10.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>10</b></a></span>and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”<br /><span class="reftext" style="font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/john/2-11.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>11</b></a></span>What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.<br /><span class="reftext" style="font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 2px; vertical-align: text-top;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/john/2-12.htm" style="color: #0092f2; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>12</b></a></span>After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The first thing that strikes me is the opening lines. A wedding took place. Jesus's mother was there. Why is Mary mentioned first? You would expect John to start by saying Jesus was there and then follow with Mary and the disciples were also there. He does not. He tells the story like Mary is the main character with Jesus and the disciples playing supporting roles. Still he does not mention her name. She is referred to as Jesus' mother and, by Jesus, as "woman." So the emphasis is not on her in isolation. Her relation to Jesus and the fact that she is a woman are in focus. <br /><br /> Jean Vanier remarked about this passage that Jesus could have kicked off his ministry in a lot of ways. He could have gone to the temple. He could have focused on prayer or on scripture or a bunch of other things. Yet he starts by taking them to a party. A party where there a wedding being celebrated and wine being consumed. It is a joyful occasion. A celebration of love. <br /><br /> Yet the joy is not born out of a denial of sin. Where is the sin in the story? There are 6 20-30 gallon jars of water for ceremonial washing. What were they washing themselves from? Sin. Why so many large jars? This household seems to have frequently called to mind their sins and asked God to forgive them. It was they way they lived. <br /><br /> Still the theme of joy is here. Joy that is natural human joy. Yet human joy is finite. The wine runs out. Jesus provides an abundance of wine measured in the same jars that show their desire for holiness. Jesus provides a better sort of joy that becomes evident when the superficial joy runs out. <br /><br /> Yet Jesus does not just do this. He seems reluctant at first. Mary tells Him the problem. She does not ask him to do anything. His response seems strange. It actually parallels some of the things demons say to Jesus (Mt. 8:29; Mk 1:24 and 5:7; Luke 4:34 and 8:28). Sort of acknowledging an authority but suggesting that authority does not apply here. Like Jesus was saying I would normally do what you ask out of respect for you as my mother but not this. Mary accepts it but still does not give up. Really there is no other instance of Jesus seeming to say one thing and do another like this one. Like we are meant to see Jesus have his heart softened by his mother's intercession. Apart from her impact on Jesus we see her impact on the servants. She tells them to obey Jesus. Having Mary intercede is not an alternative to obeying Jesus. We have to do both. <br /><br /> Yet what about that word "woman?" Jesus refers to women that way a few times. It is not disrespectful. Yet nobody else in Greek literature refers to their mother that way. Jesus does so consistently. Why is that? As a protestant I was taught that meant Jesus thought of her as an ordinary woman and not as His mother. That would make Jesus less than human and in violation of the command to honour His mother. Maybe rather than making Mary less than His mother He is making her more than His mother. Maybe He is connecting her with all womanhood. Certainly that is where the early church fathers went. They connect this with Gen 3:15 and call Mary the New Eve. <br /><br /> Jesus is actually presented here as a bridegroom messiah. Some more liberal theologians have used this passage to suggest Jesus was married. The bride and groom are not mentioned here and the one time the bridegroom is addressed by the master of the banquet we are aware that he should be saying this about Jesus. Remember there is a lot of Old Testament talk about the Messiah as Israel's spiritual husband. John is drawing on this and Mary is standing in for the church which is the bride. </span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-36944527670445196812017-03-12T16:26:00.000-06:002017-03-12T16:26:17.109-06:00Don Johnson<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Talking about justification makes a lot of sense to a relatively small subset of Protestants we are a bit nerdy about theology. I happen to be on of those but most people are not. I was listening to <a href="http://donjohnsonministries.org/evangelical-exodus/">Don Johnson</a> on <a href="http://www.ewtn.com/tv/live/journeyhome.asp">The Journey Home</a> and he talked about justification in a much more compelling way for the average person. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">His story was interesting because he talked about justification without using any of the same language. He got into it because he had arrived at essentially the Catholic position on justification without knowing anything about the historical controversies. He arrived there mostly contemplating the book of Exodus. That our story parallels the story of the Israelites. We are enslaved to sin like they were enslaved to Egypt. God saves us miraculously. The we receive the law like they did right after the Red Sea. Then there is a journey through the wilderness. In fact, the journey lasts 40 years because they are slow to learn what God is trying to teach them. The Red Sea was not the end of their salvation. They had to be transformed over time before they could enter the promised land. Likewise we can't be saved just by a one-time event but must journey towards heaven after that initial commitment. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">People are not well versed in theology these days so his protestant church just loved this teaching. It was quite a while before anyone pointed out that this is precisely the opposite of what the reformers said about justification. So he started to read. He read Alistair McGrath's book on the reformation where he said this idea, which he called forensic justification, was completely new around the year 1500. Maybe you can find it in Jan Hus but not earlier. He started reading major Christian thinkers before that and saw that this was true.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The interesting thing is he did all this without any influence from Catholics and any notion of becoming Catholic. He did eventually convert but it took him a long time. He didn't even want to refer to the pre-reformation Christians as Catholics. He called them historical Christians or orthodox Christians or some such phrase. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While Exodus is an interesting angle from which to approach the justification from it is not as strange as I first thought. Paul and the other apostles were Jews. They knew the Old Testament first. So they would approach everything starting there. Paul explicitly draws the same parallels between our Christian journey and the journey in Exodus. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The other point he brings up is how the implausibility of forensic justification has led some to reject Christianity altogether. He spent a lot of time arguing with atheists and heard this often. Why should a good man go to hell because he believed the wrong thing and a bad man go to heaven because he had said the sinners prayer at some revival once? Is that really fair? I know grace is </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">inherently</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> not fair but any God that declares someone righteous when they are not seems quite strange. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For me, it teaches me the value of using ordinary layman language. When we are talking about heaven and hell there can be no more important topic to anyone. If they are real and our lives determine which one we go to then we need to be very concerned. Yet finding the real information in the midst of all the falsehoods is quite a challenge. Really impossible without God's help. I can see people saying God would not leave us like that so He must not exist. I can see people saying God would not leave us like that so Catholicism must be true. To say God did leave us like that seems like the only choice a Protestant has. </span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-37997101647368465072017-03-05T17:34:00.001-07:002017-03-07T16:18:37.243-07:00If Paul Was A Protestant<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Following the last post I wanted to give a few more details on why I thought the Protestant reading of Paul was problematic. I ran into passages in Paul's writing that if Paul was thinking like a Protestant as I understood Protestantism he would not have written like he wrote them. Not really searching for unexplainable defeater passages because lots of theological gymnastics are possible. The question is does Paul write like someone who believes in Faith Alone or does he write like a Catholic who sees faith as important but also that it needs to be expressed in love and action before it does us any good? It started with this passage from Gal 5:6:<br /></span><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This seems simple enough. Yet what would a Protestant say? He would not say "faith working through love." He would say "faith alone." I know he would. If that is what Paul believed this would be the time to give the summary statement. Why does he back away and bring in works? Supposedly, Christianity took 1500 years before figuring out that Paul really meant Faith Alone. If he was really thinking Faith Alone and the Holy Spirit was guiding him to communicate Faith Alone then why didn't he write "faith alone?" Not only did he not use the phrase here but he never uses it. <br /><br />That was not a big deal. You can't read to much into what a person did not say. Yet the question kept coming back. Look at Rom 2:6-8</span><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God “will repay each person according to what they have done.” To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Can a Protestant explain this? Of course. Yet we are in Romans. This is the place Paul allegedly teaches Faith Alone most clearly. Right here he is doing a terrible job. He seems to teach exactly the opposite. God will repay each according to what they have done. Not according to faith. Now a Protestant would say Paul overthrows this in later verses. That the faith talk later should be taken seriously and this should be ignored. Yet if Paul believed in Faith Alone and wanted to teach Faith Alone in this document why would he talk like this? I can't imagine Protestant phrasing things this way. <br /><br /> Then there is the famous verses from 1 Cor 13:</span><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here he pits love against worship and love against alms-giving and even love against martyrdom. That is OK. Protestants would do that. Yet he also pits love against faith. Really? Can you ever imagine a protestant going there? Faith is supposed to be central and love is supposed to be inevitable once you have faith. So how does this make any sense? I know it is hyperbole and all but it still seems like a statement not Protestant would make.<br /><br /> Once you open you eyes to these sorts of statements you find them all over the scriptures. Paul has many more. Jesus has some huge ones. You stop unconsciously fitting everything into the Faith Alone mindset and start noticing that the bible was written by someone who did not have that mindset. </span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-11438793166954495352017-02-26T09:40:00.001-07:002017-02-26T09:51:02.578-07:00Justification and Tradition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thinking about how tradition influences the way we interpret the bible. One key between Protestants and Catholics has always been the area of justification. How are we made right with God and therefore saved? When I first had the Protestant view explained to me in Catechism class I found it very convincing. My only real question was, why are there still Catholics? I mean the bible has been available in the vernacular for centuries and I felt it had been clearly demonstrated that the Catholic position was inconsistent with the bible. So why had the Catholic position not become the equivalent of the flat earth position? Why did anyone in the modern world still think it was true?<br /><br /> The answer was that I was taught these particular scriptures from this particular point of view. The texts were picked for me. The words were explained to me. The problem texts were downplayed or completely ignored. It was a complex question. The people teaching it were very confident. They were people I trusted, including my father. I thought I was engaging in critical thinking but I really was not. <br /><br />Later I did take a course in witnessing to Jehovah's Witnesses where they did bring up James 2 and how it appears to flatly contradict Faith Alone. We learned how to answer those questions. I still did not know that James 2:24, "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone," was actually the only place the phrase "faith alone" occurred in the bible. <br /><br /> Really it was not until I read some extended debates on the topic between Protestants and Catholics that I started to doubt the idea that the Protestant interpretation was clearly right. Why did I spend many hours reading through such debates? Really because my emotional situation had changed. I had married a Catholic and I had met many Catholics that were good solid Christians. It made me rethink my original question. Why does anyone think the Catholic position is worth any consideration? Except this time I was at least a little bit open to the chance there might be an answer. <br /><br /> It does really take quite a few hours because there are many texts that need to be considered and many different arguments on each side of the debate. It is hard to give highlights but I shall try. The first step was to realise that in Galatians and Romans St Paul is not focused on the relationship between faith and works and salvation. His primary focus is on the relationship between Jews and Gentiles. That does not mean what he says about faith and works is wrong. It does mean he does not give all the expected explanations of related truths. <br /><br /> So when he says we saved by faith and not by "works of the law" he does not explain that this faith needs to be expressed as love and that is going to mean good works. Why doesn't he explain this? Because he has the ceremonial Jewish law primarily in view. This is why his classic example of a work of the law is circumcision. He is not thinking of the 10 commandments. Otherwise he would have made clear that the life of grace can't be lived in contradiction to the moral law. <br /><br /> Now we need to be careful. What Paul says about being saved by grace through faith apart from the works of the law does apply to the moral law. St Augustine says so. So does St Thomas Aquinas and so does the Council of Trent. Some Catholic apologists get this wrong. Some Protestants see this in St Augustine and think he was basically a Protestant. He was not. <br /><br /> What is important is the order. Grace first, next a response of faith, then a response of love cooperating with grace and producing good works. They all have to be there. <br /><br /> As with most questions there is not just one protestant answer. Luther's and Calvin's position were quite strong on works being totally irrelevant. If you collect some of there quotes you won't find many protestants that will preach those today. In fact, most of the preaching and teaching on this I experienced as a Protestant was watered down. It makes sense. The connection between works and salvation is talked about so often in the New Testament often without the mention of faith. A lot of the difference is language. Sanctification is still important to Protestants although they would not say it is part of justification and Catholics would not. Yet the core ideas are more similar than they first sound.<br /><br /> The doctrine does make a difference but not typically in the way we think about salvation. It makes a difference in the way we think about related issues. Sacraments, mortal sin, penance, saints, purgatory, etc. Once you have made good works irrelevant even if they are nice then a lot of things fall by the wayside. This is typical of heresy. One major error leads to many other errors. <br /><br /> When we see that one new doctrine contradicts many existing, Christian doctrines we should question the one new doctrine. When it is frequently contradicted by Jesus and the New Testament writers then there is more reason to question it. Yet we don't question these things. Not really. Not seriously. Not unless or until we get in the right emotional space to face the possibility we might be wrong. To really take that seriously. If I had married within the Protestant church I doubt I would have ever gone there. </span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-84301212452319658132017-02-18T16:05:00.000-07:002017-02-18T16:05:24.930-07:00Tradition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is the time of year where people announce they are becoming Catholic. They can do so anytime but the typical time for the sacrament is Easter and the typical time to make the go/no go decision is right around now. So there have been a few stories as there are every year. A couple mentioned that one issue for them was that they didn't know what tradition was. That sparked something in me. I had some of the same issues. When I started exploring the church I thought of tradition as a mindless "monkey see, monkey do" phenomenon. A lot of protestants still seem to have ideas like that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What is meant by tradition? It is the whole impact of who you hang out with and what emotional attachments you have to them. What preachers do you listen to? What books do you read? What songs do you worship with? What friends do you confide in? Which opinion leaders do you respect? What stories do you connect with? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The thing to notice here is everyone has a tradition and it is always hugely influential on your thinking. People don't think in a vacuum. They talk to each other. They influence each other. People who you love and respect will influence you more. If you are in a circle of friends where a certain thinker is hugely respected then you will have a strong tendency to go along with that line of thought. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Often people underestimate the influence of tradition on them. They see it on other people. He is just that way because his dad is that way. He was raised to believe that. Yet when you ask the actual person about their own opinions they typically say it is not tradition. They say they have sound reasons for believing what they believe. They can list them for you. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yet that does not mean that person was not influenced hugely by tradition.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tradition does not tell us to stop thinking. It tells us to think a certain way and gives us reasons to do so. Yet a different tradition would tell you to think a different way and give you reasons for doing that. Often the deciding factor is not which set of arguments is logically better but which set of people is emotionally more trustworthy. In fact, we rarely go against the thinking of the group we have grown comfortable with. That is tradition.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So tradition is not just people latching on to old ideas because they are old. Very modern ideas can gain a wide following simply because that is what everyone else seems to think. So someone saying that sex outside marriage is wrong because Christians have always believed that is appealing to one kind of tradition. Someone saying sex outside marriage is OK because everyone is doing it is appealing to another tradition. A modern secular tradition of thought which is not less of a tradition because it is new. In fact, many people accept it without serious question precisely because the tradition is so strong.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What we need to be clear about is that traditions can be very wrong. We can see this in the previous example. No matter what you believe about sex outside marriage you are going to believe one tradition or the other got it wrong. That is a big deal. Many people accepted a wrong answer to this important question because they listened to the wrong tradition.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Protestants talk about not letting tradition be the main guide of your thinking. They think the bible should be. That is actually humanly impossible. We don't make big life choices apart from other people. Sure the bible plays a role but often there is debate over what the bible says so you need to decide what to make of that. Tradition is always going to matter. Different people will have different opinions. Whose thinking do you trust more? That is how humans make choices. They don't just sit down with a book and ignore what everyone else thinks. They want their opinions affirmed by others before they really trust them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In practice Protestants pick one particular set of thinkers they like. Not a bad thing to do. Yet there are many different groups who disagree with each other on many different questions. These groups used to be called denominations. Not so much anymore. People from different denominations can be very much in the same theological school of thought. People from the same denomination can be in very different groups. Yet these schools of thought are many and diverse. It really does matter that we get the right one. These are the big decisions that are supposed to transform our lives. We want to get them right.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Catholics believe God enters in to this with His grace. That He gives us something called Sacred Tradition. A certain set of people and opinions and ways of thinking that God has highlighted over time as being true. He has used the popes and the bishops of the church to do this in each generation. What this gives is a way to make decision as a Christian that is not inhuman. It gives us real people living the faith in the real world that we can trust. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The trouble is that God pointing us to one source of truth means He is also saying a lot of other traditions have been getting things wrong. Modern society has made some real errors. Many Christian thinkers have made some real errors. So all the things we believed because they were emotionally easier now become harder. Sometimes we have to disagree with family and friends. Sometimes we have to face the fact that almost everyone we knew and trusted got this wrong. It rocks your world. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yet that would not happen if you chose to know and trust those who also have a commitment to this same Sacred Tradition. That is how God expected His church to work. That people would lead each other into truth and unity because we would actually be part of one body with the same head. </span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-13231666762588512002017-01-26T13:59:00.000-07:002017-01-26T19:50:57.256-07:00Conversion of Paul<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The feast day for the conversion of Paul was Jan 25. The day of prayer for Christian unity was Monday, I think. These things got me thinking. Paul was a believer before his conversion. In fact, he was a very zealous believer. He believed strongly but because he believed strongly when he believed wrongly he was impossible to convince. We all know people like that. It is very likely that in some areas we ARE a person like that. I mean we tend to live like all the mistakes are being made by others but logically we can work out that that is probably not the case. <br /><br /> In some ways this feast is hard. It highlights the problem but does not really offer a solution. Should we really wait until we see a blinding light and hear the audible voice of Jesus? We certainly hope and pray that that happens to others who are on the wrong road and many of us pray it happens to us to when we are on the wrong road. Yet the number of errors is far greater than the number of Road to Damascus experiences. <br /><br /> Many of the people who do claim to have had a moment of divine revelation contradict each other. We believe Paul but we don't believe Mohammad like Muslims do or Joseph Smith like Mormons do. So just chasing people who tell these kinds of stories does not seem right. Yet there is something about this story that is instructive.<br /><br /> We all need to have this encounter with Jesus. We all need to have our life interrupted and to be struck blind for 3 days and to receive a baptism that would have been so offensive to us before that encounter. Yet meeting Jesus does not look the same for everyone. For Paul, the person of Jesus was the most offensive thing. There was so much of the faith he was willing to accept but this one thing he could not accept. That Jesus was the Messiah. <br /><br /> Is that what we have trouble with? Most of us not. We are OK with warm fuzzy feelings towards Jesus. Even atheists generally try and say nice things about Him. We don't find Him offensive. So what is the part of the faith we find offensive? That is different for everybody. For some it is the sexual morality. For others it is just the notion of faith rather than proof. For some it is compassion for the poor. Sometimes it is connected with people from other Christian traditions.<br /><br /> The conversion of Paul has a special place in evangelical Christianity. That life-changing experience where the truth of Christianity becomes clear is the very centre of their spirituality. Growing up in a dutch reformed church it really was not so central. Some people had that experience and some did not. Yet the traditions that flowed from the Great Awakening movements in the US do put that very much at the centre. They try and manufacture such moments in people. <br /><br /> Heresy is like that. They take a Catholic truth that Catholics have forgotten about and they embrace it to the point of error. In this case it means they elevate it to the point where they make all the sacraments irrelevant and the struggle for holiness irrelevant and just focus on that one encounter. Yet we cannot lose sight of the fact that there is a truth there. <br /><br /> Helping people to see how sinful they are, how powerless they are without Jesus, to challenge them to embrace Jesus and make this moment a life-changing moment. that is a powerful thing. Modern Catholics tend not to go there. We should more. We talk about conversion as an ongoing thing and that is true. Yet conversion often requires big decisions. We can't be afraid to challenge people to make big decisions. Not asking them to think about it but asking them to decide right in the moment. Jesus did not ask Paul to think about anything. He told him, "Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do."<br /><br /> Paul also said in Acts 26:19, "I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven." It is still important that people follow up that experience with a life of obedience and prayer and sacraments and all that. Still the experience remained important. Paul talks about it over and over. That is key. Many Catholics don't seem to have a way to talk about their faith. A central conversion event can give someone a story to tell, something to explain why they are Christian and why you should be too. </span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7609203224961032874.post-49763647502933457912017-01-24T17:37:00.000-07:002017-01-26T19:52:22.359-07:00More With Luke<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This response is meant to complement <a href="http://disq.us/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.patheos.com%2Fblogs%2Funequallyyoked%2F2017%2F01%2Fim-speaking-conversion-denver.html%23comment-3113013401%3Ak5d3TE4oiLtXF_2GJ1QO72mzJZM&cuid=2288117" rel="nofollow noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.1s linear;">my other one</a>. I may just keep going until you tire out; you're the first Catholic I've happened upon who is interested in addressing my questions and concerns on such matters. (I haven't actively looked, although it has been on my to-do list.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am happy to be helpful. I have been thinking about and writing about these sorts of questions for quite a few years now.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Authority is not about dismissing anything. It is about knowing things. Anytime you assert that you know God's will on some point are you dismissing everyone else? You are offering wisdom. Do you believe in the scriptures? Why would truth arrived at in that way be less dismissive?</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am somewhat aware of the arguments over the role of church tradition in interpreting scripture; Brad S. Gregory wrote what seemed to be a decent overview in <a href="http://disq.us/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FThe-Unintended-Reformation-Revolution-Secularized%2Fdp%2F0674045637%3AOWQ8s2g-ofocZJx5BbpQr8cMY4c&cuid=2288117" rel="nofollow noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.1s linear;">The Unintended Reformation</a>. I've read Stephen Toulmin's <a href="http://disq.us/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCosmopolis-The-Hidden-Agenda-Modernity%2Fdp%2F0226808386%3AY954X0pHYEc9arwh8XW2K3YMgFQ&cuid=2288117" rel="nofollow noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.1s linear;">Cosmopolis</a>, which does a good job of grappling with the consequences of vying authorities in the wake of the Reformation. I've started Jeffrey R. Stout's <a href="http://disq.us/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FFlight-Authority-Religion-Morality-Revisions%2Fdp%2F0268009716%3AiwnVUQkyK5j3zMR27ECGsuo_pPY&cuid=2288117" rel="nofollow noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.1s linear;">Flight from Authority</a>. So I'm not completely naive in the matter of authority.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am familiar with Brad Gregory's book. The others sound interesting as well.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My question is what the timeline is for <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">full maturity</i>, such that we can get the underlined in arbitrarily many followers of Jesus:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. <u style="box-sizing: border-box;">And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD.</u> For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31–34)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Paul seems to believe that arbitrarily much of this maturity can be achieved before the eschaton:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don't think we will every get to a point where all Christians are fully mature. Certain saints have reached full maturity but for the vast majority of us it is very much a work in progress. There is a greater grace with the coming of the Holy Spirit. That does not mean covenant community we saw in the Old Testament suddenly is not longer a part of the picture. Scripture does not say that. Nobody in the early church went there. In fact, the New Testament talks about the Church as an important part of the Christian life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Actually, authority underlies the entire New Testament. Why does what St Paul says to the Ephesians matter? Because He has an authority over them. Where does that authority come from? From his encounter with Jesus but that encounter was authenticated by the Church. He was eventually sent by the Church and recognised as an apostle. You can make similar observations for the authors or any New Testament book. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, <u style="box-sizing: border-box;">until</u> we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. (Ephesians 4:11–14)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Of course, we must deal with how that "until" is approached. Is there some very strong hierarchy up until "we all attain to the unity of the faith ...", at which point it simply dissipates? Or does it actually decrease so that the body may increase? When parents raise their kids to be adults, which dynamic is healthier?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Again, the until is on a person by person basis. I do not think we ever get to a point sometime after St Paul writes this where they Church fundamentally changes. The Church is to grow and develop but remain essentially the same. A fundamental shift in the nature of the coventant community implies a new covenant. Yet the covenant Jesus brought is to be the last one. Martin Luther cannot bring a better covenant that the one Jesus brought.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are special graces with the offices. Some don't cooperate with those graces and can be very bad popes or bishops. On the whole we have had very few of those. Certainly the last couple centuries have been very good. Why can't God's grace work that way?</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think a case can be made from scripture that spiritual power tends to inversely correlate with social power. There are good reasons for this: those with social power are able to influence perception of reality such that the outliers are marginalized and silenced. This process can work for quite some time, until the marginalized grow sufficiently large in numbers. Then you get what <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">appears</i> to be calamity to those with social power—the marginalized often see what is coming much better, because they're not able to rest on socially accepted explanations (example: Chris Hedges' 2010 article <a href="http://disq.us/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.truthdig.com%2Freport%2Fitem%2Fnoam_chomsky_has_never_seen_anything_like_this_20100419%3AbBGLzwrppJG4W8dTAmS_RSYCaWQ&cuid=2288117" rel="nofollow noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.1s linear;">Noam Chomsky Has ‘Never Seen Anything Like This’</a>, which presages Brexit and Trump). There's interesting sociological research on this matter I can cite if you'd like.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don't think this is true at all. Moses has social power. So did David. They were also spiritually very powerful. The bible criticises Kings and spiritual leaders for exercising power in an ungodly way. Never for simply having power. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think the Church has always been called to be separate from political power. It has sometimes failed to do so and bad things have resulted. Still Catholicism has been much more separate from and state authority than Orthodoxy or Islam. That is a blessing. One of the many ways God has been keeping us out of some bad places.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As to the record of the RCC over the last couple centuries, I don't know it well enough to comment. There is the obvious problem I'll leave unnamed, because it's probably an automatic derail. If I can go back further than two centuries, I would ask why <a href="https://disq.us/url?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSublimis_Deus%3AD8ng1wU3o1sr9yrYIWRch8bOyew&cuid=2288117" rel="nofollow noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.1s linear;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sublimis Deus</i></a> got rolled back—at least, the bit which forbids slavery. I can see an argument along the lines of God commanding divorce certificates while intending for divorce to ultimately become obsolete, but (i) I'm not sure that actually worked; (ii) I'm not sure that's a spiritually wise plan after Jesus' death & resurrection. It is possible to compromise too much with evil, but I've never had an in-depth conversation on what constitutes "too much".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Is the obvious problem the sex abuse scandal? That can derail things. Yet it should be noted that nothing that happened there is hard to square with the Catholic teaching on the Church or the Priesthood or the Papacy. It is a terrible thing but it is just sin. Sin is something we expect even inside the church. I was raised as a preachers kid so I knew about some of the dirty laundry in my childhood church. It is the same all over.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Sublimis Deus</i> did not get rolled back. It is an encyclical of Pope Paul III. Teachings of the popes can be respected or disrespected. When they get disrespected that is unfortunate but they remain the teachings of the Church. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://disq.us/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.patheos.com%2Fblogs%2Funequallyyoked%2F2017%2F01%2Fim-speaking-conversion-denver.html%23comment-3111393599%3AMnrLkxTOEfU0DqInFeauap-Gy50&cuid=2288117" rel="nofollow noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.1s linear;">RG</a>: Without the grace of God that comes through popes and bishops even Christian tradition is going to succumb to these psychological forces.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://disq.us/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.patheos.com%2Fblogs%2Funequallyyoked%2F2017%2F01%2Fim-speaking-conversion-denver.html%23comment-3111485285%3ADASRrAuC8eUJ0d5Nous5dS1EPXI&cuid=2288117" rel="nofollow noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.1s linear;">LB</a>: I suggest some careful thinking about your train of thought. There is a pattern I have observed among those who used to be socially powerful but have lost that power. They tend to think that they had and still have enough of the right answers, and everyone is just sort of irrationally rebelling. Their loss of social power is the fault of <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">others</i>; little to no interesting introspection is required of themselves. I am seeing Protestants slip into this mode of thinking/rationalizing in the US, and I am concerned that the RCC may have engaged in it with respect to its loss of power in Europe.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://disq.us/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.patheos.com%2Fblogs%2Funequallyyoked%2F2017%2F01%2Fim-speaking-conversion-denver.html%23comment-3112281524%3AZKnvWLfaEhTPrgr0u3PNLzvfvCQ&cuid=2288117" rel="nofollow noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.1s linear;">RG</a>: I am a convert. So I have never had any power through Catholicism.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #38761d;">I don't think that's relevant to my point. The claim is that "the grace of God </span><u style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #38761d;">that comes through popes and bishops</u><span style="color: #38761d;">" is a necessary condition for preventing "even Christian tradition is going to succumb to these psychological forces". What I am saying is that </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #38761d;">this could be false</i><span style="color: #38761d;">. What I think we should do is construct the best models we can for it being true and it being false, and then use those models in a friendly competition, where we attempt to pursue truth, goodness, and excellence in relationship—relationship between humans & God, humans & other humans, humans & themselves, and between humans & themselves.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think humans have been doing that since Peter became the first Pope. The history of Protestantism is one of the best arguments for the papacy I know. The history of the Church before the Reformation is strong as well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don't think testing God's word is generally a good idea. Try adultery for a few year to see if it brings happiness? No. It is sin. Don't do it. Yet many have done the experiment so you could learn from them. So Yes. Look at the complete failure of Protestantism but don't add your own sins to that pile.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was raised Reformed. I did get a sense growing up that people were rebelling against something. Yet what was it? Generic Christianity but what was that? The churches were moving as well as society. So I didn't think we had right answers. I would never say Catholics don't need to do any introspection. I think they church has many faults but it is a vehicle for grace. Anything negative you say about the church I will likely agree with. Still it is not a reason to leave her because she is the Body of Christ.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I definitely agree that the RCC is <u style="box-sizing: border-box;">a</u> vehicle for grace. Anyone who thinks you need to be particularly holy or righteous or just in order to be a vehicle of God's grace needs to read Hebrews 11.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I found this difficult as a Protestant. I realised that if the RCC was wrong it was not wrong just a little. The Papacy, the Eucharist, the Priesthood, Mary, etc. If these are errors they are not small errors. They make the Church a massive abomination. It becomes a liar, lunatic, Lord type of argument. A church that makes such audacious claims cannot be a nice vehicle of grace. It is either right, or deeply confused or downright evil. Can the history of the Church be squared with deeply confused or downright evil. The Church that fought all those heresies and produced all those saints? The church that defined the canon of scripture?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But I still must push back against what I see as the infantilization of the majority of people. Push the "until" of Ephesians 4 to the eschaton and you infantilize. Exercise <a href="http://disq.us/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.patheos.com%2Fblogs%2Funequallyyoked%2F2017%2F01%2Fim-speaking-conversion-denver.html%23comment-3114215053%3A5t3RYD4pG3vr83k3U5HcjbMV81c&cuid=2288117" rel="nofollow noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.1s linear;">coercive power</a> and you infantilize. Treat some vocations as more valued by God than others and you infantilize. What is the problem our world faces today? Too many adults are children. See <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">CT</i>'s <a href="http://disq.us/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.christianitytoday.com%2Fct%2F2012%2Fjune%2Fwhen-are-we-going-to-grow-up.html%3Ao5kNvbo5GkRBRbVdYmMEUhmjgUQ&cuid=2288117" rel="nofollow noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.1s linear;">When Are We Going to Grow Up? The Juvenilization of American Christianity</a> (<a href="http://disq.us/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fhppc.org%2Fassets%2F1711%2Fthe_juvenilization_of_american_christianity-christianity_today.pdf%3AsYMIKzvxWOJ86kwb6gwz5v9phHs&cuid=2288117" rel="nofollow noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.1s linear;">pdf</a>), or the <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">NYT</i>'s <a href="http://disq.us/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2014%2F09%2F14%2Fmagazine%2Fthe-death-of-adulthood-in-american-culture.html%3ATK98yLVcVnixxVc31F3oi7L1iOc&cuid=2288117" rel="nofollow noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.1s linear;">The Death of Adulthood in American Culture</a>. The populism we see today is a result of the immature finally realizing that those in power (who are often more mature in the sense required for at least quasi-stable governing) aren't being good parents. Maybe God never designed reality for such sustained parent-child relational dynamics; maybe God designed it to break down if the children aren't being helped mature in a reasonable time frame.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don't see this at all. We see ourselves as Children of God. This means we look to father figures in out priests and look to mother figures in the church herself and in St Mary. Yet the family is there to help us grow up. It is not there to keep us infants. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Coercive power? I experienced much more pressure to conform to the good as a Protestant. I would never have called that coercive although it likely meets the technical definition. As a Catholic there is more of a sense of proposing truth rather than imposing truth. I would prefer stronger leadership. So your continued use of the word "coercive" seems quite strange. I am not aware of anyone else describing the Church that way. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://disq.us/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.patheos.com%2Fblogs%2Funequallyyoked%2F2017%2F01%2Fim-speaking-conversion-denver.html%23comment-3111485285%3ADASRrAuC8eUJ0d5Nous5dS1EPXI&cuid=2288117" rel="nofollow noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.1s linear;">LB</a>: Recall who is routinely criticized in the Bible: <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">religious leaders in power</i>. This should be a sobering fact. Sadly, I cannot ever recall being taught that religious leaders in power <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">today</i> could possibly fall into the same patterns. It is as if there is a belief that ever since Jesus died, the religious power elite could not be arbitrarily corrupted.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://disq.us/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.patheos.com%2Fblogs%2Funequallyyoked%2F2017%2F01%2Fim-speaking-conversion-denver.html%23comment-3112281524%3AZKnvWLfaEhTPrgr0u3PNLzvfvCQ&cuid=2288117" rel="nofollow noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.1s linear;">RG</a>: Catholicism does not say religious leaders are perfect. They are called to do better than the pharisees but do have temptations. Still Jesus does not respond by saying His Church will have no leaders. He responds by saying His leaders will be different. So we will still have leaders. Starting with Peter and the Apostles and continuing to the present day.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But God and Jesus didn't criticize religious leaders for failing to be perfect. He criticized them (and Israel as a whole) for stuff like this:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Thus says the Lord GOD: This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. <u style="box-sizing: border-box;">And she has rebelled against my rules by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries all around her</u>; for they have rejected my rules and have not walked in my statutes. Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because <u style="box-sizing: border-box;">you are more turbulent than the nations that are all around you</u>, and have not walked in my statutes or obeyed my rules, and <u style="box-sizing: border-box;">have not even acted according to the rules of the nations that are all around you</u>, therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, even I, am against you. And I will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. (Ezekiel 5:5–8)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You note that there have been some terrible popes in the past. Can you tell me whether all the reasoning you have deployed on this page applies even during the tenure of such popes? Should they and the RCC be trusted just as much then, as you want it to be trusted now?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The covenants do get stronger as they go on. This covenant is to be the final covenant so the talk of Israel being replaced with a better Temple or a better Passover or a better Priesthood would be fulfilled in the Church. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yet moral problems do persist. Yes, there have been times when moral problems in the church were severe and perhaps even greater than those in some other religions. We are called to recognise what graces God has given the Church and what He has not. If we had a truly bad pope or a truly bad bishop then we would need to be extra cautious. Think of Matthew 23:1-3:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="text Matt-23-1" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px;">Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples:</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"> </span><span class="text Matt-23-2" id="en-NIV-23921" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px;"><span class="woj" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">“The teachers of the law<span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-23921C" data-link="(<a href="#cen-NIV-23921C" title="See cross-reference C">C</a>)" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.625em; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"></span> and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"> </span><span class="text Matt-23-3" id="en-NIV-23922" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px;"><span class="woj" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We would be in exactly the situation Jesus describes. He goes on to detail at length many of the things the Pharisees were doing wrong. Yet He still commands His followers to obey. Yes, we would pray for a time when virtue and authority would come together. Yet one thing we could never do was start another church. There is one Church started by Jesus and we are commanded to keep it united. We are never commanded to make sure we get all the doctrinal questions right. We are to stay together as one body and let the Holy Spirit guide us into all truth. Trust Him to do what Jesus promised he would in John 14:26. </span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16751516602395247675noreply@blogger.com0