Rev. Larry L. Beane II, SSP, a Lutheran pastor and teacher in the New Orleans area posts on the state of the world and why Orthodox Christianity is Hated at his Father Hollywood blog. Check it out.
Tip o’ the biretta to the Young Fogey.
I rarely discuss issues like this. I think the faith is rather clear on war issues. I also think that Jesus Christ’s commands to us are very clear in regard to our duty as Christians. That is why true Christianity is so diametrically opposed to the things that precipitate war and to the conduct of war.
Unless I am mistaken, no Christian in the first centuries of Christianity would stand up to anyone with intent to fight. They stood up of course, but that was to proclaim the truth. Many died for doing so. Most died horribly, but their faith was sure.
By Augustine’s time the Church had developed certain doctrines (Just War Theory) to cover the eventuality of war. Still, on the whole, Christianity, as institutionalized by that time, was reactive to aggression.
To me, war is the product of those who lust for power, control, or who simply have a taste for death and destruction (ala the brutality carried out by some troops, most recently U.S. troops).
This week’s events in Israel, along with the re-invasion of Gaza, are just the next step in the long slide toward self imposed annihilation. The people who built this road, who are the authors of the coming annihilation, are the so-called neo-con drum beaters in the United States and of course the ‘I have my own agenda’ Israelis (and there are others jumping on the bandwagon too).
The new paradigm is war. It is war for any reason, real or perceived. It is proactive, pre-emptive, and out of scale to the reality of the situation. Washington (under the neo-cons) and Tel Aviv (always) have decided that the atmosphere for destruction is right. They have set the tone for the world. Don’t be surprised if the world goes up in flames.
- Civilian death —“ ok
- Disproportionate and random shelling, bombing, bulldozing —“ ok
- Hit civilian targets – ok
- Drop a bomb on a car filled with five kids and a terrorist – ok
- Invading other sovereign countries based on a perception —“ ok
- Blockades —“ ok
- Playing poker with one devil to get the next – ok
- Lies to make it all ok —“ ok
I cannot fathom the idea that we or Israel are so unsophisticated and so inept that we have to bulldoze and use low yield nuclear weapons to get the ‘bad guys’.
Now, I am no pacifist. I hope every terrorist gets a nice hole in their head ASAP. I just think we could use brains to do it rather than brawn. That we could think our way through solutions, rather than bulldozing through them. That we could be a shining example of justice, truth, and civilized ideals, rather than a people who trample on their own rights in order to act like their enemy.
Terror is being committed on all sides and the innocent are the ones being hurt. No matter how you count the bodies, the innocent outweigh the guilty. That’s not just, truthful, or even smart in the long run. If you don’t see your children and grandchildren covered in blood when they relay the pictures from Beirut, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Gaza, or Baghdad, then you are not a Christian or a human being.
For additional information check out Antiwar.com and the Anti War Blog.
Rod Dreher blogged this past Sunday on Why liberal Christianity is dying.
Mr. Dreher comments on an article by Charlotte Allen in the L.A. Times on the demise of liberal Christianity, which focused on recent events in the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches.
In Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins Ms. Allen states:
When your religion says “whatever” on doctrinal matters, regards Jesus as just another wise teacher, refuses on principle to evangelize and lets you do pretty much what you want, it’s a short step to deciding that one of the things you don’t want to do is get up on Sunday morning and go to church.
I am very thankful that the PNCC is a stalwart in its teaching of the faith. I am blessed because I am part of the Church.
Having struggled with liberalism, I have deep empathy for what many people are going through. I know the agony of seeing your home destroyed. I know the pain of alienation from the Church you once knew.
Once you make the choice to abandon liberalism and embrace serious Christian orthodoxy you enter a new stage of tension. The world doesn’t really appreciate the Church’s teaching and tradition. It gets in the way of the church-of-whatever-feels-good.
In my own life, adopting conservative catholic beliefs has created many tensions.
Some think that what I believe criticizes them, not just their actions (there is a difference). Some think I have changed – gone from the consummate sinner (bad person, mean, angry, sexually sinful, allowing anything as long as it suited me) to being holier-than-thou.
They are right – I decided to change. Not to be holier-than-thou, but through the grace imparted by the sacraments of Penance, the Word, and the Eucharist to work at being a better father, family member, husband, and deacon. The Church offers these things as worthy pursuits in life, pursuits in keeping with the narrow path to the Kingdom.
Change forces one away from allowing whatever. Change like this is far more demanding, certainly more demanding than liberal Christianity. It is far harder to live the true faith. It is very difficult to face your sins, some of which you may never forgive yourself of. The ‘liberal church’ offers a wide and easy road, low benchmarks, light duty in conversion and repentance. The faith of the Apostles requires loyalty to Christ above all.
Jesus called this choice a cross:
Great crowds were traveling with him, and he turned and addressed them, “If any one comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
In context, Jesus was not talking about hating people. He was talking about putting Him before all else, even before the things we all believe and feel are most important. That’s a strong message and a powerful demand.
Faith in Christ in the context of the Church’s teaching must come first. That can be a devastating choice.
I recently read an article about preaching at the Pontificator’s site. It makes a point about the difficulty of expressing the faith once delivered. In Kim Fabricius on Preaching point one states:
What is a sermon? Wrong question. A sermon is not a what but a who. A sermon is Jesus Christ expectorate. You eat the book; it is sweet in the mouth but bitter in the stomach (Rev. 10:9-11); you spit out the Word and spray the congregation. When grace hits the mark, it always begins with an unpleasant recoil.
Alvin Kimel responds:
—Jesus Christ expectorate——”now that’s an image for preaching that I haven’t thought of, but it makes the point, doesn’t it? Robert Jenson says that authentic gospel-preaching either generates faith or offense in the hearer.
What the Church believes and professes, the truth of the Gospel, its Tradition and teaching, will offend many. Its teaching is bitter in the stomach, causes us to recoil, and will either lead us to faith or offense.
A true Church is the antithesis of ‘liberal’ Christianity. Seeking to accept all people and reject none, which any true Church does, has been corrupted by the liberals into accepting all behaviors and sins and rejecting none.
As members of the Church we can all do a better job of being charitable. We can focus on preaching and teaching how God’s action and call are meant to move us to achieving the Kingdom. We can focus on ministry, charity, peace, and community building.
What we must not do however is preach and teach that doing any of those things, or having a better and more comfortable life, or all that we want, or friends, family, acclaim, and money, are worth more than Jesus. No brand of liberal Church is worth the harm that kind of choice can do our souls.
In the end, faith in God and His Word must come first, honest orthodox catholic faith.
Tip of the biretta to the Young Fogey.
Ralph ‘Bucky’ Phillips escaped from jail in Western New York approximately four days before he was to be released. He was incarcerated on a parole violation. After his escape he allegedly shot a NY State Trooper, wounding him during a traffic stop. Phillips has a lengthy record, mostly for burglary.
Today’s Buffalo News ran a story about a priest, the Rev. Patrick Elis of Immaculate Conception R.C. Church who has stepped in to offer Mr. Phillips sanctuary.
I admire Fr. Elis’ effort. It is at once fearless and in keeping with the best in Christian practice. Wikipedia has a great article on the concept of sanctuary and Right of asylum as practiced up through the 17th century (at least in England). As government becomes more and more intrusive maybe we should bring the concept back.
Here is an except from the Buffalo News article Priest offers Phillips sanctuary: Says fugitive can avoid bloodshed with surrender
CASSADAGA – As a police helicopter kept buzzing circles over a heavily wooded area off Route 60, the local priest offered a peaceful solution Thursday to the around-the-clock hunt for fugitive Ralph “Bucky” Phillips.
“I would like to make our rectory a safe haven for him to give himself up,” the Rev. Patrick Elis said. “With the army of police officers [hunting for him], he may be terribly frightened and intimidated. If he showed up at our back door, I could arrange for him to have a safe place to give himself up.”
The back of Elis’ church, Immaculate Conception Catholic Church on North Main Street, looks out at the large wooded area being combed by dozens of state troopers Thursday, following a day when police confirmed three sightings of the fugitive Phillips.
“My concern, as the priest in this community, is that there be no bloodshed, that the gentleman not be injured, the police not be injured and the people not be injured, that this ends peacefully,” Elis added.
It follows that individuals, whether they be priests or lay faithful, are not free to add or subtract any details in the approved rites of the celebration of the Holy Eucharist (cf Sacrosanctum Concilium, 22). A do-it-yourself mentality, an attitude of nobody-will-tell-me-what-to-do, or a defiant sting of if-you-do-not-like-my-Mass-you-can-go-to-another-parish, is not only against sound theology and ecclesiology, but also offends against common sense. Unfortunately, sometimes common sense is not very common, when we see a priest ignoring liturgical rules and installing creativity – in his case personal idiosyncrasy – as the guide to the celebration of Holy Mass. Our faith guides us and our love of Jesus and of his Church safeguards us from taking such unwholesome liberties. Aware that we are only ministers, not masters of the mysteries of Christ (cf I Cor 4:1), we follow the approved liturgical books so that the people of God are respected and their faith nourished, and so that God is honoured and the Church is gradually being built up.
An excerpt from Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, in a keynote talk at Westminster Cathedral, London, England on Saturday, April 3, 2006, as part of a special afternoon event ‘Hearts and Minds’, devoted to thinking about and celebrating the Liturgy of the Church.
See the full text at: Independent Catholic News.
In light of my post below, I offer the following image compliments of Traditional Catholic Designs.
Note, do not take this seriously beyond the fact that our active evangelization must be a crusade. Time to take seriously the command to put on the armor of Christ.
A profound bow to Fr. Martin Fox over at Bonfire of the Vanities for his article “The Islamic Threat: same as it ever was”
The words of Paul to Timothy are not ‘more’ true today, but just as true, because the human heart becomes blinded to its desire for the one true God and covers that desire with words that sound sweet but will taste bitter.
To wit:
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingly power: proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to myths.
We all want to believe in the good motives of people and want them to be able to relate to us. In doing this we often try to morph others into the person we think they should be. They become a ‘kind of Christian’. An examination of the basic facts often destroys that fallacy.
The basic fact is there is no alternate Christianity. There is only one Jesus Christ who is not Buddha, Mohammed, Siddhartha, or Lao-Tse. None of these are God, but Jesus Christ. None provides us with salvation, but Jesus Christ.
To be true to truth, to bear it and proclaim it, we are required to proclaim Christ as true God and true man who purchased for all, by his blood, eternal life in heaven. Of this we are certain, of this we are required to preach and baptize.
From today’s BBC:
Abortion ‘leaves mental legacy’
Some find abortion difficult to cope with An abortion can cause five years of mental anguish, anxiety, guilt and even shame, a BMC Medicine study suggests.
See the entire article by clicking here…
And from the ‘can’t see the forest for the trees’ department, the abortion (death) providers are astonished because very few people come back to them for counseling.
In their land of make believe women would normally say: “Look, I feel bad because I killed my child, so why don’t I go back to the scene of the crime so I can feel better about myself.”
I was scanning the front page of the Evangelist, the official newspaper of the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese and was struck by the picture found there.
The picture featured a group of Buddhist monks creating a mandala – an ‘artwork’ made of grains of sand individually placed. These works are very intricate and once they are completed and viewed they are blown away, ‘dust in the wind’ so to speak. The creation and destruction of the mandala are supposed to represent the Buddhist concept that “the world is an impermanent place.”
OK, so they have their mandala. The irony of the whole thing was that the mandala was in the shape of a Jerusalem Cross. In addition it was being created in the chapel of the Doane-Stuart School, a joint Roman Catholic – Episcopal private school (that has a Buddhist meditation center in it).
I thought, wow, the Buddhists get it. Symbols – what many Roman Catholics and Episcopalians have forgotten. Symbols stand for something and invoke meaning. The Buddhists got it. In the middle of an institution founded in the name of two great Christian faith traditions they created and blew away the Cross.
In today’s Times Union, the Inter-religious Affairs Coordinator of Albany’s Roman Catholic Diocese noted this event in his Religion Page ‘Voices of Faith‘ article on Nostra Aetate’s 40th Anniversary.
Now Doane-Stuart is no longer a sectarian institution, has disavowed its Christian foundations, and is basically a public school with high tuition and two chapels, but never-the-less, should not the Christians there, the editorial board of the Evangelist, and the Roman Catholic Diocese’s Inter-religious Affairs coordinator have taken a bye on lauding this event. Can’t they see that by giving attention to the event they implicitly condone its message and its irony.
Nostra Aetate was indeed a pivotal document for the Roman Catholic Church. It discussed the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and other religions (Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism). In a positive sense it set aside perceived doctrines of hatred. It stated that all humanity is created in God’s image and that each person has within him/herself the Divine calling to unity with God.
Indeed the PNCC said the same thing almost a century before Nostra Aetate in its Confession of Faith, especially in Principals 9, 10, and 12:
I BELIEVE that all peoples as children of one Father, God, are equal in themselves; that privileges arising from differences in rank, from possession of immense riches or from differences of faith, sex and race, are a great wrong, for they are a violation of the rights of man which he possess by his nature and the dignity of his divine origin, and are a barrier to the purposeful development of man.
I BELIEVE that all people have an equal right to life, happiness and those ways and means which lead to the preservation of existence, to advancement and salvation, but I also believe that all people have sacred obligations toward God, themselves, their nation, state and all of humanity.
I BELIEVE in immortality and everlasting happiness in eternity in union with God of all people, races and ages, because I believe in the Divine power of love, mercy and justice and for nothing else do I yearn, but that it may be to me according to my faith.
The Principals of the PNCC and Nostra Aetate created an environment of respect between Catholic Christians and members of other religions. What it did not create, at least in my estimation, is a license to disavow the Christian faith or to find salvation in other religions. They do not allow us to stand by as others take the stage to blow away the cross as a symbol of impermanence.
The great Christian Saints, the contemplatives and mystics, did not need labyrinths, yoga, tai-chi, a mandala, reiki, energy fields, or crystals. They had the great prayers of the Church, the Divine Office, the Rosary, and most importantly the Eucharist and the Gospels. They had Jesus Christ, the God-man within them. They spent hours, days, months, and years meditating on him long before the yogis and Buddhists were known.
The thought that the East has taught us something is a canard. Thomas Merton brought nothing back from the East that was not already present in the Church. People just had to look for it within the Deposit of Faith.
On the 40th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, let us pray that Catholic Christians renew their own self respect and stand up to proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ crucified, the everlasting symbol of our salvation. Let us also pray that we remember that Principald 9, 10, and 12 must be seen in light of Principal 7:
I BELIEVE that the Church of Christ is the true teacher of both individual man as well as of all human society, that it is a steward of Divine Graces, a guide and a light in man’s temporal pilgrimage to God and salvation; in so far as the followers and members of this Church, both lay and clerical, are united with the Divine Founder through faith and life proceeding from this faith.
Someday, in God’s good time and through His graces we will be united as one flock under one shepherd, Christ the Lord.
As Christians and as members of the PNCC we must be about bringing the Kingdom of God to reality. Church does not end when you pass the driveway on the way out of the parking lot. When you pass the end of the driveway after church you become the —light of the world—. You are Christ’s messenger to all people.
Your action in building God’s Kingdom starts with yourself and how you exemplify your faith. It is in your actions towards yourself and others. It is in the way you treat your spouse, loved ones, children, neighbors —“ even those who have hurt you. Do you live a life of Christian service?
Faith is more than a nice idea for Sunday. If we are reborn, we come to a true understanding of our relationship with God, and it is part of our everyday life.
When we are in love the grass is greener, the sky bluer. The rain is soft and gentle and the snow dazzlingly white. We no longer believe in —luck— or —coincidence—, we believe in miracles and love.
The first words Jesus spoke to the crowd contain the heart of his Gospel of hope and salvation, the proclamation of God’s kingdom:
“Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’” Mk 1:14-15
From that moment on, Jesus
“went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people” Mt 4:23
We are called to work with our hands, mind, and heart for the coming of God’s kingdom into the world. We are called to build the Kingdom of God by working with the Lord.
Trust the Spirit to bring people to you. Live the Christian life. Read and study God’s word. Worship with the Church. Renew and strengthen yourself through the grace received in the sacraments, especially through the Eucharist. Place a Bible next to your computer at work. Wear the cross of Christ with pride, give generously, and speak openly about the good God has accomplished in your life through Jesus Christ. Tell your neighbors, friends, co-workers. Take the first step to add to the Kingdom. Then you can call yourself a Christian —“ a disciple of Christ.