An Aid To Memory

A lot of people are saying that instead of listening to what others say about the Da Vinci code, I should “read it for myself.” I do agree that if a person really wants to form an advanced opinion on something, it is best for her to read it for herself. For instance, there are times I want to just stop a conversation or debate with a “bible-believing” Christian and say “when you have actually read the Bible cover-to-cover as I have, we’ll continue this conversation.” I say this because many “bible-believers” have only read small portions of the Bible, yet have strong opinions about it. 

However, I do have a few issues with the whole “read it for yourself” wisdom. First, it is the “read it for yourself” mentality that has led to the creation of hundreds, if not thousands, of differing Christian denominations and ideologies. A person will read the Bible “for himself” and start a new church a week later based on his novel way of reading the Bible. Second, what if I could care less about the issue or book at hand, and don’t want to take the time to form an advanced opinion on the matter? What if I want the issue or book summarized for me by others whom I trust? I often hear, “don’t listen to what Christians are saying about the Da Vinci code; read it for yourself!” However, what if I could care less about the Da Vinci code? Honestly, I see it as just another fad, and like most popular fads, I don’t see what the fuss is about. Plus, I don’t read much fiction, and I don’t get to the library that often. I have a “waiting list” of books I need to read that dates back to 1999. I don’t have the time, will, or effort, to read the Da Vinci Code “for myself.” I do, however, trust the opinion of others to help me make an informed, but limited, decision about the book. Therefore if someone asks me what I think about the book, I can give my limited opinion. Now, if I were teaching a class on it, or writing a book about it, I would be sure to read the book. In fact, if I teach about it in class, I will definitely read it. Just some thoughts…

Being a substitute teacher in the public schools, I get to experience a variety of teachers and classrooms in action. I have learned a lot doing this actually, and have refreshed my knowledge of a variety of subjects. However, it seems that whenever a public teacher tackles religion, he or she often get it wrong. I don’t know if it is because religion is untouchable in the public schools, so even teachers never bother learning about it, or if there is another reason. Here are few of the errors I have encountered:

1. What was taught: Martin Luther was standing up for freedom of thought against a Catholic Church that suppressed free thinking.

Reality: Martin Luther was not a proto-first amendment enthusiast. While he opposed Catholic ideas, he had little tolerance for ideas that opposed his own, as Zwingli could tell you.

2. What was taught: Buddhism has the most adherents of all religions.

Reality: Christianity is at the top, with Islam close behind. While this doesn’t tell us anything about the truth of Christianity, the facts show that Christianity is, as of now, the most popular religion worldwide.

3. What was taught: The Koran is just the Bible with the same characters doing a few different things.

Reality: While the Koran and the Bible share many common people and places, the former statement is an inaccurate oversimplification.

4. What was taught: “I don’t see why Christians can’t get along…Catholics have a Mary-centered worship service, Baptists have a Jesus-centered worship service…they’re basically the same!”

Reality: Catholics don’t partake of the body and blood of Mary every week, and last I looked, Mary is mentioned twice at most in your average Catholic Mass, and sometimes, not at all. This teacher is an atheist, and apparently has never set foot inside a Catholic Church.

Why is it that whenever I see a special on the Da Vinci Code on TV, the show almost always concludes with something like this: Well, we have found no real evidence in support of the assertions made in the Da Vinci code (which is supposed to be fiction anyway), but hey, ya never know! I wonder how many other silly, baseless theses would get the same treatment by the educational television channels.

I am also a bit sick of seeing the same scholars interviewed over and over again, especially Elaine Pagels, who despite sounding more like a pagan or a Gnostic, is (I believe) Episcopalian. My suggestion: if Elaine and others think the Gnostics were so great, why don’t they take Jesus’ advice in the gospel of Thomas and become men!

Also, at the end of this paricular show, they asked a female grad student why she thinks so many people are reading the book. She answered that it is because so many people see gender inequality in institutional religion and this book speaks to this inequality. I thought people read it because it was a page-turner. Maybe I was wrong.

The Da Vinci has created a type of madness…and the movie is still to be released!!

I walked into our school library on Monday and I noticed they were selling some of their books for a dime a piece. I found some great books. I bought some collections of philosophical writings, a book on getting published, a collection of great political essays, and a book entitled Religion in America: Opposing Viewpoints, published in 1989. It is part of a larger Opposing Viewpoints series that looks at different issues from a variety of angles. The book I bought in the series deals with Religion and its relationship to national life and politics.

I have only begun reading it, but I am struck how arrogant many of the anti-religion articles are. One in particular just strikes me as ridiculous, a part of which I am going to briefly focus on here. The essay is titled "Religious Faith Will Decline" by Burnham Beckwith. The point of the essay is that religion will decline as society "progresses," something he and other atheistic idealists have been saying since the Enlightenment. Beckwith gives numerous reasons why religion will eventually die out, including scientific discovery and social reforms. However, the reason he gave that struck me as the most far-fetched is this: "the growth in the influence of very intelligent persons."

In discussing intelligence and religion, Beckwith begins with the assertion that the more intelligent people are, the less religious they are. I was looking for a reference to back  up this broad assertion, or a clear definition of "intelligence," but he provides neither. Beckwith then asserts that
religion will die out because people of superior intelligence are in
positions of power in the media (TV, etc) and our educational systems, thus positively influencing the unintelligent masses.. As highly-intelligent people breed (like university professors marrying each other), future generations will be more intelligent and have no need for religion.

I couldn’t help but laugh after reading this. First, as I said above, some scientific studies and a definition of "intelligence" would be helpful. I would bet the farm that Beckwith just happens to consider himself one of these "persons of superior intelligence," so we probably only need to look to what he believes to understand superior intelligence. Second, where does he get the idea that people in the media and in our educational system are intelligent across the board? In Massachusetts, public school teachers were failing state-mandated tests because a good chunk of them were writing sentences without verbs. If superiorly intelligent individuals ran the educational system, our students would be more competitive worldwide. Trust me, I believe many educators are intelligent (I teach in a public school), but if our educational system is run by the best-and-brightest, where are the superior results? Perhaps Beckwith has higher education in mind. Having attended undergraduate and graduate schools, I have found that critical thought is often in short supply, despite claims otherwise. A recent study suggests that college graduates are unprepared for even basic intellectual tasks, like balancing a checkbook. Third, as to the media…well, if Brittany Spears is my intellectual superior and  "American Idol" the embodiment of intelligence, then I prefer to stay stupid! Besides, many media types are into new-age religion, which is hardly "intelligent" as an atheist like Beckwith would define the term. Fourth, a truly intelligent individual would not allow himself to be uncritically influenced by the media or an educational system anyway, no matter how super-smart our teachers and newscasters may be. Fifth, is there evidence that academics marrying each other leads to intelligent and irreligious kids? The bigger question would be "are academics even marrying these days?" And I am not talking about being married to a career. Ok, that was a bit of a red herring, but I still would like to see evidence to back up what Beckwith says about academics.

I think the problem with Beckwith, and many atheists, is that they automatically equate atheism with "intelligence" and religiosity with "stupidity." This is simply not true: many atheists hold to their beliefs just as uncritically as do Christian fundamentalists, especially now that atheism has become more popular and accepted. Many former atheists, including Jennifer over at The Reluctant Atheist, can attest to the reality of thoughtless atheism.

I doubt religion will ever die out, but I do know one thing that has died out: the kind of uncritical modernist atheist idealism that Beckwith supports.

Cross posted to Per Christum: the Ancient and Future Catholics Blog

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Over at Titusonenine they are discussing mega-churches and the corporate/secular model of running a church. Rather than make a long comment over there, I thought I would just post here. Jump into the conversation over there if you find it interesting; I do!

I am not much into mega-churches, or churches that imitate that model, that may not happen to be "mega" yet. Supposedly I am an anomaly: a 27 year old who finds seeker-sensitive mega-churches to be boring and lacking meaning.

Let me explain. I do not find mega-churches entertaining. I don’t love the music, and I don’t like sitting through a 45 minute self-help message loosely centered around the Bible. Why? They are imitating secular culture, which I don’t exactly care for. I don’t find our culture that bows toward the will of the lowest-common-denominator (Brittany Spears sells more records than Johnny Cash these days) that entertaining, so I don’t find a model that tries to imitate it entertaining either.  I don’t get "warm-fuzzy" feelings from the services either. I know some folks find mega-churches very meaningful and entertaining, and I am in no way judging them, but they just never worked for me.

My friend Derek has commented over at T19 saying:

More of us young people are coming to liturgy and liturgical language.
We want language with history and integrity too it. I often feel like
the Baby-Boomers sold us out in terms of music and language–seeking to
change and bury what they didn’t like.

He is right. The baby-boomers have sold us a church-model that many young people just can’t understand. After all, many young people are in some sense victims of the same culture the mega-churches imitate. Why would we want our churches to be as vacuous as the culture around us? This is why if you read about recent trends in evangelical thought, the emerging evangelical model is smaller churches with *more* symbols, not fewer, and towards deeper, meditative experiences as opposed to "church as entertainment/church as programming-provider." I have issues with this new "emerging church" too, but it does show that mega-churches don’t appeal to all young people and are actually the product of people who were young in the 70s, and are now middle-aged. Nothing against the Jesus-freaks and recovering Jesus-freaks, but you did give us the mega-church, seeker-friendly model.

All of this is why I sought out the Anglican church and eventually the Catholic Church. A lot of younger people I know don’t like huge churches centered around a long sermon devoid of any symbols and connection to the historical church. Interestingly, the young people commenting over at Titusonenine (Benito, Derek, Stuart) are actually defending a more liturgical church and dislike the corporate model.

Ultimately I think the seeker-friendly model misses the point. If I want a good self-help program, I’ll check out some solid psychology books (some written from a Christian perspective, yes), rather than listen to a sermon by Dr. Phil. If I want good music, I can find some stuff online or over at Napster, not by going to a church that is imitating early 1990s adult contemporary music. As Hank Hill told a trendy pastor who played rock music, "Can’t you see you’re not making Christianity better, you’re just making rock n’ roll worse." I blogged about this Trendy Christianity a few months ago, and that post is relevant to this post. If I want solid-worship, I won’t be attending a seeker-friendly church either. If I want worship that has a history before the 1970s, is full of symbol, and leaves me in awe of God, I will go to a Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, or Anglican service, not a church that looks like a conference center. In other words, if I want the things mega-churches provide, I will go to the original, not the imitation.

Yes mega-churches bring folks in, but is "getting people in" the point? Yes and No. If they stay and are truly committed to Christ, yes that is good. If they come for the programming and stay for the programming, no. Also, if they come and stay and have a heterodox view of Jesus, then I answer "no" again. Jesus didn’t dumb down his message just to get people in. People need to stay for the real gospel message, and the real Jesus, not a warmed-over, Madison Avenue version of the gospel. I don’t recall the Bible speaking of using any of these tactics. I can’t imagine the Jewish temple operating this way, let alone New Testament churches! I attended a contemporary "seeker-friendly" church for about 12 months, and the turnover rate was very high. Yes new people were coming in, but they were replacing people leaving. As you can tell, I was one of these people, since I only stayed for 12 months. The youth pastor once said in the middle of the service, "the worship service is not for us, but for visitors!" He got his wish: the church was always filled with visitors.

To be fair, at least mega-churches are trying to get people to know Jesus. Sometimes I feel like we assume that people will find their own way to Jesus without any effort on our part. As sacramental Christians, we should be ashamed, since we actually believe God works through the physical world, which includes us! While I believe huge churches are unhealthy, I also think tiny ones can be as well. One Episcopal church I attended was in an area that was growing geometrically, and every other church was busting at the seams, yet this parish (in a brand new building) managed to attract maybe 100 people a week at all services combined. So while I think small churches are nice, churches that are so small that they cannot pay their bills must evaluate what they are doing wrong, because nobody likes a closed church.

I still think mega-churches, despite getting the question right (how can we get people to come to know Jesus?), provide the wrong answer, which is embracing secular culture. I think the right answer to solid church growth (i.e. low turnover, highly committed people) is being purposeful about the message of Christ, and standing for something. In other words, we must be welcoming and ready to explain what we believe (and help visitors with the liturgy). When my brother and I first walked into an Episcopal church, and into a Catholic church, we would have been thoroughly lost if not for what we had studied beforehand. A little brochure in the pews, and some materials out front would be helpful. Also, studies show that inviting friends to church is usually why people begin attending a church, and that is easy enough, at least for those who are purposeful about their faith.

Standing against culture when it errs often helps a church grow as well, according to studies. The mainline protestant churches have found this out the hard way, with declining membership. Despite a 30-year decline, at seminary I still heard the claim that "if we just embrace [fill in secular academic trend here], people will flock to our denomination." While demographics play a role in mainline decline, many members have left as the leadership moves farther and farther away from anything recognizably Christian. In the end, nothing works better than Christ.

While these ideas are not exactly fancy, and are easier said than done, I think they are at least faithful to Scripture and Tradition and not American secular or academic culture. There we have it…no fancy programming, no paying people to attend church, no self-help stuff, no embracing every up-and-coming academic trend, just a model of growth that Christians have used for hundreds of years. Oh yeah, it helps to pray!

Just the other night, some friends and I were discussing the “emerging church” and what it means. Also, Pontifications has written an article on the “Emerging Movement” I found interesting.

The Emerging Church is an evangelical movement that is trying to bring the church into the postmodern era. It is in many ways a reaction against 1970s and 1980s evangelicalism, which accommodated to secular culture so readily. It is marked by less emphasis on reason, more emphasis on actions, and an appreciation for mystery. I used to identify with the movement. I have compiled a few thoughts on the matter. I recognize that the emerging church is a broad movement that cannot be easily pinned down simply by my experiences with it, or those the Pontificator highlights. However, I still want to offer some basic thoughts. I became interested in the emerging church movement while moving out of my evangelical protestant phase. I saw the weaknesses of classical evangelicalism, yet modernist liberalism wasn’t the answer for me either. Both shared similar rationalistic assumptions. The emerging church movement showed me that Christianity need not be hyper-rationalistic and individualistic. I came to this conclusion with the help of the Church Fathers and Catholic and Orthodox writers, but it was nice to see evangelicals getting in on it as well.

I started by reading works by Robert Webber and Brian McLaren, who identify with the emerging church. As an Episcopalian and former classical evangelical, I enjoyed a lot of what I read, mainly because the emerging movement rejects a purely mechanistic way of looking at religion, thus (in theory) rejecting the assumptions behind protestant liberalism and protestant fundamentalism. Plus, emerging folks tend to appreciate catholic worship, and are open to exploring the Catholic and Orthodox churches. In fact a fundamentalist article online calls the emerging movement “dangerous” because it has led so many into the Catholic Church (I am used as an example in the article). The Emerging movement also encourages dialog with other cultures and faiths, something new to evangelicals, but not to Catholics post-Vatican II. So I consider the movement to have many positive feature.

However, I do not identify with the movement any longer and see its many weaknesses. At the end of the day, the “emerging church” movement is just another evangelical fad, even though it is often billed otherwise. It’s “hip” to be emerging in evangelical circles these days, and some emergent types come across as arrogant because they are “in-style.” Yes, the emerging church is a reaction to the evangelical obsession with being “hip” in the 80s and 90s, but their goal is still to be hip and relevant, just in a postmodern way.

The movement (like other evangelical fads) takes a cafeteria approach, and even though emerging folks may like icons and candles (as pictured), and speak highly of tradition and ritual, they still ultimately believe and do what they feel like, submitting solely to their personal magisteria, making them eerily similar to the mainline modernists they disdain. Plus, the fascination with things Catholic is trendy now, but when it is not cool anymore, will it be discarded? I suspect that in 5-10 years emerging worship will look as outdated as any other evangelical fad, as a future generation of evangelicals pokes fun at the hokey “emergent church” of the turn of the 21st century.

My real “break” with identifying with the movement came when I read two of the newer books by McLaren and Webber. Webber essentially says that having the main worship service on Wednesday (to accommodate those who can’t get up on Sunday) is just fine, despite apostolic tradition saying otherwise (not to mention losing the resurrection day connection). He encourages a cafeteria approach to worship and theology, suggesting that infant baptism may not be a good postmodern practice (although some churches may still choose to baptize infants, if it is in their tradition to do so). While Webber tries to be Catholic to some degree, McLaren makes no such claims. In his book The Story We Find Ourselves in: The Further Adventures of a New Kind of Christian, one of the characters gets rebaptized after being baptized as an infant, because she wasn’t conscious of her first baptism. After reading these suggestions (not to mention other troubling things in these books), I knew that the emerging church may have a fascination with old forms, but the substance is still “believe-what-you-want” evangelical protestantism. Emergent Christians are fully willing to embrace secular postmodern thought just as the earlier evangelical generation so readily embraced modernist secular thought. Being cool and relevant still trumps 2,000 years of tradition.

I will grant that many in the movement truly are evangelicals moving closer to the Catholic faith (and away from 19th century fundamentalism and hyper-rationalism), and the emerging movement is the way they are getting there. So in that way I am glad that the emerging authors have helped others and me toward the Catholic Church. Also, I think the movement is showing evangelicals that tradition, rituals, mystery, and dialog are beneficial things. The real problem is that the emerging movement is in the evangelical protestant tradition, and therefore things like mystery, ritual, and tradition are reduced to fads (and optional fads at that). Yes it is good that evangelicals have moved beyond the fundamentalism of the early 20th century and the sappy accommodation to culture of the late 20th century, but replacing two protestant movements with another movement kind of misses the point, no matter how close the new movement is to the Catholic Tradition.

The point of emerging is to eventually become emerged. Being emerging for too long is like being stuck in the birth canal when you can just leave and enter the real world. In the end, better to be emerged than emerging.

The new document has been released officially, and an article, Vatican Publishes, Defends Gay Priest Document, describes reaction to it, clarifying what the document means.

These quotes are apropos:

Leading U.S bishops welcomed the guidelines for discerning who is fit for ordination. They say men with a "deep-seated" homosexual tendency - an inclination that shapes their lifelong behavior - or involvement in "gay culture" should not be accepted at seminaries or ordained.

(Note how "deep-seated" homosexual tendencies are connected with lifelong homosexual behavior, showing that mere attraction to men is not the issue here, but a same-sex attraction that runs a persons life and almost always leads to inappropriate sexual behavior.)

Bishops want to know, "Does this guy have any agenda that he puts ahead of the Gospel? Sexuality is only a part of that," says Cupich, a former seminary rector. "He can’t have unresolved areas in his life."

Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson says the same criteria hold for heterosexuals as well. "If their defining understanding of self is centered on their sexuality, they can’t get beyond their own needs. So what is meant to be a joyful and fulfilling life is instead an agony and a sadness. That’s not good for the church or the person."

(Again, as these quotes illustrate, it is not about a simple gay orientation, but a "deep-seated" one that is driven by and centered around inappropriate sexual desires/actions and homosexual activism. A heterosexual who fits these criteria would be ineligible as well.)

Like I have said earlier, the beef most folks have is with Catholic (and Orthodox and classical Protestant) Teaching on homosexuality, not just this document. Of course, as an aside, conservatives need to remember that it is also Catholic Teaching to treat all people with respect and dignity, even if their choices in life are contrary to Catholic Teaching.

So basically, despite what some are saying, I don’t think this document (if followed correctly) is going to bar men with a gay orientation who are willing to live holy lives from entering the priesthood. I hope it does not.

This new document, Admission to the Priesthood and Homosexuality is causing a firestorm…Folks on both sides are pumped-up, and once again bringing out the rhetoric, some I am sure without actually bothering to read the document. People have been asking my opinion on it, and I have been writing this over the course of a few days, so here goes:

Not much is new here. The problem really is that a lot of people don’t care for the Catholic Teaching on homosexuality to begin with. Even if this document contained nothing new or developed over what the catechism says, it would still royally tick-off a bunch of people. On one side, many are used to denominations that take no real stand on the matter or that officially bar practicing gay clergy, but fail to enforce their own rules. When the Catholic Church actually affirms what it teaches, it gets folks in an uproar (as the Methodist Church did when it actually enforced its own disciplines a few months ago). Other Christians could not fathom how the same document that prohibits active homosexuals from being ordained could say, "while profoundly respecting the persons in question…", because for some, their disapproval of homosexual behavior is purely on account of homophobia.

The document, as I read it, says that men who regularly commit sexual acts with other men cannot be admitted to the priesthood. Ok, this is no shock, as it is consistent Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant teaching on the matter. It also says men into the "gay culture" cannot be ordained. This probably means that if you are attending rallies for gay marriage, picking up men in gay bars, teaching against Catholic Tradition on gay marriage, etc, you aren’t fit for ordination. Of course, the document seems to include *all* men who are active in the "gay culture," not just gay men into it. Again, if you read the canons of past Church councils, this prohibition is not new, as heterosexuals are expected to refrain from doing similar things.

The big issue seems to be that men with "deep-seated" gay tendencies are barred from the process, and must demonstrate that these tendencies have passed after a 3-year probation period.  This is actually not that surprising. The Catholic Church teaches that a homosexual orientation, despite the orientation itself not being sinful, is still intrinsically disordered.  The document seems to connect deep-seated homosexual tendencies to an uncontrolled sexual desire, and thus an inability to be celibate, something heterosexuals would be screened for as well. Again, I think the complaint is with Catholic Teaching on the matter for many folks, not just this document.

Besides, what is "deep-seated" is left to the judgment of the local individuals involved, so I highly doubt that a holy man who follows Catholic Teaching and morality, but who happens to like men to some degree, is going to be denied entry into the priesthood. While some folks "know" that the Church is homophobic and will therefore use this document (in collusion with George W. Bush no doubt) to never ordain another gay man, I just don’t see this fanciful scenario coming to pass.

Is this document an answer to the sexual abuse problem? No. It may be the answer to the gay subculture that has developed at many Catholic seminaries. It may serve to remind bishops, priests, and those in holy orders what Catholic Teaching is regarding proper sexual relationships, and why those actively and persistently involved in inappropriate sexual activity cannot be ordained. As to the sexual abuse problems, I don’t blame gay priests at all; I blame the poor management (i.e. sinful covering-up) of the bishops involved, not to mention an inadequate process for screening/forming priests. It is better management, more education, stronger discipline (you do it once, you’re out and in jail), and a longer and more comprehensive discernment process that will prevent this from happening so often.

As an example, the diocese I live in has had few if any complaints about sexual abuse by priests in the last 20-some years. Why? Is it because our diocese ordains married priests? No. Is it because we have no priests? No. It is because our diocese has a strict screening policy for clergy and lay people, an even stricter process for dealing with known sexual abusers, and educates all of its workers and volunteers on sexual abuse prevention and reporting. We have had these policies for years.

That is my take on the document… There are no real surprises, but this is probably why a lot of people don’t like it! My opinion overall? I think it is a useful document, but I hope it doesn’t bar from the priesthood good, holy men who may have a gay orientation, but who are willing to follow the Church and live celibate lives.