Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 304

United We Stand

This week in my own parish I discovered an untapped reserve of energy, enthusiasm and determination among my people. The drill that unleashed this gusher was our Bishop's letter standing firm against the unjust HHS mandate by the Obama administration.



As our Bishops stood united the entire church united behind them. Astoundingly the "progressive" Catholics united with the"conservative" Catholics. Liberal Catholic journalists, academics, politicians, religious sisters, university professors and media leaders presented a united voice. Very few Catholics supported the mandate, and those who did not speak out against it, were at least silent.



As our Bishops united and spoke out the people rallied behind them. Not only did Catholics of all opinions unite behind the Bishops, but Protestants and Jews stood up and spoke up.



When engaged in debate in the public square there is a time for conversation and compromise. There is a time for tact and tactics, strategies and stratagems. Then there is a time when war is declared and leaders emerge to wade into battle.



This conflict has, no doubt, been led by our dynamic new cardinal-to-be- Archbishop Dolan. A happy warrior if ever there was one, he has appeared on our screens as a jovial, intelligent and articulate uncle. Serious one moment and cracking a joke the next, he is almost a prelatical Chesterton. I met Archbishop Dolan in Los Angeles soon after he was appointed to New York, and hear one of the best Catholic homilies from a bishop ever. He encouraged, inspired, enlightened and motivated all of us.



Now that we have seen what a united Catholic Church can do perhaps more Americans will realize that a shift in the self understanding of the Catholic Church is now underway. The old model, (which we might call Kennedy Catholicism) was one in which the Bishops in Northeastern cities dined with the wealthy and powerful in their grand residences. The Bishops were part of the inside circle. They had access to the men of power. Indeed, they had real influence over the men of power.



Not any more. Instead, the Bishops (partially because of the devastation of the child abuse scandals) are chastised. The big, wealthy dioceses of the Northeast establishment are discredited. Archbishops are selling their magnificent homes, closing parishes and schools and with the belt tightening, are discovering that all the austerity may just be training for war. As the secular state continues to set it's sights on Christianity, (and the Catholic Church is the biggest target) the Catholic bishops have found their feet and found their voice.



Let us hope and pray that they will continue to speak with a united voice--sometimes pastoral and gentle, but other times speaking out as leaders of the Church Militant.



Deacon Fournier writes on the growing resistance here.

Baptist Businessman turned Catholic

Read Randy Hain's account of his conversion from lapsed Baptist to fervent Catholic. Go here.

Permanent Preventative Care?

We're reminded that the White House wants to ensure that all women receive the necessary "preventative care". Why not give the unborn children the "Preventative Care" they need to preserve their lives? What on earth does "Preventative Care" mean? Why it means contraceptives of course, and once that's accepted and everyone yawns and says its okay after all, the term "preventative care" will include abortions.



The only thing both forms of "health service" prevent is human life.



What is so creepy about all this is that the pro abortion people put out the word that this was simply about "choice". Women should have the opportunity to choose to end their pregnancy with abortion. Now, not only do they have the choice, but I have to pay for their choice. Not much choice for me I guess.



After we all come to pay for abortion what other "preventative care" will be mandated? I know. The tests have shown that the child in the womb has Downs Syndrome, or mental retardation or maybe just a cleft lip. Let's provide "Preventative Care" and terminate his life so he won't have so much suffering. It's happening in the UK and Europe already.



What about the poor woman who is pregnant and the child will be born into poverty? Let's provide "Preventative care" so the kid won't have to live a life of poverty. For that matter let's provide "Preventative Care" to all the poor people in Africa so they won't have to endure poverty either.



See that old lady in the nursing home? She doesn't have any money left. She has Alzheimer's. She doesn't have any friends or family. We could prevent her suffering the ravages of her disease, and a lonely and terrible decline. "Preventative Care" will be provided. In fact, the government mandated insurance plans will make you pay for it.



Do you object to being forced to pay for death by the ironically and creepily named "Department of Health and Human Services"? Do you stand up against this tyranny? We need to prevent you causing more damage in our perfectly created society. So you will be removed to a "Treatment Center" to receive "Preventative Care".



Geesh! The imagination boggles! Anything at all that might be deemed unpleasant could be regarded as something to be prevented. You don't like the growing power of the state? You want to lead a protest movement?



Perhaps you need to be prevented from causing such unrest. Permanently.



Some protestor disappears? A pro life charity is hounded out of existence?



No problem. They simply received "Permanent Preventative Care" courtesy of the Department of Health and Human services.

Crisis? What Crisis?

Crisis Magazine website is launched today with a smart, dignified new look.  They consistently have the sharpest writing and the most extensive coverage of politics, arts, culture, and lifestyle issues from the Catholic perspective. Go here to check it out.

Transgender Naming Ceremony

Just when you thought you the Anglicans and Lutherans had run out of impossibly wacky ideas they surprise you with a new one.



Here is a link to a blog by Rev Nadia Bolz Weber--an 'emergent' Lutheran pastor of a little tribe called by the name of the House of All Sinners and Saints.



It tells us about a Lutheran-Episcopalian naming ceremony for a transgendered person. There is a little ritual in which Asher (who used to be Mary) affirms his former person and takes a new name. The "new name" thing is interesting because the liturgist weaves in the new names given to Abram, Simon Peter etc.



Effectively this is a sort of parody of baptism as well, in which the child is ceremonially named.



Comments anyone?

Understanding Anglicanism

If anyone is interested in understanding the heart of Anglicanism I leave you with this quote from Vic--a very nice fellow who is an Anglican priest who visits this blog.



 ...two positions within that church that might appear to be contradictory should perhaps not be contrasted with each other, for each will exist only as an attempt to relate to that perfect truth about God that is still in process of being revealed. Two people, looking at different sides of the same coin, may offer descriptions of what they see that appear to have no correlation with each other at all. And all of us in this life see only as in a glass, darkly; and different expressions of the same truth, as St Paul well knew, are needed for different people.




He sums it up nicely. Allow me to recount what this means in real life within the Anglican Church: at St. Margaret's Fr.Spike reserves the Blessed Sacrament, leads Eucharistic Adoration and believes that the consecrated host really is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. At St Luke's Bob the Vicar, who is a committed Evangelical, pours the leftover wine down the vestry sink and puts the leftover bread out for the birds.




I have deliberately chosen the two extremes of churchmanship in the Anglican Church to make my point. It is nevertheless a reality. Most every deanery in the Church of England will have such extremes. If you are an Anglican you must therefore conclude that Fr.Spike and Bob the Vicar are simply "two people looking at different sides of the same coin." They are offering two different descriptions of that same ineffable truth that no one can really define.




To put it another way, they are climbing the same mountain, but by different (and we must assume equally valid) paths. This is because, for the Anglicans, Christianity is not essentially a dogmatic religion. Even the creeds were only one way of saying it--written at a particular time in history when certain things needed saying.




Anglicans therefore not only adapt the Christian faith according to the place and time in which they live, but they believe this to be not only inevitable, but necessary. Truth for the Anglican, is constantly morphing into new expressions and new formations.  Societal pressures on Christian truth are to be welcomed. They help the Anglican Christian to 'see things from a new perspective'. The Holy Spirit, after all, blows where it wills.




All of this, the Anglican sincerely believes, is good and healthy and vital. This is the life of faith! The adventure is not to be bound by dogma and canon law and regulations, but to live in a free flowing exchange of ideas, and if we sometimes stumble and fall and make mistakes it is so much better than being bound by outdated dogmas, rules, regulations and something as arcane and out of touch as an infallible authority.




There. So now you know.

Twitter

Do you want pithy stuff to think about? I try to tweet paradoxical, puzzling or inspiring thoughts.



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I promise you it is not all links to my blog posts!

Via Cafeteria or Via Media

In January I was privileged to attend the reception into full communion with the Catholic Church of the priests and people of Mount Calvary Church in Baltimore. An Anglo Catholic church with a venerable history within the Episcopal Church, Mount Calvary was, from the very beginning, a congregation fostered and formed in the Oxford Movement. Indeed, the church's first pastor was received into the Catholic Church by Cardinal Newman himself, and went on to become a Catholic bishop.



For a long time Anglicans have promoted the idea that their church was a via media--a middle way--between Protestantism and Catholicism. They taught that their church was the ancient Catholic Church of the British Isles--but reformed properly by Protestant doctrine and customs of worship. However, in practice, as John Henry Newman himself pointed out, the via media was never more than a beautiful idea. This is because Anglicans inevitably fell into one camp or the other. If they were inclined to Protestantism they joined the Evangelicals. If Catholicism, they joined the Anglo Catholics, if they preferred to adjust their Christian faith to the spirit of the age they joined the Liberal establishment. 



The via media was impossible to maintain for there was no defining dogma or ways of worship. For those who wished to walk that middle way, it was more a via cafeteria than a via media. Any Anglican attempting the via media would have to pick and choose from among the different streams of Christian customs and beliefs to formulate his own personal medley of convictions. The via media was therefore not so much a middle road as a road to nowhere.



In saying that, the Anglican via media was a road to somewhere for many Anglicans: it was a road out of Anglicanism. Over the years the hemorrhage of members from the Anglican Church has been catastrophic. Realizing that their church stood for not much of anything, they have gone to the Catholic Church, formed little Anglican sects called "continuing Churches" or joined some other Protestant church.



However, with the establishment of the personal ordinariate for Anglicans, there may be a new understanding of the via media. The Anglican 'middle way' could become a highway for many Protestants to find their way into full communion with the Catholic Church.



For in many ways, the Anglican tradition is a middle way between Protestantism and Catholicism. In its truest form it has taken on the best insights of the Protestant reformers, while retaining much of the Catholic faith. Most of all, it provides a way of worship and governance in which many Protestants will feel at home.



The reason the via media never worked within Anglicanism is because it had no rock on which to build. It had no magisterium and no apostolic authority. The middle way had no one to define what it was, no one to say, "This is the way: walk in it." This is precisely what the personal ordinariate provides. As the Anglicans come into full communion with the Catholic Church, they will be catechized in the fullness of the faith. Their liturgies will be purged of the anti Catholic elements. They will profess, like all converts do, to believe all that the Catholic Church teaches to be revealed by God.



With such a foundation it is possible for the personal ordinariates now established in England and the United States to become a truly exciting step toward church unity, and here's how: There are many thinking Evangelical Christians who are conservative and orthodox in their faith. They have little patience with the razzmatazz of the mega churches and the post modern, self help versions of contemporary Protestant Christianity. They have come to appreciate the historic church. They are longing for liturgy, solid doctrine, strong moral teaching and unity with the apostolic church.



However, if they are drawn to the Episcopal or Lutheran churches they are repulsed by the radical political and sexual agendas, the dumbed down liturgy and 'up to date' approach. They wanted tradition, prayer and reverence and they find trendiness, politics and relevance. Sadly, if they visit their local Catholic church it may very well be indistinguishable from what the Episcopalians and Lutherans have on offer. Should they find a more traditional Catholic church they may find the cultural aspects too daunting. They'd spot the Infant of Prague or Our Lady of Fatima and hear rosaries being muttered and their old anti Catholic bias will rear its head and they'll stay away.



Should they venture into a traditional Anglican church, however, they would find much to their liking. An Anglican church united, not absorbed by the Catholic Church, would provide the via media that would enable them not only to feel at home, but to come home to Rome. 



For this to happen, the members of the Ordinariate will have to resist the easy temptation to become an Anglo Catholic sect within Catholicism. They have been used to being a church within a church in Anglicanism and it will be easy for them to become the same within the Catholic Church. If they are to be a true via media they must envision a new mission that goes with their new identity. If they adopt a missionary spirit, their new role could be a vital part of the new evangelization.



They could pioneer a new understanding of the via media and become not a road to nowhere, but a path that leads to full communion with the Catholic Church. To do that, they will need to be a broad church--one that not only preserves the glories of Anglo-Catholic worship, but also is not ashamed to embrace the strengths of the Evangelical aspect of Anglicanism: a zeal for the gospel, an ability to communicate the faith clearly, in a way that other Protestants find acceptable and so open the doors to many who would otherwise never find their way home to Rome.

Gargoyle Code

Lent is coming up, and there is a new print run of Gargoyle Code--my best selling Screwtape Letters-like book for Lent.



Slubgrip is his name and devilry is his game. He's a squirmy, proud and nauseating worm, but you can't help laughing at his attempts to tempt. Slubgrip's instructs his protegee in the art of tempting a lukewarm young Catholic while he has to mind his own 'patient' a traditionalist Catholic.



There's a letter for every day in Lent--starting with Shrove Tuesday and going through to Easter Day.



This is a great book to read on your own, or with a book club or a parish group. Click on the image here or in the right sidebar to order your copy.



If you want to read excerpts of The Gargoyle Code you can do so through this blog. The book started out here, and you can read the original posts by using the labels list on the left sidebar.

The Apostolic Authority

From today's Office of Readings: with commentary by Fr Longenecker




Paul to the churches of Galatia, This is but one of Paul's epistles. Notice that his authority is not rooted in any single church community, but is 'Catholic'. He presumes to instruct the Galatians, but also the Romans, the Corinthians, the Christians at Thessolonica and Ephesus and beyond. and from all the brothers who are here with me, an apostle an 'apostle' is 'one who is sent'. He is sent by Christ, who was himself sent with authority by the Father. Christ who said to his apostles, "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." does not owe his authority to men or his appointment to any human being but who has been appointed by Jesus Christ and by God the Father who raised Jesus from the dead. So he affirms the apostolic authority, and that authority is by direct divine mandate. Furthermore, it is validated by the historical fact of the resurrection. "If Christ is not raised from the dead" St Paul says in Corinthians, "Our faith is in vain." He might just as well say, "If Christ is not raised from the dead our apostolic authority is meaningless." We wish you the grace and peace of God our Father and of the Lord Jesus Christ, who in order to rescue us from this present wicked world sacrificed himself for our sins, in accordance with the will of God our Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. It is likely that this is a snippet from an existing liturgical formula. The primitive church was liturgical and hierarchical. Reject Protestant ideas that it was the equivalent of a home Bible study where they sang choruses, read the Bible and prayed extemporaneously.

  I am astonished at the promptness with which you have turned away from the one who called you and have decided to follow a different version of the Good News. Paul had been preaching the gospel of freedom, but the Galatians had been seduced by legalistic former Jews who insisted that the new believers conform to all the rules of the Old Covenant--including circumcision. Legalism is always an easy way to be religious. Freedom is far more difficult. Legalism (like all easy forms of Christianity) is a false gospel. Beware. Not that there can be more than one Good News; it is merely that some troublemakers among you want to change the Good News of Christ; and let me warn you that if anyone preaches a version of the Good News different from the one we have already preached to you, whether it be ourselves or an angel from heaven, he is to be condemned.  Paul actually says the false teacher is cursed. Anathema sit. The apostolic church has always condemned both false teaching and false teachers. The language is strong here, and is echoed in the New Testament by Peter and by the gentler beloved disciple John. False teachers be damned!  A false religion preached from 'an angel from heaven'? I can think of two: Islam and Mormonism. But he includes himself! If he teaches a false gospel he too is to be condemned. I am only repeating what we told you before: if anyone preaches a version of the Good News different from the one you have already heard, he is to be condemned. Have I said it before? I'll say it again. False teachers are condemned. So now whom am I trying to please – man, or God? Would you say it is men's approval I am looking for? If I still wanted that, I should not be what I am – a servant of Christ. The one who teaches with apostolic authority cannot please men. What does this mean? It means there are essentially two ways: the way of the world and the way of the gospel. The way of the world is man-pleasing. The false teacher who conforms to the world and compromises and pleases those with money and power and prestige--they are the false teachers. This is the most subtle of lies: the Catholicism that conforms outwardly, but lives according to one motivating force: money and worldly success and worldly approval. The one who serves Christ, however, will be shunned and rejected by the world--and shunned and rejected most of all by those who seem to be his brothers in Christ, but who have conformed to the way of the world.

  The fact is, brothers, and I want you to realise this, the Good News I preached is not a human message that I was given by men, it is something I learnt only through a revelation of Jesus Christ. He can only be true to the message he has received, and it was the message from Christ Jesus himself. The gospel is not a human fabrication. Neither is the apostolic church founded by St Paul and St Peter. Do not be deceived by bad Catholics and Protestants who say that the dogmas and moral teachings of the Catholic Church are "just man made rules."  The Catholic faith is not man-made. Man made religions always conform to the way of the world. The Catholic faith--the gospel of Christ always subverts the way of the world. That is because it is not of this world.




Here endeth the Sunday evening Bible study by Pastor Longenecker...