Out of the Mouths of Converts

My daughter, a “cradle convert” in that she entered the Church at the age of 10, is issuing informal “save-the date” invitations to the Easter vigil to her Protestant friends (she attends a large Evangelical Protestant university). We’re hoping to get a small group together on April 19^th to celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord. It’s a fantastic way to introduce people to the Church – after all, the Easter Vigil is Catholicism at her finest! And watching those converts as they enter (or are reconciled to) the Church just might give her friends pause for thought….

 

Here’s hoping!

 

Converts have a way of doing that, you know – giving people pause for thought. The first thought that probably pops into your mind when you hear that someone is converting to Catholicism is “why?” – what drew you to the Catholic Church? If you’re a Protestant, and you get the news that someone is “poping,” I’m sure “why?” is the question on your mind, too – why in the world would you become Catholic?? Very often, converts to Catholicism aren’t really allowed to explain their decision to the church they are leaving behind – members of that church all too often do that for them, spreading the impression that their exodus was the result of a less than passionate relationship with Christ. So it tickled me when I came across the conversion of Swedish pastor Ulf Ekman. He was a very prominent charismatic clergyman instrumental in bringing the Word of Faith movement to his native land. Not only did Ekman get the chance to explain his conversion to Catholicism to his church, he got the chance to do it on camera. You can watch it here (interpreted in English) – all 45 glorious minutes of it! Pastor Ekman explained the reasoning behind his (and his wife Birgitta’s) decision to leave his work of 30 years behind and ask to be reconciled to the Church Jesus established (starting 29 minutes into the video):

 

In the Catholic Church we’ve found a continuity that goes right back to the apostles and Jesus Himself, with a strength and a stability which the gates of hell have not prevailed against. We believe this power and these roots are necessary for the future, and we’re talking about the survival of the Christian world in a cruel future world. We believe that God wants to unite us as one… God’s Spirit was actually drawing us and urging us to join in earnest with the Catholic Church.

 

The congregation took it well. I didn’t see anyone get up and leave. Perhaps it’s Swedish stoicism, but when the camera cut to the audience they looked pretty composed. In fact, they applauded warmly when he finished, and the pastor who spoke after Pastor Ekman’s sermon assured the congregation that he felt that Ulf and Birgitta were “following the guidance of the Holy Spirit.” What I enjoyed the most was the fact that Pastor Ekman told the congregation what he has discovered about Catholics: “how alive their true faith is in Jesus,” “how biblically anchored the Catholic Church is in its classical doctrines,” and that “in their services they use the Scriptures more than we do!” It was quite a blessing that he was allowed to say that, and to explain why he feels that his decision is the right one – that doesn’t always happen.

 

So, when all else fails, write a book to get your point across! German pastor Andreas Theurer did just that, a book entitled Warum werden wir nicht katholisch? Denkanstöße eines evangelisch-lutherischen Pfarrers (Why Don’t We Become Catholic? Food for Thought from an Evangelical-Lutheran Pastor). Why did Pastor Theurer become Catholic?

 

The Bible arose from the Church, not the other way around. The deciding criterion is: what has the Church believed since the time of the Apostles?

 

This decision had no one certain cause, but rather was the result of many years of looking into the doctrines which divide the church; this finally led me to the insight that on all the contested points Catholic teaching agrees with the beliefs of the Apostles. At some point I came to the realization that I no longer had a reason not to become Catholic, and then I naturally had to face the consequences.

 

Sounds a bit like what Pastor Ekman was saying, doesn’t it? “In the Catholic Church we’ve found a continuity that goes right back to the apostles and Jesus Himself.” When Protestants begin looking into the first few centuries of Christianity, they often come away with a nagging suspicion that something may have gone awry in the doctrines of the Reformers.

 

My friend “J” – a layperson hoping to be reconciled to the Church later this year – expressed thoughts similar to those of Pastor Theurer’s. When asked what caused him to consider Catholicism, “J” responded:

 

I think a major factor in my conversion was simply working in the adult world for several years and realising how the real world worked. Issues of authority, hierarchy, organisation…all these became real and I realised Protestantism has no good solution – or rather, its (present) solution seems to look like modern democracy which, I realised, may simply be a reflection of modern prejudice instead of the government that Christ instituted.

 

Another factor was just growing older and realising that expertise and properly instituted authority matter. I mean, in companies there is no such thing as democracy and no one kicks up a big fuss about it – why should we then assume that the Church founded by Christ had no lines of authority? Why do we assume that the Church Fathers were free to hold whatever theological opinion they wanted to and that no one took action against them? Why do we assume that there was no authority who could judge such things? The more I examined the issue the more I realised that the Catholic picture of reality fit with the facts better than the Protestant one….

 

Authority, of course, is the central issue here. Protestantism can seem very appealing with its loose organization, if any at all. The YOUCAT succinctly explains why the Church is not, and cannot be, a democracy:

 

Democracy operates on the principle that all power comes from the people. In the Church, however, all power comes from Christ. That is why the Church has a hierarchical structure.

 

Kind of hard to argue with that.

 

The question of authority is definitely a subject that turns people’s mind towards Rome. Blogger Kala Nila had an interesting experience with a pastor who, when he learned of her intention to swim the Tiber, wrote to her: “I can’t believe you’re letting someone else tell you what the Bible says.” As she put it:

 

The reality is that I have always believed what somebody else taught me. Before I studied Bible in college, I merely trusted those who taught me and I wasn’t aware of all the assumptions that inform our reading of Scripture (and often compromise our correct understanding of it). Even during college, I trusted my Bible professors so I was shaped by their thinking and persuasions. It seems to me that the difference now as a Catholic is that I am listening to and being taught by the Church which Christ founded, the very one that He promised to protect against the powers of hell.

 

Pretty perceptive, I’d say. The Protestant idea that individual believers are relying on the Holy Spirit to lead them into all truth is a mirage. Protestants are being taught by whoever their leaders are, by whatever materials they are given, even by the Bible translation they choose to use (as Pastor N.T. Wright has bemoaned).

 

So there you have it, out of the mouths of “11^th-hour workers,” as Russ Rentler terms us converts and reverts. But remember, as the catechumens undergo the Second Scrutiny this Sunday (the subject is “Light!”), those of you called “early in the morning” (Mt 20:1) also need to prepare a reply. “Why are you Catholic?” is a question everyone needs to be able to answer articulately, not just us converts, as our first pope instructed us: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Pet 3:15). For incisiveness, I think so far no one has beaten blogger George Sipe on this point. He was asked that very question recently – why are you Catholic? – and his response nails it:

 

For me, it always boils down to one thing, upon which everything else depends. I answered simply “it’s the truth.”

 

Bravo!  The Truth awaits you in the Catholic Church, and He will lead you to Himself. Just ask Him!

 

 

On the memorial of St. Cono di Naso

 

Deo omnis gloria!

You Can’t Be Too Careful

Having rejected every authority on earth except that of their own personal interpretation of Holy Scripture, Protestants must take pains to prove that their personal interpretation of the Bible is the correct one. They are certainly at a disadvantage, seeing as how (1) they can’t claim that their understanding of any given set of verses was passed down from bishop to bishop from the apostles themselves, (2) they can’t document that their perspective on any distinctively Protestant doctrine lines up with the teaching of the Church Fathers, and (3) they can’t say that the indefectibility that Christ promised His Church somehow applies to their tiny splinter of a fraction of a denomination and not to the other equally splintered fractions which disagree with them. It is at this point where you will see most Protestant groups beginning to trot out their Bible Scholars. These are the experts who can explain to you that, “properly translated,” various passages mean something quite different from what you’d always thought they meant.

I grant that some people really are Bible Scholars. I’ve just gotten mighty tired of 2^nd-year Greek students who think they can exegete a text better than the Catholic Church because they’ve “studied the original Greek!” Let me put this in context: I majored in languages (not New Testament Greek – modern languages), and after graduation I moved to Germany where I lived and taught for five years. If you asked me to translate Martin Luther’s “Von der babylonischen Gefangenschaft der Kirche” into English, I would have to decline. I am not competent to translate that work into English, even though English is my native language and I was immersed in the study of German for many years. In order to competently translate such a work, I would have to be a scholar of 16^th-century German (it’s been 500 years, and languages change, you know), a student of Luther’s thought, and a theologian. To just pull someone in off the street because they happen to speak both German and English and say, “Hey, can you translate Luther’s ‘Babylonian Captivity’ for me?” would be foolish. You’d get a half-baked, error-ridden translation. Yet folks with a couple of semesters of New Testament Greek under their belt think they can translate a verse like John 3:5 better than anyone in the 2,000-year history of the Church. Catholic apologist Steve Ray dealt with someone who presented this argument:

Jesus told (Nicodemus) that one must be born ‘of the Spirit’ in order to enter the kingdom of God. A better translation of John 3.5 would read: “… except a man be born of water—even of the Spirit—he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” The little Greek word kai is often translated “even”—which I believe better conveys the Lord’s meaning here. He is contrasting the water of the womb and fleshly birth, with the water of the Spirit and heavenly birth.

This person was advocating that John 3:5 be understood to mean that being “born again of water and of the Spirit” excluded baptism (“water”). He had convinced himself that Jesus wasn’t talking about water baptism in John 3:5 because “the little Greek word ‘kai’ is often translated ‘even’ – which I believe better conveys the Lord’s meaning here.” Well, golly – isn’t it swell that somebody with a rudimentary knowledge of the Greek language has come along to dispel the myths propagated by two millennia of Catholic teaching!

As Steve goes on to explain to the inquirer, no reputable translation of the Bible (Catholic or Protestant) has ever translated this passage in the way that supposedly “better conveys the Lord’s meaning” – kind of surprising if that translation is the slam-dunk that the inquirer makes it out to be (an argument you might remember to bring up the next time your coworker tries to explain to you that his peculiar understanding of a particular verse is actually “a better way” of translating it.) But this is small potatoes; John 3:5 isn’t the only verse open to creative interpretation, and much has been translated by Protestants-who-should-know-better over the years with the specific aim of helping the Almighty say what the translators are sure that He must have meant to say, so much so that Anglican Bible Scholar N.T. Wright groused:

In this context, I must register one strong protest against one particular translation. When the New International Version was published in 1980, I was one of those who hailed it with delight. I believed its own claim about itself, that it was determined to translate exactly what was there, and inject no extra paraphrasing or interpretative glosses. This contrasted so strongly with the then popular New English Bible, and promised such an advance over the then rather dated Revised Standard Version, that I recommended it to students and members of the congregation I was then serving. Disillusionment set in over the next two years, as I lectured verse by verse through several of Paul’s letters, not least Galatians and Romans. Again and again, with the Greek text in front of me and the NIV beside it, I discovered that the translators had had another principle, considerably higher than the stated one: to make sure that Paul should say what the broadly Protestant and evangelical tradition said he said. I do not know what version of Scripture they use at Dr. Piper’s church. But I do know that if a church only, or mainly, relies on the NIV it will, quite simply, never understand what Paul was talking about.

This is a large claim, and I have made it good, line by line, in relation to Romans in my big commentary, which prints the NIV and the NRSV and then comments on the Greek in relation to both of them. Yes, the NRSV sometimes lets you down, too, but nowhere near as frequently or as badly as the NIV. And, yes, the NIV has now been replaced with newer adaptations in which some at least of the worst features have, I think, been at least modified. But there are many who, having made the switch to the NIV, are now stuck with reading Romans 3:21-26 like this:

“But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known…. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe…. [God] did this to demonstrate his justice… he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”

In other words, “the righteousness of God” in Romans 3:21 is only allowed to mean “the righteous status which comes to people from God,” whereas the equivalent term in Romans 3:25 and Romans 3:26 clearly refers to God’s own righteousness – which is presumably why the NIV has translated it as “justice,” to avoid having the reader realize the deception. In the following paragraph, a similar telltale translation flaw occurs, to which again we shall return. In Romans 3:29, Paul introduces the question, “Is God the God of Jews only?” with the single-letter word e normally translated “or”; “Or is God the God of Jews only?” –in other words, if the statement of Romans 3:28 were to be challenged, it would look as though God were the God of Jews only. But the NIV, standing firmly in the tradition that sees no organic connection between justification by faith on the one hand and the inclusion of Gentiles within God’s people on the other, resists this clear implication by omitting the word altogether. Two straws in a clear and strong wind. And those blown along by this wind may well come to forget that they are reading a visibly and demonstrably flawed translation, and imagine that this is what Paul really said.”

To summarize, Wright is claiming that there are some serious problems with the Bible version used by most English-speaking Evangelical Protestants. So, who’s right – Anglican “Bible Scholar” N.T. Wright, or the “Bible Scholars” who produced the New International Version of the Bible?

With no Magisterium to rely on, the Protestant faithful are the civilian casualties in these Bible Scholar Wars. They simply have to choose the team they think looks best in their uniforms and hope that it all turns out well. If I have 20 Bible Scholars who say that this is the correct understanding of James 2:24, and you have only 19 who say that that is the correct understanding, my understanding must be the correct one – right?

My team wins!

The Catholic Church looks at it this way: The New Testament was written in the first century A.D. in “common” Koiné Greek, as was the Septuagint, the Old Testament of the early Christians. Koiné Greek is now a dead language, so there are no native speakers with whom to consult. Anyone studying the language of the New Testament must familiarize himself with that language without the assistance of anyone who actually speaks that language in this day and age. That in and of itself is a substantial handicap.

Then there is the cultural aspect of translation, which should not be minimalized. Modern-day American English, for example, relies heavily on exaggeration and sarcasm. Ya think?? Other societies simply do not exaggerate and sneer the way we do. (I should know – I once told a Turkish friend of mine that I had to wait in line behind “a hundred other people.” To this day I don’t think she understands that I didn’t mean that literally.) Someone living 2,000 years from now who tries to translate a 21^st-century American novel into Bengali, for example, will have to bear this tendency in mind; taking everything the characters say literally will result in a gross misinterpretation of what is actually meant. Culture plays a huge part in translation, and modern-day Bible Scholars can only unearth so much. Certain aspects of ancient cultures will always remain somewhat mysterious to us.

All this is the basis of the Catholic argument that the people closest to Jesus in time, place, language and culture are undoubtedly the best equipped to break the stalemate and explain to us what the words of Jesus and his disciples actually mean. Twenty-first-century English-speaking Bible Scholars are simply laboring under too many insurmountable handicaps to claim that they can translate reliably without availing themselves of the invaluable assistance of the Church Fathers. Protestants, especially Evangelicals, tend to downplay this assessment, basically since the Church Fathers contradict the prevailing Protestant wisdom at every turn. Yet, when it is sometimes difficult even for me, a 21^st-century native speaker of English, to understand what you, a 21^st-century native speaker of English, are trying to say, why should we feel that the chances that modern-day Protestant Bible Scholars might be mistranslating and misinterpreting Scripture are slim to none?

This brings back a memory of an uncomfortable teaching mishap in Germany – my attempt to explain to my class the meaning of the English phrase “you can’t be too careful,” which the students understood to mean “Don’t be too careful.” I struggled fruitlessly to explain that the phrase actually means that you must be very, very careful – my students, having believed that they grasped the obvious meaning of the words, didn’t want to be corrected, even though they were non-native speakers of English and I was the one with the State of New York birth certificate. Their attitude was one of: The meaning of the phrase is self-evident – now teach us something we don’t know!

This can be the attitude of Evangelical Bible Scholars, who just “know” that Jesus taught justification by faith ALONE. This pseudo-knowledge is bound to color their translation efforts – how could it be otherwise? “When the Bible says ‘justified by faith,’ it means ‘justified by faith ALONE’!

The meaning of the phrase is self-evident!”

Patrick Madrid in his Where Is That in the Bible? proposes a simple exercise in understanding: Any native speaker of English would claim to be able to comprehend the simple phrase, “I never said you stole the money.” Even non-native speakers with a few years of training in English would feel confident of their comprehension. It’s not Shakespeare! But think of the possible nuances involved here. The speaker could actually be saying:

I never said you stole the money (but Martha said you did).

I never said you stole the money (those words never crossed my lips, but I sent a telegram to that effect).

I never said you stole the money (but the money was stolen, and I said John stole it).

I never said you stole the money (but I did say that you might have borrowed it and forgotten to return it).

I never said you stole the money (I’m sure you didn’t steal the money; I’m equally sure you did steal everything else).

You speak English; I speak English – yet we cannot guarantee beyond a shadow of a doubt that we have correctly understood the nuances of that simple, 7-word sentence. Can any modern-day Bible Scholar claim with a straight face that he can correctly understand the Bible to say that a man is justified by faith alone, and not by works (contradicting James 2:24 which reads “a man is justified by works and not by faith alone”), and that the first- and second-century Church Fathers (the majority of whom were speakers of Koiné Greek, and some of whom knew the apostles or the disciples of the apostles), simply misunderstood this critical teaching ?

“The whole past time of your faith will profit you nothing, unless now in this wicked time we also withstand coming sources of danger. … Take heed, lest resting at our ease, as those who are the called, we fall asleep in our sins. For then, the wicked prince, acquiring power over us, will thrust us away from the kingdom of the Lord. … And you should pay attention to this all the more, my brothers, when you reflect on and see that after such great signs and wonders had been performed in Israel, they were still abandoned. Let us beware lest we be found to be, as it is written, the ‘many who are called,’ but not the ‘few that are chosen.'” Barnabas (c. 70-130 A.D.)

“We are justified by our works, not by our words.” Clement Of Rome (c. 96 A.D.)

“He who raised him (Jesus) up from the dead will raise us up also – if we do his will, and walk in his commandments, and love what he loved, keeping ourselves from all unrighteousness.” Polycarp of Smyrna (c. A.D. 110)

“Let those who are not found living as He taught, be understood not to be Christians, even though they profess with the lips the teachings of Christ. For it is not those who make profession, but those who do the works, who will be saved.” Justin Martyr (c. 160 A.D.)

“Rather, we should fear ourselves, lest perchance, after [we have come to] the knowledge of Christ, if we do things displeasing to God, we obtain no further forgiveness of sins, but are shut out from his kingdom. And for that reason, Paul said, ‘For if [God] spared not the natural branches, [take heed] lest he also spare not you.'” Irenaeus (A.D. 180)

“So, by obeying the will of God, he who wants to can procure for himself life everlasting. For God has given us a law and holy commandments. And everyone who keeps them can be saved. And, obtaining the resurrection, he can inherit incorruption.” Theophilus (A.D. 180):

“For by grace are ye saved” – but not, indeed, without good works. Rather, we must be saved by being molded for what is good.” Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 195)

You can’t be too careful when it comes to interpreting the sacred texts. The claim that we Enlightened Geniuses of the modern-day world are in a far better position to understand the teachings of the New Testament than those benighted contemporaries of the apostles doesn’t make a whole lotta sense. In the writings of the Early Church Fathers, one finds the doctrines taught by the Holy Catholic Church on the subjects of abortion, apostolic succession, baptism, the canon of Scripture, Holy Tradition, the virtue of remaining celibate, divorce and remarriage, the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, the necessity of good works and final perseverance, penance, the communion of saints, the primacy of Peter, Christian unity – all areas in which Evangelical Bible Scholars feel that they simply “know better” than the Fathers and the Catholic Church with whom the Fathers agree.

The new-and-improved Christianity produced by Protestant Bible Scholars is a very shiny product, appealing to many, but I wouldn’t buy into it if I were you. It pays to bear in mind the old saying, “Let the buyer beware,” also commonly expressed as:

You can’t be too careful!

 

On the memorial of St. Francis Xavier

Deo omnis gloria!

Psyche in Hell

One of the reasons participating in anti-Catholic apologetics can be so satisfying is because there actually is such a thing as Catholic doctrine. Although opponents can and do make up bogus “doctrines” to refute (works-righteousness, Mary worship, Purgatory as a second chance at Heaven after death), Catholic doctrine is a very clearly defined target: open up the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and you can say, “The Catholic Church teaches….” There is, however, no such thing as “Protestant” doctrine. Protestant beliefs run the gamut from you-can’t-lose-your-salvation to oh-yes-you-can-lose-your-salvation to baptism-is-necessary-for-salvation to baptism-is-a-symbol-of-your-already-accomplished-salvation to baptism-MUST-be-by-immersion to don’t-be-silly-you-don’t-actually-have-to-be-immersed to speaking-in-tongues-is-a-sign-that-you-are-saved to speaking-in-tongues-is-a-sign-that-you-are-a-grade-A-kook… which can turn Catholic attempts at refuting Protestant beliefs into a religious Whac-A-Mole tournament. As soon as the Catholic apologist says, “Protestants believe…” someone in the room will retort, “Well, that’s not what I believe!”

The problem is that Protestants multiply by dividing. Each time believers run up against a doctrinal emphasis that rubs them the wrong way, they pack up their Bibles and move across the street to start a new church, and sometimes a new denomination. Take the Baptists as an example of this. To say, “I am a Baptist” is supposed to mean that you adhere to Baptist theological premises. That, of course, is not as straightforward as it sounds – technically there is no such thing as “Baptist doctrine.” There are many, many different kinds of Baptists. There are:

General Baptists

Landmark Baptists

Primitive Baptists

Southern Baptists

Independent Baptists

Free Will Baptists

Reformed Baptists

Evangelical Free Baptists

Full Gospel Baptists

Six Principle Baptists

American Baptists

Missionary Baptists

Separate Baptists in Christ

Seventh-Day Baptists

Sovereign Grace Baptists

Predestinarian Baptists

United Baptists

Fundamental Baptists

And more besides. And no, these are not just different names for the same thing – each is a separate Baptist denomination. Seventh-Day Baptists worship on Saturday rather than on Sunday. Full Gospel Baptists are “Bapticostal,” while Southern Baptists hold a cessationist view of the charismatic gifts (although that has relaxed in recent years). The American Baptist Churches Pacific Southwest are quite similar to the American Baptists USA except for their views on homosexuality. Missionary Baptists are pro-missions, obviously, while Primitive Baptists are not. Primitive Baptists also reject musical instruments in church (the use of musical instruments in church is not in the Bible), Sunday School (also not in the Bible), and seminary training (not in the Bible, either). Free Will Baptists are Arminian; Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists are Calvinist. The Separate Baptists (as in “Come out from among them, and be separate”) later united with the Regular Baptists and became United Baptists, except for the Separate Baptists in Christ who took the Arminian view and remained separate. As Arminians they agreed with General Six-Principle Baptists (who held to the six principles of Hebrews 6:1-2), but rather than emphasizing the laying-on of hands as did General Six-Principle Baptists, Separate Baptists in Christ emphasize foot-washing – not to worry, as the General Six-Principle Baptists appear to have petered out in the mid-20^th century. Now, these were the General Six-Principle Baptists (meaning that they preached the general view of Christ’s atonement, i.e., Jesus made salvation possible for all men) – not to be confused with Particular Six-Principle Baptists – (holding the particular or limited view that Jesus’ death atoned for the elect only). Particular Baptists are the ancestors of the Reformed Baptists, who are Calvinists, as are Sovereign Grace Baptists and Strict Baptists, who practice closed communion. Landmark Baptists are also Calvinists, but believe that Baptists and only Baptists will be saved – most likely only Landmark Baptists.

You can’t make this stuff up!

And there lies the difficulty in refuting Baptist doctrine – one simply cannot say, “Baptists believe…” in any coherent sense. And when you factor in the Independent Baptist churches, which are literally independent and allow each church to decide its own doctrine, any kind of Catholic effort at apologetics would have to be on a case-by-case basis.

For obvious reasons, a growing number of Protestants simply decline to self-identify as members of a particular denomination. When I was a Protestant, non-denominational churches were all the rage. Since then, more and more Protestants are dropping the “n” – they are not “NON-denominational” but rather “NO denominational.” They want to be known as “just-Christians.”

This opens up a very unattractive can of worms, as an increasing number of Protestants cut themselves loose from all denominational ties and become their own theologians. Their Christian independence appears to go well until they are asked to clarify exactly what they believe, and they realize that they have no clue. “I just believe the Bible!” they will tell you, but then are at a loss to explain what they believe the “Biblical” position is on most issues, such as justification. There are among Protestant denominations conflicting views concerning exactly what justification is and how it works. Anglican bishop N.T. Wright and Baptist pastor John Piper have different takes on justification, leading Christianity Today to attempt to summarize for Protestant layfolk their respective views:

Piper: By faith we are united with Christ Jesus so that in union with him, his perfect righteousness and punishment are counted as ours (imputed to us). In this way, perfection is provided, sin is forgiven, wrath is removed, and God is totally for us. Thus, Christ alone is the basis of our justification, and the faith that unites us to him is the means or instrument of our justification. Trusting in Christ as Savior, Lord, and Supreme Treasure of our lives produces the fruit of love, or it is dead.

Wright: God himself, in the person of Jesus Christ (the faithful Israelite), has come, allowing the continuation of his plan to rescue human beings, and, through them, the world. The Messiah represents his people, standing in for them, taking upon himself the death that they deserved. God justifies (declares righteous) all those who are “in Christ,” so that the vindication of Jesus upon his resurrection becomes the vindication of all those who trust in him. Justification refers to God’s declaration of who is in the covenant (this worldwide family of Abraham through whom God’s purposes can now be extended into the wider world) and is made on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ alone, not the “works of the Law” (i.e., badges of ethnic identity that once kept Jews and Gentiles apart).

So which view of justification is the “Biblical” one, Piper’s or Wright’s? you might ask your “just-Christian” friend. Good luck getting an answer. A “just-Christian” simply can’t tell you what he believes – “just-Christianity” is more of a religious land of the lotus eaters than a coherent belief system.

And this all boils down to one big daily headache for the average “just-Christian” Protestant. My mother, a charismatic layperson with no theological training, spent many years moving from one charismatic assembly to another, encountering all kinds of doctrinal oddities, constantly forced to decide for herself what she believed “correct doctrine” to be. This came to a head when a former-Catholic-turned-charismatic-Protestant friend of hers started teaching classes on “How to Prophesy.” Forced to confess her inability to discern the “Biblical” position on every single matter, my mother admitted that she believed what her friend was doing to be incorrect, but couldn’t say why. “It just isn’t Biblical!” my mother stated definitively, only to finish her thought with a plaintive – “Is it?”

In practice, all Protestants end up perpetually sifting through doctrinal possibilities as they confront theological questions. This state is for Protestants the norm, and they don’t think to question it. To someone who has left the system, however, it takes on the appearance of a mythological punishment inflicted by the gods. Psyche comes to mind, consort of Eros, who was forced to accomplish the seemingly impossible task of sorting a tremendous pile of barley, corn and poppy seeds by morning. Pity the poor just-Christian layperson who decides her own beliefs on a case-by-case basis: she, like Psyche, is condemned to a task of mythological proportions: to sort and sift perpetually. Are musical instruments allowed in church? Can women wear pants? Is liturgy legitimate? Is it necessary? Was my infant baptism valid, or should I be re-baptized? Should I attend a church with closed communion, or one that offers communion at all? Should I be going to church on Sunday or on Saturday? Is it okay to celebrate Christmas? May I divorce, and under what conditions? Can women be ordained? Do I have to go to seminary in order to call myself a pastor? Is same-sex marriage unbiblical? Did Jesus die for everyone, or just for the elect? What is justification, anyway???

Yet, even those Protestants spared this dilemma by membership in a particular denomination must undergo this sifting ordeal – for how can they know that they have chosen the correct denomination? Are they sure that the “Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists” are proclaiming the Truth? Are they absolutely certain? How can they be sure that their denomination will never defect from the Truth? If their church announces an openness towards same-sex marriage, is it time for them to follow their leaders or to seek new ones? No one in their denomination has ever claimed indefectibility or infallibility, and they do not claim it for themselves.  And if that is the case, if there is no Protestant denomination that can infallibly guard the good deposit with the help of the Holy Spirit (1 Tim 1:14), no Protestant denomination that has been guaranteed that it will be preserved from defection (Mt. 16:18, 1 Tim 3:15), then what choice do believers have? Sorting is their life sentence; sifting is the fate to which they have been condemned because they are the ultimate religious authority in their world – they are their own pope. Their spiritual ancestors belligerently declared themselves free as they handcuffed themselves to their system of private interpretation, a system that doomed them to the ever-increasing forced labor of sifting and sorting without end.

An indefectible, infallible teaching Church is the only gateway to freedom, the very path laid out by the God Who promised that the Truth would set us free. Only an indefectible, infallible Church can possess the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth, the Truth that frees frustrated former “popes” to become what God meant them to be in Christ.

On the memorial of St. Maria Crucifixa di Rosa

Deo omnis gloria!

What the Bible Should Say

Many of you have read my “conversion story” at Why I’m Catholic. This term “conversion” leaves a lot to be desired. Technically, Protestants don’t “convert” to Catholicism – we are reconciled to the Church, because we are already Christians by virtue of our baptism. But that’s so wordy – it’s so much easier to say “I converted.”

The word “convert” comes from the Latin “com” (with) and “vertere” (to turn). Nowadays we also speak of “deconversion,” when someone falls away from the faith, and of “reversion,” as when a Catholic convert to Protestantism “reverts” to his former Catholic beliefs. Since Protestants and Catholics are all Christians to begin with, I think we need some more specific terms for what happens when someone leaves Catholicism for Protestantism, or vice versa. I tend to think of Catholics as “subverting” when they reject the teachings of the Church for “what does this Bible verse mean to you?” I myself “supraverted” when I left behind a lifetime of private interpretation of Scripture in order to be reconciled to my mother, the Church. I am motivated by the desire to see all of Protestantism supravert!

So, for those of you who have read my supraversion story, here are a few of the Scriptures I listed as posing a problem for me as a Protestant. Some of these verses (like Colossians 1:24 – “Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church”) were a shock to me when I first encountered them, because there was no way to comfortably reconcile them to my existing beliefs. Others, like II Timothy 3:16, had bothered me all my life because of the nagging certainty that we were stretching or twisting them all out of proportion to make them agree with our theology. After all, what’s a Bible-Alone Christian to do if the Bible won’t say what it SHOULD say?

II Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

As an Evangelical, I was convinced that Holy Scripture is the pillar and foundation of truth. That’s how I was taught to read II Timothy 3:16, ignoring the fact that that verse claims only that:

a) Scripture is God-breathed

b) Scripture is useful

c) Scripture makes it possible for God’s servants to be fully equipped for good works.

We distorted that into “Scripture is the sole infallible guide and rule of our faith and practice!” As you can see, the verse just doesn’t say that. Holy Scripture simply isn’t (and never claims to be) the pillar and foundation of the truth.

1 Timothy 3:15: “…the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.”

In 45 years of Protestant experience, I never knew that that statement was in the Bible. If you had told me that the CHURCH is the pillar and foundation of the truth, I would have told you that you were badly deceived.

James 2:24: “A man is justified by works, and not by faith alone.”

Another one of those verses that I read right over. Try walking up to a “Bible-believing Christian” and saying, “A man is justified by works, and not by faith alone.” They may very well shriek “Heresy!!” No, not heresy – James 2:24.

Revelation chapters 2 and 3

Works, works and more works! For a “Faith Alone” kinda guy, the Jesus of Revelation chapters 2 and 3 seems weirdly hung up on the “works” that the churches have been performing! “I know your works” – Rev 2:2. “I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first.” “I know your works” Rev 3:1. “I know your works” Rev 3:8. “I know your works” Rev 3:15. To calm the Evangelical soul, the NIV (the most popular Protestant translation of the Bible into English) translates this as “I know your deeds.” “Works” just has that Catholic ring to it….

Matthew 25:31-46: When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

An assignment for those who insist that “works” have nothing to do with our salvation – find a judgment scenario in Scripture where anyone is judged on their faith alone.

1 Corinthians 13:13: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

So what?

As Evangelicals, we were all about FAITH. Every passage in the Bible was made to fit into our interpretive paradigm of FAITH ALONE. This little verse acts as a tiny pinprick in the great big balloon of FAITH ALONE assumptions. If “love” is the greatest, how can we possibly be saved by faith alone?

Galatians 5:4-6: You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.

Here’s where 1 Corinthians 13:13 goes to work – it’s NOT faith alone, but “faith working through love,” because the greatest of these is NOT faith, but love. This has been the Catholic position vis-à-vis faith and works since the beginning.

John 17:20-23: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

As a Protestant, I was certainly familiar with this passage, but I took it to mean that Christians need to get along in a generalized sense. In my understanding, “be one” morphed into “don’t argue too much over the passages of Scripture you can’t agree on – if necessary just go out and start your own church – nothing wrong with that.” We all knew that denominations were a necessary accommodation to our Christian inability to see eye-to-eye on every little thing.

1 Corinthians 1:11-13 – “My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?”

St. Paul’s definitive statement against denominationalism comes complete with excuse-making that sounds suspiciously like “I follow Luther”; “I follow Calvin”; “I follow Wesley.” As Evangelicals we realized this, but were helpless to do anything about it, preferring instead to believe that we Protestants agreed on The Essentials.

Ephesians 4:11-13: “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

This passage presents a problem to those who stretch II Timothy 3:16 all out of proportion, for while that verse tells us that the Scriptures fully equip us for good works, Ephesians 4:12 tells us that the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers do this as well – a problem if you are trying to attribute that role to Scripture ALONE. Obviously Church leaders must play some part in that equipping. The Bible isn’t even mentioned here.

Ephesians 4:13 also presents a difficulty for those who believe that we just need a live-and-let-live attitude towards Christians of other denominations, proclaiming as it does that our goal must be “unity in the faith and knowledge of the Son of God.” Obviously, this unity is only possible if our leaders are all preaching the same doctrine….

Philippians 2: 12-13: “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”

As Baptists, there was one thing we were all certain of when we discussed Philippians 2:12-13, and that was that St. Paul did NOT mean “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling!” That was IMPOSSIBLE, because when we prayed the sinner’s prayer, we were saved in an instant for all time and eternity. We twisted the verse like a lump of clay until we made it say something like “continue trying to become more Christ-like!” – emasculating the “fear and trembling” part, and sweeping the word “salvation” under our theological carpet. Over the years that carpet got quite a few lumps under it….

1 John 5:13: These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

What we did to 1 John 5:13 should be illegal. Placing the last 8 words of this verse in solitary confinement, we proclaimed that you could “know that you know that you know” that you are saved for all eternity. We wanted so badly to assure you of your eternal salvation that we neglected to read you the fine print: 1 John chapters 1-4! St. John’s checklist is extensive (“You can know if you have eternal life IF you (a) walk in the light, (b) obey God’s commands, (c) walk as Jesus did, (d) do what is right, (e) love your brother), and it is enough to send anyone scurrying back to St. Paul’s advice in Philippians: “WORK OUT YOUR SALVATION WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING!”

So there are twelve examples of the major “fudge factor” that I participated in as an Evangelical. And I’m not the only one who feels this way; apparently the translators of the New International Version agreed with me – Evangelicals simply have to put a “spin” on certain passages of Scripture in order to make popular Evangelical theology work. Well-known Anglican bishop and author of Justification: God’ Plan and Paul’s Vision, N.T. Wright, critiqued the NIV with the following words:

“Again and again, with the Greek text in front of me and the NIV beside it, I discovered that the translators had another principle, considerably higher than the stated one: to make sure that Paul should say what the broadly Protestant and evangelical tradition said he said….”  

 

On the memorial of St. Regina

Deo omnis gloria!