Posted on 06/10/2007 3:02:20 PM PDT by NYer
Many modern people have the notion that the principal mission of the Catholic Church is to impose belief on unbelievers. The reality is that most of its time is spent trying to restrain belief in everything from spoon-bending to the aliens who allegedly speak to us through a cat in Poughkeepsie.
The riptides and cross-currents of religious enthusiasm in American culture are kaleidoscopic and dizzying. Cradle Catholics can be forgiven for just ignoring the whole thing and many of them do. But it’s still worth taking into account because some religious trends can have decided real-world effects.
Some of the effects of unrestrained belief can be amusing.
For instance, after five centuries of being told by Protestant polemicists that we “Romanists” do not trust the saving grace of Jesus Christ and ignorantly seek salvation by the works of the law, it is a weird thing for a Catholic to see the spectacle of kooky apocalyptic Protestants eagerly excited about the birth of red heifers because this will (they hope) be the prelude to rebuilding the Temple of Solomon and the re-institution of the Mosaic sacrificial system. Just how that Temple will be rebuilt when the Dome of the Rock is situated on the site of the Temple is not quite as clearly worked out.
Which brings me to something just as kooky, but less amusing.
Recently, James Dobson, a leading Evangelical and a usually sensible man, hosted on his show one Joel Rosenberg, author of something called Epicenter: Why Current Rumblings in the Middle East Will Change Your Future. Rosenberg claims to know “what the Bible says” about what is happening in the Mideast and is not shy about making “predictions regarding the fate of the Middle East regarding issues such as Iran’s nuclear threats against Israel, the arms race and ultimately ... Armageddon.” Here’s a snippet:
Dobson: “Well, Joel, let’s explain to everybody how Ezekiel 38 turns out, because Israel is about to be attacked, and a huge number of troops from Russia and Iran are coming toward Israel to destroy it, and what happens?”
Rosenberg: “Well, God is going to move. You won’t find in the Scriptures that the United States is coming to rescue Israel or the European Union, but God says he is going to supernaturally intervene — we’re talking about fire from heaven, a massive earthquake, diseases spreading through the enemy forces. It is going to be such a clear judgment against the enemies of Israel that Ezekiel 39 says that it will take seven months to bury all the bodies of the slain enemies of Israel. “
Such standard-issue Evangelical prophetic cocksureness is an excellent example of why a magisterium is so useful and necessary.
Not only does the magisterium help us know what is essential to the faith, it also helps us remain free of what is unessential. For the various species of Protestantism, in addition to denying real biblical truths such as the Real Presence or infant baptism, also have a tendency to invent “biblical truths” that do not exist and impose them by means of a sort of cultural pressure via charismatic preachers with pet theories who, in their own sphere, are granted an infallibility the Pope could never dream of.
Now, a Catholic is quite free to have a kooky private reading of Ezekiel 38-39 as a prophecy of the “coming resurgent Soviet Union” and its alliance with Muslims, communist Chinese or whoever, all in a vast Cecil B. DeMille battle against Israel. The Church has all sorts of room for eccentrics, and everybody needs a hobby.
But a Catholic is not free to go around telling everybody that “this is the clear teaching of the Bible” and demand it be believed. For the fact is, this kooky theory is emphatically not the clear teaching of the Bible, nor does it have any sanction whatsoever from the Church, the tradition, the Fathers, the councils or the popes. It is a pure novelty we can and should ignore.
What we should not ignore is Rosenberg’s claim that, “Given the events going on in our world today, people at the Pentagon, people at the CIA, people at the White House are asking to sit down and talk about these issues, to understand the Biblical perspective, because it is uncanny what is happening out there and it deserves some study.”
I suspect that Rosenberg is exaggerating his clout with the big cheeses in DC. I doubt that the Pentagon’s intel meetings are dominated by exegeses of Ezekiel 38.
But I do think it matters if a significant portion of the American polity drinks in such bizarre theories as if they were God’s revealed Truth.
Ideas have consequences, especially crazy ones. Most crazy ideas do no harm.
Crazy ideas about the Middle East, backed by the force of arms, stand a better than average chance of killing millions.
And since when is beauty comparable to contempt?
It also falsely takes the position that if one doesn’t like the contemptuous approach, that they’re not capable of reasoned debate.
= = =
Chewing on that a bit more . . .
It does seem overly often still, to be the case that . . .
some relatively few . . . in a diversity of Christian orientations . . .
have enough personal, emotional, psychological, reactive attachment disordered residue, baggage . . .
that
a list of things are PERCEIVED to be contemptuous
whether they are, or not . . . and usually perceived to be OUTRAGEOUSLY CONTEMPTUOUS whether they are even in the ball park, or not.
Goodness, we are individuals from across the spectrum of individuals as well as the spectrum of Christian experience and nations.
How on earth is it reasonable to expect that everyone will have the same sensibilities about such things.
Where is the FORBEARANCE Scripture instructs us to have?
Pastor has been exhorting us for a few weeks now to AT LEAST IN OUR HOMES—to out honor one another. ‘Tis a very worthy goal and practice. I’m humbled and honored that my housemate has characterized me as . . . well . . . not failing in that effort. A humbling affirmation, for sure.
And, I’m intrigued at the prospect of trying to broaden that more hereon, though I’ve not exactly avoided it for some time. But it’s tricky.
Some folks will not feel . . . seemingly anything positive, much less honored . . .
unless and until the other person 100% kowtows and becomes their subservient clone.
I’ve never found that very workable or healthy.
Therefor what? Still pondering. LOL.
I was quoting a Mormon source.
"When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they propose a plan--it is God's Plan. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give directions, it should mark the end of controversy, God works in no other way. To think otherwise, without immediate repentance, may cost one his faith, may destroy his testimony, and leave him a stranger to the kingdom of God."
--- Improvement Era, June 1945
Are you a Mormon?
LOL.
That’s your construction on spiritual reality!
But I choose to avoid being offended by it!
Good points.
But I think those are points that Holy Spirit has to make real for folks.
Human argument can be used of Holy Spirit to do that—but usually long after the fact in private spaces and places.
That’s all it is.
THAT is your ?humble? opinion.
LOL.
Eternity will tell! LOL.
I’m mystified that my point was so obscure.
Folks tend to see beauty most when a certain level of beauty is within.
Nevertheless, even 100 folks with markedly robust beauty within will tend to call different things beautiful to different levels.
Folks with various levels of insecurity, chips on their shoulders, thin skins . . . will see different things PERCEIVED BY THEM AS NEGATIVE . . . will see such as sinking to different levels of and intensities of contempt . . .
even when, objectively, there was NO contempt involved at all . . . or maybe just a whiff.
Nope, never been a Mormon. My tagline is a clue. It’s just that line is an oft-used accusation againt people of my faith.
an oft-used accusation againt people of my faith.
= = =
How often is it an accusation against
PEOPLE
of your faith
vs against a certain tendency or practice of SOME of the people of your faith?
I guess your faith and the Mormon faith must have a lot in common.
When I figure out what you said I’ll ponder it myself.
Meanwhile, that 2X4 and that hyperbole and that satire—we’ve been down this road together before. I still say that it isn’t the manner of Jesus who asked us to learn from Him, Who was meek and humble of heart. That’s something each of us could use to examine ourselves. I count myself as needing it the most.
I love the words of Jesus when He counsels us on our behavior. I love the Beatitudes. The first three teach us how to die to ourselves. The remaining ones teach us how to live for others and for the Lord.
These are the admonitions that penetrate mind and heart, faith and reason, will and intellect, affective and cognitive domain. They are the two-edged sword that penetrates to bone and marrow. The satire or its lesser cousin, taunting, don’t have the same appeal or effect.
Viva Christi Rey
Christo, not Christi—Latin and Spanish in a tangle there
I love the beatitudes, too.
However . . .
Christ was bitingly satirical occasionally—I think probably exclusively with the Pharisees—the puffed up, thin-skinned, chip-on-shouldered religious rulers.
Heading for bed . . .
I think it’s been a while since you saw much satirical intensity from me toward any individual or exclusively single denomination . . . or even . . . at all . . .
unless it’s Shrillery.
Yes—but we are not Jesus and we aren’t positioned to judge the Pharisees in our midst. He’ll take care of that in His own time and His own way and without any input from us.
No, that is not the case. I guess it’s just an unoriginality of argument.
Until the morrow . . .
Blessings to you and yours.
Thanks for the dialog.
In haste.
You and me’s okay, okay?
What’s an IC ubergruppe?
I won’t get back until late AM or early PM (or late PM ...)
nanny nanny boo boo
Heh heh heh
I believe God as well. (What do you think I would say?) But for me that means, inter alia, believing what I take to be His promise to the Church.
Later.
“RC’S ARE MORE FORCEFUL, brittle, demanding, startlingly ALL OR NOTHING descriptive about those who don’t buy into their construction on reality still . . . somewhat routinely. The double standard gets very old and wearying.”
Could it be that RC’s are simply standing up for the faith? Just a question and a thought at the same time.
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