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December 15, 2004
Bible-Only Bonanza
Pardon me while I vent. Seriously. And I'm sorry if I offend any readers out there who might share the beliefs I'm going to take on, but...oh well.
One of my daughter's friends has of late started attending a fundamentalist church with one of her parents. I will try to be vague about this, but there are points about the shift that are understandable - there have been serious family problems, members of this church stepped in to help in really concrete ways, and now we have another couple of (at the moment) lapsed Catholics in the world.
(And it's not only that - the new church has a youth group, which, of course, our parish does not have. The pastor tried to start one two years ago, and about 4 kids, including my force-marched son David, showed up. That was the end of that - I think it's mostly because the school, plus the feeder Catholic high school, make people think that they've got it all done, and nothing else is necessary. There's a huge and I understand very good LifeTeen ministry at a parish up north [and how do I judge that they're good - they sponsored a pro-life billboard near the Mall for a couple of months last year. That's good, in my book.], but down in this part of town...slim pickings for Catholic youth. Yes, my conscience bothers me....)
But still at this school, which is fine and not the issue. The issue is that my daughter's friend has started bringing the stuff about Catholicism which the leaders of her new church have been filling her head with to school and, quite specifically my daughter. Which is fine, again. This girl was previously headed in a rather dangerous direction, and, as my husband has said, "At least she's not doing that anymore. At least she's Christian." And she brings them to Katie one, because they're friends, and two because they're both smart and interested in talking about such matters and three because she knows who I am and what resources lie behind Katie (and yes, we've passed on Prove It: Church, which I understand the girl has now passed on to her pastor or youth pastor or whatever).
So the discussions are not the issue - it's almost a parallel of what happened to me in 8th grade, a story which I tell at the beginning of PIC. Questioning and exploring and not taking things for granted is good.
But what's got me irritated this morning
is just cumulative - it's once again having to think about and explain this business of Bible-only, which, of course, is the root of everything my daughter's friend is arguing. Where is Purgatory in the Bible? Where are saints? Yadda, yadda, yadda.
I take this on directly, and at its root in PIC, as I have in every discussion I have with Katie on this, but I really still fail to see how people can be...frankly...so stupid. And since my baby won't nap well, which is what I need to write effectively about 2 Samuel, I'll just vent. I can do that with him lying on my lap and looking cute.
It's not the specifics I'm talking about, it's the whole mindset. Honestly, I can't even call it a theology, it's so intellectually empty. This idea that Catholicism is evil because it embodies beliefs and practices that "aren't in the Bible" or that are "man-made" and, by extension, these other denominations don't have such beliefs or practices drives me wild, it's so dishonest. Here's want I want to ask such folks:
1) What do you believe about God? And I don't mean ...God is love, God is powerful...I mean about the nature of God. Who is God? Most of them (with the exception of some Pentecostals and a few other small churches) would espouse a Trinitarian doctrine of God. Oh really? Where is that in the Bible, explicitly stated, pray tell? Where is the word "Trinity" with a definition? Matthew 28? Sorry - "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" may be mentioned, but not defined, no sense, laid out right there of what those are, what their relation is or anything. So how do we know? What's the basis of calling God Trinity?
Yeah, let's talk fundamentals here. Because we all know what the answer is - Christian tradition, through theology, worship, and the experience of believers, helped clarify our sense of God's identity, even as it remains a mystery. It's called Church.
2) What books should be in the Bible? How do you know? Where in the Bible does it say what books should be included, not counting the table of contents? Nowhere? Oh. So how do you know? Who decided? Your faith in the Bible is based on something (instructions for the contents of the Bible) that isn't...in the Bible? How do you account for that?
(This is why I am finding some fundamentalist attacks on the Da Vinci Code so amusing. When fundamentalists have to talk about the role of church councils in establishing the canon and clarifying the nature of Jesus' identity...you know something's up.)
3) On this human-made/man made nonsense. What do you do during your worship service? Sing? Pray? Listen to preaching? Who thought of that? Who planned it? Let's examine the Scriptures shall we? Let's see what the earliest Christians did for worship (Acts) and what they believed about it (1 Corinthians) and then, moving backwards again, what Jesus said about it (Gospels, natch). Let's jump a little and read the Didache, maybe even a little further and read Justin Martyr. Okey-dokey - we've got one church whose worship services are constructed from scratch week-to-week and dependent on human creativity and effort for their existence, and we've got another church continuing to focus in worship on what Jesus said and what the earliest Christians did, even, when you move to the end of the 1st century, the basic format.
Whose worship would fit more closely under the definition of "man-made?" Eh?
Look, nothing's airtight, and theological arguments can fill up a comment thread more quickly than arguments about the Pope and the war. Well, almost. But there are other beliefs for which I have respect. There are even arguments against certain Christian and Catholic tenets that are worth seriously contending with. And as history has shown, Catholics need to be challenged on their fidelity to the Word of God - the Church has gone through many cycles of reform, even from within, and every time the call, quite rightly, is to step back and judge who we are and what we are doing by the standards of the Gospel.
But this "Where is that in the Bible?" (and do see Patrick Madrid's book of that name if this is a matter of discussion in your life, as well) , as I said, drives me crazy because 1)it's intellectually nonsensical 2)those who use it as a weapon don't live and believe by it themselves and 3)it's novel in this present form. An innovation of the last hundred years, really inconsistent with the way the Christians have understood their faith and its relation to Scripture, for the most part, since the beginning.
There. He's asleep. David's dancing before the Ark. Got to get back to him now.
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» Apologist Extraordinaire Amy Welborn Gets Pissed from The Seventh Age
Here is what happens when the daughter of an ace Catholic apologist gets fed fundamentalist literature. Haven't we all felt like Amy at some point? Yes, ecumenism, but sheesh, I get tired! UPDATE: Link is fixed. There is also some... [Read More]
Tracked on Dec 17, 2004 1:13:51 PM
Comments
Amy, all I can give you is our own experience.
Our eldest daughter was "converted" to a personal Christianity by Young Life, a very exciting Protestant ministry. (Our parish, of course, had nothing for her.) And then, what did she do? She went through RCIA and joined the Catholic Church on her own.
Our youngest daughter broke from the Catholics and was confirmed by a Protestant Church. And where is she now? Guess.
The truth doesn't need guns, and it doesn't need coercion. Children need to do a bit of exploring to see what's out there, and sometimes they need to shake their parents up a bit, but in the end an intelligent child will act intelligently. If your daughter goes through a fundamentalist phase, well, worse things have happened.
Trust. Trust the truth to have its own strength. Trust your kid to have a few brains. Don't put up a fight if she wants to flirt with something inadequate for a while. Show up at the protestant confirmation ceremony, as we did, and congratulate her. Smile, smile, smile. Know that God is working here.
Posted by: Leo at Dec 15, 2004 11:25:50 AM
Leo, don't get me wrong...this wasn't about fear for my daughter, at all. I don't mean to give that impression. It's a more general vent about this worldview.
Posted by: amy at Dec 15, 2004 11:32:13 AM
My profession requires me to make mean insensitive statements to people. Therefore, it's easy to write that these people who are giving your daughter a hard time are knuckleheads. They no more know their Christian heritage than the man in the moon. And back up their ignorance by giving a bad attitude to their daughter. If they're really that obnoxious, tell her to tell them where to go. Like Apostle Paul said- warn them once, then a second time. After that, pffft. Now THAT's Biblical.
Posted by: Gerard E. at Dec 15, 2004 11:52:26 AM
Amy - I went through this for two years with a couple of Pentacostal coworkers. I never understood why they didn't believe me when I said that the Stations of the Cross statues were there as reminders not as icons to be prayed to (they'd seen this themselves, with their own eyes, etc). There were lots of other such things. All nonsense. But still they refused to listen. It seems that this worldview is pretty thickly insulated against any form of discussion too. Maybe Mr. Shea could shed some light on this part. Dunno.
Posted by: Mark Windsor at Dec 15, 2004 11:53:02 AM
Amy,
I think I see a new book by Amy Welborn in gestation.
I'll buy it.
Posted by: SiliconValleySteve at Dec 15, 2004 11:58:01 AM
I concur that people who narrow their religion to a couple of Biblical sound-bites and go Catholic-hunting are "knuckleheads," however well-intentioned they may be. There was such a "church" here several years ago that was notorious for wreaking havoc on Catholic students who were vulnerable because of their igornance of Catholicism. The parish addressed the probem from the pulpit, and through Bible Study and classes on Church history and beliefs.
Posted by: Lynn at Dec 15, 2004 12:13:44 PM
Having come from that kind of denomination, which was and is only getting worse, PREACH on.
I don't understand it either, and I was in there, as a child and for most of my adult life.
All I can say is that it was spiritual hunger, frustion with not being able to talk about some of the things that I was reading on my own, etc. That made it easier for me to convert.
One thing that I have noticed, the more Catholic stuff that I read, the more I have to read. New authors that I have to check out, and more. I don't remember doing that as a Baptist.
Posted by: Anna at Dec 15, 2004 12:16:41 PM
It is kind of interesting.
Books and talks by this type of person often - as in, nearly always - have a section bashing Roman Catholicism in particular. Even when really that's totally irrelevant to the topic under discussion.
When was the last time you read a generally-focussed Roman Catholic theology book that MENTIONED fundamentalism even, let alone bashed it? Most such books seem serenely unaware that protestantism exists.
I don't know what this means, but it's probably a complement.
Posted by: Leo at Dec 15, 2004 12:19:38 PM
Amy-
I chat about religion with my old high school and college buddies, and the discussion often goes in the direction which you have charted.
My reaction is generally similar to yours.
But you know what I notice most about the "where is it in the Bible?" line of questioning? The IMPETUS for the question. The question itself says a lot about the questioner—and the whole culture of questioners. Though the "diagnosis" of the questioner cannot be reduced to a sound-bite, I associate it with a break down in respect for authority. To these questioners, history and tradition don't matter. The evolution of the Catholic Church through the first couple of centuries AD is entirely suspect, and is not worth any deference or examination.
It's interesting, even though it's also very disheartening.
I happen to think that this attitude can be, and will be, reversed in coming generations. Not for any reason other than I'm an optimist.
Posted by: Mike at Dec 15, 2004 12:24:16 PM
When I was in high school and college, evangelical groups like Young Life, Intervarsity, and Campus Crusade were superior operations with one exception: Young Life did not do a whole lot of outreach to the uncool kids, the nerds, or outcasts. That may have changed. The youth group at my large Episcopal parish actually was a lot of fun AND the group was more accepting of misfits and their friends than a lot of other groups. Perhaps that was because they were members of the parish, and the people who ran it were both welcoming and were not "pushy" in a threatening way. We also were not into "born-again" experiences as such. Doctrinally, however, we were a bit on the weak side, as the parish was mostly in the broad church camp.
Posted by: Patrick Rothwell at Dec 15, 2004 12:25:57 PM
It seems to me that a long way could be traveled toward insulating kids from these attacks if we would get back to teaching relationship with God. That, anyway, was what kept my kid from embracing the Fundamentalist mindset when I turned to a non-denom. church camp in order to provide her with people her own age who believed in God.
Needless to say a strong parish youth group would have been a much improved solution, but our parish doesn't have one, and our former parish was too heterodox to even consider.
She, herself, was so cognizant of the lack of a Catholic youth group that she worked very hard with another parishioner to get one going. They were not successful, and finally gave up.
Posted by: Carrie at Dec 15, 2004 12:29:03 PM
Mike,
You are correct. But the irony is that by accepting the canon of Scripture, these Christians are respecting the early Church, which determined the canon in the first place. But they don't know that. Or if you tell them, they generally ignore it.
Posted by: S.F. at Dec 15, 2004 12:41:53 PM
The Christian religion as currently manifested in our world in complex and filled with conflict and paradox.
Although this may sound as profound as "the sky is blue," one common coping strategy used by those with spiritual hunger (perhaps called seekers), is to try to find the core, the foundation, the commonality, the abstraction, the essence.
Many thus focus on the Bible as that collection of words, especially in the United States, with strong Protestant heritage, as the foundation. Sort of like the Constitution.
It's not a bad starting point, really. It is probably the best foundation on which to build an adult Christian faith. But a foundation requires further work and development.
This development can be encouraged in a few diretions:
(1) Biblical history and criticism. Where did the Bible come from, historicall? By what process, people, places did it come to us throughthe centuries? How do we know what it says in the original language? Why? How was it translated through the centuries? Why? (Note: start at the beginning, not the Reformation.) Focus on Bible as objective "thing."
(2) History of Bible study, interpretation. How was the Bible understood in the early Church? How is the Bible used in Christian worship over the centuries? Why? How did the early heresies develop? How were they resolved? How was the Bible interpreted by the Church Fathers? Focus on Bible as text of Christian community.
(3) History of theology. What did the early theologians in the Church use for their foundation? Wnat else did they need? What about modern theologian? How do theologians stay orthodox? How do they become heterodox? What is needed besides the Bible? Focus on Bible as one of the foundations for theological investigation.
Serious thought in any of these areas should cure Bible-only-itis.
Posted by: Zhou De-Ming at Dec 15, 2004 12:43:28 PM
Amy,
The real test of whether the Bible-only approach is sincere and practical is whether its supposed adherents actually use it.
So, simply ask about remariage after divorce. Jesus specifically identifies it as not possible and a grave sin to attempt. This injunction is found not just once, but 5 times in the New Testament. Now, ask your eager inquisitors whether their Christian group dares to bless something Jesus explicitly forbid in the Bible. Traditions of men? Is there a Church that DOES uphold the Biblical teaching? Why aren't they in it?
There are other such.
Posted by: Glenn Juday at Dec 15, 2004 12:52:06 PM
I think Zhou De-Ming is onto something. Biblical fundamentalism is often mixed into a stew of American patriotism where one reinforces the other.
Places where this type of fundamentalism reigns are often historically illiterate.
These are the folks that are shocked to learn that the Pilgrims actually did NOT have the "First Thanksgiving", but the Spanish explorers in Florida.
We Catholics have much work to do to educate our ill-informed brethren and sistren.
Posted by: Christine at Dec 15, 2004 12:59:09 PM
A group for which young people?
When I was in junior high and high school, I was just as hugely interested in the mystics as I was in science fiction. Youth group at my parish was all about going on trips (extra money sucked from the family budget) or listening to talks that sounded trite. Oh, yeah, and dating other "young Catholics", which in this case mostly meant vaguely creepy twentysomethings or people who'd given me a hard time either in parochial or public school.
I would rather have been shot in the head than attend more than twice. This is probably unfair to the group, but....
Then there was Newman Club. On the one hand, they did do service projects, but the service was always making pizza for the poor. This did not strike me as real. The club was all about dances and trips, as far as I could tell. There was also a trip to Appalachia every year, but I knew my parents couldn't afford it so I never even bothered to ask. Everyone in Newman Club was all perky. I didn't join Newman Club, even though my dorm was next door to the campus parish building.
In my dorm, there was a bible study group affiliated with Campus Crusade for Christ. I joined it because I knew one of the girls hosting it, and hated it. I tried to stick it out for her. Yuck. I only wish I'd gotten out sooner, because it left me with a deep distrust of prayer that took me years to get over, and pretty much destroyed my prayer life. Even now, I feel very lamed by this experience.
Why can't we have prayer and scriptural study groups for young people that aren't all gimmicky? Why can't we just pray and think and talk and do good works in the Catholic tradition, without a lot of associated windy crud that doesn't do anything but confuse people and put them off? Honesty, good information with good backup, and making a difference are what young people want. Heck, I think most teenagers would settle for the freaking honesty.
Posted by: Maureen at Dec 15, 2004 1:05:01 PM
The best book on this subject: 'The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism' by Louis Bouyer. His research into the formation and expansion of sola scriptura is simply fantastic!
Posted by: j s at Dec 15, 2004 1:05:30 PM
Amy,
I think you're missing the point. For many evangelical Christians, there is a point of stress or catastrophe in their lives and they need a "personal" relationship with Jesus (how often do Catholics talk about this "personal" relationship?) and some very basic truths to hold onto to feel *safe*.
Orthodox Christianity involves an examination of words and concepts, theology and canons. That's not going to make you feel safe *now*. And if someone isn't really smart or educated, tackling those subjects is impossible. It requires *work*.
And if you have to work at anything, particularly when you're distressed, you're going to give up fast. Evangelical Christianity offers a "quick fix" of security and love. We Catholics don't offer that.
Now many Catholics - in times of great difficulty - have a similar, but different response: the return to Tradition. It's a search for security when our bishops, including those in Rome, espouse bogus doctrine and we find ourselves in a state of trying to warp our minds around mutually exclusive beliefs seemingly all coming from the "Authority". But unless you have some good education already about the Church, you'll be on the road to evangelical Christianity rather than the SSPX. I suspect that if the SSPX didn't exist, we'd see conservative Catholics going to Eastern Orthodoxy instead.
Protestantism (sedevacancy or anabaptistry) exists only because the Church is more concerned about its own preservation as an institution than helping the brokenhearted and fearful. We need to foster our own sense of a personal relationship with Jesus to spread the Gospel - Magesterium and all...
Posted by: Ian at Dec 15, 2004 1:06:25 PM
Or as one of my little angels referred to them, our siblings and biblings.
Posted by: Faith at Dec 15, 2004 1:09:37 PM
hello ...
I came across this discussion and am fascinated.
Hope you don't mind me poaching, but: I'm doing a book on the topic of how Catholics relate to evangelicals.
Anyone want to be interviewed for that book? If so, drop me a line at japp79@aol.com.
I'm looking not so much for the theological arguments but the stories about children, co-workers, friends, etc, about how these two religious worlds overlap, co-exist, argue and harmonize. I live in Queens, NY, so I'm looking for input from the mass of red states out there in particular.
Peter Feuerherd
63-95 Austin St.
#1J
Rego Park, NY 11374
Posted by: Peter Feuerherd at Dec 15, 2004 1:10:10 PM
This may be an aside - maybe not - but I wonder if the Bible is really the issue here.
The issue may be that this girl and her family found human support for their spiritual lives in this other church and did not get it for whatever reason in their Catholic church.
My wife is non-Catholic and I am a convert who was attracted to the Catholic Church first, I believe, by the grace of God and secondly because it contains the truth. Notice I didn't say anything in there about "community." That word is so overused among certain types of Catholics that I hate to hear it too, but maybe it is said so much because we really don't have enough of it.
Anyhow, my wife sees my church as cold and unwelcoming; that people come in, worship, then leave, and that it is as impersonal as a filling station. Well, maybe not that bad, but the fact is it is a large church and she grew up in a little protestant church where every member knew every other member and was related to half of them.
I reply that in a large church you have to get involved in some smaller activity like the choir or whatever, then you meet people. But of course that assumes commitment is already there to the church, and that is not where she is at.
I'm sometimes amazed when I happen to visit one of the larger protestant churches and see the vast amount of activity going on. I'm the contemplative type myself so I'd prefer a Rosary group or adoration, but I can see that a lot of people are attracted by the envelope of care that some of these big churches are wrapping around their members. One may scoff at excercise gyms and swimming pools in the "family life center" as being sort of off-task, but there they are and the people come and - apparently - stay to enroll in the Bible study classes and parenting seminars etc etc.
Of course it is all lay-driven, where the Catholic Church is priest-driven and there's only so much priest to go around.
Now, bringing this back to the Bible issue, if someone has bound your wounds and taken you in you are going to listen to them because they cared for you and maybe not because of the logical arguments. Similarly, to win them back may take not the most convincing of arguments, but deeds of love.
Easy for me to say --- I've never brought anyone back. In fact, a close friend who grew up in and swore by the eastern rites told me recently that he had found a different, non-Catholic church, and it was clear from his talk that it was not theology but personal attention and care that was the main factor --- although they gave him a large dose of the bad theology too and he didn't have the ability to resist. So now he's getting the support of his weekly or twice-weekly prayer team or whatever, and all I've got to counter with is a document. Not good.
Posted by: WRY at Dec 15, 2004 1:21:22 PM
Hello Glenn,
Excellent pointon divorce and remarriage.
It's remarkable how much evangelical attitudes have shifted on that subject over the last 50 years.
It is an odd kind of fundamentalism, in that light, when we consider that evangeical denominations have far higher divorce rates - even over the U.S. norm.
Posted by: Richard at Dec 15, 2004 1:21:26 PM
Hello WRY,
You raise an excellent point as well.
It's a very different expeerience from a typical - usually large - Catholic parish and what you find in many evangelical churches, small or large. I have heard this before from Protestants, who find us not very welcoming.
Perhaps it is worth taking into consideration personality variation within the Church: and this might be where charismatic Catholics might be able to appeal to non-Catholics in a way that traditional parishes do not.
Something to think about.
Posted by: Richard at Dec 15, 2004 1:29:59 PM
"Serious thought in any of these areas should cure Bible-only-itis." Unfortunately, it seems to me that a certain kind of Protestant exists who, if not literally then nearly so, actually substitutes quoting the Bible for the act of thinking. I have sometimes said that for them "Bible Only" is short for "Bible Only -- No Thinking Allowed". I don't know how many of them exist; they are probably more common in some denominations than in others. But, try to engage them with facts and reasoning -- even facts and reasoning based on the Bible -- and their response will be either a scripture or a statement that no such scripture exists. After a while, one concludes that some of them, at the least, really do not have the intellectual capacity to respond any other way. Then comes in a very important rule: "Life is too short to waste precious time arguing with a block of wood".
Posted by: ELC at Dec 15, 2004 1:31:16 PM
WRY:
I think that's a point I tried to..point to, without being too specific in my post. That's exactly what happened here, although I honestly don't know the extent to which this family was "involved" in or connected to the parish before their troubles began - in fact (and I just remembered this this second), I remember not six months ago telling Katie she couldn't spend the night over there on a Saturday because her friend made it clear that they wouldn't be going to Mass (and this was before the problems and before the migration, when they were still nominally Catholic) - so I think here what we have are unchurched cultural Catholics who hit bottom, had no connection to speak of to their Catholic parish, but had very interested and concerned fundamentalist neighbors who helped and then invited.
Normally I would be eager to blame the cold Catholics, but this time, I don't think it applies.
A response to another point up there about the personal connection with Jesus:
A huge flaw in the way Catholicism is understood and expressed these days. (In fact, this is the motivation and focus of my next book, coming out in the spring as well) - The sacraments are not ideas. They are encounters with the Risen Jesus, moments when we are fed by him, are forgiven by him, are embraced by him. Catholic prayer is intensely personal. The problem is that in our contemporary Catholic Church in the US, it *is* too often preached on as an abstract, "Our community gathers here today to anticipate the coming of Jesus..." blah, blah rather than, "Jesus is here - now."
Posted by: amy at Dec 15, 2004 1:40:14 PM
