A Christian No More
Friend in the ‘sphere Andrew Hackman declares he’s no longer a Christian: “I really don’t consider myself a Christian anymore. Somewhere along the way (to be explained in more detail in a future blog post), I realized that the claims of my religious beliefs had no more inherent validity than anyone else’s. Once the light bulb goes on that your group sounds to every other group the way every other group sounds to yours… and that REALLY sinks in… well, it’s all up hill from there.” This journey uphill Andrew describes as being a hopeful agnostic.
I sympathize. The convergence of postmodern pluralism and instant global communication technology has revealed a world of countless creeds, doctrines, myths, and rituals. The notion of there being one God or one reality to which only one faith gives true testimony seems especially ludicrous today, and not merely on the surface. Each faith points back to an origin that can no more be demonstrated empirically than proven theologically.
Considering faith from the perspective of others leads one to the realization that, functionally, the world’s confessional faiths are all doing basically the same thing. They all claim to give voice to a deeper truth—sometimes called God, sometimes called something else; sometimes through sacred texts, sometimes through ritual action. How can an outsider decide between them?
Choices are made, of course. People commit themselves to a religion or faith-based way of life. People convert. They fall away and forsake one faith for another or for no faith at all. People have their reasons for choosing one faith over another, but none of these reasons is a direct line to God. We tend to go with what makes the most sense to us given our situation, circumstances, and life experiences. Christianity no longer makes sense to Andrew, and so he no longer considers himself a Christian. Catholicism makes more sense than the alternatives to me, and so here I am.
Admittedly, the appeal the Catholic faith has for me more to do with the ways in which its myths and sacramental rituals enthuse my imagination than with the impression its teachings have upon my reason. I remain committed to living according to its teachings, even the ones secular society deems silly, but I find myself more inspired to live according to its stories. I may be one of those types who would remain Catholic even if it could be shown that there was no literal truth to its account of the universe. If Catholicism is just a fiction, well then to heaven with it!
Anyhow, I wish Andrew the best in his faith journey, a journey that for everyone means a passage through the cloud of unknowing, an unknowing that ends only in death. Sorry folks: even the best of creeds and dogmas cannot capture God: the best they can do is point us to what is wholly other. Andrew tells us that Christians he knows fear he’ll burn in hell for his abandonment of the name “Christian.” I do not share their presumptuous and despairing concern. It makes no sense to me given the image of the Crucified Christ: God goes to all that trouble only to deny those whose honest and hopeful search for the truth leads them to places that make pastors nervous? Get real.
Yes, truth matters. It matters a lot, which is why I have to respect the journey towards it, even when the journey differs in direction and manner from my own. If my saying this makes you nervous, all I can say in response is, “Be not afraid. God goes before us always.”
Dar Williams – The Christians and the Pagans
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“Catholicism makes more sense than the alternatives to me, and so here I am.”
You seem to be saying, Kyle, that Catholicism appeals to you *aesthetically* more than do its alternatives. That is similar to the reason I usually give to professed atheists when they question the basis of my belief in the supernatural — that I *choose* to believe in a sentient universe, because the alternative universes all bore me.
If the Catholicism that fires your imagination were not exclusive in the ways that it is; inhospitable to visitors, as it is, I would perhaps be drawn to it for those reasons as well. But, as it is, I can only feel it most often as a condescending and antagonistic critic of that which existence has given me thus far. This makes me sad — another aesthetic reaction.
If we understand that the aesthetic offers an approach to truth and not an alternative to it, then yes.
Nice reply, Kyle.
“If we understand that the aesthetic offers an approach to truth and not an alternative to it, then yes.”
@ Kyle —
It depends also upon what one is willing to call “truth.” When we are talking about the supernatural, ultimate truth can come only through direct revelation. And even then, as we see in Bible stories about the prophets, men are very likely to fight it, fear it, deny it, disbelieve it. Reason is best at telling us what cannot possibly be true, not what ultimately embodies Truth.
I see what you are saying Rodak. Many non-catholic friends of mine would gladly come to mass to receive communion but they do not feel welcomed due to the restrictions banning them from doing this. In the last supper Christ said to do this in remembrance of Him, which to me means in remembrance of the entirety of His life in which he welcomed anyone who came to him with a troubled heart. It seems that the barriers/requirements set up to be catholic are in opposition to its stated universal nature. If Christ accepts us where we are why not the church? When I was following Buddhist philosophy and psychology for 30 plus years I was not abandoned by God in my search for love and healing, I believe as I look back I was being led by God to learn what the Church was unable to teach me. The path to seek love is the path to God and it has very many different names with very many different exits for many different purposes. It seems that we can get stuck on one exit and believe that we are still on the correct path and that is where we establish our dogma and believe that the fullness of the truth resides there and it may, but to experience the fullness of the truth seems to require an openness to receive without restriction and to welcome in full participation within the community each person on that path of love. At times I see the institution of catholicism as a multiple personality with one identity being open to all and with another identity bound by fear and closed off from the other without any awareness of the other’s existence.
I would like to hear your thoughts, Kyle, on the relationship between what you have laid out in this piece and the traditional Catholic view that faith is a gift, a supernatural virtue. Thanks.
This deserves a separate post where I can address the nuances and precise definitions, but my short answer is that the gift of faith doesn’t always look like the gift of faith.
“At times I see the institution of catholicism as a multiple personality with one identity being open to all and with another identity bound by fear and closed off from the other without any awareness of the other’s existence.”
@ Ronald King —
Yes. Cognitive dissonance raises its hypnotic head again.
“Catholicism makes more sense than the alternatives to me, and so here I am.”
I would be interested if you could elaborate a bit more what makes ‘sense’ to you about Catholicism. If I understand you correctly I kind of have a similar sentiment /approach these days to a religion handed to me by my parents and ancestors on a very nice silver platter
(LOL even aestheticly nice).
For me the ‘make sense part’ boils down to the fact that humans at any given time in history found ways to formalize their obviously deep seated desire for ‘religious’ expression.
And the makes sense part thus is not particular tied to Catholicism.
It for example does not make any sense why the Creator of the Universe would really be bothered by the fact that humans depending on region,culture and personal path in life worship this way or that way or not at all.
Certainly beyond that plenty of aspects of Catholicism (as in any given other Religion) do not make much sense. Typically the way I see it in society -as well as in religion – we actually drop the parts that stop making sense. A recent example for this is perhaps they way we start seeing Homosexuality these days.
The West really has to find it’s way back to prophecy as more important than discursive reason. What makes the Bible unique in the world is in part the prophecies prior to Christ about Christ….many of them veiled and for that reason more powerful. How could one leave that book unless one never really penetrated it.
Joseph in Genesis is beloved of his father, brings bad testimony of his brothers to his father, and dreams that they will all be subject to him. Whereupon they seize him, hand him over to the gentile world where under false accusation, he is imprisoned, rises up out of prison to the right hand of pharoah from where he feeds bread to a starving world being in charge of the grainaries. That’s a veiled prediction of Christ who is beloved by the Father, testifies against his brothers, the Jewish leaders/ says “he who sees me, sees the Father” (the dream of their subjectivity)/ these brothers hand Him over to the gentiles, He is falsely accused, descends to those in prison (Limbo), rises to the right hand of God wherefrom He distributes grain to a starving world….the Eucharist.
Or go to Augustine’s find in 2 Kings4. A woman sends to Eliseus for help because her boy has died. Eliseus sends his servant Gehazi to lay Eliseus’ staff on the boy but nothing happens. So Eliseus comes himself and descends on the boy, matching his eyes, hands and mouth to the boy’s. The boy grows warm. Eliseus descends a second time but without matching his bodily members to the boy. The boy sits up and coughs 7 times.
Augustine notes: the servant and staff is really prophetically Moses and the law with all its detail. God…..Eliseus….first sends it to man, dead in sin. But it does not bring man to life (“the law brought nothing to perfection” Hebrews7:19) so God…Eliseus…comes Himself and descends on mankind first as Christ thus matching His members to ours….then as Holy Spirit at Pentecost (without matching His members to ours). The boy coughs 7 times….the number of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Christ pointed to these prophecies as critical…..” you search the scriptures for eternal life and it is they that bear witness to me”….” if you believed Moses, you would believe me for he wrote of me”….” All the prophets and the law* prophesied up to the time of John.”
Western caucasian man gradually preferred reason…scholasticism…to prophecy. Ergo we produced science. Aquinas rose in Church estimation….Augustine subsided in comparison. But the hidden prophecies are like mini Confirmations. Christ unveiled them to the two disciples at Emmaus….
“And they said one to the other: Was not our heart burning within us, whilst he spoke in this way, and opened to us the scriptures?”
Guess this post by this now agnostic to me points to three things:
1) Falsely taught Syncretism: “Considering faith from the perspective of others leads one to the realization that, functionally, the world’s confessional faiths are all doing basically the same thing.” The Catholic Faith, when one truly learns its doctines, dogmas, teachincs etc. from sources like the Youcat, the big old CCC, and other valid theological sources will discover that our faith is not “just like the others” or that syncretism, where all faiths are one or equal is false. Rather it is in the hands of the clergy, modern day lay theologians, and teachers and parents, who have failed to show us the Faith layed out. Which leads me to point 2:
2) Poor teaching and Role Models: I’m taking one from the secular society and a little bit of Vatican II (cheers here on VN). Pop open any psychology text and or take a Psych course on personality, behaviour, child development, or courses in other disciplines with similar veins, and one can easily see that formation and upbringing by our role models and mentors is strong in committing us to the faith. When done right, for e.g. like some of the fathers on this blog of which I’ll Use Ben Trovato for example http://www.catholicdadsonline.org/posts/author/ben-trovato/ Clearly one’s kids will be highly likely to carry the faith (save mental disorder or strong personality differences). I won`t deny that there are some instances where the person goes against their teachings, in fact just look or speak to any convert to the Catholic Church who was Chrsitian sect X, or Wiccan, or …. whatever spiritual position. But they would be in the minority, else we`d have most of the world converted by now. Back to upbringing as a factor in faith, the V-II document gravissimum educationis indicates parents are the primary repositories for instruction in the faith: “Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators.(11) This role in education is so important that only with difficulty can it be supplied where it is lacking….” (GE, 3) But when the role models themsleves are poorly catechized as a whole, they simply pass little to nothing to their kids, or worse they adopt agnosticism, atheism, or syncretism because btoh they and their kids got taught that while being brought up in either the Catholic or separate schoolsystems. it makes me wonder what Andrew`s parents` faith and education were like and what they did with him. Did they abandon him to the Separate/Catholic systems that are publically funded and hijacked by the secular governments whims (e.g. Ontario’s Separate system allowing equity policies giving gays more rights and Catholics less in acting out the true Faith).
3) Relativism and conveinience: “We tend to go with what makes the most sense to us given our situation, circumstances, and life experiences. Christianity no longer makes sense to Andrew, and so he no longer considers himself a Christian. Catholicism makes more sense than the alternatives to me, and so here I am.” What this paragraph shows is that relativism and conveinience are a two-headed monster that is plaguing this author’s mind. Just because that’s how his life is and since it just doesn’t make sense to him as implied by Cupp, then Andrew is just going to go along with whatever suits him best. Faith isn’t something that’s supposed to come easy or is the latest novelty. You actually have to try to understand faith, whether some teacher helps you along the way or not. This is a big plague in our society along with other damaging ideaologies to the Catholic Faith, that blooger Elizabeth Scalia (a.k.a. the Anchoress) and other Bloogers/Catholic writers have contributed to create How to go to College Without Losing Your Mind whereby to show how problematic it is. Finally to end, that statement I quoted sounds like that`s the only reason you Kyle, or anyone for that matter, is the faith that it is. There is more to faith than just enviornmental factors and it`s a shame this author, Andrew, doesn`t get it.
Julian, I understand that faith is a gift. I was educated in the Catholic tradition and went to parochial school and had a Lutheran father who did not attend church and a Catholic mother who also did not attend. I am sure this influenced me to leave the faith at age 18 regardless of what I was taught. The major influence in my leaving was the lack of love I experienced within the faith by the clergy. One can have parents who teach and practice the faith with the greatest desire but if their practice of the faith is tainted with fear, anger, prejudice, etc. it will not be experienced by their children as a loving and secure faith. These children will leave the faith in search of a path with love or do something else as a substitute for love. They can have all the knowledge about the faith but if they experience a lack of love it becomes meaningless.
So Ronald, if Faith is a gift, then did Andrew not get the gift of faith as evidenced by his disabandonment of the Christian faith?
Julian, I do not believe he received the obvious gift of faith that I have right now which I did not receive until 40 years after leaving Catholicism I was also agnostic and opposed the church. The gift I did have was the freedom to explore and to believe that whatever created me created me out of love. That was the extent of my faith at that time. That was a tremendous gift that kept fueling my daily life and it helped me to define what is love and what isn’t until the ultimate gift of God telling from a luminous light one night around Christmas of 2004, “I love You.” Instead of criticizing others who appear outside the faith what would happen if we love them? Does that love join them to the Body of Christ? If we do not love them are we joined to the Body of Christ?
Kyle,
What a huge topic, you are a great guy for broaching it in this way. the question really becomes, who has the right to define what Christian means?? Who owns the language, who own the humility, who owns the love, caritas? Well, after many years I came to realization that the all this was not owned by all the half-baked people claiming the name. The name belongs to him who has a deep relation to it. The other Christians can go on firing in a circle, I am following the Beatitudes as best I can.
@ PPF –
I think that the designation “Christian” has been so ill-used by nearly every group laying claim to it that it is no longer of much use. People should not ask themselves if they are a good “Christian”; if they are a good “Catholic”; if they are a good Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Branch Davidian, or Mormon. Rather, they should ask themselves “Am I trying to do my best to be a worthy disciple of my Master, Jesus?”
If you exclude me from your love feast, it follows that you don’t love me. If you don’t love me, then the answer to that question is “no.” Or, maybe, “Hell no.”
Rodak, if partaking in the sacrament without truly being in communion brings down judgement upon the person, isn’t restricting the sacrament a greater act of love? Where is the love to be found in a non-Catholic falsely claiming communion with the Church, or in a Catholic denying what communion with the Church means?
Rodak,
Of course you are 100% right about the use of “Christian”, and yet I fear that such precision has contributed to the hauteur of phony Christians. All the really deep people are wary of using it unless they really feel justified, and the worst as usual are “filled with conviction” (or whatever Yates said in that famous poem) and use the name as much as possible, while decrying it in everyone else. I vote for using it, of for no other reason to annoy the worst people.
@ Pinky –
I rest my case.
@ Rodak,
I second that, Pinky has made this a “case closed.”
Rodak, that really wasn’t an answer, and I don’t think I’m being hateful here. I wouldn’t want to participate fully in a Mormon ceremony because it would be a false expession of belief on my part. It would be an insult to Mormons. It’s a sign of respect for their faith to not try to dilute it into something that I would agree with. That’s my first point. My second point is that I truly believe in the Real Presence and in St. Paul’s writing, two positions that shouldn’t be controversial on a Catholic website. Just like you don’t cure hunger by making hungry people pretend to be full, you don’t create unity within the Holy Spirit by having people pretend to agree.
@ Pinky –
You don’t seem to understand that many Christian churches have open communion. Any person who wants to be spiritually in touch with that congregation in communal remembrance of Jesus Christ is welcome to take part. This occurs and lightening does not strike the steeple! No limbs are withered! Not a soul is struck dead!
What you are really saying here is that you believe the Catholic priesthood to be able to conjure the Spirit at will–which you would call “magic” in any other cultural context–and that, therefore, every other religion–whether it calls itself Christian, or something else–is a complete fraud. So why don’t you just be honest and say that, flat out.
If you are not saying that. If you believe the communion service of other churches to be a valid means of communication with the Lord, then there would be no reason for you not to take part in the open communion of another church. But, your real reason is that you would feel polluted by sharing communion with Protestants.
When I said “I rest my case” I was saying that you prove my point, in full: Catholicism is exclusionary, condescending, and without true love for non-Catholics.
I would like to see all of that change, and the Christian churches all reunited. But I think that the FIRST thing that needs to happen in order to bring that about is a universally shared communion. The FIRST thing–not the LAST thing.
Last time I looked, no one was checking IDs at the doors of my local Catholic Church — anyone and everyone is welcome to come to Mass. And membership as a Catholic is open to everyone — no one is excluded.
(If you’re talking about receive Catholic communion, the bread and wine happens to be actually God. Because it’s actually God, He should be treated with respect by people who are properly disposed — in fact, the Church tells Catholics that they can’t receive God in communion if they are not properly disposed. So when the Church tells me, a Catholic, that I can’t receive communion, believe it or not, I don’t feel excluded.)
Wouldn’t non-catholics be properly disposed if they believe they are receiving God? My daughter received Communion at St. Peter’s in Rome when she was there for course work about 6 years ago. She was not catholic at the time but she received communion at a Mass she attended with her catholic friend. She figured nobody knew her and who would it harm anyway? She sounded so sweet when she told us this and then about 9 months later at Easter she told us she was becoming catholic. It makes me smile.
Wouldn’t non-catholics be properly disposed if they believe they are receiving God?
No, because it also requires being “in communion” with the Church that is distributing communion.
Rodak, I was talking about a concept broader than Eucharistic communion. I was talking about communion: 1.The sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, esp. when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level, 2.Common participation in a mental or emotional experience. I’m afraid that you’re prejudging my statements based on your expectations. Please reread my comments in that light. I’m not in communion with, for example, Mormonism, so it’s false for me to share a sacrament of communion with Mormonism. Every belief system is exclusionary in the sense that not everyone believes it, and for a person to claim to be fully able to participate in it without sharing that belief is against human nature.
Are you in communion with Mormons in their love for God?
“Oh my little children, everyone who receives My Son’s Scared body in their hand will be condemned to eternal torment.”
— “The Virgin Mary” appearing to the “Seer of Bayside” Veronuka Leuken
“Eat every frickin’ egg, homeboy!”
– “The Virgin Mary” appearing to chain gang enthusiast, ‘Cool Hand’ Leuken.
The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.
@ all of the above –
I hear a lot of hemming-and-hawing going on. The simple fact is that all “Christians” have the same core belief: that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who died on the cross so that whoever believes in Him shall have eternal life. That is the cake. Everything else is frosting. That belief–all by its lonesome–is enough to establish a universal Christian communion, open to everybody. If you want to believe that the Virgin Mary floated up into the sky, alive, and I can’t even figure out what that could possibly mean–so what? It’s about Jesus. On Jesus, we agree. And that’s enough. And, if you want to believe in transubstantiation, and I can’t figure out why Jesus told his disciples to eat the bread and drink the wine in REMEMBRANCE of Him, since if He is right there on the plate in present time “remembrance” doesn’t figure into it; again–so what? We still both believe that we are to take the bread and the wine according to His instruction. We still both believe that Christ is God. We both recite was is basically the same creed. What is keeping us apart?
Rodak, you’re visiting a Catholic site and criticizing Catholics for having Catholic beliefs, and you’re saying you’re doing it to prove that they the ones who are exclusionary. That’s just odd.
Pinky,
After impressing itself massively on Western culture for two thousand years, and affecting literally everyone’s life in one way or the other, what makes you think that only orthodox-believing Catholics should have a stake in “Catholic beliefs.” You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
So a Catholic believes that communion is actually, truly, and completely God, and a Protestant doesn’t…. and you say “so what?” Ugh. I’ll assume that you’re just naive here and not purposefully trying to be insulting to Catholics. That’s a terrible way to attempt to build a common understanding for purposes of Christian unity and ecumenism.
How is that insulting to Catholics? What I’m saying is that it is fine with me if what you believe differs in some ways from what my tradition believes. I still want to share communion with you, since our core belief–upon which we both claim the designation “Christian”–is identical.
In other words, Flannery O’Connor was just wrong.
“That’s a terrible way to attempt to build a common understanding for purposes of Christian unity and ecumenism.”
@ Thales —
Really? Let me ask you this: Considered as an expression of agape, what is the qualitative difference between a closed communion and a “Whites Only” public restroom?
How is that insulting to Catholics?….“That’s a terrible way to attempt to build a common understanding for purposes of Christian unity and ecumenism.””
Because to wilfully dismiss and belittle and misunderstand differences between religions, regardless of what religion we’re talking about, is insulting to the particular religion with the different beliefs. And the better way to true ecumenism is not to dismiss and belittle and misunderstand differences, but to understand the differences and respect the one who holds these differences.
Are you someone who would say “why can’t I wear my shoes into the mosque? We all believe in the same God. I don’t understand — and I’m not going to try to understand — why you take your shoes off, but it shouldn’t matter because still believe in the same God, right? If you “force” me to take my shoes off, you’re excluding me just like a “Whites Only” restroom.”
Rodak, it certainly isn’t Communion that divides Catholics from Protestants, and I agree with those who argue here for “open communion” in all Christian churches.
However, there are major differences between Catholics and Protestants regarding what is called “soteriology”; these have to do with “salvation” by what Luther called “solo fides,” what Calvin called “predestination,” and “salvation” by “faith AND works.” These things are very important culturally, because they affect the cultures, the religious and aesthetic temperaments, and also–and this is extremely important for understanding differences–the political cultures of the differing Christian societies. A Catholic religious culture is peculiarly inclined toward a political culture which does NOT emphasize radical individualism, as the American one does.
There really should be no harping on differences between “transubstantiation” and “consubstantiation” or “remembrances,” except to the extent that refusal to trust in the sacramental (or magical) aspect of the Eucharist DOES signify a radical doubt regarding the sacred and miraculous aspects of nature itself–its “consubstantiality,” if you will, with the supernatural. However, to my mind, these things are of less importance than Protestantism’s profession of a wholly different soteriology from Catholicism.
The only person writing here who seems to have any acute understanding of how this soteriology makes Protestant cultures different politically is Morning’s Minion.
@digbydolben –
I don’t see how soteriology needs to be any kind of obstacle at all. I’m not saying that all sectarian belief needs to be reconciled. I’m only saying that anybody calling himself a Christian should, if he wants to, be able to attend worship services and share communion in any Christian church. Why shouldn’t different people have cultural differences? I don’t see a problem with that.
Those of a theological bent could convene and have grand disputations on their soteriological differences. And, meanwhile, the laity could share communion at each others’ weddings and not feel separated, mistrusted, and even scorned as unworthy.
Agree. What pervents this from happening is spiritual narcissism.
Rodak, “soteriology” has IMMENSE cultural and political ramifications. Those who believe in “salvation by faith alone” as a religious dogma also do not subscribe to any devotional practice of penance, and also generally feel that any effort to build a “just society” is, in terms of practical spirtuality, an almost blasphemous endeavour, because the world is “fallen” and man has no role in cooperating with the Holy Spirit in making more manifest and physically actual Jesus’s proclamation that His Father’s kingdom is “spread out before you”; they can call themselves “sinners” and continue to short-change their employees, and they can label “social democrats” as religious heretics.The connection between soteriology and politics amply demonstrates Newman’s dictum that “all serious disagreements among serious men are essentially about theology,” and, although differences regarding the “Real Presence” will affect the human’s temperamental response to the natural world, and, then, indirectly affect such things as his attitude toward subjects like environmetalism and abortion, his religious positin regarding how the human condition may be “redeemed” will immediately affect his political behaviours.
@ Pinky –
A blog is not a communion service.
Thales,
I find it interesting that you mention the example of taking ones shoes off in a mosque –
in my mind not the correct analogy.
At my wifes parents parish they had a funeral service for two highschool kids killed together in a tragic car accident – one Catholic boy one Lutheran boy – the catholic priest distributed communion to the parents of the lutheran kid – which caused ‘great scandal’ in the minds of some of the proper CATHOLICS – they promptly reported this incident to the bishop and since the bishop happens to be a charter member of the recent crop of catholic beancounters the priest got prombtly replimented – pulled out of his parish and send for 6 weeks to a “retreat”.
For me the issue we discuss here fits right into this picture – it is more than time to
find a path into the future that allows true communion between the various fraction in our religion – personally I would like to see this extended to ALL religions in the spirit of JPII
Assisi meeting. But we are talking Spirit and disposition – personally I can very much envision that God would have no problem whatsoever with a Muslim receiving communion if he/she does so after following mass with the proper disposition.
@ Grega –
Thank you.
@ Thales –
But Catholics don’t claim to be merely “different” from other religions; Catholics claim to be better than other religions. So I’m not too sure who it is that’s being “belittled” and “dismissed” here. “Love me, I’m better than you” is not a very compelling come-on for ecumenical purposes. But, that’s just me, I guess.
But Catholics don’t claim to be merely “different” from other religions; Catholics claim to be better than other religions.
I don’t understand your point. Every religion claims to be better than other religions. Nothing surprising about that. That’s just a natural and necessary consequence of each religion thinking that it recognizes the truth better than another religion. True ecumenism must recognize that fact, respect that fact, and work with that fact — dismissing that fact is insulting to each religion and no way to establish a sound foundation for ecumenism.
Again, like so many science-obsessed, essentially rationalist Americans pretending to be Catholic here, you need a good course in the International Baccalaureate’s “Theory of Knowledge”: there is absolutely NO single “truth” that is knowable by man’s reason–and the so-called “Sacred Scriptures,” being embedded in LANGUAGE by men (not Koranic angels) ARE subject to reason. The only REASON that our religion seems better to us is that it HELPS us better than other religions do, to have a glimmering understanding of what divine and human love are. It is “our Truth,” but it absolutely is NOT “the whole truth” because God cannot be contained in “our Truth.”
Thales,
What you say may be true sociologically of highly orthodox believers in all world religions. But Catholicism needs to be recognized for having a real peculiarity, which I have mentioned before on these pages. It is worth emphasizing again and again that Catholicism is the ONLY world religion that prescribes a particular philosophical outlook as necessary for faith membership, namely Thomism. All religions have doctrines and beliefs and as you cleverly put it such feeling of superiority is a “natural and necessary consequence of each religion thinking that it recognizes the truth better than another religion.”
Notice by your description that you imply an ambit of “thinking” which is particular to a religion qua religion. But since Leo XIII’s encyclical that is NOT what actually obtains in Catholicism. In fact, the necessary belief for Catholics is that the RC Church can not only prescribe the parameters of belief, but of THINKING ITSELF. Further, that its attempts
at ecumenism are conducted in fact simply by leaving off directly talking about doctrinal differences and using Thomistic rationales in the form of Natural Law thinking as if they defined human thinking per se. This tendency has only increased in recent decades.
Of course to any honest person such an attempt to actually circumscribe human thought itself is antithetical to any real ecumenism. It also can be said to have potentially vaguely totalitarian implications. But the cultural trend is in fact for theorists and apologists of the same to use it to simply absorb the mechanics of democratic thinking into a worldview amenable to Thomistic rationales. The cultural fact that this phenomenon considered cannily is less harmful should not obscure the dangerous implications of this thought ultimately for a free society.
digby,
Don’t know if you were responding to me, but it’s incorrect to say “there is absolutely NO single “truth” that is knowable by man’s reason.” Of course we can know truth. We can know small truths (like 2+2 = 4, and it is good to eat food and avoid poison) and we can know the Truth (Christ). Now we can’t know all truths or all Truth perfectly in this life — only in the next — but I never claimed that we could.
Peter,
I couldn’t disagree more. I wonder if your comment signifies a Kantian confidence of phenomenological casuistry, betrayed by a hermeneutic of suspicion of certain notions of the mind’s integrity and its bodily duality. :)
Thales,
” I wonder if your comment signifies a Kantian confidence of phenomenological casuistry, betrayed by a hermeneutic of suspicion of certain notions of the mind’s integrity and its bodily duality. :)”
EEEEEouch!!
@ My point is that many other Christian sects do not exclude non-members from their communion. Catholics do. A typical Catholic opinion of Protestant communion, as expressed on another Catholic blog by a Catholic calling himself “Zippy” is that it is “play-acting.” That is contempt. And while most Catholics aren’t as honest and straightforward in expressing what they really think of other religions as was Zippy, the tack they so often take in discussions such as these exposes what is in their hearts. But, that said, I thought I’ve been quite clear about what my point is.
Rodak,
Many Lutherans and Baptists congregations have closed communion. So do the Orthodox. I once attended an Evangelical Bible church where the elders came forward and had to approve giving out communion. And you are basing the entire Catholic feelings toward Communon based on a statement from someone called Zippy?
Your hatred of the Catholic Church is really showing here.
Rodak,
What Kimberly said. Plus, it’s ridiculous to identify the “typical Catholic opinion” of a Protestant doctrine as a throw-away insult made by a Catholic idiot — just as it’s ridiculous for me to say that the “typical Protestant opinion” of Catholics is that they are “papist cannibals” or some such nonsense. If you want the “typical Catholic opinion” of Protestants and Protestant doctrine, you want to consider the Vatican II writings on ecumenism, or JPII’s Ut Unum Sint.
@ Kimberley –
I said “many other” — I didn’t say all. And I feel the same way about any Protestant sect with a closed communion as I do about Catholicism. As for Zippy, he wasn’t blogging in a vacuum, and when he said that I don’t remember anybody arguing with him. Kyle may even remember that particular saying of Zippy’s. If so, and I am wrong about it, I hope that Kyle will correct me. If I hated the Catholic Church, I would simply say so. I’m not shy. I want to see the churches all reunited and I firmly believe that a universal communion is the only way to effectively begin that process. The Catholic Church is both the largest and one with a closed communion; its role is therefore also the largest on this issue.
@ Thales –
I hardly think that a Pope is a “typical” Catholic. Proto-typical maybe, but “typical” in the colloquial sense of “commonly encountered”–which is clearly, from context, how I meant it–a Pope is not.
I’m a little surprised that none of you seem to know Zippy. But, whatever. I assure you that Zippy is no “idiot.” Very conservative he is. And very outspoken. And honest. What do you honestly think about Protestant communion, Thales? Is it as valid as Catholic communion? Or is it just kind of going through the motions?
Rodak,
We started our discussion about how one religion deals with another, and so when you said the “typical Catholic opinion”, in the context of our discussion that means “the typical opinion of Catholicism” or, if you will, “the typical opinion of a Catholic individual who is actually stating the actual position of Catholicism.” It doesn’t mean “the opinion of a Catholic individual who is actually misrepresenting the position of Catholicism” (even though this individual might be typical of other people who call themselves “Catholics” you’ve encountered).
What do you honestly think about Protestant communion, Thales? Is it as valid as Catholic communion?
What do you mean, “valid”? For Catholics, a “valid” communion is the transformation of bread and wine into the actual Body and Blood of Christ, and then its consumption. That’s what is “valid” for Catholics. For Protestants, it’s definitely not that, and they’d be the first ones to say so and they wouldn’t have any problem with admitting so either.
@ Thales –
I was not asking you for the Protestant opinion of the validity of the Prostestant communion. I was not asking you for the Catholic opinion of the Catholic communion. I was asking you for YOUR opinion of the validity of the Protestant communion.
You don’t want to answer and I think it is obvious why that is.
I will let it rest, there. My point is made.
Rodak,
You’re not making sense when you ask me about my opinion on the validity of communion. A Protestant communion and a Catholic communion are 2 different things. They are essentially different. And that’s not an insult — generally, both Protestants and Catholics recognize that (though it seems you may not). For Protestants (as a general rule– I realize there can be different views), their communion is an eating of bread and wine in commemoration of the Last Supper. That’s a “valid” communion if you think that that is all a communion should be. For Catholics, their communion is an eating of Christ’s Body and Blood in commemoration of the Last Supper (actually, it’s more than a mere commemoration; it’s a type of participation in the entirety of Christ’s Passion). That’s what is “valid” for Catholics. So if you think that communion should be “eating Christ’s Body and Body”, no, a Protestant communion is not valid, only the Mass is.
I wonder whether our discussion is so difficult because you don’t recognize that there is an essential difference between what a Protestant communion is trying to do and what a Catholic communion is trying to do. That might also explain why you don’t see the reason for excluding a Protestant from Catholic communion (i.e., if they’re basically the same, why should Protestants be excluded?) Let me assure you, the communions are essentially different from one another. And as I said earlier, the first step in ecumenism is recognizing the differences and respecting them.
@ Digbydolben –
Your argument about soteriology would be a lot more convincing if you could show me even one primarily Catholic country where the standard of living is higher and where there has been more of a political effort made in modern times to enact “social democracy” and justice as you see in primarily Protestant nations. How do the poor fare anywhere in Latin America as opposed to the poor in the Scandanavian countries, or Lutheran Germany, or even the United States? Poverty has been all but eliminated in the Scandanavian countries. You are expounding abstract theory that has no real-world correlation.
France is, from the standpoint of religious culture, a country that is almost perfectly soically democratice, and so is Spain.
The Scandinavian Lutheran countries pay absolutely no heed to “salvation by faith alone,” and, for the most part, no longer recognise it as an intrinsic part of Lutheran theology.
Calvinist and Lutheran theology fit nicely, however, with the mythos of “Horatio Alger,” and they do NOT fit nicely with the mythos of the “Virgen of Guadalupe.” As for Latin America, they are immensely poor societies, as opposed to the, relatively, immensely rich Scandinavians, who also do not have much population. When you have fewer people, and most of them relatively rich, by world standards, you obviously won’t have so strong a cultural resistance to social democracy as what you obviously have in the United States.
“France is, from the standpoint of religious culture, a country that is almost perfectly soically democratice, and so is Spain.”
What does that mean? You make these broad blanket statements, sans any kind of support, and then just move on to the next one as if you’d settled something. Why are France and Spain what you say they are? How is this demonstrated in the history and contemporary life of citizens of those countries? How do France and Spain differ from, say, Denmark and Germany in terms of social democracy?
@ digbydolben –
A country can be “relatively rich” and have those riches held in the hands of very few. It just happens to be fact that the countries in which the riches are most evenly distributed–which was brought about by the democratic will of a free people–”happen to be” Protestant nations. There are “immensely rich” families throughout Latin America–grandees. What you get in Catholic nations is the Church supporting monarchy. When the age of monarchy is forcibly ended, what you get in Catholic countries is dictatorships. Spain, Italy, and Austria are the poster boys for that. The French may have invented revolution, but not as Catholics. And the French revolution gave immediate birth to what? Napoleon. Still, modern democracy is the child of the Enlightenment, and has been best put in practice in Protestant nations. Clearly, it is better to swab out toilets in Arizona as a hunted alien than to live as a full-fledged citizen of Catholic Mexico.
This is not to say that there isn’t much room for improvement in the enactment of social democracy in the U.S. and several other largely Protestant nations. But nothing is gained by making the perfect the enemy of the good.
So let me repeat and then be done with my explanations to you: the Protestant countries of the North became socially democratic ONLY when they were able to consciously and specifically reject the primitive Pauline and Augustinian soteriological notion that “salvation” is by “faith alone.” The notion that “salvation” is by “faith AND works,” is Roman Catholic, optimistic and Scholastic (i.e.Thomist and Jesuitical). “Social democracy” is, by definition, trust in an ACTIVE Christian ministry, when Christians are involved in it. Lutheranism is INACTIVE and overly intellectual, which is why Kierkegaard called it hypocritical and rebelled against it, and why Nietzsche, unfortunately, despised Christianity.
Thales, “two plus two” does NOT always, and in all circumstances, equal “four.” In the area of human biology, for instance an exposure to two doses of radiation, and then two more, has the equivalent of something like a quadrupled number of exposures, in terms of their effect on cells–say sixteeen. Mathematics only works, in fact, if you initially accept certain axioms, which seem “reasonable” enough on this plane of existence, but might not in some other universe. And God might live in that “alternate universe.”
Again, my friend, you need a better secondary education–one that includes the IB’s “Theory of Knowledge” course–and perhaps, even, a better English course, too, because I said “Truth” (a proper noun) and not “truth” (a common noun).
To paraphrase Horatio, “there are more ‘truths’ under Heaven, than are contained in your [rationalist's] philosophy”–and I think it’s absolutely amazing that so many Catholics have succumbed to what Nietzsche (accurately) deems the “religion of science.”
digby,
Any pursuit of knowledge is based on axioms. That’s obvious. But just because something is based on axioms, doesn’t make it not true. 2+2=4 is a truth, based on certain axioms and suppositions; and 2+2 =/= 4 can be a truth based on other axioms and suppositions.
I don’t get your distinction between “Truth” and “truth”. When I saw you using “Truth”, I thought of Christ who told us that he was the “Truth”.
You keep on telling me I need a better secondary education. Thank for your suggestions; I will look into them. May I recommend to you that you take another look at Aristotle’s writings on knowledge?
Rodak, What I believe you are experiencing here are those who are bound up in the intellect guided by a logic which is not aware of the strong influence of transgenerational fear resulting in a theology that restricts inclusion into communion with those who do not profess the same beliefs as those who determine what beliefs will permit inclusion. Evidence for this underlying fear is the formation of canon law. If one posesses a high intellect one can also possess a very complicated defense system, thus making it appear impenetrable due to the complexity of the defense of intellectualization and consequently the wall that you feel separating you from receiving communion within the catholic church is the wall of such a defense which will only frustrate you in your attempts to penetrate it. Beleif and identity go hand in hand and for one to change core beliefs would be extremely difficult because one’s identity is solidified with the bricks of core beliefs formed by fear and the mortar which holds it together is fear. I do not know if any of the doctors of the faith have explored such fear. It would be interesting to know.
With love operating in the place of fear it is easy for me to see that inclusion into the reception of the Eucharist would be an open invitation because as we know Jesus accetps all of us where we are regardless of our belief. What divides us is fear.
As far as the Eucharist is concerned it is conceivable for me to see that the sacrament of communion is based on the historical line of succession dating back to the apostles and when Christ breathed on them He transferred a part of Himself to them. As one physicist stated, paraphrasing here, you cannot know the smallest particle unless you know what it has touched in the past. So when Christ stated to His apostles all power in heaven and on earth is given to you, in my belief He gave them the power to transform bread and wine into His body and blood. So through belief and the establishment of the priesthood this element of His breath and the beilief associated with it is then transferred from generation to generation creating what we have in the catholic Eucharist. The reception of this Eucharist should be open to everyone otherwise, we limit through our fear one expression of God’s Love and His desire that we be one with Him as Jesus and He are one in Love.
Ronald,
In other words you believe in an ecclesiology, it’s just the one that you are making up. You are replacing the ecclesiology of the Catholic Church with the the eccelsiology of Ronald King. Talk about an ego.
Let go of the fear that you are living with. Embrace the teachings of the church with your whole heart, your whole body and your whole soul.
Kimberly, I am talking about the psychology of the ecclesiology of the church as a catholic who loves my faith and the mystery of my faith. The formation of my conscience requires me to explore everything that I am made aware of which influences human conflicts and separates us from the love that we are to share with one another as God desires us to love. I am extremely thankful that my ego has been directed into the area of interpersonal and intrapersonal dynamics and the insecurities and fears that I had to face coming from families of coal miners who have a history of being “less-than” those in the upper classes and burdened with the expectation that there were no other avenues open to them. It taught me how those in power hold others in their place through the regulations and beliefs that support the structures which keep them in power. It is fear of losing this power which drives the intellect to manufacture walls of protection from those who may be perceived as a threat to their position and world view. What is the real threat to their position?–Freedom of exploration and inclusion the discoveries of that exploration.
digbydolben while I rather often like what you have to say it seems to me that you look down at most everybody from the lofty heights of your your high school teacher position.
I guess it is a common sentiment amoung most of us that right around the last couple of years of high school we have the deep feeling that we have the world figured out – and than life happens.
Now since most around here are well past high school and have gone on to experience life – an intelligent person like yourself should be aware that your ‘helpful’ teaching moments are actually rather insulting to this audience. Thus since you are a intelligent person I guess you mean to insult – which is neither a particular nice nor smart way to add to a discussion.
If the shoe fits, Grega, you may wear it. Take offense if you wish to–I don’t actually care if you do, since I don’t mean any. Instead, I think you WANT to be offended.
My sort of “high school education” is far different from what is ordinarily offered inside the benighted school systems of the United States of America, where I do not choose to live. However, the IB IS offered by some of the best public and private schools in your country. I suggest that you research it, and find out how different it is from the common fare in secondary schools. In fact, the course I mentioned, which is central to that curriculum, would challenge a lot of people writing here to reconsider their “truths” and be A LOT more modest in their intellectual pretensions than you take me to be. I actually TEACH my students to be humble in their scholarly pursuits–and to NEVER attempt to hide behind the intellectual “defenses” that Ronald is referring to above. The lack of charity that you THINK you’re finding in what I say (and, in my opinion, actually WANT to find in it) is much more virulently active in folks who want to think up “canonical” reasons for barring their brothers and sisters from the Eucharistic sharing that Christ obviously intended to be for ALL.
@ Thales –
Then I can understand from what you’ve said that you don’t consider a Protestant to be a real Christian. That is what Zippy was saying, so why did you call Zippy an “idiot?” I take that you consider him to be an idiot for being non-PC enough to say “out loud” what you all really (quietly) believe–as taught by your Church?
Rodak,
I consider Protestants to be “real Christians”. My definition of a Christian is someone who holds certain fundamental basic Christian beliefs — namely, a Trinitarian God, with the 2nd person of the Trinity becoming man, suffering, dying, and resurrecting on the third day, whereby mankind’s sin is atoned for and mankind is reconciled with God. Basically, something like that contained in the Apostles Creed, or the “mere Christianity” of CS Lewis. Now there are plenty of other beliefs which differ between the Christian denominations (infant baptism vs. adult baptism, Mass v. communion, etc.), but I don’t see those as making someone a “real Christian” and someone not. I think that most Protestants would agree with my understanding of “real Christian” — at least, most Protestants I’ve interacted with have agreed with this understanding
Now I also happen to think that the additional beliefs put forward by the Catholic Church (like the Mass, transubstantiation, and the Body and Blood Christ, etc.), to be correct and truthful. Of course, other Protestants don’t hold those beliefs. But that doesn’t make Protestants not-”real Christians” because as I said, my definition of Christian is someone holding the fundamentals, which most Protestants do. On the other hand, I do believe that the Catholic Church has more beliefs correct than other denominations (which is sometimes described as the Catholic Church containing the “fulness of Truth”). Other denominations don’t think the Catholic Church has more beliefs correct. That’s fine. So I’ll say again: the first step in ecumenism is recognizing these differences between denominations and respecting them.
@ Thales –
So, to speak of ecumenism is nothing more than a way to say “separate, but equal (well…not QUITE equal…but…uh…tolerable in the rear pews…so long as they know their place and stay there…)” It doesn’t really speak of universality, but a kind of “noblesse oblige”; a condescending tolerance on the part of Catholics. Which, I will admit, gives rise to a smoldering resentment, born of circumstances such as the one Grega told of above, on the non-Catholic side. In other words, it keeps both sides of being good disciples of Christ.
So be it.
Rodak, what I continue to find strange about your comments is what you’re describing is not a phenomenon limited to Catholics: every religion necessarily thinks that it is “better” or more truthful than a neighboring religion. And in my experience, most non-Catholics, whether Prot., Muslim, Hindu, atheist, etc., have no problem with the notion that Catholics think that their religion is more true — because they in turn think that their religion is more true than Catholicism. As a Catholic, I’ve got no problem with non-Catholics thinking that their religion is more true than Catholicism. That’s just natural and understandable. And despite the differences between religions, I think ecumenism is possible by recognizing and respecting these differences.
But Rodak, don’t you understand that the Catholics are, by virtue of the difference in their soteriology, which I was trying to explain above, the only Christian religion that can accept the “soteriological efficacy” of the non-Christian religions? Because of that, the orhodox Catholic Churches of the world–not the Protestant ones–are enabled to be “good citizens of the world,” who CAN believe in a type of Christianity for which Christ’s mission is salvific for ALL (because Catholics believe in “salvation” by “faith AND works”–and that, by extension, the “works” CAN “save” WITHOUT the faith–for those who never explicitly reject that grace).
@ digbydolben —
No, I don’t understand that, because it is absurd. First, you seem, somehow, to be equating “salvation” with a high standard of living. Second, having made that equation, you manage anyway to ignore the obvious fact that in Europe, for instance, the Catholic nations have the lowest standards of living in the region. And when you come to the New World, the disparities are even greater. So your conclusion is that Protestants, having given up their Protestantism (in all but name, at any rate), are somehow better “citizens” of the world (as demonstrated by their prosperous social democratic societies) because of having acquired (apparently by osmosis) a virtue from Catholicism; a virtue which in actual Catholic nations is strangely inert. That, I admit, I do not understand. But, to the extent that I do make an attempt to understand it, it sounds hardcore Calvinist to me.
“(because Catholics believe in “salvation” by “faith AND works”–”
@ digbydolben — Okay I now think I understand what you’re saying. But, no — not buying it. You seem to be saying here that Catholics believe in salvation by faith AND/OR works. I don’t think so. Catholics believe in salvation by faith PLUS works–either one, without the other, is non-efficacious. Therefore, Catholics do not believe in salvation by either faith OR works alone. Protestants believe that good works are a natural result of brother-love. If one truly loves, one will do good works as a matter of course. That said, one will never be good enough to deserve God’s love and resulting salvation. One can only have faith in God’s mercy and HOPE that one will be accepted by God for having at least made a good effort toward perfection. That is why Protestant societies tend to care for the poor and to make those sacrifices on a societal level which tend to eliminate poverty. The problem with America is that it isn’t Protestant enough, not that it’s too Protestant.
A footnote to the above: I often hear Protestantism condemned on the basis of the “he who will not work shall not eat” concept. This was not directed at the “shiftless” poor, but at the arrogant “gentlemen” who felt themselves too good to perform physical labor. Ergo, their refusal to work was a demonstration of their failure to love their brothers; a failure for which they were punished. It is that failure which we see in the philosophy of Ayn Rand, which is the philosophy poisoning American ideological conservatism and rending this society into two unequal parts. Punishment may soon be necessary.
If anybody would like, at this point, to bring up the doctrine of double predestination, bring it on. Double predestination, as awful as it is, is at least an honest confronting of the logical implications of the Problem of Evil, without going all Gnostic on the concept of God.
@ PPF –
These fellers TRY to communicate without resorting to theological jargon — but they just cant.
Rodak,
Notice my magic trick if I just change one letter, yet barely even the pronunciation:
“These fellers TRY to communicate without resorting to theological jargon — but they just Kant.”
And I have magically summed up the conundrum of all modern theology!
PPF —
Well we covered both of the possible puns on “can’t” between the two of us, didn’t we?
@ Thales –
“every religion necessarily thinks that it is “better” or more truthful than a neighboring religion.”
I don’t know if that’s true. I think that there may be some who recognize difference without comparative evaluation of those differences. But, I will stipulate that you’re correct. Every religion thinks it is more correct than the next. Still, as I have been stating over and over again, some religions are willing to let outsiders partake in the full experience of their “better” religion, including their “better” communion–the sacrament which is the very heart of Christian worship. Catholicism, however, is one of the ones which excludes outsiders–as unworthy, lesser–use any adjective you want. As for Protestant churches which do the same — they are no better in my eyes.
Rodak,
Then we’ll have to disagree. As I discuss below in my long response to digby, I don’t see anything strange with religions making certain requirements of its members in order for them to fully participate in a religious service…. which necessarily leads to the fact that people who reject the religion’s requirements aren’t allowed to fully participate in this service. You do. And that’s fine.
No disrespect intended with the following. In other words, catholics are the God police. We control who and how one receives God in our religion. We then limit God’s desire to love and do not trust that God can take care of the disposition of the one who receives Communion.
We control who and how one receives God in our religion.
Yes. That’s true. Catholics control who enters the Catholic religion, and they control how God should be worshiped in the Catholic religion, and control how one should be disposed during Catholic services, and what happens during Catholic services, and how one should dress and act during Catholic services, etc. All true!
But Lutherans control who is a Lutheran and how God is worshiped in the Lutheran religion, and Muslims control who is a Muslim and how God is worshiped in Islam, and Hindus control………, etc.
one will never be good enough to deserve God’s love and resulting salvation
…which certainly does seem to mean, by logical extension, that, no matter how noble their actions, no matter how charitable or self-sacrificing, the non-Christian peoples of the world are damned.
This is a religous belief that is beneath contempt, because, as the great English literary critic demonstrated, in a magnificent work called Empson’s God, it is predicated upon a divine nature that is inherently EVIL.
I’m having brain-farts this evening, here in India: the critic is William Empson, and the book is the very renowned Milton’s God.
@ Digbydolben —
No, they are not damned because of God’s mercy. The proposition that no man’s goodness can never be the equal of God’s love does not seem to me to be much of a stretch. It would, in fact, be an extreme case of spiritual pride, imo, for any man to think that his own goodness was commensurate with that of the Almighty and that he, therefore, had some kind of “right” to salvation. (I get the idea, however, that this is exactly what many Catholics do believe.)
And this is for you, Thales, not Rodak, because I’m tired of arguing universalist, as opposed to non-universalist soteriology with Rodak:
I perfectly well understand your point that the Catholic and the Protestant Eucharists are essentially different, but what I DON’T understand is why anybody thinks that it demeans or degrades OUR notion of the sacrament to let THEM share in it. When I have attended Lutheran or Anglican services, I have shared in their Eucharist, and been welcomed to. I think it is mean-spirited and theologically blinkered to turn Protestants away from communion in a Catholic Church, and most of the priests whom I respect refrain from inquiring what “confessions” people subscribe to when they approach Holy Communion.
Excellent point Digby. It would not demean the Eucharist for non-catholics to receive it. The Eucharist would be enhanced with the openness that only love can create through the invitation of non-catholics to receive communion.
digby,
As I alluded to earlier, believe it or not, many Catholics aren’t supposed to receive the Eucharist. In fact, the Church says that it would demean or degrade the sacrament if certain Catholics receive the Eucharist. That should be an indication that the decision of who gets communion and who doesn’t isn’t an attempt at discrimination between Catholics and non-Catholics — it should suggest that there is some other notion underlying the reason for who should receive communion or not.
Now the notion behind the Church’s rule is this: communion is actually and entirely God, and in order to receive God and be in such an intimate presence of God, one should be properly disposed — and that means, among other things, that one should believe that communion is actually God and that one’s soul should not be in a state of mortal sin.
This is not a strange notion. I see this same notion in other religions and it doesn’t bother me one bit. For example, Muslims believe that a mosque is a place where one is in the presence of God, and thus one should be properly disposed when in the presence of God, which includes taking off one’s shoes. If I get invited to a service, why should I think that the Muslim’s notion of how to be properly disposed when in the presence of God doesn’t apply to me and I should have the right to keep my shoes on?
Related to this notion of a religion being able to determind what should be one’s disposition in the presence of God is the notion that in any ceremony or significant event, sometimes only certain people are able to participate fully, and that there is nothing wrong with that. Consider a school graduation. Generally, everyone is invited to attend, but if I’m not a teacher at the school, it’s silly to think that I should be able to wear a robe and march in with the rest of the faculty, and if I’m not a graduate, it’s silly to think that I should be able to have my name called and go up and receive a diploma.
I see this as applying to the Lutheran or Anglican services. Of course, everyone is invited to attend a service and generally I see no problem with attending, but receiving communion seems different to me. I could be wrong, but it’s my understanding that communion is offered to all those “in communion” with the Lutheran or Anglican church; that is, all those who fully believe and live in accordance with the Lutheran or Anglican church and its rites. So it strikes me that as a diploma is at the center of the graduation ceremony– the very purpose of it — and it is offered to all those who lived in accordance with the school’s requirements, in a similar way (though not exactly analogous), communion is being offered all those who lived in accordance with the Lutheran and Anglican rites. I don’t know if the Lutheran and Anglican churches see communion that way (so maybe they actually don’t care about offering communion to those not “in communion” with them and so they have no problem distributing it to anyone including Muslims, etc.), but that’s the way the Catholic Church sees it — namely, as a act of being “in communion” with the Catholic Church and its members (in addition to the “properly disposed” issue I mentioned above).
Only an individual should be allowed to determine what’s in his disposition, not a corporate body with its rules and regulations. I see no problem with the Church describing what should be a person’s state of mind when he or she “receives God,” but to make RULES that ipso facto exclude people because of their “confessions” is ugly, and preposterous.
For your information, the Muslims here in India DO welcome everyone–Christians, Jews–even, God forbid, Americans!–into their mosques. All they ask is that individuals make a show of respect. Same with many Hindu temples.
Your kind of Catholic seems perfectly capable of talking me into the Anglican Church, which has a huge presence here in India. I could never belong to one of the dour, prescriptive, “gospel of wealth,” or solo fides sects. For one thing, Martin Luther himself makes me gag, with HIS shows of enormous disrespect for the Catholic faith by marrying a nun and ridiculing the Letter of James. He is also, historically, one to the chief instigators of the German Holocausts of the Jewish people–exactly what Erasmus called him–the “pope” of the Protestants. Nietzsche called him a truly disgusting “rebel” and the DESTROYER of the German vernacular, with his semi-literate Bible, and Nietzsche was right!
For your information, the Muslims here in India DO welcome everyone–Christians, Jews–even, God forbid, Americans!–into their mosques. All they ask is that individuals make a show of respect. Same with many Hindu temples.
And so do Catholic churches (as I said above). And they also ask of the individuals a show of respect.
But besides entry into a mosque and some very basic participation in the ceremony there, aren’t there aspects of Islamic religious ceremonies, modes of participation, etc. that are only available to those who are actually Muslim? I know that’s the case for the Jewish and Orthodox. (For example, I would think that participating in the religious ceremony in the role of an imam is reserved to only Muslims.)
It seems to me that I have been trying to address the points made by my interlocutors according to the terms in which those points were made. But, rather than addressing my responses according to their specifics, these same interlocutors have merely continued to restate their intial points in slightly different words. For the most part they have ignored what I’ve had to say entirely. That being the case, I see no point in trying any longer to get to some kind of common ground. To do so does not seem to be the desire of the others. I bow to their recalcitrance and intractability. If there is a heavenly reward for the recitation of rote, these folks will wear the crown most deservedly.
Let me start by way of apology for butting into an argument that I had no part of to begin with. I have been following this thread with some interest, and personally feel that both sides of the communion debate have made valid points. I therefore feel the need to comment on it in a way that I hope is helpful and not presumptuous.
My personal opinion is that the reason that you perceive recalcitrance on the part of your interlocutor because there isn’t a common understanding about the role of communion within our (or any) church. I am not pressing anyone to continue this debate necesssarily, but I might suggest that if you do continue, that you consider the following question: Why do we have communion at all? What is its primary purpose in our church?
It seems to me as an outsider that some people in this debate see a strong “horizontal” dimension in communion (i.e., that its purpose is to unite us as a community into the Body of Christ), while others see a strong “vertical” dimension (i.e., that it is primarily about our relation with God, its purpose is to get each of us closer to God, and to form the Body of Christ through that closeness). The reason that you feel you are talking part each other may be that you don’t have a common understanding of what the reason to have communion is in the first place. I am wondering if acknowledging that difference first would be a good step in reducing the amount of acrimony in the debate.
Again, apologies if my comments are irrelevant. They are just the observations of an outsider.
Andrew,
Thanks for your comments. I see merit in what you’re saying, that there is not a common understanding of “communion” in the first place. You’re probably right.
But the more I think about the debate, the more puzzled I am by what seems to be a more fundamental issue than a discussion about “communion” — namely, an objection that many people in this comment thread seem to have, but which doesn’t make sense to me (and which makes me wonder if I’m misunderstanding the nature of the objection — I’m sorry that Rodak has given up on me. :) ). As I see it, the objection is to the fact that a Catholic service (which anyone can attend) only lets Catholics fully participate during certain aspects of the service. I’m fairly confident that this is also the case in every religion, whether Protestant Christian or non-Christian — that only members of that religion are allowed to fully participate during certain aspects of that particular religion’s service.
But why the offense? Maybe my analogy is wrong (please point out its weakness), but it feels a little bit like someone attending a graduation who gets offended because he doesn’t get a diploma, even though he isn’t a graduate, did nothing in order to be a graduate, actually abhors and rejects all the work the real graduate did in order to achieve his or her status as a graduate, and doesn’t even understand or care to understand what the diploma is or the point of why it is being given to a graduate.
@ Thales –
Your analogy works if the way you understand your religion is that it is equivalent to a course of instruction. Knowing “how to be a Catholic” would, therefore, be equivalent to having learned “how to be an accountant” or “how to be a gradeschool teacher.” One can know “how to be a Catholic” without knowing how to love anybody, just as one can teach third grade and despise one’s students; or be a CPA and hate every minute of it.
It is in communion that love enters into it. All Christians who have been baptized and confirmed in their various faiths ostensibly share their love for Christ and their fellow man. That alone–regardless of the differences in the specific “curricula” according to which they’ve been instructed, should make them unified at the point of intersection of what was called above the “vertical and the horizontal (a cross, not unsignificantly.)
If, however, knowing “how to be a Catholic” is the main thing, then the Church, not the Christ, is the center of your religion.
Thales, Isn’t faith to be more than what seems like tribalism? Isn’t faith to be an invitation, something like a come as you are?
Ya’ll,
The vertical-horizontal analysis is interesting, but a bit detached for a religion that stresses Incarnation. This issue of communion comes about simply because the for some of the most “orthodox” the mystery-cult aspect of Christianity which was very strong early on, is unresolved. Further, again by these orthodox types the very literal or hieratic aspects of the cult are emphasized, making it exclusive based not on membership or loyalty or the like, but on some very cultic notion of religious purity or belief, idea or behavior.
The enormous irony of this situation is that in fact the more horizontal partial resolution of the mystery cult view is not the one the very orthodox like. They like the exclusive and exclusionary cultic notion, admixed with the partial horizontal resolution constructed by Augustine, rejecting much of Clement of Alexandria type tendencies. It was always a wobbly resolution. But it explains how a “universal” faith is so incredibly petty in its exclusions: Nostalgia for the cult, interpreted literally. .
Ronald,
I’m not sure what you mean by tribalism. A group dynamic? Sure, I guess, although religions are open groups (generally) to which everyone is invited and anyone can join. Faith is certainly an invitation….. but some kind of onus rests on the individual being invited. The Catholic faith (or the Anglican, or Lutheran, etc.) has an open invitation to anyone to join. But the one invited has to accept the invitation and what that invitation requires. I don’t think I can say to Lutheran Church “I want to have a Lutheran baptism, but I don’t believe anything the Lutheran Church proposes or stands for. But I still want to have the experience of being baptized, so don’t exclude me by not baptizing me.”
Rodak,
My analogy is not perfect, but like I said to Ronald, the one being invited to join a religion has to “do” something in a way — namely, accept the invitation and all that comes with the invitation. If you willingly reject the invitation, it doesn’t make sense to complain that you aren’t able to get what comes alongside with the invitation. So you’re right: religion is not a course of instruction that you have to do to be admitted. But religion does involve a set of fundamental beliefs that you have to accept and profess to be considered part of that religion. Going back to my analogy, it would be as if everyone attending the graduation is being offered a chance to be a graduate and to receive a diploma and all they have to do just accept the invitation to profess loyalty to the school; but someone rejects the invitation and does not want to profess loyalty to the school. Should this someone feel excluded when he doesn’t get a diploma.
Your later discussion about Christians brings up a new thought that I hadn’t thought of. Do you object to non-Catholic Christians being excluded from Catholic communion or to anyone (including non-Christians, Muslims, Hindus, atheists) being excluded? I don’t know the answer to the following question, so if someone knows, please say: are Protestant services, communion, etc. fully open to all people including those who reject Christianity, or is it limited to Christians (even though they may be of different denominations). With that in mind, do you see a difference between excluding non-Christians from communion and excluding Christians of a different denomination from communion?
@ Andrew –
What you say is precisely correct. Thank you.
@ Thales —
I have been making the assumption that only baptized Christians, who have been confirmed in some Christian faith tradition, would even want to take communion. I personally wouldn’t have a problem with a Muslim participating in a communion service, but that’s me. And there are plenty of Protestant churches with closed communions, too.
But, all of that said, I have no desire to “join” Catholicism. I would simply like to be able to take communion with my wife’s family at weddings, christenings, and the like, when the occasion arises. They are people whom I love, and it seems to me appropriate that I be able to share this with them.
Rodak,
Thanks for the reply. That gives me a better understanding where you’re coming from. A question came to mind, and I hope it’s not too intrusive. I’m sincerely curious to know what you think of it. Here goes:
At a Catholic communion, the priest or eucharistic minister gives the host saying “the body of Christ”, and the person receiving it is supposed to say “Amen” which I take to mean “so be it” or something like “yes, I agree.” Suppose instead of “Amen”, the person receiving the host would have to stop, turn and face the gathered congregation, and profess in a loud voice, “I believe that this is truly and substantially the body of Christ.” Would a requirement to make such a profession bother you?
@ Thales –
I should also have pointed out that there is no such things as “Protestant” communion. The word “Protestant” covers a whole host of faith traditions. I am mainly familiar personally with one of the Lutheran synods and at least one conformation of Presbyterianism. Some forms of Lutheranism have open communion; some don’t. They all should. As I said before, because Catholicism is both the oldest and the largest Christian tradition, it is important that Catholicism make the first step in the direction of universal communion.
(Before Peter Paul Fuchs jumps in to inform us that there are older Christian traditions than the Roman Catholic, I will acknowledge that here, noting that those churches don’t play a big role in religious strife in the New World.)
Rodak,
I feel like Jack Nicholson in that Tom Cruise movie: “You can’t handle the truth!” Christianity is intrinsically conflicted. Both exclusionary and putatively universal. That’s what it was from the get-go. Just ask the Jews, on whom it was 99.9999999% based.
Both exclusionary and putatively universal.
–which means that it has always been called upon to make a choice, and, in so doing, to evolve and transform itself, more and more, into its great Founder’s spirit.
So far, it has successfully evaded that responsibility.
digby,
Tiqqun is the answer.
@ Thales –
It’s just like when the 9th grade science teacher holds up a baseketball and says “This is the sun” and a marble in the other hand “This is the earth.”
It was obviously a metaphor when Jesus initiated it, and (pace Flannery O’Connor) is provides a very real spiritual experience as a metaphor today.
@ Thales — I think that what the priest will do, once there is a universal communion, is say exactly what the Gospels tell us was said at the Last Supper, and that will solve the problem, once and for all.
Rodak,
It’s just like when the 9th grade science teacher holds up a baseketball and says “This is the sun” and a marble in the other hand “This is the earth.”
You do know that that is definitely not what Catholics believe, don’t you? You do know that Catholics believe that the Eucharist is truly and substantially the body of Christ, don’t you?
I’m not trying to have an argument with you about whether the Catholic view of communion is correct or not; I’m not trying to convince you of the merits of the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist; I’m not trying to argue that the Lutheran or Anglican view is incorrect…. in fact, we can assume for purposes of this discussion that the Catholic understanding is completely and utterly wrong, wrong, wrong, and that Catholics are silly, ridiculous, and idiotic for thinking that the Eucharist is truly and substantially the Body of Christ. Let’s assume all that. My point is that, that is actually what Catholics believe, whether they’re wrong or not. If you’re not aware of that fact, or won’t concede that fact, then our conversation must end because you’re entering troll-land.
Thales, I would have no problem with Rodak receiving Catholic Communion. Christ doesn’t want us luke warm, he wants us approach him with passion. Rodak is passionate about his faith. How can we in good conscience and, with the knowledge that God is Love, deny him Communion with Christ whom he does love.
@ Thales —
Of course I know that. That’s what we’ve been discussing all along, is it not?
Of course I know that. That’s what we’ve been discussing all along, is it not?
Rodak, Good. Then are you inclined to answer my question? Would it bother you if you were expected to publicly profess that you believe the Eucharist to be truly and actually the Body of Christ, whenever you went up to a Catholic communion?
Christ doesn’t want us luke warm, he wants us approach him with passion.
In the context of ecumenical outreach, passion for one’s faith is not sufficient. Respect for the other different faith is also needed. It’s no good for someone to barge into a Mosque, passionate about his faith and confident that God doesn’t care about removing shoes, and so refuse to take off one’s shoes. It’s no good for someone to be passionate in his faith and belief that the Catholic eucharist is not really God and that it is in fact a sin to adore an object, and so tromp into a Church and not act with respect to the Catholic belief.
Your science teacher analogy, Rodak, is probably precisely why the Catholics don’t want you partaking of their communion. You’d approach their communion with a negative, recalcitrant attitude reflecting your active mental resistance that it is what THEY think it is, and without much respect for THEIR notion that it is what THEY believe it is. Why not with the notion that you wish to pay respect to THEIR notion of what it is, and to acknowledge THEIR deeply-held belief. On one level, they don’t want you approaching their communion with this kind of defiant attitude. Most Protestants I know who’d share in the Catholics’ communion DON’T have this attitude.
And, as for your Fundamentalist attitude regarding the mere words–quite typical of the Biblical literalists most of you Protestants are–I want to share something with you–something a little too mystical, and non-fundamentalists for most Roman Catholics, but very much in the tradition of their religion’s cutting edge mystics:
The Indian Jesuit Anthony de Mellow puzzled for a long time over the Scriptural passage “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Being Indian, he probably was influenced by the English of the James or the Douai Bibles. However, those words offended him, and, realizing that Jesus didn’t speak English, he went and studied Aramaic. He thought to himself, “What exactly does through mean in that dead language? Is it “‘hrough’ corporeally, as in the sense of the Catholic communion, so that Christ has to go through your guts?” Or “Is it through’ in some legal,fiduciary or power-of-attorney-like sense, in which one Person–in this case, the second Person of a divine Trinity–acts in one’s name or behalf, just as if one is a powerless, intestate person?” (Which does actually sound like Lutheranism, doesn’t it?)
What he found, however, is that the Aramaic language doesn’t have that kind of preposition “through” in it, and the closest he could get Aramaic to come to the Engish was: “NO one comes to the Father except by BEING me.” And, naturally, after that, onto the Index of Forbidden Books back into the bad old days, went all of Anthony de Mellow’s works, after that. Anthony de Mellow’s kind of Catholicism, however, is my kind of Catholicism, no matter what the Curia in Rome say about it.
So, my question to you is this: “Suppose we DO have the priest say simply, ‘This is MY body and this is MY blood,’ and nothing else? Won’t that mean that the historical Christ is now totally out of it, and all that we have left of Him is his love, which we are to emulate? Won’t it mean that we are receiving, in love, the PRIEST’S ‘blood’ (since you like figurative sacraments so much), and won’t it mean that, emulating Christ, he’s sharing his hard-earned ‘bread’–the substance of his life–and his ‘life’s blood,’ and, in so-doing, bidding us to share our blood?” If THAT is what the Eucharist is to symbolize to Christians, then I can see a whole lot of Catholics AND Protestants leaving their “left-leaning” churches, en masse.
@ digbydolben –
You’re shouting, my friend. Take a deep breath. I need only be told that you are in a building–any building–and I will stay completely without its walls. Peace.
Thales, may I suggest that the confusion you cite has something to do with the understanding of communion you have and how it differs from those of the others here.
I don’t want to put words in anyone’s mouth, but it seems to me that one understanding of communion being proposed is that it is a very specific gift of grace from God. I think this is what Thales is getting at with the diploma analogy, although I think an analogy which gets close to the same meaning and might be more palatable to the others is of a prescription medicine. A medicine is good for a particular condition (the “disposition”), without which the medicine will be ineffective, or worse, harmful; no one would argue that there is any unfairness about that. It is not at all exclusionary to think that the medicine that you take for your heart condition may kill me due to my liver problem. This view of communion focuses on the relation between the person and God, which is why I labelled it as a “vertical” approach.
The other view being proposed, as I see it, seems to understand communion as primarily an expresssion of God’s BASIC and UNIVERSAL love to humanity. Moreover, it is a means by which the community itself draws itself together to effectively become the Body of Christ. If it is really a mechanism for basic love and unity, then the idea of a closed communion is indeed repugnant, even monstrous. It perverts God’s love into some kind of “star-bellied Sneetch” thing where only certain members of the community are deemed eligible to receive such love. This view seems to focus on the relation of people to one another, which is the reason for the “horizontal” label.
My own view is that a lot of the anger in the debate results from a lack of awareness about the alternate view of communion being proposed.
Andrew,
I agree with you that that the understanding of communion I have differs from those of others here. I’m aware of that fact. I figured that was the case about 2/3 up the page (scroll up to see). But just so you know: I’m not trying to argue the merits of my understanding of communion versus another, or to say that one view is better than another, or to convince someone of my side. That’s not the point of my comments. Instead, the point that I’ve been putting forward in the current discussion has as its very foundation the fact that we do have different understandings of communion. That’s important: Catholics have a different understanding of communion, from Lutherans, who have a different understanding from Anglicans, who have a much different understanding from Muslims, etc.
Now, my position is that for any healthy attempt at ecumenism, each person coming from a different religion must acknowledge, recognize, and respect the different views of the other religion, and not dismiss them or belittle them. In the context of communion, for a healthy ecumenism between Catholics and Lutherans for example, a Catholic should acknowledge and respect the Lutheran understanding of communion, and the Lutheran should acknowledge and respect the Catholic understanding of communion. If this is not done, and the different beliefs are simply dismissed or belittled, ecumenism is doomed to fail.
I think I am not making myself clear. What I was attempting to say is that the VERY NOTION that different branches of Christianity have different communion, and that the differences are important and need to be respected, is a particular notion of communion that your interlocutors don’t share.
Your notion is what I was trying to get at with the prescription medicine idea — that the communion that is good for one person due to his disposition (and thoughts about his denomination’s approach to communion) may be not be good for another with a different disposition altogether.
The alternate viewpoint that I see being argued here, if I understand it correctly, is that the differences between denominations are fundamentally NOT important when it comes to communion, because communion should really be a basic expression of God’s love for us — to say “lowest common denominator” is a bit crude, but perhaps not that far off the mark. In that view, a closed communion is no more than a narrow-minded attempt by a church to restrict God’s love on its most basic level. You would probably find monstrous a church who explicitly stated its purpose was to restrict God’s love only to certain members. This is how I think the others see it.
I’m (purposely) not opining on this communion question, but it seems to be a microcosm of the question of Catholic (and other denomination) identity in general. It seems to me that it boils down to personal bias: either distinctive Catholic practices, beliefs, and identity are important to you personally or they aren’t, and this affects how you view their proper role within ecumenism.
Andrew,
Ah, I see what you’re saying now. Some thoughts:
My notion is not merely “that communion that is good for one person due to his disposition may be not be good for another with a different disposition altogether” — though that is related to the main part of my notion. The main part of my notion is that Catholic communion is “substantially God”, and Anglican/Lutheran/etc. communion is not “substantially God.” (I recognize that there are many variations in Protestant denominations: communion can be “bread in memory of God” or “bread signifying God” or “bread united with God” or some other theological notion.) In other words, my point is that the item being distributed at communion is believed by Catholics to be essentially and fundamentally different than the item distributed at other communions. (Never mind the validity or invalidity of this belief by Catholics — it’s the fact that Catholics have this belief that I’m focusing on.) Because of this belief that Catholics have about communion being “substantially God”, a person’s disposition is important, which goes back to the point you made.
I think you’re exactly right when you say “the alternate viewpoint that I see being argued here, if I understand it correctly, is that the differences between denominations are fundamentally NOT important when it comes to communion, because communion should really be a basic expression of God’s love for us.” And I see a big problem with that viewpoint when it comes to seeking ecumenically unity (and it’s this problem that I’ve been arguing about for most of the discussion). This alternate viewpoint you’ve described disregards or belittles each denomination’s belief about communion, especially Catholics. Why? Because each denomination may have a different belief about communion (and I understand and respect these different beliefs). Catholics have a different belief, and this different belief — that communion is “substantially God” — is a huge deal for Catholics. I think the alternate viewpoint you’ve described denies that there is a difference in communion beliefs, and in so doing, marginalizes and belittles the Catholic belief (which, as I said, is a huge deal).
I think that the healthiest way to pursue ecumenical unity is not to ignore, marginalize, and belittle the differences between denominations, but to recognize and respect them. And I don’t think that the alternate viewpoint you’ve described adequately does that.
You would probably find monstrous a church who explicitly stated its purpose was to restrict God’s love only to certain members. This is how I think the others see it.
Andrew,
To add to my main comment above, if people see a closed communion as a restriction of God’s love, they’re misreading things. To take the example of the Catholic Church, Catholicism always has an open invitation to anyone to join or to even just attend religious events. They’re always open. But at communion, the Church says “Here is actually and substantially the Body of Christ. It is really, truly, and substantially God, and so if you want to receive Him at communion, we ask that you be properly disposed and act accordingly.”
Thales, I see what you are saying and I do not fundamentally disagree. Some of my own observations:
1. It appears to me from some of the comments on this thread that many people of the alternate viewpoint pretty much explicitly believe that the differences between denominations with regards to communion are unimportant and need to be diminished. (Everyone, feel free to correct me if I am misrepresenting you on this.) The differences have been described as “pure invention”, arising from fear, etc. on this very page. I can well imagine that if I thought the differences truly were unimportant, that I would see them as an impediment to ecumenism. After all, if all the Christian churches just dropped all the differences, there would be no more need for ecumenism. Problem solved!
You would probably say that solution was too simplistic – I might well say the same thing. However, I can sympathize with the frustration of those who see the differences between denominations as not only unimportant, but actually an impediment and harmful.
2. I would also have to grant that the disposition question is yet another one of those cases where there is a gulf between theory and practice. You say that the disposition of the recipient – because of the belief that communion is God – is a huge deal for Catholics, and it is on a theological level, but the facts on the ground could be construed otherwise. This is just speculation on my part, and I have no particular data to back this up, but given divorce rates and widespread use of birth control in our society, I would not be surprised if I found out that most Catholics are not officially in a proper disposition to receive communion most of the time. As Catholics, we are kind of used to this “say one thing, do another” mentality, and it doesn’t bother us that much. However, I am sure it can look even more like a “star-bellied Sneetch” kind of thing from the outside – Catholics can sneak past the rules, but outsiders can’t.
The best man at my own wedding is a Methodist, and I had to explain to him that he was not allowed to receive communion at the Nuptial Mass, but I insisted that he and his family go to the priest (with arms crossed) to get a blessing. He is my friend and it was my wedding, so he had no problem with this at all, but I don’t think he ever actually understood the theological motivation behind it. It seems to me that it would a good thing for Catholics who do stress the importance of the differences to understand the frustrations of those who feel otherwise so as to respond to those frustrations as intelligently as possible, and to present Catholic identity in a positive way. (That last comment is not directed towards you in particular, Thales, but as a general thought about responding to the challenges on ecumenism in general.)
It is that simple. Belief about how God “should” be approached, worshipped, received, etc. is invented by everyone through their particular disposition. Since we do not love as God desires us to love then we will have a limited interpretation of the expression of faith. Did the apostles at the last supper have the faith to receive Christ in the form of bread and wine? No. They did not know they were receiving Christ. The evidence in the bible does not point to being a catholic to receive communion that comes later through the invention of theology and limited awareness of God’s Love.
Andrew,
Re: point 1.
I understand what you’re saying— I get that there are those who see the differences between denominations with regards to communion to be unimportant and need to be diminished; and that dropping or marginalizing the differences is the way to ecumenism. I get that they can become frustrated as they think that the differences between denominations are not only unimportant, but actually an impediment and harmful.
But I’ll repeat again: that’s a mistaken view that is a deathknell to true ecumenism. Why? Because one side of the ecumenical discussion doesn’t think the difference is unimportant, and it does no good for the other side to marginalize and belittle what the first side finds important. Even if the first side is holding on to a silly, ridiculous, and mistaken notion, ecumenism is not served by belittling it; instead, ecumenism is served by acknowledging and respecting it, and finding common ground from there.
I go back to my Muslim example I mentioned above. Suppose I, a Christian, am seeking a constructive dialogue with Islam. There are differences between our religion and theirs, but many similarities too — after all, we adore the same one God. Let’s say that I think the obligation to take off one’s shoes in God’s presence is particularly silly and unimportant (after all, I don’t take off my shoes in Church). For ecumenical purposes, does it do any good for me to insist that the Muslim belief that one should take off one’s shoes in the presence of God is quite unimportant and, more particularly, does it do any good for me to insist that when I’m invited to a Muslim mosque, I should be able to keep my shoes on, and that if they don’t let me enter with my shoes on, I’m being unfairly excluded and the Muslim religion is narrow-mindedly restricting God’s love to me?
Re: point 2.
I agree entirely with point 2. If you notice, way back up above in the comment thread, I noted that many Catholics aren’t supposed to receive communion, and so this is an indication that the decision of who gets communion and who doesn’t isn’t purely an attempt to discriminate between Catholics and non-Catholics, but points to some other reason for exclusion.
You say “I would not be surprised if I found out that most Catholics are not officially in a proper disposition to receive communion most of the time.” I agree completely. It’s a failure in our Church not to convey to Catholics better the fact that (1) the Eucharist really, truly is God, and (2) one should strive to be properly disposed to receive God.
Having said that, please excuse me if I am saying something obvious or appear to be insulting someone’s intelligence.
@ Thales –
All the Church need do is decide that WANTING to take part in the communion IS to be “properly disposed.” In other words, it would require the priesthood to relinquish a bit of its power to micromanage the spiritual life (if not the souls) of the laity.
Rodak,
All the Church need do is decide that WANTING to take part in the communion IS to be “properly disposed.”
You’re right. The Church could let anyone who wants to have the communion, have it.
But in my opinion, the reason for the wanting makes all the difference. Someone could want to take part in Communion because he believes that the Eucharist is God the way the Catholic Church says it is, and he wants to share in a life with the Catholic Church…..
or someone could want to take part in Communion because he believes that the Eucharist is tasty bread, and he wants to take it and use it in a pastry he’s baking later that day.
Again, apologies for seeming to put words in people’s mouths. I was hoping merely to summarize what I see as the salient points in the argument, in the view of an outsider.
@ Thales –
“or someone could want to take part in Communion because he believes that the Eucharist is tasty bread, and he wants to take it and use it in a pastry he’s baking later that day”
Oh, come on. That kind of crap is unnecessary and not helpful.
Rodak,
I wasn’t insinuating that was your position. I know your position is closer to the former than the latter. I was just pointing out that the Catholic Church could let anyone who wants to have the communion, have it, but that might not be desirable.
@ Thales —
I would have to demand first, “Define ‘truly’.” Consider, for instance, this excerpt from a Wikipedia article:
“The sacramental union is distinguished from the other “unions” in theology like the “personal union” of the two natures in Jesus Christ, the “mystical union” of Christ and his Church, and the “natural union” in the human person of body and soul. It is seen as similar to the personal union in the analogue of the uniting of the two perfect natures in the person of Jesus Christ in which both natures remain distinct: the integrity of the bread and wine remain though united with the body and the blood of Christ.[2]
“In the sacramental union the consecrated bread of the Eucharist is united with the body of Christ and the consecrated wine of the Eucharist is united with the blood of Christ by virtue of Christ’s original institution with the result that anyone eating and drinking these “elements”—the consecrated bread and wine—really eat and drink the physical body and blood of Christ as well. Lutherans maintain that what they believe to be the biblical doctrine of the manducatio indignorum (“eating of the unworthy”) that even unbelievers eating and drinking in the Eucharist really eat and drink the body and blood of Christ[3] sustains this doctrine as well as any other doctrine affirming the Real Presence.”
These doctrines are all attempts to explain a mystery philosophically. I don’t see how anybody can claim one to be more valid than another.
Rodak,
When I mean “truly”, I mean “completely, actually, substantially” — that is, I mean the Catholic understanding of what happens to the bread after Consecration, when it is no longer bread but is Christ. I see that you’ve quoted an excerpt from a Wikipedia article describing the Lutheran belief, where there is a sacramental union of the bread with the Body. For Catholics, there is no union: the bread is transformed completely, actually, substantially into Christ, with only the appearance of bread retained. (See Wikipedia on Communion for more.)
But it’s not my purpose here to get into a discussion about what “truly” means for Catholics versus what “truly” means for Lutherans, and I’m not interested in arguing the merits or weaknesses of either position. The fact that both a Catholic and a Lutheran might be able to truthfully say “This is truly the Body of Christ” is irrelevant — what is relevant is the fact that it is undisputed that what the Catholic understands about that statement is very different than what the Lutheran understands.
You say “I don’t see how anybody can claim one to be more valid than another.” I’m not trying to argue that one is more valid than another. That’s actually irrelevant to my current inquiry. I’m just exploring the hypothetical scenario where someone going up to receive Catholic communion is expected to profess to the gathered congregation his belief that the host is the what the Catholic Church says it is. So I can easily modify the declaration which one might be expected to profess. Let’s make it: “I believe this is the Body of Christ, in the way the Catholic Church understands it.”
We could also have this hypothetical scenario at a Lutheran communion, where the person going up to receive communion is expected to profess to the gathered congregation “I believe this is the Body of Christ, in the way the Lutheran Church understands it.” I myself, as a Catholic, would feel uncomfortable doing that in a Lutheran church, and I wonder whether you have a similar feeling or not. Do you?
@ Thales –
Whether I answer “Yes” or “No” I’ll still be wrong. So let’s just drop it.
Rodak,
That’s fine. I know it’s a tough question. I don’t need or expect an answer. But, respectfully, I encourage you to keep my question in mind and think about it, because I submit that the scenario I’ve described is similar to what actually happens when one goes up to receive communion, at least in the Catholic faith.
@ Thales —
I wasn’t taking that crack personally, Thales. But I really think that your fear that there are evil people infiltrating Catholic communions for the sole purpose of getting some kind of clandestine kicks and giggles by receiving the host when not properly disposed, or in order to secretly mock your co-religionists, borders on paranoia.
If you think that I’m coming from an attitude of paranoia, you haven’t been understanding my comments.
Rodak, if THAT is your attitude toward me and my co-religionists, then I wish you WOULD stay out of our “building.”
(And I notice that you don’t have any problems with the capitalizations of the guy above me–who is ALSO not “shouting”. I think what you’re peeved about is that I uncovered, with my suggestion of your “recalcitrance” and “negative attitude,” your negative and resentful attitude toward the Catholic communion. I think you need a long talk with your wife.)
@ Thales —
It’s also possible that YOU haven’t been understanding your comments.
Um, okay.
Okay. Let’s get back to discussing ideas.
@ Kyle –
Getting back to ideas, I posted above an excerpt from a Wikipedia article that I found as an embedded link in an article on “consubstantiation.” The excerpt (addressed to Thales) gives some of the particulars of Lutheran doctrine of “mystical union” — the Lutheran analog of transubstantiation. My point was that these two concepts, and others like them, are all attempts to use the terms of philosophy to explain, or define, what is essentially a mystery. As such, what can there be but mere convention to prove that one better describes “Truth” than another? There is no way–at all–to prove one more correct than the other. And this being the case, why should Group A exclude Group B from taking part in a service because Group B’s conventional belief differs slightly from that of Group A? Each version is based on an interpretation of the scant evidence provided by Scripture.
A couple thoughts:
1. As any group is a product of convention, its parameters, its lines of inclusion and exclusion, will be conventional. So it doesn’t make sense to oppose a group’s exclusiveness because that exclusiveness is based on convention.
2. I question in this case whether the difference between Group A’s interpretation and Group B’s interpretation is only a slight difference or a substantial difference. Is the difference enough that each conventional understanding actually points to two different mysteries?
For anyone to criticize is the last paragraph I wrote on Jan 9 at 9:37 simply stating what I believe to be the catholic communion. I would be interested in what you think.
My belief is that the importance one places on Catholic identity (either with regards to communion or in general) is entirely due to one’s own personal feelings on the subject. Either the distinctiveness of Catholic practices, beliefs, and identity are important to you personally or they aren’t.
My own choice is to assume that the personal feelings others have on the communion issue are valid. I don’t assume that those who want to deemphasize the differences between communion secretly want some kind of watered-down spirituality for Christianity. Nor do I assume that those who want to emphasize the differences do so out of fear.
@ Kyle –
1. I don’t think it is strictly correct to say that any group is “a product of convention.” Some groups are newly-minted on the basis of a constitution or manifesto, usually expressly designed as a counter to existing conventions. A unification of the churches into one, homogenous Christianity, would necessitate such a process.
2. The difference between Group A’s interpretation and Group B’s interpretation in this case is a difference that ultimately stems from a common source. It should be possible to work backward from the current positions of the two groups, toward that common source, and finally arrive at a common interpretation. If that can’t be done, it is probable that neither interpretation is valid and that each is based upon irrational elements which cannot be defended when strenuously assailed by doubt.
@ Ronald King –
I don’t see the Scriptural evidence for either the Apostolic succession, or for the proclamation that the bread and wine are “true body and true blood.” That said, I don’t care that others believe in those things. It comes from hearsay, if not pure invention (i.e. “tradition”), but it is not essential to discipleship, in any event. There is not, for instance, a shred of evidence in Scripture that Peter ever went to Rome. In fact, he had apparently gone home to resume his career as a fisherman, and had to be summoned back to Jerusalem for the confab that resulted in the Pentacost. James, not Peter, was the head of the community of Jesus’ surviving followers. All of this is clear in the Acts.
That said, the last sentence of your paragraph holds true, regardless of the validity, or lack thereof, of what precedes it.
I don’t care that others believe in those things. It comes from hearsay, if not pure invention (i.e. “tradition”), but it is not essential to discipleship, in any event. There is not, for instance, a shred of evidence in Scripture
The Muslims believe in the Koran, in much the same way that you, Rodak, are a Biblical literalist. Christ did not come to earth to establish the authority of a BOOK, but to create a BODY that is both mystical and physical, and to ENSURE that it would be open-ended and “developing,” He stated “What you shall bind on earth, I shall bind in heaven, and what you shall loose on earth, I shall loose in heaven.” How’s that for establishing the authority of the “Spirit,” and NOT of the “word”?
Digby, The verse you reference seems to put the burden on the hierarchy and not the laity to open the church rather than restrict it. The hierachy has the freedom to establish a married priesthood, a femanine priesthood, open communion for anyone who wishes to partake, etc. What prevents them from doing this in my opinion is that they are bound up in a history of fear and prejudice and Rodak and anyone else should be enraged with being denied the reception of communion in the church regardless of their disposition or belief. Love does create openness, fear creates restriction, love invites, fear rejects, love gives, fear demands, love is vulnerable, fear is defensive, love uses intelligence to create openness, fear uses intelligence to create obstacles, love risks, fear attacks, love seeks to understand, fear seeks to convince, etc.
@ digbydolben –
I’m not at all a literalist. But what I am is someone who recognizes that the New Testament is the best record available of what Jesus and his immediate successor did and said. Being “the best” does not mean (to me) being infallibly accurate.
Far from being a literalist, I think that the very lines you quote are almost certainly a later interpolation, meant to certify the power of a developing professional priestly cult, which was not a thing ever intended by Jesus. The Book of Acts does not reflect such a thing, at all. It is clear in Acts that Peter is subordinate to James in Jerusalem and to Paul anywhere outside of Jerusalem. He hadn’t even stayed in town. Yet Jesus himself, if one believes what you quote, appointed him the leader. If Jesus did, then he was clearly disobeyed.
In the beginning was the Word.
@ digbydolben –
Ron King makes a good point. If we stipulate that verse to be authentic, then the Church hierarchy is empowered to make any changes that it wants to make–pre-approved. It can literally do no wrong. I think, therefore, it is quite obviously the fear of the hierarchy that somebody like me is not ‘properly disposed’ toward the hierarchy that is the overriding factor in the closed communion: it is pride + fear. But the only reason that I’m not properly disposed toward them is that they exclude me. It is a vicious cycle, or a Catch-22.
The thing is the clergy have always had an inferiority complex, due to the system of primogeniture. The first son inherited his father’s title and the land. The second son got a military commission and the power of an officer. It was the son sucking hind tit–third and beyond–who got shuffled off into the clergy. Over time, they devised their own means of acquiring a bit of power and respect in secular society. And they guard what they scraped together very carefully.
Rodak and Ronald, I happen to think that one of the things that the Second Vatican Council pointed toward, and implicitly foresaw–though its work is not complete–was a devolution of papal power into a plurality of episcopal collegiality. Now there is a need for a completion of that work, perhaps by calling another council. Even Paul VI admitted that the chief barrier against renewed efforts at ecumenism is the papal office as it now stands. I’m not particularly interested, frankly, in whether James or Peter was “first pope,” because, like Newman, I believe that the work of the “Spirit” in the historical Roman Catholic Church is of equal importance to the work of Christianity’s founder. The “Body of Christ,” and NOT the spin-offs that the heresiarchs created, as Erasmus suggested, out of cruel, self-aggrandizing hubris.
It is within that “Body of Christ” that theological “Truth” was meant to EVOLVE, and not within a “body” that believes in such un-charitable approaches to other kinds of “believers” as “salvation by faith alone.” Perhaps I’m very much influenced, in my extreme antipathy to that heretical Lutheran doctrine, because I live in a part of the world wherein Christianity is an extreme minority, and wherein Buddhists and Hindus are constantly being told, Rodak, by the well-heeled “missionaries” of your Protestant sects, that they are “going to hell” because they don’t “believe on” [sic.] “the Blood.” Such doctrines are, in my opinion, utterly ridiculous and barbaric, and they absolutely are NOT what “developed” (i.e. non Biblical-fundamentalist) theology teaches. Mother Teresa of India said the exact opposite and was excoriated by the “missionaries” for doing so.
@ digbydolben –
I have no doubt that you are correct about the fundie missionaries operating in Asia. That said, those Bible-thumpers being wrong, doesn’t make your point of view automatically right. My whole point in this discussion has gravitated toward the idea that neither side can KNOW that it possess the Absolute Truth. It is, in fact, much more probable that neither side’s version of the truth, as formulated in doctrines and dogmas, is much more than the rules of a game. Such things are merely an update of the Law, which both Jesus and St. Paul exposed as deadly to the spirit.
Now, if I want to approach the rail at a Catholic Communion, armed with the desire to receive Christ, as I understand it, who is to say that I am not “properly disposed” to do so?
A Lutheran, after all is not a Muslim, nor a Buddhist, nor a Hindu, nor a Jain, no a Parsee, nor an animist–he’s a Christian.
I sincerely doubt, btw, that a Lutheran missionary would be preaching to people in the manner you describe. It is a mistake to paint “Protestants” with a broad brush. Lutheranism does not give rise to televangelists and suicide cults.
Thank you digbydolben for this reality check – unfortunatelly as you know it is not exactly the case that the wind in the larger catholic church these days is blowing towards merciful inclusion of all – quite the opposite – ‘salvation by faith alone’ in my view is not exactly a heretical lutheran doctrine only – forces in the catholic church clearly try to loop the path forward -back to pre-vatican days. As a german I find this more than illfaited and unfortunate – certainly many aspects contributet to the fact that facism raised its ugly head in the catholic heartland of central europe but the top down hirachical structure in my view contributed to pre condition large segments of the populance. I fully agree with you that discussions of the merits of Peter or James as the first Pope is very much water down the flow of history at this point.
and the worth clericalism
For what it’s worth, Rodak, I hope I’ve made it very clear that I am completely opposed to “closed communions”–as is every single Jesuit priest I know, in fact.
digby,
Just a point of info– are you are Jesuit priest as well??
@ digbydolben –
You’ve made it clear now. And that is all I’ve been arguing for–that point of intersection.
No, Peter Paul, just Jesuit-formed.
digby,
White-man say, don’t go off the mental reservation.
But seriously, I wish I had back the relics I had as a kid that I got through someone on my family. They were bones of five Jesuit beatified Jesuit martyred from India in the most echt little copper oval case. And it came with a parchment from a Bishop in India with a special seal and all. But, I doubt they would pass the husband’s decorating test.
I collect Catholic kitsch, too, and India is a perfect place to collect ANY kind of kitsch; you should SEE the “Museum of Christian Art” in old Goa: talk about lugubrious stuff!
One of my favourite Jesuits once opined to me that “Any religion that can’t occasionally laugh at itself isn’t a serious faith.”
digby,
Well, that was one of the GOOD things that I remember about my time in the Church. There was lots of laughter about the Church and the people in it, complete with nicknames, etc., etc. That was a GOOD aspect of Catholicism. It seems to have disappeared, or become indistinguishable from Mother Angelica’s pithy and excruciatingly safe insights. A great shame, for that was one of the chief things they had going for them. Siege mentality is to blame, I suppose.
@ PPF/digbydolben –
Do you boys secretly yearn to smoke your ancestors and hang them from the bamboo rafters of your stilted bungalows? Geez. Fuzzy-wuzzies, the lot of yez.
Rodak,
Hahahaha! One of the ways that I know “once a Catholic always a Catholic” is true on some level, is that when we go to Europe and visit the various treasuries of Cathedral I always think the reliquaries they have are very interesting, and my husband always looks like he wants to throw up!
We have a friend in the South who is a former Catholic like myself, but has a relative in Italy who is a priest, whose claim to fame is having written several books about a miraculous relic of their ancestral hilltown which regularly does something –liquefies or flows or transmogrifies “miraculously”. So whenever we get together I always look forward to hearing about the latest scholarship of her relative on this most recondite topic! Very weird, I know!!
Do you boys secretly yearn to smoke your ancestors and hang them from the bamboo rafters of your stilted bungalows? Geez. Fuzzy-wuzzies, the lot of yez.
Absolutely! Speaking just for myself, I believe we PRIDE ourselves on being closer to our primitive ancestors than you rationalistic, “modern,” science-worshipping Prot legalists are to yours.
@ digbydolben –
Ah, yes…pride. Yes, indeed. Especially attractive when primitive, I’d say. Primitive, irrational, “backward,” and preferably extra-legal. One could found a motorcycle gang on such ideals, if one could afford the costumes!
Rodak,
Apropos the “motorcycle gang” comment, when I was in the seminary there was a seminarian named Jeff who was into leather. When I would go out to bars he was always there he was often around in his leather outfit. Naturally, he is the one that actually continued in the seminary for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, if memory serves. Years later, when I had written a letter to the Washington Post about the seminary and seminarians in gay bars, I quite soon ran into Leather Jeff at Badlands in DC, dressed in his outfit. He came up to me and said: “Bishop Lori asked me to ask you if I saw you out why you are writing such things in the paper??” Standing there with now Father Jeff in his leather chaps, the seen was quite surreal. But that is the RC Church for ya’.
Personally I take ‘believe’ in the framework that the scientific methodology provides to all of humankind any day over pseudoromantic longings for a past that was at best just as imperfect as the present.
Good thing that humans eventually left Alchemie behind for Chemistry.
To pretend that our continued increase in knowledge regarding our immediate surroundings comes without consequences for our religious musings is IMHO deliberatly ignorant.
Sure ‘romantic’ perhaps – likely fun – but in many ways a selfinflicted mental holding pattern.
Sure one can lustily disengage from scientific prooven reality and blissfully enjoy every second of it – but that is not a great place in my view from which to dole out advice.
@ PPF –
Leather chaps would certainly seem to me to be a frothy mixture of pride and vanity.
Ah, come on, Rodak. Have you no sense of humor?