For Dave Armstrong’s Readers

A couple of weeks ago, I made the mistake of mentioning Dave Armstrong’s name, in the context of the Joe Paterno / Cardinal Bernard Law situation – I said that Dave, among others, ought to reconsider his defense of the Roman Catholic Church, “ought to stop now what you’re doing and demand, that Rome itself repent for the sins it has committed, and to make restitution – real restitution – for the evil that its own laws and policies have perpetuated for centuries.”

Dave went apoplectic over this and in the two weeks since, he has written four or five (or more?) blog posts about me and my hatefulness etc. etc. The interested reader can probably start from this point and, knowing of Dave’s characteristic thoroughness, be able to follow his links to the posts about me all the way back to the beginning.

I made the mistake of mentioning to Dave that I found this sort of “interaction” with him to be about as pleasant as stepping in dog poop, and he, of course, went apoplectic over that. (He strikes me as an individual who has too much time on his hands).

Over the course of the discussion, I posted several links to my real work, and he removed them, suggesting that they were off topic. Now that the topic is “How Anti-Catholics ‘Argue’”, I felt that I could legitimately post some of my actual thoughts on the topics (and not the made-up ones that Dave attributes to me), and have them stand as on topic. We shall see.

I reproduce those general ideas here for Triablogue readers who may be interested. As well, I have made the very kind offer to anyone from over there who has honest questions for me, I’d put up a post over here, and answer any of those honest questions that they might have. This is that post, and what follows are my comments to Dave about how I really have come to focus on the things I focus on.

In my own life, the most important question became, “Is the Roman Catholic Church what it says it is?” It was a pure up-and-down decision. Yes or no? Because if it is, then we ought to obey it, but if not, then it might freely be rejected.

After a lengthy, prayerful, soul-searching study, I concluded that the answer was “no”. In that case, I rejected it, although, another question presented itself: “what is it?” And that’s the subject of my apologetic blogging these days. How did Rome get to be what it is today, if it is not what it says it is.

The short answer is that its longevity really is a testament to the durability of a large bureaucracy, especially one that has the tools of persecution and even war at its disposal. Of course, it has neither of those things at its disposal now; its ideas must compete in the marketplace of ideas; its doctrines must stand under the scrutiny of the light that the information age is shedding on everything.

In an era in which liberal Protestantism, “higher” criticism, and even atheism have not been able to destroy, but have only shown the strength of the foundations of Christianity and the truth-claims of Christ to be who he says he is, it hasn’t taken much scrutiny at all to see Roman Catholicism’s “pillars” be knocked out from under it.

The biggest pillar, I suppose, is the papacy. Have you noticed that “the papacy” is now referred to as “the Petrine ministry”? There really was no “early papacy”. All of the “history” behind the papacy has pretty much been, well, not really there. It’s been a reliance on myth and fiction.

This state of affairs has been described by John P. Meier, a leading Catholic Biblical scholar: “A papacy that cannot give a credible historical account of its own origins can hardly hope to be a catalyst for unity among divided Christians.” So his implication is that, until this point, the papacy has not given a “credible historical account of its own origins.”

And that’s largely true. In “high level” ecumenical discussions, John Reumann, the late Lutheran biblical scholar who collaborated with Raymond Brown in the seminal exegetical work on Peter in the New Testament, also said this:

Biblical and patristic studies make clear that historically a gap occurs at the point where it has been claimed “the apostles were careful to appoint successors in” what is called “this hierarchically constituted society,” specifically “those who were made bishops by the apostles . . .,” an episcopate with an “unbroken succession going back to the beginning.”  For that, evidence is lacking, …. It has been noted above how recent treatments conclude that in the New Testament no successor for Peter is indicated.

So what Reumann says is that there is a gap, precisely at the point where “unbroken succession” has been claimed. That goes for “bishops” as well as for popes. Reumann is citing an infallible Vatican II document as he makes this statement. And Meier calls Rome’s reliance on “development” “not credible”.

Speaking to the lack of credibility, Archbishop Roland Minnerath, who was a contributor to the Vatican’s 1989 Historical and Theological Symposium, which was directed by the Vatican’s Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, at the request of the then Cardinal Ratzinger’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on the theme: “The Primacy of the Bishop of Rome in the First Millennium: Research and Evidence,” has made the admission that the Eastern Orthodox churches “never shared the Petrine theology as elaborated in the West.”

Dave tried to laugh this off, as if he had addressed Orthodoxy in detail, but really, this is a Roman Catholic Archbishop, at the heart of Vatican studies, who says, the East never shared the western conception of the papacy. The further implication of that is that, in the east-west split, it is clear that Rome tried to impose Rome’s understanding on the east. The East did not budge. Hence the split. The 1054 split is the result of Rome trying to impose its theology of the papacy on an Eastern church that would not accept it. And it is a Roman Archbishop who is saying this. This is the thing you Roman Catholics, if you are serious, cannot laugh off.

So this is what my own “apologetic” is about. One of the things I do is merely to report on the state of the historical research into the early papacy. That kind of thing is very helpful in coming to the understanding that “the Roman Catholic Church is not what it says it is.”

For all of you other Roman Catholics who think that the Roman Catholic Church is “the Church that Christ founded” or that “the Church that Christ founded” somehow “subsists” in the Roman Catholic Church, here is a bit more light reading for you:

The Nonexistent Early Papacy

House Churches in Rome

The Roman Catholic Hermeneutic 1

The Roman Catholic Hermeneutic 2

Not a hateful word in the whole bunch. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Understanding the Early Development of the House Churches in Rome 5: Patronage and Leadership

Since I haven’t been able to publish every day, just by way of review, my goal in this series is to present a useful (and easily accessible) overview of some of the writings that discuss the recent historical understanding that the earliest Roman church was composed of a network of households, and thus, that they had no single leader. This, in turn, flatly contradicts both the pronouncements of “perpetual” successors given at Vatican I, and the history that Roman Catholic Church has been telling for centuries about the foundation of its own authority.

As the Roman Catholic biblical scholar John P. Meier recently noted in recent “high level” ecumenical discussions, the papacy does not yet provide “a credible historical account of its own origins…” (“Petrine Ministry in the New Testament and in the Early Patristic Traditions,” in James F. Puglisi, ed., How Can the Petrine Ministry Be a Service to the Uity of the Universal Church?” Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, UK: William Be. Eerdmans Publishing Co., © 2010). Meier is one of those who believes in “God’s providential guidance of the church, leading by a series of steps to the emergence of the bishop of Rome,” but this is a far, far cry from the “divine institution” of the papacy – directly conferring it on Peter who directly conferred it, in “full power” directly to an unbroken chain of “successors.”

And as the Lutheran scholar John Reumann noted in an essay in that same work,

Biblical and patristic studies make clear that historically a gap occurs at the point where it has been claimed “the apostles were careful to appoint successors in” what is called “this hierarchically constituted society,” specifically “those who were made bishops by the apostles . . .,” an episcopate with an “unbroken succession going back to the beginning.” For that, evidence is lacking, quite apart from the problem that the monepiscopacy replaced presbyterial governance in Rome only in the mid-or late second century. It has been noted above how recent treatments conclude that in the New Testament no successor for Peter is indicated. (in Puglisi, pgs 65-66, emphasis in original).

The historical studies as presented in this series serve as the underpinning for the statements given here by Meier and Reumann.

This is the kind of understanding that I believe Reformed and Evangelical believers must bring to any ecumenical discussions (along with Scriptural contradictions of any notion of “the papacy”) as solid reasons for rejecting Roman claims and for requiring repentance from the entire institution of Roman Catholicism for its false claims through history and damage has caused to the church and the hindrance it has added to the Gospel throughout history.

Part 1: Households in Ancient Rome: An Introduction
Part 2: Christians and Jews in First Century Rome
Part 3: Commerce and Household Communities
Aquila, Priscilla, and the accurate history of Acts 18.2
Part 4: Household Leadership as Church Leadership
House Churches and Households in the New Testament

Continuing with Lane’s account from my most recent post:

A typical insula [apartment building where a house church might congregate] contained a row of shops on the ground floor, facing the street, and provided living quarters for the owners and their families over the shops or in the rear. There would be space on the premises for the manufacture of goods sold in the shops, and accommodations for visiting clients, workers, servants, or slaves. The arrangement brought together a considerable cross section of a major group in society, consisting manual workers and tradespeople. Such households were part of an intricate social network made up of other households to which they were tied by kinship, friendship, professional advantage, and other considerations. The strategy of situating the church in the home was sound, for it provided Christians with relative privacy, a setting where identity and intimacy could be experienced, a ready-made audience as well as a social network along which the influence of the Christian movement could spread. The conversion of households with their dependents helps to account for the growth of Roman Christianity.

Wealth, Patronage, and the House Church
There is an abundance of evidence from antiquity that patronage and leadership went hand in hand especially when a member’s generosity extended to the gift of his home for communal use. To cite only two instances, inscriptional evidence recovered from the house synagogues at Dura-Europos and at Stobi demonstrates that this was true in the Diaspora Jewish community. Epigraphic evidence from the third-century-C.E. Dura synagogue shows that the owner of the house, Samuel Ben Yed’ya funded and supervised the conversion of his private home into a synagogue complex. The designation of Samuel as elder (πρεσβυτέρως) and ruler (ἄρχων) probably indicates that he was the highest authority in the community. C. H. Kraeling, who published the evidence, argues that Samuel continued to live in the domestic quarters of the enlarged complex. At Stobi in Macedonia, in the second century C.E., Tiberius Polycharmus, who is designated “father of the synagogue,” converted his villa into a household synagogue containing a prayer hall, a dining room, and a portico, reserving for himself and his successors the right to reside in the upper story of the complex. In both instances, wealth and patronage were determining factors in leadership.(209-211).

Understanding the Early Development of the House Churches in Rome, Part 4

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Aquila, Priscilla, and the accurate history of Acts 18.2

From William Lane:

The primary social universe in which members of Greco-Roman society lived was the household. It provided the basic economic, political, and religious social unit of Greco-Roman civilization. In Rome the household community constituted the basic unit of society. The Roman familia, consisting of all the persons, free or slave, under the authority of the head of the household (paterfamilias), provided an emotionally and existentially satisfying social setting for its individual members. The early church in Rome could not exist in such a milieu without something of that environment leaving its mark upon it.

In Romans 16:3-15 Paul shows an awareness of the existence of several house churches in Rome, one of which was associated with the Jewish Christian leaders Aquila and Priscilla, who are now back in the imperial capital after the lapsing of the decree of expulsion (Rom. 16:3-5)

Here Lane cites Peter Lampe, from a chapter of his work published in “The Romans Debate”, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2nd ed., 1991. I intend to spend some time with that work, but for now, I’ll just continue with Lane:

Christians in Rome during this formative period appear to have met as “household” groups in privately owned locations scattered around the capital city. They constituted a loose network of house churches, without any central facility for worship. The absence of central coordination matches the profile of the separated synagogues in Rome during this period.

On this point, see, for example, Scot McKnight, “A Light among the Gentiles: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press © 1991).

An impression of what such early house churches in Rome may have been like is conveyed by the remains of buildings of several stories that date to the second and third centuries, but which have been modified over the course of time. Incorporated into the walls or preserved below the floors of at least three of the existing titular churches in Rome are the remains of large tenement houses. The ground floors appear to have been occupied by shops, and the upper levels by prosperous families. The connection of these buildings with the social world of craftsmen and artisans is suggestive in the light of reference to the church in the house of Aquila and Priscilla (Rom. 16:5), whose property must have served as workshop, residence, and meeting place. As yet there has been no excavation of common housing from the days of the early empire in Rome, but the work of J.E. Packer and A.G. McKay on the insulae, or apartment buildings, points to the existence of amorphous blocks of tenements, one building abutting another, that served the vast majority of people in the capital and other large cities of the Roman empire (Lane, pgs 208-209).

Here is where we begin to cover material that genuinely contradicts what the Roman Catholic Church has taught about the papacy for centuries. Here we arrive at the place that I’ve written about in my blog post, “John Reumann best states the problem”. Reumann says:

Biblical and patristic studies make clear that historically a gap occurs at the point where it has been claimed “the apostles were careful to appoint successors in” what is called “this hierarchically constituted society,” specifically “those who were made bishops by the apostles . . .,” an episcopate with an “unbroken succession going back to the beginning.” For that, evidence is lacking, quite apart from the problem that the monepiscopacy replaced presbyterial governance in Rome only in the mid-or late second century. It has been noted above how recent treatments conclude that in the New Testament no successor for Peter is indicated.

These, too, are some of the “historical facts” that are not disputed.

Lane was writing in 1998. More recently, Robert Jewett, in his “Romans” commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, ©2007), summarizes some of the latest work on this topic:

One of the standard studies of house congregations and house churches by Hans-Josef Klauck opens with a citation from Heinz Schurmann, “The living space of the congregation is the house. Another study rests on the same premise: “the earliest Christians met in private homes.” These studies investigate the references to houses as the meeting places of early Christian congregations and usually assume a freestanding building owned by the patron or patroness of a house church. Although the term οἶκος [oikos or “house”] can refer to a Roman atrium, a Greek peristyle house, a Hellenistic style of courtyard with adjoining rooms, or even an apartment building with shops on the ground floor, the standard conclusion is: “Private houses were the first centers of church life.” Klauck remains more open than most scholars on this question, concluding that congregations of 10-40 members could function in any of the four options, but he does not entertain the possibility that s different structure of leadership and a different style of community life might result from meeting in a space not provided by a patron. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor’s early calculation of the maximum size of 30-40 for a house church congregation rested on the premise of a freestanding villa. His later work considers the possibility that the shop space on the ground floor of a tenement building might be used for a “house church” such as Prisca and Aquila sponsored in Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome; it might accommodate a group of 10-20 believers. A number of earlier experts suggested the likelihood that even if Prisca and Aquila’s church met in their private apartment, it was probably in a tenement building.

Some details in the NT point indisputably in the direction of house churches presided over by patrons and patronesses, including references to “the church in the house” of particular patrons. The model of a house church presupposes a patron or patroness who owns or rents the space used by the Christian community. A number of such persons are mentioned in the Pauline letters, including Phoebe, Erastos, Crispus, Stephanos, Gaius, Appia, and Philemon and his wife, Nympha. A house church is thus assimilated into the hierarchical social structure of the Greco-Roman world, in which heads of houses exercised legal and familial dominion over their relatives and slaves. In the words of Wayne Meeks, “The head of the household, by normal expectations of the society, would exercise some authority over the group and would have some legal responsibility for it. The structure of the oikos was hierarchical, and contemporary political and moral thought regarded the structure of superior and inferior roles as basic to the well-being of the whole society. This model of a house church has led to the widely accepted theory of Gerd Theissen that such churches were marked by “love-patriarchalism” in which the hierarchical social order is retained while mutual respect and love are being fostered by patrons serving as leaders of the congregations in their houses (Jewett 64-65).

Steve Hays has already commented on this phenomenon:

The Co-Pope Team of Priscilla and Aquila

The Aquilan-cum-Priscillan lineage represents the true succession

The First Church of Rome

And he responded to quite a few objections in these blog posts:

The Counterfeit Shepherd

Superpope

Here might be an excellent time to re-state what the Roman Catholic theologian John Meier stated in his essay in “How Can the Petrine Ministry Be a Service to the Unity of the Universal Church?” (Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, ©2010):

A papacy that cannot give a credible account of its own origins can hardly hope to be a catalyst for unity among divided Christians (14).

There is, in fact, nothing that is credible about the papacy.

John Reumann best states the problem

The Farfa Project
“The Petrine ministry has been at the center of the modern ecumenical discussion, for it concerns the very question of the unity of the church. The International Bridgettine Centre in Farfa Sabina has seriously undertaken a study of the theological, historical, and dogmatic issues that underlie the issues of Christian unity dealing with the role of unity as exercised by the Bishop of Rome.

“This current work represents only part of the work that the Centre has been engaged in during these past ten years. The texts published in this volume give a ‘snapshot’ of the situation when they were presented during the series of colloquia, study groups, and consultations that have taken place. Therefore there has been no attempt to update the bibliographical information. It is important to note that the work is still ‘a work-in-progress.’”.

This is from the Preface of How Can the Petrine Ministry Be a Service to the Unity of the Universal Church? James F. Puglisi, Editor, Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, ©2010, pgs. 49-78.

It is a work described as “twenty-one forward-looking essays on the papal office by an assortment of theologians, canonists, ecumenists, ecclesiologists, sociologists, and Scripture experts from diverse backgrounds, including Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, and Reformed [review here]. They examine the conditions under which the papacy might one day be re-received by Christian church bodies worldwide—not as an autocratic monarchy, but, rather, as the unifying agency for a diverse yet cohesive universal church” (from the Back Cover).

John Reumann, the Ministerium of Pennsylvania Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Greek at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia (LTSP), defines the problem as well as any that I’ve seen:

Biblical and patristic studies make clear that historically a gap occurs at the point where it has been claimed “the apostles were careful to appoint successors in” what is called “this hierarchically constituted society,” specifically “those who were made bishops by the apostles . . .,” an episcopate with an “unbroken succession going back to the beginning.” [64] For that, evidence is lacking, quite apart from the problem that the monepiscopacy replaced presbyterial governance in Rome only in the mid-or late second century.[65] It has been noted above how recent treatments conclude that in the New Testament no successor for Peter is indicated.

They not only “suggest” or “posit that” “no successor for Peter is indicated”, but rather, they “conclude” this. The footnotes clarify:

64. Lumen gentium 20 (Flannery trans., Vatican Council II [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1975], pp. 371-372; Abbot trans., Documents of Vatican II [New York: Guild Press, America Press, Association Press], pp. 39-40, “the episcopate in a sequence running back to the beginning”). Cited are Iren. Adv. Haer. 3,3,1 = PG 7:848; Tertullian, Praescr. Haer. 32 = PL 2:52f., and Ignatius of Antioch passim.

65. Gnilka 2002, p. 225. Ignatius had no “succession; bishop and presbyter correspond to Christ and apostles, not successors to the apostles (p. 223); the “succession lists” in Rome were of presbyters and bishops (pp. 242-50). (Referring to Gnilka, Joachim. Petrus und Rom. Das Petrusbild in den ersten zwei Jahrhunderten. Freiburg/Basel/Wien: Herder, 2002).

In short, there is a basic conflict between the actual history of the period, and what is claimed in official dogmatic statements of Vatican II. (Much less the discrepancies with Vatican I). This is a major difficulty and embarrassment for the “infallible Magisterium”. I am grateful that it is being discussed publicly, by major theologians.

This work is described as “a rare glimpse into a high-level discussion that should be appreciated by anyone interested in the future of the ‘one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.’” Reuman and the other writers (and I’ll try to provide selections in the coming days) are taking as their starting point the disjunction between the historical evidence and the doctrinal statements. It is unfortunate, however, that these individuals are writing in order to find some kind of theological justification for a “petrine ministry.”

Carl Trueman was partially correct. Not only do we need a “thoughtful confessional book” on Roman Catholicism; but we need to have evangelical and confessionally-minded Christians involved in these types of discussions at the highest levels. Those who are prone to remembering that the papacy has very recently been called “antichrist” and who are open to suggesting, not that the papacy be “reformed,” but that it be consigned to the ash heap of history.

The first extant exegesis of Matthew 16:18-19

One of the more significant exegetical monographs that we have on the topic of the importance of Peter is Peter in the New Testament, edited by Raymond Brown, Karl Donfried, and John Reumann. This work describes its mission and function:

A National Dialogue between Lutheran and Roman Catholic theologians began in July 1965 under the sponsorship of the U.S.A. National Committee of the Lutheran World Federation and the Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops…. In their 1971 meetings [these groups] began to discuss one of the thorniest problems arising from the Reformation: the problem of ministry in the universal church, with special emphasis on papal primacy…. In order that the work of the National Dialogue not become impossibly long, it was decided that smaller task forces of specialists be appointed to work on two particularly sensitive historical periods, namely the New Testament and the Patristic periods (pgs 1-2).

So two works have been produced by this commission. I’ve had the first for some time now, and have referred to it on occasion. The second, Papal Primacy and the Universal Church, just arrived in my mailbox. It has taken me a while to locate it, because it was not referred to directly in the first work. The footnote in the first work refers to the second only in terms of function (I suppose the essays had not been collected at that point):

The Patristics task force, co-chaired by the Rev. Dr. A.C. Piepkorn of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, and by Professor J. McCue [a Roman Catholic] of the School of Religion at the State University of Iowa (Iowa City), will make a separate report on the evidence pertaining to the first five centuries (fn 4, pg 2).

From the Roman Catholic side, T.Austin Murphy, Bishop’s Committee for Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Affairs served as a co-editor. Murphy was an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore at the time.

I’m working through McCue’s essay, “The Beginnings Through Nicaea”, and I hope to talk about this a bit more, but for now, I’ve found the following, which I find quite interesting:

When Origen is commenting directly on Matthew 16:18f. he carefully puts aside any interpretation of the passage that would make of Peter anything other than what every Christian is to be.

… And if we too have said like Peter, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”, not as if flesh and blood had revealed it to us, but because light from the Father in heaven had shone in our hearts, we become a Peter, and to us also he who was the Word might say, “Thou Art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church”. For every imitator of Christ is a rock, of Christ, that is, who is the spiritual rock that followed them that drank of him. And upon every such rock is built every word of the Church, and the whole order of life based thereon; for whosoever is perfect, having the sum of words and deeds and thoughts which fill up the state of blessedness, in him is the Church that God is building.

But if you suppose that God builds the entire Church upon Peter and on him alone, what would you say about John, the son of thunder, or any particular apostle? In other words, are we so bold as to say that it is against Peter in particular that the gates of Hades shall not prevail, but that they shall prevail against the other apostles and the perfect? Does not the above saying “The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” hold in regard to all, and in the case of each of them? And likewise with regard to the words “Upon this rock I will build my Church”? Are the keys of the kingdom of heaven given by the Lord to Peter only, and will no other of the blessed receive them? For in the passage before us, the words “Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven” and what follows do appear to be addressed to Peter individually; but in the Gospel of John, the Saviour, having given the Holy Spirit to the disciples by breathing on them, says “Receive ye the Holy Ghost” and what follows. For all the imitators of Christ are surnamed “rocks” from him, the spiritual rock which follows those who are being saved; … but from the very fact that they are members of Christ, they are called Christians by a name derived from him. And those called after the rock are called Peter. (In Matt. 12:10-11; ANF translation, extensively revised by E. Giles, Documents Illustrating Papal Authority 1952, pp. 45-46).

This is the earliest extant detailed commentary on Matthew 16:18f. and interestingly sees the event describe as a lesson about the life to be lived by every Christian, and not information about office or hierarchy or authority in the church.

The Brown, Donfried, and Reumann work concludes by saying, “it has become clear to us that an investigation of the historical career does not necessarily settle the question of Peter’s importance for the subsequent church” (168).

Origen is the first commentator from the Eastern church (Alexandria) on the importance of Peter. According to this passage, Peter’s importance as an apostle is not denied, but it is very much put on par with that of the smallest of believers.

There is no acknowledgement here of any “primacy”. This speaks also to the issue that Christ founded a visible church and specifically, what this “visible church” is – very much reminiscent of Calvin and the WCF, “The catholic or universal Church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.”

Here Origen’s understanding deals with the ontological aspects of what is visible, and that is, “every imitator of Christ is a rock”, a reflection of Peter’s own statement, “you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house”.

Both of these together support the notion that there was nothing special about the “ontologicalness” of being Peter. In terms of being “first”, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Peter had the privilege of being the first one to preach the Gospel, “first to the Jews, then to the Gentiles” (Acts 10), but in the context of historical “tradition”, Origen contradicts the notion that the early third-century church in the East thought that there was anything particularly special about him, or where he happened to be located.

Roman Bait and Switch on “Orders”

In its portrayal of the ordained ministry, the Catechism of the Catholic Church talks about “orders” in the ancient Roman world.

CCC Holy Orders, beginning at #1536

The word order in Roman antiquity designated an established civil body, especially a governing body. Ordinatio means incorporation into an ordo. In the Church there are established bodies which Tradition, not without a basis in Sacred Scripture,⁴ has since ancient times called taxeis (Greek) or ordines. And so the liturgy speaks of the ordo episcoporum, the ordo presbyterorum, the ordo diaconorum. Other groups also receive this name of ordo: catechumens, virgins, spouses, widows,. . . .

At this point, they give the disclaimer, “(On the institution and mission of the apostolic ministry by Christ, see above, no. 874 ff. Here only the sacramental means by which this ministry is handed on will be treated.)”

Moving back to 874, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, at paragraph 874 says (larded up here with the headers that appear in the text):

I. THE HIERARCHICAL CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH

Why the ecclesial ministry?

874 Christ is himself the source of ministry in the Church. He instituted the Church. He gave her authority and mission, orientation and goal:

“In order to shepherd the People of God and to increase its numbers without cease, Christ the Lord set up in his Church a variety of offices which aim at the good of the whole body. The holders of office, who are invested with a sacred power, are, in fact, dedicated to promoting the interests of their brethren, so that all who belong to the People of God . . . may attain to salvation.”³⁸⁹

This citation is from Lumen Gentium, so this is a Vatican II formulation. Note here, it was “Christ the Lord” who “set up a variety of offices”. But clearly, Christ did not set up the Roman offices.

What’s going on here?

Edward Kilmartin noted the discrepancy:

In Trent’s Decree on Holy Orders, Canon 6 states that there is in the Church “a hierarchy instituted by divine ordination, which consists of bishops, presbyters and ministers.” While this teaching conforms to the idea of existence of such offices from the beginning of the Church, it does not harmonize with the historical facts. The Second Vatican Council’s Lumen Gentium [28] offers a more realistic view based on a more secure historical consciousness and exegesis of Scripture. Here we read “Thus the divinely instituted ecclesiastical ministry is exercised in different degrees by those who even from ancient times (ab antiquo) have been called bishops, priests, and deacons.” Hence in no way does Vatican II affirm that the priesthood was instituted at the Last Supper in the sense understood by Trent (pg 378).

From Edward J. Kilmartin, S.J. (“The Eucharist in the West: History and Theology,” Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, © 1998, 2004 by the Order of St. Benedict. Edited by Robert J. Daily, S.J.)

And of course, I’ve written about this “gap” in the past (John Reumann noted the official discrepancy in official Roman documents):

Biblical and patristic studies make clear that historically a gap occurs at the point where it has been claimed “the apostles were careful to appoint successors in” what is called “this hierarchically constituted society,” specifically “those who were made bishops by the apostles . . .,” an episcopate with an “unbroken succession going back to the beginning.” [64] For that, evidence is lacking, quite apart from the problem that the monepiscopacy replaced presbyterial governance in Rome only in the mid-or late second century.[65] It has been noted above how recent treatments conclude that in the New Testament no successor for Peter is indicated.

See the footnotes:

64. Lumen gentium 20 (Flannery trans., Vatican Council II [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1975], pp. 371-372; Abbot trans., Documents of Vatican II [New York: Guild Press, America Press, Association Press], pp. 39-40, “the episcopate in a sequence running back to the beginning”). Cited are Iren. Adv. Haer. 3,3,1 = PG 7:848; Tertullian,Praescr. Haer. 32 = PL 2:52f., and Ignatius of Antioch passim.

65. Gnilka 2002, p. 225. Ignatius had no “succession; bishop and presbyter correspond to Christ and apostles, not successors to the apostles (p. 223); the “succession lists” in Rome were of presbyters and bishops (pp. 242-50). (Referring to Gnilka, Joachim. Petrus und Rom. Das Petrusbild in den ersten zwei Jahrhunderten. Freiburg/Basel/Wien: Herder, 2002).

The papacy’s murky origins

The Wall Street Journal has a “Saturday Essay” entitled “How the Pope was Picked”.

I left a comment -- my comment is #6, linked here.

I said this:

My hope is that he will have the courage to relate research about the papacy’s murky origins. At a very recent ecumenical discussion, the Roman Catholic New Testament Scholar John Meier said “A papacy that cannot give a credible historical account of its own origins can hardly hope to be a catalyst for unity among divided Christians.” Catholic Archbishop Roland Minnerath said “At the heart of the estrangement that progressively arose between East and West, there may be a historical misunderstanding. The East never shared the Petrine theology as elaborated in the West.” And the Lutheran scholar John Reumann said “historically a gap occurs at the point where it has been claimed “the apostles were careful to appoint successors.” All of this is related in “How Can the Petrine Ministry Be a Service to the Unity of the Universal Church?” James F. Puglisi, Editor, Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, ©2010. It’s time for the Catholic Church to own up to this publicly.

George Eldon Ladd ‘single-handedly reinvigorated’ ‘the Evangelical Mind’

Justin Taylor has picked up a paragraph from Scot McKnight’s brief review of the recently published biography of George Eldon Ladd:

I don’t believe our goal as Bible or theology scholars is to be deemed among the finest of scholars or to find a place at the table, but to be faithful to Jesus Christ and to the gospel and to orthodox theology and to academic rigor. Yes, we are to work to discover and to be creative, but the driving passion to prove ourselves at the feet of others falls short of a true Christian telos. I’d put it this way: we are called to be faithful, whether we are accepted or not.

McKnight summarized: “Ladd single-handedly reinvigorated evangelical scholarship and D’Elia tells that very story…. George Eldon Ladd was a Titan, his work irreplaceable, and his impact incalculable.” I’ve also had the opportunity to read and comment on Ladd’s impact. Here’s a paragraph from Donald Hagner’s Introduction to the Revised Edition of Ladd’s 1974 work:

Without question Ladd’s theology reflects the orientation of a specific interpretive community, that known widely as “Evangelicalism.” It was Ladd who was especially instrumental in helping many fundamentalists to see for the first time not merely the acceptability, but the indispensability, of historical criticicsm. Evangelicals – at least many of them – have become more open to many of the conclusions of critical scholarship (in regard to, for example, the authorship and dating of New Testament writings and the implications for the development of the New Testament) in the twenty years since Ladd wrote (in 1974). They continue, however, to share the basic convictions embodied in Ladd’s approach to biblical theology. For all the actual diversity in the New Testament writings there remains an unforced and genuine unity among them at the same time. For all the historical particularity of these writings they continue to possess a normative authority for the church. And if, as J. Reumann has recently written, “the ultimate test for any biblical theology will be whether it enables faith and obedience to God’s word,” that practical concern was close to the heart of Ladd. Ladd’s interpretive community continues to cherish the goals of faith and obedience. At their best, evangelicals will cultivate openness to all that increases faith and leads to a more effective obedience (pgs 19-20).

The Perils of Pauline

Predictably enough, Francis Beckwith tries to roll out the Jacobean artillery against the Protestant doctrine of sola fide. Cf. Return to Rome, 104f.

We’re treated to an extremely cursory discussion of the Protestant position. But that’s not the only problem. He doesn’t bother to interact with Catholic scholarship. However, Catholic exegesis has come a long ways since the Counter-Reformation. I’ll quote from the standard Catholic commentary on Romans, followed by the standard Catholic commentary on James:

“Consequently, this uprightness does not belong to human beings (10:3), and it is not something that they have produced or merited; it is an alien uprightness, one belonging rightly to another (to Christ), and attributed to them because of what that other has done for them. So Paul understands God ‘justifying the godless’ (4:5) or ‘crediting uprightness’ to human beings quite ‘apart from deeds’ (4:6; see Käsemann, Kertele, Lyonnet, Reumann, Schlatter, Schultz),” J. Fitzmyer, Romans (Doubleday 1993), 117-18.

“[3:28] But his [Paul’s] emphasis falls on pistei, ‘by faith,’ as Kuss, Bardenhewer, and Sickenberger recognize. That emphasis and the qualification ‘apart from deeds of (the) law’ show that in this context Paul means ‘by faith alone.’ Only faith appropriates God’s effective declaration of uprightness for human beings,” ibid. 363.

“How should the critical passage in James 2:18-26 be read in comparison to the Pauline discussion? The first thing to note is that James’ understanding of nomos, as I have already twice stated, has nothing whatever to do with the issues Paul is combating. James does not connect nomos to any sort of ‘works,’ much less those concerning circumcision or the ritual laws. Second, James is entirely in agreement with Paul on placing pistis, epangelia, and kleronomia in the same column (James 2:5). Third, James places in opposition an empty pistis theou (‘faith in God’) or pistis Christou (‘the faith of Christ’), which consists in profession or claim to membership (2:1,19), and the living ergo pisteos (‘works of faith’), which make such profession real. Forth, Abraham is an example precisely of this ‘active faith’ by his sacrifice of his son Isaac (2:21). Fifth, this ergon pisteos is itself ‘co-worked by faith’ (synergei) and perfects faith,’ that is, brings faith to its full realization in deed (2:22). Sixth, the action of Abraham in Gen 22:2-9 is read by James as the textual ‘fulfillment’ of the declaration by God in Gen 15:6 that Abraham’s faith made him to be reckoned as righteous (2:23). Finally, James’ climactic statement, ex ergon dikaioutai anthropos kai ouk ek pisteos monon (‘a person is shown to be righteous on the basis of deeds and not on the basis of faith only,’ 2:24), which superficially appears to contradict Gal 2:16, does nothing of the sort, for the terms in the respective sentences have quite different referents,” L. Johnson, The Letter of James (Yale 2005), 63.

“[2:20] There is no reason to read this statement as a response to such Pauline passages as Rom 3:28: ‘We maintain that a human beings is made righteous by faith apart from (choris) the works of the law (erga tou nomou),’ because that contrast is simply not at issue here. Rather, James’ contrast is between mere faith as belief and faith as a full response to God,” ibid. 242.

“[2:21] The hardest term to translate here is dikaioun, primarily because of its frequent use by Paul in contexts opposing righteousness by faith and ‘works of the law’ (Rom 2:13; 3:4,20,24,26,28,30; 4:2,5; 5:1,9; 8:30,33; Gal 2:16-17; 3:8,11,24) and the complex use of the verb and its cognates in the OT (e.g., LXX Gen 38:26; Exod 23:7; Deut 25:1; Pss 50:6; 81:3; 142:2; Sir 1:22). The precise meaning in each case must be determined by context, not some general theological concept. Given the previous statement demanding the demonstration of faith, the translation here as ‘shown to be righteous’ seems appropriate (see Hort, 63, ‘appear righteous in God’s sight,’ and Marty, 104, ‘God sanctions his righteousness’). The meaning would be similar to such NT passages as Mt 11:19; 12:37; and 1 Cor 4:4. The phrase ex ergon (literally, ‘out of works’) has the sense of ‘on the basis of deeds,’ meaning that the deeds make his righteousness manifest. At first glance, the sentence appears flatly to contradict Paul’s argument concerning the righteousness of Abraham on the basis of faith rather than works (Gal 2:16; 3:5-6; 3:24; Rom 4:2), until we remember that in Paul’s case, the contrast is with ‘works of the law’ (including circumcision), whereas in James it is with a pistis arge (ineffectual faith),” ibid. 242.

Therefore, even based on modern Catholic exegesis, the Protestant doctrine of justification is entirely consistent with Paul and James alike.

Newman, “The Roman Catholic Hermeneutic”, and Rome’s Foundational Assumption

A “willing suspension of disbelief”

The following citation came up in recent comments, citing John Henry Newman’s defense of the early papacy:

While Apostles were on earth, there was the display neither of Bishop nor Pope; their power had no prominence, as being exercised by Apostles. In course of time, first the power of the Bishop displayed itself, and then the power of the Pope. . . . St. Peter's prerogative would remain a mere letter, till the complication of ecclesiastical matters became the cause of ascertaining it. . . . When the Church, then, was thrown upon her own resources, first local disturbances gave exercise to Bishops, and next ecumenical disturbances gave exercise to Popes; and whether communion with the Pope was necessary for Catholicity would not and could not be debated till a suspension of that communion had actually occurred. It is not a greater difficulty that St. Ignatius does not write to the Asian Greeks about Popes, than that St. Paul does not write to the Corinthians about Bishops. And it is a less difficulty that the Papal supremacy was not formally acknowledged in the second century, than that there was no formal acknowledgment on the part of the Church of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity till the fourth. No doctrine is defined till it is violated.

All of this, however, is based on Newman’s foundational assumption. Newman, of course, makes historical concessions, when he says [relying on the Notre Dame publication of his “Theory”], “I shall admit that there are in fact certain apparent variations in teaching, which have to be explained; thus I shall begin, but then I shall attempt to explain them to the exculpation of that teaching in point of unity, directness, and consistency” (7) … “Here then I concede to the opponents of historical Christianity, that there are to be found, during the 1800 years through which it has lasted, certain apparent inconsistencies and alterations in its doctrine and its worship, such as irresistibly attract the attention of all who inquire into it. (p. 9)

There are two ways to approach these “inconsistencies” and “alterations”. Genuine history and Biblical studies will seek to understand (a) what the biblical writers understood and sought to convey, (b) who the readers were, and (c) what the “cultural context” was that shaped the writers’ and readers’ understanding. To borrow the words of a famous Watergate-era senator, we seek to understand “what the early church knew, and when they knew it”.

This contrasts with Newman’s understanding, which posits, “St. Peter's prerogative would remain a mere letter, till the complication of ecclesiastical matters became the cause of ascertaining it”. But in fact, no such thing existed – no human being understood this “prerogative” until “bishops” of Rome, made wealthy by Roman emperors, had the power and wealth and freedom to assert authority outside of their small circle.

The Roman Catholic Hermeneutic, the backward-looking method of which Newman followed, does the opposite thing: it takes a current or existing Roman Catholic doctrine or dogma, then “proving the present teachings of the magisterium from the evidence of the ancient sources” (Aiden Nichols, “The Shape of Catholic Theology” pg 253).

The raw, overpowering weakness of the Roman Catholic hermeneutic is that its foundation is this assumption. As Newman put it

Till positive reasons grounded on facts are adduced to the contrary, the most natural hypotheses, the most agreeable to our mode of proceeding in parallel cases, and that which takes precedence of all others, is to consider that the society of Christians, which the Apostles left on earth, were of that religion to which the Apostles had converted them; that the external continuity of name, profession, and communion, argues a real continuity of doctrine; that, as Christianity began by manifesting itself as of a certain shape and bearing to all mankind, therefore it went on so to manifest itself; and that the more, considering that prophecy had already determined that it was to be a power visible in the world and sovereign over it, characters which are accurately fulfilled in that historical Christianity to which we commonly give the name. It is not a violent assumption, then, but rather mere abstinence from the wanton admission of a principle which would necessarily lead to the most vexatious and preposterous scepticism, to take it for granted, before proof to the contrary, that the Christianity of the second, fourth, seventh, twelfth, sixteenth, and intermediate centuries is in its substance the very religion which Christ and His Apostles taught in the first, whatever may be the modifications for good or for evil which lapse of years, or the vicissitudes of human affairs, have impressed upon it.

Writing perhaps 75 years after this, Adrian Fortescue (“The Early Papacy,” pg 26-27) writes

Even the most fundamental dogmas rest ultimately on the teaching of the Catholic Church today, even, for instance, that of the Holy Trinity. All we suppose, before we come to the Church, is that our Lord Jesus Christ was a man sent by God and whom we must follow if we wish to serve God in the proper way; that he founded one visible Church, to which his followers should belong; that this Church is, as a matter of historic fact, the communion of Rome (not, however, supposing anything about the papacy, but supposing only the visible unity and historic continuity). This much must be presupposed and does not rest on the authority of the [Roman Catholic] Church. All else does.

Newman assumes that there was “communion with the Pope”, and that it “was necessary for Catholicity [and] would not and could not be debated till a suspension of that communion had actually occurred.” This “communion” is merely assumed.

As John Reumann noted, there are historical gaps precisely in the places where Vatican I proclaimed “immediate jurisdiction”, and where Vatican II proclaimed “this hierarchically constituted society”. John Meier said, and I’ve quoted him many times, “A papacy that cannot give a credible historical account of its own origins can hardly hope to be a catalyst for unity among divided Christians”. In fact the papacy’s account of its own origins is merely a fiction, the Roman Catholic maintenance of which relies on what is essentially a willing suspension of disbelief. Such a process works to enable us to enjoy fiction; as a “foundation for the faith,” I find it quite lacking.

This is why the most recent scholarship, an effort to understand “what the early church knew and when they knew it” is so necessary. This is why an early primary document source such as The Shepherd of Hermas in conjunction with Scriptural and other evidence for house-church networks and also leadership structures, both Biblical and cultural, and most importantly, exegetical studies of Roman Catholic proof-texts, are so important. All of these decisively affirm the notion that Rome’s presupposition of a divinely-instituted hierarchy, situated in Rome, with which communion was necessary, is a fiction.

See this link for more information on how Newman’s “theory of development” rests upon the logical fallacy of “amphiboly”.

Pious fraud

Since I recently crossed swords with Michael Pahls over Jn 6, I might as well take the occasion to comment on some of the other things he’s posted over at the pseudo-Reformed/deutero-Catholic website (which I found beginning here):

http://www.reformedcatholicism.com/?author=12

***QUOTE***

It is impossible to reclaim those who have lapsed in Hebrews 6 and 10, because they have explicitly renounced their salvation as sacramentally mediated. They have turned their back on baptism (enlightenment), the Holy Supper (heavenly gift), the proclaimed word, and the variegated Spirit-wrought charisms of the community. In turning their back on the people of God they have turned their back on God in Christ and vice versa. They have “spurned the Son of God,” “profaned the blood of the covenant” and “outraged the Spirit of grace.” This is why “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together” is part and parcel of the exhortations to perseverance in Hebrews.

***END-QUOTE***

This is exhibit A of acontextual exegesis. Michael makes no effort to show that “enlightenment” (6:4) and “the heavenly gift” have reference to baptism and communion respectively.

It is true that “enlightened” came to be a synonym for baptism in patristic usage. Read Hughes’ commentary.

But it would be anachronistic to read that back into Hebrews without further argument. Pahls has done nothing to exegete that significance from the actual usage of the author of Hebrews, or his general theology, or his literary allusions.

By contrast (according to Hughes), the identification of “the heavenly gift” with communion doesn’t even have the benefit of patristic attestation.

For an interpretation which is more sensitive to the author’s own usage, read Ellingworth.

A more contextual explanation of the passage would be as follows:

The author is addressing a congregation of Messianic Jews, probably in Rome. Christianity is coming under persecution from the Roman authorities.

Since Judaism was a licit religion under Roman law, and since Judaism had also been a saving faith, the members of this congregation are tempted to revert to Judaism. For the historical reconstruction, read Lane.

They cannot be reclaimed if (or as long as) they turn their backs on the New Covenant and look to an obsolete covenant (the Old Covenant) as the object of saving faith.

As yet, they haven’t made that fateful choice.

Pahls’ sacramental interpretation is also problematic on its own grounds, for his view of postbaptismal apostasy would commit him to the rigorist position of the “schismatic” Donatists and Novatianists.

Continuing:

***QUOTE***

I must begin by telling you that I do not like to preach on Reformation Sunday. Actually I have to put it more strongly than that. I do not like Reformation Sunday, period. I do no understand why it is part of the church year. Reformation Sunday does not name a happy event for the Church Catholic; on the contrary, it names failure. Of course, the church rightly names failure, or at least horror, as part of our church year. We do, after all, go through crucifixion as part of Holy Week. Certainly if the Reformation is to be narrated rightly, it is to be narrated as part of those dark days.

Reformation names the disunity in which we currently stand. We who remain in the Protestant tradition want to say that Reformation was a success. But when we make Reformation a success, it only ends up killing us. After all, the very name ‘Protestantism’ is meant to denote a reform movement of protest within the Church Catholic. When Protestantism becomes an end in itself, which it certainly has through the mainstream denominations in America, it becomes anathema. If we no longer have broken hearts at the church’s division, then we cannot help but unfaithfully celebrate Reformation Sunday.

***END-QUOTE***

Several issues:

1.Since Reformation Sunday is only a man-made tradition, it wouldn’t say that we are under any obligation to mark it on our calendars. This is a point of liberty.

But as long as the observance is voluntary rather than mandatory, I have no more problem with Reformation Sunday that other holidays like Christmas or Advent.

2. We can celebrate Reformation Sunday in the same spirit that the Jews celebrated the Passover.

Just as the Exodus marked a liberation from Egyptian bondage, we can thank God that the Reformation liberated Christians from bondage to a decadent religious system.

3.It’s rather simple-minded to define the *concept* of Protestantism from a dictionary definition of the *word* “Protestant”.

The nature of Protestant identity isn’t derivable from a popular label. Why does Michael indulge in semantic fallacies to prove his point?

4.Who says that Protestantism is an end in itself?

Continuing:

***QUOTE***

Unfortunately, the Catholics are right. Christian salvation consists in works. To be saved is to be made holy. To be saved requires our being made part of a people separated from the world so that we can be united in spite of–or perhaps better, because of–the world’s fragmentation and divisions. Unity, after all, is what God has given us through Christ’s death and resurrection. For in that death and resurrection we have been made part of God’s salvation for the world so that the world may know it has been freed from the powers that would compel us to kill one another in the name of false loyalties. All that is about the works necessary to save us.

***END-QUOTE***

This is a caricature of Evangelical theology. It deliberately rides roughshod over fundamental distinctions regarding the source and role of good works in salvation.

Continuing:

***QUOTE***

For example, I often point out that at least Catholics have the magisterial office of the Bishop of Rome to remind them that disunity is a sin. You should not overlook the significance that in several important documents of late, John Paul II has confessed the Catholic sin for the Reformation. Where are the Protestants capable of doing likewise? We Protestants feel no sin for the disunity of the Reformation. We would not know how to confess our sin for the continuing disunity of the Reformation. We would not know how to do that because we have no experience of unity.

***END-QUOTE***

A couple of points:

1.Is the magisterial office of the papacy a good thing? Where is his supporting argument?

Why is Michael drawing invidious comparisons without bothering to establish the standard of comparison in the first place? Is that too much to ask?

2.He’s very free with the word “sin.” By what authority does he accuse Evangelicals of sin for the “sin of disunity” or the “sin of the Reformation.”?

The question at issue is not whether Evangelicals can be divisive to a fault. This is not a question of individual sins.

No, the question is whether the very idea of the Reformation is inherently sinful.

What he needs to do is to first exegete what he takes to be the relevant passages of Scripture, and then show that the Reformation in toto is analogous to what Scripture classifies as sin.

Thus far, all we get from Michael are personal assertions dressed up as oracular anathemas for whatever he happens to disapprove of.

Continuing:

***QUOTE***

The magisterial office–we Protestants often forget–is not a matter of constraining or limiting diversity in the name of unity. The office of the Bishop of Rome is to ensure that when Christians move from Durham, North Carolina to Syracuse, New York, they have some confidence when they go to church that they will be worshipping the same God. Because Catholics have an office of unity, they do not need to restrain the gifts of the Spirit. As I oftentimes point out, it is extraordinary that Catholicism is able to keep the Irish and the Italians in the same church. What an achievement! Perhaps equally amazing is their ability to keep within the same church Jesuits, Dominicans, and Franciscans.

***END-QUOTE***

Other issues aside, they could only be sure of this if, on the basis of Herculean historical research, they could be sure of unbroken apostolic succession contingent on the valid administration of holy orders for each and every link in the chain.

How does Michael propose that we achieve this level of certainty? Michael keeps giving us his conclusions without the elementary spadework to support his conclusions.

***QUOTE***

I think Catholics are able to do that because they know that their unity does not depend opon everyone agreeing. Indeed, they can celebrate their disagreements because they understand that our unity is founded upon the cross and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth that makes the Eucharist possible. They do not presume, therefore, that unity requires that we all read Scripture the same way.

This creates a quite different attitude among Catholics about their relation to Christian tradition and the wider world. Protestants look over to Christian tradition and say, ‘How much of this do we have to believe in order to remain identifiably Christian?’ That’s the reason why Protestants are always tempted to rationalism: we think that Christianity is to be identified with sets of beliefs more than with the unity of the Spirit occasioned through sacrament.

Moreover, once Christianity becomes reduced to a matter of belief, as it clearly has for Protestants, we cannot resist questions of whether those beliefs are as true or useful as other beliefs we also entertain. Once such questions are raised, it does not matter what the answer turns out in a given case. As James Edwards observes, “Once religious beliefs start to compete with other beliefs, then religious believers are - and will know themselves to be –mongerers of values. They too are denizens of the mall, selling and shopping and buying along with the rest of us.”

***END-QUOTE***

1.This is a fascinating admission. Having castigated the Protestant cause for the sin of disunity, he then proceeds to redefine Christian unity by eliminating a common faith.

Does he really think that a common faith is irrelevant to religious identity in either the OT covenant community or the NT covenant community?

2.At the same time, he is making his own faith-claims about church and sacrament.

***QUOTE***

In contrast, Catholics do not begin with the question of “How much do we need to believe?” but with the attitude “Look at all the wonderful stuff we get to believe!” Isn’t it wonderful to know that Mary was immaculately conceived in order to be the faithful servant of God’s new creation in Jesus Christ! She therefore becomes the firstborn of God’s new creation, our mother, the first member of God’s new community we call church. Isn’t it wonderful that God continued to act in the world through the appearances of Mary at Guadalupe! Mary must know something because she seems to always appear to peasants and, in particular, to peasant women who have the ability to see her. Most of us would not have the ability to see Mary because we’d be far too embarrassed by our vision.

***END-QUOTE***

1.And does he believe in the Immaculate Conception? Does he believe that God continues to act in the world through Marian apparitions?

2.What about the visions of Muhammad or Swedenborg or Joseph Smith or Oral Roberts?

Does Michael have any criterion for distinguishing between divine visions and occultic visions, or does he even care?

***QUOTE***

Therefore Catholics understand the church’s unity as grounded in reality more determinative than our good feelings for one another. The office of Rome matters. For at least that office is a judgement on the church for our disunity. Surely it is the clear indication of the sin of the Reformation that we Protestants have not been able to resist nationalistic identifications. So we become German Lutherans, American Lutherans, Norwegian Lutherans. You are Dutch Calvinist, American Presbyterians, Church of Scotland. I am an American Methodist, which has precious little to do with my sisters and brothers in English Methodism. And so we Protestant Christians go to war killing one another in the name of being American, German, Japanese, and so on.

***END-QUOTE***

1.Having, by his own lights, reduced Evangelical identity to bare belief, notice how he now substitutes feeling for belief. Does he really think these are equivalent?

2.Isn’t it a caricature of Evangelical theology to say it’s reducible “our good feelings for one another”? Is Michael even attempting to be accurate at this point? Or is he reading his opponents in the light of all the straw man he’s burning?

3.Why assume that nationalistic identifications are sinful?

God chooses when and where we will be born. That inevitably affects our live options and general outlook. Social conditioning is an aspect of God’s ordinary providence.

Nationality is not a criterion of truth, but to treat nationality as inherently sinful is quite unnatural given the way in which, to take one example, OT covenant theology builds on patriarchy and tribalism as fundamental units of socio-religious identity.

4.If he’s alluding to WWII, does he really think that America went to war against Japan or Germany simply because American Protestants like to kill German Protestants or Japanese Protestants?

Does Michael think that this amounts to a serious analysis of the historical provocations and personal motivations?

Nothing about the Nazis or the Japanese imperial cult or Japanese stratocracy.

If he’s not alluding to WWII, what’s the connection between Germans, Japanese, Americans, and killing?

5.Notice his flagrant disregard for the degree to which American Evangelicals freely associate with one another.

***QUOTE***

You can tell the destructive character of that narrative by what it has done to the Jews. The way we Protestants read history, and in particular our Bible, has been nothing but disastrous for the Jews. For we turned the Jews into Catholics by suggesting that the Jews had sunk into legalistic and sacramental religion after the prophets and had therefore become moribund and dead. In order to make Jesus explicable (in order to make Jesus look like Luther - at least the Luther of our democratic projections), we had to make Judaism look like our characterization of Catholicism. Yet Jesus did not free us from Israel; rather, he engrafted us into the promise of Israel so that we might be a people called to the same holiness of the law.

***END-QUOTE***

There are a couple of basic problems with this indictment:

1. On the one hand, it disregards philosemitic Evangelical traditions like Calvinism and Fundamentalism.

2. On the other hand, it disregards the role of Russian Orthodoxy in the pogroms, as well as the role of Medieval Catholicism in the slaughter of the Jews during the Crusades, as well as the role of Catholic countries like Austria and Poland in the Holocaust.

So one would like to see Michael to make a minimal effort at moral, historical, and theological consistency. Or is that too much to ask?

***QUOTE***

THE WOMAN: MARY AS A TYPE OF THE CHURCH

Revelation is a book of “thick” as opposed to “thin” symbolism. What I mean by “thick” is that they are capable of double references. The “Antichrist,” for example can refer to a single person (the Roman Emperor of John’s day, a future tyrant, etc.) or it can refer to a general spirit of human idolatry in any day (last week, for example, we spoke of self-justifying human egoism as the “spirit of antichrist”). With the “woman” in this passage we have the same phenomenon.

A simple reading of verses 2 and 5 make the connection with the Blessed Virgin Mother of Jesus obvious. Mary is the woman who gives birth to the, “male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.” It is Mary’s son, who was, “caught up to God and to God’s throne.” in the Ascension. Simply put, Mary is the woman in Revelation. This does not exhaust the symbol, however. To say that the woman is merely Mary is to miss John’s point.

John also says in verse one that the woman is, “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” These descriptions associate the woman with the Old Testament’s prophetic hopes for the glory of the whole people of God who experience his salvation. The twelve stars here, represent the twelve tribes of Israel. From this perspective we might say that the woman represents the people of God from whom Jesus traces his human lineage.

To put it very simply, John is speaking of Mary as the ideal representative of the people of God. In doing so, John is simply expanding on the picture of Mary already present in the Gospels themselves.

**END-QUOTE***

This identification would be more impressive if Pahls could lift a finger to interact with objections to his identification by the major commentators (e.g. Aune, Beale, Keener, Smalley), as well as contemporary Catholic/ecumenical scholarship, viz. R. Brown, K. Donfried, J. Fitzmyer, & J. Reumann, eds. Mary in the New Testament (Fortress 1978).

Continuing:

***QUOTE***

The canon of Holy Scripture being closed, there is no new revelation or addition to the one, completed revelation of God in Christ (Heb. 1:1-4), but the Church is graced by God with the illumination of the Holy Spirit, who faithfully guides her into all truth (Jn. 16:13). The Church’s witness may therefore be spoken of as normative, but because the witness of the Church is always subject to the Scripture, her witness is always a “normed norm” (norma normata). On this basis, the Church retains the right, with the consent of the faithful, to dogmatically define and present the teachings of Scriptures, to settle controversies, and to close its communion to dissension.

***END-QUOTE***

He assumes, without benefit of argument, that Jn 16:13 refers to the church. He then erects an edifice over a nonexistent foundation.

Continuing:

***QUOTE***

An acceptible doctrine of Purgatory can start from quite ordinary principles faced in the confession and repentance from personal sin. A confessor or a pastor would be acting irresponsibly if he were to offer the assurance of forgiveness to one that has confessed to stealing while refusing to restore the stolen object to its rightful owner. Suborning that kind of cognitive dissonance would be inimical to the kind of personal reformation intended by the word “repentance” (metanoia) and would amount to what Bonhoeffer called the offer of a “cheap grace.” [Bonhoeffer writes, “Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian “conception” of God…Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.” The Cost of Discipleship (trans. R.H. Fuller; London: SCM, 1959; repr., New York: Touchstone, 1995) 44.]
Human beings, even redeemed human beings, have an incredible aptitude for self-deception and the evasion of truth. [Calvin describes the human heart as a “factory of idols” (fabricum idolorum). Institutes (1559) 1.5.11-12.] In its most Gospel-shaped expressions, Purgatory ceases to be expressed in terms of time and space and merely expresses a postmortem, personal encounter with Christ in which the remaining structures of self-deception and self-evasion are finally crumbled and we see ourselves as we truly are before God. In full light of God’s truth and holiness, the false self is burned away and we are graced with the gift of a full and complete repentance.

Of course, one must readily say that this represents but one potential (and historically novel) configuration of the doctrine. As such, assent to the dogma could not be imposed as binding on the conscience or be regarded as necessary to salvation (Cf. Article 20). In fact, one may venture that this represents such a thoroughgoing mitigation of the Medieval doctrine that it ceases to be recognizable as the dogma of Purgatory altogether. My only concern is to name the space in which the affirmation of such a doctrine could be acceptable to communing Anglicans.

***END-QUOTE***

Note the complete absence of appeal to divine revelation in his attempt create “space” for an acceptable version of Purgatory.

By what criterion, if any, does Michael attempt to distinguish between the truth and make-believe or pious fraud?