Areopagitica

Scroll down to the analysis:

http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2015/10/peter-leithart-and-carl-trueman-on-this.html

Courting the court of public opinion

I'm going to comment on a provocative post by Peter Leithart:

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/leithart/2015/09/before-unbelievers

Leithart's arguments are not all of a piece. 

i) I think complaints like this are useless, in part because it's about something that you can't say is generally right or generally wrong. It all depends on the particular case.

Yes, some people are unjustly convicted in the court of public opinion. And that antedates the Internet by generations. However, other people are unjustly acquitted in civil courts or church courts but justly convicted in the court of public opinion.

ii) Nowadays, a trial is not about getting at the truth, but checking all the boxes on the defendant's due process rights. Oftentimes, probative evidence is excluded because that would be "prejudicial" or "inflammatory." Likewise, incriminating evidence is excluded because it was obtained without a search warrant. Oftentimes, jurors don't ever get to hear crucial evidence. 

Right now I'm not saying if that's good or bad. That's an argument for another day. Certainly the police should face some official sanction to deter them from violating 4th amendment rights. My point, though, is that a trial is not about getting to the bottom of things. 

iii) Likewise, the media and internet sometimes do the investigative spadework that official channels ignore. And sometimes that attention then inspires an official investigation.

iv) Survivor blogs are a mixed bag. Some raise legitimate grievances. Others are by disgruntled former church members who have no right to be disgruntled. So you can't say in general that these are either good or bad. It varies. You can't render a broad, fact-free value judgment. It depends on the actual content. Where the truth lies. 

Finally, there's Leithart's appeal to 1 Cor 6. That's the most significant part of his post. It's a neglected text. Most Western Christians don't know what to do with it, so they ignore it.

iv) As scholars like Winter, Garnsey, Keener, Clarke, Rapske, and Ciampa/Rosner have documented, Paul's discussion is embedded in the context of Roman law and socioeconomic structures, so we need to take into account the discontinuities as well as continuities when we apply this to our own situation. We must untangle the culturebound elements from the transcultural elements. 

v) The discussion presupposes an honor/shame culture. In the Corinthian context, slighted honor could become the basis for a lawsuit. Analogous to defamation suits, only what was actionable in the Roman legal system was far broader. 

Likewise, only the rich could afford litigation. So there's the subtext of upperclass Christians oppressing lower class Christians. Wealthy Christians throwing their weight around.

Added to that, the system was heavily stacked against lower class litigants. So there was enormous potential for abuse of power. 

Much of this falls under what today we'd term "frivolous" lawsuits. Petty, spiteful, vindictive litigation that can be financially ruinous to the defendant. 

To suggest that Paul rules out Christians ever seeking legal remedies is likely an overextension of what he had in mind. Rather, Christians should be prepared to lose face, even when they are wronged. Don't get even. Don't avenge your slighted honor by resorting to the courts. From a theological perspective, saving face is worldly and trivial. Get your priorities straight. 

vi) There is, though, the remaining issue of scandalizing unbelievers. Giving Christianity a bad reputation by very public, very acrimonious infighting. Should all that be kept behind closed doors?

One question involves the potential distinction between small-town pastors and prominent Christian leaders or Christian institutions. Are these disputes which would become a matter of public record anyway if the participants are sufficiently high-profile figures or institutions? 

There's a difference between unbelievers learning about a dispute that would remain private unless Christians publicized it, and Christians publicly commenting on a dispute that has already become a matter of notoriety. 

vii) Apropos (vi), public Christian commentary can put a dispute into perspective. Offset scandal by correcting secular misrepresentations of the dispute. Or distancing themselves from ecclesiastical misconduct to demonstrate that it's unfair to tar all Christians with the same brush. There's no Christian omertà.

viii) The official channels of church discipline are sometimes a mechanism to coverup misconduct. Sometimes the Internet functions as an independent accountability system: an external check when official channels are derelict.

ix) That said, this can be a pretext for malicious gossip, character assassination, and scurrilous rumor-mongering. Some people just want a forum in which to vent, to unload.

However, Leithart's admonition will fall on deaf ears where they are concerned. So it's a familiar conundrum, where the people who need to hear it won't listen while those who listen don't need to hear it. Responsible people don't need lectures on responsibility while irresponsible people won't heed it. 

x) The Internet is a megaphone that amplifies the good and the bad alike. It's a form of self-publishing. In the past, you needed a publisher to do what anyone can now do with a computer and internet access. Nothing is new in principle: it's a difference in scale.

These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me

Some Protestants don’t view Roman Catholics as Christians, and won’t acknowledge the Roman Catholic Church as a true church. A Reformational Catholic regards Catholics as brothers, and regrets the need to modify that brotherhood as “separated.” To a Reformational Catholic, it’s blindingly obvious that there’s a billion-member Church of Jesus Christ centered in Rome. Because it regards the Roman Catholic Church as barely Christian, Protestantism leaves Roman Catholicism to its own devices. “They” had a pedophilia scandal, and “they” have a controversial pope. A Reformational Catholic recognizes that turmoil in the Roman Catholic Church is turmoil in his own family. 

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/11/the-end-of-protestantism

So does Leithart think the pope is his pope? Some people formally convert to Roman Catholicism, but Leithart illustrates the fact you can cross the Tiber in your heart. In his heart, he's already a child of Rome. So what's he still doing in the PCA? 

"The End of Protestantism"

I'm going to comment on this post:

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/11/the-end-of-protestantism

When I studied at Cambridge, I discovered that English Evangelicals define themselves over against the Church of England. Whatever the C of E is, they ain’t.

Since most English Evangelicals are Evangelical Anglicans, his statement is demonstrably false.

What I’m calling “Protestantism” does the same with Roman Catholicism. Protestantism is a negative theology; a Protestant is a not-Catholic. Whatever Catholics say or do, the Protestant does and says as close to the opposite as he can.

That wasn't even true of the Protestant Reformers, who were ex-Catholics. They had a positive identity. They defined themselves in reference to the faith of the Old and New Testaments. And, with due qualifications, they identified with certain church fathers. 

Leithart's statement is even more inaccurate this far down the pike. Protestant theology has continued to develop internally. It's focus on Scripture has meant continuous engagement and reengagement with the text of Scripture. To pick some names at random, it's preposterous to say Tom Schreiner, Darrell Bock, Bruce Waltke, Desi Alexander, Jim Hamilton, Daniel Block, D. A. Carson, John Currid, Gregory Beale, Frank Thielman, Peter O'Brien, J. A. Motyer, and O. Palmer Robertson are defined by their opposition to Roman Catholicism.  

A Protestant exaggerates his distance from Roman Catholicism on every point of theology and practice, and is skeptical of Roman Catholics who say that they believe in salvation by grace. 

That's because, when Roman Catholics say they are saved by grace, we read the fine print. The riders.  

A Protestant believes (old-fashioned) Roman Catholic claims about its changeless stability. A Reformational Catholic knows that the Roman Catholicism has changed and is changing.

Which doesn't mean it's changing for the better.

Some Protestants don’t view Roman Catholics as Christians, and won’t acknowledge the Roman Catholic Church as a true church. 

For good reason. 

A Reformational Catholic regards Catholics as brothers, and regrets the need to modify that brotherhood as “separated.”

Leithard is unwittingly giving us reasons not to be Reformational Catholics. 

 To a Reformational Catholic, it’s blindingly obvious that there’s a billion-member Church of Jesus Christ centered in Rome. 

Which says everything about Leithart's values, and nothing about the church of Rome. 

Because it regards the Roman Catholic Church as barely Christian, Protestantism leaves Roman Catholicism to its own devices. “They” had a pedophilia scandal, and “they” have a controversial pope. A Reformational Catholic recognizes that turmoil in the Roman Catholic Church is turmoil in his own family.

First of all, why the past tense. They had a pedophilia scandal? That's not a thing of the past.

They have it, in part due to their policy of mandatory priestly celibacy, and in part due to a permissive theology that's all about unconditional forgiveness. 

That's not a case of turmoil in the Protestant family unless your denomination has the same theology and/or policy. 

A Protestant views the Church as an instrument for individual salvation. A Reformational Catholic believes salvation is inherently social.

Societies aren't justified by faith. Individuals are. Societies aren't redeemed by the penal substitution of Christ. Individuals are. Societies don't go to heaven or hell when they pass away. Individuals do. 

A Protestant’s heroes are Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and their heirs.

To the extent that I have a "hero," that would be Jesus. 

 If he acknowledges any ancestry before the Reformation, they are proto-Protestants like Hus and Wycliffe. A Reformational Catholic gratefully receives the history of the entire Church as his history, and, along with the Reformers, he honors Augustine and Gregory the Great and the Cappadocians, Alcuin and Rabanus Maurus, Thomas and Bonaventure, Dominic and Francis and Dante, Ignatius and Teresa of Avila, Chesterton, de Lubac and Congar as fathers, brothers, and sisters. A Reformational Catholic knows some of his ancestors were deeply flawed but won’t delete them from the family tree. He knows every family has its embarrassments.

Ignatius Loyola was the spearhead of the Counter-Reformation. He was militantly anti-Protestant. 

Protestants are suspicious of a public, “Constantinian” church. 

That's a matter of definition.

A Protestant mocks patristic and medieval biblical interpretation and finds safety in grammatical-historical exegesis.

Modern Catholic Bible scholars like Raymond Brown, Joseph Fitzmyer, John Meier, John Collins, Luke Timothy Johnson are scarcely any different.    

A Reformational Catholic revels in the riches, even while he puzzles over the oddities, of Augustine and Origen, Bernard and Bede. He knows there are unplumbed depths in Scripture, never dreamt of by Luther and Calvin.

When you adopt the hermeneutics of Origin, Augustine, and Bernard, et al., you're not plumbing the depths of Scripture. At best, your plumbing the depths of Origin, Augustine, and Bernard. What they project onto Scripture. You're exploring their minds rather than the minds of the Bible writers. 

When Leithard turns to the fanciful, allegorical expositions of Origin or Bernard to discover the depths of Scripture, he's inadvertently disclosing that he thinks Scripture is shallow. It has to be supplemented by pious nonsense. 

In addition, life is short. If you spread yourself as thin as Leithard, something has to give. The more time you spend on Bernard or Teresa of Avila, the less time you have for Scripture, or a serious commentary on Scripture. And by looking for direction from the wrong guides, he is missing out on the truly unplumbed deaths of Scripture.

A Protestant wears a jacket and tie, or a Mickey Mouse t-shirt, to lead worship; a Reformational Catholic is vested in cassock and stole. 

Did Jesus wear a cassock and stole at the Last Supper? Or did he wear his ordinary work clothes? 

To a Protestant, a sacrament is an aid to memory. 

Sounds good to me. 

A Reformational Catholic believes that Jesus baptizes and gives himself as food to the faithful, and doesn’t avoid speaking of “Eucharist” or “Mass” just because Roman Catholics use those words.

I don't avoid the word Eucharist. However, the "Mass" is a brand name. No point calling a communion service a "Mass" unless you espouse the theology of the Mass. 

Protestantism has had a good run. It remade Europe and made America. It inspired global missions, soup kitchens, church plants, and colleges in the four corners of the earth. But the world and the Church have changed, and Protestantism isn’t what the Church, including Protestants themselves, needs today. It’s time to turn the protest against Protestantism and to envision a new way of being heirs of the Reformation, a new way that happens to conform to the original Catholic vision of the Reformers.

Well, Jesus warned us to be very particular about our spiritual genealogy:

29 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30 saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers (Mt 23:29-32).

Jason Stellman’s failure as a prosecutor led to the Leithart acquittal

I know there is a lot of disappointment among PCA members over the what essentially is the decision to let a lower-court verdict stand.

Over at the Green Baggins discussion of the Peter Leithart case, Ron DiGiacomo is clearly making the most lucid comments:

To suggest that the SJC should have taken into account any evidence other than the trial itself is to undermine one’s right to a trial. In other words, evidence is never to be considered so incriminating as to allow for an immediate conviction without a trial. Accordingly, it would have been inappropriate for the SJC to arrive at a guilty verdict based upon arguments not formulated by the Presbytery. To have done so would have been for the SJC to try the case without having to undergo rebuttal and cross-examination, a clear violation of Leithart’s rights.

The failure is Jason Stellman’s failure as a prosecutor:

[Peter Leithart] essentially denied on the stand what FV has gone on record affirming. All that is left to do at that point is to pepper the defendant with questions regarding inconsistency in view of previously written (or stated) Roman Catholic tendencies. That did not happen and that was Jason’s job. Consequently, the SJC was left with too many uninterpreted brute particulars that were not fleshed out with formal argumentation. Again, to have drawn their own conclusions based upon arguments that were never formulated would have been to put PL on trial without the right of a defense attorney. We’re Presbyterian not papists.

Understanding the “Federal Vision”

In light of the recent articles I’ve posted, commenting on a couple of Peter Leithart’s articles, I found this article by Dr Alan Strange, a professor at Mid-America Theological Seminary, which provides a brief overview of the history and theologies of the “Federal Vision” advocates. I know that reams and reams have been written about this topic, but it’s still rumbling around “out there” (and maybe even a little closer to home), and it never hurts to have a bit of background on these things.

The movement that has come to be known as the “Federal Vision” came to the attention of many in Presbyterian and Reformed circles following a pastor’s conference at Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Monroe, Louisiana, in January 2002. The word federal means “covenantal.” Federal Vision proponents seek to revitalize and develop the doctrines of the covenant and the church.

There are some legitimate concerns that the Federal Vision has raised, especially in our current ecclesiastical context. Being afflicted as we are, in this land, with a low view of the church, the Federal Vision proponents strike significant chords in support of a high view of the means of grace and of the visible church. They eschew a view of the church that would stress the invisible at the expense of the visible and that would exalt the individual and the subjective above the corporate and the objective. They rightly observe that much of the church is afflicted with a low view of the means of grace (especially preaching and the sacraments), the obligation to live holy lives, and the inseparability of justification and sanctification. The solution to these problems, however, lies in the historic Reformed faith at its best. While even Reformed and Presbyterian churches may suffer from what ails the broader body of evangelical churches, they do so not because of their theology but in spite of it.

The problem with the Federal Vision is its tendency to overreact to problems in broader evangelicalism and in certain Reformed circles. For example, subjectivism is rejected by embracing an exaggerated objectivism. The proponents of the whole Federal Vision program routinely seek a theological fix for problems that ought to be addressed pastorally. It seems to be thought that the problems must reflect shortcomings in Reformed theology, when in fact they reflect shortcomings in Reformed practice. There’s nothing wrong with our theology, except that we fail to live up to it. Our standards are not deficient; rather, our deportment is. Too often we fail to be in practice who we truly are in Christ. The solution to lives that are not what they should be is not theological reformulation, as Federal Vision proponents would claim, but faithful living within our already well-developed theological system. It is the best expression of Scripture that the church has, by God’s guidance and grace, developed thus far.

Twenty errors that are held by one or more advocates of the Federal Vision are listed in the conclusion of the report of the OPC’s Committee to Study the Doctrine of Justification:

1.       Pitting Scripture and Confession against each other.

2.       Regarding the enterprise of systematic theology as inherently rationalistic.

3.       A mono-covenantalism that sees one covenant, originating in the intra-Trinitarian fellowship, into which man is invited, thus flattening the concept of covenant and denying the distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.

4.       Election as primarily corporate and eclipsed by covenant.

5.       Seeing covenant as only conditional.

6.       A denial of the covenant of works and of the fact that Adam was in a relationship with God that was legal as well as filial.

7.       A denial of a covenant of grace distinct from the covenant of works.

8.       A denial that the law given in Eden is the same as that more fully published at Mt. Sinai and that it requires perfect obedience.

9.       Viewing righteousness as relational, not moral.

10.   A failure to make clear the difference between our faith and Christ’s.

11.   A denial of the imputation of the active obedience of Christ in our justification.

12.   Defining justification exclusively as the forgiveness of sins.

13.   The reduction of justification to Gentile inclusion.

14.   Including works (by use of “faithfulness,” “obedience,” etc.) in the very definition of faith.

15.   Failing to affirm an infallible perseverance and the indefectibility of grace.

16.   Teaching baptismal regeneration.

17.   Denying the validity of the concept of the invisible church.

18.   An overly objectified sacramental efficacy that downplays the need for faith and that tends toward an ex opere operato [automatically effective] view of the sacraments.

19.   Teaching paedocommunion.

20.   Ecclesiology that eclipses and swallows up soteriology.

Some of these points, to be sure, warrant elaboration more than others….

http://www.opc.org/nh.html?article_id=478

For More Information.

“Baiticum and Switchorum”

I wrote this as a comment in another forum, but it has application in talking about my recent posts about Peter Leithart.

I recall an article written with some distress by the late John Richard Neuhaus in his “Public Square” column entitled Setback in Rome, regarding Rome having squelched some aspect of “progress” regarding the “Joint Declaration” with the Lutherans. And I recall writing somewhere that there will always be “setback in Rome”. Here’s that bold ecumenist, Neuhaus:

These developments received considerable play in the general media with stories about an “historic agreement” on the chief doctrine that had separated Lutherans and Catholics for almost five hundred years. The reality is somewhat more complicated than that.

Rome did officially “receive” JD in the sense that it affirmed that very significant progress had been made in removing past misunderstandings, and in moving toward full agreement on what it means to say that the sinner is justified by faith. However, many of the Catholics and Lutherans involved in producing JD are saying—mainly off the record, for the present—that the Roman response is, in the most important respects, a rejection of the declaration. JD proposed that, with the new understandings achieved by the dialogue, the mutual condemnations of the sixteenth century no longer apply, and remaining differences over the doctrine of justification are not church-dividing. The Roman statement does not accept that proposal.

It would be an understatement to say that the theologians involved in the dialogue, both Lutheran and Catholic, were taken aback by the Roman response. During the process, Rome had indicated problems with aspects of the declaration and, almost up to the last minute, revisions were made to take those concerns into account. The participants in the dialogue thought they had been assured that JD would be approved by Rome. Certainly that was the understanding that informed the LWF’s approval of the declaration. In the immediate aftermath of the statement by CDF and CCU, the mood among dialogue participants was bitter and despondent. One Lutheran pioneer of the dialogue declared that the theologians, both Lutheran and Catholic, had been “betrayed” by Rome. For decades to come, he predicted, it would be impossible to reestablish confidence in any theological dialogue with the Catholic Church.

The reasons for this are many. First, any “agreement” with Rome is no good except that you swallow the whole Roman ball of wax. I wrote about it in this blog post, and more recently, you will see what I mean in this post from the Anglican Contiuum blog,“Baitticum and Switchorum”, regarding the Roman initiative “Anglicanorum Coetibus” which offers Anglicans the opportunity, sort of, to become Roman Catholics while retaining their identity as Anglicans. Except, as this Anglican writer noted (and has written extensively about), no matter what overtures are made, you accept Rome on Rome’s terms. If Rome leads you to think you can make nice with Rome on any terms other than Rome’s, it is offering you a bait and switch. [But that's ok, because dishonesty in the service of Mother Rome is acceptable.]

The Reformation occurred within a specific historical era, with very sharp doctrinal lines being drawn. Even Martin Luther was clear about that. It’s not like “we've got liturgical errors, they've got liturgical errors”, and so our errors are just a wash. In the midst of it were genuine doctrinal disputes. Someone was right, someone was wrong. And from a Scriptural point of view (not just “my interpretation” but the broad interpretation of the entire Protestant world, as well as the Orthdox world), Rome is wrong on a number of things.

Further to that, Rome didn't make an attempt to explain its own doctrines as “correct”. It asserted authority. It said, “We're in authority, and what we say, goes”. That's a bogus way to do business.

Accepting Rome on Rome’s terms is no good at all in the historical situation of the ongoing Reformation. Rome has not made a single doctrinal concession since the time of the Reformation, and in fact, in the Vatican I era, it entrenched its own bankrupt position.

Vatican II put a pretty face on, but its situation, vis-à-vis the truth of the gospel, has gotten worse, not better. But Leithart seems to be rushing full steam ahead, unaware of these types of warnings, and worse, he’s in a position to suck believers down with him.

In reality, I do not believe we should be negotiating with Roman Catholics in any way. Looking for “areas of agreement” is not in any way going to solve the problem addressed by the Reformation. I recognize that some Reformed Protestants know Roman Catholics, and we should not fail to interact with them in the world – at work, in our neighborhoods, in the voting booth. But we should never cease to understand that not only is the official “Roman Catholic Church” officially an apostate, but it is dogmatically committed to its own position. One might appreciate Leithart’s efforts to be friendly, but it seems to me that any efforts to try to somehow “find agreement” with Rome, while still trying to retain some semblance of a Reformational posture, is naive at best.

Leithart hides part of the story, and invites Christians to share in a fool’s folly.

Peter Leithart wrote:

If Israel and Judah figure the divided church, then we should expect to find First- or Second-Word sins on both sides of the divide. Protestants have their own liturgical sins to repent of, and I have spent a good bit of energy over the years identifying those sins and urging Protestants to liturgical faithfulness. One of the persistent sins of Protestants is the very same as the charge I lodged against Catholics and Orthodox: By restricting the Lord’s table to their own kind, they have claimed the right to determine the terms of access to the meal of Jesus. They have in effect treated Jesus’ table, a table for all who belong to Him, as their own.

With this figural history in mind, we also have a basis for celebrating the faithfulness of men and women in parts of the church where liturgical idolatry remains in place. I have often said that I regard John Paul II as the greatest Christian leader of the last century; yet I would also add that, like Asa and Jehoshaphat, he did not remove the high places. Henri de Lubac and Yves Congar are among my favorite theologians, and their labors cast down idols and falsehoods; yet they did not remove the high places. Alexander Schmemann is a prophet to Orthodoxy, and another of my favorite theologians; yet he did not call for a removal of the high places. These and other great figures in recent Catholicism and Orthodoxy are my brothers; yet they did not push their reforms to the limit. They did not remove the high places.

Eventually, kings arose who did remove the high places – Hezekiah and Josiah. And the latter not only removed the high places in Judah but also destroyed the shrine of Jeroboam at Bethel (2 Kings 23:15-20) and other high places throughout the northern territories (2 Kings 23:19; 2 Chronicles 34:33). That is to say, his purge of the land extended into the territory that once belonged to the northern kingdom of Judah. When he organized the great Passover in his 18th year, Josiah not only gathered the people of Judah but invited the people of the conquered northern kingdom as well: The feast was celebrated by “all Israel and Judah who were present” (2 Chronicles 35:16-19). One can imagine that not everyone liked what Josiah was doing: Israelites from the north might complain about the arrogance of the Davidic king asserting his power in their lands; Judahites in the south would no doubt be hesitant to share a Passover with former calf worshipers of the north. But it happened: After centuries of political and liturgical division, Israel and Judah were reconstituted as one people – as “all Israel” – at a great feast.

Josiah’s reign gives us a vision of the church’s future devoutly to be wished: Brothers separated for centuries sharing one table; a divided people guilty of multiple idolatries restored to fellowship with God and with one another. If the history of Israel figures the history of the divided church, Josiah’s reign gives hope that the rending of the corporate body of Jesus is not permanent, and that like the rending of Jesus on the cross it will in time be followed by a glorious corporate resurrection.

Are we in a “Josiah moment” when the divided church can finally share a single feast? I believe there are signs that it is such a moment. If it is, then the agenda for every branch of the church is the double agenda of Josiah: Remove the idols, whatever they are, tear down the high places, and join with all brothers and sisters at the one table of the one Lord.

There are parallels between the divided church of today and the situation that Leithart is writing about. But Leithart does not give the whole story. As I asked in my previous post, is he being dishonest, or just not all that bright? As it turns out, King Josiah did celebrate a feast with “all Israel and Judah who were present”. But the Biblical account does not show Josiah to be wise for having done so. In fact, it sort of confirms that he was a fool.  Just two verses later, Chronicles says:

Josiah did not turn away from him, but disguised himself in order to fight with him. He did not listen to the words of Neco from the mouth of God, but came to fight in the plain of Megiddo. And the archers shot King Josiah. And the king said to his servants, “Take me away, for I am badly wounded.” So his servants took him out of the chariot and carried him in his second chariot and brought him to Jerusalem. And he died and was buried in the tombs of his fathers. All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. Jeremiah also uttered a lament for Josiah; and all the singing men and singing women have spoken of Josiah in their laments to this day. They made these a rule in Israel; behold, they are written in the Laments. Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and his good deeds according to what is written in the Law of the Lord, and his acts, first and last, behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah.

The thing about Josiah – he did not listen to the Word of the Lord. And he died a fool’s death. 

Is Peter Leithart dishonest, or just not all that bright?

Peter Leithart has responded to the responses to his blog post Too Catholic to be Catholic; maybe mine was one of them, I don’t know.

                                                                    

He closed that piece with speculations about what some potential future unity in the church might look like. And he opened this response with “Given what I’ve seen of some of the responses, though, it will be helpful for me to clarify and elaborate briefly the biblical framework I assume for thinking through the problem of the divided church.  That framework is taken largely from the history of the divided kingdom of Israel as it’s recorded in 1-2 Kings”.

It does seem fair to make some comparisons between “the divided church of today” and the divided nation of Israel in 1 and 2 Kings. He says:

The theological history of 1-2 Kings gives an overall model for thinking about a church that is genuinely divided; it explains how I can describe Catholics and Orthodox as brothers and sisters while at the same time accusing them of liturgical idolatry; in the end, 1-2 Kings (with some parallels from 1-2 Chronicles) gives hope that the division of the church is not permanent, and that we will all one day share a great Passover, such as there never was in Israel (2 Kings 23:22).

But one thinks that Leithart spends too much time with non-Protestants, given that his definition of the word “church” seems to be shaped by theirs:

The idea is common on all sides of the divided church that there is in fact no divided church.  Some Protestants unchurch Catholics and Orthodox; on this view, Protestants constitute the only true, pure church, [the WCF certainly does not say this] and therefore the line that divides Protestants from Catholics and Orthodox is not a line that runs through the middle of the church.  It’s instead a line that runs between church (Protestants) and non-church (everybody else).  There are forms of the same idea in both Catholicism and Orthodoxy, though since Vatican II the Catholic church has acknowledged that while the church subsists in Catholicism, “many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure” (Lumen Gentium, 8) and has famously recognized that some outside the Catholic church are “brothers,” albeit separated ones.

While he notes that the Vatican II version is “altogether too sanguine a view”, “from the perspective of 1-2 Kings”, he still suggests that “If my church is the only church, then there’s no tragic division within Christendom, no rent in the fabric, to tearing of Christ’s body.  1-2 Kings gives us no such comfort: Christ has been divided in our divisions”.

Two things at this point. Christ is NOT divided. And to see some kind of “line” that Leithart posits is NOT a historically Protestant way of understanding “what the church is”. [To be sure, there is a “dividing line” between truth and untruth, but that continuum is a whole separate category from what is “church” and what is “unchurch”.]

WCF 25 says:

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”…. This catholic Church hath been sometimes more, sometimes less, visible. And particular Churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them.

There is no line, and “we” are not the ones who determine who is “church” and what is “unchurched”. The important thing to keep in mind is, to quote a verse, it is Christ who builds the church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, as WCF 25:5 says:

 The purest Churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error: and some have so degenerated as to become apparently no Churches of Christ. Nevertheless, there shall be always a Church on earth, to worship God according to his will.

It is altogether too “Catholic” to think that there is somehow a line that runs somewhere, and that’s what determines what is “church” and what is “unchurch”. Leithart is someone who should understand what the WCF says, and if he is going to continue to try to remain in the PCA, given his sensitivities, he ought to at least pay some lip service to this definition of “church”. But instead, he just makes a huge concession to the “Cathodox” view of what the church is. 

Is he doing this on purpose? Or is he just not capable of making this kind of distinction?

Note to Peter Leithart: The Reformation was the Rescue

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. – Jesus of Nazareth

We must never forget this. It is Christ Himself who does the unifying in the church.

There is pious-sounding tripe all over the place, and we live in an era when people don’t, by and large, think. They skim, they skip, they form impressions based on the most superficial of considerations. That’s one of the reasons why I try to be as blunt as I can. I know it’s a Presbyterian tradition to try to see things in their most “charitable” light.

But there is such a thing as going too far in the wrong direction.

It is Christ who draws all people to himself. The universality of the church comes from the fact that there are Christians who are united to Christ from all parts of the earth. There are churches all over the earth. The unity of “the Church” is the unity that comes from following Christ, from each of them being in “union with Christ”. It is not a kind of unity that our meager efforts can effect. It is certainly not the kind of unity that comes from pious-sounding drivel of the kind that we hear from Peter Leithart.

Here’s an article by Leithart, where he stumbles all over himself, trying to drum up some “Protestant street cred”. But Leithart contradicts himself all over the place. He says:

I agree with the standard Protestant objections to Catholicism and Orthodoxy: Certain Catholic teachings and practices obscure the free grace of God in Jesus Christ; prayers through Mary and the saints are not encouraged or permitted by Scripture, and they distract from the one Mediator, Jesus; I do not accept the Papal claims of Vatican I; I believe iconodules violate the second commandment by engaging in liturgical idolatry; venerating the Host is also liturgical idolatry; in both Catholicism and Orthodoxy, tradition muzzles the word of God.

Let’s see, “obscuring free grace”, “distracting from the Mediator”, “Papal claims of Vatican I”, “violate the second commandment”, “engage in idolatry”, “muzzle the word of God” …

Those who are against us are against us.

These are not people who, by and large, one ought to be seeking “unity” with. If we are “divided” from them, they are the cause of the divisions. Catering to them, pandering to them, is not going to help them avoid making those errors. Rather, Leithart is encouraging them in their errors. He gives them cover for their errors.

How many evangelicals have started reading someone like Leithart, only to start losing their Protestant identity, and eventually wander off into Rome or Constantinople? Leithart’s pious-sounding messaging is playing havoc with some people.

Leithart says:

The division of the church, especially since the Reformation, has largely been a story of horror and tragedy, with the occasional act of faithful separation thrown in.  I regard the division of the church as one of the great evils of the modern world, which has seen more than its share of evils (many of which are, I believe, quite closely related to the division of the church).  What more horrific sight can we imagine than to see Christ again crucified?  Christ is not divided.  I think our main response to this half-millennium of Western division, and millennium-plus of East-West division should be deep mourning and repentance.

Note to Peter Leithart: The trouble and division already existed, thanks to your Catholic and Orthodox friends. It was the Roman church that was “one of the great evils in the world”. The Reformation was nothing less than the Triumph of the Gospel, re-asserting itself over the actual “horror and tragedy” that the Medieval Roman Church had become. The Reformation was the rescue.

Christ is NOT again crucified in the Reformation. More than at any time perhaps since the Apostolic era, Christ Crucified is proclaimed as He should be in the Reformation. It is the Roman Catholic Church today which, by its very doctrines, denies that Christ crucified is the only source of our grace.

Catholicism and Orthodoxy are impressive for their heritage, the seriousness of much of their theology, the seriousness with which they take Christian cultural engagement.  Both, especially the Catholic church, are impressive for their sheer size. 

The seriousness of their theology? Let’s see, “obscuring grace”, “distracting from the Mediator”, “Papal claims of Vatican I”, “violate the second commandment”, “engage in idolatry”, “muzzle the word of God” …

Not much to take seriously there. And by and large, Roman Catholics, especially in America, simply ignore all that “serious theology” most of them being merely “cultural Catholics”, most of them ignoring “Papal teaching” on contraception. They pay lip service to Rome. In many ways, their attitude toward Rome is more commendable than your own. 

As for their impressive heritage, the church was naked and persecuted before it inherited the Roman Empire. And what did they do with it? See the Dark Ages. See the schisms and the boasting of the Medieval Roman Church.

But when I attend Mass and am denied access to the table of my Lord Jesus together with my Catholic brothers, I can’t help wondering what really is the difference between Catholics and the Wisconsin Synod Lutherans or the Continental Reformed who practice closed communion.  My Catholic friends take offense at this, but I can’t escape it: Size and history apart, how is Catholicism different from a gigantic sect? 

Note to Peter Leithart: Do you really think the Roman Catholic Mass is “the table of the Lord”? What about the “liturgical idolatry” you spoke of? Does that factor in any way into your statement? 

                       

To become Catholic I would [have] to contract my ecclesial world.  I would have to become less catholic – less catholic than Jesus is.  Which is why I will continue to say: I’m too catholic to become Catholic.

In one sense, the word “catholic” means “universal”. But again, this “universal” nature is because of the greatness and largeness of Christ, not because we try to be nice to those who obscure free grace, distract from the Mediator, make grandiose claims, violate the second commandment, engage in idolatry, and otherwise, in many other ways, muzzle the word of God …

What about simply calling a thing what it is?