Roman Catholicism

Some lives never make sense until we realize the man can't get out of his nuclear reactor mode. The choices of such men concerning their religion only begin to be comprehensible when we understand this man is one of the many today who can never get far enough away from the indignities he suffered being raised Baptist. The simplicity of the Biblical Christian faith his father and mother subjected him to as a child is so embarrassing he can't seem to do enough to heal his humiliation.

He keeps running and running away, almost always toward that first choice of the superstitious man with a tender conscience—sacramentalism. Typically, these men start transitioning by becoming Presbyterian. If their new Presbyterian pastor and elders are themselves former Baptists also, the man may find his sacramentalist itch scratched sufficiently that he's able to stay in his new church. If his new pastor and elders are historically Reformed, though, and have read the Reformers, after a little while the man will not be able to stand the Reformed church's fencing of the Lord's Table and he'll start to howl in anger over...

NYT's David Brooks is so very precious about buggery. My friend Mark Albrecht forwarded a link to Brooks's latest piece dissing Rod Dreher's exquisitely titled "The Benedict Option" while flattering Dreher for writing the most important book on religion in ten years. He points out twice in his three-minute read that he disagrees with Dreher's opposition to buggery.

Noted.

Noted again.

Dreher thinks the inspiration for his book's title is the sixth century founder of the Benedictine monastic order who wrote...

Whether its leaders see it or not, Federal Vision has always been a pilgrimage to Rome. Objectivity of the covenant, covenant succession, paedocommunion, celebrations of the Lord's Supper without preaching of the Word, patriarchal fathers communing their wives and children; taken together, we have a path of greased lightning to Rome's sacramentalism, but you'll never get Federal Vision leaders to admit it.

What is Federal Vision? Murkiness and imprecision.

Over a decade ago, I asked my friend Vern Poythress what he thought of Federal Vision and he responded, "You know, I don't think I understand it."

If you know anything about Vern, the one thing certain is that...

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:2)

The Roman Catholic Church exists to dispense sacraments. Roman Catholics are taught that they are saved by their own righteousness—not the righteousness of Jesus Christ—and the principal way to get all the righteousness they need is to get their priest to give them the sacraments. The principal sacrament is the Mass, so when women who have had abortions are barred from the Mass, it's a really big deal. 1

Which is the reason today's announcement that Pope Francis has finally granted parish priests the right to forgive the sin of abortion is a really big deal...

“If you want to compare with our Protestant brethren, probably Catholic churches are, on average, more expensive,” said architect Duncan Stroik, a member of the faculty at University of Notre Dame and a leading expert on Catholic architecture. “They should be, since we believe they are sacramental architecture and houses of God. Buildings are catechism in bricks, mortar and glass.” - Why Church Construction Costs More For Catholics Than Protestants

We're adding 60,000 square feet to our church-house and the precast walls started arriving today, semi after semi after semi after semi. The semis backed up inside the shell of the building and then these wall pieces were lifted off the semi and set in place by a crane, after which they were anchored by the work_ _ _.1

Some pastors want monuments that will pander to the egos of their rich and proud congregations. Some want precast concrete at less than $50 per square foot completed. This was the cost of our first phase.

Compare this with the average cost of $167 per square foot for church buildings back in 2013. We're not sure yet what our figures will be when this second phase is completed, but we expect it won't be much more than...

On December 10, 2015, one month ago, the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews released a statement on the relationship of Roman Catholicism and Judaism titled, The Gifts and the Calling of God Are Irrevocable (Romans 11:29): A Reflection on Theological Questions Pertaining to Catholic-Jewish Relations on the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of "Nostra Aetate" (No. 4).

What is this document whose 50th anniversary is being celebrated?

Nostra Aetate is a statement on interreligious relations which came out of Roman Catholicism's most recent ecumenical council, Vatican II. Nostra Aetate is most notable for laying a groundwork for the Vatican's recent and growing repudiation of evangelism of the Jews. Nostra Aetate exhibits the typical post-Holocaust pandering to the Jews in its declarations that "what happened in [Christ's] passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today."

Tell that to the Apostles preaching in the book of Acts.

Nostra Aetate also declares: "the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God." Also, "the Church believes that by His cross Christ, Our Peace, reconciled Jews and Gentiles. making both one in Himself."

Since Nostra Aetate, the Vatican has been undercutting the Church's historic call to Jews to repent of their part in the persecution and murder of their Messiah, and to turn and believe in His Name. Historically, the Christian Church has patterned our witness to the Jews after the Apostolic sermons preached to the Jews which are recorded for us in Acts. Take, for instance, this record of the sermon preached by the Apostle Peter...

Here is a taste of the abuse Zwingli suffers at the keyboards of the Covenant Renewal Worship, Federal Vision men, these excerpts from that self-styled "Reformed theologian," Peter Leithart:

...the most obvious sleight of hand here is to make Zwingli stand in for the Reformers as a whole. How many readers will realize that Luther vociferously battled Zwingli (and hence stood on the side of “sacramentality”), and that Calvin was equally opposed to Zwinglianism? Gregory makes it sound as if Zwingli’s admittedly dualist eucharistic theology was the most logical outcome of Protestant metaphysics. In fact, many of the Reformers rejected Zwingli.

And...

Responding to the post titled, "Worship wars: Jeff Meyers and Peter Leithart have won...", one brother comments:

Surely the issue is not how often, but simply "how"? Weekly communion is Reformed (Calvin). Communion without a sermon, communion which is somehow emphasized at the expense of the sermon, communion in which there is any adoration of the elements, any concern that "Jesus is being spilled," etc., communion which is understood and presented as repetition of the sacrifice of Christ—or anything approaching that—is not.

I respond: Most of the things you highlight have been Reformed commitments from the beginning. The pairing of weekly communion and paedocommunion have not. Each without the other would have less of an implication for Reformed worship than both together. And make no mistake about it: both together are a confessional issue to the Covenant Renewal Worship, Federal Vision crowd. Yet there's no precedent for it in Reformed sacramentology or worship.

Everyone likes to say Calvin was for weekly worship, acting as if that supports what the Covenant Renewal Worship, Federal Vision men have done to Reformed sacramentology and worship, but they miss the larger picture. Calvin was for weekly communion, yes; but Geneva's observance of the Lord's Supper was quarterly and Calvin didn't leave Geneva over it. In other words, for Calvin and the Geneva reformers, frequency of communion was adiaphora.

You'll never get the Covenant Renewal Worship, Federal Vision crowd to agree with Calvin on this. For them, weekly communion is anything but adiaphora. To them, weekly communion is a confessional issue and you'll know it because you'll watch as they drive from Geneva to Strasbourg every single Lord's Day to get their family...

CORRECTION: One reader points out that Bowdoin is not in Boston. He's right and I should have written the headline "Boston's philosopher..." The prof's frame of reference is Boston although she doesn't live in Boston. I haven't altered the title because links would break.

A friend who's a journalist points out that Boston's archdiocese was once the most powerful archdiocese in North America, so it's particularly significant this piece ran in the Boston Globe. The foundations of Roman Catholicism continue to crumble.

Soon after matriculating at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, I took a job cleaning the walls of a Roman Catholic church near Park Street and the Common. There are good jobs and bad ones. This was bad, but not because of the pay or fellow workers. it was the work itself. Every interior surface of that Roman Catholic church was black with the soot of votive (vow) candles the pious had purchased and burned to the Blessed Virgin Mary, a saint, or sometimes God Himself. Decades of soot. Decades of intentions.

This was the Roman Catholicism that read the Globe back thirty-five years ago, but the Roman Catholic church is changing and the Globe is pedalling hard to keep up. Yesterday they ran an opinion piece written by a prof of philosophy at Bowdoin College and the piece's content takes your breath away. Titled "Here's Why China's One-Child Policy Was a Good Thing," Bowdoin's philosopher told Boston she believes freedom of religion should not extend to freedom to have children. The prof likens the denial of freedom to reproduce to the denial of freedom to yell "Fire!" in a movie theater, telling us that "uncontrolled fertility is likely to have worse consequences than the false cry of 'fire!'"

Why?

Because of...