BatesLine

« Another audit: Criminal Justice Authority blows through $12 million surplus | Main | How to be happy as a homemaker »

March 29, 2005

Is it grace?

UPDATE: After rereading this entry this morning, I thought it seemed rather stream-of-consciousness and so I am reworking it somewhat. I understood in my own mind how all these pieces fit together, but I didn't make the connections very clear. I welcome your comments, particularly if you feel I've been unfair or inaccurate -- or even if you feel I've been incoherent.

Now that I have enabled comments on BatesLine, I've found that I pay closer attention to comments on other blogs and am more likely to post a comment.

I've been intrigued by many of the comment threads over at the Dawn Patrol. As you might expect, the comments there often focus on matters of faith. Dawn uses HaloScan for her blog's comment and trackback mechanism, rather than the built-in Blogger comment feature. HaloScan comments appear in a separate popup window, and as a result comment threads seem to take on a life of their own, a conversation that may end up only tangentially related to the original post. For example, an entry by Dawn about chocolate crosses and candy cross necklaces for sale at a Christian bookstore generated some discussion between several Catholics and a woman who said she used to be a Catholic but is now a Christian, as well as a subthread about Christian music and introducing kids to rock music which included this bon mot from Dawn herself:

People say to me, "You're Christian, you must like Christian music." To me, that's like saying, "You're white, you must like Miracle Whip."

(Assuming she means contemporary Christian music, I agree.)

While I could simply use my own blog to comment on and link to an entry elsewhere, a comment thread can be more of a conversation than trackbacks between blogs. From time to time, I may bring comments from other blogs back here for the sake of elaborating to an extent that would be impolite on someone else's blog. And that's what this entry is about.

(By the way, although I could link directly to a comment, I won't, because you ought to see the entry itself before you read the comments on it, much less post one of your own. Also, where HaloScan is involved, there is no link back to the original post.)

(One more by the way: If I get word from another blogger that someone who found his way from BatesLine to the other blog proceeded to post rude comments over there, the rude commenter will be banned from commenting here as well.)

The entry on the Dawn Patrol was about Terri Schiavo being allowed by her husband to receive communion on Easter. The resulting comment thread shed some light on the differences between Catholic and evangelical teaching on grace and salvation.

A commenter (and blogger) called Nightfly remarked, "At the least it could serve as viaticum for Terri and help save her soul, and that's no small deed." That generated some discussion about the efficacy of sacraments in Catholic teaching, and commenter DC pointed me to this item on the anointing of the sick (which Terri also received) and forgiveness. The author, Jimmy Akin, writes that the sacrament confers forgiveness, but if you receive it when you are unconscious (in a coma, say), then whether it works or not depends on your attitude when you lost consciousness:

Something similar applies here: If, at the time you become unconscious (or at least sub-rational) you are unrepentant for your grave sins then your will is configured in such a way that it creates a barrier blocking the anointing of the sick from conferring sanctifying grace and forgiveness on you. Just as the state of the will at the time of death is determinative of whether you go to heaven or not, so the state of the will at the time you become unconscious (or sub-rational) is determinative of whether the sacrament will confer forgiveness.

He then gives examples: Under this system, you do not want to be committing a Mortal Sin at the moment that someone drives a train spike through your head.

Here's how I responded (with links added for presentation here):

Your link about the Sacrament of Anointing accords with my understanding of the Catholic teaching on grace and salvation -- that ultimately my salvation depends on how good I am at being contrite and applying the appropriate remedies, and if I mess it up, too bad for me. (Catholics aren't alone in this -- the Holiness and Wesleyan traditions also hold that you can lose and regain your salvation, although the remedies for getting re-saved are different.)

It's striking how different that is from what Dawn's mom, Rachel Rose, wrote about grace, faith, and works. Not only was it [what Rachel wrote] beautifully expressed, it was Biblically sound. What I read in Paul's letter to the Romans and elsewhere in the Bible is that Jesus' blood has covered all my sins, even the ones I haven't committed yet, much less repented of, and that because of my faith in Jesus (which itself is a gift from God) God regards me as having the righteousness of Christ, even though I am a sinner. God accomplishes my salvation from first to last, and if any of it depended on me, I'd be doomed. Sadly, what Rachel wrote, and what I just wrote, would bring us under at least one of the anathemas of the Council of Trent.

The Council of Trent was the mid-16th century church council at which the Roman Church made its official response to the Protestant Reformation. Some say that the council effectively established a new faith, as views about salvation which had once been tolerated or even accepted (like Augustine's teaching on grace) within the church were declared to be heresies and those who taught them were declared anathema.

As I wrote that comment, I kept thinking of the phrase, "clothed in Christ's righteousness," and I came across John Piper's 1999 Easter Sunday sermon, in which he takes the final stanza of Charles Wesley's great hymn, "And Can It Be," which begins with the words, "No condemnation now I dread," and shows the biblical truth behind each phrase. Piper says, "This is a one-verse short course in basic Christianity. Every line in this verse is a profound truth taken from the Bible about what it means to be a Christian." Piper goes on to explain how it is that a guilty sinner can stand before a just judge and not fear condemnation. By memorizing that stanza, and the Bible verses that go with each line, you'd have a good outline at the ready to explain to someone the evangelical view of salvation.

For all our clear doctrinal differences with Roman Catholicism, evangelicals have developed greater respect for Roman Catholics and their faith, as we work shoulder-to-shoulder to oppose the Culture of Death. Some evangelicals have found the Roman Church so attractive that they have converted. I can empathize with much of what Michael Spencer, who blogs as the Internet Monk, writes in an essay called, "Yo Ho Ho! A Papist's Life For Me?", subtitled "What are the odds that, before it's all over, I'll become a Catholic?" Spencer is an administrator in a Baptist school, but he confesses a deep attraction:

There is a side of me, a part of my mind especially, that looks longingly at the road to Rome, and wonders if it's not the right road after all. On more than one occasion, I've voiced my wistful longing that I'd been born into Roman Catholicism. I read mail from friends and readers who have converted, and yes, I am slightly envious. Something about Rome does have the scent of home.

He goes into great detail about what he finds attractive in Catholicism. For example:

It's remarkable how many good Protestants, when coming across an Augustine or Merton or Manning or O'Connor, feel like they are stepping from a tiny stream into a mighty river. Now streams are typically more cluttered than rivers, and even though rivers have more pollutants, they are also able to cleanse and dilute their waters. Even so, Catholicism's river, polluted as it may be, still impresses me as being "deep and wide" and containing, within itself, so much that other traditions have never been able to bring together. I will freely admit this appeals to me, and powerfully. ...

I obviously love much about the worship of Roman Catholics. When I worship with the monks at Saint Meinrad, I actually feel I am worshipping with God's church, and not listening to an infomercial. The dignity, beauty and depth of the Catholic liturgy remains even after the ravages of Vatican II and decades of modernistic tinkering. Please, Catholic friends, don't become like the Protestants down the street. Somewhere, pop culture has to be checked before it turns all of Christianity into a stroll in the mall.

And he details what frustrates him about evangelicalism:

I'm tired of Protestantism. I'm tired of every man with his Bible being a little Pope. I'm tired of churches being connected to nothing but the pastor's ego or the denomination's corporate plan for growth. I'm tired of doctrinal differentiation being a required course in every attempt at cooperation.

I'm tired of the circus. Tired of the religious television networks and nutcase excesses of the Pentecostals. I'm tired of the church growth bandwagon, the megachurches and the Christian publishing empires. I'm tired of so darned much attention being paid to music, especially such bad music. I'm tired of evangelism turning everything into manipulation and every person into a trophy or a salesman.

Again, I can empathize. Spencer goes on to present the conclusion of his inner struggle and lists five reasons for that conclusion which cut to the heart of the differences between the two branches of Christian faith. I won't spoil the ending. Just go read it.

Posted by Michael at March 29, 2005 11:14 PM
Technorati Tags:

Tr4ckb4ck P!ngs

To p!ng this entry:
http://www.batesline.com/cgi-bin/mt/gnipgnop.cgi/1401

Comments

I did read it, and it was good. Perhaps it shows my ignorance, but I had no idea that Peter Kreeft had ever been a Protestant. I had read some of his material--especially A REFUTATION OF MORAL RELATIVISM and been impressed with his logical skills and distressed that a person with so massive an intellect could come to such distressingly wrong conclusions (vis-a-vis his catholicism, that is).

I understand the longing of some for the ancient high-church elements Rome preserves. I don't think there is anything wrong with liturgical worship, and the author's point that some of our evangelical practices are somewhat liturgical in nature is well-taken. I also understand that not all catholics are lost; I've held for a long time that many people in most churches have only the vaguest idea what their church's official doctrines are, and things spoken from the pulpit that aren't understood are dismissed, mentally, as professional theological gobbledygook that laymen aren't meant to understand. And I've made the point more than once that Luther didn't leave the Catholic church; he was kicked out. No doubt there are multitudes of other Luthers in the Roman church that haven't been kicked out. But the thing to remember is that Luther was kicked out, and kicked out over his insistence on Biblical salvation. That difference still stands today.

Posted by: Dan Paden at March 30, 2005 12:00 PM

One more small thing: in some of these comments I detect a certain distaste for modern Christian music. Whilst I certainly agree that there is a lot of relatively vapid and sometimes unnecessarily raucous material out there, I feel compelled to point out that there are some very good, very biblical performers out there. I will note this subject in my "get around to" list, and will certainly write a bit about it on mine own l'il blog. Perhaps I'll include some recommendations. Recalling the Latin as best I can, the saying is "Non disputam gustandum est."

Posted by: Dan Paden at March 30, 2005 05:42 PM

Dan, the phrase you're looking for is de gustibus non est disputandum, or if you prefer the French way to say it, chacun à son goût. I would love recommendations for theologically-sound, high-quality contemporary Christian music. At some point in the late '80s or early '90s I completely switched off CCM in favor of classical sacred music and the great 18th century hymnwriters (Watts, Wesley, Newton, etc.).

Back in the early '80s, I enjoyed Steve Taylor and Randy Stonehill. Glad's a capella hymn albums were good. And Bob Bennett's "Matters of the Heart" album is still a favorite; the lyrics mean more the older I get.

Posted by: MichaelBates at March 30, 2005 09:54 PM

You want gospel recommendations, you got gospel recommendations. My tastes lean heavily to material from black churches, so your mileage may vary:

-- Blind Boys of Alabama, "Atom Bomb"
-- Blind Boys of Alabama, "Higher Ground"
-- Blind Boys of Alabama, "Spirit of the Century" (yes, I do like these guys ... and they've been singing the gospel for 60 years)
-- Mavis Staples, "Have a Little Faith"
-- Buddy Miller, "Universal United House of Prayer"
-- "Close Harmony: A History of Southern Gospel Music, Vol. 1"
-- Ruthah Harris, "I Am on the Battlefield"
-- Johnny Cash, "My Mother's Hymn Book" (released shortly before Johnny died)
-- The "Goodbye Babylon" box set of old-time Southern gospel music, including one CD of sermons. The other five CDs are music from the first half of the 20th century. It's pricey, I know where you can probably get a pristine used copy locally.
-- Plus I've got odds and ends, like Josh Turner's "Long Black Train," Mindy Smith's "Come to Jesus" and Aretha Franklin's "Amazing Grace" album from the early 1970s.

If you want, Michael, I can burn you a sampler CD. Let me know offlist from what albums you want to hear, and I can oblige within a few days.

Posted by: Ron at March 31, 2005 10:12 AM

Third Day does some songs that are straight from scripture. There are quite a few more groups but they are one of my favorites. I used to be totally a southern gospel girl but now I'm an avid KXOJ listener. I must say, however, that you can't get any better than AMAZING GRACE or Victory in Jesus, I Love to Tell the Story.......

Posted by: Lucille Abbott at March 31, 2005 12:04 PM

Whoa! Lucille Abbott reads Batesline! Now I know for sure I'm in good company! FWIW, Michael, Lucille and her husband are two of the most talented human beings you will ever meet in your life.

Posted by: Dan Paden at March 31, 2005 05:24 PM

Post a comment