Postscripts From The Catholic Spitfire Grill

Tom Neyhart has stopped by again and left the following comments on this post here where you may read his remarks in their unbroken up form. (And may I just add, that I love it when someone says “Show me!”?):

Tom N. Sorry it has taken awhile to get back to this. I don’t agree with everything ty23 had to say. As you have pointed out there are bad Catholics and I have know several (for lack of a better term) Christian Catholics who were very much Godly people but we do disagree over fundamental doctrine that skews our viewpoints.
When I speak about worship, I am not speaking about music. That is a huge misconception that drives me nuts, even among my own congregation. Worship is a lifestyle of service devoted to God.

Well as happy as I am to see that you do not believe that worship=music, I am curious where you come up with scriptural support that worship is a “lifestyle of service.” You won’t find me disagreeing that serving Our Lord is absolutely essential, but worship in the Bible is always about sacrifice. There was plenty of “lifestyle” associated with being a Jew but it was the sacrificial offerings that were worship. Where does that change in the New Testament?

Tom N: Now about congregational gatherings, the scripture you pointed out from Paul about holding to tradition can be used for all sorts of things. The traditions I hold true to include Prayer, Communion, giving of tithes, teaching, “not forsaking the gathering together as some are in the habit of doing” (Hebrews). My point was that new testament worship was based on worship in the temple and there are not many specific definitions in New Testament scripture that details what that was. There are a few, but not many.

Well for starters we know that the earliest church devoted themselves to the breaking of the bread and to prayers. (Acts 2:42) We know what the earliest Christians wrote about the “breaking of the bread” including St. Ignatius of Antioch (a pupil of St. John the Apostle…a man who was IN THE ROOM when Jesus said “This is my Body…” isn’t what he thinks about this doctrine more persuasive than our own personal interpretation? As a Catholic, what I don’t understand is why Protestants find their scholarly commentaries telling them that “This is My Body…” doesn’t REALLY mean what it says more persuasive than the testimony of a man who sat at the feet of St. John the Apostle? And I am not pointing fingers here. I am a convert. I still do unot nderstand how I managed that little mental disconnect when I was a Protestant. How is it that I never sat down with these questions and really examined them?

Tom N: I think the real issue becomes two things that form the difference in our opinions. 1. I believe Scripture to be the ultimate authority and you believe The Catholic Church to hold a higher authority over the Scriptures based on your response above.

Yes. The Catholic Church exercises authority over Sacred Scripture. She’s the reason you have a table of contents in your Bible. On the other hand, the Catholic Church doesn’t exercise a “higher” authority than Sacred Scripture.  It’s not either Scripture OR the Catholic Church it’s a far more stable relationship of BOTH Scripture AND the Catholic Church and together they form the fidei depositum or ‘deposit of faith.’ The witness of what the Apostles DID and what they SAID (2Thes 3:15) is just as important as what they wrote. Jesus didn’t write a book, He founded a CHURCH and He put the Apostles in charge. He didn’t instruct His Apostles to write a book either or if He did, they were pretty darn disobedient going out and starting the Church and all before writing a book. For what purpose was the canon set in 397CE? What did the men (who were so full of the Holy Spirit that they could recognize was was Scripture and what wasn’t) believe was the purpose of the Church and of Scripture? What did they believe about worship? What did they believe about Apostolic Authority? About the Eucharist? As for what the Catholic Church teaches about the interplay between Sacred Scripture and Tradition which together form the Deposit of Faith, here part of what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches.

I. THE APOSTOLIC TRADITION

75 “Christ the Lord, in whom the entire Revelation of the most high God is summed up, commanded the apostles to preach the Gospel, which had been promised beforehand by the prophets, and which he fulfilled in his own person and promulgated with his own lips. In preaching the Gospel, they were to communicate the gifts of God to all men. This Gospel was to be the source of all saving truth and moral discipline.”³²

In the apostolic preaching. . .

76 In keeping with the Lord’s command, the Gospel was handed on in two ways:

- orally “by the apostles who handed on, by the spoken word of their preaching, by the example they gave, by the institutions they established, what they themselves had received - whether from the lips of Christ, from his way of life and his works, or whether they had learned it at the prompting of the Holy Spirit”;³³

- in writing “by those apostles and other men associated with the apostles who, under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit, committed the message of salvation to writing”.³⁴

. . . continued in apostolic succession

77 “In order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave them their own position of teaching authority.”³⁵ Indeed, “the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved in a continuous line of succession until the end of time.”³⁶

78 This living transmission, accomplished in the Holy Spirit, is called Tradition, since it is distinct from Sacred Scripture, though closely connected to it. Through Tradition, “the Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes.”³⁷ “The sayings of the holy Fathers are a witness to the life-giving presence of this Tradition, showing how its riches are poured out in the practice and life of the Church, in her belief and her prayer.”³⁸

79 The Father’s self-communication made through his Word in the Holy Spirit, remains present and active in the Church: “God, who spoke in the past, continues to converse with the Spouse of his beloved Son. And the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the Gospel rings out in the Church - and through her in the world - leads believers to the full truth, and makes the Word of Christ dwell in them in all its richness.”³⁹

II. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRADITION AND SACRED SCRIPTURE

One common source. . .

80 “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal.”⁴⁰ Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own “always, to the close of the age”.⁴¹

. . . two distinct modes of transmission

81 “Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit.”⁴²

“And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching.”⁴³

82 As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, “does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.”⁴⁴

Apostolic Tradition and ecclesial traditions

83 The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus’ teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy Spirit. The first generation of Christians did not yet have a written New Testament, and the New Testament itself demonstrates the process of living Tradition.

Tradition is to be distinguished from the various theological, disciplinary, liturgical or devotional traditions, born in the local churches over time. These are the particular forms, adapted to different places and times, in which the great Tradition is expressed. In the light of Tradition, these traditions can be retained, modified or even abandoned under the guidance of the Church’s Magisterium.

III. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE HERITAGE OF FAITH

The heritage of faith entrusted to the whole of the Church

84 The apostles entrusted the “Sacred deposit” of the faith (the depositum fidei),⁴⁵ contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, to the whole of the Church. “By adhering to [this heritage] the entire holy people, united to its pastors, remains always faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. So, in maintaining, practicing and professing the faith that has been handed on, there should be a remarkable harmony between the bishops and the faithful.”⁴⁶

The Magisterium of the Church

85 “The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.”⁴⁷ This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.

86 “Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith.”⁴⁸

87 Mindful of Christ’s words to his apostles: “He who hears you, hears me”,⁴⁹ the faithful receive with docility the teachings and directives that their pastors give them in different forms.

May I also suggest reading Dei Verbum which is an excellent exegesis of what the Catholic Church teaches about Scripture, Divine Revelation, and Tradition and the Catholic Church? It isn’t as simple as saying “The Catholic Church just makes up things as it goes along….” Tradition in the capital ‘T’ sense which relates to Dogma such as the Trinity, the Nature of Christ, and the Real Presence ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS draws from Sacred Scripture and sometimes we also look to what the Apostles actually did and taught when we need to figure out if something is symbolic or literal.

Tom N: 2. We do have the ability to interpret Scripture Hebrews chapter 10 shows how Christ died and made the sacrifice as our High Priest, once and for all making us holy.

18 “And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. 19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus,20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,(Jesus Christ) 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

This passage from Hebrews assures us as believers we have access to the most Holy of Holies where once only the High Priest could enter in one time a year. If we are connected to God, and as in Acts, he pours out his spirit upon us, then we do have the ability to read and interpret Scripture.

First, you will notice I bolded the part about a “sincere heart.” You’ve got one of those do you? (Don’t answer that because if you do, I will just start coveting.) I am NOT disputing that Our Lord has cleansed me. I am NOT disputing that I am redeemed or that I have the Holy Spirit. What I am saying is that each of us as individuals has got “sin issues” just like St. Paul did when he wrote the following:

Romans 17:16-25 Now if I do what I do not want, I concur that the law is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if (I) do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand. For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self, but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself, with my mind, serve the law of God but, with my flesh, the law of sin.

Consider also….

Proverbs 20:9 “Who can say “I have made my heart clean, I am cleansed of my sin?

1 John 1:8 If we say “We are without sin”, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

We. All of us….ok most of us and definitely ME…live in the flesh. I want to be obedient. I really and truly do. My father has a Border Terrier. Sweet dog. Willingly obedient. Right up to the moment he sees a squirrel, or a skunk, or a cat….then he’s completely deaf! I confess to you that when my flesh gets in the way, I am every bit as deaf as that stupid dog and when idolatry has me, I am blind as a bat! And as long as I am in the flesh, my heart will be tainted by it. I work daily to die to my flesh and my fleshly desires but until they are all the way dead, I simply cannot rely on my purity of heart for making wise decisions. I am deeply grateful that the Lord has provided other temporal authorities to yank my leash when necessary. Scripture speaks to us as individuals and certainly the Holy Spirit works through Sacred Scripture to speak to us even when the flesh is working overtime. None of us alone can possibly hear the Holy Spirit perfectly which means that we can’t even hear enough to know who is teaching the right thing. Fortunately there is a standard, an authority and that is the Church founded by the apostles. We are warned in Sacred Scripture about false teachers and those who preach a Gospel contrary to what the Apostles taught. Are YOU teaching what the Apostles taught? It isn’t all in the Bible, the Bible says so. (1 Cor 11:2, 2 Thess 2:15, 2 Thess 3:6, Acts 20:35 (A saying of Jesus not in the Gospels), John 21:25, 2 Tim 1:13, 2 Tim 2:2, etc.)The Bible was never set up to be a comprehensive exposition of the faith. Repeatedly in the early centuries the Church was called together in council to deal with heresies. Why call a council if the Scriptures were sufficient? The heretics used the scriptures to make their point….who among us hasn’t had a frustrating conversation or two with a member of a cult using the Bible to make their point? Sure we can say they are interpreting Sacred Scripture incorrectly, but how do we know WE are not doing the same? Because we are so sincere? So pure?….do you SEE how seductive that reasoning is? It is very easy to ascribe sincerity and purity to ourselves and deny it to others because their mistakes in interpretation are so very obvious to us. We’re right but him over there….bless his heart….I’ll pray for him. But how is it that the ONE Holy Spirit leads so many sincere and pure Christians in so many different directions?….and all away from unity. It was the One Church that authoritatively interpreted and defined Sacred Scripture to oppose gnosticism, arianism, nestorianism etc. What ELSE did those same men who correctly defined the Trinity and correctly identified and fought off those heresies believe and teach?

The scripture that you quoted is often used by Protestants to “prove” that the Priesthood of the Believer has authority apart from the Church. The general idea is that in the New Covenant we have the Holy Spirit to guide us so that the authority of the church isn’t necessary and I am really trying not to be excessively snarky here but if we are pure enough for the Holy Spirit to guide us personally to the Truth, what are we saying by default about our brothers and sisters in faith that disagree with us? It is Apostolic Authority that releases us for true charity toward one another. If I am right, it is only because I am submitted to the authority God placed over me not because I am holier than anyone else.  Beyond that, the Priesthood of the Believer is not unique to the New Testament it is prefigured in the Old Testament along with a seat of authority and a formal priesthood.

Exodus 19:5-6 Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people, though all the earth is mine. You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. That is what you must tell the Israelites.

Now even though Israel was called to be a kingdom of priests (foreshadowing the Priesthood of the Believer in the New Covenant) God still established the Levitical Priesthood.

Numbers 18:1 The Lord said to Aaron, “You and your sons as well as the other members of your ancestral house shall be responsible for the sanctuary; but the responsibility of the priesthood shall rest on you and your sons alone.

and

Exodus 28:1 among the Israelites have your brother Aaron, together with his sons Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, brought to you, that they may be my priests.

The Levitical Priesthood and their responsibilities foreshadows the Ordained Priesthood in the New Covenant. Just as the Israelites were a priestly people, we as Christians by virtue of the Sacrifice of Jesus share in their priesthood. Nevertheless, they were guided by authorities and Jesus confirmed that authority in the New Testament. Believers in the New Covenant are no less subject to the authority set out by God in the New Covenant than Israel was under the Old Covenant! The seat of Moses which Jesus tells us we must do what they tell us  and not follow an example of corruption (Matthew 23: 2-3) prefigures the Seat of Peter (and we Catholics do what we are told even when the *spit* Borgias *spit* corrupt it). The Keys Jesus handed to Peter in Matther 16 are prefigured in Isaiah 22 and the story of Joseph. Again and again we see that the things of the Old Testament are not swept away but transformed in the New Covenant. The sacrificial worship of both the sin and grain offerings in the OT combines with the symbolism and liturgy of the Passover, the sustenance of manna (that look like bread but rots and gets maggots like meat) and the bread and wine offering of Melchizedek PLUS the instruction of our Lord in John 6 (at minimum) to become worship (The Mass) in the New Covenant. We see the pre-figuring of so much that is to come in the Old Testament and it is Jesus and His ONE Church that is the key that turns ALL the locks. The Old Testament did not simply establish the need for a Messiah and give Jesus his prophetic bonafides, it also prefigured worship and the organization of the Church under the New Covenant. The early church had to call a council in Jerusalem solely to deal with the relatively small question of circumcision and kosher food!! I do not find it even remotely plausible that these same men would without ANY record of it, do away with formal liturgical and sacrifical worship AND the priesthood.

Tom N.: I do not discount all beliefs of the Catholic Church but I don’t agree that the Church Authority has all the answers and are the only one’s who can correctly interpret the Scriptures. If we really want to go down those lines the I must ask, show me in Scripture where the traditions of the Catholic Church are found, where Scripture says the Catholic Church is the only church and there traditions are to be upheld even in the changing tides of society.

Sacred Scripture says that there is only ONE church. (John 10:16, Eph 4:3-6, John 17:17-23, 1 Cor 12:13, etc. ) If it is not the Catholic Church, then what ONE church has a better claim? If it is not the Catholic Church, why NOT? What would the earliest Chirstians who suffered and were martyred and endured unimaginable hardships to pass the faith on to us say? Not what do you think they say because you have imagined it (I did a lot of that as a Protestant) but what did they write? What do we see in the worship services and art of the catacombs?  How did they worship? Did you know we have writings describing the earliest Christian worship services and these writings PREDATE many of the books of the Bible? Have you read St. Justin Martyr? A man who was likely taught by the Apostles themselves, how does he describe worship? Whose worship service looks like the what he describes? And if that worship service is, as the earliest students of the Apostles wrote, what Jesus commanded (Do this in memory of me.) then what does it say about substituting our own understanding?

Where did the Table of Contents in your Bible come from? By what authority was it given? If, as I have heard contended, Scripture is self-evident, why was it necessary to have several Church councils consider the issue? Why do we STILL have various splinter groups proffering various writings as “lost scripture”?

What does Sacred Scripture say is the “pillar and foundation of Truth”?

I’ll give you a hint…it isn’t our own understanding and it isn’t Sacred Scripture.

Something else that has been mentioned in the comments that have been made in as a result of my “mildly critical post” of he-who-will-not-be-named (Yes, I let my children read those books. They’re funny.) is how I quote those old dead guys (meaning the Early Church Fathers) and not scripture to make my point. Well I have a few quibbles. In the earthly sense of the word, the guys who wrote the Sacred Scriptures are not any less dead than the Early Church Fathers. In the same sense that the Early Church Fathers are dead so are those who wrote both the books of the Bible. Second, in the spiritual sense of the word they are not dead at all. They are part of the “cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) that surrounds us. They’re alive in Christ. So if you are going to criticize me because I quote “dead guys” then, by the same logic you must stop quoting Sacred Scripture. End quibble.

Next. I do not quote the Old Dead Guys (ECF’s) instead of Sacred Scripture. I quote them as authoritative, interpretive commentary to Sacred Scripture. And while I am at it, I don’t quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church instead of Sacred Scripture either.

What makes the Early Church Fathers important? First, the Apostles didn’t write everything down.

John 21:25 There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written.

2 Thessalonians Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.

What did Jesus teach the Apostles in the 40 days from the Resurrection to the Ascension for instance? Think it was important? I do. If Jesus intended for the Church to be ruled by Sacred Scripture alone then, why did it take so long for the Apostles to write down the books that became the New Testament? Is the testimony of what the Apostles DID in terms of forming the church and educationing their students any less convincing that what they wrote? And when it comes to scriptural exegesis, who better to turn to that the students of the Apostles themselves?! They knew the culture better than we ever will. They knew the language and the context better than we ever will. AND they had the benefit of being closely tutored by those who witnessed these events themselves.

The Early Church Fathers never, EVER overrule Sacred Scripture. They explain it. Capital ‘T’ tradition (things like the Trinity….little ‘t’ tradition or disciplines are things like fish on Fridays and clerical celibacy) is ALWAYS best understood and the authoritative interpretation of scripture. Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. We didn’t just dream that up. It’s right there in scripture. “This is my Body.” “This is my Blood” etc. Now when some people say “He was speaking symbolically,” the Catholic Church says “No.” Here’s where and why Sacred Scripture says He wasn’t speaking symbolically. And here’s comfirmation from those who were the first students of the Apostles. For example, St. Ignatius of Antioch spoke forcefully for the Real Presence. In fact, one of the very first declared heresies of the early church was the denial of the Real Presence. Why is St. Ignatius of Antioch’s testimony important? Because he was a student of St. John the Apostle!! St. John the Apostle was IN THE ROOM with Jesus when he instituted the Eucharist and He would be an excellent judge of just what Jesus meant. We can study and study and study but we will have no better insight into those events than those who sat at the feet of Jesus and THEIR students reflect that insight.

Another reason to pay attention to what the Early Church Fathers wrote and taught is because THEY are the ones who set the canon. The only part of the Sacred Scripture written by God himself is Exodus 20:2-17. The rest God inspired men to write and it was inspired men of God who sorted through and set the canon. Clearly the hand of God was in it all. However, it was authority outside the Sacred Scriptures themselves that determined what was and was not inspired by God. The men who were so full of the Holy Spirit set a canon that is universally acknowledged by Christians (leaving aside the deutero-canonical question) did not chose books that repudiated what the church believed and taught at the time!! They believed in Church Authority and believe that was taught in the canon of Sacred Scripture they set. They believed in Apostolic Authority and One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. They had Bishops, and Priests, and Deacons. They baptized converts and infants for the remission of sins. They sucessfully defended the church against the first heresies. They were right when they said the Marcionites were heretics. They were right when they said Arians were heretics. They were right when they said the Nestorians were heretics. They were right when they said the Monophysites were heretics. They were right when the said the Pelagians were heretics. They were right when they said the Donatists were heretics. They were right when they said the Gnostics were heretics. (Thank you kindly Shellie for making that little list easy.) When did they start to be wrong? In the 1500’s? I will be the first to admit that there were problems but just as you stick around when a marital covenant gets tough you do NOT pack up and start your own church on your own authority when there are problems in the church. There is only ONE Church….you don’t get to start a new one. Anyway, all of those things are FIRST found in scripture and then reinforced in the Sacred Tradition of the Church as reflected in the writings of the Early Church Fathers. You can sit with your Bibles and study all day and  you may get some terrific insight but it is absolute craziness to use Sacred Scripture to attempt to prove something OTHER than what the Early Church Fathers believed and taught. Who is MORE likely to reflect the teaching of Our Lord? Those who were close in time, and in culture, and in language, and had the original manuscripts AND who had Apostolic Authority often given to them by the Apostles themselves!? Or us in our own little personal Bible study?

By what authority do you accept the canon of Sacred Scripture handed down to us by the Early Church Fathers and then reject what they believed those Sacred Scriptures taught us?

Next and more minor point. Why quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church? Because I have found that what people “think” Catholics believe and teach is not at all what the Catholic Church actually believes and teaches. Sometimes in order to explain what Catholics really believe it is necessary to quote from the Catechism to “set the record straight.” Another reason to quote from the Catechism is….er…for lack of a kind term…ordained/religious/public heretics. Often the mainstream media likes to find a really liberal priest or nun and portray his/her wacky thinking as what Catholics teach. Or somebody leaves the Catholic church and claims that “their priest kept the Bibles locked up and only let us read them on Easter!” Well it may be that their priest did keep the Bibles locked up and only let them see the Bible on Easter but he wasn’t supposed to and I can prove it. Because there IS a standard, I can say that no matter what authority the wackly priest claims to have had he was in the wrong and he’s why…. To that end, let me quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church with regard to Scripture and Tradition. (And I will quote from this passage repeatedly when anyone tells me that the Catholic Church ignores Sacred Scripture in favor Tradition, etc. etc. etc.)

II. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRADITION AND SACRED SCRIPTURE

One common source. . .

80 “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal.”⁴⁰ Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own “always, to the close of the age”.⁴¹

. . . two distinct modes of transmission

81 “Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit.”⁴²

“And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching.”⁴³

82 As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, “does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.”⁴⁴

Apostolic Tradition and ecclesial traditions

83 The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus’ teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy Spirit. The first generation of Christians did not yet have a written New Testament, and the New Testament itself demonstrates the process of living Tradition.

Tradition is to be distinguished from the various theological, disciplinary, liturgical or devotional traditions, born in the local churches over time. These are the particular forms, adapted to different places and times, in which the great Tradition is expressed. In the light of Tradition, these traditions can be retained, modified or even abandoned under the guidance of the Church’s Magisterium.

Find out more (and there is quite a lot more) about what the Catholic Church really teaches about Sacred Scripture and Tradition and Divine Revelation and the magisterium here.

James H left this in the comments section as additional evidence that Catholics are not only allowed read the Bible but are indeed encouraged to do so. Here are his remarks….with a little tinkering for emphasis and typos (You’re welcome James. [grin]):

I hear “Well the Catholic Church before Vatican II really didn’t encourage Bible reading.” Really?:

Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903 AD)

“The solicitude of the apostolic office naturally urges and even compels us…to desire that this grand source of Catholic revelation (the Bible) should be made safely and abundantly accessible to the flock of Jesus Christ”
Providentissimus Deus ( Nov. 18, 1893)]

He also encouraged the reading of Holy Scripture by granting an indulgence to those who read it for at least 25 minutes.

Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914 AD)

“Nothing would please us more than to see our beloved children form the habit of reading the Gospels - not merely from time to time, but every day.”

Pope Benedict XV (1914-1922 AD)
He repeated St. Jerome’s statement:

“Ignorance of Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.”

He expressed his desire that, “… all the children of the Church, especially clerics, to reverence the Holy Scriptures, to read it piously and meditate on it constantly.” He reminded them that, “…in these pages is to be sought that food, by which the spiritual life is nourished unto perfection…”

Pope Pius XII 1943 AD

“Our predecessors, when the opportunity occurred, recommended the study or preaching or in fine the pious reading and meditation of the sacred Scriptures.

“…This author of salvation, Christ, will men more fully know, more ardently love and more faithfully imitate in proportion as they are more assiduously urged to know and meditate the Sacred Letters, especially the New Testament…”
[Divino Afflante Spiritu]

He also granted indulgences (a blessing of God’s grace) to those who read Scripture. (1 Cor. 4:1.)

Also, I am huge Used Bookstore Hound. I go in there and see tons of old Catholic Bibles. Many cheap and done by lay Catholic organizations. I have seen small Catholic Bibles that were for our Grandfathers to use in WWII.

I sometimes meet Catholics that have left the faith and they say “Well I was never encouraged to the read the Bible etc etc” To be honest I find that hard to believe. There always seems to be Bible Studies and people and Priests encouraging people to the read the Bible. I lived in several Parishes and that was always the case. Plus, there is a ton of stuff on the net. I also don’t understand why some of these people that tell me this didn’t do what your average Baptist does for instance. The average Baptist or Evanglical doesn’t exactly have free commentarries and books on scriptures just given to them. If so I missed out on that book club. They go down to the local store or Baptist Book Store (I think the SBC stores were bought out by Lifeway) and go buy them. Heavens, I go into a Catholic Book Store and there are TONS on the Bible to help a person grow. Also Catholics like Baptist can order book catalogs. There are a ton of those.

Thank you James!!

Edited to add: James would like me to shout out a “Thank you kindly!” to the gentleman who originally provided the Papal quotes above. There’s more. So swing on by his website to take a look.

Also, if you’re bookworm enough to read this blog, you’re likely bookworm enough to get really excited about the prospect of a free e-book. Check out the rest of what James has to say in the comments section to find out about that little tidbit.

I won’t say I’m speechless because I just know this one is gonna be long. In fact, you might want to just go get cup of your favorite beverage right now. (May I suggest some of this? It’s what I’m drinking at the moment. And if you get the bags instead of the full leaf, the tea-snob in me doesn’t want to hear about it.) I am however at a loss as to how to begin. Here is the comment by PURPLEGIRL in response to The Sin of Partial Obedience:

PURPLEGIRL: Although I appriciate your knowledge of the history of St. Innatius of someplace, I have noticed a theme throughout this blog. There are more references for what the saints say than there are scriptures from the bible. I don’t mean that in a rude way, but I think that maybe we aren’t going to see eye to eye because I base ALL of my decisions from the information found in the bible.

Even if I don’t count scriptures references when I don’t actually cite chapter and verse for (For example, I personally think using Nadab and Abihu as an illustrative example counts as citing scripture even if I don’t list the verses where they are spoken of and if you want to get technical it counts as three citations because they are mentioned at least three times.) I can scroll through my posts and spot lots and lots of the chapter and verse variety citations and I will leave it to those who care enough to keep score, to count those vs. citations from the Early Church Fathers. If I say that St. John the Baptist or St. Paul says and follow with the words recorded in the BIBLE does that somehow not count as scripture? And while I am using PURPLEGIRL’s words, I really don’t want to pick on her because she is only expressing a variation on a theme I hear repeatedly. “Catholics don’t teach the Bible. Catholics don’t know the Bible. Catholics are forbidden to read the Bible. There’s no Bible in the Catholic Mass. Catholics chained the Bible to keep anyone from reading it.” etc. And I would like to do what I can to set the record straight.

1. Catholics pray with Sacred Scripture. A lot. If a Catholic calls it the “Our Father” it doesn’t make it any less Matthew 6:9-13 or Luke 11:2-4, does it? The “Hail Mary” is not completely from Sacred Scripture but the bulk of that prayer is taken from Luke 1:30 and Luke 1:43. Many beloved Catholic prayers are just passages from Sacred Scripture, that we have memorized. Every morning my children and I recite Luke 1:46-45 and Luke 1:68-79 together as part of our morning prayers, but rather than call it by some numbers we call the first passage the “Magnificat” or the “Canticle of Mary” and the second one the “Canticle of Zechariah.” I encourage them to say them to say Luke 2:29-32 as a bedtime prayer but I call that passage of scripture the “Canticle of Simeon.” They are learning the “Misere” as well. You might know it by the name Psalm 51. The rosary is a mediation on the gospel and the plan of salvation. We recite scripture while meditating on such events as the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, the Baptism of Jesus, The Transfiguration, The Last Supper, and the Crucifixion. There are 20 such events (called mysteries and ALL of them are found in scripture…although to be fair most Protestants would quibble over 2 of them. The Assumption and The Crowning which Catholics believe are clearly pictured in Revelation and Protestants do not.) Then there is the Liturgy of the Hours (also known as the Divine Office) which is formal prayer throughout the day as mentioned in Psalm 119:164. In modern times this requirement has been abbreviated to five times daily, but for more years than not the Liturgy of the Hours was seven times daily. Ordained clergy and vowed religious men and women are REQUIRED to pray the Liturgy of the Hours which consists of large passages of scripture and you can see a sample of just how much scripture we are talking about here. (Link opens PDF file) That is a MINIMUM daily requirement for religious.

2. The Catholic Church strongly encourages ALL of the Catholic faithful to read and study Sacred Scripture. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

131 “And such is the force and power of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as her support and vigor, and the children of the Church as strength for their faith, food for the soul, and a pure and lasting fount of spiritual life.”¹⁰⁹ Hence “access to Sacred Scripture ought to be open wide to the Christian faithful.”¹¹⁰

132 “Therefore, the study of the sacred page should be the very soul of sacred theology. The ministry of the Word, too - pastoral preaching, catechetics and all forms of Christian instruction, among which the liturgical homily should hold pride of place - is healthily nourished and thrives in holiness through the Word of Scripture.”¹¹¹

133 The Church “forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful. . . to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ, by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.¹¹²

3. The Catholic Mass from beginning to end is taken almost directly from Sacred Scripture. Now, I have just made many Catholic readers of this blog mad at me. They are hopping up and down and wanting to remind me that the Mass is prayer and in fact it is the most important prayer of the Catholic Church and so all of this belongs in the above paragraph. To them I say, “Yes I know. I just think that the Mass deserves a separate category.” To the rest I say, please take a look at this post of mine. The words of the Mass are listed along with their references from Sacred Scripture. Then of course, we have the readings from Sacred Scripture itself. If a Catholic attends Mass regularly and/or reads the daily reading on-line (and they are printed in his/her bulletin and available in many publications) he/she will either read or hear the bible read-aloud (With the exception of some of the longer genealogies) once every three years and slightly more often if they attend daily Mass as well. Each Sunday Mass has at least three generous portions of Sacred Scripture read during the Liturgy of the Word. There is an Old Testament reading, a Psalm, a New Testament reading, and a reading from the Gospel. Some Masses have even more. The Easter Vigil mass has 7 large portions of Sacred Scripture read.

4. Chaining the Bible in Catholic Churches was a GOOD THING. Time and again, I see the accusation “Catholics CHAINED Bibles in churches.” As this is somehow proof-positive that the Catholic faithful were not allowed near a Bible. Yes, the Catholic Church DID chain Bibles in Churches. Unfortunately, the wrong conclusion is drawn from this historical fact. My bank chains pens to the counter too. Is that so I can’t use the pen? Or so it will be available when I need it? Before the advent of the printing press and even for many years after that, books were very valuable. The Catholic Church could have simply kept these very expensive treaures under lock and key and prohibited access to them at all. That certainly would have been safer. But because they wanted the faithful to have access to the Sacred Scriptures they chained it to a stationary object. To prevent theft.

5. Catholics translated the Bible into English first. And German. And Italian. And lots of other languages. (Chapter 11 in Where We Got the Bible: Our Debt to the Catholic Church also available on-line.) Back up and read that last bit again slowly. I’m Catholic. I am no slouch when it comes to reading dull boring books and I didn’t know that until a year ago. Here is a sample:

To anyone that has investigated the real facts of the case, this fondly-cherished notion must seem truly ridiculous; it is not only absolutely false, but stupidly so, inasmuch as it admits of such easy disproof; one wonders that nowadays any lecturer or writer should have the temerity to advance it. Now, observe I am speaking of the days before the printing­press was invented; I am speaking of England; and concerning a Church which did not, and does not, admit the necessity of Bible-reading for salvation; and concerning an age when the production of the Scriptures was a most costly business, and far beyond the means of nearly everybody. Yet we may safely assert, and we can prove, that there were actually in existence among the people many copies of the Scriptures in the English tongue of that day. To begin far back, we have a copy of the work of Caedmon, a monk of Whitby, in the end of the seventh century, consisting of great portions of the Bible in the common tongue. In the next century we have the well-known translations of Venerable Bede, a monk of Jarrow, who died whilst busy with the Gospel of St. John. In the same (eighth) century we have the copies of Eadhelm, Bishop of Sherborne; of Guthlac, a hermit near Peterborough; and of Egbert, Bishop of Holy Island; these were all in Saxon, the language understood and spoken by the Christians of that time. Coming down a little later, we have the free translations of King Alfred the Great who was working at the Psalms when he died, and of Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury; as well as popular renderings of Holy Scripture like the Book of Durham, and the Rushworth Gloss and others that have survived the wreck of ages. After the Norman conquest in 1066, Anglo-Norman or Middle-English became the language of England, and consequently the next translations of the Bible we meet with are in that tongue. There are several specimens still known, such as the paraphrase of Orm (about 1150) and the Salus Animae (1050), the translations of William Shoreham and Richard Rolle, hermit of Hampole (died 1349). I say advisedly ’specimens’ for those that have come down to us are merely indications of a much greater number that once existed, but afterwards perished. We have proof of this in the words of Blessed Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England under Henry VIII who says: ‘The whole Bible long before Wycliff’s day was by virtuous and well-learned men translated into the English tongue, and by good and godly people with devotion and soberness well and reverently read’ (Dialogues III). Again, ‘The clergy keep no Bibles from the laity but such translations as be either not yet approved for good, or such as be already reproved for naught (i.e., bad, naughty) as Wycliff’s was. For, as for old ones that were before Wycliff’s days, they remain lawful and be in some folks’ hand. I myself have seen, and can show you, Bibles, fair and old which have been known and seen by the Bishop of the Diocese, and left in laymen’s hands and women’s too, such as he knew for good and Catholic folk, that used them with soberness and devotion.’ (2) But you will say, that is the witness of a Roman Catholic. Well, I shall advance Protestant testimony also.

6. The Deutero-canon has been part of Sacred Scripture since the formal adoption of the entire canon in 397. The same authority that set the New Testament canon also included Sirach, Tobit, First and Second Maccabees, etc. It was the Protestant “Reformers” who REMOVED those books and parts of Esther and Daniel. The Catholic Church did not add  them. I’m sorry but I must ask, but what authority other than their “own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5 has something to say about that) did the Protestant “Reformers” take this unprecedented action?

Six is enough for today. The Catholic Church treasures Sacred Scripture despite the repeated assertions to the contrary. She compiled and protected the canon. She protected the books themselves through all manner of social upsets and upheavals in the last 2,000 years. Monks labored lifetimes to make copies of Sacred Scripture for the faithful. She encourages the reading and memorization of Sacred Scripture. She encourages praying with it. Catholic teaching is inseperably tied to Sacred Scripture. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (at the time…He’s Pope Benedict XVI at present) wrote “[Catholic] Dogma is by definition nothing other than the interpretation of Scripture.”

Edited to add: In the event that you followed a direct link to this post, you may be interested in this follow-up

The feedback from my opinions about Pastor Steven Furtick’s blog entry “I Promised You a Good Comeback” continues to trickle in. PURPLEGIRL in a response to this post here says:

PURPLEGIRL: Wouldn’t God be happy to see His children come to Him in a biblically sound church regardless if it was Catholic? Isn’t that the whole point of unity? Working together for a common goal…reaching lost people in a hurting world? Isn’t it possible that other denominations are being blessed by God? Sorry for the example, but take Elevation. Southern Baptist and one of the most influential churches of this era. There were 1738 people at one of the services 13 months after opening their doors. That is not a man thing…that’s a God size thing. God was the only one who could have made that happen. Over 50 people giving their lives to Christ in that year. God is all over that church. How dare we say that it isn’t good enough because it isn’t Catholic. We might as well kick some dirt on God’s shoes while we’re at it. So my question is: Isn’t it possible that God has more than one way in which to bring His children to Him?

And ty23 made similar statements in his remarks as well and I am sure that they are not the only ones who think that I am a crotchety, cantankerous, curmudgeon for not throwing my hands in the air and saying “You’re right! It doesn’t matter that they are not obedient to the One True Church! Clearly it doesn’t matter to God!” Well I may still be a crotchety, cantankerous, curmudgeon but it isn’t because I am not giving Elevation Church it’s due.  On the night he was betrayed Jesus prayed the following:

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you love me. John 17:20-23

Jesus prayed for our unity. At a minumum, we are to be ONE as He and the Father are ONE. That’s not invisible or symbolic unity folks. There’s no doctrinal disagreement. It’s not the kind of unity that has us each doing our own thing for worship and getting together for a little inter-denominational fellowship and a more efficient food pantry. Furthermore, there is a purpose to that unity. It was to be our witness to the world. Our unity would tell the world that Jesus was indeed sent by the Father. If we take Jesus at His Word (and I certainly do), our failure to be visibly united (after all this is to be a sign to the WORLD) means that our witness is compromised. Protestantism, at it’s root, denies the need for visible unity. The rejection of obedience to the authority given to the Chair of Peter by Jesus himself and the substitution of one’s personal understanding of Sacred Scripture has done nothing but progressively crumble the Body of Christ. (link opens PDF file.) No matter what other biblical principles you are being obedient to, the failure to worship as Jesus commanded in the Eucharist and the rejection of the unity that Christ himself calls us to is partial obedience and the cost of partial obedience is high indeed.

How about an example of a man mightily used by God? God established his covenant with this man and his obedience and faith is praised continuously not only in Christianity but in the Jewish faith and Islam as well. Of course I am speaking of Abraham. In all honesty I am certain that my faith and my obedience will never measure up to that of Abraham’s and I think is probably true of most people. In fact, that may be why we seldom hear of those times when Abraham wasn’t completely obedient. How dare we disobedient wretches criticize the father of our faith, the man through whom God chose to bless the whole earth? Well I am not going to criticize, because the writers of Sacred Scripture did that for me and all I have to do is point out what they have passed on to us. In Genesis 12, Abram is commanded to “Leave your country, your people, and your father’s household….” and we are told that Abram did that but “Lot went with him” Now if God commanded me to “leave my country and my people and my father’s household” I am so disobedient I wouldn’t even hear so I can’t say I would do any better, BUT even I know that taking your nephew is not “leaving your people and your father’s household.” Sacred Scripture records in general terms what the consequences for that actions were. First, it caused division and strife in Abraham’s household and he lost out on material blessings in his lifetime because he had to split the pastureland with his nephew. I don’t think that Abraham missed the wealth much but still it was an actual reduction in the blessing that Lord planned for him alone. Abraham had to intervene when Lot was kidnapped and then again for Lot when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. All complications in Abraham’s life that he could have avoided. However, this sin of partial obedience didn’t just complicate Abraham’s life. Remember the story of Lot’s daughters (ew!) in Genesis 19:30-36? The descendants of Lot’s daughters became bitter enemies of Israel. I wonder how many Israelites lost their lives because of Abraham didn’t leave his nephew behind? How many widows and orphans were made? How many tears shed?

But that wasn’t the only time that Abraham substituted his own understanding for God’s perfect plan. I’ve always wondered if there were actual deaths in the court of Pharaoh when Abraham told his little “white lie”? (Genesis 12:10-20) How many times do we justify to ourselves that if you look at it from the right perspective, it’s really not a lie? Thank God our white lies are seldom as consequence-laden as Abraham’s. And then there is Hagar. Abraham substituted his own culturally correct plan for providing an heir instead of waiting of God’s perfect plan. (And yes, I am mentally drawing a parallel here to being told in the last few days that worship needs to be “culturally correct”) The son of that union, Ishmael and his descendants, became not only enemies of ancient Israel but the echoes of that act of Abraham’s have reverberated to the present day. Think of the carnage that has resulted on both side of the conflict between those who claim Isaac as the inheritor of Abraham’s covenant (Jews and Christians) and those who claim Ishmael was the rightful heir (Muslims)? How many widows have been made? How many mothers lost their children? How many fathers lost their sons? How many slaves were made? How many crippled? We face the consequences of that sin today.

Yes. Abraham was mightily used by God. But the sins of his partial obedience were felt not only in his own family but by Israel and all of his descendants both physical and spiritual! Yes. I believe that God is using Pastor Furtick and Elevation Church. Just as God used Abraham. Whatever victories that are being enjoyed at Elevation Church come at the unknown price of partial obedience. The same principles that Protestants use to claim authority to interpret the Bible for themselves and join together with those who interpret the Bible in their like-minded way are the same ones used in all the other Protestant churches that are not enjoying the successes of Elevation. You can disavow churches like the Westboro Baptist Church all you want but they use the same principles, the same standard (the Bible) and the same conviction that THEY are the ones who are hearing the Holy Spirit correctly. Over 30,000 church splits (PDF link) and counting. How many broken hearts does that represent? How many disillusioned?

My post about Pastor’s Furtick’s blog has led to this comment below and an entry on his blog.  As I did with ty23’s comment I will intersperse comments with Pastor Neyhart’s words. If you wish to read his comments in their complete unbrokeness, you may do so at the bottom of my original post. 

Tom N.: I am not going to poke holes in your entire post but want to challenge on one aspect. Personally I liked Pastor Stevens post.

Having just finished a rather lengthy response to ty23’s post, I must say from the bottom of my exceedingly grateful heart. “THANK YOU!” for not poking holes in my entire post. I have lost almost an entire day crafting my reply to ty23 and the prospect of a shorter one gladdens my heart. The prospect of dinner gladdens my family’s heart. I must also say thank you for saying that I “challenged you” I will say that I too, have been challenged by Pastor Furtick’s remarks and the subsequent response to mine. Not all of which has been visible on this blog. 

I am glad you like Pastor Furtick’s post. Really and truly. When I was a Protesant, I am certain that I would have felt exactly the same way that you do about Elevation Church and Pastor Furtick’s blog entry. I disagree vehemently now….bet you didn’t catch on to that part….but it doesn’t bother me at all that others love and support Pastor Furtick. Just in case you didn’t read my response to ty23 (and frankly as long as it was, I can’t say that I blame you) let me say again, I have nothing personal against Pastor Furtick. I was asked my opinion about his blog entry by someone else who has no relationship whatsoever to Elevation Church and for various reasons which are not really important to this conversation, I posted that opinion on my blog. I am sure that Pastor Furtick is a godly and holy man. I’d happily have coffee with him….sorry, that’s a lie. I don’t drink coffee. But he could have coffee while I drank my spinach juice. I am sure that Elevation Church has done much for Our Lord and the community of Charlotte. If your church was located where I live, I am CERTAIN beyond any doubt that the pastor of my parish would happily engage in projects benefitting our community with your staff and members if that was something that was acceptable to your church membership. We’d probably invite you to our church bazaar too. But doctrine matters, otherwise you’d be Catholic or I’d be Protestant and while we can say “why can’t we just unite and reach lost souls?” Our Lord said that our visible unity would be a witness to the world. (John 17:20-29) That the world would come to believe BECAUSE of that unity. That means that no matter what success we have in our personal communities in the short term, if we take Jesus at His word; then, souls are being lost because of whatever keeps us from that visible unity.

Tom N.: I am a worship minister and do not plan weekly services around my personal preferences but rather on where I feel God is leading me in conjunction with our preaching minister. I would challenge you that worship is very much a cultural thing.

Well when you first posted this comment my knee-jerk reaction to this statement was to say, “Well I’ll just ask him to show me in scripture where it says that “worship is a cultural thing.” I am glad that you blogged about this though because it helps me to understand your position a little more and I won’t go with the knee-jerk response. As I understand it you believe that scripture is your sole rule of faith (sola scriptura) and that where Sacred Scripture is silent, there is freedom. When it comes to worship in the New Covenant, you believe that Sacred Scripture is silent. I must disagree on both counts. First, Sacred Scripture itself does not support sola scriptura. Briefly, there is no verse that lists the canon and it is not self-evident (several councils were needed to finalize the canon); therefore, the canon itself rests on church authority. There there is the matter that Sacred Scripture never says that it ALL is the sole rule of faith. In fact, it says the opposite! John says that not everything Jesus said is recorded in Sacred Scripture. If He commanded something and it was “written” in the actions of the Apostles is that any less of a command? Where is Jesus command to write everything in Sacred Scripture?  The Apostles record in 1 Corinthians 11:2 “hold fast to the traditions I handed on to you”, in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 “hold fast to traditions, whether oral or by letter”  (that verse indicates that even though a command is not written, it is binding!), in 2 Thessalonians 3:6 we are instructed to “shun those not acting according to tradition.” Finally, how is is possible that the church was built when for many many years many parts are not part of the New Testament were not written, most churches couldn’t afford to posses more than a portion of what was considered scripture, and the canon wasn’t finally set until the Council of Carthage in 397? Next, Sacred Scripture is not at all silent with regard to freedom of worship but I will get to that later.

Tom N.: If you were to go to a God fearing, bible believing church in Africa, it would be very different than church in America. It would be dictated by culture. In the early church in Jerusalem, worship was very much cultural. As the christian movement began in the book of Acts, christians patterned their worship much like that done in the temple with the addition of teachings of Christ and the breaking of bread. Other elements were taken directly from the Hebrew culture. The singing of hymns, psalms and spiritual songs as Scripture points out, would have derived from the Hebrew culture. Why would it be any different now?

RNW: While I don’t think we are going to come to agreement on this issue (today anyway….but you are welcome to come home to Rome any time you’d like!! [gni]). I do think that we have more common ground than you imagine. When a Catholic speaks of worship he means the liturgical norms that form the foundation of the Mass. He does not mean church decoration, or the quality, quantity or origin of the music. It has nothing to do with who sings, what they sing, the instruments that use (or not). While Mass is essentially the same no matter what parish I attend, no matter what corner of the world, whether it is in a cathedral or on an upturned canoe as John Paul II used to say Mass with his youth group in the mountains; there are cultural differences allowed. Liturgical garments while they may have a similar pattern because of their function, also reflect the personality and culture of those who wear them. The music from one parish to another often differs to reflect the personality and culture of the majority of the parishioners. In my own parish, the music of the Mass conducted in Spanish is very different from the music of the Mass I customarily attend. But it isn’t the music that makes it worship. Mass is worship with African music. Mass is worship with Latin chant. Mass is worship with no music at all. It isn’t the decoration that makes it worship; although, it can contribute to it. It is the priest leading us in confession, and glorifying God, in lifting our voices in the same praise given by my Catholic brothers and sisters in faith in every Mass, in every place, in every time now and until Our Lord comes for us, it is him uniting us to Our Lord in the Eucharist, that we enter into the actual worship of heaven. The Mass allows us to participate in the eternal worship of heaven….we enter into only what is already going on. (And no we no not re-crucify Jesus. The Mass only makes present to us what is eternally present in heaven.) We come and go from it in union with Our Lord and all of the Catholic faithful. So while I do agree that worship may have an element of cultural expression attached to it (and you may be unaware that this is allowed in the Catholic Church), those parts of it are not worship itself. They only become part of worship when united to True Worship….kind of like how we become living sacrifices when we unite ourselves to the Sacrifice of Jesus.

Tom N.: That fact that you are blogging is something that you do based on current culture.

 RNW: But blogging is not worship.

Tom N.: Romans 12:1 Therefore, offer yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. That places worship upon me, that worship of God comes from giving my life as a sacrifice to His will, His purpose, making the things I do, planning services, singing, giving of my tithes and offerings, communion, prayer, visiting the sick all become physical acts of worship to God. Because I have given my life to His will. Written by: Tom Neyhart at 2007/03/14 - 10:24:32

RNW: But that is not the only place that Sacred Scripture speaks about worship. Scripture is a unity and the things that God revealed about worship in the Old Testament in other places in the New Testament must be put together with Romans 12:1 to form a more complete picture. I am cheating and pasting something that I have already posted….

First, worship as seen in the Old Testament is defined by God. We don’t know the specific instructions given to Adam but we do know that when Cain had his own ideas about the way things should be, he was corrected by God. I see in the Old Testament that God gave the form of worship in detail and that any time folks got a hankering to tinker with the rules (2 Chronicles 26:16-23; Exodus 30:36-38; Leviticus 10:1-3) there were consequences. I see that throughout the Old Testament, God never left it up to “us” when it comes to what He wants from us in the way of worship……fortunately for us, because the Bible is full of examples of what happens when we take matters into our own hands. Nowhere in scripture do I see any indication that God is leaving it up-to-us in the New Covenant. He defined worship in the Old Covenant; I am left with the expectation that He will do so in the New Covenant. So when Jesus says at the Last Supper, during the last moments He will have before His Sacrifice on the cross, “Do this in memory of me,” I have to believe that it is significant. He is facing His execution. Time is short. Whatever He says and does in those moments is not going to be one of the little things.

(I highly recommend The Lamb’s Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth by Scott Hahn and On Being Catholic by Thomas Howard.)

The living sacrifice that St. Paul speaks of in Romans 12:1 is our joining in to the sacrificial worship of the Mass. We add our sufferings and our sacrifices in imitation of Our Lord. It is NOT a license to define worship for ourselves.

I have received a rather lengthy response to my post on Church shopping titled: So What’s The Problem? if you’d like to read ty23’s comment in its complete and intact form you may do so there. It is easier for me to respond to the issues raised by ty23 if I break it up and respond point by point. I will be honest in that I really didn’t expect that anyone from Elevation Church (or supporters thereof) would see my comments since I am such a tiny voice in the blogsphere. I have learned a lot however about the power of “Technorati” and “Google“  and I am now wiser. I have NEVER “Google’ed” or “Technorati’ed” either my church or my pastor and it never occurred to me that others would. Live and learn. So let’s dive in shall we?

Written by: ty23
RNW: I’m not sure where to begin, as your rant has so many holes, confusing contradictions and moments of completely neglecting what was actually being said in Pastor Furtick’s post, it leaves me almost speechless.

RNW: Well thank you for stopping by ty23. I want to thank you for the opportunity to patch up some of those holes, clear up some of the contradictions, and to clarify that while my remarks may have been provoked by Pastor Furtick’s blog entry, I hold no personal animosity toward him or any member of Elevation Church….even you ty23. May I also just say that you seem to have overcome that speechlessness with breathtaking completeness?

ty23: I don’t make a habit of wandering across blogs that seem to be nothing more than a sounding board for bitter ‘theologians’, either professional of amateur, to debate all the petty differences, doctrines and other minutia that have nothing to do with seeing people’s lives changed by God, but…I just happened to find you when reading more about Pastor’s Furtick’s post and the affect that his church has had on the local landscape in South Charlotte.

RNW: Again thank you for stopping by and reading my blog then, I know that I am a rather tiny voice in the world of blogging and I am flattered (sincerely) by those who take the time to read what I have written especially those who do not normally do so. However, it appears that you have called me bitter with that remark of yours. I assure you that I am not bitter, nor am I a theologian amateur or otherwise. I am simply a person who found herself answering questions for individuals about the Catholic Church and the more I answered, the more people seemed to ask and it became timesaving device for me to post answers here on a blog rather than craft individual answers. And just as you happened across my remarks here, I happened on Pastor Furtick’s remarks solely because someone asked my opinion. I responded with vigor because his blog entry hit upon an issue that as a Catholic I find particularly offensive. I would like to gently point out that as a Catholic, I have been told that many of the things I believe and do are offensive and I have in my own little inadequate way attempted to explain and defend them on my blog to those who ask me. Do really think that there isn’t anything that Protestants do that Catholics don’t find every bit as offensive as the ubiquitious Protestant opinion of Catholic “statue worshipping” and “vain repetitions”? (And for the record we do not worship statues or use vain repetitions but I know that Catholics are accused of it and so I use it an an example.)

ty23: 1. Your opening rebuttal contained your first of many rather petty inferences that when God speaks of the church, He is speaking only of the Catholic church, I guess thereby disqualifying everyone else out there as a viable vehicle throgh which He can saved lost souls. Let’s just get this out early, and I know this completely throws your entire world upside down, it’s probably one to just agree to disagree, but…the Catholic church’s belief that it is the one true church is just rediculous. I don’t know how else to say it because it’s so ludicrous.

RNW: I am sorry that you chose to characterize my beliefs as “petty,” “ridiculous” and “ludicrous.” I do believe that the Catholic Church is The Church that Jesus founded on Peter, The Rock. I believe that the Church is ONE, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic (among other things) and if you wish to characterize my faith in that manner, I will try to accept it with the Christian Charity made possible by my faith in Jesus. But in all honesty, the less-surrendered parts of me don’t care much for the ad hominem approach. Since I am a convert to the Catholic Church and I came from your way of thinking, I must tell you in all earnestness that your opinion does not “throw my world upside down” it can hardly do so if I once held it myself. I would, however, like to clarify something here. I believe that Our Lord works in many and myriad ways. I see in the Sacred Scriptures and indeed throughout the history of the church, Catholic and otherwise, that He does indeed work even through disobedience and sin and that INCLUDES sinful popes, bishops, priests, nuns, and Catholic laypeople of all sorts. In fact, given that there are more Catholics than Protestants both now and throughout history, I would have to say that there are MORE wretched sinful Catholics than Protestants. Our Lord works through us even though we are sinners. I do not doubt that you ty23, Pastor Furtick, and the vast majority of the members of Elevation Church are my true brothers and sisters in the Lord. Well, I suspect that many of them would not accord me, as a Catholic, the status of Christian; nevertheless, if someone says they are a Christian I absolutely accept that they are because I do not have The Pen To the Book Of Life and ONLY Our Lord can say differently.

ty23: Not biblical, not in line with any biblical teaching, and pretty much flies in the face of what the Bible DOES say about God’s plan for the local church to redeem the world.

RNW: No. It. Does. Not. Fly. In. The. Face. Of. What. The. Bible. Says.  I wonder, have you even investigated the Catholic faith as written by CATHOLICS….not ex-Catholics and not Protestants telling you what Catholics believe but an educated, orthodox Catholic approach? If not, may I suggest Scott Hahn, Steven Ray, or Thomas Howard as a good place to start? And if you won’t buy or borrow a book you can’t get plenty of solid Biblical Catholic instruction from websites such as Scripture Catholic, The Bible Christian Society (with FREE MP3 downloads and CD’s); and The Catholic Bridge. I tell you honestly, it wasn’t until I converted to the Catholic Church that I began to believe the whole Bible and not just my favorite parts of it. I will also tell you that I work with many converts from Protestantism to the Catholic Church and while their stories vary, many of them tell me that it was putting down the Protestant commentaries and prayerfully reading the Gospels alone that made them Catholic and all of those people will also tell you that was the last thing they expected that the Lord would reveal to them. A good friend has this quote at the top of her blog “I did not leave my Evangelical Roots because I was unhappy there. In fact, I left my Evangelical roots loudly protesting to the Lord that I was very happy where I was thank you very much and did He really think this was necessary.” She “lifted” the quote from me. The stunning realization that the Catholic Church was the ONE True Church…THAT turned my world upside down. That others disagree with that sentiment scarcely causes a ripple in my day. I know that you disagree…if you agreed, you have to be checking out your local parish’s RCIA schedule. However, I notice that you ignored some of the questions I asked in my first post. So let me ask them (and maybe one or two others, I am NOT suffering from speechlessness) again. Although it is maddeningly difficult to respond in general terms to Protestant beliefs because there are so many shades of meaning from one denomination to another and as soon as you define something one way to respond to Protestant A, Protestant B comes by and says “Protestant A is not correct in saying [fill in the blank]. Let’s define it THIS way, now please respond again.” Repeat over 30,000 times for the over 30,000 Protestant denominations (Link opens a PDF file, but one from a Protestant source so let’s not accuse me of exaggerating.) But one of the things that every. single. one. of those Protestant denomminations has in common is that they believe in the Protestant distinctive belief of sola scriptura and that in their church they’ve got the right shade of interpretation of scripture. That leads me to a question “How is it that ONE Holy Spirit is leading so many into such widely varying beliefs?” Did Jesus who prayed for His followers to be ONE as He and the Father were ONE really send the Holy Spirit to cause dissension and division? 

Next questions. If Jesus intended for the Bible to be the sole rule of faith? Why did the Apostles wait so long to write those books? If sola scriptura was Jesus’ instruction to them, why wasn’t the first thing they did to write and see about the preservation of the written word? AND the questions you ignored from my previous post, “Why do you accept the canon and reject the beliefs of those who set it?” If those men were full enough of the Holy Spirit to discern what scripture was, on what basis do you susbstitute your understanding of Sacred Scripture for theirs? While a complete discussion of the adoption of the canon is outside the scope of this post, and this blog, and my current level of theological knowledge and setting aside obvious Catholic/Protestant disagreement on the place of the septuagint I think that we can both agree that the canon that we both accept was on for all intents and purposes was set at the Council of Carthage in 397 (We can save the septuagint and the deutero-canonical books for another day….hopefully many MANY days from now.) These are some of the things that as members of the Catholic Church of the day, those men who set the canon believed was revealed in Sacred Scripture.

St. Augustine: “For if the lineal succession of bishops is to be taken into account, with how much more certainty and benefit to the Church do we reckon back till we reach Peter himself, to whom, as bearing in a figure the whole Church, the Lord said: ‘Upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it!’ The successor of Peter was Linus, and his successors in unbroken continuity were these: –Clement, Anacletus, Evaristus, Alexander, Sixtus, Telesphorus, Iginus, Anicetus, Pius, Soter, Eleutherius, Victor, Zephirinus, Calixtus, Urbanus, Pontianus, Antherus, Fabianus, Cornelius, Lucius, Stephanus, Xystus, Dionysius, Felix, Eutychianus, Gaius, Marcellinus, Marcellus, Eusebius, Miltiades, Sylvester, Marcus, Julius, Liberius, Damasus, and Siricius, whose successor is the present Bishop Anastasius. —from Letters of St. Augustine 53, 2

St. Augustine: This is the holy Church, the one Church, the true Church, the catholic Church, fighting against all heresies: fight, it can be; be fought down, it cannot. As for heresies, they all went out of it, like unprofitable branches pruned from the vine: but itself abides in its root, in its Vine, in its charity. —On the Creed: A Sermon to the Catechumens branches pruned from the vine: but itself abides in its root, in its Vine, in its charity. —On the Creed: A Sermon to the Catechumens

St. Justin Martyr: And this food is called among us Eukaristia [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. –First Apology

RNW: John the Apostle was IN THE ROOM when Jesus said “This is My Body” and “This is My Blood” He was present when Jesus said “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” Now you we can argue whether what Jesus said was symbolic or literal until we are blue in the face, I’ve been proof-texted and Protestant-commentaried to death about why Jesus didn’t really mean it that way. (Blogged about it even.) But we weren’t there and we don’t know anyone who was. In the end I think I’m right and you think you’re right. But what about the testimony of a man who was a student of John the Apostle, like St. Ignatius of Antioch? Now THAT’s authoritative commentary! This is just a sample of what he left us.

St. Ignatius of Antioch: Take ye heed, then, to have but one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup to [show forth] the unity of His blood; one altar; as there is one bishop, along with the presbytery and deacons, my fellow-servants: that so, whatsoever ye do, ye may do it according to [the will of] God. –Letter to the Philadelphians 4

St. Ignatius of Antioch: I have no delight in corruptible food, nor in the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became afterwards of the seed of David and Abraham; and I desire the drink of God, namely His blood, which is incorruptible love and eternal life. –Letter to the Romans 7

St. Ignatius of Antioch: They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. –Letter to the Smyrnaeans (in which he is describing Heresy)

RNW: The men who had the authority to set the canon of Sacred Scripture in the first place, chose what was and was not scripture because it illuminated the teaching as passed down to them by the Apostles and their appointed successors. Since the NT canon is universally acknowledged (except perhaps by Luther who removed some of the books but was prevailed upon to put them back) I can only assume you agree with me that the Holy Spirit was working through these men in a mighty and powerful way. And so I ask, by what authority (other than your own personal understanding of Sacred Scripture) do you reject what these men believed Sacred Scripture to mean?

ty23: 2. Your second rebuttal contained your first of many complete misinterpretations of his post, whether on purpose or not. Pastor Furtick at no time held Elevation Church up as the only credible worship experience, or even the best worship experience. Your attempt to impune him with your comment about his declaring the standard for worship experiences is just off. His post as a whole was doing exactly the opposite. And, as a matter of clarification, which you seem to be in dire need of, is that Pastor Furtick very clearly condoned and encouraged those who were ‘looking’ for the body in which they could best plug in. His feeling about the terminology of ‘church shopping’ was only an indication of the attitude that the visitor had towards Elevation and the other churches she had been visiting.

RNW: If understood me to be saying that Pastor Furtick was holding up Elevation Church “as the only credible worship experience” then I am very glad to have the opportunity to clarify what I believe. I believe that Pastor Furtick, as a representative of many other Protestant pastors, believes that the “worship experience” at Elevation Church to be one among many equally valid expressions of worship. My problem with that is that I don’t think that there are “many equally valid expressions of worship.” And it was against THAT idea that I was railing. I wanted to know what was so wrong about that woman’s criteria for choosing among many equally vaild forms of worship experience. If Pastor Furtick had suggested that Elevation Church had the ONLY valid expression of worship, I would have posted quite differently because we would have been in agreement on that point but differed in the matter of his authority to start his own church. I objected to his approval of some types of “church shopping” but not others.

ty23: You completely took his comments out of context to satisfy your opportunity to rail on about your idea of worship, which leads us to…

RNW: And I would like to gently suggest that you really have no idea what motivated me to write the post that I did. If you believe that I took his comments out of context you are, of course, free to believe that. Please do not ascribe motive.

ty23: 3. You don’t think worship should be meaningful to you? So I guess your weekly mass, your personal time with God, even the maintenance of this blog are meaningless to you. Doubt it. You find great meaning in your walk with God, as do many other Catholic churchgoes, I assume.

RNW: Actually I attend daily Mass as often as possible and not just Mass on Sunday. Practically speaking, that means I attend Mass twice a week. And what I meant was that we should not seek worship experiences that are “meaningful” to us personally. We are not the center of the universe. God is. God defines what worship is and whether or not we find it meaningful is immaterial. Cain offered a sacrifice in worship that was more meaningful to him personally than Abel’s. (Genesis 4:3-6) It didn’t work out very well for him. Lord only knows what Nadab and Abihu were thinking when they tinkered with God’s instructions. Their story is told three times in the Old Testament. Name another OT story told THREE times. There may be one or more, but I can’t think of them off the top of my head.

I did not say that my worship wasn’t meaningful. It is deeply meaningful to me but it wasn’t always that way. You see because I had made an idol of my intellect and understanding, God called me to the Catholic Church ahead of my grasp of Catholic worship and doctrine in order to help me to smash those idols. (“I’ll do whatever you tell me to Lord, as long as I understand it.” is NOT obedience. As a parent, I can tell you right now what kind of reaction my children get when I am told that they will NOT obey until I have satisfied their understanding.) Disobedience causes deafness and idols are not only blind, but they cause a sort of spiritual blindness. In my deaf and blind state, my perception was that Catholic worship was not meaningful and I cried to the Lord in agony more than once and begged Him to allow me to return to the familar places I once walked. But He knows better than I, what is food for the soul. The Grace I received through obedience to his clear leading in my life and through that, the obedience to the Church He placed in authority over me, and the healing Grace of the Sacraments allowed me eventually to smash the idols that my intellect and understanding had become. Worship has become meaningful to me because it was exactly the right food for my soul. The Eucharist is food for YOUR soul too. You are probably an excellent and holy Christian. I am deadly serious when I say that you are likely a better, more charitable, and more holy person than I am. True Worship and the Eucharist and the Sacraments would allow you, by God’s Grace, to be stronger and more holy still.

ty23: But, let’s be honest, your doctrine has proved itself to be anything but meaningful to thousands, maybe millions of people who have left the Catholic church to find something that actually spoke to them. Statistics prove that the growth of forward-thinking protestant churches, particularly in the South, as being filled with people, particularly from the North, who have left the catholic church to find something that was MEANINGFUL to them. Something that they could NOT just sit through and walk out the door unchanged. Your own church statistics tell the story of thousands, millions, of members on church rolls, while only a fraction actually attend services. Granted, that is the case in every denomination, but I guarantee you it’s not the case at churches who are looking to reach people far from God as opposed to sticking to old customs, traditions, and doctrine which has proved to be ineffective in reaching today’s world.

RNW: Ok let’s be honest, shall we? I think you are grossly myopic in this opinion. I think you are extrapolating forward from your tiny experience and drawing sweeping conclusions. The Protestant tendency to reject literal, visible unity in favor of some insipid symbolic sort tends to handicap you when looking at the Catholic Church though and so perhaps your myopia is understandable. The Catholic Church is ONE church that is 2,000 years old and is presently worldwide with over a billion living members. When you add to that number all of the Catholics who have died in the faith in the last 2,000 years and throw in all that they did for the Kingdom, together with what my living brothers and sisters in the Catholic faith are accomplishing worldwide and that statisics you believe prove your point about “forward thinking Protestant churches” really don’t mean a lot to me. I will be the first one to stand up and rant about some of the current problems in the Catholic Church. And in fact, if you think that my previous post qualified as “ranting” (you certainly accused me of that enough times) then let me tell you what happens when I deliver my opinion to fellow Catholics on my “pet” problems in the Church. That said. Whatever those problems are, they are hardly a blip on the radar screen compared to the scope of Catholic history. I know that they will be remedied because Our Lord promised that the Gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church He built on Peter the Rock. Problems in the Church do not give me license to usurp the Apostolic Authority handed down through that 2,000 years and go start the First Church of Red Neck Woman any more than “problems” in my marriage give me license to go find a husband that understands me better and try again on that whole marital covenant thing. There is only ONE Bride of Christ and you can leave her if you wish, but there is no divorce and if you pretend otherwise it is the equivalent of spiritual adultery.

And as long as we are being honest, what has your doctrine given us? Church splits? (30,000 plus denominations and counting.) Congregational bickering and fighting. Vigorously growing churches only to be destroyed by scandal and sin with members sent out to re-make the wheel and start over again? I’ve been part of vibrant, growing, churches like Elevation. I know how good it makes you feel. You are looking on the present success of Elevation and churches like it and ignoring the rest of what sola scriptura has delivered. Tell me today what exactly your definition of a forward thinking Protestant Church is and then come back to me in 500 years (I won’t even make you wait 2,000) and we’ll compare what has been done for the kingdom by the Catholic Church in that time and by those churches that fit your definition.

I receive Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity each and every Mass (providing that I am not in need of Sacramental Confession and have fasted appropriately). I assure you, that you cannot have an encounter that intimate with Our Lord and leave unchanged unless you are denying the Eucharist as St. Paul warned about in 1 Corinthians 11:23-29. I suspect that each and EVERY Catholic you have every met that left the Catholic church claiming to be “unchanged” was guilty of receiving the Eucharist in an unworthy manner. Strong words I know, but to be Catholic and to *deny the Real Presence and receive the Eucharist anyway is a very grave matter. *Please also let me differentiate between outright denial and those doubts of faith that we all have. It is sufficient to say “Lord I believe. Help Thou my unbelief.”

ty23: 4. Your take on worship is simply put, incorrect. While God spoke very clearly about sacrificial worship in the Old Testament, He also spoke very clearly through His Son and His disciples in the New Testament. Jesus paid that sacrifice once and for all. We don’t have to come before Him beaten, guilty, and downtrodden. We are called to come to Him convicted of our sin by His Holy Spirit, and seeking His forgiveness, but at the same time praising Him for the fact that “there is now no condemnation”. I know that this challenges your doctrine on repentance, pennance, the whole Rosary thing, confession, etc, but let me just make one blanket statement, again, one we will just agree to disagree: not BIBLICAL. Those practices are the product of Man, not God. Worship is as decribed in the Bible, a joyful, praise-filled time to thank God for what He has done in our lives. Doesn’t it just feel better, and sound more like our God, to spend the majority of our worship experience, whatever the methodology, praising and thanking Him then to spend it getting beat over the head with church-inspired guilt and the need to count beads and recite prayers. JUST TALK TO GOD, TELL HIM YOU’RE SORRY, TELL HIM YOU’RE GRATEFUL, TELL HIM YOU LOVE HIM!!! You don’t need Mary or Peter to deliver the message for you.

RNW: I hear your passion and conviction. I am sorry to have to tell you this but all those things you said weren’t biblical…Yes, they are. Let’s start with ‘repentence.’ In the SAME paragraph that you say that my doctrine on repentance is “not BIBLICAL” you tell me to “TELL HIM YOU’RE SORRY” Where I’m from, saying you’re sorry and meaning it is a synonym for ‘repentance.’ Nevertheless, I assume you’re not really saying that repentance isn’t biblical and what you meant was that Sacramental Confession isn’t biblical. First, let me say that Catholics DO confess their sins directly to God. The role that Sacramental Confession plays in all of that goes far beyond the scope of this post. However, I take issue with the idea that it isn’t in the Bible. Confessing sins to someone else AND receiving forgiveness and the necessity of repentance (of which penance or attempting to correct the wrong is a part) is recorded in Sacred Scripture. Our Lord and Savior in John 20:22-23 breathed on the apostles and gave them the power to forgive sins. The only other place that God breathes on man is in Genesis 2:7 where he breathes life into Adam. The forgiveness of sins breathes new life into US! If Jesus didn’t intend for the Apostles to hear other people’s sins, why is this event recorded in John? Why not instruct the Apostles (and record it accordingly) not to forgive sin but to assure the faithful that all they needed to do was to go to God in prayer and “TELL HIM YOU’RE SORRY”? I cannot ignore the importance of that passage of Sacred Scripture as I did when I was a Protestant. And what about St. Paul who speaks of a Ministry of Reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5:17-20?.  In James 5:13-15, we see recorded in the early church that this Ministry of Reconciliation has been expanded to include presbyters (priests), because the prayer of the priest causes sin to be forgiven. Protestants often translate the word presbyter as ‘elder’ but the Catholic word for ‘priest’ comes from that Greek word. And it is bishops (who have Apostolic authority) and priests who hear Sacramental Confession and IN THE NAME OF JESUS, forgive sins. Jesus also speaks very clearly about repentance in Luke 13:2-5:

He said to them in reply, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did! Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them  –do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!”

The rosary is a meditation on the Gospels. I find it hard to declare meditating on the Plan of Salvation as unbiblical, but you are entitled to your opinion. I blogged about Repetitive Prayer very recently and so I won’t go there again today. As for Mass being about counting beads, reciting prayers, and my personal favorite “getting beat over the head with church-inspired guilt”, I have to say that I don’t think you have ever been to a Catholic Mass or if you have, had it adequately explained to you. In fact, once you understand the Catholic Mass you’ll find it is all about Jesus and not at all about Mary and the saints and all about forgiveness and mercy….no bead counting, and no “getting beat over the head.”

ty23: 5. The church that Jesus founded: Jesus didn’t die to protect books, doctrine, Eucharists or anything else that you hold up in place of real life change.

RNW: No. He died to give us the Eucharist. “This is my Body which is given up for you.” and “This is the Blood of the Covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” AND He said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” We see in Acts that the earliest church DEVOTED themselves to the “breaking of the bread” and to “prayers.” Are you devoted to the breaking of the bread? Where is that DEVOTION in the average Protestant worship service? And I did not say that Jesus died to protect any of those things. I said that your brothers and sisters who passed the Christian faith to you, who faced torture, and starvation, and death, and loneliness died to pass those things on to you. I sorrow to my bones that some reject their sacrifice as unnecessary.

ty23: He died so that all men could be free of the bondage of sin and experience a fullness of life that is impossible without Him.

RNW: Agreed. 

ty23: He didn’t die so that one mighty ‘church’ could be the end all for all things holy, and be the only source from which the world should take it’s direction.

RNW: How many churches did Jesus found? Here are some more questions. Does doctrine matter? I think the evidence says that it does. If it doesn’t then, church splits are even more gravely sinful because they are based on something that doesn’t matter. If doctrine DOES matter, then there really IS a right answer and since there is only ONE God, and ONE Bride of Christ, there doesn’t seem to be room for differences in worship and doctrine, no matter how snarkily you care to characterize it. I would phrase it differently and with more charitable language but yes, I do believe that He died so that “ONE mighty church could be the end all for all things holy, and be the only source from which the world should take it’s direction.” What do you suggest is the purpose of Christ’s Church if not to be Holy and a source of direction for the world?

 

ty23: TAKE YOUR DIRECTION FROM HIM! Yes, the Bible is a tough read, but most of the time it’s pretty clear what God intends for His people. Do we really think that God’s plan was that there would be one guy, who if enough people thought he was alot like Peter, could sit in Peter’s chair and cast down direction depending on the current social and political climate, or how he personally felt about an issue. GOD’S WORD DOESN’T CHANGE! So we don’t need to look to some figurehead who is going to express a point of view that in most probability will contradict the guy that came before him.

RNW: Well I do take my direction from Him and the Bible. Jesus didn’t mince words when He said He would build His church on Peter the Rock. You’re absolutely right it IS clear. Jesus said “EAT my flesh” and “Drink my blood.” and let disciples LEAVE rather than say “Wait I was just speaking symbolically.”  He said “Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven.” too. It was only as a Protestant that I needed someone to help me understand that those passages didn’t mean what it looked like they were saying. I also think you grossly misunderstand the role of the Pope and what the doctrine of papal infallibility means and doesn’t mean. And frankly, you’re right. Unless Jesus’ hand was in it, one Pope probably would contradict the ones who came before him. But that isn’t the case and given how grossly sinful and self-centered some of the Popes have been, it should give you pause that Catholic dogma and doctrine doesn’t change. Our understanding may grow as in the case of the doctrine of the Trinity which was not dogmatized immediately, or the canon of Sacred Scripture but growth in understanding is not contradiction. Please understand that there is a difference between Tradition with a capital ‘T’ and tradition with a small ‘t’ Small ‘t’ tradition or church discipline like priestly celibacy may change but dogma, such as the Trinity is NOT contradicted.

You also say “Do we really think that God’s plan was that there would be one guy, who if enough people thought he was alot like Peter, could sit in Peter’s chair and cast down direction depending on the current social and political climate, or how he personally felt about an issue. GOD’S WORD DOESN’T CHANGE!” I find no small amount of irony in this particular part of your statement. You’re right. God’s WORD doesn’t change. Why should worship of Him change based on “current social and political climate and how one feels personally about it.”?

ty23: 6. Pet doctrine. Pastor Furtick wasn’t protecting HIS pet doctrine, He was protecting THE doctrine upon which the local church was based. The idea that Jesus intended for the church to reach lost people. That’s the flat out Bible-based, no arguing with it purpose of the church: to reach those who do not know him. That’s what everything most forward-thinking churches revolve around. My experience with the Catholic church is that it is just that, ‘pet doctrine’ (because it’s not biblical), that would prevent it from doing much of anything to reach lost people. How many first time guests did you have this past week? How many people who have been away from the Lord, and have reconnected, not just out of guilt, but out of a longing for a MEANINGFUL relationship with God, brought them through the doors of a church for the first time since their parents stopped forcing them to go to mass? Let’s not even argue that. An impactful church is a growing church, a growing moveme nt of people seeking God, regardless of denomination. Today’s Catholic church does not fit in that category.

RNW: He’s NOT protecting his pet doctrines? Well then, I will save a place for him in the Catholic Church. And although I am certain that you think I am willfully misunderstanding you, I assure you that I am not. If he is not protecting his pet doctrines, then there is no barrier to him reconciling with the Catholic Church. However, I suspect that your remarks reflect his thinking on various Catholic doctrines and just as YOU disagree, so does he. And since he has assumed the authority to establish his own church based on his own understanding of those doctrines rather than serve in unity with his brothers and sisters in Christ. That is protecting them.  Pastor Furtick for all his sincerity and probably good heartedness, has no greater claim to authority of his particular interpretation of Sacred Scripture than any of the pastors of any of the over 30,000 other Protestant denominations that also claim to be proclaiming “THE doctrine upon which the local church was based. The idea that Jesus intended for the church to reach lost people. That’s the flat out Bible-based, no arguing with it purpose of the church: to reach those who do not know him.” And I must also say, that the fact that you claim membership in a church at all is prima facie evidence of the Catholic Church’s understanding of the purpose of the church and its 2000 year commitment to reaching the lost. That you have the Bible, is a gift from and rests on the authority of the Catholic Church that established the canon to begin with. It is a gift from those Catholic monks that gave their eyesight by working themselves to exhaustion to preserve those Sacred Scriptures in the 1400 or so years before Gutenburg. That you have a church is a gift from the first 1500 years of Catholic missionary work to spread the gospel in the known world. I assure you, that the Catholic Church is indeed cognizant of the exhortation to “go into all the world” and reach the lost.

ty23: 7. Let’s take a break on this one, keep it lighthearted. I know firsthand that Pastor Furtick does not play all his favorite songs, his staff and leadership prepare songs that speak to today’s churchgoer and most effectively create a WORSHIP EXPERIENCE that will impact them and stay with them throughout their day, their week, weed it’s way into their relationships, you name it. He also does not sit down in front. By the way, if nothing else, shouldn’t our time with God, as a collective body of beleivers and those seeking new life be classified as an experience? What a great way to put it. Wouldn’t you want to leave church on Sunday, feeling like you had one of the best experiences of your life? Wouldn’t you want to be searching for the words to describe what you EXPERIENCED to your friends and family. I’ll bet the Sermon the Mount was an experience!

RNW: Very well. I was speaking figuratively and I apologize for not making that clearer. I assume that Pastor Furtick does have some say-so in the selection of music and even if his criteria is NOT to choose simply his favorite song, I believe my point stands. He does choose or at least exercises authority over those who do choose. And I really don’t care if he sits in the front or the back, or paces the aisles if you have them. The point is that he has some criteria for choosing and orchestrating as he does and if he can choose then so can this other woman he took issue with. You may call your church service whatever you like, but if you do not do what Jesus commanded when he said “Do this in remembrance of me.” it is not True Worship…no matter what it makes you feel like. As a young person, I often felt like I was “in love.” It was a chemical experience and not at all what I now share with my spouse of 20 years. What felt like love, gave way to the reality. Yes, I still “feel” like I am in love just as I often “feel” a wonderful experience at Sunday Mass. However, the “feelings” of love are just that. Feelings. And not true love that persists no matter how many dirty socks are on my floor. My “feelings” of the experience of worship are wonderful and lovely. They are only “feelings” and are immaterial to whether or not I am experiencing True Worship. I often “felt” like I was in love before I was married and experienced true covenantal love, it was not actually love but the feeling of it. I similarly experienced feelings of “worship” before I reconciled to the Catholic Church and experienced True Covenantal worship. My feelings about what I experienced before were not an indicator of the reality.

ty23: 7. [SIC] In your last rant, you get all over this “understanding of scripture” thing, and basically, I agree with you wholeheartedly. The idea that we should find a church that lines up with OUR understanding is totally backwards, but your assumption about the average protstant is no worse than anyone’s assumption’s about the average Catholic. You see, the thing is, we need to stop looking at Joe Protestant, or Cathy Catholic; they’re fine, they know God, right. So let them bicker about how someone preaches or how someone sings, or whether or not father so and so has a good voice to sing during mass. The point is, and the point Pastor Furtick was making with the post as a whole, is that the church isn’there for that conversation. We’re not here to debate theology, we’re not here to please Joe or Cathy’s intellect, we are here to reach lost people. So, what Pastor Furtick was saying was…if you are Joe or Cathy, please don’t come in here with your preconceived notions of how church should be done, making sure that it fits your man-made mold of what you are comfortable with. Joe can go to the little baptist church on the corner that has 75 people coming, maybe 500 on the membership roll, and get on the list for the next pot-luch dinner. Cathy, can head back to mass, say a few verses that make her feel good, that qualify her as guilt-free until the next confession, and just like Joe, head out Monday morning completely unchanged and completely ill-equipped to affect the world aroud them for the Glory of God.

RNW: If Pastor Furtick is not here to debate theology,  then WHY doesn’t he reconcile to the Catholic Church and reach the lost from there? We could use his enthusiasm for reaching the lost. Again, I am not willfully misunderstanding. The truth is, that theology DOES matter to Pastor Furtick or he would be also be about the business of uniting Our Lord’s church. He wouldn’t become Catholic, because he disagrees. And that is because to him, and to you, and to me….doctrine matters no matter how we try to paint the picture otherwise.
 

ty23: RNW, I hear your passion, I hear you conviction, and I hear how much you love the church, you’re just all riled up about the wrong thing. Pastor Furtck’s rant was the result of his desire to REACH lost people, not build a case for the sound doctrine of the protestant church. You seem to be much more concerned with the inner workings of the church, than actually being part of the church changing lives. Stop reading about Alex Jones, stop linking to websites that will never be seen by someone who has never known Christ and start looking for those who are far from Him, and do something to help Jesus Christ intersect their life. Heck, take them to mass, help them read the Bible, give them some sound guidance on how to seek God in a new and exciting way, just don’t bog them down with doctrine, ritual, or talking points about what they should say to anyone challenging the Catholic church. We are called to live for GOD, and in some ways we do that through our church, but we are not called to live for our church instead of Him.

RNW: I am sorry but I do not think that getting riled up about Unity in Our Lord’s Church when He prayed for our visible unity on the night before he was excuted, is getting riled up about the wrong thing. Jesus said that our UNITY would be a witness to the world. He said “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.” Don’t you see that unity is an essential part of reaching the lost? Jesus said so. We aren’t reaching as many people as we could because we have abandoned that visible, concrete unity that Jesus intended as public witness for us in favor of something else and then we walk around pretending that it isn’t important. And the only way back to unity is to stop pretending that we’ve already got it and all we have to do is go about the busines of reaching lost souls. We don’t have it. Doctrine does matter and until we sit down and go about the hard work of regaining that unity we are going to lose still more souls because Jesus knew our witness depended on that unity.

ty23: Many people are looking to leaders like Pastor Furtick to make a dent in their lives, in their communities, in the world they live in. This Sunday, I would challenge you to ask your priest what your church has cooked up to reach your local community. What ground-breaking, life-changing, impossible to ingore risk is your church taking to ensure that you are fullfilling the Great Commission as a church? Will he have an energetic response, will he call Rome, or will he just explain how your congregation is going to continue doing the same thing you always do, and just hope that some stanger walking by the church feels tingly and decides to step inside. Whatever side of the conversation you are on, let’s all just get busy working to make God’s church what it was designed to be…His plan A, B, C, and D to reach the lost.

RNW: Well I will be meeting my Priest long before Sunday arrives and thank you, but I don’t need your challenge. I have spent many hours in our church meeting the needs of our community. It isn’t a new program, it’s the same old one and we call them the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy just plain old feed the hungry, help the poor obtain their medicine, help find a refrigerator or a couch for that newly single mom etc. Jesus set up many of the basics of that program in Matthew.  We pray a lot at our church too. Our chapel is open 24 hours a day from Monday to Thursday…you’d be surprised who gets all tingly and comes in during the wee hours. I had a lovely talk with a Presbyterian lady from 2-4 am about a week ago who just needed someone to pray with. We’re working on having the chapel open with someone praying inside 24/7. It’s not a particularly new or brightly packaged idea, just a a time-tested old one.  And when I was at the church Saturday to join in a group prayer, our pastor was showing someone around the parish who was walking by and decided to “step inside.” And we don’t need to call Rome about it either, they’re doing the same thing. Sure God regularly raises up saints among to remind us even more about the value of quietly going about the business of loving the unloved. Mother Teresa springs to mind. We in the Catholic Church have a rich tradition of saints, both those with and without a capital ‘S’, who have come up with more ways to feed the hungry, love the unloved, meet the needs of the poor, care for the sick, clothe the naked, build up communities, and otherwise reach the world for Christ than Pastor Furtick and the Elevation Church would be able to carry out in several lifetimes.

ty23: Come to Elevation. I guarantee you’ll have a meaningful experience.

RNW: Thank you for the kind invitation but I would rather have the food that Jesus intended for my soul, that the Apostles taught us about, and that Catholic martyrs throughout the centuries have died for than any “experience.” I will leave you with this quote:

“What if the world desired to be fooled?….what if for a generation or two before his [the antichrist's] appearance, the formation of Catholics were to fall into confusion? What if a generation of religious illiterates had been formed, unable to distinguish between religious truth and religious sentiment?” Father Elijah in Father Elijah: An Apocalypse by Michael D. O’Brien

And these thoughts about it. It is the confusion of religious sentiment with religious truth that I am “ranting” about. I believe that is exactly what you are confused about. And I know you disagree.