Thursday, July 12, 2007
The Pope is still Catholic
For some reason, the world is surprised when religious folks insist that creeds actually do define the boundaries of a faith. And unfortunately, in an era of ecumenicism and universalism, those contrary voices are becoming fewer and fainter. However, the Pope is sticking to his guns: Protestant faith 'not a proper Church'. I'm not a Roman Catholic myself, but on this point I find myself agreeing with Pope Benedict. No, I don't agree that Protestantism isn't a "proper church"--but I do agree that, given the historical doctrines affirmed by the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict can hardly come to any other conclusion. I believe his conclusion is wrong, but it is the only conclusion consistent with his premises. He, unlike the mainline Protestant ecumenicists, recognizes that the differences between the historical Christian traditions are important and will divide the Church so long as agreement cannot be reached. He does not ignore what divides us and pretend that we are in accord when we are not. Again, I believe he is wrong, but we agree that the issues in question are definitive of the very nature of Christianity itself. On the whole, I prefer the Pope's honest antagonism to the false peace of the ecumenicists.
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2 comments:
You could not be more correct. What has happened in the world at large and religion specifically is that it has been decided that we don't agree with specific points of doctrine (rules, laws, etc.) and so the doctrine is ignored/swept under the table. The problem with this approach is that it waters down any of the other doctrines that a religion/denomination/society claims to hold. If the doctrine we don't like can be ignored, what is to say that we can't ignore other doctrines. The very foundation of religion/society is swept out from under it.
In my view there are only two solutions to this problem. The first is to hold or enforce all doctrines/rules/laws of the religion/society so that they all have meaning. The second solution is one that still has the potential to undercut the rules if not handled properly. It is to change the doctrine/rule/law. Like I said, this has to be handled very carefully to prevent voiding all the other guides. There needs to be proper procedures to change these guides.
1. There needs to be a representative portion of the affected group that evaluates the change.
2. There needs to be a reasonable time period before a cahnge is made, allowing objections to be voiced.
3. There needs to be an objective way to measure whether a change is approved.
Without at least these limits we may as well become existentialist.
A good point to raise: no doctrinal community of Christendom is perfect in their understanding of theology and holy living, so adjustments and corrections are inevitable. But these adjustments can't be made simply by ignoring uncomfortable controversies. Instead there must be a mechanism in place for the community to adjust itself that both honestly addresses controversies and maintains the integrity of its identity.
For the church during the post-apostolic period, that mechanism was the ecumenical council, in which representatives from churches all over the world sought unanimity of doctrine. Sadly, that didn't last, with the lamentable result that Christendom split in two: East and West. Later there were other divisions over many other issues, leaving us in the current state of Christendom. This is regrettable but not without some positive aspects. As Paul said, divisions are necessary because they help the truth to become more evident (1 Cor 11:18-19). Unanimity is nice and all, but it shouldn't come at the expense of truth.
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