Apologetics for the Masses - Issue #189

General Comments

Hey folks,

MORE BIG NEWS! Have you ever been to Rome? If not, or if you have been and would love to go again, how would you like to travel to Italy next June with my family and me? My wife, 4 children, and I are going to Italy in June of 2013 (the 4th-13th), and we would love to have you and your family join us.

I’ve lined up this incredible trip to Italy through the Bible Christian Society with ChiRho Euro – a travel company run by a friend of mine, who also happens to be the Director of Evangelization for the Archdiocese of Mobile (all of us folks in Evangelization need side jobs to support the families!). We’re going to spend 8 days in Italy, mostly in Rome, with one day side trips to Assisi and Siena, visiting many of the wonderful sites over there. Our guide will be the aforementioned Director of Evangelization for Mobile, Patrick Arensberg, who just happens to speak fluent Italian and has been to Rome many times. (For a full itinerary, go to www.chirhoeuro.com, click on “Find Your Group,” then click on “Italy,” and then “2013 Martignoni.”)

This is how it works: We only need about 30 people or so to sign up to make this trip happen. With some 30,000 folks on this newsletter list, I’m hoping we won’t have any problem getting that number. We are going to cap the trip at a maximum of 45 passengers, so sign up early! The cost for the trip is $2595 per person, plus airfare. This price includes a lot of little things that can add up that usually aren’t covered in travel packages like this – in addition to the full-time services of a Catholic tour guide we will also have the exclusive use of an air-conditioned motor coach, breakfast, supper (at truly local restaurants), bottled water and wine in moderation, all entrance fees, all mandatory tips, a full time chaplain, and so much more. Really, you just buy your own lunch and souvenirs.

You have until September 1st to decide if you want to go, as that is when the initial $500 deposit is due. Although, if you get your deposit in by June 30th, you get a $100 discount on the trip. The next payment of $1500 is due by December 1st, and the balance, plus airfare, is due on March 1st. All of the information regarding the trip can be found at the website mentioned above.

So, please think and pray about joining my family and me in Italy next summer. We can see the sites, talk apologetics and evangelization, get to know one another, and just have a wonderful time together. I’ve never been to Italy and am looking forward to getting over there…

If you have any questions, you can ask Patrick by sending him an email through the “Contact Us” page at the chirhoeuro.com website, or send them to me. )

Introduction

Okay, this week I came across a blog posting from Dr. Peter J. Leithart. Dr. Leithart received his Masters in Theology from Westminster Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. from Cambridge. He was the pastor of a Presbyterian church here in Birmingham, he has written a number of articles for various newspapers and magazines, including First Things, and he currently teaches Theology and Literature at New Saint Andrews College. In other words, Dr. Leithart is a pretty smart fellow.

Which is why I wanted to highlight this particular blog posting of his and comment on it, to once again back up my contention that Protestantism generally has to remain at the surface, in terms of theology and logic, because if you try to dive in too deep, you will hit your head on the bottom and break your theological neck.

As usual, I will present his complete remarks at the beginning, and then repeat his remarks with my comments interspersed. I’ll tackle the first half of his blog in this issue, and the 2nd half of his blog in the next. His remarks will be in italics.

Challenge/Response/Strategy

Too catholic to be Catholic
Dr. Peter J. Leithart

My friends tell me that my name has been invoked in various web skirmishes concerning Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism, sometimes by people, including friends, who claim that I nurtured them along in their departure from the Protestant world. My friends also hinted that it would be good for me to say again why I’m not heading to Rome or Constantinople or Moscow (Russia!), nor encouraging anyone to do so. Everything I say below I’ve said before in various venues – on this blog, in First Things, in conference presentations. But it might be useful to put down my reasons fairly concisely in one place, so here tis.

One of the major themes of my academic and pastoral life, and one of the passions of my heart, has been to participate in the healing of the divided church. I have written and taught a great deal on ecclesiology; I participate in various joint Protestant-Catholic-Orthodox ventures (Touchstone, First Things, Center for Catholic-Evangelical Dialog). I consider many Catholics and Orthodox friends as co-belligerents in various causes, and I think of Catholicism and Orthodoxy as allies on a wide range of issues, not only in the culture wars but in theology and church life.

This isn’t just a theological niche for me. It’s a product of a deep conviction about the nature of the church. I still remember the pain I felt when I first understood (with James Dunn’s help) what Paul was on about in Galatians 2, when he attacked Peter for withdrawing from table fellowship. The division of the church, especially since the Reformation, has largely been a story of horror and tragedy, with the occasional act of faithful separation thrown in. I regard the division of the church as one of the great evils of the modern world, which has seen more than its share of evils (many of which are, I believe, quite closely related to the division of the church). What more horrific sight can we imagine than to see Christ again crucified? Christ is not divided. I think our main response to this half-millennium of Western division, and millennium-plus of East-West division should be deep mourning and repentance.

My Protestantism, my reformed catholicity, isn’t at all in conflict with that passion for church unity. There is no tension at all. On the contrary, it’sbecause I am so passionate to see the church reunited that I, not grudgingly but cheerfully, stay where I am. My summary reason for staying put is simple: I’m too catholic to become Catholic or Orthodox.

I agree with the standard Protestant objections to Catholicism and Orthodoxy: Certain Catholic teachings and practices obscure the free grace of God in Jesus Christ; prayers through Mary and the saints are not encouraged or permitted by Scripture, and they distract from the one Mediator, Jesus; I do not accept the Papal claims of Vatican I; I believe iconodules violate the second commandment by engaging in liturgical idolatry; venerating the Host is also liturgical idolatry; in both Catholicism and Orthodoxy, tradition muzzles the word of God. I’m encouraged by many of the developments in Catholicism before and since Vatican II, but Vatican II created issues of its own (cf. the treatment of Islam in Lumen Gentium).

I agree with those objections, but those are not the primary driving reasons that keep me Protestant. I have strong objections to some brands of Protestantism, after all. My Protestantism – better, reformed catholicity – is not fundamentally anti-. It’s pro-, pro-church, pro-ecumenism, pro-unity, pro-One Body of the One Lord. It’s not that I’m too anti-Catholic to be Catholic. I’m too catholic to be Catholic.

Here’s the question I would ask to any Protestant considering a move: What are you saying about your past Christian experience by moving to Rome or Constantinople? Are you willing to start going to a Eucharistic table where your Protestant friends are no longer welcome? How is that different from Peter’s withdrawal from table fellowship with Gentiles? Are you willing to say that every faithful saint you have known is living a sub-Christian existence because they are not in churches that claim apostolic succession, no matter how fruitful their lives have been in faith, hope, and love? For myself, I would have to agree that my ordination is invalid, and that I have never presided over an actual Eucharist. To become Catholic, I would have to begin regarding my Protestant brothers as ambiguously situated “separated brothers,” rather than full brothers in the divine Brother, Jesus. To become Orthodox, I would likely have to go through the whole process of initiation again, as if I were never baptized. And what is that saying about all my Protestant brothers who have been “inadequately” baptized? Why should I distance myself from other Christians like that? I’m too catholic to do that.

Catholicism and Orthodoxy are impressive for their heritage, the seriousness of much of their theology, the seriousness with which they take Christian cultural engagement. Both, especially the Catholic church, are impressive for their sheer size. But when I attend Mass and am denied access to the table of my Lord Jesus together with my Catholic brothers, I can’t help wondering what really is the difference between Catholics and the Wisconsin Synod Lutherans or the Continental Reformed who practice closed communion. My Catholic friends take offense at this, but I can’t escape it: Size and history apart, how is Catholicism different from a gigantic sect? Doesn’t Orthodoxy come under the same Pauline condemnation as the fundamentalist Baptist churches who close their table to everyone outside? To become Catholic I would had to contract my ecclesial world. I would have to become less catholic – less catholic than Jesus is. Which is why I will continue to say: I’m too catholic to become Catholic.

One final reason has to do with time. I cut my theological teeth, and still cut them, on James Jordan’s biblical theology. At the end of Through New Eyes, Jordan argues just as the temple was unimaginable to Israelites living through the collapse of the tabernacle system, so the future of the church is unimaginable to us. We can’t see the future; we can’t know how God is going to put back the fragmented pieces of His church. We can trust and hope that He is and will, but all we have access to are the configurations of the past and present. It’s tempting to imagine that the future of the church will be an extension of some present tradition – Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Anabaptist, whatever. But the future never is a simple extension of the past and present (how can it be, with the massive surge in Christianity in the global South?). So I remain contentedly and firmly in my reformed catholicity, but I remain also eager and impatient for the church to come. Of that church we know nothing except that it will be like nothing we know. We worship a living God, which means (Jenson tells us) a God of constant surprises.

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Too catholic to be Catholic

Dr. Leithart:
My friends tell me that my name has been invoked in various web skirmishes concerning Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism, sometimes by people, including friends, who claim that I nurtured them along in their departure from the Protestant world. My friends also hinted that it would be good for me to say again why I’m not heading to Rome or Constantinople or Moscow (Russia!), nor encouraging anyone to do so. Everything I say below I’ve said before in various venues – on this blog, in First Things, in conference presentations. But it might be useful to put down my reasons fairly concisely in one place, so here tis.

John Martignoni:

Well, I’m glad that he is helping folks depart from the Protestant world, even if it was not necessarily his intention to do so. But, the title of this blog entry is a bit of a conceit, it seems to me. He is “too catholic,” with a small “c,” to be Catholic, with a capital “C.” Really?! I know he doesn’t mean to be, but there is a bit of arrogance at work here. He doesn’t realize it but, as I’ll show, he has basically appointed himself Pope and is infallibly pronouncing on doctrine and dogma.

Dr. Leithart:
One of the major themes of my academic and pastoral life, and one of the passions of my heart, has been to participate in the healing of the divided church. I have written and taught a great deal on ecclesiology; I participate in various joint Protestant-Catholic-Orthodox ventures (Touchstone, First Things, Center for Catholic-Evangelical Dialog). I consider many Catholics and Orthodox friends as co-belligerents in various causes, and I think of Catholicism and Orthodoxy as allies on a wide range of issues, not only in the culture wars but in theology and church life.

John Martignoni:

Healing the “divided church” is a very good thing to be passionate about. I’m right there with him on that count. I have devoted the last 15 years of my life to that goal. The question is, though, what do you base the healing of this “divided church” on? How do you heal this “divided church?” How do you overcome doctrinal differences? How do you overcome structural differences? How do you overcome liturgical differences? Or, do doctrinal, stuctural, and liturgical differences even matter? Can we just sort of overlook them and kind of take the Rodney King approach of, "Can’t we all just get along?" Well, Dr. Leithart basically takes the approach, as you will see, that we can heal this “divided church” by taking it to the lowest common denominator. Let’s just focus on what we have in common and, essentially, jettison what we don’t have in common. Hmm…who would have to sacrifice the most there, I wonder?

Actually, I need to revise that a bit by pointing out that he is not saying we should go to the absolute lowest common denominator, rather, he is saying – whether he realizes it or not and whether he admits it or not – that we should go to the lowest common denominator that he is comfortable with. He is not willing, apparently, to sacrifice much for the healing of this “divided church.”

Dr. Leithart:
This isn’t just a theological niche for me. It’s a product of a deep conviction about the nature of the church. I still remember the pain I felt when I first understood (with James Dunn’s help) what Paul was on about in Galatians 2, when he attacked Peter for withdrawing from table fellowship. The division of the church, especially since the Reformation, has largely been a story of horror and tragedy, with the occasional act of faithful separation thrown in. I regard the division of the church as one of the great evils of the modern world, which has seen more than its share of evils (many of which are, I believe, quite closely related to the division of the church). What more horrific sight can we imagine than to see Christ again crucified? Christ is not divided. I think our main response to this half-millennium of Western division, and millennium-plus of East-West division should be deep mourning and repentance.

John Martignoni:

He says that this issue is not “just a theological niche” for him, but he then goes on to use a scriptural example that involves a “theological niche.” A theological niche, or dispute, that was threatening to divide the church. The particular dispute between Peter and Paul (Galatians 2) arose over the question of whether or not the Gentile Christians had to follow the prescriptions of the Old Testament Law or not – specifically, circumcision, the dietary laws, and so forth. Peter, because of the vision and experience that he had as related in Acts 10, had taken the position that the Old Testament practices were no longer necessary. Therefore, he was eating with (sitting down at table with) the Gentiles and not keeping kosher and so on. This was all well and good until a certain faction of Jewish Christians, known as the Judaizers, came down and were scandalized by Peter’s behavior. The Judaizers were insisting that the Gentile Christians had to be circumcised and had to keep the kosher laws and the other Jewish practices.

So, Peter, because of pressure from his fellow Jewish Christians, “withdrew from table fellowship” with the Gentiles. Paul, who knew that this was not right for Peter to do, took issue with Peter over the whole situation and, in his letter to the Galatians, really took them to task because they, too, were succumbing to the influence of the Judaizers and were apparently considering requiring circumcision of all male believers. Paul excoriated them for thinking of doing such a thing and told them, in Galatians 5, that if they received ritual circumcision, they would be “severed from Christ.”

Now, this was not really a theological dispute between Peter and Paul, as Peter believed the same as Paul on this matter, as his initial actions with the Gentiles clearly showed. No, this was primarily a theological dispute between Paul and the Judaizers. Peter was not a Judaizer, but his “sin” was being unduly influenced by the Judaizers in this instance.

So, again, this example cited by Dr. Leithart, while he would try to take theology out of it, is actually a theological issue. It is an issue of good theology vs. bad theology. An issue of right theology vs. wrong theology. An issue, in essence, of what is the truth? And, how did the early church decide this matter? I’ll get back to that very important point in the latter part of this commentary – probably in the next issue.

Continuing on with the rest of this paragraph of Dr. Leithart’s, I am very glad to hear his admission that the division of the church, “especially since the Reformation,” has “largely been a story of horror and tragedy.” He is quite right about that. The tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of further separations within Protestantism are a testimony to the error of what most call the “Reformation.” I call it the “Deformation,” since it reformed nothing at all and actually deformed the church. Now, as God always does, He brought greater good out of evil by having the Deformation lead to a true reformation in the Church, which the history books call the Counter-Reformation, that was initiated by the Council of Trent. Nonetheless, the Deformation has been a black mark on Christianity for almost 500 years now. I agree with him that we need to continue to mourn this division and that a great deal of repentance is necessary in order for this wound to heal.

But then he uses this phrase, “the occasional act of faithful separation.” What does that mean – “faithful separation?” I’ll tell you what it means, it is an escape route he is trying to provide – to himself and others – in order to keep from having to admit that all of the divisions brought on by the Deformation were necessarily bad. Because if all of the divisions brought on by the Deformation were wrong, then the only logical place to be, would be the Catholic Church. But, we can’t go there, so if I say that some of the divisions in the church were “faithful separations,” then I can clean them up a bit and make them sound palatable so that I don’t have to face the logical consequences of my talking about the evils of the separation within the church. Those logical consequences being to all go back to the original church from which we separated.

Dr. Leithart:
My Protestantism, my reformed catholicity, isn’t at all in conflict with that passion for church unity. There is no tension at all. On the contrary, it’sbecause I am so passionate to see the church reunited that I, not grudgingly but cheerfully, stay where I am. My summary reason for staying put is simple: I’m too catholic to become Catholic or Orthodox.

John Martignoni:

There ya go. He provided himself with an out – “acts of faithful separation” – and he took it. And he cheerfully stays where he is. All these divisions within the church are horrible, awful, terrible, sinful, and need repentance, but, hey, I cheerfully remain where I am – in one of those divisions. You see, his division of the church, his denomination, apparently resulted from one of those “acts of faithful separation.” Don’t you love the logic? Do you see how folks have to do some logical gymnastics in order to justify their position?

And what is he saying here that he doesn’t even realize he’s saying? Essentially, he’s saying that he’s got it right, and everyone else has gotten it wrong. He is at the center, and all of the separations need to start revolving around him if they, too, wish to be as truly catholic as he is. He is, for all practical purposes, the Pope. And, as such, he is infallible. Oh, he probably wouldn’t admit that, but that’s just it – none of them do. But, that is indeed the logical and practical consequence of his position – he is right, everyone else is wrong, and as long as we do things his way, then we, too, can be too catholic to be Catholic.

I always say, to be Protestant is to either deny, ignore, or twist logic. Case in point, this phrase he uses, “reformed catholicity.” Again, what does that mean? It is, actually, an oxymoron. In other words, we apparently have "unreformed catholicity,” and we have “reformed catholicity.” Since “catholicity” means universality – having a universal nature – how can one then have a “reformed” catholicity? How can one have a “reformed” universality? If something is universal, then it is just that – universal. If there could be such a thing as a reformed universality, then that would mean that what you originally thought was universal, really wasn’t universal. So, you wouldn’t have a reformed universality, you would just have actual universality. Which means there can be no such thing as “reformed catholicity.” Either you have actual catholicity or you don’t. There is no such thing as reformed catholicity vs. unreformed catholicity. To put a modifier in front of universality, in front of catholicity, is to necessarily limit what you are modifying, and if you limit universality, it is no longer universal. If you limit catholicity, it is no longer catholic. "Reformed catholicity," therefore, is an oxymoron.

I suppose he was searching for a term to apply to his body of reasoning – the reasoning he uses to justify remaining Protestant – that would give that reasoning some sort of credibility, some sort of logic, some sort of sense on the surface of it, but he just can’t do it. You see, that’s just it – the terms you make up to describe beliefs that do not fit well with logic and common sense, necessarily end up being terms that, in their essence, are lacking in logic and common sense, even if they appear, on the surface, to sound reasonable. That is Protestantism in a nutshell.

(Note: Some may say that Roman Catholic then is an an oxymoron, but it is not. The "Roman" in the phrase does not modify the word "Catholic" rather, it merely identifies the unifying principal of Catholicism – the Bishop of Rome. Besides, the term "Roman Catholic," is one that was employed as a pejorative by the Protestants, it is not our "official" name, and is not used by Catholics to describe our catholicity, rather it is used simply because that is how our Church is commonly referred to by the general public.)

[I’ll stop here for now and continue with this in the next issue, but see if you can read through the rest of his blog post and recognize his errors in logic and reasoning.]

In Conclusion

I hope all of you have a great week, and really be thinking about that trip to Italy. I would love to have you come over with us…

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