Apologetics for the Masses #488 - Liberal/Heterodox Catholics (aka Modernists)

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Topic

A conversation on Facebook with a Modernist.

General Comments

Hey folks,

A few things:

1) I mentioned Kondracki Advisory Investment Management in my last newsletter, as a very Catholic investment group that one of the subscribers to this newsletter helps to run and to which I have rolled over the contents of my 403(b) retirement plan that I had while working at the diocese. Just wanted to put out a quick reminder that they will be having a "Faith, Family, and Finance" virtual seminar on Wednesday, September 4th, beginning at 7:00 PM (Eastern). If you think you might need some help with your retirement plans, insurance, investments, or other such financial issues for your family, please check them out. To register for the seminar: Faith, Family, and Finance Virtual Seminar. Or, to learn more about Kondracki Advisory: www.kondrackiadvisory.com

2) The "Blue Collar Apologetics" weekend seminar was a big success! A number of the participants have already asked for me to do more. If you might be interested in having me give this seminar at your parish, just let me know - john@biblechristiansociety.com. What's different about this seminar is that it teaches you how to actually engage in apologetics conversations - using actual email/social media conversations as "case studies". Do's and don'ts to keep in mind when dialoguing/debating/arguing with folks, in person or online. Again, if you're interested in me doing this at your parish, just shoot me an email.

Introduction

As all of you know, I spend a lot of time challenging, and being challenged, by Protestants. Two reasons for that: 1) Protestants are the folks who are the most likely to be trying to "convert" Catholics and, thus, out there online - or sending me emails - laying down arguments against the Catholic Faith; 2) Jesus said that a house divided against itself cannot stand and, currently, the Christian "house" is divided. It is my contention that we have many of the ills in our society today because Christianity does not speak with one voice. Every "denomination" represents a "division" within Christianity. Given that, I make evangelizing Protestants a high priority so that we, His followers, may be one as He and the Father are one - in accord with His prayer at the Last Supper.

There is one other group of folks, though, that need a whole lot of evangelizing; however, it has been my experience that they are, on average, a particularly mean and uncharitable group of folks...even though they see themselves as loving, open-minded, and tolerant. I have found them anything but during those times when I have engaged them in conversation. Who am I talking about? Modernists. Particularly Modernists who self-identify as Catholics, but also Modernists who identify as Protestant. The term "liberal" is often attached to such folks - liberal Protestants, liberal Catholics - but I prefer to call them, at least the ones who identify as Catholics, "heterodox" - i.e., they disbelieve certain teachings of the Church and they rail against certain practices of the Church. I don't really use that term with Protestants because, in one sense, vis-a-vis the Catholic Church, all Protestants are heterodox. Plus, in another sense, vis-a-vis Protestantism, what is "heterodox" in one Protestant denomination is perfectly "orthodox" in another Protestant denomination. A heterodox Baptist might be a perfectly orthodox Methodist, for example.

Anyway, I'm going to spend a newsletter, or maybe two or three, on my interactions with Modernists, so as to give you a taste of how they think - and how they talk - so you know a little of what to expect should you encounter one. This first one I came across on the Facebook page of well known Catholic theologian, whose name is withheld for the protection of the innocent. The Catholic theologian posted an article written by a Catholic priest that gave his opinion as to why Catholics are leaving the faith. The link to that article is in the first post below if you want to read it for yourself, but, essentially, the priest believes that the biggest reason Catholics are leaving the faith is because they have lost a sense of the transcendent...of God...in their every day lives. If God isn't really a part of your life, why bother with religion? Kevin R., the Modernist in this story, responded to the theologian's post, and I just couldn't resist replying to what he said. The conversation is below, with my comments interspersed. I hope you enjoy...

Challenge/Response/Strategy

Well Known Catholic Theologian
Why Are Catholics Leaving the Faith? This Brave Priest Reveals the Dangerous Culprit: Why Are Catholics Leaving the Faith

Kevin R.
It's a short sighted diagnosis. There was a reason why God and the Devil had to be "tamed." The dark shadows cast by a millenium and a half of Caesaropapist tribalist organized religion had distorted these figures into dark caricatures of themselves. The gospel had been fishgutted, leaving only its husk, having been corrupted and mutated in all but name into a cosmic horror ultimatum, and God had been lycanthropomorphised into the uber-Devil who tortured his own Son to death as an anger management technique, and the Devil was inflated into the Anti-God who has already taken most of humanity from the "Good" God as his eternal and inalienable possession and will, in terms of sheer numbers, irrevocably win in the end, only to be punished by the sheer sore loserliness of his enemy.

A religion that offers, instead of real hope for a remedy for the human condition for all of humanity, only yet another tribalist cosmic elitism in which "we/us" are the Good Guys who exclusively Get The Prize, an essential feature of the value of which is the opportunity to enjoy the defeat and incurable humiliation of "Them" (those we are Othering) can only call itself "Catholic" by an unreflected habit, ingrained in childhood before critical thinking could be exercised on it, and ultimately grounded in some long dead and doubtlessly damned people's heartless cynicism.

My Comments
His post is a fairly typical example of Modernist-speak. "There was a reason why God and the Devil had to be 'tamed.'"? "Caesaropapist tribalist organized religion"? "God had been lycanthropomorphised"? "...an essential feature of the value of which is the opportunity to enjoy the defeat and incurable humiliation of "Them" (those we are Othering)"? What a mess. Who talks like that? Is he trying to show that he's some sort of theological whiz kid or something by using big words and creative phrases?

Notice, though, that he declares the priest's analysis of the problem to be "short-sighted," without providing any kind of legitimate counter-argument to the priest. He just gives a bunch of high falutin' words and phrases that, ultimately, say little to nothing, and which do not provide an alternative reason for why Catholics are leaving the faith. So, I just went right at him.

John S. Martignoni
Kevin R. You would make a great theologian. They, too, often use a lot of fancy words to say little or nothing that makes sense.

Kevin R.
John S. Martignoni you may test your hypothesis by asking me to explain any of the words I have used that you are having trouble understanding. If you are right, I shouldn't be able to define such terms concretely. If I can, and a coherent meaning emerges for you, then you were not only mistaken but arrogant and uncharitable.

Will you dare to challenge my phraseology in that way? The risk you run, of course, is that I will pass any such test and you will owe me an apology. Which I will accept, of course, in gratitude for the compliment that you intended as an insult.

My Comments
Well, looks like I pinged him just a bit. He's now interested in making me eat crow, which will, hopefully, serve to draw him into a deeper conversation. At least, that's the intent.

John S. Martignoni
Kevin R. So...does that mean...you wouldn't make a great theologian?

Kevin R.
John S. Martignoni what it means is that you have lost confidence in the fairness of your criticism of me and want to bow out while saving face. I hope you succeed in that endeavor.

John S. Martignoni
Kevin R. What it means is...you don't know what the hell you're talking about (as well as having little to no sense of humor). It's obvious from your tirade that you know little to naught about what the Catholic Church teaches, nor why - nor about Church history - yet you come on here to throw around all of these pseudo-intellectual terms and phrases to try and cleanse the great mass of the unwashed, when actually all your "enlightened" verbiage is nothing more than a smokescreen for the fact that you actually know little to nothing about the subject of your complaint.

My Comments
Basically just calling a spade a spade. This guy doesn't know anything about Catholic teaching, although he thinks he does, so I just called him out on it. I'm trying to get him emotionally involved so that he will stick with the conversation when I start putting him on the spot with a few direct questions.

Kevin R.
John S. Martignoni well I am sorry that you failed to bow out with what grace and face you might have preserved if you had tried, electing instead to double down on a charge that you lack the confidence to test.

John S. Martignoni
Kevin R. Well, if you insist, then I will allow you to prove my point. Why don't we start with you explaining how God and the devil were "distorted...into dark caricatures of themselves" by a "millenium [sic] and a half of Caesaropapist tribalist organized religion".

Kevin R.
John S. Martignoni so that's the set of words you're unfamiliar with? Are you sure want me to define all of those words one at a time, starting with God? The meaning of that whole sentence is drawn out in the next one.

John S. Martignoni
Kevin R. Maybe I need to speak in words with more syllables for you to understand. You're stating something was done - God and the devil were "distorted...into dark caricatures of themselves". I'm asking you to explain how it was done. You said you could.

So, again, why don't we start with you explaining how God and the devil were "distorted...into dark caricatures of themselves" by a "millenium [sic] and a half of Caesaropapist tribalist organized religion".

For example, what were the supposedly "original" versions of God and the devil that got distorted? Where do we find these original versions? Who distorted them? And when? Where, for example, in Catholic teaching does it say that God "tortured his own Son to death as an anger management technique"? Where do you find that teaching? Is that in the Catechism? Maybe a papal encyclical? Give me some actual specific examples to back up your assertions, as opposed to blather that flows from a headwater of bias and unbelief.

Kevin R.
John S. Martignoni "Kevin R. Maybe I need to speak in words with more syllables for you to understand. You're stating something was done." Then you had better lose that bitchy attitude and ask me nicely because that isn't what I invited you do. You accused me of using meaningless words, and I, knowing better, invited you to challenge me by asking me to define the specific individual words you thought contributed no significance to my comment. Since you refuse to do that and don't have the decency to apologize, I withdraw the invitation. If you really want to understand the significance of how the sixth century Imperial reign of Justinian I turned Catholicism into a dark satire of itself, why don't you ask someone you don't get triggered by?

John S. Martignoni
Kevin R. Wow...a bit on the touchy side, eh? But, I find that almost always happens when folks make these generalized claims about the Catholic Faith, and then, when challenged to back up their general claims with specific evidence - which they inevitably are unable to do - they usually get huffy and withdraw from the field of battle in a manner sort of like Brave Sir Robin in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. You know, acting as if they had the better of it, when actually all they're doing is simply running away...

By the way, I didn't accuse you of "using meaningless words," I accused you of using, and I quote: "a lot of fancy words to say little or nothing that makes sense." Big difference. The former means the individual words have no meaning. The latter means that the phrases and sentences formed from the individual words - make little to no sense. For example. The catatonic robot reverberated into the mesmerizing insignificance of plants that were trying to explain the injustice of it all to the herbivores. All the words, individually, have meaning. All the words, combined, make no sense.

{And I received no further response from Kevin R.}

My Comments
Well, he apparently wasn't all in on the emotional side of things, so when I asked him for specifics to back up his initial claims, he bailed out instead of continuing and trying to prove me to be an idiot. Generally, dealing with Modernists is not all that different than dealing with Protestants. Modernists will make these sweeping generalizations about God, Christ, the Bible, the Church, etc. - as he did in his initial post - but when you try to pin them down by asking for specifics, they are either unwilling or unable to answer you. The trick is to not get lost in all the puffery...all the high and mighty verbiage that uses a lot of words to say nothing or, even worse, to spout heresy.

Just so, Protestants will make these broad sweeping claims about the Church, Mary, the Bible, salvation, etc., but when you try to pin them down by asking for specifics - "Give me a Bible verse that says 'faith alone' saves us?" or, "Where does the Catechism of the Catholic Church say Mary is the 4th person of the Quadrinity?" - they are either unable or unwilling to answer you.

Summary
Modernist Catholics, aka liberal Catholics, aka heterodox Catholics, are, essentially, Protestants. You deal with both of them in basically the same way - ask questions that require them to be specific and definitive. Ask for sources. Don't accept any assertions they make without first getting backup for those assertions. Take their general statements and make them support them with specific evidence.

Closing Comments

Next week a Facebook post from the National "Catholic" Reporter on the National Eucharistic Congress, and the comments that follow the OP. It's pretty interesting. At least, I thought it was.

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