Some readers may be disturbed about the DRC trend toward inclusion of Roman Catholics. I wish to say a word in response. I am not unfamiliar with the Reformed Confessions’ descriptions the Bishop of Rome as the anti-Christ. I am also perfectly aware that our theologians have often argued that the Mass as a form of idolatry. I understand that there are many conservative Protestant for which these statements are meaningful. While I understand these things, I cannot affirm them. In fact, the more I learn about Roman Catholic theology and church history, the more respect I have for our brothers and sisters in Christ within the Roman Catholic communion.
Of course, the primary focus of De Regno Christ has always been the relationship between Christ and culture. Does Christendom have a better friend than Benedict XVI? Which communion did more to press the Kingship of Christ over the nations in the 20th Century? The Reformed Presbyterians, the Christian Reformed, the Presbyterian Church in America, or the Roman Catholics? To ask the question is to answer it. Therefore, does it no behoove us to listen to the voices of Roman Catholic friends of liberty, tradition, and the West?
The cause of Christ’s Kingship has many enemies in the word. Traditionalist defenders of Roman Catholicism are not among them.
I think your conservative Protestant friends will be somewhat mollified by your admission that there’s only one female Christian in the Roman Catholic communion.
The stereotyped Protestant is said to think always in either/or terms. It is ironic that when one goes past their rhetoric, the outlook of the Reformers on Rome was staunchly both/and. Charles Hodge, drawing from Turretin, argued that Rome is both friend and adversary, both whore and bride, depending on the aspect under which she is viewed. Thus, even amidst a discussion of the papacy as Antichrist, Hodge hastened to add:
That many Roman Catholics, past and present, are true Christians, is a palpable fact. It is a fact which no man can deny without committing a great sin. It is a sin against Christ not to acknowledge as true Christians those who bear his image, and whom He recognizes as his brethren. It is a sin also against ourselves. We are not born of God unless we love the children of God. If we hate and denounce those whom Christ loves as members of his own body, what are we? It is best to be found on the side of Christ, let what will happen. It is perfectly consistent, then, for a man to denounce the papacy as the man of sin, and yet rejoice in believing, and in openly acknowledging, that there are, and ever have been, many Romanists who are the true children of God.
Evangelicals, by and large, do not do nuance. We have gone from generations of unjustly vilifying Rome to now often becoming quite cosy with her. When confronted with the visage of Janus, our gaze easily fixes on one face or the other. Yet if we do not behold both, we will without fail form a mistaken judgment of the being before us.
An excellent response. I agree wholeheartedly from the perspective of Reformed Orthodoxy.
I go a set further. The mass is not idolatry… less idolatrous than your average evangelical worship service to be sure…. and the Pope is not the or even a “anti-christ”.
Jesus in physically in the ‘host’ that they are bowing down to, and you say that is NOT idolotry? Get real! Read the Second Commandment
Bryan- I hear that she is a fine woman. I am not sure I have met her yet but look forward to doing so… ha!
don’t tread the tiber’s water too long!
Roman Catholic here. Thank you for the kind words and the Christ-like spirit. I hope that we can stand side by side to fight the evils of secularism in the coming years.
I cannot fault Hodge’s comments a bit. I’ve regard for personal friends who remain Roman Catholic I have little doubt are true brothers and sisters in Christ.
I guess my questions are for the purpose of clarification. Would you then say that Tridentine Roman CatholiCISM – with its accordant anathemas of justification by faith alone is a viable and acceptable expression of true Christianity? I’m just wanting to understand you correctly.
Yes, we all have our fond things vainly invented. Invocation of saints is more bearable than much of what goes on in evangelical circles.
I’d second the question about traditional Catholicism. To one who esteems creeds, liturgy, and order, there is much to like about the RCC. And we should not deny the improvements Rome has made.
The improvements, however, have come at a cost. Certain of today’s teachings are exceedingly difficult to reconcile with what was taught in the past. It is not for nothing that Rome, since Newman’s time, has undergone a major change of thought about tradition and church authority.
As a friend of mine put it recently, Protestants need to stop viewing Rome from the 16th century. They need to start viewing Rome from the 19th.
Iohannes-
Another insightful comment, thank you. Vatican II creates mixed emotions. On one hand, one cannot deny that improvement have been made from a Protestant perspective, however there is much to lament from a traditionalist perspective. The work of Benedict XVI appears to be the work of taming the abuses of application made since Vatican II. All conservatives, Protestant and Catholic can cheer for such an agenda.
Former Roman Catholic here. I cannot agree with Iohannes’s comments more. As I put it in a letter to friends recently about why I have decided to leave Rome: Is Rome a Christian church? Yes. The one true Church of Christ? No. Also, I, too, am happy for the many changes that Rome has made. I pray that she continues to tacitly admit and embrace the Reformation’s positions (e.g., frequent communion, liturgy in the vernacular). As Protestants we should applaud Rome’s new version of Purgatory as put forth by Rahner and then-Ratzinger. Nevertheless, we should also be very aware of how much Rome has had to pay for these changes. As I have said before, “Protestants need to stop viewing Rome from the 16th century. They need to start viewing Rome from the 19th.”
Attending a Catholic university has changed my perspective for the better. Thanks for reinforcing what I have seen first hand.
Bill said,
Therefore, does it no behoove us to listen to the voices of Roman Catholic friends of liberty, tradition, and the West?
Brother Andrew said elsewhere that all error, including philosophical error, is spawned by theological error and I quite agree with that assessment.
Brother Andrew believes in the Divine right of Kings and believes that the throwing off of the priest class as an uber authority lead to a devolution of Western society.
So I’m wondering what tradition do we hold in common in regards to Christ’s rule? Are the Reformed ready to give up the freedom of the conscience for a return to a monarchy? Does ecclesiology and other doctrine inform our political philosophies?
It seems to me that we have some unresolved tensions irregardless of how pious some individuals seem to be.
Bill, thanks so much for the good words. I’m struck by the comments here, pro and con, regarding Catholicism and its relationship to liberty. I think it’s worth remember that many of the great defenders of liberty (and simply “the greats”) in the western tradition were Roman Catholic. One only has to think of St. Ambrose challenging the authority of the Roman Emperor; St. Augustine seeing governments as simply “gangs of pirates”; King Alfred codifying the common law; St. Thomas Aquinas arguing that the only good king is the one who will sacrifice himself for his people; the bishops and aristocrats at Runneymede, demanding that King John refrain from interfering with the rights of the church; the Jesuits Suarez and Bellermine attacking Tyndale’s notion of the “divine right of kings”; Sir Thomas More challenging Henry’s 1534 Act of Supremacy; Charles Carroll of Carrollton signing the Declaration of Independence; St. Maximilian Kolbe sacrificing himself for a married man in the horrors of Auschwitz; and John Paul II facing down the communists in Poland in 1979.
Seems like a good and meaningful legacy to me.
“Former Roman Catholic here”. I am pleased to finally see this proper identification.
I think it’s fine if DRG wants to have Roman Catholic, Protestant, even Atheist commentators on Christ and the culture.
I am just wondering what you mean when you say, “I agree wholeheartedly from the perspective of Reformed Orthodoxy. I go a set further. The mass is not idolatry… less idolatrous than your average evangelical worship service to be sure…. and the Pope is not the or even a ‘anti-christ’.”
Aren’t you disagreeing with Reformed Orthodoxy when you say that the mass is not idolatry? What perspective of Reformed Orthodoxy has NOT considered the mass idolatry?
Dozie, me too!
Shawn- sorry to be confusing. You are correct. I am at odds with Confessional Orthodoxy… although most Presbyterians have dropped the reference to the Bishop of Rome as the antichrist… an position rooted in a millenarian, historicist reading of the book or Revelation.
On the issue of the Mass as idolatry. All worship include some idolatry as our hearts are idol factories. Yet, in my experience, the Mass is no more idolatrous than your average Anglican, Lutheran, or PCA service.
Bill,
I’m sorry to see you so freely avowing your opposition to historic protestant beliefs, and setting yourself up for so many congratulations from your readers. I do not congratulate you, but I’m glad you are honest about your deviations.
I would also say that I think your suggestion that the belief that the pope is the Antichrist of 2 Thess. 2 is “an position rooted in a millenarian, historicist reading of the book of Revelation” is entirely untrue. It is not *rooted* in it. When I began reading protestant literature from the Reformation, it was one of the first positions that struck me with an awakening as to how far the Lutheran church I attended had departed from the beliefs of the Reformation. At first it seemed like a little name-calling; but as I read more and saw the scriptural prophecies and historic facts tied together by the Reformers, it became evident that it was something more serious, motivated by a purely Christian desire to call sinners to repentance and impress upon others the danger of their present state in the fellowship of spiritual Babylon. I hope you won’t disagree that these are the spiritual realities to which the Reformers were addressing themselves, and in which they laboured, when they made such statements individually and corporately.
But the point is, as to *rooted*, you are inverting the order, in an effort to explain away a single proposition, as if it were a mere appendix of something else that most people disown in the present day. Historicism and Post-millennialism did not lead me to believe that the Pope is the Antichrist, and it did not lead our Reformers to believe this. Whether it is right or wrong, the latter belief is a very obvious application of Holy Scripture for someone holding strictly to protestant principles. The former eschatology is a convenient outgrowth and development of the doctrine, wherein the remainder of Scripture prophecy is interpreted agreeably to this belief.
The development of protestant post-millennialism is neither the cause why nearly every professing protestant believed the pope was the antichrist for hundreds of years, nor the cause why Reformed Presbyterians adopted their distinctive beliefs in former centuries (which you have suggested on other occasions.) But I’m glad you perceive how well these things all agree with one another, though not with you. Perhaps you’ll embrace them all at once, with a little more light. For me they each came separately.
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2009/08/18/is-mass-idolatrous/
Being Catholic, I was understandably a little taken aback when I saw that somehow I was an idolator by the simple fact of being a member of the longest-lived institution of western civilization.
I must admit, I’ve spent the last few days pondering what aspect of my faith was idolatrous. After reading several responses here, I realize now that it sounds like I should’ve known that attending mass was the problem. But, I must admit again, I was and remain a little stunned by this claim. Perhaps my forty-two years on this earth have been rather sheltered.
Then, of course, I was led to this fascinating link to the Chick Tra. . . . sorry, I mean blog/unpublished chapter by a man I’ve never heard of, and who claims “some of my best friends are [insert thing you feel most bigoted about/but here--Catholic].” And, he wants us to feel for him that he’s struggling to find that the mass isn’t idolatrous. Well, he’s struggling not to sound like a prejudiced ass. “What I want to avoid is giving the impression that Catholics cannot be Christians. But I also want to state strongly that the Catholic Mass is, in parts, offensive to God.” A nice concession, Brutus. But wait, there’s more: “It is not safe to kneel. It is, as she initially worried, gross idolatry.” Poor Kimberly Hahn–the “she” of the quote. And, not just poor Kimberly! Millions of western Christians since at least 155 (if Justin Martyr is correct in his description of the mass) are offending God mightly! Poor St. Augustine. Poor St. Francis. Poor John of Salisbury. Poor Thomas More. Poor Cardinal Newman. Poor Kimberly Hahn. And, poor members of the Eastern Orthodox church. And, oh yes, the poor high Anglicans and Lutherans. So much idolatry in the Christian world!
N.B.
1. Has this guy ever been to Catholic mass? Has he read the theologians of the western church prior to John Calvin? Does he realize the western church existed before the Reformation and Counter Reformation? The definition of transubstantiation in the West dates to at least to the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215.
And, here’s Justin Martyr from 155:
“And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration.”
2. Does this de Young understand what a sacrament is–the visible manifestation of God’s grace (a timeless thing) in time? The Catholic Church does NOT believe that the Eucharist is a re-sacrificing of Christ. There is ONLY one sacrifice (repeated repeatedly throughout the Catholic mass and Catholic teachings) for our sins to be wiped away so that we may enter heaven. During the sacrament of the Eucharist, the priest–for the briefest of moments–transcends time and enters into the one perfect sacrifice of the holiest of Holy Weeks. This is the ultimate communion.
3. So, this guy uses bad evidence and bad logic. It’s exactly this kind of ridiculous infighting about doctrines (and, poorly understood ones at that) that lets the secular and evil forces claim more and more territory in this world.
As Christians, while not glossing over our differences, we must work together. We must, as truth seekers, bearing the Imago Dei, advance dialogue not diatribes, facts not wishful thinking; and truth not convenience.
Bill,
I do not have much time to invest in blogs, but yours came to my attention and out of brotherly concern I had to reply. I think that your views of Roman Catholicism are seriously in error and it harmful to those who are reading your site. As a Teaching Elder in the RPCNA you should have been careful in publicly opposing the Constitution you vowed to uphold.
I want to challenge your statement on the mass. But before I do, let me head off an objection that I see from your supporters. The ad hominem argument will not work against me. My theological credentials are up to snuff. Yes I have read the documents, yes I know Church History, yes I know nuance. And yes, my Seminary is more prestigious than yours! (We have Karl Barth’s desk in our library and I studied under Markus Barth!!!).
One other thing I have noticed – I wonder if you are limited in your understanding of Roman Catholicism? In your post which caught my attention, you used as a basis of your argument, “All Catholics I have either [sic] met…”. I wonder how far your experience in Catholicism goes. I think you and your friends are viewing the Roman church through American eyes. I think you ought to spend time in Mexico City or perhaps in a few Churches near my Zagreb Croatia (I will provide the translation if needed). We won’t need to travel to Serbia – that is Orthodox territory and the Serbs won’t like your friend’s view of the historic Church. Or perhaps I can connect you with my old professor Ron Stone (he gave me the only B I got in Seminary because I wasn’t a communist). Ron is friends with Fidel Castro, has been in Cuba with the National Council of Churches a zillion times and he can open discussions with you and the South American Roman Catholic Liberation Theology folks. If you think Evangelicals are tough, wait until you talk to communist Jesuits! Or I can have my old PCA friend from Aliquippa Sam Mateer (30 years in South America) tell you about Roman Catholicism in Chile or Gerry Gutierrez (once a Marxist terrorist, now a PCA Pastor in Peru) tell you what the RC people believe there. Your view of Roman Catholicism is parochial, non historical and very self serving. Believe me – what you are seeing from your porch maybe Rome, NY my parochial friend, but it is not the Vatican. That is far beyond your poor powers.
So let me get to the point. Here is what you said—
William Chellis Oct 20, 2009 “An excellent response. I agree wholeheartedly from the perspective of Reformed Orthodoxy. I go a set [sic] further. The mass is not idolatry… less idolatrous than your average evangelical worship service to be sure…. and the Pope is not the or even a “anti-christ”.
William Chellis Oct 25, 2009 “The first thing I find problematic about DeYoung’s article is that, by linking the real presence of Christ in the sacrament to his identification of idolatry, he has condemned his own confessional tradition.
According to the Confessional Reformed tradition, the sacrament of the Lord’s table offers a real, but Spiritual, feeding on the whole of Christ… body and blood. There is a real presence of Jesus Christ in the sacrament. There is a real feeding upon his body and blood… although the feeding is Spiritual rather than “carnal.”
The traditional Reformed position stands on the side of the real presence, along with Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Anglicans against the merely symbolic understanding of low church Protestantism. The Reformed understand that Christ is not only really present in the sacrament (body and blood) but also in His Word preached by His ordained ministry. With all this in mind, can we really accuse Roman Catholics of idolatry for bowing during the Mass? Honoring Christ’s presence at the table… or in the pulpit (or during the call to worship… benediction… prayers… ect) is far from idolatry. Christ is not an idol and neither standing or kneeling in his presence is either forbidden or unedifying.
A more traditional criticism of the Mass is that it is an attempt to re-sacrifice Christ. This is such a lame attack on a straw man that I hate to have to respond. All Catholics I have either met or read understand that the cross was Christ’s once offered sacrifice for sin. It is never repeated. It is complete… but never finished. The grace of the sacrifice transcends the bounds of time. The work of the Holy Spirit is to unite us into Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. Paul is not talking about a do-over… he is talking about our union and participation in this timeless, transcendent reality. Catholic theology understand the Mass as participation in that one, all-sufficient sacrifice. The cross was a moment in history, but a timeless moment that transcends it…”
Bill, I thought you were smarter than that. Surely you know that the RC church is irreformable by definition and thus has numerous contradictions that it has to hold simultaneously. Sure they say that that the sacrifice of Christ was a once for all event. But then they TOTALLY contradict this in the their official IRREFORMABLE documents. The Council of Trent clearly teaches the idolatry of the mass.
CHAPTER II. That the Sacrifice of the Mass is propitiatory both for the living and the dead.
And forasmuch as, in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the mass, that same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner, who once offered Himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross; the holy Synod teaches, that this sacrifice is truly propritiatory and that by means thereof this is effected, that we obtain mercy, and find grace in seasonable aid, if we draw nigh unto God, contrite and penitent, with a sincere heart and upright faith, with fear and reverence. For the Lord, appeased by the oblation thereof, and granting the grace and gift of penitence, forgives even heinous crimes and sins. For the victim is one and the same, the same now offering by the ministry of priests, who then offered Himself on the cross, the manner alone of offering being different. The fruits indeed of which oblation, of that bloody one to wit, are received most plentifully through this unbloody one; so far is this (latter) from derogating in any way from that (former oblation). Wherefore, not only for the sins, punishments, satisfactions, and other necessities of the faithful who are living, but also for those who are departed in Christ, and who are not as yet fully purified, is it rightly offered, agreebly to a tradition of the apostles.
CANON III.–If any one saith, that the sacrifice of the mass is only a sacrifice of praise and of thanksgiving; or, that it is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice; or, that it profits him only who receives; and that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities; let him be anathema.
In case you think that this is old stuff (which an irreformable Church cannot change), here is the 1997 Catechism of the Catholic Church issued by Pope John Paul II (“Dedicated to the Immaculate”, i.e. Mary) which heavily quotes the Council of Trent:
1383 The altar, around which the Church is gathered in the celebration of the Eucharist, represents the two aspects of the same mystery: the altar of the sacrifice and the table of the Lord. This is all the more so since the Christian altar is the symbol of Christ himself, present in the midst of the assembly of his faithful, both as the victim offered for our reconciliation and as food from heaven who is giving himself to us. “For what is the altar of Christ if not the image of the Body of Christ?”[212] asks St. Ambrose. He says elsewhere, “The altar represents the body [of Christ] and the Body of Christ is on the altar.”[213] The liturgy expresses this unity of sacrifice and communion in many prayers. Thus the Roman Church prays in its anaphora: We entreat you, almighty God, that by the hands of your holy Angel this offering may be borne to your altar in heaven in the sight of your divine majesty, so that as we receive in communion at this altar the most holy Body and Blood of your Son, we may be filled with every heavenly blessing and grace.[214]
1410 It is Christ himself, the eternal high priest of the New Covenant who, acting through the ministry of the priests, offers the Eucharistic sacrifice. And it is the same Christ, really present under the species of bread and wine, who is the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice.
1414 As sacrifice, the Eucharist is also offered in reparation for the sins of the living and the dead and to obtain spiritual or temporal benefits from God.
1419 Having passed from this world to the Father, Christ gives us in the Eucharist the pledge of glory with him. Participation in the Holy Sacrifice identifies us with his Heart, sustains our strength along the pilgrimage of this life, makes us long for eternal life, and unites us even now to the Church in heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the saints.
Bill, this is the doctrinal position of the Roman Catholic Church. This is a sacrifice on an altar. This is an abomination.
The Westminster Confession which you vowed to uphold says in the section on the Lord’s Supper (29.2) says, “In this Sacrament, Christ is not offered up to His Father; nor any real sacrifice made at all for remission of sins of the quick or dead; but only a commemoration of that one offering up of Himself, by Himself, upon the cross, once for all: and a spiritual oblation of all possible praise unto God for the same: so that the Popish sacrifice of the mass (as they call it) is most abominably injurious to Christ’s one, only sacrifice, the alone propitiation for all the sins of His elect. Heb. 9:22, 25-26, 28; 1 Cor. 11:24-26; Matt. 26:26-27; Heb. 7:23-24, 27; Heb. 10:11-12, 14, 18.”
Do you still hold to this statement of faith? Do you believe that the mass is abominably injurious to Christ? As an Elder in the RPCNA, I await an answer.
May God give you grace to see the light.
In Christ,
Randy Johovich
The first thing I find problematic about DeYoung’s article is that, by linking the real presence of Christ in the sacrament to his identification of idolatry, he has condemned his own confessional tradition.
According to the Confessional Reformed tradition, the sacrament of the Lord’s table offers a real, but Spiritual, feeding on the whole of Christ… body and blood. There is a real presence of Jesus Christ in the sacrament. There is a real feeding upon his body and blood… although the feeding is Spiritual rather than “carnal.”
The traditional Reformed position stands on the side of the real presence, along with Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Anglicans against the merely symbolic understanding of low church Protestantism. The Reformed understand that Christ is not only really present in the sacrament (body and blood) but also in His Word preached by His ordained ministry. With all this in mind, can we really accuse Roman Catholics of idolatry for bowing during the Mass? Honoring Christ’s presence at the table… or in the pulpit (or during the call to worship… benediction… prayers… ect) is far from idolatry. Christ is not an idol and neither standing or kneeling in his presence is either forbidden or unedifying.
A more traditional criticism of the Mass is that it is an attempt to re-sacrifice Christ. This is such a lame attack on a straw man that I hate to have to respond. All Catholics I have either met or read understand that the cross was Christ’s once offered sacrifice for sin. It is never repeated. It is complete… but never finished. The grace of the sacrifice transcends the bounds of time. The work of the Holy Spirit is to unite us into Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. Paul is not talking about a do-over… he is talking about our union and participation in this timeless, transcendent reality. Catholic theology understand the Mass as participation in that one, all-sufficient sacrifice. The cross was a moment in history, but a timeless moment that transcends it. God’s gracious allows us to participate:
“You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always.”
T.S. Eliot, 4-Quartets: Little Gidding
I am inclined to think standing the best posture for reverent public worship (cf canon 20 of First Nicaea). Kneeling, however, is not idolatrous. Anglicans classically hold a reformed doctrine of the eucharist and yet kneel during communion: not for adoring the elements, but, as the rubric says, ‘for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ therein given to all worthy Receivers, and for the avoiding of such profanation and disorder in the holy Communion, as might otherwise ensue’.
Error is error and not to be recommended, but I think too high a doctrine of the eucharist is safer than too low. With respect to Dr Birzer, however, whose presence here I welcome!, I am not persuaded the evidence from the early church supports the Roman view of the sacrament. J.B. Mozley’s lecture on the Holy Eucharist is as finely judged a treatment of the topic as any I have seen.
Hey Bradley,
The Reformation happened. Deal with it. What’s with all the feigned surprise?
Bill,
I’m not convinced glossing over the differences between spiritual presence and transubstantiation is a good idea.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/08/10/st_clement_eucharistic_shrine_in_back_bay_starts_ritual_of_perpetual_adoration/
To GAS,
I am certain that your comments are meant to inflame though I’m not sure that your reply is much more than a schoolyard taunt.
The accusation of “idolatry” of the Eucharist is notoriously sectarian and shows a lack of charity toward those who adhere to Roman Catholic doctrine. To be charitable, anyone questioning the teaching of the Catholic Church might actually read what she teaches in the Catechism.
Addressing both this and Iohannes’ reference to the Mozley lecture, the simplest reply is perhaps the clearest.
IF the eucharist is the BODY and BLOOD of Christ (as stated in Mozley) then it is most certainly worthy of worship. Christ gave us this last supper for a reason and surely that reason was NOT to provide fodder for perpetual theological debate. Surely “This is my body…” and “do this in remembrance of me” were not given to us as a last commandment to remind us to be “good fellows.”
This “eucharist” is Christ’s final act with his apostles, an act which He completes on Calvary and fulfills in the resurrection. Could its importance be proclaimed any louder: it was the Passover meal and he calls it “the new covenant”! That He would claim it to be His Body is rather inexplicable outside of the Church’s constant teaching for two millennia. As Flannery O’Connor famously stated: “If it’s just a symbol, then to hell with it!” Either Christ meant what he said at this final moment of peace with the foundational members of His Church or all of Christianity folds up as a sham.
So then did his apostles “do that in remembrance of Him”? Yes or no? If so, did they believe it to be “His Body and His Blood”? If they didn’t, then why did they bother to write it in the Gospels?! In fact, why bother writing the Gospels at all?!
As one who is late to this conversation I would appreciate some clarity on how a Christian can maintain that the Gospels equivocate on this question. (cf Mt 26: 26-29; Mk 14: 22-25; Lk 22: 19-20; all of John Ch. 6 but particularly verse 51)
The doctrine of transubstantiation is part of a chain of reasoning leading to idolatry. If the elements are going to become the very body and blood of Jesus, they are worthy of adoration. (Jesus did not turn away the fawning of the woman who anointed him with perfume; if Jesus is bodily in the room it follows that we should worship his bodily presence!)
Bowing during the Mass isn’t the problem. The problem is who/what you’re bowing to: if God in heaven and omnipresent, great! If God incarnate (“inpannate” – what do you call it when God becomes bread – or wine – “invinnate”?) by the power of a priest’s words, big problem. The treatment of the elements outside of worship shows this. When were the leftover wafers last sent home with poor parishioners?
I’m not ready to comment on whether the RCC believes that Christ is re-sacrificed. A quotation from one of the Catholics (or their sympathizers) from the Catechism would be helpful in clearing this up.
As for whether the Mass is more or less idolatrous than “a lot of what goes on” in Evangelical churches, that’s equivocation. Abuses go on everywhere; hearts are wrong everywhere. The RCC has at the very least encouraged idolatrous regard for the symbols Christ gave.
In addition, it’s silly to say that by criticizing the RCC Protestants also throw out all of Western Church history.
Thanks for your reply Bill.
Regarding the pope being the anti-christ – I recognize that most confessional North American churches have revised this section, so I think that there is sufficient evidence to show that there are multiple opinions/interpretations of that office. Therefore, whether or not I agree with their revisions, I don’t think that one can say that you are disagreeing with Reformed Orthodoxy if you disagree with the Westminster Confession on that.
You say, “On the issue of the Mass as idolatry. All worship include some idolatry as our hearts are idol factories. Yet, in my experience, the Mass is no more idolatrous than your average Anglican, Lutheran, or PCA service.”
Regarding all worship including idolatry in our hearts – fair enough. And I think that Reformed Orthodoxy recognized and taught the same. And in fact we may fall under the false assumption that as long as we are worshiping “the protestant way” or even “the regulative principle of worship” we are somehow worshiping right.
However “Reformed Orthodoxy” also makes categorical distinctions between the idolatry that the papacy taught bowing before a piece of bread, versus the circumstantial idolatry that is in unregulated elements (ie. singing of psalms, hearing of the Word, etc.) and further heart idolatry, proceeding from the hearts of all worshipers (ie. with grace in the heart, with understanding, faith and reverence, etc.).
I think that this distinction is somehow being missed or glossed-over. Even the Calvinist Protestants made a distinction between the Lutheran supper and the Roman Catholic mass.
“I’m not ready to comment on whether the RCC believes that Christ is re-sacrificed. A quotation from one of the Catholics (or their sympathizers) from the Catechism would be helpful in clearing this up.”
Maybe I am reading this wrongly?
1367 The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.” “And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner. . . this sacrifice is truly propitiatory.”190
190 Council of Trent (1562) Doctrina de ss. Missae sacrificio, c. 2: DS 1743; cf. Heb 9:14,27.
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c1a3.htm#1367 – ARTICLE 3: THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST
Amen. Thank you, Shawn.
How in the world could Bradley be suprised by claims of idolatry vis a vis the Catholic Mass? And claiming Augustine as Roman Catholic in a sectarian sense is rich.
Those familiar with me know I am quite comfortable blasting my own team, and that I have been known to impersonate a Papist (and even on occasion to hint at likely being on the losing team), but this meeting in the squishy middle is most unbecoming.
Pick a side … it’s called SWIMMING the Tiber for a reason … once everyone is clear where things stand, then we can make common cause against the rot of late modernity.
I share the wish that we all could forgo divisiveness about the sacrament that is supposed to unite us. Mozley wished that, too, as his closing citation of Hooker shows. No one here says the sacrament is a bare symbol; no one intends to do despite to the constant belief of the Church for two millennia.
What Mozley maintains is that the interpretation of Christ’s presence adopted by the RCC is not the constant belief of the Church. It is a peculiar construction that results from one trajectory for developing the beliefs of the early Christians. That trajectory augments the primitive doctrine, carrying its realism to new and different heights.
Rome requires assent to the details of her particular interpretation; see, for instance, canons 2 and 6 of session 13 of Trent. If those details are unfounded, it is unjust to exclude from communion those who disagree with them. That is true quite apart from the question of idolatry.
Mozley argues that the consecrated bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ by virtue of an objective, if mysterious, relation to Christ’s body and blood. On that interpretation we are not authorized to give the sacramental body and blood the worship proper to God alone. So to worship the elements may be excusable, especially if done in ignorance, but it would seem to lie in the neighborhood of idolatry, whether it is technically idolatry or not.
PS “So” in the last sentence is an adverb, meaning ‘in this manner’, not a conjunction meaning ‘therefore’. Reformed Protestants allow that the elements are to be worshipped, in the sense of being given the reverence due to them. The old prayerbook’s marriage service has the man ‘worship’ his bride: but not with latria, the worship proper to God alone.
Caleb-
Your point is well taken. As for me, I am happy to hand with C.S. Lewis in the camp of Mere Christianity for a time despite your protest.
Thank you for your reply Daniel.
I see your concern regarding the power of the priest to perform the rite of consecration of the eucharist. Perhaps it would be instructive to look at the following passage from 1 Corinthians 11: 23-29
“For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.”
As Paul recalls in this passage, Christ begins with ordinary bread and wine. He takes it, blesses it and breaks it and proclaims it to be His Body and Blood. He then tells the apostles to do the same in his memory–knowing that he will soon be gone from them. At that moment, if we are to believe Christ, the bread and wine are now, truly His Body and His Blood. If there are issues surrounding the question of “how” this comes about then at the very least we can agree, I hope, that they are no longer ordinary bread and wine but somehow have become Christ’s Body and Blood.
Thus assuming that the apostles obey His command to “do this” they will, in fact, also have the power to bring about this change. It is not “their” power which brings about the change; it is God’s power working through them and it is Christ’s command that they do it.
Can YOU convert someone? Do YOU have that power? No, it is the Holy Spirit which moves one to conversion. The Spirit may work through you, but the power is not yours per se. Or more clearly, in baptism there is no power IN the person performing the baptism. It is God’s power working through him.
A priest, like any man, like any created being, has no power except that given him by God. So I see no conflict with the possibility that God would give this particular power to his apostles, nor that they would in turn have the ability to choose others to receive the same.
Bill, note what this well known Jebby says about the dangers of mere Christianity:
http://japery.newpantagruel.com/2006/02/11/on_the_need_for_ecclesiological_education_among_evangelicals_bornagain_yesterday.php
Also, Lewis’s phrase is one of the most misunderstood and grossly misused Christian phrases to come out of the 20thC. Lewis emphatically did not mean the phrase to be some kind of lowest common denominator of Christian belief, as is most often supposed. He was distinguishing “mere Christianity” from the psuedo-intellectual fads of his (and our) day of wanting to talk about “Christianity and the arts” or “Christianity and justice” or “Christianity and the poor” or “Christianity and [fill in the blank].”
Kevin,
Thanks for giving a line of argument, but the reading you give of 1 Corinthians is still (in my view) specious in the same way as all Roman Catholic arguments for transubstantiation. They bank on a literal reading of “this is my body.” All of them. And I (along with pretty much all non-Lutheran Protestants) don’t think it is a fair reading of that or any other biblical account. Paul’s deadly serious exhortation to “examine oneself” so that one “discerns” or “understands” the body of the Lord very likely refers to that which Paul consistently calls the body of Christ – His bride, the church.
Saying that the bread and wine have become the body and blood of Christ, at least in some sense, is *not* the Christian baseline. That is what Roman Catholics hold, it is not what Protestants hold.
The Supper is a holy meal with God, to be eaten seriously and joyfully (and frequently, IMO). It is like the meal God ate with the 70 elders of Israel on the mountain; like the meals that Jesus ate with his disciples; like the Passover itself. A celebration, a covenant renewal (it *is* the new covenant in his blood!), not a “mere” memorial, but a foretaste of the wedding feast, binding God and his people together – and they to one another.
Bill,
You need to read Desire of the Nations by O’Donovan again. He convinced me that it was indeed conceivable for Rome to become antichrist – at times, and in the same way any church might become antichrist. If in the place of earthly empires it wishes to set up a clerical empire, it is not honoring the kingship of Christ but supplanting it and denying its own ultimate accountability to the King.
Don’t swim that river.
Caleb, I think Bill knows what “mere Christianity” is, and I think you know that Bill knows. Is your point to make sure our readers know?
Bill’s usage is not and was not Lewis’s. That was my point. What do you think mere Christianity is?
Caleb, mere Christianity is “a standard of plain, central Christianity…” and “turns out to be no insipid interdenominational transparency, but something positive, self-consistent, and inexhaustible.”
Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus credituni est.
I’d say mere Christianity is the faith and practice of the undivided Church of the first thousand years.
Please demonstrate how Bill’s statements compromise or short shrift the catholic faith.
In other words, Christianity without the church, which is Christianity without Christ.
It cracks me up to see all these people hungering for a high church experience or “traditional” experience latch onto “mere Christianity” as their mode, when, as shorthand for “what has always been believed by everyone everywhere,” you could not come up with a more anti-ecclesial statement. You can only have “mere Christianity” in this sense if you have a “mere Church.”
Lewis could get away with this because his appologetic audience were liberal secularists. Consider:
“My Dear Wormwood, The real trouble about the set your patient is living in is that is MERELY Christian. They all have individual interests, of course, but the bond remains mere Christianity. What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call “Christianity And.” You know – Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform. If they must be Christians, let them at least be Christians with a difference. Substitute for the faith itself some Fashion with a Christian colouring. Work on their horror of the Same Old Thing.”
Lewis’s usage is not primarily directed at ecclesial boundaries but at syncretism. Why no one gets this and why Lewis’s usage is so often misused tells us a lot about the mess we are in (and perhaps about Lewis’s failure to properly consider the dangerous misinterpretations he was blind to given his singular focus).
If we may continue this conversation Daniel, I trust that it will be of interest to others reading the comments here.
The question of defining the essence of the Eucharist does not pivot on “how” it happens (though certainly this question is worthy of theological inquiry) but “what” Christ gave us at the Last Supper.
What you or I “think” about the Gospel accounts or Paul’s passages regarding the Eucharist does not change what “is.”
The Church itself is mystery. Every significant belief of Christianity is founded on a mystery. It is not possible to comprehend fully the incarnation of God as man or the Holy Trinity or even the concept of eternity. Neither scripture nor any writings of the Church can fully explain them. They are “reasonable” to us to an extent but reason alone cannot explain them. Thus they are mysteries that we first hear as God reveals them to us and he has chosen to reveal them through His Church.
So if we wish to understand the Eucharist we must turn to the Church. The bible DOES have the answers to these questions but what you think you see or what I think I see in the text does not change what is. The Church has been, for 2000 years, the source and the teacher, the evangelizer, and the interpreter of the truths found in the Bible (which existed only in pieces for the first 300 years). So the place to turn for understanding the Eucharist is the Church, as a body, as the Bride of Christ (yet another profound mystery).
And I might add, on a point of doctrine of faith, it must be a consistent teaching of the Church. What Zwingli thought about the Bible or the Eucharist does not change them.
How the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ is most definitely a mystery. But that does not negate the trueness of it.
Kevin,
Do I follow you: the monolithic RCC tells us how things are; everyone at variance is offering mere opinion?
To back way up, the argument must go like this. The RCC is not promoting an idolatrous view of the supper, because transubstantiation is a fact. Transubstantiation is a fact, because the RCC says it is (other views being unreliable). And if you don’t believe the RCC, just ask the RCC.
I am not trying to be abusive, but you will detect some exasperation.
Caleb, I see Bill has responded to your concerns.
I’d just like to say here that I believe catholic or “mere” Christianity, the commonly received teachings of the councils and fathers, must serve as a corrective to parochial, inevitably one-sided expressions of the Faith.
I view this not as anti-ecclesial but as constitutive of the proper and necessary fidelity owed to the entire Church, and hence, to Christ.
The Vincentian canon appears to serve quite adequately for the purpose.
Daniel,
No abuse taken. I see your train of thought here. Perhaps I can best reply with a question.
How would you answer the following:
What are the books of the New Testament? What evidence can you offer for your answer?
Kevin,
I think this thread is losing its usefulness, but I will answer your question briefly. I’d be happy with the NT canon as promulgated at Trent. Or the one listed in the Westminster Confession. Because they’re the same.
Neither Westminster (and its reactionary Puritans) nor Trent (and its reactionary Cardinals) gets to be the final authority. It is the Spirit speaking through the Scriptures and the antiquity of the books’ reception by the church that demands our attention. Above all, they are an authentic apostolic witness to Jesus. Catholics and Protestants agree on this.
You don’t have to prove that the church is the mysterious body of Christ, the pillar and ground of the truth, the interpreter of Scripture. Of course it is; it’s the delineation of who exactly comprises the church that gets you into trouble. The church is the community of the faith, not just its leadership, and certainly not just a succession of leaders who claim ancient and local origin in Rome.
From that perspective, the view of the RCC on the Eucharist is relevant to the church’s understanding of it, but by no means the final word. The (various) Protestant and Eastern and even less orthodox voices are relevant. Pentecost happened.
The leaders of the church bear the Scriptures to those under their care and those not yet in the fold, like a servant bears a message from a noble prince to his lady. But if the servant conveys the message in such a way as to make the lady love the servant himself, he has committed a kind of adultery. (I hope you like that; it’s from Gregory’s *Pastoral Rule*).
Thank you Daniel. Yes, I do like ol’ Gregory.
I’m not so sure that we’re really off-topic here. The initial posting refers to the question of whether Rome is an enemy to those who embrace the Reform tradition. I have found our exchanges to be very instructive regarding Reformed theology, about which I know very little. My intention is to attempt to alleviate concerns about idolatry in the Catholic faith, particularly the Mass and Eucharist.
While I understand your concerns, I do believe that the question from my last posting is relevant. You accept and in fact use as your highest reference a book which was chosen and assembled by the Catholic Church. We are not so far apart as may appear.
The lineage of Catholic theology is perhaps the most detailed and recorded history in all the world over such a long span of time. It is quite easy to trace the popes and Church teaching all the way back to Peter–a span which now approaches 2000 years.
There were certainly some clunkers elected along the way but their individual sinfulness did not effect the DOCTRINE of the Church. It certainly affected the activity of certain individuals (to our great sadness) but it did not change the tenets of the faith.
More impressively, most of the Popes WERE holy despite an enormous amount of temptation and corruption around them. The historical record bears this out.
If I am understanding you correctly it would appear that our differences lie mainly in that I accept this unbroken lineage of the Church from Peter to Pope Benedict (including its teachings) as being guided by the Holy Spirit. And I accept that a handful of those who ascended Peter’s chair were, like Judas, chosen but betrayed their position as they betrayed their Savior. If Jesus himself batted 11 of 12 then surely the College of Cardinals can bat 250 of 266.
I take Jesus at his word when he proclaims Peter to be the Rock on which He will build the Church. I also believe Him when He says that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. And I assume that that means even for a short period of time. What reason would we have to assume otherwise?
My prayer is that you might see that this is the genuine belief of faithful Catholics. We accept the tenets of the faith because we believe that the Holy Spirit never abandoned the Church and therefore has continuously guided it even through times of great corruption of individuals, even popes. That the Catholic Church remains THE bastion of the faith in the world despite all the assaults against it we offer as evidence.
Idolatry is a danger for every Christian every day. But at the Mass, Catholics worship our one and only Lord and Savior. The priest is just a servant as were the apostles and those they appointed to help them. We continue that tradition begun by the apostles.
Randy,
I thank you for your post, which well represents the confessional Reformed response.
I wont take the time to debate the specifics with you now, but wish to help your conscience.
Although the RPCNA does not demand strict subscription to the Confessional documents, you know that I was always, as an RP Pastor, a defender of the Constitution. I take the case for Reformed confessionalism seriously, and believe it is the only hope of keeping the Reformed churches orthodox.
You asked if I still affirm Westminster’s teaching on the Mass. The answer is that I do not. For this, and for other departures from Reformed Orthodoxy, I have already made known to my Presbytery my desire to affiliate with another denomination. My membership has been moved from our former RPCNA congregation and now resides in the Christian Reformed Church.
Although you surely disagree with where I am theologically, I hope that you will be able to appreciate the honesty of my convictions and my unwillingness to serve against a denomination’s confession. I have to much love and respect for the Covenanters to do anything less.
Randy,
A well regarded Reformed Presbyterian Professor, teaching Systematic Theology at the RP Seminary, once told my class that there was more of the gospel in a Roman Mass than your average evangelical worship service.
But I guess that those old blue bloods were never up to the standard of orthodoxy of you and your friends.
“…there was more of the gospel in a Roman Mass than your average evangelical worship service.”
Very true, though the objection was never really that Rome lacks the gospel. It is that she adds to the tradition and thereby distorts the message Christ committed to his Church.
Some distortions are in themselves innocent enough. Personally, I am half inclined to think Mary was in fact assumed to heaven after her dormition. Content here is not the problem, rather it is that Rome has turned a speculative pious opinion into a dogma. The pope was entirely upfront about what his act meant: “if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith” (MD, 45).
Certain distortions are more grievous. Consider again the sixth canon of the thirteenth session of Trent:
“If anyone says that in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is not to be adored with the worship of latria, also outwardly manifested, and is consequently neither to be venerated with a special festive solemnity, nor to be solemnly borne about in procession according to the laudable and universal rite and custom of holy Church, or is not to be set publicly before the people to be adored and that the adorers thereof are idolaters, let him be anathema.”
The wording is precise, especially when read in context, and does not enjoin simply the primitive Eucharistic adoration according to which Christ being received through the sacrament is worshipped. Trent squarely insists that the worship proper to God alone is to be directed to the consecrated elements as being substantially the body and blood of Christ. If the RCC has misinterpreted the nature of Christ’s presence, then the rationale for this type of adoration vanishes, and we are left with a practice which, whether technically idolatrous or not, certainly tends in that direction, and is quite seriously erroneous. And our full approval is demanded for the error.
I dislike being negative. To repeat, we should rejoice for what is good in the RCC. There is plenty of it, far more than we often think. I do not want to return to the bad old days of vitriol and bombast. Nonetheless, if we can brook differences like those above, I worry we have let the pendulum swing too far. We should be extremely cautious yielding ground occupied not just by one sect or another, but by nearly all traditional Protestants.
John,
You have impressively encapsulated what I believe the proper Protestant position should be with regard both to the Mass.
You have also properly defined the very center of the debate- the nature of authority. Does Rome have divine right authority to define matters of faith? If not, such declarations are spiritual tyranny. The spirit of antichrist would be at work. If….
GAS, thanks for the witty response. CS, my apologies. I should’ve clarified. I meant to refer to St. Augustine as a bishop in the Catholic Church after his Manichaeism. I can see how this must’ve been confusing.
“As I have said before, Protestants need to stop viewing Rome from the 16th century. They need to start viewing Rome from the 19th.”
Not at all; to understand “Rome”, you need to understand 1st century Christianity. That is, to understand the Catholic Church you have to have solid understanding of all Church history, beginning from the NT scriptures, which incidentally, developed in the Catholic Church.
I know this is an old post, which i found from another old post, which i found searching something i forget, but the premise that the 1st century is that of Rome is perverse, and as is true with teachings such as praying to departed saints, it requires such a degree extrapolation and wresting of Scripture that it impugns upon the claim of Rome to be the supreme and infallible interpreter of Scripture.
Of course, Rome rarely does “infallibly” interpret individual texts (and we know not how many times she has infallible spoken), but she decrees she has an assuredly infallible magisterium, that when her magisterium speaks to the church universal on faith and morals then it is infallible. And which renders her own declaration that she is infallible to be infallible, and whatever else she decrees in accordance with her scope and subject-based formula. And thus history and Scripture can be what she says they are.
“It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine…I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity. It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness. Its past is present with it, for both are one to a mind which is immutable. Primitive and modern are predicates, not of truth, but of ourselves…The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour. — (Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, reprinted with no date), pp. 227-228.