Ready with a Reason

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 18 of 24

2011-11-24T23:09:00.000-05:00

This is the eighteenth part of a 24-part series of responses to a street evangelist I met from Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE). Please click here to see the first post, which contains a set of links by topic to all the posts in the series.

18. Using the KJV instead of a Catholic version. It was stated that I should take a look at the KJV rather than use a Catholic version. The argument is a common one: faulty Catholic doctrines are in part a result of faulty translations. This statement can not be born out of careful comparison, because many Catholic and Protestant scholars alike say the difference between the best Protestant translations (including the KJV) and the best Catholic translations are quite small. Every translation, ultimately, suffers by being a translation, but I can tell you that I feel very comfortable arguing for the Catholic faith from the KJV, and at times, I even prefer it. I own and use the NIV, the KJV, the NKJV, the RSV, the NJB, the Douay-Reihms, and look at other translations online through sites like Bible-gateway. In almost every case, the results are the same. So, the argument that learning Christianity from the KJV instead of the Catholic version leads to a different Christianity doesn’t hold water.

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 17 of 24

2011-11-10T07:00:00.000-05:00

This is the seventeenth part of a 24-part series of responses to a street evangelist I met from Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE). Please click here to see the first post, which contains a set of links by topic to all the posts in the series.

17. Baptist Converts to Catholicism. I mentioned that I have an iPod full of the personal testimonies and conversion stories of Baptist pastors who have converted to Catholicism. Now, I fully acknowledge that people convert from every church to every other church. The reasons I brought up these stories are:

a) even though we all know in our minds that people convert in every different direction, it seems unthinkable to most Baptists that a Baptist pastor would convert to Catholicism;

b) what is important is not that Baptist pastors are converting, but why they are converting. Why would they make such a huge personal sacrifice, where they give up their job, their pastorate, and often many friends, to join a church that, in many cases, they would have once said was the last church they would ever consider joining?

Yes, people leave Catholicism all the time. In some cases, Catholics leave because they were very poorly catechized, went to a parish that was not very alive, and found a nice evangelical church much more friendly and welcoming. To that, I say bravo to the evangelical churches! Many Catholics are learning from you to improve our own church, and those of you who have converted to Catholicism bring rich graces into the life of the Catholic Church! In other cases, Catholics leave because they have embraced a life of sin (either through contraception, divorce and remarriage, abortion, etc.) and have decided to find a denomination that teaches that these sins are okay. Sometimes, Catholics also leave Catholicism because they have been taught lies by people who are against the Catholic Church, and leave the Catholic Church on the basis of these lies. For instance, if I was gullible enough to believe the person from LBC who told me that we recrucify Christ in the Mass, I would leave the Catholic Church immediately, because the Bible clearly says (as the Baptist would definitely point out) that Christ was sacrificed “once for all.” However, I know my faith, and I’m not gullible, so I can see through a false claim when one is presented to me.

Even though the motivations behind the types of conversion outlined above are very different, notice that neither one presents a good reason to leave or join any church. (We shouldn’t leave because another church is friendlier, to avoid conversion from sin, or because we have been fed a lie.) Rather, the main reason we should join a church is because it is true. It is the truth that will set us free.

And…when you listen to these Baptist pastors who converted to Catholicism, they all say that as much as they loved being Baptist pastors, it was the truth of Catholicism that drew them in (even against their wills, sometimes). As one book of conversion stories is titled, these converts were “surprised by truth.”

Here’s what I recommend: take some time and listen to 10 stories of Catholics who left the Church, and compare them to 10 stories of Baptist pastors who joined the Catholic Church. Discern what all their motivating factors are, and most importantly, try to determine how well they seemed to have a grasp on their former faiths. When people leave the church, are they headed toward a greater or lesser unity? What about when people join the Catholic Church?

The easiest way to get to them is to get to Baptist pastors’ conversion stories to Catholicism is at EWTN. Click on this link, and then enter “Journey Home” in the search space for “EWTN programs” (not “series”…you want the second space down). This will bring you to over 600 conversion stories to the Catholic Church, many of them by Protestant ministers of one stripe or another. Scroll through the pages to find stories of Baptist converts. There are well over fifty of them. Also look for “former fundamentalist,” or former “Bible missionary.” These titles also apply well to people at a place like LBC.

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 16 of 24

2011-11-09T07:00:00.000-05:00

15. “If we’re all saved, that’s basically all that matters.”

One gentleman made it seem like there was no need to discuss differences if we were all already saved. I think this a reductionistic view that is contrary to the love of God. Jesus, out of love for us and a desire for everyone to be saved, offered his passion so that “we may be one” and that the “world may know” that the Father sent the Son. Yet, this gentlemen’s attitude was more like: it doesn’t matter if we are one. All that matters is that you are saved.

While being saved is an important thing, all of the Bible can not be boiled down just to being saved, if by “saved” you mean a person entering into a relationship with God through being forgiven of original and personal sins and regenerated.

Rather, God wants our salvation to be complete in Him, and that includes God’s family being unified. The consequences of our salvation extend beyond the individual who is saved to the entire mystical body of Christ, God's people who were once scattered and are now gathered at and by the cross of Christ.

This gentleman’s view of salvation seems to be a lot narrower than what Jesus himself wants for his followers. Jesus wants to give us more. Lord, give us hearts that are open to more of what you want to give to us!

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 15 of 24

2011-11-08T07:00:00.002-05:00

This is the fifteenth part of a 24-part series of responses to a street evangelist I met from Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE). Please click here to see the first post, which contains a set of links by topic to all the posts in the series.

15. “I believe there are saved Catholics.”
I was really confused by this statement, since Pastor Witmer on multiple occasions has grouped Catholics together with unbelievers, atheists, Satanists, Occults, etc. Further, Baptists usually seem to take a special delight when a Catholic converts, as if they have been rescued from the bondages of “Romanism” and been introduced to true Christianity. When you say that you believe there are Catholics who are saved, are you sure? Is it possible, in your mind, to have entered into an authentic relationship with Christ yet believe in transubstantiation, infant baptism, veneration of Mary, etc.?

Or, do you think that Catholics who are saved must not really follow their Church in these areas…and are thus not really Catholics.

I’ve told you in this letter that I consider you my brothers and sisters in Christ. How do you view faithful Catholics such as myself, who genuinely love and follow our Lord and the Catholic Church, which we believe He established?

Shameless Popery: Treating Jesus as a King Without a Kingdom

2011-11-08T06:28:00.000-05:00

Shameless Popery: Treating Jesus as a King Without a Kingdom: One of the most important points to understand about Catholicism is that the truth of the Catholic Church flows from the truth of Jesus Christ. Her status is inexorably tied up with His. I've been reading John Allen's book-length interviews with Archbishop Dolan, A People of Hope. I'm excited to do a full review of it soon (it's a superb book), but I wanted to go ahead and highlight something that Abp. Dolan said, because I think it illustrates this point neatly:

Just as most people missed the divine in Jesus because of his humanity, so do most people miss Jesus in the Church because of our earthiness, because we are clumsy, we are sinful, we are awkward. But this is how Jesus continues to radiate his grace and mercy, through the Church. That’s the leap of faith today. I think Father Ron Rolheiser says it well: We want a king without the kingdom; we want a shepherd without the other sheep; we want a father, with us as the only child; we want a general without an army; we want to believe without belonging.

There are two points to make about this: first, that the success of the Church flows from the success of Christ; and second, that we need to change our thinking about salvation.

...

Read on...Joe's post sums up so succinctly why we need Jesus's Church, and the fact that the decision is not up to us!

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 14 of 24

2011-11-07T07:00:00.001-05:00

This is the fourteenth part of a 24-part series of responses to a street evangelist I met from Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE). Please click here to see the first post, which contains a set of links by topic to all the posts in the series.

13. “Baptism does not save you.” The kind lady who was out walking told me this, and when I told her that the Bible actually says the exact opposite…well, I don’t think she believed me.

Here is the KJV translation of 1 Peter 3:18–21:

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Other translations put it, “baptism…now saves us.”

Now, I fill be the first to tell you that taking a bath in mere water does not save anyone. But the Catholic Church has NEVER taught that baptism is a mere washing with water. Also, the Catholic Church has NEVER taught that baptism is a work that we humans do to “work” our way to heaven.

Rather, baptism is a work that God does on our soul, but he does this work using physical matter for our sake as humans (who are both body and soul). Obviously, Jesus could have healed the blind man by saying, “be healed.” But Jesus saw fit to rub spit and mud on the man’s eyes and have him wash it off. Likewise, Jesus heals us of sin in baptism using matter, though it is obviously not the matter itself that does the healing. Baptism is Jesus’s work on our souls through water AND Spirit.

Okay, now consider Baptism for a moment in Scripture. When Jesus says we must be “born anothen” in John 3:3, he immediately expands on what he means by using a parallel expression that we must be “born of water and spirit.” Put the two expressions together, and you get Jesus saying: “you must be born again of water and spirit to enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Two points: 1) most Baptists imagine a born again experience to have nothing to do with water, and 2) Jesus joins water and spirit, and in doing so he is joining two things that we find inseparable throughout Scripture.

For instance, consider:
➢ Genesis 1:1—the spirit hovered over the waters out from which came the first creation. We are new creations in Christ, and we arise as new creations from the waters and spirit of baptism.
➢ Genesis 7-9—We see waters cleansing the earth of sin, and the spirit (in the form of the dove) bringing the olive branch of peace and salvation to Noah. In 1 Peter 3:21, Peter specifically cites this as a type of baptism, where Christians in the New Covenant are saved through water and spirit, not by the water’s washing, but by the appeal of a clean conscience brought forth by the spirit…and all this occurs, says Peter, IN BAPTISM! (Keep in mind as well that the Ark is itself a type of the New Covenant Church, which as a whole is saved through the waters and spirit of baptism.)
➢ Exodus 14: Moses crossing the Red Sea. Remember, Moses and Israel were saved from bondage (sin) through water that was parted by a strong wind (the Spirit) to enter the promised land (a type of heaven). Once again, we see water and spirit bound together in Scripture.
➢ Let’s jump ahead now (skipping things like the Jewish rites of purification, which was what the stone jars at the Marriage Feast of Cana were for, by the way…) So, Jesus once again reaffirms the connection between water and spirit as a vehicle for communicating our salvation to us. You could think of all of the Old Testament as a divine pedagogy for recognizing and appreciating everything Jesus does in the New Testament. But does Jesus’s teaching that we must be “born again of water and spirit” really mean baptism? Let’s look at the context of John 3:
➢ John 1: What is going on here? Baptism! And when John the Baptist baptizes Jesus, what appears? The Spirit, in the form of a dove, and the voice of God is heard calling Jesus His son. Likewise, when we are baptized, the Spirit works on our souls and we are made into children of God.
➢ John 2: At the Wedding Feast of Cana, Jesus performs his first miracle using the water in the stone jars for the Jewish Rites of Purification. What were these rites a pre-figurement of? Baptism.
➢ John 3: “You must be born again of water and spirit.” This is the only way that Nicodemus, who approached Jesus at night (in a state of spiritual darkness), can move into salvation (spiritual light). According to Jesus, it must involve water and spirit. Jesus joins them together; let no man put them asunder!
➢ John 3: What do the apostles do right after Jesus teaches this to Nicodemus? They go out baptizing!
➢ John 4: By John 4, how has John framed Jesus’s promise of a “spring of living water welling up to eternal life”? Baptism.
➢ When Jesus dies on the cross, John notices the following: Jesus gives up his spirit, and then water and blood flow from his side. The early church saw in this moment a profound image: Just as the first Eve was born from the side of the first Adam, the new Eve (the Church) is born out of the side of the new Adam (Christ), and the Church is joined to the bridegroom precisely through the water (Baptism) and the blood (the Eucharist).

So, Baptism is never thought of in Scripture as just a bath in water. Rather, it is in Baptism that Jesus Christ saves us. Our salvation is something Jesus does on us, and the Bible says that Baptism is when he does it:
➢ 1 Peter 3:21: “baptism…now saves us.”
➢ Romans 6: “baptized into Jesus Christ”
➢ Romans 6: “baptized into His death”
➢ Romans 6: “buried with him by baptism”
➢ Colossians 2:12: “buried with him in baptism”
➢ Titus 3:5: “he saved us, by the washing of regeneration”
➢ Acts 2:38: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Now, even if you don’t agree with the interpretation above, can you at least see that Christians (Catholic and Protestant) who believe in baptismal regeneration have a Biblical basis for believing this? Add to this the fact that all the students of the apostles and their successors, for the first centuries of Christian history and for many centuries beyond, all believed in baptismal regeneration, and I think the case tilts strongly in the Catholic direction.

Finally, note that what Catholics are accused of (trying to be saved by a mere washing in water)…IS NOT ACTUALLY WHAT CATHOLICS BELIEVE! We believe we are saved by the “water and spirit” of baptism. Jesus joins the two together. Baptists separate them, and then pick on people for believing in water-only baptism, even though NO ONE ACTUALLY ATTEMPTS TO DO WATER-ONLY BAPTISM BUT BAPTISTS (and other Christians who deny baptismal regeneration).

For Catholics, baptism means what Jesus said it means: “water AND spirit.” What God has joined together...

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 13 of 24

2011-11-06T17:04:00.001-05:00

This is the thirteenth part of a 24-part series of responses to a street evangelist I met from Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE). Please click here to see the first post, which contains a set of links by topic to all the posts in the series.

13. Do this in REMEBRANCE of me. Many Baptists with whom I have spoken have turned to this word spoken by Jesus at the last supper to deny the very words that Jesus had just spoken: “this is my body.”

In a nutshell, the Catholic argument is: Jesus said “this is my body.” Jesus said “truly, truly I say unto you, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you” (John 6) Jesus said it, Christians have always believed it since the beginning (except those in John 6:66 who turned away and did not follow Jesus any longer), and I see no reason to deny the clear teaching of my Lord.

Now, the problem with how many Baptists interpret the word “remembrance” is they look the word up in their Webster’s dictionary and they interpret it within the framework of 21^st-century notions of metaphysics. Doing so, they draw the conclusion that something that is “remembered” is not present, but rather thought about as a past event. It is only present in the memory and in the symbols we use to remember it, but the thing symbolized is itself absent. Our 21^st-century metaphysics tell us that remembering something does not make it present in any way, shape, or form.

The problem with this interpretation is that Jesus wasn’t using the word with 21^st-century dictionaries and metaphysics in mind.

The word for “remembrance” was a special Greek word, anamnesis, that was used in the Old Testament primarily in the context of the Jewish Passover and other sacrifices, the very salvation event that Jesus, the true Passover, was in the act of fulfilling. So, if you want to understand “remembrance” in context, then turn not to Webster but to the Old Testament Passover ritual and sacrifices. When you “study this out,” you’ll find that every time anamnesis is used in the Old Testament Hebrew and Greek cultures, it was in connection with sacrifice (see Numbers 10:10, for instance). Thus, Jesus is connecting what he is doing in the last supper with the “new covenant,” with the “Passover,” and with “sacrifice.” We know that Jesus is the “Lamb of God,” and John points out how sour wine was offered to Jesus on the cross using a hyssop branch, the same branch used at the original Passover in Egypt to sprinkle the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of those who were “passed over”. We also see that not a bone in Jesus’s body is broken: he is truly the Lamb of God, offered for our salvation on the cross. (There are many other connections, John is pointing out, but you probably already know them, so I’ll move on.)

Yet, the sacrifice of Calvary begins in the upper room, where Jesus freely offered his body and blood in the first Mass. And just like the ancient Jews had to eat the Lamb (or else their first born son would die), we also have to eat the lamb, but not by consuming our Lord’s body and blood in a bloody manner. Rather, at the last supper, our Lord provides a way that we can commune with him in His fullness: through the Eucharistic sacrifice.

That is why Jesus didn’t just offer his body and blood, but said, “take this eat…do this as a memorial sacrifice of my offering” which gets us closer to the meaning of anamnesis. I recommend taking a look at this article for more on this topic:

http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0402sbs.asp

Even better would be to buy Brant Pitre’s book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist. Or, check out his talks on this very subject here.

I have a LOT more to say on this subject below when I talk about how Catholics understand the Mass, and why the Mass is not a “recrucifixion of Christ.”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Okay, I think that gets us through everything we spoke about.

I’ll try to be a bit briefer with the topics that I believe were covered by the other group.

Shameless Popery: Martin Luther and the Book of James

2011-11-05T23:35:00.000-04:00

And another terrific post by Joe Heschmeyer, this time on Martin Luther's assessment of the book of James...and what this says about the reliability of Luther's understanding of Justification in other Biblical texts (esp. Paul).

The combox discussion is also quite illuminating...

Here's the link:

Shameless Popery: Martin Luther and the Book of James: Martin Luther's hostility to the Book of James is well-known, and I've mentioned it in other contexts, but I wanted to consider today the im...

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 12 of 24

2011-11-05T23:19:00.002-04:00

This is the twelfth part of a 24-part series of responses to a street evangelist I met from Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE). Please click here to see the first post, which contains a set of links by topic to all the posts in the series.

12. The Latin Mass.
Thanks for bringing up the Latin Mass. I love both the older Latin form of the Mass and the New, vernacular form as well. The language used at Mass is not a doctrinal issue, and so there is no problem with people using either one.

Also, make sure you think about the use of Latin historically and with all the facts.

For much of Church history, Latin was a language that common church-goers knew, so we shouldn’t imagine that no one understood the Mass until Vatican II began allowing the vernacular languages to be used. Further, even as time went on and fewer and fewer people knew the Latin language, the prayers of the Mass were often learned through repetition of hearing them, and children were educated in Latin as a second language, so many people understood the Latin being used. Even I have almost no training in Latin, but I know the Mass well enough to be able to follow the words in Latin. (It really isn’t that hard!) On top of that, after the invention of the printing press, the Church made available “missals,” a booklet that contained the Latin prayers of the Mass on one side and the translation on the other, just so that everyone could follow along if they needed/wanted to. And finally, the parts of the Mass that were not repeated every week, most especially the sermon on the four to five bible readings, were always given in the vernacular language. In fact, for the last five hundred years or so (the period where the Latin language fell out of general use), the priest at Mass would usually begin by translating at least the Gospel (if not more) into the vernacular language.

Here’s a little story that might help give you a different perspective on the use of Latin.

Imagine your family eating at a dinner table. You all speak the same language, and you use that language to bond with one another, sharing stories, creating unique turns of phrases that only your family understands, and passing on memories of what grandpa said, using that funny word that he loved to say, and that unique inflection that he always gave it. Over the decades, you watch your children grow, until they start bringing their own children with them to the dinner table. You pass on the family stories, raise them to know what it means to be a member of the Hall family, and share with the grandchildren the same laughs about (great-)grandpa that have enlivened family dinners for generations. Eventually your children’s children begin showing up to the dinner table with their children. You are by now an old man, but you relish returning week after week with your family that has, over the years, remained unified as a loving family, sharing stories, laughs, tears, memories, and the joy of family life.

Then one day, something changes.

A great-grandchild shows up to the table and has chosen to begin speaking a new language. That child doesn’t mean badly, but in choosing the new language, he forgets almost all of the older, family language. It doesn’t effect things too much at first: the child still kind of understands the stories about grandpa and most of the inside jokes are not lost on him.

But the trend continues.

Within a few months, almost all of the grandchildren have started speaking a new language, and none of them have chosen the same ones. Out of love, you and your children begin learning these languages so that you can do your best to translate the family tradition into these new tongues.

But you quickly realize that some of the most precious memories, stories, and laughs only make sense in the original language. In fact, the entire family identity would be lost if the original language itself was abandoned. With it, the unity of the family, bound up in the entire history and memory of the family would dissolve.

Now, if you are a family man like I am, the sense of horror at the dissolution of the family makes one want to cry: “Stop! Keep the traditions alive! Don’t give up the family language!”

One hopes and prays that the children are only going through a phase and will one day desire to know their roots enough to at least try to understand the family language enough to learn her history, her story, and the unique forms of expression and address that bind her into a solid unit.

My friend, the Catholic Church has always struck a great balance between preserving the family language while doing everything in her power to make that language accessible (relative to the need for accessibility) to the “great grandchildren” of the family. Like I said, the Church has made the translation available for anyone who wanted to follow along, and the non-repeating parts of the Mass were always spoken in the vernacular. Anyone who really wanted to understand could; they just had to pick up a missal.

I don’t know Latin or Greek, but I know the prayers that are still prayed at Mass in these languages, and you probably do to. “Kyrie Elieson” means “Christ have Mercy.” “Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi” means “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world…” It is a prayer that every Catholic around the world prays at least four times in every Mass, and this prayer shows that any true, faithful Catholic trusts in Jesus as savior. (Long tangent: They might not always articulate this trust in the terms that a fundamentalist Baptist in your neck of the woods would use, but that doesn’t mean that these Catholics do not accept that Christ is their savior. That’s why it is unfathomable to me that Pastor Witmer can group Catholics in general with unbelievers, Satanists, etc., as I have heard him do in multiple sermons. I trust that he is not speaking out of malice, so I can only conclude that he is almost completely ignorant about Catholicism, and I feel quite sorry for the people who believe that the things he says about Catholics are true. He, and these people, will one day have to give an account before God as to why they would believe and share such negative things about other Christians without first checking to see if they were even true. Now, remember, there will always be sinful Catholics, and there will be Catholics who show up and warm a pew each week but who don’t have a relationship with Jesus. But that doesn’t at all mean that all Catholics don’t have a relationship with Jesus. I am almost certain that Baptist have their pew warmers as well, though it would be wrong of me to judge your church by the weakest members in her!)

You might be interested to know that the great-grandchildren have made it through their “phase.” In the Catholic Church, the youth (such as myself) are beginning to tap into their roots and request the availability of the Latin Mass. We appreciate now that some doctrines can’t be communicated with accuracy in every language, we’ve seen too many translators try to “tamper” with Mass translations (often resulting in a watering-down of the faith), and we are learning to understand the Bible and the liturgy in their original languages. Many of us now realize that the great experiment of changing the Mass into the vernacular didn’t really do anything to increase our engagement (at Mass, I still see people who sit there bored and unengaged…perhaps the problem isn’t one of the language but of the human condition!). In contrast, in every Latin Mass I have attended, there is a profound sense of reverence, focus, attention, and worship.

That being said, many others prefer the Mass in the vernacular, and this is perfectly acceptable. There is no reason for Christians to be divided over options when both options are good and acceptable.

Now, returning to our story:

How would you feel (as the head of the family) if a neighbor from outside the family showed up at the door and began chastising you for trying (just as your longstanding family identity is beginning to slip away) to maintain the family language in reasonable ways?

How do you think I feel as a Catholic when people outside the “immediate” family show up at the door and chastise the Catholic Church for trying to maintain the family language in a reasonable way? The only difference is, the Catholic Church is trying to protect memories and traditions and truths that are far more valuable than those of your or my biological families.

Shameless Popery: Answering Four Common Protestant Objections to the...

2011-10-11T21:08:00.000-04:00

Joe Heschmeyer has delivered another fantastic post, this one dealing with the papacy. Highly recommended:

Shameless Popery: Answering Four Common Protestant Objections to the...: Andre , a Protestant on his way into the Catholic Church, recently had something of an exit interview with his former pastor. His pastor m...

Christian Disunity as a Problem of the Imagination

2011-10-05T17:08:00.002-04:00

I used to live in one of the liberal hotbeds of the Midwest, Ann Arbor, MI. Some of my most interesting experiences there came from volunteering at the Right to Life booth at the Ann Arbor Art Fair that took place every summer.

One encounter at the Art Fair has stuck with me over the last five years since it occurred. A man walked up and posed the following dilemma:

"Imagine that there was an IVF clinic that contained a refrigerator full off 500 embryos. Also in the clinic was a baby playing in the back nursery. Now, imagine that the clinic caught fire, and the firemen could only rescue the embryos or the baby. Who would you suggest they save?"

The innocent older lady sitting next to me fell for the trap and answered, "the baby, of course." Next thing I knew, the vindicated man had marched away before I could even begin to form a response.

Now, there are a number of problems with the dilemma posed by this gentleman.

First, the dilemma (as stated) sets up a false opposition by structuring the problem such that you can only save the baby or the embryos.

The only proper response to this problem is: shame on you for even imagining such a dreadful situation where 500 embryos are left to burn.

Second, the man's dilemma breezily accepts a situation in which 500 embryonic human beings are created without the caring, loving protection of their mothers' wombs and are stored like pieces of meat in a refrigerator...without even a comment on the atrocity of this evil.

The only proper response to this is: shame on you for even imagining a situation in which 500 human beings are left in a refrigerator without rightful protection of their mothers.

In short, I should have told the man: "You don't need an argument. You need a spanking."

In other words, the real problem in this experience was a problem of the imagination. This man, and many in our culture, has allowed himself to imagine as perfectly normal a situation in which 500 embryos are left to freeze or burn.

This problem of the imagination came to mind as I was reading a recent blog post by Bradley Cochran at his thoughtful and engaging blog, Theo-philogue. On Bradley's blog, I chimed in some thoughts related to Cochran's discussion of Albert Mohler's distinction of doctrines (and, by extension, doctrinal differences) into three tiers.

Here is the relevant part of my comment:

On the flip side, if Jesus Christ is the Truth, how can we take any of these critical issues and say that it is acceptable for Christians to divide over them? What truth of Jesus Christ can be viewed as unessential? And where do Jesus's and Paul's constant prayers and commands that...we be perfectly unified allow for us to even *imagine* a situation where we allow divisions (and the "institutions of division"*** that support them)?

***John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint

It strikes me that the real problem underlying Mohler's three tiers of Christian doctrine (essential, ecclesial, unessential) is that it also breezily assumes doctrinal differences between Christians. Even though we as Christians should be just as horrified at doctrinal differences at any level as we are at the idea of 500 embryos burning in a clinic, here, Mohler seems to just accept that the differences are going to exist. You just have to choose: the baby or the embryos....ecclesial unity or doctrinal purity or both.

(UPDATE: In the above sentence, I'm not trying to equivocate the two sets of choices. I AM equivocating the structure of the respective decisions, however. That being said, it is worth noting that the doctrinal and ecclesial disunity that exists in Christianity today has allowed for ecclesial communities that accept IVF and a host of other morally problematic behaviors to exist. The truth will always be a matter of life and death.)

I really pray that in this new millennium, we lovers of Jesus Christ will fervently pray that he wake us up and purify our imaginations. Let us no longer passively imagine a situation that Jesus offered His passion to avoid. Jesus hates divorce, whether it occurs between a bride and a groom or between groups of Christians and His Mystical Body, the Church.

Let us no longer imagine a situation where Christians revel in the twists and turns of doctrinal disputes, always willing to play the trump card of "well, that's not an essential doctrine, so let the arguments continue!"

And, by God's grace, let Christians return to the living, breathing authority that Jesus left us to protect those doctrines that are truly essential, so that we may not fall into schism and division over those that truly are not.

I believe that deep in many Christians' hearts, there exists the knowledge of where that authority is found...and can only be found. It is not easy for any of us, myself most included, to submit our minds and wills to this authority that speaks in Jesus's name ("he who hears you, hears me"). But, let us pray that the Holy Spirit will grant all of us the humility and honesty to turn our minds and hearts back to the Church that Jesus himself founded.

Woe to those that know where the fullness of truth (who is Christ himself) is to be found and choose not to pursue Him.

But how great the blessing for those who abandon all (man-made traditions, family, friends) to follow the pearl of great price.

Lord Jesus, give us pure imaginations...give us your imagination...and let things be on earth as they are in heaven!

The Problem with Fundamentalism

2011-10-04T16:52:00.002-04:00

Today, I was reflecting on a paragraph I wrote in a previous post that discussed the notion that true Christians are united on "essential" doctrines...an idea that implies that it is okay that they are disunified on unessential doctrines. Here is the paragraph in question:

And finally, we must remember that doctrines are not like bullet points on a list. Rather, they are like musical lines in a great symphony of truth. Change one line, and the entire relationship of all the musical voices shifts. Change one line, and the entire tapestry of truth is fundamentally altered. Change one truth, and you have a different symphony.

Admittedly, having graduate degrees in music theory, this metaphor carries a certain weight and attraction in my thinking. Theologians like Hans Urs von Balthasar have also noted the "symphonic" quality of truth. Most Christians would agree that there is a holistic nature and integrity to the truth, since Jesus himself is the truth.

Knowing that Jesus is the truth, and all that is (including truth) finds its origin in God, it is baffling to think that anyone could consider a part of divine revelation--or even knowledge that can be known through our gift of reason--to be "unessential." Certainly, there does exist a hierarchy of truths, but that hierarchy itself, and the balance and relationships within it, all assume the importance--the necessity even--of every truth in the structure. To think that Christians can disagree over some of these truths without effecting the entire balance and divine artistry of the entire symphonic composition is to say that certain Biblical truths are unnecessary, inconsequential, superfluous, and ultimately disconnected from the entire integrated design that is the truth of Christ. In other words, revealed truths are either essential or not even worth talking about...and certainly not worth dividing churches over.

Yet, every time I speak with a Baptist about the ecclesial and doctrinal divisions within non-Catholic Christianity (and even Baptist Christianity), I am told that "true Christians agree on the essentials."

All of this makes me think that the problem with fundamentalism is that it is not fundamental enough.

This is not meant to knock fundamentalists, many of whom are sincere in upholding the fundamental truths of Christianity. These fundamentalists are to be commended and admired in their fidelity and commitment to Christ.

This is to say, however, that fundamentalists can not feel completely at home in their fundamentalism until they find their home in the Catholic Church, in whom the fullness of truth subsists...and through whom the whole of Christian truth is preserved and taught. The fullness of truth, who is Christ himself, is fundamental, essential, and as beautiful a symphony as has ever been conceived.

Come and see! This truth has been preserved by God's grace through His Bride, who finds its visible head and leadership in the teaching authority (the Pope and bishops in union with him) of the Catholic Church.

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 11 of 24

2011-10-04T09:12:00.002-04:00

This is the eleventh part of a 24-part series of responses to a street evangelist I met from Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE). Please click here to see the first post, which contains a set of links by topic to all the posts in the series.

11. The Issue of Leavened vs. Unleavened Bread. When asked about this, I said that we use unleavened bread. We do so because that is what Jesus used at the Last Supper. Also, the very idea of “breaking bread” supports the notion that the early Christians favored unleavened bread, since this was the type of bread that “broke.” Thus, using leavened bread is a practice (a small-t tradition) that we follow in the Western wing of the Catholic Church. A handful of Eastern Catholics, and many Orthodox Christians, use leavened bread. Here is an article that goes into the subject in a bit more detail.

All that being said, I just don't see how this issue constitutes legitimate grounds for division between Christians. Can anyone add further insight to this problem?

(Woo hoo for a short answer!)

Shameless Popery: The Dog That Didn't Bark: Eucharistic Theology in ...

2011-10-03T19:43:00.000-04:00

Shameless Popery: The Dog That Didn't Bark: Eucharistic Theology in ...: In the Sherlock Holmes story “Silver Blaze,” involving the disappearance of a thoroughbred racehorse, Holmes points out a major clue...

>>>>>

Dear readers:

I encourage you all to take a moment to check out Joe Heschmeyer's fine blog. I'll be posting links to some of his posts here on my blog occasionally, as they offer a strong case for the claims of the Catholic Church as well as an equally compelling model of how to share the truth in a loving manner.

Shameless Popery: Did St. Ambrose Believe in the Real Presence?

2011-10-03T18:07:00.000-04:00

Shameless Popery: Did St. Ambrose Believe in the Real Presence?: On Thursday, I also noted that St. Augustine's mentor, St. Ambrose, wrote in the late 380s that the Eucharist “ is the true Flesh of Christ ...

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 10 of 24

2011-09-27T23:26:00.000-04:00

This is the tenth part of a 24-part series of responses to a street evangelist I met from Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE). Please click here to see the first post, which contains a set of links by topic to all the posts in the series.

10. We (true Christians) only disagree on unessentials. This response doesn’t really solve the problem. First of all, who has the authority to decide exactly what the “essential” doctrines are? Is “eternal security” an essential doctrine, because if so, the vast majority of Protestant Bible-only Christians do not believe it.

You see, the list of unessential doctrines must itself be an essential doctrine that every true Christian agrees on, or else the whole house of cards collapses.

Further, when we are dealing with Truth, and Jesus is the Truth, how can anyone say that some Truth is unessential or unimportant?

Further still, where does the Bible say that some division over doctrinal or moral issues is perfectly acceptable? Surely, there are places in Scripture that recommend Christian's being sensitive to one another in non-essential areas, but no where does the Bible say that a moral question can be answered positively by some and negatively by others. Rather, St. Paul commands that we be like-minded and in perfect unity in the one faith. To suggest that some category of “unessential” doctrines on which we have divine revelation exists in which it is okay for Christians to disagree about seems contrary to the minds of Paul and Jesus. As I pointed out in our conversation, Jesus prayed in John 17 for our oneness to model that of the Holy Trinity, and there are no minor doctrinal differences between the Father and Son!

Closer examination shows that these “minor doctrinal differences” are the very things that are ripping the entire Body of Christ to shreds, causing scandal to the world. Remember: Jesus prayed that our oneness would “show the world that I was sent by the Father.” If we are visibly disunified, then we as Christians have failed to follow Jesus’s plan for evangelization…the very plan that he offered his passion to achieve! I can’t think of a single doctrine that at least some Christian organization believes the opposite about…all based on the Bible alone. The fact is, the “minor differences” are not actually minor. They involve major issues such as the nature of baptism, the recipients of baptism, the nature of sin, the doctrine of justification, the question of eternal security, and much more. None of these are minor; they cut right to the core of Christian theology, as you well know.

And finally, we must remember that doctrines are not like bullet points on a list. Rather, they are like musical lines in a great symphony of truth. Change one line, and the entire relationship of all the musical voices shifts. Change one line, and the entire tapestry of truth is fundamentally altered. Change one truth, and you have a different symphony.

On what basis, then, did Jesus ever think, praying His high priestly prayer in the upper room, that Christians would ever be able to fulfill His prayer for unity?

The answer: He founded a Church to teach authoritatively in His name (Matt. 16:16-19, 18:17-18). That Church, almost from the very beginning, has called herself by the name, “The Catholic Church.”

At various times throughout history, some people have broken away from the church to teach doctrines contrary to her. Praise be to God that a tidal wave of Christians (Anglicans, Baptist, Lutherans, etc….even an entire Protestant congregation in Detroit not too long ago) are returning so that the Body of Christ can be perfectly unified once again.

Musical Iconography

2011-09-27T13:58:00.001-04:00

It is somewhat ironic (yet in equal measure understandable) that music was one of the few religious "icons" not thrown out by iconoclasts. Perhaps this is because it does not offer a physical target at which icon-busters can throw stones. Perhaps music's seeming intangibility simply protected it from the impulse to throw physical reminders of religious truths out the window.

For this, we can be thankful.

Yet, studying and teaching music as I do, I have to remind my students that music actually is quite physical in its matter. For starters, sound produces a change in the matter that connects the instrument to the ear of the listener. Sound is literally communicated through space using packets (waves) of dense and non-dense air that hit the ear hundreds of times each second. These sound waves physically hit our ears much like waves at the beach hit the shore. In response to these waves, our mind perceives sounds, and our minds do what human minds do automatically: they try to make meaning of these sounds, understanding them to form harmonies, melodies, and so forth. These sounds can remind remind us of spiritual realities just like the light waves that bounce off physical icons and strike our eyes and minds can. Further still, we become musical and physical icons as we interact with music by producing it ourselves. We fill our lungs fill with air as we sing, and our collective physical participation in the music making becomes an icon of our unity as the Body of Christ. We feel the vibrations of the pew, as it (and the rest of the sanctuary) trembles with the vibrations of music praising our Divine King.

Perhaps even the most rigid iconoclasts lose themselves in awe at the aesthetic grandeur of Renaissance polyphony or the magnificence of a Lutheran Chorale Prelude...or even the humble simplicity of a hymn sung prayerfully on a bright Sunday morning.

One of the many things I love about being Catholic is that we embrace not only icons that lift the soul through sound sensations, but also icons that lift our souls through our eyes and noses as well. We become icons in adoration of God as we feel and place ourselves in postures of adoration, standing to hear God's Word and kneeling before God's presence. And Jesus himself, who communes with us through his Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist, invites us to receive Him into our bodies and souls. Though we taste and see bread and wine (the accidents that remain after transubstantiation), we figuratively taste and see the goodness of the Lord through our participation in the Eucharistic sacrifice that takes away our sins and helps us to become saints by His free gift of grace.

Considering the almost universal embrace of beautiful, soul-inspiring music across Christendom, I remain baffled why more Christian communities don't embrace similarly moving icons in other aesthetic domains. At the same time, I remain ever hopeful that music can point us back to our senses--all of them--as an important means of engaging the whole human person in the worship of our God.

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 9 of 24

2011-09-25T21:41:00.001-04:00

9. Finding the truth by “studying it out.” The problem with finding Biblical truth by just “studying it out” is that thousands upon thousands of Christians who genuinely love Jesus and want to know His truth using the Bible alone and who study the original languages and generally study Scripture for countless hours…all come to different conclusions.

The second problem with this model is that it renders most Christians throughout history incapable of finding the truth of God (if, in fact, the only or best way to do this is through Scripture study). Why? Well, until the invention of the printing press, no regular Christian owned a Bible, and very few could read it anyway. Even today, many people lack the intellectual capacity to make subtle textual connections across books, solve difficult theological problems that arise from Scripture, learn the ancient languages of Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic to be able to read the Bible in its original language (very little was written in Aramaic, but this is the language Jesus most often used when speaking, and some important words must be understood as being spoken in this language), and to study the ancient culture that was the primary audience for Scripture, so that they can read the Bible with the assumptions of author/audience in mind. So, if Jesus had intended us to learn the truth by “studying it out” he was thereby excluding the vast majority of Christians who ever lived throughout the centuries.

A third problem is that the idea of “studying it out” presumes that when you sit down with your Bible, you do so in a kind of vacuum apart from any and all influences that could sway your reading one way or another. The fact is, no one reads the Bible apart from the countless influences—the “lenses”—that effect our reading of Scripture. For instance, even though Mary as the New Testament Ark is plain as day to me as a Catholic from the Bible, most Protestants have never seen the Bible verses that support this because they do not realize they should look for them! Jesus tells us: “he who seeks, finds.” But the reverse is also true: if you do not seek, you will not find. That being said I GREATLY appreciate that you are a genuine seeker of Biblical truth in general. I really mean that, and I can tell you that I find your faith, and that of your pastor and churchgoers, quite inspiring. BUT, the point of the seeker comment also applies to specific doctrines. If one does not look for something specific in that vast ocean of Scripture, they will most likely not find it.

A fourth problem is that there are some doctrines and moral teachings that, up to a certain point, ALL Bible-only Protestants, including Baptists, found in the Bible. Take for instance the Bible’s prohibition on contraception. Did you know that all Christians and Christian pastors until 1930 taught that contraception was a grave sin before the Lord? They did so based on the Bible, and they did so in great unity. Not a single document can be found anywhere before 1930 where a Protestant minister went on record saying the contraception was an acceptable behavior for a Christian. But when the Anglican Church (at their Second Lambeth Conference) began allowing contraception in a few limited cases, a crack in the dam of solid Christian teaching formed. By today, every Christian denomination has caved in on this issue and has changed their moral teaching to say that contraception is acceptable before God. (That is just one example of a significant change in doctrinal/moral teachings by Baptists.) Now, if you were to ask a Protestant what the Bible says about contraception, most would probably answer “nothing,” not even realizing that it would have been inconceivable less than 100 years ago for a Christian to consider using contraception in good conscience. My friend, do moral teachings of God ever change? Is what is wrong in the first, second, third, fourth….fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries suddenly right when a sexual revolution tells Christians that sexual activity should be free (and without babies), and contraception is the necessary requirement to make it so?

Problems #5-8 with the doctrine of the Bible alone (the unspoken underpinning of the suggestion to "study it out") is that it is unscriptural, unhistorical, unthinkable, and unworkable.

(a) Sola Scriptura as unscriptural: No where does the Bible say that the Bible ALONE has final authority. The word “alone” is important. Most all Christians (including Catholics) agree the Bible is inspired and has authority. The difference is the word “alone”…and it is not found in Scripture. Thus, Sola Scriptura is self-refuting. Scripture also speaks of authoritative Traditions and an authoritative Church.

(b) Sola Scriptura is unhistorical: Sola Scriptura was not a doctrine that was believed by any Christians until Martin Luther used the doctrine to deny the other two sources of authority mentioned above. Within two decades of launching the Reformation, Luther wrote to Calvin lamenting the result of his new doctrine, saying that every Christian is using the Bible alone to come up with different and crazy new doctrines. Luther saw very quickly that when you rip the family book out of the family for which it was written and out of the family traditions that preserve its interpretive context, then you have a book whose meaning is quite literally up for grabs. And that is just what has happened outside of the Catholic Church, with the divisions into 30,000+ competing denominations.

(c) Sola Scriptura is unthinkable: As I mentioned above, no one approaches the Bible alone. We all carry interpretive baggage—our interpretive traditions—when we read Scripture. The question is: are those traditions the Sacred Tradition passed down from the apostles that preserve the entire body of apostolic teaching (including what books are truly apostolic and which are not!)…or are they traditions of men?

(d) Sola Scriptura is unworkable: As convert Scott Hahn has suggested, just imagine if the writers of the constitution simply mailed a copy to every citizen and said, “may the spirit of George Washington inspire you to interpret this doctrine correctly.” What would we have? Absolute chaos and anarchy. Likewise, when millions of Christians all read the Bible alone, we also get interpretive chaos and anarchy within the Church. In other words, lets say you are a Baptist and you want to have an abortion and your pastor tries to convince you otherwise, now you can just find another church that argues from the Bible (wrongly, I think, but we can’t assume insincerely) that abortion is okay. And if you can’t find that church, you can become a pastor and found your own church that teaches exactly what you believe the Bible to mean. Sola Scriptura has produced the ecclesial anarchy that we find today. Even within the Baptist movement, you find “free will Baptists,” “Independent Baptists,” “Fundamental Baptists,” “Evangelical Baptists,” “Southern Baptists,” and the list goes on. These groups share significant differences over the nature of sin, redemption, and the relationship between local congregations and the larger body of believers…all important areas of difference, if you ask me. And that is just within the Baptist faith alone.

Rather, the Bible teaches that we are to follow the Traditions whether they were passed on in written or oral form, and both of these streams of truth are protected by the teaching authority of the Catholic Church, founded by Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago to act as a faithful mailman for the complete Word of God (not just the written portion of it). That Church has never changed one of her doctrinal or moral teachings…no matter what the sexual revolution says.

Now, in response, good Baptists would most likely say that they don’t need to follow a church, because the Holy Spirit leads them into truth.

A couple quick responses:

(a) When Jesus promises the Holy Spirit guiding the church into the truth in the Gospels, he is invariably talking to the apostles, on whom he has given the authority to preach in His name. This is not to say that the Holy Spirit doesn’t guide Christians, but when it comes to the unity of the Body, Jesus has ordained that certain men have authority to define doctrine, morals, and even liturgical practices so that the Body of Christ can remain unified throughout time and space. In other word, Jesus never promises to lead all Christians individually so that they don’t need the authority of the Church. Just think: why would Jesus spend so long talking about Church authority and never mention that for the vast majority of Christian history, there would be no such thing as an authoritative church?

(b) The other problem with this idea is simply the question: how do you know you are following the Holy Spirit and not any one of that array of influences: sermons (since you were a kid), radio programs, books, tapes, Jack Chick tracts, Bible footnotes, etc.?

And…if you are trying to convince me that your interpretation is right and mine wrong, how can I know that you are being led by the Holy Spirit, and not the Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Free-will Baptists, etc.?

At stake here is: how does the Head (Jesus) lead the Body? How has this been understood historically? How might Jesus have thought to lead his Body in a way such that every person on earth could know which Church really served as the “pillar and ground of truth” (1 Tim. 3:15)? If the Church is Jesus’s Church, then how does a new Christian today know which Church to listen to for the fullness of Christ Himself, who is the Truth?

Pope Benedict XVI on the Mission of the Church

2011-09-25T21:09:00.000-04:00

I found these paragraphs from our Holy Father's final message to a group of German lay Catholics to be quite inspiring. You can read the rest at Whispers in the Loggia.

The Church’s mission has its origins in the mystery of the triune God, in the mystery of his creative love. Love is not just somehow within God, he himself is love by nature. And divine love does not want to exist in isolation, it wants to pour itself out. It has come down to men in a particular way through the incarnation and self-offering of God’s Son. He stepped outside the framework of his divinity, he took flesh and became man; and indeed his purpose was not merely to confirm the world in its worldliness and to be its companion, leaving it completely unchanged. The Christ event includes the inconceivable fact of what the Church Fathers call a commercium, an exchange between God and man, in which the two parties – albeit in quite different ways – both give and take, bestow and receive. The Christian faith recognizes that God has given man a freedom in which he can truly be a partner to God, and can enter into exchange with him. At the same time it is clear to man that this exchange is only possible thanks to God’s magnanimity in accepting the beggar’s poverty as wealth, so as to make the divine gift acceptable, given that man has nothing of comparable worth to offer in return.

The Church likewise owes her whole being to this unequal exchange. She has nothing of her own to offer to him who founded her. She finds her meaning exclusively in being a tool of salvation, in filling the world with God’s word and in transforming the world by bringing it into loving unity with God. The Church is fully immersed in the Redeemer’s outreach to men. She herself is always on the move, she constantly has to place herself at the service of the mission that she has received from the Lord. The Church must always open up afresh to the cares of the world and give herself over to them, in order to make present and continue the holy exchange that began with the Incarnation.

To be a member of the Church is to participate in the Incarnation by being a member of Christ's mystical body. How beautiful and awesome is the invitation we receive to be Christ's hands and feet and voice as He ministers to and through us!

Response to Russell Moore on Pat Robertson and Divorce

2011-09-16T06:16:00.004-04:00

Over at Moore to the Point, Dr. Russell Moore has a terrific blog post about Pat Robertson's recent suggestion that a husband or wife could legitimately divorce an Alzheimer's-afflicted spouse and get remarried, on the premise that having Alzheimer's was a "kind of death."

I completely agree with Moore's assessment of Robertson's remark (which seemed to be made somewhat off-the-cuff, though is still dead wrong).

What I found particularly interesting, however, was the discussion that bubbled to the surface in the combox. As you can imagine, because many non-Catholic Christians do allow for divorce and remarriage in at least some circumstances, some commentators were forced to use more nuanced language when describing the category of exceptions into which Alzheimer's (to them) does not belong. (Of course, the problem with a house built on sand--people's private interpretations--is that there is no guarantee that more Christians in the future won't put Alzheimer's into the exception category.) In a nutshell, these commentators tried to prove that Alzheimer's was not an exception by rehearsing the standard definition of the exceptions that Protestants do allow (based on a certain reading of Matthew 19:9).

From my Catholic perspective, which allows for no exceptions at all, the possibility of at least some exceptions is really a game changer--one with serious implications for what/how/why marriage is and is not. In other words, it is a much easier argument to say that marriage is a bond created by God, and nothing man can do can put that bond asunder. Only death can do a husband and wife part. If marriage is truly forever, it can only be so based on God's real action on the lives of the spouses. They do not make themselves one; God does, and "what God has joined together..."

We can no more put marriage asunder by our sins than by any other action we can commit.

And, it is worth noting that the historic understanding of marriage and Jesus's prohibition of divorce and remarriage in any circumstance stretches back to the earliest Christians in the first centuries of the Church.

Those who admit exceptions, then, offer a radically different understanding of marriage: marriage, their position implies, IS something that can be rent asunder. Divorce from one's spouse IS possible. Man CAN choose to put their marriage asunder. God's divine action CAN be undone by man's decree.

Now, it is possible that two people presumed to be married were did not actually enter into sacramental marriage the day they made their vows. Shot gun weddings, for instance, do not effect a sacramental marriage. And the Church, in an act of love and mercy, does offer to consider the evidence that a marriage never took place in the first place. (Sadly, this process has been abused in some corners of the Church, and I pray for those people who have not taken the process seriously and have annulled perfectly valid marriages.) Still, it is possible for someone who has never truly been married to obtain a civil divorce and later enter into a true sacramental marriage. This could not be considered "remarriage," since that person had never before been married.

Moore's blog post, and the comments that follow, are worth the read. Here, for your convenience, were my two comments:

>>>>>

Dear Dr. Moore,

I just found your blog for the first time today, and I couldn’t agree with you more about your assessment of Robertson’s latest statement.

I wonder, though, how culpable we are as Robertson’s Christian brothers and sisters. As crazy as Robertson’s statement was, the fact is, Christians still divorce all the time for a wide variety of reasons. Some then remarry, yet are still accepted by their congregations (either current, or perhaps new). It is hard for me to imagine that any preacher would make the blunder that Robertson made if Christians took our Lord’s prohibition of divorce and remarriage more seriously…by not getting divorced and remarried. With that in mind, I ask the Lord for mercy not only on Robertson but on the entire body of believers who claim Christ as their Lord, yet find ways of rationalizing behaviors that He clearly condemns. And though I have never divorced, I wonder how my own sins scandalize other believers and non-believers alike.

On the issue of the supposed “exception” that Jesus seems to make, it is worth noting this immorality clause only occurs in one gospel. If you were a Roman Christian reading Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’s language would not have allowed for exceptions to the no divorce and remarriage rule. Jimmy Akin has a terrific commentary on Matthew 19:9 here: http://bit.ly/nEBsGE.

Come, Holy Spirit, and reunite your faithful Church around our Head, Jesus Christ, so that the errors of those who teach apart from her can be clearly and unequivocally understood as such!

God bless,
Daniel

>>>>>

Sorry…I just realized that one sentence didn’t communicate what I intended:

I believe that congregations should accept people living in a state of sin…but not accept their sins. I think it is problematic when congregations think that they can just ignore a person’s public sin while accepting the person. I am not a pastor, and I can’t begin to imagine the pastoral difficulties associated with this issue. On that note, I am thankful that my church (the Catholic Church) has such clear, yet loving and pastoral, guidelines for persons who have divorced and remarried. The Catholic Church is clear in that no person who has truly been married can ever validly be remarried, since they are married to their first spouse until death do them part. No sin can put a marriage asunder, since God is the creator of that marriage bond.

I do think that this is the truth that has been lost across so much of Christendom, and it is a faithful return to God that can open our hearts to repentance, healing, and forgiveness…but only if those who are remarried are willing to turn away from their sin. I know this is a hard truth for many to accept, but with God, all things are possible, and nothing is better than following God’s will! His mercy and grace are always sufficient, and we prove that to be true most particularly when we as His children let go of the sinful aspects of our lives that we can’t even imagine living without!

God bless,

Daniel

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 8 of 24

2011-09-15T15:51:00.000-04:00

This is the eighth part of a 24-part series of responses to a street evangelist I met from Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE). Please click here to see the first post, which contains a set of links by topic to all the posts in the series.

8. Why read the Early Church Fathers when we have the Bible? This is a GREAT question. First, we never read the Early Church Fathers in place of the Bible. The Bible is the only written, inspired Word of God. (The Word of God is really Jesus, and everything he is, did, and taught, not all of which is contained in the Bible. In other words, there is also unwritten Word of God, primarily in the person of Jesus Christ, who is the Word Himself, whose Holy Spirit, the third person of the Most Holy Trinity, keeps alive the full teachings of Christ in His Mystical Body, the Church.)

Rather, the Early Church Fathers serve as a witness to what early Christianity was like. And as faithful witnesses do, they report in their writings their beliefs and practices. Thus, they have a historical authority, even though they have no Scriptural authority. Just because their writings aren’t Scripture doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from them what it meant to be a Christian in the year 100 or 150 A.D.

The question is really about interpretation. When we read the Bible, we always do so using lenses. If I wear pink lenses, the world appears pink. If I wear green lenses, the world appears green. When I am interpreting the Bible, the same thing holds true. We all interpret the Bible using some type of filter. The question we need to start asking is: how do I know my interpretive filter is correct?

One way to begin answering that question is to begin thinking historically: how long have people been reading the Bible through my Baptist lenses? How did the people in the first two centuries of Christianity understand the Bible? What lenses did they use? How does the Bible appear when I try their lenses on?

Remember, the Bible is the Bible is the Bible. We all read the same words on the page, albeit with (usually minor) differences of translation. But we come to different interpretations because we each have a different lens through which we look.

How do we get those lenses? From a variety of sources: Bible studies, Bible footnotes, sermons, billboards, radio programs, books, magazines, conversations, experiences, etc. None of us read the Bible on an island. Not one.

The question then becomes: if one is willing to learn how to read the Bible from all of these other (fallible, uninspired, man-made) sources, why would one not want to add to that list the early church fathers, when these people studied with the apostles and their immediate successors?

So, to answer the question, why read the early church fathers, I would answer: so that you can read the Bible through the lenses of those who were there at the beginning…those who sat at the feet of the apostles and gave their lives to defend what they had been taught.

After all, who would you trust in a game of telephone, the first person to receive the message, or the last?

As Baptist convert Stephen Ray likes to say: "the waters of Christian doctrine are always cooler and cleaner at the source."

And that source, as a little research will prove, was Catholic.

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 7 of 24

2011-09-14T20:16:00.000-04:00

This is the seventh part of a 24-part series of responses to a street evangelist I met from Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE). Please click here to see the first post, which contains a set of links by topic to all the posts in the series.

7. The Early Church Fathers’ interpretation of Scripture. Many Protestants out there have not really studied the writings of the early church in any great depth. Turns out, even most of the Protestant seminaries that I have studied (and especially the Baptist seminaries) don’t spend much more than a semester studying the first 1,500 years of church history, and to cover that ground quickly, they usually rely on a history textbook that “filters” out the distinctive voice of the early church.

Thus, many Protestants don’t realize that in the first century, Christians already identified as members of the “Catholic Church.” Christians already celebrated the breaking of bread at every liturgy (as we even see in Acts 2), and they believed the Eucharist (the consecrated bread and wine of communion) to be the body and blood of our Lord. And this was taught by the bishop (St. Ignatius of Antioch) who was chosen to replace Peter when the apostle left for his final journey to Rome (where he would eventually be martyred). Infant baptism was already a well-established practice by the early second century, and the bishops claimed to practice it because it is what the apostles taught them to do. And remember: St. Paul commanded them to follow everything he taught them, not just that which was written in a follow-up letter.

The early church had bishops, presbyterois (which we English speakers contract to “priests,” not to be confused with the priests of the Old Testament), and deacons, a tri-partite structure of “Holy Orders” that remains in Christ’s church today.

I could go on and on, but my point is this:

(a) clearly, the early church, guided by those faithful witnesses trained and appointed by the apostles to pass on Christianity, was Catholic; and

(b) there is no record in the first centuries of some massive slide into apostasy at the end of the life of the apostles. We do know that many heresies developed (Arianism, Docetism, Gnosticism, Nestorianism, etc.), but Protestants universally recognize that it was the early Christians—the early Catholics—who were the ones fighting off these early heresies. And they were successful in doing so! Yet – these same early Christians were practicing the Mass. Before Justin Martyr was martyred, he was asked by the Romans to describe the worship of Christians. If you read his First Apology, you’ll see that the Sunday worship he describes is fundamentally the same thing we have in the liturgy today: readings, a message, prayers, a “Holy, Holy, Holy,” and then something Justin describes as the “Eucharist,” in which we eat special “Eucharisted bread.”

(d) to be able to go to a Bible study with the student of an apostle is an AWESOME opportunity, but you may also find it a challenging one, because these early preachers, most all of which gave their lives for preaching this Gospel, were preaching a Catholic gospel!

The question then is: why should I trust modern Bible interpreters 2,000 years later when they contradict those people who read the Bible in their native tongue and studied it in the midst of the very people who wrote the Bible?

I put that question to Pastor Witmer many times, and he has not yet answered it.

Please pray for him and encourage him that you are willing to follow the truth of Sacred Scripture wherever it is leading all of you at LBC, even if that means to a Christianity that is different…and better…than anything you have ever known. And in the context of this point: a Christianity that is the same Christianity as what the apostles taught and meant in their writings (vs. the traditions of men that entered the scene 1,500 years later through a monk by the name of Martin Luther, who actually wanted to take all the books out of the Bible that disagreed with his new ideas).

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 6 of 24

2011-09-14T06:50:00.004-04:00

This is the fourth part of a 24-part series of responses to a street evangelist I met from Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE). Please click here to see the first post, which contains a set of links by topic to all the posts in the series.

6. An Infallible Bible does little good without an infallible interpreter. I asked a number of questions up above relating to whether you believe yourselves to be infallible interpreters of Scripture.

Here, I’ll just ask you to consider the perplexing problem of what good inspired Scriptures are if we can’t be sure we understand them. Keep in mind: everyone thinks they have the most reasonable interpretation of Scripture, or else we wouldn’t have Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Adventists, Church of Christ, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Assemblies of God…along with the many sub-groups of the above as well as the countless “non-denominational denominations.” Certainly, almost no one stays in these churches without agreeing on at least what they consider the essential teachings of those different denominations.

The recent controversy over Rob Bell’s book on heaven and hell, which is so sadly dividing evangelical Protestants, shows that the Bible is a book that can be interpreted in many different ways by people going on the Bible alone. Ironically, few Protestants today share many beliefs in common with Martin Luther, although they claim to be following the same Bible Alone as he claimed to do.

Let me put the whole question another way: if God saw fit to inspire the authors of Scripture as they were writing, why would he not also protect those people who occupy the offices (remember that discussion from question #1?) that he created, especially when he told the original occupants of these offices: “He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me” (Luke 10:16). This verse once again speaks to the authority of the leaders in Christ’s church to speak in His name, which would be an impossible command to give Christians if he did not also grant the church the special protection of the Holy Spirit. Thus, when the Church authoritatively decides a dispute between Christians in Acts 15:28, they say, “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…” Bible Christians from the beginning of the Church have always recognized the Holy Spirit’s work through the Church (especially through the apostolic bishops of the church, and most especially when these bishops meet in council), and the Church is promised that protection especially when she is defining faith and morals in order to protect the sacred deposit of faith passed down from the beginning.

To put the question yet another way, how could Christ grant the Church the power to bind and loose (“what you bind on earth is bound in heaven” as Jesus says in Matthew 16:19 and 18:18) if he didn’t protect the teaching of the Church with the power of heaven itself?

Christians have always believed that God does protect the Church (specifically: the pope and bishops united with him) from teaching error (a) in the areas of faith and morals and (b) when these popes and bishops are teaching the universal church with the explicit intention of defining something infallibly. Infallibility is due to the special protection of the Holy Spirit; it is not an ability that any man has on his own. The charism of infallibility is given to someone by virtue of the office they sit in. This does not mean that certain bishops have not fallen into heresy, but no individual bishop has the gift of infallibility. Only when the bishops teach in union with one another and with the bishop of Rome, the Pope, and define a doctrinal or moral truth for the whole Church, are they thought to be speaking infallibly. Infallibility is actually a much more limited doctrine than most non-Catholics (and even many Catholics!) understand. It does not mean that the Pope is infallible on everything, such as who will win the World Series or that he will solve every math problem correctly. It doesn’t even mean that the Pope’s private theological writings are infallible. It doesn’t mean that the Pope is impeccable and does not sin. (This seemed to be a surprise to one of you when I mentioned it.) It also doesn’t mean that the Pope will always teach the truth in the best way or in the best timing. It simply means that when the Church defines something as true (such as the New Testament canon), it is true. They don’t make it true by defining it; they simply use their authority to teach with greater clarity what is true already, but has come under attack and needs further strengthening. The great theologian St. Augustine once said that he would not believe the Bible were it not for the authority of the Catholic Church.

What good is an infallible Bible without an infallible interpreter? Looking at the sea of division with Christianity over the last five centuries, the answer is: not much. With those divisions in mind, how are we ever to convince the world that we have "the truth" without the world looking back on Christ's Body (the Church) with the words of Pontius Pilate on her lips: "what is truth?" Only in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church do we find the blueprint for Christian unity. And it just so happens that this Church is the only church that can make the reasonable claim to have been founded by Christ himself on a Rock (Matthew 16:16-19), can claim truthfully to have never changed one of her doctrinal or moral teachings, and is the only church today even applying for the job of being the one, true Church. She is a church that more and more faithful Protestants are joining out of the realization that the divisions of non-Catholic Christianity are not Christ's will for his Bride. (Read their stories here and here and here.)

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 5 of 24

2011-09-13T13:02:00.001-04:00

5. Religion doesn’t save us. I addressed this pretty fully already above. Our religion is Jesus Christ. End of story. Thus, for a Christian to say that “religion doesn’t save us” is tantamount to saying that “Jesus does not save us.”

The whole rhetoric of “baptism, church membership, religion, etc.” not saving us is really based on a kind of “either/or” thinking. Either Jesus or baptism. Either Jesus or church attendance. Either Jesus or religion.

In actuality, the Bible treats these pairs of words as “both/and.” If we have Jesus as our true religion, then we need Jesus and religion, because there is no distinction between them. If Baptism is the very tool Jesus uses to save us, then the two can not be divorced from one another. If the Church is truly the inseparable bride of Christ, Christ’s mystical body of which he is the head, then it is inconceivable that one could be saved without being somehow a member of the Church. Being a member of the Church is quite literally the very state of being saved, as we are members of Christ’s mystical body. Many Protestants inadvertently decapitate the mystical body of Christ by trying to imagine the body without the head, or vice versa. In fact, this is unthinkable. Church membership is necessary, and one starts playing dangerous games with Biblical language when one tries to put a wedge between Christ and His Bride.

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 4 of 24

2011-09-12T21:17:00.003-04:00

4. Salvation first, then Baptism. You would be surprised to learn that the Catholic Church is fairly close to Baptists when it comes to this topic, though there are also some important differences.

First off, let me say that before anyone above the age of reason can be baptized in the Catholic Church, they must first have faith. Baptism is not magic. You can’t try to baptize a person who could believe in Christ for salvation but does not and have them be saved.

That being said, Catholics do not agree with the idea of “salvation first, then baptism,” because the Bible itself says in 1 Peter 3:21: “Baptism…now saves us.” According to St. Paul in Romans, we are “buried with Christ in baptism” (Romans 6:4). Jesus himself, in John 3, says that we must be “born of water and spirit,” and the entire context for this passage, all the way from John 1 to the beginning of John 4, is – you guessed it – baptism. Thus, it is an error to separate temporally (salvation first, then baptism) two things that are tied together. Baptism is the cause that produces salvation, the effect. Faith must also be present, but we aren’t saved by faith. We are saved by God’s grace, applied to our souls in an act of regeneration, which we receive through the “washing of regeneration “(Titus 3:5).

Again, it can’t be emphasized enough: we are saved by grace alone. The question is, what and when and how does that saving grace do the saving? Remember: we are not saved by our faith or our good works. We are saved by Christ giving us the “circumcision without hands” (Colossians 2:11) which St. Paul immediately in the next verse associates with Baptism.

So, faith must be present…but God does the saving when we are “baptized into his death” and “buried and raised to life with Him in baptism.”

The Bible could not be clearer. Also, all the students of the apostles who learned Christianity from the authors of Scripture believed in baptismal regeneration. It took almost 1,500 year for any Christian to deny baptismal regeneration. Even Martin Luther believed in baptismal regeneration based on the Bible alone, as do many Protestants today.

Now, there are a lot more questions I’m sure you have about baptism (infant baptism, what if baptism isn’t possible, like the thief on the cross, etc.). And I’d be happy to address any of these you’d like to discuss further.

>>>>>

Please see part 14 for a more extended discussion of baptism!

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 3 of 24

2011-09-10T15:24:00.004-04:00

This is part 3 of a 24-part series. Click here to see the post for part 1, which contains links by topic to the rest of the posts in this series.

3. Veneration of Mary and Mary’s Immaculate Conception and perfect obedience to Christ. There is so much to say about Mary from the Bible. Many books have been written on the subject, despite the fact that many Protestants seem to think that the Bible is almost silent on Mary. In fact, the verses that speak of Mary speak volumes, and one thing that many converts to Catholicism have said is: how could I have missed the Bible’s many riches on Mary as a Protestant?

My purpose here will not be to convince you of everything, as Catholic beliefs about Mary usually take some time for Protestants to wrap their minds around. I’ll begin by offering a few introductory remarks:

(a) Mary is God’s handiwork. The things that are so wonderful about Mary are not Mary’s doing! They are about God’s work in Mary. So, Protestants should be careful in denying Marian doctrines, because in doing so, they might be inadvertently subtracting from God’s glory by not recognizing the amazing things he accomplished in and through Mary…things that were foreshadowed as early as the first book of the Bible.

(b) Marian doctrines are most important in how they protect very important doctrines about Christ. In other words, to deny almost anything the Catholic Church teaches about Mary is to actually dance at the edge of Christiological heresy (or even to pass into it!). Mary was indeed human and infinitely less that God, but the things God did for and through Mary have a lot to do with who Jesus Christ is: the incarnate second person of the Trinity. So, again, caution is in order.

That being said, the first question is easy to answer. Where does the Bible speak about venerating Mary? Well, Mary herself, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, proclaims that “all generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1:48). God himself honors Mary above all other humans by choosing her to bear the savior of the world in her womb. (As Christians, we are called to imitate Christ, and we do so in honoring those whom he honors, most especially His mother!) Jesus, from the cross, makes Mary the mother of John and everyone else whom God has called to be brothers and sisters in Christ. As good Christians, we honor our mother and father, and this includes honoring our spiritual mother, Mary. God did it first by greeting her with an angel and declaring her “kecharitomene” (Luke 1:28), a term that St. Jerome first translated as “full of grace.” Other translations say “highly favored one,” which again speaks to God’s own veneration of Mary. However, both translations fail to capture the richness of the name that God addresses Mary with through the angel Gabriele. “Kecharitomene,” based on the root “charis” (grace), is only found this one place in scripture, and it denotes a kind of unending preservation by the grace of God. Thus, “full of grace.” “Kecharitomene” not only points to God’s special protection of Mary by his grace, but in using this term to address Mary, God is saying something about Mary’s very nature, which God has seen fit to fill with his grace into the past and into the future.

Now, none of this is to say that Mary didn’t need a savior. Every human being after the fall of Adam and Eve needed/needs a savior. Only through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross can anyone, including Mary, be saved. However, God can save us in two different ways: he can forgive us our sins after we commit them, or he can protect us by his grace from ever having committed them in the first place. Just think of all the sins you didn’t (I pray) commit today: murder, theft, adultery, etc. Because you are a Christian, by God’s grace, you probably do not sin in ways that you otherwise might. All praise and glory be to God for this. In Mary’s case, he simply saved her from all sins, including original sin, before any of these sins could stain the person who Jesus loved most particularly from all eternity.

Mary’s sinlessness is due not to Mary’s power, but rather to God’s power and grace, which she was in constant submission to (by God’s grace). Her “fiat” (be it done unto me according to thy will) was not only a temporary yes to God, but actually was born of a life of faithfulness, a life of being God’s “handmaid”. And all of this was due to God’s grace and is for His glory. Thus, when Jesus responds to the person that says “blessed is the womb that bare thee,” Jesus actually heightens the honor of Mary by saying, “Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it” (Luke 11:27–28). Mary kept that Word, quite literally in Her womb and in her life, more deeply than any human in human history. Jesus is intensifying Mary’s blessedness, not knocking it!

There are other doctrines about Mary that we could talk about from the Bible (Mary as the New Eve, the Ark of the New Covenant, the Mother of God, Mediatrix, etc.) but I think it better to move on for now. I'd be more than happy to help you think through these ideas about Mary, all of which are firmly rooted in Scripture and in the Christian's family's knowledge of God passed down to us from the apostles.

Now, what about those verses from Romans 3, such as “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”?

The crux of the argument hinges on the word “all.” Is Paul here offering a proof text saying that every single human being absolutely sins with absolutely no exceptions? Of course not. Jesus didn’t sin. Babies don’t sin. People with severe mental handicaps do not sin. Even though it is true that most humans being do sin, that does not mean that the word “all” can only be understood in absolute terms. If so, Paul would be wrong, whether or not Mary sinned or not.

Rather, the word “all” also has a common figurative sense. If I said “all the town showed up to see the Phillies play,” you would take this word in context to mean that the game was very full, and that many many people came out for the game.

So, the word “all” is open to literal or figurative interpretation.

Further, if you read this verse in context, the first thing you’ll want to do is study how this citation of the psalms fits into the argument Paul is making in Romans. Obviously, Paul is not talking about Mary here. His argument, rather, is against those Jews who were trying to “work their way to heaven,” performing human works (apart from faith or grace) to try to merit heaven…by “obligating” God to grant them eternal life for their human works of the law. Paul reprimands them appropriately: “the wages of sin is death.” In Romans 3, where the “all have sinned" quote comes from, Paul is making a comparison between those who try to obligate God to grant them heaven by using the “works of the law” (as opposed to good works wrought by God’s grace by those living a life of faith). Those who place themselves under the law end up being condemned by the law, because those works are the works of sin and of wretchedness. Since these works of the law are being performed outside of a faith relationship, says Paul, they place the people who perform them in the category of “no one righteous, no not one,” for “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” So, Paul is using these verses to paint in broad strokes the two categories: those that try to work their way to heaven by trying to obligate God through “works of the law,” versus those who gain righteousness through a faith relationship with Christ. Now, here’s what is critical to note: in using these verses from the Psalms to define these categories (Psalms 5, 10, 14, 53, 59, 140), Paul would have been calling to mind the categories set forth by the very Psalms he was citing! (The Psalms were for the Jews what the Star-spangled Banner is for Americans. If I cite “Oh, say can you see?” you immediately call to mind the entire words, assumptions, history, and national pride of the entire song. Similarly, when Paul cites “all have sinned,” he calls to mind the entire Psalm, and all of its meaning and significance, for his Jewish audience. And, what categories do these Psalms Paul is citing lay out? The Psalms clearly define and contrast two groups: those who are unrighteous and out of God’s friendship…AND THOSE THAT ARE RIGHTEOUS (Psalm 5:8-12, 10:12-15, 14:5-7, 53:5-6, 59:9-13, 140:12-13)! In other words, Paul isn’t denying that some people (Christians, and even faithful Jews like Abraham, who is exhibit A when the New Testament talks about justification) can actually live righteously. He is simply arguing that the only way to do so is to live a life of faithful obedience to God. Thus, Christians in friendship with God no longer fall under the “there is no one righteous, no not one” category, because they have been saved through faith by God’s grace. God’s grace changes their lives and gives them the power to live righteously, not by performing human works under the law, but rather by performing works of grace…truly good works that our empowered 100% by Jesus working through us. These are the only good works that can merit heaven, because they are Jesus’s works, not our own. And this is EXACTLY the way the Catholic Church discusses good works:

2007 With regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man. Between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality, for we have received everything from him, our Creator.

2008 The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. the fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man's free acting through his collaboration, so that the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful. Man's merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ, from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit.

2009 Filial adoption, in making us partakers by grace in the divine nature, can bestow true merit on us as a result of God's gratuitous justice. This is our right by grace, the full right of love, making us "co-heirs" with Christ and worthy of obtaining "the promised inheritance of eternal life."⁶⁰ The merits of our good works are gifts of the divine goodness.⁶¹ "Grace has gone before us; now we are given what is due.... Our merits are God's gifts."⁶²

Back to Mary: Catholics simply understand that Mary lived, by God’s grace, in a state of friendship with God for her entire existence (just like the original Eve should have done but failed to do). Therefore, it would be an error to think that Mary would have ever fit into the “all have sinned” category that Paul is mapping out in Romans. In fact, Paul’s point in all of those citations of the Psalms and all of Romans is that there exists another category (“those who are righteous through faith in Jesus Christ”), and it is this category that Mary fit into for her entire existence. And, we pray, you and I are in this same category through our own faith relationships with Jesus Christ! That is why Mary is the model Christian. May we be, like her, “handmaids of the Lord” (Luke 1:38) and may we follow her constant advice: “do whatever He tells you” (John 2:5).

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 2 of 24

2011-09-07T16:53:00.003-04:00

This is a 24 part series. The first post contains the "table of contents" (so to speak) and links by topic to all the parts in this series.

Okay, since there are 22 topics, all of which deserve more attention than I have time to devote at this point (seeing how I’m already up to six pages!). I think it makes most sense to offer the short responses and invite you to choose 1 or 2 topics from this list that you found most intriguing or troubling to go into more deeply. (Of course, how you respond is completely up to you!) I’ll number the responses so that you can jump to them from the list given above.

2. The Church is the “pillar and ground of truth.” (1 Tim. 3:15). Elsewhere in Scripture, Jesus tells the apostles that Holy Spirit will “guide you into all truth.” (John 16:13). We know that the fullness of truth, the “faith” was “once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). This raises some important questions, such as: if the church is the pillar and ground of the truth, which church today in the yellow pages is actually serving this function? Which church is really following the Head of the Church, Christ, and which churches are following traditions of men? If the Bible is the only authority, then why doesn’t the Bible say so? (Note: the Bible is authoritative, but it never says anywhere that it is the only authority.) Instead, the Bible itself presents other authoritative sources of truth besides the Scriptures. St. Paul commands his followers to stick fast to the traditions he has passed on to them, either by word of mouth or by letter (2 Thess. 2:15, 1 Cor. 11:2, 2 Thess. 3:6). He doesn’t say that they should only go by the traditions he wrote down. Rather, he says that they should follow everything. St. Paul taught in some places for years. I see no reason to assume that nothing he taught was important except for the things that he wrote down. In fact, many of St. Paul’s letters address the things that the Christians in various churches missed or got wrong…not the specific things they got right. In other words, Paul never intended all of his writings to form a summary of the Christian life and belief. Rather, he seemed more interested in setting up a Church that would maintain the traditions through the selection of faithful men (like Timothy, for instance). He worked hard to do just that, as did the rest of the apostles. (Yet – those of you that I spoke with today seemed to have little interest in reading the writings of those very faithful men the apostles chose. Why is that?) So, we see that the Bible speaks of traditions that Christians are obliged to follow. We also see an authoritative Church, founded on the apostles, the first bishops of the Catholic Church. We know the apostles held an office in the fulfilled Davidic kingdom of king Jesus. The KJV actually is the best translation for showing us! Here is Acts 1:15–26:

¹⁵And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,) ¹⁶Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus. ¹⁷For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry. ¹⁸Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. ¹⁹And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem; insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue, Aceldama, that is to say, The field of blood. ²⁰For it is written in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein: and his bishoprick let another take.

²¹Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, ²²Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection. ²³And they appointed two, Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. ²⁴And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen,

²⁵That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place. ²⁶And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

So, here we see Peter in his role as head of the apostles stand up (which was the same gesture he performed when speaking authoritatively at the first Church Council: the Council of Jerusalem as recorded in Acts 15). Peter declares that Judas must be replaced, since his office—his “bishoprick”—remains even after Judas has vacated it. Peter and the apostles draw lots and choose Matthias to be numbered with the apostles. So, we see that from the earliest times, the Church of the Bible was guided by Bishops. These bishops held offices that Jesus himself established in choosing the apostles, and these offices didn’t disappear when one bishop/apostle died. Rather, bishops succeeded the apostles, who held the posts first. The bishops’ job is to continue passing on the traditions, unchanged and unaltered, and that remains the job of the successors of the apostles—the bishops of the Catholic Church—today.

Elsewhere in Scripture, we see Jesus give authority (the “keys of the kingdom” were an ancient symbol of primary authority) to Peter as the chief apostle (Matthew 16) and to the apostles in general (the power of binding and loosing in Matthew 18). In Matthew 18, we even see Jesus teach that if a conflict arises between Christians, they should ultimately bring it to the Church. Notice, the Bible, once again, describes the Church as having a living, breathing authority. In fact, in Matt. 18, a person who doesn’t abide by the Church’s judgment is to be cast out, or “excommunicated.” Matthew 18 is a verse that is rendered meaningless by our present state of 30,000+ denominations. If I have a problem with another Christian about abortion, to which church can I bring the problem to for judgment? Some churches say abortion is okay, others not. If I have a problem with another Christian about infant baptism, once again, many churches believe it is okay, and others do not. My point: Matthew 18 presumes an ongoing Church that has authority (both in Bible times and now) to make judgments and to “bind” Christians by those judgments.

So, to be Catholic is to recognize that the Bible describes three centers of authority in the life of a Christian: Sacred Scripture (written traditions), Sacred Tradition (oral traditions), and an authoritative Magisterium, whose job it is to pass on both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition perfectly intact, without addition or subtraction. Now, the Catholic Church, which has faithfully passed on both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition for 2,000 years has grown to understand both of these precious deposits more deeply, but the Catholic Church has never changed a single one of these teachings. Granted, the Church does have certain “small-t” traditions or practices that can change with time (such as priestly celibacy, for instance), but nothing that pertains to faith and morals can ever be changed. In other words, something that was doctrinally true in the year 100 is still true today. Something that was morally wrong in the year 100 is still morally wrong today. Only the Catholic Church has never changed a single one of her doctrinal and moral teachings. (Every other Christian group has changed at least some of their doctrinal or moral teachings…even Baptists.)

Now, before you discount Sacred Tradition, remember that you yourself actually follow some Traditions.

The biggest one of all is the table of contents of the Bible. We all believe in inspired Scriptures, but how are we to know that the books in the Bible are the right ones? No book of the Bible itself says that “the books of the Bible are…” and then lists them. And even if it did, how would we know that that book itself was inspired?

The only way we can trust the table of contents of the Bible is if we trust the bishops of the Catholic Church in the first four centuries of the Church, since it was these men who had the task of assembling the New Testament. They did just that in the Councils of Hippo and Carthage at the end of the fourth century A.D. Did you catch that? No canonized New Testament even existed for the first four hundred years of Christianity! Rather, local communities of believers had various documents and letters, and each used various groups of letters in their liturgies. Some local churches didn’t think that Revelation was inspired; others did. Some local churches thought that St. Clement’s letter to the Corinthians was inspired, others didn’t. Some thought that the Didache (also called “The Teachings of the Aposltes”) was inspired, others didn’t. There were well over 50 books that could have been included in the New Testament, and it was ultimately the Catholic Church that decided—under the guidance of the Holy Spirit—which books should be included in the New Testament. Yet – this same Church had already been teaching many Catholic doctrines for centuries by the time they canonized the New Testament. According to some Baptists, by the year 400, the Catholic Church was already deeply in apostasy. Yet, these same Baptists trust the decisions those Catholics in apostasy made in assembling the New Testament, even suggesting they were guided by the Holy Spirit! In any case, the Canon of Scripture is an important Sacred Tradition that Baptists and Catholics follow together (with the exception of the seven books from the Old Testament and, at first, the three New Testament books that Martin Luther removed because they didn’t support his new doctrine of justification by faith alone).

Realizing that trusting the Canon of the Scriptures meant trusting the Catholic Church, the famous Protestant theologian R.C. Sproul has concluded that we have a “fallible canon of infallible books.” In other words, Sproul admits that we can’t actually know with absolute certainty if the books in the Bible are the right ones! What we can learn from Sproul is that if you throw out the Catholic Church, you lose an infallible canon of Scripture as well. Which raises the question: how do you know the Bible you believe is actually the inspired, written Word of God?

There are other Sacred Traditions that Baptist follow as well, such as the prohibition against polygamy. No where does the Bible explicitly prohibit polygamy. Martin Luther, recognizing this, once admitted that he couldn’t prohibit polygamy based on the Bible alone. (Verses such as the one commanding bishops to be the “husband of one wife” even seem to imply that for others, having more than one wife is okay. At least the Bible would read that way to someone who wanted to think that polygamy was okay.) Rather, the prohibition against polygamy has always been faithfully preserved by Christians as a Sacred Tradition, something passed on by the apostles but never actually written in the New Testament. Throw out Sacred Apostolic Traditions, and you throw out the only way to prohibit polygamy. The Bible Alone doesn’t prohibit it.

Even Jesus recognized authoritative Traditions in the Old Testament. Remember when he tells the apostles to obey the scribes and Pharisees that sit in Moses’s seat (Matt. 23:2). The idea of an authoritative “seat of Moses” is no where found in the Old Testament…yet, Jesus assumed that his listeners not only knew what he was talking about but also that they were supposed to be obedient to the occupant’s authority…even when the people in positions of authority were vipers!

Was Jesus against all tradition when he said we shouldn’t follow the traditions of men? No – Jesus and Apostles expect us to follow the Sacred Traditions of God, taught to the Church by the Apostles. These Traditions are not traditions of men, and so Jesus’s condemnation of tradition does not apply to them.

Okay…there is so much I’d like to share, but I promise I’ll try to keep my next answers shorter. (No promises, but I’ll do my best!)

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) Street Evangelists, Part 1 of 24

2011-09-06T21:30:00.011-04:00

Recently, as I was driving in a neighborhood near my home, I saw a couple gentlemen going door-to-door. From their appearance, they didn't seem to be selling anything; rather, they had the appearance of door-to-door evangelists. So, I decided to pull over and meet the evangelists. Were they Mormon? Probably not, given the lack of a white shirt and tie. Were they Jehovah's Witnesses? Most likely not, since they were not carrying a Bible and a bag of magazines.

Turns out, these two gentlemen were from Lighthouse Baptist Church in Newark, DE, the same church that I have spent some time responding to on this blog.

The gentlemen invited me to come to their 9/11 memorial service. I thanked them for their kind invitation, and then mentioned that I was Catholic. I also mentioned that I am fairly active in sharing my faith, and I asked them if they would be interested in having a longer conversation than we would be able to have on the sidewalk. I explained that Jesus's high priestly prayer in John 17, in which Christ prayed that Christians would be one as Jesus and the Father were one, motivated me to reach out to Christians to overcome differences and work toward unity. Since Christian unity is predicated on a proper understanding of truth and authority, I asked a question that I thought could get a dialogue going: "what is the pillar and foundation of truth?" (For more on this, keep reading...) Needless to say, in a short conversation, over ten different topics were brought up--all areas of difference that separate us as Christians. Importantly, other topics were brought up in which we share important agreement.

As I was leaving the neighborhood, I decided to introduce myself to another group that was walking around going door-to-door. A similar conversation ensued, covering a different set of topics, many of which regarding significant areas of difference between Baptist and Catholic Christians.

Because of the brevity of both conversations, I took some time respond in more detail in a letter to one of the first gentlemen that I met. In this series of posts, I'll make available the letter that I wrote in response to the topics that were brought up. The first post will provide an introduction and a summary of the 22 topics. Then, 22 posts will follow that respond to each topic. Finally, a concluding post will summarize the major points and questions that I would like to leave with my Baptist brother.

Please join in praying for Christian unity and for the conversion to the fullness of the faith of all Christians!

Without further adieu, here is the introduction to my letter to the evangelists from Lighthouse Baptist Church:

<<<<<>>>>>

9/5/2011

Dear [friend],

I really enjoyed meeting you and [your friend] in the neighborhood on Saturday. As someone who has gone door-to-door myself (all over the country, in fact), I understand and share your enthusiasm for the Gospel message! I also have a deep respect for you and the members of your church, all of whom I consider to be my brothers and sisters and Christ, even though there remain sad divisions between us. We are still brothers and sisters through our common faith and baptism in Jesus Christ, and my heart swells with love at the idea that all of us Christians could be perfectly unified as a Christian family, just like Jesus prayed for us to be in John 17, and St. Paul continuously demanded. I have spoken in the past with Pastor Witmer, a man who I greatly respect, even though he doesn’t really understand the Catholic Church that well (from an objective perspective). He is a man who is passionate about Jesus Christ and who tries to follow Him as best as he can (at least as far as I can tell from my limited perspective). You all are VERY lucky to have such a pastor, but I know you know this alreadyJ. I listen to about two to three sermons of his every week on the website, and I would tell you that the vast majority of what he affirms is solid, Biblical truth…and truths that Catholics believe in. For the record, the Catholic Church teaches, and I believe, that there is only one way for anyone, ever in the history of humanity, to get to heaven, and that is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh, and he died for you and for me to pay the eternal punishment for our sins. As Pope John Paul II said in the first line of his first letter to the Catholic Church when he became Pope: “The redeemer of Man, Jesus Christ, is the center of the universe and of history.” The Catholic Church also teaches and believes that the Bible is the inerrant, inspired Word of God and occupies a position of highest authority.

So, before offering a few thoughts on our conversation on Saturday, I wanted to make sure that you were aware of the common ground that we share. I would ask that you rejoice with me that we do share such important common ground, and in some respect, as important as the other topics covered in this letter are, all the topics we could ever cover must always grow out of the reality of who Jesus Christ is, and we can be thankful that we share a common love and obedience for our Savior. I hope that we can find a way to grow that love by continuing dialogue, and allow love to do what love does best: unite (us to God first, and us to one another second). If Jesus’s high priestly prayer, and one of the explicit intentions for which Jesus offered His passion and death on the cross, was for you and I as Christians to be unified, then as difficult as this process may be, we can trust that the angels in heaven rejoice when two Christians are united in the truth. Of course, the difficulties and frustrations we might experience in dialoguing about our real and important differences could never match the sacrifice that Jesus paid on the cross for the unity that he longs for us to achieve. (Many Christians seem to think that Jesus’s prayer in John 17 is naïve. How could he ever expect the members of his body to be unified?) So, let us first turn to Him in prayer: Jesus, through Your most precious Mercy, grant us the grace to mend the tears and schisms within Christianity, dissolve the misunderstandings, eliminate unfounded suspicions, forgive each other of the sinfulness of our Catholic and Baptist forefathers (and even ourselves), and to create an openness in our hearts for full reconciliation so that the Holy Spirit can blow in our respective communities in a mighty way to bring about conversion to the fullness of truth. Lord Jesus, we place ourselves and our divisions under your Blood, and we ask the infinite Mercy and Grace that you poured out for us by the Cross be applied to the divisions that separate us as your children. Grant us a fervent desire to be one and to receive the gift of unity that you prayed for the night before you died, and grant us the patience and humility to listen to each other with humility and treat each other with charity, in all things. We ask all this through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen!

As I prayed that prayer, it struck me that I should also first apologize (to you and the other group that was walking around) for interrupting you sometimes as you were speaking. At times, we all kind of jumped in at once, and while I take this as a sign of our common enthusiasm for truth, I wanted to apologize for the times I let this enthusiasm turn into rudeness. Please forgive me.

Also, before saying anything at all, I first want to clarify the topics brought up when we met, just so that I can make sure that I understand what you were saying before offering a response. You can use these topics as a kind of roadmap or table of contents to the response offered below, but please, if I misunderstood your position in any way, please ignore the response and first clarify what you meant.

Finally, I should also note that I ran into a few other kind folks from LBC as I was driving out of the neighborhood. Since my memory is a bit fuzzy on which topics you brought up and which topics they brought up, I’m going to list them all below, separating them as best as I can between your group (#1) and theirs (#2). If you would be so kind, please give them my warm regards.

Finally, someone mentioned that I should go by the KJV, so most all the quotes below are taken from that version (unless I’m citing something from memory). (Doesn’t Pastor Witmer go by the NKJV, though?)

Group #1 Topics:

[Each topic will link to a future post in which I respond to that particular topic.]

1. Introduction (This post is the introduction.)

2 . “The pillar and ground of the truth.” (1 Tim. 3:15). I brought this topic up as a question: “what is the pillar and ground of the truth”? I loved your first answer: Jesus Christ. Indeed, Jesus Christ is the foundation and head of the Church, and He is most certainly the Way, the Truth, and the Life…but I think the question gets at how we gain access to that headship. Where do we turn for the truth? What’s the source? What is the pillar and ground of the truth? Your next answer was “The Bible.” I’d like to respond to this answer in more detail below.

3. "No Biblical basis for Catholic veneration of Mary" When speaking about Mary, you asked where in the Bible does it say we should venerate Mary? You also mentioned the fact that Mary herself “rejoices in God Her savior,” implying that she could not be immaculate as Catholics believe her to be. You then mentioned that she had to have sinned, as supported by the verse from Romans 3 that says “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Check that verse with the KJV, as I’m citing it from memory.) And then later, in Romans, Paul quotes the psalms again with the line “there is no one righteous, no, not one.” (Check with KJV again, if you would like.) So, you seem to be arguing from this evidence that Mary could not be deserving the veneration or titles that Catholics understand and honor her with.

4. "Salvation First, Then Baptism" About baptism, you mentioned that we must be saved first, and then baptized. The idea, if I understand correctly, is that nothing like baptism, church membership, religion, etc. can save us. I don’t think you articulated at that moment what does save us, so feel free to respond by saying (in positive terms) what does save us. (I imagine anything that you articulate in positive terms, Catholics agree with.)

5. "Religion Doesn't Save Us" In response to the idea that religion doesn’t save us, I pointed out that for Christians, our religion is a person: Jesus Christ. Ours is a religion not of a theory, an idea, a book, or a way of life…but of a person, and His name is Jesus. Thus, the true religion does save, because the true religion involves being a member of Jesus, loving Him, and being in a personal relationship with Him. I’ll say more about this below.

6. "What good is an infallible Bible without an infallible interpreter?” I asked you this, and I believe your response was: “good question.” Could you clarify whether or not either of you consider yourselves infallible interpreters of Scripture? If you are not, then why should I follow your fallible interpretation of Scripture over mine (or over a Church with a 2,000 year history that claims infallibility)? If you are infallible, how do you know…and how can I know that you are? Also, do you believe your pastor is infallible? If not, how do you know when to trust him…and when not to? And if you are the final judge of when or when not to trust him, then that makes you the highest human authority over yourself? Which leads back to: are you infallible? Why should I also make you the highest human authority over me (letting go of my interpretation of Scripture to follow yours)?

7. The Early Church Fathers. I brought up the fact that the students of the apostles, the earliest Christians in the first and second century of Christianity, were all thoroughly Catholic. I posed the question: why should I follow your interpretation of the Bible when it goes against the understanding of God’s Word of those people who learned Christianity from the very people that wrote the Bible? I asked if you both if you had ever studied their writings (which take up many volumes). You answered “no.”

8. "Why Read the Early Church Fathers when I have the Bible?" About these same early church fathers, one of you asked if what they wrote is Scripture. I think the point you were making is that if it is not in the Bible, why read it? In other words, you seemed to see no reason to read the writings of the early church fathers as a source of information regarding what the Bible means. Basically, you believe that the Bible alone is the sole authority in the life of Christians. (Note well: I do not consider the writings of the early church to have the same authority as Scripture, because these writings are not Scripture. That doesn’t mean that they don’t stand as an authoritative witness to what the early church was like, what they believed, how it was structured, etc. More on this below.)

9. The Bible Alone and "Studying it Out" This gets us to the more general problem of Biblical interpretation. One of you mentioned that you learn truth from the Bible by “studying it out.”

10. Agreeing on the Essentials. In response to the idea that Christians come to different conclusions from Scripture, I think one of you mentioned that true Christians agree on the essentials, and that the minor disagreements are inconsequential, don’t matter, or something along those lines. (Please correct me if I have misunderstood you here.)

11. Unleavened vs. Leavened Bread. About the Mass, one of you asked if we used unleavened bread at the Mass. I can’t remember exactly the argument you were outlining, but I do remember one of you saying about the time Jesus broke bread with the disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24. If you could clarify the point you were making here, I’d appreciate it! I have some things to say in response below, but at this point, I’m unable to respond to the point you were making because I don’t understand it.

12. The Latin Mass. Also, one of you mentioned the Mass being in Latin, which I assume you think is negative because people could not understand the prayers, making the whole thing seem somewhat meaningless.

13. Do This in REMEMBRANCE of Me. Also about the Mass, one of you mentioned that transubstantiation can not be true based on the fact that Jesus said “do this in remembrance of me.”

The fact that we covered twelve topics in about as many minutes should tell both of us that there is a lot that needs to be discussed if you and I as Christians are going to work toward the reconciliation that God desires for us!

To add to that, here are the topics that came up as I was talking with people in group #2:

Group #2 Topics

14. The kind lady in the group told me that Baptism doesn’t save me. I pointed out that the Bible says “Baptism…now saves us” (1 Peter 3:21, KJV), to which she responded, “no it doesn’t.”

15. In the course of the conversation, one person mentioned that he believes that there are saved Catholics.

16. Another thing that was brought up is that, if we’re all saved, then that’s fine, and we don’t need to worry about differences here and there. (This point was kind of thrown in, and I’m not sure I have the point quoted exactly right. I think it is an extremely important point to think about, though, so I’m including it on the list.)

17. I brought up the fact that I have an iPod with many stories of Baptist pastors who have become Catholic. A person in the group mentioned that people go from/to every different denomination. I later mentioned that what is significant is not the fact that these Baptist pastors converted, but it is the reasons why they convert that need to be understood, especially since the process of conversion itself is one that involves so many difficulties (leaving the pastorate, losing friends/family, losing a job, etc.). Why are they doing this, especially when these men already know the Bible so well and are trying to follow Jesus and His Word even more closely by becoming Catholic?

18. The topic of the KJV of the Bible was brought up. It was implied that if I use a bad translation, then I’m going to reach wrong conclusions. (Like I said, I own the KJV, and I’m quoting from it extensively in this letter. I believe the KJV to be a fine translation, though I lament that it is missing the 7 books from its Old Testament that Martin Luther removed.)

19. I know that the early church fathers were an important topic with Group #2 as well.

20. One person mentioned the “Romans Road,” implying I think that Paul lays out a path to salvation that is different from the path to salvation preached by Catholics.

21. One person repeated the claim that Catholic “recrucify Christ in the Mass.” I said that we emphatically do not, and that I have searched for over a decade to find a single Catholic document that says that we do. (For the results of my research, read below.) The person who made this grievous accusation at the Catholic Church then asked, well what does the Catholic Church teach then? I told him I would really love to answer that question if he is really honest in his desire to hear the answer. He said “no” and began to walk away.

22. I also asked if the person who accused Catholics of “recrucifying Christ” could cite anyone or any documentation to support this accusation. I did not receive any.

23. I remarked that the answer is: no, we do not recrucify Christ. I then said: I would think you would be happy to learn this. Just imagine a reverse situation: what if someone had been telling me lies about Baptists, such as that Baptists are racists. If I finally met you today and told you that I had heard that Baptists are racist, and if you then told me that I had been misinformed and that you emphatically are not racist, that would be reason for me to by happy and relieved. To add briefly to my comments made in the neighborhood: It would also give me reason to not going around spreading an unsubstantiated lie about other Christians. Also, I would have to ask forgiveness harboring such a cruel suggestion in mind for so long without actually going and asking a Baptist if Baptists are racist. …Yet, falsely accusing Catholics of recrucifying Christ is far, far worse than accusing Baptists of being racist.

<<<<<>>>>>

Okay...that's all for now. Over the next few weeks, I'll post the next 23 posts covering the different topics and a final summary.

May the peace of our risen Savior be with you!

Fr. John Riccardo (Our Lady of Good Council) speaks at a Non-denominational Church

2011-07-12T23:51:00.004-04:00

[Update 11/23/11: thanks to Joe Heschmeyer for acknowledging my blog! Upon revisiting this post myself, I realized I better give it a quick brush-up for grammar. While you are visiting, please offer a prayer for my new child, born yesterday!]

Fr. John Riccardo (Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church, Plymouth, MI), is one of my favorite priests. I discovered him while living in Michigan and had the blessing of attending Mass at his parish a few times. His voice is heard frequently on Ave Maria Radio, and I highly recommend his excellent podcast.

I went to his website today and discovered an excellent talk that he was invited to give at a local non-denominational church, Kensington Church. Fr. Riccardo is a good model of how to build common ground with non-Catholic Christians, and this talk shows one way that we Catholics (priests or otherwise) might hope to build more bridges in the future. In this talk, Fr. Riccardo builds on the common ground of our shared love of Jesus Christ. It is on this ground that we as Christians can one day hope to be perfectly reunified.

One significant point that Fr. Riccardo makes is that many Catholics have been sacramentalized but not evangelized, a fact most recently lamented by Benedict XVI himself. All of us, Fr. Riccardo points out, need to learn the Gospel and develop a personal relationship with our Lord. Of course, the sacraments, instituted by Christ himself, are also an essential part of our relationship with Him, but the expectation is that we encounter Him whom we love and know personally in the sacraments. The sacraments should lead us to know Jesus personally, but, as many Protestants are coming to discover, a personal relationship with Christ is most perfectly realized and fulfilled through the sacraments, where we meet Him who loved us first in His fullness.

Fr. Riccardo makes many more excellent points, so I hope you'll take some time to listen...

Father John Riccardo at Kensington 5/28/11 from Kensington on Vimeo.

Response to Fairwinds Baptist Church Morning Sermon June 26, 2011

2011-06-30T11:00:00.002-04:00

I really enjoyed listening this morning to Pastor Carlo's sermon that he gave this past Sunday (June 26th) at Fairwinds Baptist Church (Bear, DE). As in the vast majority of Baptist sermons that I listen to, Pastor Carlo preaches loudly and clearly truths that both Baptist and Catholics firmly believe in. So, I ask the reader to take this response first as an affirmation of many of the things Pastor Carlo spoke about on Sunday. Indeed, nothing is impossible for God, creator of heaven and earth.

It is in this framework, however, that I would like to make a connection by way of extending the very theological framework of God's omnipotence that Pastor Carlo discusses.

Notice how Pastor Carlo summarizes the expression of God's omnipotence in Genesis 1:

In Genesis 1, God's Word is seen as efficacious. That is, God's Word literally brings into existence that which it speaks. In Genesis, God quite truly spoke the universe into existence. Quite humbling, eh? Can you or I say "let there be light" and have light itself come into being?

Knowing that God's Word is efficacious and that for God, nothing is impossible, I wonder then why Pastor Carlo believes the following words, spoken at the moment of institution of the New Covenant were not efficacious:

"Take and eat. This is my body."

Of course, these are the words spoken by God at the Last Supper. Just like God spoke the universe into existence, he spoke bread and wine into his body, blood, soul, and divinity.

Impossible?

As Pastor Carlo rightly notes: nothing is impossible with God!

Further still, our God is a God who keeps his promises. Jesus's bread-of-life discourse in John 6 hinges on an unspoken promise: that He will make provision to provide his body and blood to Christians for them to consume. In the Eucharist, Jesus keeps His promise and demonstrates his absolute power over all creation. In the Eucharist, Jesus takes the form of bread and wine to remain present with us, to commune with us, and to abide with us.

Despite the fact that many Christians today believe that Jesus was only speaking symbolically in John 6 when he said "my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink," the students of the apostles themselves and their successors believed without question that Jesus was speaking literally. St. Ignatius of Antioch, who studied with St. John himself and was appointed to pastor the Church in Antioch after Peter left for Rome, is strong and unequivocal in his affirmation of Jesus's real presence in the Holy Eucharist:

"They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again" (Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 110 AD).

St. Ignatius makes draws the same link that Jesus does in John 6 between the bread of life and the flesh that will suffer on the cross. Their point: it is the same flesh!

Jesus's real presence in the Eucharist was such a deeply accepted aspect of the early church's faith that it became the basis for arguing for and demonstrating Jesus's own resurrection, which must have occurred to allow Christians to partake of his glorified body and blood, hidden as they were under the appearance of bread and wine.

If anyone doubts that Jesus is capable of turning bread and wine into His body and blood, just consider the many Eucharistic miracles that have occurred through the ages. Throughout Christian history, there exist many instances in which the bread and wine of communion not only took on the divine substance of Christ but also the accidents of his body. These miracles can be studied more closely here.

To recap: I strongly affirm Pastor Carlo's message that the Word of God is alive and efficacious, and that God keeps his promises.

Christians have no better example of that than in the bread and wine of Holy Communion, which become the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.***

Will you come and receive Him?

----------

***Please note: not just anyone can pick up bread and wine and perform this miracle. Only Jesus, through the ministry of His priests who act in the person of Christ, can consecrate the bread and wine. This miracle occurs every day in every Catholic Church in the Mass.

Eucharistic Flash Mob!

2011-06-24T14:25:00.004-04:00

I LOVE it! How AWESOME to see our Lord in the public square, with faithful Catholics kneeling in adoration!

This video is worth watching in its entirety. Not only is it inspiring to hear the monk proclaim Jesus's presence in every book of the Bible, but the end of the message, which proclaims Jesus's triumph over, well, everything, is as inspiring as the reaction of those kneeling in adoration!

H/T: Barbara Curtis!

Response to Robert vanVeen on Baptism

2011-06-21T17:37:00.003-04:00

The following is a response that I sent to Robert vanVeen, a member of Fairwinds Baptist Church (Bear, DE). This letter responds to a comment that Robert left on my Aug. 2, 2009 post on baptism.

I am grateful for the time that Robert took to read and respond to my Catholic perspective on baby dedication. May this interaction provide a springboard for further discussion and reflection on our Baptist and Catholic beliefs so that we, with the gracious assistance of the Holy Spirit, can open our minds and hearts to the unity Jesus so desires us Christians to have (see John 17).

<<<<<>>>>>

Dec. 7, 2010

Dear Robert,

Peace be with you this Advent season!

Thanks so much for commenting on my blog post, and sorry for the delayed response. I just saw the notification of your comment this evening.

I'm a bit tired this evening, given the late hour, so I'll be brief in my comments, though I would be happy to entertain any questions you would have for me about why I believe that to be a true Bible Christian is to be a Catholic Christian.

Regarding Baptism and my response to Pastor Carlo's comments, I would be interested to hear you engage more directly with the arguments that I put forth. There is an irony in your first statement, since I engage what Pastor Carlo is saying, literally quoting him word for word, analyzing the structure of his comments, teasing out some of the underlying theology that supports the practice of baby dedication, and ultimately showing how aspects of this theology and practice are inconsistent with Scripture. In this and other posts, I try to show how the Bible tells us quite a lot about Baptism that disagrees with Pastor Carlo's theology.

Here is your comment, with the rest of my responses appearing in line:

RV: I do believe that you take alot of things out of context

DS: Could you support that statement by naming some things?

RV: ...to fit your arguments...

DS: I wish I could claim them as my arguments. They are really the arguments regarding Baptism that I learned from the students of the apostles and their successors. Have you read the early church fathers, and do you know that the early church was Catholic, not only in its beliefs about Baptism but also the Eucharist (the Lord's Supper), church hierarchy, etc.? Often when I talk to Protestants, there is not a clear sense of whose arguments they are putting forth. I've met few Protestants (even pastors) who really understand the origin of many of the beliefs they preach about.

RV: ...rather than using points that directly relate...

DS: Relate to what? (Clarification, please.)

RV: ...in a manner that doesn't seem to be bending words, even ever so slightly.

DS: Which words have I bent? I would actually argue that it is Baptist theologians who bend words in the Bible to create their theology. A classic example of this in regard to Baptism can be seen in the interpretation of 1 Peter 3:21 by most Baptist pastors I've heard. 1 Peter 3:21: "Baptism now saves you." Please see my blog post on this verse.

RV: And secondly, you do not seem to understand that there is an age of accountability.

DS: I absolutely understand that there is an age of accountability. Catholics who pass this age and choose to sin against God and neighbor must confess their sins to God. But notice that the entire discussion hinges upon whether or not a person is automatically "saved" if they have not reached this age yet. Romans 5 seems to indicate that we are born as children of Adam, which means we are born in a state of sin called original sin. We are born as disgraced children of Adam and Eve and are incapable of living with the Father in Heaven if we are not "born from above" (John 3). That is why Jesus says that "unless we are born again, we shall not inherit the kingdom of God." We must be born again. And, if you read the very next verses, Jesus makes it clear through a literary parallelism that to be born again means to be born of water and spirit. And what is the context of this verse? Baptism! Jesus is baptized, and it is at Jesus's baptism that we see the descent of the Holy Spirit and the proclamation of Jesus's sonship. Likewise, it is at our baptism that we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, who regenerates us, making us a new creation, and making us spiritual capable of living the beatific vision as members of Christ's mystical body. And it is at our Baptism that God the Father claims us as his sons through Jesus Christ. Baptism is a profound miracle that results from Christ's actions on our souls, and it is a required action that we be regenerated by Christ through the Holy Spirit. It is Jesus who ties together water and spirit, just like it is God who created us as both physical and spiritual beings. Jesus himself, in entering the water, made water a vehicle for communicating his Holy Spirit to those whom he calls.

RV: An infant, unable to understand the difference between right and wrong will without a doubt enter into Heaven if they died (heaven forbid) at their young age.

DS: How do you know this? This strikes me as a very presumptuous statement when God's Holy Word states that Adam's sin brought condemnation to all. (Romans 5). Your sentence makes it sound like it is only the individual sins of a person after reaching the age of accountability that could bring condemnation on their soul.

RV: The child has to reach that understanding before they can be baptised,

DS: Where is that in the Bible? Old Testament children didn't have to reach this age before being allowed into the covenant family at circumcision. The Bible shows that Baptism fulfills circumcision, which was offered on the eighth day of life. The early church had arguments about infant baptism, but the argument wasn't whether to baptize infants or not. The argument was: why wait eight days? How strong was the early church's belief in infant baptism, that this practice existed for centuries without every being questioned by a single Christian anywhere.

RV: ...and not just sprinkled with water, but rather "burried", and "raised again" in Christ's likeness, fully submerged in water.

DS: I'll leave aside the whole sprinkling vs. immersion debate for now. Here, you are repeating the same false dichotomy that Pastor Carlo gets hung up on (baptism with water vs. being buried with Christ). Please see my blog post to him that I linked to above (especially the latter half). For Catholics, we are buried with Christ precisely when we are baptized, whether by sprinkling or immersion. St. Paul himself says that we were "buried with Christ in baptism." St. Paul locates being buried with Christ precisely at the moment that we are baptized. In fact, according to St. Paul, it is through baptism that we are buried with him. Baptist theology would tell me that I was buried with Christ when I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior, and that absolutely nothing spiritual happens when I'm baptized, since this is only a symbol of what has already happened. Not according to St. Paul! Go back and read the Scriptures on this point again. What is Paul really saying? Are we buried with Christ in baptism, or are we buried with Christ before baptism, and baptism doesn't save us. (Also reread 1 Peter 3:21 here.)

RV: The dedication of a child unto God is an act of offering your child up to God so that they might grow up wanting to serve Him and follow His will. Since that child is free to choose wheather or not they want to follow God when they reach their age of accountability, which is different for each child, the parents are prayed for as well, so that they might have the knowledge and understanding to raise their child in the way of the Lord, not the way of the world.

DS: All this is very good to do, and we do it as Catholics as well. I dedicate my children to God constantly, but this is fundamentally a different thing from when God regenerates my child. I can dedicate my baby. Only God can regenerate my baby, which he does through the Sacrament of Baptism.

RV: Baptising an infant is pointless since the child can not understand the choice to follow God or not.

DS: And here, we get to the crux of the issue. Do you see how your theology of baptism is ultimately dependent on man's works, man's abilities, man's agency, man's "choice to follow God," etc.? For Catholics, our salvation is dependent entirely on God's action. God can regenerate a person even if that person is not yet able to consciously choose God for themselves. Go back and read all of those parables where people call out to Jesus for healing for someone who is not present or able to ask for themselves. Does Jesus say: "no, the person must ask me personally before I will heal them physically or spiritually"? Of course not! Rather, he often says, "no where in Israel have I seen such great faith." So, do you think that when I bring my children, born dead in original sin, to Jesus to be regenerated, trusting completely in his infinite grace and mercy, that he will say: "no, I'm going to let your children grow in a state of sin until they can personally ask me to save them"?

RV: Dedicating a child unto God is an act of faith, it says, "here, Lord, take my child and mold him (or her) into the way you would have him (or her) be." Since the parents are responsible for the child and the child will learn from them, it only makes sense that the pastor would pray over them too while dedicating the child.

DS: I completely agree. In the sacrament of Baptism, parents also have beautiful prayers prayed over them for these same reasons. And, as you describe baby dedication being an act of faith, the Sacrament of Baptism is also an act of faith on the part of the parents and the entire faith community. It is on account of this faith to raise the baptized infant in the Lord that Jesus lovingly looks upon the infant and regenerates their soul, all through His infinite power, grace, and mercy...even if that infant can do nothing but poop. But then, salvation is not based at all on man's works. What a more beautiful proof of this is there than infant baptism, since the baby can do absolutely nothing (even praying a sinner's prayer) to be saved? Salvation is entirely God's work, not man's. To make salvation dependent in the slightest way on something man does is to make salvation works based, at least in part. It is a sad irony that it is the Catholics always being accused of salvation by works, when it is actually Protestant theology that, in practice, posits at least one necessary work on the part of the person being saved.

RV: If you do not understand this, then you should try listening to a sermon sometime instead of tearing it apart. it would do you some good.

DS: Indeed, Pastor Carlo's sermons have many good things in them, and I have listened to over 75% of the sermons he has preached for the last two years. Those things about which he is right deserve to be shouted from the rooftops. Jesus Christ is Lord. He is the only way to Heaven. We are all destined for Heaven and Hell. All of these things are wonderfully good, wonderfully true, and wonderfully taught also by the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, many people outside the Catholic Church don't really understand the Catholic Church's teachings, and these teachings get twisted by people who oppose her. So, it is important that you read what Catholics have to say about Catholicism, not just what people who protest her have to say. (How balanced and fair would that be?) For as much as I admire and respect Pastor Carlo, he has a very twisted view of Catholicism, and unfortunately, his mistaken views of Catholicism color his teaching, especially when it comes to distinctly Catholic topics such as the regenerating effects of Baptism.

St. Paul tells us to "test everything, holding to what is good." A lot of people tell me that it is not right to critique a pastor. But St. Paul, in the Bible, actually encourages us to critique our pastors! Test everything! St. Paul even applauded the Bereans for testing him! How else can I test Pastor Carlo's sermons (in order to find what is good and not good) other than to analyze them in light of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the early church that have been passed down to us in this day? Does Pastor Carlo claim to be infallible? If not, how does anyone at FBC know when to be obedient to his interpretations of the Bible if they don't also, to some degree, analyze what he is saying?

You might be interested to know that there is currently a tidal wave of people being surprised by the truth of the Catholic Church...former non-Catholics who once opposed the Catholic Church but, upon learning what she actually teaches, have found themselves joining her. And these aren't just uneducated people who didn't really understand their Protestant background. We're talking about well-respected, intelligent Protestant pastors, some of them at the very top of Evangelical circles, who give up their entire life because they found the Catholic Church to be the true Church that Jesus established. For just one of hundreds upon hundreds of examples, take Francis Beckwith, the former president of the Evangelical Theological Society, who recently became a Roman Catholic. I would be happy to share with you mp3 recordings of the conversion stories of Baptist pastors, many of whom had strong anti-Catholic roots, who are now Catholics.

In a nutshell, the reasons these converts provide are:
1. The Bible made me do it. (Tim Staples)
2. The Catholic Church made the Bible come alive (Scott Hahn and Steve Ray) (Hahn is a former Presbyterian)
3. The Catholic Church is the Church found in the first centuries of Christianity. (You can prove this to yourself by reading the 20 volumes of writings we have from the early church. It is like going to a Bible study with the students of the apostles!)
4. The Catholic Church, they found, contains the fullness of the truth and all the means of grace (especially the sacraments) that Jesus left to sustain the life of his Bride, the mystical body of Christ.
5. Many more reasons...just listen to their stories!

Okay....I hope that helps you to see a bit better where I'm coming from. I view you as a brother in Christ, but a separated brother. Our separated state is neither of our faults, and the divisions within Christianity can only be overcome by Christians such as you and I communicating with each other regarding how our similarities and differences. Let us pray that that we may one day be one as Christ an Father are one (John 17).

In Him who loved us first,

Danny

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What do you think? Let's keep the conversation alive!

Response to Tobe Witmer of Lighthouse Baptist Church - February 13, 2011 - On "Liberty Issues"

2011-06-14T14:01:00.002-04:00

This post is part of an ongoing set of responses to Tobe Witmer's (Lighthouse Baptist Church, Newark, DE) series on the book of Romans, which he preached on through the entire 2010 calendar year.

This post responds to the February 13, 2011 sermon on Romans 14, which concerned itself with the idea of "liberty issues," areas in which "good and Godly Christians" are free to disagree. Because there are only a few points I'd like to make, I'll stick to quoting from Witmer's sermon notes, which can be downloaded here. Links to the sermon video can be found by visiting LBC's site.

I'll put my quotes from Witmer's notes in blue.

Witmer begins by defining "liberty areas:"

“Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind” (v. 5) - that is a Passive

command to come to conclusions (fully persuaded) in Liberty areas based on the Word of God

for yourself, for your family. The command also means that you don’t come to conclusions in

Liberty areas for other families and people around you -- and so is the heart of this entire

argument that lasts to the end of the chapter.

According to Witmer, liberty areas are to be decided on by the individual for the individual, and one should not draw conclusions for other Christians. Of course, the Bible does give advice about how to handle liberty areas so as not to give scandal to other Christians who are sensitive or who think differently about a certain "liberty." Witmer comments on this instruction later, and he has good things to say. I really appreciate the sensitivity he demonstrates toward other Christians in these areas. However, I'd like to go through the sermon as it unfolds in the notes.

Also, the focus of my comments will be on a different issue altogether: who has the authority to define what areas are to be considered "liberty areas"? After all, what good is a "liberty area" if there is not an authority to define what these areas are? Indeed, without such an authority, the idea is actually a dangerous one, since it could allow a Christian who is living in sin to simply decide for himself that his sin is actually just a liberty area.

So, the (potentially life- and soul-jeopardizing) questions for Pastor Witmer will be:

1. What are liberty areas?

2. Who decides what those areas are?

3. Is the decision of what constitutes a liberty area itself a liberty area?

If liberty areas are few and unimportant, then why spend two sermons talking about them? However, I think, and I hope the reader will agree, that "liberty areas" is actually an area where wars are fought--wars about ideas--but wars that have life or death consequences all the same.

Witmer goes on:

By liberty issues - I don’t mean Fundamental doctrine of Scripture - I mean applications

or interpretations of different issues that good and Godly men see differently

This statement doesn't clarify much. First, "doctrines" are interpretations of Scripture. It is as if Witmer is saying: "I don't mean interpretations of Scripture. I mean interpretations of Scripture."

You see, once one invokes "liberty issues," the conversation can not go much farther until one defines what those issues are.

The Church at Rome were a Motley Crew - a mixture of Jews and Gentiles (by the way, this

isn’t the Roman Catholic Heresy that emerged from the church - this is the real, true church) ---

this mixture of Jews and Gentiles produced some challenges of O.T. and N.T. practices - among

these were kinds of meat a Christian could eat (dietary laws), Sabbaths and special days - do

we still practice them? and Circumcision

So, we here get our first list of "issues." Before that, though, Pastor Witmer reveals a bit of his lack of understanding of Church history. Namely, he seems to think that the Church in Rome was different in its beliefs than the Roman Catholic Church today. While those beliefs have certainly developed over time, none of them have changed. For instance, the first-century Church in Rome when Paul was writing accepted the papacy, venerated the saints, and celebrated the Mass. None of these "Catholic heresies" emerged centuries later when Constantine made the Catholic faith the official religion of the Roman Empire. The problem for Witmer is that any date he chooses to say that the "Roman Catholic Heresy" emerged, I can show him documentary evidence that the people in the early church before that date believed Catholic doctrine.

Getting back to the list of "challenges," we have the dietary laws, Sabbaths and special days, and circumcision.

As Witmer rightly goes on to say, even though we are not bound by the Jewish dietary laws, the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday worship), and circumcision, each of these areas made for a somewhat rough transition for Jewish Christians who were leaving their ingrained customs behind for their new faith.

Precisely because it was such a hard transition, we see the need for someone to define "liberty areas" with authority. We see this happen in regard to circumcision at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15. The early church was being split by the question of whether gentile converts first needed to be circumcised before they could enter the faith.

At a deeper level, the question was: is circumcision a "liberty issue." One side said "No! It is not a liberty issue! Gentiles MUST be circumcised." The other side said "Yes! It is a liberty issue. We can choose for ourselves whether or not we want to be circumcised."

Once again, can you see how liberty issues involve not just the issue itself, but who gets to decide? That is why, without an outside authority, liberty issues divide churches. Just think: if the apostles hadn't held a council at Jerusalem to make an authoritative decision, the early church could have divided into schism over (what one side would call) a liberty area.

However, "it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" that Gentiles did NOT need to be circumcised (Acts 15). With this ruling, both sides were convinced that the area was a liberty issue.

In contrast, within Protestantism, "liberty issues" remain bones of contention that serve to divide Christians into more and more denominations.

There are many such “liberty” issues that good and godly believers differ on that are not

clearly spelled out Doctrine. Unfortunately, some Fundamental Christians have gotten very

ugly and militant on these “rabbit trail issues” and have judged other Christians and elevated

these issues to the level of Doctrine. Are liberty issues are no longer so much Sabbaths,

circumcision, and dietary laws --- but are things like women wearing pants, attending the

Theater, the Version debate, certain Music, etc.) - We need to apply the truths here to our own

“doubtful disputations” in Fundamentalism that are not clear Doctrine and good and Godly

men see differently than we may see it.

Here, Pastor moves away from the examples of circumcision, etc. to the modern "liberty areas:" women wearing pants, attending the theatre, the Version debate, certain Music, etc.

He also invokes "clear doctrine," though that is really the heart of the debate, no? After all, something being "clear" is a bit subjective, since doctrines (and liberty areas) that are clear to one Christian are not clear to another.

Who has the authority to decide?

And what about areas like (non-excessive) drinking of alcohol? Many good and Godly Christians see no problem with drinking a glass of wine. Is this a liberty area, or would Witmer say these Christians are sinning? I personally know many Baptists who enjoy a single glass of wine and feel the need to make a joke about "not telling my pastor." Is drinking in moderation a sin?

And if so (or not so), where does the Bible clearly say one way or another? If a "liberty area" is an area involving an "application" like Witmer said earlier, then surely the subject of having a beer would be a liberty issue, since one must apply Biblical ideas to making a ruling.

As you read Witmer's sermon, you see how easy it is to get caught up in the problem of "liberty issues" without: (1) actually defining clearly what those areas are and (2) showing that you have the authority to define the area as being a "liberty area."

So, when Pastor Witmer goes on to harp on the "don't despise, don't judge" verses, it is fundamentally unclear in what areas we are to apply this advice. Again, the danger is that end up not judging enough! The danger is that we allow a brother in the Lord who is falling into sin to continue in that sin because we say to ourselves that it must, for that person, be a liberty area. "Don't judge," right?

I'm going to skip a bit, but you should be getting the drift. Please be sure to read all the sermon notes, linked to above.

Now remember, this isn’t a man living in sin, it is a man that sees and practices a minor issue

of the Christian life differently than you do. - He hasn’t ignored Scripture or twisted Scripture,

he understands it and applies it differently than you.

This is good Christian teaching, but useless unless we know how to judge whether an issue is a liberty area or not. After all, Pastor Witmer refuses, for instance, to admit that my interpretations of Scripture are valid just because they are different from his in certain areas. How do we know those areas are NOT liberty areas, but other areas are, if Witmer doesn't define them? And, who made Pastor Witmer the authority for defining the areas of Scripture that I'm not allowed to interpret for myself?

My Brother and I both love the Lord - however, He takes his family to see clean Movies and I do
not because I feel like that is a bad testimony, association, support of Hollywood, etc. - He says I do
the same thing when I rent from a Redbox. We disagree and the Lord receives us both.

First, it must be said that both Pastor Witmer and his brother are being model Christians in their concerns. More Catholics (including myself at times) need to follow Pastor Witmer's advice here. Admittedly, making wise decisions about how to interact (or not interact) with the secular world is difficult. On the one hand, we all have to do it to some degree, and so Pastor Witmer and his brother are so much arguing about a difference but a degree of interaction. I applaud and am inspired by both of their faithfulness to the Lord in attempting to make Godly decisions in this area!

Remember the fundamental point: without a list of "liberty areas," it is very difficult to apply the points above, and even possible to apply them wrongly to areas that are not "liberty areas" out of fear of being judgmental.

All the above anecdote adds to our list is one more area: whether or not go to the movies, and in what venue is it appropriate to see a clean movie.

Most Christians probably already know that they at least should attempt to make wise decisions on fronts like this.

The problem is that Christians deeply disagree over other liberty issues (artificial contraception, in-vitro fertilization, etc.) that have pretty significant consequences. The issue of "liberty area" has consequences that extend much farther than a movie venue. Further, the issues that Paul was facing in Romans were much larger in scope and significance than the movie/women's pants/version issues that Witmer is talking about.

Notice that so far, the most critical questions haven't really been addressed:

1. What are liberty areas?

2. Who decides what those areas are?

3. Is the decision of what constitutes a liberty area itself a liberty area?

4. Where does the Bible establish principles for how to deal with modern moral "gray areas" (such as abortion and the question of when life begins, divorce and remarriage, artificial contraception, artificial insemination, tube babies, human torture, etc.)

This is Huge for Christian practice in the Church -- it is the liberty that we all have as priests
to our God to interpret and apply Scripture for ourselves. Not to discount Pastors, not to
discount clear Doctrine -- but everyman is a priest to study and apply the Scripture. It is
commanded for every believer to determine by seriously considering Scripture to determine
how he will practice these liberty issues.

And here, we finally get to the issue of authority. But notice that Witmer's "answer" really doesn't answer anything! He cites the principle of the "priesthood of all believers" to back up the right that every Christian has to decide for him or herself how to "practice these liberty areas." In other words, Pastor Witmer's answer addresses question No. 2 above. But the problem is, he hasn't addressed question no. 1, which comes first!

Do we, given our status as priests, also have the right to determine and interpret the Bible for ourselves when it comes to what these liberty issues are, and what fundamental Bible doctrines are?

Furthermore, it gets even more complicated, since the Bible clearly speaks of church authorities of Bishop, Priest, and Deacon. The Greek word for the second term is actually presbyteros, which Catholics contract into the anglicized word "priest." But this office of priest is distinct from the role of the layman in the Bible, even though lay Christians also have a priestly role in the NT church. Still, this role is different from the authority structure found in the Holy Orders of the ministerial priesthood layed out by the NT as bishop, presbyteros, and deacon.

We see in the NT that it was primarily the bishops (the apostles were the first bishops, and when they died, someone else filled their "bishopric"; see Acts 1) who authoritatively interpreted God's Word which they had received in the fullness and person of Christ. We see this play out in Acts 15 at the Council of Jerusalem, discussed earlier.

Unfortunately, because Witmer rejects the existence of such an authoritative body today to define what are and are not liberty areas, he struggles to give a satisfying explanation of how we answer question no. 1: how we determine authoritatively what these areas are.

Thus:

There are many of these within Christianity -- You are not to ignore these disputed issues,
but rather search Scriptural verses, N.T. doctrine, and principle and make the call for yourself
asking the guidance of God to lead you --- You cannot rest on what my family does in these
issues -- When good and Godly men see an issue differently -- you must consider it and be fully
persuaded in your own mind! (Witmer's highlighting)

So here we come to the nub of it: you should ask God to guide you.

Well, yes. That is generally true for everything we do in life, especially in liberty issues where either decision is morally acceptable.

But the real problem is: what are those liberty issues.

After all, abortion is not a liberty issue. But what if someone in Witmer's congregation thought that it was a liberty issue??? That person might interpret the words above to mean: "don't listen to your family (who is telling her not to get an abortion). Rather, pray to God, and be fully persuaded in your own mind that getting the abortion is what God wants you to do."

Do you see how "liberty areas" are really a matter of life and death if question no. 1 has not been addressed?

Things remain a bit fuzzy in that Witmer continues talking about early church quandries without addressing modern day problems:

God further explains how He accepts believers who differ in these issues -- He says in v. 6
(read) -- God says -- The believer who sets the Sabbath or special Jewish holy day aside does it
or “regards it” - practices the honoring of that day “unto the Lord”, and the Believer who does
not regard it -- He also honors the Lord by choosing not to honor that day.

Well, once again, things are a bit more complicated. After all, the Jewish Sabbath has actually been fulfilled in the "Lord's Day," Sunday, the first day of the week and the new day of Creation in Christ. It is this day that the early church faithfully met, and Christians are commanded to keep the Sabbath, an eternal law written in the Ten Commandments. The only change is from Saturday to Sunday. We now rest at the beginning of our labors, not at the end! A Christian actually does NOT have the liberty of choosing not to honor God on this day! Yet, Witmer's text above makes it seem like because Saturday worship is no longer required, that Sabbath worship has also been entirely discarded.

Notice how Witmer wraps things up:

Pastor Kosher was the young Youth Pastor at the High School I attended. He came to
me and another friend one day and asked us if we thought the Holy Spirit would tell two
people conflicting things. ----- He was struggling with the Bible truth here that two Christians
could practice different things in their Christian lives and both of them be honoring the Lord.

Again, without knowing whether the issue was a liberty issue or not, it is impossible for this story to be meaningful. If the issue was about eating meat or being a vegetarian, then it is perfectly acceptable for the Holy Spirit to move people in one direction or the other, since both options are fine. However, what if the issue was on abortion? Would the Holy Spirit move someone to save their baby and move someone else to kill it?

Witmer summarizes (with my comments in brackets):

1. Clear Doctrine in Scripture is not a matter of liberty [But who defines clear doctrine authoritatively, and to whom is it "clear"?].
2. There are issues/applications of our Christian life similar to these that we will see differently [Christains are so divided that everything is an issue that is seen differently. Who decides which differences are permissible and which are heresy?]
3. Each believer must look at Scripture seeking God’s discernment to make decisions for
himself in these areas of liberty. He must be fully persuaded of what He should do and do it [But where can I find a full list of these liberty areas? Is the list forever complete, or do new options in life automatically get added to the libery (or non-liberty) list?]
4. We must not judge another believer who comes do a different conclusion. He is God’s
servant who God receives and is supporting. [Is this only true for liberty areas? If it is generally true, then why does Witmer contstantly judge Catholics to be heretics? Why can't he at least take the loving approach and say that we simply interpret the Bible differently than he does?]
5. - back where we started [Yes, indeed.] - We are to fellowship willingly with each other even if we disagree,
but we are not to doubtfully and hurtfully quarrel about these things - they are Minor issues
compared to Clear Doctrine, preaching the gospel, and edifying believers.

While I appreciate Witmer's attempt to address this critical issue for believers, it become clear rather quickly that "liberty areas" is a concept that highlights the need for an authority to define what those issues in fact are.

At the same time, it is critical that Pastor Witmer be able to explain by what authority he decides what areas are liberty areas and which are not, lest his listeners fall into the trap of thinking that anything they may decide to do or believe could be justified by falling under the umbrella of "liberty."

Response to John Piper Bethlehem Baptist Sermon, Part 4

2011-05-11T00:03:00.004-04:00

This blog entry is the fourth, and final in a series of critiques of a set of John Piper's sermons on baptism. You can read the first, second, and third entries by following the links provided.

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This final segment in my response to a series of sermons on baptism by John Piper is long overdue. When I started responding to these sermons, I had no idea what a powerful figure in evangelical churches that John Piper has become. Indeed, he is one of the most eloquent, gifted speakers that I have heard. At the same time, I think there is a grave danger when listening to speakers of Piper's talent of turning off one's critical thinking. In the case of Piper's sermons on baptism, I believe that a little critical thinking can expose the many holes in the teaching he has assembled. Sometimes these holes are quite obvious, such as those found in his treatment of Tertullian. Other times, those holes are easily missed. For instance, the absence of allowing any other of the early church fathers to have a say in the conversation, is similar to giving a history of the US without mentioning the Revolutionary or Civil Wars. The absence says more about the well-formedness of the speaker's views than the historical (and in this case, theological) topics being discussed. Piper seems to have little interest in cross-checking his teachings with those of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church that have been around since the beginning. However eloquent it may be, his message is a modern dance around a modern, novel understanding of baptism that does not date back to the teaching of the apostles, who taught that "baptism...now saves you" (1 Peter 3:21).

While some readers, on that basis alone, might be perfectly willing to leave Piper's interpretations behind, others understandably would like to see the holes for themselves. Of course, in the process, readers are likely to find many holes in my own arguments. I invite these readers to, in a spirit of Christian charity, to share their own thoughts about this exchange using the comments feature at the end of this article. (Perhaps some readers may want to pick up the critique where I left off...)

As always, blue words are Piper's, red words are from Scripture, and black words are my own.

Part 4

"WHAT BAPTISM PORTRAYS"

Romans 5:20-6:4

Today is the last message in this short series on baptism. I know there is so much more to say. I'm sorry if I have left unanswered some of your questions. But we will have more opportunities in various settings to discuss these things.

Of course, time is one of the most severe limits on human creativity. In a short series, Piper can not cover everything.

But I wonder why there has been so little mentioned about the faith of the first Christians regarding baptism. After all, wasn’t baptizing part of the great commission? Wasn’t baptism part of the first gospel message preached at the beginning of the book of Acts? Doesn’t Jesus get baptized, and isn’t this baptism accompanied by a miraculous sign and a voice from heaven? Isn’t baptism placed by Paul in Ephesians as part of a list of really important things: one faith, one Lord, one baptism?

One would imagine then that the early church would likely have a lot to say about baptism.

They did.

The earliest Christian writings we have to this day, such as the Didache, the epistle of Barnabas, the letters of St. Ignatius, Tertullian, Origin, and the rest all have very clear things to say about baptism.

One would not know this based on the first three sermons thus far. Piper does not even mention them, the only exception being a reference to Tertullian in regard to his views on infant baptism. Nor does Piper make any suggestion that he is attempting to pass on the understanding of baptism believed by those first Christians. His understanding of baptism, it turns out, is a relatively recent invention in the history of Christianity. It is not part of the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3).

Recall that one of our main motives for putting this series here at the beginning of the summer is that we believe the New Testament calls for people to come to Christ openly and courageously. We want to see people who have been believers come to that point of public testimony and we want to see people become believers through your witness and through the ministry of the word here all summer long.

Why Did Jesus Ordain the Act of Baptism?

Sometimes we might wonder why Jesus ordained the act of baptism. Why is there such a thing as baptism? If salvation is by grace through faith, why institute a required ritual or a symbol to act out that faith?

Very good question. (Of course, baptism is more than a symbol, but we’ll move past that point right now.)

That is a question the Bible does not answer.

Sorry, but it does. Christians have known the answer from the beginning, and the answer is indeed found in the Bible. Out of charity, I must simply assume that no one has every taught Piper before what the Bible teaches in this regard. As the Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts proclaims, “how can I understand the Scriptures unless someone explains them to me.” We would all do well to approach the Bible with the same humility as the eunuch.

I think the reason people don’t ask the same question today is that many Christians have rejected the apostolic Church (by which I mean the Catholics and Orthodox) that interprets the Bible in an authoritative manner—the Church whose clear, strong voice in all things doctrinal and moral continues to preach the faith once delivered to the saints.

But experience teaches some interesting things.

Why simply talk about experience? If you don’t have an answer, why not put on the table how other denominations and Christians throughout history have answered this question?

The problem with anecdotes is that they are often too simplistic. Piper is trying to determine the cause for why Christ instituted a particular “ordinance.” Not only are causes difficult things to determine, but when you offer an anecdote as evidence, then you introduce all the different possible intentions and causes that went into the scene the anecdote portrays. While I think the following two anecdotes are interesting, they hardly begin to get at a satisfying answer as to why Christ instituted Baptism, the Eucharist, Marriage, Holy Orders, Reconciliation, Confirmation, and Anointing of the Sick.

For example, after my first message three weeks ago a former missionary to the Philippines came up to me and expressed her appreciation for the series and then said why. She said that in the Philippines, where there is a good bit of nominal and syncretistic Catholicism, converts were tolerated and scarcely noticed by their family - until they came to be baptized. Then the Biblical predictions of hostility and separation came to pass. There is something about this open ritual of new-found faith that makes clear where a person stands and what he is doing. In other words, in many cultures today the situation is a lot like the situation with John the Baptist. He came preaching a baptism of repentance and those who thought they already had all they needed were often enraged.

That same week this missions magazine (The Dawn Report, May 30) came. On page 7 there is a picture of a man baptizing in a missionary setting in a river, with this caption under the picture: "Outdoor services and river baptisms are sometimes the best vehicles for growth." We simply do not know the whole constellation of reasons God had in his wisdom for prescribing baptism as a normative way of expressing faith in Christ and identification with him and his people. We can think of several reasons why it is a good thing, but we probably cannot come near to thinking of all the good effects that God intends. In the end it is an act of trust in our Father that he knows what he is doing and we are happy to act on his command.

Piper is now assuming that Baptism is an expression of faith, rather than the sacrament of faith and the moment of initial salvation. Recall that the arguments he offered so far do not point to this conclusion. As Peter puts it, baptism now saves you (1 Peter 3:21). We are born again in baptism (John 3:5). We are buried with Christ in baptism (Romans 6).

Christ commands baptism because it is the sacrament of our salvation, just as all the other sacraments are!

Immersion or Sprinkling?

But today I will try to show from Romans 5:20-6:4 a little more of the meaning of the act.

Romans 6 doesn’t really address the meaning of the act. It simply connects baptism with salvation.

Whenever someone starts to talk about “meaning,” watch out. “Meaning” is a word that depends upon precise understandings of authors’ intentions and audience. What something “means” to today’s readers might be very different from what something meant to Paul audience and from Paul himself meant. We do damage to Scripture when we relative its meaning to whatever today’s readers might make of it. Rather, we should ask what Paul meant. How did Paul understand baptism?

In other words, to talk about meaning as if we create the meaning is to fall into the post-modern trap that I discuss here. The question ought to be: what did these verses mean to Paul and to his original audience. This question can be answered in part by studying the early church fathers.

This will also address the question that some of you have regarding the mode of baptism - that is, immersion rather than sprinkling. In fact, let me begin with a general word about the mode of immersion as opposed to sprinkling.

They are not opposed. They are just two different options. The earliest Christian document that we have—the Didache, or the “teaching of the apostles”—even attests to this.

There are at least three kinds of evidence for believing that the New Testament meaning and practice of baptism was by immersion. 1) The meaning of the word baptizo in Greek is essentially "dip" or "immerse," not sprinkle.

Yes. But remember: we have to understand the horizon of acceptable practice attached to this word in its historical context. Historically, “baptizo” was used in connection with a practice that could be done by immersing, dipping, pouring, or sprinkling. Historically, no one until the Baptists and their Anabaptist predecessors made a fuss about the mode.

The irony is that Baptist make a fuss about the mode of an ordinance that, according to their theology, accomplishes nothing spiritually speaking.

Historically, Christians from the beginning have understood that baptism does effect a necessary spiritual change. Thus, the mode of baptism should be as flexible as possible, so that babies, the elderly, and those that live in deserts with no access to pools of water, could all partake of this saving sacrament.

2) The descriptions of baptisms in the New Testament suggest that people went down into the water to be immersed rather than having water brought to them in a container to be poured or sprinkled (Matthew 3:6, "in the Jordan;" 3:16, "he went up out of the water;" John 3:23, "much water there;" Acts 8:38, "went down into the water").

None of these phrases absolutely mean that immersion was used. If immersion was absolutely required, then please give me a chapter and verse that says so.

Further, even if immersion was occasionally used, and I have no reason to think that it wasn’t, this still does not rule out the possibility of other modes being acceptable as well.

3) Immersion fits the symbolism of being buried with Christ (Romans 6:1-4; Colossians 2:12).

Yes it does. And the Catholic Church for this very reason supports the use of immersion. But please don’t immerse my baby under water! Rather, just like the Holy Spirit is poured into the soul during baptism, Catholics often use the symbolic mode of pouring when infants or elderly are involved (or if the resources of the church do not allow for immersion). Just like our “hearts are sprinkled clean” with the Holy Spirit of baptism, we are symbolically sprinkled with the waters of baptism.

The Holy Spirit is not restricted to one particular mode. (I’m not saying that Piper is saying He is.)

We won't linger over this, but let me say a word about how we may look at the fact that our church and our denomination make baptism by immersion a defining part of membership in the local covenant community (but not in the universal body of Christ).

A few issues bubble to the surface in this sentence.

First, Piper acknowledges the historical reality that his denomination has made baptism by immersion only a defining part of membership. Though he qualifies membership in terms of the local covenant community, immersion-only baptisms are a defining feature of his denominational affiliation in general.

Put this in a historical context. At one point in history, Christians were less divided. Then, one group of Christians decided to divide themselves from the rest, and chose to define a ritual in such a way that anyone who was invalidly baptized needed to be rebaptized, or “Anabaptist.” Baptism, according to this new group, was for adults only and had to be done by immersion only.

These restrictions were not enforced as a kind of return to the practice of the early church. Rather, they were enforced as a means of creating clear division—recognizable division—within the Body of Christ.

The central question then is whether or not immersion is essential to baptism. If it is not, then we have an entire denomination whose historical justification is invalid. Of course, new doctrines have developed that are claimed by many Baptists (especially regarding things like premillennialism), making reconciliation even more difficult.

The second issue that bubbles to the surface has to do with the connection of covenant with the local community. Piper doesn’t define what he means by this phrase, but insofar as covenant is connected with the idea of a local community, his listeners will have far to narrow an understanding of the implications of the new covenant for the church.

As Scott Hahn has shown, the idea of covenant casts a long shadow over salvation history. God’s covenants with his people grew over time. At first the covenant people were the family of Adam and Eve. Then, the covenant family grew to include Noah’s clan. Then came the tribe of Abraham, and then the nation of Israel under Moses. All of this led up to the kingdom of nations under David. The new covenant of Christ then is a universal kingdom, a Catholic kingdom. The covenant church of the new covenant is Catholic. It is a single, world-wide kingdom of Christ. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

From this perspective, the [new] covenant church is the entire, world-wide, universal, catholic Church. The Catholic Church has been called that ever since St. Ignatius coined the term at the beginning of the second century. The term Catholic is not a denominational identity. It refers to the entire united, universal kingdom of the new covenant instituted by Christ. Only when groups break off from this universal kingdom do we name (nominate) them as different, hence “denomination.” There is only one true non-denominational church, and it has existed since Christ founded her: the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is the true covenant church. To reduce covenant to the local level is to miss the universal grandeur of the new covenant people of God. (Note: I don’t think Piper necessarily misses all of this grandeur, but I do think that his use of the term “local covenant church” could potentially lead his listeners away from this same grandeur.)

We do not believe that the mode of baptism is an essential act for salvation.

Of course you don’t, since baptism is not positively necessary for salvation. Yet, ironically, many Baptist churches say that the mode is a kind of negative requirement, such that anyone who baptizes improperly doesn’t understand the gospel or isn’t saved.

So we do not call into question a person's Christian standing merely on the basis of the mode of their baptism.

Some clarification would be helpful: is Piper talking about members who join his church after having been “improperly” baptized somewhere else? Or, is he talking about Christian’s perspective on mode in general? Would he expand this statement to say that “we do not call into question a church’s standing merely on the basis of the mode of their baptisms”?

It seems as if Piper is saying that the mode of baptism is an “unessential” doctrine, a doctrine that one is not required to believe to be a Christian.

An unessential doctrine could either be one that we have no information on, or it could be a doctrine that a church takes a position on but says that its members may freely disagree.

One might then ask: should you not then admit to membership those who are truly born again but who were sprinkled as believers? There are two ways to account for why we do not.

Wait a minute. I thought he was going to say that they would admit to membership those who are truly born again but who were sprinkled as believers.

After all, isn’t the point of baptism to make the public profession? Baptism does not save, according to Piper, right? The experiential reasons Piper offered for the ritual are just as true whether the person was sprinkled publically as immersed publically, no? So why, suddenly, is Piper deeming these modes unacceptable as grounds for church membership?

1) Should we call a manmade method of baptism "baptism," if we believe on good evidence that it departs from the form that Christ inaugurated? Would this not run the risk of minimizing the significance that Christ himself invested in the ordinance?

First of all, when Piper asked what the significance was that Christ invested in the ordinance, he had no response from the Bible. He offered two anecdotes as “experiential evidence.” So, are we running the risk of minimizing the significance of Piper’s anecdotes? Actually, I would so that we are not. I would say the mode of baptism is just as significance culturally (in the case of the nominal Catholics in the Philippines) and evangelistically (in the case of the missionaries) whether it is pouring, sprinkling, or immersing. If you are going to argue that it is not, on what grounds? You’ve limited yourself to experiential grounds by saying the Bible does not speak about why Christ instituted this “ordinance.”

Second, on what grounds do you say that this mode is “manmade?” Are you saying that the Holy Spirit inspired your 20th-centurey interpretation of “baptizo” while everyone else just made up theirs? Baptism is something God made, and the historical record proves that the first followers of the apostles readily baptized by immersion, pouring, and sprinkling.

The next two paragraphs put in a nutshell a common, Protestant view of what the church is and how the Church relates to truth. Yet, I think it is easy to show that this view contains a number of problematic assumptions. Read the paragraphs as a whole first, and then I’ll repeat the text with my in-line comments:

2) Local Christian communities, called churches, are built around shared Biblical convictions, some of which are essential for salvation and some of which are not. We do not define our covenant life together only by the narrowest possible set of beliefs one must have to be saved. We believe rather that the importance of truth and the authority of Scripture are better honored when communities of Christian faith define themselves by clusters of Biblical convictions and stand by them, rather than redefining the meaning of membership each time one of their convictions is disputed. When different Christian communities can do this while expressing love and brotherly affection for other believers, both truth and love are well-served. For example, the fact that many of the speakers we invite to the Bethlehem Conference for Pastors could not be members of this church says that we take love and unity seriously and we take truth seriously.

Which non-essentials will be included from generation to generation in defining various communities depends largely on varying circumstances and varying assessments of what truths need to be emphasized.

I wanted to give the whole bit of text (above) before I address it piece by piece (below). Here is the text again:

2) Local Christian communities, called churches, are built around shared Biblical convictions, some of which are essential for salvation and some of which are not.

It is important to note that “church” is used in Scripture in two different senses. The first sense is the one Jesus has in mind when he speaks of building His church. In this sense, there is only one church. The writers of Scripture often seem to have this sense in mind when they speak about, for example, the “Church of God in Corinth” (1 Cor. 1:2). The Church is a single entity whose parts meet in various locations. But these parts are still related to one another in a precise way, namely as parts of a single mystical body.

Of course, the Bible also speaks about local communities as “churches,” but in doing so, the authors are using a figure of speech. They are not denying that there is really only one true church.

The question, then, is: what is the church, and how do the “local Christian communities” relate to the Church as a whole?

Piper says the Church is built on shared Biblical convictions. For Catholics, the Church is built on Peter and the foundation of the apostles and their successors.

Piper gets into problems, because people could share Biblical convictions about virtually anything. They could share a Biblical conviction that Jesus was “a god,” as Jehovah’s Witnesses do. They could share a Biblical conviction that Jesus was simply a good preacher, as modernists do. The Church can not be based on shared Biblical convictions because this relativizes the Church to the majority opinion of people who happen to meet in the same building.

The Church must have some authoritative voice to be able to proclaim the truth, such that the Church can be called the “pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Tim. 3:15).

Of course, Piper quickly qualifies the idea of “shared Biblical convictions” by saying that some are essential for salvation and others are not.

The problem here is this: can you call it a church if the shared convictions oppose those that Piper determines are “essential for salvation?” Piper’s statement assumes that there exists some authoritative voice who can determine what doctrines are essential for salvation and which ones are not.

Yet, Piper never claims that he is that authority, and he doesn’t tell us who is.

Thus, Piper’s idea of the Church is ultimately undefined. It is impossible to know exactly if one is really a member of a true church (one that correctly teaches doctrines essential for salvation) or not (one that incorrectly teaches false doctrines and thus offers no salvation).

We do not define our covenant life together only by the narrowest possible set of beliefs one must have to be saved.

This statement is so very problematic, especially in the way it proceeds the previous statement.

First, if the Church depends on a distinction between essential doctrines and unessential doctrines, then whether the set of beliefs is wide or narrow is beside the point.

The Church MUST proclaim all essential doctrines faithfully no matter how wide or narrow they are.

Thus, it is disingenuous to say that we do not define our covenant life together only by the narrowest possible set of beliefs, because that is not the point! Piper just said we define our covenant life together based on a set of shared Biblical convictions, some of which are necessary for salvation and others of which are not.

Second, Piper seems to be giving the notion of a “narrow set of beliefs” a negative connotation. But didn’t Jesus himself say that the road to heaven was narrow and the road to hell wide?

Again, I think the point need not be about the width of the road but about truth.

And as we just saw, Piper has no way of saying exactly which truths are essential and which are not without making himself the final authority.

Thirdly, there is something a bit confusing about the idea of a “narrow set of beliefs.”

On the one hand, one might think that a “narrow set of beliefs” would be a really short list of essential beliefs.

On the other, a “narrow set of beliefs” would actually be a very long list of essential beliefs.

In the first case, the list itself is exclusive of many doctrines but inclusive of more people, since people can believe whatever they want about many things and must only abide by the short list of “essential doctrines.”

In the second case, the list itself is inclusive of many doctrines but thus excludes more people who are not willing to be obedient to the entire list.

Here’s the problem: Piper is once again hesitant to clearly define exactly what doctrines are essential and which are unessential.

Yet, if the truth is important, this clarification is absolutely necessary. Further, once this clarification is made, the implications of this is that Christians who fail on the essentials are disunified from the Body of Christ, whose membership depends on the shared essential convictions.

Of course, Piper doesn’t really define whether or not the essentials are only essential for members of Bethlehem Baptist or whether they are essential for the Body of Christ as a whole. If they are essential only for membership in the local church, does this mean that the list of essentials is even shorter for membership in the mystical body of Christ? Or, is it longer?

We believe rather that the importance of truth and the authority of Scripture are better honored when communities of Christian faith define themselves by clusters of Biblical convictions and stand by them, rather than redefining the meaning of membership each time one of their convictions is disputed.

And here we get to the nub of it all. Notice that Piper keeps the truth at arms length. Here, it is the “importance of truth” that is honored. If Jesus is the Truth, I don’t just want a ecclesial structure that acknowledges the importance of the truth. I want the truth itself! How, I would simply ask, is truth itself honored when “communities of Christian faith define themselves by clusters of Biblical convictions and stand by them”? The truth is not something we define. The truth is something that God defined once and for all in Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Jesus Christ is the divine Word made Flesh. Truth can not be made relative to clusters of people define truth for themselves. This view of the church is absolutely contrary to the vision of the church in the Bible. Further, Piper has it backwards when he speaks of Christians standing by the truths that they have defined. When Christians define themselves by their shared Biblical convictions, their truths are standing by them! What we have here is a model that simply doesn’t work to maintain and achieve the perfect unity that Jesus desires for his entire mystical body of Christ. What we have here is a model where disunity within the entire body of Christ is not called for the tragedy that it is. We have a model that ultimately assumes, with a kind of quiet despair, that Christians will never be as unified as Christ clearly wants us to be. Piper proclaims a vision of the church that Pope John Paul II once labeled as an “institution of division.”

Piper finds himself in a difficult position, because he does not define the authority he relies on to define which Biblical interpretations are essential and which are not. Then he says that some people who have not been validly baptized can not be church members. Yet, all of this occurs within the larger context of Piper also teaching that disputation is essential within the Church. Finally, he has to protect against disputes further ripping the body of Christ apart.

Piper is ultimately caught trying to reconcile two things that are absolutely contrary to one another: love and division. Hence…

When different Christian communities can do this while expressing love and brotherly affection for other believers, both truth and love are well-served. For example, the fact that many of the speakers we invite to the Bethlehem Conference for Pastors could not be members of this church says that we take love and unity seriously and we take truth seriously.

This sounds good on the surface, but it is hardly meaningful since Piper has not defined what doctrines are essential and by what authority he knows this. After all, Piper would never let a Mormon Pastor take the pulpit to preach theology, would he? This is a classic instance of a statement that seems to be saying a lot but under the surface says nothing substantial but rather begs a host of critical questions. It is difficult to see how Piper can define “unity” in a way that is inclusive of disputation. That is: unless the only things Piper allows dispute on are unessential doctrines. But who decides what doctrines are unessential and which are essential? And by what authority?

Ultimately, Piper offers no solid, unchanging standard by which we can know what doctrines are essential and which are unessential. It is difficult to know what Piper means by “which non-essentials will be included.” Included in what? The doctrines that become temporarily essential depending on the circumstance? Is this really how truth works? Not only has Piper made truth relative in space to different local communities; here, he makes truth relative in time to “varying circumstances and varying assessments of what truths need to be emphasized.” But Piper, who determines what how truths change based on what circumstances? Who is the one with the authority to do the assessing? Can’t you see how this model leads to anarchy and chaos. After all, if you have the authority to determine what truths need to be emphasized according to your changing situation, don’t I have that same authority? Can we be satisfied just to go our separate ways?

I will pray ardently for Piper, because he seems to have fallen sway to one of the essential doctrines of modernism: that truth is relative. I know he would deny this in theory, but I think his practice (as evidenced above) gives cause for concern. Having studied in an ultra-liberal university, I can attest to the fact that Piper's sentence above sounds almost like a credal statement of relativism.

What Baptism Portrays

With that background let's look at Romans 5:20-6:4 to see what baptism portrays, and only secondarily what implications this has for the mode of baptism. My aim here is to help you see the glorious reality that baptism points to so that, mainly, the reality itself will grip you, and that, secondarily, the beauty and significance of the act will rise in your mind and hearts. Romans 5:20-6:4:

One thing I love about being Catholic is that at Mass, I always get to hear the Scriptures without someone telling me ahead of time what to expect out of them. It is ironic that, for all the times that Catholics are accused of adding "traditions" to Scripture, the Catholic liturgy protects the reading of the Scriptures from being framed by commentary. In this case, notice the ideas that Piper plants about Romans before actually reading Romans: "what baptism portrays" and "the reality that baptism points to." Ask yourself: is this what Paul is saying about baptism?

Piper then reads from Romans:

And the Law came in that the transgression might increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, (21) that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (6:1) What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? (2) May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? (3) Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? (4) Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

Notice the rhetorical emphasis Paul places on v. 3: "Do you not know"? And then in v. 4, "THEREFORE, we have been buried with Him through baptism." The "therefore" tends to get overlooked by readers. The word connects what follows as a kind of result or summation of everything that came before (not only in the verses quoted but even in the buildup in chapter 5 and before, which talk about how sin came through Adam and salvation through the New Adam, Christ). And what conclusion do Paul draw? That we are buried with Christ in baptism. Baptism marks the moment of our new birth into life. Baptism is an action that brings us into the death and life of Christ. But then notice how Piper twists Paul's use of language in his very first sentence:

One of the great things about this text is that it shows that, if you understand what baptism portrays, you understand what really happened to you when you became a Christian.

Immediately, Piper returns to the notion of Baptism portraying something that previously happened: that point of time when his reader became a Christian. Yet, Paul's parlance connects baptism with that very moment!

Many of us came to faith and were baptized at a point when we did not know very much. This is good. It is expected that baptism happens early in the Christian walk when you do not know very much. So it is also expected that you will learn later more and more of what it means.

A little clarification is in order. After all, if it is okay to be baptized before one really knows the faith, then why can't babies be baptized. In other words, where does Piper draw the line regarding what must be consciously known by a person before that person is eligible to have their soul regenerated by God? And, where does the Bible draw this line? Or, is Piper the one to decide where the line is drawn, such that "it is good" on one side of the line but "not good" on the other?

Don't think, "Oh, I must go back and get baptized again. I didn't know it had all this meaning." No. No. That would mean you would be getting re-baptized with every new course you take in Biblical theology. Rather, rejoice that you expressed your simple faith in obedience to Jesus and now are learning more and more of what it all meant.

Hmm... I tend to think that there are not that many new adult Christians who accept Christ as Lord and Savior but haven't the faintest idea about the belief system that they are joining. In other words, the idea of a "simple faith" probably applies to very few adults. Most adults have some formation of what it means to be a Christian, and the stronger this formation, the better. After all, how can one say they've really given their life to Jesus if they have no idea of what that really entails? Further, the very process of becoming a Christian usually entails basic lessons in what it means to make an act of faith and then, in Baptist circles, to partake in "believer's baptism." So, on the topic of baptism, most new Baptist Christians have probably already adopted the basic baptist viewpoint that Piper is rehearsing. What is amazing to me as a Catholic is that after four sermons, Piper hasn't really gone any deeper in baptism than what I would except a new Christian to know. After all, if you limit baptism to being a symbol, how much more is there to say? If baptism is a sign that points to a reality, why even spend four sermons studying the sign?

That is what Paul is doing here: he is hoping that his readers know what their baptism meant, but he goes ahead and teaches them anyway, in case they don't or have forgotten. Learn from these verses what you once portrayed in the eyes of God, and what actually happened to you in becoming a Christian.

I am going to deal with only two things that baptism portrays, according to these verses.

1. Baptism portrays our death in the death of Christ.

Paul never says baptism portrays anything! He uses much stronger language, saying that we are baptized into Christ's death, and that we are buried with Christ in baptism.

Verses 3-4a: "Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death," Here is a great truth about us Christians. We have died. When Christ died he died our death. This means at least two things. 1) One is that we are not the same people we once were; our old self has died. We are not the same. 2) Another is that our future physical death will not have the same meaning for us that it would have had if Christ had not died our death. Since we have died with Christ, and he died our death for us, our death will not be the horrible thing it would have been. "O death where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:55). The answer is that the sting and the victory of death have been swallowed up by Christ. Remember from last week: he drank the tank. Notice the repetition of the word "into" in verses 3 and 4. Baptized "into Christ Jesus," and baptized "into his death" (verse 3), and baptism "into death" (verse 4a).

Yes, notice these things!

What this says is that baptism portrays our union with Christ, that is, we are united to him spiritually so that his death becomes our death and his life will become our life. How do we experience this? How do you know if this has happened to you? The answer is that it is experienced by faith.

No! Paul says you experience it--that it happens to you--in baptism, which the Catholic Church calls the "sacrament of faith." Faith and baptism are not opposed, so it is not a matter of pitting one against the other, which is what Piper (but not the Catholic Church) does. So many people set up a dichotomy between faith and baptism that it is difficult for them to choose baptism (as Paul does in Romans) because it seems to downplay faith. Actually, faith must be present at baptism, but it is baptism that Christ regenerate our souls through the action of the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately for Piper, he operates under this false, un-Scriputural dichotomy, which leads him to answer his own questions incorrectly directly after he reads how Paul answers them. Amazing!

You can hear this in the parallel verses. Galatians 2:20 makes the connection with faith: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God. . ." In other words, the "I" who died was the old unbelieving, rebellious "I" and the "I" who came to life was the "I" of faith - "The life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God." And the basis of all this is union with Christ - "Christ lives in me." And I live in him - in spiritual union with him. His death is my death and his life is being lived out in my life.

Here, Piper's argument again hinges on a false dichotomy between faith and baptism. He is trying to back up the faith side of the equation as if this nullifies everything Paul said in Romans about "being baptized into Christ."

Another illustration of this would be Colossians 2:6-7a: "As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith." Here again you can see that faith in Christ is the way you experience union with Christ. You receive him as Lord and Savior and in that faith you are united to him and walk "in him" and are built up "in him."

Ditto.

So when Romans 6:3-4a says that we are baptized into Christ and into his death, I take it to mean that baptism expresses the faith in which we experience union with Christ. This is presumably why God designed the mode of baptism to portray a burial. It represents the death that we experience when we are united to Christ. This is why we are immersed: it's a symbolic burial.

Piper makes it clear how he reaches his conclusion. "Verses A and B say faith. Therefore, verse C can not actually mean what it seems to say." At the same time, it is clear that Piper is reading his view onto Romans: "when Romans says X, I take it to mean Y."

Sorry, Piper, but Romans says X because it means X. It means that we are buried with Christ in baptism. How much clearer could Paul have said it? How much clearer could Peter have been when he preached "baptism...now saves you"?

Part of the problem continues to be that Piper is hung up a bit on the physical symbolism of being immersed under water rather than on the spiritual regeneration--the "circumcision made without hands"--that is truly efficacious action being performed by Christ in baptism. Of course, it is not mere water or mere washing that saves, but the washing and renewal in the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters that saves us. Notice above, and below, that Piper continues talking about the symbolism of the waters without any reference to the Spirit that is connected with those waters.

So know, believer, that you have died. The old unbelieving, rebellious "I" has been crucified with Christ. This is what your baptism meant and means.

2. Baptism portrays our newness of life in Christ.

Verse 4: "We have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life." Nobody stays under the water of baptism. We come up out of the water. After death comes new life. The old "I" of unbelief and rebellion died when I was united to Christ through faith. But the instant the old "I" died a new "I" was given life - a new spiritual person was, as it were, raised from the dead.

The most crucial commentary on this truth is Colossians 2:12. Paul says, "Having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead." Notice: We are raised up with Christ just like Romans 6:4 says we walk in newness of life. And there is the working of God who raised him from the dead just like Romans 6:4 says that Christ was raised through the glory of the Father. And this happens through faith in the working of God who raised Jesus from the dead.

Once again, Piper says this happens through faith as a way of saying it does not happen in Baptism, where the verses themselves say the "being buried with Christ" occurs. How many times does Piper have to contradict the Scriptures on this point before people see that Piper is at odds with Paul?

So Colossians 2:12 makes explicit what Romans 6:4 leaves implicit - that baptism expresses our faith in the working of God to raise Jesus from the dead.

Again, there is a misplaced emphasis. Only secondarily is baptism an expression that we make to God. Baptism is primarily a work of God on us. It is primarily God making a covenant with us, and expression of God to us. It is primarily God saving us. Piper denies that God works through baptism, and thus, he can only see in it the actions of man--the expression of our faith in God's work.

We believe that Christ is alive from the grave and reigning today at the Father's right hand in heaven from which he will come again in power and glory. And that faith in God's working - God's glory as Paul calls it - is how we share in the newness of life that Christ has in himself.

Sorry, but Paul just said it was through baptism that we share in the newness of life. Yet again, Piper is contradicting Paul.

In fact, the newness of life is the life of faith in the glory and the working of God. "I am crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live . . but the life I live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God." The newness of life is the life of day by day trusting in the working of God - the glory of God.

Baptism Portrays What Happened to us When We Became Christians

So let's summarize and come to a conclusion.

Notice, Piper says he will summarize, when in fact, he has simply been repeating the same idea (faith, not baptism) over and over in slightly different language, in every case contradicting the clear language used by Paul.

Baptism portrays what happened to us when we became Christians.

Paul never uses this language.

This is what happened to us: we were united to Christ. His death became our death. We died with him. And in the same instant, his life became our life. We are now living out the life of Christ in us. And all this is experienced through faith.

Paul connects this with baptism, which of course is not opposed to faith. Faith must be present, but we are not saved by our own faith. We are saved by the action of God regenerating our fallen souls.

This is what it means to be a Christian - to live in the reality of what our baptism portrays: day by day we look away from ourselves to God and say, "Because of Christ, your Son, I come to you. In him I belong to you. I am at home with you. He is my only hope of acceptance with you. I receive that acceptance anew every day. My hope is based on his death for me and my death in him. My life in him is a life of faith in you, Father. Because of him I trust your working in me and for me. The same power and glory that you used to raise him from the dead you will use to help me. In that promise of future grace I believe, and in that I hope. That is what makes my life new. O Christ, how I glory in what my baptism portrays! Thank you for dying my death for me and giving new life to me. Amen."

Everything above is true except the insistence on living in what our Baptism portrays. Following Paul, the Catholic Church teaches: "live out your baptism!" Which is why Catholics always have and always will pray in the family name we were given at our baptisms: the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen!

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Lord Jesus, I thank you for my brother in faith and in baptism, John Piper, and I grieve that the mode of regeneration that made us members of the same family is now a source of disunity that keeps us separated from the perfect unity you desire for us. I pray for Piper and for all my separated brothers and sisters in the Lord that they will come to appreciate the glorious reality of what you accomplish through this amazing sacrament, through which you save all who come to you in faith. I thank you for my own baptism, and I ask for ever more grace to live out my baptismal promises: to follow you and to reject Satan. Lord, pour out your Holy Spirit anew so that Christians may be reunified, all for your glory and honor, and for the salvation of souls.

For this, we pray in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen!

Response to Fairwinds Baptist Church Morning Sermon May 8, 2011

2011-05-10T23:20:00.001-04:00

During the morning service at Fairwinds Baptist Church (Bear, DE) on May 8, 2011, Pastor Carlo gave an excellent sermon (though one admittedly peppered with some of the peculiarities of Baptist theology) on the Syrophoenician woman. This is one of the great stories told about Jesus that is recorded in the Gospels. (One can only imagine the countless meaningful stories about Jesus told that were not recorded in the Gospels, yet have been enshrined in the Sacred Traditions passed down to us through the ages within the Family of God, the Church!)

This is the story of a gentile woman of great faith who asks our Lord to heal her daughter, who is under the control of Satan (or a demon). Here is the passage in full (Matthew 15:21–28, NKJV):

²¹ Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. ²² And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.”
²³ But He answered her not a word.
And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, “Send her away, for she cries out after us.”
²⁴ But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
²⁵ Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, help me!”
²⁶ But He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”
²⁷ And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”
²⁸ Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

Now, I'd like to repeat that Pastor Carlo has many edifying things to say about this passage. Pastor Carlo and the Catholic Church are most definitely in agreement about the centrality of faith in the Christian life. This passage demonstrates the great power of faith...especially when that faith is a persistent faith and a humble faith. This woman acknowledges the reality of sin and the devil in the life of her daughter, she recognizes that she is unable and unworthy on her own to be able to heal her daughter, she recognizes that the only person who can help her daughter is Jesus, and she persists in begging Jesus to help her. And Jesus responds: "great is your faith!"

As I was pondering Pastor Carlos's remarks, however, I suddenly felt myself becoming very sad for him. "Why is this?" I wondered.

And then I realized that in six months, my third child will be born. And because of the reality of the sin of Adam and Eve and its consequences, my child will be born under the clutches of Original Sin. My child will be born completely devoid of God's sanctifying grace. My child will be born dead in sin, unregenerate, and spiritually incapable of entering heaven, apart from some special provision of God's merciful grace. In short, my child will be born in a state as dreadful as the daughter of the woman in Matthew 15, for to be separated from God's grace is truly an awful state of being.

Because of this dreadful state of our child's being that Christians call Original Sin, my wife and I, like billions of Christians before us down through the twenty centuries of Christianity, will humbly and persistently and faithfully ask Jesus to help our child. We will come to Jesus and we will ask him to regenerate the soul of our child and fill him or her with the power of the Holy Spirit so that they can grow as a child of God with the assistance of indwelling grace. We will ask our Lord to make our child a member of the mystical body of Christ and render his or her soul fit to be able to enjoy the beatific vision in heaven should he or she be taken from us at an early age. We acknowledge before the Lord the reality of Original Sin, and like the woman in Matthew 15, we turn to the Lord humbly recognizing that only He can save our child's soul. And we will beg our Lord for the gift of salvation for our child.

Yet, doing all of these things, Pastor Carlo would tell us that Jesus's answer will be "No."

Pastor Carlo's theology (which he inherits from his Baptist interpretive tradition) would tell us that Jesus only saves people who have made an act of faith in Him by accepting Him into their heart as Lord and Savior and confessing Him so with their mouths. Since my child will not be able to do this, he or she will not yet be eligible for salvation. This is why at Baptist baby dedications, Pastor Carlo prays that the children will be saved early in their lives--an implicit admittance that they are not saved at the moment.

At the same time, Pastor Carlo would also probably say that if a child before the age of reason dies, then they will automatically go to heaven. However, this seems to contradict the Bible's teaching on Original Sin, which claims that through one man's (Adam's) sin, sin and death came to ALL. This would include babies born in the state of Adam's original sin...and born under its effects.

Or, perhaps Pastor Carlo believes in the reality of Original Sin but admits that babies who die before reaching the age of reason are granted a special grace by God to be regenerated by the blood of Jesus so that they can enter heaven.

If he admits this last point, the Pastor Carlo is very close to the Catholic position after all, which also admits of an exception where Jesus will save a person (a baby) who is not themselves able to make an act of faith in the Lord.

There may, however, still remain a significant difference between the Baptist and Catholic practice. Notice that in the Bible--a case and point being the woman of Matthew 15--that the times Jesus saves or heals people who are not themselves asking in faith for grace, he does so on account of the faith of the person doing the asking. Even further, he doesn't chastise the person he is about to heal saying, "well, why can't they come ask me to be healed if they really wanted to be healed? Oh well, I do it anyway just because you asked so nicely..." He doesn't even say, "okay, I'll grant your wish just this one time, but next time you better make sure they ask by their own volition."

No! What does Jesus tell the woman? "Great is your faith!" Great is the faith of parents who humbly ask Jesus to save their children. Jesus here seems to be encouraging us to bring people trapped in sin to him for salvation who for one reason or another are not presently able to request salvation for themselves. Further, he seems quite ready and willing to grant these requests.

So, what is the difference between a Catholic baptism and a baby dedication? In a Catholic baptism, the parents step forward in faith and ask Jesus to save their child right then and there. In a Baptist baby dedication, the parents don't ask this of Jesus. Though they would not put it in these terms, their actions seem to express a lack of faith that Jesus would be willing to save and regenerate their baby. They rather pray that the baby will be saved quickly once they reach the age of reason.

From the perspective of Matthew 15, it is Catholics who exhibit the humble, persistent faith of the Syrophoenician woman when they bring their children forward for salvation. When Baptist bring their children forward for Baptist baby dedication, the people who usually receive most the prayers are...well...the parents! Of course, this itself is not a bad thing, but it is a far cry from the picture of the savior Jesus painted for us in Matthew (and in multiple other stories like this one throughout the Gospels). In Matthew 15, the woman prays not for herself but for the person who is truly in need: her daughter.

One reason that Pastor Carlo likely does not draw this conclusion is that at the back of his mind, he knows that he does not believe in any provisions for God to save infants (and severely mentally handicapped persons, etc.). Yet, Christians for two-thousand years have believed--around the world in every time and place--that JESUS SAVES US THROUGH THE WATER AND SPIRIT OF BAPTISM.

Heresy! some readers may cry.

Yet, does not Peter himself teach us that "baptism...now saves us" (1 Peter 3:21)? Did not Jesus himself teach us that we must be "born of water and spirit" to have eternal life (John 3:5)? Did not Paul teach that "we are buried with Christ in baptism" (Romans 6)? And, did not the early church--trained as it was by the apostles and their immediate successors--in every place begin baptizing infants with almost no question to the legitimacy of this practice? (NB: none of the questions that did arise concerned the regenerative effects of baptism, or the eligibility of babies to receive the sacrament. In fact, some of the arguments that did occur went like this: "why wait 8 days [after the child's birth] to administer baptism?")

When Peter preached the first sermon in Acts 2, claiming that to be saved we must "repent and be baptized for the remission of our sins," he added a tag line that echoed all the way from the covenant God once made with Abraham: "the promise is for you and your children." Jesus repeatedly says in the New Testament, "let the children come."

Yet, Baptists (and a few other Christian denominations) withhold the saving waters of baptism from little children. Baptists would tell you that Jesus's response to your humble, persistent prayer of faith to save your child will always remain "no," no matter how willing he was to act to the contrary during his earthly ministry. (At the same time, I acknowledge that, somehow, Pastor Carlo likely believes that "all babies go to heaven," though I've never heard him preach on how this could be so. However Pastor believes this to work, one way it does not seem to work is for Jesus to save a baby in response to the faithful request of the child's Christian parents...and this, of course, is the point of this blog post.)

And that is why I felt sad for Pastor Carlo during his sermon.

Lord, by the power of your Holy Spirit, draw your divided mystical Bride into greater and greater unity by helping those partially separated from her to look more deeply into your Holy Word that is found in Sacred Scripture. Help them to read Sacred Scripture in light of the family traditions--those Sacred Traditions that have been passed down from the early church. Help my brothers and sisters--united as we are in faith yet divided as we are in beliefs and worship--to look deep into history and discover the genius of the early church, a genius that was lit aflame by the raging power of the Holy Spirit, and a genius that continues to remain active in this same One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of today. Lord, through my own sins and faults, I at times draw away from the communion you desire for me to have with yourself. And so I pray for myself as well, that you would strengthen me by your passion, hide me from the evil one, and bid me to heaven when I die so that I can praise you forever and ever. Lord, make your Church one so that the world may know that you were sent by the Father.

Holy Thursday Letter to Three Area Baptist Pastors

2011-05-05T07:58:00.002-04:00

On Holy Thursday (2011), I sent the following letter to the three Baptist Pastors with whom I have been in dialogue. (NB: My dialogue with Pastor Hill has basically been between me and his sermons.) These pastors are Pastor Carlo of Fairwinds Baptist Church (Bear, DE), Pastor Witmer of Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE), and Pastor Hill of Ogletown Baptist Church (Newark, DE).

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Subject: Greetings on this Holy Thursday

Dear Pastor Carlo, Pastor Witmer, and Pastor Hill,

A happy and holy Triduum and Easter to you, your family, and loved ones! As you know, it was on this Holy Thursday night that Jesus prayed that his disciples would be one as He and the Father are one. He prayed this unity would be so visible that the world may see it and know that Jesus was sent by the Father. Let us join our hearts in prayer this evening with Jesus's High Priestly Prayer in John 17. Lord, let us be one!

On this night when Jesus prayed the first Mass, instituting at once the sacraments of the Eucharist and of Holy Orders (His ministerial priesthood), Jesus began his paschal sacrifice in the most perfect manner: by voluntarily laying down his life for his bride, the Church. And so, it was through His one bread--that Bread of Life that is truly His body, blood, soul, and divinity--that we, His Bride, became and continue to be one Body. As St. Paul says in Ephesians, the oneness of Christ and his bride is a great mystery, for which the Latin word is sacramentum. The great sacramental mystery of Christ and the Church finds its consummation every time we "do this" as a memorial of his sacrificial offering--an offering that began in the upper room, followed through to Calvary, and finds it completion in the eternal offering of the Son (the "Lamb standing as though slain" from Rev. 5:6) before the Father. These three components constitute a single sacrificial offering, and it is the eternal offering of the sacrifice--an offering that occurs in the ever-present "now" that is the eternal life of God--that Christians enter into through the Mass, where we commune with the divine spouse of our souls.

But, you don't have to take my word for it! Those first preachers of the early church who learned the Christian faith at the feet of the apostles firmly believed that the Eucharist was really Jesus. It is He, the Lamb of God! Christ our passover has been sacrificed, says St. Paul; let us keep the feast! As we see in Acts 2, the breaking of bread was central to the liturgical life of the early Church. They celebrated it every week! As we see on the road to Emmaus in Luke, Jesus revealed himself to his disciples in the breaking of the bread. It was in this sacramental act that they recognized Him, even though their hearts burned within them as He explained the Scriptures. Yet, it was in the breaking of bread that they recognized him. These disciples in Luke mirror the experience of the entire early Church. (Indeed, no one seriously challenged the teaching of the Church on Jesus's Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist for almost 1,500 years!) For instance, St. Ignatius of Antioch, a long-time disciple of the apostle John, once preached that "they abstain from the Eucharist because they do not confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes." (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]) Many other early writers echo this same belief--and they do so less than a century after the death of the apostles. Jesus himself tells us in John 6 that the bread he will give is his flesh, the same flesh that will suffer for the life of the world. I know, my dear brothers in Christ, that this is a hard teaching. Jesus's listeners said the same thing! Yet, Jesus did not back away from his literal language and explain that he was speaking symbolically. Rather, in John 6, Jesus intensifies the language to the point that those following Him turned away. The problem for them, and for us, is that we can only believe Jesus's teaching by faith and by the Spirit. Our fleshly minds can not help us when it comes to the divine mystery of the Holy Eucharist, no more than our fleshly understanding could have perceived two thousand years ago that this Jew with dirty feet and calloused hands was God incarnate. No microscope looking at Jesus would have discerned that he was God, just like no microscope trained on the Eucharistic bread and wine will reveal the divine presence. But Jesus said, "take and eat; this is my body." Just as God spoke the world into existence, Jesus's word speaks bread and wine into his body and blood. Only the appearance remains (though in the case of hundreds of Eucharistic miracles throughout history, even the appearance has changed). On this Holy Thursday night, let us together beg the Lord for more faith, more grace, and more of the Holy Spirit so that we may recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread. Let us subject ourselves to the apostolic teaching, faithfully passed down from Jesus to John to Ignatius and Polycarp and Justin Martyr and all the faithful witnesses who have delivered the message undefiled and unchanged to Christians down through the centuries. Our faith is Catholic--universal in all times and places. As one of my favorite Italian pastors likes to quote (from Malachi 3:6): "I am the Lord; I change not!"

I leave you with two links that I hope you take the time to consider. The first is a link to my blog, which contains a moving video of a father's surprise return from Iraq, and his daughter's reaction to his visit. Daddies out there--you can't watch this without misting up! There is a lesson of love to be learned from this video that relates to Jesus in the Eucharist.

But far better is Benedict XVI's Holy Thursday homily. I pray that you will take some time to read it, if not during the busy Easter weekend, then sometime soon. And of course, if you have any questions/concerns about anything he says in it, well...you know to whom you can turn!

Lord Jesus, we praise you, we bless you, and we thank you, for by your very cross you have redeemed the world! Make us one, Lord, so that we, by your grace, may convert the world to you!

In the Savior,

RR

The Catholicism Project - Fr. Robert Barron

2011-05-03T13:40:00.001-04:00

Fr. Robert Barron is soon to release The Catholicism Project, a video series that promises to draw many souls deep into the beauty, majesty, and truth of Christ's bride, the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is culture building and culture forming. The Catholic Church is one worldwide family of God, and it is watching videos like this one that make my heart burst with joy for the grace I've been given to be a part of this amazing family. Praise be to Jesus Christ, and thank you for your creative servant, Fr. Barron. Click here to learn more about Fr. Barron's ministry, Word on Fire.

Response to Lighthouse Baptist Church Sermon April 24, 2011 - On Baptism

2011-05-03T00:16:00.006-04:00

This past Easter Sunday, Pastor Tobe Witmer of Lighthouse Baptist Church (Newark, DE) made the following comments about Baptism in his sermonette (shortened as it was from the normal length).

First, here is Colossians 2:8–14, the text spoken about in the sermon:

⁸Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, following the tradition of men according to the rudiments of the world, and not in accordance with Christ. ⁹For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. ¹⁰And ye are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power, ¹¹and in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. ¹²Ye are buried with Him in baptism, wherein ye also are risen with Him through the faith wrought by the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead. ¹³And you, being dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, ¹⁴blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us. He took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross;

And here is the sermon itself. To save time, I'm starting the video just as Pastor Witmer begins reading the text. As you listen, notice how many interruptions Pastor Witmer inserts, each of which is made to explain or clarify something about the text.

Two interruptions are extremely significant, because on them hinges Pastor Witmer's interpretation of these verses.

The first interruption is when Pastor Witmer stops at "circumcision" to state that circumcision "just means cutting away." Let's listen to these few seconds just to notice how casually he throws that assertion into his sermon:

Just like a good magician works his magic by distracting you with uncritical gestures while allowing the really important maneuvers to be handled completely discretely, many listeners may easily miss how enormously significant of an interpretive move Pastor Witmer makes in this toss-off comment. After all, he limits "circumcision" to "just a cutting away" as if everyone--and especially St. Paul's contemporary readers--would have read circumcision with this same limitation in mind.

Here is the same assertion made later in the sermon as Pastor Witmer is explaining the passage verse by verse:

Just ask yourself: Do you really think that Paul's Jewish audience--that same audience that had faithfully practiced circumcision as the sign of initiation into the covenant family of God for hundreds and hundreds of years--would not call that covenantal ritual to mind when Paul speaks about a new kind of circumcision, one made without hands? Paul no where indicates in the text that he is not referring to these covenantal overtones that every Jew would have immediately connected with Paul's reference to circumcision. Yet, Pastor Witmer reads an assumption onto the text that Paul could not have been intending to call to mind anything other than "just a cutting away."

Keep in mind that circumcision was commanded by God of Abraham, and it was commanded of Abraham as the sign of this new Covenant that God establishes with Abraham. In the New Covenant of Christ, as Paul is telling us in Colossians, through faith, we receive a new circumcision, one made without hands by Christ. So, just like circumcision was an act of faith and covenant initiation in the Old Covenants, so now does Christ circumcise us in the New Covenant. It is Christ who is doing the saving. And what is the New Circumcision of the New Covenant? Being "buried with Him in Baptism" (Romans 6).

Peter, during his first sermon on Pentecost, also makes the connection between baptism in the New Covenant and circumcision in the Old Covenant by using the same language God used with Abraham when God established the covenant with Abraham. Let's first go back to Genesis 17 and read the language of the covenantal promise made by God:

¹ When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty^[a]; walk before me faithfully and be blameless. ² Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.”
³ Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, ⁴ “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. ⁵ No longer will you be called Abram^[b]; your name will be Abraham,^[c] for I have made you a father of many nations. ⁶ I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. ⁷ I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. ⁸ The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.”
⁹ Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. ¹⁰ This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. ¹¹ You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. ¹² For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner—those who are not your offspring. ¹³ Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. ¹⁴ Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

Notice that the promise God is making includes not only Abraham, but his descendants as well, so long as they receive the mark or sign of the covenant, circumcision. Keep in mind that this is not a covenant that is opposed to faith; rather, it is the enacted on the very condition of faith--Abraham's faith. On the basis of this faith, God promises to save the entire family, so long as they enter into the covenant by accepting the sign. And so, through the providence and divine pedagogy of God our Father, our Jewish fore-bearers in the faith circumcised their male babies on the eighth day (which, by the way, is itself prophetic of Jesus's saving work, which leads to a "new creation" and the shift of worship from the seventh day to the "eighth day" of creation: Sunday). Every eight-day old boy in God's covenant family would be circumcised in a ritual that would have been repeated over and over for seemingly countless generations.

Now, on the day of Pentecost, after Peter and the Holy Spirit had stirred the souls of the thousands of Jewish listeners, the had one burning question that remained to be asked: how do we enter into this new covenant family? Let's listen in to Acts 2:

³⁶ “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”
³⁷ When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
³⁸ Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹ The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

Peter here uses the exact same covenantal language God used when he instituted the covenant with Abraham. The "promise" speaks of the covenantal oath. A covenant, after all, establishes a family bond through the giving of persons. "I will be your God, and you will be my people" is the language of covenants. And since Adam broke the first covenant, God took the oath on himself, an act of love that culminated in Calvary. But leading up to the Covenant in Jesus's blood, we get a series of covenants that were to prepare our minds and hearts for what Jesus hoped to eventually accomplish. Thus, in all the shadows and types found in the Old Testament are seeds of what will be fulfilled in the New. Peter's Jewish audience would have understood this when Peter announced the path to Salvation--"repent and be baptized"--and extended this promise, as God had once done, to you and your children. This is why we see all over Acts that when new believers came to be baptized, they brought their entire households with them. And no where do Peter, Paul, or any other apostle ever mention what would have been a GLARING EXCEPTION OR CHANGE FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT--that children under the age of reason are to be EXCLUDED from the promise of the New Covenant!! No, the promise is to you and to your children and for all who are far off. Then, about three thousand people were baptized, and again, no mention is made that young children were excluded from baptism at this point. (In other words, the argument from silence in Scripture in regard to infant baptism is one that tilts heavily toward infant baptism, not away from it. We see time and again the mention of entire households being baptized with not a single mention that children were excluded.)

Before leaving this passage from Acts 2, note once again the difference between what Peter preaches and what most Baptist pastors preach. Baptists believe that to be saved, one must repent for the forgiveness of their sins. Only after salvation has taken place do Baptists then partake of a symbolic, grace-less, Spirit-less ritual that saves no one but simply makes a public announcement that salvation has already occurred. But note what Peter says: it is repentance and baptism together that effect the forgiveness of sins and bring the gift of the Holy Spirit. Yet again, water and Spirit are connected in Scripture in what the Catholic Church calls the "sacrament of faith." This remains the teaching of the Catholic Church today: anyone who can have faith must have faith and be baptized to be saved. (What kind of faith is it that outright denies a clear scriptural teaching and refuses baptism?) But - baptism is a promise that extends to the children of believers, since God is as interested in saving entire families as he is individuals. Of course, baptized babies must be raised in the faith and must continue believing in God, or else they can lose the gift of salvation through sin and unbelief. Baptism is not magic or a one-way ticket to heaven. Rather, baptism is the work of God--the circumcision made without hands--in which God regenerates the soul and fills it with the Holy Spirit. It is not a human work that we do to earn heaven; rather, it is the most perfect demonstration that grace is a free gift, because God is willing to give the gift of new life even to infants who can do nothing at all to earn it. As Peter elsewhere puts it, "Baptism...now saves us" (1 Peter 3:21). According to Paul, we are "buried with Christ in Baptism" (Romans 6).

And this gets us to the next pivotal hinge on which Pastor Witmer's interpretation swings. Pastor Witmer interprets "Baptism" not as the actual act of receiving baptism but as a metaphor for "being immersed." See for yourself:

Once again, you have to ask yourself: what did Paul mean when he used the word "baptism?" What context does Scripture give us for understanding what this word means? What did the early church and the students of the apostles (and their immediate successors) understand baptism to mean?

First, let's look at Scripture. (I actually posted these Bible verses on the YouTube video comments section without any significant commentary. It is telling that Pastor Witmer removed them, blocked me from posting comments, and claimed that I was spreading heresy even though I was simply quoting the Bible!)

The first time we find Baptism in the New Testament is in the Baptism of John the Baptist (see John 1). Did John the Baptist offer a metaphoric "immersion" in repentance? No, the baptism of John the Baptist--which prefigures Christian baptism--is something that each one of us associates with a ritual that took place in the River Jordan.

Now, the next, and perhaps most significant occurrence of "Baptism" is when Jesus himself is Baptized (Matthew 3:13-17). When Jesus was baptized, does the Bible describe Jesus as being "immersed" in some spiritual experience? No, Jesus's baptism was given by John in the river. Yet something entirely new occurred when Jesus was baptized! The Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove and the voice of the Father claimed Jesus as His son. So, now we find Baptism not only associated with water but with the Holy Spirit, and together with the water and Spirit comes the proclamation of Sonship.

When does "baptism" appear next? Passing over the jars of water used for the Jewish rites of purification found in John 2, we now turn to John 3, when Nicodemus enters into conversation with our Lord, Jesus tells him that he must be "born anothen." (Anothen is a Greek word meaning "again" OR "from above." Nicodemus mistakenly interprets anothen as again, though Jesus clearly intends him to understand "from above." See later in John 3:31 where being born "from above" is further discussed. The same word--anothen--is being used here as well.) When Nicodemus fails to understand Jesus's meaning, Jesus repeats the expression, this time substituting anothen for "of water and Spirit." If we combine Jesus's statements, we see that Jesus is teaching that one must be "born from above of water and Spirit" to enter the kingdom of God.

So, here we see even more ideas brought together. Right after Jesus goes into the waters over which hover the Spirit and after he is proclaimed the Son of God, Jesus himself links water and Spirit and says that for us to be saved--for us to become a child of God and a member of God's kingdom--we, too, must be born of water and Spirit. Water and Spirit, inseparably linked as they are throughout the Old Testament (call to mind the waters and Spirit in Genesis, Noah and the Dove, the Red Sea and the wind...and connect these ideas with Jesus, or New Adam, New Noah, and New Moses), are here in the New Testament definitively linked together by Christ with Baptism.

And what do Jesus and his disciples immediately do after he preaches that we must be "born from above of water and Spirit"? They go out baptizing! (John 3:22) Now, did they go out and "immerse" people in faith? No - they went out offering a ritual we commonly refer to as "baptism"--a ritual involving "water and spirit."

And this is precisely where Pastor Witmer and Baptist theology as a whole misunderstand Baptism. Baptists will deny the regenerative effects of Baptism because they limit it to "water baptism." To them, baptism does nothing more than taking a shower does. And here they are right: a ritual dealing only with water has no power to save anyone. But - BUT! - the Catholic Church from the first centuries to today has NEVER understood or taught that Baptism was a ritual involving only water. Rather, Baptism is the Sacrament of faith in which Jesus declares us to be Sons of God by the "washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:5). It is not a mere washing, because Baptism involves water AND Spirit. It is God alone who saves, but he uses Baptism as his instrument to do the saving, just like Jesus once put mud on a man's eyes to heal him. "Give me that mud!" we might rightly cry - but only because God is working through it. Likewise, the hearts of every new adult believer in the early Church must have yearned for that New Mud--that clean mud, those saving, living waters (John 4)--that Jesus uses to communicate the free gift of grace, regenerate our souls, and birth us into the kingdom of God.

Water AND Spirit. What God hath joined together, let no man--or tradition of men--put asunder!

Later in the New Testament, Paul, in the real Romans Road (not the sampling of proof texts that greatly twist Paul's theology), Paul pinpoints the precise moment that we were buried with Christ, and it is the same moment he identifies in Colossians: our baptism. In both Romans 6 and Colossians 2, Pastor Witmer interprets "baptism" as meaning "immersed." For Pastor Witmer, we are "immersed" in Christ when we first accept Him as our Savior and Lord. It is understandable why he does this--because Pastor Witmer's theology doesn't allow him to actually say that "we are buried with Christ in Baptism" (Romans 6). Ask yourself: if Baptism really and plainly means "immersed," then why doesn't Pastor Witmer use this language when he preaches? Why doesn't Pastor Witmer get up and say that "you are saved the moment you are baptized"? He doesn't use this language because you understand that Baptism has a very specific meaning in the New Testament! None of us say that we are going to "baptize" ourselves in the swimming pool by diving in, or that we are going to "baptize" our plates in the kitchen sink filled with water. Just like Peter's and Paul's audiences in Scripture, we understand Baptism to have a concrete meaning: it is a ritual of spiritual cleansing that involves water (but not only water!). Through the revelation of Jesus Christ, Christians have always understood baptism to mean the "washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit" in which we die to sin and become new creations in Christ. Through Baptism, we enter into Christ's sufferings. John the Baptist greets Christ as the "Lamb of God," tying Christ's saving mission and passion to the act of his own Baptism. When Christ enters the waters, he lays claim on his own creation and makes them the matter that he will later use to invite us into this same passion.

Consider 1 Peter 3:21, where Peter is referring to how Noah was saved through water--the same waters that washed sin away--and receives from the dove the olive branch, symbolizing peace with God, and the establishment of a new Covenantal promise. Peter immediately relates Noah's experience with "Baptism, which saves you now." Again, keep in mind the images that Peter is bringing together--water, new covenant, dove, sin washed away--and combine these with what Paul adds--circumcision made without hands, washing of regeneration, buried with Christ in baptism--and finally, add Jesus's own words--"born again of water and spirit"--and I think it becomes clear from Scripture that Baptism was a deeply rich word that was associated with many shadows or "types" in the Old Testament and was intimately connected with water and Spirit in the New Testament as the act of Christian initiation--that act where God makes us New Creations in Christ and claims us as His sons and daughters.

The irrefutable historical evidence is that all the first pastors in the early church--those fathers in the faith who learned Christianity from the lips of he apostles and their immediate successors--all held that Baptism replaced circumcision as the rite of Christian initiation. It was in Baptism that Christ first regenerated the soul of a Christian and forgave them of all their sins. It is through Baptism that Christ grants the gift of salvation to the soul, so that they may be raised in the newness of life.

Now here's my point:

Pastor Witmer essential denies all of this by putting God--or at least the Word of God in Scripture--in a very narrow box. Rather than read Scripture in the context of Scripture to understand all that baptism means, Pastor Witmer limits baptism to a metaphor based on the action signified by the word. Baptizo means "to immerse" (primarily) or "to sprinkle" (secondarily)...but all throughout Scripture, we see this term connected with the very substance used to immerse or sprinkle: water!

In short, the primary way "baptizo" is used in Scripture is in connection with water. To claim, especially in the New Testament, that Paul was suddenly using the term figuratively when Paul himself doesn't explicitly say so, is to twist the Scriptures to fit the novel interpretive tradition that Pastor Witmer brings to them.

Sadly, Pastor Witmer would probably deny even the possibility that "baptism" in Colossians 2, 1 Peter 3, or Romans 6 could mean water+spirit baptism, even though the entire early church, schooled by the apostles, was in agreement with this point.

Ultimately, Peter writes "baptism...now saves you." Pastor Witmer preaches "baptism does not now save you."

Pastor Witmer here finds himself in clear and direct contradiction with Scripture, and I pray before the throne of Grace that the Holy Spirit will work in His life to convict him and all Baptists of good will of the truth about baptism found in God's Holy Word.

My friends, never forget that baptism is God's work. It is a circumcision made without hands by Christ! It is Jesus's work on our souls. In NO WAY does baptism take away from the finished work of Christ on the Cross. Rather, it applies it in the way God designed that this gift of regenerating grace would be applied to believers and their families. As Peter says at the climax of the of the first Christian sermon ever preached, echoing the promise first made to Abraham: "the promise is for your and your children." (Acts 2:39).

May the grace and peace of our Risen Savior be with you now and forever!