Response to Mozartmovement, Part 2

Rather than space out my response to Mozartmovement, I've decided to post the remainder of my response below, simply so my blog doesn't get clogged with too many bits and pieces. Once again, Mozartmovement's writings are in blue bold, and my responses are in plain text. Mozartmovement's review essay of Surprised by Truth can be found here. The first part of my response to her essay can be found here. (Be sure to read the thoughtful comments attached to part 1 of my response!)

Many non-Roman Christians value its history and its early teachings, as well as its current bioethics.

That is all well and good. Sadly, in my experience, precious few Christians know anything at all about the history of the Catholic Church (especially of its early teachings), or even the history of their own denomination for that matter. Even Protestant pastors rarely spend more than a semester in seminary breezing through the early fathers of the church, whose writings fill 38 large volumes as they are usually packaged.

From a historical perspective, it is a curious fact that more Christians don’t read these writings, since the first 1500 years of the history of the Catholic Church is really a history that all Christians share. The early church fathers are the fathers of your faith as much as they are of mine. Many of the early church fathers accepted martyrdom so that you could receive the truth “entrusted once and for all to the saints” (Jude 3) as much as I. These early fathers were often assisted by God’s grace in miraculous ways so that the truth of Christ could be faithfully past on, and that grace is to your benefit as much as it is my own. Happily, as a recent Christianity Today article discusses, Protestants are beginning to rediscover the early church fathers, and what they are finding is a picture of the early church that is strikingly Catholic. (See http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/february/22.22.html)

As a point of clarification, do you mean to imply that the Catholic Church’s early teachings are different than her current ones? If so, can you provide an example? If not, what do non-RC Christians value in them?

I think that the steadfastness of the Catholic Church’s teachings on bioethics and human sexuality is a testament to God’s supernatural protection of her teaching. I thank God that your denomination embraces much of the Catholic Church’s teaching on matters of bioethics and sexual morality, especially considering how other mainline denominations have gone off the deep end on issues such as abortion. Sadly, it doesn’t embrace everything. For instance, up until 1930, every single Protestant denomination taught (on Scriptural grounds) along with the Catholic Church that artificial contraception was a grave moral evil. Since 1930, every single Christian organization but one has caved in to the sexual revolution on this point. Since the sin of contraception is deeply tied to that of abortion, it is no surprise that the Catholic Church remains perhaps the strongest pro-life voice in the world today. Hundreds of faithful Christians are pouring into the Catholic Church because (according to them) they can no longer remain affiliated with denominations that either teach that abortion is morally permissible, or participate (unwittingly) in the anti-life contraceptive culture that leads to the higher incidence of abortion (and divorce, and infidelity, and rape, etc…)

But the contributors to this work start from strikingly anti-Catholic biographies.

While I’m not sure this is true in each author’s case, it is usually a good sign that someone is anti-Catholic if they are so for the right reasons—that is, they realize that the Catholic Church is either really right or REALLY wrong, and they happen to believe the latter. These folks, in my mind, probably have better understanding of the Church’s teaching (or at least the radical implications of it) than most do. Now, all they need is a dose of the Holy Spirit to show them that the Church really is who she claims to be.

Stepping back again to exam the trajectory of your short essay, I think this third sentence seems to distance their stories from your own. While I understand that you don’t identify as an anti-Catholic (though, at some level, all Protestants by definition are anti-Catholic), the reasons that were given for joining the Catholic Church apply far beyond the boundaries of this limited subset of non-Catholics. I’m curious about your response to the reasons that were given that apply to all non-Catholics, not just those whose journey started with an anti-Catholic perspective. (Like I implied above, I think that people who are anti-Catholic for the right reason are actually less anti-Catholic, spiritually speaking, than people who keep the Church at a cool distance. Here, the Laodiceans come to mind.)

And with ironic uniformity, each of these writers had a classic “born again” experience, thanks to outspoken Evangelical “Fundamentalists.”

In this case, I think the uniformity has much to do with the editor of the volume wanting to publish stories of people with a similar background. I have many other volumes of conversion stories that are organized around different spiritual journeys, such as Jewish to Catholic, Moonie to Buddhist to Catholic, Mormon to Catholic, Ex-Catholic to Catholic, etc. Like many of the writers in the volume you read, I praise God for the powerful work he is doing through many Protestant ministers and denominations. Certainly, God is not limited by the visible boundaries of the institution he established. God is rich in mercy, and He mercifully grants that denominations that have visibly (and, I believe, spiritually) separated themselves from the Church Christ established may still partake of its manifold gifts.

And yes, while it is true that these authors had a “born again” experience as Evangelicals, every Catholic has also been born again. (One can not be a Catholic without having been baptized, although there are probably a tiny percentage of “Catholics” who lacked faith going into their adult baptism and did not will to receive the graces normally attached to the sacrament. This would not be the case for babies such as Logan.) Of course, the shades of meaning attached to these two words various greatly between Protestants and Catholics, and also between Protestants themselves, but we can let that point go for now, since it plays no significant role in your essay.

These were not incidental detours, but indispensable bridges on each author’s spiritual path. Do they dispose of this? Or credit it? How do they excise their former Protestantism yet retain their re-birth?

In general, converts consider themselves fulfilled evangelicals. They retain all that is good about their Protestant heritage and bring it to perfection in the Catholic Church. Because what they retain is good, Protestant converts almost universally credit their Protestant heritage with giving them these goods. I often challenge non-Catholics to find one published conversion story of someone who leaves the Catholic Church who is willing to speak so positively, directly, and specifically about the goods the Catholic Church gave to them before they left as do Protestants about their heritage. (I've looked long and hard, and I find the paucity of like examples telling. Conversions to and from the Catholic Church are ultimately far more than a numbers game. What are the reasons that people convert? This is always the key question.)

To answer the last question, it is important to distinguish between re-birth and denominational affiliation. People do not need to be rebaptized when they join the Catholic Church. They are still Christians, but they are Christians who have embraced the fullness of truth that subsists only in the Catholic Church. The only thing they leave behind in converting are Protestant errors (at least from their new perspective).

Another way of thinking about it is that there is only one Church and one baptism (Eph. 4:5). One can only be “born again” (through baptism) into the Catholic Church, though many people immediately fall away from full communion with the Catholic Church due to their particular life situation and/or affiliation with a non-Catholic denomination. From this perspective, it is difficult for converts to remain Protestant and retain their (truly Catholic) re-birth once they come to understand that Christ desires for them to enter the Catholic Church.

The church they reject is not entirely mine, and the one they embrace shares much with mine.

Or, the one they embrace is not entirely yours, either. But, I wonder, does anyone embrace the same church that you do? What do you call your church? Can I give your denominational identity a name? Does your church have anything that must be believed (including, perhaps, a list of issues in which freedom must be allowed) if one is to be a member? I ask these questions with full sincerity, in part because your sentence reflects a kind of modern identity-crisis that non-denominationalism has left with its members. In other words, how can two Christians with a non-denominational mentality ever know they have achieved the miraculous spiritual and visible unity that Christ prayed they would have and that St. Paul demanded? The very idea of such a unity works against the historical/practical reason-for-being of non-denominationalism: to assimilate into a single church body many Christians who (potentially) hold contradictory doctrinal beliefs.

Many Protestants agree with what Al Kresta calls “doctrinal minimalism.”(p.260).

Most Protestants don’t have a choice, because to admit that there are serious and profound doctrinal differences among Protestant denominations on matters of grave spiritual importance is to put a major chink in the doctrine of sola scriptura. The only other two options are 1) to believe that truth is not important, and so it doesn’t matter that these differences exist, or 2) to believe that all truth is important and Christ gave us a way of knowing revealed truth with an objective certitude. (Can you think of other options?)

The idea that doctrinal minimalists agree on the important doctrines (besides not really being true) does not hold up to the scrutiny of Scripture. Where does the Bible say that some doctrines are essential and others are non-essential? Where does St. Paul command his listeners to only stick fast to the really important doctrines, but that it is okay to quibble (and divide) over the less important ones?

Being very sure of very few doctrinal essentials is the hallmark of the non-denominationalism that Kresta experienced, and that I agree with.

This sentence could also read: “Being very unsure of very many doctrinal essentials is the hallmark of the non-denominationalism that Kresta experienced, and that I agree with.”

(One clarification is needed here: do you agree with Kresta’s assessment of his own non-denominational experience, or do you agree with the hallmark itself—that we can only be very sure of very few doctrines?)

Seeing the depravity of this statement has led many into the Catholic Church. I would simply ask: is this the best Jesus and the Holy Spirit can do? Did Jesus leave us with a book that we can interpret with almost no certainty? Did he pray (and St. Paul command) that Christians would have an absolute unity (like the Trinity) without making provisions for such a unity to be possible? Did Christ send the Holy Spirit to guide the apostles into all truth, only to have it all (or at least most of it) lost with the death of the last apostle, such that doctrines are simply anyone’s best guess until Christ returns? If so, what did Paul mean in 1 Timothy when he called the church the "pillar and bulwark of the truth?" If the church is the invisible unity of all Christians, then how has the church protected the truth?

True, much chaos exists in Protestantism, but the unity of Roman Catholicism is hardly as self-evident as these writers imply.

I’m not sure the writers are as naïve about the problems in the Catholic Church as this sentence implies. Some of them even found themselves asking: does the Catholic Church I believe in actually exist? (It does.)

The words “unity” and “Roman Catholicism” have too many meanings for me to understand exactly what you mean. Of course, there are Catholics who are not perfectly unified with the Church. I am one of them. All sin tears away at the Body of Christ. But we must remember that the Catholic Church does possess a unity across time and space unparalleled by any other religious institution. Further, the Catholic Church, as a divine institution founded on the unchanging Rock of Christ, is the only standard we have for knowing when someone has separated themselves from the body through sin and false doctrine. Put positively, we have the only standard by which unity of Christians is even possible.

Also, many Protestants fail to distinguish between the institutional chaos of Protestantism and the disunity found within the Catholic Church, which is caused by sin and heterodoxy. In other words, it is when people separate themselves spiritually and intellectually from the church that they remove themselves from the spiritual/institutional unity of the Church and enter into the chaos that exists outside the church’s boundaries (which would include the Protestant chaos that you mention). The Catholic Church possess an institutional unity that has existed since Christ founded Her. The Church is like a bank that has guarded the original deposit of the faith that Christ gave her through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Many Protestant converts have mentioned that they actually find more room for true diversity within the Catholic Church than outside of it. There are literally hundreds of spiritualities one can embrace, saints to model, and theological areas that haven’t been decided or revealed that one can take various positions on within the Catholic Church. In contrast, it is actually quite constricting to be in an institution that basically has its members constantly reinventing the wheel, and with only limited success at that. Imagine how free you would feel to enjoy calculus if you had an error in your multiplication tables. Theological errors also suppress one’s ability to fully plumb the rich depth of Scripture and Sacred Tradition; error squashes true freedom.

They fail to mention both ancient schisms and modern diversity.

I’m not sure if this is a failure, per say, given the limited scope of each essay. I’m quite positive, given that none of the converts were itching to join the Catholic Church, that they considered how the spiritual unity of the Catholic Church imperfectly manifests itself through the ages.

Your sentence is somewhat revealing of the identity crisis of which I was speaking earlier. In other words, a modernist would have phrased it “ancient diversity and modern diversity” and an orthodox Christian would have phrased it “ancient schisms and modern schisms.” I’m not sure you can have it both ways, and I think I know what St. Paul would have said about “modern diversity.” (If I misread you here, please clarify.)

This is not to say that there is room for diversity in the Catholic Church. In fact, only in the Catholic Church can we freely and with a sense of abandon embrace true diversity. Outside the boundaries of the Catholic Church, one begins to find diversity for diversity’s sake, diversity to the point of false doctrine, diversity to the point of…etc. The Catholic Church provides the fence around an intellectual playground beyond the edges of which is a sharp cliff into—as Frank Sheed would put it—insanity. (See his Theology and Sanity, in which he reminds us that the definition of insanity is when our mind disconnects from reality and from truth.)

Understandably, they value authority.

Yes, but they did as Protestants as well. The change is that they began to understand that Christ’s authority over His Church is mediated not only through the Bible but also through Sacred Tradition and a Magisterium.

The lack of indisputable leadership may be a shortcoming among Protestants, but it may also be seen as a safeguard.

I’m not sure how it can be both simultaneously. While I think safeguards are good things, I’m afraid that I can’t think of one thing that Protestantism, through the model of authority called sola scriptura, has kept safe. (Can you help me out here?) Worse yet, sola scriptura has safeguarded the license people claim to privately interpret the Bible however they believe the Holy Spirit is leading them, even if their interpretations contradict how the Holy Spirit is leading another Christian a block away. And the results can be spiritually catastrophic (see 2 Peter 3:16).

There are able leaders, whose ministries can be scrutinized, even if there is no Pope.

Yes, there are many able leaders, and we praise God for them. Surely, the ministry of any spiritual leader, Protestant or Catholic, can and is continuously scrutinized, for better or worse. (I’m saddened by how little good it sometimes does to scrutinize pastors; luckily, prayer is more effective than scrutiny, though I do think that scrutiny has its place!) My concern is that some of these leaders lead ably on their own terms, rather than on the terms Christ prayed for in John 17. May we never let our vision of the church supersede His! While we thank God for those individuals who are responding to the Spirit’s call and are changing hearts for Christ, we can not lose sight of the bigger picture: that the divisions among Christians today greatly hamper our ability to convert the world (or, Christ’s ability to convert the world through us). Lord, make us one as You and the Father are one. Help us to crave the unity that you prayed for like never before, and let us not be satisfied until that unity is perfectly wrought in us. Let unity begin with me! (Sing to the tune of “Let there be Peace on Earth.” ☺ )

I would suggest that there is an important distinction between “able” and “right,” and that the fact that someone has the ability to lead ably provides even more reason that they should become an able leader in the true church. (So, Evangelicals, please join us! We need your enthusiasm for the Gospel as much as you need the Pope and the Sacraments!)

In so far as the Pope is the visible spiritual head whose voice a Christian should heed, Protestantism indeed has millions of Popes. Sola scriptura literally turns people into their own Popes, practically speaking, and thus we lose the only basis for unity that has actually worked in history. “Peter, I have prayed for you…”

I have had a long-standing warm regard for the Catholic Church. While this volume does not kindle that warmth into flame, it doesn’t chill it, either.

I do like how your essay comes full circle, back to your personal sentiment expressed at the beginning of your essay. I look forward to hearing more of your perspectives should you choose to clarify some of the points mentioned above.

May God bless you richly, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!

Clarification of Baptism post

It occurs to me that I should clarify one point made in my post on Baptism, found here.

I mentioned that baptism is the normative mode of salvation established by Christ, but that exceptions do occur, since Jesus does save people who through circumstance may be unable to receive baptism.

Since Protestants often use the good thief as a counterexample in order to argue that baptism is NOT necessary to salvation, I pointed to him as an example of an "exception to the rule" that baptism is the normative mode of salvation that Christ established (1).

However, the good thief is not technically a very good example (neither for Catholics as the exception nor for Protestants as the rule), since the Old Law had not officially been replaced by the New Law yet. Thus, technically, circumcision was still how one entered the covenant family of God when the thief spoke those words. Of course, in a few hours/days/weeks (depending on how you look at it), the New Law of Christ would be established, and baptism would replace circumcision as the formal sign of entry into the covenant family of God, the Church.

Our God is a God of mercy. As Fr. John Corapi puts it: "His Name is Mercy!" (Those of you who know his powerful voice can hear him say it!) Thanks be to God for mercifully saving those who profess His name, even on their deathbed or on a hijacked aircraft, who desire (even implicitly) the saving waters of baptism but can not partake of them.

Note:

(1) When it comes to baptism, Protestant apologist often point out the exceptional situations in Scripture in which either 1) a person was saved without baptism or 2) the person received the Holy Spirit before being baptized. Their dogma against the saving effects of baptism prevents them from understanding these situations as exceptional. Certainly, the Holy Spirit can descend upon whomever He wishes, and certainly, no one ever came to a saving faith without the movement of the Holy Spirit already at work in them. None of this, however, provides reason to deny all of the scriptural evidence that "baptism...now saves you." What is needed is a theological perspective that accounts for all the biblical evidence; such a perspective is provided (free-of-charge!) by the Catholic Church. As long as people outside the Church continue reinventing the theological wheel, who knows how many "solutions" to the problematic relationship between the rule and the exceptions people will come up with?

Justification, in our Holy Father's Words

Click here for an inspiring lecture by Pope Benedict XVI on St. Paul and the doctrine of justification by faith.

Response to Fairwinds Baptist Church March 29, 2009 6:00 P.M. Service

[Welcome new readers.  Before you go, please don't forget to check out the links to thirteen other Fairwinds responses listed on the right side of this page.  May the Holy Spirit be with you all!]

Because of personal circumstances, I have become particularly familiar over the years with the beliefs and practices of Baptists. My wife is a former Baptist, and my in-laws attend a Baptist church regularly. The majority of pastors with whom I have corresponded have all been Baptists. Thus, I devote a large part of my evangelization efforts to reaching members of this particular denomination, primarily because I am more familiar with it than others.

In an effort to evangelize Baptists, I will occasionally post a response to Baptist sermons that I hear over the internet in an effort get members of this church to consider whether the theology preached there is truly as Bible-based as they might think it is.

A short while ago, I listened to the Sunday-evening prayer service at Fairwinds Baptist Church in Bear, DE. Unlike other Sunday-evening services, this one began with a series of baptisms; about five children who appeared (over the internet) about 10-15 years of age and one adult were baptized.

The ritual was short, nothing like the beautiful rite of baptism performed on my son Logan a month ago. [I will post a video link soon.] Pastor Carlo simply asked if the person had accepted Christ as savior and would live for Him. After saying "yes," each person was baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Once the ceremony was complete, the pastor, standing in the baptismal waters, spread his hands and proclaimed that each of these persons had just received a "believer's baptism;" that is, baptism followed the saving "act" of accepting Christ as personal Lord and Savior. He then went on to say that "not a single person was ever saved through these waters!" A week or so before, he had proclaimed that getting baptized in every stream, lake, pool, river, ocean, or bathtub could never save you. His point? Baptism does not save you.

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As a Bible-believing Catholic, I find it difficult to believe Pastor Carlo on this point. While I think Pastor Carlo is sincere in his beliefs, I think that he finds himself in direct contradiction with Scripture when he proclaims that baptism does not save you.

In 1 Peter 3:21, St. Peter writes:

"Baptism...now saves you."

It is ironic that I have never once heard this verse or seen it cited in a single sermon or tract distributed by Fairwinds Baptist. (Update 09/13/09: For the first time in almost a year, I heard Pastor Carlo discuss 1 Peter 3:21 in regard to Baptism.  I've probably missed twenty sermons over the last year of the three given each week, but of the ones I've heard, this was his first mention of this verse.)  Perhaps a number of members of the church would even be shocked and surprised to learn that the Bible actually strings those four words together without a "doesn't." Odd phrase for the the Holy Spirit to inspire if the exact opposite is true, eh?

Even more interesting are the Old Testament types of Baptism, all of which find their fulfillment in the waters in which Pastor Carlo was standing when he made his proclamation. Remember what St. Augustine taught: that the New Testament is concealed in the Old and the Old Testament is revealed in the New. Biblical typology is the study of Old Testament "types" (or "figures" or "shadows") of New Testament realities. One amazing thing about being a Christian and living after Christ is how the New Testament realities explain the meaning of salvation history before Christ's entrance into it; in a sense, we get to experience Old Testament events through their fulfillment in New Testament realities. Further, we get to learn from Old Testament events what these realities mean. Yet the realities shoot far beyond the Old Testament types because of the incarnation of Christ and the grace won by him on Calvary. If people are saved through water in the Old Testament, how much more powerful, after the incarnation, is the saving experience of being "born of water and spirit" in the New Testament?

Yet, according to Pastor Carlo, "No person was ever saved through these waters."

Let's begin with the Old Testament types to see if this is true.

In Genesis, we witness the spirit hovering over the waters from which came the first creation. As John's gospel emphasizes, we become "new creations" through our salvation in Christ. If we become "new creations" when we are saved, should we be surprised if we are recreated and saved by Christ through the waters and spirit of baptism? "No person was ever saved through these waters?" Really?

When the flood waters cleansed the earth (from sin) and a dove of peace (the Holy Spirit) landed on the ark (a type of the Church) which contained Noah's family (the covenant people of God), certainly these people had been saved through these waters. "No person was ever saved through these waters!" Really?

What about Moses? Wasn't Israel (the covenant people of God) released from Egyptian bondage (sin) through the waters of the Red Sea and saved when those same waters washed the Egyptians away? "No person was ever saved through these waters!" Really?

Then Jesus comes along and tells Nicodemus that we must be "born again" or "born from above" (the Greek word "anothen" could mean either "again" or "from above"), and then offers a parallel literary construction to clarify: "no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit." Now, let's look at the context to try to get an idea about what Jesus was referring to by the words "water and the Spirit."

What was occurring in John 1? BAPTISM, specifically that of John the Baptist. (Recall how he addresses Jesus: "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" These words have occurred at the high point of every Catholic Mass for centuries.) And what happens when Jesus is baptized in water? The SPIRIT (in the form of a dove) comes to rest on Him. Water and Spirit, together just like they were at the first creation.

What does John notice in John 2? That the water Jesus was going to turn into wine was contained in the the six stone jars used in the Jewish rites of purification, an Old Testament type of BAPTISM.

What does Jesus say in John 3? We must be born of WATER AND the SPIRIT. Again, water and spirit are inseparably united here.

What do the disciples immediately begin doing in John 3 after Jesus speaks these words? They go about BAPTIZING.

And in John 4, how does John frame Jesus's announcement that he will provide a "spring of [living] water welling up to eternal life?" BAPTISM.

If we are to interpret Jesus's words in context, our Lord teaches that we are "born from above" in baptism. We are saved in baptism, according to Jesus.

While I have no reason to think that Pastor Carlo would knowingly teach against what Jesus himself taught, I can not follow his fallible interpretation of the Bible when it comes to baptism. "No person was ever saved through these waters." Sorry, but according to Jesus, one must be baptized to enter the kingdom of heaven. (Of course, we understand Jesus to mean that we are ordinarily saved through baptism. In extraordinary circumstances, such as the good thief on the cross experienced, when baptism is not possible but desired, one may still be saved. If one knows that Jesus wants to save us through baptism, yet one refuses to be baptized, then this person doesn't truly demonstrate the obedience of faith that is necessary for salvation anyway.)

Side note: Ironically, the popular phrase "born again" uses the meaning of "anothen" that Jesus likely did not have in mind. See John's discussion beginning in John 3:31, which draws out the contrast between being "from above" and "of the earth." Notice the emphasis John puts on the testimony of he who is born from above in these verses. What is this testimony? John 19:30-35 and 1 John 5:6-10 bring together the three elements: the water, the blood, and the Spirit. As Catholics, our testimony-the assurance of our salvation-is not an experience we had many years ago. It is the testimony of the spirit, water, and blood in our hearts: the sacramental oaths that Christ swears on our behalf. And as the earliest fathers of Christianity understood, the water and blood that flowed from Christ's side after he gave up his Spirit so that we could receive it are powerful symbols of Baptism and the Eucharist. Just as the old Eve was born out of Adam's side, so is the Church born out of the side of Christ, the New Adam, on the cross.

So, we find the first creation coming out of water and spirit. We find water and spirit together when Noah was saved through water, which corresponds to the baptism that now saves us (1 Peter 3:21). We see Israel being saved through water. We hear Jesus saying we must be saved ("born from above") through water and the spirit, which in context refers to baptism. We hear Paul in Romans 6 tell us (through a rhetorical question) that as many of us "who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death" and that "we were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." All of this reveals the wisdom and beauty of our Father's plan of salvation from the first verses of Genesis all the way to the salvation of our very own soul, and all Pastor Carlo can say is that "no person was ever saved through these waters."

Sadly, the Baptist concept of baptism washes away the entire drama and meaning of salvation history before Christ outlined above, which was to prepare our hearts to understand the spiritual realities of Christ's kingdom like baptism. When Catholics stand at the baptismal font, they stand at the true waters of creation over which the spirit hovers, of which the original waters of creation were a shadow. When Catholics stand at the baptismal font, they stand in the true ark, and they pass through the true flood waters which wash away sin and bring the true dove of peace, all of which were foreshadowed in Noah's experience. When Catholics stand at the baptismal font, they behold the true Red Sea, and the waters part to allow them into the promised land of heaven. What Moses witnessed was only a type of the reality to come. All of these Old Testament events should make our hearts burn within us with joy and gladness about the most awesome and sacred gift of baptism.

"No person was ever saved through these waters!" Really?

The unfortunate mistake Pastor Carlo makes is that he drives a wedge the size of the Titanic between two things that we see inseparably united throughout the Bible: water and spirit. Of course the Catholic Church does not teach that the water saves us. No, it is the spirit hovering over the waters, making them "living" (John 4) and "clean" (Ezekiel 36:25), that allows them to save us. Further, baptism, if it were a mere human work, also would be powerless to save us. Pastor Carlo misunderstands what the Catholic Church has taught clearly for two thousand years: that the sacraments are CHRIST'S WORKS, not our own. The sacraments apply the free gift of Christ's grace to our souls, grace which was merited not by us but by Jesus himself through his passion, death, and resurrection. Unfortunately, Pastor Carlo drives a second Titanic-sized wedge between the power of Calvary and the power of the sacraments, even though the Catholic Church has always taught that the power of the sacraments is nothing less than the very power of Calvary applied by Christ to our souls for our salvation! The sacraments are the covenantal oaths that Christ swears on our behalf!

As Protestant convert Scott Hahn has pointed out, the Hebrew word "shaba" from which the Latin "sacramentum" is derived means to "swear an oath" or "to seven oneself." In ancient times, swearing an oath established a covenant. The ancient Hebrews understood that when God created the world in six days and blessed the seventh, he was swearing an oath with Adam, Eve, and all of humanity. The breaking of this oath required the establishment of a new covenant, which was led up to by a series of preparatory covenants with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. As the mediator of the new covenant, Jesus swears an oath through the sacraments, and it is Jesus's promise that we rely on for our salvation. When Jesus saves us through baptism, sealing our souls with the Holy Spirit, he is swearing an oath that we will be saved as long as we remain faithful to him.

Here's another thought: how is "praying the sinner's prayer" not a human work while "baptism" is a human work? Isn't there a bit of a double standard here? Actually, both are things humans DO. Believing itself is a human work, just like baptism is an act humans carry out. In both believing and baptism, however, we recognize that from the beginning to the end, it is grace that is doing the working. It is grace that enables us to believe. It is grace that does the work of baptism through us and on us. Yet, does Paul say: "as many of you who prayed the sinner's prayer were buried with Christ?" No, as many of us who are baptized have been buried with Christ. While Baptism is something humans do, it is Christ's work on our soul, not our work on our soul. Salvation is through Christ alone by grace alone. In fact, Catholics have taught for two thousand years that we are saved by God's grace alone. Nothing we humans do apart from God's grace can merit one millisecond of heaven. (Even the Council of Trent, the famous counter-reformation, taught this!) Christ merits salvation for us through our faithful cooperation with his grace--and it is even his grace that allows us to faithfully cooperate!

Protestants beware: if anyone tells you that the Catholic Church teaches otherwise, challenge them to show you just ONE church document that says we are saved by something other than Christ alone and by God's grace alone. And remember: baptism and the other sacraments, as well as any good works the Christian performs, are not our works. They are Christ's works on us and through us, wrought 100% by God's grace and for his glory. The classic strategy that Protestant apologists use to pull Catholics out of the church is to drive a false wedge between the sacraments and good works on the one hand, and grace on the other. If this strategy honestly captured the Catholic teaching on the subject, that would be one thing. But it simply doesn't. People who accept this false caricature of the Catholic Church are, at best, provided a flimsy excuse not to join Her. At worst, these people sadly and unwittingly despise the very channels Christ established through which to apply the grace won at Calvary to the souls of the believer. The stakes could not be higher, and it falls on every Christian to make sure, for the sake of their souls, that they are not following a false teacher on this issue.

In sum, baptism in the New Covenant replaces circumcision in the Old Covenant as the rite of initiation into the covenant family of God. In baptism, our hearts are circumcised and we are made a new creation through water and the Spirit. "In Him [Jesus] you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which [meaning "in baptism"] you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead (Colossians 2:11-12).

Does this mean that faith must be present? Yes. If you are past the age of reason, you must believe and be open to the grace Christ wants to bestow on you through the sacrament. But we are not saved by faith. Faith is like turning on the spigot through which grace can flow into our lives, both through the sacraments and through other encounters with God. We are saved by grace alone through faith. How then, can the Catholic Church baptize infants, if they are not yet at a stage where they can have faith? While infant baptism will be the topic of another posting, suffice it to say the following: since 1) Christ desires all his children to come home to heaven, 2) all of us are born in a state of disgrace, called original sin, that leaves us incapable of entering God's heavenly glory without regeneration, and 3) because God throughout the Bible is as interested in saving families as He is individuals (see Acts 2:39 and elsewhere), God accepts the faith commitment of the family (parents, Godparents, and the Church family) as sufficient for accepting infants into the kingdom of heaven (just like he did with Abraham, who accepted children into the covenant family of God at eight days old...yet salvation was through faith for Abraham just like it is for us). What more beautiful way to affirm that salvation is entirely God's work and God's grace than for Christ to bestow it on a baby who can do nothing but poop! According to the Baptist plan of salvation, the unsaved person has to do at least one thing--confess with his mouth that Jesus is Lord and Savior. By this standard, the Baptist entrance into salvation is more work-based than the typical Catholic one! Moving on: once the baptized child reaches the age of reason, that child must continue in the life of faith in which he was raised, or else he may eventually lose his salvation. (I will discuss infant baptism in greater depth in a later entry, along with the doctrine of eternal security.) In the Christian life, we must continually grow through faith and good works (both of which are the result of grace working in our lives), persevering until the end. Babies are not guaranteed salvation and can lose their salvation like the rest of us by turning away from God and rejecting (even neglecting, as Hebrews 2:3 puts it) his salvation.

One question remains to be addressed: what did the early church teach about baptism? What did the students of the apostles such as St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius of Antioch, Tertullian, and others teach about the "washing of regeneration" (Titus 3:5). Wouldn't it be great to ask St. John about the meaning of Jesus's words in John 3? Why not see if the writings of St. Ignatius, who studied with John for thirty years, shed any light on the topic? After all, is not the water always cleaner and cooler the closer you get to the source (as former Baptist and convert to the Catholic Church Steve Ray likes to put it)? In a game of "telephone," wouldn't you be more likely to get the original message from someone at the beginning of the line than at the end? If you want to be a Bible Christian, doesn't that mean believing how the first Christians who wrote the Bible (and passed on its correct interpretation) believed? Imagine how excited you would be if, at your next Bible study, the invited speaker was introduced as having been a student of the apostles themselves! The good news is that we have the writings of these students, and they can inform us as to what the Bible means. Their words don't substitute words of Scripture, but they do help explain what the authors of Scripture meant by the words of Scripture.

Rather than make this post any longer, let me simply provide links to internet sources and a book where you can find quotes from the earliest Christian leaders about the meaning of baptism:

1. Catholic Answers Tract: Born Again in Baptism
2. Catholic Answers Tract: Baptismal Grace
3. Tertullian (160-220 A.D.) on Baptism
4. Crossing the Tiber: Evangelical Protestants Discover the Historical Church by (Baptist convert) Steve Ray. This book contains an exhaustive survey of all the Bible passages (including 1 Peter 3:21 and others left out of Fairwinds tracts) and the early church fathers on baptism along with hundreds of footnotes and citations. Steve wrote this book as he was converting to the Catholic Church to explain to his family and friends the surprising truth of the Catholic Church's teachings on baptism and the eucharist.

Response to Mozartmovement, Part 1

The following is the beginning of the letter I composed to Mozartmovement in response to her book report on Patrick Madrid's Surprised by Truth. I'm dividing my response up into smaller parts for three reasons: first, so that the length of it is not overwhelming; second, so that its pieces are easily digestable; and third, so the length fits that of a typical blog posting.

Hi Mozartmovement,

I read with great interest your book report on Surprised by Truth. I’m glad you took an interest in a book that I am so fond of. There are few things in this world that interest me as much as when an individual goes through an intellectual sea-change, especially one with such profound spiritual and ecclesial consequences!

I have some comments and requests for clarifications that I have included in line with your text. Your text is in blue bold, and my response is in normal typeface.

Also, please don’t take my comments personally. I think that the position that you’ve stated reflects the Protestant tradition, and thus, I hope that you will consider my comments an invitation to view that tradition from a Catholic perspective.

I respect the Catholic Church.

First off, I appreciate how this sentence expresses an openness to the Catholic Church (and to friendly dialogue about her) in general, even if you do not believe all that she teaches. Yet, from a Catholic perspective, the statement is impossible. It rings the same way as when a Buddhist says, “I respect Jesus Christ (but I’m quite happy to remain a Buddhist).” Imagine what your response would be to such a character. Given the claims Jesus made about himself, he demands more than respect. You might recall C.S. Lewis’s famous argument (from Mere Christianity) that Jesus is either lord, liar, or lunatic. Similarly, the Bride of Christ, the Catholic Church, which is intimately and inseparably united with Him, would seem to demand far more (or perhaps you might come to think—far less) than respect (1). My suspicion has been that people who express their attitude toward either Jesus or His Church in these terms are trying to keep Him or Her at a safe distance. For as G.K. Chesterton said of the Church in his essay “The Catholic Church and Conversion”:

He has come too near to the truth, and has forgotten that truth is a magnet, with the powers of attraction and repulsion….The moment men cease to pull against it they feel a tug towards it. The moment they cease to shout it down they begin to listen to it with pleasure. The moment they try to be fair to it they begin to be fond of it. But when that affection has passed a certain point it begins to take on the tragic and menacing grandeur of a great love affair.
[full text here.]

Going back to our friendly Buddhist, wouldn’t you agree that the statement “I respect Jesus Christ” would signal immediately that the Buddhist had an inadequate understanding of who Jesus really is—the Way, the Truth, and the Life? Of course, the last thing that Jesus’s contemporaries could do was respect him. They either followed him closely or rejected him strongly. And which one of us wouldn’t have considered rejecting a mere man who claimed to forgive sins, thus implicitly claiming to be God? It took the Holy Spirit for people to recognize that Jesus was far more than a mere man, and takes the Holy Spirit draw Protestants and Catholics alike into a faithful and obedient submission to the spiritual, doctrinal, and moral authority of the Catholic Church.

After all, who can respect a church that has its members confess their sins to a priest, a church that claims to administer forgiveness to man’s sins? Who can respect a church that has its members worship a wafer, a cookie-god as some of its more vehement detractors would put it? Who could respect a church that claims that Christians must truly eat the body and blood of Jesus to be saved? Who would respect a church that hails Jesus’s mother Mary as the Queen of Heaven and the Ark of the New Covenant? Who would respect a church that claims to this day that you have to be a member of it to be saved? Who would respect a church that claims final authority on all matters of faith and morals over its members and says that the fullness of truth subsists only in it?

The Catholic Church, like our Lord who founded Her, must be followed closely or rejected strongly. She must be shouted at with repulsion or listened to with attraction. I think the main value of Surprised by Truth is to awaken non-Catholics to the radical claim made by the Catholic Church that Jesus shares the fullness of the Way, the Truth, and the Life through this institution that he founded two thousand years ago…and that Protestants of every stripe are converting it to it in droves. The Catholic Church claims to offer the fullness of revealed truths, moral teachings, and life-giving sacraments given to Her by our Savior; no denomination has ever made such a claim, just like no other “wise teacher” ever made the claims that Jesus made about himself. Many people missed the Messiah two-thousand years ago because on the surface, he appeared all too human. To offer an analogy, the Catholic Church, from an outside perspective, looks pretty much like any other old brick building with dark, colorless windows. But if you would enter her doors, you would find, as our converts have, that the church is much bigger, and much more beautiful, on the inside.

One final thought – The “I respect…” phrase implies a “but…” phrase, and thus contains a subtle dismissive tone. Could I ask you to clarify more precisely what comes to your mind after the “but”? Your paragraph’s startling move from your perspective to the nebulous perspective of “many non-Roman Christians” leaves me wondering if the implied “but” phrase is “…but I like where I am, and who could hold me accountable for a position that so many others have also taken?” This presumption could miss the mark entirely, I realize, which is why I would appreciate the clarification.

Of course, the exciting drama of many stories contained within Surprised by Truth is how the converts got to the point where all they wanted to do was dismiss the Catholic Church, but they couldn’t. They had found the one thing—the one reason—to be Catholic: Truth…rock-solid, unchanging, universal, Truth.

Notes:

(1) The Catholic Church consists of three parts: the church triumphant (the saints in heaven), the church suffering (the saints in Purgatory), and the church militant (the saints on earth). All are members of Christ's body, and all are members in the Communion of Saints that exists through the sole mediation of Jesus Christ. Therefore let us pray for one another, let us pray for the saints in purgatory, and let us ask the intercession of Mary and the saints who praise God in His heavenly temple. We are truly one body in Christ.

One implication of this is that our vision for Christian unity must extend beyond the oligarchy of the living (another one of my favorite Chesterton phrases). What we need to ask Jesus is how he planned to unite the entire body of Christ, which exists throughout space and time--and which exists on earth and in heaven--in a way as mysteriously profound as that unity we call the Trinity.

An Evangelical Responds to Surprised by Truth

Criticisms of the Catholic Church come in a variety of forms and modes of expression. One purpose of this blog is to provide responses to criticisms made by non-Catholics so that other Catholics may be better enabled to share their faith. (See this blog's Introduction.)

I recently loaned to a dear friend an extra copy of Surprised by Truth, edited by Patrick Madrid. She was kind enough to write a short review of the book, which I am giving below (with her permission). I'll refer to her by her online blogname: mozartmovement. (She is an excellent writer, whose musing are found at mozartmovement.blogspot.com.)

Mozartmovement's comments are brief, but as someone who loves discussing religion as much as anything else in life (it really is the most important thing, isn't it?), I'm afraid mine are not. The brevity of MM's comments, however, should not mask the importance of the ideas and influences that give birth to them. I hope that my extended response will help bring some of these issues to light, so that my readers will have a better sense of 1) what issues are at stake when Protestants make seemingly benign statements (some may be bigger than one might think), and 2) how to open dialogue by asking questions about the other person's thoughts. If Christian's are to achieve the unity Christ prayed for in John 17, one step must be open and frank dialogue about issues both sides care about deeply. While I hope that my response is not offensive in any way, I do hope it puts a bug in the mind of those who claim the non-denominational mindset that my friend espouses so that we can find the motivation to keep this important conversation alive.

The remainder of this post consists of the book report written by Mozartmovement. I will issue my response in a series of postings to follow.

Book report _Surprised by Truth_ Patrick Madrid
I respect the Catholic Church. Many non-Roman Christians value its history and its early teachings, as well as its current bioethics. But the contributors to this work start from strikingly anti-Catholic biographies. And with ironic uniformity, each of these writers had a classic “born again” experience, thanks to outspoken Evangelical “Fundamentalists.” These were not incidental detours, but indispensable bridges on each author’s spiritual path. Do they dispose of this? Or credit it? How do they excise their former Protestantism yet retain their re-birth? The church they reject is not entirely mine, and the one they embrace shares much with mine. Many Protestants agree with what Al Kresta calls “doctrinal minimalism.”(p.260). Being very sure of very few doctrinal essentials is the hallmark of the non-denominationalism that Kresta experienced, and that I agree with. True, much chaos exists in Protestantism, but the unity of Roman Catholicism is hardly as self-evident as these writers imply. They fail to mention both ancient schisms and modern diversity. Understandably, they value authority. The lack of indisputable leadership may be a shortcoming among Protestants, but it may also be seen as a safeguard. There are able leaders, whose ministries can be scrutinized, even if there is no Pope. I have had a long-standing warm regard for the Catholic Church. While this volume does not kindle that warmth into flame, it doesn’t chill it, either.

Father Cantalamessa on the Holy Spirit

The preacher to the papal household, Father Cantalamessa, offered a profound meditation on the relationship between the Holy Spirit, the individual, and the Church during his third Lenton sermon of 2009.

The entire homily can be read at:

http://www.zenit.org/article-25499?l=english

Especially interesting from an apologetics perspective is the fourth section, where Father addresses the necessity of the Spirit's guidance of the visible Catholic Church as well as the danger of individuals relying only on this guidance without the interior docility to the Holy Spirit.

This article is especially useful for Protestants to read, since many harbor a fear that obedience to the church will somehow stifle the interior movement of the Holy Spirit in their lives. I know of few writings that address this concern so succinctly, directly, and movingly as this homily. The fact that the homily was addressed to the papal household should reassure Protestants that the Catholic Church from the top down appreciates the interior movement of the Holy Spirit in the individual as much as it recognizes the importance of the guidance of the church that the Spirit provides.