Modernity as another in a line of Catholic schisms…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christian Theology, you ask?\u00a0 Well\u2026that there is one big can of worms.\u00a0 Actually, it\u2019s more like a 2000 year old tangle of cobwebs.\u00a0 Dusty.\u00a0 Old.\u00a0 Took a really, really long to accumulate.\u00a0 So, so many threads.\u00a0 And once you walk into them, engaging with them, trying to untangle them\u2026the strands start falling apart.\u00a0 You walk in and the strands get sticky and clingy and after awhile\u2026the strands don\u2019t resemble the thing you first looked at and might have found attractive in the first place.\u00a0 So why bother trying to untangle that which cannot be untangled?\u00a0 And falls apart when you do try to untangle it?<\/p>\n

Not an easy answer, really.\u00a0 In fact, even for those highly schooled in the subject, the strands of Christian theology are nearly impossible to separate neatly into a nice, organized linear argument that most people can easily follow.\u00a0\u00a0 Put another way, the explanation as to why God is real is difficult to fathom on a rational basis.\u00a0 And that is the problem.\u00a0 Because if you can\u2019t explain it to a six year old child in a way they can understand, how exactly does one explain it? \u00a0I mean\u2026you know\u2026the origin of everything?\u00a0 Morality?\u00a0 Why people suffer if God is a just and humane God.\u00a0 Why human moral history separates us from all of God\u2019s other creatures.\u00a0 Does life have purpose? (1) These are age old questions people have wrestled with for eons but still struggle with at a personal and institutional level today.\u00a0 And really, they are vexing questions cosmologists and physicists go deaf, dumb and blind about trying to answer.\u00a0 The scientists are incapable of even formulating the questions correctly, let alone finding an answer.<\/p>\n

To pose the predicament another way, the physical explanation for how the universe came into existence has little to do with crime, sin, war, genocide, government corruption, love and hate, personal success and personal failure, or the exact relationship between the sexes. \u00a0Put simply, it is the predicament of the Human Condition that theology attempts to engage with.\u00a0 What does God want?\u00a0 From both individuals and humanity as a whole?\u00a0\u00a0 It is a predicament all people find themselves in regardless of station in life, inherited talent, the language they speak or don\u2019t speak, family background, the meaning and purpose of human sexuality or for that matter, the circumstances under which children come into the world in the first place.\u00a0 All religions, at one level or another, deal in the same questions.<\/p>\n

From an intellectual standpoint, the tangle of Christian cobwebs starts at the beginning.\u00a0 To name some of the big issues:\u00a0 Was Jesus a man?\u00a0 Is he God?\u00a0 Or is He both?\u00a0 The Trinity Doctrine of Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.\u00a0\u00a0 The Doctrine of Original Sin.\u00a0 Pre-destination.\u00a0 Double Pre-destination.\u00a0 The Doctrine of Purgatory.\u00a0 Given all the doctrinal permutations, is it any wonder the history of Christianity is filled with sectarian strife, heresies, Reformations, Counter Reformations, and Inquisitorial councils seeking to stamp out one false idea or another.\u00a0 The 2000-year history of Europe can be traced through doctrinal differences and the response of secular rulers to the theological gyrations of the Papal Empire.<\/p>\n

In recognition of this tangle, The Church established the use of creeds or statements of belief; the Nicene Creed being the best example.\u00a0 For Christians lacking the interest or ability to dissect theological arguments, creeds or statements of belief become the means to establish discipline within congregations of the faithful.\u00a0 Have the faithful state the creed every Sunday until it becomes second nature.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry about the intellectual basis of the Creed\u2026 wink, wink, nod, nod. \u00a0There are priests to do the heavy mental work of doctrinal interpretation.\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cYou leave that up to us\u201d, say the priests.\u00a0 \u201cPlace your tithe here.\u201d\u00a0 There is a whole hierarchical order of prelates, to wit\u2026priests, bishops, arch-bishops, cardinals and the El Supremo of El Supremos, the vicarious representative of Christ Himself on Earth\u2026The Pope.\u00a0 Other churches use a hierarchical ecclesiastical structure, as well, including The Anglican Church and to a lesser extent the Scots Presbyterian Church.\u00a0 What the Churches did in the Old World was to exert their authority in conjunction with secular power whether Roman Catholic, Calvinist or Anglican.<\/p>\n

Enter the New World and separation of church and state.\u00a0 There is no state sanctioned religion in the United States and it\u2019s that way on purpose.\u00a0 The Constitution of the United States prohibits it.\u00a0 The founding fathers recognized the corruption inherent in marrying secular state power with ecclesiastical power.\u00a0 And the result over time?\u00a0 A veritable cornucopia of new sects, creeds and beliefs emerged; and the state does not recognize any one of them as being superior to any of the others.\u00a0 Further, the state derives its legitimacy from consent of the people rather than what it had been for the 1500 years previously, namely The Divine Right of Kings; i.e. secular authority deriving its authority from the consent of the governed rather than the will of God. Since the will of God is unfathomable, except by priests, of course, the Kings will was unquestionable.\u00a0 The only person on Earth who retains that sort of unquestioned infallibility is the Pope.\u00a0 Nonetheless, I can assure you, all popes are fallible.\u00a0 If they weren\u2019t, church doctrine wouldn\u2019t change from one pope to the next, Christian theology wouldn\u2019t be the tangle it\u2019s always been and the Christian God could be explained to a child without having to resort to superstitious nonsense, hand waving, and saying \u201cjust trust me\u201d.<\/p>\n

Which leads back to Pope Francis, or as we like to call him The Bubblegum Pope; i.e. he keeps your jaw busy but loses his flavor pretty quickly.\u00a0 Unfortunately for the Christian world, his predecessor got the heave-ho.\u00a0 As a reminder, Pope Benedict XVI resigned, the first to do so in 719 years.\u00a0 We would also argue Benedict was the first pope to do so ever, since the first one to do it was in the middle of a medieval power struggle and probably didn\u2019t do it of his own free will.\u00a0 Benedict resigned for public relations.\u00a0 Since the church, like many institutions these days, is run by public relations departments and not run by what churches are supposed to be run by which is a higher moral calling, why not swap out popes?\u00a0\u00a0 Benedict had substantial academic credentials and tended to speak in complete extemporaneous paragraphs filled with literary, biblical and historical references.\u00a0 You see, he is an educated man in a way Francis is not.\u00a0 What the church needed was somebody that would appeal to people the same way Disneyland appeals to children; something easy to digest in the TV and internet eras.\u00a0 The pope that faced down Communism Francis is not.\u00a0 The church also needed to separate itself from the wretchedness of the pedophilia scandal.\u00a0 \u201cIsn\u2019t the new pope great?\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t look like a pedo at all!\u201d\u00a0 So out with the old pope and any vestiges of claims to moral authority.\u00a0 Francis is simply meant to appeal to TV audiences, be they Roman Catholic, other Christian, Muslim, Jew or what have you.\u00a0 All comers welcome regardless of creed or belief.\u00a0 You don\u2019t even have to be Roman Catholic to be a Roman Catholic!\u00a0 Because being a Roman Catholic means nothing any more.\u00a0 No meaningful distinctions are made in order to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.\u00a0 Such is the way they are trying to solve their public relations problem.\u00a0 It\u2019s the multicultural version of Catholicism.\u00a0 Francis can\u2019t even bring himself to defend Christians in Muslim countries being slaughtered by the thousands for fear of causing offense.\u00a0 In other words, the Roman Catholic Church has succumbed to the age of modernity like large parts of academia and large part of the body politic in Western nations.\u00a0 It too takes part in Moralistic Therapeutic Secularism.\u00a0 Want proof?\u00a0 Instead of defrocking, excommunicating and handing over pedophile priests to the secular authorities, they handed them over to psychologists claiming expertise in the rehabilitation of pedophiles.\u00a0 By the way, there is no such expertise.\u00a0 The only expertise in pedophilia resides with the hangman\u2019s noose or prison.\u00a0 And once the shrinks were done with the pedo-priests and pronounced them cured what happened?\u00a0 They were released back into circulation and started abusing kids again like they had always done (2).\u00a0 So much for modern therapeutic methods.\u00a0 And, so is the method of modernity as practiced by the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Francis\u2026politics, public relations, and liberation theology.\u00a0 But no claims to moral rectitude as practiced for the last 2000 years.<\/p>\n

Which leads us back to Mr. Tyson.\u00a0 He, at least, seems genuine; if only for his suffering; and, the suffering is genuine, whether self-inflicted or not.\u00a0 The dabbling in philosophy seems to us like another means to gain control of a chaotic life; to bring some sense to it.\u00a0 And whether one wants to strike out on one\u2019s own into philosophy or to make a stab at bringing sense to Christian theology, we sincerely wish him the best of luck.\u00a0 You see, we think Soren Kierkegaard had it about right.\u00a0 Belief in the divine is a supreme leap of faith across the gap of the unknown.\u00a0 For some people the gap may be a crack in the sidewalk and easily traversed with a meager emotional leap.\u00a0 For others, the gap is simply too wide to span with reason and therefore unbridgeable.\u00a0 Perhaps Misters Tyson and Kierkegaard should provide for us examples of exactly how it\u2019s done.\u00a0 Pope Francis\u2026not at all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
• A History of the Jews; Johnson, Paul; Harper and Row; New York; 1987; p161.<\/li>\n
• The Grand Design; Hawking, Steven; Bantam Books; 2010; pp 32-33<\/li>\n
• Report says clergy sexual abuse brought \u2018smoke of Satan\u2019 into Church; Filteau, Jerry; Catholic News Service; February 27, 2004<\/li>\n
• The Elements of Philosophy, A Compendium for Philosophers and Theologians; Wallace, William; Wipf & Stock; Eugene; 1977<\/li>\n
• Christianity, The First Three Thousand Years; MacCulloch, Diarmaid; Viking Penguin; New York; 2010<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

   <\/p>\n

   <\/p>\n

   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Modernity as another in a line of Catholic schisms…<\/strong><\/p>\n

  Christian Theology, you ask?\u00a0 Well\u2026that there is one big can of worms.\u00a0 Actually, it\u2019s more like a 2000 year old tangle of cobwebs.\u00a0 Dusty.\u00a0 Old.\u00a0 Took a really, really long to accumulate.\u00a0 So, so many threads.\u00a0 And once you walk into them, engaging with them, trying to untangle them\u2026the strands start falling apart.\u00a0 You walk in and the strands get sticky and clingy and after awhile\u2026the strands…… <\/p>\n

  Read More<\/i><\/a><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[16,17,18],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoolofvice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoolofvice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoolofvice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoolofvice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoolofvice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/schoolofvice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198,"href":"https:\/\/schoolofvice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions\/198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoolofvice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/87"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoolofvice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoolofvice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoolofvice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}