Time Magazine and Christianity Today Rethink the Bible on Divorce, Separation, and Remarriage

The American Papist blog has an interesting review of an article in the recent issue of Time magazine regarding a growing flexibility among evangelicals when it comes to interpreting the Bible on the subject of divorce. Check it out:

Time Magazine Rethinks Scripture on Divorce, Separation and Remarriage

The fact-pattern: Christianity Today publishes an article entitled "When to Separate What God has Joined: A Closer Reading on the Bible on Divorce" which attempted to revise the biblical teaching on these questions so that it could be reconciled to the modern prevalence of divorce in secular societies well as Evangelical circles.

David Van Biema covers the story for Time magazine, and it has become one of the most popular articles being read on the Internet.My take:A false assumption plagues this piece from the outset (all underlining mine):

Last month, the cover story of the monthly Christianity Today was titled "When to Separate What God has Joined: A Closer Reading on the Bible on Divorce." The heated controversy provoked by the story showed how Biblically flexible some Evangelicals can be — especially when God's word seems at odds not just with modern American behavior, but also with simple human kindness. Catch that? Jesus' teaching on marriage doesn't seem to square even with "simple human kindness." Jesus' historical teaching that husbands cannot put away their wives and thereby marginalize their subsistence was actually contrary not only to "modern American behavior" (the new normative guide to morality?), but also to "simple human kindness." You know, the stuff that's just darn evident to everyone. Cruel Jesus, making husbands keep their wives.

From the beginning the author operated upon the false premise that Jesus' teaching on marriage required all spouses to remain with their husbands no matter what. This false premise appears again in the second paragraph:
Finally, Instone-Brewer tallies four grounds for divorce he finds affirmed in both Old and New Testaments: adultery, emotional and sexual neglect, abandonment (by anyone) and abuse.

What is in fact allowed in these cases is separation (which no one would argue, if the grounds for separation are legitimate). Remarriage is an entirely different question, but don't expect Van Biema to present that consideration.Errors quickly compound as Van Biema's inability to distinguish separation from "divorce" play-out:

... the Instone-Brewer essay appeared to be its editors' attempt to offer Evangelicals an escape from a classic dilemma. The "plain sense" of Jesus's words without quotes seems clear enough, but also inhumane: how could a loving God forbid divorce, even by omission, in cases of wife-beating, or of abandonment by a Christian spouse?

See above. Jesus isn't teaching that women should stay in an abusive marriage. Perhaps the "plain sense" of scripture mentioned here isn't enough. That's no surprise. But it's wrong to conclude that a holistic reading of the biblical accounts contradicts the "plain sense" teaching of Jesus against divorce, when accurately understood.

Next it really gets good (by which I mean, of course, bad):

Each branch of Christianity deals with divorce in its own way: Catholicism bans it entirely, but many divorced and remarried couples nonetheless find that their conscience permits them to take Communion.

Error count rising. "Catholicism bans [divorce] entirely." False. Legal divorce which results in the de facto separation of spouses is allowed, and even suggested to spouses in an abusive relationship. Van Biema happily constructs a straw-man of the Church's teaching. And it's easy to destroy a straw-man. And it's rare to find anything but straw-men in this treatment.

Second error: "Many divorced and remarried couples nonetheless find that their conscience permits them to take Communion." Well, receiving Communion isn't only a matter of "finding oneself permitted." If one has remarried after a divorce, and has not received an annulment from their marriage, the Church presumes that they are committing fornication, which as a mortal sin, bars the communicant from receiving until they have confessed.

Amazingly, the article even quotes someone who brings up the significance of remarriage:

If a split itself is inescapable, notes Christianity Today editor Andy Crouch, "remarriage is where the rubber meets the road," and many remarried couples find themselves denied church membership.

It remains inextricable to me why Van Biema didn't claim something along the lines of "nonetheless, many Evangelicals find that their conscience permits them to remain part of their church." Such flawed ecclesiology evidently applies to Catholics - why don't Evangelicals get the same (false) primacy of conscience option?

Van Biema seems to have encountered at least one person who realized that he wasn't going to understand the problem, but incredibly, Van Biema takes this reticence to discuss the issue as some sort of "gotcha!":

Asked if he does [believe that an abused woman should leave the marriage], Moore demurred: "Let me think about that for a little bit. I could answer in a way that would be very easily misunderstood."

I don't think the interviewee was demurring because he thought his answer was incorrect, I think it is more likely the case that he didn't want his words twisted. Well, they were anyway.

Van Biema wraps it all up for us:

Still, the controversy suggests that even the country's most rule-bound Christians will search for a fresh understanding of scripture when it seems unjust to them. The implications? Flexibility on divorce may mean that evangelicals could also rethink their position on such things as gay marriage, as a generation of Christians far more accepting of homosexuality begins to move into power....It could also give heart to a certain twice-divorced former New York mayor who is running for President and seeking the conservative vote. But that may be pushing things a bit.

The message: when scripture doesn't square with a) your pre-conceived categories of justice, or b) the practice of individuals or c) could get in the way of your presidential-hopefuls candidacy then...Rethink scripture.

Oh! And hey, while we're at it, we can revise what the scriptures teach about homosexuality and "gay marriage". Isn't it amazing what new vistas of human self-fulfillment are available to those who ...Revise scripture.

(A note to Christianity Today: when Time Magazine starts agreeing with you, that's a warning sign.)

Update: And of course, if we want to be cynical about it (not saying we don't), this article is handily presented by Time just as Rudy Giuliani begins to take increasing flack for his multiple remarriages (this claim is supported by the fact that the Christianity Today article is evidently over a month old already) . And who, you might ask, is dishing out the Giuliani criticism? *drum roll* ... that's right: evangelicals and social conservatives! So what better time than the present to paint them as hypocrites? And hey, if we can call into doubt the teaching of Scripture on homosexuality, then all the better. Forget rethinking or revising, let's just forget it."

http://www.americanpapist.com/2007/11/
time-magazine-rethinks-scripture-on.html

____________________________________

Some more background to the question of DIVORE & REMARRIAGE:

Jesus revealed that Moses allowed divorce in Dueteronomy 24:1-4 as a temporary provision because of "hardness of... heart" (Matt 19:7-9). But Jesus restored God's original plan of indissoluble marriage (Matt 19:3-9); therefore, the Catholic Church continues to teach that a valid marriage between a baptized man and woman cannot be dissolved for any reason except death. It can't be ended by a civil divorce (or even by an annulment, which is not "Catholic divorce" but rather the determination a marriage was not valid in the first place.) Some Protestants claim that Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9 allow exceptions to Jesus' teaching on indissolubility: 'whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity [porneia in original Greek], and marries another, commits adultery" [Revised Standard Version]. Here, porneia is used in a technical senes to forbid incestuous marriages among close relatives (as in Acts 15:20 and 1 Cor 5:1). Those illicit unions are not valid marriages in the first place. Note that not a single Greek-speaking Church Father ever saw in Matthew 5 and 19 exceptions to Christ's law of indissolubility. Until Martin Luther declared that marriage was only a civil union in 1520, all Christians unanimously held that marriage is indissoluble and that divorce from a legitimate marriage cannot be followed by remarriage.

-Taken from The Bible Thumper - Vol. 2: Sacrament, Morality, Afterlife [pamphlet on the Scriptural basis for Catholic beliefs; Jim Burnham, Brian Butler, and Matthew Pinto authors; Ascension Press; www.TheBibleThumper.com - www.AscensionPress.com ]

Does Angel Ministries Distort Catholic Teaching? (part 2: The Rosary)

TO: AVA ZETTEL, AnGel Ministries – I am sending you (via email) 3 letters regarding theological questions that stem from reading your website. Someone came to our parish requesting to leave fliers for the “Just Give Me Jesus” women’s rally on April 18 and 19 at Wells Fargo in Des Moines, Iowa. After reading information on your website I would like to comment on how a knowledgable, practicing Catholic would likely respond to your ministry. God bless-Chris
__________________________________________________
my original email:

Hello. I was reading your statement of faith and the section about being certain of going to heaven and I had a question. What did you mean when you said 'you don't have to count beads'?Thank you.

reply:

Dear Chris,

Thank you for your email and for your question regarding this section repeated below in the Know You Will Go To Heaven portion of our Statement of Faith. As Christians we believe that our advocate is Christ Himself and that we need no other go-between, method or practice to speak to our Heavenly Father.
Chris, I pray this answers your question satisfactorily. Please let us know if you require further information.
Trusting Jesus for every provision for you,
Ava Zettel AnGeL Ministries 5115 Hollyridge Drive Raleigh, NC 27612-3111
Tel: 919.787-6606 Fax: 919.782-3669 www.annegrahamlotz.com
________________________________________________

My second email:

Ava,
Thank you for your reply. However, you did not quite answer my question about what "counting beads" refers to.
You did write that "as Christians we believe that our advocate is Christ Himself and that we need no other go-between, method or practice to speak to our Heavenly Father."

1. What is the rosary?
By "method" in relation to "counting beads" I might guess that you are referring to praying the rosary, perhaps? Or am I off-base here? If this is the case, I would respectfully suggest that you learn a little more about this particular Catholic devotion.

For one thing, the rosary does not involve "counting beads." There are 5 "decades" of 10 beads on a rosary, to correspond to the 10 Hail Mary prayers and 1 bead for the Our Father. There are a total of 20 mysteries that trace the life of Christ. The one who prays does not "count" the beads. Originally, the 150 hail mary beads (the original 15 mysteries x 10 hail mary beads per mystery) was a number taken from the original monastic tradition of praying the 150 psalms in the desert.

However, the number of beads is more or less arbitrary. The objective is not to pray the Hail Mary 10 times as if the number really mattered… or as if it was some rigid formula or rite that was necessary to communicate with the Father (like a secret password). There are 10 beads simply to allow the one praying to enter into a rhythm of prayer and maintain focus, without the mind falling into distraction (like saying, "I am going to set the timer and pray for 30 minutes, and then once the timer goes off, I can finish my conversation with the Lord if I need to).

I must also point out that the Church does not anywhere teach that the rosary is a "method to speak to our Heavenly Father" that is necessary for salvation. Indeed, the Church teaches that the Rosary is one of the many ways of praying to God, in addition to Prayers such as the Jesus Prayer ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner"), and lectio divina ("sacred reading")--the use of imagination and contemplation in order to encounter our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Scriptures. In fact, although the Church recommends the rosary as a time-honored and fruitful devoion, technically, one could be a faithful Catholic “in good standing” even if they do not pray the rosary or if they do not even value it as a devotion. The rosary is simply a devotional prayer and not some go-between for talking to God.

Through repeating the prayers of the Hail Mary (which, for the most part, is taken right out of Luke Ch. 1), the Hail Mary prayers become a background rhythm that allows the prayer to meditate upon the individual mysteries of Jesus Christ:

• 
  The Joyful Mysteries [traditionally prayed on Monday, and Saturday]: the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Presentation, the Finding of Jesus in the Temple, the Finding of Jesus in the Temple
• The Luminous Mysteries [traditionally prayed on Thursday]: the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, the Wedding Feast at Cana, the proclamation of the kingdom and call to conversion, the transfiguration, and the Institution of the Eucharist (Last Supper)
• The Sorrowful Mysteries [traditionally prayed on Tuesday and Friday]: The agony in the garden, the scourging at the pillar, the crowning with thorns, the carrying of the cross, the crucifixion and death of our Lord
• The Glorious Mysteries [traditionally prayed on Wednesday and Sunday]: The resurrection, the ascension, the descent of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost), the Assumption of Mary, and the Coronation of Mary

Many people also pray “scriptural rosaries” that include short sentences from Scripture read between each Hail Mary to more deeply enter into contemplation. [see my article: http://swallowedscroll.blogspot.com/2006/10/
want-to-add-some-power-to-your-rosary.html

The Bible talks of how Mary witnessed the actions of Jesus and heard his words and “kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart” (Luke 2:19; 51). The rosary is a prayer form whereby we meditate and reflect upon the actions of deeds of Christ in our heart.

When I pray the rosary, I try to meditate on the mysteries from Mary’s perspective, I use my imagination and visualize the mystery from what her vantage point would have been. As Mary reflects upon the mysteries of Christ eternally in heaven (as do all of the other saints), when we meditate on the life of Jesus we do this in the company of all the other saints. There is only one body of Christ—not two—the holy ones who have passed away are not “dead”, in deed, they are more fully alive than we are here on earth because they are in communion with God (though not complete yet, as they await the return of their glorified bodies at the final judgment).

The following is an article on the rosary that I wrote for my personal website. It might help you understand why many Christians pray the rosary, in addition to reading Holy Scripture, etc., as a way to keep the mysteries of Christ in their mind and heart and continually reflect upon them:

http://swallowedscroll.blogspot.com/2006/10/
how-rosary-draws-us-closer-to-jesus.html

Does AnGel Ministries Distort Catholic Teaching? (part 3: Communion of the Saints vs. Jesus 'the One Mediator'?

2. Are the saints mediators independent of Christ, the one true mediator between God and man?

It might help if I also explain some points about the communion of the saints.

In the Nicene Creed dating back to the 4th century we pray “I believe in the communion of the saints”. How would you define the communion of saints? Is it simply those living in this world that believe in Christ? Where are all those holy souls who have died? Are they somehow cut off from the Body of Christ that they once inhabited?

The Catholic understanding of the communion of saints is that the Church is the family of God. The saints are our “older brothers and sisters” who have gone before us. They are living examples of the Gospel and the “New Law” of Christ, they were so animated by the Holy Spirit and supernatural grace, they allowed Christ to live in them to such an extent that they become shining examples of Christian discipleship.

From the earliest times of the Church has honored (venerated—NOT worshipped!) the holy martyrs that lived out the grace of God to the extreme—dying for their faith. We see in graffiti on the ancient catacomb tombs through which Christians ask for these martyrs to pray for their brothers and sisters fighting the good fight here in this world. If you knew that your brother in Christ had died defending the Faith, and you know that Jesus has destroyed death and that your brother is somehow far more immediately in the presence of God then yourself, what would your attitude be? Would you forget about him? Would you think he was sleeping? Or, would you ask him to pray for the communion of saints that are still in this world.


Of course, asking for the saints' intercession does not mean that you are by-passing Jesus (“the one mediator between God and man”—1 Tim 2:5), or using another mediator. This is clear by the very fact that practically all Christians ask fellow Christians to pray for them (Rom 15:30; Col 4:3; 1 Thess 5:25; Eph 6:18-19; 2 Thess 3:1). Why do we do this if we could go “straight to Jesus”?

Why do we have this impulse to ask other Christians to pray for us when, at the same time, we have a very personal relationship with Christ and intercede to him directly all the time.

I think that the reason might be that God made us a communal people. We are meant to live in the Church as a communion of those who have one identity in Jesus Christ and preserve this bond in charity. In other words, being a Christian is not exclusively about “me and Jesus”. Being a Christian means being part of the Body of Christ—a communion, a family. Just as we do here in this life, it is natural to call upon our brothers and sisters. We are meant to be a tight family as Christians, so, of course we call upon the Lord directly,… but we also ask the saints to join us in our prayer (not because Jesus would not heed our prayer, otherwise, but simply because love impels us to call upon our brothers and sister).

It is true, however, that “the fervent prayer of a righteous man is very powerful.” James letter cites the power of Elijah’s prayer, and one could also give the unique power of Moses’ intercession, as well. Certainly, I will ask for the prayers of my brother and sister Christians in this world, but I will not neglect to ask for the prayers of my brothers and sisters who are fully perfected in charity (completely righteous and transformed by the grace of God), free from all sin, fully employed in the constant worship of God, with an immediate vision of the Lord (the beatific vision) and immediately in the presence of His heavenly throne. In other words, they are “expert prayers” at this point because they are oriented completely toward interceding and adoring the Lord (see Revelation 5:8; 8:3-4; etc.). Flooded with God’s love, they care more about us now than they did while on earth (they are concerned with events in this world—see Rev. 6:9-11). St. Paul asked his fellow Christians to pray for his ministry… do you think that he would disapprove of us asking him to now pray for us while we remain in the race? We only ask him to pray FOR US and WITH US to the Holy Trinity.

Some points to keep in mind:

1. 
   All Christians are members of Christ’s body and one another (Rom 12:5 and many others).
2. Jesus has only one body (Eph 4:4; Col 3;15)
3. Death cannot separate Christians from Christ or from one another (Rom 8:35-39). Death cannot cut us off from one another. In fact, the saints are not “dead” but, rather, are more fully alive than we are! God is the God of the living not the dead (see Mk 12:26-27).
4. Christians are bound in mutual love (Rom 12:10; 1 Thess 5:11; Gal 6:2).
   We are members of Christ’s body, united in His divine life even beyond the grave, and concerned with each other’s salvation and growth in God’s family. There are no 2 bodies of Christ—those “alive” and those who are “dead”.

Does “praying to the saints” mean that we are treating the saints as if they were gods? No, the term “praying to the saints” stems from the old meaning of the English word “to pray”—which used to also mean, “to ask”, i.e. “pray thee bring the letters here”… eventually shortened to “prithy”). We ask the saints to pray for us. We ask the Virgin Mary to pray for us because she is the highest of saints. Of course she is a creature (so it is false when non-Catholics charge Catholics with “worshipping” Mary), and as the most beautiful masterpiece of God’s grace (the one closest to Jesus—his own Mother) she is given the highest honor (veneration) among all the saints. However, we can ask for the prayers of Mary just as we do for any other saint.

Does asking for the prayers of the saints violate 1 Tim 2:5—the fact that there is one mediator between God and man? The answer is no. Jesus is our one mediator with regards to our salvation. However, Jesus employed the apostles and disciples to be his authorized mediators by preaching the Gospel and baptizing (Mt 28), working miracles (see Acts), forgiving sins (Jn 20:23), binding and loosing with the power of the keys (Mt 16:19), celebrating the Eucharist (1 Cor 11:23-24), being “ambassadors of Christ” exercising the “ministry of reconciliation”, laborers and co-workers in the vineyard, working in the “ministry of the Spirit “and the “ministry of righteousness” (2 Cor 3:8-9).

Jesus shared his many unique roles with the members of his Church: creator—parents are co-creators; Shepherd—Peter is chief shepherd (Jn 10:11-16 +Jn 21:15-16; and Eph 4:11); his one priesthood and mediation (see below).

All of these examples of ministry were commanded and commissioned by Jesus to the authority of his Church. They are all ways that he graciously allows his sinful human disciples to mediate his grace to the world. This does not mean that Jesus or the Holy Spirit does not, at the same time, work directly in the hearts of people. Of course He does. But Jesus also intended that the large body of Christ together mediate His truth and grace both before and especially after His ascension to the right hand of the Father.

Lastly, all of the saints are baptized into the very person of Christ. Jesus Christ is the only high priest (Heb 3:1; 7:24; 9:12; 10:12), the one mediator between God and man (1 Tim 2:5). However, with baptism, we are baptized into the one priesthood of Christ. We can offer sacrifices, sufferings, prayers of intercession, praises, etc. to God the Father by exercising our common baptismal priesthood of all believers. We exercise our priesthood in and through the one priesthood of Jesus. This is why we are not seeking out other mediators when we ask for the prayers of Mary and the other saints. We are simply exercising the priesthood of Christ together as His unified body bound in charity.

You must read 1 Tim 2:5 in the context of 1 Pet 2:5:

“let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.’

To share in Christ’s priesthood is to share in his one unique mediatorship, both in heaven and on earth. This is a wonderful grace of God and speaks the amazing dignity that he gives us through baptism.

In fact, if you read the wider context of 1 Tim 2:1-7, you see that Paul is asking Christians to offer prayers and intercession for all men—in other words, to participate in Christ’s unique mediation.

Jesus said, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches’, and it is true that, apart from Jesus, the saints would never be able to exercise any of these roles to any effect. It is only in virtue of Jesus that we can ask the saints for prayers and that they can intercede to the Triune God.

Catholic Q&A: Does baptism bring justification?

One reader left an anonymous comment in an old post regarding the "Have You Been Saved" question?

Here is the original post:
http://swallowedscroll.blogspot.com/2007/02/
catholic-q-have-you-been-saved.html

He or she wrote:

"You are justified by the Blood of Jesus (Romans 5:9), not by baptism. In the Scriptures their are 7 different types of Baptisms. I assure you that their is 1 baptism that you dont want to recieve. FIRE (Matthew 3:11)."

This individual quotes from Romans 5:9 for the fact that we are justified by the Blood of Christ, but does not give a scriptural citation for the explicit belief that baptism does not justify. To say that we are justified by the blood of Christ is the same as saying that we are justified by the death of Christ (jn 3:16ff), and, to put it more fully, the entire paschal mystery (the life, passion, death, and resurrection of Christ). The question then is how do we appropriate the salvfic paschal mystery of Jesus? If one reads further into Romans Chapter 6, we discover that the answer is faith AND BAPTISM:

"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (Rom 6:3-4).

Of course we are saved by the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross! No Catholic denies that it is the Blood of Jesus that saves us. Indeed, the Precious Body and Blood is the very lifeblood of the Christian soul. Our Lord promised that if we eat his body and drink his blood we abide in him as he abides in us (Jn 6:56); we have eternal life and will be raised up on the last day (Jn 6:54). On the contrary, if we do not eat His body and drink His blood we have no life within us (Jn 6:53). This is why Catholics enter the body of Christ the Church and are incorporated into the life, passion, death, and resurrection of Christ through baptism (Rom 6:3-7) and confirmation [or, in the East, "chrismation"] (Acts 8:14-17), and then obey the Lord's command to 'do this in memory of me'--celebrating the Holy Eucharist (Lk 22:14-23; Mk 14:22-25; Mt 26:26-29; 1 Cor 11:23-26; Acts 2:46-47; Lk 24:13-35--the structure of the Eucharistic celebration). When approaching the mystical supper, of course, we must do so worthily, "for any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself" (1 Cor 11:29).

Baptism is not a mere symbol. Jesus said that "no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is first born of "water and the Spirit" (Jn 3:5). This is an obvious reference to water baptism.
St. Paul says that we are washed in the bath of rebirth (Titus 3:5) and the First Letter of St. Peter states that "baptism now saves you" (1 Pet 3:21). In his grand preaching immediately after Penetcost, St. Peter roared, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). Notice that the Holy Spirit was not given to disciples until the full rite of baptism was completed, with water, the laying on of hands, and anointing [the Church sees confirmation as a separate sacrament, though the completion of baptism]:

"Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them to receive the Holy Spirit; for the Spirit had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit" (Acts 8:14-17).

One is justified by Christ because one receives gift of the Holy Spirit that Our Lord freely gives us. This passage makes it very clear that baptism is not simply an external symbolic act of a profession of faith (as baptists would have you believe). Rather, it actually matters how you administer baptism (in the Trinitarian formula [Mt 28:18-20] and not simply "in the name of Jesus"; complete with the laying on of hands; etc.). It says that "then they laid their hands on them" and what immediately follows is "they received the Holy Spirit." We are justified by faith and water baptism. The act of faith is intimately tied to the reception of the sacrament through Jesus' commissioned Church.

The teaching of the Holy Scriptures and Sacred Tradition (as seen in the ancient liturgy, church councils, and church fathers) are clear that we are justified through faith in Jesus Christ and Trinitarian baptism.

More detailed apologetics from the Scripture Catholic apologetics website:
http://www.scripturecatholic.com/baptism.html#baptism-I
http://www.scripturecatholic.com/baptism.html#baptism-II

But don't trust my interpretation of Scripture, trust the early Church fathers who were much closer to the time of Jesus, his apostles, and their successors the bishops of the ancient Church:
http://www.scripturecatholic.com/baptism.html#tradition-I

Incidentally, the individual who left the comment on the original post never refuted or challenged the argument made therein. They do not even address the scriptural evidence given, they simply take one verse of Scripture out of context and use it to assert something that the text does not teach. They use the one scriptural passage to try to back-up a false Protestant tradition.

How to Answer the Anti-Catholic Question Barage

• I found this Protestant-Catholic exchange interesting. The following is from "Apologetics for the Masses", Issue 64; the electronic newsletter of John Martignoni's Bible Christiam Society [ www.biblechristiansociety.org ] (As usual, I highlight some points in bold, this is my emphasis not the author's)
  ____________________________________
  In the last issue, I gave you an email that Russell D., a Catholic radio listener, had sent to Doug S. at one of the Catholic radio stations, and I asked you to think about how you would respond to that email. I received a number of emails from folks with their responses, which I cannot respond to individually, but about which I will say were, for the most part, spot on.
  
  ...below is his email followed by my response to his email. I do not claim that my response is the absolute best response one could make, but I think it is an example of how you could respond to any email that has a number of arguments in it which go in all different directions…even if the writer of the email is more coherent than the example we have here. So, this is not so much an example of a response to someone who isn’t making much sense, as it is an example of a response to someone who comes at you from a number of different directions all at the same time.
  
  I will reproduce Russel’s email below and then follow it with my response and the thinking (strategies) behind my response.
  
  Challenge/Response/Strategy
  From: Russell D.
  To: Doug S.
  Subject: Re: [Fwd: spiritual warfare, 2006-09-16]
  
  Dear Doug:
  Sorry for the VERY late reply, almost a year later, and thank you for it, but as to not knowing what Catholics believe, having God’s Word that the Vatican has replaced with its own teaching like the Pharaisees did and for which Jesus condemned them, by the grace of God, I know far more about the TRUTH, that is Jesus, than Vaticanism and its adherants (since Rome is now officially secular one can no longer call it Romanism), also having John Paul II’s official Catechism and various other websites intelligently exposing the various errors of Vaticanism comparable and successor to the similarly erroneous Pharaisees and their sacerdotal system of Jesus’s day that the apostles abolished in the power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, understanding what Jesus meant in John 19:30 when He said “It is finished!” meaning, as Hebrews makes clear the total fulfillment and termination of the Old Covenant i n Himself upon the tree, as the butterfly terminates the caterpillar, one of the earliest Christian symbols of the resurrection, including the Ten Commandments that no longer apply to the Christian as far too lacking compared to the infinitely higher standard demanded by the abiding resurrected Christ (e.g. Matthew 5, especially 21-44 and His replacing the Old Covenant with His own:
  1. enlarging/replacing commandment 6 (don’t murder) with love, 5:21-26,
  2. enlarging/replacing no committing adultery with no looking/thinking about it 5:27-30,
  3. enlarging/replacing unlimited divorce with its qualified abolition, 5:31-32,
  4. enlarging/replacing permitting oaths with their abolition, 5:33-37,
  5. enlarging/replacing revenge with grace, 5:38-42 and
  6. enlarging/replacing love of neighbor to love of enemy, 5:43-44).

Since Jesus wrote the Decalog and gave them to Moses as pre-Incarnate Christ, He has every right to rewrite them according to His perfect understanding of man’s further development in obeying Him more fully than previously. Those who still would hearken to the Ten Commandments are like the Judaizers Paul constantly fought who rejected His Lord Jesus and whom he finally anathemized in order to protect his converts from the Pharaisees’ evil ungodly religious sacerdotal system exalting man above God via cleverly disguised salvation by works, like the Reformers anathemized various doctrines of Rome to protect their converts to Christ from a similar evil ungodly religious sacerdotal system exalting man above God via cleverly disguised salvation by works.

As antidotes to this poison I recommend you visit http://www.aomin.org/ and http://www.monergism.com/ and especially http://www.desiringgod.org/ to see the true Christian faith presented versus Vaticanism’s illiterate sacerdotal system that depends on ignorance to sustain it, sadly including even the ignorance of its clergy, as the above websites prove.

You prayed God would bless my journey to “Truth,” but His Word in John, both 8:32 and 14:6, says that that is Jesus Himself versus an abstraction of modern philosophy, and the book of Hebrews further rejects the toleration of any other mediator than Christ, like Mary or the saints who, knowing both Hebrews and its divine author would condemn Vaticanism for the corrupt antiChrist system, even though there are many godly Catholics justified by faith alone as God and His Word require, though in their ignorance they fail to understand, like Sam Brownback, that in the eyes of Vaticanism, bound by Trent, they are anathema. Everyone who asks a saint for help has turned his back on Jesus and turned his back on and violated Hebrews, the very Word of God they claim to worship. 1 Timothy 2:5 “For [there is] one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” and Hebrews, chapters 8, 9 & 12.

That anyone would turn to a mere saint for help, according to popular error and Vatican false teaching, instead of Jesus, as God commands in the Scriptures above, even if the saints could hear and act (which Abraham declares by the chasm fixed in Luke16 they cannot (meaning Catholics use Church teaching to reject God’s Word and Abraham’s, making them no children of Abraham, like it was with the Pharisees). One can only wonder how satan has led the Vatican astray with his various Marian apparitions the gullible who reject Christ accept without discernment: 2 Corinthians 11:14-15 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. 15 Therefore [it is] no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. John 7:24 Judge not according to the appearance but judge righteous judgment.

1 Corinthians 2:14-16 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he that is spiritual discerns all things, yet he himself is discerned by no man. 16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he shall instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.
God bless you and may He move you to a blessed journey to Jesus Who is The Way, The Truth and The Life.
Russ D.
________________________________________________________

Response by John Martignoni:

"...If, however, you are capable of making an error when interpreting Scripture, then please give me a reason why I should believe your intepretation of Scripture vs. my interpretation of Scripture?

In other words, why should I believe what you say if you could indeed be wrong? ..."

Dear Russell,

Doug S. forwarded your email to me and asked me to respond. Forgive the delay in replying, but I’ve been doing a lot of traveling in the last several weeks and that always gets me behind.
Anyway, back to your email. You’ll have to forgive me, but I’m from Alabama and we’re not all that smart, so I had a bit of a time trying to follow what you were saying. So, what I would like to do, if you don’t mind, is just simplify the discussion a bit, assuming you’re open to discussing these matters.

Strategy/Comments: In other words, I’m going to “shift the paradigm,” so to speak. Instead of spending hours responding point-by-point to his rambling email, I’m going to basically ignore what he said and start off the argument where I choose to start it from. You can do this with pretty much anyone. You set the tone and let them follow.

If you are open to a discussion about Christ and truth and so forth, then I would like to start off by simply asking if you are infallible in what you teach? In other words, are you 100% certain that your interpretations of Scripture – from which you have derived everything you wrote below – are 100% accurate? Again, are you infallible in what you teach? Is it impossible for you to make an error in what you teach?

Strategy/Comments: I have never met a non-Catholic Christian who believes in the Catholic doctrine of infallibility. In other words, no man – the Pope or anyone else – is infallible in their view. If they believed the Pope was infallible, then the logical thing for them to do, would be to become Catholic. So, I think we can assume most, if not all, non-Catholic Christians do not believe in the doctrine of infallibility. Which means, when you ask someone if they are infallible, then you should get “No,” as an answer. Which means, that it is possible that they can make an error when it comes to matters of faith and morals. So, if there is the possibility that they can err in these areas, then it is possible that anything and everything they have said to you is in error. Make sure to point that out to them and do your best to get them to at least acknowledge the reasonability of that premise. Oh, one other thing – if you use a comm ent like, “If you’re really serious about finding truth,” or “If you’re really open to a discussion about Christ,” or something along those lines, then those who are serious about it, will more than likely respond. Those who aren’t, probably won’t.

I start there because you are asking us to believe what you have taught below. And, in what you have taught below in your email, there are a lot of words and thoughts that do not appear in Scripture. Which means you are interpreting Scripture, and asking us to believe in your interpretation for our salvation. I believe every single verse of Scripture that you quoted; however, I do not necessarily believe in your interpretation of those Scripture verses. So, it is very important to me to know if you are capable of making an error when interpreting Scripture or not.

Strategy/Comments: If you read Russel’s email, you will notice that the majority of it is composed of his words, not Scripture’s words. Which means that most of his email is either his interpretation of Scripture or his commentary on Scripture or on the Catholic Faith, but not Scripture itself. So, it is very important to let the other guy know that you agree 100% with every passage of Scripture that he quotes, but that you do not necessarily agree with his fallible, man-made, non-authoritative interpretation of Scripture…after all, he’s not infallible. He’s trying to set the rules for the discussion – what he claims is true and by golly you have to just accept it as being true – but you will have none of that.

And, if you are not capable of making an error when you interpret Scripture, if you are indeed infallible in your interpretation of Scripture, then please give me some evidence that I may believe such is the case. If, however, you are capable of making an error when interpreting Scripture, then please give me a reason why I should believe your intepretation of Scripture vs. my interpretation of Scripture? In other words, why should I believe what you say if you could indeed be wrong?

Strategy/Comments: In other words, show me where your name is in the Bible that I may believe that you are indeed infallible in your teaching. This paragraph contains one of the 4 main apologetics strategies that I teach: “But That’s My Interpretation!” Under Protestant theology, every person has not only the right, but the duty, to pick up the Bible and read it for themselves to decide what is true and what is false. What is true doctrine and what is false doctrine. So, under their theology, you have the right to read the Bible and decide for yourself what it means. When someone tells you that you, as a Catholic, are wrong in your interpretation of the Bible, all you have to do is point out that their theology gives you the right to interpret the Bible for yourself; therefore, they cannot tell you that you are wrong. They can, at best, tell you that they disagree with your interpretation. But, they have to admit, since they are not infallib le, that your interpretation could possibly be right, and that their interpretation could possibly be wrong. Which, if they think about it, will hopefully plant some seeds in their minds about the need for an infallible authority.

Basically, I’m asking if you believe your interpretation of Scripture to be more valid than my interpretation of Scripture, and, if so, why? By what authority do you teach?

Strategy/Comments: A good question to always ask someone is: Are you an authoritative interpreter of the Scriptures? If yes, how so? Who gave you such authority? If no, then why should I believe your interpretation?

If you could answer those few simple questions, I think we might be able to have a very good discussion here.

Strategy/Comments: I have not heard back from Russell, and I probably never will. Or, if I do hear back from him, I can almost guarantee that he will not respond to my questions and will simply give me another rambling email full of sentence run ons. In which case I can simply respond, “Russell, I asked you a simple question: Are you infallible or not. If you cannot answer that simple question, there’s no reason to continue this discussion.” But, for those who are a bit more rational than Russell appears to be, a response like the one I gave to Russell could lead to some very interesting dialogue – dialogue in which you are setting the pace and in which you are asking a lot of questions. At the very least, it will keep you from wasting your time with those who simply want to talk at you, rather than those who want to talk with you.

God bless!
John Martignoni
Founder/President
Bible Christian Society
http://www.biblechristiansociety.org/

Kenya's Anglican Church Consecrates 2 U.S. Bishops: Moving Closer to Ecclesial Anarchy

The Anglican Church in Kenya this week consecrated 2 U.S. Bishops to oversee Anglicans in the U.S. (the Episcopalian Church) who can no longer in good conscience be under the authority of their duly elected Episcopal Church bishop. The struggle, of course, is over the U.S. Church's consecrating openly gay bishops and blessing same-sex unions. The more traditional bishops of Kenya are stepping in to provide shepherds for American Anglicans who feel that the American Episcopal Church has betrayed the Gospel and the Sacred Tradition of the Church.

The article follows at this link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6970093.stm

In addition, I have some notes from an interview with Rt. Rev. Katherine Roscum, Bishop Suffragen of the Diocese of NY. This interview aired on National Public Radio some time in March or April 2007 (sorry, not very precise). Also, I do not have a full transcript (I would dig one up if I had the time--probably should, but...), so I am only posting excerpts and quotations from Roscum's comments. I do not wish to take her words out of context, but they should more or less speak for themselves. I meant to do a post on this back then, but became too busy with work... but I kept my notes with the intention of doing a piece on the ecclesiological [pertaining to the nature of the church] ramifications for these recent happenings.

When asked by the interviewer (Teri Gross, I think) if there was a threat of schism within the worldwide Anglican Church (consisting of 38 churches) over the question of open homosexuality among bishops and the blessing of same sez unions, Roscum responded:

"We are not one church we are a communion of independent autonomous churches." [words in italics represent her emphasis.]

I would think that most Eastern Orthodox Christians would agree with that brief formula of ecclesiology, although they would have a much different understanding of shared Sacred Tradition, ecumenical councils, and church hierarcy. I, as a Catholic, of course, cannot understand how such an ecclesiology works. Jesus Christ founded ONE Church and prayed for it to remain one (see John 17). How can local churches remain in communion with another if they lack a visible sign of their unity in the person of a primary bishop (such as the bishop of Rome)? What constitutes communion? Does it mean that we all believe the same doctrinal truths, that we preach the same Gospel? Does it mean a shared Sacred Tradition, the wisdom of the Gospel alive in each age passed down from the bishops? Does it mean that we are united in possessing the same sacraments and forms of worship? If one church teaches that homosexuality is a valid form of sacramental/marital love, and another church does not... I would say that ruptures a communion.

When asked what does ensure communion within the worldwide Anglican Church, Roscum answered:

"Common prayer, affection, and relationship: this is what holds us together as descendants of the mother church of England."

OK, got it, common prayer. They have some uniformity in their liturgy I presume. They share the Book of Common Prayer. But the concepts of "affections" and "relationships" sound nebulous, vacuous and sentimental. The Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches might share some "affections" for one another (respect, admiration, a desire to work together to promote the Gospel, perhaps?) and "relationships" (in the Ukraine, for example, the Ukrainian Orthodox church and the Urkrainian Catholic Church must have some kind of relationship by the mere fact that they co-exist in the same territories/culture/communities. However, these things do not, by themselves, make for true communion. What we need for communion in addition to shared form of worhip would be a shared body of teaching and a shared hierarchy of authority. We need a common teaching and a common shepherd... otherwise the flock naturally wanders away from each other.

Roscum said that the locus of decision-making, in the Anglican faith, is at the local level (including the laity) and is not with the other bishops or the world-wide communion of regional churches. According to Roscum, the Episcopal Christian in the U.S. says 'we are the tree (that is, we are connected to the Anglican Communion). So, if you [traditional dissidents] are so few then you split off.'

Laurie Goodstein, the NY Times Religion Correspondent, was cited as describing this battle as one between the acceptance of "diverse points of view vs. the need for orthodoxy." Roscum then characterized the later "conservatives" as the "dissidents".

Notice that the ones who are crying for the acceptance of "diverse points of view" are the same ones who are, in the final analysis, claiming the position of orthodoxy. Yes, they will accept diverse points of view... unless, one of those points of view is that homosexual acts do not constitute proper use of the gift of human sexuality.

This, of course, has happened throughout the long history of the Catholic Church. Heretics were those who presented "diverse points of view" on, for example, the true nature of Christ (Arians denied the divine nature, Docetists denied that Jesus truly took on human flesh), on the need for grace (Pellagians denied the need for grace), and even the Protestant revolt itself (denying the need for a Church hierarchy and authority). Fearless saints such as St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, and St. Frances de Sales all strove to remain in the continual stream of orthodoxy. I thank them for their sacrifices.

Roscum continued to relate then recent events. At a worldwide gathering of the governing bishops of the various region churches in Africa, 7 of the 38 primates did not receive communion. Their decision was based on the attendance of the primate of the U.S. Church Bishop Katherine Jefferts (who had recently come out supporting the continued consecration of openly gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions). Jefferts said that many of the other 31 primates probably disagreed in some cases, but still were committed to communion.

My thought is that, if this were the case, they were trying to fool themselves into believing that true communion exists. In the Catholic Church's history, when there has been major rifts in Church governance or theology... it became obvious rather quickly, and it would be addressed by regional or ecumenical councils. Such a rift would be seen as serious, important, and requiring immediate attention.... and concrete resolutions were made to solve the matter under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. When a wound or breach appeared in the Communion of regional churches--the Catholic bishops did not celebrate communion together and pretend that everything was ok, they sought to diagnose, treat, and heal the wound. Sometimes that process was painful... but it was seen as necessary.

Roscum completes her interview by describing more of the "democratic" governing structure of the local Anglican churches. There are 4 instruments of communion, including, among other things, the Archbishop of Canterbury (who--unlike the Pope, does not seem to have any true right to authority over another bishop or primate... but perhaps only a kind of leadership of moral authority), and the Lamberth Conference (dating back to 1884; and it was at this Conference in the 1930s, for example, that the Anglican Church became the first Christian body to permit the use of birth control within marriage for certain reasons). Decisions are made "from the ground up." There is a house of bishops and a house of deputies, that latter consisting of both laity and clergy. There is an Anglican Consultative Council made up of laity, clergy, bishops, men, and women. Roscum suggests that if women were properly represented inthe councils "we would not be speaking about division." This is a common claim of radical feminists who, in the Catholic Church, for example, push for the ordination of women: women are some how of a higher nature than men--women must be somehow free from the tendancy to sin (concupiscence) because with women in authority dissension, division, corruption, ignorance, oppression, etc. would never exist. Women, like men, are human, and thus still prone to sin. And, in my opinion, the Holy Spirit works better through a Church hierarchy than through a multitude of democracies.

So, it will be interesting to see who this all pans out. Now you will have some Episcopalians in the states of Massachusettes and Texas who will be under a bishop who was consecrated by bishops all the way out in Kenya, and who are in communion with such churches. In the same neighborhood you will have Episcopalians who are under the authority of an Anglican bishop who has been elected and consecrated by the Episcopal Church in the U.S. for some time. Imagine that you are a bishop of a territory and a brother/sister bishop from some other country comes in and consecrates a new bishop to send into your ecclesial "turf". What you have is overlapping and conflicting "communions." And that is no One Church no matter how much you wish it were. And I do not foresee the situation resolving itself except in the formation, in time, of 2 separate and distinct Anglican churches.

Perhaps some of the Traditional Anglicans will see the need for a true communion, and reconsider the Bishop of Rome and his worldwide family.

Lastly, some might say that this is yet another example of Christians being too hung up on the question of sex (as Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu recently claimed). Well, as you can see, God's meaning of the gift and proper use of human sexuality is no trivial matter. It is at the very heart of our Christian understanding of the nature of man and woman, the nature of love, the sacrament of marriage, the family, etc. Read Pope John Paul II's theology of the body and you will understand the profound and central importance of this subject. The Church lives or dies by the state of the Christian family. The Christian family lives or dies by the state of Christian marriage. And Christian marriage lives or dies by a proper understanding of marital love and the nuptual act. And besides all of this... this issue of division within the Anglican church points to the need to have a proper understanding of ecclesiology--a proper understanding of what the Church is and how she functions.

_______________________________________

Articles on recent happenings:

It sure seems that the Episcopal Church in the U.S. is not too concerned with maintaining communion with the other Anglican churches when it continues to throw prudence to the wind and keep the fires of controversy burning.

Lesbian Is Finalist for Chicago Episcopal Bishop

http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000005360.cfm

Protestant professor converts to the apostolic Faith, Protestants' jaws drop

Evangelical Leader Returns To Catholicism
Move Reflects Narrowing Gap Between Denominations
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 12, 2007; Page B09

The president of the Evangelical Theological Society, an association of 4,300 Protestant theologians, resigned this month because he has joined the Roman Catholic Church.
The May 5 announcement by Francis J. Beckwith, a tenured associate professor at Baptist-affiliated Baylor University in Waco, Tex., has left colleagues gasping for breath and commentators grasping for analogies.

Excerpt From "Truth And Tolerance"
This is the excerpt from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's book, "Truth and Tolerance," that Francis J. Beckwith read to a prominent evangelical philosopher and asked him to guess who wrote it.
"I am the way, and the truth, and the life": this saying of Jesus from the Gospel of John (14:6) expresses the basic claim of the Christian faith. The missionary tendency of this faith is based on that claim: Only if the Christian faith is truth does it concern all men; if it is merely a cultural variant of the religious experience of mankind that is locked up in symbols and can never be deciphered, then it has to remain within its own culture and leave others in theirs. That, however, means that the question about the truth is the essential question of the Christian faith as such, and in that sense it inevitably has to do with philosophy.
--Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, "Truth And Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions," trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 184.

One blogger likened it to Hulk Hogan's defection from the World Wrestling Federation to the rival World Championship Wrestling league.
"This is a sad day for all true sons and daughters of the Protestant Reformation, for all who lived and died for its truths," Douglas Groothuis, a professor at the evangelical Denver Seminary, said in a posting on Beckwith's own blog, adding sternly: " . . . you are embracing serious theological error."

Beckwith, 46, said in a telephone interview that he had expected some repercussions in academic circles but was stunned by the public response. He said strangers have called him at home to berate him, and that his Internet server was overwhelmed by 2,000 e-mails a day to his personal Web site, which in the past seldom generated more than 90 a day.
"It's beyond anything I've ever experienced," he said.

Beckwith is not the first, or even the most prominent, evangelical to switch to Catholicism in recent years. Others include Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), theologian Scott Hahn and the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the journal First Things. On the other side of the equation, the Catholic Church has been losing droves of ordinary worshipers to the Pentecostal form of evangelicalism, particularly in Latin America.

Beckwith said his decision reflects how dramatically the divisions between evangelicals and Catholics have narrowed in recent decades, as they have stood shoulder to shoulder on issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and school vouchers.

The stormy reaction, however, is a reminder of the gaps that remain, particularly on such theological questions as whether to baptize infants and how human beings gain "justification," or righteousness in the eyes of God.

Beckwith said he was raised as a Catholic in Las Vegas and was "born again" as an evangelical during his teens, at the height of the countercultural "Jesus movement" in the 1970s. He earned a master's degree and a doctorate in philosophy from Fordham University, a Jesuit institution, but then taught at Protestant schools, including Trinity International University and Baylor.
He said that for many years he agreed with the criticisms of the Catholic Church made by Martin Luther and other leaders of the 16th-century Reformation, who emphasized the authority of the Bible alone -- rather than the pronouncements of church leaders -- and who argued that justification resulted from the grace of God, not from good deeds.

But his thinking began to change, he said, as he read more deeply into Catholic theology, including works by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. After studying Ratzinger's book "Truth and Tolerance" last year, he said, he called a prominent evangelical philosopher, read him a passage about whether theology is really knowledge, and asked him to guess the author.

"He reeled off the names of a bunch of evangelical theologians," Beckwith recalled. "I said, 'No, it's Ratzinger!' And he said, 'So he's one of us!' " Beckwith said he was also deeply affected by a joint declaration in 1999 by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church on the doctrine of justification, which he said went a long way toward eliminating this historical source of division.

"I do agree with Protestants that there is no good I can do, no work I can perform, that would justify me," Beckwith said. "But there are many places in scripture that say there's an obligation Christians have to take on the character of Christ, and that contributes to their justification. The Catholic solution is: I am required to take on the character of Christ, but it is not my power that does it, but God's grace."

Chuckling gently, Beckwith said that in discussions with fellow theologians over the past year, he suddenly found himself making "Catholic-type arguments" about natural law and truth, arguing that everything found in the Bible is true, but not everything that is true is found in the Bible.
"At the end of the day, the reason for the Reformation was the debate over justification. If that is no longer an issue, I have to be Catholic," Beckwith said. "It seems to me that if there is not a very strong reason to be Protestant, then the default position should be to belong to the historic church."

On his blog last week, he said he wrestled with whether to inform the Evangelical Theological Society immediately of his intention to return to Catholicism, or to wait until the end of his term in November. He said he and his wife prayed for guidance and received an answer when a 16-year-old nephew asked him to take part in his Catholic confirmation ceremony tomorrow. "I could not do that unless I was in full communion with the church," Beckwith said.

Because Baylor does not require its faculty to sign any statement of beliefs, a university spokeswoman said, Beckwith's change of heart will not affect his teaching post. And because he was baptized and confirmed as a Catholic in his youth, he did not have to undergo conversion -- he simply had to go to confession and receive Holy Communion. He did so in a quiet ceremony April 29 at a small church in Bellmead, Tex.

United Church of Christ, United Methodists rally for abortion rights:

This is sad indeed. You often hear about some Christian denominations supporting abortion rights in opposition to Sacred Scripture and 2,000 years of Sacred Tradition, but then to read about public demonstrations like this is really sobering. Get the story via Raiders News Network:

http://www.raidersnewsnetwork.com/articles/
columbiatribune-com-2007-Mar-20070303Feat001-asp

Why do Catholics become Evangelicals?

This is an interesting article from Homiletic and Pastoral Review (that I found via www.Spiritdaily.com). This concerns, in particular, the reasons why many Catholics have gone to Evangelical Fundamentalist churches in Latin America.

Check it out: http://www.ignatius.com/magazines/
hprweb/mendoza.htm