Will the Real Christians Please Stand Up?

There are so many denominations of Christianity today that it boggles the mind.  Factor into that the many ways people actually live out their faith (or don't) and it's no wonder some people dismiss Christianity before even hearing the Gospel.  To many, I imagine Christianity looks more like Baskin Robbins than the source of Truth and eternal life.  In this post, I want to shed some light on the issue of division in Christianity as well as define what a Christian is, and more importantly, is not.

So we start at the beginning.  The apostles, having witnessed the death and resurrection of Christ, went out into the world as He commanded to make disciples of all nations.  They spread out in all directions, proclaiming to all who would listen what they had witnessed and baptizing those who believed.  The early Church was born and continued to grow over the centuries.  Now it is well beyond the scope of this post to go into details about the early Church.  Certainly there was conflict and some groups broke off prior to the Reformation, but these were minor splits over non-crucial elements of the Faith and they pale in comparison to what happened after the Reformation.  

A Christian by Any Other Name

Before I get into the division of the Church, let's start with the basics.  What is a Christian?  A Christian is one who believes God became man as Jesus Christ who then died for our sins and rose from the dead.  He did this to reopen the gates of Heaven which were closed since the first sin.  A Christian also believes in the Holy Trinity: one God in three persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Finally, this professed belief is meant to manifest itself in the way one lives, following the teachings of Christ which He gave during His time on Earth.

This is where it starts to get complicated.  Since the division of the Church, what it means to follow Christ has been rewritten and reinterpreted countless times leading to great confusion among believers, and worse, would-be believers.  C.S. Lewis likened Christianity to a great hall that one enters with many doors to choose from, saying you can linger in the hall for a time but eventually you must choose a door.  How does one go about choosing such a thing?  Which one of those doors leads to the Truth?  

Which leads me to what a Christian absolutely is not.  All disagreements on doctrine aside, there are some things a person can never say or believe and still be considered a Christian.  Anyone who says God hates anyone, is not a Christian.  God does not hate anyone.  Make no mistake, He certainly hates sin, but not those who commit sin.  That, of course, is everyone so anyone who says they don't sin like the rest of us (I've recently discovered there are people who actually claim this) is also not a Christian.  Lastly, anyone who declares someone is going to Hell is not speaking as a Christian.  God decides who goes to Hell, and while we know certain sins are definitely punishable by eternal damnation, only God knows someone's heart and He is the final judge, not us.  

That Christianity thing? You're doing it wrong.

  

A House Divided

In my humble, Catholic opinion, the Reformation is the worst thing that ever happened to Christianity.  Not only that, but if we take an honest look, I don't see how any Christian can think otherwise.  How can anybody look at the disintegration that followed and think it wasn't utterly destructive?  Faster than you could say "sola" new denominations were popping up all over the place, and our focus went from winning souls to winning supporters.

Now, before I continue I want to make something very clear.  I do not think that Catholics are the only true followers of Christ.  I have many non-Catholic Christian friends who are truly inspirational to me and encourage me greatly in my faith.  Contrary to what you may have heard, the Catholic Church does not teach that all non-Catholics go to Hell.  A great series to read for clarification of common misunderstandings of Catholicism is Brittany's Letting God Lead series over at Equipping Godly Women.  In this series, she shares her ongoing journey trying to discern truth as she learns more about the Catholic Faith.  My goal is simply to make the argument in favor of Christian unity and, hopefully, convince some of you to take a fresh look at Catholicism.  Many people have been rather misinformed about it, and as Brittany points out, we should all desire to stand firm on fact and truth in what we believe.

Another issue I want to be clear on is this:  while I loathe that the Reformation happened, I certainly agree that there were issues which needed to be addressed.  There was justified outrage against corruption.  This was voiced even by those who remained faithful to the Church.  Indeed, even the Church itself recognizes this officially in its Catechism:

"In this one and only Church of God from its very beginning there arose certain rifts...but in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the Catholic Church - for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame..."  - CCC #817

And then it continues:

"However, one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from the separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers....All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church."

"Christ's Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as a means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church."  - CCC #818-819

The Church acknowledges that there was blame on both sides.  It also acknowledges that non-Catholic believers today are not responsible for this separation and are indeed true believers whose Churches are used by Christ as a means of salvation.  

Now I imagine that with the exception of history majors, most of us know just enough about the Reformation to justify which side of it we're on.  If you would like to read further on what the Reformation was and why it happened, I highly recommend you follow along with Kenneth Hensley's series on his blog here.  In it, he explores the historical factors that helped set the stage for the Reformation in addition to the reasons for the Reformation itself.  Be sure to start at the beginning with "What was the Reformation?" and then move on to "Why did the Reformation Happen?" parts 1-4.   This is an ongoing series and you will definitely want to stay tuned.  And lest you be tempted to write this off as another biased Catholic blogging about the Reformation, read this excerpt from "What was the Reformation?":

"Before becoming Catholic, I was an evangelical Protestant for about twenty years, an ordained Protestant minister for more than eleven.  My conversion was hard.  I broke a lot of glass coming into the Church.  Because of my background and situation, becoming Catholic wasn't something done quickly.  It was the result of intensive thought and prayer over the course of some four years.  It involved a rethinking of my entire worldview as a Christian --- the teaching of Scripture, the history of the Church."

Now what?

The beginning of the Reformation is nearly 500 years in the past.  Nobody can change what happened, but we can decide where to go from here.  In order to do that, we have to take an honest look at the situation and ask some tough questions.

   

What was the end result?

The most consistent estimation I've seen is that there are currently more than 30,000 Christian denominations.  That number is simply staggering and I don't think anybody can say with a straight face that this is a good thing.  Are there really 30,000 ways to live as a Christian?  Can all of those denominations possibly be faithful to the true teachings of Christ?  I think it's obvious that they couldn't possibly be.  You simply cannot rewrite Christianity 30,000 times and have the last version look anything like the first, and we're not doing ourselves any favors pretending otherwise.  This is not a Burger King religion;  you can't have it your way!

Now, is that what I think Luther was trying to do?  Certainly not.  I think Luther was a well-intentioned man who loved the Lord with all his heart and sought to correct abuses he saw within the Church.  But I also think many things happened which he did not intend, things we should be trying to correct now.  Luther opened the quintessential Pandora's box, and there was no stopping it.  If he could rewrite Church teaching then so could everyone else who saw fit to make changes, and they promptly did.  Look at this graphic of the splitting of Christianity:

                               

Exactly where in there do we think we finally got it right?  There are graphics like this all over the internet, but one of the most heartbreaking places I saw was on a former Christian turned Atheist's blog.  He was using an image similar to this one to demonstrate our lack of unity and use it as an argument against Christianity.  If that doesn't give us pause, nothing will.

Another question we must ponder here is this:  if the Church had lost its way, as the reformers believed it had, and they were merely correcting flaws in Church teaching in order to restore them to the true teachings of Christ, wouldn't it have stopped with them?  If a wrong turn was set right in the Reformation, wouldn't the divisions have ceased and Christianity continued on its now supposedly corrected path?

But it didn't stop, as we all know.  Rather it was much more akin to a runaway train.  The divisions continued on and on leaving anyone who disagreed with Church teaching free to reinvent the Faith as he saw fit.  Finally today we are left with denominations who stand on opposites sides of even such polarizing moral issues as abortion.  When we can argue both for and against an objective evil like abortion with both sides waving the Christian flag, how can we expect anyone to take us seriously?  

Is unity the proper goal?

If what I said above doesn't convince you then let us turn, as we always should, to the Lord:

"I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.  And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me." - John 17: 20-23

We can't read that and not recognize that our division breaks the Lord's heart.  It's not an easy thing to face because to realize that our divisions are a problem is to realize that we have a really big problem.  How many of you are cursing my name right now?  Wouldn't it be so much easier to just tell ourselves that things are the way they are for a reason and they were that way long before we showed up so why try to change it?  Certainly it would, but since when did God ever ask us to do what was easy?  Brothers and sisters, we cannot stick our heads in the sand on this issue.

Where do we start?

Hopefully at this point you agree with me that division in Christianity is a bad thing.  So if we decide that this is a problem, how do we go about fixing it?  Where does one even start?  I think as brothers and sisters in Christ we can all agree that we should all start on our knees.  Let us all come to the Lord in prayer and seek His Truth rather than our own.  Then let us do what all who have gone astray must: return to our roots.  Go back to the beginning and look with a fresh pair of eyes.  Read the writings of the Church fathers, those converted, taught and formed by the Apostles themselves and their immediate successors.  Consider this:

"It is possible, then, for every Church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the Apostles which has been made known throughout the whole world.  And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the Apostles, and their successors to our own times.  But since it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the successions of all the Churches, we shall confound all those who, in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory, or through blindness or wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper, by pointing out here the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient Church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, that Church which has the tradition and the faith which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the Apostles.  For with this Church, because of its superior origin, all Churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world; and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the Apostolic tradition." - St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3, 3, 1-2, c. AD 190

These words of St. Irenaeus are taken from his series of volumes called Against Heresies which he was writing against Gnosticism.  In this passage we can see how the early Church fathers recognized the authority of the Church in Rome and that other churches could look to her to evaluate the legitimacy of their belief and worship.  Now this:

"The Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although she is disseminated throughout the whole world, yet guarded it, as if she occupied but one house.  She likewise believes these things 'just as if she had but one soul and one and the same heart and harmoniously she proclaims them and teaches them and hands them down, as if she possessed but one mouth.  For, while the languages of the world are diverse, nevertheless, the authority of the Tradition are one and the same."  - St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1, 10, 2

One soul, one heart, one mouth?  Does that sound like Christianity today?  It surely does not, but it should and I dare believe it can.  

These quotes and many more can be found in this episode of The Journey Home.  In it, Marcus Grodi, former Protestant Minister, talks about the writings of the early Church fathers and how they helped lead him to Catholicism.

Falling Dominoes

You can hardly turn on the news these days without hearing about yet another denomination of Christianity changing its stance on some moral issue such as marriage or abortion.  I can hardly go a day as a Catholic without hearing how my Church needs to get with the times.  But please, for the love of all that is holy, can we stop and think about this logically?  Does God change?  Does the Truth change?  If we believe in God, and we believe that we are His people blessed with Truth in His word, then we should not be looking to change with the times and we should not be attempting to correct God.  All around us the dominoes are falling, all except the Catholic Church.  Whatever the media might like us to believe about Pope Francis and a new progressive Church, we haven't changed, and we aren't going to.  And the reason we aren't going to is simple: we don't think we can improve on the teachings of Christ.

Conclusion

It is my sincere hope that you haven't reached the end of this post thinking it was a shameless pitch for Catholicism.  I would be lying if I said I didn't think that the Catholic Church is the true Church of Christ, established by our Lord Himself.  Of course I think it's the "right" Church.  What would I be doing in it if I didn't?  What are you doing at your Church if you don't believe its teachings are the true teachings of Christ, right?  

Now am I expecting all of you to sign up for RCIA after reading this?  Of course not.  Will I think you less of a Christian if you don't run out and by the complete works of the early Church fathers?  Oh please, let's not set a standard like that or I'm doomed.  But I do hope that you are encouraged to do some reading, some watching, some listening.  Whatever kind of Christian you decide to be, just don't be an apathetic one.  Don't choose your church like a flavor at Baskin Robbins.  Study, discern, think.  Learn about your faith.  Learn the reasons behind it.  Learn the history behind it.  Isn't it worth at least that much? 

For anyone who would like to learn more about Catholicism I will post several resources below and you can always feel free to leave questions in the comments or contact me directly.  Certainly, there is so much more to say on this topic so if there are specific issues you would like to see addressed in future posts I want to hear from you!  I'll leave you with these wise words:

"There are not more than 100 people in the world who truly hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they perceive to be the Catholic Church." 
                                                                                     - Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Until next time, may God bless you.



Resources:


Marcus Grodi's The Coming Home Network: a tremendous amount of articles, videos, blog, and you name it for anyone wanting to learn more about the Catholic Faith.  There is also a forum and online community.

EWTN: Started by a nun, this is a Catholic television network, plus Catholic radio.  You can watch free online, find a radio station(they're also on iHeart Radio), read articles, ask questions, or even buy a rosary(in case I've really convinced you).

Word on Fire: This is Father Robert Barron's ministry.  You can purchase any of his books or DVD series here or just read and watch video commentary until all your burning questions are answered.

Ignatius Press:  a Catholic publisher featuring books, videos, music, art, and now streaming video

Lighthouse Catholic Media: books, videos, and cds to help you learn about the faith.  I especially enjoy their cds because, let's face it, we don't always have time to sit and read.

Regarding Flying Spaghetti Monsters

Seeking inspiration for my next post, I recently spent some time poking about on some Atheist forums.  Now being a former atheist myself, I didn't expect to read anything new.  With the exception of particularly hostile posts, I could pretty much remember every word I read coming out of my mouth at one time or another.  Many people stated they were raised in semi-religious homes and were made to go to church, but never felt any connection with God, or only prayed when they really needed something or were scared.  Most everyone seemed to view the Bible as a book of fairytales designed to frighten and control the masses.  Again, nothing new here, but what jumped out at me was this bizarre little figure that seemed to be following me from post to post and forum to forum:

                                                      

In all my days as an atheist, I never once heard the term "flying spaghetti monster" so I'm wondering if this is new.  Of course, in all my days as an atheist, I never really knew many other atheists.  I've only recently become acquainted with this term, and while I'm still not really sure what on Earth it has to do with God, I do know what it represents at its core: a profound misunderstanding of what we mean by "God."  Many atheists don't have a clue what we are talking about when it comes to God.  I hope to clear that up in this post, so grab some Parmesan and let's take a fork to this mess.

Let me start by saying what God is not.  God is not the greatest creature in this world;  He is not a creature at all.  Neither is God the highest being in our world.  See, everything in this whole great unfathomable universe is contingent upon something else for its existence.  We can grow a plant from a seed, but we did not create that seed.  Just trying to explain its existence will send you on and on back in time to the cause before that and that and so on.  You'll go all the way back to as close as we can pinpoint the beginning of existence all because you tried to explain a seed.  

Science with all its advances and discoveries can tell us more and more about the beginning of the universe and our world.  But try as it may, it can't explain how at some point so very many years ago, something came from nothing.  That is what does not happen in this tangible reality we live in.  What we mean when we say "God" in Christianity, is not some great puppet master who lives in the sky and does nice things for us if only we'll be good little minions.  No, what we mean by "God" is the one whose very nature is "to be."  He is the one who simply is and whose existence is not contingent upon anything else.  Listen to this commentary by Father Robert Barron: Who God Is & Who God Isn't.

  

Did you catch that question at the end?  Why is there something rather than nothing?  Tell me all you want in your infinite regression further back into time.  Indeed, the details are quite fascinating, but so much more so is the very fact that anything exists at all.  

This brings us to the timeless question of meaning.  Not so much the 'what' or 'how' of our existence, but why?  Why are we here?  Why does anything exist at all, let alone these strange creatures set apart from the rest who sit around pondering why they exist?  Think about it:  when was the last time you witnessed a gorilla waxing poetic about the meaning of his existence?  Without a doubt, it is a unique component of the human condition to question the reason for our existence and where we come from.  Why?

Christianity will tell you God made us this way.  He designed us to seek Him with all our hearts.  But let's say you're not a Christian and that statement does nothing for you.  Not so very long ago that statement did nothing for me.  As an atheist it seemed to me that Christians or any person of faith had this strange secret language that only made sense to them.  It was like some sort of a club with secret passwords and such.  So let's come at this from a different angle, shall we?

Let's start with the assumption that atheism is correct.  God does not exist and we are just randomly here for no reason or purpose at all.  In that case, our lives have no meaning or purpose.  We are here as a result of random occurrences and nothing awaits us by death and nothingness.  I suppose I'm a little late in creating plans for world domination.  I have wasted so much time being nice to people who don't deserve it and supporting charities.  From now on, I'm looking out for number one! 

Now, I can feel you glaring at me through your screen.  I already know the objection to what I'm saying because I've said it a thousand times myself.  "We don't need a god to tell us how to be good!  I'm a good person for the sake of being a good person, not because I'm afraid of Hell or trying to get into some candyland in the sky!"  Here's the problem:  what is a good person?  How do you define a good person from a bad one with nothing to measure good or bad against?  If we are just dumbly here flying about through space on this randomly perfect planet for no reason, what does "good" mean at all?  

The rest of the universe goes on as nature determines.  All the other creatures of this planet go on about their natural business - eating, sleeping, reproducing, and dying.  There are no elephant courts of law.  I've never seen an insect tribunal.  Not once have I seen one of my chickens brought up on charges for violating the pecking order.  I have, however, seen a chick that was pecked to death by its mother.  If all of this and all of us simply are a product of nature, where did this idea of good or bad, right or wrong, justice and injustice, selfish or compassionate come from at all?  There's nothing natural about it!  How could we have evolved a yearning for something that doesn't exist?  How could nature produce a creature that imagines a Creator that doesn't exist in nature or that imagines anything at all?  And if evolution is the process by which creatures steadily improve for the sake of survival, why would we have evolved morality?  It doesn't help us as a species, it makes us do things no other species on Earth does.  It makes us take on burdens other creatures don't; that's not beneficial to survival.

None of it makes sense.  We are supposed to believe that we are just simply here for no reason, when we cannot even imagine a life without meaning.  When people find their lives have no purpose they want to die!  What's evolutionary about that?  How does nature program a creature to seek purpose that doesn't exist and want to end its life if it can't find that something that doesn't exist?

Let me be clear.  When I was an atheist, I thought Christians believed in their faith to give their lives purpose and meaning.  I thought the idea of no god or reason for existence gave them the willies and they put on their faith like a warm blanket so they could sleep at night.  But I had it backward all along.  We don't believe in God because it gives our lives meaning.  Our lives have meaning and therefore we know God must exist.  Without it, we would just be another random creature on this random planet in our random universe.  

Our lives have meaning.  We know this intuitively from the time we are old enough to move past the basic necessities of life.  We see this phenomenon in no other creature on Earth.  Humans think about, dream about, imagine, and yearn for something greater.  We create art, erect great structures, and fill endless volumes of literature and poetry in a never-ending expression of our search for something which transcends this earthly existence.  That something, my friends, is God.

One last point I want to make is a response to the idea that the Bible, and religion in general, are designed to frighten and control the masses.  I once believed this too.  As with the concept of God, I believe most atheists (and unfortunately many Christians as well) suffer a profound misunderstanding of the Bible.  I highly recommend this video by Father Robert Barron for a better understanding of the Bible.  You can skip to about 5:12 if you're short on time, but all of it is excellent and well worth the time.  

But in regard to controlling the masses, consider for a moment the message of Christianity. I'm speaking from a Catholic perspective here.  Did you know the word "catholic" means universal?  The message of Christ is for everyone.  Long ago, when the ability to read was limited, people could still hear this message read to them at Mass.  In fact, in every Roman Catholic Church all over the world, you will hear the same scripture readings on any given day.  All are welcome;  we teach that God loves all of us great or small, rich or poor, powerful or powerless.  All can come to know, love, and serve God according to their own ability.  Does that sound  like control?

Contrast this with modern atheism.  The intellectually elite insist that the majority of us are too feeble-minded to understand our own existence.  They hold up their degrees and alphabet soup after their names as evidence of their superiority and tell us we should defer to their judgement.  They posit that the only way to know anything about life and its origins is through sophisticated scientific study, something most of us are either incapable of or do not have access to.  This means that we must rely on our great scientist overlords to know what to think about life and its purpose and meaning.  And after all of this, they tell us it has no meaning and we all just happen to be here for no reason at all.  In other words, they tell us the only thing we are able to know about life through our own limited understanding, that it inherently has purpose and meaning, is in fact false.   Relying on someone else for all the answers to the point of rejecting your own instincts, now that's control.

Trust your instincts.  Trust that voice inside that says there must be more than this because there is, so much more.  Reach out to  God;  you don't have to know what to say.  And when you do, know that you aren't waiting for God to respond now, but rather you are finally responding to Him.  Until next time, may God bless you.

Relativism Part Two: the Mess We've Made

In my last post, Moral Relativism and the Dawn of Insanity, I discussed what moral relativism is and how I believe it came to be so widely accepted in our society.  I also touched on what happens when you follow relativism to its logical end.  The result is nothing less than a complete and utter breakdown of logic and reason.  This is because relativism takes objective morality and replaces it with one's feelings.  It levels the field of decision making so that all choices are equal.  On the surface this looks like a great idea; it looks like freedom and fairness with a big red bow.  But try to argue for or against anything once you've made your case for this and you'd have an easier time trying to nail Jell-O® to the wall than make a moral argument.  

In this post, I want to take a look at some of the manifestations of relativism in our society.  As I said in my last post, I believe the root cause of the prevalence of relativism today is the sexual revolution.  This becomes quite clear when we look at some of the major ways it has played out in society and our culture.  

Widespread use of birth control and legalized abortion

Image credit:
http://www.intercollegiatereview.com/index.php/2013/12/16/has-the-sexual-revolution-been-good-for-women/

Last time, I shared this reference to Peter Kreeft's A Refutation of Moral Relativism, but I think it's worth sharing again, especially for anyone who might be reading this post separately:

"Obviously, the strongest and most attractive of the passions is sexual passion.  It is therefore also the most addictive and the most blinding.  So, there could hardly be a more powerful undermining of our moral knowledge and our moral life than the sexual revolution.  Already, the demand for sexual freedom has overridden one of nature's strongest instincts: motherhood.  A million mothers a year in America alone pay hired killers, who are called healer or physicians, to kill their own unborn daughters and sons.  How could this happen? Only because abortion is driven by sexual motives.  For abortion is backup birth control, and birth control is the demand to have sex without having babies.  If the stork brought babies, there'd be no Planned Parenthood."

Both the use of birth control and the legalization of abortion are considered justified by the right to bodily autonomy and so-called "reproductive freedom."  What we are actually saying with these ridiculous notions is that we somehow have the right to engage in the act specifically intended to create babies without creating babies.  The total lack of logic in that should slap you in the face.  How dare we demand such a thing?  That's like saying I demand to go swimming without getting wet.  Whatever you believe about birth control or abortion, nobody can deny that the purpose of sex is procreation.  What's worse, as Kreeft points out, one of the strongest instincts we have is to reproduce.  In an effort to satisfy our urges without inconveniencing ourselves with unwanted children we are literally defying nature and our very existence.  Take a look at this article which announced recently that Italy is officially dying as a country.  There are more deaths every year now than births.  They aren't alone either.  Japan is in the same boat, and right here in the United States, Maine officially had more deaths than births as detailed back in May 2013.  We are  contracepting and aborting ourselves out of existence like lemmings running off a cliff.  

All self-interest aside, abortion is the murder of a human being.  There's a lot more to be said against abortion, and  I'll cover it much more thoroughly in the future.  But for now, the point I want to make is something that is so objectively wrong is now considered acceptable in our society.  The only way this is possible is if we reject the objective truth that all human beings have the right to life and declare that everything is relative.  Moral relativism requires us to put aside the most fundamental right we have: life.  Why and for what?  So we can do as we please with no consequences?  Since when does anyone consider that moral?  And if unborn babies don't have a right to life then who does?  Where is the line drawn and who chooses?  If it's morally acceptable to kill a baby immediately before it's born then why not immediately after or six months after?  If all human beings do not have the inalienable right to life, then nobody does.  This is the tangled web of relativism.  This is what happens when we set aside the objective truth that all human beings have the right to life and replace it with the idea that we only have the right to life when someone else decides they feel like letting us live.

Dissolution of marriage, the family, and sexuality in general

This topic is undoubtedly a live wire as well, but it needs to be addressed.  Marriage and the family are hanging by a thread in our country.  And why wouldn't they be when our society has decided to base all its decisions on feelings?  We only stay in a marriage so long as our feelings toward our spouse stay the same.  We only bring the children we've created into the world if we feel like we want to and we're ready.  Because we have made the mental separation between sex and procreation, we no longer recognize marriage as the unique union between a man and a woman or that the conjugal act should be reserved for marriage for the purpose of creating families. We have even gone so far as to declare that biological sex and gender are two different and independent things and the latter is based on how we feel.  

Feelings are fleeting and transient.  They are unpredictable and cannot be the basis for decision making.  Mothers of babies with colic actually confess to wanting to throw their babies out the window after hours of endless crying.  Catch your spouse in the act of infidelity and you may well find yourself experiencing feelings of homicidal rage.  People who stand on the side of a bridge contemplating ending their lives feel as though their lives are hopeless and without meaning and that the best solution is to end it.  Yet in all of these instances we encourage people to work past those feelings.  We tell them it will get better and they won't always feel this way.

Enter the deranged world of relativism and we should be telling those mothers to fling open their windows and send those babies flying.  After all, who are we to judge them and how they feel?  You can't tell that woman she is obligated to endure this suffering for the sake of her child.  How dare you suggest that she should put her own needs and feelings aside?  Stop pushing your morality on her!  While we're at it, grab the nearest lethal weapon and have at it with that no good dirty cheating bastard!  Don't worry, we know better than to judge you and your feelings.  Your life seems like it's over?  Hey man, I don't want to tell you how to feel, go for it.

In these examples, it sounds silly doesn't it?  It sounds completely insane and that's because it is.  The problem arises when we think there is a difference between the examples I posed above and walking out on your spouse because you're tired of their nonsense or encouraging a boy to dress and act like a girl because he said he feels like a girl.  This is madness;  this is relativism.  Ask yourself why you would tell a mother on the brink of a breakdown to go take a hot bath while you watch the baby, but your friend tells you he feels like a woman on the inside and you would encourage him to start dressing the part and look into surgery.  We now encourage people to mutilate their bodies beyond recognition because of how they feel.  

When did we lose our collective minds?  How did we come to decide that certain feelings can and should change and others can't and shouldn't?  Who wrote the criteria for this?  Because some people are born that way?  Scientists tell us that alcoholics are born that way.  Shall we tell them to drink up, they can't help it?  If science tells us pedophiles are born that way shall we decide that's okay too?  Love is love!  That's different you say?  Why, because it involves children?  But we've already decided that children can declare themselves homosexual, transexual, transgender, intersex and whatever other permutations they've come up with in the last five minutes.  If they can decide these things why can't they be in love with an adult?  Indeed, how many cases have we seen over the years when children were in sexual relationships with adults and declared that it was completely consensual?

If marriage isn't the unique and permanent union between a man and a woman then what is it?  The complementarity of man and woman is what makes marriage unique - throw that out and you throw the whole lot out.  Marriage becomes meaningless and undergoes the same endless permutations of sexuality and for the same reason.  Man-man, woman-woman, man-two women, man-woman-cow...what difference does it make?  It's just an arrangement.  Consider what Peter Kreeft said in regard to divorce, again from his Refutation of Moral Relativism:

"Divorce is a second example of the power of the sexual revolution to undermine basic moral principles.  Suppose there were some other practice, not connected with sex, which had these three documentable results.  First, betraying the person you claim to love the most, the person you had pledged your life to, betraying your solemn promise to her or him.  Second, thereby abusing the children you had procreated and promised to protect, scarring their souls more infinitely than anything else except direct violent physical abuse, and making it far more difficult for them ever to attain happy lives or marriages.  And thirdly, thereby harming, undermining, and perhaps destroying your society's future.  Would not such a practice be universally condemned?  Yet, that is exactly what divorce is, and it is universally accepted.  Betrayal is universally condemned unless it is sexual.  Justice, honestly, not doing other harms-these moral principles are affirmed, unless they interfere with sex."

He has hit the proverbial nail on the head.  We have placed ourselves in a bottomless moral quagmire.  Because we decided that the primary purpose of sex is pleasure rather than procreation we have opened Pandora's box.  What's worse is that we don't want the genie back in the bottle.  Even with all the evidence piling up in one huge festering heap that this has done endless damage to our society and humanity in general, we're not willing to give up our free sex.  We continue to allow the consequences to unravel like red-faced toddlers insisting on having our way, consequences be damned.  

Conclusion

These things are hard to talk about.  We live in a society where political correctness has run rampant and a country which once prided itself on freedom of expression is choked with an endless list of things you can't say and opinions you can't hold.  But  I'm hoping to make people see that when we turn away from objective morality it all falls apart.  Moral relativism pulls the rug out from under us and sends us down the quintessential slippery slope.  It demands that we contradict ourselves and our own logic (used very loosely) while we pick and choose what sounds good and acceptable to us today.  All the while we have removed the guardrail and are about to hurl ourselves off a cliff.  Again I ask, why and for what?  I'll tell you why.  We have removed the true source of joy from our lives: God.  Not only are God's laws written on our hearts, but we naturally seek and long for Him.  There is a place in us where only He fits and when we try to fill it with anything else we are endlessly frustrated.  We try more and more but to no avail.  As St. Thomas Aquinas said:

"Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures."

It's not too late to put the genie back in the bottle, friends.  It's not too late to return to God and return to reason.  I invite everyone to visit this website to find out more about the Catholic Faith and always feel free to ask questions.  I'll leave you with this, and until next time, may God bless you:

"The security we all need as a presupposition of our freedom and dignity cannot ultimately be derived from technical systems of control.  It can come only from the moral strength of man, and where this is lacking or insufficient, the power man has will be transformed more and more into a power of destruction...the attempt, carried to extremes, to shape human affairs to the total exclusion of God leads us more and more to the brink of the abyss, toward the utter annihilation of man.  We must therefore reverse the axiom of the Enlightenment and say: Even the one who does not succeed in finding the path to accepting the existence of God ought nevertheless to try to live and to direct his life veluti si Deus daretur, as if God did indeed exist."  -  Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures  

Moral Relativism and the Dawn of Insanity

We have arrived at the dawn of a new era.  Many loud voices declare this is an age of equality and justice and enlightenment.  "Out with the old ways and in with the new!", they say.  But if you listen closely, you will hear a few faint voices under the roar.  Those few are the voice of reason trying to drown out the roar of madness.  That madness has a name: moral relativism.

Per the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Moral relativism is the view that moral judgments are true or false only relative to some particular standpoint (for instance, that of a culture or a historical period) and that no standpoint is uniquely privileged over all others.

Now I imagine many of you nodded in agreement with what you just read.  It's the song we're all used to singing along with these days like the Seven Dwarves whistling off to work.  We're so accustomed to singing it we realize neither what we're saying nor its implications.

History

Let's take a stroll through history, shall we?  After all, the best way to understand the present state of things is to take a look at how they got that way in the first place.

Moral relativism is not a new concept by any means, but its widespread acceptance is, if you'll pardon the term, relatively new.  It has reared its ugly head before, but has typically been thwarted by a world that understood morality must be clearly defined and has a source greater than man.  Behold:

"Everything that I have said and done in these last years is relativism, by intuition.  From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology, and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable.  If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories, and men who claim to be the bearers of an objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than fascism."

Care to venture a guess who in history said that?  Time's up.  That quote is from none other than Benito Mussolini.  Now if you're a little rusty on your world history you can read up on this swell guy here, but if you're short on time let's point out the two words in that quote which should give you pause: 'enforce' and 'fascism.'  Here he is below; you might recognize the man on the right as well.

"Hitlermusso2 edit". Via Wikipedia

Thankfully today we still live in a world where (most) people find the actions of Mussolini and friends to be deplorable.  Yet what he said then is so in tune with the logic we use to justify innumerable behaviors in our society today, behaviors which were considered immoral and unacceptable not so very long ago.  In fact, if you adhere to moral relativism as your standard for judging whether an action is right or wrong, you actually do not have a logical leg to stand on in order to condemn such events as the Holocaust.  We'll get to that in just a minute.  First let's figure out how we went from defenders of all that is good in the world to a society of apathetic self-worshipers.

Enter the sexual revolution.  Everything I've read, watched, listened to, or pondered since returning to the Church has led me to believe that many of the evils we face today have their roots here.  Now you don't have to be a math genius to figure out that I didn't live through the sexual revolution, so if any of you reading this did, feel free to add your two cents in the comments.  I certainly grew up in the aftermath of it, though, and any decent study of contemporary American history shows us that something definitely went horribly wrong.

Indeed, how could it not?  When you take such a profoundly meaningful and, dare I say, spiritual experience which makes the people involved tremendously vulnerable and turn it into nothing more than the satisfaction of a physical urge you turn people into things, a means to an end.  I can think of another concept in history that did that : slavery.  Now I can debate the evils that resulted from the sexual revolution every day of the week and twice on Sundays, but for the purposes of this discussion, the point I want to make is this:  at this point in history we decided to set aside traditional objective morality for the idea that what is right is whatever feels good.  Let me leave you with this before we move on:

"Obviously, the strongest and most attractive of the passions is sexual passion.  It is therefore also the most addictive and the most blinding.  So, there could hardly be a more powerful undermining of our moral knowledge and our moral life than the sexual revolution.  Already, the demand for sexual freedom has overridden  one of nature's strongest instincts: motherhood.  A million mothers a year in America alone pay hired killers, who are called healers or physicians, to kill their own unborn daughters and sons.  How could this happen?  Only because abortion is driven by sexual motives.  For abortion is backup birth control, and birth control is the demand to have sex without having babies.  If the stork brought babies, there'd be no Planned Parenthood."  Peter Kreeft: "A Refutation of Moral Relativism"

The Logical End of Relativism

What happens when we follow relativism to its logical end?  Someone once told me that my faith gives me all the purpose and meaning and black and white lines I need.  In a way, he's right except for the fact that he means I believe in it for the purpose of obtaining these things.  I believe in my faith because it's true.  I know it in my heart as well as my mind and many writers far greater than I'll ever be have proven a thousand times over the logical arguments for the faith.  That all goes far beyond the scope of this post, but the irony of my friend's statement is this:  we all need purpose and meaning and these things can never be found in the realm of relativism.

Let's start with what relativism rejects: absolute truth.  Relativism rejects the idea that there is such a thing as objective morality-a definitive set of rules that we all should live by.  The Church teaches us that the laws of God are written on our hearts.  We recognize that morality and human rights do not come from man but from God.  We also declare that human beings are all beloved children of God, made in His image and as such possess inherent dignity.  From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

"Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone..." - CCC #356

"Because of its common origin the human race forms a unity, for 'from one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth.'" - CCC #360

"This law of human solidarity and charity, without excluding the rich variety of persons, cultures, and peoples, assures us that all men are truly brethren." - CCC #361

"Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception.  From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person-among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life." - CCC #2270 

Say, that sounds something like:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." - Declaration of Independence

So on the one side of the morality coin we have absolute truth: morality and human rights come from God and man does not have authority to change it.  On the flip side we have moral relativism which tells us that morality is determined by the individual and therefore changes from person to person, culture to culture, etc.  This sounds great, it sounds like freedom, doesn't it?  

Society: Nobody can force their morality on us, we make our own rules!  

Reality: Wait, who makes the rules?

Society: Man does, we don't need a small and petty god to tell us how to be good!

Reality: Okay, who among you gets to decide what the rules are?

Society: We'll vote to choose our leaders and they'll decide the laws for us.

Reality:  And how will they decide that?

Society: They can all say how they feel about stuff and then vote on it.

Reality: So, you want people to write laws based on their feelings?  But feelings are fleeting, unstable, and unreliable.  And doesn't this all mean you'll just be subject to the morality of your leaders?

Society: Well somebody has to write the rules you know!

Reality: And what will you do if you don't like the rules?

Society: We'll tell them to change it because we don't like it.

Reality: On what grounds, if everything is relative, how can you argue against how somebody else feels?

Society: That's not fair!

Reality: Fair is a relative term.  You lose.

Here's the problem, folks.  If our laws and rights and morality don't come from God, a higher authority than man, then we have no rights at all.  If our human rights are granted by man there is no such thing as inalienable rights!

inalienable: Not capable of being given up or transferred - Webster's II New Riverside Dictionary

If our rights come from man they mean nothing.  Anything granted by man can be taken away by man.  But that which is granted by God almighty, man has no authority to take away.   In the world of moral relativism, rights are determined by those in power and in the end, might makes right.  Translated that means the one with the biggest gun wins.  This is where monsters like Mussolini are born and it's only when we are holding fast to absolute truth  that we have legs and spine to stand up against them.  If you're adhering to relativism how can you possibly argue against anything?  Sure you can say it's wrong to hurt people.  What does it mean to hurt somebody?  Hitler thought he was doing a great service to the world.  He thought it was for the greater good and who are you to argue?  Does it hurt your feelings that he decided to kill people he thought were inferior?  Sorry, he and his ilk had different feelings and majority rules you know.  This isn't working out like you hoped it would, is it?  

If we will simply be honest with ourselves, if we can shake off the fog of our collective delusions we know deep inside that every single one of us has the same voice, the same moral code that comes from somewhere other than silly fleeting feelings.  It's the voice that makes us stand up and scream, "This isn't FAIR!"  If rape were legalized tomorrow would you throw up your hands and say, "Whelp, majority rules.  Who am I to judge?"  Of course not because everybody knows rape is wrong and it has nothing to do with a majority vote or what's legal and what's not.  Our morality, our human rights are not determined by majority or votes.  It's time to wake up, my friends.  It's time to open our eyes to the reality of the destruction caused by moral relativism in our society.  And that will be the focus of my next post.  I leave you with the great G.K. Chesterton, and until next time, may God bless you.

  

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid." - G.K. Chesterton

The Myth of the Hippie Jesus

It almost sounds like a bunch of really bad "B" movies, doesn't it? "Revenge of the Hippie Jesus!" "Hippie Jesus Returns!" "Hippie Jesus and Friends Sing Kumbaya!"  It's enough to make any self-respecting Christian want to slam their head in a door.  In this post, my goal is to slay the myth of the dreaded Hippie Jesus.

In my first post, "How Did We Get Here?", I referenced this pervasive myth briefly.  While it's easy to demonstrate that this is an inaccurate portrayal of Christ, it's also easy to understand how this myth came about.  You see, Hippie Jesus is this safe character who makes us feel warm and fuzzy.  He says great things about not judging others which we can take as a green light to do whatever we want and boldly declare, "You're not allowed to judge me for this, Hippie Jesus said so!"  The temptation is strong to take the money and run so to speak.  Let's take the words of Jesus that make us feel good about ourselves and ignore the rest.  But in reality, Jesus is dangerous and subversive and He takes us way out of our comfort zone.  This man claimed to be the Son of God, the Word made flesh for crying out loud!  There is nothing safe about that, and it's either true or he is in fact, a very bad man.  Read the following passage from the Gospel of Matthew:

When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"  They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."  He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"  Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."  Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father." -Matthew 16:13-17

 Plain as day, Jesus not only affirms Peter's statement but informs him that it is Divine revelation. We cannot sit on the fence about Christ.  His own words declare that He was not just another man with some wise words.  This demands of us a choice  to either accept this as truth or reject it, but it does not allow for a middle ground.  This is not an "I'm okay, you're okay, let's have a group hug" moment.  This is a "You're God walking among us or insane or evil, and pardon me but I need to go change my pants" moment.

Moving on, let's look at the conditions of discipleship Jesus lays out in the Gospel of Mark:

He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.  What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?  What could one give in exchange for his life?  Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this faithless and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels.  - Mark 8:34-38

Now let's be clear about something here.  We rarely hear about crucifixion these days and are most accustomed to thinking about taking up one's cross in a figurative sense.  But in those days, the cross struck terror into people's hearts.  This was an instrument of torture and the most horrific way to die.  For Jesus to tell people to take up their cross and follow him was nothing short of madness back then.  Are you feeling warm and fuzzy yet?

In his brilliant work of art, The Catholicism Series, Father Robert Barron points out a short but telling portion of Mark's Gospel:

They were on the way, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus went ahead of them.  They were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. - Mark 10:32

Why would anyone be afraid of Hippie Jesus? If he made his way from town to town preaching nothing but love and forgiveness what is there to be afraid of?  If he truly was just another great teacher among many, why fear?  It's like suggesting people could be afraid of the Dalai Lama.

For the sake of being thorough, let's throw one more in here.  The following is a passage from the Gospel of John in which Jesus calls Himself the bread of life:

"Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.  I am the bread of life.  Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?" Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.  For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink..."  - John 6:47-55

And then:

As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.  Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave?"  Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God." - John 6:66-69 

What Jesus said to those following Him was so shocking and offensive they walked away, all but the Twelve.  They walked away after seeing Jesus work miracles.   Imagine you watched a man raise the dead and then being so appalled at his words you just went home.  This is incidentally the Gospel passage used to prove the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but that is a subject for another post.

Now I don't want to send you running to the opposite end of the spectrum here either.  The takeaway message is not that Hippie Jesus isn't real, but real Jesus is super scary and we need to run for our lives.  But we certainly must dismiss the idea of Jesus as an ancient Care Bear.  As the always spot on Father Larry Richards puts it, "God is not Barney."  Are we all beloved children of God made in His image?  Absolutely.  Now, for those of you with children, do you love your children?  Of course you do.  Do you set rules and limits for your children and do you punish them with they misbehave?  Of course you do.  Now if you have the sense to do that, undoubtedly out of love for your children, would not the God of the universe do the same?  It is because God loves us that He wants more for us and demands more from us.  

See, the myth of the Hippie Jesus creates this deadly circular (il)logic.  We say that Jesus loves us just the way we are no matter what.  Because He loves us the way we are no matter what, He does not demand we change our ways.  Because He does not demand we change our ways, He is just like any other historical figure with friendly suggestions for humanity and is therefore not the Son of God.  Since He is not the Son of God, we don't need to change for Him.  And round and round we go.

But we do need to change and Christ demands this of us.  You can't possibly read the Gospel and come away thinking that you don't.  Let me put it this way:  if you know Jesus, especially if you came to know Him late in life like I did, and it didn't change you in a dramatic way, you're doing something very wrong.  And what message does this send to those around you?  If you call yourself a Christian, yet there is nothing remarkable about you, don't you send the message that it doesn't matter? Don't you add one more reason for people to think all religions are the same and what we believe is not important?  Don't be afraid, my friends.  Don't be afraid to stand out and look strange and be called names.  Remember:

"If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.  If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.  Remember the word I spoke to you, 'No slave is greater than his master.'  If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.  If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.  And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me...Whoever hates me also hates my Father."                                                                                                                                                                                                       -John 15:18-21,23 

 Until next time, may God bless you.