The funniest thing I’ve read online today was in the blog of my brother-in-law Jeremy, a mischievous father if I’ve ever known one. His blog basically recounts interesting episodes with his children. Here’s the entry that made me laugh out loud….
It is middle of the afternoon on no particular day. The birds are chirrrping outside and I am inside with two of my children playing ‘supper’ or ‘tea party’ or something to that effect.
So the kids are happily sitting there, with plastic ware, inviting dad to join them and have some soup. (Air soup, I am guessing, because the plastic pan looked empty to me, but don’t tell them that).
As I join the circle, I notice that Isabelle has invited several of her friends to this little eating festival. Among the stuffed animals and baby dolls gathered there, I select a small stuffed cat for my experiment.
In the Brain: Children really need to know the difference between humans and animals, and that animals, well, are pretty much like plastic toys, except more intricately made. And they have their uses.
Having selected an orange tabby (not daring to grab Isabelle’s favorite one, Fussy Kitty)… I drop the cat in the pot, and cry “Soup’s On!!!”
Both of my children give me horrified looks. Both Ender and Isabelle seem shocked that I would do something like that; even more shocked than I had anticipated.
But what happened next reminded me that whether nature or nuture won out in these kids, they belonged to me.
Both of them reached for the kitty, and took it out of the pot. Isabelle said, “You can’t eat the poor kitty” Ender said, “No, Dad. No.”
And then, Isabelle with her sweet kitten heart said, “You have to kill it before you cook it.”
She’s got perspective, that one.
Then Ender proceeded to feed this poor kitty some of the air soup. And would not allow me to toss the kitten back in the pot.
And then his parenting came through in all its shining glory, and he was my son once again. “Dad, you don’t want to eat that skinny kitten. Let’s fatten it up first.”
And thus stands the whole kitten issue at our house.
“Ender” like from “Ender’s Game”? Great name.
Yep. That’s who he’s named after.
Their younger daughter is named Auralia, after a character in a novel I’ve written.
I feel jubilation because I feel “safe” as someone commented over at my blog. Also, the fact that this was such a swift election means to me that there was a quick consensus … and that seems like the Holy Spirit, which is always what we need.
And, I’ll keep your discernment in my prayers. Thanks for sharing that. As a convert I know it can be an “interesting” journey. 🙂
Like Peter, I’m interested (though this has happened just recently) in the Orthodox Church. On my list of things to read in the near future is Frank Schaeffer’s Dancing Alone: The Quest for Orthodox Faith in the Age of False Religion, in which he explains why he walked away from his father’s Protestantism and started writing those controversial novels like Portofino. I think one thing Schaeffer deals with is the possibility that Protestantism is the historical source of moral relativism. This is something I’ve been dealing with as I realized how the churches that I know pick and choose the scripture that they support–e.g., I don’t think I’ve ever seen a church that has come to grips with I Cor. 5. But then, I have no idea if the Orthodox Church would be any “closer to perfect.”
A few thoughts…
I’m intrigued by the implications of scripture’s mention of the “great cloud of witnesses” … something stated matter-of-factly in the Bible, but rarely ever discussed among Protestants. I *like* the idea that the saints are able to intercede for us in prayer, and while I don’t base my faith on what I *like,* I do sense what Gandalf would call “the ring of truth” in that. Especially considering Christ’s ability to just sit down and chat with Elijah. And it was a long time ago that I had the echoes of my upbringing (“But…they WORSHIP MARY”) revised by my Catholic friends to a far more interesting and appealing understanding.
Further, I don’t feel the churches in my background have treated the appointment of Peter as the head of the church with much respect. Am I to disregard the efforts of Peter and the apostles to structure the church in a certain way? Did the Reformation really merit the casting off of all of these beautiful disciplines and traditions?
These are just a few thoughts that have been following me around in recent days.
Full agreement on your first paragraph, Jeff. It is also interesting to see that the New Testament makes reference to certain things (the healing power of relics, the supernatural nature of Communion) that many Protestant churches have abandoned out of a fear of appearing too “magical”; also, the New Testament seems to assume the acceptability of the baptism of infants, which, if you grew up Anabaptist as I did, poses a bit of a problem.
Plus, if you’re the sort, like me, who enjoys many features of Jewish worship and believes that the Jews who founded Christianity did so in accordance with their Jewish heritage, I think these practises have been preserved in Orthodox (and perhaps Catholic) settings in a way that they have not been preserved by typical Protestants. To quote what I said elsewhere, “I saw the Campus Crusade Jesus film for the first time in a long, long time, and when Jesus reads from the scriptures in the synagogue, at the end of that scene, he rolls up the scripture and kisses it — venerates it, you could say — and when I saw that, I wondered if the evangelicals who made this film, who wanted to be as authentic to the Jewish culture of that time as possible and showed Jesus himself doing that, ever asked themselves, ‘When did we stop doing that?'”
As to your second paragraph, this of course is where the Orthodox and Catholics part ways. The Orthodox emphasize the apostolic nature of the Church, of course, but also the conciliar nature of the Church — note how, at the very first Council in Jerusalem (Acts 15), Peter does speak but he does not have the last word, and he certainly does not act unilaterally or serve as some sort of monarch over the others. The doctrines that so many Protestants take for granted — the nature of the Trinity, the composition of the New Testament — were settled by bishops from across the Church meeting in ecumenical councils, not by centralized decrees issued by Rome.
(I also wonder just when Peter arrived in Rome anyway, given that he doesn’t seem to have been there when Paul wrote his epistle to the Romans circa AD 58 — but that’s a bit of a tangent. My only point in bringing that up is to note that the leadership of the Church in Rome appears to have been a distinct thing from whatever position Peter had — just as the leadership of the Chruch in Antioch, which Catholic tradition says began with Peter and Paul, was also a distinct thing from whatever position Peter had — and that even if the former were inheritable, it is not at all clear to me that the latter was, too.)
Re: books, I have not read Frank Schaeffer’s books on Orthodoxy, though I have read Portofino, and I suspect his writings on religion would be a tad polemical for my tastes. The book I have found most helpful so far is Bishop Kallistos Ware’s The Orthodox Church (which I believe you can read in its entirety here); some people might also appreciate Fr. Peter Gillquist’s Becoming Orthodox, though it is a tad “evangelical” for my tastes.
My apologies for the ultra-long post. 🙂
Peter T Chattaway wrote: The Orthodox emphasize the apostolic nature of the Church, of course, but also the conciliar nature of the Church
Sorry, Peter, it doesn’t wash. You just can’t paint the Orthodox position here as the “both-and” view. The fact is that it’s the Catholic Church that affirms both the conciliar nature of the Church (hello! we’re the ones still holding general councils!) and also the Petrine principle of unity. The Orthodox position is the one that takes the either-or route and pits conciliarity against Petrine unity.
Of course, we already hashed all this out at length here.
note how, at the very first Council in Jerusalem (Acts 15), Peter does speak but he does not have the last word, and he certainly does not act unilaterally or serve as some sort of monarch over the others
And this we already hashed out here.
Only someone under the influence of Orthodox propaganda, and thus prejudiced to mistakenly think of the Catholic position as anti-collegial (because pro-papal), and therefore “unilateral” and “monarchical,” would find it in any way telling that on a particular occasion Peter did not act in a unilateral and monarchical way. Peter’s successor today doesn’t act in a unilateral and monarchical way, so why exactly would it be telling that Peter himself didn’t do so, either??
SDG wrote: Only someone under the influence of Orthodox propaganda…
Um, well, I was hoping to avoid that sort of polemical tone.
At the moment I feel a little like a child whose parents have divorced and who both now demand exclusive custody rights. I would be a lot happier if Catholics and Orthodox had never split. But at the moment, it seems I am compelled by both sides to choose between them or to remain homeless, as it were.
The fact that one parent continues to hold “family meetings” after leaving the rest of the family (or after the rest of the family left the house, take your pick) doesn’t impress me much. If anything, I admire Orthodox restraint in this area.
All I can say, at this point, is that Catholic theology (and some of the Protestant theology built on it) seems to me to be fundamentally wrong on certain points (e.g. the general approach to sexuality including the permissibility of married priests, the atonement, and so on), whereas the Orthodox approach has the “ring of truth”. The only area where I think Catholicism may have the edge is in its modernization, including its acceptance of modern science and modern artforms (from Renaissance art to film); but of course, the west invented a lot of these things and thus the western churches have had much more time to come to terms with them.
On this subject, I’m only in elementary school, and you fellas are in college, so I’m listening with fascination and curiosity. Thanks for the background, and feel free to go on.
Tough to do when you step into a thread on the election of the new Roman pontiff, on the very day of his election…
Well, yes, but I did this on a sort of Protestant-by-default site — it’s not like I was lobbing grenades into a Catholic forum. At least, I hope not. (And thank you, Jeff, for encouraging both of us to keep at it here. I hope you know what you’re in for…!)
I’m just pointing out the facts.
Possibly. But in theology, there is a very fine line between facts and interpretations of facts — our theories are often based on other people’s theories, so to speak, and not on empirically observable phenomena — so to say that something is or isn’t a “fact” will often sound like begging the question.
For example, you say the Catholic Church does “respect the conciliar nature of the Church,” but what you seem to mean by that is that the Pope continues to hold meetings and call them “councils”, perhaps even “ecumenical councils”, even though four patriarchs and dozens or hundreds of bishops do not attend them. Hence, my remark above about a parent leaving a family and continuing to hold “family meetings” on his or her own. Calling these gatherings “ecumenical councils” does not necessarily make them so.
When I talk about the Orthodox being “conciliar”, I mean that they have a more decentralized structure that is reflected in their willingness to meet as equals, as opposed to the Catholic structure whereby one man alone gets to sit on a throne over all the others. I can’t imagine the Orthodox ever adopting anything resembling the Catholic principle that a single man can be infallible when he speaks “from the chair”.
In the end, though, there are not two parents. Christ has one Bride, and we have one Mother. Somehow, the Church is and must be indivisibly One (also Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic). Bodies of bishops can, have, and will fall out with one another, yet the Church remains One.
Indeed. Hence the competing claims to exclusive custody of my soul. If we accept this sort of ecclesiology, then either the Roman Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church is that one Church. And at the moment, I tilt towards the latter. Not only is the theology better on a number of points, but one does not come across stories of Orthodox armies trying to conquer Catholic lands the way that we frequently hear about Catholic Crusades and the like; in beliefs and actions, the Catholic Church has historically been found wanting, IMHO. (Of course, Catholics and Orthodox were equally prone to mixing politics and religion, a fact that will probably rankle my Anabaptist sensibilities forever, but what can you do.)
For me, the answer is simple. Jesus told St. Peter to feed his sheep. We are all His sheep. I follow Peter.
I guess some choose to follow him through Antioch or any of the other places that he visited and led, instead of Rome. 🙂
Whew! That’s a mouthful (and very interesting). I hope you folks won’t mind someone else interjecting briefly.
Still being in Protestant-land myself (and feeling a little bit like Jeffrey, whose columns I’ve read for a long time, is coming out of some kind of a “closet” with this post 🙂 ) (at least, that’s how some Protestants might think of it–my apologies in advance, SDG), I’m wondering less about organizational unity & more about cross-pollination.
In other words, if there was greater organizational unity, would we be less able to maintain a multi-faceted picture of the faith & less able to positively influence & correct each other?
Personally, I have been positively influenced by Orthodox and Catholic and Protestant thinkers. (For that matter, I’ve been positively influenced by others as well.) I think any distinctive doctrine or practice can be taken to extremes & abused, whether it’s praying to saints or having churches be self-governing & democratic. That’s why I have a soft spot for diversity.
Jeffery, I’m with you that Protestants need to do better with the arts. We all experience & are affected by the arts (perhaps particularly outside of our churches in this visually-saturated society). If our devotion to God is to be a part of our whole life, we should covet a theology that deals with these things.
Interesting to see you post publicly about this, Jeffrey. I was a little startled by the leap from your Baptist upbringing to the appeal of Catholicism, knowing that you’re currently a Presbyterian.
As a member of the PCA, have you mentioned this shift in views to your church session?