Apologetics toolbox: Assurance of salvation

One of the reasons Protestant Christianity has fragmented into so many different churches is that sola scriptura lends itself too easily to cherry-picking Scripture for “proof texts”. This tendency leads to two different logical fallacies: 1) quotation out of context, and 2) special pleading.

We should be familiar with out-of-context fallacies; we see them all the time with product and movie advertisements. The TV trailer tells us, “Roger Ebert says Thrill Ride is ‘A GREAT MOVIE … DON’T MISS IT’”. You go look up his review in the Chicago Sun-Times, and it says, “Thrill Ride is a great movie … except for the story, the dialogue, the acting, the cinematography, the editing and the score. I would tell you, ‘Don’t miss it’, except that I can’t think of a reason why it should be showing in the first place.”

Special pleading refers to an argument that, in its entirety, doesn’t give due consideration to countervailing evidence. In the blogosphere, that’s a hard charge to escape, simply because “due consideration” would make posts too long for the average surfer to want to read. In arguments between Catholics and Protestants, though, it chiefly crops up in the Protestant’s tendency to pin his entire argument on one or two proof texts.

Open letter to Rev. Roy Bourgeois, MM

Dear Fr. Bourgeois,

Like many other Catholics, I’ve read your letter to Rev. Edward Dougherty, the Superior General of your order. While I don’t doubt your sincerity, I do call into question your intellectual honesty as a priest of the Catholic Church.

Let’s step through the reasons you give that the Church should rescind its insistence on a male priesthood:

“(1) As Catholics, we believe that we were created in the image and likeness of God and that men and women are equal before God. Excluding women from the priesthood implies that men are superior to women.” 

Unfortunately, your conclusion doesn’t follow from your premise. Men can’t bear children; it doesn’t follow from that fact that men are inferior to women.

Thoughtless answers to tough Irish questions-UPDATED

If the Catholics of Ireland are angry with their hierarchy, their grounds for it are obvious and indubitable. However, anger is a dangerous emotion, and is a poor state from which to suggest changes.

John L. Allen, Jr., who (sadly) still writes for the National Catholic Distorter, reports: “I’m in Dublin this week for a couple of speaking gigs, the centerpiece of which is an April 6-9 conference on the sexual abuse crisis sponsored by the Jesuits’ Milltown Institute titled ‘Broken Faith: Revisioning the Church in Ireland’.”

Okay, the conference is being hosted by the Jesuits. Right away, you’re given grounds for suspicion.

It doesn’t get better. A social worker and psychotherapist from University College Dublin blames the problem on a theology of sexuality which can fuel “self-hatred and shame”, a theology of the priesthood which “sets [priests] apart in an unhealthy manner,” and a “top-down model” of leadership. The acting president of the Milltown Institute demands “a reinterpretation of the faith and the Christian way of life”, especially a “more participatory church” (i.e., hecklers’ rights over magisterial teaching).

Apologetics toolbox: faith vs. works

The role of works in Catholicism is a very basic fundamentalist/Evangelical concern, the answer to which should be in every Catholic’s apologetics toolkit.

At least once in your life, you’re bound to come across a Protestant who states that we Catholics believe we are saved by works. In all likelihood, this person will defend the error by exclaiming heatedly, “Hey, I used to be a Catholic!” Or, if she’s a cradle Protestant, she’ll appeal to the authority of Cindy Lou Apostate or Reverend Expriest over at the First Church of the Intolerant Master, and if they don’t know what Catholics really believe ….

Before you start, you should make clear how you’re using certain terms. The most important term to clarify is “works” itself, but I’ll save that for later. Right now, here are some basic concepts:

• Concupiscence: The human tendency to sin, the legacy of original sin (CCC 1264, 1426, 2515).
• Faith: The individual’s personal adherence to God and free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed (CCC 26, 142, 150, 1814).
• Justification: The gracious action of God which frees us from sin and communicates “the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ” (Rom 3:22) (CCC 1987-1989).
• Redemption: The price paid by Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross to free us from slavery to sin (CCC 571, 601; cf. 517, 1372).
• Salvation: The forgiveness of sins and restoration of friendship with God (CCC 169).
• Sanctification: The process of healing or “perfecting” our wounded nature, an action of God’s grace (CCC 1999).

Cohabitation versus conforming to Christ

In a clear contender for the Spinal Crosier Award of 2011, Archbishop Michael Sheehan of Santa Fe has issued a pastoral letter to his see, “Pastoral Care of Couples Who Are Cohabiting”.

In the letter, Abp. Sheehan forbids couples who are not married in the Church yet living together to receive the sacraments until their situations are regularized, as well as from acting as Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion and as godparents. Even more remarkably, he instructs pastors to “preach on the gravity of sin and its evil consequences, the 6th and 9th Commandments of God, and the sacramental nature and meaning of Christian marriage”, and insists that “Our catechetical programs in our parishes—children, youth, and adult—must clearly and repeatedly teach these truths.”

Of course, we’ve already gotten a whine from the Fishwrap. In a comment hysterically titled “Sheehan’s threats to cohabiting couples”, Heidi Schlumpf (I’m not making this up; I swear that’s her name) sneers, “It seems Sheehan has no real interest in persuading or teaching, but rather only punishing those who disagree with him. Oh, and making those who already agree with him happy for ‘laying down the law.’” Father John Zuhlsdorf rightfully diagnosed Schlumpf’s complaint: “Bishops who talk clearly and straight, even when they are right … are mean.  They are mean old mean meanies.”

But my purpose here is not to take her argument apart; I leave that to Fr. Z and LarryD of Acts of the Apostasy. Rather, I’d like to compare it with a post recently written by Melinda Selmys of Sexual Authenticity, “God Made Me This Way”.

Only a Christian nation can protect Islamic moderates

In my last job, I had several immediate supervisors over the course of three years. All of them had their strengths and weaknesses, but they were all good people to work under.

My favorite was Shamain. It’s not completely irrelevant that she’s stunningly attractive, very photogenic. However, she’s also a beautiful person. She’s a very empathetic, likeable person with a great sense of humor; she and I, as the saying goes, got on like a house afire.

Her model-quality good looks, I say, aren’t completely irrelevant. Shamain is a Moslem married to a Hindu; under Shariah, Moslem women can't marry non-Moslem men. I would never have found out how beautiful she is, either inside or out, had she worn the burqa. The burqa not only hides women from men’s eyes, it interposes a social wall between them.

It’s because of people like Shamain that people like Geert Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party in the Netherlands, are at pains to make distinctions between individual Moslems and Islam: “There are many moderate Muslims. That is why I always make a clear distinction between the people and the ideology, between Muslims and Islam. There are many moderate Muslims, but there is no such thing as a moderate Islam.”

Is "good without God" good enough?

I don't own the rights ... but here it is anyway ....

When I was a kid in the middle to late 1970s, the US Army was suffering from a lack of volunteer enlistments. Most of it was the aftermath of Vietnam … but part of it was also anemic advertising: “Today’s Army wants to join you.” “Join the people who have joined the Army.”

(To be upfront about it, I’m not wild about “An Army of One”, either. I can’t help thinking of George C. Scott’s speech at the beginning of Patton, taken from the general’s actual talks to his troops: “The Army is a team. It works, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This ‘individuality’ stuff is a bunch of crap!”)

It got a little bit better after the US hockey team beat the USSR at the 1980 Winter Olympics, and Americans started to feel good about being American again. Then the Army pulled out its best campaign ever: “Be All That You Can Be”.

Not “Be Most of What You Can Be”; not “Be the Vast Majority of What You Can Be”. The new Army campaign tapped right into the psyche of the people who wanted to prove themselves, who wanted to bring out their fullest potential. Enlistments skyrocketed after that.

Catholicism and sanity

There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church—which is, of course, quite a different thing.

—Abp. Fulton J. Sheen

Last week, when I had that attack of writer’s block, my good friend Larry sent me an email reply. Here it is, in part:

… [Y]ou are attracting readership because you have strong spirit in your writing and you have passion for the subject matter. There is a lot going on in the world. “Scary wrath of God stuff”; maybe what your readers need is some comfort (perhaps a new perspective wouldn’t hurt you either). God is with us always; I am reminded of the poem “Footprints”. He carries us in our time of need. … Catholicism has been providing this confidence to parishioners for centuries. This is the one thing that sets it apart from other Christian ideals.

Larry does have a point. I did say, in reply, that there are two sides to the doctrinal coin; as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, God’s mercy is meaningless if we deny God’s justice. However, a steady diet of “scary wrath of God stuff” does tend to beat the joy out of anyone.

The presumption of sexual innocence

If you think re-translating the liturgy of the Mass is a problem, try re-translating the Bible.

Recently, the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine issued a revised edition of the New American Bible (NABRE). I haven't picked it up yet; I do have a couple of copies of the NAB, though for most of my work here I use the Catholic edition of the Revised Standard Version (RSV-CE, which I usually abbreviate RSV).

Although there are plenty of minor changes—especially the much chuckled-over switch to "treasure" from "booty"—the one change that causes the most concern is the retranslation of almah in Isaiah 7:14 from "virgin" to "young woman". In this chapter, God speaks through Isaiah to Ahaz, the king of Judah, and tells him to ask for a sign. Ahaz refuses: "I will not tempt the Lord!". Then he turns to the people and says:

Listen, O house of David! It is not enough for you to weary men, must you also weary my God? Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign: the [almah] shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.

Gender silliness and the intersexed—UPDATED

Over on Mercator.net, Babette Francis has a lightly ironic piece on the Australian Human Rights Commission’s discussion paper, “Protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and sex and/or gender identity”. At the same time, Simcha Fisher has a rumination on boys and girls who, in this day and age of stereotype-free living, still insist on behaving like boys and girls.

The AHRC’s paper, which bemoans the poor discriminated-against transgendered and thus has plenty of recommendations for Aus to adopt, includes this definition of “gender”:

The phrase sex and/or gender identity is used in this paper as a broad term to refer to diverse sex and/or gender identities and expressions. It includes being transgender, trans, transsexual and intersex. It also includes being androgynous, agender, a cross dresser, a drag king, a drag queen, genderfluid, genderqueer, intergender, neutrois, pansexual, pan-gendered, a third gender, and a third sex. It also includes culturally specific terms, such as sistergirl and brotherboy, which are used by some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Francis quipped, “Being Indian by birth and having married an Australian of Anglo-Celtic origin, I am all for diversity, but I am not going to commit to ‘neutrois’ until someone tells me what it means.” But as a respondent, Zoe, informed us , “neutrois” is a word used to describe some who because of certain genetic conditions doesn’t completely fit into either male or female categories.