Disgust

[pecunium]

Religion:

It gives me trouble. Not for myself. I am very comfortable with mine, and the choices I've made. I'm an American. A, heterodox, Roman Catholic who has problems with one major aspect of Church Doctrine (the bull Ex cathedra which claims the Pope is infallible in matter of doctrine. I can't swallow this, he is man. Ideally a learned man, perhaps even a holy man, but a man. He must also be one who was skilled in the politics of the church. He is, at best, primus inter pares. Looking at history, and the things which have shaped who got to wear the Papal Mitre, I don't have faith that the Spirit is the sole moving force in the selection of the pope. I can even accept that he gets to set doctrine, and shape dogma. All that I can suffer. I can't, however, accept that his election by the College of Cardinals lets him put God on retainer, but I digress).

This is all part and parcel of being an American. America is a country shaped by the Reformation. It is full of little pockets of personal interpretation of the Christian scriptures. This is for good and ill. Dogma (a teaching that is seen as a key part of a religion's core tradition, spelled out in some specific way that is considered definitive, authoritative, or binding on all, usually by reference to some sort of holy writings)is useful, but we; as a culture scorn it, because we are a nation of iconoclasts.

Which is where the trouble comes in. I wish the rest of the religious landscape was as calm about it as I am.

As I said the other day, Micah 7-8 are important texts to me. They elaborate on the central teachings of both the Jewish religion Jesus was reared in; and his teachings, and the tenets of the Church I was reared in.

"Love thy neighbour as thyself." Hillel said that was the whole of The Law, all else is commentary (in addition to, at one time, considering holy orders, [can you see it, me in the clothes of the priesthood. A memento mori, every day. Father Terrence] I was active in my college Hillel. No man is all of a piece, though perhaps those are similar cloths).

But there are those who do not see this as being all important. They see rather the beliefs of those whom they assist as being more important than the assistance.

Church halts aid because of Roman Catholics

One of Charlotte's best-known churches has withdrawn support for a food pantry that serves the needy because the pantry works with Roman Catholics.

Why, one wonders, would one church refuse aid to the poor because a differing denomination was involved? It seems they are afraid the work of Catholics may taint the people being helped, "Central Church of God explained its decision in a letter March 1 from minister of evangelism Shannon Burton to Loaves & Fishes in Charlotte: "As a Christian church, we feel it is our responsibility to follow closely the (principles) and commands of Scripture. To do this best, we feel we should abstain from any ministry that partners with or promotes Catholicism, or for that matter, any other denomination promoting a works-based salvation."

There you have it. Because the Catholic Church believes that faith, without works, is dead, they can't be allowed to help the poor keep body and soul together.

Loaves and Fishes, mind you, isn't a Catholic agency. It's an ecumenical agency. But the presence of Jews and Presbyterians wasn't the reason they couldn't be supported. Nope the it was the near occasion of sin in the form of Catholics which raised there hackles here.

In the face of criticism they seem to have decided that Catholics, all in all, aren't quite so badm they did issue an apology. CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The pastor of Central Church of God says the huge Charlotte church will continue supporting two ministries it had decided to quit helping because of the presence of Catholics.

"I'm apologizing," the Rev. Loran Livingston said at the second of two Palm Sunday services. "I'm telling all the people for the hurt, 'I'm sorry.' As long as we can, we're going to help until the Lord tells us to redirect our wealth."

So twp of the four aid groups they said they couldn't support, because they had the support of a denomination they thought to be heretics will get money again.

The others, well one is being, "reconsidered,", though the means by which they shall be judged are not clear. The last, The Charlotte Rescue Mission (which has has been in business since 1938. Billy Graham's father was one of its founders) is still off the list, because it allowed three Muslim students to work the line.

I wonder what scriptural principle they are following, because the one which comes to mind for me is,
Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."

Matt 7:9-20.

And what of these fruits? This is from the apology, The minister said the earlier decision "made us look like we are better than everybody else."

I would have to disagree.

Comments

[lisajulie.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly accustomed to Roman Catholics being considered to be outside the Pale. Actually, literally, they were - but that's an historical digression.

I grew up in Oregon where there weren't any African Americans. The Ku Klux Klan terrorized Catholic families.

My mother was raised Roman Catholic and she reported that her college roommate, at Reed College, had been told that "If you have to marry an undesirable, dear, marry a Negro rather than a Catholic." My mother certainly felt that my father's strongly Protestant missionary family disapproved of her because of the religious issue. They were also distressed that I was sent to Roman Catholic schooling.

But this hard-line attitude baffles me. On both sides. To believe that acts of virtue will redeem sinfulness? Nutso. To believe that faith only is necessary for salvation and so works aren't important? Right crazy.

Christianity as a faith system lost me long ago. But I have tried to internalize the "love your brother as yourself" and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". I want to behave in that model.

When I die? Whereby their fruits ye shall know them.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know. Having been a Catholic all my life, I've had more than a little acquaintance with the idea of my heresies being a blot on my soul, and hurdle; insurmountable, to my salvation.

I've been lectured to on airplanes, buses, streetcorners, in libraries and outside classrooms.

Usually I can give as good as I get (or better, I did, after all, consider becoming a Jesuit, so not only did I familiarise myself with the books, I had more than a little exposure to the doctrines of the Church).

It has, on occasion, allowed me to piss the crap out of those trying to "save" me. On others it has just confused them (the one I said was engaging in hubris, because he "knew" he was saved; well he never got it, and told me I was doomed, because I said I didn't, and none of us could).

The Church doesn't believe that works alone will save one. But faith without works is not going to do it either (well, no, there are exceptions, but perfect contrition at death seems risky, not least because to depend on that smacks of either pride, or a supreme contempt for God).

Jesus demanded both faith, and works. The Church doesn't see how it can contravene His word.

TK

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

The whole faith VS works thing is where (I think) these people are getting it.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

No, they take a verse from Paul, "for it is by Grace alone" and thereby presume works are useless, and that anything which doesn't make the complete surrender of one's self to Jesus (much like Islam) is inadequate, and so leads to damnation.

TK

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

That was sort of my point. Plus, I think they have some wacky concept of comnamination. But I could be wrong on that.

[ad-kay.livejournal.com]

Oh, fundamentalists have a whole slew of reasons they think why Catholics are wrong (i.e., going to Hell). They pray to statues instead of praying to God. They baptize infants instead of allowing children to make their own choice to become a Christian (ignoring the fact that kids "walk the aisle" due to family pressure). They think the Pope speaks for God. They don't follow The Bible. They don't read the Bible. They have all those funny extra books in the Bible. They recite prayers from a book. They don't believe in making people Accept Christ as Their Personal Savior. They do all those weird ceremonial things instead of Having A Personal Relationship with Jesus, which means they're Unsaved. As a child, I used to read articles in Southern Baptist publications about How to Witness to Catholics. Because of course if you don't practice 19th Century fundamentalist Protestantism, that means you're going to hell.

Did I miss anything, Terry?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Not really, though I was told I worshiped the statues themselves.

It was always amusing to me to be "witnessed" to. I usually knew the text better, and had more coeherent arguement.

There was the night, standing in line for a movie (and hence a captive audience) when I quoted numbers (chapter and verses) and caused someone who was railing at us (there were some thirty of us, in renaissance garb, it was the opening for Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, on my birthday, and I'd gotten no small number of friends to attend, in garb) to scream, "I'm not a hypocrite, I'm trying to save your goddamned soul!"

I don't think he noticed that I must be, at least passing familiar with the book, to be able to quote those chapters and verses.

TK

[ad-kay.livejournal.com]

(snort) I love how he just knew that you were unsaved. I guess that would make him... the Holy Spirit??

Of course, one cannot remain a fundamentalist without having to do violence to the text and perform all kinds of mental gymnastics to explain away contradictions and inconsistencies. E.g, when I was ~10, I noticed that there seemed to be two Flood stories. In one paragraph, Noah brought onboard the Ark a breeding pair of each critter. In the next, he brought one pair of each type of "unclean" animal, and seven pairs of each type of "clean" animals. I was quite puzzled, since I knew the concept of clean vs. unclean wasn't introduced until the time of Moses, many centuries hence. No one was able to explain that adequately.

This may interest you: The minister of my church, First UU Austin, gave this sermon on the fundamentalist agenda in 2002. He describes how the Fundamentalism Project of the U. of Chicago ID'ed several characteristics that all types of fundamentalist religion share:
http://www.austinuu.org/sermons/loehr020302.html

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

He was some sort of Baptist, and they know they are saved, because they took Jesus into their heart, and once one is saved, one cannot become unsaved.

Heresy, if you ask me, and evil to boot, because it allows one to cast aside all the teachings of Christ. If one truly believed, in that moment, one has done all they think one is required to do.

I read Matt. and I can't accept that.

TK

[ad-kay.livejournal.com]

He was some sort of Baptist, and they know they are saved, because they took Jesus into their heart, and once one is saved, one cannot become unsaved.

(shudder) Yikes, I'm having Baptist flashbacks! It has taken years of study to go back and unlearn all that indoctrination.

[ladyjillian.livejournal.com]

Just idly wandering by (not enough interesting on my friends list this morning, so I was browsing through ginmar's, and just felt constrained to mention something. I've certainly heard all of the things you wrote from the mouths of fundamentalists (as well as 'they slavishly follow their priests,' which is a laugh when you consider the relationship between fundamentalists and their pastors), but in my opinion the worst 'sin' Catholics make in their eyes is to 'idolize' Mary. I think the presence of a woman in the Catholic church makes them deeply uncomfortable. To a lesser extent, fundamentalists also seem disturbed by the idea of the trinity--as you know, for them it's all about Jesus, and the idea of a threefold God smacks to them of paganism.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I am going to assume you are not Catholic (in any of the flavors of it, which; off the top of my head, number seven).

We don't "idolize" Mary. In some ways we idealise her, and that may be worse.

The Immaculate Conception (which was the conception of Mary, not the conception of Jesus) puts her, theologically in a strange place, much the way the lack of sin on the part of Jesus puts him in a strange place (more strange than the divided dualism of his completeness as man, and his not ceasing to be part of the Godhead).

But Mary's nature is that of any other saint, Teresa of Avila, or Catherine, or Anne (mother of John the Baptist) all of them have traits which are idealisations of the aspects of humanity, and some of them are specific to women (I recall reading, in Butler's Lives of the Saints, the horrors inflicited on some of the women who were martyred for thier virginity) and that, as well as the ideals held up in the lives of male Saints (esp. those from the Middle Ages back to the dawn of the Church) is a burden.

How does one live up to that? In some ways, perhaps, the lack of women being able to attain that level of transcedence, in life, might make it harder for many Catholics to treat them as well as they deserve, because they fail that ideal, but in the main the teachings of the Church don't support that (any more than many of the calumnies levelled at Dworkin are supported if one reads the texts referrenced) interpretation.

As for the trinity, the fundamentalists do believe in it, just not in the way the Catholics do (for one they make Jesus supreme, if the Church makes any aspect of the Trinity Supreme is is probably the Father, followed by the Spirit). Jean Calvin had Michael Servutus burnt at the stake for making an argument which would be seen as almost Unitarian, and not that objectionable, today (he also discovered the circulation of the bood, in the 16th century). Some of his views, about the unity of the tri-partite nature of God have been widely adopted, but the greatest distinction between the Catholic Church and the fundamentalists (in my opinion) is their belief in a more Dualistic universe, with a Devil who is, if not quite the equal of God, so close that he might manage to win, push come to shove.

TK

[ladyjillian.livejournal.com]

I am Catholic, actually. One of the ways I entertained myself during the year and a half I worked in the Midwest was to spend a lot of time with fundamentalists, including attending services and Bible study evenings; I'm reporting what I learned and heard from them.