Catholic

"Christian participation in public debate requires the use of language, argumentation, and strategies that -- according to Scripture itself -- are most appropriate and effective for interaction in the public realm, where God's Word is not regarded as authoritative."

According to an email I received last night, this is the key sentence in a new document that the CTCR (Commission on Theology and Church Relations) of the LCMS (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod) is publishing.

The impetus for the document that contains this quote was a resolution from the Wyoming District at our last Synodical Convention that suggested a previous CTCR document on discussing cell stem issues in the public sphere wasn't strong enough on Scriptural argumentation. This sets the stage for the interesting question of how Christians should engage in debate with those who aren't Christians ... or on what basis Christians of different stripes should debate.

It reminds me of a recent discussion I had in a string of comments with a Roman Catholic guy from New Zealand in response to a YouTube clip. Much like Luther almost 500 years ago, I said, "Let's talk based on what we supposedly agree on, the Bible." He said we can't understand the Bible without the Councils. I suggested that's why we have something else we agree on, the Creeds. He was willing to move towards the Early Church Fathers, but again, those guys vary as much in their decrees as the Councils so it's really a matter of which one you want to pick to make your argument. The point being, unless you're standing on common ground, fruitful discussion is never going to happen. The same is true when Christians talk in the public square. The 10 Commandments don't carry any weight. Neither does the rest of Scripture. To make an argument based upon a chapter and verse turns you into background noise.

So, how should Christians talk in the public sphere? I think the CTCR nails the answer. We begin in private and allow Scripture to shape our thinking, but we then carry over those thoughts into the empirical realm, find evidence from a publicly authoritative source that affirms our beliefs and challenges the beliefs of those on the other side of the debate. The result is Scripture remains normative for us and we have creditable arguments in public.

As a tangent, this plays into evangelism as well, where you can find a publicly authoritative source to speak the Law before introducing the Bible as the only authoritative source when it comes to the Gospel.

As the saying goes, "The more things change the more things stay the same." Here's an article from Zenit, a Catholic website, on how to obtain new relics that are available from Pope John Paul II or, as an alternative, a special Pope card that includes an ecclesiastically sanctioned prayer you can pray to receive grace because of the deceased Pope's intercession on your behalf.

Here's the text of a prayer:

O Blessed Trinity

We thank You for having graced the Church with Pope John Paul II and for allowing the tenderness of your Fatherly care, the glory of the cross of Christ, and the splendor of the Holy Spirit, to shine through him.

Trusting fully in Your infinite mercy and in the maternal intercession of Mary, he has given us a living image of Jesus the Good Shepherd, and has shown us that holiness is the necessary measure of ordinary Christian life and is the way of achieving eternal communion with you.

Grant us, by his intercession, and according to Your will, the graces we implore, hoping that he will soon be numbered among your saints.

Amen.

So, what are the things that strike me as "most wrong" about this? First off, in the second section of the prayer, we have Christ not being enough because John Paul II also trusted fully "in the maternal intercession of Mary." Then, this is followed by discounting the work of Christ on our behalf by identifying a holy life as "the way of achieving eternal communion with you." Finally, the prayer closes with a request that John Paul II would intercede for us because, once again, apparently Christ isn't good enough.

Now, having spent time with Catholics I've picked up that, unlike Lutherans who have a collection of books that say, "Here's our doctrine.", Catholics don't really have a set doctrine outside of a church structure that starts with the Pope and works it's way down, but still, that's some mighty jacked up, anti-biblical teaching that is no different than what Luther dealt with in his day.

I've mentioned it here before, but one of the early questions I had to ask myself when thinking about Genesis was, "What makes something Church?" Over the past couple of days I've run into a couple of different ideas on how this question should be answered.

The first of these actually came via Leonard Sweet's "Napkin Scribbles" podcast (click here to subscribe with iTunes) and centered on an invitation he received to join The Beatitudes Society which, as the name would suggest, challenges people to live out the beatitudes of Matthew 5. According to this model, Church is defined by some kind of a moral code, in this case the beatitudes.

The fundamental problem with this approach, be it The Beatitudes Society, Red Letter Christians, or the old school saying, "Don't smoke, drink or chew, or go with those who do." is that it makes Jesus' primary purpose one of teaching ... he becomes the example we are to follow. However, if we look to Matthew 16:13-19, Jesus identifies the Church's foundation in him being the Christ, that is the anointed one of God who came into the world to inaugurate the Kingdom of God through the cross and empty tomb.

This of course doesn't mean that Christians shouldn't hold to a certain set of moral standards, it just means that adhering to a certain morality doesn't make something Church.

Now of course, Matthew 16 is a rather controversial place to go because in it, Roman Catholics find one of their proof-texts for the papacy (16:18). Of course, I chose that passage specifically because it provides a nice transition into another view on what makes something Church.

Today I ran across this article on CNN.com that covers an announcement made by the Vatican which states that "it is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could possibly be attributed to [Protestant churches]". According to the same document, the various Orthodox traditions are better off than Protestant traditions, but are still wounded because of they do not recognize the primacy of the Pope.

While I haven't been able to find the 16-page document online, given the rankings of the various bodies, it appears that Protestants are worse off than the Orthodox bodies because they lack the ecclesiastical structure that is shared by Roman Catholics and the Orthodox. In this situation, something is made Church based upon its organizational structure and a hierarchy of those in pastoral office with, in the case of Roman Catholics, the Pope at the top of the ladder.

So, how do I respond to the proof-text of Matthew 16:18? The verse reads in part, "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." The question we need to answer is, "What does 'this rock' mean?" Roman Catholics argue that because the words "Peter" and "rock" are very similar in Greek (and identical in Aramaic) that Peter himself is the rock and at this moment Jesus is establishing the papacy. Others will point to the rock being Peter's confession, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." in verse 16.

Personally, I think the pronouns make the correct interpretation rather obvious because "you" and "this" have different references so "this rock" cannot be Peter unless we have Jesus looking at Simon and telling him that he's Peter and then looking at the rest of the disciples and saying, "And on this rock I will build my church." Furthermore, the rest of Scripture (for example Galatians 2 and 1 Corinthians 1:10-17) affirms that it's the teaching that is central and not a single man or position.

Now, this doesn't mean that you can't have a some kind of hierarchy among pastors, it's just means that it's something that should be done for the sake of good order and by human arrangement and is not what makes something Church.

Rather, as Scripture teaches and the old hymn sings:

The Church's one foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord; she is his new creation by water and the Word. From heav'n he came and sought her to be his holy bride; with his own blood he bought her and for her life he died.

In other words, what makes something Church? It's people who have hear the voice of Jesus and gather around the means of grace through which Jesus called them to himself.