BTW, how did it come to be that Luther didn't get to get rid of "Jimmy," Jude, Hebrews, et al?
I've heard many times that Luther didn't like James and wanted to get rid of it, but I've never heard why he didn't.
Anyone out there know the answer?
IMHO, Mark's long post on the current Catholic apologetic scene deserves to be read alongside of Cardinal Dulles' fine overview recently in FIRST THINGS. Superb job, Mark.
I'm hoping that you'll soon join Cardinal McCarrick in signing the protest against torture that appeared this week in the NEW YORK TIMES - signed by high profile Jews, Muslims, Protestants, and Catholics.
I'd sign it if somebody's asks me to.
But I'm not really that high profile.
Excellent post.
Well said. Fr. Bob Connor (http://robertaconnor.blogspot.com) once said to me something to the effect that traditionalism and liberalism are both the heresy of rationalism. It's that -- oh too easy -- human tendency to fit reality into created intellectual categories. Ratzinger himself distinguished between Christianity and the "idea of Christianity." The former is that inter-personal relationship with Christ (and also our neighbor), while the latter is an ideology.
Peace,
Mark, there are times when you truly make me wistful that I'm a cradle RC and not a convert.
Mark, one of your finest posts ever! Thank You!
Steve
The original Westminster Catholic Evidence Guild was founded shortly after World War I to answer virulently anti-Catholic speakers. Frank Sheed, who was an early member although not a founding member -- his future wife, Maisie Ward, was a founding memeber -- has written that at first the CEG's motto was "Defend the Catholic Church". Then it became, "Prove the Catholic Church". Then, "Explain the Catholic Church." As he wrote, the truth makes a stronger case for itself than any argument we can make. Our task is to help people see the truth and understand it.
Well, and for the record, well Catholic apologists may have misquoted Luther, I would also balance what the Lutheran Apologist said by reading Luther's letter "Against the Raging Horde of Murderous Peasants," a title I am not making up (I wrote a paper on it), but which you won't exactly find on the ELCA website. He did say crazy things.
Judith asked:
I've heard many times that Luther didn't like James and wanted to get rid of it, but I've never heard why he didn't.
Basically, it worked like this: In his 1522 Bible, Luther states that in his personal opinion four traditional NT books and the OT deuterocanonicals were not equal to the others, but he said that he was not trying to bind others to this view. Within a generation, Protestantism had fully accepted the full 27 book NT canon, and within two centuries Protestantism had fully rejected the OT deuterocanonicals. So Luther began one trend successfully and another trend unsuccessfully -- but he began both trends the same way.
In his 1522 Bible, Luther demoted James, Jude, Hebrews and Revelation, including them in an appendix and criticizing them in his introduction to the Bible as a whole and in the introductions to those specific books as well.
Here is Luther's introduction to his 1522 Bible. Read the three paragraphs beginning with the yellow highlight, and then scroll down to read his "Preface to the Letter of James" and "Preface to Revelation", and decide for yourself if Luther is merely demoting these books or omitting them. I think he's omitting them but one could read it otherwise.
In his 1545 revision of the Bible, however, Luther was apparently more mild in his statements. Many Protestants have pointed this out, for example, this article by Dave Armstrong with the red-color clarification by James Swan.
Wikipedia states that "Even today, German-language Luther Bibles are printed with these four books at the end of the canon, rather than their traditional order for other Christians." Can anyone verify this?
+J.M.J+
I was exposed to Catholic apologetics toward the end of my Evangelical daze. It was one factor that ultimately helped me to return to the Church. After my return, I became very interested in apologetics, as did my soon-to-be-husband who is a cradle Catholic. We considered ourselves aspiring apologists and even discussed starting an apologetics "ministry" (this was early to mid-1990's).
In the early days, I remember hearing Scott Hahn on a tape talking about the beauty of the Catholic Faith, how it fulfills the deepest desires of man and how all you have to do is present the truths of the Faith and people will be drawn towards it (something like that). I guess I really took his words to heart and come to believe that apologetics was this wonderful thing that would make lots of converts and confirm all Catholics in orthodox belief and fidelity to the Pope. Perhaps that was due to my youthful idealism and naivete, but it basically "set me up for a fall," to use a cliche.
Now, there's definitely truth to what Dr. Hahn said. However, as I would find out over the next decade or so, some people, for one reason or another, are not open to the truth and simply won't believe it no matter how you argue or what you say. AFAIK, I never succeeded in making a single convert by apologetics, not even through my now inactive website. Also, as I saw some Catholic apologists going off the rails in various ways, I became puzzled and discouraged; why didn't apologetics keep them faithful?
My disillusionment peaked with the events of September 2002 in the Catholic apologetics subculture. Since then, I no longer consider myself an "apologist" of any kind. If people ask questions about the Catholic Faith, I will certainly answer them, but I no longer see apologetics as some kind of cure-all for error. There are often other factors at play - emotions, past experiences, even habitual sins against purity, which can make people blind to the splendid truth of our Faith.
(My husband is also a bit disillusioned, but probably not quite as much as myself. I'm not sure about that.)
In Jesu et Maria,
My disillusionment stems from the fact that in the Beginning the Catholic Apologetics movement seemed unified & there was no Catholic Apologetic equivelant to Chick Comics. I felt a certain sense of false pride that Catholics didn't misrepresent what other Religions believed & teached & that misrepresentation was an excusive vice of the anti-Catholics.
I was mugged by reality. CAI & others like them are as bad as any anti-Catholic when it comes to misrepresenting what other religions(especially Judaism) believe & even what their fellow Catholics believe. Shameful!
I still believe Apologetics can do great things but Apologists are not the sole saviors of the modern church. Any apologets or group of apologets who have this pretention are setting themselves up for a false.
Maybe because I've spent so much time among unbelievers, I don't expect people to be drawn to our faith or any kind of Christianity. And I, too, have had sad encounters when an issue comes up and you unreel your facts and careful arguments just like the books say and the other party just laughs at you. Some people are simply unevangelizable. What can you possibly say to a man who proclaims "I am incapable of imagining a being greater than myself?" Do you think the pope could make any headway with Kurzweil?
Many World Religions are experience based & their followers don't respond to rational arguments or structured polemics. A lot of apologists make that mistake. Not everybody thinks you must use reason to learn about truth.
As for Jerome "accepting" the "Apocrapha" it was a fact he put those books in his bible at the Church authority's insistence so in that sense he "accepted them".
"Many World Religions are experience based & their followers don't respond to rational arguments or structured polemics. A lot of apologists make that mistake. Not everybody thinks you must use reason to learn about truth."
Conversion isn't the ability to articulate a doctrine. Conversion is the desire and will to pick up one's cross and follow Jesus Christ out of love for Him, and the state of being alive enough to live the joy of glorifying God.
To convert anyone you must be able to be an example of those things.
Worst of all apostates is the clever person who can explain the Faith but who loves only himself.
Pavel,
You are 100% correct sir.
Let me add certain species of Radtrad Apologists seem to hold to a Sola Acts 17 when it comes to evangelizing non-monotheists. That is they judge that Acts 17 is a one size fits all model for evangelizing Hindus & other non-monotheists(i.e. Pagans). Silly really.
BenYachov(Jim),
I met many people in the old SU who were good people, at least as good as any here, including Catholics (and why not?). It was very difficult to speak with them about faith because they hadn't any experience of religion.
And also, unlike someone like Father Aleksandr Men, I was not one of them.
I remember speaking with one man who was highly cultivated by Soviet standards, formidably intelligent, and who professed himself completely baffled by a simple biblical allusion.
I hope and pray that many of these people are now Orthodox Christians, communicants of a Church which is a true Church, with true sacraments and true apostolic succession. A few already were, fifteen years ago.
Please remember, brothers and sisters in Christ, you are a missionary of the Faith by who you are, and how you live.
May I hear my own words.
I concur with your writing on this issue.
Mark, that was a wonderful post that corresponds to my own thoughts on the issue. I'm a "second wave" convert from evangelicalism, influenced by you and other first-wave apologists. Early on I was probably too heady and confrontational in my own approach to apologetics (and sometimes still am), but during my years in the Catholic world I've grown tired of the constant bickering and fighting that can go on in the name of "apologetics," between Catholics and Protestants, between liberal and conservative Catholics, and the like.
I've been reading about the Emerging Church movement arising out of Evangelical disillusionment, which I like because they are trying to do away with all the divisions and find out what is good in the all the streams of Christianity. For myself, I've been thinking a about how to really live Christianity in the deepest way, not just talk about it, which is a lot harder than just talking about it, and which means I have to rethink and revise how I talk.
Also, when I was an evangelical, I was taught that it is the Holy Spirit who does the converting. And Jesus said that no one can come to him unless the Father draws him. So we can transmit the message, but we're not the ones who do the converting. Of course not everyone is going to listen to us, and some people are going to get very angry. It's an easy thing to forget.
Maybe it’s our ego that wants people to immediately respond and change, and our ego that’s offended it they don’t. Or maybe we just have unrealistic expectations, or too worldly expectations, in the sense that we want immediate, visible results. I don’t know.
One thing I do remind myself of a lot: I’ll never really know the results of my work until I get to heaven. Charles de Foucauld, for example, didn’t make a single convert his whole life long. But look how many have converted since, because of his example.
Lesslie Newbigin, a protestant missionary whom I've recently begun reading, put it this way: don't pick the fruit before it is green. I like that.
About your error, I wouldn’t feel too bad about it. We all make errors – and we shouldn’t be demonized for it. But Christians are so willing (myself too at times) to demonize other Christians for the mistakes we make, to see each other as either all good or all bad, and not as the striving, God-loving human beings we are. And here because you made one mistake, suddenly someone is calling all your work into question, and not just yours, but all Catholic apologists. Isn’t that a bit extreme?
One last thought: one of the books I read in the past year or so, I forget which one, had a disclaimer at the very beginning where the author said something to the effect of, “I have tried to be sure that everything I have written here is in union with the Magisterium of the Church; I willingly submit everything to Her judgment; and if anything I have said is found to be in error, I gladly correct it.”
Maybe we should all do that.
Judith--
Luther did not like James because of the statement "Faith without works is dead." That contradicts Luther doctrine of salvation by faith through grace.
Dostoevsky's chapter, "The Grand Inquisitor" from The Brother's Karamazov. Demonstrates what Lars von Trier calls the 'human problem of receiving'. The Dane Lars von Trier: the world's first American. To see this problem abstracted is the only operation that will separate it from us: Dogville. The truth will make us free. Thank God for Lars.
Didn't von Trier make a series of long made for Danish tv films about a hospital in Copenhagen?
If that's the same film, it was filled with surreal realism, demonic but all too human characters. There was a Swede, one of the demonic ones, staring down into a toilet and then turning aside and snarling: "Danish swine!"
A Danish colleague had told him, vengefully, that if his droppings behaved in a certain way he was sure to die of cancer.
The Swede was evil but gullible, clever but stupid, as the evil often are.
I am a cradle Catholic, but did not really become a devout Catholic until I immersed myself in the world of apologetics. I am humbled by the realization that I can now count myself among the small but growing number of men and women who hold a Master's Degree in Theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville. I am, by all accounts, an intellectual convert to orthodoxy.
And yet, the greatest and holiest Catholics that I have ever known are the sweet elderly women who attend Mass every day, have a devotion to the Blessed Mother that puts me to shame, and who know that things like contraception, abortion, homosexuality, et al, are wrong for no other reason than that the Church says it is wrong. Most such Catholics that I've met know very little about Catholic doctrine beyond what they were taught as children, and yet they accept without question that Jesus Christ is really present body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist while theologians today debate the finer points of the term transubstantiation. THAT is faith. "Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe."
By no means am I knocking the apologetics sub-culture - of which I am very much a part. But I've seen people brought into the Church both by the written Word (intellectual converts) and the by the grace of the Word Incarnate (spiritual converts). And I can tell you that sooner or later the faith that we acknowledge with our minds had better take root in our hearts. Take that from someone who remains painfully aware of his own spiritual shortcomings.
"...the greatest and holiest Catholics that I have ever known are the sweet elderly women who attend Mass every day, have a devotion to the Blessed Mother that puts me to shame, and who know that things like contraception, abortion, homosexuality, et al, are wrong for no other reason than that the Church says it is wrong."
Well said, Gerald. I agree. We do have a "prove it" mentality, don't we?
the greatest and holiest Catholics that I have ever known are the sweet elderly women who attend Mass every day, have a devotion to the Blessed Mother that puts me to shame, and who know that things like contraception, abortion, homosexuality, et al, are wrong for no other reason than that the Church says it is wrong."
I agree, but cautiously.
In the sense that God's grace is given according to His love and our openness to it, and not according to our understanding, I agree.
But at the same time, I do not count it as holiness when a Muslim thinks it right to massacre infidels simply because the Prophet says so. We all have an obligation to pursue the truth, not just accept whatever an alleged authority tells us. This is an interesting tension in Catholicism. We accept authority, but we also accept reason. We are not mindless drones.
This is why I gave up apologetics a few years ago. I mean, if a group of Evangelical "missionaries" show up at my door and ask to talk about Jessu, I'm gonna talk back. And if an occasion presents itself where a defense of the faith is necessary, I'll do it.
But I am slowly learning not to "cast my pearls before swine." The relationship thing is so important. The great irony is that Fundamentalists talk "Personal relationship with CHrist," yet they seem totally devoid of understandign (or at least articulation0 of what that means).
My entire faith is founded on what might be called an "experientialist" approach. I started with awe and wonder at attending a Gothic cathedral, with _Worship II_hymns (one of the only good things GIA ever produced), lots of vestments and incense and candles. . . . And one good holy conservative priest who was a family friend. I read about the saints. I read the _Chronicles of Narnia_> I read my childdren's catechisms (I didn't go to CCD) and some simple spirituality and devotionals.
Later on, I started getting into Catholic Answers and stuff. But the foundation stone for me is the examples and attitudes of the Saints, and what conforms to that.
That is the main thing missing from a) Protestant experience (and thus talkign with them), b) most Catholics today, and c) much of the Catholic apologetics approach.
For me, it's all about relationship wtih Jesus in the Eucharist, relationship wtih the saints, and an adversarial relationship with the Devil. Anything intellectual only exists to spring from or reinforce those foundations.
And what I've learned in so many venues is how generally stupid people are. I mean, I've talked to very orthodox, very well-informed Catholics who don't even know about _Redemptionis Sacramentum_ or _Liturgicam Authenticam_. When even teh people who should know better don't read the actual documents, what can I expect from non-Catholics and lukewarm Catholics?
But a good dose of Fr. Corapi can do wonders for anyone.
And yet, the greatest and holiest Catholics that I have ever known are the sweet elderly women who attend Mass every day, have a devotion to the Blessed Mother that puts me to shame, and who know that things like contraception, abortion, homosexuality, et al, are wrong for no other reason than that the Church says it is wrong.
I happen to be one of those elderly women who attend Mass every day. You do romanticize us! We are intelligent, many of us well educated and retired career and professional women who make it their business to know why the Church is right on one thing or another. We are not "sweet" nor given to sentimental devotedness.
Been reading this with great curiosity...it's filling in the gaps of information since my own re-conversion...A major part of my return to the Faith was initiated by a bumper sticker on a friends' car, "Sharing the Heart of the Catholic Faith" AM1620(Immaculate Heart Radio, Sacramento.) I looked into it but it was "way too Catholic for moi." But months of listening to the local Calvary Chapel/evangelical mega church preachers on another station prompted me to give the Catholic station another try. Within months I had EWTN on the TV, satellite radio at home and in the car (one winces past the gay culture/Cosmo/Playboy stations), high-speed internet to download podcasts and Immaculate Heart on a permanent button in my car.. That said, the progrms offered by these stations do an effective form of evangelization and apologetics because of the very impersonal nature of media (I can turn it off or on at will, I can Tivo if I want and watch when I can devote the time and energy to really take advantage of the programs. This means that I (we) can access the information or when the spirit is able, willing and open. I can give suffiencent brain space to the doctrine/teaching and reasons for the Faith. Obviously, this is something that cannot be done when real people tried to evangelize face to face with me.
A greater problem than an occasional error in apologetics occurs when the orthodox new believer, nutured by the fatherly Marcus Grodi, encouraged by the warmth of Ros Moss, taught by the wise words of Scott Hahn, Mike Acqulina and the many others, enters the world of the church parish. The new believer assumes most Catholics believe similarly..but a bewildering scenario is encountered by the mish-mash of unapologetic, un-Catechized, non-confessing, New Age Catholics. It has taken some time to understand what happened in the Church during my 25 year absence. Clearly they were holding down the fort but, but... Agh!!!
So Mark, take heart, if an occasional slip happens, it is clearly not the worst. Much fruit has been harvested by your collective work. BTW, will there ever be an Imprimatur or Nihil Obstant seal of approval for Catholic websites!?
Caroline,
Notice that my description was of a particular subset of elderly women, not elderly women as a whole. I happen to know a great many educated elderly Catholic women, and many (not all, or even an overwhelming majority) of them lack the humility that the women I describe possess.
Knowledge of the faith can lead to spiritual pride if one is not careful (I know this from my own personal struggles). The women I describe are not as subjected to that particular temptation as are the educated masses. And humility is the very foundation of holiness. That is what I was getting at in my previous post.
Mark,
You correspondent re Jerome REALLY needs to kick back, pop open a cold one and watch baseball with his protestant neighbors.
IMHO, this is your greatest blog post of all time. keep up the good work. I encourage other bloggers to link to this post.
I agree. Mark, this is a winner. Thoughtful, balanced, irenic, perceptive.
Bravo.
Diane
Gerald, though I'm not old, I for one think it's a compliment to be called "sweet." Being called sweet is a good thing - when I'm old, I'd rather be called sweet than bitter! And I don't read devotion to the BVM as mere sentimentality (though some can get sentimental). It can be very powerful.
That said, prior to my conversion I was living in a pretty much age-segregated culture, which our age-segregated school system promotes, spending time with people mostly in my own age group and same mindset.
It wasn't until my conversion and then going to work for a parish that I began to hang out with and get to know lots of different people of all different backgrounds, including some very elderly people. And the stories of their lives amazed me, the variety and richness and depth. I think old people should tell their stories a lot more.
I think our age-segregated, youth-oriented culture really cheats us of that old-fashioned notion that has been so discounted in recent decades: the wisdom of age.
And it's something I love about the home schooling movement: it's not age-segregated, and kids learn to know and love being around people of all ages.
My point in saying the pope himself couldn't convert Ray Kurzweil is that there are people who aren't interested in religion, especially the Christian kind, regardless of how holy or learned the evangelist is. Praying for someone's conversion is all well and good but God doesn't violate free will to force faith on the unbeliever.
Thanks for the post, Aimee. I agree with what a previous poster (Bear, I think) said about the dangers of blind devotion to what one believes is the "truth" (radical jihadists being the very effective example he cited). However, I would argue that pious elderly women are hardly blinded in their devotion by mere sentimentality. So many of the ones I have spoken to learned their devotion through a lifetime of crosses and powerful experiences attesting to the mercy and awesome love that God has for us. That is hardly the backbone of mere sentimental devotion, although sentimentality is certainly far better than the cold, detached, "learned" facade put on by the likes of Richard McBrien and Andrew Greeley. And I wholeheartedly agree that sweetness is something that is desirable in a Catholic. "O clement, o loving, o sweet Virgin Mary" is hardly a sentimental catchphrase, after all. Sweetness is an essential characteristic of the Blessed Mother, as it is of children, whose innocence and humility we are called to imitate if we are to enter the kingdom of heaven. And I have nowhere seen this imitation of the Blessed Mother and the holy innocents more perfectly exemplified than in the women I described above.
BTW Aimee, I looked at your blog, and was very impressed. I pray that it continues to grow in readership. There's never such a thing as too much of a witness such as the one you have to offer. God bless!
Kurzweil's open to religion, at least to judge from a consideration of theism in The Singularity is Near. The problem isn't being open. The problem is whether or not Ray is really interested in anything but himself. Anyone who would be interested in religion if you could show him what's in it for him, is not really interested in * conversion *, which is not the same as religiosity, philosphical theism, or superstition.
Mr. Shea,
Thank you for this article. Well written (as always), and much needed. As a new wave convert from the Southern Baptist Convention, I can say that the apologetics were needed. Of course, if I waited for the infallible apologist without error, I would never have come back to the Church. Nor would I have stayed where I was. I merely would have become a congregation of one. So your piece reminds us to keep our eyes where they belong, looking at the "apologetics subculture" when needed, but always remembering there is so much more. Thanks.
"BTW Aimee, I looked at your blog, and was very impressed. I pray that it continues to grow in readership. There's never such a thing as too much of a witness such as the one you have to offer. God bless!"
Thank you, Gerald! I appreciate the encouragement. I've got so many thoughts running around in my head all the time, I decided it was time to start putting them out there. And even if no one reads my blog, at least I have them saved somewhere, and not forgotten!
Another thought about "sweet:" the denigration of feminine sweetness, or the feeling on the part of some women that it's a put-down to be called sweet, seems to me to be one of the effects of mainstream feminism which tells women we must be like men to be accepted, rather than encouraging and defending authentic femininity. Since my conversion I've had to re-think the whole thing, what it means to be a woman, and what femininity is. Mainstream feminism has been SOOOO corrosive, damaging, and injurious to women.
For that reason, during summer break I’m taking part in an ENDOW study group on JPII’s “Letter to Women.” ENDOW (Educating on the Nature and Dignity of Women), in case you readers don’t know, is a relatively new organization promoting a new feminism based on the thought of JPII. The website is http://www.endowonline.com/. And it’s being run by some really brilliant, dynamite, fully orthodox Catholic women.
OK, I give up. What happened in September 2002 in the apologetics subculture?
Waaaah. What did I miss?
(Akways the last to know. )
+J.M.J+
>>>OK, I give up. What happened in September 2002 in the apologetics subculture?
That's when Bob Sungenis posted his infamous article, "Conversion of the Jews Not Necessary?? The Apocalyptic Ramifications of a Novel Teaching". You can read about the whole sorry incident here:
Antisemitism and the Catholic Right
http://www.wquercus.com/sungenis/
In Jesu et Maria,
"Would you please take a look at James Swan's blog (beggarsallreformation) because Catholic Appologists will be hearing from this guy soon and you had better be ready for him."
Just FYI: I have replied to Mr. Swan many times, going back about four years now. His arguments are by no means insurmountable:
"The Lost Liguori": The Nefarious Protestant Conspiracy to Conceal St. Alphonsus' Christocentric Mariology
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/
2...protestant.html
Counter-Reply: Martin Luther's Mariology (Particularly the Immaculate Conception)
http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ77.HTM
Second Reply Concerning Martin Luther's Mariology
http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ365.HTM
James Swan vs. Lutheran Scholarship Affirming Luther's Lifelong Acceptance of the Immaculate Conception
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/
2...cholarship.html
Luther's Outrageous Assertions About Certain Biblical Books (Reply to James Swan's Paper on Luther and the Canon)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2...ions-
about.html
I have also replied with a lengthy four-part paper concerning my alleged illegitimate use of Luther biographer Roland Bainton, but I won't list all those (since it is very tedious reading). Anyone who is interested can go to my "Luther and Lutheranism" web page (http://ic.net/~erasmus/LUTHERANISM.HTM).
Unfortunately, at the moment, one Catholic is repeatedly responding to him in ways which qualify for virtually every bad trait so often (sadly) observed in the apologetics sub-community (if defined as "anyone who does apologetics on the Internet").
If readers want to see more substantive responses, minus the personal attacks and unhelpful rhetoric, I humbly submit my own papers above. Mr. Swan is on record recently as (paraphrase) "not taking [my] Luther research seriously". Be that as it may, I trust, as always, the sense and critical faculties of theologically-astute readers to make that judgment on their own. There are two sides to every story.
Keep up the great work, Mark! It's always interesting to see what you have been writing about lately.
I'm hoping that you'll soon join Cardinal McCarrick in signing the protest against torture that appeared this week in the NEW YORK TIMES - signed by high profile Jews, Muslims, Protestants, and Catholics.
I'd sign it if somebody's asks me to.
Does the protest actually define what they mean by torture?
While we're at it, has anyone of those who incessantly wring their hands over whether or not U.S. military interrogators are mistreating any of the women and child killing, head cutting terrorists in U.S. custody actually defined torture either?
Just thought I'd ask.
In Christ,
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