Petrodollar Protestantism

We had a question posed in a Facebook converts group I help admin. The question was:

How do yall feel and what is your reasoning for the emphasis on using terms like “Catholic life, Catholic faith, as a Catholic, us Catholics, etc” instead of just saying Christian? My Protestant friends have brought it up multiple times about how they don’t use the words Protestant very often, if ever, and that it’s another example of how Catholics are exclusive.

Thoughts? I typically use Christian, and Catholic only comes up if someone asks what church I go to.

My response was as follows:

I understand what you are staying. That occasionally rubs me the wrong way as well, really from both sides. I think it kind of depends on the context. Sometimes it provides clarity and precision, but sometimes it could come off as a bit elitist. Again, I think that is a criticism I level at both sides.

I think primarily there is a difference in semantics that both groups are using concurrently. I think for most Catholics, the term “Catholic” and “Christian” are, practically speaking, used as virtually identical synonyms. What does “Catholic” mean other than basically “universal”-but a universal what? Well, a universal Christian. So, when a Catholic identifies a Catholic or Christian, in most Catholics’ minds it is the same thing. Catholic = Christian, so, to quote an old TV commercial, for Catholics, it’s an issue of  where’s the beef?

Now, most Protestants hear and interpret the term “Catholic” very differently. They are no equating it with the definition of universal. They are hearing “Catholic” as either a denominational descriptor, one amongst many, *or* it has such a negative connotation in their tradition that Catholic = Non-Christian straight up. To be fair, the term Protestant coming from the root of “protest”-that does make some historical sense in some traditions because they protested to the point of breaking off and forming their own church, believing their own church was The Church.

To be fair to the original Reformers (Luther, Calvin, etc.), their goal was not to form a new denomination. That original nuance has sort of been lost over the centuries among most Protestants. Luther was not attempting to go off and found an alternative denomination. Luther believed he was going off to purify the true Church, and all the supposed corruption and false teachings of the Catholic Church would be burned away and what was left would reunite as the One, True Catholic Church.

But, a funny thing happened on the way to the Reformation: that did not happen. Instead of reforming the One True Church, you ended up with multiple competing church bodies. The term ‘denomination’ as it is applied to various ecclesial bodies or sects did not really become a theological concept until well after the Reformation began. Its first usage to describe various religious sects seems to have been coined in the early 1700s. It was originally a Latin term meaning a group of various things, and then evolved in the 1660s as an economic term as currency theory began to evolve as mercantilism began to morph into capitalism. Really, paper money and the terminologies for it did not exist in the West before the 1600s. Money sort of began as a promissory note in the Templar banks in the Middle Ages. Really before 1600, money was only in coin form, as the value of the coin was the precious metal itself not whatever King was stamped on the coin. Gold was gold, but with paper money, the value is whatever is backing it (nowadays, usually the good faith and credit of whatever government is issuing it.) Thus the term denomination began being used to differentiate the various Christian groups after paper money was invented. Just like a $5 bill and a $10 bill all being legal tender accepted by God at the divine treasury, but one simply being worth more than the other. An interesting case of Economics affecting Religion after the fact.

So, that brings me back to the original question about the usages of Catholic and Christian. For Catholics, “Catholic” and “Christian” are practically used like “dollar” is to “legal US tender.” For many modern Protestants, “Catholic” is to “worthless deflated foreign currency” as “Christian” is to “actual spending currency” like the dollar/pound sterling/Euro.
I would also add that, to carry the economic analogy a step further, many, particularly American, Protestants now tend to recoil at the very usage of the term “Protestant.” As Christianity is being replaced with secularism and post-modernism is the West, many Protestants believe we are now living in a “post-denominational” or “post-Christian” age. This is analogous to the economic idea of the petrodollar. Since WWII until the last ten years, the US Dollar has become the dominant world reserve currency. Petroleum is what makes the world economy go at this point, and that has been bought and paid for in US dollars on virtually every OPEC market since the 1940s. Many foreign government banks and governments have huge reserves of US petrodollars as investments.

I won’t bore you with economic theory, but, again, economic terminology fuels religious understanding. Many Protestants view Christianity now as markets have historically viewed the petrodollar. In other words, without it, the West will collapse. As long as it is some semblance of the petrodollar, it is of central value, no matter what denomination it is, provided it’s not some suspect foreign currency that might replace the petrodollar. Many Protestants, when Catholics start throwing out Catholic and Christian as synonymous terms, are thinking of that as a threat to their identity as the world religious currency. They say they are not “protesting” anything, but try to convince them that major Catholic theological points are correct and watch them have a meltdown. In fact, at one time, ‘Protestant’ was very much the marker of self-identity for most Protestant groups. It was often found their formal names and charters. For example, the official legal name of my former denomination, both in legal filings and in the official church constitution of that denomination is “The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States.”      
   
While they may say they are not into denomination titles or the use of the term Protestant and that using “Catholic” is elitist or whatever, they have their own ways of doing the exact same thing when the chips are down. The are “non-denominational” or “Pentecostal” or “Evangelical” or “liberal mainline.” They do the same thing. They just have their own terminology. It’s just petrodollar Protestantism.