Church teachings and misconceptions.
Someone on a Facebook group I admin for passed this along for discussion in the group. My response follows:
My general response:
Firstly,
just a general reminder that we need to operate in charity. Even with
what seems to be very close-minded people who are saying things that
are factually untrue, we still have to operate in love and charity.
We have to be good witnesses to the Truth. We never accomplish that
by being nasty or uncharitable. We pray for people who believe these
things that somehow the full light of Christ can somehow enter into
their consciousness.
One of the good rules of thumb when
dealing with our Protestant cousins is “There, but for the grace of
God, go I.” As this is a group for converts, we can all probably
point to times in our lives where what we earnestly believed was not
in the fullness of what the Church actually teaches. The Holy Spirit
somehow led us to a greater understanding of Christ and the fullness
of the Church. We were not always there, and may not be fully there
still. So, again, we can pray for those who have not yet fully
received the full light of Christ. They may be looking through the
mirror darkly, but we hope that somehow God speaks and reveals
Himself to them fully, as He once did (and does) to each of us.
Secondly, I do feel I should respond to some of these
accusations. Yes, we are all born sinners. We can agree on that. We
do believe in Original Sin. We do not, however, believe baptism has
no power to forgive sin. We would agree that simply jumping in a lake
on a hot summer day does not forgive sin, but jumping in a lake is
not a Sacrament. We believe Sacraments have actual power because that
is how God chooses to act. God can use baptism to forgive sin because
He endows that otherwise menial act of entering into water as an
extension of Himself. God chooses to forgive sin in that way because
that is in one way how God chooses to do it. Baptism becomes an
extension of God’s majesty and grace.
God could have
chosen the first act of, say, eating cheese as the means through
which He effects grace and forgiveness. He could have mandated that
as He is God, but He chose not to do that, however. He ordained that
Baptism with water is that means. We see that, for instance IN THE
BIBLE in Ephesians 5: “...as Christ loved the Church and gave
himself up for her 26 in order to sanctify her by cleansing her
WITH WATER and the word,[c]
27 in order to present the Church to himself in splendor,
without spot or wrinkle or any such flaw, but holy and without the
slightest blemish.” If that is not a direct description of the
mystery of the forgiveness and cleansing of sin through baptism, I
don’t know what is.
Now I have to admit I had a
somewhat uncharitable chuckle at this second point about Baptists are
not Protestant because they never protested the Catholic church. As
Shakespeare once wrote, “Methinks he doth protest too much.” I
mean, literally this entire thing is a bunch of protests against what
he sees at Catholic doctrine. I mean, hey, if you don’t protest the
Catholic church, you can come join anytime. Mother Church is still
here any time with arms wide. Parenthetically, he might also read up
on the history of a little place called Rogue’s Island that was
founded by a guy who created the first Baptist Church in what became
America. These Baptists were notorious for executing the poor
Catholics (and Puritans and virtually anyone else as well) who
happened to wash ashore on Rogue’s Island, or as it later became
known: Rhode Island. So, that assertion that they are not somehow
Protestant is, in all charity, simply historically incorrect.
Now,
the next one is hard to quantify: the Faith and Works thing. This is
one of those things where both sides often used the same verbiage but
has different definitions and historically keep talking past each
other. The Church has specifically rejected the heresy that you can
work your way into heaven by your own merits. If you get to heaven,
it is through Christ. That is a Divine grace, yes. But, we disagree
on where works come into play. There is this weird false dichotomy
often presented that somehow works and nothing to do with faith, and
faith has nothing to do with works, as if bacon has nothing to do
with a pig. You have to have one to have the other and vice versa. If
you are not doing any good works as a Christian even if you believe
all the right stuff...something is very, very wrong. There is a
reason St. James said that ‘faith without works is dead.’ It may
still be faith, but it’s a very dead faith.
I would finally on
that point ask your friend if Baptism doesn’t forgive sin, or as he
said, “baptism does not
cleanse sin, it’s the next step of obedience from repentance and
belief…”, what is obedience? It is something that humans do. God
cannot be obedient for us. Therefore, if we take the basic dictionary
definition of “work” as “exertion or effort directed to produce
or accomplish something; labor; toil” (all of which would describe
being obedient). Therefore, obedience is by definition a human work.
This begs the question of whether Baptism by that definition does
anything if it is a work, and work has nothing to do with Salvation
if it’s all justification by faith alone and works are irrelevant.
So, why then even have Baptism is it is simply a means to works based
self delusion? Is Baptism like a graduation ceremony-a ceremonial
walking across a stage for a fake piece of parchment for classes
already taken and tuition already paid? Or is Baptism more like an
vaccine innoculation. Does it have real power to physically change
the body and soul? Does it have power in itself? Something to think
about.
Now, limbo...the
Church has never officially taught limbo. That was a hypothetical
speculative theology that dealt with the idea of if, say, a baby died
without being baptized, surely it would not go to hell but likewise
could never see God in heaven. Again, the Church has never made a
clear teaching on the concept. It appears currently to have largely
been abandoned but not completely repudiated but never officially
taught. The latest clear discussion I have ever found is from the
2007 International Theological Commission of the Curia which
downgraded limbo to “a possible theological hypothesis.”
Now,
Purgatory is a different matter. There have been definitive teachings
that Purgatory exists. There is a rich theology on the treasury of
merit and what have you that is tied to Purgatory in official
teachings. But even then, exactly what Purgatory is has never largely
been clearly taught. Maybe it’s different for different people.
Longer for others and shorter for some.
And the old
bugaboo about worshiping the Saints and Mary. That argument (read:
protest) against Catholic teaching is as old as the Reformation
itself. Actually, even older than that. There were people in the
pre-Reformation era who were struggling with that issue as well, long
before reformers like Luther and Calvin were ever on the scene. You
can even look at the Iconoclastic controversies in the Eastern Church
before the Middle Ages as tied to that, and even back into the
Patristic Era Church controversies over the use of the term Theotokos
“The God Bearer” as a title for Mary as all tied into those
disputes. You can write whole tomes on that topic.
But,
again, I come back to the concept of “There, but for the grace of
God, go I.” We are all on life’s journey, asking God to light our
way. All things in charity. We pray for people who have not yet been
shown as much light as we have. We were once people in the shadows.
We pray that our brothers and sisters may one day likewise step out
of the shadows and join us under God’s street lamp.
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