The Culture of Martyrdom

It feels like every few weeks that American Christians find something new to get angry over. Some examples from this year: the false allegations against Planned Parenthood that it sells aborted fetal tissue for profit, Kim Davis, the Obergefell vs. Hodges ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, the recent absurdity over Starbucks changing their cup design to not include generic symbols of winter, the more general perception of a "war on Christmas", and the perennial controversies over states/cities/schools not supporting public prayer or public endorsements of Christianity (as distinct from cracking down on the private practice of religion).

Why is this Christian outrage so common? Some degree of pharisaic self-righteousness, of wanting to be (or feel) vindicated over against the sinful "world" probably has something to do with it. It is always far easier to identify and deplore error than it is to repair it, to proclaim the truth and embody the love with which we have been loved. There is also (as I pointed out in the context of the allegations against Planned Parenthood) a failure to love those one considers one's enemies, and an eagerness to believe the worst about them—and then get outraged over it. The capability of modern media, news and social, to spread a source of outrage like an epidemic well beyond its original scope to infect people who have nothing to do with it also has something to do with it. (Conversely, the media's role in amplifying and making visible the resulting outrage should not be underestimated) But I'm going to focus on and try to correct a reason for Christian outrage that arises from being aligned with the world, instead of overly hostile or self-righteous towards it.

I'm referring to what social psychologist Jonathan Haidt (author of The Righteous Mind and co-author of the influential article The Coddling of the American Mind) calls the "moral culture of victimhood". That post on Haidt's blog is his summary of a paper by sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning, which posits the culture of victimhood as a new "moral culture" that influences how conflicts are handled, after the cultures of honor and dignity well-known to sociologists. In a culture of victimhood, individuals or groups respond to relatively minor slights not on their own but by calling for the intervention of an influential third party (in America, collegiate or governmental authorities). This requires the collecting of evidence or campaigning to convince the third party that they are being oppressed, denied equality, "victimized", or socially marginalized, and that this party's help is needed to end the injustice. This culture carries with it an elevation of victimhood as something desirable and virtuous; the authors wrote, "Thus we might call this moral culture a culture of victimhood because the moral status of the victim, at its nadir in honor cultures, has risen to new heights."

This culture, as Campbell and Manning write, is most entrenched in college campuses where it encourages people belonging to groups seen as underprivileged to be hypersensitive to "microaggressions" directed against them, but a version of it has become influential in American Christianity. It is often referred to (by non-Christians) as the "persecution complex". As they point out in a response to comments on Haidt's blog:

But we certainly see manifestations of [victimhood culture] elsewhere, and many of our readers have, in person or online, pointed to various examples of conservatives, evangelical Christians, or others complaining about minor slights, portraying themselves as oppressed, or in some other way claiming victim status. This is something we point out in our article – that if victimhood confers status, then all sorts of people will want to claim it.

In a Christian context, then, victimhood culture means calling out a perceived slight, injustice, or instance of oppression for one's faith as "religious persecution" or a step away from it and campaigning (the louder the better) for a powerful third party (often the government, or maybe sometimes the general public?) to step in and protect one's civil liberties. Feeding into this is a narrative of Christians as a socially marginalized and disadvantaged group in America, reinforced by all the ways in which our society is "rejecting God": acceptance of abortion and gay marriage, declining church attendance and increasing nonbelief, the secularization and pluralization of culture, and incidents like the ones I listed above. Every instance of "persecution" strengthens this narrative, and with it the influence of victimhood (or perhaps martyrdom) culture in American Christianity.

As you may have guessed, I do not think victimhood culture is compatible with the Christian faith. Most of the time the persecution being experienced and causing the outrage is totally imaginary, as non-Christians can usually see pretty clearly. This wolf-crying has cost Christianity a lot of credibility in the outside world's eyes. America may not be a "Christian nation", but Christianity has long been woven deeply into its moral framework, and still occupies a relatively privileged cultural position. Considering Christians a persecuted minority because of a loss of cultural clout is doubly wrong and shows callous ignorance of what real religious persecution is (as any older Russian Orthodox could remind you). But even if the persecution is real, buying into the culture of victimhood is not an authentically Christian way to respond to it.

The elevation of "victimhood" as a desirable (and yet negative) status strikes me as an inverted parody of the Lord's teaching: "But many who are first will be last, and the last first." (Matthew 19:30) In a moral culture of victimhood people compete to be seen as "last" or "least"—last in the social pecking order, least privileged, most defenseless and victimized—because "last" is the new "first". It is exactly the same worldly, self-seeking logic, only turned on its head. There is the same kind of competition, striving against one another to get yours (in this case, the power of being seen as a victim), because as Campbell and Manning explain, "while everyone can have dignity, not everyone can be a victim", just as not everyone can be the most powerful, the most influential, the richest. But this is not at all what Jesus meant. Victimhood culture encourages a show of false humility painted over deeper anger, fear, and self-centeredness, but the Lord commands true humility. "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves" (Philippians 2:3), not in order that you might be vindicated against them through the exercise of this-worldly justice, but to love and serve them.

St. Paul more fully defines this love in his famous chapter in 1 Corinthians: "Love suffers long [and] is kind; ... is not provoked, ... does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." (13:4-7) The contrasts with the pattern of fear, outrage, and offendedness we see in victimhood culture are obvious. Being thick-skinned is a Christian virtue, not at all meaning insensitivity or callousness, but patience and resistance to being angered, able to overlook offenses except for how they harm the offender, just as God is always willing to do for our sins. Elsewhere he puts it in the form of two baffling questions: "Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated?" (1 Corinthians 6:7) The Lord teaches us to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44), to be as patient and compassionate toward their wrongs as we are towards those of our friends and loved ones. I know from abundant experience that it is a virtue and a sign of Christlikeness not to be offended easily, and that this virtue is not developed without a godly, uphill struggle. Let us reject every human philosophy that tries to dissuade us from fighting to become more like Christ.

St. Peter writes words that speak very relevantly to Christian outrage at modern-day "persecution".

Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed [are you], for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people's matters. Yet if [anyone suffers] as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.(1 Peter 4:12-16)

The caption reads "Martyrdom of the holy hieromartyr
Polycarp of Smyrna"

Remember that the pre-Constantine Church faced persecution far worse than anything faced by most American Christians even on our worst days. Yet Peter counsels the churches not to be surprised or shocked at this persecution when it comes but to "rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings". We are to rejoice when we are persecuted. Could anything be more counterintuitive? Yet it is just what we see in the early Church, for example in The Martyrdom of Polycarp. This echoes what Jesus himself taught in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed [are] those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake." (Assuming it is said falsely, and for Jesus' sake!) "Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great [is] your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matthew 5:10-12) St. Paul describes the Christian's response to his persecutors, namely to return love for hatred: "Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat." (1 Corinthians 4:12-13)

The modern elevation of the status of "victim" (in desirability, and yet not necessarily positivity) does seem similar to how the early Church held its martyrs in high honor and even desired to imitate them. How are they different? For one thing, the early Christians honored their martyrs without expecting or demanding that the world (or any institution within it) also do so. Why would it? The way of Christ was clearly seen as contrary, diametrically different from and opposed to the way of the world. Martyrdom does not convey "dignity", prestige, or a privileged status in some objective, universal sense that we can appeal to and expect the world to recognize, but the crown of life in the kingdom of God (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:25, James 1:12, Revelation 2:10), which is foolishness to the world. (1 Corinthians 3:19) Martyrs look for justice not from civil authorities here and now, but from God, the true judge who is above every created power. Martyrdom is not the key to justifying your selfish demands for protection and status, but the ultimate renunciation of self as a witness to Christ. Christians buying into victimhood culture in response to real or perceived persecution are not witnessing to Christ, but to their own worldliness.

When persecution comes (and the fact that most "persecution" in America is in the eye of the beholder does not make real persecution impossible), let us face it as martyrs, not "victims".

Postscript. Fr. Stephen Freeman, who has a seriously uncanny knack for writing eloquently and insightfully on whatever I am trying to think on at the moment, has recently written two posts related to this subject. Do You Care Too Much? critiques our tendency to get pointlessly outraged via the media over situations that don't touch on us at all, for the sake of "caring". Such "caring", or having sufficiently strong sentiments about various "issues" (as a normative sentiment, apart from actually doing anything) is, he argues, one of the "passions" that try to master us and keep us from properly ordering our feelings in the Christian life. Living in the Real World focuses on the power of media to distract us from the real, particular world at hand, in which we actually engage and interact, in favor of "things in general": a passive response to vague sentiments over things that have nothing to do with us and which we can't do anything about. Both are far more worth reading than anything I could write (which is why I waited until the end to direct you to them).

The perils of being a Christian florist, baker, clerk, etc.

Is the legalization of same-sex marriage a threat to religious liberty? According to this article, many Christians think so, especially after the Supreme Court ruling making it legal in all 50 states. Christian caterers, bakers, photographers, florists, and clerks are refraining from serving same-sex marriages, claiming that to participate would impinge on their religious liberty. This is a step beyond previous applications of religious liberty which simply let faithful separate themselves from institutions they can't support in good conscience rather than refusing to serve others. The subsequent ridicule and persecution of these individuals (and, in some cases, businesses) for taking a stand on their beliefs is seen by many Christians as a form of persecution by an irreligious culture that we can only expect to get worse. Rachel Held Evans has written a very sobering article analyzing and critiquing this "persecution complex", which is a heart check well worth reading, even though I ultimately disagree with her support for same-sex marriage in the church.

The refusal to serve same-sex couples for the sake of "religious liberty" presupposes, of course, that abstaining from having any part in same-sex weddings is morally obligatory for Christians, even those who normally serve weddings as their job. It is to this assumption that I would like to offer a response in four parts. At least two of these I have already stated in previous posts but would like to reaffirm and clarify here. All four take the form of distinctions that I think it is important, now more than ever, for Christians to keep in mind in order to live faithfully in a culture which, undeniably, is increasingly rejecting God, or indeed any kind of transcendent power or value beyond the cause célèbre of "liberty" in all its forms.

The legal institution of marriage is not the sacrament of marriage.

As I have said, I have previously made this point, but I don't think it can be repeated too often now. In the Bible marriage is not referred to as an "institution", but as a "mystery" (Eph 5:32)—or, in the Latin which has become the basis for our English word, sacramentum. In Orthodox teaching a "sacrament", or mystery, is a particular, visible means by which we receive the grace of God to a certain end. As Fr. Thomas Hopko explains, the goal for Christians and for the Church is for all of life to become "sacramental", lived in mystical and life-giving union with God; the sacraments are simply special examples of this union; unlike the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church has never restricted the term "sacrament" to just seven rites. "In the sacrament of marriage," Hopko says, "a man and a woman are given the possibility to become one spirit and one flesh [Gen 2:24] in a way which no human love can provide by itself." Christian marriage began simply as the formal recognition or blessing of the love between a man and a woman, a union designed by God not merely for our enjoyment, but to visibly depict the unyielding, transformative, covenantal love of Christ for his bride, the Church.

My point is that this dimension of marriage has obviously always been distinct from the one recognized by the state. This was obvious in the early Church, which (in a curious reversal of the modern situation) blessed marriages that the empire was not willing to sanction, e.g. between two people of radically different social classes. Even in later centuries, when the Church was nearly coterminous with the state, the legal institution of marriage was distinct from the spiritual mystery believed to be taking place. It is becoming increasingly evident again today: though most couples still find it advantageous and desirable to have their marriage recognized in the eyes of the state, this remains, as it has always been, distinct from their sacramental union in the eyes of their church. The state can do whatever it likes with the civil institution of marriage, but it has no power whatsoever to redefine the sacrament of marriage.

Increasingly today, there is a disconnect between the character of legal and sacramental marriage as well as their nature. This article talks about how the sacramental view of marriage has largely been replaced in our culture by what the author calls a "therapeutic view" of marriage, one whose main point is the happiness, betterment, and self-fulfillment of two individuals. This is a much more pragmatic and self-oriented approach than marriage as a sacrament, one which is able to be dissolved at any time if the marriage turns out to no longer be mutually beneficial. The replacement of the sacramental view with the therapeutic one in our culture (to say nothing of our churches!) was and is a far greater threat to the "sanctity of marriage" than the legalization of same-sex marriage or even the rise of "no-fault divorce", not least because it made these things seem not only acceptable but desirable. Why is it so rarely questioned, in stark contrast to the public and ugly protests against same-sex marriage?

So I would like to state one more time that it is misleading and arguably dangerous to simply refer to marriage (whether in a civil or religious context) as an "institution", and to think, speak, and act under the assumption that what is said and legislated regarding this institution in civil or political discourse somehow affects its spiritual nature, or vice versa. The ongoing redefinition of marriage in our culture may be a strong sign that it is becoming (or has already become) post-Christian, but it is no threat at all to the sacrament that continues to be performed in American churches, and Christian activists do themselves and their brothers and sisters few favors by believing otherwise.

Tolerating sin is not condoning sin.

As I said in my virally popular post on same-sex marriage, we still have a lot to learn from Jesus in how we treat other people. (Understatement of the year?) I'll simply quote myself for a moment:

who did Jesus associate with, besides His disciples? Tax collectors (like His disciple Matthew, Matthew 9:9, Mark 2:14), "sinners", (Matthew 11:19, Mark 2:15-17, Luke 15:1-2), Samaritans (John 4:4-42), and Gentiles (Matthew 15:22-28, Luke 7:1-10)—in general, the castoffs and outcasts of His society. It was the Pharisees, the "holy" men who claimed the moral high ground, for whom He reserved most of His scorn (see Matthew 23). Obviously there is much that Jesus could have condemned about the lives the people around Him were leading, yet in most cases He says nothing; He stays and eats with them and attracts them to His teaching. ... Yet Jesus does not endlessly tolerate peoples' sin or treat it like it's no big deal. The difference is in the order in which He does things.

For many American Christians (or at least the ones who make it onto the news), the prevalent attitude towards gays seems to be one of condemnation: confronting people with the truth, telling them the "bad news" of their sins so they can receive the good news of the gospel. Even when this is done out of "love" rather than unconcealed hatred or disgust (of which RHE gives some chilling examples), holding out peoples' (particular) sins in your witness, to the point of being willing to disrespect them or even to refuse to serve them in a professional capacity, is incongruous with our Lord's example. Except for the Pharisees and teachers of the law, he never used peoples' sins as a reason to treat them badly—more often as an occasion to treat them with love and grace, knowing that this would more effectively lead them to repentance. I would say more on this, but it leads very closely into the next distinction...

The church (much less an individual Christian) is not the "moral police".

To put it more clearly, the role of the Church, at least in the present time, is not to pass judgment on the world; it is instead to judge those already in the Church. St. Paul says this 1 Corinthians 5, saying pointedly in verses 12 and 13: "For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. 'Drive out the wicked person from among you.'" It is God's place to judge the world; it is ours to judge ourselves and each other (Mat 7:1-5), and to make known his gospel and salvation to the world.

I don't understand what Christians passing condemnation on homosexual behavior in the world are trying to do. Do they expect non-Christians to abide by a roughly "Christian" ethic of marriage, despite not understanding or partaking in its sacramental, grace-filled depths? Our culture has arguably lost the vocabulary and very ability to do so, having traded the Church's sacramental, covenantal understanding of marriage for language of self-fulfillment, personal liberty, individual rights, and the pursuit of happiness. We cannot expect anyone to recover this understanding without first being converted. In light of this, expecting those outside the Church to play by our rules when it comes to marriage is not helpful, and may even be counterproductive.

What I mean by this is that refusing to do something as basic as bake a cake for someone (as part of a business transaction) because of your religious beliefs makes them feel (in the words of the New York Times article) "judged and mortified" and will very likely have the effect of driving them away from having anything to do with those beliefs. Even if you consider warning people of their sin a "loving" thing to do, in such a case as this they will likely only see it as "loving" (rather than hateful) after they have been converted; until then, it may create a formidable (and unnecessary) obstacle to that conversion.

The Church reads Matthew 13:24-30, the parable of the weeds, as a warning against judging those outside for these reasons. In seeking to root out the "weeds" (sinners, enemies of the kingdom of God) in this world, we may also uproot the "wheat" (those who are or would become Christians) along with them. It is trumpeted nowhere as clearly as in evangelical Protestantism that you don't have to get "cleaned up" before coming to God in repentence, and this sentiment is very true. Why does homosexuality work any differently? Why this insistence on calling gay couples out on their sin, to the point of claiming that being required to serve them would be a violation of your religious liberty, of your rights as an American citizen?

Paul, it turns out, has much to say about the use of "rights" or "liberty", specifically in 1 Corinthians 8-10. As a faithful, Messiah-following Jew, Paul is very much aware that idols have no real existence, and that meat sacrificed to idols is just meat. He is at liberty, therefore, to eat such meat without any wrongdoing. But in 8:9 he warns, "only take care lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak." The popular perception that Christianity teaches bigotry and discrimination is definitely a stumbling block in our culture. Do we contribute to it through the exercise of our "liberty"?

In chapter 9 Paul goes on to describe his rights as an apostle, but also expresses a radical willingness to renounce these rights in order to win as many people with the gospel. (9:15-18) "For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more." (9:19) Throughout these three chapters Paul shows how he elevates the salvation over others above his concern for himself: "Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. ... Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please all men in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved." (10:24, 32-33) The example he thus sets is of one who is willing to lay nearly everything aside, including rights and liberties (or maybe even his own salvation; Romans 9:1-5), to win people over to the gospel. Discriminating against same-sex couples for the sake of your "religious liberty" has the opposite effect, and seems to reflect the American worldview a good deal more more than Paul's.

Elsewhere he well describes the attitude that Christians are to assume, not least of all at times such as this. (Note how the beginning of verse 16 implies that verses 14 and 15 describe the attitude Christians should hold towards those outside the Church, even those who persecute them)

14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. 16 Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion. 17 Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. 18 If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. 19 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but [rather] give place to wrath; for it is written, "Vengeance [is] Mine, I will repay," says the Lord. 20 Therefore "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head." 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. [Rom 12:14-21 NKJV]

Paul did not believe that Christians should antagonize or behave callously towards those in "the world", but rather (leading by example here) that they should live uprightly and graciously, giving no occasion for criticism or scorn except for their proclamation of Jesus Christ. (cf. 1 Cor 10:32, 2 Cor 6:3) The Lord's promise that the world will hate us for his sake (Jhn 15:18-21) is by no means an invitation to seek out such hatred, or to dismiss it without self-examination when it flares up.

Doing your job for someone is not an approval of their decisions or lifestyle.

But isn't it still important to avoid participating in sin? Isn't this even more basic than winning people for Christ? Indeed it is. But is simply having anything to do with a same-sex marriage "participating in sin"? Not necessarily; in most cases it is simply doing your job. How far can this attitude be taken? Should Christians working in printing companies refuse to make invitations for same-sex weddings? Should Christians at rental companies refuse to lend them tables, chairs, or ice cream machines? Should Christians in commodities firms make sure they don't sell any precious metals or stones to jewelers who might in turn sell wedding rings to gay couples?

The more general question to be asked is this: when is it acceptable to apply your own religious beliefs to others in your capacity as a worker (as opposed to an individual, and as opposed to personally sinning)? To which I would tentatively answer: if it is your job to apply your beliefs to others. That is, if you are a spiritual leader under whose religious authority they have placed themselves. If you are a pastor or priest, if the scope of your job actually includes sanctioning and blessing the union of a couple through the sacrament of marriage, then by all means do your job properly and be discriminatory in whom you marry. You have the constitutional right to do so, and to do otherwise would be a corruption of the teaching and practice of the Church.

For the rest of us, I don't think it's appropriate to use your job to apply your beliefs to others, at least not if it means doing your job poorly or not at all (all things being equal, isn't it better for Christians to be known as good rather than bad employees?). Simply doing your job for someone doesn't mean accepting everything about how they are living or what they are doing. Again, this is not the same as abstaining from work that you regard as actually sinful. It also does not rule out sharing and living your faith as an individual, as long as it doesn't detract from your work.

Try to apply this to case of a Christian (say) baker tasked with making a cake for a same-sex wedding: you are being asked to make a cake, not to officiate at the wedding or to justify it in God's sight. So do your job and make the cake. It is not yours to call the couple out for whatever kind of sin they may be living in, but rather to search your own heart for sin, such as fear or intolerance of your neighbor. If your Christian faith comes up, by all means express (as a Christian individual) that you believe God intends for marriage to be between a man and a woman, but that (as a Christian baker) you are nonetheless happy to serve them. If your mere disapproval induces the couple to look elsewhere for a cake, then you will not be the "intolerant" or discriminatory one.

Postscript: After some more reflection, I don't think the separation I just drew between being an individual and being an employee is absolute. It is fairly straightforward if you are simply tasked with making something or performing clerical work for a wedding. If your job actually involves personally participating in a wedding (e.g. as a photographer or musician), it becomes much harder to make such a distinction, and (in my view) more justifiable to abstain from serving a same-sex wedding for conscience's sake—especially if you are already selective in the jobs you take on.

The sanctity of marriage and the American worldview

AP photo.

Well, America, there you have it. This morning the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, and that same-sex couples in all 50 states should be allowed to marry. Supporters of "traditional marriage" (a term with dangerous connotations) have lost the "culture war". Depending on who you're listening to, this is either a huge advance in justice, equality, and the American Way, or a decisive lurch toward moral dissipation and religious persecution of all who do not embrace the new regime of "marriage equality".

I try not to listen too closely to either of these opinions.

I still stand by most of what I said in my surprisingly popular post on same-sex marriage. I still believe God designed marriage as a gift for mankind to be enjoyed by a man and his wife; I still fail to see how this inexorably leads to fighting against the right of same-sex couples to legally wed, let alone to denouncing them as sinners who need to repent of their idolatry. I still think people who adopt these stances are very often being selective in how they stand for their Christian convictions in a way that does their living witness few favors. I still think Christ set an example as radical in his day as it is today in how we, his followers, are to humbly love all people. (Because public opinion is decisively in their favor, I no longer think gay couples can be described as "the tax collectors of our day", but the Lord's example still stands)

As the relative sparseness of my recent posts shows, I am reluctant to assume that my thoughts on a given topic are particularly wise or worth listening to. But considering the magnitude of the Supreme Court's decision, I think this is a good time to restate with more clarity some things which I am reasonably sure about. Since my previous posts on same-sex marriage went up before I started my journey to Orthodoxy, this will also be an interesting look (mainly for me) at how my approach to social issue like this has shifted.

The "sanctity of marriage"

If you are one of the conservative Christians wringing their hands over the decision and the collapse of the "sanctity of marriage" that it heralds, I would like to point a few things out. We live in a nation where 50% of marriages end in divorce (relatively easy, legalized divorce, at that), where many people elect not to marry at all and simply cohabit or have hookups to get the pleasurable part of marriage with none of the commitment, where marriages are marred by desertion, adultery, even spousal abuse. All this to say that if you are hoping to save the "sanctity of marriage" in American culture, you are far, far too late. (And I do think it is culture, not legislation or court decisions, that is the fundamental issue; no one ever passed a law to make the hookup culture possible, and the real problem is not that same-sex marriage is now legally a constitutional right, but that so many people already considered it to be one) Out of all of these problems, some of which are much more clearly condemned in Scripture, why have you made same-sex marriage your hill to die upon? (I could also ask: why do you not equally protest legalized same-sex marriage in other countries, if gay couples getting married anywhere apparently threatens the sanctity of marriage?)

As a recently-married man(!), I am happy to report that the sanctity of my own marriage has not been affected in the slightest by the legal state of affairs in the United States, or in any other country. The real threat to the "sanctity" of my marriage is not the efforts of third parties to redefine it in the eyes of the state, but my and my wife's own sin, our selfishness, our weakness, all the ways that we fail to truly represent the love between Christ and the Church. The Lord taught us to remove the log from our own eye before trying to take out the speck from our neighbor's eye (Mat 7:3-5), a point well made now as ever. Since taking interest in the Orthodox Church over a year ago, I have found it consistently does a better job of teaching and applying this kind of humility, to an almost radical degree, than most western churches. What right have we to condemn the damage we perceive others to be doing to marriage if our own marriage is full of sin?

As I said in my previous post, I think it's misleading to talk about the present conflict as being over the "definition of marriage". Why must the Church and the state have identical definitions of marriage, when their definitions of so many other things (not least who is a "Christian" and what is a "church") are allowed to differ radically? Talk of marriage as an "institution" adds to this confusion of terms. In classical Christianity, marriage is much more consistently considered a sacrament—a way in which God imparts grace to his people. If it is to be an institution, it is certainly no legal institution; Christians have been supporting a different ethic of marriage since before Constantine, when people of different social classes would be united in marriages that could not be recognized by the government. (An ironic reversal of the modern situation) America's historic profession of "traditional marriage" is an artifact of the Judeo-Christian ethic of its founders, not an article of the faith. This ruling is a radical redefinition of the legal institution of marriage, but it does nothing to alter the Christian sacrament of marriage. (This author puts it better than I can)

Keeping faith out of politics?

I'd like to turn now to one of the arguments I hear in support of the ruling: that Christians shouldn't oppose it because that would be bringing their faith into politics, which would be a violation of the "separation of church and state". (It goes something like that) As you have no doubt heard, this phrase, so often cited as a summary of the First Amendment (or at least the part of it pertaining to religious freedom), does not actually appear in it. The actual text reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

Obviously, this amendment pertains only to Congress; it says nothing about whether or how individual Christians, or members of any other faith, are to carry their faith into political engagement. (Does this also mean the president or Supreme Court can issue executive orders/rulings "respecting an establishment of religion"?) If there is a general rule stating that Christians should keep their faith out of politics, it will have to be found elsewhere.

But what if the problem is not the mixing of religion and politics, but the unwise mixing of religion and politics?

I said earlier that I stand by most of what I wrote in my earlier post. I say this because I no longer agree that "Jesus' concern [in ministry] was not political in nature, changing the conditions of the kingdoms of this world, it was incarnating a completely different kingdom that is not of this world at all, with any ensuing political change merely a side effect of the coming of the Kingdom of God." I now consider it much more accurate to say that Jesus' ministry was political, strongly so at times—just not in the ways people expected.

The truth is that the modern dichotomy between religion and politics (and, arguably, the ability to imagine "religion" as a discrete part of life separable from everything else) is a new invention, dating back to the Enlightenment and no earlier. It will do us no good to try to apply it to Jesus. In the first century, what we would call "religion" and "politics" were virtually inseparable, especially for the Jewish people, for whom there was little difference between "religious" and "political" parties. The Jews' definition of "salvation" entailed the forgiveness and vindication of Israel, the defeat of the Gentile nations that oppressed her, and the exaltation of the Lord as the actual ruler over the whole world. This would, of course, have earth-shattering political consequences.

In the opposite corner, the Roman empire had a worldview of its own which, if possible, combined "religion" and "politics" to an even greater degree: the emperor was divine, the son of god, savior of the world, the bringer of "peace and safety", and worthy of reverence, if not a god worthy of worship in his own right. To live as a loyal subject of the emperor was to pay him the proper respects; even the Jews merely managed to work out a deal where they would pray to their god for the emperor, rather than to him as everyone else increasingly did.

It is often assumed that Christ came bearing an unexpectedly apolitical answer to the hopes and prayers of Israel: instead of salvation from the Romans, salvation from sin and death; rather than the rulership of Jesus over an earthly kingdom, his spiritual headship over the Church. As the Lord said, "my kingship is not of this world." (Jhn 18:36) This is only partially true. Once you understand the worldview implicit in the Roman empire and the rising tide of emperor-worship, you begin to see all the ways that the New Testament writers (especially Paul) proclaim the Christian gospel in such a way as to contrast with the imperial "gospel". "Jesus is Lord"; by implication, Caesar is not. Jesus is the savior of the world, not Augustus. He is the ruler over all, whose coming we are to faithfully await; he is truly the Son of God; he is the one who will set the world to rights. He is the "real deal", the true Lord of which the emperor with all his pompous claims and titles is only an imitation. In the Christian gospel, all the promises of the empire were revealed to be false and Christ the one who could truly fulfill them.

In other words, the gospel, as the early Church understood it, was political in that it made "political" claims in competition with those of the empire. Yet this did not mean confronting Rome head on, with its own tactics, as if Jesus had tried to set himself up as a rival emperor in the east hundreds of years before the division of the Roman empire into east and west. Jesus triumphed over the powers and authorities of this world not by political or military victories (as the Jews expected), but primarily by dying and rising from the dead (cf. Col 2:15), demonstrating his lordship over death and all creation. Against the Roman "gospel" and the imperial worldview surrounding it, the early Christians fielded a different gospel, the gospel of Jesus the Messiah, with a different way of living, different answers to the questions to which the emperor claimed to be the solution, and a different narrative in which to locate themselves.

Confronting the powers

What I am suggesting is that American Christians today need to do the same with our country. Just as Rome offered its people a ready-made worldview by which to order their lives, I suspect that there is such a thing as an "American worldview". What is the narrative in which our American culture encourages us to find ourselves? What answers does the American way of life offer to the human condition? I am probably not the person to answer this question in full, but a few quotes from documents that have shaped our nation should be demonstrative. From the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. 

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The preamble of the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

And from Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 Supreme Court ruling that helped pave the way for today's:

At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. 

These help to sharpen the suspicions I already had: the American "worldview", though hard to define precisely, places a high priority on individual rights such as life, equality, personal liberty, and the "pursuit of happiness" (whatever that entails), and sees it as the purpose of government to secure these rights. In a more postmodern twist, this liberty entails the right to self-determination, the ability wherever possible to define the course and meaning of one's existence without hindrance. In light of these values, consider a few quotes from Justice Kennedy's ruling today:

From their beginning to their most recent page, the annals of human history reveal the transcendent importance of marriage. The lifelong union of a man and a woman always has promised nobility and dignity to all persons, without regard to their station in life. Marriage is sacred to those who live by their religions and offers unique fulfillment to those who find meaning in the secular realm. Its dynamic allows two people to find a life that could not be found alone, for a marriage becomes greater than just the two persons. Rising from the most basic human needs, marriage is essential to our most profound hopes and aspirations. 

The fundamental liberties protected by [the 14th Amendment] include most of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. See Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 147–149 (1968). In addition these liberties extend to certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including intimate choices that define personal identity and beliefs. 

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

Kennedy easily applies the rights to personal liberty and self-determination to marriage: if the right to marriage is so important, so essential to a meaningful, fulfilled, "dignified" life, then of course it is unconstitutional to deprive anyone of it without due process of law. However much conservatives may decry same-sex marriage, it's hard to argue that it runs against the spirit of the Constitution.

Maybe what we, as Christians, need to be critiquing is not individual hot-button issues like same-sex marriage, but the hypertolerant, individualistic, libertarian-self-determination worldview on which this nation is founded, which gave rise to this ruling and others that Christians have rightly decried. True justice, true freedom, and true meaning are found in Jesus Christ, not the American way. The early Christians refused to bow before effigies of the emperor; do we today refuse to bow before America's functional "savior", the ateleological sanctity of individual rights and self-determination? Do we glimpse even a fraction of the ways in which our citizenship in the kingdom of God pushes up against our American citizenship, or worse, do we consider the two somehow complementary, as if patriotism is really next to godliness? Obviously the way to oppose such intangible ideals is not by antagonistic protesting or pushing for such-and-such legislation. Rather, it is to live differently, as the body of Christ, the embodiment of a worldview centered around the death and resurrection of the Messiah—much as the early Church did.

Rather than a defeat, this ruling can be an opportunity for Christians to reevaluate and seek to embody to the world a more balanced vision of "God's plan for marriage"—to be known not primarily for what we are against (let alone for being sticks-in-the-mud on a few particular issues). The Christian model of marriage is not simply bigotry, but something far greater and more beautiful, of which the insistence on "traditional marriage" is only a corollary. Through marriage we are called to live out the self-sacrificial, transformative love between Christ and the Church (Eph 5:22-33), which even today has the potential to be a tremendously compelling witness for the faith. In the absence of a deeper closing statement, I think St. Paul's words are apt concluding instructions: "Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all. ... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." (Rom 12:17,18,21)

Emerging Christianity

The following is a paper I wrote for my systematic theology class. The general focus of the assignment was contemporary theological issues; for my subject, I chose the emerging church movement. (And if you were wondering, I did visit Solomon's Porch for some firsthand impressions)

---

Each Sunday evening, several hundred people gather in south Minneapolis seeking to grow in love for God, each other, and the city. The walls are lined with artwork and the meeting hall is filled with couches and chairs in rings around a bar stool. Between the conversations, screams of children, and acoustic music coming through the PA system, the mood is one of barely-organized chaos. Though they meet in a former Methodist church, they don't refer to themselves as a "church" so much as a "Holistic Missional Christian Community". This is Solomon's Porch, one of the major influences in the movement known as emerging Christianity.

Emerging Christianity is not a church. It is a decentralized movement of believers who share a conviction that much of modern, western Christianity has gone wrong somehow, or is not as it should be, and that the time has come to move past tired old answers to fresh expressions of the historic Christian faith. It is "communities that practice the way of Jesus within postmodern cultures,"[1] seeking not to change the faith, but to rethink how it is thought about and practiced in a way that is viable for the twenty-first century and truly representative of its participants. Doug Pagitt, the pastor of Solomon’s Porch, considers this to be what faithful Christians of all centuries have done.[2] Brian McLaren, one of the visionaries at the forefront of the emerging movement, believes that Christianity, like every faith, must be reborn to each new generation.[3] Speaking for many emerging Christians, he asks: "how can we go back and get reconnected to Jesus with all of his radical, profound, far-reaching message of the kingdom of God?"[4]

The emerging movement began in the 1990s among evangelical leaders concerned with declining rates of attendance among young people.[5] They realized that changes in worship and ministry styles to appeal to "Generation X" didn't go deep enough.[6] The real disconnect was not as much between young and old as between the established ways American churches went about worship and practice and the increasingly postmodern culture to which they ministered. Around the same time, McLaren wrote an influential book entitled A New Kind of Christian, in which he wrestled with conventional evangelical understandings of God and Christianity in light of the questions posed by postmodernity. To these early emerging Christians, it became increasingly clear that deep changes in how their faith was expressed were in order to close the gap between western Christianity as it is and a new kind of Christianity that the unchurched, de-churched, and spiritually disillusioned in today's postmodern world can truly call their own.

What emerging Christians emerging from? Though they tend to resist labels, most in the movement are characterized by three "post-"s: postmodernity, post-evangelicalism, and post-Christendom. These reflect disillusionment with established forms of Christianity as well as the desire to creatively seek out new expressions that are both faithful and relevant.

First, the emerging movement is marked by its interaction with postmodernity. This is not a denial of all absolute truth but rather wariness about trying to use limited human language and systems to define or explain God and the Christian faith.[7] Emerging Christians believe western Christianity has unwisely allied itself with modernity. The result is an emphasis on abstract, propositional truth above all else, a quest for the "one right way" to believe and live, a deep divide between sacred and secular, and the silencing, intentional or not, of individuals and questions that need to be heard. Modernity places the mind, with its ability to know the "absolute truth" about God, front and center, marginalizing other forms of communication and knowledge that are important to those in the increasingly postmodern culture.[8] Emerging Christians seek a new expression of their faith that is compatible with postmodernity rather than opposed to it.

One way in which this change of focus works itself out is that emerging churches seek to bridge the modern division between thinking, feeling, and doing. To them, the quest of countless theologians to "get it all right" is misguided, as shown by how much they have disagreed. They like to quote sayings of Jesus like "you will know them by their fruits" (Mat 7:20) to shift the focus from believing to living. Scot McKnight, a professor at Northern Seminary who pays attention to the emerging movement, summarizes: "We may not get it right when it comes to theology, so what we are called to do is live right".[9] The gospel, to emerging Christians, is experienced at least as much as it is known; the truth is not rational so much as it is relational.[10]

This means emerging Christians like to experiment with worship and spirituality. Hence the in-the-round layout at Solomon's Porch, meant to foster a sense of community and equality. Pagitt says that with the couches, "we’re trying to say something about where power lies in our community. And so to meet in the round says all of these people matter."[11] They seek practices that foster the external dimension of faith, not providing an inward retreat from the world so much as a dream of a world that is nothing but sacred space. They are also adventurous about drawing from traditional Christian devotional/mystical practices like prayer incorporating the body, walking the labyrinth, the stations of the cross, lectio divina, and the liturgical calendar.[12]

Second, those in the emerging movement are post-evangelical. They may still identify with part of the culture, values, or mission of evangelicalism at-large, but they also feel disconnected and disaffected from it. Part of their motivation for detaching from mainstream evangelicalism is to build new communities where they can spiritually belong and grow, to rediscover (in the words of Pagitt’s book) a Christianity worth believing. Tony Jones, the national coordinator for the clearinghouse Emergent Village, says, "we’re [starting new churches] to save our own faith, basically. So we’ll have a place where we can go and hold out heads up high."[13] McLaren similarly moved away from mainstream evangelicalism due to growing questions and doubts about it, on a “quest for authenticity.”[14]

Influenced by postmodernity, they are tired of attempts to gain a monopoly on "what the Bible says". "The goal, so we in the emerging movement often say, of the Christian life is not to master the Bible but to be mastered by the Bible."[15] Evangelicals usually cite 2 Tim 3:16-17 to explain how "all Scripture is inspired by God" and what that entails; emerging Christians focus on the practical goal of this inspiration, "that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." They are similarly more interested in living out their theology than in getting it right and codified in a comprehensive system that treats the Bible as a book of prooftexts and easy answers. They are inclined to view theology as an open-ended conversation sparked by the Bible rather than as a science, in which no one has all the answers and each voice has something to contribute. Jones speaks for many in the movement when he says, "The emerging church is a place of conversation and dialogue and movement. Where that’s going to go, we don’t know. We’re figuring this out together. We don’t have an agenda of what it looks like at the end of the road. We just want to gather up people who are on this road, who want to go together on it."[16]

This conversational format for theology means acknowledging our epistemological limitations and questioning our interpretations, even those behind sacred cows of evangelical doctrine like substitutionary atonement and hell that have become obstacles to belief for many. Emerging churches seek a bigger vision of the gospel than the individual one in which Jesus dies to save souls so they can go to heaven and have a "personal relationship" with him instead of facing hell.[17] The point is not questioning old answers to find the "right" ones, but to be freed to live out the gospel instead of thinking and arguing about it.

Emerging Christians also want to leave behind the exclusivism that so often characterizes evangelicalism. They are skeptical of the "in vs. out" mentality behind the common distinction between "saved" and "unsaved', or at least about our ability to clearly distinguish the groups.[18] They are more willing to trust that others may be in the family of God than to judge whether they are or not. Similarly, they seek to be inclusive of different Christian traditions, not just in their spiritual practices but in a generously defined vision of what Christianity can be, seeking healing for old divisions and schisms. Brian McLaren "describes himself as evangelical, charismatic, fundamentalist, Anabaptist, Anglican, and Catholic — among other things."[19]

Even more than being epistemological or theological, the emerging movement is ecclesiological. "Christendom", the central place of the church in society and culture, is becoming a relic of the past at least as quickly as modernity, replaced by secular pluralism.[20] Emerging observers of this trend see the old, institutional, bureaucratic brand of church as a creature of modernity which will have to change to survive this transition. Jones believes that bureaucracy is bad for the gospel, and that the church can do better as a sort of open-source network.[21] The "church", he says, is not so much a global, monolithic spiritual institution defined by correct belief as it is something local, contextualized, and personal marked by Christlike living; there is not one “right” way that Christianity is always supposed to look or work. McLaren defines the church broadly (and in terms of practice rather than belief) as “a space in which the Spirit works to form Christ-like people, and ... in which human beings, formed in Christ-like love, co-operate with the Spirit and one another to express that love in word and deed, art and action”.[22] Doug Pagitt sees God as working in the world independently of the church, which has the choice of whether to join in his work or not rather than being at the center of it.[23]

As seen in communities like Solomon's Porch, the emerging vision for "doing church" does away with hierarchy, which is viewed as contrary to the inclusive reality of the body of Christ as well as the postmodern culture. Scripture and responsive readings are done by whoever in the meeting speaks up rather than by a designated leader, and the "sermon" is a creative, guided discussion playing off the biblical text that seeks to draw everyone's voice into the conversation. Even the Sunday meeting itself is deemphasized in favor of more organically building community throughout the week. In support of such practices, Jones asks: "why do we have these different ontological categories of leadership in the church? And how do some people – based on their sinfulness – not qualify, while other people do qualify?"[24]

I have intentionally focused more on studying the emerging movement than on passing judgment on it. I think it tears down some false dichotomies of western Christianity that have long overstayed their welcome, but also creates others, demonstrating the difficulty of rehabilitating Christianity starting from a fragmented, modern reference point. The movement reaches some praiseworthy conclusions and plenty of wrong ones (when it settles on a conclusion at all!). But I do think that the questions it asks about modern Christianity are real, important, and worth asking and answering sincerely.

---

1. Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 44.
2. “Doug Pagitt Extended Interview,” Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, 15 July 2005, < http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2005/07/08/july-8-2005-doug-pagitt-extended-interview/11764/> (1 November 2014).
3. Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions that are Transforming the Faith (London: Hotter & Stoughton, 2010), ix–x).
4. “The Emerging Church, Part Two,” Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, 15 July 2005, (1 November 2014).
5. “The Emerging Church, Part One,” Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, 8 July 2005, (1 November 2014).
6. Gibbs and Bolger, Emerging Churches, 34.
7. Scot McKnight, “What is the Emerging Church?”, Fall Contemporary Issues Conference, Westminster Theological Seminary, 26–27 October 2006, (1 November 2014), 13.
8. Gibbs and Bolger, Emerging Churches, 20.
9. McKnight, "What is the Emerging Church?", 18.
10. McKnight, "What is the Emerging Church?", 13.
11. "The Emerging Church, Part One".
12. Gibbs and Bolger, Emerging Churches, 226.
13. Darren King, “An Interview with Tony Jones: Part 3,” Precipice Magazine, (1 November 2014).
14. McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity, 8.
15. McKnight, "What is the Emerging Church?", 23.
16. "The Emerging Church, Part One".
17. McKnight, "What is the Emerging Church?", 22.
18. McKnight, "What is the Emerging Church?", 25.
19. "The Emerging Church, Part Two."
20. Gibbs and Bolger, Emerging Churches, 17.
21. Darren King, “An Interview with Tony Jones: Part 2,” Precipice Magazine, (1 November 2014).
22. McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity, 228.
23. Gibbs and Bolger, Emerging Churches, 42.
24. "An Interview with Tony Jones: Part 2".

Rehabilitative vs. retributive justice: A case study

I just learned about an interesting news story from, of all places, Wikipedia's "Did you know?" section. It's about a man, Cornealious Michael Anderson, whose case is pretty well summed up on Wikipedia:

Cornealious Michael Anderson was convicted of armed robbery in 2000 and sentenced to 13 years in the Missouri state prison system. Shortly after his conviction he was released on bail pending the outcome of an appeal of his conviction. In May 2002, his appeal was ultimately rejected and his bond should have been revoked with a warrant issued for his arrest, but it was not. It is unclear why he was not arrested and imprisoned to serve his 13-year sentence, but, apparently due to clerical errors and miscommunication, the Missouri Department of Corrections thought he was already in prison. The error was only discovered when he was scheduled to be released from prison in 2013. On July 25, 2013 he was arrested and required to serve his 13-year sentence.

I've already pointed out our uneasiness about the traditional view of Hell in that it presents a strictly retributive concept of God's justice (endlessly punishing people for their sins, with no hope of respite), which clashes with our modern rehabilitative concept of justice (where reconciling the wrongdoer with society and morality is the goal). Here, we see these two kinds of justice clash dramatically. A man who has, to all appearances, already been rehabilitated from a crime he committed, now faces retribution for it. The subsequent outcry of "injustice" that followed reveals how purely retributive justice clashes with our expectations for what justice is. As someone on This American Life said about the case, "13 years without going to prison did exactly what you'd hope 13 years in prison will do for a person."

This case displays a complex interaction between retribution and rehabilitation in peoples' reactions. Whereas Missouri's actions reveal an independent need for justice-as-retribution (and if this leads to the rehabilitation of the criminal, that's great too), this comment views retribution as a means to rehabilitation, and therefore unnecessary (harmful, even) if Cornealious has already cleaned up his life.

Apply this to God and our definition of justice. Do we believe God, in order to be just, must punish sin independently of restoring sinners (and not just sinners, but the whole tainted creation)? Or is the restoration the ultimate goal, with retribution (in the form of "discipline", see Hebrews 12) attendant to it? Cornealious' plight has increased my certainty that the latter is more true. As I studied in a previous post, the Old Testament generally refers to God's "justice" as something we should earnestly desire and emulate, something that has been perverted in the creation that God is going to restore—not something we need to be saved from. Or consider how the Greek word for "justice", dikaiosyne, can also mean "righteousness"—which I, after N.T. Wright, take to mean something along the lines of "God's covenant faithfulness to fulfill His promises to His people and restore the creation from sin and death."

Of course, this doesn't mean that all punishment for sin is always restorative. God's wrath is said to consist of more passively "giving up" sinners (Romans 1:24-28), infusing the natural consequences of their actions with divine displeasure. This is roughly the view on Hell that I came to in my study of it, following after C.S. Lewis and Tim Keller: it's a consequence of our own rejection of God, not something He actively does to us. We are free agents able to accept or reject God's grace, rather than objects who are simply acted on by God, for good or evil. God doesn't want to destroy us for being sinners—He wants to redeem us from our condition by destroying our sin; this justice only becomes harsh when we refuse to let go of it and accept life.

I'm reminded again of the powerful episode in The Great Divorce where a man with a lizard (representing lust) on his shoulder whispering into his ear is followed by an angel repeatedly asking the man to let him kill the lizard. The man refuses at length, but finally accepts; only after the lizard is killed does it turn into a powerful stallion to carry him into the mountains of heaven where all souls long to go. This is a good depiction of the restoration that God can and will work in those who know Him: not just the destruction of the flesh but its transformation into what it was always meant to be. As is written: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." (2 Cor 5:17)

---

For those wanting to do something to help Cornealious, you can sign a petition for his release (started by his attorney) on Change.org.

Twitch Plays Pokemon

Some of you may already be familiar with the recent internet phenomenon known as Twitch Plays Pokemon (TPP). If not, a brief primer: Twitch.tv, a website that streams live feeds of people playing video games, is hosting a rather unique playthrough of a modded, emulated version of Pokemon Red in which the player character (Red) is controlled collectively by people watching and commenting on the feed, with the "players" typing button commands into chat which are then interpreted and executed by poor Red. The result can be described as entertainingly chaotic, with Red spastically wandering around, opening and closing the Start menu, and (more rarely) inadvertently releasing his cherished Pokemon. See for yourself (it's worth watching, if only for a few minutes); Randall Munroe of xkcd has posted his take on it, as have others.

So why am I referencing this short-lived internet trend on my blog? To reflect on it, of course! I can certainly understand the appeal of watching TPP (though maybe not of trying to play it). It's entertaining to watch the chat commands rapidly scroll by and Red attempt to execute them, with the action bordering on nihilistic absurdity. And at the same time, this (admittedly artificial) difficulty to completing the most basic tasks, while entertaining, also turns what began as a children's role-playing game into an epic group effort that has captured the attention of hundreds of thousands. People (I imagine) get to celebrate as Red makes it to the next trainer battle or catches a Pokemon, and howl in confusion as he releases his cherished starter Pokemon, ABBBBBBK( the Charmeleon. Whether they'll make it through the whole game is anyone's guess.

It's even more interesting to see how the game has captured peoples' imaginations. In his random flailings around the Start menu, Red often seems to select the Helix Fossil in the Item menu. And so the Helix Fossil has become an internet meme of its own, a sort of magic 8-ball that holds all the answers. Red's current strongest Pokemon, aaabaaajss the Pidgeot, has become "Abba Jesus" the glorious leader of the team; similar identities have been assigned to most of Red's Pokemon. People have divided into factions supporting the two control modes, Anarchy and Democracy, almost like political parties (or houses of Hogwarts). A whole mythology has begun to spring up around the idiosyncratic, near-random happenings of this playthrough, giving us artistic depictions of moments like when Red inadvertently released his Flareon (which was supposed to be a Vaporeon), or what I can only describe as the information-age version of Gematria linking Flareon with the evil Dome Fossil, the dualistic opposite of the good Helix Fossil.

"Bird Jesus [Pidgeot] banishing the False Prophet [Flareon]"

My choice of the word "mythology" in that last sentence was not accidental. I see more than idle internet diversion going on in TPP. After four weeks of studying the cultural and philosophical background to the Old Testament, I see the same kind of mythmaking at work here that so many pagan Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) cultures engaged in. In the absence of science, ancient cultures' myths were their way of exploring and understanding the world around them, of infusing both daily life and the historical goings-on of nations with meaning. ANE myths tended to reflect the societies that made them. Hence the phenomena of nature (the waters, the sky, the land, the storm, the sun, etc.) were associated with humanlike deities dwelling in a society much like the mythmaking one. Ancient Egyptians, protected from incursion on all sides by natural features and sustained by the dependable rhythm of the Nile, saw life as orderly and under the wise rule of the gods, including their divine-human ruler, the Pharaoh. Ancient Mesopotamians, by contrast, lived in a region with unpredictable weather and flooding, with life dependent on irrigation; they saw the gods as clashing and competing, creating humans to do the grunt work of sustaining society.

...Indeed.

Anyway, today we tend to turn to science (or some similar manifestation of our post-Enlightenment worldview) to explain things, except the weightiest matters of life, afterlife, meaning, morality, and so on, for which we turn to religion (though it's becoming increasingly possible to believe that there is no need for this). But when confronted with something we truly can't explain or (effectively) control, like Red's bizarre behavior while making his merry way through Kanto, we turn back to mythological storylines to put it together in our heads.

From a more detached perspective, though, I can't help but see TPP as the projection of all the chaos, diversity, and pluralism of our modern world, which at times seems to be going in every direction at once, onto a single (virtual) individual. Seen in this microcosm, we laugh, celebrate, and mourn with Red's exploits. Being able to see and understand our own society in this way is as hard as it is scary. Most days I don't feel like trying.

And from a theological perspective, I ask the question: I wonder if this is how we look to God? Like bumbling, spastic lunatics who can't tell their Charmeleon from an Elixir, wandering directionlessly through life and doing things that, ultimately, don't make any sense? It's a different perspective on what "sin" is than the classic view of willful rebellion, but no less accurate.

Update: The Helix Fossil has been revived. The theological implications are enormous.

Why I don't stand with Phil Robertson (or his critics)

In recent news, a Christian said something controversial in the news again and everyone is making a big deal about it. Other Christians rush to his defense, saying he was only standing for his beliefs and his his free speech rights have been violated, while others explain that this isn't how free speech works.

Sigh. Usually I keep silent on hot-button news stories like this one, but this time I'm going to give my two cents and hope they're helpful.

As a Christian, I can certainly understand the comments commending Phil Robertson for standing up for his beliefs. The Bible is full of examples of Christians suffering more than banning from a TV show and public ridicule for holding onto their faith. But I worry that many of the people who say this haven't looked too closely at the beliefs he actually expressed—particularly the context in which he expressed them. Here is the relevant section from page 2 of the GQ interview:

“We’re Bible-thumpers who just happened to end up on television,” he tells me. “You put in your article that the Robertson family really believes strongly that if the human race loved each other and they loved God, we would just be better off. We ought to just be repentant, turn to God, and let’s get on with it, and everything will turn around.” 

What does repentance entail? Well, in Robertson’s worldview, America was a country founded upon Christian values (Thou shalt not kill, etc.), and he believes that the gradual removal of Christian symbolism from public spaces has diluted those founding principles. (He and Si take turns going on about why the Ten Commandments ought to be displayed outside courthouses.) He sees the popularity of Duck Dynasty as a small corrective to all that we have lost. 

“Everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong,” he says. “Sin becomes fine.” 

What, in your mind, is sinful? 

“Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”

The first thing to notice about Robertson's controversial remarks is that they were a response to a request to define sin on a major news site—an opportunity any pastor or theologian would long for. But I can't defend his answer. Saying that "homosexual behavior" is the very epicenter of sin isn't just offensive, it's grossly unbiblical. To his credit, he does follow this up with citing Scripture, but cites one of Paul's "sin lists" in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. These lists weren't meant to be definitions of sin any more than his later lists of spiritual gifts (see 1 Cor 12:28-30) were meant to be comprehensive—more likely, Paul was targeting specific sins that the Corinthians were shamelessly practicing in the name of "freedom in Christ". His purpose was to convict and bring about repentance in a church that was under his pastoral care, not to provide a proof-text to Christians who want to tell openly gay people why they're going to hell.

Even more generally, I can't agree with defining sin as any list of specific bad behaviors or rules broken; as I know all too well, such a list will always serve as a license to freely do things that aren't on it. Any definition of sin that leaves anyone feeling as if they've dodged a bullet isn't big enough, because we're all sinners—and prone to forget that fact if we're not reminded of it. What if the outrage at Robertson's comments aren't simply the expected sinful resistance to Christian teaching, but directed at an uneven definition of sin that designates the one giving it a paragon of righteousness and "those people" the problem? Paul actually does define sin in Romans 14:23: "For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin." This verse makes me deeply uncomfortable because it shows how impossibly high the bar for righteousness is set. There is no one in a lifeboat floating above the flood of sin, calling out to haul people in; we're all slowly sinking, and Jesus is our (metaphorical) lifeboat. Anyone who uses other peoples' sin simply to condemn them or feel better about themselves has missed the point. First take the log out of your own eye (Mat 7:5).

But neither do I want to join the torrent of outrage over Robertson's comments. Parts of the outcry also worry me. The secular pattern of sacralizing the ideal of "tolerance" and demonizing anyone who dares infringe on it with labels like "bigotry", "hate speech", or "homophobia" is surprisingly reminiscent of conflicts within conservative Christianity in which [DOCTRINE] is righteously defended from all its unbelieving naysayers, whose Christian credentials are (respectfully) questioned for their refusal to believe God when He tells them [DOCTRINE]. Not that I'm saying every gay-rights advocate is like this—but I do often see what appears to be incredulity that anyone would dare to be so backward as to question gay rights or the homosexual lifestyle. Let's not get intolerant for the sake of tolerance.

Finally, the whole shenanigan reminds me of what the apostle John said about the world. Christians are not supposed to be surprised that the world hates them (1 Jo 3:13), and should remember that it hated Jesus first (Jhn 15:18). But this is often taken further from not being surprised, to expecting the world to hate you as a sign that you're successfully shining as a "light for Christ" in the darkness. This expectation makes it remarkably easy to miss how comments like Robertson's are a problem and damage peoples' views not just of Christians, but of their God. But neither should we be willing to go to any lengths to avoid being branded a "bigot" for the sake of being "all things to all people" (1 Cor 9:22) in order to win some, until we're bending over backwards to our culture to show how "hip" or "relevant" Christianity can be. Maybe it's best to just not worry what people are calling us.

Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit

My heart sank as I read this headline: North Carolina Church Plans Halloween Bible Burning. My first thought was that a church had developed such a disrespect for the Bible and a sense of license for taking "freedom in Christ" that they thought this kind of behavior was okay, even exemplary.

The reality was worse. Some excerpts (the article is mercifully short):

Marc Grizzard, of Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina, says that the first King James translation of the Bible is the only true declaration of God’s word, and that all others are “satanic”. ... “[We will be burning] books by a lot of different authors who we consider heretics, such as Billy Graham, Rick Warren… the list goes on and on,” Pastor Grizzard told reporters. ... Mother Teresa is also on the list of Satanic authors.

As I read this, I recalled the Bible's definition of the "unforgivable sin": attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to demons (or the Devil). In Matthew 12:31-32 (KJV, for Grizzard's sake):

Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.

I now understand a bit better why blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is such a terrible sin, sharing a bit of the heartbreak God must feel at being so slandered by someone calling himself a Christian. A militant, God-hating atheist would be more likely to come to know God than this man. I'm not sure there's still any point to it, but I'm praying for Pastor Grizzard. Pray with me if you like, and for God's sake, be careful about calling anything "Satanic".

A parable on the personhood of dogs

A neuroscientist recently had the idea of training dogs to go into an MRI scanner while awake to observe their brains' reaction to to some signals and stimuli. His findings suggest that "dogs have a level of sentience comparable to that of a human child." Read the whole article if you want; it gave me an interesting idea for an analogy to my view on New Testament verses that prescribe certain roles and rules for women (and slaves).

Imagine that, today, a prominent pastor and church-planter write an open letter to a church he had a hand in starting. Part of the letter contained some uncontroversial instructions to pet owners on how to treat their dogs: feed and water them regularly, take them for walks, pet them and give them attention, don't be cruel to them, and so on. Imagine that, somehow, this letter, including the instructions for dog owners, became a new book of the Bible. Imagine further that, sometime in the future, a movement based on Dr. Berns' research appears and eventually succeeds at convincing the world that dogs really are people too. Dogs are given all the rights of people, owning them as pets becomes illegal, and they are allowed to live much more independently. Though they are still dependent on humans, progress is being made to allow them to exist alongside us as equals in value.

The secular world looks back on this new book of the Bible with horror. What kind of a barbaric, backward religion is Christianity, viewing dogs merely as pets instead of people? It becomes a frequent point of attack on the church. Some Christians are made uncomfortable by these passages and seek to explain them away as "cultural" or contextualized to a former time when we hadn't yet decided that pets are people. Other Christians, having none of this, settle into a defensive stance against "the world", asserting that because these instructions are in the Bible, dogs really aren't people and should be kept as pets, which they continue to (illegally) do. Conservative pastors preach a "dog"-ma of complementarianism, arguing that the Bible clearly teaches that dogs were created to serve as man's pets and "best friends", not as equal persons. Dramatic raids on their homes by PETA exposing and freeing these secret pets frequently make the evening news.

Are dogs people or not? Does the future-church need to answer this question from scripture?

Rob Bell Response

In the wake of the ever-controversial Rob Bell's "coming out" in favor of gay marriage, I've seen enough responses reminding orthodox Christians of God's plan for marriage, mourning his now-complete fall from sound doctrine, or even--dare I say it--gloating over his heresies becoming plain for all to see. When I clicked on this article on redletterchristians.com by Michael Kimpan, I was expecting more of the same. Happily, I was wrong.

RIP, Rob Bell

After a quick summary of some recent developments in the perennial "gay marriage" debate, Kimpan reminds us of Christians' role as bridge-builders, ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-21), which is easily forgotten as cultural battle lines are drawn and Christians take up arms to defend the truth and "take every thought captive" (2 Corinthians 10:5) for Christ.

Tangent: I found it interesting how I just cited two different verses in the same book to support two different "Christian" stances toward gay marriage. Do we participate in Christ's ministry of reconciliation or take every thought captive? Yes. Trying to justify choosing one (presumably the one we like) over the other simply by proof-texting means that, to some extent, we are twisting God's word to suit our own desires and agenda. Of course, I was seemingly just doing this kind of proof-texting by implying that Christians should apply 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 but not 10:5 to the gay marriage debate. How does a Christian follow both of these verses at once in this situation? Should they? I don't think so. Sensitive issues between the church and the world like this are simply not the time to apply Paul's militaristic metaphor for the truth. (The section in 2 Corinthians 10 this passage is situated in is addressing discipline and doctrine within the church, not outside it, an important distinction)

Anyway, in two of his last paragraphs Kimpan hits the nail right on the head (emphasis the author's):

The litmus test of our faith in Christ is not whether or not we’re able to agree on political, cultural or religious secondary issues, nor (dare I say) even what it is our position is on such issues; rather, it is in our ability to love, even those with whom we may not agree. 

As the cultural shift happens (and it is happening) regarding LGBT issues right in front of us, I wonder how well we’ll do in elevating the conversation above the yes/no || right/wrong || win/lose || in/out || us/them || polarizing rhetoric that has so often shaped this conversation, and respond in a more thoughtful, Christ-like way?

I don't think most Christian who argue against gay marriage are being intentionally unloving; they are intentionally trying to love God and love their neighbors by defending "God's plan" for marriage and holding it high in a corrupt world. But defending the truth does not have to (should not) equate to the kind of "us-versus-them" dichotomy Kimpan describes above, let alone metaphorically beating people over the head with the truth and expecting them to embrace it. Christlike humility means walking the narrow path of holding on to what you believe while loving and building bridges with those you disagree with. It's not easy, but in our modern, pluralistic society it's more important than ever.

Four Myths About Catholicism

It's official: the Catholics have a new pope! And a pope who lives in a tiny apartment, cooks his own meals, and commutes via public transportation--sounds just like me, if I were a seventy-something cardinal. I, for one, am quite happy and excited for my Catholic brethren and hope that God will powerfully use Francis I for redemptive work in the Catholic church (particularly in dealing with the sex abuse scandals that have been looming) and in the world.

But not all Protestants share my enthusiasm. I've seen some dismissive or even derogatory responses to the new pope and jabs at Catholicism from Protestants, especially those of the more reformed variety. One of Christ's prayers for the church is that "they may be one as we are one" (John 17:20-23), which I take as a call to action every bit as much as the Great Commission. So despite our differences, I take this kind of combative rhetoric against Catholicism seriously.

Obviously I am not a Catholic; I do have real theological disagreements with the Catholic Church that make it overwhelmingly likely that I never will be one (particularly about accepting doctrine by church authority instead of exploring it for yourself) and so my following words are going to be less well-informed than they should be. I'm not necessarily arguing for the Catholic position on these issues, only for understanding of it and how it doesn't line up with some of the calumnies (Calvin word) thrown at it by Protestants. My goal is to address some the myths about Catholicism that seem to be prevalent in Protestantism, the best a Protestant thinker with little experience in Catholicism can.

I should mention that much of the following information is from the website CatholicBridge, which is run by an formerly evangelical couple who became Catholic and wanted to help inform other evangelicals about Catholicism. It's very well-written, humble, and does a good job of relating our beliefs to theirs.

Catholics believe the pope/priests have the power to forgive sins.

Jesus' ability to forgive sins was an implicit sign of His Godhood (Mark 2:1-12), the Protestant thinking goes. How dare those Catholics try to usurp His authority by claiming that their priests, bishops, and popes can also forgive sins!? They are turning the true gospel into a manmade religion of rituals and works! Christ instituted the priesthood of all believers, so of course no special person can have spiritual authority over anyone else to forgive sins!

CatholicBridge most directly addresses this objection here in the section on priests forgiving sins. In a nutshell, it seems that they don't believe Catholic priests have special spiritual "powers", but are priests by virtue of their role in serving the lay people (common priests). The difference between Catholic priests and Protestant pastors seems to be smaller than we tend to make it. I don't think they would say that the hierarchical structure of the Catholic church is any different, in principle, than the leadership of Protestant churches and denominations.

Consider this: someone in a Protestant church (I'll imagine my church) has a serious drinking problem. He hates this addiction, wants to be freed from it, and has been convicted and "repented" of it to God in the past, but has relapsed into it. What would you counsel him to do? Confess this sin to his pastor and seek counseling! My church stations people in front during the service to whom you can come to confess sins and ask for prayer. Are these prayer helpers responsible for forgiving your sin? Of course not. But--and this is what I think Catholics would say--God is able to effectively carry out this forgiveness through people in His church. The Catholic catechism says this:

Only God forgives sins (Mk 2:7) Since he is the Son of God Jesus himself says "The Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins" and exercises this divine power "Your sins are forgiven" (Mk 2:5, Lk 7:48) Further he gives this power to men to exercise in his name (Jn 20:21-23)

In fact, the Bible talks repeatedly about confessing our sins to each other (James 5:16, 1 John 1:9). Protestants have a tendency to overspiritualize repentance to be just between God and the sinner, but as in the above example just confessing your sin to God can often be no confession at all--not because of any deficiency in His ability to forgive but in our sincerity. I think there really is something to confessing your sins to another person, as a part of confessing them to God, and Catholicism seems to have a better grasp of this fact than many Protestant churches. The Church is the body of Christ, and if He forgave peoples' sins while in His earthly body, why can He not do the same through this one? So Catholics don't believe priests have any innate power to forgive sins, but that God can and does work His forgiveness of sins powerfully through them.

Somewhat related to this objection is the issue of indulgences. (And yes, Catholics do universally condemn the sale of indulgences or any other spiritual thing, which is called simony) This was actually pretty interesting to read. Lots of things of Catholicism that Protestants have problems with seem to really be things that we do have some conception of, just more clearly and under a different name. So with indulgences: That article has a seven-point table giving the steps of repenting of a sin and being healed of it, and how analogous they are in Protestantism and Catholicism. They are sin, awakening (conviction), repentance, confession, amends, penance, and blessing/indulgences. The catechism says about penance:

Absolution [forgiveness] takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused. Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more to make amends for the sin: he must "make satisfaction for" or "expiate" his sins. This satisfaction is also called "penance."
...prayer, an offering, works of mercy, service of neighbour, voluntary self-denial, sacrifices, and patient acceptance of whatever crosses we must bear in life. These penances help configure us to Christ, who alone can expiate our sins once for all. They allow us to become co-heirs with the risen Christ, "provided we suffer with him" (Rom 8:17, Rom 3:25, 1 Jn 2:1-2)

Here Protestants might object that the last three or four steps are unnecessary works added on to the gospel, and you only need the steps through repentance or confession. But again, I see some overspiritualizing or "Christian pietism" going on--that is, the belief that all that matters is being made right with God in a legal-spiritual sense, getting that crucial "innocent" verdict, and then you're good to go. The Catholic view seems more holistic. It recognizes that even after your sin is forgiven, it can still have aftereffects. There is still damage done that needs to be undone. It recognizes that participation on our part is needed to undo this damage--sanctification is not merely passive, Philippians 2:12. Penance is this participation on our part in God's work of healing the disorders left behind by forgiven sin, and indulgences, then, are seen as God's richly rewarding this participation by blessing and healing us.

Catholics worship Mary and the saints.

I held a weaker version of this belief for a while. Why do Catholics pray to Mary or the saints, I wondered? Did they believe that God was really too distant for their prayers to reach, or didn't care for them as much as He did for His saints? Surely the practice of praying to mere people--dead people, even--was a reflection of idolatry.

CatholicBridge has articles about Mary and the saints. The gist of it is that they believe that all believers are "saints" in a sense, but some saints have been formally, indisputably recognized as such. It's like how we believe the Bible was canonized; the Church did not make certain books part of the canon and exclude others, but saw itself as recognizing which ones really were God's words. In the same way I think Catholics would say that the church doesn't make people into "saints" but only recognizes them as having been saints.

Anyway, Catholics, like many Protestants, believe that those who have died in Christ are not really dead but have eternal life! For God is not a God of the dead, but of the living. (Matthew 22:32) And then (here is where the scriptural support gets admittedly thin), if these radical, passionate Christ-followers are in heaven worshipping Him face-to-face, why not ask them to pray to Him for us? It's not so different from praying for one another, or asking our pastor to pray for us. Saints and Mary are "serious prayer warriors". Even if you don't agree with this practice, it definitely isn't anything like worshipping Mary and the saints, or elevating them to the same level as Christ.

Catholicism rejects the exclusive authority of the Bible (sola scriptura)

This one seems pretty self-explanatory. Catholics believe in the Bible as authoritative, but only equally so with church tradition and the proclamations of an infallible pope. Isn't that placing human authority on equal footing with God's authority as shown through His word?

This article has an excellent reply to this objection:

The Catholic Church loves the Bible. The Church protected the Bible across the ages until the Gutenberg press was invented. Century after century, monks in monasteries faithfully copied Scripture. It would take each monk a lifetime to copy one Bible and thousands of faithful Catholics dedicated their lives to this work. Catholics protected the Bible over the centuries of wars, famines, plaques, the fall of Rome, fires, and threats from all sides. This was long before any other denomination existed. And the Catholic Church chose which books to include in the Bible in the Synod of Hippo (393 AD) and confirmed it at Carthage (397 AD). We love the Bible. Honest!
The Bible is the Truth and no Catholic Dogma or tradition will contradict it, but Catholics do not believe that it is the authority. Otherwise there would have been no authority for the first 400 years of the Church.

Dang. That's a pretty good point. Before the Bible as we know it today was put together, God spoke to and shepherded His church primarily through people--the apostles, and then other church leaders in ensuing centuries. (Whom Catholics would consider to be part of the Catholic church) So clearly the Bible isn't everything or those early Christians would have been lost. How could early churches possibly have survived without Paul's comprehensive treatise about justification by faith in Romans!? And such a strong dichotomy between God's authority and human authority becomes hard to hold when you consider that every book of the Bible was written by--get ready for it--a human.

Of course Protestants--those who don't minimize the human element of scripture and focus on it being "God's very words"--understand that the Bible having a human side in no way negates its ability to be God's authoritative word. The difference seems to be that while Protestants believe that the "apostolic" authority in scripture died with its human authors, Catholics believe that the church--the Catholic church--still possesses it, with God continuing to shepherd it through His people the same way He did by inspiring the Bible and starting the church. While I don't agree with this proposition, it definitely isn't the same as proclaiming a man-made religion any more than first-century Christianity was man-made by being grown and guided by the work of the apostles.

Catholicism is a works-based religion, rejecting justification by faith alone (sola fide). More extremely, Catholics are not really Christians/"saved" and believe in a false gospel.

Now we get to probably the biggest objection Protestants, especially more reformed ones, have with Catholicism. Such as this article describing a Southern Baptist leader denouncing the Catholic church and the new pope. Mohler gets into the confusion about priests being given "spiritual authority" to forgive sins, but before that, writes:

“First and foremost, evangelicals must affirm that the doctrine of justification by faith alone is an essential, because that is the very definition of the gospel itself, and there is nothing more core, central and essential than the gospel,” Mohler said.
“The reformers were absolutely right in saying that any [other] understanding of justification – even the understanding that justification is by faith and something else -- is another gospel, is anathema to the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Mohler said. “The only way of understanding salvation by grace alone through faith alone is defining justification as the Scripture defines it, and that is justification by faith alone.”
Mohler noted that Pope Benedict XVI famously affirmed the doctrine of justification by faith when writing about the apostle Paul, “but he would not add that crucial word ‘alone.’”
“Lacking the word ‘alone,’ that means justification by faith that works in synergistic mechanism with our own righteousness or attempts at righteousness and efforts to gain merit,” Mohler said.

Mohler lays out the case pretty clearly: Catholics reject the core of the gospel, justification by faith alone, and instead subscribe to a man-made religion of legalistic works, which is really a false gospel.

I have covered what may be the source of this confusion in my previous post on sola fide. Paul writes that man is justified by faith alone, while James says man is justified by faith and works. What is going on? Paul is contrasting "faith alone" with faith-free legalism that attempts to make oneself righteous by exact, laser-precise obedience to the Mosaic law. By way of example, in a book on New Testament studies by Bruce Metzger I read some interesting stories of some ways the second-temple Jews, trying to renew their obedience after coming back from the exile, analyzed into the laws to figure out exactly how to apply them. They concluded, among other things, that it was lawful to walk through a field of grain on the Sabbath if it is ankle-high but not knee-high, because their robes might brush against the grain and accidentally "thresh" it, doing work. It's easy to see how this way of approaching the law might have led from faithful obedience to legalism.

I think many Protestants' almost obsessive devotion to Paul and his theology over the rest of the NT writers has led them to forget that while the gospel is our salvation from trying to earn righteousness, it is much more than this; the "law vs. grace" dichotomy falls far short of encompassing all of the theology in the New Testament, even theology of salvation. Focusing on Paul's theology of salvation, particularly in Romans, Ephesians, and Galations, can lead to a kind of absolutism where the slightest hint of anything on our part, besides faith, having anything to do with salvation is viewed and denounced as salvation by works. See Mohler's quote above: “The reformers were absolutely right in saying that any [other] understanding of justification – even the understanding that justification is by faith and something else -- is another gospel, is anathema to the gospel of Jesus Christ.” In practice, this means a theology of salvation that focuses on faith alone, pasting the issue of works on only in specific questions of ethics.

James, on the other hand. is contrasting "faith and works" with works-free faith that consists solely of propositional beliefs (sound familiar?). You need both of these elements to get a full understanding of the nature of saving faith. The balance of Paul and James' theologies of salvation is well expressed in the adage, "Faith alone justifies, but the faith that justifies is never alone." While Protestants tend to favor and focus on Paul's theology of salvation more, Catholics seem to either take a more balanced view or fall more toward James' view. Both are true and both are necessary. And you must read both in context; Paul's condemnation of pharisaical legalism in Romans can't be assumed to translate exactly to Catholic practices today any more than it was condemning James' focus on works in the first century.

Even this cursory study--and defense--of Catholic theology has been enlightening. It's striking how strongly incarnational it is; whereas the Protestant theology I'm surrounded by focuses on how we are able to commune with God despite our own failures and powerlessness, Catholicism seems to behold closely how God is able to work His power, His authority, and His love through us anyway, making manifest in billions of lives the spiritual blessings promised to us in His word.