I never expected this. Seriously.
I’ve been deluged with email from readers demanding to know why there hasn’t been a Sunday Rumination – i.e., a piece on some aspect of faith and the spirit – for a few weeks. I’d thought those essays were among my less popular ones, and that they wouldn’t be missed among the rest of the bilge I post here. It appears I was wrong. Even way wrong.
Okay. I’m just back from a road trip, and half-drunk at that – it doesn’t take me long, and driving 677 miles is enough for me to “feel the need” – but I’ll do my best.
I’m not guaranteeing that you’ll like what you read. Far from it.
Would you like my opinion on the absolutely most important passage in the Gospels? It doesn’t matter what your answer is, because you’re going to get it regardless:
But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.
Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.[Matthew 22:34-40]
That passage is so critical to understanding Jesus’s New Covenant that Church teaching routinely omits it. Reflect on that for a moment and let the contradictions pile up in your forebrain while I fetch more tawny port.
Ah, still here? Very good. The illuminating question is this: If my assessment is correct, why would Church teaching not refer to that passage at every relevant moment – i.e., at every proclamation that this or that prescription or proscription is binding upon all Christian faithful? Why would it be referenced only in passing, as a general instruction toward love of neighbor and charity?
If you’re having trouble with the answer, read the last verse above – Matthew 22:40 – until the answer beats you over the head with a tire iron.
I don’t know why most Liberty’s Torch readers are...well...readers of Liberty’s Torch. Every now and then I have an opportunity to ask one...an opportunity I seldom exploit. When it comes to the Christian stuff, the question is often too painful for me to entertain.
Do you know why it concerns me? Because I think the Gospels are the most important written documents on Earth. Because whether you prefer the King James version of the Bible, or the New Revised Standard version, or something else with which I’m unfamiliar, there’s no evading this:
Given that Jesus was the Founder of Christianity and the sole possessor of Divine authority to proclaim the Law, how could it be otherwise?
The Gospels are conspicuously silent on certain matters about which the Church is quite vociferous – even strident. Some of those matters have been subjects of controversy for decades. Consider just these three:
- Contraception;
- Homosexuality;
- Papal infallibility.
There isn’t a single word in the Gospels about any of those things. Yet the Church has made grandiose claims on all three, and on other matters for which no Gospel text is relevant, as well.
Papal infallibility is particularly troublesome for its circularity. “I’m infallible,” said Pope Pius IX. Why? “Because I said so, and after all, I’m infallible.” Would any secular authority be accepted on that basis?
Catholics (and many non-Catholic Christians) trust papal pronouncements as reliable guides to right belief and action. However, they would almost certainly do so without this business of papal infallibility. After all, the pope isn’t a lone man issuing decrees ex cathedra on his sole say-so; he has the College of Cardinals and the assistance of worthy theologians worldwide to assist him in his cogitations. On subjects relevant to Christian theology and ethics, the weight of presumption should be with the pope in the absence of powerful counter-evidence.
But that’s a far cry from claiming that if the Pope says so, it cannot be otherwise.
Reflect on that for a moment.
A great part of fundamental Christian doctrine was laid down not by Jesus, but by Saint Paul: i.e., Saul of Tarsus, who’d been a Pharisee until his “road to Damascus” conversion. Saint Paul was not one of the original Twelve. He was added to the roster by the eleven Apostles some time after the Pentecost and the beginning of the Great Commission, in part because of the fire of his faith and in part because of his “work ethic:” his willingness to preach far and wide and to endure hardships and hazards many other believers found too daunting.
But Paul was a Pharisee by upbringing and long habit. Much of what he laid down as Christian doctrine was imported from Pharisaic Judaism: i.e., from the Levitical Covenant that Christ’s New Covenant superseded. It is legitimate to question such doctrines – and to ask where in the Gospels we can find any substantiation for the notion that some particular Pauline doctrine “hangs from” the two Great Commandments.
Quite a lot of Catholics, especially the most orthodox, will be angry with me for the above. That only makes the questions posed here that much more imperative.
In Shadow of A Sword appears the following passage:
[Christine’s] brow knotted. “Do you think [Louis is] with God now? Even though he said he didn’t believe?”
Ray paused to organize his thoughts.
“We are taught,” he said carefully, “that no good man will be denied his just reward in the next life. Going by what you’ve told me, Louis was more than a good man, much more. I’m nowhere near that good, and I’ve never known anybody who was nearly that good. If he had doubts, they clearly didn’t keep him from living the faith in every imaginable way. And there aren’t many who can say that, even among the clergy.” He rose, went to the west-facing window and surveyed the day briefly. All was quiet beyond. He turned back to her. “If God is just, and He is, then Louis is with Him.”
“What about...” She paused and looked away. “What about all the sex?”
“Was he promised to anyone? Were you?”
She shook her head, and he smiled.
“A peccadillo, if even that. The commandments forbid adultery, which is the violation of the marital promise of fidelity and constancy. The physical love you shared with him strikes me as the only imaginable way the bond between you could have been expressed. I expect God would see it the same way. Have no fear for him, dear.”
Father Ray has quite obviously departed from “orthodox” Catholic doctrine in the above. Church doctrine makes the claim – utterly fantastic to me – that the Sixth Commandment – “Thou shalt not commit adultery” – confers upon the Church blanket, plenipotentiary authority over all sexual and parasexual conduct.
I don’t buy it. I cannot buy it. And I cannot sit idle and allow the claim to go unchallenged. But my dissent has caused other Catholics to rain huge amounts of disparagement trending toward hatred upon my head. Yet they cannot substantiate their positions except by saying that “this is what the Church teaches.”
Well, if they disliked Father Ray’s “literalist” interpretation of “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” they’re going to hate the romance novel I’m about to publish.
At first I thought this would be a “quickie” Rumination, which is why I titled it thus. Clearly it’s more than that. But I’m going to let the title stay as it is. I’m also going to substantiate the first portion thereof, so you can have some sense of where my thoughts are trending.
All evil ultimately flowers in hatred:
- Hatred of God;
- Hatred of others;
- Hatred of Jesus’s New Covenant and its specific dictates.
It cannot be otherwise. Neither is it possible for persons desirous of authority beyond what is properly theirs to pervert the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God and Redeemer of Mankind, without becoming His enemies: persons who hate Him and desire to displace Him at the right hand of God.
Clerics – from the lowliest parish deacon all the way to the Holy Father – who attempt to substitute their own preferences for the teachings of Christ are indictable under that observation.
More anon.
UPDATE: I've closed comments because some commenters are more interested in hurling insults than arguing. I can be wrong; indeed, I've been wrong quite often. But if you want to demonstrate to me that I'm wrong, insulting me is the wrong way to go about it.
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