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Books in 2012: Rome Sweet Home

Until I was 10, I thought everybody was either Catholic (like my mom’s side of the family) or Jewish (like my dad’s). My horizons widened when, in fifth grade, my parents pulled me out of public school and put me in the private, non-denominational Protestant school where I studied through my senior year of high school.

Every time a teacher discovered my Catholicism, what followed was one of three things: 1.) acceptance of me as a fellow Christian, 2.) fascination with and/or fear of the mystery that is my church or 3.) an unending aggressive attempt to persuade me to become Protestant. And the third response, to the chagrin of the teachers who tried it, ultimately achieved the exact opposite of its intended purpose.

At school, somebody would protest something Catholic and at home, I’d study up. I’d read from the Bible and from books in my mom’s collection. I’d listen to cassette tapes of talks about the Church given by people like a professor named Scott Hahn. And the more I studied and read and listened, the more grateful I was for getting to grow up Catholic. So when recently, I stumbled upon the book Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism by Scott Hahn and his wife Kimberly, I got warm and fuzzy feelings as well as the urge to read it. As of tonight, it is the fourth book I’ve read start to finish in 2012.

I am not as into apologetics now as I was when I was a Catholic in a Protestant school (though I do explain, defend and question when necessary). But the book brought back memories of the years in which I was a little Catholic apologist and brought up points about why the Catholic Church teaches what it does that I hadn’t thought of in years. And their story — how the Hahns met and how they loved and the twists and turns their lives took later — is pretty riveting. For most of his life, Scott was the kind of Protestant who so disliked the Catholic church he’d call it the whore of Babylon. He was a Presbyterian pastor, a Calvinist and on a mission to persuade all the Catholics he met to become Protestant. Kimberly, the daughter of a Presbyterian pastor, wasn’t as anti-Catholic as her husband. But she never would have dated a Catholic, let alone married a Catholic. Which is why she was horrified when her husband became one. And she surprised everyone, when a few years later, she followed suit. Scroll down for some interesting points I dog-eared and/or underlined:

On studying what the Catholic Church teaches about contraception:

“Did our use of birth control reflect how God saw children or how the world saw children? … Perhaps it was more of an American attitude than a godly one to think of our fertility as something for us to control as we deemed best.” -Kimberly, page 36

On sola fide:

“We gradually became convinced that Martin Luther let his theological convictions contradict the very Scripture that he supposedly chose to obey rather than the Catholic Church. He declared that a person is not justified by faith working in love, but rather he is justified by faith alone. He even went so far as to add the word ‘alone’ after the word ‘justified’ in his German translation of Romans 3:28 and called Saint James ‘an epistle of straw’ because James 2:24 specifically states ‘…for we are not justified by faith alone.'” -Kimberly, page 41.

On sola scriptura:

“In my church history class, one of my better students … said, ‘Professor Hahn, you’ve shown us that sola fide isn’t scriptural—how the battle cry of the Reformation is off-base when it comes to interpreting Paul. As you know, the other battle cry of the Reformation was sola scriptura: the Bible alone is our authority, rather than the Pope, Church councils or tradition. Professor, where does the Bible teach that ‘Scripture alone’ is our sole authority?’
I looked at him and broke into a cold sweat.
I had never heard that question before. In seminary, I had a reputation for being a sort of socratic gadfly, always asking the toughest questions, but this one had never occurred to me.
I said what any professor caught unprepared would say, ‘What a dumb question!’ As soon as the words left my mouth, I stopped dead in my tracks, because I’d sworn that, as a teacher, I would never say those words.
But the student was not intimidated—he knew it wasn’t a dumb question. He looked me right in the eyes and said, ‘Just give me a dumb answer.'” Scott, pages 51-52 (Hahn stumped several of his Protestant preacher and professor friends with the same question. None were able to answer it.)

On a day Scott spent with Dr. John Gerstner, a “Harvard-trained, Calvinist theologian with strong anti-Catholic convictions” — a meeting the Hahns hoped would convince Scott to stay Protestant:

“‘Dr. Gerstner, I think the primary issue is what the Scripture teaches about the Word of God, for nowhere does it reduce God’s Word down to Scripture alone. Instead, the Bible tells us in many places that God’s authoritative Word is to be found in the Church, her tradition (2 Th. 2:15, 3:6) as well as her preaching and teaching (1 Pet. 1:25, 2 Pet. 1:20-21, Mt. 18:17). That’s why I think the Bible supports the Catholic principle of sola verbum Dei, the Word of God alone, rather than the Protestant slogan, sola scriptura, Scripture alone.’
Dr. Gerstner responded by asserting—over and over again—that Catholic tradition, the popes and ecumenical councils all taught contrary to scripture.
‘Contrary to whose interpretation of Scripture?’ I asked. ‘Besides, church historians all agree that we got the New Testament from the Council of Hippo in 393 and the Council of Carthage in 397, both of which sent off their judgments to Rome for the Pope’s approval. From 30 to 393 is a long time to be without a New Testament, isn’t it? Besides, there were many other books that people back then thought might be inspired, such as the Epistle of Barnabus, the Shepherd of Hermas and the Acts of Paul. There were also several New Testament books, such Second Peter, Jude and Revelation, that some thought should be excluded. So whose decision was trustworthy and final, if the Church doesn’t teach with infallible authority?’
Dr. Gerstner calmly replied, ‘Popes, bishops and councils can and do make mistakes. Scott, how is it that you can think God renders Peter [the first pope] infallible?’
I paused for a moment. ‘Well, Dr. Gerstner, Protestants and Catholics agree that God most certainly rendered Peter infallible on at least a couple of occasions, when he wrote First and Second Peter, for instance. So if God could render him infallible when teaching authoritatively in print, why couldn’t he prevent him from errors when teaching authoritatively in person? … how can we be sure about the 27 books of the New Testament themselves being the infallible word of God, since fallible Church councils and Popes are the ones who made up the list?’
I will never forget his response.
‘Scott, that simply means that all we can have is a fallible collection of infallible documents.’
I asked, ‘Is that really the best that historic Protestant Christianity can do?’
‘Yes, Scott, all we can do is make probable judgments from historical evidence. We have no infallible authority but Scripture. … Like I said, Scott, all we have is a fallible collection of infallible documents.’
Once again, I felt very unsatisfied with his answers, though I knew he was representing the Protestant position faithfully. I sat there pondering what he had said about this, the ultimate issue of authority, and the logical inconsistency of the Protestant position.
All I said in response was, ‘Then it occurs to me, Dr. Gerstner, that when it comes right down to it, it must be the Bible and the Church—both or neither.'” -pages 74-76

On yielding to God:

“My dad could sense the sadness in my voice.
He asked, ‘Kimberly, do you pray the prayer I pray every day? Do you say, Lord, I’ll go wherever you want me to go, do whatever you want me to do, say whatever you want me to say and give away whatever you want me to give away?’
‘No, dad, I don’t pray that prayer these days.’ He had no idea of the agony I was enduring over Scott’s being Catholic.
He said, genuinely shocked, ‘You don’t?!’
‘Dad, I’m afraid to. I’m afraid if I prayed that prayer, that could mean joining the Roman Catholic Church. And I will never become a Roman Catholic!’
‘Kimberly, I don’t believe it will mean you will become a Roman Catholic. What it means is that Jesus Christ is either Lord of your entire life, or he isn’t Lord at all. You don’t tell God where you will and won’t go. What you tell him is you’re yielded to him.'” -page 115-116.

For more information about the book, click here. For all the posts about books I read in 2012, click here.

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Pain.

“Because we are offered so many things that are immediately satisfying (albeit in a superficial way), it is hard to remain spiritually hungry. We give answers too quickly, take away pain too easily, and too commonly stimulate ourselves with nonsense. In terms of soul work, we dare not get rid of pain before we have learned what it has to teach us. Much that we call entertainment, vacations, or recreation are merely diversionary tactics, and they do not ‘re-create’ us at all. The word vacation is from the same root as vacuum, and means to ’empty out,’ not to fill up. One wonders how many people actually have such vacations!

We must be taught HOW to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning. That is the path, the perilous dark path of true prayer. It is how contemplative prayer differs from the mere recitation of prayers (which can actually be another diversionary tactic instead of any kind of self-emptying).” -Richard Rohr

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Contraception.

One word describes a recent set of posts about contraception on a blog I frequent called Bad Catholic, written by a guy named Marc Barnes:

Brilliant.
Barnes, who I think might be a genius, is a college kid at Franciscan University of Steubenville and a clearly Catholic Christian whose humor (even if often sarcastic and occasionally irreverent in inexplicably appropriate ways) gets me every time. His recent two posts about contraception explain why the Catholic Church is opposed to it and expose the reality that until relatively recently, so was every Protestant church. Both posts are so very worth the read. 

From part 1:

“The natural end of sex is both unity and procreation. Love and life. Shocking, but true. If this is denied, and it is claimed that sex is solely about making babies, then you’re a jerk in the vein of Henry VII, and a Puritan besides. If, on the other hand, it is claimed that sex is solely about pleasure, one must contend with the shocking fact of what — precisely — leaves a man and enters a woman.

To argue otherwise is to look at a farmer casting seeds upon fertile ground and claim that he is casting the seed for the pure joy of seed-casting. This is not to say there is no joy, even a wild joy, to be found in planting a field. It is simply to note that it would be an insane man who would plant his field by the logic that throwing seeds is fun, and then become shocked and annoyed when his field bore grain in due season. Every part of the action of sex speaks to the creation of new life.”

From part 2:

“Not one, single Protestant denomination before the 1930?s held that the use of artificial contraception was anything but sinful. May I ask, what on earth has changed, besides the fact that we now live in a culture that really, really wants birth control?”

Before you click off my site and on to Barnes’s posts, you should know that because the Catholic Church is opposed to contraception does not mean the church expects couples to have sex so willy-nilly that they wind up like the Duggars. The church does teach that if a couple is sexually active, it should a) be married and b) be open to children (Click here and refer to the third question the priest asks an about-to-be-married couple right before the vows at a Catholic wedding.). But the church is not opposed to family planning. It is not opposed to your own deciding when you will and won’t have kids. It is opposed to your own deciding when you will and won’t be fertile (as well as to rendering a womb unsafe for and/or discarding fertilized eggs [which are a.k.a. super tiny babies]). Sex, according to the Church, is for babies and for bonding, until God says otherwise.

So much more I’d like to say about sex and contraception. In due time. But in the meantime, if you’re wondering how a couple can decide when to and not to have kids without deciding when to and not to be fertile, click on the third and fourth links below for a couple old posts about natural family planning. But first, go read Bad Catholic:

Click here to read Why Contraception Is a Bad Idea #1 — Natural Law in full on Bad Catholic.

Click here to read Why Contraception is a Bad Idea #2 — Scripture Prohibits It in full on Bad Catholic.

For more about natural family planning, click here and here.

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Fall upward.

“Did you know the first half of life has to fail you? In fact, if you do not recognize an eventual and necessary dissatisfaction (in the form of sadness, restlessness, emptiness, intellectual conflict, spiritual boredom, even loss of faith, etc.), you will not move on to maturity. You see, faith really is about moving outside your comfort zone, trusting God’s lead, instead of just forever shoring up home base. Too often early religious ‘conditioning’ largely substitutes for any real faith.

Usually, without growth being forced on us, few of us go willingly on the spiritual journey. Why would we? The rug has to be pulled out from beneath our game, so we redefine what balance really is. More than anything else, this falling/rising cycle is what moves us into the second half of our own lives. There is a ‘necessary suffering’ to human life, and if we avoid its cycles we remain immature forever. It can take the form of failed relationships, facing our own shadow self, conflicts and contradictions, disappointments, moral lapses, or depression in any number of forms.

All of these have the potential to either edge us forward in life or to dig in our heels even deeper, producing narcissistic and adolescent responses that everybody can see except ourselves. We either ‘fall upward,’ or we just keep falling.” –Richard Rohr

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How to talk to a Catholic.

So, I’m Catholic. As expressed in what I recently wrote for RELEVANTmagazine.com, how and where I worship Jesus has long frightened the bejeebers out of people whose religious leanings don’t align with mine. It has long inspired questions that range from adorable to asinine.

“Is that the real man?” -four year old girl, while pointing at the Jesus statue nailed to the giant cross at the front of my church’s sanctuary.

ADORABLE.

“Can priests be black?” -actual grown adult.

ASININE.

Nonetheless, whether legit or ridiculous, I never really have minded the questions much. That is not to say that talking about my church with people who disagree with my church is always easy. And you — Catholic or not — may have experienced that, too. These conversations are not necessarily limited to questions. In my own experience, few inter-ideological discussions had as much to do with a curious sibling in Christ’s questions about my church as with his or her efforts to edify me about “what the Catholic Church teaches” (which is code for “his or her perception of what the Catholic Church teaches.”).

I have a word for conversations like that:

FRUITLESS.

(Unless your goal is high blood pressure. Then, by all means.)

But not all conversations about doctrinal differences have to end with clenched fists, lost sleep and stress-induced acne. There is a set of ground rules, that when agreed upon, can make the experience both educational and enjoyable. I call it “How to talk to a Catholic.” But what it is actually called is the Dialogue Decalogue.

The Dialogue Decalogue is a Ten Commandments-style set of rules to which it is worth it to stick when you’re talking with someone of a different denomination within Christianity, or of a belief system not within Christianity at all.

Below, you’ll find my two personal favorites (a.k.a. the ones my often well-meaning Protestant siblings in Christ usually break when they want to talk Catholicism with me). Below that, you’ll find a link to the whole list.

Ground Rule Four – “One must compare only her/his ideals with their partner’s ideals, and her/his practice with their partner’s practice. Not their ideals with their partner’s practice.” PREACH.

This is like when a Protestant says, “My church teaches X, but you do Y — justify THAT.”

The answer is “I don’t do what your church says to do because I don’t go to your church.” Every time. Fruitless. The alternative? “My church teaches X. What does your church teach about X?” Like a Fig Netwon — fruit-filled.

Ground Rule Five – Each participant needs to describe her/himself. For example, only a Muslim can describe what it really means to be an authentic member of the Muslim community. At the same time, when one’s partner in dialogue attempts to describe back to them what they have understood of their partner’s self-description, then such a description must be recognizable to the described party. YES. Because nothing says “I don’t actually care about you.” quite like “Hi, Catholic. I’m Protestant. Let me tell you what you believe.” (And vice versa, Catholics who like to tell Protestants what they believe!) It is my job to tell you what I believe, and your job to tell me what you believe. Period.

Click here to read the whole Dialogue Decalogue.