Weekly Links - All Saints' Day Edition!

My weekly* round-up of interesting reading from around the web:

-As a Christian who appreciates science (and science fiction!), I enjoyed reading this interview with the Pope's astronomer.  A highlight of it:

Rather than learning something theologically new, what I take from my discoveries is a more general sense of the “personality” of the creator. It might be compared to discovering a trove of old manuscripts where you think one of them might be some unpublished play of Shakespeare. You’d be excited because it might be a wonderful new work, or even just a window into what he was thinking while he was writing. But you also need to be sure it really is Shakespeare that you’re reading, not some other writer.

- Our family loves the show "Mythbusters", and so I enjoyed this article: "The Craziest Myths the Mythbusters Have Tackled, According to the Mythbusters".


- Now onto religion and society: "This Is Your Wake-up Call" is a sober reflection on abortion and one of the hardest stories in the book of Judges.


- Simcha Fisher on "Rogue Laughter in a Flippant Society" - I especially liked this paragraph:

. . . think of the difference between an eleven-year-old boy laughing about sex, and a forty-year-old married man laughing about sex. The grown man has probably earned his laughter; the boy can't have done so, and is laughing partly because he wants to look more experienced than he really is. True laughter, and the best jokes, come when we have some experience with the subject matter -- when we've faced something big and have survived.

- Anne Kennedy on "Celebrating the Reformation". Good, timely stuff:

The church cannot go beyond the gospel. The Christian doesn’t graduate from a saving knowledge of Jesus into something better later on. So also, the Christian cannot ascend to something higher, cannot move on to some better, fancier doctrine. From the moment of Jesus’ first infant cry, to his sorrowful and painful death, to his rising again, to his crushing of his enemies under his feet those who love him can never cry out someone else’s name for help, they can never give glory to themselves or to another, they can never be sustained by some other grace, they can never lean on and be ruled over by some other authority than Jesus’ own Word, they can never be tethered by some other faith.

-Reformation Day yesterday, All Saints Day today - and yet it's still Ordinary Time!  So, here's Anna Gissing on "Living in Ordinary Time":

. . . many Protestant Christians have been re-learning the rituals and habits of living into these churchy seasons as a way to inhabit the gospel and to structure our lives in a way that helps us remember that God is the author of time.

-Speaking of Reformation Day, I enjoyed this dense bio on "Katherine Parr: Reformation Queen of England and Ireland".


-AND, speaking of All Saints' Day, here's a lovely sonnet by Malcolm Guite for All Hallow's Eve.


- Tim Challies is Canadian, but I think his wise words are a comfort in any political climate: "I Went Away for Just 6 Days":

The temptation is not only to put my hope in politicians but to put my despair in them as well. I will be tempted not only to find too much joy in the election of the person I voted for, but also to sink too far into despair in the election of the person I did not. Either way, whether I soar too high or sink too low, I am declaring that I have put my trust in a man more than in God. I have forgotten that, ultimately, it is God who rules over and through earthly rulers.

-Finally, my friends and family and I found this article on "The Things that Drain Each Personality Type Most" scarily accurate.



Happy All Saints' Day, folks!
-Jessica Snell



*Or, if we're honest, biweekly.

Links: Organizing vs. Decluttering, the Future of Protestantism, and more!

Weekend links - just a bit late. Enjoy!

"The powerful difference between organizing & decluttering":

And then there’s the beautiful aftermath that follows decluttering. You find yourself happy to own less, so if you consciously keep stuff from entering your door again, you start owning this habit. You genuinely don’t want to shop because then you’d have to do something with the new stuff.

"The Future of Protestantism": This video from Biola University is a great discussion - my husband and I watched the live stream earlier in the week, and really enjoyed it.

And this post contains a bunch of great follow-up links.  I'm just really heartened by listening to smart, thoughtful, educated people working through these important issues.

And now, here's a treat - a much shorter treat - that's relevant to our interests: two brilliant profs from my alma mater, discussing the liturgical year:

Why I'm not a Roman Catholic

I mentioned in a post awhile ago that while I wish I could convert to Catholicism, I can’t with a good conscience. A kind reader inquired why, and I thought it was about time I got around to answering her question.

Before I do, I’d like to firmly state that it’s not because I think Roman Catholics are not Christians. While I’m sure some aren’t, I’m also sure some Protestants aren’t. I think most probably are. The reason I can’t become Catholic is because if I were Catholic, I’d be a bad Catholic. I’d be a bad Catholic because I disagree with so many of their particular beliefs. If I were to convert, I’d want to be a good Catholic, and I’m not going to convert while that is impossible for me.

Anyway.

So, what is it that I disagree with? Well, it’s mostly the usual suspects: prayer to the saints, the theology of Mary, the primacy of the Pope, the doctrine of Purgatory, the position on birth control. There are other issues I’m not certain about, like transubstantiation and paedobaptism, but I’m not philosopher enough to really argue those. I find transubstantiation unlikely, and I’ll leave it at that. Paedobaptism is something my own church practices, and though I think it’s not best, it doesn’t seem hideously harmful.

I’d also like to say: I have read the Catholic arguments on each of these points. And I will continue to read them. There are so many Catholic writers that I respect and admire that I would be hypocritical to ignore them when they write on these issues. I figure if I’m willing to hear their wisdom on the devotional life, I should also be willing to hear their wisdom on the position of the Pope.

So far, they haven’t convinced me. But I’ll continue to read their arguments as I come across them, in case there is something I’ve missed, or considered incorrectly. In other words, I’m not a Protestant who plugs her ears and sings “La, La, LA” when someone from Rome opens his mouth. :)

I’ll take the points one at a time, and, though I don’t promise an exhaustive catalogue of my disagreements, I’ll try to give a good summary of each. (In other words, this is the short version.)

1) prayer to the saints: The very best thing ever said on this was, I think, said by George Herbert in his poem “To All Angels and Saints” which I would urge you all to read. He basically argues that though he greatly loves the saints, he may not act where he is not commanded to act, and the Bible urges no such communication with those who have gone before us. He further argues that all praise is due to God, and it is not his right to take from what is God’s and offer it to any “inferior power”.
On my own, I’d offer a few other points:
I think you can make a pretty convincing case from scripture against it. I’d start with the Old Testament command that we’re not to try to talk to the dead. It’s obviously possible (see Saul and Samuel), but not exactly encouraged.
I’d further argue a practical point: we humans tend to worship and fear (and fear and worship) what we can’t see. I’d argue that it’s dangerous for embodied spirits (like us) to talk to unembodied spirits – or at least spirits with bodies we can’t perceive – because we tend to worship them. Perhaps there are some very holy people that aren’t tempted to this, but I think most of us tend to worship entities we are talking to when we can’t physically sense them. When you ask your earthly friend to pray for you, all her bodiliness will remind you that she’s just human. When you ask St. Francis to pray for you, his lack of physical presence might keep you from remembering that he’s just as human as you. You might tend to think of him more highly than you ought.
2) the position of Mary: Yes, Protestants tend to make too little of her. Her “may it be unto me as you have said” is the exact pattern of the proper response of every Christian to God, and we’d all do well to meditate on it.
However, I think there isn’t any scriptural warrant for the Catholic doctrine of thinking her sinless. In fact, it seems unbiblical to me, as we are assured that Jesus alone was the only human being ever without fault.
Also, again, I think there is a very human tendency, when praying to Mary, to worship.
Finally, I think that the Catholic devotion to Mary does lead people away from devotion to God. Not always, but often. I also think, from the scriptural depiction of Mary, that this is the last thing she herself would want. She points us toward the mercy of God, and if we look at her too long, we might forget to look where she is looking: to her Son.
3) the primacy of the Pope: Yes, yes, I repeat myself: no scriptural warrant. :) I would also point to Paul’s correction of Peter as proof that the bishop of Rome was not, from the earliest of days, infallible.
4) the doctrine of Purgatory: Here I quibble a bit. Yes, it does seem obvious that something happens in between death and heaven. Somehow, the mortal is made immortal, the sinful becomes the sinless. However, the idea that this process is actually a place seems a bit imaginative to me.
5) NFP: The Catholic church argues that every form of birth control except for NFP is bad.
Okay. However, in the Bible, Paul tells us that husband and wife are not to abstain except for the purpose of prayer. And . . . trying to avoid having children is not prayer. It seems, therefore, that abstaining in order to avoid conception is directly violating Paul’s admonition. Which seems enough to start with.


Alright, hopefully I haven’t alienated my Catholic readers! I also am not writing this for the purpose of discouraging you, or persuading you away from your faith. Rather, I’m very aware that all of us, Protestant, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox alike, are all suffering from being part of a divided church. One day, surely, Christ will return, and make our divisions cease. We'll each learn where we were right and where we were wrong. Until then, it seems to behoove us to love one another, and try to understand one another, and to obey. And to try to disagree honestly and charitably. I’m well aware that there are things that the Catholic church does better than the Protestant church, and I am very grateful for its witness to the world. But for now, it seems to me that the Protestants have it most right of the three branches. (Again, I don't think we have it all right.)

But I did want to answer the question, and I hope that it helps any of my readers who wanted to understand where I’m coming from.

It seems like a good thing to be able to say, “Here is where we really agree. Here is where we really disagree,” and to not lie about either one. There won’t be any common ground if we don’t tell the truth about the uncommon ground. And I do believe that what we have in common (i.e., everything in the Nicene creed) is much, much greater than what we don’t have in common. Until our Lord returns, may we each serve Him faithfully in the places where He has led us.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snells

Happy Reformation Day - and a Blessed All Hallow's Eve!

Though Martin Luther is sometimes someone we Anglicans want to shy away from, Greg Peters makes the case for being proud to be Protestant on this Reformation Day. Read it here. An excerpt, to whet your appetite:

You see, Martin Luther, for all his flaws (and there were many) had re-discovered one very simple truth: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8).

The way I see it, to be Protestant is merely to be Pauline, to be biblical. Do you have to be Protestant to be Pauline and biblical? No. But to be Protestant in the 16th century was to be both of these things.

I also really like the way he points out that the Anglicans who claim not to be Protestant are being just a little - shall we say? - imaginative.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

p.s. This is not an anti-Catholic or anti-Orthodox post, except insomuch as I think that Catholics and Orthodox are, well, wrong. But if I didn't think that, I'd convert, eh? :) I'm perfectly aware and okay with the fact that my Orthodox and Catholic readers think I'm wrong. We are all Christians though, believing the doctrine of the Nicene Creed, and I think we all share a faithful belief that Christ will sort us all out in the end.