Five men were ordained to the priesthood of Jesus Christ yesterday in the Archdiocese of St. Louis; as a friend of them, I was in attendance. It was a lavish outpouring of grace upon all of us. I'm honored to be acquainted with most of them, and I'd say pretty close to one of them. It reminded me of one of my lurking insights from the journey, one thing I was very right about: "Why would the New Testament be less sacramental than the Old?" Answer: It's not. Not even close. If J.B. Lightfoot had been right in his commentary on Galatians, that the ordained clergy in the Church has always been understood functionally and not sacramentally--following upon Luther's basic rejection of the sacramental hierarchy and the levelling of clergy and lay--it seems to me we should be Plymouth Brethren, Zwinglians, or Restorationists on the point. If we truly believe, on the contrary, that grace is communicated by these sacred signs, and that certain men are called by God for that very purpose, then the dispute about exactly who are Christ's ministers, the validity of our sacraments, and the faith contained in them retains its special force. If ordained Christian ministry is not sacramental at its core, the whole thing is plain vanity. I felt the reality of this for the first in a Christian Worship class while still a Reformed seminarian. Why should anyone tremble before Calvin and the Consistory if they themselves believed that authority was only managerial, in the end? Better yet, why follow these men and not those others? If it is a matter of education, I have known much more educated men than those in pulpits. And we're back to Sola Scriptura. Did Calvin have some special insight, some unique hermeneutical key that Wesley or Melancthon or whoever did not? This "magisterium of exegesis" won't solve anything. We all have exegetes and scholars. It's the Noltie Conundrum: If I believe X about doctrine a,--presupposing we are appealing to the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures on a matter that is not adiaphora, how do I know I'm right? And looking at it from the outside, what can I reasonably conclude about Divine Truth in light of the impasse? People aren't relativists only because they want to be; they might simply not know what Christ and His Church are saying to them. Still feeling good about your ecclesiology? The lines between subjectivism, banality, and outright sin get pretty blurry when you decide what "gospel" and "Church" and "Truth" mean. Happy to be Catholic. No; that doesn't do it justice.
Hilarious Com-Box Quote of The Day: "I was caught immediately because it is the Acts of the Apostles, not the Acts of the Holy Spirit Acting Erratically."--Donald Todd, reacting to the inartful opposition of the Holy Spirit and the Magisterium. Mark Galli, an editor at Christianity Today, had suggested that today's "confusion" in evangelicalism replicates a confusion on the day of Pentecost. Mr. Todd commented after this reply , and the original article is here. My thoughts: By what means was this Church-less "consensus" formed? If the Council did not possess the authority to adjudicate such questions, who does? If the Council Fathers did not intend to be the arbiters, why do they say that they do? At the risk of being rude, I would define evangelicalism as, "Whatever I want or need to believe at any particular time." Ecclesial authority to settle a particular question is a step forward, but only as long as, "God alone is Lord of the con...
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