Sometimes people surprise you. You think they'll ask for a certain thing or other from you via prayer, you think you know the struggle, and you turn out flat wrong. I did today. I often pray, quite frankly, that the theological columns don't add up straight for many of you anymore; often, you have to lose before you win. I know that the dark night of honest doubt for a Protestant ends in the pot of gold that is the Catholic Church.
I don't believe it is triumphalistic, precisely because, like Louis Bouyer, I believe the legitimate goals and desires of the Reformation find their completion in the Catholic Church. No, my brothers, the irony does not escape me.
The other delicious irony is that God was trying to give me simply Jesus, even as I swore up and down that it was these Romish sorts cluttering up the gospel with extraneous details. It's hilarious to me now: that mere Christianity finds its fullness in Rome? Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Come and see. I dare you.
I took note that R. Scott Clark of Westminster Seminary is blogging again. He tries hard. And whatever else we say, he's consistent, and he's bold. But if I can put it this way, his theology is like the losing campaign of a presidential candidate: you can sense the courage and the ardor, but everybody can sense that generally, no one is buying the message. Somehow, Christianity has moved on. Reformed theology has moved on. The battle-lines aren't drawn where they were back then. A great many people are asking if there ought to be battle-lines at all.
That is not to say that it's blindingly obvious to everyone that it's time to come Home. Nor is it guaranteed that all steps taken after throwing off the shackles of confessionalism lead to Truth. But it is high time to re-open questions once thought answered. It's when you're left holding an empty bag that you wonder about the utility of clutching it. If you will forgive the analogy, being Protestant was like shouting slogans that no longer referred to real things. It's like when a candidate is mailing it in with cliches; you sort of know the words meant something once, but nobody believes deploying them now makes any difference.
I just hope you'll know when to put the shovel down. Put your knives down. The door's open. The party's been waiting for you.
I don't believe it is triumphalistic, precisely because, like Louis Bouyer, I believe the legitimate goals and desires of the Reformation find their completion in the Catholic Church. No, my brothers, the irony does not escape me.
The other delicious irony is that God was trying to give me simply Jesus, even as I swore up and down that it was these Romish sorts cluttering up the gospel with extraneous details. It's hilarious to me now: that mere Christianity finds its fullness in Rome? Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Come and see. I dare you.
I took note that R. Scott Clark of Westminster Seminary is blogging again. He tries hard. And whatever else we say, he's consistent, and he's bold. But if I can put it this way, his theology is like the losing campaign of a presidential candidate: you can sense the courage and the ardor, but everybody can sense that generally, no one is buying the message. Somehow, Christianity has moved on. Reformed theology has moved on. The battle-lines aren't drawn where they were back then. A great many people are asking if there ought to be battle-lines at all.
That is not to say that it's blindingly obvious to everyone that it's time to come Home. Nor is it guaranteed that all steps taken after throwing off the shackles of confessionalism lead to Truth. But it is high time to re-open questions once thought answered. It's when you're left holding an empty bag that you wonder about the utility of clutching it. If you will forgive the analogy, being Protestant was like shouting slogans that no longer referred to real things. It's like when a candidate is mailing it in with cliches; you sort of know the words meant something once, but nobody believes deploying them now makes any difference.
I just hope you'll know when to put the shovel down. Put your knives down. The door's open. The party's been waiting for you.
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