Dude. That was awesome! I'm just saying. I can recall one interesting aspect of the journey, the struggling aspect, and I'm able to articulate now: The struggle was the awareness of paradigms in conflict, and an earnest desire for objective criteria to evaluate them. If I may speak personally, if you do not struggle, you do not love. I went to war on behalf of the Reformed tradition; I fought so hard, I thought Confirmation Sponsor Guy would kill me or something. But I fought honest. If you fight honest, you lose. I fought because I thought I was fighting for Travis, Thom, Captain Jack, "Grandpa" Billy, Dorothy, and so many others. Yet by losing, I won. More than I could've hoped.
Why does Mother Church say she accepts unreservedly those Christians born (that is, reborn) in other traditions outside the Church? Because she knows there are armies of people like the ones I just named. If they knew, they would stampede in this general direction, with their arms and hearts wide open. That's why it's primarily an ecclesial authority question, really, and not a question of the quality of the spiritual experiences, or of zeal. If it were, I daresay the Catholic parishes would lose that one every time. But that's why we need you!
When the visible church in my Reformed paradigm lost its reason for being, when it lost its role as the means by which I received and assented to the truth, I could no longer be Protestant. That's why this ecumenism of the invisible church makes everyone Catholic: it eviscerates the visible church as we find it, or it forces us to pretend that our little segment of it offers us a nice dogmatic suggestion, but it can't be true; that'd be rude or arrogant toward our other brethren in the "Church." And what a delightful little trap God sets! Because the instinct is not wholly wrong; it just usually refers to settled doctrine before all the schisms. Once I realized that the stuff we'd really die for predated the Reformation,--that's what "Mere Christianity" means if it means anything; that's why the cool Reformed kids read Chesterton and Flannery O'Connor, and not to refute them--
(stop lying) you naturally ask, "What about our contribution? What's the truth value of our tradition?" Whether you are faced with the Tyranny of the Plausible just on the Protestant side, or with the claims of the Catholic Church, you will be forced to confront the ultimate truth value of your theological system, and the visible means through which it comes to you. Oh, dear. That's problematic. Not to mention the "arbiter" problem, restated: Can I be the final arbiter of orthodoxy and a humble receiver at the same time? No. That scream you just heard was either you, or the Witch of Sola Scriptura dying a quick death from the holy water of that simple question. [Wow, you are a papist.--ed.] In theory, and in practice, my brother.
Really, the final piece is this question: "Am I properly related to the means by which the ancient orthodoxy was maintained and held?" Yikes. Get your mitres ready; it's a short trip. I think I detect the faint smell of incense. I think I just saw an old man dressed in white, who obviously has almost too much power. Almost. Oddly, I'm moving toward him! I can't get away! AHHH! Resistance is futile.
Why does Mother Church say she accepts unreservedly those Christians born (that is, reborn) in other traditions outside the Church? Because she knows there are armies of people like the ones I just named. If they knew, they would stampede in this general direction, with their arms and hearts wide open. That's why it's primarily an ecclesial authority question, really, and not a question of the quality of the spiritual experiences, or of zeal. If it were, I daresay the Catholic parishes would lose that one every time. But that's why we need you!
When the visible church in my Reformed paradigm lost its reason for being, when it lost its role as the means by which I received and assented to the truth, I could no longer be Protestant. That's why this ecumenism of the invisible church makes everyone Catholic: it eviscerates the visible church as we find it, or it forces us to pretend that our little segment of it offers us a nice dogmatic suggestion, but it can't be true; that'd be rude or arrogant toward our other brethren in the "Church." And what a delightful little trap God sets! Because the instinct is not wholly wrong; it just usually refers to settled doctrine before all the schisms. Once I realized that the stuff we'd really die for predated the Reformation,--that's what "Mere Christianity" means if it means anything; that's why the cool Reformed kids read Chesterton and Flannery O'Connor, and not to refute them--
(stop lying) you naturally ask, "What about our contribution? What's the truth value of our tradition?" Whether you are faced with the Tyranny of the Plausible just on the Protestant side, or with the claims of the Catholic Church, you will be forced to confront the ultimate truth value of your theological system, and the visible means through which it comes to you. Oh, dear. That's problematic. Not to mention the "arbiter" problem, restated: Can I be the final arbiter of orthodoxy and a humble receiver at the same time? No. That scream you just heard was either you, or the Witch of Sola Scriptura dying a quick death from the holy water of that simple question. [Wow, you are a papist.--ed.] In theory, and in practice, my brother.
Really, the final piece is this question: "Am I properly related to the means by which the ancient orthodoxy was maintained and held?" Yikes. Get your mitres ready; it's a short trip. I think I detect the faint smell of incense. I think I just saw an old man dressed in white, who obviously has almost too much power. Almost. Oddly, I'm moving toward him! I can't get away! AHHH! Resistance is futile.
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