"I Cannot Worship a Guy I Can Beat Up"

A while back, Mark Shea drew attention to some remarks by Pastor Mark "High Octane Calvinism" Driscoll of Seattle's Mars Hills Church:

In Revelation (the last book of the New Testament), Jesus is a prize-fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is the guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.

Shea remarked: "I’m sure the guards in charge of the scourging at the pillar felt the same way. Surely, the measure of our worship is 'Can I beat up Jesus?'"

His comment prompted me to recall this ancient Eastern icon:



Its name? Christ the Bridegroom.

Think about that for a minute, especially in light of the Events we are preparing to commemorate this week.

Like most men on their wedding day, I went to great lengths to look my best.

And yet, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ — the Bridegroom of bridegrooms — is here shown with His hands bound, stripped half naked, having just been mercilessly scourged and crowned with thorns, and as a result so weak that He can't even hold His head up straight.

Yes, Christ the Bridegroom, for just a few hours later He would perform the ultimate act of self-sacrificial love for His Bride the Church — read: us — by laying down His very life for her.

"I Cannot Worship a Guy I Can Beat Up"

A while back, Mark Shea drew attention to some remarks by Pastor Mark "High Octane Calvinism" Driscoll of Seattle's Mars Hills Church:

In Revelation (the last book of the New Testament), Jesus is a prize-fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is the guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.

Shea remarked: "I’m sure the guards in charge of the scourging at the pillar felt the same way. Surely, the measure of our worship is 'Can I beat up Jesus?'"

His comment prompted me to recall this ancient Eastern icon:



Its name? Christ the Bridegroom.

Think about that for a minute, especially in light of the Events we are preparing to commemorate tomorrow on Good Friday.

I, like most men on their wedding day, went to great lengths to look my best.

And yet, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ — the Bridegroom of bridegrooms — is here shown with His hands bound, stripped half naked, having just been mercilessly scourged and crowned with thorns, and as a result so weak that He can't even hold His head up straight.

Yes, Christ the Bridegroom, for He was preparing to perform the ultimate act of self-sacrificial love for His Bride the Church — read: us — just a few hours later, the completion of which He would signal by crying out from the gibbet of the Cross words we rightly associate with marriage:

"It is consummated."

"The American Patriot's Pocket Bible, Camo Edition: The Word of God and the Shaping of America"

I'm gonna guess they didn't use the Douay-Rheims translation for this.



[HT: Mark Shea]

Best. Spoof. Ever.

Not only that, it won the Papyrus Font Award!



Mark Shea comments thusly:

The layers of post-modern irony and metanarrative are thick as leaves in a Vermont forest in October, but dayum is this funny and spot on.

Cradle Catholics and Emergents have an almost impenetrably different understanding of what "worship" means. For Emergents (following their Evangelical parents) worship is profoundly bound up with music (the most disincarnational of the arts, unless you happen to be the one playing it). Evangelicalism, being leery of the Incarnation whenever you encounter it today tends to focus a lot on the verbal and auditory as distinct from the physical and tangible. So the Eucharist is "magic" but worship in which the believer moves himself into a "state of worship" is, well, worship.

Inevitably, it results in the sort of thing spoofed here.

I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with him about music's being disincarnational, but I can't argue with him about Evangelical Protestantism's inherent leeriness about the Incarnation as it is encountered today through various means, including, but by no means limited to, the Sacraments.

"I Cannot Worship a Guy I Can Beat Up"

Mark Shea recently drew attention to some remarks by Mars Hill Pastor Mark Driscoll:

In Revelation (the last book of the New Testament), Jesus is a prize-fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is the guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.

Shea remarked: "I’m sure the guards in charge of the scourging at the pillar felt the same way. Surely, the measure of our worship is 'Can I beat up Jesus?'"

His comment prompted me to recall this ancient Eastern icon:



Its name? Christ the Bridegroom.

Think about that for a minute, especially in light of the Events we will commemorate a few days from now.

I, like most men on their wedding day, went to great lengths to look my best.

And yet, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ — the Bridegroom of bridegrooms — is here shown with His hands bound, stripped half naked, having just been mercilessly scourged and crowned with thorns, and as a result so weak that He can't even hold His head up straight.

Yes, Christ the Bridegroom, for He was preparing to perform the ultimate act of self-sacrificial love for His Bride the Church just a few hours later, the completion of which He would signal by crying out from the gibbet of the Cross words we rightly associate with marriage:

"It is consummated."

Related

I've previously recommended my co-worker Matt Yonke's post on Mark Driscoll's brand of "high octane Calvinism", and I do so again now.

Read thou it here.

Who's Afraid of Halloween?

In the original version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (or rather, in the original version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) the entry for Earth consisted of one word: "Harmless".

In the revised edition, it was amended to: "Mostly harmless".

Much the same could be said of the evolution of my attitude toward Halloween.

When I was a lad, I can't recall having any awareness that Halloween was about anything other than innocent fun.

Then, at some point in childhood, I remember hearing some news report around Halloween time about Devil's Night in Detroit. That's not good, I thought.

And now, for the past several years, I've grown increasingly aware of the impossible-to-miss anti-Halloween sentiment among many Christians, both Catholic and Protestant.

This astounds me.

To be sure, the rampant commercialization of Halloween is not exactly a crowning cultural achievement, and there are ample examples of costumes that one would be hard pressed to argue are not imprudent to wear (for one of various reasons).

But to argue that any sort of observance of Halloween per se is wrong is not a little ridiculous, especially considering that Halloween is, yea, a Christian holiday -- and, even more specifically, a Catholic holiday.

I'd be hard pressed to come up with any clearer thoughts on the day than those Sean Dailey articulates here:

Anyway, today is Halloween, a most glorious holiday. A good Catholic holiday, for this is the day that we honor the age-old truth that the devil, like all who are besotted with pride, cannot stand being mocked. So we mock him, with silly costumes and mischievous pranks and door-to-door begging, and have a wild old time doing so. Tomorrow we go to Mass to honor the saints in the Church Triumphant and ask their intercession for us in the Church Militant; and we will spend the rest of November offering up suffrages for the poor souls in Purgatory -- the Church Suffering. But tonight, we celebrate our mortality ... while not forgetting that even in death we retain hope in the Resurrection.

Today I also came across an eminently sensible article by Helen Hull Hitchcock that is well worth a read. Therein, she offers some historical background about Halloween customs and traditions, and thoughtfully addresses some of the common prudential concerns many Christian parents have regarding Halloween.

Perhaps needless to say, our kids will be going trick-or-treating tomorrow night, because, as Hitchcock rightly points out, it's simply "fun".

And I should also point out that they are also participating this year in what is commonly offered by many Catholic parents as an "alternative" to Halloween: to wit, a Saints Party.

I'm planning to post pictures of them in both sets of costumes next week.

[Cross-posted at Catholic Dads]

Twofer Tuesday

Because I haven't much time to write today, and because I'm over a month late in plugging my friend and co-worker Matt Yonke's latest article at Called to Communion, I shall (mostly) forego the former and wait no longer to do the latter.

Titled "Hermeneutics and the Authority of Scripture", it's about, well, hermeneutics and the authority of Scripture. Check thou it out. He also talks about the article in a podcast here.

I also happened to reread a post on Matt's blog recently about an apparently up and coming evangelical pastor named Mark Driscoll who preaches a "high octane Calvinism" that leads to an "uber-masculinity that ends up beating up anything that does not find its essence in Dudeness" (both quotes are Matt's words), which ends up getting some things dreadfully wrong, especially about sex. It's also worth a read.

Heh!

(HT: Mark Shea via Matt Yonke)

This video reminds me of a joke:

What did the Calvinist say after he fell down the stairs?

"I'm glad I got that over with."

Religion Devoid of Holidays Is No Religion At All

I'm told that Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said:

I heard of one man who was an atheist for a year and then he gave it up because there were no holidays.

During Easter Week, these words are especially poignant.

I've always been struck by a certain sadness when I hear of particular Protestants who go to great lengths to argue against celebrating holidays like Christmas and Easter.

The implication of Sheen's quip is that authentic religion must necessarily include the celebration of holidays.

And, as usual, he's right.

We all know, of course, that the "Chreasters" who attend Mass twice a year are not the ideal practicioners of the Faith. (Then again, can any of us legitimately lay claim to embodying the characteristics of an ideal disciple of Our Lord Jesus Christ?)

Still, the fact that our churches are filled with such as these on the two most important days of the year is itself a testimony to the burning need of the human heart to regularly visit a sacred place and recall particularly significant sacred events in a communal setting.

God certainly knew what He was doing when He made His people a liturgical people.

The Episcopal Church Drifts Further Into Outer Space

This reminds me of this.

And, on a not entirely unrelated matter:

Do thou make thy voice heard in support of the conscience rights of health care providers before 9 April, the deadline for submitting comments to HHS.

A Plug for "Called to Communion"

My friend and co-worker Matt Yonke posted this on his blog yesterday:

I’m very happy to announce a new venture that myself and several other converts from the reformed faith to Catholicism have started. It’s a website we’ve dubbed “Called to Communion.”

The site’s goal is to foster communication between the spheres of the churches of the reformation and the Catholic Church.

All of us have learned and grown in our faith during our time in the reformed communities and appreciate the depth that lies therein. But we have all come to agree that the fullness of the Christian faith subsists in the Catholic Church and we want to talk about those ideas with our reformed brethren.

The roster of guys who will be writing on this site blew me away the first time I read it. These are the most irenic, respectful, even keeled converts I know on the web. There’s even a few PhD’s in the mix! There will be no Jew-bashing, turn-or-burn polemics here. Only reasoned dialogue between brothers in Christ.

The main part of the site will consist of peer-reviewed articles on topics of major difference between Catholics and reformed. There will also be a blog where readers can discuss the articles and other subjects pertinent to the mission of the site.

So, I hope you stop by early and often. I think it’ll be a great site to discuss the issues that divide us now so that one day, by God’s grace, they will unite us.

Check thou it out.

Remember Tony Alamo

Recently, on one of the rare days when I went to catch the bus (and train, and another train, and another bus) to get to work, I saw something tucked into the windshield wiper of our motorcar on the street in front of Haus Jansen.

So before walking the block to the bus stop, and wanting to assure myself it wasn't a ticket, I went to see what it was.

It was a booklet, on the cover of which was a picture of a fellow who looked not entirely unlike Elvis Presley.

At the top, the masthead read, "Tony Alamo Ministries", so I assumed the fellow who looked somewhat like Elvis was one Tony Alamo, and that same runs some sort of Protestant ministry.

As it turns out, of course, it was, and he does.

I'd not theretofore heard of Tony Alamo, and glancing quickly at the other motorcars parked on our street, I was curious why ours appeared to be the only one on which some Tony Alamo devotee in our neighborhood had seen fit to place one of his publications.

So I took it with me to browse on the bus ride, and I soon realized why our vehicle was singled out: we have a Rosary hanging from our rear-view mirror. (And, as The Dutchman has pointed out, the Rosary has a habit of offending the right people.)

Tony Alamo, you see, is quite the anti-Catholic. Much of his long, rambling publication seemed to warn of either the Vatican's or the U.S. government's (or both) intent to tunnel under your house or something.

This article from a 1990 issue of This Rock offers a glimpse into Alamo's rather shady history. A few years later, he was arrested and convicted on tax-related charges.

And, just a few weeks ago, his Arkansas compound was raided by FBI agents and state police as part of a child pornography investigation.

Not the kind of the guy I'd want to want to place my trust in.

Juxtaposed

In light of all the recent goofiness in the Anglican Church, it was with wry glee that I was able to position this sign-holding volunteer thusly in famously liberal Evanston during our Face the Truth Tour a few weeks back:



Shortly afterward, a priestess—wearing a Roman collar and shorts—came out of the church and calmly asked if the sign could be moved off "our property". I responded in equally calm fashion, as I have many times before in this situation, that this was actually public property.

She then asked, "The street is public property?" This was odd, as I'd never before had anyone ask me whether a street was public property. Not to mention that our signholder and the sign were not in the street, as you can see.

I simply said that the street, the sidewalk, and the boulevard were all public property. Saying nothing in reply, she turned and walked away.

Our exchange prompted me to recall Oscar Wilde's quip:

"The Catholic Church is for saints and sinners alone. For respectable people, the Anglican Church will do."

Give Mark Shea a Cigar

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." — Through the Looking-Glass

The aforesaid was brought to mind while reading a post from Mark Shea's blog earlier this week:

You Keep Using That Word. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means.

In this case, the word is "Catholicism" and the users are the folk over at ReformedCatholicism.com.

It's kind of odd really. I've encountered the phenomenon before: Protestants who are pretty uncomfortable with what "Protestant" refers to in ordinary parlance these days: namely, the huge variety of Fundamentalists, Evangelicals, therapists, get rich quick, Contemporary Christian Music, Youth for Christ, Athletes for Christ, Joel Osteenified, Oprahfied, Cawfee Tawkish, Emergent Churchish, Purpose-Driven, megastar-megachurch, Seeker-Sensitive, Buddy Jesus, all-over the mapness that dominates so much American Protestant discourse. They long for the days when Protestants where (sort of) rooted in history, smoking pipes and Talking About Doctrine and Serious Things of the Mind as they quoted Augustine to prove that Luther and Calvin were right, especially Calvin. They miss men with long Dutch and Germanic names who could explain with geometric logic why Papists were idolatrous perverters of the gospel, yet still appeal to the Catholic tradition when it was useful for cuffing the young pups of pop Christianity and showing them what ignorant upstarts they were.

So they start sites with names like ReformedCatholicism, ostensibly with the purpose of trying to seriously engage Magisterial Protestantism and open some sort of "conversation" with Romanists. However, pretty soon it becomes clear that "Reformed Catholicism" means "Protestantism" and the Catholics who thought they were there for dialog are actually there to be told what they *really* think, despite their repeated declaration that they believe no such thing. We "really" worship Mary, doncha know, even though we reiterate that we do no such thing and that the Church forbids worship of Mary as idolatry. One guy, who fittingly arrogates to himself the name "Kepha" informs the willing believers in the crowd of Reformed Catholics that he is a "Protestant convert to the Catholic Church" and he has the inside scoop on how horrible it really is. Only, when you press him on what he means, you discover that he refers to his fellow parishioners and people who believe the ordinary teaching of the Church as "Papists" who are against "us" and he further adds that he refuses to receive communion and, in fact, reject the proposition that the Catholic Church is catholic. No, he is the definition of Catholic, because he, Kepha, will have it so. What the Church actually teaches does not enter into it. He maintains his "Catholic identity" even if it involves denying everything the Church teaches and nobody will say otherwise.

So, by "Catholic" he evidently means "Protestant".

And the bulk of the readers on the site mean the same, through of course, their devotion to Private Judgment means they have the right to call kepha a heretic if he happens to say something that disagrees with what they mean by Catholic. But all are happily agreed that somebody who simply believes and practices what the Catholic Church in union with the Pope permits and/or commands with respect to Mary is an idolator if it doesn't suit what the denizens of Reformed Catholic deem to be orthodox.

And when you point this out and laugh, they threaten to kick you off. Huh-larious.

This, in turn, prompted me to recall this scene from The Blues Brothers — arguably; yea, very arguably, the funniest in the movie: