Traveling in Place

A More Protestant Future for Catholicism? Not Likely.

I guess the most exciting news in the Christian world right now is the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and the imminent selection of his successor.  I admit that, as a Protestant, I don’t feel the same anticipation as many of my neighbors.  I was listening to a local radio station in the car on the day after Benedict announced he was stepping down, and the DJ said with enthusiastic surprise, “Wow, so we’re going to get a new Pope!”  My immediate thought was, “I’m not getting a new Pope.  I’ve never had one.”  But I do understand the significance of choosing the leader of over a billion Christians worldwide.

As Catholicism ponders this historic moment – the first papal resignation in 600 years – I am intrigued by two proposals that have been advanced by two prominent and very public, albeit not very traditional, Catholics.  The first is from Garry Wills, the historian and practicing Catholic who has written books about Jesus, Paul, the gospels, baptism, and other Christian themes.  Wills latest book, Why Priests?: A Failed Tradition, debunks pretty thoroughly the entire biblical basis for the Catholic priesthood, using many of the same arguments first offered by Reformer Martin Luther in the 16^th century.  Wills says that the power of the priesthood is the result of the doctrine of transubstantiation, developed by Thomas Aquinas in the 13^th century, which transformed the Eucharist into a magical ceremony in which bread and wine literally became the body and blood of Christ.  Since only priests could effect this change in substance, Wills says, the priesthood took on new importance for the Catholic mass.

Wills’ purpose, he says, is not to propose the end of the Catholic priesthood but rather to assure practicing Catholics that they should not be discouraged by the current shortage of priests.  Their faith, he insists, does not depend on the priesthood, but on the gathered community (a very Protestant idea).

Revealing the Image of God

In her book When the Heart Waits, Sue Monk Kidd tells the story of a country boy who had a talent for carving beautiful dogs out of wood.  Someone asked him the secret to his art.  He replied, “I just take a block of wood and whittle off the parts that don’t look like a dog.”

I believe this is an apt illustration of the process of transformation that Christians call “renewal,” “salvation,” or “sanctification.”  God does not turn us into different people.  God carves away everything that doesn’t look like us until our truest selves are revealed.  “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.  We are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (Ephesians 2:8-10).  That is, we don’t earn our salvation by accumulating points with God through the performance of good works, as though God is the Great Scoutmaster handing out heavenly merit badges.  Through Christ, we gradually discover whom God has made us to be, and we perform good works because we are made to do so.

This process is painstakingly slow.  Paul describes it as “being transformed from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).  It is so gradual that we don’t usually notice the difference.  But over time, despite our stops and starts, God keeps carving away at this block of wood, and by grace, we are gradually revealed to ourselves and to others.  

That does not mean, however, that our true selves are disembodied souls that have been corrupted by our earthly existence.   We don’t come into the world as already finished products.  When the Apostle wrote, “We are what God has made us,” he did not mean that we were already made before we were born.  He was writing to believers who had been included in a new community of faith where they were leading “a life worthy of their calling,” exercising their God-given gifts, and building up “the body of Christ” until they matured into the “unity of faith” and “full knowledge of the Son of God” (Ephesians 4:1-13). God had created and was continuing to create them through their inclusion in this community.

My Morning Paper and Other Virtual Realities

I just finished reading the morning paper.  But not really.

It’s been two weeks since the local daily paper went to a three-day-a-week delivery, while posting an on-line version every day.  So my morning routine of drinking coffee while turning crinkly pages and smelling ink from the words and pictures I peruse has been reduced to Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.  On the other days of the week, Martha and I open up our laptops and click a link to see a stripped-down version of the paper on the computer screen.  We’ve noticed that the printed versions contain material that has simply been repeated from the digital version of the previous day, usually without any editing.  So, for instance, last Tuesday’s print edition announced that the local school board would be making an important decision “tonight” regarding building usage.  In fact, the meeting had already occurred the night before.

I guess I’ll get used to this arrangement like I got used to computers, cell phones and texting.  But I don’t have to like it.

The digitizing of the newspaper is another example of how tactile experiences are disappearing.  It seems like ages ago that e-mail began to replace the tangible process of carefully writing a letter, placing it in an envelope, licking the seal and the stamp and dropping the note in the mailbox.  We condescendingly refer to this procedure as “snail mail,” and roll our eyes at the fuddy-duddies who insist on communicating in such an inefficient way.  Yet, the whole experience of writing, packaging and mailing a letter ensures that a lot more thought goes into communication.  Careless words are far less common in handwritten letters than in e-mail.  Also, the experience of opening a letter and seeing another person’s handwriting adds warmth and affection to the communication.  (Although, thanks to various forms digital messaging, spelling and penmanship are so poor that many educated people can’t even write a legible letter.)

No Lenten Greeting Cards

The Hallmark stores have been busy lately.  Valentine’s Day is coming.  This year, Ash Wednesday comes first, but don’t bother trying to find an Ash Wednesday card or a greeting card for Lent.  Unlike many religiously rooted observances that have become part of the popular culture, Lent has escaped commercialization.

In fact, American religion has never truly embraced Lent.  Sure, the more liturgical traditions observe it, but the absence of alleluias and the emphasis on repentance clash starkly with consumerism and the cult of individual success.  Lent invites us to give up, not amass more.  We are called toward austerity, not luxury.  We are led toward confession of sin, not motivational self-helps.  Lent is not a time to celebrate our successes but to ponder how Christ’s earthly failure – death by crucifixion – made eternal life possible for us.

Lent is the oldest season of the Christian year.  In the early church, baptisms took place only during the Easter vigil.  Baptismal candidates fasted for forty days prior to Easter in order to cleanse themselves of all worldly desires before committing their lives publicly to Christ.  During those forty days, patterned after Jesus’ forty-day fast in the wilderness, they spent hours in daily prayer and learned basic Christian teaching.  Entering the waters of baptism was not for the faint of heart.

What the Super Bowl Blackout Reminded Me

Like most people in this part of the country, I wasn’t overly interested in this year’s Super Bowl.  None of the usual Northeastern contenders were there.  In fact, the teams I have the most interest in didn’t even get past the first round of the playoffs – if they got there at all.

But, on the first Sunday in February, the Super Bowl is what Americans do.  If we don’t care about the game, we wait for the halftime show, or we rate the commercials.  So I watched, and by the end of the first half, it looked like one of those old-fashioned blowout Super Bowls.  Baltimore was leading 28-6.  But then, less than two minutes into the second half, the game was suddenly made interesting by an occurrence that had nothing to do with football. Half the power in the New Orleans Superdome died.  The network announcers’ microphones went silent, and the scoreboard turned black.  Suddenly, a ho-hum hum game became high drama, and when the lights came back on after a 34-minute delay, the whole nature of the game changed.  A potential blowout turned into a squeaker.  This year’s Super Bowl will probably be remembered most, not as a Ravens victory or a 49ers loss, but as the Night the Lights Went Out in New Orleans.

In the great scheme of things, the Super Bowl blackout was less consequential than entertaining.  But it also served as a reminder of some consequential realities we all live with.

1) We never have as much control as we think we do.  Unforeseen events change the course of life unexpectedly.  Nobody’s life is a straight line between two points.  We all have to negotiate twists and turns and inevitable detours, whether a loss of employment, a natural disaster that destroys one’s property, a diagnosis of cancer or heart disease, or premature death of a loved one.  In fact, those unexpected crises usually turn out to be the defining moments of our lives.