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May 22, 2007
> 3:22 PM
somebody up there, pray for us Saints. Praying to Saints. Asking Saints to pray for you. Who are Saints again? Generally, Catholics do it, Protestants don't. I wonder how much trouble Richard Mouw, President of Fuller Theological Seminary, has gotten himself into by publicly admitting to a much changed attitude toward this Christian practice, common among his Catholic siblings? The Boar's Head boys are already in a quasi-uproar about it. I'm sure they're not the only ones. He stops short of saying he's going to ask St. anybody to pray for him tonight, but he does say some very interesting things. I liked his point about how Catholics and Protestants "talk past each other" on this issue, among many, because Evangelicals are typically talking about salvation when they address this issue whereas, Catholics are talking about living in the Church. This should be helpful to many of us. Catholics = people are still members of the Church when they die, still able to participate, are still being worked on as a matter of fact (but that's another issue altogether isn't it). Catholics believe someone who is "in heaven" is able to hear us and are also able to continue to pray for us to God for help in whatever situation. They believe that a person who is "over there" has, logically, a bigger perspective and greater knowledge, and can intercede perhaps better than someone here. OK. They are NOT called on to believe that such persons have the ability to send powerful help down out of themselves. We're talking about intercession here. It's the continuation of how the Body of Christ works here on earth - I need help, I ask Liz to pray for me because I'm not the complete Christ in myself, she does, this prayer interacts with the great economy of God's Life moving back and forth between the great divide and things happen, somehow. If it doesn't, then let's just all shut up and ke se-frikin-ra, things will just happen and whatever. So, there's that. Protestants = (generally speaking) When someone dies, there is immediate judgement and "sentencing," reward and punishment. Boom! If you have faith in Jesus, you "go to heaven" and in that same swift trip you are glorified, fully and completely transformed (if there is any thought of transformation at all this is when it happens) into the perfect Image of Christ and are ushered into the fullness of the Presence of GOD, without measure, forever. There is also then a separation from the rest of the Body. Maybe it's better to put it like this, a graduation from the Church to something else, the heavenly choir perhaps. There is no more interaction with any of the Church on earth. It's either not allowed or is somehow ontologically impossible, I'm not sure. There's not really any one set theologically worked out argument for why this is. Perhaps there may seem to be the one - that the contrary is not explicitly laid out in Scripture, or is interpreted as not being so. I guess it's no big secret which end of the family room I can be found sitting in as concerns this issue. I'm often asking my siblings on the other side of the heavenly membrane to pray for me. I have no problem with drawing implicit conclusions, theologically speaking, logical conclusions, where there may be no extremely explicit Scriptural mandate. I also have no problem with this being what the Church has pretty much always believed for the whole history of its existence. I know that goes about as far as I can throw a bowling ball with some of you, that's OK. Mostly I'll just say it makes total sense to me. The whole scenario is absolutely consistent with the way I view our life in earth, transformation, salvation, heaven, what that is, how it works, etc. Have I thought about it? Yeah, I tend to do that. Think about things. I'm not going to say something like "if people would just think about this, they'd see it made total sense - if not, obviously they don't think or can't think." Now certainly, people on both sides of this issue say things like this. It doesn't work too well whichever side you're on. It's just an attack tactic to throw the other side off kilter, to get them so upset and flustered that, I suppose, they're supposed to throw their hands up and go "you're right!" It ain't workin' so let's just back up off that for now shall we? Alright, good. Good, well-intentioned, thinking, faithful people could theoretically come up with either answer I reckon. Of course, there is this idea that my thinking about it isn't all there is to getting an answer to a question like this. Then we start having to lay at least a part of our decision making on something else, something outside ourselves. Is it, then, Scripture alone (not sure if that's really possible) or is there some degree of trust in a Tradition that helps to explain Scripture as well as teach us things that aren't necessarily explicitly spelled out in the Book? Again, that's another issue but it is very much connected. Because - and here's part of the connection for sake of any argument - because, Protestants, know that a strict and specific appeal to Scripture (an "it's not in the Bible" tack) will not, can not fully work when debating with Catholics, or someone with a Catholic view of Tradtion. Because, on the vicee versee, remember Catholics, that appealing to the long historical Tradition of the Church, or even the Fathers, doesn't necessarily go very far with Protestants (generally speaking). If you can't nail it down in the Scriptures, without question, you've "lost" the battle with them. That leaves the debate at a bit of an impasse doesn't it? Of course there is religious philosophy and the work of theology, done by those on both ends. That can help. It does help sometimes. Some have more room for this kind of thing than others, though. Interesting how this all plays out. When I saw this article and thought about writing a post relating to it, as is typical with me, I never intended to write this much or get into the subject matter this deeply. Maybe I haven't really. I've mostly talked about how we get into it. I wanted to point out one little quote from the article too. I haven't done that yet. I hope this isn't too much out of context at this point. It is one thing to call my brother-in-law Jim in Nebraska and ask him to pray for me. Jim is a farmer who typically has mud on his boots. I like him a lot, but I am not inclined to bow in his presence. Calling on St. Anthony or St. Jude, though—that's a different thing altogether. Their pictures show them with halos around their heads, and when you look into the eyes on their statues you get the sense—at least I do—that you are in the presence of a different sort of being.The bolding there is mine. That's what jumped out at me. I thought, "well, aren't we?" Aren't we looking into the eyes, so to speak, of a different sort of being? As I understand the whole economy of salvation, of transformation into His Image being the whole point, I certainly look at all of us as being in the process of being changed into different sorts of beings. We are, presently, not fully Human. What we'd be looking at, then, when we "look at" someone who is in that realm and has been completed is a truly Human Being (note the caps). Something to think about. That's all for now. Good Lord. Too much writin' on here for the middle of the afternoon. Peace. technorati tags > richard mouw, communion of saints, catholic, protestant, prayer, intercession, sacred tradition Labels: catholic, church, theology 0 Comments:| permalink | e-mail me | 
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