Tom’s Big Picture

As I visited some websites recently in my research on the megachurch movement, I was struck by the anti-Catholic off-topic obsession of some of the authors. Instead of sticking to the meat of the issue (and some of their research is quite good), they inevitably go off on tangents about how the doctrinal-watering-down and brainless ecumenicism of Warren, Hybels and company is really just a secret plot to undo the Reformation and unite us all back into the Catholic Church. So whatever credibility they build up with hard evidence, they destroy by subsequent peddling of conspiracy theories.

I believe there’s a unity of the Church through Christ that transcends denominational boundaries (inclusive of many Catholics), but that of course doesn’t mean that we should get rid of the boundaries, any more than the fact that Americans and Mexicans are both human beings means that there ought not be a border. And honest, conservative Catholics would agree with this. Somebody like Mel Gibson or Bill Donahue of the Catholic League really believes the doctrines of their church- and those doctrines are completely incompatible with an honest conservative Protestant. However, since both groups of respective conservatives, Catholic and Protestant, are secure in their conflicting beliefs, they can agree to disagree- and then, most importantly, work together in coalitions on other important issues they have in common- for example, opposition to abortion or the spread of Islam. The dangerous sort of ecumenism doesn’t come from true Catholics and true Protestants, but from the squishy liberal “Fruit Loops” in each group. The liberals, never really taking doctrine all that seriously anyway, are more than willing to make compromises on principle so they can sit around the fire together and sing “Kum-ba-ya” in some sort of false feel-good unity. It’s all driven by emotions for them anyway, not belief. We don’t have a Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc denominational problem- we have a liberal problem.

That said, and to partially agree with my conspiracy-theory promoting brethren, I think it’s very important to talk about which Catholics. Conservative English Catholics (like Tolkien and Lewis) and conservative American Catholics (for example, those at Chronicles Magazine) can come very close to sounding like conservative Protestants at times, in terms of having a deep appreciation for Scripture and taking their faith seriously in terms of their personal behavior. Their Catholicism is based on sincere beliefs built on mostly sound reasoning. However, with our immigration policies, we are importing a quite different strain of Catholicism from Latin America. This is a Catholicism of outright idolatry and tolerance of hypocrisy (adultery, stealing, drug dealing, bribery, corruption, etc) as long as the outward ordinances of the Church are performed. In other words, a Catholicism less like what resulted from the counter-Reformation (where the Catholic Church fixed many of the problems leading to the Reformation) and more like the corrupt idolatry that led Luther to lead a revolution.

This news story about the Virgin Mary in a grocery store freezer in West Texas demonstrates quite aptly the nature of the Latin American Catholicism we are importing - be sure to watch the video for full effect.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2007 at 10:35 am and is filed under Christianity & the Church, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.