I found the following by Marcus J. Borg, the Hundere Chair in Religion and Culture in the Philosophy Department at Oregon State University, on the Washington Post "On Faith" Blog. In my view, it well describes what the Christianists and Catholic Church hierarchy (including the current Pope) have done to Christianity. (http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/marcus_borg/2007/06/blind_acceptance_is_idolatry.html. Without questioning, faith is idolatrous. Just as patriotism without questioning risks becoming idolatrous nationalism, so faith without questioning risks becoming idolatrous religion.
To explain: when faith is defined as unquestioning acceptance of “tenets or traditions,” whether drawn from the Bible or doctrine or both, then the object of faith is no longer God, but the tenets and traditions themselves. Something other than God has been given an absolute status – which is what makes it idolatrous.
Of course, there are different kinds of questioning. Some is unproductive, trivial and silly: “If God is all-powerful, can God make a square circle?” Only slightly more serious is the sophomoric, “If God made everything, who made God?” Some questions are based on misunderstandings that can be corrected.
And sometimes perpetual questioning becomes a justification for eternal fence-sitting and indecision.
But questioning also serves a necessary religious function: it prevents us from thinking that there can ever be a final formulation of “the way things are.” Our words and concepts, no matter how sacred or scientific, can only point to a stupendous and wondrous Mystery beyond all language. That is their function: they are pointers, and some point better than others. Sometimes language can even mediate the Mystery, the sacred.
But none of our “tenets or traditions” can be the last word, the final word. They are creatures, creations. To think of them as absolute is to give them a status that belongs to God alone.
They have come to worship "tenets and traditions" and the "magisterium of the Church" more than God or the teachings of Christ. It truly has become a form of idolitry.
3 comments:
Marcus Borg, of Jesus Seminar fame, can ask believers to question their faith, but the faith he accepts asks just the opposite -- do not question. Since he plays the "faith game," why is his Special Pleading to be taken as valid? And, more importantly, if he (and he does) question the Resurrection of Jesus, takes Micah 4:6 as "gospel," and gets to edit the true and false "claims," who is he to play god to god? Or, are we all just gods quoting whatever gods whose face we find in the clouds?
Finally, since Borg identifies as an Episcopalian, he does not get to question Roman Catholicism's magisterium, which by definition is the CHURCH, which he already rejects tout court by being a deistic unitarian in Anglican latitudinarianism garb. Do I hear Borg defending his own Thirty-Nine Articles? I dare say not! Those Articles were once Anglicanism's magisterium, but they've been doubted away. Cool. As Anglicans one can do that within Anglicanism. Don't start throwing stones at those who don't.
I was not commenting on or approving Borg's over all theology. I merely said that I agreed with his statement on the Washington Post blog.
As for Roman Catholicism's magisterium, that was MY comment. As one who was raised Catholic, served as an alter boy for over 10 years, and was a 4th Degree Knight of Columbus, it is my opinion that in this day and age (and throughout much of the Church's history), the Pope and Church hierarchy worship the "magisterium" of the Church and their own power and sense of righteousness more than God and the teachings of Christ.
In fact, my level of disgust with the Church's hypocrisy reached the point where I finally had to leave the Catholic Church. I currently set foot in a Catholic church ONLY when I go to church when I visit my widowed mother (I go for her sake, not mine). Even then, I have to bite my tougne and not voice my disgust.
Granted, no denomination is perfect, but I believe the Catholic Church in some ways has become an evil institution. The central hierachy is corrupt, power crazed and full of hypocrites. I think it is telling that the Church is growing mostly in poor, uneducated areas where the populace have not yet figured out that they are being sold a false bill of goods.
Michael,
I certainly can understand one's frustration with any religion and its claims (see, my own blog for "Doubting Thomases and Their Intolerances," for an example.) Or compare Catholicism's use of Natural Law Theory (in "The Unnnatural Fraud Unmasked, II," op cit.).
Where the issue divides is whether Borg is competent to make any claims about religion and idolatry, given his own religious biases, and his own Special Pleadings to exempt his own tradition, while "bending" it outside even its 39 Articles.
I'm certainly no defendant of Catholicism, but if I thought Christianity had any valid claim, it would be solely by virtue of Catholicism's uniqueness to its claims, of which the magisterium is central.
If one goes back in history to those early Latin Church Fathers, few of which seem to be read any longer, one finds a primitive and ontological claim that logically follows. It's called the Doctrine of Processionism, and it was articulated by Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Ireneaus, Tertullian, and others at a time when the Bible as yet did not exist. But, it establishes the Church's ontological primacy, which 1 Tim 3:15 confirms.
The Father sends the Son, the Father and Son send the Holy Spirit, the Son and Holy Spirit send the Apostles, the Holy Spirit and Apostles send the Bishops, the Holy Spirit and Bishops "oversee" and guide the CHURCH, and the Church is (1) divinely-instituted by Jesus, (2) divinely-animated by the Spirit, (3) and divinely-confirmed in a Covenant of which the Apostles (and apostolic heirs, the Bishops) are the seal.
The Church, therefore, can and does claim it is the Ark of the New Covenant, the holder in due course, so to speak, of the God of revelation's truths, of which the scriptures are merely one tool in its armamentarium of "truth," evangelism, and authority to speak for "God."
Let's not forget that Catholicism was the CHURCH until the Reformation, and the Reformers changed the ontology from Church to its derivative, the Bible, despite the Bible's affirmation of the Church as ontologically and historically prior to spiritual writings (which arose from within the Church itself, and which it can rightly claim it alone is the custodian, guardian, author, interpreter, authority, etc. of its own texts). Starting Christianity in the 15th century as the Reformers sought, and grounding it in a derivative tool rather than the organism divinely-commissioned and animated, may obscure the early fifteen centuries of inheritance to those who don't "look outside the box" of the book, but those who do see far more truth to Catholicism's claims than any of its bastard children. So mom is a harlot too, but once one appeals to the Bible for any reason, the Church must follow of necessity (since "she" authored it, divined it, is custodian, interprets it, oversees it, etc.).
Detached penises from human bodies don't thrive any more than detached scriptures from their source of the Church. Borg knows that. And, for someone who does appeal to the Bible to "ignore" those inconvenient facts only exposes his own fraudulent devices. Nonetheless, his larger point about Biblioidolatry is old hat, and has to apply to anyone whose "book" is the Authority (which not coincidently the Church avoids entirely, as she does have the authority to establish all subsequent facts, because she established the claims before the derivative "scriptures" even appeared). If you remember your Nicene Creed, you never profess faith in "scriptures," but in "one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church," which is itself an instrument of the Holy Spirit (which is why it appears in the third and last article and why its divine). The same Church that authored the Creed also wrote the book. The Creed just appeared earlier. The Creed is infallible. The Bible is not. And the Bible is not literal or inerrant, but the Church never claimed it was. That was Calvin, who along with Luther, who "established" that claim on their own authority, which not unsurprisingly, the Bible never states. Indeed, it states, "the Church of the living God is the pillar and the bulwark of the truth" (op cit). So watch whose magisteria you want to throw your stones at and why! She may be a prick, but her penises come with bodies attached. (Smile)
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