Don't be a bigot

News flash: Atheist activist want God out of the public square of America.

"Duh!" Is what many would say. But I just have to stick my head out and say that those who want to take God completely out of the public square are...well....offensive to non-Christians.

"Why? Wouldn't that be the exact opposite goal of secularization?"

Why? Because typically they would like to claim that its because they would like to live in a truly pluralistic society and be open minded to all cultures and appreciate all cultures without being exclusive. Well, I say that by taking Christianity out of the public square of the US they are shooting their cause directly in the foot (not that there's a leg to stand on).

My case: Really, I don't have to make a case as a Christian, I'll let a Muslim do it. Here is a story told by Peter Kreetf, a philosophy teacher at Boston College, about the reaction of a Muslim student when a catholic school took down a crucifix in the classroom:


I was teaching comparative religions, and during the long break, there was a Jewish student and a Muslim student in the front row. The Jewish student noticed a faint cross painted on the wall behind me, so he asked me, "Is that supposed to be a cross?"I started to explain that that's where the crucifix used to be, and another student, a Catholic, said "Oh, we took the crucifixes down last year."

"Why did you do take them down?"

"Oh, well, we didn't want to offend people."

"When did you take them down?"

"Well, let's see. 1979."

"Aha," said the Jewish student.

"It was the Bundy money."

No one understood that, so he explained that President Carter's secretary of state, McGeorge Bundy, had brokered a deal by which federal money could go to private schools if and only if those schools were not sectarian, divisive, discriminatory... something like that. And - by coincidence - all 21 Jesuit colleges took down their crucifixes from their classrooms in the year following that decision. So when he explained that to the students, the students were rather scandalized, and one said, "Oh, no, we wouldn't do that for money."

And he said, "Of course you wouldn't, but I hope you got more than thirty pieces of silver this time." Rather wicked... some of them were so biblically illiterate that he had to explain to them that Judas Iscariot was the first Catholic bishop to accept a government grant.

But then the student said, "No, we did that to be ecumenical."

And then the Muslim chimed in."What is ecumenical?"

So the student said, "Oh, ecumenical means we think we're all equal, and we didn't want to discriminate against others, and offend outsiders."

And the Muslim said, "You mean people like me, and my friend the Jew?"

"Well, yes."

"Well, I am highly insulted."

"Why?"

"Well, you're treating me like a bigot."

"No, we hate bigotry."

"Let me explain. Suppose you came to my country. You enrolled in a Muslim university. Now we don't have pictures or images; we think that's idolatry, but when you are in a Muslim university, you know you are in a Muslim university. Who would object to a Muslim symbol in a Muslim university, except a bigot? Now you expect me to be offended by a Catholic symbol - the crucifix - in a Catholic university, so you are treating me like a bigot."

Everyone was thinking.

He didn't stop. He said to the students, "How many of you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?"And most of them raised their hand.

He said, "Well, we Muslims don't believe that; the Koran says that's blasphemy, that's ridiculous, but we have a great devotion to Jesus. We hardly ever mention his name without saying, 'Blessed be he' or 'Blessed be his name' and we think he's one of the greatest men who ever lived, and he is a great prophet, and we love him and his mother Mary. And if we had pictures of him, we would never take them down, not for any money in the world.

In fact," he said, and he was now waxing eloquent, "what if some soldiers came into our classroom and said, 'We demand that you take down this offensive picture of the prophet Jesus'? Every good Muslim would go in front of that picture and say, 'You will take down this picture of our beloved prophet Jesus over our dead bodies. We would be glad to be martyrs for him.' So I think we are better Christians than you are."

You could hear a pin drop.


My point in quoting this story is this:

To take Christianity out of our western culture is to take out the very culture that built what we know as western society. To deny that we are built on objective and Judeo-Christian morals is to be ignorant of history.

If I were to go to a Hindu society, I would be down right surprised to not encounter Hindu religious symbols. And if I didn't, I would feel like I didn't truly experience, and therefore I can't appreciate, that particular culture. And if I was traveling within a group of secularly obsesed atheist (hey, it could happen!) and I said, "These stinkin' Hindus need to take all these idols down when I'm here!" I think it would be perfectly reasonable to call me a bigot. Why then, does an historically Christian society need to hide its Christian history, culture, celebrations, and symbols? Because those who want Christianity out don't want a truly pluralistic society, they want a society with no Christians. Why? Because like I have said in other blogs, they're either angry at Christians (probably rightfully) or they're mad at God.

Its not like they are usually consistent. They would prefer us say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," but we don't say "Happy Good Guy from History Day" instead of "Happy St Patrick's Day." But to take that from our culture would be silly. St Patrick's day is culturally relevant to Americans, Christian or not. I don't think that St Patrick pinched people if they weren't wearing green, but every American reading this knows exactly what I am talking about.

So I ask that there be a stop the bigotry and I say we truly appreciate cultures by not killing and masking our own.


I am now stepping off of my soapbox....

Here we go again!

Every year, like clockwork, I wonder what the attack will be.
What attack?
The attack on Christian doctrines of Jesus Christ in the mainstream media.

It's amazing to me how easy it is for the lefty pseudo-intellectuals of our society to buy into some new reason every year at the same time (Lent, right before Easter) to "debunk" the claims of the Church. Or to "enlighten" the poor and uneducated masses of Christians around the world that have been dooped into the "greatest story ever sold," i.e. the orthodox and consistent doctrines taught by the Church since Christ.

Last year it was "The Gospel of Judas," this year, its the "Finding of Jesus' Tomb." And what great archaeologist/scientist/philosopher/theologian/intellectual/scholar will unveil this enlightening new discovery? Who else? The director of "Titanic!" Is it surprising? Most of America believed most of what Dan Brown (a popular fictional author) claimed about Jesus at the drop of a hat. People read "The DaVinci Code" and find themselves feeling smarter or more informed than the poor saps that have fallen prey to the greatest cover up of all time conducted by the Catholic Church (queue menacing music). When someone asked the director about some of the claims, he made the comment: "Oh no, I'm not a theologist." I'll let that quote go, its too easy...

But don't these people who listen to all these recent discoveries about Jesus simply want to know the truth?

NO!

The people who attack Christianity using the "Gospel of Judas", "Mary Magdalen marriages", "Jesus' tomb", etc. don't do homework (including the media). If they did, it would be simple to refute. Even non christian scholars usually debunk these things, but that's not exciting. Exciting, to a culture that loves to watch mind numbing hours of television, is to watch TV and be educated on a great and far reaching scandalous cover up by the Church over the past 2000 years. That's exciting for some reason; not knowing the truth. So we'll see the same thing again. Some hand picked "scholars" that will get their 15 minutes of fame on the discovery channel, while the vast majority of true scholars (and slightly informed laity) will watch and shake their head at the nonsense, but the masses will bite off and chew all day long. That is of course until the next "great discovery" comes and they spit that out (i.e. completely forget) and bite on to the new claims next year.

If the atheistic/new age/enlightened/modern intellect were honest, it would make it easier, but they're not. If you make a claim about a doctrine of the Church, they want hardcore stats, scientific research, archaeological backup along with philosophical, logical and reasonable arguments (which are all VERY available), but that's not what they really want. They want to show that what Christians do is believe things that we have to in order to make our claims of Christ, and cover up anything that's not convenient to our Truth. This makes them look better, it makes them feel smart, more "enlightened."

Do they exhaust the reasons the Church believes what she believes in order to balance both sides? No.

Do they exhaust the BILLIONS of christian scholars that have lived in the past 2000 years to understand more of why we continue to believe in this "superstitious" stuff? Of course not. If its not on the discovery channel, who needs it?

Do they exhaust things like all the miracles claimed by Christians that scientist can't explain? No. It's amazing how many of them (miracles) there are out there, but that's not popular. Which is strange, considering it seems rather sensational to me.

Do the honestly search for the truth even if that leads to The Truth? No. Of course not. That might be challenging! They might be wrong! And worse yet, those Truths might actually be true, and that would mean that the archaic superstitious Christians that hold back true modernism and advance in the world might actually be right. And they might actually have to get off the relavtive fence of our day.

Why is this? An opinion I hold with many who don't claim God is this: They're mad at God or Christians. They would never go out into their backyard, alone, look up and say: "God, I don't know if you exist. I'm pretty sure you don't. But if you do, I want to find out and I promise to honestly look if you lead." - Won't happen. I've tried to present this, and its easily laughed off. Why? Scared of what might happen? They're angry at either Christians (probably rightfully) or God (which is also understandable - look at the psalms, they're often angry). And they want to stay that way. Of course, there's the simpler reason: Christians aren't easily dooped, the masses of intellectually and generally lazy society are.

So here we go this year. Spoon fed "education" from a movie director to the intellectually lazy multitude (I blame TV, public schools and relativism). Every year, like clockwork, right before Easter (coincidence?).

Will it be noted that almost every early christian saint's relics were cherished and preserved in those young days of the Church, but somehow they missed Christ? Nah. And if it is, somehow the early Christians who were living underground and killed by the thousands managed to spread into the entire world, overthrow the greatest empire every known (Rome), and become the largest, longest lasting and most unified people on the planet (the Catholic Church), while all at the same time somehow covering up the real truths of Christ! Now that's exciting... But if it was true that He did raise from the dead....that might actually mean we're not all God and we might have to look away from the idol of the self.

It's not as if Sacred Scripture gives much credit to the apostles after Christ died on the cross. They go into hiding and it appears the are simply going to give up. They don't courageously fight to preserve what Christ taught to the death. No, they hide. Even Peter openly renounces Christ and becomes almost belligerent in renouncing him. But then something happens. Then they claim to have seen the risen Christ (after they were told by those who weren't cowards - the women of the Gospels). Then these men who seemed to have become cowards (although the secular world would have you think the bible paints a perfect picture the early Church), become so dedicated to the Christ that they had just renounced (in Peters case), that they spend the rest of their lives courageously spreading the Good News (that sin and death have been defeated) and give their lives in martyrdom for this very News. Seems like a drastic change. Then thousands of Christians lost their lives to stand by this Christ. Even in the last centuries more Christians died for this man named Jesus than in the early persecutions (45.5 million in the last century). But why would we look to this witness to find out what is it about Jesus that so drastically changes lives, and not to mention changes the world? Why would we when we have a movie director to tell us? He makes movies, I bet they'll be special affects on the "documentary," it's gotta be something right!? - No, its rubbish.

Maybe next year they'll let ol' Paris Hilton give us the new dirt on Christ.



Sacred heart of Jesus, that burns with love for your people, have mercy on us.

Ok! lets do start with Scripture

"Your what?!"
This is the response I get from many of my protestant friends that find out I am Catholic. These are the very people with whom over the past 7 years I've studied scripture, sang praise music, and evangilized along side. It's hard to believe that a faithful "bible believing Christian" like me could become a "Papist" or join that "unbiblical romish." I must say, that rarely do those faithful in other Christian traditions ever use this kind of demeaning language, it usually comes from anti-Catholic propaganda usually trying to "save" Catholics, but I do take my fare share of "abuse." And a lot of this abuse begins with quotes from scripture, this is something I like to start with.
Now, I want to state that I do not judge AT ALL anyone's reactions to my conversion. I honestly believe that out of their love for Christ, Sacred Scripture, and me they do not agree or approve of my conversion, not because of any other reason (I hope).
I often find myself in many discussions about the Church (granted, I start a few here and there). And, as would and should be expected, I get scripture thrown at me that "proves" the Catholic Church is wrong about this, or confused about that, or unaware of this verse or that one. Now, I will now make this bold statement - NO SCRIPTURE IS CONTRADICTORY TO THE TEACHINGS OF THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND NO TEACHING OF THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH IS CONTRADICTORY TO SCRIPTURE. But, I do not want to discuss the finer points that many people wish to jump on like:

• The Papacy
• Mary
• Indulgences
• Purgatory
• Confession/Penance
• Statues, Icons, etc.
• and all the other misunderstood teachings of God through His Church

Yes, I do think these need to be discussed. Scripture does teach all these things, although it may not use the same phraseology as we do (remember, the words trinity, incarnation, and the sinners prayer are not used in the Bible, but the teachings are). I want to talk about why you are quoting that book as THE WORD OF GOD. Specifically the New Testament books, all 27 of them.

I am told that the Catholic Church uses traditions of men and not of God because it believes in the Traditions of the Church. I would have to say that it teaches the truths of God through man. And the fact of the matter is, protestants believe in the traditions taught by the men of the Catholic Church too. Yes, the protestants follow the traditions of man. Why? Because protestants often use the Bible as the Word of God to refute traditions of man, but obviously they don't see it, or are unaware of the reality that the only reason we know that those 27 books are the canon of Christian scripture is because the Catholic Church said so! But don't be to frightened of the word "tradition." We must follow the traditions of the apostles who were men;

• "So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter" (2 Thess. 2:15).
• "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us" (2 Thess. 3:6).

Some traditions are GOOD and NECESSARY. My main point here, is that there is one that we all agree on: Scripture.

Lets think about it - Christ didn't write anything, the books of the NT were in fact written between the years 50-100AD. The King James Bible didn't fall out of the sky. The New Testament wasn't written on tablets on top of a mountain by God. The messages didn't appear as writing in the sky.

The New Testament letters and gospels were written by God through the Catholic Church along side many writings from very godly men, but not all the writings were considered Canon. Many writings we still have come from the same set of teaching bishops and priests like Peter and Paul, but although the dates of writing are close, they're not in the bible. Why? Because the Catholic Church said no, and defined the books we know now as Scripture of the New Covenant Church. When did this definition happen? Many were disputed like Revelation and the Epistle of Clement. But we need to know that many writings of the bible were not considered scripture as soon as they were written, but this was a process that the Holy Spirit led through His Church to give us the bible. Scripture was disputed for almost 400 years before we see real defining and unification of thought. And who did this defining? The Holy Spirit through the Catholic Church led by the successors to St. Peter (the Popes). This also brings up an interesting question - If the bible is the sole and final authority on issues of faith and morals, what authority did Christians look towards during the period we hear about in Acts? That discussion I think is for another day.

"So what" you may say. "Maybe they got it right then, but they don't have it right now." So why do I put so much faith in this Church? Well, lets go to that Catholic book written and compiled by the Catholic Church..the bible:

"And I say to thee. Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18)

Skip the part where Christ is establishing Peter as the first Pope as prophesied in Isaiah 22:22 (see Peter), but look at the words "I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Christ says He will build His Church, not any man, not a pastor, not a pope, not Luther, but He will - God will. And He promises the gates of hell will not prevail. Why did He say that? Because He knew that hell would try! But He said they will NOT prevail. So the Church founded by Christ must still be here because Christ would build it and preserve it. This Church is not a simply the union of all who profess Christ as Lord, we see in Matt 18:15-17 that the Church is a physical institution that we can take a brother to when he has sinned against us. In fact, what do we as Christians look to as the pillar and foundation of truth? The Bible? Well....no! The Church! 1 Tim 3:15 says that the Church is "the pillar and foundation of truth." Some translations say bulwark instead of foundation. A bulwark is something that fortifies or protects. That's a pretty serious role that the Church plays in regards to what truth is. Therefore, we can trust that the bible is the word of God because the Church led by the Holy Spirit said so. All Christians must accept this particular tradition of the Church. This is a tradition handed down through the Church, that the 27 books we know as the NT were infallibly "set" by men. So many times we hear that no man can be infallible (please note infallible does NOT mean sinless), but the problem is, any bible believing Christian MUST believe that men have spoken infallibly. Its hard to swallow when you say it, but lets look at examples that we all believe:

• Scripture - written by MEN. Yes the Holy Spirit is the ultimate Author, and He enabled these men to write infallibly.
• The Canon - well, if we think about it, we can't truly have our authority in the "bible alone," because we wouldn't have the bible. There's no list of what is and is not scripture in scripture. So who says what's in and what's out? The Church infallibly says so.
• The trinity, the Sabbath, the incarnation, the dual natures of Christ (fully God and fully man). These doctrines we can deduce from scripture, but they aren't exactly spelled out the way we know them now. "Well those are obvious!" you may say. Are they? We take for granted the grate pains the Church has gone through fighting heresies and other deluded definitions of our Holy Faith. These doctrines were often disputed by many using scripture (some try to now with things like the trinity and the Sabbath), but when they were defined by the Church they became dogma and were no longer "up for grabs." We feel sure of them now, but many were led astray with heresies regarding these doctrines, but we can trust them because God leads His Church in all truth. We stick with the apostles and their successors because of what Christ says in Luke 10:16. Christ instructed the Church to preach everything He taught (Matt. 28:19–20) and promised the protection of the Holy Spirit to "guide you into all the truth" (John 16:13). And some of the things He taught or did we can assume are not in scripture because at the end of the Gospel of John we hear "But there are also many other things which Jesus did," he goes on to say if he (John) had written everything about Christ "I suppose the world itself could not contain the books.."

This is not to say that our conversations and friendly debates should not include scripture, we know that scripture is God breathed and useful for refutation (2 Timothy 3:16-17). But lets make sure we remember why we CAN go to this book that soars above all other books - the authority given by the Author to His Holy Church. Without this particular tradition of men, we would not be able to have a conversation with this Holy Book.

So now that we have that out of the way, lets talk about that Scripture...

Forget the chicken and the egg....which came first, the Church or the Bible?

For further reading about traditions - Scripture_and_Tradition