50 Most Influential ... Christians?

I have long had problems with the broad definition of what makes an "evangelical". In the old understanding of the term, an evangelical was one who accepted the unique and final authority of scripture, and considered justification by grace alone through faith alone as the central tenets of belief. Most evangelicals took for granted the doctrines of the Nicene Creed even if that creed was not something emphasized in local church Christian Education or recited as part of the order of weekly service. Doctrinal statements restated the basic Trinitarian beliefs for most evangelicals.

But thirty years of experience in "evangelical" circles made me increasingly uncomfortable with the drift of the times. I had not read Mark Noll's "Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" or David Wells' "No Place for Truth", but I knew that theology had come to be considered the domain of scholars and largely irrelevant and unimportant for church life and particularly church growth.

The Church Report.com, which describes itself as "the online resource for Christian leaders, pastors and Para church executives" has published a list of the 50 most influential Christian leaders in America. This list only solidifies my belief that evangelicalism is drifting further and further from orthodoxy.

Christmas Wars

Note to David Letteman, ABC News and others. The alleged "war on Christmas" is not something Christians made up out of whole cloth. Neuhaus at First Things has a compiled list about the Christmas Wars. He recommends Christians keep it on file for next year when it all starts up again.

Historicity of Christ Debated in Italian Court

The Washington Times reports today on a court case in Italy in which a seminary trained atheist is suing to prove that Christianity is a massive hoax.

Maybe Ron Howard will turn it into a movie.

Islam, Benedict and the West

Hugh Hewitt interviewed Father Joseph Fessio, Provosty of Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida, on January 5 and posted a portion of the interview on his website. This was a very interesting exchange. Father Fessio is part of a group that has long met for topical discussions with Joseph Ratzinger and groups of Graduate Students, a practice that is apparently continuing now that Ratzinger is Pope Benedict XVI. Their most recent meeting discussed Islam. A couple of quotes struck me.

First, regarding the spread of Islam and the response to it by Christians in the West...

"... I want to say without exaggeration, and without trying to become histrionic here, I see the trends...I've seen them for years, in Europe, of depopulation as you've mentioned. And their immigration is coming from the South, which is mainly Islamic. And there are, I think there are 98 Islamic countries in the world, and 97 of them do not have religious freedom... And that's what's going to happen to Europe. Once there's an Islamic majority...it's going to eliminate religious freedom...and therefore, Western civilization as we know it. However, in the United States, we also are not having children. There's abortion. There's contraception. There's the ideal of a one or two child family. But where is our immigration coming from? From Ecuador, from Mexico, from Cuba, from Guatemala. And these people are Christians. And so, I believe without being...you know, having hubris as an American, I believe that Christians in the United States are the ones who will be able to save not just Christianity, but Western civilization, if we maintain our fidelity to the scriptures, our fidelity to Christ, our fidelity to family life, and our fidelity to fertility and fruitfulness in marriage."

Is the Reformation Over - Additional Views

Richard John Neuhaus, in his Dec 23, 2005 post on First Things weighs in on Mark Noll's book "Is the Reformation Over?"

I have been of the opinion that the differences between Protestants and Catholics have been about soteriology and ecclesiology. There has been, with certain fringe group exceptions, agreement in the basic doctrines of God. Neuhaus focuses on the Doctrine of the Church as the remaining obstacle:

"I believe it is correct to say that the great question now is ecclesiology, and that question has many parts. But it should not be overlooked that, as a consequence, there is a qualitative change in the relationship between Catholics and evangelicals. When the decisive difference was justification, it was a difference over the ultimate question of salvation.

Is the Reformation Over?

Mark Noll recently published a book (with Carolyn Nystrom) that has an intriguing title “Is the Reformation Over – an Evangelical Assessment of contemporary Roman Catholicism”. I have not yet read the book, but there is a fascinating review of it at Reformation21.org

The short answer Noll apparently gives to the question is that since Luther stated that justification by grace through faith is the single tenet on which the Reformation stands or falls, recent statements from Catholic/Protestant dialogues in which Catholics acknowledge that very point are evidence that the Reformation is essentially over.

The Lord's Supper - Part 4

Scripture offers many examples of things which Christians are to accept as true even though they are spiritual realities which cannot be perceived by the senses. We are buried with Christ in baptism, raised as believers with him into the heavenly realms. We are citizens of heaven, eternal beings. We are to reckon ourselves as being dead to sin and alive to God.

None of these things can be subjected to scientific analysis, which is not to say Christianity is irrational. It is built on eyewitness accounts of miracles, an empty tomb and a risen Christ. But we cannot test these propositions about our own spiritual state scientifically. When we begin to try to rationally explain spiritual truths in natural terms, we come up short and cause far more problems than we solve.

In modern times, the effort to provide tidy explanations for spiritual things has led to outright denial of the supernatural in liberal theological camps and to wooden symbolism and denial of the sacramental in more conservative camps. But it is possible to live with the apparent contradiction.

And it is clear from the reading of the early church documents that the apparent contradiction was something that remained. It was not necessary, for them, to explain the unexplainable in modern, watertight terms. Hence, such a notable figure as Cyril can make two seemingly opposite statements in the span of a few sentences.

Referring to John 6, (which Catholic apologists insist must be taken literally), he argues: "Once when Christ was discoursing with the Jews, He said, 'If you do not eat my flesh and drink my blood, you do not have life in you'. Not hearing his words in a spiritual way, they were scandalized and went away to the hinterlands, believing that he had exhorted them to the eating of flesh. (Cyril, Catechetical Lectures - Mystagogic 4,4)"

Note that his point is that the Jews failed to see a spiritual truth behind the words. They were scandalized because they believed he literally meant the eating of human flesh. Cyril says, very simply, that if they thought he referred to literal flesh-eating, they misunderstood. This coincides well with Jesus' explanation of his words later in the chapter, where he says, "The spirit gives life, the flesh counts for nothing".

Yet Cyril, just slightly farther on in his Catechetical Lectures, says something definitive and seemingly contradictory: "Do not regard the Bread and Wine as simply that, for they are, according to the Master's declaration, The Body and Blood of Christ." (Cyril, Catechetical Lectures - Mystagogic 4,6)

How are we to reconcile these two statements? On the one hand, we could take the Roman Catholic position of the 12th century to the present, and argue that the bread and wine are wholly transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. But to do so, would be to render Cyril's previous statement meaningless, and would require us to re-interpret numerous other statements of the church fathers as well. It would require us to force fit transubstantiation onto the whole of the post-apostolic record.