Mary's Place at the Table

Spirituality Column #155
October 27, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Mary’s Place at the Table
By Bob Walters

Opinions vary in assessing which is the greatest doctrinal schism between Catholics and Evangelicals, but one thing for sure is that the ecclesial status of the Blessed Virgin Mary quickly enters and enlivens any such discussion.

If Catholics are at all guilty of overstating Mary’s piety, Evangelicals are certainly guilty of neglecting the Blessed Mother’s lessons of grace, humility and discipleship.

Faithful Christians understand Mary to be the virgin mother of Jesus; the Theotokos – the God-bearer, or “the one who gave birth to the One who is God.”

Catholic doctrine – formed by scripture and Church tradition – presents Mary as a perpetual virgin, of Immaculate Conception (without sin from birth), having experienced bodily Assumption (risen in body and soul to heaven upon her death), and assigns her a high place as an intercessor in the communion of the Church and saints.

Biblically born Evangelical teaching goes no further than stating Mary was a virgin when Christ was conceived and born (Matthew 1:18-25), finds no evidence or requirement of Mary escaping the stain of original human sin, says her ascending like Christ is inconsistent with Christ’s uniqueness, and points to Christ as our only divine intercessor.

So goes a fascinating discussion in the November 2009 First Things, a scholarly Catholic-oriented monthly journal of faith and culture founded by priest Richard John Neuhaus, who died early this year.

One of Fr. Neuhaus’s many lifetime accomplishments was building a consortium of religious minds called “Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” providing thoughtful, periodic illumination on weighty theological topics. Leading the evangelical side of the equation are Chuck Colson, J.I. Packer, and a dozen others. Neuhaus pulled input from a dozen Catholic scholars (all are listed at the article’s conclusion).

The group’s carefully researched and tightly edited position papers are presented in accessible language and are available in a variety of places online. Google “Evangelicals and Catholics Together Mary,” or visit www.firstthings.com.

Valuable richness in Christ is lost if we ignore the lessons of Mary, who obeyed God, raised Jesus, and displayed unrelenting faith.

She is blessed (Luke 1:48), and a blessing for all.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, rlwcom@aol.com) saw an amazing music video – Amazing Grace by Il Divo in Pula, Croatia. Google it. Wonderful.

Film, Fiction, Faith and Fact

Spirituality Column #134
June 2, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Film, Fiction, Faith and Fact
By Bob Walters

Normally it doesn’t matter when a novelist gets as many facts wrong as Dan Brown does. I think Angels & Demons is a good example of that.

Yes, there is a Vatican, a Pope and a place called Rome. There are Christian icons, locations, histories and mysteries attendant to all three. Europe’s CERN laboratory is a real place; Harvard is a real college.

Brown’s novels though are fiction, as are his imaginative depictions of historic conspiracies and secret religious societies. In Angels & Demons, Brown’s 2000 novel concocts a thrilling tale with a thread of truth here and there, woven into a fictional fabric of highly entertaining action and historical rubbish.

Ron Howard’s 2009 film adaptation of the book starring Tom Hanks is a movie I planned to refuse to see, because I am still ticked at Brown for The Da Vinci Code. I don’t care so much that he writes fictional things about Christ or the Church or the Pope, because the Jesus Christ Who is my Lord and Savior is plenty big enough to withstand a novelist’s keystrokes.

So are the Catholic Church and the Bishop of Rome.

What did tick me off were Brown’s disingenuous and potentially hurtful “Hey, this is the true story” attitude in his Da Vinci media interviews, and his ridiculous “Fact” preambles to these two fictional stories.

Note an important distinction: Telling a wild yarn isn’t a lie; it’s a wild yarn. That Brown calls these books fact-based, well, that’s a lie.

That the faith of so many people may have been shaken, dampened, or muddled by The Da Vinci Code’s misrepresentation of history, tradition and facts, surely grieves the Holy Spirit. It matters that the facts were wrong.

On the up side, thousands (or maybe millions) of us went into specific Bible studies to refute Brown’s theological nonsense. We heightened our awareness of important religious history and better understand the veracity of the Bible. That’s better than OK … it glorifies God.

At the end of the far-less-dangerous Angels & Demons movie – which I wound up seeing and enjoying – there is a tender line of utter truth that does not appear in the book, and to me vindicates the story’s spurious “facts” and dark ecclesiastical innuendo.

The chief Cardinal says to Tom Hanks’ character: “It is surprising sometimes who God sends to help us.”

Amen to that.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) rarely goes to the movies, reads few novels, and as a general rule ignores network television.

Lent: Give Up or Give More?

Spirituality Column #120
February 24, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Lent: Give Up or Give More?
By Bob Walters

Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, is next week. Thus begins a 46-day run-up to Easter, the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection signifying the fulfillment of God’s promise of everlasting life.

I like Lent. It’s not in the Bible but it’s a tradition that goes back to the fourth century A.D., before the great schisms of the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Roman Catholic) churches.

When Luther and the subsequent Protestants rebelled in the 1500s, their re-formed Christian but non-Catholic churches largely followed the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical, or church, calendar and traditions.

As a young boy in the 1960s Episcopal Church, to me Lent meant much the same functionally as it did to the Catholics. Ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday, and you “gave up” something for Lent. It was a symbol of sacrifice, what the monks would consider ascetic (harsh discipline) self-denial.

To “give up” something for Lent was a big deal. It seemed, well, pious … in a good way. It had to be something you liked and was available; no fair giving up, say, watermelon, because it wasn’t in season. But you learned to be strategic. One year I gave up “candy.” Big mistake. The next year, I gave up Reese Cups. I liked Reese Cups, but did just fine with a Clark bar.

I am now an active member of a Bible-based, Jesus-believing independent Christian mega-church – East 91st Street Christian – that does not observe the ecclesiastical calendar outside of Easter Sunday and Christmas (also not in the Bible … in fact, the New Testament doesn’t specify any holy days or even the Sabbath because – Biblically – Christ is to be honored all the time).

Still, Lent is sort of the 800-pound gorilla in the resurrection room that Christian believers of the non-ecclesial persuasion have a hard time ignoring.

We start counting down “shopping days until Christmas” on November 1. Without an observation of Lent, all of a sudden it’s Holy Week and then Easter and then it’s over. Hence, Churches not observing Lent often plan a community prayer regimen or purposeful reading program during the 40-day season.

If you don’t “give up” something for Lent, you can never go wrong “giving more” during Lent, whether it is money, time helping others, or time worshipping God. Giving is love, and love is why Jesus died for us.

Here’s wishing you a well-spent Lent.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) knows Lent is 40 days but said “46 days” above: you don’t count the six Sundays.

Richard John Neuhaus, RIP

Spirituality Column #119
February 17, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Richard John Neuhaus, RIP
By Bob Walters

The biggest surprise of my Christian rebirth has been the multitude of really smart Christians I’ve encountered.

A case in point is Richard John Neuhaus, founder and editor of the brilliant First Things magazine. Father Neuhaus – a Lutheran Minister who completed his own personal faith journey by becoming a Roman Catholic priest at age 54 in 1991 – died last month of cancer in New York City.

Neuhaus (1936-2009) was a pastor, theologian, philosopher, intellectual, commentator, counselor and prodigious writer. He was a white Canadian by birth who moved to America at age 15 and …

– Pastored a black church in Brooklyn in the 1960s; marched arm-in-arm with Martin Luther King as a soldier in the civil rights movement; zealously protested the Vietnam war in the late 1960s and, among other things, was arrested during the 1968 Chicago riots outside the Democratic national convention.

– Argued passionately against Roe v. Wade, saying, “It should be the heartless conservatives who want to define a fetus as a lump of tissue, it ought to be caring liberals who want to expand the community of care to embrace the unborn;” broke with his Leftist roots after Roe v. Wade passed in 1973, and went so far as to suggest America had lost its legitimacy as a nation by allowing the wanton killing of innocent unborn humans.

– Challenged leftist Protestant churches who cozied up to worldwide Marxist regimes; wrote the book “The Naked Public Square” in 1984, his seminal intellectual treatise on the danger of attempting to secularize every part of our shared life as Americans; and founded First Things in 1990.

– Formed highly public and productive relationships with Jewish leaders (Abraham Joshua Heschel) and Evangelical leaders (Chuck Colson); was the only Catholic listed in Time magazine’s 2005 feature, “America’s Top 25 Evangelicals;” was a religious advisor to U.S. presidents Carter, Reagan and both Bushes, and was a confidante and advisor to Pope John Paul II in Rome.

Not bad for a guy who never completed high school.

Neuhaus pumped greatly needed religious light and intellectual heat into the modern American faith conversation. His remarkably perceptive, deep, witty, and entertaining commentaries on religion, culture, sociology, politics and literature are preserved in his 30 books and at www.firstthings.com.

As ongoing First Things editor Joseph Bottum writes, “Our great, good friend is gone … he has been gathered by the Lord he trusted.”

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) never met Neuhaus, but loves his writings.

Valentine's Day for the Birds

Spirituality Column #66
February 12, 2008
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper

Valentine’s Day for the Birds
By Bob Walters

It’s surprising what turns up when you Google “St. Valentine” and “Patron Saint of Love.”

I didn’t expect the heart of the matter to be Geoffrey Chaucer. Or to learn of several St. Valentines, none formally recognized by Catholic sources as “love” saints. Or to discover Ste. Dwynwen.

Let me try to put what I found in order. Three martyrs named Valentine from the 3rd and 4th centuries were beatified (sainted) long ago by the Catholic Church. One was evidently beheaded in 270 A.D. by Roman Emperor Claudius II and there is a legend, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, about him marrying young lovers against the Emperor’s wishes.

The Catholic Encyclopedia, which on matters Catholic I think trumps Britannica in its authority, makes no reference to this. It says the various Sts. Valentine defended Christians and were executed (FYI, “martyr” means you were killed for your faith. If you are merely maimed or beaten, you are a “confessor”).

Feb. 14, for legendary but unconfirmed reasons, was very early-on selected as the Feast of St. Valentine on the Catholic ecclesiastical calendar. An old pagan fertility holiday was Feb. 15, and some suggest a Valentine correlation (think All Saints Day and Halloween). All unconfirmed.

The Catholic Encyclopedia says this: “The popular customs associated with St. Valentine’s Day undoubtedly had their origin in a conventional belief generally received in England and France during the Middle Ages, that on 14 February, i.e., halfway through the second month of the year, the birds begin to pair.

“Thus in Chaucer’s Parliament of Foules we read: ‘For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne’s day, Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.’”

Birds! That story, and variations of it, appear throughout the Google search: birds pair-up in mid-February, so Valentine’s Day became a human mating celebration.

Interesting that the Catholic Encyclopedia mentions Chaucer, a Brit, but Encyclopedia Britannica does not. Even the often-wacky but occasionally accurate populist Wikipedia insists no Valentine “love” link existed before Chaucer.

According to the Catholic Singles page on CatholicPeople.com, the Patron saint of lovers was a beautiful Welsh maiden later known as Saint Dwynwen who in order to become a nun, sacrificed her love for a young man deeply smitten with her.

Valentine’s Day cards, today second in number only to Christmas cards, came along around 1840 birthing the greeting card industry. Yet nothing but imputed modern legend suggests any of the several ancient Sts. Valentine had anything to do with love.

For pure love, I don’t think any Saint beats the Lord Jesus Christ. As for Eros and Cupid, Song of Songs in the Old Testament tops anything they ever thought of.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) wishes all you lovers blue skies and candlelit dinners.

Pope Views Not News

Spirituality Column #39
August 7, 2007
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Pope Views Not News
By Bob Walters

That the Roman Catholic Church sees itself to be “the one true church” is very old theological news.

The general eruption of media and talk radio indignation since the Pope seemingly reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s doctrine of exclusive salvation – “We are the only ones who are saved” – seems to be more a case of bad journalism than bad church public relations.

All grumbling to the contrary, the Pope said no such thing. The Vatican’s doctrinal theologians (the current Pope used to head that division) drafted a clarifying document stating that the church actually believes what it says it believes, and the Pope accepted that document as being also what he believes.

Somehow, this was international news.

Any “History of Christian Theology 101” class includes the facts that 1) the Catholic Church views itself as the one true church; 2) sees itself as mediator between congregants and Christ; and 3) that Catholic authority and practice emanate from its traditions as much or moreso than from the Bible.

Classic Protestant denominations – Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, etc. – also provided a degree of Holy mediation and “liturgical” (institutionalized, pre-written) worship, but encouraged scripture reading to such a degree that America at its founding through about 100 years ago was a very Biblically literate culture.

Since then the Bible-totin’ Baptist, independent Christian and other Evangelical churches – a religious out-cropping of recent centuries – have taken to heart what it says in 1 Timothy 2:15 about Christ as the only mediator with God, and Biblically inferred that man needs a church (an “ecclesial community” in Vatican parlance … whatever), a Bible and a personal relationship with Christ, Amen.

Catholic or Protestant or Evangelical, what I know for sure is that Christ doesn’t change, God doesn’t change, and the Holy Spirit doesn’t change.

Maybe if we all tried to be more like them – Christ, God and the Holy Spirit – we’d find similarities among ourselves instead of differences. It would make God smile.

And hey, don’t yell at the Pope; appreciate a guy who understands his job.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) would point out that, unlike the Trinity, each of us must change … and it’s hard.