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Jon Kennedy's 'Postcards from
the Nanty Glo in My Mind'
Mere Christianity: Comparative religion
Jonal entry 1085 | January 14 2009
In my recent reading of church historian Jaroslav Pelikan's Mary Through the Centuries I was struck by a disparity among the three major communions of Christendom that hadn't registered before. When Pelikan went into detail on the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary it became apparent that there were more ramifications there than I'd noticed previously. Neither Protestants nor Eastern Orthodox have the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which teaches that Mary was conceived without sin between her parents, Anna and Joachim. The Catholic church came up with this doctrine over many centuries but made it official dogma (a doctrine that has to be accepted to be a Catholic in good standing) only in the 19th Century. It is based, Pelikan says, on the theology of St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), who is the premiere theologian after the apostles St. Paul and St. John in the early church, in the opinions both of Catholics and also most Protestants (but not Orthodox, who consider Augustine a saint because of his holiness, but not his teachings).
Augustine taught that original sin, the state of sin Adam and Eve acquired by disobedience in Eden, is transmitted physically in the transition of human life from one generation to the next. The Eastern Fathers have taught that after Adam and Eve's fall into sin it was virtually impossible (but theoretically possible) to remain sinless in a world into one was born which was bent by Original Sin. Most Protestant theologies, though agreeing with Augustine on much of his other teaching, also prefer the Eastern view of Original Sin and how it is visited from one generation to the next. ("Fathers" as used here refers to church teachers whose doctrines have been accepted by the whole church.)
Catholic theologians rationalized that if Mary was conceived in sin as the rest of the descendants of Adam and Eve were, her sin would have had to be transmitted (genetically?) to Jesus, who got all of his human DNA from His mother. Catholic theologians cite the Psalmist's claim that "in sin did my mother conceive me" (Psalm 51:5) to support their doctrine that sin is transmitted "genetically." But the Psalmist is referring here to a conception initiated in an adulterous coupling. Even beyond that, the verse could mean "in a sinful world" or "in a sinful passion" I was conceived, without that proving that the act of conception is always transmitting a "sin gene." Augustine's view of conception and hence of the act of sexual congress, is inherently sin-tainted, which Orthodox and Protestant theologies reject. The sex act is God's means for perpetuating the race He created and declared "good."
Ironically, Pelikan also reports that the dogmatizing of the Immaculate Conception necessitated also making a dogma of the uniquely Catholic doctrine of the infallibility of the pope, the doctrine that most everyone says is the most insurmountable barrier to an eventual reunion among the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant communions.
There are other disparities among the major communions, though none of these are considered as hard to work through. They include 1. indulgences (a uniquely Catholic doctrine that the church magistrates can trade good works of believers for forgiveness of specific sins) which leads to, 2. pugatory (which some Eastern Orthodox and Protestants, including George Macdonald and C.S. Lewis believe in in some sense, but not dogmatically and not in the Catholic sense); 3. invoking saints (held by Orthodox and Catholics but not Protestants including traditional Anglicans); 4. venerating or commemorating saints (held by Orthodox, Catholics, and Anglicans but not most other Protestants), 5. the magisterial office of the church hiearchy, a uniquely Catholic doctrine that the bishops, especially the Pope, can "teach" the church with authority comparable to the authority of Scriptures and Tradition (Papal infallibility is an extension of this doctrine); 6. the authority of Tradition, held by Orthodox and Catholics but not (at least formally) by Protestants; 7. Mariology, which includes beliefs that Mary is the Queen of Heaven and was "assumed" (taken to Heaven after her death without burial) held by Catholics and Orthodox but not Protestants.
There may be another or two that escape my memory at this point. And the point is, of course, to emphasize how close the communions are, and yet how far. The "Mere Christian" approach that C.S. Lewis popularized through his book of that title, prevails today much more widely than in my youth, when Catholics and Protestants were almost sworn enemies. Besides Lewis's influence, of course, are the changes made to Catholicism by the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s and the rise in the Western world of secularism as the main opponent of Christian faith of all stripes, encouraging the various communions to form a united front instead of continue competing. Lewis often said that bonds of friendship between individuals like himself and his close Catholic friends like J.R.R. Tolkien, George Sayer, Dom Bede Griffiths, and Don Giovanni Calabria were more important in the cause of "ecumenism" than the forced tiny steps toward "reunion" accomplished by church councils. To which I add my own hearty "Amen."
As always, I would love to receive any feedback to this
Funny bones
Priorities in order
A guy had just returned from two weeks of vacation. He asked his boss for two more weeks off to get married.
"What!" shouted the boss? "I can't give you more time now. Why didn't you get married while you were off?"
"Are you nuts?" he replied. "That would have ruined my whole vacation."
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