Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Well, at least they didn't damn you
to the fires of Hell . . . or did they?

I haven't read Good News, Bad News: Evangelization, Conversion, and The Crisis of Faith, a recent offering from Ignatius Press by a couple of Catholic heavy hitters, Russell Shaw and the Rev. C. John McCloskey III.

There are lots of staggeringly good testimonials for it on the Ignatius website from other Catholic swells -- mostly of the conservative Republican stripe. Folks say Father McCloskey, an Opus Dei priest, is quite the convert-maker.


But from the way Ignatius is marketing the book, you have to wonder whether a) Father has a problem relating to Democrats and Regular Joes, or b) some converts, and their endorsements, are better than others. That's just me, probably. The Original Mr. Non-Conformist Proletarian Guy.

Anyway, like I said, I haven't read the thing. But whatever approach has worked for Shaw and McCloskey, I'll garon-damn-tee you these guys have a better idea.

I'LL BET THE INTERNET MONK, Michael Spencer, would think so, too.


The Southern Baptist preacher and campus minister has read Good News, Bad News. He is not amused, as evidenced by
his post on the Boar's Head Tavern blog:
Having read dozens of books on evangelism, I’ve never read anything like this. I’m trying to avoid the words I almost feel compelled to use.

I was frankly stunned with the caricaturing, insulting, shallow portrayals and straw man examples of Protestants that filled this book. I can’t imagine a contemporary mainstream evangelical book that would portray Catholics in such a biased manner. I’m not talking about [Joel Hunter], I mean mainstream Christianity Today evangelicals. This had all the flavor of the anti-catholic propaganda I hear from the ignorant preachers in the mountains. I try to do better and thought I wasn’t alone. Naive me.

This book took me behind the polite veneer and let me hear the real deal. Separated “brethren?” That’s a mild way to put it. Confused. Stubborn. Unspiritual. Unable to think clearly. No serious contribution. Biblio-dolatrous. Empty. Chaotic. Ugly buildings. (I’ll admit that a lot of this is true, but ever looked on the other side of the fence as well? Hello.)

I’d never think of telling my staff here that RC kids that won’t go Protestant are just not “getting it” because they’re just too thick and confused. Well, I should learn a thing or two.
SPENCER POINTED OUT one little detail from the slim volume that told me all I needed to know about where Good News, Bad News registers on the BS-O-Meter, though:
The little tips were good, too. Get ‘em to mass a lot, so they will know what they are missing.
The short theological exegesis of that "helpful tip" is as follows if you live in one of the great majority of Catholic parishes in these United States: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHA! HAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The long version is as follows: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHA! HA! HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOO HOO HOO HOO!!!! HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!! HAAAAAAAA!!! GAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!! (Thud.)

Now, I will admit to having gone to, for example, Presbyterian (sorry!) services and telling Mrs. Favog afterward that "There's no there there." But that's because I buy into the whole Catholic thing already.

How can a church service not seem lacking when you believe that, even at the crappiest, most rote, most non-reverent, Haugen-ditty-filled Catholic Mass, you have seen the priest make Jesus Christ -- Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity -- truly present on the altar? When you, despite all the worst modernity has wrought upon my suffering Church, still get to -- as Walker Percy would say -- "eat Christ," doing exactly what Jesus, in John 6, said we must do to have life within us?

LIKE I SAID, I know what I would be missing because I'm already Catholic. I've already signed up for the Roman Life Assurance policy.

Your woebegone Protestant conversion target hasn't yet. Get it?

All your average evangelical probably sees is a lackluster homily, music that's at least as bad as their "praise and worship" stuff, most of the congregation going through the motions -- at best -- and little to no fellowship after all is said and "celebrated."

Such as it is.

THE JOURNEY into Catholicism for many today is a journey precipitated by marriage or a relentlessly seeking intellect homing in on the Original Source Material of Christendom. Both are good things, very good things. Fine reasons to join the Church.

But you'll probably end up frustrated if you're really on fire for Christ. After all, how many converts are touting the vibrance of Catholic parish life or the extraordinary witness of most lay Catholics as being this mysterious, mighty, irresistable riptide that pulled them out into the Living Waters and toward that far bank of the Tiber River?

Until you get acclimated -- and I really don't know whether acclimated is a good thing or not -- the serious convert barely may be restraining himself from jumping atop the pew (and be careful about this if you're in a parish with chair-pews or movable pews) and screaming at his fellow parishioners.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE!?! Don't you realize the riches this Church possesses? Don't you know that's JESUS on the altar there? And with 2,000 years of Gregorian and Byzantine chant, and hundreds of years of classical hymnody, WHY ARE YOU SINGING THIS ST. LOUIS JESUITS S***?????

"Oh . . . pardon my French, Lord. Please forgive me." (Slinks silently out of the sanctuary as people stare and Father shakes his head.)

ON THE OTHER HAND, I quite literally have been brought to tears of joy by the Holy Spirit at the most humble of Masses, liturgies unremarkable except for the humility and love with which they were celebrated.

On one occasion -- it was on the road, in the cathedral in Jackson, Miss. -- the Spirit, I am convinced, used just such a liturgy to let me endure, by unceasingly praying for my accuser, what I absolutely, positively know I could not have withstood through my own strength or will. At least not in a spirit of prayer, and not without unleashing a verbal hell on earth toward the other party.


Who happened to be my dying father.

But the Lord does what He will, where He will, when He will.

SWERVING BACK toward the subject of this post, I think what so rankled Michael Spencer in his reading of Good News, Bad News is an ugly encounter with bad, old-fashioned Catholic Triumphalism. In other words, it's the Holy Roman version of the invective a lot of Reformed and evangelical types like to sling at us devotees of Popery.

Obviously, Shaw and McCloskey never got the memo about two wrongs not making a right.

The Internet Monk continues in his post:

The section on Episcopalians and Evangelicals was worth the price of admission. ECUSA is just destroying themselves with heresy. We knew that. But evangelicals? What a zany bunch of Bible thumpers we’ve got there. Not a systematic, serious theology in sight.

I know this is preaching to the choir, but all this needed were jokes and funny faces right in the margin.

How do you deal with a family member whose Protestant family doesn’t want them to convert? “….so what?”

So what? What if it’s my FAMILY and my MARRIAGE that you’re dividing? “So What?”
WHAT CAN I SAY? Spencer is right. He's right, and -- going by Spencer's account -- "my side" is shockingly, insensitively wrong, wrong, wrong. You'd think that adult Christians with at least a drop of empathy could do better than that.

A divided marriage, a divided family is no trifling thing. It is serious, gravely serious, and people can get hurt. Badly.

Ask a friend of mine who became disenchanted with the Southern Baptist faith she was reared in. She became interested in Catholicism in college, hit some major speed bumps along the road of life, then -- still drawn toward the Catholic faith -- ended up taking instruction and converting.

On the eve of her confirmation, her father sat her down and gravely, sadly told her she was damning herself to Hell. Talk about your major buzz-kills.


A couple of years later, when she married another Catholic, her parents attended the wedding (which, out of deference, they decided to make a simple service and not a Mass) but absolutely, positively refused to take wedding photos anywhere near the altar.

Nor did they attend either of their granddaughters' baptisms. There's no intrafamilial religious cleansing going on -- no harsh words or infighting, per se -- but it's a detente, not a full blown outbreak of peace and harmony.

"So what?" indeed.

I would never tell anyone to turn away from what one's conscience tells him (or her) is true. Or The Truth, to be exact. But there's a hell of a lot more to it that a shrug and a blithe "So what?"

YEP, I'M A CATHOLIC, and I believe the following without reservation -- the Southern Baptist preacher is right. My side is nowhere NEAR schmuck-free. Not even in the same zip code as schmuck-resistant, even.

I'll probably be burned as a heretic by all the Catholic True Believers now. Even though I are one, just without the italics and capital letters.

Oy veh.

***

P.S.: If I were Ignatius Press, I'd be thinking twice about the testimonial by the Rev. Peter Stravinskas, who came to Omaha for a while, got himself embroiled in a great big s***storm (involving a police probe) then just disappeared one day . . . along with the controversy. Inquiring minds want to know. You know?

Yeah, reason for triumphalism abounds.

No comments: