Easter and Christmas are the only times that millions of people are willing to give Christianity a passing thought — so here are a few things to think about.
The historical method includes multiple sources, reliable testimony, converging evidence, the criterion of embarrassment, and the principle of credulity. These tools help historians create accurately balanced narratives.
That’s not always how it goes down. Nikole Hannah-Jones (1619 Project) and Howard Zinn (A People’s History of the U.S.) are just two examples of activists who used history to backfill agendas. Similar methods and motivations have negatively impacted Christianity.
Take modern biblical criticism and proof-texting for example. While not problematic in theory, they're often used to stoke the fires of religious discontent. With their help, Christian subjectivism rules and Scared Tradition is considered extra baggage.
There are thousands of churches all filled with sinners, all vulnerable to scandal, all asserting biblical authority, all claiming divine inspiration, and all teaching conflicting things.
Now, two thousand years of wisdom from Church Fathers, Doctors, Saints, Synods, Councils, and Encyclicals are casually dismissed. Not only that, but so are the graces associated with Sacraments, Sacramentals, and Liturgies. It's not surprising that the number of Christians is decreasing, while the number of Christian sects is increasing.
The Jewish Scriptures were written by exceptional contemplatives, inspired by the Holy Spirit. The same Holy Spirit that inspires Church Tradition. The same Church Tradition that was necessary for writing and editing the New Testament, and approving the seventy-three-book canon.
Christianity's Living Tradition (written and oral) is like a multi-act play that we’re all invited to participate in. It includes creation, the fall, the formation of a chosen people, triumphs and tragedies, the coming of the Messiah, redemption, the age of the Church, and personal growth in holiness, culminating with the wedding feast of the “Lamb” in heaven. Not something else to quibble about along with politics and sports.
According to the late Pope Benedict XVI, a theologian and Scripture scholar of the highest caliber: a hermeneutics of faith tops a hermeneutics of suspicion. It also turns out, that so-called extra baggage is an easy yoke and a light burden to carry. Along with the written “Word,” it raises human reasoning, personal prayer, and communal worship to a higher level.
The Holy Bible and Sacred Tradition are divinely inspired, but they need a church just like textbooks need a teacher. This church should be one, just as the triune God is one. It also requires structure, authority, unimpeachable doctrines, and infallible teachings despite sinful members and tempestuous history.
But which church? There are thousands of churches all filled with sinners, all vulnerable to scandal, all asserting biblical authority, all claiming divine inspiration, and all teaching conflicting things.
Old Testament typology, Jesus’ promise to Peter at Caesarea Philippi, the Bread of Life discourse, Apostolic succession, the Nicene Creed declarations, universality, and unsurpassed doctrinal scrutiny are just a few preambles of faith that point, like flashing neon arrows, to the Roman Catholic Church.
An impossible conundrum? Not really! Old Testament typology, Jesus’ promise to Peter at Caesarea Philippi, the Bread of Life discourse, Apostolic succession, the Nicene Creed declarations, universality, and unsurpassed doctrinal scrutiny are just a few preambles of faith that point, like flashing neon arrows, to the Roman Catholic Church. The Church of my youth: the same Church that I spent much of my life running from.
These comments will surely get pushback. They always have and always will. Just the same, it's worth taking some heat if it encourages one person to dig deeper and discover the treasure trove of graces available in Christianity's full deposit of faith. A faith that introduces the soul to joy and helps fortify it against relentless attacks from a world gone mad.
I'll close with a 1937 quote from evangelist and theologian Archbishop Fulton Sheen that is still relevant today:
“There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church—which is, of course, quite a different thing.”
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