Are We Catholic Or Not?

I watch the theological posts of my Anglican friends, who run the gamut from Anglo-Pentecostal to Anglo-Calvinist to Anglo-Papalist, with much intrigue, and honestly with a little sadness, as they strive to prove to one and all that their version of Anglicanism is the true or "classical" one. Alas, the vexing question of Anglican identity.

My own take at this juncture in my Anglican studies is somewhat different. On the one hand, as a Westerner soteriologically speaking I stand squarely in the Augustinian school, which means at the bare minimum that I believe no one becomes a Christian unless God makes him one. On the other hand, I am increasingly of the mind that the Reformation, including the English Reformation, has empirically shown itself to be a failed experiment, its laudable Augustinian underpinnings notwithstanding. All Anglicans, from the Cranmerians to the Catholics, have argued that the Reformed Church of England and her progeny is nothing less than the one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith, restored in England by the pious efforts of Reformers, Kings and Parliaments. Ideally in these folks' thinking, "Catholic" and "Protestant" need not be opposed, especially since in Anglicanism, so the argument runs, the Reform was essentially Catholic.

However, those who stress the Protestant character of Anglicanism need to come to terms with the fact that the history of Protestantism is one that betrays one defection from historic Catholic faith after another, in both its "conservative" and liberal expressions. For me, this is the determinative and damning commentary on the Reformation.

When the Cranmerians and Carolinians alleged that the Church of England sought to be nothing more than the Church of the Fathers, did they really mean what they said? Do their modern successors mean what they say? I really wonder. Neo-Puritans (Presbyterians with prayer books), charismaniacs, egalitarians (WO), emergentists: what a hodge-podge of everything that is anything but historically and essentially Catholic.

Canon Arthur Middleton nails it, IMHO. And so my advice to my Anglo-Protestant friends is this: give up the old Anglican claim to catholicity. You may be altogether right in your ecclesiological and soteriological claims, but if so, give up that claim. Be the Protestants that you are, and Lord bless. Perhaps you will finally be able to manifest what the Reformers, and their progeny to date, have never been able to manifest.

As for me, I seek full incorporation into that "one, holy, catholic and apostolic church" in which we say we believe when we recite the Creed, and I can only do so as an *English* Catholic, not a Roman one or an Orthodox one. I intend to follow the Lord's will, *whatever that may be*, now that I have separated from a Colorado parish and seek to enter into a North Carolinian one, but I'm thinking that the ramification of what I've said here means a return to the Anglican Continuum, which Continuum hopes some day to find a satisfactory ecclesial reconciliation with Rome or Orthodoxy (likely the latter). We shall see about that. Regardless, my Anglicanism can only be that of a Catholic kind, in keeping with the stated sentiments of Cranmerians and Carolines and Tractarians, however much they have missed the mark in that regard.

Happily, I have more options here in WNC than I did in Denver, as far as the Continuum is concerned.

Hiatus

We're in the process of moving from Colorado to the latest culture war front here in the States, North Carolina.  Few if any blog posts until we get moved and settled.   Don't touch that dial!

Dr. Michael Brown's Call to Resistance

A Call for National Civil Disobedience to Obama’s Public School Transgender Bathroom Mandate.

It's a nice start, Dr. Brown.  We'll count it as an addendum to the late Francis Schaeffer's Christian Manifesto.  But there is likely more to be said to the tyrants about the measure of our resolve.

Harvard Law Professor Mark Tushnet

Referring to this recent blog article from Prof. Tushnet: Abandoning Defensive Crouch Liberal Constitutionalism.

A representative conservative response, from the Christian Post, can be read here.

As I pondered the opinions of this execrable fellow, the assessment of anti-liberal attorney and author Jim Kalb came to mind:

Right-wingers are alarmed by totalitarian features of advanced liberalism: its insistent universalism, its theoretical coherence and simplicity, its resolute suppression of alternative principles of social order, its principled rejection of common sense, inherited ways, and the very concept of human nature. In the long run, they ask, how much difference can there be between “inclusiveness”—putting all persons and all human goals and actions into a single relation to a single universal and comprehensive order of things—and “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State”? If anything, the former aspiration seems more unlimited and therefore more frightening.

From the liberal standpoint, of course, all this is a joke. The liberal state is different from every other state. It’s a system of power that isn’t a system of power. It has a ruling class of experts, functionaries and lawyers that is reliably disinterested and moral. By controlling everything it sets everything free. That’s why it’s not fanaticism but moderation to say that only liberal states are legitimate. Worrying about “totalitarian liberalism” is like worrying about “oppression by neutrality” or “enslavement by freedom.” It might be an interesting paradox, but as a practical matter it just shows there’s something wrong with you. Above all, liberals are good people and don’t do bad things except to the extent they fall short of liberalism.

Still, what are the practicalities? It may be right—I think it is—to shrug off the liberal self-image as hopelessly self-deluded, but there are some things to say in its favor. In principle, liberalism may be far more ambitious than Mussolini’s fascism, and its ultimate goals may be far more inhuman, but it habitually proceeds by much softer means. Rather than crush an opposing force directly it weakens it by a thousand influences that make it unable to function and assert itself. Criminal prosecutions, when they come, are just a way of formalizing and putting beyond dispute a principle that’s already all but universally accepted. The Swedish government didn’t decide to toss Ake Green in the slammer for a sermon denouncing homosexuality until the Swedes had abandoned religion, made the provident state the basis of everything, and decided that since family relationships no longer served a serious function the sole public standard for sexual connections would be universal equal acceptance. When they came for Pastor Green, no one defended him and they could do what they wanted without being forced outside their comfort zone.

In the end, the liberal state is not principled, and nothing built into liberalism limits how far it can go. Nonetheless, it’s enduringly squeamish. It will use the final measure of force only against weak opponents whom everyone that matters has agreed to hold in contempt. Groups and institutions that stand firm, present their views forcefully and confidently, and keep on going in the face of abuse—who preach the word in all settings, in season and out of season—will prevail. That’s something Catholics, among others, need to remember. How bad things get—and they could get very, very bad—is up to us.

My own response to Tushnet, which I sent to him in an email, reads as follows:

OK, but just as long as we are permitted to treat you like Commies right back.

All sorts of stuff to be read into that one, isn't there, professor? :>)

It's clear from Tushnet's article that liberal-left activists will continue to use lawfare to produce "fundamental change" in these here United States, and that the losers in that war should be treated like defeated Confederates, nay, defeated Nazis.  Of course, implied in all this is the notion that the activist courts will continue to be able to rely on American law enforcement to do their will.

But what if that notion is a faulty one?  What happens if American law enforcement, and I'm thinking here mainly Middle American law enforcement, refuses to enforce the law, or what happens if a blindly obedient law enforcement runs up against a popular counterforce they have absolutely no chance of defeating?

What then, Professor Tushnet?

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Declares Worldwide ‘Holy War’ on Terrorism

From RT:

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has called the fight against terrorism a “holy war” and urged international unity and an abandoning of double standards to defeat this global evil.

“Today, when our warriors take part in combat operations in the Middle East, we know that this is not an aggression, occupation or an attempt to impose some ideology on other people, this has nothing to do with supporting certain governments,” Patriarch Kirill said as he held the Friday mass at the major Moscow memorial to those who fought in World War II. “This is the fight against the fearsome foe that is currently not only spreading evil through the Middle East but also threatening the whole of mankind.”

He added: “Today, we call this evil terrorism.”. . . .

He also told Orthodox believers to pray for the Russian military to remain faithful to the spiritual course that only allows the use of armed forces against evil, for justice and to save human lives.

In February this year, the chief foreign spokesman of the Russian Orthodox Church said in a press interview that global leaders should overcome political dissent and unite in fighting international terrorism as the challenge to mankind at large.

Over at a Facebook page called Fellowship of Orthodox,Catholic & Anglican Christians, a perplexed Orthodox member asks, "Surely an Orthodox patriarch is not calling for a crusade??!!", to which I have replied, "Why not?".

You may remember my exchanges with an Orthodox reader named Stefano, who objected to Orthodox resistance to terrorism being linked with the Crusades.  Most of his ire against the Crudades is wrapped up with his ideological Orthodox opposition to all things Western, and he clrearly wasn't impressed by the fact that it was a Byzantine -- and hence Orthodox -- emperor who requested military aid from the West, thus touching off the Crusades.

As Roman Catholic historian Thomas Madden has amply demonstrated in his Crusades scholarship, while they indeed went awry in several ways, at heart they were part of a defensive and therefore just war.  Now we have one of the most important patriarchs in the Orthodox Church calling for precisely that. 

If there is to be a new Crusade against Muslim imperialism -- and Muslim imperialism is PRECISELY what we're fighting in our struggle not only against terrorism but against demographic replacement in Western Europe and the Anglosphere -- then of necessity the call for it will have to come from the Orthodox East.   The secular West not only hasn't a clue about what's happening, it is far too bankrupt and dissolute to be of any good in this matter.

One fellow commeting at the RT article had this to say:

Roman Catholic here.  I acknowledge the patriarchs as a leading force in the church. Personally of course not as much as the pope, but I reckon the church has spoken.

Indeed it has, and we will hear no such call from "Frank the Hippie Pope", who is too busy singing Scott McKenzie songs about "tearing down walls" and suchlike.   We Anglicans must look to the Orthodox Church and to Eastern Europe for guidance these days, for our heads of state, and sadly most of our bishops, have their heads in the sand.  Kudos, and Many Years, Patriarch Kirill!

Deus Vult

To celebrate taking back the ancient city of Palmyra, Russia stages a concert in the ruins.  (H/T Traditional Britian Group).

One of Russia’s leading conductors led a St Petersburg symphony orchestra in a concert in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra on Thursday, in a bold propaganda stunt celebrating Russia’s role in recapturing the city from Islamic State. 

Valery Gergiev, a vocal supporter of Vladimir Putin, conducted the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra in the ancient city’s famous amphitheatre for an audience of Syrian and Russian soldiers as well as journalists.

Luv, luv, luv it.  Thanks be to the True God.

What, Me Worry?

"Extremely Worrying": EU military police carry out civil unrest crisis training.

400 arrested as left-wing protestors clash with far-right in Germany.

Regarding the second article, note one of the chants heard among the leftists: "Keep refugees, drive Nazis away!"   Of course, that is just the sort of irrationalism and irony we've come to expect from the left in Europe and the Anglospgere.  It's irrational because members of the AfD aren't Nazis, and it's ironic given the reality noted by Diana West in her article "Connecting the dots on Islam":

Besides the will to resist, then, we need the knowledge to resist -- the knowledge that there is in the religion of Islam itself the historical, inexorable and driving force behind what the entire non-Muslim world is now experiencing as jihad terror. Whether most Muslims wouldn't hurt a fly is an increasingly irrelevant footnote to the hostile aggression of other Muslims who, in a very short time, have actually transformed civilization as we used to know it.

If the will to resist allows us to manage the threat of violence, the will to connect the dots would compel us to eliminate it. How? By carefully examining and, I would hope, reconsidering and reversing, through foreign, domestic and immigration initiatives, what should now be seen, gimlet-eyed, as the Islamization of the non-Islamic world. Such an assessment, however, is all too vulnerable to catcall-attacks of "bigotry," even "Nazism" -- a deceptively inverted assault given the doctrinal bigotry and similarities to Nazism historically promulgated by the Islamic creed.

"Deceptively inverted assault."  That drescribes the modus operandi of the left pretty well, I think.  Reason No. 2,369 why the liberal-left must be taken down by any means necessary and never allowed to govern again.

This is what's coming in Europe, and, if we don't play our cards right, here in North America as well.  Traditionalist Anglicans know this and have largely found their tongues about it.  The "neocons" in the Anglican Realignment still not only have their heads in the sand, but some of them sound an awful lot like the lefties described in the article. 

Anglicans and Roman Catholics Discuss Recognition of Ministry

This is a hopeful sign, though I have picked up intimations from modern Catholic bishops and scholars hither and yon that they know that Anglican orders are valid Catholic orders.  I'm with Dom Gregory Dix on this one:  there is no need for Anglicans to sweat the orders issue.   What they need to be concerned about is when Catholics don't behave like Catholics, and Anglicans, including purportedly conservative ones, have some serious repenting to do in this regard.  Exhibit A: Women's ordination. 

The West Dies With Its Gods

Yes, it does.  And our God reigns.  Viva Cristo Rey.

The Pacifist Temptation

There have been modern academic pacifists who, selectively citing Scripture, invoke Christ for their cause and depict all the early Christians as pacifists (until the Church supposedly went “bad,” accepting war). But these claims have been repeatedly answered: and theologians and philosophers such as Reinhold Neibuhr and Elizabeth Anscombe have eloquently critiqued pacifist presumptions. . . .

The pacifist temptation has long been rejected by the Catholic Church, for abundantly sound reasons, drawn from Christian teachings on mercy, compassion, the common good, and authentic peace. In a world where Christians are being savagely tortured, crucified and decapitated, the Church should not succumb to that temptation now.

From First Things.

"There Is No Such Thing As A Secular Society"

First Things: The Impossibility of Secular Society.

First Things:  The Church as Culture.

What the Western Political Elite and the West's Cultured Despisers of Christianity Don't See Coming

Donald Trump and the Ghost of Christopher Lasch

Trump’s expansive narcissism brings to mind the social critic Christopher Lasch’s 1979 landmark study, The Culture of Narcissism, which described the rise of individual self-involvement and politics as celebrity theater. But his 1995 book, The Revolt of the Elites—published the year after he died of cancer at 61—provides the backstory to the class wars underlying this year’s fractious election.

In The Revolt of the Elites Lasch foresaw the disconnect between the nation’s political classes and the governed, as UCLA law professor Stephen Bainbridge has recently observed. America’s elites have devoted so much energy to building their collective moral system that they expect ideological obedience. 

But that "collective moral system" and obedience thereto has come to an end, and as they say, payback is a bitch.  It's not that the liberal-left has angered Middle America; more importantly, their rejection of God has come home to roost.

Psalm 2. Quare fremuerunt gentes?

WHY do the heathen so furiously rage together? * and why do the people imagine a vain thing?
    2 The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel together * against the LORD, and against his Anointed:
    3 Let us break their bonds asunder, * and cast away their cords from us.
    4 He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn: * the Lord shall have them in derision.
    5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, * and vex them in his sore displeasure:
    6 Yet have I set my King * upon my holy hill of Sion.

  7 I will rehearse the decree; * the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.

    8 Desire of me, and I shall give thee the nations¹ for thine inheritance, * and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession.
    9 Thou shalt bruise them with a rod of iron, * and break them in pieces like a potter's vessel.    10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings; * be instructed², ye that are judges of the earth.

11 Serve the LORD in fear, * and rejoice unto him with reverence.

    12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and so ye perish from the right way, if his wrath be kindled, yea but a little. * Blessed³ are all they that put their trust in him.

Tolkien & Anglo-Saxon England: Protectors of Christendom

From The Imaginative Conservative, which I've just added to my sidebar and from which you will see more here at OJC.

The Christian should embrace and sanctify the most noble virtues to come out of the northern pagan mind: courage and raw will.  “It is the strength of the northern mythological imagination that it faced this problem, put the monsters in the centre, gave them victory but no honour, and found a potent but terrible solution in naked will and courage,” Tolkien wrote. “The northern [imagination] has power, as it were, to revive its spirit even in our own times."  Tolkien thought that a vigorous Christianity needed that northern pagan myth spirit to make it stronger.  The German-Italian theologian Romano Guardini argued along the same lines. . . .

From its original conception as a myth for England, first conceived in muck and blood-filled trenches in northern France, Tolkien’s legendarium grew much larger in scope and significance. The story, especially The Lord of the Rings, became much more than a myth for any one people or any one nation. It, instead, became a myth for the restoration of Christendom itself. The intrepid Anglo-Saxon missionaries, in particular St. Boniface of Crediton, created medieval, Christian Europe by carrying classical and Christian traditions into the heart of pagan, barbarian Europe. St. Boniface converted innumerable barbarians to Christianity, unifying them under Rome. St. Boniface even crowned Pepin, son of Charles Martel, an action that would eventually lead to the papal recognition of Charlemagne as the revived Holy Roman Emperor in 800 a.d.  With the return of the king Aragorn to his rightful throne, Tolkien argued, the “progress of the tales ends in what is far more like the re-establishment of an effective Holy Roman Empire with its seat in Rome."  In his own private writings, Tolkien equated numerous parts of Italy with various geographical aspects of Gondor.  In his diary, for example, Tolkien recorded that with his trip to Italy, he had “come to the head of Christendom: an exile from the borders and far provinces returning home, or at least to the home of his fathers."  In a letter to a friend, Tolkien stated that he had holidayed “in Gondor, or in modern parlance, Venice."  That Tolkien should place a mythologized Italy, and ultimately Rome, at the center of his legendarium is not surprising, as he viewed the Reformation as ultimately responsible for the modern, secularized world.

That Tolkien believed that the Anglo-Saxon world might offer us strength to redeem Christendom, should not surprise us. The hero of The Lord of the Rings, after all, is an Anglo-Saxon farmer turned citizen-warrior. Even as an uneducated gardener, this most loyal of companions recognized hope deep in the heart of Mordor. “Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach."  Like his real counterparts who understood the meaning of the Logos, Sam, too, can comprehend the abstract.

One of the principal criticisms we hear from the neopagans among the European New Right, which is producing some absolutely excellent analytical works re: the debacle that is Europe, is that Christianity is a feminized, flaccid and pacifistic faith that not only quite naturally gave rise to liberalism but sapped the vitality from modern European men.  Ad fontes, they cry, but it is not to our sources that they look.  They look to tradition, but a tradition that antedates ours.  They look to the noble pagans of old.  (Well, we would point out that they weren't so noble, and that the Faith was a needed corrective, but their point is taken.)

I must confess that when we look at ourselves in the mirror there is some justification for this criticism.  And it's not only liberal Protestantism that exhibits this manifest lack of muscular Christianity; as Leon Podles has demonstrated in his work, certain strains of Catholic mysticism are to blame, as are strains of modern Evangelicalism. 

Judging by what I observe in much of Neo-Anglicanism, the feminizing rot has taken told there as well.

It was not so in our history, however.  As Tolkien argued, and as it came out in The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Christianity did make peace with the Anglo-Saxon warrior culture.  This culture fed into a European stream and became the basis of chivalry, some notes of C.S. Lewis on which can be read here.   I'm thrilled to see that Tolkien believed that the renewal of such a culture could become the basis of a renewed Christendom.   My belief is that Christians in Europe and the Anglosphere MUST become "men with chests" again, lest the task of saving Western civilization from the depredation of the Islamist/Leftist phalanx passes to the neopagan and all too often neofascist movement in Europe and elsewhere that is currently working up an impressive head of steam.

How Orthodox Resistance Fighters Celebrated Easter During the Nazi Occupation

Muscular Christianity. This here is what I'm talkin' about :

How To Celebrate Easter

I got back to the hideout at last on April 16th, which was Orthodox Easter Sunday, the greatest feast of the Greek year . . . there was a paschal lamb roasting whole and a demijohn of wine for us all to celebrate our reunion and Orthodox Easter with a feast and singing and dancing. Scores of hard-boiled eggs dyed red were clashed together like conkers with cries of “Christ is risen!” and “He is risen indeed!” Those left over were propped up in a row and shot down for pistol practice. When all of them were smashed, after every toast, pistol magazines were joyfully emptied into the air in honor of the Resurrection.

Back in my gun rights activism days I learned of the Cretan freedom fighters, men and women, who made the Nazis bleed.  The Orthodox Christians of Crete are some of the baddest asses in the Orthodox world, and Crete today is a gun culture despite its restrictive gun laws.   May their tribe increase.

Deus Vult

H/T Jacob Aitken

                              

Episcopalianizing American Orthodoxy, Round II

Posting this expose from Orthodox blogger Rod Dreher in connection with my final reply to Stefano with respect to the issue of feminism in the Orthodox Church, which can be read at the last comment to this article.  On the Orthodox Church's wishy-washy stance on abortion, see Constantinople's Moral Oversight.

Also, Barbarians Among Us? by Orthodox priest Gregory Jensen.  From that aticle:

On a post on my blog Koinoia ("An Editorial: Orthodoxy & the Public Square"), I wrote that whether or not I like Frank Schaeffer's politics or his moral theology, or whether or not his support of abortion and gay rights are compatible with the tradition of the Church, the reality is that he is well within the mainstream of current Orthodox opinion in America. According to the PEW survey, the majority of Orthodox laity agree that abortion and gay marriage should be legal.  It may surprise you, then, that the problem isn't Schaeffer – it’s us; specifically, it’s the clergy.  For reasons that are not entirely clear to me, we clergy are not effectively communicating the moral tradition of the Church to the laity.  Or, if we are, the laity aren't listening –- which would imply that the clergy are willing to tolerate the laity ignoring the Gospel.

We see the same prevalence of pro-choice, pro-gay marriage positions among Orthodox politicians.  This kind of a consistent pattern of belief does not just happen.  As in the Catholic Church, we see in the Orthodox Church evidence of a significant pastoral failing.  This appears to be more than just a widespread lack of sound moral education for the faithful.  It appears to be an embrace of, or at least resignation to, the influence of secularism in our parishes.

Lutheran blogger Acroamaticus responds to Jensen's article at Orthodoxy in the West: The Eastern-Rite Mainline?.

As I have consistently argued here at OJC, the Orthodox Church may be the least "Episcopalianized" of the three branches of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, but "Episcopalianized" it has become.  Stefano says that the Orthodox Church, the smaller of the Two One True Churches, will surely weather the storm, for it is in fact the One True Church (No.2), against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.

I say pride goeth before the fall.

And that Continuing Anglicanism has left all things Episcopalian behind.

Victimae Paschali Laudes

Victimae paschali laudes
immolent Christiani.

Agnus redemit oves:
Christus innocens Patri
reconciliavit peccatores.

Mors et vita duello
conflixere mirando:
dux vitae mortuus,
regnat vivus.

Dic nobis Maria,
quid vidisti in via?

Sepulcrum Christi viventis,
et gloriam vidi resurgentis:

Angelicos testes,
sudarium, et vestes.

Surrexit Christus spes mea:
praecedet suos [vos] in Galilaeam.

Scimus Christum surrexisse
a mortuis vere:
tu nobis, victor Rex, miserere.
[Amen.] [Alleluia.]

English

Let Christians offer sacrificial
praises to the passover victim.

The lamb has redeemed the sheep:
The Innocent Christ has reconciled
the sinners to the Father.

Death and life contended
in a spectacular battle:
the Prince of life, who died,
reigns alive.

Tell us, Mary, what did
you see on the road?

"I saw the tomb of the living Christ
and the glory of his rising,

The angelic witnesses, the
clothes and the shroud."

"Christ my hope is arisen;
into Galilee, he will go before his own."

We know Christ is truly risen from the dead!
To us, victorious King, have mercy!
Amen. [Alleluia.]

Glory to Our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ!

Anglicanism. Because we have the music.

Seriously, a blessed Eastertide to all, irrespective of your music!

This joyful Easter-tide,
Away with sin and sorrow!
My Love, the Crucified,
Hath sprung to life this morrow.

Had Christ, that once was slain,
Ne'er burst His three day prison,
Our faith had been in vain;
But now hath Christ arisen,
Arisen, arisen, arisen!

My flesh in hope shall rest,
And for a season slumber;
Till trump from east to west,
Shall wake the dead in number.

Had Christ, that once was slain,
Ne'er burst His three day prison,
Our faith had been in vain;
But now hath Christ arisen,
Arisen, arisen, arisen!

Death's flood hath lost his chill,
Since Jesus crossed the river:
Lover of souls, from ill
My passing soul deliver.

Had Christ, that once was slain,
Ne'er burst His three day prison,
Our faith had been in vain;
But now hath Christ arisen,
Arisen, arisen, arisen!

I So Resolve

“I die in the holy catholic and apostolic faith, professed by the whole church before the disunion of east and west." - Thomas Ken

Belief Enshrined in Worship, or Why Anglicanism Is Catholic - See more at: http://akensidepress.com/blog/2012/04/why-is-anglicanism-catholic/#sthash.k0MfXQax.dpuf

Belief Enshrined in Worship, or Why Anglicanism Is Catholic

A Blessed Easter to All!!  Christ is Risen!!

“I die in the holy catholic and apostolic faith, professed by the whole church before the disunion of east and west. - See more at: http://akensidepress.com/blog/2012/04/why-is-anglicanism-catholic/#sthash.k0MfXQax.dpuf

Blogger Matt Walsh: Ethno-theologian

Diversity is a strength, they tell me, but I have seen no evidence to support this doctrine. Diversity of thought might be a strength, but even then it is only a strength if the thought is rational and directed towards truth. The nonsensical thoughts of relativistic nincompoops are not valuable or helpful.

Similarly, racial and cultural diversity does not enrich us if we lose our identity in the process. When you throw a bunch of people with diametrically opposed beliefs and values and priorities into a food processor and hit frappe, you end up with a smoothie that tastes an awful lot like the collapse of western civilization and the rise of barbarians.

It’s Time To Stop Pretending All Religions Are Equal.  This is a must read.  Not only does Walsh deliver a blistering rebuke to the attempt of liberal-leftists to argue for moral parity between Islam and Chrisitianity, he presents a stirring challenge to all non-Christians reading this article to repent and believe the Gospel:

Indeed, the fact that abortion clinics don’t have to be fortified and surrounded by 40 armed guards every hour of the day shows just how incredibly effective Christianity is at preventing its adherents from resorting to violence in its name. So, yes, Christianity can lecture other religions about violence. Christianity is much better at standing against violence. Christianity is much more effective at advancing peace in the world. Christianity is just a better religion. It’s better. In every way. It’s better.

And it’s better not only because far fewer acts of evil are performed in its name, but because many more acts of love and mercy are performed in its name. No other religion sends people out to every decaying and forgotten corner and crevice of this Earth to heal the sick, serve the needy, and minister to the hopeless. No other religion runs nearly as many hospitals, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, etc.

If you find a group of foreigners digging a well in Guatemala or handing out mosquito nets in Uganda, they’re probably Christians. On the other hand, if you find a group of foreigners planting explosives in a subway station, they’re probably Muslims.

Christians themselves are flawed, but the faith has had, to put it mildly, an unmistakably positive influence on the world. Right now, as we speak, there are millions upon millions of people across the planet who would not be eating, taking medicine, or sleeping in a warm bed without the concerted efforts of Christians acting at the behest of Scripture. And as a reward, some of them can look forward to being crucified, literally. By Muslims, of course.

Christianity built western civilization. Christianity advanced the doctrine of Natural Law, which serves as the basis for all of our liberties. Christianity defeated slavery and won the fight for civil rights. Christianity had a hand, and sometimes was the only hand, in most every good and decent thing about this world.

Christians are not perfect, but Christianity is. And the more Christian the world is, the better the world is. The less, the worse. That’s how it’s worked for 2,000 years. History has demonstrably proven Christianity to be an objectively necessary and indispensable force for good over and over and over again.

Equivalence? You cannot begin to find one. There are bad Christians and good Muslims, but if Christianity ceased to exist, millions of people would die. If Islam ceased to exist, millions of people wouldn’t. Draw whatever conclusions you want from there, but you cannot conclude that the two are equal.

Christianity, I should note, is also true. It’s the only completely true religion. Other religions have arrived at some truths, but Christianity is truth. And because it stands in the fullness of truth, it is capable of bringing a goodness to the world that Islam and other false religions cannot. Christians, individually, are responsible for plenty of evil, but that evil is a result of their rejection of the truth of Christian doctrine. The more they reject it, the worse they are. The more they accept it, the better. Again, history has demonstrated this. . . .

Whether you believe in Christianity or not, it’s superiority is beyond question. And the fact that it is so superior ought to make you reconsider your decision not to believe it.

By its fruits you shall know it.

We’ve seen the fruits.

The answer is clear.