FRIDAY POTPOURRI: IFEELISTS AND THE MORALISTIC THERAPEUDIC DEISM

“I” and “feel” are two of the most damaging words toward the faith in the world today.  I think it should be its own heresy.  The “Ifeelists – Ifeelism.)   You’ll be having a perfectly good conversation about something faith related and somebody will say, “Well I feel . . .”  There are two problems with this.  The first is that it is an inherently selfish statement.  Who can say anything to you?  You are simply stating how you feel.  It’s like saying, “I feel satisfied.”  What can I say to that?  “No you don’t.” 

 

The second problem is that whatever is stated after “I feel” often has no connection to the lived faith of two thousand years of Christianity, the early Church Fathers, the writings and lives of the saints, the logic of the greatest minds of mankind, a children’s catechism, or even a casual conversation with someone remotely connected with any orthodox faith.  “I feel” is a cloud.  You can’t punch it, defend it, or debate it.  It is simply a thought someone has that makes them feel good.  The full consequences need not be thought through, possible blow back, inconsistencies, or the fact that it may have been held in the past and rejected due to its ill consequence.  Any debate is likely to be answered, “Well, I don’t agree.”

 

One author calls this Moralistic, Therapeutic, Deism.  This is truly the opiate of the masses.  What you feel or think is of course truth – at least for you.  This is where relativism sneaks in.  “Well, that may be truth for you but . . .”

 

This is why the Church has always insisted on a formed conscience.  That means being in contact with Scripture and Tradition, it means having some training in the early Church Fathers, lives of the saints, and 2,000 years of Christian thought (which comes to us at least in part through the Catechism, Catholic schools, PSR, CCD, etc.)  All of which leads us to the third precept of the Church: to study and learn the faith in preparation for Confirmation, to be confirmed, and then to KEEP LEARNING.  I know that perhaps your particular parish is horrible at teaching the faith.  That doesn’t lift the responsibility of the individual from forming their conscience.  We are too rich of a nation with too much information at our disposal to say, “Nobody ever told me.”  At the click of a button on your computer (or at the library’s computer) there are all the Church documents, tweets by the pope, Church history, lives of the saints, writings of the Church Fathers, apologists, videos, podcasts, links, all floating around in the air just waiting for you to grab them and study them like angels surrounding us, just waiting for us to take advantage of them.

"JUDGE NOT LEST YE BE JUDGED?" THINK AGAIN.

In a front page article above the fold in the Akron Beacon Journal Congressman Tim Ryan made the announcement last week that he was no longer pro-life.  Though I am disappointed in his decision and vehemently opposed to his position, I was appreciative of the fact that he made his view know without vitriol.  Where he crossed the line was using his Catholic faith to bolster his position.  His presentation at this point became misleading and manipulative.

 

There are a couple of points he used to explain his change of heart but there is one in particular that was just flagrantly wrong.  Ryan, who the article describes as, “a practicing Roman Catholic,” said, “The church (sic) has taught me to be compassionate and non-judgmental.”  He said this in reference to women who seek abortion.  It did teach him to have compassion.  It did not teach him to through good judgment out the window.

 

The new Gospel of Tolerance has only one passage in Scripture, “Judge not lest ye be judged.”  This passage has been misinterpreted as meaning that we cannot be opposed to what another person does (unless of course you disagree with Gospel of Tolerance which will not be tolerated.)  Any number of Scriptures passages would adjure us to use wise judgment when discerning the actions of others.  The caution in this passage is referring to a tendency to overreact, which may recoil and end up bringing condemnation on ourselves, or the wrong temptation to judge the state of a person’s soul rather than the value of their action.  But to use this passage as a club to stop conversation (though he says otherwise) is an abuse of the passage.

 

“This is really about the role of the government in all of this,” Ryan states, “and the government’s involvement seems like a major over-reach.”  But of course the government always has been and continues to be involved in such matters.  When things go wrong; when one person is an unwilling participant, when one is underage, when things are done in an inappropriate place or way, when one wants to be married to more than one person, the government is there.  With the new Affordable Healthcare Act, not only is the government involved, it is dragging in others who do not even want to be involved.  The government’s fingerprints are all over this intimate moment.  So with Ryan, I would agree that the government should be less involved.

 

That is until another underrepresented, voiceless, vulnerable person is involved.  For when a government starts deciding who has a soul and who does not, when it ceases to protect the weakest members of its people, that government is failing.

 

I respectfully submit that this is what your faith was trying to teach you Congressman Ryan.  If you want to continue to hold your new position, please do not mistakenly use your faith for your justification.

WHO GETS TO DECIDE WHO HAS TO BE TOLERANT AND WHY?

Cleveland is being asked to pass a law that would force everybody except churches to allow transgender persons to use whatever bathroom they wish.  Of course, in the age of Tolerance, those who think this might not be such a good idea are labeled Intolerant and even to debate the issue in the name of Tolerance is deemed Intolerable.

 

On the one hand I understand the concern.  (Deep in taking of breath from the collective audience reading this.)  I remember my first experience with a transgender person.  My Aunties would take me to the double header Indians games and Municipal stadium (gads I miss that place) when I was in grade school.  We generally got the mid range seats and so there were never many people around us – neither those going for the really cheap seats nor those who could afford really good ones.  So people around us stood out.  One day there was what appeared to be a woman in a lime green miniskirt.  I knew something was different here even as a kid.  I had no idea that there was such a thing as transgender people and so what I was seeing didn’t compute.

 

He was a slender African American person having some of the attributes of woman, (to my little boy’s brain: “Okay, there are those.  Check.  Makeup.  Check.  Long hair.  Check.”)  But other things that didn’t fit.  (Adam’s apple.  “?”  Big hands.  “?”  Deep voice.  “?”  Stubble.  “?”) 

 

Now, here is where my understanding would kick in.  What if this person suddenly realized that the need of bathroom was desperate?  How would I feel being this person going into the men’s room with a bunch of testosterone rich, drunk, men?  So we are asked to be compassionate and, by law, make this person feel comfortable with the bathroom he or she chooses to use except at a church.

 

POR OTRA PARTE:  Tolerance is a one way street here.  What about the people who would feel uncomfortable having a person who appears to be of the opposite sex in their bathroom?  How safe would a woman feel with a man, even if he is identifying himself as woman, in the bathroom with her at a downtown bar or any other number of scenarios?  What if of one hundred women, only 3 felt uncomfortable?  Are they Intolerable wretches that need to be sent to a counselor to get over their prejudice?  Why should they be sent to counseling and not the man who identifies himself as a woman?  He could dress like a man and go to the bathroom but women have no such option to end up in a place in which they feel comfortable carrying out their sensitive business. 

 

Anyway, the argument could go on and on about on whom the duty falls to be the one to have to be tolerant of the other.  They can’t both be accommodated without building owners constructing numerous bathrooms from which people could choose.  “Women’s bathroom for those born and who remain female.”  “Women’s bathroom for life long females and those born male but who identify as female but have not yet had an operation.”  “Women’s bathroom for those who identify as female but beyond that don’t really care who else is in here.”  THERE is true but very expensive tolerance.

 

What is happening here is a defining of what is “normal” beyond a setting on a dryer and exactly who must be tolerant of the sensitivities of whom.  Opening this door does not make Clevelanders more Tolerant, it only defines of what they will be Tolerant and of what they won’t be Tolerant.  At the core of all wars on Tolerance, there is the determination to eliminate the voice and rights of all who are not Tolerant of my Tolerance.   And in this and similar cases it will be enforced by law.

TOLERANCE IS A TWO WAY STREET

I received a short letter from a lady who was quite distressed that reception of Communion in the Catholic Church is limited to Catholics.  The implication was that Catholics thought of her as an inferior Christian.  (How she got that interpretation I am at a loss.  But there it is.)  Her letter begins by saying that she is, “a baptized and confirmed Lutheran who believes in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church . . .” but ends the letter with, “Justification by faith said Martin Luther.  He got it right.”  The first part of the letter makes it sound as though she sought unity between the Churches, but her last line strikes a strong note concerning our differences and how she is glad for them.

 

I would assume that in naming the Christian Church one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, words with which we resonate, underneath we would mean very different things.  And therein lays the problem:  Communion means we are “in union” and we are not.  When someone approaches to receive Communion we say, “Body of Christ,” and expect the reply, “Amen.”  What does “Amen” mean but “Yes!” or “So be it!” or “I agree!”  As Catholics we believe, of course, that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ and that the bread and wine has ceased to exist.  But that belief assumes so much more.  It assumes that Jesus founded a Church with authority, and that it is the one true Church under the leadership of His vicar, the pope, that the way we are redeemed and saved is how it has been understood by the Catholic Church for 2,000 years, that the Catholic priesthood is what we say that it is, that works matter, and, well, I could go on and on.  To make this person say, “Amen,” then means one of two things: She denies her Lutheran belief and has chosen to make a public pronouncement that what the Catholic Church teaches is correct or, it doesn’t matter what the Catholic Church teaches which is silly anyway and therefore I may do as I please.

 

But here is the good thing that happened:  Part of Jesus’ mission was, “That they may all be one.”  But respecting each other and not receiving Communion at each other’s churches, we paid homage to the fact they we are indeed not in union.  So then rather than superficially looking like we are all the same page, we were able to actually address something here that would otherwise have gone under the radar and solved nothing.  This person was drawn to ask the question and I was able to respond.  There is the road back to unity.  Not ignoring it.

ARTIFICIAL INGREDIENTS

There are certain things that cannot be engineered. Like a tomato plant; they can be nourished, but they cannot be built from scratch. You get a tomato by gardening – not by inventing a tomato.

You cannot create community. Community happens when people experience something together. What makes for a strong community is a group of people having gone through something in which they come to know and admire (or tolerate) each other. Artificially constructed communities tend not to be as strong because they based on exchanges of information or getting to know each other alone. Communities springing up from a common cause are based on building something together in which they came to know and appreciate one another. This caused one pastor who was trying to build up his community to say that he wished he could burn down his church so they could come together in the building of a new one. “We did this together” goes further than the lone, “We know each other.”

You cannot create diversity. Diversity can be nourished but it cannot be artificially mandated. Diversity means I do my thing in my house and you do your thing in your house and we don’t shoot each other over the fence. Once diversity is mandated it is no longer diversity but a unified and codified way of living. Now everyone must enjoy or tolerate everyone and regional music, art, customs, architecture, etc. disappear leading us away from diversity to a new unified nationalism.

You cannot create tolerance. Once tolerance is mandated it is no longer tolerance but conformity. There are certain things total tolerance will not tolerate. Tolerance can be nourished but in cannot be forced – because then it is not tolerance.

For each of these things to be what they really are they must first of all be free – a free choice for those who wish to live them. Interestingly enough for them truly to exist there must also be an element or at least room for their opposite. If you want community there must be some who are not part of the community. If you want diversity, there must be room for those who step away and cultivate a culture that it out of step. If you want true tolerance, there must be room for those who disagree – or else you do not have tolerance.

Sometimes I think the more we strive for these things (the way we are) the further from community, diversity, and tolerance we get. It is becoming a less free, more mandated (or politically correct) more restrictive and narrow choice. It is like receiving an invitation for a wedding with the instruction of what kind of gift to give the bride and groom. At that point it is no longer an expression of your love and joy but a tax – hardly what a present is supposed to be though it be in pretty paper with a ribbon around it.