Keeping the Faith—December 2009
PERSPECTIVE
Going Through the Motions
by Thomas Fleming
VIEWS
Recovering the Dignity of Truth
by William Murchison
Episcopalians and/or Anglicans.
Fighting for Orthodoxy Among the Methodists
by Mark Tooley
Some good news.
A Tale of Two Subversives
by Srdja Trifkovic
Battling Christophobia in California and Serbia.
NEWS
Government-Managed Business
by Stephen B. Presser
As Silent Cal spins . . .
REVIEWS
Waiting for Charles the Second
by Matthew A. Roberts
Christopher Caldwell: Reflections on the Revolution in Europe
plus
W. James Antle III on William Murchison’s Mortal Follies: Episcopalians and the Crisis of Mainline Christianity
Andrei Navrozov on Józef Mackiewicz’s The Triumph of Provocation
CORRESPONDENCE
Letter From the Upper Midwest: Forgotten Corners
by Sean Scallon
VITAL SIGNS
The New Republic: Fairabia
by R. Cort Kirkwood
Film: Twice-Baked and Twice as Bad
by Robert Dean Lurie
COLUMNS
Growing Up in America
by Paul Craig Roberts
Under the Black Flag
by Taki Theodoracopulos
Heresies
by Aaron D. Wolf
The Rockford Files
by Scott P. Richert
Between the Lines
by Justin Raimondo
In the Dark
A Serious Man
by George McCartney
What’s Wrong With the World
by Chilton Williamson, Jr.
DEPARTMENTS
Polemics & Exchanges
AMERICAN PROSCENIUM
CULTURAL REVOLUTIONS
CONTRASTS
POETRY
An Inmate Gang and
Green Water
by Jack Butler
ON THE COVER
Cover photo by the monks of Clear Creek.
Inside illustrations by Melanie Anderson.
Entries(RSS)
Just got the issue. While it was a nice issue on the whole, I miss the pictures of the Virgin and the Child that I used to find so charming in the December issues.
I haven't read the issue but shouldn't the title be Keeping the Faiths (seeing that there are articles by a Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist and a Serbian Orthodox)? There is no generic Christianity and the differences among us are not trivial.
"The church's one foundation / is Jesus Christ our Lord." -- Samuel John Stone
"We pray for those who wander from the fold.
Oh bring them back,Good Shepherd of the sheep.
Back to the Faith that saints believed of old.
Back to the Church which still that Faith does keep."
William Henry (Harry) Turton, 1859-1938
It is a serious mistake to persist in error when one has been corrected. Traditional Christians--Orthodox, Catholic, and traditional Anglicans do not have different faiths, only different means of understanding the faith and different modes of worship. I do not say they are all equal or that there are not pseudo-Christian sects that do not deserve the name, not only Mormons and Witnesses but most of the bilge of "Christian" broadcasting. I don't know what sect or Church Mr. Van Osbree reveres as the only source of truth and faith, but the epistemological question immediately rears its ugly head: How does he know, or, worse, on what basis does he think he has a right to an opinion.
Now, one answer is: I believe the Pope or the Papacy or Martin Luther or John Calvin or Pat Robertson. This reminds me of the Marx brothers joke which goes something like this. "Now I'm as patient as the next man," to which Groucho answers, "Fine, let me talk to the next man." If you put your trust in human authorities, even divinely inspired human authorities, then I want to talk to them and not to the follower who gives them blind obedience. The other possible answer is: While I accept the authority of this or that tradition, I am a serious scholar who has learned Greek and Latin, studied the documents of church history in the original tongues, and reserve the right to an independent judgment. If this is the case, then the arguer must use stronger arguments than a mere ipse dixit.
There is altogether too much smug self-satisfaction, not on Mr. van Osbree of course, but in Christians who put their churches above the Church. I wish I could say that Catholics were less guilty than others, but it is not true. Many of my traditionalist friends do not regard ordinary Novus Ordo Catholics as Catholic at all, and my conservative Catholics think the Orthodox are going to Hell simply because it has not occurred to them to spit on their family and country. This is not just extreme folly, but pernicious unChristian folly.
@#5, Dr. Thomas Fleming: You wrote; "Traditional Christians–Orthodox, Catholic, and traditional Anglicans do not have different faiths, only different means of understanding the faith and different modes of worship." Oh, how convenient Mr. Liberal, Dr. Fleming; although, it contradicts Traditional Catholic teaching over the centuries. So, it can be concluded that you are nothing more than a Vatican II ecumenist, which contradicts Pope Pius XI's Mortalium Animos. In other words, Dr. Fleming, you are not a true Catholic, but one, who out of personal/politcal correctness, will compromise the Faith for the sake of getting along with your non-Catholic associates, especially, those who write for Chronicles, like, Mr Murchison and Mr. Aaron the Lutheran. It is obvious that you do not believe that Mr. Murchison or Aaron should leave their heretical sects and become Catholics, because, which you have not described or defined, they are really Catholics, but just from a different mode of understanding. You sir, are a not only a joke, but a sad joke.
Re: comments #6 and #2: "There is one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism" (Eph 4.5). Unfortunately, there are quite a few distorted and deficient understandings of this Faith. There certainly are times for focusing on these important differences. At other times, however, there is the traditional title shared by all the baptized: Christian.
"Keeping The Faith" is a good December issue for a "chronicle" of American culture. We Roman Catholics should not disparage one of the few cultural periodicals available that still has the fortitude and patience to defend the ancient traditions. Nor should we demand a two hundred year old country, founded by protestants enjoying the height of their reforms cultural effects, to simply be ignored. The largest and most enduring obstacle for Catholics in America has been an inability to understand their own faith free of prevailing intellectual resentment, ignorance and Catholic weakness. One does not demonstrate fortitude by speaking the language of arrogance and contempt, rather the ancients preached the gentleness of doves, the wisdom of serpents as the way of practicing charity in the world.
I can see, lets call him, Captain M., in the French artillery zone behind the lines, ordering a round of artillery fire Christmas Eve, 1915, to ensure no "troubles" like the previous Christmas.
The law says, after all, no fraternization with the enemy; fraternizing with the enemy will be punished with the firing squad. Why, Captain M. is just looking our for the best interests of those soldiers in the trenches, lest they do something foolish in the spirit of the day, and have to face a firing squad! and disgrace!
And yet, there are some, who might suggest, this is folly, perhaps not quite the intent of the Holy Spirit.
I was careful to say that not all forms of Christianity can be regarded as Christian and that I personally do not regard all Christian traditions as equal. If I did, I would be a liberal Methodist. But for a Catholic to say that people not share the Christian faith either because their ancestors did not or because they have made a theological blunder is bigotry, and a pretty stupid bigotry. It is simply not true that the Catholic Church has always taught this. Read, for example, the papal appeal for the First Crusade. He called the Crusade to help the suffering Christians of the East, Christians who at that time were already in schism. I know I know, Urban II was a liberal modernist who sold out the true Catholic Faith. Perhaps we should all join the Pius I Society.