The dominant image for me last week was claret and amber flare smoke over Valley Parade telling the world that Bradford City were promoted. The dominate image this week for many was the image of white smoke over the Vatican announcing a new pope.
I’ve been intrigued by the response of people both within Evangelicalism and in wider society to the death of one pope and the election of a new one. There seems to be an ongoing fascination with the office and role even among political leaders in non-Catholic countries who don’t profess faith themselves. Perhaps its down to pure numbers, there are still a lot of votes to be won among Catholics even if they form a minority.
More fascinatingly, we have seen a lot of interest and comment from Evangelical circles. I have already observed that this tends, like a mirror to tell us more about ourselves than it does about Catholicism, the old pope or the new pope. The big thing I think it has shown up is how much we think we know about Catholicism and how little we really do know. I think because Roman Catholicism is officially Christian, at least in name, because it holds to the historic creeds, because often it uses the same language and even makes use of some of our tools and resources such as Alpha, and because our own roots mean that al protestant denominations and movements came out from the Catholic Church that we think we know it well. It looks like it is very similar to us.
What we can miss is that whilst language is similar, it is, as I’ve also been discussing rooted in a different world-view, a different take on how we approach the big questions about Who is God? Where did we come from? Who am I? and “Where are we going?” that in the end leads to an answer which on the surface may sound very similar but actually is quite different to the answer we would give to “What is the Gospel?”
We don’t like to say this, even as Evangelicals because of all the comment above, because of our own nervousness, exacerbated by the current concern about “Classical-Theism” about our place within the historic church. We are also nervous because to say such things sounds rather polemic and contentious which doesn’t fit the current zeitgeist of tolerance and love. I wonder too if we are reluctant to say this because Catholics are co-belligerents on a number of ethical causes including abortion and euthanasia where at times they seem to have greater clarity. Conservative Evangelicals have tended to see Anglo-Catholics as cobelligerents on issues of doctrine and practiced within their denomination and as the latter have increasingly looked more fondly to Rome, I wonder if that has had an impact too.
The risk here is that we again may miss the point that whilst there seems to be an overlap of concerns, the reasoning and therefore the detail of hoped for outcomes may be quite different. Let me give you two examples. First, the external one. A Catholic will be particularly exercised by concerns about euthanasia because they believe that suicide isa mortal sin that can affect your salvation. There isn’t really chance to repent that sin or to receive last rites. An Evangelical disagrees with euthanasia but does not have those concerns.
The internal example concerns the approach that Conservative Evangelicals and Catholics have towards women’s ordination and as I said, this led to alliances within the CofE between conservative evangelicals and Anglo -Catholics (those who hold significantly to Catholic doctrine and practice but for whatever reason have opted not to join the Roman Catholic Church). However Catholic reasoning here is that the priest represents Christ at the Eucharist/Mass and therefore must be a man. This is not in any way part of Evangelical thinking.
Finally, we are perhaps reluctant to say this because of concerns about what this would mean for our relationship to individual Catholics. I think it is important to say then that we should be able to recognise first that there are many people we will know, atheist, Muslim, whatever who do not know Jesus but because of common grace and general revelation we can respect as brave, wise, kind people. Secondly, that the protestant/reformed position has always been that our disagreement is with the Catholic Church not individuals. In other words, we believe that it is possible for individual Catholics to be truly saved.
I think that another thing that has been shown us as the mirror has been held up is how much we like to be in the know. So, there were plenty of articles knocking about speculating about who the next pope would be and the merits of the various front-runners. The reality is that we did not know anything much about any of the names and perhaps this highlighted our naivety even about how the process would work. Most people, even in the secular world seemed to be relying on a work of fiction “Conclave” to inform them. That we don’t know much about individual cardinals should remind us that the Roman Catholic Church is highly centralised and that power/authority remains at the Vatican. The one thing that we could know was that it was highly likely that someone quite unexpected would emerge as the new pontiff. In a world where knowledge is power though, we feel the need to be knowledgeable.
Now we have a new pope though, what does that mean. Well, because of what I’ve said above, I think the honest answer is that when it comes to a lot of speculation, we don’t really know. However, there are some things that we can know for certain. Crucially, we know that the new pope will be someone who has been teaching contrary to the Gospel. They have not been proclaiming salvation by grace alone through faith alone. They do not rely on the sufficiency of God’s Word for revelation.
This means that if and when we pray for the Pope and the Catholic church, we do know what to pray for. And, I don’t think we can be completely disinterested because of the links I highlighted above. The reformers wanted to see the Catholic church reformed, They did not want to actually leave. In effect where there have been departures throughout history, the sense has been that it has been the established church that left the faith/faithful. So, I think it is reasonably to pray for the pope and the Catholic Church. However, our prayers shouldn’t be for those more surface issues, as important as they may be. To be sure, there are lots of reforms the church needs but these pale into insignificance compared to the greater need for Gospel reformation.
Secondly, we keep praying for individuals, especially those we know personally that they will come to saving faith in Jesus and experience the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. That they will be hungry to be fed by God’s word and will seek to obey it as well as hear it.
Thirdly, as that mirror has been held up and challenged us I wonder if there are things we need to pray for ourselves. Do we need to be reformed too? If there are things we see in the Catholic church that rightly admire and envy do we need to consider what we are doing, for example being more passionate about the right to life? More importantly, do we need big R Reformation to draw us back to a greater and deeper understanding and appreciation of the Gospel?
Faithroots 