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It's not just Protestants who fall into this mistake of arguing from lack of information. I know a priest who said that Moses "never" had anyone put to death. He was unwilling to look up the passage which stated otherwise because such a debate was a moot point.

Just because some Protestants reject the authority of the Bible, not all have to. While the Protestant faith necessarily suffers from difficulties with interpretation, it does not necessarily suffer from rejection of Biblical Authority.

The liberal vs conservative split exists as much in the Protestant communities as the Catholic Church. Perhaps we should label these aberrations as "liberal" rather than "Protestant" as they characterize liberal Catholics (and liberal Protestants) more than they characterize conservative Protestants (and conservative Catholics).

You may recall that conservative Protestants also rallied to support Terry Schiavo's family in round-the-clock prayer vigils. They have also fought to preserve the traditional definition of marriage and to ban partial-birth abortions.

Liberalism does not even deserve the name "Christian" and so its inherent problems should not be smeared upon Christians who do not participate in this tragedy.

Burnt Marshwiggle

Did you finish the entire Narnia series?

In Love

when we were one

WWWO,

I read the entire series twice, once as a child and once in my early twenties. I'm finding the Silver Chair particular insightful in portraying what it means to "fight the good fight". I'm embarrassed that I completely forgot about Puddleglum - especially since I'm just like him and he gets to be the hero.

Aside from the book of Timothy, I think this is the only book where someone I identified with got to be a big hero. Usually in stories, someone with that sort of personality simply drags the group down, causes trouble, and everyone laughs at him.

I found it did not mind at all CS Lewis poking fun at people like me because it was also clear that he had a great deal of respect for what Puddleglum had to offer in the quest to save Prince Rilian. Puddleglum's obedience to Aslan's instructions despite his numerous fears serves as an excellent example to us all.

Burnt

What most impressed me re: the Silver Chair was the conversation near the end between the drugged heros and the witch. The witch attempts to convince them that there is no overworld (the atheist position...there is no God)...then a resurgent Puddleglum responds as we should...

In Love

when we were one

WWWO,

Yes I am Broken Record. I was going through the Silver Chair and was so impressed by Puddleglum that I switched names. I was particularly impressed by his obedience when they were deciding what to do with the Dark Knight.

The debate with the emerald witch still intrigues me. People have compared Puddleglum's response with Pascal's wager. While I can't say for sure what Lewis was intending to parallel, I suspect that Puddleglum was expressing a thought much more profound than Pascal's wager.

It smacks more of Anselm's Ontological argument (which I rejected in the style of Gaunilon when I first heard it but am starting to think it contains a worthy path towards God). The Emerald Witch says basically what Freud does - that we exagerrated our notion of Father to become God to satisfy our spiritual needs. I believe Lewis once presented the idea that hunger would tend to confirm the existence of food rather than deny it.

I have objections to Pascal's wager because it seems to prefer safety to truth and knowledge (and thus the connection with the Jansenist heresy which has us behave as if Our Lord were not merciful). Puddleglum's monologue affirms Aslan and Narnia not because of its safety but because of its beauty.

Reflecting on the connection between truth and beauty has caused me to wonder if the Roman Catholic faith makes the best promises to its believers and that the only legitimate reason to remain outside is the belief that it cannot deliver on its promises.

Dear Burnt Marshwiggle,

There's something to be said for a man (or woman for that matter) willing to change their name for substantial or meaningful reasons or who deem their different names appropriate for different occasions. As much as I love Lewis, your handling of names most reminds me of Tolkien and his use of character names, particularly Gandalf and Aragorn. Well done, my friend.

Your closing comment struck me, and I completely agree with it. If only more of us within, would learn to love those promises and openly embrace them...maybe then the world would be more easily convinced of their validity.

Thank you for your continual witness Burnt Marshwiggle.

Your brother in Christ,
Joe

Burnt

In the "Final Battle" the dwarves end up siding for themselves in exactly what you have proposed...the inablility to believe in Aslan because of the human failures of the Kings he set up in his place (Pope?). Even Aslan is unable to change their perspectives.

"The dwarves are for the dwarves!"

In Love

when we were one

WWWO,

I believe I have been unclear about what I mean when I speculate that the only legitimate reason to remain outside the Roman Catholic Church is the belief that it cannot deliver on its promises.

Let's take the practice of asking Saints to pray for us. One common objection is that this constitutes idolatry and an attempt to escape seeking refuge in the one mediator. The usual response is that asking a Saint to pray for you is no worse than asking a friend to pray for you and that is ok. This often leads to the second common objection that the Saints cannot hear us as our friends do.

I would argue that those that hold to the first objection do not understand the Catholic teachings and are rejecting not the Roman Catholic Church but what they misunderstand the Roman Catholic Church to teach. And so while they have legitimate reason to reject what they believe the Roman Catholic Church to stand for, they do not have legitimate reason to reject what the Roman Catholic Church actually stands for.

Those who only hold to the second objection might say something like "It would be nice if the Roman Catholic teachings were true - but unfortunately they are not" and they may say this not only of Saints praying for us but also about an Infallible Magisterium or the miracle of Transubstantiation. I would argue that these people do understand the Roman Catholic teachings and do have legitimate reason to remain outside the Church.

But when they reach this point the words of Puddleglum come to mind. Perhaps this "better world" does not exist but we should seek it out nevertheless. Also at this point we need to wonder if God really placed us in a world where we could imagine one better.

I also wonder if this approach gives one reason to choose the Roman Catholic faith over others. What I mean by this is that if we evaluate a faith solely on the basis of the promises it gives (without investigating its ability to deliver on its promises), does the Roman Catholic faith win?

For example, Protestant Churches promise a memorial meal at the Lord's Supper. Catholic ones promise the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ at the Lord's Supper. If both groups can deliver on their respective promises (which I believe they can), then the Roman Catholic faith wins this contest. This style of investigation may also serve to distinguish the Christian faith from the others.

For example, the Christian faith offers help from above to do what must be done. The Buddhist philosophy instructs people to look to themselves for their enlightenment. The former offers help, the latter offers instructions and boasts that such help is not necessary and not available.

Burnt

Thanks for your elaboration. Perhaps I also need to elaborate more.

The dwarves have a crisis of faith because the original order set up by Aslan (the rightful Kings of Narnia) are usurped by an ape and an ass pretending they are the rightful heirs.

The ape and ass end up reinterpreting right from wrong for all the talking animals. This splitting ends up running Narnia down to the end of time. Kind of like how the princes of the church (in their humaness) have been usurped in many homes by those that would be their own personal Jesus. This splitting continues to be a scandal in the real church.

In Love

when we were one

Comment to Jays' Post: Regarding "The guy who said: Jesus never said that".
In the Pentateuch: Leviticus 18:22/"you shall not lie with a male as with a woman;such a thing is an abomination".
Was this not written by God ?!.

God's Love and Peace to you..................

Jim

Jim,

I suspect that the "Jesus never said that" crowd does not hold much respect for the parts of the Bible that don't quote Jesus. For example, the Old Testament also forbids eating shellfish and yet Christians adopt a "new law" and so the same principle supposedly applies to the rest of the Old Testament Laws. Applying the Old Testament to Christian life can create lots of difficulties even for those trying their best to follow God.

I think that Rev. Campolo was likely (in context) making a statement about Christians who imply that Jesus actually preached against abortion and homosexuality, when we simply cannot know for sure. I've read a bit of his other writings and know that he does not think simply that if Jesus didn't actually say it that he must have actually been lax on the issue.

But since the topic is stuff that "Jesus never said..." I wonder if Jesus actually said "You have heard it said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy'" (Matthew 5:43). If so, as all of us know, he was not quoting a text from the Hebrew scriptures as he does at 5:21,27,31,33,38. [And no, the arguement that he was working with the "spirit of Psalm 109:19-22" does not fly here]. But Jesus seems to make up a bit of halakhah, or Matthew does.

My point is not to ask anything about whether Jesus actually said this or not (that is not my interest at all), but to only point out how interesting it is when biblical literalists argue so heavily for literalism when it is quite probable that Jesus himself, like most if not all Jewish Rabbis of his time, were not biblical literalists when it came to interpreting and appropriating the word of God. But rather functioned with a creative and practicable hermeneutic. If Jesus did actually say Matthew 5:43, he obviously didn't care about citing any texts from Torah explicitly, as he does in
the 5 "antithesis".

It is not necessary to contend that Jesus "was playing fast and loose with the bible" just because he was not literalistic, or explicit when he interpreted the scritpures. But he was reading and applying the scriptures like many of Jews of his day.

Erik

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