There is still a little fallout…er…falling regarding that America article on the “New Apologists.”
So has Bill Cork, who has in turned been fisked by Dale Price and responded.
I’m not one to enter into BlogWarfare, but this is all worth commenting on because it points to larger issues.
One of the things I’ve never been able to understand is the difficulty of grasping the basic fact that Not Everything Works for Everyone.
Sure, Jesus does, but because people are amazingly different, not any one single approach to presenting the truth is going to do the job of introducing Him to everyone. The world is full of people questioning and seeking, coming from various places: The atheist who can’t believe in God because his child’s sad death drove faith out of her. The person raised by wack-job Christians of any ilk who have communicated messages associating faith with repression, dourness, puritanism and defensiveness. The person who just can’t see how one religion can claim to be truer than another, and if God wanted everyone to be Christian, why did He allow Hinduism, anyway? You can go on and on.
And even people who “have” faith – whatever that means – approach things differently and emphasize different aspects of that same faith. That is, they experience the truth that Jesus is Alive and Jesus is Lord through different avenues that make sense to them. For some, objective truth is the test of their faith. For others, it’s the witness of the community of which they’re a part. Some approach God through spontaneous prayer and couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Others find that the richness and layers of traditional prayer speaks for them, uttering the thoughts they can’t put words to themselves.
And so, it seems to me, every approach to “God-talk” has its place. We’ve been listening to Paul’s words on Church the past few weeks. Seems that’s all we need to hear. At times, the questions asked demand an apologetics type of answer. At other times, theological reflection. Still other times, listening to the story of another’s journey, and how powerfully they experienced the presence of God there.
WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
Well, I think when you get down to it, the deal (not said of any of these bloggers, natch, but of the entire faultline in the US Catholic God-Talk Business) is partly about truth, but it’s also about power. The Old Guard is terrified and petrified of losing its office and the T-line. They see the multitudes flock to hear Madrid, Hahn, etc, see their books on the bestsellers’ lists, and they don’t like it one bit. So they snipe.
This whole contretemps reminds me of the time, a couple of years ago, I read a review of, I think, Scott Hahn’s first Doubleday book (the one on the Eucharist and Revelation) in, yes, America.. It was an absolute rave. I don’t remember who wrote it, but he/she just went on and on about this great book, what an ingenious connection he was making between Eucharist and the Book of Revelation, and gosh, why hadn’t he/she ever heard of the Hahn fellow before? Why wasn’t everyone talking about this guy?
I thought – – Whoa. How did this get by?
And sure enough, an issue or two down the line, there was at least one letter to the editor sternly alerting the magazine, the reviewer, and any aversly affected readers as to the True Nature of this Hahn fellow, about which only a single modifier was necessary: “Steubenville.”
Encountered the same thing over and over again in parish ministry until it was just boring. Was with a diocesan group of youth ministers who practically climaxed when Joseph Girzone’s name was mentioned, only to emit an equally audible hiss when another name – I don’t remember who – came up with the warning, “You know he’s one of those Steubenville people.”
So, there’s a lot of varying, if disconnected thought in this post. Admittedly, my mind is elsewhere. But it all just reminds me to let Paul remind us of what Church is and to value what the other parts of the Body are about, to appreciate each other, to strengthen, and, when necessary, to dispense a little medicine.
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