{"id":13093,"date":"2012-01-21T17:55:32","date_gmt":"2012-01-21T23:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=13093"},"modified":"2016-11-10T21:30:22","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T03:30:22","slug":"hating-religion-and-loving-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2012\/01\/21\/hating-religion-and-loving-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"Hating religion and loving Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Why I hate religion but love Jesus” has gone viral. Have you seen it?<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Roman Catholic Fr. Dwight Longenecker, former Anglican, comments on it at First Things<\/em><\/a>. Excerpt:<\/p>\n

So maybe we want to get rid of the Christian fellowship completely and be freelance followers of Christ?<\/strong> This is impossible because to follow Jesus, you have to know Jesus, and the best way to know Jesus is through the Church. \u201cI have my Bible!\u201d the eager independent will cry. We only have the Bible because of the Church. Furthermore, what is the Bible but the story of the people of God\u2014first in the Old Testament and then in the New? The Bible reports the history of the people of God and recounts their relationship with God. Jesus himself went to the synagogue, and indeed practiced religion. The New Testament was composed with and for the Church\u2014a group that practices a religion. To say that you are going to follow Jesus but reject religion is like saying you love baseball, but don\u2019t need a team to play on, a league, or a team to root for.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fr. Robert Barron offers his comments at Catholic News Agency<\/a>. Excerpt:<\/p>\n

\n

What the young man in the video is presenting is a simplistic and radical form of evangelicalism whose intellectual roots are in the thought of Martin Luther. Luther famously held that justification (or salvation) takes place through grace alone accepted in faith, and not from good works of any kind.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

To rely on liturgy or sacraments or moral effort for salvation, Luther thought, amounted to a pathetic \u201cworks righteousness,\u201d which he sharply contrasted to the \u201calien righteousness\u201d that comes, not from us, but from Christ. This basic theological perspective led Luther (at least in some texts) to demonize many elements of ecclesial life as distractions from the grace offered through Jesus, and this is why we find, even to this day in many evangelical Protestant churches, a muting of the liturgical, the sacramental, the institutional, etc.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Barron continues with a pretty heavy-handed defense of the Church as founded by Jesus:<\/p>\n

\n

What [Jesus] affected was a transfiguration of the best of that classical Israelite religion\u2014Temple, law, priesthood, sacrifice, covenant, etc.\u2014into the institutions, sacraments, practices and structures of his Mystical Body, the Church.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I find Fr. Longecker’s defense of organized religion, though perhaps a bit overstated, more persuasive than Fr. Barron’s. Both point out the communal nature of following Jesus, but Longecker does so without Barron’s triumphalistic, preconciliar-sounding claims about how Jesus founded the Church.<\/p>\n

Also unfortunate is Barron’s caricature of Luther. Pro Ecclesia<\/a><\/em> and recent Luther studies<\/a>, anyone? The New Finnish School<\/a>, anyone? Barron rightly critiques the video for driving a wedge between Christ and the Church. What a shame that in doing so, Barron drives a wedge between Luther and the Catholic Church. So much for ecumenism.<\/p>\n

Whaddaya suppose is up with Bob Barron? He’s a renowned theologian with a sharp mind. But a few days ago he was putting words in the mouth of Elizabeth Johnson (see Grant Gallicho, “The Yawn Patrol<\/a>” over at Commonweal<\/em>.) Not long ago he claimed the new Mass translation is beautiful and poetic<\/a>. And now this.<\/p>\n

Commonweal 1, First Things 1, Word on Fire 0.<\/p>\n

awr<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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