Heretics: history's losers

Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

John 14:1-6

"St. Thomas (II-II:11:1) defines heresy: "a species of infidelity in men who, having professed the faith of Christ, corrupt its dogmas.  The right Christian faith consists in giving one's voluntary assent to Christ in all that truly belongs to His teaching. There are, therefore, two ways of deviating from Christianity: the one by refusing to believe in Christ Himself, which is the way of infidelity, common to Pagans and Jews; the other by restricting belief to certain points of Christ's doctrine selected and fashioned at pleasure, which is the way of heretics." (www.newadvent.org)

Syndicated columnist Maureen Dowd recently wrote: "As the president was being slapped by Mitt Romney for being too weak on national security, he was being rapped by a [NY] Times editorial for being too aggressive on national security."  Political commentator Robyn Blumner also observed: "Mitt Romney ... said early on that this election is a choice between President Obama's entitlement society in which people are dependent on government benefits ... but if you take Romney's own life as representing his governing philosophy, he has it backward; Romney is the one who has taken advantage of government entitlements."

I guess it's all a matter of perspective because both could be as wrong as both could be right.  This morning I said Jesus was not a "buffet" from which we may choose what we like and reject what we don't like; that Jesus as the Eternal Word must be taken in whole or not at all.  The historic question, however, comes to mind: which Jesus do we take?  Do we take the Jesus as recorded in the Gospel accounts written between 50-70 years after the fact?  Or do we take the "translated" Jesus as defined by the historic and Holy Church?  OR - do we re-create Jesus in a contemporary image more suitable for our time and/or our individual pleasures?

It has been said that history is recorded by the "winners"; everything else should be considered heresy.  But heresy in and of itself is not so bad a thing simply because of what we have done with language over time.  The Greek root of heresy is translated, "choice"; but the word was redefined by the Catholic Church as encompassing anything that did not mesh with Catholic doctrine (orthodoxy).  It probably was not long before the word itself progressed from a "point of definition" to a theological "accusation" that identified the need for correction - sometimes by force if necessary as was Spanish Queen Isabella's design during the Inquisition.

Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren wrote in a foreward to the book I'm currently reading, "Heresy" by Alister McGrath; "Because most believers have little or no knowledge of church history, they fail to recognize old errors that reappear on the scene after being refuted and rejected by previous generations of orthodox Christians.  We know truth is unchanging and eternal.  If it's true, it's not new, but many lies are not new either." 

And the author himself said, "Ancient heresies, seen by earlier generations as obscure and dangerous ideas, have now been sprinkled with stardust." 

Why does any of this matter now?  What interest can a lay person have - indeed, what interest must a lay person have - in Church history?  Perhaps in an era that has seen a consistent worship attendance and membership decline in mainstream Christianity, it may be more important now than ever before that we affirm what we know - and ask questions of those things we think.  It is not about who is "right" or "more orthodox".  What is "righteous", however, must be at the heart of what we do know and how we practice our faith now.

Baptism is the mark of the New Covenant.  It is the initiation into the Holy Church.  Prior to the Reformation, its importance was without question and infant baptism by believing parents was not questioned.  Because the origins of immersion, sprinkling, or pouring - and the origins of infant baptism - are all rather obscure and because the Bible does not offer a "thou shalt" prescription of exactly how baptism is to be done or exactly when it must be done, it has over time become one of the biggest points of contention within the Church; the other, of course, being the Lord's Supper. 

Yet as I stated this morning, the integrity of infant baptism did not come to be seriously questioned until the emergence of the so-called "Radical Reformation" of the 16th century when the Anabaptists declared infant baptism to be invalid for this reason: a verbal profession of faith is a must and is obviously not possible with an infant.  They also held to a literal translation of Scripture which obviously does not specifically mention infant baptism.  This, incidentally, is the same Scripture that does not specifically mention "Christmas".  FYI.

Well, so be it.  These are our Baptist friends' ancestors.  What is laughable, however, not only with the Radicals but with the other Reformers as well is not that they challenged Roman orthodoxy and rigid dogma; what is ironic is that they replaced one rigid orthodoxy for another more to their liking and understanding.  And this would not be so bad in itself except for one thing: the former "heretics" soon declared others to be "heretics".  They were, to their way of thinking, the "new" (or recovered) orthodoxy. 

St. Paul asks, "Why do you judge your brother?  Why do you show contempt for your brother?  For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ ... So then each of us shall give account of himself to God.  Therefore let us resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother's way" (Romans 14:10-13). 

I suppose in some form or fashion, each of us is a heretic in our own right; none of us is completely "catholic" in the universal sense.  We have embraced for ourselves practices that we are most comfortable with, practices that fit well with what we think we know, practices that make us feel good about what we do, practices we have simply made up along the way.  And this sounds all well and good except for one thing: do ANY of these practices make us feel good about our Lord??  Or do we "do" because by "doing" we gain some sense of personal satisfaction or accomplishment from it?   

On the surface this does not sound so bad except for this other sticking point: there is no "universal" element to it.  What sounds good to one may not sound so good to another, but we tend to insist that our way or our understanding is ok so it must therefore BE ok.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  But if practices and beliefs cannot be universal by their nature, they cannot be Christian - or of Christ - because Christ died for ALL ... not some.  And if the traditions we embrace today cannot withstand the traditions of the historic Church, we must consider that we are becoming more "pharisaic" in our way of thinking by which we are inclined to attempt to "enforce" these redundancies.

The conflicts we endure to this day are nothing new.  As the writer of Ecclesiastes profoundly proclaims: "Is there anything of which it may be said, 'See, this is new?'  It has already been in ancient times before us."   

Let us stick to the Eternal Word, the Truth.  It has served us well in the past and will continue to serve us well into Eternity.