Broken Internal Thermostats

For the past two or three days, my husband and I have both been "under the weather". Whatever this illness is, it has us both alternating between feeling hot and cold. Neither of us is perfectly healthy, so there is no adult in the house who has a true sense of what the thermostat should be set on.

Old Thermostat
by Shari Weinsheimer
publicdomainpictures.net

One of us will turn on the heat (due to a case of the chills) and the other will come along and flip the thermostat to AC (because the house suddenly feels really hot). Then, our bodies will reset, and we'll each be dashing down the hallway to reverse our previous thermostat settings.

That is exactly how it is when Christians think they can go it alone, without Mother Church to set the standard.

If there is no deposit of the Faith, no true North Star, then we're all just out there deciding for ourselves what seems right. What is right to believe. What is right to do. What is right to teach others.

It is a recipe for chaos. The thermostat keeps getting changed. How are we saved? When are we saved? Can we lose salvation once we have it? If we are to go to the church with our disagreements and have those differences resolved by the church, what church should we go to? Some say one thing on the cultural issues of the day. Others say the complete opposite.

What if they are all suffering from a classic case of the flu? What if we can't really rely on anyone to KNOW anything for certain?

That third pillar of the Protestant Reformation - the one called personal interpretation - opens the gates and lets almost anything in.

Everyone puts complete trust in feelings. I think that verse means thus and so. You're crazy, it means this. And I can back it up. Look up this verse. See where it says this?

Right now, I feel chills. I need to turn on the heater. My husband thinks it's burning up in here. He's ready for the AC. Neither one of us is right.

The thermostat is set at 69 degrees. And we know, regardless of how it feels, that 69 degrees is just about perfect. We're the ones that are a little broken.

And that is how it is with the deposit of Faith.

Private interpretation cannot be trusted. The Church that is over 2000 years old can be trusted. The Church that goes back to Jesus and St. Peter and the Rock and the Keys - Her dial is set exactly right.

If something else seems to be the real deal, you might just have something out of whack with your personal thermostat.

There are over 33,000 denominations (and counting). They all teach something different even though Jesus said the Holy Spirit would lead the Church into perfect Truth.

What is your thermostat set on?

Mine is set on Mother Church.

Broken Internal Thermostats

Unity in the Magisterium - Part One

I must have been around four years old when I was first paraded in front of the church to sing with my sister. The song was “The B-I-B-L-E,” and I belted the words out with all the zeal I could muster. The B-I-B-L-E, yes that’s the book for me; I stand alone on the Word of God, the B-I-B-L-E!

I wasn’t sure what the words meant. Was I proclaiming that I would believe in the Bible even if I was completely alone in doing so? Or did it mean that I would believe only in the Bible and nothing else?

Years later, I realized that the song was proclaiming the second of these two possibilities, a little thing Protestant Reformers called Sola Scriptura. But as a small child, I just liked to sing about Jesus, and I had no idea the problems that existed in the theology of Sola Scriptura.

Then my dad switched denominations (Wesleyan to Presbyterian) and everything changed.

I think that is when I first realized that there are many interpretations of Holy Scripture and that just because it is the inspired Word of God, it doesn’t mean all Christians believe the same way. That is a perplexing thing. The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost to lead the Disciples into all Truth; so why didn’t we all believe the same thing? Truth isn’t just a matter of opinion. But some of the denominations had totally different ideas on when one should be baptized, how one is sanctified and justified before God, and if one can ever lose the gift of grace and mercy once he has it. The questions weren’t simply whether Eve ate an apple or pomegranate. These differences concerned key issues of life, death, and salvation.

To complicate matters further, it was about this same time that my cousins began receiving the charismatic Gifts of the Holy Spirit (they were Assembly of God), and neither the Wesleyans nor the Presbyterians talked about that at all. Obviously, there was a problem with “standing alone on the Word of God” because that’s exactly what everyone seemed to be doing. And nobody could agree on anything.

First and Second Peter talked about following sound doctrine. First John warned about being led astray. The Book of Jude said to beware of those who seek to divide. In First Corinthians, St. Paul reminded us to be perfectly united in mind and thought.

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how this was possible.

If all Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching as it said in Second Timothy, then we should all be teaching the same thing. And that’s just not what I saw happening. Furthermore, if there is a disagreement in the Body of Christ, the Bible says we are to take some of the elders with us to iron out the disagreement. Fine. But which elders? From which church?

Either Pontius Pilate was right when he said, what is truth? Or Truth is a constant. It can be taught. It can be trusted. It can settle quarrels rather than create them.

There was one more problem with “standing alone on the Word of God.” We live in a changing world. The Bible doesn’t directly address issues like abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, or human cloning. Where is the teaching voice that we can trust to interpret Scripture and guide us through the cultural changes? Who can help us to stand on the Word of God without having that same Word tear us apart? Who is the benefactress and keeper of Truth? Yes, the Holy Spirit leads us into all Truth, but which voice speaks for the Holy Spirit on issues that divide? Private inspiration had not inspired unity. It had inspired over 30,000 different denominations.

The Church had always been the pillar and foundation of Truth - not the Bible. And those were the words of Holy Scripture (Timothy 3:15-16). The Church, not the Bible alone.

Part Two in tomorrow's blog

(article by Denise Bossert first published by One Bread Lay Apostolate at http://www.1bread.catholic.org/)

Unity in the Magisterium - Part One