Some years ago I wrote a piece for First Things entitled “The Calvary Option.” It took its cue from the 2014 movie Calvary, which followed the last seven days in the life of a priest who knew that someone was planning to kill him. The killer wanted to do so as revenge for sexual abuse he had suffered as a child at the hands of the clergy. The twist was that he chose his victim because he was a good priest. He had not abused anybody. Once the priest knew he was the target, he faced a choice: flee, or stay and be a good pastor to his parishioners, many of whom despised him. He chose to stay and fulfill his obligations, and in the end he was killed for it. I commented at the time that one might also call this “the traditional pastoral work in an ordinary congregation option.”
I wrote the piece when Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option was the talk of the town. At that time, the big threat to the faith was the emerging pressure on religious freedom, focused then on the issue of gay marriage. The threat to religious liberty remains and has indeed expanded, but a new one has also emerged: the temptation to combat this by fusing Christianity with worldly forms of power and worldly ways of achieving the same. For want of a better term, it’s a kind of pop Nietzscheanism that uses the idioms of Christianity. It’s understandable why such a thing has emerged. Many Christians think America has been stolen from them. And the path to political power today is littered with crudity, verbal thuggery, and, whatever the policies at stake, the destruction of any given opponent’s character. While the left may pose an obvious threat, there is also a more subtle danger in succumbing to the rules of the political game as currently played by both sides. And the internet doesn’t help. All ideas—however silly, insane, or plain evil—can seem rational and workable in the frictionless kindergartens of social media bubbles. In the real world, things can be just a bit more complicated.
Carl Trueman | “How Pop Nietzscheanism Masquerades As Christianity” | May 16, 2024
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With all due respect to Mr. Trueman, he recently dropped the ball over at First Things, a RC website, when he failed to clarify that he(?) was not a roman catholic, because he was first of all, a reformed catholic.
That Rome’s little papa more resembles a liberal Protestant in a white robe for Mr. Trueman, is irrelevant to the real question. First things first. Forget about whatever a Reformed Presbyterian confession like the 1648 Westminster in Chapt. 25:6 might say, “Pope” Gregory (590-604 AD) has already told us:
There is both the danger without, rampant paganism etc. and the danger within, the temptation of the church to compromise with worldly political methods, as above.
If not also the temptation of compromise with the deformed Roman church, from which the bride of Christ at the Reformation seceded in principle and practice – if she was not first excommunicated/persecuted unto death – in returning to Scriptural doctrine, worship and government
Which is to say Protestants sin if they are separate from Rome, if she is a true church that preaches the gospel. If.
If not, Gal. 1:8,9 applies:
Bob,
There can be more than one question before us simultaneously. I agree that the papacy is antichrist but that doesn’t prevent me from also trying to understand the current occupant of the office.
But then what is the chief question, Scott?
If I may be excused, I think it more on the order of what is the true gospel, who is Christ?
It is one thing to be respectful of your audience which is what Carl purports to do; another entirely to duck the real question. Roman catholicism, for all its pomp, circumstance, wealth and influence has apostasized from the reformed catholic church and truth. No more, no less.
Thank you.
Bob,
Justification is the chief question but there are subsidiary questions.
I’m no apologist for Rome but, with the Reformed churches since the Reformation, we do still recognize Rome as some kind of church. None of the Protestants were re-baptized. We recognize her doctrine of the Trinity.
Is it your position that anyone a Reformed Christian writes on Rome that he must mention the article of the standing or falling of the church?
Scott,
No, but the original question from Roman Catholics is, ‘Why aren’t you a (Roman) Catholic?’
The straight forward answer as a reformed protestant is: “Because I am a reformed catholic”.
IOW, if I may again be excused, this is elementary. Whatever you do, you never buy into your opponents presuppositions or let them set the terms of the debate/define the question per se. To do so is to compromise; to sell out whether one intended to do that or not.
I get liberalism, paganism et al are a real problem. But let’s not get lost in the weeds when talking to co-belligerents.
Absolutely spot on–And so refreshing to read a well written essay!–Thank you! Very clean, succinct sentences and ideas all supporting the one excellent point: The ordinary nature (particular qualities) of the Christian Ministry in the face of a deceitful world.