. . . and we are getting into fewer battles than in the old days. There’s less animosity on both sides.
Not to say that there’s none. . . . But less.
HERE’S AN INTERESTING ARTICLE ON THAT BY RICHARD OSTLING.
(CHT to the reader who e-mailed!)
One of the Catholic individuals interviewed for the article points out:
"The admiration for John Paul II is simply astounding given (evangelicals’) historic real hatred for the papacy," says William Shea of the College of the Holy Cross.
If anything, he thinks, Pope Benedict XVI is closer to the evangelicals’ outlook than John Paul II.
I think that’s right. In many important ways, B16 is even more where Evangelicals are at that JP2 was.
Unfortunately, that convergence of attitudes in some areas may make differences in others all the more sharply felt.
Er, the link needs to be fixed.
John Paul won over my Methodist father-in-law. While his church was giving in on every important issue, JPII was speaking boldly, defending the truth. On a related but somewhat different subject, I recently had a Catholic object when I used the term “evangelical Catholic” to refer to Catholics who are devout in their faith, going to daily Mass etc. He said that is was dangerous as the term may be confused to some to mean “Christian Evangelical” i.e. Billy Graham. Anyone else find this to be a problem?
I don’t find it to be a problem. That’s exactly what we are called to be.
Link fixed.
I’m not wild about the term. Although, I do like it better than “conservative” Catholic. However both terms seem to admit that there is more than one kind of Catholic. And that’s not a battle that I’m willing to give up on.
Still, distinctions do need to be made. I would use the terms orthodox Catholic and heterodox Catholic. It provides the distinction, but the definition of heterodox retains the fact that there is only one Catholic faith.
I would use the terms orthodox Catholic and heterodox Catholic
I’m personally fond of “homestyle Catholic” and “cafeteria Catholic,” depending on the context of use. 🙂
I am completely opposed to the misleading terms “conservative Catholic” and “liberal Catholic.”
I agree that I would prefer orthodox/heterodox over evangelical. I am a new Catholic, just received this Easter, coming out of an “evangelical” Methodist environment. It’s not that I disagree with evangelizing (we are called to that); however, my experience in evangelical circles has left a bad taste in my mouth. Bad experiences = bad word associations. Just call me an Orthodox Catholic!
How about just plain old Catholic. The orthodox is (should be) implied.
I think we should use Catholic and heterodox Catholic.
Come to think of it, we should really use Christian to denote our religion and Catholic to classify our Church.
I had to explain to my Brazilian Catholic friend that in the U.S., unlike his experience in Brazil, Christian typically means Protestant. How was this term co-opted?
Chris, I have no clue about “Christian” meaning protestant and not Catholic in common parlance. It just seems strange.
I don’t think that B16 being an Augustinian is going to cause problems. I’ve even seen confessional Lutherans who insist on believing that the Catholic Church teaches forgiveness of sins by earning it through good works, ecstatic at B16 becoming pope. They’d worked with him behind the scenes in the past on an ecumenism of orthodoxy. B16 -understands- orthodox Lutheranism, and apparently accepts as much of it as can be accepted by an orthdox Catholic.
Horton is Calvinist, and among them, a crank on the fringes, not liked by a number of other 5-point Calvinists for his manner. He can be safely ignored.
The commonality between evangelicals and Evangelicals with Catholicism is far greater than any party fully realizes, except the _First Things_ group. There are differences, and some of them are significant, but none of them are core to the Faith. My experience has been that I and other evangelicals (and now Evangelical) have felt -very- close to Catholics and the Catholic Church for a number of years, emotionally. And JPG, well, it was just so obvious to us that he was on earth what Catholics mean by saint, as well as what evangelicals mean by saint(sancto subito). And he didn’t hate us, he loved us. And he loved the Lord. And if you know evangelicals, you know that is what it takes to win our hearts.
To be sure, Pope John Paul II loved Evangelicals, as he loved all those who claimed the name of our Lord. He felt the burden of unity that was placed upon his office as the Universal Shepherd of the Church. We must, however, be very careful to realize that in saying that, he never for a moment believed that it didn’t matter if one was not in submission to the Church and the Bishop of Rome that our Lord Jesus Christ established. Weigel recounts a story when two Lutheran Bishops participated in a joint prayer service with Pope JP II. They asked him, “does this mean you accept our orders?” The Pope, without missing a beat, responded, “Do you accept my primacy?”
In what sense is Benedicit closer to evangelicals than JPII?
I had to explain to my Brazilian Catholic friend that in the U.S., unlike his experience in Brazil, Christian typically means Protestant. How was this term co-opted?
I don’t know all the factors in the co-opting, but in the not-too-distant past, some Catholic teachers in the U.S. decided that it would be a spiffy idea to train Catholic kids to shun the name “Christian.” I’ve met several older people, especially since I became Catholic, who’ve told me that “Sister So-And-So always told us, when asked whether we are Christians, to answer, ‘No, I’m a Catholic.’” The same people tend to use “Christian” and “Protestant” synonomously, no matter who they’re talking to.
This is, of course, the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Of course Catholics are Christians, and we should never feed the fires of anti-Catholicism by denying it. (And believe me, anti-Catholics love this sort of thing.) But someone once thought it was a good idea…. >:(