Reporter Digs, But Not Deep Enough

CHT to the reader who e-mailed THIS STORY.

It’s a piece written by Mollie Ziegler Hemmingway, who is a reporter in Washington, DC and a blogger at GetReligion.Org, which deals with the fact that–as their slugline says–"The press . . . just doesn’t get religion."

That’s certainly true, and I wish them the best in their efforts to comment on and correct news stories that don’t handle the subject of religion accurately, but the post linked above itself needs some correction.

In the post, Mollie discusses a story about a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran candidate for public office from Minnesota who lefty bloggers have gone after on the basis of her religion. It’s a divide and conquer strategy: The bloggers point out that the confessional documents of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) refer to the pope as the antichrist and then they try to drive Catholic voters (and other voters who like the pope) away from the candidate by painting her as an extremeist.

When asked by a radio interviewer whether her church teaches that the pope is the antichrist, the candidate denied it and said that some of her family members are Catholic.

I have a lot of sympathy for the candidate. In fact, the WELS’ confessional documents do indeed describe the pope as the antichrist, but this is something that a lot of WELS members don’t know, it doesn’t reflect their own views, it doesn’t stop them from having good relations with Catholics, and it is unfair to try to paint the candidate as an extremist in this way.

So sympathy there.

In her post, Mollie covers a story from the infamous Minneapolis Star-Tribune that covers the controversy and compliments the reporter for going beyond simply what the candidate said and checking with other sources rather than relying on the candidate’s statement. Unfortunately, the reporter only quotes from a minister at a WELS church who–at least as quoted–admits that Luther viewed the papacy as the antichrist but seemed to spin what the WELS confessional documents actually say, downplaying this view somewhat.

It is praiseworthy that the reporter asked other sources, but this guy wasn’t necessarily the best one. Simply Googling "WELS lutheran antichrist" turns up a WELS doctrinal statement on the official WELS web site that is titled Statement on the Antichrist. After reviewing the history of the Lutheran doctrine regarding the antichrist, the statement concludes:

Therefore on the basis of a renewed study of the pertinent Scriptures we reaffirm the statement of the Lutheran Confessions, that “the Pope is the very Antichrist” (cf. Section II), especially since he anathematizes the doctrine of the justification by faith alone and sets himself up as the infallible head of the Church.

We thereby affirm that we identify this “Antichrist” with the Papacy as it is known to us today, which shall, as 2 Thessalonians 2:8 states, continue to the end of time, whatever form or guise it may take. This neither means nor implies a blanket condemnation of all members of the Roman Catholic Church, for despite all the errors taught in that church the Word of God is still heard there, and that Word is an effectual Word. Isa 55:10, 11; cf. Apology XXIV, 98, cited above under II.

We make this confession in the confidence of faith. The Antichrist cannot deceive us if we remain under the revelation given us in the Apostolic word (2 Th 2:13-17), for in God’s gracious governance of history the Antichrist can deceive only those who “refused to love the truth” (2 Th 2:10-12).

And we make this confession in the confidence of hope. The Antichrist shall not destroy us but shall himself be destroyed—“Whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming” (2 Th 2:8).

We reject the idea that the fulfillment of this prophecy is to be sought in the workings of any merely secular political power (2 Th 2:4; cf. Treatise on the Power and the Primacy of the Pope 39).

We reject the idea that the teaching that the Papacy is the Antichrist rests on a merely human interpretation of history or is an open question. We hold rather that this teaching rests on the revelation of God in Scripture which finds its fulfillment in history. The Holy Spirit reveals this fulfillment to the eyes of faith (cf. The Abiding Word, Vol. 2, p. 764). Since Scripture teaches that the Antichrist would be revealed and gives the marks by which the Antichrist is to be recognized (2 Th 2:6,8), and since this prophecy has been clearly fulfilled in the history and development of the Roman Papacy, it is Scripture which reveals that the Papacy is the Antichrist.

What the Strib reporter should have done was check the WELS official doctrinal statements and then ask a representative of the church (preferably at its home office) for comment.

Unfortunately, what Mollie does in her commentary on the story is even worse than what the reporter from the Strib does. Essentially, she tries a tu quoque (Latin, meaning roughly "You’re another" or "You’re no better") strategy that seeks to make Catholics look like extremists–at least to the extent they adhere to their own confessional documents.

Here’s what she says:

But if reporter Pamela Miller is going to turn this political season
into a referendum on religious doctrines, I wonder how far she’ll take
it. Is she covering any Roman Catholic candidates? What do Roman
Catholics believe about Lutherans? It just so happens that we covered
this in my church this week when my pastor read declarations of the Council of Trent (the Roman Catholic response to the Reformation), it being Reformation Day and all. Here are a few of that council’s statements:

Canon 9: If anyone says that the sinner is justified by
faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in
order to obtain the grace of justification . . . let him be anathema.

Canon 32: If anyone says that the good works of the one justified
are in such manner the gifts of God that they are not also the good
merits of him justified; or that the one justified by the good works
that he performs . . . does not truly merit . . . eternal life . . .
let him be anathema.

In other words, if anyone is Lutheran, let him be cursed and damned to hell. The church councils haven’t exactly backtracked on those views.

I can compliment Mollie for not sticking with simply what the Strib reporter did and checking sources, but the thing about tu quoque approaches is that they (a) often distract rather than enlighten and (b) you’d jolly well better be right in what you say.

It’s generally not a good idea to take things that you only just heard about from your pastor when he was criticizing other people and rush into print with them. At a minimum, and as a reporter should know, you need to check with the people in question to find out if what your pastor said accurately represents their position.

What Mollie says about Catholics is flat wrong.

The Church does not say that "if anyone is a Lutheran, let him be cursed and damned to hell." That is not the meaning of the term "anathema" as used by Trent, the mighty Dictionary.Com notwithstanding.

In fact, Mollie hasn’t even read the Dictionary.Com references with sufficient thoroughness, because some of them actually get the definition of anathema in ecclesiastical documents almost right, viz:

3.a formal ecclesiastical curse involving excommunication.
1. A formal ecclesiastical ban, curse, or excommunication.
2: a formal ecclesiastical curse accompanied by excommunication

In fact, anathema was a kind of canonical penalty involving excommunication that used to be found in Church law that could be imposed for various offenses, including certain doctrinal ones. It did not take place automatically but had to be imposed by an ecclesiastical court and, since Church tribunals have better things to do than millions of trials for purposes of excommunicating every Lutheran in the world, it was never applied to more than a handful of individuals. It tended to be applied–and then rarely–only to people who made a pretense of staying within the Catholic community.

Excommunication also does not damn people to hell–it’s an equivalent of disfellowshipping (cf. Matt. 18:17, 1 Cor. 5:1-2) meant to prompt the sinner to repentance (2 Cor. 2:5-8).

Further, anathema no longer exists in Church law. It ceased to exist with the release of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

How Mollie could feel so confident as to make the sweeping statement "The church councils haven’t exactly backtracked on those views [i.e., that Lutherans are or are to be damned to hell]" is simply mind boggling.

Hello? Vatican II anybody? The Church has never taught that all Lutherans are going to hell, but even apart from that the positive tone taken by Vatican II toward other Christians should give Mollie pause.

Or perhaps she means that the Church has not backtracked on the canons of Trent, which she has misinterpreted as condeming all Lutherans to hell. It’s true that the Church hasn’t backtracked on the doctrinal content of the canons (properly understood), but it has clarified their understanding in a way that definitely casts matters in a very different light than the one Mollie presents us.

Mollie herself is a member of the Missouri Synod Lutheran church, and that body is not a signatory of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification that I just linked, but it is simple misrepresentation to present the Catholic Church as holding remotely what Mollie presents it as holding regarding Lutherans

In other words, Mollie is flat wrong, and as a reporter–particularly one with an interest in correcting bad press coverage of religion–she should have known better than to try a tu quoque strategy against Catholics based on what her pastor said and what she chose to get out of definitions found on Dictionary.Com and then make sweeping statements that act like the last four hundred years of conciliar and canonical history didn’t happen.

Most bloggers, when caught in an error of this magnitude, are quick to make a correction, and I hope that Mollie will make one and do so–in keeping with the best journalistic practice–giving the correction equal prominence  with the original mistake (i.e., a new blog post) so that her readers will not continue to be misled.

I’m writing this on Saturday, so by the time this post goes up Monday she may have already done so. I know it’s been pointed out in the combox of her post that she is wrong about these matters, though I can’t fault her if she doesn’t keep up with everything said in her combox.

If she has not done so, I hope that she will display the journalistic and blogger integrity that I am confident she has and issue a correction post promptly.

I’d also invite her–if she has questions in the future about what Catholics do and don’t believe–to contact me and I’ll point her toward the right sources.

MORE ON ANATHEMAS HERE.