…not policing the behavior of other people who find it impossible to believe the gospel because we Christians are controlling jerks.
Here is an all-too-typical sample of culture war junk:
Um, two things:
First, the hyper-focus on pelvic issues is very characteristic of conservative Christians who are big on the speck in the eyes of others, and use this strategy to avoid facing their own grave sins with respect to Mammon, power, and a host of other matters.
Second, the one exception to the Pelvic Hyper-Focus–the accusation the veneration is “idolatry”–is a Fundamentalist Protestant anti-Catholic slam making clear that the author of the meme thinks veneration of the saints makes Catholics (and all members of any apostolic communion) guilty of the grave sin of idolatry.
That said, I’ve seen Catholics post this meme with enthusiastic support, apparently unaware of either the truncated moral vision it betrays or the nasty anti-Catholic fundamentalism embedded in it–all because it passionately points fingers at what they assume to be the immorality of their godless neighbors. The thought that we are to focus on the log in our own eye seems to seldom cross the minds of this sort of Tough Talker. It’s all about denouncing a very specific class of Others while posing as “prophetic”.
Controlling the behavior of other people is not the gospel. It’s tyranny.
Jewish culture has the very sensible idea of not being a shanda fur die goyim, a “shame before the nations”. You can see the concept assumed by the rabbi Paul when he quotes the Old Testament complaint to Israel “God’s Name is blasphemed before the Gentiles because of you” (Romans 2:24). The idea is simply that small, frequently scapegoated communities should do everything they can not to give those around them an excuse to denounce them for being morally corrupt, both because it’s the right thing to do and because the whole community suffers when sinners in the community give scandal.
There is a certain quality of military unit cohesion to this deeply communitarian way of seeiing our life together and Paul (and the other apostles) simply take that conception over wholessale from their Jewish culture and apply it to the Church for exactly the same reason as the Jews: they are a tiny minority living in a world that regards them with suspicion and fear. So Paul has no more problem than any other rabbi would have in telling his fellow Christians not to give scandal and to control themselves. But he thinks it is lunacy for the Christian community to take it upon themselves to police the behavior of outsiders, in no small part because without faith in Jesus as Lord, there is neither the motivation or the power to live in the self-sacrificial way Christ demands. So to the chaotic and scandalous Corinthians, he will write and tell them to get their own house in order. But it never occurs to him to tell the Corinthians Church to go around bossing unbelievers about their lives:
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with immoral men; not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But rather I wrote to you not to associate with any one who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the Church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside.(1 Co 5:9–13)
These days, unfortunately, many Christians believe it is their primary job, not to control themselves, but people who do not believe in Christ and who therefore cannot for the life of them see why they should do what he or the Church say. This attempt to enforce Christian morals (or, more precisely, those fragments of Christian morals useful for Republican acquisition of raw, nihilist, dominating power over a subject population is the diametrical opposite of everything Paul had to say. Paul preached a gospel of grace, love, and freedom and absolutely insisted by salvation by law, force, fear, blood, and iron was impossible. The MAGA antichrist cult is the attempt to use law, force, fear, blood and iron to make the allegedly godless “Them” knuckle under while relieving the allegedly godly Us of having to give a shit about anybody but ourselves and that tine minority of people who are extensions of our egos.
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10 Responses
I’ve noticed how right wing Catholics seem to dwell on other people’s sexual sins. Sex, sex,sex, that’s all there is to morality for them. Their worship of money does not appear to register as any kind of sin. The religious right is infested with these people and the Republicans cater to them. The unholy alliance of the Catholic Right and Evangelicals is a malignant tumor on our nation.
Note: I’m not American, so my experience may be different from yours.
I identified as a conservative for most of my life, feeling it best incorporates Christian values and being fully? most? best? compatible with Christianity.
It took me a while until I realized that where conservatism is at odds with Christianity, and especially with Catholicism, it’s not because it struggles with accepting Christian truths and values, but because its goal was always preserving the power of the establishment and upholding Christianity is, or was, only a means to that end in that it produced a docile flock that accepted the established balance of power.
Considering it’s merely an ideology, a human construct, it’s incapable of being infallible, or even correct most of the time.
All that doesn’t mean that any other ideology is superior just by virtue of being not conservatism and especially not by being uncreatively and mindlessly anti-conservative.
Conservative and Right Wing are not the same. Neo Nazis, the Proud Boys, etc are not conservatives. They are right wing fanatics. Ditto for Catholicism. Opus Dei, Legionaires,etc are not conservative, they are right wing. We have misidentified Fascists as conservatives. It’s time we called them out.
The irony is that the right wing religious scolds who obsess about everyone else’s sexual sins are usually carrying on in ways that would make Caligula blush!
@Will
Opus Dei was considered scandalous in a progressive way when St. Josemaria founded it. He despised clericalism. His call to sanctity through our work butted up against a corrosive Spanish mindset back then–that to be noble meant you shouldn’t get your hands dirty with work. (The King of Spain literally had to write an official edict that “noble” Spaniards could physically work on their haciendas in the Americas.) The call to sanctify ourselves through our work remains as important as it always has been.
Opus Dei has certainly had growing pains. They deserve to be sued for not paying their female members who performed the dirty work in their centers. They deserve to be called out for making the housework only women’s work. There is a list of old problems that might have been considered permissible/normal for the day when it was founded.
I’m told that the alignment with the right is a particular problem in the U.S., but not everywhere. I don’t know but I think they got a slap by Pope Francis to wake them up and move things forward. The Legion of Christ was certainly a wake up call to the dangers of the cult of personality–but to compare Opus Dei with The L of C, is a gigantic leap. Maciel was a fraud through and through. He probably lifted his playbook from O.D. just like he plagiarized his “autobiography”. –But *monumentally* the biggest scandal of all was how long he got away with it, even with priests reporting to the Vatican that they were molested by him–and the characters in the Vatican who protected him. Maciel was straight up evil.
I am absolutely disgusted by some prominent Americans who give Opus Dei a bad name. At least Bill Barr finally called Trump out as a menace to Democracy, and a tyrant. I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for some of the other prominent members to repent. Sadly, it’s proof that their spiritual advisors have been corrupted by U.S.politics.
The most upsetting thing to me is that these right wing Catholics think that they, and only they, speak for God. Really? Maciel spoke for God?
I’m pretty sure that Maciel knew he wasn’t speaking for God.
Right wingers care about control and money even if they don’t want to admit it.
I love the “Prosperity Gospel.” Yes, Jesus wants you to have that new Mercedes. It’s in the Gospel…Luke, perhaps?
The prosperity gospel is something I really, really want, but…
“Lord, won’t You buy me a Mercedes-Benz!” – Gospel according to Janis Joplin. I must confess I love that song!