i. Believe or perish

In every religious discussion I can remember having with Christians professing views contrary to mine, the inevitable question they end up asking is: "Well, so what do you believe?" It is a question I have never answered to my own satisfaction, let alone anyone else's. Deep down it may be that I don't want to deal with the charge that I am not a Christian after all. Maybe I can't face the condemnation of those who would accuse me of hypocrisy. I tend to dismiss the problem by telling myself l would need much longer to give an answer than any questioner would allow. Trying to articulate what I believe would achieve nothing, maybe even cloud the issues under discussion and certainly would prompt challengers to the usual emotional outbursts that focus on my questionable character rather than my argument, or so I console myself. These excuses served me well over the years until I began to recognize them for what they were. Then the only comfort I had was the firm knowledge I was not alone in nurturing evasions. With some statistics showing Catholic Church attendance standing at about thirty five percent in the so-called “Christian” United States (much lower in England and Europe), and with others indicating that only thirty percent of 18 to 44 year old attendees believe in the “real presence” at communion time, there must be millions out there with grave doubts about what it means to be a Catholic. For my part the time has come to put some of the issues I have struggled with, on the table for general discussion. I hope that readers will forgive my jumping the queue to speak.

Even so, I do not know whether it is possible for anyone to answer the question, “What do you believe?” except in some formulaic phrase such as the Bible-believers trot out: "Jesus Christ and Him crucified." In an age of short attention spans and constricted time frames between commercials, this truncated answer has its appeal; but what does it mean?
Does any of us relish serious examination of a position held dear for many years, maybe since childhood? If ever we allow ourselves to be drawn into searching discussion of Truths held dear from our youth, how much time do we spend defending our point of view and how much considering opposing views? And in our quiet moments afterwards, do we forget quickly those contrary views we were not able to refute lest they prompt us to reflect on, maybe even question those entrenched positions? We postpone critical thought about core beliefs because we know that confronting them will put our mental balance to the test, or worse, risk looking over the edge of our comfort zone into a void below. Taken to its logical conclusion "Know thyself" becomes a counsel of despair. Hope resides only in ignorance.

Christianity was born in ignorance and obscurity. From the start it was a second-hand religion made in the image and likeness of disciple rather than founder, and dependant for its veracity on the integrity of early communities of believers in passing on "the faith" to later ones. Throughout two thousand years this process resulted in much pain and strife because Christian communities from the beginning were not created equal. The Ebionites, Donatists, Marcionites, Arians, Manicheans, Cathars and many other Christian sects all perished, or were eliminated, in Christianity's long march to Rome, that is, until the sixteenth century when the Lutheran Reformation put a fork in the road.

Why should we settle for either route? Could it be that we need a dirt-bike into the mountains to discover intellectual maturity? Soon we begin thinking critically about the messenger and the message becomes questionable. Then we are traveling in circles, with the only way out being to detach the message from its human source, or as happened after the Reformation, to reconstitute the source in superhuman terms. For the newly minted "Protestants" this meant elevating the Scriptures to almost divine status; for Catholics behind the barricades it meant ennobling the hierarchy, making indelible the great divide separating the "teaching office" from the masses. The latter process began to take shape around the beginning of the eighteenth century, and culminated in the nineteenth with authority residing in the "magisterium" and eventually the papacy, to a level not far below divine status. For Protestants the process was a drift towards Bibliolatry, for Catholics Papal infallibility. In both camps questioning the source of “truth” was anathema.

Christians of the Evangelical and Pentecostal persuasions prize among all biblical passages the few that support the doctrine of salvation through faith alone. Paul's letters occupy the front pews, the synoptic Gospels the loft, while the Book of James is ushered out the back door. In Canada these communities are largely white, Anglo Saxon, and middle class. In the United States they are more diverse - with Hispanics and African-Americans making their presence felt in otherwise white congregations in the North, while in the South many traditional Bible-Belt communities are still effectively segregated by skin color. Sentimental formulations abound in speech and song; haranguing by book waving preachers takes centre stage at worship services; emphasis is on personal rather than social perspectives; "sharing" by the former unwashed adds flavor to introspection. We are in the company of the saved.

In the Catholic "tradition" Christianity can be expounded only by party bosses and those schooled in the party-line. The invitation is "Come and listen to Father X who has a doctorate in Augustinian theology. You will learn something!" Learning is after all a top-down transmission of information, the more esoteric the better. Father X's mission is to enlighten his hearers about "What the Church teaches," not to listen to them, certainly not to involve them in intelligent dialogue. The idea that the "laity" may have anything to say which would remotely enlighten the hierarchy he represents is unthinkable. We are in the company of the saviors.

Dissent and live?

I regard myself as a member of the Catholic Church but accept only what I have examined and find "truing.” I reserve the right to question, look askance at, or reject out of hand what I am not comfortable with, or what lacks credibility. Not to be true to my own considered beliefs would be to crawl back into the shell of childhood. This does not mean that I reject all clerical formulations out of hand. The teaching role of the hierarchy is important to the survival of Christian values (if Protestant churches demur it is because they prefer the fiction of "the Bible personally interpreted" as their own version of the magisterium). But this does not mean that Church teaching should emanate from only one "class" of Catholic. In a matter as important as my own salvation I cannot give anyone a blank check for him or her to draw on my account. The whole idea of one per cent relegating to themselves a God�given right to determine for the other ninety nine what Catholic values are, indeed to adjudicate who is, and who is not, a Catholic is preposterous. The slight of hand with which irreconcilable postulates coexist together and, for many, seem reasonable is the product of centuries of manipulation by those who preside over us for our own good.

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