The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life
Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence–from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection (Modern Library Paperbacks)
Things I Have Learned: Chapel Talks
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking
January 31st, 2010
More Familiar than Funny
While the difference between mortal and venial sin seems obvious, don’t be fooled. There is more to this than meets the eye. What is really bad and what isn’t? And who decides?
Here is a routine situation that every Catholic of my generation had to deal with: You are at a baseball game at Yankee Stadium on a Friday night in June 1950. Catholics are forbidden to eat meat under penalty of mortal sin. But you want a hot dog. Now, just considering eating meat on Friday is a venial sin; wanting to is another. You have not moved in your seat and you have already sinned twice. What if you actually ate one? Aside from the risk of choking on forbidden food and getting punished right on the spot, have you committed a mortal sin or a venial sin? Well, if you think it’s mortal, it may be mortal; and if you think it’s venial, it still may be mortal. After much thought, you decide it’s venial. You call the hot dog vendor, you take the money out of your pocket, and you buy a hot dog. This is clearly an act of free will. You figure you can go confess your sin to the priest on Saturday night. But wait! Does a venial sin become mortal when you commit it deliberately? That’s a chance you take. What if you’ve forgotten it’s Friday? In that case, eating the hot dog may not be a sin, but forgetting it’s Friday is. What if you remember it’s Friday halfway through the hot dog? Is it a venial sin to finish it? If you throw it away, is wasting food a sin? Within five minutes you have committed enough sins to land you in purgatory for a million years. The safest thing to do is not to take any chances–stay away from Yankee Stadium on Fridays.
The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning
It might be funny if it didn’t sound so familiar.
I’ve taken my own sort of vow of poverty. I’ve participated in endless cumin-dividing discussions about the fine arts (as if “fine” had more to do with its size than character). I’ve “done devotions” with every sort of program, cutesy name, and innovative strategy since early elementary school. I’ve been lured to strive for that “higher life” monastic upper-class known in my world as “full-time Christian service.” I’ve endured endless preaching where justification by faith is just a brusque bro-hug that gets you in the sanctification-by-works club. And we think we’re so different from the “Romish” church?
The crazy-making internal conversation cum tailspin that Manning describes is the life of a fundamentalist. That’s it.
What stuns me is how we do it together.
Just like the Shakers. Really. The Shakers’ individual (tail)spinning and twitching developed over time (due to outside criticism) into a full-fledged communal performance. I look at that picture and imagine how easy it is to get swooped away into the spin. The individual must persist with the dance because well . . . people are watching, and it’d be a bad testimony for . . . the group. You wouldn’t want to be “ungracious.”
I got shoved out of the spin. But I’m not sitting in the crowd watching on the left either. I don’t know yet where I am, but I’m kind of amazed at how many people keep calling me back to the dance. Or back to the prison, as Steve Brown would say.
January 31st, 2010
MP Says :
You’re right on. I grew up a Catholic and my sojourn through fundamentalism was very like the Catholicism I thought I left. Catholics have the Pope; fundies have their all powerful pastors. Catholics admire their saints; fundies have their sold-out to Christ role models. Catholics have their sacraments; fundies have standards. Different terms and cultural baggage, but the bottom line is eerily the same – Work will set you free. Faith in Jesus gets you into the club, but staying there long term is up to you.
January 31st, 2010
eowyn_2 Says :
MP, your words are chilling. “Work will set you free”.
Arbeit macht frei.
January 31st, 2010
rylee95 Says :
I have told you before, I will tell you again. This is the book I want to write. I am continually amazed by thing things Roman Catholicism and Fundamentalism hold in common. How, at the end of the day, very, very similar they are.
February 1st, 2010
mark rosedale Says :
I had a conversation the other day with my wife along these lines. Only this was talking about a few friends we have in Boston. Both grew up in jewish families that sent their children to Hebrew school. One attends my church and is in our small group. Clearly a Christian. The other may or may not be a Christian, but the point is that both are no longer practicing Jews. It is amazing how their stories sound so familiar. Some of the rules they had to abide by sound off the wall…but then I think of some of the convoluted rules I had in the Fundy circles. It would seem that there is a lot in common amongst each of these religions, but in all the bad ways and for all the wrong reasons.
February 9th, 2010
lorinda Says :
My favorite definition of the similarity between the Catholic and Fundamental way is a friend of mine from my old church. She said one side of her family was Catholic and the other Fundy. One was “doing its way to heaven” and the other was “don’ting its way to heaven.”
March 10th, 2010
John Says :
My family and I spent this class Christmas in P-cola with my father, who is a proud ifb preacher. We were not looking forward to visiting his kjb church while in town, but I knew my father was wanting to show off his granddaughter to his church so I embraced Romans 14, prayed for grace, and bit the bullet. Sunday morning was bad enough, complete with the claim that Noah’s ark represents the rapture, but Sunday evening was a jaw dropping revelation. A visiting evangelist spoke on Sunday evening. My wife and I were stunned when he said, “Grace has to be earned.” and then went on to tell the congregation that if we are using I John 1:9 then we are doing something wrong. He said many other things and the main thrust of his sermon was that sanctification has to be earned. I grew up in the capital of crazy fundy land (Pensacola), but maybe I wasn’t listening during that time. I don’t remember a preacher being so honest about sanctification by works. The most startling revelation came when I realized that he sounded just like my Catholic friends when I discuss things like sanctification with them. All things being equal, I believe that if I had only two options for a church for my family to attend, Catholic or ifb, I’d have to choose the Catholic church. Thank God I will never have to make that choice.
Thank you for your blog. It has been a help and encouragement for me.