On unity, Cyprian, lapsed, penance, persecution, and Chesterton
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:date: 2016-03-21T18:05:01
:category: faith
:tags: theology, Catholics, blogComment, ecumenism, forgiveness, persecution

(linked on A History of Christian Theology `Facebook page`_)

I have just finished backlistening to whole podcast `A History of
Christian Theology`_ and I really liked it. However, the last
episode_ on the Saint Cyprian hit couple of pet peeves of mine, so
I feel I really need to respond.

Yes, I know, G. K. Chesterton is not “a serious theologian”,
but I have to admit some of his insights made bigger impact on my
religious life than most serious theologians. So, one example for
many is a short story about the Father Brown “`The chief
mourner of Marne`_”, where the spectators first accuse Father
Brown of cruelty for pushing somebody into desperation for the
sin he committed, and later (when truly ugly character of the
crime is revealed) they completely reject him. Father Brown then
explains they were not merciful on the criminal out of their
mercy but because they did not consider his behavior to be really
bad. However, now when they do consider his behavior bad, they
have no mercy for him. The point is that the true mercy starts
with accepting the sin. Forgive me if I indulge myself with too
long quotation from the story:

    “[…] that is the real difference between human charity
    and Christian charity. You must forgive me if I was not
    altogether crushed by your contempt for my uncharitableness
    to- day; or by the lectures you read me about pardon for
    every sinner. For it seems to me that you only pardon the
    sins that you don't really think sinful. You only forgive
    criminals when they commit what you don't regard as crimes,
    but rather as conventions. So you tolerate a conventional
    duel, just as you tolerate a conventional divorce. You
    forgive because there isn't anything to be forgiven.”

    “But, hang it all,” cried Mallow, “you don't expect us
    to be able to pardon a vile thing like this?”

    “No,” said the priest; “but we have to be able to
    pardon it.”

    He stood up abruptly and looked round at them.

    “We have to touch such men, not with a bargepole, but with
    a benediction,” he said. “We have to say the word that
    will save them from hell. We alone are left to deliver them
    from despair when your human charity deserts them. Go on your
    own primrose path pardoning all your favourite vices and
    being generous to your fashionable crimes; and leave us in
    the darkness, vampires of the night, to console those who
    really need consolation; who do things really indefensible,
    things that neither the world nor they themselves can defend;
    and none but a priest will pardon. Leave us with the men who
    commit the mean and revolting and real crimes; mean as St.
    Peter when the cock crew, and yet the dawn came.”

I am afraid most American Protestants have no personal experience 
with the true old fashioned betrayal, with Christians denying 
their Christ. The worst which could happen in America today for 
a Christian revealing himself is that he will be perhaps 
somewhere considered a fool, and even that most people will not 
dare to reveal to his face out of politeness. I was born 1971 in 
then socialist Czechoslovakia. No, I haven’t been a Christian 
until the fall of the Communism in 1989 (in 1991, to be exact), 
but I remember clearly the situation when the betrayal was 
obviously the most rational solution and faithfulness to 
principles hopelessly idealistic. What I want to say is that 
betrayal in persecution is a big deal, and it should not be 
treated lightly.  I would certainly not agree with Novatianists 
(or Donatists), because every personal history is specific and 
needs to be considered in its own context, and certainly 
everybody should have some path back to the full membership, but 
that path should not necessarily be easy. And yes, insufficient 
dealing with failures of Christians under the Communism is 
probably one of the roots of the unfortunate state of the Central 
and East European Church right now.

There was another art work which I was thinking about when 
listening to the podcast. Talking about the socialist 
Czechoslovakia, one of the most unexpected movies I was able to 
see in the cinemas there was “`The Mission`_”. I still cannot 
understand how it was possible that our censors let this 
obviously religious movie to be permitted to run in our cinemas 
(perhaps for displaying terrible fate of poor Indians?) and 
I still consider it to be one of the best movies I have ever 
seen.  Particularly for this episode of podcast I was thinking 
about the person of Rodrigo Mendoza. Former mercenary and slave 
catcher, kills out of jealousy his younger brother, and is 
completely crippled by the guilt of it. Legally he is innocent 
(it was a duel), but he ends half-crazy as a prisoner in 
a monastery. The main person of the movie, Father Gabriel, leads 
him to repentance and to Christ, but (with his approval) gives 
him horrendously heavy penance. I remember when I viewed the 
movie again, then already as a young passionate freshly converted 
Protestant, I was appalled by the penance and was thinking how 
the God’s mercy is and must be free-only. I believe, I was wrong. 
Of course, God’s forgiveness is always free and only “to the one 
who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly” is 
their faith credited as righteousness (Romans 4:5 NIV). However, 
it is now obvious to me that for psychological reasons penance 
could be really helpful (not mentioning James 5:16 which seems to 
be constantly ignored by most sola Scriptura Protestants).

The last thought is on denominations. Obviously I do not have 
a good solution, but just let me note that one of the biggest 
problems of ecumenism is IMHO that there is also hopelessly 
little on the defining ideal solution. I guess not many 
Christians (aside from the fringe extremists of particular 
denominations and Eastern Orthodox) expect the solution would be 
that everybody discarded their own denomination and finally join 
the one truly holy denomination (of whatever kind). So, what 
remains? “You’ll worship the Virgin Mary a bit and we give up the 
infallibility of pope”? Or what? It seems to me that the only way 
how to get ahead is to accept a plurality of denominations. First 
of all we can start with an observation that there was not an 
unified Church (either organizationally or ideologically) since 
1. Corinthians 1:22. What followed since then (Jewish, Greek, 
Irish, Roman etc. traditions, Church of the East all the way to 
`the Nestorian Stele`_) seems to me like impossible to be 
described as an organizationally or ideologically unified body by 
any means. Perhaps if we accept plurality and idea that there are 
some things which we just has not find an agreement yet (e.g., 
padeobaptism), we may start to make some progress.  And no, 
I don’t like those 300 Baptist denominations either, or perhaps 
even `45,000`_ denominations in total. The ideal number is quite 
certainly lower than that, but I do not think it is one.

.. _`Facebook page`:
    https://www.facebook.com/ahistoryofchristiantheology/

.. _`A History of Christian Theology`:
    http://ahistoryofchristiantheology.com/

.. _episode:
    https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ahistoryofchristiantheology/episodes/2016-03-14T12_03_19-07_00

.. _`The chief mourner of Marne`:
    http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0201041h.html#story9

.. _`The Mission`:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mission_%281986_film%29

.. _`the Nestorian Stele`:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestorian_Stele

.. _`45,000`:
    http://www.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/research/documents/1IBMR2015.pdf