I’ve lost something today, and I don’t know if it’s coming back
…so says the internetmonk http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/a-better-writer-gets-a-turn after an unfortunate exchange (unfortunate for Michael, that is) with Carl Olson at the Ignatius Insight http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/. I have read all the posts and all the comments on both sides of the issue of the reasons Michael Spencer chooses not to be a Catholic. The confusion seems to be centered upon the audience that Michael was addressing. A comment at Ignatius by someone calling themselves voiceovers wrote:
It’s just that I’m a bit stumped. I don’t believe Michael Spencer posted his issues with Catholic theology on his blog to be corrected by anyone, whether it be by you or by some of your more vitriolic respondents. I believe he posted those issues as musings to help Protestants more willingly embrace Roman Catholics as bretheren and, perhaps more importantly, to provoke Protestants to think outside their box.
The fact that you felt the need correct his theology, simply suggests to me that you’d rather be right than relational.
So, the point I think you’re missing is, I believe, a relatively simple one. If I held up the contents of this page as a way of attempting to reflect the nature of Christ as found in the Gospels, how much do you think I’d find? As John Wesley once wrote to a Roman Catholic brother, “… if we cannot as yet think alike in all things, at least we may love alike. Herein we cannot possibly do amiss.”
St Paul was letter perfect in his understanding of the Law as a Pharisee, yet did not love the ones whom Christ loved. It’s interesting to me that he needed to be blinded in order to see.
Forgive my arrogance in desiring to find some common ground in the love of Christ, but I think I’d rather be relational than just plain right Carl.
What about you?
Carl’s response gets, I believe, to the crux of the matter:
Is it better to be right with men, or to be right with God? And, at risk of repetition, can we be truly relational–that is, sharing the truth–if we are not right in how we relate? I can appreciate that Michael was trying to help other Protestants understand Catholicism better, but at the same time I can also point out that his understanding of Catholicism was not entirely right, thus hindering relationships. I would go so far as to argue that true theology seeks to be both right with God and relational with God, because it seeks right relationship. And that can only come through God’s grace and a willingness on our part to change our hearts and minds about whatever is lacking, incorrect, or incomplete in our acting, thinking, and living.
How is it that Michael’s comments will necessarily “provoke Protestants to think outside their box,” but that my comments, which sought to convey truth about essential Catholic beliefs, cannot? Some of the comments on this post show that my remarks did help some Protestants better appreciate Catholic teaching. If that was the goal, how is that a bad thing?
Finally, Michael made mention of his attraction to “constant reformation, listening, digging, discussing and savoring the Bible” and that he has an aversion to Catholic circles where, he stated, “debates and arguments are almost unheard of.” Yet, ironically, when I listened to what he had said, dug into it a bit, and discussed it–as well as debated and argued with it–he and many others took it badly. He is incorrect in his assessment of the amount of debate and argument that takes place among Catholics; we argue about nearly everything! And one reason we can do so, I believe, is because we tend to take seriously both relationships and being right, knowing that each needs the other.
It is very important to remember that a blog is intentionally accessible to the general public, be they Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Moslems, pagans etc. If Michael’s intentional audience was exclusively his fellow Evangelicals than it would, in retrospect, have been better for him to address this issue in a different forum. Carl, or any Catholic for that matter, has the right to correct Michael’s errors about Catholicism just as Michael saw it as being his right to critique Catholicism. As someone who has been in the position of regretting comments that were later misunderstood and then being visiously attacked for making them I can certainly sympathize with Michael Spencer. However, that is not what Carl Olson did. Carl reasoned with Michael in a logical, informed, respectful and dispassionate way. What I believe dismayed Michael Spencer is that Carl was confidently convincing in his defense of Catholic teaching and that it certainly took the wind out of Michael’s sails and, in a sense, seems to have crushed him…
I’ve lost something today, and I don’t know if it’s coming back. Right now, I don’t want it back. If the answer to my blogging is Olson’s “Why I’m Not A Protestant,” I think my answer to Olson is…….completely irrelevant. If I call him my brother, I’m a damnable heretic with the truly reformed, and if I call myself a “Not a Catholic”, then the best I can be is just one more deficient, defective Protestant, outside of the true church with no authority to say anything anyway and never getting the real Jesus because I refuse to recognize transubstantiation. (Plus, I’m unwilling to read a Scott Hahn book to get all my questions answered.)
I hope that Michael continues to blog for the Lord and comes to a sense of peace regarding this experience through the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit.
