Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:
Whether it is old-fashioned Fundamentalist anti-Catholicism or modern-day Evangelicalism,
something is missing. In the case of the former, what is missing is common sense. In the
case of the latter, what is missing is the essence of worship. Here's what I mean.
BEWARE THE PAPACY!
I profiled Bart Brewer and his ministry, Mission to Catholics International, in my book
"Catholicism and Fundamentalism." In the late 1980s Brewer was one of the most active
professional anti-Catholics in the country.
Ordained in 1957 as a Discalced Carmelite priest, he dropped out of the priesthood a few
years later, and he dropped out of the Church too. First he became a Seventh-Day Adventist
minister, later an independent Baptist. Although raised in the North, he adopted that
Southern drawl common to Fundamentalist preachers. He traveled around the country, visiting
mainly Baptist churches, regaling his audiences with stories of Romanist intrigues.
Over the last decade his ministry contracted. Other, younger men entered his territory and
outperformed him. They wrote books and developed web sites. He didn't. Then Brewer had a
stroke. For the last several years he has done no traveling, but his ministry still puts out
a bimonthly newsletter. In the June-July issue of "Challenger" he complained about W and the
Pope:
"It was shocking to read of the gift which George W. Bush chose to give to John Paul II on
his recent highly publicized visit to the Vatican. Biblical Christians ache to see such a
visit take place at all. So do all who value the separation of church and state. But we must
understand the importance of such a visit in these perilous days--given the huge number of
people around the world that are under the leadership of the Roman pope.
"The gift, however, creates huge questions in the mind of those who understand the history
and power of the papacy over Roman Catholics around the world. How could it be appropriate
to give one of our nation's highest honors, the Medal of Freedom, to a leader who condemns
our country's invasion of Iraq, who has allowed the cover-up of pedophile priests, who's
[sic] subjects are anything but free, especially spiritually! Sadly, very few recognize the
danger of an open-arm policy toward Romanism."
But Brewer does. Even more, he understands the danger of an open-minded look at Catholicism.
He knows the draw of Romanism. It once drew him into the priesthood, after all. To look at
Catholicism without prejudice is to be attracted to it, just as to look at a Rembrandt
without squinting is to be attracted to it. If you don't want to be drawn to the painting,
you have to turn your back on it. If you don't want to be drawn to the Church, you have to
do at least that, and maybe you have to oppose it actively.
Brewer has devoted most of his adult life to fighting a bogeyman. Not an original thinker,
he has done so in old-fashioned terms. His complaints read as though they could have been
penned in the nineteenth century or even in the sixteenth. His bogeyman looks quaint, and it
is hard even for his sympathizers to take it seriously.
Still, over the years Brewer found enough people who liked his antiquated approach that his
ministry was able to keep afloat, but it never thrived. It sometimes was a little larger
than a one-man operation, but it never reached critical mass. He once tried out a radio
program, but it didn't generate enough listener support to remain on the air for more than a
few weeks.
Brewer's shtick appealed to some anti-Catholics but not to all. He was invited to small
churches but seldom to large ones. He just wasn't sophisticated enough. The Pope gets the
Medal of Freedom? Ho-hum. Other anti-Catholics have been able to do better than that. They
have made more effective arguments against the papacy and have been able to build ministries
that have a greater reach than Brewer's. He has been sidelined.
Consider him a transition figure. For two or three decades he kept the old faith: the faith
of crass anti-Catholicism. At least he demonstrated that one could make a living, however
modest, by attacking the Romanist bogeyman, and so he inspired younger men to do something
similar. Most of them have not taken the bogeyman approach, but they owe Brewer credit for
legitimizing, in a way, their own career paths. Maybe Brewer himself deserves some kind of
medal.
LONGER SERMONS, PLEASE
"Modern Reformation," a magazine adhering to the Calvinist position, ran a short article
about church-shopping. The anonymous writer opined that "the key divide within American
worship services today concerns the importance of the preached Word. Historically the sermon
was either the center of the service or one of the two high points along with the
celebration of the Lord's Supper."
But then things changed within conservative Protestantism, and "believers who are in the
process of moving to a new church would be well advised to consider the following threats to
the centrality of preaching." Among the threats listed were these:
1. "Architectural changes deemphasizing the pulpit to focus greater attention on the 'stage'
where musicians perform."
2. Churches with multiplying programs and, consequently, less time for pastors to prepare
their sermons, the result being shorter sermons.
3. "The proliferation of drama and liturgical dance, besides having no biblical warrant,
appears to be enabled by borrowing service time primarily from the sermon."
The writers says "there is not a simple one-to-one correlation between church health and
sermon length, but exceedingly short and shallow sermons are surely a sign of theological
sickness." When a worship service becomes entertainment, with what Catholics call the
sanctuary now a "stage," when pastors don't have the time to work up meaty sermons, and when
dramatic presentations and dances intrude on the time once devoted to the sermon--when such
things happen, the worship service declines. It becomes less worship and more "show."
Although the writer doesn't realize it, he almost stumbled onto the solution to the problem.
He noted that the Lord's Supper commonly was a "high point" of the worship service. The
Lord's Supper, as used in Protestant churches, is the analogue of our liturgy of the
Eucharist. Of course those churches do not have the Real Presence, and most of them do not
claim to have it (and do not want to have it). Still, what they call the Lord's Supper is
descended from the Mass.
For the first fifteen centuries of Christianity the Mass was the focus of worship, and it
was true worship: the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Calvary. After the Reformation the
Mass disappeared among Protestants, and instead they had a "worship service." But the
worship was of a lower level. It no longer had a sacrificial element. It consisted instead
of prayers and hymns and preaching--all of which had been in the Mass, but now they were cut
off from the core of the Mass.
Over the centuries the fixed prayers became fewer and fewer. Today, in Evangelical services,
such prayers commonly are absent. To the extent prayers are used, they are extemporaneous.
As the fixed prayers disappeared, the emphasis fell on singing and preaching. In recent
years the singing has become less traditional and more in line with what one hears on the
radio or in secular concerts--thus the writer's complaints about the "'stage' where
musicians perform."
I can empathize with the writer's complaint. He thinks the sermon is more important than the
singing. After all, that is where the content is. The singing inspires, while the sermon
informs, and a muscular Christianity especially needs the latter. But how much information
can be gotten across in a sermon when most of the worship time is given over to fluff? He
hopes the solution lies in devoting more time, much more time, to the sermon.
But that is not the real solution. The real solution is bringing Calvary back into the sanctuary.
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