Of course, there's another side of the story:
Without any guidelines from Rome, I guess they'll just have to fight it out.
Here's an update on the Sungenis vs. Shea struggle for apologetic dominion- The Catholic Answers folks are weighing in:
"I like Sungenis. I think that it's become something of the "in" thing to do to make swipes at more conservative members of the faith such as him. But then who's the first person everybody turns to when the next James White debate comes up?"
"Dr. Robert Sungenis is the best Catholic apologist by far. We need more like him."
"I like Mark Shea and Robert Sunngenis. They've both done good work for the church. I think they both have their character flaws (who doesn't?) that show up every so often. I'm disappointed in both of them that they can't conduct this discussion in a charitable way without resorting to fifth-grade antics."
"Sungenis is a crackpot who never paid the money he owed to all the people who whipped his bottom in his "geocentrism challenge" years ago. He had actual, for-real NASA guys wiping the floor with his ignorant self. We all watched it go down. He's a weirdo. Ally yourself with weirdoes and crackpots at your own risk."
Dr. Robert Sungenis is the best Catholic apologist by far. We need more like him.- Good Lord, you're serious, aren't you? We need MORE geocentrist, crackpot apologists? Just exactly what do you think the mission of an apologist is? To bring derision upon the Church by confirming the most outlandish suspicions and worst prejudices of non-Catholics in secular society?
"People don't take swipes at [Sungenis]because it's the "in" thing. They take swipes at him because they think he's wrong, or even crazy, or even (in my admittedly non-Catholic perspective) the proponent of revoltingly evil beliefs (no, I'm not talking about geocentrism--that's somewhere between wrong and crazy!)."
But then who's the first person everybody turns to when the next James White debate comes up?- "The fact that he doesn't have anything better to do than argue with a self-important, cold-hearted Reformed pontificator is hardly to his credit. (Just as the fact that I spend so much time on this website is not exactly to mine--though there are many people on this website much more worth spending time with than either White or Sungenis.)"
"If Mark Shea tempts [Sungenis] to sin, he should not be reading or responding to his blogs."
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2 comments:
Evangelism is a sales pitch, and unfortunately its one of those kinds of offers where you are stuck paying more because you have to buy a lot of stuff that is useless or even harmful but you can't get what you need without buying that.
Like on iTunes you can't buy the song you want because it is "album only" so you have to buy the whole album and end up paying like 11 dollars rather than 1 dollar just for one song. Or you move on and go download your music from Amazon that doesn't pull that album only stuff.
Its the same with evangelism. Some churches have an iTunes "album only" approach where you can't buy remission of sins by the death of Christ without buying original sin too, or maybe even without determinism too. Others let you buy just the one song you need.
Now if you went to the grocery store and they wouldn't let you buy a tooth brush without also buying toxic chemicals that would be harmful to leave lying around the house (what if your children got into that stuff?) then you'd probably look for a new grocery store.
But when your church tells you that you have to accept the false doctrines of determinism and inherited guilt of Adam's sin (which are spiritually damaging and will make you defeated and debauched sinners and totally keep you from being Christians) you just say "Thank you sir, may I have another false doctrine to go with that?"
Then a lot of evangelism is about convincing people of things that don't make sense. Like how Jesus dies to appease the Father's wrath when in actuality the Father sent him to do so. Who that is really upset makes their own provisions and sends someone to appease their own wrath? Or again, we are bought with a price but God already owned us anyway because he's the creator, so who did he buy us from? He bought us from himself??? How does this make sense? Or, Jesus payed for our sins on the cross but he tells us to pray for them to be forgiven. If it is payed it doesn't need to be forgiven.
So 'orthodox' evangelism deals in brainwashing people to accept contradictory statements. Both Prots and Caths do this.
Marcionism never required such a thing because it wasn't contradictory. But 'orthodoxy' both Protestant and Catholic requires endless wrangling with the evangelizee to prove to him that all these contradictory statements fit together because they aren't contradictory even though they are.
In Marcionism Jesus is sent by the God that is higher than the Creator Yahweh and dies to apease the Creator buy us from the Creator. That requires no convoluted sales pitch. It is simple. But in 'orthodoxy' Jesus is sent by God his Father to die to appease God his Father to buy us from God his Father. Essentially 'orthodoxy' makes fun of the cross. The cross isn't necessary if Jesus is appeasing his own Father or buying us from the Father and the Father wants this, because then the Father could just stop being mad on his own (he has the presence of mind to send JEsus to appease himself anyway so how mad can he really be?) and he can just give us to Jesus (why should he have to buy us from his own Father especially if the Father wants him to have us?). So 'orthodoxy' makes the gospel into a joke. In Marcionism it is serious and the necessity of the cross is obvious.
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