My apologies for the clickbait, but I think it’s a pretty accurate title… in a sense. I do think that we should stop referring to the center of our faith exclusively as “God.” I do not think that we should stop believing in a deity in general. Hopefully the video will explain itself.
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But since I have gotten some confused responses, it might not hurt for me to offer a bit more explanation! Seems safer.
Put simply, the word “God” is very generic and means a lot of things to a lot of people. When some people say “God,” they mean a spirit in the sky that created the world but remains uninvolved in our lives; others mean a sacred tree that connects all life; still others have been influenced by a certain science fiction saga that takes place among the stars; and Christians… well we mean none of those things.
And yet, we still use the same word. And yet, we get our language mixed up and start to accept theologies about these “Gods” that has nothing to do with our own.
For me, we need to reclaim our own definition of God and our own theology, namely, that God is three in one, personal, and immanent. God is not just a philosophical concept, God is not just a transcendent being. God is Trinity, ever close and ever related to us.
Every so often there is a debate in the political arena about placing the Ten Commandments in a public space, either a courthouse or at city hall. And while there is a lot to debate around this topic politically and socially, there is something even more essential that needs to be discussed: theologically, there’s sort of no such thing as the “Ten Commandments.”
Okay, that’s a bit misleading, I admit. The Ten Commandments that we all learned in Sunday School are not made up and can most definitely be found in the Bible. The issue is not that we learned something that’s wrong, it’s that many of us learned a different set of ten laws. In fact, there are four different sets of what is called “The Ten Commandments,” and there could even be many more, depending on our interpretation.
History is always more complicated than what is popularly believed. Besides the shear volume of information that has to be oversimplified to be understood by the general public, what we popularly believe is often a combination of facts, legends, opinions, misconceptions, and errors. Because of this, one of the dangers of many years of theological study is a tendency to “deconstruct” stuff, to tear down what people accept as true with statements like, “That never happened.”
On the one hand, it is important and necessary. While it can be jarring for people at first to realize that what they have believed to be true is actually not true, ignorance is not a virtue and it does not build up the kingdom of God. We have a duty to understand the truth, not perpetuate “nice stories” because people like them, and sometimes that means going through the painful profess of tearing down closely held falsehoods. What’s the point in believing something if it’s just not true?
On the other hand, deconstructing history without building it back up with something else is an act of violence to faith. As much as we would like to think that we compartmentalize parts of our experience, the fact of the matter is that everything about us is interconnected: our sense of faith is built upon the stories we heard as kids which is tied to the way we relate to our parents which influences our approach to life and so on. When we tear down those parts of history that are false but people have always believed to be true, it has an effect on the rest of the person. Like a controlled implosion of a building or pulling out a few Jenga pieces from the stack, deconstruction without reconstruction runs the risk of bringing the whole building down. On more than a few occasions I have seen well-meaning people destroy another’s faith in this way, dismissing something that intellectuals know to be superstition, legend, or misinterpretation, failing to realize how central it was to another and ultimately leaving a gaping whole or missing link in the other.
Why do I say all of this? Well, because I am guilty of this from time to time with Catholicism in Focus. With the intention of bringing people to greater clarity about topics Catholics think they know, there is often a good deal of deconstructing that has to take place. Behind each episode is a sentiment of, sorry, no, that’s not what we believe. And like I said, this is an important part of growing in one’s faith. Why would we want to persist in error?
In most cases, it is not just about tearing down but also about building back up, giving people something new to believe in that is more factually accurate. Usually the videos are not negative in tone, doing more than just pointing out what’s wrong. Usually. One video stands out to me as breaking this rule. You may remember back in the fall an episode called “What Did St. Francis REALLY Say?” The purpose was to get at some of the popular quotes attributed to the saint, point out how he absolutely couldn’t have said them, and replace them with things he actually did say. Only… I never got to the last point. All I did was pick apart the quotes people use today without offering anything in their place! This is not good scholarship, and it is terrible catechesis. And for that, I apologize.
And since words are cheap and apologies mean little without real action, I present a new video this week to make up for the first one: “Things St. Francis ACTUALLY Said.” Starting with a foundation for understanding the sources themselves, I not only give an overview of the things St. Francis wrote, but also offer a number of shareable quotes to replace the ones we know he didn’t say. I hope you enjoy the video, but more importantly, I hope that you will help me introduce the real St. Francis to the world by sharing the pictures from below on social media. There is a lot out there that is wrong about St. Francis and we should definitely deconstruct it. But instead of just saying, “No, that’s wrong,” we are now able to put something better back in its place.
Longtime readers will know that I wear my habit everywhere. It’s kind of my thing… School, church, airports, stores, wherever. It’s a great way to evangelize, and I never miss an opportunity.
Well, I guess not never…
This week, I went to one of the few places I will never wear my habit. Turns out its where one of our friars works. Where is this place? Check out this week’s new video!
I firmly believe that the Catholic Church is a sacrament of salvation and holds the fullness of truth. I love its mission of sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with the world, am inspired by its many amazing examples of holiness, and could never imagine being a part of any other Church.
And yet… I’m okay pointing out that it is also a human institution with a complicated history, sometimes leading to peculiar ends. And trust me: there are some peculiar things about the Church!
This week, I want to share to one of my biggest “soapbox issues” within the Church, something that I can hardly hold my tongue about when the topic surfaces. It is such an important issue for me that, if I were ever unfortunate enough to be made bishop, it might be the first thing I would change in my diocese (one among many reasons why I should never be ordained a bishop!) It is an issue that affects everyone in the Church, and unknowingly, has probably caused a lot of confusion over the years.
That issue? The order of the sacraments of initiation. Is it baptism, eucharist, and confirmation? Or is it baptism, confirmation, eucharist? For adults entering the Church, the Church says the latter; for children, it’s generally the former.
Why the discrepancy?
Why so many different understandings of Confirmation?
Where did confirmation even come from?
Why do some dioceses have different rules about this order?
These questions, among others, are the reason that I have jumped up on my soapbox this week for a very long, very complicated, and very controversial episode of Catholicism in Focus. While I strongly believe that the Church is a sacrament of salvation, I also believe that human decisions within the Church are not always the most systematic or consider all of their implications, and sometimes, unknowingly, lead us to a place we never intended to end up. When we’re able to look to history and understand the origins of our sacraments and how they developed, it’s clear to me, at least, that we might just need a course correct. Whether you agree or not, hopefully this video will help your own understanding of this complicated story!
Breaking In The Habit 