Way back in olden times, when I was still a professor of theology, one of the most ubiquitous attitudes amongst the students was that it does not matter which religion one practiced since “all religions are really saying the same thing in their essence”.
Indeed, in this view, it does not even matter if one practices a religion at all since it is possible to be a “good person” and to be “spiritual” without any religious affiliation. Furthermore, such views are expressed with extreme confidence, as if there is no need to offer arguments for them since their reasonableness is beyond dispute.
I will forgo a lengthy critique of these views since their many flaws defy easy encapsulation. Suffice it to say that ignored in all of this is the fact that the notion that “all religions are essentially the same” is itself, as we see in a variety of new ersatz spiritualities, a highly particular and disputable, theological claim about the alleged reality of a universally shared “inner religious experience” that is pre-linguistic and ineffable.
The pervasive fog of religious relativism
Whenever a student would raise this relativist view, rather than attempt to dispute the claim directly, I would ask them to explain to me—since they seem to be so knowledgeable about the nature of “religion”—the basic beliefs of various religions. And of course, they could not do so. Invariably, they would deflect the query by insinuating that there is no need to know what the various religions teach since such teachings are mere window dressing on the deeper truths of religious experience. But, when pressed further to explain what they mean by “religious experience,” they were equally vague and could only offer up shallow philosophical and mostly therapeutic understandings that reduced to simple nostrums such as “being true to yourself.”
My conclusion was that those who hold such opinions view the various religions as “equal” in the sense that they are all equally trivial and not really worth studying in a granular way. And the assertion of their putative triviality is grounded in an antecedent commitment to a different set of “dogmas” concerning the moral and intellectual superiority of a radical egalitarianism in all matters of religion. There is also an antecedent and undeveloped assumption as to what a “religion” is in the first place, which is, of course, no easy thing to define.
What one soon discovers in such classroom conversations is that this relativistic view of religion cannot be countered with any kind of argumentation, such as above, no matter how cogent such argumentation might be. This is because the faulty view is expressive of a generalized cultural ethos. It is like an invasive fog in a bad horror novel, the fruit of centuries of marginalization and then compartmentalization of Christianity in particular, but also of all other religions as well. This, in turn, led to the Church becoming a rather extrinsic existential reality—just one lifestyle accessory among many.
So, just as there is a sense in which all such accessories are interchangeable or expendable based on your current mood, so too with the Church.
Even among those who remain in the Church, a pervasive relativism persists. Many folks, in short, do not remain Catholic because they actually believe it to be the one true religion. Rather, they practice it because it is the religion they were born into (which is a quirk of fate), and therefore believe other religions are equally valid pathways to God. For example, I remember a Catholic friend I had many years ago who was happy his son was marrying a Jewish girl (a lovely young lady, by the way) because then the children would be raised “in a religiously ‘open’ environment” not hemmed in by one tradition.
Christian particularity vs. modern particularism
This last point is important since, in my opinion, it gets to the heart of the problem. To wit, the notion that adherence to a particular religious tradition as true represents a “hemming in” of our religious consciousness.
One of the central intellectual challenges posed to the Church by modernity is the question of the exclusivist particularity of God’s Revelation in Jesus Christ. Modernity has never been at ease with the Christian claim that somehow and someway all salvation comes from Christ and that to be saved one must have a relationship via grace with Christ, whether that be explicitly or implicitly present. The criticism continues with the further claim that such exclusivist notions of salvation, with eternal damnation or eternal bliss on the line, place too heavy an epistemic burden on the historically contingent and conditioned consciousness of ordinary people.
Thus do we see the rise of the two pillars of modernity. First is the globalization of all things, including religion, in the pursuit of an Esperanto language of universally accepted truths. Second, and in the wake of the first, a concomitant dumbing down of the importance of free will as an expression of moral determination, and in an overall epistemology that reduces the mind to a glorified abacus for adjudicating purely mundane and practical matters. Modernity thus reduces us all to nothing more than organic, walking algorithms and seeks to formulate one universal algorithm. Paraphrasing Gandalf: “One Algorithm to rule them all, one Algorithm to find them, one Algorithm to bring them all, and in the darkness, bind them.”
This is the grave danger that lurks within every relativist rendering of religion. It seeks to replace the troublesome irreducibility of the religious particularity of Christianity by replacing it with a new particularism of its own, which, it is alleged, is “more inclusive and tolerant”. This leads to the further assertion that Christianity is inherently intolerant and non-inclusive.
And as we now see Christians across Europe and North America caricatured as the new “blackface” of rank bigotry against those it seeks to marginalize, complete with endless “#me-too” anecdotal testimonies from those who have escaped its clutches and who have now been “liberated” into the new religion of relativist bliss. A baker who will not bake a cake for a “gay wedding”, or The Little Sisters of the Poor who will not put contraceptives and abortifacients in their health plans, or, as in the UK recently, those who even make jokes on social media about protected classes such as cross-dressers, will all find themselves before a magistrate.
If there is an emblem for this new, highly particularistic religion, it is the rainbow flag. That flag has gone way beyond its original meaning of “gay liberation” and has now come to symbolize, and thereby galvanize, a vast array of “liberation” movements for those who have allegedly been oppressed by Western Christian culture. Never mind that it is riddled with internal contradictions, such as homosexual liberationists fighting for the rights of radical Muslims who, if they had their way, would imprison them. Worse, the new rainbow religion is wedded to a version of Marxist and even Nietzschean deconstruction and destruction of the old religions of Transcendence. This alone is what matters, and therefore, as the struggle continues, one must make common cause with all those who represent “non-Westernism” no matter who they are.
The soft totalitarianism of the new religion
Within various forms of religious relativism, there is a not-so-hidden soft totalitarianism that is swiftly moving into “harder” versions with devastating real-life consequences for anyone who dares to openly resist it. What counts as “public” resistance has been expanded to include even those who, for example, will just stand outside of an abortion clinic in the UK with heads silently bowed in prayer. This means that the definition of what counts as “public” has been expanded to include even the private thoughts in your head. What was once the classic example of the limits of free speech–yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre–has now been replaced with silently invoking “Jesus!” in the wrong venue.
The metaphysical underpinnings of this new intolerance of the tolerant are the runaway immanentism of the new religion of religious relativism. The emphasis on a vague and undefined notion of a universally generic sense of “religious experience” rarely rises above the level of the purely immanent. It is, in its essence, reductive to the idiosyncratic productions of the choosing therapeutic self, which is another grand internal contradiction to its alleged universalism.
This reductive immanentism has the further anthropological consequence of evacuating our free will of its constitutive orientation to any order of the transcendent moral good. The classical understanding of freedom as “freedom for the moral good” is now recast as freedom of indifference to any particular moral good; it is also then viewed as a mere “freedom from” any external constraints, morally speaking. This then allows the new religion of endless tolerance to claim the high ground as the great defender of “freedom” against the awful theocratic oppressors.
In this view, “compassion” has come to mean the lifting of moral constraints in the name of baptizing all of our choices as inherently “good,” with the only caveat being that those choices cannot harm others in any way. But the immanentism of the new religion would also say that compassion would never include invoking moral principles grounded in transcendence and the natural law “against” the actions of anyone in the privileged classes of the historically oppressed. Why? Because this would represent an offensive provocation to their “freedom”.
The spirit of anti-Christ
What results is a metaphysically flat-lined anthropology wherein happiness and well-being are now presented—ironically given the alleged revolution at hand—as a cult of material comforts and sensual pleasures as the main goal of life, if not its only goal. This has brought us the marvelously ridiculous spectacle of celebrity activists, treated as oracular conduits of correct thinking, globetrotting around the world in their private luxury jets while eating Wagyu beef, lecturing the rest of us on the evils of our overproduction of carbon dioxide from our gas stoves and our cows’ flatulence.
I am reminded of Dostoevsky’s tale of the Grand Inquisitor, told within the broader novel The Brothers Karamazov. It is recounted by the unbelieving Ivan Karmazov as a diatribe against Jesus, who, in the story, has returned and gone to Seville, Spain, during the Inquisition. Jesus performs some miracles, which get him arrested by the ecclesiastical inquisitors. The Grand Inquisitor informs Jesus that he had expected too much of people, morally speaking, and had placed too heavy a burden upon their limited freedom. However, the Church had remedied his mistakes and “improved” his message by giving to the common people what they truly wanted: bread, authority, and some amount of supernatural spectacle. He goes on to say that it is, in fact, the Devil who has given common persons the tools they need to be happy in this life.
This is the crisis we face in a nutshell. The new religious relativism, with its soft totalitarianism and emphasis upon purely immanent material goals, is the very spirit of anti-Christ. It is a new “religion of humanity” that is actually deeply inhuman. Described by authors as varied as Vladimir Solovoyov, C. S. Lewis, Robert Hugh Benson, and, in our time, the philosopher Daniel Mahoney, it represents nothing short of a direct repudiation of the Christian view of the human person as made in the image of God and whose purpose it is to seek that God.
This is the challenge of our time. But is the Church up to it? Does it have the stomach for it?
Recent trends in the Church do not instill hope. Rather than energize her base–devout Catholics who live in the trenches and who are trying to raise families against this cultural tsunami–the Church of recent years instead seems intent on alienating and demoralizing that base as so many slack-jawed backwardists afraid of “change”.
And the “change” envisioned seems to be closer to the vision of the Grand Inquisitor, where the Church is now recast as the grand dispenser of a compassion that is little more than the denigration of her timeless moral principles as pharisaical curtailments of “conscience”. We hear talk in the Vatican and in various conferences about the need for a “new paradigm” in moral theology that focuses on “complex concrete circumstances” that burden “average people” with moral commandments that seem too heavy for their attenuated freedom to bear. And so the Church must intervene to relieve people of this burden of their freedom and to tell them that “all are welcome” without the need for conversion and at least an attempt at repentance.
The T-shirt worn by an individual inside St. Peter’s Basilica the other day at the LGBTQ Jubilee event said it all better than my words here could: “F**K the rules.”
We must do better than this; we must do better than this. There is too much at stake to fail. It’s time to push away the fog and clearly proclaim the Catholic Faith.
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Yes must unburden us. So unburden the drug users too. Makes sense
Entropy is God! This after 13.8 billion years, plus divine Revelation!
Original Sin affects even the human intellect. We are perhaps reminded of Mad Cow Disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopath), a deterioration of the brain that can be passed on to people if they eat infected hamburger…Yet, the LOGOS continues to subsist, even if an entire generation or burger and taco relativists no longer notices.
We then read that “it’s time to push away the [brain] fog and clearly proclaim the Catholic Faith.” A good place to start is, yes, to acknowledge natural religions as human expressions of the inborn orientation toward God. But then, too, the Catholic religion which in addition to the natural law, also affirms “faith” in the gratuitous and Self-disclosing [!] person of Jesus Christ….The fact of the Incarnation is more than an idea, and quite different from all more home-grown religious “beliefs.”
“Coexist” is a religion, no question about it. Only, it is the most diabolical religion possible.
It is the religion of outright atheism or practical atheism. It is a religion that worships Self, which is synonymous with Satanism.
It is a religion that hates the True God who is deserving of our worship, obedience and love.
Beware of those who preach “Coexist”.
Yes… because refusing to coexist with others who do not espouse our views is much better…
“Coexist” is not about coexisting. It’s a deeply secular, and self-perceived morally superior, instruction to the “small-minded” religious to get in line with secular notions of what is good and just.
We have the example of Jesus teaching us to love your neighbour as yourself. That is the foundation of coexisting with others. But the coexist crowd can’t have that. Because Jesus. So they invent a secular analogue they believe to be superior. One that tolerates, and in some cases demands, demonization of those with whom one disagrees on any number of matters. Because that is what their version of “coexisting” looks like.
Good evening Lex 🙂
Interesting take, I’m familiar with some of the theories concering the secular/liberal agenda. Who are those that invented this analogue and where can I learn more about this manipulation?
Thanks 🙂
Thank you Larry. “What has been is what will be,and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
“O you Christians, whose lives are good, you sigh and groan as being few among many, few among very many. The winter will pass away, the summer will come; lo! The harvest will soon be here. The angels will come who can make the separation, and who cannot make mistakes. We in this time present are like those servants of whom it was said, Will You that we go and gather them up? for we were wishing, if it might be so, that no evil ones should remain among the good. But it has been told us, Let both grow together until the harvest. Why? For you are such as may be deceived. Hear finally; Lest while you gather up the tares, you root up also the wheat with them. What good are you doing? Will ye by your eagerness make a waste of My harvest? The reapers will come, and who the reapers are He has explained, And the reapers are the angels. We are but men, the reapers are the angels. We too indeed, if we finish our course, shall be equal to the angels of God; but now when we chafe against the wicked, we are as yet but men. And we ought now to give ear to the words, Wherefore let him that thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall. For do ye think, my Brethren, that these tares we read of do not get up into this seat? Think ye that they are all below, and none above up here? God grant we may not be so. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you. I tell you of a truth, my Beloved, even in these high seats there is both wheat, and tares, and among the laity there is wheat, and tares. Let the good tolerate the bad; let the bad change themselves, and imitate the good. Let us all, if it may be so, attain to God; let us all through His mercy escape the evil of this world. Let us seek after good days, for we are now in evil days; but in the evil days let us not blaspheme, that so we may be able to arrive at the good days.“
– Sermon 23 of St. Augustine on the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13)
(Also see: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102076.htm)
Am praying for Pope Leo and all who love Christ, our Hope. May the peace of the Triune God be with you all.
First, let me recommend Orwell’s Politics and the English Language
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/
There is just too much hyperbole and pretentious diction in this essay for my taste. Modern life is much brighter than this essay would have us believe.
The claim that “All religions are equal” is usually a reaction against a Eurocentric “us and them” dogmatism. And it is right to reject such dogmatism. But if you work or study in an environment in which there are a large number of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, etc., so that you actually see these people and interact with them every day (as many university students do today, unlike when we studied), you begin to gather information that you would otherwise not have. So now, at this point, it is no longer an abstract/academic problem to be solved. You begin to realize, as so many young people do who study in a university environment surrounded by Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, etc., that this Muslim lady, or this Hindu man, is my brother, my sister. She loves God, he loves God. I see it in the way they relate to others, to me, in what they love and what they reject, and my buddy’s fasting during Ramadan puts me to shame, especially during Lent, when I can barely give up a small meal during the day, etc. In fact, if you have enough interaction with them, you may encounter a Sikh brother, for example, who is clearly holier than you, the Catholic. And if you study Hindu or Indigenous myths and legends, you begin to see traces of Christ foreshadowed, as we do in the Old Testament. At that point, you begin to realize that the question “Are all religions equal?” is a matter of barking up the wrong tree. It’s just the wrong question. The question now is: “What is it that unites us on a profound level?” Clearly it is not just me who is in a state of grace, that is, who shares in the divine nature, but includes my Hindu, Sikh, Muslim brothers and sisters, who revere Jesus, but who may not adhere to the theological formulations that I do. The next time we have lunch together, do I really want to give them this article and tell them: “Look guys, our religious practices are not all equal. You guys fall short of the truth. I belong to the superior religion, and I’d like to invite you to an apologetics talk that will persuade you to join the Catholic Church, because I’m worried about your salvation”?
I don’t think so.
And He said to them: Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every créature.
He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned.”
Jesus Christ, Son of God.
Mark 16:15-16
Faith in Jesus Christ or Post-Conciliar Anti-Catholic “Interreligious Politics”?
Objective Catholic Truth or the subjective relativist lie of the Modernist Apostasy?
On the other hand, human expressions of the universal natural law are one thing, while the gratuitous Self-disclosure (!) of the Triune One—the concrete event of the Incarnation—is something (Someone) categorically more. How these two orientations fit together in human history, without being blurred together, is a bit of a mystery. Somewhere in the Documents, Vatican II remarks that the normal access to grace is the sacraments, but that God is not limited to the sacraments.
Perhaps a concrete conversation among ‘persons’ with each other, as you suggest, still does not quite translate into an equivalence of ‘religions’ with each other, or with the unique Christian revelation. After all, Islam displaces Christ with the Qur’an (the “Word made flesh” is displaced by the “word made book”). The symmetrical comparison is not between the two scriptures.
In itself, multiculturalism isn’t enough, and while the synodal Cardinal Grech makes a good point about real encounter, but he also confuses when he seems to suggest that ‘prepositions’ can replace (creedal) ‘propositions’.
And, then there’s the memory today of 9/11…
“Clearly it is not just me who is in a state of grace, that is, who shares in the divine nature, but includes my Hindu, Sikh, Muslim brothers and sisters, who revere Jesus, but who may not adhere to the theological formulations that I do.”
We share a common origin in that all people have been created in the image and likeness of God, as described in Genesis 1 & 2. People of other faiths are not my spiritual brothers and sisters, and it is not really appropriate to frame the discussion in that way. The list of faiths you mention do not, as a whole, “revere Jesus.” The book of Acts tells us that “there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
You’ve touched upon a crucial point, one that strikes at the very heart of Christian belief. It is true that many today seek to understand Jesus simply as a wise teacher or a good man, and certainly, he was both. Yet, to limit our understanding of him to this alone is to miss the central and most profound reality of his person.
Jesus Christ is not merely a historical figure or an ethical example. He is the Son of God, the Living Word made flesh, who came into the world for our salvation. His purpose and meaning are found in his divine nature and his redemptive act on the cross. Through his atoning sacrifice, our sins are not just overlooked but are truly forgiven, and we are offered the grace to become “joint-heirs” in the Kingdom of God. This is the truth that sets Christianity apart and gives our faith its power and hope. Without this profound reality, the Gospel would be just another philosophy among many.
Thank you, Larry, for yet another excellent article.
And thank you, Michael B, for your insightful comment. Spot on!
TJ,
Wait a minute, I thought Baptism pours sanctifying grace into the soul, opening the life of grace to the soul.
Those not baptized using the Trinitarian formula are objectively outside the state of grace. All souls receive actual grace, but sanctifying grace is only given through the Sacraments.
What has been lost is the missionary zeal to evangelize and bring the sacraments to the heathen. Dr.
Chapp rightly blames relativism for the absence of this good. The gravest abuse is refusal to share the gospel and leaving people where they’re at, when you could bring them to the heights and you know the map and exact location of the treasure.
If they hate you for telling them the truth … Blessed are you when they hate you…
Ave Maria!
Excellent article Larry. There is indeed too much at stake for us to waffle on the Gospel
Yes, Larry, we MUST do better than this. We WILL do better than this!
A reduction of universal natural law truths based on a shared consensus regarding the golden calf freedom, to, “A metaphysically flat-lined anthropology wherein happiness and well-being are now presented—ironically given the alleged revolution at hand—as a cult of material comforts and sensual pleasures”. There is an evident antiChrist flavor to it.
AntiChrist sentiment reduces further to a darker commonality referenced as Tolkien’s logarithm of evil binding all in darkness. A result is deadly violence, an increasing societal phenomenon. A victim of this violence Charlie Kirk, adds a different dimension to Chapp’s argument. Is there a permanent moral characteristic that transcends religious particularity?
Kirk, an evangelical Christian could just as well be a Catholic, or a Jew, a Muslim. We remain within the indelible sphere of the natural law inherent in all. Although various exceptions do not dissolve the real problem of religious relativism it provides hope for moral recovery.
I should in respect to Charlie Kirk his motivation to witness to Christ was also supplemented by faith. Was he a recipient of grace? It should be so for someone sincerely motivated.
Although Chapp correctly criticizes religious relativism there is the universal potential for all men to respond in an heroically virtuous way to events.
Kirk directly contributed to an increase in the hostility of the current societal atmosphere. He was a victim of a targeted and evil act, that I do not contest, but the message he was espousing was dubious to say the least…
Dubious? Right. How is honoring the life of the unborn, giving people opportunity to succeed, enforcing immigration, calling out groomers and other child predators, exposing the transgender lie, and supporting the rule of law dubious?
Good afternoon Athanasius, it’s a pleasure 🙂
You are correct that many of his viewpoints were valid.
I do believe that several of his viewpoints which he used his plateform to advance were dubious such as saying that the civil rights act was a “mistake” for example. I could name others but my experience with online debates leads me to believe it would achieve nothing but further entrenching opinions on the matter.
SUuffice to say, he was a man who made a living out of grifting onto various polemics to produce profitable sound bites/clips.
But who am I to judge him? I am probably more sinful than he was. I will pray for his soul. I humbly ask that you pray for mine as well, as I will pray for yours.
Good evening Athanasius, I tried to respond earlier however the mysterious sorceries of the internet seem to have thwarted my efforts 🙂
While I do believe that Mr. Kirk held some very valid opinions that I do find sympathetic (remember empathy isn’t a real word 😉 as said by Kirk himself), he was still quite a problematic figure to say the least. Perhaps this is simply due to the fact that I am not from the United States, thus some of your deep-seated opinions and sensibilities perplex me.
I’d rather not engage in an online debate with you due to the fact that such efforts often bear bad fruit such as incomprehension and the growth of a chasm between interlocuters. I simply ask you to pray for me as I will pray for you as well. 🙂
Mr. Chapp gives us a good article on the substance of religious relativism, and Thomas James gives us a good example of it in practice. It is not a matter of whether I as a Catholic belong to a “superior ” religion. I belong to the true religion. That being the case Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs do not. It is not a matter of whether they are “nice” people. There are probably a lot of atheists who fit the description of being nice people. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. “Revering” Jesus is not the same as adoring Jesus. It is a matter of basic logic that if the Catholic faith is the true faith, then the other non-christian religions are not.
Much has certainly been given to us. “And that servant who knew his master’s will, but did not make ready or act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating. But he who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, shall receive a light beating. Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand the more.”
It’s worth remembering John 4:22a, where Christ told the Samaritan woman, “You worship what you do not know.” He acknowledged that they DID worship the True God, but their understanding was mixed with error. Such is no doubt the case with many Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and whatnot; likewise, regardless of the Trinitarian theology of Westboro Baptist Church, I seriously doubt that they actually worship the True God, even imperfectly. This is part of the reason we are told, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”
But that all applies to PEOPLE, not to IDEAS. We have no business condemning Muslims; we have no choice but to condemn Islam, for example.
The Catholic Church posseses the FULLNESS OF THE TRUTH. Either it does or it does not. If it does, I want to be part of it. If it does not, I want no part of it.
If the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of the truth, then it is logically impossible for other religions to also possess the fullness of the truth. If other religions do not possess the fullness of the truth, why would anyone want to have anything to do with any of them?
If ALL RELIGIONS are equally true, then NONE OF THEM ARE REALLY TRUE. If no religion is really true, no one should want anything to do with them.
Now, go and evangelize.
Christ has (and is) the fullness of truth. The Church on earth has Christ, but she does not know everything fully at once. If she did, we would have no development of doctrine and we would need no papal magisterium.
St. Thomas Aquinas was open to learning things from non-Christians, so long as the ideas are tested against the truth taught by the Church.
“Coexist” is both at odds with Catholicism and in perfect coherence with Post-Conciliar New Church.
Catholic Truth Ad33-Ad1962 is Incarnational, revealed once and for all, both Transcendant and Immanent, just as the Catholic Church is Triumphant and Militant. Truth subsists within Her, and she understands that all naturally occurring cultural belief systems are merely cries for baptism!
Catholicism ad33-1962 is existentially the same in all times and places – not a natural cultural belief system herself, but an Incarnational Revelation for all peoples in all times and places forming a Universal Catholic Culture of Divine provenance through time.
Chapp’s problem is Post-Conciliarism – the now unmasked synthesis of Catholicism with New World Order – and its programmed shift from the Catholic Project to baptise all nations to the Freemasonic Project to etablish a brotherhood of man.
COEXIST is at once in perfect coherence with the post-conciliar New Church, and entirely in contradiction with revealed Catholic Truth.
CATHOLIC TRUTH ad33-1962 is the fundamental enemy of the Post-Conciliar New Church and articles like this are simply proving it for a new generation of nominal Catholics: it is not ultimately against traditionalists that Cardinal Cupich and friends have been programmed to wage internal war, it is against Catholic Truth.
Are articles like this too little too late, as the Masonic Abdu Dharbi Fraternal declaration and Vatican signed Agenda 2030 advance the pre-programmed NWO cause? Cardinal Beas’s interreligious politics have apparently surplanted the defence of Revealed Catholic Truth during a seeming rupture with Sacred Tradition as bequeathed and taught by the Catholic Apostles and their successors ad33-1962.
Catholicism or Post-Conciliar New Church: every nominal Catholic who does not flee like the Germans may be confronted with this choice as the Vatican’s unmasked New World Order Programme expands expontentially into the areas of Faith and Morals formally safeguarded by St Peter’s successors through time.
Perhaps Chapps next piece will be on the programmed pastoral mutation towards New Truth as the full extent of the Vatican II deception continues to unfold?
There is one objective reason why Christianity is exclusive and stands out of all other religions.
A very similar, to Christianity, take on morals, ethics, ascetics can be found in many world religions. Yet none of them offers a living intimate relationship with a superior Being, perfect Man and God in one Person. This is because other faiths, no matter how noble, represent the attempts of humans to reach and understand God, to make sense of Him. Essentially, a believer stretches their hands up to unknown God; His Person remains totally unknown.
In Christianity, God actively reveals Himself to humans. He wants to relate to us. He bends down to us and even more so – he gives His only Son, not only to be sacrificed for our sake, but also for a living relationship with us so we would learn Who He is intimately! If I have to define the most important in Christianity, I would say: it offers a relationship that all humans crave/need, the love more intimate and consuming than anything they know, the love that raises a human being and makes him god. In the process of that very real relationship with Christ a human being will know himself as never before and will know God. The best description of that process I know is ‘Song of Songs’ and St John of the Cross’s (a Carmelite mystic and Doctor of the Church) poetry and prose.
In essence, being in a relationship with the Person of Christ means to allow Him to rebuild one’s flawed psyche, to restore the image of God in a human person – during this life, now.
To sum up, what makes Christianity unique is that it is a revelation of God about Himself given to humans not in the form of a book but in a form of the living Person, fully human and fully divine. This revelation is accessible only via a relationship with Christ Who is the Revelation. Via entering into a relationship with Him = the Revelation of God about Himself a believer enters into the supernatural domain of God, already in this life. He is no longer alone but securely attached to God.
From here follows that anyone who says that “all religions are equal” either does not understand the concept of personhood and attachment or is deliberately trying to pull people away from the most important attachment in their life.
This is for some of the above commentators:
St. Justin Martyr, 1.46 (c. 150 AD): “Christ is the Logos [Divine Word] of whom the whole race of men partake. Those who lived according to Logos are Christians, even if they were considered atheists, such as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus.” 2.10:” Christ… was and is the Logos who is in everyone, and foretold through the prophets the things that were to come, and taught these things in person after becoming like to us in feeling.”
St. Irenaeus, 4.28.2: (c. 140-202 AD): “There is one and the same God the Father and His Logos, always assisting the human race, with varied arrangements, to be sure, and doing many things, and saving from the beginning those who are saved, for they are those who love and, according to their generation (genean) follow His Logos.” Ibid. 4.6.7: “For the Son, administering all things for the Father, completes [His work] from the beginning to the end… . For the Son, assisting to His own creation from the beginning, reveals the Father to all to whom He wills.” Ibid. 4. 22. 2: “Christ came not only for those who believed from the time of Tiberius Caesar, nor did the Father provide only for those who are now, but for absolutely all men from the beginning, who, according to their ability, feared and loved God and lived justly… and desired to see Christ and to hear His voice.”
Origen, 2.11-12: (c. 240 AD): “Do not think I speak of the spouse or the Church [only] from the coming of the Savior in the flesh, but from the beginning of the human race, in fact, to seek out the origin of this mystery more deeply with Paul as leader, even before the foundation of the world.”
4.7: (c. 248 AD): “… there never was a time when God did not will to make just the life of men. But He always cared, and gave occasions of virtue to make the reasonable one right. For generation by generation this wisdom of God came to souls it found holy and made them friends of God and prophets.”
9-10:(after 244 AD) [the law was written on hearts: Cf. Rom 2:14-16] “that they must not commit murder or adultery, not steal, not speak false testimony, that they honor father and mother, and similar things… and it is shown that each one is to be judged not according to a privilege of nature, but by his own thoughts he is accused or excused, by the testimony of his conscience.”
Eusebius of Caesarea, 1.1.4:(c. 311-25 AD): “But even if we [Christians] are certainly new, and this really new name of Christian is just recently known among the nations, yet our life and mode of conduct, in accord with the precepts of religion, has not been recently invented by us; but from the first creation of man, so to speak, it is upheld by natural inborn concepts of the ancient men who loved God, as we will here show… . But if someone would describe as Christians those who are testified to as having been righteous, [going back] from Abraham to the first man, he would not hit wide of the mark.”
St. Gregory of Nazianzus, 18.5 [at funeral of his father, a convert]:(c. 374 AD): “He was ours even before he was of our fold. His way of living made him such. For just as many of ours are not with us, whose life makes them other from our body [the Church], so many of those outside belong to us, who by their way of life anticipate the faith and need [only] the name, having the reality.”
8.20 [on his sister Gorgonia]: “Her whole life was a purification for her, and a perfecting. She had indeed the regeneration of the Spirit, and the assurance of this from her previous life. And, to speak boldly, the mystery [baptism] was for her practically only the seal, not the grace.”
St. John Chrysostom. Homilies on John 8.1: ( c. 389 AD): “Why, then, the gentiles accuse us saying: What was Christ doing in former times, not taking care… ? We will reply: Even before He was in the world, He took thought for His works, and was known to all who were worthy.”
St. Augustine, 18.47: (413-26 AD): “Nor do I think the Jews would dare to argue that no one pertained to God except the Israelites, from the time that Israel came to be… they cannot deny that there were certain men even in other nations who pertained to the true Israelites, the citizens of the fatherland above, not by earthly but by heavenly association.”
1.13.3: (426-27 AD): “This very thing which is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients, nor was it lacking from the beginning of the human race until Christ Himself came in the flesh, when the true religion, that already existed, began to be called Christian.”
I could go on, but you should get the idea at this point.
“And He said to them: Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned.”
Jesus Christ, Son of God.
Mark 16:15-16
Faith in Jesus Christ or Post-Conciliar Interreligious Politics?
How does eternity and salvation history fit into time?
St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans: “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law unto themselves, even though they do not have the law” (Rom 2:14); BUT ALSO “sinners who were not under the law will also perish outside of the law (Rom 2:12); AND, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23); AND “for God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all” (Rom 11:32).
The incarnate Christ’s actions in “the fullness of time” in Judea under Pontius Pilate (the Creed), seem to flow backwards or work retroactively, according to our time-limited mentality and eyeballs! And, about the mentioned Greeks, for example, and especially Plato–in his “Theology of the Body,” St. John Paul II supposes this: “‘I am who I am’ [Ex. 3:14] constitutes an object of reflection for many philosophers, beginning from St. Augustine who held that Plato must have known this text because it seemed very close to his ideas [….] (General Audience of September 12, 1979, fn 2).
Thank you for these quotes from the Church Fathers, Thomas! Truly enlightening in the context of this discussion 🙂
The rejection of Humane Vitae …..
Yes, Coexist embraces contraception. And it rejects Evangelium Vitae, Veritatis Splendor, etc.
Pride divides. Evil is self destructive. Witness the Coexist stickers on the cars of Planned Parenthood workers, at empty houses of worship, etc. At this rate, it will not be long before Coexist does not exist.