Paying Attention to Dreams

For years I was very dismissive of the meaning of dreams.  They seemed so chaotic and random to me that, I argued, any attempt to interpret them was surely just an act of the worst eisegesis.  Yet friends, family, and intellectual influences from all walks of life have cautioned me against such casual dismissal.  The primary person speaking this truth to me was my ex-wife Courtney.  She loved talking about dreams and trying to think together about what they could mean.  Sadly, I was often far too arrogant and dismissive to take her speculations seriously, but now others in my life keep telling me to pay attention to my dreams and I'm starting to suspect they might be right.  Friends like my former professor at Greenville Rick McPeak, my little sister Rachel, the psychologist Dr. Jordan B. Peterson that I have been listening to recently, my mother, and even the old-time Methodists that I study for my doctoral work:  they are all saying, "Take these things seriously!  We don't know where they come from!  In fact, they might even come somehow from 'God.'" Not all these influences would state it quite that way, but the message is the same: reflect on dreams.  So that's what I intend to do in this post.

I had a nightmare three nights ago that hasn't left me and it still haunts me.  Those who know a little about my life this year will perhaps not at all be surprised by the nature of the dream.  It was actually very simple and very short, but also quite compelling and realistic.  I was trying to bridge a deep, endless black abyss between myself and my ex-wife, Courtney.  I wanted so desperately to reach her, but I had no way of crossing the divide.  I tried to start building a bridge to get to her, but I didn't have the skills to make a bridge out of sticks and trees and rocks.  Yet I did the best that I could do.  After I had built the bridge out over the canyon/abyss by about ten feet (which was still a small fraction of how far I had to go), it all collapsed while I was on it.  As I tumbled into the abyss which seemed to be endless, I simply yelled up, "I'm sorry, Courtney.  I tried and I failed."  I woke up horrified by the feeling of endless descent into nothingness.

So what does this dream mean?  On one level it seems rather obvious, right?  My unconscious mind is trying to somehow cope with the tragedy of my divorce.  Now in the dream I seem to be more of a "victim of circumstance" than I actually believe is true because, when I am honest, I realize that frequently within my marriage, I was the lazy one who did nothing and, especially near the end, Courtney was the one trying to build a bridge to me.  Perhaps most accurately I could say that we both made efforts and both of us did rather pitiful jobs at it too, yet our efforts were sincere.

But is the dream also about more than just my marriage?  Could this also be a dream about my deep anxieties regarding death?  After all "the abyss" is the other major character in this little narrative.  The endless blackness and the fear that it evokes within me has been a constant companion my entire life. Into the abyss I have always yelled, "Are you down there God or is it just death all the way down?  Can I trust myself to fall into your hands or am I just imagining you are down there for my own comfort and peace of mind?"  I can hear Freud's voice making me feel shame for my pitiful and weak desire to believe in a God (likely because I have unresolved parental issues).  I can hear Marx calling religion the opiate of the masses.  I can hear Ayn Rand saying that life is chaotic and you simply have to will yourself to power.  Nietzsche seems to sing a similar tune sometimes.  And then the Buddhists seem to keep insisting, "Don't worry; it's all in your mind anyway," which is a message I sometimes find to be good news and other times find horrifying. And, all the while, Ivan Karamazov keeps persistently reminding me of the almost infinite capacity that humans have for evil.  Thank God for Alyosha... and for Dorothy Day and Jane Addams and John Woolman and Dr. King and B. T. Roberts and my maternal grandfather.  Without people like that, I would be lost in the abyss for good.

Sometimes I also wonder if perhaps I am the abyss or that the abyss is within me.  Am I confronting my own sinful, evil nature when looking into the blackness?  I remember going camping by myself once in Kentucky and a mighty thunderstorm came up (I later learned a tornado had touched down nearby).  The fury of the wind and lightning and rain petrified me.  When lightning hit a nearby tree, I wanted to pack up my tent and run away to safety, though something in that moment whispered to me, "Stay.  Face the fear."  I realized why Martin Luther was converted in a thunderstorm; everything within me wanted to cry out to my own St. Anne.  So I did stay the night, but pitifully and within the safety of my dad's old '92 Honda Accord.

I know on an intellectual level that I am in a very dark and difficult chapter of life.  I can conjecture what people must be saying about me.  I am cognitively aware that my friends and former friends must be saying, "Poor Greg!  Look at his life!  I cannot image losing what he has lost."  But then a part of me -- at least during my strongest moments -- just doesn't give a damn any longer what people think about me.  Am I a lost cause?  Maybe.  I don't know.  Am I part of a story that is a comedy or a tragedy?  Only time will tell.  Am I Cain or Abel?  Am I a good son who offers an honorable sacrifice before God and then gets killed for it?  Or am I the evil brother who envies how the Other's sacrifice is honored by God and who then turns into darkness and evil and becomes consumed by the Shakespearean green-eyed monster?  These are all questions that are as mysterious to me as the abyss in my dream.  I fear them, yet I cannot seem to be able to avert my eyes.

In any case, I know this: I lament the ending of my marriage and I would not wish this experience on my worst enemy (by the way, I don't think I have a worst enemy unless I maybe count myself). In the meantime, I will try to keep sacrificing and surrendering more deeply to the One who is in control and has the answers. I will myself to believe in that One.

5 Theological Problems with Christian Zionism

With tensions flaring yet again between Israelis and Palestinians, many conservative evangelicals -- such as the 1.6 million belonging to the organization Christians United for Israel (CUFI), founded by John Hagee and currently led by Gary Bauer who was an Under Secretary in the Reagan Administration -- are rushing to Israel’s side and loudly proclaiming the right of "God's chosen people" to defend themselves against the Palestinians. 

While many others have written about the politics of the situation, I would like to focus on the theology that has persisted in keeping American evangelicals solidly behind the modern secular nation-state of Israel, regardless of how contradictory their behavior may be to biblical teachings.

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Here are five theological problems with the movement CUFI represents, known as Christian Zionism:

1. Zionism hinges on a (Calvinist) belief that God loves some and hates others.  

Granted, some Christians do accept this view of God, but I don't.  "God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).  I take this to be central to the heart of God.  When approaching the issue of Israel and Palestine, a fundamental question each Christian needs to ask is, "Do I believe that God loves Palestinians any less than He loves Israelis?"  If you believe that God truly loves the world, as Scripture claims in John 3:16, then you will be concerned that, for example, in the last three days seventy-six Palestinians have died -- at least sixty of whom were innocent civilians -- and not a single Israeli has.  If you agree with the Epistle of James that "God does not show favoritism" (James 2:9), then the foundations of a blind support for Israel against the Palestinian people will begin to crumble.     

2. Zionism misunderstands the nature of apocalyptic literature.

Armageddon.  The Anti-Christ.  666.  The Beast.  The Whore of Babylon.  The United Nations, the Pope, Obama, Palestine, expanding the boarders of the nation-state of Israel?  There is a reason that the Left Behind series and now The Harbinger have been best sellers:  they claim just enough plausibility among those committed to a literalist interpretation of Scripture that they just might be partly right.  But there's just one problem:  The book of Revelation (and parts of Daniel too) were written in an ancient genre called apocalyptic.  Apocalyptic is nothing even remotely like anything we have today.  It was written to be deliberately obscure so that, should the manuscript fall into the wrong hands, it would not be understood.  Zionism is a product of our modern desire to solve puzzles and riddles (see point #3).  But apocalyptic literature was not meant to be taken literally!  I say again: It wasn't written to be read literally and it shouldn't be read literally.  When we do, it's not just a whoopsie doo; people can die.

John Nelson Darby

3. Zionism rests on a relatively new innovation called premillennial dispensationalism.

In the 1830's, a Calvinist Anglican named John Nelson Darby invented how CUFI reads the book of Revelation.  He spread a theory, now called premillenial dispensationalism, which claims that God works in different ways during different periods of human history, that Israel and the Church are two totally separate entities, that Christians will be raptured up into the sky someday, and that after the rapture there will be seven years of tribulation under the rule of the anti-Christ after which Christ will return to reign for a thousand years.  These views spread across the United States especially via the Scofield Reference Bible and are still taught today at places such as Dallas Theological Seminary, for example.  The point, however, is that the interpretive foundations for Zionism are about 180 years old and do not represent historic, orthodox Christianity.

4. Zionism violates a basic law of biblical interpretation: Let obscure texts be interpreted by the clear texts.

All of Darby's interpretations are speculative at best.  Today modern evangelicals tend to "see" certain realities in the Bible because they have been taught to see them.  But a good interpreter knows that anything unclear should be understood in light of what is clear.  And here is what is clear:  Jesus (he's pretty central, I would maintain) taught that we should love one another.  In fact, we should love our enemies.  He ushered in a new covenant based not upon ethnicity, but upon the cross and resurrection which is efficacious for all(see Acts 10, for example).  Zionists like John Hagee need to spend less time speculating about the symbolism behind the seven horns on the beast's head and more time meditating on Paul's instructions, "Let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to love one another, for love is the fulfillment of the law" (Romans 13:8).

5. Zionism equates the Hebrew people of the Old Testament with the modern nation-state of Israel.  

The two are not the same.  They simply aren't.  The nation God desired to establish in the Old Testament was to be a Theocracy, directly ruled by Him alone through his Torah.  Remember how the prophet Samuel warned the people against adopting a king, Saul, like the other nations?  He warned them against this because God's people were to be different than other nations.  God's people were not to ride off to war, trusting in horses and chariots, like the Egyptians.  Instead, when God established his original covenant with Abram, he said, "I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing"  (Gen. 12:2).  We forget that last part.  From the start, God's plan was to bless ALL peoples.  The heavily armed secular Jewish state established in 1948 is not the circumcised children of Abraham chosen to bless the nations of the earth.  If they were, they'd start blessing the one next to them instead of… well, doing what they've been doing.

An Apology for the Medieval Church From One Protestant to Another

An Apology for the Medieval Church From One Protestant to Another[1]

            “Are Catholics Christians?” I once asked one of my evangelical mentors as a teenager.  

“Some of them are,” he replied. “For many, it is just a cold, empty religion.  But for those who have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, then, yes, they certainly are Christians.”  Of course, the same could be said about Protestants, but I credit him for resisting the anti-Catholic thinking that still lingered in certain conservative evangelical circles during the 1980’s. 

            This paper, by necessity very broad in scope and woefully lacking in nuance, attempts to offer a brief, clear apology (in the traditional sense of the word, meaning “defense”) for the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages.  Obviously, some chapters of the church’s history are indefensible; however, I contend that the Medieval Church is frequently misunderstood by Protestant clergy and laity – evangelicals, in particular – due, in part, to a lack of knowledge about the history and context of the theological ideas that emerged from the millennium between the fall of Rome and the moment Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses on the door of Wittenberg Castle in 1517.[2]  In order to offer this apologia, I have chosen to briefly address six controversial doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, all prominent in the Middle Ages, which have been “stumbling blocks” for Protestants in the past.

1.    Who Runs this Joint, Anyhow?  The Bible v. the Pope

A fundamental concern of the Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century – and the proto-reformers before them such as John Wycliffe and Jan Hus – was the authority of Scripture over and against the supposedly fallible interpretations of the church.  Proclaiming their unswerving fidelity to sola scriptura, Luther, Calvin, and others drew attention to the unbiblical nature of certain Catholic teachings.  The Catholic Church in the Middle Ages did not reject the authority of the Bible, but rather recognized the need for an authoritative community to interpret it properly.  After all, the biblical canon itself was formed by the church for the church’s use. 

            As St. Vincent of Lérins (d. circa 445 CE) taught as early as the fifth century, the universal church needs tradition in order to ensure that the grand deposit of the faith that St. Paul wrote about to Timothy is not perverted by heretics who would twist and contort the word of God to their own ends.  Vincent noticed even in his own day a tendency that is still true today: “even heretics… make use of [Scripture] and vigorously!”[3]  Thus, for the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, the church hierarchy functioned as the interpreter of Scripture not primarily out of a lust for power, but out of a desire to faithfully “guard what has been entrusted to your care” (1 Timothy 6:20).   Protestants frequently misunderstand that the Catholic Church does not seek to subordinate Scripture to the Church; on the contrary, the Church submits to the authority of Scripture as it speaks through the Spirit. [4]    This leads to the next common objection.

2.    Scripture & Hoi Polloi

It is true that the average working man or woman did not own a Bible in the Middle Ages, but there are several reasons for this.  First, except for a very small minority of wealthy and highly educated aristocrats, Europeans were illiterate; they would not know what to do with a Bible even if they had owned a copy.  Secondly, before the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the middle of the fifteenth century, Bibles were incredibly rare and expensive because they had to be copied by hand.  A typical village might have one copy – if fortunate – and it would be housed in the church.  Third, the Bibles were written in Latin, the language of scholarship, rather than in the vernacular. 

            Finally, it is important to understand the hierarchical mindset of all of medieval life.  After Rome fell and the feudal system had been firmly established across Europe, humans did not believe in social mobility, egalitarianism, or the democratic ethos as we do today.  The universe was perceived to have a layered structure to it – a structure ordained by God – which should not be questioned.[5]  Thus, just as the church was shaped like a pyramid with God at the top and, in descending order, the Pope, the bishops, the priests, and the laity, so too the socio-political world had a structure:  God, King, regional lords, local lords, knights/merchants, surfs/peasants.  This structure was unquestioned because, in the medieval mind, God had ordained it this way.  Thus, even if a peasant has been literate and attained a copy of the Bible in her own language, the thought would have never occurred to her, “I should form my own opinion about what this says.”  She knew her place in the world and her place was not to dissent from divinely appointed arrangement.   Furthermore, she understood the hierarchy within the educational world and wouldn’t have foolishly defied the conclusions of scholars who had devoted their entire lives to the study of Scripture and the Christian tradition.  (Only after the Enlightenment did unschooled Christians begin to think, “I should interpret this for myself.”  Such a concept is what Alister McGrath has called “Christianity’s dangerous idea.”)[6]

3.     Why All the Saints and Dead People?   

The practice of praying to the saints, long a bugaboo of Protestant thinkers seeking to emphasize the sole sufficiency of Christ, is also a frequently misunderstood practice due to the failure to make a crucial theological distinction:  that between worship and veneration.  Worship is reserved for God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit alone.  According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, worship is “to adore God [which] is to acknowledge, in respect and absolute submission, the ‘nothingness of the creature’ who would not exist but for God.”[7]  Veneration, on the other hand, refers to a special honor and devotion that “differs essentially from the adoration that is given to the incarnate Word and equally to the Father and the Holy Spirit…”[8] 

            Returning to the medieval times, however, it is essential to note the porous boundaries that were thought to have existed between the realm of the living and the dead in the minds of the general populace.  Whereas in our own culture we emphasize the discontinuity between this life and the next, medieval theology – perhaps because of the ever-present reality of death all around – emphasized its continuity.  As a result, the baptized believed that it was possible to communicate with loved ones or with favored saints who had passed on and who were now in the presence of Christ.  Christians were officially instructed not to pray to the saints, but rather to ask the saint to pray on their behalf or to intercede for them before the Father, in much the same way we might ask our Christian friends to pray for us during trying times.[9]

            Lastly, it is necessary to note that saints were perceived to have acquired through their good works a “credit” of good deeds, which could then be applied to cover over minor, venial sins.  This credit – called merit – could not offer salvation since salvation came only through Christ, but it could cover certain post-baptismal sins, alleviating some of the suffering of purgatory (discussed below).  This motivated many to offer devotion to certain patron saints.  But, in short, the practice of praying to and for the dead/saints was rooted in a literal belief that Christians are “surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1).

4.    There’s Something About Mary  

Protestants to this day continue to be mystified by the devotion and veneration paid by Catholics   However, the same distinction between worship and veneration discussed above also applies here.  Beyond this, however, is an important theological difference between the two traditions:  whereas Protestants tend to emphasize the crucifixion of Christ, Catholics, especially in the Middle Ages, tended to emphasize the centrality of the Incarnation.  Mary, according to the early church, is the Theotokos, the “Bearer of God” or the “Birth-giver of God,” according to the Council of Ephesus in 431 CE.  As such, she not only holds a unique place in all of humanity as the only human being to ever literally hold God inside of her body – although those who take the Eucharist also do this (see below) – but she also represents the one who utterly submitted herself to the will of the Father (cf. Luke 1:35ff).  As a result, she stands as the exemplary model Christian for all who follow Jesus. 

to Mary, and they interpret it as a threat to the worship of Christ alone.

            In a medieval culture where very little dignity was given to the lowest members of society – the serfs, the women, the children, the poor – the devout found in Mary a biblical character that was “one of them.”  Here was a poor servant girl, chosen by God, and exalted so highly that she could sing, “All generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1:48).  The secular historian Thomas Cahill writes in his typical lyrical style about why the Virgin Mary held such vast appeal in the twelfth century:

This early exaltation of Mother and Child already demonstrates the innovative Christian sense of grace, no longer something to be reserved for the fortunate few – the emperors and their retinues – but broadcast everywhere, bestowed on everyone, “heaped up, pressed down, and overflowing,” even on one as lowly and negligible as a nursing mother.  In the words of a Latin hymn, ‘God… is born in the guts of a girl.’  For the most ordinary people in their most ordinary actions can serve as vessels of God’s grace.[10]

In short, then, Mary functioned in the medieval world to bring the message of the gospel to the masses.  She has done in death what she did in life:  pointed people to Jesus.  Thus, in Catholic spirituality she stands even today as a mediatrix – a female mediator – who intercedes for people through prayer, and as a moral exemplar of one who forever says to God, “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me as you have said” (Luke 1:38).

5.     Hocus Pocus   

Protestant inheritors of Lutheran consubstantial sacramental theology or Zwingli’s memorialism – and, even more importantly, as post-Enlightenment scientifically oriented rationalists and philosophical nominalists – generally look askance at historic Catholic teachings about transubstantiation of the elements in the Eucharist.  This is dismissed as superstitious, magical poppycock or “a bunch of hocus pocus.”[11]   Yet the degree to which this centuries-old doctrine has been maligned, often without much serious critical reflection, reveals precisely how deeply influenced (dare I say, subverted?) modern Protestantism has been by the modernist project and by radical philosophical nominalism.  

But first, the Medieval Catholic view:  I have already stated that for Catholics the ultimate miracle was not the cross, but the incarnation.  The Eucharist is, simply understood, a reenactment (or, to use the theological term, a “recapitulation”) of that miracle, over and over again.  Just as God himself became flesh, so too the Bread and the Wine – though the accidents (outward appearances) do not change – transform in essence into the body and blood of Jesus Christ.  Historically, this precise understanding dates back to the ninth century when King Charles the Bald asked, “Is the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist in Truth or in Mystery?”  Two theologians, Radbertus and Ratramnus, debated the answer to this question in painstaking detail.  Radbertus and his articulation of transubstantiation eventually won the day.[12]

Sacraments, for as long as there have been sacraments, have always been understood by the church as that which changes a person ontologically before God.  That means that taking the bread and the cup literally cleanses sin, restores right relationship, and purifies the soul.  In the medieval church (as well as today), you are not the same person after taking the Eucharist as you were before taking it.  Just as the Incarnation was a miracle, so too is the Eucharist.  Medieval theologians rooted this view of the Blessed Sacrament in their reading of Scripture, especially the Gospel of John.  Jesus said,

Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.  For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.  (John 6:53-56)

Rather than interpreting this individually and hyper-spiritually (both inventions of modernity), the scholastics believed Jesus to be speaking of the literal, physical act of eating.  The medieval hermeneuts further reasoned that when Jesus talked about “real food” and “real drink,” he meant real.  And, of course, the laity of the church took them at their word.

6.    “As soon as a coin in the coffer rings / The soul from purgatory springs." 

…Or so my seventh grade home school curriculum taught me that the corrupt John Tetzel would sing as he bilked the poor out of their money while selling indulgences to fund grand cathedrals in Rome.  While Catholics today would almost universally condemn such corruption, I was never taught in that same curriculum the theological origins of the doctrine of purgatory in the Middle Ages (and before).  Purgatory is the answer to a theological problem:  What happens when a baptized Christian dies with unconfessed venial sin on their hands?  After all, the Bible clearly teaches, “Without holiness, no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:24).  Catholics in the Middle Ages, and at all times, have never believed that baptism covers an individual’s sin for her entire life – past, present, and future.  Such an idea did not emerge until the Reformation.  Rather, baptism only washed away past and present sin.  Post-baptismal sin, on the other hand, posed a different problem since continual, habitual sin (especially mortal sin) could cause a believer to lose one’s salvation.[13]

            Protestants fundamentally miss this key aspect about the medieval teaching about purgatory:  Purgatory is about grace and restoration, not about punishment.  Because a holy God demands perfect holiness and desires to make his people into saints, he needs to purge them of all impurities.  Thus, purgatory is a liminal, temporary state through which one passes on the way to heaven.  From the Council of Orange in 529 CE, it was taught that all Christians do participate in their own salvation, albeit assisted by the grace of God available through the Church and the Sacraments.[14]  Medieval Christians, then, took seriously the exhortation of Paul to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).  Purgatory was God’s gracious way of providing for those who could not finish the job before they died.

Conclusion

            This paper has, of course, merely scratched the surface regarding these important theological issues.  However, the Western church of the Middle Ages – all of which was Catholic – was not utterly irrational or backwards, as some Protestants have supposed.[15]  Consider:  Charlemagne of the ninth century instituted the first public education system and universalized clergy education; during the age of feudalism, the monastery flourished as the center of education and economic development, and invented the hotel and hospital; the northern Italians gave the world capitalism and trade;[16] Aquinas, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, and others laid the foundation for the modern scientific world;[17] William Ockham planted the seeds for the separation of church and state,[18] -- not to mention the preservation of the entire Western theological tradition.

            It is my belief that much of the suspicion that remains to this day between Protestants and Catholics is rooted in ignorance.  Hopefully this paper has offered for the layperson an accessible explanation of the Medieval Catholic Church.  Likely, I have not addressed all questions or concerns (after all, I still have plenty!), but my goal is to show that the church of the millennium before Luther was not lost in darkness and superstition.  In fact, it was quite reasonable and we remain ignorant about its history to our own detriment.

Bibliography

Cahill, Thomas. Mysteries of the Middle Ages : And the Beginning of the Modern World. The Hinges of History. First Anchor Books edition. ed.  New York: Anchor Books, 2008.

Catholic Church. Catechism of the Catholic Church.  Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1994.

Congar, Yves. Tradition & Traditions : The Biblical, Historical, and Theological Evidence for Catholic Teaching on Tradition.  San Diego, CA: Basilica Press, 1998.

Fairweather, Eugene Rathbone, and Anselm. A Scholastic Miscellany: Anselm to Ockham. The Library of Christian Classics.  Philadelphia,: Westminster Press, 1956.

Guarino, Thomas G. Vincent of Lérins and the Development of Christian Doctrine.  Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013.

Lérins, Vincent of. "The Commonitory." Translated by George E. McCracken. In Early Medieval Theology, edited by George E. McCracken. The Library of Christian Classics, 36-89. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006.

McGrath, Alister E. Christianity's Dangerous Idea : The Protestant Revolution-- a History from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First. 1st ed.  New York: HarperOne, 2007.

Stark, Rodney. The Victory of Reason : How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success. 1st ed.  New York: Random House, 2005.

Walls, Jerry L. Heaven : The Logic of Eternal Joy.  Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

———. Hell : The Logic of Damnation. Library of Religious Philosophy.  Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992.

———. Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

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[1] This is written for the benefit of Protestant laypeople and is, therefore, not always rigorously academic in tone.

[2] In fact, I noted with some alarm that at my very Protestant alma mater, Asbury Theological Seminary, in Wilmore, KY, the church history classes that I took devoted at least eighty percent of the class time to the period before Augustine and after Luther – the vast majority of which was after Luther.

[3] Vincent of Lérins, "The Commonitory," in Early Medieval Theology, ed. George E. McCracken, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 74 (XXV.35).

[4] On this point, see especially Thomas G. Guarino, Vincent of Lérins and the Development of Christian Doctrine  (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 93-101; Yves Congar, Tradition & Traditions : The Biblical, Historical, and Theological Evidence for Catholic Teaching on Tradition  (San Diego, CA: Basilica Press, 1998), 422ff.

[5] This tiered, hierarchical edifice is illustrated in in Dante’s allegory The Divine Comedy, in which the reader discovers that the inferno, purgatory, and paradise are all connected in layers (and layers within layers!) built one atop the other.

[6] Alister E. McGrath, Christianity's Dangerous Idea : The Protestant Revolution-- a History from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First, 1st ed. (New York: HarperOne, 2007).

[7] Catholic Church., Catechism of the Catholic Church  (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1994), 509.

[8] Catechism of the Catholic Church  (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1994), 253.

[9] Some of the Protestant objections are certainly reasonable, but they are generally more objections to the “folk theology” of Catholics than to the official theology of the church.  Of course, Protestant churches, too, have plenty of “folk theology!”

[10] Thomas Cahill, Mysteries of the Middle Ages : And the Beginning of the Modern World, First Anchor Books edition. ed., The Hinges of History (New York: Anchor Books, 2008), 102-03.

[11] Interestingly, this phrase comes from a phrase used in the Latin Mass: Hoc est corpus meum, meaning "This is my body."

[12] To be fair, Catholic theologians believe that the concepts behind the doctrine of transubstantiation actually go back much further in church history.  They point to Irenaeus of the 2^nd century, who wrote of the essence of the Eucharistic elements being transformed and interpreted the Lord’s Supper as a recapitulation of the Incarnation.

[13] Inheritors of the theological tradition of John Wesley will agree with these theological premises and wrestle with similar questions.  Like the Catholic tradition, Wesleyans reject the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints and must, therefore, offer some reasonable account for post-baptismal sin.  One such convincing account can be found in the works of Jerry L. Walls.  See his trilogy on this topic: Jerry L. Walls, Hell : The Logic of Damnation, Library of Religious Philosophy (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992); Heaven : The Logic of Eternal Joy  (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation  (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

[14] Of course, the notions that Christians participate in their own salvation really goes back to the New Testament.  See, for example, Matthew 25, Phil. 2:12, James 2:24, etc.

[15] Thankfully, the formerly ubiquitous term “dark ages” is now passé in academia.   It always was a grievously inaccurate misnomer and should never have been used in the first place.  According to sociologist Rodney Stark, never one to mince words, “The idea that Europe fell into the Dark Ages is a hoax originated by antireligious, and bitterly anti-Catholic, eighteenth-century intellectuals who were determined to assert the cultural superiority of their own time and who boosted their claim by denigrating previous centuries as – in the words of Voltaire – a time when ‘barbarism, superstition, [and] ignorance covered the face of the world.’” Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason : How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, 1st ed. (New York: Random House, 2005), 35.

[16] The Victory of Reason : How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, 1st ed. (New York: Random House, 2005), 105-27.

[17] Cahill, Mysteries of the Middle Ages : And the Beginning of the Modern World, 214-29.

[18] Eugene Rathbone Fairweather and Anselm, A Scholastic Miscellany: Anselm to Ockham, The Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia,: Westminster Press, 1956), 437-42.