Let me begin by saying say I am honored to have received a response from N.T. Wright in Christianity Today last month. He is a giant and he has probably influenced me more than any other living theologian (yes, even more than Ratzinger/Benedict XVI).

At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I would like to engage some of N.T. Wright’s comments made in the context of his response to me in the recent Christianity Today article: “Not All Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Protestant debate on justification is reigniting questions about Rome.” I recounted how I began to read N.T. Wright’s books as a seminarian at Westminster Theological Seminary, and how this experience opened my eyes and heart to the Catholic Church. Wright answered that his theology does not necessarily lead to Catholicism. Trevin Wax recently published N.T. Wright’s full response here.

Wright’s responses left me with ten questions. I realize that it is unlikely that I will receive another response from Bishop Wright. He is a busy man, an Anglican bishop, and a world renowned theologian—so I won’t hold my breath. Meanwhile, at least others who have read Wright’s books might ponder these questions and suggest educated answers. No matter how it turns out, here are the Ten Questions:

1. Bishop Wright, in your new book Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision (page 141) you write concerning 2 Cor 5:21:

“The little word genometha in 5:21b-‘that we might become God’s righteousness in him’-does not sit comfortably with the normal interpretation, according to which ‘God’s righteousness’ is ‘imputed’ or ‘reckoned’ to believers. If that is what Paul meant, with the overtones of ‘extraneous righteousness’ that normally come with that theory, the one thing that he ought not to have said is that we ‘become’ that righteousness. Surely that leans far too much towards a Roman Catholic notion of infused righteousness? How careless of Paul to leave the door open to such a notion!”

Question 1: You seem to indicate here that Saint Paul does in fact teach the “Roman Catholic notion of infused righteousness.” How would we be wrong if we were to assume that you are here denying justification by imputation and favoring “a Roman Catholic notion of infused righteousness”?

2. Also in Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision (p. 164), you wrote: “what damage to genuine pastoral theology has been done by making a bogey-word out of the Pauline term synergism, “working together with God.”

Question 2: Should we conclude that you agree with Trent regarding syngergism and disagree with Luther and Calvin on monergism?

3. Bishop Wright, on p. 230, you write: "Thus when [John] Piper says (22) that 'Wright makes startling statements to the effect that our future justification will be on the basis of works', I want to protest: it isn't Wright who says this, but Paul.” Your words conform nicely to the Council of Trent’s Session Six, Chapter 10: “faith co-operating with good works, increase in that justice which they have received through the grace of Christ, and are still further justified.”

Question 3: Are you not affirming with Session Six of the Council of Trent that our justification (with it’s future implications) will be on the basis of works? John Piper doesn’t want to let you off the hook on this one.

4. Bishop Wright, in What Saint Paul Really Said (page 119) you wrote that justification is about ecclesiology before soteriology. This lines up nicely with Session Six of the Council of Trent (especially Chapter Seven) which relates justification in the traditional terms of catechumens and the Church.

Question 4: How is your teaching in What Saint Paul Really Said substantially different from the Council of Trent’s formulation?

5. Bishop Wright, you note that Heinrich Schlier was a fine New Testament scholar. In fact, Schlier states that it was Sacred Scripture that lead him into the Catholic Church.

Question 5: Do you believe that Schlier was so naïve as to believe that being Bultmannian or being Catholic were the only two options available to him?

6. Bishop Wright, you state the Council of Trent provided the wrong answer regarding “nature/grace question.” As far as I can tell, Trent only touched upon this question in Session Five and even there the word “nature” only appears twice.

Question 6: Could you clarify what you mean by “Trent gave the wrong answer, at a deep level, to the nature/grace question”? To which session would I turn in the Council of Trent to find the alleged “wrong answer”?

7. Bishop Wright, you state that Trent’s “wrong answer to the nature/grace question” led to Catholic abuses in Marian doctrine and devotion.

Question 7: Are you referring to something as general as the prayers to Mary or something more specific like her bodily assumption into Heaven?

8. You indicated that the Catholic Church has sought to prevent the belief that God works through women and lay people. You wrote: “Communal, yes, but don’t let the laity (or the women) get any fancy ideas about God working new things through them.”

It is rather noteworthy that the two greatest saints of the Catholic Church are the Blessed Virgin Mary (a woman) and Saint Joseph (a layman).

Our profound love for the Blessed Virgin Mary and her role in the incarnation goes without mentioning. Moreover, the Catholic Church venerates three female Doctors of the Church (St Teresa of Avila, St Catherine of Sienna, and St Therese of Lisieux) who stand next to the other great Doctors of the Church like St Augustine, St Basil, St Thomas Aquinas, et al.

Question 8: Could you be more specific as to how the Catholic Church devalues the role of women and laymen?

9. You write that the Reformed, Anglican, charismatic, and emergent traditions can encompass the best of what it means to be “sacramental, transformational, communal, eschatological.” Yet, these four traditions (Reformed, Anglican, charismatic, and emergent) are in fundamental disagreement over what a sacrament is, how a human is justified and/or sanctified, what the church is, and what the eschaton is and how it will occur. Even within their own jurisdictions (e.g. Anglican Communion), there is vast disagreement over all of these issues. You say there are “bits of it” in the emergent church, but we could also say that there are “bits of it” when I pray the Our Father with my children before they fall asleep – yet “bits of it” do not entail the climax of the covenant as anticipated in Isaiah, Daniel, or the Minor Prophets.

Question 9: If what it means to be sacramental, transformational, communal, eschatological “can be found in” these four contradicting traditions, doesn’t it entail that each of these four (or even all four together) do not actualize what it means to be sacramental, transformational, communal, eschatological? In other words, “these elements can be found in their congregations” doesn’t entail “these elements constitute their congregations.”

10. Bishop Wright, you write: “Trent, and much subsequent RC theology, has had a habit of never spring-cleaning, so you just live in a house with more and more clutter building up, lots of right answers to wrong questions.”

On the contrary, since the Reformation, only the Catholic Church has continued to hold councils and examine the deposit of faith. Lutherans, Anglicans, and Calvinists still appeal to the same dusty articles of faith that they drafted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They do not hold doctrinal councils. They are unable to reform. They are what they are. So the accusation that the Catholic Church doesn’t clean house is actually more appropriately directed toward Protestant denominations.

Question 10: Is it the case that Protestant theology is clean and tidy when compared to Catholic theology?

Bishop Wright, you wrote:

I am sorry to think that there are people out there whose Protestantism has been so barren that they never found out about sacraments, transformation, community or eschatology. Clearly this person [that’s me, Taylor] needed a change. But to jump to Rome for that reason is very odd.

I would like to point out that I am not simply an isolated “this person” who “needed a change.” It’s quite ironic that Wright should says this the wake of the Pope’s announcement of the new Anglican Personal Ordinariates. I’m not the only one. Thousands and thousands of clergy and laity from his own denomination have appealed to the Pope as a result of the Anglican Communion losing its sacramental and communal nature. If Anglicanism can provide a Christianity that is “sacramental, transformational, communal, and eschatological,” then why are these Anglicans so deeply dissatisfied with Anglicanism? Would Wright also say that their “jump to Rome” is “very odd”?
Thank you for reading. As a grateful fan and reader of N.T. Wright’s books, I am continually amazed by his profound insights into Sacred Scripture. As a Catholic, I continue to enjoy his books and find myself returning to his works on a regular basis. I have the highest regard for Bishop Wright and wish him all the best.

I’d like to open up the comments and ask for responses. Would you agree that within Wright’s writings and public comments, “there are some things in them hard to understand”? What are we to make those passages that allege to be “not magisterially Protestant” but “not magisterially Catholic” either?

Please look for my new book: The Catholic Perspective on Paul (Summer 2010). It is based on the conviction that the Pauline epistles contain the primitive and pristine doctrines of the Catholic Faith (that is, the Patristic "old perspective" on Paul). In the Pauline corpus we discover a Paul who is Catholic, a theologian who is sacramental, a churchman who is hierarchical, a mystic who is orthodox.

Listen to Episode #1: RABBI SAUL BECOMES APOSTLE PAUL.

Labels: Catholicism, Justification, N.T. Wright, Trent

The local radio stations are already playing Christmas music and everyone is already talking about the "Christmas" season--but it's not yet Christmas - this Sunday begins Advent, the season for preparing for Christmas.

So what is Advent and why is it important? Advent is a time to prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ. It has a quasi-penitential theme, and this can be a strong antidote against the consumerism of our nation and time.

I was recently wondering about the origins of Advent and its history. So I did a little research and came up with the Top Ten Things You Need to Know about Advent:

1. The first recorded "preparation for Christmas" is found in the acts of the Synod of Saragossa, Spain in A.D. 380. This synod declared that all baptized Christians should be present in Church from December 17 till December 25. If you do the math, that comes out to the eight days before Christmas--not quite a full Advent season, but it's a start.
2. Saint Caesarius of Arles (502-542) is recorded to have delivered the first recorded homilies on Advent.
3. The Synod of Mâcon in Gaul (modern day France) in A.D. 581 is our first firm witness of what we might call the season of Advent. It states that the liturgical norms for Lent be kept from November 11 to December 24. The connection made here between Advent and Lent reflects the reason why the penitential color of purple is common to both Advent and Lent.
4. We also have a copy of a sermon given by Pope Saint Gregory the Great (590-604) for the second Sunday of Advent.
5. In the seventh century, Advent was celebrated in Spain with five Sundays! The Gelasian Sacramentary also gives liturgical propers for the "five Sundays of Advent."
6. The Eastern Churches began celebrating Advent in the eighth century as a time of strict fasting and abstinence--a practice still common Eastern Orthodoxy. This practice also reflects the season's similarity to Lent. Incidentally, red is the most common liturgical color for Advent in the Eastern churches.
7. Pope St. Gregory VII (1073-85) apparently reduced the number of Sundays in Advent from five to four--the current practice.
8. The third Sunday of Advent is technically called Gaudete Sunday and it is marked by rose vestments (don't ask your priest why he's wearing "pink"!) and hangings. Gaudete means rejoice because the third Sunday marks the over-half-way-point of Advent. This usage corresponds to the rose vestments used on Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent (also the over-half-way-point of Lent).
9. The Advent wreath, found in many Catholic homes, is a rather modern invention. It derives to a 19th century German custom, apparently Lutheran in origin. The practice was soon adopted by Bavarian Catholics and spread all over the world.
10. The liturgical season of Advent anticipates Second Advent (Coming) of Christ while also remembering the First Advent (Coming) of Christ at Christmas. Thus, the season generally celebrates the activity of God in history in and through our Lord Jesus Christ. Advent is the parenthesis in which falls all of Christian history.

I hope you found this helpful. Please send it along to friends and family and have Happy Advent.

Have a Happy and Holy Advent,
Taylor Marshall

PS: Tune in again at Christmas for a special piece on the "Top Ten Things to Know about the Twelve Days of Christmas."

PPS: If you want to know the truth about the so-called Sarum Use tradition in England of wearing blue vestments during Advent then you need to read this: Liturgical Colors in the Sarum Rite.

Labels: Advent, Christmas, History, Top Ten, Tradition

The history books will tell you that the first Thanksgiving was celebrated by the pilgrims in 1621. Not true.

An interesting bit of trivia is that the first American Thanksgiving was actually celebrated on September 8, 1565 in St. Augustine, Florida. The Native Americans and Spanish settlers held a feast and the Holy Mass was offered.

The Catholic origins of Thanksgiving don't stop there. Squanto, the beloved hero of Thanksgiving, was the Native American man who mediated between the Puritan Pilgrims and the Native Americans. Squanto had been enslaved by the English but he was freed by Spanish Franciscans. Squanto thus received baptism and became a Catholic. So it was a baptized Catholic Native American who orchestrated what became known as Thanksgiving.

All that being said, Thanksgiving is traditionally Protestant and marks the tradition of religious toleration (something in which the Puritan pilgrims did not actually believe - they set up a "theocracy").

My wife once taught at a high-church Episcopalian/Anglican classical school in Philadelphia. The school consciously played down the significance of Thanksgiving. Why? The reason is simple. At root, Thanksgiving commemorates the good fortune of political and ecclesiastical rebels against the Church of England and the Anglican tradition as a whole.

It all started with Richard Clyfton who was a Church of England parson in Nottinghamshire in the early 1600s. Clifton sympathized with the Separatists of that era. Separatists were Calvinistic non-conformists to the doctrine and liturgy of the Church of England. The Hampton Court Conference held by King James I (1604) condemned those who would not conform to the more outwardly Catholic usages in the Church of England (e.g. robes, candles, bowing the head at the name of Christ, processions). The result was that Richard Clyfton was “defrocked” and stripped of his clerical status in the Church of England. Shortly thereafter Richard Clyfton went to Amsterdam and was followed by his disciples: the Pilgrims.

These Pilgrims moved around a bit until finally coming to America in 1620. An interesting bit of trivia is that one child was born on board the Mayflower while at sea. The child was given the rather lame name: “Oceanus”. Poor child.

In 1621, the Pilgrims allegedly celebrated a happy meal with the Native Americans and the rest is history. So why would an Anglican school be against Thanksgiving? It celebrates those who defied the Church of England and the Crown of England.

Now that I’m no longer an Anglican and now a Catholic, things are a bit different. The penal laws of England regarding non-conformists affected not only the rigorous Calvinistic Puritans in England, but also the English Catholic recusants. The Pilgrims shared the same lot as the Catholic faithful of England. Interestingly enough, the Catholics who lived in Nottinghamshire where the Pilgrims originated were persecuted mercilessly.

So while Thanksgiving may celebrate the Calvinist Separatists who fled England, Catholics might remember the same unjust laws that granted the crown of martyrdom to Thomas More, John Fisher, Edmund Campion, et al. are the same injustices that led the Pilgrims to Plymouth.

Another bit of trivia is that the truly “First Thanksgiving” celebration occurred on American soil on April 30, 1598 in Texas when Don Juan de Oñate declared a day of Thanksgiving to be commemorated by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

And let everyone remember that “Thanksgiving” in Greek is Eucharistia. Thus, the Body and Blood of Christ is the true “Thanksgiving Meal”.

Labels: History, Holy Days, Tradition

This is a pretty interesting video about the apparition of the Blessed Virgin in Egypt. Anybody heard of this? The Coptic Orthodox Patriarch has approved it, for what it's worth.

This homily by Saint Augustine is from this morning's Office of Readings. If you ever wondered why Jesus calls his disciples "my mother" then check out this great explanation by Augustine. He shows how Mary was a greater as a disciple of Christ than as the mother of Christ - something quite profound:

	A sermon of St Augustine
By faith she believed; by faith, conceived
Stretching out his hand over his disciples, the Lord Christ declared: Here are my mother and my brothers; anyone who does the will of my Father who sent me is my brother and sister and my mother. I would urge you to ponder these words. Did the Virgin Mary, who believed by faith and conceived by faith, who was the chosen one from whom our Saviour was born among men, who was created by Christ before Christ was created in her – did she not do the will of the Father? Indeed the blessed Mary certainly did the Father’s will, and so it was for her a greater thing to have been Christ’s disciple than to have been his mother, and she was more blessed in her discipleship than in her motherhood. Hers was the happiness of first bearing in her womb him whom she would obey as her master. Now listen and see if the words of Scripture do not agree with what I have said. The Lord was passing by and crowds were following him. His miracles gave proof of divine power. and a woman cried out: Happy is the womb that bore you, blessed is that womb! But the Lord, not wishing people to seek happiness in a purely physical relationship, replied: More blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it. Mary heard God’s word and kept it, and so she is blessed. She kept God’s truth in her mind, a nobler thing than carrying his body in her womb. The truth and the body were both Christ: he was kept in Mary’s mind insofar as he is truth, he was carried in her womb insofar as he is man; but what is kept in the mind is of a higher order than what is carried in the womb. The Virgin Mary is both holy and blessed, and yet the Church is greater than she. Mary is a part of the Church, a member of the Church, a holy, an eminent – the most eminent – member, but still only a member of the entire body. The body undoubtedly is greater than she, one of its members. This body has the Lord for its head, and head and body together make up the whole Christ. In other words, our head is divine – our head is God. Now, beloved, give me your whole attention, for you also are members of Christ; you also are the body of Christ. Consider how you yourselves can be among those of whom the Lord said: Here are my mother and my brothers. Do you wonder how you can be the mother of Christ? He himself said: Whoever hears and fulfils the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and my sister and my mother. As for our being the brothers and sisters of Christ, we can understand this because although there is only one inheritance and Christ is the only Son, his mercy would not allow him to remain alone. It was his wish that we too should be heirs of the Father, and co-heirs with himself. Now having said that all of you are brothers of Christ, shall I not dare to call you his mother? Much less would I dare to deny his own words. Tell me how Mary became the mother of Christ, if it was not by giving birth to the members of Christ? You, to whom I am speaking, are the members of Christ. Of whom were you born? “Of Mother Church,” I hear the reply of your hearts. You became sons of this mother at your baptism, you came to birth then as members of Christ. Now you in your turn must draw to the font of baptism as many as you possibly can. You became sons when you were born there yourselves, and now by bringing others to birth in the same way, you have it in your power to become the mothers of Christ.

Labels: Augustine, Mary

I'm having a friendly conversation with a Lutheran seminarian over at www.PaulisCatholic.com. The topic is justification (surprise!!!). Here's a recent response of mine to him:

As a Catholic, I understand the Greek verb dikaio as juridical AND transformative. A sinner “becomes righteous” and this is why the Greek word was rightly translated as iustificatio—“making just.”

I’m saying that a legal, declarative change is not merely what God does for us. Salvation involves a union with Christ to the sinner and that union transforms the sinner into a new creation.

I was not merely “declared righteous” through faith, rather I “became righteous,” because Christ washed away my original sin and my personal sins so that I was a new creation. Grace filled my soul and the Holy Spirit came upon me. As Saint Paul wrote:

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21)

We BECOME THE RIGHTEOUSNESS of God. It’s not merely imputed. Luther didn’t do justice to the entire Pauline corpus, in my opinion. He stopped way too short of the glory of justification.

You wrote:

“A Lutheran would say that a perfect righteousness identical to that of Christ, which is recieved through faith (being the first of the cardinal virtues), would be a stronger type of righteousness (if not the only type of righteousness) than anything that could dwell within a more or less sinful man.”

Joseph, that’s the just the rub. If God’s righteousness can’t dwell in a man, how could a sinful man ever enter Heaven? You’ve got to have a transformation/infusion for this whole thing to work. If God’s righteousness is to holy to dwell in a sinner, then how can the sinner ever dwell in God??!!

You wrote:

“The quality of our righteousness and participation is made the qualifications for our eternal life. Why is this necessary to believe?”

Jesus said, “If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned” (Jn 15:6).

I read this (as a Catholic) as saying that if you don’t participate in Christ through union with Him, then you’re going to Hell.

Just a few bits of difference that I picked up from your email:

• For Catholics, charity, not faith, is the highest of the theological virtues (faith, hope, charity), and faith isn’t a cardinal virtue at all (cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance). This may be a difference with Lutherans. Is it?
  
  
• For Catholics, virtues (e.g. faith, charity, justice) are habits of the soul. This means that for us they are accidents, not substances in the soul.

One final thought. Which is better?:

A) To be married on paper – that is, to be declared married.
B) To experience the union of marriage, being transformed as “one flesh”?

Clearly, matrimony includes both realities. As I understand it, you’re choosing (A) to the exclusion of (B). As a Catholic, I’m saying both (A) and (B). God declares us righteous because He has made us righteous. When a baby is baptized, he is 100% holy.

Looking forward to your response. This is a very helpful dialogue.

In Christ,
Taylor

Please listen to a related podcast: What did Paul Teach about Justification?

Labels: Justification, Luther, Lutherans

The Story of my Conversion to Catholicism (Audio Version)
- and Information about the Anglican Personal Ordinariates by Taylor Marshall

Click on the triangular “play” button above.

This recording is in two parts. The first half explains how I became a Christian (through a baseball autograph from Tom Monaghan), then an Episcopal priest, and then how I became a Catholic Christian. The second half is a presentation on the Anglican Personal Ordinariates and a public Q&A session on that topic.

You have to wait about 8 seconds to hear anything, so please don't give up after you hit play.

A special thanks to an Anglo-Catholic friend Tony Clark who recorded this talk and edited it.

Click on the triangular “play” button above.

You can also download the mp3 file directly by right clicking

Labels: Podcasts

I'm starting to hear back from folks who have finished reading my new book The Crucified Rabbi: Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity. Some readers are people that I know, some of them are people that I have never met, but heard about the book via Twitter, a friend, etc. So far, (insert sigh of relief), everyone likes it and has positive things to say (insert knock on wood).

Some have asked about the "next book." Please remember that The Crucified Rabbi is actually the first book in a Trilogy. The second book is already finished, but not yet published. The third book is almost finished (needs two more chapters). The Trilogy is called "Origins of Catholic Christianity." Here are the three books:

1. The Crucified Rabbi: Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity
   
   
2. The Catholic Perspective on Paul: The Apostolic Origins of Catholic Christianity
   
   
3. The Eternal City: Rome and the Origins of Catholic Christianity
   
   

This first book (Crucified Rabbi) examines the Jewish origins of Catholicism and the third book (Eternal City) examines the Gentile origins of Catholicism, especially the role of the city of Rome in salvation history. The middle book on Saint Paul (Catholic Perspective on Paul) is the bridge between the two. Paul was a Jewish rabbi and he became the Apostle to the Gentiles. Moreover, I perceive the book of Acts as the linchpin: Acts begins in Jerusalem and ends in Rome. This is the early Christian ecclesiastical narrative and I hope to remind Christians that their origins are both Jewish and Roman—consequently Christianity is best expressed in Roman Catholicism with its Jewish inheritance of liturgy, sacrifice, art, priesthood, and ritual. That’s the trilogy thesis in a nutshell.

The Trilogy is a New (really Old) Perspective on Paul with an emphasis on Jewish culture and theology AND pagan Roman culture and theology. Paul found both as playing a role in the redemptive economy of God. It's not simply Hegelian ("Judaism" + "Greek culture and philosophy" = "Christianity"). Instead it's a biblical theology that tries to account for all the details.

The first book on Judaism is already published (Oct 2009), the Paul book is due for 2010, and the last book on Rome will be published in 2011 (God willing).

The Paul book is complete and it is in the editorial stages. The Rome book is almost finished. I’m working on the final two chapters. One of these chapters on the theological significance of Constantine’s conversion; and the final chapter on the true eternal City of God a la Saint Augustine.

I hope in the end to demonstrate that only Catholic Christianity follows the trajectory of God’s providential plan in history from Moses to Augustine. In brief, I wish to show that Moses' religion of tabernacle-sacrifice flows into the Roman Church and on into eternity.

Last of all, the books are written at that popular level. My wife has read all three books and thinks that the third book on Rome (Eternal City) is the best. My favorite book is the second book (Catholic Perspective on Paul). I'm hoping that the second book will be out by the end of next summer.



Five Reasons to read Taylor Marshall's The Crucified Rabbi