The person of Mary and her role in salvation history is a huge paradigm shift when moving from evangelical non-denominational Bible Christianity to the traditions of a Divine and Catholic Faith. It is so large and complex it is often cited as the last theological obstacle when conversion takes place and even then it is mostly an assent of the will.

Protestant denominations vary greatly on their veneration of the person of Mary but evangelicals tend to give her little to no veneration outside the season of Christmas. Scripture, the key source of teaching and authority in Protestant Christianity, says little about her role in salvation history outside the virgin birth of Jesus. Protestants also take issue with Catholics who “worship” Mary and claim she remained a perpetual virgin, citing places in scripture where it mentions Jesus’ “biological” brothers and sisters [Matthew 12:47; James, bishop of Jerusalem, writer of the same letter and the so-called brother of our Lord]—hence, Mary must have had other children, presumably by Joseph later on [Matthew 1:25 is particularly vivid]. And this must be so because, as an axiom, the Scripture is inerrant. Mary ultimately becomes an important and useful “servant” or handmaid of the Lord with no more significance than other notable characters of the Bible.

Catholic Sacred Tradition tells a very different story altogether. First, Mary was immaculately conceived meaning that she did not have the stain of original sin. Mary was prefigured in Genesis 3 (Protoevangelium) and by the Ark of the Convenant in the Old Testament, being a sacred vessel containing the law, the priesthood, and the manna (bread of life) in the person of Jesus Christ. After Jesus’ nativity, she remained a Virgin and did not bear any other children. She suffered with Christ in His Passion as the prophet Simeon predicted in Luke 2:35. After taken in by the disciple John (behold your mother), she moved to Ephesus and was later assumed into heaven and there reigns as the Queen (specifically not as a king’s wife in the European monarchies but has the mother of the king in the Davidic dynasties) of Heaven according to Revelations 12 and intercedes on behalf of the Church militant. She is explicitly not worshipped which is reserved for God alone, but venerated as the first apostle and the person through which dual-natured Jesus obtained His humanity. She is not a goddess, but the mother of God, the God-birther, or the Theotokos. She is unique in human history and the Bible says “all generations shall call her blessed”. She’s a super big deal in Catholicism and its incredibly dishonoring to God and “Our Lady” to think that she only gave birth to Jesus Christ as if God simply needed a temporary surrogate rent-a-womb then faded her to black.

Analysis

I once thought, If Mary is so important to salvation history why does the Bible speak very little about her? It is important to note that not all of what we know about God, Jesus, and the New Covenant is necessarily written down in Scripture. See the earlier Paradigm essay on the source of Authority. The Bible was compiled in the fourth century to normalize the liturgy of the word carried on in the early church. It was not compiled to be the encyclopedic reference for all that we know and understand about God. On the contrary, the Bible even says that there was much Jesus had said and done that was not written down. See John 21:25. Do you think some of that missing material was important?

Even still, what little the Bible does say should at least reflect what the Church transmits and teaches about Mary. Although there are a number of Marian doctrines we could examine, clearly, the one idea that she is a perpetual virgin is totally orthogonal to the text—it’s clearly wrong.

Or is it?

First, belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity is not really a big game changer—it may or may not have a big impact on Christians system of belief. Nevertheless, it may interest one that the Catholic Bible also uses the words “brethren”, “brothers”, “sisters”, “siblings” to translate the same passages like Matthew 12:47. They don’t try to wash it out with their own translational fudging. However translated, the Church is keen to point out that these words are used because in the original language and culture of first century Palestine, these were common words to connote relatives of various sorts. Even today, a complete stranger might be addressed as “brother” in the Middle East. In Sub Saharan Africa, adult friends of a family are addressed as aunt and uncle even if they are not related by blood whatsoever. And today in Hawaii everyone is called “brah”.  This practice is actually more common than not in considering all the cultures of the world.

Hebrew and Aramaic have words for father, mother, father-in-law, mother-in-law, uncle, aunt, brother, and sister. To describe any other relation, such as cousin, half-sibling, nephew, relative, kinsman, or close friend, they used the word for ‘brother’. In these languages the designation “brother” is not linguistically restricted to an actual individual from the same mother, and therefore one cannot base an argument against the perpetual virginity of Mary on the fact that there are individuals in the New Testament called “brothers” of Jesus.

But it may surprise Evangelical Christians that the Protestant Reformers believed in Mary’s perpetual virginity too—it’s not just a Catholic thing:

• Martin Luther on the Virginity of Mary: “It is an article of faith that Mary is Mother of the Lord and still a virgin. … Christ, we believe, came forth from a womb left perfectly intact” (Weimer’s The Works of Luther, English translation by Pelikan, Concordia, St. Louis, v. 11, pp. 319-320; v. 6. p. 510).
• John Calvin on the Virginity of Mary: “Helvidius has shown himself too ignorant, in saying that Mary had several sons, because mention is made in some passages of the brothers of Christ.” Calvin interpreted ‘brothers’ in these contexts to refer to cousins or relatives (Bernard Leeming, “Protestants and Our Lady”, Marian Library Studies, January 1967, p.9).
• Ulrich Zwingli on the Virginity of Mary: “I firmly believe that Mary, according to the words of the gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin” (Zwingli Opera, Corpus Reformatorum, Berlin, 1905, v. 1, p. 424).
• Ulrich Zwingli on the Virginity of Mary: “I esteem immensely the Mother of God, the ever chaste, immaculate Virgin Mary …; Christ … was born of a most undefiled Virgin” (Stakemeier, E. in De Mariologia et Oecumenismo, Balick., ed., Rome, 1962, p. 456).

It’s only in our modern and secularized Christianity of the last century or so that this doctrine has been thrown under the bus. But why? Did millennia of Catholic and Protestant theologians and scholars get it wrong?

There are other proofs that Mary did not have any children other than Jesus. The fact that Jesus committed Mary to the care of his disciple John (behold your Mother) shows that Mary had no other children, otherwise they would have taken custody of her as would be their familial duty.

Alas, as always, the naked text of the Bible can be marshalled to any defense by those so willing. But taking another approach, in the following passage, apologist Scoot Hahn supports Mary’s Perpetual Virginity by appealing to our understanding of the sacred and the Old Testament.

God gave her singular graces because of her unique role in history. He made her sinless from the moment of her conception. He called her to be “Ever-Virgin.” Why? Because she was to become the vessel of God’s presence in the world! Now, the vessels used in the temple service were made, by God’s command, of the purest, most precious metals; and they were reserved only for sacred use. You could not repurpose the temple’s golden altar as an end table. You could not take the chalice used for libations and fill it with a cold beer on a hot summer night. Apart from the temple service, even the finest wine would profane the sacred vessels. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with end tables or alcoholic beverages, but the temple vessels were sacred and for God’s use only. Mary’s body was that kind of vessel. Once blessed with God’s presence, she could not simply “retire” and resume an ordinary married life. What would be permissible and even honorable for others would be a profanation for the Mother of God. And it should go without saying that God would preserve the vessel of his presence from contamination by sin. [Hahn, Scott (2014-05-27). Angels and Saints: A Biblical Guide to Friendship with God’s Holy Ones (Kindle Locations 1822-1831). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.]

Something to think about.

What are sacraments?

To some degree, all Christians believe Jesus Christ instituted “practices” that the Church would perform as part of her mission on Earth. When understood to be practices with a supernatural, sacred and salvific properties, roughly speaking, these practices are called sacraments. For example, Baptism is one such sacrament although many denominations would regard baptism as merely symbolic rather than supernatural. Like all the sacraments, Jesus instituted baptism commissioning his disciples to “go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Matthew 28:19. As one discovers with the sacraments, there is a proper application that validates it: in the case of Baptism, it must involve water and must be Trinitarian.

Some mainstream Protestant denominations recognize a few sacraments, usually two—baptism and communion — while many evangelical Bible churches do not recognize a “sacramental economy” at all.

Conversely, the Catholic Church recognizes seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, holy communion (Eucharist), penance, anointing of the sick, holy matrimony, and holy orders. According to the Catechism: [1131] “The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions.”

Although there is much to understand about the sacraments, their purpose, their symbolism, their prefiguration in the Old Testament, their application and salvific significance, the first thing to understand about the sacraments is: did Jesus really institute them. Although the Church claims that the sacramental system was passed on from the beginning through Sacred Tradition, we can still see evidence of the sacramental system in Sacred Scripture:

• Water baptism. We saw the commissioning of this in Matthew 28:19.
• Confirmation (anointing, baptism of the Holy Spirit, usually with oil or laying on of hands by apostle). Along with baptism, the two sacraments are considered part of Christian initiation. Jesus modeled the combination of baptism and confirmation in Matthew 3:13-17. Of course we see in the Acts of the Apostles many places where the baptism of the Holy Spirit was administered. Indeed, the word “Christian” is from the word “Christ” which means anointed.
• The Eucharist (the Most Blessed Sacrament) was instituted at the Last Supper and prefigured in the Old Testament as well as vividly in John 6 where many disciples left Jesus on the “hard teaching” of eating Jesus’ body and blood for eternal life. One writer called these disciples “Proto-Protestants”. 1 Corinthians 11:23-33 also talks about the institution of the Eucharist, the sign of the New Covenant.
• Penance, (or Confession, Reconciliation, Conversion). In John 19:20-23 we see the apostles are given the authority by Jesus to forgive sin—but why? It’s interesting the disciples had the authority to heal, cast out evil spirits, preach, etc. beforehand, but this authority was provided AFTER the resurrection. This authority, according to the Church, has been passed down through apostolic succession and evolved in format. So when one goes to confession (with the required disposition), the priest has the authority to forgive any grave sin and reinstate the baptized to the sacramental community of the Church. Protestants argue that you don’t need to go to someone to have your sins forgiven but that God can forgive you your sins directly. Catholics do not deny that this is possible but also argue that the ordinary way (the way we know about and the way Christ instituted) is through the sacrament of reconciliation.
• Anointing of the Sick. This is quite vividly described in the book of James. Because it involves the forgiveness of sin, only a priest (called an elder in James) may administer it. Likewise, Mark 6:12-13 talks about the disciple’s ministry of anointing the sick.
• Marriage is a sacrament. Not everyone participates in this sacrament administered by the authority of a priest. The Catholic Church understands marriage to be between one man and one woman, indissoluble. That is why divorce and same-sex marriage will never be condoned in the Catholic Church for, as a sacrament, no one has the authority to change it up—not even the Pope. Marriage was instituted in Genesis and validated by Christ in Matthew 19:1-12.
• Holy Orders. This is the ordination of men to the priesthood. Not everyone receives this sacrament, e.g., women cannot be priests. Paul and the disciples represented this priesthood as did the tribe of Levi in the old testament. When Jesus chose twelve men, he modeled this sacrament.

Analysis

As one apologist put it, Sacraments are the opposite of Magick (in the spiritual sense not in the Las Vegas sense). Whereas Magick manipulates the properties of the spiritual world to affect something in the physical world, sacraments manipulate the properties of the physical world (bread, oil, wine, hands) to affect something in the spiritual world (salvation, atonement).

The large paradigm shift here has to do with what the Church does or is supposed to do. According to Catholics it administers the sacraments with the appropriate authority. Compare this to a Bible church that predominantly preaches the gospel and studies the bible—all good things that the Church applauds.  But without Bibles, Christianity is merely disadvantaged. Without sacraments and liturgy, there is no Christianity at all. Think about what Christians were doing the first one thousand years before Guttenberg made Bibles readily available through the printing press and Luther conjured the sola scriptura philosophy. They were celebrating the sacraments instituted by Christ.  Catholics still do–all seven.

How I wept, deeply moved by your hymns, songs, and the voices that echoed through your Church! What emotion I experienced in them! Those sounds flowed into my ears, distilling the truth in my heart. A feeling of devotion surged within me, and tears streamed down my face—tears that did me good. [Augustine’s Confessions]

This paradigm shift discusses the differences in church services and what happens there. In this essay I select the Roman (Latin Rite) Catholic Mass although the Church recognizes a number of rites that have developed over time.

A typical evangelical Bible Church services starts with music and singing, often praise songs with a contemporary sound but sometimes traditional hymns. There are usually worship leaders, professional musicians, and vocalists to get things going, set a mood and create a spirit for worshippers to participate. The use of lighting and multimedia might also be employed. There might be a special music transition featuring a soloist or some other art form to get people settled for the next phase, the sermon. Central to the worship service of a Protestant Church, the sermon is usually based on a passage of scripture and used to illuminate a truth about God or a way for Christians to live—ironically sola scriptura cum persona.  After the sermon there may be an “altar call” (though there isn’t an altar anywhere) or blessing. Prayers are generally impromptu and concluded with the name of Jesus.

When Catholics go to Church they go to Mass, a word derived from the Latin word missa which means to “send forth” and where we get words like “mission”, “missionary” and “dismiss”. All Catholic masses are typical because it is a specified ceremony of words and actions with some variation in content depending on the feast day. The mass starts with an introit—a song or chant—in which the priest processes toward the altar where the sacrifice will occur. There are several phases to the Mass: 1) the penitent rite in which everyone admits their sin and asks for mercy 2) the Liturgy of the Word in which scripture is read 3) the Liturgy of the Eucharist in which the Last Supper / Christ’s Crucifixion is re-presented in time/space. The bread and wine used during the last rite are transubstantiated into the body and blood of Jesus Christ and faithful Catholics will eat and drink this during Holy Communion—the most central and sacred part of the Mass. After communion, the congregation is dismissed with a blessing to go back out into the world as a people set apart for the divine life and sacred duty.  Prayers are always prescribed and usually end with the name of the Trinity.

Analysis

I do not know where the format of the Bible Church service originated—it’s most likely an American evolution. It can vary from service to service somewhat and may be punctuated with special events, causes, calls to action, new study series, or book recommendation. Services are planned ahead as an event that requires improvement, change and, to be honest, a bit of marketing. Let’s face it, many Bible Churches are a blend of worship and entertainment. The centrality of the sermon often creates organizations centered around performance and personality. That is why congregations established or expanded by Lon Solomon, Joel Olsteen, Joseph Prince, Robert Schuller, Rick Warren, and other mega-pastors tend to diminish in size, message, purpose after the pastor retires.

Once upon a time I would have totally discounted the “dead-formalism” of the liturgical worship of the Catholic Mass, facetiously labeling it “Simon said” sit, stand, knell, say, respond.  But in contrast to the “jazz things up” each week to stimulate the congregation, it not only makes sense but when seen around the centrality of the Eucharist, it is the reason we go to church every week. In many of Lon Solomon’s sermons that call forward the traditions of the Jews, the holidays and rituals they celebrated served as reminders from generation to generation. It makes sense from the perspective of history why this was important since it conveyed sacred tradition from generation to generation through the mechanics of ritual, responsorial, symbolism, and song.

For the uninitiated, the Mass is weird, foreign, and mysterious—rife with symbolism and meaning. It dates back to antiquity and is generally the same in every Catholic Church everywhere in the world. The Mass has also evolved over centuries but holds as its source the Last Supper. Catholics argue that liturgical elements of the Mass are evident in the Old Testament, the Gospels, the Epistles, and the Acts—many of the liturgical formulas are straight scripture. When you go to Mass it may seem foreign because, it is argued, one is transported to a foreign place, heaven, and much of what is done and said is representative of John’s Book of Revelation.

A prototype format of the Mass is also reflected in the story of Jesus walking with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) where he talks about what scriptures said about Him (Liturgy of the Word) and the breaking of bread (Liturgy of the Eucharist). The Gospel of John (Chapter 6) talks about eating Jesus body and drinking his blood to obtain eternal life—what the Catholics point to as biblical proof for the Eucharist. Paul references the Mass in his letters to the Churches (1 Corinthians 10:14-22, 11:23-33, Hebrews 9:1-5). What’s more, the mass is prefigured in the Old Testament especially as the Passover lamb and the manna from heaven. And the writings of the early church fathers reflect a similar format of orthodox (“right praise”) worship. The amazing part of the Mass is that it is performed every day, everywhere in the world. The mass has been celebrated since Jesus instituted it and no one is allowed to modify it on their own.

Aside from the homily, there is little that can be subject to personal style or creativity in the Catholic Mass.  In fact, the priest wears a chasuble to shroud his identity as he is supposed to be representative of Jesus (alter Christus) and not himself. That is why, when the Gospel is read by the priest, everyone stands–it is Jesus speaking his own words. And no matter how good the music is, no one applauds. Although congregants become attached to their priest, it is quite common for bishops to reassign priests—and Catholics are used to this even if they don’t like it.

There is an interesting set of videos on the mass and one that came out today talked about Unity and Variety in the Mass.

Prerequisite to this discussion is the concept of salvation. The assertion is that mankind is in a fallen state and under God’s judgement and requires salvation to reclaim eternal communion with God. Protestants and Catholics differ on the doctrine of salvation.

Along with scripture alone (sola scriptura), another pillar of the Protestant Reformation is faith alone (sola fide).  This pillar refers to the doctrine of salvation—that God forgives sinners based solely on faith and is separate from any sort of “good work” on a sinner’s part. We cannot earn salvation but are saved by grace alone. In some factions, salvations can never be lost either—once saved, always saved. Since no one can earn God’s salvation, technically, no one can lose it either, or so the logic goes. Certainly, the role of works is also part of salvation, but as a natural response born of gratitude toward that which is, as Bonhoeffer called it, costly grace. In other words, “works” are symptomatic of a true saving faith and true conversion, but not essential to it.

Catholics also believe that sinners are saved by grace, but the Church believes it is our reasonable duty and responsibility to stay in grace through works of humility, penance, prayer, charity and maintaining a holy life in accordance with Church teaching and discipleship.  We continually and actively participate in our own salvation through the life of the Church, for God, in love, doesn’t compel us toward him. If we reject God, we turn away from God in free will. And he respects that in an act of love.

Analysis

As one would expect, there is no shortage of bible verses to support either claim. Protestants will often refer to works as “dead” or “a dead formalism” whereas Catholics view good works as part of God’s salvation economy, for we are to be rewarded for our good works as is promised in many places in scripture. Again, there are countless Bible verses to support either position.[1]

In some regards, the two teachings on salvation are similar. Salvation is through unmerited grace and good works are a component of this salvation in some manner. Intuitively we think there is something wrong and inconsistent about claiming to be a Christian but not living like one. Christians are judged by the world and each other to live according to some concept of a Christian ideal: moral living, social justice, charity, respect for others, the Golden Rule and so forth.

The Catholic viewpoint seems to comport better with our intuition if not our desire. One is tempted to say that a backslid Christian was never saved at all in order to preserve the faith-alone doctrine; otherwise it is hard to make sense out of it. It begs an odd question: how sinful can one be and still be saved? The Catholic answer is simple: you must be totally sinless. Any backslid Christian has fallen dangerously away from grace and the Church. This regression has eternal consequences if not remedied: repent and live the life prescribed by the Apostles, Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture (all that composes the Church). Axiomatically, one cannot be sinful and be in the presence of God.

But it also goes back to the first paradigm on Authority; with many takes on the Bible, who has the authority to teach truth? Although Martin Luther seem to do the most with sola fide, he wasn’t the first. The new testament epistles reveal situations in the Church where people were not living the way Jesus taught and transmitted by the Apostles—Sacred Tradition. Paul had very strong things to say about such conditions including the command to expel the immoral brother. The epistle of James, which Martin Luther called the “epistle of straw” presumably because he believed it was only good for burning, calls out this topic in some detail. Look up James 2:14-26 in which the Apostle talks not about a dead work, but a dead faith without works.

[1] Look at the article of Sola Fide on Wikipedia to see the list of scripture for and against.

The source of authority in this context means that which has the authority to teach faith and morals to the world, specifically Christians or any would-be disciple of Christ.  The assumption here is that the teachings from an unchanging God are also unchanging.

The first part in McLean Bible Church’s Spiritual Bootcamp series from head pastor Lon Solomon is about the Reality of the Bible because, as he says in the sermon, all we know about God, Jesus, salvation, creation, et cetera, comes from and begins with the Bible.  And so, in that tradition, the Bible is the source of what we know and is our source of authority. That is why the inerrancy of the Bible is crucial, for to be in error, at any point, poses a problem: how can we trust the Bible as a source of authority if it has flaws? Evangelical Christians defend the inerrancy of the Bible as if their soul depends on it because, in that tradition, it does. One of the pillars of the Protestant Reformation is sola scriptura (scripture alone) and, so, the Bible’s place in authority is paramount. Consequently, if a particular doctrine cannot be discerned clearly in the pages of the Bible, it is suspect or false.

The Catholic Church source of authority is, rather conveniently, the Church itself or more specifically the magisterium— the authority represented by the present Pope and his bishops as well as all the church’s past teaching as a continuum traceable to Jesus first authorization of the first pope, Peter, in Matthew 23:18, commissioned as the rock on which Christ would build his Church.

Analysis

Protestant and Catholics actually agree that the Bible is authoritative.  The difference is, in the Protestant view, the Bible stands as authoritative in the hands of the believer guided by the Holy Spirit, whereas Catholics believe the Bible is authoritative in the hands of the Church guided by the Holy Spirit. After all, the Church was responsible for compiling the canon of scripture, so how is it that Protestants use the very thing composed by the Church as authoritative without recognizing the authority of the Church that compiled it?

And when one considers that there are numerous Protestants denominations of varying viewpoints but only one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, which paradigm appears to be working? We tend to read the Bible through the lens of our personal experience, culture, language, politics and desires. So what really is the source of authority? Is it the Holy Spirit, a false spirit, or ourselves?

Catholic teaching is remarkably, almost miraculously, stable. Teachings that many mainstream Protestant denominations once held to be true have been eventually warped or disregarded including teachings on birth control, sexuality, marriage, divorce, perpetual virginity of Mary, male priesthood, salvation and a host of theological topics. Conversely the Catholic Church is routinely criticized for not changing with the times.

Conversion from Protestant Christianity, specifically Evangelical Bible Christianity, to Roman Catholicism involves a number of large paradigm shifts in perspective and thinking. It is not possible to understand the differences between the two as well as what Catholics believe and why they believe it without these dramatic changes. This series is designed to highlight these paradigms shifts in the hopes of bringing separated brethren into the fullness of faith.

For each essay, I will try to present the Protestant view juxtaposed to the Catholic view and Analyze. These posts will also be listed in one place as links in the main menu item above “Paradigm Shifts”

The history of the separation of Church and State is the story of the consolidation and separation of powers. In the present context, the Church is that power which represents authority on matters of faith, duty, ethics, spirituality, morality, right and wrong; the State is that power which represents taxation, policy, military, rule and governance. There are many who think America has, had, or strives for the separation of these bodies– and all such people would be totally wrong. In fact, the very people who clamor the loudest for the separation of Church and State seem to be the biggest supporters of their consolidation.  But I dare say we’ve never had a true separation and probably never will.

A proto-division of power can be seen in the Old Testament where the Levitical priesthood was not assigned any politically bounded territory. All other Israelite tribes had assignments, but spiritual authority belonged to the Levites. Theirs was an independent chain of authority as is a key attribute of separation. To subordinate one authority to the other in any way is a guarantee these powers will converge. Putting Levites into their own territory might isolate and marginalize their authority; instead the Levites were scattered all over the country to permeate political life and unify the culture.

Even when Israel begged for a political tyrant to rule over them and got Saul, there was still separation. The prophet Samuel was the spiritual authority making sure the king did not disobey the laws of God and become an absolute monarch to which he seemed to gravitate, as is the tendency of all human governments.  In a key case of disobedience, Saul was effectively ousted from power.

It may have seemed that his successor David violated this separation of Church and State when he became King of Israel and made sacrifice—a task only the Levitical priesthood could perform. Did David disobey the Mosaic law? No, because as the new king of Jerusalem under which these sacrifices were authorized, David was the king-priest in the order of Melchizedek (not Levi). In this way, David succeeded Shem and prefigured Jesus Christ, the ultimate king-priest.  But even David had to humble himself to Nathan the prophet when his power become great enough to think the ten commandments were optional. They weren’t, and he paid a price.

Between the reign of Solomon and the Christian era, the separation of powers varied with time and place and level of pagan regression. The separated Northern Kingdom under Jeroboam stood up its own places of worship outside the lawful Temple in Jerusalem to consolidate power. During the time of the Maccabees, the Greeks desecrated the Temple and compelled the Jews to worship their pantheon—but this met with rebellion.  Roman rule was a bit more thoughtful, letting the conquered keep their religion as long as they paid imperial dues.

Nonetheless the Roman Caesars ultimately wielded earthly power while enjoying the attributes of divinity, coercing subject to worship them as gods—clearly not a separation of church and state. And this was typical of most pagan organizations (Aztec, Egyptian, Babylonian)–complete consolidation of temporal and spiritual authority in one body despite what the treaties said.

Things changed when Christianity grew in ancient Rome and the separation of these powers began to emerge in Western civilization. This became evident in the fourth century when the Christian emperor Theodosius retaliated against rioters in Thessalonica over the murder of a Roman general in 390 AD. In an act of deceit, the emperor invited the Thessalonians to the city circus only to have them slaughtered by armed recruits. Seven thousand people were killed in an act of self-appointed retaliation, something any capricious, pagan, Roman, emperor-god of centuries past would have done without batting an eye.

But times were different and St. Ambrose, the bishop that stood in spiritual authority over the emperor, barred Theodosius from receiving communion and demanded he immediately start a regimen of penance for the blood on his hands. Now this is remarkable–for the first time in the history of the Roman Empire, Theodosius bowed to the laws of God and the unarmed moral authority of St. Ambrose–the Church–and did eight months of penance, begging to be recommunicated with the one true faith.

From that point forward, the absolute rule of monarchs in Europe was basically unheard of until many centuries later. The Magna Carta of the 13^th century illustrates the separation of the powers of state and church as it was understood by the medieval mind. The very first article states so much:

“FIRST, THAT WE HAVE GRANTED TO GOD, and by this present charter have confirmed for us and our heirs in perpetuity, that the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired.”

No doubt there was always a tension between lords spiritual and lords temporal when it came to earthly authority. The basic trend was to get rid of the Church so that monarchs would not have to be bothered with conscience and morality and right and wrong (reference the classic movie “Becket”). This tension was also exhibited in reverse by the Renaissance popes that led military campaigns to secure papal territory against political tyrants. Why? To keep the authority of the Church distinct and separate from the national powers that would control and direct its authority to their own ends. Certainly, monarchs in Spain, Portugal and France would leverage the Church for political ends; despite what many believe, the Spanish Inquisition was primarily the abuse of political power, not spiritual power, for, after all it’s not called an English, French, Catholic or Portuguese Inquisition as well.

The Reformation changed things considerably. Capitalizing on the usual tension, the Reformers coordinated with German princes and other heads of state to oust the authority of the Church from the national arena. And so we have King Henry VIII, now not only King of England but also the Head of the Church of England and anyone who disagreed with that edict lost their head (e.g., Thomas More). Likewise did the King of Denmark outlaw Catholicism in the provinces ruled by his throne, expelling the Church from such distant lands as Iceland and replacing it with a form of Christianity more suitable to his control. Even to this day we have the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, the Church of Denmark, the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway—all of them quite indistinguishable from the state they belong to and, sadly, quite irrelevant to those societies as well. To this day Iceland is 90% Lutheran and not because Icelanders democratically thought it was the kind of religion they wanted but simply one their previous monarch coerced them into adopting. To change religions in Iceland still requires a notice to the government (but you can start your own pagan cult at any time).

Our founding fathers tried, once again, to segregate these powers through the rule of law. In a sense, the supreme court acts like the moral authority that judges right and wrong, at least as it can be discerned by constitutional intent. But this fails the independent chain of authority requirement since the president appoints judges that agree with his politics. When President Obama calls out to the Supreme Court to “do the right thing” it is clear that he is calling out to party appointees and the right thing is that which agrees with his political senses. And if there were a pure and true and independent “right thing” where would it originate? Without an immutable template of what is right and what is wrong and the independent authority to enforce it, there will never be a separation of church and state. Even now, as religious organizations, colleges and institutions, beholden to the federal government through funding, must heel to its temporal authority—what separation of church and state could there possibly be? If the government wanted to use the levers of power, it could starve the religious institutions it disagrees with and finance those it does through tax law, effectively bolstering a state religion—that which agrees with the state and that the state can control. Sound familiar?

And what does our judicial system hinge on? The oath? Late comedian George Carlin did a skit on the meaninglessness of using the Bible in court or swearing into office. But it’s really not funny. As Peter Hitchens says in his book Rage Against God:

Without the oath, where is the obligation or the pressure to fulfill it? Where is the law that even kings must obey? Where is Magna Carte, Habeas Corpus or the Bill of Rights, all of which arose out of attempts to rule by lawless tyranny? Where is the lifelong fidelity of husband and wife? Where is the safety of the innocent child growing in the womb? Where, in the end, is the safety of any of us from those currently bigger and stronger than we are?

So, I assert that there is no separation of Church and State in America and probably hasn’t been in Western civilization since the middle ages. Our state legislates morality and our president enforces the laws he agrees with and neglects the ones he doesn’t. When the state has decreed that a man can marry a man, and I must agree with it or suffer deprivation if I don’t (reference the Dissolution of Monasteries)—we cannot say we have a separation of church and state. The state and moral authority are now one.

Do we really want the government to decide the right and wrong on matters of faith and morals with the political and military power to enact it? With expediency and fashion being the motivation behind policy, one could expect that anything could be right or wrong at any point in our history depending on evolving attitudes. And so it has, for, consider:

• The massacre of Native Americans and the breaking of U.S. treaties.
• The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Our moral authority, the Supreme Court, ruled it was constitutional and have yet to retract this decision.
• Separate but equal decisions of the Supreme Court
• Institutional slavery in the south
• Legalization of abortion and selling of fetal organs
• Using citizens as guinea pigs in the testing of nuclear technology, birth control and electro-shock treatment.
• Unlawful search and seizures, physically and electronically.

Expect that our future policies to also include:

• Exploitation of minors
• Euthanizing the elderly, the handicapped and the psychologically disturbed
• Infanticide
• Continued dissolution of marriage and families
• Outlawing the right to bear arms.
• Outlawing of religion and its practice.
• Outlawing of free speech, free press and the right to assemble.

How? Because without an independent moral authority, the government will be the one to decide what is personhood, free speech, religion, marriage, life, liberty, or happiness.

So the separation of church and state, as it is understood today means: no spiritual authority can tell the government the right or the wrong. What it is supposed to mean: the government is beholden to a spiritual authority so that it will not do wrong, but right.

President Obama is right, adding more guns won’t solve the problem of mass killings that flare up almost weekly in America and now around the world. But by implication, he is suggesting that subtracting guns from society can solve the problem, but that’s where I think he is wrong or simply doing the delicate dance of a politician.

Speaking at an annual corporate meeting the CEO of a famous power tool corporation shocked the assembly when he stated that their customers do not want the company’s power drills, the sales of which were soaring. After repeating the statement and pausing for effect, the CEO clarified: what people really want is a hole.

The problem in America is not gun violence. The problem in America is a culture of violence of which gun violence is just an expression. And like the customers of power drills, we should specify that what we want is not a reduction of guns, but a reduction of violence. And then the dialog changes.

It seems that Americans from birth are bathed in violence and desensitized to it. We glamorize violence and pay for revenge in the form of masculine mode movies. We demand justice and hold peace ransom to obtain it. If we really wanted to reduce violence (and therefore gun violence) we would:

• Be critical of the media who, every day, bring violence into our living rooms from across the planet. WARNING: Contains graphic content—a warning summarily ignored by Americans who need to see Jihadi John decapitate someone with a knife. With the ubiquity of cameras, now everyone can upload violence to the internet whether it is an act of terror or a couple of school girls doing a beat down on another.
• Be critical of Hollywood rather than dine their dignitaries at the White House. When Quentin Tarantino depicts graphic violence to foment social unrest, does one really wonder why a person on the edge will turn to guns to act out? An episode of Hawaii-Five-O illustrates the hypocrisy: Steve and Danny are questioning a gun shop owner when the show takes a moment through the character of detective Danny Williams to add commentary to guns and gun freaks. And yet episode after episode, we can watch the same “heroes” open fire with automatic weapons, shotguns and state of the art small arms dispensing “justice” off the radar and away from the lawful rules of engagement. And we approve and tune in again.
• Be exemplary of the rule of law. We have an increasing number of laws in America, not because we are lawful, but because we are lawless. When the President and leaders decide that laws can be broken without reprisal or that certain laws are not worth enforcing, he takes matters into his own hands. Likewise, when we make unilateral decisions about right and wrong why would it shock us when edge cases decide to do the same thing with the only power they can appropriate? If our “democratic” government takes the law into its own hands and molds it to suite political and social needs so will everyone else. Ask yourself: are you lawless? Do you decide what laws apply to your life and which ones don’t and then act accordingly? This philosophy is the embryo of the maverick and the lone shooter. And we endorse it.
• Eradicate the immense multi-billion-dollar porn industry. If the left were vocal about the reduction and control of pornographic material, I might be vocal about gun control. But it will never happen because the access to adult entertainment is some sort of victimless “right” that everyone is entitled to. Even liberal Chris Hedges in his book “Empire of Illusion” understands the violent and militant use of pornography. It desensitizes people, mostly men, and destroys a noble view of people, mostly women. It is correlated to violence in society (search for studies on the internet and you will find many with this unanimous conclusions) and what does the president do about it—a president that wants us to view everyone with equanimity and dignity?
• Abolish abortion, euthanasia. We destroy people on both ends of the vector of life and somehow, expect that our culture–the air we all breathe–to not be coarsened. When we adopt a utilitarian society, life is cheap and the message imbues us. It permeates society and those who would take matters into their own hands.
• Not cultivate a moral and spiritual vacuum. Our increasingly atheistic worldview creates a moral fluidity where immoral acts can either be redefined or conducted with impunity. As Dostoyevsky observed, if there is no God, everything is permitted. With ones back against a wall, one might act out violently if there is no eternal consequence to one’s action. If we do not have to account for our actions, ultimately, we create an atmosphere where everything is permitted. So don’t be outraged.
• Repudiate our celebrity worshipping culture. When our gold standard is celebrity and one’s fate is obscurity, infamy becomes an option. The Columbine massacres were conducted by students that had been done violence through bullying in a climate condoned by the school authorities. Would gun control have prevented Columbine? Maybe. But if we eradicated our increasingly toxic celebrity culture, the event would not have entered the mind. Many a media outlet refuses to name the assailant in the hopes that such acts of quick celebrity would not be repeated. But it’s no use, the ratings are too important. And the deed is repeated.
• Not demand gun control. It seems whenever there is a loud call for gun control legislation, gun sales, like power drills, skyrocket. Why? Because our culture is violent and maverick, our democracy has always been antagonistic toward government, and our leaders don’t boost public trust. If no one is doing anything about our culture of violence, many feel they need to keep it at bay themselves since the government cannot. Hence, more gun purchases and carry permits.

If we focus on the things that create a culture of violence we may not need to cry out for gun control. Don’t ponder the need for a drill when what we really want is a hole in the wall.

When we think of mythology, we often think of the gods of antiquity, Zeus (Greek), Jupiter (Roman), Odin (Norse) and associated stories. But college professors will relegate Judeo-Christian teachings, particularly the Bible, as mythology too. Modern orthodoxy and political piety suggests that God, gods, or the supernatural is more or less a figment of the past; the modern intellect does not subscribed to such fairy tales, legends and myths.

But is the enlightened man of modernity void of religion, mythology or unscientific belief?

Here I document some of what I deem the pantheon of modern mythology—stories crafted out of whole cloth to explain the universe or the human condition—things discussed in the patois of modern parlance as factual despite any shred of substantiating evidence.

Modern Creation Myths

Ex nihilo factus est

The “myth” of creation as accounted in Genesis is unique in the creation stories of antiquity in that no other deity but the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob created the universe ex nihilo; all other myths fabricated the world out of existing content—that is until now. Stephen Hawking, famed physicist and modern high priest from Oxford University asserts that the universe was created ex nihilo without a primary cause. In essence, the laws of physics are sufficient for explaining the cause and origin of the universe and not some unnamed deity. But then, I ask, who or what created the laws of physics?

The multiverse

Because the universe is ever expanding, nay accelerating, the once sacred idea that an expanding and contracting universe ad infinitum being sufficient to explain the fortuitous anthrocentricity of universal constants—this idea is now relegated to, well, myth. So the idea that, after countless cycles, Earth happen to hit the jackpot to support rare sentient life has been replaced by the mythological world of the multiverse.

The basic idea of the multiverse is that event pathways are infinite from point to point or moment to moment each possibility constituting its own universe. I may decide to continue writing this essay or get coffee. In one universe I get coffee whereas in this universe I continue writing—and that’s just two universes. In a third universe I may have never started to write or even existed. The “Mirror, Mirror” episode of the old Star Trek series was a primordial illustration of these parallel universes where Spock is logically evil and the federation is governed by sex, power, ambition and murder. By the same reasoning, somewhere in a parallel universe Bill and Hillary Clinton are pious missionaries.

The problem with the multiverse hypothesis is that it exists on paper, perhaps even as a mathematical model, but is not scientific in any way and has been criticized as such. So why are Christians ridiculed for their belief in the parallel universes of heaven, hell and purgatory, but the modern man is given scientific accolades for his belief of the mythological multiverse? Go figure.

Systems of Belief

Scientific Research

Fill in the blank: “One day science will _____.” We may believe that scientific research will cure cancer, fix global warming, end hunger, or, as Benjamin Franklin failed in his documented pursuit, have farts smell exquisite. There is an unquestioned and accepted belief that, given enough persistence, money and time, science will solve all questions and mysteries. But where does this faith come from and why do we have it? Why should we believe that the biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest could supply humanity with new and potent pharmaceuticals? Why should we even believe that plants are medicinal to animals at all? Is that scientific or fortuitous?

The origins of such belief is based in medieval theology from the likes of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure. The spiritual economy of orthodox Christianity was, in the classical sense, a science in which truth could be extrapolated from revealed and (at least then) undisputed principles—think Euclid’s Elements. So then, if the God of salvation was also that of creation, one expected regularity, order and law to govern the physical world as well. Sure enough, they do, and there is good reason why modern science and technological advancement emerged predominantly in Western Christian civilization despite being centuries behind civilizations like China and India whose mythological cultures were capricious and unpredictable.

Some Scientific Myths

And sometimes our belief in science leads us to believe in “scientific” myths. Agreed that science is also responsible for debunking these myths but it just goes to show that so-called rational people championing the cause of reason are as dogmatic and fundamental as anyone else. In addition to the static universe myth, consider a few more myths debunked over time:

Rationality of Numbers – the ancient Greeks, namely the Pythagoreans, believed all numbers could be expressed as the ratio of integers—a.k.a. rational numbers. But then the unspeakable happened—when such a number could not be found to express the hypotenuse of a right triangle with a base and height of unity, it was an act of apostasy to admit that the square root of two was not nor could it ever be rational. Hence, irrational number were born and we know a few by name: pi, e, phi and the square root of two. By the way, the man of the Pythagorean order who disclosed this heresy was ex communicated by strangulation.

Aether – When electromagnetic energy exhibited wave properties, it was surmised that, like sound and mechanical energy, light required a medium through which to travel. Scientist called this fluid the aether after the mythological element. Good thing since it was discovered at the end of the 19^th century that electromagnetic waves traveled through vacuum and the existence of aether was as mythical as its namesake.

The Quintic – the famed quadratic equation of high school math had a closed form solution known since antiquity. Bumping things up an order, the cubic equation was not found to have a closed form solution until the 16^th century. And yet, within the same period did the same group of Italians discover the solution to the fourth order quartic. It was just a matter of time before the fifth order quintic and, perhaps, all high order of polynomial would be solved. Alas, it took several centuries before Galois determined that all polynomial equations from the quintic on up have no such solution.

Mythological Creatures

Missing Lynx

Remember Piltdown man? The missing link between humans and our knuckle-dragging ancestors? Ever so quietly, Piltdown man became Put-down man after it was determined that the fossil was a fraudulent combination of human skull and animal jawbone.

And how can we forget Archaeoraptor of recent memory? This missing link between reptile and bird species was pushed by National Geographic Magazine as proof-positive evolution is the creative force in the universe, and, by implication, not some silly supreme being.  Even as they unveiled the fossil find, there was doubt in the scientific community regarding authenticity but why should that stop the faith-based institution that is Nat Geo? Peer-review, schmeer review!

Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life

Anthropocentrism was given a punch when Copernicus set forth the idea that the Earth revolved around the sun instead of the other way around. So then, if we aren’t the center of the universe, sola fidelis, there must be other life forms with bigger breeches than ourselves—right?

Sounds plausible, and I don’t disagree. But I do see that the search for such life is motivated by faith. The Fermi Paradox gives pause to this plausibility. The paradox basically states if intelligent life exists somewhere in the universe and they do, in fact, have breeches that are centuries if not millions of years bigger than our arrogant human race—wouldn’t we know it by now?

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, SETI, has been a program to search the heavens for some sort of information filled electromagnetic signal to affirm this belief. And after decades of searching for such a pattern the results are zilch-not even a sniff. So then there is about as much proof that we are alone in the universe then there are separated brethren somewhere in the vastness of space. A recent article on the web reveals the woeful results of this endeavor to date.

Progressive myths

Fundamentalist Christians are routinely lampooned for not seeing how evolution explains the diversity of life and commonality among animal species including morphology, vestigial organs and atavism. And maybe the derision is deserved. But begin to suggest that evolution can also explain key differences between the genders or differences between the races and all hell breaks loose. Already feminists have bought into the myth that women are just like men or even better at being men than men. And if a sports broadcaster is to make the obvious comment that men of African or Samoan descent are genetically predisposed to dominate athletic endeavors, she is denounced as a racist.

Modern Idolatries

It may be that modern man no longer bows down to Molech, Asherah or engages in astrolatry but that does not mean she is without idols. They’ve just been replaced with modern equivalents

• Consumerism – emptor ego ergo sum. The Kardashian and the others we must keep up with.
• Comfort – namely, creature comforts: big houses, luxury cars, second homes, the best of everything.
• Convenience – in which people are disposable when our orthodoxy is interrupted by pregnancy, infirmity or general lack of utility.
• Power – the highest good, especially if you work on Capitol Hill.
• Prestige – that comes with money, professional degrees, universities, good looks and the usual boasts at dinner parties and bumper stickers with alma maters.
• Pleasure – don’t let discipline, frugality and work get in the way of a good party.

In the precious name of Science

No doubt there are numerous stories, legends, prophecies, and rituals related to the mythology of modernity and its pantheon of gods. So remember that the next time a professor tells you that Christianity and the Bible are concocted myths. What concocted myths do they believe? This will continue as man is and always will be a religious creature whether orthodox, spiritual but not religious, or downright godless. In any case, there is no such thing as a spiritual vacuum. Believe it.