Catholic Presbyterian

So I have been intending to do a post regarding my recent change in beliefs regarding the Liturgical Year of the Church. As many of you know for years I had been abstaining from all Liturgical celebrations such as Christmas and Easter due to my understanding of the Regulative Principle of Worship. However I have recently "flip-flopped" in my positions. I now embrace a full Liturgical Calendar based on scriptural principles that allows us to participate in the life of Jesus. I was going to do a big long time consuming post until....I came upon this little catechism regarding the Church year by Pastor Jeff Meyers and I had to say it wasn't time to reinvent the wheel after I read this. I hope you enjoy it! And Merry Christmas!!!!!!

A simple catechism (for children) explaining the Church Year and Advent.The Church Year
Q 1. Why do we have different seasons of the year?
A. God created the seasons for man’s use and enjoyment.
Q 2. What do Fall and Winter remind us of?
A. Fall and Winter remind us of sin and death because it is dark and cold.
Q 3. What do Spring and Summer teach us?
A. Spring teaches us that God brings light and life to the world through Jesus Christ.
Q 4. What does the church calendar chiefly celebrate?
A. The church calendar celebrates the life of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Q 5. Why does the church have her own seasons?
A. The church has her own seasons to teach the world that true life is found in Jesus Christ and to resist reducing life to politics and economics.
Q 6. How are we to sanctify the seasons that God created for our benefit?
A. According to 1 Timothy 4:5, we are to set apart the seasons with the Word of God and prayer.
Q 7. How has the church set apart the seasons with the Word of God and prayer?
A. The church has chosen readings from the Old and New Testaments for each season and has ordered the prayer life of the church to match the life of Jesus.Advent & Christmas
Q 8. What does the word “Advent” mean?
A. The word “advent” means “to come” and has to do with the coming of Jesus.
Q 9. What portion of the life of Jesus does Advent celebrate?
A. Advent celebrates the times leading up to the birth of Jesus as well as his coming again at the last day.
Q 10. How many Sundays are there in Advent?
A. There are four Sundays in Advent.
Q 11. What are the colors for Advent and what do they mean?
A. The colors for Advent are purple and royal blue. They remind us that Jesus is a glorious King.
Q 12. What do we pray for during Advent season?
A. During Advent we pray that Jesus our King would continue to come to us and serve us as he has promised.
Q 13. In our Advent prayers are we pretending that Jesus has not yet been born?
A. No. During Advent we are praying for him to come to us again and again as he has promised.
Q. 14. How did God fulfill his promises to his people in the Hebrew Scriptures?
A. God fulfilled his promises by uniting himself to our human nature in his Son, who faithfully lived a perfect life of service, died the death we deserve, and was raised to life again as the new man, and all this for our salvation.
Q 15. How has Jesus promised to come to us today?
A. In many different ways—to be with us on Sunday for worship, and particularly by the celebration of the Eucharist, to help us daily when we are in trouble, and at the end of the world to establish the new heavens and earth.

According to Milton R. Hunter(Quorum of the 70) and and so-called Apostle John Widtsoe, The LDS Church teaches(as received from Joseph Smith) the Law of Eternal Progression of Deity. Simply stated it is this: Deity is ever-progressing; God availed himself at every opportunity to obey the laws of eternal truth, in doing so he moved from less powerful to more; a progressive order to attain to the glorified and exalted deity that he now is.
There exists multiple problems both biblical/theological, and philosophical. I will briefly examine two of them.
1)The law of eternal progression presupposes an set of Eternal Truths from which our Deity learned and was able to attain to the state of "exalted Deity". How cant these truths be eternal without an equally eternal rational personal being that either is the truth and communicates it, the Christian belief, or at least an eternal rational being that arbitrarily created these "truths" by which the rational creature can progress to this invented state called "Deity". Any other position fails to account for the existence of the set of "eternal truths". The Mormon system assumes these "eternal truths" yet refuses to accept an eternal personal Deity from whom these "Eternal Truths" have come. Very problematic to say the least...
2)The other problem rests in the entire idea of a progression from one being to another in a rational progression or evolution, which is assumed in the Law of Eternal progression(LEP). The questions why and how are not even hinted at in the LDS writings on the LEP. The why question must be avoided because it would require an explanation outside of the Deity that assumes a plan of progression, or at least intelligence that left the truths that would lead one to the state of Deity. So while the first problem deals with the existence of an eternal rational being that is unaccounted for in the LDS system, the second deals with the evidence of this Truth even contained in their own system. If you were to be consistent in examining the LEP and all its principles by logical necessity, a Good Mormon would affirm an eternal personal Deity that created the Laws of Eternal progression, but the the LEP would no longer be a viable option anyways...

So I'm still cruising through Jim Jordan's book The Sociology of the Church and I seem to have hit another Ecclesiological pothole on Jordan's road to Catholicity. In commenting on the theological implications of "Do this as my memorial" Jordan says "The doing takes precedence over any theory of what is being done. If this simple fact were understood, it would be possible for churches to recognize one another and cooperate in true biblical Catholicity."(Jordan is not here trying to pit theory and praxis against one another, he's just placing the accent mark where the Spirit did in the text...we would be wise to do the same!)
Once again Jordan assumes much and defines little! He is saying one of two things here: either 1) The action of the Eucharist among a group is what makes the group a catholic church... or 2) he is assuming some other presupposed, yet not defined up to this point in the book, definition of what a church is and saying the of all existing churches in that sense are made catholic by the Eucharistic celebration. If you see a third way to take this please comment.
I take serious issue with number 1 above. Here's why: in the first place the command and entrustment of the Eucharistic rite was give to the Apostles in the upper room. As Catholic Reformed
Presbyterians(or any episcopal form of ecclesiology as well) we believe that the succession of the Church was organic from Christ, to the apostles, and then entrusted by them to faithful men, apostolically ordained and constituted elders in organic succession, just as Paul tells us the faith would be passed in 2 Tim. 2:2(and as laid out in our standards and BCO.) Thus we cannot assume that any group that comes together, I'm thinking of so-called "independent churches"(defined here as those with no succession from and submission to the duly constituted church as defined scripture and outlined above), under the name "Church" is necessarily a Church, scripturally and historically speaking, because they bring crackers, grape juice, bad hymns and a King James Bible together once a week. It was the action of the Eucharist in the visible apostolic Church that united all Christians together in the Heavenly presence of God to be certain(read Calvin on Worship in the throne room and the Eucharist, its excellent), but to say the same applies for a group that knows the apostolic visible body and refuses to submit to the πρεσβύτερος (presbyters/bishops), is to argue that a schismatic or divisive groups celebration of the Eucharist is not impeded by their inherently divisive constitution, which violates the 1 Cor. 11 principle of the supper ceasing to be the supper in its fullness for the divisive/schismatic party.
As for option 2 I cant really argue anything because I don't have his definition. If his definition was: A Church is all baptized individuals gathered together in the organic apostoliclly succeeded Body, than we would see eye to eye...But I have a sneaking suspicion this is not his definition...

Some of my final thoughts: I agree that the doing of the supper is where we should place the accent mark, just as Jesus did in his very choice of words. However it is to the apostolic fathers, the 12 minus Judas, and their faithful children that received "the faith once delivered for all unto the saints" (Jude 1:3) that this command was given. Just as the Great commission was given to the Apostles, and while we share in it in the priesthood bestowed upon us in our one baptism, it is always under the Authority of the organic, historical Church's succession of the πρεσβύτερος(presbytery) and/or ἐπίσκοπος(episcopate). This is where the keys have been placed, and sect in the world can duplicate those keys or can pick the Ecclesiological lock, no matter how hard they try.

In reading through Dr. Jordan's book the Sociology of the Church, I've found more questions than I have answers. Here are some of my thoughts:
Jordan asserts on page 15 that the reason the spotless lamb, Jesus, could eat with sinners and tax collectors is because they were members of the visible Church(I will simply grant him that point for times sake here, and because i think he is at least partially if not entirely correct in his assertion) even though the church was borderline apostate being run by the Sadducee's and pharisees. And the people Jesus was meeting and eating with were not excommunicated from the visible Church, and that they, the sinners, where willing at least at first to listen to what Jesus had to say. It is what Jordan than goes on to say that i find problematic to his whole illustrated principle of Catholicity and sectarianism(which he doesn't define clearly at all, as very few do) up to this point in the book. Jordan goes on to state that the people that listened to Jesus went on not to persevere in all those things and they thus excommunicated themselves. If this is the case, as i believe he is correct, what light ought this to bear on the church corporately regarding Catholicity and especially sectarianism?
Jordan up to this point in the book seem to speak of all visible bodies that profess Christ and practice the sacraments to be the Church. However since the Church is made up of real men, ordained and non-ordained, and all that is required for excommunication is not persevering in the faith that Jesus teaches, in scripture as understood and declared through his Spirit-filled Church, then how are the elders of these Churches to be considered to be duly constituted and properly installed? An excommunicated person cannot partake of the Eucharist. Surely we are not going to reason that he has the authority to celebrate the Eucharistic feast of the Lord's Supper, are we? These denominations of which Jordan speaks, many of which are have denied far more than the folks that didn't persevere in Christs teaching, are baptizing and celebrating the Eucharist week after week, yet by Jordan's implications these men have excommunicated themselves. So I ask the Question at what point does that ecclesial community become a sect(defined here as an excommunicated group, either implicitly as Jordan defines it or explicitly as declared by session, council or otherwise; that thus cannot be celebrating what they may and can not partake of nor benefit from)? Is there succession then inherently sectarian then as well if no or insignificant reconciliation is made from those previous corporately held errors? So in other words is it sectarian rather than historic apostolic succession(Defined simply biblical ordination by elders that have previously been vested in the apostolic authority by the laying on of hands and thus being duly-ordained and constituted) being conferred upon those men ordained in their communities? Bearing in mind the Church, and especially the reformed Churches have always held that only duly ordained men are permitted and actually able conduct the Lords supper. So do the excommunicants corporately, in Jordan's paradigm of Ecclesiology, fit into a sect and if so 1Cor 11 tells us that divisiveness and division that it produces is the one thing that can keep the Eucharist that they celebrated from even being the Eucharist.
So I am not finding much consistency in Jordan's application of self-excommunication and the visible Church as it stands today particularly by way of this element of Sacramentology and broader Ecclesiological principles regarding the true Church visible.

Just some ramblings I had after reading this first chapter please contribute your thoughts on the matter as well.

So I have lots of these moments...A few days back I was driving to the gym and at the back of the parking lot was a car with the hood up, next to it was parked another car. There were 3 people gazing down into the engine bay; 2 with somewhat inquisitive yet blank stares and the other was talking. The talking man was in his 30's and the older couple where most likely in their 60's. The funny part is i went into one of my mystery science theatre 3000 moments and immediatly began to imagine what that conversation could look like..."So mam if you will notice here" as the 30 year old is pointing to the starter "I have recently replaced the flux capacitor" the older couple looks at one another "thats a relief, you remember how much it cost to fix the last time our flux capacitor went out on the cadillac!" guy driving by in car laughs.
Its just so funny to me how people think that by "poppin' the hood" and "kickin the tires" they know what they are buying. The fact of the matter is the average person doesnt know what they are looking at under the hood and what made that story so funny in the moment was just how realistic such an absurd scenario could be...LOL

In the modern evangelical church in America there are vast differences on what is considered to be "good worship" and what is not. Usually the "good worship" is distinguished from not so good, or even "bad worship", by the subjective affinities and predilections of the individual in conjunction with how they feel both during and after they leave public worship. As if this wasn't alarming enough, lets examine one of the widely held presuppositions or axioms of the American evangelical: personal autonomy. I will stipulatively define personal autonomy here in this way: The right to have the final word regarding what is biblical and how its to be understood and applied in the faith and life of the church. This is a truly democratic and individualistic approach, sadly it is also a radically unbiblical one. Since the average person in the pew does not actually have any ecclesiastical authority to implement their opinions upon every other "personally autonomous" worshipper in the Church, this ideology usually manifests itself in the modern fad of church shopping. You know the routine keep going from church to church until you find the one the one that most closely matches up with your idea of how you think things ought to be. I call this the wandering-one-man-magesterium-minstrel approach...mouthful huh? The ironic part of the story is that while all of this is in attempts to be free from tradition and inventions of men the average American evangelical just runs from one system of man made inventions to another. In an attempt to escape traditional or liturgical forms of worship that are supposedly dead or devoid of the Spirit, the average Christian is accepting that which is most culturally familiar to them and that which makes them feel good and is supposedly free of "tradition". Well Christians...somebody had to break the news to you sooner or later, so it might as well happen now...your service of worship at your local Church is most likely filled with traditions, all though they may only be traditions stemming back to the reformation, or the 20th century, or the so-called contemporary traditions(which is funny because its usually about 10-15 years behind the tide of the culture that people are in the other 6 days of the week), they are nonetheless traditions. Sadly these newer traditions often take there cues more from the affinities of the Church community, or perhaps a select few "staff" or members of the "worship team", and not the affinities or the expressed commands of the one being Worshiped, namely our Covenant God. All churches have a Liturgy, or way of ordering worship. Going to a so-called contemporary church one will be hard pressed to go in week after week and find little if any deviation from the previous weeks service regarding the order of worship. So the question naturally arises then... have you really escaped tradition? No! You have most likely substituted one set of traditions for the other based merely on your feelings at worse and your biblical convictions at best. This is the heart of sectarianism, the cancer of the Church. We must get back to the Bible and the Historic understandings of what worship is all about, or we will continue to run the risk of becoming like the folks that Paul was addressing in 1 Cor. 11:17-20, divisive Christians that aren't really practicing the true, Spirit filled, sacrificial and communal Worship of the Church. That is not freedom friends, that is bondage to our own concupiscent desires for personal autonomy, before the peace and unity of the Body of Christ, which is sin.

Joking about the title of the group, but seriously our group geared towards conversing about a biblical and meaningful ecumenism met at a fellow Reformed brothers house today. There where 4 Covenant Student, me(a future Covenant student), A former Covenant student that is Now Roman Catholic, A former PCA fellow that is almost in full communion with Rome, and a Lutheran fellow from Concordia Seminary. It was really a great time! Given that healthy ecumenism is the exchanging of gifts, not the watering down of distinctions or truth, i would definitely say we are a truly ecumenical group! The dialogue and discourse was healthy respectful and helpful. We are hoping to get an Anglican fellow and perhaps an Orthodox fellow as well. The format is loose but follows general crux issues such as perspectives on everything from Ecclesiology to Soteriology to Sacramentology. Today we touched on Justification, and it was good, although i would have like to have heard some more nuances touched on and from all sides represented. As a whole I'm very stoked! I love this kind of non-sectarian dialogue, its delightfully refreshing!
J