RE: Tom Bethell’s
The Decline of Faith:
Dear Tom,
Thank you for that article
on the decline of faith. It was an enjoyable essay, and my reaction
to it has nothing to do with schadenfreude, because
the trends you cite worry me, too. What impressed me was how you
covered a lot of ground in a little space, then added a dollop of
wisdom. Writing like that spurs me into raising my own game when
submitting work to the magazine. I meant to say so in the online
comments associated with your essay, but was intimidated when I
noticed that more than a hundred people had already weighed in on
what you said by the time I read it. Not all of the respondents
moved discussion forward — did a comic war over whether scripture
has any warrant for eating pork really need to break out? — but
obviously you touched a nerve that needed touching.
Christopher Hitchens does not correspond with B-list
pundits like me, but I’m glad you quoted from at least some of what
he’s emailed to you. I hope all who read Mr. Hitchens’ take on the
so-called “invention of Purgatory” realize that his theology makes
as much sense as clown shoes in a tango class. Purgatory does
not involve “the possibility of some kind of appeal.”
Rather, as Christians like Peter Kreeft have pointed out many
times, Purgatory can be thought of as “heaven’s waiting room.” More
formally, “final purification of the elect” is — per the Catechism
of the Catholic Church, with which I think you are familiar —
entirely different from the punishment of the damned. The backhand
from Hitchens calling the doctrine of Purgatory an “invention” was
likewise unwarranted, albeit predictable. Two clicks on the Web
might have given Hitchens’ cockamamie “invention” thesis an
“insuperable problem” of its own, while it tried in vain to explain
why graffiti in the catacombs includes prayers for the
dead, which make no sense if they’re already enjoying the beatific
vision or eternally separated from God in Hell.
Richard Dawkins actually comes closer to the mark by
summarizing Purgatory as a kind of divine Ellis Island, although
I’m not persuaded he would have put the matter quite like that if
he thought the whole doctrine were certifiably ridiculous. Not to
get all “inside baseball” on people who’d rather play poker, but
that the misguided Johann Tetzel sullied Purgatory by leaning too
hard on the corollary doctrine of indulgences while raising money
to fund the construction of Saint Peter’s Basilica does not mean
that postmodern cynics like Hitchens and Dawkins know more about
the Four Last Things than ancient heavyweights like Aquinas and
Augustine.
Perhaps another reason for the decline of faith lies just
there, in widespread ignorance of history. Looking forward is all
to the good, but Christians ought to be able to look back as well,
and the megachurches of my experience seem to have a problem with
that, especially when they make a point of ignoring anything too
closely associated with the “mackerel snappers” from which they’re
spinoffs. For example, a popular church in my own town has a main
campus and several satellite campuses. Its founding pastor, an
eloquent gentleman on the dark side of fifty, said in a sermon
(sorry, “message”) that he went to a Catholic Mass for the first
time while visiting the Holy Land less than a decade ago. Perhaps
that explains why the web site for his church now cycles through a
banner saying “We are one church in multiple locations.” In less
charitable moments, I’ve wanted to approach that guy with a
Chick-fil-a sandwich in hand (peace offering!) and say something
like “Dude! That one church in multiple locations idea? That’s two
thousand years old, man!” Of course, syntax like that would betray
both my California roots and my Roman Catholic sympathies; it’s not
a conversation I’m ready to have yet.
You mentioned that religious faith is like a muscle that
has to be exercised. I think the analogy is apt, and orders of
magnitude better than comedian George Carlin’s attempt to paint
faith as something like “a lift in your shoe” (meaning that some
people need it and some don’t). Father Benedict Groeschel’s
thoughts are especially helpful in this regard. You may perhaps
have heard of him; he’s a legend among Catholic preachers and a
fixture in the Bronx. In the gray habit he wears as a Franciscan
Friar of the Atonement, Groeschel looks for all the world like a
stunt double for Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings movies.
At the end of his nonfiction book, “The Miracle Detective,” Randall
Sullivan quotes Fr. Groeschel as saying, “Faith is a gift. It is
also a decision. Accept the gift, and you’ll make the
decision.”
That’s good stuff. Thanks again for inspiring such
thoughts.
— Patrick O’Hannigan
North Carolina
