Thoughts : The Reform

My reply to a blog post about was the reform really needed, is it still needed ?

( NB sorry I can't call the RC the catholic ie universal church, I'm part of the holy, universal and apostolic church, and the RCs won't even let me share the family meal with them. So now do you think I'm anti Catholic ? Not at all anti catholics. I do have problems with the Vatican these days - voila, cards on table )

Can I start with a question.  - If you lived at Luther's time, would you feel at ease in the RC as it was ?

When I lived in Britain I had no problems with the RC. I think we have made great strides in living together, and the RC, as  practiced in England at least, has taken Vatican II to heart. Of course there are some key doctrines that mean that I would feel ill at ease being a regular member of an RC congregation, but I have happy fellowship with people who are RC members and I can feel fairly trusting of many of their senior leaders. I have been living here in France for 20 years now and have actively encouraged and participated in inter-church gatherings and what I thought was ecumenism. However I have had a number of encounters that have challenged my view.

* One was not so much an encounter as a discovery. Following something that sounded a bit odd to me, said by a bishop on the radio, I looked up ecumenism in a french dictionary. The bishop was right. It means meeting with others who call themselves christians to try to draw them back to the true church. So much for mutual respect.
* I heard several people (first hand and on the radio) talk about the appalling and life affecting damage done to them by their upbringing at the hands of nuns and priests, or in fundamentalist families - the worst being the consequent inability to be able to give or feel love to varying degrees. (Well, fundamentalist families of all sorts not just RC can do their fair share of damage, so I won't count that one too much).
* I also got "evangelised" by a catholic fundamentalist. (same note about fundamentalists)
* I wasn't allowed to take communion at a cousin's wedding. Some of the family could go forward, the rest were left in their seats as infidels, outcasts, heretics despite them sharing a living faith. Then I couldn't take communion at an interfaith gathering.
* When bishops have got wind of inter-church activity they have either directly banned it or highly discouraged it here.
* On the radio the bishops and other spokesmen frequently talk as if they are the only christians and that they speak for all.
* Here, when and if the reformation is mentioned, it is frequently in negative terms. The govt have roundly condemned massacres and ethnic cleansing in Armenia for example, and the Shoa, but anniversary of St Bartholomew's day, or repeal of the Edict of Nantes - not a peep. That period of time is euphemistically known as "The Wars of Religion". Like there was really 2 sides to the wide scale massacres which happened up and down the country not just in Paris ? Eventually some protestants took up arms, but it was very latterly. The country went from an estimated 43% protestant (including much of the royal court) to less than 3%. (figures quoted by the historian Frank Ferand on the radio station Europe 1)
* I was disgusted by the rank ignorance and flagrant homophobia shown by the very well supported demonstration in paris a few weeks ago against the marriage for all bill. My own jury is still out on that issue, but the attitudes shown by ordinary men and women at that event sickened me. They are not just a few extremists. They are the French RC by and large.
* As you well know France is home to a good number of Marist pilgrimage sites. They make a tidy profit. I can't talk about how I feel about how ignorance and superstition and idolatry is being encouraged, it makes me too sad and angry.

On the other hand I should mention a few exceptions - the Bishop of Lyon, a number of very brave and kind priests and some nuns, Abbé Pierre and the continued movement for the care of the homeless, a certain number of RC writers and broadcasters.

*****

As a protestant who didn't know I was protesting at all till I lived here I find this a can be a difficult atmosphere to live in, as you can imagine. I don't go for debate. I just water seeds of faith in individuals as I find them. I treat them as fellow christians, ie as I would want them to treat me.

But the fact is I live in a country that looked at the reformation and decided it didn't want it. There are many many consequences. The French out do us hands down in certain areas of excellence, that's not really what I'm talking about.
 
The one that strikes me the most is that in my observation social reform was and can still be much slower than in Protestant countries.

* I was amazed when we first came 20 years ago to find that the only decent books on the bookshop children's shelves were translations from English, German, or one of the Scandinavian languages. Many homes had no or few books in until Harry Potter came on the scene. At least communist homes would have a couple of books.
* Even now, to my knowledge, there is still no school in the whole of France for Autistic children. A good number have no specialised help at all, and some just have to stay home cos no one wants them.
* The hospice movement is tiny and still new.
* The state has no specialised places or staff for interviewing children who have been abused or need help to talk about things. A few magistrates who have been to England have set up charities to pay for a room in a hospital where they can talk to children.
*   Take the fact that there was never any real grass roots labour movement here except the communist party. I will acknowledge that they have done some excellent things, but their aproach is so conflictual that they can't build something.Of course labour relations are far from perfect in Britain but at least there is, or at least used to be, far more labour representation, far more negotiation etc etc as a result of the labour movement which in good part came out of the protestant church movements.

I can't go on. The list is endless of things that have been proved and work and have not been introduced just because "It's the French Way". I've heard that phrase over and again in debates about these things. A debate on the value of getting parents into schools with statistics to prove it's value. All the debaters were in a agreement, but they were all in agreement at the end that it won't happen because It's not the French Way. This makes the inferiority complex worse not better. There are some things that are better here of course, there are 2 sides to everything, but I'm mainly quoting what I hear the french saying about themselves to themselves on France Inter, France Culture, and Europe 1.

Now to protestantism and protesting and division.

Clearly, or clearly to me, fraternal rupture when it is to do with disputes, personality clash, and so on is very very sad and unnecessary.

However split, when it becomes the only alternative, can be healthy. I see it like divorce. I hate divorce. I think it's dreadful. But I'm divorced and grateful for it. The law of the land recognised that I should not be obliged to live with someone who rendered my life so difficult. I still believe in marriage. Likewise, sometimes because of serious false doctrine (not trivialities about details of practice) or sin, I think rupture is needed where reconciliation has been tried and rejected. Luther tried and was rejected. Puritans tried and were rejected. Methodists tried and were rejected.  I now also feel that sometimes split for cultural reason is necessary. Take a minor example. Some people were upset at a parish church that they divided the morning service into 2 services even though they weren't packed to the doors, but I think it's not rupture it's growth. They did the early Prayer book and later Family Service with monthly joint - both services are doing better. That church had the courage to face the fact that people have different needs and ways to express themselves and that's ok. There is even one of the churches in the group that is openly charismatic. That's ok with the others. The vicars can still meet together and support each other. They can still have joint events and publicise each others events and accept some coming and going by worshipers among the different churches in the group. One has no disabled access, but another meets in a centre for the disabled. That's ok. This church is rare. Often these different needs and views have to be met by rupture because of the rigidity of the structures they are in or of those in power.

I am now proud of being a protestant. I think - the more churches the merrier. There is need for as many churches as possible, and why not of all different flavours, aproaches and outlooks. I was in a denominational church and the elderly, who had been the youth of that church once, liked it the way it was and didn't want change. I'm not angry with them. Perhaps they were being a little selfish - who am I to judge? The polite thing was not to discretely try to change them, but to make church as we saw it elsewhere, just like they had done in their day. Some were threatened but surprisingly some gave us their blessing.

Now I look and see that each wave of new church and new christian movement brings something new and refreshing to our perspective of God and christianity and how to live it. I'm proud of it. If the reformation brought reform. Much needed reform. It's still bringing reform. Still needed. Yes there have been and will be some excesses along the way as the pendulum swings. Should we try to grab on to the pendulum to try to stop it ? Should we berate the new pendulum riders as heretics ? Calvin's words, spoken in the context of Geneva at that time were not so odd, they were the pendulum. Calvin-ISM of course has done as much damage as lots of -ISMs including the recent health and wealth movements for example which started out as a healthy re-balancing and became an overbalance. Every movement that is a prophetic movement in it's own time and context can be a curse when applied rigidly elsewhere. Even Jesus did not say the same to everyone, even saying apparent opposites in very different situations. He never called the ordinary crowds whitewashed tombs or a brood of vipers! Neither should we address some of the fiery challenges of Finney or Calvin to the ordinary man off the street Alpha course !

Thank you for bringing up this debate. I hope you find my contributions fruitful. x