Monday, August 28, 2023

It is the 28th of August, 2023. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Happy Monday wherever and whenever you are listening to this show- A note: We are going to be doing our second mega-mailbag Weekend edition in a few weeks, so if you have any questions- big, small, whatever… send them to me at danv@1517.org.

Ok- so, this week's question comes from Mason in Colombia, Missouri- home of the University Of Missouri Tigers (their mascot is named Truman the Tiger after the President)- it is also a great school for career NFL backup quarterbacks- you’ve got Chase Daniel, Drew Lock, Blaine Gabbert…. You don’t want to hear that your team has to start any of them. Also, Mike Jones made the Super Bowl-saving tackle for the Rams in the year 2000, and John Matuzak played for the Raiders and was also the character “Sloth” in the Goonies. 

Mason asked, “I am a Lutheran and confused about the 2nd Vatican Council- my understanding is that it was a good thing for the Catholic Church, but I was listening to some Lutherans talk about it as a bad thing- which way is it?” Mason- this is a GREAT question, and it lets me lay some things out. I should also note that I don’t know the context of the conversation you were a part of- but let me give you a big-picture answer.

So, first, what was the 2nd Vatican Council? It was a council called by the Roman Catholic Church that met in four sessions between 1962 and 1965. It was the most significant event in the life of the Catholic Church in the past 150 years and in the top 10 of the biggest events in Catholic history. Why? The church modernized. If you were a Catholic and knew of nothing else, you would have, sometime in the 60s, recognized that your priest was no longer speaking in Latin.  The church emphasized the importance of Scripture and the Church Fathers and recognized that historical contexts and change play a role in their understanding of doctrines- that is, what one Lutheran scholar wrote of a “theological discourse… which is definably different from that which has prevailed in [the] Roman Catholic [Church] since the Middle Ages”.

So- why are some Protestants anti-Vatican II? There have been some who saw the Second Vatican Council as a battle between conservatives and progressives.  And in the eyes of many, the Progressives won. And so, if you juxtapose your own conservative/progressive worldview, you pick the side that most closely aligns with you. If you want to be trad for the sake of being trad, you’re anti-Vatican II.

There are also those with a “sneech-like” approach to their theological convictions. That is, you either have a star on your belly, or you don’t. Let’s say that Protestants wiped the stars off their bellies. And now, with Vatican II, the Catholics are starting to chip off their star-bellies (stay with me and the tortured Dr. Seuss analogy). You can’t have “them” look like “us”- in other words, without the other to oppose, you have no, or little, positive self-understanding.

At Vatican II, the Catholic church recognized the importance of religious freedom- something that was controversial for the Catholic church as late as the 1950s, and they recognized that non-Catholic Christians are somehow, in some way, Christians, too! Wowza! Now, I’m a fan of the Reformation- but not to cosplay as a 16th-century Christian who hates the Catholics. I dig that part of the Lutheran Divine Service (Setting 2), which has everyone chant, “For the peace of the world, for the well-being of the church of God, and for the Unity of all, let us pray to the Lord.”

So, do I- a Protestant “agree” with Vatican II- well, it’s not my party. That church remains distinct, but we see in it possibilities for ecumenical dialog- which is nothing other than striving towards what Jesus prayed for before his arrest- we’ll hit that as the last word today. Thanks, Mason, for the question, and you can send me your questions- and congrats on Sam Horn being a perennial NFL backup if all goes according to plan.

The last word for today comes from John 17- Jesus’ prayer in the Garden before his arrest:

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 28th of August 2023, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose Purdue Boilermakers developed perennial backup quarterbacks Mark Hermann, Kyle Orton, and David Blough- he is Christopher Gillespie

The show is written and read by a man who will try to keep obscure sports references to a minimum, to the best of my ability… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be OK.