Steven and Jeff,

I firmly believe in hellfire and brimstone sermons. They are especially effective during Holy Week. What I object to is the notion that God is a sadist who damns souls to hell arbitrarily. As loathesome as his theology is, Edwards is a hell of a writer, in more ways than one. Anne Bradstreet, well, I have to say she's not my cup of tea, but I have read little of her. I tend to prefer English or West Coast poets to East Coast poets, although that rule only applies about 80% of the time (Whitman comes immediately to mind, among many others).

Dear Jeff,

Well said. I don't know how I feel about fire and brimstone sermons--I know they can be effective, I also know they can be enormous turn-offs if the pastor or priest somehow gives the impression that he is beyond such considerations. But in general, I think we would benefit from hearing more about the effects of sin and what sin is than we currently do. I very much like hearing about God's grace and mercy--and that is the ultimate end of the fire and brimstone sermon, as I plan to demonstrate today. Thanks.

shalom,

Steven

Fire and brimstone sermons are a good thing. We need more of them in the Catholic Church. I would hope that neither you nor Erik object to the hellfire in Puritan homiletics, but that you rather object to the Calvinist notion that God's grace is arbitrary, and that certain unfortunate souls were created by God for hell with no possibility of repentance.

Dear Erik,

I do so love Jonathan Edwards. As you point out, he hadn't a clue--but that sermon isn't the fullness of his thought. And that sermon really typifies what you started to say--fiery and icy or good cop/bad cop. For whatever reason the whole group of them got into the notion that they had to "scare the hell" out of people and sermons like that were designed to do it. But now I've read a tremendous amount of Edwards, and that sermon ("Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," I think, although the image recurs in countless lesser products)does not typify his thought or even Puritan thought as a whole any more than Savanarola's fierier sermons about hell and its tribulations typify the fullness of his own thought or the thought of the Catholic Church on the matter.

Puritanism was a bad stream to start with, in some ways, and its transposition to this country tended to harden it along lines that were not conducive to encouraging the love of God or any real life in Christ. (We get that notion pretty readily even at several removes when we read The Scarlet Letter). So perhaps you are right. Your voice speaks always to correct the excesses, my tendency is to see the beautiful and wonderfully wrought things brought forth as a result of people truly seeking God. As I said, you may not care for Edwards's image or his thought as a whole, but the rhetoric is powerful and if you ever heard it spoken as it would have been preached, it is a marvelous example of the "Great Awakening" Rhetoric. (Oh, and Jonathan Edwards was born in 1703.)

Cotton and Increase, I'm afraid I have little patience for. The only member of that crowd for whom I have respect is Samuel Seward.

I guess it is my acqauintance with Phillis Wheatley, and the profoundly lovely lyrics of Anne Bradstreet that make me more than a little dubious of dismissing the entire movement. Yes, it had its cranks. Yes, it worked at undoing what the metaphysicals were trying to reunite. But there are lovely passages, lovely thoughts, and a true and shining love of God, if inappropriately expressed in many of the writings and works.

And, after all, they did invent the custom of bundling--not bad for what they are said to be.

Anyway, thanks for the explanation, we are standing on other sides of the fence.

One last word--I don't think I would ever have become Catholic were it not for my Joyce professor. The man who introduced me to the intricacies, humor, and beauty of one of the great writers was also a very gentle evangelist. I remember saying something about Joyce being correct with regard to the empty pomp and ceremony of the Roman Chruch, and I remember his response to me was, "Ah yes, but the game isn't over yet, and you haven't seen eternity." Basically, don't make rash judgements about what you know not. Coming fromthis man, it was the first invitation I had ever been given to seriously consider the Church.

Oh well. As it may be.

shalom,

Steven

Believe it or not, Steven, I agree with just about 95% of what you wrote, although our approaches always differ. I think that is essential to have different approaches. I see ecumenical diaglogue as a delicate balance between the good cop and the bad cop, between the windy and fiery, and I really think we need both. It may have taken you a little longer to come into the fold, but you did. Perhaps it never would have happened had you not been exposed to those great Triumphalists of yore.

As far as individual Protestants go, I hold no grudge against them. I used to drive my grandfather every week to St. Paul's Lutheran Church (after mass with my Grandmother at St. Mary's Catholic Church - Sundays were long, but it was time spent with my grandparents so I loved it). The Lutherans were great folks, and I don't think many of them really gave much thought as to why they were Lutheran and not Catholic. They were pious, honest, kind people, who did what they were raised to believe was right. Since they really were not in violation of the natural law and their poor theology/ecclesiology was hardly culpable, I expect that most of them have a good crack at Heaven.

I make a big distinction between heretics and heresiarchs, and even then, I divide heresiarchs into groups. I certainly don't see Billy Graham in the same light as I see Ian Paisley. I have to say, though, I am more concerned about Graham than Paisley, because he seems perilously close to being in the camp of "really should have known better" along with C.S. Lewis. Paisley, he is a deranged nut who probably really doesn't and can't know better. Lord have mercy on all their souls.

None of that is for us to really know, yet. However, we must consistantly attack the false doctrines of the heretics with sharpened lances, and I think that we must applaud those times when history takes over and names like the San Clemente Presbyterian Church happen.

The 1620 Puritans, OK, maybe I am being harsh on them, but the 1630 ones were trouble. They brought and established on this continent a poisonous world view, one that is still doing tremendous damage. It is hard to read the writings of their clergy and find the slightest shred of sympathy for them.

"God holds your soul over the fires of Hell the way we might dangle a spider over a candle."

I think that was Edwards, but it may have been one of the Mathers. Lovely stuff. Did he borrow it from Mohammed? Was dangling spiders over candles a common hobby in Massachussetts? It certainly beats flogging priests, which was another hobby they had.

And never you worry about offending me. I am a German, and notoriously thick-skinned. As the lads say in their ad for the British Bigots Union in the Brand New Monty Python Papperbock: "Germans are horribly difficult to offend. Try setting fire to their Volkswagens."

Dear Erik,

Wow, you really don't like Protestants at all! It's a bit overwhelming, having been one myself and capable of assuring you that all the vitriol you attribute to them was more than compensated for by the haughty arrogance and disdain dished up by the local Catholic crowd when I was young. Some of the things I read here remind me so much of that, and remind me of the reason it took me so long to become Catholic.

Protestants are not evil, malicious, or any more ill-willed than their Catholic contemporaries. The success of the Mission system might be considered highly debatable by those who suffered from it. But that was largely ignorance of the time. I have refrained from saying much since I saw the absolutely astounding wish that that puritan's had been cannibalized upon arriving upon our shores. I assure you, I believe in the full truth and infallibility of the Catholic Church as you do, but I come from the stock that is described in such unappealing terms, and it hurts, sometimes a lot. Particularly since, even as a protestant, I never had anything other than respect for Catholicism. Most modern protestants are not so much malicious toward Catholicism as they are ignorant of any way other than that trodden by ancestors and family. It is good to enlighten them, but hardly conducive to ecumenical and Christian dialog to spend our time calling names and spewing vitriol.

There, it finally exploded out and is off my chest. As much as it seems you despise and have disdain for all that is Protestant, it is the faith that finally led me to the fullness of the truth. Without it as a start, I don't know where I might have ended up. I love the divines, and the mystics, and the theorists, and even those who were terribly, terribly, wrong, but who struggled hard to come to terms with the truth. For Luther, Henry VIII and the rest of that gang, I have less sympathy. For those who followed in error, I have more pity that they had stripped from them the great patrimony of the Church, and I wish for them to return to it. I somehow doubt that some of the comments I have recently read seems likely to do that.

I'm terribly sorry if I've offended, but as I said, I'm a little hurt each time I read something like this--it is really terrible to read such stuff and think about one's grandmother and grandfather.

shalom,

Steven

Wow! Gregg, I always thought it the other way around. I can think of nothing bleaker than what is being thrown up around Sacramento or Los Angeles.

San Francisco has in its bounds the best and worst of today's world. The same can be said for what now occupies the rancheros of Pio Pico (gotta love that name) and Sepulveda.

Manhattan is a terrific city too, though. Just all the suburbia that surrounds it depresses me. Somehow east coast suburbia is even more depressing than west coast suburbia. I didn't really think that to be possible.

Erik - I have a love-hate relationship with El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora, Reina de Los Angeles. There is so much I love about California, and I guess I will always be a Californian in my heart.
But every time I come back for a visit, I remember why I left. I didn't so much leave home as it was that my home left me.
I get majorly upset at the east coast types who condemn it without having truly lived it. Even though I am living on the east coast now..........