Post 44-Where’s the Protestant Section of Heaven?

   

Dana wrote on Mon, Jun 26, 2017 at 7:38 AM

Hi John,

     Lately I’ve been thinking about a movie I first watched back in the 1980’s, called “Saving Grace.”  There have been several movies and even a TV show with the same title, but this particular “Saving Grace” came out in 1986, based on the novel by Celia Gittelson. The film was directed by Robert M. Young, and starred Tom Conti. It is an enjoyable film which I recommend to Christians who watch movies, as one of the better films that you’ve probably never seen. 

     Conti plays a newly elected Pope.  One day while gardening (in his old clothes as opposed to his Papal vestments,) he accidentally gets locked outside of his Vatican residence, and through a series of events, winds up in a poor Italian village where no one recognizes him as the Holy Father. The village is full of real, human characters facing real human problems.  The Pope, while keeping his identity concealed, deals with the people and their issues including the down trodden, the fallen, the outlaws, the disillusioned.  That is contrasted with the Vatican hierarchy, who are in panic mode because the Pope is missing. It’s a great story, told extremely well, that teaches some lessons of which we’d all do well to take note.  It’s a wonderful movie, loaded with redemption on many fronts.

      But wait a minute there, Buster, why would a card carrying Protestant Evangelical be touting a movie about Catholics, and even the Pope?  I can feel the heated glares.  Horrors of horrors!  Has Dana backslidden?  Did those sneaky old Catholics get to him in a moment of weakness, and slip something in his drink?  Is John Calvin spinning in his grave?  What’s up with all of this?

      Well, for any who might be casting the evil eye in my direction right about now, let me say this about that…please, have some decaf, and think again.  One of the 800 pound albino gorillas in the room is that the Protestants were started by a Roman Catholic monk named Martin Luther.  Oh….

      And, while I am not a fan of several points of Roman Catholic theology and doctrine, there’s a corresponding amount of Protestant Evangelical theology and doctrine that I’m not a fan of either.  Both the Protestants and the Catholics have plenty of blood on their hands from burning each other at the stake.  I mean, really, how does it demonstrate the character of Jesus Christ to take another human being who fundamentally disagrees with your theology, and tie them to a post and set them on fire, while watching self-righteously as they slowly burn to death? 

      Some of the most despicable and evil people in this life with whom I’ve ever come in contact have been Protestant Evangelicals.  Are all Catholics saved?  No.  Are all Protestants or Evangelicals saved?  No.  Are all Catholics damned for eternity? No.  Are all Protestants and Evangelicals damned for all eternity?  No.  And it’s time we stopped thinking in those kinds of terms. 

      What matters supremely is faith in Jesus.  Salvation is faith in Christ, period; with nothing else added on as a condition.  Salvation is not faith in Christ, plus not being a Catholic.  Salvation isn’t faith in Christ plus not being a Protestant either.  Christian salvation is not dependent on one’s theology (thankfully.)  Nowhere in the Bible is one’s theological or ecclesiastical belief or practice credited to them as righteousness.  Faith in Christ, on the other hand, is.  

      And despite what many churches may teach and think, I’ve known and do know some Catholic believers who are far better practicing Christians than I am.  I neither endorse the Church of Rome nor the Protestant Evangelical Church as the be-all end-all perfect church, because we all are sinners in need of redemption when we make our entrance into this life.  Even the best of Christian organizations are administered and staffed by human beings, who still struggle with the vestiges of original sin in their natures, and who make mistakes and errors in judgment. I endorse faith in Christ, and Him alone. We all might define all of the implications of just what that might mean in different terms, but the one who knows, loves and serves Christ, I’m certain we’ll see in Heaven.

     While this might offend the sensibilities of people on both sides of the great ecclesiastical divide, there are folks on both of the aforementioned sides of said divide who are going to have to share eternity in Heaven with each other.  There’s not going to be a Protestant section or a Catholic section in Heaven.  One’s church affiliation isn’t going to be criteria for entrance into the new heaven and earth, unless church affiliation is interpreted as being in THE CHURCH, the bride of Jesus Christ. 

     Will it take Jesus’ physical return to get us to stop disliking each other who disagree with each other’s theology?  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not preaching universalism here.  Being a Muslim or a Buddhist or a Hindu is not the same at all as being a Christian.  All roads do not lead to Heaven!  The last I checked, both Catholics and Protestants consider themselves Christians, with a fundamental agreement that Jesus Christ is deity, and our earthly and eternal duty is to love and serve Him, regardless of how that might be taught and expressed.

      Let me pose a question.  If, as many believe, there will be a real end time anti-Christ (who might conceivably masquerade as either a Protestant or a Catholic, or someone else altogether) who comes to power and vigorously persecutes the Church, and we find ourselves on the proverbial wrong end of the gun, much like our 1^st century forefathers in the faith did, will our differences matter? 

      If you’re a Protestant, on the run for your life, and a Catholic Christian offers you shelter, sanctuary or aid of any type, are you going to turn it down?  And the same applies to Catholic Christians on the run, which are offered help by a Protestant.  Will we not eat the other’s bread, if hungry, or warm by their fire, if cold and wet?  Or will we cling to our prejudices and die miserable, hungry and cold with resources for our help in view?  I mean really…is Protestant bread tastier than Catholic bread…or vice versa? 

     Is it not time to start extending some olive branches, and try (with God’s grace) to see Christ in the other guy (in whom Christ dwells too) who might radically differ from us?  Because there are both Protestants and Catholics in whom the Spirit of God has made residence, even if we cannot conceive of such.  We’ll have all of eternity to sort it out. And you can bet your boots that we will sort it out then.  I don’t think any of us will want God to have to look over the seat and threaten to pull the car over because we kids in the back can’t agree on theology.  Ain’t going to happen, Brothers and Sisters.

     But, you might say, I just cannot accept this or that belief that the other holds, just as there are beliefs and practices that we hold dear and sacred that they cannot accept.  But I think it’s time to quit the worn out stereotypes and prejudices that have led us toward sinful attitudes and feelings toward others for whom Christ died. We can agree to disagree without vitriol.

     There’s nothing in the Bible that says that you have to accept the other’s theology or practices.  You don’t have to accept their particulars any more than they have to accept yours.  But you will have to share Heaven and the Lord’s presence for eternity with all Christian believers, be them Catholic or Protestant.

      One of the things I respect about the Catholic Church is their ability to not split from other Catholics who are different in their expression of Catholicism. There are very conservative Catholics who hate abortion as much as Protestants do, and quite liberal Catholics who see Che Guevara as a religious icon, but they are all Catholics.  Somehow they have found the grace to keep it together under one tent, as it were.

     We Protestants, on the other hand, are so fragmented that there is no real, authoritative Protestant or Evangelical Church.  The Baptists don’t like the Methodists, the Presbyterians don’t like the Pentecostals, who don’t like the Anglicans, who don’t care much for the Lutherans, who aren’t all that big on the Wesleyans, who don’t like the Disciples of Christ, and on and on it goes. 

     There are even divisions in our own denominations.  In case you haven’t noticed there are several different brands of Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians etc., etc. And don’t get me started on Calvinists and Arminians, not to mention the myriad divisions that have come from the plethora of end times teachings.

     Christian unity is in the toilet.  Our nation and world are going to hell in a handbasket while we, who claim to know and follow Jesus Christ, stand around and bicker and argue about things that are not going to make any difference whatsoever once we get to Heaven. We need to wake up and repent of holding ill will for someone, anyone for whom Christ died. Period.

     We can all learn a thing or two from each other without compromising our standards.  If the Gospel is our common banner, then what are we fighting about?

     Many moons ago, I read a book, the name of which and the author I cannot recall.  It was a true story, more autobiographical than anything.  Anyway there was this Protestant minister/missionary who lived in a village where there was a Catholic priest/missionary also stationed.  Now when it came to doctrine, theology and church tradition, the two were as different as night and day, and never the twain were ever going to meet, because after all, Protestants and Catholics don’t like each other all that much, or at best are just indifferent towards each other.

     The Protestant missionary got under conviction about the lack of relationship between the two (both God’s servants), so he got some ice cream and called upon the priest.  While they differed greatly in their theological beliefs, he discovered that they both had an affinity for ice cream in common.  And from that common ground a friendship developed, and the two worked together and helped each other for the good of the community to which God had called them both.

     When I returned to NC, after a disastrous stint of ministry in the Philadelphia area, I found myself more spiritually ragged than if I had been dragged down five miles of gravel road. Suffice to say, I encountered the devil (and not metaphorically either,) and limped away a bloody and beaten man. For now, I’ll say no more, as the memory is something on which I do not care to dwell.

     My Protestant contemporaries thought me mad when I began to talk about my experience, because we erudite Protestants don’t believe in the devil any more.  He doesn’t fit into our new age vision of modern Evangelicalism.  Satan? Oh, come now; that’s so Middle Ages.

     That’s when I met Father Stott, the local Catholic priest.  Father Stott was a US Navy medic, assigned to a detachment of combat Marines in Viet Nam.  He was short and stocky, and he camped in the local rectory.  It was a very nice house, the rectory.  He got a phone call while I was having coffee with him once, and he asked me to go to his room on the top floor (attic) and retrieve a particular book for him, while he finished the conversation with whoever had called him.

     I went into his room, and was surprised to find no bed.  Instead there was a sleeping bag unrolled on the floor, with a short table and a lamp.  It looked like a homeless guy lived there.  He was a funny and intense guy, who always prefaced his responses to me with, “That’s the trouble with you Protestants….”  He died a few years later, badly sickened from exposure to Agent Orange while doing his two tours of duty in Nam.

     But you know what Father Stott didn’t do?  He didn’t make me feel crazy when I told him of my brush with evil incarnate.  He understood that which my Protestant contemporaries couldn’t have understood, and didn’t want to understand in a million years.  His parting words to me, I’ll never forget.  He took his crucifix and holding the short end, with the cross beam acting as a cross guard, and pointed the long end directly at me, and told me that I needed to take my cross and turn it into a sword, just as he thrust it at me. It was dramatic and potent, and as long as God allows me sanity and cognizance, it will be with me.  Not too bad for an old Catholic guy, huh?  I really miss him, and he’ll be one of the guys I’ll look up in Heaven when I get there.

      Maybe it’s time to go buy some ice cream….

Dana

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John responded on Jun 27, 2016 at 3:22 PM

Hey Dana

            I do remember that movie. It should be on the required movie list for all Christians.

            Sometimes I wonder why we (Christians) don’t get more involved as did the movie Pope in his incognito ministry.  For the average American Christian, it’s, generally, not a lack of hearing the challenging Word of God to either convict or encourage them to get involved. There is Christian radio, Christian television and ministries on many channels abound, and CD’s are a dime a dozen. There are bumper stickers on many cars in church parking lots, so all those people advertising Christianity must surely be  out doing God’s work. Is it fear? (See Gideon or Joshua) Is it busyness? (That excuse is old because who isn’t.) Is it because I’m too tired? (I’m not being facetious, but go to bed earlier; and look to the Lord who gives perfect peace. Concerning perfect peace, yes I know that sometimes it takes awhile before the struggling  with a problem is over, but God will give peace and sleep can come.) Or is the husband, or wife, reluctant to get more involved? (I’m human. I don’t have a good answer for that one yet. If God’s shown it to me I haven’t listened....)

            You mention the “great ecclesiastical divide” and talk much about Catholics and Protestants. I would agree about the divide, but it can be different. Take me for example. My father left the Catholic Church when a teenager, but all that side of the family is still Catholic. I’ve been to many Catholic services, weddings and funerals, and often felt God’s presence. Once, while visiting my cousins in Ohio, we stayed overnight after the wedding to attend church with them all the next day. That morning their parish church (nearly the size of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.) had a guest speaker. He was an African Catholic Brother who was visiting parishes around the country to thank them for their support of his church in Africa. Other than being Black, he sounded just like Billy Graham, and after he got wound up, it was a real barn burner of a message. He even had an altar call at the end of the service. Afterward, I went forward to pray with that Christian brother, arm in arm, in the altar area. Denomination, color, status—nothing separated us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

            I think that without being in the ebb and flow of life, interacting with people and periodically going to other churches than one’s own, it is easy to think we’re the only ones and ours is the only denomination that will make it to heaven.  I think there even might have been a little of that in me after I was saved, but fortunately, God worked that out of me because I was willing to let Him do it.

            You wrote about divisions even within our own denominations:

     There are even divisions in our own denominations.  In case you haven’t noticed there are several different brands of Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians etc., etc. And don’t get me started on Calvinists and Arminians, not to mention the myriad divisions that have come from the plethora of end times teachings.

            On this point, I’ll take minor issue. People are like snowflakes (not the current derogatory term for whiny, young adults, but literal snowflakes) and just as God makes snowflakes, He makes people—the same, but different. When someone of humanity becomes a Christian, that someone becomes one with Christ and with all those who have also done the same. While we don’t hear it much today, we become brothers and sisters with each other, in Christ.  Or hereditarily, there is similar DNA, but there are differences.  I believe so it is with Christians-similar but different. With very few exceptions (one being in Act 2:41-47, the implication is that everyone got along), I believe the Bible is replete with examples of people—families, friends, disciples, countries—who did not harmonize as I think you are challenging us to do.

            I’m not saying we shouldn’t try. We should. But, until Jesus comes back or we go to heaven, I just don’t see the unity you seem to be expressing. We will have divisions.  Even in a marriage, where the husband and wife become one, there are differences; although; hopefully, those differences get fewer and fewer as time passes.

            I’ll end by going back to your beginning, about the incognito Pope. Two things. The first is as our world spins faster and faster electronically, and those toys get more and more frequent, and by using the toys and their programs (like Facebook, etc.) while they may seem to be connecting people, to the contrary I believe they are subtly and surely separating people to the place where humanity will lose its humanness. Then we’ll be nothing more than just an electronic piece of plastic in ones’ hands or on one’s desk that we can turn off or walk away from and leave the thing—not a person—on the other end to his or her own devices.

            And two, when I was writing professionally, I wrote an article for one of the Salvation Army publications (I think) titled the Stalactite Diner. It was a challenge to Christians to exude hospitality, in spite of all of the excuses they could come up with, even the legitimate ones. If time is short (and I fall into that school of thinking, in spite of the fact that time has been short since Paul was writing the Epistles) and Jesus could return before I hit “send” on my computer to forward this to you, hospitality is not an option. https://www.openbible.info/topics/hospitality  While we may never eliminate the divisions, if we can be genuinely hospitable and enjoy a meal together and some ice cream, I think the bridges across the divides will get shorter.

John

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Dana responds to John’s reply on Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 4:13 PM

John, you wrote:

            “…I believe the Bible is replete with examples of people—families, friends, disciples, countries—who did not harmonize as I think you are challenging us to do.

            I’m not saying we shouldn’t try. We should. But, until Jesus comes back or we go to heaven, I just don’t see the unity you seem to be expressing. We will have divisions.  Even in a marriage, where the husband and wife become one, there are differences; although; hopefully, those differences get fewer and fewer as time passes.”

      I don’t disagree with you that we are all unique—we are made that way by God’s design.  But diversity and unity should not be incompatible. There is neither anything wrong with thinking about or practicing one’s faith in a manner different from someone else, nor is it wrong to fellowship with those of like mind.

     You use the illustration of marriage.  And yes, husbands and wives often disagree.  But the married couple shouldn’t let those differences turn into animosity, leading to separation and divorce.  It is OK to have differences, but our different Christian organizations have already separated and divorced.

     Using the old example of the man given a bundle of sticks, and told to break them, he found he couldn’t complete the task as long as the sticks remained in the bundle.  When he untied the bundle, he could break all the sticks individually.  Now all those sticks were individually distinct from each other.  Laid side by side, the differences in all those sticks would be painfully obvious.  It’s OK that they are different—it was God’s design that made them so.  But outside of the bundle, they were all vulnerable to breakage.  Together, though individually distinct from each other, they were unbreakable.

     On 9/11, American people of all stripes and persuasions came together to rally around a common theme. For a (brief) spell, they were all just Americans.  Their being American wasn’t hindered by their many differences, Black, White, Democrat, Republican, etc.  They were united despite their differences.

     Is it going to take a spiritual 9/11 in order to get all of the different Christians to come together under the banner of Christ?  As I said, in Heaven, we will all (though individual in original makeup) be united around the throne.  The Bible says we will all look like Christ and be like Christ, so why not now?

     I realize that we cannot and will not totally escape our sinful natures and human frailties in this life, and we will not have some utopian Heaven on earth in this lifetime—but being that that end is what God has in store for us eventually, shouldn’t we strive to achieve as much of that as possible?  To say that you “…just don’t see the unity [I] seem to be expressing,” because we all have differences, can, if not careful, become a cop out for not trying.

     Pentecostals do not have to become Presbyterians, and Protestants do not have to become Catholics, and and and and and and and…, but to throw in the towel and give up on the idea of trying to establish a unified Church (just because we all have differences) under the banner of Christ, to me is a sin, of which we all will suffer the consequences.

     Our differences, if we let them, make us stronger.  The United States Army Special Forces (Green Berets) are organized into teams, each of which has people with different talents and areas of expertise.  There are medics and demolition experts.  There are sharpshooters and there are strategists.  They all function together as a unit, despite the fact that there exist very different areas of background, experience, training and skills.

     We either work toward unity or we don’t.  Yes, each snowflake that falls from the winter sky is an individual, completely different from the next.  But together, they can make beautiful scenery, and together they can make an avalanche.  And, individual as they all may be from each other, one thing is absolutely certain, they are all cold. As long as they stay cold, they remain.  The minute they cease being cold, they vanish. 

     We will never be sin free this side of Heaven.  Because that’s the case, should we just give into temptation and go on and sin?  That’s a silly proposition, but made to make a not so silly point. We will all never be alike, but we should not let those differences keep us from reaching out to the other guy(s) and working at the Christian trade, of trying to make a difference in our culture and world.  If the “world” saw Protestants and Catholics working together instead of being at each other’s throats, what impact might that have?

     Dana

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On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 8:01 PM  John closes with
Hi Dana
            In your response from earlier today, you asked:

             Is it going to take a spiritual 9/11 in order to get all of the different Christians to come together under the banner of Christ?

            Yes.

Your friend and brother in Christ

John