Days, and Months, and Times: Some of the Easter Week observances

A brief list that might be helpful in conjunction with the next post, I am afraid of you.

• Palm Sunday – receive palm branches or palm crosses signifying Jesus’ ‘triumphal entry’ into Jerusalem.
• Daily Devotional – 8-Day Devotional and Coloring booklet for Passion Week.
• Holy Monday – represents the day of the cleansing of the Temple.
• Holy Tuesday – represents Jesus goes to the Mount of Olives.
• Holy Wednesday – into the darkness; service of Tenebrae (where candles are gradually extinguished, creating a sense of darkness), signifying Jesus abandoned by his disciples. 
• Maundy Thursday – the Last Supper instituted, Jesus’s betrayal by Judas Iscariot, and his arrest at the Garden of Gethsemane, often including a representation of foot washing; might in some instances include a Jewish Pesach Supper.
• Good Friday – recognized as the day of crucifixion, and may include fasting, with meditation and veneration of the cross.
• Holy Saturday – burial of Jesus, a late-night Easter Vigil service represents women watching the tomb.
• Easter Sunday – commemorates the resurrection, often with sunrise services, Easter breakfast, Easter egg hunts, in addition to regular worship services. Churches averse to the word “Easter” may call it “Resurrection Sunday” instead.

Perhaps looking here (see link) will provide better understanding of some of this stuff (often, I do not really get it): Journey through Lent with Jesus.

3 Purveyors of Persecution

The three churches in the previous post -- Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican -- each defends itself as the true church by citing historical continuity back to the apostles. Even if that were true, there is a simple matter that must rend them from the lineage of the church built by the carpenter's son of "not many wise, not many mighty, and not many noble," but rather the weak, base and despised. These three "universal" churches not only fought one another, but also universally persecuted and murdered any simple Christians whose faith did not align with their pronouncements.

The Inquisition, or Inquiry on Heretical Perversity, refers to any of the judicial institutions from the 1100s to the 1800s within the Roman Catholic Church which hounded "heretics".  Punishment ranged from imprisonment, banishment, and torture to death (usually a quite horrific one). Some modern historians have tried to revise this view of the Inquisition. But it's stain cannot be erased. The Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215 declared what was already practiced, stating that secular authorities "shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled" to exterminate all heretics that the (Roman Catholic) Church pointed out to them in their jurisdiction. The oft revered "Saint" Thomas Aquinas believed that obstinate heretics should "not only to be separated from the Church, but also to be eliminated from the world by death." Persecution by the Catholic Church is no mere spectre of the dark ages. For example, the state of Croatia (named after the Roman Catholic "Croats") was formed in 1941. The Serbs in Croatia, who were Eastern Orthodox, were given three options -- convert to Roman Catholicism , be exiled, or be executed. This was no empty threat, but was at least carried out on women and children in Prebilovici. In 1965 the Roman Catholic Church issued "Dignitatis Humanae" (part of the Vatican II Council) which "declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom," repudiating centuries of Roman Catholic practice otherwise.

Orthodox Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1081--1118) persecuted and punished Paulician and  Bogomil "heretics". One of his last acts in life was to burn at the stake Basil, a Bogomil leader condemned as a heretic by Patriarch Nicholas III. The Coptic Christians in Egypt suffered under the Byzantine Empire. The Melkite Patriarchs, whose leadership encompassed both spiritual and civil matters, massacred those they considered heretics. Another example of Orthodox persecution can be seen during Patriarch Nikon’s reforms in the Russian Orthodox Church in the 17th century. The dissenters were persecuted, either finding it necessary to flee the country, or else submit to torture and burning at the stake. Even in recent years there are reports of the Russian Orthodox Church aligning itself with Vladimir Putin  in his government-sponsored persecution of Catholics.

Anglicans were later getting in the game than the older Catholic and Orthodox churches, but they plied the trade quite well. Who does not know of the violent war of Anglican against Catholic in England? And laws such as the Uniformity Act of 1662 and the Blasphemy Act of 1650 enforced the dominance of the Church of England and chastised religious dissenters. The sad case of Edward Wightman, the last person in England burned at the stake for heresy (1612), stands as a testament to their zeal against religious "heresy".

Yes, the Reformers wielded the sword to spread their religion, and time would fail me to speak of the wild excesses of the Radicals at Munster. But these are the three that are blowing the long horn for their catholicity, continuity, consensus, existence, and succession. The continuity of these so-called churches is the continuity of the growth of an acorn into a giraffe -- a kingdom not of this world seduced by the kingdoms of this world. What simple reader cannot detest such desultory connection and see & know that a church making converts by the sword has fully departed from the "my church" of Jesus Christ of the New Testament both in theology and practice? Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.

Another Problem of Ecclesiology

Last year I wrote a reply to Daniel Wallace's post on The Problem of Protestant Ecclesiology. I subscribed to notification of replies on that thread. Over a year later Wallace is still facilitating much tooting of the long horn of those in support of the apostolic succession of either the Catholic, Orthodox or Anglican churches. This subject is approached with a great deal of pride, based on antiquity, universality, and consensus. History proves they're not as old as they think, at least not in the sense of a proven apostolic succession or resemblance to the New Testament church. The fact that there are three of them (and many more) demonstrates that talk of universality and consensus is also cheap.

Many appeals are made to the church fathers. Each seems to see this as an almost unassailable position. In reality church fathers are embraced and discarded according to their affinity to a particular tradition. Augustine for Catholics, Anselm for Anglicans, Peter of Sebaste for Orthodox, none of which would likely embrace Coptic Saint Samuel the Confessor. And Arius is a church father as well, regardless of who doesn't want to claim him! Alternately some are revered as church fathers and then anathemized, or vice versa.

The appeal to traditional interpretations of "the church" should be compared to traditional interpretations of the elders of Israel, and then compared to the example of Jesus and his Apostles. They accepted and believed the Old Testament canon while rejecting the traditions and interpretations that had grown up from the "Israel fathers".

These churches may claim that their doctrine (in exclusion of the others) is semper eadem (always the same) or quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus (what has been held always, everywhere, by everybody). Once you exclude as churches everybody who does not always agree with you, I suppose it is easy to claim this is true. One among the Orthodox wrote that "Every church believes the same thing while leaving room for regional differences in praxis." But this reveals they in fact don't believe the same thing, unless they don't believe what they practice. Friendship and acquaintances with Roman Catholics exposes one to wide diversity of theology and practice, regardless of what "the church" says they believe.

The ecumenical councils are accepted as examples of an exercise of church consensus, continuity and infallibility. Yet, there were disagreements in the councils, on which councils are ecumenical and on which portions of the councils are to be accepted. Of the early ecumenical councils, Oriental Orthodoxy recognizes only the first three, Eastern Orthodoxy seven and Roman Catholicism eight. Consensus is not achieved by achieving consensus, but by excommunicating those who deny the consensus. Might makes right and vae victis (woe to the vanquished ones)!

Comparison of the growth of the acorn of the New Testament church into an oak tree reveals some things that have grown into a giraffe. Praying to the dead, the veneration of images, the perpetual virginity of Mary, the monarchical papacy and such like expose a different creature to our sight. But "none of this moves them" who are reinforced by their church's infallibility. But hold on, in the next post we will investigate a stain attached to all these churches which they cannot wash away, try as though they might. Even babes recognize, despite all rhetoric to the contrary, that something doesn't add up to New Testament Christianity here!