Christian Carnival LXXXIX

I've been very remiss of late in posting links to Christian Carnivals, mostly because I haven't had time to peruse them myself and I feel very conscientious about my advertising endorsements: I wouldn't want either of my readers to walk away from their seconds-long contemplation of my site shaking their heads and mentally berating me for endorsing bad theology.

"I simply cannot see how he can link to anyone who would endorse Barth's hermeneutical exegesis of Neo-Orthodox Arminian eschatonical transsubstantiation!!" they would think while grinding their collective teeth, right before permanently deleting Vita ab Alto's link from their blogrolls.

No. It's just too painful to contemplate. The price is just too high.

Fortunately, I have actually looked at the latest Christian Carnival and so can extend a truly heartfelt endorsement: every one of this week's (okay, actually last week's) writers is perfectly consistent and theologically accurate in his or her own mind. I have no doubt whatsoever that each thought what he or she was writing was correct when they wrote it down. (Looking at some of the posts, I suspect a few had doubts later, though.)

Christian Carnival 89 is at the always attractive and interesting In the Spirit of Grace. A couple of the posts caught my eye:

"Dogs, urine, and Bible Translations" at the very-useful Codex offers more than just an alarming title. It is actually a very interesting little treatise on the whys and wherefores of modern Bible translation, along with some explanations of why some peculiar-seeming passages are so, y'know,......peculiar.

Papercut Theology offers a very interesting essay asking,

Is the Reformation over, so that Protestants and Catholics may finally begin a gradual return to measures of fellowship with one another?

This is very interesting topic to me, since I am, like many Proddies today, a great admirer of both the last and current Bishops of Rome. Moreover, I, like many on both sides of the Ulster Divide, see the need for unity in the face of the Body's dual challenges today: rising post-modern pagan and relativist "secularism" in the West and a (resultantly?) resurgent islam in the East.

Darren's essay sheds some light on doctrinal issues that may finally see resolution: the Catholic Church today is closer to Luther's, Melancthon's, and even Calvin's understanding of justification by faith than are some modern Protestant denominations. Like Darren, I am and must remain solidly Proddy in doctrine, but (also like Darren) I can never "conclude that the Roman Catholic Church has been wholly lost to evil and corruption, that there is no salvation within it, and that its teachings lead only to error and never to Jesus." That would be nonsense.

Darren rightly points out that much of the problem with reconciliation lies with how these two parts of the Body view stare decisis, in exactly the same sense that it matters to the SCOTUS: how much intellectual weight does precedent carry? Proddies are strict constructionists: sola Scriptura; Papists believe the scripture is a "living document," subject to revision and evolution, just as Justice Kennedy believes the US Constitution is.

But my Protestant belief in scriptural "strict construction" should never lead me to doubt another's salvation and relationship with our Lord, any more than my disagreement with liberals on our Supreme Court should lead me to doubt their legal bona fides

Monk