Catholics and Protestants Together in Charismatic Renewal?

Perhaps nothing makes more of a laughingstock out of global Church unity in Spirit and worship than the contentious issue of Marian devotion. Some Catholics truly worship Mary as if she were the fourth person of the Trinity, in spite of official Catholic theology to the contrary. Marian devotion had a role in undermining the Catholic charismatic renewal in the 1980s. Protestants, on the other hand, have a difficult time in saying what the Bible says about Mary, that she is “blessed among women.” Here is a controversial blog on the issue from an Anglican priest and former Roman Catholic.

www.pentecostaltheology.com/marian-devotion-and-the-coming-second-wave-of-the-catholic-charismatic-renewal/

Quotes from the article selected by the Editor:

For some reason I was not comfortable about Marian devotion as a boy. … My childhood as a Catholic was lived under the cloud of the ominous “Fatima prophecies” that came from apparitions that were supposedly from Mary at Fatima, Portugal in 1917.

In fact, several prominent Catholic theologians have consistently warned of the dangers of excessive Marian devotion to the revivals of the Holy Spirit. The Jesuit priest and historian of the Catholic Charismatic renewal, Fr. Peter Hocken, warned that excessive Marian devotion is a danger to authentic revival and true reverence of Mary.

On the level of formal theology and ecumenical dialogue, much progress has been made in Catholic-Protestant communications about Mary and the honor due her. Formal Catholic theology has backed off declaring Mary as the “mediatrix” of all graces. …

My own opinion is that there is no way to dialogue into a “midpoint” that all will agree upon. Catholics will venerate Mary to a degree that Protestants feel uncomfortable with, and Catholics will not be content with the degree that Protestants consider and honor Mary.

… the Holy Spirit constantly surprises when a new revival begins, and this may be true of Marian devotion in the future. The Pentecostals of the 1960s were astounded when the Holy Spirit enlivened the mainline denomination into what became the Charismatic Renewal. They thought the mainline churches were too far gone into apostasy to be renewed. The Pentecostals were further astounded when the Catholics began experiencing Holy Spirit revival in 1967. They were sure the Catholic Church was the Biblically prophesied “whore of Babylon” and could not be redeemed from its idolatry. They were wrong about that, too. One can only wonder what the Spirit will do in the coming revival.

Recent scholarship on the rapid expansion of Christianity in the Global South consistently affirms the Pentecostalization of the church. Scholars are producing histories and theologies on the efforts of Pentecostal missionaries from the Global North and the rise of independent Pentecostal churches (hence the series at hand). In this work, Jakob Egeris Thorsen gives a much-needed history and analysis of another dimension of Global South Pentecostalization, namely the role of Charismatic experience and praxis within Catholic parish life.

In this revision of his PhD dissertation defended at Aarhus University in Denmark, Thorsen delivers a Missionwissenschaft, a methodological blend between science of religion and mission theology, to assess the rise of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) in Latin America and specifically Guatemala. Thorsen argues that the rapid Pentecostalization of the Catholic Church created increased blurring between CCR and the institutional Church. He discovers renewalists who reject institutional religion for more particularistic and countercultural praxis and witness, but paradoxically remain in the tradition and embrace institutional hierarchy.

Thorsen focuses on the religious life of Charismatic and non-Charismatic Catholics in La Colonia, a small parish in the lower middle-class district of Santísima Trinidad on the outskirts of Guatemala City. He conducted six months of fieldwork in this small Guatemalan Charismatic Catholic parish (from June to December 2009) in order to assess the ecclesial contributions of Guatemalan Charismatics, particularly their negotiation of parish life alongside priests, bishops, non-Charismatics, and non-Catholic Pentecostals. Apart from routine participation in weekly parish events, Thorsen concentrated his research on three Charismatic groups, namely, a full-scale Charismatic youth group, a soft-Charismatic Bible study, and an upper middle-class non-parish based Charismatic youth group. He conducted more than thirty interviews of parish members including Charismatic and non-Charismatic parishioners as well as four priests and two Charismatic auxiliary bishops. Along the way, Thorsen reveals his personal connection and possible motivation for this project; he first came to Guatemala as a sixteen-year-old high school exchange student and subsequently converted to Catholicism in his early twenties. Thorsen’s wife is from this community, and their daughter was baptized in this parish. He describes himself as a non-Charismatic lay theologian and a friendly critic of the CCR.

Mel Robeck

Flyer about the lecture (available at the time of publication)

Gregg R. Allison (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is professor of Christian theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is secretary of the Evangelical Theological Society, book review editor for the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, an elder at Sojourn Community Church, and a theological strategist for Sojourn Network. He has taught at several colleges and seminaries, including Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. Moreover, he is the author of numerous books, including Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine (Zondervan, 2011), and Sojourners and Strangers: The Doctrine of the Church (Crossway, 2012). In this volume, Allison – an evangelical theologian and church historian – helps readers understand the nuances of Roman Catholic teaching. Proceeding through the official Catechism of the Catholic Church, he summarizes and assesses Catholic doctrine from the perspective of both Scripture and evangelical theology. Throughout, he notes prominent similarities with evangelical thought, without glossing over key differences, and this book will therefore enable Christians on both sides of the now ancient ecclesiastical divide to fruitfully engage one another.

The Catholic Church is everywhere one looks, and in terms of sheer size, the Church claims well over a billion adherents. Its members are leaders in government, educational institutions, social programs, and more. The Pope, who is the head of the Church, wields enormous influence on the international stage in politics, ethics, education, and culture building, in addition to his spiritual influence. Recent scandals regarding priests and sexual abuse have unfortunately thrown the Church into the limelight. Whether good or bad, the Church is consistently in the public’s eye. At Vatican II, the Church underwent an agiornamento, or updating, which has launched it into the twenty-first century, the process of which continues even today. One of the most significant results of this journey toward modernization was its refurbishing of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1994, with its systematic presentation of theology, liturgy, and practice.

Gregg R. Allison

Given this reality, Allison seeks to do two things with this title. First, he notes with fascination and appreciation the commonalities between Catholic and evangelical theology, which he describes as the intrigue component. Second, he seeks to examine the differences between the two, demonstrating what he claims are points of divergence within Catholic theology and practice from Scripture, which he calls the critique component. He has significant experience with Catholicism, as he both teaches it and studied it in college. So then, though he does not have a Catholic background per se, he is an evangelical that has more extensive and personal knowledge of Catholicism than most. These doctrinal and practical disparities between the two faiths – including apostolic succession, transubstantiation, the immaculate conception of Mary, and praying for the dead in purgatory – are points of divergence that must be faced honestly with a humble conviction that avoids minimizing the substantive distance between Catholicism and evangelicalism.

The title spends one chapter on an exposition of Catholics’ understanding of Scripture, four chapters on the Profession of Faith, five chapters on the Celebration of the Christian Mystery, and two chapters on the Life of Christ. Although the critique of Catholic theology is sustained and pointed in this book, Allison does not offer an anti-Catholic diatribe. It does not pretend to be a representation of all things Catholic, focusing on Catholic doctrine and practice as unfolded in the Catechism instead. As such, it does not delve into how the Catholic faith is actually lived out by its adherents nor does it seek to engage the many national, ethnic, theological, and liturgical varieties of Catholicism. Allison does not attempt to speak for all evangelicals, nor does he present all forms of evangelical theology. He hopes to stimulate his readers reflection on and assessment of Catholic theology and practice by presenting the Catholic faith and comparing it to Scripture and evangelical theology. He offers this book primarily for evangelicals who want to become conversant with Catholic theology and practice. However, he hopes that some Catholics will read the book also to learn what evangelicals think about Catholic theology and how they assess it.

Reviewed by Bradford McCall

Publisher’s page: https://www.crossway.org/books/roman-catholic-theology-and-practice-tpb/

Preview Roman Catholic Theology and Practice: https://books.google.com/books/about/Roman_Catholic_Theology_and_Practice.html?id=1RlSBQAAQBAJ