As the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church slides ever deeper into chaos, and Cardinal Burke and Bishop Schneider enjoin us to fast, it might be helpful to review just what "Modernism" (in theology) is and why it is so deadly to the Christian Faith.
Christianity, as with Judaism and Islam, the three monotheistic "Abrahamic Faiths, are "revealed religions". With sundry variations, all three believe God has revealed them – their truths, form, worship, etc. – from on high. God has reached down to us, as it were, dumping in our laps the totality of His Revelation for us. We can accept it and "deal with it", struggle with it, be like Job or Israel (God renamed Jacob "Israel" or "He Who Wrestles with God) or we can reject it and go elsewhere, but the one thing we can't do is modify it, change it around, develop and "evolve" it.
Revelation teaches us that God is Eternal, indeed, totally outside of time. He's complete in Himself, pure Act. No Potential exists in God. He's the Absolute Being God of the great philosophers and that God of Aristotle and Co. is clearly the God of ancient Semitic Revelation. "Jesus Christ yesterday, today, and for ever," as it says in Hebrews 13:8). And long before that, from Psalm 90: "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God!" And of course the all-time great: 'God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'" (Exodus 3:14) [It is often said that that verse is the most astounding line ever penned; but the second is like it: "Before Abraham was, I am." (St. John 8:48-49)]
Now, Modernism, ginned up by German Protestants back in the mid-19th century, when Charlie Darwin was scribbling away, is all based on the idea of Evolution. When Darwin was writing up his theory of Natural Selection (an oxymoron, since unless "nature" is a deity of some kind, it can't possibly "select" or "chose" or filter, or decide, or judge anything), he wasn't some lonely genius who came up with Evolution all on his own, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus: his own grandfather, Erasmus Darwin (what a name!) worked up, I've read, an Evolution theory similar to his grandson's. "Evolution", as it were, was just in the air, sort of like the American Chestnut blight.
Evolution was an idea the 18th century Age of Reason / Enlightenment "Philosophes" (like Erasmus Darwin) promoted to explain existence. And thus when Darwin rushed his Origin of Species into print (to beat publication of Alfred Russel Wallace's evolution book), many Materialists of all stripes were "waiting to pounce" as it were, and defend the theory against thick and thin. Darwin was going to provide their "kill shot" to religion, their "white plague". Therefore, it is no surprise that grumpy, grim, dour, depressed and depressing German theologians, direct descendants of Martin Luther, were only too ready to apply Evolution to God.
Thus, the basic, underlying idea of Modernism, and therefore of Progressive Protestantism and Progressive Catholicism, is Evolution, specifically that our understanding of God evolves, and so the Bible isn't Revelation revealed to the Sacred Authors (who wrote in their own words in their own style what God inspired them to inerrantly write), but instead it is something we've conjured up on our own, something we "evolved" over the centuries. So, too, the Church "evolves" not under the infallible, inerrant guide of the Most Holy Ghost, directing the popes and the bishops in Communion with him to guard and preseve the Doctrine of Faith, but rather the Church is in constant evolution itself. (It's sort of like taking the Church doctrine that it is in perpetual need of moral and spiritual renewal and reformation – small r's to both of those, of course – and applying it to its basic doctrines and most fundatmental dogmas.
And finally, Modernism – not in so many words, not up front and in 72-type, not until it is ready to pounce – teaches that God Himself evolves! That is, of course, if He even exists Himself, which many Modernist mavens doubt. But then, an evolving God is not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel, nor is He the God of Exodus 3:14.
And that right there is the entire enchillada. These two fundamental ideas, that God is Absolute Being, who reveals Himself through Divinely given Revelation, Who is "everlasting unto everlasting", or contrary, that God, and our understanding of Him, and we ourselves, naturally, are continually evolving – these are absolute opposites and utterly incompatible.
Oil and water don't mix. These two foundational ideas about God (and us) are mutually antagonistic, like matter and anti-matter would be. They cannot exist in a single individual, let alone a Church. And of course this is what we see happening. As Modernism took over – and is taking over – Protestant demoninations, groups break off of the mainline denominations, desperate to cling to what they understand Revelation to be; meanwhile, the Modernists continually advance, just like the Chestnut Blight. Unstoppable. Remorseless. Murderous.
In the Catholic Church, then, we're facing the same problem Protestants are. Our "mainline" Church is being eaten alive from within, as with maggots or termites, and those who reject Modernism find themselves ever the more curtailed, the more restricted, the more hounded.
Now, also, Modernism as evolution explains the perverted sex abuse scandals. That's because if our understanding of God evolves, etc., then most certainly our morality evolves as well. And so it is that grotesque parodies of healthy, spiritual courtship and marriage fall to pieces because each individual who is tempted to carnal sins says at some point to himself (even if he's a priest, after all, because he's a Modernist), "Well, maybe prohibitions against physical intimacy were upheld in the past, but that was then; this is today!" Or "Maybe homosexuality was forbidden ages ago but we've advanced so far in our understanding, that now we realize the importance of "love" and its manifestation in this manner."
And so on and so forth. It is no great space from the acceptance of that sort of thinking – mere rationalization, of course – to the most obscene, bizarre, and perveted acts.
Modernism. Absolutely deadly to Revealed Religion. Oh, it may seem interesting the those of weak faith; it may seem even to be dynamic, bold, imaginative. THAT'S HOW IT ATTRACTS SO MANY! A theologian no longer needs to wrestle with the Deposit of Faith in Modernism, but he can actually reinvent it! How dynamic! How challenging! How worthy of an otherwise pointless academic make-work job!
And of course the Laity: they, too, no longer need to be "Israel", "He Who Wrestles with God", as God renamed Jacob. Oh, no. No need for Job, either! Job just didn't understand. His understanding didn't evolve enough. Now none of us has to be either Israel OR Job!
Modernism. It is absolute σκύβαλα. (See Philippians 3:8.) Absolute. And it is spiritual Cryphonectria parasitica, Chestnut tree blight. If you believe nothing else I ever write, trust me in this: if you are naturally inclined, or are somehow persuaded to think, the following: "Yeah, we are evolving with religion, and it does make religion more dynamic and attractive!" or "Unless we change with the times, keep up, keep abreast, embrace Aggiornamento to evolve to meet the current needs of the 'Pilgrim (in this usage: Evolving) People of God'..." – If you ever go that route, it won't be long before your Faith has wilted and fled and you are an atheist, even if consciously you suppose yourself to still be a believer.
Modernism. Revealed religion's kryptonite. Absolute Cryphonectria parasitica-laden σκύβαλα.
And it is the most dominating idea in Jorge Bergoglio's mind, and the mind of all "Progs" everywhere.
(If nothing else, after all, it at least offers the excuse they stand on as they pull the Church down on their – and our – heads.)
An P
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