Atheists reject Christ in the sense that they deny Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead because he is God. Atheists also therefore reject the idea of eternal life and the necessity of salvation through Christ Jesus.
Everybody knows this. And nobody is shocked if a Christian tells an atheist, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And if he retold Jesus’s own words “I Am, The Way, The Truth, The Life, no man comes to the Father but through Me.” Or even if he spoke the words of John the Baptist, which Catholics the world over heard on Sunday:
I am baptizing you with water, but one mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.
Harsh, that. But who are you to judge God?
Of course, you don’t have to believe any of that, the Christian might tell the Atheist, but you’ve been told and you’re on you’re own.
Just as naturally, atheists in general don’t like to be annoyed with this kind of talk. But they don’t put the Christian’s behavior down to animus. Except, these days, to the extent the atheist embraces progressive ideology and believes the Christian’s ulterior motive is to ban his favorite non-reproductive behaviors.
An atheist might say the Christian is expressing “anti-atheism”, or that the Christian is “anti-atheist”, but both sound absurd. They sound absurd because it is taken for granted by both sides in the debate that each believes the other is wrong.
Now if we were to swap “atheist” for “Hindu” in the above not much changes, except the Hindu will be suspicious to the extent he believes the Christian wants to change the Hindu’s very culture and way of life. This same suspicion would be felt if the Christian were swapped by an NGO worker pushing acceptance of one of those non-reproductive behaviors.
The Christian might be called “anti-Hindu”, but it would be understood in the sense that the Christian is trying to talk the Hindu out of an error; and vice-versa as the Hindu answers the Christian in debate.
Again, nothing is changed if we switch out “atheist” for “Jew”. Enter this video (Shapiro is one of the forces behind The Daily Wire; Barron is an auxiliary bishop in LA):
.@BishopBarron explains to @BenShapiro the Catholic perspective on the afterlife.
FULL VIDEO => https://t.co/LNlkBwhD1i pic.twitter.com/aJOZtMxoU3
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) December 16, 2018
Privileged? As in it would be nice, but, really, don’t put yourself out? Well, people are not used to hearing Church leaders say “You are wrong, the Church is right”. Most recoil at religious certainty, especially Christian certainty. They are affronted and disbelieve because of the certainty. Strangely, this is not the case of contingent scientific statements. Anyway, perhaps Barron had this in mind.
Reaction, as they say, was swift. Here’s one. Another. Another. Radical Catholic said:
I’m so glad Bishop Barron didn’t say anything to offend Ben Shapiro.
That would have been horrible.
“No, you have to convert. Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus.”
“Why do you hate Jews so much?!?”
PR disaster averted, I say.
Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus = Outside Church No Salvation. This is dogma in the Catholic Church, and is therefore required to be believed. There is also the idea of invincible ignorance, which describes the possibility of salvation to those who never had the opportunity to hear of Jesus. And there is the admission that, of course, Jesus will judge each man individually, regardless what each man calls himself. An unformed and error-filled conscience will not be admissible as a plea at your judgement, however. Particularly if you have carefully and over a long period of time been told of your errors (this is my own concern for myself).
He can be saved–by repenting and rejecting his Jewish delusions. The status of indigenous tribes who never heard the gospel is open to possibility. This is not true of open, explicit Christ-deniers. On that there is copious biblical data to the contrary
Such delusions include relying on or believing in religious texts which have Jesus himself boiling in excrement for the “crime” of calling himself God. This is not a minor point of difference in theology. This is a whopper; it creates an unbridgeable theological chasm. Both sides can be simultaneously right. Eucmenicism is a limited tool.
Bp Barron said that Our Lord Jesus Christ is the “privileged route” of salvation? Is this Catholic soteriology? Privileged? St Peter said (to Jews): “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” – Act 4:12
Replying to Marshall John Zmirak said, “It’s one thing to hope that the good will of the invincibly ignorant will be counted for implicit baptism of desire. It’s quite another to treat actual faith in Christ as if it’s just a first-class seat on the bus that has only one stop, Heaven.”
This is a sobering reminder that belief, even for Christians, isn’t enough. Every man must approach his own salvation with “fear and trembling”. But an explicit, knowing rejection of Jesus, the Church insists, puts you among the chaff.
Again, harsh, that. But easily amendable.
Excellent example of the neocons forcing actual American Conservatives to kow-tow to the powerful gate-keepers of “Conservatism”.
If you think Shapiro and his neocon brethren are “Conservative” or care about America, this pitiful spectacle of an American groveling, debasing his actual beliefs and faith so as to not offend that callow know-it-all, throwing under the bus the entire basis of his beliefs and religion, should make it pretty clear who’s calling the shots.
Kent Clizbe:
I don’t quite get your comment. Isn’t Shapiro an American?
Nothing unusual about this priest’s treatment of the question of salvation. It’s in line with what I read on the official Vatican website about 20 years ago. It’s what almost any priest would offer an an answer to the question. It’s also mostly incoherent babbling, but the gist is fairly clear.
Whether it’s “correct” I don’t really know or care, any more than you would care if Aunt Betty’s sewing club decided that anyone who didn’t believe in the sacred blue gopher that Betty saw in her most recent acid trip was going to Hell.
Apparently, though, there is a real possibility that the church’s doctrine is so violently offensive that its priests, even its supreme leader, can not bear to even state what it is. Have fun with all that.
I took “privileged” to mean “easier”. Not sure why it would be. Sounds more like a recruitment and membership retention tool. Seems to me God wouldn’t care what you believed as long as you were “Good” making belief in Chritianity merely one way of achieving salvation. Being Christian doesn’t necessarily mean one is “Good”.
Lee,
He doesn’t hide it. He represents a foreign power.
He’s beholden to Saudi Arabia, haven’t you heard?
It’s in his Wikipedia profile:
“Shapiro went from Walter Reed Middle School to Ibn Saud University High School of Los Angeles where he graduated in 2000 at age 16…In 2008, he married Mor Toledano, an Saudi citizen of Moroccan descent and a doctor.[76][77] Together, they have a daughter, born in 2014,[78] and a son, born in 2016.[79] Shapiro and his wife practice Orthodox Wahhabism.”
Unless there’s an error in the transcription above….
Clizbe repeats a vile antisemitic trope, accusing American Jews of being agents of Israel and disloyal to the U.S., for no other reason than that they are Jewish. It’s as stupid and offensive as accusing Catholics of being secret agents of the Vatican because they practice Catholicism and (gasp) go to Catholic schools. The charge of loyalty to a foreign power was prominently levied in the campaign against JFK’s bid for the presidency, simply because he was Catholic. I’m no big fan of either JFK or Shapiro, but this illiterate bigotry should be opposed by any decent person whenever it is encountered.
As I noted recently, the fetid offal that Briggs leaves strewn across this website is attracting just the kind of vermin that one would expect.
Lee – Benny Shapiro is both Jewish and an agent of Israel. He has a clear history of siding with his fellow Jews over America and Americans every time a conflict arises. He is simply a part of the Left’s approved and controlled opposition.
These are true facts. Wishing, temper tantrums, and the pronouncements of MiniTru do not change reality.
LP,
First, keep a civil tongue in your head. You are aggressively and arrogantly rude. It’s not becoming.
Second, as Queen Gertrude said to Hamlet, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” You are way over-reacting.
Third, don’t you mean that the sin you decry is “Islamophobia?” The foreign intrigue and influence of the little scribbler was believed to be the Saudis? Or would that be okay? Or not…?
Color me confused!
But keep on your high dudgeon! It’s quite telling.
2nd Samuel 14:14 The Hebrew in this verse is uncertain and allows two interpretations
Contemporary English Version
14 We each must die and disappear like water poured out on the ground. But God doesn’t take our lives (make any exceptions). Instead, he figures out ways of bringing us back when we run away.
Revised English Bible [Oxford]
14 We shall all die; we shall be like water that is spilt on the ground and lost; but God will spare the man who does not set himself to keep the outlaw in banishment.
I suppose that we all should be pleased that WMBriggs is cautiously retreating from his Modernist/Feserian apologetic that Nothing is relentlessly turning itself into Everything with no mechanism or purpose.
There are other professional hecklers that impose themselves wherever Catholic Christianity is suspected by the Synagogue of Satan. Some of them are very cunning, and full of plausible disinformation.