ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHING
February 17, 2022
A while back, I wrote an Etching about baptism, and how Christianity has gone off the deep end when it comes to its sense of ownership and control of the ritual. Like I shared before, we have received phone calls and letters from other churches where a former CCCC member was seeking to transfer his or her membership. The inquiry wanted to know the specific language used in the baptism. They wanted to know how many times we used a conjunction or what pronoun was spoken during the actual baptism. The funny thing was the number of comments I received about that Etching, specifically suggesting I was overstating things, possibly speaking in hyperbole. Well folks, if you haven’t read the news this week, you need to take a glance. Yes, I am naming the Catholic Church in this Etching, though recent events are only one example of a problem inherent to institutional religion. You see, a Catholic Priest has resigned and thousands of baptisms have been deemed invalid because the Priest said, “We baptize you…” instead of “I baptize you…” It is important to note that Catholic theology implies baptism as a necessary sacrament for someone to go to heaven. There is a little wiggle room in the rules, but only a little. So what is the church suggesting to all the families whose loved ones died in those 20 years, but died thinking they were officially baptized… but not. Do you see the chaos caused? Do you see the spiritual abuse? I would even call it spiritual malpractice. Not that the priest is guilty, but a system that finds itself at the mercy of a pronoun is guilty. What the hell is salvation by grace if a misplaced pronoun has the capacity to render grace invalid? Sorry, but I’m a little distraught about this. We just lost another generation of those who were a bit skeptical, yet curious about Jesus. As I said earlier, I am calling out the Catholic Church in this specific situation, but they are not alone. We need to call out all the nonsense embraced by institutional religion in its attempt to legitimize itself. This kind of malarkey demonstrates the insecurity and fragility of the institution’s basic beliefs. If a pronoun invalidates your proclamation of grace, your problem isn’t really with the pronoun. Your problem is with an ineffectual understanding of grace.
Wherever I am way off base, O Gracious God, I pray for you to nudge, push or drag me back to where my life can be a witness to your limitless and transformative love. Amen.
