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Why  ROMAnce?

“Mushy”  Theology?

(or Why Do the Regular Folks[1] Get Theology Faster and Better than the Academics Anymore?)

Part 1

Set to the folk music of your preferred nationality.                                                                                 by J.P.F.M.

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r. scott hahn[2], in his book First Comes Love[3], irrefutably proclaimed himself fully human[4] by painting himself into a corner when he portrayed the Holy Spirit as feminine.[5] Oops! It looks like he’s made it a habit to project earthly paradigms of family onto God rather than transcend them and try to understand them in light of God. That’s one[6] big boo-boo! But let us humor Dr. Scott as we further scrutinize the surprising causes and ghastly effects of such a train of thought. First, however, I am going to set my thesis on some very specific, wholesome tracks. This is not, nor has it ever been, a discussion on whether God possesses certain attributes one may see in woman—God, as any fool can tell you, possesses in their perfection all attributes that may be called “good”—but whether God is essentially Protagonist or Recipient, Active or Passive, Creator[7] or Creature, God or Goddess, in the simplest linguistic terms[8] He or She. What’s at issue here is nothing short of whether Christianity is simply latent Neopaganism or truly Something New.[9]

The very suggestion may be absurdist, way on the outer fringes of Yin-Yang-go-Gnostic, to a well-informed[10] Catholic. But also, in this post-Christian, post-family, post-humanist, post-democratic—yes and post-academic—society, we must also be sensitive to how, to a majority, misleading it is as well. Dr. Hahn needs so badly to view the Trinity as Family[11], I fear to do so he projects the earthly family onto God rather than to transcend and refine his understanding of Family in God as a good theologian always ought! To attempt to subject the highest thing to the second-highest thing is a breach of hierarchy perhaps comparable to Lucifer’s “declaration of independence.” To avoid this, we are to think as God thinks, which is why true theology[12] is always the product of a fair amount of humility[13]. In one sense, “mystical theology”[14] is a category to which I object because all true theology had darn-well better be mystical lest it be merely the Church in the West reveling in the tin sound of its own voice, vainly linking trend unto trend and continuing to alienate the East and the rest of the world. It is really a sort of spiritual autism that’s to blame here. All true theology requires humility, which means receptivity, a derivative or byproduct or overflow of childlike—that is, blunt, stark and abrupt—admission of one’s dismal unknowing.[15] This is how it goes, folks: until man confesses his fogginess all remains foggy to him! As the only real Master in history put it, “If, then, the light inside you is darkness, what darkness that will be!”[16]. This is what’s wrong with modern theology[17].

This reminds me of the one thing I liked about Dr. Hahn: his emphasis on covenant not as contract[18] only but as familial bond[19]. Even following his logic, though, Dr. Hahn has evidently not considered that man knows of no covenant between God and God. Just another random reason why we can’t see the Trinity as “Father, Son and Mother,” just another crutch for those who want for common sense.

Disclaimer #1. Divine Family. Yes, the Trinity is “Family”[20]. At the same time, what does it mean that God chose to require[21] Mary to re-familiarize[22] Himself with erstwhile alienated humans by literally, physically, materially, right-down-to-earth wedding Her and literally, physically, materially, right-down-to-earth begetting[23] Jesus. For anyone who may not have noticed yet, this is of the utmost centrality to Christianity, to Catholicism, to orthodoxy, to the One and Only Faith!

The Trinity is indeed a “Community” and a “Family”—above and beyond our material archetypes thereof. But God, without question or qualification, is He[24], God is He who acts, God is the Supreme Protagonist always and everywhere, in time and in eternity, not merely Male but archetypically and radically Male! God is Masculinity’s Heart and Soul, its Very Epitome, quite literally its Father, Son and Spirit!…Just to drive the point home, compared to God Arnold Schwarzenegger is a “girly-man”! I am well aware how the Church of late has defined the Holy Spirit’s gender by not defining the Holy Spirit’s gender as I am also aware of a veritable myriad of Masonic trends launched in the wake of Vatican II[25]. For just one example, just look at what most of the U.S. Catholic lay establishment thinks ecumenism or liturgical reform or catechesis means! I hardly have to tell you that they’re in a whole ’nother galaxy from you and me.

To think otherwise—go ahead and jot this down—to think otherwise is to mistake God for either a subject of God’s or of an enemy of God’s. God is He. God the Father is He. God the Son is He. And oh yes God the Holy Spirit is a trillion percent He. To be crude about it, those of us who manage our greed and ambition well enough to put job security second can clearly see there is no other tenable theological position! I mean all power-trips aside, fellas.

Disclaimer #2. Earthy family[26]. The family[27] is far from the worst thing over which one may obsess. It is the very building block of society. It is the domestic Church. The cell. The atom[28]. The family is the first school, the first catechesis. “Preschool” and “prechurch,” so to say. As such, the father of the family has a Jesus-like character and role[29]. Only in patterning Jesus is the lover truly a lover[30] and the father a father. Hence the father is the head of the household by both nature and supernature. The mother of the family has a Marian[31] character and role. The family is sacred as a reflection[32] of God, of the Trinity, of the Holy Family. St. Joseph, patron of fathers, is also the patron of the family and also of the Universal Church.

We have all heard[33] that the Holy Spirit is really the love between the Father and the Son, a love that creates a Tertiary Person. Yet this is redundant because God is love. Please oh please, just stick to the Creed of St. Athanasius.

In closing, I just can’t emphasize this enough. Whatever we may have yet to learn about the Blessed Trinity we do know this much: the Holy Trinity is certainly not Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear. God is not a Yin-Yang as Scott Hahn suggests[34]. Heck no. God is not some androgynous Zen. God is not some “balance,” some “happy medium[35].” Don’t tell me you know what is right with Christianity while you clearly don’t know what is wrong with Hinduism.

God is the Center of the Universe. God is the Star. God is the King. God is the Source. God is Personal. So God absolutely cannot be the balance of Protagonist and Recipient, Active and Passive, Creator and Creature, He and She—or Good and Evil—any more than Catholicism is the Occult. The main difference is: decent theology just universally makes sense pretty much right away—just sort of falls together[36] and clicks into place —though over time it becomes more deeply personal, human, incarnational!—whereas Occult philosophy is elitist, cultish, cliquish, opaque, cryptic, ugly, creepy, esoteric, dependent on darkness[37] and tightly knit enclaves—and consciously so!—and over time it becomes more deeply mechanical, inhuman, disincarnational! Cabala Jews have always mixed in with the larger Jewish population, and Gnostic Christians have always mixed in with the larger Christian population. That’s what we call “darnel growing with wheat”[38]. Thing is, for the Occultist God can be whatever I concoct from mixing and matching obscure traditions and literalizing[39] out-of-context writings of high mysticism because He’s always evolving anyways: I think nothing of using the patrimony to suit my legacy because I have made my heart too crusty and hard for it to be of any spiritual benefit to me! All esotericists have an appeal to reason—a cold, dead, alien sort of reason—but never to common sense and heck never to love. See, Jesus told the woman[40] at the well, “God is Spirit.” While linguistically Spirit may be neuter or feminine, that doesn’t mean that the word spirit means neuter, much less feminine[41]. Spirit does not mean timid or nebulous or even passive[42]. Spirit is the realest thing there is! Spirit is rock-solid. Spirit is as definite, as sharp, as cutting as it gets! Make no mistake about it: you can break your teeth on spirit. Don’t go the way of the Gnostic heretics, for goodness’ sake! We are in an age of cults and psychoanalysis when everyone is hog-wild for matriarchy, sexual license and “finding my feminine side” whatever the he!! that means in esoteria.

So let me elucidate one simple and all-surpassing mystery. The Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary. Mary humbled herself before the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit embraced Mary in a way that marital relations do not even approach. The marriage bed is but a shadow, a first glance into this. What the Holy Spirit and Mary shared—and eternally share—can only be fully known in the Apocalypse[43] when the grotesque gulf between our mortality and God’s eternity is abolished, when this insufferable and unnatural curtain Original Sin created is lifted. For our current condition it is just too intimate, too divine, too intense. Perhaps all we need know now is that this was how our Precious Savior came into the world. The Holy Spirit is in no way, shape or form feminine. The Holy Spirit is in every way, shape and form Masculine. This is not some theologian’s Catholicism. You can keep that mush. This is you and my Catholicism.

- Israel[44] is Beloved of God the Father[45], Who is Lover.

- The Church[46] is Beloved of God the Son[47], Who is Lover.

- Mary is Beloved of God the Holy Spirit Who is Lover.

Now you begin to view what “God is Love” means? Quite simply, it means all that it can…times infinity! From this Love all light and life and love flow. This, we all know darn well, is the Law, the Prophets, the Gospel, the Catechism and everything of any spiritual or temporal benefit. Love! Love passionately! Love intensely! Love with utter abandon! Love God and love neighbor! “Love and be loved”[48]. “Love and do as you will”[49]. That’s all there was, all there is and all there ever shall be!

In closing, dearly beloved, God is the Star of the show or He is nothing. Salvation is romance or it is nothing. It is enlightenment that kills the romance. My advice? Choose your theologians savvily or not at all, and base your choice on comprehensiveness and integrity, not on slimy, shifty debate skills. Any theologian who can do a 180° on a dime is not worth one red cent and should instead try the world of politics. You can’t build your life on illusions. Why is it trendy academics with their minds in the gutter can never grasp this but regular folks have no problem? I honestly have to go take a shower now.

For an end to all cults, blackmail and flattery. For true spiritual freedom as Sons of God. Let this be our prayer. Rank and file Catholics, if you aren’t all totally amped, you don’t know what it is we defend or what we face.

(Friend and chat with me at http://www.facebook.com/jpandmcg)

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[1] As you read this bear in mind: I actually intended it to be colloquial and not academic since I deem academia’s tendency toward apathy and smugness to be the root of the problem. (I think I have always thought this way but hidden it for the sake of good manners.) I think, upon reflection, that I’d rather make a positive difference than get an honorary degree. But I will try to spruce up the image; I intend on reading it on YouTube with simple imagery and music. That's always been more my bag. As has been suggested I might have started with what rings sound about Dr. Hahn's theology, or at any rate his anthropology, but I mention it and we’re rolling. But note that I do not intend on speaking to the people but merely lending my voice to common sense against tone-deaf academic bullying.

[2] For whose own good I dedicate this article. I am giving Dr. Hahn the benefit of the doubt, assuming his mistake is honest, that he is in no way one of the academics (I say “academics” rather than “intellectuals,” lest you think it’s just “liberals”: those who listen to “liberals,” to confess a character flaw, I would have a harder time pitying since they really seem so earnestly barreling toward slavery) practiced in deceit who religiously sugar-coat poison and booby-trap the spiritual truth.

[3] On the “Unam Sanctam Catholicam” Blog Dr. Hahn both categorically disowns and passionately defends this view of the Holy Spirit as feminine or androgynous in nature (in essence saying, I don’t believe this, but if I did here are all the citations to support such an esoteric doctrine which I’ve spent the better part of my nights researching and compiling (evidence which cannot be as compelling as I wish you to believe since I started out by disclaiming this position): http://unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com/2009/09/scott-hahns-maternal-spirit-compared-to.html, to which the layman could pithily reply, What is it you’re trying so hard both to say and not to say? To add insult to injury Hahn cites a feminist who doesn’t want the Holy Spirit to be feminine. I hardly know where to go with that cheap-shot. Suffice to say, that’s just the sort of idiots he’s told himself you and I are.

[4] Good news for those rare Catholics who didn’t fall prey to the New Clericalism (Laicism?) and don’t hold him as any god or guru.

[5] In his exaggerated/distorted “God as Family” fixation.

[6] Or two, depending who’s counting.

[7] Veni Creator Spiritus!

[8] Ostensibly a reflection of the simplicity of the concepts they describe!

[9] Note well that were this the case “spiritual warfare” would be meaningless hype, a non-issue, and we should be obliged to concede that the dizzyingly unreasoned movements spawned by Darwin and Jung would be just and good because we would have no God but a Goddess.

[10] And perhaps more importantly well-rounded.

[11] A longing whose preconscious roots in Hahn we won’t here illustrate, suffice to say Pope John Paul II filled the role of unwitting enabler.

[12] True theology being the exclusive property of the poor in spirit!

[13] As the reader may suspect, that’s humility rightly understood, not to be confused with neurosis, etc.

[14] I also object to the category “Christology” (“Christian theology?”) since all true theology is Christocentric.

[15] Self-deception is rather fascinating. Contrary to this childlike thinking Jesus and common sense in one accord beg of us, there is solipsism, that bastard child of narcissism (which I guess is what I mean about “spiritual autism”), in which anything I can construct rationally becomes my truth. For instance, taking off of a theme in G. K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy I can believe everyone else is a reptilian drone conspiring against me, the only surviving human, and have it only be reinforced whenever anyone tries to reassure me, since that’s exactly what they’d do were they conspiring. Or I can believe that everyone else is jealous of me and have it be reinforced whenever anyone contemptfully balks at the idea because that’s exactly what they’d do were they jealous. Or I can believe everyone else is stupider than me and have it be reinforced whenever anyone disagrees with me because that’s exactly what they’d do were they stupider to try and hide their stupidity. Or you could tell yourself that I somehow enjoy laying Hahn’s crackpot theories out flat and only have that reinforced whenever I say “I don’t enjoy it; this is for his own good” because that’s exactly what your father said when he administered discipline. Wait…that might be a more difficult delusion to construct.

[16] Matt. 6:23, Jerusalem Bible (J.B.).

[17] This, notably, is why seasoned Catholics, without being anti-intellectual necessarily, harbor a healthy suspicion of professional theologians. Yet nowadays I find myself trying to convert Catholics back to their own common sense, saying words to the effect of, “Just because you thought you smelled a rat doesn’t mean there isn’t one.” No wonder Dr. Hahn (and Catholics in general) has such trouble knowing where to place Mary, what the heck Her role in Salvation was! You can construct Salvation History without taking the Mary’s role fully into account[17] but it will always be grotesque because you’ll be eternally searching for a Cosmic Mother, a role only Mary can fill without any need for hair-brained distortions. I sincerely wish these oppressively obtuse theologians could learn from their mistakes, but it seems that’s just a part of my larger—and also among my fellow-Catholics rarer—wish that His kingdom may really come and also not tarry. “Maranatha!” “Come quickly!” Yet, sure, I’m the idealist of the crowd. Such sophistry and bunk covering festering wounds!

[18] Which it absolutely must be.

[19] Which makes it all the more a contract, but anyhow.

[20] I place “Family” in quotes not because I don’t really mean it but because I mean more than what we mean by “family.” I should probably, for the same reason, place quotes around “He” when I say “God is He.”

[21] Analogously to how man deigns to need woman even though she is objectively weaker (something the Holy Spirit is not) and physically lesser (a word that need only mean smaller).

[22] To spiritually beget!

[23] Which He does eternally but also did within time and space at the moment of the Annunciation/Incarnation (literally, Embodiment). I‑n‑c‑a‑r‑n‑a‑t‑i‑o‑n, get it? It means what it says, which also means we don’t need to B.S. (or for that matter D.D.) our way into knowing (personally) God (Persons)! It’s simple, guys. And if I can get it you freaking can! I don’t want a degree or a cult following. I want for you to get this life-transforming truth! It’s far too wonderful to hog for myself. Any theologian who actually knows his stuff knows this to be the case and will be driven to share the intimacy, the romance of it all. If he doesn’t, you can pray for his soul. No true theologian can possibly abide boring people with their nauseating circumlocutions. Theologians who don’t get to the point are like those bad commercials you know are just there to mislead you. You’re a child of God. It’s okay to be finicky. God knows we’re all ape sh¡t fuddy-duddy enough about all the ostensibly pointless things in life, why the he!! not theology? We’re so deathly afraid to be ourselves in this country, to be real. There’s nothing at all to be afraid of: honesty is part of the cure! Is it any wonder, though, why decent theology creeps us out so, why we can’t stomach solid food? Why “redemptive suffering” has become a phrase we repeat over and over and over in hopes of unlocking its “hidden meaning.” There is no hidden meaning! Redemptive suffering is suffering! Let’s face it! Why we torture the soul so the body can be all nice an’ comfy is more than I can fathom, though it would explain the near-manic apathy. Our problem is, we’re a band of spiritual crack addicts—yes, I said it—bad theology may be likened to drug commerce!

[24] El, if you’ll pardon the Hebrew-Spanish pun.

[25] Masonry and the New Age being, for all intents and purposes, what those poor fools mean who tyrannically lecture the orthodox on the “spirit of Vatican II.”

[26] Or, to you and me, just family.

[27] Speaking for normal circumstances here.

[28] Or whatever particle is smallest.

[29] Priestly, prophetic and kingly.

[30] I told you it was mushy!

[31] I.e. lowly servanthood coupled with endless exaltation and queenship. Don’t you just viscerally want to praise your mother but never feel you could do it adequately?

[32] Usually a dim one.

[33] Too often for my liking.

[34] Doubtless inadvertently.

[35] Pun intended.

[36] We term this uncanny integration with the divine “grace.”

[37] “But this is your hour; this is the reign of darkness.” (Luke 22:53, J.B.)

[38] Cf. Matt. 13:24 ff. (darnel a.k.a. tares, chaff [weeds]).

[39] Or ought I have said materializing?

[40] Since only women seemed to get Him. You know the men were all, “Duh, what's He talking about?” “Duh, I don't know. Hey, I've got a brilliant idea: let's try settling who’ll be top dog.” “Duh, good idea. Dibs!” Jesus entrusted the Church to men not because they have any sense or special gifts whatsoever—the Church is certainly not called to prize physical strength—but merely because they resemble God.

[41] I know this because I speak fluent Spanish. There are certain Spanish nouns (like persona) that function as feminine but can just as easily refer to a man as to a woman.

[42] Apologies to all the weak (Weakland?) priests out there.

[43] Rendered in Latin revelation, meaning unveiling.

[44] The Tribe of Jacob.

[45] YHWH.

[46] Which is as visibly united as Israel or an abomination.

[47] Jeshua.

[48] St. Francis of Assisi.

[49] St. Augustine of Hippo.