Today the blogosphere is full of postings about the selection of the new Pope. Two of the best ones from a Protestant point of view are by Mark D Roberts and Lileks. I wish I could wax more profound on the subject than they did, so I tip my hat to them.
In a way I will miss the wall-to-wall coverage of the change in leadership for the Catholic Church that we have had for the last month or so. It has been refreshing to have serious discussions of issues of faith and tradition in the "public square" as if they were important and mattered to people. They do, of course, but apart from the coverage of these recent events, when belief clashes with culture belief is treated as irrelevant and unimportant.
Conservative Catholics, and even conservative Protestants who share some of their views, have been given the opportunity to express their views in a respectful atmosphere. I wish that the media would include religious ideas on the same basis as secular and political ones in the arena of public debate. Now that the conclave is over, look for coverage to return to its usual formula: when cultural mores deviate from those of the church, it is the church that must change.
In a way I will miss the wall-to-wall coverage of the change in leadership for the Catholic Church that we have had for the last month or so. It has been refreshing to have serious discussions of issues of faith and tradition in the "public square" as if they were important and mattered to people. They do, of course, but apart from the coverage of these recent events, when belief clashes with culture belief is treated as irrelevant and unimportant.
Conservative Catholics, and even conservative Protestants who share some of their views, have been given the opportunity to express their views in a respectful atmosphere. I wish that the media would include religious ideas on the same basis as secular and political ones in the arena of public debate. Now that the conclave is over, look for coverage to return to its usual formula: when cultural mores deviate from those of the church, it is the church that must change.
2 comments:
Thank you for pointing this out. I hadn't thought about it, but yes, there has been a briefly open window for serious discussion of faith -- pretty much absent many of the political overtones we usually see.
(Customarily faith is discussed almost exclusively in political terms -- it is as if the faith exists to support politics.)
...when cultural mores deviate from those of the church, it is the church that must change.
Well said! Yes, this is the assumption of modern thinking. There is no real truth in faith, only tradition, which can yield.
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