I would like to address the New York law expanding abortion as it relates to the church. As with many issues or sins these days, it is no surprise that men sin. The real sad tragedy is that when men sin, and sin greatly, the leadership of the church is nowhere to be found condemning it. Instead they uphold and further this evil in very real ways by there cowardice, by failing to excommunicate people. Why are we so afraid of excommunication? Because at heart we know it is very powerful.
The excommunication of Philip IV of France by Pope Boniface VIII, 1303. French School. 19th Century
Timothy M. Dolan is the Archbishop of New York. He is the religious leader over the Catholic church in New York City which claims as one of it’s members Governor Cuomo. This is a position which gives him the ability to excommunicate Cuomo for his obvious subversion of his duty as a political leader. While the sins of our nation, it’s leaders and citizens continue to grow, excommunications continue to decrease. And lest you Evangelicals take pride in your sect and think this is just another opportunity to attack the Catholics, beware. I have known very few Christian Evangelicals or any other flavor of Christians who act much differently than Archbishop Dolan. Dolan is a representative of American Christianity, not an outlier.
Dolan is known for being conservative. He opposes abortion, at least in word, and he says many of the right things. He opposes Cuomo and has condemned this new legislation in New York. These are good things. Though after seeing him on a few different shows discussing the issue I wonder if his statements are not prepared or at least advised by a lawyer. But he is not willing to ‘condemn’. He doesn’t want to ‘judge’ in the parlance of our times. Speaking on Fox and Friends he said:
A mom who has an abortion, we’d say, “Mom, we love you. We might not, uh, particularly condone what you just did. But we love you, and, uh, we’re not about to judge you.” It used to be people that said we should excommunicate the mothers that did that. We don’t do that anymore. You’re welcome back in the church. If you have a sense of shame and regret about what you’ve done — and I presume you might — uh, come and ask for God’s mercy and it’s yours for the asking. So the blame doesn’t need to go on the mom here.
It used to be that an abortion would cause the excommunication not only of the one who did it, [but] people who encourage it, and the one who had it. The church in the last 50 years — beginning with, uh, Pope John Paul II and especially intensified under Pope Francis — has said, “I don’t know if that’s gospel values, here, because mercy trumps everything.” And even though we would be uncompromising, uh, in our teaching about the horror of abortion, we would also be uncompromising in our teaching about God’s mercy.
He also said he wouldn’t excommunicate Cuomo because “the governor is obviously proud of his dissension with the Catholic doctrine, so what is the point of refusing him communion?”. But that is the point. That’s what sin is, proudly dissenting from God’s rules. And that’s what the Church is, the institution that calls you on it. This is the message of the church, turn from your wicked ways and confess Christ, love him by obeying him. If you don’t turn you are not a Christian and if your organization isn’t a place for people who turn and encourage others to turn, it’s not a Church.
This is nothing new. The same problem was already present in the first century church, before Peter even knew he was the pope. The Apostle Paul addresses this evil in First Corinthians 5:
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”
He says it twice, they were arrogant, they were boasting. Because they thought they were being merciful and accepting of this man. “Look mom no judging.” And for this boasting, one of the bedrocks members of the church, the Apostle Paul condemned them. That isn’t loving. You don’t get to define ‘love’ or ‘mercy’ however you want. The loving thing is to cast this man outside the blessing of the church so that Satan can devour his body. All in the hope that this will lead him back to repentance. The point of excommunication is to facilitate repentance and reconciliation. That is true mercy. The Catholic church has reinstated countless people who were excommunicated, many after they were dead? What’s the point of that? Obviously they thought it was important to their integrity to draw a line of distinction. And the historic church was correct. Women who have abortions should be excommunicated, they are murderers. Often they are misled, and so those who mislead them should be excommunicated also. And all in the hope that these return to the Church. This is a serious task which is why Jesus tells us that the Spirit is with us in this work. Matthew 28. It doesn’t matter if you don’t see the point, or if you don’t think excommunication will work, you do it anyway because that’s what Scripture says. And if you don’t then you just invalidated your whole church community. That’s how God draws the lines.
Excommunication of King Robert II of France. French School. 19th Century
Dolan uses many of the popular mantras of our day to excuse his behavior. He treats his church as just one of many viable options in our wonderful world of pluralism. All these churches operate in a different realm from the civil authority and each other. “This isn’t a church matter it’s a civil rights matter. As if the church is over here just a fun club with some magical wine and bread, and the civil realm is over there just being all civilly. Evangelicals in their splinter cells often say similar things. “Well they will just go to another church, so what’s the point of excommunicating them?” But that’s not how it works. Qualification to be excommunicated is bearing the name of a brother as Paul said. If you claim to be a Christian, a follower of Christ, congratulations you qualify to be excommunicated. Obviously Cuomo calls himself a Catholic for some reason. There are no doubt old ladies voting for him on that basis. But even if he doesn’t care, you should put him down in the right category, you should care. And as Paul lays out, there are three categories; Christians, Excommunicated Christians and the World. The World is not our concern. But there is something particularly evil in a person claiming Christ while living contrary to him. Someone must step in and clarify, this is the Church’s job.
There is also the issue of membership, as if we have our club of Christians and they have theirs. If you want to be part of ours, you have to take a membership class, and people who don’t take the class are not part of our group. So, phew, we don’t have to do hard things like confront them on their unrepentant sin. But Paul doesn’t have this distinction. Joining the covenant by baptism and claiming you are a brother get’s you in. Get’s you into the ecclesia, the community of God’s faithful. This transcends the four walls of your church and the geography of your parish. Paul doesn’t care about your rules or your churches doctrine. He cares about the name of Christ and the people who claim that name.
Dolan also tries to weasel out of taking a difficult stance by claiming that this is a civil rights issue, not a church matter. But he seems to misunderstand that outside the Church there are no civil rights. Responsible Christians forming a political unit may discuss certain things, as our founding fathers did. Every state had it’s own way of being a church and a polis. There were political debates separate from the Church because they were all Christians living in Christendom in a variety of ways. But when you leave the walls of Christendom, there are no rules. It’s anarchy, which is why Paul refers to it as being given over to Satan. The demonic world is real, it is geographical, and it is horrible. People who want to enjoy the cozy aspects of Christianity while staying in their sin, are trying to have it both ways. And the Church in America today, is pretending that this is an option. There are no civil debates outside the walls, there is only murder and tribal war. An eye for an eye for an eye, as Jesus said. It’s a jungle out there. Why do we want to bring the jungle in? When you are inviting Satan in and cheering and sacrificing your babies and inventing new genders, you don’t get to have civil rights. You are lucky if you have anything. Handing over these issues to the world or the civil political leaders is crazy. As Paul says in the next chapter when discussing lawsuits, you have been given the Truth of God, yet you can’t decide simple legal cases?
But we take all this for granted in our decadence. Our forefathers did such a good job of pushing the demonic world back and embracing the light of Christ, that we think this is normal. And we follow the folly of the Corinthians. “Look how merciful we are, we accept everyone”. “Jesus accepted everyone don’cha know?” I don’t know and Jesus didn’t accept everyone. He accepted those willing to repent and sell everything, to leave their tax booths, to forsake father and mother, he accepted the little children. These he welcomed into his kingdom. But for those claiming to be part of the church, the ecclesia, the Jews and religious leaders, he spoke the harshest condemnation of any people ever. You brood of vipers, stop pretending you are God’s chosen people. Blind leading the blind, stop misleading the innocent man on the street and lying about God before the watching world. This is our calling as the church. We are given the task, the responsibility, the duty to call a spade a spade, to call a Christian a Christian. If we can’t do this, we prove we have no authority that we are not sons of Abraham or Moses. We are just a joke. We are Pharisees.
Sadly we like the church impotent. It lets us off the hook for our sin. So what if a few murderers get away with it. And today they all get away with it, for while we murder babies we have no death penalty. Look at us go. Coming to the Lord’s table was a sign of our membership in the community of Christ. He welcomes us with the bread and wine to join his table, join his kingdom. Church discipline was a visible picture of the breaking of this fellowship, not even to eat with such a one. They are cut off from the life of the community. Sadly most churches don’t even have communion, this welcoming feast, every time they gather. We excommunicate ourselves all but once a month in many cases. But we are afraid to excommunicate anyone for gross sin? What are we doing?
Further Study:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWsrPpdqSgs