, , , , , , ,

Why does the ancient Christian creed say Jesus 'descended into hell'?

, , , , , , ,
Why does the ancient Christian creed say Jesus 'descended into hell'?

LISA ASKS:

What do Christians say happened during [Jesus'] “descent into hell,” and do most denominations believe this happened?

THE RELIGION GUY ANSWERS:

This week, as every week, uncountable millions of Christians attending church will profess that Jesus Christ “was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again from the dead…”  So states the venerable Apostles’ Creed, which includes a cryptic “descent” phrase about the period between Good Friday and Eastern. Some modern rituals say Jesus “descended to the dead” instead of “hell.”

Unlike the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed moves directly from Jesus’ crucifixion and burial to his resurrection with no mention of a descent. Lisa’s full question pointed out this key difference between the two ancient creeds that have long dominated Christian worship services and catechisms.

The Apostles’ Creed is part of Catholicism’s baptism ritual and widely recited by Protestants. Though Eastern Orthodoxy uses only the Nicene Creed in worship it has affirmed Jesus’ descent since ancient times.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , ,

Your weekend think piece: Former GetReligionista discusses anti-Catholic story up in Seattle

, , , , , , , , ,

This is one of those stories that could have shown up with a "Got news?" notice in a GetReligion headline. It's rather amazing that this Seattle Post-Intelligencer blog item -- it's hard to tell if it was given serious news treatment -- did not receive more attention from the national press.

It's a classic example of a "mirror image" story. Try to imagine the coverage if a liberal Catholic or a traditional Muslim had been the target of this kind of ad. 

Here's the top of the PI report:

A website erected by local Democratic activists mocked the Catholic faith of Republican state Senate candidate Mark Miloscia, showing a cartoon of Miloscia waring a bishop’s mitre and holding a rosary and claiming that Miloscia represents “the Vatican.”
Democratic opponent Shari Song asked that the posting be taken down. It was, but has been replaced by an equally crude posting entitled “Pope Francis vs. Mark Miloscia,” which appears to argue that Miloscia is opposing the pope by being pro-life and upholding church teaching on same-sex marriage.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , ,

Pod people: That 'mushy middle' in American religion and an old mystery on the religious left

, , , , , , , , ,
Pod people: That 'mushy middle' in American religion and an old mystery on the religious left

For several decades now, I have been hearing pollsters -- with organizations on the left, right and in the middle -- asking some very similar questions about trends on the left side of the marketplace of ideas that is American religion. In fact, they have often, been asking precisely the same question.

That doesn't happen very often. So when it does, I think that it behooves those of us who report and write about religion to pay attention.

Here's the key question: If more and more Americans are moving toward liberalism on questions of faith and morality, then why are the membership statistics continuing to spiral down in doctrinally liberal churches?

That question came up again this week in our "Crossroads" podcast, when host Todd Wilken and I talked about the heritage of research done by the late George Gallup, Jr., and how it related to a new LifeWay Research survey -- the "Theological Awareness Benchmark Study" conducted for Ligonier Ministries of Orlando, Fla. Click here to listen in.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, ,

What is this? Problems with that Asheville witchcraft story? Let's spell them out

, ,

It's anniversary time, folks -- time to look back a week on that folk religion known as witchcraft and its New Year celebration, Samhain, last Friday.

Our "patriarchal religions" perverted that ritual for honoring the dead into Halloween, of course. Luckily, via a tip from a GR reader, we have an article out of the Citizen-Times in Asheville, N.C., to remind us of the "deeply spiritual" witches that observe it.

Nope, that's not a snark. Here's what photojournalist Katie Bailey of the Citizen-Times writes after sitting in on the vigil:

A dark room and candles were the only thing I expected when I arrived at the Ancestor Ritual held by Mother Grove Goddess Temple in the parish hall of All Soul's Church on Oct. 23.

But the celebration of Samhain was much more than a ceremony for the dead. It was a deeply spiritual event where people opened themselves to mourning and to learning from their deceased ancestors and loved ones.

Oh, and my use of "witch" is not a jab either. "The word 'witch' has been given a very bad name by the patriarchal religions in this country," Byron Ballard, the high priestess of the temple, is quoted as saying. "We need to take back 'witch.' "

Written as a first-person newsfeature, the story is partly a first-grade lesson on what witches say about themselves -- something that would have been cutting-edge coverage in say, the 1980s. Then it segues into subjective feelings, then ends with advocacy something like those midterm campaign ads we all endured.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , ,

Journalists go rabbit hunting while covering news about Catholic doctrine

, , , , , , , , ,

Who gets to define Catholic doctrine? That should be an easy one -- the Catholic Church defines doctrine for itself through its catechism, liturgy and through the statements of its magisterium.

This truism gets tricky for newspapers when individuals who are Catholic make claims about Catholicism that do not square with the church’s formal teachings. It is the problem of self-definition. I may believe myself to be the pope and call myself the true Bishop of Rome, but does that make it true?

Newspaper reports of female Catholic priests or of same-sex Catholic blessings are being faithful to the facts when they stated the participants claim to be Catholic and that their actions are in accord with Catholic teachings (or should be in accord if the teachings were only brought up to date). Yet these assertions conflict with the truth claims of the institutional church.

These Pontius Pilate-like musings were prompted by an article in the Limerick Post about animal cruelty and Catholicism. The story entitled “Anger over priest’s ‘offensive’ blessing of coursing club grounds in County Limerick” has animal rights activists defining the church’s teaching on animal cruelty. 


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , ,

Five for Friday: Zombies and other Godbeat headlines that you may have missed

, , , , ,

I'm on the road today, working on a story and planning to enjoy an authentic Philadelphia Cheesesteak.

Since I'm in a hurry, I thought this would be a good time to provide quick links — with limited commentary — to a handful of stories from my GetReligion guilt folder. 

What better way to start your Friday than with a faith angle on zombies, courtesy of award-winning religion writer Peggy Fletcher Stack of the Salt Lake Tribune?

 

The lede:

These days, you can see those lumbering, blood-drenched corpses with vacant eyes coming straight at you just about anywhere or anytime — not just at Halloween.
Zombie walks, as they are called, have become the most popular form of the grotesque genre. Folks dress up as the "undead" and stream down the street by the thousands. Such gory gangs periodically invade urban centers from Rio to Rome, Tokyo to Toronto and Sydney to Salt Lake City.
Zombies are even featured in their own wildly popular TV series, AMC’s "Walking Dead," which highlights the dilemma of a group of people facing enemies who had been their friends and neighbors.
Fascination with death and reanimation is not new, of course, but coming to life again has, in the past, been seen as a more, well, hopeful possibility.
This dark and fearsome image reflects a reversal of what Christians believe about resurrection, says John Morehead, a Utah-based scholar of religion and pop culture.

Next up: St. Louis Post-Dispatch Godbeat pro Lilly Fowler profiles a white female pastor who stands out in a predominantly black denomination and has been at the center of the Ferguson protests.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , ,

Strangely anonymous anti-Catholics come to Beltway land

, , , , , ,

Something rather interesting and important is missing from the Washington Post story that ran under the headline, "Anti-Catholic protesters with bullhorns appear at several D.C.-area parishes." However, and this is the strange part, it does not appear that the Post team is to blame.

See if you can spot the problem at the very top of this report:

Roman Catholic leaders have sent e-mails of warning to dozens of Washington and Maryland priests after protesters with bullhorns yelling anti-Catholic slogans appeared at several parishes and in a couple of cases “stormed the inside of the church just before Mass,” a bishop-administrator wrote in the e-mail.
A spokeswoman with the Archdiocese of Washington, which oversees 139 parishes in the District and suburban Maryland, said Wednesday that “really small” groups of protesters have appeared on the property of three or four parishes in the past couple of weeks near Mass time. They were shouting at parishioners going in and out and were handing out “fundamentalist” Christian literature, said Chieko Noguchi.
She would not identify the parishes or share the literature or what it said, saying it was unclear whether the protesters had created it or were using something they got elsewhere.

No, it's not the scare-quotes use of the familiar and often abused "fundamentalist" epithet that troubles me. 


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , ,

No pepperoni, plenty of ghosts: Generic Christians open a pizza cafe as a vague 'experiment of faith'

, , , ,

It's not as if NPR totally ignores the religion angle in a recent feature on a Cincinnati-area pizza cafe that "has a big heart."

In fact, that angle appears way up high in the 1,200-word piece:

Here's what might have sounded like a pretty shaky business plan for a neighborhood pizza cafe: "We'll only be open one day a week. Won't do any advertising. No prices on the menus. We'll serve mostly what we grow in the garden – and no pepperoni. And we'll look on this work as an 'experiment of faith.'"

That's what Erin and Robert Lockridge said two years ago, when they decided to open a pizza place called Moriah Pie in Norwood, a small town part of greater Cincinnati.

The better days in Norwood, an old neighborhood of two-story houses with porches, came to a close in 1989 when the Chevrolet plant shut down. But an empty, dusty café was waiting on a street corner, and Lockridges decided to start making pizzas there.

These two shared an interest in urban farming and had been working together in Norwood. Robert was what he calls a "parish farmer" sponsored by a church. On their honeymoon, driving from Novia Scotia to Maine, they talked about what might come next.

"We stopped at ... Eastport and we camped that night, and the next morning went to a very local diner," recalls Erin. It was a busy place. And in that Maine diner, the newly married Ohio couple could see their path ahead.

"We watched all the locals come in and get their breakfast and we watched the way that the waitress behind the counter tended to all these people," Erin says, "And it was really beautiful to watch her 'cause she was very aware of everybody there. She was almost like a pastor to them."

Just in those first six paragraphs, NPR makes reference to an "experiment of faith," to Robert Lockridge's work as a "parish farmer" and to a waitress who "was almost like a pastor." 

But as the reader who provided the tip on this story pointed out, "This one's kind of like the generic Christian laundry stories, only with pepperoni."


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , ,

Religion News Service's LGBT blogger omits a needed Q(& A)

, , , ,

Religion News Service has a new blog on being "Faithfully LGBT," and the first item by blogger Eliel Cruz (other than his introductory post) is a report on the "Gay in Christ" conference held last weekend at the University of Notre Dame.

Besides offering his opinions of what went on at the conference -- which is fine, that's his job -- Cruz attempts to give a report of what went on. In the course of doing so, he makes an observation about an audience member:

Courage, a familiar Catholic organization that claims to help people with same-sex attraction or “homosexual desire,” was not officially involved with the conference. Some tension arose when a member of Courage—who seemed to only attend the very first night specifically for Ron Belgau’s presentation—vocally pushed back at the idea that Courage’s twelve step program to help overcome homosexual desires was not effective or even “Catholic enough.” 

My eyebrows went up when I read Cruz's comment that "a member of Courage...seemed to only attend the very first night specifically for Ron Belgau's presentation. I knew that was wrong -- because the member in question, Daniel Mattson, is a personal friend of mine. In fact, I was seated next to him as he "pushed back" during the Q&A after Belgau's talk. 

When I alerted him to Cruz's odd inferral, Mattson, who lives more than two hours' drive from Notre Dame's South Bend, Indiana, campus, responded in an e-mail:


Please respect our Commenting Policy