Catholic Ireland and the Christianity That Would Replace It

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oF4OG4f4xU

I found this Evangelical coverage to be far more disturbing than the actual decline of Catholicism within Ireland – a reality no New Testament Christian would lament.

Pat Robertson's CBN is an expression of Christo-American sacralism – a strange fusion of Evangelical Christianity with various American ideals. On a larger scale it (at times) can be expanded into a kind of Sacred Westernism which in the case of CBN is viewed through an American-capitalist lens.

Though American ideology is deeply rooted in the Enlightenment, today's Church leaders are largely blind guides when they're not outright wolves in sheep's clothing – as is the case with Pat Robertson. They lament the secularisation brought about the Enlightenment even while they have confused their Christianity with the same and have actually embraced many of its ideals. It clouds and overshadows their ethics and epistemology and thus they have no real solution to contemporary social and ecclesiastical problems. And given their ignorance of the Scriptures it's clear that in many cases they don't even know what questions to ask.

The history of Catholicism in Ireland is unfortunately tied to their persecution and conquest at the hands of Protestant England – a point the CBN report ignored. The British Crown made Ireland the Catholic nation that it is. A similar result occurred in Poland. Partitioned by its neighbours who (with the exception of the Habsburgs) were not Catholic, the society found its identity and rallying point in the Catholic Church. And yet as people are unconverted it is no great surprise that they eventually revert to the world and its mores. Poland's turn will come. In Ireland the crisis is now. The Catholic Church failed the Irish people on many levels. In terms of Christianity, the Catholic Church has little if nothing to offer. In terms of promoting its own system it also failed due to its hubris and corruption – not to mention the dark perversity and abomination it harbours within its ranks. Speaking in general terms it's not too difficult to see how the Irish people feel betrayed and the bitterness they express is palpable.

Until just a generation ago the Catholic Church dominated Ireland with an iron fist and in the world which emerged in the aftermath of World War II there has been a backlash and not just in Ireland. And yet in Ireland it has been particularly severe given the authoritarian hypocrisy under which the people suffered. And one cannot discount the role the Catholic Church played (and religion in general) in the Troubles associated with the north. Not a few Irish have been put off by the disgusting scenes (both Catholic and Protestant) they witnessed (and still witness) during The Troubles and even up to the present hour.

I wish I could be encouraged by the growth of Pentecostalism in Ireland but given that it is unbiblical in terms of doctrine, hermeneutics, and certainly ecclesiology it is hard to be optimistic. For the most part the movement produces what can only be described as rotten and certainly unstable fruit. Factor in Dominionism, the heart and soul of what CBN is and stands for – and all I see is another false church waiting to step into the gap left by Catholicism. Instead of beads and statues of Mary, one will find psycho-therapy, mammonism, cheap sacrilegious entertainment and doctrine as unbiblical and shallow as what was found in Rome. Cheap grace decisionism and sensationalist-rooted (and manufactured) sanctification can be just as destructive as the mass, Mariolatry, and other Roman innovations.

The fact that 'Catholic' Ireland had outlawed abortion and that homosexuality was out of favour means nothing in light of paedophile priests and the many scandals surrounding abusive Catholic homes and orphanages. It was a veneer. The 'Christian faith' that CBN reports to have died was already dead. The Ireland of the Celtic Church was destroyed by Roman Catholicism centuries ago but CBN echoes Catholic propaganda by seamlessly blending them and presenting them as a continuity.

I am left somewhat speechless by the Evangelical pastor who celebrates the statistics which suggest that Irish youth 'believe' in many of the fundamentals of the gospel – even while rejecting Christianity and the Church at large. This kind of confusion regarding faith and the gospel is the spawn of Dominionist thought wherein lost and unregenerate people can be trained to think as Christians – they can replicate and emulate Christian thought – apparently apart from the Holy Spirit. This diluted and rationalist concept of faith and belief is foreign to the categories of the New Testament and this is why in the end, the ecumenicism (a la Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT)) advocated by the Evangelicals in this piece is far more disturbing than Irish Catholic decline. Rome was already a false church but what I see here is an Evangelicalism that has completely lost its way and offers no cure or remedy – well on its way to becoming another false church.