The Bible Said It - I Believe It!

I'm a fan of bumper sticker theology. I really like the one that says "My Karma ran over your Dogma." - I wish I could be clever like that! But I will reflect on that one another day.

My thought today centers on a bumper sticker that was produced by a fundamentalist Christian church. It simply read: "God Said It - I believe it!" Who would dare argue with what God says? And yet, I couldn't help but feeling like a child who makes a bold declaration then sticks out his toungue and says - " God said it - so there!"

While I don't subscribe to the theology behind this kind of uncritical declaration of faith in the innerant truth of the bible, I do admire the unapologetic in-your-face core belief of those who do. Sometimes, it would be nice to simply quote scripture to defend an argument or to cherry pick a verse that tells another, "see, you are wrong, God said it - now believe it! Sometimes I wonder if those who speak like this don't also secretly stick out their toungues and say - "so there!" But remember what Saint Paul said, "when I was a child, I talked like a child, thought like a child, reasoned like a child, but when I became a man, I gave up childish ways (1 Cor. 13:11-12). God gave me an adult mind and the power to reason, and an insatiable desire to want to know more by questioning the whys and hows we are to live according the word of God. How come the answers to the really difficult moral, social, and political questions of the day can't simply be answered by a cleverly quoted scripture passage? It sure would be nice it they could. But then again, that is childish thinking.

I was raised in the cerebral loftiness of reflective critical thought and a "faith-chasing-understanding" Roman Catholic theology that poses more questions than it answers, and I am grateful for that. Today, as a priest of the American Catholic church, (an independent branch of the One Holy Catholic Church of the nicene creed), I celebrate the simplicity of a faith tradition that holds to the authentic teaching of Jesus (SCRPITURE) as it was handed down through the apostles (TRADITION), and I am even more grateful for that!

This belief in what is often known as the Deposit of Faith recalls how, for decades before the New Testament was written down, and before the Council of Rome decided on which scriptures would be admitted to the Canon, followers of Jesus muddled along with the questions and struggles of their time and place. It's a belief in the promise of Jesus that the Father would send the Holy Spirit , the Advocate, to "teach you all things, and to remind you all that I told you" (John 14:25-26).

When I read 2 Timothy 2:16 that tells me "all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the person of God may be complete, equipped for every good work," I am comforted by the assurance of the power of believing in what God said.

Through my baptism, I was incorporated into "the household of God (is) the Church of the living God (is) the pillar and support of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:15). It was the Church that gave us the New Testament, not the other way round. Jesus never told His disciples to go out and write to all nations, but to go out and "teach to all nations and to preach the Good News to every creature" (Matthew 28:16-20).

Today, as in the time of the early Church, we are faced with the difficult questions of our time and place in in history. The Church lives and breaths with a healthy set of two lungs: Scripture and Tradition. The divine breath she inhales flows in and out of the same divine well-spring and together makes up one sacred deposit of faith from which the Church derives its certainty of what God said so that I can believe it, and I am most grateful for that!

On this Mother's Day, along with the mother who gave me life and love, I say "Thank you mum!" and on this Mother's Day to the Mother Church that gives me spirit and life, I say "Thank you!