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From Fly Leaf –
The Catholic Church finds itself in a crisis. Many Catholics are not aware of the extent
of the trouble. Many others are alarmed, but do not know what to do about it. But a storm has
broken over the Church. It has shaken many Catholics' commitment to the authority of scripture,
to the basic gospel message, and to basic Christian morality.
Symptoms of the crisis gain attention and cause anger and scandal. Seminary
professors publish books and articles condoning adultery, fornication, and other sexual sins.
A scripture scholar equates Hindu religious writings with the Christian Bible. Missionaries
abandon their efforts to convert non-Christians to Christianity. Catholics form groups to promote
abortion and acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle. An archbishop declares that he has no
problem with the ideas of Karl Marx.
These are signs of a deep distress in the Church, a profound shift in belief, morality,
and pastoral practice that is perhaps as great as any the Church has undergone. The center – the
pope and the bishops in communion with him – has held firm. But a growing number of
Catholics, in many cases following Catholic teachers and encouraged by the Catholic press, are
increasingly shaping their beliefs and behavior according to secular trends and even non-Christian
religious ideas. Ralph Martin details the pervasiveness of this undermining of truth: spreading
sexual immorality, ineffective religious education of the young, indecisive pastoral care, the
exhaustion of missionary work, the "reinterpretation" of scriptural teaching about man's
sinfulness, Jesus' divinity, and his actual resurrection from the dead . This crisis of truth is
not only a Catholic problem, Martin observes. Protestants will recognize a similar crisis of truth in
many of the Protestant Churches as well.
A Crisis of Truth, pages 159-160 — Powers, Principalities, and Organizations (1982
A.D.)
The spiritual roots of secular humanism are especially evident in certain organized
segments of the feminist movement. Gloria Steinem, editor of the influential MS
magazine, has written that "Feminism is the path to Humanism, and it is Humanism which is the
goal." Ms. Steinem went on to say: "By the year 2000 we will, I hope, raise our children to
believe in human potential, not God. . . ." Betty Friedan, a leading feminist and founder of the
National Organization of Women, is a signer of Humanist Manifesto II.
Certain feminists express intense, open hostility to the Christian view of sex and the family. Dr.
Mary Jo Bane, associate director of Wellesley College's Center for Research on Women declared:
"We really don't know how to raise children. . . . The fact that children are raised in families
means there's no equality. We must take them away from families and raise them."
Some feminists have rejected God and Christ and call for a return to witchcraft and the
worship of pagan gods and goddesses. As one feminist document put it: "All of history must be
rewritten in terms of the oppression of women. We must go back to ancient female religions." The
Los Angeles Times described one such feminist worship service:
- SANTA CRUZ-Nearly 400 women picked different notes and held them, catching
their breaths at different times so the sound droned unabated for five minutes. The eerie
monotones from this congregation of sorts reverberated against the angular outside walls of the
Theater of Performing Arts and filtered through clumps of tall pines on the UC Santa Cruz
campus. The hymnic call was to the Goddess. Later in the day, encouraged by the beat of bongo
drums, spontaneous groups of circling women danced barebreasted in scenes suggestive of
frolicking wood nymphs....
- More than a successful university extension course, however, the event was indicative of a
burgeoning spiritual dimension of the women's movement in America....
- Christine Downing, head of San Diego State University's religious studies department,
estimates that many-if not most spiritually sensitive women in the women's movement are willing
to replace the biblical God with a frankly pagan and polytheistic approach.... A Santa Cruz
woman, Ebon of the Mountain, 38, said, "Some of the women think of themselves as witches, but
not all. "
Unfortunately, such profoundly anti-Christian trends are finding a welcome within
Church institutions and publications and among Church personnel. As one Catholic theologian put
it:
- Through him [an anti-Christian college professor] I discovered the meaning of
religious symbols not as extrinsic doctrines but as living metaphors of human existence....
- I knew that Ba'al was a real god, the revelation of the mystery of life, the expressions of
the depths of being which had broken through into the lives of the people and gave them a key to
the mystery of death and rebirth.... As for the defects of Ba'al, were they more spectacular than
the defects of the biblical God or Messiah, or perhaps less so? ...
- I could not give allegiance to any "jealous god" on the level of historical particularity....
- I could not tell her [a nun] that my devotion to Mary was somewhat less than my devotion
to some more powerful females that I knew: Isis, Athena, Artemis.
Another Catholic theologian's book carries the message in its title: Beyond God
the Father . This book introduces the subject of going beyond God the Father with a
somewhat incoherent melange of references to lesbianism and the Occult. As of this writing,
this theologian is still teaching at Boston College, a Jesuit institution.
The feminist movement attacks some genuine injustices and some of its goals,
especially some pertaining to economic injustices, can be supported by Christians. Nevertheless,
the militantly anti-Christian heart of this movement, at least as revealed in many of its leaders,
should make Christians cautious, and even suspicious. One can only see naivete and lack of
discernment when a Catholic bishop boldly proclaims without qualification that the feminist
movement is a movement of the Holy Spirit.
Feminism - Index
Suffering in Hell Relating to God God is Love
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