Fr. Longenecker is hitting us hard with truth, yet he's doing so because Love motivates him:
Religion without dogma is like playing tennis without a net.
It results in a certain formlessness, the reduction of an intellectually vigorous and astringent faith to something sentimental and shallow–nothing but a religion of ‘spirituality’ and good works.
Pope Francis criticized this type of religion in his recent speech concluding the Synod on the Family. He
spoke of various temptations that distort the fullness of the faith, mentioning a religion of niceness “that in the name of a deceptive mercy binds the wounds without first curing them and treating them; that treats the symptoms and not the causes and the roots. It is the temptation of the “do-gooders,” of the fearful, and also of the so-called “progressives and liberals.” The Pope went on to criticize “the temptation to neglect the deposit of faith, not thinking of themselves as guardians but as owners or masters [of it]; or, on the other hand, the temptation to neglect reality, making use of meticulous language and a language of smoothing to say so many things and to say nothing!”
The articulation of this “faith” without dogma becomes a sad, ridiculous struggle with words which cannot have any meaning other than the ‘re-interpretation’ of that meaning according to each person’s preferences, and about which no one can argue because all have agreed that there is no such thing as objective theology.
Consequently, the practice of the faith becomes vague and incoherent collection of good causes, passionate personal intentions of making oneself somehow better or following one’s idea of Christianity within a wilderness of personal opinion, sentimental conclusions. To do this is to create quicksand where once there was a solid rock.
It’s not even a case of the blind leading the blind. More like the bland leading the bland.
Sometimes those who have no use for dogma, doctrine and discipline move even further into a kind of intellectual wasteland, and they mistake the lack of content in their religion for a sort of free flowing formlessness. They even pride themselves on this emptiness. “Ah yes!” they cry, “we brave pioneers are willing to wrestle with meanings and meaninglessness. We often walk in darkness without seeing the great light, and is it not a courageous act of faith to walk boldly into that void where we may be sure of nothing except that we are sure of nothing?”
spoke of various temptations that distort the fullness of the faith, mentioning a religion of niceness “that in the name of a deceptive mercy binds the wounds without first curing them and treating them; that treats the symptoms and not the causes and the roots. It is the temptation of the “do-gooders,” of the fearful, and also of the so-called “progressives and liberals.” The Pope went on to criticize “the temptation to neglect the deposit of faith, not thinking of themselves as guardians but as owners or masters [of it]; or, on the other hand, the temptation to neglect reality, making use of meticulous language and a language of smoothing to say so many things and to say nothing!”He's not done. And he has words for those who might live on the flip side of what I've excerpted.
Read the whole thing and walk away filled with substance.
He's feeding us meat, some of which might need a tenderizer. Find one, start pounding, then chomp down.
We need this meat.
Honest.
