Author: Tas Stacey

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Review of God and Caesar – Selected Essays on Religion, Politics & Society, by Cardinal George Pell

Review of God and Caesar – Selected Essays on Religion, Politics & Society, by Cardinal George Pell.

Edited by M.A. Casey; published by Connor Court in Australia, the Catholic University of America Press everywhere else.

Less that 190 pages, this is a collection of ten essays by Australia’s foremost Roman Catholic cleric.

The topics covered include: The Law and Morality, Catholicism and Democracy, The Case for God and Human Dignity, Human Rights and Moral Responsibility.

Quite readable generally, most of the essays flow in a very conversational way which reflects their origins as speeches. I’m not overly familiar with Roman Catholic doctrine & semantics, but I was able to understand most of what Pell was trying to say.

In as much as the book has a central theme it is the rejection of the primacy of conscience.

There is a widespread view amongst religious and non-religious Australians that people should follow their conscience in almost all things. Do the best you can, and it will all come out in the wash.

Pell refers to this as the ‘Daffy Duck Heresy’. If someone sincerely tries to do the right thing, well, that’s all that matters.

Pell’s answer is that people should submit their consciences to God (and of course by implication, the Roman Catholic Church).

While I agree with his central premise that we must submit our consciences to God, the rub for the Protestant comes when determining what the will of God is. For the Roman Catholic, it is easy: what does the Church say the will of God is?

Of course, we have a ‘great cloud of witnesses’ in Calvin, Luther, Spurgeon, Hoeksma & etc to turn to, but ultimately, far more responsibility is put on the conscience of the Reformed Christian than the devout Roman Catholic. We are called to test what we read and hear with a Berean spirit, and ultimately, decide for ourselves what the will of God is.

Cardinal Pell is a bit of an institution here in Australia. As he points out in this book, roughly 50% of the Australians found in a church each Sunday are Catholics attending Mass. Along with Peter Jensen, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, he is the ‘goto guy’ when the media wants a comment from a prominent religious conservative.

Unlike America, Australia does not have a strong Baptist movement. We have no Jerry Falwells, no Pat Buchanans, no James Dobsons. Whether this is a good thing or not is another discussion, but the fact is that for most Australians, the pro-life movement is represented in Australia by Cardinal Pell.

It will come as no surprise then that this book contains a strong argument for pro-life values. I think it will be Australia’s loss when Cardinal Pell passes from public life, as I am not aware of any other champion of the unborn within the Roman Catholic Church in Australia, certainly not in the caliber of Pell.

My main criticism of the book is the way it ignores the massive & vital role of Protestantism and the Reformation in the development of modern democracy.

Pell puts it euphemistically; “The Catholic Church was slow to give public approval to democracy.” Indeed.

Still, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the intersection of faith and civil government, especially in Australia.

Three stars.

On PTSD and Total Depravity

I was reading Blackfive today (an excellent US milblog) and saw this post linked.

It’s a great piece written by a (AFAIK) non-Christian former soldier (Marine perhaps) about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. (emphasis mine)

What you need to know, first and last, is that so-called PTSD is not an illness. It is a normal condition for people who have been through what you have been through. The instinct to kill and war is native to humanity. It is very deeply rooted in me, as it is in you. We have rules and customs to restrain it, so that sometimes we may have peace. What you are experiencing is not an illness, but the awareness of what human nature is like deep down. It is the awareness of what life is like without the walls that protect civilization.

Those who have never been outside those walls don’t know: they can’t see. The walls form their horizon. You know what lays beyond them, and can’t forget it.

It got me thinking on a few things.

Firstly, just how sheltered most of us are from death in this day and age. I’ve been reading about the Black Plague, which saw 1/3rd of people in Europe killed. These days, we can go our whole lives without seeing a person die, and only knowing one or two close people who have died of something other than old age.

It’s hard imagining a whole society suffering from PTSD, but if you think about it, people must have been. Imagine the people of Israel in Joshua’s day. Imagine a Hebrew soldier, returning to his tents and his family after taking part in the slaughter of every man, woman and child in a Caananite city. Despite the justice of their actions, surely it was a hard thing to do.

Secondly and mainly, it got me thinking about Total Depravity. If you operate on the basic assumption that all people are basically and fundamentally evil, even if they superficially or outwardly seem good, the world makes a lot more sense.

We have the notion of the fundamental goodness of people drummed into our heads from a young age. We want to believe that people are good. Yet history, experience and common sense teaches us otherwise.

Of course, the idea that people are fundamentally good means the only thing keeping people from goodness is education. If we could only build a society that taught people how to live properly, people would be good, and we wouldn’t need God! When people come from a society like ours, which has this assumption, and are plunged through combat or some other traumatic experience, it must be twice the shock.

First Things

I just wanted to outline my plans for this blog before I jumped in.

I’ve grown up in a small conservative Reformed (well, Presbyterian, but you know) denomination, which I love dearly.

A while back, I started to question some fundamentals of Reformed belief, mainly in the area of Sola Scriptura and Ecclesiology. For a long time, I just kept ‘asking questions’ and waited for the answer to come. As a student of history, I feel quite attracted to the arguments put by the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches with regards to the role of the Church in authenticating Scripture, but I am convinced of God’s sovereignty and the doctrine of predestination. A conundrum!

So instead of waiting for the answer to my questions to come to me through osmosis, I’ve taken up my daily devotions and prayer again, and am reading as much Reformed material as I can. Hopefully, this blog will be a part of that process. I want to not only attend a Reformed Church, but to be able to defend (or at least have an educated opinion on) every part of Christian Doctrine. I want to be the spiritual leader in my home, not the-most-educated-but-the-one-with-the-biggest-doubts.

My plan is to review the books I read, post on the devotions I’m reading through (the Psalms privately, Judges as a family), and whatever else comes to mind with regards to the Christian Walk.

I have a background in politics (studying it in Uni, and working for a few years as a staffer to a few politicians), and I used to spending most of my spare time reading about anything to do with it. But to be honest, I’m a little over politics at the moment. I’m going to try and pretend it all doesn’t exist for a while, and focus on more personal spiritual matters for a time.

Anyway, hopefully this exercise is a blessing for all involved. I’ve never blogged or kept a diary seriously before.