The other day, I wrote this post on some of the strange evangelical responses to the death of Pope Francis. I assumed that would be my only comment following the pope’s death. But it turns out I was wrong. Some of the strange evangelical reactions continue apace.
Only now, the reactions are less to do with Pope Francis himself. Rather, they centre on who evangelicals would most prefer to take over (yes… I know!) In the most strange of all cases, evangelicals are assessing the runners and riders, stating their preferred candidate. And, I’ll just be honest – I find it bizarre.
Let’s get down to brass tacks here. Unless the next pontiff has plans to thoroughly reform the Catholic Church, overturn some of its key doctrines, do an about turn on some of the people they excommunicated and anathematised historically – affirming their theology and doctrine to actually be correct after all – and come to (as evangelicals judge it) a biblical understanding of the gospel, the means of salvation and the nature of the church; which of any of the possible candidates is going to be even close to “preferred”? More to the point, given the very motto of the Roman Catholic Church – semper eadem – upon which certain of its key doctrines rests and the denial of which undoes the very authority the church (and pontiff) takes to itself, in what world is that at all likely to happen?
I can hear some of the pushback already. Surely it’s legitimate to have a ‘least worst’ option? Or, more positively, a ‘most preferred’ candidate? Surely it would be better to have someone close(er) to evangelical thinking than somebody who is diametrically opposed? What is the problem here?
I suppose we could make exactly the same arguments for the Dalai Lama or the next Ayatollah of Iran. Wouldn’t it be better if the next guy was much more biblical, orthodox and doctrinally close to us? Of course it would. At the same time, everybody recognises the chances of that are pretty much zero. Nobody feels the need to pick a preferred candidate in these sorts of cases because it is preposterous to suggest an evangelical would have such a preference in a race of exclusively bad choices.
Let me put it this way: let’s assume we have a preferred candidate who is appointed and he ends up a little closer to us theologically (yay!) That is rather like me taking great pride that I got nearer than you in our competition to jump to the moon. Yes, I got a little closer but that difference is dwarfed by the yawning gulf between either of us and the desired target. It hardly matters who got closer when neither of us were anywhere near! The chasm between the Roman Catholic and evangelical gospels is such that unless one of the runners has donned a space suit and has prepared a speech beginning ‘one small step for man…’ to have a preferred candidate at all seems incredible to me.
There is a world in which it would be wonderful to see this level of reform in the Roman Catholic Church. But it cannot escape any Protestant’s notice that, throughout the history of the Roman Catholic Church, men have repeatedly tried (and failed) to reform it from within. We’ve had 500 years since the reformers were ejected and anathematised and nothing has happened to give any indication of movement that would bring the formal teaching of the Roman Catholic Church anywhere near the gospel as evangelicals might understand it. That is not to mention some of the other, non-gospel yet nevertheless significant, issues. What is evident is that none of the potential successors to Pope Francis are even close to being men who might move with any significance in this direction.
To that end, there is little material difference between evangelicals having a preferred papal candidate and them having a preference for the next Grand Mufti of Egypt. Nobody seriously expects to have a preferred candidate in the latter case and it is entirely unclear to me why any evangelical would have one in the former. None of the candidates are going to be theologically acceptable to us and, if you think you have found one, it suggests you aren’t really theologically evangelical.
Rather than hoping for a slightly better but nevertheless gospel denying pontiff, instead of opining about our preferred candidate, we would do better to eschew the whole thing and point back to the only mediator between God and man, the only one who can vicariously do anything for us (and therefore be a proper vicar), the only person the bible ever refers to as ‘head of the church’; the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to him we are aligned, it is to him we answer and it is to him we need to point people. Ours hopes ought not to be pinned on the appointment of a gospel-denying ‘best option’ and instead ought to be centred on the only gospel-bringing option the world can know. We ought to distance ourselves from any who would distance others from Christ and instead point people directly to him as the source of salvation. If we focus on doing that, we can let the papal appointments fall where they may.
Unfortunately, as I’ve argued, these reactions tell us more about ourselves. What has become clear is that a lot of people don’t really understand what the Reformation was about. Remember that we have had a full generation now who have been influenced by the New Perspective. Whilst there are some helpful things in terms of perspective on the Jewish context of Jesus day, the App disastrously downgrades both the meaning and importance if justification by faith. There is a muddled vagueness about what the Gospel is. This is seen when Anglican are also relaxed about who the next Archbishop is so long as they will revert to the previous settlement on gender and sexuality. It’s also seen when they make alliances with Anfli Catholics on those issues not recognizing that they are coming at it from a different angle. Finally, there is a disregard to more recent painful reformation. We are 20! years on since the Steve Chalke Penal Substitution controversy. At the time costly decisions were made by some to say “this matters”, positively it was the basis for better unity between charismatic and conservative Evangelicals who grasped the importance of this. However hard won Gospel victories then are being given up. I can’t help thinking that there are parallels with Trump and Ukraine, we are basically being told that these battles are unwinnable so we should settle on their terms.
I think a lot of that is right.
I think the major different between the pope and the mufti or Ayatollah are three fold:
1. There are a lot more Roman Catholics than Iranian or Egyptian Muslims.
2. There are a lot more Roman Catholics than Iranian or Egyptian Muslims in the most powerful country on Earth where they’re a crucial swing vote.
3. Roman Catholics than Iranian or Egyptian Muslims In Britain where we live.
To use an extreme example, if a pope declares that life begins at first breath then the pro-life movement is dead. It hardly seems surprising that this matters to people.
I think this comment entirely misses the point.
The issue is not the scale of the number of people concerned (there are a lot more Indian and Chinese people in the world than anyone else, but Christian don’t take a special interest in their leadership elections either).
Nor is the issue to do with pro-life matters. First, because that is not the reason anybody is citing for their “preferred candidate”. Second, because a Grand Mufti may or may not be better on those issues, or another world religious leader, and yet nobody picks a favourite contender for the reasons outlined.
The issue is that Roman Catholicism is a different religion and it makes about as much sense for evangelicals to have a preferred papal candidate as it does for them to prefer one Muslim leader over another. But those suggesting they have a preference are seemingly doing so on the basis they are Christian.
Also the reality is that in both cases we speak from ignorance. In reality we know very little about the individual Ayatollahs. We know very little about any of the papable cardinals. Ratzinger was more visible as a Catholic Theologian but hands up who has read anything significant by him? I don’t think we really know that much about Francis after he has been pope. In fact all we have is that to get to be Pope he affirmed the central doctrine of Roman Catholicism. “is the Pope a Catholic”. Is meant to be rhetorical after all. SobI think much of the speculation is about appearing to be informed. We have been experts at virology, international law, defence strategy and Eastern European politics, now overnight we are becoming experts on the inner workings of the Catholic Church because we have read a few profile articles in the Telegraph and watched Coclave