Bryan College Triangle

by Jesse Murray
Staff Writer

To briefly readdress the purpose of the Breakfast Club column: the purpose of this column is not to uplift or degrade any certain group or institution. The intent of this column is to address issues relevant to campus life and spiritual growth and to raise questions. It is not to specifically answer those questions, but rather to encourage you to discuss them with your own friends and peers. The Breakfast Club column’s chief goal is to encourage the reader to reach his/her own conclusions through dialogue and critical thinking.

“We should never begin with the assumption of difference, but rather, we should first assume commonality and address differences as we meet them,” says junior Christian Thought major Luke Lillard.

This issue’s Breakfast Club column will address just that. We know now that there is common ground and that there are differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. The next step is to acknowledge what these are. What are the issues that draw us together, and what are the questions that have divided us?

To fully understand the chasm dividing the Catholic Church, Protestants and their traditions, one must look at the history of the Protestant Reformation. Without delving too deeply into the areas of cause and effect, it is important that one be aware of the main issues of church reform in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Protestant reformers such as Luther, Zwingli and Calvin cited what they perceived as malpractice on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church. These accusations related to practices such as the selling of indulgences, simony and other issues dealing with Church corruption and its hierarchy. It is important to note, however, that these allegations were not original to the reformers; rather, these issues of internal corruption had been raised contemporaneously by devoted Catholic thinkers such as Erasmus.

That being said, it is important that one understand some of the key doctrinal differences separating post-Reformation and contemporary Catholic and Protestant doctrine. In interviews with several Protestant students on campus, answers to questions relating to the Roman Catholic tradition varied. When asked their thoughts on Catholicism, an almost unanimous response from Protestant interviewees was a series of questions regarding the veneration of Mary. Other students posed questions on church power and the authority of the Pope while one student referred to the perceived ritualistic nature of the Roman Catholic tradition.

History tells us that there were five main points of doctrinal contention rising from the Protestant reformers in contrast to the Roman Catholic Church in the time of the Reformation. These are usually called the five solas: Sola scriptura (by Scripture alone), Sola gratia (by grace alone), Solus Christus (through Christ alone), Soli Deo Gloria (glory to God alone) and Sola fide (by faith alone).

In an in-depth interview, Dr. J. Daryl Charles, Director of Bryan Institute for Critical Thought and Professor of Bible, addressed several of these issues of doctrinal discord and also focused on what he refers to as primary and secondary issues.

Charles began by referring to two events that took place in the 1980s that directly affected Catholic-Protestant relations. These events were celebrated by the Catholic Church under Pope John Paul II, one in remembrance of Martin Luther’s birthday and the other on the anniversary of Regensburg, a continuation of the negotiations at Hagenau and at Worms in 1540 that attempted to restore religious unity to the Holy Roman Empire.

In the formal pronouncements that accompanied these events, the Catholic Church essentially acknowledged Martin Luther as a brother, restoring him to the graces of the Church of Rome. Charles said that these decrees are important because of what happened at the Council of Trent in the mid 16th century. One of the focal points of this council was to issue formal responses to Luther’s teaching which resulted in 33 anathemas, or formal denunciatory proclamations labeling Luther a heretic and his teaching an abomination.

Charles suggests that acts like these and others such as the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church issued in 1992 by Pope John Paul II have done much to promote ecumenism and unity throughout the Christian Church.

Referring to issues of Catholic and Protestant harmony, Charles suggests that a focus should be placed on primary issues and that one need look no further than the creeds.

Regarding the matter of unity Charles said, “Since my conversion, I have always had a burden for unity in the body of Christ, not at any cost, but the distinction between primary and secondary issues has been very helpful to me… and I am saddened by Christians, whether in the Church or the academy, whose view of the body doesn’t allow for that wondrous breadth and depth of expression.”

Charles suggests that an understanding of what the primary and secondary issues are will help us as believers to appreciate, discern and preserve unity in the body of Christ while still maintaining our own particular, distinctive convictions.

Charles concluded the interview in the same manner that he has many of his Christian Theology classes. He proposed that as long as we (the body of Christ) maintain orthodoxy and as long as we remain connected to the true head of the church from which all life flows, there is room for grace and discussion.

As the Nicene Creed asserts and we affirm:

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one Being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation

he came down from heaven:

by the power of the Holy Spirit

he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,

and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again

in accordance with the Scriptures;

he ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,

and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.

He has spoken through the Prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come. Amen.

by Daniel Jackson
Staff writer

Robin Min is a friend of mine who grew up in North Carolina and now attends my home church in Connecticut. When I would gently rib her about her southern ways, she would always joke back by saying “Well! For your information, although I am southern, I still have all my teeth, and I didn’t marry my cousin!”

I grew up listening to country music, so I thought I partially understood southern culture, but I didn’t see that culture when I traveled through the South on my college road trip a few years ago. It must be an exaggeration of country singers, I thought.

Imagine my feelings when I walked into the Dayton Wal-Mart the day before moving into Bryan and discovered that there were cashiers missing teeth.

Carlin Nasiatka, a junior RA on Robinson fourth whose hometown is in Massachusetts, said “The North is just colder all around.”

I was used to cold weather and cold people back home. Northerners are not mean, but they are apathetic. Their lives are usually busier, rushed and they don’t have time to chat. For northerners, the laid-back friendliness of the south is noticeable.

“People seem to go out of the way to say ‘Hi’ to you, which is really weird” says freshman Paul Coblintz of New Hampshire.

And people show more common courtesy in the South. Read full story »

by John Moore
Staff Writer

“Contentment is a window or picture frame that sets the boundaries around us in which to live.”
—Susan McCauley, daughter of Francis Schaeffer

After a taste of beautiful weather and more soon to come, it seems the complaints about the gray drizzle that has hung over the hills of eastern Tennessee for months have ended. People begin to study outside and simply enjoy these temperate days of spring.

Attitudes about the weather have shifted from despondency to joy, at least for a time. But before we know it, we may soon bemoan the fact that the sun is shining too much and that the temperature is too hot. Indoors we will go, where we will regulate climate and attempt to avoid sweat as though it were a contagious disease.

Contentment will likely be a struggle for us humans nearly all of our lives on earth. We tend to move from one thing to the next, looking for satisfaction and finding it, for a time, in the new. As the thrill gradually wears off, we move on with time and effort. However, I am convinced, that contentment is a state of mind rather than a place of life.

The weather may be a moot point, as all seasons have their less than desirable aspects; nevertheless, we often lose our appreciation of things for what they are versus what we want them to be. We are inhabitants of a culture that has a notorious predilection to constantly desire everything to be immediate, yet also tends toward that age-old, grass-is-always-greener desire for something other than what we currently have. Read full story »

by John Moore
Staff Writer

Please take note of the date of publication when reading this article.

As we take another step into the year 2010, we see that our country continues in its path of decline: the educational system in America is failing our children, the economy is unfair to its patrons, the job market is cruel to the unemployed, and the poor and the sick are uninsured (though that is soon to change). As the ideals of freedom hoped for by the founding fathers plummet, I lose hope of ever seeing the American people break away from these shackles and rise to freedom on their own.

In this dark moment of realization, perhaps I begin to see one glimmer of light. It comes with the recent passing of the healthcare bill. I had once hoped that the rut we the American people have fallen into would eventually be grown out of—the rut referred to by Neil Postman as, “amusing ourselves to death.” But the bleakness of our fated reality has begun to set in.

Where will we find help in these perilous times? Who will we look to for a hand up out of this mire? I believe the answers lie with those who are willing and ready to lead us into change that we can truly believe in. The answers to our deepest questions lie not in ourselves but in this: a government who can delegate, direct and provide assurance that all of our needs will be adequately met and that all will be spread equally among both rich and poor.

I lay out four basic areas to recovering the true freedom for which we, as a country, are in desperate need.

Read full story »

by John Moore
Staff Writer

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

— Preamble of the Constitution of the United States of America

On Sunday afternoon, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to send a voluminous healthcare bill to President Barack Obama for his signing. The bill will expand government healthcare in America to a near universal system.

Along with many changes, 32 million uninsured Americans will receive government aid, taxes for those who are already insured will increase, Medicaid funding will be cut back while somehow expanding the program,, and insurance companies will be prevented from refusing coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. If all goes according to plan, deficits will decrease over the next 20 years.

Read full story »