“There are no non-Catholics in heaven....An individual Christian, even one who prays and reads his Bible faithfully, but who avoids coming to church, is living in a state of false security. He trades the catholic faith for a faith of his own invention. He is destined to become food for the lurking wolf and prowling lion. For as we confess in our Creed, the saving faith is not individual, but catholic.” Lutheran pastor, Father Hollywood, is right on. This is the unanimous consent of the Early Church Fathers, and those who hold anything to the contrary are manifestly damned. Contemporary evangelicals get all hot and bothered by these words, but this only proves they’d feel hellaciously uncomfortable in any church setting prior to 1776. Catholicism, while not propositional, is not exclusively identified with a building or a see (such as Rome or Antioch), but is at its core a people who hold steadfast to the Word of God. And the catholic faith is not one that is stripped of tradition, history, martyrs, but is rich in it, while holding firm to the Word as the final authority in all ecclesiastical matters. “It is not held privately, but confessed collectively and in public. We are branches of a common Vine, not separate plants. The true faith is not modern and contemporary, but timeless and eternal...the saving faith, the catholic faith, is not whatever the individual dreams up, interprets, or desires – but rather is a submission to what God our Father and the Church our mother have taught and continue to faithfully and unchangingly teach their children. For we children are born of water and the Spirit, cleansed by the Word and the mysteries, confessors of the same true faith held by all who have been made worthy to stand in the throne-room of the one true God, whom we worship both in His Unity and in His Trinity, through the incarnate Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, in the Unity of the Holy Spirit, now and unto eternity. Amen.”

filii autem adulterorum inconsummati erunt et ab iniquo toro semen exterminabitur
et si quidem longae vitae erunt in nihilum conputabuntur et sine honore erit novissima senectus illorum
et si quidem longae vitae erunt in nihilum conputabuntur et sine honore erit novissima senectus illorum
et si celerius defuncti fuerint non habebunt spem nec in die agnitionis adlocutionem

But the children of adulterers shall not come to perfection, and the seed of the unlawful bed shall be rooted out. And if they live long, they shall be nothing regarded, and their last old age shall be without honour. And if they die quickly, they shall have no hope, nor speech of comfort in the day of trial. For dreadful are the ends of a wicked race.

~ The Book of Wisdom, Latin Vulgate Translation

What do you think a man would have to do to deserve a no flight-zone place above his property, high-tech surveillance placed in his house, multiple roadblocks a mile around, have his neighbors evacuated, and his surrounding power lines cut off, as well as 6 helicopters along with the SWAT team and APC’s buzzing around...just to serve warrant? Shoot, for Mr. Ed Brown, it wasn’t international espionage, multiple kidnappings and murders, but Constitutional literacy that screwed him over. In liberty-rich Amerika, you can’t even walk your neighbor’s dog without being shot at by Big Brother.

We feel for Mr. Brown. We read some books about Martin Luther and John Calvin, and our lives have never been the same since.

An 11 year-old was arrested for using a rubber band gun and is facing felony charges. Priorities, priorities.

“The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive , signed on May 9, 2007, declares that in the event of a “catastrophic event,” George W. Bush can become what is best described as a dictator, ”The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government.” I’m just thankful we don’t have some sort of top-down deal with kings and queens. And you know what’s great about this? The man who’s going to ensure his populace, “constitutional government”, is the same man who screamed at a White House aide, “Stop throwing the Constitution in my face! It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

We here at Spirit Water Blood are mighty thankful for Steve Schlissel’s son-in-law, Dave Hodges. His exchanges with RTS-seminary student Steven Wedgeworth on the matter of race are quite interesting, to say the least. Wedgeworth, a die-hard Wilsonian and ecumenicist, parrots his hero Douglas Wilson with, “There is no more nationalism or ‘blood and soil’ after baptism.” This, my friends, is the very essence of liberalism. Water enriches soil, it does not eradicate it! He thinks baptism washes away the brown spots of the Ethiopian, but those physical spots can’t be removed even with Holy Baptism. I’m sorry Steven, but your familial obligations to your parents and siblings don’t disappear when you get sprinkled. And Mr. Spong, I hate to break it to you, but your baptism didn’t wash away those hateful genitals of yours either.

Wedgeworth, like Wilson, is Trinitarian except when it comes to race and kinship. Our Mother Church is one family, just like The Holy Triune God is one essence. And just as God is one in three, so the Church is one yet many. The oneness and being of God, however, does not absorb the plurality and diversity of the Godhead, and the oneness and unity of the Church does not absorb (or make of no consequence) the familial/national ties which combined make the Church catholic. Maybe one of these days Steven will put his trust solely in Christ alone instead of popular preachers.