This just in:
Ecumenical News International
27 March 2009
Church authorities not to discipline Dutch 'atheist' pastor
ENI-09-0252
By Andreas Havinga
Utrecht, Netherlands, 27 March (ENI)--Two regional church authorities in the Netherlands are reported to have decided to take no disciplinary action against a self-proclaimed atheist pastor, Klaas Hendrikse.
The decision of the authorities in the southern Dutch province of Zeeland was published in a letter to their congregations, the Protestant daily newspaper the Nederlands Dagblad reported on 24 March.
The church authorities said disciplinary proceedings against Hendrikse, who is a pastor of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, would be likely to lead to, "a protracted discussion about the meanings of words that in the end will produce little clarity". The letter also noted that people have debated the issue of "God's existence" throughout time.
Hendrikse gained attention with his book published in November 2007, in which he said that it was not necessary to believe in God's existence in order to believe in "God". The Dutch title of the book translates as, "Believing in a God who does not exist: manifesto of an atheist pastor".
In his book, Hendrikse recounts how his conviction that God does not exist has become stronger over the years.
"The non-existence of God is for me not an obstacle but a precondition to believing in God. I am an atheist believer," Hendrikse writes in the book. "God is for me not a being but a word for what can happen between people. Someone says to you, for example, 'I will not abandon you', and then makes those words come true. It would be perfectly alright to call that [relationship] God."
Hendrikse has been a minister for more than 20 years in the southwestern town of Middelburg and a nearby village. His two congregations have belonged to the Protestant Church in the Netherlands since it was formed in 2004 as a union of a Lutheran church and two Reformed denominations. Hendrikse's congregations also belong to the Association of Liberal Protestants.
As each congregation belongs to a different church district, the issue of possible disciplinary proceedings was a matter for two regional church authorities.
The national leadership of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands has in the past said that church law prevents it from initiating disciplinary measures against incumbent clergy. That task falls to the church's regional authorities.
Hendrikse welcomed the decision not to opt for disciplinary proceedings against him.
The spokesperson of the national leadership of the Protestant Church, Jan-Gerd Heetderks, was quoted by the Reformatorisch Dagblad newspaper as saying that the national church leadership would wait until it had received the letter and had a an opportunity to study it before making any comment.
(Copyright Ecumenical News International, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission)
27 March 2009
Church authorities not to discipline Dutch 'atheist' pastor
ENI-09-0252
By Andreas Havinga
Utrecht, Netherlands, 27 March (ENI)--Two regional church authorities in the Netherlands are reported to have decided to take no disciplinary action against a self-proclaimed atheist pastor, Klaas Hendrikse.
The decision of the authorities in the southern Dutch province of Zeeland was published in a letter to their congregations, the Protestant daily newspaper the Nederlands Dagblad reported on 24 March.
The church authorities said disciplinary proceedings against Hendrikse, who is a pastor of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, would be likely to lead to, "a protracted discussion about the meanings of words that in the end will produce little clarity". The letter also noted that people have debated the issue of "God's existence" throughout time.
Hendrikse gained attention with his book published in November 2007, in which he said that it was not necessary to believe in God's existence in order to believe in "God". The Dutch title of the book translates as, "Believing in a God who does not exist: manifesto of an atheist pastor".
In his book, Hendrikse recounts how his conviction that God does not exist has become stronger over the years.
"The non-existence of God is for me not an obstacle but a precondition to believing in God. I am an atheist believer," Hendrikse writes in the book. "God is for me not a being but a word for what can happen between people. Someone says to you, for example, 'I will not abandon you', and then makes those words come true. It would be perfectly alright to call that [relationship] God."
Hendrikse has been a minister for more than 20 years in the southwestern town of Middelburg and a nearby village. His two congregations have belonged to the Protestant Church in the Netherlands since it was formed in 2004 as a union of a Lutheran church and two Reformed denominations. Hendrikse's congregations also belong to the Association of Liberal Protestants.
As each congregation belongs to a different church district, the issue of possible disciplinary proceedings was a matter for two regional church authorities.
The national leadership of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands has in the past said that church law prevents it from initiating disciplinary measures against incumbent clergy. That task falls to the church's regional authorities.
Hendrikse welcomed the decision not to opt for disciplinary proceedings against him.
The spokesperson of the national leadership of the Protestant Church, Jan-Gerd Heetderks, was quoted by the Reformatorisch Dagblad newspaper as saying that the national church leadership would wait until it had received the letter and had a an opportunity to study it before making any comment.
(Copyright Ecumenical News International, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission)
"When orthodoxy becomes optional, orthodoxy will eventually be proscribed." RJ Neuhaus
"A lot of really weird things will happen in between." BN Winters
Posted by: Bobby Winters | March 27, 2009 at 07:14 PM
Don't stories like this just put The Onion out of business?
Posted by: Bill R | March 27, 2009 at 09:15 PM
What's happening to the sheep in this pastor's pews? This is unspeakable travesty.
Ach du lieber Gott!
(I think that's what my high school German teacher said.)
Posted by: Truth Unites... and Divides | March 28, 2009 at 07:49 AM
Excerpt from a dated article from Newsmax:
"In Chapter 5 of "Goodbye! Good Men: How Catholic Seminaries Turned Away Two Generations of Vocations From the Priesthood," Michael S. Rose examines the destructive effect of what he terms heterodoxy on seminarians struggling to absorb and adhere to the ancient doctrines of the church, handed down from the Apostles for 2,000 years.
"Many faculty members are adverse to teaching what the Church teaches, and some even find it onerous to hide their disdain for Catholicism," Rose wrote.
"The seminarian who arrives on campus expecting to find faculty and staff who love the Catholic faith and teach what the Church teaches can be sadly disappointed."
Among the students' obstacles to learning the authentic tenets of their faith, Rose reveals, are being forced to read textbooks written by "noted dissenters from Catholic teachings" such as theologians Richard McBrien, Edward Schillebeeckx, Hans Kung and Charles Curran, who "parrot the dogmas of Catholic dissent."
Tossing out the Bible
They are taught that the Bible is not to be taken seriously because it is "culture bound," that one religion is as good as the next, that the pope is not infallible, that the presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist is just an old pre-Vatican II myth, that Christ wasn't divine, that God is a woman, that Mass is nothing more than a meal, that women should be ordained priests, that homosexuality is normal and that contraception is morally acceptable.
Though many outside the Catholic Church might agree with some if not all of these heretical doctrines, for Catholics, accepting them means simply that they are no longer Catholics. For many seminarians seeking admission to the priesthood, they sound the death knell of their vocations. Why, after all, should they give their lives to what they have been taught contradicts everything they believed the church stood for?
Yet, Rose reveals that for more than 30 years, this nonsense has been standard fare in many of the courses taught to priests.
Rot From Within
Many of the ideas being taught in seminaries today, Rose wrote, "go way beyond the scope of even these 'mainstream' errors of Modernist doctrine. Aggressive feminist theories often put forth by religious sisters devoted to liberation theology and various incarnations of Jungian psychology make it clear that some faculty members who are entrusted with the formation of future priests do not support the Catholic priesthood as the Church defines it. In fact they do not support the Church, her hierarchy, her Eucharist, or her liturgy."
Tragically, throughout the U.S. today, men taught these heretical doctrines are spreading error, distorting the liturgy, sowing doctrinal confusion and changing the faith of countless Catholics.
On page after page Rose documents instances of deliberate distortion of church doctrines - lapses most often defended not only by seminary officials, but also by the bishops of the dioceses they serve. Most of the abuses are simply mind-boggling."
(H/T Standfirm)
Posted by: Truth Unites... and Divides | March 28, 2009 at 08:06 AM
Apparently, Screwtape's Research and Development efforts have been successful, as this appears to be the Materialist Magician he so hoped for.
We are really faced with a cruel dilemma. When the humans disbelieve in our existence we lose all he pleasing results of direct terrorism and we make no magicians. On the other hand, when they believe in us, we cannot make them materialists and sceptics.... The "Life Force", the worship of sex, and some aspects of Psychoanalysis, may here prove useful. If once we can produce our perfect work—the Materialist Magician, the man, not using, but veritably worshipping, what he vaguely calls "Forces" while denying the existence of "spirits"—then the end of the war will be in sight.
Posted by: Respectabiggle | March 30, 2009 at 07:48 AM
What a coincidence, because I've just stopped believing in dinner. My wife and I discuss what we would like to have for dinner. She affirms my desire for dinner, I affirm hers and we call that relationship between "dinner." (Note: I still am passionate about my belief in dessert, an early evening snack, a late evening snack, midnight snacks, breakfast, and lunch).
Posted by: Jason | March 31, 2009 at 11:02 AM
An "atheist believer."
A "meat-eating vegetarian."
This NonSequitur game is kind of easy!
Posted by: Therese Z | April 01, 2009 at 02:43 PM