Religion, J.D. and Usha Vance.

Because this blog is steadfastly horrified by Donald Trump and his administration, it'd be easy to assume that it's run by a rampaging leftist.  

It isn't.  

Indeed, if you follow the thread you'll see where we come out on the right a fair amount, which in our view doesn't mean supporting fascism.  I'm a conservative, not a right wing populist.

We note this, as there's been a flap over J. D. Vance's comments about hoping that his wife, Usha, converts to Catholicism, as if that's somehow inappropriate.

It isn't, and any sincere Catholic with a non Catholic spouse, which includes me, hopes for that.

Vance wasn't a political figure that I followed at all until he started to campaign for the VP slot next to Donald Trump.  Frankly, I found and still find his political migration to Trumpian authoritarianism appalling.  Anyhow, I knew that he was a convert to Catholicism, but I wasn't really aware of how recent of convert he is.  Vance grew up in Evangelical Protestantism, which isn't surprising given his "hillbilly" background, and at least according to an interview I heard of him some time ago, his influential grandmother was of the non churched Southern type of Christian view.  Vance himself was an atheist by the time he went to college   By 2014, the time of his marriage, he had resumed being a non denominational Protestant Christian but he was evolving towards Catholicism by 2016.  He converted to the Faith in 2019.

Vance's path is a lot more common than people suppose.  Vance is an intelligent man, my numerous political disagreements with him notwithstanding, and he became an atheist in ignorance.  The more educated he became, the more Christian he became, and exhibiting Cardinal Newman's Rule, that lead him ultimately to Catholicism somewhat against his own will, much like C. S. Lewis became a High Church Anglican after having been an atheist, or like G. K. Chesterton argued himself into the Faith.

Vance's path to Catholicism coincided his increasing rightward political draft and his barely camouflaged transformation into a Illiberal Democrat.  He's trod the same path in that regard ad Rod Dreher, whom is a friend of his (and who is pretending, frankly, to be Orthodox).  There's numerous other intellectuals on the right at this time who likewise share that distinction, such as J. R. Reno and Patrick Dineen, and amongst them are notable converts like Eva Vlaardingerbroek.  Indeed, there's a notable movement amongst conservatives from Lutheran nations in this direction, even as a non political boom in conversions occurs in various areas in Europe.  For cradle Catholics the association with illiberal democracy can be disturbing, and even result in outright internecine fights, but it is going on.  We here will note, as we have before, that becoming politically conservative does not mean having to become a populist let alone an illiberal democrat.

Anyhow, one of the things about Catholicism is this.  We are not religious pluralist.  If Vance did not wish for his wife to become Catholic, he'd be a very bad Catholic.

Usha Vance is a Hindu.

Catholics believe extra Ecclesiam nulla salus.  There is no salvation outside the church.

Now that's a doctrine that Catholics don't emphasize much, and often real diehard radtrad Catholics don't understand.  It isn't the case that Catholics believe that only Catholics can go to Heaven.  For that matter, Catholics are very far from any kind of "once saved always saved" theology and accept that a lot of Catholics might very well go to Hell.  Rather, Catholics believe, as the Catechism states it:

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.

848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."

Catechism of the Catholic Church. 

Vance can of course hope, and should hope, that Usha converts, as her chances of salvation are heightened.  Does that mean that if she doesn't, she's damned to Hell?  Well, we can't know the state of anyone's soul, but the fact that she hasn't would suggest that she's not consciously rejecting Christianity, but rather hasn't overcome something.

Vance himself should be worried about the state of his soul. Catholics reject IVF, which he's been backing, and lying on serious matters is a serious sin, which Vance has been doing at an epic level.

At any rate, Vance isn't doing the wrong thing by hoping his wife becomes Catholic.  He's completely correct to wish for that, including openly.

This is, however, where the liberal side of American culture, and even the American Civil Religion, and frankly the Evangelical Christians, all come into conflict with Catholics.

At some point in American history and in American culture, and it goes back pretty far it became really common for people to be sort of religious relativist.  "It doesn't matter what religion you are, as long as you are a good person."  Well, it does in fact matter what religion you are, and of course you should be a good person no matter what religion you are.

Catholicism was an oppressed religion in the United State up until basically the 1960s.  Open oppression of it lessened steadily in the century prior to the 60s, and in fact was intense prior to the 1860s.  Catholics really kept themselves in a major way as a result, and only really began to enter the wider culture after World War Two.  Al Smith's Catholicism is generally regarded as what made it impossible for him to win the Presidency prior to the war.  An early Casper politician of Irish extraction was controversial in the town's Catholic community because of the distance he put between himself and his religion.  The first Catholic Governor of Wyoming was probably Frank A. Barrett, who was a devout Catholic who went on to become the state's U.S. Senator thereafter.  Joe Hickey, another Catholic came after him.  Both Barrett and Hickey were Governors in the 1950s.  Of course, Kennedy broke the dam in 1960, but in part by pledging basically not to let his Catholicism influence him, which was a despicable pledge. 

Vance hasn't pledged that.

The only U.S. Army generals known to be Catholic during World War Two, we might note, were Lieutenant General John E. Hull and Major General Patrick J. Hurley.  This fits into the culture of the professional military class at the time and it might be noted that the first Jewish general in the U.S. Army, Maurice Rose, was a practicing Episcopalian.  Patton, often noted to be very devout, was an Episcopalian, as was Marshall.  

Anyhow, as noted, it's not the case that Catholics feel all non Catholics are going to Hell as they are not Catholic, and Catholics certainly do not believe that all Catholics are going to Heaven as they are Catholic.  Rather, Catholics believe that the Catholic Church, which is the oldest and original form of Christianity, is the church Christ founded and the one entrusted with the instruments of salvation.  In some ways, everyone who is ultimately saved is saved in some way because of the Catholic Church.  As, to use a mistranslation of von Balthasar's statement, we wish "for all men to be saved", we want everyone to be Catholics as that makes it much more assured.

This puts us way outside of the American Civil Religions' views that all religions, or perhaps all Christian religions with Judaism thrown in for good measure, are equal.

One thing it should also do, however, and recent conversions should help cradle Catholics to refocus on this, is to be concerned about people in our immediate orbit.  Vance is basically doing that, but frankly he's in a bit of a tough spot because he and his wife married before his conversion.  

Simply being in a marriage in which one member is a Catholic and the other is not, if the Catholic is a sincere Catholic, has some real challenges.  Catholicism is different and even after decades the non Catholic spouse can be really surprised by the application of the Faith by the Catholic spouse.  In "mixed" couples where the non Catholic spouse is a member of one of the churches that's very close to the Catholic Church this is less so, but even here I've known couples who attended Mass faithfully where one was a Catholic and the other a Lutheran, for instance, with the Lutheran never converting in spite of the two churches being so close.  

As Yeoman's First Law of Human Behavior is a powerful force, general run of the mill Protestant spouses may attend Mass and support their Catholic spouse early on, but over a period time, simply stop attending as most Protestants aren't under a requirement to attend any service on a Sunday. That's inevitably extremely hard on the Catholic spouse who soldiers on.  This has to be even more difficult in a situation such as Vance's in which the other spouse isn't even a member of a Christian religion at all.

Indeed, at one time Catholics were very much discouraged from marrying non Catholics, although its always occurred, and it was often a stipulation by the Catholic spouse that the other convert.  I've known several Catholic couples where this was what happened, although I think it much less common now.  The religion where this frequently occurs is the Mormon religion, which is not a Christian religion and which isn't compatible with any.  Of note there, usually fallen away Mormons simply become intensely anti religious, rather than some other religion.

Catholics only marrying Catholics was a lot easier when Catholics pretty much were associated, culturally, only with other Catholics. That day is long gone, but there's still some wisdom to the old custom here.  As with many things, the Catholic viewpoint on something like marriage is much different than the cultures, if taken seriously.  Catholics married to non Catholics are adding weight to their cross, no matter what.  And part of that weight is the hope the other spouse become Catholic.

How Super Bowl LX should be informing American Catholics why the populist far right will betray them as soon as it gets a chance.

Last weekend we ran Catholic Ross Douthat's interview with Doug Wilson.  In his interview Douthat kept trying to pin Wilson down on whether there was a place for Catholics in Wilson's vision of a Calvinist theocratic United States. Wilson came down on yes, but he hedged his bets a fair amount.

The real answer to whether members of the New Apostolic Reformation feel that was has been provided by Super Bowl LX.

I don't like football at all.  I won't be watching the halftime game which I always find to be much like professional football itself, grossly overblown.  But it does provide a weathervane to the culture.  The music associated with professional football shows very much who football feels to be the up and coming audience.

The performer chosen was "Bad Bunny".

Bad Bunny is one Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio.  He was born in Puerto Rico.  He sings in Spanish.

Well the late Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA is having none of it.  It's going to offer its own  “All American Halftime Show”.

Oscasio is an American.  Puerto Ricans have been since March 2, 1917.  They're fully American, and frankly, Puerto Rico ought to be granted statehood, there being absolutely no good reason for it not being a U.S. State at this point.  And, Oscasio is a Christian.  He's a Catholic, whose mother is apparently very devout.

Here's the thing.  Turning Point USA is exhibiting a populist far right Freudian Slip.  Some members of the organization are just too ignorant to know either of these points, but some know them and don't believe that Puerto Ricans are "real" Americans, or that Catholics are Christians.

The last point is particularly ironic.  Lots in the Evangelical far right like to say they're "Bible Believing" Christians, by which they mean sola scriptura Christians. Sola Scriptura is itself Biblically indefensible as St. Paul informed the Thessalonians that they should stand firm in the "traditions" that they had been brought, indicating that there were in fact traditions already.  We know now what those traditions were, as Christians had been writing many of them down in other texts  that didn't end up in the Bible almost from the very beginning.  But more ironic yet is this, the Bible is a Catholic book.

This isn't a matter for debate.  It just is.  We know how the books of the Bible came about, who wrote them, and what they believed.  There was, at the time, just one "holy, catholic and apostolic church", and that was the Catholic Church.  You can add the Orthodox churches to this list today as they directly descend from it.  But in a strict sense, members of various Evangelical churches don't fit into this category.  Indeed, fear of not fitting into it by various Protestant groups has lead some of them to claim membership all along, such as various branches of the Lutheran, Anglican and Methodist churches. They don't dispute that the Catholics and Orthodox are direct descendants of the original Catholic Church, and indeed, they agree that the Catholic Church is the uninterrupted Christian church that Christ founded.  Evangelical churches that don't hold that view are frankly ignorant on this point.

But they are persistent in their ignorance.  So much so, that many of them don't believe that the original Christians, the Catholics, are Christians at all.

We put the Bible together, and the New Testament was written by inspired Catholic authors, but they ignore that.

As I've noted before, and as Wilson conceded, this is a Protestant nation and moreover Wilson was also right that it was founded as a Calvinist one.  That's a major reason that for much of this country's history the Irish, Italians, and other Catholics were detested and even regarded as a separate race.  It's part of why Hispanics are regarded as a separate race today.  Stripped of his fishing tackle piercings, Bad Bunny could look like a Spanish Conquistador. . . not a "Pilgrim".   

Something about the election of Barrack Obama really brought out latent racism in this country.  The Obergefell decision really unleashed a deep dormant conservatism in the population, but one that followed the American Civil Religion rather than real Christianity.  The New Apostolic Reformation took advantage of that and has been advancing its cause under the radar, until recently, when it started doing it more openly, although still not so openly that the fact that we're in the midst of a Christian Nationalist coup right now is appreciated.  Quite a few conservative Catholics, not really well schooled in what far right Evangelical Christians believe, or just badly catechized themselves, have joyously gone along with it, as it seems to address, and to some degree if fact addresses, the cultural rot that has set in, in the Western world.

But it will catch up with us.

Welcome back to the Ghetto.

Things in the air. Some observations with varying degrees of introspection.

Cheerfulness strengthens the heart and makes us persevere in a good life. Therefore the servant of God ought always to be in good spirits.

St. Philip Neri.

I've recently had the opportunity, or rather no choice, but to observe some interesting personalities at work.

The first one I'll note I've known for a very long time, and over time I've watched this person sort of crawl into themselves.  

They're mad.

I'm not really sure at what.  But I'll make an observation below that may explain it.

This person had a really rough early life, but it picked up considerable in the person's teens.  Still, coming from a "blended" family, this person sort of got the short end of the stick on a major family deal, and was quietly resentful about it.

Now the non blood "step" is seeking to address it.  The person is middle aged, and the other person is in early old age, as am I.  The middle aged person is now outright refusing to accept the fix.

What the crap?

"They could have done that years ago. . .".

Dumbest excuse for being a difficult pain in the ass ever.

Same person has something much like this shorter term.  

I've also had the occasion to observe a really angry person.  The really angry person is obviously pretty intelligent, but also obviously very uneducated.  It's a bad combination.

A lot of fairly intelligent, but uneducated, people like to use words that they don't know the meaning of, so they use them incorrectly.  This person does that repeatedly.  If you know what the words actually mean, it's really very sad.

It's also a bit sad to see how this works when the bloom is off the rose of righteous, if misguided, indignation.  When lots of people have their pitchforks out, a person in this situation is sort of a leader.  But real people, with family, jobs, children, move on.  They have to.  New things develop, olds things go by the wayside.  

Watching somebody getting into a one sided yelling match while everyone else is just bored is sad, in an odd sort of way.  You can tell they know that themselves.  The spotlight moved on.

There's a lot of Twitter Twits raging about how pastors didn't preach on Charlie Kirk last week. As I've said before, why would they?  And if they did, in a truly Christian fashion, what would they have said.

Mind you, I'm a Catholic, not a member of a do it yourself protestant church that is heavily invested in the American Civil Religion.

Truth be known, Americans always have been.

If you did preach on Kirk, the preaching probably would be awkward for all.  You could simply make it:

We see today the horror of the Western world's perversion of our God given natures, and how that warps the mind and leaves it prey to evils of all kind.  Let us keep that in mind in our society, as we address such lies as transgenderism.

But that's only one such ill that warps our nature.  How did we get there?  Allowing for mass societal infanticide, which Kirk complained about?  Yes.  But also making our reproductive organs chemical cesspools designed to destroy nature from the onset, and ignoring the injunction against divorce, warping marriage into a  big party for "fulfillment"  Those of you in the pews contracepting, or living with third or fourth "spouses", you are as much to blame for the death as transgenderism is.

So too those who now identify their religion with any political party.  Our  home is in the next world, not this one, and the Republican Party or Democratic Party are not an apostolic synod.  If you are finding your politicians to be saints, you need to sit alone and pray for yourself.

Bear in mind also that our time will come like a thief in the night.   We cannot rely on a future to repent, as we may not have that future.  The sins we commit for any reason, including with our words, may find themselves still on our souls.  Let us resolve to be right with God today.

Probably everyone would be mad

Which gets me to this.

Charlie Kirk, I'll fully accept, was Christian.  He said some very Christian things, and some very non Christian things.  He was a provocateur, and that's a dangerous thing for a person's soul.

As for the other two people mentioned here, I don't know about one, but I do know about the other, that being the first one.  That person is a Christian but more or less a lazy American sort of Christian. They believe in God, have a grasp of Christ, and figure if you don't steal or shoot people, you are probably good with God and they don't want to know much more than that.

That describes most Americans, quite frankly.

That hasn't always been the case, however.

Those Christians who are all upset about Kirk not being mentioned from the pulpit are too heavily invested in the American Civil Religion.  When the next world arrives for them, and it will soon, and they're not recognized, saying "I left my church as there was no preaching about Kirk" won't make up for not feeding the poor, letting people die in droves in Gaza, and the like.  Presenting your "I'm a real read blooded (white) American card" isn't going to get you a free pass.

And, additionally, the pastors whom they want to preach on Kirk probably ought to instead preach instead on greed, divorce, shacking up, and other stuff that the American Civil Religion is pretty okay with.

And, also, here's something else.

I saw a Twitter Twit who was outraged as a transgendered person murdered his parents in Utah awhile back, and the news, he thought, had not paid any attention to it.

Well, I'm sure they did in Utah, but that's not a national news story.  Part of our contemporary problems in this country are that we treat local stories as if they're of global importance, while ignoring global stories because they don't pertain to us.

Christians, mostly Catholics, are being murdered in droves in Africa. That is important. Why don't we hear about that?

Well, they're black, African, and Catholic.  Ho hum. . . 

But there's more to this, Outraged Twitter Twits.  Charlie Kirk was murdered last week.  Most Americans no longer care one bit.

That may be uncomfortable for those who are a member of the populist Sturmabteilung, but it's the truth.  Charlie Kirk isn't going to become their Horst Wessel as most Americans just don't care.  They're desensitized to killing, which is actually at a record low in any event, and by now most average Americans are sick of the right and the left and worried about groceries, while starting to watch the national opiate, football.  Sydney Sweeney's cleavage falling out of her jeans jacket will have longer legs than this.

We aren't going to have a civil war. There's not going to be a lot more violence.  And they'll be disappointed.

Speaking of crawling into one's self (you'll have to go back up to the top for the reference), I've seen that happening to somebody I know, whose husband I know better.

And frankly I sort of see this in a fair amount with younger Boomer and older Gen X women . . . women who bought the lie that careers will make them happy.

Frequently it plays out with the same script.  Well educated middle class women of this vintage married well educated men.  The men of the same generation were still part of the "you need to get a good job to support your family" culture, as we've seen before, but the women were part of the "a career will make you happy".  What seems to have happened to a lot of them is that work didn't make them happy, no surprise, and at some point many, but not all, dropped out of it.

Kids grew up and moved on, if they had kids at all.  Now they're getting to what would normally be retirement years and they feel cheated and lost.

The story for a lot of men isn't much different.  I see it with professional men all the time.  Earlier this week a lawyer in his 70s told me gleefully how he loves his job.  Oh horseshit.  There's just nothing left.  The thing is, however, for women who bought off on this, there's really nothing left.  Quite a few of them, however, are in pretty good economic situations due to a husband that worked for decades to support everyone, and who has kept on.

Anyhow, in this case, the spouse, probably of over 30 years, packed up and left basically with no warning.

She'd been seeing a counsellor, a profession that does so much damage to people it isn't funny. The counsellor had told her to work on herself, which is pretty close to instructing somebody to be a narcissist.  She moved out, moved away, and is camping with her adult daughters.  They're getting a "grey divorce".  

The husband, whom in my view should have retired some years ago.  There's some fault there.  A lot of times when I see some old male lawyer keeping on keeping on, I really wonder what his relationship is at home.

All in all, I suspect, he worked too much, she got lonely, and wondered why life hadn't turned out like Cosmopolitan promised it was supposed to.  

Well, it was never going to.

I'd also note that he was raised Catholic, while she was not, but he fits into the Catholic satellite category. That is, the lessons of the faith were just too inconvenient for him to apply.  He, and his siblings, remain cultural Catholics, basically, but not practicing ones.  It clearly tortures him as he knows better.  Probably not that much should have been expected out of her, however, as she was never Catholic.

And so you have a couple living the 1970s version of the American Dream, which turns out to be a pretty shallow dream at that.  Same with the folks mentioned above.

And the shallowness of that dream explains a lot about post Boomer generations abandoning it and returning to more foundational existential beliefs.

The State bar convention is going on.  I never go it in person.  I don't have the time, and I'm such an introvert that I don't want to go to the dinners and the like just on the random chance one of my lawyer friends might be there, but now you can attend some of it electronically.  I did that yesterday as I needed the CLE credits. 

I wish I hadn't.

The first CLE I attended I picked up as I needed the ethics credit.  It was an hour of "mindfulness" which is usually a bunch of bullshit suggestions on how to deal with stress that you really can't implement in the real world.  That's what it turned out to be, in part, but it descended into "this job really sucks" for an hour.  All of the panelists, including a judge and a justice, had to have counselling at some point in their careers for work stress.

I hope some students were in the audience to see that.  If even Wyoming Supreme Court justices say the practice is so bad they need psychological help to endure it, well that's pretty bad.

The last CLE of the day was the legislative panel.  Usually I think of that as being new laws that are coming down the pipeline, which it partially was, but the first part started off as a plea from a lawyer/legislator for lawyers to run for office, noting how in Wyoming that's declined enormously.  That turned into an outright dumping on the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which needs to be dumped on.  The last part of that session, however, dealt with the ongoing massive decline in civil practitioners putting in for judgeships.  They just aren't doing it.  They were urged to do it.

As noted, I wasn't there to ask a question, but if I had been, I'd have asked why should they, when Governor's have agendas and the current Governor is only really interested in appointing prosecutors.  It's extremely obvious.  The one before that would almost always pick a woman, if possible, and was very open about that.  If you are a male civil practitioner, just forget it.

Justice Kautz, who is now the current AG, noted how being a judge, and particularly a justice, was a great job for a law nerd.  The last panelist, a current Fed defender who was a private lawyer with a very wide practice, noted how he had put in many times and urged people to do so, even though it was disappointing if you did not make it.

It's disappointing for sure.

For me, hearing Justice Kautz talk was outright heartbreaking, as what he expressed made up the very reasons I wanted to be a judge and replied repeatedly, with no success.  I never even got an interview, even though at one point I was being urged by judges and members of the judicial nominating committee to apply.  I'm frankly bitter about it even while knowing that I should not be.  It's hard not to come to the conclusion that the system has become a bit of a fraud, frankly, particularly now that the committee has been rounded out to include non lawyers in it.  I've felt for some time that the Governor's office had an influence on who was picked, even though I have no inside knowledge on that sort of thing.  It's just a feeling, and not a good one.  When judges are picked which leave almost all the practitioners wondering what happened, it's not a good thing.

It leads to me listening to everything Justice Kautz said about the reasons he wanted to be a judge, and myself realizing I once felt those things, but I no longer do.

Back on the stress part of this, a lawyer I've known for a long time, but who is quite a bit younger than me, recently took a really neat vacation.  He came back to the office and announced he's leaving the law.  I was so surprised I called him.  He revealed that being on vacation had taught him he didn't have to live a miserable life.

Churches of the West: Changes in Casper. A Lutheran College. A Methodist Church shutters its doors. The Ukrainian Mission finds a new church to use. What does this tell us?

I recently posted this on our companion blog, Churches of the West; Churches of the West: Changes in Casper. A Lutheran College. A Methodi...: 

These are in interesting series of changes.  What can we learn from this (if anything)?

Changes in Casper. A Lutheran College. A Methodist Church shutters its doors. The Ukrainian Mission finds a new church to use.

There's been some interesting church changes in Casper, some of which deserve note, or additional note, here.

Here's the first.

Luther Classical College dedicates chapel, launches into first school year

The church it is using, when we first published a photograph of it, is here:

First Baptist Church, Casper Wyoming

This is the First Baptist Church in Casper, Wyoming. It's one of the Downtown churches in Casper, in an area that sees approximately one church per block for a several block area.

This particular church was built in 1949, and sits on the same block as Our Savior's Lutheran Church.

I wonder if that's correct and I actually took that photograph with 35mm film?

Anyhow, it was a Baptist Church at the time, and then became a wedding chapel.  Now, however, it belongs to Luther Classical College.  Apparently changes will be made to something.  “If you come back in a year from now, this will look very different,” according to the school's Professor of Theology. The church itself is being called a chapel, and will bear the name Wilhelm Löhe Chapel.  Next to it is a school building, where the classes will take place.  According to Oil City:

The school’s curriculum includes a heavy focus on Christian culture, mixed with classic liberal arts academic teachings similar to Hillsdale College. The four programs include a pre-seminary for future pastors, a classical school teacher program, a music major and a general Bachelor of Arts, he said. The school is also working with Casper College for two-year trade programs.

There's a lot of interesting things at work here, but they probably deserve comment in a different venue.

Another change occurred here:

Christ United Methodist Church, Casper Wyoming

Another one of the many Casper churches I hadn't gotten around to photographing, Christ United Methodist Church as photographed out my Jeep windshield. 

I don't know the history of this church but it likely dates to the 1950s.  It hasn't always been a Methodist church and in fact was part of a swap by this congregation for another building they had to another denomination as each of their respective buildings worked better for the other.

It's closed.

In both cases, I wonder what happened to the congregations of the churches that closed down.

In another change, the Ukrainian Catholic Mission to Casper now holds its services in the Anglican Church of the Resurrection.

Church of the Resurrection, Casper Wyoming

This church is of a very unusual style for this area, with the only church comparable to it, that I am aware of, being a Methodist church in Wheatland Wyoming.

I do not know the history of this building, but based upon its location, the church must have been built sometime between World War One and 1950. My guess is that it was built in the 1920s, but I do not know for sure.

Currently, this building is occupied by an Anglican Mission church, but it has not always been. Up until relatively recently the church was, I think, a Christian Scientist church. Christian Scientist structures seem to favor this Greek Revival style, as evidenced by the large First Christian Scientist church in Denver.

This is a really interesting decision on its part, and I'd like to know more of the background to it.

The Ukrainian Catholic Church is fully part of the Catholic Church, which makes me wonder why the Ukrainian mission doesn't hold its services in one of Casper's three Catholic Churches.  It might simply be because those parishes are so busy already.  The Ukrainian Mission seems to hold Divine Liturgy mid afternoon on Saturday's (which at least for the Latin Rite, wouldn't serve a vigil mass) and that would definitely conflict with the Reconciliation schedules for all three Latin Rite churches.  

The choice of an Anglican Church, however, is interesting as Anglicans tend to believe that they're part of the Catholic Church as well, which they are not.  It's not surprising that they'd offer their structure accordingly, and the architecture of this church would somewhat lend to an Eastern Rite service.

Let's start with, maybe, the easy one, the closure of the Baptist Church.

There are other Baptist Churches in Casper, so it's not as if the Baptist have disappeared, but to have the first Baptist Church go away, particularly a downtown Church, is fairly phenomenal.  Looking at the number in Casper, however, I doubt that this reflects any major demographic change.  The church is fairly small inside and being located downtown, it was likely not the first choice for a lot of Casper's Baptists.  It is also an old structure, and those are hard to keep up.

It's 1949 construction made sense, but frankly, it's closure a few years ago does as well.  I've actually been a bit surprised that a nearby Lutheran Church hasn't closed, but it seems to be doing well.   That would be this church here:

Our Savior's Lutheran Church, Casper Wyoming

Our Savior's Lutheran Church is on the same block as the First Baptist Church, also pictured on this blog. This is the smallest of the downtown churches, with an interior area that is relatively small in this traditionally styled church.

The church was built in 1950, one year after the First Baptist Church on the same block. This construction is late compared to other downtown Casper churches.

In 2014 this church added a sculpture, as part of a Boy Scout Eagle Scout project which is a Maltese Cross if viewed from the side, but is the Ichthys symbol if viewed straight on. Very nice addition.

Many years ago I defended a lawsuit in which a bicyclist was injured when the cap came off of his mountain bike shocks while riding down the stairs that are on the back of this church. The defendant was a bicycle shop, not the church.

Updated:  December 7, 2014.

Maybe the fact that this Lutheran Church seems to be doing well and the Baptist structure and school were available explains the new Lutheran college opening up on that location.

Casper, it might be noted, already had a Lutheran K through 12 school, Mt. Hope.  Somehow, I have failed to photograph that church, which I'll need to correct.  

I don't think of Casper being a big Lutheran town, but there are in fact several.  I've known various individuals who are Lutherans here, so maybe they were just sort of flying under the wire, or not very noisy, so to speak.  But they are here, and are represented by two synods.  

Of those I've known who are Lutherans here, if I know them well, most of them had roots in the prairie states.  Nebraska, North Dakota, etc. That makes sense as well.  I think of those states as having sizable Lutheran populations due to German and Scandinavian immigrant populations of prior decades.

The new Lutheran college here notes that it has a Hillsdale related program.    Hillsdale has become a force in really conservative education.  It's centered on programs developed by Hillsdale College in Michigan, that being a Baptist college, but like the Boy Scouts of America in its day, Hillsdale programs seem to be capable of being adapted to any conservative religious group.  

Casper's Wyoming Classical Academy, a charter school in Casper (state funded) is a Hillsdale elementary school.  The school district here already had Casper Classical Academy as a middle school, and one of the elementary schools in our school of choice system has a reputation as being so socially conservative that you'll frequently here people refer to it as the "public private religious school".

No religious education can take place in a public school, of course, but when you look at the backers of these schools, there's a strong religious element to it, although the students aren't the members of any one religion, and some probably aren't members of any religion in particular.  The new charter school had a pretty strong Mormon backing and its interesting to note that the LDS do not seem to have grade schools of their own.  Lots of religions do, and as noted the Lutherans have one in Casper, K-12.  The Catholic Tri Parish has a large K-9 school, probably the biggest Christian school in town.  A non denominational Christian school, Paradise Valley (named for the subdivision, and the Paradise Valley Christian Church which sponsors it, has been in existence since 1978.

Anyhow, Hillsdale has a "great books" theme to it, and that makes me a bit nervous.  I'm odd, as a social conservative, that while I think the great books are important, I fear such educations may be limiting, and intentionally so.

I'd note that Wyoming Catholic College in Lander also has a great books, or classical education, focus.

Stepping away from the religious aspect of this, for a second, part of this fits into the warp and woof of the times.  Lots of populist who think they're conservatives are only cultural American Christians, in reality.  Indeed, at least one couple I know that are sending their children to the WCC never darkened the door of a church while I knew them.  I'm sure they regard themselves as Christian, but in the American sense where your Christianity really doesn't have to burden you.  A lot of American Christians fit into that category.

Looked at this way, the outright religious schools may be a very positive trend.  The problem with secular schools taking the Hillsdale route is that without a religious element to the education, it really makes no sense.  You can't instill values based on values.  A philosophy that lacks the existential is just a bunch of opinions, in other words.

Conversely, I worry about the education at the k-12 level being much to narrow, and perhaps even a bit propagandistic.  I don't worry about that with schools sponsored by the Apostolic Faiths, as its demonstratively not that way.  But this isn't necessarily the case with every religion backed school either.

Anyhow, all this fits into the same trend that home schooling does.  Starting as a reaction to educational environments in the 1970s, in part due to a decay in schools in some places, and in part due to the advancement of science which was reflected in science teaching in schools, this movement really spread in recent years.  Wyoming's schools have always been excellent, but even here there was a reaction and an underlying feeling in some quarters that teachers had "liberal" or "progressive" views they were foisting on children.  There's really no evidence of this in the state, but it's even reached up in some quarters into the state's sole university where you have a few student activists that are convinced all of their teachers are Karl Marx.

Well, what about the Methodist Church closing?

Methodist in general don't get much notice here.

There's a really big Methodist church in downtown Casper and I think its the only Methodist Church in Casper now.

First United Methodist Church, Casper Wyoming

This church is located completely downtown, across from the Natrona County Public Library. It's exterior is deceptive in that the church is not as large as it might appear, as the church building includes interior rooms used by the church. The church itself is joined to a new meeting area off to the right.

Two tones of brick featured on the church suggest that it might have been built in two stages, or perhaps three, but I do not know this to be the case. The corner stone gives three dates, with the first being 1907, the second 1927, and the third 1951, so presumably this was the case.

That church was built as early as 1907 and then expanded twice more, the last time in the 1950s, so it must have been doing fairly well, but Methodist could never have had the sort of numbers that the Lutherans obviously have or had, or that the Episcopalians have or had.  And that makes sense, really, as the Methodists are, originally, an offshoot of the Anglican Communion.  That they ever had a second church is a little surprising, and it probably reflects population expansion.

I've known just a handful of Methodists over the years.  Some are people that I'm related to, and they weren't really practicing Methodists.  I think in their case, although I don't know for sure, that was due to the matriarch of the family who had moved in from Nebraska.  Living a very rural life, like a lot of Wyoming ranch families, religious observation was sparse.

The only other Methodist I can think of was the daughter of the pastor at the church depicted above.  She was really nice, but sort of a wild kid, so it was a surprise to realize that her father was the pastor.

Anyhow, the closure of the noted Methodist church in this story here really probably is demographic.  The Episcopal Church continent wide has been suffering parishioner loss, and that's likely what happened here.

Whatever the story is elsewhere, and some of it may have jumped the shark, that doesn't seem to be happening to the Lutherans or the unaffiliated Protestants here locally.  

Nor to the Anglicans, whose numbers are small, but which are still large enough to support two churches.  That's interesting.

Conservative by their very nature, the fact that one of the two Anglican Churches would host the Ukrainian Orthodox Church makes some sense in an odd way.  Anglicans of this type generally believe that they are Catholic.  Depending on the approach that they take, some believe themselves to be sort of a church in seperation, like the Orthodox Churches are, while some believe that they're fully Catholic. The Catholic Church, of course, does not so regard them. Where this church in particular fits in, I don't know.  Sort of interestingly, I knew, sort of the Episcopal Priest who left St. Mark's downtown in order to form this congregation, which he could no longer reconcile his positions with the Episcopal Church, and therefore I know that he was raised as a Lutheran.  Some Lutherans are not only very conservative, but they approach the views, but don't quite make them, of the Anglicans in their concept of where they fit in the overall "one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic  Church", spectrum.  Indeed, as I've noted somewhere, the most "Catholic" homily I've ever heard at a wedding was by a very blunt Lutheran minister.

Church of the Holy Family, Anglican Church, Casper Wyoming.

This is the first church we've added from South Casper. There are several churches in this district, which border being outside of the city limits, and in one case actually are outside the city limits.

This is the Anglican Church of the Holy Family. It's a log structure, a not uncommon style in Wyoming but this one, from the exterior, lacks some of the features we'd normally expect on a church.

Generally, as this blog is limited to architecture, and not theology or doctrine, no comment has been made on those topics anywhere here on this blog. Here a slight exception will be made as while this church is officially called the Church of the Holy Family, the sign for the church points to "Holy Family Anglican Catholic Church". This is not a Roman Catholic Church, and is not claiming to be one, nor is it a Catholic Church featuring "Anglican Use". As those who have followed these topics are aware, some formally Episcopal or Anglican parishes have come into the Roman Catholic church with the "Anglican Use", i.e., preserving the Book of Common Prayer.

This is a bit of a confusing topic, but generally what this story reflects is the development of a centuries old dispute in the Episcopal Church about the degree to which the Episcopal Church claims to be Protestant, or Catholic. The dispute is an internal one, and the Episcopal Church is not regarded as Catholic by any of the Catholic Rites nor by the Catholic Church itself. The Episcopal dispute has become particularly acute in recent years, resulting in some formerly Episcopal churches separating themselves with the distinction of naming themselves Anglican or Anglican Catholic, thereby signalling that they view themselves as looking to the theology of the Catholic Church rather than to Protestant theologies and that they regard developments in the Episcopal Church in chief (or the Anglican Communion in chief) sufficient distressing that they are separating from what would otherwise be the local Bishops, and aligning themselves with Bishops who hold their views. In Casper, this has lead to the interesting situation in which there are now two Anglican churches, (the other being the Church of the Resurrection) but they are not aligned with the same Bishops.

This note was added not to enter this dispute, but so as to make sure that this entry isn't confusing for Anglicans, should they stop by, nor for Catholics, should they stop by, as this Church is not regarded as a Catholic Church by Catholics, and it is one of two Anglican Churches in Casper.

Having said that, one thing I've never been able to quite grasp about the Anglicans is why they don't just become Catholic.  Their services are very close to the Latin Rite's and they very clearly believe that being an Apostolic Church is not only a good thing, but necessary, just as the Catholics and Orthodox do.  I guess the answer is that they firmly believe that they are, but you would think that they'd wish to resolve any doubt, particularly as there's now a way to do that and preserve those things uniquely Anglican, like the Common Book of Prayer, within the Catholic Church.

Anyhow, Casper has two Episcopal Churches as well as the Episcopal Diocesan headquarters, and then two Anglican Churches as well.  It's interesting that there are more Lutheran churches than Episcopal ones, but one of the Episcopal churches is a very large church.  The Episcopal Church, of course, has suffered from demographic attrition in recent decades which its split is part of, in that it was at one time the major Mainline Protestant church in the country, and the church in which monied people were most likely to be found.  As it moved to the left culturally over the last couple of decades its parishioners have left it.

Novemdiales

We, or at least the Apostolic Christian world, is in the Novemdiales, that being a nine day period of mourning which commenced yesterday, with the funeral Mass for Pope Francis.

The whole world is also in the period of rampaging inaccurate punditry about who will be the next Pope.

Nobody knows who is going to be the next Pope.  It could be one of the people mentioned, or might be somebody nobody has ever heard of.  Even if it is somebody nobody has every heard of, the Press will pretend like they've heard of him after the fact.

It's also a series of days in which anti Catholics will increasingly attack the Catholic Church, with those attacks being particularly strong in the United States, and particularly coming from both secular atheists and a certain branch of Evangelical Protestants, although certainly not all of them by any means.  I've already seen one such post loudly complaining that the whole world takes note of a passing Pope while the death of a local pastor is ignored.

Well, there's a reason for that.

The speculation will continue until the shoes of the fisherman are filled, and his seat taken.  During the interregnum the speculation will be rampant, and it will be for a time thereafter as well.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Related Threads:

From City Father:

What's Next?

"Do not be led astray: 'Bad company corrupts good morals.' Trump, Putin and American Evangelicals.

Note:  This was originally drafted in February, 2024 and not posted.  In looking for something else, I can back across it.

It'll be timely for another post I'm working on. 

St. King Abgar V, an Arab, and the first Christian King.  He died approximatley in 50 A.D.  He adopted Christianity at a time it was a minorit religion and not exactly popular.  Putin and Trump are not like him.

Do not be led astray:

“Bad company corrupts good morals.”

St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 15.

Back in the AnteCovid days which now seem like a lost world, I'd sometimes run into neo monarchist on Reddit, usually due to participating on the Distributist Sub Reddit.  I quit participating there prior to the epidemic, as the discussions were really not worth participating in. Distributism is a modern economic system in its own right, but the sub tended to be populated by people who romanticized the Middle Ages, or who were Socialist trying to view everything as Socialism. An awful lot of the discussion looked like it was being conducted by 15-year-olds hiding in their parent's basements.

Emperor Charles I of Austria, who has been beatified.

Among the real goofball discussions were those by monarchist.  I didn't realize up until then that there are people today who long for a return of monarchy, but there are. Their typical logic was that monarchs are needed as they set the moral tone for the nation.

St. Stephen of Hungary, a Hungarian king from 1000 to 1038.  He outlived all of his children and died at about age 62.  His wife Gisela has been beatified, and one of his children is also canonized.

Hah.

Apparently these people know nothing of real monarchs, as plenty failed to live a moral life.  There are very notable exceptions, some of which appear here, but they are indeed the exception that proves the rule.  There's the entire problem of attacking your neighbor as you want his lands, of course, but beyond that monarchs tended to be pretty icky. It's hard to find an example of kings who didn't have mistresses, or worse. One early English king seems to have had a habit of basically sacking convents and raping nuns, which is really weird.  A joke about a later one is that when he went to Monaco on vacation, the children ran out and yelled "papa" as he was just that.  A Norman Christian king in Sicily kept Muslim women as concubines, to the extent that he was known as The Christian Sultan.  One French king was so randy as a teenage prince that concubines were acquired to satisfy his pre marital urges.

King Henry VIII who definitely was not a saint.

And of course there's King Henry VIII

Even really admired ones often were problematic this way.  King Charles the Great was accorded the title "blessed" for valid reasons, but Charles had at least fourteen mistresses during his lifetime and was rebuked by a noted churchman for still having an eye for the ladies well into old age.  He died, I'd note, at age 72.  King Cnut set his first wife aside to marry another when he became king, which was perhaps justified at the time by the fact that his first wife, a very able administrator, was a pagan and he was a Christian.  Harold Godwinson, whom some in the Orthodox faith regard as a saint, put aside his first wife, Edith the Fair, in favor of Edith of Mercia, for political reasons, although legend has it that Edith the Fair was present at Hastings and identified his body.  Czar Nicholas II who has been canonized in the Russian Orthodox Church for being a martyr shared, in his early years, the same mistress that his brother had.

The imperial household of Czar Nicholas II.

On the latter, I'm not meaning to cast stones at these people's virtues.  Czar Nicholas, for example, seems to have grown more devout after his marriage.  Charles the Great spent his last months fasting and contemplating King Harold Godwinson's first marriage was complicated by the means of its contracting, and his second may have been merely political.  I only note all of this as the silly devotion on Reddit to monarchy, with some of the silliness being extended to some academics, is just that, romantic silliness.

And then we have the bizarre ongoing devotion, in some Christian circles, to viewing Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump as saviors of Christian society.

What on earth?

This seems to have all started with the devotion that developed to Viktor Orbán in the same circles.  Orbán is the champion of illiberal democracy and is blunt in his concept that Hungary is a Hungarian nationality, Christian, nation.  Hungary has not collapsed into an authoritarian state as is sometimes claimed, but it's become one run by a far right nation under a party that espouses Christian Nationalism and Illiberal Democracy.  Orbán is a serious Christian, although interestingly he's a Hungarian Calvinist.  His wife is Catholic, as are most Hungarians, and their children were raised Catholic.  

Orbán is an authoritarian by nature, although democracy is still functioning in Hungary, and he's an admirer of Putin.  I think that's where the American Evangelical fascination with Putin came from.

Putin is effectively a murderer, which is widely known.  His murders come through the state, of course.  Before he rose up in post Communist Russia, he was an employee of the KGB.  His marriage to his only wife, Lyudmila Putin, ended in divorce in 2014.  His been carrying on an affair with retired Russian gymnast Alina Kabaeva since prior to the divorce date, by all indications, and seems to have borne two children through the union.

Putin is at least nominally Russian Orthodox, but its hard to see it being much more than that.  The Russian Orthodox Church as revived as a major Russian institution since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Putin has been careful to seem to be close to Metropolitan Kirill, its head.  The Metropolitan has his own checkered history, as he is rumored to have had a relationship with the KGB in the Soviet Union era.  Metropolitan Kirill is extremely conservative, which is not inappropriate for the head of an Apostolic Church, and Putin has been on at least some social issues as well.  This may simply be Putin's own views, or in part it may be an effort to keep the good graces of the Russian Orthodox Church.  Russia has been, for example, very restrictive in regard to homosexuality.

All of this leads some American Christians to believe that Putin is acting as the bulwark against the corruption of the decline of Western values, but if so, he's doing it in a very corrupt way which inclined killing people.  And Putin seems to have adopted the monarch's view that he can do no wrong, to include invading the territory of Russia's neighbors, assassinations, and sleeping with a woman who much junior than his former wife.

And for American Evangelicals, it might be noted that the Russian government is actually pretty repressive towards non-Orthodox religions, particularly those that depart significantly from the main line of their branches. This has included Evangelical Protestants and the Jehovah Witnesses.  This makes this one of those interesting areas in which some American Evangelicals have adopted as hero a culture which really doesn't have any sympathy for their views.

And then there's Donald Trump.

A large group of American Evangelicals have taken on the view that Donald Trump is their man, with some going much further than that.  Ironically, evidence of him every actually practicing his faith, Presbyterianism, is pretty hard to find.

Trump is a serial polygamist, for one thing.  In spite of American Protestantism and the American Civil Religion having come to fully accept divorce and remarriage, Christianity doesn't, and people who pretend otherwise are adopting something that's fully contrary to Christian tenants.  As the Stormy Daniel affair reveals, Trump isn't beyond some really base sexual conduct.  We won't even get into the allegations of other conduct. By Christian beliefs, bare minimum, Trump lives in a state of outward moral sin, which might be reduced by the doctrine of "invincible ignorance".

Trump is also a liar, cast aspersions against other people, and calls them degrading names.  Lying, at least in classic Christian theology, can rise to the level of a mortal sin.  

For years and years, the dominant Christian faith in the American South as been the Baptist. 

Why is that?

The American Civil War had a lot to do with it.

Prior to the Civil War, in much of the South, the dominant church was the Episcopal Church.  Its roots reached back to the Colonist and back to England.  Most Colonist, as colonization really got rolling, were members of the Anglican Church, although other Protestant denominations were included, most notably the Presbyterian Church, the Church of Scotland, which was the dominant faith for Scots immigrants.

Leonidas Polk, Confederate General and Episcopal Bishop.  He was killed by Union artillery in 1864 at age 58.

Going into the Civil War, the Episcopal Churchmen of the South largely backed the Confederacy.  One Confederate General was an Episcopal Bishop.

The South had always had a fair number of itinerant preachers who were not Episcopal Priest.  While the Episcopal Church seemed to be backing the Southern cause during the war, the itinerant preachers were warning of doom and God's judgment.  The result of the war seemed to prove them right.

The point is, the Southern cause was corrupt and disgusting from a moral prospective from the onset.  Backing corruption, in the end, corrupts.

Bad company corrupts good morals.

This will have a bad end for Evangelicals, and for those of other faiths following the same path.  But particularly for Evangelicals.  For one thing, they are the only religions denomination that's so heavily invested in Trump.  Not other religion, Christian or otherwise, is.

Secondly, the "mainline" Protestant denominations are not only not invested in Trump, they've already sustained their demographic blows by compromising with the leftward drift of culture.  That's split them in many instances, and where it has not, people have voted with their feet. The Episcopal Church, for example, once the Church of the economic elite, is in severe trouble.

The Catholic Church, by comparison, has actually remained stable in numbers in the US, but it should be growing.  The scandals of the earliest 21st Century served the accidental purpose, however, if making its younger adherants, including clerics, more orthodox and conservative, and more "other".  Younger clerics speak as if they're at a last stand, which they really are not, or as if they're the first missionairies into pagan culture.  Nobody is looks upon any current political leader as a Catholic standard bearor, most particularly Catholics.

No, it is some of the Evangelical and Culturally Christian Americans who have adopted Trump with zeal, seemingly thinking of him as a sort of Protectant Knights Templar out to do battle.

When he fails, and he will, as this time he will be unrestrained, they will share the failure, and the consequences of it.