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Ralph Martin Gets the Boot
From his seminary position, no less:
Two prominent theologians who critiqued what they saw as doctrinal ambiguity under the late Pope Francis have been fired from their longtime posts at the Archdiocese of Detroit’s major seminary by the local archbishop, the Register has confirmed.
Archbishop Edward Weisenburger removed Ralph Martin and Eduardo Echeverria from their positions at Sacred Heart Major Seminary on July 23, both theologians told the Register separately.
In a statement to Renewal, the Catholic charismatic apostolate founded and led by Martin, the theologian described his sudden termination as “a shock,” noting his 23 years of contributions to the seminary. He wrote that when he asked Archbishop Weisenburger for an explanation, the Detroit ordinary “said he didn’t think it would be helpful to give any specifics but mentioned something about having concerns about my theological perspectives.”
First, I think it’s a stretch to characterise Ralph Martin as a “theologian.” Such a title implies that he thinks through problems for solutions, and Martin spent too much time in “headship” mode during his years in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (where I came to know of him) to merit that moniker.
I’m pretty sure at the core of this dispute–his new Archbishop is an acolyte of the previous Occupant of the see of St. Peter–is his position on people going to Hell:
Martin frequently cited what he regarded as a lack of clarity in Pope Francis’ teaching, and wrote in his 2021 book A Church in Crisis that the then-pope was “reluctant to dispel” ambiguity, which was “almost a hallmark” of Francis’ approach. Following Pope Francis’ Jan. 14, 2024, statement that he liked “to think of hell as empty,” Martin penned a commentary in the Register arguing that the pope’s comments were “extremely damaging,” and played into “a widespread sympathy” toward universalism, the heretical belief that all are saved.
I commented on Ralph Martin’s position in my post Winning the Lost is Better Than Counting Them. Martin is one of those people who, unlike the reverends peres Jesuites, thinks that Hell will be full. He was into it with Larry Chapp. I interjected with a quote from Bossuet to the effect that we should spend more time worrying about our own destiny and not obsess with others, adding that Bossuet in general is “more in a pastoral and soul winning frame of reference.” Chapp characterised that as sub-Christian.
Say what you will about Ralph Martin, he’s doubtless done more through his evangelistic efforts to send fewer to Hell and more to Heaven than Chapp has. And that probably is what got him the boot: people who see many going to Hell are motivated to change that while people who don’t are not. And happily I believe that Bossuet will be remembered long after Martin, Chapp and this archbishop are gone.
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Will the Anglicans Ever Figure it Out About the Blessed Mother?
I didn’t mean for it to be a response, but while putting together my post Mary, Protestant and Catholic the North American Anglican was busy with this topic with two posts:
- Mary in the Anglican Tradition by William Jenkins; and
- Another Look at St. Mary the Virgin in the Anglican Tradition by Richard Tarsitano, which is a response to the first
Let me make one serious observation before trying to sort things out: Tarsitano is right that the 1940 Hymnal (or any other hymnal) isn’t a good way to establish doctrine. I was raised on same and I can attest that some of the hymns are magnificent, but some of them are real duds. One of them turned up in another NAA piece The Confession–St. Peter’s Day, when Andrew Brashier cited “They Cast Their Nets in Galilee” (#437.) This hymn, underneath its pious tone, is one of the most sour assessments of Christian sacrifice ever penned, which may explain why George Conger prefers givebacks over renunciation. As I noted when I posted the album Frederick Gere and Milton Williams: The Winds of God, it is “my unfavourite hymn.”
With that out of the way, both of these posts leave the same impression: for a part of Christianity which is supposed to be based on reason, Scripture and tradition, the first two get the short shrift. I think that’s one reason why I swam the Tiber: in addition to the endless fence riding and Anglican fudge, most Episcopal divines were content to either appeal to the aesthetic or, as one of them put it more recently, “tinker with the Prayer Book.” Roman Catholicism, when it isn’t hindered by the likes of the last Occupant of the See of Peter, has answers, many right, some wrong, but answers.
In Mary, Protestant and Catholic the dissertation’s author does a good job looking at the issue from a Scriptural standpoint, which would advance the debate a good deal. I think we need to focus on two central issues to get to the bottom of this: why it was important for Jesus to be born of a virgin, and why we need an additional patronage in our heavenly relationships.
Let’s start with the first, and a good place to start is Aquinas (Summa, III q.28 a.1):
I answer that, We must confess simply that the Mother of Christ was a virgin in conceiving for to deny this belongs to the heresy of the Ebionites and Cerinthus, who held Christ to be a mere man, and maintained that He was born of both sexes.
It is fitting for four reasons that Christ should be born of a virgin. First, in order to maintain the dignity or the Father Who sent Him. For since Christ is the true and natural Son of God, it was not fitting that He should have another father than God: lest the dignity belonging to God be transferred to another.
Secondly, this was befitting to a property of the Son Himself, Who is sent. For He is the Word of God: and the word is conceived without any interior corruption: indeed, interior corruption is incompatible with perfect conception of the word. Since therefore flesh was so assumed by the Word of God, as to be the flesh of the Word of God, it was fitting that it also should be conceived without corruption of the mother.
Thirdly, this was befitting to the dignity of Christ’s humanity in which there could be no sin, since by it the sin of the world was taken away, according to John 1:29: “Behold the Lamb of God” (i.e. the Lamb without stain) “who taketh away the sin of the world.” Now it was not possible in a nature already corrupt, for flesh to be born from sexual intercourse without incurring the infection of original sin. Whence Augustine says (De Nup. et Concup. i): “In that union,” viz. the marriage of Mary and Joseph, “the nuptial intercourse alone was lacking: because in sinful flesh this could not be without fleshly concupiscence which arises from sin, and without which He wished to be conceived, Who was to be without sin.”
Fourthly, on account of the very end of Incarnation of Christ, which was that men might be born again as sons of God, “not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13), i.e. of the power of God, of which fact the very conception of Christ was to appear as an exemplar. Whence Augustine says (De Sanct. Virg.): “It behooved that our Head, by a notable miracle, should be born, after the flesh, of a virgin, that He might thereby signify that His members would be born, after the Spirit, of a virgin Church.”
Although Aquinas goes on to defend many typically Catholic positions on the Blessed Virgin (but not the Immaculate Conception) this is a good place to start. Neither of the NAA articles really tackle this issue with any kind of precision. It’s true that one thing the Reformation sought to achieve (and in England that was given a boost by the closing of the monasteries) was to get away from the idea that only celibate people were really full-on Christians. Our hypersexualised era–not unlike in some ways that into which Our Lord came–should give us more sympathy than it does with a society that wanted to get past sexual activity–with or without the goal of procreation–as the sine qua non of life. We for our part have allowed a Mormon-style “waist down religion” to creep into our churches. Neither of these extremes is justified by the New Testament, but the Virgin Birth was the first sign that we really were getting a new and better way.
This brings me to the second point: do we really need another intermediary between ourselves and God? This gets to the whole issue of Mary and the other saints as “patrons” delivering our requests as clients to our “Emperor.” The whole idea of patron saints and their intercession was a combination of two things: a concession to the polytheistic culture and an integration of Roman political concepts into the life of the Church. Especially with the latter I will offer the What the Britons Thought of Pelagius and Grace, especially relevant to those who see the Church of England as a continuation of the British church.
I think that the people of the “three-legged stool” of reason, tradition and Scripture need to make sure all three legs are in good shape, otherwise they will find themselves flat on the floor.
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Mary, Protestant and Catholic
In my wanderings on X I was directed towards an interesting document: Who Is My Mother? The Role and Status of the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament and in Roman Catholicism by one E. Svendsen. It’s especially interesting for me since his first degree came from Tennessee Temple University/University of Tennessee at Knoxville. I doubt that he, sitting in class at Temple, had any idea of the heartburn the whole subject of Mary caused the Catholic Charismatic renewal not so far from where he was getting his education. I plan to take this in a personal direction, but I don’t want to avoid the bigger picture: the matter of the Mother of God, more than any other single issue, divides Roman Catholics and Protestants, and that divide is about as gaping as the one between the rich man and Lazarus.
In the Scriptures? So What?
Svendsen’s central purpose is to show that the Roman Catholic concept of Mary is at odds with that presented in the Scriptures. As is the custom with seminary academics and those adjacent thereto, he gets lost in the weeds from time to time, but his case is basically sound. It is at its best when he deals with Mary’s appearances in the Gospel narratives after Our Lord’s birth; she could not grasp the radical nature of who he was and what he was doing and teaching, that only becoming fully evident after his Resurrection. She wasn’t alone; that ignorance permeated his other disciples as well. In his discussion of Mark 3:21-35, Svendsen discusses Jesus’ rebuff of his mother and his brothers; a Mary who had divine wisdom as the Roman Catholics posit would have never put herself in the position of such a rebuff. (This also shows that Mary did not grasp the superseding of blood relationships with the formation of the Christian church in the blood of Jesus Christ, something I’ve seen repeated from my own home church to the maudlin sentimentality of Scots-Irish evangelicals.)
Such arguments, however, will fall on deaf Roman Catholic ears, as their response will be simple: the Tradition of an infallible church and Pope say otherwise. Svendsen does investigate the witness of the Fathers, but in doing so he runs into Bossuet’s objection: at what point in history do you stop agreeing with the Fathers and the Church? But that’s a two-edged sword, by their own admission Peter was entrusted to preserve the deposit of faith, does contradicting the Scriptures accomplish that? Of course not, we are at an impasse.
The Days of Wine and Vatican II
At the start of his work, Svensden notes the following:
Küng and Moltmann, relating the events at Vatican II (1962-1965), inform us that the proposal to draw up a separate document on Mary was rejected by a slim majority of the council (1,114 votes to 1,074), and Marian doctrine was instead incorporated within the larger Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium). The council further “explicitly warned against Marian exaggerations” (1983:vii). Since that time Marian emphasis has waned considerably from the excesses found in the period just prior to the council. McKenzie witnesses to this same phenomenon when he says: “When I studied theology nearly fifty years ago, my professor said that this belief [Mary as Mediatrix of all grace] was ripe for dogmatic definition [by the pope]; now it has fallen into the Marian silence.” (1983:4).
The source he refers to is the work Mary in the churches, the 1983 compendium edited by Hans Küng and Jürgen Moltmann. It was the work of advocates of a more moderate role for Mary, but as we will see, the view from the pew is that by 1983 they were fighting a rear-guard action. One of the contributors was John McKenzie, to whom I refer frequently on this blog and whose works The Two-Edged Sword and The Power and the Wisdom I have found life-altering. Svensden’s inclusion of material like this is one of the few admissions by a Protestant I’ve run across that adoration of Mary has ever slacked off in the Roman Catholic Church, but I am a witness to the contrary.
My first Mass was on Mother’s Day 1972 at St. Edward’s Catholic Church in Palm Beach. Sitting a few rows behind the place where Jack Kennedy knelt with his family when in town, I was regaled by two things: the Novus Ordo Missae, which was for me a positive, and one of the schmaltziest, saccharine sermons I have heard from any pulpit, where the priest related our own mothers to Our Mother–Mary. That didn’t go down too well; if I had been force to endure more of those, I might not have swam the Tiber. Two parishes later I was at a parish where my parish priest received me into the Roman Catholic Church and seldom an Ave Maria was heard in Latin or English. (He also introduced me to John McKenzie and G.K. Chesterton.) That lack of Marian devotion continued through my years in university and up until I left for the two and a half year ordeal at First Baptist Church.
Much of the nonchalant attitude towards Our Lady was part and parcel with a post-Vatican II belief that the Catholic Church, like a house lived in for a long time, had accumulated a lot of clutter and that it was necessary to clean the house to make it better to inhabit. Marian devotions and prayer weren’t the only thing in the crosshairs (one only needs to recall striking St. Christopher from the calendar because we had no evidence he actually existed) but they were high on the list.
When I returned to Roman Catholicism in 1981 things were different. In the intervening time the new Pope John Paul II had gotten up to speed and my Catholic Charismatic prayer group had split–bitterly so–over Marian devotions. (I found out later we weren’t alone.) The two were related. Vatican II had laid out what were on paper fairly restrictive conditions for ecumenical activity. In the chaos that followed Vatican II, these could be ignored, and the Catholic Charismatic Renewal did so with gusto. (That includes the community of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.) Marian devotions could not be cast aside so casually, and the Church under John Paul II used them as a “wedge issue” to enforce what Protestants would call “denominational distinctives” and get the non-Catholic people out of the Renewal. It’s not an understatement that the Catholic Charismatic Renewal would have never gotten off the ground if the Church had enforced Marian spirituality in the 1960’s the way they did in the 1980’s.
So (Where) Do We Go From Here?
At this point this state of affairs–which has continued under both Benedict XVI and Francis–is pretty much reduced to missal attacks (I saw this delightful autocorrect misspelling on X) on social media. It’s tempting to think that Leo XIV, a product of a low period in Marian enthusiasm, might relent and take a more moderate course on the subject, but I wouldn’t count on it. Marian devotions have support in the Church across the spectrum, and priests and bishops have in them a useful weapon to keep the faithful in line.
McKenzie mentioned earlier the business of Mary as the Mediatrix of all graces. If Leo really wants the nuclear option on this topic, he only needs to proclaim ex cathedra that she is the co-Redemptrix along with her Son. There are difficult theological problems with that position which exceed those of the Immaculate Conception, but we got that, and there’s a steady undertow in favour of it. Such a move would put paid to much of the dialogue between Catholics and Protestants, which would be painful for those who are engaged in it, but that’s life.
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Why Israel had no choice—Unherd
One person is responsible for Israel’s attack on Iran: Rafael Mariano Grossi, the Argentine director general of the International Atomic Energy …
Why Israel had no choice -
Revival Then, Revival Now: The Second Great Awakening and Megachurches
Critics argue that megachurches use fog machines, loud music, and colored lights to create an experience that will make people feel emotionally and spiritually moved. Many argue that these emotional atmospheres are intended to make people feel emotionally connected with God and emphasize feelings of spirituality over issues of doctrine. Others accuse megachurches of attempting to create an emotional atmosphere where people feel guilty about their sin and feel pressured into salvation.
If these are indeed the intended aims of megachurch atmospheres, there are striking resemblances to the camp revival meetings of the Second Great Awakening (SGA).
A few years ago (many, actually) I read Charles Finney’s Revivals of Religion. After reading that I wondered why anyone bothered with writing another book on the subject. It is the playbook for revivalistic Christianity.
I think the motivation to write other books is an attempt by our ministers to look original when in fact originality isn’t their strong suit. (My use of the phrase “our ministers” is in itself a loan from Finney.)
The one weak point in Finney’s playbook is the lack of a really clear method of personal evangelism. That has been solved with methods such as are presented in Evangelism Explosion. Those methods have been criticised also (some thing don’t change) but the problem with them now is that they presuppose pre-evangelism and pre-discipleship by a culture that no longer does either. This is why we’re seeing a shift to methods that emphasise relationship building and pre-discipleship. Big-meeting and megachurch revivalists may minimise the impact of these methods, but when we get into a culture where large-scale evangelism becomes difficult, they’re our only option.
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In What Sense the Eucharist is a Sacrifice [Commentary on Browne: Article XXXI]–North American Anglican, With Necessary Commentary
As is their custom, Anglicans tend to use a complicated explanation for a Eucharistic doctrine when a simple one will do. I laid out the simpler explanation in my post Why I Don’t Agree With the Concept of the “Sacrifice of the Mass” :
Tying the real presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist and the perpetuity of all things in God, the question remains: is the Mass a sacrifice in and of itself, or it is the re-enactment and/or extension of the original sacrifice? The scripture makes that answer clear:
But, this priest, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, which should serve for all time, ‘took his seat at the right hand of God,’ and has since then been waiting ‘for his enemies to be put as a stool for his feet.’ By a single offering he has made perfect for all time those who are being purified. (Hebrews 10:12-14, TCNT)
Given that there is only one sacrifice, and that the nature of this sacrifice is unique, the Mass must be an integral extension of the original sacrifice.
Roman Catholicism’s presentation of the concept of the “Sacrifice of the Mass,” however, is at best confusing and at worst misleading.
Part of the problem is unwittingly pointed out by Kim herself:
…Our Saviour did sacrifice Himself once on the cross, but also on the night of the last supper, made a new covenant which is Himself, in the sacrifice of His Sacred body and blood…
Are we talking about one sacrifice or two? Our Lord’s institution of the Eucharist must be seen in totality and in unity with his sacrifice on the Cross. The whole core of the salvific history, starting at the Upper Room and going through the Passion and death to the Resurrection, must be seen from a theological standpoint as one event. The making of the New Covenant not only refers to the Last Supper but to the Cross itself. Pushed to its limit, calling the Mass a sacrifice per se implies that Jesus Christ is sacrificed on the Cross again each time, and this is unacceptable. Putting the emphasis on the relationship (which certainly exists) of the Mass and the Last Supper doesn’t solve the dilemma.
And this, I might point out, is an answer to a Roman Catholic, not an Anglican. Some further illumination on this topic can be found at John Chrysostom on the Sacrifice of the Mass.
Let me take this opportunity to address an idea floating around that, when Jesus is referred to as the “Host” of the Eucharist, he is the host in the same way that someone hosts a dinner party. I’m sure that the language has come full circle on this, but properly the “Host” refers to this, from the Catholic Encyclopedia:
The bread destined to receive Eucharistic Consecration is commonly called the host, and though this term may likewise be applied to the bread and wine of the Sacrifice, it is more especially reserved to the bread.
According to Ovid the word comes from hostis, enemy: “Hostibus a domitis hostia nomen habet”, because the ancients offered their vanquished enemies as victims to the gods. However, it is possible that hostia is derived from hostire, to strike, as found in Pacuvius. In the West the term became general chiefly because of the use made of it in the Vulgate and the Liturgy (Romans 12:1; Philippians 4:18; Ephesians 5:2; Hebrews 10:12; Mabillon, “Liturg. Gall. vetus”, pp. 235, 237, 257; “Missale Mozarab.”, ed. Leslie, p. 39; “Missale Gothicum”, p. 253). It was applied to Christ, the Immolated Victim, and, by way of anticipation, to the still unconsecrated bread destined to become Christ’s Body. In the Middle Ages it was also known as “hoiste”, “oiste”, “oite”.
It is embodied in this well-known hymn, whose initial author is Aquinas:
1 O saving Victim, op’ning wide
The gate of heav’n to us below,
Our foes press on from every side;
Thine aid supply, thy strength bestow.
2 All praise and thanks to thee ascend
Forevermore, blest One in Three;
O grant us life that shall not end
In our true native land with thee.LATIN –
1 O salutaris hostia,
Quae caeli pandis ostium;
Bella premunt hostilia,
Da robur, fer auxilium.
2 Uni trinoque Domino
Sit sempiterna gloria:
Qui vitam sine termino
Nobis donet in patria. -
Liturgical Calendar UnPentecostal? Say It Isn’t So!
This morning I was regaled with a post from ourCOG (whose posts I have reviewed before) entitled “Strange Catholic Days in Pentecostalism.” As is their habit, they’ve evidently cut and paste from other places, it’s two pieces posted in one. To keep things simple I’ll respond to the second. The post itself focuses on Ash Wednesday (little late to the party, ourCOG) but broader issues are discussed there and will be discussed here. They start the second part with this disclaimer:
Here are 10 reasons why some Pentecostals might choose not to observe or honor Ash Wednesday, based on theological, historical, and practical perspectives commonly associated with Pentecostal beliefs and practices. Note that Pentecostalism is diverse, and not all Pentecostals may agree with these reasons, but they reflect viewpoints rooted in the movement’s emphasis on Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and a distinctive approach to worship.
So we’ll take it point by point:
Lack of Biblical Mandate: Pentecostals often emphasize that Ash Wednesday is not explicitly commanded or mentioned in the Bible. Their focus is on adhering strictly to practices with clear scriptural backing, such as baptism or communion, rather than traditions developed later by the church.
That never stopped anyone from coming up with things like Bill Clinton’s Eucharistic Theology: It Depends on What ‘Is’ Is, which Pentecostals inherited from the Baptists. That includes changing the words of institution from the Scriptures to what they think it should mean.
Emphasis on the Holy Spirit Over Ritual: Pentecostals prioritize a direct, spontaneous relationship with God through the Holy Spirit. Ash Wednesday, with its structured liturgy and imposition of ashes, may feel like a ritual that detracts from the freedom and immediacy of Spirit-led worship.
Fun fact: until the 1979 Book of Common Prayer the Anglican/Episcopal world didn’t have a structured liturgy in the prayer book for Ash Wednesday, which is one reason why I prefer the 1928 Book of Common Prayer over that dreadful book. (They did have the Penitential Rite, but the imposition of ashes wasn’t included in that, and it could be used in other places, as is the case with the Litany, where we “beat Satan down under our feet,” a Pentecostal thing to do if there ever was one.) That brings up another important point: if Pentecostals decide to use a prayer book, they need to avoid one which has a ceremony for every life event conceivable or not, which is a fault of the 1979 book. (They also need one with a straightforward lectionary to follow, something that a recent piece in the North American Anglican pointed out.)
Association With Catholicism: Ash Wednesday is strongly tied to Roman Catholic tradition, and many Pentecostals historically distanced themselves from Catholic practices, viewing them as extra-biblical or overly formalistic. This stems from the Protestant roots of Pentecostalism.
This may explain why more Pentecostals are leaning towards Reformed theology these days, they want to be more “Protestant.” I’ve discussed this in relation to Wesley (who had his own prayer book.) If the Reformation was the last word we wouldn’t need modern Pentecost. I’m more aware than most of the deficiencies in the whole Catholic concept of merit.
Focus on Joyful Celebration, Not Mourning: Pentecostals often emphasize victorious living, joy, and the power of the resurrected Christ. Ash Wednesday’s tone of repentance, ashes, and mortality might conflict with their focus on the triumphant, life-giving aspects of faith.
Repentance may not be the most joyful thing we do, but it’s necessary from time to time.
Rejection of Liturgical Calendars: Many Pentecostals do not follow the traditional church calendar (Lent, Advent, etc.), preferring a less structured approach to worship. They may see Ash Wednesday as part of a system that imposes human-made schedules over Spirit-directed spontaneity.
I discussed this issue in my Advent series at North Cleveland Church of God. The ideal of purely spontaneous, unstructured Spirit-directed worship may have been more realised in the past, but the reality we have today is something that is more structured than we would care to admit. Besides, how is it possible for the Spirit to interrupt our plan when we don’t have one?
Belief in Ongoing Repentance: Pentecostals typically teach that repentance is a daily, personal act guided by the Holy Spirit, not confined to a specific day like Ash Wednesday. They might argue that singling out one day for repentance undermines the continuous nature of a believer’s walk with God.
I don’t know of anybody who seriously restricts their repentance to Ash Wednesday or any other day of the year, unless they are deep into Cultural Christianity. In the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, there is a penitential rite in both Morning and Evening Prayer and in the Holy Communion, one of which should be celebrated every day. And that’s more than I can say for just about any worship service order I’ve seen in the Church of God.
Symbolic Ashes Seen as Unnecessary: The use of ashes as a sign of penitence or mortality may be viewed as an unnecessary outward symbol. Pentecostals often prioritize inner transformation and spiritual experiences (like speaking in tongues or healing) over physical symbols or sacraments.
Somebody needs to explain the need for prayer cloths. I would be the first to prioritise inner transformation, which is a key reason why I have doubts about many Eucharistic practices we see in Roman Catholicism.
Historical Roots in Revivalism: Pentecostalism emerged from the Holiness and revival movements, which emphasized personal conversion and sanctification over established ecclesiastical traditions. Ash Wednesday, tied to ancient church practices, may feel disconnected from this revivalist heritage.
The problem with revival movements–which goes back to the days of Charles Finney–is that they are a) event-driven without necessarily having a follow-up and b) preacher centred. Because of the latter (and the necessity of meetings) they require an open society to flourish, which isn’t the case in many parts of the world where we’re seeing some great moves of God. An example of this is Iran; you can’t have a revival in Iran in the same way that we have here, and besides there isn’t much to revive; Christianity has never had broad acceptance in Iran even in pre-Muslim times.
Potential for Legalism: Some Pentecostals might argue that observing Ash Wednesday risks turning faith into a set of obligatory acts, which they associate with legalism. Their theology often stresses grace, faith, and freedom from rigid rules or traditions.
Legalism has unfortunately been integral to a great deal of Pentecostal life; this is the pot calling the kettle black. It is one reason why, for all of maudlin sentimentality I hear amongst older Pentecostals about the “old time religion,” no one is in a hurry to go back to the full experience, along with the poverty. That’s a big reason why I’ve gravitated to my own old time religion.
Focus on the New Covenant: Pentecostals frequently highlight the New Testament’s fulfillment of Old Testament practices. They might view Ash Wednesday’s penitential tone and imagery (like ashes, reminiscent of Old Testament sackcloth) as less relevant under the new covenant of Christ’s victory and the indwelling Holy Spirit.
“When the people heard this, they were conscience-smitten, and said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles: “Brothers, what can we do?” “Repent,” answered Peter, “and be baptized every one of you in the Faith of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children, and also for all those now far away, who may be called by the Lord our God.” With many other words Peter enforced his teaching, while the burden of his exhortations was–“Save yourselves from the perverse spirit of this age.” So those who accepted his teaching were baptized, and about three thousand people joined the disciples on that day alone.” (Acts 2:37-41 TCNT)
Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Positive Infinity 