FROM THE SERVANT GENERAL
MODERNISM
(Part 79)
JUDGMENT DAY
June 8, 2024
Today’s reading: 2 Timothy 4:1-8
Paul warns Timothy, “For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to myths.” (v.3-4). This is happening now. This is about modernism.
- Much of sound doctrine, the scriptures and the age-old teaching of the Church are now no longer accepted or known or understood.
- Catholics, many of whom are nominal, yield to their desire to have human fulfillment, rather than follow the hard teachings of the gospel.
- They have teachers who are liberals and modernists, and have stopped listening to the truth, or just readily accept what is false, perhaps in ignorance.
- They in effect have fallen for myths, in the sense of losing a sense of the supernatural and rely merely on human precepts.
What are some major modernist teachings today?
One, that when you die, you just go “poof,” that is, just disappear into thin air. This negates the soul and eternity. But as Paul says, Christ Jesus “will judge the living and the dead” (v.1b). Who are the dead whom Jesus will judge if there is no life after death, or if there is no soul? What do we have to look forward to in the afterlife?
Two, modernist hierarchs say there is no hell, or if there is, there is no one in it. So if we just disappear upon death, and there is no soul to be judged, then why refrain from the sinful pleasures of this world, as there is no eternal consequence? But Paul says that he is already toward the end of his life, and that “the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the just judge, will award to me on that day” (v.8a). There will be judgment, and Jesus will decide whether we go to heaven or to hell.
Three, modernists focus on the here and now and not on the eternal. They look to human well-being rather than the righteousness of God. The teachings of Jesus and the apostles are negated or ignored. Grave sinners are accepted without need for repentance. Salvation is not a matter of the soul but of safeguarding the environment and the earth, even resulting in the worship of Gaia (or the Pachamama). But Paul says the just judge, Jesus, will award the crown of righteousness not just to him “but to all who have longed for his appearance.” (v.8b). We are to look to Jesus, to what is eternal, not just to what is humanly satisfying in this life.
Four, modernists say we should not proselytize, that is, make converts. We are to proclaim Christ and help bring people into his Church, to make disciples of all the nations. This is the final marching order given by Jesus. And so we are to “proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.” (v.2).
- We proclaim the authentic word of God, as given in the scriptures, and not secular humanist teachings, as given by modernists.
- We persist even when inconvenient, not refraining from the truth of the gospel because it might turn off or hurt people, especially those in grave sin.
- We are to reprimand, especially those in grave sin, and not just accept and accompany them, or worse, give them a blessing that encourages them to remain in their sin.
It is not easy with today’s embrace of the culture of the age, especially as modernist hierarchs lead us astray, but we are to “put up with hardship; perform the work of an evangelist; fulfill (our) ministry.” (v.5b).
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