Gaudium Evangelii is a good reminder to Protestants to remember the limits of ecclesiastical authority and competence. The Bishop of Rome obviously isn’t an economist and more importantly he doesn’t have the authority he arrogates to himself to pontificate (pun intended) about economics. Yes, there is a dark side to capitalism but there’s a darker side to binding the consciences of Christians on matters to which neither the Scriptures nor creeds speak unambiguously.

On 24 November, the Roman Bishop, Francis, issued a document, Evangelium Gaudii which the Vatican classifies as an “Apostolic Exhortation.” It’s a book, a really long (217 pages) sermon. Rome is a complicated creature with seemingly endless categories of offices, canons, decrees, laws, and instructions. Darryl Hart has a helpful summary of the various types of communications issued by the Vatican. Suffice it to say that the papacy does not issue mere advice. In this case it appears that Francis took it upon himself to go beyond more that a synod on the “new evangelization” had concluded in 2012. He can do that. He’s the pope. This exhortation has provoked a range of reaction. Romanist Socio-economic conservatives (i.e., capitalists) have even remonstrated with the Pope over his economic theory. Naturally, we Protestants may be excused for being a little puzzled. After all, what is the point of naming the Bishop of Rome as the Vicar of Christ, if one may dissent. How exactly does one dissent from the “Head of the Church”? Such fissures between the ostensible head and his putative body—which, in biological terms, would seem to be fatal!—reveal the degree to which the Roman communion simply MSU (makes stuff up). When scholars find and note blatant contradictions between councils, she appeals to the theory of “development” that didn’t exist until after G. F. W. Hegel (1770–1831) made it possible for John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801–90) to make them go away. History and facts simply erased at will. The past becomes what Rome says it was, even if it wasn’t. Meanwhile, confessional Protestants may be excused for wondering exactly what is wrong with what the Westminster Divines confessed in 1648 when they said,

There is no other Head of the Church, but the Lord Jesus Christ; Nor can the Pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that Man of Sin, and Son of Perdition, that exalteth himself in the Church, against Christ, and all that is called God” (25.6).

The American Presbyterians revised this article by omitting everything after the semicolon. Other Presbyterian communions, however, continue to confess the unrevised version of this article. Perhaps there are good reasons for the revision (e.g., not limiting the identification of the Antichrist to the papacy) and perhaps it is better to think that the claims made by the Roman bishop are just one example of the spirit of Antichrist. It is easy, however, to understand how the divines would have viewed the religious and civil pretensions of the papacy as the fulfillment of the biblical warnings.

Gaudium Evangelii is Latin for “The Joy of the Gospel.” It begins in a way that might warm the hearts of some evangelicals insofar as it begins with the language of personal “encounter” (§1) with Jesus. According to Papa Francesco (@Pontifex on Twitter!) the gospel means salvation “from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness….” (§1). What is the enemy of these blessings? “[C]onsumerism” (§2).

Read More