The Apostolic Kerygma and the Spirituality of Sarah Mullally’s Novena
The Contemporary Temptation to Choose Which Parts of Scripture Will Still Have Authority
«For the time will come when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions»
2 Timothy 4:3 (ESVUK)
Fifth essay analysing Sarah Mullally’s novena
We live in a culture deeply shaped by the logic of consumerism. Modern man has been trained to choose. He chooses what to watch, what to listen to, what to buy, what to believe, and even what identity to adopt. Everything seems organised around individual preference. The modern world does not receive; it selects.
It is therefore unsurprising that this same logic has begun to penetrate the relationship many Christians have with Scripture.
There exists today a troubling ambivalence towards the Word of God within certain sectors of contemporary Christianity. On the one hand, there are strong affirmations that the Bible is inspired, that the Holy Spirit continues to work, and that the Church must remain open to spiritual experience, discernment, and inward renewal. Devotional reflections, novenas, liturgical materials, and pastoral meditations concerning Pentecost, prayer, and the spiritual life continue to be produced. The language of faith remains. The language of the Spirit also remains.
But on the other hand, when Scripture addresses matters related to human sexuality, marriage, holiness, or moral boundaries, the attitude changes noticeably. What was previously treated as divine authority begins to be reinterpreted through cultural, psychological, or historical categories. Biblical clarity seems to dissolve precisely in those places where Christian teaching comes into conflict with contemporary moral sensibilities.
And then an unavoidable question emerges: if the Bible truly is the Word of God, by what authority does the human being decide which parts remain normative and which should be left behind?
The problem is not merely exegetical. The history of the Church has always known legitimate interpretative differences. The deeper problem is spiritual and cultural. It concerns the silent transformation of the believer into a religious consumer.
The image is simple.
When someone enters a supermarket and pauses before the fruit section, he chooses the fruit he wishes to take. He examines the apples, checks the avocados, leaves some behind and keeps others. No one considers this wrong. The consumer exercises sovereignty over the product. He determines what deserves to remain in his basket and what will be discarded.
But precisely there lies the danger when this logic is transferred to Scripture.
Many today seem to approach the Bible as one walks through a spiritual aisle selecting whatever feels emotionally satisfying or culturally acceptable. Texts concerning love, mercy, welcome, and compassion are retained enthusiastically. And indeed, they form an essential part of the Gospel. But other passages, especially those related to the moral order of human life, which are also essential, are treated entirely differently. They are no longer received as divine revelation correcting the believer, but as material open to revision, adaptation, or neutralisation.
Thus, slowly, final authority ceases to reside in the Word of God and begins to shift towards the contemporary self.
This tension becomes particularly visible when ecclesiastical figures capable of producing profound devotional material concerning the Holy Spirit, Pentecost, or prayer simultaneously support decisions that contradict the historic understanding of Christian sexuality upheld by the Church for centuries.
The case of Sarah Mullally illustrates precisely this tension. On the one hand, she participates in a deeply ecclesial, liturgical, and devotional spirituality. She is able to write reflections for the period between Ascension and Pentecost, to speak about spiritual discernment, and to call the Church to openness to the work of the Holy Spirit. Yet on the other hand, she appears connected to the process of legitimising blessings for same-sex unions within the context of Living in Love and Faith.
The point here is not to reduce the debate to a personal criticism. The issue is deeper than one individual. What causes concern is the apparent coexistence of two principles that are difficult to reconcile with one another: a high degree of spiritual sensitivity regarding certain aspects of the Christian faith and, simultaneously, a willingness to relativise historic biblical teaching whenever it collides with contemporary cultural sensibilities.
For historic Christianity never understood the Holy Spirit to contradict what he himself inspired in the Scriptures.
The Spirit does not nullify the Word. He illuminates it. The Spirit does not morally correct divine revelation. He applies it to the human heart. The Spirit does not free the believer from obedience. He leads him into it.
For that reason, it becomes difficult not to perceive a certain inconsistency when spiritual language remains intact while substantial portions of biblical moral teaching begin to lose practical authority. At times, it almost seems as though the only Spirit acceptable to modernity is one who comforts, accompanies, and affirms, but not one who confronts, sanctifies, and calls to repentance.
And perhaps there lies one of the great conflicts of contemporary Western Christianity. Many churches wish to preserve the language of Pentecost without fully preserving the authority of the Word inspired by that same Spirit. They desire spiritual experience, but not necessarily doctrinal submission. They want the beauty of the Christian faith, but not always its moral demands.
Yet Scripture never presents the Holy Spirit as a force intended to adapt the Gospel to every age. It presents him as the Spirit of truth.
And truth, by definition, cannot be subordinated to the preferences of the modern consumer.
Of course, none of this means that the Church should address these matters with harshness, arrogance, or lack of compassion. The Gospel demands profound pastoral sensitivity towards real people with real struggles and wounds. But precisely because the Church is called to love truthfully, it cannot transform love into doctrinal silence. Christian compassion does not consist in editing the voice of God in order to make it more acceptable to culture.
Christ never separated grace from truth. He never offered comfort detached from repentance. He never affirmed human beings in all their desires simply because those desires were intensely felt.
The deepest tragedy of contemporary Christianity is not merely that certain biblical teachings have become uncomfortable for modern culture. That has always been the case. The deeper tragedy is that many continue to use the language of faith, the Spirit, and the Word while silently transferring final authority from God to the modern self.
And when that occurs, the Bible ceases to be received as divine revelation and becomes instead editable material shaped according to the spiritual preferences of the moment.
In the supermarket, the consumer has the right to choose whichever fruit most pleases him. But the Christian does not approach Scripture as a sovereign consumer, but as a disciple.
And the disciple does not edit the voice of his Lord.
