Answering "hate religion, love Jesus"

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I dont think the question of abuse in the Church is at the heart of the discussion of this tragedy in general …I think its more of a matter of those in the Church knowing about this abuse and allowing it to go on… Yeah and it goes beyond the Church of course … I hear about this stuff all the time more and more .teachers, pastors., parents. It just needs to stop. It all needs to stop , enough people have been hurt . God Bless
 
I don’t know if this is the right place, but our Nuns today are full of the Joy of the Lord: they draw people to the Catholic Church by simply being! I said to a bunch of them the other day, “when I was a child, Nuns were ugly. I could well understand them becoming Nuns - nobody would marry them anyway. But you lot are pretty…” They giggled. I can say such things because I am 75! When the present Pope was elected I remarked to them: “I suppose it’ll be back to no meat on friday!” “Oh Ian, you are awful!” Yet when one of them takes a Communion Service or exposition of the Blessed Sacrament she radiates holiness and sanctity. My wife and I love to sneak in to pray in the Nuns’ chapel in the little convent next to our church: it is steeped in prayer, like pulling on a warm duvet!
 
IanGE said:
I don’t know if this is the right place, but our Nuns today are full of the Joy of the Lord: they draw people to the Catholic Church by simply being! I said to a bunch of them the other day, “when I was a child, Nuns were ugly. I could well understand them becoming Nuns - nobody would marry them anyway. But you lot are pretty…” They giggled. I can say such things because I am 75! When the present Pope was elected I remarked to them: “I suppose it’ll be back to no meat on friday!” “Oh Ian, you are awful!” Yet when one of them takes a Communion Service or exposition of the Blessed Sacrament she radiates holiness and sanctity. My wife and I love to sneak in to pray in the Nuns’ chapel in the little convent next to our church: it is steeped in prayer, like pulling on a warm duvet!
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Now if we could just get them to put their habits back on.
 
Welcome, JD27076! 🙂

Here’s an answer I gave in an earlier thread on this same topic:

As my Latin teacher taught us – amazingly enough, in a public school – religion is about relationship.

The Latin word “re” means “again.”
The Latin word “ligare” means “to bind.”

Through Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we humans lost our relationship with God and were kicked out of paradise. Through Jesus Christ, we regained our relationship with God … that is, our relationship with God was mended or “bound up again” … such that “bound up again” = religare, from where we get the word “religion.”

~~ the phoenix
 
Why do people want to make these things an “either/or” instead of a “both/and”.

Christ wishes to call us friends as well as good and faithful servants. Likewise Jesus’ Father is also our Father. Thus there must be a relationship…

But - within that relationship is structure, just as in any household and family. There is Structure, discipline, rights and responsibilities that help us to grow and to BE friends with our savior and to BE good and faithful servants. Likewise, through our religious disciplines, Our Father and our Brother Jesus reach out to us as a community - which is very important and demonstrated in Scripture.

So my “thoughts” are - it’s not “OR”, it’s “AND”

Peace
James
 
JRKH said:
Why do people want to make these things an “either/or” instead of a “both/and”.

Christ wishes to call us friends as well as good and faithful servants. Likewise Jesus’ Father is also our Father. Thus there must be a relationship…

But - within that relationship is structure, just as in any household and family. There is Structure, discipline, rights and responsibilities that help us to grow and to BE friends with our savior and to BE good and faithful servants. Likewise, through our religious disciplines, Our Father and our Brother Jesus reach out to us as a community - which is very important and demonstrated in Scripture.

So my “thoughts” are - it’s not “OR”, it’s “AND”

Peace
James
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This is a very imporant post, and one which gets to the heart of the matter.

JRHK brings up the idea of a family and community. One does not have a relationsip with his Father and Brother outside of the context of that family.

Christ not only formed a family, but he created a kingdom and that kingdom is his Church. One does not have a personal relationship with the King without the framework of the Kingdom being in place. You don’t just walk up to the king and put your arm around him any more than you would walk up to the President of the United States and put your arm around him. There is a structure in place.

Having a relationship with Jesus without religion is like enjoying coffee without the cup. You have to have a framework and a support. You have to have a cup.

-Tim-
 
I love this response - probably because it mirrors some thoughts that I’ve had on this subject.

A Baptist lady at work once said to everyone “Oh - the Catholic church is just a bunch of man-made rules”. Of course - I know that that’s a very misinformed way to put it - but I thought about some of the “rules”…and realized - well - yes -there are some rules - aren’t there in every family…but who do you have a relationship with - the rules or your parents?
and who “makes up” the rules and who knows best? The parents…
 
JD27076 said:
I viewed a Protestant video about this… youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY
And then I views a Catholic video about this… youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_tC4fv6FE&feature=related

What are thoughts and refutations about this?

What are some popular arguments against this?
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Christianity is a relationship with G-d, a way of life with others in the world, and a religion which provides the guidelines, rules, and norms for that relationship and way of life from birth to death. The same is true of Judaism.
 
JD27076 said:
I viewed a Protestant video about this… youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY
And then I views a Catholic video about this… youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_tC4fv6FE&feature=related

What are thoughts and refutations about this?

What are some popular arguments against this?
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The question is whether one is “saved” through:
(1) having a relationship with Jesus Christ through an organized religion; or
(2) having a relationship with Jesus Christ without an organized religion.

Now, everyone who vouches for (2) will readily admit that (2) is a very recent idea, but most of them will also claim that the original Christians (i.e. the Apostles and their immediate successors in New Testament times) also believed (2). If (2) is the original Christianity, then the question arises: where did (1), the organized religion, come from? This leads to the often-heard story of how, under pressure from the Roman Empire, the Christian Church supposedly lost the true religion and started adopting traditions of men and eventually became the Catholic Church. But eventually, the story goes, Martin Luther/John Calvin/Joseph Smith/Pastor X read his Bible and found out the “truth” that salvation supposedly comes only from (2), a personal relationship without an organized religion, and that the Catholic Church had supposedly denied access people access to (2) in favor of (1), the organized religion.

Thus, the advocates of (2) propose this timeline:

†
-----------------------| . . . . . (period of no-truth) . . . . . . . . . . . . |--------------->
33 AD . . . .~313 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1500s or later
Calvary . . . . AD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “true Christianity”
. . . . . . . . . . . Legalization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .allegedly rediscovered
. . . . . . . . .of Christianity by Romans

So let’s open the Bible and find out who’s right.
[BIBLEDRB]1 Timothy 2:3-4[/BIBLEDRB]

According to the Bible, it is God’s will that everyone come to knowledge of the truth and be saved. For that to happen, there obviously must be some means by which people can come to the knowledge of the truth of Christ, and that means must be available to everyone. So, if there was no truth in the Church for a thousand-plus years, how did the billions of people who lived during that period come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved according to the will of God?

Through the Bible? The New Testament wasn’t even compiled until the Council of Hippo in 393, well into the period in which the Church is supposedly without truth or authority (and even a Protestant biblical institute will admit this). Until then there was no way of knowing which books were Scripture and which weren’t. Moreover, until the invention of the printing press in the 1400s, no one but the wealthiest of nobility had ready access to a Bible except through the Catholic Church. Jesus Christ always showed love and charity to the poor, so it is unthinkable that He would allow a situation in which one had to turn to either a rich baron or a supposedly-apostate church in order to find out the truth and be saved.

Thus, the only possible conclusion is that the Catholic Church IS the means by which people are to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth, and it necessarily follows that the Holy Spirit protected the Church from teaching error at all times, even in the so-called “dark ages.” To posit otherwise is to insinuate that God willed everyone who lived in that period to go to hell, over and against the written Word of God and all semblance of love and logic. Therefore, to claim the Catholic Church is not infallible is to claim that billions went to hell for no reason, and that God is not able to accomplish His Will of offering salvation and knowledge of the truth to all men. The Jesus that I know would never allow such a thing to happen.

Anyone who doubts this because of some Catholic practice supposedly not being biblical is invited to review these quick answers which show where each Catholic practice is found in the Bible.
 
JD27076 said:
What are thoughts and refutations about this?
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I didn’t watch the videos, but my question is this: What do “relationship only” Christians do when their “personal god” speaks out of both sides of his mouth when talking to two different individuals??
 
“Religion” has been a bad word in some Protesrant circles for a while. I think it also relates to the old line about being “Spiritual, but not religious”.

One priest I know has described it more along the lines of “spirituality” acknowledging that yes, you have a relationship with God. “Religion” is about acknowledging that so do a lot of other people, and recognizing that it’s not just “Me & Jesus”, and figuring out how we do that as a community of believers, rather than individuals.
 
Bobby_Jim said:
“Religion” has been a bad word in some Protesrant circles for a while. I think it also relates to the old line about being “Spiritual, but not religious”.

One priest I know has described it more along the lines of “spirituality” acknowledging that yes, you have a relationship with God. “Religion” is about acknowledging that so do a lot of other people, and recognizing that it’s not just “Me & Jesus”, and figuring out how we do that as a community of believers, rather than individuals.
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Its semantics. They are equating “religion” to a Church with hierarchy such as the Catholic Church. So by rejecting religion, they really want to say they are rejecting the Catholic Church.

Also they want to reject the systematic way the Church teaches belief. They want a “make Jesus what you want Him to be” type of faith. I mean, its not inherently evil by itself, the reason why we have so many differing traditions in the Catholic Church is, as St. Paul points out, being all for all so that some may be saved. But of course if done incorrectly, it would lead to false beliefs rather than the truth.
 
Even the devil has a relationship with God albeit a bad one. Since relationships can either be good or bad, saying you have one with Christ isn’t saying much.

[bibledrb]John 14:15[/bibledrb]

A good relationship is following God’s commandments which is why Christ founded a religion and a Church.
 
This past Sunday, our bishop made an interesting point during his homily. He suggested that merely “having a relationship” with Jesus is insufficient. You need to go futher than that and be in communion with him through the Eucharist.
 
internetjoko said:
Dear Catholics,

Allow me to apologize on behalf of protestant evangelicals everywhere for the arrogance, misinformation and dismissiveness that the Jesus > Religion video displays towards the Catholic Church. I’m sorry we are so thankless for a world without communism, for a bible, for the saints, for martyrs who kept the faith alive, for Orthodoxy (and G.K. Chesterton for that matter), for your defense of our unborn children, for your world changing charity and moral teaching through the ages. Please forgive us for insulting you and treating the bride with such disrespect.

I am seeking the truth, and I can only ask on behalf of myself and other honest protestant followers of Jesus that if you are the Church Christ founded, please prove it to us by loving Jesus and others better than we can. If my mother-in-law doesn’t meet a loving Catholic soon, all she will ever know of Catholicism is her friend who was abused by the Priest she went to for abuse counseling.

Please, if the Church is our home, be a saint for our sake.

Here is a blog I wrote in your defense: obiwankologes.blogspot.com/2012/02/jesus-and-religion.html

Love,

Your friendly neighborhood separated brethren.
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Thankyou so much for writing that blog, it was really appreciated! I hope your journey in seeking the truth goes well and that your understanding of the Catholic Church is deepened. God Bless You :crossrc:
 
Happy_Convert said:
This past Sunday, our bishop made an interesting point during his homily. He suggested that merely “having a relationship” with Jesus is insufficient. You need to go futher than that and be in communion with him through the Eucharist.
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Dear Lord! Episcopal comments like that drive Christians away: such curious dogma. A close relationship with Jesus is beautiful and I would say MOST desirable; essential even, and, believe me, within reach of your outstretched hand: His hand is already stretched towards yours - take it! Once IN that relationship Holy Communion becomes the cherry on top of the cake. I used to walk back to my pew after Communion with a long, sorrowful sinner’s face. Now I FLOAT back on Cloud 999, singing within myself " The blood of my Lord, my God, my Master, my friend Jesus is flowing through ME!" HALLELUJAH!
Reminds me of a Maundy Thursday service in India when the PP said this was the day that Jesus inaugurated the Priesthood. Jesus instituted Holy Communion at the last supper table, saying “do this in commemoration of Me”. The PP said that since only Catholic Priests could give communion it was clear He also institued the priesthood. What a wonderfully convoluted theology! :rolleyes:
 
The problem with simply saying you have to have a “personal relationship” with Jesus is that the term itself is too broad and open. I have “personal relationships” with many people, on many levels and for many reasons. They are all “personal” but they vary greatly in their depth and trust and intimacy. Likewise the strength of the bonds of those “personal relationships” vary and are more or less easily broken.

So simply saying you need to have a “personal relationship” says little or nothing about what is actually needed or desired.

If one wishes to understand this, it is best to read some of the saints. Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Francis of Assisi, Therese of Lisieaux and others ALL demonstrate what a true, deep and “personal relationship” should mean for a disciple of Christ.

Peace
James
 
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