I disagree, the big difference is that the Pentecostals focus on the individual. It is a very personal (dare I say self-centered) system of beliefs. This can be very appealing to Catholics, because it is easy to become anonymous in the RCC.
When is the last time you received a phone call from the RCC asking why you missed church last Sunday? Have they checked to make sure you are O.K. or if you need anything? This is the level of dialog these churches have with their people. I’m not saying the RCC should do this too, but this is your “competition” and it is the model they follow.
Nohome
There is an excellent book out by Jean M. Twenge, Ph.D. called “
Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled – and More Miserable than Ever Before”.
generationme.org/ She is a social psychologist and has used standardized personality tests that have been given at major univerisities since the 50’s to document changes in how young people perceive themselves and their place in society. (It’s the one book I couldn’t read before going to sleep, because I found it too depressing.) In short, there has been a definite break or disruption in how “Generation Me” views their responsibilities towards others, namely, they don have any.
One of the subjects she discusses is the growth in religious belief in this generation. Many more people of this generation are going to church and describing themselves as religious compared to Generations X and Y. When you dig deeper, though, it gets more disturbing.
The biggest decline has been in mainstream churches: Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, etc. The biggest growth has been in Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, i.e., the churches that emphasize “a personal relationship with Jesus.” What’s happening is that these people are forming “a personal relationship with Jesus” at the expense of relationships with the community. Mainstream churches tend to emphasize the importance of “being a witness to Christ” through your words and deeds – there is a responsibility towards the rest of the community. When your goal is to perfect your “personal relationship with Jesus”, though, your words and actions towards the community don’t count for anything, and in fact can be detrimental, since you could then fall into the trap of “works-based salvation.”
The exception to this is evangelism. Charitable organizations run by Evangelical and Fundamentalist churches usually involve some sort of preaching – you don’t get the food without hearing a sermon or at the very least getting a pamphlet. Mainstream churches tend to offer social programs because it is a good thing to do (good works), believing that their actions are preaching enough.
To me, the biggest example of these differences came when a charity that had been founded and run by Catholics (as opposed to a Catholic group) was opening an eye clinic in India. As a non-profit NGO they started making the rounds looking for money. When they met with a group of Evangelicals, they were welcomed with great enthusiasm. In the end, though, the Evangelicals had only one complaint: Nowhere in their services was anyone preaching Christ. There was no one telling these people about Christ as they waited for services or waited to go home, no one was giving them literature, etc. The charity’s organizers were shocked. In their view, the simple fact that they were offering these services free of charge was in itself preaching to the people.
So when the Cardinals look at what the Pentecostals are doing, I hope they look at the end results of the people’s spiritual lives, too, and not just the number of souls attending Mass. (or as I said to a priest friend years ago, when he said he served in a parish of 3000 souls, and I asked, “Yes, but how many bodies?”)
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