I am not pointing fingers at anyone. Just have some ideas.
First of all I do not worry if someone else hates me or my faith (Catholic). I think that it is damaging for the Church as a whole (the Christian Church) and I hardly can respect someone who hates something that he or she has not researched (from not only his or her point of view but also mine). But, I don’t worry about it. I just figure I am here to serve God and that is all I need to do.
And there is no need to worry about what others think. Just keep in mind that we live in a way that pleases God. Let us just be concerned with what God thinks of our lives.
There is never going to be unification between the many denominations of the Christian faith, not in a physical sense. Yes, we all know about the One-World Church at the end of time and all that, but I am not referring to end times. I am merely stating that we will always disagree, sometimes in minor ways and sometimes in ways that we find major.
I, as a Catholic, have excellent fellowship and relationships based on our faith in Christ with people from many, many denominations. One reason is this: most of them have researched Catholicism enough to know that, even if they disagree with some things we do, they understand the reason and can throw away the myths that were based on untruths. I have tried to do the same in my case with my friends.
Satan likes nothing more in the world than to see us divided. So, as there may never be a physical unification, why don’t we expend the energies that we use to lump other groups and/or fight against them into a “Agree to disagree” mode. Then we united in spirit under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Then we begin to march against the gates of Hell, wherever they might be (and they are everywhere) - those gates that cannot withstand the Church of Christ. That’s when the basic faith of salvation through Christ can be more easily spread. We will spread His Word in both word and deed. Take the energy we use to fight with each other and tell the Good News, feed the hungry, take in the homeless, visit the one in prison… all the things that God commanded.
I really have little patience with Christian infighting. Can we all agree that what we Catholics (and Orthodox) consider to be Transubstantiation of the Eucharist is still, although not considered as such by most Protestants, to be a glorious and spiritually fulfilling rite that remember the salvation for our souls through the death of Christ? Can we allow for the fact that some of us believe that we are saved through grace in Jesus Christ and that works and faith are one vs. the theory that “works is the evidence of faith”? Or, how about some people who believe in “Once saved always saved”? I know many, many people who believe that who are true Christians in every way, and that whether their faith and works are one or whether works are the evidence of faith - they walk the talk. (Catholics do not believe in once saved always saved and we also believe that faith and works cannot be separated into one and then the evidence of the one…).
We don’t have to compromise what we believe. Faith is very non-PC and should be - we don’t engage in revisionist history, we don’t engage in the “Well, what you believe is fine for you, but I think the belief in Purgatory is not correct.” No, if you feel that the belief in Purgatory is not correct, than you DO believe that it is not a right belief for anyone. And we should be able to say things like that to each other while agreeing to disagree and them move on in what we have in common, which is Christ saving us from our sins. (BTW, I do believe in Purgatory - lol).
But we can concentrate on one thing: Jesus Christ is Lord and has come to set us free. Then we will be the united (in the Spirit) Church that marches on every single place on this earth where the gates of Hell exist and slam them down.
Just a thought.
byrdele
Byrdele
