Good luck with that mark Driscoll walks around with 2 body guards even during his church service. I called and asked them to stop putting videos that mis represented the church on you tube and they said no "we think the Eucharist is canabalism "
This is very relavent because every person I have met that is a confirmed catholic left for sin and that sin is almost always adultry
If you are able to do this all without everyone hating you and wanting to toss you out on the street, then God be with you. It sounds like you are handling it well.
Adamski—
People leave Catholicism for numerous reasons.
Joe—So you’d be okay with a non-Catholic coming to a Catholic study for the express purpose of trying to convert people to non-Catholic Christianity?
If you look at my first post in this thread, you’d know the answer to that question.
O really everyone I know who has left the church loves sin more than Jesus.
I think you’ll find that your experience is not universal. Many of us know Catholics who left for other reasons. To say that all ex-Catholics left because they “love sin more than Jesus” is uncharitable, unjust, and untrue.
What would be a just reason to leave the Church? Or what would be a reason that is loving Jesus in doing so?
But that bible group is at liberity to reject a catholic from being in their group if they so desire. And being catholic, why would they expect anything but catholic thought from a catholic.
You speak as though they are two different religions? As if they cannot share the common gospel message together? Do you see your faith as that different from other denominations?
In some respects very much so, and in some other respects, no.
OSAS is straight from the devil. I was personally involved in a church for seven years where I saw OSAS be the cause of multiple suIcides, an abortion and more. It was crazy I was personally trapped in sin because I was “saved”. Until I had an amazing priest help me one on one
Catholics do leave Catholicism for a variety of reasons. Just going by my very limited personal experience to give examples, I’ve known 2 that left because of very negative experiences of abusive nuns at their Catholic schools (both these people are older). I encouraged both of them to return to Catholicism–one did, and one has softened up on her feelings about Catholicism. Two other people (siblings) I know who left had a father who was very strict about their Catholic upbringing but had a major alcohol problem himself. They’re both atheists now. Three others I know left because of what probably amounts to poor teaching and a lack of spiritual depth in what they were taught in their Catholic churches. These three are Evangelicals now. One person I know was a devout Charismatic Catholic, but she stopped believing everything she would need to believe as a Catholic. No moral issues or sins were involved.
Adamski has made it clear that he’s not going to these Bible studies just to discuss things–he’s going for the clear purpose of proselytizing for Catholicism. So if things were reversed,
I’m all for fruitful ecumenical dialogue. The problem is that a Bible study is not a free-for-all open forum, where everyone except the moderator is on the same level. Bible studies have some hierarchical structure. There’s a leader–a teacher who guides the group, often using a study guide. It’s more informal and less strictly structured than something like a Sunday school class, but it’s still not just a free-for-all discussion. The leader has material they want to cover during the weeks of the study. They are the hosts and guides; Adamski and others are guests and students. It’s rude and unbecoming of someone as a guest and student to take advantage of his host and fellow students to promote his own agenda rather than to learn.If you look at my first post in this thread, you’d know the answer to that question.
I’m skeptical of the idea myself, but if the OP is participating in these Bible studies in a respectful way such that he is not proselytizing or angering them to the point where they ask him to leave, then perhaps he has found a way to engage in fruitful ecumenical dialogue.
Someone dosen’t have to stand on a soapbox at the bible study to express his beliefs. This can be done very nicely in a discussion mode, and not in an adversarial way. In fact, any type of successful discussion is done in this way. So there is no problem.