How to get a Church to turn from the Gospel in several easy steps:

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Cat said:
Someone earlier in this thread mentioned a stat of 54% of Catholics who support gay marriage. I believe that. What this means is that if all of these people depart the True Catholic Church for the New Catholic Church, 54% of the offering money will be gone from the parish treasury–this is a major hit, and will hurt the True Catholic Church. Do not think otherwise–losing 54% of the offerings WILL HURT a lot–a lot of programs will be cut to lower expenses. That will make the True Catholic Church parishes seem even more lackluster and “dull”, which will result in many of the remaining members departing in search of a church with more to offer (they will cite the needs of their children for “youth programs.”). I predict that many of these Catholics will end up in the Evangelical Protestant churches which are still teaching that homosexual marriage and abortion are evil.
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Overall, I enjoyed your post and it’s attempt at predicting the future. However, I would like to pick at a couple of points having to do with the “54% of Catholics who support gay marriage”.

If you look at this poll, ( pewresearch.org/key-data-points/u-s-catholics-key-data-from-pew-research/ ) scroll down far enough and you will see that 41 percent of Catholics say they attend church weekly. More than likely that is an inflated number. Probably some of those don’t go weekly and would have felt guilty admitting it. But the number is 41 percent and we will use that here.

If 41 percent go to church regularly, that means 59 percent do not. It’s likely that the 54 percent of the other poll that supports gay marriage is the bulk of that 59 percent that don’t attend regularly. If they aren’t going to church, they can’t drop a donation in the basket. If they’re not going to church, do you think they are mailing donations in or giving online? I’m not willing to guess.

Lets suppose these 54 percent, that approve of gay marriage, join the church you named “New Catholic Church”. Again, I’m taking a leap and guessing that they are dominated by the more than half of Catholics that don’t attend. If they aren’t attending the Roman Catholic Church now, what makes you think they will attend the New Catholic Church?

If there were to be such a split, I wonder how many “Good Catholics” would switch? How many disaffected Lutherans, Episcopalians, Anglicans, etc., would find refuge in the Roman Catholic Church? While I agree there is a problem, I’m just not in agreement with you that by standing by the morals of the church, it will devastate the church.
 
The voting process in Protestant churches has always puzzled me. For example, if a contentious issue were to be voted on and the conservative side won this round, it doesn’t “fix” the issue permanently ie it is not dogma. Then come every few years, the same topic comes up again and is voted upon again. Let say this time, the liberals won the vote and let say they ok abortion, adultery , same sex what have you. What does it mean in terms of doctrine of that church? What becomes of the old doctrine? Does it mean that in the past abortion was a sin, now it is not? And let say, years down the road, the issue is voted upon again. And this time the conservative won. So now abortion is a sin again?? What is dogma in the Protestant church and how is that determined? The Catholic Church differentiates between doctrine and discipline. You can change discipline but not doctrine. How does that work out in the Protestant world? Perhaps issues like abortion, same sex are considered discipline in nature and not dogma? But who has the authority in that church to determine that? If one would go with the Bible, abortion and same sex are strictly prohibited.

On the topic of step-by-step destruction of a church, my opinion is that somehow the Catholic Church need to incorporate some sort of whistle-blowing mechanism as in the corporate world to weed out wolves in hiding among the sheep. I don’t know what form it will take but it should be better than sweeping dirt underneath the carpet and hope the wolves do not resurface. Some sort of an Internal Audit perhaps?
 
steido01 said:
The LCMS is 100% against abortion (and therefore the use of any contraceptives that may function -even unintentionally- as abortifacients). The President of the LCMS, Matthew Harrison, actually represented Christian groups in opposition to the HHS Mandate (which would have required Christian groups to fund contraception) on Capitol Hill. Take a listen to his statements; we very clearly stand with our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters when it comes to the sanctity of life, and that will never change: m.youtube.com/watch?v=blFVL68s4-Y&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DblFVL68s4-Y
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Good video; but if you want to get more deeply into the issues, I suggest youtube.com/watch?v=naQbGZd3bjQ
 
steido01 said:
The LCMS is 100% against abortion (and therefore the use of any contraceptives that may function -even unintentionally- as abortifacients). The President of the LCMS, Matthew Harrison, actually represented Christian groups in opposition to the HHS Mandate (which would have required Christian groups to fund contraception) on Capitol Hill. Take a listen to his statements; we very clearly stand with our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters when it comes to the sanctity of life, and that will never change: m.youtube.com/watch?v=blFVL68s4-Y&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DblFVL68s4-Y

When it comes the actual use of contraceptives, the Synod permits (but does not encourage) non-abortifacient contraceptives for married couples, with the understanding that therapeutic uses of birth control may, in exceptional circumstances, be necessary for the treatment of disease. In general practice, this way of thinking amounts to Natural Family Planning being taught as the preferred method to couples in pre-marriage counseling.
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That is great to hear…thanks for the clarification. Hopefully LCMS will move to a complete ban of artificial methods for use is preventing conceptions.

IMO…the intrinsic evils of gay marriage and abortion stem from a contraception mentality.
 
Peter_J said:
I’ve been a tad reluctant to post on this thread. The reason is that, while I agree that liberal protestants (and liberal Catholics or people calling themselves Catholic) are way out in left field on this issue, I also find some of the conservative protestants are a little out there too. (As an example see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_therapy#Ex-gay_ministry .)

As for this post, I really don’t know what to think:
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I don’t understand the point of the article that you posted a link to (from Wikipedia, which is known for inaccuracy).

First, only a very few Christian organizations have gotten into “conversion” therapy, and I don’t know of any Protestant denominations that have accepted this therapy or any of these organizations as part of their actual doctrinal statement or Statement of Faith.

It sounds to me like you want to condemn all of conservative Christianity just because a few para-church organizations and laypeople have taken it to a place that you personally don’t approve of.

Second, what is so “extreme” or “out there” about reparative therapy? Even though various secular psychology organizations have “voted” to oppose therapy that helps homosexuals to repair their “broken” orientation, there are still psychologists around who do this therapy and believe that it has a scientific basis. They can’t be open about this treatment, as they can lose their license and reputation.

The assumption that reparative therapy is “extreme” or harmful is not proven scientifically.
Even though the media would have us to believe that all homosexuals are thrilled to be homosexual, there are still plenty of homosexuals who struggle and feel “abnormal” and wish that they could be “normal,” but they don’t dare share these secret feelings with anyone other than the few psychologists and therapists who are willing to listen to their honest feelings without condemning them.

If homosexuals want people to be “free to be who they are,” then they should honor the feelings of those homosexuals who want to be heterosexual and are seeking help to become heterosexual.

As for my post, I made it very clear that it is my personal opinion and a “fictional” scenario that I think COULD happen if people aren’t alert. I was evangelical Protestant for 47 years before converting to Catholicism, so I’ve seen over and over again, how “good” churches and Christians descend into secularism. I sincerely hope I am completely wrong in my musings about the possible dismal future of American Catholicism.
 
Cat said:
I don’t understand the point of the article that you posted a link to (from Wikipedia, which is known for inaccuracy).

First, only a very few Christian organizations have gotten into “conversion” therapy, and I don’t know of any Protestant denominations that have accepted this therapy or any of these organizations as part of their actual doctrinal statement or Statement of Faith.
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I admit I didn’t read the entire Wikipedia article, so I apologize if it made “conversion therapy” out to be more common than it really is.
Cat said:
It sounds to me like you want to condemn all of conservative Christianity just because a few para-church organizations and laypeople have taken it to a place that you personally don’t approve of.
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What the heck are you talking about? 🤷
 
ericc said:
The voting process in Protestant churches has always puzzled me. For example, if a contentious issue were to be voted on and the conservative side won this round, it doesn’t “fix” the issue permanently ie it is not dogma.
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You’d hit the nail on the head on one of our deepest long-term problems - ‘voting on doctrine’ is a horrid practice especially when the voting is extended to every person that shows up.

The Kingdom of God is a monarchy - and this is a good thing, because we say what happened when we followed our desires: we murdered Him.

Voting has it’s place in that we’re able to quickly weed out bad pastors, but all Lutherans really need to ‘bind their will’ to something more solid than the whims of today.

As best as I’m able - The Holy Spirit, the Bible and Confession are my where I seek truth.
On the topic of step-by-step destruction of a church, my opinion is that somehow the Catholic Church need to incorporate some sort of whistle-blowing mechanism as in the corporate world to weed out wolves in hiding among the sheep. I don’t know what form it will take but it should be better than sweeping dirt underneath the carpet and hope the wolves do not resurface. Some sort of an Internal Audit perhaps?
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I know some LCMS churches are really good about admonishing persistent sinners, then correcting. And if they don’t repent - they remove them for the sake of the rest of the Body of Christ.

Some don’t do as good of a job. 😦

We need to be our brothers keeper!
 
Cat said:
It sounds to me like you want to condemn all of conservative Christianity just because a few para-church organizations and laypeople have taken it to a place that you personally don’t approve of.
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I took what Peter wrote as his warning that we need to be mindful of not ‘over-reacting’ to this secular intrusion by creating stumbling blocks to faith - not only our own faith, but for the faith of the unbeliever.

I’ve seen some churches react so strongly that instead of being a hospital for sinners, they become a fortress for the righteous.
…

Frankly, Cat, what you wrote scares me because the scenario you wrote is entirely plausible.

I pray for our church, and I’m joy-filled to be able to pray for your church in Christ.
 
concretecamper said:
That is great to hear…thanks for the clarification. Hopefully LCMS will move to a complete ban of artificial methods for use is preventing conceptions.

IMO…the intrinsic evils of gay marriage and abortion stem from a contraception mentality.
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The two issues are undoubtedly linked. 👍
 
benjohnson said:
I took what Peter wrote as his warning that we need to be mindful of not ‘over-reacting’ to this secular intrusion by creating stumbling blocks to faith - not only our own faith, but for the faith of the unbeliever.
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I can see how you would think that, considering that I never said “all conservative Christians”. 😃 :rolleyes:

But then, I studied the old logic books. :cool: (cf. Chesterton / Fr. Brown)
 
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