Is it okay to go to a christian church and a catholic church?

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Ive been to many bible study classes and yes they are good but they things that we deal with on a daily that I can never get answers to. or just given one worded answers that does not help with what so ever. I learned how the bible relates to my day to day life that I was never taught in bible study
 
gcastellanos2 said:
but AGAIN I am not leaving the catholic church!
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You may feel that way now. And perhaps your faith is so strong that nothing will ever steer you away from it.

But I would encourage you to exercise caution. Many people start out thinking the same thing, but eventually find themselves walking away from their Catholic faith.

I have known people who go to two services a weekend—one Catholic and one non-Catholic. But they are all Catholics (often converts) with a non-Catholic spouse.

I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I would encourage you to ask yourself some honest questions:
  • Why do you want to go to the non-Catholic service?
  • What is it that you gain from the non-Catholic service that you don’t get at Mass? Are there ways to gain the same thing from other Catholic enterprises (e.g. Bible studies, etc.)?
  • How firm is your Catholic faith? Are you actively doing things to foster and grow that faith? Does attending this non-Catholic service lead you to have doubts about your Catholic faith (even subtly)?
I’ll add that we are often not as strong as we think we are. You may very well find that you are attending their service one day only to realize that, when they say something that contradicts Catholic teaching, you agree with them.

If you sincerely believe that you are in no danger of this ever happening, more power to you. I know that I could go to a million different non-Catholic services and it wouldn’t move me away from the Catholic Church one iota. But there was a time in my life where that probably wouldn’t have been the case.
 
I will! I just dont understand why I can’t go just to listen. We listen to missionaries, mothers, and other fathers with their interpretations.
 
gcastellanos2 said:
So God is not love, or forever forgiving, or almighty and all knowing?
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I am not sure what that has to do with it but yes He is all those things but His mercy is not a blanket that is just thrown out there. Men need to also be obedient to Him.
 
I suggest we do not give the OP any further advice/argument until he/she recieves a definitive answer from his/her spiritual director.
 
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If you are wanting to grow closer to God and are feeling a hunger for God. There are many good Catholic bible studies, speakers, and priests you can listen to. There are Catechisms that could be read. There are many good books out by fantastic saints. There are some good books out there with sermons from Saint Francis de Sales, whose sermons are great. There are many good Catholic websites. You could get involved in your parish or diocese.
 
It’s a bad idea to go to a church that isn’t Catholic. You don’t “expand your faith” by going to non-Catholic churches.
The only reason to go to a non-Catholic church would be an occasional visit for something like a wedding or funeral, or possibly if you had a family member such as a spouse or in-laws who would sometimes attend your church and in turn liked to have you sometimes attend theirs.

You’re just playing with fire by going to some strange church. Your family is right to be displeased.

If you want a break from your Catholic church, just find another Catholic parish to attend from time to time - you can probably find one with different music, or different homilies, or different architecture, or whatever you need.
 
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When I was growing up Catholic we were expressly told we were not allowed to go to the services of another church other than weddings and funerals unless we received permission from our parish priest.
 
gcastellanos2 said:
I was born and raised catholic and I still practice my catholic faith but I have recently been going to a christian church not because I want to change my religion but because I want to expand my faith. My family and I have had several arguments about this topic, they see it as be betraying everything that my family has taught me.
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Dear friend,

My gradpa used to say: “When you look for trouble you almost always find it”

ONLY {no exceptions} John 17: 17-20; Matt 28:18-20 HAVE and can teach the FULLNESS of God’s faith {singular} Eph. 4:5…

You ARE putting yourself unnecessarily at GRAVE risk.

IF You REALLY want to improve your faith; then LEARN the RCC well enough to live if fully and publicly; to be able to explain it whenever asked and to defend it when called upon to to so.

Your playing with fire here!
May GOD guide your life path
 
As far as I’m aware, it isn’t forbidden, so long as you go to Mass on Sunday and don’t participate in Communion there if/when it happens. Whether or not it is wise is another matter.
gcastellanos2 said:
I understand that but why can’t I listen to what they are preaching.
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If that’s what you want, why not read books or blogs? They won’t be that much different than what you’d get in the sermon anyways, and depending on what you read might even be a bit meatier. It’ll also be easier to look stuff up if they say something that seems contrary to Catholic belief or is just anti-Catholic.
gcastellanos2 said:
Everything I have heard so far has coincided with the catholic faith. the only difference is that they dont really talk about Mary.
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What kind of church is this? Protestants universally have at least two major differences than Catholics, that of authority and justification. Unless the sermons are watered down tremendously, I can’t imagine that you’d go long without one of those two popping up. I know when I was Protestant, it frequently happened. When I was Reformed, the latter one was basically an every-meeting discussion.

Beyond just those two, different Protestant churches can be more or less Catholic depending on the teaching. This affects the sacraments, free will, God’s sovereignty, human nature, sin, etc. The problem is that anything that doesn’t touch on these matters is too watered down to be meaningful, but anything touching on those matters will inevitably run contrary to Catholic teaching sooner or later.
gcastellanos2 said:
So God is not love, or forever forgiving, or almighty and all knowing?
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Well, depending on which Protestants we’re talking about, they may believe He is all of those, none of those*, or some mixture of those.

* Well, I don’t know of any Protestants who don’t believe He is almighty. The other three, though, aren’t a given.
gcastellanos2 said:
Ive been to many bible study classes and yes they are good but they things that we deal with on a daily that I can never get answers to.
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So is it that you want a Bible study? Is there no Catholic parish or groups in the area doing Bible studies of their own?
 
If expanding your faith is the goal, there are more effective ways to do it.
  1. Read Catholic literature. I find CAF great at giving book recommendations about a topic. And The Imitation of Christ is a classic.
  2. Watch Catholic media. There are many Catholic priests, like Fr. Mike who do video talks about various topics.
  3. At times CAF can be good. (It’s definitely hit or miss with some thing and you need grains of salt on hand.) I’ve found some questions about Bible passages here to be enlightening.
As others have mentioned, a Protestant preacher may have good things to say, but there’s also going to be bad. And while you may be getting some positive things out, there are better ways to go about what you’re seeking.
 
Subtlety is the problem. The issues that conflict with your faith as a Catholic may seem so small and minor that they might not even strike you as a conflict. In fact, I’d say that’s already happened. Eventually, those pile up in your subconscious, and you’ll wake up one day with an “it doesn’t matter because all churches are the same” attitude or an approach that the Catholic Church is somehow fundamentally flawed because of (fill in the blank) that came up in the other church.

There’s no harm in discussion or understanding another person’s faith. You could attend to check it out. The regularity of it, though, is sometimes a slippery slope, especially when you don’t understand your own faith well enough to know why it’s a slippery slope.
 
gcastellanos2 said:
I was born and raised catholic and I still practice my catholic faith but I have recently been going to a christian church not because I want to change my religion but because I want to expand my faith. My family and I have had several arguments about this topic, they see it as be betraying everything that my family has taught me.
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You are permitted to attend baptisms, weddings, funerals at non-Catholic Christian churches but you are NOT permitted to attend their services for the purposes of worship and you may not receive Communion.
 
I’m a former Protestant. I assure you, there’s nothing to gain outside the True Church.
 
I sometimes visit different communities. I study languages. Sometimes I come to the service in the Roman Catholic Church in Polish, sometimes I attend the service of Baptists in Romanian.
I think in the near future, living in Western Europe, I will be interested to attend the service in the Roman Catholic Church in Spanish, as I study Spanish from Romanian.
Romanians in Western Europe already have hundreds of Protestant communities because they work there, I do not see anything wrong in Protestant meetings, if I have to be in the service of Romanian Protestants, the main thing that this service would be for building/ strengthen the faith and spiritual enrichment.
 
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gcastellanos2 said:
I have recently been going to a christian church not because I want to change my religion but because I want to expand my faith.
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But they do not share the same faith as us. They may contain aspects of our faith, but the truth in those parts of their belief system come from the Catholic Church (the one, true Church) which their founders rejected.

There is a real danger in viewing their communities and the Catholic Church as being simply denominations of the same Faith. That is not the case.
 
ZMystiCat said:
So is it that you want a Bible study? Is there no Catholic parish or groups in the area doing Bible studies of their own?
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This is a brand new resource, a Bible with the study built in:


If your parish does not have any studies, if no parishes in your area have any, then branch out.

Free Catholic study courses online:

https://www.catholichomestudy.org/

This apostolate has free and other courses that one pays for:


The Formed.org platform is availble through many many parishes, or you can subscribe like you do to NetFlix, more studies than you could do in a year!

www.formed.org

TheYOUCAT study is only one of the studies offered, again, free of charge online

 
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The Catholic Church is Christian.

As long as you don’t substitute a non-Catholic service with Catholic Mass, then you can attend.
 
You must mean Protestant church. As was said above, the Catholic church IS Christian.

I guess it depends what your intention is. If you go just to accompany someone and don’t participate in any way in their service (including receiving what they call communion which resembles nothing in any way with the Holy Eucharist at Mass) then I guess it’s ok…obviously keeping in mind that it of course does not fulfill your weekly Sunday obligation to attend Sunday Mass and if you are attending this service in place of Sunday Mass then this is a grave sin.

There’s no “expanding” faith by attending a Protestant church, it’s getting exposed to a version of Christianity that is incomplete, incorrect and misinformed. The separation of “Christian” and “Catholic” as titled is one of the symptoms of that.
 
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gcastellanos2 said:
I was born and raised catholic and I still practice my catholic faith but I have recently been going to a christian church not because I want to change my religion but because I want to expand my faith. My family and I have had several arguments about this topic, they see it as be betraying everything that my family has taught me.
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  1. the title of the thread is incorrectly stated. Catholics are Christian, not all Christians are Catholic.
Therefore,
  1. when you say you are practicing your Catholic faith but then say you are expanding your faith by now going to a Christian church, (iow not going to mass and instead going to a Protestant assembly) that is a contradiction of terms. The Protestant version of Christianity is heresy, The Great Heresies | Catholic Answers which you say you are now participating in. Deliberately missing Mass on Sunday and other holy days of obligation is a mortal sin. As you can see those are NOT my words but right out of scripture
  2. You have already changed your religion by walking away from Jesus in the Eucharist and substituting Him for Protestantism.
 
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