Is Jesus Really Against Religion?

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Angel_Face

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*I beg you to be patient with me as you read this letter. I know it is long, but I ask you kindly to read it.
As a Catholic, I send different messages via E-mail to my family and friends regarding my Faith. I have a brother who no longer is Catholic and by mistake I included him when sending a special Novena that also involved sharing a Religious photo of Jesus Christ. Needless to say, he E-mailed me back.
He shared with me that Jesus is alive and not in some painting, picture, statue or any graven image man can come up with to make them feel good or some how connected with God.
(Thou shalt not make into thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in Heaven above, or in the earth *beneath … Thou shalt not bow down thy self to them …). *
He states if you want to be connected with Jesus, throw Religion out the door and get a relationship with the Living Jesus Christ.
He states that he finds it very interesting that the only people Jesus really got angry with were the Sadducees and the Pharisees. (They were the Religious people of the day.) He says they took the truth of God and perverted it to meet their own need.
He says Religion is like a vaccination You receive just enough of the real thing that will allow the body to build up an immunity and keep it from contacting the Real thing. In other words, it is just enough of the Truth that keeps you (your spirit) from being able to receive the Real Truth which is a personal intimate living relationship with Jesus Christ. He states that is why **Jesus said **I wish you would be Hot (Relationship) or Cold (Enemy), but you are Luke Warm (Religious) and it makes me sick and I will vomit you violently out of my mouth.
My brother wants to talk to me. What do I say to that? How do I prove he is wrong, when much of what he says makes some sense? **Is Jesus really against Religion?
**Anyone who has some answers out there, please help me! You don’t know how much this means to me. I want to be able to defend my Religion!
May God Bless you,
Angel Face
*
 
What you want is to research Catholic arguments against Protestantism. Maybe do a search of this forum, or Google it. You might want to look into books about it as well. It would probably serve you better to do the research yourself, because the debate between Catholics and Protestants has been going on since the Reformation.
 
here’s the thing, for Protestants, Religion = big organized Church (Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, etc) that has a hierarchy

you can point out various scriptures that point that we need to be in the Church that Christ has established. sorry i don’t have the verses with me right now but you can search them. and this is the best scriptural proof that we need the Catholic Church and we have to be in it. basically, Christ has said two things about His Church:

a. its His bride
b. He is the head and the Church is His body

in both instances Christ has described the Church to be something thats inseperable from Him. to deny this is to deny being in Christ
 
Angel_Face said:
I beg you to be patient with me as you read this letter. I know it is long, but I ask you kindly to read it.
As a Catholic, I send different messages via E-mail to my family and friends regarding my Faith. I have a brother who no longer is Catholic and by mistake I included him when sending a special Novena that also involved sharing a Religious photo of Jesus Christ. Needless to say, he E-mailed me back.
He shared with me that Jesus is alive and not in some painting, picture, statue or any graven image man can come up with to make them feel good or some how connected with God.
(Thou shalt not make into thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in Heaven above, or in the earth* beneath … Thou shalt not bow down thy self to them …). *
He states if you want to be connected with Jesus, throw Religion out the door and get a relationship with the Living Jesus Christ.
He states that he finds it very interesting that the only people Jesus really got angry with were the Sadducees and the Pharisees. (They were the Religious people of the day.) He says they took the truth of God and perverted it to meet their own need.
He says Religion is like a vaccination You receive just enough of the real thing that will allow the body to build up an immunity and keep it from contacting the Real thing. In other words, it is just enough of the Truth that keeps you (your spirit) from being able to receive the Real Truth which is a personal intimate living relationship with Jesus Christ. He states that is why **Jesus said **I wish you would be Hot (Relationship) or Cold (Enemy), but you are Luke Warm (Religious) and it makes me sick and I will vomit you violently out of my mouth.
My brother wants to talk to me. What do I say to that? How do I prove he is wrong, when much of what he says makes some sense? **Is Jesus really against Religion?
**Anyone who has some answers out there, please help me! You don’t know how much this means to me. I want to be able to defend my Religion!
May God Bless you,
Angel Face
Click to expand...
I’m probably not the person to help you, but you should ask him what his definition of “religion” is. Does it mean anyone with rituals? Protestants have their own rituals of sorts, though significantly less. Does it mean anyone with a hierarchy? Catholicism has a hierarchy, but most religions don’t, so I doubt that that’s in the definition. I would bet that whatever definition of religion one provides, his Protestantism fits the definition as well, unless he plays logical twister to try and exclude it.

The evangelicals often, in my experience, claim that they’re “not a religion, we’re Christianity”. It always reminds me of those lame Ford commercials, “It’s not just a truck, it’s a Ford F-150” 😃 . Both examples are equally corny and equally flawed, there’s nothing special about any kind of Protestantism that excludes it from being a “religion” by any reasonable definition of the word “religion”.

Just my two cents, but you should call him out and get an exact definition from him on what “religion” means. I fail to see how any Christian sect could be left out by any definition that doesn’t contort itself specifically to make that sect the exception.

Hope that helps,
V
 
I think V has some very sound advice. Your brother’s claim sounds exactly like the lame Ford commercial. What does he think religion is? You can’t really argue against a fluffy claim like the one he seems to have offered you - it’s meaningless as it stands. Don’t get defensive and don’t think you have to win an argument with him. Do listen to him sincerely with an open mind and do make him explain himself clearly.

WIth regard to one specific comment: “he finds it very interesting that the only people Jesus really got angry with were the Sadducees and the Pharisees. (They were the Religious people of the day.)” For one, his stereotype here is too broad. For another, it’s worth pointing out that they were also the only people about whom Jesus said “you shall do and observe all that they say” (Mt. 23:3).
 
If Jesus was against religion he would not have given us the hundreds of new commandments he gave us. Nor would he have told us to baptize all nations and teach all His people His commandments. Nor would Christ have told Peter “on this rock I build My church”.

It was unthinkable in the early Christian Church to have an independent relationship with Christ seperate from the Christian community. The very idea of charity (love of God and neighbor) is inclusive of our community of fellow human beings. Therefor there is no concept of a relationship with God seperate from God’s people.

People like your brother use these arguments as an excuse to be lazy so they don’t have to conform or obey anything other than their own whims. Sorry to say it but it’s a lip-service Christian who cops this attitude that religion is bad. Religion is very good and liberates us by giving us very well defined boundaries where we can run freely and no we are in no danger of getting in spiritual trouble. It is the lone-ranger Christian who invents his own theology that sooner or later deludes himself sufficiently well to think he can do anything since he exempts himself from sin or scrutiny.

BF.
 
*Dear flyingfish,
I thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut. I believe you are correct in suggesting that I do some research of my own. I was planning on calling my brother tomorrow night … I can’t see him in person because we live so many states apart … but I feel now I really need to do some deep research before calling him at all.
I do not believe my brother is trying to trick me. He really cares about my soul, and in his heart he feels I need to do things differently.
God Bless you,
Angel Face
*
 
*Dear choy,
I thank you for responding to my concerns. I like what you have brought up about Jesus and that His Church is inseparable from Him! He is the Church!
God Bless You,
Angel Face
*
 
Dear Call Me V,
Wow, thank you for your response to my request for help. I really believe what my brother is saying about “Religion” is anything or any person who has rituals or laws that man has made. I believe he thinks too many people depend on others, even objects to take the place of Jesus Christ. I believe he is trying to tell me to stop wasting my time on any form of Religion and to draw all my energy into knowing the Bible and concentrating on praying and talking to Jesus.
I have had spiritual conversations with my brother before … not for a number of years because we live so far from each other. (I really don’t like talking on the phone about our differences, I’d rather be there with him in person).
My brother is a good man. I know he loves me deeply. He wants the best for me, and in his heart and soul he feels I rely on others and the Catholic Church to do my thinking. He believes I can not form a true relationship with Jesus because I am thinking too much on Religion and not seeking the true meaning of life … truly knowing Jesus Christ and having a **truly **personal relationship with Him!
I have to admit, my brother has a closer relationship with Jesus than I do. I do pray and pray and pray, but how close am I to Jesus Christ? Hum, I’m ashamed to say, “I don’t know!”
God Bless You for your advice,
Angel Face
 
*Dear Betterave,
Thank you kindly for your response. I believe you are right to say that V has some good advice.
I, too, appreciate your suggestion to listen to my brother sincerely, for I will do this. I will also ask him specific questions where he can explain himself clearly.
With God’s Love,
Angel Face
*
 
*Dear bona fides,
My thanks to you for answering my thread. Jesus did say to Peter, “On this rock I shall build My Church” … hum, good, good.
I do have to say my brother is definitely not lazy. He reads the Bible every day and works very hard to help others in every day living. He would give the shirt off his back to help another, even people he does not know.
I believe, bona fides, my brother feels I spend too much time doing Novenas and praying to Catholic Saints and statues, etc. when I should be spending more time just learning and praying to Jesus Christ.
I feel though I am weak and need all the help I can get which includes praying to His Blessed Mother for Her guidance, and asking others to pray for such and such. I find myself praying to “St. Theresa-The Little Flower” for her support.
Maybe, I do depend on others more than I should!?!? I should be spending more time with Jesus and filling my heart/spirit with His love, but does that mean I should give up Catholicism?
God Bless,
Angel Face
*
 
Angel Face, don’t doubt that Catholics have an intimate relationship with God, through the Blessed Sacrament. Protestants do not partake in the Blessed Sacrament, and so miss out on that part of their relationship with Christ. Read John 6:24-70 as well as the the accounts of the Last Supper and you will see what Protestants are missing.

If he thinks Jesus is against the Church, well let’s see what the Bible says:
[BIBLEDRB]Matthew 16:19[/BIBLEDRB]
[BIBLEDRB]Matthew 18:17[/BIBLEDRB]

Maybe this will be of assistance to you in finding passages you need.
 
Angel_Face said:
***He states if you want to be connected with Jesus, throw Religion out the door and get a relationship with the Living Jesus Christ. *
Click to expand...
“To get into a relationship with the Living Jesus Christ” is a religion by defintion.
Stating the above is like saying, leave all cars aside and drive a Mercedes instead.
 
Angel_Face said:
…
I believe, bona fides, my brother feels I spend too much time doing Novenas and praying to Catholic Saints and statues, etc. when I should be spending more time just learning and praying to Jesus Christ.
I feel though I am weak and need all the help I can get which includes praying to His Blessed Mother for Her guidance, and asking others to pray for such and such. I find myself praying to “St. Theresa-The Little Flower” for her support.
Maybe, I do depend on others more than I should!?!? I should be spending more time with Jesus and filling my heart/spirit with His love, but does that mean I should give up Catholicism?
God Bless,
Angel Face
Click to expand...
Is not your brother essentially asking you to rely on him in place of the saints to moderate you and tell you how much you should pray? YOur good brother is being inconsistent and making himself an authority and using his relationship with you to sway you to his perspective. But he has some errors in his thinking. Catholics likewise use the saints own personal relationships with Jesus to add to our own prayers to gain us our prayer intentions. But our saints never try to use their relationships against us to moderate our prayer life like your brother is attempting to do. We here on earth are subject to our physical limitations. We can only pray so many hours in the day and must eat and sleep. The saints in heaven have no such limitation since in heaven they are in eternity and are always before God’s throne praying. So it is just “smart” to ask those who have a perfect relationship with God in heaven and who need to sleep to pray for us non-stop to God so that we can do as we are told by Jesus. And what Jesus told us to do is be persistent in our prayers:

[bibledrb]luke 18:1-14[/bibledrb]

It seems to me that your brother is being persistent in telling you not to pray except to Jesus alone. It is of course not wrong to pray to Jesus but your brother is inventiing his own religion. Jesus told us to pray to the father and to keep knocking persistently. The apostles have also given us good examples of the necessity to pray for one another without ceasing. They have taught that we are all partners in the gospel. If in doubt look at the following verses.

[bibledrb]1 Thessalonians 5:17[/bibledrb]

[bibledrb]Ephesians 6:18[/bibledrb]

[bibledrb]Philippians 1:1-6[/bibledrb]

[bibledrb]Colossians 4:12[/bibledrb]

[bibledrb]1 Thessalonians 1:2[/bibledrb]

[bibledrb]2 Thessalonians 1:3[/bibledrb]

[bibledrb]philemon 1:4[/bibledrb]

The big problem with non-Catholic “Christianity” is that they believe in a lone-ranger Christianity - a flock of one where its just “me and my bible and Jesus”. Rather than use a full choir of angels to praise God these would rather pull out a harmonica, ride into the sunset and sing a solo - yippie-Yi-Yay Yippie-Yi-Yo. But the apostles made it very clear that we are all one famil in a comunion of saints. We are to use the full choir of voices and talents that God has given us - including each other’s relationships with God.

[bibledrb]Romans 8:35-39[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb]Luke 15:7,10[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb]1 Cor. 4:9[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb]1 Cor. 12:26[/bibledrb]

There are many more verses showing a relationship beteen the angels and the saints and us here on earth in Christ’s church founded on the rock of Peter.
1 Cor 13:12; 1 John 3:2; Heb. 12:1;1 Peter 2:9; Rev. 20:6; 2 Peter 1:4;1 Cor. 1:2; Rom. 1:7; Acts 9:13,32,41; 26:10; 1 Cor. 6:1-2; 14:33; 2 Cor. 1:1; 8:4; 9:1-2; 13:13; Rom. 8:27; 12:23; 15:25,26, 31; 16:2,15; Eph. 1:1,15,18; 3:8; 5:3; 6:18; Phil. 1:1; 4:22; Col 1:2,4,26; 1 Tm 5:10; Philemon 1:5,7; Heb. 6:10; 13:24; Jude 1:3; Rev. 11:18; 13:7; 14:12; 16:6; 17:6;18:20,24; Rev 19:8; 20:9; Matt. 27:52; Eph. 2:19; 3:18; Col. 1:12; 2 Thess. 1:10; Rev. 5:8; 8:3-4; 11:18; 13:10; Dan. 4:13,23; 8:23

BF
 
Angel_Face said:
I beg you to be patient with me as you read this letter. I know it is long, but I ask you kindly to read it.
As a Catholic, I send different messages via E-mail to my family and friends regarding my Faith. I have a brother who no longer is Catholic and by mistake I included him when sending a special Novena that also involved sharing a Religious photo of Jesus Christ. Needless to say, he E-mailed me back.
He shared with me that Jesus is alive and not in some painting, picture, statue or any graven image man can come up with to make them feel good or some how connected with God.
(Thou shalt not make into thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in Heaven above, or in the earth* beneath … Thou shalt not bow down thy self to them …). *
He states if you want to be connected with Jesus, throw Religion out the door and get a relationship with the Living Jesus Christ.
He states that he finds it very interesting that the only people Jesus really got angry with were the Sadducees and the Pharisees. (They were the Religious people of the day.) He says they took the truth of God and perverted it to meet their own need.
He says Religion is like a vaccination You receive just enough of the real thing that will allow the body to build up an immunity and keep it from contacting the Real thing. In other words, it is just enough of the Truth that keeps you (your spirit) from being able to receive the Real Truth which is a personal intimate living relationship with Jesus Christ. He states that is why **Jesus said **I wish you would be Hot (Relationship) or Cold (Enemy), but you are Luke Warm (Religious) and it makes me sick and I will vomit you violently out of my mouth.
My brother wants to talk to me. What do I say to that? How do I prove he is wrong, when much of what he says makes some sense? **Is Jesus really against Religion?
**Anyone who has some answers out there, please help me! You don’t know how much this means to me. I want to be able to defend my Religion!
May God Bless you,
Angel Face
Click to expand...
What puts a lot of former Cats and some protestants off Catholicism is their perception of ‘rules’ and ‘laws’, which they will argue are ‘man made’.
I feel, though, that they are really just complaining about the fact of being asked, or even required, to do difficult things. And this is their impediment; - they may do herculean tasks, sure, like running up mountains for a good cause or rescuing distressed maidens, but tough, wiry, personal tasks like Sunday Mass and Confession defeat them totally. Certainly Christians were taught by Jesus to help people in an active way but more importantly He taught them to be not like whitened supulchres, clean outside but unclean inside. To achieve this particular and difficult task He left with the Apostles the command and the authority to forgive or retain sins; for the Apostles to carry out this command of Jesus’ the Apostles needed to hear the persons sins themselves, first. He also left the Christians the Mass, in which He gives His very own body and blood as food [manna from heaven] to strengthen and give life to the Christians. This food St. Paul said must not be eaten unworthily for fear of being condemned [hence confession of sins to the Apostles]. Catholicism is Christianity and Christianity is Catholicism. And it has those difficult ‘rules’ and ‘laws’ within it, at its heart.
 
Angel_Face said:
*Dear bona fides,
My thanks to you for answering my thread. Jesus did say to Peter, “On this rock I shall build My Church” … hum, good, good.
I do have to say my brother is definitely not lazy. He reads the Bible every day and works very hard to help others in every day living. He would give the shirt off his back to help another, even people he does not know.
I believe, bona fides, my brother feels I spend too much time doing Novenas and praying to Catholic Saints and statues, etc. when I should be spending more time just learning and praying to Jesus Christ.
I feel though I am weak and need all the help I can get which includes praying to His Blessed Mother for Her guidance, and asking others to pray for such and such. I find myself praying to “St. Theresa-The Little Flower” for her support.
Maybe, I do depend on others more than I should!?!? I should be spending more time with Jesus and filling my heart/spirit with His love, but does that mean I should give up Catholicism?
God Bless,
Angel Face
*
Click to expand...
It sounds like you really respect your brother and that’s great. Protestants can be wonderful people and very good sincere Christians, even if they embrace a distorted view of the Church and other Christian doctrines. He sounds like he is a good example to you in many ways. I would suggest thanking God for that example and following him where you can. For example, you should read the Bible everyday too. This will be a witness to him of your good faith as well as building you up spiritually and intellectually.

What I find ironic about people that strongly emphasis the Bible is that their religious practice centers on *reading *the Bible but it doesn’t really center on following what the Bible says. (Obvious case in point being “Bible alone” believers - they “honor” the Bible by treating it in a way that is contrary to what the Bible itself says.)
 
*Dear frindro,
May I thank you so much for your (name removed by moderator)ut. I will keep your thoughts and words in mind when I talk with my brother. I really like what Jesus says in the Holy Bible under Matthew 18:17.
Thank you again for your help!
God Bless,
Angel Face
*
 
*Dear AnAtheist,
Thank you for responding to my thread. I really appreciate the (name removed by moderator)ut from you. I appreciate your comments which makes me think deeper.
Thanks,
Angel Face
 
*Dear bona fides,
Wow, I can’t begin to thank you enough. You have provided me with a lot of real wonderful examples to give to my brother.
I really believe in “The Communion of Saints” and feel quite comfortable praying to them for others as well as for myself. This is a Sacred and Holy gift from God and I believe to use this gift brings us closer to God, His Only Son, Jesus Christ, Our Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the Angels & Saints in Heaven!
Thank you again for ALL of your detailed and informative information. All I need now is to say some extra special prayers for Jesus to be by my side as I talk with my brother.
God Bless you,
Angel Face
*
 
*Dear Thing,
I thank you for your comments and help to my thread. I believe you are right : “Catholicism is Christianity and Christianity is Catholicism”! It makes perfect sense. There are “rules” and “laws” that we have to abide by, but what is the ultimate goal? … an eternal life with Jesus Christ in Heaven!!!
God Bless,
Angel Face
*
 
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