Thanks to everyone who replied. I read the links and I do understand what despair is now.
This is not despair I am certain now. It is frustration. Frustration over all the legalism in the church that keeps me from the love of God. I hate it, I am angry about it, and I am sick and tired of it ruining any peace I have.
Just read
1 Cor 13 for an example of what I think you’re talking about. No matter how many rules we follow and Good Deeds we do, it’s all about love or we’re nothing.
Moreover, Jesus Himself did a pretty good job of scoffing at the rules, insofar as he held those in contempt who went around telling everyone else (including Jesus’s own friends) that they were in violation of rules.
There are many examples of this, but among my favorites is the one where Jesus’s friends were drinking from unwashed cups (gasp!) and not only defended them against accusations, He didn’t say diddly squat to them about it. In Matt 23:27-28 He said to such people, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness."
See Mark 7.
Sometimes the “legalists” like to cite Jesus telling the adulteress, “go and sin no more.” Well, he did that ONLY after he got rid of her condemners and sent them all away ashamed and confused, plus He did it in private.
I honestly think the catholic church has some things all wrong–rules before people make me crazy. I want to love and serve God but rules tie me up in “shoulds”. I can see why some people get so scrupulous. I feel bad for them. I think certain personalities are more susceptible to this. It is infuriating.
Also, I’ve realized that the catholic church sees things as black/white and on these boards at least, anyone who sees anything as gray is labeled wrong. It’s messed up. Life has many gray areas, all we can do is seek God first and do what we can, and beg forgiveness when we fail.
I share your view about some things. For an explosive example, let’s look at the “precepts of the Church.” There were no such things in the early years of Christianity, so how were they saved then? I’ve asked this on these fora only to be told that Jesus empowered His Church, essentially, to do all the speaking for Him. That doesn’t wash, though, or everything the Church has ever said or done would have been perfect, and I wish anyone who thinks that could step up and tell me what really happened with the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the rampant practices of
simony that went on in the not-so-distant past.
This life of faith is supposed to be about God’s love, for me the rules make that really hard. Because some things are gray but the “rules” say they are black/white, then it results in putting a square peg in a round hole, hence frustration and the feeling you are banging your head against the wall.
I agree. In defense of the church, however, I’ve sometimes found that those on these boards who can run rings around me quoting scholarly pronouncements this, and papal encyclical that, and various other sources, and make the Church out to be more legalistic than she is. They sound like they know everything and me, I don’t claim to be a scholar but I’ve had enough Scripture soak into my heart that I just know what they say is wrong. Often, upon digging, it turns out the Church herself teaches – and even sometimes obviously so in the Catechism – that there are exceptions.
Here’s a perfect example. A few months ago I got into some amazing threads about lying. The self-proclaimed “absolutists” on the matter (who, btw, wouldn’t know absolute if it jumped up in their faces) held the position that any form of lying whatsoever is wrong. When the CCC teachings about some people, such as unjust aggressors, having no right to know such truth, then then say that one can “cleverly” (my word not theirs) withhold part of the truth or use other obfuscation techniques, but cannot actually tell a literal lie.
The construct I liked to use was if a gunman with a ski mask on were after me with weapon drawn, and I run around the corner of a building where said other poster happened to be standing, and the gunman said, “which way did he go?” They would actually say it would be OK to shrug and say “I don’t know” (which is itself a lie, but of course these are self-proclaimed “absolutists” we’re dealing with) or to say something totally different like, “why do you need to know?” These people say that lying is ALWAYS a grave matter because it is contrary to the very nature of God, which is truth. To the old scenario of a Nazi coming to the door, they either say you must not directly deny the truth, or they say the scenario is so remote it doesn’t ever happen. Again, if we are claiming something is ALWAYS and ABSOLUTELY wrong, it should hold muster in any possible scenario, no matter how unlikely.
Before Jesus, we had many rules that had to be followed to keep from going to hell, with full knowledge it was humanly impossible to do so. Jesus didn’t come to up the stakes and make it even harder, He came to fulfill the law of the spirit of truth, not further empower the law of sin and death.
Rom 8:
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
Alan
