Non Denominational uncle

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I have an auncle who is Non Denominational. He believes that Christ was against organized religion, for they where created by man. He used to be Catholic so he has some similar ideas to Catholicism. He doesn’t believe in Sola Finde “Faith Alone”, but rather believes that salvation is gained by both faith and works. He also believes that you have to read the whole paragraph in the bible to fully understand what the person meant.

He doesn’t believe in the Eucharist, or praying to Mary though. Nor other Catholic believes.

How can I help explain that Christ was never against religion, and that Jesus himself left a church for us?
 
It depends if you are trying to change his beliefs or engage in an earnest discussion. Don’t lecture the guy; rather, listen to what he has to say and put your own point as best you can.
People are usually very reluctant to change their religious views. Better not to try. Live and let live.
 
I think people with this view don’t quite understand the definition of religion. Their view is typically that religion is a set of man-made rules and regulations that you have to follow to be a good believer, and if this were the definition, they would be right to refute it, but it isn’t. The definition of religion is simply: a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects. No mention of man-made anything. That isn’t to say that a religion can’t be man-made, because we have things like Greek mythology , which beliefs were used to describe natural phenomena, and Scientology just to name a couple.

Any Christian, Catholic or not, no matter what their views are, is partaking in a religion. Therefore, if Christ set up a set of particular beliefs that we need to follow, then he established a religion. And those Christians who claim that there is no visible Church, then do you consider the church you attend on Sunday to be invisible? There is both an invisible and visible Church of which your relationship with it varies.

In my opinion, of which I’m sure many would agree, is that Christ left us a religion and a Church (both visible and invisible). His Church is the Catholic Church, and non-Catholic Christians, you are a part of the Church whether you realize it or not, and whether you like it or not.
 
Make few proposals, try not to impose. And let him do most of the talking, but on responses from your initiative. If he doesn’t cooperate then it would do more harm then good. Questions on the reason behind what he believes are ideal, they bring about an experience that God can work out in him after you talk. But again he has to be comfortable with his own reasons. It seems that protestantism does not give good reasons behind what they teach, but smart individuals within this sphere did come out with ground breaking reasons behind long standing beliefs within their world.
 
If it is very difficult to have a peacable discussion with your uncle, then it is best to avoid talking about such things.

Just be the best Catholic you can be, and pray for him, and for the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to enable you to say the right thing when it is opportune.

It is problematic at those times when he is trying to convert others to his way of thinking. We not only have to read one paragraph of the Bible in context…we have to read the entire Bible to truly understand what God is saying to us!

Jesus clearly organized our Catholic faith in such a way so that there is no chaos in what is taught authoritatively.
 
Great advice given above.
I don’t know if I can give you a simple counter-argument but will try to give you some ideas that might help…

First - Your uncle’s argument is not a bad one in several ways. While it would be a mistake to say the Jesus was “against religion”, it IS valid to say that Jesus is against “legalism” - just look at how he viewed the manner in which the Jewish leaders viewed their faith…
Jesus, on the other hand, reduced all of the Law and Prophets to just two commandments and both of these were based on Love (Mt 22:36-40). So in your zeal to defend the Church, don’t overlook this aspect of Christ’s teaching.

Many times throughout history - both within the Church and in schisms from her - there has been this idea and effort to regain and restore the “simplicity” of Christ’s teachings when people begin to feel (as your uncle does) that things have gotten too complicated, too legalistic, too much like what Jesus sees in the Pharisees…
A great example of this is St Francis of Assisi who desired great simplicity in his faith an in the practice there of.

The counterpoint of this desire for simplicity is a habit of the human mind to want and need direction - often times imposed from outside. I call this phenomena the “Yea but…” factor. Jesus says “Love your neighbor as yourself”, a broad and encompassing and inclusive teaching…Someone asks “Yea but…who is my neighbor”? Jesus says to forgive those who wrong you…Peter says, “How many times must I forgive my brother?”
This goes on and on…and can readily be seen in the letters of the NT as well as in Acts…
Paul writes lengthy letters answering questions on how to apply this or that teaching. Act 15 deals the question of what to do with the many OT laws now that Gentiles are being admitted to the community.
All of this brings me to my second point relating to your uncles viewpoint…

Second -
The argument against “organized religion” tends to look from the wrong direction. The person sees the Church as it exists today and says “that is not what Jesus intended”. But - if they look at how “what Jesus intended” would logically develop - they would find that the Church, in it’s core, fits the bill very well indeed.
In other words the Church, as we have it today, has evolved organically in it’s role of reserving and spreading the Gospel which is the mission Jesus gave to it - and using the authority Jesus gave to it.

The ability for the Church to fulfill Jesus prayer that we be one as He and the Father are one, and to carry the Gospel to the far corners of the earth in order to make disciples, requires organization and communication. The Epistles and the council in Acts are early examples of this communication - for the purpose of maintaining unity in Truth.
This desire to be true to Christ - in unity - then inspired further councils to answer questions (the “Yea but what if…” factor) including Jesus true nature, Mary as mother of God, the canon of the Bible etc…
And having prayerfully made decision (in council) on these matters, to then codify them and distribute them so that the Will of the Holy Spirit is taught correctly and universally…
Such codification and distribution tends to develop into a “central headquarters” where anyone can go to get these things and also to ask new questions - knowing that they will be addressed…

I could go on…but don’t want to get too wordy…

The bottom line is that if you listen to your uncle’s argument carefully and you bring up some of these ideas for exploring, he might come to see how the “mustard seed” grew into this biggest of bushes.
He might also come to recognize how the many “rules” etc are not things “imposed” by people seeking control or whatever. Rather, they are given in answer to the questions raised by the faithful and flow from the great commandments of Love.

A while back I was in conversation with another on this matter of unity and visible authoritative Church and - in an effort to summarize my thinking, I posted a blog entry HERE That goes a bit further into the idea of the organic development of the Church growing from the desire to be one in Christ…You may find some good ideas in it as well.

Sorry to be so chatty on this but I hope some of it helps.

Peace
James
 
+1 on JRKH’s post. It isn’t the Church (organized religion) God is against…it’s something pharisee-like hypocrisy and legalism. If He was against organized religion, why did HE choose to build a Church (ekklesia) on a foundation…as on a mountain-top to be seen by all…which is the pillar and bullwark of truth? (How to get that message across in a charitable way will take some effort on your part.) :o

It shows that he wants to know proper context in that he believes Scripture must be taken more than a verse at a time. Maybe you could challenge him to go a step further and rad in the context of a whole book…and then find any OT links as well. St. Augustine says that the OT is the new concealed…and the NT is the old revealed…and he’s right! 🙂
 
Ha!

Non-Denominational Christians are, let’s face it, lazy Christians who don’t want to go to church and tell themselves they’ll still receive salvation.
 
Arturo_Ortiz said:
I have an auncle who is Non Denominational. He believes that Christ was against organized religion, for they where created by man. He used to be Catholic so he has some similar ideas to Catholicism. He doesn’t believe in Sola Finde “Faith Alone”, but rather believes that salvation is gained by both faith and works. He also believes that you have to read the whole paragraph in the bible to fully understand what the person meant.

He doesn’t believe in the Eucharist, or praying to Mary though. Nor other Catholic believes.

How can I help explain that Christ was never against religion, and that Jesus himself left a church for us?
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Some thoughts–

A non-denomational person usually relies on scripture alone. But, how could we ever have had scripture today without an organized and strong religion to keep the knowledge and belief in scripture alive? Not to speak of preserving the manuscripts themselves.

In other words, we owe a great debt to the organized religion that determined which ancient manuscripts were indeed scripture, and preserved and copied the manuscripts so we have them today. Without organized religion we would probably still all be pagans. We certainly wouldn’t have scripture.

To reject organized religion is like cutting off your feet.
 
First, and mainly, pray. You can move people farther praying for them than arguing with them. Usually arguing drives wedges. But to your question of showing an organized church from scripture.

Here are some things that reached me when I pondered these things from the side of the fence your Uncle is on.

Look at Timothy and Titus. These are people appointed by Paul to oversee other church leaders in a region with authority. Essentially the following :

Titus 1:5 The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint[a] elders in every town, as I directed you. … 2:15 These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you. … 3:10 Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them. 11 You may be sure that such people are warped and sinful; they are self-condemned. – NIV

In this small, usually overlooked epistle, you see Titus being left by Paul in Crete to appoint church officers, to rebuke when needed with authority, to turn out those who having been warned a few times. Paul → Titus → Local Leaders → local church members. What is this but organization. There are similar things in Timothy I and II. They are all small read them through.

There is also the epistle of Jude. In Jude 1:11 “Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.” The error of cain was offering a different sacrifice, the error of Balaam was cursing Israel for $$, but the key is Korah’s rebellion. Korahs rebellion ( Numbers 16:1-3 ) was to tell Moses and Aaron ( the newly appointed high priest ) that they were not a specially set aside priesthood but rather that everyone in the community is holy and no one is above another. It was an attack on the idea of a priesthood. If there is no longer in the Christian age a set apart organization of a priesthood, how could Jude warn about those following in the rebellion ? The rebellion was the claim there was no organization.

Hope I helped a little.
 
It makes no sense when people claim that Christ wasn’t trying to establish a religion. Just what was He doing then? What did He set His apostles out to do? So, these people are telling me the church came to be by complete accident? How silly.
 
SwissGuard25 said:
Ha!

Non-Denominational Christians are, let’s face it, lazy Christians who don’t want to go to church and tell themselves they’ll still receive salvation.
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Certainly you are entitled to your opinion, but I disagree with this statement and frankly find it a bit offensive to our N-D brothers.

Such people are simply another in a long line of disciples seeking the “simplicity” of the Truths of Christ…
In each case those who seek to “recreate” the NT church in it’s simplicity find themselves, over time, developing the same kinds of “structure” and “rules” and other things that they were originally trying to get away from thinking that these things were wrong or not necessary
…OR…
If they steadfastly refuse to recognize and implement the needed structure, they find themselves dealing with much confusion and splintering with this local community teaching one thing and that local community teaching something else…

All because they fail to recognize the truly Biblical and foundational Truth of what Christ truly intended when he said “Tell it to the Church” and “Listen to the Church”.(Mt 18:17)

So - - -

Misguided? Yes. Lazy? No.

Peace
James
 
First, if he is a person that has a church that says it is bible based I would say these things:
  1. Matt 16 says Christ will build a Church, His Church.
  2. The new testament says that if you can’t convince your “brother” with even two or three then take it to the Church.
  3. Even Jesus was in a Church, called the Jewish faith.
  4. The gospel of Matthew has “ecclesia” as the name given for the gathering of people called Church.
  5. The new covenant came out of the old covenant. The Jews at that time always had to go to their synogogs or the temple at required times of the year other than on the sabbaths.
  6. The concept of the Body of Christ shows that not only are we individuals, but we are woven together in Christ’s Body in a special way that we must celebrate together the death and resurrection, called a Mass.
 
mdcpensive1 said:
  1. The concept of the Body of Christ shows that not only are we individuals, but we are woven together in Christ’s Body in a special way that we must celebrate together the death and resurrection, called a Mass.
Click to expand...
I’m currently on vacation visiting family in Germany and at Mass yesterday the priest had a really interesting and good homily about Jesus as the Bread of Life and how fitting it was that he used bread as both a symbol and as a way to present himself to us in the Mass. He mentioned how bread (in its many forms) is essential to most cultures, including ours in the U.S., and how often we use bread in almost everything. And because of how essential bread is, how fitting it was for Jesus to use bread in his analogies and as he presented himself at the Last Supper and to us in the Mass.

It’s so awesome!
 
bzkoss236 said:
I’m currently on vacation visiting family in Germany and at Mass yesterday the priest had a really interesting and good homily about Jesus as the Bread of Life and how fitting it was that he used bread as both a symbol and as a way to present himself to us in the Mass. He mentioned how bread (in its many forms) is essential to most cultures, including ours in the U.S., and how often we use bread in almost everything. And because of how essential bread is, how fitting it was for Jesus to use bread in his analogies and as he presented himself at the Last Supper and to us in the Mass.

It’s so awesome!
Click to expand...
The same thing can be said for wine. It is so fitting that He used elements that have lasted over the centuries. He must have known what He was doing. (no planned obsolecence!!!)
mdcpensive1
 
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