Catholic29:
This is one of the main reasons that kept me out of the Church and from faith for the first 20 years of my life. Who’s “gospel” are we supposed to believe? It was really that simple. And only through a strong yearing to know the truth and alot of astute studying was what brought me into the Catholic Church.
That sounds like a good thing. Welcome.
Even in my youth I could see something was a miss with Christianity, seeing two Churches practically across the street from one another with differing monikers on their signs to distinguish themselves apart. And when I looked into them further, it was more than just the words on a sign that made them different. So when many of these Protestants and relativist cafeteria Catholics disregard denominational distinctives and say things like “we are all basically Christian, and thats all that matters”, I simply cannot agree with that.
You might want to tread very lightly here. Note that you come across as having condemned those protestants and “relativist cafeteria Catholics” as the ones who are the cause of the current problem. That is, the current alleged problem.
When Jesus’ disciples tried to stop a group from driving out demons in Christ’s name since they didn’t belong to the right group, Jesus told them not to stop them because “any who is not against us is for us.”
Jesus told the story about the good Samaritan, whereas the kindness he showed was much more important than what group he belonged to or what faith he professed.
Again Jesus told the story about the publican and the tax collector, where the publican was crowing about how great it was to be in the right group and doing the right practices, but was not justified and a sinner was.
By today’s vernacular, we would have called Jesus a relativist because he accepted sinners, outsiders, wrong thinkers, and considered those who did a kind deed above all those who would think they knew it all and would tell those kind actors a thing or two about their faith.
I’m kind of like that. The person who puts us up when we have no home is my neighbor, Catholic or not. The person who is there to console me is doing Jesus’ work. Who am I to tell them that they are less of a Christian than I am because I belong to the right organization?
On the surface Protestants and Catholics may be Christian in some generic or simple sense, however there are many differing positions in serious matters of doctorine and belief that cannot be disregarded for the sake of ecumenism, or for a supposed unity that does not exist. However I continue to pray and yearn for this unity daily, which is why I came on these forums to begin with.
For the sake of operating the Church, it is important for these matters to be spelled out. For the sake of a Catholic or non-Catholic Christian (yes they are Christians too, like it or not) and how they behave on a daily basis, then no they really aren’t important.
For example, several years ago I was taken to task by a Wiccan who had helped in the rescue of bodies (and survivors? I can’t remember) from the Potomac River airplane crash in snowy weather. He had a good point. There were Christians and non-Christians alike working side by side. I’d like to think God smiled at the acts of unity, which did not depend on rigid adherence to dogma.
Many times when people disagree with doctrine, they don’t fully understand it. Sometimes they are just stubborn, or culturally programmed. One of the greatest divisions this causes are divisions in the heart – one group thinks they are better than the other because they are more orthodox, or if not better than somehow more blessed. The other group always feels the gap of being inferior and knowing they hold different views. To me, this is a far more serious source of division in the Church than whether a couple sneaks around doing something in their bedroom that offends our doctrine.
Alan
atheist:
