L
losh14
Guest
Couple thoughts. I think the media fixate on Christians in one aspect - visible ones become only an example, even a spectacle. News stories on Catholicism almost never mention Jesus Christ (except to describe Christmas or Easter), but rather focus upon some controversial issue. The good we as church do is oft ignored, the sins of a few focused extravagantly upon, and no matter how far apart it happens in time or geography, if two stories break simultaneously about sexual abuse by clergy it becomes a breaking news story to follow the trend.
Tim Tebow is focused on for his faith (good for him, that more of us were as outspoken about Christ), but I’ve yet to see his behavior explicitly contrasted with that of the “dirty” players like Suh. No moral judgement is passed, no moral conclusion reached. Tebow’s faith is viewed in isolation ie, “here’s a guy who kneels and thanks God after a good play and talks up Christ afterwards.”
As to Tebow’s father and the evangelical tendency to treat Catholics as “churched” but unsaved, I don’t know if this is ignorance, arrogance, or malice. Probably the first two. A close friend of mine left the Church in college, was re-baptized and then went to her grandfather (a Catholic deacon, who baptized her as an infant) to ask for money for a mission trip to evangelize the Peruvians. She was astonished he wouldn’t support her, and very upset that he wrote her a letter decrying her re-baptism. For whatever reason she didn’t feel like she could find Christ in the Catholic Church, and even to this day she’s running from Catholicism. She and her husband recently left an evangelical church because they decided to allow infant baptism (provided the father performed it - the pastor would refuse). She received a very nice crucifix from her grandmother for her baby girl’s room, but decided not to put it up because it’s “too Catholic”. Etc.
I want to give some credit to the evangelicals. They’re not that dumb (not all of them). If they look at some of the subcultures in Latin America I can understand why they think we’re not converting people to Christ. It’s hard to look at saintly veneration, shrines along the road with statues of Mary, and say “No, really, they believe in Jesus Christ as their savior.” It’s a very foreign culture to that in which many of these evangelicals live.
Then Tebow’s dad says something blatant like “we estimate that over 65 million of them have never once heard the gospel of Jesus Christ” and I’m thinking he’s entirely ignorant of history and statistics. And as a statistician I really hate when people throw out a guess and call it an estimate. A goldbug once told me “I estimate that your stocks will lose 90% of their value when people give up on the dollar.” I think I threw something at him.
The best way to talk with Protestants is honestly over a beer. You need humor and some relaxation. I started a bachelor party for a buddy (an ordained Presbyterian minister, no less) with the joke “what do you call a Catholic hanging out with a dozen Protestants? Jesus and the Apostles.” We had a great time and some of them actually went to Mass after we talked.
Not that Tebow would do that. Digression. Sorry. fnord
Tim Tebow is focused on for his faith (good for him, that more of us were as outspoken about Christ), but I’ve yet to see his behavior explicitly contrasted with that of the “dirty” players like Suh. No moral judgement is passed, no moral conclusion reached. Tebow’s faith is viewed in isolation ie, “here’s a guy who kneels and thanks God after a good play and talks up Christ afterwards.”
As to Tebow’s father and the evangelical tendency to treat Catholics as “churched” but unsaved, I don’t know if this is ignorance, arrogance, or malice. Probably the first two. A close friend of mine left the Church in college, was re-baptized and then went to her grandfather (a Catholic deacon, who baptized her as an infant) to ask for money for a mission trip to evangelize the Peruvians. She was astonished he wouldn’t support her, and very upset that he wrote her a letter decrying her re-baptism. For whatever reason she didn’t feel like she could find Christ in the Catholic Church, and even to this day she’s running from Catholicism. She and her husband recently left an evangelical church because they decided to allow infant baptism (provided the father performed it - the pastor would refuse). She received a very nice crucifix from her grandmother for her baby girl’s room, but decided not to put it up because it’s “too Catholic”. Etc.
I want to give some credit to the evangelicals. They’re not that dumb (not all of them). If they look at some of the subcultures in Latin America I can understand why they think we’re not converting people to Christ. It’s hard to look at saintly veneration, shrines along the road with statues of Mary, and say “No, really, they believe in Jesus Christ as their savior.” It’s a very foreign culture to that in which many of these evangelicals live.
Then Tebow’s dad says something blatant like “we estimate that over 65 million of them have never once heard the gospel of Jesus Christ” and I’m thinking he’s entirely ignorant of history and statistics. And as a statistician I really hate when people throw out a guess and call it an estimate. A goldbug once told me “I estimate that your stocks will lose 90% of their value when people give up on the dollar.” I think I threw something at him.
The best way to talk with Protestants is honestly over a beer. You need humor and some relaxation. I started a bachelor party for a buddy (an ordained Presbyterian minister, no less) with the joke “what do you call a Catholic hanging out with a dozen Protestants? Jesus and the Apostles.” We had a great time and some of them actually went to Mass after we talked.
Not that Tebow would do that. Digression. Sorry. fnord
