Well, I’m from the metropolitan New York area where Catholicism is the dominant faith, so perhaps that had something to do with it? And I will say when I attended Mass with my wife if you got there late; you were standing. So perhaps it was largely culturally ingrained and thus no one ever felt a need or point to evangelize? Now that I think about it does make some sense.
**Well maybe then I should move to metropolitan New York area… I live in a country in Europe where Catholicism is the “dominant faith” but the people here are confused, relativists, agnostics, You have to look far to find a priest who preaches with fire and bring conviction to the hearts. I think in America things might be slightly better… or maybe you just have higher church attendance numbers? A lot of us overhere talk about that Europe has become neo-heathen. When people stop believing in Christ, they start believing in… well everything and nothing. I have noticed that Evangelicals are often much better evangelists than Catholics. Some reasons for this I guess is: we have a structure in the Church which has passified the laity through centuries. Laity has been given no responsibility in the Church and been made to feel second class. Then they also see the preaching and evangelizing as a job for the “religious”… even that way of using the language: “The religious., the sisters and brothers”… and then there is the rest of us…You know what I mean. It doesn’t necessarily make you feel like its your church-home you step into, but rather you feel it belongs to the “religious”… Like if you are in a family where some children are called: son and daughter… and you are just called Frank. So in Europe Catholics don’t care to give their money anymore to the Church… its a vicious circle… Clergicalism is deep in Catholic tradition, and its a problem I think. **
I see you’re from Europe, whereabouts? I traveled to Italy, the Vatican, Austria and Germany a few years back. Its funny, when I checked out the various churches (each one is basically a small museum) I was struck by the almost total absence of people in them, except for the Vatican obviously…and many of those people appeared to be American (based on their less than formal dress
) or Asian tourists.
Yep. Thats probably correct. I think the European countries have a socialistic and self-loathing mentality which has succeeded in making Christians timid and ashamed of their oppinions and traditional views. When I experienced conversion I quite often heard the words from older Catholics: "Are you planning to become a nun? " (why the heck should I become a nun just because I’m on fire with the Lord?! ) or people would tell me, because I spoke openly about Christ; we haven’t met anyone like you before’. Sad… imagine… they were adult people and they hadn’t met anyone who thouht the Gospel worth sharing.
The weird thing is even as an atheist at the time the myriad empty churches saddened me on some level.
** I hear ya. In my country the politicians are talking about selling our beautiful old church buildings because they are not in use… It is darn sad. We Christians hope that some people from Africa or China will come to our missionfields soon.**
I honestly like your attitude. A bit of militancy never hurt anyone!
All the apostles… as well as the 72 disciples were called to preach the Gospel. I think the key is this: What the heart is full of, the mouth runs over with it. If we don’t wanna talk about what Jesus did for us… WE need to get woken up, not the others.
I know who he is, but what quote are you referring to?
I don’t recall where it was written anymore
That seems about right.
yea
But I DO BELIEVE THAT GOD REMAINS IN CHARGE.