Why did YOU leave The Church?

[Carlan]

Carlan, so you’re saying our separated brothers are going to be cleansed in Purgatory alongside some Catholics. What’s all the fuss then about? The only “could not be saved” folk are those who knew at one time and do not remain? Peace to you too!

No fuss my friend, just hope.
As for the"could not be saved" folk, the others, we care also.We hope and pray , for the Father loves all his children and never gives up on them.Remember the lost sheep.

The truth is we are given the free choice, we have to do the asking, we have to do the knocking. God stands by with the actual grace to give, prompting. We must receive and accept. So we pray and we trust!Peace, Carlan

 

[JohnnyReb]

JohnnyReb-

I admire your hard work and diligence!
Can I ask how people who are so close to Catholicism find their way to Anglicanism? To accept a King/Queen as the “Supreme Head of Church” seems so odd to me…

I appreciate your kind words. Your response reveals how we all can approach the same question with our own assumptions, and yours are certainly different than mine. My departure (if you can call it that) from the Catholic church took a much different line of reasoning. Through my studies I learned that historic Christian worship is sacramental. Most evangelical Protestantism is not sacramentally centered in worship.

I began to ask questions about the claims that the Catholic and Orthodox churches make about themselves. Both claim to be THE Church, gifted with a gift of infalliblity in regards to faith and morals. They both claim to be entire church that Christ founded. These are huge claims that require huge proof. I came to the conclusion that the Catholic and Orthodox churches are the oldest institutions in Christianity, but the claim to be the exclusive church that Christ founded, and that Christians not a part of either institution are not part of the church that Christ founded, to be without sufficient truth.

I came to Rome because of the inadaqucies of Sola Scriptura, and left because of the inadaqucies of Sola Ecclesia that Rome and the Orthodox adhere to. The Catholic church is Sola Ecclesia in the sense that Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition are interpreted into authoritative Dogma by the Church-namely the Magisterium, and what the Church teaches, must be believed.

 

[Beagleblue]

Tired of “This is the Explanation” that’s it. It is what we say it is and don’t question it. But most faiths are the same. We’re right, they’re all wrong, well unless you can produce empirical proof, don’t tell me I’m wrong. I’m not saying you’re wrong; just tell me why you’re right.

 

[lax16]

I appreciate your kind words. Your response reveals how we all can approach the same question with our own assumptions, and yours are certainly different than mine. My departure (if you can call it that) from the Catholic church took a much different line of reasoning. Through my studies I learned that historic Christian worship is sacramental. Most evangelical Protestantism is not sacramentally centered in worship.

I began to ask questions about the claims that the Catholic and Orthodox churches make about themselves. Both claim to be THE Church, gifted with a gift of infalliblity in regards to faith and morals. They both claim to be entire church that Christ founded. These are huge claims that require huge proof. I came to the conclusion that the Catholic and Orthodox churches are the oldest institutions in Christianity, but the claim to be the exclusive church that Christ founded, and that Christians not a part of either institution are not part of the church that Christ founded, to be without sufficient truth.

I came to Rome because of the inadaqucies of Sola Scriptura, and left because of the inadaqucies of Sola Ecclesia that Rome and the Orthodox adhere to. The Catholic church is Sola Ecclesia in the sense that Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition are interpreted into authoritative Dogma by the Church-namely the Magisterium, and what the Church teaches, must be believed.

Okay, I am following you…
I am still not sure how that would lead one to Anglicanism? In what way is it different so that “it” is the right church? Or, perhaps, you are saying, it is right for you?
Do the Anglicans claim to be correct or right or are they open to Christians of all faiths to be with sufficient truth?
(I know little to nothing about Anglicanism other than it is the Church of England and it all began over a divorce…)

 

[lax16]

Tired of “This is the Explanation” that’s it. It is what we say it is and don’t question it. But most faiths are the same. We’re right, they’re all wrong, well unless you can produce empirical proof, don’t tell me I’m wrong. I’m not saying you’re wrong; just tell me why you’re right.

Thank goodness for the internet - answers to many of the questions that we poorly cathechized Catholics (such as myself!) have beem wondering all this time!

Have you ever read the writings of the Early Church Fathers?

 

[JohnnyReb]

Okay, I am following you…
I am still not sure how that would lead one to Anglicanism? In what way is it different so that “it” is the right church? Or, perhaps, you are saying, it is right for you?
Do the Anglicans claim to be correct or right or are they open to Christians of all faiths to be with sufficient truth?
(I know little to nothing about Anglicanism other than it is the Church of England and it all began over a divorce…)

For me its no longer an issue of this church is right, this church is wrong, TEC is far from perfect, but fits me best where I am right now. I did a self examination of my own beliefs derived from scripture, tradition and reason. I can go into more detail about that, but decided to spare the theological dissertation unless people are interested.

Also, Anglicans speak of being both Catholic and Protestant. Paul said to test everything, hold to that which is good. I have access to the good in both Protestantism and Catholicism.

 

[lax16]

For me its no longer an issue of this church is right, this church is wrong, TEC is far from perfect, but fits me best where I am right now. I did a self examination of my own beliefs derived from scripture, tradition and reason. I can go into more detail about that, but decided to spare the theological dissertation unless people are interested.

Also, Anglicans speak of being both Catholic and Protestant. Paul said to test everything, hold to that which is good. I have access to the good in both Protestantism and Catholicism.

Okay, sounds good.
Although you still have not yet answered how one can be okay with the King/Queen as Supreme Head of Church…there’s no scriptural basis for it. No keys…

Anyway, I am interested in the details - I don’t know any Anglicans and have questions about how you (and others) arrive at your conclusions.

 

[JohnnyReb]

Okay, sounds good.
Although you still have not yet answered how one can be okay with the King/Queen as Supreme Head of Church…there’s no scriptural basis for it. No keys…

Anyway, I am interested in the details - I don’t know any Anglicans and have questions about how you (and others) arrive at your conclusions.

Never said the Anglican church was perfect

I’ll fill you in tomorrow. I have an Anatomy final tomorrow morning and need to get to bed.

 

[lax16]

Never said the Anglican church was perfect

I’ll fill you in tomorrow. I have an Anatomy final tomorrow morning and need to get to bed.

No, you didn’t!
Good luck with your final - summer school anatomy class - brings back memories!

 

[Feanor2]

Habit. I started coming here when I was Catholic, and kept coming back after I de-converted. Also, I find it interesting to read the opinions I disagree with.

I hope you find Truth as well - I’d imagine that It’s nothing like either one of expect.

“Cheesian” I like that, but is it “sheeSSEEAN” or “CheeSJAN”?

 

[Monica4316]

My experience of the Christian Deity is that It is neither kind nor loving.

My experience of the Christian Divinity is through His people. “You are His hands, his mouth, his feet in the world” is the saying, correct? My experience of Christians has been one of anger, divisiveness, pettiness, and judgement.

Now, I have experienced Divinity, it all It’s wonder and glory, but my experiences also lead me to conclude that this Divinity cannot be the same one that I was taught growing up in a fundamentalist Catholic Charismatic home.

I’m sorry that you came across Christians like that
I think that it’s important to judge Christianity based on Christians who are good at living out the faith, rather than those who are struggling with it… for example, would you judge mathematics, or another science or system, based on people who are good at it (let’s say, those with a PhD in math), or 1st graders? If you judged it based on 1st graders, you wouldn’t get an accurate picture… when I read about the Saints, I could see that these people knew God very closely… and I could also see how they treated others

We don’t just get to know God through people though… I came to my faith without really knowing any Christians. I used to be an agnostic. I have experienced God’s presence during prayer and in the Eucharist, and He is incredibly loving and doesn’t even compare with the best love found on earth. I’ve never experienced anything like that before.

God bless

 

[JohnnyReb]

Okay, sounds good.
Although you still have not yet answered how one can be okay with the King/Queen as Supreme Head of Church…there’s no scriptural basis for it. No keys…

Anyway, I am interested in the details - I don’t know any Anglicans and have questions about how you (and others) arrive at your conclusions.

The Split of the Church of England from Rome was a mess of intermingled religious and political reasons, as the following link shows.

wsu.edu/~dee/REFORM/ENGLAND.HTM

Every church that I have been a part of has had some form of spiritual leader that exercises some form of organizational authority over the church. Each office is different in terms of the scope of that power, how much the person actually controls, and how long they stay in power. The Southern Baptists have a president of the SBC. The Church of God has a general overseer, and the RCC has the Pope. The Anglican Communion has the Archbishop of Canterbury. They exist out of organizational necessity. None of these groups make the claim of their leaders that the Catholic Church makes of the Pope. None of these churches claim that their leader is head over the entire church Universal, cannot error in teaching in faith and morals, is the successor of saint Peter etc…

fact-index.com/a/ar/archbishop_of_canterbury.html

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England is the spiritual head of the Church of England. His see is Canterbury Cathedral and his official London residence is Lambeth Palace. Since Henry VIII broke with Rome, archbishops of Canterbury have been selected by the English (latterly British) monarch;** at present, the choice is made in his or her name, but by the prime minister, from a shortlist of two selected by a committee of clergy and laity.**

The CoE has changed over the years in many ways. Today, the Queen/King exercises much less authority in the Church than in years past.

On the other side of the coin is the Roman Catholic Claim that the pope is the head of the church. This claim requires greater proof than any Anglican claim because of their claims that that the Pope is infallible when he teaches of faith and morals-cannot error. Likewise, where is the proof for Papal primacy? I have bolded everything that I believe any Anglican and Protestant would reject about the Pope.

**The office uniquely committed by the Lord to Peter, **the first of the Apostles, and to be transmitted to his successors, abides in the Bishop of the Church of Rome. He is head of the College of Bishops, the Vicar of Christ, and the Pastor of the universal Church here on earth. Consequently, by virtue of his office, he has supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church, and he can always freely exercise this power.

Doctrinally, the pope is regarded as the successor of St. Peter, leader of the apostles after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.** This is an important factor in the tradition that the pope is believed to have jurisdiction over the entire Christian church in matters of faith, morals and church government. **This doctrine is known as **papal primacy. **

 

[Aleii]

The foundation of my faith crumbled because it didn’t make sense to me anymore, and in fact, some parts looked immoral to me, and a perfect God is incompatible with immorality and cruelty.

I don’t know how one can consider faith a choice if it fundamentally doesn’t make sense to them. My brain automatically tells me if something makes sense or not. I can’t choose to believe that 1+1=3 nor can I choose to believe in Zeus, or that Jesus is God. Even if one desires/hopes for it, they can not somehow force themselves to obtain faith, even if they do all the ‘correct faith producing actions’.

 

[InspiritCarol]

The foundation of my faith crumbled because it didn’t make sense to me anymore, and in fact, some parts looked immoral to me, and a perfect God is incompatible with immorality and cruelty.

I don’t know how one can consider faith a choice if it fundamentally doesn’t make sense to them. My brain automatically tells me if something makes sense or not. I can’t choose to believe that 1+1=3 nor can I choose to believe in Zeus, or that Jesus is God. Even if one desires/hopes for it, they can not somehow force themselves to obtain faith, even if they do all the ‘correct faith producing actions’.

No. I agree with you. You can not force yourself to feel God’s presence. Did you know it even says that in the Bible? Jesus (in the bible) says John 15:16 (New American Standard Bible)
"You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.”
And… Hebrews 5:4
“And no one takes the honor to himself, but receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was”
etc… (there’s lots more)…
You hit the nail on the head. That’s why I don’t act too forcefully with my atheist friends. How can I expect them to accept that which they just don’t feel in their hearts?

(Here’s the other shoe dropping.)
BUT.
All faith requires is acceptance that we are not infinite beings and so there is no possible way we can comprehend ALL things God. Yet there ARE things that are undeniable in our lives: seeds that God has planted for us that all we need do is water a bit. Little miracles and big ones; the absolutely unexplainable. Search your heart. Do you have these? Then maybe God has called you. He is the still small voice talking to you now in the darkness of your heart. Hear Him. Be still and know Him.

No?

Well there’s one other really great thing God gave us. Kind of a back door for the “faithless” to get to know Him: Prayer. If you find yourself incapable of it, then ask your friends to do it for you. Hey, if in fact it IS truly meaningless, then you’ve lost nothing. Right? But, check it out: Prayer, is like going to the gym; the more you do it (even if vicariously through others) and the more regularly (gotta be consistent) you do it, the more results you’ll see.

Try it. What harm could it do?

I guess there’s some beautiful people that have just faith; but really, I think most of us KNOW in our hearts, minds and souls (down to the fiber of our very being) that, somehow (we don’t fully “get” it but someway Jesus is the great “I AM” and he died so that we would have a way to be with God despite our sinful natures. We don’t have the full picture of how this all works but we can’t DENY certain things that have God’s signature all over them. And what even cooler is the more you study the Bible and the Catholic Church with an open heart and open mind (pray for this gift from the Holy Spirit) the more we can accept that which we can never comprehend; the more clear and beautiful our world and our selves become.

And I’ll say a little prayer for you now: may God Bless you; be not sick at heart; know you are loved.

Oh, and BTW: Zeus is not, nor did his followers ever claim him to be the “Creator of the Universe”. BIG difference.

 

[cheese_sdc]

I really wish y’all would stop trying to compare the proof of a loving God with comparisons of a scientific nature. That’s apples and oranges. Earlier in the thread someone compared atheism to driving a car without gas. That argument didn’t work and neither does this.

Understand this: There is no proof, philosophical or scientific, for the existence of God. There is no proof, philosophical or scientific, for the non-existence of God.

With than in mind, please understand that the only experience of a loving Divinity anyone has is through the actions of those who follow It. My experiences have been almost entirely negative. Therefore… I’m sure you get the picture.

 

[crazzeto]

I never formally left, rather I became first a C&E Catholic and then less than so quite simply out out sheer stupid lazyness and a complete lack of understanding of faith in Jesus Christ as taught by the Apostles.

I thank God that he kept calling me back!

 

[Carlan]

I really wish y’all would stop trying to compare the proof of a loving God with comparisons of a scientific nature. That’s apples and oranges. Earlier in the thread someone compared atheism to driving a car without gas. That argument didn’t work and neither does this.

Understand this: There is no proof, philosophical or scientific, for the existence of God. There is no proof, philosophical or scientific, for the non-existence of God.

With than in mind, please understand that the only experience of a loving Divinity anyone has is through the actions of those who follow It. My experiences have been almost entirely negative. Therefore… I’m sure you get the picture.

So it is not that you don’t believe in God.
You do, though, believe in your own version of what is really your own religion. In other words you do not believe in God as much as you do not believe in religions,other than,of course your very own, which is called the Cheese religion, if that makes anysense.

Peace, Carlan

 

[nickybr38]

With than in mind, please understand that the only experience of a loving Divinity anyone has is through the actions of those who follow It. My experiences have been almost entirely negative. Therefore… I’m sure you get the picture.

I have been given proof of God throughout all of my life. He has touched me in extraordinary ways that are impossible to ignore. My very EXISTANCE is proof of HIS existance. That’s enough proof for me.

Now, with that in mind, I see the loving God in the world around me. In the unique way in which our bodies function, in the earth, in the sun, in the grass, in the trees that bear fruit which I can eat, in the animals which run about doing their things… I see the loving God in His creation.

So, I"m sorry, your reality may be that it is only through FLAWED humans that you can see the loving God but it is MY reality that a loving God can be seen in the very universe. If I looked through humans for God I would have never found Him.

 

[larkin31]

My faith just weakened over time. No signal event. From 13-18 years old I prayed every day. At 18 I was born again. By 20 I was done. I could return to church someday, but it would have to be very liberal and NOT rooted in ritual (the rituals feel like thoughtless mumbo-jumbo to me). But sacred writing, and art, and story, and music strike me very deeply still…

 

[cheese_sdc]

So it is not that you don’t believe in God.
You do, though, believe in your own version of what is really your own religion. In other words you do not believe in God as much as you do not believe in religions,other than,of course your very own, which is called the Cheese religion, if that makes anysense.

Peace, Carlan

Not quite. I believe no one religion can encompass the infinite that is Divinity, but that each religion captures some part of the Whole Truth of Divinity. Salvation and Truth depends on letting go of our preconception of Divinity and embracing It as It Is, not as What We Want It To Be.

Of course, we cannot know What It Is until we die.

I also believe strongly in the complete Otherness and Transcendence of Divinity.