I have missed the “Coat Rack Thread” somehow. It must have been a real hoot.
It seems funny now, but at the time, it really upset me. I think it was the first time that I realized that Catholics can be just as nasty as Protestants can be.
For those of you who don’t know my history, in 2002, our family was kicked out of our Protestant church, an Evangelical Free Church where we had served in many ministries for several years. A woman pastor, jealous of our successes with children’s ministries, trumped up heinous charges against us, specifically me (I’m the wife). We were asked to attend a tribunal, which consisted of many men that we didn’t even know and who had never met us, along with the woman pastor. The meeting ended with us being told to leave the church. We were shunned by most of the church members from that day on.
It was a nightmare. We had spent all our lives devoted to our churches, usually spending 5-6 days or evenings a week involved with some church ministry. And now it was all gone. For the first time in decades, we turned on our television in the evening and watched the shows that we had only heard about before our ousting.
As you can imagine, that incident crushed any trust that I had for Christians. For a year, I wouldn’t go near a church, and I closed my Bible and put it away, because I realized that the doctrine of sola Scriptura is Satanic–the tribunal used the Bible to justify their cruel treatment of our family.
My two daughters stopped attending church. Several years later, a few years after my husband and I converted to Catholicism, my older daughter began attending Mass in her city, and after two years, converted to Catholicism. She is a very enthusiastic Catholic today.
My younger daughter is married now, and has not attended church since the ousting. She will visit churches with me and her daddy. She will cantor if she is invited to (she has a beautiful, classically-trained voice). She and her husband talk about someday going to church. But the fact is–she doesn’t trust “church” or Christians. She has seen just how mean Christians can be when they are “defending their beliefs,” and she can’t bring herself to trust any of them. I believe that our Blessed Mother will plead with her Son to please be merciful to my daughter (who is baptized, BTW) and her husband (who was her boyfriend at the time the ousting occurred).
Anyway, the coat rack thread and the vitriol in that thread really hurt my trust in Catholics. I love many of the people in my parish and attend a Bible study/friendship small group with a half-dozen other couples and singles. I think I trust these people. But I think that I will battle trust issues until I die. You just don’t forget about such horror.
Now what does that have to do with the topic in this thread? Probably nothing, except to remind people that we are dealing with human hearts in any thread here on CAF. Some posters seem to enjoy using strong words, specifically sarcasm, to “prove” that they are “correct.” Sadly, these people don’t realize that being correct is not nearly as important as demonstrating Christian love for all people, including those that we disagree with.
You never know who is reading a thread and what will hurt them to a point where they can’t bring themselves to trust God or His people again. That’s where my younger daughter is. Someone put her in that place, and they probably don’t even know it, and they probably think that they are so righteous. They will be surprised when they face Jesus during their judgment.
