I’ve got a bone to pick with Christians all across the country, nay, the world even. (Overdramatic perhaps? I’m never overdramatic!) If you’re a Christian, you and me have to have ourselves a little heart to heart. If you’re not, well, I highly recommend that you and Jesus have a little heart to heart cause He loves you bunches and as a fellow who’s been gone from Christian to atheist to agnostic back to Christian, I can tell you life is poop without Him.
Let’s pretend you’re in your favorite coffee shop ordering your favorite caffeinated beverage to sit down in front of a fire to have all manner of intellectual banter with the other coffee-feigns who frequent this establishment (If you don’t like coffee…well, just work with me here.) Got it? Alright, so I come and sit in the overly comfy chair across the chessboard from you and ask you a socially taboo but very common question.
What kind of church do you go to?
Gasp! How could I ask such a thing? Well, stay tuned in the relative near future and I’ll explain briefly why some socially unacceptable questions should be asked (Are you a Christian? Wanna hear about Jesus? Winter or Summer Olympics? ….but I digress.)
Alright, so honesty time. What was your answer? United Methodist? Episcopalian? What about Charismatic Episcopalian? Hmm. I bet some of you put on your thinking caps real hard and pulled out some great Sunday School answers. Many of you were thinking, “I’m a Protestant and fiercely proud of it! Go Luther!” Most of the rest of you were all like, “Catholicism for life baby! The pope’s my boy!”
What’s the correct answer? (Uh oh, he’s about to call one right and the other wrong…two to one he says Catholics are dumb dumb heads.)
Alright, so here’s my answer (and indeed what I believe with all my heart to be correct). I go to the church of God, and all of you who are Christians, you do too (and those who aren’t Christians, God’s been leaving messages on your voicemail for years and wants you to return His calls).
So finally I return to what I started talking about…finally. I’m sick and tired of Christians hating other Christians because of some sort of stereotype or pre-determined bias they have against them.
I’m mostly signaling out Protestants here because thanks to the Vatican II council, the Roman Catholic church now does indeed recognize that other Christian denominations are indeed Christian and important to the Body of Christ. Catholics are no less Christian than Protestants! What follows is why I can say something so outrageous to many of you.
For a very very long time (most of my life actually) I thought Catholics were nothing better then pagans, worshipping all manner of saints and Mary and that none of them actually believed in God and Jesus as Christ. You know what changed my mind? What could cause such a drastic paradigm shift? What else could so drastically cause a teenage boy to re-evaluate his perspective on life but an amazing girlfriend? My freshman year of college I had a short relationship with a Catholic girl, and discovered that amazingly enough, she was Christian! Gasp!
Suddenly, for the first time in my life I was forced to sit down and actually think about the stereotypes I’d held for years. I discovered that both she and her mom (also a Catholic) had very strong and developed faiths.
(I realize just now that perhaps this was God’s purpose for putting this girl into my life. You who know me personally know who I’m talking about, and know that the breakup was rough, but you know, as I’m writing this I realize that I can be thankful because God used this girl to eliminate all the stereotypes about Catholics I had and to cause me to want to learn more about the orthodox doctrine and dogma. Crazy how I live with heartache for a very long time until I realize that it was all God’s will. So if you’re reading this Catholic girl, thank you.)
My story of discovering the truth about Catholicism doesn’t end there. During that same freshman year (what a year for me) I became good friends with a fellow astrophysics major when I gave her first aide for a nasty skin avulsion in her hand and then rushed her to the hospital (kids, please don’t stick an exacto-knife in your hand by accident whilst cutting holes in trashcan lids…it never ends well). When we took a sailing class together we began going to this friendly little diner for breakfast before class and spent our time discussing things mostly of a physicsy and religious nature. In case you couldn’t figure out where I was going, this good friend of mine is Catholic. She’s probably the first person of a different denomination who I’ve spent serious time discussing faith and religion with, and so she’s the first person who I’ve actually gotten to see grow and develop in her faith and theology over an extended period of time.
By this time I was shocked to realize that I actually began defending Catholics. I started to see real Catholics in their real faith. I also started to formulate why exactly I believe so many Protestants have this idea that all Catholics have dead faith.
Let’s think about this. Most of us have had the misfortune of watching a close friend lose their once strong faith. Yeah, it sucks, and yeah, keep workin’ on ‘em cause God misses them. So when a Protestant becomes an atheist or agnostic, do they keep calling themselves Protestants? In most cases they call themselves atheists or agnostics.
Now let’s think about Catholics. Catholicism, unlike Protestantism, is more than a faith. Catholicism is history, community, heritage, much like Judaism. If a Catholic ceases to believe the tenants of his faith, he usually still thinks of himself as a Catholic because he sees his being Catholic as his heritage and nationality. The same is often true of Jews.
So here’s where Protestants have Catholics wrong. It seems as though there are more false Catholics than Protestants just because more Catholics retain their “title” of Catholic even after they cease being Christian than do Protestants.
If this seems mildly questionable to you, just sit and think about it for a minute. I think if you’re being open minded and honest with yourself and with me you’ll see that what I’m saying is true.
Alright, so now for the night that forever changed my view of Catholics. Down here at school I attend a wonderful church pastured by a man with a great gift for Bible teaching. I like to think of it as a party in God’s house and everyone’s invited. Great praise, great Bible teaching, great just about everything. It’s pretty much your stereotypical charismatic new age Christian church. One Sunday in mid November I overslept both morning services. I told my good friend (who I still frequent the friendly diner with) when we went to see a movie, and she suggested I come with her to her church that evening. I was skeptical. Before this day I’d been to two Catholic services in my life. What I saw at this lovely church amazed me.
I have been to all sorts of services at all sorts of different denominations all over different parts of the country. I have seen, heard, and felt amazing things in these churches. This Catholic mass was one of the most spirit filled and amazing services I’ve ever worshipped in. God was very much present here. You see the teenagers praise and worship with tears and hands raised, dancing and singing like any charismatic youth Christian conference. The best part for me though was the prayer during the Eucharist. (Communion time). Amazing wonderful awesome prayer. I discovered that in this place I was able to be more vulnerable and more broken before the Lord than anywhere else. In this love filled, spirit filled parish I was able to truly bring my hopes, fears, wants, and needs before the Lord earnestly and faithfully. This church completely blew away what remained of my biases and stereotypes. I still go to my protestant charismatic “mega-church” Sunday mornings because it’s great for Bible teaching and praise, but I now also go to this Catholic mass on Sunday nights because it is so good for prayer.
The priests in their sermons have been encouraging seemingly very Protestant things: joining a small group is important for Christian growth, being with God more than just on Sundays is a must to build a relationship with Christ, reading the Bible is necessary so you know what God wants of you.
Wait, did he just say Catholics have small groups? They have personal relationships with Christ? They raise their hands in praise?! This is unheard of! I figured they just prayed to Mary and rubbed some rosary beads! This guy is off his rocker!
At school I study science. All day all I do is science and math. This semester I had the opportunity to mix it up a bit with a class in the history of the Catholic church. To be honest, my biggest motivation was the fact that at the end of the class we all get to go on a pilgrimage to Rome….and that would be kickin awesome. As a result I’ve started to actually learn about a lot of what makes up Catholic dogma and doctrine (and yes, there is a difference between dogma and doctrine). I want to say right now very plainly and simply that true Catholics (when I say true Catholics I mean Catholics who are Christians, not just Catholic by birth) do not worship Mary, they honor her. And you know, I kind of think Mary deserves a bit of honor. She’s the mother of our Lord and Savior. She gave birth to the God-Head made flesh. Isn’t that something pretty amazing, especially when you consider that she had a choice in the matter? She could have said no to God. She could have said, “sorry God, but my people will stone me because no one will believe that I didn’t “know” a man to have this kid, and that’s punishable by death in Your law…so I think I’ll pass.” (For those who might be new to this whole Bible-ese, “to know” someone is not learning about who someone is….this is Bible-ese for sex, so get used to it.) Think about what kind of faith that required her to have to trust in God. So yeah, Mary gave birth to Jesus, so although she does not disserve worship, she does disserve honor. The arch-angel Gabriel called Mary “most honored among women,” and I think we can trust the angel who was in charge of delivering God’s messages.
The rosary is not required to pray to God, it is merely a particular form of prayer. This isn’t any different then when different people say different graces before they eat (I like the Johnny Appleseed Grace myself, but that’s just my personal preference) I won’t go into details just now cause it’ll take a while to explain, but just realize that the rosary is one prayer and is actually pretty cool for reflecting on the mysteries and glory of God.
What about confession? Yeah, that was a big issue I had with Catholics for a very long time. Let’s learn about its history though. In the Bible we as Christians are called to confess our sins to each other as well as God. People did this for a while, but a problem developed. Although we are called to forgive everyone of their sins against us, this is often very hard to do (as I’m sure you all know as well as I). So imagine you’re a farmer in the early church, and a fellow Christian confesses of cow tipping at your farm and causing the death of you’re favorite, Betsy. Would you be real happy with him? Would you be tempted to hate him? Maybe just dislike him a lot. Maybe retaliate? So yeah, this whole confessing our sins to each other is good and important I think, but there are potential problems that arise just because of our human nature. So to keep this whole “confess your sins to fellow Christians thing” goin the early church started having the people confess to their religious leaders. Confession seem as blasphemous to you now? Didn’t think so.
Alright, so let’s bring this thing up to the present. This Thursday evening in History of the Catholic church class there was a visiting speaker to teach about the Old Testament. This man has an STD (Stop laughing! Yes, I did too) which is basically the Catholic equivalent of a doctorate. He knew the Bible through and through. He could probably quote you any verse you wanted. The cool thing is that because he knows Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic (among several other languages) fluently, he has actually read the Bible in its original un-translated form. You know what I think was neat? He compared today’s charismatic Christians to the Old Testament prophets. But wait, aren’t Catholics supposed to see charismatic gifts as foolish and crazy? Turns out no. Turns out that charismatic Christians are seen as present day prophets. How amazing!
Most Protestants are very familiar with the “alter call” (especially if you are Baptist). This is basically the time when the pastor calls all those who are not Christians to come to the front of the church and to invite Christ into their lives. So what’s this got to do with a college class on religion in a very very very (did I mention very) secular church? At the end of this priest’s teaching on the Old Testament while he was discussing the importance of wisdom and what God viewed as wisdom he all but did an alter call. Woa! In a college class?! I was amazed (especially because there’s at least one atheist I know of in that class. He was talking about Jesus as the wisest of all men because he is indeed the Word of God made Flesh (read the beginning of John if you don’t know what I’m talking about) and that although you may be wealthy and viewed as successful by the world without Christ, you truly are foolish. Only with Christ in your life can you be wise in the eyes of the Lord. This is especially crucial because when you die, your wealth and earthly positions are worthless. Yes, a Catholic priest (an upper ranking priest no less) talked about heaven and hell! How strange, right? Apparently not.
You’re going to have to trust me when I say this (because I happen to have a gift in discernment of the spirit) that this guy was the real deal. He was a true Christian with an amazing faith. As a side note, I want to tell you about what he told me after class when I went to talk to him. I introduced myself as a Protestant who had never had any exposure to the Apocrypha (the Catholic Bible includes more books than the Protestant Bible, but in the scheme of things, I really see this as not a real big deal because regardless they are good historical sources….when I learn more about that I’ll share it) and I wanted to know what translation of the Bible he would recommend for me to read if I wanted to check these books out. As we were leaving the classroom he commented on the fact that as a Protestant I have a great advantage because we’ve read the Bible. Want to know when someone is really in tune with reality? If they recognize the fact that there are problems and flaws in themselves they know what’s going on. If they try to pretend that they are perfect, be wary of them. This priest recognized the fact that Catholics as a whole don’t read the Bible nearly enough. He joked that before Vatican II as a child he was told not to read the Bible because if he did, he would become Protestant. (Please take this as a joke, because that’s what it is). Also, don’t get me wrong. It was not the Catholic church’s position that the Bible shouldn’t be read. The church’s view was that the lay person should not read the Bible because they might not interpret it correctly; they should rely upon their priest to interpret it for them. This was all changed though in the decisions of the Vatican II council (Read about it everyone! It was groundbreaking!). I like the fact that he could talk about the problems in the church with a light heart. This just shows how real he is. Just think, the Catholics see Protestants as great Christians.
Alright, so let’s get straight with this. Catholicism is not perfect. There are problems. Many Catholics misunderstand what the church teaches and so a lot of Catholics get wrong ideas about the importance of saints and Mary and confession and such. There are some bad priests out there who believe questionable things and consequently teach it. This is however now different then Protestantism. The Word of God is perfect, and God is perfect, but sometimes humans get things wrong and are dumb. That’s just an unfortunate side effect of sin. You don’t doubt that Protestants are Christians, so then why do you doubt Catholics when they are really truly no different.
What’s the bottom line? Worship preference really. God made us all different, and thank the Lord for that. It’d be boring otherwise. Different people pray to God, worship God, and see God in different ways. This means that different people require different types of worship, which calls for different types of churches, which is the whole reason why there are so many denominations of everything Christian. But it’s really just worship preference.
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that everyone in the world is right. Here’s how you know if a church is right in the eyes of God.
1.) Is God sovereign and singularly the only deity?
2.) Is Jesus Savior and the only way to God?
3.) Is the Bible the infallible Word of God?
If it’s yes, then it’s Christian. The way to check to see if a church, a person, or a thing is holy in the eyes of the Lord, look in the Bible (yes, this means you need to read it, and I guarantee it’s a good read). If a church or a priest teaches something that conflicts with the Word of God, it is wrong. If a church or a priest teaches what is right in the Word of God, then it is right. Simple as that.
So please, stop hating each other! All Christians need to come together to bring the world to God. The in-fighting of Christians is doing nothing but hurting the kingdom and prevents countless millions from seeing the truth. Love one another!!
~AndyJams~
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