Conversation

Our dear friend JT was here for a while yesterday.  He lives a couple of hours away.  He came up to help Duane take down the tree that is half gone & needs to come down.  They didn't do it, they decided they need equipment (rented) like a lift to work the top of the tree separately.  Without that, there would be a good chance that taking down the tree would also take down our front upstairs deck.  


So we got to visit.  



He was raised Catholic (like Duane) & his wife Protestant (like me).  They have been searching for a church.  He feels drawn back toward the Catholic church, but is having real issues with it.  He spoke to the priest in the parish where they live.  He would have so much to have to do before he could return to the Catholic church.  His wife had been married before & so she would have to go thru annulment on her previous marriage & they would have to be remarried in the Catholic church.  The priest told JT that he would "confess him" but "Only face to face.  I have to see your eyes to be sure you are sincere" ! ! ! 


His wife is confused by the veneration of Mary & praying to the saints.  



It seems to me that it is human tendency - & this comes thru so clearly in churches - that we say "This is good" or that or this or whatever, & we slap a coat of varnish on it & call it done.  But that is NOT how life is, nor do i believe it to be what God intends for the Christian life to be.  


If we have a truly living faith we can't slap varnish on it, or allow it to become petrified, & claim, "This is what God wants of me in my life."  Or worse, "This is what God wants of all Christians."   



This is not an exact analogy, but think of a tree & the way it grows.  It is not usually symmetrical.  It is influenced by the availability of water, & how the wind blows.  Now, we can make all the trees look alike.  Southern California especially is well known for extreme pruning.  Often a tree is difficult if not impossible to distinguish the species from the shape of it because the pruning causes it to look nothing like a naturally-grown tree.  I do believe that God does allow for some pruning in our lives.  But if we followed the pruning of man (the church), we would all be identical, perfectly symmetrical, show trees.  I do not believe that is what God would call us to be.  



It is stated in the Bible that we are all different members of the body with different jobs to do.  But sometimes i think that the different churches are all trying to force us into a mold where we will be identical members. 




The Catholic church has a long, long history (& much of it very ugly) & what has happened over time, i think, is that the different things they have "added" have become petrified.  



I had a piece of petrified wood as a child.  Wood turned to stone thru mineralization.  It was fascinating.  But even if it had still been part of the tree, it was no longer living.  I think that often the church is in danger of falling prey to this.  



Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians that he wished the unmarried to remain so, but he did not command it.  But by the 4th century, the Church made it a requirement that ordained priests be single.  They took what Paul suggested & petrified it into law.  By doing so, they condemned some people.  Some people may have felt that they were called to priesthood, but not to celibacy.  To require this of them meant that they had to force themselves into a mold that God had not required.  



The Catholic church has done the same with dogmas of Mary & of the transubstantiation (bread & wine becoming body & blood).   What is more, because of the belief around this second dogma, for many years the laity did not receive wine in communion.  I've heard two reasons for this:  One, wine may have been difficult to obtain in some climates.  Two, there was the fear that the laity would spill the "holy blood of Christ."  This largely is changed again, & most communicants receive both bread & wine.  But if the reason was the second one, again, man has petrified something & made it so "holy" that it i out of reach for the majority of folks.  



Now, i'm picking on the Catholic church here, largely because these examples are easy for me to lay out & because that church has the longest history.  But essentially all denominational churches have done something similar.  When they state, "These are the important things to us" they are in a sense petrifying their stance.  This isn't all bad.  It is good to say, "This is what i believe."  



But there are other churches that take this elsewhere.  The Southern Baptist convention, when i was in college (about 1992?) split because there was a branch of the church that was putting much emphasis on what would be a social gospel - that of trying to help people eat & have shelter.  The staunchly conservative part of the church wasn't concerned about this - they felt the $$ should go toward more missionaries & building programs.  (This, i am sure is a very biased & simplified version of that split.)  But what really hit me when i was reading about this at the time, was that soon after that split the Southern Baptist convention was in danger of having another split, this time over the ratifying that a Southern Baptist had to believe in a 24 hour day, 7 day creation.  Legalism.  Rigidity.  No room left for any question or doubt.  No room left for humanity.  


It seems to me that the Council of Nicaea did all this work for us in 325 with the Nicene Creed:

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven,
by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. 
He has spoken through the Prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
Amen.

I guess i will never understand why we need a doctrine beyond this.  Many doctrines revolve around things like what will happen, exactly, in "the End Times" & did Noah really take 2 of each of the animals on the Ark, & is Mary sinless (so that she would be an appropriate vessel to mother our Lord). 


My question, does it really matter?  Won't God work this out to his glory & we will know what we need to know in his presence?  Why should we fight about it now?


Much is being said currently about Anne Rice distancing herself from Christianity.  I often would like to do that myself.  There is so much done in the name of Christ which i truly dislike.  I'm very much outside of what is called "Christian culture" & i didn't actually know that Anne Rice had professed Christianity until this began hitting the blogs.  All i knew was that she'd written vampire books that i've never read.  


The best i've read on this subject so far is Matt from The Church of No People:

. . .  So as much as I’d like to follow Anne and quit Christianity, while conveniently retaining my faith, I can’t.  (And really, neither can Anne.)  Christ died for people who annoy the living hell out of me, and it does me no good to dwell on how much some people annoy me.  Christ even died for people who would use him for personal gain, and I have nothing to say about it.  I hate saying that.  But I don’t get to say who Jesus has saved, and I don’t get to stop calling myself a Christian. . . Really, almost all of the pastors and Christians who irritate me are the ones getting all the attention.  They are the ones teaching false gospels and protesting funerals, and generally being hateful, and maybe they represent an incredibly small minority of us, and it just gets blown up bigger than it is.  I think I’m annoyed the most at Christians because my faith is the most important thing in my life.  If it takes such a small number to create the problem, maybe there’s enough of us, the other Christians, to be the solution. . . 

More is written there, but this is the part i really like & that convicted me.  Much as i'd like to walk away from the title "Christian" it isn't an option.  He also said in this post, somewhere, that the term "Christian" was a pejorative when it first began to be used.  It still is, of course, but i tend to think that we've changed the reason it is an insult, & not for the better.  


He also wrote the post, "Christians of a Dying Breed" that was good & started much interesting debate in the comments.  


Then there is this vid:  Reasons Why People Don't Go to Church


I'm not promoting this last one.  I'm afraid to say i had hoped better things of it.  Maybe i'm missing something, but it seemed to be a very shallow rendering of why some people are no longer part of a church.  There are reasons, good reasons, serious reasons why even older Christians no longer feel the church to be filling a need or even being relevant to their lives.  We are struggling with some of those very reasons.  


I do feel that for me the answer is to no longer look to fill my needs so much as to find a place where i can work.  Frankly, i've lived much of my life in depression & depression is little more than looking inward.  God has healed so much of that & i believe it is time for me to look outward & try to do more.  Have been working on that for a few years now.  However, that is something i find difficult & it rather backfired on us at the Lutheran church for the whole reason we joined that church was so that we could serve. 



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