"...maybe you go even further, as you realize that it's actually quite dangerous and small-minded to hew too closely to one narrow way of seeing/feeling/tasting the divine as you perhaps come to the slippery conclusion that it's all about co-creating God in your own way and, therefore, any religion that contains more than one person (that is to say, you) is deviously suspicious and apocryphal at best, unhealthy and destructive at worst. Or maybe that's just me."
Oh no, that's me, too. Well said.
And this bit had me cracking up...
"...Speaking of marketing, should we try to muster some pity for the Catholic Church? I mean, for so many reasons, but this time for how this study reveals that, were it not for a massive influx of immigrant families into America, its numbers would be not merely wavering and faltering, but tanking fast? Fact is, more people split from the Catholic Church than any other, so many that it turns out a whopping 10 percent of Americans are former (i.e. recovering) Catholics, and it's certainly easy to see why. Hell, even Christian megachurches have become more fluid and modern in their perspectives on love and sex and human evolution than the House That Dogma Built."
>"Fact is, more people split from the Catholic Church than any other, so many that it turns out a whopping 10 percent of Americans are former (i.e. recovering) Catholics, and it's certainly easy to see why."
ReplyDeleteWhile its not a good thing for Catholics to abandon their faith, I can see how God is using these less than faithfull Catholics to influence Protestant denominations. More and more Protestant churches are observing Lent, Lutherans have brought back private confession, emerging churches are reading the early church fathers along with their Bibles. Protestants are living in monastic communities and using Lectio Divina prayer.
On an even brighter side, many of these fallen Catholics are truely recovering and will find their way back into the fullness of the Catholic Church later in life. Regardless of the seemingly dismal numbers, the Catholic Church is growing both in the U.S. (1.2 million/year) and abroad (16 million/year) while the Protestant churches are fading. Proportions matter.
Christ is unifying His Church into one, holy, apostolic, and Catholic Church.
God bless...
"While its not a good thing for Catholics to abandon their faith"
ReplyDeleteNo, it is actually.
"Regardless of the seemingly dismal numbers, the Catholic Church is growing both in the U.S. (1.2 million/year) and abroad (16 million/year) while the Protestant churches are fading. Proportions matter."
And Islam is lapping them both. Apropos of nothing.
"Christ is unifying His Church into one, holy, apostolic, and Catholic Church."
Never. Gonna. Happen.
Cheers.