Why Do Some People Have A Problem With Non-Denom People Self-Identifyi

[AudreyGrace]

Personally, I'm the kind of person who wants to know truth, mostly by asking "why", "when", and "how". With Catholicism, I can ask all of these questions and have them answered in a sound manner. The answers to these questions have their roots in the Bible 100% of the time. You can't beat that. Better yet, the answers come from the earliest interpreters of the Word of God. Those who lived while Jesus did and shortly after have passed on through the Church what it means to follow Christ. [b]"Rely not on your own understanding."[/b] The Catholic Church has upheld these original teachings and has "been there" the whole time. [b]With non-denoms, I'll ask questions like "why do you believe this?" or "when did this practice start and why?" and the answers always reflect a more worldly reasoning, whereas the Catholic Church provides a divine reasoning.[/b] For example, kneeling in Church. We do it because it's a sign of reverence, always has been, always will be. I've never been to a non-denom church that knelt. My friend, whose father is a pastor, told me they "kicked that habit" because it was too much of a bother....

On another note, I'm a very positive and open person. However, any experience I've had with non-denoms was negative. I've been to many services with friends, and listened to many preachers. What I have noticed in ALL their sermons is the need to prove someone else wrong in order to prove their position right. Rather than preaching on the truth of the Gospels (not simply how they like to see the Gospels), they harp on what they think others are doing wrong. Others usually meaning Catholics. [b]They attempt to unite a community by forming shared feelings of distaste for others, most often of the Catholic Church. It's building a church on the basis of further separating Christians, rather than bringing them together.[/b] I know what it's called when one person degrades another for groundless reasons in order to make themselves feel better...a bully.

[AudreyGrace]

[quote]And we have a difference of opinion on what you can and can't get at Mass.

[/quote]

True, except we stuck with Jesus' opinion.

[quote]If you're asking what else is there with regard to God....Being trinitarian, I would say God the Father and the Holy Spirit.

[/quote]

Yeah...who needs Jesus anyways? Two will do.

[Winchester]

[quote name='AudreyGrace' timestamp='1313921005' post='2292506']



Yeah...who needs Jesus anyways? Two will do.
[/quote]
I don't think you caught what he was saying.

[Amppax]

So, off topic, but I like how the readings at mass today went with the other off topic discussion in this thread.
I've got more to say on that, but I'm busy right now.

Edited August 21, 2011 by Amppax

[Papist]

Just seems wishy-washy to me. Perhaps the non-denominational person has a fear of commitment. Does not want to commit in case where he is at begins to preach against the way he wants to live.

[CatherineM]

[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1314013905' post='2293200']
Just seems wishy-washy to me. Perhaps the non-denominational person has a fear of commitment. Does not want to commit in case where he is at begins to preach against the way he wants to live.
[/quote]
That's a good point. If you don't commit to a creed of any sort, then you are free to make up your own.

[Amppax]

[quote name='Amppax' timestamp='1313947783' post='2292629']
So, off topic, but I like how the readings at mass today went with the other off topic discussion in this thread.
I've got more to say on that, but I'm busy right now.
[/quote]

Oh, forgot about this . So anyways, readings at mass Sunday... 1st reading:

[quote]Thus says the LORD to Shebna, master of the palace:
"I will thrust you from your office
and pull you down from your station.
On that day I will summon my servant
Eliakim, son of Hilkiah;
I will clothe him with your robe,
and gird him with your sash,
and give over to him your authority.
He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
and to the house of Judah.
I will place the key of the House of David on Eliakim's shoulder;
when he opens, no one shall shut
when he shuts, no one shall open.
I will fix him like a peg in a sure spot,
to be a place of honor for his family."[/quote]

AAAANNNNDDD the Gospel


[quote]Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi andhe asked his disciples,
"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"
They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"
Simon Peter said in reply,
"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Jesus said to him in reply,
"Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
And so I say to you, you are Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
Then he strictly ordered his disciples

to tell no one that he was the Christ.[/quote]

QED.

[Groo the Wanderer]

[i]O Jesus, my Savior and Redeemer, Son of the living God, behold, we kneel before Thee and offer Thee our reparation; we would make amends for all the blasphemies uttered against Thy holy name, for all the injuries done to Thee in the Blessed Sacrament, for all the irreverence shown toward Thine immaculate Virgin Mother, for all the calumnies and slanders spoken against Thy spouse, the holy Catholic and Roman Church. O Jesus, who hast said: "If you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it to you", we pray and beseech Thee for all our brethren who are in danger of sin; shield them from every temptation to fall away from the true faith; save those who are even now standing on the brink of the abyss; to all of them give light and knowledge of the truth, courage and strength for the conflict with evil, perseverance in faith and active charity! For this do we pray, most merciful Jesus, in Thy name, unto God the Father, with whom Thou livest and reignest in the unity of the Holy Spirit world without end. Amen[/i]

[Papist]

I found this on a Church of Christ website. It starts off making a good case for the Catholic Church being the one, true Church Christ founded. Then they stray, saying that the one, true Church Christ founded was a Bible only Church. But what they neglect to point out is that the early Church did not have the Bible as we know and use it today.

[quote]
[b] [font="Book Antiqua,Times New Roman,Times"][b][b][b][b][b][b][b][b][b][b][b][b][b][b][b][b][b][i][color="#AF0000"]Non-denominational Christianity[/color][/i][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/font][/b]

In the first century, there was only one church. Christians in different locations were united by a common faith, a common belief, and by a common form of worship. There were churches at Jerusalem, Corinth, Rome, Ephesus, Antioch, and a number of other places. That which separated them was geography — not different teachings. But that was then. . .
In the 21st Century, things are a lot different in the religious world. Now we have a variety of different churches, teachings, practices, and forms of worship. In fact did you know that the majority of denominations are less than 600 years old?

The Bible teaches that Jesus was only ever going to build (establish) one church: [i]“. . . I will build My church,. . .”[/i] Matthew 16:18; and that He died to save only one church: [i]“Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her”[/i] Ephesians 5:25. Quite clearly then not all the churches of today can be the one Jesus built. The implications of this is worthy of our deepest consideration.

The concept of non-denominational or pre-denominational Christianity which the church of Christ espouses, is to do away with all the man-made teachings, creeds, and traditions that have developed over the years. In other words unless a teaching or practice can be found in the Bible we don’t hold to it or teach it. By following this simple aim we can be the same church of Christ we read about in the pages of the New Testament.

We invite you to explore this site, to contact any of the listed churches and to study the Bible with us. Examine for yourself that you too can be simply a Christian and a member of that church which has existed since the first century.[/quote]

[cooterhein]

[quote name='Lisa' timestamp='1313761567' post='2291265']

My response, to the OP:[/quote]This was a good post. Lot for me to disagree with (nothing personal, I hope) but a lot of good material to cover.

[quote]For non-denominational Christian churches, or even in many denominations, if someone has a different interpretation, they leave and form a new church.[/quote]This is something I'm going to have to spend a considerable amount of characters on. Broadly speaking, there are a couple of different ways to form a denominations, especially if you're talking about denominations in the US. And you should be talking about denominations in the US, because the vast majority of Christian denominations were either formed in the US or can trace their way back here.

Let's start with the way you're talking about. People disagree, they get upset, they leave. Splintering. Splitting. As you can imagine, this would be bad for the spiritual climate of a country if it's fairly widespread. Especially in a developing nation with a ton of new towns and settlements, you aren't going to have a certain kind of church with a certain kind of leadership in your brand-new town if you know there's going to be religious infighting all the time. This is what happened following the First Great Awakening in the middle of the 18th century. It focused on churchgoers, and it incited massive changes in the way church was done. For the rest of the century, it led to all sorts of religious infighting. Traditionalists vs. revivalists. One style of preaching over another. Rites and traditions against personal introspection and emotional involvement. It brought about change within churches and revitalized certain groups, but the rest of the century was marked by loss of church membership due to the bitterness of these quarrels. There was a good bit of splintering, too, and new denominations formed as a result of this. I like to call this the bad way of making new denominations, although "the sectarian way" is probably more technically accurate. I want you to keep an eye on the approximate number of sectarian denominations that were formed as a result of this, though.

That number would be approximately 92. Seems like a lot, right? Well, when all of them represent genuine sectarian strife, that is kind of a load on a young nation. By the end of the 18th century, most Americans were not churchgoers. Many frontier settlements didn't even have a church. Most Americans were pretty far removed from any kind of church involvement. That's where the Second Great Awakening came in.

There's a lot of bad things you can say about the Second Great Awakening. Some of the preaching is legitimately characterized as emotionally manipulative. Many of these new Christians took on the task of missions with the eschatalogical understanding that they would be ushering in the millennial reign of Christ. Some of the Christian primitivists were misguided in terms of how ancient Christians actually did things, and some elements of "marginal Christianity" came from this general time and place. (I don't consider Mormonism to be Christianity, btw, on grounds that Christianity is both monotheistic and trinitarian while Mormonism is neither of those things). I'm sure there's plenty more you could say about the Awakening and I'm sure there's plenty of personal attacks you could make on specific individuals, but this is about denominations. So there's a few points I want to make about that.

One. I'm sure you know how this generally worked- evangelists went from town to town and held revival meetings in tents or in the open air that urged Americans to practice Christianity again. What you may not realize is that these groups of evangelists weren't efforts by individual denominations- [b]they were team efforts.[/b] After spending the better part of a century fighting with each other and with themselves, many of those same denominations reached a happy conclusion and started working together. There would usually be at least three different denominations involved; often it was the Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists working together. Some of that cooperation can be seen on the east coast to this day; one of my college roommates got married in a church in Virginia that was built as a result of Presbyterians and Methodists working together. There's a nice looking sign in a garden type area outside the church. Anyway, I digress. New denominations formed as a result of these efforts, but [b]it wasn't because of sectarian splits.[/b] It's because different denominations started working well together, and guess what? Instead of Americans leaving churches in droves like they did when people were fighting and disagreeing all the time, they came back! [b]It worked![/b] New churches were built in towns where there were none, seminaries were built that still exist today, missions agencies were formed (again, with continuing cooperation between various denominations) that made huge impacts on many other parts of the world well before the century was out. The reason new denominations were formed was this: What do you tell an audience they're supposed to call themselves when they're becoming Christians- apart from "Christians"- when it's the result of the combined efforts of anywhere from three to a half-dozen denominations? The answer is: [b]Generally, you let them decide.[/b] This is how it's continued to be with non-denominational missions agencies from then until now. (For those who can't figure this out, they're not non-denominational in the sense that it's a denomination with no name- it's in the sense that there's no particular denominational name that encompasses all missionary participation in the organization. It's not an oxymoron and it's perfectly understandable). Anyway, while some of them may have become affiliated with previously existing denominations, most of them formed new ones. [b]Nearly all of these were examples of non-sectarian denominationalism.[/b] There was no splintering, there was no leaving, there was no attempt by three-prong evangelism teams to make sure their audience joined any one denomination. They weren't sticking around anyway, so there was no point in trying to lord some authority over them. They just preached the gospel and usually, a new denomination was formed. So here's point number one: [b]When[/b][b] a denomination is formed in a non-sectarian fashion, it's usually an indicator of successful evangelism rather than problematic bickering and arguing. It's also an entirely good thing.[/b] The proof tends to be in the results, at least over a reasonable length of time. People won't show up on a regular basis just so they can see all the problems churches have getting along with each other or even with themselves. But when you see a tremendous increase in church attendance, that can be indicative of Christians working together (read: UNITY) and doing something right. I realize attendance [b]CAN[/b] go way up for other reasons, but the important point is that it's [b]IMPOSSIBLE[/b] for it to improve significantly when people are bickering and fighting and splitting up. And through the first/middle parts of the 19th century, Americans were (for the most part) getting back into significant church involvement for the right reasons and as a result of something great that God was doing.

Point number two. In the course of "doing something right" (non-sectarian), these non-Catholic Christians overcame their previous problems and demonstrated a lot more unity than you give them credit for. The only thing you take into consideration is whether or not people have submitted themselves to the authority of the Roman pontiff. You don't care about whether people actually work well together. You don't care if they can cooperate with one another- you know, actually do things together, not just sit idly in submission. During the Second Great Awakening, Christians from various denominations set a standard of cooperation and unity that had a lasting effect on nearly all the non-sectarian denominations that formed as a result of it. The result is that Protestants and Independents, as of right now, are very good at working with each other. If you see a missions agency, it's a pretty good bet that they describe themselves as non-denominational or inter-denominational. If you had to choose between a description of Christians that "work well with others" and Christians that "do not work well with others," we would be the former and you would be the latter.
[b]You should care about the fact that you don't work well with others. Aside from other Catholics, there is no one else that you can work well with. Some Catholics can't even work well with each other. But you don't care about this aspect of unity because the only thing you focus on is submission to the pope. This is very much to your detriment.[/b]

Point number three. Remember how I pointed out how the First Great Awakening brought about approximately 92 sectarian denominations over the course of a few decades while clearing most American Christians [b]out[/b] of their churches in a little over half a century? Keep that number in mind while I tell you approximately how many new denominations were formed in the course of the Second Great Awakening- most of them non-sectarian in nature- while also having the result of putting most Americans [b]back[/b] in church.
Between 1820 and 1860- at a fairly conservative estimate- approximately 25,000 new denominations were formed. Again, some of them were sectarian in nature as initially non-sectarian denominations experienced internal conflict and created new ones that were sectarian. (The "bad" kind). But the vast majority of those were non-sectarian, and as the century progressed, this growth in denominations wasn't just in America- it spread all over the world through those brand-new missions agencies. So if I can review point number one- Non-sectarian growth in your overall number of denominations is a sign of successful evangelism, not a sign of splintering and conflict. And if I can move on to point number three:
[b]The vast majority of Protestant/Independent denominations- and I do mean vast like a ratio of tens of thousands to a few hundred- are non-sectarian in nature. You should not look at a massive number like 40,000 denominations and think "Wow, look at how many times they've splintered, I remember how bad 92 of those treated you so I don't know how you're still standing." You should be thinking "Wow, look at how many times Protestants have worked together [/b](think unity here) [b]and had successful missions or evangelism. How is it that Protestants can go by 40,000 different names and work so well together while we can't work with anyone else?"[/b]

[quote]This splinters the church, it leaves the impression that reality, Truth, can be changed. And over the years, "Truth" has changed dramatically since the first split with the Catholic Church. [b]So, my question to the OP is this: what are the things that you hold as truth? Who is to say they can't be argued, won't be changed?[/b][/quote]No, of course truth can't be changed. To your question, the thing I hold to as truth is the Gospel. As far as what the Gospel is, that's the proclamation of the God-given redemption preached by Jesus and the apostles, which is the central content of Christian revelation. Who is to say they can't be argued and won't be changed? That's the point of a closed canon and a fixed set of books indicating exactly what Christian revelation is. We can agree on what that is as far as the New Testament goes, but we can't square up on the Old. (You never did get it straight with the Eastern Orthodox, either, and they're the ones who gave you the Septuagint....but yours isn't really based on the Septuagint, it's based on the Latin table of contents that was more or less put together by a man who didn't even believe the Septuagint should be the basis for the OT canon....but again, I digress). Far as what I say the OT canon is, that revelation was given specifically to the Jews and they've always had a really good idea of what it was that God gave to them. That would be the Tanakh- that's the content of the OT, and that's because it's what God revealed to them. He didn't reveal a table of contents, but He did reveal the Tanakh itself, and the Jews kept track of what God was revealing.

I'm sorry, did God reveal the Old Testament to you or to anyone affiliated with you? No? I didn't think so.

Again like the Jews, I belong to a group of people that consider themselves to be "people of the book." Judaism certainly included a lot of tradition that was considered very important, primarily found in the Mishnah. But the Word of God was always first in authority. Mishnah actually means "second," indicating that however important it is (and as I'm sure you know, it's very very important), it's no better than second in authority to the Word of God. That's how they did it, and I believe that's how God wanted it to be. I believe He still wants it to be that way as well. But enough about the canon and enough about sola scriptura, that's going to take us way too far off topic. Let's try to keep this about denominationalism....oh yes, connection opportunity. All Protestants/Independents hold to 66 canonical books, and you can bet that we're all People of the Book. Unity under the hierarchical authority of one human ruler? Nah. Unity in terms of an ability to work together with other Christians while having doctrinal agreement on foundational issues like that? Yes!

That's the kind of unity I can get behind.

[quote]At some point, as a Catholic... but even more importantly as a fairly humble person (still working on pride, as we all are), I have realized that *gasp,* [b]I can be wrong[/b].[/quote]Sometimes I wish your leaders would realize that. But they aren't exactly People of the Book, so they claim special exemption at certain times. Not impeccability, as I and everyone else is well aware. Not universal perfection. I said special exemption at certain times, and that's what I meant. That's what they mean to say, at least....what I mean to say is they need to work on a few things. Like pride. And being the kinds of Christians that work well with other Christians. Your leaders could stand to improve themselves on both those points.

[quote]I'm not so full of pride that I would start a new church just to have people to follow what my thoughts are.[/quote]This is a nice description of the problems inherent to sectarian denominationalism, aka "the bad kind." Duly noted, and I'll do my best to keep that stuff to a minimum. Non-sectarian denominationalism, on the other hand- bring it on, baby, let's go.

[quote]But that is what happens soooo frequently in non-denominational churches.[/quote]No. No, that's wrong. Relative to the numbers of church plants that are completely non-sectarian, relative to successful evangelism that leads to new denominations but is non-sectarian, relative to cooperative (read: UNITY) missions efforts that generate new denominations, this does not happen soooo frequently. This is [b]comparatively infrequent.[/b]

[quote]As a person from the Midwest, our small, low-population county has probably 40 churches, probably 30 of them self-identify as "non-denominational" and say they won't make you believe something... and they won't. If you don't believe it, you can always start the 31st non-denominational Christian Church.[/quote]I grew up in a small, low-population county in the midwest. Will County in Illinois. Now I'm in a small, low-population county in a different part of the Midwest. Near Kansas City, on the Missouri side. I've been around a large number of non-denominational churches. I wouldn't say a huge variety, since only one was charismatic. With all my personal experience, though, I've seen dozens of ND churches that started in a non-sectarian manner and continued without anything remotely sectarian....and I've seen only one instance where something sectarian happened. It wasn't doctrinal, either. Basically, the older people weren't happy with how the young people were doing music. I've talked to people from both sides of the split and that's what they all say, so I assume that's really what it was.

Riddle me this: Do you think that kind of sectarian fissiparity was good for attendance, or do you suppose it was bad? Do you think you'd see a different result if the new church was the result of successful non-sectarian evangelism? Think about it- churches that split up over dumb stuff are relatively unattractive. Churches that multiply and have positive church planting as a result of successful evangelism are freaking incredible and people want to be a part of that. Over the past two centuries, sectarian situations have been relatively unsuccessful because those situations smell of elderberries. Non-sectarian situations- apart from being the ones we're proud of- are quite a bit more successful because they're amesome, they're good for Christianity as a whole, and people want to be a part of that.

Partly by virtue of the non-sectarian stuff vastly outweighing the sectarian stuff- at least from the start of the 19th century- and partly because of the "strong survive" principle, most of the non-denominational churches you see are going to have non-sectarian beginnings. That's the better way to go, and it's the way that survives and multiplies long-term. Sectarianism doesn't do as well. That stuff doesn't last. America figured that out roughly toward the second half of the 18th century, and then we started doing things quite a bit differently.

[quote]Now, all that being said. You asked for what we think individually. My opinion is that while I admire and respect their passion/zeal for Faith and their acceptance of many important parts of Christian doctrine, I don't understand the concept of thinking you know better than those that have come before you.[/quote]How can I (the collective I) know better than those that came before. You mean when I'm in favor of democracy and I like living in a republic, you don't get how I can act like I know better than all the monarchs and emperors that came before me?

Let me explain. Monarchies and empires are older. But democracy is better. I have nothing against ancient monarchs; I'm sure they were doing the best they could. What I can't stand, though, is people who continue to support monarchy when democracy is a viable option. They say "This is the established way, and we shouldn't do it some other way even if it is clearly better for the people as a whole." Or even worse, "This way is really nice for me as a supreme leader and I don't care if it's better for the peasants. Laity. Whatever you call them." Or, the worst yet: "I know I can't demonstrate that it's actually better for me to be your monarch than it is for you to self-govern, so I'll claim that God somehow gave me this position. And He also told me I need to make sure this type of position doesn't change for the better."

You see where I'm coming from? I know the analogy doesn't transfer as well as it could, primarily because the Magisterium has changed pretty significantly in a couple of different ways- one of them fairly recent. So I probably should have given an example of a monarch who makes some changes that are improvements while others make things worse, but then he says they don't really count as "changes" because you're never allowed to say that about anything he does.

[quote]As Christians in today's society, it's inevitable that we have different opinions on certain things. That shipped sailed about 400 years ago, though I can pray for unity and a return to the fullness of Truth found in the Catholic Church. But, how can we claim to be united in Christ; how can we tell the world about His message if we clearly state by our actions that "there is no single 'right' answer."?[/quote]I don't wish to say "there is no single right answer." Let me demonstrate that. Here's a single right answer from me to you.

Instead of praying for a "return to the fullness of Truth" in the sense that everyone be in submission to the pope, you should pray that Catholics would start showing more of a tendency to be Christians who can work well with other Christians instead of being Christians that are incapable of working well with other Christians.

[quote][i]Sorry it's so long![/i][/quote]Oh, don't worry, I've done worse. I think I just did, actually.

My goodness, if there's a character limit, I don't think I found it yet.

Small addendum: I noticed the "smells of elderberries" thing in the preview. I like it. Definitely a superior word choice.

[Maggyie]

Dude you really do write too long. The one thing I'm not getting is your prob with Catholic leadership and "working with other Christians." I mean the Catholic leadership in any given town is usually the most involved in ecumenism. In my experience it's usually the non-denom, fundie churches that preach and practice hellfire unto the Catholics and any other non-standard (in their view) Christian.

[Archaeology cat]

Just a quick noted here on the canon of Scripture - I found [url="http://catholicdefense.blogspot.com/2011/07/can-protestants-rely-upon-council-of.html"]this page[/url] to be a good summary of the OT canon, or rather the problems with using Jamnia as the basis for the OT canon. The Jews did not have a closed, defined canon prior to the start of the Church, so we can't really go by that. The Pharisees used more books than the Sadducees, for example. It's also important to look at how the canon was decided upon, since not everyone was in agreement. You brought up Jerome. It's true that he questioned whether the deuteros should be considered canonical, but when the Church declared that they were, he submitted to that. I think that's an important point, really.

God bless.

[cooterhein]

[quote name='AudreyGrace' timestamp='1313920717' post='2292503']

Personally, I'm the kind of person who wants to know truth, mostly by asking "why", "when", and "how". With Catholicism, I can ask all of these questions and have them answered in a sound manner. The answers to these questions have their roots in the Bible 100% of the time.[/quote]Not 100% of the time. That's why you have three legs on your stool.

[quote]You can't beat that. Better yet, the answers come from the earliest interpreters of the Word of God. Those who lived while Jesus did and shortly after have passed on through the Church what it means to follow Christ. [b]"Rely not on your own understanding."[/b] The Catholic Church has upheld these original teachings and has "been there" the whole time.[/quote]You know who else has been there the whole time? Christians from the portion of the Roman Empire that was known as the Byzantine Empire. (No mention of the Ethiopian and Syriac Orthodox that have also been "there" the whole time, but for now, let's arbitrarily define "there" as "the Roman Empire"). Anyway, of the two of you, only one maintained unity as Catholics typically define it while the other did not. Yes, I am talking about the Reformation.

If the shoe were on the other foot- that is to say, if Catholicism had avoided anything comparable to the Reformation while the Orthodox had your current situation- do you really think you'd be inclined to say "Aw shucks, that clearly indicates you're the One True Church, I wish we had that"?

[quote][b]With non-denoms, I'll ask questions like "why do you believe this?" or "when did this practice start and why?" and the answers always reflect a more worldly reasoning, whereas the Catholic Church provides a divine reasoning.[/b][/quote]"Know Why You Believe What You Believe" is one of the most significant books in Christian literature in the past century and then some. It was written by a Protestant for Protestants. Yes, I suppose he did see a significant need for it, but this is something we believe in and we have been trying to do something about it. We don't actually believe it's good for us to do things without thought or reason.

[quote] For example, kneeling in Church. We do it because it's a sign of reverence, always has been, always will be. I've never been to a non-denom church that knelt. My friend, whose father is a pastor, told me they "kicked that habit" because it was too much of a bother....[/quote]Did they actually say "kick the habit"? If something that significant isn't currently done in a non-denom church, it's doubtful that it was done at any point since its inception....speaking for myself, though, I tend to see more of it (sans kneelers, of course) when it's exclusively young people involved. At your average Sunday morning service, a significant portion of those attending aren't capable of kneeling even once. Hip replacements, knee replacements- I don't know if it's just where I've been going, but that's true of quite a few people. Probably less than 10%, but closer to 10 than 0.

I'm sure Catholic parishes have the same issue, and people probably just sit out when that happens and wish they could be doing it. For us, though, I suppose we just don't care as much about doing the tradition as we do about having to exclude some people.

Hey, now that I think about it, are you completely sold on the idea that all relevant aspects of the NO have a divine reasoning rather than a worldly reasoning? Mass in the "vulgar" language- when did that start and why? Is there divine reasoning? While we're at it, can you please explain how the Mass in Latin can have all that reasoning behind it at one time, followed by the NO having all that reasoning behind it at another time, followed by both of them having equal divine reasoning at their disposal at the same time? I understand how it can have the weight of both, but doesn't that necessitate that you did something wrong when it was limited to just one at any one time? Having the altar at one end of the building instead of the other- again, when was the switch made and why, plus divine reasoning for both options? Optional additions to the Rosary- while acknowledging that they're optional, I can still ask when those started, whether that option's always been there, and whether there's any divine reasoning behind adding optional stanzas or centuries or whatever they're called.

That's just off the top of my head, but it's a good starting point. I actually have a suggestion on this, though. Here's a quote on the NO.

"[i]For this purpose the rites are to be simplified, due care being taken to preserve their substance; elements which, with the passage of time, came to be duplicated, or were added with but little advantage, are now to be discarded; other elements which have suffered injury through accidents of history are now to be restored to the vigor which they had in the days of the holy Fathers, as may seem useful or necessary."[/i] (Sacrosanctum Concilium, Pope Paul VI).

My suggestion: Perhaps, given the nature of your views on authority, there's a certain point where it doesn't actually matter if the people you trust are able to answer your "whys" and "whens." Maybe, depending on the situation, it doesn't matter if they're able to give you anything useful in the way of "divine reasoning" that's biblical, or fact-based, or even reality-based. At a certain point, it's all about WHO is preserving what they want to preserve. It's about WHO decides what should be discarded (but not "changed," because that's a dirty word). It's about WHO makes the calls as to what's useful and necessary.

Once you get into some of the specifics, it turns out there is no divine reasoning behind it. Some things are added that weren't there before; other things were pretty much always there and now they're taken away. No matter; you have a great deal of faith in the people who do these things. And that's what really matters. They have divine authority, so anything they do in this capacity is divine, even when no explanation is offered apart from "We run this show."

[quote][b]They attempt to unite a community by forming shared feelings of distaste for others, most often of the Catholic Church. It's building a church on the basis of further separating Christians, rather than bringing them together.[/b] I know what it's called when one person degrades another for groundless reasons in order to make themselves feel better...a bully.[/quote]On the topic of unity, any given non-denom is able to work quite well with people from literally thousands of different denominations. We exhibit unity by actually doing things in full partnership with one another. How many different kinds of Christians can you do that with? I count zero.

As far as us being bullies....Protestantism initially had to fight you guys in order to continue existing, so of course there's some bad blood. There's plenty to say about both sides- Catholics were trying to wipe Protestantism off the face of the planet, and Protestants were, uhm. Ah, what's the word.

Trying to survive. That's it, survival.

But we're bullies now. If you feel victimized, that's regrettable. It's been a whole lot worse, though, and I'm sure it will gradually continue to get better. On the plus side, though, there is a silver lining to the "bully" accusation that you've leveled.

I guess this means we survived!

Edited August 24, 2011 by cooterhein

[cooterhein]

[quote name='Archaeology cat' timestamp='1314199251' post='2294194']
Just a quick noted here on the canon of Scripture - I found [url="http://catholicdefense.blogspot.com/2011/07/can-protestants-rely-upon-council-of.html"]this page[/url] to be a good summary of the OT canon, or rather the problems with using Jamnia as the basis for the OT canon. The Jews did not have a closed, defined canon prior to the start of the Church, so we can't really go by that. The Pharisees used more books than the Sadducees, for example. It's also important to look at how the canon was decided upon, since not everyone was in agreement. You brought up Jerome. It's true that he questioned whether the deuteros should be considered canonical, but when the Church declared that they were, he submitted to that. I think that's an important point, really.

God bless.
[/quote]I didn't say anything about Jamnia. I know how it used to be viewed and what it turned out to be and not be. I also know there's no set date on which we can say "This is where and when the Jews officially invented something called a canon and defined it as the Tanakh." I do know this, though- the Jews are responsible for inventing something called a canon, they did define it as the Tanakh, and we do at least have a general date "by which it was in widespread use." This general date pre-dates the earliest existing Biblical manuscripts by a fair bit, so that goes a long way toward explaining why the place and date on which it was set is not preserved: It's a lot easier to do that if you wait to dogmatically define your canon until Trent.

As for the Sadducees, it's true that they didn't acknowledge the divine origins of anything beyond the Torah. It's also true the the Sadducees ceased to exist prior to the earliest date at which a Jewish canon could have been officially set. As for Jerome, you raise a fair point about him submitting to Church authority; however, you should also note that Church authority never obtained agreement on what the extent of the Septuagint was for as long as the Eastern Orthodox were a part of Church authority. (Which is a loaded way of phrasing it, because they have pretty strong arguments to the effect that it's you who are no longer a part of Church authority).

In any case, this is the reason I brought it up. Jerome was instructed to use the Septuagint for the table of contents. He submitted to Church authority, and this is important. Watch, though, this is important too. There's never been a single table of contents for the Septuagint on which everyone agreed; actually, the main source of this disagreement has to do with the contrast between what Jerome put in and what Greek tradition pertaining to the Greek Septuagint holds to be the entirety of the (their) Greek Septuagint. Basically, Jerome was in favor of having 66 books in the canon. He submitted to Church authority and put in more books than that because he had to. [b]But Church authority did not specify that he had to put in 7 additional books. Church authority only said "use the Septuagint as your table of contents."[/b]

Those who worked from the standpoint of the Greek tradition were similar in some ways and different in others. They were similar because they were equally Catholic and equally in submission to the bishop of Rome. They were similar in that their tradition (a Greek tradition concerning the Greek Septuagint, mind you) yielded a table of contents for the Septuagint that was- until well after the Schism- [b]equally acceptable for Catholics to use.[/b] There were a couple of differences too, though. One, they were in different languages and therefore predictably divided in terms of who would use what set of books. And two- this is the important one. [b]Unlike Jerome- just one man who added 7 books against his will- many Greek scholars over the course of many generations reached a consensus on what they actually believed to be the full extent of the Septuagint, and that would indicate an additional 10 books instead of 7. Again, Jerome added an unspecified number of books against his will whereas Greek tradition was primarily interested in determining how many books the Septuagint can legitimately claim in its tradition.[/b]

Because of that difference- which I believe to be highly relevant- I'm inclined to say the Catholic canon is slightly truncated, at least when it's compared to the true extent of what's actually in the Septuagint. I agree with Jerome's conclusions about it, and since that's the case, I probably wouldn't trust me to pick what belongs in the Septuagint and what doesn't- not when I truly believe none of the additional books belong.

Edit- now that I think about it, would [b]you[/b] trust me to pick the deuterocanonicals, knowing that I actually regard them all as apocryphal? This is not a rhetorical question, btw.

So that's why I leave it to the Greeks to pick 'em. They have a genuine interest in getting it right. Ah, one other thing about Jerome- it's regrettable that his opinion did not carry the day, but I don't think it had anything to do with the guidance of the Holy Spirit or any particular detail in the will of God. Instead, I believe that despite his obvious brilliance and expertise, certain things about Jerome caused his opinion to be of less import when compared to his peers. These were things he really couldn't do anything about, either- his place of birth was comparatively less prominent and his age at the time was relatively young when compared to those with differing opinions. I think it's mostly because of those two factors that the superior opinion was forced to submit to an inferior one. They really shouldn't have put him in charge of choosing how many books to include, either- no disrespect to the mind and talent of Jerome, but there's a clear conflict of interest there. He didn't believe any of them truly belonged, so why should he be the one who picks and chooses what goes in and what stays out? That was just a bad move.

Edit- I guess that's easier to see in hindsight, now that we know his selections would eventually be the basis for the official RC canon. At the time, I suppose his Latin translation was seen as one of at least two different sets of books- the NT having been set already, and the OT still nowhere near consensus. But consensus on the OT was not a huge priority during that millennium.

Edited August 24, 2011 by cooterhein

[cooterhein]

[quote name='Maggie' timestamp='1314197242' post='2294186']
Dude you really do write too long. The one thing I'm not getting is your prob with Catholic leadership and "working with other Christians." I mean the Catholic leadership in any given town is usually the most involved in ecumenism. In my experience it's usually the non-denom, fundie churches that preach and practice hellfire unto the Catholics and any other non-standard (in their view) Christian.
[/quote]When I talk about "working with other Christians," I'm talking about evangelism and missions. Would you really be ok with evangelizing alongside a non-denominational Christian, knowing that it's going to basically negate your ability to proclaim the superiority and exceptionalism of Catholicism?

Also, how much experience do you actually have in non-denom fundie churches? I've spent my whole life in those types of places and my experience shows me people who believe there's a lot of Christians attending Catholic parishes (but not all of them) just like there's a lot of Christians attending Protestant churches (though not all of them). At most, they might say Catholic teaching in certain kinds of parishes can cause Catholics to have a slightly harder time finding out what it means to become and then be a Christian.

I've also taken some seminary classes, and I do know that some of my classmates have come in a little bit....raw, shall we say. Embarrassing would probably be a better word for it. But even at a really conservative Bible college/theological seminary in the heart of the Midwest, the professors do a consistently good job of telling people it's not acceptable for you to say the CC is the Whore and things of that nature. Yes, it's come up. And yes, it led to a few minutes of chastisement and correction. That's what I've been seeing, anyway.

Edited August 24, 2011 by cooterhein