How To Deal With This Situation?

[Byzantine]

First, a shoutout to Brother Adam (I think) is in order, because of his post quite a while back about why it's a good idea to use a KJV when debating with Protestants.

I ended up in an argument with some Protestant acquaintances of mine today. It basically went the route of "All you need to do is have a personal relationship with Jesus," with my response being Bible quotes about why we need orthodoxy and the Church, etc. How should one handle this situation?

[BigJon16]

How I deal with protastants:

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nI9rbBm6qA[/media]




JK.


**insert corny statement about how they are our "brothers and sisters" in Christ...**

No, but really. FUS DOH RAH!

Edited January 16, 2012 by BigJon16

[DMcB]

Knowledge. Patience. Love.

[MaryJJD]

Id probably go with asking them what the disciples of Jesus DID in their relationship with Jesus? Did they go back to their homes? There were a whole heap that followed him around sometimes, but more importantly they often came together to worship-it wasn't just a relationship with Jesus, but a relationship also with others who believed. That reflects the ten comandments-given to God what is proper 1st, then give to others second-both are linked.

So I'd try build on what the definition of Church actually is-both in the Body of Christ sense (as in Sauls conversion into Paul on the way to Damascus-so the Church is a community of believers). Then, there is the other side of Church-with Apostles leading, asking and answering questions of faith-eg, the question of circumcision for the Gentiles-the apostles settled that question, not the faithful themselves. Then in James somewhere-and probably elsewhere I can't remember, that refers to how the community of believers worshiped-something like a Mass setting-they came together for prayer, breaking of the bread, etc. Then theres that other one where one of the Apostles is exasperated about how widows (I think) are treated in the community of believers-and that people were chosen to be responsible for looking out for their welfare.

I really like Benedict XVI's understanding of Exodus, in his book-the Spirit of the Liturgy, written before he became Pope. He points out that Moses and Aaron debated with Pharoh to release their people to go worship their God. Pharoh bargins with them-only let the women and children stay, only let the animals stay...but their response is that as they do not yet know how to worship so they need to bring everyone and everything with them-and that God would tell them how to do that proper worship. Then later on, after the commandments, and the incident of the Golden calf came up, Benedict makes an interesting point-that they people still believed in the same God, but they choose for themselves HOW to worship-and that was what was wrong with that-they put their own ideas above Gods role in directing worship. 2 cents

[ch3p3]

I personally am very hesitant with "dealing with protestants". I don't like to sell them street side pharmaceuticals. but aside that, it still takes a while before a protestant can enter my circle of trust. I have nothing against them, but too often in protestant churches I've heard pastors complaining about the Papists, despite their attempts to convince me that their services may be not-too-denomenational or that they believe in the re-unification of the church, despite their denomination being a divide from another denomination.

I honestly don't know what's worse, though...Western protestants or 3rd world protestants...in poor countries converts to protestantism don't drink alcohol at all (for the most part), unlike their Western counterparts who, despite never admitting it to their pastor, do drink alcohol.

Lately I just haven't crossed too many protestants...mostly agnostics and Muslims. Maybe that's because WASP's don't like to learn French, [i]la langue nationale[/i] Maybe I should go clubbing more often and I might cross some protestant girls.

[cappie]

The term "personal relationship" is, first of all, not biblical. Neither word nor the compound phrase is found in the Bible. The expression comes from the humanist psychology of the last hundred years, principally that of Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers and Eric Fromm. It also has its roots in over emphasis on the attitude of rugged individualism of the early development of America.

In using the expression "personal relationship" there is a danger in attempting to harmonize the formulas of the Bible with the formulas of psychology, psychiatry, and/or American nationalism. The language of the Bible and the languages of psychology, psychiatry, and nationalism reflect divergent perceptions and conceptualizations. Attempting to treat them as identical can only be artificial.

[Selah]

[quote name='Byzantine' timestamp='1326753452' post='2370141']
First, a shoutout to Brother Adam (I think) is in order, because of his post quite a while back about why it's a good idea to use a KJV when debating with Protestants.

I ended up in an argument with some Protestant acquaintances of mine today. It basically went the route of "All you need to do is have a personal relationship with Jesus," with my response being Bible quotes about why we need orthodoxy and the Church, etc. How should one handle this situation?
[/quote]

Personal relationship is a new invention created by seeker friendly churches. The idea that I can do whatever I want and still have a "personal relationship" is ridiculous. Add to that, it makes Christ out to be a buddy. Christ is not my buddy; He's my Lord and Savior. He deserves respect and honor. At any rate "personal relationship" sounds so exclusive. Christ is for everyone. Though, I suppose you could tell the woman that the it doesn't get anymore personal than the Eucharist.

[Myles Domini]

[quote name='Byzantine' timestamp='1326753452' post='2370141']
First, a shoutout to Brother Adam (I think) is in order, because of his post quite a while back about why it's a good idea to use a KJV when debating with Protestants.

I ended up in an argument with some Protestant acquaintances of mine today. It basically went the route of "All you need to do is have a personal relationship with Jesus," with my response being Bible quotes about why we need orthodoxy and the Church, etc. How should one handle this situation?
[/quote]

For a start begin where there is clear commonality. If you start from an adversarial position it will be very difficult to move from there. The point of these sorts of discussion is not simply to win the argument, however important that may be, but to bring people to the full knowledge of the truth so that they can share in it with us. The intellect and the will have to be appealed to. If it gets heated or argumentative you end up going around in circles.

So where do we agree? That we need a personal relationship with God. That is absolutely the case. St Augustine tells us "for You have formed us for Yourself and our hearts are restless til they rest with you" (St Augustine, Confessions 1). That's why the Word was made flesh. Having lost the likeness of God through original sin we needed God to become to redeem our nature and free us from the covenant curses that separate us from Our Lord and natural end. "He was made man that we might be made God" (St Athanasisus, on the Incarnation 54:3).

The key is to illustrate to your Protestant friends that rather than being an obstacle to this personal relationship the Church is actually a help, an aid that God gives us to be in a relationship with him. Your Protestant friends should accept the need for the sacrament of Baptism. That's a good place to start. If they accept the need to be baptised to be free from the stain of original sin then you can develop the conversation. You can speak about how God in His Mercy assists us through the sacraments to be sanctified and gives the Church their power to give us certainty of His presence and love [If you fancy some further reading I'd recommend The Life in Christ by Nicolas Cabasilas].

[cappie]

In baptism, we are incorporated into the body of Christ, members of the same body and members of one another. As such, we no longer belong to ourselves, but to one another, and most especially, to the one who died and rose for us. This means that we are never alone in our journey of faith. In and through the Church, we are supported in our faith, and even when our faith fails, we can count on the other members of the body to carry us to the Lord like the four men carried the paralytic in this Sunday's Gospel. And the flip side of this is that we have a responsibility towards our brothers and sisters in Christ, to carry them when they are unable to make it to Christ themselves.

The Catholic faith is not a “personal relationship with Jesus” but a collective faith that reaches out into the world with the arms of Christ who calls all to Himself, even those who can’t ask for it on their own. This is the faith we are invited into in baptism, the faith that sustains us in the Church.

[Myles Domini]

[quote name='cappie' timestamp='1329281848' post='2387336']
In baptism, we are incorporated into the body of Christ, members of the same body and members of one another. As such, we no longer belong to ourselves, but to one another, and most especially, to the one who died and rose for us. This means that we are never alone in our journey of faith. In and through the Church, we are supported in our faith, and even when our faith fails, we can count on the other members of the body to carry us to the Lord like the four men carried the paralytic in this Sunday's Gospel. And the flip side of this is that we have a responsibility towards our brothers and sisters in Christ, to carry them when they are unable to make it to Christ themselves.

The Catholic faith is not a “personal relationship with Jesus” but a collective faith that reaches out into the world with the arms of Christ who calls all to Himself, even those who can’t ask for it on their own. This is the faith we are invited into in baptism, the faith that sustains us in the Church.
[/quote]

I don't disagree but as you have explained it could come across as if there is an opposition between person and collective which is not the case. The collective is personal and the personal is collective. Fundamentally it comes down to what we mean by 'person'. When we look at personhood in its [i]truest[/i] sense in the three persons of the Trinity it is clear that personhood is relational and the perfection of personhood is to be constituted by self-subsistent relations. The Trinity has true personality because the persons are completely constituted by their relationship to one another as relations of origin as the Church teaches. As the image of God we strive after this, its essential to us, to use the Balthasarian image the child first recognises itself in the eyes of its mother we can do no other. By growing together we are influenced and grow through our relationships and the more we give, the more we receive. I become myself paradoxically by giving myself and in giving myself to become myself understand that to truly be a person would be to completely self-donate as we see in the Trinity. Which is why there is no contradiction in our teaching of the one triune God its simply a failure to understand what personhood is.

None of this is contrary to what you have said. However, my point in coming back to this idea of personal relationship is two fold. 1) When dealing with people who are not starting at the same place as you it is sometimes necessary to use their language to break through their defensiveness and 2) It is essential to clarify for our separated breathren those concepts which they have taken from the fullness of faith but do not have the interpretive tools to properly unlock. The roots of 'persona' as you know Fr were in the Latin word for role tracing back to the theatres of Rome. It had no ontological content until in the Trinitarian controversies of the late Roman era when the Church baptised this language and gave it true significance. Abandoning the definition of person, personhood and personal that were established during this period leaves a massive gap in Christian theological lexis and makes it difficult for believers to appreciate what you're saying i.e. that through the mystical body of Christ I don't become less myself but more myself: I become more like the image of God I was created to be through relationships with others established by grace which allows me to arise above my nature and love in truth. This is where the corrective element of the exercise comes in and we can help our separated brethren to peel back the veil.

There is no opposition between the individual and the collective. The fact that we are part of the mystical body of Christ does not remove from us our personhood. The grace that flows through the Church indeed allows us to become truly persons by being able to rise above our nature to attain the theological virtues through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This allows us to see how the Church is not an obstacle to sanctification but rather the vehicle and school of sanctification as our relationships help us develop our personality and become more like God and in so doing we grasp more deeply the truth of the Trinity.

[BarbTherese]

I thought this article from Catholilc Answers made some useful points: [url="http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/why-are-you-here"]http://www.catholic....hy-are-you-here[/url]

Also the posts here [url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/118292-how-to-deal-with-this-situation/page__view__findpost__p__2385579"]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/118292-how-to-deal-with-this-situation/page__view__findpost__p__2385579[/url] and here [url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/118292-how-to-deal-with-this-situation/page__view__findpost__p__2388229"]http://www.phatmass....ost__p__2388229[/url] by MilesDomini - and thank you for sharing.

Edited February 17, 2012 by BarbaraTherese

[AccountDeleted]

I have a very personal relationship with Jesus, but I came to that after I had already come into the Church. I can relate to the Protestant view of a need for that relationship with Him, but it doesn't replace the need to belong to His Church and to follow her teachings and partake of the sacraments through scripture and sacred tradition. For me, it is kind of like a complete package, with each aspect a part of the whole. For me the two things (personal relationship with Jesus and collective one through the Church) are actually manisfestations of the two commandments given by Jesus, to love God and to love others.

[blacksheep]

I always refer to the college system. strange tool to use to validate church but let me explain
What validates a college degree? A signature from the president of the college of the univeristy or college you are attending. How does one obtain this signature. Well lets say hypothetically I was best friends with the President of My university. We talked alot, had a few drinks, became real chums. We've been this way for 4 years and then I ask him for a college diploma....should i receive one...the answer is no. Why?

Well because even though I had a personal relationship with the president I never took advantage of the college he was president of. I never went through classes to better understand different aspects of the world (ie church bible). I never made connections with professors to see how they understood it (ie priests, nuns, saints) I never made friends who enjoyed the same classes i did to help me increase my love for what I was learning and what I wanted to achieve. But not only that but help them along their path in their college career when exams or classes were tough (ie life) Therefore since i never did any of these things, why should i receive a degree (ie heaven) and enjoy the fruits that come from it?

Edited February 17, 2012 by blacksheep

[Myles Domini]

[quote name='BarbaraTherese' timestamp='1329460085' post='2388370']
I thought this article from Catholilc Answers made some useful points: [url="http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/why-are-you-here"]http://www.catholic....hy-are-you-here[/url]

Also the posts here [url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/118292-how-to-deal-with-this-situation/page__view__findpost__p__2385579"]http://www.phatmass....ost__p__2385579[/url] and here [url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/118292-how-to-deal-with-this-situation/page__view__findpost__p__2388229"]http://www.phatmass....ost__p__2388229[/url] by MilesDomini - and thank you for sharing.
[/quote]

I'm just glad you were able to make something out of all that.

I have been taught to be, and have tried to be, a systematic writer but honestly speaking its not my strength.

I didn't really share anything other than some very old concepts and nowhere near as well as the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. For example, in his exegesis of Philippians 2:6 St Cyril of Alexandria doesn't translate the Greek as 'though he was in the form of God' but as 'because he was in the form of God'. By this St Cyril meant to teach us that because He is the Son He gives Himself entirely to the Will of the Father because He is begotten of all ages from the Father. St Cyril uses this verse to look into the mystery of the Trinity and bring us to a deeper realisation of the faith.

St Thomas Aquinas presents it more clearly still:

[quote]Now distinction in God is only by relation of origin, as stated above, while relation in God is not as an accident in a subject, but is the divine essence itself; and so it is subsistent, for the divine essence subsists. Therefore, as the Godhead is God so the divine paternity is God the Father, Who is a divine person. Therefore a divine person signifies a relation as subsisting. And this is to signify relation by way of substance, and such a relation is a hypostasis subsisting in the divine nature, although in truth that which subsists in the divine nature is the divine nature itself. Thus it is true to say that the name "person" signifies relation directly, and the essence indirectly; not, however, the relation as such, but as expressed by way of a hypostasis. So likewise it signifies directly the essence, and indirectly the relation, inasmuch as the essence is the same as the hypostasis: while in God the hypostasis is expressed as distinct by the relation: and thus relation, as such, enters into the notion of the person indirectly. Thus we can say that this signification of the word "person" was not clearly perceived before it was attacked by heretics. Hence, this word "person" was used just as any other absolute term. But afterwards it was applied to express relation, as it lent itself to that signification, so that this word "person" means relation not only by use and custom, according to the first opinion, but also by force of its own proper signification.--ST.I.I.29.4[/quote]

This is key because many don't quite understand how the Trinity relates to our way of being. Of course they believe it because its true but they don't make the connection between what we are as the image of God and what God is as a Trinity. Yet looking at our own lives we can see clearly the connection.

We learn to live and speak and understand the world through others and we become ourselves by the influence of others. The way I am, my habits, how I speak are all influenced by others. My personality, my "I" is all relational. The more time we spend with our friends the more we become like them, sharing phrases, words, interests, hobbies. And the deeper our relationships, the more like the other we become, the more we feel more ourselves. Indeed, the further we stray from others the more solitary and isolated we become from others the steadily more miserable and depressed we tend to be. This error arises out of our anthropocentric thinking. Because we experience personhood from the perspective of a creature whose nature and existence are different we don't understand how 'I' can become more myself through being less self centred. Looking to the Trinity corrects our way of thinking and helps us to appreciate what we should be as the Image of God.

In practical terms this is why this important element of Church teaching should not be underplayed and why we should not surrender to our separated brethren terminology which, whilst common to us both, only we as Catholics appreciate the fullness of. Person and relation are intimidate concepts that cannot be separated and indeed act as keys to our appreciation of the Trinity, and through understanding the Triune God help us know ourselves: God gives us the Church because He understands us better than we understand ourselves. He knows what it means to be a person and wants us to be persons of faith. He gives us the Church as the ark of salvation through which we are united simultaneously to Him and to the whole Church militant, suffering and triumphant. Ourselves but never alone as the good Fr said. This is what we need to explain to our separated brethren so as to bring them to the fullness of truth.

Edited February 17, 2012 by Myles Domini