I’m not ranting here, but I don’t know where else this be. If a different forum is better, please move it.
For the past few days the number of Christian threads have been ramped up. As expected, most are centered on what is evil in the faith. I have no problem with that. Debate away. There are many here that can defend Christianity much more eloquently than I.
Here’s what’s bugging me. For a long time anything concerning Christians invariably includes at least one post referring to the faith based on the Holy See.
I’m not a frothing-at-the-mouth Catholic, but I’d appreciate some of those posting to understand that Catholocism isn’t the same as Christian.
And I’m sure Protestants would appreciate the same respect to the difference.
If you have a problem with Catholocism, keep it at that rather than disparage everyone that believes in Christ the Savior.
If you hate Christianity, go outside the Vatican to find examples to cite in your diatribes.
You might clafify your post as I know lots of people that take the position that Roman Catholic and Christian are mutually exclusive groups. Not a position I take BTW.
It’s a problem on this board for all of us as one hot thread in GD asks all christians to defend the position of one Southern Baptist pastor, something I wouldn’t feel to compelled to do even I was (still) a Southern Baptist let alone a Lutheran (ELCA) as I am now.
All Catholics are christians. Not all christians are catholics. I am free to pick from any basket christianity offers when choosing issues I care to discuss or disparage.
Well, no, it’s not just that. In fact the idea for this came before that thread. I just wasn’t sure of what forum to put it in.
There are also threads in GD on the good and evil of Christianity. Started in the last few days. Those among other threads in the last few years have shown that those against the Catholic Church have taken the bias to include all Christians.
Also, there have been more than a few threads where the Catholic Church was cited in trying to make a case for Christianity being inherently evil.
To anyone that hates Catholocism, meh. It doesn’t affect my day to day life.
Just keep in mind that Catholocism doesn’t equal Christianity. If you need a cite I can only look to the northeastern section of an island of the coast of…Hi Nigel! Fancy a pint?
But don’t ask a Baptist to defend the use of the blood of Jewish babies in the Host.
Don’t ask an Anglican why he has to carry an umbrella when the Pope says it’s going to rain.
Don’t ask a Greek Orthodox why he will be put to death unless he worships a statue of Mary.
These things are all unique to my particular strain of Christianity. :rolleyes:
Likewise, you shouldn’t ask me what it’s like to handle snakes, or how I heal the blind by touching them, or whether I ever get discouraged at so many doors being slammed in my face when I go through neighborhoods to talk about Jesus.
Now, on the serious side:
The Catholic Church is very visible, both for its ceremony and for its rigid adherence to certain principles. Many outside the faith, and a good number within the faith, view this rigidity as stiff-neckedness (it’s a word now, dammit), shortsightedness, and intolerance. And, in many cases, I’d be hard-pressed to argue as vigorously as I am capable in defense of my Church.
But our practices are no more indicative of the whole of the Christian faith than the laying on of hands or the handling of snakes, or streetcorner witnessing, or tract-laying.
If you want to indict a certain tenet of the Christian faith, make sure that it’s one endorsed or practiced by the Vatican before you blame the Vatican. Don’t pick the Pope just because the funny hat makes him an easy target.
Many times, he’s not the droid you’re looking for.
Catholicism is a sect of Christianity. If you are arguing against (or disparaging) Christians as a group, it makes sense to include Catholic examples. Christianity covers such a wide spectrum, though, that I think it would be difficult to make any assertions about it as a whole that wouldn’t be wrong about at least one denomination.
Many years ago, after I walked into a Church meeting and unexpectedly found myself elected Chaiman of Educational Activities (but that’s another story), I was arranging lectures on religious topics out in Salt Lake City and, in the course of this, found that most Christian groups *don’t * consider Mormons to be “Christian”.
This seemed pretty weird to me, because Mormons used the King James Bible, and all the missionaries have a copy in their Triple Testaments. How can you use the KJV and not be considered “Christian”?
I’ve even raised the issues on this Board before. There seems to be a majority belief that acceptance of the Book of Mormon (and D&C and Pearl of Great Price) as Holy Writ places the LDS folks in a different category.
I had to teach this to my husband. I was the first Protestant he’d ever met and he was 29 at the time. It was oh, so annoying! To him there were Jews and Catholics. He didn’t know the difference, didn’t know that Protestant churches were part of this sect or that and that there were generally not signs that said “St. Mary’s Protestant Church”. And I don’t know what the hell he was doing in 11th grade Social Studies but he didn’t know the difference between consubstantiation and transubstantiation.
I’ve set him straight, but his mother still is as ignorant as can be on the subject.
Where do I begin? For starters a strict definition of protestant should only include denominations which can trace directly back to the protestant reformation such as Lutherans but I don’t lose sleep over it. Secondly, veneration of saints is one way protestants separate themselves from the R.C. church and don’t have specially designated saints as the term refers to all Christians.
A lot of Christians struggle with this question. Some don’t struggle at all of course and immediately dismiss Mormons as non-Christian. I used to be fully in that camp. I still believe a lot of Mormon theology is false - achieving godhood, levels of heaven, etc. - but I also don’t presume to know how God judges someone who truly believes he is doing God’s will.
My experience has been that a lot of self-identified Christians view the LDS as a cult rather than a religion. I’ve also heard Seventh Day Adventists being called a cult. I wish I could sort it all out.
What are you talking about? I never said I was basing my disparaging comments toward Protestants on catholic doctrine? The fact that some christians don’t think catholics are christians doesn’t make it so.
It was like this for me as well growing up in the Roman Catholic church; in my mind “Christian” was just a synonym for “Catholic” and Baptists, Protestants et. al. were their own separate groups with tenets that I knew nothing about. I guess it was that as a whole we weren’t encouraged to explore other religions and beliefs in church and school so my spiritual upbringing was pretty insular.
Now that I’m grown and know better, I still sometimes say Catholic when I mean Christian. :smack:
Someone should get over here and tell the members of St. Thomas Lutheran, St. Mark Baptist, St. James Missionary Baptist, St. Luke’s Church of God, St. James Penteostal, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian and a number of others that they are breaking their rules. (And that ignores the numerous Episcopal and Methodist churches to avoid a fruitless “Anglicans are/aren’t Protestant” debate).
Regarding the (CoJCo)LDS, there are teachings in that group that are clearly in contradiction to the Council of Nicaea, (where most of the rest of the Christians drew the line for “who is in” and “who is out”). There is also an issue that the notion of a new revelation contradicts the long tradition that revelation (although not God’s continuing attempts to reach humans) was completed with the “Bible.” (And I am referring to the broad understanding, not appealing to that little snippet of verse near the end of the Book of Revelation.)
For those who define Christianity on those points, the LDS falls outside the group. For those who believe that Jesus is more accepting and inclusive and who think that anyone who is called by Jesus is a Christian (even if they’ve gotten a lot of the message wrong–as the Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox all glare at each other), then the LDS is Christian.
The use of the word “cult” when referring to any of the non-mainstream Christian groups is simply a short-hand way that some Fundamentalist preachers use to dismiss people who do not share their beliefs. I rarely put much faith in any declaration that one group or another is a “cult”–especially when uttered by people who are sitting in the corner muttering to themselves “We’re the only people here.”
There seem to be different reasons floating around for not considering Mormons to be Christian. Some people just think we’re really devil-worshippers or something. Most object to our non-acceptance of the creeds and councils (oddly, these tend to be sola scriptura types, so you would think our use of the Bible would be sufficient) and Trinitarianism. Others say we aren’t connected to historical Christianity (that is, we aren’t Catholic or Protestant). There are some other, minor points as well. The fact that we do not consider the scriptural canon to be closed, and regard modern revelation as essential, really bothers a lot of people.
The nuns who taught wee drop would disagree. To them, and our pastor, Catholic and Christian were synonymous and all the rest who claimed to be Christian were heretics. But these were the same people who taught me to be nostalgic for the Good Ol’ Days when we knew what to do with heretics so their beliefs could probably be dismissed as the ravings of psychotics.
BTW, my annoyance at my husband’s Christian = Catholic language (notice that I didn’t say belief - as far as belief, I don’t think he thinks about who does what where) was enhanced by the fact that my father is an ordained, practicing Congregational minister. I felt that thoughtless language demeaned my father’s profession.
I disagree with that assertion. Most conservative churches reserve this word for groups that reject the core teachings of evangelical Christianity. In other words, you may not share all their beliefs, but if you share the basic core teachings, then you’re not a cult.
As an example, many of them do not consider the Seventh Day Adventists to be cultists, even though they hold many heterodox teachings. Ditto for the Catholic church. (Some do consider the Roman Catholic Church to be a cult, but not all do.)
The point is that the word “cult” is not simply synonymous with “those who believe differently.”