In our personal discussions, my wife has not acknowledged reading VII documents on protestants. She has brought home a pre-VII catechetical book with a view of Protestantism that is highly inaccurate. The spirit of VII relations with protestants is, in my opinion, considerably lacking.

That’s the end of my comments about this sort of thing. I appreciate “blest” keeping an eye on me and what I write.

Just remember “blest,” you folks are getting quite a wonderful person there and I hope your church greatly benefits from my and my family’s loss.

peace

ms

I never said any such thing. But in the RCC the only people — in general — who really worry about it are the Religious because they have all taken a vow of obedience.

The hierarchy is there as servants to the laity (one of the Popes titles is “Servant of the Servants”). Their job — what those in the Magisterium Hierarchy are busy doing every day is keeping the people “happy, joyous and free,” (actually from the AA Big Book, but it fits.) I agree with everything they teach. And sometimes I even do some of it …. ;@)

In reality, theology necessitates truths in tension. For instance, Jesus was fully man and yet fully God. Christians are sinners and yet also saints. God is absolutely sovereign yet man has free will. Jesus said “This is my body and blood,” yet it still looks and tastes like bread and wine. Grace is free, yet it is not cheap and it will cost you everything. The Law demands absolute perfection as the standard of holiness, and the Gospel promises imputed righteousness to all who believe upon Jesus. It’s no wonder theologians have drawn differing lines in the sand. I think doctrinal differences occur when we attempt to rationalize these apparent “truths in tension.”

But consider that this is a man who fasted in prison for months and was supernaturally sustained by the Word of God. This was a man who memorized the entire book of Matthew and Acts because he had to keep his Bible buried. When he preached to the Chinese people starving for scripture, he simple quoted the scriptures to them, and many were converted. This is a man whose wife was told to get an abortion by the Chinese government when she became pregnant with her second child, and the day before she was scheduled for the abortion, she went into labor (at seven months, and many people were fasting and praying for her). She had the baby without any pain.

Many people in the West criticized his book, his powerful witness, and his testimony as being fabricated.. perhaps because their own denomination has since neglected belief in real miracles. His book challenged my view of the supernatural and the power of prayer and fasting. It also got me out of my small-minded, un-persecuted framework, and made me less interested in the “about scripture” and more interested in memorizing and knowing it.

Brother Yun remembers receiving sacks of Bibles from the West, but at the top of every bag was a different denominational tract, trying to convince or sway the new Chinese Christians into one perspective or another. He said this was one of the single-most hindrances to the joy of the gospel for these new believers… they became confused and their knowledge of scripture started to suffer because of questions and fears.

In my view, if you follow any of the signs (denominations), you will end up in the same place (Christ). It’s like a mountain top. There are lots of ways to get to the top and none is objectively right or wrong. So long as the path your on keeps you headed up, you’ll end up at the top eventually. And so will many others, even though their paths may look very different than the one you followed.

I think the obsession for finding “the one true” church or doctrine stems, at least in part, from a highly suspect idea about the nature of God. To think that God will only save those who intellectually assent to some particular dogma seems to me to make God something like a sadistic game-show host. “Here are 500 doors to chose from. Behind 1 of them lies eternal bliss, and behind the other 499…HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE!!! So, which door will you choose?” In this type of scenario folks will obviously get pretty obsessive about choosing the right door.

But I think that God isn’t that sadistic or that arbitrary. God is infinite, and our tiny little brains are finite. It is therefore a certainty that whatever beliefs we hold about the Divine will necessarily fall short of the full reality. God is bigger than any of our doctrines or beliefs. I think the best we can do is to find the denomination and congregation that we feel most comfortable with, and have faith that if we are honestly searching for God, then God will find us.

1. Why does it matter?
Sigh. If I knew the answer to that one…

I honestly don’t know. I believe the Catholic Church to be true, but I cannot discount all of the amazing Protestants I’ve learned from along the way, nor can I discount the 10 yrs I spent at the PCA church.

The only thing I’ve been able to settle my mind on is a quote from (I believe) St. Augustine, who said that God gives grace through the sacraments, but is not limited by the sacraments.

2. Why the depression and struggle?
For me, like so many others, we want so desperately to follow the Lord faithfully, and yet He very rarely writes it in the sky: “Ouiz, I want you to be Catholic… [thunder rolling]“… so we go where we honestly believe we are being led, and yet we see others in different denominations, just as passionate and desiring to be faithful, and just as convinced they are called to be Methodist (or whatever), and the doubts start creeping in.

And for those of us black/white types, it gets even more confusing (if I’m right, doesn’t that mean that he’s wrong? And if he’s wrong, why is God seemingly blessing his spiritual walk so much more than mine?)

We can agree to disagree, and in a friendly way. Personally, I prefer “definite atonement” over “limited atonement,” as I believe that on the cross, Jesus actually, truly *atoned* for the sins of those for whom He died (those who believe). Their sins are covered, and thus, they *will* be in Heaven. Christ even bought the gift of faith for them, which they will ultimately exercise (no salvation without active belief). We will agree to disagree on the third point of the TULIP though.

What irks me about Martha’s comment (and many comments from non-Calvinists) is that they basically accuse the “God of Calvinism” of injustice, without, seemingly, taking the time to try to even understand Calvinism. I would say the same for seemingly knee-jerk criticisms of any theology.

I simply can’t get anywhere near the “limited” atonement of Jesus idea as articulated by Calvinists. I particularly get bugged by the defense that everyone limits the atonement, as if the difference between a person’s refusal and God’s intentional design isn’t huge!

That’s my amen. Again, Luther over Calvin on that one.

ms