----- Original Message ----- From: "Bryon Daly" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, August 08, 2004 10:51 PM Subject: Re: Objective Evil
> On Sun, 8 Aug 2004 17:56:08 -0500, Dan Minette > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > From: "JDG" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > At 03:25 PM 8/8/2004 -0500 Dan Minette wrote: > > > >> >I went to the web site, and I am embarassed as a Catholic by the lack > > of > > > >> >consistant logic. > > > >> > > > >> At what point does your embarassment cause you to become a member of > > the > > > >> Protestant Church at which you an elder, and you stop calling yourself > > a > > > >> Catholic? > > > > > > > >When and if I am called to do that by the Spirit. :-) > > > > > > In the meantime, it is a bit grating for an office-holder of another > > > Church, a Church whose raison d'etre is opposition to Catholicism, > > > > no, the raison d'etre is following Jesus, the Christ, the son of the > > living God. The church Jesus divided. You may fully believe that God only > > speaks through a hierarchy, and when people were thrown out of the church > > for the horrid sin of objecting to the selling of grace, that God was > > behind this. Well, I don't. > > > > I see the one church as broken, not whole within the Catholic church, and > > then a bunch of heritics. I realize that we differ. I don't see > > denominational differences as critical; we differ there too. I know that > > denominations are becomming far less important. > > Dan, what led you to your current situation of affiliating yourself > with both Catholic and Methodist churches? Presuming you have > migrated away from Catholic towards Methodist, why not go "all the > way"? What do the Methodists think about your continuing to consider > yourself Catholic, particularly if you are an elder there as John > says? I never intended to give a testimonial, but I guess I got myself into it, so here goes. My wife came from a Methodist tradition; I came from a Catholic tradition. Both traditions were very strong; with her grandfather and uncle being ministers, and my dad's twin brother a priest, my aunt a hermit; and three of my mom's uncles priests. My spiritual development was stronger than hers when we got married, so she had no problem with us going to the Catholic church. We found two parishes in Houston where we could both grow. As my wife grew, she became more in touch with her roots; asking herself why she was just going to a Catholic church. But, the parish we went to was extremely good; and we still found ways to grow. We moved, and in the new area, the potential within the Catholic church was far less. When we were married; we had two basis for looking at religion. First, we had mutual respect for each other's traditions. While I had differences with the Methodist church; I also had a great deal of respect. The theological differences were not in areas I consider critical: there was strong agreement on faith/works; and it was a "saved once saved forever church." This was reflected by how well her grandfather and my uncle got along. Indeed, the faith traditions of our families were very similar. The second basis was that the smallest and most important religious community was the family. While I consider being a member of an extended church critical; it is not as critical as practicing religion together as a family. So, we agreed we would not have Mommy's faith and Daddy's faith, we would have our faith. Part of that was worshiping together as a family. With the difficulties at the local Catholic church, Teri in particular felt that we were not in a place that allowed our full spiritual growth. So, we explored other churches, and started going to two churches; one Methodist, and one Catholic. Then we moved to the Woodlands, and the local Catholic church was not in good shape. The pastor stated that he didn't like children. People went to church to "get their obligation in." There were two significant signs of this. First, the Catholic church was identifiable in the parking lot because most people backed in to facilitate a quick exit. Second, the quick exit was enhanced by leaving before church was over. My wife, Teri's experience of this was singing the last hymn with her face in the hymnal because it was a new song to her, looking up after the hymn and finding that we were alone. The pack pews around us had cleared during the second verse because it was no longer a sin to leave once the priest had processed into the narthex. The local Methodist churches were Baptist churches in disguise; particularly the larger one. So, we went to the Presbyterian church and found a place were we could all serve and grow. My wife joined the AIDs care team; and I was involved in adult education. I was encouraged to give adult courses based on Catholic writers, such as Raymond Brown. There was little opportunity for either service or nurture at the local Catholic church. I was still a lector; but the inspiration was far less than at earlier Catholic parishes where I could feel the enthusiasm of the congregation. At the same time I took a second year graduate course at the Catholic seminary on Persian and Hellenistic Judaism. The local priest wasn't much interested; the local Presbyterian pastor wrote a letter of recommendation to get me in the Catholic seminary class. During that time; our own family grew in both the nurture and opportunity to serve presented by the Presbyterian church. It was near impossible to obtain either from the Catholic church. So, in short, I never really turned my back on the Catholic church. I just didn't rate going to the Catholic church above going to church with my family. I have theological differences with both churches. The key factor is the ability of my family to both serve and be nurtured. I am very happy with the spiritual growth of us all. My eldest daughter is about to start he last year of seminary. My younger daughter was youth elder at our church and worked this summer leading the youth group at another church. My son, although its too soon to tell at 17, appears to be firmly grounded in his faith. My two "adopted" daughters are also strong and growing in their faith Theology, scripture, and ethics are frequent conversation topics in our house. I'm happy with this small church congregation that I belong to. So, I never turned my back on the Catholic church. I'm just following where the Spirit seems to lead me. If she leads me back to being most active in a Catholic parish, that's fine. Dan M _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
