The Proliferation Of Denominations And Eating Habits Of Americans

[thessalonian]

HS_Dad, your point is well taken. There is some "meat" in protestant denominations. Though the more I study my Catholic faith, the more I see it as a small part of the non-catholic diet. I've been putting on an 8 week DVD series of Theology of the Body. While there are good lessons on this topic in Protestantism, nothing comes close to JP II's writings on the matter. I was thinking this morning about our theology on saints and angels. Man has this desire to communicate and it has led him to communicate from one end of the earth to the other. Yet somehow we think that those in heaven have less capability than us to know what is going on on this earth. To know what is going on here. They someone can't "hear" us.

We are told that Mary is omnipotent because of all the prayers she hears simultaneously. Yet this is a finite problem, to hear all the prayers of all mankind. Furthermore we have solved the problem in a sense. We have computers that could process all the words of all the people in the world. But heaven has a lesser capability evidently. Do you get my drift?

[HS_Dad]

[quote name='thessalonian' post='1378036' date='Sep 4 2007, 05:39 PM']There is some "meat" in protestant denominations.

.....

We have computers that could process all the words of all the people in the world. But heaven has a lesser capability evidently. Do you get my drift?[/quote]


There's tremendous meat in the God breathed Word of God. As many Protestants, Orthodox, and Catholics have pondered the Word deeply and prayerfully, there is much meat to be found from many Christians....

... I think I get your drift.

[Sojourner]

Perhaps a different analogy would be a better fit, hsdad?

I just watched Ratatouille (with your wife) a few weeks ago and so have kitchens and fine restaurants on the brain.

The Protestant realm of Christianity is like a fine restaurant kitchen lacking a head chef. There are many talented sous chefs, but they lack direction and organization, so the kitchen becomes a mess. They have all the tools they need to make a world-class dinner ... great kitchen appliances and gadgets, the finest ingredients, and so on, but no direction -- no oversight to coordinate their efforts and create a beautiful meal. Without that direction, the soup doesn't work in concert with the entree; and you occasionally get a batch of dirt pudding instead of creme brulee. Also, there is no one to call the exterminator, so it is an environment ripe for rodent problems ...

[HS_Dad]

[quote name='Terra Firma' post='1378385' date='Sep 5 2007, 12:36 AM']The Protestant realm of Christianity is like a fine restaurant kitchen lacking a head chef. There are many talented sous chefs, but they lack direction and organization, so the kitchen becomes a mess. They have all the tools they need to make a world-class dinner ... great kitchen appliances and gadgets, the finest ingredients, and so on, but no direction -- no oversight to coordinate their efforts and create a beautiful meal. Without that direction, the soup doesn't work in concert with the entree; and you occasionally get a batch of dirt pudding instead of creme brulee. Also, there is no one to call the exterminator, so it is an environment ripe for rodent problems ...[/quote]

Hmmm.... Some points well taken and very poetically written. But, the analogy is overwrought in my mind. I have thought about it like this for quite awhile...... The following is all well and good but not good enogh.... too many priests wish to be good shepherds of their small flocks.... and too many bishops shepherds of their larger flocks.... But, sometimes what is needed is more..... for shepherds to train sheep dogs who can help move the whole flock to higher pastures where the grass is greener! I am quite thankful for John Paul II and his witness to the importance of evangelization by all Christians.

APOSTOLICAM ACTUOSITATEM
"the Council earnestly exhorts the laity to take a more active part, each according to his talents and knowledge and in fidelity to the mind of the Church, in the explanation and defense of Christian principles and in the correct application of them to the problems of our times. "

As an Evangelical it was self-evident that all are called to use their gifts Romans 12:3-8 3For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. 4Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his[b]faith. 7If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

Many Catholics have a false priest - lay dichotomy that ignores the gifts of the teachings of Sacred Scriipture and APOSTOLICAM ACTUOSITATEM on these matters.

Sorry this didn't go with the meal preparation theme.

[LouisvilleFan]

I also got a lot of "meat and potatoes" in the sermons and teachings at my Baptist church, so this isn't an analogy that I relate to personally. In fact, if you tossed the connection between Catholicism and Protestantism, most of my Baptist friends would agree with it. The connection is more with American suburbanism, which permeates all of Christianity. Culturally speaking, American Catholicism isn't so different from Protestantism. If anything, considering the state of our parishes, schools, and univerisities, Catholics are more caught up in it than Protestants.

Edited September 5, 2007 by LouisvilleFan

[thessalonian]

I am not saying there is no meat in other religions and it is all junk food. But the Catholic diet is far better for the soul I think is my point. The soul food is mixed with things that are not healthy. Error cannot be without consequence. And there are things missing in their diet, i.e. the Eucharist. This does not mean they cannot gleen some truth from the scriptures that is meat. I don't know that I ever said that.

Edited September 5, 2007 by thessalonian

[jeffpugh]

[quote name='thessalonian' post='1378036' date='Sep 4 2007, 05:39 PM']HS_Dad, your point is well taken. There is some "meat" in protestant denominations. Though the more I study my Catholic faith, the more I see it as a small part of the non-catholic diet. I've been putting on an 8 week DVD series of Theology of the Body. While there are good lessons on this topic in Protestantism, nothing comes close to JP II's writings on the matter. I was thinking this morning about our theology on saints and angels. Man has this desire to communicate and it has led him to communicate from one end of the earth to the other. Yet somehow we think that those in heaven have less capability than us to know what is going on on this earth. To know what is going on here. They someone can't "hear" us.

We are told that Mary is omnipotent because of all the prayers she hears simultaneously. Yet this is a finite problem, to hear all the prayers of all mankind. Furthermore we have solved the problem in a sense. We have computers that could process all the words of all the people in the world. But heaven has a lesser capability evidently. Do you get my drift?[/quote]
Good analogy about intercessions. I'll have to borrow that if you don't mind.

[thessalonian]

by all means. Pass it along.

[N/A Gone]

[quote name='HS_Dad' post='1378376' date='Sep 5 2007, 12:27 AM']There's tremendous meat in the God breathed Word of God. As many Protestants, Orthodox, and Catholics have pondered the Word deeply and prayerfully, there is much meat to be found from many Christians....

... I think I get your drift.[/quote]

HS_Dad, have you ever read "Meaning of Tradition" by Yves Congar?

He argues two different points. The first is that the entire saving gospel is contained in both scripture and in tradition, rather than the concept that the saving gospel was only partially contained in the scriptures, which needed completing, even at their very source, by oral apostolic traditions, and that certain truths necessary for salvation were not contained in the scriptures.

The reason I mention this is in a soteriological situation it is impossible to have a "saving" christian faith outside of the full teaching of the church if you buy into option 2. But in using option 1 it is possible from scripture to find the seed to the saving gospel. The entire saving gospel is contained, even if it is a seed and needs help to be understood, within the written gospel. Thus, it is possible for a protestant with scripture to come to a saving grace. Although this is not as "easy"(whatever term I use will be wrong..maybe "available" or "accessable") as when you have the living tradition of the church working with the scriptures.

The protestant tradition I came from had a respect for patristics. I have had 2 mentors in my life and the first did not respect patristics or the need for it. Rather he said negative things about what he saw as the greek influence on early theology. The second mentor is considered one of the protestant experts in patristics and opened my mind to the faith the extends from the fathers and the importance of their testimony on our theology. (although from this I ended up growing into catholicism..but that is a different story)

After my babble the point I want to make is that it is possible to find the meat in protestantism, if the individual is able and wanting to look and find the meat. But I would not say that meat is as "meaty" (words are killin me today) as that meat would be if they had the fullness of the meat. Any theological concept we have, understanding that theology is not a "thing" but the development of a relationship with the divine. Is enhanced as we come to a greater understanding. The seed is found in scripture, and any theology must always be rooted in Scripture and attested to in Scripture (at least implicitly but nonetheless clearly) but that flower grows and is developed as the living church grows and develops.

The problem I see is that an individual protestant is able to do this, but the majority of protestant churches will have bits of the meat, but they fill things with alot of ice cream. There are multiple theories as to why this is. 1.) they only have so much meat and they need a filler. This is possible, but I dont think it is the case. If meat was their focus a protestant church would have meat, Some of the meat might be bad meat, but it could remain meat.(the tradition of the church is best understood as keeping our meat good, but we still want to have the meat) The issue I see as likely (2) is that protestant churches are small businesses that compete with other small businesses for customer flow. The average customer could care less about meat, and sometimes meat hurts the tummy so often times the small business that has the ice cream is the one that draws in the customer. In my admin of Christian education class my senior year I made my thesis on the fact that most "seekers" and in response the focus of many of the churches is on their day care and bathrooms rather than the message and growth of the individual churches.

So much of the meat/ice cream is based on the focus of the modern church, rather than an intrinic evil within protestantism. Like I cited. Protestantism can still find meat, although often times the meat goes bad. And catholicism can have ice cream. The issue of the food choice is on what the focus of the church is and what the individual is hungry for. If the church is only feeding ice cream the individual will only eat ice cream.


/rant

[thessalonian]

Good post rev. Hot dogs are meat and they will keep you alive but they aren't that good for you.

Analogies all fail at some point but I still see this as a good one.

Edited September 6, 2007 by thessalonian

[N/A Gone]

Thank you sir. I am only a neophyte here but i try.

Analogies help as long as we understand the limitations and are willing to learn what we can from them. I like the analogy (I believe I offered a hug for it on the first page hehe) but only if we can use it to start a discussion in which we can explain.

[HS_Dad]

[quote name='Revprodeji' post='1379502' date='Sep 6 2007, 11:08 AM']/rant[/quote]

These analogies I have actually heard quite often... There is some truth to it. However, I think if you meet (pun ) with many people working in church growth, they are actually concerned about bringing in the seeker and helping them to grow in their faith through getting into the Word, joining what Catholics call "small Christian communities" i.e. bible study and praying and caring groups, etc.

Looking at it from a Catholic perspective, one could argue that trying to help seekers find God is good incarnational theology.

I do agree there are temptations and problems with this approach. However, the "sit back and they will come" approach of most mainline Protestant Churches and most Catholic and Eastern Orthodox parishes also has tremendous weaknesses. In a western world growing increasingly pagan, can we just sit back and not look to meet the seeker?

Although I would argue it is not very "well honed", most dioceses are seeing the importance of Evangelization and are trying to meet this important need. Eg. [url="http://www.archspm.org/Evangelization/index.html"]http://www.archspm.org/Evangelization/index.html[/url]

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='HS_Dad' post='1380022' date='Sep 6 2007, 11:23 PM']I do agree there are temptations and problems with this approach. However, the "sit back and they will come" approach of most mainline Protestant Churches and most Catholic and Eastern Orthodox parishes also has tremendous weaknesses. In a western world growing increasingly pagan, can we just sit back and not look to meet the seeker?

Although I would argue it is not very "well honed", most dioceses are seeing the importance of Evangelization and are trying to meet this important need. Eg. [url="http://www.archspm.org/Evangelization/index.html"]http://www.archspm.org/Evangelization/index.html[/url][/quote]

Yep, I agree. The Baptist churches I've attended were focused on serving peoples' needs in order to lead them to Christ. It's not so different from a business serving customers in order to get their business and keep 'em coming back. I'd say most Catholic parishes aren't so good on customer service. We avoid the pitfalls that Protestant churches fall into, but at the same time, we aren't getting the benefits and leading as many non-Catholics to the sacraments as we could.

Sounds like the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis is doing some awesome work!

Edited September 7, 2007 by LouisvilleFan

[thessalonian]

[quote name='HS_Dad' post='1380022' date='Sep 6 2007, 10:23 PM']These analogies I have actually heard quite often... There is some truth to it. However, I think if you meet (pun ) with many people working in church growth, they are actually concerned about bringing in the seeker and helping them to grow in their faith through getting into the Word, joining what Catholics call "small Christian communities" i.e. bible study and praying and caring groups, etc.

Looking at it from a Catholic perspective, one could argue that trying to help seekers find God is good incarnational theology.

I do agree there are temptations and problems with this approach. However, the "sit back and they will come" approach of most mainline Protestant Churches and most Catholic and Eastern Orthodox parishes also has tremendous weaknesses. In a western world growing increasingly pagan, can we just sit back and not look to meet the seeker?

Although I would argue it is not very "well honed", most dioceses are seeing the importance of Evangelization and are trying to meet this important need. Eg. [url="http://www.archspm.org/Evangelization/index.html"]http://www.archspm.org/Evangelization/index.html[/url][/quote]


HS_DAD,

I really don't know what point your trying to make in this thread. If you want to discuss evangelization I would be glad to do that. I just ran an 8 week class on theology of the body, complete with your discussion groups and a call for those who went through the study, by Christopher West, to cast out in to the deep! In other words spread the message. That is exactly what I am trying to do. I did not post this thread as some sort of an excuse to leave protestants where they are at and they just don't get it. Quite the contrary. I am currently thinking about holding TOB sessions in community centers around the cities and inviting Protestant pastors for free that they might encourage their congregations to attend after they have heard about it or teach it to them themselves. The purpose of the analogy is not to excuse our inactivity with regard to evangelization but to say THEY NEED THE CATHOLIC FAITH! They NEED EVAGENLIZATION! The fact is Catholics do as well. Mr. West said it quite well when he spoke of the PITIFUL! job the Catholic Church has done in this area and JP II has called for a New Evangelization. I am familiar with what the Archdiocese is doing in this area and it is good. So what's your point in your counterposts?