Posted on 02/23/2007 8:32:11 AM PST by Alex Murphy
Walking away from mass on Ash Wednesday, I found myself examining my belief in the Catholic faith. While I felt proud to sport my new "smudge" — the term my roommates gave the ashen cross on my forehead — and even became angry when others looked at me with confusion.
I realized that I do not agree with what the Catholic faith stands for.
From the time I was born up until my senior year of high school my parents made me attend mass with them every Sunday morning. They staunchly believed that the teachings would instill a sense of community and would give me morals to live by. They ultimately succeeded in their wish, but as I grew up going to church left me increasingly angry and confused.
I have always been taught that God welcomes and loves all people. Priests and Sunday school teachers present you with an all-loving God — he is your friend, your creator and most importantly your guide in life.
As I became a teenager though, my Sunday school teachers started adding a disclaimer next to "all-loving." I started realizing that he is only all loving if you are a Christian heterosexual man or woman who follows every commandment to a tee.
Too bad if you're gay, God doesn't love you any more. If you're a woman and have had an abortion you might as well give up because God is going to smite you. And if you believe in other religions, forget it.
According to one of the Ten Commandments, "You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." that's one of the worst possible offenses.
These statements and others left me feeling at odds with my faith, so much so that I have taken three courses in Bible study. While I respect those who believe in the Christian faith, the biggest question I have been struggling with is how I can believe in a God that loves me conditionally.
As I continued in the Catholic faith more loopholes presented themselves. God doesn't approve of gay people, but he does approve of incest. In the book of Genesis, Eve gave birth to two sons named Cain and Abel. When they were teenagers Cain killed Abel in a field near their house. God decrees that Cain, his wife and children must live in the field where Able was killed as a punishment.
Where did Cain's wife come from? Did she fall from the sky? Did Cain sleep with Eve? This question is one that I've posed to my friends and even some of my old Sunday school teachers. Their answer was always that God made another woman for Cain to procreate with.
This answer and many like it have simply left me feeling even more perplexed. I'm sure I am not the only Catholic on campus that began questioning her faith after coming to college.
So where do we go from here? I am left in what seems to be a small but growing group of Catholics who are now realizing that their all-loving God is really a sham. It's a lot like finding out that the all-powerful Oz is really just some guy behind a curtain.
The ongoing struggle that I'm experiencing with my faith is something I fear will never be resolved. Do I still go to church, should I still consider myself a Catholic or should I abandon all hope of ever finding any real answers?
The only real answer that I have come up with is to add more disclaimers to my abridged version of Catholicism.
For those that are struggling with the same questions that I am the only wisdom I can provide is this: find your own way.
These days I've started to create my own faith foundation. In my opinion God is all loving and would not shun a person because of sexual preference, hard decisions they've made or their religion.
Some people have asked why don't you just switch to a religion that you agree with? Although that seems like the perfect solution, I know that no matter what religion I switch to there will always be aspects of it that I don't agree with.
Some Catholics may call me a fair weather Christian because I only believe in part of the Bible and don't attend church regularly. But I've started realizing that it's more about being a good person and having morals that you believe and not about being a "model" Christian.
While my current opinions on the Catholic faith have left me at odds with my parents and my strict Christian friends on many occasions, these obstacles haven't stopped me from following what I truly believe. I can't pretend to be what I'm not.
Now when people ask me "What's your religion?" I answer I'm Catholic and then add my own disclaimer: I'm Catholic but on my own terms, ones that aren't built on prejudice.
My personal favorite:
Nothing is better than God
A ham sandwich is better than nothing
Therefore: A ham sandwich is better than God.
And that's why they call it Wonderbread!
Beyond the fact it draws the Incarnation into question, it is pretty silly. Most Early Church Fathers said that Cain's wife would have been a sibling.
True, but I see no biblical evidence that Paul was a bishop. And your interpretation seems to fly in the face of verse 5, that suggests that one is unqualified to be a bishop unless he's demonstrated the ability to control his own kids.
A large majority of humanity being condemned is explicitly stated by Christ: "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." -- Matthew 7:13-14
I try to do the same thing with the kids in the high school Sunday school class I teach. I am a proponent of inoculation - it is far better that they be introduced to these issues earlier rather than later, and learn that questioning stuff like this is 100% acceptable.
There are many things that God can't do. God cannot act in an un-godlike way. God cannot do things that go against His nature. God cannot become non-god. I don't know if you were serious, but that is the kind of sophomoric question that is often raised by high school or college students.
St. Paul was superior to bishops; he appointed them.
... one is unqualified to be a bishop unless he's demonstrated the ability to control his own kids.
So, not only are celibate men ineligible to be bishops, but married men who are childless are also ineligible? Where does that leave Jesus (unmarried, no natural children)? Where does that leave men who take the Biblical command "Imitate me as I imitate Christ" (1 Core 11:1) literally, including obeying Jesus' words in e.g., Mark 10:29 or Luke 18:29?
Historically, the verse you cite has never been interpreted to prohibit the ordination of celibate or childless men to the episcopacy. It is true that married men were ordained in the early church. (A church consisting primarily of adult converts from paganism, of course.) St. Paul is setting limits on the sort of married men who can be ordained (married only once, with Godly children if any), not prohibiting the ordination of celibate or childless men.
For some folks, its all about the buggery.
That, or they see that some Christians actually do hat those whose sins are different than theirs. There is a strand of Christianity that is completely sex-obsessed.
Perhaps. There also seems to be a strand of heresy that begins below the belt.
My belief is that the answer to Cain's wife is in Genesis.
1:26.And God said, "Let Us make man in Our image..........
27.So God created man in His own image, in the image of
God created He him; male and female created He them.
31....And the evening and morning were the sixth day.
2:7.And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and
man became a living soul.
22.And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man,
made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. (notice
she wasn't formed at the same time as Adam, as the
females of the 6th day races, or mankind, were)
Adam and Eve were formed on the 8th day, after God rested on the 7th.
Cain married one of the 6th day creations. Mankind, all races, were created on the "6th day". Adam (eth ha adam - the man Adam)was formed on the "8th day".
Anyway, this is what I see written in Genesis and it has answered one of the questions I have had since I was a child.
I've been protestant all my life, I would like to know which portions differ between my Bible and yours please.
1 and 2 Maccabees, Sirach, Wisdom, Baruch, Tobit, and Judith were removed from the Bible by M. Luther & Co.
These are Old or New Testament books?
Old.
Thank you.
I'll see if I can find copies and read them.
As I recall they were included in the first edition of the KJV but removed from the subsequent versions.
These books are in every Catholic Bible. Try: http://www.drbo.org/
Indeed, Paul was an apostle.
So, not only are celibate men ineligible to be bishops, but married men who are childless are also ineligible?
That's certainly the prima facie reading of it.
Where does that leave Jesus (unmarried, no natural children)?
Unqualified to serve as a bishop, in any conventional sense.
Where does that leave men who take the Biblical command "Imitate me as I imitate Christ" (1 Core 11:1) literally, including obeying Jesus' words in e.g., Mark 10:29 or Luke 18:29?
The same. It's not as though the inability to serve in a particular role is somehow crippling, or evidence of spiritual unfitness. I assume you'd agree that a woman cannot be a bishop, but that hardly reflects badly on her or proves that it's an unreasonable criterion.
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