As for naming Churches as a proof that the, uh, name-ee is being worshipped, then around here they worship Broadus Wood and Broadus Wood first Baptized On Saturday up to his neck while drinking poison and handling snakes Church.
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MD, I think it's beyond your fine mind and personal integrity to equate those two even in jest. Sheesh. That's beneath you, imho.
You certainly don't equate those at some level, imho. Perhaps in a cheeky moment for argument . . . but in your serious mind????
I see a lot of what amounts psychologically to shrine and ancestor worship in Virginia. I used to call it "Virginia Shinto" when I was in the pulpit. I don't blame it on the various denominations. I think "homecomings" are a fine thing to do. But they do nurture Virginia Shinto or provide a friendly environment for it. But when (IF) our people blue from hyper dulia to latria, it'sour fault, But if one of your people go the other way, it's not your fault? I note that Tertullian ended up a Montanist, but I don't conclude that the "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem" gang are all crypto-heretics waiting for some stimulus to burst into frank fulminating heresy
When John writes about bad guys in our churches, that's evidence of corruption. When "The 18th Baptist fellowship of those who couldn't get along with the first Seventeen" opens up on 3rd Street, we'd better not dare suggest that has anything to do with any problems in Protestantism. With WHOM would uyou guys arguem in all hour different conventicles and denominations and whatnot, if you didn't have us to unite you?
I'm just weary of it. So a Church is called "Mary Queen of Peace". So what? Anybody who wants to make a theological point of that has a serious proportionality issue. We disagree. Get over it.
I used to have a Jehovah's Witness buddy. (This IS possible, though rare.) You know Witnesses are about crosses like some people are about Mary. "EEW! Pagans do that. YOU have a pagan symbol hanging around your neck! Eeew! Eeeew! Eeeeeew!" I'm used to this, but a constant headache will make one depressed, and the barrage of pathological reactions (and that's how they look to me, seriously)to Catholicism get me down after a while.
I think the worst of it is that we who are DOING this, who are LIVING it, are finding Mary's Son, what's His name, oh yeah, uh, Jesus, yeah, that's it, within us, with us, around us, before us. All those practices which you ridicule and despise have been HUGE blessings to me.
But no, now I'm a victim of crypto-Isis worship because Constantine was on the take from the Vatican or some such nonsense. You all are saying to me, "Whom are you going to believe, us or your lying eyes."
I get abused by some Sabbatarian, and I'm supposed to make sure that I don't generalize that to all Sabbatarians. But a bad experience by some crypto-Jansenist dominatrix-type cathechist is proof that Catholicism is demonic?
And I'm supposed to sit there and take the technicolor posts in large fonts mocking my religion and casting aspersions on the way things look to me, but when I make a jest about Broadus Wood (which come to think of it is actually a school, but never mind) I get a rebuke?
I'll say it again: One of the strongest arguments in my mind FOR Orthodoxy and Catholicism is the way the war against it/them is waged. Rank upon rank of otherwise reasonable and good folk think it's perfectly all right to mock and insult, to wave lines from Scripture like Muslims waving pictures of their mullahs. When the hatred is so demonic, the thing hated MUST have something VERY good about it. I know you guys will deny any fear, but Satan must be quaking in His boots to marshal such forces and launch such attacks.
All that these threads do before they tire me out and make me sad at the hatred in the world, is reassure me that my becoming Catholic is one of the best things I ever did.
"Here I stand", maybe I could do some other, but I have yet to see a reason I would want to. "I am in Love, and out of it I will not go." Not on purpose, anyway.
/Rant off. I'm gonna go wash my feet, there being no free-will Baptists around to do it for me.
Look at Minnow's argument:
If there is no Mary worship, then why all the temples in her name? About 90 per cent of Catholic churches are "our Lady" this or that
If there is no ancestor worship, why are so many protestant churches named after some person no longer on this side of the veil? Around here if it isn't called after a place, it's called after some person. (Remarkably about 20 miles from here there is Saint John Baptist Church!) And then, For all you Sola Fide people, there is, I kid you not, "Effort Baptist Church." What do you suppose THEY worship?
But the argument Minnows proposes and you defend is circular, IF we worshipped Mary, why, yes, then our dedicating churches to her might be a sign of that worship.
But we don't worship Mary. But you all know better than we what we do -- you can't tell who's saved, except that each of you knows that he or she is. But you CAN tell not only what a Catholic is doing in his heart, but also that his doing it is the Church's fault. And he certainly isn't able to make a distinction ...
You people have simply GOT to stop worshipping forbears and municipalities or streets or whatever. I don't think you do, but I know I don't worship Mary. But what we say ourselves, what we say in our official teachings, these don't count. Because we have members who don't get it and we don't throw them out, YOU know what we really mean deep down inside. You know better than we why we name our Churches the way we do.