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.
Bravo!!!
No I'm just tired of it. You guys think (a)that we worship Mary and (b) that if we don't then it's our fault that some dunderheads who go to our churches do.
Yes and no. We don't live in a vacuum. And there is a LOT of aiding and abetting nonsense that goes on in most conregations. And in ancient ones, there's usually more such. Sometimes one aids and abets by being silent. Sometimes by applauding. Sometimes by joining in. Sometimes by merely showing up and not protesting. How much you may do so is between you and God. I could imagine little to none though I'd think there must be some because of your statements hereon. These issues are not always minor issues.
Most of us Protties are SICK AND TIRED of the Protty bashing and baiting that is the SOP with some. But we are not about to roll over and play dead about the important issues being thrown at us.
And, you may have noticed, matching intensity for intensity is more my brief. I'm rarely very shrill with you, any more. I have a better understanding of your heart for God.
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
Need to close IE7 so will try and get back to this. LUB,