Until apologists can explain things without snark, we are never going to come to an understanding. As a Catholic convert, I will tell you right now that if someone had compared my being a Methodist to a Moslem I would have been very insulted.
When I got to that passage, I quit reading.
We have more in common with other Christians than we have differences, and that part of this article is good. But the author JUST COULD NOT AVOID THE TEMPTATION to be be patronizing and insulting. SO all of his effort at explanation is wasted because of his attitude.
I'm a cradle Catholic and that bothered me also. I come from as insular a Catholic community in a city as you can get (and truthfully, nowhere close to being marginalized). The sisters and priests who taught us would have made the author rewrite this and take all of that out. Pride has no place in the discussion.
Well, to be fair, the piece was written in 1988.
This was before even the FIRST Gulf War, and long before we all became so aware and so frustrated by the huge problem - the menace - of islam. I doubt if that reference would have seemed like such an insult in 1988.
Agreed. The article is a bit snarky.
I really don’t think that is intended as a snark. Rather, I see it as a warning.
It should be noted that Islam started as a Christian heresy.
Hey thanks for noticing the snark, the article is offensive right off that bat. As a christian, I came to know Christ in a protestant church, as of late I have been wondering WHY the churches are so divided and this kind of snarky article instead of bridging the divide causes irritation, it is not written with a heart of love.
I don't really think of "Methodists" and "fundamentalists" as being interchangeable categories. I suppose there's such a thing as a "fundamentalist Methodist," but I can't say I've ever met one.
Kreeft mentions Moslems in two places.
When I got to that passage, I quit reading.
We have more in common with other Christians than we have differences, and that part of this article is good. But the author JUST COULD NOT AVOID THE TEMPTATION to be be patronizing and insulting. SO all of his effort at explanation is wasted because of his attitude.
The Catholic Church in the United States has some very distinctive attributes as opposed to the Catholic Church in other countries. In most of the world the Catholic Church is the church of everyone--rich and poor, nobility and peasant, intellectual and simpleton. But in the United States the Catholic Church occupies a very small niche: immigrant, urban, liberal (in the old sense), and very, very, very intellectual--and unfortunately that means snarky. The Church that baptizes totem poles out of compassion for "indigenous pipples" can't seem to tolerate Southern hicks who believe the first eleven chapters of Genesis are as literal and historical as the rest of the Bible.
Nineteenth century liberal Protestant criticism has been adopted as a distinguishing characteristic of Catholic identity, coming right after Mary and the papacy.