“you believe in this, I say so, now explain to me why.”
Cronos I have been told that since I became a Catholic!! Will someone please tell me why? You said it too! That is the best way it has ever been put. When I attended the Baptist church no one ever said that to me! No one ever attacked me when I was at the Baptist Church. True I was forced to go there by my parents and had no desire to be there, but this is beside the point. If someone asked where I went to church back then no one said “you believe in this, I say so, now explain to me why.” So what changed now?
When I was at the Baptist church they said you would be attacked for your Christian beliefs. They said this almost every Sunday and never knew what they meant until the day I was Baptized and confirmed a Catholic! (actually it began before then but...) The attacks have been non stop and from people I would not have thought. From other Christians!
For the record everyone, I had friends back when who were non Christians. They were a bit alarmed that I wanted to join the Catholic church as well. The only question they asked me however was “are you doing this on your own freewill?” and “is anyone forcing you?” When they realized it was my own decision they were cool with that. I never heard from them “you believe in this, I say so, now explain to me why.” I only hear this from other so called Christians.
Why is this?
What I find most tiresome is the assumption that anyone who reads a Bible will agree with all the personal interpretations of Person X. If you don’t, you must never read a Bible. (This in response to posts filled with Scripture quotations, usually, but what are facts when they contradict our self-image?)
What’s really odd is that differences in belief among non-Catholic, non-Orthodox Christians are often very significant, and yet proponents of very different theologies do not assume a priori that the other does not own or read a Bible.
On the positive side, I’ve rarely found people out in the Real World being so rude. They don’t walk into our church or our conferences to make their same old arguments. They only rarely accuse the Knights of Columbus to their faces of being a murderous cult. (This happened to my husband in front of Walmart doing the collection for the mentally handicapped.)
A Church of God pastor in Charlotte once decided that their church shouldn’t participate in the food bank or the homeless mission because some of the other volunteers were from Catholic churches, and his own congregation told him to take his personal problems for a hike - they would support community charities.