MegaChurch or Catholic Church?

taylormarshall.com ^ | August 26, 2013 | Dr. Taylor Marshall

[NYer]

Megachurch. Two young ladies. Both had left the Catholic Church. Both were now attending “megachurches.” We had a good chat together. I wanted to understand their reasons for why they left the Catholic Church for a megachurch.

Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Megachurch
43,500 weekly attendance

I was at the bank and somehow I got into a spiritual conversation with two Hispanic executives that worked there.

Why the Megachurch?

When I asked why they exchanged the Catholic Church for the megachurch, they gave me a number of reasons:

1. “My new church has an iPhone app. I can go on my iPhone and get Bible studies, sermons (video and audio). When I travel I can still watch the sermon, either live or later. I feel apart of the community.”
2. “The preaching is dynamic and speaks to my life. I find practical encouragement.”
3. “I felt judged at the Catholic Church.”
4. “People were not friendly or welcoming at the Catholic Church. The first time I went to my new church, I was welcomed by so many people.”
5. “My new church has classes and courses that are interesting and helpful.”
6. “The music is better.”
7. “In the Catholic Church, they use a lot of words that I did not understand.”
8. “People pray for each other and know each other (in the megachurch).”

Although these two ladies didn’t articulate it explicitly to me, I could tell that they were very proud of their new churches. I could also discern in them a surprise that I am so “spiritual” and yet I am very excited about being Catholic. They assumed the “with it” people were leaving Catholicism for the bigger and better and deal.

I asked them what they miss about being Catholic. They replied with two answers:

1. “There are not any crosses in my new church. I know it makes some people feel uncomfortable, but I wish we had crosses.”
2. “What will I do when I die?” They were both unclear about whether they could get anything like Last Rites at the megachurch.

What About the Eucharist?

I asked both about the Eucharist: “Don’t you miss the Eucharist?”

This question didn’t phase them one bit. “Oh we still have communion. They pass out little crackers and cups of juice. I like this better because I thought drinking from one big cup is icky. Spreads germs.”

“But in the Catholic Church,” I replied, “we believe that the Eucharist is the real Body and Blood of Jesus?”

I may as well have said, “Don’t you know that there are Martians in my back pocket.” She was unaware that the Catholic Church taught this. No idea.

The Problem

This, my brothers and sisters, is the crux of the problem. These girls were raised as Catholics, but did not know about the Eucharist. They did not know that the Eucharist is God. They did not understand the Holy Eucharist is the center of the Catholic tradition.

So when they compare our ho-hum Catholic music and pedestrian sermons to snazzy well produced musical productions and highly polished bulleted sermons from handsome professional speakers…where are they going to go?

If they had believed that the Holy Eucharist is truly the Lord Jesus Christ, then they would have stayed. This is the task of the New Evangelization if there is going to be one. Can we communicate the mystery of Eucharist. If we fail in that, everyone is leaving the building.

Godspeed,
Taylor

PS: I don’t mean to suggest that having the Holy Eucharist is an excuse for bad music, bad vestments, bad architecture, and bad sermons. The Eucharist is like a precious diamond. It deserves a platinum setting…not a plastic setting. We can’t say, “Well, we have the Eucharist – so you’re forced to stay and have a miserable experience every Sunday.” We can’t keep the sacraments hostage to mediocracy.

PPS: With 1 billion strong, the Catholic Church is the real megachurch!

Pope Francis at Rio de Janeiro
3 million people

[Lera]

Add me to the list of those who agree.

[metmom]

Just a ploy...Same with scripture alone...We can and have shown them 'scripture alone' all over the bible but as long as they can't see the words 'Sola Scripture', they pretend to have an argument against it...

The irony and hypocrisy is that there are plenty of words that describe their beliefs that they expect us to accept and THEY aren't found in the Bible either.

Words like: catholic, sacrament, mass, eucharist, transubstantiation, apostolic succession, pontiff, papacy, pope, trinity, incarnation, immaculate conception, assumption, purgatory, limbo, penance, indulgence, rosary, Lent, magisterium, creed, and so on.

Can you say *double standard*?

[metmom]

The funniest one is that we "don't" or are told not to read the Bible. Because y'all just know that somehow.

Laugh all you want. Your church isn't in denial about that fact.

From the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

"Changes in Catholic Attitudes Toward Bible Readings" By Msgr. Daniel Kutys

http://www.usccb.org/bible/understanding-the-bible/study-materials/articles/changes-in-catholic-attitudes-toward-bible-readings.cfm

Until the twentieth Century, it was only Protestants who actively embraced Scripture study. That changed after 1943 when Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu. This not only allowed Catholics to study Scripture, it encouraged them to do so. And with Catholics studying Scripture and teaching other Catholics about what they were studying, familiarity with Scripture grew.

Just wow. Now Catholics are *allowed* to read the Bible. Before they weren't.

From the Coming Home Network International

http://chnetwork.org/2012/05/how-not-to-become-a-catholic-part-four-reflections-on-conversion-by-james-tonkowich/

How Not to Become a Catholic, Part Four – Reflections on Conversion by James Tonkowich

Ask almost anyone over the age of sixty who was raised Catholic and you will hear how priests discouraged reading the Bible. “It’s too complicated. You will only get things wrong,” seems to have been the common priestly warning. It seems that many if not most Catholic families didn’t even have a copy of the Scriptures in the home.

At one time, the Catholic church actually forbade its members to even OWN a Bible.

COUNCIL OF TOULOUSE - 1229 A.D Canon 14. We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament; unless anyone from motive of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.

Source: Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe, Edited with an introduction by Edward Peters, Scolar Press, London, copyright 1980 by Edward Peters, ISBN 0-85967-621-8, pp. 194-195, citing S. R. Maitland, Facts and Documents [illustrative of the history, doctrine and rites, of the ancient Albigenses & Waldenses], London, Rivington, 1832, pp. 192-194.

The Council of Tarragona of 1234, in its second canon:

“No one may possess the books of the Old and New Testaments in the Romance language, and if anyone possesses them he must turn them over to the local bishop within eight days after promulgation of this decree, so that they may be burned lest, be he a cleric or a layman, he be suspected until he is cleared of all suspicion.” (-D. Lortsch, Historie de la Bible en France, 1910, p.14.)

Now, about that derision you are displaying.......

[metmom]

That makes four.

I think I’ll keep a running total for the next RC who tries to pull that.

[mitch5501]

five

[metmom]

paladinan, ping to posts 871, 941, and 945.

The running total of those who agree with bkaycee’s explanation/definition of sola scriptura is now five.

And counting, I daresay, aside from the person who originally wrote the piece, which would make it six by default; the author and five FReepers to date.

[verga]

Besides “the” flesh they were just talking about was His flesh.

They why didn't he same "My flesh profitith..."?

[bonfire]

Amen!

[SoothingDave]

Consequently, sola scriptura demands only those doctrines are to be admitted or confessed that are found directly within or indirectly by using valid logical deduction or valid deductive reasoning from scripture.

And who defines what is "valid"?

There is the problem. You admit that your own deductions are "valid" yet deny that to others.

[SoothingDave]

However... PASSOVER customs from back then CLEARLY treat all elements as metaphorical. And, the symbolic communion WORKS... spiritual renewal rededicating them to the exaltation of Jesus Christ can be sensed by sincere participants. Unless Christ is so flexible that He will transsubstantiate into skeptical Baptists' bread and grape juice, something else is happening here.

The Passover was metaphor. It was foreshadowing. It is realized on the Cross and at the Altar.

Baptists and Protestants obviously gain some blessing by being sincere and by being gathered in His Name.

But no, there is no transsubstantiation going on and there is no ordinary, sacramental transmission of grace.

[SoothingDave]

I'm not an Eastern Orthodox, but you are wrong about the differences between them and Roman Catholicism. These differences are so important that there has been no reconciliation in nearly a thousand years after the split. The Eastern Orthodox differ with Roman Catholicism on these issues:

Since you are not Orthodox I am not sure why you have chimed in.

You gave specifics. I gave a general outline. What I said is true.

[SoothingDave]

The irony and hypocrisy is that there are plenty of words that describe their beliefs that they expect us to accept and THEY aren't found in the Bible either. That's not hypocrisy or ironic.

[SoothingDave]

No one may possess the books of the Old and New Testaments in the Romance language

It's talking about unauthorized and corrupt translations.

Your argument falls apart when you quote things that you don't understand.

[SoothingDave]

The grace needed for Salvation is mostly received thru the sacraments and empowers the recipient to earn his own salvation (or at least maintain salvation), actually becoming righteous in his or her own standing to earn heaven.

How does receiving a gift of grace translate into me "earning" something?

What is so difficult about the concept of grace (i.e. God's gift of Himself) transforming us?

[SoothingDave]

Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. And it is not difficult to get to heaven because it's not by works, it's by faith. Works make it hard.

What do you think "faith" is? Is it an easy thing? Is it just intellectual assent to an idea? Belief in something?

I thought faith without works is dead. Do you need a living faith?

[SoothingDave]

The Scriptures are self-consistent, self-interpreting, and self-authenticating.

LOL.

The Christian Church looks at the Scriptures as the only and sufficient rule of faith and the Church is always subject to the Word, and is constantly reformed thereby.

And which "Christian Church" is that again? The one that baptizes infants or adults only? The one that has sacraments or not? The one with predestination or free will?

Where is the consistency, the interpretation, the authenticating?

LOL

[metmom]

Six...

[metmom]

But no, there is no transsubstantiation going on and there is no ordinary, sacramental transmission of grace.

So God's grace is attained through human action.

Chapter and verse?

I, OTOH, believe that God does not apportion His grace only to those who perform certain actions. On the contrary, God's grace is LAVISHED on us. It is a gift, freely given to the believer. Since God dwells in us, He deposits it right in our hearts freely and lavishly.

Ephesians 1:3-10 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Romans 3:21-25 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

Romans 5:1-2 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Romans 11:5-6 So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

Galatians 5:4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.

Hebrews 4:16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

James 4:6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

There is not one place in the entire NT where we are told that grace is conferred to us through sacraments.

Here is a link to a keyword search of the NT on the word *grace*.

If you don't beleive me, you can research it yourself.

http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/?search=+grace&version1=ESV&searchtype=all&bookset=2

[metmom]

John 1:11-13 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

That describes living faith as opposed to intellectual assent.

Then we have Christ dwell in our hearts through faith, not in our bodies in our stomach until He's gone and it has to be renewed next week.

Ephesians 3:14-19 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

[metmom]

It does not say that and retroactively claiming that’s what they meant is not valid.