Posted on 04/20/2011 12:07:28 PM PDT by AnalogReigns
Well, yes. The purpose of this author, who pretends to be shocked by the damage he and his friends have done to the Church over the years, is to weaken it further.
A Kabuki Theater church show(RCC) is just not enough for some folks..
All the masks, face-paint, costumes, and strange noises for some get them desireing a real church..
SOoo, they go thru a few protestant churchs that are the same thing..
Until they find one that is not just playing church like children..
Well..... God bless them...
IMHO, the Catholic Church is getting the best end of the "trade", receiving highly informed non-Catholic intellectuals while losing 'cafeteria' Catholics.
Best wishes for a spiritually enriched Holy Week.
“People are not becoming Protestants because they disagree with specific Catholic teachings; people are leaving because the church does not meet their spiritual needs and they find Protestant worship service better.”
This too can have various meanings. It can mean they want a more self centered worship service something that pulls the emotional strings and gives them a spiritual lift. You know the type “I’m not religious I’m spiritual.” The liturgy of Catholic and mainline Protestant churches is not spiritual enough for them since it does not focus on their needs but on the Almighty and what we owe Him in worship.
It can also mean that they want better attention paid to the whys of belief. Deeper Bible studies. Deeper devotions. More time spent on doing the work of Christ. A clearer commitment to the Gospel. I hope they find it where ever they go.
The latter I wish all the best and know they will add to whatever church home they find. The former will never be happy anywhere and will probably drift from church to church since orthodox teaching will continue to be about Him and not them.
The one thing we do know is that the Pew research has an agenda. I can’t contradict what was said but....
That is a bogus quote, if they were really the best then they’d have understood that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ our Savior and they couldn’t have been pulled away by a team of horses.
The issue is the same in most places. People don’t know what of why they believe.
As a former Catholic who went Evangelical about 15 years ago, I would say an analogy might be like the difference between watching baseball on TV versus playing it. The first time you read or hear scripture that you know is meant for you is like that ball hitting YOUR glove. It’s a bit of jolt, and unexpected.
I'm not so sure I agree with this. I attend a large evangelical church that has a significant percentage of its members who are former Catholics (including, for what it's worth, my wife). I've spoken with a number of people about this, and I've not heard one person say that he left the Catholic church for political reasons. This is anecdotal, of course, but I don't think that your position is necessarily representative of all the ex-Catholics out there. The study presented in the article backs that up.
The article is good but the his conclusion of what the Church must do in response to the exodus is laughable. His solution to people being tired of being fed pablum is to give them gruel.
Those who leave for evangelical churches are not leaving because the gruel tastes better over there. They are leaving because they think it is where they will find real meat and real drink.
As a now understanding Christian of Penal Substitutionary Atonement and non Mary worshiper, former Catholic, I can say it’s because after 12 years of Catholic school education, I didn’t know anything about Jesus or what He did for me. My Christian Biblical church preaches the truth from the Bible and believes in the Bible.
I am certainaly not a liberal. I sought the truth and the truth has set me free.
I'm not concerned about the ones that become protestant. (I'm Southern Baptist)
If you can figure out how to meet the spiritual needs of those dropping out altogether, you'll probably meet the needs of the second group too.
As an aside, I once told a close Catholic friend about a lady who had switched from being Baptist to being Catholic, because she felt less guilty about sleeping with people than when she was Baptist. My Catholic friend retorted, "If she didn't make a good Baptist, what makes you think she'd make a good Catholic?" LOL Touche'
Growing up in Louisiana, I saw a number of youth defect from Protestant churches to Catholic, but the reason was because the Catholics drank and thus had more fun. So bad reasons go both ways.
Sounds like if it's "theater church shows" that are involved, it's what they left to search for, not what they left.
Mass is worship, not entertainment. A generation raised in front of the television set wants entertainment on Sunday morning just like they want it the rest of the week.
And it just happens to come during Easter week, if I remember Satan was trying to run things during the original Easter week.
We know who triumphed then and we know who will triumph in the end.
i am one of those former Catholics who has become Protestant... and my experience in the Catholic church did not compare to my experience in the Protestant churches... now i've been to numerous Protestant churches... they are not all the same... i've belonged to a mega church, a large church... and now a small church (all in the last 25 years)... in the last ten years as a homeschooling mother, i have been giving my kids a classical Christian education... we are doing Latin and Greek, Roman history and literature... and from this, i have come to appreciate the Catholic church more than when i was a practicing Catholic...
i just didn't come across a lot of Catholics who practiced their faith to the extent that the Protestants i met did... i know not all Protestants practice their faith... but in my experience, more of them seemed to have a personal relationship with Christ than the Catholics i knew... but i have since gotten to know Catholics who do have that personal relationship... i don't know that i will ever come back to the Catholic faith, but i am finding myself more drawn to a liturgical church...
i am grateful for my Catholic upbringing... i have always known of God's existence because of it...
Thankfully, although the U.S. bishops have not supported research on people who have left the church, the Pew Center has.
Pew’s data shows that those leaving the church are not homogenous. They can be divided into two major groups: those who become unaffiliated and those who become Protestant. Almost half of those leaving the church become unaffiliated and almost half become Protestant. Only about 10 percent of ex-Catholics join non-Christian religions....
....People are not becoming Protestants because they disagree with specific Catholic teachings; people are leaving because the church does not meet their spiritual needs and they find Protestant worship service better....Nor are the people becoming Protestants lazy or lax Christians. In fact, they attend worship services at a higher rate than those who remain Catholic. While 42 percent of Catholics who stay attend services weekly, 63 percent of Catholics who become Protestants go to church every week....both as believers and as worshipers, Catholics who become Protestants are statistically better Christians than those who stay Catholic. We are losing the best, not the worst.....
That Catholics are leaving to join evangelical churches because of the church teaching on the Bible is a disgrace. Too few homilists explain the scriptures to their people. Few Catholics read the Bible. The church needs a massive Bible education program. The church needs to acknowledge that understanding the Bible is more important than memorizing the catechism. If we could get Catholics to read the Sunday scripture readings each week before they come to Mass, it would be revolutionary. If you do not read and pray the scriptures, you are not an adult Christian. Catholics who become evangelicals understand this.
Summarizing the results given in the article, here are the reasons why, of the 1/3 of all members who leave the Catholic Church, 50% of those will join a Protestant/Evangelical Church --
as a former Catholic, i have to “ditto” your post...
I'm speaking not of political liberalism, but of religious liberalism. And yes, that's what's done the damage over the last 40 years.
The people who invented "clown masses" weren't religious conservatives.
This statement seems counter-intuitive. Many evangelical Protestant churches have deeply conservative undertones and beliefs. Perhaps it's not the Catholic Church being liberal but rather the Protestant churches selected being more conservative.
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