At the time of writing this I haven't found my new avatar to represent that I am still possibly looking for my heart but am a warrior nonetheless. I'm hoping to find both the avatar and the possibly missing heart soon.
Ok, I know Ebene's view on me not being a Catholic. I'm going to share my views on religious denominations. To be frank I think they are rubbish. Pretty sure it says all through the Bible that the church is suppose to be unified, but we aren't. Most don't even have faith, let alone unity. On faith, I have often heard it said that if the average Christian had the faith of an average Muslim there would be miracles all over the place. They would have to rename miracles because they wouldn't be that miraculous any more. But that's another issue.
When I lived in England, I had some close Christian and some close non Christian friends. When I got there, I started attending the church that the youth group from the uni campus I stayed at went to, and you know what? It was stale as anything. I used to attend a big Pentecostal church before I left for the UK, and despite its failings, because all churches have failings, the holy spirit was there. I have sensed angels from time to time, and I have seen demons from time to time, there's a difference, so I knew the holy spirit was in that church because there were angels. The two go hand in hand, if there's no holy spirit, there's no angels. And this church I went to in the UK, seemed to me at least, to be spiritually dead. You could almost feel the cobwebs. I remember one of the speakers spoke about the significance of the design of the Lord's temple as it was laid out in the old testimate, and each time he made a point he would pause and smile as if he was having a divine revelation every few seconds. I remember thinking "dude, you look like your about to prophecy, but I don't feel what your saying." I learned after that experience that my close Christian friends did not attend a church while they where at uni because that's what many of the churches are like there. They were very much against orgainised religion for that very reason.
The other interesting thing to note is that while I was in the UK, God didn't challenge me through my Christian friends, he challenged me through my non Christian friends. They were my real close friends. I remember sitting down at a friends house, after having been there for about a week already, and having dinner served. I thought to myself "These people are not Christians, but they have welcomed me into their house, they have sheltered me and fed me for days, and they haven't asked for anything except my company. They aren't Christians, but these are the most generous people I have ever met." And look at me, I'm the religious one and here's these pagans showing me how to live like Christ. It's an experience I treasure and it challenges me to be more Christ like.
It's sad because I believe many of the people from the Pentecostal church I used to attend took a dim view to the fact that I wasn't attending organised church services while away and so I left that church as an outcast pretty much. But how do you tell people that you don't have to go to church to hear Christ? Many really, deep down, do not believe that.
I left another non denominational church when I read one of the church emails, and someone had said that a school that was trying to style itself like Hogwarts to get kids interested in school should be burnt to the ground, and the particular writer would like to throw the first match. I replied and said that's crazy, Christians least of all should not be talking about burning schools down! We see things we don't agree with every day, but attacking them is not the way to change them. I was told by the Pastor that as an infrequent attender of the church (I was split between going to this particular church and the Pentecostal one above at this time) I had no right to question someone who was a regular attender. Is it just me, or did attendance just become more important than the word of God in someones eyes? I didn't go back to that church.
So for the above reasons, I'm quite against organised religion. I really think the message has been lost along the way. But I am a baptized Pentecostal because that's where I was introduced to Christianity and that is where I have heard the message, not had it read to me, had preachers speak it through the power of the holy spirit.
At this point in my life I am not sure I want to become a Catholic though. For a few reasons. Catholics don't widely recognise gifts of the spirit. Unless your a cannonised Saint, Catholics won't believe you if you told them, for instance, you can see the unseen. I'm not tooting my own horn, what I have seen is solely through the power of God, not my own, and I may never see anything miraculous like that ever again. I think that God used it to prompt me to take Christianity seriously, to raise my faith out of the rut it was in, and now I'm past that God doesn't need physically manifest things to me to make me believe. If anything it is a failing on my part, I really had to see to believe. And now I have seen that might be all the gift was for and it might never happen again. But it did happen. I don't though your average Catholic wouldn't believe me if I told them that story. We aren't in biblical times and God doesn't talk to us the same way anymore and all that. Well I don't agree with that.
Secondly I find many Catholic beliefs and traditions to be very exclusionary. A brilliant example is this. At the church where I was baptized, if you went to the early Sunday service, you had communion. There was no restriction on it, if you where there you could have communion. I almost become a catholic for Ebene while in the UK. The churches off campus seemed to be devoid of spiritual life, so I thought lets try the chapel on campus. I was hesitant though, for the below reason.
Right at the beginning when I arrived at the uni, I had a terrible nightmare, a recurring nightmare that I had had since I was small that I believe is spiritual in nature. Whatever my deepest fear is at that point in my life that thing is in my dream and it tries to kill me or at least scare me. I'm pretty certain that's a spiritual attack. I woke up from one such dream and I could feel a presence in the room and I was scared. I looked at the time and realised there was a service just ending right now in the chapel, the one I had been planning to go to but had fallen asleep due to jetlag. I thought I would catch the priest and speak with him or her and pray with them. So I went to the chapel. I did find someone, an older woman who had just lead the service that finished and I asked to speak with her. I explained to her what had happened and she started shaking her head and said "Look, you have just got here, your disorientated, and your clearly mistaken. A few days and you will settle in." I was shocked. She didn't believe me. She didn't even give me the benefit of the doubt, she point blank refused to believe me. Whatever happened to faith?
So I wasn't sure about going to the chapel, but I did because I wanted to find out about becoming a Catholic, despite what had happened previously. I met with the Catholic priest, a man this time, and he told be a bit about what I would have to do to become a Catholic, and invited me to the next Catholic service. I went and they held communion. My heart jumped because this was something familiar to me, something I already knew about. So I went up and took the wafer and almost drunk the wine and the hushed conversation went like this:
"Stop," The priest hissed, "you can't drink the wine."
"Why?" I whispered.
"Because your not Catholic."
"I'm looking to become Catholic." I said, not sure if the priest had forgotten me.
"Yes but you aren't one. Have you taken the wafer already?"
"Yes."
"Oh..well that can't be helped, go sit down."
And I was excluded from communion.
Afterwords the priest spoke to me, laughed and said he was sorry for that little misunderstanding. I couldn't get over the fact that I wouldn't have been excluded at a Pentecostal service, what made me unworthy to take communion now? Tradition? Should tradition stop someone drawing closer to God? The priest then went through the confirmation of faith. I balked at "We believe in one Catholic and apostolic church." I asked the priest what that meant. He said it meant that Catholicism is the only proper or real worship of Christ. I asked him that as a Pentecostal and not a Catholic that means I'm not a follow of God? He said yes, that's correct. I thanked him for his time and left. How can someone say that you aren't a follower of God if your not a this or that? If you don't attend a church you have gone off the rails, if you don't show up every Sunday you don't have a right to speak up?
During Obama's inauguration speech he prayed, and Ebene said "That's such a Catholic prayer." Now I have said that same prayer at different services, not simply Catholic and said "That's a very Christian prayer." To swing a censer around and have incense, that's Catholic. But praying is praying, I believe God hears my prayers no matter what denomination I am.
I attend Catholic services though with Ebene. We go to a cathedral near our place and it has been good for my Christian walk, God has been able to show me different aspects of Christianity, and for that I'm grateful. But I do not think I can deny that other denominations are Gods followers. I do not think I can turn my back on spirituality and replace spirituality with tradition. I don't think I can exclude people for the sake of tradition. Jesus found some of the biggest sinners he could and he sat them down at a table and broke bread and gave them wine. He didn't initiate them and then say "Right, you couldn't touch the food before but now you can." He accepted them as they are and gave it to them.
So this is where I stand currently. I am not a Catholic. I might be a disagreeable person who has no idea about the message of God and causes trouble no matter what church he's in, and then moves on through some self righteous sense of he knows better. I might be. I've certainly been told that, not by pagans or non-believers or anything like that, by fellow Christians. I have had Christians say to me "If we weren't Christian we would have told you to leave a long time ago Ivorie". Maybe there is something there, but God forgives all sins and I am right with him, even if I'm not right with a lot of other Christians. But right now I don't want to become a Catholic. I might in the future, I'm not ruling that out at all, but right now, I'm just a follower of God.
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