Where do we go from here?
I see the Catholic church being pulled into 2 different directions. On the one side, you have people with an extreme hatred of sin, and a love of formality, pomp and circumstance. On the other, you have people willing to permit anything, with an informality of services. This split keeps getting wider and wider, and the people keep going further and further down their chosen path. Both sides are absolutely certain they are correct, and are willing to split the church in half to make half the church correct. We even have the Pope being used by mainstream media to support secular agendas. But I say that both sides are wrong. The correct path falls in between the two ideas. Jesus spoke of the narrow way, and the paths these groups are taking the church is not that narrow way.
This is the beginning of a series of posts about how I feel the church should be dealing with the issues that are pulling it apart. I will talk about what is sin. I will talk about how to deal with issues like homosexuality, transsexuality, race issues, rich versus poor, socialism and a few other topics. I will discuss what our attitude toward God should be. I am sure you will find something that I say offensive. I am sure you will agree with some of what I say. I am not saying this to be divisive, mean or petty. I am saying this because I love my church and want to help it navigate the secular arguments being presented on both sides. An effort that threatens to pull it apart, possibly to destroy it.
On one side, I see the same attitudes and actions held by the Pharisees, and ridiculed by Jesus. These people think they are better than everyone else, because they feel they follow all the laws. I can see them praying, “Thank God I am not like these other people”. On the other side, I see people saying “I do not condemn you”, but forget about the “go and sin no more”. The path Jesus led us on falls in between. All of us are sinners, and no one person’s sin is greater than the others. But we are also supposed to strive for perfection, even if it is unattainable. We need to hold to a moral standard while still loving and accepting others who are burdened by sin and not able to live up to those standards. This is very hard to do, but the right thing to do.
Secular campaigns are being run that basically push the idea that we should accept whatever people want to do. Not just accept the people who do these things, but to accept the actions as OK. Legalize marijuana, promote same sex marriages, legalize and spread gambling, all these campaigns are going strong. We also have campaigns that purport to try to end racism, while really being very racist. And many in the church have been swayed by these arguments. As I have already mentioned, the Pope is being used by these campaigns to show that the church fully supports these campaigns. On the other side, many in the church are going too far the other way, and absolutely rejecting not just the actions, but trying to reject and isolate the people who are not following their teachings.
This series will try to find the narrow path between those two extremes. I hope you will find the series interesting, even if you may not agree with all the concepts that I present.