- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
Ya know, back to this quote: Quote:“Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it.”
I think the only way this can at all apply is through Joseph’s restoration of saving ordinances for the dead. Without those ordinances the dead would be screwed and before he came along no one was doing them. Corrections and a continuation of that work will happen during the Millennium, but for some reason God wants us to start now. Outside of that context Joseph Smith is no greater than other prophets of old.
I think the thing here is that he’s much closer to us, we can relate to him more, we can imagine the kind of life the early saints had to live because it really wasn’t all that long ago. The prophets before that have been dead and gone for over a thousand years, and spoke differently and the context of their lives is so different from ours that they’re harder to relate to. I think that’s why people go over board with revering Joseph Smith and those after him. There’s also the added complication that they are removed from us so it’s easier to paint a false perception of modern day prophets. We don’t see their faults. We always see them at their best. Hinckley’s conference talk about working on being a little kinder really helped me see that modern day prophets are people too, flaws and all. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.
What I find interesting is that during my reading of the Old Testament the other day I noted that the footnote regarding “fear of the Lord” said, “Reverence”. This makes sense to me because reverence means deference as well as profound adoring awed respect. You honor God by showing deference to the will of God. That’s what living in the “fear of the Lord” means. To apply that same level of reverence to a mortal human is clearly fallacious.
Anyway, I’m sorry about what happened and I love how you handled it. I wonder if Joseph Smith handled his faith journey in a similar way when he first started being persecuted by priests and pastors as a boy. *hugs*
I apologize for so many really long posts lately. I thought this was worth sharing, since the guy who sent it to me was a gentleman I met prior to finding a priest to talk to at the Catholic church across the street on Sunday. We talked briefly about my feelings, about the situation I was in. He said he honestly felt like it was no coincidence that we crossed paths. He has a 16 year old son right now asking questions or making comments that are turning heads in youth classes. The son is dealing with the fact that his questions and concerns are completely genuine and real, but that many see them as pointless or even deceived. His son and I share some common concerns about authority and dogmatism. When we parted ways he invited me to exchange email and phone info with him so we could stay in touch. I sent him an email the next day about something that was weighing heavily on my mind, and I just found so much of his response to be quite wonderful. Like we do in our church, they obviously try to stake claim to the authority of being Christ’s church. It’s really interesting to hear his perspective on that, whether you agree with it or not. What I really love is what he describes as an “ethereal” church that exists underneath all of the exterior imperfections. The church itself is almost viewed as being one body with a spiritual and a temporal side. It’s just such a great way to look at it, and it seemed to be perfectly applicable to the LDS church as well. In a way, I almost feel like the ethereal church that he envisions is the same ethereal Body of Christ that resides beneath our temporal church, and most Christian or even other religions for that matter. I think many people sort of allude to that when they say, “It’s not the church that’s imperfect, it’s the people.” I think it can sometimes be very hard to recognize the separation, but I’m starting to feel much more comfortable doing that. Anyway, here it is:
Quote:Hey Paul.
Thanks so much again for being willing to sit and chat with me the other day.
I have a sincere question that you may not have the answer to, but chew on it and let me know what you think. To what extent does the Catholic Church take ownership of its past misdeeds or collective sins, or the misdeeds of its administration? There is some troubling history in European and early American Christianity, and I wonder how Catholics reconcile this? The Mormon administration often sweeps these things under the rug in my opinion, or blatantly sugar-coats certain historical accounts, which makes it difficult to place my trust in them when they seemingly are unwilling to place their trust in me. I would imagine you guys may experience some of the same thing.
Please let me know your thoughts, or if you know of someplace I can find out more. I am not as keen on apologetics, or reasons why apparent misdeeds aren’t actually misdeeds. I’m more interested in knowing if the church has ever said, “Yes. This was a dark period in our history. Certain leaders may have very well been misguided, but we can see that and learn from it.”
Sincerely,
Matt
His response:
Quote:Hey Matt,
Good to hear from you. I hope Father Gary was helpful. He’s a pretty cool priest. He used to be an EMT, believe it or not. Someone had a heart attack at a wedding he was performing once, and he saved them with a defibrillator, not holy water. I always thought that was funny.
Anyway, without doing a lot of research and giving you someone else’s talking points, how ‘bout I just give you my gut reaction to your question, even if it’s not “official”.
The “Church”, in the sense of it being the ideal of what church is supposed to be, is perfect because it was established by Christ. Jesus himself told Peter, “on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” I sort of think of it as the ‘ethereal church’. What God means when he says “my church”.
In that sense, the church is referred to as “The Bride of Christ” in the Bible. There are tons of parallels between the wedding covenant of a man and wife, and the new covenant between Christ and his church. The sign of that new covenant not being a wedding ring, but his own flesh and blood shed for his bride. (This is why Catholic Eucharist, the real presence of Christ in the elements of bread and wine during communion is so sacred to us.) The book of Revelation speaks of his second coming and says “happy are those who are called to the wedding feast of the lamb!” Sounds pretty great! But how ashamed I would be to show up at the wedding feast in my own filthy rags of imperfection. So Christ, in his goodness, is in the process of purifying her (us), one individual at a time. I am holier now than I was 10 years ago, but still far from perfect. Everyone is on a different schedule and God is patient, not wanting anyone to perish. Are we perfect on the day we die? Certainly not. But we say we are washed in the blood of the lamb. His perfect sacrifice giving us perfection by proxy, if we are found in him. That’s where choice comes in, do we choose to be found in Christ by embracing him by faith?
Likewise, the institutional church is not perfect yet either, and never will be until his second coming, because it’s also an institution made up of imperfect people. I have heard it said that the church is a hospital for wounded souls… so if you go in expecting everyone to be healthy, you’ll be disillusioned for sure. I don’t belong to the Institutional Catholic Church because I think it’s perfect. As a matter of fact, I have heard it said that if you ever do find the perfect church, don’t join it ‘cause as soon as you do, you’ll ruin it! Ha! I joined it because I thought the “Church” was Biblical, and I trust the Bible as the infallible Word of God, because it holds up to scrutiny. I believe the Eucharist, which is pretty much only available in the Catholic Church, is the richest and deepest sacrament I’ve ever sunk my teeth into (pun intended). There are flaws in the Institutional Catholic Church I’m willing to put up with because the Eucharist is more important to me. (I hope my wife is willing to overlook my mortal imperfections also, because she values the soul-to-soul intimacy we share more. See what I mean?)
Does that make me condemn all my Southern Baptist friends who don’t believe in the Eucharist the same way? Of course not. I would not say that they’re all wrong and we’re all right. (Many Catholics might disagree with me on that. Likewise, many Southern Baptists might disagree also!) But I take the view that we are many parts of one body. We need toes just as much as we need ears. It’s dumb to tell toes they have to be more like ears. I’m not sure what to think about LDS. I have heard things that seem strange, but I know some Catholic teachings seem strange too. I try not to pass judgment on something unless I’ve studied it to the point I feel I understand it. I will say, to your credit, that every Mormon friend I’ve ever had, without exception, has been wonderful. That says a lot to me. I don’t really judge them on what Brigham Young may have done.
So, in conclusion, (‘cause I should get back to work), the failures of the Institutional Catholic Church throughout history, and even in the present age, (and there are plenty!), aren’t due to failures or weaknesses of the ethereal Church, but because of failures of people in that church. But I think it’s safe to say if everyone in the Catholic Church lived up to the teachings of the ethereal Church, there would be no problems. None! But that is the hope of eternity, not of the mortal realm. Eventually there will be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain. For the old order of things will have passed away and Christ will make all things new.
Okay, rambling over for now. Probably didn’t answer your question at all. Ha!
(I think Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis have made many public apologies about past sins of the church, by the way. I just don’t know them off the top of my head. The trouble with Googling things like that is you get a zillion hits of people who find it fashionable to bash Catholicism. Easy target, I suppose. But it keeps on going, century after century, like the energizer bunny. “…the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”)
Have a nice evening.
~Paul
Substitute the names of the churches and some of the vocabulary, and this would be good to have every LDS member read. Thanks for sharing it. Also, fwiw, within Christianity, the LDS Church really is FAR more similar organizationally to the Catholic Church than to Protestant churches – even though I see it as a fascinating mixture of both (and wonderful concepts of Eastern theology).
I thought it was brilliant that you asked a Catholic for the answer to a Mormon question, as the Catholic parallel is very close to our own religion. When I read through his answer, he essential said “The church is perfect but the people aren’t”.
We have heard that a million times — and that is why I started a thread about “What is the church?” recently. Personally, I think the argument that the structure, layout of the church, concept is perfect because it is from God, but any shortcomings are a result of the people leading it — is a rationalization.
It can be a license to kill (putting it dramatically) as it relieves bad leaders and the “church” of accountability for the actions of its leaders and members. The only time there is accountability is if the leader does something illegal, and word gets out so the church has to take action. Or, if the person acts in ways that compromise the church’s finances or reputation in a public way. In the LDS church, there is also an army of HC and SP members willing to chastise Bishops, HP’s and EQ’s presidents for deviance from the Church Handbook.
Rarely is there restitution or even public apology made for members/leaders for official church wrongdoings.
I don’t buy this rationalization approach. For me, the church is the behavior of the members. Out of fairness, and allowing for random variation in individual members’ behavior, I am OK with defining the Church as commonly observed leader and member behavior. I also consider the church the unremedied or un dealt-with infractions of its individual members, and local top members and leaders.
For me, a better statement for keeping people active is a realistic “membership preview” (like a realistic job preview that exposes the warts of a job before the candidate accepts it). That preview is:
Quote:“The church isn’t perfect and neither are the people”.
SD, fwiw, I think your comment is totally consistent with the description of the Catholic Church in the previous comment. I really do think you are saying the same thing. Like I said, I would change some terminology to fit a Mormon audience, but I can’t read the message as saying “the Church is perfect” – since he mentioned multiple times, explicitly, that the institutional church isn’t perfect, has flaws and makes mistakes and that it’s the people in the Church that cause the imperfection. Old-Timer wrote:SD, fwiw, I think your comment is totally consistent with the description of the Catholic Church in the previous comment. I really do think you are saying the same thing. Like I said, I would change some terminology to fit a Mormon audience, but I can’t read the message as saying “the Church is perfect” – since he mentioned multiple times, explicitly, that the institutional church isn’t perfect, has flaws and makes mistakes and that it’s the people in the Church that cause the imperfection.
But he mentioned that the ethereal church is perfect because God set it up. I think that should be left out. What value does that provide? You can say that about anything — “the world is perfect, the people aren’t”. “The corporation is perfect, but the people aren’t”. “My family is perfect, but the people aren’t”. “My ball team is perfect, but the people aren’t”. Hear how ridiculous that sounds? Why give church’s a pass on that?
And you can’t even argue that the structure of the church is perfect because it’s divinely revealed, but the people aren’t. This is because the people at the top keep tinkering with it all the time. LIke the Teacher Improvement Coordinator position they created and then eliminated a couple years later. Or the Seventies position they had responsible for missionary work and then got rid of at the local level.
Get rid of the word perfect as a justification for the church’s existence, or justification for responsibility avoidance. Be accountable for the flaws and warts of the church (whichever, Catholic or Mormon) and stop using this whole perfection concept. All it does it give the leaders power without accountability and raise expectations of the members beyond what is attainable for reasonable.
I’m not arguing with you about what you are saying, SD. I agree with you – but I still think your complaints about what he said don’t match what he said, at least the spirit of what he said. Honestly, I think this is a case of making someone an offender for a word and not crediting what he meant. As I said, change a few words here and there, and the disagreement disappears – since I really do think the two of you are saying the same thing, at heart.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.