Monday, January 10, 2005

Dogma part 2: John 10.10

Bethany: You have issues with Catholicism, I take it?
Serendipity: I have issues with anyone who treats God like a burden instead of a blessing like some Catholics. You people don't celebrate your faith . . . you mourn it.

(courtesy of Useless Movie Quotes)

I was reading Messy Christian's exploration of membership of the church. Her reflections are fascinating for me, a cradle Christian. I've always been a member of a church so I can't understand what it would be like to be a non-member. For me being a member of the church really is about being a member of a family. Like any family it has its good times and its harder times, its strange old uncles and somewhat wayward cousins. I am rather proud of my church at the moment as we've raised over £1000 for victims of the tsunami (that's aside from other personal donations made before we started collecting) and we've also supported a local coffee shop which gave all its profits from Sunday's trade to the DEC. Lots of parishioners sat together in the coffee shop and talked, demonstrating that the church really does celebrate life. It's a small step but it was there.

Yet we're still not going so far as to demonstrate celebrating our faith not mourning it. Any ideas how we can do that?

1 comment:

Kamigoroshi said...

I don't know. Maybe from the thought of my head the fact that in a way Christianity is still based on the fact Christ died in the first place. I know, dies to save us from our sins and all that jazz, but the entire belief system still is based on one man's death.

Maybe it's good that outlook of the good faith towards humanity has been picking up.

But...I don't know. It just seems that it's still a mask for how it all began.