I'm going to appoligize right now to those who are strictly religious and disagree with me- I know these are not the beliefs I am 'supposed' to have.
I am Byzantine Catholic, and the majority of the people in my church parish are older- by half a century. The generation gap is sometimes too much for me, listening to their old world views and values. I agree that some of these should be kept and honored, but the world has changed drastically and the church really does have to change with it in a way that they still teach their beliefs in accordance with reality. Abstinence cannot be preached the same way when free condoms are available to most anybody.
I even disagree with some of the practices of my church. Confession is my main issue. I feel that it is not necessary to say your sins to a priest. If God can hear your prayers just fine, why should your sins have to go through a priest? The idea of confession is to be sorry for your sins and to say prayers in response. This can be done in your own prayers.
I don't disagree with the beliefs, but with the way they are teaching those beliefs. Am I alone in thinking the church needs a 'makeover'?
Religious Confession
By MeEncantaPollo - Posted on May 9th, 2008
Tagged: Religion and Philosophy
The church i think should agree with condoms and i personally agree with you on the whole confession thing. The whole idea behind it is to be able to tell somebody. It is in the bible that in order for God to forgive you, you must forgive yourself first. But i do confession through my own prayers as well. My mother even agrees with me on this one. She said its no where in the bible that we have to confess to a priest. And I think priests in the Catholic religion should be allowed to be married. Thats not written in the bible either.
I don't know how I feel about priests being allowed to be married. I understand why they're not- the whole idea that then they can commit completely to God and their parish, but then they miss out on the opportunity to have their own family. I doubt that will ever be allowed though- just because it is the tradition and not many people have solid opinions on this.
One of the hardest things about the Catholic Church is that they don't allow their priests to marry. This is an ordinance not give anywhere in the Bible. Though Paul suggests that people not get married, he realized that people would struggle with sexual sins, and the best way to relieve those is through marriage.
I think Truth is Truth. If it was true in the begining of time, it is still true. It doesn't matter if the world changes, because the fundamentals of reality do not. Dog poop smelled bad in 200bc, and it STILL smells bad. Goofy analogy, I realize, but I'm trying to make it clear that the truth will alwyas be true.
That said, I do not think there's any real reason to confess your sins to a preacher except to deter you from further sin. I'd be humiliated to tell a preacher half of my mistakes, which would cause me to think twice about making the same ones again.
~"Happiness only real when shared".~
I just feel that their teaching techniques are a little outdated. I understand your point though, and I wasn't quite sure if I had worded that clearly enough. I never thought about the 'deter further sin' part . That makes sense, but I've never had sins more awful than lying and picking on my siblings, so its not like I have to be deterred from murding 10 more people.
You are right about the fundamentals of religion. But isn't that what the poster of this blog is saying? That its not the fundamentals that need to change but the way they are taught? I think so too. I think rather than preachers telling us this is wrong and this is right, they need to apply why its wrong or right to todays society and really convince us otherwise why should we listen to them?
I really agree with you, and sorry if I was just repeating what you were blogging about! :) My church goes to the Bible, reads what is says, and is constantly looking at how it can be applied to today. That's the only way to look at the Bible - how does it apply to me?
I completely agree with what you said about confession. While God can hear our prayers and he does forgive them, it can be good "therapeutical help" to tell someone else the things you're struggling with. I write all my prayers down in notebooks, so I can keep track of where I am in my spiritual life. That's my way of confessing to God. The problem is not how we confess to God, as long as we believe that we can directly confess to God with no "middle man" to take our prayers to God.
Interesting idea with the notebook. I've never wanted to know the truth about where I am spiritually. Good for you for being strong enough to do that!
lol thanks! It helps me to see what I've been praying for and how God has moved in my life. I suppose people can look at it for the negative aspects (seeing how bad you used to be), but it's best used when I want to remember times when God spoke so clearly to me. When I'm done, I feel so calm and relieved; there must be some kind of therapeutic significance.
Once again, reading someone's blog has made me feel so blessed to be a part of my church. I'm Methodist, and in my church, we have that generational gap. So what we did was to start a second service geared more toward the younger crowd. THe contemporary service is so much fun, and it realy teaches how to apply God's Word to our everyday lives. There are other reasons backing up what the Bible says. And the message is very inviting, because our pastor has this gift to be able to speak against something, perhaps something that is acceptable in society that according to the Bible, we really aren't supposed to do, and not offend anyone who's done it or make them feel like they're a horrible person.
I fully support contemporary services for this reason, in all denominations. They apply more to today's culture than the traditional services do, and make people feel more comfortable with themselves and their fellow church-goers. It's also nice when there isn't such an issue with a generational gap. When church applies to your life, you're more likely to show up and learn something, ne?
And that's comin' at ya' from yer local redneck hippie.
I don't think everybody understood what I meant by generation gap: There are three teenagers and 5 pre-teens. A personal service would just not work!
I wasn't talking about a personal service. I was talking about a contemporary one. We only have a few more teens than that, and then a mob of children under ten. The majority of my church congregation is elderly. The only reason we managed to get the contemporary service going was because our pastor convinced the board members that it would draw in the younger people from outside the church, and it has. We've had relatively small attendance, but we're doing it anyway, because people are coming who otherwise wouldn't.
And that's comin' at ya' from yer local redneck hippie.