RE: Why I am a Catholic Christian
Hello!
I'm an Anglican myself, but pretty sympathetic to the universality of Catholicism. But my reasons for becoming Anglican (after seriously exploring conversion to Orthodox Judaism in my 20s) are perhaps more personal and less doctrinal: the people who were most influential and supportive in my re-exploration of Christianity, and the people who made church feel like a home for me, are mostly members of the Church of England. Liturgically I'm on the "high" side of Anglicanism, with a strong affinity for sacramental worship (while recognising that worship is not about my preferences); theologically I tend toward a liberal/progressive view based on:
- the idea of all humans being made in the image of God (even though we mess that up) and
- the Great Commandment (I figure if people asked Jesus which commandment was greatest and He said "Love God, and love your neighbour as yourself" then that's a pretty important thing to bring to the way we interpret the rest of Scripture; and I recognize that a lot of the disagreements I have with some (more conservative?) Christians revolve around different ideas of what that love looks like in practice.)
I'm relatively new to Steemit and not sure about the etiquette of replying to older posts, but it's nice to "meet" another Christian here who isn't attached to a strict literalist interpretation of one translation of Scripture, for example, so I thought I'd say hello anyway.
Hello! I just listened to a wonderful lecture by Peter Kreeft to a group of Anglicans and Episcopalians about Divine Love (Dr Kreeft is Catholic). It is outstanding and if you can find his podcast, it won't disappoint.
The Anglican liturgy and music is beautiful. Welcome to steemit and I will return to write more later.
Thanks, I'll have a look for Dr Kreeft's podcast.
Steemit is a weird place for Christians. Most of the outspoken Christians who are early adopters of steemit seem to be anarchist minded, which is an odd contradiction.
The Anglican liturgy is beautiful, and I love the music. An Anglican friend of mine pointed me to some Advent and Christmas music (maybe it's vespers?) on Youtube that is glorious. I love boys' choirs. :-)
I think we'd tend to have a lot of agreement on aesthetics and beauty; I dislike conservative/progressive labels because they are too limiting and often meaningless, but I would call myself orthodox and in union with Rome and the teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Always happy to talk about Church stuff here and again, welcome to steem and looking forward to reading your posts.
Yes, I can find the labels a bit difficult too; if nothing else, they tend to mean different things on different sides of the pond!
The question, of course, is not whether other Christians on Steemit are "doing it wrong" in some way or other (whether that's anarchism or Biblical literacy or just about anything), but what it means to be salt and light in this space. And that's something it will take time to work out in anything other than the most general principles.
You might enjoy this piece of mine:
Great points, all. Will listen in a bit, thanks!