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Wednesday "Pretending there's a chapel so I can skip it" Edition: And I should say that I loved chapel every time I ever went. But you know what it represents? Safety. Closed minds. Comfort. We do not have the luxury of not addressing Christian disunity head-on. Confessionalism and unity (even of an invisible kind) are intractably at odds. Time to make a choice. I absolutely know I'd love John Armstrong's book, Your Church is Too Small, even where we disagree. I know this because 1) I love John, whose warmth, honesty, courage, and sacrifice are worthy to be emulated, and 2) because it is an attempt to address the things that really matter about the Church. I think the thing that can be frustrating concerning the Catholic claims to people like John is that some "traditional" Catholics do not know just how good God has been to his people outside the visible Church. So called "conservative" Protestants are out there preaching the gospel, building stuff, loving people, teachin' the Bible, etc. It's crazy. If you're Catholic, and disdainful of Protestants and the errors they make, if you're proud, you're stupid. You're being stupid, that is. If you knew how powerful those "elements of sanctification" actually are, you'd be thanking God every day! You might even be tempted to ask the Holy Spirit why He is doing so much work outside that supernatural society entrusted to Peter, and seemingly so little within it.
I can't answer that. What I can say is that I'm going to do my best not to forget God's goodness, wherever it's found. Learn and sing and pray.

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Unknown said…
I'll resist snide remarks. Aren't you proud of me? ;-)
1:29 AM
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