Christianity: Humpty Dumpty

So I was talking with Eudaimonia about the concept of Confession, and it hit me that Catholics and various Protestant groups tend to say the exact same things about why they're the right ones, and the others aren't. So, just a few things before I rant to high Heaven.

1) Communion.

Eudaimonia was kind enough to point me to EP III for Children at Catholic Resources, and it states the following prior to Communion:

Priest: On the night before he died for us, he had supper for the last time with his disciples. He took bread and gave you thanks. He broke the bread and gave it to his friends, saying:

Take this, all of you, and eat it:
this is my body which will be given up for you.

In the same way he took a cup of wine. He gave you thanks and handed the cup to his disciples, saying:

Take this, all of you, and drink from it:
this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Then he said to them: do this in memory of me.

Now, as someone who has grown up Baptist, and has attended many other Protestant churches with friends and various family members, just allow me to say...minus one or two wording changes involving the invitation of people to accept Christ as Lord, that is the exact wording I have been spoonfed from the cradle, and can recite it easily from memory.

Which brings us to what I like to call the "Dividing Point of Communion". The dividing point is the Real Presence in the Eucharist. Now for Protestants, including every sect I've ever had the honour of having Communion with, there is no belief in the Real Presence...just that we are honouring His divine sacrifice, His sorrowful passion.

However the Catholics do believe in the Real Presence as a matter of doctrine. This, interests me. Partially because I *do* believe in the Real Presence, which is one of many things that make me less than popular with some Protestants, and partially because I hear this more often than any other point used by Catholic Apologists.

"Closer to God, because of the Real Presence" to paraphrase a number of said Catholic Apologists.

2) Confession

In Protestant forms of Christianity for the most part, we do not put an emphasis on Confession. Okay, so I just engaged in the level of understatement I just accused someone of in a chat...we don't put an emphasis on it.

Here, for the examination of those willing, is the model of Confession, so to speak, that I have been brought up with in my life: You confess your sins to God, you ask for Jesus Christ to come into your life, you then get to say you're "Born Again" and do as you please. If you're a good boy or girl, you ask for forgiveness from God every once in a while.

Do you honestly know how unfulfilling that is? How empty and despairing it can be when you know how much you've done against His will and yet you beg for His forgiveness straight to Him? Do you know how many naive parents think their kids become perfect after being Born Again? "Well X used to drink a lot, but he and his friends just talk until 4am at the church", yes, well, X didn't drink before asking God's forgiveness and becoming Born Again.

In Catholicism, you have, surprise, a ritual of sorts. Now I think what you take away from the Sacrament of Confession is dependent upon your faith personally. I know Catholics who I went to school with who mocked the Eucharist, mocked the Mass, and mocked the Sacraments; boasting about how they would lie to their Priest.

I could never see why they would do that. Now, chatting with someone who bothers to more explain how the Sacrament of Confession works, and the impact that it can have...I understand why they would do that even less. It must be comforting, as you talk about your sins, to hear another voice telling you it'll be okay, but to repent.

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong to me about confessing your sins directly to God, I do it all the time, but...to have that tangible link, that Priest acting in the person of Christ, it has to be something else I imagine. I've sometimes wondered, had I had that tangible link, would I have had to ask myself so many times if I was Saved? If I had to keep asking Him back into my heart?

3) Musical Tastes

You know, this is only here so I can have a section three. Both Catholicism and Protestant sects tend to have more modern worship music, as well as traditional at their disposal. For Traditional music, I would love to go to Mass more than a Protestant Worship Service, because I love the way it is treated in a Mass, and I'm a fan of Gregorian Chants, which while not the most widely used, still rock in a classical sense. Not that I don't enjoy their modern stuff, I do.

However, for contemporary worship music, my tastes tend Protestant. "Glory be to the father", a traditional song, should not sound like a funeral dirge; whereas the abundant pep and energy of some contemporary Protestant songs can really get me going, and put me closer to Him. However, one has to be careful with such music, that they are not merely raising energy in the place of feeling the Holy Spirit.

4) Television Stations

A lot of people I know don't get why I'd watch the Eternal Word Television Network over something like say...TBN. Why watch a Catholic channel over a Protestant one?

I could go on about how they actually feed viewers with the Word of God, or I could just quote the Word of God; 1 Corinthians 9:16-18:

Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make use of my rights in preaching it.

In almost...a year of watching EWTN, I've seen exactly three ads begging for monetary donations, because they are a viewer supported network exclusively. TBN has several hour long "Praise-A-Thons" where you are encouraged quite a bit to send in your money. Actually, every time I turn that network on, it seems like somebody wants money.

With EWTN there's those three advertisements, the occasional reminder by a host of a show that they are viewer supported, and the EWTN Religious Catalog, and if you watch that and are annoyed by them wanting money, I'm sorry, but you fail at capitalism.

5) A Conclusion To This Post

So why did I just write all of that? I think part of it was to prove a point. We are different, Catholics and Protestants, yet we are the same. We have the same struggles, we worship the same God, the same Holy Spirit, the same Jesus Christ. We both mark His sorrowful passion in this Lenten Season. A good deal of Protestants even do the ashes over the foreheads on Ash Wednesday.

We should not allow ourselves to fear or hate one another on tradition, nor should we blindly rush to seal the schism that has divided us. Ecumenism is good to a point...but that point must be decided not just by the leaders of sects, but by the people.

We have become, in a way, Humpty Dumpty. We, as Christians, fell off our wall, and all the horses and men can't put us all back together again. Of course, that is the point isn't it? We're human, we've sinned, as Romans says, we have all fallen short of the glory of God, and it will be that God, Whom restores His Bride, the Church, the Body of Believers. If not in this world, then the next.