Tag: A New Church

Some Thoughts on Religion, Organized and Otherwise

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Of late I have been looking into the current state of religion in our world and more specifically in my general vicinity.  I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church and received a relatively thorough indoctrination into its tenets through a 12-year course of primary and secondary Catholic education (boys only high school with religious brothers as faculty) along with multiple members of my family in the Catholic clergy (priest and nun).  In fact, my uncle was pretty high up in the administration of a Catholic order so I got to see a bit more of the nuts and bolts of Catholic clerical hierarchy than I cared to.

From all this I have come to the conclusion that the Catholic Church rarely has much to do with God.  First of all, making unmarried men the spiritual leaders of your community is completely insane.  Some young man who has never been married and will never have children is the last person I would go to for advice and spiritual guidance when my back is to the wall.  Secondly the idea of forced celibacy on young men is also an incredibly unstable arrangement.  I’m sure there is a subset of men for whom it can work.  The idea of abstaining from sex could allow for concentration on less worldly concerns but I suspect that some form of castration would be the only practical way to eliminate the hormonal influences on a man’s mind.  And the horrors of the pedophile history of Catholic priests is all the proof I need that it is a terrible idea.  From what I’ve read celibacy is more of a business decision that the church adopted as a way of preventing nepotism from infiltrating up the hierarchy of the Church.  Originally parish priests could marry.  Only the ambitious clerics who eventually wanted to climb the ladder to monsignor, bishop or higher remained celibate in order to be considered for this advancement.

Because of this restriction the Roman Catholic hierarchy has been conquered by homosexuals all the way up to the Vatican.  The grooming of young men in the seminaries is an abomination.  Any legitimacy it may have had as the primary vehicle of Christ’s Church on earth has been completely forfeited by the sins that its priests have committed against innocent children and by the failure of its leadership to uncover these crimes and hand the criminals over to the authorities for the heaviest sentences that can be handed down.

I have of late been interested in the Orthodox Catholic denominations and the Traditionalist Catholic.  The Greek and Russian and other churches have much in common with the Roman Church and would probably be relatively familiar to me.  The lack of a celibate clergy is to my mind a big advantage.  And the liturgy would be familiar.  I will have to do a good amount of research to understand whether any of the problems of the Roman Catholic Church exist to a greater or lesser extent in the Orthodox churches.

Not having attended services to any extent in any of the protestant denominations my knowledge of their practices is based on popular information.  One of the recent innovations in some of the denominations is female clergy.  Another recent innovation is acceptance of homosexuality in the ministry and finally the sanctification of homosexual marriage.  As you might guess I won’t be interested in any sect that stands for any of that.  In fact, I won’t even get involved in any church that starts editing gender neutral wording into its Bible.  I’ll stick to the most archaic wording I can get.  King James is plenty recent enough.  If necessary, I’ll go back to the original Greek.  I can read that just fine.

I went to an article on denominational differences and put together this list of “safe” choices.  I eliminated any denominations that ordain women or sanction homosexuality in any way shape or form.  Interestingly that even knocked out the Mormons, which surprised me.  These are the sects that were left.  Adventist, Southern Baptist Convention (stopped ordaining women in 2000), Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, United Pentecostal Church International, Orthodox Presbyterian Church.  Now of course I actually need to know more about the other aspects of their beliefs.  Then I’ll have to see what local congregations exist in my neck of the woods and do a meet and greet with the ministry and find out if I fit in.

And finally, if all of these choices fall through then I have seriously considered starting my own church.  After all what did Saint Peter, Martin Luther and John Knox have that I ain’t got?  I’m just as created in God’s image as any of them and I can definitely side step a whole bunch of pitfalls that they’ve stepped in along the way.  And I sure as hell won’t be introducing celibacy into my ministry.  In fact, I think that I would require anyone thinking of leading a church to be the father of grown children and I’d use the job that he did raising them as prima facie evidence of his ability to guide his flock.  And I’d also want to meet his wife.  If she is a feminist that would be big old stop sign in my evaluation of his judgement.  And finally, I’d find out if he voted for Donald Trump.  If he didn’t, I’d boot him out and slam the door behind him.

But seriously, religion is a personal relationship between man and God.  The Bible says that the way to pray to God is to lock yourself in an empty room and talk to Him directly.  No one needs a big shiny church or a guy in a black suit to help you.  But if you can live in a community of people who have the same beliefs as you that is an enormous advantage spiritually, psychologically and physically.  And that’s the reason for my search.  I’d like to find a community.  If I have to, I’ll build it myself.  And with the COVID lockdowns I already have a beard that would do any Old Testament patriarch proud.

Two Nations Under One Flag

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Yesterday I said that my co-worker hated President Trump so much that he was ecstatic at the idea that the economy would be tanked by the COVID-19 outbreak because it would throw the election to Biden.  Think about that.  He would rather see his beloved 401K devalued than let a conservative run the country.  That seems to me to be a marker.

We’re not just philosophically different.  We are two enemies trapped in the same cell.  We don’t just dislike each other we can’t tolerate each other’s presence.  And yet we have to interact with them every day and everywhere.  But it’s a very lop-sided arrangement.  They know we exist by virtue of the resistance we give to laws they make to afflict us.  But we are surrounded by their institutions.  We are submerged in their culture.  We are drowning in it.  We have to hear their propaganda 24/7 on every television channel, every social media site, every newspaper, every pop song, every movie screen.  They propagandize our children and run the human resources department of every company in the country.  They’ve even taken over almost every pulpit in every church.  We need our own space.  But how do we keep it when any attempt to go our own way is protested, harassed and criminalized?

What will need to be done is form an underground.  And the best way to do that is in plain sight.  My personal favorite idea is to form our own church.  How exactly that is done is the detail that needs to be worked out.  Should it be an existing denomination that has a very hands-off attitude toward parishes or should it be a new sect?  I tend to think a new sect is the better way.  That way no one enters it thinking it is something than what it turns out to be.

Theologically, it would be traditionalist.  It would stress scripture.  It would adhere to the traditional church teachings on marriage, family and personal behavior.  It would reinforce the traditional roles for men and women in the family and the community.  And church business would be governed by a group of elders which consisted exclusively of married men who have children.

Once a church was up and running all the other programs that a church sponsors could reflect the community this church represents.  Youth sports programs, community charitable programs, outreach to the poor and elderly, community entertainment like theater and music programs.  We’ll have to replace the scouts with our own version of that once useful organization.  And, most difficult, but a truly worthy goal would be a school.  But a school would be very difficult because keeping the progressives out would be a constant war.  And the government would make it its highest priority to force it into compliance with the progressive norms they so dearly love.

So, to start with, religious instruction would be an important program.  It would be something that prepared children to recognize the errors in the surrounding culture and provide them with coping mechanisms to allow them to exist in that outer world without letting it poison their minds.

Another aspect of the church would be community networking.  It would encourage members of the church to practice solidarity and support each other in business relationships and social groups.  It could produce a list of preferred service providers and craftsmen for the various trades that a community needs and, in that way, help make the community more self-supporting.

And finally, church social functions like dances and clubs could be an opportunity for young people to look for love.  What better place to find a mate than among families that already see eye to eye on values?

I am very interested in getting all kinds of feedback on the practical problems in starting such a community.  If anyone has information or links to similar endeavors I’d be obliged.  And if you have any different but equally useful ideas on building something for our side feel free to comment or send me an e-mail.