Posted by Cygnus on March 20, 1999 at 06:27:54 {MWfZlKV6ncg82}:
In Reply to: *Written to Catholics or JWs? posted by Julie on March 20, 1999 at 05:45:05:
Hi Julie
: I can't imagine a group of people that have less unity of thought.
Uh oh. What about all being united in the same line of thought ('having no divisions amongst yourselves')? :-)
The reason I found that page interesting was because we had a talk show on local radio spend an afternoon on the Church, and why there exists so many Catholics who disagree with church doctrines and policies openly (such as abortion, or birth control, or women priests). The host kept expressing his disillusionment that such a situation exists within the Church, and wondered why people remained Church members if they weren't following the rules.
That led me to wonder what would happen if the subject were not the Catholic Church but rather Jehovah's Witnesses, and the issues were blood transfusions, shunning, door to door, and so forth -- issues "reformers" themselves are working on. Would the talk show host advise such JWs to simply quit the religion altogether because they disagree with a few stands of the organization?
I thought the piece was very characteristic of people who think they know better than the local powerhouse religion and have a sincere belief that a particular religious system is detrimental to "true worship." It reminded me somewhat of the flavor of "The Report." Personally, I find a lot of problems (or, at least, unresolvable issues) with every Christian belief system, including of course Catholicism, but I think in modern times the Church has been pretty honest with the world in general (I still much more admire the Catechism than, say, the Reasoning book). My area is largely Catholic, so when we used to go door to door we preached mostly to Catholics. When I started to learn exactly what Catholics believed, instead of what we were told they believed by the Watchtower, what I found out startled me. And trying to relay that information to people in the congregation, well, let's just say it didn't get a very warm reception.
I think that pieces like that web page focus more on the more orthdox, and forget that there exists Catholics who aren't so hardcore about their
Church. And I think sometimes we forget that there are some JWs like that as well, although admittedly far less in proportion.