I was born and baptized into a Lutheran family.
I am Roman Catholic by calling and by choice (I said "yes").
But that only scratches the surface.
I'm in the midst of needing to finish some school assignments and wanting to comment on social ills (or at least what I view as their cause). But I'm going to start by telling you about our churches stunning stained glass windows.
(originally from a facebook post March 23 2013) Our parish sanctuary, built in the mid-1950's, is beautified with
dozens of elaborate stained glass windows, portraying Biblical scenes,
Saints, and two seemingly out-of-place tableaux. One is a scene of
brown-shirted military men beating on women and children--perhaps a nod
to the Cold War, or the not-too-long-ago World War II. The other, which I'll be writing about in more detail,
has a caption which reads "The Church Militant-Suffering-Triumphant".
In the context of fighting the devil, temptation, and sin, no problem.
I get it. But in a day and age where many people put the emphasis on
"peace" (whatever you imagine peace to be--usually the absence of
conflict, which isn't really peace--but that's another blog post), they
take the track of "well, ours is a religious community/church/religion/denomination of
peace" and let anything happen because they don't want or are afraid of
human conflict, either because they're uncertain of the validity of their own beliefs or they don't want to admit that something in the popular/conventional culture bothers them at some level.
More later. Cheers.
*--Samuel John Stone, based on the ninth article of the Apostle's Creed ("the holy church, the communion of saints"), c. 1860.
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