visited by saints and angels

[anti_nietzsche]

I thought I would tell you something about an experience of mine that I had 3 years ago in the hospital. It's one of the reasons why I want to become a catholic soon. It's the veneration of angels and saints, accepting their share of the work in the kingdom of God. It helps me to see these coworkers with us who do good to us and also have belief in God and know something. I speak in tongues a lot and I think when we speak in tongues then angels and saints can chime in. When I speak in tongues I always hear myself say, "Jesus is your friend. He loves you." It's no sense to think of sin and punishment all the time. Jesus went to the cross to solve the sin issue for good. Sin won't separate us from God anymore if it's not heinous sin. But making mistakes is the ordinary way for a human. We are imperfect and have a perfect Savior. Sanctification is through love and goodness, not through sinlessness. And God's anger lasts for but a moment, but his grace for a lifetime. Our Abba is love. And the saints and the angels that visit us display this goodness too. They also have something to say about Jesus and their voice is that Jesus is a gentle Messiah who forgives everyone and is our lawyer in the divine court.

[DanielB]

My problem with the catholic church is that most of it seems to discourage or condemn disagreement with it. It is a good thing for people to dogmatically accept all official catholic teaching insofar as it is true but it is harmful and makes a person resistant to correction when the church is mistaken on a matter(such as ECT). I suggest that you do not let anyone talk you into believing that the popes or catholic church is infallible in its teachings. I suppose it is possible to be a catholic but deny the infallibility of the church or popes. Even if the popes and or church claim to be infallible they may simply be mistaken on a few points(including their infallibility, ECT, and maybe a few other things) while being generally reliable or even authoritative to some degree(if not a major degree). I think the catholic church does christianity a lot of good(I like a lot of its ideas but I am still mostly protestant I guess) and I have a pretty amiable view of it but I think it does some serious harm in teaching ECT and infallibility(I am not so disturbed about its teachings on angels or even Mary even though I am kind of uncomfortable with some of it but I am saddened by how it is a stumbling block to many people believing in a truly victorious gospel).

Are there any catholics here who are convinced or confident universalists?

[DanielB]

What I am saying is that I don't see any reason why you would have to accept all catholic teaching. Whether you could be a catholic and deny some official teaching may be a matter of debate or semantics. I do know that is is possible for a person to believe that the catholic church is right on like 99%/98% of matters without but not on 100%. A person can even see the catholic church as authoritative in teaching, etc but deny one or a few of its doctrines. It seems >logically< possible that the catholic church is mistaken only on its doctrine of papal and or church infallibility and that they are only wrong on that single matter. It is likely that they are wrong on at least a few matters IF they are not infallible(I do not believe they are infallible) but they could still be right on like 99% or more of their teachings and it is not logically contradictory to say "they are not correct 100% of the time but they are correct often enough that I submit to their teaching except in cases where I have overwhelming reason to disagree".

I think it is worth considering on any specific debate between catholics and protestants that catholics may be right but that does not mean that we must accept all catholic teaching. I am pretty eclectic when it comes to different parts of christianity I guess. I am not very educated on the decisions of councils and christian history and all that(maybe I would be less eclectic if I was?) but in any matter I try to accept what makes the most sense to me regardless of whether it comes from catholics, protestants, etc(I still try to avoid inconsistency in my beliefs).

[anti_nietzsche]

Hi Daniel,

well my focus when I became a christian has always been Christ and love. Maybe you heard of the Taize community, their beliefs are my beliefs too. I think Jesus Christt died on the cross in order to reconcile God with the world and the world with God (Colossians). So when someone is coming to God, He is coming to someone who is already reconciled with him. Hell has been abolished by the cross, there is no afferlife punishment anymore. But God has certain wishes for humanity about how to live, and majorly that deals with humans loving God and each other. In a way the church as the body of Christ is apart from humanity, and in a way it is not. That is where I also see a need to care for saints and angels as they would minister some grace and blessings to us in the will of God. Apostle John also wrote that God is love and that He loves the world in Christ and saves it as He has already reconciled the world to Himself. So we christians do not live in enmity with the world, albeit we are enemies of the world of evil. What evil is, that we know, it is war and terror and humans inflicting suffering on others, sexual sins like rape and loveless and faithless practice of sexuality. But we must not forget that it is not just justice that is the focus of God, it is also and more prominently love and forgiveness, for which Jesus died too and which are parts of God's universal reconciliation with all. Don't forget that the pharisees already had a righteousness, but still they denied Jesus, so righteousness can sometimes mean an obstacle. Jesus died that not justice is the meaning of our lives but instead the free grace that God offers to all.

In the catholic church I find a church that preaches these things and also sees God forgive not just christians but also muslims, atheists, pagans, agnostics and whoever else has not put their faith in Christ. For it is not faith itself that saves us but instead the things faith believes in, which is Jesus' incarnation, life, death and resurrection. These things already save everyone but it has pleased God to announce to all that we should believe in these things and live an enlightened life to express a new justice of God wherein he cares for his creation and his creatures. Like it says in the psalms, God is friendly and His goodness and grace endure forever. And like it says in Mark, every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven man, whatsoever they shall sin and blaspheme. Sin is bad but God is much larger than sin.

There are protestant churches which are as good as the catholic church for me, but I want to get more involved with Mary and the saints and angels, and I want to take communion every sunday, not just once a month. Moreover, the catholic church is not so fundamentalistic in its treatment of sins like homosexuality or couples living together without marriage. It is more tolerant of such people and yet maintains God's love and holiness, but without "killing" men with sin justice, instead they rely on love justice. Thanks.

[DanielB]

I saw this and was thinking and I was just wondering if maybe you would like the eastern orthodox church. I don't know if they are more welcoming of universal salvation than roman catholics. I know they have different beliefs about the magisterium, etc. I don't know how their beliefs on Mary and angels differ but they seem more catholic about it than protestants at least(I think some or maybe most or all of them actually call themselves catholics but I don't know). If you are still interested in catholic beliefs you may want to research them and see who you agree with more. I know Brad Jersak is an eastern orthodox universalist(at least an extremely hopeful one) and I think there are others too.

[anti_nietzsche]

I like the eastern churches and yes I also think they are more universalistic than many protestant denominations. I don't have anything against modern protestantism, but I take issues with the understanding of the bible as absolutely inerrant, which in my opinion severs it from the inspiration that means something else than inerrancy. I love what they preached in Germany's main protestant church after the world war, but as of now that is taking a backseat to more fundamentalistic approaches to the understanding of God and scripture. It's all not so discerning anymore and Jesus became more like a modern Moses whose Gospel is a new law and whose church is a new Israel. That is dangerous in my opinion because Jesus died to end the enmity between his people and the world and neglecting that erects a firewall between believers and unbelievers and works against God's reconciliatory will.