White Robed Monks of St. Benedict

Catholic-Protestant Schema II
Christianity: One Reality, Two Complementary Perspectives

Peace be with you.

Each of us as human beings have created our belief structures and value systems. We so created these structures and systems in part as our response to or reaction against the structures and systems of our own family of origin. Additionally, we re-evaluate and re-create our subtlest and systems based upon our own innate presence to Truth as we come to know It by whatever means. As we know, the human experience is one of trial and error and so re are constantly evaluating our belief structures and value systems as we gather more information or knowledge and/or know.

In any relationship there were will be a natural convergence of belief structures and value systems. Sometimes this convergence is simple as two rivers converging with the same fresh water base. Other times, it is more dynamic as when fresh water meets salt water: the water looks the same and is inherently different as the sailors of yore would have liked to know in their deluded belief that they were in salt water and could not while they were really in fresh water at the mouths of fresh water rivers emptying into an ocean. We offer the following information in the Spirit of convergence to assist in alleviating common misunderstanding that might lead to other than healthful communications and relationships. The more we know about our belief structures and vale systems, the more we are able to respect each other's way of doing or not doing things.

Please understand the following schema as a continuum, not absolute fixed realities. It offers but one perspective only the broadest of (sociological) strokes. The schema in itself is neither true nor false. It is just a guideline to assist all parties to come to an appreciative understanding of one another but the betterment of all concerned. (For further reference, please refer to Old & Roman Catholic & Protestant Schema and On Catholic Jurisdictions and Protestant Denominations.)

Peace and Joy to you and yours!

White Robed Monks of St. Benedict

(The following is adapted from: The Catholic Myth: The Behavior and Beliefs of American Catholics. Andrew M. Greeley. New York, MacMillan Co., 1990)
CATHOLICISM PROTESTANTISM
Communitarian Individualistic

Emphasis on the individual relating to God as a member of a community 		Emphasis on the individual's relationship with God.

Analogical Imagination
Dialectical Imagination

Analogical: God Self-discloses Himself in his creation.
Dialectical: God is over against the world and its communities and artifacts.

Assumes a God who is present in the world, disclosing Himself in and through creation. Hence, the world and all its events, objects, and people tend to be somewhat like God.
Assumes a God who is radically absent from the world and who discloses Himself only on rare occasions. Hence, the world (and all its events, objects, and people) tend to be radically different from God.

Society is a "sacrament" of God, a set of ordered relationships governed by both justice and love, that reveal, however, imperfectly, the presence of God.
:: Society is "natural" and "good."
:: For humans and their "natural" response to God is social.
Society is "God-forsaken" and :: unnatural and oppressive. The individual stands over/against society and not integrated into it. The human becomes fully human only when s/he is able to break away from social oppression and relate to the absent God as a completely free individual.

Should, with exceptions, marry Catholic in a (Roman Catholic) church building .
O.K. to marry Catholics, so long as wedding is not in a Catholic church, no particular objection to Catholic doctrine or people or even their child perhaps becoming a Catholic.

Saints can function as intermediaries with God.
Does not tolerate the idolatrous blasphemy of the statues and humans out not to have to go through such intermediaries as saints to talk with God.

Communities are sacramental, :: threats to communities must be resisted both by a reassertion of the values that seem to protect the community and by support for doctrines; notion on which the communities appear to be based.
Communities are sin-filled and God-forsaken, :: free of the powerful concern about the preservation of traditional communities, :: more flexible in matters of morality and doctrine and human relationships (so long as traditional, community-protecting norms are observed).

Emphasize fairness and equality.
Emphasizes freedom and individualism.

Successful marriage: importance of shared background (religion, politics, tastes).
Successful marriage = importance of sexual fulfillment and living apart from parents and in-laws.

Tends to be devout and to be doctrinally orthodox.
Tends to be satisfied with the response to their needs provided by their churches.

Emphasize presence of God
Emphasize reading the Bible and being born again.

More open to science.
More closed to science.

More morally rigid.
Less morally rigid.

God: Mother, Lover, Friend, Spouse.
God: Father, Judge, Jury

Catholics remain Catholic because they like the Catholic imagination that perceives God as present and the world as grace. 		Tend to be satisfied with the response to their needs provided by their Churches.


Old Catholic, Roman Catholic, Protestant Schema
On Catholic Jurisdictions and Protestant Denominations
Catholic Wedding Ceremonies
The Network's Brochure
The Order's Brochure
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