CATHOLIC or catholic?

I thought that studying the mission of the church was appropriate for responding to the Pope's comments this week. He basically said that humans are saved through baptism into the Church, the one Holy Catholic Church. He is going backwards from Vatican II, going against the liberal strains of Catholicism and becoming less ecumenical, by reasserting the Apostolic Succession, which is said to directly form the Catholic Church. (Jesus to Apostles to Bishops form the Catholic Church) Catholic of course means universal, with Christ as the cornerstone, forming the temple, i.e. one universal body of Christ. It was never intended to be a reassertion of the institutional structures which existed before the death and resurrection of Christ, but a community of followers of Jesus. Jesus' teachings seem to be clear about this formation. The Church of course should look different in various cultures, but need to remain true to its vocation as 'sent people', i.e. people participating in the Mission of God, who is already at work.

These next quotes are from a class called, Reactivating the Missional Church with Alan Hirsch.

What the Catholic Church is saying is, “bow down before us and this is the only place for you to be saved.”

Coming to Jesus is not an opiate, but it should make us come alive, make us start to think, feel, reason, love…………..It should make us excited. The Church must not though work to subvert our imaginations and bring us captive to its model, its authority, its leadership, not necessarily though bringing us closer to Christ; it can and should, but we need to de-construct as leaders the presuppositions, i.e. those things which we have assumed in our traditions for so long. Then people will be able to connect incarnationally with the gospel message. We must live the Word of God, which is not the Bible, but the message of the gospel, the "good news" that God has taken on human flesh and lives with and among us. We do not need to become something, before God dwells with me. That to me seems as good news.

“Poverty of imagination”-we can not think of new ways of reaching community, reaching people beyond ourselves. We are going to have to do things differently. Church will look differently for people. There is not one model.

Constantine is still the Emperor of our imaginations

The Pantheon in Rome meant: they would conquer another nation: and if a nation defeated another, they would say, “My God is stronger than yours”: I will take your god and put it in the pantheon which is Rome: I will acknowledge your god, but mine is stronger: Constantine still did this, but he simply thought that the "Christian god" was the god who was strongest. Do we still do this today? My God is the true God, therefore I will conquer your god, make him subservient, then we will be able to live together, as long as you acknowledge my God is the strongest God.