Hello everyone!
I hope that this thead is at the right place otherwise please move it. I'm a christian that does not belong to any Church or denomination and I would like your help to join the right one for me. I have always (since I was around 15 years old, now Im 23) seen myself as a catholic although not baptized or anything (oh yeah my were socialists from Yugoslavia, did I mention that Im a Swede with roots from Yugoslavia?). Anyway, the last few months I've been thinking that it's really difficult to join the catholic Church, I mean it takes several years, even though I read my bible, pray, and sometimes go to mass.
And there are some things that the catholic Church stress that I really don't Think are that important, such as seven sakraments, that the Church came directly from Christ himself, that it is the ONE true Church, that tradition is as important as belief and so on. I do like most other things, like the cross-sigh, the Saints, the rich tradition, the global aspects, the constistancy in the faith and on social issues and so on.
I've noted that the Methodist Church is very much alike the catholic. They as well stress the importance of living good not just believing, they are both high churches, the both are global, they both have Saints and so on.
But! When it comes to consistency on social issues, does the Methodists accept gay marriage, abortion, gay clergy and so on? What other important differences are there between the denominations?
Thank you for your answers
Ps. If some of my English is bad its bcs Im a swede and auto-correct is really messing it up for me!
Hi! Orthodox Christian checking in here. It looks like Methodism is quite a good match for you! But if I may, I'd like to suggest another option for you to look into.
I would like to say that the Orthodox Church has just about everything you like about the Catholic Church--the sign of the cross (seriously, we do it all the time, multiple times throughout any given day!), Saints, a rich tradition, global aspects, consistency in the faith and on social issues. The Catholic Church has been changing very rapidly within the last 50 or 60 years and has seen major shifts a few times throughout its history in terms of how the Catholic faith is lived out and expressed. For example, the dogma of Papal Infallibility was only declared by the Catholic Church around 150 years ago! But Orthodoxy has stayed almost exactly the same for about 2,000 years in terms of how we pray, worship, believe and live our faith. We're not Protestants, but rather our church goes all the way back to the New Testament. You know the Corinthians, Thessalonians, Philippians, and the church at Caesarea, Antioch and Jerusalem? All of those churches still exist today, and they're all Orthodox.
We have a priesthood, and we have bishops, but we don't have a Pope who is over and above the rest of the Orthodox Church. We have Patriarchs who oversee different local Churches (Russian Orthodox Church, Serbian Orthodox Church, Antiochian Orthodox Church, Greek Orthodox Church, etc.), but none of them claim to be infallible or superior to the others.
We have all the Sacraments that the Catholic Church has, but our definition of "sacrament" isn't so strict, and sometimes our list of sacraments also includes things like funerals or initiating a monk or nun into a monastery.
You mentioned Tradition not being as important as belief. For us, right belief
is the Tradition. The Tradition is the teachings of the Apostles passed down to their successors, and from the Apostles' successors to their successors, and so on and so forth right up until today. St. Paul told us in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 to hold fast to the traditions we were taught, whether by word of mouth or letter. I can show you writings from the first Christians who lived in the first and second centuries AD who personally knew the Apostles and were taught by them, and everything they believed and taught, we Orthodox still believe and teach today. Tradition isn't some abstract thing imposed on us by the Church. Tradition is the life of the Church, and it is the right belief taught by the Apostles, the "faith delivered once for all to the Saints", as it says in Jude 1:3. Because of Tradition, we know how to interpret the Bible correctly, and that is why our faith has been so unified for so long, because we all know how the Bible is meant to be understood thanks to the tradition the Apostles left us.
Now, Protestant denominations generally have developed their own traditions of how to believe and interpret the Bible. They will also say that the Bible alone is what's important, not any kind of Tradition. Catholics in many, many ways also teach what the first Christians taught, though Catholics and Protestants follow more specifically the Latin side of Tradition, whereas we Orthodox favor more the Eastern side of Tradition. There are often many similarities as well as some differences between what Orthodoxy, Catholicism and any given Protestant denomination teach. It's ultimately up to you to decide what you want to go with. We would be happy to explain the similarities and differences.
Thanks for the answer!
I'm actually moving to either USA or Australia in a near future (when I finish uni) so churches in Sweden does not really interest me. I'm much more interested about the churches in US and AU. Hm yes I guess that protestant churches are more 'intimate' whereas catholic are more 'distant' and rely more on tradition and hierarchy. But there are some differences among different protestant denominations, it there not? Methodists believe that you have to do good to recieve salvation, whereas baptists only baptize adults and then you are always saved and presbyterians think that some people are choosen by good for salvation. So I guess I want a church that more intimate (protestant) but that still think that you need to do good for salvation. So the methodists would suit me IF they hold the conservative stance on LGBT issues, do they?
And btw, catholics do NOT pray to Mary or to saints, that is a very common misunderstanding from American protestants usually.
We Orthodox teach that salvation is purely a gift from God that we cannot earn, but we need to follow His commandments. We're also pretty conservative on social issues, but all people are (or should be) welcome in our church. One of the more famous Orthodox Christians in recent memory in the US is Fr. Seraphim Rose, a gay man who converted to Orthodoxy and became a monk. He was very wise and holy, and mentored a lot of people. He's been dead for a few decades now, but a lot of people are already calling him a Saint. We baptize infants, and our babies can take Communion from that point onward. Our churches also tend to be pretty small--most of our parishes are between 50 and 200 people. Anything more than that, and people generally split the parish. We like it when everybody knows everybody in our local church communities.
Outside of that, I guess I'm not too sure what you mean by Protestantism being more "intimate" than Catholicism?
