LRC, Houston - the weekends-free church in Houston, Texas

Catholicism has it’s Holy Father and Protestanism has it’s inerrant Bible. I subscribe to neither because I see both having been adopted out of theological rigidity and not out of a spiritual experience with God. In fact, there’s way too much in the American church scene that’s horizonal in orientation vs that which should be vertically oriented. Let me even take it one step further.

The historical practice in Catholicism has been that parishioners are to relate horizonally (to the church) and let the priests, cardinals, and Holy Father do the vertical work. While it’s not a policy or tradition in Protestant circles there are sure a whole lot of lazy non-Catholic believers who’d rather have the priests, pastors, and ministers figure it all out and bring back the instructions to them.

It’s been that way since Moses did the heavy lifting on the mountain while the people partee-hartee in the valley.

So, when Pope Pius XII (1950) declares that the Virgin Mary didn’t die (since she was born sinless and therefore not subject to the original sin issue), but was taken up bodily into heaven, no one questions the statement. Well, some have questioned a lot of things. Ask Hans Kung. Questioning things that should not be questioned (anything that disagrees with the Pope) gets you thrown out of any teaching office- if not the church!

But let me ask anyway.

1-What made Mary sinless? Can I get some Bible references?
2-Who said she didn’t die- other than the Pope? Can I get an intellectual witness?
3-Where did her body float off to into space and didn’t she get cold at about 10,000 feet- freeze at 25,000 feet? And isn ‘t this a dumb question anyway?

We’re just simply undoing a lot of things that Jesus did, opposing what He proposed and following what He never mentioned.

I’m just one of those people that believes “knowing God”, being spiritual, and having an intimate relationship with the Creator can’t come out of externally imposed doctrinal or theological rigidity- be it Catholic or Protestant. As Bruce Bewar wrote, “Churches that insist on theological rigidity are seemingly devoted to truth; but in fact such a posture reflects not a genuine concern with truth but a desire for control, order, discipline, and a false show of unanimity.”

Bingo!