Friday Frivolity: Christian Jokes
Tag: Christian
Friday Frivolity: More bad singing
The problem with Christian media…
The problem with Christian media…
How many here are Christians?
Given that we’ve just celebrated Christmas and the New Year is just around the corner, it seems a fitting time to post this video from Douglas Gresham, C.S. Lewis’ stepson, who gave this sermon at Liberty University back in 2011…
Pregnant, Christian and unmarried
A while ago I read an article about an eighteen-year-old girl who attended a small, private Christian school here in the USA. Despite being President of the Student Council and an Honours student with a 4.0 average, Maddi Runkles was removed from the Council and banned from “walking” in her graduation ceremony. The reason for this punishment was that she had become pregnant…
While it is understandable that the school felt the need to do something to make it clear that Maddi’s actions did not align with the behaviour expected by the school, I think the school’s response was extremely poor. Yes, it causes scandal when Christians don’t live up to Christian morality, but I think it causes even more harm when we teach the world that Christians think appearances matter more and that it’s better to sweep our faults under the rug.
You see, when Maddi became pregnant, she had a choice. She could either face her parents, go through the physical and emotional strains of pregnancy, deal with the critical looks from her teachers, the gossip from her classmates (under the guise of “prayerful concern”) and the mocking recriminations from those she had ever tried to evangelize….or she could have had an abortion. Would she have received the same punishment, I wonder, had it been discovered that she’d had an abortion?
Regardless of how pro-life Maddi was up until this point in her life, I have no doubt that, upon finding out she was pregnant, abortion looked like an extremely tempting option. One short appointment at a Planned Parenthood clinic and the “problem” would go away… Yet, thank God, she didn’t do this. In the choice between life and death, she chose life. The Guttmacher Institute reports that 54% of women who receive abortions identify as Christians. Especially in light of this, Maddi’s school should have been falling over themselves to support her in her decision to keep her baby and walk this difficult road.
As a friend of mine commented, Catholics can confess the worst possible sins to a priest in private, but then publicly walk towards the altar at Mass to receive the Eucharist…something which we can only ever do through the grace and mercy of the Lord.
Catholic Dating: Should I date a non-Catholic? (Part 2)
Today is the concluding part of yesterday’s article, “Should I date a non-Catholic?”. In the previous post, I explained that this is a question I’ve heard often in Catholic circles and I shared a little bit about my own experience of dating non-Catholics. We spoke about the reason for dating and concluded that its purpose is ultimately marriage. Therefore, when we speak about dating a non-Catholic, we should really talk about marrying a non-Catholic, since this is ultimately the point of dating someone.
We ended the previous post by looking at what the Catechism has to say on the subject of marriages to non-Catholics. We read that the Catholic Church does allow marriages to non-Catholics, but cautions Her children not to underestimate the difficulties involved in this kind of union. In today’s concluding post, I would like to discuss in more detail the potential areas of difficulty alluded to by the Catechism and then offer some concluding thoughts.
Practical Considerations
Since this two-part series focuses primarily on dating a Protestant, it is good to emphasize how much we share with our Protestant brethren. A couple composed of a Catholic and Protestant will have much in common, as did I with my former girlfriend whom I mentioned in yesterday’s post.
Having said that, when discussing this subject with friends, I find it helpful to ask questions about three areas of potential conflict:
1. The Wedding
Who will marry you? Will it be a Catholic priest or will it be another kind of minister? Will you get married in a Catholic Church or will you seek dispensation to marry in some other denomination’s building? How will your respective families react to this?
Who will teach your marriage preparation classes? What will be the content of that formation? Not all views of marriage are the same. For example, the Catholic Church’s teaching is that marriage is indissoluble. Will this be taught during your class?
2. Religious Practice
Where, as a couple, will you go to church? Catholics are required to attend Mass each week. In an effort to accommodate this, will you go to a Catholic parish together?
Or, will you attempt to go to both a Catholic Mass and a Protestant service each week? I speak from experience when I say that this can quickly become exhausting!
Or, will you fulfill your obligation by going to the Saturday Vigil Mass alone? Are you okay with that?
Is the subject of religion taboo with your potential spouse? Is it a regular source of conflict? Are you supportive of one another’s religious practices? Are you leading each other towards holiness?
When spiritual issues arise, to whom will you turn as a couple?
3. Children and family life
Will your potential spouse be open to life, or will he want to contracept? If it is suspected that your unborn child has Down Syndrome, for example, will he urge you to abort the child?
When seeking permission to marry a non-Catholic, you and your fiancé will be told that you are required by the Church to make sure that any offspring from the marriage are to be baptized and brought up in the Catholic Church. Will you and your spouse do this? Or will your children be dedicated, rather than baptized? Will you teach them the Catholic Faith in its fullness, or will they be taught the lowest common denominator between your respective faiths? How will you respond when your children ask questions about the differences between the teaching of the Catholic Church and your spouse’s denomination?
An ex-girlfriend of mine had an interesting take on the subject of children. She would ask herself if she felt confident, in the unfortunate case of her early death, whether her husband would raise her children as she would desire.
Catholic Dating: Should I date a non-Catholic? (Part 1)
It has been quite some time since I wrote my series on Catholic dating. Those articles were certainly among the more popular here at Restless Pilgrim. The subject matter of those posts generated considerable discussion in my local Catholic community of San Diego, which pleased me no end since this was my main goal in writing them in the first place. The fact that it was also an extremely cathartic writing experience was just an added bonus! 😉
During the intervening three years since writing that series, my own love life has been, to put it mildly, anything but dull. Despite this, I’ve never felt inclined to write further on the subject of dating. That is, until now…
Over the past few months one particular question concerning dating has come up again and again, particularly as my thoughtful friends attempt to marry me off and enlist me in the ranks of the blissfully domesticated. The question has been “Hey David, what do you think about dating a non-Catholic?”