{"id":54488,"date":"2015-07-26T07:00:09","date_gmt":"2015-07-26T14:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=54488"},"modified":"2015-07-28T10:40:33","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T17:40:33","slug":"why-should-protestants-go-to-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2015\/07\/26\/why-should-protestants-go-to-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Why should Protestants go to Church?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A little while ago I was commenting on a friend’s blog<\/a>\u00a0where we were discussing the practice of church attendance on Sundays.\u00a0Given that a lot of Protestants comment on his\u00a0blog, I posed\u00a0the following question to all\u00a0those commenting:<\/p>\n

What actually is the Protestant motivation for going to church on Sunday?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, this might seem like a silly question, but I asked it due to a certain train of thought that I had noticed during my time in the Protestant world. It’s a train of thought that I feel leads to unavoidable, awkward conclusions…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Reasons<\/h2>\n

You see, I would suggest that there isn’t a very good answer to the above question from\u00a0within the typical\u00a0theological framework of many Protestant congregations. Below I give some of the possible answers to this question, followed by a rebuttal which I have heard other Protestants sometimes give.<\/p>\n

Reason #1:<\/strong> “For Fellowship”<\/em><\/h3>\n

Rebuttal:<\/strong> “Why do I need to go to a church building for that? Why does it have to be on a Sunday? The Bible doesn’t say I have to. I can get fellowship just by hanging out with my Christian friends during the week. Also, if I just fellowship with my friends then I get to avoid some of the annoying weirdos from the church”<\/em><\/p>\n

Reason #2:<\/strong> “To be taught the Scriptures”<\/em><\/h3>\n

Rebuttal:<\/strong> “The preacher locally is a bit hit-and-miss. John Piper is a better preacher than my pastor. I much prefer to get one of his DVDs and watch it at home.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Reason #3:<\/strong> \u201cTo worship God\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

Rebuttal:<\/strong> “I can worship God anywhere! I don’t need to do it in a church building. Also, the worship band where I used to go was getting rather stale. I much prefer to sing along to the latest ‘Hillsong United’ CD in my car.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Reason #4:<\/strong>\u00a0“To receive\u00a0Holy Communion”<\/em><\/h3>\n

Rebuttal:<\/strong> “Why can\u2019t I just bless the bread and wine myself? Why do I have to go to Bible College to do that? What makes my pastor so special?”<\/em><\/p>\n

It is my contention that, in general, Protestantism doesn’t actually give the Protestant Christian a very convincing\u00a0reason to attend church on Sunday. Sure, reasons can be put forward, but I don’t think they’re\u00a0very compelling from within most Protestant theological frameworks. I would blame this on many things, but especially the general lack of sacramental theology, the rise in ecclesial consumerism in recent years, as well as the individualism which naturally comes\u00a0from Sola Scriptura<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Catholic Reasons<\/h2>\n

But how would a Catholic answer this question though? Well, a Catholic could submit\u00a0many of the answers given above, but I think that Catholics have\u00a0two reasons which are far more decisive, at least for us:<\/p>\n

1. The Church tells us to attend Mass. In fact, it’s one of the the Five precepts of the Church<\/a>.\u00a0We believe that the Church has the authority to instruct us.<\/p>\n

2. We go to receive Jesus’s gift to the Church, the Eucharist.\u00a0This is not something I can do for myself in my living room with a bread roll and a glass of Merlot.<\/p>\n

Good community, good music and good homilies are all desirable in a local Catholic parish, but these\u00a0are not ultimately my reasons for going\u00a0to Church on Sunday. I go to receive the grace which is found in the Eucharist. The Church which Christ founded posses the wisdom to urge me not stand aloof, but to come and receive\u00a0this gift, this medicine of immortality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A little while ago I was commenting on a friend’s blog\u00a0where we were discussing the practice of church attendance on Sundays.\u00a0Given that a lot of Protestants comment on his\u00a0blog, I posed\u00a0the following question to all\u00a0those commenting: What actually is the Protestant motivation for going to church on Sunday? Now, this might seem like a silly question, but I asked it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[3114,276,676,2969,348,152],"class_list":["post-54488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","tag-attendance","tag-catholic","tag-church","tag-featured","tag-protestant","tag-sunday"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ProtestantChurchBanner.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54488"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58414,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54488\/revisions\/58414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}