and  it makes me angry. Quite angry.

(Yet another confused, angst-filled post from your troubled Christian Internet friend)

If truth matters at all to you, it should make you angry as well. Let’s start out with a couple of propositions:

From an Orthodox Website:

A recent declaration of Bulgarian clergy and monastics states for example that “the apostolic and millennium-old patristic tradition unequivocally considers that heretics are outside the ship of the Church and as a consequence, beyond salvation.”

And from a Roman Catholic Website:

9. Must, then, all who wish to be saved, die united to the Catholic Church?

All those who wish to be saved, must die united to the Catholic Church. For out of her there is no salvation, because only she teaches what Jesus Christ requires of everyone to be saved, and because only to her did Christ leave the means to obtain all the graces necessary for salvation. Hence Jesus said to His Apostles and to all their lawful successors: “Go and teach all nations: teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. He that believeth not all these things shall be condemned.”

Uh huh…..which means, if you take these statements seriously and at face value, that either the Orthodox Church is right (which excludes all who are not Orthodox, especially heretical Roman Catholics!), or the Roman Catholic Church is right (which excludes all who are not Roman Catholic, especially heretical Orthodox).

Why is this so important to me?

Well, if you believe the current Christian teaching on the next life, i.e., that if you displease God by indulging in sin (wickedness), apostasy (turning from the true Church), or heresy (following theological lies), you get to be barbecue for the next dozen or so eternities, then yes, this is very, very serious business!  At least, “I” take it very seriously. They both cannot be right. Someone is lying, and if there is an eternity in a red-hot, screaming hell as a consequence for being deceived by their lies and making the wrong choice, I hope they spend their eternity their for deceiving me into sitting in hell next to them.

You see, I am not smart enough nor spiritually astute enough to figure this all out. Let’s look at the facts: Both the Roman Catholic and the Holy Orthodox Church have basic foundational truths about Christ as found in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. So far, so good. (Protestantism is not even a consideration here, not being at all found in the writings of the Early Church or what they believed).

But then we start to get into sticky territory. In 1054 AD, the two bodies, East and West, severed relationship with each other and anathematized each other. As time went along, the Roman Church developed new teachings and doctrines such as the Immaculate Conception and Indulgences (there is more). The Orthodox Church strove to maintain the teachings of the Early Fathers – the Apostolic Faith.

What does this mean? Either the Roman Catholic Church is right and they were correct in developing and fleshing out doctrines which were needed to clarify the faith better, or they were, as the Orthodox stated, world-class heretics who left the Church and who have created fables such as Papal Infallibility. Either the Orthodox Church was right and they were correct in battening down the hatches against the storm of new thoughts and doctrines, or they ossified and spiritually died out, being unwilling to accept that God had further dogmatic clarifications to make for the good of the world and sinners.

AND

BOTH

CAN’T

BE 

RIGHT!

Despite how hard the more moderate voices on both sides, as well as those known as “Uniates” (Orthodox who have re-joined themselves to the Roman Church), try to downplay this situation, I have a sense that the Early Fathers would be having none of it!!  A cannot be B, no matter how hard you try to make it so. What I have read of the Early Fathers of the Church does not lend itself to being “in communion” with those who have chosen to believe in theological ideas outside of the apostolic teaching of the Church. The Early Fathers roundly condemned  heretics. They didn’t seek “ecumenical union” with them by downplaying theological novums.

St. Cyprian of Carthage taught that any bishop who breaks away from the unity of the Church loses his claim to Apostolic Office. He wrote, “Whoever is separated from the Church is joined to an adulteress, is separated from the promises of the Church; … He who does not hold this unity does not hold God’s law, does not hold the faith of the Father and the Son, does not hold life and salvation.”  This, if true, means that one set of bishops has valid Sacraments and one does not.  And if you do not have valid Sacraments, then you have no Eucharist, no Body of Christ (the Church) and you are not in the Church. It’s that simple.

That is deadly serious business. St. Cyprian states that if you do not belong to the Church, you have not salvation. He accepts that salvation is found only in the Church, just as both devout Orthodox and Roman Catholic writers state. The only problem then is this:  where is this Church wherein is salvation?

Both sides lay claim to being the Church, with both of them having good apologia for what they believe. And to make matters more infuriating, both Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism have miracles – weeping statues and icons that exude myrrh, mystics and seers, visionaries with messages from God, incorrupt saints such as St Padre Pio (Catholic) and St. John Maximovitch (Orthodox), and miracle working priests and bishops.

Here’s the bottom line for me: I don’t like Roman Catholicism. That’s not to say I don’t like the people who are Roman Catholics, among whom I have many dear friends. But the Roman Catholic concept of God as Judge rather than Father, their eschatology, their approach to the Christian faith, and a host of other things, simply leave me cold. I don’t really feel the love of God listening to Roman Catholic priests preach or reading their writings.

BUT………………

IF the Roman Catholic Church is the Church, then I believe am willing to swallow my pride, bow my knee, and submit to the teachings, no matter how confusing or odious I find them (the idea of an eternal hell and the way certain Catholics seem to take a particular pleasure in sinners going there is deeply offensive to me). I am horrified, quite frankly, at the “visions” of the saints and seers which describe in loving detail the wretched existence of sinners in hell who had the nerve to oppose the Roman Catholic Church. To them, God is not a corrective and gentle Father, but someone who will git you, boy! and git you good if you dare oppose the Roman Catholic Church. But if this is true, then I must bow my knee before it, no matter how I feel.

IF, however, on the other hand, it is all heretical nonsense of the worst sort (as spoken of by certain Orthodox writers) then I want to know so that I, in good conscience and without fear of divine reprisal (promised to me by Roman Catholic apologists if I speak against what they teach) can once and for all time wave goodbye to any association with the Roman Catholic Church. In short, I want to convert to Orthodoxy and die there. But only if the RC Church is proven to be false.

And my greatest fear is that I will get to the Judgment Seat of Christ, where He will scowl at me and say in His most aggravated tone of voice, “Bad choice, Edward!  To hell with you!” Having this fear makes not knowing here on earth the greatest torment I can endure. One or the other is right – it can’t be both. And I have no idea where the truth is. I know what I want it to be – but what I want doesn’t matter when it comes to objective truth.

The worst part of this is that I have a long lifetime of making some of the worst, most stupid, most ignorant choices a human being could ever make. I look back on many of the choices I made in my life and say to myself, “What the hell were you thinking???”  And now I am called to make a choice between two religious camps which has the most serious consequences imaginable  after I die if I make the wrong choice.  You see why I am angry?

Wouldn’t it be nice if they were both wrong? If both camps were wrong about what the Church is, and especially about God’s mercy? Seems like in both of these camps the prevailing idea is this:  make an honest mistake and fry forever.

I have prayed for years for enlightenment and guidance and I am no closer to understanding than I was 20 years ago. Some days, like today, when these doubting and troublesome thoughts are assailing me like a Category 5 hurricane pounding the Florida coastline, I just want to chuck Christianity as a bad cosmic joke and go get good and drunk somewhere.

At least doing that I would know what I was doing.