One strange question is usually an aberration. But when you’ve been asked the same weird question several times, over a number of years, it reflects a broader mindset.<\/p>\n
The question is: \u0093Are you Catholic or Christian?”<\/p>\n
The following conversation approximates what happens next. We’ll call the fictitious person I’m talking to \u0093Jim.\u0094<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093So you’re a church guy, huh?\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093Pretty much, yeah.\u0094 \t\t \tJim: \u0093Are you Catholic? Christian?\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093Well, yes.”<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093You’re Christian?\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093Yes.\u0094<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093Oh, I thought you were maybe Catholic.\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093Technically, I am.\u0094<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093OK, so what parish do you belong to?\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093I don’t. I go to Milagro Christian Church\u0094<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093A-ha! So you’re Christian.\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093Right.\u0094<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093Not Catholic.\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093No.\u0094<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093No, meaning you agree you’re not, or no to what I said?\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093The last one.\u0094<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093I know, I know, you’re one of those lapsed Catholics, but you still call yourself Catholic, right?\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093Nope.\u0094<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093So you’re not lapsed?\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093I don’t think so.\u0094<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093So you must go to a Catholic church somewhere.\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093I told you where I go to church.\u0094<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093But that’s not a Catholic church.\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093Technically, it is.\u0094<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093Oh really? So who is your bishop?\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093We don’t have one.\u0094<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093No bishop? You’re definitely not Catholic.\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093Actually I am.\u0094<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093Look, you need to pick sides. You’re either Catholic or you’re Christian. You can’t have it both ways.\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093Why not?\u0094<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093Actually, I have no idea why, but that’s just the way it is. You just can’t.\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093If you say so.\u0094<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093So we agree you’re Christian, right?\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093Yes.\u0094<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093Good.\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093And Catholic.\u0094<\/p>\n
Jim: \u0093You’re impossible.\u0094<\/p>\n
Me: \u0093Thank you very much.\u0094<\/p>\n
OK, so maybe this is a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s not like being Catholic or Christian is comparable to being a Democrat or Republican.<\/p>\n
Technically, I think what people are getting at with this question is whether I’m Catholic or Protestant, but unfortunately, that doesn’t make the answer any less confusing.<\/p>\n
I’m Protestant because I go to a Protestant church, but I’m also Catholic, because the very definition of the word \u0093Catholic\u0094 is \u0093Universal Church.\u0094<\/p>\n
Some within Catholicism might not recognize me as such, but that doesn’t make me any less Catholic in my mind.<\/p>\n
It’s not as if modern Christian faith dropped out of the sky as-is. We’ve built upon the histories, cultures, beliefs and traditions of Catholicism, Judaism, Gnosticism, Paganism and others to arrive at our own faith identity.<\/p>\n
It doesn’t exist in a vacuum.<\/p>\n
So the next time someone asks you about your faith, consider for a moment all of the things you actually are, rather than defining yourself by what you’re not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Pueblo Question: Catholic or Christian? By CHRISTIAN PIATT One strange question is usually an aberration. But when you’ve been asked the same weird question several times, over a number of years, it reflects a broader mindset. The question is: \u0093Are you Catholic or Christian?” The following conversation approximates what happens next. We’ll call the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}