/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

Begom cadolig :::DDD

In all seriousness, what's on your mind brother? It's natural to be nervous when approaching such a big life decision.

>>579967

Well thanks haha, and well, I don't know if I've been called to be celibate or not yet, or for holy orders, but if not, part of me is sort of hung up (and probably unjustly) on falling into the stereotype of … finding a western husband and maybe even converting as of such. I guess appearances shouldn't prevent me from such, and after seeing Silence (and well i've heard similar stories from history) I realize that real people have shed blood for this. But it's just hard for me to come to terms with. I'm confused about well maybe the idea of religious tradition vs cultural or ethnic tradition etc. I can't stand the muslim arabizers.

Are you afraid of being rejected because of your race?

Anyway, catholics are in general quite tolerant of people from other backgrounds and ethnicity. But keep in mind that Catholic communities tends to be more liberal than protestants in America. So it's kinda tricky to find a Catholic Parish that isn't like /r/christianity and more like /r/catholicism.

>>579984

> Catholic communities tends to be more liberal than protestants

Ugh really??? Well that's not reassuring (not commenting on the actual church)

Well, not so much being rejected because of my race, but rather, well… I'm not sure how to say it but. I guess in my mind (and i'm probably wrong) I don't want to be the stereotypical (AFWM) that is so dreaded. And when I think about it I mean considering the diversity of the church it may not even be so. Maybe it's just a stumbling block for me, and forgive me. It weighs heavily on me, and I imagine for, well i've spoken to some black people and the whole skin color of Jesus is a huge issue to some people (and I couldn't care less) so I guess I realize for different people, they have their own challenges.

Although what you said about

>Catholic communities tends to be more liberal than protestants

Is deeply troubling. I hope you mean just in the people attending and not the actual theology, right?

>>579988

If you're worried about race or ethnicity or "being a stereotype" as you say, you don't have to worry. The Catholic Church doesn't mess with useless identity politics like that. And by liberal I think anon meant that the parishioners don't care who you are as long as you believe.

>>579988

Don't be too worried, there's actually quite a sizable population of Asian Catholics in the US.

Being Catholic doesn't mean you are suddenly forced to find a husband outside of your race. Likewise, you're not going to be excluded BECAUSE of your race- if anything, most Catholics will be happy seeing the faith spread to races newer to the faith. My parish is 90-95% white and I've never felt like an outcast.

It mostly boils down to finding the right parish. A lot of Catholic churches in southern or coastal states tend to be significantly more liberal, almost heretical, on account of the large population of "cultural catholics" who don't keep the faith. Despite this, there's still good parishes for those who find them. Hopping from parish to parish isn't that big of a deal if you're looking for one to stay in.

It took me a while to find the parish I currently attend and it's a 50 minute commute. Still worth it.

>>580002

The latin mass and gregorian chants are totally gorgeous and part of my attraction to Catholicism/Christianity. As for other issues, I used to think a Buddhist conception of the universe made more sense until I started studying more - and while I still agree some thing seem to be more attractive, I think it's fundamentally flawed. But yeah… i'm not a pol poster or anything, but I don't think mass immigration is a benefit either - so well…

>>580005

Oh okay, well I hope you didn't mean like gay marriage or trans stuff and the like, which is part of the reason why I realized that there has to be some sort of strong orthodoxy in the world instead of saying "anything is alright" because the world is going cray right now ugh.

>>580007

Are you non-white yourself anon? That's reassuring, but also yeah also intra-asian "politics" are a bit nuts (though I wish they weren't)

> A lot of Catholic churches in southern or coastal states tend to be significantly more liberal, almost heretical

Deeply disturbing for me, but I realize it's probably the sign of the times. One of the first things to realize the religion/tradition I grew up in was no good was the total lack of absolute orthodoxy, and while the influences of some western craziness hasn't made it over there yet, I don't think they could put up a fight.

Also to be honest the race issue was not really a super big issue in my mind, but it's probably a massive issue when I think about it for some guys and it's made me think again, although I guess it shouldn't really have to play into if i'm looking for the truth. I don't want to turn into some "we wuz kangs" type people who only are interested in something because of their skin color or race etc, but also I guess reading more about our martyrs really reminds me that I'm sure it's universal. It's still confusing for me and social pressure is getting to me. I hope I can find more help.

>>580036

I attend a Novus Ordo parish in Southern California and it's not at all heretical or overly progressive. None of that neolib idpol stuff. Plus having Latinos keeps things a bit more traditional tbh which is great. We even have an Arabic mass not too far away. Don't let the shitposting fool you, Catholicism is doing alright even here.

>>580045

Can NO be traditional? I thought only EO (latin) could be

>>580047

The NO I attend has reintroduced Latin into some of the rites and prayers. Each parish has its own spectrum of how traditional it is but yes, EO is the what's defined of as traditional.

>>580050

I don't mean to be some fundamentalist trad, sorry! But the EO is a big part of what attracted me to the church.

>>580052

I don't blame you, the Tridentine Mass is gorgeous. If you already haven't, I would suggest visiting one if there is a parish near you. I know locations can be tricky

If you're looking for beautiful liturgy and set on Rome, might I suggest an Anglican Use parish?

Luke 12: 51-53

51 Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; 52 for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

The price of following Jesus Christ often times comes with the division of people from societies and/or cultures. You cannot follow God and the world, you can only choose one master.

>>580076

What exactly is an Anglican Use parish? Are they Anglicans? I don't think I would be a protestant.

>>579957

If you step into a Catholic church, no one will even blink an eye because you're not white or something. If you're from Japan or Korea or even China, the Church is present there so you can find the nearest parish.

I live in southeastern Europe and during one year a priest from Benin in Africa was saying mass. He spoke our language perfectly, his homilies were great and he was very much loved. Now he holds a position in the main seminary in my country. So imagine that, what a young African managed to achieve.

When you formally enter the process, called RCIA, of becoming a Catholic, you can discuss your background and your worldview with the priest there.

>>579957

Brother, I would just suggest to move forward with the conversion. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the truth that everyone needs. Entering into the Church and seriously moving along on the path of sanctification through prayer, you will experience powerful supernatural graces. This will completely change your perception of the world and your place in it.

If you do bear the weight of persecution because of your faith, these graces will help you persevere. Do you think the great martyrs of the Christian faith had a natural strength of will greater than us? No. God poured special grace onto them for the purpose of giving witness to the Gospel.

I will say a prayer for you, brother. Also, don't let the culture of the board get you down. While it is better than reddit, it isn't perfect - as you said. I would suggest the discord that the admin of this site runs, I think the link is in the sticky. It's not perfect either, but it's better than the board in my opinion.

>>579988

No Church worth the name will reject you because of your race. As for the whole 'ethnicity of Jesus thing,' people who make noises about that are putting worldly political concerns above Godly ones. Just don't race mix. I don't see why you'd be worried about not finding a husband from your own people. There are plenty of Asian Christians in the US.

>>580861

>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastoral_Provision

>>580876

>Just don't race mix.

Racemixing isn't forbidden by the Catholic Church.

>>580880

I didn't say it was.

>>580876

>putting worldly political concerns above Godly ones

and then immediately …

> Just don't race mix

Oh ye hypocrites.

>>580887

False equivalence. Obsessing over depictions of Christ is a dangerous distraction from His teaching which leads to pointless and petty sectarianism and disunity.

Marrying within your own people and preserving the God-given beauty, integrity and identity of your own people is another thing entirely.

>>580894

Jingoism is worldly politics. Do you honestly believe that you're not mixed already? There is only one human race and we literally cannot mix with other species. You cling to skin, I'll stick with God.

>>579988

It's liberal with regards to race, but conservative with regards to homosexuality and abortion. They aren't harsh about it, but they won't promote it.

>>580905

Jingoism is about elevating your own nation above others. What I am talking about is celebrating and preserving our God-given uniquenesses, celebrating the qualities in our diversity rather than destroying it. This isn't fantasizing about some incoherent idea of 'pure blood,' as if there had been no mixing of any description in anyone's past. You're creating a very disingenuous false dichotomy. There is clearly a difference between marrying within your own people and doing otherwise.

As for

>There is only one human race

It's hard to contend with someone who has buried their head so deep in the sand that they will genuinely come out with rubbish like this.

>>579957

>I tried reddit first

stopped reading here, go back to reddit and stay there

>>580909

>he thinks there's more than one race among humans

<accuses others of burying their head in the sand

I'm sure you have a ready supply of /pol/ memes you're just itching to spam; but I'll save you the trouble. /pol/ is one collective idiot.

>>580910

Thank's for harassing the flock, glad you know her soul would be in much better hands over at reddit.

Also OP, if I can ask, are you attracted to Christianity for its morality and its beauty or for Jesus? I don't mean to prod, but plenty of people are initially attracted to Catholicism for reasons that aren't central to it, even if they find true faith through them, and and the picture I get from your posts, as incomplete as it is, is someone who is dissatisfied with the world and wants to rise above it. Nothing is wrong with that, and if you're already denouncing heresy then you're a good way along the path, but to be clear you honestly believe that Jesus Christ is your incarnate Lord and Savior?

>>580917

>Also OP, if I can ask, are you attracted to Christianity for its morality and its beauty or for Jesus

Good question. I think it seems to be a bit inseparable for me. The consistency with the message and the man is something i've been looking for and the more I think about it the more it seems to apparent in Christianity. I think the beauty and accomplishments are signs though. I am uncertain of things, but I also have been told that at times faith is an active thing, where you assert that you want to believe in something. I guess at times I sort of view things as a "via negativa" way, where (at least to me) I can see the huge issues with other paths, and other times I'm drawn to the consistency and beauty, but I believe the Church and Jesus are inseparable (is this correct?).

>>580920

>is this correct?

Absolutely, and I came to Christianity in a similar way. I was born a Catholic but never raised as one, and my Dad sent me to Catholic school because my local high school had and still has a huge drug crisis and even though I was a good kid he wanted to protect me. For two years I, an oddball outcast, didn't really care about the faith or anything, but in my junior year they taught us christian humanism and specifically Aquinas and his Five Ways. He proved God 's existence for me in an unshakable way, and my teacher was so unshakably cheerful in his faith I decided to give faith a proper shot. It only lasted about a month because I was weak and my doubts about Jesus and who he was got the better of me, and for years after I wandered from kabbalah to buddhism to pantheism to fugging thelema, all of them as opinions rather than a way of life. But at the end of the day I am a history major and I stand by history, and history attests to an oral tradition of a man assured in his centrality to the human story, rising from the dead, propagated by those who gave up their livelihoods, from fisherman to commander, and even their lives, to follow him. Every faith can claim someone who had such a good day of meditation that they saw the light, occultists, who by and large nowadays believe that any system of belief can be effective, refer to "theosis" or "samadhi" as an occurrence as precious as diamond yet as doable as making a sandwich, but only Christianity attests to people like St. Augustine who casually wondered what it like it was in heaven and then got that question answered by God on the spot (his mother too). That is the gift of the Holy Spirit. Faith is a process, and it calls for us to cast ourselves into stormy waters. But even if we don't believe that we can walk on them Jesus is here to pick us up. Truth, goodness, and beauty are with the Church in abundance, but I want you to know that if you join it for them we will give you so much more.

>>580938

Oh wow, you seem like a good person to speak to about certain things. Yeah "Samadhi" or as I was taught as Zanmai, well yes, almost all traditions speak of having the right mindset before approaching such practices, otherwise you can easily be deluded. Too many people hear of such a practice and find some sort of experience and then just conclude the first person who told them about this practice is the truth. Reading the book "The Cloud of Unknowing" and (Proto)-Dionysus really interested me or rather made me realize that I feel there has to be a marriage of not just experience but the rational intellect. The Philosophical rigor and influence of people like St. Augustine and St. Aquinas are insane, so much that secular people who seem to hate Christianity still love St. Aquinas' work on virtue ethics etc. All in all, I can't claim anything i've experienced as definite, but I do see them as many signs. The beauty of some works from Mozart also astounded me. If I played many people classical music from Asia or other places, it would probably be like (let me expand my mind so I don't view this as not great), but honestly, if you listen to some of Mozart's masses, like his Requiem, or I believe Bach's B Minor Mass (which I believe is a Latin Mass too), I mean there isn't anyone in the world who hears it and isn't taken aback, like this is really something else.

I wish I had some sort of amazing faith like some of the saints, but I think for me it's more of a process, which I'm still struggling to come to terms with.

>>580957

>Too many people hear of such a practice and find some sort of experience and then just conclude the first person who told them about this practice is the truth.

The weirdest one I always think of is Aleister Crowley. I was drawn to him for a bit mostly because his faith emphasized one's true self as a reflection of God and the importance of realizing it, but I was always curious how such a degenerate could reach the peak of spiritual practice. He claims he got his book from Satan himself so I guess that's how, plus he was a Buddhist beforehand, but quite frankly I don't even want to think about him and the people who he lead astray.

>Reading the book "The Cloud of Unknowing" and (Proto)-Dionysus really interested me or rather made me realize that I feel there has to be a marriage of not just experience but the rational intellect.

If you ask me it depends on the person. C.S. Lewis noted that perhaps in the past someone could have been be nurtured on the Gospel and nothing else and still have been secure in their beliefs, but we live in a society that trains everyone to be skeptical and is host to an unprecedented diversity of viewpoints. If we want to defend out beliefs not just as beliefs but as truth we need rational intellect, and without the rational intellects of Augustine and Aquinas I wouldn't be where I am today.

>All in all, I can't claim anything i've experienced as definite, but I do see them as many signs.

Neither can I. Well I had a weird dream about St. Teresa (someone gave me a slip of paper with her name on it but I actually couldn't remember which St. Teresa it was :P), but that's about it. The notion of faith as someone immediately being blinded by the light and doing a complete 180 is in many ways a harmful stereotype simply because that's not how most people come to the faith. Instead they do like we do, by weighing the facts, making a choice, and growing in faith as they see the fruits of if.

Also thanks for putting me in a classical music mood, it's been a while.

>>580982

What country might that be? that's pretty cool though!

>>580913

Please stop being so narrow-minded.

Miscegenation has exclusively detrimental outcomes.

>>581007

>>580993

I'm from Brazil, which is the country with biggest Japanese community outside Japan.

I was actually raised in a region that received a lot of Japanese immigrants and, when I was in school, the majority of my Nikkei classmates were Catholics (the others were Buddhist). Also, there were always a few Japanese families every Sunday at the local church too.

>>581007

>>581008

/pol/ has no place on /christian/.

>>581124

no, they're equally bad.

>>581124

Both are toxic as hell

>>580886

I understand what your trying to say. Race mixing could be a very harmful thing to your children and family. I think that you should avoid it at all costs. please dont listen to the reddit freaks here who say bullshit like "race doesnt matter", they are all brainwashed idiots. Pray to god that you can meet someone from a similar background as yourself and im sure he will send someone to you. And dont feel bad for converting it will be the most important and worthful thing in your life. god bless you

>What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? Mark16:26

>>581183

3. This is a board for Christian discussion and fellowship. For the intentions of the board, a Christian is one who believes in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition.

I think it should be bannable offense to say "X is not christianity" if they fit this definition.

>>579979

> finding a western husband

Lucky. I'm Catholic and I'm taking gf applications right now. You'd have to stop browsing reddit though.

>>581183

>t. transexual, same-sex marriage and woman 'priests' church that blesses abortion clinics

>>581246

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/methodist-episcopalian-clergy-bless-cleveland-abortion-clinic-in-prayer-ser

Holy fuck that’s actually sickening. You could turn a church into a whorehouse and it would be less sacrilegious than blessing a slaughterhouse that makes Herod look like a saint.

>>580876

>Just don't race mix

We're not jews. We don't follow the Talmud. Race is of no importance in regards to Christianity. The purpose of bloodlines being pure before the time of Christ was so Christ would be the pure descendant of Abraham, whose line God chose to be His, and be the innocent sacrifice for our sins.

Post-Resurrection, we are all one in Christ. Political problems may arise, but they have no bearing on salvation or faith. I don't want to sound like a Lefty faggot, but we really are all human. We just have different strengths and weaknesses.

>>581823

What about the health risks and social disorders associated with race mixing?

>>581828

Health risks are a modern problem. 100 years ago they would not have mattered because the technology did not exist to perform what we do now. Social disorders are not a biological problem. It's a cultural one.

Nothing you've mentioned has to do with faith or sin. The most important thing a person can do for their children is raise them correctly.

>>581823

>We don't follow the Talmud

pretty sure you do

>>581845

Following all the same standards of marriage as held up in the Bible, race-mixing itself is not a sin.

You will see blacks in heaven. You will see mixed race children in heaven.

deal with it nerd

>>581874

A 60 year old dating an 18 year old isn't a sin either, but would you say that it's an ideal pairing? Same concept applies to race-mixing. It's not a sin, but based on the data it's not something I would recommend or promote.

That being said, so long any couple is living a Christian marriage then spiritually they're covered and I'm happy for them even if in principle I am against mixing.

>>581869

>don't tell others that it's a sin if they do marry who they love

So I suppose we shouldn't say anything when homosexuals, transsexuals, serial divorcees, etc. want to marry?

>>581903

No, I'm asking a question. How much of a distinction are you going to make between them and race mixing? All are problems of modernism.

>>581883

Does the Bible condemn the marriage of homos or the homos themselves?

>>581908

>How much of a distinction are you going to make between grave sins specifically condemned in the Bible and something that I admit is not wrong in God's eyes but personally makes me feel uncomfortable?

>>581938

not everything is in the bible. does the bible forbid pedophilia and eating your own shit too? are those things sins?

I hope we didn't scare away OP with our autism…

>>582034

>pedophilia

It's a sin of lust and serious scandal, so by extension, yes.

Also the Bible talks about getting drunk on wine, but says nothing about doing cocaine. That must mean it's OK to do.

>eating shit

References to eating dung are always intended to show something contrary to nature (cities being besieged, Ezekiel's prophecy). Tie this in with the fact that the Israelites were supposed to shit outside of their camp away from the Tabernacle, and you get the answer to your questions.

But you knew this, didn't you, and are just being snide.

>>582519

>what if I'm called to be celibate

1 Timothy 2:15

Titus 2:5

>>582690

begone protty :) (i love you)

>>582688

well i'm a tad confused.

>>582519

>I'll disregard all the other off topic stuff here, and say well I've been getting some other strange thoughts in my head, like what if I'm called to be celibate/be a nun or something.

>>581244

> gf applications

>>582714

The Bible contains many verses with obscure or mysterious meanings. Don't care too much about them at the beginning - you can be sure that the Church doesn't with such certainty teach anything contrary to the Biblical doctrine.

>>579957

fake and gay

>>579957

>Catholicism/Christianity

pick one

>>581183

LOOK AT THIS DUDE

Your ethnicity does matter. It very strongly affects who you are and who you are surrounded by and your way of thinking, language, etc. But I'm a persian in a greek parish, and am joyed to be here. Come and see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOrDKwtIweU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKf8Af-QN8Q

>>594123

#dontjudge

#doesntaffectyou