of nitpicking

i initially wanted to comment on this post but i realised it's not worth the effort.

my initial reaction was "this is ridiculous. you guys are nitpicking. and by the way, the correct term to use is independent church." oh wait, i think Jesus said something about the speck and the plank in the eye. so let's not go there. =)

on a deeper level, the blog got me thinking about my past in the catholic faith and the reasons why i chose to leave the church. scanning that blog also made me realise how i really want to know more about my faith to prove to myself that my faith is anything but irrational.

when people ask me how did i come to Christ, i usually find myself hard pressed for words. my instinctive answer is "oh, chris invited me to church, i came and believed. like that lor" because i have nothing else to say.

when people asked me how long did i know Jesus, technically it would be my whole life. i was brought to church since i was a baby, attended sunday school when i was 10, yadda yadda yadda. the correct answer for me, however, is 2 years. before 2005, i only knew Jesus as the distant God who would answer my prayers if i were a very very good girl.

my mother attended a catholic church during my teenage years. saturdays meant mom yelling at us to get dressed and dragging us out for a long bus ride to novena church. i sang the hymns and recited prayers mechanically and (proudly) from memory; i fell asleep during the sermon bit because i didn't understand what the priest was saying; i had a terrible superstition that i was only safe in church grounds and i was convinced that demons were going to attack me the moment i stepped out. i prayed the rosary every night for two years, sometimes scaring myself with visions that came during prayer. without the holy water, the rosary, and the crucifix, i lived a life of fear.

it was then i decided that the catholic faith never did much to boost my wavering belief in a God who can give me the peace of mind that i desperately sought.

my very limited perception of the catholic faith then was that our focus was on half a dozen people and saints whom i was taught were ladders to God. that the Virgin Mary is an intercessor on our behalf, and if you say enough hail Marys, you are forgiven of all sins.

i did not believe in that. it was a faith i couldn't understand.

"what about Jesus? why do we need His mother to talk to Him when we want something?"
"if God is the Father, why is Mary the mother since she was not married to God?"

little doubts and questions fuelled the final decision to leave. it did help that my mom got a little lazy and decided to stop attending church altogether.

that was about 5 years ago.

i would just like to qualify that i have nothing against the catholic faith, especially since i was a catholic and i do have a certain reverence for its leaders. the above are just a record of the things that went through my head as i searched for God.

while others may say otherwise and shoot us down for having a faith that goes against all human logic, i do find my relationship with God (there you go) a comparatively logical one that kept me in church, in ministry and made me even more thirsty for God. i wanted to respond to people who shoot down the protestant faith (sadly, some of them are in the body of Christ.) but, as i stated earlier, it is pointless to do so.

the main reason that drew me to my faith lies in its simplicity. the christian/pentecostal faith is a simpler faith that believes in the redeeming and loving sacrifice of the Son, Jesus Christ. there are no elaborate rites, no strict sets of rules to follow. just simple faith in the love of God.

with that, comes the firm belief in the Word of God, that is the bible - Scripture that is God-breathed and inspired by the Holy Spirit. we do not need to explain the authority of the bible to anyone who scoffs, especially those who are in the faith and yet present reason after reason against our "blind" belief in the authority of the Word.

i guess i can say it's just like trying to rationalise the existence of God to an atheist - people do get rather stubborn when it comes to matters of religion. i do not exclude myself from that statement.


i have a lot more to say on this topic but i will have to get some research done before actually penning things down. i don't need to risk sullying the name of the protestants by shooting myself in the foot. maybe i will continue this post some other time.


hello if you're a random reader who has something to say about my views. on my part, i'll just stress that this post is purely based on my very limited understanding of the catholic and protestant faiths. it's not meant to be a comparison of the two denominations. more importantly, it is not meant to be a "my religion is better than yours, so there" thing. i'd like to think i'm more mature than that. =)