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House churches: a return to the real past...
Dear Friends,
The news emanating from Rome might continue to descend from glum to glummer and glummer but we are fortunate that hope springs eternal in other parts of the world. According to a report publishing in NCR yesterday, "Young Catholics are more progressive than older Catholics across a range of issues and on a number of topics are more progressive than their peers in other religious groups, according to a newly released survey by the group Faith in Public Life". [LINK] Which only confirms what I've been arguing for a long, long time now. Trying to re-evangelise Catholicism by appealing only to the tiny, unrepresentative politically conservative and insecure cohort of young people ain't gunna work. Still "Rome knows best" and they are "the holders of all truth and can defy gravity" aren't they?
Rome's problem in continually wanting to "go back to the past" is that they don't want to go back far enough. They seem to believe that capturing the pomp, majesty and triumphalism of some intermediate period of Catholicism will take them (and us) to "the true Christ". Today's commentary from one of our readers in the United States, Dr Francis E. Kelliher, argues that if we want to go back to the past to recapture the spirit of Jesus, we need to go right back to the beginning. His essay explores the growing phenomenon of House Churches modelled on the very earliest forms of worship and community building in Christianity. <Read Dr Kelliher''s commentary> |
