Just A Christian...

I realize since I became zealously Catholic and Anti-Calvinistic, most people stopped reading this blog. If I look back at how much I have learned about Christian History, and Historical Theology in the last year, I realize that I still know nothing. There is so much out there, so many books, so many positions, so many arguments.

I've had more conversions in the last 6 months than in the previous 20 years combined. I started out an Evangelical, then I became a Calvinist, then a Mennonite, then a Roman Catholic (unofficially). I've seen in my pathetically short times in each camp, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I've read each polemical attack on the other, and the "Favourites" list on my computer reads a contradictory mess: "Assumption of Mary Refuted!" - "Martin Luther Affirms Immaculate Conception" - "Early Church Fathers support Sola Scriptura" - "Spurgeon's Gems" etc.

There is so many things I still need to figure out. But I am beginning to understand why people hate denominations. It's because the only 2 things denominations seem to care about are 1. making you either a zombie slave to their theology, a mini-Calvin, or a 'servant of the One True Church' etc. Or 2. making you another number in the vast over-estimations of their adherents including dead people and animals like any rigged election. Seriously only vote counters in Florida would calculate Sweden as 95% Lutheran but with a 1% church attendence. (it's the same with Catholics too)

I want to be careful how I phrase this because I still believe theology matters more than most people do. However for the time being, I just want to be a Christian, I don't want to be a Catholic, or a Baptist or a Capricorn, I'm just a person who wants to figure out this great religion. I've listened to the party lines for each denomination and they all seem to fail me - which is what I was warned with initially anyway. The Pentecostals can't really speak in tongues, the Reformed don't know that they believe in active reprobation (except Jared), the Lutherans don't know they believe in the real presence or that Luther was an anti-semite and believed in the sinlessness and perpetual virginity of Mary. And the Baptists still don't know anything. The Catholics' "One True Church" doesn't have one member who will shake your hand after 2 months of mass attendence. And the 'heretical' Anglicans will welcome you like family, even if they preach that St. Paul was an arrogant pharisee.

None of them has anything to offer, except Christ, who thankfully after all this time is still the most amazing thing in the universe to me. He transcends labels and denominations, he wasn't a Catholic, he wasn't a dispensationalist, he was just God. And I just want to be a Christian. As Kierkegaard said so well "if you label me, you negate me".