01.24.08

Ecumenicalism

Posted in church, culture, ministry at 10:18 am

So we’re in the middle of Ecumenical Week here in Ancona. The Catholic churches are hosting protestant pastors from all over so that the Catholics can get to know us crazy Protestants.

Tuesday night our church was invited to head to Numana, about twenty minutes away. It was a normal prayer service, with a question and answer period in the middle. The people were generally nice, and asked basic questions like, “Do you submit to the pope?” and “Can your priests get married?” But I couldn’t help but notice the slight edge on the questions. They were more like, “I heard you don’t submit to the pope, and if not, who do you submit to?” or possibly “Well I heard, that your priests get married!”

Jason & Josh politely answered their questions. Some people even agreed with our stance on things and publicly stated that the Catholic church needs to change and do what we’re doing. But the thing that struck me, and that I hadn’t noticed before so strongly, is how ignorant people are here about Protestantism. There was a level of suspicion because it is such an unknown. In America that’s not an issue. Most people have some level of understanding of Protestant beliefs, and even a flawed view of the Church is something to go on. But here, we’re completely outside day to day living. And unfortunately, when we don’t understand something, we tend to make it scarier than it is.

I haven’t been terribly excited about these meetings. I sincerely hope they are more than surface-level “Christian unity.” But I do appreciate that they help average people to put a smiling face on Protestantism, which makes it a little less scary. As I told a friend after the meeting, “I hope that we were able to put a face on the enemy.”

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