March 14, 2011

Fftthhttt. . . or, I Know How to Quiet a Room of Baptists

I was in a home bible study one time at the Baptist church in my town. It started as a “Purpose-Driven Life” home group. Remember the Purpose-Driven Life?

From time to time comments were made about the Catholic church. Scary comments like. . .”Can you believe they confess their sins to a priest!” And, “You know Catholics don’t have ‘assurance of salvation’!” Yikes!

All this sounded bad to me. Very bad.

Then, in 2005, I went to Mexico on a painting trip, with a fallen-away Catholic.

We traveled to San Miguel de Allende to paint, but on breaks, we meandered into the local churches. There was a Catholic church on every corner it seemed. Anyway, these churches rang bells all the time. They had mannequins in the side aisles in glass boxes that looked like coffins. The mannequins were dressed as dead saints, with lots of fake blood poured on. I remember thinking how scary it would be for a little kid to go to church there. If I were a child, what would I be thinking about all that blood? Eww.

One day, as we were leaving one of the churches, I thought about my bible-study and their comments about confession to a priest. I told my (sort-of) Catholic friend that I could NEVER confess my sins to a priest, and she said, “Well, the thing is, when you confess your sins to a priest, you get to hear him say you are forgiven and then your sins are gone, fftthhttt, just like that.” And she quickly waved her hand and made a sound with her lips and teeth like air escaping a tire.

The next time the subject of confesson to a priest came up at my Baptist bible-study, I told them I thought it sounded like a pretty good deal actually to hear those words of absolution and to have the assurance of the church that those sins were indeed gone, “fftthhttt,” just like that. . .

And nobody in my Baptist bible study said a word after that.