Lately, I have been really thinking about joining a certain "denomination." I have said I have "grown up in the Church" without realizing, at least at the human level, what the "Church" is or was. I'm tired of this groundlessness. Maybe, I am just tired of wandering. I want certainty and authority.
I have been growing more and more attracted to the High Churches, yet perhaps for the wrong reasons. I find the rituals, the incense, the "religion" that Protestantism has long branded as "dead" or "irreligious" to be beautiful in its austerity and somberness to God. The awesome and holy God is sometimes forgotten in our (youth Protestantism) expression of worship.
I have entertained Catholicism, but I do not think I can force myself to believe in the theological "baggage" that it entails. Of course, there are the schismatic priests, the defiers of Tradition and Pope, but I wouldn't want to be that kind of Catholic, much preferring this quasi- nondenominationalism to war. But, I cannot deny the beauty of Mass, the communal songs (though not many sing along!) the haunting simple songs (Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!) and the procession of the crucified God. Again, though, I detect in myself an affinity towards a certain type of romantic religion, a constructed emotional religion, that I ought to expel at its root.
There is no true anchor but Christ! No other head!
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I have finished reading Meier's book, and have started Alter's, The Art of Biblical Narrative. I will try to review, or at least summarize the former, but Alter's book is really really good. :)
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