During my foray into reading the Bible, I stumbled across a fabulous (and I mean 'fabulous' in an knowledgeable/interesting way, not 'fabulous' in a pretty sparkly way) website called Religion Facts which covers everything about every religion you can imagine and among the facts and figures I found something that intrigued me - a comparison chart between the different Christian religions.
Through previous study at High School I learnt how the different religions of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc all came about, and the differences between them, but I've never really understood how Catholicism differs from Anglican (apart from the fact that Henry IV founded the latter so he could start on his marriage spree), how that differs from Lutheran, how that differs from Presbyterian and how that differs from Methodist and so on and so forth.
I found the discussion on their ethical views most interesting, especially their views on sexuality. For sexuality in general, all Christian denominations believe that sexuality is god's gift to all people to express their love, find fulfillment and according to the Catholics "Everyone, man and woman should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity"
Funny how their views change though when they discuss homosexuality where majority agree that it should be considered a 'sinful failure' except for Anglicans who are sitting at 'undecided' (perhaps good ol' Hen-ery IV didn't just like women?? I'm just saying!). Anyway I decided that the best way to experience these differences is by living it
So I went to church.
As mentioned previously I'm christened Anglican and did go to church occasionally when I was young so I decided to start with something different: Uniting.
Donning my Sunday best I crept into the back of the church just after the service had started, feeling incredibly rude and guilty - not to the big G but to the others there - and promptly dismissing those feelings when people wandered in and out as they pleased through the entire thing.
The first thing I noticed is that technology helps as they had erected a screen out the front which projected the prayers, order of service and the words to the hymns so I didn't stand there feeling like a total idiot. I needn't have worried though as the first hymn was 'Joyful Joyful' which I knew a) from Sister Act 2, and b) donning a fake habit myself and dancing to it for a concert in year 7; and Joy to the World which is just a good ol' fashioned Christmas carol.
Sunday's service was all about peace, love and hope and was going well until some bit where people said 'praise be to God" and started walking around shaking everyone's hand and saying it to them: I hope the look on my face wasn't too horrified when the first woman approached me.
Then the minister stood up and announced he was resigning.
Apparently this had been decided three days earlier but none of the people gathered seemed to express outward shock and listened as the Church council explained the recruitment process for a new minister - which is why I found it so surprising that the prayers they then said included lines of "God gives us the strength to rise from the ashes of this heartbreak with Kevin's departure."
Heartbreak? The guy got a better paying job 20 minutes away and will still do his groceries in the supermarket next door so it isn't exactly a clean break. Still I was glad there was a touch of exaggeration in the service.
In all, I didn't find the service unbearable or overly boring and not too much different from what I remember from my Sunday school days.
Next Sunday: Baptist church
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