It would seem that the Church has been reforming itself – at the request of the people – since before the 16th century. People have been skeptical about the Church for a very long time. We are now in the 21st century and it would seem that it is time again for the Church to reform itself. I can understand that any long-standing tradition will have difficulty in accepting that a shake-up is necessary. Too bad – it is. The point that the Church needs to understand is that people are not the same as they were. You cannot apply an ancient set of rules (which were perfectly feasible, perhaps, at their time) to the now generations. Abortion is not guaranteed to send you to whichever hell you think is real. Neither is sex. If you abort children because you are too lazy to use contraception, that is a different story. That is why contraception exists. Parenting is not something everyone is good at doing, and it is not something that everyone should do.
Reformation is always for the better. Always. To reform old ideas is exciting – especially with the evidence the sciences work very hard to produce for this ‘seeing is believing’ world. Modifying your ideas is not supposed to be humiliating. Everyone believes something wholeheartedly at some point in their lives. Grace comes into play when you admit (however grudgingly) that there are facts you didn’t have before – that you now have – that change the way you think about things and the way you look at things. It is said that you will only see what your mind can conceive of. That is very true. That is why a reformation is necessary. It is better to procure the facts and feed them to the people so they can make informed choices. It is possible that because of what the Church is protecting it cannot change its mind on certain core issues. That is to be expected. However, the Church has a huge responsibility because it has a huge following. A lot of people devoted – totally devoted – to God are praying every day for salvation. I hope the Church can save them all.
You can reform your life any time you need to. With – or without – the Church. If you should want reform, that is up to you. Want and need are relative in this context. A reform is no defeat. A concession, perhaps. It is not a failing. It is an admission that things could be better than they are, that the way you are working isn’t working. That admission is where you begin to see the reason you need to change your thinking. It is fairly easy to understand that if you cannot change your thinking – things cannot get better.
C.J. Birch
C.J. Birch 