Young Protestant Minister Gets Catholic Altar Rails and the Bigger Issue!!!

Father Z has a must read here at A Protestant Pastor reacts to the Communion rail entry . This Church of Christ Minister gets it!!!! This Protestant Minister is commenting on a article that Father Z did on Altar rails

Great insight!!! I wonder how many Catholic converts have thought the same thing. I entered the Catholic faith while I was at College and was very involved with Catholic Students groups at my University and on a state wide level. Campus Ministers back then were sad to say "radical" and not in a good way.

I can recall the Louisiana Catholic College Students were having their annual Summer Week retreat at Maryhill in Pineville Louisiana. This nun was one of the speakers and after giving a talk on "We are All Eucharist" she started going on about how Priest and Clergy were nothing special blah blah blah blah.

I sort of was not very popular with her when I stood up and announced as a former Southern Baptist that my very non hierarchy priesthood of the believer former faith would find what she was saying was far far too radical.

In the above link the Minister says in part:

Part of the reason I wanted to be a minister is because it seemed like I couldn't be the best Christian I could be unless I was a minister. All the best Christians I knew were pastors (I now see how wrong that was), which suggested to me that clergy were on another spiritual plane that couldn't be accessed unless on was clergy. Furthermore, if it was acceptable for me to preach as a 15-year-old, then I wasn't doing enough, and was therefore less of a Christian, when I wasn't preaching. The thought never entered my mind that I may have a vital role to play in worship as a member of the congregation.

I wonder if I would have felt this way if there were a greater distinction between clergy and congregation growing up, if the creep of egalitarianism wasn't so strong. What if there were places I wasn't allowed to go on the altar? What if someone had explained to me that there are things the pastor does that the congregation can't do, and things the congregation does that the pastor can't do? What if I knew that both are essential for worship (and, by extension, we do great harm to the worship of the church when we don't show up)? I wonder if I would have valued the sacraments and the preaching of the Word more if I had a better understanding of the differences between ordained and lay.

Again read it all. Please note the Anglicans in my town, the Lutherans and others were not tearing down altar rails. Heck even the good ole Southern Methodist were still kneeling at an altar rail in my litte part of the world. BUt not the Catholics goodness no!!

Such silliness and silliness that has made a problem worse that the Advocates of "Tear them out " said they were trying to combat.