We tend to gravitate to people who are like us. People who look like us, talk like us, make about the same money as we do, believe what we believe, and enjoy the same entertainment as we do. Is that community? No, that's affinity. We're alike so we can be friends. What this really boils down to is self-worship. I like you because you are like me. We share the same tastes. I can hang out with you...
We may develop a circle of acquaintances this way, but we won't experience the deeper things that make belonging in community the beautiful, biblical thing that it is. Tragically, the church has bought into the culture's like of affinity. We go to churches that are full of people just like us. We don't go to this church because the members all belong to the same ethnicity or we listen to the same music or we vote the same or all of the above. We go to church because the people are just like us. It doesn't take an act of God to get people to like each other if they are all alike. You can find that in any subculture in America. To the world, the church looks like just another subculture.
from Jesus in the Margins: Finding God in the Places We Ignore
I think Rick is making a great porint here, that is, unfortunately, becoming more applicable to Catholics in this country as time goes by. Via
brokenstainedglass.
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