OK, Christian readers. Here’s a scenario for you:

You and a young man, perhaps in his early 20’s, step into an elevator at the same time. You’re both going to the tenth floor. He notices something that indicates that you’re a Christian (maybe you're wearing a cross necklace, or he saw a bumper sticker for your church on your car outside, etc.)

“I don’t believe in God or anything like that, but you seem like a reasonable enough person,” he says as the doors close. “I’d be interested to know: why are you a Christian?”

You have about 40 seconds to answer. What do you say?

Trying to catch up on my unread items in my feed reader the other day, I came across the above scenario posted by Julie at Happy Catholic (via Jen at Conversion Diary). With a blog titled ‘Happy Catholic’, you can imagine Julie’s response…

Because now I am happy. Really, truly happy. No matter if circumstances are good or bad, there is an underlying peace and joy. Because I found Jesus Christ.

That’s cool, there’s no point in having a faith that doesn’t make you happy. Her answer freaked me out a little, however, because the first thing I thought when I read the scenario was “I’m a Catholic”. The first thing I’d have to make clear to that guy is that I’m a Catholic, not just a Christian. Even in this age of ecumenism, in my head there’s a clear distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’ – Catholics and non-Catholic Christians.

I was trying to think about why this is so when I decided it would make a cool feature for Catholic Flux. Provisionally, I’m calling it ‘Catholicism versus Christianity’, it’ll be a series of posts covering the similarities and differences between Catholicism and the rest of Christianity. Although there will be a Catholic bias thanks to my upbringing, I’m going to do my best to make this positive. Ultimately, Christians are divided but the divisions are nothing compared to the things that unify us.

I’m still not sure about the name, ‘Catholicism versus Christianity’ seems to suggest that we Catholics are a bit hostile towards the other branches of Christianity and that we’re not part of Christianity ourselves. On the other hand, it’s pretty catchy and easy-to-remember!

Stay tuned for the first post.

Labels: cvc, ecumenism, feature, resources

Here’s the thing, I’m poor and I have no shame. Therefore, I’m begging for money – virtually. Unlike most beggars, I have the opportunity to tell you why I deserve your cash and how I’ll spend it. Here goes…

Why am I so deserving of your cash?

I don’t suppose I’m any different to any other person, I don’t deserve your hard earned dosh anymore than the next guy. However, I hope that my blog has kept you occupied by making you laugh, making you think, providing you with useful information and helping your spiritual development.

Can you really put a price on that? As it turns out, yes. Donate now…

How will I spend your money?

How won’t I spend your money?!?! First and foremost, I’ll watch a lot of pay-per-view pornography, then I’ll purchase a baby online, after that I think I’ll sign up for that viagra that the nice man keeps emailing me about.

Just kidding. No really, I am. I’ll spend your money in one of two ways; on a trip to Rome or towards clearing my student loan. I’ve only been to the Holy See once and I’d love to go again so I’m trying to siphon off some of my money each month into a special savings account. Your donation could get me to the ball the Holy See with my prince charming Benedict XVI. The more boring option is that it’ll go towards clearing my student loans. Donate now…

Don’t you have a job?

Unfortunately. It pays the bills, puts questionable produce on the table and clothes me. There’s a bit left over for socialising once in a while, and of course a handsome (read: small) sum for my local parish priest each week in the collection. I don’t expect to become a millionaire through donations, I just think it’s a neat way of getting to Rome. Donate now…

Why don’t you just show ads on this blog?

I was considering it, but I find them annoying myself. I’m sure you’ll be more inclined to visit if there’s no flashing banners in your face. Also, I’m not so sure how the message of some of these adverts might fit in with the site; “TXT 67777 FOR HOT GIRLS IN YOUR AREA” or “CLICK THE MONKEY’S BANANA TO WIN” isn’t exactly the sort of thing I want here. Donate now…

How much do you want?

Whatever you’ve got, I’m cheap! Although, a minimum of £2 please or it’s just not worth it – PayPal takes a (relatively small) slice of the money for processing so donating less than that would mean I’d not be getting a lot. Donate now…

Alright already, I’ll donate…

I’ve temporarily pulled the donate button due to a few technical problems. :/

Labels: pseudo-pages, resources

It’s nice that people drop by to read what I’ve written, but it’d cooler if other people wrote here as well! If you’d like, you can contribute to Catholic Flux!

Become a guest blogger

If you’ve got something to say now and again, you can post here as a guest blogger! This can be a response to something previously posted, your own opinion about something, or perhaps a question you want to ask the community. Go nuts!

To become a guest blogger, simply get in touch and we’ll make an arrangement.

Join the team

If you’d like to blog here full time and join the team, you’re more than welcome to do so! No protestants. Just kidding, but ideally you’d be a Catholic with a reasonable command of the English language. I don’t just let anyone join the team, you’ll have to show your worth.

To join the Catholic Flux team, talk to me and I’ll see what I can do.

Become a ‘Cool Catholic’

I link to other Catholic blogs in the blogosphere because I like them, but if you’d like me to link to your Catholic blog in the ‘Cool Catholics’ sidebar then that can be arranged. This is subject to my discretion, if I don’t like your site then I won’t link – simple as. Perhaps you could put a link to Catholic Flux on your blog, too?

To add your site to the ‘Cool Catholic’ list, send me an email and I’ll get on the case.

Labels: pseudo-pages, resources

Blogs are a two-way thing, communication is essential. Comments are great, but there are time when you’d rather say something in private. You can get in touch and talk to Lincoln via these methods…

Good ol’ fashioned email

I was originally going to provide a contact form for this, but to be honest I think most people prefer an email address they can add to their contact list and interact with in their own email client. That’s cool, my email address is:

cath...@googlemail.com

You have to click the three dots to show the rest of it, it’s an anti-spam measure. Sorry.

Windows Live Messenger

I’m on Windows Live Messenger too! You can chat to me without joining or signing in, simply click the link below to start a conversation. Update: for some reason, I can’t enable web messenger on my account so you’ll be talking to a friend of mine who’ll put you through to me. Don’t be shy, he’s a great guy too!

Launch Windows Live Messenger to chat with me

Labels: pseudo-pages, resources

Hello, I’m Lincoln Harper, a student of philosophy and theology from the United Kingdom. I decided to start a Catholic blog because, quite simply, I’m a Catholic and I worry about how we’re perceived. It’d be great if someone read my blog and thought “wow, who knew Catholics were normal?”

I say that not because Catholics are inherently weird, although we are a bit of an odd bunch, I say it because people have an image of Christians today as being either really liberal – “Jesus loves us, let’s all hold hands and sing together” – or, in the nicest possibly way, stupid – “X, Y and Z are wrong because it says so in a book written by humans millennia ago”. As Catholics, we’re not like them, we use our collective reason to interpret the bible, and don’t brand everyone as sinners. 

It’s not only that, I’m passionate about my faith – a quality that seems to be disappearing in our society. I’m not referring to atheists so much here, but passivity amongst religious people. People neglect their spiritual life today, it seems that people like to compartmentalise their life – faith in one box, work in another, family in another and so on. The faith box gets opened every Sunday or at Christmas, and gets closed promptly. This isn’t faith, faith is lived everyday in our daily lives. I always find it amazing the way people say to me “I pegged you as a Christian” or “you seem like the religious type” when I don’t tell people I’m a Catholic (unless they ask) or wear a crucifix around my neck. People know I’m a Christian because I (try to) live out the values of Christ each day.

More about Lincoln

There’s not a lot to know really. I’m a student based in the United Kingdom, studying philosophy and theology. I like walking, watching movies, reading and just generally socialising with my friends. I wish I had something interesting to say, like paragliding, but I don’t – not yet anyway!

I would put a picture up here, but I don’t know if I could handle all the girls throwing themselves at me. Kidding, of course, I’d just like a bit of privacy.

Donate

If you’d like to give Lincoln some money, you may do so by checking out the donate post. The post also talks about why you’d want to give me your money.

Comments policy

I’m not sure whether this blog will get a lot of comments, but I think it’s important to put-in-place a policy to make sure that the right type of community is developed.

First, you can have a point of view that’s different from mine and I’ll not deny your right to express it. Variety is the spice of life, after all! However, personal attacks against me or other commenters will not be tolerated. Remember to take the right tone in any comments; try not to sound deliberately provocative or mean.

Swearing is permitted, there’s nothing bad about ‘bad language’ in the right context. Please do try to use standard English, not everyone can understand txt speak.

Obviously spam is never acceptable. Just go away if you’re going to spam. Also, remember never to give out personal information online.

One final thing, I have the following rights which I can use at my discretion: control over content and comments; ability to edit comments; ability to censor comments; ability to delete comments ability to prevent comments by specific persons or groups. I probably won’t use them, I’m just asserting that I reserve those rights.

Licensing

The content of this blog is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0 UK: England and Wales licence. This means you’re free to re-use the content here, as long as you give us attribution and license any derivative works under the same licence. Individual pictures used here may have their own licence, please check whether re-use is allowed.

Please note that the style/design of this blog may not be freely copied because it’s part of the ‘branding’ it has. People that visit the blog will learn to associate it with its design. If other sites start using this design, people may become confused and it will harm our image.

With thanks to…

• The icons used here are from the FamFamFam silk set, a must have for any blog or website.
• Blogger keeps Catholic Flux going.
• FeedBurner powers our RSS feed and email updates.

Any questions?

If you’ve got anything else to ask, leave a comment. If it’s not something you want to share with the whole Internet then you can contact Catholic Flux directly.

Labels: pseudo-pages, resources