tasos

How does this pertain to Orthodoxy?

--
Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip
the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a
double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the
mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fevered pitch and the
blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no
need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry,
infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their
rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I
have done. And I am Caesar
~~~~~~~~~~~~"Julius Caesar"by Shakespeare~~~~~~~~~~~~

ftt

columnist!!! --Al

Well Tasos it's called Cafeteria ng posting
pass through all posts and pick and choose
the one that pleases your taste most. Regardless of....
FTT

inconvenient.

In another time, you would have been declaring slavery righteous, fighting a
woman's right to vote and keeping the blacks on the back of a bus.


they.

Please see above for what you would do in another time.

You left out Loving God with all our hearts, and likewise unto it, loving
our neighbors as ourselves. And equally important, Not judging lest we be judged.

So you must believe that slavery, stoning children and viewing women as property is Godly?

in

philosophy

destruction


Boy, my Rector will be pissed to hear this. Talk about under paid.

scripture,


servants


Telling slaves to be "good slaves" IS condoning slavery Mr. Ignoramus.

aggreen1

I don't understand what you are getting at, FTT. The article mentions
Orthodoxy in the last paragraph. Isn't that good enough for
edification or discussion? What's the problem?

Al

dana netherton

On &d, in article <GsO0b.1068$lw4.491@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.n et>,
dixie_chickie2002@yahoo.com said...

<snip>

Scripture does not declare slavery "righteous".

Scripture does not declare who should (or should not) vote in civil
elections.

Scripture does not declare that one race should humiliate another.

To be sure, people have cited scripture to defend each of these
practices. But then, people have abused scripture in order to further
their own goals, for more than a thousand years.

The goals vary, from one era to another. In one era, the goal was to
defend US-style chattel slavery. Or to keep women "barefoot, hungry, and
pregnant." Or to keep blacks firmly at the bottom of the social ladder.
In those eras, "proof texts" were plucked out of scripture, despite their
traditional interpretation. (Of course, in most cases the pluckers were
Protestants who did not know the traditional interpretation in the first
place -- and who did not care that they did not know.)

In another era, the goal is to ordain people whose ordination had been
prohibited by nearly 2,000 years of Christian practice and rules. Or to
permit ecclesiastical blessings of relationships that have been
prohibited by nearly 2,000 years of Christian practice and rules. In
this era, examples of scriptural abuse are collected in order to
discredit the scriptural prohibitions.

If you think that those examples of scriptural abuse constitute grounds
to ignore scripture, well it's a free country (here in the US). But if
you do that, then you step outside the community founded by Christ and
the Holy Apostles. *shrug* Like I say, it's a free country ...

A better option for a Christian would be to understand scripture better,
so that you can recognize when scripture is being abused. And the best
way for Christians to understand scripture is to learn from the best
teachers: to find out how the holiest Christians have understood
scripture. The literature is out there, if you are willing to direct
your zeal in that direction.


Hmm, I guess that business about the "keys of the kingdom" (Matt 16) must
be a forged insertion into the Gospel, eh? Likewise the story of
Ananaias and Sapphira (Acts 5). They must be forgeries, because they're
*so* unchristian ... there's all that "judging" going on.

Dixie Chickie, it is the *job* of bodies such as the Episc Church's
General Convention to judge. To judge which people should be ordained.
To judge which liturgies should be supported (and whether they should be
supported actively or passively).

If the GC is not permitted to judge, then it should adjourn sine die ...
that is, without setting a date for its next gathering ... that is,
indefinitely ... that is, permanently. Because there is nothing for it
to do (so why spend the money on it?).

And if no one is permitted to judge the work and decisions of the GC,
then it becomes the Anglican equivalent of the Pope. Which would strike
other Anglican churches as eccentric, no doubt.

No, wait, other Anglican churches are already finding the Episc Church
eccentric. Well then, it would strike them as "still more" eccentric.

<snip>

1. True, the author of the article misspoke. However, condoning
something is not the same thing as declaring it "righteous" (see above).

2. As Alexander Anarkis noted, condoning slavery-as-practiced-in-1st-
century-Mediterranean-world is not the same thing as condoning slavery-
as-practiced-in-19th-century-America (or 18th century, or 17th century).

For one thing, Roman slavery was not race-based.* The highly-educated
Greek physician of a patrician family was often a slave. If his owners
abused him, it wasn't out of racial prejudice: the Romans had great
respect for the learning of the Greeks (even if they had little respect
for Greek military prowess).

*Ditto Roman and Hellenistic society. If you could speak Greek and/or
Latin with a good vocabulary and without an accent, you were accepted.
If not, you were a barbarian. A black fluent speaker was more likely to
be accepted than a white speaker with an accent or the wrong vocabulary.
A bit like the French today, or at least as they were before they got
nervous about their Moslem immigrants.

3. Thus scripture is neutral about slavery. If you must have slavery,
then do so while being kind to one another. It took Americans (and
American Protestants btw) to twist scripture into seeming to "support"
slavery.

--
(Mr) Dana Netherton
Default address is a spam dump. Use it, and
I'll never see it. To reach me, e-mail:
dana 1 netherton 2 net, where "1" = at, and "2" = dot
--------
I don't belong to an organized religion.
I'm Eastern Orthodox.

zaphenath

[snip]

Good points, Mr. Netherton.


No kidding. Our prison system in the U.S. is far more unjust (WRT who
ends up there) and dehumanizing (of those who are prisoners) than
"slavery-as-practiced-in-1st-century-Mediterranean-world". Yet, would
DixieChickie cry her eyes out if she found an exhortation that prisoners
behave, and the guards to treat them like people? Somehow I doubt it.

And, no, I don't really think that this condoned slavery in the 1st
century any more than what I proposed would condone the workings of our
criminal justice system. It is merely an instruction on how to be a
christian in a hostile world. Christianity isn't a program of social
reform. However, one's beliefs may motivate one to seek equity and
justice, and there is nothing wrong with that. But, that is the affair
of that person, not the job of the Church. The Church's mission changes
people from the inside out, not from the top down.

--
"One should guard against preaching to young people success
in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most
important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure
in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the
value of the result to the rest of the community."
-- Albert Einstein

j. collins fisher

Not true. These people (homo***uals) were *not known* for the last 1900
years, so their ordination could not have been prohibited for the last 2000.
Ditto the relationships.

What these people were, were unhappily married or unhappily celibate. In
times when both marriage and holy orders were significantly arranged,
happiness was not expected, and therefore lack of same was not attributed to
an identity that didn't fit (e.g., it was simply one *variety of unhappily
married man* who got his ***ual gratification w/ other males, instead of
other females). Only when marriage and vowed celibacy (or refusal thereto)
became matters of personal choice (w/ personal fulfillment a key goal),
combined w/ the new (and hence, frequently mistaken---but nevertheless
essential) science of psychology, was identifying a "homo***ual identity"
possible.

Thus a New Creation, the homo***ual person, emerged: from the same Homo
sapiens species, and w/ ***ual tendencies found earlier (and throughout
nature), but w/ a *wholeness and integrity* (before God and humanity)
lacking previously.

I happen to think that this New Creation would have been a bulwark of the
Early Church, had they been known and understood (to themselves and their
hetero***ual Christian kin). They can (and are!) the bulwark of the Church Today.


Say what? But if

By asserting that the Bible says nothing about homo***uality and homo***ual
relationships? Hardly. Christ has promised to be where two or three are
gathered in His Name. Where LGBT Christians and their allies are gathered,
*There is The Church* (w/ Christ as its Head).

I just don't happen to think that Christ has abandoned those misinformed
enough to believe that the Bible condemns homo***uality: He will lead you to
the light, in His time.


Um, "Physician Heal . . . "
And the best

Here's a few places (on the web) to start:

http://www.integrityusa.org/
http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/rel.html (Homepage of Louis Crew, one of
the holiest Christians alive today)
http://www.whosoever.org/index.shtml


Shalom,
JCF

alexander arnakis

This is such nonsense. Homo***uals and homo***uality were "known"
virtually throughout history. That's why there were so many strictures
against them. If they didn't constitute a perceived threat to society,
there wouldn't be harsh penalties against them.


What a crock!!

charles hohenstein

It gets worse. The same liberals who claim that homo***uality as such
was unknown in the ancient world, at the same time claim that Romans 1
only condemns hetero***uals having homo***ual ***! When it suits them,
the liberals claim that such a thing as ***ual orientation was unknown
in those days; and when it suits them, they claim that St. Paul not only
knew the distinction but confined his condemnation to hetero***uals!

Charles Hohenstein
------------------
Boycott French products!
http://www.FranceStinks.com/
http://www.pavefrance.com/blog/

alexander arnakis

The minute we say that Man is made in the image of God, we're
attempting to describe God. It can't be done. All we know about God is
certain attributes -- omniscience, omnipotence, limitless good -- but
these are mere reflections. We can guess about the attributes, but we
can't know the essence. That's the Mystery of Mysteries.