Monday, January 28, 2013
Quote by Ben Stein
The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday morning commentary.
My confession: I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christian. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around period.
I have no Idea where the concept came from that America is explicitly an atheistic country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat..
or maybe I can put it another way. Where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and aren't allowed to worship God as we understand him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old too. But there are a lot of us wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went?
In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different;
This is not intended to be joke, it is not funny. It is intended to get you thinking.
In light of recent events. Terrorist attacks, school shootings, ect.. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'hara(she was murdered. Her body found a few years ago.) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools. And we said ok. Then someone said, “you better not read the bible in school”.(The bible says,:Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal and love your neighbor as yourself) and we said ok.
Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self esteem.
(Dr. Spock's son committed suicide) WE said an expert must know what he's talking about and we said ok. Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates and themselves? Probably if we think long enough and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with, WE REAP WHAT WE SOW!
It's funny how simple it is for people to trash God then wonder why the world is going to hell. Funny why we believe what the news papers say but question what the bible says. Funny how you can send jokes through the e-mail and spread them like wildfire; but when you send messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd and crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.
Are you laughing yet?
thanks to:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread899760/pg1
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Quote by Tolkien
Gandalf:
True courage is about knowing not when to take a life, but when to spare.
The Hobbit
1937
Quote by Tolkien
Galadriel:
Mthrandir... Why the halfling?
Gandalf:
Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold
evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small
everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of
kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives
me courage.
The Hobbit
1937
Sex, Lies, and Secularism
thanks to source:
http://www.equip.org/articles/sex-lies-and-secularism/
Nancy Pearcy
Sex, Lies, and Secularism
Article ID: JAF2344
By: Nancy Pearcy
By: Nancy Pearcy
This article first appeared in Christian Research Journal, volume 34, number 04 (2011). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org
A collegiate website advises young women on how to have a “happy hook-up.” Get “clear consent and mutual agreement to engage in sexual acts,” the article recommends. Then “the whole hookup experience will be more positive for everyone involved.”1
Glancing at the author’s bio, I learned that she is a student at a conservative Christian college!
When even Christian young people are buying into the hookup culture, it’s clear that traditional ways of teaching biblical morality are no longer effective. “Just say no” is not enough. Young people don’t need simple rules; they need reasons to make sense of the rules. Which is to say, they need to be taught the worldview rationale for biblical morality. Otherwise it is possible for Christian young people to be sincere in their faith, yet thoroughly secular in their thoughts—and, consequently, in their behavior.
Every system of sexual morality depends on a prior view of nature. In Western society, until the modern age, nature was regarded as God’s handiwork, created for His purposes. To use a technical term, Christianity implies a teleological view of nature—from the Greek telos, which means a thing’s goal, purpose, or ideal state. Because humans are created in God’s image, their goal is to become true reflectors of God’s character. The moral law is simply the road map telling us how to reach that goal, the instruction manual for progressing toward God’s ideal.
That instruction manual is derived primarily, of course, from God’s communication in Scripture. But another source is creation itself. We can read signs in nature that indicate God’s original purpose—traces of God’s image that remain even in a fallen world.
For example, the biological correspondence between male and female is not some evolutionary accident. It is part of the original creation that God pronounced “very good”—morally good. Thus it provides a reference point for morality. Our physical anatomy signals a divine purpose for male and female to form covenants for mutual love and the nurturing of new life. Biblical sexual morality is not arbitrary. It reflects the purpose for which we were created.
By contrast, secular morality rests on a view of nature that rejects teleology, acknowledging only blind, material forces. Historically, the turning point was Charles Darwin. The central elements in his theory—random variations sifted out by the mechanical process of natural selection—were proposed expressly to get rid of the concept of purpose or design in biology. As cultural historian Jacques Barzun writes, the “denial of purpose is Darwin’s distinctive contention.”2
This had profound moral implications. For if nature was not the handiwork of a personal God, then it no longer bore signs of God’s good purposes—which meant it no longer provided a basis for moral truths.
The next step was crucial: because nature did not reveal God’s will, it became a morally neutral realm on which humans may impose their will. There was nothing within nature that humans were morally obligated to respect. It was merely raw material to be manipulated and controlled to serve human needs and preferences.
But who is this “we”—this choosing, controlling self that uses the body for its own purposes? For all its claim to be modern, liberalism has surprising affinities with the philosophy of Plato in the ancient world. Plato taught a dualism in which the soul uses the body instrumentally to affect the world—like a charioteer driving a chariot, as he put it.
An updated version of dualism stems from René Descartes. Philosopher Daniel Dennett (who himself rejects dualism) explains: “Since Descartes in the seventeenth century we have had a vision of the self as a sort of immaterial ghost that owns and controls a body the way you own and control your car.”4 That is, most modern people unconsciously hold a view of the human body as a form of property that can be controlled and manipulated to serve the self’s desires.
What does this dualistic view of the person mean in practice—especially in sexual practice? It has created an expectation that the self is free to use the body any way it chooses, without serious consequences. In short, it has led to the hook-up culture.
“What makes hooking up unique is that its practitioners agree that there will be no commitment, no exclusivity, no feelings,” explains an article in the Washington Post.5 By definition, hook-ups are purely physical encounters with no expectation of any personal relationship. Hook-up partners are referred to as “friends with benefits,” but that’s a euphemism because they are not really even friends. The unwritten etiquette is that you never meet to just talk or spend time together, explains a New York Times article. “You just keep it purely sexual, and that way people don’t have mixed expectations, and no one gets hurt.”6
Except, of course, that people do get hurt. The same article quotes a teenager named Melissa who was depressed because her hook-up partner had just broken up with her.
In practice, people cannot dualistically separate the self from the body. Rolling Stone magazine interviewed a college student who stated the problem succinctly: people “assume that there are two very distinct elements in a relationship, one emotional and one sexual, and they pretend like there are clean lines between them.”7
Do you recognize the language of dualism? Young people have come to believe that sexual relationships can be solely physical, disconnected from the mind and emotions—with “clean lines” between them.
Philosophers often illustrate dualism using the image of two stories in a building. In the lower story is the body, which since Descartes has been regarded as a biochemical machine. In the upper story is the autonomous self—with a “clean line” separating the two.
Of course, the fact that it does not work ought to tell us something. It means the hook-up culture rests on an inadequate conception of human nature. People are trying to live out a worldview that does not fit who they really are.
Because humans are created in God’s image, their experience will never quite “fit” a secular view of human nature. In practice, non-Christians will always bump up against some point of contradiction between their secular worldview and their real-life experience. That contradiction provides an opening to make the case that the secular worldview is flawed. It fails to explain human life and experience.
Young people like Melissa are trying to live out a worldview that does not match their true nature—and it is tearing them apart with its pain and heartache.
Think of it this way: biologically and physiologically, males and females are clearly counterparts to one another. The male sexual and reproductive anatomy is obviously designed for a relationship with a female, and vice versa. Homosexual practice overrides that clear design built into the structure of our bodies.
As a result, it expresses a profound disrespect for our physical anatomy. Essentially it says that anatomy has no intrinsic purpose but is just a mechanistic system of glands and organs that one can use any way one chooses.
As a result, homosexual practice requires individuals to contradict their own biology. It disconnects a person’s sexual feelings from his or her biological identity as male or female—which exerts a self-alienating and fragmenting effect on the human personality.
Some Christians propose that God creates some people as homosexuals. But if so, says Tim Wilkins of Cross Ministry (himself a former homosexual), then “God has played a cruel joke on them. He has engineered their minds and emotions for attraction to the same-sex and yet created their physiology to be in direct opposition to that attraction.”8
And the logic of alienation will not stop there. Already the acceptance of same-sex relationships is leading to a full-blown postmodern conception of sexuality as fluid and changing over time. In Saving Leonardo I quote a psychotherapist addressing the problem faced by individuals who had come out of the closet as homosexual, but were later attracted to heterosexual relationships again. So what am I, they asked.
The psychotherapist’s response was, essentially to not worry; it’s okay to change your sexual identity whenever you wish. In his words, today people “don’t want to fit into any boxes—not gay, straight, lesbian, or bisexual ones.” Instead “they want to be free to change their minds.”9
This view of sexuality, the psychotherapist stated, is “a challenge to the old, modernist way of thinking” that you were born with a gender that does not change because it is rooted in our biological identity. Instead we are moving to a postmodern view that gender is something I can choose, independent of biology. The implication is that I might have been straight yesterday, but I can be homosexual today, and maybe bisexual tomorrow. One’s psychosexual identity is said to be in constant flux.
In fact, human nature itself is thought of as a social construction, something we make up as we go along. We can call this view liberalism, employing a definition by the self-described liberal philosopher Peter Berkowitz: “Each generation of liberal thinkers” focuses on “dimensions of life previously regarded as fixed by nature,” then seeks to show that in reality they are “subject to human will and remaking.”10
In other words, previous generations thought there was a fixed, universal human nature that expressed a God-given teleology. For example, they thought heterosexual marriage was rooted in human nature. It was the way humans were created to function.
By contrast, liberalism denies that there is any fixed or universal human nature. Humans are an accidental configuration of matter, a product of blind evolutionary forces. Marriage is a social behavior that evolved because it was adaptive at some point in evolutionary history. It is not intrinsic to human nature, however. In fact, there is no human nature. Therefore we are free to redefine marriage at will. It is open to unlimited “human will and remaking.”
Several universities now offer separate bathrooms, housing, and sports teams for transgender students who do not identify themselves as either male or female. The New York Times reports that some schools no longer require students to check male or female on their health forms. Instead, they are asked to “describe your gender identity history.”11 That is, which genders have you been over the course of your lifetime?
The concept of gender has become fluid, free-floating, completely detached from physical anatomy. This is typically presented as liberating—a way to create your own identity instead of accepting one that has been culturally assigned. A few years ago, California passed a law requiring schools to permit transgender students to use the restroom or locker room of their preferred gender, regardless of their anatomical sex. The new law12 defined a student’s gender as including “gender related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth.”13 Notice the assumption that a person’s sex is “assigned,” as though it were purely arbitrary instead of an anatomical fact.
The law is being used to impose a postmodern concept of the person that denies any intrinsic dignity to the unique biological capabilities inherent in being male or female. Physical anatomy is treated as insignificant, inconsequential, and completely irrelevant to gender identity. An Oakland elementary school teaches young children that “gender is not inherently nor solely connected to one’s physical anatomy.”14 This is a devastatingly disrespectful view of the physical body.
It also endangers human rights. Rights are based on the recognition that there are certain nonnegotiable givens in human nature, prior to the state, which the state is obligated to respect. But if human nature itself is merely a social construction, something we make up as we go along, including our psychosexual identity, then there is nothing in the individual that is given, which the state is obligated to respect—and thus no basis for inalienable human rights.
If America accepts practices such as same-sex “marriage,” in the process it will absorb the accompanying worldview—the redefinition of human personhood as a purely social construction—which opens the door to unlimited statism, because there is no human nature that an oppressive state could possibly offend.
In the ancient world, these biblical claims were so astonishing that the Gnostics rejected them. They taught that Jesus was really an avatar who only appeared to have a human body. They could not accept the idea of a Creator who actually likes matter because He created it—a God who affirms our material, biological, sexual nature.
Today, in an unexpected twist of history, it is once again Christianity that is defending a high and holistic view of the human person.
Most churches, sadly, do not communicate a high view of the person. A 2007 Barna survey of adult churchgoers under the age of thirty found that about fifty percent said, “They perceive Christianity to be judgmental, hypocritical, and too political.”
These are not critics from outside the church, but young people sitting in the pews. Moreover, the study found that this generation exhibits “a greater degree of criticism toward Christianity than did previous generations.”
Nowhere is this more true than on hot-button issues such as sexuality. Only by digging beneath the surface and refocusing on the worldview level can we show young people why secular views of sexuality are harmful and alienating. A worldview focus gives us the tools to craft a positive approach that expresses love and concern for people caught in destructive life patterns.
Nancy Pearcey’s latest book is Saving Leonardo, on which this article is based. She is also the author of the bestselling, award-winning Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity. Pearcey currently teaches at Rivendell Sanctuary.
A collegiate website advises young women on how to have a “happy hook-up.” Get “clear consent and mutual agreement to engage in sexual acts,” the article recommends. Then “the whole hookup experience will be more positive for everyone involved.”1
Glancing at the author’s bio, I learned that she is a student at a conservative Christian college!
When even Christian young people are buying into the hookup culture, it’s clear that traditional ways of teaching biblical morality are no longer effective. “Just say no” is not enough. Young people don’t need simple rules; they need reasons to make sense of the rules. Which is to say, they need to be taught the worldview rationale for biblical morality. Otherwise it is possible for Christian young people to be sincere in their faith, yet thoroughly secular in their thoughts—and, consequently, in their behavior.
Every system of sexual morality depends on a prior view of nature. In Western society, until the modern age, nature was regarded as God’s handiwork, created for His purposes. To use a technical term, Christianity implies a teleological view of nature—from the Greek telos, which means a thing’s goal, purpose, or ideal state. Because humans are created in God’s image, their goal is to become true reflectors of God’s character. The moral law is simply the road map telling us how to reach that goal, the instruction manual for progressing toward God’s ideal.
That instruction manual is derived primarily, of course, from God’s communication in Scripture. But another source is creation itself. We can read signs in nature that indicate God’s original purpose—traces of God’s image that remain even in a fallen world.
For example, the biological correspondence between male and female is not some evolutionary accident. It is part of the original creation that God pronounced “very good”—morally good. Thus it provides a reference point for morality. Our physical anatomy signals a divine purpose for male and female to form covenants for mutual love and the nurturing of new life. Biblical sexual morality is not arbitrary. It reflects the purpose for which we were created.
By contrast, secular morality rests on a view of nature that rejects teleology, acknowledging only blind, material forces. Historically, the turning point was Charles Darwin. The central elements in his theory—random variations sifted out by the mechanical process of natural selection—were proposed expressly to get rid of the concept of purpose or design in biology. As cultural historian Jacques Barzun writes, the “denial of purpose is Darwin’s distinctive contention.”2
This had profound moral implications. For if nature was not the handiwork of a personal God, then it no longer bore signs of God’s good purposes—which meant it no longer provided a basis for moral truths.
The next step was crucial: because nature did not reveal God’s will, it became a morally neutral realm on which humans may impose their will. There was nothing within nature that humans were morally obligated to respect. It was merely raw material to be manipulated and controlled to serve human needs and preferences.
GETTING OFF THE GROUND FLOOR
How does this history explain the rise of liberal sexual morality? The human body is, of course, part of nature and therefore it too came to be seen as raw material subject to the choices of the autonomous self. In the words of Roger Lundin of Wheaton College, both nature and the body were recast as “essentially amoral mechanisms to be used to whatever private ends we have.”3 In other words, because the human body has no intrinsic purpose, we can use it any way we choose.But who is this “we”—this choosing, controlling self that uses the body for its own purposes? For all its claim to be modern, liberalism has surprising affinities with the philosophy of Plato in the ancient world. Plato taught a dualism in which the soul uses the body instrumentally to affect the world—like a charioteer driving a chariot, as he put it.
An updated version of dualism stems from René Descartes. Philosopher Daniel Dennett (who himself rejects dualism) explains: “Since Descartes in the seventeenth century we have had a vision of the self as a sort of immaterial ghost that owns and controls a body the way you own and control your car.”4 That is, most modern people unconsciously hold a view of the human body as a form of property that can be controlled and manipulated to serve the self’s desires.
What does this dualistic view of the person mean in practice—especially in sexual practice? It has created an expectation that the self is free to use the body any way it chooses, without serious consequences. In short, it has led to the hook-up culture.
“What makes hooking up unique is that its practitioners agree that there will be no commitment, no exclusivity, no feelings,” explains an article in the Washington Post.5 By definition, hook-ups are purely physical encounters with no expectation of any personal relationship. Hook-up partners are referred to as “friends with benefits,” but that’s a euphemism because they are not really even friends. The unwritten etiquette is that you never meet to just talk or spend time together, explains a New York Times article. “You just keep it purely sexual, and that way people don’t have mixed expectations, and no one gets hurt.”6
Except, of course, that people do get hurt. The same article quotes a teenager named Melissa who was depressed because her hook-up partner had just broken up with her.
In practice, people cannot dualistically separate the self from the body. Rolling Stone magazine interviewed a college student who stated the problem succinctly: people “assume that there are two very distinct elements in a relationship, one emotional and one sexual, and they pretend like there are clean lines between them.”7
Do you recognize the language of dualism? Young people have come to believe that sexual relationships can be solely physical, disconnected from the mind and emotions—with “clean lines” between them.
Philosophers often illustrate dualism using the image of two stories in a building. In the lower story is the body, which since Descartes has been regarded as a biochemical machine. In the upper story is the autonomous self—with a “clean line” separating the two.
THE SELF
Mind and emotions
Mind and emotions
___________________________
THE BODY
Biochemical machine
George Bernard Shaw recognized the problem in his 1931 play Too True to Be Good. “When men and women pick one another up just for a bit of fun, they find they’ve picked up more than they bargained for, because men and women have a top storey as well as a ground floor,” says one character. “You can’t have the one without the other. They’re always trying to; but it doesn’t work.” Today’s young people are still trying to have one without the other. But it still doesn’t work.Biochemical machine
Of course, the fact that it does not work ought to tell us something. It means the hook-up culture rests on an inadequate conception of human nature. People are trying to live out a worldview that does not fit who they really are.
Because humans are created in God’s image, their experience will never quite “fit” a secular view of human nature. In practice, non-Christians will always bump up against some point of contradiction between their secular worldview and their real-life experience. That contradiction provides an opening to make the case that the secular worldview is flawed. It fails to explain human life and experience.
Young people like Melissa are trying to live out a worldview that does not match their true nature—and it is tearing them apart with its pain and heartache.
DISSING THE BODY
The same destructive worldview explains the current acceptance of homosexuality. Even in churches, many young people do not “get” why homosexual activity is morally wrong. The biblical rejection of homosexuality makes more sense when we understand the implicit worldview—which is, once again, a dehumanizing dualism.Think of it this way: biologically and physiologically, males and females are clearly counterparts to one another. The male sexual and reproductive anatomy is obviously designed for a relationship with a female, and vice versa. Homosexual practice overrides that clear design built into the structure of our bodies.
As a result, it expresses a profound disrespect for our physical anatomy. Essentially it says that anatomy has no intrinsic purpose but is just a mechanistic system of glands and organs that one can use any way one chooses.
As a result, homosexual practice requires individuals to contradict their own biology. It disconnects a person’s sexual feelings from his or her biological identity as male or female—which exerts a self-alienating and fragmenting effect on the human personality.
Some Christians propose that God creates some people as homosexuals. But if so, says Tim Wilkins of Cross Ministry (himself a former homosexual), then “God has played a cruel joke on them. He has engineered their minds and emotions for attraction to the same-sex and yet created their physiology to be in direct opposition to that attraction.”8
And the logic of alienation will not stop there. Already the acceptance of same-sex relationships is leading to a full-blown postmodern conception of sexuality as fluid and changing over time. In Saving Leonardo I quote a psychotherapist addressing the problem faced by individuals who had come out of the closet as homosexual, but were later attracted to heterosexual relationships again. So what am I, they asked.
The psychotherapist’s response was, essentially to not worry; it’s okay to change your sexual identity whenever you wish. In his words, today people “don’t want to fit into any boxes—not gay, straight, lesbian, or bisexual ones.” Instead “they want to be free to change their minds.”9
This view of sexuality, the psychotherapist stated, is “a challenge to the old, modernist way of thinking” that you were born with a gender that does not change because it is rooted in our biological identity. Instead we are moving to a postmodern view that gender is something I can choose, independent of biology. The implication is that I might have been straight yesterday, but I can be homosexual today, and maybe bisexual tomorrow. One’s psychosexual identity is said to be in constant flux.
In fact, human nature itself is thought of as a social construction, something we make up as we go along. We can call this view liberalism, employing a definition by the self-described liberal philosopher Peter Berkowitz: “Each generation of liberal thinkers” focuses on “dimensions of life previously regarded as fixed by nature,” then seeks to show that in reality they are “subject to human will and remaking.”10
In other words, previous generations thought there was a fixed, universal human nature that expressed a God-given teleology. For example, they thought heterosexual marriage was rooted in human nature. It was the way humans were created to function.
By contrast, liberalism denies that there is any fixed or universal human nature. Humans are an accidental configuration of matter, a product of blind evolutionary forces. Marriage is a social behavior that evolved because it was adaptive at some point in evolutionary history. It is not intrinsic to human nature, however. In fact, there is no human nature. Therefore we are free to redefine marriage at will. It is open to unlimited “human will and remaking.”
WHICH GENDERS HAVE YOU BEEN?
This rejection of human nature has ever-widening implications. The cutting-edge issue today is transgenderism, a movement that rejects the distinction between male and female itself as a social construction—and an oppressive one at that.Several universities now offer separate bathrooms, housing, and sports teams for transgender students who do not identify themselves as either male or female. The New York Times reports that some schools no longer require students to check male or female on their health forms. Instead, they are asked to “describe your gender identity history.”11 That is, which genders have you been over the course of your lifetime?
The concept of gender has become fluid, free-floating, completely detached from physical anatomy. This is typically presented as liberating—a way to create your own identity instead of accepting one that has been culturally assigned. A few years ago, California passed a law requiring schools to permit transgender students to use the restroom or locker room of their preferred gender, regardless of their anatomical sex. The new law12 defined a student’s gender as including “gender related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth.”13 Notice the assumption that a person’s sex is “assigned,” as though it were purely arbitrary instead of an anatomical fact.
The law is being used to impose a postmodern concept of the person that denies any intrinsic dignity to the unique biological capabilities inherent in being male or female. Physical anatomy is treated as insignificant, inconsequential, and completely irrelevant to gender identity. An Oakland elementary school teaches young children that “gender is not inherently nor solely connected to one’s physical anatomy.”14 This is a devastatingly disrespectful view of the physical body.
It also endangers human rights. Rights are based on the recognition that there are certain nonnegotiable givens in human nature, prior to the state, which the state is obligated to respect. But if human nature itself is merely a social construction, something we make up as we go along, including our psychosexual identity, then there is nothing in the individual that is given, which the state is obligated to respect—and thus no basis for inalienable human rights.
If America accepts practices such as same-sex “marriage,” in the process it will absorb the accompanying worldview—the redefinition of human personhood as a purely social construction—which opens the door to unlimited statism, because there is no human nature that an oppressive state could possibly offend.
GOD LIKES MATTER
Ironically, Christians and others who respect the givens of human sexuality are often dismissed as prudes and Puritans because of their “repressive” sexual morality. Yet the biblical worldview actually affirms a much higher view of the body than the secular utilitarian view. It offers the radically positive affirmation that the material world was created by God, that it will ultimately be made whole by God, and that God was actually incarnated (made flesh) in a human body.In the ancient world, these biblical claims were so astonishing that the Gnostics rejected them. They taught that Jesus was really an avatar who only appeared to have a human body. They could not accept the idea of a Creator who actually likes matter because He created it—a God who affirms our material, biological, sexual nature.
Today, in an unexpected twist of history, it is once again Christianity that is defending a high and holistic view of the human person.
Most churches, sadly, do not communicate a high view of the person. A 2007 Barna survey of adult churchgoers under the age of thirty found that about fifty percent said, “They perceive Christianity to be judgmental, hypocritical, and too political.”
These are not critics from outside the church, but young people sitting in the pews. Moreover, the study found that this generation exhibits “a greater degree of criticism toward Christianity than did previous generations.”
Nowhere is this more true than on hot-button issues such as sexuality. Only by digging beneath the surface and refocusing on the worldview level can we show young people why secular views of sexuality are harmful and alienating. A worldview focus gives us the tools to craft a positive approach that expresses love and concern for people caught in destructive life patterns.
Nancy Pearcey’s latest book is Saving Leonardo, on which this article is based. She is also the author of the bestselling, award-winning Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity. Pearcey currently teaches at Rivendell Sanctuary.
NOTES
- Ally Karsyn, “The Drunken Hookup Double Standard,” Her Campus, April 30, 2011.
- Jacques Barzun, Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique of a Heritage (New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 1941), 11.
- Roger Lundin, The Culture of Interpretation: Christian Faith and the Postmodern World(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 102.
- Daniel Dennett, “The Origin of Selves,” Cogito 3 (Autumn 1989): 163–73.
- Kathy Dobie, “Going All the Way,” Washington Post, February 11, 2007.
- Benoit Denizet-Lewis, “Friends, Friends with Benefits, and the Benefits of the Local Mall,” New York Times Magazine, May 30, 2004, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/30/magazine/friends-friends-with-benefits-and-the-benefits-of-the-local-mall.html.
- Janet Reitman, “Sex and Scandal at Duke,” Rolling Stone, June 1, 2006.
- Tim Wilkins, “Cruel Joke or Medical Anomaly?” http://www.crossministry.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=69:cruel-joke-or-medical-anomaly-proponents-of-same-sex-qmarriageq-owe-us-an-nswer&catid=35:published&Itemid=65.
- Bret Johnson, quoted by Laura Markowitz, “The Postmodern Queer Identity Movement,” Utne Reader, September/October 2000.
- Peter Berkowitz, “Rediscovering Liberalism,” The Boston Book Review, March 1995.
- Fred Bernstein, “On Campus, Rethinking Biology 101,” The New York Times, March 7, 2004.
- http://leginfo.public.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/sen/sb_0751-0800/sb_777_bill_20070409_amended_sen_v98.html.
- http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/Bills/AB_887/20112012/.
- Russ Jones, “Parents Defenseless against Gender ‘Diversity Training,’” OneNewsNow, May 26, 2011.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Thursday, January 10, 2013
7 Ecumenical Councils
THE
FIRST ECUMENICAL COUNCIL
Held in Nicea, Asia
Minor in 325. Under Emperor Constantine the Great. 318 Bishops were present.
The Arian Controversy
Arius denied the
divinity of Christ. If Jesus was born, then there was time when He did not
exist. If He became God, then there was time when He was not. The Council
declared Arius' teaching a heresy, unacceptable to the Church and decreed that
Christ is God. He is of the same essence homoousios with God the Father.
The Creed
The first part of the
seven articles of the Creed were ratified at the First Ecumenical Council. The
text reads as follows:
We believe in one God.
The Father Almighty. Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and
invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten,
begotten of the Father before all ages. Light of Light; true God of true God;
begotten not made; of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were
made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was
incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man. And He was
crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried. And the
third day He rose again according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven,
and sits at the right hand of the Father; and he shall come again with glory to
judge the living and the dead; whose Kingdom shall have no end.
Defenders of Orthodoxy
St. Athanasios the Great (297-373)
Fearless champion of
Orthodoxy; spent sixteen of his forty-five years as Bishop of Alexandria in
exile; one of the most profound theologians; Father of the Church
St. Basil the Great (330-379)
A natural leader and
organizer; spoke and wrote against Arianism; Founded hospitals, orphanages,
welfare agencies; revised and updated the Divine Liturgy; made a great
contribution to Monasticism (East and West); one of the famous Cappadocian
Fathers (together with St. Gregory of Nyssa; his younger brother and St. Gregory of Nazianzus the Theologian; his close
friend). The Cappadocians, along with St. Athanasius the Great, laid the
pattern for formulating the doctrines related to the mystery of the Holy
Trinity. St. Basil the Great, along with St. Gregory of Nazianzus (the
Theologian) and St. John Chrysostom are called the Three Hieararchs.
THE SECOND ECUMENICAL COUNCIL
Held in
Constantinople in 381. Under Emperor
Theodosius the Great. 150 Bishops were present.
The Macedonian Controversy
Macedonius,
somewhat like Arius, was misinterpreting Church's teaching on the Holy Spirit.
He taught that the Holy Spirit was not a person ("hypostasis"), but
simply a power (dynamic") of God. Therefore the Spirit was inferior to the
Father and the Son. The Council condemned Macedonius' teaching and defined the
doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The Council decreed that there was one God in
three persons ("hypostases"): Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Creed
The holy fathers
of the Council added five articles to the Creed. They read as follows:
And (We believe) in the Holy
Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father: who with the
Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified: who spoke by the
prophets. In one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one
baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and
the life of the world to come. Amen.
Defenders of Orthodoxy
St. Gregory of Nazianzus, the Theologian (329-390)
He was a scholar who studied in Athens
St. Gregory of Nyssa (331-396)
Younger brother of St. Basil the
Great. He was a theologian who delved deeply into the truths of the Faith.
St. John
John was born and educated in Antioch Syria
THE THIRD ECUMENICAL COUNCIL
Held in
Ephesus, Asia Minor in 431 under Emperor
Theodosius II (grandson of Theodosius the Great). 200 Bishops were present.
The Nestorian Controversy
It concerned the
nature of Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Nestorius taught
that the Virgin Mary gave birth to a man, Jesus Christ, not God, the
"Logos" ("The Word", Son of God). The Logos only dwelled in
Christ, as in a Temple
Nestorianism
over emphasized the human nature of Christ at the expense of the divine. The
Council denounced Nestorius' teaching as erroneous. Our Lord Jesus Christ is
one person, not two separate "people": the Man, Jesus Christ and the
Son of God, Logos. The Council decreed that Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God
(Logos), is complete God and complete man, with a rational soul and body. The
Virgin Mary is "Theotokos" because she gave birth not to man but to
God who became man. The union of the two natures of Christ took place in such a
fashion that one did not disturb the other.
The Creed
The Council
declared the text of the "Creed" decreed at the First and Second
Ecumenical Councils to be complete and forbade any change (addition or
deletion).
THE FOURTH ECUMENICAL COUNCIL
Held in
Chalcedon, near Constantinople, 451. Under
Emperor Marcian. 630 Bishops were present.
Monophysite Controversies
The Council was
concerned, once again, with the nature of Jesus Christ. The teaching arose that
Christ's human nature (less perfect) dissolved itself in His divine nature
(more perfect): like a cube of sugar in a post of water. Thus, in reality,
Christ had only one nature, the Divine. Hence, the term: Monophysites
("mono", one and "physis", "nature".)
Monophysitism overemphasized the divine nature of Christ, at the expense of the
human.
Proclamation
The Council
condemned Monophysitism and proclaimed that Christ has two complete natures:
the divine and the human, as defined by previous Councils. These two natures
function without confusion, are not divided nor separate (against Nestorius),
and at no time did they undergo any change (against Eutyches: Monophysites).
THE
FIFTH ECUMENICAL COUNCIL
Held in Constantinople in 553. Under Emperor Justinian the Great. 165 Bishops were present.
Nestorian and Eutychian Controversies
The Council was called in hope of putting an end
to the Nestorian and the Eutychian (Monophysite) controversies). The Council
confirmed Church's teaching regarding the two natures of Christ (human and
divine) and condemned certain writings with Nestorian learnings. Emperor
Justinian himself confessed his Orthodox faith in a form of the famous Church
hymn "Only begotten Son and Word of God" which is sung during the
Divine Liturgy in Eastern Rite communities.
THE SIXTH ECUMENICAL COUNCIL
Held in Constantinople in 680.
Under Emperor Constantine IV. 170 Bishops were present.
The Monothelite Controversy
It concerned the last attempt to compromise with the
Monophysites. Although Christ did have two natures (divine and human) He
nevertheless, acted as God only. In other words, His divine nature made all the
decisions and His human nature only carried and acted them out. Hence, the
name: "Monothelitism" ("mono" one and "thelesis"
will.)
The Council's Pronouncement
"Christ had two natures with two activities: as God
working miracles, rising from the dead and ascending into heaven; as Man,
performing the ordinary acts of daily life. Each nature exercises its own free
will." Christ's divine nature had a specific task to perform and so did
His human nature. Each nature performed those tasks set forth without being
confused, subjected to any change or working against each other. The two
distinct natures and related to them activities were mystically united in the
one Divine Person of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
Defender of Orthodoxy
St. Maximus the Confessor (580-662)
A simple, but enlightened monk;
died in exile (Caucasus ).
St. Andrew of Crete (+740)
Participated in the deliberations
of the Council; author of the famous "Canon" which is read during
Great Lent in Eastern Rite communities
(THE QUINISEXT ECUMENICAL COUNCIL) *
Held in Constantinople in 692. In the dome of the Imperial Palace
Legislative Matters
It is regarded
as supplementing
the Fifth and the Sixth Ecumenical Councils, hence, it is called
"Quinisext." Its work was purely legislative, it ratified 102 canons
and the decisions of the previous Ecumenical Councils.
Doctrinal and Disciplinary Canons
Sanctioned the
so-called "Eighty-five Apostolic Canons" and approved the
disciplinary decisions (Canons) of certain regional Councils. The Council added
a series of disciplinary decisions or canons to the existing ones. The
"Quinisext" Council laid the foundation for the Orthodox Canon Law.
THE SEVENTH ECUMENICAL COUNCIL
Held in
Nicea, Asia Minor in 787. Under Empress
Irene. 367 Bishops were present.
The Iconoclast Controversy
It centered around the use of icons in the Church and the
controversy between the iconoclasts and iconophiles. The Iconoclasts were
suspicious of religious art; they demanded that the Church rid itself of such
art and that it be destroyed or broken (as the term "iconoclast"
implies).
The iconophiles believed that
icons served to preserve the doctrinal teachings of the Church; they considered
icons to be man's dynamic way of expressing the divine through art and beauty.
The Iconoclast controversy was a form of Monophysitism: distrust and
downgrading of the human side.
The Council's Proclamation
"We define that the holy icons, whether in color,
mosaic, or some other material, should be exhibited in the holy churches of
God, on the sacred vessels and liturgical vestments, on the walls, furnishings,
and in houses and along the roads, namely the icons of our Lord God and Savior
Jesus Christ, that of our Lady the Theotokos, those of the venerable angels and
those of all saintly people. Whenever these representations are contemplated,
they will cause those who look at them to commemorate and love their prototype.
We define also that they should be kissed and that they are an object of
veneration and honor (timitiki proskynisis), but not of real worship (latreia),
which is reserved for Him Who is the subject of our faith and is proper for the
divine nature { {Ӱr
rendered typis icon is in effect transmitted to the prototype; he who
venerates the icon, venerated in it the reality for which it stands."
Defenders of Orthodoxy
St. John Damascus
John Mansur was educated at the Caliphate Court Damascus Palestine
The Triumph of Orthodoxy
An Endemousa (Regional) Synod was called in Constantinople in 843. Under Empress Theodora. The
veneration of icons was solemnly proclaimed at the St. Sophia's Cathedral.
Monks and clergy came in procession and restored the icons in their rightful
place. The day was called "Triumph of Orthodoxy." Since that time,
this event is commemorated yearly with a special service on the first Sunday of
Lent, the "Sunday of Orthodoxy."
Proverbs 9:1 (NASB)
Proverbs 9
Wisdom's Invitation
The Nicene Creed
I believe
in one God, Father Almighty, Creator of
heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in
one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of
God, begotten of the Father before all ages;
God, begotten of the Father before all ages;
Light of
Light, true God of true God, begotten,
not created, of one essence with the Father
through Whom all things were made.
not created, of one essence with the Father
through Whom all things were made.
Who for
us men and for our salvation
came down from heaven and was incarnate
of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man.
came down from heaven and was incarnate
of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man.
He was
crucified for us under Pontius Pilate,
and suffered and was buried;
and suffered and was buried;
And He
rose on the third day,
according to the Scriptures.
according to the Scriptures.
He
ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father;
and is seated at the right hand of the Father;
And He
will come again with glory to judge the living
and dead. His kingdom shall have no end.
and dead. His kingdom shall have no end.
And in
the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Creator of life,
Who proceeds from the Father, Who together with the
Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, Who
spoke through the prophets.
Who proceeds from the Father, Who together with the
Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, Who
spoke through the prophets.
In one,
holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
I confess
one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
I look
for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the age to come.
and the life of the age to come.
Amen.
Christianity and Islam - Two Related, Yet Different Religions
Christianity and Islam - Two Related, Yet
Different Religions
by Photios Kontoglou
“Eastern peoples are more religious”, an ancient writes, wishing to say that Easterners are more religious than people in the West, in Europe. Note that East is also the Balkans together with Russia.
To an Easterner feeling is more intense than reasoning, while the opposite happens with a European; and since faith regards heart and not reasoning, Easterners are more religious than Europeans, and thus religions were born in the East, none of them in the West.
Westerners are rationalists, which is why they were devoted to positive knowledge, to sciences, and made a progress there, today leading the whole world to their way. Those among them that make a difference and they don’t believe only in their senses, turn to the East, because they discover there a spring to drink, who are thirsty for mysteries beyond the investigation of reasoning.
How intensely the western man is tied with rationalism, is evident by the distortion Christianity suffered in Europe, where she became little by little a system of worldly knowledge, having as a purpose earthly happiness and not salvation of the soul, which the Christ taught. In the West even theology was subdued to rationalism, and became herself a science like all sciences.
In the East religion remained religion. Even Mohammedanism, what is called Islam, an inferior perception of religion, with some crude commands, yet kept pure its religious character, away from innovations and adaptations to each epoch, that is, away from rationalization. The material means by which the religion of Koran is expressing herself, the mosque, the hodga, chanting, decoration, vestments of the clergy, ceremonies, all remained totally unchanged, as they were when Islam started.
At a time when the Christian religion was distorted by innovations dictated by a rationalistic worldly spirit, where from the Papacy was born, and also Protestantism and the rest of their branches, something that did not happen with Orthodoxy, which remained unchanged, being the Christianity of the East, Mohammedanism stands always as it was from the start, that is, it remained a “religion”.
From this aspect our Orthodox Church is partly closer to Mohammedanism than to the so-called Christians in the West, because Mohammedanism did not cease to be a religion and remained unspoiled by the spirit of the world, the utilitarian spirit. This explains why we see Arabs kissing in deep reverence the cloth or the beard of our priests, and Mohammedans to be baptised Christian Orthodox and some times to become martyrs for Christ, while none, not one, Papist or Protestant is among the new martyrs that were beheaded or hanged at the times when Turks reigned over us. Christians who were tortured and became martyrs for the name of Christ in Persia are countless.
I heard a priest from Damascus saying that the king Abdullah told the Patriarch of Antioch these words: “You, Orthodox, the way you look, make us Muslims respect you as men of religion, while those western priests seem like agents of suspect affairs.”
Western Christianity lost its ecumenical, global, character, because, as we said, it was reduced to a worldly system by the wish to be adapted every time to every epoch, so that nothing remained there immovable, nothing of “religion”, while Mohammedanism, although Koran is a crude variation of the Gospel, kept until today its ecumenical character.
Everywhere a hodga has the look that reminds him of his prophet, while the priests and pastors of the West have no external resemblance with the leader of their religion, and sometimes, you think that they aim not to be like Him at all, but to resemble their pagan ancestors. As an example I mention the two leaders of Eastern and the Western Christianity, Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul, who met with each other in Jerusalem.
Look at the photographs and you will see that these two persons are different in everything, despite they say that they are archpriests of the same religion. Observe their appearance and you will know how true this is: the one, the Patriarch, has a priestly look, with beard and long hair, as the Christ had, he wears wide cloth, eastern, as were, more or less, the clothes that they had at the places where Christ appeared, while the Pope is shaved like the ancient Romans and wears a tiny scull-cap and his clothes are made-up, in a word, nothing of his exterior is such, that when you see him you remember the Christ or the holy Apostles - and yet these two priests say they are archpriests of the same religion.
It is true that we Orthodox Christians suffered much from Muslims, especially Turks. This happened because their religion too was distorted by racial passions, although even Mohammed started to spread Koran by war. Note that Arabs, the patriots of Mohammed, do not recognise the Turks, who took religion from them, as genuine Muslims, and they don’t like them. ...
Mohammed, the founder of the new religion in the East, was an illiterate camel driver. At his years, as before, his country Arabia had for religion a mixture of idolatrous superstitions about a big black rock they called Kaaba, which the patriots of Mohammed worshipped and still worship.
At that time in Arabia, Jewish merchants dominated, but also Christians existed even in Mecca. Mohammed realised that his race was far below these religions, the Jewish and the Christian, and wanted to help her, to open her eyes, because, although illiterate and unhewn, he was clever. He was greatly impressed by the life of Christians, especially in monasteries, he admired the monks, that they were devoted to God paying no care to the vanities of the world, and besides their denial of property, that they held fast, they prayed, they were hospitable, they loved the other people. This is why he had many relations with Christian monks.
He also had a close relation with some Jewish woman, very wealthy, Chatitze, with whom in the end he was married. Chatitze was very learned, and she had always learned people in her company, among them a wise astrologer named Varakas, who had been baptised Christian and had translated to Arabic numerous fragments of the Old Testament. Mohammed was very much helped by his wife, because with her he was talking about all he had learned on the religious situation of the East during his trips from Mecca to Damascus, when he was a driver to caravans. His name and his knowledge spread to Mecca and the rest of Arabia. Despite his admiration for Christians, he saw that they were divided by heresies and weakened by that. Along with this, he saw that the weakness of the Christian religion was that it was teaching virginity, or no more than monogamy, while these races were from the creation of the world used to polygamy.
Therefore, after he had thought on all these, at the age of forty he presented himself as a Prophet sent by God, saying he was seeing the Angel Gabriel, who told him the will of God in order to preach it to the world. Some of these he put and wrote in the Koran.
In his country, Chentza, lying near the Red Sea, people were in a semi-wild condition. Christians there were not. By his preaching he didn’t manage to gather more than a few faithful followers. But when he urged Arabs to holy war, allegedly to spread the Koran, his patriots obeyed and followed him with fanaticism and thus the new religion was spread, yet, as we’ll see, this was accomplished less by Arabs and more by other peoples of the East, more clever, as Greeks, Egyptians, Syrians, Persians, and others.
The greatest part of the Koran was written after Mohammed died, who didn’t know how to write or read. The Koran was written by others, more literate, and maybe not Arabs.
Mohammed and the others, who completed the Koran, were building upon the Christian religion and their admiration for Christianity is not hidden. Yet their holy book is full of undigested and crude elements of the Old and the New Testament, which is why the Koran was accepted more easily than the Gospel by those barbaric peoples.
The Koran praises the Church of Christ, “where unceasingly the name of God is honored”, and this Church is the Orthodox Church, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, which is why Mohammed gave to his religion the name “Islam”, that means “Orthodoxy” in Arabic.
Besides these [elements belonging to Christianity] there are in the Koran the most diverse things, in a way that in it a great hiatus reigns, not felt by the simple and unhewn followers of the Koran. It is full of incomprehensible things, of flashy words with no meaning. It says again and again many times the same things, it speaks vaguely about prophecies in a manner extempore and disorderly.
There are in this book the most contradictory things. God is here “merciful and compassionate”, elsewhere “cruel and vengeful”. The same happens with all that Mohammed says about himself: here he praises himself, elevating himself to the peak, and elsewhere he calls himself a sinner. And in his life, where he is a saint and sees Angels and visions, there he is abandoned to women and pleasures.
As he understood that his preaching was not enough, he grasped the sword, which is more effective. This is why he wrote: “Whoever preach my faith, let them not lose time with preaching. Let them kill”. When he felt himself strong, he started war and bloodshed. While in the start he flattered the Jews, in order to gain their support, later, when he had no need of them, he chased and killed them. The same happened later on with Christians, by his heirs. He gives his word, he signs with his hand inked, and afterwards he doesn’t keep his word, when his interest demands so. He is becoming a politician and a diplomat.
Arabs had no writing to write in their language, and Mohammed himself says in the Koran that he doesn’t know how to write or read. Until today, the inhabitants of Arabia are (almost all of them) illiterate. How then, one thousand and three hundred years from then, did they manage to make the so-called Arabic culture, Islam? How did they become suddenly philosophers, mathematicians, poets, artists, astronomers, geographers, historians, - people who were drifting around like gypsies on their camels in a waste land?
This phenomenon can not be explained by any other way, but only if we admit that those who practiced the sciences and the arts were not the people of the wild Arabia, but men from other nations of the East, who had embraced the new religion, that is, Mohammedans of Syria, Egypt, Persia, Asia Minor, and most of all Greeks... Most of the Muslims came from races which changed their own faith, as are those that we said and also others…
That Islam was created not by Arabs but by ancient peoples of the East, having from before a spiritual growth dating back to the times of Alexander the Great, was supported with erudition by a wise French scholar named Rimbaud, who lived for many years in Arabia and the East and studied well and in place the Arabs. To the preface of his book “Hellenism In the First Ages of Islam” he writes:
“It seems to be verified and proved true by the facts, that all those various works the spirit of the East produced at the dawn of the medieval times, were the last gleam of the ancient civilizations before they were darkened by Islam… The works of art and thinking of that important epoch, when Mohammedanism culminated, are works made by the Greeks”.
Truly, how could they reach Spain, on the one hand, and on the other Persia, India, Sumatra and Java, even China, people like the indigenous of Arabia, who never traveled and didn’t know what the sea is? Persons from other races, and especially Greek sea-men or land travelers and merchants were going to those far places, and by them there were written also the imaginary traveling stories, as is Halima, which is the Arabic Odyssey. Sebah the sea-man is the new Ulysses. During this time there was a bloom of learning in Persia, Syria and Egypt, while Arabia was sunk in ignorance and superstition, having no idea of Aristotle and algebra. Rimbaud writes that “when Romans conquered Syria and Egypt, stayed very little in these countries and their influence was insignificant. The basis of the population of Asia Minor and Egypt remained Hellenic. Sciences, arts and merchandise stayed in the sure hands of the Greek race.”
“Eastern peoples are more religious”, an ancient writes, wishing to say that Easterners are more religious than people in the West, in Europe. Note that East is also the Balkans together with Russia.
To an Easterner feeling is more intense than reasoning, while the opposite happens with a European; and since faith regards heart and not reasoning, Easterners are more religious than Europeans, and thus religions were born in the East, none of them in the West.
Westerners are rationalists, which is why they were devoted to positive knowledge, to sciences, and made a progress there, today leading the whole world to their way. Those among them that make a difference and they don’t believe only in their senses, turn to the East, because they discover there a spring to drink, who are thirsty for mysteries beyond the investigation of reasoning.
How intensely the western man is tied with rationalism, is evident by the distortion Christianity suffered in Europe, where she became little by little a system of worldly knowledge, having as a purpose earthly happiness and not salvation of the soul, which the Christ taught. In the West even theology was subdued to rationalism, and became herself a science like all sciences.
In the East religion remained religion. Even Mohammedanism, what is called Islam, an inferior perception of religion, with some crude commands, yet kept pure its religious character, away from innovations and adaptations to each epoch, that is, away from rationalization. The material means by which the religion of Koran is expressing herself, the mosque, the hodga, chanting, decoration, vestments of the clergy, ceremonies, all remained totally unchanged, as they were when Islam started.
At a time when the Christian religion was distorted by innovations dictated by a rationalistic worldly spirit, where from the Papacy was born, and also Protestantism and the rest of their branches, something that did not happen with Orthodoxy, which remained unchanged, being the Christianity of the East, Mohammedanism stands always as it was from the start, that is, it remained a “religion”.
From this aspect our Orthodox Church is partly closer to Mohammedanism than to the so-called Christians in the West, because Mohammedanism did not cease to be a religion and remained unspoiled by the spirit of the world, the utilitarian spirit. This explains why we see Arabs kissing in deep reverence the cloth or the beard of our priests, and Mohammedans to be baptised Christian Orthodox and some times to become martyrs for Christ, while none, not one, Papist or Protestant is among the new martyrs that were beheaded or hanged at the times when Turks reigned over us. Christians who were tortured and became martyrs for the name of Christ in Persia are countless.
I heard a priest from Damascus saying that the king Abdullah told the Patriarch of Antioch these words: “You, Orthodox, the way you look, make us Muslims respect you as men of religion, while those western priests seem like agents of suspect affairs.”
Western Christianity lost its ecumenical, global, character, because, as we said, it was reduced to a worldly system by the wish to be adapted every time to every epoch, so that nothing remained there immovable, nothing of “religion”, while Mohammedanism, although Koran is a crude variation of the Gospel, kept until today its ecumenical character.
Everywhere a hodga has the look that reminds him of his prophet, while the priests and pastors of the West have no external resemblance with the leader of their religion, and sometimes, you think that they aim not to be like Him at all, but to resemble their pagan ancestors. As an example I mention the two leaders of Eastern and the Western Christianity, Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul, who met with each other in Jerusalem.
Look at the photographs and you will see that these two persons are different in everything, despite they say that they are archpriests of the same religion. Observe their appearance and you will know how true this is: the one, the Patriarch, has a priestly look, with beard and long hair, as the Christ had, he wears wide cloth, eastern, as were, more or less, the clothes that they had at the places where Christ appeared, while the Pope is shaved like the ancient Romans and wears a tiny scull-cap and his clothes are made-up, in a word, nothing of his exterior is such, that when you see him you remember the Christ or the holy Apostles - and yet these two priests say they are archpriests of the same religion.
It is true that we Orthodox Christians suffered much from Muslims, especially Turks. This happened because their religion too was distorted by racial passions, although even Mohammed started to spread Koran by war. Note that Arabs, the patriots of Mohammed, do not recognise the Turks, who took religion from them, as genuine Muslims, and they don’t like them. ...
Mohammed, the founder of the new religion in the East, was an illiterate camel driver. At his years, as before, his country Arabia had for religion a mixture of idolatrous superstitions about a big black rock they called Kaaba, which the patriots of Mohammed worshipped and still worship.
At that time in Arabia, Jewish merchants dominated, but also Christians existed even in Mecca. Mohammed realised that his race was far below these religions, the Jewish and the Christian, and wanted to help her, to open her eyes, because, although illiterate and unhewn, he was clever. He was greatly impressed by the life of Christians, especially in monasteries, he admired the monks, that they were devoted to God paying no care to the vanities of the world, and besides their denial of property, that they held fast, they prayed, they were hospitable, they loved the other people. This is why he had many relations with Christian monks.
He also had a close relation with some Jewish woman, very wealthy, Chatitze, with whom in the end he was married. Chatitze was very learned, and she had always learned people in her company, among them a wise astrologer named Varakas, who had been baptised Christian and had translated to Arabic numerous fragments of the Old Testament. Mohammed was very much helped by his wife, because with her he was talking about all he had learned on the religious situation of the East during his trips from Mecca to Damascus, when he was a driver to caravans. His name and his knowledge spread to Mecca and the rest of Arabia. Despite his admiration for Christians, he saw that they were divided by heresies and weakened by that. Along with this, he saw that the weakness of the Christian religion was that it was teaching virginity, or no more than monogamy, while these races were from the creation of the world used to polygamy.
Therefore, after he had thought on all these, at the age of forty he presented himself as a Prophet sent by God, saying he was seeing the Angel Gabriel, who told him the will of God in order to preach it to the world. Some of these he put and wrote in the Koran.
In his country, Chentza, lying near the Red Sea, people were in a semi-wild condition. Christians there were not. By his preaching he didn’t manage to gather more than a few faithful followers. But when he urged Arabs to holy war, allegedly to spread the Koran, his patriots obeyed and followed him with fanaticism and thus the new religion was spread, yet, as we’ll see, this was accomplished less by Arabs and more by other peoples of the East, more clever, as Greeks, Egyptians, Syrians, Persians, and others.
The greatest part of the Koran was written after Mohammed died, who didn’t know how to write or read. The Koran was written by others, more literate, and maybe not Arabs.
Mohammed and the others, who completed the Koran, were building upon the Christian religion and their admiration for Christianity is not hidden. Yet their holy book is full of undigested and crude elements of the Old and the New Testament, which is why the Koran was accepted more easily than the Gospel by those barbaric peoples.
The Koran praises the Church of Christ, “where unceasingly the name of God is honored”, and this Church is the Orthodox Church, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, which is why Mohammed gave to his religion the name “Islam”, that means “Orthodoxy” in Arabic.
Besides these [elements belonging to Christianity] there are in the Koran the most diverse things, in a way that in it a great hiatus reigns, not felt by the simple and unhewn followers of the Koran. It is full of incomprehensible things, of flashy words with no meaning. It says again and again many times the same things, it speaks vaguely about prophecies in a manner extempore and disorderly.
There are in this book the most contradictory things. God is here “merciful and compassionate”, elsewhere “cruel and vengeful”. The same happens with all that Mohammed says about himself: here he praises himself, elevating himself to the peak, and elsewhere he calls himself a sinner. And in his life, where he is a saint and sees Angels and visions, there he is abandoned to women and pleasures.
As he understood that his preaching was not enough, he grasped the sword, which is more effective. This is why he wrote: “Whoever preach my faith, let them not lose time with preaching. Let them kill”. When he felt himself strong, he started war and bloodshed. While in the start he flattered the Jews, in order to gain their support, later, when he had no need of them, he chased and killed them. The same happened later on with Christians, by his heirs. He gives his word, he signs with his hand inked, and afterwards he doesn’t keep his word, when his interest demands so. He is becoming a politician and a diplomat.
Arabs had no writing to write in their language, and Mohammed himself says in the Koran that he doesn’t know how to write or read. Until today, the inhabitants of Arabia are (almost all of them) illiterate. How then, one thousand and three hundred years from then, did they manage to make the so-called Arabic culture, Islam? How did they become suddenly philosophers, mathematicians, poets, artists, astronomers, geographers, historians, - people who were drifting around like gypsies on their camels in a waste land?
This phenomenon can not be explained by any other way, but only if we admit that those who practiced the sciences and the arts were not the people of the wild Arabia, but men from other nations of the East, who had embraced the new religion, that is, Mohammedans of Syria, Egypt, Persia, Asia Minor, and most of all Greeks... Most of the Muslims came from races which changed their own faith, as are those that we said and also others…
That Islam was created not by Arabs but by ancient peoples of the East, having from before a spiritual growth dating back to the times of Alexander the Great, was supported with erudition by a wise French scholar named Rimbaud, who lived for many years in Arabia and the East and studied well and in place the Arabs. To the preface of his book “Hellenism In the First Ages of Islam” he writes:
“It seems to be verified and proved true by the facts, that all those various works the spirit of the East produced at the dawn of the medieval times, were the last gleam of the ancient civilizations before they were darkened by Islam… The works of art and thinking of that important epoch, when Mohammedanism culminated, are works made by the Greeks”.
Truly, how could they reach Spain, on the one hand, and on the other Persia, India, Sumatra and Java, even China, people like the indigenous of Arabia, who never traveled and didn’t know what the sea is? Persons from other races, and especially Greek sea-men or land travelers and merchants were going to those far places, and by them there were written also the imaginary traveling stories, as is Halima, which is the Arabic Odyssey. Sebah the sea-man is the new Ulysses. During this time there was a bloom of learning in Persia, Syria and Egypt, while Arabia was sunk in ignorance and superstition, having no idea of Aristotle and algebra. Rimbaud writes that “when Romans conquered Syria and Egypt, stayed very little in these countries and their influence was insignificant. The basis of the population of Asia Minor and Egypt remained Hellenic. Sciences, arts and merchandise stayed in the sure hands of the Greek race.”
thanks to John Sanidopoulos
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