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About missionary work and respecting laws: I'm totally in favour of the large-scale smuggling of Bibles into Soviet Union that took place in the 80s. Our parish also supports a family of missionaries that works in the Middle East but we can't name the country and they actually aren't missionaries at all because proselytizing in the said country is illegal.
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Nov 25, 2018 00:37
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like at least there you're on some kind of equal footing, i mean with the sentinelese the odds are stacked against them and it's not really sporting imo
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Nov 25, 2018 00:47
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Valiantman posted:About missionary work and respecting laws: I'm totally in favour of the large-scale smuggling of Bibles into Soviet Union that took place in the 80s. Our parish also supports a family of missionaries that works in the Middle East but we can't name the country and they actually aren't missionaries at all because proselytizing in the said country is illegal. My problem with it comes when there is a power dynamic that incentivizes conversion. I’ve got an in-law who goes on mission trips to rural Guatemala and i guess it’s cool that the village has a new well but I kind of wonder if the fact that they are dependent on this American church for so much poo poo might have something to do with why so many people there are abandoning their very unique, highly syncratic version of Catholicism for being Baptists.
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Nov 25, 2018 00:56
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HEY GUNS posted:like at least there you're on some kind of equal footing, i mean with the sentinelese the odds are stacked against them and it's not really sporting imo I mean, with the Sentinelese, they have bows and arrows and a reputation for trying to kill anybody who comes near them, and he was just some religious dork who didn't have much common sense, so in that particular case, the odds were stacked in their favor.
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Nov 25, 2018 01:09
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Pellisworth posted:This is how I and I think many mainline Protestants feel about it. We're uncomfortable being pushy or aggressively trying to convert anyone. Let your light shine and all that. This is my view, too. The SBC, however, is much more aggressive. Evangelical Christians take the term to mean 'Christians who evangelize' and consider the Great Commission to be the most important passage in the Bible for how Christians should live their lives. However, the SBC's official mission board only sponsors and organizes missionary efforts in regions where they're officially allowed in. No one thinks for a moment that the SBC isn't organizing and funding missionary work in nations where it's illegal (China being the big one, much more than the former Soviet Union or the Middle East), but that's all very under the table and not officially connected to the SBC. The majority of the SBC's mission work is in fact right here in the US, trying to combat what the SBC sees as declining religiousness among Americans in general and Christians in particular. https://i.imgur.com/OD1uhCv.mp4
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Nov 25, 2018 01:09
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Valiantman posted:About missionary work and respecting laws: I'm totally in favour of the large-scale smuggling of Bibles into Soviet Union that took place in the 80s. Our parish also supports a family of missionaries that works in the Middle East but we can't name the country and they actually aren't missionaries at all because proselytizing in the said country is illegal. I think there's a huge difference between evangelizing to people in the Soviet Union or contemporary Middle East and trying to proclaim the love of Jesus to the Sentinelese. Many or most people in the USSR would have at least a passing familiarity with Christianity, so too would people in the Middle East know what Christianity is about and the consequences of embracing the faith. It's a matter of informed consent, but also a whole host of other issues. People in the USSR or Middle East who seek to learn about Christianity do so with knowledge of the oppression they will face. The Sentinelese have had no substantive contact with outsiders and seem to violently reject it. Contacting them would thrust them into the modern world, inexorably changing their lives and material conditions as well as erasing much of their traditional culture and society. Disease transmission, as mentioned, is probably a major concern. They seem to desire to be left alone, so... leave them alone. I believe our God is a loving God, and He would not condemn the billions of souls who never heard the Gospel to eternal damnation just because some starry-eyed Christian didn't barge into your civilization proclaiming "Jesus loves you!" Personally, I like C.S. Lewis'* The Great Divorce on this topic: those of us who would accept Jesus, loving one another as ourselves, will draw close to God in the afterlife regardless of their exposure to the Gospel. Because God is love for your fellow human, which is a concept that transcends everything else. So I guess personally it is more important for me to get my own house in order than to judge or try and convert others. *Narnia is hamfisted apologetics garbage. Stop trying to make Tolkien happen. It's not going to happen. If you get this reference we can wear pink on Wednesdays.
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Nov 25, 2018 04:43
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Pellisworth posted:
I thought the narniad was cool now that they've broken the code (it's the solar system)
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Nov 25, 2018 09:29
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The death of John Chau sounds like a tragedy. It wasn't just his own life that John Chau put at risk. I think the thing I can do is be respectful and observant. I think that something that contributed strongly to his death was a simplistic understanding of the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth that proved fatal and failed to accomplish John Chau's goal. Before he died, he wrote that he thought the island the natives live on is "Satan's last stronghold." I think that is a dangerous misperception. Everywhere there is a human mind, there is the field of spiritual warfare. No one has to go to uncontacted peoples to find a place that urgently needs grace. Rainbow Pharaoh posted:Serious one question first: is it considered rude, blasphemous, or otherwise not okay for someone unbaptized and not necessarily a believer to pray? I'm currently trying to figure out what my religious beliefs actually are but don't want to offend anyone or accidentally insult God by doing so. (I also have horrible anxiety which probably explains this post.) Also I have a rosary that's missing a bead what should I do with it? (I also have one that has all its beads) I figured just throwing it away would not be okay, but should I take it to a church to have the priest deal with it or what? I think that the benefits of holiness can be for everyone. Creeds are complicated business, but the practice may simply be restorative. And that is the spirit of holiness, I think NikkolasKing posted:Whenever I start falling into a pit of cynicism or even nihilism I usually bounce back because I just don't want to believe everything is meaningless and bad. I enjoy too many things about the world and, probably more importantly, I see other people enjoying things, too. That can't be pointless. Reading posts like yours also helps. Keep on truckin', brother. There's likely many things you do unconsciously which spare other people grief and suffering, and still you strive to do better. That is the cosmos producing meaning out of itself.
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Nov 25, 2018 10:57
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Caufman posted:I think that something that contributed strongly to his death was a simplistic understanding of the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth that proved fatal and failed to accomplish John Chau's goal. Before he died, he wrote that he thought the island the natives live on is "Satan's last stronghold." I think that is a dangerous misperception. also you gotta respect their aim lol
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Nov 25, 2018 11:35
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To be more accurate, I wasn't talking about that specific case but the relationship between following the laws and evangelizing in general.
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Nov 25, 2018 16:59
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requests for exorcisms are up i already mentioned the problems i have with many catholics' attitude to demons and exorcism, but one thing i did not consider is that if catholic exorcists are as overworked as this article suggests, no wonder catholics are trying to, uh, do it themselves i guess. whether or not they know very much about catholic tradition on the subject
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Nov 25, 2018 17:27
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Rainbow Pharaoh posted:It was some post on reddit a friend sent me a link to after I complained about prosperity gospel bullshit the other day because they hate me apparently. The thesis was that the US's military power was a reward from God for how much the US gives in foreign aid. (Ignoring that percentage-wise we're pretty stingy and that most of that power comes from spending money on that instead of on foreign aid and social programs.) I needed to complain about this to someone and from lurking on this thread I figured you guys would get a kick/aneurysm from it. Reminds me of when the Westboro Baptist Church claimed that kids got killed in Iraq because the US laws allowed homosexuality, and if they didn't, christian soldiers would actually be immortal 
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Nov 25, 2018 17:34
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Tias posted:Reminds me of when the Westboro Baptist Church claimed that kids got killed in Iraq because the US laws allowed homosexuality, and if they didn't, christian soldiers would actually be immortal Got a link to this? I’d love to have something quick and easy to throw in the face of people who do the racist point and laugh routine at Africans (and others) who use traditional magic that they believe makes them invulnerable to bullets and other harm.
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Nov 26, 2018 17:05
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Cyrano4747 posted:Got a link to this? I’d love to have something quick and easy to throw in the face of people who do the racist point and laugh routine at Africans (and others) who use traditional magic that they believe makes them invulnerable to bullets and other harm. you can read german, check this out, it was written in 1915 and some of the author's sources were anthropologists who made studies of the ww1 bavarian army. it's also where i got all the weird magic rituals with mustelid skulls and peas from to make you shoot better
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Nov 26, 2018 17:11
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Cyrano4747 posted:Got a link to this? I’d love to have something quick and easy to throw in the face of people who do the racist point and laugh routine at Africans (and others) who use traditional magic that they believe makes them invulnerable to bullets and other harm. I can only find the screeds saying US soldiers deserve to die because the US tolerates homosexuality - I read it way back around 2000 or so, so I can't remember the source, sorry 
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Nov 26, 2018 17:40
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Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I have a quick Bible question. 2 Timothy 3:16 says: "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" What exactly is Paul referring to by "scripture?" Is it exclusively referring to the OT? Were there even any written accounts of Jesus that were considered scripture at the time Paul wrote this? Is there any evidence that he was referring to his own writings or works yet to be written? Some evangelicals use an anachronistic definition of that word to argue for biblical inerrancy.
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Nov 27, 2018 01:18
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Konstantin posted:Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I have a quick Bible question. 2 Timothy 3:16 says: "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" What exactly is Paul referring to by "scripture?" Is it exclusively referring to the OT? Were there even any written accounts of Jesus that were considered scripture at the time Paul wrote this? Is there any evidence that he was referring to his own writings or works yet to be written? Some evangelicals use an anachronistic definition of that word to argue for biblical inerrancy. I've pondered things along those lines myself, I wonder if Paul thought of his own writings as being equal to the OT writings?
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Nov 27, 2018 01:22
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Konstantin posted:Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I have a quick Bible question. 2 Timothy 3:16 says: "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" What exactly is Paul referring to by "scripture?" Is it exclusively referring to the OT? Were there even any written accounts of Jesus that were considered scripture at the time Paul wrote this? Is there any evidence that he was referring to his own writings or works yet to be written? Some evangelicals use an anachronistic definition of that word to argue for biblical inerrancy. The NT didn't exist when that was written, so it has to refer to the OT exclusively. There was little, if anything, written about Jesus at that point. There may have been some collections of Jesus' sayings running around, but that's about it. The earliest Gospels wouldn't appear for another couple decades. In no other situation would anyone consider the word "inspired" to mean dictated word-for-word. For example, a movie that claims to be inspired by a true story is not expected to be a literal retelling of the story: we expect the broad outlines to match the real thing, but allow for some creative license in telling the actual story. It's basically a case of people working backwards from a conclusion to find what they want. TOOT BOOT posted:I've pondered things along those lines myself, I wonder if Paul thought of his own writings as being equal to the OT writings? No, at no point was Paul attempting to write anything significant. He was writing letters to churches he'd founded to help them deal with problems. It was the churches that hung onto them and decided they were important.
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Nov 27, 2018 01:31
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Some of the later letters in the NT refer to earlier NT letters as Scripture (I think Paul refers to Peter’s letters or vice versa). I can’t look up the reference rn or I would say where. The early church def had Scriptures, and the eventual canonization was an affirmation of what already was there, not a new creation. A good book on the subject, and the one I would pull off the shelf to look, is F. F. Bruce’s “New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable.” Combines archeological, historical, and inter-textual evidence to make his claims (which, imo, are good claims).
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Nov 27, 2018 01:34
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Then you run into the question of 'If Paul himself would not say his writings were equal to the OT, how can someone else living centuries later declare they are?'
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Nov 27, 2018 01:40
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TOOT BOOT posted:Then you run into the question of 'If Paul himself would not say his writings were equal to the OT, how can someone else living centuries later declare they are?' Same mechanism. The bulk of the books in the OT weren't considered significant by the people who wrote them. They were considered significant by the people that read them and chose to preserve them. There were a bunch of other books that are referred to in the OT that are lost because people quit recopying them.
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Nov 27, 2018 01:42
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TOOT BOOT posted:Then you run into the question of 'If Paul himself would not say his writings were equal to the OT, how can someone else living centuries later declare they are?' Deteriorata posted:Same mechanism. The bulk of the books in the OT weren't considered significant by the people who wrote them. They were considered significant by the people that read them and chose to preserve them. There were a bunch of other books that are referred to in the OT that are lost because people quit recopying them. Right; there are OT books that say "and the rest of this story is in the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel", which whether it was an oral history or a written book we do not have any at all whatsoever of it. There isn't even consensus on what belongs in the OT: Protestants typically have fewer books than Catholics, and the various Orthodox Churches appear to have more than the Catholic Church but differing lists - e.g. both the Syriac Orthodox and the Ethiopian Orthodox have more books than Catholics, but they don't have the same more books. Assuming all of Paul's letters were written by one person (which is not universally held), that one person does not appear to have perceived the Holy Spirit directly instructing him in what words to choose when writing, and the Catholic Church, at least, does not describe inspiration that way. God didn't say "Paul, start this letter by describing yourself as 'a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of the elect of God and the acknowledging of the truth, which is according to godliness'," God hinted that Paul should start a letter to Titus, and then when he did, suggested the kinds of things that Titus needed to be instructed about, and prevented Paul from including anything contrary to the truth. Anything more forceful would have impeded Paul from exercising his free will, after all.
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Nov 27, 2018 02:00
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Nov 28, 2018 16:29
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I know this battle was lost a long time ago, but I really like the traditional cycle of the Christmas season, where you fast up until Christmas Day, then stay pissed all the way through until the first Monday after Epiphany.
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Nov 28, 2018 16:34
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Mr Enderby posted:I know this battle was lost a long time ago... 
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Nov 28, 2018 16:36
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Yo Ortho peeps. Just went to an Orthodox Vespers at a St. John of Chicago church. Loved when the incense was swung at me. Priest was not messing around, and that thing looked heavy. In all seriousness, it was a wonderful time. Priest was super welcoming too. I have a lot of anxiety and seeing icons with swords was comforting. Nice for someone to actually have an image of Christ on the cross, rather than a feel good token/symbol. Chanting got me meditative. I did wonder what the priest was doing going in and out of the doors with, I think, the Gospels on them?
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Nov 28, 2018 16:52
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I'm not Orthodox, but are there churches that don't have Jesus on the cross hanging there?
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Nov 28, 2018 17:31
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Epicurius posted:I'm not Orthodox, but are there churches that don't have Jesus on the cross hanging there? Oh yeah. Where I am, the ones that aren’t Catholic/Ortho (not a lot of Lutheran here) just have a cross. A lot don’t have a cross. Could be an Evangelical thing? There’s tons of prosperity crap where I am, too. So images of your God being tortured are probably out.
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Nov 28, 2018 17:40
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ThePopeOfFun posted:Oh yeah. Where I am, the ones that aren’t Catholic/Ortho (not a lot of Lutheran here) just have a cross. A lot don’t have a cross. Could be an Evangelical thing? anyway when the Beautiful Gates are opened it symbolizes God unifying with the people, since behind the gates = heaven and the nave of the church = earth. (there is in fact a whole Thing about what part of the church building symbolizes what. Rodrigo Diaz has it.) this is why they are opened for the Eucharist and the Gospel, because those are two ways God does that. This is also why they are always open during the Octave of Easter! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_doors
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Nov 28, 2018 17:43
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ThePopeOfFun posted:Oh yeah. Where I am, the ones that aren’t Catholic/Ortho (not a lot of Lutheran here) just have a cross. A lot don’t have a cross. Could be an Evangelical thing? Mennonite churches (at least every one I've ever been to) only have a cross. But, of course, as has been established, we're not really into decor. It's nothing to do with prosperity crap, though. (I kind of prefer the empty cross on a philosophical level since, you know, he's not still there.)
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Nov 28, 2018 17:50
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docbeard posted:(I kind of prefer the empty cross on a philosophical level since, you know, he's not still there.)
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Nov 28, 2018 17:53
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docbeard posted:(I kind of prefer the empty cross on a philosophical level since, you know, he's not still there.) That is up for debate.
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Nov 28, 2018 17:56
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Please have that debate if you have the time, I am interested.
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Nov 28, 2018 17:59
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HEY GUNS posted:icons are timeless To me, it's the resurrected Christ that is the more potent and meaningful symbol, not the dying one, but that, again, is just me. (And icons aren't really a thing in the tradition I'm a part of, as you know, and I'm aware that it's very different for the Orthodox.) Mr Enderby posted:That is up for debate. I'm really curious now, if you're willing to indulge me.
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Nov 28, 2018 18:03
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Please have that debate if you have the time, I am interested. I actually don't know the current Catholic dogma around this, so perhaps another poster can chime in. But in medieval mysticism, one of the recurring images is of the ongoing Passion, at which the mystic can be present. This is also tied to the real presence, with the Eucharistic mystery being experienced as a real reenactment of the Passion, with the blood being literally caught into a chalice, and presented to the communicant. It's part of a broader sense of the Church existing partially outside time, like in those paintings of John the Baptist or Bernard of Clairvaux the crucifixion, or in the medieval idea that the Church is simultaneously Militant on earth, Penitent in purgatory, and Triumphant in heaven.
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Nov 28, 2018 18:55
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docbeard posted:
It's not a question of which one is the more enduring symbol, but that icons aren't really... in time, in the same way. Mr Enderby posted:It's part of a broader sense of the Church existing partially outside time, like in those paintings of John the Baptist or Bernard of Clairvaux the crucifixion, or in the medieval idea that the Church is simultaneously Militant on earth, Penitent in purgatory, and Triumphant in heaven. Right. When I go to Mass I am mystically present at the Last Supper and at the Crucifixion, even though not only did both events occur a long time ago, they didn't occur simultaneously either. The priest at the altar isn't re-sacrificing Jesus, but participating in Jesus's single self-sacrifice. "You never cease to gather a people to yourself, so that from the rising of the sun to its setting a pure sacrifice may be offered to your name," says Eucharistic Prayer III, and it's describing a single, ongoing sacrifice which all the gathered people, wherever and whenever they live, are offering.
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Nov 28, 2018 20:58
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There's also Christ as "the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world," which leads to the interpretation that the crucified Christ is himself the imago dei that humanity is based on.
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Nov 28, 2018 21:09
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and lines of thought like this are what lead hegel (the real one) to envision the world itself as pervaded with christ's self-emptying crucifixion and as a "perpetual crucifixion," which may have influenced his idea of identity through negation
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Nov 28, 2018 21:50
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Golly I love the eucharistic feast 
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Nov 28, 2018 22:53
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docbeard posted:we're not really into decor
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Nov 28, 2018 22:57
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