docbeard posted:

Even decades removed from the place and people I grew up around, I still have this thing where when I first hear 'conservative', I don't always think of (what I consider to be) unpleasant political beliefs, I think of plain dress and horses and buggies. The Mennonites I grew up with and around were not of that particular bent, though I think my grandparents grew up that way. But I was familiar enough with it.

Of course from much of this thread's perspective, we Anabaptists aren't conservative at all; we're the ones who thought Martin Luther didn't go far enough!

I'm not sure there are any uniquely Mennonite teachings about either dead folk or about demons, except I'm pretty sure if one turned up they'd be put to work straight away, since that barn ain't gonna build itself.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer posted:

When he was challenged by Jesus to accept a life of voluntary poverty, the rich young man knew he was faced with the simple alternative of obedience or disobedience. When Levi was called from the receipt of custom and Peter from his nets, there was no doubt that Jesus meant business. Both of them were to leave everything and follow. Again, when Peter was called to walk on the rolling sea, he had to get up and risk his life. Only one thing was required in each case - to rely on Christ’s word, and cling to it as offering greater security than all the securities in the world. The forces which tried to interpose themselves between the word of Jesus and the response of obedience were as formidable then as they are to-day. Reason and conscience, responsibility and piety all stood in the way, and even the law and ‘scriptural authority’ itself were obstacles which pretended to defend them from going to the extremes of antinomianism and ‘enthusiasms’. But the call of Jesus made short work of all these barriers, and created obedience. That call was the Word of God himself, and all that it required was single-minded obedience.

If, as we read our Bibles, we heard Jesus speaking to us in this way to-day we should probably try to argue ourselves out of it like this: ‘It is true that the demand of Jesus is definite enough, but I have to remember that he never expects us to take his commands legalistically. What he really wants me to have is faith. But my faith is not necessarily tied up with riches or poverty or anything of the kind. We may be both poor and rich in the spirit. It is not important that I should have no possessions, but if I do I must keep them as though I had them not, in other words I must cultivate a spirit of inward detachment, so that my heart is not in my possessions.’ Jesus may have said: ‘Sell thy goods’, but he meant: ‘Do not let it be a matter of consequence to you that you have outward prosperity; rather keep your goods quietly, having them as if you had them not. Let not your heart be in your goods.’ – We are excusing ourselves from single-minded obedience to the word of Jesus on the pretext of legalism and a supposed preference for an obedience ‘in faith’. The difference between ourselves and the rich young man is that he was not allowed to solace his regrets by saying: ‘Never mind what Jesus says, I can still hold on to my riches, but in a spirit of inner detachment. Despite my inadequacy I can take comfort in the thought that God has forgiven me my sins and can have fellowship with Christ in faith.’ But no, he went away sorrowful. Because he would not obey, he could not believe. In this the young man was quite honest. He went away from Jesus and indeed this honesty had more promise than any apparent communion with Jesus based on disobedience. As Jesus realized, the trouble with the young man was that he was not capable of such an inward detachment from riches. As an earnest seeker for perfection he had probably tried it a thousand times before and failed, as he showed by refusing to obey the word of Jesus when the moment of decision came. It is just here that the young man was entirely honest. But we in our sophistry differ altogether from the hearers of Jesus’ word of whom the Bible speaks. If Jesus said to someone: ‘Leave all else behind and follow me; resign your profession, quit your family, your people, and the home of your fathers,’ then he knew that to this call there was only one answer – the answer of single-minded obedience, and that it is only to this obedience that the promise of fellowship with Jesus is given. But we should probably argue thus: ‘Of course we are meant to take the call of Jesus with ‘‘absolute seriousness’’, but after all the true way of obedience would be to continue all the more in our present occupations, to stay with our families, and serve him there in a spirit of true inward detachment.’ If Jesus challenged us with the command: ‘Get out of it’, we should take him to mean: ‘Stay where you are, but cultivate that inward detachment.’ Again, if he were to say to us: ‘Be not anxious’, we should take him to mean: ‘Of course it is not wrong for us to be anxious: we must work and provide for ourselves and our dependants. If we did not we should be shirking our responsibilities. But all the time we ought to be inwardly free from all anxiety.’ Perhaps Jesus would say to us: ‘Whosoever smiteth thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.’ We should then suppose him to mean: ‘The way really to love your enemy is to fight him hard and hit him back.’ Jesus might say: ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God’, and we should interpret it thus: ‘Of course we should have to seek all sorts of other things first; how could we otherwise exist? What he really means is the final preparedness to stake all on the kingdom of God.’ All along the line we are trying to evade the obligation of single-minded, literal obedience.

How is such absurdity possible? What has happened that the word of Jesus can be thus degraded by this trifling, and thus left open to the mockery of the world? When orders are issued in other spheres of life there is no doubt whatever of their meaning. If a father sends his child to bed, the boy knows at once what he has to do. But suppose he has picked up a smattering of pseudo-theology. In that case he would argue more or less like this: ‘Father tells me to go to bed, but he really means that I am tired, and he does not want me to be tired. I can overcome my tiredness just as well if I go out and play. Therefore though father tells me to go to bed, he really means: ‘‘Go out and play.’’’ If a child tried such arguments on his father or a citizen on his government, they would both meet with a kind of language they could not fail to understand – in short they would be punished. Are we to treat the commandment of Jesus differently from other orders and exchange single-minded obedience for downright disobedience? How could that be possible!

It is possible because there is an element of truth underlying all this sophistry. When Jesus calls the young man to enter into the situation where faith is possible, he does it only with the aim of making the man have faith in him, that is to say, he calls him into fellowship with himself. In the last resort what matters is not what the man does, but only his faith in Jesus as the Son of God and Mediator. At all events poverty or riches, marriage or celibacy, a profession or the lack of it, have in the last resort nothing to do with it – everything depends on faith alone. So far then we are quite right; it is possible to have wealth and the possession of this world’s goods and to believe in Christ – so that a man may have these goods as one who has them not. But this is an ultimate possibility of the Christian life, only within our capacity in so far as we await with earnest expectation the immediate return of Christ. It is by no means the first and the simplest possibility. The paradoxical understanding of the commandments has its Christian justification, but it must never lead to the abandoning of the single-minded understanding of the commandments. This is only possible and right for somebody who has already at some point or other in his life put into action his single-minded understanding, somebody who thus lives with Christ as his disciple and in anticipation of the end. This is the infinitely more difficult, and humanly speaking ‘impossible possibility’, to interpret the call of Jesus in this paradoxical way. And it is just this paradoxical element which exposes his call to the constant danger of being transformed into its very opposite, and used as an excuse for shirking the necessity of concrete obedience. Anybody who does not feel that he would be much happier were he only permitted to understand and obey the commandments of Jesus in a straightforward literal way, and e.g. surrender all his possessions at his bidding rather than cling to them, has no right to this paradoxical interpretation of Jesus’ words. We have to hold the two together in mind all the time.

The actual call of Jesus and the response of single-minded obedience have an irrevocable significance. By means of them Jesus calls people into an actual situation where faith is possible. For that reason his call is an actual call and he wishes it so to be understood, because he knows that it is only through actual obedience that a man can become liberated to believe.

The elimination of single-minded obedience on principle is but another instance of the perversion of the costly grace of the call of Jesus into the cheap grace of self-justification. By this means a false law is set up which deafens men to the concrete call of Christ. This false law is the law of the world, of which the law of grace is at once the complement and the antithesis. The ‘world’ here is not the world overcome in Christ, and daily to be overcome anew in fellowship with him, but the world hardened into a rigid, impenetrable legalistic principle. When that happens grace has ceased to be the gift of the living God, in which we are rescued from the world and put under the obedience of Christ; it is rather a general law, a divine principle, which only needs to be applied to particular cases. Struggling against the legalism of simple obedience, we end by setting up the most dangerous law of all, the law of the world and the law of grace. In our effort to combat legalism we land ourselves in the worst kind of legalism. The only way of overcoming this legalism is by real obedience to Christ when he calls us to follow him; for in Jesus the law is at once fulfilled and cancelled.

By eliminating simple obedience on principle, we drift into an unevangelical interpretation of the Bible. We take it for granted as we open the Bible that we have a key to its interpretation. But then the key we use would not be the living Christ, who is both Judge and Saviour, and our use of this key no longer depends on the will of the living Holy Spirit alone. The key we use is a general doctrine of grace which we can apply as we will. The problem of discipleship then becomes a problem of exegesis as well. If our exegesis is truly evangelical, we shall realize that we cannot identify ourselves altogether with those whom Jesus called, for they themselves are part and parcel of the Word of God in the Scriptures, and therefore part of the message. We hear in the sermon not only the answer which Jesus gave to the young man’s question, which would also be our question, but both question and answer are, as the Word of the Scriptures, contents of the message. It would be a false exegesis if we tried to behave in our discipleship as though we were the immediate contemporaries of the men whom Jesus called. But the Christ whom the Scriptures proclaim is in every word he utters one who grants faith to those only who obey him. It is neither possible nor right for us to try to get behind the Word of the Scriptures to the events as they actually occurred. Rather the whole Word of the Scriptures summons us to follow Jesus. We must not do violence to the Scriptures by interpreting them in terms of an abstract principle, even if that principle be a doctrine of grace. Otherwise we shall end up in legalism.

We must therefore maintain that the paradoxical interpretation of the commandments of Jesus always includes the literal interpretation, for the very reason that our aim is not to set up a law, but to proclaim Christ. There remains just a word to be said about the suspicion that this simple obedience involves a doctrine of human merit, of a facere quod in se est, of insistence on preliminary conditions before faith becomes possible. Obedience to the call of Jesus never lies within our own power. If for instance we give away all our possessions, that act is not in itself the obedience he demands. In fact such a step might be the precise opposite of obedience to Jesus, for we might then be choosing a way of life for ourselves, some Christian ideal, or some ideal of Franciscan poverty. Indeed in the very act of giving away his goods a man can give allegiance to himself and to an ideal and not to the command of Jesus. He is not set free from his own self but still more enslaved to himself. The step into the situation where faith is possible is not an offer which we can make to Jesus, but always his gracious offer to us. Only when the step is taken in this spirit is it admissible. But in that case we cannot speak of a freedom of choice on our part.

And Jesus said unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, It is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. And when the disciples heard it, they were astonished exceedingly, saying, Who then can be saved? And Jesus looking upon them said unto them, With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. (Matt. 19.23-26)

The shocked question of the disciples ‘Who then can be saved?’ seems to indicate that they regarded the case of the rich young man not as in any way exceptional, but as typical. For they do not ask: ‘Which rich man?’ but quite generally, ‘Who then can be saved?’ For every man, even the disciples themselves, belongs to those rich ones for whom it is so difficult to enter the kingdom of heaven. The answer Jesus gives showed the disciples that they had understood him well. Salvation through following Jesus is not something we men can achieve for ourselves - but with God all things are possible.

Kazak_Hstan posted:

Makes me really wonder about the seminary in Denver, if it's pumping out priests of this type.

Cythereal posted:

I disagree, I think the printing press had far greater knock-on effects through the power of literacy, communications, and the revolution in information speed and flow it presented.

Worthleast posted:

Aristotle argues that this is what separates man from the other animals.

If you're ever up here in Frostbite Falls I'll buy you a beer.

The Calypsos of Bokonon posted:

Fish got to swim
Bird got to fly
Man got to sit and wonder why why why

CountFosco posted:

Polygamy is just a really bad idea, even from a secular perspective. There are numerous sociological arguments that in societies where polygamy is permitted, you end up with men supporting several wives, none of the reverse, and an inevitable population of young men with no hope of having a wife that can be easily radicalized.

Paladinus posted:

Hey! Welcome to the thread.
If seminaries are for teens, what would be the institution that actually prepares priests? Is there such a thing at all?


Huh. I always thought Scientology was registered as a religion only to avoid taxes, and was basically just a set of (pseudo-)scientific psychological practices with a slight mythological and ethical bend. Are there really any Scientology theologians to speak of?

Cythereal posted:

HEY GUNS posted:

that's one way to get tenure

Caufman posted:

Could you imagine the blasphemy of having an interior woven of two kinds of textiles?

Pershing posted:

Rich 1st and 2nd Corinthian leather!

Keromaru5 posted:

So our "favorite" wannabe-Orthodox white nationalist leader Matthew Heimbach was arrested for domestic battery after being caught in an affair with his father-in-law/spokesman/webmaster's wife.

quote:

In the report, all four people involved in the incident recorded their occupations as “White Nationalist.”

quote:

Now I know why the universe
delights and rejoices in you;
terrified, the demons scatter
before you, and the sages bow.

Why should they not bow,
eternal Creator, infinite Lord?
You are both being and nonbeing,
and what is beyond them both,

the primal God, the primordial Person,
the ultimate place of the universe,
the knower and the known,
the presence that fills all things.

You are wind, death, fire, the moon,
the Lord of life, the great ancestor
of all things. A thousand times
I bow in front of you, Lord.

Again and again I bow to you,
from all sides, in every direction.
Majesty infinite in power,
you pervade—no, you are—all things.

If, thinking you a human,
I ever touched you or patted your back
or called you “dear fellow” or “friend”
through negligence or affection,

or greeted you with disrespect,
thoughtlessly, when we were playing
or resting, alone or in public,
I beg you to forgive me, immeasurable

God, great father of the world,
teacher, sustainer, goal
of all reverence, unique and peerless
Lord of unthinkable splendor.

The Phlegmatist posted:

buddy spend some time in calvinist facebook groups whenever martin luther king day rolls around

James Hal Cone posted:

The question of heresy must be reopened in our time, not for the purpose of witch-hunting, but for the sake of the Church's life. We need to be clear about the subject to which our proclamation points and the relation of our words about that Subject to our actions in the world. Here it must be emphasized that we are not simply concerned with our theological conceptualizations of Jesus Christ, although they are included. Theological concepts have meaning only as they are translated into theological praxis, that is, the Church living in the world on the basis of what it proclaims. This means that theology and ethics, though not identical, are closely interrelated: the mission of the Church is defined by its proclamation, and the proclamation is authenticated by the mission. For the sake of the mission of the Church in the world, we must continually ask, What actions deny the Truth disclosed in Jesus Christ? Where should the line be drawn? Can the Church of Jesus Christ be racist and Christian at the same time? Can the Church of Jesus Christ be politically, socially, and economically identified with the structures of oppression and also be a servant of Christ? Can the Church of Jesus Christ fail to make the liberation of the poor the center of its message and work, and still remain faithful to its Lord?

On the level of theory these questions are easy to answer. Yet they are very difficult to answer in the day-to-day life of the Church. This difficulty is increased because we live in a society of any denominations under an ethos of the "freedom" of religion. But difficulties do not make the questions less important. Indeed their importance is grounded in the integrity of our faith and the obedience that is inherent in the reality of Jesus Christ. The answer to the question of heresy as it relates both to our past and to our present situation begins and ends with the centrality of Jesus Christ as the Liberator of the oppressed. Any interpretation of the gospel in any historical period that fails to see Jesus as the Liberator of the oppressed is heretical. Any view of the gospel that fails to understand the Church as that community whose work and consciousness are defined by the community of the oppressed is not Christian and is thus heretical. Within this context the issue of heresy must be debated.

Mr Enderby posted:

I'm pretty sure that's not an Anglican thing.


OK keep doing your thing.


Jokes aside, and for all its faults, I truly love the fact that Anglicanism ties itself in knots to avoid Schism and bad feeling between its members. No-one should want to have to call their neighbours heretics. If we sometimes err on the side of laxity, then we do it out of a love of unity and fraternity.

HEY GUNS posted:

this is weird: lot of young orthodox in the past ten years. New converts?

mods change my name posted:

i mean the printing press did have a bit of a smaller audience at the time and was probably the biggest impact on human literacy but no maybe only digital advertising is the only real mass media

EVA BRAUN BLOWJOBS posted:

end nudes

EVA BRAUN BLOWJOBS posted:

You're a 35 year old monk. The hair they didn't shave off your head has all turned grey. Your nose barely brushes the paper as strain-induced myopia slows your work to a crawl. Your spine twisted into a permanent hunch from 25 years of writing after your parents sold you to the abbey. Two painstaking months go by and you produce your life's masterpiece: a full vellum illuminated page, your finest work yet. Your eyes are wide with pride as the noble picks up his order. "Thanks bruh", he says, hastily scribbling "end nudes" on the vellum. With a cry of "HEY WENCH!" he crumples the culmination of the monk's life and throws it at a large breasted milkmaid nearby.

Lutha Mahtin posted:

dat rear end is reliculous dawg