http://www.aoiusa.org/blog/2011/11/metro...s-in-the-lurch/

Alexandr

Russia is welcome to intervene. I mean, Egypt used to be one of their best customers.

Metropolitan Hilarion's point is well-taken. And, as he is not Russia, the failure of Russia to act should not be laid on him nor should his words be dismissed because he didn't include it in those nations to whom he addressed his thoughts.

While I don't think that there is any driving desire on the part of the Western powers to becoming physically engaged in another confrontation in that part of the world, there are measures - including economic sanctions and the persuasiveness of backroom discussions - that can be applied in an effort to end the oppressive measures being exerted against Coptic Christians.

Prayers for our Coptic brethren.

Many years,

Neil

I think the real problem is that in the West, there are two growing tendencies: one is to look negatively towards Christianity, while the other is to look favorably towards Islam. The reasons for the latter tendency aren't clear to me, but the reality certainly is, and the two factors together are working to make the average American less willing to get involved in any kind of Christians-vs.-Muslims type of conflict.

Needless to say, if the people don't support the idea, the Government surely won't.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

I'm puzzled why any Christian, in either the West or the East (or, for that matter, in the North or the South) would ever regard Islam favourably.

What's there to like about it?

I also find the present attitude bewildering.


Nothing.

It's better than Hinduism, but that's all I can muster in its defense. Mohammed, Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard must have some interesting conversations, wherever they are.

They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth,(5) who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting

Nostra Aetate

I await your take on this. I'm sure it will be cynical and clever.

Utroque, this passage speaks to the condition of individual Muslims (some of whom it may surely be said live a far holier life than some individual Christians) but doesn't really start to address the question posed here about regarding the religion itself favourably.

Well, it's individual Muslims who are doing the poor Copts in in Egypt, not Islam. I fear such as they. I have no fear of Islam, and esteem and honor most of its adherents, and think the Catholic Church is on my side.

The false irenicism espoused at Vatican II is not convincing to me. Islam is a false religion predicated upon an explicit denial of the divinity of Christ and the dogma of the Holy Trinity.

To be honest, I think that Hinduism is better than Islam.

Is Judaism then also a false religion? Just asking.

Is the west favourable towards Islam? I've seen scant evidence of that, what with invading Islamic countries on dubious pretexts, messing up popular demands for Islamic governance,strip searching people that look Muslim at airports (including Orthodox Clergy) etc.

We can't seriously 'grade' religions this way. On one hand, of course Islam denies the divinity of Christ and the nature of the Trinity, but then so does Judaism. And it doesn't matter, chronologically, which religion did so first.

I don't like a lot of what I see emerge from Islam either, but seeing as we live in a pluralistic world, it seems best to look for what is good... NOT for the sake of a 'false irenicism', but because there is a fair amount that we share, and upon which a genuine peace can be built.

First of all, it is not possible to seek the Good without seeking God, as only God is Good. This means that Muslims are necessarily seekers of the same think as us. Beyond that, though, it is possible to see in their movement a belief - albeit misconceived - in the Logos. Insofar as Islam is based on the premise that God makes himself known in a word uttered to a prophet and written in a book, and that this word can be pursued by means of the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge, then Islam corresponds with Christianity.

Consider, for example, Caliph Harun al-Rashid, and the House of Wisdom. The Islamic Golden Age saw a flourishing of learning, and something very much akin to what the Christian world embraced when it was not under attack by the Northern hoardes, and then developed in its universities. Indeed, Islamic medicine, mathematics, and even their preservation of Aristotle, eventually served to invigorate the European intellectual enterprise.

If we consider examples such as Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanei, and Ayatollah Mahmoud Taleghani, we can well see in their work at the very least a tangible, theological expression of charity and regard for human life, not unlike what we ourselves would aspire to.

I think that Lewis' notion of the good Calormene at the end of the Last Battle is a good paradigm not just for individual Muslims, but for Islam itself. Where it seeks love, it seeks Christ without knowing.

It is worth adding:

http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/egypts-brotherhood-pledge-to-defend-christians

After the bombing of the Coptic Church last Christmas, I remember reading in the Church Times (London) an article about the thousands of Muslims who came out on subsequent nights to surround and defend Christians.

This act was to protect them from other Muslims, of course, but it is a part of the story of Islam that tends to get lost.