www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Liberal Protestantism

with all the talk about the mainline denominations drifting away from the historic orthodox roots of faith, let me share what I have been reading this past week:
in 1937, H. Richard Niebuhr wrote in his The Kingdom of God in America:
A God without wrath brought man without sin into a kingdom without judgement through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.
I saw this in a recent issue of First Things. the writer who cited Niebuhr noted that not only could the above describe liberal Protestantism, but the mega churches which seem to be the bomb right now, with its man centeredness and its circus like 'worship'.
and from J.I.Packer, a sound conservative Protestant theologian:
To all conservative Christians, liberals, however well meaning, appear as parasitic cosmeticians; cosmeticians because they constantly aim to remove from Christianity that which makes outsiders, like some inside, find intellectually unsightly and unacceptable; parasitic, because they attach themselves to the historic faith and feed off of it even as they whittle it down, diminshing, distorting, and displacing major features of it to fit in with their skeptical conversation partners tout as factual truth.
the above was from Packer's article: Evangelicals and Catholics: the State of Play
in the publication: Books & Culture: A Christian Review
page 10
March/April 2005
thought I would share these articles, etc. as food for thought.
Much Love,
Jonn

Dear John,

In reference to the mega churches, I like to think of them as being filled with former agnostics and athiests, that are taking that one step towards God. Now that step might go further, or it may not, but either way it is better than the state they were in before they became part of the mega church.

Actually, these ministers should called themselves, Christian inspirational speakers...because that's what they are. :rolleyes:

Zenovia

Hi,

I admire your Irenical spirit, however, I cannot go that far.

I'd call them Scriptural motivational speakers, because just because they quote the Bible, that doesn't make any of what they say even remotely Christian; they try to motivate people and are pretty successful at that, but they do not "inspire" quite a lot; and they speak, oh yes, we agree on that one, they speak.

Shalom,
Memo

"Motivational Speakers" is right. Motivated to do what and believe what are other questions. They are motivational.

CDL

less reading of "First Things"
more reading of "New Oxford Review"


As New Oxford Review said in their September 2005 Editorial:

"BeforeCrisis and First Things were even founded, the NOR was contacted by a neocon foundation -- right out of the blue. The foundation wanted to give us money -- 'free' money. A fellow flew out from the East Coast and asked me (the Editor) to meet him for drinks in a San Francisco restaurant -- on him. Sure! (We were desperate for money.) He told me he would fund us regularly -- if we would support corporate capitalism and if we would support a militaristic U.S. foreign policy." What I didn't say was that the fellow was a Jewish neocon with no interest in Christianity or Catholicism, and I suspected he was interested in getting us to promote Jewish neocon interests (which he had every right to do). As we said in the September Editorial, I said "no," and that was the end of that. But the neocon foundations didn't give up. Michael Novak (very pro-Israel) founded Crisis -- then called Catholicism in Crisis -- and Fr. Neuhaus (also very pro-Israel) founded First Things, both with huge financial support from neocon foundations. So the neocons found a way to get Catholic and Christian magazines to front for their largely Jewish neocon interests (which, again, is their right). Do we exaggerate? No we don't. When the Catholic Church denounced the war on Iraq -- calling it an unjust war, a war of aggression -- both Crisis and First Things supported it. A clear case of supporting Jewish neocon interests over Catholic Just War doctrine. For a synopsis of Fr. Neuhaus's support for the war on Iraq, based on his support for Israel, see our New Oxford Note, "What Does the Pope Know About World Affairs?" (Nov., pp. 13-14, 16-17). If you persist in seeing this as anti-Semitism, you're wrong again. In an editorial in The Forward, the oldest Jewish newspaper in the U.S., it was stated that: "Recently...reasonable people still could dismiss, as antisemitic conspiracy mongering, the claim that Israel's security was the real motive behind the invasion of Iraq. No longer.... Its advocates can no longer simply be shushed or dismissed as bigots. Those who disagree must now argue the case on the merits."

Aside from foreign policy, can orthodox Catholics find common cause with neocons in the culture wars? Perhaps. Perhaps not. As Irving Kristol, a Jewish ex-Trotskyite and the godfather of neoconservatism, wrote in the Wall Street Journal: "Those [culture] wars are over and the Left has won."

Yes, it can be quite lucrative to get on the neocon gravy train, but it's not something we wish to do. "Freedom Is Not Free." You pay a price for your freedom, and the NOR is truly free, even if relatively poor.

Thought-leader periodicals such as the NOR, First Things, and Crisis never break even. Either you rely on neocon foundations (and we're not denying that First Things and Crisis often help the orthodox cause), or you go it alone, relying on subscribers for sustenance. We prefer not to have any strings attached."

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Zenovia:
[QB] Dear John,

In reference to the mega churches, I like to think of them as being filled with former agnostics and athiests, that are taking that one step towards God.


I'm sure some of these mega churches would love nothing more than to "save" Orthodox and Catholic Christians from the "darkness" of our "lifeless religion" which is full of "dead ritual" and "puts the traditions of men over the Word of God."

Benny Hinn was raised Orthodox (he's part Armenian, part Greek) and I happened to hear him once on TV talking about how he never knew Jesus as an Orthodox, as did none of his Orthodox relatives, blah, blah, blah...