www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Statue Removed To Appease Moslems

"Where charity and love prevail, there God is ever found." Therefor God isn't found here. Moe

Posted by Sharon Mech:

"When I visited the Holocaust Museum a couple years ago, I found myself muttering as I walked through the displays, and I realized I was saying over and over, "Every one a soul loved by God."

Last time I looked, even "infidels" had souls.

Just a random thought."


Posted by Moe:

"Where charity and love prevail, there God is ever found."


Let the congregation say, "Amen!"


A request?

I lost the phone number that God gave us to get answers to unanswerable questions. Anyone have it handy? :rolleyes:

I'd like to get His explanation of how His Provident Love for each and all of us can be made to line up with the sometimes horrible things we do using his gift of free will. Aren't all things supposed to work together unto good?

I'd like to know, it is a puzzlement!

Maybe we need to listen to eachother and pray together. To speak or think as though He has revealed the truth to the republicans or democrats or the conservatives or the liberals or proponents or opponents of the war might be a leap into the dark. It might even keep us from coming together to find the pieces of the whole that we have as His people.

Shouldn't we be silent about what we are so sure that He wants and let Him be God. His ways are not our ways.

Steve

(Goy to our Jewish brothers and sisters. Infidel to our moslem brothers and sisters. Heretic and schismatic to some of our Christian brothers and sisters. Fool to many. Hopefully along with all of our brothers and sisters, redeemed sinful child to the God Who Is Love)

Christos Voskrese!

Oh the spirit of tribalism... :rolleyes:

All people are creations of a kind Heavenly Father who draws them with His Love; this includes people of all religions: Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, et al. We have seen the fruit of tribalism and that is not the fruit of the Holy Spirit. By giving human life primacy of place we can no longer provide structures that promote violence and different levels of humanity.Indeed, that is what Vatican II did when it deconstructed the medieval notions regarding other religions and its insepid pre-conciliar tribalism-predicting the "new globalization" Vatican II used its political savvy to be seen as a moral light and not a dusty relic sitting in a curios shelf.

Brothers and sisters, there is no excuse for tribalism of any kind--such is the stuff of wars. The Muslim just as the Jew is our brother. (This may raise the hairs of someone who is an Eastern Conciliar fundamentalist, however the spirit of the Canons is that of the Gospels, and once we loose that awareness we have fallen into legalism).

The point is not whether they, Muslims, believe in Jihad (whether as inner struggle or actual war), the point is that *we* do not hold to the same construct of struggle as they do: Christ has called us to even die, a martyrs death, for His principles of non-violence and for the Church he so lovingly procured by His sacrifice. Were the medieval popes wrong to use and promote the sword? Yes! Christ's Kingdom was never of this world and never will be.

May we all be able to see this.

In St. Theresa of Calcutta,

Robert Horvath

Dear Lawrence- "moral high ground"? Was this posted after the photos from the Iraqi prison became public knowledge? To the "bloodthirsty Muslim fanatics" they possess the moral high ground.
When the Muslims threatened Europe in the Middle Ages people had enough humility to call them the "Scourge of God". Whatever is going on it is not a simplistic struggle between good and evil. In many ways the Islamic movement is a reaction against the decadence of the West. WE are the ones with legal abortion. WE are the exporters of WMD. WE are the producers of most of the world's pornography. If we don't change our ways we may just inspire a united transethnic Islamic jihad [which apparently is already taking shape].

Christos Voskrese!

Indeed you are right Iconophile!

The only way we are going to reach the Muslim world is by raising the moral bar on a national level. But, I do not see that happening...what I see is what everyone sees when one is about to be in a head on collision. Islamic men and boys will be going to Jihad over this all over the world. Islam has never had an Enlightenment et al, even in its most westernized form, it still has the Qu'ranic texts and culture that require Jihad to defend Islam and its people: this is Jihad as war, not as inner struggle. But in our arrogance we expect Islam to change and not us. We expect them to live as westerners. What a sad scene we have unfolding before us. The black flag of Islam is rising over Europe: can we be so arrogant that we can stave it off for long in regard to America. We are fools.

May Christ our God have mercy on us and save us for He is good and lovest mankind. Amin.

Sincerely,

Robert

Iconophile

I totally agree with you ! My point in mentioning Iraq (and I've been opposed to the War from day one) was merely to say, that if it was morally wrong for Christian Spain to defend itself against the Moors, then all other conflicts are also morally wrong. And because I defended the right of Christian Spain to protect itself from an Islamic onslaught, a number of posters saw fit to remind me that Moslems too have souls. How defending one's self and one's faith can become equated with believing that the opposition are soul less is somehow beyond (thank God) my intellectual capacity.

Lawrence,

I don't think anyone suggested that the Spanish were wrong in defending themselves against the Moors, or that rejoicing in their victory means that you don't belive the infidels have souls.

The question is however HOW we rejoice in the victory, and HOW we depict our heroes. The should rejoice in the victory of the Spanish over the Moors, but we should WEEP over, not celebrate, that infidels had to be killed to achieve this!

St.Joan of Arc is celebrated as a saint in the Catholic church, and she is depicted as a warrior, however not as "slayer of the English".

And I think people would be offended if the Orthodox depicted St.Alexander Nevsky "slicing off the heads of Catholics"...

Christian

I agree. St. James was a beloved saint who didn't slice off heads of anyone during his lifetime. Unfortunately Christian art outside of iconography has taken on many liberties of which this awful Spanish representation is an example.

In writing an icon, the iconographer is supposed to pray and to fast and to follow the Byzantine monastic traditions. Iconography displays sanctity and a heavenly quality which is the product of prayer and fasting. Truly icons are windows into heaven. Therefore, icons are the best depiction of saints.