www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Let's try this again, with proper Christian focus this time

O Dear Lord! These three in agreement? It has to be one of the signs of the end-times. Head for the shelter!

Savor the moment, it may never happen again!


Alice

Dear Alice, dear dsj, et al:

This is what I meant when I commented on another thread that it isn't all bad!
Alice and I agree quite often on a variety of issues. However, I've not really engaged previously (so far as I remember) with dsj; it's always nice to find a friend. I haven't noticed - mea culpa - whether Alice and dsj have tangled, agreed, or just not happened to be chatting about the same topic or topics.
Anyway, my thanks to Alice and dsj, and to others.

A blessed Sunday to everyone.

Incognitus

Deacon John,

Doc Brian is a Byzantine Catholic and none of us has any knowledge of his ministry with homosexuals. Many effective ministries take place without people bragging about them. For that matter no one knows about my history of ministry in this area and until I choose to offer it no one else will.

My objections to the posts by djs and Incognitus in this area are centered around approach to the subject (I hope) and not around substance (I pray) but it is not always clear from their posts.

Work out your own infinitives. I'll split my own thank you.

Dan L

Thanks again, Dan. I commented on this in this thread:

Ratzinger Warned in April 1st Lectu...uality...is an Objective Disorder"

Dan,

I wholehearted agree with your statement above. This is why I challenged Doc Brian's sweeping commentary in his earlier post:

Based on your own observation, Doc Brian had no grounds to make his comments. I for one as a cleric take a charge of dissent quite seriously.

In addition, since "(m)any effective ministries take place without people bragging about them" Doc Brian should not view a failure "to post on threads where the Culture of life needs defending or promoting" as a sign that "(m)ost don't care enough about fighting the Culture of Death". I am sorry you saw my post as a personal brag, though it was a boast- a boast in what Christ can accomplish in our Byzantine communities, especially when those communities are faithful to the Gospel of Christ.

The Gospel lessons of the previous Sundays of Pentecost have had a common theme- faith. As we have heard in those lessons, faith is much more than lip-service to the Creed or posting on a forum, faith is action borne out of a loving trust in God.

Father Deacon,

I was not referring to your ministry with homosexuals as bragging. I am not aware of the scope of your ministry at all. Do you minister with homosexualists?

What I objected to was your charicterization of DocBrian as not a Byzantine Catholic, though perhaps from your citation, he may not be yet. However, his profile indicates that he is.

I see little evidence of compassion for homosexuals or anyone else in djs, and Incognitus' posts in this thread. I note a great deal of mockery, but virtually no compassion. I do not understand why you and Alice agree with them.

DocBrian has precisely outlined what Catholic/Orthodox believe. The political observations that Incognitus and djs have inserted into this thread are irrelevant.

Dan L

Dan,

Are you actually reading the posts?

In the first post of the thread Doc asks:

You write:
Can we not at least agree that item 2) of Doc is not about Catholic/Orthodox beliefs but is in fact an insertion of politics from, the get go?

Yes, I agree. I'm not here to defend or promote any of the posters. Nor is my objection to an insertion of politics into the thread. What I do object to is the assertion by both of you that somehow or other the freedom of naked people to prance around committing mock sexual acts is somehow to be a cherished right and stopping them from doing so is somehow wrong.

What I'd really like to see from all of the posters here is a suggestion for some strategy to evangelize people, and because this thread is about homosexualists, to evangelize those who are tempted in this area.

I don't see the point in defending some imaginary right to prance around naked.

dan l

Dan,

just to set the record straight...

1. Though laudable, I do not engage in any type of of ministry to homosexuals. In the post I presumed you were referencing I mentioned our parish outreach to a women's shelter. In that same post I referenced the work of Courage.

2. I am at a loss to figure how you concluded that I questioned DocBrian's religious affiliation. (are you actually reading the posts?) I did not challenge his ecclesial affiliation, but I did challenge his generalization of BC posters on this forum. If you reread DocBrian's post it was he who characterized Byzantine Catholics posters on this forum as superficial:

But Dan, no one has promoted such a right. It is the sense that it is being promoted that is imaginary.

1) Lewd behavior is presumably actionable, and sanctions against it should be enforced. This point has been stipulated repeatedly by me and by incognitous and by others.

2) A permit to parade does not abrogate those sanctions. At the same time, one cannot refuse equal access because of our imagining that actionable conduct will ensue. We punish crimes, not the possibility of crimes.

3) Homosexuals have the same right as anyone else to assemble, speak out, and obtain permits for parades. And it would be nice to realize that as distasteful as this situation might be, it is this very situation, provided it is defended vigorously, that is the real protection from censorship described in Doc's link.

On the other hand, if, as Doc's second query would suggest, we succumb to a majoritarian view of what speech we will accept, then we might very well wake up to find the expression of Catholic ideas suppressed. We protect speech that may be repugnant to us, in order to protect our speech when it may be repugnant to others.

Dear DJS you stated in one of your posts:

" But I say again, the idea of establishing church law as civil law raises a clear problem in America. I don't want to live under Protestant law, whatever it would entail. So we protect diversity to, among other things, protect our own ability to work out our salvation as Catholics."

I believe:

It goes a little further than that. What we believe and what becomes or has become law in the past has to do with our society. In that I mean the values and beliefs that have been imbedded into our consciencness by Christianity.

Now our society is changing, therefore what we perceive as rightful law or wrongful law is changing with that. In other words we are now becoming pagans and all that goes with it. Therefore what we considered wrong before, is now considered acceptable by our courts and we, living in a pagan society, fully accept it and see it's merits.

We are products of what our media, (or should I say satan) has made us. The world is surely being prepared for the anti-christ.

I say this as someone that has watched the battles in the courts for the past 15 plus years. I have seen conservative Christians win time and time again, only to have to fight the battle over and over again until a liberal judge was found.

I have seen sponsers of programs taking away their support only to have a more offensive program appear the next year

As one writer stated when asked why does he continue writing trash when he gains nothing financially from it? His answer: "We want to see how far we can go".

Well thanks to them, to our teachers and to our university professors, our young people are living in a totally different universe from us with our outdated Christian ethics, morals and values. We can only hope that they will be imbedded with a little of Christ's teaching. We do our best and the rest is up to God.

May our Lord have mercy on us all.

In Christ,

Zenovia

Dear Zenovia,

I agree that there are some who push the envelope in weird directions just for the sake of shock value, because they have no notion of otherwise how to be creative. And that popular culture is almost completely poison. But the downhill trend is almost entirely a hetero phenomenon. Turning the tide will require attacking the real problem not just going after the usual scapegoats.

I agree partly with this. There is an evolution of what we perceive as rightful law. That means that acceptance not only of slavery, but even Jim Crow is pretty much inconceivable now. Likewise fag bashing. I think a Christian can and should see such trends positively. Are there counter trends? Sure. But ulimately what is good will prevail, because it is firmly rooted in true love for mankind, and that, after all, is what most every person - even the pagans and secularists etc. - are after.

Dan objects to "the assertion by both of you [meaning djs and your humble servant] that somehow or other the freedom of naked people to prance around committing mock sexual acts is somehow to be a cherished right and stopping them from doing so is somehow wrong."

Neither djs nor I have asserted any such thing. But before I take up that point, please allow me to suggest that you look up "prance" in a dictionary. I know of no law forbidding horses to appear in the nude. We are, I trust, discussing human beings. [The verb "mince" might better express what you probably have in mind.]

Human beings do not have a right to appear in the nude wherever someone might choose to do so (unless the someone is under the age of, say, six months, in which case his parent or guardian is supposed to be looking after him). Public nudity is indeed actionable, apart from certain restricted circumstances which definitely do not include parades down the city streets. [Gymnasia, saunas, hospital facilities of a certain kind, and so on are not "public" in that sense - and one of the recent outrages is a court decision that allows reporters the "right" to barge into a shower room after a baseball game or whatever to interview the players - and the offending reporter need not be of the same sex as the players. Don't know about you, but I'd be tempted to put my legal scruples to one side and drag the offending reporter into the shower, with the cold water going full blast!]

As for public simulations of sex acts - I believe that there are laws against such outrageous behavior (or, rather, mis-behavior) in most places.

Even humor has its restrictions.

Incognitus

Dear DJS you said:

"I agree partly with this. There is an evolution of what we perceive as rightful law. That means that acceptance not only of slavery, but even Jim Crow is pretty much inconceivable now."

I say:

Slavery still exists. Maybe not in this country...at least not in the open. It will always exist as long as there is poverty and war. People will be forced to sell there children so that their other children can eat, and conquerers will always sell their prisoners as slaves in preference to killing them. That is as long as it is more profitable. Well! Maybe not in the Western world.

You said:

But ultimately what is good will prevail, because it is firmly rooted in true love for mankind, and that, after all, is what most every person - even the pagans and secularists etc. - are after.

I say:

I don't know how people can have true love for mankind without the 'workings' of the Holy Spirit. The further one is from the one true God, the more 'unholy' they become...they can only become more evil.

Of course I'm talking of those that 'know' of our God and have rejected Him. Not those that do not know of God.

If one doesn't open one's heart to God through an acceptance and true repentance of their sins, then how can He can come into their hearts and mind? Their reasoning will be all off....(As we have seen so many times in the past). And then again if He doesn't come into their hearts, then how much love can that person have?

Zenovia