www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization practical evangelizing

...or in the words of Ben Stein "It is inevitable that some defeat will enter even the most victorious life. The human spirit is never finished when it is defeated--it is finished when it surrenders."

No surrender, no matter what our nay sayers claim.

CDL

BTW You may wish to watch "The Last Samurai".

Dan, Do you have any idea how ugly that is? Why would you put such a negative portrayal out there?!Do you have anything idea how that sounds?! Unfortunately, it is not the first time I've read a negative statement about blacks on this "Christian"forum, and if I'm not mistaken I read one just last month.But this is certainly the ugliest one I've seen.It certainly is not Christian.I don't care if Martin Luther King,Jr. himself told you that, it isn't right to give others a negative impression of Blacks. I've come to realize that in repeating such ugliness about people,others are poisoned and negatively influenced.

The situation is much more complicated than you are allowing for my dear Dan.It is always is. No, I don't buy completely into the victim philosophy but the table is not level,and a lot of folks have contributed to the situation.I've taught in urban schools, so I've seen some of what your friend has seen. My rural, urban,suburban,Northern, Southern black family is made up of different classes, and I am a well educated middle class black. I'm also the first to get on blacks about not stepping up to the plate , but I also realize that blacks and native americans are pretty complicated folks that most immigrants and their children(including blacks from other countries), don't understand at all because they judge from their native country's cultural point of view and values. I also know it isn't PC to say it but their is a grain of truth in negatvie stereotypes but not for the cut and dried reason the stereotypers believe. It is usually a case of misunderstanding people and judging them from one's own subjective or cultural point of view. And yet and still it is ugly and I suspect for that reaon Jesus commanded us not to judge others.

I agree the problem isn't just poverty. It is spiritual and there is a serious battle for black folks souls, but statements like this in a public forum that possibly millions of people will read feed prejudice. More than a few folks on this forum probably have little dealing with blacks.Folks from the old country likely came to this country with prejudices against blacks that they've passed on to their children and grandchildren. (I might also remind you that for those of you whose people arrived in the first half of the 20th century there are many cases in which your people actually benefitted from laws that discriminated against blacks and prospered because of it, and that does have somethng to do with the situation today.)The repetition of such an ugly statement just justifies in readers minds the negative statements and beliefs immigrant grandparents and parents have about blacks.

Oh, you might also remember that statistically,the majority of the poor "leeches on society" in this country are white, not black.Just as the number of illegitimate babies are...white.

That kind of ugly comment has no place on a Christian forum, and if I ever read another one like that about any group of people, I'm out of here for good. I'm disheartened that no moderator or any other poster saw a problem with that post except that it disrupted the topic.

Peace,
Indigo

There is a black middle class but a majority of blacks (he's black) have simply become leeches on society.

This is the quote referred to in my post.

Indigo

Dear Indigo,

Unless a post is reported (button with whistle on the bottom right), a moderator has no way of knowing that an offensive post has been posted. We all have jobs and other obligations, and are not humanly able to read every single post.

In Christ,
Alice, who is *not* a moderator on this particular forum

Indigo,

Alice, is right, unless a problem post is reported the moderators can not read every single post. Sometimes other posters have to point problem statements for others to help resolve an issue.

I am going to let your's and Dan's posts stand and let Dan explain his rationale for putting that statement into his post. I in no way condone the quote, and agree that it suggests intolerance and a negative stereotype.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+
Administrator

I take it back, even though it is an observation from a most respected black minister, close friend, president of the Knights of Columbus, and one has worked in the trenches all of his life. It was insensitive and I apologize.

You may wish to someday ask him why he said what he said.

CDL

May I ask a little question regarding practical evangelism without getting called intolerant? Not that I worry a great deal about that, but still, I'm not intentionally trying to offend. Here's the question:

Do Eastern Catholics have any place in the Evangelization of groups not now in the majority of their constituency? If so, how do we do it?

CDL, who has German American anscestory and wondering why I'm not particularly welcome by some here.

we all screw up one time or another. the big danger with the Internet, is when you push the button to send or to post, it goes at the speed of light, and it takes a Frankensteinian life of its own.
like Indigo, I have seen posts here that smack of racism, and have dealt with them from the perspective of a Metis (White and Native), which I identify myself as, even though I live in the States (it beats the crap of calling myself what I was called once in anger by an ex friend "halfbreed", with an obscenity preceeding the epitaph).and such stuff has no room here.
I can also address what Indigo said about the "old country". you have to remember that ethnic Whites came here in poverty from the old country to make the lives for themselves that they couldn't make back in Europe. they had no intrinsic animosity for African Americans, and could just live and let live.Unfortunately, that was not the result in the nineteenth century. Ethnics and Blacks were thrown into a cauldron where they competed for low paying butt busting work by the old American WASP establishment.this led to clashes between Ethnics and Blacks for crumbs from the masters' tables, and also amongst Ethnics themselves. giving birth to such terms of endearment as micks, wops, bohunks, polacks, kikes, krauts, etc.
during the War for Southern Independence, things came to an apocalyptic head in New York with the uprising against the draft. wealthy Wasps could get away from being drafted by plopping down 300 dollars, but this left the Irish, Germans, Italians, etc. who were at the bottom of the heap and could not afford the payoff to be drafted for the Union Army. the Irish did not mind fighting for the preservation of the Union, but frankly, couldn't care less about Blacks who they saw as competitors for jobs, and feared that Emancipation would lead to a massive Black migration to New York, and other Northern cities, thus even more bitter competition. what exacerbated things even more, is that Black men were not liable for the draft. in July of 1863, the Ethnics, led by the Irish, rose up in New York. what happened to Black people, who were as powerless as the Ethnics, was unspeakable, they served as convenient scapegoats.
what happened to the Wasps, oh, well.
In Chicago 1966, Martin Luther King led a march for open housing in Cicero outside of Chicago. the Slavic people who lived there saw the march as a threat to their piece of the American pie. violence broke out as the Slavs rose up. the real target was not the Black people, but the elite who for decades made their money on the backs of Slavs, as they did to the Irish. the Slavs worked hard for what they had, and saw the march for integration as that which would destroy the value of their homes. Again, the Blacks were scapegoats, and the target of violence. the liberal mostly Wasp elite have their own agenda. they have pitched race against race, and ethnic against ethnic for the almighty dollar. they forced integration of schools while they themselves send their brood to private virtually all White schools. look what happened in Boston in 1974.hypocisy is their glory, a glory in their shame.
believe me, I lived in a Sicilian neighborhood in New York for four years, and I lived amongst the feelings of White ethnics, and understand them. my father was Irish, son of Irish freedom fighters who fled to America after the collapse of the Easter Uprising, my stepfather Sicilian. both were working class Ethnics. I sympathize heartily with the Ethnics, regardless of where their ancestors came from, it is a part of me, and who I am. racism has no place here, but I hope that my post will shed a ray of light on how people think and react.
Much Love,
Jonn

Jonn,

Thank you. I grew up poor and I have friends who know poverty of every race. I'm not a white liberal in the sense of not knowing what the heck I'm talking about when it comes to racism and poverty. We will never get past the stereotypes until we can talk honestly about what we know.

We have not arrived. We used to have a black Eastern Catholic who posted here. Perhaps that's Indigo but I doubt it. The comment seemed more as if it came out of white guilt. Nevertheless, I will say no more.

We aren't ready for it.

I do know the history of which you speak.

CDL

I stepped away from the computer for a few days, and I am amazed, negatively, at one of the posts here since then. Dan, that remark about black people --no matter who it came from-- was unacceptable, and it caused far more harm than good.

I don't think that practical evangelizing is solely about offering the Tradition or good works of charity. Those things are good, but they have their proper place. What is most important, in my opinion, is offering Jesus. "First seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all else shall be added unto you." That doesn't mean going off to a corner and "becoming holy" before reaching out to others. It means, instead, making everything fall within the basic dedication of ourselves and one another and our lives to Christ our God.

If we dedicate ourselves to Jesus in all that we say or think or do, we will naturally bring people the Tradition and the charity that others need -- because we are bringing them Christ.

There is a reason that the fundamentalist churches are growing in numbers. They first and foremost try to bring Jesus to people. They are open to Him, and they share Him: by preaching Him through their dedication to Him and His Word. We do not have to imitate them in their lack of Tradition and Liturgy. But, we need to imitate them in their putting Jesus Christ first in their lives and letting all else flow from that.

-- John

John,

As I said, this forum isn't ready for this kind of reality so I won't comment further. I'm said what is needed to be said. Why you think you need to bring it up again escapes me.

For a positive turn on "practical" evangelism why not tell some of your encounters. It seems to make more sense than to criticize in the abstract. Tell us how God has used you in specific practical ways.

CDL

Because it was only this morning that I read your remark, which I quote:

and because I almost fell out of my chair when I read it.

Then, after you were called on it, I read this response of yours:

Well, you wrote "I apologize" but the rest sounded like an equivocation.

I started this thread to discuss practical evangelizing. It appears to me now that the primary need for practical evangelizing is within our own Church.

And that is not just because of your racist remark, Dan.

It is also because of an incident 2 years ago in Philadelphia. I went to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Cathedral for the Saturday evening Divine Liturgy. The neighborhood was filled with families, mostly working class and almost entirely black. Silly me, I assumed that there would be a lot of people for the Saturday vigil Liturgy and that most of them would be black families from the surrounding neighborhood. No. There wasn't one, single black person there. Instead, in a building which could hold hundreds, there were perhaps thirty (30) people. Also, there were no families: not from the neighborhood, not at all. Instead, everyone there (except the priest, the cantor, and me) was old. And, from what I observed, no one there was from the neighborhood. Everyone drove in from somewhere else. And, they were all white. None of the black families from the immediately surrounding neighborhood were there. None.

That is pathetic.

We are not going to stop our demographic decline, we are not going to grow, and we certainly are not going to be a sign and sacrament of unity for Christian East and Christian West if we can't even get people from the same neighborhood to meet in the same church building.

I am so fed up. I've got to *do* something, something different from what I have been doing, to be part of the solution.

-- John

John,

"And that is not just because of your racist remark, Dan."

It was not a racist remark. If you wish to keep saying such stupid things I will continue to remind you that white guilt on your part does not change reality.

I'd suggest you leave this alone since you seem not capable of analyzing it.

CDL

Harmon3110 posted:

None of the black families from the immediately surrounding neighborhood were there. None."

Maybe blacks have the integrity to boycott Saturday evening Liturgy. Maybe the families also have the integrity to boycott Saturday eveny Liturgy. To see who showed up on Sunday, now that would be interesting.

John,

With most of your post I very much agree. Isn't your and our need to change the reason you started this thread. I suggest that one place you start is to stop calling me names and actually look at the situation and hand. If you look closely in your heart you will find a beginning of a solution. How many black families have you befriended? How many have you invited to worship with you? How many blacks have you help get on their feet?

Since you think I'm terribly racist stop and think where I might have got my insight. It wasn't out of books or from belly aching about what others weren't doing. It is from a consistent daily evangelistic walk with most people I meet.

Your comment hurt me deeply because it is so completely unfair. I don't brag about what I do. I just seek to live the life of Christ with others. Ask yourself, do you pray for the families you meet every day? Do you pray for the specific black families you talk with every day? If you don't talk with any ask yourself "why not?"

Make sure the beem is out of your own eye before you try to take the speck out of mine?

How many black people call you their best friend? How many wedding services have you performed for black couples who have sought you out? How many homeless single parent families have you rescued from the shelters and placed into one of your homes? How many, John? How many?

True evangelization is not a cheep set of complaints against others. It's not a list of what others don't do. It's not using pc language to cover up our pity or disdain for others. It means putting your life on the line every day with everyone with whom we cross paths.

The deficiencies in evangelism in every Church are so patently obvious that there is little point in complaining about them incessently. Each of us must surrender our lives daily to the one who surrender His eternally for strangers and even for enemies.

How many people outside of your immediate comfort zone have you befriended and brought to Christ? That is what matters.

CDL