www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Putin sent by God!

Putin sent by God [news.yahoo.com]

It could well be that he was sent for this time, but...

I can't resist, the Apostle Paul?

Bad link. Still, can't help thinking that Putin rigged the vote so God would send him.

That stinks. I don't have any reason to believe God had anything positive to do with it.

As one who believes that all is providential which serves the interests and lives of Christians, both collective and individual, I have absolutely no problem with this quote. Indeed, the Russian Orthodox Church has been blessed by his support.

We are all sent by God for a purpose. Sometimes we choose to follow His will and sometimes we don't.
To discern is the purpose of contemplative prayer.

I saw this stupid story [telegraph.co.uk] earlier but didn't want to post it here. I have no faith in Major Putin of the KGB. Under his leadership Russia has reverted to being a country that is not free [freedomhouse.org] in any real sense of the word. I wish the Russian Orthodox Church would condemn this KGB imposter.

I think our problem is that we continue to use our own experience of democratic institutions and government as a yardstick by which to view other nations. It seems to me it's gotten us into a lot of trouble around the world. Our experience has been conditioned by Western European culture and history. Other nations have not had that experience and it makes trying to transplant our ideas of freedom, how governments should work, and how people should live their lives not only difficult but often doomed to fail.

Bob

I agree 100% with every word written in your post, Bob.

Dear Alice and Theophan,

what you are advocating is called cultural relativism. I suppose it is foolhardy to take on two administrators at once, but it is something with which I do not agree.

The kind of support Mephistopheles gave to Dr. Faustus. Not the kind of bargain into which the Russian Church should ever have entered.

Whether nominally Orthodox or nominally Communist, a thug is still a thug. Putinism is rapidly driving Russia into the ground and returning its people to the mire of tyranny from which they only recently emerged. It is too easy to forget that Orthodoxy is a faith founded on human freedom.

LC:



Perhaps it is cultural relativism. But I'd argue that the only objective truth is that which the Church possesses: that which Christ taught. How we put that teaching into effect is not orthodoxy, but orthopraxy. Orthopraxy we can all argue about because, as flawed human beings, we'll never get our orthodoxy perfectly into practice in this fallen world.

It was not so long ago in human history that our idea that the governed should be the basis from which lawful government arises was a radical one. Russia may still be in the vast majority of cultures that support a strong personal authority figure. That point I'll yield to Stuart and other historians. And I do agree with Stuart that the man is a thug. But how many others can we count in history as thugs--across so many cultures--kings, czars, pharaohs, etc.? Absolute rulers always seem to get there by being the biggest thug in the group.

My argument is that some cultures seem to view a strong leader as necessary, even when he/she may ultimately be what we call a thug. So for us to sit and down the model seems to me to be a cause of a lot of needless strife in our relations with others.

My own fear is that our experiment in relative freedom and self government seems to be in grave danger of dissolving in the same way that so many other empires did: out of control spending, high taxes, and the inability to find a way out even as external threats loomed.

Bob

Theophan

Your argument is well made. I agree that there are significant differences between Russia and Western Europe. For instance, Russia never experienced the age of enlightenment, and, thankfully, Western Europe never experienced Lenin's and Stalin's age of electrification.

Still, I think human beings have the same fundamental desire for freedom. By most accounts, Putin is not living up to that desire, and that, I think, one day, will be his downfall. It is foolish to think that Russians are somehow different from other people. Until recently, many people would have thought that the Chinese were immune to the ideas of freedom, but just watch what is happening now [vaticaninsider.lastampa.it] (below the radar of most international news agencies). If Chinese Catholics are courageously demanding freedom, then why not the Russians too?

You're all right. There's no necessary connection between an absolute ruler and thuggery, just as democracy is no guarantee of much except entropy. America's got plenty of corrupt thugs in leadership, but I don't think anybody seriously contests the legitimacy of their democratic elections. On the other hand, many great Saints were absolute monarchs. So while I agree it's a mistake for the West (read: the US) to try to export our system to the world, that shouldn't make us hesitate to identify a clear bad guy like Putin. If God sent him, He sent him as chastisement.

Well said, JDC!