tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post4184271007369933479..comments2024-03-24T15:19:06.377-04:00Comments on The Continuum: First Sunday after TrinityFr. Robert Harthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05892141425033196616noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-65043207868872668102009-06-15T17:44:45.797-04:002009-06-15T17:44:45.797-04:00My point remains that assigning blame is a negativ...My point remains that assigning blame is a negative and ultimately hurtful endeavor. There's plenty to go around. Of course the "Enlightenment" and the rise of Atheism are connected with the events of the Reformation, but those events resulted from a direct (if often misguided) response to very real abuses. The "crazy accusations", I'm afraid often had far more substance than the theological quibbles, and almost all of them were also being made by very loyal Catholics. Moral lapses and political machinations were endemic, and were tending to obscure the good the Church had long been doing. If the papacy had been able to listen to the first Reformers, to free itself from the political maneuvering, and to address the moral sewer found in many of the hioghest levels of the Church, I don't believe the great division would have occured. Trent attempted to answer some of that, but a bit late, after the damage had become pretty much irreversible. <br /><br />The other thing often missed is that both parties of the <br />reformation were committed ti an intensely rationalistic approach that had been hardening among the late medieval schoolmen. Both Trent and the Protestant confessions evidence a way of thinking unlike that of the Fathers, si reliant on reason that on both camps a questioning was certain to grow and dominate. Freemasonry, freethought, and a will to disbelieve arose just about simultaneously in Orotestant Germany and in Catholic France, producing waves of atheism and agnosticism in both milieux. <br /><br />Yes, there is truth in your observation, but let me repeat, that dragging such concepts into a discussion of this sort is to subvert the discussion of the real issues and of our responsibility to correrct them into yet another tiresome Protestant/RC dispute. You did follow your statement with, "I digress", and you certainly had done so. <br /><br />The charges I presented in my poem are, in substance, the charges leveled by Our Lord against the most reliable religious leaders. I believe that is still His focus. If I believe myself to be more correct in my belief than others, then my job is to become what I'm claiming I want to be. <br /><br />As an Anglican it isn't my job to reform the Roman Church -- but it is my job to reform the church of which I am part, and even then, primarily by working with the Holy Spirit to reform myself. It's the beam in my own eye I need to tend to. We'd be much better off if all the disputants would remember this concept.<br /><br />edpoetreaderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11613032927883843078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-9814045849682218172009-06-15T17:03:17.373-04:002009-06-15T17:03:17.373-04:00Ed,
I see your point, but I disagree. I may have...Ed,<br /><br />I see your point, but I disagree. I may have been polemical, but I stand by my statement that the origin of many atheistic accusations against Christians have their origin in Reformer accusations against the RCC. The atheists didn't get those ideas from the Orthodox.<br /><br />What you said about Atheists being partially right could be said of the protestant reformers "in that [the Church] subverted to serve the ends of men is extraordinarily dangerous, but they are wrong in failing to see that [the Church] that is subject to God is an unalloyed good."<br /><br />They were partly right. There were some serious problems in the Church. But there were enough real problems without the crazy accusations. They failed to see the great good the Church did for the world. Only within the past few years have RCC writers been able to come up with alternatives to Henry Charles Lea's universe.<br /><br /> I really do believe that origin of modern atheism is the Reformation. Is there time to write it down here? No, but given time and financial support for a PhD program and I could at least make a good solid, academic, non-polemic, case for that opinion.RC Colanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-5262279510256136852009-06-15T14:19:22.407-04:002009-06-15T14:19:22.407-04:00As GK Chesterton said, "Christianity has not ...As GK Chesterton said, "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried."Albion Landhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14423168351697120421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-87696364528638016432009-06-15T12:13:15.744-04:002009-06-15T12:13:15.744-04:00RC Cola,
I'd be 100% with you on this otherwis...RC Cola,<br />I'd be 100% with you on this otherwise fine comment except for this:<br /><br /><i>(Ironically enough these accusations began as Protestant polemics against the Catholic Church, and now we find that atheists have taken the Protestant polemic and applied it to Christians across the board. I digress.)</i><br /><br />which is the rather gratuitous insertion of an anti-Protestant polemic into an otherwise accurate observation. <br /><br />I think we're back to the speck and beam parable again. Can't we all just admit to the horrible things we have done, all of us, in the name of religion, and find out where it is that we ourselves have failed to follow what we profess to believe. The horrible things done by Christians to Jews, to Moslems, to other unbelievers, and, God help us, even to other Christians, in the name of religion are, quite simply a matter of record, and were being commented upon well before the Reformation. Roman Catholics most certainly have perpetrated evils in the name of the Faith -- and so have Protestants. None of this demonstrates the evil of religion in general or of a particular church, but rather the result of the very spiritual pride of which Our Lord accused the most reputable religious leaders of His day, the Pharisees.<br /><br />Can't we discuss our own failings without hurling brickbats at others? Actually, the atheists are partially right, in that religion that is subverted to serve the ends of men is extraordinarily dangerous, but they are wrong in failing to see that religion that is subject to God is an unalloyed good.<br /><br />edpoetreaderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11613032927883843078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-80357230998935005682009-06-15T11:20:29.012-04:002009-06-15T11:20:29.012-04:00The other day I heard a rock star who just won an ...The other day I heard a rock star who just won an award what he would do if he were God. He said that he would ban religion for a year and see how that goes.<br /><br />I can tell him that it would go poorly. Religion was banned in every communist country and they slaughtered millions of their own and their neighbors.<br /><br />We Christians are always castigated for being hypocrites. We are told that we are responsible for countless deaths and untold misery. (Ironically enough these accusations began as Protestant polemics against the Catholic Church, and now we find that atheists have taken the Protestant polemic and applied it to Christians across the board. I digress.) <br /><br />And yet somehow they gloss over Stalin's 15 million, Mao's 25 million, Poll Pot had his Killing Fields to name but a few. And yet we hear that these are mere excesses that happened not because they abandoned God, but because they had yet to "actualize" the Revolution.<br /><br />It's true they did not actualize the Revolution, but they put their faith in the wrong Revolution. The Revolutionary teaching is really that of Jesus, not of Marx , who just rehashed the same old garbage the human race has had since Cain killed Abel.<br /><br />It seems to me that if the aforementioned rock star had wanted to say something truly radical when asked what he would do if he were God, rather than banning religion for a year he should have suggested that as God he would make everyone <i>live according to</i> our religion for a year and see how that goes.<br /><br />We already know what happens when religion is banned. I reckon that a world in which everyone lived by what we claim to believe is utterly incomprehensible. Perhaps that is why so many people choose the easy path of giving up on God rather than taking up his challenge.RC Colanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-16973053877287703962009-06-12T19:18:44.003-04:002009-06-12T19:18:44.003-04:00hese are hard words of Our Lord, words that should...hese are hard words of Our Lord, words that should cause us to look at others differently. I wrote this a couple of years ago ...<br /><br /><i>March 7, 2007, Holy Saturday. I was driving to a meeting when these thoughts hit me hard. Jesus was the Friend of sinners, and spent his time with them rather than the religious leaders. Christians, all too often, insulate themselves from the world, and associate with those of whom they approve. Those others are made to feel outside, unwanted, unworthy. If only we could hear His voice …</i><br /><br /><b>My Friends</b><br /><br />You love the Book.<br />You hold the Book.<br />You read the Book.<br />You teach the Book.<br />You memorize its words.<br />You know the facts.<br />You say the creeds.<br />You pray the prayers.<br />You have it right.<br />But do you know?<br />Can you see Me?<br />Would you know to speak My Name?<br />- if I wore no royal robes?<br />- if My friends were not your kind?<br />Would you know me?<br />- with the poor,<br />- and those that beg?<br />- with the thieves,<br />- and those that beat and kill?<br />- or with the whores and boy-whores,<br />- and those that prowl?<br />My friends.<br />with whom I sit and share a meal,<br />for whom I hung upon that cross.<br />My friends.<br />You will meet Me with My friends.<br />Are you there?<br />Do you love them?<br />Do you like them?<br />Do you see Me?<br />I am there.<br />I saw you,<br />as you stepped aside, avoiding<br />- avoiding My friends.<br />I saw you,<br />your sneer,<br />the twisting of your lip.<br />I saw you.<br />I don’t know you.<br /><br />----------ed pachtpoetreaderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11613032927883843078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-54663828840954444392009-06-12T16:35:20.424-04:002009-06-12T16:35:20.424-04:00This was truly moving. Thank you!This was truly moving. Thank you!Justinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01023125641719686613noreply@blogger.com