Open your eyes and listen!
- Thread starter Tommy4Christ
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
A
He's a well known Christian evangelist that reached hundreds of millions of people with the Gospel message.
Billy Graham - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Billy Graham - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Well as i said before everyone is different and has their own style, your way is not wrong but neither is mine because these two styles are both part of jesus's character. And also you cannot say I do not know christ because you do not know me. You do not know the bond i have beetween the father and I, And i never once said paul was wrong because I see myself in him. He suffered so much for christs sake and i believe in the future I will too. But sin is no longer to be feared for if it were jesus would have died for nothing. He didn't just die for those who repent, he dieed for both sinners and the saved and he loves them both the same.
A
Alot of people have specualted what will happen to those who never heard the gospel.
I heard the comment on that and the Pope thingy, didnt like it but growing up i heard
him preach the true gospel for decades. To springboard a smear campaign on that stuff
against a legacy of great evangelism after hes an old a sick man to me is shameful and surprising
especially as always the scriptures used to infer Billy would agree with the vids creator
and intent. IMO
I heard the comment on that and the Pope thingy, didnt like it but growing up i heard
him preach the true gospel for decades. To springboard a smear campaign on that stuff
against a legacy of great evangelism after hes an old a sick man to me is shameful and surprising
especially as always the scriptures used to infer Billy would agree with the vids creator
and intent. IMO
In a way I agree that following Jesus and loving God are more than a simple profession. These are cultivations of love and right thinking that take a long time, lifetimes and beyond to come to knowledge of.
It is unfathomable that one simply decides one day to believe that Jesus died and has therefore ticked a certain 'checklist' in order to 'get a place in heaven'.
Simply nonsense.
A sinner is no more or less than another sinner.
Yet it is simple peace, love and joy that leads on onto the 'mind of the spirit' and into 'the Kingdom of God', into 'the way'.
It is Christs death that affords men to do these things, in life. For death and hades have no power.
Then all that is left is peace, love and joy. Faith and hope. Service to God.
It is unfathomable that one simply decides one day to believe that Jesus died and has therefore ticked a certain 'checklist' in order to 'get a place in heaven'.
Simply nonsense.
A sinner is no more or less than another sinner.
Yet it is simple peace, love and joy that leads on onto the 'mind of the spirit' and into 'the Kingdom of God', into 'the way'.
It is Christs death that affords men to do these things, in life. For death and hades have no power.
Then all that is left is peace, love and joy. Faith and hope. Service to God.
John 3
You Must Be Born Again
1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2This man came to Jesusa by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born againb he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.c 7Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘Youd must be born again.’ 8The winde blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
You Must Be Born Again
1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2This man came to Jesusa by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born againb he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.c 7Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘Youd must be born again.’ 8The winde blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Some will save with understanding, mercy, thus making a differance.
Some will save with rightousness, as if pulling from the fire, despising the flesh that clings.
I have always liked this scripture, for it speaks that some should be shall be called to salvation one way, and some the other.
All though, are called in Jesus Christ is Lord come in the flesh!
What matters is that all are saved!
For now we know in part, but when the perfect comes, face to face!
God bless
pickles
Some will save with rightousness, as if pulling from the fire, despising the flesh that clings.
I have always liked this scripture, for it speaks that some should be shall be called to salvation one way, and some the other.
All though, are called in Jesus Christ is Lord come in the flesh!
What matters is that all are saved!
For now we know in part, but when the perfect comes, face to face!
God bless
pickles
P
I love you, my brother.
I would hate for us to 'throw the baby out with the bath water.
Mr. Graham preached the true Gospel for decades, and till I have spoken those words to as many people, and till I have helped as many into the Kingdom as He, I'll just sit quietly.
To my knowledge, Mr. Graham is not teaching this stuff publicly.
If others choose to make it public, so be it.
And, certainly one should use caution with everyone.
But, since the Lord still loves Billy, I will, too.
Papism as the Oldest Protestantism - Archimandrite Justin Popovich
From the book The Orthodox Church and Ecumenism by Archimandrite Justin Popovich
What are, on the other hand, the fruits of the God-Man society [the Church]? — Saints, Martyrs, and Confessors. That is its goal, that is its meaning and design, that is the proof of its indestructible strength. Not books and libraries, systems and cities — all things that are here today and gone tomorrow. The various pseudo-Christian humanisms fill the world with books, while Orthodoxy fills it with the hallowed.
In the European West, Christianity has gradually transformed into humanism. For a long time and arduously, the God-Man diminished, and has been changed, narrowed, and finally reduced to a man: to the infallible man in Rome and the equally infallible man in London and Berlin. Thus did papism come into being, taking everything from Christ, along with Protestantism, which asks the least from Christ, and often nothing. Both in papism and in Protestantism, man has been put in the place of the God-Man, both as the highest value and as the highest criterion. A painful and sad correction of the God-Man's work and teaching has been accomplished. Steadily and stubbornly papism has tried to substitute the God-Man with man, until in the dogma about the infallibility of the pope — a man, the God-Man was once and for all replaced with ephemeral, infallible man; because with this dogma, the pope was decisively and clearly declared as something higher than not only man, but the holy Apostles, the holy Fathers, and the holy Ecumenical councils. With this kind of a departure from the God-Man, from the ecumenical Church as the God-Man organism, papism surpassed Luther, the founder of Protestantism. Thus, the first radical protest in the name of humanism against the God-Man Christ, and his God-Man organism — the Church — should be looked for in papism, not in Lutheranism. Papism is actually the first and the oldest Protestantism.
We should not do this ourselves. Papism indeed is the most radical Protestantism, because it has transferred the foundation of Christianity from the eternal God-Man to ephemeral man. And it has proclaimed this as the paramount dogma, which means: the paramount value, the paramount measure of all beings and things in the world. And the Protestants merely accepted this dogma in its essence, and worked it out in terrifying magnitude and detail. Essentially, Protestantism is nothing other than a generally applied papism. For in Protestantism, the fundamental principle of papism is brought to life by each man individually. After the example of the infallible man in Rome, each Protestant is a cloned infallible man, because he pretends to personal infallibility in matters of faith. It can be said: Protestantism is a vulgarized papism, only stripped of mystery (i.e., sacramentality), authority and power.
Through the reduction of Christianity, with all its eternal God-Man qualities, to man, Western Christianity has been turned into humanism. This may seem paradoxical, but it is true in its irresistible and unerasable historical reality. Because Western Christianity is, in its essence, the most decisive humanism; and because it has proclaimed man as infallible, and has turned the God-Man religion into a humanist religion. And that this is so is shown by the fact that the God-Man has been driven to the heavens, while his place on earth has been filled with his replacement, Vicarius Christi — the pope. What a tragic piece of illogic: to establish a replacement for the everywhere-present God and the Lord Christ! But this piece of illogic has been incarnated in Western Christianity: the Church has been transformed into a state, the pope has become a ruler, bishops have been proclaimed princes, priests have become leaders of clerical parties, the faithful have been proclaimed papal subjects. The Gospel has been replaced with the Vatican's compilation of canon law; Evangelical ethic and methods of love have been replaced with casuistry, Jesuitry and the holy Inquisition. What does all this mean? With the systematic removal and destruction of everything that does not bow to the pope, even with forced conversions to the papal faith, and the burning of sinners for the glory of the meek and the mild Lord Jesus!
There is no doubt that all these facts converge into one irresistibly logical conclusion: in the West there is no Church and no God-Man, which is why there is no true God-Man society in which men are mortal brothers and immortal fellows. Humanistic Christianity is actually the most decisive protest and uprising against the God-Man Christ and all the Evangelical, God-Man values and norms. And even here is evident European man's favored tendency, to reduce everything to man as the fundamental value and the fundamental measure. And behind that stands one idol: Menschliches Allzumenschliches. With the reduction of Christianity to humanism, Christianity has been no doubt, simplified, but also at the same time — destroyed! Now that the gleischaltung of Christianity with humanism has been accomplished, some in Europe are seeking a return to the God-Man Christ. However, the cries of individuals in the Protestant world — Zuruck zum Jesus! Back to Jesus! — are empty cries in the dark night of humanistic Christianity, which has abandoned the values and the measures of God-Man and is now suffocating in desperation and impotence. While from the depths of centuries past reverberate the bitter words of the melancholic prophet of God, Jeremiah: Accursed is the man who puts his confidence in man! . . .
In a broader historical perspective, the Western dogma about man's infallibility is nothing other than an attempt to revive and immortalize dying humanism. It is the last transformation and final glorification of humanism. After the rationalistic Enlightenment of the 18th century and the shortsighted positivism of the 19th century, nothing else was left to European humanism than to fall apart in its own impotence and contradictions. But in that tragic moment, religious humanism came to its aid with its dogma about the infallibility of man saved European humanism from imminent death. And, although dogmatized, Western Christian humanism could not help absorbing all the fatal contradictions of European humanism, which are united in one single desire: to exile God-Man from the earth. Because the most important thing for humanism is for man to be the highest value and the highest measure. Man, not God-Man.
According to our own Orthodox feeling: Christianity is only Christianity through the God-Man, through His God-Man ideology and God-Man methods. That is the fundamental truth for the sake of which no compromises can be made. Only as the God-Man is Christ the highest value and the highest measure. One should be truthful and consistent to the end: if Christ is not the God-Man, then he is the most impudent fraud, because he proclaimed himself as God and the Lord. But the Evangelical historical reality irrefutably shows and proves that Jesus Christ is in everything and in all things the perfect God-Man. Therefore, one cannot be a Christian without a belief in Christ as God-Man and in the Church as His God-Man Body, in which He left His entire Miraculous Person. The saving and life-giving power of Christ's Church lays in the eternally-living and all-present personality of the God-Man. Any substitution of the God-Man with a man, and any winnowing of Christianity in order to pick out only that which pleases a man's individual preference and reason, turns Christianity into shallow and impotent humanism.
The outstanding importance of Christianity for making lies in its life-giving and unchangeable God-Manhood, by which it models humanity as a whole, bringing it from the darkness of non-being to the light of Pan-being. Only by its God-Man power is Christianity the salt of the earth, the salt that saves man from rotting in sin and evil. If it dissolves into various humanisms, Christianity becomes bland, becomes salt that has turned flat, useless, fit to be tossed out and trod on.
Any tendency or attempt at a gleischaltung of Christianity with the spirit of the times, with ephemeral movements and regimes of certain historical periods, takes away from Christianity that specific worth which makes it the singular God-Man religion in the world. In the Orthodox philosophy of society, the rule above all rules is this: do not accommodate the God-Man Christ to the spirit of the times, but rather accommodate the spirit of the times to the spirit of Christ's eternity — Christ's God-Manhood. Only in this way can the Church preserve the life-giving and irreplaceable personality of the God-Man Christ and remain a God-Man society, in which people fraternize and live with the help of Divine love and justice, prayer and fasting, meekness and humbleness, goodness and wisdom, charity and faith, love of God and love of one's brother, and all the other Evangelical virtues.
According to the God-Man philosophy of life and the world, man, society, nation, and state are to accommodate themselves to the Church as the eternal ideal, but the Church must never accommodate itself to them — much less submit to them. A nation has true worth only inasmuch as it lives the Evangelical virtues and incarnates in its history the God-Man values. What applies to the nation, applies to the state as well. The goal of the nation as a whole is the same as the goal of the individual: to incarnate in one's self Evangelical justice, love, sanctity; to become a holy people — God's people — which in its history proclaims the Divine values and virtues (1 Peter 2:9-10; 1:15-16).
* * *
They will ask us: where are the concrete fruits of this God-Man society? How was it that precisely on the field of Orthodoxy's radiation came about the appearance of the most radical secularism in human history? (Joseph Piper) Does there not also exist an Eastern Humanism (for ex. Caesaro-papism, etc.)? The success of atheistic social humanism on the soil of Orthodoxy: is that not proof of the inability of Orthodoxy to solve the most elementary social problems?
It is a fact that this world lies in evil and sin. The reduction of everything to man is in fact the atmosphere in which sinful human nature and man in general — no matter where he is located — lives and breathes, and something toward which they strive. It is, therefore, no wonder that the tides of this sinfulness, just like the tides of European pseudo-Christian poisons, from time to time wash over the Orthodox peoples as well. However, one thing is irrefutably true: the Orthodox church has never ecclesiologically dogmatized any sort of humanism, whether we are talking about Caesaro-papism or any other ism. With the strength of its genuine and uncorrupted God-Manhood and Evangelical truthfulness, and through its constant call for repentance regarding everything that is not from God-Man, it has preserved, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the wisdom and the chastity of its heart and its soul. And by this it has remained and continues to be the salt of the earth, man and society. On the other hand, the tragedy of Western Christianity lies precisely in the fact that it, either by correcting the image of the God-Man, or by denying it, has attempted to once again introduce demonized humanism, so characteristic of sinful human nature, to — where? Into the heart of the God-Man organism itself — the Church, whose essence lies precisely in the freeing of man from it. And through it into all regions of life, person and society, proclaiming it as the supreme dogma, as the universal dogma. With this, the demonized intellectual pridefulness of man, hidden under the cloak of the Church, becomes the dogma of a faith without which there is no salvation! It is horrible to think it, much less say it: with this, the sole workshop of salvation and graduation to God-Manhood in this world, is gradually turned into a demonized workshop of violence over consciousness and dehumanization! A workshop of the disfigurement of God and man through the disfigurement of the God-Man!
The Orthodox Church has proclaimed no poison, no sin, no humanism, no earthly social system as dogma — neither through Councils, nor through the Body of the Ecumenical Church. While the west, alas, does nothing but that. The latest proof: the Second Vatican Council.
The Orthodox Faith: in it, repentance is a necessary holy virtue; and it always calls for repentance. In the West: the pseudo-Christian faith in man does not call for repentance; on the contrary, it clerically obligates a maintaining of its fatal-to-man homo-idolization, its pseudo-Christian humanisms, infallibilities, heresies, and it pridefully considers that in no case are these things for which one should repent.
Contemporary atheistic social humanism — ideologically and methodologically — is in everything a fruit and an invention of pseudo-Christian Europe, wed with our own sinfulness. They ask us: how did it arrive on the soil of Orthodoxy? It is God trying the endurance of the righteous, visiting the children for the sins of their fathers, and announcing the strength of His Church by taking it through fire and water. Because, according to the words of the wise-in-God Macarius of Egypt, that is the only path of true Christianity: Wherever the Holy Spirit is, there follows, like a shadow, persecution and battle. . . It is necessary that the truth be persecuted. What are, on the other hand, the fruits of the God-Man society? Saints, Martyrs, and Confessors. That is its goal, that is its meaning and design, that is the proof of its indestructible strength. Not books and libraries, systems and cities — all things that are here today and gone tomorrow. The various pseudo-Christian humanisms fill the world with books, while Orthodoxy fills it with the hallowed. Thousands and hundreds of thousands, even millions of martyrs and newly martyred, fallen for the Orthodox faith — there is the fruit of God-Man society. Thus does the famous Francois Mauriac, a Roman Catholic, on the dark horizon of the contemporary world, with each day more and more pushed into the darkness of born-in-Europe, soul-losing homo-idolatry, see only one bright spot, that gives hope for the future of this world: the bathed in the blood of the martyred and newly-martyred faith. The Orthodox faith.
But in the West? They neither know the Church, nor the path, nor the way out of the hopelessness; all is sunk in soul-losing idolatry, in love of pleasure, love of self, and love of lust. Hence in Europe we see the renaissance of polytheism. The False Christs, false gods that have flooded Europe and are exported from it to all the marketplaces of the world, have for their main assignment the killing of the soul in man — that unique treasure of man in all the worlds, and in that way make impossible the very possibility of a genuine society.
In writing this, we are not writing the history of Europe, its virtues and faults, nor the history of the European pseudo-churches. We are merely laying out the entelechy of its ontology, descending into the pith of European intellectual pridefulness, into its demonic underground, where its black sources are, whose water threatens to poison the world. This is not a judgment of Europe but a heartfelt prayerful call to the solitary path of salvation, through repentance.
ICXC NIKA
From the book The Orthodox Church and Ecumenism by Archimandrite Justin Popovich
What are, on the other hand, the fruits of the God-Man society [the Church]? — Saints, Martyrs, and Confessors. That is its goal, that is its meaning and design, that is the proof of its indestructible strength. Not books and libraries, systems and cities — all things that are here today and gone tomorrow. The various pseudo-Christian humanisms fill the world with books, while Orthodoxy fills it with the hallowed.
In the European West, Christianity has gradually transformed into humanism. For a long time and arduously, the God-Man diminished, and has been changed, narrowed, and finally reduced to a man: to the infallible man in Rome and the equally infallible man in London and Berlin. Thus did papism come into being, taking everything from Christ, along with Protestantism, which asks the least from Christ, and often nothing. Both in papism and in Protestantism, man has been put in the place of the God-Man, both as the highest value and as the highest criterion. A painful and sad correction of the God-Man's work and teaching has been accomplished. Steadily and stubbornly papism has tried to substitute the God-Man with man, until in the dogma about the infallibility of the pope — a man, the God-Man was once and for all replaced with ephemeral, infallible man; because with this dogma, the pope was decisively and clearly declared as something higher than not only man, but the holy Apostles, the holy Fathers, and the holy Ecumenical councils. With this kind of a departure from the God-Man, from the ecumenical Church as the God-Man organism, papism surpassed Luther, the founder of Protestantism. Thus, the first radical protest in the name of humanism against the God-Man Christ, and his God-Man organism — the Church — should be looked for in papism, not in Lutheranism. Papism is actually the first and the oldest Protestantism.
We should not do this ourselves. Papism indeed is the most radical Protestantism, because it has transferred the foundation of Christianity from the eternal God-Man to ephemeral man. And it has proclaimed this as the paramount dogma, which means: the paramount value, the paramount measure of all beings and things in the world. And the Protestants merely accepted this dogma in its essence, and worked it out in terrifying magnitude and detail. Essentially, Protestantism is nothing other than a generally applied papism. For in Protestantism, the fundamental principle of papism is brought to life by each man individually. After the example of the infallible man in Rome, each Protestant is a cloned infallible man, because he pretends to personal infallibility in matters of faith. It can be said: Protestantism is a vulgarized papism, only stripped of mystery (i.e., sacramentality), authority and power.
Through the reduction of Christianity, with all its eternal God-Man qualities, to man, Western Christianity has been turned into humanism. This may seem paradoxical, but it is true in its irresistible and unerasable historical reality. Because Western Christianity is, in its essence, the most decisive humanism; and because it has proclaimed man as infallible, and has turned the God-Man religion into a humanist religion. And that this is so is shown by the fact that the God-Man has been driven to the heavens, while his place on earth has been filled with his replacement, Vicarius Christi — the pope. What a tragic piece of illogic: to establish a replacement for the everywhere-present God and the Lord Christ! But this piece of illogic has been incarnated in Western Christianity: the Church has been transformed into a state, the pope has become a ruler, bishops have been proclaimed princes, priests have become leaders of clerical parties, the faithful have been proclaimed papal subjects. The Gospel has been replaced with the Vatican's compilation of canon law; Evangelical ethic and methods of love have been replaced with casuistry, Jesuitry and the holy Inquisition. What does all this mean? With the systematic removal and destruction of everything that does not bow to the pope, even with forced conversions to the papal faith, and the burning of sinners for the glory of the meek and the mild Lord Jesus!
There is no doubt that all these facts converge into one irresistibly logical conclusion: in the West there is no Church and no God-Man, which is why there is no true God-Man society in which men are mortal brothers and immortal fellows. Humanistic Christianity is actually the most decisive protest and uprising against the God-Man Christ and all the Evangelical, God-Man values and norms. And even here is evident European man's favored tendency, to reduce everything to man as the fundamental value and the fundamental measure. And behind that stands one idol: Menschliches Allzumenschliches. With the reduction of Christianity to humanism, Christianity has been no doubt, simplified, but also at the same time — destroyed! Now that the gleischaltung of Christianity with humanism has been accomplished, some in Europe are seeking a return to the God-Man Christ. However, the cries of individuals in the Protestant world — Zuruck zum Jesus! Back to Jesus! — are empty cries in the dark night of humanistic Christianity, which has abandoned the values and the measures of God-Man and is now suffocating in desperation and impotence. While from the depths of centuries past reverberate the bitter words of the melancholic prophet of God, Jeremiah: Accursed is the man who puts his confidence in man! . . .
In a broader historical perspective, the Western dogma about man's infallibility is nothing other than an attempt to revive and immortalize dying humanism. It is the last transformation and final glorification of humanism. After the rationalistic Enlightenment of the 18th century and the shortsighted positivism of the 19th century, nothing else was left to European humanism than to fall apart in its own impotence and contradictions. But in that tragic moment, religious humanism came to its aid with its dogma about the infallibility of man saved European humanism from imminent death. And, although dogmatized, Western Christian humanism could not help absorbing all the fatal contradictions of European humanism, which are united in one single desire: to exile God-Man from the earth. Because the most important thing for humanism is for man to be the highest value and the highest measure. Man, not God-Man.
According to our own Orthodox feeling: Christianity is only Christianity through the God-Man, through His God-Man ideology and God-Man methods. That is the fundamental truth for the sake of which no compromises can be made. Only as the God-Man is Christ the highest value and the highest measure. One should be truthful and consistent to the end: if Christ is not the God-Man, then he is the most impudent fraud, because he proclaimed himself as God and the Lord. But the Evangelical historical reality irrefutably shows and proves that Jesus Christ is in everything and in all things the perfect God-Man. Therefore, one cannot be a Christian without a belief in Christ as God-Man and in the Church as His God-Man Body, in which He left His entire Miraculous Person. The saving and life-giving power of Christ's Church lays in the eternally-living and all-present personality of the God-Man. Any substitution of the God-Man with a man, and any winnowing of Christianity in order to pick out only that which pleases a man's individual preference and reason, turns Christianity into shallow and impotent humanism.
The outstanding importance of Christianity for making lies in its life-giving and unchangeable God-Manhood, by which it models humanity as a whole, bringing it from the darkness of non-being to the light of Pan-being. Only by its God-Man power is Christianity the salt of the earth, the salt that saves man from rotting in sin and evil. If it dissolves into various humanisms, Christianity becomes bland, becomes salt that has turned flat, useless, fit to be tossed out and trod on.
Any tendency or attempt at a gleischaltung of Christianity with the spirit of the times, with ephemeral movements and regimes of certain historical periods, takes away from Christianity that specific worth which makes it the singular God-Man religion in the world. In the Orthodox philosophy of society, the rule above all rules is this: do not accommodate the God-Man Christ to the spirit of the times, but rather accommodate the spirit of the times to the spirit of Christ's eternity — Christ's God-Manhood. Only in this way can the Church preserve the life-giving and irreplaceable personality of the God-Man Christ and remain a God-Man society, in which people fraternize and live with the help of Divine love and justice, prayer and fasting, meekness and humbleness, goodness and wisdom, charity and faith, love of God and love of one's brother, and all the other Evangelical virtues.
According to the God-Man philosophy of life and the world, man, society, nation, and state are to accommodate themselves to the Church as the eternal ideal, but the Church must never accommodate itself to them — much less submit to them. A nation has true worth only inasmuch as it lives the Evangelical virtues and incarnates in its history the God-Man values. What applies to the nation, applies to the state as well. The goal of the nation as a whole is the same as the goal of the individual: to incarnate in one's self Evangelical justice, love, sanctity; to become a holy people — God's people — which in its history proclaims the Divine values and virtues (1 Peter 2:9-10; 1:15-16).
* * *
They will ask us: where are the concrete fruits of this God-Man society? How was it that precisely on the field of Orthodoxy's radiation came about the appearance of the most radical secularism in human history? (Joseph Piper) Does there not also exist an Eastern Humanism (for ex. Caesaro-papism, etc.)? The success of atheistic social humanism on the soil of Orthodoxy: is that not proof of the inability of Orthodoxy to solve the most elementary social problems?
It is a fact that this world lies in evil and sin. The reduction of everything to man is in fact the atmosphere in which sinful human nature and man in general — no matter where he is located — lives and breathes, and something toward which they strive. It is, therefore, no wonder that the tides of this sinfulness, just like the tides of European pseudo-Christian poisons, from time to time wash over the Orthodox peoples as well. However, one thing is irrefutably true: the Orthodox church has never ecclesiologically dogmatized any sort of humanism, whether we are talking about Caesaro-papism or any other ism. With the strength of its genuine and uncorrupted God-Manhood and Evangelical truthfulness, and through its constant call for repentance regarding everything that is not from God-Man, it has preserved, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the wisdom and the chastity of its heart and its soul. And by this it has remained and continues to be the salt of the earth, man and society. On the other hand, the tragedy of Western Christianity lies precisely in the fact that it, either by correcting the image of the God-Man, or by denying it, has attempted to once again introduce demonized humanism, so characteristic of sinful human nature, to — where? Into the heart of the God-Man organism itself — the Church, whose essence lies precisely in the freeing of man from it. And through it into all regions of life, person and society, proclaiming it as the supreme dogma, as the universal dogma. With this, the demonized intellectual pridefulness of man, hidden under the cloak of the Church, becomes the dogma of a faith without which there is no salvation! It is horrible to think it, much less say it: with this, the sole workshop of salvation and graduation to God-Manhood in this world, is gradually turned into a demonized workshop of violence over consciousness and dehumanization! A workshop of the disfigurement of God and man through the disfigurement of the God-Man!
The Orthodox Church has proclaimed no poison, no sin, no humanism, no earthly social system as dogma — neither through Councils, nor through the Body of the Ecumenical Church. While the west, alas, does nothing but that. The latest proof: the Second Vatican Council.
The Orthodox Faith: in it, repentance is a necessary holy virtue; and it always calls for repentance. In the West: the pseudo-Christian faith in man does not call for repentance; on the contrary, it clerically obligates a maintaining of its fatal-to-man homo-idolization, its pseudo-Christian humanisms, infallibilities, heresies, and it pridefully considers that in no case are these things for which one should repent.
Contemporary atheistic social humanism — ideologically and methodologically — is in everything a fruit and an invention of pseudo-Christian Europe, wed with our own sinfulness. They ask us: how did it arrive on the soil of Orthodoxy? It is God trying the endurance of the righteous, visiting the children for the sins of their fathers, and announcing the strength of His Church by taking it through fire and water. Because, according to the words of the wise-in-God Macarius of Egypt, that is the only path of true Christianity: Wherever the Holy Spirit is, there follows, like a shadow, persecution and battle. . . It is necessary that the truth be persecuted. What are, on the other hand, the fruits of the God-Man society? Saints, Martyrs, and Confessors. That is its goal, that is its meaning and design, that is the proof of its indestructible strength. Not books and libraries, systems and cities — all things that are here today and gone tomorrow. The various pseudo-Christian humanisms fill the world with books, while Orthodoxy fills it with the hallowed. Thousands and hundreds of thousands, even millions of martyrs and newly martyred, fallen for the Orthodox faith — there is the fruit of God-Man society. Thus does the famous Francois Mauriac, a Roman Catholic, on the dark horizon of the contemporary world, with each day more and more pushed into the darkness of born-in-Europe, soul-losing homo-idolatry, see only one bright spot, that gives hope for the future of this world: the bathed in the blood of the martyred and newly-martyred faith. The Orthodox faith.
But in the West? They neither know the Church, nor the path, nor the way out of the hopelessness; all is sunk in soul-losing idolatry, in love of pleasure, love of self, and love of lust. Hence in Europe we see the renaissance of polytheism. The False Christs, false gods that have flooded Europe and are exported from it to all the marketplaces of the world, have for their main assignment the killing of the soul in man — that unique treasure of man in all the worlds, and in that way make impossible the very possibility of a genuine society.
In writing this, we are not writing the history of Europe, its virtues and faults, nor the history of the European pseudo-churches. We are merely laying out the entelechy of its ontology, descending into the pith of European intellectual pridefulness, into its demonic underground, where its black sources are, whose water threatens to poison the world. This is not a judgment of Europe but a heartfelt prayerful call to the solitary path of salvation, through repentance.
ICXC NIKA
Even in Paul's days there were more than two types of Gospel preaching. There were the false teachers, and the Truth teachers. One was in God's Truth, and the other in Satan's lie. One was appointed by God, and one by Satan! And they both teach and preach Jesus Christ!
What did Paul and God had to say about this?... Phillipians 1:15 to 18.... Php 1:15 Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will: Php 1:16 The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds: Php 1:17 But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the gospel. Php 1:18 What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.
What did Paul and God had to say about this?... Phillipians 1:15 to 18.... Php 1:15 Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will: Php 1:16 The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds: Php 1:17 But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the gospel. Php 1:18 What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.
hi Geometar
"Protestantism is a vulgarized papism, only stripped of mystery (i.e., sacramentality), authority and power"
oh come on....i would invite you to a service at my Lutheran church.
you'd see for yourself it's not vulgarized papism; we don't believe any of us including our pastor are infallible in any way; we are not some form of humanism.
Geometar, are you a member of the E.O.?
zone
"Protestantism is a vulgarized papism, only stripped of mystery (i.e., sacramentality), authority and power"
oh come on
....i would invite you to a service at my Lutheran church.you'd see for yourself it's not vulgarized papism; we don't believe any of us including our pastor are infallible in any way; we are not some form of humanism.
Geometar, are you a member of the E.O.?
zone
hi Geometar
"Protestantism is a vulgarized papism, only stripped of mystery (i.e., sacramentality), authority and power"
oh come on....i would invite you to a service at my Lutheran church.
you'd see for yourself it's not vulgarized papism; we don't believe any of us including our pastor are infallible in any way; we are not some form of humanism.
Geometar, are you a member of the E.O.?
zone
"Protestantism is a vulgarized papism, only stripped of mystery (i.e., sacramentality), authority and power"
oh come on
....i would invite you to a service at my Lutheran church.you'd see for yourself it's not vulgarized papism; we don't believe any of us including our pastor are infallible in any way; we are not some form of humanism.
Geometar, are you a member of the E.O.?
zone
I am,Serbian Orthodox.
okay Geometar
i don't want to derail this thread. but maybe sometime we could open a discussion in the Miscellaneous forum, to understand each other better
i had a wonderful discussion with another CC member there, and though we have very distinct differences in many areas, i came to a greater understanding of that member's convictions and beliefs. i found it quite edifying and helpful.
love zone
i don't want to derail this thread. but maybe sometime we could open a discussion in the Miscellaneous forum, to understand each other better
i had a wonderful discussion with another CC member there, and though we have very distinct differences in many areas, i came to a greater understanding of that member's convictions and beliefs. i found it quite edifying and helpful.
love zone
I'm not sure whether you're arguing a point or agreeing, either way, this is my response.
Being born again is not a ritual. The baptism of a man by water SIGNIFIES the change that is within him, however the ritual itself does not change the man. Just like circumsision, or the eating of meat.
Such rituals do nothing. Some will eat only vegetables. Some will eat flavoursome meat. Some will be circumsised, some not. Some are Jew, some are gentile. Some are man, some are women. Some are black, some are white. 'But there is neither Jew nor Gentile'.
Whether circumcised or uncircumcised, baptised by water or not, does not change a man's life, nor his mind.
AS John said, he baptised by water but Jesus baptises by 'spirit' and 'fire'.
And Jesus also said that there will be a 'fire', and that He wishes it was 'already kindled'.
In other words, he wishes that God's form of baptism (making a change within men, by fire, or having men be 'reborn' in the 'spirit') were already under way. But Jesus must first be BAPTISED. He was anxious until its completion.
Rebirth of a man can be something as simple as a change of heart. A realisation of things unknown before.
Like on the cross, when the thief believed upon Jesus and was sorry for what he had done.
Jesus never baptized the man, per se, but the man saw that even though Jesus had done nothing wrong, he took his persecution, in love. Through Jesus actions, the man must have said to himself 'truly, this man has done nothing wrong, Yet he takes his persecution and does not shout or fight'. He realised the truth of Jesus. And Jesus comforted him before death by letting him know that he would be with Him in paradise.
And Jesus even went on to forgive His very persecutors.
'Forgive them father, for they know not what they do'.
The Pharisee here, Nicodemus, also recognized Jesus for what He was. 'We know that you are a teacher come form God. No one else can do these things that you do, unless God is with him'.
Jesus answered the man 'truly, unless you are born again you cannot see The Kingdom of God'.
In otherwords, unless someone has a change, a realisation of this within them, none can see the way that God truly intends.
Note also 'The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.'
Jesus said this twice in the bible:
Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. 15 You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. 16 But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. 17 In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. 18 I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.”
(Note here, Jesus is saying, 'you judge me, yet you know nothing about me. Not where I have been, or where I am going. You judge purely by human standards, But I, as the Son of God, have the Father's testimony. For HE is the one who knows my heart, not you.' At least, that's what is says when I read it)
19 Then they asked him, “Where is your father?”
“You do not know me or my Father,” Jesus replied. “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” 20 He spoke these words while teaching in the temple courts near the place where the offerings were put. Yet no one seized him, because his hour had not yet come.
Also, the last part; when we realize Jesus, we then realize God.
So then being 'born again', is not simply a ritual. It is realization, and change.
What bigger change can a man undergo than to be born all over again? This would change his whole mind. His whole belief. His whole being. It is an extreme example (being born again) to signify a monumental change.
Being born again is not a ritual. The baptism of a man by water SIGNIFIES the change that is within him, however the ritual itself does not change the man. Just like circumsision, or the eating of meat.
Such rituals do nothing. Some will eat only vegetables. Some will eat flavoursome meat. Some will be circumsised, some not. Some are Jew, some are gentile. Some are man, some are women. Some are black, some are white. 'But there is neither Jew nor Gentile'.
Whether circumcised or uncircumcised, baptised by water or not, does not change a man's life, nor his mind.
AS John said, he baptised by water but Jesus baptises by 'spirit' and 'fire'.
And Jesus also said that there will be a 'fire', and that He wishes it was 'already kindled'.
In other words, he wishes that God's form of baptism (making a change within men, by fire, or having men be 'reborn' in the 'spirit') were already under way. But Jesus must first be BAPTISED. He was anxious until its completion.
Rebirth of a man can be something as simple as a change of heart. A realisation of things unknown before.
Like on the cross, when the thief believed upon Jesus and was sorry for what he had done.
Jesus never baptized the man, per se, but the man saw that even though Jesus had done nothing wrong, he took his persecution, in love. Through Jesus actions, the man must have said to himself 'truly, this man has done nothing wrong, Yet he takes his persecution and does not shout or fight'. He realised the truth of Jesus. And Jesus comforted him before death by letting him know that he would be with Him in paradise.
And Jesus even went on to forgive His very persecutors.
'Forgive them father, for they know not what they do'.
The Pharisee here, Nicodemus, also recognized Jesus for what He was. 'We know that you are a teacher come form God. No one else can do these things that you do, unless God is with him'.
Jesus answered the man 'truly, unless you are born again you cannot see The Kingdom of God'.
In otherwords, unless someone has a change, a realisation of this within them, none can see the way that God truly intends.
Note also 'The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.'
Jesus said this twice in the bible:
Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. 15 You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. 16 But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. 17 In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. 18 I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.”
(Note here, Jesus is saying, 'you judge me, yet you know nothing about me. Not where I have been, or where I am going. You judge purely by human standards, But I, as the Son of God, have the Father's testimony. For HE is the one who knows my heart, not you.' At least, that's what is says when I read it)
19 Then they asked him, “Where is your father?”
“You do not know me or my Father,” Jesus replied. “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” 20 He spoke these words while teaching in the temple courts near the place where the offerings were put. Yet no one seized him, because his hour had not yet come.
Also, the last part; when we realize Jesus, we then realize God.
So then being 'born again', is not simply a ritual. It is realization, and change.
What bigger change can a man undergo than to be born all over again? This would change his whole mind. His whole belief. His whole being. It is an extreme example (being born again) to signify a monumental change.