eChurch Blog

Nowt new in this article from the Telegraph today, for readers of this blog

Just a Few Thoughts on the Catholic Church, Anglicans and the Orthodox Church

Telegraph

Relations between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church have been tense for centuries, but in a sign that relations are finally thawing, Archbishop Ilarion, who heads the Russian Orthodox Church’s foreign relations department, said that both sides wanted a meeting, although he emphasised that problems remained.

Ilarion spoke of a rapprochement under Pope Benedict XVI that would allow for a meeting with the new Russian Orthodox Patriarch, Kiril, who took up his office in February after the death of the previous patriarch.

“There have been visits at a high level,” said Illarion. “We are moving towards the moment when it will become possible to prepare a meeting between the Pope and the Moscow patriarch.”

He added that in recent years there had been “noticeable improvements” in relations between the two churches.

“The progress in relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church began after Benedict XVI became pope. He is…a person who does not aim to grow the Catholic Church in traditional Orthodox regions.”

Some observers had hinted a meeting between the two Church leaders was forthcoming, but many issues still stand in the way of bridging the split, which dates from 1054 when Patriarch of Constantinople was excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

The breach heralded the Great Schism that finally divided the Christian churches of East and West – which had long had political and theological differences, including the wording of the Nicene Creed – and led to the creation of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.

Relations have been tense ever since, and were strained again in recent years by Orthodox accusations of Catholics proselytising in Russia – although historians have cast doubt on such claims.

Read Entire Article

Previous related posts:-

Whose authority? – Decisions on sex education and crucifixes in classrooms are highly illiberal intrusions into our lives and those of our children

The recent decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemning the display of crucifixes in Italian public schools could result in the removal of all public displays of a Christian origin in all public buildings of Europe under the newly passed Lisbon Treaty, a British legal expert has warned.

The EU has barred crucifixes in Italian state schools. Are Nativity plays next?

Classroom crucifix violates human rights, European court rules

Media Education Headlines: Sex and drug lessons from age 5 & Sex education opt out is reduced

BBC

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled last week that the presence of crucifixes violated a child’s right to freedom of religion.

Greece’s Orthodox Church fears the Italian case will set a precedent.

It has called an emergency Holy Synod meeting for next week to devise an action plan.

Although the Greek Orthodox Church has been at odds with Roman Catholicism for 1,000 years, the judicial threat to Christian symbols has acted as a unifying force.

The European Court of Human Rights found that the compulsory display of crucifixes violated parents’ rights to educate their children as they saw fit and restricted the right of children to believe or not to believe.

‘Worthy symbols’

The head of the Greek Church, Archbishop Ieronymos, shares Catholic complaints that the court is ignoring the role of Christianity in forming Europe’s identity.

It is not only minorities that have rights but majorities as well, said the archbishop.

Read Entire BBC Article

This is a cross post from Harry’s Place, by Lucy Lips

The London-based clerical fascist group, Hizb ut Tahrir, is using the Friends’ Meeting House for its conference.

Again.

What is it with Quakers and Jihadism?

The Quakers Peace Testimony

All bloody principles and practices we do utterly deny, with all outward wars, and strife, and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatsoever, and this is our testimony to the whole world. That spirit of Christ by which we are guided is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil and again to move unto it; and we do certainly know, and so testify to the world, that the spirit of Christ, which leads us into all Truth, will never move us to fight any war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdoms of this world.

Hizb ut Tahrir

The fierce struggle between the Islamic thoughts and the Kufr thoughts, and between the Muslims and the Kuffar, has been intense ever since the dawn of Islam. When the Messenger of Allah (saw) was sent, the struggle was only an intellectual one, and was not associated with any material struggle. This status quo continued until the Islamic State was established in Madinah, whereupon the army and the authority were established and since then, the Messenger of Allah (saw) combined the material struggle with the intellectual struggle. The verses of Jihad were revealed and the struggle went on. It will continue in this way – a bloody struggle alongside the intellectual struggle – until the Hour comes and Allah (swt) inherits the Earth and those on it. This is why Kufr is an enemy of Islam, and this is why the Kuffar will be the enemies of the Muslims as long as there is Islam and Kufr in this world, Muslims and Kuffar, until all are resurrected […] and it should be taken as a criterion to judge the relationships between Islam and Kufr and between the Muslims and the Kuffar

This is from the Friends House lettings policy (pdf):

A booking may be refused if:
• The aims and policies of the organisation or individual are in serious conflict with Quaker beliefs. Written details of the aims or policies of new groups wishing to hold meetings in Friends house are normally requested
• Violence or the encouragement of violence at a meeting may reasonably be anticipated.

How Friends House squares that circle in the case of Hizb is anyone’s guess.

A scene from a Hizb rally in London:

Cranmer on the new depressing EU revelations from C-Fam

If ever proof were needed that EU national governments may no longer legislate in accordance with their own cultural traditions, or enact laws which uphold the Christian understanding of the family, it is now evident.

Astonishingly (or perhaps not), the European Parliament has considered ‘Article 7’ action against Lithuania, which could have resulted in Lithuania’s suspension from the European Union. And all because they have dared to confront what they deem to be insidious homosexual propaganda.

Lithuania is a predominantly Roman Catholic country, and has effectively passed its own Section 28: ‘A Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information’ which prohibits promotion of ‘homosexual, bisexual, polygamous relations’ among children under the age of 18. The law does not ban the discussion of such issues; it prohibits their promotion. This is not ‘anti-gay’ or ‘homophobic’; it is for the protection of children. But Gay and human rights groups have condemned the law, claiming it institutionalises homophobia, is discriminatory, and violates the right to freedom of expression. The ubiquitous Michael Cashman, who spends every waking hour of his working life on the promotion of homosexuality, all at the expense of the EU taxpayer, said: “It is my duty as an elected member of the European Parliament to act strongly against grave attempts to diminish human rights of EU citizens. This new law is a spit in the face of the European values. To limit freedom of expression based on homophobia is a clear breach of EU’s fundamental rights and principles.”

No mention, of course, of the diminishing rights of EU Christians, or the buckets of saliva being thrown into their faces, or the limitations being placed on their freedom of expression.

While the Lithuanian president vetoed the measure last June, the Lithuanian parliament exercised its democratic right and overturned his veto. The law is due to take effect next March.

And so the European Parliament voted 349-218 to condemn the new law because they say it contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights. They insist that the law should therefore be repealed: it is inconsistent with EU membership.

And yet we are told that the education of children and parental rights are not a competence of the European Union. And the Irish were duped into believing that the Lisbon Treaty (into which the Charter of Fundamental Rights is now incorporated) does not impinge upon national sovereignty in these areas.

The Lithuanian parliament has expressed ‘regret’ and ‘deep concern’ that the European Parliament attempted to ‘doubt the lawfulness of the law passed by the great majority of the democratically elected parliament of a member state, although this issue should not fall under the jurisdiction of the EP’.

Yet the Lithuanian parliament can ‘regret’ and express ‘deep concern’ until the cows come home. When the European Court of Human Rights speaks, its pronouncements are ex cathedra, perfect wisdom, infallible. The will of ‘the democratically elected parliament of a member state’ is of no consequence.

Interestingly, Lithuanian Labour Party member Mecislovas Zasciurinskas asked if this is a one-off attempt to interfere with the affairs of a sovereign state or the beginnings of an absolute dictatorship. He said: “Some years back we called this ‘Moscow’s Grip,’ the tendency to meddle in everybody’s business…”

Is ‘Article 7’ the fate which awaits David Cameron’s quest to ‘repatriate’ certain competences under subsidiarity provisions? Are threats of expulsion the consequence of transgressing the divine right of the European Union?

The faithful communicant who brought this story to His Grace’s attention has attempted to get a transcript of the debate in the European Parliament. This was eventually provided, but he says that in order to understand what was going on, he would have needed to have been proficient in every European language that was used in the debate. Apparently the EP rapporteurs do not see fit to provide translations of the whole proceedings in a single language. No doubt to do so would provide too much transparency.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 /Christian Newswire/ — On Monday, November 16 at 1:30 PM, the Coalition for Faith and Freedom, an ad hoc group of concerned clergy, will rally in front of the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. to test the limits of the expanded federal hate crimes law.

On October 28, President Barack Obama signed into law a measure extending the federal hate crimes statute to include so-called sexual orientation. The ministers believe this will criminalize all criticism of homosexual behavior, including that contained in the Bible.

To test this belief and protest a clear violation of First Amendment freedom of speech and religion, various clergy will preach short sermons and read passages from the Bible regarding homosexual behavior. Like Dr. Martin Luther King and the Sixties Civil Rights movement, they will engage in civil disobedience to protest injustice.

Those participating in the pray-in will include Vision America Action President Dr. Rick Scarborough, Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, Bishop E.W. Jackson of STAND America, Brian Camenker of Mass Resistance (a group which has fought gay marriage in the Bay State), Paul Blair and Steve Kern of Reclaim Oklahoma, Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, Brad Cranston of Iowa Baptists for Biblical Values, and Jim Garlow, a leader of the Prop 8 battle in California, which overturned the judicial imposition of gay marriage.

Legal challenges to the unconstitutional law may also be announced at that time. Mat Staver, Esq., founder and president of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty Law School, has been retained as their counsel and will be present at a press conference preceding the event.

Pastor Paul Blair, founder of Reclaiming Oklahoma for Christ, summed up the sentiments of participants, when he observed: “Pastors have preached the Bible in America for more than 400 years, pointing the people to Jesus Christ and standing against sin. If preaching the Bible is now against the law, then let us be arrested. If not, may every pastor in America know that he can stand strong and proclaim Biblical Truth without fear of persecution or prosecution.”

It’s funny, I don’t tend to get too concerned anymore, when I see headlines of this ilk. I suppose that this sort of news is becoming rather common and par for the course and although I am saddened by it, I’m not surprised and perhaps I don’t blame them.

We no longer live in a Christian society (many maintain we never did) and as a result, there has been an ongoing erosion, secularisation and commercialisation of Christian festivals, for as long as I can remember.

Christians are a minority group now in the UK, and many UK citizens have made their choice to reject the Gospel and as long as all folks have been offered the true Gospel, we are free from their blood on our hands.

So who are we to demand that a secular country, celebrate our religious festival, in a religious way? This is their life and their world and this is the only one that they have after all.

Times

Christmas will not be Christmas in Dundee this year. All references to the religious holiday have been dropped from the switching-on ceremony for the city’s festive lights.

Instead of the traditional Christmas Lights switch-on, residents will be attending the “Dundee Winter Light Night”. Council officials have also decided that rather than a retelling of the Nativity story there will be a disco, a contemporary circus, a continental market and a 7ft fairy on stilts.

Disgruntled members of the Presbytery of Dundee have voted to voice concern to the city council, saying that the religious aspect of Christmas was being eroded. One churchgoer, Philip Harris, from Broughty Ferry, said: “It seems ludicrous to have a Christmas event which makes no mention of Christmas. It just seems like the usual political correctness.

“Hopefully the council will reconsider.”

Read Entire Article

Original Source: EZGToons (With kind permission)

Beware Amnesty International dear readers, they are not what they would first appear to be. They are vehemently anti-Israel and are the first to come out in support of the homosexual agenda and work tirelessly to tear down the traditionally held values on the sanctity of heterosexual marriage.

These two links will give you a flavour:-

Amnesty International UK: Going Out In The Cold

Amnesty: Lithuania Law against Homosexualist Propaganda is “State-Sponsored Homophobia”

By Piero A. Tozzi, J.D.

Amnesty International Pushes “Gay Marriage” Down Under

(NEW YORK – C-FAM) Activist organization Amnesty International is putting its weight behind an Australian bill seeking to legalize “same-sex marriage” in that country, claiming that “internationally recognized” non-discrimination norms dictate such a result.

In a submission to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee of Australia’s Senate, Amnesty’s Australian affiliate contends that laws limiting the right to marry to opposite-sex couples amounts to “arbitrary discrimination” in contravention of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

The group further interprets a provision of the ICCPR guaranteeing adults the right to enter into “consensual marriage” as applying to same-sex couplings. Critics contend this distorts the meaning of the word “marriage” without regard to context and the apparent intent of the drafters. The ICCPR provision cited, Article 23, states that “The right of men and women of marriageable age to marry and to found a family shall be recognized,” and that “No marriage shall be entered into without the free and full consent of the intending spouses.”

Underscoring what critics say is the problem of United Nations (UN) treaty monitoring bodies exceeding their mandates and seeking to reinterpret treaties to include novel concepts not agreed upon by those who negotiated or ratified the treaties, Amnesty asserts that “For more than a decade, non-discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation has been an internationally recognized principle which has been endorsed by UN treaty bodies and numerous inter-governmental human rights bodies.” Specifically, Amnesty cites interpretations of the ICCPR and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by their respective treaty monitoring bodies as forming a soft-law jurisprudence in favor of a new non-discrimination category.

The creation of such a non-discrimination category is hotly-contested among UN member states, however. To date, efforts to enshrine “sexual-orientation and gender identity” as a category on par with ones such as race and religion in a legally binding document have been repeatedly rejected.

Amnesty points to a French-initiated statement signed by roughly 65 member states, including Australia, last December asserting the existence of a non-discrimination category based on sexual orientation and gender identity in support of Amnesty’s call to allow same-sex couples to enter into “a legally binding union of couples, otherwise known as marriage.” The Amnesty submission contends that preventing “same-sex couples from entering into a legally binding union on the basis of sexual orientation” contravenes “the statement Australia supported in the UN General Assembly last year.”

A contemporaneous counterstatement, however, signed by nearly 60 nations, principally from the Islamic world, Africa and Oceania, along with independent statements made by Russia, Belarus and the Holy See, pointed out that no non-discrimination category based on sexual orientation and gender identity exists in international law. Amnesty’s submission makes no reference to the counterstatement.

Critics of the French-led statement pointed out at the time that, though non-binding and supported by only a minority of member states, advocates would hail it as a soft-law norm signaling of a movement by states toward a rights-based acceptance of homosexual conduct – in this particular case, using it to place same-sex unions on par with marriage.

I am impressed to see the the Church in Europe asking itself how well it’s taking advantage of the Internet to proclaim Christ. The Internet is a vital tool for the proclamation of the Gospel in this day and age (well I would say that wouldn’t I).

Zenit News Agency (www.zenit.org)

[.....] This analysis is taking place at a four-day conference that began today in the Vatican.

Benedict XVI is the first to encourage such a self-examination, as affirmed in his message to the participants delivered by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, his secretary of state. The Holy Father urges an analysis of “this new culture and its implications for the Church’s mission.”

“Just as the first generations of Christians took pains to understand the pagan milieu of the Greek and Roman world so that the truth of the Gospel might touch the hearts and minds of their hearers, so too the proclamation of Christ requires a profound knowledge of the new technological culture on the part of today’s teachers and evangelists,” states the papal message.

The symposium is promoted by the Commission for the Media of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE).

Internet is culture

The meeting was presented by Cardinal Josip Bozanic, archbishop of Zagreb, Croatia, and vice-president of the CCEE, who began by clarifying that the “Internet is not only a recipient that receives different cultures. The Internet is culture.”

The cardinal posed urgent questions to the representatives of the European episcopate: What implications does the presence of the Internet have today for the mission of the Church? What repercussions does it have in the evangelizing endeavor of cultures and the inculturation of the faith? How has the Internet entered in the ordinary pastoral care of our dioceses and parishes?

In his clues for answers to these questions, Cardinal Bozanic acknowledged that many in the Church see the Internet “more as an instrument,” and he added: “We could think this three or four years ago. Today we must see that Internet is above all a world, which some have even called the ‘seventh continent.’”

For most people, especially young people, for the Web generation that has grown up on the Internet, this virtual place, the world of the new media, is becoming the main venue where their human, moral and cognitive formation takes place, the cardinal suggested.

“On the Internet,” he said, “young people create their social ties and learn to live!”

According to the cardinal, the Internet is neither good nor bad: “As any instrument placed in man’s hands, the Internet becomes what man himself decides.”

In this context, he said, for the Church, her presence on the Internet “more than an opportunity is a necessity,” as “without this presence she would not succeed in entering into dialogue with thousands of young people, primary actors in this reality, given that she would remain antiquated.”

For this reason, the cardinal left these questions for consideration: “What view do others have of us? To what degree are our sites really the expression of the wealth of the Christian patrimony and successful in transmitting the Good News that the Lord has asked us to spread?

Diakonia of culture

The next speaker was Archbishop Claudio Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, who said that the Church has been slow in understanding and even slower in applying the words that John Paul II wrote in the encyclical “Redemptoris Missio” (of 1990), when the Pope acknowledged that in the Church “this Areopagus” of communication “has been somewhat neglected.”

“Generally other instruments for evangelical proclamation and for Christian formation are favored, while the means of social communication are left to the initiative of individuals or small groups, and they enter the pastoral program only at the secondary level. Work in these means, however, does not only have the objective to multiply the proclamation. It is a more profound event, because evangelization itself of modern culture depends to a great extent on its influence,” explained Archbishop Celli, citing the Polish Pontiff.

He also mentioned the new stimulus that Benedict XVI has given to the presence of the Church on the Internet, in particular with his address to the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, so that it might exercise “a ‘diakonia of culture’ in the present ‘digital continent,’ following its ways to proclaim the Gospel, the only Word that can save man.”

Archbishop Celli made a wake-up call, saying that 70% of Catholic sites have yet to take on the elements offered by Web 2.0, that is, interactive production and on occasions, community production.

Lesson of the Evangelicals

Finally, Bishop Jean-Michel di Falco Leandri of Gap and Embrun, France, president of the European Commission for the Media, ended by offering elements for an analysis that enables children of the Church to abandon that fear that on occasions impedes them from rowing freely in the Internet sea.

In particular, he mentioned research done in the French-speaking world showing that Evangelical sites are more visited than Catholic ones, despite the fact that the Catholic population is far more numerous than the Evangelicals in France.

“How should we explain this?” asked the bishop. The first reason he gave was that “Evangelicals listen and Catholics talk.”

With this, the research states that “the Evangelicals come out of themselves to put themselves in others’ shoes. They respond to needs.” For this reason, he asked: “Does the Church speak, perhaps, from herself, without taking sufficiently into account what people are experiencing?”

The second reason for the greater success of the Evangelical sites vis-a-vis the Catholic sites is due to the fact that “Catholic sites are centered on themselves” and consider the means “as instruments and not as a world that must be evangelized.”

The bishop said that Catholic sites on the Internet are “duplicated in parish sheets, in diocesan bulletins. They are for internal use. They speak a language for those who are initiated and for the exclusive use of the initiated. The Evangelical sites, on the contrary, want to reach [people], using the Internet as an instrument and vector of evangelization.”

“Whether or not we are in agreement with this analysis, it is clear that we must assume the needs and listen to the world to love it more and to be able to address it,” concluded the French prelate.

The gamut of participants in Friday’s analysis will run from a very young (redeemed) hacker to exponents from the great players in the world of the Internet.

I just noticed this press release from The Catholic News Agency which made me smile:-

The president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, shared this week that the Holy Father has an appreciation for new developments in technology and is comfortable surfing the internet and using email.

During an interview with the program “Studio Aperto” on the Italia 1 TV network, Archbishop Celli added, while the Pope doesn’t have a personal email address, he “sends his own personal emails. He does! He has great appreciation for new technology.”

The archbishop explained that while the Pope “cannot respond to the millions of messages that arrive in his inbox,” he is committed to “offering his prayers for all who write to him.”

“The internet is an excellent means of communication,” he continued.  “We are seeking to be present where the people are, especially the youth.”

Hey, great minds and all that. That last paragraph could have been lifted from this blog. I said previously:-

[.....] If we as Christians are to ‘go’ to where folks ‘are at’, then it would seem prudent to go online. I saw a recent study (can’t remember the source) that stated that our younger generation is more likely to go online than switch on the TV now.

Freaky!

It is vital for Christians living in Islamic states that this proposed UN law by the ‘Organization of the Islamic Conference’ is thoroughly rebuffed.

Even the atheists are rightly concerned by this one.

‘Blasphemy’ laws in Islamic nations are being used by Islam to persecute, control and ultimately crush minority groups, and this proposed UN law would usher in a global ‘blasphemy law’ which would benefit only Islam.

The following report comes from the Baptist Press by Tom Strode

WASHINGTON (BP)–The Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission has joined more than 100 other organizations in a statement opposing “defamation of religions” resolutions being promoted in the United Nations.

The “defamation of religions” movement, which is led in the United Nations by the 56-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, urges the condemnation of messages that defame religions and can lead to violence. Such a measure approved by a U.N. body earlier this year cited only Islam as a specific target and urged countries to protect “against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions and incitement to religious hatred in general.”

The new statement endorsed by the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) and others says the “defamation of religions” concept is “incompatible with the fundamental freedoms of individuals to freely exercise and peacefully exercise their thoughts, ideas and beliefs.” Such resolutions, the statement says, “punish the peaceful criticism of ideas” and do not protect the rights of individuals as affirmed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one of the U.N.’s founding documents.

“Defamation of religions” resolutions undergird laws in some countries that prohibit blasphemy and are used to oppress religious or political beliefs that are out of favor with the government, according to the statement. The document makes no direct reference to Islam, though some Muslim-dominated states enforce anti-blasphemy laws.

“It is vitally important for governments to combat violence motivated by bias and hatred and to encourage respectful speech and civil dialogue, while at the same time affirming that freedom of expression and freedom of thought, conscience and religion are integral to the health of free societies and the dignity of the human person,” says the statement, which was officially released Nov. 10.

In addition to the ERLC, the 103 signers include the American Center for Law and Justice, Baptist World Alliance, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Congress, American Islamic Congress, American Islamic Forum for Democracy, Open Doors, ChinaAid, Concerned Women for America, Advocates International, The Rutherford Institute, Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute and the American Humanist Association.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her disapproval of the “defamation of religions” movement Oct. 26, saying, “[S]ome claim that the best way to protect the freedom of religion is to implement so-called anti-defamation policies that would restrict freedom of expression and the freedom of religion. I strongly disagree.”

The American experience shows “the best antidote to intolerance is not the defamation of religion’s approach of banning and punishing offensive speech but, rather, a combination of robust legal protections against discrimination and hate crimes, proactive government outreach to minority religious groups and the vigorous defense of both freedom of religion and expression,” Clinton said.

The U.N. General Assembly is expected to consider a “defamation of religions” resolution in December, CNSNews.com reported.

The U.N. Human Rights Council adopted in March a “defamation of religions” resolution with a plurality, not a majority, of its 47 members in support. The non-binding resolution named Islam alone as an object of defamation.

The new document, “A Common Statement From Civil Society on the Concept of the ‘Defamation of Religions,’” may be accessed online at:

www.whatisdefamationofreligion.com

Tom Strode is the Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press.

Previous related posts:-

The so-called “defamation of religions” U.N. resolutions, proposed by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, would create a “global blasphemy law,” the chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom warned on Wednesday.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized on Monday an attempt by Islamic countries to prohibit defamation of religions, saying such policies would restrict free speech.

A ministry working with persecuted Christians launched a campaign Tuesday against a U.N. resolution (The Defamation of Religions Resolution) that many human rights groups say can be manipulated to oppress Christian minorities living in Muslim-majority countries.