The all powerful Rusian Orthodox leader Patriarch Kirill has called on authorities, society and religious organizations to join efforts in fighting the spread of radical views.
He must be referring to the extremist views of Catholics and Lutherans.
A few links I found interesting for one reason or another:
Aid to the Church in Need – Iraq: Celebrating Christmas behind the walls
British Religion in Numbers – ‘Religious Swearwords’
A Grain of Sand – Reshaping Society
Get Religion – Yearning for suicide, glory or both?
Iain Dales Diary – The Time Has Come to Stop Blogging (And Party Politics)
Fascinating. Hat-tip Richard Beck of Experimental Theology
Massive hat-tip to Fr. Stephen, who says we’ll enjoy this and he’s not wrong.
Cross-post by Dr. James F. McGrath of Exploring our Matrix:
Today in my Sunday school class I decided to turn our attention to seasonal matters. Soon, the topic of being wished “Happy Holidays” as opposed to “Merry Christmas” came up. And so I took that opportunity to talk about what I consider one of the great Christmas miracles: the fact that long ago Christians managed to “hijack” the already-existing solstice festival, and turn it into a Christian celebration so thoroughly and so effectively that, more than a millennium and a half later, cultural Christians can complain about the “hijacking” or “secularization” of Christmas without any sense of irony.
The New Testament doesn’t provide a date for Jesus’ birth (although some have surmised that, if one takes the reference to shepherds watching their flocks by night as historical, it would probably have been during the lambing season and thus in the Spring). It also says nothing about celebrating it annually, or indeed at all. The celebration of Christmas on December 25th is a result of taking an already-existing festive occasion – the winter solstice – and transforming it into a Christian holiday.
And so I find the complaining of cultural Christians in the United States about their beleaguered or persecuted status at Christmas time not only ironic, but tedious and even offensive. The earliest Christians lived in a world where the issue was not the failure of salespeople to wish them a merry Christmas, but rather their own failure to participate in dominant cultural and religious rituals. The issue for the earliest Christians was not whether one could display a nativity scene on government property, but that every city where Christianity spread featured prominent displays of deities whom the Christians would refuse to worship, sometimes at the cost of their lives. That was persecution, not the fact that someone wishes you “Happy Holidays” – especially when that person would probably not be considered a true Christian anyway by born-again believers.
Since when are committed Christians committed to encouraging those without a deep personal faith to maintain an outward veneer of Christianity and to self-identify as Christians? In fact, born again Christians will happily, on other occasions, explain to those individuals whom they criticize at Christmas for not offering them Christian greetings that they aren’t, from their perspective, actually Christians. But once again the irony of their demanding that such people wish them a “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays” seems to go unnoticed.
I recently quoted Joseph Hoffmann as saying that “To be a fundamentalist, you have to have a book. And you have to forget the book has a history.” I think one could also say about this time of year “To be a fundamentalist, you have to have a holiday. And you have to forget the holiday has a history.”
So to those who are Christians I recommend ceasing the ridiculous habit of complaining about what others do or do not wish you, and appreciating instead that, for all our multi-cultural context today, Christmas still has Christian associations that will provide you with an opportunity to talk about your faith and what this holiday means to you. Very few people will take offense at you if you wish them a Merry Christmas. And if they do, that is their prerogative, just as it is yours to express your own faith as you see fit.
But the truth is that the Christmas holiday features services that focus on Christian doctrine and stories, but what the holiday means in practice for American Christians is otherwise the same thing it means for everyone else – time off work, time spent with family, and giving of gifts. While many American Christians complain about what the store employees wish them, they are there in the stores alongside everyone else, engaging in a practice that has no real Biblical roots, making purchases in the spirit of our contemporary materialistic age.
If your Christian faith is about what you wish others and what you demand that they wish you, and not also about what you spend and what you spend your money on, then I would suggest that you have only a veneer of Christianity spread over cultural values that are not specifically Christian, and which you share with most other people in your historical and national context.
So to those in the English-speaking world who consider themselves Christians, my recommendation is this: stop complaining about the “de-Christianization” of a holiday that we ourselves stole (sorry, borrowed) from others and successfully hijacked for more than a thousand years. And instead delight in the fact that, even in our changed and changing context, you can express your Christian faith, and have at least as much of an opportunity to take already-existing holidays and customs and fill them with distinctively Christian values – for yourself and as an opportunity to share your faith with others – as Christians in bygone eras did. If you feel you are not up to that challenge, then perhaps instead of complaining about the greetings of others, you would do well to ask whether you faith lacks the depth, vibrancy and creativity that Christianity has demonstrated at other times in history.
US Pastor Terry Jones – of the burn a Qur’an fame – is back in the news today as he has been invited by the English Defense League to attend their rally in Luton next year.
Richard Bartholomew provides us all of the details and rightly notes that despite Jones’ controversial and potentially embarrassing views, the EDL will garner the publicity they so desperately crave.
Hope not Hate have begun a campaign to stop Pastor Jones from entering the country and interestingly Archbishop Cranmer is not in support.
From my perspective, I object to Pastor Jones on many fronts, but my main concern is the backlash meted out against our Christian brothers and sisters in Islamic lands, as witnessed following his previous antics.
I recently wrote on the phenomenon that is the Russian Orthodox Church and its fantastical phoenix like rise to immense power and influence within Russian society, in a very short period of time.
In view of this, I was rather heartened to read of the Wikileak cable concerning the Russian Orthodox Church which affirms my assessment.
Strangely, I had a dream last night in which I was desperately trying to emigrate to Russia….weird…..but you didn’t really need to know that.
The Russian Orthodox Church is making a strong effort to assert its influence over Russian society and politics, documents released by the WikiLeaks website reveal.
A classified cable sent by U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle to Washington contains comments on his meeting with Archbishop Hilarion, head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Relations in January 2010.
“In a January 28 conversation with the [U.S.] Ambassador, Archbishop Hilarion freely admitted that the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has been extending its reach further into all areas of society,” the document posted by the Russian Reporter magazine says.
Hilarion explained the ROC’s desire to promote current government policies, including the so-called “managed democracy.”
“Hilarion essentially equated authoritarianism with stability, noting that Russians have always liked having a strong and powerful figure at the top,” the document says.
“Calling the ROC “a significant actor” in the life of the country, Hilarion said that Patriarch Kirill is “not only symbolic,” but can also influence major currents in Russia, including its political development.”
The influence of the Orthodox Church has been on the rise since the collapse of the Soviet Union, despite the fact that the Russian Constitution separates the church from the state.
And as Scott Bailey rightly observes:
….A large animal, known to be ill-tempered and skittish, bring it in the darkened, unfamiliar building with a bunch of camera flashes going off all around it! We’ll let one of the youth who has a horse, or maybe a large dog, lead it in… surely that’s no different from handling a camel! How could that possibly go wrong?!”
Indeed!
Marc Cortez alerts us to 20 obsolete English words that should make a comeback, which can be found here.
My fav’s:
3. Corrade – Verb trans. – “To scrape together; to gather together from various sources” – This is my blogging modus operandi.
7. Jollux – Noun - Slang phrase used in the late 18th century to describe a “fat person” – Do I look like a jollux in this?
17. Widdendream – Noun – “A state of mental disturbance or confusion” – My usual state of mind.
I have been known to freck to the pub for a brannigan due to bibesy at twitter-light, where I indulge in perissology and am prone to brabble. How malagrugrous of me, although I do kench.
Yep, another B&B legal case, this time involving Christians refusing a gay couple a double room, because it would be ‘an affront to their faith’.
This is an interesting case on two fronts. Firstly, the hotel owners also discriminate against non-married heterosexual couples and so the accusers have to establish that they were in fact discriminated against on the grounds of sexual orientation alone. Secondly, B&B’s and the like normally double as the family home and so this ruling has a potentially profound impact as the law courts are effectively deciding on what is permissible under your own private roof.
Caveat – In my opinion: I know we have to make the distinction between private and business, however, as long as the business receives absolutely no funding from the public sector, then this to me would still constitute a private matter.
This case is of course being brought under the Labour ‘equality’ legislation legacy. The plot thickens in that the Bulls allege they received a letter from Stonewall, the gay rights organisation, saying it had received a complaint and warning the hotel was breaking the law. Shortly after, Steven Preddy booked a double room for two nights by telephone, but did not mention he was staying with his gay partner. Sounds a little coincidental to me.
Do bear in mind the hotel manager offered the couple separate rooms, but they chose to trot off and complain to the police.
I had an interesting discourse with a gay libertarian chap some time back relating to a case very similar to this one. He was of the opinion that Christians should have the right to discriminate against whomever in private business, just so long as nobody objected to reciprocal discrimination against Christians.
In other words, Christian B&B owners should be within their rights to turn away gay couples, just as the LGBT community should be within their rights to turn away Christian couples.
He took this a step further and opined that ‘anti-gay street preachers’ should have full liberty to vent their views in public, just so long as nobody objected to the preacher being picketed with placards denoting him a narrow-minded bigot outside his church every Sunday.
Sounded fair enough to me, as we both acknowledged the ‘equality’ laws were failing in their stated objectives.
Anyway, this case hits a Bristol court on Monday sponsored by the Christian Institute and it will be interesting to note the outcome.
