[don-o]

bump for later

[mvpel]

Here's the article to which this one refers: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1324728/posts

[xzins]

The pope is not the head of Christianity. He's the head of the Catholic Church.

No matter how much sophistry one dumps on this fact, it always remains true that the pope is not the head of Christianity.

[Cicero]

“God’s love is not like my father’s love. God is not a family of persons. Human families have nothing in common with God. The relationship between God and man is the relationship between master and slave. He loves us as a master loves his slave, cares for us as a master cares for his slave, we owe him obedience as a slave owes his master, not as a son owes his father.” This is the reply of the Muslim to that particular Christian evangelistic approach.

This certainly is an essential difference between Islam and Christianity. Muslims don't understand love as we understand it, and they don't understand freedom as we understand it.

As it happens, love and freedom are interconnected. In Milton's "Paradise Lost," the Archangel Raphael explains to Adam, "Freely we serve, / because we freely love, as in our will / To love or not." Milton drew that insight, probably, from St. Augustine's "Enchiridion." Milton explains that God gives man freedom because He wants to be freely loved, not served by servile slaves or puppets.

But I'm not sure that I follow this author's "solution" to the problem of converting Muslims. The solution is not to show how Orthodoxy and Islam are similar, or for that matter how Luther's concept of a Deus absconditus resembles the Muslim idea of a God who is wholly different from anything we understand about love and goodness.

A better way is to try to show Arabs the meaning of love and freedom. Bush seems to be making a start on it. Regretably, Hollywood seems no longer to understand such concepts as love, freedom, courage, or any of the other Christian virtues, nor do any of the socialist politicians of Europe, and that is no help in speaking to the Muslim world.

Hillaire Belloc thought that the key was to talk to Muslims about the Virgin Mary and her loving relationship with her Son. It was noticeable that Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" was well received in the Muslim world, according to disappointed media reports.

One solution to the problem, doubtless, is to resist violence and kill terrorists. But we also need to fight Islam with ideas, and ultimately with the ideas of freedom and love.

[k2blader]

The Pope is neither the head of Christianity nor the head of the Church.

[USMCVet]

bump for later...

[kalee]

Interesting. Thanks for posting. I want to save this to reread when I have more time to respond.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump
To read later

[RussianBoor]

Well, that is an interesting piece, but the author of the original contribution does not know much about Christianity. Sadly. In fact, the shared experience of love is indeed compelling, but only among Christians. We all share this because the main thing that makes Christianity so unique is that the God decided to help us to save our souls. And in doing so, He did not teach us or direct us or issue orders. He did not demand that we obey Him. He sent His sun to die for us. He turned into one of us and experienced all horrors that we were incurring on our fellow human beings. He was not our master and we were not His slaves. We were in the same boat. He was just stronger than us and wiser than us, so He sacrificed himself to help us. There is nothing like that in any other religion. And it does not matter can we understand Him or not. I also think that we cannot. This is in fact a Jewish tradition, that the God cannot be understood, that He is indescribable and inaccessible. This Jewish tradition has been transferred into both Islam and Christianity, especially the Eastern Christianity. However, in Christianity the God used his omnipotence to save us. In Islam He started to rule us. That is the difference. The Master-Slave relationship.

I am not very familiar with Buddhism, but I think the distinction stands. Their God is not a Master but neither is He a Saviour. He loves you, yes, but He does not really care for you. He is far-far away from you. That's also a difference.

And what is also completely untrue is that Orthodox Christianity provided Islam with a kind of vaccine because allegedly the Orthodox Christianity supports in some way the Master-Slave relationship. This is very wrong. In fact, one of the main theological issues and one of the reason of numerous schisms and heresies, like Arianism, was the inequality among the Holy Trinity. Arians claimed that Christ was not God or at least not equal to God the Father. This is very important since if Christ is not equal to God the Farther then we have again the Master, who did care for us but who ordered his sun do go and die and thus put Himself above His sun and us. This is a heresy in Orthodox Christianity like in Catholicism and Protestancy, and for a very good reason since it destroys the basis of our faith. However, Arianism is still very popular in the East, but it should not be confused with Orthodox Christianity.

[Gumdrop]

This argument that takes place among our readers about whether the Pope is the head of the Christian church, is a straw man.

The issue if Islam and its relationship to various other religious groups.

Oh-the-way, maybe some Protestants do not get the general concept - that is, asking this question to those outside of the many Christian faiths, the question of who is the head of Christianity on earth, most would answer the Pope. It's a matter of visibility and of authority. It does not matter whether individual Christians actually follow the Pope or the Catholic church. It's a matter of public perception.

[Destro]

Actually some Protestants, who are against icons and clergy between them and God and Moromons (polygamy, ban on alcohol - Smith's description of his revelation is almost identical to Muhamed's) are closer to Islamic thinking than the Orthodox. But that even then, those are superficial in nature.

If Islam resembles Orthodoxy in the sense of their view on God (which only has superficial resemblence to Orthodox theology) it is because Islam is a heresy derived from a mixture of Arab pagan, Jewish and a little of Eastern Christianity and mostly of the Arian heresy version.

[longtermmemmory]

1/2? They just pulled that number out of the air.

Only 17-19% are self proclaimed leftists, 40+% say they are conservative, that leaves the rest as the mushy midddle who don't care enough to take a stand.

The author is confusing the voting with "hating".

Just more MSM push propaganda.

[SaltyJoe]

bttt