Posted on 08/20/2014 2:14:15 AM PDT by markomalley
As you may know, the Catholic Faith was illegal in the Roman Empire prior to 313 AD, when the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan permitting the Christian Faith to flourish publicly. Prior to that time, Church buildings as we know them today were rare—Mass was usually celebrated in houses.
Now be careful here; these “houses” were usually rather sizable, with a central courtyard or large room that permitted something a little more formal than Mass “around the dining room table.” I remember being taught (incorrectly) that these early Masses were informal, emphasized a relaxed, communal quality, and were celebrated facing the people. Well, it turns out that really isn’t true. People didn’t just sit around a table or sit in circle—not at all. They sat or stood formally, and everyone faced in one direction: east.
In the drawing (to the right) you can see the layout of an ancient house church (actually more often called a Domus Dei (House of God)) drawn based on an excavated 3rd century house church in Dura-Europos (located in what is now today’s Syria). Click on the diagram for a clearer view. The assembly room is to the left and a priest or bishop is depicted conducting a liturgy (facing east) at an altar against the east wall. A baptistery is on the right and a deacon is depicted guarding the entrance door. The lonely-looking deacon in the back of the assembly hall is there to “preserve good order,” as you will read below. The photograph below shows the baptistery of the Dura-Europos house church.
What is remarkable about these early liturgies is how formal they were despite the fact that they were conducted under less-than-ideal circumstances. The following text is from the Didiscalia, a document written in about 250 AD. Among other things, it gives rather elaborate details about the celebration of the early Catholic Mass in these “house liturgies.” I have included an excerpt here and interspersed my own comments in RED. You will find that there are some rather humorous remarks in this ancient text toward the end.
Now, in your gatherings, in the holy Church, convene yourselves modestly in places of the brethren, as you will, in a manner pleasing and ordered with care. [So these "house liturgies" were NOT informal Masses. Good order and careful attention to detail were essential.] Let the place of the priests be separated in a part of the house that faces east. [So even in these early house Masses, the sanctuary (the place where the clergy ministered) was an area distinct from where the laity gathered. People were not all just gathered around a dining room table.] In the midst of them is placed the bishop’s chair, and with him let the priests be seated. Likewise, and in another section let the lay men be seated facing east. [Prayer was conducted facing east, not facing the people.] For thus it is proper: that the priests sit with the bishop in a part of the house to the east and after them the lay men and the lay women, [Notice that men and women sat in separate sections. This was traditional in many churches until rather recently, say the last 150 years.] and when you stand to pray, the ecclesial leaders rise first, and after them the lay men, and again, then the women. Now, you ought to face to east to pray for, as you know, scripture has it, Give praise to God who ascends above the highest heavens to the east. [Again, note that Mass was NOT celebrated facing the people as some suppose of the early Church. Everyone was to face to the east, both clergy and laypeople. Everyone faced in the same direction. The text cites Scripture as the reason for this. God is to the east, the origin of the light.]
Now, of the deacons, one always stands by the Eucharistic oblations and the others stand outside the door watching those who enter [Remember, this was a time of persecution and the early Christians were careful to allow only baptized and bona fide members to enter the Sacred Mysteries. No one was permitted to enter the Sacred Liturgy until after having been baptized. This was called the disciplina arcanis, or "discipline of the secret." Deacons guarded the door to maintain this discipline.] and afterwards, when you offer let them together minister in the church. [Once the door was locked and the Mass began, it would seem that the deacons took their place in the sanctuary. However it also appears that one deacon remained outside the sanctuary to maintain "good order" among the laity.] And if there is one to be found who is not sitting in his place let the deacon who is within, rebuke him, and make him to rise and sit in his fitting place … also, in the church the young ones ought to sit separately, if there is a place, if not let them stand. Those of more advanced age should sit separately; the boys should sit separately or their fathers and mothers should take them and stand; and let the young girls sit separately, if there is really not a place, let them stand behind the women; let the young who are married and have little children stand separately, the older women and widows should sit separately. [This may all seem a bit complicated, but the bottom line is that seating was according to sex and age: the men on one side, the women on the other, older folks to the front, younger ones to the back. Also, those caring for young children were to stand in a separate area. See? Even in the old days there was a "cry room!"] And a deacon should see that each one who enters gets to his place, and that none of these sits in an inappropriate place. Likewise, the deacon ought to see that there are none who whisper or sleep or laugh or nod off. [Wait a minute! Do you mean to tell me that some of the early Christians did such things? Say it isn't so! Today, ushers do this preserving of good order, but the need remains.] For in the Church it is necessary to have discipline, sober vigilance, and attentive ear to the Word of the Lord. [Well that is said pretty plainly—and the advice is still needed.]
But. Your response is --- I am sad to put it this way --- yet another instance of the unwillingness if not an incapacity on the part of many faithful Christians to actually engage the issues with these "Gay" "Christians."
"Oh, they've been given over to their depravity" - - and then walk away? Is this truly the Good Shepherd's response?
Some of them are addicts, addled, not really using their honest mind as a guidance system at all. Maybe they've lost their minds. But some of these spurious arguments (like the ones I strung together in the last post) are not posed to us by gay sex addicts, seared in conscience, but by kids -- adolescents--- young adults ---their teachers -- and their parents -- yes, sexually normal and even, by their description,Christians, who are just baffled and easily taken by pseudo-scriptural sophistry. And we know who he "author" of that is.
These --- I'll call them the confused ---
And rapidly as the gay christian/gay marriage delusion has advanced (yes, even in seminaries, University theology deparments and and Bible Colleges from sea to shining sea), man-woman Christian marriage, has retreated. Normal man-woman marriages are dropping, sometimes precipitously, in pretty near every denomination except maybe the LDS.
Look at the slogan "Marriage Equality". Gays "win" on that equation, because two, maybe three generations have a positive reflexive response to "equality" (or "fairness") but do not even know what marriage is.
I've repeatedly asked other FReepers (not you, I'm not saying it was you) why they think contracepted sex in marriage is OK but gay marriage is against nature. Almost nobody will favor me with an answer. Certainbly not a coherent answer. That is because most Christians gave up on natural sex 40 years ago, and they don't even realize they did.
Does any church say a contracepted act of sexual intercourse does not consummate a marriage? Comment?
Interesting. In my neck of the woods, contraception of any kind seems way less common than those statistics you cited earlier. At least people don't talk about it. Never happened in either my immediate family or my extended family on my side. And I'm old enough to speak for that whole 40 year span you speak of. But my Catholic in-laws up north were into it, up to and including abortion. So I am finding those statistics both troubling and perhaps a bit dubious. I will continue to look into it.
Jazz is medicinal, man. I had a Fender Rhodes once. Good times. :)
The Reformed have this notion of common grace. We are sinners, yes, but to make the world a habitable place where God could carry out His long term plan to redeem a people for Himself, He mellowed all of us down a notch or two, kept us from being the extremely bad people we were capable of being. Maybe Jazz is a part of that. Doubt it would work for the ISIS folks though. I’m just guessing here, but that’s what I think we’d all look like if there were no grace at all.
The link I shared with LearsFool a couple of clicks ago was...
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/resources/Religion-FP-tables.html
Two things about AGI: it's basically the research arm for PP. It actually has better, more accurate statistics in the pregnancy-contraceptive-abortion related field than anybody else, including the CDC. BUT it also presents those statistics to the media in a way that is, while technically accurate, operationally misleading.
If you look at the first chart at the link, you will see that there are two hugely biasing aspects which most people will hardly notice: They are surveying every woman who has ever had sex. OK, but that includes a woman who go drunk and had sex with a condom once when she was in college, and then repented and never did it that again --- counting her the same as a woman who started haing sex when she was 18 and bascally was on some contractive for the rest of her life from 18 to 48. Both these hypothetical women, and every woman in-between, simply counts as a "contraceptive user."
This is a meaningles statistic,like asking all women who have EVER driven a car, whether they have EVER run a red light, exceeded the speed limit, failed to signal, driven on the shoulder, or crossed a double yellow line. You might get a figure like 95-100%, but it wouldn't really tell you much of anything about whether most women accepted or affirmed or regularly committed traffic violations.
The second graph is just as bad, because it surveys only "sexually active women who are not pregnant, post-partum or trying to get pregnant."
Think of what this means. It means it screens out the EXACT sub-sets of women most likely to NOT use contraceptives: the abstinent, and the happily fertile married. Many married, non-contraceptive-using women spend their entire married life, practically, in one or another of these categories (trying or a least open to getting pregnant; pregnant; or postpartum). So they've excluded from the survey the precise subsets of women who would pull the numbers back in a non-contraceptive direction.
How big or small that group is, I do not know. But at least on this web page (you'll notice it's the "media center") AGI's not going to tell you.
With that in mind, you can evaluate their finding that 74% of Evangelical women are using either permanent sterilization (tubal ligation) or temporary hormonal sterilization (oral, transdermal, injected or implanted hormones). I have no doubt that's true, but true for a selected demographic slice, and not "all Evangelical women."
Nevertheless it's certain that contraceptive acceptance is overwhelming in practically all demographic subsets in the USA, with the smallish exceptions of the most devout practicing "Orthodox" believers in Christianity, Judaism, and probably Islam.
Hmmm. Thank you for the analysis. Very enlightening. Like they say, lies, “darn” lies, and statistics, right? :)
But seriously, thank you. That helps a lot. There’s got to be a better study somewhere. If not, it’s a worthwhile project for someone to take up.
I am not in need of persuasive efforts, because I am not beguiled by the gay exegetes' Scriptural arguments at all. Not in the least. But I really do have a concern for the young and sexually confused (as well as the not-so-young), for whom I pray every single day.
I think they would benefit from the realization that all of Chritendom has been in agreement about the basic norms of sexual virtue until very, very recently (that is, until the mid-20th century).
That's assuming they have not already picked up a "Hermeneutic of Suspicion," an assumption that most Christians have, historically, been mostly wrong about most everything. Or the idea that what most Christians have believed, down the millenia and across contnents and cultures, is irrelevant. Some see themselves as being led by the Spirit, as they think, without the blinders and biases of the past.
A "Hermeneutic of Continuity" would help them avoid the tyranny of relativism and modernism, and find sound Scriptural interpretation. A "Hermeneutic of Suspicion" (or of historical indifference or skepticism) will impede them.
Do you see what I'm getting at?
Jazz is stunning. Bunch of guys going “What do you mean, we’ve got only 8 notes.”
I think I see where my friend is coming from. You got the sheet music right there in the scriptures. How you play it is up to you.
(Hate it when he makes me think)
I'm not sure you're quite getting it. "Jesus' words" have nothing to do with it, in their eyes. These Gay Christians I'm referring to (and they're not all gay --- in fact, most of them are straight but consider themselves "gay allies") --- think they ARE following Jesus. They've got NO PROBLEM with Jesus. They accept Jesus' word. They say Jesus is Lord. Fine.
Their delusion is that Jesus is right and the Church is wrong. Jesus never mentioned homosexuality. Cool. The Church not only mentions it but opposes it. Uncool.
They think the Church is acting outside of the message and character of Christ, and contrary to the Gospel, because we are no being inclusive enough, accepting enough, even celebratory enough of every person and their own way of being, their own irreplaceable God-given uniqueness, which they think includes attitudes and behaviors which Chrisianity has always considered to be sin.
So the problem is not that they don't accept Jesus or don't accept the Gospel. They do, according to their own interpretation. And "their own interpretation" is based on their presumed competency to sincerely and honestly and prayerfully and without bias read and interpret Scripture for themselves.
That error is pushed further in the wrong direction by the sophisicated scholarship (should I put that in quotes? "Scholarship"?)--- the "new explanation" --- which tells them that sure, God's Word condemns idolatry, rape, prostitution, pederasty, etc, but it never condemns gay marriage because it never addresses gay marriage.
It never addresses "gay marriage", they say, except in this sense: that marriage is honorable for everyone, and the marriage bed undefiled.
THAT'S the problem. Notjust that they accept sodomy and fake marriage, but that they follow an impossibility, a Christ who has been split off from His Body --- split off from His Church. Thus a false 'christ.' One who is leading them into all error and eternal loss.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3196479/posts
They're Christian gay marriage supporters. They HAVE the Bible. They AGREE that in it is the Word of God. They've had their personal encounter with Jesus, whom they ACCEPT as Lord and Savior. That's good enough for them.
Bringing them to the Gospel won't help them. They think they're already there.
"But their interpretation isn't right, and I can provie it, because...." OK, complete that sentence.
Maybe I am wrong, but the “Christian: pro-sodomy point of view seems to be of recent origin. Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong. Just curious that until our culture/society has turned its back on the Bible and Christianity, Christians did not even entertain such notions. Now that the Church is influenced, if not dragged around, by modern culture, this is an issue.
Until our culture/society turned its back on the Bible and Christianity, Christians did not even entertain the notion of conrtaception, i.e. sex split off from its procreative design. And that was the error that lead directly tot he acceptance of homosexuality.
BOth are acts against nature.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3196479/posts?page=76#76
Tht's got my Amen.
As for Christ's Church, the gates of hell will not prevail against it. He did not found it for some unnecessary, uncertain or failing purpose.
As for this debate over evangelistic technique pitting Sola Scriptura versus Sola Roma, please remember that the very best evangelist who ever lived was crucified for His efforts. And those who followed Him after He rose fron the dead did not do so under their own power. They were fully empowered by the Holy Spirit, and the church grew like wildfire. Yet they too, like their master, were opposed and persecuted at every turn. There is no earthly solution to the unpopularity of Christian life principles. Those not born again in the power of Christ by the Spirit of God are living in utter darkness. Spiritually, they are zombies.
So how do you witness to a zombie? You give them what is their only hope, the word of God in the words of God:
John 8:47 He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.
You see, all the sophistries they concoct can be refuted rather easily. But really by arguments that only appeal to those who truly accept God's authority over their own judgment.
For example, the heart of the believer wants above all to please God, right? We are a new creation, right down to our deepest heart's desires. So when we see Jesus teaching what marriage IS, the permanent union of one man and one woman in one flesh, we know that's what pleases HIm, and that anything not conforming to that definition is opposed to God's own definition given in person by the Son of God Himself. That really is good enough for the heart that lives to love and please God.
But as Jesus says in that passage above, those who are not of God will always find their way around God's most obvious truths, let alone the more subtle ones. Remember that poor lost soul begging Abraham to let him warn his family of the terrors of Hell? And what was the response?
Luk 16:27-31 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: (28) For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. (29) Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. (30) And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. (31) And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.
So Jesus is not teaching it's up to us to come up with undefeatable arguments that will wrest the lost from their lostness. There are some who will not listen, and nothing you could do will change them. What is the test? If they will not hear the magisterium? Nope, that's not what He said. If they will not listen to the record of the word of God. That is the test.
When I was much, much younger, I had a summer job trying to sell Bible encyclopedias door to door in the deep south. It was challenging work, and to be frank I didn't do all that well. One lesson stuck with me though. You knock on the door, maybe you get a few minutes to make your pitch, and if they are even a little inclined to hear you, you keep going. But if they slam the door in your face, or make it otherwise clear that they have no interest (like siccing their pack of little dogs on you - truth), then shake the dust off your feet and move on.
God has called a great feast. Many who thought they would be His special guests at that feast are in fact unwilling to hear His word. They won't go in the end. But many who looked like complete outsiders, they are the ones craving to eat at the table He has set, and they will go and eat and be satisfied. That's just how He works. May God grant that we will always know the joy of raising the melody of praise to Him and His amazing grace forever.
Peace,
SR
Let's pray for Kristin Powers and all those similarly situated. And that is undoubtedly millions.
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