Posted on 01/23/2006 11:02:29 AM PST by mojito
Remember when word came down from the Vatican that Pope John Paul II had watched Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" and liked it? The anonymously sourced story sparked a media firestorm around the globe as reporters sought confirmation of the papal equivalent of two thumbs up. "It is as it was," we later learned the pope supposedly said. Which sounded like the perfect biblical movie blurb; but did the pontiff actually utter the words? After some non-clarifying retractions from the Vatican, it was ultimately hard to say for sure although not for journalistic want of trying. This natural curiosity stands in striking contrast to the media silence that has met a far more sensational, far more significant report of papal opinion: namely, that Pope Benedict XVI is said to believe that Islam is incapable of reform. This bombshell dropped out of an early January interview conducted by radio host Hugh Hewitt with Father Joseph D. Fessio, SJ, a friend and former student of the pope. Father Fessio recounted the pope's words on the key problem facing Islamic reform this way: "In the Islamic tradition, God has given His word to Mohammed, but it's an eternal word. It's not Mohammed's word. It's there for eternity the way it is. There's no possibility of adapting it or interpreting it...."
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Islam can be reformed, but won't be reformed till the Islamic upper echelon find it in their interest to reform.
Remember, Martin Luther didn't bring on the Reformation out of whole cloth. It was encouraged, protected, supported, defended, etc. by Germany rulers who were fed up with seeing riverlets of gold and silver flowing south, out of their lands and straight to Rome.
So I guess that's the end of using Leviticus to condemn homosexuality, right?
Here's just my two cents. Islam believes that it is the infallible word of God, unchangeable, eternal. However, in a nuclear exchange between the infidels and Islam, what would happen if nukes obliterated Mecca and Medina? How can you go to hajj when the site is now a crater in the desert? (Sure, you could go to the site - but all the obligations that you have to do under Islamic tradition during hajj wouldn't be possible.) That would seriously crimp the Islamic belief system.
Another possibility comes from the "us and them" approach in Islam. For the first few centuries of its existance, much of the Islamic expansion took place against tribal chiefs or empires that were old and exhausted. The West may be long in the tooth (at least the Western European wing), but I wouldn't say that the Chinese, Australians, Japanese, Koreans, Indians, or Americans are about just roll over and become Islamized, even after a nuclear exchange. In fact, I could easily see a nastier response from those attacked that could be horrific.
One last thought: this is a joke that circulated around 9-11. The Saudi minister was in Washington talking to President Bush. The minister said that he had seen many things, but he had one question. "Why is it on your television show 'Star Trek' the starships have Russians, Africans, Asians, Americans... people from all over the world, but no Arabs?" The president leans over, smiles, and says, "Well, that's because 'Star Trek' takes place in the future."
I think I'll pass that one along.
I recommend sick jokes at the expanses of Arabs are unproductive. Better to challenge our Muslim participants with the teachings of Jesus such as it is not our hands that are unclean if unwashed before rituals but what comes out of the heart at makes us unclean before God(indeed separates us from God without the grace of Jesus Christ rejected by Islam. These can engage our Muslim aqquaintances/friends to think about their faith and how it compares with the teachings of Jesus (Isa)
Tommy
Islam can be reformed, but won't be reformed till the Islamic upper echelon find it in their interest to reform.
Remember, Martin Luther didn't bring on the Reformation out of whole cloth. It was encouraged, protected, supported, defended, etc. by Germany rulers who were fed up with seeing riverlets of gold and silver flowing south, out of their lands and straight to Rome.
Yes, Ataturk, uhm, how many christians are still living in Turkey btw? Oh yeah, 0.2% of the population is mostly Christian (Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic (Gregorian), Syriac Orthodox, Roman Catholics and Protestants), Jewish, Bahá'ís, and the Yezidis. Yes, Turkey's suppose secular system that has made many discrepancies against non Muslem properties title which enabled Turkish authorities to seize them. Hmmm, very telling, IMO. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I still complains as to why the Turkish government will not re-open the Halki seminary, which had trained Orthodox clergy in Anatolia since the 19th century.
TURKEYS GREEK COMMUNITY GRAPPLES WITH ADVERSITY
But they can build their Mosques and religious centers without any issues in the West. Dearborn, MI has a freaken minaret, for Godsake, where the Muslem call to prayer can be heard everywhere in metropolitan Detroit but these muzzies won't open a school to train Orthodox clergy, which existed for thousands of years before they ever did....and they are suppose to be the "secular" ones? Unfreaken believable:
"Oh, God! Why don't you save me?!"
To which God responds:
"I gave you a brain to think; arms and legs that work. Move your arms and legs and swim to shore, you fool. Save yourself. Do expect me to do everything for you?"
In other words, yes God giveths but what you do with what God giveths can either save you or destroy you.
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