Posted on 05/04/2005 7:58:31 AM PDT by pro610
A Catholic posted something similar to me a few days ago on another post. I posted the following:
Methinks we are all in a world of trouble.
One does not have to apply "modern" "humanist" definitions in order to see "The Jews and Their Lies" for the virulently anti-semetic screed that it is.
The think the LCMS statement answers this well:
Q. What is the Missouri Synod's response to the anti-Semitic statements made by Luther?A. While The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod holds Martin Luther in high esteem for his bold proclamation and clear articulation of the teachings of Scripture, it deeply regrets and deplores statements made by Luther which express a negative and hostile attitude toward the Jews. In light of the many positive and caring statements concerning the Jews made by Luther throughout his lifetime, it would not be fair on the basis of these few regrettable (and uncharacteristic) negative statements, to characterize the reformer as "a rabid anti-Semite." The LCMS, however, does not seek to "excuse" these statements of Luther, but denounces them (without denouncing Luther's theology). In 1983, the Synod adopted an official resolution addressing these statements of Luther and making clear its own position on anti-Semitism. The text of this resolution reads as follows:
WHEREAS, Anti-Semitism and other forms of racism are a continuing problem in our world; and
WHEREAS, Some of Luther's intemperate remarks about the Jews are often cited in this connection; and
WHEREAS, It is widely but falsely assumed that Luther's personal writings and opinions have some official status among us (thus, sometimes implying the responsibility of contemporary Lutheranism for those statements, if not complicity in them); but also
WHEREAS, It is plain from scripture that the Gospel must be proclaimed to all people--that is, to Jews also, no more and no less than to others (Matt. 28:18-20); and
WHEREAS, This Scriptural mandate is sometimes confused with anti-Semitism; therefore be it
Resolved, That we condemn any and all discrimination against others on account of race or religion or any coercion on that account and pledge ourselves to work and witness against such sins; and be it further
Resolved, That we reaffirm that the bases of our doctrine and practice are the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions and not Luther, as such; and be it further
Resolved, That while, on the one hand, we are deeply indebted to Luther for his rediscovery and enunciation of the Gospel, on the other hand, we deplore and disassociate ourselves from Luther's negative statements about the Jewish people, and, by the same token, we deplore the use today of such sentiments by Luther to incite ant-Christian and/or anti-Lutheran sentiment; and be it further
Resolved, That in our teaching and preaching we take care not to confuse the religion of the Old Testament (often labeled "Yahwism") with the subsequent Judaism, nor misleadingly speak about "Jews" in the Old Testament ("Israelites" or "Hebrews" being much more accurate terms), lest we obscure the basic claim of the New Testament and of the Gospel to being in substantial continuity with the Old Testament and that the fulfillment of the ancient promises came in Jesus Christ; and be it further
Resolved, That we avoid the recurring pitfall of recrimination (as illustrated by the remarks of Luther and many of the early church fathers) against those who do not respond positively to our evangelistic efforts; and be it finally
Resolved, That, in that light, we personally and individually adopt Luther's final attitude toward the Jewish people, as evidenced in his last sermon: "We want to treat them with Christian love and to pray for them, so that they might become converted and would receive the Lord" (Weimar edition, Vol. 51, p. 195).
"Methinks we are all in a world of trouble."
Not to worry!! That's why God, in His infinite wisdom, created LAWYERS, "who seeks to loophole his way out of them"
Now you can sleep peacefully at night knowing that "Dewey, Cheatum & Howe, P.C." are on the job.
As I've said before, Martin Luther's anti-semetism was in large part a product of his times; while I hold him accountable for it and take it into account when I weigh his writings, I'm not out to paint him as a monster. But neither will I pretend that the man was perfect and that his writings were divinely inspired and free of bias.
Actually, Luther's anti-semetic times were not his principle problem. His principle problem was ego. He originally thought that the Jews would rush to convert when they saw that he was different from the Pope and thought that he would be the fulfillment of the promise of Romans 11:25--which he did originally apply to national Israel, btw. When they didn't convert, he got ticked off at them.
A similar bout of ego led to his Augustinian overemphasis of God's sovereignty when Erasmus challenged him.
Regardless, the point is this: Might it be possible that a man who spent the greater portion of his writing years with such an attitude against the Jewish people might just misunderstand a few things about the Jewish Messiah, as imparted by a Jewish rabbi of the sect of the Pharisees (Sha'ul) and other Jewish men (the Apostles)?
Of course it is.
And is it possible that a theology built upon an anti-semetic base might be similarly tainted?
Again, of course.
Now, I'm not accusing you personally of anti-semetism, so don't get your dander up. Nor am I saying that we should just dismiss everything written for the last 2000 years. Luther's commentary on the book of Romans, for example, has the most beautiful definition of a living faith that I've yet found.
What I am saying is that one cannot raise a commentary by anyone since the Apostles to the level of sacred Scripture. Instead, we must continually re-examine them and their presupposing biases in the light of Scripture, eating the meat and spitting out the bones (Ac. 17:11). And the system of allegorizing away all of God's promises to the natural descendants of Abraham on the basis of a handful of verses, ripped from their context and poorly applied, from a single author (Sha'ul) is most definitely the bones of Scriptural exegesis.
In regards to your other post, I've seen it, but I haven't had the chance to write a response yet. I'll get one to you later this evening.
***To try to lure people into a service to "give them what they want" is a little disingenuous at best. It is not a fundamental principle of what church is about.***
A gimmick service will produce a gimmick faith, every single time. It is only by the grace of God that we escape into something better.
If Jesus entered at the back of our church on Sunday morning, would we all clap our hands, dance & sing, "Happy Days are Here Again"? Are we going to show Him our "God is rad, he's my dad" t's? This is not to say that one style of worship is better than another, but if you are set on getting people into church by giving them what they want instead of what they need, you tend to make your church look like the world and send yourself to a position of irrelevancy. Plus, you willfully deny them what they desperately need in the first place.
I find that I am particularly unimpressed with the "Try Jesus/ Got Jesus" trick the church seems to be on these days. It is as if God is just another kick or another way out. It is to say to people who have tried every other self-help cure we now bring out God for a test drive. This creates an antroprocentric message and faith.
It is time to turn from a bargain-basement God to the truth again. People so desperately need to hear that they truly are dead in sins and that no matter what they choose or how they act, their destiny is in God's hands. In short, what was once called "the Gospel" and has gained the interesting nickname of Calvinism must be preached again.
Instead of making unbelievers comfortable with a surrounding that is very worldly, nice drums & a decafe latte, we need to be concentrating on a message that makes them a bit nervous. They need to be told that their ultimate fate rests, not in their own hands, but in the Lord's hands.
We need to quit trying to reconcile God to men and begin reconciling men to God as we once did. We need to put away the gimmicks and dust off the Gospel.
There is a purely Christian way of engaging in deeply contemplative prayer: Hesychasm. It was developed by the monks
who disappeared into the deserts of Egypt and Asia in the 4th century.
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/orthodox_christianity/10151
"what was once called "the Gospel" and has gained the interesting nickname of Calvinism"
Only in "Calvinist" circles or your dreams. That is the height of presumption and an insult to all who debate here.
"When thou art alone in thy cell shut thy door, and seat thyself in a corner; raise thy mind above all things vain and transitory; recline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn thine eyes and thy thought towards the middle of thy belly, the region of the navel (bj aXos); and search the place of the heart, the seat of the soul. At first all will be dark and comfortless; but if thou persevere day and night, thou wilt feel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the soul discovered the place of the heart than it is involved in a mystic and ethereal light."
That sounds like New-Age Hindu/Buddhism to me.
Whatever it is, it is infinitely weirder than anything that Rick Warren has ever taught. It is infinitely more like New-Age Eastern-Mysticism than any practice that Rick Warren has ever promoted.
Sure. It predates any New Agey stuff by 1,500 years.
Just because something sounds like x does not therefore make it y.
It is the core of Eastern Orthodoxy. The problem with Western Christianity is its profound rationalism, rather than a sense of abandonment to God.
Prove to me Mr. Marlowe that Hesychasm is New Age.
Kill yourself right now! You have no idea how much trouble you've made for yourself. Might as well just get it over with, less suffering that way.
Just couldn't let that slide without comment. :^D
So does Hinduism. So Does Buddhism. So does Gnosticism. So does Baal. But new age is nothing new. It is Buddhism and Hinduism and Gnosticism and self absorbtion all rolled into one. I don't think the same can be said about the PDL Method. At worst the PDL method is superficial. It certainly does not approach hesychasm for being utterly and totally unscriptural and influenced by what is now known as new ageism, but was then known as eastern mysticism.
Prove to me Mr. Marlowe that Hesychasm is New Age.
Easy enough.
From this site:
Mount Athos is also a major center for the gnostic tradition of hesychasm, which is a Byzantine form of contemplative prayer directed toward ecstatic mystical experience. A practice akin to Zen Buddhism and Hindu Yoga, hesychasm involves striving for 'inner stillness' as a means to having visions of 'the divine light'.
"The monks of Mount Athos accepted Hesychasm. According to Gregory of Sinai, the founder of hesychia, monks could see the ‘uncreated light of God’, the light that shone about Christ at his Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, if they were virtuous and devoted themselves exclusively to prayer, seated from morn to eve in the same place, concentrating and repeating silently the prayer ‘Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me’. The hope that they could thus come close to God was perhaps a reaction to the ever increasing external dangers and the collapse of the Byzantine Empire." (1026)
The Philokalia is a five-volume collection of 'spiritual wisdom' in the Orthodox tradition that was written between the 4th and 15th centuries by the 'Holy Fathers' of the Orthodox tradition and preserved within Mount Athos monasteries. Co-edited by Bishop Kallistos Ware, Philokalia: The Complete Text is a source book for the Orthodox on the practices of Hesychasm, the Jesus Prayer, Nepsis or Inner Attention, Asceticism and Theosis, which is the deification of man doctrine embraced by the Greek Orthodox Church. A book review of The Philokalia reveals that the objective of repeating the Jesus Prayer is personal deification---the Satanically-inspired lie, 'ye shall be as gods':
"The goal is to repeat without ceasing the Jesus Prayer, whether aloud or not. Literally without ceasing. The prayer should revolve in the mind even while eating, speaking with others, or sleeping. Thus perpetual communion with God, the purpose of human existence, can be fulfilled. Theosis, deification, partaking of the divine nature, gaining the divinity that God has extended to us, is the purpose of practicing the Jesus Prayer in this way, just as it is the purpose of asceticism, hesychasm, and other practices."
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. - Gen. 3:4-5
The founder of hesychasm, Gregory of Sinai, also invented the 'Jesus Prayer', a 'monologistic' prayer, which means praying ‘Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me’ repeatedly and contemplatively while seated in the same place. (In some Russian traditions the phrase “a sinner” is added at the end.) Repeating this prayer from morning to evening is supposed to fulfill Paul's command to 'pray without ceasing.' Bishop Kallistos Ware has written and lectured extensively on the practice of hesychasm, which originated at Mount Athos. His book, The Inner Kingdom, begins with a chapter on "Silence in Prayer: the Meaning of Hesychia". In the year 2002, Ware was also a presenter for the John Main Seminar, an annual event sponsored by the World Community for Christian Meditation. A promotional piece for Bishop Ware's seminar presents a word-for-word description of the hesychast technique: "Countless Christians over the centuries have found a way of entry through practicing the invocation of the Holy Name: in the West often through the repetition of the name 'Jesus' on its own; in the East more commonly through a longer phrase, such as 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.'" (572) Apposite to Bishop Ware's leadership in the advocacy of hesychasm, one medieval Patriarch of Constantinople by the name of 'Callistus' created an uproar in the Greek Orthodox Church when he persecuted opponents of hesychasm:
"In the fourteenth century a pseudo-spiritualism akin to that of the ancient Euchites or Messalians, culminating in the famous Hesychast controversies (see HESYCHASM; PALAMAS), greatly disturbed the mutual harmony of Greek monasteries, especially those of Mount Athos, one of whose monks, Callistus, had become Patriarch of Constantinople (1350-54) and in that office exhibited great severity towards the opponents of Hesychasm. Racial and national discord between the Greeks and the Servians added fuel to the flames, and for a while the monks were again subjected to the immediate supervision of the Bishop of Hierissus." (548)
Literature. Before relocating to Mt. Athos to teach the monks the hesychast method of contemplation, Gregory of Sinai belonged to the Monastery of St. Katherine at Mt. Sinai. It was at this convent that the gnostic manuscript, Sinaiticus Aleph, was discovered by Constantin Tischendorf in the 19th century. The Sinaiticus Aleph along with infamous Vaticanus B were used by B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort as the basis for their corrupt New Greek Text from which modern versions of the Bible are translated.
Mount Athos was ever a hotbed of gnostic occultism. James H. Sightler, author of A Testimony Founded Forever, sheds more light on the pivotal role of the Mount Athos monks in preserving the Corpus Hermeticum,. These were the core documents of the Hermetic tradition which were unavailable to the West in classical times but "rediscovered" in Athos during the Renaissance, and delivered to Europe where they were translated and disseminated. Dr. Sightler is of the opinion that the Vaticanus B was also preserved at Mount Athos, and there is evidence that the Codex Alexandrinus was found there as well.
"Frances Yates relates that a monk from Macedonia, Leonardo da Pistoria, working for Cosmo de Medici, brought the Corpus Hermeticum to Florence about 1460, where it was translated by Marsilio Ficino. Michael Psellus knew of this manuscript in his day in the eleventh century, and I believe that the Corpus Hermeticum actually came from Mount Athos, which is a peninsula of Macedonia. I say this because of the mystical and Hermetic influences in religious practice and art on Athos which we have just noted, and I am also convinced that Codex B was found there by Bessarion at just about the same time as the discovery of the Corpus Hermeticum."
"...It is interesting that F.H.A. Scrivener's book, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, shows in its index 30 references to Mount Athos covering 53 manuscripts which were found there. At the time of publication of this book in 1883 about 650 New Testament Manuscripts had been found. Therefore about eight per cent were from Athos. The index lists 5 ms. from Patmos, 20 from St. Saba in Jerusalem, 16 from the monastery of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, 20 from Jamina in Epirus, and 6 from St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai. For those manuscripts whose origin is known, Mount Athos is the most frequent source... Furthermore, Hatch's catalogue of uncials of 1939, cited previously, lists a total of 7 uncials from Athos, only 4 of which had been catalogued by Scrivener. Of these 6 are Byzantine and one, Codex Alexandrinus, is mixed. Scrivener states that Wetstein, on the authority of Matthew Muttis, a deacon attached to Cyril Lukar, believed that Cyril had obtained Codex A from Mount Athos... Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake agree with Scrivener and point out that Cyril was on Mount Athos in 1612-1613. I believe that Codex B as well had been removed from Athos l 50 years before by Bessarion."...
"It is now no longer necessary to believe Tischendorf's claim that Codices B and Aleph were once located and used in Constantinople. Jackson and Lake give the opinion that Codex B 'was brought from Alexandria to Sicily by fugitives from the conquering Arabs, in the seventh century, and thence to Calabria. Nothing is known which suggests that it remained in the East until the fifteenth century and was then brought to Rome under the influence of the revival of letters.'...
"Both B and Aleph were written in Egypt. I believe that both were there, probably in Alexandria, in 640 A.D. when the Arabs under Amrou captured the city after a siege of fourteen months. I believe they were removed by Egyptian anchorites before the city fell and taken to the island of Crete to be kept, perhaps in the famous Labyrinth cave, known from antiquity, by the monks and their successors until 823 A.D. when the Saracens captured portions of the island. At that time Codex B was taken to Mount Athos, where the earliest monastic communities were just arising, or to Mistra. The Corpus Hermeticum could have been carried along with it as well. Aleph was taken by other monks to Mt. Sinai, where the monastery of St. Catherine had been built by Justinian in the eighth century. These codices then remained in their respective places until Bassarion took Codex B from Athos or Mistra in 1846 and Tischendorf retrieved Aleph in 1859...
"At the Council of Florence Cosimo de Medici met Bassarion and his mentor, Plethon, and was moved by them to back the establishment of a school at Florence for the study and dissemination of Neo-Platonic philiosphy. Bassarion and Plethon in 1442 founded the Academia Platonica at Florence. Cosimo provided funds for the acquisition of rare manuscripts, including copies of the Corpus Hermeticum, Plato, and Plutarch, as well a Biblical manuscripts. He later gave a villa at Careggi, near Florence, to a student and colleague of Plethon and Bassarion, Marsilio Ficino, who was the first to translate the Corpus, Plato and Platinus into Latin and carried on the work of the academy." (350:128-33)
According to Ian Paisley's European Institute of Protestant Studies (EIPS), "Mount Athos comes under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople, but enjoys the status of a semi-autonomous republic within Greece. Not only was this spelt out in the Greek constitution as recently as 1975, when Greece entered the European Union six years later the monasteries were specifically excluded from the jurisdiction of EU equality legislation." Unfortunately, the Mount Athos community has accepted "EU funds to help preserve both their treasures and the fabric of the monasteries"--a compromise having major consequences: On September 4, 2003 "A plenary session of the Euro-Parliament has passed a proposal-report demanding that the Greek government rescind the special protection the monks have enjoyed for a millennium."
This eventuality has the makings of an ecumenical uprising against the European Union and a groundswell of support for the poor monks of Mount Athos. Which is precisely what the social transformers have in mind to galvanize popular support for Joachim's mystical utopia---where "the world would be one vast monastery, in which all men would be contemplative monks rapt in mystical ecstasy..."
Reminds me of a rant by hyper-rationalists.
What do you disagree with? Be specific.
I disagree with the premise that Hesychasm has any roots in Hinduism or Buddhism. Bishop Kallitos TRANSLATED the Philokalia. He didn't write it. I own most of the volumes and they are chalked full of scripture.
It is a method of prayer. Didn't Jesus say not to pray like the hypocrites. I am sure you don't understand Hesychasm, and neither did your author.
This is a good response to Calvinist's efforts to defame Byzantine Christianity:
http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/thema_response.aspx
You're right. It's merely contemplating your navel and chanting mantras and self realization and self actualization and looking for Nirvana and seeking out unscriptural mystical experiences. Other than that, you are right, it bears little resemblance to Hinduism, Bhuddism, Gnosticism or New Age Philosophy.
What was I thinking?
We believe our goal is to "Be partakers of the divine nature" and to regain paradise through the discipline of inner prayer and self-abandonment.
Our nature fights against God's desire to save us, so asceticism is our struggle to surrender our will to God's.
We become by God's grace what he is by nature through our participation in his divine energies.
A quick hint: the space goes AFTER the comma, not before.
The sentence above contains a handy example of correct comma usage should you need a visual.
Thank you for the link. I am looking forward to finding the time to read and digest it.
Ouch! I felt that one all the way down here.
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