Posted on 03/04/2006 5:08:26 AM PST by kronos77
The Gleaner asked Dr. Lotz his views on the level of receptivity of the Eastern Europeans to the Christian Gospel.
He responded: "George Bush Sr. said there was going to be a new world order when communism fell with justice and peace. But instead what we realise is that we have had tremendous ethnic conflicts. We had a clash of civilisations. For example there was Chechnya versus Russia; Islam versus Orthodoxy; Bosnia versus Serbia; and all the way in Africa we had Hutus versus Tutsies. The basis of much of the conflicts today is religious. It's a clash of civilisations.
"So instead of freedom and justice coming, we have religious extremism. The majority of churches in the Eastern bloc witnessed a tremendous influx of parachurches from the West.They said to themselves, 'We need to restrict this.' So restrictive laws came about. This affected the actions of Baptists and others in the teaching of religion in schools. Though there is much more freedom now than there was under communism, there is still a lot of restrictions. But nevertheless churches are growing in Eastern Europe. There used to be just one Baptist church in Moscow under communism, now there are 52 Baptist churches there. Ukraine used to have 1,000 Baptist churches, now there are 3,000. "There is a renewal going on in Eastern Europe. There is a hunger and yearning of the people for purpose and meaning in life," Dr. Lotz said.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamaica-gleaner.com ...
As person living in Serbia, Ortodox country, most of the thesiss of this article looks diferend.
Per example, where termin "clashes of religion" is used, we whitnessed a civil war and hatrance, per example also when man prays the growth of Baptism i Ortodox countries, Ortodox Christians see that as invasion. There are masic missunderstanding in this article.
This article is a prime example of just how uninformed most Americans are about Eastern/Orthodox Europe. These are Christian countries whose cultures, after centuries of oppression under Mohammaden Turks, royal, Nazi and communist dictatorships, are just now emerging into freedom. Unlike modern America, these cultures, despite oppression, have maintained their ethnic, social and religious identity through Holy Orthodoxy...and they have been doing that for far longer than any brand of Protestantism, especially the 3000 odd varieties of it found here in the States, have been in existence. It is the height of American arrogance to believe that the Rev Billy Bob Jeff and his brand of heretical "bible college" Christianity as served up by his "parachurch" or "ecclesial assembly" is what these ancient Christian cultures need.
Nad how to explain to the West some marks of protestantism that are unthinkable for Ortodox?
1. Church (building) is of most important value for Ortodox
Wars were fought just for that account, evry church is concidered a shrine.
2. Ikons are sacred relics. Value in pray vary from one to another Ortodox country. In serbia, Icon of Saint-Protedtor is common shrine, similar to the Budhists mini-shrines.
3. Liberalism is out of the question. In England, women can be priests, which is for Ortodox unthinkable blasphemy
4. just to conclude, most of Ortodox Christians, afer to Catholicism as protistantism of itself.
Protestant denominations are not within the Church and the people in the East understand that. But the Protestant West, it seems, is not interested in "cultural sensitivities" of the East; only in re-making the world in its own image -- whatever the means, even if it means altering or even destroying entire Chirstian cultures that existed for centuries.
I am not sure what you mean. The sentence is not clear.
If you want, send me a private message in Serbian and I will re-word it.
Ortodoxy is concidered to be very little changed from original Christian Church when it was onited, before, 1056 AD.
Catholicism changed itself, but Ortodoxy remained allmost unchanged, so Catholicism is in one hand Protestantisma, originated from brake-off with Ortodoxy.
That is a simplistic view. Orthodoxy did change as well, especially after +Gregory Palamas. The changes, however, did not change the core of the Faith, which remains the same. Protestantism changed many of the principle beliefs the Church held from the beginning, such as the view on predestination, sin, ecclesiology, sacraments (mysteries), and so on.
When it comes to outwardly changes, the Orthodox Church changed less than the Latin Church. Our vestments did change, however. Nonetheless, the Roman Catholics will tell you that their Novus Ordo Mass is really a much older liturgical form than the now almost extinct Tridentine Mass, and that many of the rituals in the Latin Church are really renewed rituals of the early Church. In that sense, the post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church claims to have goneback to the times that even pre-date the Liturgy of +John Chrysostomos that we use.
A solid majority of the Russians are unchurched and have no concept of Christianity at all. They may be technically baptised Orthodox but they have no Christian life. For those, these Baptist missionaries can provide something akin to entry-level Christianity. I am not worried about them. The true enemy of Christ in Russia is marxist materialism now married to the Western consumer culture.
Well, some of those claims are just false on their face. The translation into English is terrible, and there never was a liturgy where the priest faced the people.
How about just plain "Western consumer culture?" With that in one hand, maxist materialism kids' stuff.
That's how it has been presented to me by those I asked.
there never was a liturgy where the priest faced the people
That's what I thought. I remember Tridentine Mass had the priest turned ad orientem, but I was told that in the early Church in the Latin west the priests celebrated Mass that way. I am Orthodox. What do I know?
Recently, a (Latin) Catholic who spent some time in Italy told me that he fasts on Wednesdays and Fridays(!). Yet I had other (Latin) Catholics tell me that the Church never required a fast on Fridays, but only abstention from meat; Wednesdays are not even mentioned.
People do all sorts of things in the Orthodox churches as well (for example, women are no longer covered except in Russian churches, even when they receive the Eucharist), which is why I am interested in what the Church teaches and not what you can see in practice.
In my opinion, just plain Western consumer culture is a rather benign thing in itself. The West has known many periods of prosperity, and the East -- some, yet they were combined with remarkable spirituality. In particular, America of the Founding Fathers was very much preoccupied with the economic life and at the same time very spiritual. Even the Fifties in the States, remarkable for their consumerism, were at the same time a culture of religious enlightenment, even though not religious depth. It is Marxism that did not merely fed the Economic Man, but also amputated his heart.
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