Posted on 12/28/2006 8:37:27 AM PST by Alex Murphy
Pope Benedict's Christmas message was one of great importance, no matter one's spiritual bent. "Does a 'Saviour,' " he questioned, "still have any value and meaning for the men and women of the third millennium?" This, he queried in his Urbi et Orbi (to the city and the world) message to 10,000 faithful in St Peter's Square," Reuters reported.
Sounds to me like a man on a mission, a worried man on a worrisome mission. Would you be asking these questions if business were good, if your flocks were growing? He went on: People should not allow technology to trump theology. "Mankind, which has reached other planets and unraveled many of nature's secrets, should not presume it can live without God." Implicit in the positing of this presumption is the subliminal fear technology will lead to just that end.
Truth be told, Christianity is wilting if not dying in the continent that propelled it to global prominence, Europe. Europeans pay lip service but eschew church services. Christianity's growth markets are on other continents.
A Policy Review magazine article in 2003 recounted the following, "Of the roughly 2 billion Christians worldwide, Europe still claims a plurality, with 560 million believers -- although that number includes many who are counted as Christian only on the baptismal roles of their emptying churches."
If present trends continue, by 2025 there will be 633 million Christians in Africa, 640 million in South America, and 460 million in (South) Asia. Europe's numbers will have remained constant, leaving it at third place among the continents and falling. By 2050, to extrapolate further, only a fifth of the world's Christians will be non-Hispanic whites. As author Philip Jenkins puts it, quoting a Kenyan scholar, "the centers of the church's universality are no longer in Geneva, Rome, Athens, Paris, London, New York, but Kinshasa, Buenos Aires, Addis Ababa and Manila."
What does this mean? Christianity is growing all right, but not in world financial centers, not in nations housing the world's foremost educational institutions, not in the world's technology hubs. It is growing most rapidly among the poor and the uneducated.
Does Pope Benedict's tone imply that God -- the Christian God in any event -- is dead? God's death has been debated since time immemorial. The answer is, of course not. At home among our own highly educated, financially savvy and technologically gifted populace, the most powerful and cohesive voting bloc remains that of evangelical Christians. Democrats took back both houses of Congress only by narrowing the so-called God gap and stealing Catholics and Evangelicals back from the Republican column.
At the same time, God as we know him/her/it is in mid-morph. Western culture is personalizing God and turning him into her, person into spirit and customizing God to fit all shapes, sizes, hair colors and beliefs. Gone are the days when one could walk into an African Methodist Episcopal church and witness a portrait of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jesus hovering above a room full of black believers. Gone is America's uniform vision of God as a bearded white man seated on a cumulonimbus.
Historical evidence places Jesus as a first-century Middle Eastern Jew. This means Jesus probably looked a lot more like Yasser Arafat than a Nordic prince with long blond locks. European transmogrification of this religion born in Israel imposed Eurocentric visions onto its icons. Thus, Jesus' features were magically overtaken by those of his more powerful followers: the Europeans.
Perhaps Pope Benedict's fears of a god-bereft populace are better explained by today's custom-fit God. The Pope wants God to remain as traditional Christianity sees him -- the God of the Crusaders, a God whose followers are on a short leash and allowed little by way of interpretation, questioning or free-thinking. A transgression of the 10 Commandments is a sin and that's all there is to it.
Educated believers are demanding more variety, having more doubts and reworking religion to fit their own mores, lifestyles and cultures. Religion without penance -- no hair shirts, no self-flagellation? No wonder the Pope is worried.
[Middle English professen, to take vows, from Old French profes, that has taken a religious vow (from Medieval Latin professus, avowed) and from Medieval Latin professre, to administer a vow, both from Latin professus, past participle of profitr, to affirm openly : pro-, forth; see pro-1 + fatr, to acknowledge; see bh-2 in Indo-European roots.]
The Apostles Creed is a profession of faith. I believe that the Nicene Creed is as well.
Cute twisting, Uncle Chick.
I. I. thinks that God wrote in Hebrew, that the Scripture contains no prophesy of a Messiah, but are just more instructions for a single race. Jewish interpretation after the Bar Khokba revolt was crushed abandoned the messianic hopes that had buoyed the Jewish people for more than 200 years.
And any Jew who really believes the prophets would also believe Daniel the prophet's Chapter 9 and see that the Messiah had to have come to His people Israel when Jesus did in 26 AD and been cut off when He was in 30 AD.
They too, despite their protestations to the contrary, have a faith problem with the Scriptures, in this case, with their own Scriptures and their own prophets, even their prophet Moses.
Yeah, you may be right. I just try to post things that might be helpful. Besides, there are not a few Catholics who are confused about what the Church actually teaches and those who are lurking here as Catholics might profit from the explanation by Mr. Akin
Hey, I see you are a newbie. Welcome,brother. I think, in reading between the lines of your post, we are going to enjoy your presence here. It sounds like you know the Faith
I don't know what Christ looked like, but this author does not know their Bible. Christ came into the flesh via two tribes Judah, the 'king' line and Levi the 'priest' line.
Genesis 49:1 And Jacob/Israel called unto his sons, and said, "Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the LAST days."
v3 Reuben....
v5 Simeon and Levi...
v8 Judah....
v13 Zebulum.....
v14 Issachar....
v16 Dan....
V19 Gad....
V21 Naphtali....
v22 Joseph (double blessing in Ephraim and Manasseh
v27 Benjamin...
Now Luke tells us that Mary the mother of Christ was from the tribe of Judah, King David and the tribe of Levi. These tribes still exist to this day even though the majority still to this day do not not who they are as foretold by the Prophets.
correction...
Genesis 49:20 Asher...
According to Ms. Erbe, we here in the west are so smart and technologically advanced, that we have outgrown the medieval, "Eurocentric" notion of God that poor, benighted Benedict XVI is trying to impose on us. What Erbe doesn't realize is that long after she and her writings have been forgotten, long after her opinions on religion have been discredited, the Catholic Church will be going strong. If the gates of hell cannot prevail against us, the mindless rantings of would-be theologians such as Erbe certainly won't be able to.
Well about 5 posts in on this thread such folks came out, hence it being a topic of discussion...
Actually in this instance I was insinuating that the Muslims may profess that but that it isn't true.
Uncle Chip was acting like because the CCC acknowledges the Muslims PROFESS this that the CCC is somehow recognizing that it's true, which is NOT what I get from the CCC on this.
841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator,in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."330
As leftier-than-thou faux Catholic priest/potboiler-writer/man about town Andrew greeley said recently: "The churches will depend upon the global South for numbers and growth, but the global South will still depend upon us for ideas."
He's already quite blatant and un-PC about the mental capacities of the, as you put it, "indigenous pipples."
That is not what it says. You are operating on the false assumption that being a part of the "plan of salvation" (in the Latin propositum salutaris) means being saved.
Satan, the Sanhedrin and Judas also had a part to play in the plan of salvation. They also believed in the one God that the Apostles believed in. It does not mean they are saved because of it.
Either read the entire Catechism or don't - but don't presume to opine on it until you read it.
Correct. "No man can come to me unless the Father draw him."
Oh I'm sure he may have existed. Just don't ascribe him deity as you do. Building strawmen for me to knock down doesn't really interest me right now. Perhaps, and by the tone of your posts, you're trying to impress the "cloud of witnesses" here on FR. You can do so without using me as your prop. Your act really isn't that impressive in an internet chatroom anyway. Go make your proclamations count somewhere.
A more accurate persepctive is to understand He exists (present tense), rose from the dead and walked amongst men for some 40 days and witnessed by hundreds of people who didn't believe it was possible, and then ascended to heaven, then was followed by God, the Holy Spirit, coming as a comforter and indwelling believers. The indwelling is something which never occurred throughout all of human history and is unique to this mystery Church Age. It is also something available to every human today, not by any soulish behavior of any man communicating it, by only by the work of the Holy Spirit who is free to bestow spiritual gifts upon those who believe in Him through only faith in Christ.
Many in Catholicdom take the Catechism as the "inspired" word of the magisterium. Since when does the Catholic Catechism need explanatory footnotes and 10 years late at that? This is troubling to those who believe in the doctrine of "Sola Catechisma"? It is an attempt to adulterate the pure word of the magisterial Catechism with the words of an inferior source.
Surely there are those out there who will rise to the defense of the Catechism against this attempted adulteration of the inspired words of Sola Catechisma, unless of course even that Sola has its own modifying and negating postscripted sacred tradition?
I'll freepmail you my address and you can send me the 4 spiritual laws. But go ahead and continue your "witness"
probably good practice for ya.
not to mention you probably feel persecuted by my responses and get that warm and cozy martryish feeling inside.
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