Posted on 04/25/2007 6:54:31 AM PDT by NYer
“WOW -- coming from RC tradition I thought I’d never return to the Rosary. But here it is and here SHE IS. Blessed be, Mairly.”
The “here” in this message, found on herchurch.org, is Ebenezer Lutheran Church in San Francisco. But the SHE is not the Mother of God. SHE is “God/dess.”
On Wednesdays at 7 p.m., Ebenezer opens its sanctuary for the “Christian Goddess Rosary.” The church says it offers “Goddess Rosary Beads” and that “prayers and suggested meditations will be on hand as well as incense, candles and bells.”
“The Goddess rosary is grounded in traditions of the Christian Church and the proclamation of the gospel which is a vision of release from bondage for a new creation,” says the church’s web site.
The Goddess Rosary page on herchurch.org says that though “God as Father plays an important role” in Christian tradition, its “exclusive emphasis... contributes to a limited understanding of God, an understanding that supports a domination structure that oppresses and subordinates women.” Jesus used “Abba” as a “revolutionary deconstruction of domination structures of his day in both religious and social institutions.” The modern task is to do the same with “Goddess.”
Ebenezer, however, does not want to eradicate masculine images of God but to balance them with feminine images to “confront the biblical texts, products of their day and cultures, for the blatant patriarchal biases and misogynist attitudes.” And herchurch.org cites three Catholic theologians in support this confrontation: Harvard’s Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Fordham University’s Sister Elizabeth Johnson, and Rosemary Radford Ruether (who will lecture students in the course, “The History of God in Feminist Theological Discourse,” at LA’s Mount St. Mary’s College this spring.) Ruether calls the exclusive use of male imagery for God “idolatry.”
Herchurch.org offers a “Hail Goddess” prayer by feminist theologian Carol Christ, formerly of Harvard Divinity School but now director of the Ariadne Institute for Myth and Ritual in Greece. The prayer goes: “Hail Goddess full of grace. Blessed are you and blessed are all the fruits of your womb. For you are the MOTHER of us all. Hear us now and in all our needs. O blessed be, O blessed be. Amen.”
“I felt that I had stepped into a Presence, like a mother’s warm embrace,” wrote Dalyn Cook of Ebenezer’s Goddess Rosary. “The attendees were few in number, yet there was a sense of fullness in this welcoming space. I inhaled deeply the earthy scent of the incense, sending up delicate tendrils of smoke which curled around the altar in a nimbus visible against the warm rays of the evening sun filtering through the stained-glass windows....
“From the basket of rosaries, I took into my hand a strand of vibrantly-colored beads with a silver goddess icon in place of the traditional cross. The goddesses came in a variety of shapes and sizes, celebrating the beauty of the feminine form; I found reflections of my own figure in the full hips and Rubenesque curves of my goddess,” Cook wrote.
Sorry, I don’t play that game.
I get a “not on this server” error for that link.
But Scripture does talk about THE WATCHERS who copulated with humans and earned God’s condemnation for it. The evidence is beginning to be overwhelming that so called ET’s are the fallen angels or THE WATCHERS as often referred to in Scripture.
ALIEN ENCOUNTERS is a good Christian resource on the topic. Lots of history etc.
One can take a denominationally haughty stand that THEIR particular DENOMINATION is NOT a denomination.
However, the rest of the English speaking world using the common generic dictionary meaning of the word will think such contentions to be more than a little strange, obtuse and . . . at some point more than a little haughty.
Most of the time, yes, with some notable exceptions. The nature of how one is saved has some nuances in Catholicism and occasionally in Protestantism that can prove to be a big exception. Anytime one considers some work or goodness that one has to perform in order to gain God’s favor in salvation, we’ve got big problems. Both sides have issues there, though I would say the problem is more prevalent on the side of Catholicism which has a lot of works in relation to salvation as means of “gaining” God’s grace. Big area of difference there about which there can be no compromise.
I think it's time for your CV and credentials. You are claiming professional justification for your insistence on telling us what we're REALLY saying ....
So, how long have you been licensed to practice?
What are your degrees and where are they from?
How long have you been engaged in clinical practice and in what capacity?
What positions have you held?
And where can we go to check on your credentials, experience, and CV?
And while were at it, if we're going to say that somehow because you know a lot of erratic Catholics who don't understand their religion -- and that you, in your professional wisdom have diagnosed that as being the RC Church's fault, then can we talk about psychologists and why and to what extent we should give them any authority at all?
I know this may seem personal, but YOU brought up your professional status to justify an approach to discussion which discounts what a person says and instead what you professionally think they are really saying.
So I think it's legitimate to ask to learn about your qualifications.
And then there seems to be a professional organization connected to Psychology or Psychiatry which declared - by a vote, wasn't it? - that homosexuality is not a disorder. And there are people claiming to be psychologists who are in favor of more fornication by teenagers and some who think that the pederasty and ephebephilia which seems to have plague the Catholic Church some years ago are not diseases or in any way morbid at all!
And I believe it was psychologists and psychiatrists who 20 or 30 years ago were counselling bishops to conceal the transgressions of their child-abusing clergy and encouraging the shuffling of priests to new parishes on the grounds that this behavior could be moderated or eliminated -- by psychologists or psychiatrists.
SO an argument could be made that the high incidence of such very bizarre behaviors is a reflection on the perverted nature of the discipline of psychology. In fact the argument would be stronger because at least we Cathloics all deny that we worship Mary, but there's no denying that psychologists in good standing publicly and loudly approve of what is gently called "genital behavior" on the part of homosexuals, and that others of them recommend adult/child sexual contact.
So what are we to think of this?
And then there's the whole problem of aliens combing their genetic material with humans. Is this related to Psychology? DO psychological professional or academic associations have a stand on alien/human contact? I say again: if you are going to justify ignoring what we say on the grounds that somehow you can more deeply into us than we can into ourselves (and if WE ignore the distinction between a counselling session and what is allegedly a conversation among equals) then I think we have a right to ask you to document your claims for this exalted status and to give an account of your relationship with an organization that encourages homosexual behavior.
But it does not follow from that that everyone who says that is denomicationally haughty.
Or don't they do logic at the Jr college where you teach?
Okay - no charge, no need for a defense.
Nope, our church does teach, though, that it's understandable when the same tired old slanders and "insinuendoes" ( I forget whose wonderful coinage that is ) get trotted out time after time after time, that we will get impatient.
What is it with you people? You can't just kick the cat, you got to come on line and lie about Catholics and Orthodox? What an empty life!
This time it seems to work mo' better.
It seems "safe to assert"? "SAFE"? To whom? On what basis?
What are the scriptural sources for your assertion of a "gulf"? Are they unequivocal?
The Lord and some others know enough of my credentials, thank you. You are welcome to consider me whatever level of charlatan pleases you, if that's your bent. I could comment on the weightiness of the program and the esteem my colleagues, classmates, professors, clients have held me in. But I don't really see any point.
The issue of my perspective as a Phd in clinical psych is only an order of magnitude or so beyond that of average folks. Everyone knows that everyone else tend to operate on several levels of meaning, intent etc. This is not new information. And, it doesn't really take a psychologist to note that. Logically, though, psychologists should be a bit better than average at deciphering such. And, it's not a crime to note that.
I was merely noting how it comes across to others.
Certainly MMV.
OK.
Therefore?
You’re welcome to sort that out, if you wish.
LUKE 16:26
When you wrote “gulf” I thought that was the text you’d trot out. But I don’t see what it has to do with the relationship between the blessed in heaven and those who pray to them on earth.
Oh, wow,..I see this thread has just taken off since I posted on Wednesday. I’m afraid to look; possibly turned into one of those Catholic vs. Evangelical foodfights.
I have more than a few friends of the Protestant stripe (including Lutheran), who while not agreeing with Catholic tradition, would certainly see this phoney rosary for what it truly is; an attack on Catholic tradition.
I’m off to Eucharistic Adoration for now. Prayers for a happy thread! ;0)
who pray TO them on earth.
= = =
I understand . . .
. . . enough.
Consequently If the rest of the English Speaking World thinks I am arrogant, you know, that's just going to be part of the cross-eyed bear.
There is one Church. You guys think it consists of people who sort of know the secret spirit-filled hand-shake -- except for those of you who think that they only know if they themselves are in it but can only kind of guess if others are in it. These are the same ones who think of the Church as kind of a spa for the elect, from which they can look down on Catholics and other scum.
We, on the other hand, think that if you are baptized with water and in the name of the Trinity you are a member of the Church. Maybe a lousy member, possibly even a damned member. But a member.
You guys have to misread a bunch of the Fathers -- and get a little hermeneutical help from Dan Brown to demonstrate that the Church before the disastrous Great Schism was actually a "denomination" set up by Constantine and all that. And then you have to make up a bunch of stuff and allege that we believe it -- and then you have to think up insulting names for our doctrines. It must be a great distraction from the purity of your own faith to have to spend so much time making stuff up to say about us.
So the discussion is kind of a waste of time. I know you all think what we think is baloney. And I am bowled over by the intellectual cogency of that argument.
It's so kind of you all to model humility for us arrogant people, who wouldn't know what we were saying if we didn't have you all to tell us. /sarc off
Thanks for the elaboration of your perspective.
. . . enough.
No you don't. At least not enough to persuade me that you understand -- whether or not you agree.
What precisely, in language comprehensible to people who are not Ph.D. candidates (if you can so lower your self) is wrong with the preposition "TO". Can you not make your argument? You have to make little hints? Is the poor weak little argument too afraid to come out or what? If you exposed the actual argument, rather than hiding it behind little innuendi, you might have to deal with a cogent response! It's a fine way to avoid learning anything.
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