First, on a personal note, I am not impressed with titles and positions. Let's not forget that such theological giants as Origen and Tertullian ended up falling into heresy. Don't forget that Arius and Marcion were bishops, and that many sho strayed were a Patriarchs of Contsantinople! (that's a lot higher than the very reverend Fr. Tarazi). No one is ever high enough not to be subject to error.
That's OK. I was just telling you who the guy was. I don't know this guy from Adam. I just found him. :) But on the bottom line, DESPITE what you think of the good Father, I still maintain that the use of "Daddy" is good and proper because of the familiar connection. It is personal and it is intimate. I truly believe that God wants to have this type of relationship with us rather than one where we are a drone reporting through ten layers of hierarchy to get to Him. I KNOW that my relationship with God is nothing like that.
I am also very suspicious of clean shaven Orthodox priests. There is a "message" behind it.
I did not know that was (potentially) suspicious.
More importantly, he is not a spokesman for the entire Church.
That's right. To me he is "some guy". :) But he DOES represent the website called the "Orthodox Research Institute". If you know, is this website a fraud?
You are creating a straw man, FK. His opinions are just that, theological opinions, Orthodoxy calls them theologoumenna.
Oh, come on Kosta! I found some guy from an official looking website and I fully linked to it. If it should be trashed then I gave you the opportunity. :) There is no sneakery on my part here. :)
I submit that no serious Orthodox priest would ever say that Christ called the Father "Daddy."
"Daddy" is an English equivalent. The point is a showing of intimacy and personality and family. The idea behind it is that God WANTS a personal relationship with us, His children.
The Old Testament God was no "Daddy," FK. His way of dealing with misbehaved children was rather extreme. He wants to be worshiped and feared. Some, in their twisted ways, call that "love."
The Jews did not have a "personal God." That is a Protestant innovation, or rather perversion, that is consistent with their whole "me-myself-and God" ego-centric, self-serving, self-made church and theology.
I truly believe that God wants to have this type of relationship with us rather than one where we are a drone reporting through ten layers of hierarchy to get to Him
I respect your belief, and I believe it is genuine, but where do you find that in the Bible? The authority of a father in the Middle East society of the 1st century was that of a master and not of a "daddy."
Those fathers didn't change diapers, or burp their babies, for sure. Disrespect, let alone disobedience, to the parents, was punishable by death! So, a God being "Daddy" is also an innovation from the historical and cultural facts about the Middle East of Jesus' time. Fr. Tarazi cannot be taken seriously, not as an Orthodox priest.
We don't know God through "layers of hierarchy," but through praise, prayer, fasting, and in life trying to imitate Christ.
But he DOES represent the website called the "Orthodox Research Institute". If you know, is this website a fraud?
Is PC USA a fraud? What's a fraud, FK? There are liberal bishops or bishop-equivalents in all Christian communities. Arius was a bishop, and so was Marcion.
I found some guy from an official looking website and I fully linked to it. If it should be trashed then I gave you the opportunity. :) There is no sneakery on my part here. :)
You can find anything on the Internet. That's why we need to verify and research the information. For all you know an "official-looking" site may be a one-man operation such as the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia site. I once fell for it too, believing it represnted official Vatican views. It doesn't.
"Daddy" is an English equivalent. The point is a showing of intimacy and personality and family. The idea behind it is that God WANTS a personal relationship with us, His children
This is a 21st century American idea and sterotype. This is completely false when taken in context of the 1st century Israel, culturally, socially and religiously. The Protestant approach is an innvation that was unknown to the world then, and is a perfect exmaple of how, void of traditional guardrails, the Bible gets distorted in the light of modernism and personal values of each indivdual interpreter.
kosher magicsterical
IF
it affirmed one of the many strange perspectives postulated hereon. LOL.
Certainly, at the very least . . . it shows that DADDY is not at all a far fetched translation that only 'ignorant non-Greeks' would think of.
Have often thought of the issue.
I think INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS influence behavior wholesale.
We wouldn't dream of offending a beloved wife or hubby we were intimately enraptured with and devoted to.
I think satan makes much hay with all of us when he can emphasize even a perceived distance between us and God . . . whether through a large, pontifical, encrusted, gilded, processional, hierarchically elaborately constructed magicsterical and RELIGIOUS CLUB or 'merely' through trying to shred the SCRIPTURAL ABBA FATHER, DADDY.
Christ shed HIS BLOOD that I might have intimacy with DADDY. Far be it from me to mangle that effort, intent, reality . . . or to try and define it out of existence . . . or to layer all manner of rital and hogwash between, in the middle of it.