Posted on 09/02/2011 9:07:47 AM PDT by marshmallow
Minneapolis, Minnesota (CNN) –Prior to 2006, few people even knew that then-Minnesota state legislator Keith Ellison was a Muslim. Because of his English name, he said, no one thought to ask.
But five years ago, when he ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives - a race he would go on to win - word of his religious affiliation began to spread.
“When I started running for Congress it actually took me by surprise that so many people were fascinated with me being the first Muslim in Congress,” said Ellison, a Democrat now serving his third term in the House.
“But someone said to me, ‘Look Keith, think of a person of Japanese origin running for Congress six years after Pearl Harbor–this might be a news story.’”
Though Ellison's status as the first Muslim elected to Congress is widely known, fewer are aware that he was born into a Catholic family in Detroit and was brought up attending Catholic schools.
But he said he was never comfortable with that faith.
“I just felt it was ritual and dogma,” Ellison said. “Of course, that’s not the reality of Catholicism, but it’s the reality I lived. So I just kind of lost interest and stopped going to Mass unless I was required to.”
It wasn’t until he was a student at Wayne State University in Detroit when Ellison began, “looking for other things.”
(Excerpt) Read more at religion.blogs.cnn.com ...
Actually yourself would write it after.
The story is more important than than the script.
Ask a good Actor.
God is the Director
It’s as you say pretty astounding....oftentimes hard to understand how intellegent people can believe in some of this stuff, but I think many learned from an early age and so quite natural to remain in that stream as adults and simply build on it...and that without question.
I still say once an individual has believed in falshoods it then lends itself to believe other falsehoods as well... and harder to see the truth thru the volumes of literature used to promote these and which carry on the facade.
1948 was beyond amazing and the enormaty of it all should still today astound many. It does me. I remember distinctly being told about it after I became a Christian, but it didn’t connect having so little understanding of the scriptures and who Israel is and was. But it surely came to light, astoundingly so, as I grew in the Lord and knowlege of who Jesus was and His life thru Gods word.
There are many things Christ reveals to us and ties it all together as we read His word....wonderful moments as He reveals to us the truth as we study Gods word with Him. I have heard some great pastors sermons but they pale in comparrison to God’s Spirit teaching and revealing to us the truth as we study and read His word...just as He promised He would do!
What is the Eucharist to you...I ask this because most believers remain in a church because Jesus is central to their teachings...and equipping the saints.
Unfortunately there are many facts presented as such by many varying sources which is why people believe one way or the other. Which goes back to the "fact" if it doesn't align with Gods word , and His authority ,then it's questionable at the least and in other cases directly opposes God's word at it's worst...even if presented as fact.
You wrote:
“Ok...then please do prove what you are saying.”
No amount of proof will convince you so what’s the point?
Unfortunately there are many facts presented as such by many varying sources which is why people believe one way or the other. Which goes back to the "fact" if it doesn't align with Gods word , and His authority ,then it's questionable at the least and in other cases directly opposes God's word at it's worst...even if presented as fact.
Correct..... Because all that’s been previously used to support that belief, on these threads, doesn’t hold water, rather it simply makes those who believe so feel better about ‘what they want’ to believe....
.... Otherwise to “see” the truth of the matter much of the house of cards would topple and that’s just too frightening for some to deal with.
What many fail to understand is that even were the house of cards to fall completely around them...Jesus will be there to show catch them and carry them in the direction of His chooosing.
Oh I don't know about that entirely...seems to me God allows the weeds and tares until the harvest....I never underestimate mans ability to endure and survive under any falshoods...he's been doing this for years.
Recalling that God raised up Israel to take out the pagan nations.....and yet paganism still remains until our day.
Therefore just because something survives does not qualify it as God approved. Yet God does intervein when His church goes astray...if they refuse to listen to His correction He will and does raise up those who will. Thus the Reformation..
IMO God has allowed the catholic church to remain as He is long suffering toward those who have strayed from how He desires His own to worship and practice before Him....with the idea you can choose between His way and mans way...some choose to continue to adhere to that which He opposed....others will choose to leave and follow Him.
That's it exactly metmom...and no matter what denomination.
You wrote:
“.... Otherwise to “see” the truth of the matter much of the house of cards would topple and that’s just too frightening for some to deal with.”
You’re delusional. The Catholic faith is 2,000 years old. Not even Hell can defeat it.
“What many fail to understand is that even were the house of cards to fall completely around them...Jesus will be there to show catch them and carry them in the direction of His chooosing.”
The direction on this earth is the Catholic Church. It always has been.
Mummies are centuries old too valdimir...age does not guarantee Gods approval as some might want it to be. If that were true all “aged” organizations or religions could lay the same claim...such as Free MAsonary....Islam’s been around for awhile as has many other institutes and religions.
And just as a reminder there was the reformation...with the pupose of maintaining that which God established when the catholic church failed to hear Him and permitted pagan and false teachings to be included in thier fellowship. Not to mention all the other practices which opposed His design for the church.
The church, being the body of believers, has endured and will continue to do so and it’s that which the gates of hell shall not prevail over. With Jesus Christ it’s head and that not of a maisterium or any other authority designed by men.
No the catholic church is not the way of God...but you might be right saying it’s the way of the “earth” and worldly.
You wrote:
“Mummies are centuries old too valdimir...age does not guarantee Gods approval as some might want it to be.”
Christ established a Church. Yours isn’t it. When was yours founded? Last week? A year ago? A century ago? The 2,000 year old Church is the one that God sent. All the others, are just man-made - including yours.
“If that were true all “aged” organizations or religions could lay the same claim...such as Free MAsonary....Islam’s been around for awhile as has many other institutes and religions.”
Freemasonry was started in about 1725. That tells us nothing. Christ didn’t send it. Christ didn’t send Islam either.
“And just as a reminder there was the reformation...with the pupose of maintaining that which God established when the catholic church failed to hear Him and permitted pagan and false teachings to be included in thier fellowship.”
No pagan or false teachings were ever taught by the Catholic Church. Even Protestants are beginning to admit the old tired saw about a “corrupt medieval church” is really more myth than reality. The reformed sects were new religions. They were not sent by Christ.
“Not to mention all the other practices which opposed His design for the church.”
His design remains perfect - and Catholic.
“The church, being the body of believers, has endured and will continue to do so and it’s that which the gates of hell shall not prevail over.”
The body of believers is really the Catholic Church. No Protestant is fully united with the Church or Christ.
“With Jesus Christ it’s head and that not of a maisterium or any other authority designed by men.”
You can’t even spell what you’re apparently trying to attack. Just as well since you’re wrong in any case. Christ gave authority to the Church, hence the magisterium.
“No the catholic church is not the way of God...but you might be right saying it’s the way of the “earth” and worldly.”
Christ sent the Catholic Church. He doesn’t know your sect. Your sect was created by men and men only. It will come and go. The Catholic Church will remain.
I’m totally at sea here.
It appears that the word ‘bigot’ is of obscure and debated origin. “Prejudiced” is, I’d guess, much more precise.
If an allegation is supported by facts and reason, it is not prejudiced, though the person who brings it may be.
But I’m floudering. I don’t get what you’re saying.
LOL. Yeah, the Catholic Church as the premie instance of the patience St. Peter talks about.
Obviously I don’t think it’s true, but it wouldn’t hurt if more Catholics thought about it.
Thank you for mentioning my humility. I want everyone to know about it and appreciate how wonderful it is.
Tee hee!
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Heaven will be full of sinners, just as hell will be. The difference is that they have a Savior, one that did what they could never do, keep the law perfectly and then impute that righteousness to the saved.
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Distinguo: Hell is full of CURRENT sinners. Heaven is full of FORMER sinners.
As for “impute”, logizomai, I say God’s word does not return to Him empty but accomplishes that for which he sent it.
Okay. With a hamburger, then, maybe.
“I wish those who trouble you would mutilate themselves.”
Yeah, I don’t think it’s mispeaking. I think people are misreading. I think of Paul as the “proto-theologian,” and I don’t think one can always take his dicta as literally as one might take a postulate in mathematics.
The “form” counts as much as the “sitz-im-leben,” and, with the possible exception of Hebrews, the letters are letters, not treatises. One of the amazing things about Paul is that his most amazing theological passages occur in the context of appeals for better behavior in the churches.
To me, at least as far back as Acts 15 and onward, what we see is the articulation of the faith being developed in almost an “ad hoc” way. There’s a crisis, dissension, factionalism. Out of that a new articulation is developed. Then that is reflected upon. Lather, rinse, repeat.
So, to me, reflecting upon and refining the passage in question is not a criticism of Paul or an example of some kind of carelessness. He lays out, almost single handedly (except for the whole Holy Ghost part), the “structure” for understanding what “born, suffered, died, rose, ascended, will come again” MEANS.
Though I think I would be shy and afraid to meet the man Aquinas calls “The Apostle,” I am second to no one in my admiration for what God did in him.
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We aren’t saved by what we think about Jesus’ mother, but what we think about Jesus.
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As long as that ‘by’ means ‘through’ I’m okay with that.
Here, to me, is where it gets interesting.
Our discussions on this thread of “spirit”, “physical”, “sin nature”, etc. are bolstering in me the notion that we have a radical yet difficult to express difference in our understanding of the Incarnation and of the involvement of the physical in God’s plan.
Say that, in some ways, God abandoned the earth and what comes from it and dwells on it to chaos in the curse which follows the first disobedience. Then in the Incarnation, in taking flesh from His mother who was made of dust, Jesus invades and occupies creation and begins a redemption for which “the creature” (ktisis) longs and groans, as we ourselves groan.
Stone, wood, paints, sights and sounds are caught up again in the great dance, and after teir fashion can bear and convey a holiness not their own.
In Mary, parturition and parenthood are made holy. (IN, not ‘by’.) In Joseph a father’s care is sanctified.
The very water which streamed over our Lord’s body at the hands of John is made as holy by that contact as the tassels of his clothing were.
This is a difference in emphasis, if not in thought, which reaches into sacramental theology and ecclesiology and into our thought about the will and plan of the Father.
Again, to me that means we should listen to one another more, and debate less. This whole conversation is HUGE, and that maybe why we gain so little ground for all the effort we expend.
I’m sure you will tell that to the person who was born with no legs or arms. To those like me who can’t walk, how will we “walk with God”?
I think Joni Ereckson Tada put it well.
Many of us look forward to Heaven more now than we did when our bodies functioned well. Joni Eareckson Tada says it well: “Somewhere in my broken, paralyzed body is the seed of what I shall become. The paralysis makes what I am to become all the more grand when you contrast atrophied, useless legs against splendorous resurrected legs. I’m convinced that if there are mirrors in heaven (and why not?), the image I’ll see will be unmistakably ‘Joni,’ although a much better, brighter Joni.”
Inside your body, even if it is failing, is the blueprint for your resurrection body. You may not be satisfied with your current body or mind—but you’ll be thrilled with your resurrection upgrades. With them you’ll be better able to serve and glorify God and enjoy an eternity of wonders he has prepared for you.
Joni Eareckson Tada, Heaven: Your Real Home (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995)
When I said it will be a glorified body I’m not sure you understood. I think you need to adjust your words slightly or others like me will think your understanding is not complete.
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