Posted on 09/06/2013 3:09:37 PM PDT by RBStealth
"Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics":
In his latest book, Ross Douthat, a public intellectual and a Catholic, argues that “bad religion” poses a greater danger to our nation than does secularism. His book is divided into two parts: in the first he chronicles the decline of traditional Christianity since 1965; in the second he examines four heresies that have flourished since then.
(Excerpt) Read more at newoxfordreview.org ...
If all education had remained private, the Protestants would have attended schools that **fully** supported their **specific** religious worldview and the children would not have been subjected to a NON-neutral Protestantism that was generic and lukewarm and run by state-sponsored Progressives.
The Catholics would have attended Catholic schools.
The system we have now can **not** be fixed because it never was religiously, politically, or culturally neutral. Such and education is impossible. And...It has always been a single-payer and socialist-entitlement.
Solution: Begin the process of moving toward complete privatization. Vouchers, tax credits, and charters may help in the change over but should be used with great caution.
The following can **not** be fixed because it is **structural** to the system.
State run schools are single-payer and socialist-entitlement schools and attendance is required by threat of police action for all those who can not find a private alternative. These schools are also a price-fixed monopoly cartel that is giving a service away for tuition-free. This government business practice assures that many ( most) counties have NO private schools whatsoever ( such as mine.)
Religions always goes wrong, because they are designed by man, to take power from others and collect money.
A savior is all one needs. We don’t need religion.
Someday people will learn.
I don’t blame God for religion.
Well i’m praying for you... whether you’re offended or not.
Move away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.
As Bishop Sheen said, ‘People hate what they don’t understand’.
It would be nice for the pride to drop and humility come in re: simply asking questions to better understand.
For every time i’ve explained ex cathedra, it seemed to be ignored all the more. They don’t want to know.
Meanwhile Christian churches, businesses and homes are being burned; Our brothers and sisters are being killed, maimed, raped and are in exile... many being forced to convert to Islam as we type.
But Catholics are the problem. Even Pharisees got a shout out in Matt. 23:3 re: do what they tell you but not what they do because they’re hypocrites. We don’t even get that.
Case in point, yet off-topic:
Someone asked at Lucianne why the pope wasn’t saying or doing anything re: Syria. I asked where she had been.
A simple google would have done it... but she was so concerned, or obviously busy, that she couldn’t be bothered. I asked if it was being preached from her pulpit and are brother pastors speaking on it; I wasn’t being nasty, I wanted to know what was happening in the churches re: Syria. I’ve talked to Lutheran, Baptist, Pentecostal, Adventist and Orthodox in my neighborhood on the subject and on the last few years in the Middle East re: persecution of Christians.
I then gave her links from every patriarch re: Syria; Informed her of the pope’s statements, the fast and vigils joined by our Eastern Rite brothers and sisters, others.
I told her they spoke with the pope and told him intervention from us would make it worse... as well as if the terrorists (coming in from many countries btw), get regime change, it would be much worse not only for Christians, but Alawites, Kurds, Druze, Armenians and others as well. (I guess Obama telling them two days of bombing didn’t help).
She came back with a snide remark re: Israel (beats me), and obviously didn’t read the seven links I posted.
Like Balaam, she ignored the ass, then beat it.
But hey, if you don’t have wolves, you aren’t sheep.
I prayed for her and kept it moving.
Well said and Amen. Martin Luther was something else with the language; That may have been the nicest thing he said. :)
We should also do a series on Early Church Fathers re: Posts.
Some may not have heard of Ignatius of Antioch (A.D. 107, sentenced to death by lions).
The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0109.htm
“Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. The celebration of the Eucharist is valid only if it is administered by the bishop or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Where the bishop is, there let the people also be; just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”
The word Catholic comes from the Greek katholikos, the combination of two words: kata- concerning, and holos- whole – concerning the whole. Also sometimes translated to mean, universal.
Maybe some would ‘prefer’ the Lightfoot version in which he uses universal.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/ignatius-smyrnaeans-lightfoot.html
Then they can go back and look at the greek for the explanation.
His letters to Polycarp and the churches on the way to martyrdom are priceless. Those waiting to meet him at stops on the way are touching as well.
But what do I know, some may know better than those who were there as bishops, dying for the church. s/
It’s ironic that Ignatius went through persecution and Syria’s going through the same today.
Scripture... telling the end before the beginning. Indeed.
which of the 10,000 or so Saints are you praying to?
lol.
You are assuming facts not in evidence.
Why wouldn’t we speak to Mary, Who played a role in Jesus’ first miracle at Cana?
I hope the argument isn’t that the words of John 3:16 wouldn’t apply to her.
That is an absurd fantasy. Liberalism reigns where Catholicism does, with the latter being more conservative where evangelical Protestantism does and RCs are the minority. See here , here and here
What a clueless statement! I see no hope for the republic with that comment/mindset. It reeks of low information like the liberals keep their voters.
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