Posted on 11/09/2001 12:18:53 PM PST by Romulus
At the risk of being accused of treason and sedition - not a novel thing in my family - I admit to having a certain admiration for the young fundamentalist Muslims, with their east London or northern accents, eschewing home comforts to go off to fight for the faith of their fathers. They face the privations of cave-dwelling, the dangers of mortal conflict, and an uncertain welcome if they survive and return to Plaistow, Luton, Crawley, Birmingham or Burnley.
I'm not sure about the other places, but Burnley is no stranger to treason and sedition. My family comes from there. Our home, Towneley Hall (now owned by the Burnley Corporation), was once a centre of that other fundamentalist religion, recusant Catholicism. After the saying of Mass became illegal in 1559, we, too, were viewed with the deepest suspicion for having allegiances that ranked above Queen, country or government.
John Towneley, my ancestor, was heavily fined by Elizabeth I's Inquisition Council, and went to prison several times. Eventually, in order that his 14 children should not have the satisfaction of claiming for their father a martyr's crown, John was released from prison, mortally sick and almost blind, to be confined instead to his Towneley estates. His friend Sir Thomas Fitzherbert, from whom I am descended on my mother's side, was also stubbornly Catholic. He died in the Tower.
Ever since I can remember, therefore, the idea of dying for your faith has been held up as a pretty splendid, if not heroic, thing to do. And Towneley heroes were not confined to the Reformation. Hearing Mass in the tiny oratory built on to the end of our drawing-room at Dyneley - the house in which the Towneley bailiff used to live and where John and his family heard Mass in secret using an altar that could be folded up to look like a wardrobe - my five sisters, my brother and I often found ourselves sitting next to a small and very ancient leather frame enclosing a piece of hair. The legend reads, 'My cousin Frank Towneley's haire, who suffered for his prince August 10th 1746'. His prince was Bonnie Prince Charlie (his brother was the prince's tutor), and Uncle Frank was eventually hanged, drawn and quartered for his part in trying to restore a Catholic monarch to Britain. For many years my family kept Uncle Frank's severed head in a basket and passed it round after dinner.
So when I hear people such as the 22-year-old accountant Mohammed Abdullah from Luton saying, 'Our religious duty comes before everything else', it has a certain resonance. Of course, Mr Abdullah's religious and social history is entirely different from mine. Since Charles Martel's victory at the Battle of Poitiers in 732 - a battle that spared my family and the rest of the people on these islands the prospect of Christian martyrdom in the 8th century - Islam and Christianity have gone their separate ways. Had that battle been lost, as Gibbon tells us, 'the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mohammed'.
In the event it took the crisis precipitated by Henry VIII to set the English the ultimate test. When the Christian schism came, martyrs were, of course, claimed on both sides. Many, for example the Norfolks, cannily swayed with the wind. They were well rewarded. Families such as mine, who stuck willy-nilly to their guns, were derided as misguided fundies, traitors who were quite out of step with the more doctrinally enlightened and modern times in which they were living.
My family remains in many ways defined by its history. So, when I hear adjectives that once would have applied to us being applied now to keen young Muslims, it is impossible not to feel a certain frisson.
Moreover, I have found myself wondering if I, despite the recusant blood running through my veins, would rise, like 26-year-old Abu Yahya from Plaistow, to the challenge of defending my religion if called to do so. Would you? To push this question even further, if we were invaded by an Islamic state, would you, in order to save your life and the lives of your children, bow your head and perform the Salat if told to do so? Is not the fact that Muslims find this question (with appropriate reversals) easier to answer than Christians rather shocking?
It is perfectly true that Christians are specifically forbidden to seek martyrdom, something that caused Sir Thomas More mental agonies when awaiting his inevitable execution. But there is a difference between seeking martyrdom and accepting death. The 11 September hijackers (or the ones who knew the game plan) and the Muslims who are now clamouring to suffer in the service of Allah would not qualify for martyrdom under Christian definitions. Christians believe that seeking martyrdom is a wicked thing since it denotes the sin of pride.
But it is not fear of the sin of pride that would stop the British being martyrs now; it is the sin of indifference. Moreover, I have a suspicion that, faced with the threat 'convert or die', the instincts of even Catholic and Anglican bishops would be to compromise.
Since Vatican II, Catholics could certainly do so. Indeed, some commentators, such as the French academician Jean Guitton, appear to believe that Catholicism has no specific doctrine to advance; it should merely assist in deepening individual perceptions of God. The days of exclusivity are gone. What all contemporary Christians should be working towards is a relativist interpretation of religion in which the form of your worship matters less than the depth of your spiritual experience. In times in which, according to the Vatican II Decree on Missions, Ad Gentes, 'nova exsurgit humanitatis conditio', Christians should play down uniqueness.
I think it was this new emphasis on syncretism that inspired Cardinal Lustiger, then Archbishop of Paris, to declare in 1981, 'I am a Jew. For me the two religions are one.' He was, naturally, immediately contradicted by the Chief Rabbi, but you cannot say that the cardinal was not trying. Who knows what Monsignor Georges Darboy, one of his predecessors in the archiepiscopal chair would have thought? It is little more than a century since his martyrdom in the Paris commune.
And where does this kind of thinking leave me and my fundamentalist sympathies? Out of kilter, it seems, with the Christian world. For, while I have no wish to be martyred or to engage in religious wars, it seems an enviable thing to have something beyond worldly considerations for which you would be prepared to lay down your life.
Of course, some of those young men rushing off to Afghanistan are full of nonsense. Of course, some are using Islam as a peg on which to hang rather less noble ambitions than to die for Allah's sake. But Islam has retained something that Christianity has lost: an ability to summon people to its support and not have them ask, 'What on earth for?'
Some people may feel that what I deem a loss is actually Christianity's gain; that indifference is better than fundamentalism. But, as I watch the Abduls and Aftabs go to meet their fates, I think about John Towneley and Uncle Frank. It is probably a treasonable thought, but it may be that, although I disagree with the causes that would-be Muslim martyrs are espousing, in the fibre of my being I have more in common with them than with many of my apparently more sophisticated friends and neighbours.
I don't know if you remember, but we have talked before when I was Sovereign_Citizen_W. And the agreeing or disagreeing is really not the point. I don't know how much you remember from Catholic school (I hope I remember right), but I am paraphrasing the Word of God:
1 Corinthians 15:12Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. 14And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. 15Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up--if in fact the dead do not rise. 16For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. 17And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! 18Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.My joy and desire is to have heavenly treasures. The way that the Bible teaches me to do this does not maximize earthly pleasure. Therefore, if my labor is in vain I should be more pitied than all men!1 Corinthians 15:29 Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead? 30And why do we stand in jeopardy every hour? 31I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. 32If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!"
This is not what I meant! Either the Bible is right, or it is wrong. If it is right, then you are in trouble. If it is wrong, then you should relax and enjoy what is left of your life.
But living your life one way and hoping that you are wrong is like trying to "hedge" your bet. Th And I would be dismayed if you did not look at evidence. If you are willing, I have a little evidence.
Living my life one way? I try to do my best in this world. I make mistakes (BIG ONES AT TIMES). I certainly am not perfect (far far from it). Do I try and help people and be kind whenever I can? Absolutely. Do I wonder if I am doing the right thing or question what I believe in? Every single day. If thee is a God, he made me this way. Whay should I be condemmed for ever for questioning and seeking and wondering at this marvelous universe we live in.
You may not be far from the Lord after all.
One thing I have desired of the LORD, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD, And to inquire in His temple. To what end shall I feel awe and wonder before Thy beauty? The experience is enough and I shall be satisfied in it.
That does answer the question, even if you don't really understand.
When I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I became a new creature, and turned away from the old. And I will always be saved for all eternity. That does not mean I am now perfect, the means that I am now forgiven for everything I have done, will do, now or in the future. It is the blood of Christ which is my assurance.
Furthermore, Christianity is NOT a religion, IT IS A RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST!
You may flush your beliefs, but I will not flush mine.
Praise God for His Son in whom He was well pleased, and in whom I put my trust!
And that is the difference between me and Satan.
Christ died for me, personally, and His blood now covers all of my sins, therefore, I now belong to Him.
And good people go to hell every single day. We are not saved by works or good deeds, we are saved by faith.
Satan is not Omniscient, Omnipotent, or Omnipresent. GOD IS all of that but especially LOVE. Love is committment, not some touchy feeling mumbo jumbo.
Christianity is a relationship and a committment to Christ through faith.
Works come after faith, and are seen as fruit of the Spirit. While born again Christians can and do sin, they are still, nonetheless, SAVED by GRACE and that is FOREVER.
Yeah, but look at the upside; when that time comes, you won't be aware that your selfawareness is no longer operative!
But I think somebody once put it much more succinctly:
"Cogito, ergo sum."
No "cogito", no "sum."
That's Pascal's wager. Old stuff. There is a flip side to your proposition. If you are wrong, you have spent most of your brief lifespan obsessed with mythology and fiction, chanting slogans, sitting through misguided rituals, and worrying about a non-existent afterlife. Which seems to be a terrible waste of this life.
They'd better hurry, the fight's almost over in Afghanistan.
Call the new existence what you like, but it will be different than our current temporal existence. I agree that we will have some recognizable form just as Jesus had a form after resurrection. By "spirit" I do not mean a shifting mass of ectoplasm. Our existence after death will not be with these exact same bodies either. I currently cannot walk through walls, at least not effortly. Many die of unusual circumstances that destroy the body. All things considered, this is a minor point of contention.
As to why God bothered to create the universe, Isn't the underlying question why He didn't just create man in his eternal state? Better yet, why didn't He create man as gods right away? The question is related to the If-God-wanted-us-to-fly-He-would-have-given-us-wings statement. Since Hell is conveniently removed from Mormon theology, how can they be expected to comprehend reward or punishment from our trial here on earth?
The over 3 million near death experiences, about 15% of which are trips to Hell.
The Bible does address this point: If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. If the dead do not rise, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!"
Nevertheless, I have already seen my future!
Nice dance, Woody.
What do you think happened during those 40 days? Why is the Bible silent as to what occurred then?
Based on what you have stated (if I understand it correctly), I pretty much have nothing to worry about as far as my salvation goes. If I'm one of the elect, there's nothing I can do about it, I'm going to be saved at the last day because I'm one of the elect. If I'm not one of the elect, there's still no point in worrying about it, because there is no action that I can take that will change that already-decided-upon result. My free will (if I have any such thing) doesn't affect the outcome.
Welcome to the Church of Que Sera, Sera.
The one thing I don't understand is this: if there's already a final version of the list containing the names of the people who get let in to the Big Celestial Harp Band and Throne Dancing Brigade, and who don't, why do we even need a historical record of the teachings and resurrection of the Savior? It would seem that it would be important for me to know about it if my knowing about it would cause me to take actions that might change the outcome, but you've already told me that my actions don't matter one way or the other. If I'm one of the good guys, I'll be drawn onto the correct path; if I'm not, no amount of trying to get on the path will do any good.
So, what's the point of worrying about it one way or the other?
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