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 ...
I like the way you explain that. I agree and I am truly edified when one is sincerely seeking my beliefs and wants to share theirs.
Yes, this thread is nothing more than what I called it, mud wrestling. Though, I am so grateful for those Catholics here who are willing to stand firm and express the faith without fear.
Let me amend that, it is not fear that keeps me from calling out the haters here, it is just that it is exhausting answering the same lame posts over and over and over.
Willful ignorance is a condition which I can’t cure, it must come from the Holy Spirit.
Honestly? Neither. I'm a Fundamentalist Christian. I don't belong in the mainstream Protestant Churches and I don't belong in the Traditional Catholic Churches either. Both have things that I disagree with, but both are also right on some doctrines. I take what the Scriptures say and see who's closest to them, hence my "Fundamentalist Christian" remark.
Hey Dear Heart,
I’ve been around FR from near the beginning.
The RC’s from the earliest days
castigated the Proddys with intense and enormous haughtiness, demeaning labels, hostility, arrogance, !!!DEMANDINGNESS!!!!, ruthlessness, venom, . . . etc. etc. etc.
ad nauseum.
They did so in posts, in thread titles with dripping condescension, venom, bitterness, anger, hate etc. etc. etc.
And that without a Proddy appearing yet to say much of anyhing in some cases. In most cases the RC hostilities, belittling, hostility etc. was
THE SUBSTRATED that they operated from continually. Sometimes it was blazing fire red IN PRODDYS FACES and sometimes it was nasty quips around the edges. But it was virtually always there.
THEN, HORROR OF HORRORS, some of us Proddys began to stand up for ourselves with just as emotionally intense a wording etc.
THAT was !!!intolerable!!!.
How dare Proddys stand up and be counted on the FR Vatican Ishtar-Mary Goddess outpost/division with anything close to the RC’s emotional intensities. What upstarts! HOW DARE THEY!
Sheesh.
Guess what . . . we don’t believe layers and tons of the RC hogwash. Not our reality.
And if y’all are going to INSIST on the UNDIVINE RIGHT of PRISSY PAPAL HAUGHTINESS—then it’s only reasonable to expect some of that emotionality to land back in your own faces.
If you want to see where it started, look in your evidently shattered mirrors.
I’ve been quite happy for many months to avoid such threads. However, when the RC haughtiness and demeaning castigations of Proddys reaches a certain level, you can bet I’m going to stand with the Proddys and let the lurkers know that we have just as much Biblical right etc. to be just as emotionally intense as all the RC cliques combined.
I’d prefer to ignore such threads still.
If y’all want sweetness and light from the Proddys, sow that.
To be honest, Traditional Catholics are a bit different from what you are, and that’s who I was referring to.
Is it really Protestant Catholic issues Quix? Is not our issue on FR more about grace vs works, weeds vs wheat, proud vs humble, sheep vs goats ? There are plenty of pharisaic protestants here on FR as well as catholics. Also, the spiritual unity we share here on FR transcends denominations.
I know, and I'm not surprised there has been no reply to your reiteration of the quote from http://www.justforcatholics.org/islam.htm. Instead, we are treated to, yet again, the Catholics versus the Protestant war of words. Something I'm sure delights the devil and Muslims as well.
There is a reason why Catholic and Protestants have been arguing for about 600 years. If one cannot understand the difference, then they really don't have a handle on their faith nor will they sharpen anything.
I find amazing that some, who reject the the tenets of the Nicene Creed, in whole or in part, claim that the Canon of Scripture is independent of it. The Nicene Creed was issued in 325 AD. The earliest extant list of the books of the NT, in exactly the number and order in which we presently have them, wasn't written until until 42 years later when it was done by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, in his Easter letter of 367 AD.
The Nicene Creed is significant because was used as the standard of orthodoxy for the selection of which of the contemporaneous writings not selected for inclusion in the Bible. Additionally, the Council of Nicene issue a number of canons or rules governing the Church that are hotly contested on these threads daily. These include priestly celibacy, the legitimacy of the traditions of the Church and Paulianist heretic.
What do you mean by “Traditional Catholics”? Are you referring to those who hold to pre-Vatican II beliefs?
No harm, no intent, no foul.
I never said I couldn't understand why the two sides were at each others throats, I said that nothing we do will keep this from happening so why bother getting into an argument? If I honestly thought that I could talk to someone from either side without the dogma blinders coming down, I might do so but that's not going to be possible with most of the people in this thread, on both sides.
Scripture was written when the apostles were still alive, not three centuries later.
Peter even recognized that Paul’s writings were Scripture while he and Paul were alive.
Scripture was preserved by God, not some council of men. It was preserved in spite of any decisions of men, not because of them.
Are you aware of exactly what it was that started the downhill trend on this thread?
It wasn’t Protestants coming on it and trashing it, I can tell you that much.
Very good point, CB! It has been quite interesting to observe over these years how "earnestly" the Roman Catholic Church has been at the forefront of the Ecumenical Movement to a "One World Religion". They seem to have made a seriously, mistaken conclusion that such a thing would be a good thing with the Pope, of course, as the universal head of such an organization. It was no accident that in the middle ages the Pope was the presumed head of both the spiritual as well as temporal kingdom of God on earth. They forgot Jesus' words that his kingdom was "not of this world".
Not really, by the time I got here half the posts were already gone and the flamethrowers were already in use. I'm not even sure how this got turned into a Protestant Vs. Catholic thread to begin with, as it seemed to be about a Catholic who converted to Islam. I'd love to see how Protestants fit into that equation.
How on earth do you know how God is going to use you? You are commanded to speak the truth in season and out. It doesn't matter if no one will listen you (believe, I know). Cast your bread upon the water and it will not come back empty. That is a promise of God.
I have to admit that you're right on this point. I don't know how God is going to use me, but at the same time I also don't know if there's any point in trying to point out the Truth if the person I'm talking too isn't ready to hear it yet. I'll have to think and pray on this one, but you bring up a very good point and I haven't been even considering it.
When you guys make the statement that yours is the one, true, church that Jesus built the statement is worthy of reproof, rebuke and exortation...And the reproof, rebuke and exortation we present from the 'book' you claim you wrote, and the 'book' you seem to have so little respect for, you call hatred and ridicule...
To be expected, I guess...No one likes to their ox gored, especially when it God doing the goring...
2Ti 4:2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
You may not (and in most cases won’t) influence the person you are talking to directly. But God will bless you just the same for being faithful to His word.
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