Our Culture, What's Left of It- Theodore Dalrymple

Just finished this book on my LONG delayed flight from Tampa to Philly...

Ever wanted to know the real effects of radical multiculturalism, welfare statism, and libertinism on modern Europe? Dalrymple empirically looks at Europe and appraises (often graphically) its standards of beauty and decency compared to its own historical triumphs of art and literature. I highly recommend this book for anyone who believes that civilizations cannot devolve and end up devouring themselves.

Next book on the lineup: Severus of Antioch

-Steve K.

Italian Missionary Critiques Indian Church

HT: ICON



Here is the article



The article is about the Indian Catholic Church, so take their administrative problems and multiply by 10 to get a feel for the Indian Orthodox Church. I don't need to belabor the point about being more "mission oriented" and bearing witness. I did like this exchange though:



Q: Is a lack of inculturation also affecting evangelization in India?



A: Where is the inculturation now? If at all there are some efforts in this line, who follows them? I tell you, whatever was done, has failed to reach the ordinary laypeople. Very often nuns were the only consumers of such efforts. Any inculturation coming from above will not reach the laypeople. Let it come from people and let the Church simply accept its growth and integration. Inculturation should not be enforced; it should be allowed to grow naturally from the bottom.



Letting the Church grow naturally from the grass roots? Sounds like a good idea. Should there be a trans-national Indian identity Church? No, there should simply be The Church which exists in the unity of Faith but is expressed by its members where they are, how they are.

Appraising Liberation Theologies- Rev. R.D. Andrews

"The problem is that Liberation Theology, Black Theology, Feminist Theology or any other similar theology have tended to supplant the theology of God revealed in the Law and Prophets of Israel, in the person of Jesus Christ, and continuously revealed by the Holy Spirit to the Saints in the Church. These theologies become heresies when they take part of the truth and try to make it the whole truth. It is like taking a theatrical spotlight and placing a red lens over it and then saying that whole world is red.
...
As Greek Orthodox Christians, we know well the history of oppression and suffering under the Turkocratia, the Ottoman Muslim persecution that lasted nearly 500 years. We know that the freedom fighters of the Greek Revolution in the early 1800s were mostly Orthodox Christians. While the bishops and priests certainly prayed for the freedom fighters, one does not find writings emanating from the Church encouraging armed revolution and slaughter of the Turks. The same pattern is found under Roman occupation/persecution of the first three centuries and under the Communist Regime in Russia during the 20th century. Even St. Paul’s epistles encourage patient endurance and faithfulness to God, not armed resistance, under persecution. If Greek Orthodox took the same approach as the most radical Liberation and Black theologians we would see everything through the lens of Ottoman oppression. This might motivate us to say things like “God is only the God of the Greeks!” or “Every Turk is evil!” "
- Rev. Richard Demetrius Andrews, Orthodoxy Today (full article)

Post-Christians- Christianity Today

"These are people who have seen Christianity somewhere along the way and have decided they are not interested. For example, a young man who grew up in a Christian home and was disillusioned by his parents' messy divorce. Or someone who had attended church but witnessed something as painful as a nasty split or as subtle (yet subversive) as hypocritical Christians who said one thing and did another.
Other Post-Christians have no church experience at all, but their experiences with Christians, even if only through the media, have been negative—they consider Christians preachy or legalistic or untrustworthy.
Sometimes it's as simple as negative interaction with the idea of Christianity; after seeing public scandals and watching a diminishing reputation, they decided they didn't want to be associated with it.
The common element is that they, rightly or wrongly, feel like they already understand Christianity and are not interested."- Daniel Hill

full article

Americans' Refusal to Deal with Suffering- American Thinker

"Even those arenas in which one would expect to find the greatest sense of spirituality and the deepest understanding of suffering it has been modernized and distorted. Of all the scriptures in the Bible, it seems that no matter what channel you turn to the message of the modern Evangelical movement is the same as corporate America: Ask and ye shall receive. It is the modern, media spin on the Doctrine of the Elect and Predestination: How do we know you have found God's favor? Because you're successful. How do you get to be successful? By God's favor. So, the goal is to be successful, to acquire wealth, prestige, and power. Somewhere along the line even the ministers have forgotten, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Where did we ever get the idea that we could petition God for happiness as if we were putting quarters into a candy-dispenser, that if you pray "just so" or tithe "just so" that God will reward you with a new job and a corner office? To my ears this sounds like a Christianity that has been co-opted by corporate interests or, worse, by Hollywood." - Jude Acosta, American Thinker

full article

I don't have a problem with culture...

...in fact I'm very much pro-culture! But culture is a dynamic thing. I don't understand it completely in the abstract. It's everyone being what they are, where they are, when they are. I don't live according to a particular definition. I live as I see fit and leave it up to the historians to figure out what, exactly, me and 'everyone like me' were really like.
-Steve K.