Impressions from the white man’s reservation that Central Europe still is- - - - - - - - -
Taking a holiday in the sole part of the white man’s world where no need is felt for “cultural enrichment” and “strength in diversity” I am pleased to forward two photos.
This one, shows the proper attitude still extant here with respect to multiculti pap:
Curiosity, ja, multiculturalism, nein
On the other hand, to the anti-Semitic sniffers of Jew perfidy who weigh down our chances of cultural and ethnic self-determination, this photo, from St. Elisabeth’s Church in Wroclaw (Breslau), might cause indigestion. In the upper part, the forbidden Hebrew name of God, Yehovah, in Hebrew letters:
Denial denied
The church was originally medieval. This, in a subsidiary nave, is Baroque.
©2009 Takuan Seiyo
41 comments:
"On the other hand, to the anti-Semitic sniffers of Jew perfidy who weigh down our chances of cultural and ethnic self-determination, this photo, from St. Elisabeth’s Church in Wroclaw (Breslau), might cause indigestion. In the upper part, the forbidden Hebrew name of God, Yehovah, in Hebrew letters"
Baron, can you provide a translation? Because I read it three times, understood all the words and still couldn't grasp what Seyo is saying.
It's rather disturbing, now that I think of it. But it's true. :(
(Is it some kind of Jewish Christianity???)
Afonso --
He's talking about the Hebrew letters that appear in the carved relief, which is in a Christian church, and the fact that this might upset people who hate Jews.
I like the fag. And the dog. And the toddler clinging to his mother.
We haven't seen such pictures since... Hollywood movies in the 1950's, I'd say.
What is it that the faux Indian is peddling ? Pirated CD's ?
Ok, thanks Baron.
And I definetly like the dog.
When was the last time you heard a Christianity apologist promote miraculous healing? The answer of course is never, because Christianity apologists are not Christians, they are humanists. At no point in the whole scheme is the subject of the supernatural touched. The heart of their rhetoric is not God but an appeal to self-interest. For instance: "Our" civilisation owes it greatness to Christ, the God whose talent for healing (not) was wholly surpassed by the invention of antibiotics. There is Dinesh D' Souza's central argument that "Human Rights" are a Christian idea in origin and that if you don't believe in the real thing you'll end up a Nazi. No one wants to be a Nazi, so you owe it to your narcissism to become a "Christian" promoting "christian values" or "moral lessons" (in the Protestant tinged countries), or worse yet "Judeo-Christian values". As though the Jews worship Christ.. Indeed the Sanhedrin bunch celebrated his crucifixion. The Jews reject Christ--the way the truth and the life--and if Christianity were consistent and true, and it is neither, the Jews would logically have to be... evil personified.
It turns out that's not the case.
Seiyo is a crowdist B.S. artist, for that reason a talented humanist, who when he doesn't get the response he wants shows his true aggressive face by closing down comments like he did on his Brussels Journal page. Juxtaposing a nasty picture of what looks like a white family keeping a big dog between themselves a what may be a the remains of vanquished native America with implicit approval, next to the picture of a Church with an implicit call for tolerance of Jews on the utterly specious grounds that the Jewish religion is the same as Christianity (ostensibly the religion of the West), and that the Jewish god is the same as Christ (the God whom the Jews refuse to worship, reject, and counterfeit as "Judeo-Christianity"), is too much to stomach.
Re: The relevance of the church photo of a Hebrew inscription
Large swathes of practicing Christians, particularly among Roman Catholics and in the Eastern rites are not taught that there is any connection, let alone a positive one, between Judaism and Christianity, and even deny it with considerable indignation.
I was able to plumb somewhat the sources of the Western peoples’ anti-Semitism on this trip, precisely because Central Europe is that Reservation, for good and for bad, where social realities and attitudes that disappeared elsewhere in the West are still on the surface.
In Poland and Slovakia, for instance, I talked with people who deny that Jesus was a Jew. I talked with an educated man who asserted confidently that Einstein wasn’t a Jew.
In Poland, there was a formal movement a few years back to declare the Virgin Mary the Queen of Poland. A Polish friend of mine, a practicing Catholic and an anti-antisemite, commented in a public forum that it was strange for Poland to elect a Jewish, even Israeli, woman as its queen. His comment was widely perceived as a shocking, gratuitous and lying insult, though it’s the factual truth (factual if you accept the historical elements in the Gospels).
That falsification of the religious roots of Christianity is not inescapable. I’ve met with Catholic clergy who are a great model in this respect, and discovered the writings of a spiritual and intellectual giant, Fr. Jozef Tischner, about whom I’ll write more. Pope John Paul II was firmly in this camp too. That’s why I was glad to discover a much earlier affirmation of that connection in a Silesian church.
Why is all that relevant to the Gates of Vienna community? Because quite a few traditionalist paleoconservatives, who are generally sympathetic to our concerns, are also inveterate, bred-in-the-bone antisemites. In that, they commit not only an offense against truth but also hurt our cause in the eyes of the public, and for spurious reasons.
This is one of the West’s earliest and gravest social diseases, dating back to 3rd century BC Seleucid Alexandria. To regenerate a healthy West that has an immunity to Islam and to the multiculti virus, it’s necessary to expunge the West’s own indigenous viruses.
Afonso, Seiyo is writing about Kevin MacDonald who was in a discution with Seiyo lately. Well i do see the jewish role in west criticaly but i'm not an anti-semite, it's time to perceive the one important thing Seiyo we are in the same boat and if it sinks bad jews and bad germans aswell as the good jews and good germans ( and americans and brittish and russian and brazilians) will perish the same.
The problem Seiyo is that traditional christians perceives jews as modern pharisees. The catholics were once adamant to that jews as modern pharisees were the enemy of christianity and that only converting the jewish curse "Let his blood be on us and on our children!" (Mt 27,25) can be lifted. As a Christian, Mary is not a jew because she converted. That is strange to understand in one ethnic but not religious sense.
Re: Meeting-of-Cultures photo
HHs comment on this and the rest is not on a level that merits a response, but it’s interesting to read peoples’ reactions to the photo. HH’s reaction is pure attribution, spun from the recesses of his own psyche and draped on a visual image regardless of the fit. The comments preceding his are inferences, properly reading factual elements of the picture without inventing a context.
For those interested, the Indian would-be-shaman was part of a musical group of Peruvian (perhaps Bolivian) buskers in a large Slavic-Prussian city square. The locals were clearly appreciative, but there was none of the self-dissolving celebration that one witnesses among Western whites on occasions like Cinco de Mayo.
@Rocha,
I assume you are RCC, and you display the lack of knowledge of the history of your own religion that I was just writing about.
Mary did not convert any more than Jesus did. They were born as Jews and they died as Jews. There was nothing to convert to anyway, for the early Christian church was all-Jewish, and it was a reformed Judaism. It was the Nazarene Church, led by Jesus' brother, James.
That they were repudiated by the great majority of contemporaneous Jews, is another matter.
It's really important for people to study the historical context of these things, and the politics of the early church fathers. For some reason only Protestant churches teach that, though much academic research has been done too, quite a lot of of it by believing Christians with PhDs and towering intellects.
RCC? If you mean Roman Catholic no i'm not but i do come from a catholic family.
Mary and Jesus were born and died ethnic jews but Mary cannot be jewish since she accepted Jesus as the son of god. She is a christian in the religious sense.
In a strict christian view jews are the enemy. They can redeem converting like any pagan can. It's odd seing americans protestants defending israel with passion. They contradict their own religions founding fathers view of the jews.
Please note that i do not see jews as the enemy. Strict christians now and regular ones did on the past.
Seiyo,
Did you read Kevin MacDonald to your review? Could you please tell us (i'm really curious) what you think of that.
Thanks in advance.
@Rocha,
In a strict Christian view Jews WERE the enemy. The Jews paid for it with their lives, and the Christians paid with empty churches across the Christian world.
But humanity's moral views have evolved. Jews stopped executing or demanding the execution of religious apostates in the 1st century AD. Christianity closed that chapter officially in the 18th Century. Only Islam is still based on hate of the infidel.
You'll forgive me therefore if I have no patience for people who claim to be Christian and continue with the old ways of Christianity. There are magnificent contemporary Christian models, ranging from Thomas Merton to John Paul II to the aforementioned Jozef Tischner. Yet for too many people the views of these luminous modern-day Christian leaders concerning Jews and much else are far less relevant than the view of 4th century's John Chrysostom. Don't you see something weird in that?
As to Kevin MacDonald, I am sorry, I have not read his response and do not plan to do so. I have not criticized what he’d written that I had not read, but what I had read. And I wrote about it honestly. There is no riposte in this case that merits my engaging in continuous sparring. As I wrote in my article, I have far less interest in defending the Jews than MacDonald has in reviling them. I plan to touch on these themes only sporadically, rather than make them the central thread of my writing.
Seiyo it's a shame that you didn't read Macdonald answer it's not all sticks and stones anyway c'est la vie.
Apologetic christianity is religion without a soul, faded to die. But if it's best to the west that's it. As for the jews they are not all nice and evolved some old ways remains:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=487412&contrassID=2&subContrassID=5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y&itemNo=487412
Let's hope that the jewish religion dies too and that the religious divide between "us" just disapears.
Keep up the good work.
Large swathes of practicing Christians, particularly among Roman Catholics and in the Eastern rites are not taught that there is any connection, let alone a positive one, between Judaism and Christianity, and even deny it with considerable indignation.
This basically means they've never even cracked open the New Testament.
The New Testament, for all they know, might as well be about a deranged sea captain searching for a white whale.
When you use the term 'Christian,' are you lumping Protestants in with Roman Catholics? It turns out that we share little in terms of faith, piety and practice.
@Rocha,
Sorry, I cannot agree. I recommend to you the story of the blind men and the elephant. A Christianity that’s based on an absolute certitude that it alone has a direct telephone line to God is the religion without a soul, destined to die. It’s dying now as a cosmic punishment for centuries of such certitude.
There is little difference between such a religion and Islam, except that the one functions in a society that impedes its erstwhile tendencies to jihad, while the other continues jihad. This is not the religion of any Pope or Catholic saint in the last 70 years, and we are all the better for it.
The real problem of Christianity is not the schism with Jews, but the schism with other Christians. It is totally astounding how many Christians were murdered en masse by other Christians in the name of an arrogated and unwarranted certainty as to what exactly is the true faith and how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It is particularly disheartening to find such attitudes in the anti-jihad community.
And who said anything about Jews being all nice and evolved? I certainly never made such a statement. Actually, I have no use for the Jewish religion and consider the Jews, as a group, a political foe of mine. But there is a very large distance from that to demonizing, disrespecting or twisting the truth about that group, or denying them their religion as you seem to do.
@ PRCalDude
I agree with your comment, but there is more here than I can respond to at the moment. I do wish mainstream Protestantism woke up from its dhimmi stupor.
I do wish mainstream Protestantism woke up from its dhimmi stupor.
0% chance of that. That began over 100 years ago.
There are confessional Protestants left, but there are probably less than a million in North America. The NAPARC denominations are about all that's left of orthodox Protestantism here. There are mission works in Europe, but most of the mission works are in the global South.
Sorry, I cannot agree. I recommend to you the story of the blind men and the elephant. A Christianity that’s based on an absolute certitude that it alone has a direct telephone line to God is the religion without a soul, destined to die. It’s dying now as a cosmic punishment for centuries of such certitude.
It's not dying. It may be dying in some parts of the world, but spreading in others. Jesus himself said that the gates of hell would not prevail against the church.
The Bible itself, at least as it has been interpreted since the Apostolic era, calls believers to a certitude - a "hearty trust" as the Heidelberg Catechism describes it. We have a 'direct line' to God through our Mediator Jesus Christ by way of prayer, and we have God's direct line to us through the finished revelation found in Scripture. At least that is the Protestant position. The "blind men and the elephant" story doesn't really apply if the Christian faith is understood in the way Protestants understand it. Through "due use of the ordinary means," even the most simple among us can understand all that is "necessary for salvation," to paraphrase the Westminster Confession. We believe God has revealed to us all that is necessary to be known about Him and how to be right with him.
Rejecting the "certitude" is precisely what sank the mainline Protestant denominations in Europe and North America. Please read "Christianity and Liberalism" by J. Gresham Machen and "The Great Evangelical Disaster" by Francis Schaeffer.
A Christianity without certitude - specifically, the certainty that Christ has been raised from the dead - is not a faith worth following at all (1 Cor 15:12-18), which is precisely what most Protestant liberals have concluded over the past 150 years as they've wandered away from the faith.
Bemused how quickly a historical trip in the somewhat close and "central" Central Europe degenerated into few doctrinal exchanges.
Hic sunt leones. Work harder.
Jesus is the Mediator between God and mankind, so it is correct to say that only the Christian faith has a direct telephone line to God. However, Jesus is God Incarnate, and no believer should have the pretense to think that he has the absolute truth and answers to everything, for he is fallible and it is only through the blood of Christ that he is enabled to reconnect with His Creator. It would be more correct to say that Christ is the absolute embodiment of Truth. As usual, I do agree with Takuan Seiyo on a lot of points here also. Jesus Christ was a Jew who, according to Scripture, lived by Jewish Law and actually commanded some persons He had healed to go to the Jewish temple in Jerusalem to perform the rites as per Mosaic Law. If He were not a Jew, than Jesus would not have been the Christ, i.e. the Messiah of the Jews. As far as the 'protestants' supporting Israel is concerned, this is, in the case of Evangelicals in America, mostly due to the tremendous influence of dispensationalist theology. I am Reformed myself, but I do support Israel's right to exist albeit from a more rational point of view. The land ultimately belongs to God, and He can take away the land from the modern state of Israel at any time, as He has done before. In the same way, Christ became the savior of the Gentiles and a blessing to them because of the Jews who overwhelmingly rejected Him, and these Gentiles partake in the blessings God gave to Israel. I do understand from Scripture, however, that God reserved himself a remnant of people among the Jews/Israel, and in the end, Israel will be restored as a nation when it accepts Jesus as the Messiah. Note that Saint Paul was a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin. So those 'Christians' who preach hatred of the Jews are either misguided due to the erroneous belief that God has entirely abandoned His chosen people and has no future with Israel whatsoever, or not truly Christian to begin with. All of Jesus' apostles were Jews and Saint Peter needed a direct revelation from God (see the book of Acts) to have explained to him that there was no need to follow the dietary laws (as described in the Mosaic Law) anymore.
By the way, I think Poland is a vastly underrated country. I for one would certainly like to tour the country in the future. Cities like Warsaw, Gdansk, Breslau and Krakau just look totally amazing. I understand you're from Poland, Tukuan? What part of the country did you grow up?
@PRCalDude
I do wish to rise above at least the petty squabbles between Catholics, Protestants and the Orthodox. What you state is informed and thoughtful, but it does not address my quandary. The certitude that is salutary is the certitude as to the existence of God and salvation through Jesus Christ. It’s the lack of this certitude that has hurt the Protestant denominations.
But I speak of a different certitude. The kind that believes only your particular denomination, only the mysteries of the universe as explained by your vicar when you were 14 years old, is the one truth. And what stems from that, that alternative interpretations, even in matters of theological hair-splitting, are by definition wrong because they are not the interpretations that you believe in.
That is Islam’s kind of certitude, and the reason we are here. And it’s this closed-mind certitude, and the fanaticism that it engenders, that has bled Christianity for so long and so ferociously that we are still paying the price for it, even though killing in the name of your particular exclusive franchise on the Lord Jesus has stopped in the 20th century.
The point of the elephant story is that you may indeed be certain that you are touching the elephant. But so can Jack who is touching not its leg but its trunk. It’s the absence of this kind of humility and consideration that makes Islam into the enemy of humanity that it is. I do hope we won’t see its resurgence in Christianity, for that will be the final nail. Otherwise, don’t worry about Christianity dying. It may be wilted (in the West) but we know something about resurrection.
@thepalerider
We seem to be on the same wavelength. I have some personal interest and perhaps idiosyncratic insight into these things because I was born to a Catholic and a Jew in a patch of land connecting Poland, Czech and Slovakia, Prussia and Saxony. The various influences have been ebbing and flowing intensely for the past 1000 years. It’s a land that, among others, saw much destruction in the 30 Years’ War and WW2, hence perhaps my interest in the issues discussed above. But I also look at these things from a Zen practitioner’s point of view, which usually brings sneers of contempt from some turbo-charged Christians in the blogospehere. I usually retreat then into the comforting shade of Fr. Thomas Merton.
thepalerider said, "...I think Poland is a vastly underrated country."
Indeed, although I was born in the US, my family is originally from Poland. Even though my parents were both born in the US they grew up in Poland during WW2. (A long, convoluted story..)
I was there to visit in 1973 when Communism was alive and well, and again in 1991 when Communism had just collapsed.
Let me make a few recommendations:
Warsaw is VERY nice. Be sure to see the Old City, reconstructed one brick at a time after having been completely destroyed by the Nazis.
The city of Czestochowa (where my sister lives) and the fortress-monastery of Jasna Gora where the famous icon called The Black Madonna is held, are of great interest.
Auschwitz is an important (but very grim) place to see.
The Cloth Hall in the old city square in Krakow (do you like espresso?) and the king's castle (Wawel) complete with fire-breathing dragon are a lot of fun.
The Wieliczka salt mine is fascinating.
Zakopane is a big tourist trap but the mountains are absolutely beautiful, especially the high tarn called The Eye of the Sea (Morskie Oko.)
As you may have noted, all these places are in southern Poland. Sad to say, I never got to the Baltic coast, but it is definitely on my wish list.
Takuan Seiyo said, "The various influences have been ebbing and flowing intensely for the past 1000 years."
That has been my overwhelming impression also. It seems that the weight of history is particularly heavy in this relatively small geographical area.
In light of Seiyo's most recent comment I should add a but more for the sake my e-personality.
"I have some personal interest and perhaps idiosyncratic insight into these things because I was born to a Catholic and a Jew in a patch of land connecting Poland, Czech and Slovakia, Prussia and Saxony. The various influences have been ebbing and flowing intensely for the past 1000 years."
Well there's the real motivation for that post. How quaint.
I could write more. I can't be bothered. I'm sorry I even commented.
PRCalDude: "A Christianity without certitude - specifically, the certainty that Christ has been raised from the dead - is not a faith worth following at all (1 Cor 15:12-18), which is precisely what most Protestant liberals have concluded over the past 150 years as they've wandered away from the faith."
It's interesting that when my son was taking his confirmation class, the first thing they told them was that it may have been a legend that Jesus was literally resurrected, but that doesn't matter because what counts is the Christian values and the meaning of Christianity. These were the priests! This is when I knew that Christianity in Sweden is dead.
I agree with others here that there are certain fundamentals to the Christian religion which might not be scientifically provable, but are nonetheless essential to the faith, and the believer knows them to be true. I believe that the religious wars in Europe were largely motivated by the exploitation of the Christian religion by the State for its own sake and the preservation of its power rather than the advancement of the Gospel. I am not saying I am for an absolute division between 'church' and State, but I do not believe that Church and State should be synonymous. Having said that, I do agree with Takuan when he says that the internal schisms within Christianity are more threatening to Christianity than the Jews. Then again, unity for the sake of unity alone might also not be a good thing when it goes at the expense of doctrinal soundness. That is why I am very skeptical of the ecumenical movements, for instance.
I have encountered self-described paleoconservatives and self-professed tradtional Catholics who indeed were antisemitic and, yes, I do believe these ultranationalists to be a threat to the conservative movement as well as to true Christianity, because their claims of Jesus being a White, blue-eyed man, and the Jews being Asiatics, are pseudo-scientific nonsense, and downright heretical. They are also prone to spreading conspiracy theories and general fearmongering and scapegoating, and their views of what it constitutes to be a 'Christian' remind me more of KKK or StormFront-like ideologies than it does of the historic Christianity of St Paul, Augustine, Calvin, or Christ Himself. However, I have also encountered the type of people that HH described, who hate Christianity and want to return to pre-Christian pagan times. That sort of views might be perfectly compatible with nationalism, but they are nevertheless the antithesis of conservatism. Funnily though, these people sound just like the self-professed 'Christian' Jew-haters.
I know conservative Catholics who are nothing like the antisemites or ultranationalists described earlier, so I will not judge all Catholics because of these fanatics. I disagree with Takuan on Zen because I believe it is really irreconcilable with Christian faith, but I won't dismiss his entire person or whatever he writes or believes because of this. I have read Takuan's essays on the Brussels Journal and I was impressed by his writing and insights. I did not get the impression he was a nihilist at all, although I'm sure there are points of disagreement. I must say that's quite a strong accusation to say he's a relativist and a nihilist. Let's not be too quick to pass judgment here, shall we?
@ One_of_the_last_few_Patriots_left: thanks a lot for these recommendations! Much appreciated. :)
@the palerider
Far it be from me to don the mantle of a speaker for true Christianiy or for Zen, for that matter. The two are not, however, incompatible. Zen is a tool, like karate, not a religion. Greater authorities than I have expressed themselves on this issue, among them Fr. Thomas Merton and Fr. Robert Kennedy.
As a conservative, I decry institutionalized state compassion. But compassion on a personal level is the very essence of Christianity (and Buddhism as well). Life is a difficult and painful business. We should not rush to condemn others for the ways that help them to attain personal peace and goodness.
I am sad to find so many budding Torquemadas among conservative Christian bloggers. They merely confirm the ur-text of the haters of conservative Christians, Theodore Adorno’s “The Authoritarian Personality.” And these haters rule the world.
On another level, I find it amazing that conservatives are so quick to dismiss the wisdom of the East, and operate with the most misinformed, hackneyed stereotypes in such dismissals. The Orientals are running circles around the West because they were not afraid to take up what’s best in our culture.
There are now close to 50 million classical music practitioners in China alone, and in international piano or violin competition, save for an occasional Jew, Pole or Russian, you don’t see white faces at all. But we think in our tragic hubris that we have nothing to learn reciprocally.
What we can learn to our everlasting profit is contained in Zen, Taoism and Confucianism, neither of which is a religion in our sense of the word. Not wholesale adoption but interest, judicious reading, and culture-appropriate, selective grafts. I see no interest among conservatives at all, as though conservatism meant clutching to a zero sum bag of powder goodies, slipping forever through the fingers. Meanwhile, we are all becoming wood cutters and water carriers for the East.
But I speak of a different certitude. The kind that believes only your particular denomination, only the mysteries of the universe as explained by your vicar when you were 14 years old, is the one truth. And what stems from that, that alternative interpretations, even in matters of theological hair-splitting, are by definition wrong because they are not the interpretations that you believe in.
I hold to the motto "Creed or Chaos." American Evangelical religion and mainline Protestantism (though it doesn't fit the historical definition of Protestantism) are anti-creedal movements. As such, they drift ever more towards the liberalism Machen and so many others have described over the past 100-150 years. The PCA church, once a conservative offshoot of the liberal PCUSA, is headed in the same direction because of its anti-creedal stance since 1995. By 'creed', of course, I refer to the organizing documents of the particular denomination in question. In the case of Presbyterians, these are the Westminster Standards. In the case of the Reformed, they are the Three Forms of Unity. Though Presbyterian and Reformed are different denominations, we (usually) recognize each others ministers. In the United STates, they are trained at the same seminaries. We likewise dialogue and interact with Lutherans, though we differ on the issues of the Lord's supper and reprobation. Orthodox Lutherans are welcome at the Lord's supper in NAPARC denominations, though the converse is not true.
What is the point of me explaining this? Well, the differences amongst traditional Protestants are much smaller than they are made out to be, and we recognize one another as brothers in Christ. In fact, it wasn't until Descartes that there were the myriad of splinter churches you see today. In the old days, it was the Protestant church and the Roman Catholic church. The differences between the Protestant church and teh RC are over the very definition of the gospel, therefore they are serious.
The "theological hair splitting" is much less severe than it is made out to be amongst traditional Protestants. The certitude used in your definition simply doesn't exist in our understanding of the faith. In fact, to paraphrase chapter 1 of the Westminster Confession, the only infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself. We don't view our own interpretation as infallible. Only Scripture is infallible. But we do believe our Confessions to be an accurate summary of the important doctrines, subject to revision by the rule of sola Scriptura (ie. Scripture is the only rule of faith and practice).
@PRCalDude
Thanks, I learned a lot from your exposition. I too hold the view of Sola Scriptura, however Catholic my upbringing and temperament. But that is far less simple than it appears on the surface.
I was drawn to the Bible since I was a little tyke, and have read it since in four languages. Unless you understand the original languages in which the Old and New Testament were written, the Middle Eastern linguistic tenor, the history of those times etc., the claim of understanding the Bible because you read it in English, or had it explained to you by someone who’d spent four years getting a BD from Wheaton, is an illusion.
There have been so many mistranslations in the Bible ever since St. Jerome mangled so much of it that the mind reels. In the old days, when the oldest Western Universities were really schools of Christian theology with professors fluent in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, I think that understanding of the Bible was deeper than now.
How many Christians (particularly RCC and Orthodox) know that Amen is Hebrew for Believe or I believe, that Hallelujah is Hebrew for Praise the Lord, and that Jesus’ words on the cross were in Aramaic-Hebrew, and not in the language of one’s fair-haired parish?
I was drawn to the Bible since I was a little tyke, and have read it since in four languages. Unless you understand the original languages in which the Old and New Testament were written, the Middle Eastern linguistic tenor, the history of those times etc., the claim of understanding the Bible because you read it in English, or had it explained to you by someone who’d spent four years getting a BD from Wheaton, is an illusion.
I'd agree up to a point. I think the things necessary to be understood about salvation are understood in the translations into the native language, if the translations are done by a careful translator. Obviously, Luther was very careful in his translation into German. The ESV and NASB are very good English translations.
But you're right that the nuances of Greek and Hebrew can't be understood unless you read Greek and Hebrew. That's what ministers are for - to explain the original texts! I have been fortunate enough to sit under the preaching of some very accomplished Greek and Hebrew scholars.
PRCalDude, now that you've mentioned it, can you explain the difference between the Presbyterians and the Reformed churches in the United States, please? Is the difference in the creed (Westminster, Dordt, etc) or is it more than just that?
In Europe, 'Reformed' usually means 'Calvinist' and this generally also implies a fully Presbyterian polity, not a congregational model, unless we're talking about Reformed Baptists who affirm TULIP but follow a Baptist creed and are congregationalists (e.g. Spurgeon).
Btw, I agree that most mainstream Protestant and Evangelical denominations are without creed. I recall that in the PCUSA, the Westminster creed has become something of a relic from a distant past rather than something that members actually believe to be a summary of the Christian faith and the beliefs they hold.
I'm denomination-less myself although I've become 'Reformed' in my theological views, but I don't hold membership in any church and that's unlikely to change any time soon since I don't wish to be a member of any of the 'evangelical' churches here anymore, and most of the few 'protestant' churches in Flanders are actually pretty liberal, I'm afraid.
I haven't read all of the historic creeds but I fully affirm the Nicean Creed and believe it to espouse the fundamentals of the Christian religion.
Best regards to all on this great blog.
PR
@thepalerider
You may want to try my method -- good mainly in Europe.
I go to churches the way people go to different restaurants. I don't care what the denomination is, as long as the church is at least 300 years old, preferably 500. I travel for that purpose.
The church itself will give you a lot, even if the officiating ministrant is a lesbian socialist. Just shut her out of your mind.
PRCalDude, now that you've mentioned it, can you explain the difference between the Presbyterians and the Reformed churches in the United States, please? Is the difference in the creed (Westminster, Dordt, etc) or is it more than just that?
In Europe, 'Reformed' usually means 'Calvinist' and this generally also implies a fully Presbyterian polity, not a congregational model, unless we're talking about Reformed Baptists who affirm TULIP but follow a Baptist creed and are congregationalists (e.g. Spurgeon).
The Presbyterians hold to the Westminster Standards (the WC and Larger and Shorter Catechisms). The were authored in 1646, a full 90 years after the Heidelberg Catechism. The Westminster Confession and Catechisms are more robust in their covenant theology than the Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism, but they basically harmonize with both. The difference is largely in church polity. The Presbyterians (the OPC and PCA) have an actual brick and mortar office each for their entire denomination. The URCNA doesn't. Here's a good summary of the polity of the latter. In both the Presbyterian and Reformed cases, elders (including the teaching elder) are elected by the congregation. Presbyterians have a ruling elder and the Reformed don't. Presbyterians convene a general assembly each year while the Reformed convene a synod only once every 3 years, so governance in the URCNA tends to be much more local.
The Reformed churches operate on the 3 Forms of Unity (the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort). The Canons of Dort are a rejection of arminian errors.
Baptists are not Reformed or Calvinist, because they hold to a different view of baptism and teh Lord's supper than do Calvinists/Reformed/Presbyterians. They also hold to a much less robust/nonexistant covenant theology than the Reformed/Presbyterians. Read the WEstminster Confession and compare it with the London Confession of 1689 in the parts dealing with "God's Covenant with Man" and "The Sacraments." I try to avoid theological discussions with Baptists, though the London Confession and Westminster Confession agree on the gospel.
@ Takuan: I've considered doing that as well but what you have to understand is that the Church is really the invisible body of true believers, so local Church meetings are supposed to encourage Christian fellowship, discipleship, the preaching the Word, and to have communion with other believers in celebration the Lord's Supper. So I might as well stay at home and use the Internet to get my daily portion of spiritual food instead of visiting spiritually dead or theologically unsound churches. Of course it's far from ideal but at the moment I have little choice. :-/
@ PRCalDude: thanks a lot for taking the time to explain. It's very much appreciated. Looks like I have something to keep me busy for the next couple of days. ;) What denomination do you belong to yourself? Btw, Francis Schaeffer is an interesting guy. I will have to check out his book you recommended to Takuan earlier in this thread, since I come from an Evangelical and Arminian/dispensationalist background. In the course of the past few years, I've gradually shifted toward the 'Reformed' faith, especially in matters of soteriology, though there are still topics left that I should look at more closely, e.g. baptism.
God bless!
@palerider
The point you made is basic, of course. But my point was that increasingly it may become impossible for a conservative Christian with an informed conscience to find a body of compatible believers in one’s town or even country. It is possible to find such fellowship on the Web, but a computer has its limitations. The way I suggested helps me, at least, to make up for those limitations.
> Large swathes of practicing Christians, particularly among Roman Catholics and in the Eastern rites are not taught that there is any connection, let alone a positive one, between Judaism and Christianity, and even deny it with considerable indignation.
In order to do that they would have to scrap all the Scriptures. If you say that the link is taken for granted or demeaned, I could understand it.
I find also very difficult to understand that the image will cause indigestion to Catholics. Isn't it in a Catholic Church? Can you provide evidence of any complaint of the local Catholics?
Moreover, an orthodox Jew will feel something stronger than indigestion or indignation for the assotiation of Jehova with idolatry. Did those trinitarian idolaters write it with vowels? I cannot appretiate it in the photo.
@AMDG
You are wrong about the Scriptures, but a wise and informed Protestant has already commented on the matter in the preceding comments. I’d say you are even more off if one considers the political context in which the New Testament was compiled, the political struggles between the early Jewish and Greek Christians, the deep seated animosity between Jews and Seleucid Greeks preceding the birth of the Church by 5 centuries, and the fact that it was ultimately the Greek faction that got to write history and compile the New Testament.
As to your other comments, you are venturing beyond my words and intentions. You are not wrong, but there is more to it than can be put in here. Briefly, I’d not stated that the image would offend Catholics, but antisemites who deny the connection between the Judeo and the Christian part of this civilization and its founding religion. The Catholic angle comes in because in Central and Eastern Europe Catholics are rarely taught about that connection, and once upon a time it was so for Western Catholics too. It’s fundamentally different in the Protestant faith in this respect as well.
As to Jews, of course there are various narrow minded religious or other type of fanatics on that side too. An Orthodox Jew would likely not be happy with finding his God’s name in a church. Various religious Jews and Jewish organizations have mounted indignant protests about crosses in public places, e.g. in Auschwitz. I am not happy with any of these, though it’s nothing compared with what Muslims make of such things.
What denomination do you belong to yourself?
I belong to the URCNA myself, but I've belonged to the OPC in the past. Both are sister denominations.
n the course of the past few years, I've gradually shifted toward the 'Reformed' faith, especially in matters of soteriology, though there are still topics left that I should look at more closely, e.g. baptism.
That seems to be pretty common these days, actually. I think "Recovering the Reformed Confession" by R. Scott Clark will convince you of the Reformed position. For the infant baptism issue, Lee Irons has some great .mp3s on his blog (linked earlier). Danny Hyde's book "Jesus Loves the Little Children" is good as well.
@ Takuan: I'm glad to see we agree on the purpose of church gatherings. What you wrote exactly describe my current position. Christians are called to have fellowship with other believers but at this point it is beyond my means and possibilities to move elsewhere and join a 'compatible' church. Quite frankly I'm afraid there are hardly any such churches left in Flanders and most of [Western] Europe to begin with. Actually, most of what I know of Christianity has been through my own study using the Internet. I more or less 'discovered' the Reformed faith through the writings of the Puritans, which really deeply touched me at some point in my life, and sparked a desire in me to learn more about their beliefs.
Virtually all of my contact with other Christians today is restricted to cyberspace but I don't really experience much 'fellowship' this way. It can be tough and frustrating at times, especially since I am only a young man and I am troubled with the whole situation. I get rather alienated from the world around me because I just don't fit in and I basically have to keep what drives my very being to myself because people don't understand. Modern Western culture has little to offer me, or anyone for that matter.
Problem is I never found fellowship in the church we used to attend either. It's a lot of superficial and 'emotionalist' talk and that's pretty much it. They want to emulate the early church but in doing so they miss out a lot of historic Christianity and the contributions so many excellent thinkers have made to defining the Christian faith through the history of the Church.
A lot of the modern day evangelical/pentecostal churches are going down the road of the mainstream protestant churches in embracing a new form of liberalism which they call the "Emergent church". I guess you can also compare it to the Liberation Theology that has infiltrated the RCC, mainly in Latin America. For those reasons I definitely don't wish to join such churches in the future, although it is also. in part, due to the fact that I've come to disagree with many of their theological views.
@ PRCalDude: thanks again for the response and for the book recommendations! Yesterday I found a site called URClearning.com - lots of useful and interesting stuff there as well.
I have to admit I've never found fellowship in any church I've attended. These days I don't bother - I find it much preferable to meet with christian friends and just be with them outside the confines of liturgical necessity.
But within churches I've never been able to fit, like a jigsaw puzzle piece that's in the wrong box. The problem is, the church today is dead. No, the organised church structures we see are dead. They're like corals that have been pushed out of the ocean, beautiful to look at but sterile, devoid of any life they once held.
The purpose of fellowship is to simply be together, but the modern church structures turn the means - the hurch, the liturgy, the tea rota and all of that - into an end in themselves. They say if you aren't actively assisting the church structure toward it's goal of perfecting it's own ability to function then you're hindering it in some way. Every church I've been in for more than a few weeks, there's been pressure to take part in activity. Any activity. They're forgotten that most people come to church to soak in God, not to show how busy and committed they are to the church building.
I'm not prepared to sit through the rambling nonsense of some liberal priest so I can have just the illusion of fellowship. If I want to be with God I read my bible, or just sit and wait. If I want to be with people I go to them. Until the church as a whole remembers that it is just a means toward the end of meeting with God and supporting each other it will remain lifeless and unsatisfying.
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