www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Does the Byzantine Forum contribute to global terrorism?

Dear Professor Dan,

Either way, we're on the horns of a real dilemma here . . .

Have a great evening!

Alex

While I agree with you that anyone can read our messages, it's likely that they probably don't bother. Byzantine Christianity is not of great interest to much of the world. I have had Latins visit Divine Liturgy and most say, it's boring, it's too long, it's too repetitive, the music is strange - it goes on and on. Fortunately, some do stumble upon the East or attend a Divine Liturgy and it's like the Holy Spirit starts a flame in the soul. The eyes are opened, and a great appreciation of the beauty and depth of the Liturgy occurs. That's the truly wonderful thing. Of course, there are those who attend because of ethnic affiliations, but some of them also have no real appreciation of the treasures before them. I think it takes a special kind of person to appreciate the East. But I am not worried about vast numbers of non-Byzantines finding offense on the forum. They either don't know or don't care it's there.

Friends,

If we believe the Trinity. If we believe in the Divinity of Christ. If we understand that these two dogmas are both denied by Islam. If we are aware of the 1400 years of violence between the two religions virtually all of which was begun by Islam's aggression. If we take seriously the sorrow expressed by many Muslims over the bad behavior of others. If we take this all into account I think a little honest reflection is in order. I don't know anyone who gives America a pass on idealogical grounds. Western Materialism is probably a worse opponent than Islam to Christianity. Why we should be dishonest about either is beyond me, but that is what some posters here are asking us to be.

Dan L

Dear Daniel Iconofile,

I think much of what you have said is from the worldly perspective to promote peace, social justice and moral values and love from a more humanistic evaluation.

What if you are wrong and people believe a falsehood as a result of your opinions, particularly if as monotheists Muslims do not worship the same Holy Trinity on in essence consubstantial and undivided? What if we are not united with them and you seek to united that which cannot be united?

From the beginning of creation and so often in Holy writ there is much said of separation.

Genesis 1:4
God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

Isaiah 5:20
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

John 8:12
When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

Ephesians 5:11
Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

1 Thessalonians 5:4
But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief.

You don't want to be surprised nor should you want others to be surprised.

There can be wisdom for many in the silence of humility.

In Christ,

Matthew Panchisin

Dear Friends,

One could posit that some religions can be seen to be promoting violence.

One could legitimately argue that case for Islam, to be sure.

But have not Christians committed unspeakable acts of violence throughout the centuries?

When a Russian Orthodox Tsar came back from a military campaign where he ravaged a Russian Orthodox city, a sainted fool-for-Christ held up to him a piece of bloodied meat.

The Tsar looked at him and said, "What are you doing? I don't eat meat during Lent!"

"Then why do you drink the blood of Christians?" the saint asked.

When it comes to terrorism, religion alone is not enough to explain fanaticism. We need to look at things like culture and more materially-based issues to explain them.

Alex

Perhaps some here can give an answer.

Dan L

They shoot children, don't they?

by Dennis Prager
Townhall.Com

According to The New York Times, when the terrorists took over the
Russian elementary school, they shouted "Allahu akbar" ("Allah is the
greatest").

Does this surprise you, dear reader? Does it shock you that the people
who deliberately attacked a school and then systematically shot and
blew
up little children did so in the name of Islam?

Unfortunately, the question is rhetorical. Having targeted little
children for death, there is no atrocity, no barbarity, no act of evil
that the human race cannot imagine fanatical Muslims committing.

We have already become almost inured to:

The slaughtering of innocent human beings as if they were animals while
chanting Muslim prayers.

The reintroduction of black slavery and genocide against blacks.

The murder of daughters and sisters for imagined or real sexual
behavior.

The stoning of women accused of adultery.

The burning of Hindu temples and Christian churches, and the
destruction
of among the greatest Buddhist sculptures.

The ban on women driving cars or learning to read.

The idolization of young men who blow themselves up while murdering and
maiming innocent non-Muslims -- and the theology of sexual rewards in
heaven for doing so.

These are some of the atrocities being committed by Muslims in
different
parts of the world today.

It is, of course, only a minority of Muslims that engages in such
horrors, but it is only Muslims who are doing all these things.
Christians aren't -- even among Palestinians, there are no Christian
terrorists. Jews aren't -- and when one Jew did deliberately kill
innocent Palestinians in 1994, the rest of the Jewish world was
horrified and demonstrated its revulsion in word and deed. Buddhists
aren't -- despite the destruction of Tibet by the Chinese Communists,
no
Buddhists have murdered innocent Chinese, let alone non-Chinese who
deal
with China.

With the psychopathic cruelty at a Russian elementary school, have we
reached the point where people of goodwill can ask serious questions
about Muslims and Islam? Or are any challenging questions still to be
dismissed as "Muslim bashing" or, even more absurdly, "racist," as if
religion were a race?

The truth is that everyone with a conscience has questions about
Muslims
and Islam. But the most powerful religion in America, the religion of
tolerance, has rendered it almost impossible to ask any such questions.
Most people are so afraid of being branded intolerant that the most
natural and goodhearted questions are only posed by the handful who
have
the courage to do so (usually conservative Christians).

But good Muslims should welcome fair questions and not dismiss them as
manifestations of bigotry. Most Americans have no a priori view of
Islam. As far as they are concerned, it is one more religion that its
practitioners ought to be able to practice in peace just as the members
of every other faith in America do.

I know I have questions, and I know they come from a non-prejudiced
place. And I can back up this claim.

Between 1982 and 1992, I moderated an extremely popular weekly radio
show in Los Angeles on ABC radio. It featured a Roman Catholic priest,
a
Protestant minister and a rabbi. Beginning about 1987, I regularly
invited Muslim representatives, marking the first time that Muslims
were
given such wide exposure on mainstream American radio or television. I
developed such a good rapport with the Muslim community and its leaders
that I was repeatedly invited to speak at the Islamic Center of
Southern
California, one of the largest and most prestigious institutions and
mosques in the country.

And I in turn invited Muslim leaders to speak before major Jewish
institutions.

Given this background, it is with the greatest sadness that I feel
compelled to ask two questions:

First, is there anything in Islam or in the way Islam is now taught and
practiced that dulls the conscience and thereby enables many religious
Muslims to engage in or support atrocities that other groups, religious
and secular, find inconceivable?

Second, the laudable condemnations of Islamic terror made by the
Islamic
Center notwithstanding, why are there virtually no public
demonstrations
of Muslims against the unspeakable evils committed by its adherents?

And while posing questions, here are two for liberals: Why are almost
the only people asking these questions aloud conservative and
religious?
Where are you when it comes to acknowledging evil?

Yes, some people do shoot children, and good people have a right to ask
why.

END

Dear Dan,

When Christians went to war with each other, they carried flags bearing Crosses.

I believe that the Christian religion is the superior moral code above all others.

That is what makes Christian cruelty so reprehensible.

As one person has said, "Christians hate as only Christians can - for the love of Jesus."

One thing that is occurring today is that we seem to have returned to the time when Christians lived in fear of Muslim attacks and frequently prayed in formaly liturgical services for protection against the Islamic invader.

That could be a spiritually healthy thing for Christians as a way to reawaken spiritual awareness (as well as the need for tight security).

The Kozaks who fought the Muslim Tatars and Turks were hailed by Greek Orthodox writers of their time as men of God and martyrs - when they died trying to liberate Christian slaves and prisoners, they were sure to go straight to Heaven!

The Kozaks knew that a fate worse than death awaited them should they be captured by their Muslim enemies.

This is why they prepared for the eventuality by, among other things, memorizing the book of Psalms.

This would give them a source of prayer, along with the Jesus Prayer, during their captivity so that they did not renounce Christ.

St John the Ruthenian (O Aghios Ioannis o Rossos) was a Kozak taken prisoner and then sold into slavery into a Turkish family.

He often went to a boarded-up Orthodox Church in the vicinity and stood outside singing the Psalms that he had memorized.

He once performed a miracle of having a plate with food transported mystically to another location - the head of the household brought the plate with him when he returned!

This family later converted to Christianity and helped build St John's first shrine at Procopion.

Other Kozak saints of the Turkish Yoke include St Pachomios of Patmos and St Paul the Ruthenian at Constantinople.

The Kozaks bore the same flag as did the Crusaders (notwithstanding the bad history between Orthodoxy and the Crusaders).

We are ourselves today referred to as "Crusaders" by the Islamist terrorists.

It is in faith in Christ that we can find the strength to defeat the "New Hagarenes."

Alex

Professor Alex,

You are dead on accurate. I shall spend my time studying more about these saints and in prayer. Please, God, let no more children die. Give us the courage to face the kind of enemy that would kill children. Give us wisdom to always love you and to love our enemies into submission or if the worst is called of us, to die for You. Teach how to protect Your children. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Dan L

Hello,


No, all 4 have a lot in common (4, we are taking about two generations of "Bush").

They're all heads of state. All 4 of them claimed to have the interest of their nation as their first priority. All 4 of them commited great attrocities against other people and justified themselves in that they were doing what was right for their nation.

They all justified the means with the ends. All 4 of them were equally wrong in this regard.

Oh, I'd love to, but he's been somewhat hard to find lately. I'd be honored beyond my wildest dreams to be part of the delegation that informed him of the forgiveness that we all Christians are eager to express to him, just as soon as we can find him.

I'd like to tell him that he was wrong, just as wrong as those he claims as his enemies, but just as I am not closing the doors of repentance and forgiveness for Mr. Bush, I will not close them for Mr. Bin Laden either.

Both of them are equally wrong, both of them are in equal need of forgiveness. Our Christian religion compells us to grant our share of forgiveness (God will do His part in His own time and manner) with equal urgency for both of them.

Shalom,
Memo.

You seem to miss one crucial element. Repentance. Be that as it may.

Your comments are general enough to be virtually meaningless. What leader in what phase of history would not bear the same guilt as you suggest? Stalin and Pope John Paul are on the same level. Curious.

Dan L

Memo,

I'm not sure the application of the principle is exactly correct but I would support you in such a move. I would find the action Christlike and would never condemn you for it. It sounds like something St. Francis did. Also it seems that Ananias did the same with one Saul of Tarsus in Damascus on that street called Straight. Are there Eastern example of such conviction?

If Osama would repent I should think that God was surely moving in that scene.

Dan L

Hi,

What attrocities has Pope John Paul committed against non-Catholics in order to benefit Catholics?

On the other hand, Stalin officially declared himself an atheist, so I cannot demand of him any sort of Christian values.

Shalom,
Memo.

I am coming to regret starting this thread, as it seems to be prompting not reflection but more venom...
Yes Alex, you are right about monotheism and the teaching of the Church [and welcome back].
It is the de fide teaching of the Catholic Church that man can with his reason, quite apart from Revelation, come to a knowledge of God. It is also de fide that knowledge of the Trinity can come only by divine Revelation.
This does not mean that the One God that one can know by reason is not the True God, only that one's knowledge of him is limited.
You know, while unlike Islam, there is little in the life of Christianity's Founder to lead one to the conclusion that Christianity is a violent Faith, there is an awful lot in the history of Christianity to lead to this conclusion. There is even more evidence in the history of the United States to lead to the conclusion that it is a violent nation, intent on empire, with no qualms about annihilating civilian populations to achieve its ends.
And while the West is again praying for protection against militant Islam, there is a very real difference in that no one speaks about the threat as being a judgement for our sins. Medieval men called Islam the "scourge of God"; I haven't heard any moderns say this. Curious, as modern Christians have been warning for so long that we will be judged by God for our sins. I remember that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson did hint at this right after 9/11, though their idea of "sin" was pretty narrowly focused -homosexuality and abortion, not militarism and economic oppression- and boy, did they back off when criticized! Where are our prophets?