www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West "God in a Box"

Wise.

I should do this more myself.

Peace to you my friend.
-ray

Just a short note from me:

Religion is not about unity, it is about division and religion is necessarily divisive. I know this personally from my experience with my family. I think of how unified and peaceful my family would be if we were nonreligious. As long as we agreed to be nice to one another, we'd have no problems, but religion colors everything to the point where my mother was upset with my brother for coming to my house this weekend and attending Church with us rather than with her (my mother is Baptist, my brother is in the process of becoming Orthodox).

But, Jesus did not come to bring unity. Jesus came to bring divisions and the sword. Our Lord says in one place, "I come to not to bring peace but the sword..." and also, "Unless you hate father and mother, brother and husband and wife, you have no part of me..." The Gospel is necessarily divisive and the Word of God cuts "like a two-edged sword," separating out the wheat from the chaff. We should expect that this is the case within the Church as well as outside of it. All we can do is learn to be more humble, more holy, and perhaps, learn to mind our own business and give others the freedom to worship God in their way, whether they are right or wrong. In the end, God will judge all things.

Joe

Quote someone wiser than me. I was speaking through frustration. Have you read Two Lung's comments? Very thoughtful.

Peace to you my friend.
-ray

Don't go given them any ideas .. if they knew someone else was more ornate than they .. this might start a fashion war

I mean no disrespects (or maybe I do?) but a friend of mine attended a funeral for a well known bishop one day. He was indeed standing with the dignataries from several churches ... all bishops. And it seemed to him that he was standing in a line of clowns in competition for the most outlandish costume. How they could all stand there with straight faces was a miracle.

I noticed that John Paul II never (or seldom) wore some of the more ornate get-ups that previous Popes had. He tended to like just the simple stuff with the white beenie.

-ray

In fact I married a good Protestant and I can tell you for a fact that I understand God better than she does - but He listens to her good heart more than He listens to me.

But would you not think that even the sacraments grow out of the gospel?

If we think of the gospel as only the pages of a book .. I think we call the shell of the egg for the egg itself.

What I mean is that the gospel is actually the life of Jesus here on earth. That is the 'good news'. That Jesus is the Christ and is also the Son of God.

So is not the gospel .. really ... the event of Jesus Christ living among us? and the written gospels are secondary to (record something of) that event? In that way Jesus on earth IS the gospel and the written gospels are witness to that event?

I think, in a way, that everything the church does ... presents .. the gospel. Tells the story. Reflects the history. Impresses the message.

And in many ways the Church (organized) does not fully understand the written gospels in all areas. The church admits that and debates the meaning of some of its passages. And so it seems to me that the church is not fully able to give us the gospel (the full event of Jesus amoug us) but rather has the commission to point us to that event and witness to that event.

If the church were able to fully give .. us the gospel ... what need would we have to make efforts to live .. the gospel? What a man is given (salvation in a box) he has no need to go out and work for to obtain.

Do not we all (at times) seem to think that the more we accumulate of the church - the grander our salvation? Salvation becomes a possession? The best house. The best car. The best theology. The best church.

Is the church a means or is it an end? If I were a bishop in my office wearing religious clothing and speaking in the name of Jesus - and I more assured of my own holiness? Perhaps another way to ask the same questions is .. has the church packaged God into a box? and when we have that box - do we have God?

These are not trick questions. I am not setting you up for any reply I am planning to give. I would sincerely read your answers.

I would submit that the church IS .. God in a box .. and when we receive that box .. we ourselves must open it. We must not be content with just the box. Although when my kids were young and received Christmas presents they sometimes preferred the box to the contents.

Does any of this make sense?

-ray

Oh yes it does ! Ray, that was one of the best, most thoughtful, and thought-provoking posts I've read in a while. Thank you !

-- John

Yes, and the Gospel is important! But I was trying to point out that the original message could have been written by ANYONE who calls himself a Christian . . . because it spoke of the Gospel as THE message. As I said, if I believed that, I'd stay home and read my Bible. Cheaper and easier than church! I don't think the sacraments exist to illustrate the Gospel; I think the Gospel is here to attract us to the Church and the sacraments . . .

Dave

Dave, you said of my comment, "The entire statement is so broad as to be meaningless. Replace "Christian" with any other faith, or even "human," and it's just as true."

Consider your second sentence, You have made my point for me. Yes, you could replace the word Christian with Moslem or Jew. You seem to be implying that I am saying that my approach to the issue takes Christianity off a pedestal and just makes it one of many religions and of equal value with them. Are you?

( I'd better quit while I'm ahead )

John,

I think what our brother David is pointing out is that your description of the Church is describing the wheat and the tares without distinction. Since Our Lord has already said that the tares will be allowed to grow up alongside the wheat, but at harvest time the tares will be thrown into the fire but the wheat gathered up into barns, it may indeed by worthwhile to make such a distinction.

In other words, there have always been both true Christians and false Christians--God knows this, and it is part of His plan. True Christians are being transformed into the image of Christ in a way that is neither seen nor understood. They continuously repent of both their known sins and their "hidden sins," and thank God for His forgiveness. Where we see behavior that is "un-Christlike" or contrary to the Gospel, it may be either the action of a false Christian or the "hidden sin" of a true Christian--to an outside observer, it would look exactly the same.

For this reason, then, Christians are sometimes intolerant of sin but charitable towards the sinner (i.e., Christ-like), while sometimes the reverse is true (not that they're "charitable" towards sin, but--you get the picture). In the latter case, we see things like Christians persecuting other religions and even other Christians.

At Baptism and Chrismation, we receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Who enables us to discern good fruit from bad. There are both internal and external means for doing this--internal means include prayer, the sacraments, askesis, etc., while external means include both reading and spiritual guidance, as well as discussion such as we have in this forum. It also includes things such as "looking for God's fingerprints" in the events of our lives.

If I fail to exercise spiritual discernment, but assume that I possess knowledge of God's will without seeking it in humility, I am truly in danger of "putting God in a box."


Peace,
Deacon Richard

Richard, I was not finding fault with Dave. If he answers yes to my question, I would have said that he had gotten it right. Christianity --OR SHOULD I SAY THE CHURCH-- ANY CHURCH----despite the fact that I am a Christian---should be knocked from its pedestal and realize (I realize I am animating a religion which is not possible)is one religion among many. If it did so, perhaps (in my opinion)it would become more tolerant to other faiths on this planet.

Father Deacon Richard, outstanding post!

Joe

Very nicely put . . . and I won't argue with it, except to say that perhaps you give me too much credit.

Dave

John,

I suppose I had two issues with your comment. The first is really more about me than you: Over the past two decades, I've come to really dislike hearing people use the generic term "Christian." Just last summer, for instance, some co-workers of mine who are Evangelicals did missionary work in Siberia, because to them, the Orthodox are no more Christian than Catholics are! As an Eastern Catholic, that really rubs me the wrong way. I certainly shouldn't have let that sway my read of your comments, though, so I apologize.

The other issue is related: if you use the term "Christian" are you heaping the collective sins of all who claim the term on all of us? That hardly seems fair; there are many faiths and belief systems out there that claim to be Christian that push the limits of any workable definition. (There are hate-groups out there that claim to be, for example.)

Anyway, I tend to agree with you about needing more tolerance among faiths, but to get back to the title (God in a Box) of this chain, I think the Eastern Churches, tending more toward the Mystery of Faith than the Legalities of Faith are less guilty of putting God in a Box than many other Christian denominations.

(Oh my, do I sound too self-righteous here?)

Dave

Not at all.

-ray