What to do about Islamic Expansion in US?

[Liudmilla]

Brendon wrote:

However, since there's no mention in the OT of Moses ever being in the area now known as Ethiopia, then this "Cushite" wife of his was probably from the second area then known as Cush. This means there's no actual proof that his wife was black as you are assuming. If she was from the northern area known as Cush, she would have most likely been caucasian, but obviously of a non-Israelite group.

Actually according to scholars of Hebrew Linguistics, the word Cush or Cushite in Bible usage was used to refer to any dark skinned or black people.

Milla

[Hexapsalms]

This thread started out well enough talking about how to deal with the Islamic expansion (a very important question for our times)--with evangelizing, making ourselves a good witness and example, etc. But Wheeler and Brendan swerved everything into a race issue, which is stupid and does not address the real problem.

Talking about race is not solving the problem. Giogios now says that even if a black man or Chinese or Jew converts to Orthodoxy, that person is still carrying his cultural baggage. So what does that mean? That some Orthodox are better than others, depending on the "cultural baggage" they bring? All Orthodox, no matter what race, bring cultural baggage--all are sinners. But not to fear--the cultural baggage won't be taken to heaven when these believers die. Job said--naked I came into this world, and naked will I leave it.

Many races--including white--are converting to Islam. That's the problem. Why are they converting? Isn't it because there is a spiritual vacuum being left by lukewarm Christians? Many American blacks, for instance, are being converted to a form of Islam because the black Christian churches are in miserable spiritual condition as they won't deal with sin. There are even black Christian churches that allow imams to preach from their pulpits. In our prisons, more people convert to Islam than any other religion.

Many people, OF ALL RACES, ARE CONVERTING TO ISLAM because it seems to offer an identity, a dedicated life-style, a sterner morality that is sorely lacking in our secular society. But as the Afghans, the Nigerian and Iranian people are finding out, sharia law is all about sternness and punishment and nothing about compassion. Here is an opportunity for Christians, if only they believed in Christ more to speak with confidence about HIm and lived a Godly life.

So the question for us ought to be how we should meet this Islamic expansion--do we react with fear and ignorance, bringing secular solutions to severe spiritual challenges and go the way of the Byzantines, or do we become the light set upon the hill?

[Schultz]

The point is people who are living even a nominal Christian lifestyle or at least abstain from adultery, homosexuality, and promiscuity just don't get AIDS.

Tell that to my neighbor, who lost her 9 year old son to AIDS which he received via a blood transfusion a number of years ago.

I'm sure your judgemental attitude is a comfort to all families who struggle with pediatric AIDS.

[Ephraem]

The Fr. James (Thornton)(and I do not know him) is in the Synod of Resistance of Metropolitan Cyprian (GOC), and the Assistant of the known ROCOR Bishop Alexander (Mileant) a very,very sober man,that appreciates him very much.
Do you think that him is a chaplain of the Ku Klux Klan?

Why does Fr. James Thornton choose to publish his work in a racist journal like American Renaissance, providing them with a veneer of legitimacy? He has given ideological support to a white supremacist organization much to the favor of neo-Nazis, KKK types, and the folks who lament the fall of the Confederacy, subscribers to the American Renaissance program. The demons rejoice.

FJT worships the work of man (Western Civilization) and uses it as an excuse to racially discriminate. Recognizing the degeneracy of society is laudable, but blaming it on non-whites is nonsense. European culture was imported to America already rotting because it was man made.

[George Australia]

Actually according to scholars of Hebrew Linguistics, the word Cush or Cushite in Bible usage was used to refer to any dark skinned or black people.

Both the Septuagint and Vulgate translate "Cushite" as "Ethiopian" which was the term used by Greeks and Romans to refer to people south of Egypt with black skin.
And according to the first century Jewish historian Josephus, Moses' first wife was indeed an Ethiopian Princess who's name was Tharbis.
So here we have three different sources which agree that Moses married a black woman.
http://fontes.lstc.edu/~rklein/Document ... ushite.htm

[George Australia]

What a calamity, if others conclude that Orthodox Christianity espouses such vile ideas about humanity!

Exactly! If this is the impression that people get of Orthodoxy- i.e. that it permits racial discrimination, is it any wonder that people should turn to other faiths?
Our Holy Orthodox Church condemned racism 130 years ago- before it was ever "fashionable" or "politically correct" to do so.
I find it strange that a juristiction which unilaterally held a Synod that condemned false ecumenism as heresy should allow one of it's priests to openly preach a heresy which was condemned by a pan-Orthodox Synod.

[George Australia]

The Most Reverend Archbishop HILARION,
Sydney, Australian and New-Zealand Diocese.
abphilar@ozemail.com.au

The Right Reverend Bishop KYRILL,
San Francisco and Western American Diocese.
bishopkyrill@pacbell.net

And the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.
synod@superlink.com

Your Graces, bless,
I belong to an Orthodox Internet Forum where it has recently been revealed that either a priest of the ROCOR by the name of Fr. James Thornton- or someone posing as him has published racist articles on the internet as an Orthodox Priest.
An example of the ideas endorsed by Fr. Thornton is as follows:
"Man is the hardiest of all animals, and the white races, builders of our civilization, the hardiest of all races. . . . The great white races owe their success to the perfection of their nervous system – a nervous system which, although very delicate and excitable, can, however, be disciplined. To the exceptional qualities of their tissues and consciousness is due the predominance over the rest of the world of the peoples of western Europe . . . ."
The article, together with a photograph of the author can be found at http://www.amren.com/968issue/968issue.html , and appears on the same page as other white supremacist articles.
I bring this to your attention so that you may clear up this matter in accordance with the proclamation of the Pan-Orthodox Synod of 1872 which states:
"We renounce, censure and condemn racism, that is racial discrimination, ethnic feuds, hatreds and dissensions within the Church of Christ, as contrary to the teaching of the Gospel and the holy canons of our blessed fathers which "support the holy Church and the entire Christian world, embellish it and lead it to divine godliness."
I await your Graces response.
Kissing your right hands,
George