MP SUSPENDS Relations With Church Of Sweden

[DavidHawthorne]

If you are happy with the choices you have made in leaving the Faith, why do you go out of your way to come to a forum which stands for views you now disdain only to deliver bitterly offensive broadsides?

[Justin Kissel]

Good question. Why does anyone go any place where they know they vehemently disagree with the people? In my case, regarding this particular forum, I guess I'm just trying to balance the absurdly narrow-minded stuff I've posted over the years. At another forum, I am being more moderate in my attempt to right my past wrongs, because I was more moderate at that forum over the years. I would hardly call myself disdainful or bitter, I joke because I think that others take things too lightly. I mean, seriously, how does one know enough about a person over the internet as to say something like that they are under demonic influence? I try to respond in kind, a measure given for a measure received. If you respond with silly assumptions and ad hominems, I will respond with a silly retort. If you respond (as at least two people did on another forum) with serious questions, then I will try to respond with serious answers.

Of course, I realise that that might be difficult given my original posts, but hey, how does one take the position that homosexuality is not wrong in a non-offensive way when on a traditional Orthodox forum? I said what I believe to be true: certain aspects of Orthodox morality is still stuck in the ancient past. Thankfully the Orthodox no long arrange the marriages of their 12 and 14 year old kids, no longer make someone who forces himself onto a virgin marry the virgin, and no longer blame the mother for miscarriages. Orthodoxy HAS come a long way. But on issues like homosexuality, contraception, and many others, they are still in the past, because society has not forced you guys to change yet. When it does, you'll probably do the same thing you did with all the other moral stances you took through the centuries: either ignore them or claim that they were just local customs. But I don't care about your justifications, I just care about the people you are harming.

[DavidHawthorne]

I said what I believe to be true: certain aspects of Orthodox morality is still stuck in the ancient past. Thankfully the Orthodox no long arrange the marriages of their 12 and 14 year old kids, no longer make someone who forces himself onto a virgin marry the virgin, and no longer blame the mother for miscarriages. Orthodoxy HAS come a long way. But on issues like homosexuality, contraception, and many others, they are still in the past, because society has not forced you guys to change yet. When it does, you'll probably do the same thing you did with all the other moral stances you took through the centuries: either ignore them or claim that they were just local customs. But I don't care about your justifications, I just care about the people you are harming.

It seems to me that the examples you cited of standards that have changed ARE examples of local/ cultural customs. There is nothing intrinsic to Scripture or Tradition which would demand those situations. They seem to be part of an ingrained cultural mindset whether it was a carry over from the previous pagan ideas or mis-readings of the Faith in daily practice by believers. Something like homosexuality though IS explicitly condemned in both Scripture and Tradition. Our core moral teachings are part of the essence of the Faith whereas the way any given generation applies the Faith on a given issue may not necessarily reflect those morals well.
You may think that Orthodox hate homosexuals- probably many do- but this is because they themselves are only half-converted. They see the perversion of homosexuality clearly enough but they fail to love the homosexual as Christ does.
You would seek to justify your position on homosexuality because you think it as natural as heterosexuality (I quess) therefore trying to change them is harming them. We oppose it on moral grounds which we have recieved from the Church. To say that seeking their salvation is harming them makes no sense in this paradigm. It is akin to saying we harm a person addicted to drugs by warning him of their poisonous effects. Sin, particularly it seems sexual sins, mesmerize and addict us and rob us of reason much like drugs do. From the Orthox POV the person who encourages the drug user to continue in his ways is the one doing the harming.

[AndyHolland]

Good question. Why does anyone go any place where they know they vehemently disagree with the people?

Is it because you love the people here?

But I don't care about your justifications, I just care about the people you are harming.

If a virgin marries a virgin, the probability of contracting a STD is 0.0.

If two people sleep with two people endlessly, mathematically one sleeps with everyone else with such morality in a very short period of time, and the chance of getting an STD associated with that previous generational time closes in on 1.0 rapidly.

So physically your "morality" is biological suicide - it was only practiced recently "successfully" owing to antiobiotics that are proving increasingly ineffective.

Truth, peace, patience, kindness, charity, chastity, humility and love are very real, very wonderful virtues found in abundance in Christian practice. These things are indeed beautiful and having experienced them, you know this to be true.

But lust and foolishness have there own reward, and that is death.

The truth is God is real, God is love, and this age is drifting far from God and far from love. If we don't anchor ourselves with the Word - we will find ourselves adrift in an ocean of despair*.

andy holland
sinner

You might want to try out an Antiochian Church.

www.antiochian.org