MSNBC describes attempts by a monastery to keep lands it has held for centuries in the face of a newly militant Islam.
In a remote village near the Turkish-Syrian border, a land dispute with neighboring villages is threatening the future of one of the world’s oldest functioning Christian monasteries. Critics say the dispute, which has become a rallying cry for Christian church groups across Europe, is a new chapter in the long history of religious persecution of the small Christian community by the Turkish state.
Tucked amid rugged hills where minarets rise in the distance, a small group of monks chants in Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ, inside the fifth-century Mor Gabriel monastery. It is a relic of an era when hundreds of thousands of Syriac Christians lived and worshipped in Turkey. “This is our land. We have been here for more than 1,600 years,” said Kuryakos Ergun, head of the Mor Gabriel Foundation, surveying the barren land and villages from the monastery’s rooftop. “We have our maps and our records to prove it. This is not about land. It’s about the monastery.”
The dispute, on which a court is due to rule on February 11, is testing freedom of religion and human rights for non-Muslim minorities in this overwhelmingly Muslim country that aspires to join the European Union. The row began when Turkish government land officials redrew the boundaries around Mor Gabriel and the surrounding villages in 2008 to update a national land registry.
Things weren’t always that way. A friend who lived in Turkey wrote to me by email that:
I lived in that monastery for two months in 98. Turkish soldiers regularly visited with their trucks and tanks. Drank tea quite amicably with the clergy etc. Neighbouring villages are barren and run by illiterate Muslims who in turn stole the land / property from Christians. I hope this doesn’t stoke violence in Turkey. That would be very bad indeed. Islamism is on the rise there. Big time.
The lives of ordinary people are affected by the ebb and flow of civilizations. Right now, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the civilization upon which Mor Gabriel once rested is in ebb. The monks look to the European Union for help, but I don’t think they will get much. The telephone will ring in Brussels, but there is really no one to answer it. No one who really cares. The crisis over the monastery is the tail end of a much longer process. The largest Greek city in the world in 1922 wasn’t Athens, but Smyrna. In the convulsions following the demise of the Ottoman Empire, abetted by the cynical policies of the Western European victors of the Great War, huge population movements — what we would today call ethnic cleansing — redrew the map of the region. Smyrna was burned to the ground and its population put upon the road. Today Smyrna is Izmir. And the way things are going Mor Gabriel will soon be something else.
The tides over the past thousands of years have flowed both ways. The cries of the victims have been heard on either side. But what is new in the game is that one side has decided it doesn’t want to be a “side” any longer. It is above such things. And normally, when civilizations take that attitude, they are also beyond help. Much of 19th and 20th century European ideology has turned upon itself; and is even now pecking at its own carcass. Paul Tillich wrote that individuals once sought to transcend death by becoming part of a community; that we wanted to flow into the Ocean and the still greater Ocean because we believed the Ocean was real.
Spirit is life. “To be carnally minded is death.” There is a man of our time who discovered the truth of this profound statement. Sigmund Freud recognized that at the root of our infinite desire lies the will to death. The individual, feeling the impossibility of fulfilling his desire, wants to rid himself of it by losing himself as an individual. Death is inevitable, but it is also chosen. Not only must we die, we also want to die, “for to be carnally minded is death.” “But,” continues Paul, “to be spiritually minded is life.”
Today all philosophical rivers run to the desert. Perhaps it is no accident that in this most carnally minded of eras, many have found not cause to celebrate life but to despair of it. That in a time when ‘togetherness’ is so publicly praised, the possibility of real community is so denied. The word ‘community’ today can have no meaning outside of an assault upon Western tradition. True belief in things like Christianity is today indistinguishable from bigotry. There is no Ocean and there is no drop. But I think Tillich was wrong to to believe that Freud was the only recent modern to understand the relationship between life and nation. Someone else did. I think Winston Churchill believed that there were greater tragedies than dying; which would have been to have died for nothing. He understood that meaning was impossible without community, the ecclesia, the universal monastery of mankind. But he put it in the language of an Englishman, leaving all the rest of us to say it in our own tongues.
He told the millions who hung on every word that issued from the wireless that “the curse of Nazism will be lifted from the brow of mankind” and “that wicked man, the repository and embodiment of many forms of soul-destroying hatred” would be vanquished. In private, Churchill was not always so sanguine. He forced himself and others, he admitted, to be brave “because everyone realised how near death and ruin we stood. Not only individual death which is the universal experience, but incomparably more commanding the life of Britain, her message and her glory.”
To lose your life is the first death; but to lose all connections of love is the second and greater.
Paul was a visiting Prof @ UCSB when I was there. Don’t know if he ever appeared together with Garret Hardin, that would have been interesting!
Had a conversation @ dinner about the effectiveness of education/modern culture to tend to produce individuals who have few, or no children.
Both those indoctrinated into the left, and those who resist on the right. Lots of connections never conceived, much less experienced.
Not to mention the more obvious.
—
PELOSI SAYS BIRTH CONTROL WILL HELP ECONOMY
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic “stimulus” package, claiming “contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.”
Pelosi, the mother of 5 children and 6 grandchildren, who once said, “Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom,” seemed to imply babies are somehow a burden on the treasury.
The revelation came during an exchange Sunday morning on ABC’s THIS WEEK.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?
PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?
PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.
Abortion is VERY Helpful to Planned Parenthood’s Economy!
Only a right wing reactionary would complain about the two-tiered minimum wage, insinuating that it’s purpose is to benefit Madam Pelosi, rather than the real intent, which is to not disturb traditional aspects of Guam’s Economy.
—
Meanwhile, @ the Elephant Bar:
Cedarford said…
“ Blogger Wio, “If we had only murdered the baby jesus when we had the chance, then we would not have spawned the church…”
I can feel the love! Reaction of the populace of Israel’s last “friend”, seeing piles of dead Palestinians being burned in smuggled out video – priceless!”
…and so the rivers run.
Europeons will not make a move to come to the aid of the cause of the monks. Islam is a protected and ascendant “religion” in Europe while Christianity is on the wane and under attack by the cultural Marxists.
Just another brick in the wall…
Who is surprised? When the popular culture embraces death in its songs, movies and mocks and derides the transcendant, who is surprised?
And when/if a new dark age falls, who will keep the guttering candles burning, when the monasteries are all gone?
Google?
The new dark age will not look like the past “dark ages”; civilization will not decay from comfort and technology (at least not immediately) to random anarchy and death. But random death and meaningless existence will be the norm. “Suicide clubs” or a Thanatos society will appear, as the jaded and disillusioned seek death, and the escape from their meaningless existence.
The knowledge and wisdom of the last 3000 years of the West will become a folk tale, or worse; banned and suppressed. For the children, no doubt.
In bizarro world Pelosi may be only effective counter to Obma’s imperial presidency. God help us.
Pelosi’s comments reek with her contempt for the plebians. Part of the social contract that has kept our Republic going is that the self-anointed Betters not go about actually calling us peasants peasants.
The rules have changed.
Sowell’s
“Vision of the Annointed”
made manifest.
To think that one dies for nothing is only the thought of those who believe in nothing.
Nothing is not nothing and it isn’t free. Nothing is no nothings and it is the product of erased nightmares.
Hope was Churchill and faith was the the blood that was shed in WW2.
Every time of the world will face its own trial.Nuclear weapons for jihadists unfortunately will be the result of the short narrow horizons the define the western political cultures.
Mor Gabriel is the next Bamiyan Buddha. Its loss will be forgotten when compared to the loss of Notre Dame 200 years from now when it is turned into a mosque.
This does not have to happen. The west is not without resources. Its problem is that it has given up hope on a reason to believe. It thinks that morals are relative and science is the only absolute.
It needs to learn that human science is based on no real knowledge of the mind. Basic science is testable and can be verified.
Charles Darwin will have killed Mor Gabriel. The jihadists don’t care about the atoms , only how to pull the trigger. May they only have one bomb.
“For the children, no doubt”
LOL
In Hawaii, it is
“For the Keiki“
Blindman says:
To think that one dies for nothing is only the thought of those who believe in nothing.
programmer parrys:
Of course we die for nothing. We come from no thing, so we return to no thing. What is no thing? How can we die for nothing if it is no thing? On the messy winnowing floor of mangled metaphors lie the seeds of wisdom. But they vanish quickly. That which can be described is not it. However, faith is a good start towards enlightenment.
It ain’t just Turkey; check this out from Mark Steyn’s blog:
Why did the Calgary Police Service permit this unruly mob onto private property in the first place? Why were trespass charges not laid against them weeks ago? Why did the police do nothing when a pro-Israel counter-protester had a shoe thrown at him, and when a rabbi was spat at? Why were assault charges not laid against them?
The answer is obvious: local politicians have done their math. There are only 8,000 Jews in Calgary, and more than 75,000 Muslims. Denouncing anti-Semitic bigotry is fine for politicians when the bigots are politically powerless neo-Nazi skinheads. When they’re radical Muslims, funded by Saudi Arabia, the politicians fall silent.
@ 6. E. Nigma
What you describe, the era of dark dark ages, would happen if we stop fighting. No matter how things may seem desperate at times in the near future, the fight does matter and the dark ages won’t come to pass. Very difficult 10 to 20 years are just about to begin. But the fight matters (and as I don’t know your age) even if the time given to you is less and you won’t be here to see the result.
Doug,
I’m listening to KAPA from Kailua-Kona on my computer. Beautiful, uplifting music from Hawai’i. Love this station. I have to do something to make my birthday a good day. Have the day off and a long weekend. Unfortunately, my wife has to work today. Here in rural New Hampshire it’s about 5 degrees and was minus 10 last night. Hence, I can listen to KAPA and dream…
Did anyone catch the report of the interview with Larry Summers yesterday? He seemed to intimate that Pelosi is the one who may be pushing for not just sun setting the Bush Tax Cuts, but actually repealing them altogether next year. The President wants them to just expire, but it seems Pelosi wants them gone sooner than that.
That’s just more bad news for stocks. It provides another clue as to what Obama-Pelosi intend to do. They are NOT centrists and some of the cabinet appointments are just window dressing, and a poor attempt to calm the markets. Didn’t work. I never thought he was a “centrist.” I am re-thinking my long term investment strategy.
I realize the above is not at all related to wretchard’s topic, but it certainly does illuminate the suicidal tendencies of our civilization. I think we are living in the decline of Western Civilization. On a personal level, I have to figure out how one lives in the light of that reality. For me, I have decided to live truly counter-culturally and embrace the more traditional aspects of my Catholic faith.
2×4: hear, hear
Go ahead EU, admit Turkey, commit suicide.
Fred, that really is the refuge in the encroaching darkness; draw near to God and He’ll draw near to you. Pity the poor secularist. Not much comfort in that. Somehow Almighty Science will save us and the Social Science Shamans will nurture us. Meanwhile demonic hordes sharpen their scimitars to slit the throats of white Europeans.
The monks at least will die in faith and the comfort of God while Euro-weenies wring their hands.
Watching “Band of Brothers” dvds; do we still have battalions of citizen soldiers to march into hell for a heavenly cause? Maybe find out before too long.
Mor Gabriel is a Syrian Orthodox monastery, which is to say that its practitioners are of the Monophysite branch of Christianity, along with the Copts of Egypt. Monophysites hold that Christ’s nature is more divine than human, and they were the ‘losers’ at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
The Nestorians of whom I was writing in the comments to “Invisible Men” believe Christ to be equally human and equally divine but that those natures are not completely united … while the Roman Catholics, Greek/Russian/Serbian Orthodox, and all the western Protestant churches all believe that those two natures *are* completely united.
Nestorians were the ‘losers’ at the Council of Ephesus in 431, but for nearly a thousand years generally outnumbered the Western church, often greatly, and had a significant, durable presence all across Asia. The Monophysites, however, remained much more localised, primarily in Egypt, Greater Syria, and what is now Turkey.
The current problems at Mor Gabriel are a continuation of persecutions that began in earnest as the Ottoman empire crumbled in the 19th Century. After overwhelming Russian victories in the late 1870s the Turks decided that Christian communities posed a significant fifth-column risk to the Ottoman empire and began a systematic effort to eliminate them.
At least 100,000 Christians were slaughtered in the 1890s, many of them Armenians. Syrian Orthodox, too, were decimated. Most people don’t know that up until about a century ago Christians still comprised 10 to 20% of the population in the Middle East, often far higher in certain areas.
By 1915 the Turks were fully engaged in the process that gave rise to the term ‘genocide.’ Something approaching two-thirds of the Syrian Orthodox were slain in 1915, to say nothing of more than a million Armenians.
Smyrna was destroyed in 1922, recalling the Turkish obliteration of Ephesus in 1304. By 1930 most Christians had vanished, usually murdered. Constantinople had almost half a million Christians in 1920. By 2000 it was down to a few thousand. Look up the Istanbul race riots of 1955.
Edessa was a great Christian centre for manyh centuries. The Turks forcibly removed all Christians in 1924, and it is today called Urfa, a locus of militant islamic piety, and the political base of Turkey’s islamist party, now in power.
Establishment of Lebanon in 1943 was an attempt to create a Christian refuge in the Middle East, presaging Israel in 1948. Christians at one point formed a majority of the educated elite in Palestinian nationalist movements — eg Hanan Ashrawi, who has now rejected her Christian roots — but no longer. With the rise of Hamas, all leading forces in Palestinian nationalism are islamist.
The militant islamist pogroms of the 14th Century reduced Christians in western Asia from a solid majority to a decided minority. The islamist pogroms of the 20th Century (plus a quarter century on each end) will almost certainly extirpate Christians from the entire area.
Mor Gabriel is merely one more example of what militant islam intends, ultimately, for us all.
What I was trying to say is this… Both ideologies (salafist and mahdist islam/totalitarianism currently represented by radical leftism) carry within themselves seeds of their own destruction, because ultimately, they deny life.
We are warriors of life. It may sound like cliche, but that is what we are. We may be theists, christians, judaist, zoroastrians, buddhists, hindus, pagans, even many sufi or druze, or fence-sitting agnostics, or atheists (poor things–they don’t known any better!
), but we all are on the side of life–all of us know, in the core of our being, that life has meaning.
When things are tabulated and added up and separated by their denominators, there are really only two civilizations.
One is the civilization of life and liberty.
The other is the civilization of death and oppression.
Do you remember when “tolerance” was proclaimed as a great virtue? Once in the door, the tolerance proponents demanded equality. Mere tolerance became the new bigotry. The majority becomes the victim of its own ideals. Saul Alinsky wins again.
But all that said, demography is history. Immigration policy determines history.
Now, off to “root causes,’ below, which only readers seeking a daily fix of mediocre theology and bombast should bother reading:
Jesus, and Paul, never reject the body, and Christianity does not reject the body. Indeed, the resurrection of the body, whatever it means, is a cornerstone dogma of Christianity.
The current tendency among declining Christian denominations is to separate/deemphasize the equality of body and spirit. As the reality of heaven and hell diminishes for modern and post-modern churches, the drive to create a heaven on earth becomes a priority. If one has no confidence in the personal eternity of the soul, then the alternative is to justify one’s existence by creating a better world in this life. This kind of belief/lack of belief incorporates its eschaton, becoming a self-consuming religion. And the members see this self-consumption as a virtue. To paraphrase the words of the Baptist, post-modern Christians seem to believe that they must decrease and others increase. That is what Jesus would do, they think. That is real charity. That we always diminish, not grow.
The attraction of abstaction to annihilation is linked. This pathology of the intellect is as old as the Garden. But if you separate body and soul you get the gnostic reward: you won’t take yourself seriously, except as you help to achieve your own end, or even an ideal end, each one of you a pure rivulet that seeks to swell the pure ocean of being.
The medieval church rooted out gnostics for reasons that relate to the survival and well-being of the community. I am not defending that persecution. Dualist heresies were many and many gnostic believers meant well. But one sees that the theology of the heresies did not promise flourishing but rather ultimately annihilation, a self-consuming ideology that privileged the abstract over the balanced life of body/spirit.
One sees the gnostic schizophrenia regarding the body in our own glorification of pleasure and utter contempt for the integrity of the spirit that coexists with the body. We are, the contemporary point of view holds, just meat, sometimes tasty and good to devour. Get is while you can.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep. Frost’s traveler goes not that way, but the abstractionists do, and they seek glorification/justification of the body/existence, a unification of the person with the transcendent, through a politics that will transcend the merely transitory. The Reich. The Ummah. The International. Gaia.
In church yesterday I heard a pastor from an African church. Some people hoped to hear him say that he could coexist with Islamists. He would not say it. He has been through civil war. He does not want it again, this time with Islam. He wants life, and holds fast to a religion that privileges life.
A monastery is a refuge. It also serves as a religous powerplant for the community, a source of spiritual and community well-being. Some monasteries diminish, others will flourish. But each is a repository of the faith.
A wise kindergarten teacher I know had one main rule for her kids: “You can’t say that ‘I don’t care.’” If we don’t care about the Turkish monastery, that says more than anything else anyone can say.
Screed over.
Go read Spengler at AsiaTimes about the death of peoples. He’s been on this for years.
Yurps won’t do anything until they feel directly challenged. Then it’ll be too late.
Sorry Mor Gabriel, you should have seen the neighborhood changing before now. Last one out bring the Bible if you can.
Doug @ 4 Reading Cedarford so we dont have to.
2×4: From E. M Forster
I believe in aristocracy, though – if that is the right word, and if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke. I give no examples – it is risky to do that – but the reader may as well consider whether this is the type of person he would like to meet and to be, and whether (going further with me) he would prefer that this type should not be an ascetic one. I am against asceticism myself. I am with the old Scotsman who wanted less chastity and more delicacy. I do not feel that my aristocrats are a real aristocracy if they thwart their bodies, since bodies are the instruments through which we register and enjoy the world. Still, I do not insist. This is not a major point. It is clearly possible to be sensitive, considerate and plucky and yet be an ascetic too, and if anyone possesses the first three qualities I will let him in!
On they go – an invincible army, yet not a victorious one. The aristocrats, the elect, the chosen, the Best People – all the words that describe them are false, and all attempts to organize them fail. Again and again Authority, seeing their value, has tried to net them and to utilize them as the Egyptian Priesthood or the Christian Church or the Chinese Civil Service or the Group Movement, or some other worthy stunt. But they slip through the net and are gone; when the door is shut, they are no longer in the room; their temple, as one of them remarked, is the holiness of the Heart’s affections, and their kingdom, though they never possess it, is the wide-open world.
Congruent if not parallel to your thoughts.
(not sure, however, I’d want to hare a foxhole with him — the old atheist.)
Mark, the western civ is not dying (yet), it is just dazed and confused. The common concepts have been reframed into a mush, anchors removed, and sent adrift, for harvesters of darkness to direct at their biding.
We are asked to be tolerant, but in reality, we are asked not to care, because we are asked to tolerate the intolerant. Tolerance, true tolerance, is only possible as a reflection of caring.
Or as an old Jewish saying goes: To tolerate evil is to be intolerant to good.
John 3:1-16
1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
3In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.[a]”
4″How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”
5Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit[b] gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You[c] must be born again.’ 8The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
9″How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
10″You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.[d] 14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.[e]
16″For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[f] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Mark: Another way of say that is to say that man mediates between the Divine and the Earth. He does this with body mind and spirit combined and in harmony, and once this achieved, this mediation is accomplished merely by living in the world — it sanctifies the world.
This is simple stuff, available to all.
I call it “the sanctity of the Brakeman’s hand” (but that is another story).
Most faiths that believe in the development and advancement of the soul hold that redemption (or enlightenment) is only possible in a physical body and in the physical world.
(BTW, Foster seems to agree with you about the body).
So 2×4 is right, we can turn the tide we just do not know the meaning of our blows in the battle.
This is why despair is a sin.
of say=of saying
Programmer
“That which can be described is not it.”-Programmer
Thanks for that.
“Our sighing in the depth of our souls, which we are not able to articulate, is taken by God to be the work of the Spirit within us.”-Paul Tiller
“That which we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence.”-Wittgenstein
nothing=nothing
dust=dust
nothing=dust
dust (not equal) no thing
nothing(not equal) no thing
As usual words fail me and I many times fail the words.
I cant even find the not equal sign on the keyboard.
Thanks again.
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/01/22/the_last_draftee
And so begins the push for the draft… Need to get all those unemployed employed after all.
@ Mark – #20
“To paraphrase the words of the Baptist, post-modern Christians seem to believe that they must decrease and others increase. That is what Jesus would do, they think. That is real charity. That we always diminish, not grow.”
I think your paraphrase is inaccurate and I disagree with your interpretation. John the Baptist preached that he should decrease so that Christ would increase. Your presentation of biblical charity — “That we always diminish, not grow” — is the exact opposite of what The Baptist was intimating. It isn’t that we should “not grow”, it is that we should discover the only way to truly achieve growth (spiritually, relationally, intellectually, etc) is through the blessing of a Christlike life. (If you’re wondering what Christ was like, try the Gospels)
Jesus said that the SECOND greatest commandment is to “love your neighbor as yourself.” That is a life devoid of carnality. Too bad the spiritually minded are so few. That, or those who claim to be spiritually minded are severely jaded.
I’m not sure what you mean by “post-modern” Christianity, but I think I understand that you are implying there is an emerging (not emergent) shift in Christianity (correct me if I’m wrong). My interpretation of that shift is that it’s an attempt to copy the early model of what Christ meant for His church to be. Which is this:
(Acts 2:44-47a) And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people.
The “better world” that they worked to create was not one without return! Don’t you think that “great joy” and “goodwill” are substantial entities that all people hunger for? To live a life sacrificing everything for the receipt of nothing is inhuman and unbiblical. Think of “store up treasures in heaven.” Read through 2nd Corinthians 9 to see all the ways God blesses giving.
The happenings in the American political arena and the conflicts all over the world — whether they are religious in nature or not — should be a wake-up call! And not just to those who believe in God, or who believe that Jesus is the Christ. This should stir every man and woman to action who dream of a “better world.”
But what is that action?
Maybe you could start by opening a few doors for other people.
Am I wrong?
Chester, yes, you are wrong in assuming that in quoting a possibly mythological figure named Jesus and a potential work of fiction called the Bible, you have proven anything.
20. Mark:
The current tendency among declining Christian denominations is to separate/deemphasize the equality of body and spirit.
,,,,,,,,,,
All the European christian churches that went into near extinction and their US cousins embraced some form of the 4th century Arian Heresy by which Jesus is fully Man but not fully God. In the english speaking world this heresy came through 17th century english physicist Issac Newton in the modern era. In Europe this came by way of an 18th century german theological school called “Higher Criticism”.
The theological doctrine that hold that Jesus is both fully God and fully Man is the crazy heart of Christianity and the source of both its humanity and its power–because if Jesus is not both fully God and fully Man we can neither have access to God nor appropriate his Power.
Churches that embraced the Arian heresy subsequently succumbed to attacks by atheists against whom they had few defenses. Congregations abandoned such churches since who would follow a leader who didn’t believe in his own God.
The theological doctrine that hold that Jesus is both fully God and fully Man
………
what does this look like?
well at the time of Jesus only one person the high priest was allowed to enter into the holy of holies–the presence of God– and then only once a year.
That meant that everyone else was cut off from the Source.
The temple priests were massive gate keepers–in every which way.
Jesus tore away that boundary:
Mark 15>/a>
33At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”[c]
35When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.”
36One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said.
37With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.
38The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and[d] saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son[e] of God!”
As a result of Christ’s work on the cross–Christians can access God from anywhere anytime.
And what would a new Dark Age look like?
Technology would not wither immediately, as it has some of its own momentum. But fundamental scientific inquiry would wither faster.
The arts would wither, becoming more banal, derivative and repetitive, with little originality (movies made from comic books, bizarre creations from the NEA?). The popular culture becomes more banal and the banality becomes the new norm, until we spiral down another notch.
Religion, and religious ideas (the transcendant) will be more openly persecuted (see rising anti-Semitism in Europe). The rising anti-Semitism of Europe in the 1930′s surely preceeded a dark era, didn’t it?
We resist the IDEA of a coming darkness, because we don’t want to give up on the future of our children, and with it their future and our cultural future. Nothing is inevitable.
But the darkness is out there, and creeps into our hearts none the less. And when Tibet ceases to be Tibet because of ethnic Chinese colonization, when the last Christian monastery in the Middle East is burned to the ground, when the last Jew leaves the UK, and when Sharia law become acceptable because the Archibishop of Canterbury cannot and will not defend his own faith. And when the United States ignores and defiles its own Constitutional precepts for the expediency of just “getting by”, how far away is a Dark Age, really?
E. Nigma: Take a trip to some of the Asian “Republics” in the CIS, Belarus or Moldavia if want to know what it will look like. And Calcutta, do not forget Calcutta.
It will look like the most of the non western world looked like before the West blossomed. Except they will have TV’s.
35. E. Nigma:
and when Sharia law become acceptable because the Archibishop of Canterbury cannot and will not defend his own faith.
………
The Archibishop of Canterbury’s view of Jesus is not in conflict with Islam. Both view view Jesus as being a very good man–but not God incarnate.
Nahncee, What darkness is is when society rejects “the possibly mythical figure named Jesus” and “the potential work of fiction called the Bible”
Without transcendent ethics and morality its either mob rule or the vision of the annointed.
Herbert Schlossberg stated:
After biblical faith wanes, a people can maintain habits of thought and of self-restraint. The ethic remains after
the faith that bore it departs. But eventually a generation arises that no longer has the habit and that is when the
behaviour changes radically.
This is what we’re seeing increasingly in the West, neo pagans, technocrats, atheists and scoffers setting the agenda.
Jesus said, in Matthew 6:23-
But if your eye is evil your whole body shall be full of darkness If therefore the light that is in you is darkness how great is that darkness.
NahnCee says:
you are wrong in assuming that in quoting a possibly mythological figure named Jesus and a potential work of fiction called the Bible, you have proven anything.
programmer ponders:
Most profound, NahnCee. We all seek proof, but in the end, there is only faith. And to interweave the seed thought provided by out host, faith that our way of life is worth saving and passing on, even in the dark times, just as the Irish Monks (and others) saved many manuscripts through the Dark Ages, decorating and transcribing them, even though they did not understand what was said. Without bending this analogy too badly, I would like to think that if the dark times do come, that somewhere a monk will labor lovingly, decorating and transcribing “The C Programming Language” by Kernighan and Ritchie. And those that find it someday, far in the uncertain future, will perhaps understand a little (for better or worse) about who we of the West were.
@ 35. E. Nigma
I don’t know how to tell you this…
I’ll try.
Throughout the history, cultures were born and went/died. It may be that the Tibet would be assimilated and no more, just a footnote in the book of history. It is up to Tibetans… they may find a way to preserve ambers that at some time can be brought back to a flame. UK may be lost to darkness, for time being, or some other parts of the world as well. You simply can’t force people/nation not to commit a suicide. It is in their hands. Our task, as guardians of life, is to carry on to fight darkness, to assure that the spiritual lineage is not lost. And we do and we will.
Each of us in their own way. Because to herd us is like herding cats. We are a fellowship of independent souls that form impromptu relationships for specific purposes beside our common thread that bind us together as guardians of life. That is why we persist.
The near future will be difficult. A feeling of futility and desperation may sometimes obscure senses. But I know that because we fight, the darkness will not last. I had a preview, once. The future is… different and unexpected in some aspects, 20 years from now. But I know that the darkness is gone then. Because we/many did not accept darkness as inevitable. I don’t/I didn’t.
I can’t tell you what the future is like specifically, it won’t help you to know. Because I am a bearer of a task that is in the future, for me to know is a marker of sorts, coordinates in time and space. I don’t know what happens between now and then, and it is not really that relevant for my task… I’ll see it as it comes in any case, the sequence will be filled in, but what is relevant is that we fight, each in our own way, or sometimes together when that is what must be done. The future depends on it.
If I told you, could it change the outcome? Maybe not, but when my task to bear was given to me, I agreed that the information is personal.
One more thing… Sometimes people need to see and experience darkness up close, to get a reminder what it is like, to get their bearings. It mat take a while, but at some point people realize that the only way to deal with it is to confront it. Reminds me of 1989, when several hundred of people came up with an idea to ring their keys on Strahov Plane, Prague as substitute for bells. In few days, that crowd grew to several hundred thousand, and the dark overlords of 41 years suddenly knew their time is up, their power was gone.
@ 30. NahnCee:
Chester, yes, you are wrong in assuming that in quoting a possibly mythological figure named Jesus and a potential work of fiction called the Bible, you have proven anything.
He was not proving anything, he was explaining something. And from your response, I am quite sure it was not addressed to you.
But if, mayhaps, you would like some information that may the opposite of your presuppositions, email me and I can provide some pointers. t at twobyfour dot info.
2×4: Could you elaborate on the “vision” you have had?
(You did not like my forester quote? I’m wounded.)
Sorry someone else was using my computer. last post was me.
Fred,
Ask your wife to spend next weekend at Clint’s Place for your birthday, where you can enjoy New Hampshire Class Beauty in a warmer setting!
36 Hours in Carmel-by-the-Sea
Dang! Messed it up.
Sorry.
http://www.missionranchcarmel.com
@ 43. mongose
Your note that it parallels my thoughts was correct. In fact, it is so obvious that I did not see any need to comment.
Thanks, did not know Forester.
BTW, If I did not like it, I would holler in opposition!
Oh… and… Heal!
33. Charles said…
“As a result of Christ’s work on the cross–Christians can access God from anywhere anytime.”
—
But, when given a choice, Charles often opts for Oahu’s North Shore!
Mongoose, the “vision”…
Not really a “vision”, it was a part of one of several NDEs I had. You would not use that label if you had a similar experience, because our reality and its perception seems like a dream and dull state in comparison with the sharpness of focus and senses in the NDE state.
The disclosure was a short segment, enough to give me the horizontal and the vertical, so I don’t miss it or interpret it in another way. I was there, in that space and time and it was more real than real. It involved a little girl about 4 or 5 years old, and my interaction with her. I don’t have faintest if/what importance it has in the grand scheme of things, I can only guess, nothing more. But beyond this, it is all personal. The settings too, they are just coordinates and it is a personal information.
What I can tell you is that the darkness is gone at that point. But not by default, it is because there are those at present that fight it.
I hope, I continue to hope. I am not cynical, and am not “wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood.” I’ve seen 5 decades on this world, and heard plenty of the 5 before me from family.
Even in the growing gloom (by my eye), I continue to hope.
But:
When one of the most popular movies and books in years is “The DaVinci Code” which is provably false, yet still attracts and persuades.
The self-loathing of the entertainment world seeps into all manner of TV and movies, and its loathing of this country, and its founding ideals are ridiculed and mocked, where is the inspiration, especially for youth? What ARE they to make of this world?
This is not the end, or a hopeless future. The Kingdom of God is not a physical place, but endures in the hearts of men. But when men turn away and harden their hearts (re: Nancy Pelosi, a “good Catholic”, and economic stimulus through family planning), where do we turn?
Well, we had the “New Jefferson” in the 1990′s, and now we’ve got the “New Lincoln” as President today, so maybe we’re gonna be alright. Heh.
I’ve said enough now, and no more.
Almost every Democrat “Catholic” is a “Good Catholic.”
…in their own minds.
Their True G_d remains “Choice.”
Isn’t that Special!
Oahu’s North Shore
It’s Turtles by the Bay – all the way down.
@ 50. E. Nigma
Can I have the last word, pretty please?
You can’t make choices for others. They are responsible (even if they are irresponsible) for their choices.
But you do make choices for yourself. An your choices may influence others making choices that they wouldn’t make if your choice is not apparent. These choices may be in dissonance (and again, that is their responsibility) or in resonance with yours.
What is happening today, the approaching three long days of darkness, is our neglect, as a group of people, as a nation or nations. You and I may have done what we can in our family environment and in my case I can see my efforts were not in vain. But perhaps we neglected to be more vocal orinvolved when things started to take a wrong turn, within the larger “family”. We can reflect and see those times when we could do more, but not to thump ourselves into chest and repeat “mea culpa, mea maxima culpa”, but to be ready for future opportunities and challenges.
We shouldn’t be hopers, we should be doers.
Yet, there are encouraging news. Tradition readmitted to Rome, affirming it has never left: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/
Pray for us, Abp. Lefebvre!
Benedicamus Domino!
Herb,
“Doug @ 4: Reading Cedarford so we dont have to.”
OK, that’s a first step in the right direction.
But what about Step 2: then don’t quote what you read.
kirk, jeez, I am not accustomed to linking cedarford with any notion of progress.
A strange experience.
Good heavens:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/01/president-ob-10.html
The thoughts of coming darkness. History teaches us all we need to know. Look to the Iroquois and Cherokee nations. Their cultures still exist on a minute level. But they have passed away as a civilization and been absorbed by Western ascendancy.
Our future depends on our progeny. The “ME” generation has damaged our chances greatly. But I see in the warriors of today the seeds of our rebirth.
http://www.warriorsthefilm.com/Movie.html
Jim
Wow, it’s hard to see what most of these comments have to do with the fate of the Assyrian Church and its people. the Turks have been hard at eradicating the remaining Assyrians since the early 1970s. the population has dropped from the mid 200,000s to about 2,000.
the Armenians started killing them off in the early 20th and the
Anatolian Muslims have been at it ever since.
there are only tiny Christian and Jewish communities left in Turkey and the Turks are intent on getting forcing out the individuals that hang on. the bigotry and hatred is palpable.
this is nothing new.
lalalalalalalala I can’t hear you … Turkey is a secular state. Islam gets along fine with Judaism and Christianity lalalalalalala
LOL
Children, the enemies of state wellbeing.
Marianne (57), I don’t quite follow. I thought I was equating a lack of C4 with progress.
Listen friends, and mark my words in this moment and this hour–
God is jealous for his name for his name is jealous.
Nor is this a charming flower to set before a man
nor one of his commands.
Yet, without Jesus, this is more than we can love as we desire peace,
and less than we can know as we desire joy.
For the sacred fire
that makes us liars–
I mean, that separates speech from dreams,
and separates our flesh from the future–
is God’s power manifested.
So, in the year and the hour– for his sake, invest your desire in Jesus.
Follow his holy fire for right now. Right now he intercedes for us in heaven!
Some will say we are people of the way.
We are people of the way.
We praise his holy name
Yahweh.
I am who I am.
I cause all things to be.
I am the first cause of creation.
We praise his holy name
Elohim.
And say “Thank you Jesus for your precious blood–
better, so much better than the blood of Abel.
How then shall we pray?
I pray, bless me a lot oh God.
Show me your kingdom and righteousness
In such a way that my thoughts words and deeds
Reflect your wisdom and power–
And that — for the sake of your honor and glory
So I will live in your presence in this life and the life to come.
For your name sake
let me hear my children praise your name.
And their children too.
I pray all this in Jesus name. Amen
27. Blindman:
Not equal sign:
On a Mac, press Option and = you get ≠.
I don’t have a PC, but according to this chart, you press Alt and a 3-digit number on the numeric keypad. The chart says that Greek letters and math symbols are between 224 and 247, but does not give examples. I’m sure it can be done; you’ll just have to use trial and error.
Yes, so was I.
Enigma,
What’s with the gratuitous comic-book movie bashing? I object good naturedly, but I would point out that Christopher Nolan’s recent “Batman” movies make a better case for Western Civilization, and the need to vigilantly defend it, than pretty much anything outside of Wretchard’s blog.
Not everything Hollywood puts out is trash. You just have to look in the right places.
Fred, # 14
May I recommmend the Newsletter 2009 by Michael Brown? It provides a framework for what lies ahead. http://www.thepresenceportal.com
#68- Afrikaner- mishmash and New Age gobbledy-gook. How does that provide a framework for what lies ahead? What is “real eyes peace” but convoluted psychobabble?
Not related to the individual topics of this discussion, but related to the Problem of Islam:
What would happen if Mecca disappeared? The Quran, the-perfect-unchangeable-word-of-Allah-for-all-time, tells believers that Islam will dominate the world. Islam commands facing Mecca when praying, and traveling to Mecca at least once in a lifetime. Islam declared itself closed to reinterpretation sometime in the 12th century. If Mecca were to vanish, would this not cause (well, besides the obvious riots, murder, and destruction everywhere Muslims reside) some kind of religious re-evaluation? Possibly “the Enlightenment of Islam”?
I’ve been wracking my brain — how can the West force Islam to civilize itself? As long as Islam declares itself perfect and immutable, it’s stuck with its 7th-century warlord/slavery/shame/subjugation world view.
If Mecca goes, their Bbook isn’t perfect, Mohammed’s revelations aren’t perfect, and Allah himself may have some explaining to do.
I doubt Our Dear Leader Obama will do it, but I would certainly like to see the American President tell the entire Islamic world that ANY further attack on the US by any agent of Islam (whether obviously state-sponsored or the so called “rogue operatives” — the “misunderstanders” of the Religion of Blowing Stuff Up) the USA will consider the Ummah (all nations of Islam) to have declared war on us and we will do to Mecca whatever the Islamists do to us: nuclear or chemical or biological, whatever is visited on the USA will be done to Mecca. Perhaps we’d give them a 30-minute warning to reduce civilian casualties. But, ultimately, touch us again and Mecca goes.
“Perhaps we’d give them a 30-minute warning to reduce civilian casualties.”
In war it is all about civilians. They are why the armies fight. No civilians no fight…
Jim
@ 70. A_Nonny_Mouse
Yea, with Allah meteorite gone, the only Islam that would remain is sufi. And despite that the hashisheen (assassins) originated from that branch, it is the only branch (if we discount Ahmadiyya or offshoots like Druze) that did not stay still and firmly planted in 7th century.
Mode of destruction: Rods from God.
Why:
1. It would take only the corner of Kaaba where Allah is located in its vaginal enclosure.
2. The rods would slice it off and bury themselves 25 feet below the surface = plausible deniability.
3. No one would see them. Instead what they would see is flames and possibly lightning effects and perceive a localized quake.
4. There would be possibly only a few casualties, most people in the area at the time (preferably when not many people are around) would be scared out of their wits and awestruck.
5. If possible, and means are found, an imprint in the close proximity composed of four Hebrew letters representing YWHW would be a nice touch.
There is another method that would be utterly awesome, very surgical and not attributable to earthly powers whatsoever = for all practical purposes the thing would disappear. Poof. No smoke even. Just gone. But it is presently in development, quite a few tears to go. By a private entity. Can say no more.