Posts tagged with 'history'

 

I was close to becoming Roman Catholic. Told you my story long ago. Many things drew me into Orthodox as “most correct” but it was writings of the Desert Fathers and Theosis that held me willingly as it was the piece missing from Roman Catholic and Protestant theologies. I’d see Theosis “in part” in Roman Catholic (I read twice through the Catechism as it was in the mid 1990s – big big book). I saw it “in part” in Quakerism (actually quite a lot in Quaker but then it was missing other things). Didn’t see it at all growing up Methodist, where I remember walking through the church (where I had a 7 day/wk after school job as janitor from age 13-18), at age 14, marveling at the sun shining through the stained glass and then having a deep sadness: “This place needs more candles”. But it wasn’t the physical candles. Methodist had the “Do Good, Be Good” right. But it could be replaced with a social service organization. What was missing? Roman Catholic had the historical linkage but it had a few things clearly wrong, or rather they were “mushy” about, as if it was willing to let some things slide in order to grow its membership rolls. But Orthodox got those missing things right. As a social organization, Roman Catholic is better. Outreach, helping programs, service — all those things I liked from the Methodists were there in the Catholic. It had history. But its theology was too mushy, more akin to an Ecumenical organization than a preserver of what’s correct. I already had the WCC (World Council of Churches) for my ecumenical sense, so that wasn’t missing for me. But correct theology was. So, Orthodox. It’s correct. I can go through why if you like, but it’s correct.

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I was close to
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I think Valerie and I are on the same page with this. There’s many competing models of how to run a society. Ours is heading in a direction that less and less resembles what America could be (melting pot, middle class, fairness and equity, just and kind) and towards a far more dangerous path towards competing models of societies. How things are right now is how things are right now. But throw a dart 100 yrs into the future. What model of America should reign? Is it this one?

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I think Valerie and … [read full article]