“In Defense of a Despised Faith ”-Christianity

Men's News Daily, ^ | 8/12/03 | Bruce Walker

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

What simply amazes me is the amount of negative attention directed at this movie by people who have not seen it.

It's a threat. Satan and the dark powers that be are working overtime. Thankfully, Mel was able to foresee these attacks and I am confident they will only serve to strengthen his faith and ours.

[DPB101]

Think Mel really knew? I never expected attacks like these. They are spooky.

[Victoria Delsoul]

The reaction to Mel Gibson's film, The Passion, shows how contempt for Christianity can become a chic bigotry. His politically incorrect crime was fidelity to the Gospel which has inspired more good on Earth than any other literary collection in human history.

Fidelity to truth, confidence that our truth is the shadowy outline of a loving Creator, and unprecedented genius which flowed directly from that confidence is the surest evidence serious Christians cannot be dismissed by serious critics as hayseeds or kooks.

Bump!

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

During the filming he had a priest there everyday for Mass, prayers, etc. He and the actor who plays Jesus, Jim C., talked about the spiritual precautions they took and their expectations of attack. In retrospect Mel was right on.

[DPB101]

No doubt about that. Not much of a churchgoer so I was not aware there are "scholars" out there trying to rewrite the Gospels with the help of Abe Foxman and Rabbi Marvin Heir of the Simon Wiesenthal Center of LA. I see the same people quoted over and over as being "experts" in the NT and each one of them works with Hier or Foxman and has done so for years. I am familiar with Roman Catholic socialists. The church does have a history of social justice. But not this. Not a total rejection of what the Gospels say. Dorothy Day and even the Liberation Catholic theologians of the 1960s would not, I believe, go this far.

This evening, Salon has another article attacking Mel. This time, Mel is pictured as Christ. And the scholars quoted? The same ones the ADL and Simon Wiesenthal Center work with and the same ones we see quoted over and over.

[Frank_2001]

Good post!

[DPB101]

So far, it is the only article I have seen that does not say everything is the fault of Christians. I was rather surprised to see names mentioned--Yagoda, Kaganovich--which are down the memory hole.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who had every reason in the world to be bitter, to hate this group or that, never was and never did. His Christian faith transcended that and he was able, after all his sufferings, not to demand an eye for an eye but to speak the truest words any Christian has ever spoke:

It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil.

[Liz]

Alexander Solzhenitsyn....(spoke) the truest words any Christian has ever spoke: ".....Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. "

These words of Solzhenitsyn, perhaps unwittingly, evoke the core of centuries-old Roman Catholic teaching that man is of two natures -- one good -- one evil. The two are always in conflict and it takes diligence, faith and fortitude to keep on the side of good. (I've read all of Solzhenitsyn's works and, I could be wrong, but I do not believe Catholic teaching influenced him. It's the genius of the man to have come up with the dual nature of man concept.)

Non-believer Sigmund Freud "filched" the Catholic concept when he wrote of the "inner room" of the mind.......which Christians know as "conscience" sorting out the conflicts within us.

And nobody has ever written of man's duelling inner forces better than genius author C.S. Lewis (a Catholic) in his remrkable book, The Screwtape Letters.

[Tailgunner Joe]

If the Gospels stoke "hate" of Jews, why is it that Israel's strongest American supporters are those who are the greatest adherants of the Gospels in their literal sense - ie evangelical Christians?

Maybe the answer lies in the story of the conversion of the Khazars.

In the 11th century, the Khazar king sent for the representatives of each of the western worlds major faiths to choose which one his people would adopt. Each one told him about their beliefs. He chose Judaism because the rabbi explained to him that while both the Christian and the Muslim agreed with the rabbis beliefs, the rabbi could not agree with theirs.

Christians believe in the Jewish religion, and worship the Jewish God, but Jews do not believe in Jesus. This is why evangelical Christians eagerly support the people of Israel, even though the Jews will always fear and mistrust them.

[DPB101]

I'm lucky. I didn't have to lay on rotting straw, a prisoner, to discover the richness of our Christian culture.

I did have to listen liberal BS tho. That is what turned me. The rotting straw of the New York Times, the intellectual prisons of our univerisities, the mindless chants of the left.

[Liz]

....I didn't have to lay on rotting straw, a prisoner, to discover the richness of our Christian culture. .....(Liberal BS) is what turned me. The rotting straw of the NYT, the intellectual prisons of our univerisities, the mindless chants of the left.....

Hey, whatever it takes. We've arrived at the same place but by different routes. Glad to hear the NYT served some purpose.

[.30Carbine]

Dear Dr. maxwell, Here is an article for your "Educating My Coworkers" file. And here is a snippet:

Although Christianity is often mocked as superstitious mumbo-jumbo, the reality is that everything in human history except for the Judeo-Christian tradition is superstitious mumbo-jumbo. Science, as we know it, was exclusively the invention of Christians. Aside from a few ancient Greeks - notably Pythagoras and Archimedes - science as an explanation for reality did not exist among the ancients.

[happygrl]

A few comments on Solzhenitsyn and Lewis.

Solzhenitsyn was a Russian Orthodox Christian, and like most Christians, was surely aware of the writings of Paul regarding the two natures of man battling it out. This knowledge is available to any Bible reader.

C.S. Lewis was not a Roman Catholic. He was raised an Anglican, but as his spiritual biography Surprised by Joy indicates, he was truly "converted" to Chrisitianity as an adult and it was an outgrowth of conversations with believers of several denominations and of course, the Holy Spirit. He was not particularly affiliated with any Christian church or denomination, but struggled in his faith as an individual (not recommended as we all need fellowship).

[.30Carbine]

His politically incorrect crime was fidelity to the Gospel

Did you see this?

[Liz]

C.S. Lewis is a convert and his writings are almost always held up as examples of good Catholic teaching. Anglican Church teachings are almost identical to the Roman Catholic Church in ritual and theology particularly on divorce, birth control and homosexuality, the exception being, of course, in its once-historical opinion about the authority of the Pope. In recent years, the Anglican Church has reached rapproachment with the Vatican and is considered today in union with Catholicism.

[Romulus]

Too bad no one told the Pope that Galileo was orthodox.

Orthodox in faith perhaps, but not in praxis. Galileo's difficulty with the Inquisition arose from the fact that he violated his own promises not to permit his scientific speculation to invade the realm of religious doctrine and scriptural interpretation.

[Romulus]

Christians have sometimes failed to understand Jews and Judaism.

Rubbish; Christians see themselves as the fulfillment of Judaism, understanding Judaism better than the Jews themselves.

[MissAmericanPie]

One must have a back bone to be a Christian. We are already aware of what lies in our future, fire, the sword, beheading, imprisonment, confiscation of property.

Revelation states that Satan will make war with the Saints and overcome them. Jesus says those who endure to the end, even unto death, he will give a crown of life.

The world will go it's way to globalism, and a one world totalitarian government, and we will do as instructed, watch and instruct, as well as keeping ourselves spiritually fit to endure.

Those who think man's nature will not give rise to another holocaust don't understand much about the nature of man. And as for those who seek to see the end of us in the grave? They have a long future of tongue gnashing disappointment.

[DPB101]

Well said. The Christian faith was a revolution. Nothing like it had ever been seen. An "eye for an eye" and reliance on "the law" was transcended by something greater.

One does not have to be a member of the faith to appreciate the positive effects of the Christian religion.

[DPB101]

Rubbish; Christians see themselves as the fulfillment of Judaism, understanding Judaism better than the Jews themselves.

Hmmm....yes and no. Not the fulfillment of Judaism today, that is certain.