“I never said Putin did. I only point out what many here have, which is that the Church is growing in Russia (and China),”
I’ve never seen any evidence that the Christian church in Russia is growing. I do know that Putin’s Mentor, Alexandr Dugin, promotes the ROC under the same terms as that Norwegian shooter from awhile back. As a nationalist church to unite Russia, that is, when he isn’t talking about conquering France and renaming it Gaul. That’s exactly why Putin is promoting “religious” laws to give the ROC an exalted status. Not because he is so Christian or because the ROC is so filled with the Spirit. But because of cultural and nationalistic reasons.
The church in China is growing, but it’s not the state controlled ones with Priests and Bishops assigned and ordained by the state.
The idea of Christianity being combined with state-powers, being promoted by state-powers, and aiding and abetting state-powers, is simply repulsive and anti-Christian. For our Kingdom is NOT of this world, but of the world to come.
“Care to respond to that directly? Or would you rather continue to make up things to attack me over?”
Aren’t you the one making things up to attack me over? You had me here supposedly opposing Putin’s repentance that never happened. If many people here believe that Putin is a Christian King opposing the homosexual agenda, these people lack discernment and don’t know what Christ’s Gospel is really about. It’s not a social movement. It’s not a culture. It isn’t about us at all. It is about what Christ did for us on the cross.
You can keep your filthy state sponsored religion, and I’ll stick with the Gospel.
Would you know it if you saw it?
That’s exactly why Putin is promoting “religious” laws to give the ROC an exalted status.
As we'll cover next, you insist on framing this around Putin.
Aren’t you the one making things up to attack me over? You had me here supposedly opposing Putin’s repentance that never happened.
You're the one who makes this about Putin, and then accusing me of, well, let's review the posts to see who said what.
In response to this snippet from the artcle, "It is not accidental that we said in clear terms despite pressure coming from the West that we do want to protect children from early sexualization and from the propaganda of homosexuality. And we also said that support for foreign adoptions of Russian children is an extremely irrational step. We do not want these children, adopted by perverts, to lose the hope in which many of them were baptised, and to lose a normal life,” Fr. Vsevolod said.", I replied in post 6 "If you had told me in 1980 that a man who at the time was a KGB agent would be leading the battle for Christian values in defiance of the US...Unreal."
This was clearly in the context of blocking the homosexual agenda, which I included in that post.
In your reply in post 36, you made this about Putin, going so far as to say "There is no ‘Christian King’ coming out of Russia. Just a Czar wannabe who has no problem murdering those who get in his way." As if no one else in Russia could serve God in this capacity.
Fair enough. In my reply to you in post 49, I said "I'm not blind about who and what Putin is, but God has built His Church under worse, as long as the people were willing to follow Him." and "Jesus was born in the Roman Empire, and under Herod." I acknowledged that Putin was not a good guy, but also said that God could build His Church in Russia anyway.
Once again, in post 50, you ignored the Russian Christians and made it about Putin, saying "Why got to Putin or the ROC, who are built upon corruption and murder?"
My reply in post 51 was "God wants no one to perish, but all to repent. That includes the Russians, Chinese, ghetto thugs, homos, and anyone else you care to damn."
Ignoring this, you again made it about Putin in post 52, and in every post since.
Since anyone who bothers to read through the distortions in your posts can see what each of us said, care to drop your Putin strawman and reply to what I actually said?
You can keep your filthy state sponsored religion, and I’ll stick with the Gospel.
Where in the Gospel are to told to decide who can be used to serve His purpose?i