Things the Orthodox can and do say that other churches/communities don't or won't.
Geneva, February 14, Interfax - The values of other religions, just as secular ones, should not be advocated by the heads of Christian Churches, said Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria, who represents the Russian Orthodox Church at European international organizations.
"Our role is not to protect Sharia law, to glorify an alternative style of behavior or to preach secular values. Our sacred mission is to announce what Christ announced, to teach what his disciples taught," Bishop Hilarion said at the opening of a session of the World Council of Churches (WCC)'s Central Committee in Geneva.
He was commenting on a recent statement by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams that it was inevitable that several aspects of Sharia law will have to be included in British law. His speech caused a public uproar in the UK.
"Many Christians around the world are looking up to Christian leaders with hope that they will defend Christianity against all the challenges it faces," Bishop Hilarion said.
He also criticized ‘liberal’ and ‘politically correct’ Christianity which Protestant and Anglican communities started promoting several dozens years ago. The Russian Church’s representative said that the gap between ‘traditional’ and ‘liberal’ Christianity grows so dramatically that today it's impossible to speak about one moral system preached by all Christians.
‘Politically correct Christianity will die. We have already been watching the process of liberal Christianity’s gradual decline as newly introduced moral norms lead to splits, discrepancies and confusion in several Christian communities,’ the bishop said.
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Excellent Post, Josephus. I am appalled about how many professed Christians are willing to give away their inheritance for the lentil soup of political correctness, multi-culturalism, and secularism.
ReplyDeleteThe belief that religious perspectives should give way to current day opinion forgets that pop culture knows little and changes its mind all the time. So for hierarchs to make moves to align themselves to the political/social prospectives of the day they - as a natural consequence:
ReplyDeletePrioritize an approach to life that is constantly seeking to serve the needs of the many by "protecting" the desires of the fringe and thereby serving no one.
Replace secular branches of thought with the natural law. Secularism not being the absence of religion, but a replacement of it.
Merge the Church and the World in the mind of the believer to be on equal footing so that a false dialogue is built. To keep up the Church has to follow along and comment (often very poorly) in an effort to remain "hip" "current" "aware" of its members activities. Look to the Anglicans to see how well that works.