Comments

7 responses to “Giving Offense in the Time of Peace and Goodwill”

1. 

   Lucian

   December 18, 2006

   “they [the Pagans] had a world-view which included a belief in various supernatural forces and the way one related to the earth, sky, the seasons, etc. But they had no self-consciousness as belonging to a religion.”

   I have nothing really important to say, … just that this description seams awfully resembling the Protestant mind-set (“Real Relationship, not [just] ‘Religion’”).

2. 

   Lucian

   December 18, 2006

   … maybe it’s just one of those many, many “pagan corruptions of Protestantism”, that we ‘all know about’, who can tell? 🙂

   By the way, Father, is the page about paganism ‘out of order’? (It seems that the ‘Reply’-window won’t work — or is it just my computer/bad connection to blame?)

3. 

   NewTrollObserver

   December 18, 2006

   Father,

   Part of the interest in the paganism topic might also stem from some of your blog-readers who associate themselves with one Dharmic tradition or another (e.g., Hinduism, or Buddhism). A Hindu, of course, would not self-identify himself as ‘pagan’, but historically many of the Christian critiques against ‘paganism’ have also been applied (inaccurately or not) to the traditions of India. So whenever the topic of paganism and Christianity is addressed, Hindus and Buddhists (or Westerners associated with Hindu or Buddhist praxis and theology) might find it interesting to peak in and listen, out of curiosity, intellectual or otherwise.

4. 

   fatherstephen

   December 18, 2006

   I would not draw any comparisons between pagans and protestants. They don’t seem obvious to me. Yes. I turned off the comments and they particular post. It seemed to be a target for things I had little time for.

5. 

   Catechumen Trevor

   December 18, 2006

   I didn’t get in on the “Mother of God” comments, but it might be useful (then again, it might not) to point out that Mary as Mother of God was the subject of an Ecumenical Council that most of Protestant theology technically accepts. When I came to Orthodoxy, there were a lot of ideas I had to accept. Some I’d been prepared for by some earlier reading I’d done, others were completely new to me. But the affirmation that Mary is the Mother of God (Theotokos) and that it was heresy to say otherwise I learned years before I ever thought about Orthodoxy, in a Dispensational Evangelical seminary, from a systematic theology prof. who had earned his Th.D. in historical theology from Dallas Theological Seminary.

   Of course, we recognized at the time that a lot of Protestants were unaware of how appropriate the doctrine is, but I hope the realization that good, Evangelical theologians can affirm this title will at least spur some to investigate further their own tradition.

6. 

   Steve

   December 18, 2006

   “But the affirmation that Mary is the Mother of God (Theotokos) and that it was heresy to say otherwise I learned years before I ever thought about Orthodoxy, in a Dispensational Evangelical seminary, from a systematic theology prof. who had earned his Th.D. in historical theology from Dallas Theological Seminary.”

   There is hope! Thanks, Trevor!

7. 

   Steve Hayes

   December 19, 2006

   Thosde who deny that Mary is the Theotokos or Mother of God are, of course, Nestorians.