I believe you've made your point.
Now back to the topic.
What's the stance on cremation in regards to fire's desecration/consecration properties?
Cath, didi you think this topic up in response to the Koran-burning threat?
1 A translation of the Koran is not the Koran; the Koran has to be in Arabic, and I suspect that few Arabic Korans, if any, were in danger.
2 Fire cannot desecrate.
3 That which is holy cannot be desecrated.
Yes. We had church leaders all over the place talking about desecration, when that is simply not appropriate. That threat was morally repugnant, but did not constitute desecration for three very good reasons.
1 A translation of the Koran is not the Koran; the Koran has to be in Arabic, and I suspect that few Arabic Korans, if any, were in danger.
2 Fire cannot desecrate.
3 That which is holy cannot be desecrated.
However, we already had enough threads about the Koran situation, so I thought it would be better to step back from that and discuss fire instead, and what it can and cannot be said to do, from a Christian point of view.
I still maintain that even if the books weren't official Korans (just because they were in English), the symbology and the antagonistic intent would make little difference.
In my religious system, we don't have dedicated houses of worship. I would consider burning down a wooded area used by Pagans to be desecration. I'm not sure if maliciously burning down a church counts as desecration; it can be rebuilt. But replacing the grove would take more than a lifetime to regrow.
Cool. It was a very timely thread. I thought the opening post was excellent.
But I must query your statement that holy things cannot be desecrated. I'm sure they can, which is why fire and water are needed to purify / sanctify them. God's presence left the First Temple when it became desecrated by foreign idols - and the plot of land really did require fire to purify.
Indeed so.
Again, we come to the difference between Christianity and the other Abrahamic faiths; Judaism and Islam.
In Judaism the Chosen People were called to separate themselves from the people around them, to achieve ritual purification and then to maintain it. This ritual purification was necessary in order to have a continued relationship with God.
Then the Lord comes along and turns this upside down. He has dinner with tax collectors, and allows a fallen woman to touch his feet. When asked, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? He replies, neither.
Our Lord demonstrates by his actions that his absolute purity is not defiled when it comes into contact with the profane. Rather, the profane is sanctified by the holy. This is why in the Christain faith we do not have to seek ritual purification. In a sense, by being in Christ we are ourselves the ritual purification for the world; we are the light, the salt, the yeast. Wherever we go, we take Christ and his love, mercy and compassion with us, and there is nowhere so profane that Christ cannot enter.
Jews cannot touch dead bodies, or they become ritually impure. Christian priests can.
Islam is a retrograde step back to attempted ritual purification and separation. It does not understand Christ, who he is, or what he does.
Nonetheless, the principle I think is one that Jews and Moslems would do well to at least consider. If God sanctifies the Koran, or the Sefer Torah, or the Bible, then no-one on earth has the power to undo that sanctification. If they believe that I actually have the ability to desecrate any of these things, either intentionally or by accident, that makes sin more powerful than holiness, and me more powerful than their God.
Of course Christians can feel the need for ritual purification as well. If our house is broken into, for example, we might want a priest to come and bless it for us, to take away the feeling of violation. There is nothing wrong with that. But as a general principle, man is not stronger than God, and whatever God chooses to do sacramentally, man cannot then undo.
The heretics, from both sides of the Christian divide, were not burned in order to send them to hell. They were burned in order to purify their souls from their heresy.
I've been following this topic for a while with this unsettling feeling but hesitant to post, the OP's attitude of them being right and everyone else being wrong is a real put-off - even from a 'theological' perspective - believe what you want but this is the way it is and it doesn't make any difference to me.
I find this is the same poison that led to 'christians' burning people alive. They were 'theologically' right and would not even consider any other perspective. I'm all for one believing what they want too but when someone tells me what I need to believe, be it as a 'christian' or 'non-christian', it just doesn't set good with me.
The mention of the Koran being different because of language seems like another attempt to 'theologically' justify human behavior and fit God in a neat little theological box of preference without regard to loving one another and doing unto them as we would want them to do unto us.
Maybe we will evolve past all this one day but not without really considering was these things of God or of ourselves trying to relate to God via the inerrant 'word of God' we wrote ourselves.
It is true that God is ultimately more powerful than sin, but there is a danger in thinking what you're thinking. It could lead to someone thinking, "Well, if grace is greater than sin, then all I have to do is sin a lot and then come back to grace, since nothing holy can be desecrated." I'm sure that's not what you believe - I'm just demonstrating a potential danger. Paul addressed this in Romans...6, I think.
God is the One who makes things holy - the things are holy only because of God's presence. But God can retract his holiness from things that used to be holy, once they have been defiled. This is clear from Ezekiel 10, when God's glory departs the Temple. And because the Jewish God and the Christian God is the same God, we cannot say that God who did not tolerate defilement suddenly tolerated it later.
Jesus did not tolerate defilement either - he cleansed the Temple with a bullwhip (okay, not so much real fire, but with a fire in his belly).
So I believe God's holiness can "tolerate" less-than-holy humans around it, but God will not stand for defilement. He will leave if something is defiled, and it will require some sort of cleansing - either by fire, blood or water, to make that thing, place or person worthy of hosting God's holiness again.
To me, that is a non sequitur. Believing that God is omnipotent does not change our potential to sin, or our need to repent.
Desecration is a separate issue from sin.
I think this raises another issue. Why does God withdraw his presence?
One interpretation is that he is disgusted with sin. Another is that he withdraws his holiness in order not to destroy sin.
The same reason as Christ tells satan to get behind him; so that Christ does not destroy satan by looking at him.
In other words, when God withdraws it is not an act of rejection, but one of mercy.
I think it is clear from the gospels that this was an uncharacteristically provocative act by the Lord, and not consistent with his general attitude to the Temple or to the way it was run. In other words, he was acting from political motivations as much as from theological ones.
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I suspect you are carrying rather a lot of baggage around with you.
Show me where I said I am right and everyone else is wrong. I certainly said others can believe what they want to, but that is about personal freedom of religion for everyone, not about me being superior.
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Twaddle. Where did I tell anyone what to believe?
I am only presenting a point of view. I don't give a tinker's cuss whether you choose to believe it or not.
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I think you need to ask a Moslem about this, and see whether what I have said is true for Islam or not, rather than assuming I don't know what I am talking about.
You might care to take that chip off your shoulder first, however.
Just a thought.
Moslems will confirm; the true Koran is Arabic. A translation of the Koran is not the Koran. It can be respected, but it is not equal in status to the Arabic Koran.
If you can find any post of mine where I claim that the Bible is inerrant, I will once again get out the tomato sauce and eat my Bible. I have never believed this, for the simple reason that the Bible does not say it. The Inerrant Word of God is Christ himself, not the Bible.
It would really make a nice change if people did not bring their presuppositions here, dump them on my head, and then condemn me for what I have never said, never implied and never believed.
You come across like you have all the right ideas relating to fire and others although they can believe what they want are wrong - guess I'm reading too much between the lines. My post was not just directed toward you and I'm not condemning you. I do have alot of issues that I'm trying to work through (baggage you could call it) and I apologize for the venting - I think I need a break.
How so?
May I ask you to cite a biblical example where your second theory is unequivocally clear?
I see a few problems with it. First, it is clear from numerous Old Testament books God is disgusted with sin and withdraws his presence because he can't stand it.The emphasis is mine. God instructs Joshua to rid Israel of the sin / desecration (forgive me for using the terms interchangeably while I await your distinction) because it offends God. Nothing is said of God's mercy to sin.
I haven't come across anything that suggests that God withdraws his holiness in order not to destroy sin, but if you have, please share.
In that case the Gospels record quite a few "uncharacteristic" acts of Jesus, which show his passion to glorify his God and leave holy things holy. Think about how he rebuked the religious leaders with rather strong language, and angering them with veiled threats of destruction and divine abandonment through his analogies and parables. Christ was passionate for God's holiness, directly offending the people he saw desecrate it, rather than withdrawing himself in order to spare sin / desecration.
What statement are you trying to make with this?Stepping away from specifics, I think it is worth giving a Christian perspective on fire, and what it does. Perhaps even more importantly, what it does not do.
Fire does not desecrate.
In the Old Testament, fire is associated with God himself. God speaks to Moses through the miraculous burning bush, which flames but does not burn. God leads his Chosen People through the desert in a cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night. When sacrifices are made to the Lord, they are made through fire. Abraham is told to kill his only son, Isaac, and then burn his body, as a sacrifice to God. That which we burn, ascends to heaven as an offering.
Therefore, we can see that for the ancients, fire does not desecrate; it sanctifies. The same principle holds true today.
The heretics, from both sides of the Christian divide, were not burned in order to send them to hell. They were burned in order to purify their souls from their heresy. The fire was regarded as purgative, in other words; it purifies. The sin of heresy was regarded as being so evil, that only fire would suffice to eradicate it from the soul.
And then we come on to holy or sanctified objects in our faith. Examples are holy water, religious texts, spoiled consecrated wafers etc. There are distinct conventions about how these items may be disposed of, and how they may not be disposed of. For example, holy water may be poured into the ground, but may not be poured into a drain or sewer.
Many Christians may not even realise this, but after a baptism, when the water from the font is disposed of, it does not go into a drain; it goes from the font into a soakaway; ie into the earth. Similarly, the ashes used for Ash Wednesday may not be put into a bin, but they may be placed into the ground; buried.
And then we come to an old, battered, no longer useful Bible. Again, the appropriate way to dispose of such an old Bible is not to put it into a bin, or into a landfill with other rubbish. The appropriate, respectful way to dispose of such a book would be either to bury it directly in the ground, or if that feels wrong, to burn it, and then to bury the ashes in the ground.
And one final point. The ancient Israelites thought that the sacred could be contaminated by the impure, and so sought to retain ritual purity for their lives. Christianity teaches the exact opposite; when the sacred comes into contact with the profane, the profane is sanctified. In our faith, Christ clearly demonstrates that anything which is truly sacred cannot be defiled. If it could, that would make sin more powerful than God, which is nonsense.
Islam appears to return to the Israelite attitude to holiness; it is a retrograde step from what Christ himself teaches us, in other words. In Islam, as in Judaism, sin has the power to undo what God himself does. In our faith, nothing has this much power. You can take a Holy Bible, and do what you like with it; it remains Holy. That which God has done, man cannot undo.
In neither Judaism nor Christianity can fire desecrate. Fire purifies, and constitutes an offering to God. This may not be what is intended, but nonetheless, theologically speaking, this is what is achieved.
The difference - and it is the difference between the first covenant and the second - is that Christ can look upon sinful man, without destroying him. For the first time God is able to look sin full in the face, and therefore bring to sin his forgiveness; free, open and without being veiled.
The Bible is the story of God's gradual revelation of himself to mankind. Not gradual because God played some kind of game, but gradual because man took a long time to get the message. Ultimately that revelation is made perfect in Christ. Therefore, if we read Christ through the lens of the imperfect OT revelation, that reading has the potential to result in a distortion.
Quoting just for those unbelievers that like to say there's some million varieties of Christianity:
There is only 1 Christianity, and this is it, beautifully on display here. There's a tremendous fullness in the simplicity here, and any / all of the stuff you see Christians discuss and try to sort out for themselves is immaterial compared to this little snip.
Seeing this much is the result of G-d's Presence and His "fire." As one poster asked, how would you know if He withdrew His Presence?
You wouldn't have this Understanding.
It's not what I think of when being aware of the presence of God or of His Fire either.Don't think so little of us. I understand what you're saying. I just think you're wrong.