he obviously didn't mean helping the poor is a heresy. i'm guessing he's referring to the reduction of Christianity to a social outreach program.
Guilt tripping others into assisting the poor? Did I hear you right?guilt tripping others into assisting the poor
Guilt tripping others into assisting the poor? Did I hear you right?
Long before governments helped the poor, Christians did it. Why do hospitals bear the names of saints? The government has its job, and we have ours. People don't usually advertise their charitable doings, but everyone I know well who calls himself a Christian is involved in some sort of charity - usually little, but regular. It's little to us, but a lot to our recipients.Do we do them to pat ourselves on the back, or are we doing them because we Christians aren't doing it? After all, if we Christians were living the last passage in Matthew 25, the Government wouldn't have to do it. However, if we Christians won't do it (maybe because we see them as lazy bums who won't work), then the Government has to do it.
Guilt tripping others into assisting the poor? Did I hear you right?
Do we do them to pat ourselves on the back, or are we doing them because we Christians aren't doing it? After all, if we Christians were living the last passage in Matthew 25, the Government wouldn't have to do it. However, if we Christians won't do it (maybe because we see them as lazy bums who won't work), then the Government has to do it.
I think that really does happen. There are those who get competitive about it and use it as a tactic to separate out who is affluent from who isn't. Many liberal charity groups do this to a disgusting degree. They practice bigotry against the poor and if they see someone who appears neither poor nor wealthy (the true Christian lifestyle) they'll do it so they can figure out if they should allow that person to continue in fellowship. If they can force a person to openly engage in charity, they can bring the person into their gossip about sources of income, relationships with other relatives, etc and they can co-erce political opinions about particular charity campaigns.
Social welfare theology is a complete heresy and a terrible scourge against the poor. Among true Christians, socialist-style living is a natural by-product of loving each other as ourselves, thus it is natural relationship, and not a form of public display or qualification. Demands to publicly participate in so-called "charities" are always demands that you sin against those you exploit as recipients because you are using them to satisfy your guilt-needs in exactly the same way someone uses someone less fortunate as a prostitute to satisfy their uncontrolled sex-needs. It is exactly the same horrific sin against the prostitute as well as against society.
they are the ones drawing a line, not us. We are trying to be faithful to the teachings of the Church and obeying her precepts, which are the precepts of our Lord, God, and Saviour Jesus Christ. They are drawing lines in the sand by using such labels as "Progressive" and misleading other people away from the sublime teachings fo the Church. I make no judgments about any individuals and their standing before God, and I don't think anyone else here on this forum is doing any such thing either. To recognize falsity from Truth is not passing judgment on anyone. That group is confusing people about what the Church teaches about human sexuality, which is a teaching about what it means to be a human being. I had to explain to someone looking into Orthodoxy that that "Progressive Group" does not represent the teachings of the Church and had to explain to her that we do not teach that marriage is for two people of the same gender. So if it made her confused, who knows how many more people it has confused?
GKC, "Heretics" (ch 2)The case of the general talk of "progress" is, indeed, an extreme one. As enunciated today, "progress" is simply a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative. We meet every ideal of religion, patriotism, beauty, or brute pleasure with the alternative ideal of progress--that is to say, we meet every proposal of getting something that we know about, with an alternative proposal of getting a great deal more of nobody knows what. Progress, properly understood, has, indeed, a most dignified and legitimate meaning. But as used in opposition to precise moral ideals, it is ludicrous. So far from it being the truth that the ideal of progress is to be set against that of ethical or religious finality, the reverse is the truth. Nobody has any business to use the word "progress" unless he has a definite creed and a cast-iron code of morals. Nobody can be progressive without being doctrinal; I might almost say that nobody can be progressive without being infallible --at any rate, without believing in some infallibility. For progress by its very name indicates a direction; and the moment we are in the least doubtful about the direction, we become in the same degree doubtful about the progress. Never perhaps since the beginning of the world has there been an age that had less right to use the word "progress" than we. In the Catholic twelfth century, in the philosophic eighteenth century, the direction may have been a good or a bad one, men may have differed more or less about how far they went, and in what direction, but about the direction they did in the main agree, and consequently they had the genuine sensation of progress. But it is precisely about the direction that we disagree. Whether the future excellence lies in more law or less law, in more liberty or less liberty; whether property will be finally concentrated or finally cut up; whether sexual passion will reach its sanest in an almost virgin intellectualism or in a full animal freedom; whether we should love everybody with Tolstoy, or spare nobody with Nietzsche;--these are the things about which we are actually fighting most. It is not merely true that the age which has settled least what is progress is this "progressive" age. It is, moreover, true that the people who have settled least what is progress are the most "progressive" people in it. The ordinary mass, the men who have never troubled about progress, might be trusted perhaps to progress. The particular individuals who talk about progress would certainly fly to the four winds of heaven when the pistol-shot started the race. I do not, therefore, say that the word "progress" is unmeaning; I say it is unmeaning without the previous definition of a moral doctrine, and that it can only be applied to groups of persons who hold that doctrine in common. Progress is not an illegitimate word, but it is logically evident that it is illegitimate for us. It is a sacred word, a word which could only rightly be used by rigid believers and in the ages of faith.
People are throwing around the word "progressive"; I'd like to offer one of the greatest observations ever on the idea of what progress IS:
(Every sentence would need to be underlined and bolded)
GKC, "Heretics" (ch 2)
And this, I think, you'll find to be the problem on this FB page by many or most of the people who use the term.
"You cannot know why every member joined.
You cannot know what ever member believes.
You cannot know if posts are representative of a vocal minority, the majority or (far less likely) the entire group.
You cannot surmise what the term progressive means to each person.
You cannot presume to know how traditional each person is.
You cannot conclude what every member believes about homosexuality based on a few posts.
To put it simply: You cannot know anyone's heart, how Orthodox or not anyone is, because you are not God."
Right, but no one is doing any of this. We can however determine what the group in and of itself believes and supports, and that is self evident. The fruits of that group as the example I gave before, is discord and confusion.
I'm a member of that group though not active in it at all. I think it's wrong to make assumptions about people based on FB membership. the word 'progressive' is not pejorative. This desire to draw a line of 'us' and 'them' among brothers and sisters is often sinful. The brothers and sisters you don't agree with are still your brothers and sisters.
How can you characterize every member of a group based on the few posts that come to the top off the FB feed? You cannot KNOW for a fact what people believe and think based on the fact that they joined a group on FB.
You cannot know why every member joined.
You cannot know what ever member believes.
You cannot know if posts are representative of a vocal minority, the majority or (far less likely) the entire group.
You cannot surmise what the term progressive means to each person.
You cannot presume to know how traditional each person is.
You cannot conclude what every member believes about homosexuality based on a few posts.
To put it simply: You cannot know anyone's heart, how Orthodox or not anyone is, because you are not God.
It is not a sin (in and of itself) to talk about controversial topics or consider different view points.
M.