Maybe the Evangelicals should mind their own businesses and not avoid going to a country that is just getting better after Communism.
What is the proper business of an evangelical?
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Maybe the Evangelicals should mind their own businesses and not avoid going to a country that is just getting better after Communism.
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association isn't representative of all Evangelicals, plus I have Evangelical parents whom I had to convince I was still a Christian.
Back when I was an active intelligence analyst, we kept track of Soviet oppression of religious activity outside the Orthodox Church. It was pretty oppressive. They particularly disliked Baptists and Pentecostals.
Tolstoy was a prolific writer and influential figure who was teaching heresy, and so he was excommunicated. How many of our own American Christians are calling for the Roman Church to excommunicate the Govenor of New York for His new abortion law?Baptists have actually been in Russia a long time, too, almost as long as the Lutherans. Tolstoy himself was influenced by Russian Anabaptists and Quakers, that is why the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated him.
The Russian state wants to uphold a national myth of Orthodoxy and Autocracy, so they persecute religious minorities that actually believe in human freedom.
The founder of my parish got a bullet. He is an Orthodox Christian priest. His name is Alexander Hotovinsky. I know many others who suffered and/or perished who were Orthodox. In the United States people can do as they like when it comes to their religions, and they are protected under our laws. But this is only temporary. Someday, and probably sooner than you think, Christians are going to be fiercely persecuted here too, just as they are now in the Middle East.No, you just get a bullet in the head or poison in your tea.
Doesn't (and shouldn't) surprise nor scandalize anyone. Shouldn't all members of the armed forces receive blessing from the Church for their service? And if a soldier feels a certain affection for his nation's leader, is he not permitted to express those feelings by kissing his leader's portrait?That doesn't really surprise me at all.
Heresy, unfortunately, is far more devastating and problematic than you're giving it credit for. Do you know what was happening when Arius began stirring up Christendom with His "Christ is not God" teachings? Do you know how many people within Christendom were convinced that he was right and the Church wrong? A lot. So, it's not about losing sheep due to lack of good preaching. It's about the power of Satan's lies to trick and deceive people through the deception of false teachers.I'm not quite ready to call this unethical. It's clear he thinks that any attempt to evangelize those already Orthodox is wrong. He also seems to think that providing financial assistance is a bribe. It may be, it may not be- it could simply mean that the Protestant churches are offering aid the Eastern Orthodox are not. I have never in my life so much as heard of an Orthodox charitable organization. I'm sure some exist, but not the way they do in the Protestant and Catholic churches.
The Eastern Orthodox believe their church is the one true Church, outside of which there is no salvation, right? So they teach their faith and don't want people to leave it. That's understandable, but what about their faith is so weak that they can't hear the message of an evangelical, and they have to forbid that message by law? if they're "losing sheep", who's to blame; the person who preached to them, or the people that had their ears for many years and didn't apparently win them?
Repentance.What is the proper business of an evangelical?
Interesting. If you mean why wouldn't the ROC be under scrutiny elsewhere?Why wouldn't the Russian Church be under the same scrutiny?
I don't think the Gospel was created hundreds of years after the apostles.There is no Gospel more pure than the Orthodox Christian Gospel, so why preach some other gospel?
Easy, it is based on manipulate methods.I'm not quite ready to call this unethical. It's clear he thinks that any attempt to evangelize those already Orthodox is wrong. He also seems to think that providing financial assistance is a bribe. It may be, it may not be- it could simply mean that the Protestant churches are offering aid the Eastern Orthodox are not. I have never in my life so much as heard of an Orthodox charitable organization. I'm sure some exist, but not the way they do in the Protestant and Catholic churches.
The Eastern Orthodox believe their church is the one true Church, outside of which there is no salvation, right? So they teach their faith and don't want people to leave it. That's understandable, but what about their faith is so weak that they can't hear the message of an evangelical, and they have to forbid that message by law? if they're "losing sheep", who's to blame; the person who preached to them, or the people that had their ears for many years and didn't apparently win them?
Interesting. If you mean why wouldn't the ROC be under scrutiny elsewhere?
You bring up a good point some Orthodox in the US bring up from time to time. There's a ROC, Greek Orthodox Church et al. but not an American Orthodox church.