Kim Davis

[rusmeister]

No. I see it terms of legality. To say that someone has the legal right to do something is to recognize that some governing body that confers legal status upon the thing that the person wants to do has decided "okay, people can now do this thing without any legal repercussions in terms of going to jail, etc." (or "with some legal benefits via XYZ"). It's not that morals don't have anything to do with this; it's that what is morally right and what is a legal right are often not the same thing, not because we don't want them to be, but because they just aren't. Because we don't live in a world where everyone is Orthodox, or even Christian, or even heterosexual. What's to be done about that...make everyone be Orthodox Christians insofar as it is possible without compromising what that means? Yes! And that's precisely why we don't look to Evangelicals adoringly as though they know anything about what that means just because they too don't view homosexual marriage as legitimate. That's why I've posted in this thread at all (since I'm not EO, the OP doesn't even pertain to me). Because what we need to do to get to where we want to get to isn't going to be accomplished by settling this one issue. Gay marriage could be re-illegalized tomorrow and it would not transform society in such a way as to bring it in line with traditional Christian anthropology and morals (as it was already way out of whack with that last year, when this stuff was still illegal at a federal level, or twenty years ago, when it was still illegal everywhere in the USA). Sure, gay marriage being legal (and all this other sexuality and gender based stuff that is everywhere) certainly isn't helping, but...well...what can anyone say? The world is not getting any easier out there, so we have to work harder and smarter than we have been, and not rely on the lazy, entitled Evangelical mainstream to do our work for us when we'd be better off doing it ourselves than making quasi-saints of their flash-in-the-pan culture warriors. So I personally see the Kim Davis approach as one fitting Evangelicals, who have a very politicized and surface level understanding of Christian morality in the first place, but not for Orthodox Christians, who are supposed to have a holistic, deep lived knowledge of personhood, rights, and all of these other things that cannot be limited to "Don't be gay cuz Jesus says so", which is the (only) message that people outside of Christian circles seem to be getting from this whole mess.

I agree with you on nearly everything here, dzheremi, which is why I've been saying what I'm saying. The chief misunderstanding here seems to be that I suggest adoring Davis, when I see her as a victim, put in a difficult situation that none of us want to be in, and making a hard choice, one that requires courage, even if she is "a bear of very little brain". I think that, from such "bears", even if they have none of the brains or wisdom of Chrysostom, even if they can only say, "Don't be gay cuz Jesus said so" - and the enemies of faith will not WANT to get any other message - they would dismiss a Chrysostom as "blathering nonsense", they are still showing courage, and not cowardice, and are trying to do the right thing, not the wrong thing. You disagree, you think resigning best. I get that, and I don't agree. And I don't think resistance to illegitimate government commands to be an especially evangelical Protestant act.

You say, as I understand it, that we ought to obey and/or honor commands of the government regardless of their morality because they are legal. I disagree. That's what all of the talk of "rights" boils down to. You think we must submit because a government agency has said "they have a right". I don't think we should. It all comes down to that.

 

[RDKirk]

On the contrary. Christ, himself, made himself a public servant of the highest order. It did not entail deferring to the World in matters of religious morality. On the contrary; which was why he was officially executed - and on the trumped-up charge you are now peddling: disobeying the state.

Pardon me, but Jesus is not an elected official. Jesus is king.
Don't equate Davis with Jesus.
Don't equate county clerk with King of Heaven, Lord of Lord, King of Kings.

 

[paul becke]

I love it when Protestants come on here and tell us that we ought to have a deeper awareness of "historic Christianity" Lol.

Who is the Protestant you refer to? Since when has Eastern Orthodox church countenanced sodomy? And make-believe marriages?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it is held to be only a political difference that separates the Orthodox church and Roman Catholicism, and both are perfectly in line with Judaism, notably, Leviticus - although Paul, I think mentions unnatural lusts, catamites, etc., in one of his admonitions.

 

[GregConstantine]

"Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it is held to be only a political difference that separates the Orthodox church and Roman Catholicism"

I'm correcting you, and you are wrong. But please start another tread if you wish to discuss the very important real doctrinal and theological differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. This tread is about Orthodox making a hero out of Kim Davis.

"Since when has Eastern Orthodox church countenanced sodomy and "make believe marriages?"

So if you disagree with making Kim Davis into a hero/martyr you are automatically endorsing sodomy? Wow, what a leap!

 

[jckstraw72]

pointing to examples to elucidate a point is not necessarily to equate the present situation with the examples. classic mistake.

 

[jckstraw72]

Rus wins cause

 

[rusmeister]

On the contrary. Christ, himself, made himself a public servant of the highest order. It did not entail deferring to the World in matters of religious morality. On the contrary; which was why he was officially executed - and on the trumped-up charge you are now peddling: disobeying the state.

Hi, Paul,
I agree with you on the issue of appropriate action, but it's hard for Orthodox to talk with non-Orthodox about the nature of Christ's actions, death, Resurrection and so on. We don't share the same theology and Christology.

 

[rusmeister]

"Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it is held to be only a political difference that separates the Orthodox church and Roman Catholicism"

I'm correcting you, and you are wrong. But please start another tread if you wish to discuss the very important real doctrinal and theological differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. This tread is about Orthodox making a hero out of Kim Davis.

"Since when has Eastern Orthodox church countenanced sodomy and "make believe marriages?"

So if you disagree with making Kim Davis into a hero/martyr you are automatically endorsing sodomy? Wow, what a leap!

I appreciate your objection to unwarranted leaps, Greg, and I get that you are not actually endorsing sodomy, and that you think it an unhealthy and dangerous thing.
I think the leaps can go both ways, though; that if it is possible to conflate objection to Davis's actions with approval of sodomy, it is equally possible to conflate seeing her as a victim trying to take the right stand with treating her as a martyr of the Orthodox Church. None of us are trying to do these extreme things. I believe our intentions to all be to uphold Orthodox teaching on sexuality. We disagree on the best course of action when told to uphold an immoral ruling.

 

[GregConstantine]

That wasn't directed at you Rumeister (the leap thing)

"that if it is possible to conflate objection to Davis's actions with approval of sodomy,"

Only if you react with a knee jerk reaction based on emotionism.

 

[jckstraw72]

what color is this?

 

[rusmeister]

That wasn't directed at you Rumeister (the leap thing)

"that if it is possible to conflate objection to Davis's actions with approval of sodomy,"

Only if you react with a knee jerk reaction based on emotionism.

Understood, and thanks, Greg!
I've reacted with emotionalism and knee jerks before...

I want to keep animosity down and outline what we actually disagree on and not what we don't disagree on. I think it comes down to what I said in my previous post. No one here supports sodomic relationships and no one is making Davis into an Orthodox martyr. I think all Orthodox here will agree on that. We disagree on the right course of action when someone comes barging into our office, workspace, or whatever and demands that we acknowledge something we can't acknowledge.

 

[GregConstantine]

sounds good!

I would kindly suggest if you don't mind, perhaps reading some of the posts a little bit slower. Your statements in response sometimes don't seem to quite fit what we are saying.

"no one is making Davis into an Orthodox martyr."

Not here on TAW, no (not Orthodox at least) but, unfortunately, some Orthodox people are. I mentioned in my earlier posts that some Orthodox people are doing exactly that on FB.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

I can't believe we're on page 17 of this topic. lol

 

[dzheremi]

the enemies of faith will not WANT to get any other message - they would dismiss a Chrysostom as "blathering nonsense", they are still showing courage, and not cowardice, and are trying to do the right thing, not the wrong thing.

Absolutely, yes.

You disagree,

No I don't. (See above)

you think resigning best. I get that, and I don't agree. And I don't think resistance to illegitimate government commands to be an especially evangelical Protestant act.

I'm not saying it is. I'm saying that the reasoning behind it is typical of Evangelical Protestantism, with its shallow and frankly self-serving application of morality regarding things like marriage (Kim Davis wouldn't have been remarried 4 times in your or my church, because we do not do such things), rather than the sacramental understanding that Orthodox have.

You say, as I understand it, that we ought to obey and/or honor commands of the government regardless of their morality because they are legal.

That's the exact opposite of what I said in the post you liked on the previous page, where I made the point that what is legal (in the sense of being a legal right) is often not morally correct. Because you had written that nobody can say that they have a right to marriage, but you won't recognize it as legitimate, and I replied that yes, they do. There's no contradiction here because what the government, which is not governed by Orthodox Christian principles in the first place, has decided that they can do obviously is not bound by what we will or will not accept. So of course they have a right to do that, even if we don't recognize it. And I never said that we are to follow them regardless of their lack of morality, only that legality and morality are not the same thing. Something can be moral and illegal or immoral and legal. In fact, I would say the Kim Davis case is a good illustration of both. She took the moral, but illegal, position that we should all take (homosexual marriage is wrong, and we ought not participate in legitimizing it) in a context in which the law she was defying is legal, yet immoral. It seems that you consider my pointing this out to be making a value judgment on which laws should or shouldn't be followed, but really I'm just trying to illustrate a distinction that you are continuously not understanding (or at least not properly summarizing) in your replies to me. It is one thing to say, as you've said, that rights can only exist if they are moral. It's another thing to not recognize the reality that we are actually living in where there are plenty of legal rights that are immoral. Abortion, gay marriage, the virtual banning of religious faith from the public square, etc. None of these are morally correct, but they are all what we are fighting against because they are in fact legal.

I disagree. That's what all of the talk of "rights" boils down to. You think we must submit because a government agency has said "they have a right". I don't think we should. It all comes down to that.

See above.

 

[GregConstantine]

"I can't believe we're on page 17 of this topic. lol"

That's because posts are not being read very thoroughly.

 

[jckstraw72]

"I can't believe we're on page 17 of this topic. lol"

That's because posts are not being read very thoroughly.

thoroughbreds? why'd you bring them up?

 

[paul becke]

There is always a danger that must be guarded against, of Christians being influenced however subliminally, by the propaganda of the homosexual lobby ever striving to conflate a lack of moral principles, a self-serving relativism, with 'tolerance', and moral objections to their lobbying with 'bigotry' (this latter word has now been virtually excised from the English language through its repeated misuse).

They prefer not to criticize Christianity in public, verbally, while attacking it as fiercely as they can by their actions (an unintended pun) in the courts). In fact, ironically, when they want to make a moral point, inevitably speciously, they will usual invoke Christianity, biblical quotes (which, more often than not, are erroneously remembered, and always erroneously interpreted). They can hardly invoke the nihilism to which their relativism inevitably leads. Just vapid watch-words, such as the aforesaid, 'bigotry', and their sorrily deficient knowledge of Christian teaching.

This is a brutal, savage war, but they don't want the public to know it, even as they sue Christians for witness to the truth. So, their modus operandi is normally, not an overtly fierce contentiousness, but 'sweet-talking' - developed into a fine art.

Rusmeister would you care to point to one or two fairly significant differences between the catechetical tenets of Orthodoxy and those of the Roman church (apart from 'tu quoque')?

 

[paul becke]

"Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it is held to be only a political difference that separates the Orthodox church and Roman Catholicism"

I'm correcting you, and you are wrong. But please start another tread if you wish to discuss the very important real doctrinal and theological differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. This tread is about Orthodox making a hero out of Kim Davis.

"Since when has Eastern Orthodox church countenanced sodomy and "make believe marriages?"

So if you disagree with making Kim Davis into a hero/martyr you are automatically endorsing sodomy? Wow, what a leap!

Why don't you take your own advice and read posts properly? It takes no great leap of the imagination to view someone who expresses contempt for a woman witnessing to an immemorial and very basic Christian belief that Adam and Steve don't make a married couple, and indeed for contempt for that witness, as endorsing sodomy. You are in effect saying that the second largest Christian denomination in the world is not mainstream. Because same-sex 'marriage' certainly is not. If anyone is an interloper here, it is you.

 

[paul becke]

Pardon me, but Jesus is not an elected official. Jesus is king.
Don't equate Davis with Jesus.
Don't equate county clerk with King of Heaven, Lord of Lord, King of Kings.

Who said anything about an 'elected official'? Read what's in front of you. Christ was the suffering Servant.

'He emptied himself
taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.'

Pardon me.... but, Jesus gave his life for the public, for the people, for all of mankind. Jesus, the God-man gave his life for us as an example for us to imitate as bravely as we are able, in teeth of all the hostility of a corrupt, post-Christian official world. If you are not for Christ you are against him. Christianity is not about popularity with the pagans.

 

[RDKirk]

Who said anything about an 'elected official'? Read what's in front of you. Christ was the suffering Servant.

'He emptied himself
taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.'

Pardon me.... but, Jesus gave his life for the public, for the people, for all of mankind. Jesus, the God-man gave his life for us as an example for us to imitate as bravely as we are able, in teeth of all the hostility of a corrupt, post-Christian official world. If you are not for Christ you are against him. Christianity is not about popularity with the pagans.

Okay, I'm going to respond to you as though you were an honest correspondent who just got mixed up in the thread.

In my post #309 I said:

It ought to be realized than an elected official is a slave of men. That's what "public servant" means.

In your post #320, you quoted my post #309 and said:

On the contrary. Christ, himself, made himself a public servant of the highest order. It did not entail deferring to the World in matters of religious morality. On the contrary; which was why he was officially executed - and on the trumped-up charge you are now peddling: disobeying the state.

My response to your post #320 was post #322, which said:

Pardon me, but Jesus is not an elected official. Jesus is king.
Don't equate Davis with Jesus.
Don't equate county clerk with King of Heaven, Lord of Lord, King of Kings.

And then you respond with post #339:

Who said anything about an 'elected official'? Read what's in front of you. Christ was the suffering Servant.

Now, maybe you just got confused in the thread and thought you were responding to someone else. I'll leave it at that.