Thread: Are Literal Idols Evil Things? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :
 
Nowadays we call all kinds of things idols, and I certainly believe that money, power, attractiveness, popularity, etc., are the object of modern day idolatry. However, various non-Abrahamic religions have actual statues and other items that are worshipped or that are believed to be inhabited by a divinity's spirit, to literally be a divinity, or something similar. Some religions object to these objects being called idols, but they bear at least some similarity to the idols that are referred to in the Jewish and Christian Bibles (and the Quran), and that existed in the cultures that Jews, Christians, and Muslims interacted with in antiquity.

I personally think that, even if Christians should not worship idols (and I would like to ask that discussion of statues in churches, icons, and transubstantiation be left to other threads), there is nothing evil about the existence of these idol-like objects in other religions. I am not saying that these religions are equally true compared to Christianity. I do not believe, however, that these idol-like objects are inhabited by demons, or that those religions that worship or venerate them are unknowingly worshipping the Devil.

I am unsure, though, what the traditional, orthodox teaching of Christianity is regarding these idol-like objects (other than that Christians should not take part in any activity that worships them or that appears to be worshipping them). I am not even sure what specific traditions like the RCC, Eastern Orthodoxy, or those parts of Conservative Evangelical Protestantism that tend to agree with each other would teach regarding this (not that I would agree with any of them). What do different people on the Ship think? How is the current situation different from that of Biblical times regarding these objects? Does anyone know of the current teachings of Orthodox Judaism and conservative (but not Salafist) Sunni or Shia Islam regarding these objects?
 

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Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :
 
It comes across to me that it was not the objects of wood or stone themselves, but the futility of worshipping them, and the dreadful acts of sacrificing children, temple prostitution and orgies which were so abhorrent to God and destructive to the people.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I don't think that these things are spiritually 'radioactive' in some way - and tend to think that any 'power' they may possess - or even channel if you like - is more down to association than anything intrinsically within the images themselves ... ie I don't believe that they are 'possessed' by evil spirits in any talismanic kind of way ...

However, and it is certainly a 'however', for those of us who may be open to Christian iconography as some kind of conveyor/channel of grace - in a way that the Eucharist is believed to be - or in some kind of 'genius locii' thing going on in certain places ... there is always a possibility, I think, of good or malign influences somehow being associated with or 'channelled' by particular objects, actions and so on ...

But I wouldn't want to create a huge edifice on that idea.

There's the whole philosophical thing about the links between the sign and the signified ... all that Platonic, Neo-Platonic and indeed stuff that takes us into the kind of territory explored by Barth, Sassure, Foucault, Derrida and Structuralist socio-linguistic studies etc ...

In a Christian sense, though, whilst I don't think that sacraments (or ordinances) are 'magic' I do think that these things can and do convey grace.

So it's not a great leap from that to suggesting that some malign images or rituals may do the opposite.

But I'd be very careful about any of that.

I know a vicar's wife who stormed into a secondary school and made a whopping big fuss because her daughter had been asked to make a papier-mache model of a Hindu idol in RE. She accused the RE teacher of not being a Christian, or making a graven image and much else besides ...

From what I can gather, the image was that of a Hindu demon which is ceremonially set alight or set adrift (or both) during religious ceremonies ... so the idea was that good triumphs over evil.

Whilst the vicar - I spoke to him about this - conceded that point he was still uncomfortable about making an image of 'something evil'.

I probed him on his view of Christian iconography and he didn't like that idea either ... he's a hot-Prot low church evangelical vicar.

My eldest daughter was in the same RE class and she wasn't worried in the slightest - nor were we as parents - the only thing that narked us was having to go out and buy the materials ...


 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
Objects, by and large, have the power that we invest them with. Swathes (one is given to believe) of fundamentalist parents believe Harry Potter books are evil because they project on to their innocuous (and indeed moral) pages the mish-mash of Holywood-coloured ideas about witchcraft. Former friends once told a minister that the Masonic symbols they had spotted in the stained glass was why his church would Never Thrive. Innumerable ghost/horror stories depend on the premiss of the inherent malignity of objects.

IME the only inanimate things which have impressed me have done so by virtue of the artistry of their creator. I am thinking of some statues I saw in a temple in China - benificient Divine figures - Taoist? Confucian? Buddhist? I'm not sure but to this day I remember the effect of wisdom and serenity they conveyed. Ditto Western art - if you believe in a succouring Virgin or a merciful Christ it as much down to the pictures.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

However, and it is certainly a 'however', for those of us who may be open to Christian iconography as some kind of conveyor/channel of grace - in a way that the Eucharist is believed to be - or in some kind of 'genius locii' thing going on in certain places ... there is always a possibility, I think, of good or malign influences somehow being associated with or 'channelled' by particular objects, actions and so on ...

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Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
A nuttily conservative friend of my husband assured me that the statue of Dancing Shiva on my mantel is a demonic idol. I told him it is available for sale in tourist shops across India. (He also burned all his D&D manuals out on the barbecue grill; I urged him to buy as many copies of my books as he could and burn them as well.)

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I don't think that these things are spiritually 'radioactive' in some way - and tend to think that any 'power' they may possess - or even channel if you like - is more down to association than anything intrinsically within the images themselves ... ie I don't believe that they are 'possessed' by evil spirits in any talismanic kind of way ...

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
those objects can never be to you the merely artistic items that they probably are to your Western friends.

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Originally posted by Macrina:

I suppose the same is true for any idol or religious image. The power comes from what we believe about it, not anything it has itself. So if you're a Buddhist with a statue of Mary it lacks any symbolism that a Catholic might associate with it.

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Originally posted by stonespring:
Christians should not take part in any activity that worships them or that appears to be worshipping them

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I wasn't out to defend or denigrate the use of icons nor to suggest that without them we can't have a high view of the Eucharist.

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Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
I think the classic Biblical answer to this question is found in Isaiah 44:9-20, where a man chops down a tree, cuts up half of it for firewood but makes an idol out of the other half and worships it. Isaiah is scathing in his scorn. More to the point - and remembering that this was written in a context where idols were most definitely regard as objects with spiritual power - he is quite clear that the "value" of the idol resides purely in the mind of the worshipper, it is not intrinsic to the object itself.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
To the OP: a lot less than the virtual ones we all have in our heads. Including the vast majority of 'Gods'.

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Originally posted by A Feminine Force:
ISTM the power that we invest in any symbol through the devotion of attention energy can be polarized in either direction (negative or positive spin).

ISTM "evil" is a moral equivalence that doesn't exist without a moral agent to draw the distinction apart from "good". If a tree falls in the woods and nobody can hear it, does it make a sound ... that kind of thing.

As Christ reminded us, it's not what goes in through the mouth, but what comes out of it, that defiles us. What we project upon the symbol invests it with its moral meaning. An idol is an object or person to whom some heap devotion or adoration.

So by itself, without the spin of negative or positive attention, I'm inclined to say an idol is what it is - an image, without moral equivalence.

AFF

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Originally posted by Frankenstein:
I am afraid that you speak in a language that is virtually meaningless to me.

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Originally posted by Frankenstein:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
To the OP: a lot less than the virtual ones we all have in our heads. Including the vast majority of 'Gods'.

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Our new gods seem to be "musicians" and celebrates.
At one time they were film stars.

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Originally posted by chris stiles:

As to the OP, mostly what Lamb Chopped said, as well as what Baptist Trainfan said, with a little bit of Walter Wink thrown in.

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Originally posted by Freddy:

Rather, as I understand it, the idols were used as means of communicating with evil spirits. This assumes that such things exist and can be communicated with, but that is the clear biblical assumption. Ancient peoples had way of making these communications that were credible to them, and obviously not credible to most of us.

So the idols were evil mostly because they served as symbols and means of communications with evil spirits, who claimed they were gods. There was then actual communication with these spirits, actual worship of them, and actual obedience to them. The spirits then directed them to do things that were not good.

Again, this assumes that such things as evil spirits exist and that it is possible for them to communicate with people. This is what the Bible assumes.

Today, however, most people don't believe in things like this...

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Originally posted by Martin60:
the graven images in our heads we call God.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

Let's change the metaphor a bit. Imagine you were visiting someone in a very, VERY isolated part of the world, and discovered they had a painting hung in a place of honor because they like the colors. Fine. But then you go closer and see the signature: "Adolf Hitler". Oh shit. The people in the home are living in happy ignorance of exactly who and what is associated with their painting. You are not, cannot share that attitude. It's going to draw your eye every time you walk past. You're going to have trouble sleeping if they've hung it in your bedroom. You may even make the attempt to convince them to take it down and destroy it--all the more if you happen to be someone whose relatives died in the camps.

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Originally posted by A Feminine Force:

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Originally posted by Frankenstein:
I am afraid that you speak in a language that is virtually meaningless to me.

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Thank you for adding so thoughtfully to the discussion. You are very kind.

AFF

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

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Originally posted by Freddy:

Today, however, most people don't believe in things like this...

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Should say today most Westerners don't believe in things like this. It is still the dominant world view in many parts of the world, and is a component of some Western Christian theologies, including Walter Wink's as well as open theism (cue Martin).

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Freddy: But these figurines told them to sacrifice their children, slaughter their enemies and otherwise misbehave.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
However, and it is certainly a 'however', for those of us who may be open to Christian iconography as some kind of conveyor/channel of grace - in a way that the Eucharist is believed to be - or in some kind of 'genius locii' thing going on in certain places ... there is always a possibility, I think, of good or malign influences somehow being associated with or 'channelled' by particular objects, actions and so on ...

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Originally posted by Frankenstein:

Please interpret:
ISTM the power that we invest in any symbol through the devotion of attention energy can be polarized in either direction (negative or positive spin).
What is 'attention energy' and why is it polarized?

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Originally posted by Frankenstein:
An idol is a false god.
If 'we invest' in such a symbol we are misleading ourselves.

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Originally posted by Stetson:

But if a houseguest approached me and said that the Hawaiian statuette on my desk represented a pagan god that her family had worshipped before their conversion? I dunno, I MIGHT take it down for the duration of her stay, just to avoid bad feelings with a houseguest, and I MIGHT issue a pretty perfunctory apology. But the statuettte would go right back on my desk the second she left the house, and I certainly wouldn't feel any remorse about what she had "been through" in having to see it.

Granted, I'm not a believing Christian, but I would still like to think that most intelligent believing Christians would see a distinction between an idol, whose power only exists in the minds of people who think it has power(which presumably excludes those who have converted to Christianity), and Hitler, who actually execrices temporal power to slaughter millions of people.

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Originally posted by LeRoc:

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Freddy: But these figurines told them to sacrifice their children, slaughter their enemies and otherwise misbehave.

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Did all non-Christian deities do this?

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Originally posted by Freddy:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
]Should say today most Westerners don't believe in things like this. It is still the dominant world view in many parts of the world, and is a component of some Western Christian theologies, including Walter Wink's as well as open theism (cue Martin).

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Good point. It might even be said that ours is the minority perspective. [/QB]

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Originally posted by fausto:
Idols per se are not forbidden in the Bible. What is forbidden is idolatry -- the worship of material, especially man-made, objects as if they possessed divine qualities. The reason such attribution of divinity is forbidden is that the people of the Bible believed there was only one God, one source of divinity.

So in a twist of irony, people who object to the purely decorative display of statues or images from other religious traditions as evil idol-worship are not only mistaken, but in fact they themselves are committing precisely the kind of idolatry that the Bible actually forbids: they are attributing supernatural power to powerless manmade objects, and in so doing, denying the sole power of the one true God.

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Originally posted by A Feminine Force:

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Originally posted by Frankenstein:

Please interpret:
ISTM the power that we invest in any symbol through the devotion of attention energy can be polarized in either direction (negative or positive spin).
What is 'attention energy' and why is it polarized?

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Thank you for the opportunity to clarify - or further obfuscate. Either way, I appreciate it.

Attention is energy. When we pay attention to something, we devote energy to it.

Have you ever spent an entire day prone on the couch watching television, and after eight or ten hours, had to drag yourself to bed, overcome with exhaustion, after having done nothing other than give your attention to the TV?

Intense focus on any thing or activity is draining. It activates neuromuscular activity that drains us of energy.

How do we spin attention energy?

Here's an exercise in spinning attention energy.

Pick an item with a neutral meaning - a pencil, a coffee mug, a salt shaker. Focus your attention very closely on this item, and then tell yourself "this (whatever) is an evil, putrid, filthy piece of trash".

Just keep telling yourself this, and keep your attention narrowly focused on the thing. Do this for a whole five minutes (don't cheat) and then observe your physiological, mental and emotional state.

Do the exercise again, and this time pick labels that have a positive connotation.

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Originally posted by Frankenstein:
An idol is a false god.
If 'we invest' in such a symbol we are misleading ourselves.

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I agree. But we do this without even thinking about it. Rather than appreciating the thing for what it is (its "is-ness" as it were), we see it as a 2-D image, and then we overlay the image with an emotional charge depending on the label we assign to it.

I personally have come to the conclusion that all gods are false gods. To me, the god of the Bible is an just another idol made of words (symbols).

My conclusion is that the One in whom we have our being cannot be seen, symbolized or in any way substituted through visual or auditory symbolism.

AFF

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
And yet Paul also says as Christians we have a responsibility to our fellow believers who might be harmed by our harmless activity-- harmed by falling into this sort of a thinking. So 1st c. Christians needed at times to abstain from eating meat offered to idols, not for their own spiritual health, but for their neighbors. So too 21st c. Christians may need to avoid certain items or even practices, not for their own spiritual health, but for that of their neighbors.

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Originally posted by fausto:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
And yet Paul also says as Christians we have a responsibility to our fellow believers who might be harmed by our harmless activity-- harmed by falling into this sort of a thinking. So 1st c. Christians needed at times to abstain from eating meat offered to idols, not for their own spiritual health, but for their neighbors. So too 21st c. Christians may need to avoid certain items or even practices, not for their own spiritual health, but for that of their neighbors.

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True, but in that case we would not be avoiding idols because we believe the objects themselves to be inherently evil, but rather, we would be avoiding the evil that our own inadvertent insensitivity and lack of compassion can cause to our neighbors.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
In what way are you with Walter Wink?

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Originally posted by Martin60:
In what way are you with Walter Wink?

5* alliteration there you'll agree.

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I see what you did there.

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Originally posted by Martin60:

cliffdweller. The reason I'm so hard on you, even though I said I wouldn't be because of your unconditional kindness, is because you have just one tiny mote in your eye ...

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Sadly, way more than one tiny one, I am sure.

 

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Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

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Originally posted by fausto:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
And yet Paul also says as Christians we have a responsibility to our fellow believers who might be harmed by our harmless activity-- harmed by falling into this sort of a thinking. So 1st c. Christians needed at times to abstain from eating meat offered to idols, not for their own spiritual health, but for their neighbors. So too 21st c. Christians may need to avoid certain items or even practices, not for their own spiritual health, but for that of their neighbors.

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True, but in that case we would not be avoiding idols because we believe the objects themselves to be inherently evil, but rather, we would be avoiding the evil that our own inadvertent insensitivity and lack of compassion can cause to our neighbors.

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Exactly my point, yes. An idol is just a hunk of clay (or wood, or stone, or whatever). It has not inherent good or evil to it. Same as the household objects I described in my earlier post. But we humans do tend to attach meaning to various objects, and pretending otherwise is unkind.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Walter Wink does NOT believe in the dualist demiurge heresy that Boyd does. That Satan is so powerful that in some way that cannot be differentiated from as if he had not, he ruined the entire universe.

Therein is ... madness.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
That Satan is so powerful that in some way that cannot be differentiated from as if he had not, he ruined the entire universe.

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I cannot parse this sentence.
 

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Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 

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Originally posted by Stetson:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Exactly my point, yes. An idol is just a hunk of clay (or wood, or stone, or whatever). It has not inherent good or evil to it. Same as the household objects I described in my earlier post. But we humans do tend to attach meaning to various objects, and pretending otherwise is unkind.

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Yes, but then, by that trajectory, someone who was sexually abused by a clergyman who read passages from the Bible to justify(in a twisted manner) his predatory actions might very well develop an aversion to Bible readings.

But I wonder how many Christians(especially of the kind who get worked up about idols) would agree to forego dinner-time Bible readings, or to remove a Bible from prominent display in their house, if they had aguest staying with them who had experienced that particular abuse-scenario.

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Since we are clearly commanded not to worship either other gods or idols, it strikes me as self evident that we should not do so. It's rather conceited to claim that somehow, that those may be commandments for our poor benighted forbears, but we have somehow progressed beyond that to a higher sort of freedom.

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Originally posted by Stetson:

As for Lamb Chopped's position, it seems to me that it's not as objective as some might be making it out to be, because ultimately, she seems to be saying that how you regard idols might legitmately hinge on whether or not you come from a culture where they were actually worshipped.

Which I think is actually a little more subjective than what we normally think should be the criieria for sinful behaviour. Nobody would say "Well, beating up innocent old ladies is wrong if it's done in front of someone who saw their mother beaten to death". Christians(or anyone else in their right mind) don't need the presence of a traumatized third party in order to condemn the beating of old ladies. But, at least according to Lamb Chopped(if I've read her correctly) such factors do come into play when determining the wrongness of idols.

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Displaying an idol/ drinking alcohol/ playing Parcheesi are all morally neutral activities. But if any of the above thru some chain of causation causes pain or suffering to another human being-- it would be unloving and therefore sinful for us to knowingly engage in that behavior. Beating up innocent old ladies is not sinful because it breaks a rule against beating up innocent old ladies. It is sinful because it is obviously unloving.

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Yes, but then, by that trajectory, someone who was sexually abused by a clergyman who read passages from the Bible to justify(in a twisted manner) his predatory actions might very well develop an aversion to Bible readings.

But I wonder how many Christians(especially of the kind who get worked up about idols) would agree to forego dinner-time Bible readings, or to remove a Bible from prominent display in their house, if they had aguest staying with them who had experienced that particular abuse-scenario.

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Originally posted by Stetson:
Cliffdweller wrote:

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Displaying an idol/ drinking alcohol/ playing Parcheesi are all morally neutral activities. But if any of the above thru some chain of causation causes pain or suffering to another human being-- it would be unloving and therefore sinful for us to knowingly engage in that behavior. Beating up innocent old ladies is not sinful because it breaks a rule against beating up innocent old ladies. It is sinful because it is obviously unloving.

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No, I can go along with the loving/unloving criteria as being the basis of rules.

But even then, does displaying an idol, even in the presence of a convert traumatized by an idol worshipping background, really qualify as sinful/unloving? I'll refer you back to my hypothetical on the last page...

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

The difference from my pov is that the "idol" is just a hunk of wood/clay/metal, so discarding it causes no harm. So why not just get rid of it if it brings pain or temptation to another? If what we believe about the Bible is true, though, it's not just some hunk of paper, it is life and healing and hope (opening myself to the charge of bibliolotry here)-- precisely what the person who has been harmed by it's misuse might need. So just tossing it out isn't as obvious an answer because there is a serious downside to getting rid of it.

otoh, again, if it's been misused in a way that brought harm (as sadly, we can all think of examples) the way back to it's intended use is going to be fraught, and care would be advised. Enforced meal-time or other Bible reading probably would be counter-indicated. Possibly a prominent, ostentatious display of the big black family-edition style Bible would be counter-indicated. One would probably just begin with gentle conversation about how you see God or Jesus differently from the God/Jesus they had been bashed with. It might be a good long way down the road before the Bible comes out, and even that at the discretion of the abused person.

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Originally posted by Stetson:
How far am I obligated to go in showing love to this guy with a legitimate claim to being traumatized by the Bible? Okay, we can agree I'd probably be a genuine assh*** if I went over to his front yard with a bullhorn and read out the same passages that the abusive clergyman used to quote.

But suppose I'm a professor of literature who keeps a copy of the KJV, next to Milton and Shakespeare on his office bookshelf. If the guy who survived the abuse is one of my students, do I have to remove the KJV from my bookshelf every time he comes into my office for a tutorial? Or can we just say that this is the world we live in, sorry about what happened to you, but people ARE going to display the Bible, so just deal with it?

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Originally posted by Stetson:
How far am I obligated to go in showing love to this guy with a legitimate claim to being traumatized by the Bible? Okay, we can agree I'd probably be a genuine assh*** if I went over to his front yard with a bullhorn and read out the same passages that the abusive clergyman used to quote.

But suppose I'm a professor of literature who keeps a copy of the KJV, next to Milton and Shakespeare on his office bookshelf. If the guy who survived the abuse is one of my students, do I have to remove the KJV from my bookshelf every time he comes into my office for a tutorial? Or can we just say that this is the world we live in, sorry about what happened to you, but people ARE going to display the Bible, so just deal with it?

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The difference from my pov is that the "idol" is just a hunk of wood/clay/metal, so discarding it causes no harm. So why not just get rid of it if it brings pain or temptation to another? If what we believe about the Bible is true, though, it's not just some hunk of paper, it is life and healing and hope (opening myself to the charge of bibliolotry here)-- precisely what the person who has been harmed by it's misuse might need. So just tossing it out isn't as obvious an answer because there is a serious downside to getting rid of it.

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not about "rules" and it's not about "rights". It's about love.

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to add to the answer above, I'm thinking of the example of Frank Laubach, early 20th c missionary to a Muslim tribe in the Philippines. His early fairly typical Bible-centric efforts to preach the gospel proved an absolute failure until he was convicted by the Spirit for his lack of love for the people he was called to serve. He switched gears and began studying the Koran with the tribespeople, as a way of developing dialogue/ compassion/ relationship. Much different result.

So yes, I think sometimes the way of love would entail setting aside the Bible, if possibly only for a season.

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Originally posted by Stetson:
Cliffdweller:

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The difference from my pov is that the "idol" is just a hunk of wood/clay/metal, so discarding it causes no harm. So why not just get rid of it if it brings pain or temptation to another? If what we believe about the Bible is true, though, it's not just some hunk of paper, it is life and healing and hope (opening myself to the charge of bibliolotry here)-- precisely what the person who has been harmed by it's misuse might need. So just tossing it out isn't as obvious an answer because there is a serious downside to getting rid of it.

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Well using my example of the lit professor, the student probably isn't going to his office to get biblical guidance in dealing with the abuse he suffered. So keeping it displayed on the shelf is likely not going to be much help to him, if the book never gets opened.

I was just more thinking that the professor's decisions about what to have on his desk shouldn't be dictated by the psychological needs of just one person who happens to visit his office every month or so.

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Originally posted by Stetson:
Cliffdweller: ..

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The difference from my pov is that the "idol" is just a hunk of wood/clay/metal, so discarding it causes no harm. So why not just get rid of it if it brings pain or temptation to another? If what we believe about the Bible is true, though, it's not just some hunk of paper, it is life and healing and hope (opening myself to the charge of bibliolotry here)-- precisely what the person who has been harmed by it's misuse might need. So just tossing it out isn't as obvious an answer because there is a serious downside to getting rid of it.

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And yes, respectfully, I think you are open to charges of biliolatry, if you suggest that a mere copy of a book, of which millions of other copies are available(probably even in the same city), has any greater claim to public display than a Polynesian idol. Especially if the book itself doesn't get opened during the tutorial session.

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Originally posted by Stetson:
If you're looking for a love-based rationale here, I suppose you could argue that the professor would be doing some harm to the student's recovery, if he conditions him into expecting that everyone in society is going to tap-dance around his aversion to the Bible. Guaranteed, the local Bible bookstore is not going to pull curtains over their display window every time the abuse-survivor walks by.

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not about "rules" and it's not about "rights". It's about love.

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Well, I think there's a distinction to be made between obsessing over rules, on the one hand, and on the other, trying to figure out how a principle would be applied in practicality. If someone had asked Jesus "Does loving my enemy mean I have to do good to the person who murdered my family?", I don't think Jesus would have had much credibility had he replied "Look, I can't answer that, okay? I'm just talking about love." I think we could assume that he was trying to duck the hard questions.

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Originally posted by Stetson:
Just saw your addendum.

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to add to the answer above, I'm thinking of the example of Frank Laubach, early 20th c missionary to a Muslim tribe in the Philippines. His early fairly typical Bible-centric efforts to preach the gospel proved an absolute failure until he was convicted by the Spirit for his lack of love for the people he was called to serve. He switched gears and began studying the Koran with the tribespeople, as a way of developing dialogue/ compassion/ relationship. Much different result.

So yes, I think sometimes the way of love would entail setting aside the Bible, if possibly only for a season.

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Did he actually eschew even mentioning or displaying the Bible, or did he just not make it the focus of his teachings?

Because I think there's a difference them. Forcing people to hear him talk about the Bible, when it's clearly upsetting them and hindering their acceptance of the message, might be comparable to my bullhorn-in-the-front-yard scenario. Just carrying a copy of it around for his own personal use might be more comparable to my lit professor.

Also, I'm assuming Laubach was a protestant westerner living in the Muslim regions of a decidely non-protestant country. So, he was kind of "in their house" so to speak. This might put him in a somewhat different position, with a different set of obligations, than if he were a clergyman working in a western country, who had Muslims occassioanlly dropping into his office.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
What about rugs? Many rugs from the Middle East were originally designed for prayer. Do dreamcatchers count? (woven by native Americans for religious purposes that I have never fathomed) Calendars, with the weekdays named after Norse deities? Garden gnomes?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Martin60:
Marcion, Boyd and your good self believe that a person called Satan has ruined THE universe. The therefore necessarily one and only finite one. Unless your dualism is infinite and eternal.

How would one know?

As I've asked repeatedly.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stetson:
Enoch wrote:

quote:

---

Since we are clearly commanded not to worship either other gods or idols, it strikes me as self evident that we should not do so. It's rather conceited to claim that somehow, that those may be commandments for our poor benighted forbears, but we have somehow progressed beyond that to a higher sort of freedom.

---

Has anyone on this thread argued that Christians should worship idols?

As for Lamb Chopped's position, it seems to me that it's not as objective as some might be making it out to be, because ultimately, she seems to be saying that how you regard idols might legitmately hinge on whether or not you come from a culture where they were actually worshipped.

Which I think is actually a little more subjective than what we normally think should be the criieria for sinful behaviour. Nobody would say "Well, beating up innocent old ladies is wrong if it's done in front of someone who saw their mother beaten to death". Christians(or anyone else in their right mind) don't need the presence of a traumatized third party in order to condemn the beating of old ladies. But, at least according to Lamb Chopped(if I've read her correctly) such factors do come into play when determining the wrongness of idols.

---

Okay, let's say it more clearly.

Should Christians worship idols? Answer: No. Should Christians worship anything besides the one true God? Answer: No.

Should Christians possess, display, or have anything at all to do with items that are / have been used as idols by other people in the past, but aren't in such use right now?

Answer: Depends. Is the ex-idol likely to cause harm to the Christian (who may be an ex-idol worshipper him/herself, and thus sensitive to such things) or to others who may come into contact with it in its new context? If so, get the hell rid of it for your own sake or that of your neighbor, whose wellbeing is your business on the principle of love.

If not, the idol's negative impact has been neutralized and may continue to serve as a museum artifact, garden art, or whatever.

"But why," you may ask, "should my neighbor's squeamishness affect what I do?" Because as a Christian (if you are one), you are to love that neighbor, no matter how annoying she may be. If your neighbor is having conniptions because he can't tell the difference between a garden gnome and a graven idol, thoughtfully remove it from his sight, and try to avoid eye-rolling when he can see it. It's the kind thing to do.

On the other hand, if you happen to be that squeamish neighbor, ask yourself if you've ever seen the woman next door worshipping that ugly piece of concrete. If the answer is no, do your darndest to avoid calling that thing an "idol" in spite of the fact that you recognize it as Ganesh or whatever, and live in peace with your neighbor. We are not called to be unnecessary PITAs.
 

---

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
As always, Lamb said it best.
 

---

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
I'm going to run away and hide if you keep that up.
 

---

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stetson:
But I wonder how many Christians(especially of the kind who get worked up about idols) would agree to forego dinner-time Bible readings, or to remove a Bible from prominent display in their house, if they had a guest staying with them who had experienced that particular abuse-scenario.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Martin60:
God is love. Love is kind.

---

A worthy sentiment, but rather simplistic.
God is all things. Nothing exists outside God.
You cannot restrict God in this way.
God exists of itself (gender meaningless).
 

---

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
Staying with my mum at present to celebrate her 97th birthday. She taught me 'people before things' which is a recognition that putting things first causes harm. God is not a thing, but sometimes folks make Him a thing and so end up worshiping the thing they have made of Him. The intention to be kind to others protects you from that error. God is good. I don't think He has much time for using false images of Him to justify indifference or unkindness to others. 'People before things' is a pretty good protection against the dangers of any form of idolatry. Particularly turning people into things.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I've never understood the thing about not having a copy of another religion's scriptures in one's house.

As if some kind of evil influence is going to seep out and permeate the house like incense or smoke ... 'mwa ha ha ha ha ...'

It'd be a bit like saying that I keep a Bible in my house because of the positive energies it gives off - but I'm not actually going to open it up and read it.



For some reason, I've ended up with a copy of the Book of Mormon somewhere. I can't find it just now ... I don't expect it to come sneaking out of hiding and bash me on the head while I'm asleep ...

Likewise if I had a copy of the Quran or the Baghvad Gita ... or whatever else ...
 

---

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Martin60:
You're the one creating the idol of an evil thing.

And you cued me.

How is the universe 'marred' not 'ruined' by a being so powerful that they did it, whatever it was, in the only moment of creation?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I've never understood the thing about not having a copy of another religion's scriptures in one's house.

As if some kind of evil influence is going to seep out and permeate the house

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
[QB] there will be ignorant young teachers and unaware parents who will not realise that Christian, Jewish or Moslem children are forbidden from doing anything that might be construed as worship in honour of Hindu, or other, gods, or the Buddha./QB]

---

quote:

---

But why," you may ask, "should my neighbor's squeamishness affect what I do?" Because as a Christian (if you are one), you are to love that neighbor, no matter how annoying she may be. If your neighbor is having conniptions because he can't tell the difference between a garden gnome and a graven idol, thoughtfully remove it from his sight, and try to avoid eye-rolling when he can see it. It's the kind thing to do.

On the other hand, if you happen to be that squeamish neighbor, ask yourself if you've ever seen the woman next door worshipping that ugly piece of concrete. If the answer is no, do your darndest to avoid calling that thing an "idol" in spite of the fact that you recognize it as Ganesh or whatever, and live in peace with your neighbor. We are not called to be unnecessary PITAs.

---

quote:

---

Perhaps a better analogy would be drinking alcohol?

Is it wrong for a Christian to drink wine?
Given that Jesus turned water into wine, it's hard to imagine why it would be immoral to then drink it.

But what if you are dining with a friend who is a recovering alcoholic?
There, as Lamb says, it depends.

Most of us have friends or family who are recovering alcoholics. Some will urge us not to change our behavior, they know they will have to live in a world where alcohol is around us. Others will urge us to abstain in their presence, especially if their recovery is new and they're feeling vulnerable.

There is no black-or-white rule. But a kind and loving friend will at least consider the question, and take the particular circumstances/ wishes of their friend into consideration. Because it's not about "rules" and it's not about rights. it's about "the law written on your hearts"-- loving God/ loving others. So you do the thing that is most kind, most loving, for your friend in his/her particular circumstances. Yes, it's a very subjective, non-concrete consideration. Most ethical decisions are. Real life ethics are almost always messy, complicated, and not nearly as clear as we'd like. [/QB]

---

quote:

---

Stetson: Or, sociologically, it might reflect the fact that Roman Catholicism is strongest in countries where the concept of alcoholism is somewhat foreign, even in cases where someone is a heavy drinker.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stetson:
Lamb Chopped wrote:

quote:

---

But why," you may ask, "should my neighbor's squeamishness affect what I do?" Because as a Christian (if you are one), you are to love that neighbor, no matter how annoying she may be. If your neighbor is having conniptions because he can't tell the difference between a garden gnome and a graven idol, thoughtfully remove it from his sight, and try to avoid eye-rolling when he can see it. It's the kind thing to do.

On the other hand, if you happen to be that squeamish neighbor, ask yourself if you've ever seen the woman next door worshipping that ugly piece of concrete. If the answer is no, do your darndest to avoid calling that thing an "idol" in spite of the fact that you recognize it as Ganesh or whatever, and live in peace with your neighbor. We are not called to be unnecessary PITAs.

---

Thing is, though, that if instead of a gnome, it were a grotto with a statue of the Blessed Virgin in my backyard, and I prayed the rosary there on a daily basis, and I had a neighbour whose worldview was formed entirely by reading Jack T. Chick comics, he may very well answer a sincere "yes" to the question of whether that statue is an idol.

So, what am I supposed to do? Dismantle the whole grotto because someone whose view of my faith is based on stuff like this considers it to be idolatry?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:

---

Stetson: Or, sociologically, it might reflect the fact that Roman Catholicism is strongest in countries where the concept of alcoholism is somewhat foreign, even in cases where someone is a heavy drinker.

---

I live in the world's largest Roman Catholic country, and I can assure you that alcoholism is by no means a foreign concept here.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
(tangent): but isn't Korea primarily Protestant (Reformed, in particular) rather than Catholic?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stetson:
Lamb Chopped wrote:

quote:

---

But why," you may ask, "should my neighbor's squeamishness affect what I do?" Because as a Christian (if you are one), you are to love that neighbor, no matter how annoying she may be. If your neighbor is having conniptions because he can't tell the difference between a garden gnome and a graven idol, thoughtfully remove it from his sight, and try to avoid eye-rolling when he can see it. It's the kind thing to do.

On the other hand, if you happen to be that squeamish neighbor, ask yourself if you've ever seen the woman next door worshipping that ugly piece of concrete. If the answer is no, do your darndest to avoid calling that thing an "idol" in spite of the fact that you recognize it as Ganesh or whatever, and live in peace with your neighbor. We are not called to be unnecessary PITAs.

---

Thing is, though, that if instead of a gnome, it were a grotto with a statue of the Blessed Virgin in my backyard, and I prayed the rosary there on a daily basis, and I had a neighbour whose worldview was formed entirely by reading Jack T. Chick comics, he may very well answer a sincere "yes" to the question of whether that statue is an idol.

So, what am I supposed to do? Dismantle the whole grotto because someone whose view of my faith is based on stuff like this considers it to be idolatry?

---

sign. It's not about rules. It depends. It's subjective, not objective. People matter.

So, in this particular case, it depends on how important your grotto (and it's placement) is to your own spiritual practices, and to what degree your spiritual practices are leading your neighbor into sin (although one might argue the "sin" they are being led to is obviously not idolatry, but rather judgmentalism).

Of course, your neighbor is very much wrong and in error for their inhospitable actions/attitudes toward you. But our ethical and moral actions are not conditioned on other's ethical and moral actions.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stetson:
Lamb Chopped wrote:

quote:

---

But why," you may ask, "should my neighbor's squeamishness affect what I do?" Because as a Christian (if you are one), you are to love that neighbor, no matter how annoying she may be. If your neighbor is having conniptions because he can't tell the difference between a garden gnome and a graven idol, thoughtfully remove it from his sight, and try to avoid eye-rolling when he can see it. It's the kind thing to do.

On the other hand, if you happen to be that squeamish neighbor, ask yourself if you've ever seen the woman next door worshipping that ugly piece of concrete. If the answer is no, do your darndest to avoid calling that thing an "idol" in spite of the fact that you recognize it as Ganesh or whatever, and live in peace with your neighbor. We are not called to be unnecessary PITAs.

---

Thing is, though, that if instead of a gnome, it were a grotto with a statue of the Blessed Virgin in my backyard, and I prayed the rosary there on a daily basis, and I had a neighbour whose worldview was formed entirely by reading Jack T. Chick comics, he may very well answer a sincere "yes" to the question of whether that statue is an idol.

So, what am I supposed to do? Dismantle the whole grotto because someone whose view of my faith is based on stuff like this considers it to be idolatry?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Frankenstein:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Martin60:
God is love. Love is kind.

---

A worthy sentiment, but rather simplistic.
God is all things. Nothing exists outside God.
You cannot restrict God in this way.
God exists of itself (gender meaningless).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stetson:

Funny enough, this evening I had a conversation with a student who is a Presbyterian minister, and he observed that while he is aware that his co-religionists in Europe and North America have a reputation for "piety", he has never witnessed it in Korea.

(By "piety", I think he meant something like "solemnity" or "severity".)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

If you are a JackChickian and your neighbor is RC, it would be great if you can get a little education to clear up your misconceptions. But regardless, it is your duty to love as Christ did and does.

If you are the RC and your neighbor is the JackChickian, I recommend a large glass of wine (probably out of sight of the JC) and huge daily doses of patience. You may keep your grotto if you wish, though it would be going above and beyond for you to put a screen or vine or something between you and the JC, lest he/she have a stroke sometime. But it is even more incumbent on you to love your misguided neighbor, however little he/she deserves it or appears to want it, because you are the one with your head screwed on straight. You are also probably his/her only chance of getting out of the trap that is JackChickianism.

---

Once again, Lamb Chopped for the win.

 

---

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 
Lamb Chopped wrote:

quote:

---

Nope. The case we were discussing is whether Christians ought to have (alleged) idols in the garden, etc. when they offend / worry / upset a neighbor. If your neighbor is a JackChickian and you are RC, by definition she believes you to be anything but a Christian--in which case you fall (to her) under the category of "real idol worshipper" and not-a-Christian, therefore outwith the remit of this thread.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stetson:

Funny enough, this evening I had a conversation with a student who is a Presbyterian minister, and he observed that while he is aware that his co-religionists in Europe and North America have a reputation for "piety", he has never witnessed it in Korea.

(By "piety", I think he meant something like "solemnity" or "severity".)

---

Ah, see, with the very different definition of "piety" I'm working with, my experience of Korean Presbyterians puts our punier No. American piety to shame (e.g. devotion to morning prayers).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
my experience of Korean Presbyterians puts our punier No. American piety to shame (e.g. devotion to morning prayers).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stetson:
you're saying that I don't have an obligation to move the BVM, because a Jack Chickian wouldn't consider me a Christian anyway.

---

quote:

---

You don't have the slightest obligation - moral, legal or social - to move your BVM.

Anyone who thinks you have is in effect making a rule.

There is no such rule. You are perfectly within your rights to have a BVM in your garden.

The point is just that if one fine day you decided to waive that right, to take it down, in a moment of genuine concern for your neighbour's peace of mind, then you would in that moment be closer to the mind of God than all the faithful followers of religious traditions.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stetson:

quote:

---

You don't have the slightest obligation - moral, legal or social - to move your BVM.

Anyone who thinks you have is in effect making a rule.

There is no such rule. You are perfectly within your rights to have a BVM in your garden.

The point is just that if one fine day you decided to waive that right, to take it down, in a moment of genuine concern for your neighbour's peace of mind, then you would in that moment be closer to the mind of God than all the faithful followers of religious traditions.

---

But isn't being as clsoe as possible to the mind of God something that God wants Christians to be?

I guess we can argue about whether or not that makes it an obligation. Suffice to say that if my boss were to tell me "I want you to as accurate as you can in your grammar instruction", and I then neglected to look up a grammatical issue that I was uncertain about before teaching it to my students, I would think that I was going against what my boss had asked of me.

Furthermore, in certain pretty mainstream Christian traditions, being separated from the mind of God can lead to serious consequences in the afterlife. Catholics, for example, are taught that a failure to love one's neighbour can lead to an extended period in purgatory. It seems to me that comes pretty close to giving it the trappings of a rule.

---

quote:

---

The question of purgatory is a separate issue and applies to all sin of which failure to "love your neighbour as oneself" (the great command) is just one.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Frankenstein:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stetson:

quote:

---

You don't have the slightest obligation - moral, legal or social - to move your BVM.

Anyone who thinks you have is in effect making a rule.

There is no such rule. You are perfectly within your rights to have a BVM in your garden.

The point is just that if one fine day you decided to waive that right, to take it down, in a moment of genuine concern for your neighbour's peace of mind, then you would in that moment be closer to the mind of God than all the faithful followers of religious traditions.

---

But isn't being as clsoe as possible to the mind of God something that God wants Christians to be?

I guess we can argue about whether or not that makes it an obligation. Suffice to say that if my boss were to tell me "I want you to as accurate as you can in your grammar instruction", and I then neglected to look up a grammatical issue that I was uncertain about before teaching it to my students, I would think that I was going against what my boss had asked of me.

Furthermore, in certain pretty mainstream Christian traditions, being separated from the mind of God can lead to serious consequences in the afterlife. Catholics, for example, are taught that a failure to love one's neighbour can lead to an extended period in purgatory. It seems to me that comes pretty close to giving it the trappings of a rule.

---

Can one really talk of the "Mind of God?"
Surely we are all taught to love one's neighbour, and not specifically Catholics?
The question of purgatory is a separate issue and applies to all sin of which failure to "love your neighbour as oneself" (the great command) is just one.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stetson:
Lamb Chopped wrote:

quote:

---

Nope. The case we were discussing is whether Christians ought to have (alleged) idols in the garden, etc. when they offend / worry / upset a neighbor. If your neighbor is a JackChickian and you are RC, by definition she believes you to be anything but a Christian--in which case you fall (to her) under the category of "real idol worshipper" and not-a-Christian, therefore outwith the remit of this thread.

---

Lambchopped:

What does whether or not my neighbour considers me to be Christian have to do with my obligations toward him or her? Wouldn't the important thing be that I consider myself to be Christian, thus having all the obligations that a Christian has to his neighbour? I wasn't aware that the Christian duty to turn the other cheek, for example, depended on the other person accepting me as Christian.

In your original example, you said that I should remove a garden-gnome from my neighbour's view if he's getting stressed out thinking that it's an idol. I thought that was a bit too easy of an example(since most people could forfeit a garden gnome without much mental turmoil), so I asked about the BVM statue and the Jack Chickian neighbour.

Now, you're saying that I don't have an obligation to move the BVM, because a Jack Chickian wouldn't consider me a Christian anyway. Setting aside the likely possibility that the neighbour in your example would regard the gnome enthusiast as not Christian as well, I'm still not clear what the neighbours perceptions of my faith have to do with my duty toward them as a Christian.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

I'm dealing with a couple of principles here. The first is, If you are a Christian, do your best not to offend Christians who are weaker in faith than yourself.

---

quote:

---

The second principle which takes some discernment (since it may seem to overlap with the first) is that you do NOT give in to Christian busybodies who are not in fact hurting or scared

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:
I'm a bit hesitant to talk about this in Purgatory, because this is rather personal. There are also some rather obvious cultural factors involved here.

The Candomblé art in my house wasn't bought in a tourist shop. It was given to me by friends, many of whom are artists. By making these things specifically for me, they put something of themselves in them, including their religious feelings.

It also has to do with a history of slavery and oppression, where these forms of expression were explicitly forbidden to them. Echoes of this still exist and are strongly felt, in a country where especially some Evangelical Christian expressions are very much in your face, often aggressively trying to push the Afro-Brazilian ones aside, on the streets, in buses, on the media.

It also has to do with how I see hospitality. When I invite you in my house, in a way I'm inviting you in my life in a rather intimate way. My house and the way I've filled it try to reflect who I am. This very much includes the respect I have for Afro-Brazilian culture, which is inseparably tied to their religion, and the way in which they have received me, an obviously white Christian.

If these things are an affront to you — and I say this with all respect — then perhaps my house is not the place where you should be.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eutychus:

The practice around here is that NSFW content should be two clicks away from the Ship

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Frankenstein:
Sorry to double post.
This is a very old chestnut.
Some may well see the reverence given to the BVM as close to idolatry as makes no difference.

---

quote:

---

mousethief: I have heard it said that if you love your wife more than you love God [...]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eutychus:
hosting/

The practice around here is that NSFW content should be two clicks away from the Ship and that in case of doubt, this practice should be applied.

I'm not going to get into an argument about whether the link contents is NSFW or not, but having looked, I've taken the precaution of breaking the link so it can't be clicked on inadvertently.

/hosting

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eutychus:

The practice around here is that NSFW content should be two clicks away from the Ship

---

aside: how does one do that?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
I have heard it said that if you love your wife more than you love God, the problem isn't that you love your wife too much. It's that you love God too little.

This is an old chestnut, but that subset of Protestants who think Catholics or Orthodoxen love Mary too much maybe think we love God as little as they do.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
I have heard it said that if you love your wife more than you love God, the problem isn't that you love your wife too much. It's that you love God too little.

This is an old chestnut, but that subset of Protestants who think Catholics or Orthodoxen love Mary too much maybe think we love God as little as they do.

---

Thanks for those helpful comments.

---

quote:

---

I have often puzzled over the fact that all RCs and Orthodox obviously love God so much more than do all Protestants who have theological and scriptural objections to the worship of Mary.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
is it ironic or is it not that Protestants would tell somebody else how to worship God, when part of the very matrix of Protestantism, I am told over and over on the ship, is that each man relates to God as an individual?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Secondly, Protestantism and every other Christian tradition believe that there are more and less appropriate ways to worship God, and feel free to say so.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Secondly, Protestantism and every other Christian tradition believe that there are more and less appropriate ways to worship God, and feel free to say so.

---

Yes, the very name "protestant" indicates an objection to how God is worshiped in the established church.

---

quote:

---

part of the very matrix of Protestantism, I am told over and over on the ship, is that each man relates to God as an individual

---

 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
I don't get it. Luther had no objection to statues and pictures.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
As ever, I can see both sides on this one ...



But I do think that there is a tendency in some parts of Protestantism to be so binary and dualistic that to give honour and veneration to a Saint, to an icon or to Mary or whoever else, is somehow to deprive God of the glory he deserves ...

I've even seen it on polemical Protestant websites that 'any prayer to Mary is one less to Christ' ...

And so on and on it goes ...

As to who is or isn't the most 'scriptural' is probably a Dead Horses issue surely ...
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 

quote:

---

Gamaliel: I've even seen it on polemical Protestant websites that 'any prayer to Mary is one less to Christ' ...

---

I can imagine a tired Jesus going "I'm glad my mother is taking a couple for me"
 

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Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
The choice is NOT between the heresies of damnationism or Tradition.

[ 13. March 2016, 10:05: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
 

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Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I don't get it. Luther had no objection to statues and pictures.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Statues aren't intermediaries--you've got a false equivalency there. They have no agency and are not believed in themselves to hear or answer prayer, or to intercede in any way. Unless one is the crassest kind of real idolater, I mean. But not in Christianity.

I believe the description-of-function you're looking for is "focus" or "memory aid" or similar.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
As for praying to saints, I suppose that none of these Protestants belong to churches that have a prayer telephone (or nowadays probably texting) chain? Because why waste time asking other people to pray for you, when you can just pray yourself? Every phone call to someone on the prayer chain is one less phone call to Jesus.

---

Well put. That gets a
 

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Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stetson:
Well, you and I might know that, but I'm pretty sure I could find some protestants who think that Catholics pray to statues as intermediaries.

In any case, anti-iconography is just one example of protestants trying to remove alleged intermediaries between man and God.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
why waste time asking other people to pray for you, when you can just pray yourself?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
why waste time asking other people to pray for you, when you can just pray yourself?

---

What a pity you weren't around in the first century to sort out silly old Paul, who not only prayed for other Christians (ie saints), but asked them to pray for instead of to him, despite the fact that according to later hagiology, he was in fact a "saint".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
But as with so many other things, the historical Protestant position was a reaction to actual practice—specifically popular piety that saw the saints as themselves granting prayers and intervening in people's lives.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
why waste time asking other people to pray for you, when you can just pray yourself?

---

What a pity you weren't around in the first century to sort out silly old Paul, who not only prayed for other Christians (ie saints), but asked them to pray for instead of to him, despite the fact that according to later hagiology, he was in fact a "saint".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
But as with so many other things, the historical Protestant position was a reaction to actual practice—specifically popular piety that saw the saints as themselves granting prayers and intervening in people's lives.

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So modern anti-saint Protestants are ignorantly protesting against a 500-year-old reality, completely blind to the modern piety surrounding saints? I can see that.

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quote:

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As for modern piety surrounding saints, I assume you're including things like burying a statue of St. Joseph in your yard if you're trying to sell your house, or praying to St. Anthony when you need help finding your lost car keys. [/QB]

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Rumour has it that the Pope demoted St Chritopher after the Pope's car was involved in an accident.
(Joke)
 

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Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
every prayer to Mary is one less prayer to Jesus.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
anti-saint Protestants

---

Protestants are not anti-saint.

They are anti the mentality which ignores the NT reference to ALL Christians as hagioi and instead divides Christendom into a tiny minority of "saints" to which prayer can be made (a practice without the slightest biblical justification) and an overwhelming majority remainder of also-rans.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Which is to misunderstand what the RC and Orthodox view of Saints (big S) and saints (small s) actually is, Kaplan.

Sure, I can understand where you are coming from given the way these things are often expressed in popular RC piety (and perhaps in popular Orthodox piety too, I don't know) ... but your reaction shows this binary/dualistic thing again ...

'Because the RCs and Orthodox have Big S Saints, that means that everyone else is an also-ran ...'

We see the same thing in attitudes towards the idea of an ordained clergy from some Protestant groups, of course ...

'Because this, that or the other group only has an ordained person with a dog-collar who is allowed to celebrate the Eucharist, that must mean that they think the rest of the congregation or the people in the pews aren't important and are heaps of shit ...'

I've been in one Orthodox service where people - in a sense - 'venerated' one another as 'icons of Christ' - It was a bit like a spiritual 'line-dance' as row after row of people came forward before the sharing of the communion to ritually 'bow' before one another and ask their forgiveness etc ...

Sure, it was choreographed and ritualised, but none the less moving for that ... I thought it was a pretty neat thing for them to do ...

As with anything and everything else, there's a balance somewhere.

Sure, I share much Protestant distaste at some of the more flamboyant, exotic and downright aspects of some popular Catholic practices ... I think it was hatless here on these boards who told us about Spanish villages literally whipping a statue of St Anthony when he apparently failed to find their lost keys or other objects ...

Yes, some of this stuff is daft and questionable at best, wierd and whacky at worst.

Whatever the case, though, don't you think it's rather futile chucking chapter and verse at RC's and Orthodox in a Puritanical kind of way - 'Look at the Apostle Paul, he didn't ask people to pray to him did he?' - when they don't share your particular hermeneutic and apparently 'sola scriptura' approach in the first place?



The RC's and Orthodox don't pretend to have NT proof-texts to support the practice of invoking the prayers of the Saints - they're pretty upfront about citing extra-biblical precedents for the practice.

Whether they are right or wrong to do so is another issue - but arguing from the Apostle Paul's silence on the matter isn't the way to go.

You may as well say that the Apostle Paul didn't mention guitars or organs nor whether we should drive or cycle to church ...

Ok, I'm over-stating my case to make a point - but you get my drift.

I'm not saying you should stop quoting the NT - far from it - but trying to beat RCs or Orthodox over the head with the NT isn't going to get you very far.
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
I have the feeling that mousethief is painting Protestants' attitudes to the Saints with a rather big brush.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Possibly - but then Kaplan is using a big brush in the opposite direction.

If Mousethief is using a sweeping brush, then so is Kaplan.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Whatever the case, Mousethief is in a better position to say what the Orthodox do or don't believe about Saints (big S), saints (small s) and the invocation of Mary and the Saints than either Kaplan or myself ... he has an inside track on it that we don't.

So it ill-behoves either Kaplan or myself to lecture RCs and Orthodox on what they do and don't believe ...

On one level it's extremely rude ...
 

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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
I just ran across this quote from Julian of Norwich which to me expresses where "praying to the saints" might come into Christianity:

quote:

---

And we pray to Him by His sweet Mother’s love who bore Him, but all the help we have from her is His goodness.


And in the same way, all the help that we have from special saints and all the blessed company of Heaven – the dearworthy love and endless friendship that we have from them – is from His goodness.


Wherefore it pleases Him that we seek Him and worship Him by intermediaries, understanding and recognizing that He is the goodness of all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
anti-saint Protestants

---

Protestants are not anti-saint.

---

quote:

---

They are anti the mentality which ignores the NT reference to ALL Christians as hagioi and instead divides Christendom into a tiny minority of "saints" to which prayer can be made (a practice without the slightest biblical justification) and an overwhelming majority remainder of also-rans.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Which is to misunderstand what the RC and Orthodox view of Saints (big S) and saints (small s) actually is, Kaplan.

---

quote:

---

So it ill-behoves either Kaplan or myself to lecture RCs and Orthodox on what they do and don't believe ...

On one level it's extremely rude ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
this binary/dualistic thing again ...

'Because the RCs and Orthodox have Big S Saints, that means that everyone else is an also-ran ...'

We see the same thing in attitudes towards the idea of an ordained clergy from some Protestant groups, of course ...

---

quote:

---

Whatever the case, though, don't you think it's rather futile chucking chapter and verse at RC's and Orthodox in a Puritanical kind of way - 'Look at the Apostle Paul, he didn't ask people to pray to him did he?' - when they don't share your particular hermeneutic and apparently 'sola scriptura' approach in the first place?

---

quote:

---

You may as well say that the Apostle Paul didn't mention guitars or organs nor whether we should drive or cycle to church ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
to second-guess or lecture someone else on what you think their tradition or Tradition teaches

---

quote:

---

Given that Mousethief was formerly an Episcopalian, he'll know well enough what both Protestant perspectives are on the Saint/saint issue and what the Orthodox position is ...

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I get pissed off from time to time with the way evangelicalism is misrepresented on the Ship, but it goes with the territory or, to change the metaphor, "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen".

It is precious to complain if you feel that your particular position is not getting the respect you feel it deserves, and only my exquisite code of courtesy prevents my recourse to vulgar expressions such as "suck it up, princess".

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quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I get pissed off from time to time with the way evangelicalism is misrepresented on the Ship, but it goes with the territory or, to change the metaphor, "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen".

It is precious to complain if you feel that your particular position is not getting the respect you feel it deserves, and only my exquisite code of courtesy prevents my recourse to vulgar expressions such as "suck it up, princess".

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It's not the heat. It's being told by somebody outside my church that they know what my church believes better than I do. That's not heat. That's vulgar arrogance.

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Yes. It's just not unique to the anti-Orthodox. Which doesn't make it any less wrong.
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
I wouldn't say it was unique to the Orfies, no. But I was the one being called precious.
 

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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
hosting/

You (plural) are politely reminded that personal attacks belong in Hell. And that playing "chicken" with how close to the line you can get before attracting hostly attention will, if over-indulged in, attract adminly attention.

/hosting
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Yes, it happens all the time to evangelicals, but that doesn't give evangelicals the right to do it to everyone else ...

These tendencies aren't the property of any one tradition.

Ok - so I was the one playing the 'binary' card so it's hardly surprising that I drew some return fire - I can live with that.

I'd also like to think that if it were evangelicalism that were on the receiving end and getting stick over something that evangelicals don't actually believe - then I'd support the evos on the Ship - as I have done many times - rather in the same way as I've been supporting Mousethief here - even though, as Kaplan says, he can look after himself.

Anyhow - the story of my interfering, know-it-all letter to the RC converts from evangelicalism, I took against myself. In mitigation, there was also an enquiring aspect about it too - I didn't take a pulpiteering tone.

I'm not tarring Kaplan as an individual with the same brush as I'm tarring myself here - or at least myself in my more evangelical days - but I am suggesting that such tendencies are endemic within evangelicalism ... just as there are equally judgemental tendencies apparent across the more sacramental traditions ...

But it does seem a bit rich to pontificate about the Orthodox do or don't believe about Saints - bit S - and the priesthood without first attempting to find out and to understand their position.

For instance, as far as I'm aware, the Orthodox don't go in for the idea of ontological change in the priesthood - but I might be wrong ... certainly at a 'popular' or perhaps even a superstitious level there might be something of that - a former Orthodox priest once told me how he'd seen skulls in a monastic ossuary in Greece where the monks insisted that the skulls that had belonged to priests had cross-shaped sutures ...



But that doesn't mean that all Orthodox believe that anymore than it means that all evangelicals believe in a literal 7-Day Creation or in this, that or the other end-times theory ...
 

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Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
But it does seem a bit rich to pontificate about the Orthodox do or don't believe about Saints - bit S - and the priesthood without first attempting to find out and to understand their position.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Martin60:
The old Irish girl asking a dead Polish nun to help her out is no more superstitious, heterodox than my char-evo and vanilla evo Anglican siblings asking me to ask God to alleviate their Morton's neuroma or make their kids behave or for their friend dying of metastatic cancer to 'know' Him.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
For instance, as far as I'm aware, the Orthodox don't go in for the idea of ontological change in the priesthood

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quote:

---

Asking other Christians to pray for you, the argument would run, is 'in the Bible.'

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I have no objection to you pointing things out from RC or Orthodox sources online - that's not the issue - the issue, it seems to me - and I'm prepared to be corrected if I'm wrong - is that you appear to be second-guessing or reading things into some of that rather than listening to people who are on the inside of those traditions - such as Mousethief.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
But it does seem a bit rich to pontificate about the Orthodox do or don't believe about Saints - bit S - and the priesthood without first attempting to find out and to understand their position.

---

Who's "pontificating"?

What I am objecting to is what RCs and the Orthodox are quite happy to openly affirm in public sources such literature and web sites.

Both pay lip service to the sainthood and priesthood of all believers, but simultaneously assert a separate spiritual status for "saints", who unlike other believers have been canonised, and receive the venration and prayers of those other believers, and for 'priests", who unlike other believers, enjoy an exclusive ministry (including sacerdotal) of so-called "sacraments".

Regardless of whether or not you approve of the foregoing, it happens to be the existing situation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
As for modern piety surrounding saints, I assume you're including things like burying a statue of St. Joseph in your yard if you're trying to sell your house, or praying to St. Anthony when you need help finding your lost car keys.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
As for modern piety surrounding saints, I assume you're including things like burying a statue of St. Joseph in your yard if you're trying to sell your house, or praying to St. Anthony when you need help finding your lost car keys.

---

Are you asking a question here or being snarky? There's already enough snark on this thread to fill a pickle vat.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
So modern anti-saint Protestants are ignorantly protesting against a 500-year-old reality, completely blind to the modern piety surrounding saints? I can see that.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
So to get that anti-Saints Protestant you're talking about to re-examine his position, you may as a first step have to get him past what he's heard Catholic neighbors or co-workers say about things like burying statues of St. Joseph. I know this from experience.

---

True enough. Although I'd put praying to find something in a different category. Burying Joseph upside-down seems less like modern piety than modern impiety. I suppose it is perpetuated for the same reason the dog barks at the mailman every day: eventually the mailman goes away, proving that barking at him works. Eventually most houses sell.

I don't imagine evangelicals have any superstitions peculiar to their little corner of Christianity?

Good call, though. I apologize for the snarky tone. I suppose people of every tradition get tired of having to defend themselves against the same old ignorant attacks. Criticism that actually has some merit can go unnoticed because of the barrage of ignorance.

At its heart praying to the saints is the same as asking the fellow next to you in the pew to pray for you. We tend to like asking the departed saints because they have nothing better to do, whereas the guy in the pew next to you probably has to work in the morning. Of course we do both.
 

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Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 
It's all good. And yes, I'd put praying to find something in a different category, but it's something that some have a bit of a time getting past, since it seems at least to be a little more than "St. Anthony, pray for me."

But dyed-in-the-wool Presbyterian that I am, I'm completely with you on asking the prayers of the saints in the great cloud of witnesses being akin to asking the prayers of those sitting with us in the pews.

Then again, I make the sign of the cross with regularity as well. (But usually in a very Presbyterian fashion.)

As for evangelicals and their own peculiar superstitions, I have No Idea what those might be. I'm a mainline Protestant.
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
It's all good. And yes, I'd put praying to find something in a different category, but it's something that some have a bit of a time getting past, since it seems at least to be a little more than "St. Anthony, pray for me."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
So to get that anti-Saints Protestant you're talking about to re-examine his position, you may as a first step have to get him past what he's heard Catholic neighbors or co-workers say about things like burying statues of St. Joseph. I know this from experience.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The anti-Saint (completely different from the anti-saint) position is in no way dependent on the burying, whipping or any other loony treatment of statues, but is based on NT exegesis.

---

quote:

---

I don't know whether the reference to "evangelical superstitions" was intentionally snarky, but if it was, it failed, because wherever two or three half-way self-aware evangelicals are gathered together, particularly after a drink or two, the conversation often turns to the eccentric beliefs and behaviour of some of their fellow evangelicals.

Every Christian tradition has distinctive extra-scriptural obsessions and cultural tics which could be descibed as "superstitions", including mainline Protestantism, however much it might like to assume a de haut en bas position of superiority - I know, because I grew up in it.

---

No, I wasn't being snarky, nor was I being condescending. I was making a joke, aimed at evangelicals and mainliners alike; hence the

Of course all Christian traditions and expressions have their own tics, foibles, oddities and, yes, things that could be considered superstitions by others. No tradition has a monopoly on any of those things—nor does any tradition have a monopoly on the occasional sense of superiority.

[ 20. March 2016, 16:00: Message edited by: Nick Tamen ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Yes, as so often, Nick's is the voice of common sense.

I'm still wondering what crossing oneself in a Presbyterian manner looks like.

RCs and Orthodox do it in different directions. So I'm wondering whether Presbyterians do it up or down rather than left to right or right to left - or possibly behind their backs rather than across their chests?
 

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Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm still wondering what crossing oneself in a Presbyterian manner looks like.

RCs and Orthodox do it in different directions. So I'm wondering whether Presbyterians do it up or down rather than left to right or right to left - or possibly behind their backs rather than across their chests?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Only until you were about 10 years old

---

quote:

---

Tradition is wider than the NT.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
And yes, mainstream liberal Protestantism does tend to look down its nose at conservative evangelical

---

quote:

---

it's not as if the Brethren and other independent groups don't themselves suffer from a sense of superiority towards other groups.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
At its heart praying to the saints is the same as asking the fellow next to you in the pew to pray for you. We tend to like asking the departed saints because they have nothing better to do

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
There are quite a lot of things that various groups of people who claim to be sola scriptura insist on which can only be claimed from scripture by mangling it. Here are 7 easy ones for a start:-

1. Any version of 'The Rapture'.

2. Any claim that their version of the future is more right than anyone else's - or for that matter that which explanation one advocates is even of the bene else yet alone the esse.

3. Any claim that their understanding of the nature of atonement is all there is to it, and every other understanding of it is wrong, rather than just as much less than the whole as theirs is.

4. Baptism by any formula other than that hallowed by the universal tradition of the Church.

5. Any explanation of world history based on a series of dispensations, irrespective of how they choose to chop them up.

6. Any claim that there is a scripturally prescribed way that Holy Communion/the Lord's Supper/the Eucharist/the Mass/the Holy Liturgy/the Breaking of Bread Service/or which name one prefers/ must be celebrated and everyone else does it wrong.

7. Any claim that the Authorised Verion (KJV) is more authoritative than other translations.

---

You left out snake-handling.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Yes, Kaplan, I said 'suffer' - in the same way I might say that someone suffers from delusions of grandeur - or delusions of adequacy ...

Look, I'm sufficiently conservative in my theology to say that when in comes to certain issues I'd side with your conservative evangelicals of 50 years ago over and against those snooty liberals any day of the week - and to do the same when it comes to any current reductionist approach that liberalises everything down to a kind of soft-left environmentalism - as much as that suits my particular ideology from a political perspective.

There's more to the Gospel than do-goodism.

But again, you seem to be setting up a binary opposition again. There's a principled conservative evangelical approach which you take to be the only 'correct' way to handle scripture - and there's everyone else - and those everyone else tend to neatly divide into snooty, mainstream soft-liberals or into RCs and Orthodox who add to scripture and refuse to adopt a modernist 19th/20th century conservative evangelical approach to it which you fondly imagine to have been the way people approached it from the 1st to the 3rd or 4th centuries.

I might be rude and suggest that such an approach is more suited to a more adolescent Kaplan abandoning snooty mainline liberal Protestantism for conservative evangelicalism than to a middle-aged Kaplan who really ought to know better and learned that such binariness is not the only way to approach the world ...
 

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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
hosting/

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I might be rude and suggest that such an approach is more suited to a more adolescent Kaplan abandoning snooty mainline liberal Protestantism for conservative evangelicalism than to a middle-aged Kaplan who really ought to know better and learned that such binariness is not the only way to approach the world ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
You left out snake-handling.

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I'd got to seven. So I thought I'd better stop.
 

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Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
any current reductionist approach that liberalises everything down to a kind of soft-left environmentalism

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
any current reductionist approach that liberalises everything down to a kind of soft-left environmentalism

---

You missed my point, which was neither to attack Christians who see environmentalism as an important issue, nor to attack soft-leftism (in politics anyway, where I combine a soft-leftism, eg support for the welfare state - which some Christians would regard as hard leftism! - with liberalism and conservatism).

It was rather to remind us that when we are more popular than our theological rivals, we regard that popularity as a sign or rightness or divine favour, but when we are less popular, then we comfort ourselves by saying that the other side has sold out.

We all do it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
Russ, I'm not sure what you're asking, or if the distinction you give makes a difference...

....I'm not entirely sure it matters. If I pray, "Dear Mary, help Jordan find an apartment," and I should have prayed "Dear Mary, pray to God to help Jordan find an apartment," I'm not sure Mary will mind. Or God.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Russ:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
Russ, I'm not sure what you're asking, or if the distinction you give makes a difference...

....I'm not entirely sure it matters. If I pray, "Dear Mary, help Jordan find an apartment," and I should have prayed "Dear Mary, pray to God to help Jordan find an apartment," I'm not sure Mary will mind. Or God.

---

I'm asking whether you don't see a significant difference because you are so sure that the only power that Mary has is the power (that all human souls have) to ask of God. So that to you the only possible meaning of "help Jordan" is "ask God to help Jordan" ?

Or are you asserting that you don't care whether Jordan is helped by the power of God, by the name of God, or by some other spiritual power or name, so long as that aid is forthcoming ?

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