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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Pope celebrates the reformation with agnostic leaders
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Bishops Finger
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# 5430
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Posted
Some details concerning whom can be found in our good friend Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antje_Jackel%C3%A9n
It appears that she and Pope Francis agree on a number of issues, though not the Dead Horses....
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
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Fr Weber
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# 13472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Not the same thing. Deus means a god, Allah means the God.
Deus can also mean *the* God (lots of prayers in Latin begin with something like Omnipotens sempiterne Deus...). Latin lacks articles, definite or indefinite.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Not the same thing. Deus means a god, Allah means the God.
Deus can also mean *the* God (lots of prayers in Latin begin with something like Omnipotens sempiterne Deus...). Latin lacks articles, definite or indefinite.
If someone says deus alone without context, it is impossible to know which god they mean.
If someone says Allah there need be no context to know exactly who they mean.
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Hallellou, hallellou
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Ricardus
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# 8757
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Posted
Deus (and the English word 'god') have plural forms and can therefore refer to polytheistic gods, e.g. Neptune or Thor. Allah can only ever be singular (and probably has an in-built definite article), and can therefore only refer to a monotheistic, 'one and only' God.
Thus an Arabic Christian can refer to God as Allah, but nobody could call Neptune 'an allah'.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
[It's] depressing that anyone should publish something with the contentious subheading,
"Europe's regulated and monopolized (sic) religious economies",
and expect to be taken seriously. There's some quite interesting arguments in the article, but that subheading indicates an approach to Christian faith that verges on blasphemy.
I don't think of the subtitle as blasphemous at all.
It's not a comment on the nature of God, nor on the spiritual value of any particular denomination. It refers to the fact that every religious institution exists in the material realm of class, culture, history and politics and money, etc., and lives, acts, grows or declines according to its place in a given society.
Now, it may seem distasteful to claim that a 'religious economy' exists in which churches compete for members in a given environment, and in which individuals use various criteria in choosing one church over another, but I don't think it's an attack on the Lord Almighty to say so.
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Rodney Stark is by no means a disinterested academic; his thesis over many years has been that a "free market" religious economy is of necessity more vibrant than any State-oriented system.
[...]I felt that he had not always understood the European situation and had been unduly influenced by American culture.
I know that Stark et al's theory has a number of detractors, but I do think it's a useful idea, even in the Europe. It adds a further layer to our understanding of church development. I do think it probably needs to be used alongside other theories.
One researcher's found it relevant to post-Communist Hungary. Regarding Sweden and Denmark, a relatively recent article (p. 57-59) references Stark et al's theory as a possible explanation, among others, for the low level of religiosity there. As I say, I should think all of these explanations are significant in some way.
But with regard to the OP, the CofS is in an interesting situation. It appears to be closely tied to national identity, and morally in tune with the Swedish people. By contrast the CofE appears to be more distant from the wider public and less clear about its place in society. The CofE has more people actually attending services, but if these people are increasingly different from the wider public (i.e. if they're more and more likely to be evangelicals) its ability to speak to and for the wider public might decline. The CofS doesn't have this problem.
Moreover, the fact that most (non-immigrant) Swedes identify culturally with the Lutheran CofS probably made it a straightforward place for the Pope to visit for his Reformation celebrations. Celebrating with Lutherans in a country where very many of the inhabitants stand outside that tradition might have been problematic, even if the Lutherans there were much more practising and their clergy more orthodox than is the case in Sweden.
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gorpo
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# 17025
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
But with regard to the OP, the CofS is in an interesting situation. It appears to be closely tied to national identity, and morally in tune with the Swedish people. By contrast the CofE appears to be more distant from the wider public and less clear about its place in society. The CofE has more people actually attending services, but if these people are increasingly different from the wider public (i.e. if they're more and more likely to be evangelicals) its ability to speak to and for the wider public might decline. The CofS doesn't have this problem.
If a society is increasingly becoming secular/non-christian, isn´t it natural that the remaining christians are going to be increasingly different from the wider society in some aspects? If a church is completely in tune with a predominantly non-christian society, then it has a real problem. It is no wonder that churches that are completely "in tune" with what secular society expects are increasingly empty. Most people nowadays are not interested in institutional religion, but the remaining ones who seek churches do not want to go to churches who teach exactly the same stuff they hear anywhere else.
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Bishops Finger
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# 5430
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Posted
Given your blanket condemnation of the Church of Sweden, gorpo, perhaps you would kindly watch this video of the Easter morning service from the principal church in a town of about 19000 inhabitants, and let us know how unChristian and/or secular it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_5UR800n04&nohtml5=False
I assume you understand Swedish?
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
gorpo
I can't argue with what you've said here. But you should be aware that in countries where there are state churches, attendance and faith aren't the only criteria by which the churches evaluate their influence. Indeed, their clergy may feel they have more responsibility for, or a deeper connection to, non-churchgoers than churchgoers. This makes sense in a country where the church sees itself as having a duty towards everyone, regardless of whether or not they have a faith or go to church.
Many in the CofE and the CofS take this view. But the difference is that the CofE is far more split regarding this role. Many of its clergy will be committed to the idea of the church as essentially wedded to English identity; others focus on their congregations, bringing people into the church through an evangelism that has little to do with 'Englishness' as such. Many more clergy have to juggle both ideas uneasily, I think.
Context probably has a lot to do with the attitudes that clergy and congregations adopt. The CofE exists in a far more pluralistic and socially unequal society than the CofS does. Moreover, the CofE isn't supported financially by the state in the way the CofS is, so you could argue that it has to be more versatile simply in order to survive. But that versatility makes it less united.
The irony is that a strongly evangelistic and evangelical church may create more believers and worshippers, but in our culture that kind of church is also going to be more alienated from a large proportion of the wider society - unless it can convert a really huge number of people, which seems unlikely.
Brazil is obviously very different. Despite the huge number of RCs there it has no state church but it does have high levels of religious participation. This means its churches don't have to worry too much about what will antagonise the wider secular population, and I presume that no single denomination carries the burden of representing 'Brazilianness'.
[ 06. November 2016, 12:13: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
Gramps49
I don't think anyone on this thread was arguing that Arab-speaking Christians shouldn't refer to God as Allah.
The comment in the OP about Islam was probably a reference to the Lutheran archbishop in Sweden who was unwilling to say in her public job interview in 2013 that Jesus had any more to offer than Mohammed.
This was mentioned in one of the links I posted above. I admitted that most links on the subject were likely to be from conservative and (fairly hostile) sources, particularly those I was finding in English. For that reason, it's probably hard to get a fully accurate sense of what the chosen candidate, Antje Jackelén, was getting at.
However, thanks to my rusty Swedish and Google Translate, I feel that in her interview in 2013 (and in later conversations) she was expressing a fairly liberal but not particularly original contextual approach to the Bible. There are presumably CofE bishops who would agree with most of what she said, although in a more pluralistic public Christian setting they might have expressed themselves differently.
That being said, I don't think someone like Antje Jackelén (her sex and her Lutheranism notwithstanding) would become a CofE archbishop, as things stand. She might be a better fit for the ELCA, perhaps?
[ 07. November 2016, 21:33: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by gorpo:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
But with regard to the OP, the CofS is in an interesting situation. It appears to be closely tied to national identity, and morally in tune with the Swedish people. By contrast the CofE appears to be more distant from the wider public and less clear about its place in society. The CofE has more people actually attending services, but if these people are increasingly different from the wider public (i.e. if they're more and more likely to be evangelicals) its ability to speak to and for the wider public might decline. The CofS doesn't have this problem.
If a society is increasingly becoming secular/non-christian, isn´t it natural that the remaining christians are going to be increasingly different from the wider society in some aspects? If a church is completely in tune with a predominantly non-christian society, then it has a real problem. It is no wonder that churches that are completely "in tune" with what secular society expects are increasingly empty. Most people nowadays are not interested in institutional religion, but the remaining ones who seek churches do not want to go to churches who teach exactly the same stuff they hear anywhere else.
It's a bit more complicated than that though. I find many aspects of modern "secular" society more Christian than the "Christian" society we had in the past. Our treatment of transexuals, non-heterosexual orientation, children, the poor, women and ethnic minorities is considerably better.
Indeed, I'm struggling to know what your problem is, unless your reference to "gender ideology", which you've never explained, means you think persecuting and refusing to acknowledge trans-gender people is somehow "Christian", at which point it's pistols at dawn.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
It's a bit more complicated than that though. I find many aspects of modern "secular" society more Christian than the "Christian" society we had in the past. Our treatment of transexuals, non-heterosexual orientation, children, the poor, women and ethnic minorities is considerably better.
Indeed, I'm struggling to know what your problem is, unless your reference to "gender ideology", which you've never explained, means you think persecuting and refusing to acknowledge trans-gender people is somehow "Christian", at which point it's pistols at dawn.
That's interesting. I'd say that society has become more tolerant in some ways particularly with regard to some minorities, which is an almost unqualified Good Thing.
But in many other ways, I'd say that British society at least is increasingly divergent from Christian influence and values - particularly with regard to the general attitude to some other minorities and acceptable distain for the poor, the unemployed, the weak and the sick.
Churches in general have been slow to take notice of the minorities you've mentioned, but I don't think it is a fair thing to say that society is generally a better exhibitor of Christian values than the church.
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arse
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
I think it depends on how long a time scale you're looking at. Comparing now with, say, the 1940s, I find it difficult to find many negatives. I agree that the degree to which despising the poor, the underprivileged and the disadvantaged has become acceptable again is distressing, but the irony here is that very many Christians voted and will continue to vote for the politicians driving that despising. That HTB/Trump thread is a case in point here.
None of which, I suspect, is what Gorpo's on about. I think I know what he's actually gunning at, but I want him to clarify.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
I guess we see what we want to see. My position is that the church has been quietly working in unpopular and largely unseen ways for decades and that society rarely is able to replicate it. As churches decline, that provision is rarely filled in by the state, society or anyone else.
That's not to say that the church hasn't failed in many other ways, but it still isn't right to say that Society does a better job of exhibiting Christian values than the church. The church can be crappy, society is usually worse.
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arse
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I guess we see what we want to see. My position is that the church has been quietly working in unpopular and largely unseen ways for decades and that society rarely is able to replicate it. As churches decline, that provision is rarely filled in by the state, society or anyone else.
That's not to say that the church hasn't failed in many other ways, but it still isn't right to say that Society does a better job of exhibiting Christian values than the church. The church can be crappy, society is usually worse.
But that wasn't my contention. My contention is that our secular society of today is more Christian than our supposedly Christian society of decades ago.
[ 08. November 2016, 11:00: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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Bishops Finger
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# 5430
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Posted
Yes, but not these days necessarily overtly Christian.
None the worse for that, though, IMHO.
YMMV.
IJ.
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
I think money has a lot to do with it. Rich societies can afford to spend more money on the poor, which removes the burdensome incentive for the 'traditional' European family. Capitalism is king, and making and spending money keeps the world turning, whether you're a married woman, a gay man or a Somali in Birmingham.
I'm not knocking money; I'd like a lot more of it. But perhaps the message is that the type of Christianity you get depends on the status of the society it exists in. The CofS may represent the pinnacle (as some would see it) of church-based Christianity precisely because Sweden is such a rich, comfortable country. Christian conservatism simply doesn't seem necessary to more than a tiny number of Christians.
Money being so significant, the CofE might become more like the CofS if it was funded in a similar way. For example, certain parishes or dioceses might be less reliant on funds from wealthy evangelical congregations if its buildings were maintained by the state, or perhaps by local communities, as Simon Jenkins recommends.
[ 08. November 2016, 18:22: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
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