tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16082864.post4880069244269045673..comments2023-06-21T08:46:40.230-05:00Comments on Fundamentals: Tyranny: Muslim, Catholic and AnglicanSiarlys Jenkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15083839117838391267noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16082864.post-70553818861621415822008-09-15T17:26:00.000-05:002008-09-15T17:26:00.000-05:00Very interesting post. I especially like your last...Very interesting post. I especially like your last paragraph. By the way, have you seen the Canadian TV show <I>Little Mosque on the Prairie</I>? I caught one episode and it was pretty good.Karenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039130895443623988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16082864.post-59115984148798343072008-09-09T10:25:00.000-05:002008-09-09T10:25:00.000-05:00Siarlys, I just wanted to let you know I apprecia...Siarlys, I just wanted to let you know I appreciate your thoughtful comments you left on my blog. I trust they will be as thought provoking to others as they are to myslef. <BR/><BR/>BTW, Paul Robeson is my hero-of course living in NJ & having Rutgers as my alma mater, who else would fit the bill?NewJerseyJesushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06519844259659117396noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16082864.post-49391287699864630082008-06-25T17:07:00.000-05:002008-06-25T17:07:00.000-05:00Hi Siarlys,I deleted my rant because I don't want ...Hi Siarlys,<BR/>I deleted my rant because I don't want to affect my future business. I have saved a copy of the full conversation, which I can send you, if you like. I would only ask you to keep it for yourself (for the next 10 years or so). Email me at frankgerlach@gmail.com.<BR/>I am not under any duress, I just think it is a bad business practice to raise political issues, as long as I am not a politician.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16082864.post-13530905710759287722008-06-25T13:41:00.000-05:002008-06-25T13:41:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16082864.post-30820524926778855842008-06-12T19:18:00.000-05:002008-06-12T19:18:00.000-05:00Frank, it seems to me that you are still fighting ...Frank, it seems to me that you are still fighting the Thirty Years War. Even the Lutheran denominations formed by relatively recent arrivals from Germany (Wisconsin Synod, e.g.) don't want to fight that all over again. Unless you are going to exterminate all the Romans, and all the Muslims, or subjugate and brainwash them all to your way of thinking, you have to live with them. To really live with them, you have to even learn to like some of them, as individuals, not as members of a group identity.<BR/><BR/>I will agree that anyone who adopts a group identity and marches in lockstep for the domination of that group identity over the world is my implacable enemy. I don't care if they are Catholic, Protestant, pseudo-Communist (the CP of China is now running the most ruthless CAPITALIST economy in the world), Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist or Atheist. If they want world domination in the name of their creed, they are my enemy. But, most people of all of those creeds want nothing of the sort. We all want to be free to practice our personal beliefs, share them, and cut off the conversation with anyone trying to IMPOSE upon us.<BR/><BR/>Once again, as the recently deceased former governor of Wisconsin, Lee Sherman Dreyfus, told Cardinal Carol Wojtyla, the mind-set of Catholics in America was "They are good young Catholics, but they think like Protestants."<BR/><BR/>(And we Protestants can live next door to them, visit each other's barbecues and holiday parties, even visit each other's churches. AMEN.Siarlys Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15083839117838391267noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16082864.post-20157161082493292632008-06-10T02:57:00.000-05:002008-06-10T02:57:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16082864.post-49488816669724914642008-06-10T02:29:00.000-05:002008-06-10T02:29:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16082864.post-9442162877236773372008-06-07T09:44:00.000-05:002008-06-07T09:44:00.000-05:00Where did you say you are posting from Frank? Germ...Where did you say you are posting from Frank? Germany? I was once acquainted with a Belgian professor who said the strangest thing about coming to America is that in large cities and small rural villages there are Catholic and Lutheran churches almost side by side, whereas, in Europe, whole nations or provinces are all one or all the other. America's strength is not that we stand for the triumph of any particular creed, but that we can absorb them all. Admittedly, the politics into which we absorb them is Protestant in origin, but the secular political and cultural expression of these Protestant roots can absorb, rather than subjugate, arrivals of any culture. That goes for Roman Catholics, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists... they can be Americans and retain their religion. There haven' been any home grown American Muslims launching terror attacks, they all seem to come from Europe's Muslim ghettos. In fact, many American Muslims were in the World Trade Center when it was demolished. If you look for it, the Bible is full of violence and intolerance and pornography. Or, if the Holy Spirit guides you to find more exalted meaning in the words, you can leave such earthly distractions aside. The same is true of the Qu'ran. The words are all influenced by the limited understanding of those to whom the revelation was given.Siarlys Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15083839117838391267noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16082864.post-65001790864595472982008-06-05T12:58:00.000-05:002008-06-05T12:58:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16082864.post-40220382301747927392008-06-05T08:58:00.000-05:002008-06-05T08:58:00.000-05:00OK Frank, let me get into detail about the Roman C...OK Frank, let me get into detail about the Roman Church. It is not, and never has been, catholic. It has aspired to make itself Catholic by crushing all alternatives within Christianity, but even before the Protestant Reformation, there were Greek Orthodox, Nestorians, Pelagians, Copts, Albigensians, and of course many of the German tribes were Arian until the Franks crushed them.<BR/><BR/>I grew up Presbyterian in a Catholic (as we colloquially called it) neighborhood. Most of the kids I played with as a child were Catholic. I have in more recent years been to mass a few times with elderly Hispanic friends. I have spent a few years working as a full time volunteer with Catholic Worker Movement people. I like the Catholics I have met. I have no desire to argue with them about their form of worship, or veneration of the Virgin Mary, statues of saint, etc. Nor do I have any desire to indulge in it.<BR/><BR/>In fact, there is nothing I find wrong with the Roman Catholic faith that could not be cured by removal of popes, cardinals, bishops, curia, disbanding of Vatican City, etc. Yes, I am firmly opposed to the hierarchy. Although I currently belong to a church in one of the Methodist denominations, which does have bishops, I have a preference for the congregational form of church governance.<BR/><BR/>Cromwell... yes, he was a Presbyterian, more or less, and that did contribute to his becoming an autocrat. Presbyterians can be awfully overbearing and self-righteous sometimes. I should know, I had several as Sunday School teachers. The men are the worst. The woman can be quite inspiring, especially the ones who provided me a life long emphasis on Isaiah and Micah. Now, was he the only Protestant dictator? Well, Hitler may have been nominally Catholic, but his electoral support was in large part from the Prussians, who were Lutheran, and even celebrated that the Jews were going to get the comeuppance that old Martin promised them on one of his off days. And don't forget that general in Guatemala, the one who master minded the "fusilles y frijoles" campaign, who was a disciple of some American Protestant missionary sect.<BR/><BR/>On the other hand, you consider Castro to be R.C.? Could have fooled the poor bishops in Havana. Not to mention the ones in Miami. And Chavez? Well, I admire some of what Chavez has done. Unfortunately, like Huey Long, he has to puff himself up instead of being content to have a decent program. But he did take a defeat at the polls with good grace, when his constitutional amendment was rejected. At least when I buy gas from Citgo, I know part of the outrageous price I'm paying is going to lay water mains in the slums of Caracas. And as for Kirchner, well, maybe she is Catholic, I really don't know. Argentina isn't exactly the most devout Spanish-speaking country in the hemisphere, and she did get elected by popular vote. You know who is Protestant? Robert Mugabe. Now there is a good argument for term limits. And don't forget, apartheid was the brain child of stalwart members of the Dutch Reformed Church, along with some long-lost Huguenots.<BR/><BR/>It is true that when the Roman Church is the established church, it tends to foster bloody despotism. That is one good reason why we should not allow any church to become established, ever again. Spanish Catholicism is pretty harmless under a socialist government. The Anglican church had its bloody days for sure, and some of these Protestants running around talking about Dominion are pretty dangerous too. In fact, I have sometimes suspected Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell of wanting to be Pope of their respective brands. Check out <A HREF="http://archives.wittenburgdoor.com/archives/ecumenism.html" REL="nofollow">Ecumenism: It Isn't Just for Liberals Anymore</A>.<BR/><BR/>You mentioned Islam also. Well, as it happened, Islam came first among warlike tribes who were on the borders of two aging empires, already rotten to the core on the inside. (As distinct from Christianity, which began among a conquered people, and spread among slaves and servants at first. But, given time, the Christians became the Official Religion of the Roman Empire eventually. That bloody deal with Constantine.) So the Byzantines retreated across two thirds of their territory, and the Sassanids collapsed, and Islam emerged kind of warlike. But they provided a great haven for the Jews for many centuries, didn't really disturb Christians who settled down under their rule, preserved a great deal of science, fostered the arts, and the Qu'ran has some of the most beautiful prayers ever written in it. Islam today has about as many variations as Christianity, some dangerous for the same reasons, some quite reasonable. As a faith, like all true faith, it is personal between a believer and God. When it gets used for political purposes, it becomes, like any religion, demented and deformed.<BR/><BR/>I believe that true Christianity is an unattainable blend of Wesleyan, Unitarian, Presbyterian and Mennonite theology, organized with a congregational form of governance, overlaid with some Pentecostal praise, and infused with Catholic humanism divorced from its hierarchical context. (Really, Catholic humanists can be quite good, when the Pope isn't watching too closely). Also you need some Hebrew to understand the Old Testament. But once The Church started hosting philosophers trying to interpret the Gospels and tell us ignorant uninitiated peasants what it all meant, Christianity was almost done for. Cite me a doctrine, and I'll poke holes in it. Cite me Richard Dawkins, I can poke holes in him too. "The Selfish Gene" was an imaginative work of science fiction.Siarlys Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15083839117838391267noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16082864.post-8537989943066536392008-06-04T14:21:00.000-05:002008-06-04T14:21:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16082864.post-27657838990784298122008-06-04T13:54:00.000-05:002008-06-04T13:54:00.000-05:00Please Frank, real life is much more complicated t...Please Frank, real life is much more complicated than that.Siarlys Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15083839117838391267noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16082864.post-45523664689623151192008-06-03T09:14:00.000-05:002008-06-03T09:14:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16082864.post-32296854810719011712008-06-03T09:10:00.000-05:002008-06-03T09:10:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16082864.post-23341385569913650612008-06-03T09:05:00.000-05:002008-06-03T09:05:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com