Orthodox Apologetics

Psalm 141:4 Incline not my heart to evil words, to make excuses in sins.

Christ said to the woman caught in adultery "Go and sin no more", not "Go and sin some more"; nor did He deny the sinfulness of her actions, by ascribing it to social norms of a transitory nature, relative to the cultural mores of the time and space in which one happens to find him- or herself living in...

When life is not an option.

...is that he was a Catholic.


Yes, the guys trying to burn him at the stake were Catholic as well, I get that: but, -you see-, just because Sicilian mobsters "murderize " each other doesn't make either one of them less Italian than the other...

Reporter: These days, it sounds a little strange... loving the Arabs, that is. The world is afraid of them, at best.

Mioara Roman ¹: Out of ignorance. Next to nothing is known about them, not even the fact that not all of the Arab world is Muslim. For instance, the one who committed the first major terrorist act, back in the 70's, was a Palestinian Orthodox Christian, just like us. The idea is that out of over one billion Muslims, only 200 million are Arabs.

¹ Scholar of Arabic and ex-wife of former Romanian Prime-Minister Petre Roman.

A series of posts I recently wrote at my personal blog, Pious Fabrications, entitled "Why I'm not an atheist." I've received several replies to various aspects of this series from atheists, but none of them have been even remotely challenging (in fact, most haven't even been logical or truthful to historical fact).

Because the former makes repentance impossible, since nobody repents for things that are not sins.

(I do not repent of the fact that I have dark hair, for instance).

Isaiah 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Luke 18:13 And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.

As seen from Ancient Christian Defense. I wrote this two years ago back when President Obama was running for Office and back when his former pastor(The Reverend Wright) got in trouble with the media.




A short critique of "Liberation Theology"

Just like Saint Augustine (and other Church Fathers) Christianized the philosophy of Plato. And Just like Thomas Aquanius and the 2nd generation of Calvinists & Lutherans Christianized the philosophy of Aristotle.

Some thought that they could do the same for the political philosophy of Karl Marx.

What started in Germany soon went to South America, and from South America it has found it's way in some black American churches. It was real popular in the 1960's, but such a theology is really unnecessary.

Christianity has always had a social theology. One can find it in the Gospels when one looks at the Sermon on the mount.

One can look in 1st John and in the Epistle of Saint James to see that Christians cared about their neighbor.

One can look at the early Church right after the Apostolic era. Christians gave to the poor, they saved the lives of unwanted Babies that were discarded by the pagan Romans.

It wasn't uncommon to see Christians give all their monitory wealth to the poor around them.

Saint Cyprian gave his wealth away. Saint Augustine sold his estate(or part of it....I forgot which) and gave the money to the poor in his community.

One of Saint Augustine's enemies did the same. Julian was defrocked as a Bishop for supporting Pelagius against Augustine.......and just like Augustine.....he too gave all his wealth to the poor in his town.


So we don't need Liberation Theology. But since it is here.........what needs to be done is what was done in the past when christians tried to christianize the pagan culture around them.

One needs to use "some" of the truths found in Liberation theology to express "some" of the teachings of the christian faith. This method should be done when the audience is trapped in a communist culture.

And when the Audience is a christian culture or a mixed audience ...then one needs to change the pagan word or concept to fit a christian teaching. This is what the Church Fathers have done. They purged the meaning and contexts of pagan words all the time. Even the Apostles did it.

When one looks at the word heaven, "Kosmos".....one will notice that this Greek word meant something different to the pagan Greeks. The Apostles christianized that word. the Hellenistic Jews had to do the same when they translated texts from Aramiac and Hebrew to Greek.

This same concept applies to all of our contact with the nonchristian World.



Christianity has never embraced all of the pagan culture around them. Only the good. And how one does that is to see what is in agreement with the Christian Faith.

Once that goodness is found then everything around it needs to be purged. Something similar happens in medicine. One finds the active ingredient in order to help find cures.

In our case, the active ingredient is the "good" found in the culture. It is my belief that God through Prevenient grace planted certain seeds of truth in pagan cultures to help draw them closer to Christ.

Once we find these truths in our missionary efforts, we can use them to help express a truth of the christian Faith.


This hasn't happened yet in Liberation Theology. It still looks too much like Marxism. Thus it needs more purging.



But like I said before...........it is unnecessary, for Christianity always had it's own social view.

Thus Liberation Theology was an experiment gone wrong. We can't christianize everything.

Out of all the pagan Greek philosophers, Socrates and Plato were two of the closest to Christianity.

This was the only reason why they were usable. Every philosophy can't be christianized.........especially the philosophy of Karl Marx.














JNORM888

Exporting Christianity by the sword and Democracy by bombs. – Now there's an oxymoron, if there ever was one...

"Thou shalt not murder a child by abortion nor kill them when born." - Didache, 2, 2 (AD 60)

"Thou shalt not murder a child by abortion, nor again shalt thou kill it when it is born." - St. Barnabas, Letter of St. Barnabas, 19, 5 (AD 80)

"And when we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very fetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God's care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child-murder, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it. But we are in all things always alike and the same, submitting ourselves to reason, and not ruling over it. " - Athenagoras of Athens, A Plea for the Christians, 35 (AD 175)

"In our case, murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed." - Tertullian, The Apology, 9, 25 (AD 202)

"There are some [pagan] women who, by drinking medical preparations, extinguish the source of the future man in their very bowels, and thus commit a parricide before they bring forth. And these things assuredly come down from the teaching of your [pagan] gods." - Marcus Minucius Felix, Octavius, 30 (AD 210)

"Whence women, reputed believers, began to resort to drugs for producing sterility, and to gird themselves round, so to expel what was being conceived on account of their not wishing to have a child either by a slave or by any paltry fellow, for the sake of their family and excessive wealth. Behold, into how great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by inculcating adultery and murder at the same time!" - St. Hippolytus of Rome, Refutation of All Heresies, 9, 7 (AD 210)

"Concerning women who commit fornication, and destroy that which they have conceived, or who are employed in making drugs for abortion, a former decree excluded them until the hour of death, and to this some have assented. Nevertheless, being desirous to use somewhat greater lenity, we have ordained that they fulfill ten years [of penance], according to the prescribed degrees." - Council of Ancyra, Canon 21 (AD 314)

"Women also who administer drugs to cause abortion, as well as those who take poisons to destroy unborn children, are murderesses. So much on this subject." - St. Basil the Great, Letter to Amphilochius (AD 347)

"Why then bring disgrace upon all these? Why sow where the ground makes it its care to destroy the fruit? where there are many efforts at abortion? where there is murder before the birth? for even the harlot thou dost not let continue a mere harlot, but makest her a murderess also. You see how drunkenness leads to whoredom, whoredom to adultery, adultery to murder; or rather to a something even worse than murder. For I have no name to give it, since it does not take off the thing born, but prevent its being born. Why then dost thou abuse the gift of God, and fight with His laws, and follow after what is a curse as if a blessing, and make the chamber of procreation a chamber for murder, and arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter? For with a view to drawing more money by being agreeable and an object of longing to her lovers, even this she is not backward to do, so heaping upon thy head a great pile of fire." - St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans, 24 (AD 400)