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Biff
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Post by Biff »

FredS wrote: 21 Apr 2022, 06:51
Biff wrote: 20 Apr 2022, 20:54 I don't really care what the Pope puts on his robes. Art is art. But I thought it a bit odd as I didn't think the geoglyph has anything to do with Christianity.

As far as Christ being a comforter, why would you say that? I'm not Roman in my dogma, and depending on how you define 'comforter' I would unashamedly say that Christ is the 'God of all comfort'. 2 Cor 1:3ff
I see you as a fire & brimstone guy. I recall (and my recollection can certainly be wrong) you writing about the recent pandemic and seeing God's punishment on a world gone haywire with nary a trace of His grace or comfort to be seen.

Pardon me if I got that wrong. It's too soon to be arguing about this stuff.
ohhhhhhhh. My wife says something similar - "you love justice over mercy". Guilty. :oops:

Sometimes I think I might be on the spectrum or something. I see the world in very black & white terms. Very little grey.
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Post by Del »

Biff wrote: 20 Apr 2022, 20:54 I don't really care what the Pope puts on his robes. Art is art. But I thought it a bit odd as I didn't think the geoglyph has anything to do with Christianity.

As far as Christ being a comforter, why would you say that? I'm not Roman in my dogma, and depending on how you define 'comforter' I would unashamedly say that Christ is the 'God of all comfort'. 2 Cor 1:3ff
If the artifact is pre-Columbian, then it wasn't made by Christians. However.... most cultures "baptize" their favorite symbols when they are evangelized, and this is not a bad thing. Thus we have Christmas trees and Easter eggs. Even the Cross itself was a pagan symbol of tyranny and torture, until Christ Himself made it into an altar and a symbol of worship.

All the same, I don't know what the Chilean Christians think of this symbol when they see it. It might be a sacred Christian image in that part of the world, or it might just be Francis's being eccentric. Both are possible.
==============================

As for "Roman dogma": Christ established His Church to spread His faith throughout the world, and that Church preserved the writings of the Apostles as our sacred scripture. The Apostolic Christians believe the New Testament scriptures in the same way that the authors believed what they wrote. (This is also true for the Orthodox Christians, although they chaff at being called "Roman.")

It doesn't matter what oddball decorations Francis wears on his vestments. The most important thing is that Christ makes Himself present to us on His altar, so that we can receive His Body and Blood for our salvation. Most American Evangelical believers retain some of this faith in their customs of "altar call" and "accepting Christ as your savior."
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Post by Del »

Biff wrote: 21 Apr 2022, 10:31
FredS wrote: 21 Apr 2022, 06:51
Biff wrote: 20 Apr 2022, 20:54 I don't really care what the Pope puts on his robes. Art is art. But I thought it a bit odd as I didn't think the geoglyph has anything to do with Christianity.

As far as Christ being a comforter, why would you say that? I'm not Roman in my dogma, and depending on how you define 'comforter' I would unashamedly say that Christ is the 'God of all comfort'. 2 Cor 1:3ff
I see you as a fire & brimstone guy. I recall (and my recollection can certainly be wrong) you writing about the recent pandemic and seeing God's punishment on a world gone haywire with nary a trace of His grace or comfort to be seen.

Pardon me if I got that wrong. It's too soon to be arguing about this stuff.
ohhhhhhhh. My wife says something similar - "you love justice over mercy". Guilty. :oops:

Sometimes I think I might be on the spectrum or something. I see the world in very black & white terms. Very little grey.
I agree that clear moral lines are a good thing. "A man's got to have a code, a creed to live by, no matter what his job." - John Wayne
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Post by Biff »

Del wrote: 21 Apr 2022, 10:53
Biff wrote: 21 Apr 2022, 10:31
FredS wrote: 21 Apr 2022, 06:51
I see you as a fire & brimstone guy. I recall (and my recollection can certainly be wrong) you writing about the recent pandemic and seeing God's punishment on a world gone haywire with nary a trace of His grace or comfort to be seen.

Pardon me if I got that wrong. It's too soon to be arguing about this stuff.
ohhhhhhhh. My wife says something similar - "you love justice over mercy". Guilty. :oops:

Sometimes I think I might be on the spectrum or something. I see the world in very black & white terms. Very little grey.
I agree that clear moral lines are a good thing. "A man's got to have a code, a creed to live by, no matter what his job." - John Wayne
Are clear moral lines considerably different from clear theological lines?
Here I stand. I can do no other. :flags-wavegreatbritain: :flags-canada:
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Post by FredS »

Biff wrote: 21 Apr 2022, 10:31
FredS wrote: 21 Apr 2022, 06:51
Biff wrote: 20 Apr 2022, 20:54 I don't really care what the Pope puts on his robes. Art is art. But I thought it a bit odd as I didn't think the geoglyph has anything to do with Christianity.

As far as Christ being a comforter, why would you say that? I'm not Roman in my dogma, and depending on how you define 'comforter' I would unashamedly say that Christ is the 'God of all comfort'. 2 Cor 1:3ff
I see you as a fire & brimstone guy. I recall (and my recollection can certainly be wrong) you writing about the recent pandemic and seeing God's punishment on a world gone haywire with nary a trace of His grace or comfort to be seen.

Pardon me if I got that wrong. It's too soon to be arguing about this stuff.
ohhhhhhhh. My wife says something similar - "you love justice over mercy". Guilty. :oops:

Sometimes I think I might be on the spectrum or something. I see the world in very black & white terms. Very little grey.
*I was once there beside you. Then a few things shook me to my core and made me take a fresh look at Justice and Mercy.

Frederick Buechner put it better than I ever can -

"If you break a good law, justice must be invoked not only for goodness' sake but for the good of your own soul. Justice may consist of paying a price for what you've done or simply of the painful knowledge that you deserve to pay a price, which is payment enough. Without one form of justice or the other, the result is ultimately disorder and grief for you and everybody. Thus justice is itself not unmerciful.

Justice also does not preclude mercy. It makes mercy possible. Justice is the pitch of the roof and the structure of the walls. Mercy is the patter of rain on the roof and the life sheltered by the walls. Justice is the grammar of things. Mercy is the poetry of things.

The cross says something like the same thing on a scale so cosmic and full of mystery that it is hard to grasp. As it represents what one way or another human beings are always doing to each other, the death of that innocent man convicts us as a race, and we deserve the grim world that over the centuries we have made for ourselves.As it represents what one way or another we are always doing not so much to God above us somewhere as to God within us and among us everywhere, we deserve the very godlessness we have brought down on our own heads. That is the justice of things.

But the cross also represents the fact that goodness is present even in grimness and God even in godlessness. That is why it has become the symbol not of our darkest hopelessness, but of our brightest hope. That is the mercy of things. Granted who we are, perhaps we could have seen it no other way."


*Please don't think I'm being critical of you, or suggesting you need to change, or that you've never experienced life-altering events.
If we ever get to heaven boys, it ain't because we ain't done nothin' wrong. - Kris Kristofferson
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Post by Jocose »

ONE WORD:
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Post by Del »

Biff wrote: 21 Apr 2022, 11:47
Del wrote: 21 Apr 2022, 10:53
Biff wrote: 21 Apr 2022, 10:31

ohhhhhhhh. My wife says something similar - "you love justice over mercy". Guilty. :oops:

Sometimes I think I might be on the spectrum or something. I see the world in very black & white terms. Very little grey.
I agree that clear moral lines are a good thing. "A man's got to have a code, a creed to live by, no matter what his job." - John Wayne
Are clear moral lines considerably different from clear theological lines?
I suppose it depends on one's enthusiasm for persecutions.

It was okay for St. Jerome. He repented of all the nasty things he said to the heretics of his day.

It didn't work out so well for Luther, Calvin, and especially Oliver Cromwell and Zwingli.
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