Comments Posted By Joseph

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The Dumping Ground: The Toxic Culture of Clerical Homosexuality

Dear Cheryl and friends,
it seems we have now arrived at Godwin’s Law and its corollary for religious discussions….. We have arrived at “Satan”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
It states: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler Satan and his helpers approaches 1.”[3][2] In other words, Godwin put forth the hyperbolic observation that, given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope— someone inevitably criticizes some point made in the discussion by comparing it to beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis. Satan and his helpers

» Posted By Joseph On April 15, 2011 @ 12:44 am

Maybe it belongs at the recycler?

» Posted By Joseph On April 14, 2011 @ 7:09 pm

“I just came in from trying to get a ’48 tractor to start and I smell like gasoline. Then I have to take some scrap to the recycler, and maybe put new lights on my boat trailer.”
So you are a rural sophisticate then? A member of the red-neck OC?
Don’t kid yourself, pouring gasoline on one’s clothes doesn’t make one a red-neck. It is more likely a sign of someone with poor hand- eye coordination.

And bringing something to the recycler doesn’t get you there either… never mind boat-lights.

Shovelling manure, now that might get you closer to becoming a catechumen of the red-neck OC…. and it seems, from what I read, you are good at the shovelling part at least…

» Posted By Joseph On April 14, 2011 @ 7:04 pm

Since the Axios and the Amen are already taken, I will say: Thumbs up…! Thank you!

» Posted By Joseph On April 14, 2011 @ 6:34 pm

This is right on the money, Fr. Gregory and Fr. Dn. Bryan….!

» Posted By Joseph On April 14, 2011 @ 3:38 am

“….is to NOT make the bishop part of the money stream from all the parishes, but just the one who serves the biggest parish in a region and oversees a dozen or two others — tops.”

He could be replacing the dean of a province (I am in Canada). He could reside at the cathedral church of his province (with a helping priest for the cathedral duties) and the provincial parishes will be responsible for his up-keep…. So that the bishop would not be any “richer” as his parish priests. He would be truly the Father of his flock … and could even show up for BBQs…

I like that idea…. that is how the bishops of old lived, among their flocks…

» Posted By Joseph On April 14, 2011 @ 3:32 am

“Maybe at least a formal proclamation of “No Confidence” in the HS, MC, and Soysset Adm. for not working out, in accordance with the teachings of our Lord, their differences with our canonically elected Metropolitan.

(Plus maybe even an admonition to them to henceforth refrain from preaching to their laity that which they themselves cannot practice.)”

I am with you on that….!

» Posted By Joseph On April 14, 2011 @ 2:38 am

……..deposing bishops for wearing silk or perfume…

What? Not even perfume with incense flavour? No silk, I can understand, especially yellow silk. That is reserved for the Son of Heaven…

» Posted By Joseph On April 14, 2011 @ 2:34 am

The term ‘united’ in ‘american church’ if led by a variety of overseas potentates has oxymoronic qualities which will destroy it quickly.

It will be stillborn…. never breath, never walk and never fly….

» Posted By Joseph On April 14, 2011 @ 2:30 am

In fact, they should disinvite themselves from the next EA.
Yes, that would make a statement! We have autocephaly and any shenanigans by any other jurisdiction can’t change that.
If Istanbul doesn’t want to recognize us, so what. How long did it take Russia (Serbia, Bulgaria, even Greece, etc.) to get recognized?
Let’s do what we do now (evangelizing NA and at the same time learning how to walk without tripping over ourselves) and see who is the last man standing. Yes that includes doing really, really stupid things like we are doing right now in the OCA. At least we are learning to find our way around being independent. Any being or institution growing-up, and that is what we are doing, is liable to screw-up on the way to adulthood.
Let us be free, and not envy our brothers who are dependent on some “Venerable Fathers” in lands far over the oceans who are less interested in them growing up, but in keeping them dependent and most of all keep the money coming…

» Posted By Joseph On April 14, 2011 @ 2:26 am

Yes, I can see that…. but how do we get a larger pool of eligible men for bishops? Maybe restrict the age for the priesthood to 30 years and for (married) bishops to a minimum of 50years…? That would leave a life of at least 20 years in parishes and some time in the real world for a potential priest…
I see a big problem with our HS as being too small. We should have a bishop in every state and province. This would bring the bishops closer to the people and make the HS less susceptible to insider cliquishness…
But where to find good men?

» Posted By Joseph On April 14, 2011 @ 2:05 am

And finally I’m wondering if we are now in one of those times of our Church history when the laity had to act to save the Church from a faltering hierarchy and if so, what do we do and should it be done at the upcoming AAC.

Yes, but I would wait what will take place after Pascha. If the cabal continues… then we should act at the AAC…

» Posted By Joseph On April 12, 2011 @ 7:23 pm

Whether it is homosexuality, greed or lust for power, the corrosive effects are complimentry.

A slightly off topic question here. Could this sentence also apply to many of the bishops of the churches under the EP becoming Turkish subjects? I hear 27 out of 35 have applied for Turkish citizenship….

How long are we, the Orthodox people, going to suffer these false teachers?

» Posted By Joseph On April 12, 2011 @ 2:11 am

Janet, please pray for it. I surely do…. and I trust in God that He will not have his church dirtied by these machinations of unrepentant sinners…

» Posted By Joseph On April 12, 2011 @ 1:53 am

Here a list of what I hope will in the end transpire:

Return Metropolitan +Jonah,
Close down Syosset and fire all administrators.
Sell the place and move the administration to Washington where the Metropolitan resides.
Hire from the large pool of qualified OCA lay-members new administrators. Why do priests, who should be working in parishes, want to be bureaucrats?
Screen all MC member for suitability. Anyone not in good standing with the morals and the teachings of the church should be automatically excluded.
Expand the HS threefold, to receive fresh blood into this body and prevent it from becoming cliquish. Yes all the arguments for married bishops are making more and more sense… Any bishop with dirty “finger-nails” should be retired… and prevented from spending his days in front of a computer. Aren’t these men monks? Shouldn’t they live the live of a monk in a monastery? Under the guidance of an abbot? Where in the daily services of a monastery is the internet placed? Before or after Matins?

It is funny, but the longer I read about all this, my mood is changing from despair to the confidence that this is God Himself cleaning His church from this huge pile of Augean manure…

» Posted By Joseph On April 11, 2011 @ 10:03 pm

Nobody Expects the Protestant Reformation

No, you weren’t rhetorical, you are correct….

“Let these people, instead of transmogrifying the Creed and slowly eviscerating the faith, conform themselves to God’s will, or go. Let them leave Eastern Orthodoxy alone…”

Most of us faithful in the OCA are praying for that….

» Posted By Joseph On April 11, 2011 @ 3:50 am

Amen Brother….

» Posted By Joseph On April 11, 2011 @ 3:44 am

Wormwood: Recriminations

Hey, and I am not really Joseph, but Cthulu, a cosmic entity. I am really not hideous, actually more on the petite side and have not spread any terror since AD989…

Can I tell you an anonymous story?

» Posted By Joseph On April 10, 2011 @ 2:14 am

http://dont-tread-on.me/25-rules-of-disinformation/

I recommend to read the “25 Rules of Disinformation” and would speculate that many of +Jonah’s detractors will find some or all of their “arguments” covered under at least one of those rules…

» Posted By Joseph On April 10, 2011 @ 2:00 am

“The damage done by our pyrotechnicians, however, will remain.”

If you have a prairie fire, it is best to set a counter-fire before the original fire will consume you…

To let Stokoe alone control the fire would be disastrous. Now at least we have an opposition. I for one am glad for OCAT. Without it, I would be stuck with the machinations of one website. One who’s proprietor’s motives I do not trust, …

» Posted By Joseph On April 10, 2011 @ 1:50 am

This is not going to end well…

Ashley,

I thought you were going to “split this scene.” However you are still here. When are you going to split? I would like to know, because once you have split, I start reading here again…

To the proprietor of this space: when do you have finally enough of getting dumped on your lawn?

Joseph, a quiet, but really turned off, reader

» Posted By Joseph On January 21, 2011 @ 6:55 am

Why foxes should not guard henhouses…

John Rockwell, are you praying each day: “God, I thank you, that I am not like the rest of men, extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get”…. and I am really, really neither judgemental or pathetically filled with hate and contempt as those suposedly Orthodox on this un-christian blog…?

» Posted By Joseph On May 8, 2012 @ 12:34 pm