…which is exhibited on this and other traditionalist websites. (And which is celebrated in Neocon and Progressive circles.) It certainly connects a few dots. Just sayin’.
Anyway, today is the annual March for Life so commentary will be approved sketchily if at all. (I’ve been blessed to be a part of it for four years now and I’ve got to get going.) Here in Tulsa we are going to have as our guest speaker Dr Alveda King. Dr King is the niece of Martin Luther King and her life story is a compelling one. Ever since we (a mixture of Catholics, Orthodox, and Evangelicals) started the March for Life we wanted her to speak but her schedule never permitted it.
So what does this have to do with the recent events in Russia which are highlighted below? Nothing but this: one cannot divorce the reality of abortion from the elevation of sodomy. They are both nihilistic to the core. If I had any doubts, Peter Papoutsis put them to rest for me this morning when I was approving the commentary. Because I had to work yesterday I was not able to watch the Inauguration so I wasn’t privy to its message. Thanks to Peter, now we know that the Great Crusade is nothing less than Congressional action on gay marriage. What does this mean for Traditionalists? At the very least this: if anybody thinks that our churches are going to escape unscathed, he is gravely mistaken.
As Pastor Niemoller said back to his congregation in 1936, “we are in the tempter’s sieve and we will be separated, the wheat from the chaff.” Nevertheless, the Lord will not abandon us. As Christians, we may have to look to the East –to Russia and Africa–for strength.
Russian Orthodox Church: Ban homosexuality ‘propaganda’ among minors
Source: Christian Science Monitor
A controversial new law enacted in St. Petersburg and three other Russian regions, aimed at banning “homosexual propaganda aimed at minors,” has members of Russia’s besieged gay community worrying that all progress toward civil rights for sexual minorites in recent years might be thrown into reverse.
The law, signed last week by St. Petersburg Gov. Georgy Poltavchenko, would impose the equivalent of a $16,000 fine upon anyone “making public actions among minors for the propaganda of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality or transgenderism (LGBT).” Similar laws have recently been enacted in the Russian regions of Ryazan, Archangelsk, and Kostroma.
Today the powerful Russian Orthodox Church weighed in with a call for the Duma, the lower house of parliament, to pass a national version of that law.
“The determination displayed by representatives of sexual minorities and their desire to continue rallying outside children’s establishments indicate the timeliness of this regional law, which should, without delay, be given federal status,” said Hieromonk Dmitri Pershin, the Orthodox Church’s representative on youth issues, according to the official news agency RIA-Novosti.
Leaders of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community say the new laws are not grounded in sound legal concepts, are vaguely written, and seem mainly designed to validate widespread public hostility toward gay people.
“No legal experts seem able to explain how this law would be applied in practice,” says Polina Savchenko, general manager of Coming Out, a St. Petersburg LGBT group. “There is a fear that it will be used as an instrument to prevent any kind of activity the state doesn’t approve of. The language of the law is so vague that it could apply to any kind of public discourse, any discussion of gay issues, in almost any venue. I mean, how can you be sure that minors won’t access the Internet, or read mass media discussions?”
“We already live in a very homophobic environment, and this law just pushes us back in time. In the minds of people, it makes discrimination against gay people appear to be legal again,” she adds.
Russia decriminalized homosexuality in 1993, but social hostility remains widespread, with gay pride parades routinely banned in Moscow and other cities, and meeting places frequented by LGBT people subject to frequent police raids.
A 2010 poll by the independent Levada Center in Moscow found that 74 percent of Russians regard homosexuality as a result of bad moral choices, or think of it as a “disease.” Only 15 percent thought it is just another sexual orientation that “has the same right to existence” as heterosexual lifestyles, 5 percent fewer than in a similar survey five years earlier.
“The church is not the initiator of [these laws], but many believers have been waiting for such legislation to appear,” says Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department of cooperation with society. “The propaganda of [homosexual lifestyles] should not take place where minors can feel its influence; the same is true about heterosexual lechery…. Public manifestations of this way of life are unacceptable for the majority of society. It is our duty to secure our children against it. That have no right to promote their way of life.”
Mr. Chaplin frequently generates controversy by advocating for the Russian Orthodox Church’s conservative positions, particularly on women’s issues. Last year he called for a national dress code that would put pressure on women to shun miniskirts and excess makeup.
Nina Ostanina, a Communist Party deputy who sits on the Duma’s committee on family and children’s affairs, says there’s a possibility that the regional laws might be declared unconstitutional by courts and therefore, she says, the Duma should pass a national law or hand the protection of children entirely over to regional legislatures.
“Russia has already stopped being a unified state from the point of view of legal differences,” Ms. Ostanina says. “It’s up to the regions to solve this; for me, it’s not a violation of the Constitution. People who are a minority in the society should not advocate the fact that they are different from other members of the society.”
Ms. Savchenko says that the proposed national law would chill any hope of carrying out a dialogue that might, over time, ease society’s homophobic attitudes and promote broader acceptance of LGBT people.
“How can you have a conversation, if one side is constantly in fear of legal retribution?” she says.
George,
I’m not sure what the second paragraph means. I’m interested though…
With regards to getting Dr. Alveda King to speak, I think it’s telling since there was and has been attempts to paint her uncle as pro-abortion. Perhaps it time to help clear his name?
MLK was far from perfect. But there is no way he was pro-abortion, and he was a supporter of the 2nd Amendment, and a Republican.
After so many years, the man’s name is still not free. Only this time, it is held slave by his own people in the progressive movement.
How easy it is to fall into the old shibboleths, blaming a deteriorating morality on everything from the elected representatives in Washington with which we do not agree nor support, to the purveyors of popular culture on the other Coast, when maybe the real reason for the state of morality in the country, if not the world, is that real Christians are not doing a good enough job of being “little Christs”. Maybe we don’t like that answer, so lets blame the Black, Muslim, Socialist, Marxist currently occupying the office for our own failures. But once he’s gone in four years, and our own failures still remain, to whom will we look for our next scapegoat?
You’re correct Boomer — Lord have mercy on me the sinner.
I’m no so quick to accept B00mer’s analysis at face value. Ideas matter and so do people. There are times when men of courage have to stand up and say no. Sometimes it changes the world. Other times it leads to martyrdom.
And no, drawing moral distinctions is not scapegoating. Scapegoating happens when a social organization (family, buisiness, Church, whatever) is beset by such sin that it loses its equilibrium (stasis). Instead of repenting however, the people within the organization place blame for the problems caused by their sin on another person. That person (the scapegoat) is driven out, the people feel exonerated, and the organization achieves equilibrium (stasis) again.
Christians need to repent. That makes them capable of seeing scapegoating when it happens. It also helps them draw clear moral distinctions and, if necessary, act on them. This process has nothing to do with scapegoating, however.
What a Christian’s actions should be is a matter of great deliberation and discernment. But to blame the problems in the world merely on the fact that Christians are not Christian enough misstates the Christian’s responsibility to the larger culture and ignores that the battle between good and evil exists there as well.
Boomer, you are correct that we have not and are not living our faith as deeply as we should, but that is no reason to lapse into quietism and refuse to stand up to allowing our cultural to take one more step into the sewer. Plus you are ignoring many people who have fought against such moral decline with steadfastness and charity.
So, despite my own sinfulness, I will not sit quietly by and allow such garbage to continue to be propogated (the sub-text IMO of your post).
Adultry is a sin; fornication is a sin; divorce is a sin. Homosexuality at times induces all of these plus even the fornication it automatically entails is a direct violation of the way in which we are created. We the people called to Christ and His Church should act to uphold the moral and spiritual tradtion of the Church in regard to all of these sins, plus the horror of abortion.
So….yes, I am a sinner in need of rerpentance but while I am working on my own sins, I am not going to compound them by allowing even more sins to be propgated in my name. It is evil.
“Mr. Chaplin….”
If the CSM publication can’t even get a priest’s title right, or even worse intentionally disrespects him, I have no respect for such a poor quality publication.
Y’all come.
http://www.marchforlife.org/
Several Orthodox services on Thursday night. You can join a group headed by Metropolitan Jonah to the march if you like
Everytime I read or hear comments about the issue of homosexuality from the Orthodox Church’s point-of-view, I am very conflicted. I understand perfectly the Orthodox position, but then again, in every Orthodox church I have ever attended for any period of time I know that there have been active members of the church who were and are actively practicing homosexuals. This has been true of the OCA churches and the ROCOR churches I have belonged to and/or actively attended and this has been true of the Antiochian churches I’ve belonged to. It just seems like a true-to-life oxymoron, or perhaps, it’s just another example of “it’s easier to receive forgiveness than permission”. When I’ve asked clergymen about it, they have all suggested that there are “pastoral considerations”. This is true, but if every church and every clergyman is exhibiting the exact same “pastoral considerations” then it has become a defacto policy. I’m just wondering … and yes, I’m still conflicted by this seemingly contradictory message.
Sean –
What do you mean by “being active” and how do you know they were?
Also, were they receiving communion?
macedonian … because they told me … and yes, they did receive communion (that is why I asked the priest … and was told it was due to “pastoral considerations”).
Well, that stinks.
.J. Chuang has ideas about Asian American churches.
Lots of ideas.
This is an interesting article about Asian Protestant expanding into non-Asian Communites, Orthodox are very different but they might learn from the Asian Protestant are targeting people they usually don’t think of.
Katie Lee, left, and Mychel Hartdige greet each other at Newsong Church in Irvine. Lee has been at the church for four years and Hartdige for eight. The young adults group meets weekly at the church.
PAUL BERSEBACH, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
MORE PHOTOS »
ADVERTISEMENT
He has ideas about online-only Asian churches, about so-called “next-gen multi-Asian churches,” and about churches frequented by Asian Indian, Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese worshippers.
Chuang, 46, a Taiwanese-born church consultant/social media guru/faith entrepreneur, keeps searchable databases of all these kinds of churches, and more, on his consulting website.
Also on the website: a guide to Asian American youth ministry, links to the online Asian pop culture magazine Giant Robot, and a page dedicated to explaining why Yogurtland is an Asian foodie’s delight (think lactose-intolerance-friendly and self-serve gadgetry).
Chuang has so many ideas about the fast-growing world of Asian American Christianity, he devotes an entire section of his website to them, under a tab labeled “Ideas.” Actually, there are two tabs; the second one is labeled “Even More Ideas.”
One of the “Even More Ideas” is about bipolar disorder, a condition with which Chuang is intimately familiar. But more about that later.
•••
The first thing to know about Chuang, who lives with his wife and son in Aliso Viejo and works as a consultant for churches and Christian organizations nationwide, is that he is one of the most networked, knowledgeable and restless experts on Asian American Christianity at a time when Asians have become America’s fastest-growing ethnic group.
Also, it’s no accident Chuang lives in Orange County, where a population of roughly 562,000 Asians comprises one of America’s largest and most densely populated Asian communities.
Long the birthplace of trends in American Christianity, Orange County is exporting a new and influential style of Asian American worship. Church innovations that took root here – multiethnic congregations, pastors preaching in T-shirts and jeans, extensive use of social media, inner-city ministry – are spreading around the globe.
“Culturally speaking, Orange County is open space, so it frees up people to imagine new things,” Chuang said. “It’s an enterprising place.”
Nationwide, 42 percent of America’s 18.2 million Asians are Christian, according to the Pew Research Center. Until recently, most of those worshippers attended churches geared toward first-generation immigrants craving the sort of monocultural, hierarchical, morally strict faith communities they left behind.
Now, as second- and third-generation children of Asian migrants come of age, they are creating churches almost unrecognizable to their forebears.
At Newsong church in Irvine, where each Sunday more than 1,500 worshippers from 15 Asian cultures gather alongside whites, African Americans and Latinos in a cavernous warehouselike hall, pastor Dave Gibbons, who is half-Korean, inveighs against behavior such as masking failure to avoid shaming one’s family.
Newsong members have started ministries in Los Angeles’ historically black Crenshaw District, among the homeless in downtown Santa Ana and in a roster of global cities, including London, Mexico City, Bangkok and Mysore, India.