Month: October 2010

Deprecated: str_replace(): Passing null to parameter #3 ($subject) of type array|string is deprecated in /home/aoiusa/public_html/wp-content/themes/genesis/lib/functions/image.php on line 116
class="post-8272 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-blog-archive tag-episcopal-assembly tag-fr-john-erickson tag-orthodox-christian-laity tag-orthodox-church entry">

The Episcopal Assembly: Hopes and Realities

Catholics, Orthodox Share Secularization Concerns

3 Comments

Jesus Christ Superstar

The report below affirms much that is true, good, and necessary. What I cannot reconcile however, is that while the Ecumenical Patriarchate signed the decree, it also supports policies that explicitly, and in some cases, aggressively, undermine the same principles of human value they (according to this report) swore to uphold. I have in mind the uncritical acceptance of the environmentalist agenda, as well as the sophomoric moral reasoning displayed in its teaching on abortion.

People who confuse moral posing with clear thinking will lambaste me for making this point (Don’t you care about the environment?!”, Don’t you care about poor people?!”), but frankly, either you see the danger that secularism poses for the long term, or you don’t. Rome is clear, Moscow is clear, but Constantinople remains confused. If Constantinople were thinking clearly, it would not be sanctifying the environmentalist agenda, and it would not equivocate on the value of unborn life.

Here’s what Constantinople needs to read: Metropolitan Hilarion: Culture is at risk of becoming anti-culture without the Church. It also needs to realize that political correctness is, at bottom, a spiritual affliction. If the Church, particularly its leaders, won’t risk the penalty that clear speaking imposes (of “speaking to the magistrates” that Christ told us we must do), how can we expect others to take courage when they are called to speak?

About the image. You will see the value of the painting if you understand the descriptive power of cubism, particularly how cubism depicts fragmentation, estrangement, disassociation — all the elements of “anti-culture” (anti in Greek means “in place of” and not necessarily “against” although the elements of the anti-culture can be aggressive and hostile and often are). The Christ of the portrait is the way that many (post) moderns see Him, as a projection of their interior world actually, particularly as the ties that bind culture together grow progressively weaker. The painter titled it “Jesus Christ Superstar.” I’d subtitle it “Secular Jesus” or “Acculturated Christ” (maybe even “Episcopalian Savior”). (Jesus Christ Superstar, Anthony Falbo.)

Affirm Duty to Awaken Consciences

RHODES, Greece, OCT. 27, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Representatives from both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches in Europe are sharing concerns about the secularization of society.

The warned about the dangers derived from a secularized society, “without points of moral reference and without a plan worthy of the human person,” in a final communiqué of the 2nd Catholic Orthodox Forum.

The forum took place Oct. 18-22 in Rhodes, on the theme “Church-State Relations: Theological and Historical Perspectives.”
Continue reading →

Deprecated: str_replace(): Passing null to parameter #3 ($subject) of type array|string is deprecated in /home/aoiusa/public_html/wp-content/themes/genesis/lib/functions/image.php on line 116
class="post-8241 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-blog-archive tag-cultural-marxism tag-culture tag-george-soros tag-leftism tag-melanie-phillips tag-secularism entry">

The open society and its enemy

13 Comments

Source: The Spectator

George Soros has donated $1 million to a campaign to legalise cannabis in California. The Guardian reports (see here for a comment):

The cash infusion, one week before Californians vote on a measure that would let anyone over 21 grow and possess up to an ounce of marijuana and allow local councils to tax sales of the drug, marks the first major investment by Soros in the mid-term elections.

For several years now, the billionaire Soros has been effectively bankrolling the global campaign for the legalisation of drugs through his Open Society organisation. His influence in undermining western understanding of the crucial role of the law in containing the terrible individual and social effects of illegal drugs cannot be overestimated. But this in turn is but one aspect of the astonishing influence Soros has bought for himself in undermining key cultural building blocks of western society. This important speech delivered a few days ago in the US by Srdja Trifkovic laid out the details:

Continue reading →

Deprecated: str_replace(): Passing null to parameter #3 ($subject) of type array|string is deprecated in /home/aoiusa/public_html/wp-content/themes/genesis/lib/functions/image.php on line 116
class="post-8239 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-blog-archive tag-culture tag-george-soros tag-srdja-trifkovic entry">

Eastern Europe Versus the Open Society

8 Comments

Source: Chronicles of Culture Magazine

Srdja Trifkovic

Excerpts from a speech to the H.L. Mencken Club, Baltimore, October 23, 2010

Two weeks ago the first “gay pride parade” was staged in Belgrade. Serbia’s “pro-European” government had been promoting the event as yet another proof that Serbia is fit to join the European Union, that is has overcome the legacy of its dark, intolerant past. Thousands of policemen in full riot gear had to divide their time between protecting a few hundred “LBGT” activists (about half of them imported from Western Europe for the occasion) and battling ten times as many young protesters in the side streets.

The parade, it should be noted, was prominently attended by the U.S. Ambassador in Belgrade Mary Warlick, by the head of the European Commission Office, Vincent Degert of France, and by the head of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mission in Serbia, Dimitris Kipreos. Needless to say, none of them had attended the enthronment of the new Serbian Patriarch a week earlier. Two days later, Hillary Clinton came to Belgrade and praised the Tadic regime for staging the parade.

Mrs. Clinton et al are enjoying the fruits of one man’s two decades of hard work in Eastern Europe. George Soros can claim, more than any other individual, that his endeavors have helped turn the lands of “Real Socialism” in central and eastern Europe away from their ancestors, their cultural and spiritual roots. The process is far from over, but his Open Society Institute and its extensive network of subsidiaries east of the Trieste-Stettin line have successfully legitimized the notions that only two decades ago would have seemed bizarre, laughable or demonic to the denizens of the eastern half of Europe.

Continue reading →