So in essence, Obama is in many ways worse than being a Muslim who has rejected the anti-life aspects of their faith.

On the other hand, maintaining to Orthodox Christianity in the truest sense, has the exact opposite meaning and result.

The difference between Truth and a false teaching, between Freedom in Christ, and tyranny and man made ideology.

Perhaps it’s a bit oversimplified, but I’m just learning.

I remain terribly confused about many aspects of this discussion, but one momentarily bubbles to the surface:

Is there such a thing as “moderate Orthodox Christianity”? If so, please tell me the characteristics of such a layman, cleric, parish or diocese, or grouping of dioceses.

Perhaps I know neither Orthodoxy nor Islam, but it seems as non-sensical to identify someone a “moderate Muslim” as it is to call someone a “moderate Orthodox Christian.”

(This notion of “moderate” Islam does not seem to be tied to the competing “schools”(?) of Islam, e.g. Shiite v. Sunni. I may be mistaken. If relative “moderation” is governed by that distinction, then the discussion should proceed using those terms.)

This is a slippery slope that appears to takes you right to selective, “buffet, define it as I or a group of us like it, “faith.”

I suppose that the same could be said for “extremist” Islam. Is there “extremist” Orthodoxy?

From an Orthodox perspective, I’m not so sure that “moderation” as used in this context is what Christ and the Desert Fathers had in mind.

This is a great idea. It would be an act of contrition, and also show if moderate Muslims actually have any influence in their religion.

Now that would generate actual goodwill and it would be a token of making good for the well financed terror imposed by Islamic extremists.

I’m certain the church would allow a permanent plaque explaining the history for all to see.

Fr John, please forgive my flippancy earlier. Seriously now: I can’t say that I know for sure that Obama is not a Muslim. I believed he was a Christian even though it was of the UCC/Blame-America congregation of Rev Jeremiah Wright. But considering how little we know about his earlier life, none of us can now be sure. Consider: he still hasn’t chosen a church in DC, he didn’t attend church on Christmas day, etc.

Personally, I think he’s an atheist/cultural Muslim. Both his father and step-father were Muslims. It seems that Muslims the world over accept him as one. I’m not an expert (Scott?) but I believe that if a Muslim man sires a child and gives him an Islamic name then that child is considered to be Muslim. Much like if a Jewish woman gives birth to a child that baby is halakhically Jewish.

Think of what we don’t know about him personally: what is his academic record? What colleges did he attend? Where is his passport? How many did he have? An Indonesian one? etc.

We were told more about Sarah Palin’s ob/gyn records within one week of her nomination to the Vice Presidency than we ever learned about Obama. And no, I do believe he was born in Hawaii. However why the reticence to see his birth certificate?

Alexander, write and speak to your heart’s content! you do it well!

Fr John, what’s wrong with “Democrat Party”? Should I have said “Dhimmicrat Party”? As for the mistakes of the Bush Administration, I admit them as well. Bush’s first mistake was to call Islam “a religion of peace, that had been hijacked.”

Having said that, I find it amusing that the seditious bastards of the Left who called Bush “Chimpy McHitler” want him to come out now and soothe the roiling waters stirred up by the Ground Zero Mosque. Irony is wonderful, isn’t it?

You folks appear to be way too close to one another, especially as you micro-parse one another’s words.

With all due respect Fr., George’s comment is hardly indecent dialogue or “rabble-rousing rhetoric.”

One need not be an emotionally-detached Ph.d in the history of the GOA to conclude beyond any doubt that 79th Street, like the Phanar, frequently ignores, contorts, subverts and even perverts Orthodox Tradition and teaching on a whole host of issues important to Orthodox Americans — and Americans collectively — from abortion to homosexuality to the gamut of ecclesiological subjects visitors to this site address every day.

As with many of Old World Patriarchates, on 79th Street, momentary political expediency rules the roost. Sometimes its expression and manifestation is ham-fisted, at others, it is subtle and savvy. You all know that much better than most, and in far greater detail.

And one need not be a Ph.d in contemporary American politics to conclude beyond any doubt that President Obama is someone far different than what he and others told us he was or many in the electorate believed him to be. But, 79th Street conveniently ignores all of this so long as the invites to rubber chicken dinners and other photo ops keep coming and “Somebody-o-polous, – otropolus, – opolis, Agnew, Sarbanes, or Snowe” get elected.

That said, I disagree in the strongest possible way with the proposition that an Orthodox priest must appear “non-partisan.” “Partisanship” is a label ascribed by others. By that measure, the Lives of the Saints are full of “partisans,” before and after, John the Forerunner — perhaps the greatest and boldest “partisans” of all.

Truth has no political affiliation or membership dues.

Maybe I’m just not an experienced enough “blogger” — or whatever this hour to hour, minute by minute, commentary is called — to understand the nuances here.

Perhaps I should read more and write less.

Come on George! It’s not called the Democrat Party, it’s the Democratic Party, and you know it. Don’t stoop to rabble-rousing rhetoric, tickling the Obama-is-a-Muslim meme either, because you know it’s a lie.
You are also aware that the Bush admin, and the ones before it made the bed of our official relations with Islam and did an awful lot to promulgate this good-Islam/bad-Islam false dichotomy. Think historically, not emotionally.
Of course, dissatisfaction with the official attitude begs a response from the people. It’s our job to steer it reasonably. I’m a priest so I have to remain nonpartisan, a stricture you yourself are not subject to as a layman. But we need to keep the dialogue decent. Perhaps I am the only person reading and writing in this forum who has not drunk deeply of the TEA. But I will henceforth refrain, for the sake of setting a tone amenable to things relating to Christ’s church in the world, from mention of Lipton’s or other popular methods of tea infusion which some here deem derogatory. Let us keep it clean amongst brothers!

Heck, Rush Limbaugh is defending St. Nicholas with more vigor and conviction than the Archons and Eparchial Synod. Ironic is it not?

Ironic, isn’t it? The America people are rising up and screaming bloody murder about the Ground Zero Mosque and secular commentators are amplifying their righteous anger. Wouldn’t it be tragic if at the end of the day actual criminality on the part of elements of the GOA is exposed?

I also wonder whether or not some people believe electing Giannoulias is more important than rebuilding St. Nicholas.