What's your opinion?

[Bluesky]

When religion and culture become almost inseparable, what is a person to do in a pluralistic world where secularists and others who have no definable faith are offended when they see religion somehow expressed in the public square?

[Soundbear]

Fight.

[R W G R]

When religion and culture become almost inseparable, what is a person to do in a pluralistic world where secularists and others who have no definable faith are offended when they see religion somehow expressed in the public square?

Carry on.

As the late FR R.J. Neuhaus said, the public square without religious people is the naked public square. It is incomplete, and will collapse.

[R W G R]

Just stumbled across this in the latest "First Things", thought it fit:

• In 2008 our friend John G. Stackhouse, professor of theology and culture at Regent College, published a book we would have done well to take note of at the time: Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World (Oxford University Press). As the title suggests, Stackhouse addresses Christian engagement with culture as always both unavoidable and provisional, an engagement “for the time being.” Thus, as Miroslav Volf has pointed out, Stackhouse steers between the Scylla of “a whole-scale transformation of the world” and the Charybdis of “building alternative enclaves in the world.” Since neither is realistic in any case, what does Stackhouse think is realistic?

The book proceeds largely by imaginative dialogue with such twentieth-century Protestant luminaries as C.S. Lewis, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer—drawing, along the way, on H. Richard Niebuhr’s famous “five ways” of relating Christ to culture. Brisk and blunt, Making the Best of It yields what Stackhouse describes as his own “hybrid” between “Christ the transformer of culture” and “Christ and culture in paradox.” Sometimes Christians will transform culture, and sometimes they will have to be countercultural—and often they will have to do both. That is the creative tension of Christianity in the world, which cannot be resolved until the end time.

This won’t satisfy those convinced that answers are easy, but its evident fidelity to what C.S. Lewis would have recognized as the Great Tradition may enable us to distinguish between engaging the world on faith’s terms, which is the disciple’s task, and engaging faith on the world’s terms, which is merely the project of religion’s cultured despisers.

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2...pal-difference

[Bluesky]

So, as an experiment, replace the Christian faith with another faith, say Hinduism, or Judaism. Would the same principles hold?
And would Christianity be in favour of freedom of religion if it were the majority faith? DO others allow freedom of religion when they are in the majority?

[Clovis 888]

They're all the same **** different pile.

People just express things in a different way. Meditation is prayer, chanting is prayer, mantras in meditation, singing like hymns or chants or mantras or prayers in meditation and who cares it's all devotion to the same thing.

[Bluesky]

They're all the same **** different pile.

People just express things in a different way. Meditation is prayer, chanting is prayer, mantras in meditation, singing like hymns or chants or mantras or prayers in meditation and who cares it's all devotion to the same thing.

The interesting thing is, most people who REALLY are into their religions would not agree that it's all the same thing. it is only those who have a general vague faith about nothing definable that will say, It's all the same.

Examine every major religion, and ask their leaders (or explore their sacred texts) if it's all the same to them. One has to be really honest here.

[R W G R]

So, as an experiment, replace the Christian faith with another faith, say Hinduism, or Judaism. Would the same principles hold?

Well, the same principles should hold. It really is a basic difference between theocracy and a religiously-tolerant Democracy. Islam feels its natural ground is theocracy. Christianity does not, nor does Judaism. Hinduism, and others, I'm not sure; but I would think most religions, except for Islam, are quite comfortable with the secular / religious tension that exists in many societies. And I would wonder why any religion that claims a better afterlife awaits would expound so much time and effort to establish a parochial and self-centered society. After all, the 'right now' is merely transitory.

And would Christianity be in favour of freedom of religion if it were the majority faith? DO others allow freedom of religion when they are in the majority?

Christianity would no doubt embrace religious toleration. Look at North America. And again, the only faith I can think of that either denies freedom of religion, or at the very least severely restricts it, is Islam.

[Clovis 888]

All The Rest Is Commentary.

Loving it.

[Blue Lotus Rising]

The interesting thing is, most people who REALLY are into their religions would not agree that it's all the same thing. it is only those who have a general vague faith about nothing definable that will say, It's all the same.

Au contraire- Some would say that achieving total enlightenment is to realize that all belief systems come from the same source; that they are just assigned different names.

[Bluesky]

I agree that some would say that. And the further they go from its original source, the more they diverge.
I also think that "total enlightenment" means different things to different religions, or even different people.
So many are claiming to be 'enlightened'. Seraph, I am sure, would have made that claim.

[Clovis 888]

I once met an old man. He said he was descendant of a Druid line. The guy looked like whats his name off Harry Potter. You know, The BIG one that lives in the shack.

We were walking his pack of dogs (this guy had a pack of unfixed off leash huge king shepherd dogs following him around all the time it was weird) and he asked me about religion. Because now he's some kind of Christian Street Minister.

He said to imagine a line, and a split, and some more branches. Then the many leaves on the branches. Each different, but each a branch.
Then he said to look at the fruit and the flowers. Some flowers are picked and displayed while others rot on the ground or are harvested for honey and pollinate new trees.

Each has a purpose, each finds different ends.

But they're all from the same root.

He told me he was Christian because Christ was a good flower, one that could show his community the fruits of good living. Not because he believed in any man in history. Just because the message was good.

Good message, Christ has.

Still from the same root as all the other religions:

God.

[Wisdom]

I once met an old man. He said he was descendant of a Druid line. The guy looked like whats his name off Harry Potter. You know, The BIG one that lives in the shack.

We were walking his pack of dogs (this guy had a pack of unfixed off leash huge king shepherd dogs following him around all the time it was weird) and he asked me about religion. Because now he's some kind of Christian Street Minister.

He said to imagine a line, and a split, and some more branches. Then the many leaves on the branches. Each different, but each a branch.
Then he said to look at the fruit and the flowers. Some flowers are picked and displayed while others rot on the ground or are harvested for honey and pollinate new trees.

Each has a purpose, each finds different ends.

But they're all from the same root.

He told me he was Christian because Christ was a good flower, one that could show his community the fruits of good living. Not because he believed in any man in history. Just because the message was good.

Good message, Christ has.

Still from the same root as all the other religions:

God.

"Not only does atheism prevent atheists from properly understanding... but it prevents their minds from being elevated enough to understand the simplest common sense facts." - tencommandments.org

[TheManInBlack]

When religion and culture become almost inseparable, what is a person to do in a pluralistic world where secularists and others who have no definable faith are offended when they see religion somehow expressed in the public square?

religion shouldn't be in a public square

[Soundbear]

religion shouldn't be in a public square

Specifically, why not??

[Bluesky]

So, take nativity scenes down from public places?

[dancingqueen]

religion shouldn't be in a public square

I also wonder why not...
Practicing religion should not be made into something that is bad or to be hidden, practicing religion has doe many good things and would be offended to see the stiffiling of religion. It is when others religious beliefs affect how others live their lives, that is where a problem comes in.... until it does that, I see no harm in expressing one's religious beliefs.

[NewCasa]

When religion and culture become almost inseparable, what is a person to do in a pluralistic world where secularists and others who have no definable faith are offended when they see religion somehow expressed in the public square?

Fall back on democracy.

[Wisdom]

Fall back on democracy.

maybe if it was based on equity....and not so corruptible...

[NewCasa]

maybe if it was based on equity....and not so corruptible...

I meant democracy - not the political system we have today.