The Religion of the Left - -

To the Conservative the function of government is a limited thing. We want only protection of person and property from the actions of others. We want no unnecessary laws other than those for the preceding, to regulate public behavior to a reasonable decorum and to provide the maximum opportunity for personal freedom and personal success. Period. No more. Leave the success or failure of my life to me, not to others.Conservatives view charity as a church function, not government. Or private relief agencies not tied to a church, such as the Red Cross for those who do not want or have religious affiliation.

The liberals have made a church out of the government. They wish it to be the charitable nanny-state. Hitlary is a prime example, she is still on this welfare insurance mindset. She has even stated that the state should garnish the wages of those who do not voluntarily participate in her government run program. The liberal has placed the government in the place of the church in specifying acceptable and moral behavior. Unfortunately, the state can only demand lowest denominator behavior, which is easily seen in the current lack of public manners and morality. Oh, we are politically correct, but oh, so rude.

I personally don’t see how anyone with an ounce of sense can expect any government program to work properly. Everything that is government run is a mess. I would like for one of these true believers in government intervention to show me a government program that has stellar success. Education? We have gone so far downhill that our high school graduates cannot read, do math, discuss history or draw a decent map. The grammar school kids of the 1950s could do better on most of these subjects. Of course, the kiddies are concerned about polar bears, lose sleep over global warming, and “feel good” about themselves. They just cannot qualify for anything more advanced than flipping burgers - oh yeah, burgers are going to be banned because the nanny-state thinks that they are bad for you. So - what are these dead-enders doing to do?

The conservative, on the other hand, will let others go to hell in their own way. As long as they don’t affect others doing it.

Come, look around the world - just exactly where has the type of socialist government that libs yearn for ever succeeded? Show me one good example of socialism which has a higher standard of freedom and living.

Libs, I do wish you would find some religion which did not have a gun at our heads. As much as you despise Christianity, even the fundies will admit that there is no salvation by force. That is more than your government religion will allow.

One of Obama’s big supporters stated that he should be the next President because he would “feed the sheep”. To hell with that. I am not a sheep. I am a free and independent citizen. It is Christ who feeds the sheep, not the government. The only thing that separates a sheep from a slave is that the slave is required to work for his living. The sheep only has to vote and be otherwise useless. I will die before I become a government slave - or sheep, if you prefer.

Gays in the Military -

There are several things to look at here. First of all there are the rights, duties, and obligations of any citizen. Male, female, black, white, or whatever. The fact is that a citizen is a citizen. So, on that level there should be no problem with any mentally sound and physically qualified citizen voluntarily serving.There is another level to this. The practical fact is that there is a great spectrum of people in the military. Many of these people will have no particular problem with people who have some differences. But there are those who do.

When I was brought home from the hospital shortly after birth the first music I ever heard was Mozart’s wonderful opera The Magic Flute. I learned to love classical music, opera, and Baroque - “Ah, Bach” - Radar O’Reilly.

When I was maybe 8 or 9 I discovered my mother’s 30’s and 40’s big band records - old 78 rpm stuff. By the time I was 10 I had discovered jazz at the local library. Jazz from the earliest New Orleans, Memphis, and Chicago. Boogie. Big band. Modern jazz. Loved it all. The library also had the wonderful Folkways series. I learned to love all kinds of real folk music: Andean Indian flute music, Russian Balalaika, African drum chorus, Japanese Taiko drums, wonderful stuff all. (This does all tie in).

In the 8^th grade we baby-boomers had an overflow class at one of the local grammar schools since we had overloaded the local high school. Therefore the 9^th grade was the first time I was actually on the public high school property and had been exposed to older teen types. One day toward the beginning of the school year I was in the band room and one of the older types was going on about the Beatles coming to this country for the first time. You can figure the year from that. Anyway, somehow I got asked about the Beatles and did not know who or what they were. After being told that they were rockie-rollies I must have said something about not liking rock. The next thing I knew I was being beat on by a couple of larger and older types for not liking rock. I quickly learned that blending in with protective camo was a good idea. Minor, compared to having to hide something as large as gay, but instructive nevertheless. Now, this was a persecution for being different, and no matter how right I was or was not; no matter how wrong they were or were not, the bruises were real and I really didn’t lose anything (except more bruises) by keeping my mouth shut when pop music was being discussed. My opinions did not change, just what I exposed. This was only one of the minor things I learned not to blab around groups of redneck boys. These were not really bad boys, I was just different.

Now, what in the hell does this have to do with gays in the military? (Or anywhere else). Well, it is a normal human thing to distrust the stranger. Those who are different may be persecuted. This is a normal pack behavior and we are pack animals. It is all well and good to say that anyone who discriminates against gays will be prosecuted, but if you have been beaten or even murdered that is rather cold comfort to know that you will be avenged. Better to not broadcast your differences and survive. This doesn’t mean that you have to live your life in fear and stay in a closet. It does mean that the correct position is to not rub your difference into others faces. The correct answer to “are you gay” is “that is none of anyone else’s business”.

Go play as you will on leave, but it is not necessary to discuss in bull sessions. The same applies to any workplace environment. If you rub other’s faces in your differences it may be you that gets the bloody nose.

There are two military conditions: not in combat and in combat. If not in combat the main thing you have to worry about is getting beat or shunned. Either is not a goodness. In combat, if your buds think they cannot depend on you, well, you could get shot by the enemy or your own buds. If they think that you are not dependable they may not cover your butt when needed.

This is not to say that gay and military cannot go together. Nuts. They can. People mocked Clinton’s don’t ask/don’t tell policy, but it really is one of the better things that he did. You must understand that I am not a Clinton fan by any means. In combat, you must absolutely depend on your buds and they must be able to depend on you. Any weakness in the unit can be fatal.

It is possible that over time it may even come to the point that sexual orientation is irrelevant compared to the many good things they like about you. But that will take time. No matter how much legislation is passed, you will have to prove yourself as a person and as a soldier before anything else is accepted. Legal props mean nothing in combat. Laws are irrelevant to a corpse. Not fair, I agree, but that is the reality of combat.

I was a Marine. Perhaps the best advice I can give you is: “Just shut up and soldier”.

BTW - rednecks are not the only dangerous group. Try being a conservative around a crowd of libs. Just as bad. Oh, they might not get physical, but the persecution will be just a vicious. They don’t go for the throat, they go for the groin.

A Nest of Vipers -

Hollywood exemplifies the thought process of the modern liberal. An excellent example is found in the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. On the whole, I rather enjoy the movie. But, the central fact that there are no decent Christians portrayed is revealing. The Bishop is despicable, Friar Tuck is a drunken bigot, and the remaining Christians don’t have a clue. The only decent character is the Morgan Freeman Moslem. In an exchange in one of the earlier scenes, something is mentioned about women and Robin Hood says something off the wall and the Morgan Freeman character insists that “We talk to our women”. Really? Since when? A woman is of less value than a camel.

Mohammed was a pedophile and child molester. He was a murderer and rapist and a racial bigot. And the liberals want to spit on Christians and hold up Moslems as examples of how to relate to women? A woman, by the way, is worth half the value of a man in Islam. No matter how wonderful, educated, wealthy, or whatever - the woman is only worth half what the most worthless man in the world is worth.

Narrated ‘Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death). Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64: Sahih Bukhari [the most venerated and authentic Islamic source]

Mohammed, at 50, became engaged to a six year old child. Her had sex with her when she was nine. The only reason that he waited was that she contracted some disease that made her hair fall out. That is child abuse and pedophilia any way you cut it. Oh yeah, the usual liberal excuse is that well, golly gee, customs differ in other places and times.

Let’s see what a current Moslem “Holy Man” has to say. This is Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Yeah, that’s the same “Holy Leader” that the Iranian “students” that took over the American embassy in Iran still look to as the greatest “Holy Man” since the pervert Mohammed.

“A man can quench his sexual lusts with a child as young as a baby. However, he should not penetrate. Sodomizing the baby is halal (allowed by sharia). If the man penetrates and damages the child, then he should be responsible for her subsistence all her life. This girl, however, does not count as one of his four permanent wives. The man will not be eligible to marry the girl’s sister. It is better for a girl to marry when her menstruation starts, and at her husband’s house rather than her father’s home. Any father marrying his daughter so young will have a permanent place in heaven.”Khomeini, “Tahrirolvasyleh” fourth volume, Darol Elm, Gom, Iran, 1990

The way to heaven is to submit your daughter to molestation at first menses? When he forbids penetration, he is only talking about vaginal, after all, to lose the hymen reduces the female’s value. Buggery (anal sex) of babies is perfectly good and moral conduct. And liberals think that living under sharia law is ok?

Notice that this blessing for child abuse only holds for the worthless female babies. The boys are sacred and protected. Homosexuality is not allowed under Sharia law. Remember that the “peace loving” creep that leads Iran said that Iran had no homosexuals like we do in this country. Boys cannot marry until the ripe old age of 15. Girls at 9. Feminists - where is your cry for equal treatment?

Mohammed also forced his son to divorce his wife so that Mohammed could marry his daughter-in-law. Good, moral behavior according to the Moslems.

In the Toronto, Canada, suburb of Mississauga, a Moslem father strangled his 16 year old daughter because she did not wish to wear the headscarf. This man is regarded as a hero by Moslems because he murdered his own child.

A seven year old girl is raped by her uncle and her father cuts her head off to protect his honor? I would kill the uncle, and comfort the daughter, but these animals blame the worthless female child for getting raped.

Even a casual search of the net will turn up thousands of examples of Moslem brutality and excess.

When a Christian commits a crime, he is acting as a sinful individual outside the Church and his conduct will be condemned by fellow Christians. There is no way to justify barbarous conduct under Christianity. This is not true of Islam. The most horrific acts, such as murder of your own daughter, child molestation, rape, and slavery are regarded as holy acts and the perpetrator will be lauded.

Now the question that comes to mind is why do Hollywood and the liberals want to honor these people? Why do the Democrats in the House and Senate want to honor Moslem holidays and spit on Christian holidays? (The nine Dems who voted no for Christmas voted yes for Ramadan). Why do the feminazis not condemn Islam? What is the liberal rationale for hating Christians and insisting that we not have any public displays of Christianity and yet want to honor these foul perverts?

I suppose that I will be called radical and terrible and all such things for what I am about to say, if not for what I’ve already said. I would ban any Moslem immigration to the West. We are asking for trouble. The liberals in Los Angeles raised mortal hell when the police wanted to map Moslem neighborhoods to predict where trouble would erupt. Ask the French or the Brits who causes them the most trouble. Every time something upsets these murderous perverts they riot and destroy property and kill someone. There is no place in the America I grew up in for such heinous behavior. If we do not eliminate these creatures of evil from our midst, they will surely poison us. We need to understand that they do not live and let live. They live to dominate and kill. We are in a war to the finish. We did not start it. We do not want it. But it only takes one to hate and murder. We either defend or die.

The Germans were pikers. Hitler and company got somewhere around 13 to 15 million. The Moslem score is around 270 million. And they want more deaths and misery. You liberals are so busy hating your own people and your own countries that you are overlooking the people that will destroy you and all you stand for.

“Talk to our women”. What pathetic and contemptible bullshit.

Whether one regards Christ as God or not, one cannot fault Him on moral grounds without telling lies. The lib practice of lumping all religion together and considering them as equal is stupid. One can make a good case for most of the major religions being fairly good moral guides, even if one does not follow the beliefs. This cannot be said of Islam. The tenets of Buddhism are clearly good moral teachings. Confucianism and Daoism are decent moral guides. If a Christian follows the moral tenets of the Bible there is no room for hatred. This does not mean that individuals cannot be blind and perverted, but there is no backing for it. Islam is not on the same moral plane when the founder is a murdering pervert and murder, rape, slavery, and child abuse are considered good and moral conduct. The sad thing is that the libs never get the facts straight.

I do not object to Buddhists immigrating to this country. I do not object to them practicing their Buddhism. I do object to Moslems and would not allow them in if I had any choice. Our children will regret that we ever allowed them in at all. This is not to say that I would not allow Middle Eastern people who rejected Islam in. I would not allow any Mosques to be built under any circumstances, for in the Mosques hatred is taught.

Anyone who thinks that I have exaggerated about Mohammed or Islam should check the facts for themselves. The facts are as I have stated them. Indeed, the facts about these psychotic killers are ever worse. Check them out before you condemn me as a bigot. This is not hate speech. This is true. Check it out before you get wrapped around the axle.

I should point out that humans, contrary critters that we are, do not always follow the tenets of their religions. While Christianity is about love and redemption, individual Christians may commit horrible acts, sometimes even twisting the facts of Christianity to suite their own perversions. Likewise, although Islam is full of hatred, perversion, domination and evil, individual Moslems are frequently good people who act in a morally correct fashion. There have been and are Moslems who act far more morally correctly than many Christians. Nonetheless, the fundamental natures of the religions are as stated.

Herself sez: I’m sure my Ol’ Curmudgeon will get some death threats because of this one! But I double-checked the references and researched them myself - his facts seem to be straight. I had done a good bit of Islamic research on my own a while back and concluded that Islam “ain’t our friend.”

God Rest Ye Merry - -

- - Merchants, May you make the Yuletide Paaay - Tom Lehrer.

Of all the curious phenomena that I observe in our schizophrenic society none is more amusing than the modern attitude toward Christmas.

As I have observed on more than one occasion, Christmas is Christ’s Mass, the celebration of the Incarnation of God as Man, and the first act of the re-creation of the fallen world by Christ. That’s the anchor, and we’ll come back to it in a bit.

First off, the nuttier Christian haters really don’t need to worry. The destruction of Christmas is taking place whether or not they help it along. There is nothing that the anti-Christian crowd can do that is as damaging to Christians as that which so many have done to themselves. Oh, you don’t think that they are Christian haters? They are really atheists and object to any religion? Could be, but by my experience they do persecute Christians and do not go after Moslems. I grant you that some of the more ignorant and self-righteous fringies who claim to be Christian can be pretty obnoxious, but there is some genuine concern that their fellow man experience salvation. The more poisonous aspects of their behavior are purely human cussedness and cannot be justified by any formal Christian theology. This is not true of the Moslems, where killing unbelievers, rape, and slavery are all considered virtuous behavior and earn credits toward paradise. I don’t see the “no religion” crowd tackling them. The idiots are anti-Christian, not anti-religion, or perhaps they just lack the guts to really follow their mouths with true action. Or, more likely, this shows their true stripes - just anti-Christian. Note that the majority of those who want no public Christian displays also do not want us to win in the current war with Islam. There is a common and current delusion that the “terrorists” are just extremists comparable to some of our own extremists. Not so. The extremists that come from the Christian societies have to roll their own theology. It is not and never has been part of the central Christian dogma that hatred is good. “Love your enemies” is Christian, not Moslem. (”Love your enemies - and drive ‘em nuts” is Dave Gardner). What we of the modern world think of as Moslem extremism is, in fact, part of their central belief system. Those who think differently have not studied Islam. The greatest example of the big lie in the modern era is not Hitler and the Nazis. It is that the Moslem world has managed to portray itself as a peaceful religion. Bull. Study the real deal and you will find that death to unbelievers is at the core, along with rape and slavery. The Moslems have killed and enslaved more people than any other group in the history of the world. (Try 270,000,000 dead from Moslem murders). Contrariwise, there is no way that anyone can justify murder, rape, and slavery in Christian doctrine. If the anti-religion nuts were really true to their statements they would run all the Moslems out of this country before they even started worrying about Christians.

Even without the leftist attacks on Christmas we are in trouble. The current commercialization of Christmas has done more damage than all the atheists that ever were. The current orgy of consumerism in December is a pagan midwinter festival that has absolutely nothing to do with the incarnation of Christ. The Christmas tree is a pagan leftover from the Germans. This gift-giving extravaganza is more damaging to Christ’s Mass than having the pagans persecute us. Also, you might think about the huge number of Christmas musical pieces that have nothing to do with Christ. Dashing through the snow, silver bells, snowmen and all the rest of that sort of dreck have nothing to do with the Birth of Our Lord.

The other destructive force is so much more subtle and insidious that most Christians don’t have a clue that it is dangerous. I speak of the Western view of Christmas as exemplified in “Silent Night”. The “sweet baby” Jesus figure so beloved by the West has little to do with the mighty God who is Master of the Universe. The Eastern Church says that the Womb of Mary is “more spacious than the Heavens” for she contained the Master and Creator of the Heavens for 9 months within her body. The “Holy Family:” Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus is not the Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit that should be the focus of the Christian. It is easy to be seduced by the “sweetness” of the Holy Family imagery and to forget that the Christian is called to constant and intense spiritual warfare. In the imagery of the West, the paintings depicting the birth of Christ are usually extremely romantic in style. All kinds of sentimental feelings are displayed and evoked by these tender images. Contrast that with Eastern Iconography. The Incarnation icons are usually rather stark and frequently busy with details all around the borders that depict the various things associated with the birth. Unless it is an 18^th century icon with a great deal of Italian influence, that is. Then you may see some Western romanticism, but not otherwise.

Herself sez: Here is an excellent example of the Orthodox Icon of the Nativity of Our Lord:

The Theotokos (The Mother of God) lies quietly after giving birth. She is looking worriedly at Joseph (lower left corner) who is being tempted by Satan in the guise of an old man. (We know that Satan can take many guises - from the voices of doubt in our minds, to the temptations of secular life, to simply missing our prayers.) In the lower right corner, the midwives bathe the Infant in wonder that He was born without violating His Mother’s Virginity. Above the midwives, a shepherd plays a pipe. On the left of the Theotokos and Christ, we see the Magi riding on beautiful horses and following the mystery of the Star. Above them, the Angels sing. Over all is seen the Star of the Nativity. In the upper right corner, the angels announce to stunned shepherds that Christ is Born! All around, we can see the mountains clapping their hands (”let the floods clap their hands and let the hills be joyful together.” [Psalms 98:8]) In the very center of the Icon is Christ, bathed in the Light of the Star, lying in the manger. The animals gaze at Him in wonder. As according to Orthodox tradition, the Nativity of Christ is depicted in a cave, not in a building.

As Christians, we should indeed fight against the forces that would make us second-class citizens. But we should also remember that salvation and spiritual growth is more important than comfort. It may be easier for us to live the Christian life of prayer, fasting, and struggle without all the external distractions of the “Merry Merchants”. Perhaps we should think about ignoring the whole mess of public extravaganza and concentrate on the aspects of salvation that we are offered.

If we look at the ads we see silly people asking snotty children if they believe in Santa Claus and the poisonous little examples of consumerism replying that they believe in cashmere. I think that we should abandon that whole trail to the people who think of it as having some importance. There is no salvation in Santa Claus or in cashmere. We know that our Salvation is in and through Christ, and that to grow in Him daily through the Holy Spirit is our belief and our goal.

Let the merchants have the pagan mid-winter festival. Let the great unwashed have their festival without Christian symbols, for we know that only in Christ are we participating in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Christmas [Christ's Mass] is in the Church and the home, not the mall or the Internet store.

Herself sez: On December 25 / January 7, and not before, we will chant in Church:

Troparion of Nativity, Tone 4

Thy Nativity, O Christ our God, hath shone upon the world the light of wisdom! For by it, they who worshipped the stars, were taught by a star to adore Thee: the Sun of Righteousness, and to know Thee, the Orient from on high! O Lord, glory be to Thee.

Kontakion of the Nativity, Tone 3

Today the virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One, and the earth offers a cave to the Unapproachable One! Angels with shepherds glorify Him, the Magi journey with the Star! Since for our sake the Pre-eternal God is born as a Little Child!

As noted by the Ol’ Curmudgeon, there is no place for commercialism or consumerism in either the Icon or the Hymnography of the Nativity!

Bah, humbug –

Hollyweird is strange on many fronts. Nowhere is it any stranger than on Christmas.

The staunch liberals would like for Christmas (and Christians) to just go away. There are schools all over that will not allow Christmas decorations. If we object to “Sally has two daddies” or “Jimmy has two mommies” then we are nothing but a bunch of homophobes and should not have a voice in what is taught to our children. Flip side. Let one jackass object to Miracle on 34th Street and the principal and/or school board will forbid showing the film so that the aforementioned jackass is not offended.

If the Hollyweird types were true to their hyper-liberal convictions there would be no Christmas films being made. Instead, they are true to two things: the liberal agenda to destroy Christmas, and, first and foremost, the almighty dollar. What does happen is that the Christmas films made have nothing to do with Christmas. Die Hard, Lethal Weapon and many others were deliberately scheduled for Christmas release. Don’t get me wrong, I do like these movies, but what on earth do they have to do with Christmas? Answer – nothing at all.

Or the movies are deliberately to the detriment of Christmas and/or the perennial “What is the true meaning of Christmas” pieces of fluff. Hate to say it, but the two that first come to mind are How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Berenstain Bears’ Christmas Tree, both by liberal Jews. No – I am not anti-Semitic, I simply state that neither Jews nor liberals are qualified to address “The real meaning of Christmas”. It would be as presumptuous if I were to write a children’s book on the real meaning of Hanukkah or Ramadan.

As a side note to conservative types: be advised, Christmas trees, Santa Claus, snowmen, winter wonderlands and any of those other commercial and/or pagan symbols have nothing to do with Christmas. Nothing. Even Dickens’s Christmas Carol does not have anything to do with Christmas. Not that I would deny your use of these symbols. Not at all. But do be aware that they are not ultimately all that important.

Christmas is Christ Mass. The celebration of the Incarnation of God as Man. The beginning of the Redemption and Recreation of the fallen world. Nothing else. Not warm and fuzzy feelings. Jesus was not a good man. He was not a prophet. He was either God, as He stated, or He was stark, raving, totally mad.

See what I mean? Ghosts of Christmas don’t have anything to do with the Redemption of the fallen world. Love of Man flows from Love of God. Thy neighbor is the second commandment, not the first for a very good reason. We cannot truly love our neighbor if we do not love God first. Placing Man in the place of God will inevitably lead to self-hatred and disgust with the very people we claim to love.

Our Church is on the original, Julian Calendar. Christmas is celebrated on December 25th, as it is in the Gregorian Calendar. There is slippage between the two calendars and dates no longer match. Currently, Julian December 25th coincides with Gregorian January 7th. This is sometimes called Old Christmas or Russian Christmas or Greek Christmas. Many ignorant people think that the Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas on January 7th. Not so, we use December 25th – Julian. Notice the difference. Anyway, the point is that in my Church we really don’t care what the Western Christians do. We don’t care whether Western Christmas is commercialized or not. What we do say is that the Western Christians should be free to celebrate as they choose. The libs and atheists are welcome to ignore the whole thing if they like, but they should not be allowed to cram their beliefs down everyone else’s throat. Freedom is ignoring other’s conduct if it does no one harm and is not morally repugnant. Forbidding another’s harmless conduct is denying freedom. Liberals do not want freedom, they want to dictate how others live.

If we object to having Moslem holidays shoved down our throats then we are hateful bigots. If we object to having our traditions trampled all over then we are hateful bigots. If we try to live a life in the love of Christ then we are hateful bigots. Notice that Christians cannot win where atheists/radical liberals are concerned. At some point we have to tell these people to get a grip, grow up, get used to it, or get over it. The only appeasement that works is if we become exactly like them. That is their agenda. And to them I say – BAH, HUMBUG!

Huh? –

I was raised an Episcopalian. In the South, in the 50’s, the Episcopalians were the movers and shakers and the intellectual elite. The Methodists had overcome their Holy-Roller past and had become solidly middle class. The personal magnetism and powerful oratory of Peter Marshall had put the Presbyterians on the map in the South. The Baptists were mostly lower class, but were moving up fast. The rest belonged to this, that or the other smaller protestant groups that I couldn’t tell apart. Back then, them that didn’t believe slept late, but didn’t mention it otherwise. Roman Catholics and Jews kept a very low profile. The Klan was still around.

In the Episcopal Church, the Book of Common Prayer of 1928 was used. The services were calm, dignified, rational and comfortable rituals. The sermons were somewhat warm, fuzzy and gentle exhortations to live the Christian Life. Usually not spelled out in detail. Sermons were also mercifully short.

I never really understood some of the thinking of the protestants. I used to go to church with my best friend, whose family belonged to one of those “sola scriptura” fundamentalist sects. I spent most of the service wondering what on earth the preacher was doing, other than trying to get more money in the plate. This was perhaps not entirely fair, but I didn’t have any background that would enable much deeper understanding.

They had the choir singing, usually pretty decent stuff. I rather like some of the more spirited protestant hymns to this day. And I really do like gospel music – both black and white – but that’s another story.

After the choir, they had this, that and the other prayers and announcements, but the main course was absolutely the sermon. Now, this preacher would really get all kinds of wound up. He would whoop and holler and jump up and down and grab the pulpit and duck down beside it and then jump up and pound on the bible. And sometimes I could follow him. Usually it seemed he was yapping about what would send you to everlasting hellfire. I seem to remember him as being somewhat fond of describing the torments. But – to be fair – this is 50 years later and is a bit fuzzy here and there. When he got exhausted/wound down – seemed to take about the same time every Sunday – then the choir would sing to the chink of money hitting the plate – mostly he liked the “quiet” money. Then another prayer and the choir would sing it closed.

One thing that I am quite sure of is that he would race around to the front doors at the end of the service so he could shake everyone’s hand as they left. I became convinced that this was a necessary part of the ritual. I clearly remember that at least every other person would shake the preacher’s hand enthusiastically and declaim “That was a real sincere sermon, preacher. Real sincere!” That to me has always been the most puzzling feature of all. Why is sincere so great?

Adolf was quite sincere in his hatred of the Jews. The Klan is sincere in its hatred of blacks. Farrakhan is sincere in his hatred of whites. Osama sincerely hates America. Satan is extremely sincere in his hatred of humanity.

Hatred is one the most honest and sincere of all human emotions. It is not, however, a Christian virtue. When we are infected we must pray and fast and strive to eliminate it from our souls, no matter how sincerely we hate.

So, why is sincere a Christian complement? Huh?

Satan and Rebellion –

One fine non-day – this was before God invented time and days and all that stuff – God was kicked back admiring His plans for creation. Lucifer (Satan) – lux opher – light bearer – brightest of all the Angels wandered by. Lucifer’s attention was caught by the plans on the drawing board. He looked carefully through each stage and admired the concept. He especially liked how everything was linked and interdependent. He was wowed and said so: “Cool, boss!” Then he got to the final creation. He was appalled. He was disgusted. He was horrified. He said so: “Boss! You are out of your mind! Look, this thing is spirit and physical! Why, look at how it processes energy. This is disgusting. This is terrible. These are the filthiest things I ever saw. Gross! Yech!”.

God just smiled and said: “These things are great. I’m going to make them my children. They will learn to love. I’m going to give them free will so they can learn great lessons. I’m just totally in love with them, they are going to be my greatest creation.”

Lucifer was nauseated. “Boss, you mean they are going to have a greater place than us angels?”

God thought a minute and said “Well, I suppose you could look at it that way. But really, I love all of you too. But I can join with these humans in ways I just can’t with you. They are different.”

Satan was so revolted, he revolted. Prematurely. Satan did not get as far as the last pages of the plans. He did see that God intended to become one of the humans. He did not see that the humans could/would actually become part of God Himself. If Satan had, he would have been even more appalled, but he would have known that he could not defeat the humans.

Terrible, nasty creatures. But with a capacity for Godhood when they love enough.

Old monks and the WCC –

In the 60’s or 70’s, I forget which, there was a convention of the WCC – World Council of Churches – in Atlanta. I vaguely remember it being at the Pascal’s Motor Inn on Hunter Street, now Martin Luther King Boulevard. At that time many of the Orthodox Churches belonged to the WCC, even though it was acknowledged as a very liberal organization not in keeping with Orthodoxy. Why? Well, the Orthodox Churches in the Soviet Union and those countries under their influence had no other way of communicating with the West. Even the KGB had no objection, since they felt that liberal organizations would help weaken Christianity and democracies.

Anyway, the delegates were met in session and one of the members was bemoaning the current state of faith in the West. He plaintively wailed, “What we need is to learn to pray!” One of the Russian delegates, an old, very pious monk, stood up and said in a very calm manner, “This is how to learn to pray. Join the thumb and the first two fingers or the right hand – this represents the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Fold the little finger and the ring finger against the palm – this is for the two natures of our Beloved Savior. We sign ourselves on the forehead, the stomach, the right shoulder and then the left, blessing ourselves with the power of the Cross. We then humbly say “Our Father, Who art in the Heavens, …”

There was complete silence in the meeting. Now that the Soviet Union has collapsed, the Communist country Orthodox Churches no longer belong to liberal organizations.

Atheism – a fraudulent religion –

I stipulate that atheism is a religion. The atheist is just as fervent in his denial of the existence of God as the most rabid bible pounder or most fanatical Moslem killer is affirmative.

A truly non-religious position is that of the dedicated agnostic – “I don’t know, I don’t care. You people do what you want to, just leave me out of it.” Now that is honest. And truly non-religious.

Now you can see all kinds of atheist websites in a web search. One of the more amusing things is the fervent denial by so many of the atheist sites that atheism is a religion. You can also see where atheists have sued to get religious rights by claiming that atheism is a religion. They assume the position which gets them the most mileage.

Now, for those who would like the atheism is not a religion side of the ass, think on this: the atheists would not argue so long, loud, and hard if theirs was not a deeply held, fervent belief system. That is religion. Don’t know, don’t care is agnostic. And not religious. By definition, a belief system is a religious conviction. A non-belief system is a nothing.

Now, the FFs (Founding Fathers) never said that there was a separation between church and state. They said that there would be no state religion. That’s a different colored cat. That does also include not forcing atheism down my throat. I admit that I find mindless fundamentalism of any stripe poisonous. This would include fundamental and dogmatic Protestantism, Islam, and atheism. I see no difference when the practitoners of each wish to force their belief system down my throat.

Freedom of religion is not the same as freedom from religion. We can all ease up a bit and be polite and tolerant of each other. Our judgment and punishment should be reserved for those who harm another, the rude, and the boorish. This includes the rabid atheist as well as any other intolerant jackass.

ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY

Why am I Orthodox? Why Russian Orthodox? What is this stuff, anyway?

OK, first of all, relax. I’m not trying to convert anyone. Much, anyway. Mostly this is just some background so people can understand why some of my positions are so different from what you might suspect. Fair warning. Some of the positions are gonna make a lot of people mad.

Let’s start with some ground rules: I’m not going to debate whether God is or not. As far as I am concerned, He is. Nextly, Christ wasn’t a good man. He wasn’t a prophet. Either He was the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, as He claimed or He was a nutcase. No in between. Not going to argue that one either. So we will start with the assumptions that there is a God, and that the Christ was also that God.

I was born and raised in the Episcopal Church. Now in the 1950s we were decidedly the minority in the South. Socially, in the Old South, the masses were Baptist, the middles were mostly Methodist, and the elites were Episcopalians. I really didn’t comprehend the protestants that surrounded us. The Episcopal Church was really big on the branch theory. That theory states that the Church is one only in some mystical sense. The East and the West split into separate trunks, and the Church of England (Episcopalians) split off from the Western trunk, and so on. The Episcopal Church is now firmly protestant. But back in the ‘50s they still thought they were half protestant and half Catholic. The great compromise. We start with Henry. Now history has been a bit unkind. Henry is remembered as a fat guy with six wives who was the eighth Henry. There was a bit more to him than that. Henry was an extremely talented man who composed some very nice music and also won an award for excellence in theological writing from the Pope. He was good and he knew his stuff. So when Henry decided to break from Rome and establish himself as head of the local church, he knew enough to convince the local church hierarchy. It also helped that he had the army behind him. Later, the Americans were mostly all Church of England. Yeah, I know they fed you all that stuff about the Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower. But really, most colonists were Church of England. After the Revolution, there were many problems. The Americans had no Bishops, and Episcopal means ruled by bishops. Most of the priests had either gone back to England or up to Canada with the loyalists. Eventually Samuel Seabury from New England was able to convince some Scottish Bishops to consecrate him bishop. Thus was born the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America. What a mouthful. Thus just Episcopalians or sometimes the organization was called PECUSA. This was called the thinking man’s church in the 1950s and was growing like crazy. Missions all over the place for the baby boomers. As the church got more and more liberal and protestant in the ‘60s and ‘70s the inevitable started happening. People began leaving in droves, and splinter churches formed that were throwbacks to the 1950s or to the Anglo-Catholic movement. BTW – Post revolution, most of the South was still Church of England. But — they had no priests. The protestants grew like wildfire during this period. It was a whole lot easier to self-ordain and then start having revivals and such. The Episcopalians insisted on a seminary education and then they had to be ordained by a bishop. These bishops were in sort supply, remember?

Meanwhile, I started studying for the Episcopal Priesthood. Remember that. We’ll come back to it later.

My wife and I tried going to one of these splinter churches and it just didn’t get it. We felt bereft. We called a dear friend who had been an Episcopal priest and asked him about the situation. His advice: look into Orthodoxy.

Now this was some interesting advice, given what I had seen in pre-the. (Preparatory theological). One of the things that I had studied was Greek. Very interesting language, works a lot different than English. One of the nice things is that you get to read the Bible as it was written. Now the King James was/is that which the Southern protestants loved to bang on and quote. And truthfully, it’s not too bad in the New Testament. Translated straight from the New Testament Greek. A few bobbles, but good on the whole. But the Old Testament — oh, brother! To start with, the King James was done using the Hebrew Old Testament. Sounds good. But — there are problems. To wit: the Jews and the early church did not use the Hebrew Old Testament. They used the Greek Septuagint. The Jews of the time didn’t speak Hebrew. They spoke Greek, the international trade language. They also spoke Aramaic. This had been the official language of the Achmenid Empire (read Persian = Iranian, Cyrus & all that). Ever notice that when Jesus or the boys are quoting scripture that it is close, but not dead-on? If you use the Septuagint it is correct. Secondly. There was a movement in Judaism that was called the Masoretes. The Christians had been converting Jews left and right using their own text. The Jews, naturally, did not like this. The Masoretes were kind of like the Gideons of their day. They distributed corrected copies of their text (with the passages the Christians used carefully massaged) all over the world to the various Jewish communities. They also very carefully destroyed the old, “corrupt” text they replaced. The only text that the early Church ever used or blessed was the Septuagint. When the Church adopted Athanasius’ list as the accepted Bible, the Septuagint was what was used. There are several books in the Septuagint that did not make it into Jeromes’s translation or the Vulgate. They also did not make it into the King James since that was from the Masoretic Text, not the Septuagint. The only bunch that still uses the whole Bible as declared by the Church is the Orthodox.

The next thing that bothered me was a book by an Anglican monk: The Shape of the Liturgy by Dom Gregory Dix. This traced the development of the Liturgy from apostolic times to the present. The major thing that kept popping up to me was Dom Gregory would be rattling along about this or that element and would say something like “the Western practice changed in such and such year. But the original practice was such and such, as the Orthodox still do.” I started figuring that if the first Christians did something, we should still be doing it, unless there was a real good reason to change.

The third leg goes something like this: The Episcopalians make a real big deal about Apostolic Succession. This means that they think that the Bishops of today can trace an unbroken line back to the Apostles by consecration, or laying on of hands. I thought about it and came to the conclusion that the original church had to be out there somewhere. I didn’t buy the argument that it had split into all these branches. I wanted the trunk. We all agree (I think) that the Church was founded on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and Disciples in the upper room. We can probably agree that the Church was one for at least the first century into the second. Most people will agree that there was only one Church at the time of the conversion of Constantine. So far, so good. It is a historical fact that the Coptic Church in Egypt and Ethiopia broke away from the main Church at the 4th Ecumenical Council — 451. We need not go into the Monophysite Controversy here. The next split was when East and West finally split in 1054. Now who left who depends on which pew you occupy. Rome had been diddling around with things for quite a while. They changed the Nicene Creed to include the filioque (and the Son) in the 6th century without passing it through a council with the rest of the Church. The Romans were also centralizing power into the single Bishop of Rome – the Pope (means father). In the Orthodox tradition, all Bishops are equal, they all have one vote in the council, and the council is the final authority when acting in accord. The Romans were claiming that Christ gave Peter primary power — “upon this rock” and so forth. There was also a claim that Peter was the first Pope. Not so, the first Bishop of Rome was Clement. Wonderful writer — good stuff. Look it up. The very first Church council is not in the list of Ecumenical Councils. It was the 1st Apostolic Council recorded in Acts. Now when you read that, notice that Peter does not get his way in the Apostolic Council. James pins his ears back and Peter loses the vote on Judeization. Next, notice that every single Church mentioned in the New Testament, except Rome, is still Orthodox. So – does the majority leave the minority or the other way around?

So, if we want the original Church, we’ve got 4 choices at the most. The Orthodox, The Roman Catholics, The Coptics, or the Church of India. Huh? Where’d they come from? Well, it’s like this. The Christian Church in India goes slap back to Thomas. You know. The doubter. That’s where he wound up. They are great people. But they were off on their own hook and crook for centuries and never took part in the Ecumenical Councils. They also kinda’ developed a few strange beliefs on the way. But they do have some nifty prayers and services. It is also interesting to compare the practices that they have to the other three. Now you bare bones protestants, here it comes: All these churches have very similar formal liturgies. Check it out. From the beginning, the worship of the Church was all that fancy stuff you hate.

OK, so we have a beginning and a middle church, what about now? My rational: if Christ is God and if the Church is the spotless bride of Christ and His body on earth, then any discontinuity, even for 5 minutes, means that the gates of Hell prevailed for a while. And if that’s true, you are wasting your time. There is no surety of Salvation. You might as well get some more sleep on Sunday. Whew. Sit back and think about that one. If there is no continuity in the Bride of Christ, then this cannot be the Bride. You may get a warm, fuzzy, religious feeling. You may get some good from studying the scriptures. But — you are NOT in the mechanism that was set up by the Holy Spirit to be the vehicle for our relation to Christ and our salvation. The oldest protestant churches go back maybe 500 years or so. Most protestants seem to think the Church was ok up until the time of Constantine and then fell apart until their founder (fill in the blank), somewhere around year (fill in the blank), stumbles out of the woods with the unvarnished truth from reading a King James Bible and receiving the True Word straight from God (or rolled their own — Joe Smith). Sorry. Don’t buy it. The other bull that you get is that the “real” church went underground for x number of years. OK. That’s fine. Show me the historical continuity. How’d it get here?

In America, we know that a new denomination pops up every 5 minutes. We also know that no two protestants can agree on theology. I love the non-denominational guys. Who do they think they are fooling? They are just their very own denomination with no one to ride herd over them. I can’t buy that any of these “roll your owns” are the true and original Church. The protestant myths about the “Catacomb Church” seem to be just that. Yes, the Catacombs were used by Christians, but probably not for services. The layout of the traditional Orthodox Church is exactly that of the standard Roman noble’s house, which looks to be the place most services took place.

Lastly, there is no central authority in Orthodoxy. The Patriarch of Constantinople does not hold any special power. He swings the gavel at a Conference, but he is merely first among equals. Yet — there is absolutely no disagreement among the Orthodox about the services. There is no disagreement about Theology. None. Now the Greeks, Russians, Arabs, Serbs, Japanese, etc. are a contentious bunch. Yet they do not disagree about matters of the Church — for two thousand years. Remarkable. Could only be the Holy Spirit in action. In the South we have an old saying: If there are two Baptists in town, then there are three churches. The one I go to, the one he goes to, and the one neither of us can stand. Now this does not mean that the Orthodox always get along. They don’t. But they don’t disagree about the faith. Amazing.

Now if we decide to check out Orthodoxy, there are some choices to make. There is going to be the investigation to find out what kind of Orthodox there are in the neighborhood. In Atlanta, we have a pretty wide choice. There may be a limited selection in your neck of the woods.
So here’s my rundown at the time:
Greeks. Lovely people. But in Atlanta in the 1970s they were very clannish and did not really like converts coming into their club. This is NOT the case everywhere, and not there anymore. Also, while I like Greek music, I like it in small quantities. That’s just me, others really dig it. Also the services were in Greek at the time. I could read it — slowly and badly, but I never did speak it. My Greek teacher used to despair — “I never heard Greek with such a thick Southern accent!”

Antiocheans. Read Lebanese, mostly. Same comments as above, though their services were in English. But the Eastern melodies grated on my ear.

Russians. Well, here in the South, mostly ROC means Redneck Orthodox Church about as much as Russian. The services are mostly in English. The people are mostly converts. The music is really good stuff. You will think you are in heaven. Think Tchaikovsky, think Rimsky-Korsakov. Think choirs of Angels. They are all there. (The Angels are occasionally off-key). By Russians I mean Russians. ROCOR. Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. Also known as Synod sometimes.

There is also the OCA. This came from the Russian Church and was granted autocephaly, or self ruling status in the 1970s. There are many fine people here. The services are all English. But these guys have become a bit too Americanized. They think like protestants, not traditional Orthodox in many ways.

The others, Serbian and all the rest, were not in Atlanta at the time. They are now and may be in a neighborhood near you. Investigate for yourself if you are interested. Some of the ethnic churches may be really clannish and unwelcoming. Others will be wonderful. You just have to check each one out for yourself. Fair warning. If it is a real, traditional Orthodox Church there will be no pews and no organ. If you see those, it is a church that has been Americanized and will probably not hold to the traditional faith.

Now. You say to yourself: Self! Other than all that fancy Liturgy stuff and all that incense. What is the real difference with these people?

I’m glad you asked. Orthodoxy is a totally different world view. The Theological bones of Orthodoxy are from a really different animal.

Quick historical rehash. Christ. Birth, Death, Resurrection, Ascension. Day of Pentecost. Peter, Paul, all the rest. Church Spreads and prospers. Church is persecuted. Constantine converts. Empire becomes Christian. Now the next link in the chain is a fella’ named Alaric. You know the one, sacked Rome, split the Empire. Note that it is about this time of confusion, death, and all the rest that the West (Rome) starts twiddling with the Symbol of Faith (The Nicene Creed) and other goodies. The communication network of the West goes into the toilet. The spread of knowledge halts.

A few years before Alaric a real rip-roaring reprobate named Aurelius Augustinus has a conversion experience and spends the rest of his life teaching and writing and repenting. He is usually called St. Augustine in the west. The Orthodox do not regard him as a saint. He is sometimes called Blessed Augustine because of his writings on spirituality. Now Augustine was one of the early proponents of the Filioque (‘and the Son’) that was added into the Creed in the west. He was also one of the guiltiest people on record. The guy felt so guilty it was unreal. He decided that the whole human race was useless and doomed to hell and that Adam’s sin was literally inherited by all. Gloom and doom kind of guy. Only by baptism could the damning stain of Adam’s sin be erased. All are evil. And so on. Now the Orthodox have always thought that Augustine was full of beans. St. John Cassian of Lyon, France corresponded extensively with Augustine. It is instructive to read St. John’s dressing down of Augustine. Basically he tells Augustine that he loves him, and that he appreciate his dedication, but that Augustine is full of beans and goes too far. Western theology is completely based on Augustinian theology. (‘Bout all they had during the dark ages). This gives rise to all sorts of strange doctrine. How about Limbo? Here’s the chain. All humans are evil, and have inherited Adam’s sin. Therefore no human can go to Heaven unless he is baptized. But wait — what about an innocent stillborn baby? This baby has had no chance to be baptized. Therefore it must not go to Heaven. But — God is merciful and would not send this innocent to Hell. Would He? OK, I know, I know! We’ll invent a place in the middle where the innocent go! We’ll call this Limbo, neither Heaven nor Hell. Great, guys. Good use of logic. It works! It holds together! Only problem: This cannot be justified in Scripture, nor in Tradition. It comes out of thin air. Thin air is not sufficient when we are talking about salvation and all that. Now the West was in a hard way for centuries. Another minor problem. According to Augustine, God is so good and Man is so evil that there cannot possibly be any direct interaction. Therefore Augustine postulated little intermediate “energies” that God used to interact with Man. Later logicians realized that this presented some problems. God became Man. Christ is fully God and fully Man. But - God cannot directly interface with this evil creature, so how could God be born of woman? This tied up the western theologians for a while. They finally resolved it with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. This was first proposed in 1476 and finally became dogma in 1854. Immaculate Conception has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus. It states that Mary was born without stain of original sin. Got them out of one corner into another. Now Mary is a goddess.

There wasn’t much education, and literacy didn’t exist outside monasteries and all that. All Western theology comes from Augustine. Thomas Aquinas later summed it all up in the Summa Theologica.

Now the kicker. No matter whether directly or indirectly: All protestant churches come from Rome. All protestant theology is Roman in origin. But wait! Not MY church. Guys, guys, check the chain. I stand by my premise: All western churches come from Rome. Either directly, as the Anglicans (Episcopalians) or Lutherans. Or indirectly, as the Methodists or Salvation Army. These both are second generation and came out of the Anglican Church. Others may come from third, fourth, or whatever generations. But theology of all western churches comes from Rome. It may be a protest in reaction to some of the bad theology, but it comes from Rome.

OK, so how is the Orthodox East different? The basic premise of Orthodoxy is that sin, sorrow, suffering and death came into the world as a consequence of Adam’s sin. He did not destroy God’s creation. Adam’s sin corrupted it, but did not destroy it. God had created the earth and said that it was good. While we inherit the consequences of Adam’s sin, we do not directly inherit the sin itself. Man is basically good. God’s creation is still good under our corruptions. We do not view Adam as the fully mature Lord of the Earth who fell to the depths of Hell that the west sees. We view him as a rather immature adolescent who foolishly corrupted himself and dirtied creation. From this different perception of the cosmos comes a whole different world view. We are not born with Adam’s original sin. We are born with a taste for sin. We are also revolted by sin. This makes for an interesting time growing up.

BTW — the other bunch that views the fall pretty much the same as the Orthodox are the Jews. Amazing coincidence. We come from the Jews. As another side note: our services are also totally understandable to the Orthodox Jews. Especially Vespers. They know what we are doing. It freaks them out.

The Orthodox view the Incarnation, Birth, Death, and Resurrection of Christ as one continuous action that fully rebuilds creation without disturbing the gift of freewill. We can choose to participate in the recreated cosmos and work on our salvation. We can also choose to stay in the fallen and corrupt world. Our choice.

Other things that flow from these differences of perception. If we look at other people and other cultures, a westerner (Roman or protestant) has a hard time explaining how so many of these people can be good and how so much of the other’s philosophy can be good morality. “Man is evil. These people never heard of Christ. How can there be any good here?” The Orthodox have no problem. “Man is basically good. He yearns for God. He will dimly perceive types and shadows. But only in the Church is the fullness revealed.”

Now we come to one that protestants hate. Growing up in the South, we had a lot of Bible thumpers. OK. You ask them where their church gets its authority. The answer is always “from the Bible.” So, uh, guys, where did the Bible come from? Usually you get the “it is the Word of God!”, rather indignantly. OK, yes. That’s true. But — how did God get it here? There’s usually some mumbling and fumbling about at this point. Sometime you get a mumble about the “St. James Bible”. This is usually from someone without a whole lot of education.

OK, time to be blunt. The fact is: the current Bible came from St. Athanasius list of what was suitable for reading in Church. There were a boatload of books and letters floating about, some of them pretty good, and some just crazy. People were being mislead by some of the nuttier writings. These discarded books and letters are what the west (particularly Americans) are always getting wrapped around the axle about. You know: “lost books of the Bible! Suppressed books of the Bible!”, and so on. Fact is, we Orthodox still know about them. We consider most of them junk and don’t pay any attention to them. But we’ve still got them. Anyway, back to Egypt and Athanasius. His list of “right-on” books was finally adopted more or less intact by the Church. Now, looky here: if the Church was founded on the Day of Pentecost then it did NOT take its authority from the Bible. The Bible did not yet exist. The Septuagint Old Testament existed, but the New Testament had not yet been written or ratified. So, while your Church may think it derives its authority from Scripture, we Orthodox know that Scripture derives its authority from us.

Now, the above should give a thinking human pause. The first reaction protestants usually have to the formal services of Orthodoxy is “that’s not in the Bible!” Of course not, we didn’t put it in the Bible, we put it in the service books where it belongs. Your drab and paltry services are not in the Bible either. That’s because they didn’t exist until recently.

The next thing that drives protestants nuts is the icons. Icon is a Greek word that means image. These are very stylized representations of the Saints, and of Christ. “Thou shalt not make any graven image!” OK — we don’t. You don’t see any statues, do you? The traditional style of the icon came from the Egyptian death paintings popular throughout the time of the Ptolemaic Empire. Check old icons against some of the recently excavated sarcophagi from the 1st century. Same style. The first icon was painted by St. Luke. You know, the guy that wrote the third Gospel. Yes, he was a physician and an artist. Yes, he was trained in Egypt. Other people have noted that portraiture was very popular in the Roman Empire at the time. We even know what that icon looked like. It was of the Mother of God and Christ as a child. It is called the sweet kissing. It looked like this:

It is ironic that most of the people who have a hissy fit about icons in the Church have drawers full of photos and their hall wall, and living room walls, mantle, and so on are covered with photos of loved ones. Some of them dead. So, where’s the difference? We love and revere these Saints, who are examples for us to emulate in the life of the Christian. Now the image of Christ. It is true that it is not proper to represent the Father, we don’t know what He looks like, he was never incarnate, so does not have a physical presence. But — God became Man in the person of our Beloved Jesus. We can portray Him — as a human. So — get over it. This is a different custom than you are used to, but it goes back to the first practices of the Church. Eusibeus (2nd century), in his History of the Church, comments that he has seen many portraits of the Savior and the Apostles.

Oh, My God — you people worship the Virgin Mary. No, we don’t. Man — you rednecks are inconsistent. If someone even starts off “Yo mama!” you boys are ready to fight. Now the Scripture says “honor father and mother”. Mary, who we call Theotokos — carrier or bearer of God — is the mother of Jesus. If you love and honor your mother, does He? Second, we don’t worship here. We venerate — as in honor. We ask her to intercede with her Son that our prayer may be granted. Don’t you do what your mother asks? Third, Our Lord was walking down the street. His robe was touched by a sick woman. He knew it and stopped. His followers thought He was nuts. Turned out the woman was healed of her sickness — just by touching His robe. Now then. If someone can be healed by touching a robe — what would it do to carry God in your body for 9 months and nurse Him for a year or two? We Orthodox love the Mother of God, we also love the Saints. Do you not revere the heroes of the past? So do we. Don’t you ask a friend to pray for you? So do we. For the dead are alive in Christ! Therefore the Saints may pray for us.

Modern Americans — don’t let your narrow preconceptions blind you to 2,000 years of tradition! Check out the original and traditional and true Church! The Faith of our Fathers means more than what your daddy did!