Father-Chris: Christians should condemn this type of behaviour. Not only because it is rude, but also because it is unreasonable. Once Protestantism embraced the ideology that Gods essence was not his own existence, they developed a discord between faith and reason, whereby having faith become something altogether autonomous to reason, which has never been the tradition of the Church that attempted to reconcile itself to reason through the process of the Hellenization of the Churchs doctrine. The Moral-Teaching of the Church has a tradition of being explained through philosophy, but in fundamentalism all you have is the Bible and your own personal interpretation of it, which is dangerous. Another problem is what Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis have been speaking about, which is called moralism. This notion that morality is understood in a manner which does not involve relationship. They both say this is incredibly wrong. One of the reasons I enjoyed St. JPII was he offered not only a Thomistic Approach to morality (reason-based ethics) but also added the dimension of personalism and phenomenology. When we perceive our moral agenda to be nothing more than duty-bound ethics (Kant, to whom has a heavy influence on some protestants), we do not interiorize the moral law. As a result we become what Jesus called white-washed tombs. We look beautiful on the outside (in following a moral-code), but on the inside is the stench of moral-death. That is: just because you havent killed anyone doesnt mean you wouldnt do it if you could get away with it (as an example). Interiorizing a moral law is about becoming fully human (being true to our nature), and being true to others (which is a matter of justice), which involves caring and empathy and love as well. When these realities are only understood in a dialectic manner, the person can be the most judgmental, and as a result look like this man in the above video. He has no apparent compassion for anyone and is willing to boast of his own virtue (which contradicts scripture vividly). If we are to reproach people out of love, we need to start as fellow sinners, that is people who have understanding and compassion towards those who have fallen into bad moral behaviour. He boasts of his goodness, and condemns others wickedness, and so he is the Gospels perfection vision of what the hypocritical Pharisee looked like who thanked God for not being like the Tax collector. Meanwhile the tax collector, pounds his chest in sorrow for his own guilt. I appreciated one mans comments which was that he did not represent Jesus well, nor did he represent Christians. I think most atheists would probably admit that too, and even by the title, freak being predicated of a Christian, denotes that. Nonetheless one must wonder what personal wounds this gentleman has that would lead him to be filled with so much venom and to think that by the merit of him speaking the truth (in his own perception of it) was somehow loving. Peace, Fr. C
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 06:13:04 +0000
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