Modernism

[The Sanity Inspector]

The Catholic crisis of 2002 is also a powerful reminder of the
Iron Law of Christianity and Modernity: Christian communities that
maintain their doctrinal identity and moral boundaries flourish in the
modern world; Christian communities that fudge doctrine and morals
decay. Contrary to much popular wisdom, the Christian movement is
flourishing throughout the world. And in all instances, without
exception, it is the Christian communities that eschew Lite approaches
to doctrine and morals that are growing.
-- George Weigel, _The Courage to be Catholic_, 2002

--
bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game.
--The Jam

[Graham Weeks]

The Sanity Inspector wrote:

> The Catholic crisis of 2002 is also a powerful reminder of the
> Iron Law of Christianity and Modernity: Christian communities that
> maintain their doctrinal identity and moral boundaries flourish in the
> modern world; Christian communities that fudge doctrine and morals
> decay. Contrary to much popular wisdom, the Christian movement is
> flourishing throughout the world. And in all instances, without
> exception, it is the Christian communities that eschew Lite approaches
> to doctrine and morals that are growing.
> -- George Weigel, _The Courage to be Catholic_, 2002
>

Semper eadem.

--

Graham J Weeks M.R.Pharm.S.
http://www.weeks-g.dircon.co.uk/ My homepage of quotations
http://www.grace.org.uk/churches/ealing.html Our church
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God answers knee mail.
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[Eveline]

TSI quoted > > The Catholic crisis of 2002 is also a powerful

reminder of the Iron Law of Christianity and Modernity: Christian
communities that maintain their doctrinal identity and moral
boundaries flourish in the modern world; Christian communities that
fudge doctrine and morals decay. Contrary to much popular wisdom,
the Christian movement is flourishing throughout the world. And in
all instances, without exception, it is the Christian communities
that eschew Lite
approaches to doctrine and morals that are growing.
> > -- George Weigel, _The Courage to be Catholic_, 2002
> >

Graham chanted > Semper eadem.
" " " " "
Christianity is more than doctrine
~Thomas Merton

For me Christianity is about the Kingdom, not about the Church: it
has to do with human growth and development not church growth and
development.
~ Michael Taylor (English Baptist Director of Christian Aid)

but,

Christian action in the world will not be sustained or carried on in
an intelligent and effective manner unless it is supported by
doctrinal convictions that have achieved some degree of clarity.
~ John Macquarie (Scot-born theologian)

Eveline
" " " " "

[Joe]

"Eveline" wrote

> Christianity is more than doctrine
> ~Thomas Merton

Truth is a tenet of the Christian faith.
--Paul Tillich

[The Sanity Inspector]

The pontificate of John Paul II has been very difficult for the
culture of dissent. Karol Wojtyla was exactly what the Lite Brigade
wanted as pope in 1978: a modern European intellectual, widely
traveled, multilingual, happy and confident, with extensive pastoral
experience and terrific public presence. Within months, it became
evident that the Lite Brigade, having gotten what it wanted, now rued
the day when it had made its wish. So the attack on John Paul II as a
man out-of-step with modernity began. The truth of the matter is that
John Paul II is the first truly modern pope, in the sense of a pope
with a thoroughly modern intellectual formation. What he had, though,
was a very different reading of modernity than the Lite Brigade. He
did not propose to surrender to modernity. He proposed to convert it.

[The Sanity Inspector]

The signatories of the Hartford Appeal, like John Paul II,
knew there was no alternative to a Church engaged with modernity.
Humanity had gone through an irreversible gate from which there was no
return. Religious beliefs could be deeply and firmly held, but those
who held them would always be aware of the fact that they had chosen
these beliefs, rather than inheriting them as givens of existence. In
the cultural circumstances of the late twentieth century, a "Catholic
restoration" that denied this was a fantasy. For John Paul and the
Hartford signatories, though, the experience of relativity and
choice--the experience of being modern--did not mean relativism. A
world of relativism was a world without windows or doors, incapable of
hearing the signals of transcendence in modern life. John Paul and
the Hartford signatories wanted a world with windows and doors, a
modernity open to the possibility that humanity was in fact greater
than modernity had imagined. Modern men and women, for all their
experience of choice, could still know what was true and good, and
could choose truth and goodness. Recognizing that should not be
impossible for Christians. That, after all, was what "conversion"
meant.
-- George Weigel, _Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John
Paul II, 1999

[The Sanity Inspector]

[In Islam,] The West, or the universal civilization it leads,
is emotionally rejected. It undermines; it threatens. But, at the
same time it is needed, for its machines, goods, medicines, warplanes,
the remittances from the emigrants, the hospitals that might have a
cure for calcium deficiency, the universities that will provide
master's degrees in mass media. All the rejection of the West is
contained within the assumption that there will always exist out ther
a living, creative civilization, oddly neutral, open to all to appeal
to. Rejection, therefore, is not absolute rejection. It is also, for
the community as a whole, a way of ceasing to strive intellectually.
It is to be parasitic; parasitism is one of the unacknowledged fruits
of fundamentalism.
-- V. S. Naipaul, _Among the Believers_, 1981