Not sure if this really means that much, but it´s fun listening to. Especially if you´re a nerd. It´s also a good summary of the bewildering diversity of Christian Churches and denominations. In practice, of course, even Churches that are in some sense "close" might hate each other - witness the rather rocky historical relations between Catholics and Orthodox. To mention just one example...
Recently, yuge and amazing billboards have scandalized evangelical(?) Christians all over Murica and some have even been vandalized. Yes, the billboards proclaim that Jesus isn´t God and doesn´t pre-exist in heaven. I admit that I don´t really care (I mean, this is just another Tuesday in the You-Ess-Ov-A), but just for the hell of it (pun intended), I looked into the situation.
The billboards are c/o World´s Last Chance (WLC), an anti-Trinitarian Christian group I never previously heard about. The WLC is headed by a former Adventist from Egypt, Galal P Doss, who owns several succesful companies and brands, which presumably explains where the money come from. The group is *very* unpopular among Coptic Christians in Egypt, who claim that Doss tries to evangelize his workforce (including Copts).
I haven´t looked that deeply into WLC´s doctrines, but they seem quite extreme. Flat Earthism is one of them. Another is the claim that the Anti-Christ will impersonate a dead pope, perhaps John Paul II? Or will Francis land in a UFO manned by demons posing as benign aliens? Another important point is a "lunisolar" calendar which supposedly pinpoints when the true Sabbath should be commemorated.
I might return with some more infotainment on this outfit...
Egyptian biscuit baron scrapes prophecy barrel
Flat Earth program on world´s most powerful radio station
Demons will impersonate aliens
The Christian sacrament situation was even more complex than I expected. I had some kind of vague notion that while Catholics and Orthodox had exactly the same seven sacraments, Protestants only had two (or perhaps three). Except for the Salvation Army, which have none.
But naaah. It´s much more complicated. Perhaps I shouldn´t be surprised.
Mot den kommunistiska diktaturens transnationella repression ställer vi den svenska statens nationella repression via statsbidrag. Hårda tag, gubbar! Okej, allvarligt talat. Den här nyheten var intressant. Särskilt som vår kära högerregering nyligen försökte kvasi-normalisera relationerna med just Eritrea. Vem vet, de kanske vill få fredspriset?
Eritreanska ortodoxa kyrkan nekas statsbidrag efter yttrande från Säpo
More about the Jesus Tomb situation. Hmm...
Echoing Gospel accounts, traces of ancient garden found under Church of Holy Sepulchre
Pun intended in the headline. I don´t usually link to Redeemed Zoomer, but here are two funny "sect-watching" videos from this most annoying content-creator. I´ve heard about *almost* every group he mentions, but yeah, he got me too a couple of times! :D
Almost by accident, I found an English translation of some of the Ethiopian Bible books not considered canonical by other Churches in a used book store.
Or did I?
It turned out that my prize volume, "Books of the Ethiopian Bible: Missing from the Protestant Canon. Ethiopian Church", was even stranger than I expected.
I almost immidiately noticed that the name of God was rendered "Jah". Then, I noticed that at least one of the texts seem to be translated into some kind of Pidgin English. Oookay. So I checked the publisher, Lushena Books in Illinois, United States. Yepp, it´s an Afro-centrist outlet of some kind.
In other words: the book isn´t published by supporters of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, but by Rastafarians!
Not that I mind. The work was pretty cheap and I looked into Rastafarianism before. As opposed to, say, Pastafarianism. So I might consider taking a second look at it, Jah willing.
Christian who believes in miracle-claims debunks miracle-claims of other Christians. Marvelous.
Not sure how interesting this is, but here you go...
Catholic content-creator Cameron Bertuzzi and his YouTube channel Capturing Christianity recently created quite the stir when Bertuzzi started arguing that the Marian apparitions at Zeitoun in Egypt 1968-71 provides better evidence for the truth of Christianity than even the Biblical accounts of the resurrection of Jesus?! Maybe I´m misunderstanding my man Cameron here, but it certainly sounds like a very "far out" thing to say (even for a Catholic). Even apart from the fact that the apparitions took place at a Coptic church!
The video above is an one-hour Protestant (Lutheran?) criticism of Zeitoun and Marian apparitions in general, framed as a response to Bertuzzi. I like the "moderate" style of the presenter, Gavin Ortlund, but it´s obvious that his position is also quite far out. Hint: demons, demons...
Make of this content whatever you wish.
This is an extremely strange video, in which Catholic content-creator Cameron Bertuzzi (otherwise unknown) argues that the Marian apparitions at Zeitoun in Egypt 1968-71 provide better evidence for Christianity than the Bible?! Meltdowns from Protestants in the commentary section, but his claim *is* peculiar.
Bertuzzi´s point seems to be that *to a modern skeptic* a contemporary miracle is better evidence than a 2000 year old scripture. While that may sound obvious, it really isn´t. For instance, while huge crowds did see something unusual at Zeitoun, the interpretation that this was actually Mary is rooted in the Bible and Church tradition. So the veracity of the Bible and later traditions about Mary remains at the core even of this contemporary event. Otherwise, we might as well interpret a white lady moving around in Egypt as the goddess Isis!
To Bertuzzi, the fact that many - perhaps most - of the eye witnesses were Muslims strengthens the claim that the apparition must have been Mary, since she was seen hovering above a Christian church. But Muslims also revere Mary and very few of them converted to Christianity. If we take the eye witness testimonies seriously, this suggests that they might not have been entirely convincing to non-believers (in contrast to how the Bible describes Jesus appearing to Thomas and Paul, or the Holy Ghost descending upon the apostles at Pentecost and converting thousands). As far as I understand, people in the crowds *did* see very different things during the course of the events at Zeitoun.
Note also that Our Lady of Zeitoun didn´t appear above a Catholic church, but a Coptic Orthodox ditto. So if we accept their interpretation of the apparition at face value, we should convert to Monophysite Oriental Orthodoxy, not the Roman Catholic Church. If we, on the other hand, take our departure in the fact that many different people saw the apparition *without converting to the Coptic Orthodox Church*, the most reasonable pro-religious interpretation would be some kind of inclusivism or pluralism. Apparently, the Zeitoun apparitions were accepted as true by Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and even Nasser´s secular government! This sounds nothing like the Bible...
One person commenting the video states that the apparitions at most provide evidence for the supernatural in general. Not specific evidence for any one religion. This seems to be about right. In the Gnostic scriptures, Christ appears in different ways to different people: as a child, as an old man, and so on. Imagine if Christ would appear differently to each person in a large crowd. That wouldn´t be Catholic (or Coptic) Christianity anymore, but another religion entirely!
With those reflections, I end.
Catholic content-creator interviews Eastern Orthodox scholar abour Oriental Orthodox miracle witnessed by thousands of Muslims.
Yes, really. And they even mention Persinger´s speculations about earth lights and tectonic stress! Now, *that´s* a blast from the past (bring back Boomer science)!
I admit that I never heard (or probably never heard - some of the photos look vaguely familiar) about the Zeitoun Marian apparitions, which took place above a Coptic church in Egypt during a period of several years around 1970. The original witnesses were Muslims, and since Christians are a minority in Egypt, it can be safely assumed that many in the large crowds which gathered ouside the church were followers of Islam, too. Nasser´s secular government decided to play it safe and apparently declared the apparitions to be genuinely supernatural!
The Orthodox scholar Travis Dumsday (who has written an entire book on the topic) argues in the clip above that no convincing naturalist explanation has ever been put forward. He discusses the "tectonic strain" hypothesis at some length, apparently because its originator Michael Persinger tried applying it to the Zeitoun situation.
Dumsday and his Catholic interviewer Cameron Bertuzzi also discuss theology at some length. For instance, why can´t Protestants accept Marian apparitions? There is a lot of conflict in the commentary section on precisely this issue. I get the impression that while Bertuzzi has no problem claiming Coptic apparitions for Catholic apologetics, Dumsday is somewhat more cautious about Fatima, no doubt because of the heavy Roman theological baggage surrounding it. (He doesn´t say it, but "errors of Russia" could, I suppose, be interpreted as a reference to Eastern Orthodoxy!) Note also that the Coptic Catholic Church, a pro-Rome breakaway from the Coptic Orthodox Church, accepted Our Lady of Zeitoun. So Bertuzzi´s positive appraisal of her could be seen as part of the Uniate project.
While the Zeitoun apparitions are interesting to be sure, I think the theological angle is rather weak. After all, would Bertuzzi accept similar apparitions of al-Khidr, Krishna or the Three Nephites? Maybe, but I suspect he would like to use the same strategy as his Protestant critics in the commentary section and explain them as demonic!
Finally, it´s not clear to me what exactly the crowds were really seeing. Even Dumsday tacitly admits that the best photos of "Mary" are also the most problematic ones...
Still, worth the while watching.
Maverick Assyrian Christian preacher Mar Mari Emmanuel has achieved a certain level of (herostratic?) fame on the proverbial internets, due to his broadly Alt Right messaging. But while Emmanuel might be generally popular on the far right, his theology creates controversy among the more religiously orthodox.
The two clips above argues that Emmanuel is a Nestorian (just as other Assyrian believers), which should be anathema to both Eastern Orthodox, Monophysites, Catholics and Protestants! Interestingly, Emmanuel´s small Church in Australia, Christ the Good Shepherd Church, has an ecumenical slant and allows Catholics and Orthodox to partake of its holy communion.
For an even more critical look at the based bishop, see here:
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| Credit: Meganesia |
Thus, Karlsson points out that Monophysite Christians played a leading intellectual
role in the medieval Muslim world, collecting ancient Greek or Roman
manuscripts, and then translating them into Semitic languages. In the “multi-culturalist”
pro-Muslim propaganda, this is often credited to the Muslims themselves. The Catholic crusader states were multi-ethnic
and multi-religious (except for the city of Jerusalem, where only Christians
were allowed to live). Medieval Muslim historians considered the crusades to be
a minor nuisance, instead viewing the Mongols as the larger threat. When a
German emperor during the 19th century wanted to pay homage to
Saladin, it took considerable time to locate the tomb of the legendary Muslim
leader, since it had been almost forgotten! Muslim obsession with the crusades
is mostly a 20th century phenomenon, a kind of counterpoint to the
*modern* Western encroachments on the Middle East (and, of course, Israel). It
works in tandem with Western obsessions about the same thing, positive or
negative. The roots of the present situation in the Middle East are in any case
to be found in the aftermath of World War I, and has nothing to do with the Middle
Ages.
Karlsson does consider the Turkish/Kurdish massacres of the Armenians to
have been a genocide, but also points out that the Armenians supported Russia
during World War I (which technically made them traitors, since the Ottoman
Empire was allied with Germany), that Armenian terrorist groups existed long before
the genocide, and that they often targeted Kurdish civilians. One Armenian group
even massacred Kurds in the hope that they would retaliate and the ensuing
chaos provoke a British intervention (which never materialized). The Turks are
often cast as evil oppressors by liberals and leftists in the West, but were
just as often on the receiving end of violence and ethnic cleansing, for
instance in Greece and Bulgaria during the 19th century Balkan wars.
The Greeks began their liberation struggle against the Ottoman Empire by large
scale massacres of Turks in the Peloponnese. I get the impression that Karlsson
has a (perhaps involuntary) admiration for Kemal Atatürk, the authoritarian Turkish
nationalist who managed to stop the dismemberment of Turkey in the aftermath of
World War I.
More recent alliances in the region are often extremely confusing. Thus,
the pro-Israeli South Lebanese Army (SLA) during the Lebanese civil war was led
by an Eastern Catholic and mostly consisted of Shia Muslims?! The Armenian Churches
outside Armenia are part-Arab, since affiliating with these Churches gives you
a higher social standing. In Iraq, about half of the Christians belong to a
Shia-dominated pro-Iranian coalition. The Iraqi gentleman who spent most of
last year burning Qurans in Sweden have a background in this milieu. One thing
not mentioned in the book are the weird alliances of the Druze, a peculiar
minority religion found in both Israel, Syria and Lebanon. Maybe the next
edition can fill us in?
The most controversial chapter is probably the last one, in which
Karlsson makes negative comments about the “Assyrian” immigration to Sweden
from Syria during the 1970´s and 1980´s. He wonders why nobody was surprised
about the fact that a people who disappeared from history 2,600 years ago
suddenly re-appeared…in the Swedish town of Södertälje! Most of the “Assyrians”
were members of the Syriac Orthodox Church and hence didn´t identify as Assyrian.
Mass immigration of Syriac Orthodox from Syria to Sweden mainly took place from
the Qamishly district, where no Syriac were persecuted by the Assad regime,
many of the regional officials and officers were Syriac, and a Syriac church
stood next to the building of the secret police. One of the first persons from
Qamishly to get political asylum in Sweden as a refugee was a local boss of the
ruling Baath party! Many of the “refugees” regularly returned to Qamishly (even
greeting the Swedish “refugee coordinator”), forged and strangely uniform documents
proving “persecution” were legion, one of the “banned Assyrian organizations”
was actually legal and complained about the exodus, and so on. Delegations of “refugees”
often visited Syria in order to construct new “native languages” which were
then taught in Swedish schools (at the tax-payers expense) to Syriac children. The
Syriac Christians referred to Sweden as “Ammo Djebbo”, a naïve and stupid
character who tries to become popular by giving everyone money, while people
laugh behind his back…
Karlsson claims that the political parties in Sweden each had their own
favorite refugee/immigrant group during the 1970´s and 1980´s. The Social Democrats
promoted Latin Americans, the Left Party the Kurds, the Center Party the West
Saharans (!), the Conservatives anti-Communists from the Soviet bloc, and the Liberal
Party “Christians from the Middle East” – actually, mostly the Syriac Orthodox.
However, at the end of the book, it becomes obvious that Karlsson doesn´t really
oppose immigration. *Today* the Christians in the Middle East are more
persecuted than ever (he blames one George W Bush for this), and presumably
wants the Western world to give them asylum. Instead, Ammo Djebbo has suddenly
become jaded and cynical, and now doesn´t want to let anyone inside.
With that, I end this little review.
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| Some other dude |
Is this even a true story? But it probably is. A bunch of most endearing British excentrics formed a Neo-Celtic Church supposedly in union with the Oriental Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch in Syria, and then proceeded to declare the Patriarch unseated (!) when he disavowed all the weirdos in the Western world claiming his mantle (or was it the robes). LOL.
The Neo-Celts had amazing titles and names, too, such as "Patriarch of Glastonbury, Abdullah III" or "Abba James, Archbishop Titular of Caerleon-upon-Usk". There was also a Patriarch of Malaga! Not to mention an Eparchy of all the Turanians, with claimed jurisdiction over Finland, Hungary and Turkey...
This sums it up well:
>>>If the truth must be told, those so-called 'extensions' of the Antiochene Patriarchate were a chimera, based on the tradition handed down from the eighteen-sixties that the apostate French Dominican, Julius Ferrette, having been consecrated Bishop of Iona by Mar Bedros, Bishop of Emesa (Homs), had been appointed by the Jacobite Patriarch as his Legate in Europe, with the specific purpose of erecting an autocephalous British Patriarchate.
>>>To the objective observer, the so-called Council of London and its Acts are the stuff that the dreams are reminiscient of, an Arabian Nights tale. For none of the prelates who took part in its brief session could claim jurisdiction over more than perhaps a dozen followers, and some of the Churches had only a paper existence. They did, on the other hand, take themselves quite seriously.
If another Wiki entry is to be believed, one faction of the ex-Catholicate actually managed to affiliate with the Coptic Church in Egypt for a number of years, but surely *that* can´t be true...
On April 15, Assyrian bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in Australia was attacked and stabbed, apparently by a self-proclaimed Islamist. Emmanuel already had a large social media following, probably because he often preaches in English and sounds broadly "Alt Right".
Canadian hypnotherapist and cult-buster Henri Jolicoeur is *very* critical of Mar Mari Emmanuel in the above clip, just uploaded. Some of the information is also available at the relevant Wikipedia page.
It turns out that Mari Emmanuel doesn´t belong to the Assyrian Church of the East, despite previosuly using their moniker. He has been a bishop in the Ancient Church of the East, another Assyrian church polity, but they eventually suspended him, making his "Christ the Good Shepherd Church" an independent group. Of course, this *could* be a case of intra-mural envy between different Assyrian Churches in Australia, but I wouldn´t be surprised if Mari Emmanuel´s aggressive preaching style, political remarks and use of social media made him controversial among the old-timers.
Apparently, Emmanuel also saw Jesus in a vision, and therefore knows exactly how He looks like in bodily form! Also, Jesus showed him heaven and hell, et cetera.
Jolicoeur is often very, very scathing of people he considers spiritual frauds and cheats, and this video is no exception. The proposal that Mar Mari Emmanuel suffers from "Jerusalem Syndrome" is the nicest part of the upload. Also read the comments below the video.
Linked for discussion purposes.
Some people demand that Israel be kicked out of the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) due to the war in Gaza. You know, genocide, ethnic cleansing, that kind of stuff.
But there is *another* nation that could also be accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing by the same logic, which also participates in the ESC, and yet, almost nobody protests *its* participation.
Yes, that would be Azerbaijan. Why?
Guess the religion of their victims...
A short clip featuring a certain Bishop Alexander of the OCA, which I assume is the Orthodox Church of America. The bishop states that the 2nd century Church Father Origen was a saint.
There is just one little problem: the theology of Origen was condemned by a Church council as heretical a few centuries after his death. Or so some people believe.
The meltdown in the commentary section is...disturbing. One commentator says he wants to burn an icon with Origen´s portrait. Another kindly informs him that no icons of Origen seem to exist, but there are Coptic icons of his disciple Evagrius Ponticus available for burning?! Sure, they are joking, but still...
The "heresies" of Origen include teaching the pre-existence of the souls, that only the soul is immortal while the physical body perishes, that the soul is "reincarnated" in progressively higher worlds, and that all humans - and perhaps even the Devil himself - will eventually be reconciled to God. Nobody during his lifetime seems to have noticed that the man was a heretic, but the Church at Constantinople can apparently damn your memory centuries in retrospect. And over one thousand years later, people at an American Internet forum still get meltdowns when your name is mentioned!
I´m sure these guys *know* that of course Origen was wrong about things that happened before the creation of the material universe, or will happen in the distant future. It must be a fascinating experience, to be this cock sure about the hidden things!
Or maybe they´re just in a cult, who knows?
I assumed "Eastern Catholics" had the same theology as Latin Catholics, since both form part of the same Roman Catholic Church (and have the same Pope). The liturgies are of course different, but surely the theology must be the same?
But if the above presentation is true (and the presenter does reference Eastern Catholic books), the Uniates actually have theologies distinct from those of "real" Catholicism?!
The Greek Catholics (ex-Eastern Orthodox) have kept saints once condemned by the Catholic Church, aspects of Palamite theology, and de facto even repudiate the filioque. The ex-Nestorians in India venerate Nestorius and other Nestorians as saints.
But if so, Latin Catholic theology is bunk, since they condemn doctrinal propositions held to by other parts of the Catholic Church. It´s all about politics and power, apparently. Is there anything in religion that isn´t based on a bunch of lies??? Or Jesuit intrigues. Asking for a friend named Yeshua bar Yosef...
Which doesn´t mean that the Orthodox are necessarily better. The video narrator speaks with great admiration of some Orthodox saint who refused to visit the same bath house as a "heretic"! OK, dude, count me out.
Previously posted on August 26, 2018.
