Posts for 'Christianity' Category

Priests should be permitted to marry Priest is no doubt the one whom we admire and respect as long as Chritianity is concerned. However, are they a good role model? If we think that a priest should remain as a bachelor for the rest of his life, read on. Mother Theresa once said that a good advice is determined by its echoes. Now let me relate this to the life of a priest.

Can a priest talk about marriage if he himself has never gone through a marriage? Do you have any answer? Can you respect a teacher who graduates in History but then is asked to teach Biology? In conclusion, the blind leading the blind. A priest must be allowed to get married because he must experience the ups and downs in a marriage. I believe the Christian followers would love to see how a priest builds a marriage. Otherwise, if a priest remains single, anything he says about a marriage will be meaningless. It is like watching a newscaster reading a text on the screen in which he or she has no genuine interest in the said issues.

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Having a penpal can be fun; bringing diversity into your friendship circles, and a having a Christian penpal can bring support and encouragement into your life. A penpal is someone that you correspond with, getting to know each other through personal writing. Many relationships have been discovered through the avenues of writing to others in another town, another state, or across the world. A penpal is one way to build and maintain life-long friendships.

In today's technical world, the Internet offers a wonderful option for finding penpals. Anyone can find a penpal in minutes over the Internet. There are several Penpal websites that host a variety of services for penpals and have penpal related activities. There are also Christian oriented websites that give Christians an opportunity to meet, write, or chat with a Christian penpal.

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The Rice controversy has offered many frustrated progressive Christians an entry point into a crowded conversation about faith. I think it's more than just coincidence that in the days prior to Rice's post.

Facebook was dotted with "likes" for the group  "Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car." There's something in the air about this.

Interestingly, Rice is running out for all the reasons that I'm running back in, called to a fiery, deeply felt place where rage and devotion intersect. I, too, resent the way homophobic, misogynist, hypocritical and otherwise unbearable people are laying claim to "true" Christianity.

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This Christmas Eve,  my daughter and I had a unique experience. As far as I am aware, there are only two churches in my city.  As I live in a moderate Muslim country, churches are permitted, as long as they are not involved in converting anyone from Islam to Christianity.

The small church English-language that was founded here about fifteen years ago has mainly a white Protestant congregation, composed mostly of expats from America, Britain, and a handful of other countries.  They rent a small space from a French Catholic church in our city.   Over the years, the number of people attending each week has varied between five and fifty.

I had not attended in several years, but decided to attend the Chistmas Eve service this with my teenage daughter, only to discover it had been cancelled, due to few people attending, and most people being out of town for the Christmas holidays.  However, I was told that anyone from our congregation who wished to attend was invited to the French-language Protestant church in our city.

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The court's decision last November provoked outrage in predominantly Catholic Italy, with ministers calling it shameful and an attack on the country's Christian values. The appeal will be heard by the Grand Chamber, the highest body of the Strasbourg-based court. A decision is not expected for three months, but if Italy loses the appeal it would mean that state-run schools across the European Union would face a ban on crucifixes and other religious symbols.

The original case was brought by a Finnish woman with Italian citizenship, Soile Lautsi, who complained that the state school attended by her children in a town near Venice had a crucifix in each classroom. After education authorities refused to remove the crosses, she spent several years fighting the decision through the Italian courts before taking the case to Strasbourg.

A panel of seven judges upheld her objection, saying that the display of crucifixes violated the principle of secular education and might be "disturbing" for non-Christian or atheist children. "The State (must) refrain from imposing beliefs in premises where individuals were dependent on it," the court said in a written ruling.

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The Final Frontier. The endless void filled with worlds, wonders, and the great unknown that can not be completely measured except in our own imagination.

It is in this final arena humanity will mature, leaving its Earthen cradle behind and exploring the Solar playground that surrounds them.

Conquering their new environment will not be an easy task for humanity, much less exploring its breadth. But before.

The human race leaves the home world to settle on other worlds, they will have to deal with one element that has always guided and divided our species  the concept of a Universal God.

Faith has always guided humanity throughout the centuries, whether one holds to the concept of God's existence, or one rejects that in favor of nothing at all.

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God’s role in our lives and just where we put Him, is actually up to us. We can either place Him first on our priority list, or just somewhere on the list. Unfortunately, there are some people who do not have God on the list as being a big role in life.

Personally, with Christianity in my life, I can’t begin to even think about God not being in my life. God’s role in our lives is so important, people can’t even begin to imagine the importance He should be given. God’s role isn’t going to be to literally tell us what to do.

However, there are other ways He makes himself known in the world today. Look around at the sky and the flowers, the birds singing and people having children.

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With due respect to the indefatigable Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, Philip Pullman probably will be recalled as the most significant of the muscular British neo-atheists who have emerged with such intellectual force over the last decade or so.

When he is, however, it won't be for his new novel, "The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ," which is a polemical fable every bit as wrong-headedly obvious as the title suggests. Pullman's masterpiece  the trilogy "His Dark Materials"  is.

An elaborate, elegant work of fantasy that runs through parallel universes and involves an affirmation of the physical world's everyday joys played out against a deadly struggle for freedom with a sinister religious establishment called the Magisterium.

Though originally marketed to young adults, it's one of those works  rather like Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" or C.S. Lewis' "Space Trilogy"  sophisticated enough to hold adult attention.

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Christianity is the name given to that definite system of religious belief and practice which was taught by Jesus Christ in the country of Palestine, during the reign of the Roman Emperor, Tiberius, and was promulgated.

After its Founder's death, for the acceptance of the whole world, by certain chosen men among His followers. According to.

The accepted chronology, these began their mission on the day of Pentecost, A.D. 29, which day is regarded, accordingly, as the birthday of the Christian Church.

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All religions accept that evil and suffering have been allowed by God for some inherent purpose. Apparently suffering seems to be an evil but it really isn't evil because it has some moral purpose behind it.

(Both Judaism and Islam holds that God has allowed evil and suffering to test the intensity and sincerity of faith that man possesses towards Him. The father God, of Christianity uses the stick of suffering to discipline his sons).

As to the cause of evil they all tend to hold a devil, with all his evil spirits responsible. (In Zoroastrianism this devil is called "Ahriman", in Judaism and Christianity "Satan" and in Islam "Iblis")

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