One of the real lacunae in the Christian community these days is the process of formation through discipleship. We gathered members of the Ghetto together to discuss this.
Generally a very good talk. [B.t.w., a few uncomfortably long pauses and sounds of someone rummaging around in something like their desk drawer.] Back to the important matter, one highlight was about in-group communities (the older men) taking it upon themselves to create local economies, networking and enterprise opportunities for young men to flourish. This is critical. I taught at two, hip, ex-Catholic institutions in California that forcibly promoted "girl power" with predictable, disastrous results. One comment I would have -- from my analysis -- is that though getting buff for Jesus and male status is okay (St. Paul comments on this of course), it is very damaging to male societies and society as a whole when we set up the tall-man, muscle-man category as a criteria for leadership. One of the extremely good things about Catholicism in force, viz., before Vatican II and the infiltration by Communists, homosexuals/Lesbians and feminists) were the avenues for males (as priests, of course) to be recognized for leadership abilities without physical characteristics, but because of the additionally important intellectual qualities. Of course, being overweight could be a detriment in a parish, but St. Thomas Aquinas managed to make a good showing despite his rotundness. No doubt a mostly monastic lfe made that easier. Perhaps he could have done more beyond the age of 49 if he had been more trim. As a final comment, I hope that beyond the limited clerical avenue for Catholic men in the future, genuinely devote and orthodox lay men of intellect, scientific talent, enterprise, business entrepreneurship and other creative abilities could be afforded respect by lay people and the religious alike --- power lifters or not.
Thanks for the feedback. There is a balance between your body as a temple (being healthy and getting good sleep leads to better prayer life) and making physical health idolatrous. God evaluates things differently that we do and we need to be mindful of that.
Indeed. My father (not so much me) was a championship body builder and weight lifter. This can be good stuff as I think I affirmed. I am, later than I have now come to realize would have been most beneficial, extricating myself along with my wife from bad diets and breakneck work habits. I totally agree. Thus, it is proper that young men (and women) pay attention to health. The real business of life, a virtuous life, a Christian life, involves actualization through work. Work turns out to be a good means of keeping the body well-exercised. The beauty of this is that it is exercise directed to a task. Naturally, inhumanely repetitive jobs treat the body as a machine, not a temple of the Holy Spirit. These are to be avoided and a Church-led society needs to challenge the desires of employers to abuse workers this way. I fully endorse your instruction, consonant with Scripture, that instructs us that God's ways are high above our ways. Thus, humility and prayer can lead us to interpret His whisperings that nudge us toward every manner of ongoing reformation. Perhaps the lessons we learn can be frankly transmitted to the next generation: in this case we are talking I think specifically about young men.
Again, I really liked the idea about us older fellows urgently setting ourselves to the task of preparing economic and enterprising opportunities for businesses (most ideally) or wage/salary employment (if necessary) for up and coming young people. WE need to make sure that we are leaving them a Christian environment that, though a bit thornier than Eden, nonetheless is tending toward being advantageous for starter families. Children, lots of children, are political power --- nothing else [compares to children in this]. Nothing is more "right" for men and women than having families. Of course, there will be those desiring a celibate life, but they too can re-orient their lives, their work and their religiously contemplative fulfillments and realizations of humanness by parallel buttresses of Christian families. Teachers, physicians & nurses, professor, bridge builders, water-line workers and grocers -- just to name a very few -- all provide for the ancillary needs of raising families in a Christian civilization. What else is there that compares without being embarrassingly disgraceful in comparison --- gambling in Las Vegas, hookup frivolity, gluttony, relentless sensual and carnal pleasures . . . candy crush apps on the cell phone?
Why we are in the ghetto. There is some reason to question the universalism of the gospel. It seems YouTube is not censoring as heavily nowdays. Christian Zionism's Alliance with the Synagogue of Satan - YouTube . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2ggglUFW_c Galatians 2:15 "We who are Israelites and not sinners from among the Gentiles" suggests some superiority. Jesus said he came not but for the "Lost Sheep of the House of Israel". Theology especially reformed theology which is a man made INTERPRETATION of the Bible (and wrong I might add IMO) suggests that "Lost Sheep" means something like gone to the dogs but redeemable now that the Gentiles are included in the UNIVERSAL. Nothing suggests this unless we bend the rules of interpretation so that it is ok to spiritualize and TELL SPIRITUAL lies. This excellent treatment suggests something other than the "born again" blunder that we are born into a tribe but with our built in pathalogical altruism seem to self destruct. As you suggest real friends are from our own clan. The universal that is given to us by the Reformed Doctrine of Predestination ignores the literal meaning of Romans 9:13. Jacob I loved and Esau I HATED. Still going on. They are still in the word and they want to kill us. The inferiority of the Samaritan women is not taken away by the verse you quote. Neither is her salvation in question, just ranking.
When I was on a road trip through the midwest several years ago there was a federal park dedicated to th e boyhood home of grover cleaveland. The Church was there . It had a divider. Men on one side and women on the other. Good idea. Physical divisions emphasis spiritual divisions.
You have multiple DOCTRINAL PROBLEMS. The evangelical "pastor" is a mini-pope. You have reckoned that there is no longer any LAW. No wonder you are confused. Only the ceremonial law is fulfilled and that only the spring feasts. Works are NOT optional. The average preacher is a man who in his adolescence was entering the world as a potential derelict. Because our society is so removed from the Biblical Model many young men are potential alcoholics in the making. Therefore they must get "saved" and then save others from the psychological hell they were born into. Metaxas in his own word was one of these "lost souls" after a stint in Yale thinking he could be a romantic poet or some such nonsense. The modern Church has nothing but endless self help mystical platitudes disguised as profundity. The young candidate for Bible school is a troubled shell of a man. His peers have excelled in sports and gone on to engineering or some other legitimate vocation "working with their hands the thing that is good". Not so the troubled Evangelical teen. Of course he must have the requisite skills of social interaction. Sociopaths pick these talents up by watching others finagle and scheme. The Bible says "as a man thinks, so is he" and so on. Yet Pietists insist that there is a life of the spirit separate from psychological hygiene. In other words we have this time on Sunday when we bow our heads and say some magical words that have a mystical effects lasting into the week until it's time for another dose of magic prayer dust.
Late 1700s. Phillip Spener and August Francke of Germany were the founders of the Pietist Movement. Their teachings emphasized Christians being separate from the world, focused Christians on the inward and personal, and exhorted for the lessening of pastoral involvement in the debates over public policy. Their followers took things way beyond what they originally taught.
This new form of Christian religion quickly caught the eye of kings and rulers.
I'd love to hear more podcasts with this group, it's so important for us to foster enriching male spaces and activities. I do suggest being tighter on the discussion points; see how the group feels about you running the pod more directly, pinging guys for replies rather than an open floor.
Thanks. We all enjoyed it as well and it was a new experience for us as well. Thanks for the feedback and we did mention that there was some awkward moments. Learning curve! I was thinking the same thing myself in regards to your suggestion.
I was raised catholic, German Rhenish patriachy that emigrated to the Midwest just prior to the battle of Solferino. He got all busted up building the community church. There wasn't workers comp as we know it in those days. He went on as a school teacher. That explains my mother. Dad was Norwegian, a mixed bag of protestant. When I was ten years old he put me in the back yard with a set of weights. "Lift" He said. He sighed and took a few pounds of the the bar. " Lift" he said once again. When I just got my driver's license he arranged an appointment for me to see the pastor of his church about getting a reference for entrance into a college. After the talk with the pastor, it became apparent to me that I was sent their for an exorcism not to talk about higher education. That was my relationship with my father. "Keeeerhist Almighteee!" He would often say.
My suggestion would be to foster the difference(s) between men and women. These need not be absolutely exclusive sets. It is about emphasis. Let men lead. As for female development (we cannot ignore this and would do so only at our unified peril), I would urge women to pursue intellectual development in the milieu that is, after all, preferred by most women: the home and family. This return to the family domicile (and for men, the home-based shop, farm, laboratory, broadcasting studio), is something I believe is critical in reversing the dehumanizing process of industrial centralization of the 19th Century. And this was not, nor probably was it ever planned, to be a sustained civilizational feature. The oligarchs simply knew that the world's populations would have to be taken through various stages of heavy tool and machinery making in order for them to achieve certain interim goals. Whether this "knowing" rose to the level of planning can be debated. Certainly some were savvy enough to possess this foresight. My wife and are energetically pressing toward our goal of such a life incorporating decentralized enterprising efforts in order to free her and me from the unavoidable tendencies of workplace abuses and political oppression that large-scale seeking of employment of the home creates. rushing miles, even a hundred miles one way for some folks in my town, eventual leads parents (or offspring) to then seek comfort in hedonistic pleasures of addictive pseudo-therapy. Why? disordered centralized processes that serve the upbuilding of anti-Christian economies and bureaucracies demand that people wreck their bodies, minds, spirits , marriages and families---often times quite deliberately. The mercenary, economic mission forces out humane priorities and it despises those priorities. Start, I would suggest, with a home library. Find those intellectual pursuits and activities that fit your nature., then even expand them. Pray.
Good question. The guys will have to give it some thought.
Generally a very good talk. [B.t.w., a few uncomfortably long pauses and sounds of someone rummaging around in something like their desk drawer.] Back to the important matter, one highlight was about in-group communities (the older men) taking it upon themselves to create local economies, networking and enterprise opportunities for young men to flourish. This is critical. I taught at two, hip, ex-Catholic institutions in California that forcibly promoted "girl power" with predictable, disastrous results. One comment I would have -- from my analysis -- is that though getting buff for Jesus and male status is okay (St. Paul comments on this of course), it is very damaging to male societies and society as a whole when we set up the tall-man, muscle-man category as a criteria for leadership. One of the extremely good things about Catholicism in force, viz., before Vatican II and the infiltration by Communists, homosexuals/Lesbians and feminists) were the avenues for males (as priests, of course) to be recognized for leadership abilities without physical characteristics, but because of the additionally important intellectual qualities. Of course, being overweight could be a detriment in a parish, but St. Thomas Aquinas managed to make a good showing despite his rotundness. No doubt a mostly monastic lfe made that easier. Perhaps he could have done more beyond the age of 49 if he had been more trim. As a final comment, I hope that beyond the limited clerical avenue for Catholic men in the future, genuinely devote and orthodox lay men of intellect, scientific talent, enterprise, business entrepreneurship and other creative abilities could be afforded respect by lay people and the religious alike --- power lifters or not.
Thanks for the feedback. There is a balance between your body as a temple (being healthy and getting good sleep leads to better prayer life) and making physical health idolatrous. God evaluates things differently that we do and we need to be mindful of that.
Indeed. My father (not so much me) was a championship body builder and weight lifter. This can be good stuff as I think I affirmed. I am, later than I have now come to realize would have been most beneficial, extricating myself along with my wife from bad diets and breakneck work habits. I totally agree. Thus, it is proper that young men (and women) pay attention to health. The real business of life, a virtuous life, a Christian life, involves actualization through work. Work turns out to be a good means of keeping the body well-exercised. The beauty of this is that it is exercise directed to a task. Naturally, inhumanely repetitive jobs treat the body as a machine, not a temple of the Holy Spirit. These are to be avoided and a Church-led society needs to challenge the desires of employers to abuse workers this way. I fully endorse your instruction, consonant with Scripture, that instructs us that God's ways are high above our ways. Thus, humility and prayer can lead us to interpret His whisperings that nudge us toward every manner of ongoing reformation. Perhaps the lessons we learn can be frankly transmitted to the next generation: in this case we are talking I think specifically about young men.
Again, I really liked the idea about us older fellows urgently setting ourselves to the task of preparing economic and enterprising opportunities for businesses (most ideally) or wage/salary employment (if necessary) for up and coming young people. WE need to make sure that we are leaving them a Christian environment that, though a bit thornier than Eden, nonetheless is tending toward being advantageous for starter families. Children, lots of children, are political power --- nothing else [compares to children in this]. Nothing is more "right" for men and women than having families. Of course, there will be those desiring a celibate life, but they too can re-orient their lives, their work and their religiously contemplative fulfillments and realizations of humanness by parallel buttresses of Christian families. Teachers, physicians & nurses, professor, bridge builders, water-line workers and grocers -- just to name a very few -- all provide for the ancillary needs of raising families in a Christian civilization. What else is there that compares without being embarrassingly disgraceful in comparison --- gambling in Las Vegas, hookup frivolity, gluttony, relentless sensual and carnal pleasures . . . candy crush apps on the cell phone?
Why we are in the ghetto. There is some reason to question the universalism of the gospel. It seems YouTube is not censoring as heavily nowdays. Christian Zionism's Alliance with the Synagogue of Satan - YouTube . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2ggglUFW_c Galatians 2:15 "We who are Israelites and not sinners from among the Gentiles" suggests some superiority. Jesus said he came not but for the "Lost Sheep of the House of Israel". Theology especially reformed theology which is a man made INTERPRETATION of the Bible (and wrong I might add IMO) suggests that "Lost Sheep" means something like gone to the dogs but redeemable now that the Gentiles are included in the UNIVERSAL. Nothing suggests this unless we bend the rules of interpretation so that it is ok to spiritualize and TELL SPIRITUAL lies. This excellent treatment suggests something other than the "born again" blunder that we are born into a tribe but with our built in pathalogical altruism seem to self destruct. As you suggest real friends are from our own clan. The universal that is given to us by the Reformed Doctrine of Predestination ignores the literal meaning of Romans 9:13. Jacob I loved and Esau I HATED. Still going on. They are still in the word and they want to kill us. The inferiority of the Samaritan women is not taken away by the verse you quote. Neither is her salvation in question, just ranking.
When I was on a road trip through the midwest several years ago there was a federal park dedicated to th e boyhood home of grover cleaveland. The Church was there . It had a divider. Men on one side and women on the other. Good idea. Physical divisions emphasis spiritual divisions.
You have multiple DOCTRINAL PROBLEMS. The evangelical "pastor" is a mini-pope. You have reckoned that there is no longer any LAW. No wonder you are confused. Only the ceremonial law is fulfilled and that only the spring feasts. Works are NOT optional. The average preacher is a man who in his adolescence was entering the world as a potential derelict. Because our society is so removed from the Biblical Model many young men are potential alcoholics in the making. Therefore they must get "saved" and then save others from the psychological hell they were born into. Metaxas in his own word was one of these "lost souls" after a stint in Yale thinking he could be a romantic poet or some such nonsense. The modern Church has nothing but endless self help mystical platitudes disguised as profundity. The young candidate for Bible school is a troubled shell of a man. His peers have excelled in sports and gone on to engineering or some other legitimate vocation "working with their hands the thing that is good". Not so the troubled Evangelical teen. Of course he must have the requisite skills of social interaction. Sociopaths pick these talents up by watching others finagle and scheme. The Bible says "as a man thinks, so is he" and so on. Yet Pietists insist that there is a life of the spirit separate from psychological hygiene. In other words we have this time on Sunday when we bow our heads and say some magical words that have a mystical effects lasting into the week until it's time for another dose of magic prayer dust.
Late 1700s. Phillip Spener and August Francke of Germany were the founders of the Pietist Movement. Their teachings emphasized Christians being separate from the world, focused Christians on the inward and personal, and exhorted for the lessening of pastoral involvement in the debates over public policy. Their followers took things way beyond what they originally taught.
This new form of Christian religion quickly caught the eye of kings and rulers.
I'd love to hear more podcasts with this group, it's so important for us to foster enriching male spaces and activities. I do suggest being tighter on the discussion points; see how the group feels about you running the pod more directly, pinging guys for replies rather than an open floor.
Thanks. We all enjoyed it as well and it was a new experience for us as well. Thanks for the feedback and we did mention that there was some awkward moments. Learning curve! I was thinking the same thing myself in regards to your suggestion.
I was raised catholic, German Rhenish patriachy that emigrated to the Midwest just prior to the battle of Solferino. He got all busted up building the community church. There wasn't workers comp as we know it in those days. He went on as a school teacher. That explains my mother. Dad was Norwegian, a mixed bag of protestant. When I was ten years old he put me in the back yard with a set of weights. "Lift" He said. He sighed and took a few pounds of the the bar. " Lift" he said once again. When I just got my driver's license he arranged an appointment for me to see the pastor of his church about getting a reference for entrance into a college. After the talk with the pastor, it became apparent to me that I was sent their for an exorcism not to talk about higher education. That was my relationship with my father. "Keeeerhist Almighteee!" He would often say.
My suggestion would be to foster the difference(s) between men and women. These need not be absolutely exclusive sets. It is about emphasis. Let men lead. As for female development (we cannot ignore this and would do so only at our unified peril), I would urge women to pursue intellectual development in the milieu that is, after all, preferred by most women: the home and family. This return to the family domicile (and for men, the home-based shop, farm, laboratory, broadcasting studio), is something I believe is critical in reversing the dehumanizing process of industrial centralization of the 19th Century. And this was not, nor probably was it ever planned, to be a sustained civilizational feature. The oligarchs simply knew that the world's populations would have to be taken through various stages of heavy tool and machinery making in order for them to achieve certain interim goals. Whether this "knowing" rose to the level of planning can be debated. Certainly some were savvy enough to possess this foresight. My wife and are energetically pressing toward our goal of such a life incorporating decentralized enterprising efforts in order to free her and me from the unavoidable tendencies of workplace abuses and political oppression that large-scale seeking of employment of the home creates. rushing miles, even a hundred miles one way for some folks in my town, eventual leads parents (or offspring) to then seek comfort in hedonistic pleasures of addictive pseudo-therapy. Why? disordered centralized processes that serve the upbuilding of anti-Christian economies and bureaucracies demand that people wreck their bodies, minds, spirits , marriages and families---often times quite deliberately. The mercenary, economic mission forces out humane priorities and it despises those priorities. Start, I would suggest, with a home library. Find those intellectual pursuits and activities that fit your nature., then even expand them. Pray.