The Witnesses’ stand may sound drastic to you, but I find a Scriptural basis for it:
“What I meant was that you are not to keep company with anyone who claims to be a brother Christian but indulges in sexual sins, or is greedy, or is a swindler, or worships idols, or is a drunkard, or abusive. Don’t even eat lunch with such a person.”–1 Corinthians 5:11, Living Bible.
So, you’re pretty much a loner, then?
If I want a smart remark, I’ll make it myself.
And before you judge me, walk some miles in my moccasins. You know nothing about my personal situation. So back off.
One of my neighbors has a statue of a german shepard in her front lawn; another has a gnome, and several have deer. And one has a statue of a tractor…oh, wait – that’s not a statue.
I guess religious icons aren’t the same for everyone.
Never heard of it, no. I was once in a situation in which a lot of people refused to hang out with a pair of idiots until they corrected what they were doing, but it was completely a social thing, no Church involved. Heck, if they had gone to church more often than for weddings and baptisms, they probably wouldn’t have ended up where they were in the first place… 
It worked, by the way. But it was so unusual the story is still told as a cautionary tale, and well on its way to becoming a legend.
Well, now we know you wear moccasins.
I read it as him saying everyone else is a sinner and it would be hard to find someone sinless to join you.
Yes. I thought I was clear.
Emphasis mine.
You wear moccasins? Fashion faux pas man. Tres gauche. My understanding is that Kroks are the thing all the “in people” wear.
The biggest impediment would be finding someone who’s actually been excommunicated. The Church doesn’t do it that much; you have to be a really high-profile heretic to warrant official excommunication. Mostly they have an attitude of: if you don’t like it, don’t come to church. Nobody’s stopping you from leaving.
Excommunication isn’t the same thing as disfellowship. You’re not kicked out of the church, you can still attend Mass and participate in fasting, etc, but you cannot take part in the sacrements, such as Eucharist. (Technically, one can’t be kicked out of the church – the view is “Once a Catholic, Always a Catholic”).
I love you for this absolutely perfect and accurate description!
I am disappointed that none of you have apparently heard of the expression “May I not judge a man until first I walk a mile in his moccasins.” I read it as an aphorism on a wall hanging that was in the office of a vocational counselor of mine many years ago. Either none of you understand it or you are just being impudent. Either way I can see no point in trying to discuss this further with you, since you don’t listen. :mad:
Actually, the original statement was “walk a mile in his shoes,” and you are being teased for substituting moccasins for shoes, regardless how you might have originally encountered it.
= = = = =
As to the separation of the Commandments mentioned earlier:
There are three places in the Torah or Pentateuch where it says that God handed Moses ten commandments: Exodus 34:28 and Deuteronomy 4:13 and
Deuteronomy 10:4.
There are two places where those ten commandments are listed, without being “named” the ten commandments and without having numbers assigned to each commandment: Exodus 20:1 -17 and Deuteronomy 5:6 - 21.
Since the tradition of the “ten” is separate from the enumeration, (verse numbers were only added to the Hebrew Bible in the fifteenth century), there is a little bit of latitude in how the ten are reckoned with the following being the most common.
No command has been removed from the list, although the order has been re-arranged. I find the first list to be the most logical.
The three most common separations, beneath the proponents of those divisions are:
**- Philo of Alexandria, Jewish philosopher (10 BCE - 50 CE)
- (Flavius) Josephus, Jewish historian (fl. 1st Century CE)
- Greek Fathers of the Church
- Modern Orthodox Churches
- Reformed Protestant Churches**
- Prohibition of false or foreign gods
- Prohibition of images
- Prohibition on vain use of Divine name
- Honor Sabbath
- Honor parents
- Prohibition of murder
- Prohibition of adultery
- Prohibition of theft
- Prohibition on bearing false witness
- Prohibition of covetousness
**- Clement of Alexandria, Christian theologian (ca 150 – 215?)
- Origen, Christian theologian (ca. 185 - 254)
- Augustine of Hippo, Christian theologian (354 - 430)
- Modern Catholic Church
- Evangelical/Lutheran Protestant Churches
**01. Prohibition of false or foreign gods and images
- Prohibition on vain use of Divine name
- Honor Sabbath
- Honor parents
- Prohibition of murder
- Prohibition of adultery
- Prohibition of theft
- Prohibition on bearing false witness
- Prohibition of coveting neighbor’s wife
- Prohibition of coveting neighbor’s goods
- Modern Judaism
- “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”
- Prohibition of false or foreign gods and images
- Prohibition on vain use of Divine name
- Honor Sabbath
- Honor parents
- Prohibition of murder
- Prohibition of adultery
- Prohibition of theft
- Prohibition on bearing false witness
- Prohibition of covetousness
Jewish theology, in rejecting the polytheistic religions that surrounded them, was violently opposed to idols and the rejection of idols and images became a hallmark of the religion.
As Christianity moved out from Judea into the Hellenistic world of the Greeks and Romans, the new converts had grown up with images of gods and recognized that the statues and paintings were not actually gods, themselves, but simply provided artistic focal points for prayer. These pagan-to-Christian converts did not internalize the Jewish abhorrence of images. They merely regarded the prohibition against idols as a command that one should recognize that the statues could not be treated as gods.
On two occasions in history, Christian movements arose appealing to a literal understanding of the prohibition against idols in the Commandments. In the early eighth century, an iconoclastic movement began in the Byzantine empire. When the Protestant Reformation began in the sixteenth century, those groups who followed Calvin and Zwingli also followed iconoclastic, (i.e., image breaking), practices.
The use of images was always intended as a way to focus attention for prayer or as a way to recall a person or event and not as a way to treat the statues as gods.
Certain polytheistic beliefs have occasionally filtered into Christianity so that there are some people who have treated statues as idols or fetishes, but those attitudes are not official teachings of the church and are condemned when they come to the attention of the authorities.
Think your gnomes would like bathtubs of their own or are they too outdoors, nature-loving, never-need-a-bath types?
Quite literally, too. Take this with as much salt as needed, but I heard from multiple tourist guides in Switzerland that the Calvinist reform led to the desctruction of a lot of paintings, statues, medals… and to a rejection of flashy dress and jewelry (maybe that’s why the Swiss guards dress so flashy, it’s to be in the Calvinist neighbors’ face)… and in general a lot of stuff people used to use to display wealth. And what happened was, then people came up with fancy furniture and fancy mechanical stuff, because what’s the point of being better off than those uppity Joneses if you can’t show it off.
Some RCC groups love our statues (Mediterranean peoples, Latinos…); some hate them as much as any Calvinist. Augustines tend to dislike them, sometimes to the point of ranting against the wearing of medals to a heavily-Hispanic congregation and then not understanding why they can’t get enough Hispanic catechists.
I demand you retract your accusation of impudency! :mad:
I care nothing about what “original” quote you may know about. I respected this counselor, and I have always seen fit to use the quote in the form as given on the wall hanging, regardless of any other permutation. I think it’s safe to assume that anyone I quote it to, will know what moccasins are, and will understand my point.
That said, I have nothing but contempt for the responses that have been given to me in this thread, on this topic. I had thought that these people would know better than that. Maybe they do, but one wouldn’t know it from reading their inane comments.
As far as the Second Commandment and idolatry are concerned, I think you are flogging a dead horse. The Jews and early Christians did not need images: “We are walking by faith, not by sight.” 2 Corinthians 5:7. Also, note the 44th chapter of Isaiah.
We are inane in the membrane.
Yes, and then there’s “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe”. The only time we ever see Christ directly is in His Body and Blood in the Eucharist, as He told us to celebrate it. The other physical things are as Tom said, something to reflect on or learn from, not to worship.