Attack On Christ’s Church = Attack On The West

[Lounge Daddy]

Of course the west has been made secular these days...

[Kosh]

I don't think I would agree with the title of this at all.

[Budge]

Europe is barely Christian...
the statistics are something like 2-5% attend church...


so how does that play into your equation.

[mulls]

Christians themselves could stand to be less like the West.

check out the believers all over Asia and the Middle East, getting persecuted, abducted, tortured, killed....standing strong for the Lord.

i would welcome an "attack" if it got the church off it's butt, out of it's shell, becoming like her bridegroom.

[Era Might]

[quote name='mulls' post='1107985' date='Nov 1 2006, 05:46 PM']Christians themselves could stand to be less like the West.[/quote]
Yup. Something like 65% of the world Catholic population is outside of the western world. The future of the Church is definitely in Africa and South America. Hopefully Asia can be evangelized as well.

Let's not forget our dear Eastern Catholic brethren either!

[Mateo el Feo]

[quote name='Budge' post='1107967' date='Nov 1 2006, 06:34 PM']
Europe is barely Christian...
the statistics are something like 2-5% attend church...
so how does that play into your equation.[/quote]A good example of the "equation" was when the Danish cartoons (i.e. secular West) upset so many Muslims, their fanatics increased attacks on the Church (e.g. the murdered priest in Turkey, the murdered Coptic priest in Egypt). See [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_and_human_costs_of_the_Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy"]this link[/url].

[Kosh]

maybe this is true from the point of view of a muslim, but the West as a whole tries as much as possible to separate itself from the Church.

[Lounge Daddy]

[quote name='Kosh' post='1109185' date='Nov 2 2006, 06:41 PM']
maybe this is true from the point of view of a muslim, but the West as a whole tries as much as possible to separate itself from the Church.
[/quote]

I guess that's what I had in mind when I posted this
That is just how the Muslem sees it... esp the militants
And yes the West has seperated itself from the Church, to the point of going from Secularism to Athiesm

Spiritually speaking, the West has made itself an easy target

I had just read "The World's First Love" by Fulton Sheen
Keep in mind, Fulton Sheen is writing this way back in 1952 ----as a warning and as a prophesy:

[quote] At the present time, the hatred of the Moslem countries against the West is becoming a hatred against Christianity itself. Although statesmen have not yet taken it into account, there is still a grave danger that the temporal power of Islam may return and, with it, the menace that it may shake off a West that has ceased to be Christian and affirm itself as a great anti-Christian world power.
Moslem writers say “When the locust swarms darken vast countries, they bear on their wings these Arabic words: “We are Gods host, each of us has ninety-nine eggs, and if we had a hundred, we should lay waste the world with all that is in it.”

The problem is, how shall we prevent the hatching of the hundredth egg? [/quote]

[cathoholic_anonymous]

I know from growing up in Saudi Arabia that a significant proportion of Muslims (and not just militants) frequently associate the West with Christianity. An American journalist who converted to Islam, Saraji Umm Zaid, has written an exasperated article that criticises Muslim daw'a workers (evangelists) from passing out pamphlets that try to discredit Christianity as part of their daw'a in Western countries. She points out that this is hardly an effective strategy, given that much of the West does not believe in Christianity to start with.

Ordinary Muslims (i.e. people who aren't extremists) who equate the West with Christianity are perhaps influenced by their sense of [i]ummah[/i], or worldwide family. For the Muslim, Islam is intrinsically bound up with national and cultural identity. It's a way of life. Even in countries like Turkey, which is secular, it is difficult for Muslims to separate mentally their citizenship from their religious affiliation. The idea of the church being separated from the state is alien to someone who has grown up with these ideas, and so when I tried to explain to my Muslim neighbours in Saudi that England is really only a nominally Christian country they got confused. They didn't see how you could call yourself something and not be it. To a point, I can understand their confusion.

Regarding the militants, there is an inherent contradiction in the way they view the West. One moment bin Laden and his ilk refer to Westerners as 'crusaders', using mediaeval Christian language; the next they are talking about how degenerate the West has become, with its sexual permissiveness, drunken youth and lack of duty towards elderly people, etc. If the West really were the bastion of Christianity that they imagine, it wouldn't [b]be[/b] permissive and it wouldn't have these problems in society. I don't think they can see the flaws in their logic.

Edited November 7, 2006 by Cathoholic Anonymous

[HS_Dad]

I really hope the next pope is from Africa or Asia.... It's important for Christians to understand that Europe is a post-Christian area..... African and Asian Christians have such lively experiences of Christ's daily personal reality. They also have more experience with evangelization as more than social work. I also think they have less historical baggage when looking at other Christians. So many orthodox Catholics still seem stuck in a 1500's polemical mindset....

Globally, today is a great time for Christianity. Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Catholics are growing in large numbers in Africa and in parts of Asia. Also, nominally Catholic nations in South and Central America are being increasingly evangelized into individuals with living faith traditions whether Catholic or Pentecostal.

Catholicism can play such a central role in the future as a catalyst for bringing Christians together in unity to the extent that Catholics open themselves up to God's grace to love the Word and to love Christ in a winsome personal faith and to see their brothers in Christ as brothers.... Vatican II's documents laid a wonder theological foundation for what may well be an ongoing new evangelization!

Praise to Christ the King!

[musturde]

[quote name='Lounge Daddy' post='1113519' date='Nov 7 2006, 04:28 AM']
I guess that's what I had in mind when I posted this
That is just how the Muslem sees it... esp the militants
[/quote]
Maybe... or maybe it's just propoganda.

[quote name='Cathoholic Anonymous' post='1113582' date='Nov 7 2006, 09:10 AM']
Regarding the militants, there is an inherent contradiction in the way they view the West. One moment bin Laden and his ilk refer to Westerners as 'crusaders', using mediaeval Christian language; the next they are talking about how degenerate the West has become, with its sexual permissiveness, drunken youth and lack of duty towards elderly people, etc. If the West really were the bastion of Christianity that they imagine, it wouldn't [b]be[/b] permissive and it wouldn't have these problems in society. I don't think they can see the flaws in their logic.
[/quote]
Exactly. This is what i meant by propaganda.

[mortify]

I would want to distinguish the way of the West from the Way of Christ as far apart as possible.