With love, to Micheal

Dear Micheal,

I appreciate your genuine efforts to express your views. Thanks a lot for that.

Yes, we all know that Catholicism is declining in the Western world in a fast pace. It's not only Catholicism - the other Christian denominations are the ones who loose their ground much faster. I can see that in Australia. Australia is supposed to be an Anglican fortress because of its British migrant history. Anglican and other protestant churches were the predominant churches in Australia till near past. But in spite of an overall decline in its performance, Catholic church now emerges as the single largest and most vibrant church in Australia. As far as the reports we receive, this trend is continuing around the Western world.

I just mentioned this to show that the problem of "erosion of faith" is not simply the problem of Catholic church. May be they are better positioned to tackle it.

Now about the 3 reasons you have put forward to explain the decline in Church performance.

The child-sex scandals in the Western Catholic church is a shame. We all share the shame and responsibility. That's human fault. That's what we call sin (we call a spade a spade). We accept it and repent. Necessary measures have to be taken to handle the issue. But that cannot be the reason to put whole universal community at gun-point. I always felt that Western media, the so called 'liberals' and champions of child-welfare - attacked Church with a kind of vengeance. That's not right and not acceptable. Christ gave more respect to the woman caught in adultery!

Sins of few priests won't bankrupt the moral strength of Pope Benedict or the Church. They are up and arm against Church not simply because some priests abused children, but because even in face of that humiliation, Church tried to uphold its moral stands against many other issues, which that section of the society wanted to change.

Now, the second point: homosexuality. I have never touched this area before. I didn't want to involve! Since you have raised the issue, I am putting my few cents.

Homosexuality is still a point of debate. As you claim, no one has categorically proved anything regarding homosexuality. It not like the Galilee incident where Church clinged to the notion of a earth-centric planetary system! Church is much open and progressive now. The whole argument about homosexuality (as an inborn/genetic/personality thing) is very pre-mature to comment. Those who push for homosexuality claims are going far more than the science itself (which cannot be the answer for all question, after all). Remember, science first told light is a particle, then a wave, then particle-wave and so on and so forth. Let's don't jump into conclusions.

Here are few links which deals with this issue (the last link is the public comments, it's interesting to go thru them):

http://www.narth.com/docs/istheregene.html

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=4529843&page=1

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/comments?type=story&id=4529843

The final one. Yes, I am from India. Church is flourishing there in spite of our struggles in living in a highly pluralistic society. You may categorize it as one of the "countries with low levels of ...". I get your point, religion/church is for the poor and uneducated.

About 400 years back, when the first colonial shipmen came to India, to do trade, India controlled 23% of world's wealth (which no other country had ever done in the history). Yes, we did have our mistakes in handling those "guests" and our own infightings. We lost - a bit. But just bouncing back, with all the lessons learned from history.

I just said this to mention that the Catholicism in India has a legacy of 2000 years - from St Thomas, one of the apostles of Jesus (The so called US was not even known that time) and we have seen everything - history, culture, wealth, vedas, knowledge, sastras (science), maths, exploitation, poverty, freedom, democracy, market - and survived. And we will - the Church will. I can see the contempt in that argument (typical to many of my Western friends), but you got it wrong there Micheal.

Peace!
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PS: This is a response to the message by Mr Micheal, which can be accessed as the previous post

Jesus the Man - the deception in the very 33rd page

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I am reading 'Jesus the Man'- a 'supposed to be controversial' book by Barbara Thiering - an Australian author. I read in 'amazon.com', the reviews praising it as an authentic work with the backing of deep research which will topple down our views about Jesus and Christianity. The back cover of the book reads as follows:

"Jesus was the leader of a radical faction of Essene priests. He was not of virgin birth. He did not die on the Cross. He married Mary Magdalene, fathered a family, and later divorced. He died sometime after AD 64."

One of the critics claims that "Barbara Thiering is a supreme academic and goes to great lengths to justify her theories with much referencing, to the point where I have to admit that I probably need to re-read this immediately and I do confess to only really reading the narrative chapters at the start - which is very readable."

So, I opened the book with great expectations. It is really intriguing. The theory she proposed to explain the Qumran (and the Gospel) texts is really gripping - something very similar to Vinci Code. She introduces peshar technique - a kind of technique to unlock the 'submerged mysteries' beneath the Qumran and Gospel texts. I would say, it is original. I have never heard or someone used before.

I kept on reading expecting more. Then I came to page 33. I was completely lost... disappointed. She was giving her first example to explain pesher technique. The example she selected was the Wedding at Cana, where Jesus turned water into wine (according to Gospels!)

I put down the words of Thiering account of the miracle of Cana (God I have to type all of it.. give me patience!).

"According to a story in John's gospel, Jesus was at a wedding...When, however, a drink was drawn from them and taken to the steward of the feast, it had miraculously turned into wine. The steward's reaction was strange: he did not comment on the miracle at all, but merely complained that Jesus had saved the good wine until last, whereas it was more usual to serve the good wine first and the poor wine later."

I stopped reading there - the text in italics (the text is Thiering's but i've given italics to highlight it) - what has she done?

Because, I never ever heard that the steward "complained that Jesus had saved the good wine. " According to my memory, the gospel clearly stated that the steward didn't know about the source of the 'new wine'. Did my memory fail. I reached home and searched all available versions of Bible. I was happy that my memory still works perfect!

She was quoting 'a story in John's gospel'. In the very 33th page itself, how could she go wrong? Was she just going wrong - a human error. NO WAY. without that small twist, she could not have justified her pesher theory in that instant. That was the pivot.

But it was too much... in the very 33th page manipulating the Gospel text to prove 'a theory'. I didn't expect that. If this is the case of the very first example, what would be the case of the rest of her work... the authenticity! May be her critic would have been right "Barbara Thiering is a supreme academic and goes to great lengths to justify her theories with much referencing..." except the comments put in italics!

Anyway, I will continue to read the book, to hear her stories and theories!

Jesus the Man - the deception in the very 33rd page

go to HOME

I am reading 'Jesus the Man'- a 'supposed to be controversial' book by Barbara Thiering - an Australian author. I read in 'amazon.com', the reviews praising it as an authentic work with the backing of deep research which will topple down our views about Jesus and Christianity. The back cover of the book reads as follows:

"Jesus was the leader of a radical faction of Essene priests. He was not of virgin birth. He did not die on the Cross. He married Mary Magdalene, fathered a family, and later divorced. He died sometime after AD 64."

One of the critics claims that "Barbara Thiering is a supreme academic and goes to great lengths to justify her theories with much referencing, to the point where I have to admit that I probably need to re-read this immediately and I do confess to only really reading the narrative chapters at the start - which is very readable."

So, I opened the book with great expectations. It is really intriguing. The theory she proposed to explain the Qumran (and the Gospel) texts is really gripping - something very similar to Vinci Code. She introduces peshar technique - a kind of technique to unlock the 'submerged mysteries' beneath the Qumran and Gospel texts. I would say, it is original. I have never heard or someone used before.

I kept on reading expecting more. Then I came to page 33. I was completely lost... disappointed. She was giving her first example to explain pesher technique. The example she selected was the Wedding at Cana, where Jesus turned water into wine (according to Gospels!)

I put down the words of Thiering account of the miracle of Cana (God I have to type all of it.. give me patience!).

"According to a story in John's gospel, Jesus was at a wedding...When, however, a drink was drawn from them and taken to the steward of the feast, it had miraculously turned into wine. The steward's reaction was strange: he did not comment on the miracle at all, but merely complained that Jesus had saved the good wine until last, whereas it was more usual to serve the good wine first and the poor wine later."

I stopped reading there - the text in italics (the text is Thiering's but i've given italics to highlight it) - what has she done?

Because, I never ever heard that the steward "complained that Jesus had saved the good wine. " According to my memory, the gospel clearly stated that the steward didn't know about the source of the 'new wine'. Did my memory fail. I reached home and searched all available versions of Bible. I was happy that my memory still works perfect!

She was quoting 'a story in John's gospel'. In the very 33th page itself, how could she go wrong? Was she just going wrong - a human error. NO WAY. without that small twist, she could not have justified her pesher theory in that instant. That was the pivot.

But it was too much... in the very 33th page manipulating the Gospel text to prove 'a theory'. I didn't expect that. If this is the case of the very first example, what would be the case of the rest of her work... the authenticity! May be her critic would have been right "Barbara Thiering is a supreme academic and goes to great lengths to justify her theories with much referencing..." except the comments put in italics!

Anyway, I will continue to read the book, to hear her stories and theories!

ON CONVERSION AND THE CHURCH

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Here is an excerpt from our discussions in DaVinci Code - Helpdesk community on Orkut.

You can go to the whole lot of discussions about DVC, Christianity and more in this community, just follow the link. You may need an Orkut ID though!

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ON CONVERSION AND THE CHURCH
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basically there r 2 issues in our discussion, i guess - the conversion and the role of Catholic Church.

As Ian pointed out, conversion is not simply changing religion. basically, its about change of heart. As Ritin puts it, it should be stimulated by the good works of Christians, themselves.

but there are some issues - if we start to do good works - people say its wrong motivated. i know, after the earth quakes in north India (specifically Gujarat) a team of brothers from our seminary with a train full of supplies (we collected it from the public in Bangalore) were not even allowed to go to those villages. people were still dying and starving. look, we were seminarians with no intention to change their religion. (finally they did help them heroically).

so, its easy to blame church, Christianity etc... but the conversion issue, esp in India - is far more complicated. its not simply about church. people are not frightened about xians, for they convert them. rather they are frightened by the religious extremists with political, economic and cast ambitions 'to hate Christians' or 'risk consequences'. it's basically a political agenda and hate campaign. it was there all through out the history. in the first 3 centuries xians were treated like animals and killed like pigs! (ritin wont like to explain those killings of xians by state, wont u). but the same state accepted xianity as their state religion after that..ha ha.. that's politics, leave it.

then the church's role.

first point, the St Thomas xians in Kerala were catholic from the very beginning. any church initiated by an apostle is considered to be catholic. but the 16th century colonial powers failed to see it.. that's also true. they did a great harm to St Thomas xians. that's why we are divided now.

Ian's observation is valuable - the church may be a communion of saints as well as sinners , but theologically its infallible. that's all.

it does not mean that whatever church does will be right. as a human entity, it may go wrong in its decisions and practice. but what its tells will be infallible - ie, without error - esp regarding the matters of faith and morals.

its a special charism, to make sure that what is good and what is wrong in this very confusing world. church exercise this with utmost care. it does not pass judgments on the realms out side its scope. it has no say in matters of science and mathematics, but of course, in its applications to human life.

i am happy that Ritin came up with the very idea that forcible conversion - in its rude meaning is not a possibility these days.. of course, we, even catholics may have to refine their means of evangelization. but a fact remains - much of the harm is done by the aggressive and unacceptable means adopted by the protestant and evangelical churches (its a great threat to catholic church in India too... why do they aggressively baptize catholics to their churches.. did Jesus tell that!).

I would strongly suggest those so called missionaries - who tries to create communal rifts in our country to stop their way of 'instant conversions'. whoever they may be, they are doing much harm to Christ and Christianity.

but at the same time, every Christian has a right and obligation to live their Christian life in its fullness and to invite others to share its beauty.