Comentarii pe baza unui text legat de sintagma ‘spatiul intelectual laic’

Domnul Costel Ghioancă a lansat o discuție pe pagina sa de pe platforma academia.edu legata de implicațiile pe care le are utilizarea sintagmei „spațiul academic laic” în codul etic al Universității București, invitându-mă să comentez cu privire la textul afișat de domnia sa, ceea ce am și făcut (textul său poate fi accesat AICI, dacă aveți un cont pe această platformă).
Dat fiind că, după opinia mea, această discuție este de interes mai larg, am decis să afișez aici comentariile mele. Sper că textul meu este destul de explicit pentru cei care nu au acces la academia.edu. Dacă nu, sunt deschis să ofer explicații.

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Stimate domnule Ghioancă,

Cred ca înțeleg motivația acestui text, și consimt la ea, dar nu împărtășesc, necesarmente, nici unele dintre premise, nici concluziile ei. Iată, deci, câteva observații personale pe marginea articolului dvs.:

1. Mai întâi, nu doar în acest text, ci în general în limba romana, inclusiv în DEX, avem de-a face cu o confuzie terminologica izvorâta din analfabetismul religios care domină spațiul public după modernitate. Sorgintea ei este una comunista în prima instanța, si aceasta este întărita de uzajul terenului paralel francez, ‘laicité’, în loc de secular/secularitate.

Termenul ‘laic’ este la origine unul eclesial, si este opusul terenului ‘cleric’. Ca atare, el se refera NU la cineva care este anti- sau a-religios, ci la o persoana nu este hirotonită/ordinata, indiferent daca acea persoana este un credincios sau nu.

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Turning the World Upside Down, Down Under | Christianity Today

Source: Turning the World Upside Down, Down Under | Christianity Today

Australian Biblical scholar Michael Bird writes on the defetist so-called ‘Benedict Option’ vs the (active resistance) ‘Thessalonian Strategy’, as a way of engaging the militant anti-Christian atmosphere in Australia.

If I had to chose between the two, I would certainly opt for Bird’s suggestion. Dreher’s (falsely) monastic soluton was tried by the fundamentalists in the tweentieth centurry and it utterly failed).

Yet, I would like to offer and extra suggestion, based on the same first century that gave birth to the Thessalonian approach and on my experience as a persecuted Christian for 35 years beehind the Iron Courtain.

What about a ‘Calvary Strategy’, one based on happily carrying the cross and willfully accepting persecution as a normal part of the faitful walk with Christ?

Seven reasons to ban the Lord’s Prayer

Note: This is a brilliant response to the ban of the Lord’s Prayer video in UK cinemas. As I have already written on a previous comment on this incident, prayer is, indeed,  powerful. And UK cinema owners recognise that, in their own crooked way.

 

Britain woke up this morning to the news that the Lord’s Prayer has been banned from cinemas. The Church of England has produced a sixty second commercial.  The only words are the words of the Lord’s Prayer, said by children, the bereaved, people at work and so on.  It’s a beautiful film, Certificate U. The ad is to promote a new website, Just Pray.uk.  The plan was (and is) to show the film before Christmas at screenings of the new Star Wars film to help everyone think about prayer and to pray.  What could be more simple? The distributors have declared the Lord’s Prayer unsuitable for screening.  They believe it carries the risk of upsetting or offending audiences.  Cue indignation from the press, fury from the Archbishop (according to the Mail anyway) debates about free speech, a possible challenge in the courts and a storm on social media. But wait just a moment.  Suppose the cinema chains got this one right? I disagree with their decision and I disagree with the reasons they have given.  I hope it’s reversed.  I don’t believe the film will offend or upset audiences, in the way they mean, and I don’t believe it creates a new precedent.  But from the point of view of global corporations and consumer culture, from the perspective of the gods and spirits of the age, there are very good reasons indeed to ban the Lord’s Prayer from cinemas and from culture and from public life.  This is a prayer said by billions of people every day in every language on the planet.  In every single moment in time, someone is praying these words.  They are the first words of prayer we learn as children and the last words we say at the moment of death.  The Lord’s Prayer is powerful for a reason.  These words shape lives and families and communities and whole societies.  There are real reasons why the Lord’s Prayer has been banned by the demigods of consumer culture, in the boardrooms of the cinema chains.  Here are seven, one for every line. First, this prayer gives to those who pray it an identity and a place in the world and a countercultural community.  “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name”.  It opposes the myth that we are random specks of matter floating through space and time.  It opposes the myth that our lives do not matter.  It opposes the myth of fragmented humanity.  We are created and loved and called into friendship with God who is our father and into community with our fellow human beings who are therefore our sisters and brothers.  Only someone who has found this new identity can stand against the advertising culture which night and day seduces us to define who we are by what we spend. Second this prayer gives us the courage to live in an imperfect world.  “Your kingdom come.  Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”.  The world is not as it was meant to be.  It is distorted from its true purpose.  But God is at work to redeem and transform this world, to establish his kingdom.  The Lord’s Prayer invites us not to retreat from the world in fear and pain, to anaesthetise or indulge ourselves.  The Lord’s Prayer invites us to join the struggle to see justice and peace prevail.  Third, and most powerfully, the Lord’s Prayer teaches us to live with just enough.  This is the most dangerous reason why it cannot be shown with the adverts at the cinema.  It teaches us not to want more.  It teaches contentment, the most subversive virtue of them all. “Give us this day our daily bread”.  This is not a prayer for more.  This is a prayer only for what we need.  Every other advert in the cinema is there to encourage us to spend money in pursuit of happiness.  This one restrains our greed.  Fourth, the Lord’s Prayer teaches me to live with my imperfections and the imperfections of others.  There is a way to deal with the rubbish in our lives.  “Forgive us our sins”. Consumer culture holds before us the image of perfection.  We cannot be happy until we look like this person, live like that one.  Each image is a lie. The Lord’s Prayer acknowledges human imperfection and sin, daily.  The Lord’s Prayer offers a pathway to forgiveness, daily. The way of forgiveness cannot be bought.  It is a gift.  Grace.  Grace subverts the whole culture of advertising. Fifth the Lord’s Prayer offers a way of reconciliation.  “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”.  We are not meant to feud or live in hostility or rivalry.  We are meant to forgive and be forgiven, to be reconciled to each other.  That reconciliation happens without expensive prese

Source: Seven reasons to ban the Lord’s Prayer

Diana Butler Bass – Fox News: War on Advent

Probably not everybody in Europe is aware of the paranoia of the American Religious Right on the so-called ‘war on Christmas’, which, to be fair, is as pathetic as some secularista obsession with anything smelling religious (except, of course, the ‘secularist religion’). No other agency seems to be more entrenched in their cultural crusade for ‘saving Christmas’ that the (very) right wing TV station Fox News.

Diana Butler Buss points out in this excellent article in The Huffington Post to two problems with the Fox News campaign:

1. they seem undisturbed by the consumerist mood promoted during this season; probably the consumerist ‘religion’ is very compatible with the their fundamentalist worldview.

2. they seem to forget that Christmas begins on the eve of 24 December and what the Church celebrates until then is the Advent, which they seem to completely ignore; do they wage a ‘war on Advent’? Or, maybe, the Advent, with its more sober mood, is not so ‘sexy’ for the consumerist agenda of Fox News?

Ladies and gentlemen, here is Diana Butler Bass:

Going Godless: Does Secularism Make People More Ethical? – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International

Druckversion – Going Godless: Does Secularism Make People More Ethical? – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International.

This is a very interesting article, even if there is a lot that can be debated in it, not the least the way it defines what being ‘ethical means. Nevertheless, it is a subject that should interest to the highest degree people of faith. Here is a quote about the size and the importance of the secular people among us:

‘Secularists make up some 15 percent of the global population, or about 1 billion people. As a group, this puts them third in size behind Christians (2.3 billion) and Muslims (1.6 billion). Despite their large numbers, little is known about this group of people. Who are they? And if not religion, what do they believe in?’

“Effective” Secularist Propaganda

Source: Church Times. (Thanks to Julia Doxat-Purser.)

Economie, casatorie si sexualitate – 5

Criza sexualităţii sau criza familiei?

Cum de nu observăm faptul că nu avem de-a face aici în primul rând cu o criză sexuală, ci cu una a căsătoriei? Sau, mai degrabă că, aşa cum spune Regnerus, în vreme ce standardele noastre în domeniul eticii sexuale au rămas în general conservatoare, concepţia noastră despre căsătorie a fost deformată, în mod subtil, dar profund, de spiritul „acestui veac”.

Astfel, în vreme ce evanghelicii fac mult zgomot cu privire încercările grupurilor seculare de a redefini instituţia căsătoriei, în realitate şi pe neobservate, ei au cedat deja terenul secularismului în domenii de mult mai mare importanţă şi cu un impact mult mai larg.

Profesorul Douglas Farrow s-a convertit la catolicism

L-am cunoscut pe Dr. Douglas Farrow in perioada in care preda teologie la King’s College London, sub ‘bagheta’ regretatului teolog britanic Colin Gunton.

I-am fost apoi ghid si gazda in Oradea, atunci cind a venit sa predea un curs de teologie la ceea ce se numea atunci Institutul Biblic Emanuel. astazi Universitatea Emanuel. Ne-am plimbat atunci ore intregi pe strazi, discutind teologie.

Cazul Caroline Petrie

Caroline Petrie (Sursa: The Sun)

Atitudinea anticreştină a adepţilor religiei seclariste care domină Europa instituţională nu mai este un secret pentru nimeni, iar faptul că creştinismul (în forme instituţionalizate sau nu) este împărtăşit de majoritatea cetăţenilor europeni, nu pare să deranjeze prea mult conştiinţa acestor birocraţi, în dispreţul lor suveran, şi “democratic” (!!!) faţă de “prostime”.

Această situaţie l-a făcut recent pe fostul prim-ministru britanic Tony Blair să afirme, într-un interviu pentru The Daily Telegraph, că “creştinii ar trebui să-şi facă auzit mai mult glasul în această epocă ‘agresiv secularistă'”.