Avatar wrote:rusmeister wrote:I have to challenge your ideas of what is "relevant". What on earth does that mean? Please define.
If the church fails to address and take into account the issues and circumstances which affect our lives today, (very different from those of the past), what possible meaning can it hope to have to people in the present? And how can it hope to convince them that it is useful for them to adhere to it?
By relevance, I suppose I mean meeting the needs of todays population, as
they see them. Certainly the church doesn't attempt to enforce the ban against mixed fabrics, nor the one against shellfish. The dietary prohibitions of the past were relevant in an age where things like lack of refrigeration made it a potentially life-threatening issue.
The relevance of those prohibitions diminished, and as they did, so did the importance and emphasis placed on them by religion.
--A
Confining myself to those faiths which a reasonable mind can accept, and more strictly to traditional Christianity, and when push comes to shove to Orthodox Christianity...
The first place you seem to go wrong is in seeing faith as a list of prohibitions. I would first point out that your assumption that dietary restrictions were created because the fridge hadn't been invented yet is just plain wrong. If you look at the Biblical story of Daniel, you see a man who told the king that the diet he prescribed was objectively better than the best modern diets prescribed by the best Babylonian dieticians (and refrigeration had nothing to do with it). Indeed, the purpose of such restrictions is not even limited to bodily health. But they do result in it!
Orthodox Christians are called to limited fasting twice a week throughout much of the year (we sometimes blow it, but when we do it...). One thing I have learned is that it is about the simple ability to say 'no' to oneself - and this quickly shifts from the ability to say, "I will not eat meat and dairy today" to "I will not (get drunk, ogle porn, swear...)"
I'd say that the ability to place one's spirit over bodily desires is incredibly relevant. Certainly Weight Watcher's(TM) has made millions on people's inability to do so.
In general, though, faith is far more than a list of restrictions. It is an explanation of life, and things like restrictions are merely small details which follow from that world view. It very much takes into account the human condition (and in consequence the issues and circumstances affecting our lives), only its starting point is that we are self-deceptive by nature, and that some of our desires, which we classify as 'needs', are wrong (and that some are right and welcome, and should be enjoyed without excess).
Now, let's look at "needs" (as people see them). Is it possible to have a need and not be aware of it? Of course. Can such needs be fatal? Yes. Can people confuse wants with needs? Absolutely. Now what some of these pesky religions (particularly trad. Christianity) do is claim to know what people really need, and that people have a tendency to self-deception. So one has to examine the idea of people "determining what their need is". Christianity says that we need to know the truth, whether it is pleasant or not. But it does claim to know the truth, and that that truth is quite relevant to people today. It also predicts that, because a lot of the truth is unpleasant, a lot of people won't want to hear it. What would you say to the person that a doctor diagnosed with cancer who didn't want to believe it, and decided that he just need to go on living his life?
So the first thing Christianity says is that all men are sinners and that death is caused by sin. This was pretty self-evident to most people a couple of thousand years ago - thus, pagans (and even Jews) had elaborate sacrifices to 'pay' for their sins and placate God, or the Gods. That's why the Gospels got their name - "good news". It could only be good news to people who had first recognized the diagnosis. The good news that even death could become temporary, because God Himself had come down and died, and had found His way out of the grave - something no other religion has ever said, before or since.
The trouble today is that people want to believe that they are all right. That they don't have cancer. So you have them at one minute complaining about how much evil there is in the world, the next minute they are cutting someone off in traffic and swearing at them, and then finally flopping down on the couch to watch a fantasy utopia about a future where man has solved most of his problems and can just have fun exploring the universe.
So to complete the circle, Christian religions that attempt to please the populace rather than deliver the unpleasant truth have lost the essence of what Christianity is, even if they still use the name, and it is no wonder that they experience 'adherent drain'.
(Bear in mind that I am just an Orthodox lay person with no special theological education. You can get more sophisticated answers from a priest or deacon. I may even occasionally screw something up - if so, the Church is right and I am wrong.)
Away, good on the CoE...I wonder what further splits this will precipitate.