I am, likewise, touched by your eirenic attitude and your understanding.
I shall not be posting for the next few days as I have to be away from home, but I could not leave off without saying that if there were more people with your willingness to listen to what others really believe, and, whilst staying firm in their own beliefs, to engage in constructive dialogue, then the world would be a better place for it.
As Christians we have a special commission from Our Lord. However much we each of us know that Our Church is THE Church, we do well to recognise that in conversing each with the other, we owe a duty in this world to show those who have no belief, that their caricatures of Christians are incorrect. We are not unthinking bigots. Where we think a brother or sister in error, we have, of course, a duty to try to help them; but that is never done by shouting or by trying to overbear them.
When I look at the Coptic Church and its witness as the suffering servant, I see the Church of the blood of the martyrs, which despite every persecution, has survived and prospered in His name. That quiet and courageous witness is worth more than all the noisy evangelising that often goes on elsewhere.
Much the same was true of people like Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II; the witness they made to the world of how the Christian life should be lived did more to raise the reputation of the Roman Catholic Church in non-Catholic circles than any number of arguments over theology.
Right belief and right worship matter deeply; but so too does right behaviour. One of the many good things about this site is the way it bears a witness to the way the Coptic Church is in this sinful world; a spiritual hospital where all who wish may receive the healing we all need. And this world is not so free of suffering that those who wish to see it relieved will disdain other great hospitals.
And now, for a few days, a period of silence from me.
Comments
I am, likewise, touched by your eirenic attitude and your understanding.
I shall not be posting for the next few days as I have to be away from home, but I could not leave off without saying that if there were more people with your willingness to listen to what others really believe, and, whilst staying firm in their own beliefs, to engage in constructive dialogue, then the world would be a better place for it.
As Christians we have a special commission from Our Lord. However much we each of us know that Our Church is THE Church, we do well to recognise that in conversing each with the other, we owe a duty in this world to show those who have no belief, that their caricatures of Christians are incorrect. We are not unthinking bigots. Where we think a brother or sister in error, we have, of course, a duty to try to help them; but that is never done by shouting or by trying to overbear them.
When I look at the Coptic Church and its witness as the suffering servant, I see the Church of the blood of the martyrs, which despite every persecution, has survived and prospered in His name. That quiet and courageous witness is worth more than all the noisy evangelising that often goes on elsewhere.
Much the same was true of people like Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II; the witness they made to the world of how the Christian life should be lived did more to raise the reputation of the Roman Catholic Church in non-Catholic circles than any number of arguments over theology.
Right belief and right worship matter deeply; but so too does right behaviour. One of the many good things about this site is the way it bears a witness to the way the Coptic Church is in this sinful world; a spiritual hospital where all who wish may receive the healing we all need. And this world is not so free of suffering that those who wish to see it relieved will disdain other great hospitals.
And now, for a few days, a period of silence from me.
In Christ,
Anglian