Page Title

Text Box: But the holy and more noble standards must be taught. If what one is taught is that which comes from rap music, then one is taught to kill, that women are things which exist for the gratification of men and have no value beyond that, and that what ever one wants is rightfully theirs without regard to the rights of others. If one obtains his or her values from most modern movies and plays, then one learns that self gratification and self interest are the only matters of value, and that anything that opposes one’s self interest can be destroyed with impunity. If one is exposed to television programs such as Seinfield or Friends, or plays such as Cats, one learns that anything that pleases one-self is permissible and proper, even though it harms others or even one’s self. But if one is exposed to good movies such as Shane, or reads books by Louis L'Amour, or Zane Grey (even though Zane Gray wrote soap opera westerns and exhibited racial and social prejudice in his writings - he still maintained a clear sense of good and evil, right and wrong), or experiences good plays such as those written by Shakespeare, such a person learns good moral values. Such persons learn that good deeds are rewarded, and that evil deeds are punished. Such persons learn that self interest is only of value in-so-far-as it induces one to be pleasing to God. People who deem themselves to be sophisticated share something with people who proudly deem themselves to be criminal scum. They all ridicule virtue and anything which teaches virtue. Saint Matthew knew virtue, and he responded to it by accepting it and accepting Jesus Christ. He is an example that even those who are sophisticated and even those who are criminal scum, can change, can accept virtue, can become virtuous, can follow God. We have a fantastic form of literature which has evolved in America - the Western. It is a combination of the

Text Box: American fable, the American fairy-tale, and traditional morality plays of the middle ages. But instead of being created, it is based in actual history - in fact, not in fiction - for it is founded in the actual history of America. There have been many attempts to turn the Western, the story of cowboys, trappers, Indians, buffalo hunters, calvary, Spanish Ranchers, railroads and wagon trains, into vehicles for portraying sex and unwarranted violence, but all of these attempts meet with failure, for we hold our early Western life as though it were sacred. When we see Matt Dillon protecting Miss. Kitty in the Long Branch Saloon, or Dock Weaver taking care of a foolish boy who wanted to be a gun-slinger, or the Rifleman protecting people of a different culture, we are seeing examples of Godliness triumphing over evil. What can be more inspiring to both boys and girls, and more morally reinforcing to both men and women, than Zane Grey’s Knights of the Range, where Holly Ripple is not some brainless, helpless idiot, but a woman of values and abilities, where Renn Frayne is neither some super brave and brainless Hulk nor some self doubting whimp but a man who has done good and evil and eventually chooses good, just like Saint Matthew. The crux of this is, we learn from our environment, which includes our form of prayer and our form of entertainment. If we pray and worship in error, we will believe and live in error. And if our entertainment is based in sin, we learn to love sin. But if we worship and pray the way God has taught us, and if we choose moral entertainment, we learn to worship God, and to live in Him. Ref: Ezech. 1:10-14; Mat. 9:9-13; Ps. 36:1, 30-31 +

Text Box: RESPECT AND TOLERATION OF ERROR IS STUPID AND INTOLERABLE Do you respect someone who firmly believes the world is flat? Will you fly in an aeroplane or sail in a ship guided by a navigator who believes the world is flat? No. Do you respect someone who believes one plus one equals nine? Would you tolerate your tax expert if your tax expert believed one plus one equals nine? No. Do you respect someone who believes the heart is located in the small intestines? Do you want the physician who performs open heart surgery on you to be one who believes the heart is located in the small intestines? No. Then why do you expect true Christians, especially Orthodox Catholics, to respect and tolerate Christian heretics? Why do you expect true Christians to respect and tolerate those of other religions who try to convert us to their erroneous religion be the religion a form of Christianity or some other system of belief? Why do you expect us to respect and tolerate those who would enslave us or kill us because of our Orthodoxy? To expect an Orthodox Catholic, Roman Catholic, or any Christian, to accept, respect, or tolerate erroneous beliefs, is to expect Orthodox, Roman, and other Christians to be stupid. One must always respect the right of another to be wrong, to be in error. But resecting the right of others to be in error does not mean one must allow that error to be forced upon one’s self or to be practiced upon one’s self. It does require those in possession of the truth present the truth in as acceptable a manner as possible to those in error, but never is it proper to attempt to force one out of their error. +

Go to page