Disqus - Latest Comments for frjohnwhiteford

Re: Information And The Cultural Revolution | The American Conservative

frjohnwhiteford — Sat, 09 Jan 2021 14:05:22 -0000

I think you make many important points here, but if what you say about the cultural revolution being waged by 4th generational warfare is true, why do you think the idea that there was election fraud is so crazy?

Re: How to Study Scripture From an Orthodox Perspective

frjohnwhiteford — Thu, 28 Nov 2019 22:03:54 -0000

https://www.youtube.com/cha...

Re: Orthodoxy And Homosexuality | The American Conservative

frjohnwhiteford — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 21:03:21 -0000

Spot on. I think they generally assume that if they make a statement once, they have covered the subject. This is an issue that requires repetition, at this point in our history.

Re: How to Study Scripture From an Orthodox Perspective

frjohnwhiteford — Sat, 22 Jun 2019 11:01:34 -0000

By the way, one source Dr Mary Ford cites is "Books in the Graeco-Roman World and in the New Testament," by C H Roberts, Cambridge University Press.

Re: How to Study Scripture From an Orthodox Perspective

frjohnwhiteford — Sat, 22 Jun 2019 08:26:02 -0000

I responded to your public rebuke of my article.

The three council's you cited were heretical papist councils that carry absolutely no weight.

As I recall, my parish was one of the 9 that did not have a Bible study on their service schedule, but I in fact do conduct a weekly Bible Study, which can be listened to on YouTube. I would challenge you to find the error expressed in any of the videos now posted.

Dr. Mary Ford's book is easily available, and is itself as good as any source I have been presented by you on the question of the literacy of Christians in the Roman empire.

Re: How to Study Scripture From an Orthodox Perspective

frjohnwhiteford — Sat, 22 Jun 2019 00:45:47 -0000

You evidently believe I am teaching an error or you wouldn't be trying to correct me in public. Take it to Archbishop Peter and see what he says.

You have zero saints or Fathers advancing your position I have given you several Dr. Mary Ford gives a lot more. She also traces the decline in private Bible study in the West, and explains why it happened there and not in the east.

Any research on the literacy rated of the Roman empire are obviously not based on actual studies of the population, but on inferences from what evidence we do have. She does reference her sources. Read her book.

She speaks about the massive scale of the production of manuscripts in the Roman empire, which obviously was for a much wider audience than clergy and monastics.

After the fall of Rome, this declined greatly, and monasteries turned their energy to the production of elaborately illuminated manuscripts, far fewer in number. This declined did not happen in the east until the Turkish period.

So the fact that what evidence we do have is that the Fathers encouraged private Bible study, and you have zero evidence of any contrary opinions, you haven't got a leg to stand on.

Re: How to Study Scripture From an Orthodox Perspective

frjohnwhiteford — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 20:43:36 -0000

The book by Dr. Mary Ford cites quite a few more Fathers who encouraged private Bible study, and she argues that literacy in the Roman empire was a lot more literate than you have conceded. And while you may think you know better than the Fathers who encouraged people to read the Scriptures privately, can you cite one or two that agreed with you, and discouraged private Bible study?

And if you believe I am teaching an error here, you have a duty to inform our bishop. Please do so, and let me know what he tells you.

Re: How to Study Scripture From an Orthodox Perspective

frjohnwhiteford — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 12:24:47 -0000

Your objections fly in the face of countless Fathers who encouraged people to study the Scriptures on their own. Fr. Mary Ford's book cites quite a few of them. The private study Scripture never ceased in the Orthodox Church, as I have demonstrated to you privately. Witness for example the classic text The Way of a Pilgrim, and The Arena, two 19th century Russian texts that encourage it. Note also the publication of the Synodal Translation of the Bible into Russian authorized by St. Philaret of Moscow.

Now if you believe I am teaching error, feel free to write our Archbishop on the matter.

Re: How to Study Scripture From an Orthodox Perspective

frjohnwhiteford — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 09:12:09 -0000

I would encourage you to read the book "The Soul's Longing", by Dr. Mary Ford of St. Tikhon's seminary, which demonstrates that the private study of the Bible was widely encouraged in the Orthodox Church in the first millennium. It ceased to be so in the west after the fall of Time and the general decline in literacy there, but not in the east.

Re: The Orthodox Nationalist: A Statement Concerning the Necessity of Racism – TON 030718 - Radio Aryan

frjohnwhiteford — Thu, 08 Mar 2018 21:04:29 -0000

Is that you in the first picture? https://itsgoingdown.org/na...

Re: Christian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things

frjohnwhiteford — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 23:39:54 -0000

You're obviously not interested in a serious discussion here. My citation of sources has never been part of this discussion. The criticism was of an article I linked. You made repeated claims that no scholar ever cites their own works in an effort to criticize that article. I pointed out that you did not know what you are talking about. I demonstrated this from Bart Ehrman and Bruce Metzger doing exactly what you said scholars do not do, in text published by Oxford University, and now you are just trying to kick up dust to cover up the fact that you have been proven to be wrong. Why not just admit your error, and move on?

Re: When Evangelicals Become Useful Idiots for Islamism

frjohnwhiteford — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 22:00:31 -0000

You will likely never catch me defending James White again, but what he was doing was hardly worthy of condemnation. He was clear in his disagreements, and was simply trying to engage Muslims with the Christian Gospel, as he understands it. It is not fair to pretend that he was squishy about Islam. He never suggested that he could reconcile Christianity with Islam, or that they could hash out their disagreements and meet in the middle.

Re: Christian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things

frjohnwhiteford — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 20:44:36 -0000

Bart Ehrman and Bruce Metzger referenced themselves in precisely the way you objected to. They have written texts that went into greater detail on a point, and referred their readers to those texts.

Re: Christian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things

frjohnwhiteford — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 18:45:37 -0000

I don't think you know what you are talking about. I grabbed a handy text off the bookshelf, "The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration," by Bruce Metzger and Bart Ehrman, and only had to go to page 18 to find the first footnote in which a text by Bart Erhman was cited as a reference, and to p. 39 to find one that cited Bruce Metzger as a source. The is a text published by Oxford University.

Re: Christian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things

frjohnwhiteford — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 07:33:34 -0000

Nonsense. I read scholarly writings all of the time, in which authors will refer to other books or articles that they have written which elaborate on a point they are referencing. There is nothing wrong with the practice.

Re: Christian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things

frjohnwhiteford — Sun, 25 Jun 2017 08:57:18 -0000

I have supported my claim, there is not only the coincidence of history, but the direct cause and effect relationship of government programs that encouraged broken homes resulting in a proliferation of such homes, and it is broken homes that cause long term poverty. If you don't want to be poor, graduate from high school and don't have children until you are married. If you do those simple things, it is highly unlikely that you will be poor.

Re: Christian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things

frjohnwhiteford — Sun, 25 Jun 2017 06:47:23 -0000

You obviously didn't read the article very closely, because it was written by a woman, and not a man, and the first reference is to a book that lays out the stats on the subject:

https://www.amazon.com/Who-...

And authors often refer to their own works when those works expand on a point they don't wish to rehash in a new article. This would only be a problem if those articles did not provide substantiation for those points.

Re: Christian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things

frjohnwhiteford — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 23:11:47 -0000

What other changes do you suppose could account for the breakdown of the family? The family was generally doing fine through the Civil War, Industrialization, World War I, the great depression, World War II, the Korean War, and then came the great society, and the family begins to fall apart... coincidentally with government programs that subsidize families that have fallen apart, and made having an intact family optional for the first time in the history of the world. Worse than world war and economical upheaval... government welfare.

Re: Christian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things

frjohnwhiteford — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 22:24:23 -0000

The connection is obvious. They coincide historically, and the fact that welfare programs mostly required a family to be broken as a basis for eligibility (and often still do, practically speaking) is not just coincidental -- there is a direct cause and effect relationship.

Re: Christian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things

frjohnwhiteford — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 22:09:32 -0000

The article has hyperlinks to the sources that stand behind their statements in that article.

Re: Christian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things

frjohnwhiteford — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 22:07:48 -0000

It was far easier to get guns then, and as I said, you could buy a fully automatic tommy gun. The big difference between then and now is that families were mostly intact, and government welfare made having an intact family optional. In every other respect, the poor were far more disadvantaged then than they are now.

Re: Christian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things

frjohnwhiteford — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 17:05:35 -0000

The only problem with you logic is that the poor are far wealthier today than they were during the great depression, and yet poor areas were not shooting galleries. You could even buy fully automatic machine guns without license, and yet mass shootings were so rare that the St. Valentine's day massacre was thought worthy of an entry in the limited space of the printed encyclopedias of the pre-internet age, well into the 1980's.

Re: Christian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things

frjohnwhiteford — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 14:30:53 -0000

Anyone in need, needs help. The question is should you help them in a way that keeps them in need or should you help them in a way that get's them out of the circumstance in which they are in need. I favor the latter approach.

Re: Christian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things

frjohnwhiteford — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 13:56:07 -0000

I have actually been trying to help poor people for most of my life, and my comments are based on the reality I see, and that reality is measurable:

Here are statistic, and you will note that the rise in illegitimacy tracks with the rise in government welfare programs that subsidize that behavior:

https://www.brookings.edu/r...

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/da...

https://phys.org/news/2010-...

Re: Christian: You Are Upset About the Wrong Things

frjohnwhiteford — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 13:54:19 -0000

Here are statistic, and you will note that the rise in illegitimacy tracks with the rise in government welfare programs that subsidize that behavior:

https://www.brookings.edu/r...

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/da...

https://phys.org/news/2010-...