Linking Christianophobia

Posting up a few links this morning on Christianophobia, which I have the feeling will be called by other names soon.

Intolerance Against Christians is a European site, which chronicles (well, obviously) Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe.

“Beauty must be understood in its original meaning: as the glow of the true and the good irradiating from every ordered state of being.” Josef Pieper – Catholic, Thomistic, Philosopher

Explaining the terminology. Basically, it’s an irrational fear of Christians, which leads to contempt and discrimination; it’s not persecution however, yet at least, which is systemic.

An online handbook called Exiting a Dead End Road, for purchese, which details how to respond to anti-Christian rhetoric in conversations or discourse.

Kairos PUblishing

A typical story, or case, is: Police Visited Christian Cafe for Display of Bible Passages in which the article is presented, with links to the original source material via several reporting outlets.

The
Christian Institute’s site is packed with articles on Christian issues.

All of this led to a publishing house,

Kairos Publishing, which bills itself as a platform for crucial ideas, and which publishes ‘Exiting a Dead End Road’, mentioned above in the Christian discrimination in Europe site.

And speaking of philosophy, not that any one was of course, I came across a quote by
Josef Pieper, who is always good to read.

A brief bio on Peiper

Josef Pieper was born on May 4th, 1904, in the small Westphalian village of Elte, Germany. At that time not even a local train connected the isolated spot in the middle of the heath with other towns of Westphalia; whoever wanted to reach the next station had to cross a river in a small ferry-boat. Pieper’s father was the only teacher at the only school of this village. Josef Pieper went to the Gymnasium Paulinum in Münster, one of the oldest German schools, which has existed for more than eleven hundred years. His son took up that tradition as a pupil of that old institution, the buildings of which, however, were completely destroyed during World War II.

A teacher at the Gymnasium Paulinum, a priest, convinced Pieper to read the works of Thomas Aquinas. “At that time,” Pieper wrote, “I was foolishly fond of Kierkegaard, whom we used to devour, my friends and I, naturally without quite understanding him; and it was this paternal friend and teacher, who directed me – with a sort of violent, ironical, and humorous intensity – to St. Thomas’ Commentary to the Prologue of St. John’s Gospel. Being a youngster of eighteen, I set about reading this work and, in fact, finished it, of course, again without understanding it perfectly. But from that moment the work of St. Thomas has accompanied me through life.” Years later he translated this Commentary to the Prologue of St. John’s Gospel into German.

It’s back to Church for me, but these are good sites to look through at some point.

The Rev. Kenneth Allen