@MonicaCellio I VTC'd, better fit for C.SE as it involves practices specific to the Christian faith and we are not a Christian site

@MonicaCellio had he asked if a specific text could be interpreted this way I'd say that would be a good fit, but this is looking for a 'big picture' systematic theological response that takes multiple scriptures into account

@MonicaCellio that falls into the realm of doctrine IMHO

@Dan thanks for the reality check. I suggested in a comment that he could rework it to start from a text, but in the meantime I agree we should close it. He can edit it or move it there, but in the meantime let's not invite answers.

@MonicaCellio also, I'll publicly point out that I flagged that message as it appeared to me to be a thinly veiled statement about my eternal destiny, which violates the principle of 'be nice' - generally I don't care, but I believe Theodore has shown a pattern of being argumentative and insulting users based upon their beliefs

@Dan yeah, once I went back and looked at it, I agree with that flag. (I wasn't here at the time.) Theodore puzzles me; I don't understand most of what he says, but it's not the usual way in which people aren't understandable. I've tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it's something about the way he writes, but as I've seen more I've come to question that.

@MonicaCellio so did I initially

@MonicaCellio not to mention, challenging an answer of mine where I essentially assert nothing (I conceded both multiple interpretive options)

I honestly don't think he understood (if he even read) my answer

@Dan which one was this?

@MonicaCellio starting here

@Dan oh. That doesn't seem to follow from what you wrote, no.

@MonicaCellio nope, not at all

in fact, I have no clue what he means

But if you read the resulting conversation, based on my knowledge of Christianese and various Protestant traditions, I'm pretty sure he's convinced we're all enemies of the Gospel and he is the only one who is right... about anything.

@Dan there's a lot of that going around. This was in response to him suggesting that I email him for an explanation of something:

@MonicaCellio a point which I actually conceded to an extent, by explaining that we are not a Christian site and thus have no interest in being 'right.' We just want to understand the texts from an academic perspective

@Dan yeah, I think he came in thinking this was a Christian site. But at least two of us have told him otherwise now.

@MonicaCellio yup. My only remaining tools for this user are flags, DVs, and VTCs - unless I see radical improvement

@MonicaCellio even if it was, his attitude still would not be appreciated

@Dan yeah, there are better and worse ways to disagree with people. :-(

@Dan we need you to get a little more rep so you have VtD in your toolkit.

@MonicaCellio how much would I need?

@Dan 4k is the magic number (for a beta site, which we'll be for a long time I expect). You're close. You've posted some excellent answers and if more people were voting in general you'd be there. So soon, I hope.

@MonicaCellio yeah, half my answers half less than 5 votes and are not accepted. Standard fare for this site so rank is slow going

If rep is sole motivation for users, they will lose motivation here :P

@Dan indeed. I've been going through a bout of "is it worth it?" lately because I'm not seeing many votes either. I think it's general, not personal, but it's always hard to tell.

My motivation is no longer seeing bullcrap answers loaded with eisegesis when I search Google to understand a text :)

Sadly, with the exception of a few people, even that motivation isn't being realized here

@Dan indeed. I answer the questions where I think I can add something useful, where I think at least one person who I care about might benefit, and go from there. ("Person I care about" can include random Googlers, of course. But I'm less inclined to answer low-value questions than I once was.)

@MonicaCellio so I feel ya

@Dan yeah, that's true -- if a question has answers but they're all crap, that can motivate me.

@MonicaCellio and sometimes I'm tempted to use questions asked here as fodder for my own pursuits and research interests - but not waste my breath sharing the answers here because I fear it will not be appreciated anyways

@Dan that makes me sad but I totally understand.

I am removing that link once you see it

@Dan oh cool! (Got it.) Are you submitting that somewhere?

@MonicaCellio possibly, but not in its current stage. It is presently in early stages of development. Too many unsupported claims, not enough lit review yet, some undeveloped lines of thought

sufficient for here

But not for where I may eventually submit that

I would need to remove all first person colloquial language also

@Dan yeah, I obviously haven't read it all yet. :-) But I do hope you find a suitable venue for what that grows into. If any SE site helps you pursue a personal interest, then I say that's a win!

@MonicaCellio don't bother reading it haha - I was just giving an example. Trust me that it is not completed thought yet :P

@Dan ok, ok. :-)

@MonicaCellio I have never even submitted to a theological journal yet

Only tech journals and conference proceedings (IEEE, ACM, etc.)

@Dan I have my name on only one conference paper (technical), and in the thank-yous of one tech book. Most companies I've worked for aren't really into publishing (especially if they think it would give away Important Secrets, ha), and I've never been an academic.

@MonicaCellio I never intended to be an academic, but I felt it was one of the only avenues to challenge the status quo and get away with it :P

@Dan more power to you. :-)

And working in the public sector allows me to publish most anything so long as it's unclassified

Which even then is funny because a majority of stuff that's 'classified' exists in some form or the other in the private sector. Clearance levels are often arbitrary

@Dan I got a security clearance only a couple years ago (employer made me), but it hasn't changed anything for me. (I've never needed it.) My professional life has been filled with "trade secrets" and "confidential" that have nothing to do with actual security. Except for the couple times I worked on university projects, but I wasn't there long enough and deeply enough for publications. Oh well; it wasn't a strong desire or anything, just a path not taken that I sometimes wonder about.

@MonicaCellio as is often the case, curiosity drives us to places that look exciting. Once there, you go: "this is it?"

tech is tech in many respects

whether I'm writing a script to parse documents to aid an accountant or to catch an embezzler, it's the same script

@Dan yup. It's one of the reasons I don't get too sad that I didn't go down the rabbinic path; a lot of things appeal about it, but it would be a ton of work and there's certainly risk of finding out it's not what it looked like, y'know? If I make that kind of mistake with a tech direction, which is just a job, then so be it, but to risk making it with something so fundamental as my religion... eek.

Wow, that was kind of incoherent. Sorry. :-)

@MonicaCellio I actually related to it quite well (coming from a pre-seminary program dropout)

@Dan ok, glad you followed that. :-)

@MonicaCellio and after having served as a chaplain's assistant in the Army - I'm glad I didn't go that route. I wasn't ready (I'm still not, nor may I ever be)

I have a ton of respect for my priest - but I don't envy him ;)

@Dan it sounds like that was an enlightening experience, yes. (I read your chat about that a few days ago.)

@MonicaCellio it was, although I would never voluntarily repeat it

@Dan As a lay leader in my congregation I get a tiny window into my rabbi's world, and yeah, it's a big job. I also got that sense from the folks at the rabbinic schools I interviewed.

As a regular congregant I am free to not engage with situations I don't really want to deal with, but a leader does not have that option.

@MonicaCellio bingo - it requires incredible patience

And maturity

@Dan yes. I don't know if this is part of a larger trend (I kind of suspect so), but we're seeing more second-career rabbis than we used to. (I would have been one of those, had it happened.) Taking folks just out of undergrad, dropping them into seminary, and then sending them out to pastoral-care roles has probably always been a little challenging.

@MonicaCellio even moreso when those same undergrads who went to seminary immediately go to combat zones

Which is a majority of Protestant chaplains it seems

I have a friend and former coworker, a techie, who gave that up to become a Catholic priest. It was his ordination that I was talking about a few days ago. I got the impression from him that the RC church is seeing more older students now than they used to.

@Dan oh yes. The military is a completely different world from anything else, and how folks that young can not only live in that world but becomes leaders in it sometimes mystifies me.

@Dan oh wow, I didn't realize. I guess I always assumed that military chaplains were a relatively small proportion, regardless of the religion.

@MonicaCellio they started waiving the requirement of 3 years parish experience for many under Bush administration due to a shortage

But I am pretty sure now they are very selective for Protestant Chaplains

But when it comes to priest, rabbis, and imams, they are in desperate need and will waive most anything

@Dan our (former) associate rabbi became a chaplain during that time. He had some arrangement where he served part-time and stayed in North America, as deployment would have interfered with his full-time job. But he was spending a lot of weekends and stray weeks at various bases. He found it very fulfilling. He was around 40 when he started, not someone fresh out of school still trying to figure everything out.

@MonicaCellio very cool - and it goes to show how desperately they need Rabbis

Orthodox priests are only in demand during special services/feasts/holidays, because Orthodox Christians in the Army (and most elsewhere) don't really attend church the rest of the year :P

@Dan yeah, they seem to be pretty rare. He talked about going to an orientation session (I think) for new chaplains -- 50 guys, 49 Christians and him. No imams.

But Catholic priests are desired everywhere

@MonicaCellio Imams are rarest - but not totally due to a shortage in the nation. The educational requirement impedes many (72+ graduate hours in divinity and an ecclesiastical endorsement recognized by DoD)

@Dan three hours on an otherwise-free Sunday is too much? :-) (I mean, when you get so little free time to begin with... I did notice that you said "in the Army", not something more general.)

@Dan to what extent do Muslims do seminaries, as opposed to more individual study that's harder to get credentialed?

Protestants have formed so many endorsing agencies to the point where you can practically get some to endorse you just by sending in membership dues every year. But it is harder for the rest of us who have actual authoritative bodies and may require extensive training and experience beyond the military requirements as well as psychological and other evaluation)

@MonicaCellio they often go to Christian divinity programs that have become universalist such as the Lutheran Seminary in Chicago and most Ivy League schools

The issue then becomes that these imams who meet the educational requirements are often too liberal for the ecclesiastic endorsing agencies' standards

so they run into issues

Or they get folks with degrees overseas that may not be recognized here

Or they are not US citizens and cannot obtain a security clearance, etc.

That does sound challenging in multiple ways, yes.

@MonicaCellio Orthodox Christian participation in the faith is often abysmal

you can thank a hundred or so years of communism for some of that, and continued Muslim persecution

Although Western culture in general is somewhat to blame

Most Christians in Muslim countries are Orthodox

In fact, some have called the last century the Orthodox Holocaust

You may not realize this, but over 50 million Orthodox Christians have been killed for their faith in the last century

The Muslim persecution I read about in the news sounds pretty grim and is presumably only a small part of it. Communism and western culture, while very different from each other, seem to have had similar effects on religion.

@Dan whoa! I did not know that. shudder

Mostly communists and Muslims, I assume?

@MonicaCellio in fact, while about 6 million Jews were killed in the Nazi Holocaust, almost 12.5 million (primarily Orthodox) Slavs were killed in it

but this was moreso because Germany wanted their land/territory

serfes.org/orthodox/memoryof.htm

@Dan yeah, lots of people don't seem to realize just how widespread the Nazi horrors were. The 6 million Jews get a lot of attention because that was a third of the world population, but there were lots of other victims and my co-religionists need to be reminded of that from time to time.

Indeed

I'm going to have to drop off in a few minutes (it's late here), but let's pick this up again later.

@Dan yep. :-(

@MonicaCellio no prob

This is also why there is sometimes hard feelings of Orthodox towards Protestants

Protestants like to say, "we are brothers in Christ" and love to include our persecuted in their stats and figures - but as soon as Russia opens the doors to Christian missionaries, what happens?

Do they support the existing priests and churches in rebuilding? No, they send Protestant missionaries to convert them away from Orthodoxy, under the pretense of coming to help their brothers in Christ

A lot of hard feelings there

@Dan I can understand that. :-(

Dropping off now; g'night!

@MonicaCellio k, nite!

Could we get a couple more close votes on this? In its current form it's off-topic for us (as noted in comments), but that hasn't stopped one answer so far, and it's really not the kind of answer we want. I don't know if the answer is to change the question or migrate it, but let's do something please?

@Dan thank you for that link. I knew about the Armenian genocide (one hopes everybody does by now) but hadn't made the connection specifically to Orthodox Christians, so wasn't thinking about that when you brought up persecution. Similarly for Russia/Ukraine persecution. That link was educational and chilling.