well, while on this topic, we've been looking for a protestant church with a large active sunday school for our kids. Any suggestions? We'll go any where in hudson county or manhattan near a path stop.

If you want a church with an international flavor, then you should attend Resurrection (St. Bridget, St. Mary's and St. Michael). The priests are from various countries (Africa, the Americas, and Asia. It will remind you that the Catholic is universal which is the Greek word for Catholic. If you want beauty, then attend St. Anthony's Church near Holy Rosary. By the way, St. Anthony's Church is the oldest Polish Catholic Church in the State of NJ and Holy Rosary is the oldest Italian Church in the State of NJ. While Holy Rosary and St. Mary's Church is handicapped accessible, a person in a wheel chair might feel more comfortable attending Assumption Church in Bayonne. It is a beautiful modern circular Catholic Church with plenty of parking. Enjoy the holiday.
Yvonne

Seriously.

Monastica est secretum.

publius,


down boy, relax. .apparently hit a nerve or chip.


you say you posted only in response to my "tone"?
You posted before me, dude. maybe you're inhaling too much incense.

I posted only because your all or nothing tone seems extreme for me (notice I say for me, it's cool if someone else decides to choose it).

I'm actually far from agnostic, and have nothing against Holy Rosary. Friends have gone to that church's more "mainstream" masses for years, and they're the ones who said the church's Latin Mass group is too extreme and makes them uncomfortable.

But hey, this is America. I'm all for freedom and diversity of religion (in contrast to your stand of one true creed and only one way to follow it -- or else, kapow, chaos!)

chill. for your own good.

NJLIST:

Of course, there there is a place for considering the pscyhological/biographical backkground to any thinker. Actually, I don't know too much about Sayers, having read one of her mysteries a long time ago, but I always liked the title of the Creed or Chaos. I was aware that her life was a bit irregular so that her defense of dogmatic Christianity was not self serving- actually it would work to be self accusing. I can see how an alternative view, and perhaps not without merit, would be that she is simply a hypocrite.

I got a chuckle out of the gist of your post though. Your "aha" "gotcha" tone that Holy Rosary is now out of the closet since you now know that it is not a place for music but a place for traditional, i.e. judgemental, Christianity. Your tone is what caused me to post the admittedly mildly provocative Sayers. It reminded me of an old New Yorker cartoon where a stylish couple upon leaving the Church remark to themselves; "Well, that was it, I just can't take going to church and being preached to."

Could I ask that at times you suspend your condemnation, the Christoper Hitchens,/Dawkins version of the village atheist who, attacks Christianity by mistaking the theology remembered from kindergarden?

It's amazing- even Marx and Freud had a much more realistic view of dogmatic religion, e.g., "the heart of a heartless world." The view that sees all the world's ills as the result of Christianity is just so distorted. Our civilization has many wonders about it, and arguably, most of its positive attributes can be traced to Christian concepts.

But to focus in more narrowly on the music: its appeal is immediate and universal and demands no faith. (four of the 12 regular singers are nonbelievers). An interesting quesiton, I think, is at a deeper level is there a connection between Western sacred music and Christian belief. But to charachterize the music program as a switch and bait is unfair. It is a sincere effort to produce something beautiful because, as Kant said, there are three transcendentals: the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

Consider another aspect of your typical Christian Church: charity. Would you say that Christians have soup kitchens to fool progrressives of good will into thinking that Christians really are not evil and that a church could be a cool thing to be involved in? No, like the liturgy, charity is essential to the Christian life and flows directly from dogmatic belief. Dorothy Day understood this radically when she founded the Catholic Worker. Unfortunately, her contemporary followers as with most nuns, now see themselves as mere social workers.

So, to recapitulate my original point. If prompted to search for truth, do not be satisifed with the thinest gruel, the most easility digested theology, the least demanding life. Look for truth. And when looking, expect to find people probably much more flawed (to the point of skeeving you out even) than yourself.

Hope to see you at Holy Rosary sometime.

Publius

Thanks for all the suggestions. My, this is a lively message board...

sinik -- your posting is relevant. P.o.v., past history and sub-text is important in reading of any text, and In fact, psychological insights into any author helps reader analyze the credibility of the information.

that latin mass group at holy rosary --stated mission on postings on jclist seems to be music, but the subtext is fundamentalism. Neighbor went to a gathering,got skeeved.

Publius' posting is further proof : "We have two choices?two ways?creed or chaos. There are no other options" Yikes!

Not saying that you can't choose to be fundamentalist, but hey, then put it out there in the open when "recruiting" for the latin mass choir, or inviting public to the latin masses.

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Christian morality did not seem to matter so enormously to Dorothy L Sayers to prevent her from having sex outside marriage, becoming pregnant and then using subterfuge to give the child away anonymously so she could continue her writing career.

There are some that argue she was also anti-semitic. That may not be entirely germane to the discussion but perhaps it, along with her apparently blatant hypocrisy, should be part of the lens through which we view her writings.

No harm No foul

Brooklynboy-

Sorry to have scared you and yes, you are right, a straightforward reference would have been the polite response to the original poster. I was just responding to both the sincere and polite aversion to dogma and traditional religion expressed in the ensuing discussion as well as the snarky and polemical aversion.

Pax Tecum!

PubliusIII

Whoa!!!! The above posting scared me away from church. Just a simple suggestion would have been polite. Ouch kids.

As Heights said above: "don't forget about the [ancient] Latin Mass offered every Sunday at Holy Rosary on 6th Street according to the Order of Melchisideck. There is nothing new under the sun, and, indeed, this liturgy on 6th Street would be recognizable to any citizen of the Western Roman Empire from about 100 AD onward. In addition, the Eucharistic sacrifice is offfered with sign and symbol fashioned by the creative genius of two millenia. In particular, the music, from the plain chant of the propers to the full polyphonic or symphonic masses communicate transendance. This is not a circle closed in open itself, or substituting good works for faith, this is the worship of the Lord in awe and trembling and thanksgivng. (BTW, Midnight Mass at Christmas will bring heaven to earth in a liturgy that will be more Roman than the Romans).

And yes, there is default rejection of dogma today. Is everyone going to become a Buddhist fashioned according to his own agenda? And for those who think this is something new, consider Dorothy Sayers writing in the 1940s:


It is worse than useless for Christians to talk about the importance of Christian morality unless they are prepared to take their stand upon the fundamentals of Christian theology. It is a lie to say that dogma does not matter; it matters enormously. It is fatal to let people suppose
that Christianity is only a mode of feeling; it is vitally necessary to insist that it is first and foremost a rational explanation of the universe. It is hopeless to offer Christianity as a vaguely idealistic aspiration of a simple
and consoling kind; it is, on the contrary, a hard, tough, exacting, and complex doctrine, steeped in a drastic and uncompromising realism. And it is fatal to imagine that everybody knows quite well what Christianity is and needs only a little encouragement to practice it. The brutal fact is that in this Christian country not one person in a hundred has the faintest notion what the Church teaches about God or man or society or the person of Jesus Christ.

-Dorothy Sayers in ?Creed or Chaos??

Thus begins essay number four in ?Letters to a Diminished Church.? This essay was the title piece of a collection of essays Sayers published under the same title in the late 1940s. Yes, that?s right, sixty years ago. (By the way, you may have noticed I skipped over the third essay in he book. Its title is ?Creative Mind,? and while it was interesting in its own right, I have yet to figure out exactly what the editor thought it had to do with arguing the relevance of Christian doctrine.)

And this is only the beginning. Sayers goes on to elaborate on the nature of the ninety-nine percent with a razor sharp perceptiveness and prophetic relevance to us that will take your breath away. She describes three classes of people: frank and open heathens, whose ideas about Christianity are a jumble of ?rags and tags of Bible anecdotes and clotted mythological nonsense;? ignorant Christians, whose idea of Jesus is based on a mild, gentle sentimentality combined with ?vaguely humanistic ethics? that she associates with the Arian heresy; and, finally, more-or-less instructed churchgoers, who know what the Bible says about some things, but whose battle readiness on fundamentals against a Marxian atheist or a Wellsian agnostic is comparable to ?a boy with a peashooter facing a fan-fire of machine guns.?

This is unbelievably good, relevant, challenging stuff for us to soak in. Besides Sayers wonderful skill with words, her laser focus on perhaps the most crucial issue for the church of our day make her work must reading for all of us. We have two choices?two ways?creed or chaos. There are no other options.

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I don't attend church regularly, but the times i've been to OLC (Our Lady of Chestahova - I probably spelled that wrong) have been very good. It's a standard Catholic mass, but the few times i've been, the homily was very good/down-to-earth and the pastor seems to be very welcoming of anyone who wants to attend mass and it had a pretty good community vibe. I would (will) definitely go back.

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It sounds as if there are a plethora of dogmas out there well at least in Downtown J.C. I believe Grace Church is most similar to the Unitarian that you mention. OLC seems to be the most neutral of all Catholic churches and more local community oriented where the Episcopal Church is head on to where their mission is focused. So according to the theme of this thread what you are looking for is right in your own backyard. Don't for get the Traditional Latin Mass held on Sundays at Holy Rosary on 6th St.

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Admittingly I am turned off by all organized religion so I must ask why a church? There are so many things that you could do that would be ?uplifting? and help connect you to your community. How about volunteering at a battered woman?s shelter? YWCA battered woman?s shelter.
( 201-333-5700)
How about a homeless shelter? 201-420-1070? I know that when I leave those places after volunteering for a few hours I feel great about myself, and I feel that I have given back to people that are down and out at this time.
Just a thought....

According to the archdiocese of New Jersey, if you are Catholic then you are expected to pray for the N.J. Government to oppose same sex mairage. The highest levels of the Catholic Church leadership in New Jersey are making it a point to oppose same sex mairage. So I guess they are saying that if you are gay, and you love someone, you can?t actually be legally and religiously bound to that person. Wow. What a bunch of sanctimonious #OOPS#tards. I wonder what they are going to do ten years from now when everyone has long since stopped going to Catholic mass, when nobody sends their children to religious education and nobody wants to join the clergy. When the full extent of the ongoing childhood sex abuse is fully understood. When Nuns demand representation as equals in Rome. Or how about when Jesus returns to the earth and brings them to task for their sins?

Nothing was read at OLC today. Thankfully, we were too busy celebrating the start of Advent to have it read.

I'm posting this verbatim. From todays news on the 1010WINS website: NJ Catholic Bishops Campaign Against Gay Marriage

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- Roman Catholics throughout New Jersey are being asked to pray that state lawmakers don't allow same-sex marriage.

It's part of a continuing campaign by church leaders, who anticipate a possible legislative vote before Republican Gov.-elect Chris Christie takes office Jan. 19.

The prayer suggestion is contained in a letter that bishops told priests to read or distribute this weekend. It restates Catholic teaching that marriage should only be allowed between a man and a woman and says prayer is timely "because marriage faces challenges from a society more focused on individual satisfaction than on the Gospel.''

New Jersey recognizes civil unions for same-sex couples, and outgoing Gov. Jon Corzine, a socially liberal Democrat, has said he would sign a same-sex marriage bill. But Christie, a practicing Catholic, has said he would veto it.

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my turn to say WOW!

I am not sure what I said that was negative.

The smiley was meant as a friendly smile indicating i was joking. If I was being 'hateful' or 'negative' I am sure I would have chosen a different emoticon.

This is a discussion board; a debate might have been interesting. You can, of course, come on here and say anything you like (within reason), but to me it was quite a strong and surprising statement and you shouldn't be surprised if someone reacts to it, which is their prerogative, also.

The exhortation for you to enjoy the rest of the weekend was sincere and I repeat it again.

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Wow... you must be associated with those other haters here... like the Hamilton Park scuffle...

Why so negative. What do you have to prove?

If anything direct your attention to City Hall and our sh**y taxes.

I just wanted to welcome you to come and visit us. If not that is fine too.

FG

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You can't come on here and make a statement like that and then say you don't want to have a debate!

Enjoy the rest of your Thanksgiving weekend.

Sorry, I was using odds as a verb. It is a colloquial expression which may not be familiar to everybody. I looked in my dictionary and couldn't find it

'odds' is being used in the sense of 'being at odds with'

So, 'you can't odds it' means 'you can't avoid/deny it'. In this case you cant avoid the fact that damnation is part of Christian belief unless you believe in Universal Reconciliation or Annihilationism which are minority Christian beliefs

I'm thinking of something like Mark3:29 or Luke12:10. I can't find the passages that I am thinking of so those will have to suffice.

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Well, there lies the problem. Those churches are off message. Instead of focusing on Hope, Grace, and Salvation, they've gotten lost with all the negative instead of focusing on the good.

The deed's been done, the sacrifice has been made. We're saved. The whole lot of us.

And how is keeping damnation a matter of playing the odds? Curious as to that. But I don't want to start something heated here. Just come to Grace, we're all accepting and a fun and friendly bunch.

FG

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Damnation is damnation. You can't odds it. Either you will be damned or you won't. Most Christian churches do believe in damnation.

You should definitely check out Grace Church Van Vorst on the corner of Erie and 2nd street.

I have been attending there regularly since 2004 and find the community very welcoming. Its a very diverse mix too. Straight and gay, young families, middle aged and elderly too.

And we're a growing congregation.

We also do a lot for the downtown community. We have the Breakfast Plus program to feed the hungry and homeless on Saturday and Sunday mornings. We also have the Center for Healthy Living for Seniors which offers everything from aerobics and yoga to art classes to keep our seniors active.

And we also hold various events throughout the year. Just two weeks ago we had the Champagne Gala for our 20th Annual Cathedral Arts Festival.

Services are similar to Catholic services, and holy communion is offered every Sunday. All are welcome at the table at Grace Church. Music is uplifting and spiritual - we have more of a band, then formal boring music. So its fun.

Services are at 9 and 11. The 11:00 service is the main service. There is a children's worship and childcare for younger kids at the main service.

Damnation is kept to a minimum. Hope you can join us for some Sunday soon.

Good luck in your search.

FG

Yes, they receive tax-exempt status. The Legislature must change that - not JC gov't. Not sure if you are pro- or anti- helping the poor, but several downtown churches that are shells of their former selves have a lot of that going on inside.

This may be a little off point, but has anyone noticed how many unused churches there are in this city? I'd say that there are at least 3 idle church buildings in my neighborhood alone.

Does anyone know whether these idle buildings still receive tax-free status? It makes me sick to my stomach that the shell of a church on Jersey Ave. would still qualify for that status. It's an eyesore and a drag on municipal revenue.

I find that the Episcopal Church seems the most accepting. I have never attended a service in any Episcopal congregation that preaches damnation for non believers or those who do not follow church doctrine blindly.

Sermons normally stress the philosophy of compassion, giving, perseverance, and optimism. The American Episcopal Church also includes female and gay priests that enjoy acceptance and legitimacy in the eyes of most of the church hierarchy.

I have heard only great feedback about St. Matthews Lutheran on Wayne Street, OLC and St. Peter and Paul's Church in Hoboken.

Good luck.

St. Peter and Paul's (Catholic) Church in Hoboken has weekly "young adults" mass Sundays at 7pm. I would say most of the people (maybe 80%) in attendance at these masses are in their late 20s - early 30s. Not sure if that's an option for you, but it's also a pretty good one to attend. They usually have a guy on keyboard and a chick with nice vocals who sing what you would call "newer age" church songs, as opposed to the older organ music you would commonly associate with going to church.

I am not particularly religious (some people might consider me to be agnostic, or even an atheist) but I do imbibe in the religious stuff from time to time. It is interesting to me, and I enjoy the "uplifting" aspects of it. I have attended several churches in the area, all of them Catholic, so my opinion and experience are limited to that.

Personally, the one I have enjoyed the most was OLC. The Father in charge of the congregation was really great in his sermon. I was also really struck by the great community feeling that was evident through those attending Mass. Unlike other churches in the area, it seemed to me like the OLC congregation had a lot of young people (late 20's to mid 30's) in attendance. Overall, attending Mass in OLC was a very nice experience. I walked out feeling like I was in some other city, where things were nicer and better.