Mr Beast Helps to Build Wells in Africa

[Катехон]

"Turn the other cheek," comes to mind when having academic or theological debates.

There should be no place for sentimentality in doctrinary questions. The sword that Christ carries on some icons is the sword of truth.

Sentimentality in doctrinal matters leads only to heresy, apostasy and spiritual death. And why? We are called to love and pity the sinner, not the sin or falsehood.
The Apostles and Holy Fathers never did this, instead they fraternally corrected at first, then admonished with letters and epistles, and finally disciplined or excommunicated. The canons are wery clear in this regard.

The church does not know "tolerance" as we understand it today, or the so-called "interconfessional dialogue". This is an ecumenist and luciferian contraption. The only choice is not to engage in polemics of this kind if we are not willing to go all the way.
"Evil preaches tolerance until it is dominant, then it tries to silence good".
-Archbishop Charles J. Chaput

Just saying for the record. No axe to grind.

 

[cognitive dissonance 73]

Ethiopians having wells because they are Christian doesn't make much sense. There are plenty of non-Christian people in Morocco, Libya, Egypt, etc. who have highly advanced societies (well Libya did before Murica destroyed it). Also if you visit almost any other country in Africa, they cannot stand the Ethiopians. I've never been to Ethiopia so I can't comment directly on their society (other than observing that they are one of the most active immigrant communities on the continent, which begs the question if it's so great why are they leaving), but it's pretty well known they are rather universally disliked and I listened to multiple ethnicities in South Africa complain about them openly. Also wasn't Ethiopia the original "poverty country" with Christine Sommors or whatever her name was doing tv commercials for?

Of course pointing to a religious nation and observing good things about it in no way explains how those good things came about. And Rwanda, Congo, and Angola make up some of the most Christian countries in Africa, while also very dangerous and unstable ones.

Christ blessing people economically in this life because of their faith is not biblical, and part of the gross wealth based Joel Osteen Christianity megachurch nonsense. Christianity is for your soul, not your pocketbook, and multiple efforts to change the plight of Africans, from economic payouts, to education, to infrastructure, to government (Liberia famously has the US constitution) have failed in making much of a change in outcomes. Perhaps the best example is Haiti vs the Domnican Republic where the same island has two totally different outcomes because one half murdered all their French colonists and the other had the "benefits" of colonialism.

This of course is not an argument for colonialism, but NOT realizing these differences is what true racism is; it's like thinking a woman can do all the things a man can, and then both are disappointed at the outcome, or expecting your toddler to know how to operate a gas stove and allowing himself to singe off his fingers. Failure to recognize race realism is the most racist (not to mention dangerous) thing our society has done for hundreds of years.

Of course, intelligence is overrated, and it says quite a bit about the dangers of rule by the intellectual that most Africans (certainly not unique to Ethiopia) can easily see through the social propaganda that Americans so readily absorb.

Also if you visit almost any other country in Africa, they cannot stand the Ethiopians. I've never been to Ethiopia so I can't comment directly on their society (other than observing that they are one of the most active immigrant communities on the continent, which beg

As someone who has been to Ethiopia (and a number of other countries in Africa) let me object to your statement.
Ethiopians don't really migrate to other African countries (those are the Nigerians you are speaking of). if they migrate, they enarly always head to North America or Western Europe. (While Nigerians migrate to pretty much to any country that is careless enough to let them in).
I have not heard anyone complaining about Ethiopians. Some people say they are reserved - which simply means they rarely marry out - and when they do - they marry Europeans or Asians, not other Africans.
As someone who visited two of the holy sites in Ethiopia (one of them was Lalibela) I can confirm that there is something special, spiritually uplifting about the place that only those who have visited it would know.
(For context , I am nominal Catholic but the Ethiopian orthodox Church is only one I ever considered converting to).

 

[Samseau]

There should be no place for sentimentality in doctrinary questions. The sword that Christ carries on some icons is the sword of truth.

Sentimentality in doctrinal matters leads only to heresy, apostasy and spiritual death. And why? We are called to love and pity the sinner, not the sin or falsehood.
The Apostles and Holy Fathers never did this, instead they fraternally corrected at first, then admonished with letters and epistles, and finally disciplined or excommunicated. The canons are wery clear in this regard.

The church does not know "tolerance" as we understand it today, or the so-called "interconfessional dialogue". This is an ecumenist and luciferian contraption. The only choice is not to engage in polemics of this kind if we are not willing to go all the way.
"Evil preaches tolerance until it is dominant, then it tries to silence good".
-Archbishop Charles J. Chaput

Just saying for the record. No axe to grind.

Sentimentality and patience are two very different things. I hold no sentiments towards heresy, I offer patience, gentleness, and understanding to those in error. Which is what Christ taught, "21 Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.[a] (Mt. 18)

Patience, turning the other cheek, and avoiding judging those in error IS doctrine. Anyone who says otherwise is in fact in heresy.

So, back on topic, it is wrong to judge the Ethopian church for their schism, as their intent for doing so is not based on ill will, patiently trying to bring them back into the Church is the right way, etc. Moreover, the Ethopian Church is, hands-down, one of the most functional parts of Africa for thousands of years.

Contrary to Rax's take:

There are plenty of non-Christian people in Morocco, Libya, Egypt, etc. who have highly advanced societies (well Libya did before Murica destroyed it).

Those aren't truly Black countries. Northern Africa is mostly Brown Islamic societies that were founded by White Christian societies once upon a time. Ethiopia, as well as other sub-Sahara countries, started Black and remain Black.

Also if you visit almost any other country in Africa, they cannot stand the Ethiopians. I've never been to Ethiopia so I can't comment directly on their society (other than observing that they are one of the most active immigrant communities on the continent, which begs the question if it's so great why are they leaving), but it's pretty well known they are rather universally disliked and I listened to multiple ethnicities in South Africa complain about them openly. Also wasn't Ethiopia the original "poverty country" with Christine Sommors or whatever her name was doing tv commercials for?

This is the Islamic part of Ethiopia, which no one likes especially the Orthodox Ethiopians.

Of course pointing to a religious nation and observing good things about it in no way explains how those good things came about. And Rwanda, Congo, and Angola make up some of the most Christian countries in Africa, while also very dangerous and unstable ones.

Yes it explains it perfectly, through the Holy power of Christ are people's transformed across successive generations. Rwanda, Congo, etc. have not been Christian long enough to have made any tangible effect, and, none of those places are Orthodox which means they receive an imperfect form of Christianity further slowing down the civilizing effects of Christendom.

Christ blessing people economically in this life because of their faith is not biblical

False, it's directly in the Lord's prayer.

Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.

See the "on earth" part? God's will be done ON EARTH as it is in heaven. Thus the more Christian and holy we make earth, the more we can expect it to resemble God's will as it is in heaven.

And I never argued that Ethiopia is merely more economically advanced, but that it is more functional across every level, including economics.

Protestants get it wrong because they interpret this passage as being an individual prophecy, whereas Christ taught God sees us as a flock of Neighbors. Thus Christian improvement occurs across entire communities, cities, and civilizations, not some guy praying to Jesus and getting his $$$.

Thus, the Ethiopians adopted Christ as their King 2000 years ago, and they are leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of Africa today as a result. Which is why you'll never see Mr. Beast go to Orthodox Ethiopia, it would destroy the normie narrative of Blacks being dysfunctional messes.

 

[Катехон]

Patience, turning the other cheek

Again, there is no place for "turning the other cheek" in doctrinal matters. We don't judge those in error, we pity them and judge their falsehoods and errors. Otherwise we run the risk of being poisoned by their delusions. Look where the evangelical sentimentalist interpretation (essential misunderstanding) of those concepts has taken the West.

If you go consistently in that direction then you must be tolerant towards LGBT and "gay marriage" because "turn the other cheek, love and let love, we are all children of God". That's where such a misunderstanding leads. We can be mild mannered, or lenient when applicable. This doesn't mean that we should compromise.

"Whoever does not worship the Crucified is to be anathema and ranked with the God-slaughterers." –St. Gregory Nazianzen, Letter 101.5

"In fact, what would "non-resistance" mean, in the sense of the absence of any resistance? This would mean accepting evil, letting it in and giving it freedom, scope and power. (...) This is the spiritual law: the non-resistor to evil is absorbed by it and becomes possessed."
"Sentimentality under the slogan of "non-resistance to evil by force" leads to complete failure to resist evil, to spiritual desertion, betrayal, complicity and self-disintegration." –Ivan A. Ilyin, "On resistance to evil by force"
www. amazon. com/Resistance-Evil-Force-Ivan-Ilyin/dp/1726472043

avoiding judging those in error IS doctrine.

"Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires."
–2 Timothy 4

"Judge not" means "you have not walked in his shoes", "you were not born into his circumstances", "he/she is also a child of God" and "you do not know the inner man". It does not mean "don't tell the truth so as not to offend someone". That is political correctness, not orthodoxy. Pointing out a mistake and correcting it is not "judging", it is reasoning.

To judge someone's actions, or falsehoods, is not to judge, or condemn, that person. That is a false, protestant, sentimentalist context. We are called to love and pity the sinner and to oppose his sin and error. I do pitty the sinner. So when I point out a falsehood, I'm not getting into what kind of person is doing it or why they're doing it. I do not judge, I am impartial. I oppose falsehoods, not people.

As far as doctrinal matters are concerned, we Orthodox do not follow personal opinions and interpretations like Protestants, we follow the general consensus of the Holy Church. So see what the canons and Holy Fathers have to say about heresy and unrepentant heretics. Following the canon is not "judging".

"Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?" –2 Corinthians 6:14

The Apostolic Canons and the canons of the Ecumenical Councils forbid us to even pray with schismatics and heretics, be it in private or in Church, as they forbid us, under the penalty of defrockment and excommunication, to permit them to function as clergymen.

it is wrong to judge the Ethopian church for their schism

Regarding the Ethiopian Monophysites: As I said before, I do not "judge" them. I respect them. And I simply know they are in heresy. Perhaps you believe in a "plurality of churches.". From the theanthropic, Orthodox point of view, there is NO such thing, and it cannot be. There is only one Church - the Body of Christ, and the Coptic Monophysites (unfortunately) are not part of it. At least not for now.
--
"The Church’s unity is based and grounded upon Christ. The Church is one because it is the one body of the one Christ. Christ’s body represents a perfect holy unity. (...) The unity of the Church does not exist only on the invisible, heavenly, divine level, for we do not divorce the divine and human aspects of the Church in this way. The Church in heaven and on earth, in eternity and history (...) The schisms and divisions we witness do not penetrate the unified essence of the Church (...) The Church, if it is inherently and essentially one, cannot be divided. Therefore, there are no divisions within the Church, only divisions from the Church"

"Ecumenism is the common name for the pseudo-Christianity of the pseudo-Churches of Western Europe. Within it is the heart of European humanism, with Papism as its head. All of pseudo-Christianity, all of those pseudo-Churches, are nothing more than one heresy after another. Their common evangelical name is: Pan-heresy. Why? This is because through the course of history various heresies denied or deformed certain aspects of the God-man and Lord Jesus Christ; these European heresies remove Him altogether and put European man in His place. In this there is no essential difference between Papism, Protestantism, Ecumenism, and other heresies, whose name is ‘Legion.’"

"Orthodox dogma, that is to say the overriding dogma of the Church, is rejected by them and replaced by the Latin heretical overriding dogma of the primacy and infallibility of the Pope, that is to say of man. From this pan-heresy heresies were born and continue to be born: the Filioque, the rejection of the invocation of the Holy Spirit, unleavened bread, the introduction of created grace, cleansing fire, superfluous works of the saints, mechanized teachings about salvation, and from this sprang mechanized teachings about life, Papocaesarism, the Inquisition, indulgences, the murder of sinners because of their sins, Jesuitism, the scholastics, the casuists, Monarchianism, and social individualism of different kinds… "
–Saint Justin Popovich

 

[Samseau]

So, you aren't really understanding me, nothing you've said contradicts what I've said.

Regarding the Ethiopian Monophysites: As I said before, I do not "judge" them. I respect them. And I simply know they are in heresy. Perhaps you believe in a "plurality of churches.". From the theanthropic, Orthodox point of view, there is NO such thing, and it cannot be. There is only one Church - the Body of Christ, and the Coptic Monophysites (unfortunately) are not part of it. At least not for now.

This is the root of your confusion, which is common, but I will try to explain again.

Due to translation issues in the Chalcedonic council, both the Copts and Ethiopians believed we were inventing things to the faith, and that we weren't being true to doctrine. In reality, there was a miscommunication that has persisted for thousand+ years.

To say they are in "schism" doesn't really make sense because they have virtually identical beliefs about God as do any other Orthodox.

So they have the same doctrine, but they separated from the Church because they did not understand the Chalcedonic council due to a translation issue. What we call "monophysitism" has a completely different meaning in their native languages.

Thus it makes little sense to call them in schism when they have identical beliefs as us, whereas you've got Catholics who profess universal jurisdiction over all Churches and Protestants who do not believe the Apostles had the power to create Bishops. That is true schism, because there is a genuine difference of belief, but this is not the case with the Copts (who are now studying at Antiochian seminaries) and Ethiopians.

Anyhow, if you'd like to keep discussing this we should make a new thread for it in the Orthodox section. This is a massive derail but it is loosely connected to why Mr. Beast did not build wells in Ethiopia.