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I was curious what everybody thinks about the music they sing in the Protestant churches? Do you like it? Do they send a message? Do you understand the message?  How should an Orthodox listen to all these songs? Do we learn anything from them? Does it uplift you? Does it give you a boost? Does it entertain you? Do you "feel" it?

Take for example this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h1rBW1731Q

To me, they sound like the American Idol finalists and I just don't get it.
I am mesmerized by the Orthodox hymns that usually take me someplace else where I actually feel this indescribable inner peace.

Since I have no experience with the world of Protestantism, I was wondering if "Christian music" is something Orthodox people appreciate. And if yes, what do you like about it?

I listened to half that song and I don't think they sound like American Idol finalists at all.  I think they were the people who get cut after the first round.  I did not enjoy that song from a musical perspective and I thought it was silly and pointless from a worship perspective.

Here is a contemporary Christian song that I do enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mXeA0G_xKc

Ha!    He's not exclusively yours.  He's my godson's, as well.

Hello,

Is it possible in the Orthodox religion for a person to marry their mother's brother's daughter?

I do not plan to do this but just asking if such a marriage would be recognised by the church.

Yes, if it is allowed by the state (most in the West don't, or didn't until recently).  The Russian Church and others perhaps won't marry cousins, but I don't know if they can deny a marriage done by an Antiochian priest.

Yes, there are canons are against it, but they are simply ignored in the Middle East, as we don't share European hang ups on this.  It's not like the canons are dogma, particularly, as here, where they contradict Scripture.

I live near Birmingham Children's Hospital and too frequently see the tragic fruits of not having these 'hang ups'.

No you don't. Unless you are living in terribly closed communities or around very excellent racialists like the Ashkenazim.

Christ is Risen!

Congratulations!

Many Years!!   

May the Lord have mercy upon Adela's father, granting health, wisdom, strength and peace.

copts can marry their cousins (first cousins).
my close friend did it, and it was not a big deal at all.
 

When the children will come, then someone can say if it is big deal or not, not before that, because the children will feel the most that, especially if you know what diseases and disabilites children of such unions suffer...History is filled with such examples, the illnesses that were common in the family of Pharaohs, the Habsburg destiny...

Lord have mercy!

Obviously you're not a golfer . . .

[any]

On what basis do Christians keep the death penalty for murder and not for adultery? And why is there "double jeopardy" for murder?

Sin is a transgression of God's law, the wages of sin is death, and to transgress God's law is to reject God Himself as the giver of the law. God does not wish that any should perish. This is why he offers us repentance as a means of returning to Him to serve Him as we are intended to have Him as the source of our life. God's laws tell us how we are to live to reflect someone made in the image and likeness of God, and they let us know when we fall short of living according to the God in Whom we live and move and have our very existence.

Human laws are intended for the purpose of maintaining order in society.

If you seek the death any penalty for another you deny that you are worthy of death that same penalty. It doesn't take a degree in rocket science friend.

Why limit your abolition of punishment to just the death penalty?

Does a denial of a punishment for someone else committing a crime imply that one would find themselves unworthy of receiving that same punishment if they were to commit that same crime?

Never stop doing this. Really I am sad to see you stopped journaling all of this in a single thread.

Back in the pre-internet days of my youth (teen years in this case), there was a misunderstanding of the significance of the lifting of the anathemas between the Roman and Greek Orthodox Catholic Churches. At least in some communities we temporarily became one. In my case an entire Roman Catholic Church participated "fully" in the Divine Liturgy. It was reverential, beautiful, wonderful, and something I will never forget.

I hoped you later served a severe penance for such outrageous behavior.

Are the Bishops still alive so I can write the Metropolitan to complain about them?

If the are no longer living, does the Orthodox Church have post-mortem penances they can impose?

Thanks!

Lord have mercy.