“Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them,

and they that are great exercise authority upon them.

But it shall not be so among you:

but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;

And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:

Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto,

but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28, KJV)


The word the Athenians used for their Assembly was Ekklesia, the same word used in the New Testament for Church
(and it is the greatest philological irony in all of Western history that this word,
which connoted equal participation in all deliberation by all members,
came to designate a kind of self-perpetuating, self-protective Spartan gerousia -
which would have seemed patent nonsense to Greek-speaking Christians of New Testament times,
who believed themselves to be equal members of their Assembly.)

- Thomas Cahill, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter




ΦΙΛΟΤΙΜΟ: THE GREEK SECRET


Thursday, March 3, 2011

A Parishioner's Response to the Formation of a "New" Parish Council

I guess they forgot to send us a ballot and we missed the election. Funny, I don't even remember having the opportunity to place people I believe in on the ballot. As a matter of fact, I don't even remember being given notice of a general assembly where we are supposed to openly discuss potential council members, hold elections, and decide the trivial matters such as the finances and the future of our community.

Even stranger than all of this, I do remember being told where and how to send my stewardship check. I do recall being told that if I didn't follow the properly approved methods that I would not be deemed a steward of our church and as a punishment would not be able to attend these imaginary meetings and vote for this imaginary parish council.

I guess I will just have to send an imaginary check, on an imaginary approved card and pretend that I am a steward. I think I will even add a couple of imaginary digits to the end of it so that I can feel real good about my commitments.

After all what do I really have to lose?

- Dean J. Shilaos

3 comments:

Jim Sefandonakis said...

For lent this year I'm going to fast from giving money to religious organizations that do not represent their members. Make sure you bring a candle to church this week in case the power goes off because no one paid the light bill last month. Of course the new parish council can just take out a loan against the value of our church property to pay the bills. And they can do this year after year until Zions bank owns our Church. PE is the future sight of a Mormon Temple.
Jim Sefandonakis

Steve Gamvroulas said...

It make me wonder how many years it is going to take us to dig out of the mess caused by certain individuals in our community.

Bill Rekouniotis said...

Mormon Temple!! And I thought Walmart was moving in.