A misunderstanding. This "revival" was sponsored massively by Putin for political objectives.

funny how the secularist have adopted the death culture so prevelant in the Soviet Union in past times. Take away the Life Giver and you are left with porn, paedophille, suicide, drugs, violence and the destruction of family life. The Soviets seemed to have learn't a lot quicker than our social engineers.

I think free people look to Russia these days, despite what our media says about Putin - anyone who's been to Russia says you can do anything - have a smoke in a restaurant or a vodka before the drive home. But most of all, not have to look over your shoulder if your religious, no culture of intimidating religious people over there.

As far as I am concerned it is very sad. Both Marxism and Christianity retreat from reason. Marxism is a reformulation of Christianity in secular clothing. Primitive Communism according to Marxist theory is tribal communal sharing in an economy of scarcity. Then we have original sin in the form of the advent of private property and capitalism. The class struggle is analogous to the worldly conflict of the good people with the devil. Then comes the millennium with an end to the class struggle and human happiness in advanced communism in an economy of plenty embedded in a classless society.

Both Marxism and Christianity are utopian fantasies with suppression of dissenters by the gulags or the Inquisition. Russia has a history of darkness followed by darkness. Kindness, reason, questioning of authority and recognition of the humanity of those who disagree with you are far better than either utopian fantasy.

Babette

I understand you have conservative family values, but why on earth do you call them “Christian”? There is precious little in the New Testament, especially the Gospels, supporting the idea that the traditional family unit is the core of Christian life. Quite the reverse.

Jesus and Paul spend a great deal of their time trying to subvert traditional family values.

Paul never married or had children, and he advised other followers not to marry either, if they had the self-discipline (1 Cor. 7:7-9, 9:5).

Jesus, so far as we know, had no wife or children. Jesus denied that his biological family exercised any claim or authority over him, saying that his true family consisted of those who follow him (Luke 2:43-49, 8:20-21). We are not to call any man “father” (Matthew 23:9). Jesus praised his disciples for abandoning their families to follow him, suggesting they will be rewarded (Mark 10:29-30), and told one follower to leave his recently deceased father unburied – a suggestion even more shocking in Jesus’ culture than it is today (Matthew 8:21).

Jesus predicted that his message would split families, not unite them, and said that anyone who loves a son or daughter more than Jesus is not worthy of Him (Matthew 10:34-37).

This is part of a consistent and systematic message in the New Testament.

The patriarchal family was the bedrock of society in 1st century Palestine. The family was the source of an individual’s status, honour, economic support, and security; their health, police, unemployment and aged care service; and their main point of allegiance and loyalty.

The early Christians proclaimed that our primary allegiance is to God, and this put them in direct conflict with cultural values that held the institution of the family was paramount. So-called “Christian family values” elevate conformity to social norms above the demands of Jesus’ teaching in a way that directly contradicts the Gospel message.

All insitutiional religions are armed to the teeth.

This is particularly the case with any and every state religion, especially in the case of Christian-ism, Juda-ism and Islam-ism.

What has love got to do with centrally controlled mega-sized state churches as is the case in Russia or the "Catholic" church in Western countries. So too with right-wing so called "conservative" Protestant churches of the kind that Babette associates with.

The primary purpose of such institutional state churches is crowd control. They are primarly power-and-control-seeking business corporations the interests of which are protecting and expanding their corporate interests, and competing against every other organized religious group for market share in the market place of whats-in-it-for-me consumerist religion.

Furthermore the "Catholic" church in particular has been waging a centuries long war against the various Eastern "Orthodox" churches. This was manifesting in a dramatic blood-soaked suring WWII when the Croation "Catholic" fascists systematically slaughtered hundreds of thousands of "Orthodox" Serbs. The Vatican also fuelled the inter-religious violence during the Kosovo crisis by the policies and persons that it supported. Policies which were promoted to DELIBERATELY extend and consolidate the power and interests of "Catholics" over and against those of the "Orthodox" church. The machinations are described in the book by David Yallop The Power & the Glory (gory):The Dark Heart of John Paul II's Vatican.

Being pedantic as usual this site could be titled applied Christian "love" 101.

http://spiritlessons.com/passionofchristpictures.htm