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<\/p>\n\u201cChristianity is not simply the acceptance of some abstract God and a set of popular moral prescriptions. Christians believe in Jesus Christ\u2014God Who became Man, Who does not simply send down directives \u201cfrom above\u201d on how to live correctly, but Who became one of us, lived amongst people and by His life, death on the Cross and Resurrection from the dead opened to us the path of salvation. A person who has become a Moslem does not believe in such a God. The Koran directly rejects the teaching that Christ is God and the Son of God (5.17, 9.30). If a Christian accepts Islam, it means that he has renounced Christ, Who said, \u201cI am the Son of God (Jn. 10:36). And to such a person apply Jesus\u2019s words: But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven (Matt. 10:33). He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him (Jn. 3:36). That is why this is a spiritual tragedy, about which the Church grieves. As for the commandments, they are different in different religions; they do intersect in places, but not so very often\u2026 No matter how sad it is, falls and apostasy have always been and will always be. Spiritual life is a spiritual battle, and as in any battle, there are not only winners. This regards any Christian, no matter what clerical rank. Probably everyone has seen the icon, \u201cThe Ladder\u201d, which visually portrays this spiritual battle. The demons tempt those climbing the ladder to Christ the Savior and try to pull them down into the abyss of hell, while the angels give the Christians strength as they climb.<\/p>\n
The danger of succumbing to temptation and falling can be found on any step of the ladder. Priests are also tempted\u2014some with greed, others with vainglory, others with pride, others with schism, heresy, and these, well, with Islam. Some of these spiritual warriors find the strength to fight off the devil\u2019s attacks, while others, alas, fall.\u201d<\/p>\n
– Article in pravoslavie.ru<\/p>\n
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***Now and then we include a particularly thought provoking or inspiring excerpt not from one of our regular \u2018Elders\u2019***<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cChristianity is not simply the acceptance of some abstract God and a set of popular moral prescriptions. Christians believe in Jesus Christ\u2014God Who became Man, Who does not simply send […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-modern-orthodox-elders","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7064,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7062\/revisions\/7064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}