interfaith question: What is the "job" of the "church"

wil

wil

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interfaith question: What is the "job" of the "church"

when I say interfaith I'd like the thoughts of all denominations of any and all religionists...

when I say "job" I mean purpose

when I say "church" I mean organization, religion, individual church or church hierarchy...

(let us start with 50 words or less)

I think in general the 'job' of any 'church':

~ teach people how to live a better life in this world...whether that means learn the philosophy of dealing with this experience, or morals, or connecting to G!d....


(I do expect someone somewhere sometime to say indoctrinate lemmings to put money in the collection plate)
 
Wil - I think in general the 'Job' of any 'Church' is: Religion conversion and religion maintenance.
 
Muslims dont have a church. We have scholars (4-6-10 years of education in Quran, Hadith, Jurisprudence, philosophy, mysticism etc), whose consensus make the orthodoxy. Their responsibility is to maintain and transmit deen. Deen's job is to accelerate human advancement in all levels, specially moral domain.
 
"Mosque" usually is just a place for congregational prayer. There is a guy who calls for prayer, and another one (Imam) who leads it. Imam is usually an expert of personal jurisprudence, so people also ask their religious questions from him. The organisations are usually for political reasons, otherwise Islam is very decentralised. Unlike what westerners think, muslims dont even take much from Saudi Arabia.

Through out the islamic history, maintainence and transmissoin or intellectual stuff (metaphysics, jurisprudence, ethics) has been done by scholars in Universities. While preaching to laymen and general morality has mosltly been done by sufis.

There has always been an orthodoxy, a loose group of reputed scholars, who decide whats the right interpretation of Quran, hadith, creed and law.

The imam of the mosque, usually gives a sermon before friday prayer. As far as I have seen, they usually talk about morality. But it differs from country to country and nation to nation.
 
Wil - I was in a hurry and just cruising by, saw your thread, clicked on reply and posted. I did read Thomas' reply until later. Just sayin...
 
No worries edgy...the question remains the same...

Do you believe Thomas's response covers what you were saying? Or is it different?
 
Wil - It seems we covered the same basics but I do read a little more in Thomas' reply. He used the upper case 'T' in traditions and I don't think that was for affect.
 
EdgyDolmen said:
Wil - I think in general the 'Job' of any 'Church' is: Religion conversion and religion maintenance.
Click to expand...

Then the job of the Hindu church is to combat conversion. We don't convert, but we do need to stand up to alien forces diluting our faith with deceptive and covert conversion tactics aimed at us heathens. Passing anti-conversion laws is a good first start.
 
Senthil - I think you are pulling our chain. I may not believe in conversion but a Hindu does. Reincarnation is just a type of conversion! The soul is transferred from one flesh to another. Thus Conversion. ED
 
There are a number of faiths that I see focusing on keeping members or recruiting...

Warning folks not to read other stuff or it'll corrupt their mind...in the US that is now AP history, Science, Evolution, Sex Ed, etc.
 
What I find odd is that any church's stated goal would be to convert others to their way. It seems so highly ethnocentric, and odd that people can't accept that there might be different and valid points of view than their own. But instead, they spend a ton of time wandering around trying to convince others that their way is the right way. That just seems so odd to me.
 
EdgyDolmen said:
Senthil - I think you are pulling our chain. I may not believe in conversion but a Hindu does. Reincarnation is just a type of conversion! The soul is transferred from one flesh to another. Thus Conversion. ED
Click to expand...

I thought your original post was about that saving of souls stuff that generally is the accepted use of the term 'conversion'. But perhaps I was wrong. I do know that Hinduism, (with one notable exception) has never sought converts.

Conversion referring to reincarnation as you imply is something I've never heard of before, and I suspect created on the spot just now, as some kind of odd comeback.

@wii ... Firstly, there is no 'church' as you suggest in Hinduism. There are organisations that could be termed churches as in the Catholic Church, or the Mormon Church, mainly because there is no Sanskrit equivalent to that word.

What I meant by 'our job' was one of our jobs, of which there are many. The primary duty is to pass on the religion to the next generation.
 
keeping the tradition, keeping the faith alive, the religion alive...

do we find it interesting that should you be born into a religion that is your lot in life?

in many ways this is still the case around the world...born into a family of doctors, lawyers, blue collar workers, military, music, art...that is your lot in life.

modern countries, industrialized countries are working away from that...

as the same case is occurring with religions...our children, or our parents, backed out of the religion they were born in...
 
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