I. Examine the facts; does Christianity, in some form; now enable the positive status of Roma; despite opposition of other 'Chriatians.'
What happens when a derided Christian community, Roma Orthodox, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, any branch, offer more in humanitarian results than those other Christians who brand them as inferior, not to be allowed autonomy, a permanent underclass..
Must Roma remain a permanent underclass? Not if some branches of Christianity have a say, and they do. There remains a current strong following for Christianity among Roma, Romani, despite ongoing cultural rejections by traditional Western religions and groups who considered them less than truly Christian. And the numbers of the faithful are growing. Explore why, where. Start with a very Christian source, a moderate one, not automatically tilted evangelical, at Philip Jenkins' article,
The church of the Roma, Christian Century, June 11, 2014/
- The
focus of the Christian Century article is on this observations:
- That European Roma are "overwhelmingly
Christian and becoming steadily more so."
- That forms or Roma Christianity include the charismatic
Christian groups, evangelicals, Pentecostals.
- And this attraction is true despite historically profound persecution by 'mainstream' and 'deviant' European cultures, both;
- Some 500,000 Roma were killed in the Holocaust, known
as the porajmos, although precise numbers are reachable, given those simply killed and dumped into ravines and the like, before they even arrived as places like the extermination camps, where records were kept.
- Others were sterilized, and numbers for all those out of the formal transport system, and who comprised the original larger population, are difficult to pinpoint, see http://www.history.ucsb.edu/projects/holocaust/Research/Proseminar/romaholocast.htm/
- Rigid prejudices remain. The scapegoat.
II. What is the practical, not necessarily spiritual, effect of Christianization through charismatic churches?
Why is this ongoing and increasing charismatic Christian participation important?
A. . The attraction to charismatic Christianity is changing Roma culture in ways that their older adherence to orthodoxy did not. The article notes that women enjoy greater emancipation, and education now. Participation in these Christian groups also teaches organizational and negotiation skills, as the groups proselytize, seek rights in their communities, train pastors to further the interests of the congregation.
B. Charismatic Christianity flourishing gives the lie to those who say Roma are not Christian. The Roma are doing for themselves better than other branches of charismatic Christianity did for them, is that so? Pentecostal Christianity offers skills experience.
III. Why will traditional Western culture lost out to new approaches -- using Christian terminology..
A. Here is what the West does worst: suspend judgment of a behavior until its cultural, linguistic, historical, personal surround is examined. And yet, the Common Law, underpinning the justice system of Western Cultures, traditionally applied maxims, or truths, of equity immediately after application of a law, to ensure that justice and not mere punitive retaliation resulted. See
http://joyofequivocating.blogspot.com/search?q=maxims+of+equity
- Judging itself is morally precarious, as scholars of Jesus and some Christians would point out, see Matthew 7 at http://www.bartleby.com/108/40/7.html; but disregard of reasons for a behavior augments the evil, is that so.
- When is the taking of a thing of value mere theft, to be punished mightily in the West; and when is it part of a cultural origin in a unity of give and take/ Does the perspective of the culture of the "offender", where sharing freely is the originator of the norm, and a taking where a needed thing is not shared, more acceptable than not. Self-justifying? See Romani law and culture, linguistic and behavioral angles
B. With this huge disregard of basic justice and religious principles in the West, why would Roma continue to espouse Christianity?
Focus on sharing.
Try this: Roma embody more Christianity than the Western usual Christians because their focus is on the sharing of all, the give and take, the sharing again. See original linguistics: to take, is not to steal necessarily, which is a random malicious gimme act. To take is to show need, and self-help where someone will not share. That is a general idea, now too far calcified in Western terms as thieves, but hatched in the Western crucible of Ayn Rand. I have, I took, and I dare you to assert your need. Is that so?
Roma table, Highlands NJ, Madame Stanley.
