Put Off by Church/Mixed on Refugees

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So I had been walking passed an Orthodox Church near my house and my understanding was the Orthodox Church was conservative. However I saw an The International Rescue Committee outside the local Greek Cultural Outreach center, which I assume is part of the church. Now before I get into this I think situations like the Syrian Crisis (which the US helped create) and the Guatemalan Crisis (ditto on that) are situations that should be looked at as the crises they are and the US should help (assuming they are law abiding and have no infectious diseases). However maybe it is prejudice on my part or whatnot, but bleeding hearts in liberal denominations open their hearts, it seems like their brains tend to fall out. Again maybe I am stereotyping, but sometimes I don't entirely trust NGO's intentions and do wonder if they are helping people in need or are in it to feel good on daddy's dime. Basically it is dogoodism without improvement for either the host country or the refugees themselves.

So that was a bit off putting about the church (as it is one of the only churches I really didn't have anything against), but then I got to reading on the early church (Orthodox church), and it seems like they encouraged blind faith in the bishops, which is the same issue we have today , but with pastors or denominations. Overall it seems like I am coming full circle and realizing most religion is BS (IMO anyways)

What exactly are you asking or saying.

I don't know much about the Eastern Orthodox Church.

I know the first Christians were the Ebionites but they would not be considered Christian today.

The first Christian Church was the Armenian Apolastic church in 308ce about 15 20 years before Constantine.

They spread throughout the middle east and North Africa and the sub churches created thereof are now the Oriental orthodox church which split with the Catholic Church in 451ce over disagreement about the trinity.

Then Rome split with Constantinople in 1053 and Eastern Orthodoxy was created.

The Catholic Church didn't like the book of Hebrews and the EO Church didn't like Revelations.

I don't know what else to say.

Sorry to go off on a tangent just trying to spurt some random thoughts and perhaps it is my larger distrust of NGOs and non profits and not even so much with the refugees. That is more point one.

On point two, just seems kinda stupid that church fathers said to basically trust church bishops and don't question or challenge them. Found it a bit off putting. Again sorry for formatting just trying to organize my thoughts and is a bit harder with some topics about topics.

If you do not trust an NGO, don't support it.

Belief in the various forms of Christianity does require faith, and to some extent some of that faith will be blind faith.
This is the nature of the religion, as well as many other religions.

Helping refugee's sounds like a normal Christian activity. The best Christians in my opinion, are those who put the teachings of Jesus Christ into practice, ideally without preaching unless asked.

But that's just my opinion, and I do understand that part of Christianity is spreading the word or preaching on one form of ministry or another.

My ex-wife was a Jehovah Witness, who tried to force convert me over a 3 year period. I read in depth from a JW perspective but also from a scholarly perspective. I came to the conclusion that Christianity was an interesting religion that had evolved over the past 2 millennium into something quiet different to what it started off as, which originally was an apocalyptic dooms day cult that Jesus taught his followers to give up their possessions and homes to follow him and spread the word that the end is nigh.

2,000 years later... hmm... well, imagine how his original followers must feel. 2,000 plus years is a long time to wait.

No offence to anyone who is a Christian. Even if Christianity isn't the truth, i do believe that Christianity often makes people better people, and gives people some form of purpose, community and provokes people to be kind and peaceful.

Better than a lot of philosophy that is around these days, such as gangsterism or satanism or something.

Yep i think that religions that help the poor and vulnerable are brilliant! Love thy Neighbour, The Good Samaritan, The Widowers offering. Brilliant inspiring teachings from an awesome spiritual teacher regardless as to whether Jesus Christ was God incarnate or not!

I think that people who preach compassion but only for their chosen brethren and only in the form of giving people JW pamphlets is delusional dogma and not real Christianity, certainly not what Jesus Christ taught.

While there are too many conservative churches, who after selling their souls to the political far right, have been parroting secular right wing views on immigrants, there are still conservative churches who believe Christ's words about loving the least and most vulnerable of us. These tend to be church denominations with high church worship in my experience, such as the Eastern Orthodox.