On the Sacrosanctity of Judea and Samaria

For some, you mess with Israel's right to Judea and Samaria at your peril:

"Ehud Barak . . . touted as 'Mr. Security,' proceeded to withdraw unilaterally from South Lebanon, creating a vacuum soon filled by Hezbollah, and then worked with Bill Clinton to prepare a complete withdrawal from virtually all of Judea and Samaria. Miraculously, Arafat turned him down, started an Intifada, and Barak lost the government to Ariel Sharon in a landslide. Sharon unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, creating a vacuum soon filled by Hamas, and then turned his attention “kadimah” (eastward) to withdrawing from Judea and Samaria. And suddenly, just in the blink of an eye, he sustained a stroke that has left him in a coma for years."

-- Rabbi Dov Fischer

And that's just for starters. Read the rest here.

A Computer Scientist Stumbles into the Truth about the Rapture

Here.

Funny how a little Socratic elenchus can do that, eh, Mr. Dickerson?

Which is one reason why Socrates is viewed by some as a pre-Christian saint.

A Fine Turn of Phrase from a Lowlife

Seen here, emphasis added:

I’m a susceptible chap, happy to see the other person’s point of view more clearly than I see my own. And the Cross doesn’t offend me, either, as it seems to do so many. I was disposed to give the guy a hearing, even a debate. Unfortunately, he was an idiot. He thought God’s mind and his were alike, except God’s was slightly more daring and versatile. And now here he was, on this train, trying to interest everybody in this absurd projection of his imagination.

The Answer: It Becomes Christianity

The question: "What happens to a doomsday cult when the world doesn't end?" Asked by Vaughan Bell, here, but not of the Christian faith itself.

Live Blogging the End of the World

Here for AOL. Here for the "rolling Apocalypse" by time zone, from Australia. Raw Story here. Lefty here.

People have nothing better to do, I guess.

Jesus didn't teach a rapture of the just

Jesus Didn't Teach a 'Rapture' of the Just

Jesus simply taught an imminent end of the world and final judgment, at which time the Son of Man (himself) would appear in the heavens with the clouds of glory and with the holy angels, who would separate the wicked from the just, cleansing God's kingdom, the world, from all evil, casting the wicked into eternal fire, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Jesus called for removing all evil from the world as a matter of first importance, then gathering the righteous together after that.

This is the plain meaning of the parable of the tares and of the wheat, which must grow up together until the end in order to preserve the just alive. We are told that the angels first bundle up the tares, and throw them into the flames. Otherwise their presence would complicate what comes next. The wheat left behind must be winnowed with a fork, and its kernel separated and gathered with the rest into God's barn.

This is also the plain meaning of Jesus' analogy to the days of Noah, when the earth was cleansed of evil by water. So of the two workers in the field and of the two women at the mill, the one removed in each instance is the wicked one, not the righteous one. They are gathered by the angels, yes even caught up in the air perhaps, and consigned immediately to the flames.

This is the plain meaning of Matthew 13, and even of Matthew 24 which is a later attempt to rationalize the teaching of Jesus from the point of view of the failure of his prediction of the end of the world during his lifetime. The evidence is conveniently assembled for you here.

Larry Norman in the early 1970s is an example of one who popularized (in his music-"the Son has come and you've been left behind") the misconception that the just would be "raptured" from the earth, leaving the damned behind to suffer the end of the world.

In truth, the idea goes back to J.N. Darby in the early 19th century, and before him into the 18th, in keeping with all the other bad ideas of modernity. We seem to get things exactly backwards.

So if you're still here at 7 PM tomorrow night, count it all joy my brethren! Old men dream dreams. It's just that they might not know what they mean. 

The Rapture of the Unjust

But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat [in his field], and went his way. ... Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

 

-- Matthew 13:25, 30

The tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

 

-- Matthew 13:38ff.

So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

 

-- Matthew 13:49f.

And [they] knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

 

-- Matthew 24:39ff.

 

I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

 

-- Luke 17:34ff.

The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

 

-- Matthew 24: 50f.

What's the Weather Forecast for the End of the World this Saturday?

Fire, or ice? Desire, or hate?

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great,

And would suffice.

-- Robert Frost, 1920

Or perhaps just spring-like?

Critics point out that this isn't the first time Mr [Harold] Camping has predicted the second coming. On 6 September 1994, hundreds of his listeners gathered at an auditorium in Alameda looking forward to Christ's return.


"At that time there was a lot of the Bible I had not really researched very carefully," he said last week. "But now, we've had the chance to do just an enormous amount of additional study and God has given us outstanding proofs that it really is going to happen."

The Origin of the Religious Right is in the Great Revolt

As explained here:

Forty-five years ago, one in every six Americans belonged to the “seven sister” mainline Protestant denominations. Today, only one in 15 Americans still does. Although secular elites often portray a secularizing America, actual church attendance in America has remained remarkably constant across the last 75 years. But among non-Catholic Christians, attendance has shifted from mainline Protestant to more evangelical churches.

Your Pastor Could Be a Fudgepacker if . . .

. . . "he" is from the Presbyterian Church USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Church of Christ, or the Episcopal Church.

Of course, she could be a rugmuncher, on the other hand.

The PCUSA voted Tuesday to allow gay ordinations, according to the story (here) from Reuters, which states that in the last five years about only 100 congregations have separated from the 11,000 strong denomination over the issue.

The only upside is it's getting easier and easier to eliminate the choices from the Sunday menu.

"Getting saved" is quickly being re-defined as escaping from liberal Protestantism.

Dissing the Mother: Jesus' Attempt to Redefine the Family

The sermon this day (Immanuel, 2 Michigan Street NE, Grand Rapids) was only loosely based on Mark 3:30-35, for to follow it honestly and strictly, one would have had to come to a far different conclusion than that Jesus intended to bless some conception of the traditional family, by which he supposedly encouraged people to marry and have children for an indefinite future as part of God's plan for the human race from the foundation of the world.

On the contrary, Jesus' teaching that his real brother, sister and mother is "whosoever shall do the will of God" is posited over and against the news announced in the pericope that "thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee."

"They're not my real family," he might have said in so many words.

No wonder people close to him, and perhaps members of his own family, said, "He is beside himself" (Mark 3: 21). That opinion was much debated among "the Jews" according to John 10, some of whom contended that possession by a demon had driven him mad (vs. 20).

Well, why not? Jesus' outrageous message of repentance meant repudiating one's entire life as it existed at the time of the call, to the extent that the most basic societal obligations had to go. "Let the dead bury their own dead." "Say goodbye to everything you have." "Come, follow me." Only a madman would ask you to quit your job, stop supporting your family, not "be there" for your sons and daughters, and follow some cult leader around the country.

It is remarkable that the evidence for this world-renouncing ethic yet remains buried in the stuff of the gospels when you consider how much the eschatological worldview which presupposes it has been scrubbed and re-interpreted in the interests of the Pauline gospel of salvation based on Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. But its ugly head pops up all over the place, ever to be massaged and explained away in this church and that, or simply avoided, while attempting otherwise to make the Bible relevant to the people in the pew, and to maintain the status quo.

But however that may be, it does seem ever less relevant. The desperation of the circumstances of the denomination of church I visited this day was plain enough. The average age in the denomination is now 67, we were told. 67! This church is not only not making converts among the young, it long ago failed to reproduce itself in sufficient quantities by adhering to the conception of "the traditional family." Such children as they have had have not stayed, or have not been large enough in number to affect this perilous signpost of coming extinction. 

It's as if these people have somehow taken Jesus all too seriously after all, even though they have not.

Crazy indeed.

The Reminiscences of the Nearness of the End Overlooked by the Redactor(s) of Mark

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel (Mark 1:15).

Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels (Mark 8:38).

Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power (Mark 9:1).

And Jesus said [to the high priest], I am [the Christ, the Son of the Blessed]: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven (Mark 14:62).