And Now, A Word On Behalf Of Legalism

"Great peace have those who love thy law; nothing can make them stumble."

-- Psalm 119:165

Some People Go To Hell On Purpose

This was my hell from 1986-1989. My cell number was 406A. The only person who befriended me there was Ioan Culianu. He was murdered in the same bathroom I used for three years, two years after I left. Sometimes I wonder which one of us got out alive.

Rod Dreher And David Bentley Hart Finally Say Something Wholly Agreeable And Right

Here:

"If you don’t believe there is any cosmic order undergirding the visible world, and if you don’t believe that you are obliged to harmonize your own behavior with that unseen order (the Tao, you might say), then why should you bind yourself to moral precepts you find disagreeable or uncongenial? The most human act could be not to yield to nature, but to defy nature. Why shouldn’t you? Or, to look at it another way, why should we consider our own individual desires unnatural? Does the man who sexually and emotionally desires union with another man defying [sic] nature? Well, says Hart, it depends on what you consider nature to be."

In the final analysis the struggle for conservatism in America is the struggle for America, the struggle for the priority of what Russell Kirk called the permanent things, for what Plato called the ideas, for what Moses called the words written by the finger of God on the holy mountain, for what Paul claimed was written on every Gentile heart, perhaps even for what the Confucians called the mandate of heaven, and surely for what George Washington called an indispensable support: the religion and morality we all once shared, "with slight shades of difference" he said.

It is fundamentally the struggle for the priority of a transcendent moral order which cannot be derisively swept aside as passe "social issues." Neither "fiscal conservatism" nor liberty can exist without "Thou shalt not steal." There can be no rapprochement with libertarianism, not even as a private matter, and the First Amendment must be rescued from those who insist its intent was inspired by the ideological thinking of the Enlightenment's atheists rather than by the progress of specifically Christian weariness with internecine warfare over religion.

Why The Papal Resignation Was Unwise

J2P2

Joseph Bottum, here:

"In other words, the modern world doesn’t really need to see in the pope a model of competent administration, nice as that would be. It does need, however, a public reminder that we are not incapacitated as human beings when we age and prepare to die. We are not to be tucked away or compelled by moral pressure to remove our lives and deaths from public view. The older vision of life is the more complete one, and in today’s world, perhaps uniquely, we are in special need of remembering that."

Jesus Denied Foods Make One Unclean

"Do you not see that whatever goes into a man from outside cannot defile him, since it enters, not his heart but his stomach, and so passes on?" (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, "What comes out of a man is what defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man."

-- Mark 7:18ff.

God Forbids Eating Road Kill And Other Dead Critters

"Then said I, 'Ah Lord GOD! behold, my soul hath not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.'"

-- Ezekiel 4:14

"Jesus Deceived Himself In Expecting The Kingdom Of God."

So Gerd Luedemann in "The Decline of Academic Theology at Goettingen", 2002:

"I have come to the following conclusion: My previous faith, derived as it was from the biblical message, has become impossible. This is so not only because its points of reference, above all the resurrection of Jesus, have proved invalid, but also because the person of Jesus himself becomes insufficient as a foundation of faith once most of the New Testament statements about him have proved to be later interpretations by the community. Jesus deceived himself in expecting the kingdom of God. Instead the church arrived; and it not only recklessly changed the message of Jesus, but also in numerous cases turned that distorted doctrine against the very Judaism from which it sprang."

5 Million Ethiopian Lutherans Split From ELCA Over Faggotry

The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Makane Yesus has split from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and from the Church of Sweden because the latter two perform gay "marriages" and allow openly gay people to serve as pastors.

From the EECMY website:

It is recalled, earlier in 2006, two of the major partners of the EECMY, namely the Church of Sweden and later, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, passed decisions that favor Homosexual practices and blessing of same sex marriage. The EECMY noted this as a surprise and immediately reacted against and earnestly requested for reconsideration of their decisions. To the contrary, these two Churches, going further, resolved to legalize same sex marriage and calling of gay persons into ordained ministry.

Read all about it, here, where you will note the move prohibits reception of Holy Communion from ELCA/Church of Sweden altars and distribution of Holy Communion to ELCA/Church of Sweden members at EECMY altars:

Even more painfully: members of the church “will not receive Holy Communion from the leadership and pastors of the (ELCA and the Church of Sweden). The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus will not distribute communion to these churches.”

The move makes the Ethiopians a larger denomination than the ELCA.

Who knew the Ethiopians were from Missouri?

Dennis Miller Says Things Are Getting So Politically Correct . . .

. . . he just hopes the next pope's not a Muslim.

Here!

What If Christ Resigned?

Christ's representative on earth is resigning? What's the world coming to?

Just Touching You Makes Them Unclean For Prayer Or Worship

"Khomeini adhered to traditional beliefs of Islamic hygienical jurisprudence holding that things like urine, excrement, blood, wine etc. and also non-Muslims were some of eleven ritualistically "impure" things that physical contact with which while wet required ritual washing or Ghusl before prayer or salah. He is reported to have refused to eat or drink in a restaurant unless he knew for sure the waiter was a Muslim."

After 34 Years Followers Of Ahyatoilet Cacamayme Still Cry "Death To America!"

Get a life already.

Story here.

Blast Those Who Persecute You. Cursing's Just A Waste Of Time.

"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them."

 -- Romans 12:14

Ew! Andree Seu Peterson Thinks God Shows Partiality.

"God makes no apology for his favoritism toward His own," she writes, here, on the strength of Ecclesiastes 2:26.

And you thought "God shows no partiality" (Acts 10:34; Romans 2:11; Gal.2:6; et alia).