On the immorality of Jesus' idea of self-impoverishment

"It is forbidden for a person to disown or dedicate all his property and thus become a burden on others."

-- Maimonides' Code, Laws of Right Views 5:12 (quoted here)

"Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. ... So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple."

-- Luke 12:33, 14:33

Cardinal Says Pelosi Should Be Denied Communion

“This is a person who obstinately, after repeated admonitions, persists in a grave sin — cooperating with the crime of procured abortion — and still professes to be a devout Catholic.”

The Orthodox Are Insane To Assert That "All War Is Evil"

The supper of God is our flesh, not his.

As here in the comments section:

"Orthodoxy continues to uphold the ancient Christian teaching that all war is evil."

If it were true that all war is evil, the Orthodox would have to stop worshiping Jesus, who believed in war with all his heart and preached it, a final war in which the Son of Man would imminently descend from heaven leading the armies of God to judge the world in righteousness, saving the few but consigning the many to the flames of Gehenna. The vision of it which animates Jesus' entire ministry commanded people to flee from its coming not just for their own good but as a sign of their repentance, abandoning their very lives with all its encumbrances, including "goods, fame, child and wife".

It matters that Jesus did not think that human beings would or should take this war into their own hands, but the failure of that war to materialize means that Jesus' statements about pacifism in the face of that war are as historically conditioned as his failed predictions of that war. Christianity is absurd without the coming of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven. 

So the vision of Him as warrior, with armies of his own to bring wrath on the human race and prepare a feast of dead flesh for the buzzards, died hard:

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. ... And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, followed him on white horses. From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. ... Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly in midheaven, "Come, gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great." And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who sits upon the horse and against his army.

-- Revelation 19:11, 14f., 17ff.

Food for buzzards, that's what we are. That's the supper of God, not the communion.

Pope Forgets Feminine Genius Once Got Important Decision Spectacularly Wrong

Pope Francis loses his ba-lance, but he'd better go find it.

"Women are asking deep questions that must be addressed... The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions." -- Pope Francis, quoted here

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. -- Genesis 3:6

The Cement Holding Together The Whole Creation Is Gratitude

 

Look over the whole creation, and you shall see, that the bond or cement, that holds together all the parts of this great and glorious fabrick, is gratitude.

-- Robert South (1634-1716)

 

Serving others appears to prime the brain to release more oxytocin in a positive feedback loop of increased empathy and gratitude, according to experts.

A Romanist Defines John 3:3 By John 3:5, And So Requires Baptism To Be Saved

Roman Catholic interpretation of being born again is on display here, where being born of water and spirit is said to define being born again, a natural if mistaken view with a long pedigree:

In verse 5, Jesus clarifies what he meant by “born again,” saying a similar sentence again but substituting in the phrase “born of water and the Spirit.” While the term “born again” is vague enough to possibly mean simply a conversion experience, being “born of water and the Spirit” is obviously not, at least not exclusively – I’ve never seen anyone get wet from saying the sinner's prayer.

What Christian action involves water and the Holy Spirit? The answer: baptism. To be “born again” means to baptized. This is not only the current Catholic interpretation of this text (also held today by many Anglicans, Lutherans, and Orthodox), but also the interpretation given by the early Church Fathers – indeed all orthodox Christians prior to the 16th century Protestant Reformation. ...

Jesus is teaching something that evangelicals frequently deny, but that the Catholic Church has always maintained: that baptism is necessary for salvation.

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This exegesis pays no attention, needless to say, to the narrative's rich symbolisms featuring an adult skulking about in the dead of night as opposed to a helpless child who would fittingly be asleep in his bed at such a time and be approachable, naturally, only in the full light of day. It knows nothing of the need to recover the natural openness, submissiveness and wariness of evil characteristic of a child, to which the mature adult like Nicodemus has normally long past said farewell. Nicodemus' adult skepticism, of course, is notably presaged in the person of Nathanael already in 1:46.

Nor does the interpretation take any note of the difference between only "seeing" the kingdom in v. 3 and actually "entering" into it in v. 5, which suggests that being born again is different from actually believing and is instead the necessary praeparatio for conversion, a view consistent with the Synoptic triple tradition about little children, "of such is the kingdom of heaven". To be born again is something an adult must do, not a child, a vivid circumlocution for entrusting oneself to the care of the Father.

Submitting to baptism in v. 5 is clearly the theological point intended by the Evangelist, to be sure, but as such it is evidence of the Urkatholicismus which is not yet apparent even in the long endings later fabricated to finish the damaged Mark, where baptism is described but as yet not required.

Just another sign of "John's" later time and place, a correction of a prior narrative which was thought to be inadequate, Luke the historian's efforts notwithstanding.

Many Are Called, But The Jesuits Aren't Chosen

"For many are called, but few are chosen."

"For many are called, but few are chosen."

Matthew 22:14

For Most Protestants, It's Mary's Perpetual Virginity Which Is The Problem

Philip Jenkins, here, who notes the Feast of the Nativity of Mary on September 8th:

As recently as 1950, Pope Pius XII stated that “we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.” ... [F]or most Protestants (and some Catholics), the ideas I am describing – the whole Marian lore – is so bizarre, so outré, so sentimental, and so blatantly superstitious that it just does not belong within the proper study of Christianity. If anything, it’s actively anti-Christian. Even scholars prepared to wrestle with the intricacies of Gnostic cosmic mythology throw up their hands at what they consider a farrago of medieval nonsense. ... [T]hat response is profoundly mistaken. If we don’t understand devotion to Mary, together with such specifics as the Assumption, we are missing a very large portion of the Christian experience throughout history. It’s not “just medieval,” any more than it is a trivial or superstitious accretion.

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That's right. The perpetual virginity of Mary is no more outrageous than the virgin birth of Christ, except that for Protestants it conflicts with the evidence that Jesus had brothers during his lifetime. To them the Romanists engage in special pleading when they say that the plain sense of these texts isn't the plain sense and should be understood in the light of the much later "apocryphal" evidence which maintained Mary's perpetual virginity and that his "brothers" must have been only his nephews or cousins.

More to the point, however, missed by most commentators, is that Jesus' rejection of normal family relationships is paramount in the Synoptic narratives mentioning his brothers and mother, and is rooted in his apocalyptic worldview of an imminent end of the world. Being tied down by a wife and children or a mother and a father and siblings, or a job or possessions or the cares of this life generally, all will hold you back and keep you from escaping from the wrath which is to come, and come soon. To repent is to turn your back on all this. The historical development is that when this Apocalypse he preached failed to materialize, this part of the teaching was transformed into an idealization of celibacy and virginity.

At Least Two Thirds Of American Christianity Is Counterfeit

στενὴ ἡ πύλη καὶ τεθλιμμένη ἡ ὁδὸς 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because two thirds of American Christians are convinced God wants them to be economically prosperous, as discussed here:

As the size and number of their congregations, TV ministries, and bestselling books confirm, the contemporary footprint of the American Prosperity Gospel is large, indeed. This buttresses Bowler's larger argument that the Prosperity movement is no religious sideshow. Citing studies, Bowler shows that 17 percent of all American Christians openly identify with the movement; that every Sunday, over a million people attend Prosperity-oriented megachurches—43 percent of which boast multiethnic or multicultural congregations; and that two-thirds of all Christian believers are convinced that God, ultimately, wants them to prosper. In effect, she argues that if a substantial number of people identify with the Prosperity Gospel and accept its common teachings, then it must be closer to the mainstream than one might imagine.

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Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions. And Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." -- Matthew 19:21ff.

Luke The Historian Preserves Jesus' Apocalyptic Expectation As Paul's Own

Eduard Meyer

 

 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

-- Acts 17:30f.

Say what you will about Luke's accuracy in other matters, or about his identity, he preserves an eschatolgical expectation which comes from the core of Jesus' teaching, transcending the decades and faithfully adhered to by Paul, however anachronistic that expectation may have become with the failure of the parousia.

You Must Be Bored Again