The pacifist monster is single

From Joseph Loconte, here:

Religious progressives are not mistaken when they discover in the ministry of Jesus a life devoted to the love of neighbor: the unconditional love of God. Nor are they wrong to see in Jesus the quintessential peacemaker: the Prince of Peace. Yet their political vision is based entirely upon the principle of non-violence. Their politics, in all its particulars, is guided by one rule, “the law of love.”

The fatal problem with this view is that historic Christianity—especially Protestant Christianity—has never reduced the gospel to these elements. The cross of Christ cannot be comprehended without an awareness of the depth of human guilt and the power of radical evil. “The gospel is something more than the law of love. The gospel deals with the fact that men violate the law of love,” wrote Niebuhr in “Why the Christian Church is Not Pacifist.” “The gospel presents Christ as the pledge and revelation of God’s mercy which finds man in his rebellion and overcomes his sin.” ... 

It is at this point where Christian progressives fail most conspicuously in their stated objective: to demonstrate the love of Christ to their neighbor. Perhaps the most shameful behavior of American Christians during the Second World War was their practical indifference to the millions of victims of Nazism. ...

At the moment when fresh thinking about the Christian just war tradition is desperately needed, religious progressives have abandoned the concept altogether. “Thus the Christian ideal of love has degenerated into a lovelessness which cuts itself off from a sorrowing and suffering world,” wrote Niebuhr. “Love is made to mean not pity and sympathy or responsibility for the weal and woe of others, it becomes merely the abstract and negative perfection of peace in a warring world.”

In this, religious progressives succumb to an old temptation. They allow their hatred of war to blot out all other virtues and obligations. ...

30-year old Lutherans sit around for three hours drinking beer wondering why death has no urgency

Maybe they should learn to talk to someone who's 50ish and nearer to it, or over 500 and quite dead. Kids these days.

From the story here:

'Booze, scripture and YouTube helped anoint the latest Bible and Brew hosted by Nicholas and Kristin Tangen, both 30 and members of Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church in Northeast. ... The group of 10 debated: Does mortality pack the same punch these days as during New Testament times? “There’s a sense of non-urgency around death now,” Kristin Tangen said about an hour into the group’s three-hour chat. That same attitude might apply to being proactive about goals or recognizing the threat of global warming, she said. We all nestle comfortably into modernity’s promises, she added. Her husband added, “ ‘Live today like it’s your last’ sounds so trite,” but does it have credence? He wondered: Should we dismiss such simple adages?'

For some beer offerings celebrating the 500th anniversay of the Reformation, with some choice Luther quotations, see here.

Democrat Socialist Harold Meyerson's empirical offenses against the Gospel of Matthew and Leviticus

Here:

'They were refugees, fleeing for their lives from one Middle Eastern country to the next. As Matthew tells the tale, Joseph, fearing that the government had marked his newborn son for death, gathered up his wife and child and stole away by night across the Judean border into Egypt. And just in time: Unsure who, exactly, to kill, that government — a king named Herod, who’d heard some kid would one day become a rival king — proceeded to slaughter every remaining child in Bethlehem under the age of 2.

'This isn’t a chapter of the Christmas story that has made it into the general celebration, but it’s there in the gospel, for those who give the gospels credence and for those who don’t. For both groups, it’s clear that the authors of the New Testament intended to recount (for the believers) or compose (for the nons) a story that echoed the Old Testament’s concern for strangers, foreigners and refugees (“The stranger among you shall be as one born among you,” says Leviticus, “and you shall love him as yourself”), that foreshadowed Jesus’ teachings to care for castaways and the least among us, and that laid the foundation for institutional Christianity’s transnationalism.'

--------------------------------------------

On Meyerson's reading, Leviticus might as well be a proto-Sermon-on-the-Mount, except that Leviticus details nearly a score of offenses for which death is prescribed, including blasphemy and not keeping the Sabbath, two key charges against Jesus of Nazareth. The Judaism of Leviticus is a religion steeped in violence by Jews against Jews, violence which is routinized against offenders against God's law, not to mention against countless animals slaughtered eventually in a Temple to appease an angry God and feed an idle clerisy.

In true liberal fashion, only the one element of this book which is convenient to the present liberal narrative is featured. All the inconvenient facts of the rest of it are omitted, the ones which cannot be pressed into the service of the liberal project, indeed which argue against it, which in this case is to shame those who reject refugees. Does it really need to be pointed out that according to Matthew Jesus and his family were rejected by the Jews, and became refugees from Judaism, not to it?

Meyerson similarly paints the Matthew story of the Slaughter of the Innocents as if it were a matter of government oppressing the people, when in fact Matthew is at pains to tell us a different story in which "all Jerusalem with him" was involved, not just Herod by himself, "troubled" as they both were by the news from the wise men about a new king "of the Jews" coming to replace Herod, and upset their profitable applecart.

'"Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him." When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.' -- Matthew 2:2f.

This is but the beginning of Matthew's message that Jerusalem was unalterably opposed to Jesus. By the end of that story Jesus himself is saying, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" -- Matthew 23:37

Indeed, when it comes to anti-Judaism in the gospels it is most singularly expressed by Matthew, in the account of Jesus' trial before Pilate where all the Jews become willingly complicit in Jesus' death:

'Pilate saith unto them, "What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?" They all say unto him, "Let him be crucified." ... Then answered all the people, and said, "His blood be on us, and on our children."' -- Matthew 27: 22, 25

If Harold Meyerson is seen to be a tendentious hack intentionally misrepresenting Leviticus and Matthew, in the end he does turn out to be right about one thing:

'A sharp rise in the number of adherents to alternative realities in a world otherwise governed by empiricism is not without unhappy precedent in modern history. It has sundered nations and brought fascists — with their characteristic disdain for rationalism — to power.'

In our time they all seem to type for the Democrats at The Washington Post.

You'll be happier giving than receiving

"It is more blessed to give than to receive"

-- Acts 20:35

Like much else, Islam got "irja" from Pauline Christianity

From a recent discussion, here, about how ISIS seeks to immanentize the eschaton:

'Unless you have some knowledge of medieval Islamic theology you probably have no idea what irja means. The word translates literally as “postponing.” It was a theological principle put forward by some Muslim scholars during the very first century of Islam. At the time, the Muslim world was going through a major civil war, as proto-Sunnis and proto-Shiites fought for power, and a third group called Khawarij (dissenters) were excommunicating and slaughtering both sides. In the face of this bloody chaos, the proponents of irja said that the burning question of who is a true Muslim should be “postponed” until the afterlife. Even a Muslim who abandoned all religious practice and committed many sins, they reasoned, could not be denounced as an “apostate.” Faith was a matter of the heart, something only God — not other human beings — could evaluate.

'The scholars who put this forward became known as “murjia,” the upholders of irja, or, simply, “postponers.” The theology that they outlined could have been the basis for a tolerant, noncoercive, pluralistic Islam — an Islamic liberalism. Unfortunately, they did not have enough influence on the Muslim world. The school of thought disappeared quickly, only to go down in Sunni orthodoxy’s memory as one of the early “heretical sects.” ...

'In fact, there are hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world who are also engaged in irja, even if they are unfamiliar with the term. Some of them are focused on the Quran, instead of the medieval Shariah, and hold on to the famous Quranic verse that says, “There is no compulsion in religion.”' 

--------------------------------------------------------

Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then every man will receive his commendation from God.

-- 1 Corinthians 4:5

Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

-- 2 Corinthians 9:7

The only thing crazier than Muslim and Christian apocalyptic fanaticism is that Salon Magazine thinks the latter is behind Donald Trump

Here:

"What’s perhaps most fascinating about this situation is that Trump appears to be peddling his own apocalyptic narrative to his followers, the least educated Americans."

Self-hatred according to Jesus or self-love according to Paul, which shall it be?

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. -- Luke 14:26

He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. -- John 12:25

So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church ... Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. -- Ephesians 5:28f., 33

For the successful equation of religion with politics in our time, credit Islam not Christianity

From Charles Moore here:

'Ayatollah Khomeini ... said “Islam is politics”. He meant that Islam tells you how to rule, and therefore any unIslamic way of ruling is illegitimate. ... Khomeini was a Shia, but a similar way of weaponising the faith was also developed in Sunni Islam. It stands behind organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood . . .. It rests not only on an interpretation of the words of God allegedly spoken through the mouth of his Prophet, but on a tale of grievance. In this tale, bad people – colonial powers, Christians, Jews, America, “hypocrite” Muslim monarchs – destroyed the right rule of true Islam (the caliphate) and humiliated the faithful. This world-view is known as “Islamism”. Islam itself is related to Islamism as patriotism is related to nationalism, the former being based on love of something, the latter on hatred of something else. Islamism validates resentment. Its emotional appeal is like that of communism and fascism, but stronger, because it promises heaven to those who commit its violent acts on earth.'

Tertullian's encouragement to martyrdom

Roman Carthage

The flesh will perhaps fear the heavy sword and the lofty cross and the wild beasts mad with rage and the most terrible punishment of all—death by fire—and, finally, all the executioner’s cunning during the torture.  But let the spirit present to both itself and the flesh the other side of the picture: granted, these sufferings are grievous, yet many have borne them patiently, nay, have even sought them on their own accord for the sake of fame and glory; and this is true not only of men but also of women so that you, too, O blessed women, may be worthy of your sex. 

-- Tertullian, To the Martyrs, 4.35 (circa AD 197)

Here's another "religion" which should be banned in the United States, but our insane Supremes think otherwise

The Associated Press just recently reported here:

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- A man described by police as a Santeria priest caught with human remains in his Connecticut home agreed on Monday to go to Massachusetts to face accusations that he stole the five skeletons from a mausoleum. ... Police arrested Medina on Friday after the remains were found in his Hartford apartment. Medina told police he was a Santeria priest and wanted the human bones for religious and healing ceremonies, said Hartford Deputy Police Chief Brian Foley.

Give them an inch in 2009 they'll take a mile in 2015:

As the sacrificial hour approaches, several priests (Santeros) are preparing the 40 assorted goats, roosters, hens, guinea hens, pigeons, quail, turtle and duck who grow noisy and nervous in their cages. Their lives will be taken in an exchange mandated by Olofi, Santería's supreme god and source of all energy, to heal the broken body and spirit of Virginia Rosario-Nevarez and to initiate her into the Santería priesthood. No medical doctor has been able to alleviate her suffering—the intractable back pain that makes walking unbearable, her debilitating depression and loneliness.

The development of liberal social equality in the West would have been unthinkable without Pauline Christianity and Protestantism

Knox thought rule by Queens was unnatural

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

-- Galatians 3:28

Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.

-- Colossians 3:11

[7]Neither would I that you should esteem the reformation and care of religion less to appertain to you, because you are not kings, rulers, judges, nobles, nor in authority. Beloved brethren, you are God's creatures, created and formed to his own image and similitude, for whose redemption was shed the most precious blood of the only beloved Son of God, to whom he has commanded his gospel and glad tidings to be preached, and for whom he has prepared the heavenly inheritance, so that you will not obstinately refuse, and disdainfully contemn the means which he has appointed to obtain the same: to wit, his blessed evangel, which now he offers unto you, to the end that you may be saved. For the gospel and glad tidings of the kingdom truly preached, is the power of God to the salvation of every believer (Rom. 1:16), which to credit and receive, you, the commonalty, are no less indebted than are your rulers and princes. [8]For albeit God has put and ordained distinction and difference betwixt the king and subjects, betwixt the rulers and the common people, in the regiment and administration of civil policies; yet in the hope of the life to come he has made all equal. For as in Christ Jesus the Jew has no greater prerogative than has the Gentile, the man than has the woman, the learned than the unlearned, the lord than the servant, but all are one in him (Ga. 3:26-29), so there is but one way and means to attain to the participation of his benefits and spiritual graces, which is a lively faith working by charity.

-- John Knox, Letter to Scotland, 1558

The Protestant idea of the spiritual equality of all "in the hope of the life to come" took on a life of its own in the West as secularization took hold during the Enlightenment.

If you have enough money to buy pot, you aren't a disciple of Jesus

The pot-smoking Christians of Colorado: Stoner Jesus Bible Study.

Here's their website.

Here's their news story.

Here's Jesus' verdict: If you have enough money to buy pot, you aren't a disciple.

Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. -- Mark 10:21

When the moon, and the devil, caused epilepsy

Selene, Greek goddess of the moon (Roman Luna)

And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. 

-- Matthew 17:14ff.

Roderick Cyr still dilutes Jesus' clear and unambiguous message to become the poor

Here on Mark 10:17ff. and the parallels:

The trouble begins when we go to great lengths to explain why Jesus’ plain words are not what they appear. Instead of focusing on what He is saying and gleaning insights from those words, we concentrate on what He is not saying:

1] Jesus is not saying it’s wrong to be rich.

2] Jesus is not telling us to sell our possessions to follow Him.

3] Jesus is not issuing a specific warning to the rich. ...

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: "Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." -- Luke 6:20

"Sell your possessions and give alms." -- Luke 12:33

"So therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple." -- Luke 14:33

"But woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you that are full now, for you shall hunger. Woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep." -- Luke 6:24f.

It doesn't say "Blessed are you rich".

It doesn't say the poor can keep what they have anymore than the rich can.

But neither does it say "Woe to you that are poor".