Prosperity gospel grifters have their own watchdog, Texas' Trinity Foundation

The preachers getting rich from poor Americans:

 

Ole, who always had a have-a-go approach to problem-solving, felt an urge to step in. First, he tried approaching the ministries on behalf of the penniless donors, thinking he could explain the circumstances and get the money refunded. However, like Larry, he found no-one willing to talk.So he took it to a Christian broadcasting association - but it didn't want to get involved. Then he approached local district attorneys, who explained that many preachers were protected by the First Amendment (guaranteeing freedom of religion and free speech), so there was nothing they could do. So he turned back to the media, this time major networks and publications, which said investigations would be too time-consuming.Ole was faced with a multibillion-dollar industry built, as he saw it, on exploiting the poor - and it was completely untouchable.And this is how a community church became an investigations office. The Trinity Foundation felt compelled to tackle the prosperity preachers because no-one else would.

 

There are some things which should not be seen, so it's not surprising that people who specialize in depicting them should be ruined by them

None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the LORD.

Leviticus 18:6

Our continuing crisis: War demoralizes those who fight it, total war destroys faith on a civilizational scale

And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

-- Isaiah 2:4

And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

-- Micah 4:3

War is coming

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nir-arieli_n_3767849

 

When a warlike state grows soft and effeminate, they may be sure of a war.

-- Francis Bacon

PEW says 55% of Americans pray daily, confirms Gallup's finding that 56% of Americans "feel religious"

Gallup's findings: Mapped: The world's most (and least) religious countries

With high levels of prayer, U.S. is an outlier among wealthy nations:

[T]he U.S. is unique in that it has both a high level of wealth ($56,000 per-capita gross domestic product in 2015) and a high level of daily prayer among its population

It's creepy he doesn't realize he's the bride

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. 

-- II Corinthians 11:2

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

-- Romans 7:4

A pearl trampled by swine

 

 

If we see right, we see our woes;

Then what avails it to have eyes?

From ignorance our comfort flows,

The only wretched are the wise!

-- Matthew Prior

Real justice cares nothing for family, friend, or fraternity

Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is always therefore represented as blind.

-- Joseph Addison

To find diversity go to hell, where there's plenty of it

Divine antonyms

Gods of whatsoe'er degree,

Resume not what themselves have given,

Or any brother God in heav'n;

Which keeps the peace among the Gods,

Or they must always be at odds.

-- Jonathan Swift, Cadenus and Vanessa, 1713

Sorrow finally ends when it becomes tiresome

Pity only on fresh objects stays,

But with the tedious sight of woes decays.

-- John Dryden

Rachel Held Evans, 37-year old mother of two, died yesterday; I prefer to remember Aaron D. Wolf, 45-year old father of six, who died on Easter

The LCMS Calls a Post a Post:

Liberal onlookers will never understand or accept the public and decisive condemnation of [same sex] heresy, because they hate Christian doctrine with the zeal of a fundamentalist.  It is not enough for them to mock the Bible and its teachings; they cannot fathom the continued existence of a millennia-old religion that, when pressed, refuses to embrace everything it has always opposed.  They clutch their pearls and express surprised horror whenever a conservative church body like the Missouri Synod expels someone for repeatedly and openly violating its clearly stated beliefs. ... [T]he liberals are winning in the public square.  But they can never win in our churches, so long as faithful clergy and laity stand up to them boldly, decisively—and swiftly, before damage is done.

 

Cicero on the importance of staying in touch

ubi nihil erit quod scribas, id ipsum scribito.

(When there is nothing for you to write, write and say so).

-- Cicero (106-43BC), Letters to Atticus, 4.8A 

You'd think an historian searching for very early Christian evidence of gender equality would know about Galatians 3 and I Corinthians 7, but you'd be wrong

Am I missing anything by way of obvious sources? Put another way, without Romans 16 above all, and a couple of other comparable lists of “Say hello to” greetings in other letters, would any later scholar dared have portrayed very early Christianity in the gender-equal way that modern scholars suggest? Think how easily something like Romans 16 might have dropped out of the transmission history of that document, if an early scribe had decided it was just personal stuff, and not worth preserving. If that had occurred, just what would we know or think about gender roles in early Christianity then? 


 

 

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

For the wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not rule over his own body, but the wife does.

 

-- I Corinthians 7:4

Your average religion or theology professor makes a handsome living off the man who had not where to lay his head

Data: College and University Professional Association for Human Resources

2015-16 averages: All 4-year institutions/public/private

The raw average US wage was only $46,120 in 2015, compared with $92,741 for an average full professor of religion, or 50.3% less.

$92,741 put you in the top 9% of all earners in 2015. And for every 71 of them you meet, say at the annual meetings of the SBL or AAR, 70 are registered Democrats.

ὁ δὲ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἔχει ποῦ τὴν κεφαλὴν κλίνῃ.

The recompense of time

 

E'vn such is time, who takes on trust

Our youth, our joys, our all we have,

And pays us but with age and dust.

-- Walter Raleigh (1552-1618)