When Protestant nonconformism and dissent, especially with regard to the real presence in the sacrament, made you heretical

False religion is, in its nature, the greatest bane and destruction to government in the world.

-- Robert South

The winners' game

 

Yet Reason frowns on war's unequal game,

Where wasted nations raise a single name,

And mortgaged states their grandsires' wreaths regret,

From age to age in everlasting debt;

Wreaths which at last the dear-bought right convey

To rust on medals, or on stones decay.

 

-- Samuel Johnson, The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749)

A useful review of the salutary influence of the conciliar tradition in colonial Maryland

From: Did Catholics Establish Religious Liberty in America?

Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America, by Michael D. Breidenbach, traces why and how Catholics have advocated for their own religious freedom in America, and their contributions to the ability of all citizens to worship God according to the dictates of conscience. The author highlights the roles two families played in these debates: the Calverts and the Carrolls.

 

Even sound money tells lies: "The golden age is back" (for about five minutes)

Western Caesar, AD 286-293

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whatever victories the several pretenders to the empire obtained over one another, they are recorded on coins without the least reflection.

-- Joseph Addison

Promising Renewed Greatness: Slogans from Two Insurgents :

The coins [he issued] include many literary allusions but none more so than in the cryptic … legend that appears on many of the silver coins:  RSR.  This was short for Redeunt Saturnia Regna, ‘The Golden Age is back’, from Virgil’s Fourth Ecologue. 

The Jesus who instructs at minimum to invest with usury obviously isn't the same Jesus who instructs to lend expecting nothing in return

The idea that Jesus would countenance usury at all is preposterous, whether as a law-loving Jew or as an eschatological prophet of impending final judgment.

The sayings of Matthew 25 and Luke 19, the Parable of the Ten Talents, blessing usury clearly stem from the period of later church reflection on the delay of the parousia. They stress being adequately prepared for the future coming, which has been unaccountably delayed. Time is dragging on interminably. The sayings fail miserably even to imagine how such preparation is in conflict with the law. They give no thought to it. They cannot be "historical".

The same is true of Matthew 5 and Luke 6, though to a lesser extent. The sayings of the Sermon on the Mount have been colored by the delay, too, but are closer in spirit to the thought of the historical Jesus, for whom giving instruction about lending at all would have made no sense but who might have countenanced such a discussion because it was a burning topic in the law and the prophets. Lending at interest of any kind to a "brother" was simply forbidden, though obviously much abused.

Like the Sermon generally, instruction about lending is instruction about and for an interim which Jesus never imagined would come. What we observe here is community reflection, by a community which has already stopped liquidating all possessions in obedience to the call to discipleship and which still has worldly goods to lend. The community is reflecting on what Jesus might have said on the subject, given his high view of the law. Clearly the solution given in Matthew 5 and especially in Luke 6 to lend expecting no return, not even of the principal, is in conflict with the Parable of the Ten Talents (again, Luke has the keener take on Jesus' eschatology and its implications). But the solution does reflect the spirit of the call to discipleship, if not the practice: Sell that thou hast, give to the poor, come follow me. To this extent it is closer to the historical Jesus.

It is remarkable how incoherent is the tradition and its redaction on this point.

 

Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury ... from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

-- Matthew 25:27,29

Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury? ... from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.  

-- Luke 19:23,26

Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. 

-- Matthew 5:42

Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. ... But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.

-- Luke 6:30,35

If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.

-- Exodus 22:25

And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase. 

-- Leviticus 25:35ff. 

Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury: Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

-- Deuteronomy 23:19f.

LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? ... He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent.

-- Psalm 15:1, 5

He that hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, hath executed true judgment between man and man, Hath walked in my statutes, and hath kept my judgments, to deal truly; he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord GOD.

-- Ezekiel 18:8f.

So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

-- Luke 14:33

Grief's a robber

The tears steal from our eyes, when in the street

With some betrothed virgin's herse we meet;

Or infant's fun'ral, from the cheated womb

Convey'd to earth, and cradled in a tomb.

-- John Dryden

Oh where, oh where did my reputation go?

Honour is like that glassy bubble,

That finds philosophers such trouble;

Whose least part crack'd, the whole does fly,

And wits are crack'd to find out why. 

-- Samuel Butler, Hudibras

The heterodox Mormon Vision of the Redemption of the Dead of October 3, 1918 expands religious identity to the point of Universalism

The "vision" is notable for the way the Second Coming of the Son of Man as judge is minimized and rationalized away in favor of a now all-consuming Universalism.

Such rationalization is a feature of religion, not a bug.

The Pharisees were liberal democritizers of Judaism with their synagogue system, expanding the availability of the holiness of the Temple priests to the hinterlands of Israel and to the Diaspora. Paul for Christianity expanded membership in the lost sheep of the house of Israel saved by Christ to the Greek-speaking Gentile world of the Mediterranean. Even Muhammad for the Arabs gave them their very own Book which rewrote the erroneous Jewish and Christian Bible in their own language. The Protestant Reformers of hierarchical Catholicism created a  priesthood of all believers transmitted in the vernacular thanks to Gutenberg.

But Mormons would flat out save the entire human race, expanding the availability of salvation even to the dead. The specific impetus is the belief that the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel were scattered globally, multiplied, and are basically unknown even to themselves, and that the Mormon mission is to gather them in to the House of Joseph in America, the twin of the House of Judah in Israel.

It's not unlike the Muslim view of its own legitimacy asserted through Ishmael, not Isaac. Mormonism is to American Protestantism, particularly nonconformist Protestantism of the Second Great Awakening in Western New York, as Islam is to Eastern Orthodoxy, particularly Nestorianism.

It's as ingenious as it is unconvincing.  

The Whole Earth Shall Be in Commotion

It was just a few weeks before his own death when President Smith was in the depths of sorrow over the sudden death of his oldest son when he received the crowning heavenly revelation known as “the vision of the redemption of the dead.” In this vision, he not only saw his father in the Spirit World but the great gathering of millions of the righteous who had died into the arms of Christ. He also saw the offering of redemption to those who had done wickedly on the earth on the condition of their repentance in the Spirit World. This was Christ’s visit to the Spirit World during the 3 days His body was in the tomb, fulfilling His promise recorded in 1 Peter: 3, 4 . . .

 

While yes, Christ’s Second Coming will cleanse the wicked from the earth, after death, He offers healing to all who will accept it. He wants us to come home.  This gathering overcomes all the “separateness” and chaos that evil inflicts upon us. It not only gathers us into the arms of Christ but into the arms of each other. Even as we approach the Apocalypse and the center stops holding on earth, it does hold in eternity. I rejoice to know that, in the end, all things in heaven and earth will be gathered together as one in Christ.

As America becomes less Christian its people grow more delusional

Nearly half of Americans think they’re a better person than EVERYONE they know!

In a recent survey of 2,000 U.S. residents, 81 percent say they believe that humankind is inherently good. Three in four believe they themselves are fundamentally a good person. When researchers asked respondents how they would compare themselves to others in their lives, 46 percent went a step further, admitting (in their eyes) they’re “better” than everyone else they know.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they’re more selfless than ever before thanks to pandemic

 

64 percent of Americans say 2020 has made them more selfless than ever before. ... Researchers find 74 percent believe 2020 has made them more aware of the needs of others.

Seventy-two percent of those surveyed found themselves caring about the health and wellbeing of others significantly more than ever before. Despite the economic crash, a staggering 87 percent of Americans have donated a portion of their paycheck during COVID-19.

 

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

 -- Luke 18:11f. 

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? 

-- Jeremiah 17:9

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 

-- I John 1:8

The author of κακά

I am the one who once fashioned the light and made the darkness

the one who presently makes peace and creates calamity

I the Lord God am the one who does all these things

ἐγὼ ὁ κατασκευάσας φῶς καὶ ποιήσας σκότος

ὁ ποιῶν εἰρήνην καὶ κτίζων κακά

ἐγὼ κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ ποιῶν ταῦτα πάντα

-- Isaiah 45:7 (LXX)

 

but he that doeth evil hath not seen God

 

ὁ δὲ κακοποιῶν οὐχ ἑώρακεν τὸν θεόν

-- III John 1:11

One everlasting night

The sun may set and rise;

But we, contrariwise,

Sleep, after our short light,

One everlasting night.

 

--  Walter Raleigh

 

The contrarious hand of providence

God of our Fathers, what is man!
That thou towards him with hand so various,
Or might I say contrarious,
Temperst thy providence through his short course,

Not evenly, as thou rul'st
The Angelic orders and inferiour creatures mute,
Irrational and brute.

 

-- John Milton, Samson Agonistes, 670

The good old days, when the sexual sins of Catholicism in Italy seemed more, shall we say, conventional

Closely connected with the political illegitimacy of the dynasties of the fifteenth century was the public indifference to legitimate birth, which to foreigners--for example, to Comines--appeared so remarkable. The two things went naturally together. ... In Italy ... there no longer existed a princely house where ... bastards were not patiently tolerated. ... The fitness of the individual, his worth and capacity, were of more weight than all the laws and usages which prevailed elsewhere in the West. It was the age, indeed, in which the sons of the Popes were founding dynasties.

-- Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (London: Phaidon, 1945), 12.

 

She was a lesbian before she was a tranny

Lutherans elect Megan Rohrer first transgender bishop :

"Raised in South Dakota, Rohrer has recounted being expelled from the youth group at the church they attended in Sioux Falls when they came out as a lesbian . . .."

Obviously being lesbian is just dime a dozen stuff anymore. Gotta be trans now to get any attention.

LOOK AT ME, DAMN IT!

Catholic parochial education, now more secular and costly, reaches 64% fewer students in 2021 than it did in 1970

Catholic Schools Are Losing Students at Record Rates, and Hundreds Are Closing :

Even before the pandemic hit, about 100 Catholic schools were closing each year, according to the NCEA. In 1970, some 4.4 million students attended Catholic elementary and secondary schools, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, a Catholic social-science research institute based at Georgetown University. At the time, almost all students were Catholics, and classes were often taught by priests, nuns or members of male religious orders, who earned salaries far lower than their public-school counterparts.

Today, about 1.6 million students attend Catholic schools, according to the NCEA. About 80% of students are Catholic, and lay teachers have almost completely replaced priests and nuns, which has driven up the cost. Though religious instruction remains a core piece of Catholic education, mass is no longer a daily part of most schools. ...

Other factors have contributed to the decline as well: Enrollment fell sharply in the early 2000s, during the church’s sex-abuse scandal, and fell again after the financial crash in 2008. Some secular families are turned off by the church’s opposition to abortion or same-sex marriage, said Carol Ann MacGregor, vice provost of Loyola University New Orleans. Meanwhile, more the most devout Catholics are home-schooling their children, in some cases because they don’t believe Catholic schools are focused enough on the faith.

Maybe Sister Cindy should try preaching repentance as liquidation of assets and a life of poverty if she's to become edgy again

What Can Fascination With ‘Sister Cindy’ Teach Us About the ‘None’ Generation?  :

I do think thoughtful conservative religious people would likely be concerned to discover—to use Christian language—that the scandal of the gospel has largely lost the power to scandalize (an enervation for which they themselves are, in my view, largely responsible). And if religion indeed no longer has this power, then we may perhaps imagine that religion of the kind that made real claims on and demands of people is heading, like that elderly aunt, rather headlong into oblivion. It may be that the world will be a better place when it’s gone, but it may also be that we come to miss it deeply. 

So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. 

-- Luke 14:33

“I abhor his doctrines. Christianity is truly a religion for the expropriated.” 

-- Russell Kirk in 1942

For schismatic Catholicism 100 years before the Protestant break, 1409's three rival popes at Avignon, Pisa, and Rome are Exhibits A, B, and C

 

Alexander V Pisa

Gregory XII Rome

Benedict XIII Avignon

The Flying Spaghetti Monster has been replaced by the disembodied Swarm Pope crowd-sourced from the swirling Id of the Twitter mob

Honestly I chafed all the way through the poor editing, misspellings, half-baked history, and half-hearted analysis up to that point, in what, paragraph 63, to get the just one laugh line?

Yes. Yes, I did.

Don't make the same mistake.

Are we in a 500 Year Religious Revolution?

There's no rush, there will be plenty of time for unity . . . in death

All things past are equally and perfectly at rest:

and to this way of consideration of them are all one,

whether they were before the world, or yesterday.

-- John Locke