In scripture there is no such thing as an heir that was, by right of nature, to inherit all, exclusive of his brethren.
Sunday, September 25, 2022
Locke against the right of primogeniture
In scripture there is no such thing as an heir that was, by right of nature, to inherit all, exclusive of his brethren.
Friday, September 23, 2022
Of verses sterling
Wednesday, September 21, 2022
All of Pope Francis' American appointments to cardinal have been the acolytes of a pervert, liar, and abuser of the highest order
It is disturbing that all of Francis’s American appointments to the
College of Cardinals have been acolytes of Cardinal McCarrick, the
former archbishop of Washington, DC and a pervert, liar, and abuser par
excellence.
It's quite a bit more than disturbing . . .
None of this is remotely Catholic.
Well, there it is.
Read it all, here.
Tuesday, September 20, 2022
US evangelicals are no longer orthodox Christians
56 percent of evangelical respondents affirmed that “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism and Islam,” up from 42 percent in 2020.
A surprising 73 percent agreed with the statement that “Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.”
60 percent of the evangelical survey respondents had some confusion about its third member, believing that “The Holy Spirit is a force but is not a personal being.”
57 percent also agreed to the statement that “Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.”
More.
Sunday, September 18, 2022
Masuccio Salernitano on the phony, immoral, infanticidal Franciscan and Dominican begging friars of 15th century Italy
They cheat, steal, and fornicate, and when they are at the end of their resources, they set up as saints and work miracles . . . bring with them confederates who pretend to be blind or afflicted with some mortal disease, and after touching the hem of the monk's cowl, or the relics which he carries, are healed before the eyes of the multitude. All then shout 'Misericordia', the bells are rung, and the miracle is recorded in a solemn protocol. ... The nuns ... bring forth pretty little monks or else use means to hinder that result. And if anyone charges me with falsehood, let him search the nunneries well, and he will find there as many little bones as in Bethlehem at Herod's time. ... The best punishment for them would be for God to abolish Purgatory; they would then receive no more alms, and would be forced to go back to their spades.
-- Tommaso Guardati, aka Masuccio Salernitano (1410-1475), quoted in Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (London: Phaidon, 1945), 283f.
Thursday, September 15, 2022
On the self-importance of the poets
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Monday, September 12, 2022
Rod Dreher, so-called most important Christian thinker of our age, differs little from the superstitious fear-peddlers of any previous age
On this day twenty years ago, a shocking sign appeared in New York. ... I remember standing there at the edge of Ground Zero, looking at my watch, waiting for the minute when, one year earlier, the first plane struck the north tower. That was also to be the signal for the start of the memorial service at Ground Zero. At that moment -- at that precise moment -- a ferocious wind blew in from the same direction that the plane had taken. It was uncanny. There was a hurricane far offshore, and this was its outermost fringe. Still, the timing was eerie. ... When I emerged out onto the street a few minutes later, the wind had stopped. I don't know what time it ceased to blow, but I would bet it was when the last name was read. ...
Sunday, September 11, 2022
The true king does much with little
Thursday, September 8, 2022
Snoring upon the flint
Tuesday, September 6, 2022
Progressive Walter Brueggemann offers not one text in the Bible which offers "a counter-position" friendly to homosexuality, let alone to bestiality, incest, or transgenderism
Because there aren't any.
The reason the Bible seems to speak “in one voice” concerning matters that pertain to LGBTQ persons is that the loud voices most often cite only one set of texts, to the determined disregard of the texts that offer a counter-position. ... The Bible contains all sorts of voices that are inimical to the good news of God’s love, mercy and justice. ... And where the Bible contradicts that news, as in the texts of rigor, these texts are to be seen as “beyond the pale” of gospel attentiveness.
More.
For Brueggemann all the following simply have to go, along with Romans 1:23ff. itself, because they are the enemy of the easy, welcoming gospel (which would strike St. Paul as quite the odious lie), even though there isn't any evidence that early Christianity reversed its antipathy for any of these perversions.
Make no mistake. There is no reason why the prohibitions against bestiality, incest, and transgenderism should stay when those against homosexuality must go.
Brueggemann should be made to answer that:
Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death.
-- Exodus 22:19
Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
-- Leviticus 18:22
And the man that lieth with his father's wife hath uncovered his father's nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
-- Leviticus 20:11
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
-- Leviticus 20:13
And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death: and ye shall slay the beast.
-- Leviticus 20:15
And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
-- Leviticus 20:16
The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.
-- Deuteronomy 22:5
Cursed be he that lieth with his father's wife; because he uncovereth his father's skirt. And all the people shall say, Amen.
-- Deuteronomy 27:20
Cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast. And all the people shall say, Amen.
-- Deuteronomy 27:21
Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.
-- Deuteronomy 27:22
Cursed be he that lieth with his mother in law. And all the people shall say, Amen.
-- Deuteronomy 27:23
Brueggemann ignores a bunch of texts himself which contradict his cherished catch-all counter-idea that "The Gospel, unlike the Bible, is unambiguous about God’s deep love for all peoples."
For Brueggemann it couldn't possibly be that Jesus was an eschatological prophet to Israel only (Matthew 10, 15), bringing good news to its lost sheep who were impoverished by the rich who have their reward (Luke 7), who preached impending divine judgment of his generation (Luke 11) and never imagined a future church but rather the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God out of heaven wherein The Twelve would sit on twelve thrones judging the new Israel (Matthew 19, Luke 22).
There's plenty of contradictory evidence against Brueggemann's easy gospel of "welcome", he just ignores it.
Brueggemann ignores all the evidence because he has a different agenda, about a kingdom that is "never fully here" but is only becoming.
Perhaps the most succinct example of that ignorance is summed up in his twisted claim that "The burden of discipleship to Jesus is easy". The burden of Jesus is in fact quite specifically light because the disciple has no possessions weighing him down, impeding his escape through the narrow gate, and no social obligations of work and family either, all of which were renounced because they hold one back.
No man can be my disciple who does not say goodbye to everything that is his.
-- Luke 14:33
No one knows this Jesus anymore, not Paul himself, not today's church, and especially not Walter Brueggemann.
Monday, September 5, 2022
Neocon speech writer for George W. Bush, Evangelical Michael Gerson is very angry with his brothers for not being angry, too
Trump should fill Christians with rage. How come he doesn’t?
The Trump movement is
inconsistent with Christianity by any orthodox measure. Yet the discontent, prejudices and delusions of religious conservatives helped swell the populist wave that lapped up on the steps of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. During that assault, Christian banners mixed with the iconography of white supremacy, in a manner that should have choked Christian participants with rage. But it didn’t.
Is that disqualifying?
Like many of his fellow Christians, Gerson rejects the historical Jesus as eschatological prophet of the end of the world and instead believes in an unfolding, immanentized eschaton which realizes the universal rule of God through the church:
In the present age, [Jesus] insisted, the Kingdom of God would not be the product of Jewish nationalism. It would not arrive through militancy and violence, tactics that would contribute only to a cycle of suffering. Instead, God’s kingdom would grow silently, soul by soul, “among you” and “within you,” across every barrier of nation or race — in acts of justice, peacemaking, love, inclusion, meekness, humility and gentleness.
Gerson's Trump critique is useful to the political objectives of Washington Post liberalism, but that liberalism all the same knows that his version of Christianity is nothing but a paper tiger, having co-opted its values long ago.
Maybe down deep Gerson knows this also.
He is a life-long sufferer of mental illness:
Saturday, September 3, 2022
It would be odd for Jesus' opponents to say he wasn't yet fifty if he were actually only about thirty
Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?
-- John 8:57
Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased. And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli . . ..
-- Luke 3:21ff.