Sanctities thick as stars

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 About him all the sanctities of heav'n 

Stood thick as stars, and from his sight receiv'd 

Beatitude past utt'rance.

 

-- John Milton

The likes of John and Paul made this man to offend above all others, others not so much

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This man, that of earthly matter maketh graven images, knoweth himself to offend above all others.

-- Wisdom of Solomon 15:13 

Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

-- John 5:18

The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.

-- John 10:33

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

-- Philippians 2:6

Indeed, Allah does not forgive associating others with Him in worship, but forgives anything else of whoever He wills. And whoever associates others with Allah has indeed committed a grave sin. ... Surely Allah does not forgive associating others with Him in worship, but forgives anything else of whoever He wills. Indeed, whoever associates others with Allah has clearly gone far astray.

 

-- Quran 4:48, 116

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: 

 

-- Deuteronomy 6:4

 

And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:  

-- Mark 12:29

And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. 

 

-- Matthew 19:17

 

John Dryden describes justice according to The Democrat Party

 Cheaply you sin, and punish crimes with ease,

Not as th' offended, but the offenders please.

-- John Dryden

The Disciples of Christ are down to fewer than 300,000 members as COVID-19 all but buries denomination decimated by "theological revisionism"

 

Membership is down a whopping 85% from almost 2 million since the 1960s.

By the 1990s it was already down 50%, and another 50% by the 2010s. But COVID-19 has now all but buried the Christian Church Disciples of Christ.

Who will attend the funeral?

From the story, here:

From 2019-2022, there was a 21 percent drop in membership, a cataclysmic rate of decline. … Disciples have firmly moved in a theologically revisionist direction on matters of human sexuality, gender expression, and radical individual moral autonomy. …

Somehow I don't think Christianity Today's Paul D. Miller would have been in favor of the American Revolution at the time

 

On June 9, 1772, the Sons of Liberty burned HMS Gaspee, a British customs schooner in Narragansett Bay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unless it was “moderate” lol.

The Problem with Anti-Anti-Christian Nationalism :

Moderate Christian nationalists shouldn't be smeared. But neither should extremism be defended. … American Christians have a special duty to lovingly correct Christian nationalism. … moderate Christian nationalists have a special duty to denounce extremists in their ranks, even if they remain persuaded of Christian nationalism’s tenets.

That son, affecting to subdue rational liberty

 Justly thou abhorr'st

That son, who on the quiet state of men

Such trouble brought, affecting to subdue

Rational liberty.

-- John Milton, Paradise Lost

Eyewitness to earth-shattering day 60 years ago doubts himself, contradicts official statements he filed at the time, says he put the magic bullet he found in JFK's seat on JFK's stretcher

Mr. Landis’s account, included in a forthcoming memoir, would rewrite the narrative of one of modern American history’s most earth-shattering days in an important way. It may not mean any more than that. But it could also encourage those who have long suspected that there was more than one gunman in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, adding new grist to one of the nation’s enduring mysteries.

 

 As with all things related to the assassination, of course, his account raises questions of its own. Mr. Landis remained silent for 60 years, which has fueled doubts even for his former Secret Service partner, and memories are tricky even for those sincerely certain of their recollections. A couple elements of his account contradict the official statements he filed with authorities immediately after the shooting, and some of the implications of his version cannot be easily reconciled to the existing record.  

 

But he was there, a firsthand witness, and it is rare for new testimony to emerge six decades after the fact. He has never subscribed to the conspiracy theories and stresses that he is not promoting one now. At age 88, he said, all he wants is to tell what he saw and what he did. He will leave it to everyone else to draw conclusions.

More. 

 

Peter, James, and John, in the holy mount: We were eyewitnesses of his majesty

 

 

 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. 

 

-- II Peter 1:16ff.

Religion begins with experience of the holy

 The holy man, amaz'd at what he saw,

Made haste to sanctify the bliss by law.

-- John Dryden

All kidding aside, it's stunning that a believing Catholic like Ross Douthat thinks morality is a secondary aspect of religion

 Here:

But the challenge does run a little deeper if the only parts of church that Dad believes in are the secondary goods of religion (community and morality and solidarity and choral music), while the primary good — communion with God and the integration of human life with divine purposes — is assumed to probably be so much wishful thinking even before the specific dogmatic questions get involved.

 

 

Stunning because Douthat elsewhere recognized, in 2011, that the unique human characteristic of passing moral judgment is demonstrative of the way human beings strangely stand outside nature, just like God:

Second, the idea that human beings are fashioned, in some way, in the image of the universe’s creator explained why your own relationship to the world was particularly strange. Your fourth- or 14th-century self was obviously part of nature, an embodied creature with an animal form, and yet your consciousness also seemed to stand outside it, with a peculiar sense of immaterial objectivity, an almost God’s-eye view — constantly analyzing, tinkering, appreciating, passing moral judgment.

God desires mercy, not sacrifice (Matthew 9:13; 12:7):

Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me:  Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.  

-- Matthew 18:32ff.

Douthat, like much of Christianity and the West, suffers from too much vertically-oriented individualism, at least this year, for which we'll just have to forgive him.

Elmo knows

 

Where Should Agnostics Go on Sundays?

Ross Douthat, New York Times 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOL Pastor Doug Wilson thinks Democrats forgot to rig 2016 and the world will end if Trump wins in 2024

Trump won in 2016, as I noted, because the opposition didn’t have their “just in case” machinery in place. They were caught flatfooted. If the legal persecution of Trump causes any kind of major sympathy swing toward Trump in unusual places (e.g. among blacks, let’s say), it is possible that the left could be caught flatfooted again, only in localities that they had assumed to be safe. Because they assumed them to be safe, taking them for granted, they did not have their machinery in place.

If the American people are maneuvered into the position of thinking that there is only one way to vote ourselves out of clown world, and that is to vote like it is time to be Transgressive, then that would be a Trump vote. But even if such a thing were to happen, it would fall more in the category of bringing everything to a head, and not in the category of fixing anything. It would be kind of like the moment when Samson pulled down the Temple of Dagon.

Here.

OK Doug.

We must both fortunes try, and bear our evils, wet or dry

 That people live and die, I knew,

An hour ago, as well as you;

And if fate spins us longer years,

Or is in haste to take the shears,

I know, we must both fortunes try,

And bear our evils, wet or dry.

-- Matthew Prior