Late stage civilization

 

Odysseus gets Polyphemus drunk, mosaic, Villa Romana del Casale, Piazza Armerina, Italy

 

 Prosperity begins to mellow,

And drops into the rotten mouth of death.

-- William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act 4, Scene 4

Joe Biden was widely regarded as the clown of the U.S. Senate 1973-2009 for offensive antics like this, but America made him president anyhow

 

 Because whom the gods would destroy they first make insane.

 

President Joe Biden has enraged Catholic Church regulars with his latest show of approval for abortion, a Vatican red line.

On Tuesday in Florida, where he blasted the state’s impending six-week abortion ban, Biden blessed himself with the sign of the cross when the woman introducing him referenced Florida’s shorter window for abortion.

The group Catholic Vote blasted Biden’s actions on X.

More.

No fine people on either side

 While I am a beggar, I will rail,

And say there is no sin but to be rich:

And being rich, my virtue then shall be,

To say there is no vice but beggary.

-- William Shakespeare, History of King John, Act 2, Scene 1

Jesus' call to extreme discipleship causes exceeding sorrow, but Paul will have none of that

Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." And the young man, having heard the word, went away sorrowful [λυπούμενος], for he had many possessions;

-- Matthew 19:21f.

And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved [λυπούμενος]: for he had great possessions.

-- Mark 10:21f.

"Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys."

-- Luke 12:33

"So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions."

-- Luke 14:33 

And when Jesus heard it, he said to him, "One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful [περίλυπος]: for he was very rich.

-- Luke 18:22f.

Each one must do just as he has decided in his heart, not out of sorrow [λύπης] or out of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver.

-- II Corinthians 9:7

 

Stand by for a word from our fearless leader, preferably at a safe distance

Duchess of Cornwall, surprised by Biden air biscuit 2021

 As when we a gun discharge,

Although the bore be ne'er so large,

Before the flame from muzzle burst,

Just at the breech it flashes first;

So from my lord his passion broke,

He farted first and then he spoke.

-- Jonathan Swift

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad

They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope in the noonday as in the night. 

-- Job 5:14

 Solar eclipse frenzy sweeps across North America • FRANCE 24 English:

 

Touch me not for I am not yet ascended, or Today shalt thou be with me in paradise?

 

The problem of the resurrected but not yet ascended Jesus telling Mary not to touch him but encouraging Thomas to do so in John 20 is hardly the only problem with John's death and resurrection narrative about Jesus. 

John never even gives us the promised ascension at all, despite all the talk in that gospel of the descending and ascending Son of Man.

The absence is not unique to John, however, which tells us that the thinking about all this was, if not fluid, at least not fully formed at the time.

Luke does not reconcile the ascension stories he himself tells in Luke 24:51 and Acts 1:9 with the words of Christ from the cross which he alone records, which imply that Jesus simply expected at death to go to heaven immediately, not to rise from the dead and ascend later, let alone descend into hell in the interim.

Compare Luke's Lazarus, who dies and goes to the bosom of Abraham, while the rich man who ignored him dies and goes to hell (Luke 16:22ff.). This is what is supposed to happen, right? There is no resurrection until "the last day", as Martha informs us (John 11:24). Everybody knows that! But then John's Jesus raises her brother anyway.

And like Matthew's I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world (28:20), the resurrected Jesus in John 21 never really exits the world either. He can appear at any time and say Follow me. Even to one untimely born (I Corinthians 15:8).

Matthew's Jesus doesn't leave in an ascension. He is always present.

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. 

-- Matthew 18:20

The ending supplied to Mark 16, however, agrees with Luke that Jesus ascended to heaven and sat on the right hand of God. Its fascination with signs done by those who believe echos the early Christian history recounted by Luke in Acts, and doubtlessly comes from that part of the tradition and is not originally Marcan.

 

And [the other malefactor] said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. 

-- Luke 23:42f.

Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: 

-- John 19:32f.

Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.  

-- John 20:17

The stated goal of Rachel Crandall-Crocker's Transgender Day of Visibility is power

Rachel Crandall-Crocker says several times in a 2020 interview, if you can manage to get through the whole thing, that the goal of organizing their day in the first place was to obtain power.

Just turn the sound off and turn on the closed captions and you'll see for yourself.

Comments to the YouTube video, by the way, have been turned off overnight, which is exactly what you would expect from people who want power, which to them means they have a say and you don't.

The success of this gay man's effort, originally organized on Facebook in 2009, elicited the Oy vey! he exclaimed about four minutes in. This attention-seeking larper must be even more thrilled now.

This was April 21, 2020, not quite a year before Joe Biden became the first American president to recognize the day officially, which in retrospect seems indicative not so much of Joe Biden's thinking on the matter but of the unseen activists in his administration who drive his policies behind the scenes because Joe is too feeble of body and mind to exercise executive function.

Americans didn't notice at the time in March 2021 for good reasons.

Their attention was consumed by the COVID-19 hysteria, by the Trump defeat, by the roll-out of the new vaccines, uptake of which peaked in April because of sudden deaths for some Johnson and Johnson vaccine recipients which in turn launched the seemingly interminable vaccine controversy, and in the summer by the Afghanistan debacle.

But now that the day happened to coincide with Easter three years later, Americans have noticed, which has had the unintended effect of making their day more visible and powerful than it might have been. We have taken the bait and given them the attention which they wanted, which is the basis of their power. Their success may be measured by how the conversation of the country was dominated by their day, not by ours.

Note that when confronted with what he had done, Joe Biden denied that he had declared Easter Sunday the Transgender Day of Visibility. But of course he did. He brought the Trojan Horse of Transgenderism into the government and now we awaken from a long sleep and find that Troy has already fallen.

Since their goal is power, we may imagine that it won't be long now before America has its own attention-seeking Emperor Nero, who played the bride to a man he had married, consummating it on a couch in full public view. Or before we have a transgender woman Elagabalus, the Roman Emperor who said "I am a lady". 

The freaks will be thrilled.

What will you be?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phil Yancey thinks Christians have done a pretty good job of making disciples of all nations lol

In short, [Jesus] was elevating human agency so that his followers would do the work of God, just as he had done.

. . . It’s up to you now, he said in effect.

Jesus had healed diseases, cast out demons, and brought comfort and solace to the poor, the oppressed, and the suffering—but only in one small corner of the Roman empire. Now he was setting loose his followers to take that same message to Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.

Two thousand years later, 3 billion people around the world identify as followers of Jesus. The message he brought has spread to Europe, Asia, and every other continent. 

The chance of that spread without the jolting event we celebrate as Easter is vanishingly small. Before his resurrection, Jesus’ few followers were denying him and hiding from the temple police. Even afterward, Thomas doubted until he saw proof in flesh and scars. But as they came to understand what had happened in the Resurrection, the disciples were able to glimpse Jesus’ cosmic view.

Here.

Apart from the dubious assertion that Jesus embraced human agency, let's just look at the numbers.

Are the chances of Christianity's growth to 3 billion "vanishingly small" without the resurrection?

One estimate of the global Christian population in 1800 puts it at about 204 million, growing to 2.7 billion by 2025. Not that far off from Phil Yancey's 3 billion. He is rounding up, obviously.

The rate of growth? 1,227%.

How about for Islam, though, over the same period?

2,067%.

Hindus have grown by a respectable 922%. 

And the Sikhs by 1,567%.

Meanwhile more than 7 BILLION people have died globally from 1850 to 2022.

If "it's up to you now", are those deaths on them, many of whom never heard the gospel?

These things boggle the mind, but not Phil Yancey's, who has been writing books since 1976.

Cosmic Cowboy 1978

 

 

Joe Biden, the most perverse anti-Christian president in American history, proclaims Easter 2024 The Transgender Day of Visibility

 It couldn't have been today, it couldn't have been Monday, it had to be Easter.

Joe has applesauce for brains and can't remember what he had for breakfast, so I'm sure when he signed this on Friday he wasn't thinking about Sunday being Easter. 

But it makes no difference. Joe is the first American president to insist on the transgender agenda in his official capacity as president.

 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/03/29/a-proclamation-on-transgender-day-of-visibility-2024/

Um, that was Judaism last time I checked

 In WaPo of course, reproduced here:

Christianity was a particularly blood-obsessed religion, with the Nile transformed to a river of blood in the Old Testament plagues of Egypt . . .  Christianity was a blood-soaked, even blood-obsessed, religion . . . All of this gives some of [Trump's] Christian supporters permission to reembrace the darkest aspects of the symbolics of blood that saturated their religion for centuries. These are old ideas. They are deeply and historically Christian ideas. And they are terrifying.

The guy never mentions Judaism and the Jewish Temple with its elaborate, obligatory centuries old sacrificial system, which disappeared with its destruction in 70 AD, nor Islamic Qurban, the ritual slaughter of tens of millions of animals which happens every year all over the world during Eid al-Adha right up to the present.

Stupidest, most bigoted anti-Christian newspaper in the country, curated for you by the Jew Matt Drudge right on time for Good Friday:

The ancient, volatile Christian ideas behind Trump's obsession with blood...

 

 

Drudge the Jew violates The Eighth Commandment against Trump, that's how much he hates him now

 The article linked to never quotes Trump saying "I am Christ". It's been up there all day, too.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/breaking-donald-trump-says-christ-32437140

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

-- Exodus 20:16

Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour.

-- Deuteronomy 5:20 

 

A Hellenized Jew might well recognize in Paul's three descriptions of his conversion experience and of his life in general a man judged by God according to Greek Deuteronomy

The LORD shall smite thee with madness (παραπληξίᾳ, stunned confusion), and blindness (ἀορασίᾳ, sightlessness), and astonishment of heart (ἐκστάσει, being out of one's mind): And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee. 

-- Deuteronomy 28:28f. 

Stunned confusion

And he [Saul] said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. 

-- Acts 9:5

And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.

-- Acts 22:8

And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. 

-- Acts 26:15

Sightlessness

And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink. ... And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized.  

-- Acts 9:8f.,18

And when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus.  And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there, Came unto me, and stood, and said unto me, Brother Saul, receive thy sight. And the same hour I looked up upon him.  

-- Acts 22:11ff.

Being out of one's mind

And [Saul] hath seen in a vision (ὁράματι) a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight.  

-- Acts 9:12

And it came to pass, that, when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance (ἐκστάσει);  

-- Acts 22:17

And there arose a great cry: and the scribes that were of the Pharisees' part arose, and strove, saying, We find no evil in this man: but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God.  

-- Acts 23:9

Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision (ὀπτασίᾳ):  

-- Acts 26:19

And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself (Μαίνῃ); much learning doth make thee mad (μανίαν). But he said, I am not mad (μαίνομαι), most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness.  

-- Acts 26:24ff.

Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one--I am talking like a madman (παραφρονῶν)--with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 

 -- II Corinthians 11:23ff.

Then said Agrippa unto Festus, This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Caesar.  

-- Acts 26:32

 

Pope Francis rebukes 88% of the adult American population for being unvaccinated against COVID-19

Speaking as part of his newly released memoirs, in a series of interviews conducted by journalist Fabio Marchese Ragona, Pope Francis highlighted his thoughts and responses to the COVID-19 era, including the abortion-tainted COVID jabs and his warm welcome of them.

The Pontiff rebuked those who did not receive an injection, or who voiced opposition to them publicly, saying:

Deciding whether to get vaccinated is always an ethical choice, but I know that many people signed up to movements opposed to the administration of the medication. This distressed me because in my view, being against the antidote is an almost suicidal act of denial.

More here. 

Through Feb 24, 2024, hardly 12% of the adult American population is up-to-date with the latest COVID-19 vaccination introduced in Sep 2023 according to the CDC. Fewer than 32 million adults have received the new jab since then, meaning 236 million have not.

But hardly anyone is dying from, or with, COVID-19.

There have been 3.46 million new cases of COVID-19 in the last 6.5 months, but only about 26,000 have died nationally, which is comparable to an average influenza season. Many, many tens of millions of Americans didn't get the new jabs, didn't get sick, and didn't die.

It remains an article of faith among the elites that the jabs prevent death.

 

Christians don't care what the Bible says, they just pick and choose, or completely avoid mentioning what it says

Like this guy, a Jesuit Catholic priest, who fails to mention that the practice in Egypt was turbocharged by the Muslim conquest, and who should know better than to employ the is-is-ought fallacy:

This Easter, as some Christians get tattoos, this history might serve as a reminder of tattooing as a legitimate Christian practice, one that has been in use since the beginnings of the Common Era.

You must not slash your body for a dead person or incise a tattoo on yourself. I am the LORD. 

-- Leviticus 19:28

 

$13 trillion in new debt and climbing, and 7.2 million new illegal aliens in America and counting since Crazy Uncle Joe's inauguration in January 2021

But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:

The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart:

The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low. He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail.  

-- Deuteronomy 28:15, 28, 43f.

The vulgar herd

 One ass pisses, the rest piss for company.

-- Roger L'Estrange

Does a spring pour forth from the same opening fresh water and brackish?

 Why the **** does everyone swear all the ******* time?

 

The mind which wrote this essay is a busy ditch, for which unsurprisingly the old concept of the vulgar is unimagined country. Accordingly, when it tires of being crass it is capable only of infelicity:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A nodding beam or pig of lead,

May hurt the very ablest head.

 

-- Alexander Pope

On the contrary, the frenzy of negation will burn itself out

 The old progressives—whether Marxists, socialists, or New Deal liberals—wanted to construct a better world, and they had an idea of what that would look like. “The new frenzy is an activism not of construction but of negation” in which “the point is to undo, to liberate and emancipate." 

Thus, “the mode is one of undoing, taking apart, deconstructing, and critique, all in the name of emancipation, liberation, self-determination, and choice.”

This frenzy of negation is all-consuming and self-consuming. Snell notes how the sexual revolution, predicated on infertility and the termination of pregnancy, now turns against the sexed body itself, with the ideology of transgenderism.

The frenzy of negation will never end, it should be noted, for these activists “do not seek anything.” Thus, there is no goal, just a constant conflict against objective reality.

More. 

Nature abhors a vacuum, and those who fail to reproduce, or who extinguish themselves, will be replaced by those who do reproduce, and by those who give each other life and build rather than dismantle and destroy.

Do not sing "keep me free from birth". Choose life.

 

 

 

Same-sex-schism opens new front: Egypt's Orthodox Copts suspend theological dialogue with the Roman See over its change of position on homosexuality

 “After consulting with the sister churches of the Eastern Orthodox family,” they wrote, “it was decided to suspend the theological dialogue with the Catholic Church, reevaluate the results achieved by the dialogue from its beginning twenty years ago, and establish new standards and mechanisms for the dialogue to proceed in the future."

The leaders also reaffirmed their rejection of same-sex relations, stating their “firm position of rejecting all forms of homosexual relationships, because they violate the Holy Bible and the law by which God created man as male and female, and the Church considers any blessing of such relations, whatever its type, to be a blessing for sin, and this is unacceptable.”

The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, headed by Pope Tawadros II, is one of the world’s oldest Christian denominations whose founding dates back to St. Mark the Apostle.

More here.

 

He likes to think of hell as empty

 And all the devils are here.

-- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2

76% of American Christians are now the very antithesis of disciples of Jesus

Relevant Magazine, August 23, 2023, here:

76 percent of Christians now believe God wants them to prosper financially. That number rises among younger generations, with 81 percent of churchgoers between the ages of 18 to 34 and 85 percent of churchgoers 35-49 holding onto that belief.

Luke 14:33 :

So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own. 

      

Tara Isabella Burton traces the origin of this prosperity gospel heresy to a new England faith healer named Phineas Parkhurst Quimby who influenced Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science.   

Dubbed "the mind cure" and "New Thought" historically, it mushroomed into a diverse number of iterations over time both religious and secular beyond this humble beginning, not the least of which was in Norman Vincent Peale. Today it broadly goes by the term "manifesting, the art and quasi-spiritual science of willing things into existence".

The latter succinctly encapsulates what faith-healing, prosperity Pentecostalists like Kenneth Hagin and Ken Copeland styled "calling those things which be not as though they were" (Romans 4:17). They believe the Christian's tongue has the power to create something out of nothing, just like God.

Burton aptly describes it as

  the instinct to conflate spiritual forces, political and economic outcomes and our own personal desires.

Here, for The New York Times.

Things for which Jesus said there is no forgiveness and for which dying on the cross would have been therefore beside the point

 

The religious ideas in the following stand in sharp contrast to the idea that Jesus gave his life as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45), which is the idea which won thanks to Paul's "other gospel" (I Corinthians 15:3 "Christ died for our sins"): 

Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation: Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.

-- Mark 3:28ff.

But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

-- Matthew 6:15

Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. 

-- Matthew 12:31f.

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 18:34f. 

But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses. 

-- Mark 11:26

And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven.  

-- Luke 12:10

Humorless Jesus, the Jewish God's punchline

In Does Jesus Have a Sense of Humor? Austin Ruse (nyuk nyuk) tries but can't quite come up with any really good examples of Red Letter Jesus being funny.

Well, maybe because there aren't any?

And that's not because Ruse is, sorry to say, yet another example of a Catholic who is broadly unfamiliar with his Bible. He in fact oddly ridicules Biblical familiarity, calling G. K. Chesterton's negative opinion on the matter of humorless Jesus, for example, too Protestant, too sola scriptura.

Perhaps Ruse's best case is made with this though:

Consider also that Jesus is Jewish, and consider the Jews have always been funny. ... One final argument for His sense of humor which is ongoing. Here’s the proof: He chose us. That is hilarious. He chose you and me to do His work on earth. And we are so lame and even laughable.  

This is indeed amusing. But again, Ruse might have found it in St. Paul, if only he had read him:

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; 

-- I Corinthians 1:27.

The joke was, moreover, as laughable to Athenians as it was to Jews like Paul:

And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. 

-- Acts 17:32.

Ruse finds some good material in the Old Testament for Jewish humor, which happens to emphasize the superiority theory of humor, where God laughs at the wicked and his prophet laughs at the impotent priests of Baal, but he glaringly leaves out perhaps the most famous example of the incongruity theory of humor in the OT, where God defies norms and acts contrary to expectations:

And [the Lord] said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also? 

-- Genesis 18:10ff.

The main problem involved with all this is that there doesn't seem to be one unified theory of humor. It is a profound, perennial, and interesting problem of definition.

It shouldn't surprise us, for example, that we are hard-pressed to find examples of the relief theory of humor in the sayings of Jesus. The gospel writers aren't interested in portraying a Jesus who laughs to release pent up negative emotions. Instead they portray him sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. And Jesus is not interested in superiority. He is the servant of all, as his followers must be.

Let there be no filthiness, nor silly talk, nor levity, which are not fitting; but instead let there be thanksgiving.

-- Ephesians 5:4.

There is much to be said instead for the incongruity theory, and to some extent the superiority theory, persisting in the New Testament, where reversal of expectations and fortunes both give to God the last laugh, with his elevation of the inferior, the lowly, the meek as the dominant theme.

But the comedy, it would seem, if there is any, is all from God's point of view. We are but the actors on the stage. We perform. He laughs.

And perhaps the biggest joke of all is that the star of this show is a bastard, born of fornication (John 8:41, 44). But Jesus, playing true to his part, couldn't possibly entertain this joke. He must be, like us, an actor.

His script, about the imminent end of the world, about only few finding eternal life, has nothing funny about it.

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.

We try, though:

This priest could have thought about a single verse to make his point, but apparently knows not the Scriptures

 

Jesus Did Not Die to Appease an Angry God

Terrance Klein, America 

 

I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless. 

 

-- Matthew 12:6f.

Greek Orthodox Church authorities in Corfu and Piraeus ban same-sex-marriage lawmakers from communion

 Church authorities in Greece slap religious ban on local politicians who backed same-sex marriage

Church authorities on the northwestern island of Corfu accused the two opposition lawmakers of committing “the deepest spiritual and moral error” in voting for the law, which was approved with cross-party support on Feb. 15. ... “We exhort them to repent for their impropriety,” the statement added.

The everlasting trinity of horribles: The fire, the damnation, and the destruction

Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire (πῦρ). 

-- Matthew 18:8

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:  

-- Matthew 25:41

But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation (κρίσις): 

-- Mark 3:29

Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction (ὄλεθρος) from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;

-- II Timothy 1:9

Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment (κρίμα).

-- Hebrews 6:2

Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

-- Jude 1:7

 

 

Going to the Lord's Supper in any American church involves the high likelihood of dining with demons, including in the LCMS

 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils. 

-- I Corinthians 10:21

 

Greece falls

 Greece falls to globohomo, the 16th European country to do so.

Greece 1st Orthodox Christian Country to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage

AP News :

 

Far-right lawmaker Vassilis Stigas, head of the small Spartans party, described the legislation Thursday as “sick” and claimed that its adoption would “open the gates of Hell and perversion.”

 

Catholic biblical scholar just coincidentally concludes that the history of hell pretty much confirms the Roman Catholic dogma of purgatory

 Candida Moss, here for the Jesuits, thinks that the biblical hell begins as a relatively late product of Greek influence from the time of Alexander the Great, and that in keeping with later Catholic reflection is a temporary place of punishment and purgation, not of eternal damnation.

Evidently Hitler does go to heaven, but he will be the very last one out of hell, on that you may rely.

Her essay does a better job of explaining how the later Catholic idea of purgatory reflects the actual awful material conditions of Roman penal and slave experience in late antiquity than it does of explaining the gospels' language. In the end the pope's hope that hell one day will be empty is "surely right", according to Moss.

In the middle of those Greek and Roman historical bookends, however, lies the New Testament language about hell. And it is just weird how Moss is so perfunctorily dismissive of that language. She hardly treats of it at all. For her it is simply "obscure" because it is usually parabolic or "evasively symbolic", a point of view which is oddly reminiscent of long-standing Protestant dismissiveness of "the hard sayings of Jesus". The Protestants find the hard sayings problematic in the main because they contradict the universal gospel to the Gentiles. In this case, a Catholic finds them problematic because they contradict the universalism implied by purgatory. For neither could it be possible that those sayings reflect an actual historical message, being so stern and radical as to be unthinkable. They must be an anomaly: "eschatology straight up, without the diluting effects of divine mercy and forgiveness."

Just so.

Candida Moss stumbles over the Albert Schweitzer hard truth. The ameliorating of the hard sayings was the anomaly. The hard sayings did not arise from Lake Placid. Lectio difficilior potior, interpretatio item.

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.  

-- Matthew 7:14

For Moss the gospels are contradictory and run "hot and cold" on hell. The gospels give us only a "faint sense" of hell at best. After all there was a time when hell was not in the Bible, before the Greeks, and it shouldn't surprise us that the parables of Jesus really don't describe any "actual eternal punishment" dontcha know. It's a foreign idea, whose time came and went.

Oh dear.

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

-- Mark 9:43ff. 

Moss would like us to think, simply ignoring this passage, not only that there is no eternal fire according to Jesus, but that all such worm talk actually came from a later period, from the horrible fact of the parasites in human shit found everywhere and on everything in ancient prison cells, the literal analogues of an imaginary storied hell as in Dante, rather than from the actual message of Jesus about the eternal decay of death in the grave. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, they do a dance upon your snout. This is . . . completely unconvincing.

That last point needs to be emphasized. The eternal decay of death in the grave flies in the face of Jesus' supposed belief in and preaching of resurrection of the body. The eternal grave which confronts us here is an offense to that.

But there it is. Eternal fire. Eternal worm. Straight up.