Against the Pharisees' core tenet of resurrection, Luke's Jesus insists it is superfluous

  

And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him. And he said unto them . . . There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:  And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.

And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.       

-- Luke 16:14f., 19ff.

cf. John 5:45ff.:

Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?

I didn't leave Lutheranism, Lutheranism left me

 

Pope Francis, 87, has geezer eruption, lets the cat out of the bag, UK Daily Mail publishes the Italian but not the English thinking we're too dumb to know what it means

 

  Pope Francis has allegedly shocked bishops in Italy by using an offensive slur when saying that homosexual men should not be admitted to church seminaries because there is already 'too much' gay sexual activity.

The pontiff told a closed-door meeting at an episcopal conference at the Vatican that homosexual men should not be allowed into colleges to train for the priesthood, Italian media reports.

Bishops at the meeting were reportedly taken aback by the language the 87-year-old used to make the statement - the derogatory word 'frociaggine', which roughly translates to f*****ry.

Italian news agency Adnkronos, citing sources, reported that the Pope said in the speech: 'Look: there is already an air of f*****ry around that is not good. There is today's culture of homosexuality with respect to those who have a homosexual orientation [who] are better off not being accepted [into the seminary].' 

More.

 

Everyone is blaming the slip on Italian being the pope's second language.

 

Meanwhile the eggheads for USA Today write yet another story speculating about why people are running away from church, not mentioning that the Roman Catholic Church teaches that homosexuals are "born that way", but must not act that way.

 

The pope reportedly has no sympathy for that distinction anymore when it comes to seminary admissions. He's no dummy.

 

Meanwhile, according to that story, fellow Argentine Cardinal Victor Mánuel Fernandez, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, ten days ago when presenting the new rules on apparitions had let slip a similarly vulgar phrase "doing some bullshit".

 

He would know. Argentina is the world's 5th largest beef exporter.

The elites have always hated the country boys, but the country boys survive

 As nothing is so rude and insolent as a wealthy rustick, all this his kindness is overlooked, and his person most unworthily railed at.

-- Robert South (1634-1716)

The most important Christian THINKER of our age lol

 

The first miracle of Carlo Acutis, eucharistic enthusiast, is unconvincing: Brazil is overrun by faith healers and Catholics needed a win of their own

 

 In Brazil, a boy named Mattheus was healed from a serious birth defect called an annular pancreas after he and his mother asked Acutis to pray for his healing. ... Mattheus was born in 2009 with a serious condition that caused him difficulty eating and serious abdominal pain. He was unable to keep any food in his stomach, and vomited constantly. ... Fr. Nicola Gori, the priest responsible for promoting Acutis’ sainthood cause, told Italian media what happened next: “On October 12, 2013, seven years after Carlo's death, a child, affected by a congenital malformation (annular pancreas), when it was his turn to touch the picture of the future blessed, expressed a singular wish, like a prayer: 'I wish I could stop vomiting so much.' Healing began immediately, to the point that the physiology of the organ in question changed,” Fr. Gori said.

-- Catholic News Agency, October 12, 2021, here. 

When Matheus got home, he ate beef and French fries and did not vomit afterward. His mother later testified that this was the first time in his entire life that this happened.

At the next ultrasound scan, the doctor confirmed that the morphology of the pancreas has completely changed and become normal. One doctor declared that it was now a textbook pancreas, an organ that was so perfect that it looked unreal. When Father Tenório saw Matheus’ tests, he reported the facts to the postulator of the beatification of Carlo Acutis.

-- Catholic Stand, December 28, 2021, here. 

An abdominal X-ray of a patient with an annular pancreas will show the double-bubble sign, indicative of duodenal obstruction. Ultrasound, which is the first-line examination in the investigation of abdominal pain in children, reveals a fluid-distended duodenum and can identify the second duodenal portion incarcerated by pancreatic tissue. On computed tomography, pancreatic tissue surrounding the duodenum can also be seen. In most cases, endoscopy is also performed. 

However, it should be borne in mind that even if the radiological and endoscopic findings both suggest an annular pancreas, the definitive diagnosis is established only during surgery. In patients with symptoms of obstruction, laparotomy can reveal a band of pancreatic tissue surrounding the second portion of the duodenum, supporting the diagnostic hypothesis, which can be confirmed by examining the resected specimen.

-- Radiologia Brasileira 52 (4), Jul-Aug 2019, here. 

 

The subject underwent only ultrasound. The diagnosis of annular pancreas was never certain in the first place.

9news.com.au

John of God 'monster' making millions with barbaric surgery and 'blessed' pills

Mark Saunokonoko

Dec 18, 2018

---

The controversial John Faria has worked as a celebrity faith healer for the last four decades in a small town in central Brazil, becoming widely known as John of God.

He became famous for conducting "psychic surgeries" that he said could cure diseases, including cancer. Thousands of Australians, many terminally ill or suffering from debilitating sicknesses, have reportedly visited Mr Faria's compound deep in Brazil's interior.

Mr Faria's critics have argued the faith healer is nothing more than a charlatan, fleecing the vulnerable for millions of dollars.

One of the accusers is Mr Faria's adult daughter, Dalva Teixeira. She called him a "monster", while others have claimed he molested them as children. Mr Faria has strenuously denied the allegations of more than 300 accusers.

Oprah Winfrey famously visited Mr Faria in 2012 to feature him in an episode of her massively popular worldwide syndicated show. Afterwards, Mr Faria's questionable star rocketed to dangerous new heights.

In a since-deleted column on oprah.com, Winfrey wrote that she was overwhelmed by the experience of seeing Mr Faria cut into the breast of a woman without anaesthesia and that she left feeling "an overwhelming sense of peace".

Yesterday, in a statement to Reuters, Winfrey said: "I empathise with the women now coming forward and hope justice is served."

Oprah's peaceful experience watching Mr Faria wield his scalpel was markedly different to Australian reporter Michael Usher, who along with a 60 Minutes crew was invited inside the self-styled healer's compound in 2014.

Usher said it was hugely unsettling to watch Mr Faria use scalpels to slice open peoples' flesh or scrape away at their eyeballs, none of it done with an anaesthetic. That Mr Faria would shove scissors down the noses of ill people who sought his help left Usher distressed.

"John of God is not a surgeon, he is not a trained doctor," Usher said after the 60 Minutes segment aired.

"Yet he is presented with a tray of medical instruments, scalpels and all sorts of scissors. He takes a scalpel and scrapes eyes. He sticks knives and scalpels of some sort down the back of people's throats. He shoves scissors down people's noses, and he claims he is getting to tumours. He claims he is getting to the root of people's illness. He claims he is getting to what is making people ill or sick. None of it is done with an anaesthetic and you don't even know if what he is using is sterile."

According to 60 Minutes, Mr Faria's faith healing compound, which has been visited by supermodel Naomi Campbell and Brazilian footballer Ronaldo, has made tens of millions of dollars. In 2014, a Fairfax report stated 18,000 Australians had journeyed to see Faria. The self-styled healer has claimed to have treated millions of people.

 John of God has boasted he is blessed with healing powers from a divine "Entity". He claimed the entity can cure the blind, the paraplegic, the cancer-stricken and other illnesses.

"I can understand why people search for spirituality," Usher said of the thousands flocking to Mr Faria, despite long-circulating rumours of sexual abuse and his unscientific and barbaric medical techniques.

"I can understand people's faith. I understand how powerful hope is. What I cannot tolerate is someone like John Faria taking advantage of people who only have hope left."

Located in Abadiania, 130km south-west of the capital city of Brasilia, Mr Faria's compound, Casa de Dom Inacio, is filled with people from Brazil and hopeful visitors from around the world wearing all white. Neutral clothing makes the wearer more open to healing energy, according to believers.

Usher said there were no miracles to be found in the compound, just exploitation.

Meeting John of God is free. But he has built a multi-million-dollar enterprise through other strategies.

On the compound he prescribes his visitors sessions on crystal beds, which cost $25 per session. The crystal beds, which appear to be a kind of sunbed projecting light through crystals, are believed to earn Mr Faria $1.8 million a year.

 Blessed water is sold for $1 in standard plastic bottles. From a Faria-run pharmacy, blessed herbal pills are selling for $25 a bottle. It is estimated the blessed pill generates $40,000 a day, more than $14 million in a year.

An Australian doctor who travelled with 60 Minutes tested the pills, which he found to be simple passionflower herbal supplements.

When Usher sat down with Mr Faria, several of the faith healer's minders stood close by. Asked if his practice was more about money than miracles, the interview was quickly shut down. Walking away from the cameras, Mr Faria ignored questions about alleged sexual abuse.

The most recent allegations which led to Mr Faria handing himself into police surfaced last week.

Several individuals appeared on Brazilian Globo Television show to recount charges that he had been sexually violent with them or relatives. After that, authorities were contacted by more than 300 other accusers, including de Faria's adult daughter, Dalva Teixeira.

In an interview published by Brazilian magazine Veja, Ms Teixeira said that under the pretense of mystical treatments he abused and raped his daughter between the ages of 10 and 14.

She said her father stopped after she became pregnant by one of his employees. Ms Teixeira said she was beaten so severely by her father that she suffered a miscarriage.

 "My father is a monster," she said.

It is unknown how many Australians, if any, may have lodged complaints with Brazilian police or could have been potentially abused by him.

One of Mr Faria's biggest supporters is an Australian man named Robert Pellegrino-Estrich.

In 2000, Mr Pellegrino-Estrich wrote The Miracle Man, a book documenting the supposed healing powers of Mr Faria. The book, said to be available in 16 languages, is seen as being instrumental in raising awareness of Mr Faria around the world.

Mr Pellegrino-Estrich currently lives in Brazil, and he has for many years been paid by Australians who use his travel advisory services to assist their visit to Faria's centre.

Nine.com.au contacted Mr Pellegrino-Estrich for comment, but he did not respond.

Australians have not always had to make the pilgrimage to Brazil to meet Mr Faria.

In 2014, despite concerns from NSW Fair Trading, the John of God roadshow rolled into Sydney, where an estimated 6000 people paid $295 for a day ticket, or $795 for the full three-day experience.

 

https://www.9news.com.au/world/john-of-god-inside-faith-healers-compound-psychic-surgery/e201d8c6-2090-46a7-aa2f-78b84c1e520c

It doesn't say what the first miracle of Carlo Acutis was, but the second was performed by . . . a surgeon

 Carlo Acutis to be first millennial saint: Pope Francis recognizes miracle for canonization

The recognition of the second miracle attributed to Acutis’ intercession makes it possible that Acutis could be canonized during the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year.

 

Eschatological prophets don't leave gospels behind

 

p52, a 2nd century fragment of John from a codex

Jesus trying to keep his miracles quiet is in the news, by Father John Perricone, Ph.D., who alas in "Is Christ a Magician?" can't even get Matthew 16:4 right:

But, to our more serious question above. We should preface these words by God’s: “It is a wicked and perverse generation that asks for signs and wonders” (Matthew 16:4). 

The verse says nothing about wonders, which is a technical term most familiar to us from the Book of Acts, but also from the little apocalypses found in the gospels. The verse in question goes like this:

A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed.

The father is right that we observe a Jesus who does occasionally try to keep his miracles quiet. They are "often accompanied by a stern admonition to tell no one". The thing is, not all the time. And the Christian gospels are replete with them nevertheless. 

Mark's Jesus is even more emphatic about this than is Matthew's. Mark's Jesus was unequivocally against signs of any kind, not even the sign of the prophet Jonah, and not just to the Pharisees, but to his entire evil generation.

It's a downright odd thing for someone to say who is supposedly leaving a trail of them in his wake in exorcisms, healings, and nature miracles. The gospels proclaim a miracle worker who wanted the miracles kept quiet? This is akin to the problem known as the Messianic Secret. "I'm the Messiah, but don't tell anyone".

The eschatological context of this sign business is preserved by Mark, although at a distance, as it is by Matthew in like manner in his doublet of the saying (Matthew 16:1ff., 27):

And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign [σημεῖον] from heaven, tempting him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation. ... Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

-- Mark 8:11f., 38 (cf. Matthew 12:38f.; Matthew 16:1ff., 27; Luke 11:16, 29f.).

The emphasis of the eschatological Jesus is on his message of repentance, not on his deeds.

Vincent Taylor recognized long ago that the eschatological Mark 8:38 was quite out of place where it is.

A lot of things seem loosely connected together in Mark, not just this. Just read the form critics.

In Mark's unskilled hands, signs likewise aren't yet quite exactly the same thing as miracles either. Miracle in Mark is instead typically referred to, when it is referred to at all, as the palpable expression of divine authority [ἐξουσία] (Mark 1:27; 2:10; 3:15; 6:7), or of divine power [δύναμις] (Mark 5:30; 6:2, 5, 14; 9:39).

And from the start, Mark presents Jesus as more than willing to demonstrate to the Scribes his divine authority to forgive sins by performing a miracle to prove it (this despite later noteworthy teaching requiring mutual forgiveness between men if there is to be forgiveness of men by God, in Mark 11:26, which is rather different; is that blasphemy, too?):

But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house. And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion.  

-- Mark 2:10ff., Matthew 9:6ff., Luke 5:24ff. (similarly John 10:37f., 14:11).

We go back again the other way, though, in Mark 11:27-33, where Mark presents a Jesus who will NOT condescend to the chief priests, the Scribes, and the elders to demonstrate by what authority he had cast out of the temple the buyers and the sellers, the money-changers, and specifically the sellers of doves:

And Jesus answering saith unto them, Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.

So which is it?

 

In the same willy-nilly fashion, Mark has Jesus do an exorcism, a resurrection, and a healing of a deaf/dumb man in Galilee, one which Jesus wants declaimed, but the others which Jesus wants kept quiet:

Howbeit Jesus suffered him not [to follow him], but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel. 

-- Mark 5:19f.

And he charged them straitly that no man should know it; and commanded that something should be given her to eat. 

-- Mark 5:43

And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it; 

-- Mark 7:36.

So which is it?

  

Eventually Mark inexplicably makes Jesus actually respond positively and at great length to the question from Peter, James, John, and Andrew "what shall be the sign" of the coming of the destruction of the temple, in Mark 13:4, the beginning of the infamous Apocalyptic Discourse.

But why would Jesus do that, all of a sudden, and condescend to a question about signs  if "no sign shall be given"?

Obviously the Apocalyptic Discourse is post-resurrection re-interpretation of Jesus' original eschatological message that judgment was imminent. The warning had been the man and the message, but he got himself crucified, and with the man now gone they are in a new situation which is under pressure to explain itself. Like the supplied endings to Mark, the Apocalyptic Discourse bears all the marks of another time and other hands. But that is another matter.

As quickly, however, as Jesus deigns to entertain such talk of the sign of the end, Jesus warns in 13:22 that it is false Christs and false prophets who will come and do "signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect".

And with that we're right back to negativity about signs, which shows just how much that view was the original, dominant view going back to the historical Jesus and persisting beyond him in their memory.

So no sign it is.

(The positive embrace of miraculous signs in the supplied long ending in Mark 16:17, 20 may be dismissed as unoriginal to Mark on stylistic grounds, and not in the least because it conforms to the later ideas expressed for example by Luke in Acts).

 

This picture painted by Mark shows overall that he is confused and indecisive about what exactly to present as the actual content of Jesus' message, which Matthew and then Luke in their turn attempt to smooth over and remedy. It is one reason why Mark was not that popular in early Christianity. The relative paucity of witnesses to Mark, and the missing ending, if it really is missing, after 16:8 as late as Codex Vaticanus is . . . kind of a sign.

In the case of Mark 8, Matthew and Luke retain the harsh, negative evaluation of sign-seeking, but they augment the unequivocal "no sign shall be given" with "except the sign of Jonah", i.e. that the resurrection of Jesus after three days in the belly of the earth is the ultimate sign to this generation.

So the miracle of the resurrection is THE ONE legitimate sign, but none of the other miracles are signs? What are they then? Or were there no other such signs? Matthew and Luke haven't really thought this through. But of their post-resurrection re-interpretation of the original saying Mark knew absolutely nothing.

This is yet more evidence that the tradition is not solid, to put it mildly, and that the evangelists are willing, shall we say, to tamper with the word of God for theological reasons.

The solution of Matthew and Luke does little, either, to alleviate the wider problem involved, which is the failure of this evil generation to have faced the final judgment of the coming Son of Man predicted by Jesus.

But it is evidence of a trajectory of re-interpretation we see running through the Synoptics culminating in John, where we come to the explicit development of the completely different, positive understanding of sign as miracle.

And whereas the Synoptic witness is full of miracles by other names, and against signs more than not, miracles are now routinely called signs in the Fourth Gospel:

Turning water into wine at Cana of Galilee (John 2:11);

Destroying the "temple" "of his body" and rebuilding it in three days (John 2:18f);

Nondescript miracles which Jesus did in Jerusalem (John 2:23) which impressed Nicodemus (John 3:2); 

Healing a boy who was near death (John 4:48), Jesus' second miracle in Galilee (John 4:54);

Healing many who were sick (John 6:2);

Feeding the five thousand with five barley loaves and two fish (John 6:14, 26, 30);

Jesus' miracles generally (John 7:31);

Healing the man born blind (John 9:16);

John the Baptist performed no miracles but was right about Jesus (John 10:41);

The Pharisees are beside themselves what to do with Jesus, who does so many miracles, after Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead (John 11:47);

Some of the people hailed Jesus (triumphal entry into Jerusalem) as if he were king because of the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead, as did also some of the authorities (John 12:18, 37); 

The appearance of Jesus in his crucified body to doubting Thomas was one of many miracles Jesus did after his resurrection (John 20:30). 

This last example in John rings the composition with the 2:18 allusion to Jesus' resurrection and echoes the re-interpretation of Mark 8 observed in both Matthew and Luke, who feel compelled to supplement Mark's "no sign, period" with "no sign but the sign of the prophet Jonah . . . who was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale" (Matthew 12:39f.; cf. Luke 11:29f.), which they put forward as a type of the resurrection.

The resurrection itself has now become a tool for proof of the truth of a different gospel, whereas Jesus as eschatological prophet had nothing to prove. Jesus insisted on the imminent end for this, his evil generation because "the kingdom of God is at hand" (Mark 1:15).

"Repent ye and believe the gospel".

That Jesus, the historical Jesus, was not interested in vindication by miracles and heavenly portents, but in actual demonstrations of repentance by his hearers, so that a few at least would be saved from that imminent judgment. Without those demonstrations there isn't any belief, and no salvation.

The new Jesus emphasizes the believing, which many can now get indefinitely into the future, even from a book:

And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name. 

-- John 20:30f.

The miracles are now constitutive of the message, so much so that John's Jesus can say:

. . . though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him. 

-- John 10:38.

Whereas one may aver that to the final eschatological prophet who followed John the Baptist, the palsied fruit of repentance was a good thing (Matthew 3:8), not something to be healed from:

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:

-- Mark 9:45.

Vatican issues new norms to try to keep phenomena like Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina from getting out of hand again

Christopher R. Altieri for The Catholic World Report tends to think "Our Lady" made no appearance in Medjugorje in 1981, but will believe it if the church ever says he must.

 

He notes that the (phony) miracle is a hard case, which has, however, helped millions become better Catholics. (No word is offered on how many millions the superstition has driven away from the faith).

Altieri doesn't tell you that by 1983 the local bishop had decided that the apparitions were Franciscan fabrications, but by then it was too late because the hysteria for the site had already become a worldwide phenomenon.

On the new Vatican norms for the discernment of supernatural phenomena :

Much of the talk last week was about the new Vatican norms for the discernment of supernatural phenomena—apparitions especially, but not exclusively—presented at a press conference in Rome on Friday. ...

Under the old norms, local bishops had to talk with Rome but were free to make their own determinations. Also, and more importantly, the locals had to keep mum about their consultations. Local bishops, in other words, couldn’t say what Rome said to them about the thing(s) the locals were examining.

Local bishops, in other words, bore all of the public responsibility for judgments that were theirs only in part (if they were really the locals’ judgments at all). ...

Under the old disposition, a local bishop could issue a judgment: Constat de supernaturalitate. A judgment of constat de supernaturalitate does not quite say that a phenomenon is certainly of supernatural origin, but only that “it [clearly] evinces [signs of the] supernatural.”

The opposite of constat under the old scheme was—you guessed it—non constat (de supernaturalitate), which simply meant that there were lacking sufficient grounds for agreement on the origin of the phenomenon.

A judgment of constat de supernaturalitate did not compel an assent of faith, in other words, but only proposed its object as worthy of belief. The point is that it did propose something.

The new norms, on the other hand, borrow from bureaucratic argot to create a new category: Nihil obstat, which does not propose anything as worthy of belief but only says that there is nothing standing in the way of believing in the supernatural origin of a given phenomenon. That’s nice to know, but it really only tells us something about what isn’t there. ...

On the one hand, it is now unmistakably clear that the Vatican not only gets the final word but is involved in the investigation and adjudication of purportedly supernatural phenomena from the start. On the other hand, the Vatican will henceforth refrain from proposing even thoroughly vetted phenomena as worthy of belief and will limit itself to saying that nothing stands in the way of believing a given phenomenon to be of supernatural origin.

When The Good Shepherd analogy totally falls apart

 

A long name signifying imminent and utter despoilation times two requires a big boy pen and a big boy piece of paper

Tiglath-Pileser III subjugated the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 732 BC

  

 

 Moreover the LORD said unto me, Take thee a great roll, and write in it with a man's pen concerning Mahershalal-hashbaz. And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the LORD to me, Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz. For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.

-- Isaiah 8:1ff.

You've heard of true love

 True sorrow's like to wine,

That which is good does never need a sign.

-- John Suckling (1609-1642)

Biden DOJ puts abortion clinic blockaders behind bars, Hamasniks blocking Golden Gate Bridge for hours get off scott-free

 

If your pastor went to Fuller Seminary, I highly recommend you get out now

 It's all the Joos' fault there's no democracy in the Middle East:

The mother in the man

  I had not so much of man in me,

But all my mother came into mine eyes,

And gave me up to tears.

-- William Shakespeare, Henry V

He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow

 Why did my parents send me to the schools,

That I with knowledge might enrich my mind?

Since the desire to know first made men fools,

And did corrupt the root of all mankind.

-- John Davies

Gene Veith surprisingly misses what early radio preachers like Walter A. Maier of The Lutheran Hour were really up to in helping to reverse "America's Religious Depression"

 

At one point in his excellent review of Ministers of a New Medium: Broadcasting Theology in the Radio Ministries of Fulton J. Sheen and Walter A. Maier, Gene Veith makes passing reference to their opposition to the atomic bombings of Japan, which for the time seems like a pretty conventional position for churchmen to take who were already grappling with the profoundly demoralizing effects of the atrocities of the World Wars.

Veith, however, might have better considered this larger theme of American demoralization and how preachers such as these rose to address it. In a word, they did it first, by reasserting the primacy of God's law, calling a spade a spade. The two broadcasting luminaries were, as he says, "robustly orthodox", and frequently "began with a searing condemnation of sin, often occasioned by a current issue or event".

Veith, a Lutheran, oddly misses that the phenomenal recovery of the churches in the post-war from the malaise of the period 1930-1950, "America's Religious Depression", stems precisely from preaching what Lutherans call Law and Gospel. First, they called the wars' sins actual sin, something most men and women who lived that hell needed and wanted to hear, something which made sense of the senseless maelstrom into which the whole world had been plunged, not once but twice. Second, they proclaimed the gospel's antidote to that sin in the form of Christ's gracious act of redemptive death on the cross. We had blood on our hands, but Christ's blood washed it away.

People forget how amazingly popular The Decalogue, The Ten Commandments, became during the 1950s. Preachers preached it, film makers dramatized it, President Eisenhower himself promoted it, monuments to it went up everywhere. It was what war weary souls most needed to hear. Love for God's law reoriented the entire country.

We were a victorious nation, but a nation literally sick of the immorality of war and desperate for forgiveness. The Law, and then the Gospel, together answered this situation. The churches boomed, the population boomed, the economy boomed.

 

It's not called quackery for nothing, but now it's a $13 billion business in the United States

 Brown writes that, before he became the founder of chiropractic, Daniel David Palmer was a Spiritualist and practitioner of animal magnetism. Palmer subscribed to eclectic spiritual ideas based on the unity of God and nature and the idea that humans can restore themselves to a state of harmony without depending on divine intervention.

Palmer claimed to have received communication from a deceased physician who taught him the principles of chiropractic—a term he invented in 1896, combining the Greek words cheir and praktos to mean “done by hand.”

Palmer considered introducing Chiropractic as a religion in its own right but ultimately settled on describing it as an amalgamation of Christian Science and modern medicine. He wrote that it was based on adjusting the body to permit the free flow of “Innate Intelligence,” or just “Innate,” which he explained as “a segment of that Intelligence which fills the universe” (i.e. God) found in each individual.

More. 

How could ancient peoples be so gullible as to believe preposterous myths?

Because they were people just like us.

Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient.

-- Charles Mackay

  

 

 

On this Holocaust Remembrance Day, Hamas at Columbia University is hoping for another holocaust of Jews

 

If Jesus could speak today he would be appalled at the words which have been put into his mouth by his followers

 

Words such as these:

And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

-- Matthew 26:27f.

And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.

-- Mark 14:23f.

Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.

-- Luke 22:20

Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.

-- John 6:53ff.

 

A Jewish Jesus would have thought such words as those to be an abomination. He preached instead a gospel of the fatherhood of God, of the imminent coming of God's kingdom with judgment, of radical renunciation of the world because it was about to be destroyed, of the necessity of mutual forgiveness of sins, of God's desire for mercy and not sacrifice, of the perpetuity of the law until heaven and earth pass away.

And here is the law on the subject, loud and clear:

 

But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

-- Genesis 9:4

It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.

-- Leviticus 3:17

Moreover ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings. Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.

-- Leviticus 7:26f.

For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood. And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten; he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust. For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.

-- Leviticus 17:11ff. 

Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood: neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times.

-- Leviticus 19:26

Only ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it upon the earth as water. ... Only be sure that thou eat not the blood: for the blood is the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh. Thou shalt not eat it; thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water. Thou shalt not eat it; that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the LORD.

-- Deuteronomy 12:16, 23ff.

Only thou shalt not eat the blood thereof; thou shalt pour it upon the ground as water.

-- Deuteronomy 15:23.

 

It beggars belief that a Jewish Jesus believed anything contrariwise.

Centuries before the East-West Schism, the schismatic Roman Pope Victor I broke with the Christians of Asia Minor over celebrating Easter on Nisan 14

 

 Aka the Quartodecimans, the fourteenthers.

Victor [died 199 A. D.], who presided over the church at Rome, immediately attempted to cut off from the common unity the parishes of all Asia, with the churches that agreed with them, as heterodox; and he wrote letters and declared all the brethren there wholly excommunicate.

-- Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, V.XXIV.9.

Orthodox Easter 2024 is Sunday, May 5th, five weeks after Easter in the West:

Orthodox Pascha often occurs later in the spring ... especially out of sync with the actual astronomical phenomena linked to an accurate calculation of the Paschal date. ... During the 21st century, the Orthodox and Western Churches will share a common celebration of Pascha only 31 times.

Charitable me would say this is simply laughable ignorance, but I know better

 

 

  Was Paul a Slave? The surprising argument that Saul of Tarsus was born into bondage. By Mark R. Fairchild and Jordan K. Monson, Christianity Today, April 22, 2024:

But Paul was neither a proponent of slavery nor an abolitionist, despite efforts to use his letter to Philemon to make him out as one or the other. In truth, neither option was available to him.

It’s difficult for modern readers to understand that in the Roman Empire of Paul’s time, abolitionist thought was virtually nonexistent. According to Jeffers, “No Greek or Roman author ever attacked slavery as an institution.”

It was a given that slavery would always exist. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “All available evidence suggests that even those ancients who were born slaves and later freed, several of whom have left us very beautiful texts, envisioned servitude in the same light.”

Instead, the first Christians had their minds almost exclusively fixed on the Second Coming, which they believed was imminent. There wasn’t time to reform entrenched Roman injustices.

 

The article is replete with tendentious statements, attempts to redefine words, and special pleading. It's lying by omission.

What will be next from Christianity Today? That Paul was a tranny?

I can't wait.

Meanwhile, free-born Roman citizen, self-described Pharisee from a wealthy family in Tarsus*, Paul the Apostle, not only endorsed freedom from slavery, Second Coming or no, but well understood the possibility of it under the Roman system:

Were you a slave when called? Never mind. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity. ... You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men. 

-- I Corinthians 7:21, 23.

   

*A property qualification of 500 drachmae was fixed for admission to the roll of citizens, perhaps by Athenodorus sometime after 30 B.C. (Dio Chrysostom, Oration 34.23).

-- F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans: 1988), p. 432.

Of the many things which could be said, let's just say he's no John the Baptist

Jesus clearly says workers deserve a living wage. -- What Would Jesus Pay Workers? C. Don Jones, Plough 

 

And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages. 

 

-- Luke 3:14