This is most certainly true about the tattoo

 

LOL Gerald O'Collins, Society of Jesus, 1971, speaking up for the Cosmic Christ without the slightest hint of self-awareness

 First, Jesus must not be turned into a contemporary. He is rightly viewed within the historical framework of the first century. To describe Him as a revolutionary leader, a truly secular man or the first hippie may be emotionally satisfying, but for the most part these stereotypes are intellectually worthless. Albert Schweitzer’s warnings against creating Jesus in accordance with one’s own character still stand. ...

We meet God in the cosmic Christ who encounters us now, as well as in the strangeness of a first-century Galilean whose preaching resulted in His crucifixion.

-- America: The Jesuit Review, March 6, 1971 and August 26, 2024 

Gerald O'Collins was a systematic theologian, not a philologist, who passed away August 22, 2024 after a long and distinguished Catholic academic career at Pontifical Gregorian University, 1973-2006.

Perhaps the most famous proponent of the cosmic Christ was the fellow Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose offenses against Catholic doctrine were repeatedly warned against but never proscribed. Several Catholic intellectuals sought to rehabilitate his reputation after his death in 1955, not the least of whom was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI.

O'Collins was a child of this time.

The theological idea of the cosmic Christ certainly has its germ in the Pauline Colossian epistle and later in Irenaeus, but can hardly be said to be a Synoptic idea. O'Collins wanted these to have equal weight:

Both the Synoptic account of the preacher from Nazareth and Paul’s reflections on his Lord’s death and resurrection belong within the canon of scripture.

Yet it was Paul himself who eschewed the historical Jesus:

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer.

-- II Corinthians 5:16 

 

The Shroud of Turin dates to the time of Jesus . . . IF it was kept around 20-22.5 degrees C and relative humidity of 55-75% FOR THIRTEEN CENTURIES OF UNKNOWN HISTORY

https://nypost.com/2024/08/22/world-news/ai-recreates-possible-face-of-jesus-from-turin-shroud/

 

LOL, C'mon man.

Turin Shroud Study Claims Controversial Cloth Does Date to Time of Jesus

The authors said the results of their analysis were "fully compatible" with analogous measurements obtained from a linen sample whose dating, according to historical records, is A.D. 55-74, and consistent with the hypothesis that the Shroud is a 2,000-year-old relic.

The authors note that the results are only compatible with this hypothesis under the condition that the artifact was kept at suitable levels of average temperature (around 20-22.5 degree Celsius, or 68-72.5 degrees Fahrenheit) and a relative humidity of 55-75 percent for 13 centuries of unknown history, in addition to seven centuries of known history in Europe.

Head of Christ, Warner Sallman 1940

 

She's still dead, Jim

 

 Many of the monastery’s visitors said they believed Sr. Wilhelmina’s body to be miraculously incorrupt. ...

“Sister Wilhelmina's body was not embalmed, nor was there anything to preserve her in the state in which we buried her,” [the abbey’s superior, Mother Abbess Cecilia Snell] explained. “There were bugs eating at the foam under her, but none had touched her body or her habit - the latter’s failure to deteriorate being a phenomenon just as miraculous as her intact body!” ...

Many visitors to the abbey since the discovery of her intact remains have voiced belief that their preservation is “miraculous,” and noted incorruption after death is a sign often associated with saints. ...

In De Cadaverum Incorruptione, written in the mid-1800s, Pope Benedict XIV stated that an incorruptible body should only be considered miraculous when its lifelike condition is maintained for a great period of time.

More.

What's more miserable than discontent?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 My heart is drowned with grief,
Whose flood begins to flow within mine eyes,
My body round engirt with misery;
For what’s more miserable than discontent?

-- William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 3, Scene 1

Mark Tooley: United Methodist conservatives did it to themselves

 

Mark Tooley says United Methodist conservatives underwrote the denomination's theological and sexual liberalization decade upon decade with hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars in donations:

It’s more satisfying to blame outside forces. But United Methodist conservatives, loyal to financially supporting the institution across generations, underwrote the denomination’s liberalization. I think the same is largely true for other liberal Mainline Protestant denominations.

When we reflect on what is wrong with the church, we should always begin with ourselves.

-- Juicy Ecumenism

Shall we be made a story and a byword through the world?

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 O baseness to support a tyrant throne,

And crush your freeborn brethren of the world!

Nay, to become a part of usurpation,

T' espouse the tyrant's person and her crimes.

-- John Dryden

Minnesota Lutherans are a forgiving lot

But in 2006, his campaign repeatedly told the press that he had not been drinking that night, claiming that his failed field sobriety test was due to a misunderstanding related to hearing loss from his time in the National Guard. The campaign also claimed that Walz was allowed to drive himself to jail that night. 

-- https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/15/politics/tim-walz-2006-campaign-falsely-described-dwi-kfile/index.html

Walz repeatedly saying that he retired with a rank he achieved but did not retire with ...

Walz nodded in agreement at that statement -- despite the fact that, according to military records and his own admission, he had never served in Afghanistan. ...

Walz appears to have been aware prior to his retirement that his unit was under consideration for deployment. ...

However Walz did not remain in the role long enough to keep the title in retirement. Still, Walz repeatedly referred to himself as a "retired command sergeant major" for years.

 

-- https://abcnews.go.com/US/walz-previously-faced-criticism-characterized-military-service-records/story?id=112833386 

Lefty ELCA Lutheran Tim Walz in 2018 promised a moderate "One Minnesota" governorship, instead gave them a culture war good and hard

 

 Walz won the governor’s mansion in 2018. But rather than sticking to the moderate “One Minnesota” approach that he promised on the campaign trail and that characterized his time in the House of Representatives, Walz’s priority has been “more of a war on our culture,” Johnson said.

Johnson, an advocate for a Christian nonprofit, pointed to a host of progressive policies his administration enacted: signing a law that makes abortion a right in the state at any point in a pregnancy, legalizing marijuana, giving driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants, and making the state a “refuge” for those seeking gender transitions.

His COVID-19 era policies also earned chagrin from conservatives as he restricted church gatherings and set up a hotline for people to report those who breached social distancing policies. ...

While the denomination is progressive, the politics in the pews of ECLA churches present a more mixed picture. In 2020, a slight majority of ECLA Lutherans voted for Trump, noted researcher Ryan Burge.

Among the ECLA, around 43 percent identified as or leaned Republican, and 47 percent identified as or leaned Democrat, Pew found. Around 24 percent identified as liberal, 41 percent as moderate, and 32 percent as conservative. 

The LCMS, meanwhile, identified as or leaned Republican by nearly 60 percent, with 27 percent identifying as or leaning Democrat. A much higher percentage (52%) identified as conservative, compared to only 33 percent as moderate and 10 percent as liberal. ...

“The whole way he’s being presented to us is that he’s just a moderate country boy from Minnesota,” Seltz said. “He’s a very, very progressive, very, very left-wing governor.”

-- From Christianity Today, "Walz’s Brand Is More Left than Lutheran Among Minnesota Evangelicals"

Best comment on this Tim Walz story

 

Five faith facts about Harris pick Tim Walz, a ‘Minnesota Lutheran’ Dad :

Tim Walz is to Lutheranism what Joe Biden is to Catholicism.

I say RINO, You say CINO, I say LINO, You say DINO, MEOH, MYOH,  Let's call the whole thing off.

 

 

LOL, The Lutheran World Federation just canceled The Nicene Creed in The West

Rev. Anne Burghardt, General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation

 

The Lutheran World Federation just resolved the problem of the insertion of the filioque with a reactionary surrender to the Orthodox, jettisoning reason for emotion.

"Let's just recite The Nicene Creed without 'and the Son' and then we can be friends". 

. . . we suggest that the translation of the Greek original (without the Filioque) be used in the hope that this will contribute to the healing of age-old divisions . . ..

Here.

Is there a better example in the long history of Christian theology of the failure of the church to be guided into all the truth?

The Protestant schism is only 507 years old, the East-West now 970.

The filioque was a reasonable development within Trinitarianism, stubbornly resisted by the church in the East because it wasn't explicitly Nicene (325). Its first known promulgation at the Third Council of Toledo in 589 in a context of Arianism, the primarily Eastern heresy from the early fourth century, spread in the West but rankled the East, so much so it became a red line by 1054.

They got tired of their reputation for mistakes, I guess.

The first Protestant Reformers insisted generally on the text of Scripture to guide into all the truth, in keeping with the thinking of ancient fathers of the church such as Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria, and Epiphanius of Salamis, who specifically on the subject of the procession of the Holy Spirit from both the Father "and the Son" thought it was the plain teaching of the New Testament.

The Reformers thought that the New Testament Scriptures were the result of that process described by Jesus in the Gospel of John, that the Spirit would guide into all the truth. To them the filioque was obvious.

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

-- John 16:13ff.

To contemporary Lutherans? Not so much.

Intellectually, if we may use that term elastically, the liberal Lutherans now have more in common with the enthusiasts, the Schwärmer, the 16th century's charismatics and radicals, than they do with the Protestant Reformation.

To them the Spirit is still revealing truths to all and sundry: His truth, her truth, my truth, your truth, hir truth, their truth, but the more important thing is the feeling of unity. Besides, most Christians today have no clue about an obscure topic like the filioque. It's a speedbump, not a roadblock.

The way for this in liberal Lutheranism was prepared for by their enthusiastic embrace of modern critical scholarship of the Bible, with the result that everything has been up for grabs: The theory of evolution, women's ordination, homosexuality, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Hey, why not the filioque? "Just take it . . . to the limit . . . one more time."

The origins of that, however, ironically enough, are in the Enlightenment rediscovery of . . . reason. What goes around, comes around, you might say, as the phonograph needle scratches across the vinyl.

Ultimately speaking, neither the well of human reason nor the well of human feeling produces rivers of living water.

I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. 

-- Ecclesiastes 1:14