Evidently both J. D. Vance and his pope are so embarrassed by a nature miracle in Mark's Gospel that they feel they have to misrepresent it

 

Or is it just USA Today?

Who knows.

I highlight the obvious misrepresentations.

Can anyone read anymore?

Here:

Vance quoted at length from a Francis homily in March 2020 about a passage from the book of Mark about Jesus being in a boat with his disciples. A storm caught the group off guard by an unexpected and turbulent storm, which left them disoriented and in need of comfort.

Jesus slept for the only time mentioned in the gospels. When he awakens after the storm has passed, the disciples ask why he wasn’t concerned if they perished.

“Indeed, once they call on Him, He saves his disciples from their discouragement,” Vance quoted Francis as saying. “The storm exposes our vulnerability and uncovers our faults and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities.”

“We deprive ourselves of the antibodies we need to confront adversity,” Vance added.

 

What absolute tosh. 

Do these people ever look up anything?

The storm hadn't passed. It was raging. They were going to die. He was sleeping. They wake him. He commands the storm to stop. It stops. They are amazed. He was upset at their faithlessness.

They were saved from being killed by an actual storm, not from some stupid, introspective-conscience-of-the-west-like existential angst imported into the text from our cowardly, post-Christian, 21st century dull humanitarian consensus which cannot say what a woman is and can't even bring itself to call things what they actually are, such as that a man posing as a woman is a man posing as a woman.

Are we surprised that the same people who deliberately misrepresent their foundational book misrepresent also who is the dictator destroying Ukraine and who started the war?

And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith? And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?  

-- Mark 4:37ff. 

Pete Hegseth's pastor thinks Pete is just what we need to replace the current crop of degenerates running the US military

 

 Up until just a few years ago, Pete could hardly be described as the God fearing Christian man we most need now to run the US Department of Defense. His history since his first marriage in 2004 is a lurid tale of infidelities, inseminations, and inebriation up until at least 2017.

Not only is his Christianity of very recent vintage, so is his church, founded in 2021, which Hegseth eventually became associated with after he moved to Tennessee, evidently in May 2022.

Promising to quit drinking if confirmed to the position has to be the most absurd statement lately to come out of the mouth of a God fearing Christian man.

Degenerates may run the Defense Department, but the DOD is not the only thing which has degenerated in this country.

 

Why Pete Hegseth nomination is a milestone for the rightwing Christian movement he follows

... Throughout this nomination process and the ensuing controversy, Pilgrim Hill founding pastor Brooks Potteiger and pastoral intern Joshua Haymes, who jointly manage a small-scale media operation and podcast, have been among Hegseth’s most enthusiastic supporters.

“Replacing degenerates with God fearing Christian men,” Haymes said in a Nov. 13 social media post about Hegseth’s nomination. “Trump’s White House will be staffed by (at least some) faithful, God-fearing Christians who will be advising president Trump and wielding political power.” ...

Hegseth's involvement with this Reformed evangelical camp arose not from any personal relationship with Wilson, but the recent expansion of CREC churches. Wilson doesn’t personally know Hegseth but called the nomination “a wonderful pick,” Wilson said in a Nov. 25 blog post. “He is an advocate of classical Christian education, an opponent of women in combat roles, and to top it all off he is a member of one of our CREC churches.”

Hegseth’s church, Pilgrim Hill, is among 50 the denomination added between 2020-2024, a 41% growth in U.S. congregations now totaling 120, according to an analysis of the CREC’s church directory.

This 41% spike is credited by denomination leaders in a September 2023 report as the fruits of conservative disenfranchisement with mainstream evangelical groups, starting with COVID-19 and CREC pastors like Wilson resisting public health guidelines. Potteiger, who founded Pilgrim Hill in 2021, said on a Feb. 10 podcast interview another driver was the Black Lives Matter protests and evangelical leaders’ alleged acquiescence to the movement’s demands, which Potteiger characterized as “a huge satanic tactic to corrupt the gospel.”

Millions leave organized religion, weak, believe-what-you-want communities blow up, end up offering refuge to DOZENS lol

 

 As millions leave organized religion, spiritual and secular communities offer refuge

 

Vinings Lake Church ― Mableton, Georgia:

When Deese invited a member of the Muslim faith to address the congregation about Islamophobia, people walked out. Others did the same when he brought in a blacksmith to make art from melted-down reclaimed firearms acquired from the local sheriff’s office.

But the real exodus, Deese said, took place when he attempted to address the topic of Christian nationalism.

“Bottom line is, if you need to know how to shrink a church, I’m your guy,” Deese said wryly.

A congregation of 800 plummeted to 100. The budget shrunk by $1 million. Some staff members had to be released.

 

Awakenings – Houston:

The community has about 40 core members, and while the Bible is the text most often referenced, Awakenings attracts people of all faith traditions, Norman said.

 

Aldea Spiritual Community – Tucson, Arizona:

A typical Sunday gathering features talk, music and meditation and draws half of the community’s membership of about 150, nearly all of whom are people who have left traditional organized religion, Haber said. [150/2 = 75 lol]

 

Heartway Church – Davie, Florida:

“We lost a lot of people in the process,” Prada said, blaming much of that on his own zeal, immaturity and antagonistic approach to the faith he was shedding. “I felt like it was my duty to prove that way of Christianity was wrong and this one was right. Even now, a lot of people can’t go where we continue to go, and they fall by the wayside.” ...

Attendance averages between 120 and 140 on any given Sunday, he said – a showing he considers respectable given the church’s location in conservative South Florida. It includes individuals who consider themselves spiritual but not religious as well as nones, those who don’t affiliate with any particular religion.

 

C3 Spiritual Community – Grand Haven, Michigan:

Sunday gatherings average around 90 attendees and are built around a topic presented by a group or guest teacher bookended by community discussions.

The community began as a Reformed Church in America, part of a network of mainline Reformed Protestant churches. Its separation from the RCA began in the 1990s after the church let a gay organization conduct meetings in a church office.

As the community went through its theological transformation – the name C3 refers to its former identity as Christ Community Church – many members fell by the wayside; it now meets at a community center but has seen recent growth among younger generations, executive director Shannon McMaster said.

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.

Earthquakes in divers places: A big New Madrid earthquake in Midwest would liquify the soil

How likely is an earthquake in the Midwest, South? The Big One could be coming:

Today, an estimated 11 million people live in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, according to TransRe, a reinsurance company that essentially insures the property insurance companies. "The big thing we prepare for is with New Madrid," [John] Bobel [Kentucky public emergency management information officer] said. "Depending on the significance of an earthquake, Memphis, Tennessee, would be gone; St. Louis would be wrecked."...

Bobel didn't sugarcoat it. It would be bad. "Anything west of I-65, infrastructure would be severely damaged," Bobel said of the interstate that bisects Kentucky and Tennessee. "The ground could even liquify and turn to mud," which happened in 1811 and 1812.

In a 7.7 magnitude earthquake along the New Madrid Fault, the Mid-America Earthquake Center at the University of Illinois estimated in 2008 that Tennessee would have the worst damage: 250,000 buildings moderately or severely damaged, more than 260,000 people displaced, significantly more than 60,000 injuries and fatalities, total direct economic losses surpassing $56 billion, $64 billion today when adjusted for inflation. Kentucky would have the next most significant damage, totaling $45 billion, $52 billion today.

61.6 million Trump voters just extinguished Western civilization, according to Stephen Prothero of Boston University

Wow, was that easy or WHAT?!

You can push the apocalyptic extremism out of a religion, and Oops!, it pops up somewhere else, as here in America's crummiest newspaper from the mind of a latter day Puritan:

"Americans like myself who hold dear such values as free speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion — values already under attack in Russia, Turkey, France and India — must turn to citizens in Europe, Asia and elsewhere to keep the beacon burning that American voters extinguished Nov. 8. At least for now, the United States is no longer the foremost defender of Western civilization. It is its greatest threat."

Roman Catholic sainthood process corrupted by cash

Reported here:

[T]he saint-making process has raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations per candidate with virtually no financial oversight.

Fags To Take Another Scalp. Boy Scouts To Allow Queers.

My Council in the 1960s in Wisconsin

The Boy Scouts are set to allow local decision making on whether to allow gay boys and leaders into troops, a spineless cave to the homosexual mafia.

Once again, once you let in a bunch of pricks, you are bound to get screwed.

Story here.

The best way to handle this is simply to dissolve the institution rather than put up with this farce of doing one's "duty to God" and of being "morally straight."

Queers are a cancer. There's only one end to it.

USA Today Celebrates The Decline Of Protestantism

You wouldn't know it from the article, here, that Protestantism remains the overwhelmingly dominant religion of America, despite losing its majoritarian ranking. Protestants still outnumber Catholics by over 2 to 1, on whom the unaffiliated are gaining fast.

Judging by the comments section, it will only be a matter of time before the secularists begin tearing religious people limb from limb for sport.

Forget that turning the other cheek stuff. It's best to be armed and ready for them.

God, guns and guts made America great. Let's keep all three.

Meanwhile, subscribers to that USA Today rag are only encouraging the bastards. USA Away is more like it. Forget 'em.

You Got a Friend?

It will probably come as a surprise to many readers that the late-1946 film "It's a Wonderful Life" wasn't terribly successful in its debut. The movie placed 26th in revenues for 1947. One reviewer called attention to its unreality and "sentimentality," which is underscored in the closing when the angel Clarence, who finally gets his wings, tells George that "no man is a failure who has friends." Audiences fresh off the horrors of war weren't exactly overwhelmed. It took a generation to garner its critical acclaim and to reach its popularity as a Christmas staple, which its creator Frank Capra said in 1984 was sort of like seeing your kid grow up to be president. Obviously something had changed in America. The baby boomers had to take over before the film could really succeed.

In the intervening period the trend has continued in different forms with the buddy movie, a wildly successful television comedy called "Friends," and the meteoric rise of a friends craze on social networks such as Facebook, among others. The thirst for that sentimental something is strong among the boomers, but it gets harder to get a buzz on no matter how much they drink, and the morning after remains lonely, and is getting lonelier. Consider the conclusion of a 2004 study that the average number of confidants per citizen had dropped in America from three to two since 1985, and fully a quarter of the population reported having no friends to confide in at all.

There has been a similar trend toward the sentimental within the church of the boomers, where theology has taken on a distinctly more familiar tone, emphasizing a personal relationship with God and drinking deeply from the well of ideas found in the Gospel of John. There one meets such notions as being "born again" and "knowing" God, and its Jesus talks about friendship in ideal terms: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." These Christians appropriate these ideas and think God is deeply, passionately interested in everything about them and has an individual plan for each and every life, as if Salvation History culminating in the Incarnation was kind of beside the point. What matters in their minds is finding your own divinely appointed purpose in life. It is narcissism writ large.

These developments help explain the penetration of pentecostalism into mainstream Christianity in the 1970's, and the subsequent exodus from mainline Protestantism into conservative "evangelicalism" after that. But the novelty has definitely worn off. Maybe the boomers are finally ready to grow up. While the country today is still overwhelmingly Protestant, self-identification with it has now dropped below 50% and the numbers of the unaffiliated and the sectarian are on the rise. For growing numbers of people it would not be wrong to say that familiarity has bred contempt. More and more books are appearing which recount the de-conversion experiences of people from Bart Ehrman at Princeton University to William Lobdell, formerly of the Los Angeles Times, who wrote Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America-And Found Unexpected Peace.

In the same way the World War II generation was so different temperamentally from its children, it is interesting how the Synoptic tradition, which contains little if any positive teaching on friendship, differs dramatically in substance and in tone from the Fourth Gospel. For example, the Gospel of Matthew warns that "A man's foes shall be they of his own household." Its command to "love your enemies" practically makes friendship irrelevant by annihilating the category itself, which, as we have said before, is characteristic of the religious impulse. For the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, this abolition of the antonyms occurs at the eschaton, which for him has already dawned: "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand." Wherever this thorough-going eschatological message of Jesus predominates in the record, conventional social constructions are overthrown. "For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother," in contrast to his actual family which was in the street looking for him in the house where he was teaching. "In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven."

Cultivating strong friendships is about the last thing on Jesus' mind in part because there simply won't be time for them. The end of all things approaches so fast that one must abandon all traditional roles immediately and follow Jesus. The normal niceties of interaction no longer apply. At one point we see how even his closest associate is rebuked for a misplaced intention to protect him. Jesus may indeed call many to follow him, but few are actually chosen. And even those whom we would call his mates were always kept at a certain distance despite various purported confidences shared, and the record shows that these followers consistently misunderstood him, failed him, and at length even betrayed him. If with Cicero a friend should be as a second self, Jesus didn't just die alone, he lived that way.

Which makes the emergence of the ideal of divine friendship in the Fourth Gospel quite startling: "Henceforth I call you not servants . . . but I have called you friends." Here we meet with a response of interpretation to the failure of the imminent end of the world to materialize. But instead of adopting the later development which we see already at work in the apocalyptic narratives in the Synoptic Gospels where hope of terrestrial transformation is postponed to an indeterminate time in the future, the Fourth Gospel eschews talk of the "second coming." Instead it conceives of the promised kingdom in a new way, located in a celestial venue where Jesus has gone "to prepare a place for you." His kingdom will not come with the Son of Man appearing with the clouds of heaven, but rather "My kingdom is not of this world." This is how the original ideology is neatly transferred by the Fourth Gospel to the unseen world, where it can cause little offence.

The Fourth Gospel's response to the Synoptic tradition also is on display in the way it co-opts the eschaton. One way it does this is through its notion of the coming of the Spirit: "the Father shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth." Another is through the love teaching of Jesus, which no longer emphasizes love of enemies but rather brotherly love within the Christian community: "Love one another, as I have loved you. If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." Christians will continue to co-exist with other human beings who are still going to hate them and be their enemies. But Christians are to look at it this way: "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

It is interesting how for the Christian community imagined by the Fourth Gospel it is not the Lord's Supper but the washing of one another's feet which Jesus establishes for its social cohesion. "I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you," he says of this custom, instead of "This do in remembrance of me" which he says of the Lord's Supper in the Gospel of Luke. The reason for this is precisely because the Lord's Supper is still understood by the author to be potently invested with the original eschatological significance, which is why there can be no place for an account of its institution in his gospel. It is an issue best left unaddressed, and better yet replaced, in view of the changed circumstances.

When it comes to choosing between variant readings in the manuscripts it is often the case that we choose the more difficult reading because its existence is harder to explain. The same holds true of interpretation. The Fourth Gospel in the main is comparatively more easily explained as derivative of the contents of the Synoptic Tradition. The latter puts us closer to the Jesus of history, but he is a sterner, more urgent, and less friendly figure.