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. 

The one who gives up praying to God is faithless and is already "from evil"

No English translation of Luke 18:1 adequately captures the sense of μὴ ἐγκακεῖν, "don't be from evil".

Some examples:

"And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;" (KJV)

"Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." (NIV)

"And he told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart." (RSV)

"Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart," (NASB)

"Then Jesus told them a parable to show them they should always pray and not lose heart." (NET).

These failures of translation are not surprising given the thoroughgoing effort to suppress the failed eschatological message of Jesus and reinterpret it from the beginning. As usual, however, Luke remains its rare honest reporter.

The translations suffer from reading into Luke's usage of the term, the only one in the gospels, the usage from Paul, which has already become patently psychological and introspective (e.g. 2 Cor.4:16). Luke's use, however, is plainly eschatological in its context (Luke 17:20ff. through Luke 18:8) and knows nothing of this later "introspective conscience of the West". It focuses on the behavior which springs from the inner man, not on the inner man itself. Yes, Scripture ought to interpret Scripture as the Lutherans insist, but it is Luke who ought to interpret Luke. 

The one who gives up praying to God in Luke is representative of the many faithless at the end of the world, who are literally "from evil" (ἐκ κακός) because they have given up believing in the very idea of justice in the first place. The many are all jaded and don't even bother asking for justice anymore. In fact, to them the seat of justice itself is so unhinged the effort would be doomed from the start. The representatives of justice have become such thoroughgoing individualists and laws unto themselves who do not see themselves as beings in relation to God or even to other men that it would be impossible even to make a case to them. So why even try?

The few who will be saved, however, are like the persistent widow of this narrative. She alone among all her peers has not given up on the idea of a justice which is outside herself and represents the ground of being. No one else but she even bothers to try anymore. No one else but she even believes that a decent case can be made for it. She is ridiculously outnumbered. The capriciousness of unjust justice she faces at the fullness of time, at the end of the world, is shown in that it is moved no longer by principles of God or man but only by its own exhaustion with this harpy. This lone defender of Absolutes wins because she is stronger and more enduring because of the Absolutes, not because of her faith in the Absolutes. She simply knows the strength of her case, and refuses to give it up. She knows it can't be beaten, and that it will win. That Jesus must admonish even his own closest disciples to be like her and not join the many in their backsliding behavior is very telling. His promises of the imminent consummation were beginning to ring hollow even in their ears.

It calls to mind Jesus' instruction to his disciples elsewhere about the paradigmatic discipleship of a widow, who put into the treasury (ὅλον τὸν βίον αὐτῆς) "her whole life" (Mark 12:44/Luke 21:4), perhaps the most important two cents in the history of the West. For whatever else might be said about the failure of the kingdom of God to appear, Christendom yet stands for that same transcendent, unshakeable moral order for which a widow sacrificed everything that she had.

The human capacity for and ubiquity of evil were taken for granted by Jesus. What remains remarkable is that he believed some could repent, and no longer "be bad".

The residuum of the introspective conscience of the West shows up in narcissism study

Once the religion is stripped away, the self-absorption lives on in another form.  

From the story here:

"Narcissists aren't afraid to tell you they're narcissists," said study co-author Brad Bushman, a communications and psychology professor at The Ohio State University. "They're not embarrassed about it at all."

People with a classic narcissistic personality tend to have an overinflated sense of self, an exhibitionist streak, a sense of entitlement and little empathy for others. People in Western countries rate higher on narcissistic traits than do those in Eastern nations, and millennials— people born between the early 1980s and early 2000s — are more likely to be self-centered than previous generations, at least in the United States, Bushman said.

"The self-esteem movement, I think, is a big part of that," Bushman said. "Also, I think social media provides a venue for people to project themselves to very large audiences."

The basic meaning of honoring father and mother has been truncated by the introspective conscience of the West

kabad -- to be honored, to be great, to be plentiful, to be glorious, to multiply oneself, to make oneself numerous

The basic meaning of adding honor to father and mother is giving them grandchildren, in obedience to the Urgebot to be fruitful and multiply, and in fulfillment of the promise to Abraham to make his descendants as the sands of the seashore and the stars of the firmament. It's not simply about "obedience", as Luther would have it in his Large Catechism. Few commentators, in fact, connect the honoring of parents with the number of their posterity as the Old Testament does generally.

Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers.

-- Proverbs 17:6

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

-- Psalm 127:3ff.

That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;

-- Genesis 22:17

The Hatfield Clan in 1897

N. T. Wright tells an existential whopper about Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem

 

 

 Here's N. T. Wrong telling us Jesus was weeping as he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, for all manner of reasons except for what the text says:

The crowd went wild as they got nearer. This was the moment they had been waiting for. All the old songs came flooding back, and they were singing, chanting, cheering and laughing. At last, their dreams were going to come true. But in the middle of it all, their leader wasn't singing. He was in tears. Yes, their dreams were indeed coming true. But not in the way they had imagined. He was not the king they expected. Not like the monarchs of old, who sat on their jewelled and ivory thrones, dispensing their justice and wisdom. Nor was he the great warrior-king some had wanted. He didn't raise an army and ride to battle at its head. He was riding on a donkey. And he was weeping - weeping for the dream that had to die, weeping for the sword that would pierce his supporters to the soul. Weeping for the kingdom that wasn't coming as well as the kingdom that was. What was it all about? What did Jesus think he was doing?

What a gooey mess this is, which is fitting I suppose for a part of the tradition which is itself utterly confused and self-contradictory.

The weeping is only Luke's. Matthew, Mark and John do not know it in the triumphal entry.

Luke for his part nevertheless explains quite clearly that Jesus wept for a good and sober reason, namely the coming judgment of Jerusalem, which he believed was the consequence of the imminent coming of the kingdom:

And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

-- Luke 19:41ff.

This is no dream dying. This is a nightmare being expressed, the bad news part of the good news. It's Luke's Jesus at his eschatological best.

This is what Jesus expected, that many would be called, but only few chosen. Not even his father's house would survive in its current form.

And he went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem. Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.

-- Luke 13:22ff.

Luke says Jesus believed this bad dream to the bitter end, even while being led to crucifixion:

And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.

-- Luke 23:27f.

Is The Absence Of Human Transformation The Best Argument Against Christianity?

A certain fellow named Robin Schumacher, featured at Real Clear Religion, goes on at some length, here, to acknowledge that the best argument that is made these days against Christianity is the one made by ever larger numbers of contemporaries who point out that Christianity must be untrue because Christians behave so badly, and concludes:

"[T]he fact is that an authentic Christian life is the only thing that defeats the best argument against Christianity."

This is a very unsatisfactory conclusion to what really isn't a very helpful discussion about arguments for or against Christianity.

What it amounts to instead is a demonstration of what passes for the accepted understanding of what is true conversion in some circles. In other words, it's not really about Christianity per se, it's about human actors and their experiences relative to that subject. In short, it's about us, not about Christianity or its object, God.

Key for the author is the notion that conversion is a form of human transformation, which can be authenticated on the evidence of human experience. "If you were truly converted you wouldn't do x."

What is it about Christianity, contemporary or otherwise, that it so quickly veers off into a kind of narcissism where adherents and opponents alike wind up agreeing that man is the measure of all things? The authentic Christian life is the only thing that defeats the enemies of Christ? I'm sure that comes as quite a surprise to God. Last I checked, God needed or depended upon no one for anything. There is sophistry. And then there is philosophy.

I think one answer for this narcissism may have something to do with what Krister Stendahl once called the introspective conscience of the West. The tortured conversion of Muhammad comes to mind in W. Montgomery Watt's biography of the prophet. Or the Jesus of The Fourth Gospel, at war with the Jews over his paternity. Or the ever autobiographical 13th apostle, Paul of Tarsus, who happens to be the most interesting because he is so immediately, candidly available in his letters as he plies the waters between his sectarianisms and his Roman citizenship. It shouldn't come as a surprise that these models would attract adherents in whom the same tendencies operate. In truth, however, thoughtful people would probably agree that narcissism is a broadly human phenomenon, not simply a characteristic of the West.

But there are counter trends in some of our literature which bear thinking about. Consider, for example, that conversion in Luke's Acts of the Apostles is occasionally portrayed as conversion of a whole household, based on the personal experience of a single person in it. For those household members personal human transformation, being born again, is hardly in sight. Even in the cases of the personal salvation of the individual head of the household who leads the rest into the fold, notions of human transformation seem wholly absent. Far from the world of altar calls involving personal crises, repentance and emotional decisions for Christ, what we find instead is concrete deliverance from temporal calamities, infirmities, threats and dangers. Like Paul's own conversion, these amount to almost unwilled experiences submitted to and accepted in the face of an overwhelming, sovereignly acting, Providence.

Some of these stories in Acts are reminiscent of nothing so much as stories of God's deliverance of his people Israel from Egyptian slavery, the plagues, the angel of death and the Red Sea waters. It is more about God continuing to act in history than it is about what happens in the hearts of men.

One might also mention the apocalyptic ethics of Jesus in The Synoptic Tradition, where personal conversion amounts to a renunciation of all the traditional contours, roles and behaviors of human existence in a desperate attempt to escape the destruction which Jesus said was coming on the world forthwith. This is not some comfortable religion of personal fulfillment, but a (crazy?) rejection of it which depends utterly on God to establish his kingdom quite apart from any human agency, even Jesus'. 

Anyone with a little honest experience of the world knows that there are many what we call very fine people who are not Christians, and many Christians who are just plain drek. If one gets bogged down in this navel-gazing cul-de-sac, however, what gets distorted about our thinking about conversion is that conversion becomes too much about how we act, and not enough about how God does.

"We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein: Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness."

-- Acts 14:15ff.

Number One Stupid Thing I Heard in Church in 2010

Well, the year isn't over, but I don't think there's much chance that what I heard on Christmas Eve will be bested for its completely uncritical superimposition of contemporary preoccupations on an ancient, remote culture by any other thing I might yet hear before January 1:

The patriarch Jacob "was alone, a fugitive, and a disgrace to all. He himself felt like a failure. ... a poor, helpless, and forsaken man." The prophets might have gone so far as to liken Jacob to a worm, but Genesis does not.

This is the introspective conscience of the West at work on the text, the self-doubt which has nearly reached its apogee in Europe and America and explains its decline. It deliberately glosses over the evidence about Jacob, who consistently to the end strives with the God of Abraham and Isaac, acquires a large family and great wealth, and throughout retains the promise and blessing of God, who in fact frequently deigns to visit and contend with him.

Pretty good for an aplastic man on whom people could not quite get a handle, unlike his brother who had made his mark on the world but of whom none of these things would be said. Jacob's virtue was that he was clay in the potter's hand. The latter may be in control, but the clay has properties of its own.  Of Esau, well, let's just say he set up early. His passion had led him elsewhere.

At Christ Church, Presbyterian Church in America, Grand Rapids, Michigan.