Roman Catholic superstition is alive and well in the US Congress

Stories here and here.

God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out.

-- Acts 19:11f.

Hate evil!

You who love the LORD, hate evil! He protects the lives of his godly people and rescues them from the power of the wicked.

-- Psalm 97:10

And he was transfigured before them: Jesus as Brocken spectre

And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.

-- Matthew 17:1f.

And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them.And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them.

-- Mark 9:2f.

And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering.

-- Luke 9:28f.

A Brocken spectre (German Brockengespenst), also called Brocken bow or mountain spectre, is the apparently enormous and magnified shadow of an observer, cast upon the upper surfaces of clouds opposite the sun. The phenomenon can appear on any misty mountainside or cloud bank, even when seen from an aeroplane, but the frequent fogs and low-altitude accessibility of the Brocken, a peak in the Harz Mountains in Germany, have created a local legend from which the phenomenon draws its name. The Brocken spectre was observed and described by Johann Silberschlag in 1780, and has since been recorded often in literature about the region. 

More here.

Phil Jenkins never tells you the crackpot solution of Ellen G. White to "The Great Disappointment"

Namely, The Investigative Judgment, a doctrine wholly derived from "a charismatic prophetic leader" and not found anywhere in Scripture, here:

"The Adventists grew out of the millenarian fervor that swept the United States in the 1840s. In 1844, William Miller warned of the Christ’s imminent return and the world’s destruction. In fact, he did so twice, and the double failure provoked what is termed the Great Disappoint­ment. A rem­nant of Millerites then reconstructed their movement under the visionary leadership of New England–born Ellen G. White."

Seventh-day Adventism is a failed apocalyptic cult, not unlike Christianity itself.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. By their fruit ye shall know them. "Does a spring pour forth from the same opening fresh water and brackish?" -- James 3:11

Phil Jenkins should know better, but practices a form of political correctness all too characteristic of the contemporary academic community by not addressing Seventh-day Adventism's raison d'être. Too prickly no doubt for The Christian Century, and for his career. So much for thinking critically, living faithfully.

The religion of Ben Carson does no real harm in the world, except insofar as its adherents are occasionally no better than your average criminal, which Jenkins does mention. Thank God for small favors, I suppose.

But Adventism is still nuts.

Carly Fiorina's non-denominational Christianity is of the Willow Creek variety, dating to about 2010 after battling cancer in 2009

Reported here in August 2012:

'Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, came to the stage as a guest at the end of the first day to share her story of coming to faith in the midst of battling cancer, losing her daughter to suicide, and serving for years as a high-powered business executive. According to Fiorina, Bill Hybels's persistence kept her pondering the complexities of faith, and after praying with him on stage at the summit a couple years ago, then praying to God on her own for a sign, she began seeing little miracles. At the end of her talk, Fiorina stated that now she lives "unburdened by fear," because she sees life as "not measured in time—it's measured in love and contribution and moments of grace."'

Incredible but true: Ben Carson's Seventh-day Adventist Church, begun after 1844, believes it is mentioned in the Bible

Here:

'In Revelation 12, John the Revelator identifies the church in the last days as the "remnant . . . which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (verse 17). We believe that in this brief prophetic picture the Revelator is describing the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which not only keeps "the commandments of God" but has "the testimony of Jesus Christ," which is "the spirit of prophecy" (Revelation 19:10).'

WaPo wants to remind us in 2015 that Hillary Clinton carried around a Bible in her purse in 2007

Seriously.

Here:

'In 2008, Clinton told CNN that she had “tried to take my beliefs, my faith, and put it to work my entire life” to help others. In 2007, she told the network about how she prays regularly and carries a Bible in her purse.'

The story writer, Daniel Silliman, in fact offers a complete shorthand history of Hillary Clinton's liberal Methodist Christianity.

At one point he even writes that her faith was recently "on display" because she had an informed religious conversation with a Reverend in a bakery, documented conveniently by CNN, in which she demonstrated to him surprising and impressive knowledge of the "living word" of God. Silliman even links to that story for your convenience.

How nice.

No mention, however, of all those flying ashtrays and flying expletives in the White House years, or how the Secret Service to this day considers assignment to the Clinton detail a form of punishment. The Clintons are said to refer to them as "pigs" and routinely tell them to "f^$k off".

Faith was never so easy as it is in the hands of The Washington Post.

Liberal exceptionalism: The post-war liberal West is suddenly suffused with self-doubt, but the rest of us are fine

Steven Erlanger reporting from London in The New York Times here, conflating post-war liberal values with Judeo-Christian ones:

"THE West is suddenly suffused with self-doubt. ... Are Western values, essentially Judeo-Christian ones, truly universal?

"The history of the last decade is a bracing antidote to such easy thinking. The rise of authoritarian capitalism has been a blow to assumptions, made popular by Francis Fukuyama, that liberal democracy has proved to be the most reliable and lasting political system. ... The fight over values is not limited to democracy . . . with radical disagreements over the proper place of women and the rights of homosexuals. In its rejection of Western liberal values of sexual equality and choice, conservative Russia finds common cause with many in Africa and with the religious teachings of Islam, the Vatican, fundamentalist Protestants and Orthodox Jews."

It's as if liberalism were a frightened little child, running to hide behind her mother's skirt after having gone too far with some opponent, maybe the dog. Judeo-Christian values, the last refuge of the liberal scoundrel.

Historically speaking, Judeo-Christian values produced what was a relatively quiescent American republican mercantilism until the dawn of the 20th century, not the worldwide crusade for democracy and unfettered capitalism we have come to see thereafter, but sixty years of lousy public education has a way of making people forget such things.

Amnesia also exists about traditional values, which gave us their easy imprimatur for social relations organized around the family and children, with a long and storied history until recent times. The pipe dream has been egalitarian individualism and its various licenses for perversion, which are still fringe arrangements for most people, even for those who purchased them. Regret is everywhere. Such things are the specialties of liberalism, which does indeed look like it's coming undone, but the truly universal things like religion and the family and the arrangements they inspire continue to suggest themselves by nature to billions.

Only a liberal could fail to see them everywhere, as if they were the exception, not he.

The kingdom of God belongs to the poor

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. ... But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation.

-- Luke 6:20, 24

Donald Trump asks who does Ben Carson think he is to question Trump's faith

Seen here:

Trump added, “he’s questioning my faith. I happen to be a great believer in God, and great believer in the Bible. Who is he — hey Chris, who is he to question my faith, when I am — you know, I mean, he doesn’t even know me. I’ve met him a few times, but I don’t know Ben Carson. He was a doctor, perhaps, you know, an okay doctor, by the way, you can check that out, too. We’re not talking about a great — he was an okay doctor. He was just fine.” And “now, because he’s a doctor, and he hired one nurse, he’s going to end up being the president of the United States? But, for him to criticize me on my faith is absolutely — and for him to read from the Bible, in his memory, it looked like he memorized it about two minutes before he went on stage. But, Ben Carson is not going to be your next president, that I can tell you.”

Who is he? Well, Ben Carson is a follower of the scores of visions experienced by this woman, originally a Millerite and later a co-founder of Seventh Day Adventism:

Ellen G. White in 1899

Nearly a third of Americans, nearly 50 million individuals, made poverty level wages in 2013

The poverty guideline for an individual in 2015 is just under $12,000.

Catholic clergy pension funds severely underfunded

The Reuters story was picked up here:

"A Reuters review of U.S. Catholic financial disclosures shows the pension funding shortfall in 2014 likely approached $2 billion, with much of that coming due in the next five years as thousands of priests retire. ... A review of 51 dioceses that provide detailed financial information showed a clergy pension funding gap of nearly $700 million - a figure that does not include other post-retirement benefits, or obligations to lay staff. If the remainder of the roughly 197 dioceses in the United States face similar funding issues, the total pension gap would be close to $2 billion. ...

"Pensions for priests became commonplace in the U.S. Catholic Church in the 1970s, typically funded through donations, fundraising drives, and – in some cases – contributions from clergy wages. The pensions are generally fairly meager at around $20,000 per year. A report issued by non-profit group Laity in Support of Retired Priests (LSRP) last year showed that an average priest's pension and social security benefits are projected to be lower than the cost of living."

Still one thing eludes you!

Luke 18:22

One thing you lack!

Mark 10:21

What archaeology tells us Jesus left behind

Reported by Eric Metaxas here:

'Nazareth wasn’t quite the backwater Nathanael and everyone else since thought it was. It was likely “larger” and “slightly wealthier” than previously believed.'

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples."

-- Luke 14:33

"John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins."

-- Mark 1:4

"And Jesus answering said unto him, 'Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.' Then he suffered him."

-- Matthew 3:15

Muhammad the plagiarist: Age of Koran manuscript pre-dates his career by as many as forty-two years

The story is here (subscription required). The UK Daily Mail here had the money quotes:

Historian Tom Holland, told the Times: 'It destabilises, to put it mildly, the idea that we can know anything with certainty about how the Koran emerged - and that in turn has implications for the history of Muhammad and the Companions.'

Keith Small, from the University of Oxford's Bodleian Library, added: 'This gives more ground to what have been peripheral views of the Koran's genesis, like that Muhammad and his early followers used a text that was already in existence and shaped it to fit their own political and theological agenda, rather than Muhammad receiving a revelation from heaven.'

Students of the Koran in the West have long doubted the story of the miraculous origin of the words of the Koran given to the illiterate prophet, based in part on Muhammad's version of Christianity in it, which is derivative of heretical Nestorianism, not revelation. Muhammad had contact with Nestorians according to various accounts, but it is thought that it was primarily through the family of his wife Khadija, from whom he must have learned much of what he knew about Christianity and Judaism. An anonymous philologist (who fears for his life) has even proposed that much of the Koran was originally a Christian Arabic lectionary translated from Syriac sources, which makes even more sense now that a manuscript of the Koran appears to be dated precisely to the period when the words were supposedly circulating only as oral tradition, as recitation.

It would seem that Muhammad and his companions raided more than caravans.

Believe it or not, the King James Version of the Bible remains the most read in America

The NIV is second most read version of the Bible.

It must be true. I read it here in The Washington Post, which also says 88% of Americans own at least one copy and that 40 million Bibles are sold here annually:

'The Bible business is booming. There are annual sales of 40 million Bibles — from study Bibles to family Bibles to pocket Bibles. That’s not even counting foreign markets. As journalist Daniel Radosh observed, “The familiar observation that the Bible is the best-selling book of all time obscures a more startling fact: The Bible is the best-selling book of the year, every year.”'

Why is God silent?

 

Because God is light.

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

-- 1 John 1:5

Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,

Nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might;

Thy justice like mountains high soaring above

Thy clouds which are fountains of goodness and love.

-- "Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise", Walter Chalmers Smith, stanza two (1867)

Elite wannabes like Thomas Kidd of Baylor are so pissed off over evangelicals' support of Donald Trump they're denying reality

 

 

'Why in the world would so many Christians support a rude and crude candidate like Trump, whose pro-life credentials seem obligatory at best, and who specializes in vilifying Hispanics? ... I frankly do not believe that most of the people identifying as “evangelicals” in these polls are evangelicals (or conservatives) in any useful sense. The sympathy for Trump is, instead, a holdover of the worst aspects of American civil religion and Bible Belt culture.'

Well, that clears it up. Y'all must be fundamentalists.

You would think that an historian worthy of the name would take care to identify Trump more accurately as a critic of law-breakers and those who excuse them, but that would get in the way of the elite agenda, wouldn't it? I mean, Christian America must forgive, must it not? Separation of church and state my sweet German-American ass!

More at the link.

The sun will swallow the earth

Reported here:

According to experts from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA), the universe is only churning out half as much energy as it did 2 billion years ago, and is gradually approaching a state of entropy. The study confirmed something researchers have suspected for decades: the stars that populate countless galaxies are slowly burning themselves out. ...

The study, which was jointly led by Simon Driver and Andrew Hopkins, was an international effort that harnessed technology both on land and in space to study 200,000 galaxies and the energy they generated. Basically, it found that stars have lost roughly half their firepower over the last 2 billion years. ...

There is one type of cosmic body largely responsible for emitting galactic energy, and it's slowly losing steam, experts said. "Those emissions are dominated by stars," said Adam Burrows, professor in the astrophysical sciences department at Princeton University. The galaxy gas that creates these stars "is being depleted, and is not being adequately replenished." ...

[O]ne scientist contends it could be 100 billion years out before the universe fizzles. For perspective, the universe is just 14 billion years old, according to NASA. ...

Meanwhile, there might be more immediate challenges for the universe—and again, those too are much further on the horizon. "In 5 billion years, the sun will expand and swallow the Earth," said Driver. "In 10 billion years, our galaxy will merge with Andromeda." ...

Astronomers estimate there are more than 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, said David Kaiser, a physics professor at MIT whose work focuses on Early-universe cosmology.

But reported here previously:

[T]he heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. ... the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat . . ..

-- 2 Peter 3:10,12

Abortion just in the US approaches 60 million but Christians still wring their hands over Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Here.

If I didn't know better I'd say all these children killed in the United States since 1973 have been a guilt offering for the horrors of World War II in which we participated.

What morality can there possibly be in war, Christian or otherwise? All such thinking is a rationalization of war. All's fair in it. Who cares that millions of lives were spared by the atomic bombings? Certainly not Americans, who have gone on to kill millions of their own whose only crime was to have the temerity to begin existing as a consequence of someone else's pleasure-seeking.

In truth all such thinking about just war is actually an attempt at rationalizing Christianity itself, not simply war. It is an attempt to reconcile good and evil on the grand scale instead of on the puny stage we all occupy, where a beautiful life is tragically ended by a criminal, an accident, or a disease, and there's no explaining it.

The message of Jesus made perfect sense until it didn't, when the kingdom of God did not come as he thought it would, when God's justice failed to appear on earth as it is in heaven.

God's justice. The scoffers among us ridicule him for being wrong about this when we should be honoring him for showing us how far we are from it, the more now than in 1945 over Japan.    

Theologian seems completely unaware of the teaching of Jesus about becoming the poor

Robin Lane Fox in 2013

Here, for whom it is also news that rich ancient luminaries were expected to be benefactors of their cities and so on, something Robin Lane Fox discussed way back in the 1980s. Patron-client relationship and all that.

What do they teach the Christian theologians these days? Obviously not classical antiquity, its milieu.

The whole thing is quite astonishingly uninformed really, until you realize this theologian is a Paulinist and wouldn't know much about the teaching of Jesus anyway because Paul didn't, which is the relevant point lost on one who is going to worship an unknown Jesus whilst pondering voting Labour in the 21st century.

You can't take the Jew out of the apostle to the Gentiles: "Don't walk like Gentiles walk"

Don't walk like an Egyptian

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.

-- Ephesians 4:17

Christianity obliges one to be a communist

SOAMES.  "My advice to you all is to do your duty by taking the Christian vows of celibacy and poverty. The Church was founded to put an end to marriage and to put an end to property." ...

SOAMES.  "I am a Christian. That obliges me to be a Communist."

-- George Bernard Shaw, "Getting Married" (1908)

Catholic priest tells Cardinal Dolan to apologize to Donald Trump for calling him a nativist

Here:

"I am no big fan of Trump’s, and I want someone else to be our next president. But it is unworthy of a high Church official to casually accuse this man of being aligned with the most bigoted and violent elements of the Nativist movement, people who literally burned down Catholic Churches and killed Catholics, as well as opposed their immigrating to this country. Where’s the proof? It’s common now for Churchmen to apologize for past wrongs. Cardinal Dolan owes Donald Trump an apology for this present wrong."

To inherit eternal life Jesus wanted people to do something, but Paul wanted people to believe something

And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? ... Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

-- Matthew 19:16, 21

And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? ... Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

-- Mark 10:17, 21

And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?... Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.

-- Luke 18:18, 22

Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

-- Acts 16:29ff.

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

-- Romans 10:9

. . . it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

-- 1 Corinthians 1:21

By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

-- 1 Corinthians 15:2

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

-- Mark 16:16 (from the longer ending verses 9-20, clearly not original but in keeping with the apostolic emphasis)

Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.

-- Luke 8:12 (the last clause is missing in the versions by Matthew and Mark and is perhaps evidence of the influence of Paul et alia upon Luke)

A millennial's lights are on but nobody's home

Rachel Williams, here:

"It is encouraging to remember the United States remains the most Christian nation in the world.  After all, 7 out of 10 Americans claim some to follow some form of Christianity.  Even better, two-out-of-three Americans believe Jesus was the Son of God and rose from the dead."

And you thought 70% was better than 66%.

Roman Catholics, Orthodox and fundamentalists fear Donald Trump's Protestantism

Here, here, and here, just to name three recent examples: Trump can't be a good Christian according to Cardinal Dolan because he supposedly doesn't welcome the stranger, or doesn't have a high enough view of the Lord's Supper, or hasn't repented and been born again.

Mitt Romney's Mormonism was supposed to be off limits in 2012, but suddenly fellow Christians get to pile on Trump.

Better watch out. He's been known to fight back.

Bible church pastor realizes that Donald Trump is not an evangelical

Here:

When asked if asking for forgiveness was central to his faith, Mr. Trump replied, “I try not make mistakes where I have to ask forgiveness”. When pressed about repentance in an interview with Anderson Cooper of CNN, he replied, “I think repenting is terrific. Why do I have to repent or ask for forgiveness if I am not making mistakes? I work hard, I’m an honorable person.”

He really does speak for many Americans. His theological Shibboleth rings true in many ears.

With the media ... lurching forward with everything this guy says, just waiting for him to bury himself, it is fascinating media. I read some who thought his Iowa comments would spell the end of him. “How could any evangelical vote for him after he said such things?”

I laughed. [He] is actually resonating with many spiritual Americans who are untethered [from] biblical Christianity. Far from marking the end of Trump’s relevance, his comments make relevant in a whole new way. “Trump’s a guy who works hard, knows he’s not perfect, and tries his best? And, he is religious. See, he just said so. This is a guy like me!”

-----------------------------------------------------------------

That's right.

Donald Trump is a mainline Protestant of the Presbyterian variety. For him as for many others of his ilk the specific Biblical language about repentance and being made "new" might as well be Swahili. But this country used to be full of such people, and they helped make America great. Since 2007 their numbers are down about 5 million, to 36 million adults, mostly white.

Pew has the data here.

The thing is, their numbers are actually larger since they've unaffiliated or reaffiliated outside the mainline.

And that's one reason why Trump is polling in first place for the GOP nomination as we speak. This is still a Protestant country, at least for a little while longer.

Unborn children by the millions are butchered in the womb and the parts sold, and Jimmy Kimmel cries over Cecil the lion

exoticmeatmarkets.com

 

 

Story here.

 

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

-- Jeremiah 17:9

Complicit in evil: 65.9 million Americans

"The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay. We oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right. Abortion is an intensely personal decision between a woman, her family, her doctor, and her clergy; there is no place for politicians or government to get in the way."

Jesus forgave sins quite apart from the shedding of blood, his own or that of others, and taught it

Thy sins be forgiven thee.

-- Matthew 9:2

Thy sins be forgiven thee.

-- Mark 2:5

Thy sins are forgiven thee.

-- Luke 5:20

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

-- Matthew 6:14

And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

-- Mark 11:25

Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.

-- Luke 6:37

Her sins, which are many, are forgiven. ... And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven.

-- Luke 7:47, 48

And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us.

-- Luke 11:4

Parochial Joel Miller is offended that Donald Trump doesn't venerate the host

Here:

Trump went on to explain the role of the eucharist in his routine. “When I drink my little wine . . . and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness,” he said. Little wine? Little cracker? I winced both times I read the word. He might as well have said adorable or dainty. Frankly, even Trump’s flippant toss of the word cracker is off-putting. Even if the thing in his hand is identifiably a cracker, it’s not a cracker. It is the bread of life, the broken body of Christ, the bread of heaven, the food of angels, the medicine of immortality. This is how the Bible and early Christians spoke of Trump’s crumb. For him to call it a cracker is to demonstrate he knows nothing of what he is doing.

This may come as a shock to Joel Miller, but hostility to wafer-worship is as American as the father of our country, George Washington, who declined to attend communion so often that when his pastor complained he was setting a bad example stopped coming to church altogether on communion Sundays.

That, too, would no doubt exasperate Miller because the Orthodox and the Catholic cannot imagine a service without the Mass.

Trump, a Presbyterian, has gone to his communion enough times to describe accurately the typical mainline Protestant version of the sacrament, which is more than can be said for the surprisingly parochial Joel Miller.

Lawrence Reed is still trying to convince himself that Jesus was a capitalist for whom private property was inviolable

Here:

"What about the reference, in the Book of Acts, to the early Christians selling their worldly goods and sharing communally in the proceeds? That sounds like a progressive utopia. On closer inspection, however, it turns out that those early Christians did not sell everything they had and were not commanded or expected to do so. ... It may disappoint progressives to learn that Christ's words and deeds repeatedly upheld such critically-important, capitalist virtues as contract, profit and private property."

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Reed cherry picks his evidence, of course, leaving examples such as these still on the tree because they contradict his claims, all the while arguing against a straw man named the redistributionist state which is equally anachronistic:

And all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need.

-- Acts 2:44f.

Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

-- Matthew 19:21 

Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

-- Mark 10:21

Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.

-- Luke 18:22

Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.

-- Luke 12:33

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

-- Luke 14:33

Then Peter said, Lo, we have left all, and followed thee.

-- Luke 18:28

Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee.

-- Mark 10:28

Then Peter said to Him, Behold, we have left everything and followed You.

-- Matthew 19:27

Immediately they left their nets and followed Him. ... Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him.

-- Matthew 4:20, 22

When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.

-- Luke 5:11

And he left everything behind, and got up and began to follow Him.

-- Luke 5:28

Evil is banal . . . it accomplishes its work over lunch

Johannes L. Jacobse, here:

"But evil is seldom sensationalist. It’s banal. It accomplishes its work over lunch and in private clinics by men like the mild and proper Dr. Joseph Mengele — Nucatola’s prototype and in whose steps she walks."

Once more Phil Jenkins stumbles into the truth: that Jesus was a prophet to the Jews, not the Gentiles

Here:

Did the living Jesus recorded in the New Testament believe that his mission extended to gentiles? None of the four canonical Gospels explicitly declare that he recognized any duty beyond the frontiers of Judaism, which is remarkable when we recall that all four were written at a time when the Jesus movement had opened its doors to non-Jews.

----------------------------------------

Jenkins cites evidence, but not of the starkest sort which explicitly forbids the Gentile mission:

"Into the way of the Gentiles do not go . . .."

-- Matthew 10:5

Liberal Bishop John A. T. Robinson in 1976 famously put the composition of most of the New Testament before 70 A.D. for the failure to even hint at the destruction of the temple, which would mean that the absence of a Gentile mission sensibility in the gospels isn't an oddity but a marker equal in significance for an earlier dating of the gospel sources. That said, the tyranny of the Passion narrative in the Synoptics speaks to the intrusion of an editorial impulse from the later period which must not be quickly discounted, nor naively accepted (e.g. from the supplied ending to Mark, Mark 16:15: "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature").

   

A preposterous miracle: Jesus can raise Lazarus from the dead but must ask others to roll away the stone

Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.

-- John 11:39

Unless you repent you will all likewise perish

They sow not . . .

A male Eastern Bluebird feeds the female

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

-- Matthew 6:26

American delusions: 23% believed to be gay/lesbian when in fact only 3.8% are LGBT

Meaning the specifically gay/lesbian are fewer than 3.8%.

Gallup reported here May 21, 2015:

PRINCETON, N.J. -- The American public estimates on average that 23% of Americans are gay or lesbian, little changed from Americans' 25% estimate in 2011, and only slightly higher than separate 2002 estimates of the gay and lesbian population. These estimates are many times higher than the 3.8% of the adult population who identified themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in Gallup Daily tracking in the first four months of this year.

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While the least educated among us are off on the estimate by a factor of over seven, the smartest, with post-graduate degrees, are still off by a factor of nearly four, according to Gallup.

And you thought belief was purely a phenomenon of religion.

Same sex marriage: yet another extraordinary popular delusion and example of the madness of crowds

herd behavior

 

Erick Erickson, here:

History is riddled with episodes of mass hysteria. Sometimes those episodes of mass hysteria lead to evil. Sometimes they lead to merely bizarre stories. But society, on occasion, has fits of hysteria and insanity burning like wildfire through it. The wildfire eventually burns out, but it often leaves destruction in its wake.

The United States of America and much of the West are currently in a fit of hysteria. A wildfire is burning through it. Up is down. Down is up. Good is evil. Evil is good. Wrong is right, and right is wrong. Boys can suddenly be girls. Sex and gender are suddenly different things. And Justice Anthony Kennedy believes that because someone may look at the horizon and find loneliness, the Constitution guarantees him the right to marry another man.

Leave aside the fact that any judge who can redefine a multi-thousand-year-old institution on a whim has more power than our Founders would want. Our society is going through a round of hysteria.

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Therefore God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false . . ..

-- 2 Thessalonians 2:11

Joel Miller rebukes the therapeutic view of marriage but is consumed by it like the rest of Christianity

Here (emphases mine):

[T]he church understands marriage to be a sacrament, a gift of God’s grace for the transformation of the recipients. Look for a moment at two examples: baptism and eucharist. The first moves us into relationship with Christ and his church, while the second gives us the life of Christ so we can become more like him. Marriage is the same way. The endgame is union with God as we grow in Christ. ... Our marriages have the power to transform us into the likeness of Christ. ...

Marriage is now primarily a relationship for the betterment and self-fulfillment of two individuals. Two are stronger than one, after all. Together two individuals can better gratify each other’s desires and fulfill each others needs—right up until the moment they no longer seem able or willing, of course.

None of that is false, so far as it goes.

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You will search the essay in vain for the words "baby" or "children" or "reproduction", the essential object of marriage.

It's as if a "proper" view of marriage never existed in the whole history of all humanity before the followers of a crazed Pharisee called marriage a mystery of Christ and the church in the epistle to the Ephesians.

The tyranny of that one line is the culprit behind the distortion of the immemorial view of marriage as humankind's divinely ordained outlet for expressing God's creativity through the family. The idealizing conception of marriage as spiritually transformative has exposed marriage to all the worst elements of an unattainable mysticism which has bred the contempt for the institution which now plagues the West. Instead of ordering our culture around marriage and children and family we have done everything to delay, deny and redefine what nature and nature's God demands. And then we complain when we lose control of our politics.

Maybe if we had done what God has always commanded we wouldn't now be alone and ashamed as a tiny army of homosexual enemies invades our gates and routs us.

"How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;

They will not be ashamed

When they speak with their enemies in the gate."

-- Psalm 127:5

Jesus was talkin' 'bout his generation, not some other one

And he said, "Woe to you lawyers also! for you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you! for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses and consent to the deeds of your fathers; for they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,' that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechari'ah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it shall be required of this generation.

-- Luke 11:46ff.

To prevent losing in court, churches need to remove "standing" by excommunicating the doctrinally unsound

Consider the hypothetical posed here:

"Imagine a same sex couple who consider themselves deeply Catholic want to get married at the Catholic church of their choice. They approach the pastor and he declines to officiate the wedding or be a party to it. The spurned couple might then file a non-discrimination lawsuit against the pastor and his parish making the simple argument that because same-sex marriage is a right protected under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, a parish cannot discriminate in who it weds and who it doesn't."

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A number of things come to mind, which church leadership throughout the country ought to begin discussing with their legal counsel as soon as possible.

One, couples who want to marry in church should be required as a condition of membership to get married in their own parish. Churches need to state this explicitly in order to have control of their own affairs. Couples should not be free to roam and pick a "patsy" church of their choosing.

Two, all members should be required to sign doctrinal statements which specifically delineate that they agree with the church's teaching about sexuality and marriage as a condition of membership. Members who transfer to new parishes should have to do the same.

Three, churches should state in writing as a matter of principle that the benefits provided by clergy are only for members who have also completed a course of catechesis, affirmed it and have been publicly accepted into membership.

And four, a clear process of excommunication should be in place and followed in order to remove from membership individuals who come to disagree with the church's teaching.

If taken, these steps ought to help protect churches qua religious institutions, and in a court of law make it difficult for plaintiffs to sue because they do not have standing to sue and have executed evidence which contradicts their claims.

Doctrinally rigorous churches such as the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod already are well prepared in these respects and represent a good resource for clergy and denominations who are not.