The cost of discipleship: Her whole life

 ὅλον τὸν βίον αὐτῆς

"her whole life"

For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living. 

 

-- Mark 12:44 

Compare Luke 14.33:

 

So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.  

A dick joke only Marco Rubio's Jesus would be proud of

Rubio, quoted here:

In an interview after the GOP debate in Michigan, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly questioned Rubio about the vicious personal attacks that have emerged between the two candidates. During the debate, Rubio called for his rivals to focus on policy, but the Florida senator tangled in several spats with Trump. Rubio slammed the front-runner's candidacy as a scam and tied him to his controversial Trump University, which faces a class-action lawsuit alleging fraud. “If I don’t do it, it’ll be because I don’t want to do anything, for example, that Jesus wouldn’t be proud of, to be honest with you,” Rubio said. “Or that my kids would look at and say, ‘I don’t want you to keep doing that.’”

Fellow church member of Ted Cruz says she didn't vote for him because he practises (Christian) identity politics

"They love to pray that they may be seen of men"

Just now on the Laura Ingraham Show.

The woman said she doesn't have to vote for anybody just because he claims to be Christian, which in her opinion is what Ted Cruz expects.

The stupid statement of the day comes from the solitary Joel Miller

 

 

Here:

The early Church flourished without any political power.

The early church was a political power.

The statement is breathtakingly oblivious to the irreducible political nature of man, most memorably articulated in antiquity by Aristotle, reinterpreted in St. Paul's notion of the one body of Christ and its many members, and most famously embraced by the Christian theologian Aquinas. You have to be a dumb animal, eating the grass of the field, not to grasp the self-evident fact that the early church itself constituted a (rival) political force which took over the Roman Empire from within because it became socially dominant.

From Aristotle, Politics 1, 1253a:

From these things therefore it is clear that the city-state is a natural growth, and that man is by nature a political animal, and a man that is by nature and not merely by fortune citiless is either low in the scale of humanity or above it (like the “clanless, lawless, hearthless” man reviled by Homer, for one by nature unsocial is also ‘a lover of war') inasmuch as he is solitary, like an isolated piece at draughts. And why man is a political animal in a greater measure than any bee or any gregarious animal is clear. For nature, as we declare, does nothing without purpose; and man alone of the animals possesses speech. The mere voice, it is true, can indicate pain and pleasure, and therefore is possessed by the other animals as well (for their nature has been developed so far as to have sensations of what is painful and pleasant and to indicate those sensations to one another), but speech is designed to indicate the advantageous and the harmful, and therefore also the right and the wrong; for it is the special property of man in distinction from the other animals that he alone has perception of good and bad and right and wrong and the other moral qualities, and it is partnership in these things that makes a household and a city-state.

Thus also the city-state is prior in nature to the household and to each of us individually. For the whole must necessarily be prior to the part; since when the whole body is destroyed, foot or hand will not exist except in an equivocal sense, like the sense in which one speaks of a hand sculptured in stone as a hand; because a hand in those circumstances will be a hand spoiled, and all things are defined by their function and capacity, so that when they are no longer such as to perform their function they must not be said to be the same things, but to bear their names in an equivocal sense. It is clear therefore that the state is also prior by nature to the individual; for if each individual when separate is not self-sufficient, he must be related to the whole state as other parts are to their whole, while a man who is incapable of entering into partnership, or who is so self-sufficing that he has no need to do so, is no part of a state, so that he must be either a lower animal or a god.

Therefore the impulse to form a partnership of this kind is present in all men by nature; but the man who first united people in such a partnership was the greatest of benefactors. For as man is the best of the animals when perfected, so he is the worst of all when sundered from law and justice. For unrighteousness is most pernicious when possessed of weapons, and man is born possessing weapons for the use of wisdom and virtue, which it is possible to employ entirely for the opposite ends. Hence when devoid of virtue man is the most unholy and savage of animals, and the worst in regard to sexual indulgence and gluttony. Justice on the other hand is an element of the state; for judicial procedure, which means the decision of what is just, is the regulation of the political partnership.

Depart from your cell, Joel, and join the human race.

Marco Rubio has changed his religion three times

Baptized and raised Catholic in Florida.

Converted to Mormonism while in elementary school in Utah.

Went back to Florida and to Catholicism.

Now attends a Baptist church!

Detailed here.

John Shelby Spong's mother helps explain the obsessions of the man

From an interview here:

I happen to know the Bible pretty deeply and I didn’t reject the Bible when I rejected its literal frame of reference. I happen to be a believing, practicing Christian. I don’t go to church on Sunday mornings for show. I go because I want to be there and I need to worship. It’s not an option for me to sleep in on Sunday. My faith is deeper than that. I do not eat a meal that I don’t stop and say grace beforehand because that’s how I acknowledge the presence of God in my life at a regular time. I try to live a life of absolute commitment. I claim my Christian identity publicly.

This puts me at odds with my colleagues in the Jesus Seminar who are so scholarly but they are not devoted. They really think the church is a sick institution and they don’t want to be part of it. I think the church is the only place we’ve got, but we’ve got to transform and redeem it. If the church is not going to be the place where people encounter God and Christ I don’t see any other place in our society to do so. I work to transform the church. I don’t work to get rid of the church. I work to transform the meaning of what it means to be a Christian, not to get rid of that meaning. ...

I wrote a book once about reclaiming the Bible for a nonreligious world. I really want to take it back from those people who I think are ruining it. I don’t dislike those people. My mother was a fundamentalist. She had not finished the 9th grade. She knew no other way to approach the biblical story.

Spong was more inclined to wear membership in the Jesus Seminar as a badge of honor as recently as 2012, here:

In the 1990’s, Robert Funk invited me to become a Fellow of the Jesus Seminar. I was the first Fellow not to be a professional academic. ... While being a successful author and possessing a number of honorary doctorates, I did not have an earned PhD, which was normally regarded as a pre-requisite for becoming a Fellow of the Jesus Seminar. Nonetheless, the Seminar honored me by accepting me to its membership.  I have loved my association with them over the years.  I have participated in their debates and deliberations.  I have been invited to address some of their largest gatherings, including the 2004 event called “The Jesus Seminar at Times Square.”  The Seminar has adopted some of the perspectives that I have offered and they have under-girded my career with their incisive scholarship.  I have previously been recognized by them in several ways.  I was chosen for membership in the “David Friedrich Strauss Society of Biblical Scholars,” a society named for an early 19th century German New Testament scholar, who first brought the findings of the academy to the attention of the people of Europe.  Later I was given the “John A. T. Robinson Award” for “Courage and Integrity in Theology.”

I was deeply touched by each of these honors.  To close the gap between the academy and the people in the pews has been both the goal of the Seminar and the primary ambition of my career.  The Jesus Seminar has been a major force in enabling me to fulfill that vocation.  I have many friends today among the Fellows of the Seminar and I believe they have a new respect for the willingness of the clergy and lay people that I represent to be engaged in biblical scholarship. 

Scott Redd of Reformed Theological Seminary doesn't take Jesus' teaching about the cost of discipleship seriously

Here:

If, as the Apostle Paul says, we become new creations in Christ, then we should expect to find our wealth being directed toward ends that are more and more commensurate with our new creation. ... [W]ell-meaning believers often voice romanticized opinions about poverty and the impoverished, pointing out biblical passages that speak of the dangers of wealth while ignoring passages that speak of the wealth’s many blessings. ... Christians need to counsel, conspire, and collaborate with one another about how their mutual faith and love of God can find expression in the way they manage their wealth.

Yeah, it's right there in Luke 14:33, where it says "No one can be my disciple who doesn't manage all their wealth more and more commensurate with the new creation".

Pope Francis: Gay priests? Who am I to judge? Donald Trump? Not a Christian.

Kerry Dougherty, here:

"So it’s OK for the pope to judge an American politician but not gay priests?"

Ted Cruz' messiah complex is showing: Who does he think he is, Jesus Christ?

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

-- Hebrews 13:8

Pope Francis declares he's not a Christian: Vatican walls are not in the Gospel

Quoted here:

"A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian," Francis said. "This is not in the Gospel."

Rod Dreher: The bad news is Donald Trump is religious and social conservatives' only choice in this election

From Rod Dreher, here:

[Trump] has said publicly that he will make protecting religious liberty a priority. Does he mean it? I have no idea, and you don’t either. He is no religious conservative. But he is a populist who doesn’t care what the donor class thinks, because he is not indebted to them. It is reasonable to think that religious liberty stands a better chance with Trump in the White House than any other Republican. Mind you, that’s the soft bigotry of low expectations, but that just goes to show you how weak the position of us religious and social conservatives has become within the Republican Party. ...

For people in our socioeconomic demographic, greater immigration meant more and better restaurants, and better lawn and garden care.

Our kids weren’t having their schools overrun by children who couldn’t speak the language; they went to private school, or to public schools in parts of town immigrants couldn’t afford. 

We weren’t having the hospitals we used overrun by illegal immigrants needing care; we didn’t have to use the public hospital.

Our neighborhoods weren’t changing in front of our eyes. And so on.

The immigration issue was a chance for us to show our compassion — sometimes our explicitly Christian compassion — without it costing us anything tangible. The kind of white people my class looked down on and thought of as racist rabble were the kind of white people who had to bear a lot of the brunt of our politics and what we called compassion. ... [T]hey are not wrong to judge that many in our class looks [sic] down on them, and doesn’t [sic] share their interests. The kinds of social things they might like to conserve don’t really matter to people of my class. We can’t see it, we never could see it, and some of us are still bound and determined not to see it, until they make us see it.

A scholar of the prosperity gospel pinpoints the false message of libertarianism at the heart of it

Here:

The prosperity gospel has taken a religion based on the contemplation of a dying man and stripped it of its call to surrender all. Perhaps worse, it has replaced Christian faith with the most painful forms of certainty. The movement has perfected a rarefied form of America’s addiction to self-rule, which denies much of our humanity: our fragile bodies, our finitude, our need to stare down our deaths (at least once in a while) and be filled with dread and wonder. At some point, we must say to ourselves, I’m going to need to let go.

Perfect freedom eludes us

From Carol Zaleski on Samuel Johnson, here, who with fine turns of phrase has captured the humanity and wisdom of the man who navigated the divide between pre-modern and modern man more heroically than any English writer before or since:

'No writer has more convincingly described the failure to “scheme life,” the near futility of hygienic self-improvement. Not piety alone, but piety weathered by illness, disfigurement, financial worries, marital difficulties, overwork, and hereditary melancholy (to the point that he feared madness), as well as his bungled attempts at self-discipline, made Johnson skeptical of the Enlightenment ideal of autonomy. He was a kind and courageous man (notwithstanding his well-known combativeness in debate), full of charity, whose setbacks inoculated him against spiritual pride.'

Yeah, so how did Luke know what was said "between themselves"?

And when [Paul] had thus spoken, the king rose up, and the governor, and Bernice, and they that sat with them: And when they were gone aside, they talked between themselves, saying, This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds. Then said Agrippa unto Festus, This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Caesar.

-- Acts 26:30ff.

Ash Wednesday, when the hypocrites disfigure their faces to be seen of men

Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.

-- Matthew 6:16ff.

Calling J. Gresham Machen a forgotten libertarian is as unhelpful as calling Jesus a socialist

In a short essay entitled "Rendering Unto Caesar: Was Jesus a Socialist?" which the author rather embarrassingly calls "epic", Lawrence W. Reed never quite gets it that the idea of socialism is a phenomenon of the modern age which didn't present itself to the minds of pre-modern men and that those like Gorbachev who paste the term on figures of the past are doing more to obscure their thoughts than to elucidate them. Regrettably Reed goes on to commit the same error himself.

Socialism is an intellectual category which only lately in history arose in reaction to the appearance of industrial capitalism in the Enlightenment West. To paint Jesus with the hues of this corner of time completely ignores his own time and its conditions in which as a prophet he preached the imminent coming of the kingdom of God in unique historical circumstances. But it will hardly do to also make Jesus a defender of capitalism, which couldn't be more anachronistic. A good student of Jesus' teaching would not miss, as Reed does, that personal poverty and distribution of assets to the poor was a condition of discipleship according to the Synoptic tradition. Jesus believed this precisely because it represented repentance to him, without which one would not survive the end of the world and God's judgment which were fast and certainly approaching.

Of course this underscores a major difference with St. Paul, whose thought was a preoccupation of the New Testament scholar John Gresham Machen, the subject of the recent essay by Reed entitled "God’s Forgotten Libertarian". If repentance required various acts of renunciation of the world to Jesus, to Paul it above all required belief in the lordship of Christ, whom Paul believed was still soon to return in judgment.

The irony of Reed's title is that like socialism, libertarianism is also a late product of the modern age, precisely from the clutches of which Machen sought his whole life to rescue thinking about Paul, especially in The Origins of Paul's Religion (1921).

It's difficult to imagine a better way to misrepresent Machen.

And Paul.

Libertarian Christianity would have been an utter contradiction in terms to the apostle to the Gentiles for the simple reason that there could never be any notion of personal autonomy in Christianity, as if one could give oneself one's own law to live by apart from the law of Christ, or could live in blissful isolation without being a member of the body of Christ or without a duty to the rest of humankind, or could actually own oneself. These are all core notions of libertarian individualism which are at war with basic Pauline ideas:

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

 

-- 1 Corinthians 6:19f.

Likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price . . ..

 

-- 1 Corinthians 7:22f.

Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth.

 

-- 1 Corinthians 10:24

Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.

 

-- 1 Corinthians 10:33

[Charity] . . . seeketh not her own . . ..

 

--1 Corinthians 13:5

Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

 

-- 2 Corinthians 13:5

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

 

-- Galatians 2:20

Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.

 

-- Galatians 6:2

So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

 

-- Romans 12:5

Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.

 

-- Philippians 2:4

Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

 

-- Philippians 4:11f.

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves . . ..

 

-- 2 Timothy 3:1ff.


Christianity may have become many things, but what it most certainly is not in its origins is a materialist philosophy. Those who say otherwise like Reed unfortunately know not whereof they speak. 

Bernie Sanders, candidate for the Nones

WaPo quotes him here:

“I am not actively involved with organized religion,” Sanders said in a recent interview.

That's rich: Charisma News thinks disgraced Jim Bakker is trustworthy but Donald Trump isn't

Charisma News op-ed wants you to doubt Trump's trustworthiness

Sidebar features convicted fraudster Jim Bakker twice!

Thousands of supporters lost million$ in his scheme 

Here.

Still-shot from a Christian horror flick

Ken Copeland of blab it, grab it infamy and that nincompoop of a pope, Francis

Police close Santeria store in Compton, CA after finding 9 human skulls in pots

Omi Relekun is located at 1514 N. Long Beach Blvd. Compton CA

All religions are the same, right?

From the story, here:

'Nine human skulls and other possible human and animal bones were found in a Los Angeles County store that sells Santeria products on Friday. Los Angeles County sheriff's Capt Steve Katz says deputies responded to the Compton business Friday after a woman complained of animal cruelty. When investigators arrived, Katz says they found a skull inside a pot. He says the coroner's office collected the skull and eight other pots that may also contain skulls.'

Is Ted Cruz a phony baloney plastic banana Christian because he didn't TITHE?

Some people think so, evidently, as reported here:

'According to personal tax returns released during his 2012 Senate bid, Cruz contributed less than 1% of his income to charity between 2006 and 2010 — a far cry from the 10% most evangelical leaders believe the Bible demands. ... “He was never particularly religious as far as I knew,” said one aide who worked for him in the Texas solicitor general’s office. “I’m not even sure he went to church.”'

One Corinthians, two Corinthians, three Corinthians, four!

Five Corinthians, six Corinthians, seven Corinthians, more!

And pretty soon we'll have enough for a synagogue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anglican Communion excludes the tiny homosexual-inclusive USA Episcopal Church for three years

It's about time:

"The decision in England will have little impact on Episcopalians in the pews, who have grown increasingly liberal after the 2003 consecration of the openly gay priest Gene Robinson as the bishop of New Hampshire. That action prompted dozens of U.S. churches to break off and declare their allegiance to conservative rival groups. ... The constituent churches, which preside over a membership of about 85 million, are self-governing. ... Like other mainline denominations, the Episcopal Church, home to U.S. presidents and the nation’s elite, has struggled to fill its pews in recent years. It has lost more than 20 percent of its members since it consecrated Robinson, and new statistics suggest that membership continues to fall, dropping 2.7 percent from 2013 to about 1.8 million U.S. members in 2014."

Read more at the link.

Liberal wet dream: Mary of Magdala the wealthy (prostitute) who bankrolled the ministry of Jesus

Repeated here:

"Was it mere chance that Mary Magdalene lived there? Or might something have been afoot in Magdala that helped turn her into one of Jesus’s most devoted acolytes—a woman who funds his work out of her own wealth and follows him all the way to the cross, and the tomb, in Jerusalem, even as other disciples abandon him?"

To wit: it's easy to preach to others to sell everything you own and give to the poor when you have a sugar momma in your corner.

Actually the evidence is that many women followed him and put their possessions, whatever they were, at his disposal in obedience to his teaching. There is no prejudice in the term "substance" as if it described great wealth, average wealth, or poverty.

"And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him, And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others [females], which ministered unto him of their substance."

-- Luke 8:1ff.

Vatican panders to the followers of a popular deceased pervert

Reported here:

"In an unprecedented display of praise for a pop figure, Vatican Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi tweeted encomium to David Bowie in honor of his passing, offering a final blessing for the rock star with lyrics from one of his most famous songs."

Stephen Prothero doesn't know the meaning of pluralism, but teaches at a "university"

Here in The Wall Street Journal of all places:

"No doubt Christians should strive to understand the Islamic faith fully, and vice versa. But pretend pluralism, feigning that all or most religious traditions hinge on the same truth, is no solution for the squabble at Wheaton or anywhere else."

Religious pluralism has nothing to do with hinging "on the same truth", but rather with competing religions coexisting in a society, as in a pluralistic society where competing ideas coexist, such as for example at a university, where the main idea is that a whole universe of competing ideas is supposed to be available to the student.

Presumably Boston University pays its professors to understand the meaning of that word, evocative as it is of the very mission of universities, but in this case it may wish to ask for its money back before the students do.

A place where 132 million are born per year, and 56 million die

What does it mean that a sixth ice age will probably wipe out all memory of Christian civilization?

Mark Tooley insists history has a meaning, here:

"Christianity by its nature must allow that God has and will continue to govern human events after Bible times and before the end times."

And what is the Christian meaning of the previous ice age cyclicality?

Atheist George Will baldly lies about the Christian origins of the English common law

Here, in the formerly conservative National Review:

'Morality evolves: Religious and other moral instructors base their moral codes on the way people who are considered moral behave, people who are deemed moral because they exemplify rules conducive to human flourishing. Legal systems evolve: The common-law basis of the system under which Americans live had no inspired law-giver; it emerged from centuries of the Anglosphere’s trial and error.'

F. N. Lee explains here, at considerably more length than I dare quote.

From the opening:

'In 1892, the famous German Church Historian Rev. Professor Dr. J. H. Kurtz called King Alfred the greatest and noblest of all the monarchs England has ever had. King Alfred ruled from 871 to 901 A.D. He applied all the energy of his mind to the difficult problems of government; to the emancipation of his Christian country by driving out the Pagan Danish invaders and robbers; and then to improving the internal condition of the land.

'Alfred is perhaps best of all remembered for his famous Law Code. According to the celebrated former British Statesman and Historian Sir Winston Churchill, the roots of King Alfred's Book of Laws or Dooms (alias his "Deemings") came forth from the (as then already long-established) laws of Kent, Mercia and Wessex. All these attempted to blend the Mosaic Code with the Christian principles of Celto-Brythonic Law and old Germanic customs.

'Churchill adds that the laws of Alfred, continually amplified by his successors, grew into that body of Customary Law which was administered [as the ‘Common Law’] by the Shire and the Hundred Courts. Cf. Exodus 18:21f. That, under the name of the ‘Laws of St. Edward’ [the ‘Confessor’] — as the A.D. 1042f last Anglo-Saxon Christian King of England — the Norman kings undertook to respect, after their 1066f invasion and conquest of England and hegemony over Britain. Out of that, with much dexterity by feudal lawyers, the Common Law emerged (which was re-confirmed by Magna Carta in 1215).'

Dear ISIS,

The pacifist monster is single

 

From Joseph Loconte, here:

Religious progressives are not mistaken when they discover in the ministry of Jesus a life devoted to the love of neighbor: the unconditional love of God. Nor are they wrong to see in Jesus the quintessential peacemaker: the Prince of Peace. Yet their political vision is based entirely upon the principle of non-violence. Their politics, in all its particulars, is guided by one rule, “the law of love.”

The fatal problem with this view is that historic Christianity—especially Protestant Christianity—has never reduced the gospel to these elements. The cross of Christ cannot be comprehended without an awareness of the depth of human guilt and the power of radical evil. “The gospel is something more than the law of love. The gospel deals with the fact that men violate the law of love,” wrote Niebuhr in “Why the Christian Church is Not Pacifist.” “The gospel presents Christ as the pledge and revelation of God’s mercy which finds man in his rebellion and overcomes his sin.” ... 

It is at this point where Christian progressives fail most conspicuously in their stated objective: to demonstrate the love of Christ to their neighbor. Perhaps the most shameful behavior of American Christians during the Second World War was their practical indifference to the millions of victims of Nazism. ...

At the moment when fresh thinking about the Christian just war tradition is desperately needed, religious progressives have abandoned the concept altogether. “Thus the Christian ideal of love has degenerated into a lovelessness which cuts itself off from a sorrowing and suffering world,” wrote Niebuhr. “Love is made to mean not pity and sympathy or responsibility for the weal and woe of others, it becomes merely the abstract and negative perfection of peace in a warring world.”

In this, religious progressives succumb to an old temptation. They allow their hatred of war to blot out all other virtues and obligations. ...

30-year old Lutherans sit around for three hours drinking beer wondering why death has no urgency

 

Maybe they should learn to talk to someone who's 50ish and nearer to it, or over 500 and quite dead. Kids these days.

From the story here:

'Booze, scripture and YouTube helped anoint the latest Bible and Brew hosted by Nicholas and Kristin Tangen, both 30 and members of Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church in Northeast. ... The group of 10 debated: Does mortality pack the same punch these days as during New Testament times? “There’s a sense of non-urgency around death now,” Kristin Tangen said about an hour into the group’s three-hour chat. That same attitude might apply to being proactive about goals or recognizing the threat of global warming, she said. We all nestle comfortably into modernity’s promises, she added. Her husband added, “ ‘Live today like it’s your last’ sounds so trite,” but does it have credence? He wondered: Should we dismiss such simple adages?'

For some beer offerings celebrating the 500th anniversay of the Reformation, with some choice Luther quotations, see here.

Democrat Socialist Harold Meyerson's empirical offenses against the Gospel of Matthew and Leviticus

Here:

'They were refugees, fleeing for their lives from one Middle Eastern country to the next. As Matthew tells the tale, Joseph, fearing that the government had marked his newborn son for death, gathered up his wife and child and stole away by night across the Judean border into Egypt. And just in time: Unsure who, exactly, to kill, that government — a king named Herod, who’d heard some kid would one day become a rival king — proceeded to slaughter every remaining child in Bethlehem under the age of 2.

'This isn’t a chapter of the Christmas story that has made it into the general celebration, but it’s there in the gospel, for those who give the gospels credence and for those who don’t. For both groups, it’s clear that the authors of the New Testament intended to recount (for the believers) or compose (for the nons) a story that echoed the Old Testament’s concern for strangers, foreigners and refugees (“The stranger among you shall be as one born among you,” says Leviticus, “and you shall love him as yourself”), that foreshadowed Jesus’ teachings to care for castaways and the least among us, and that laid the foundation for institutional Christianity’s transnationalism.'

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

On Meyerson's reading, Leviticus might as well be a proto-Sermon-on-the-Mount, except that Leviticus details nearly a score of offenses for which death is prescribed, including blasphemy and not keeping the Sabbath, two key charges against Jesus of Nazareth. The Judaism of Leviticus is a religion steeped in violence by Jews against Jews, violence which is routinized against offenders against God's law, not to mention against countless animals slaughtered eventually in a Temple to appease an angry God and feed an idle clerisy.

In true liberal fashion, only the one element of this book which is convenient to the present liberal narrative is featured. All the inconvenient facts of the rest of it are omitted, the ones which cannot be pressed into the service of the liberal project, indeed which argue against it, which in this case is to shame those who reject refugees. Does it really need to be pointed out that according to Matthew Jesus and his family were rejected by the Jews, and became refugees from Judaism, not to it?

Meyerson similarly paints the Matthew story of the Slaughter of the Innocents as if it were a matter of government oppressing the people, when in fact Matthew is at pains to tell us a different story in which "all Jerusalem with him" was involved, not just Herod by himself, "troubled" as they both were by the news from the wise men about a new king "of the Jews" coming to replace Herod, and upset their profitable applecart.

'"Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him." When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.' -- Matthew 2:2f.

This is but the beginning of Matthew's message that Jerusalem was unalterably opposed to Jesus. By the end of that story Jesus himself is saying, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" -- Matthew 23:37

Indeed, when it comes to anti-Judaism in the gospels it is most singularly expressed by Matthew, in the account of Jesus' trial before Pilate where all the Jews become willingly complicit in Jesus' death:

'Pilate saith unto them, "What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?" They all say unto him, "Let him be crucified." ... Then answered all the people, and said, "His blood be on us, and on our children."' -- Matthew 27: 22, 25

If Harold Meyerson is seen to be a tendentious hack intentionally misrepresenting Leviticus and Matthew, in the end he does turn out to be right about one thing:

'A sharp rise in the number of adherents to alternative realities in a world otherwise governed by empiricism is not without unhappy precedent in modern history. It has sundered nations and brought fascists — with their characteristic disdain for rationalism — to power.'

In our time they all seem to type for the Democrats at The Washington Post.

You'll be happier giving than receiving

"It is more blessed to give than to receive"

-- Acts 20:35

Like much else, Islam got "irja" from Pauline Christianity

From a recent discussion, here, about how ISIS seeks to immanentize the eschaton:

'Unless you have some knowledge of medieval Islamic theology you probably have no idea what irja means. The word translates literally as “postponing.” It was a theological principle put forward by some Muslim scholars during the very first century of Islam. At the time, the Muslim world was going through a major civil war, as proto-Sunnis and proto-Shiites fought for power, and a third group called Khawarij (dissenters) were excommunicating and slaughtering both sides. In the face of this bloody chaos, the proponents of irja said that the burning question of who is a true Muslim should be “postponed” until the afterlife. Even a Muslim who abandoned all religious practice and committed many sins, they reasoned, could not be denounced as an “apostate.” Faith was a matter of the heart, something only God — not other human beings — could evaluate.

'The scholars who put this forward became known as “murjia,” the upholders of irja, or, simply, “postponers.” The theology that they outlined could have been the basis for a tolerant, noncoercive, pluralistic Islam — an Islamic liberalism. Unfortunately, they did not have enough influence on the Muslim world. The school of thought disappeared quickly, only to go down in Sunni orthodoxy’s memory as one of the early “heretical sects.” ...

'In fact, there are hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world who are also engaged in irja, even if they are unfamiliar with the term. Some of them are focused on the Quran, instead of the medieval Shariah, and hold on to the famous Quranic verse that says, “There is no compulsion in religion.”' 

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Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then every man will receive his commendation from God.

-- 1 Corinthians 4:5

Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

-- 2 Corinthians 9:7

The only thing crazier than Muslim and Christian apocalyptic fanaticism is that Salon Magazine thinks the latter is behind Donald Trump

Here:

"What’s perhaps most fascinating about this situation is that Trump appears to be peddling his own apocalyptic narrative to his followers, the least educated Americans."

Self-hatred according to Jesus or self-love according to Paul, which shall it be?

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. -- Luke 14:26

He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. -- John 12:25

So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church ... Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. -- Ephesians 5:28f., 33

For the successful equation of religion with politics in our time, credit Islam not Christianity

From Charles Moore here:

'Ayatollah Khomeini ... said “Islam is politics”. He meant that Islam tells you how to rule, and therefore any unIslamic way of ruling is illegitimate. ... Khomeini was a Shia, but a similar way of weaponising the faith was also developed in Sunni Islam. It stands behind organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood . . .. It rests not only on an interpretation of the words of God allegedly spoken through the mouth of his Prophet, but on a tale of grievance. In this tale, bad people – colonial powers, Christians, Jews, America, “hypocrite” Muslim monarchs – destroyed the right rule of true Islam (the caliphate) and humiliated the faithful. This world-view is known as “Islamism”. Islam itself is related to Islamism as patriotism is related to nationalism, the former being based on love of something, the latter on hatred of something else. Islamism validates resentment. Its emotional appeal is like that of communism and fascism, but stronger, because it promises heaven to those who commit its violent acts on earth.'

Tertullian's encouragement to martyrdom

Roman Carthage

The flesh will perhaps fear the heavy sword and the lofty cross and the wild beasts mad with rage and the most terrible punishment of all—death by fire—and, finally, all the executioner’s cunning during the torture.  But let the spirit present to both itself and the flesh the other side of the picture: granted, these sufferings are grievous, yet many have borne them patiently, nay, have even sought them on their own accord for the sake of fame and glory; and this is true not only of men but also of women so that you, too, O blessed women, may be worthy of your sex. 

-- Tertullian, To the Martyrs, 4.35 (circa AD 197)

Here's another "religion" which should be banned in the United States, but our insane Supremes think otherwise

 

 

 

 

 The Associated Press just recently reported here:

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- A man described by police as a Santeria priest caught with human remains in his Connecticut home agreed on Monday to go to Massachusetts to face accusations that he stole the five skeletons from a mausoleum. ... Police arrested Medina on Friday after the remains were found in his Hartford apartment. Medina told police he was a Santeria priest and wanted the human bones for religious and healing ceremonies, said Hartford Deputy Police Chief Brian Foley.

Give them an inch in 2009 they'll take a mile in 2015:

As the sacrificial hour approaches, several priests (Santeros) are preparing the 40 assorted goats, roosters, hens, guinea hens, pigeons, quail, turtle and duck who grow noisy and nervous in their cages. Their lives will be taken in an exchange mandated by Olofi, Santería's supreme god and source of all energy, to heal the broken body and spirit of Virginia Rosario-Nevarez and to initiate her into the Santería priesthood. No medical doctor has been able to alleviate her suffering—the intractable back pain that makes walking unbearable, her debilitating depression and loneliness.

The development of liberal social equality in the West would have been unthinkable without Pauline Christianity and Protestantism

Knox thought rule by Queens was unnatural

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

-- Galatians 3:28

Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.

-- Colossians 3:11

[7]Neither would I that you should esteem the reformation and care of religion less to appertain to you, because you are not kings, rulers, judges, nobles, nor in authority. Beloved brethren, you are God's creatures, created and formed to his own image and similitude, for whose redemption was shed the most precious blood of the only beloved Son of God, to whom he has commanded his gospel and glad tidings to be preached, and for whom he has prepared the heavenly inheritance, so that you will not obstinately refuse, and disdainfully contemn the means which he has appointed to obtain the same: to wit, his blessed evangel, which now he offers unto you, to the end that you may be saved. For the gospel and glad tidings of the kingdom truly preached, is the power of God to the salvation of every believer (Rom. 1:16), which to credit and receive, you, the commonalty, are no less indebted than are your rulers and princes. [8]For albeit God has put and ordained distinction and difference betwixt the king and subjects, betwixt the rulers and the common people, in the regiment and administration of civil policies; yet in the hope of the life to come he has made all equal. For as in Christ Jesus the Jew has no greater prerogative than has the Gentile, the man than has the woman, the learned than the unlearned, the lord than the servant, but all are one in him (Ga. 3:26-29), so there is but one way and means to attain to the participation of his benefits and spiritual graces, which is a lively faith working by charity.

-- John Knox, Letter to Scotland, 1558

The Protestant idea of the spiritual equality of all "in the hope of the life to come" took on a life of its own in the West as secularization took hold during the Enlightenment.

If you have enough money to buy pot, you aren't a disciple of Jesus

The pot-smoking Christians of Colorado: Stoner Jesus Bible Study.

Here's their website.

Here's their news story.

Here's Jesus' verdict: If you have enough money to buy pot, you aren't a disciple.

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

When the moon, and the devil, caused epilepsy

Selene, Greek goddess of the moon (Roman Luna)

And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. 

-- Matthew 17:14ff.

Roderick Cyr still dilutes Jesus' clear and unambiguous message to become the poor

 

 

Here on Mark 10:17ff. and the parallels:

The trouble begins when we go to great lengths to explain why Jesus’ plain words are not what they appear. Instead of focusing on what He is saying and gleaning insights from those words, we concentrate on what He is not saying:

1] Jesus is not saying it’s wrong to be rich.

2] Jesus is not telling us to sell our possessions to follow Him.

3] Jesus is not issuing a specific warning to the rich. ...

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

 

-- Luke 6:20

Sell your possessions and give alms.

 

-- Luke 12:33

So therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

 

-- Luke 14:33

But woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you that are full now, for you shall hunger. Woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.

 

-- Luke 6:24f.

It doesn't say "Blessed are you rich".

It doesn't say the poor can keep what they have anymore than the rich can.

But neither does it say "Woe to you that are poor".