A psychology of the children of light . . .

. . . or why you became a religious fanatic, a band groupie, the Chicago Cubs' Number One Fan, a fill-in-the-blank junkie/obsessive-compulsive, a political radical, an activist, a racist, or maybe a workaholic, drug addict or alcoholic, got a tattoo or covered yourself in them, cut your ears, and maybe your tongue, nose, nipples or genitals, replete with jewelry, questioned your sexuality or gender, added or subtracted breasts, got a chopadickoffofme or an addadicktome, keep changing your hair color, or are otherwise consumed by your "identity".

Because you ain't heavy.

 

 

 

 

 

 Are Twitter trolls mentally ill? :

"diagnoses of the various kinds of personality disorder are very fuzzy — often people are in several categories, or don’t fit neatly into any of them." ...

"neurotypical people ... are heavy, it takes a lot to move you. So when something quite nice happens to a neurotypical person, it makes them slightly happier: the wind only moves them a little bit. When something quite unpleasant happens, it makes them slightly sadder. ... if you are cognitively light, then the same events will move you much further. ... think of it as someone being light, rather than heavy: being blown on the wind of events. [Light] people ... feel emotions much more strongly. But they also have difficulty forming a strong self-image, and often take on very visible identities, such as being a Goth or a fan of a particular band, dyeing their hair or getting tattoos, in order to give themselves something solid to cling to." ...

"we all grow more emotionally stable over the course of our lives (as children, we are very emotionally volatile, and settle down with age) and by middle age, most people ... are leading healthy and happy lives. One study followed up patients 27 years after diagnosis and found that 92% of them no longer met the diagnostic criteria." /end

The easy malleability of the human personality, its "light" nature, its instability, particularly of the child, is both a feature and a bug according to the New Testament.

Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.

-- Luke 18:17

The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.

-- John 3:8

While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light.

-- John 12:36

Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. ... But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.  

-- I Thessalonians 5:5,8

That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; 

-- Ephesians 4:14

For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:

-- Ephesians 5:8

God's chosen gaslighters

No, Jews Aren’t White:

[W]e alone have been singled out for a specific kind of steady stream of suspicion and persecution throughout history ... In 2019, for example, nearly two-thirds of all religious-based hate crimes in America targeted Jews, a 14 percent increase from the previous year… and rising.

The author, Liel Leibovitz, editor at large for Tablet, doesn't read his own magazine:

What the left doesn’t want to mention about New York City hate crimes:

The perpetrators have been disproportionately black.

As the investigative reporter ­Armin Rosen pointed out in Tablet, “many of the [anti-Jewish] attacks are being carried out by people of color with no ties to the politics of white supremacy.” As he noted, even in cases where no one is caught, video footage overwhelmingly shows minority attackers. Blacks comprised seven of the nine anti-Jewish hate-crime perpetrators arrested during the third quarter.

In the most recent report, blacks comprised 24 of the 34 (71 percent) perpetrators arrested for all hate crimes. After reaching a high of 61 percent in the second quarter of 2018, the black share consistently declined to 14 percent in the second quarter of 2019 but has now shot back up. The NYPD doesn’t account for this odd oscillation, though one wonders if there is a political component to this, as well.

 

The classless society

Daily bread, daily trouble

Cease, man of woman born! to hope relief

From daily trouble, and continued grief.

 

-- Matthew Prior

 

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day.

 

-- Matthew 6:34

The prophet Ezekiel opposed the spiritual determinism of the Torah, favoring instead the personal responsibility of the individual

The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. 

-- Ezekiel 18:20 

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 

-- Exodus 20:5

And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.  

-- Exodus 34:6f.

The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

-- Numbers 14:18

Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,

-- Deuteronomy 5:9

'You show lovingkindness to thousands, and repay the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them—the Great, the Mighty God, whose name is the LORD of hosts.'

-- Jeremiah 32:18

 

The Fourth Gospel notably makes the issue a burning one during the ministry of Jesus, but makes Jesus not exactly a Solomon for his take on it, which is reminiscent of his answer whether to pay taxes to Caesar or not:

And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. 

-- John 9:2f.

Luke, however, presents a Jesus who takes no prisoners.

He clearly places Jesus against the view of Ezekiel. Jesus explicitly makes his own generation responsible, and liable, for the murder of ALL past prophets, all the way back to ABEL (Can't you just hear his defenders shouting, But this is clearly hyperbole!?):

That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation. 

-- Luke 11:50f.

And Matthew's gospel does the same:

That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

-- Matthew 23:35f. 

 

The truth is the Torah is also divided on the issue.

A proponent of the view of Ezekiel somehow sneaked it into the code and it won enough acceptance to become a touchstone:

The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin. 

-- Deuteronomy 24:16

But the children of the murderers he slew not: according unto that which is written in the book of the law of Moses, wherein the LORD commanded, saying, The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children be put to death for the fathers; but every man shall be put to death for his own sin. 

-- II Kings 14:6

But he slew not their children, but did as it is written in the law in the book of Moses, where the LORD commanded, saying, The fathers shall not die for the children, neither shall the children die for the fathers, but every man shall die for his own sin.

-- II Chronicles 25:4

 

The perennial problems of good and evil, justice and mercy, the community and the individual, are mightily wrestled with by religion, but hardly resolved by it.

It could hardly be otherwise.

 

Appearances may be deceiving!

 

Take the picture of a man in the greenness and vivacity of his youth,

 

 

1978

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and in the latter date and declension of his drooping years,

 

2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and you will scarce know it to belong to the same person.

 

-- Robert South (1634-1716)

 

 

The Grim Reaper was previously less grim, owing to belief in eternal life

Time is commonly drawn upon tombs, in gardens, and other places, an old man, bald, winged, with a sithe and an hour-glass.

-- Henry Peacham, Graphiae; or the most excellent Art of Drawing and Limning (c.1578-1644)

Old Father Time.

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

The meanest subjects censure the actions of the greatest prince; the silliest servants, of the wisest master.

 

-- William Temple

LOL, Russell Moore, faithful Southern Baptist and son of Southern Baptists, leaves SBC professionally and personally

Russell Moore, February 2020:

“I love the Southern Baptist Convention and am a faithful son of the Southern Baptist Convention."

Russell Moore, June 2021:

On Tuesday (June 1), a tweet by a Tennessee church not affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention welcomed Moore as its new minister in residence.

 

If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise. -- Mark 14:31

 

 

US Embassy to the Holy See flies fag flag to mark beginning of Abnormal Pride Month and fit in with local fauna

 

When Protestant nonconformism and dissent, especially with regard to the real presence in the sacrament, made you heretical

False religion is, in its nature, the greatest bane and destruction to government in the world.

-- Robert South

The winners' game

 

Yet Reason frowns on war's unequal game,

Where wasted nations raise a single name,

And mortgaged states their grandsires' wreaths regret,

From age to age in everlasting debt;

Wreaths which at last the dear-bought right convey

To rust on medals, or on stones decay.

 

-- Samuel Johnson, The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749)

A useful review of the salutary influence of the conciliar tradition in colonial Maryland

From: Did Catholics Establish Religious Liberty in America?

Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America, by Michael D. Breidenbach, traces why and how Catholics have advocated for their own religious freedom in America, and their contributions to the ability of all citizens to worship God according to the dictates of conscience. The author highlights the roles two families played in these debates: the Calverts and the Carrolls.

 

Even sound money tells lies: "The golden age is back" (for about five minutes)

Western Caesar, AD 286-293

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whatever victories the several pretenders to the empire obtained over one another, they are recorded on coins without the least reflection.

-- Joseph Addison

Promising Renewed Greatness: Slogans from Two Insurgents :

The coins [he issued] include many literary allusions but none more so than in the cryptic … legend that appears on many of the silver coins:  RSR.  This was short for Redeunt Saturnia Regna, ‘The Golden Age is back’, from Virgil’s Fourth Ecologue. 

The Jesus who instructs at minimum to invest with usury obviously isn't the same Jesus who instructs to lend expecting nothing in return

The idea that Jesus would countenance usury at all is preposterous, whether as a law-loving Jew or as an eschatological prophet of impending final judgment.

The sayings of Matthew 25 and Luke 19, the Parable of the Ten Talents, blessing usury clearly stem from the period of later church reflection on the delay of the parousia. They stress being adequately prepared for the future coming, which has been unaccountably delayed. Time is dragging on interminably. The sayings fail miserably even to imagine how such preparation is in conflict with the law. They give no thought to it. They cannot be "historical".

The same is true of Matthew 5 and Luke 6, though to a lesser extent. The sayings of the Sermon on the Mount have been colored by the delay, too, but are closer in spirit to the thought of the historical Jesus, for whom giving instruction about lending at all would have made no sense but who might have countenanced such a discussion because it was a burning topic in the law and the prophets. Lending at interest of any kind to a "brother" was simply forbidden, though obviously much abused.

Like the Sermon generally, instruction about lending is instruction about and for an interim which Jesus never imagined would come. What we observe here is community reflection, by a community which has already stopped liquidating all possessions in obedience to the call to discipleship and which still has worldly goods to lend. The community is reflecting on what Jesus might have said on the subject, given his high view of the law. Clearly the solution given in Matthew 5 and especially in Luke 6 to lend expecting no return, not even of the principal, is in conflict with the Parable of the Ten Talents (again, Luke has the keener take on Jesus' eschatology and its implications). But the solution does reflect the spirit of the call to discipleship, if not the practice: Sell that thou hast, give to the poor, come follow me. To this extent it is closer to the historical Jesus.

It is remarkable how incoherent is the tradition and its redaction on this point.

 

Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury ... from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

-- Matthew 25:27,29

Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury? ... from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.  

-- Luke 19:23,26

Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. 

-- Matthew 5:42

Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. ... But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.

-- Luke 6:30,35

If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.

-- Exodus 22:25

And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase. 

-- Leviticus 25:35ff. 

Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury: Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

-- Deuteronomy 23:19f.

LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? ... He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent.

-- Psalm 15:1, 5

He that hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, hath executed true judgment between man and man, Hath walked in my statutes, and hath kept my judgments, to deal truly; he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord GOD.

-- Ezekiel 18:8f.

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

-- Luke 14:33

Grief's a robber

The tears steal from our eyes, when in the street

With some betrothed virgin's herse we meet;

Or infant's fun'ral, from the cheated womb

Convey'd to earth, and cradled in a tomb.

-- John Dryden

Oh where, oh where did my reputation go?

Honour is like that glassy bubble,

That finds philosophers such trouble;

Whose least part crack'd, the whole does fly,

And wits are crack'd to find out why. 

-- Samuel Butler, Hudibras

The heterodox Mormon Vision of the Redemption of the Dead of October 3, 1918 expands religious identity to the point of Universalism

The "vision" is notable for the way the Second Coming of the Son of Man as judge is minimized and rationalized away in favor of a now all-consuming Universalism.

Such rationalization is a feature of religion, not a bug.

The Pharisees were liberal democritizers of Judaism with their synagogue system, expanding the availability of the holiness of the Temple priests to the hinterlands of Israel and to the Diaspora. Paul for Christianity expanded membership in the lost sheep of the house of Israel saved by Christ to the Greek-speaking Gentile world of the Mediterranean. Even Muhammad for the Arabs gave them their very own Book which rewrote the erroneous Jewish and Christian Bible in their own language. The Protestant Reformers of hierarchical Catholicism created a  priesthood of all believers transmitted in the vernacular thanks to Gutenberg.

But Mormons would flat out save the entire human race, expanding the availability of salvation even to the dead. The specific impetus is the belief that the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel were scattered globally, multiplied, and are basically unknown even to themselves, and that the Mormon mission is to gather them in to the House of Joseph in America, the twin of the House of Judah in Israel.

It's not unlike the Muslim view of its own legitimacy asserted through Ishmael, not Isaac. Mormonism is to American Protestantism, particularly nonconformist Protestantism of the Second Great Awakening in Western New York, as Islam is to Eastern Orthodoxy, particularly Nestorianism.

It's as ingenious as it is unconvincing.  

The Whole Earth Shall Be in Commotion

It was just a few weeks before his own death when President Smith was in the depths of sorrow over the sudden death of his oldest son when he received the crowning heavenly revelation known as “the vision of the redemption of the dead.” In this vision, he not only saw his father in the Spirit World but the great gathering of millions of the righteous who had died into the arms of Christ. He also saw the offering of redemption to those who had done wickedly on the earth on the condition of their repentance in the Spirit World. This was Christ’s visit to the Spirit World during the 3 days His body was in the tomb, fulfilling His promise recorded in 1 Peter: 3, 4 . . .

 

While yes, Christ’s Second Coming will cleanse the wicked from the earth, after death, He offers healing to all who will accept it. He wants us to come home.  This gathering overcomes all the “separateness” and chaos that evil inflicts upon us. It not only gathers us into the arms of Christ but into the arms of each other. Even as we approach the Apocalypse and the center stops holding on earth, it does hold in eternity. I rejoice to know that, in the end, all things in heaven and earth will be gathered together as one in Christ.

As America becomes less Christian its people grow more delusional

Nearly half of Americans think they’re a better person than EVERYONE they know!

In a recent survey of 2,000 U.S. residents, 81 percent say they believe that humankind is inherently good. Three in four believe they themselves are fundamentally a good person. When researchers asked respondents how they would compare themselves to others in their lives, 46 percent went a step further, admitting (in their eyes) they’re “better” than everyone else they know.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they’re more selfless than ever before thanks to pandemic

 

64 percent of Americans say 2020 has made them more selfless than ever before. ... Researchers find 74 percent believe 2020 has made them more aware of the needs of others.

Seventy-two percent of those surveyed found themselves caring about the health and wellbeing of others significantly more than ever before. Despite the economic crash, a staggering 87 percent of Americans have donated a portion of their paycheck during COVID-19.

 

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

 -- Luke 18:11f. 

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

-- Jeremiah 17:9

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 

-- I John 1:8

The author of κακά

I am the one who once fashioned the light and made the darkness

the one who presently makes peace and creates calamity

I the Lord God am the one who does all these things

ἐγὼ ὁ κατασκευάσας φῶς καὶ ποιήσας σκότος

ὁ ποιῶν εἰρήνην καὶ κτίζων κακά

ἐγὼ κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ ποιῶν ταῦτα πάντα

-- Isaiah 45:7 (LXX)

 

but he that doeth evil hath not seen God

 

ὁ δὲ κακοποιῶν οὐχ ἑώρακεν τὸν θεόν

-- III John 1:11

One everlasting night

The sun may set and rise;

But we, contrariwise,

Sleep, after our short light,

One everlasting night.

 

--  Walter Raleigh

 

The contrarious hand of providence

God of our Fathers, what is man!
That thou towards him with hand so various,
Or might I say contrarious,
Temperst thy providence through his short course,

Not evenly, as thou rul'st
The Angelic orders and inferiour creatures mute,
Irrational and brute.

 

-- John Milton, Samson Agonistes, 670

The good old days, when the sexual sins of Catholicism in Italy seemed more, shall we say, conventional

Closely connected with the political illegitimacy of the dynasties of the fifteenth century was the public indifference to legitimate birth, which to foreigners--for example, to Comines--appeared so remarkable. The two things went naturally together. ... In Italy ... there no longer existed a princely house where ... bastards were not patiently tolerated. ... The fitness of the individual, his worth and capacity, were of more weight than all the laws and usages which prevailed elsewhere in the West. It was the age, indeed, in which the sons of the Popes were founding dynasties.

-- Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (London: Phaidon, 1945), 12.

 

She was a lesbian before she was a tranny

Lutherans elect Megan Rohrer first transgender bishop :

"Raised in South Dakota, Rohrer has recounted being expelled from the youth group at the church they attended in Sioux Falls when they came out as a lesbian . . .."

Obviously being lesbian is just dime a dozen stuff anymore. Gotta be trans now to get any attention.

LOOK AT ME, DAMN IT!

Catholic parochial education, now more secular and costly, reaches 64% fewer students in 2021 than it did in 1970

Catholic Schools Are Losing Students at Record Rates, and Hundreds Are Closing :

Even before the pandemic hit, about 100 Catholic schools were closing each year, according to the NCEA. In 1970, some 4.4 million students attended Catholic elementary and secondary schools, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, a Catholic social-science research institute based at Georgetown University. At the time, almost all students were Catholics, and classes were often taught by priests, nuns or members of male religious orders, who earned salaries far lower than their public-school counterparts.

Today, about 1.6 million students attend Catholic schools, according to the NCEA. About 80% of students are Catholic, and lay teachers have almost completely replaced priests and nuns, which has driven up the cost. Though religious instruction remains a core piece of Catholic education, mass is no longer a daily part of most schools. ...

Other factors have contributed to the decline as well: Enrollment fell sharply in the early 2000s, during the church’s sex-abuse scandal, and fell again after the financial crash in 2008. Some secular families are turned off by the church’s opposition to abortion or same-sex marriage, said Carol Ann MacGregor, vice provost of Loyola University New Orleans. Meanwhile, more the most devout Catholics are home-schooling their children, in some cases because they don’t believe Catholic schools are focused enough on the faith.

Maybe Sister Cindy should try preaching repentance as liquidation of assets and a life of poverty if she's to become edgy again

What Can Fascination With ‘Sister Cindy’ Teach Us About the ‘None’ Generation?  :

I do think thoughtful conservative religious people would likely be concerned to discover—to use Christian language—that the scandal of the gospel has largely lost the power to scandalize (an enervation for which they themselves are, in my view, largely responsible). And if religion indeed no longer has this power, then we may perhaps imagine that religion of the kind that made real claims on and demands of people is heading, like that elderly aunt, rather headlong into oblivion. It may be that the world will be a better place when it’s gone, but it may also be that we come to miss it deeply. 

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

-- Luke 14:33

“I abhor his doctrines. Christianity is truly a religion for the expropriated.” 

-- Russell Kirk in 1942

For schismatic Catholicism 100 years before the Protestant break, 1409's three rival popes at Avignon, Pisa, and Rome are Exhibits A, B, and C

 

Alexander V Pisa

Gregory XII Rome

Benedict XIII Avignon

The Flying Spaghetti Monster has been replaced by the disembodied Swarm Pope crowd-sourced from the swirling Id of the Twitter mob

Honestly I chafed all the way through the poor editing, misspellings, half-baked history, and half-hearted analysis up to that point, in what, paragraph 63, to get the just one laugh line?

Yes. Yes, I did.

Don't make the same mistake.

Are we in a 500 Year Religious Revolution?

There's no rush, there will be plenty of time for unity . . . in death

All things past are equally and perfectly at rest:

and to this way of consideration of them are all one,

whether they were before the world, or yesterday.

-- John Locke

Paul v Jesus: Just who will judge what?

In our ongoing examination of the differences between Paul and Jesus up pops an incidental remark of Paul's which shows again just how far Paul is from the thought-world of the historical Jesus.

Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

-- I Corinthians 6:2

It shows that Paul knows nothing of The Twelve sitting on thrones and judging The Twelve Tribes of Israel. In fact he has completely replaced the idea by the logic of his missionary calling to make disciples of all nations, so that he can say to the Corinthians that they, the believers, will judge the world, the unbelievers. The Jewish apocalyptic nationalism of Jesus has been completely and utterly replaced, in keeping with Paul's idea that the church has replaced Israel. The church, the "Israel of God", is a "new creature" where nothing counts but being in Christ crucified (Galatians 6:14ff.). 

And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.  

-- Matthew 19:28

And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

-- Luke 22:29f.

The Corinthians in fact had gotten so high on the idea that they were kangs already that Paul must spill quite a bit of ink in I Corinthians 4 mocking their "reign".

Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you.

-- I Corinthians 4:8

Now where'd they get that idea?

Cancel culture isn't so different from religion in that, sometimes, religion also offers no chance of reconciliation

 Cancel culture looks a lot like old-fashioned church discipline  

The story is good, as far as it goes, and makes many useful points. At the end the author discusses an interesting religious example of reconciliation where mutual listening and reconciliation occurs, but stops short of providing a secular example of same. 

Admittedly, it is difficult to think of any in these polarized times.

An astute commenter grasps the salient points:

The key difference is Southern Baptists only disciplined members…free to leave and join rest of society if you want…today’s cancel culture cancels you from society as a whole, not a small group which you are free to leave if you like. 

Exactly.

The true analogy from the secular side is e.g. to Greek ostracism and exile. But even there exile was temporary by law and carried no stigma on expiry, and required a significantly sized quorum to be legal.

Some Biblical examples seem downright Draconian by contrast:

And the LORD said unto Cain ... a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
 

-- Genesis 4:9ff.

Offenders against the Holy Ghost are irredeemable:

Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.

-- Matthew 12:31

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

-- Hebrews 6:4ff.

Paul, on the other hand, is all about reconciliation:

Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.

-- Galatians 6:1

But he recognizes that this is more of a vertical business than a horizontal one, dependent as it is on the divine action in Christ, not human initiative:

To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 

-- II Corinthians 5:19

And then we have Matthew's Jesus swinging back in the other direction again. Jesus is more sanguine about the appropriateness, necessity, and efficacy of human action in reconciliation than Paul is:

Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

-- Matthew 5:24

And why is that?

Because Jesus isn't planning on dying for anyone's sins, let alone rising from the dead. He's planning, instead, on the imminent end of everything and God's final judgment, and it's up to his hearers to repent.

The cancel culture warriors probably have more in common with this flinty Jesus than we'd like to admit, and are about as unpopular.

Even predators practice the virtue of nothing to excess: You won't find a fat cat in nature

But he was wary wise in all his way,

And well perceived his deceitful sleight;

Ne suffered lust his safety to betray;

So goodly did beguile the guiler of the prey.

-- Edmund Spenser

On the pre-existence of the soul

 

No man in his wits can seriously think that his own soul hath existed from all eternity.

-- Richard Bentley

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. 

-- Matthew 10:28

The soul is immortal and capable of enduring all extremes of good and evil.

-- Plato, Republic, X, 621c

If anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema.

-- Second Council of Constantinople, A.D. 553

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

-- Jeremiah 1:5

Creepy connubial Christ talk at First Things and the Book of Revelation

Loving with Mary :

Mary, the Shulammite, turns around to Jesus. In his voice and face, she recognizes her husband, her Lord. Jesus is the groom; we ourselves are Mary, the Shulammite. Her grief is our grief, her tears our tears, and her despair our despair. ...

We, his bride, hold on to him, united to him in faith. Every Eighth Day, he comes to us in the preaching of the gospel; every Sunday morning in the breaking of the bread.

When we walk into church and the doors close behind us, we enter into heaven. Eastertide begins; time and space are reconfigured. It is the Eighth Day; we are in Paradise. Eve, the Shulammite, Mary Magdalene—we all join Jesus at the altar. Bread and wine show up. It’s a marriage supper. Our groom, our Lord, unites himself to us, his bride.

Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.

Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory,

for the marriage of the Lamb has come,

and his Bride has made herself ready;

it was granted her to be clothed

with fine linen, bright and pure—

for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints (Rev. 19:6–8)

And you thought gender confusion was so . . . fringe.

Hell is the disciple of death

 

καὶ εἶδον καὶ ἰδού, ἵππος χλωρός καὶ ὁ καθήμενος ἐπάνω αὐτοῦ ὄνομα αὐτῷ ὁ θάνατος καὶ ὁ ᾅδης ἀκολούθει μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ

And I saw, and behold, a pale horse: and he that sat upon him, his name was Death; and Hades followed with him.

Revelation 6:8

St. Francis of Assisi, child of privilege, is one of the few ever to take Matthew 10 seriously, but his followers watered even that down, as they always do

St. Francis c. 1228

 

 Friars resort to farmers rich, and bless their halls,

 and exorcise the beds, and cross the walls.

 -- John Dryden

 

And as ye go . . . cast out devils . . . provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses . . .

 

-- Matthew 10:7ff.

 

 

A sermon Francis heard in 1209 on Mt 10:9 made such an impression on him that he decided to devote himself wholly to a life of apostolic poverty. Clad in a rough garment, barefoot, and, after the Evangelical precept, without staff or scrip, he began to preach repentance.

Jesus, we hardly knew ye

If we owe it to him that we know so much,

it is perhaps long of his fond adorers

that we know so little more.

-- Joseph Glanville

Father Hans Küng of Tübingen was right about at least one thing

Swiss-born Father Hans Küng, theologian, dies at 93 :

Father Küng said, “The Roman Catholic Church survived for the first thousand years without celibacy.” He remained strongly in favor of allowing priests and bishops to marry.

The dead are wise, but they are taciturn

Silence; coeval with eternity,

Thou wert ere nature first began to be,

'Twas one vast nothing all, and all slept fast in thee.

-- Alexander Pope

All the tribes of the earth shall mourn

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn (καὶ τότε κόψονται πᾶσαι αἱ φυλαὶ τῆς γῆς), and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 

-- Matthew 24:30

Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him (καὶ κόψονται ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν πᾶσαι αἱ φυλαὶ τῆς γῆς). Even so, Amen. 

-- Revelation 1:7

They say there's safety in numbers, but that's about it

 

I do not remember where ever God delivered his oracles by the multitude, or nature truth by the herd.

-- John Locke

John is the gospel of believing in Jesus, the Synoptics are the gospel of actually hitting the road with him

While the concepts of a personal call to "believe in me" and to "follow me" both appear in the Fourth Gospel, the Synoptics do not feature a Jesus who comes up to you and says "believe in me" like John does. In John the disciple is now one who believes, because Jesus in his resurrected glory is no longer possible to follow in the Synoptic sense.

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. 

-- John 14:1

Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards.

-- John 13:36

The Fourth Gospel in fact is replete with phrases involving personal "belief" in Jesus whereas the Synoptics contain relatively few involving belief, let alone commands by Jesus to "believe" in him. And we do not have in the Fourth Gospel either what could be called a robust memory of the tradition involving "following". This is because the eschatological urgency involved in the command to follow has disappeared for the Fourth Gospel. 

It is the Synoptics which feature a Jesus who calls people to come with him on the road as the distinctive feature of discipleship. The old world is imminently passing away in judgment. The few who answer his call to follow will be saved. But in John discipleship is now open to the many, to anyone in fact who reads the book and believes, which is the new meaning of following.

But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name. 

-- John 20:31 

 

Filthy: 62% of men and 40% of women don't wash after using the loo

How perfect then is man? from head to foot

Defil'd with filth, and rotten at the root.

-- George Sandys

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2971931/Do-wash-hands-going-loo-62-men-40-women-admit-don-t-bother.html

The day after Easter

 

Lies the secularists tell: "Secular people are more supportive of sex education, which reduces sexually transmitted diseases"

Phil Zuckerman in the failing Los Angeles Times, owned since 2018 by a biotech billionaire who invented Abraxane:

Op-Ed: Why America’s record godlessness is good news for the nation :

"Secularity is highly correlated with a host of moral orientations that will markedly improve our nation. ... Secular people are more supportive of sex education, which reduces sexually transmitted diseases".

The lie here isn't the support of sex education. It's that sex education has that effect.

Notice the "will" in the claim, however, anticipating anyone with the temerity to bring up the facts. You know, the science. Despite record STDs in now secular America they would doubtlessly respond that sex education still hasn't failed. Like Keynesian economics hasn't failed, we just haven't had enough sex education yet.

Progressives sell a this-worldly version of hopium no less fantastic than the promised imminently coming army of angelic legions appearing in the heavens lead by the Son of Man in ~ A.D. 30.

Just give it a little more time and a new age of dignity, liberty and well-being will dawn.

"Research shows that secular people are more likely to support women’s reproductive rights, universal healthcare, gay rights, environmental protections, death with dignity, gun safety legislation and treating drug abuse as a medical rather than criminal problem — all of which will serve to increase dignity, liberty and well-being in America." 

At least until the Muslims take over.

Sexually Transmitted Disease Cases Reach Record High In The U.S. [Infographic]

On having the mere form of antiquity, but lacking the sense thereof

Some by old words to fame have made pretence;

Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense !

-- Alexander Pope