the village--new place, same nonsense

I guess I'm a bit behind on things, but it looks like Emergent Village has moved, insofar as a basically virtual nonentity can be said to move. Perhaps there are still hangers-on at the old site, but there's a new one up now, too.

Ok, so, but as they say, the more things change...

Mary, Joseph, and Mysticism: by Bruce Epperly

Many years ago, during my days as a university chaplain, I led a weekly prayer and meditation group. We practiced centering prayer, Quaker silence, visualizations, and lectio divina.

Well, there's a whole mess of mess right there.

First, I'll say that you should go here, The Inventor of Centering Prayer Teaches Us What It is For, to learn what this is all about.

Next, read this by Thomas Keating, one of the guys who started the practice of centering prayer. The is the quote from the web page, "Father Thomas says, "If you don't want to become God, you've missed the boat. If you're too humble to think you can become God, if you think you are not worthy, that is a false humility, because it's not yours to decide." It's God's choice. According to Father Thomas, it is your duty to become God. Centering Prayer and contemplation are the only modern methods that we have to listen to God, to perceive God, and to see the world as God sees it. Listen in as Father Thomas offers you the invitation to become God."

Centering prayer, then, is a continuation of the temptation of Satan in the Garden--that you should become like God. Centering prayer is evil and blasphemy, and should be avoided.

There is no better example of this active mysticism than Mary and Joseph’s responses to God’s invitation to be partners in the incarnation.

Funny, but in the biblical accounts, there is a very distinct lack of mention that Mary and Joseph practiced any things like centering prayer or other supposed spiritual practices or mystical whoop-de-doo.

We don’t know how Mary was chosen to bear this special child. Was she the first one that the angel asked? Had others been overwhelmed or resistant, knowing the personal and social cost of an unplanned pregnancy? Did Mary exemplify certain character traits worthy of divine interest? I don’t know the answer although I think all three options have some plausibility. God’s call to Mary and us is always personal and contextual, time bound but with everlasting consequences. Our response always bears our own individual signature and creativity.

Another example of reading into what the text says.

Luke 1
26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed[b] to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”[c] 29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. 30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”[d]

35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born[e] will be called holy—the Son of God. 36 And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant[f] of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

So, see anywhere that says the angel got it wrong before? Or, let's be honest, that God got it wrong? Does it say that Mary was better than anyone else? About the only virtue she could be said to have had was that she was still sexually pure, a virgin. The passage says nothing about her being especially virtuous. She was, in fact, just like the rest of us--a sinner, in need of a Savior. The passage mentions nothing about her supposed worthiness, but she had none, it was by God's grace that she was favored to bear the Christ-child. just as it was by God's grace the He chose the exiled Moses to free his people from Egypt, chose the boy David to become king of His people Israel, and so on. It was not a matter of worth.

Well, back to the announcement to Mary. When the angel came, she was inquisitive and surprised. In words later echoed by the Beatles, Mary responds, “Let it be.” In other words, I am open to following God’s vision, embracing it in my own flesh and blood. She is no passive clay manipulated by the unilateral potter. She joins agency and receptivity as she opens to God’s movements in the birth of her child. She is an active mystic – encountering divinity and then choosing to follow God’s vision in her life. She chooses incarnation, the holiness of birthing, for herself, Joseph, and the coming child. But, it is clear that “she chooses.”

Look at the passage above. The angel declares what is going to happen. He askes no question, he seeks no permission. That Mary was willing for the child to be born of her is evident and commendable of her, but there is no hint in the passage that she chose it.

Mary is perplexed, and so is Joseph. The exact details of this child’s birth are less important than the responses of the actors involved. As many biblical scholars assert, unusual births are common in the annals of great spiritual and military leaders. They are somehow set apart by the divine for a special mission and this begins at conception. This fact does not nullify the Christian affirmation of the virgin birth, but it invites us to ask whether or not the virgin birth is essential to the story. Is the incarnation about supernatural interventions or the natural holiness of flesh and blood and the world in which God’s quest for healing and salvation take place?

So, while this guy doesn't necessarily deny the virgin conception and birth of Christ, he's attitude is "No big deal". If Mary had slept with a real guy and gotten pregnant, no big deal, either, I suppose.

The 'holiness of natural flesh and blood'? Remember what Keating said, and see how that view is polluting this EV writers views. The supernatural, things like the virgin birth, are downplayed, to the elevation of the natural.

First, we can experience God in life-transforming ways. God is not aloof, but present in cells, souls, and communities. A one-dimensional faith – defining everything according the tenets of the modern world view – robs life of beauty, wonder, and amazement. The incarnation raises all life to revelation; each moment – even tragic moments – as a potential theophany. Sleepers awake! God is with us!

So, the incarnation of Jesus become about God being somehow accessible by mystical exercises. Yikes. All life is revelation? Yeah, not in the Bible.

Second, God comes to us through many ways – personal visitations (Fatima, Medjugorje), visionary experiences, dreams, intuitions, synchronous encounters).

Apparently, though, not through His Word. Any strange and bizarre experience is ok, but looking at the biblical text and studying it, apparently that's optional.

Third, divine encounters enhance rather than diminish freedom and creativity. Graceful visitations invite us to greater agency. God wants us to be companions in healing the earth, whether in the process of conception, child-bearing, and our ongoing care for the safety of our children and all children.

Oh, yes, the emphasis on creativity. I'm almost to the point of thinking the creativity is the real god of postmodernism.

Where does the Bible say that God wants us to be companions in healing the earth? Is that what the Great Commission was about?

Oh, well, the Village has moved, but it's taken the whackiness with it. If the sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result, then shouldn't the failure of the original Village have told these guys something?

One last thing. Read this guy's article in full, see how he spends more time reading what he wants to read into the text of the conception of Jesus, and see how his method is not really all that much different than what Mark Batterson does in The Circle Maker. And see what that book is such a wreck.

peter rollins' broken bible

Ah, yes, more Rollins philosophical drivel. This time, somehow seeing the Bible as literal and inerrant is somehow impossible. Yawn.

Philosophically speaking the claim that the Bible in its entirety is literal and inerrant (i.e. self-evident, internally coherent, and a reflection of the mind of God) operates as a ‘master signifier’. This means that it is a claim without any specific content that is worn as a badge to let you know what team you play for. It doesn’t matter too much how you actually fill in this empty container as long as you make the claim. It functions then as a shibboleth that identifies you as being in a certain tribe.

Wow. Yawn.

So, saying the Bible is true in all it records and inerrant is somehow an empyt claim, "whith any specific content"? Really? I'd say Rollins was speaking in ignorancy, except I don't believe it of one so miseducated; rather, I think he knows that what he's saying is false, but wants to believe it anyway.

Just to show you how empty it isn't, take a look at this.

THE CHICAGO STATEMENT ON BIBLICAL INERRANCY

The authority of Scripture is a key issue for the Christian Church in this and every age. Those who profess faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are called to show the reality of their discipleship by humbly and faithfully obeying God's written Word. To Stray from Scripture in faith or conduct is disloyalty to our Master. Recognition of the total truth and trustworthiness of Holy Scripture is essential to a full grasp and adequate confession of its authority.

The following Statement affirms this inerrancy of Scripture afresh, making clear our understanding of it and warning against its denial. We are persuaded that to deny it is to set aside the witness of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit and to refuse that submission to the claims of God's own Word which marks true Christian faith. We see it as our timely duty to make this affirmation in the face of current lapses from the truth of inerrancy among our fellow Christians and misunderstanding of this doctrine in the world at large.

There is much more to it than the couple of paragraphs above.

So, no, the only empty thing here is Rollins' claim that biblical literal truth and inerrancy are empty. His claims are empty of any truth.

I've found it a truism, that when people like Rollins' accuse their opposition of something, you will find that they are themselves doing the things they accuse others of doing. Rollins' non-literal bible, where for example God is not allowed to explain Himself and where fictions like Lilith are somehow useful for explaining away the Bible's claims, is the real attempt to cut up the Bible and make it an object of human creation, something he and others like him may praise to the heights as they cast it down to the depths, may claim to love even as they slice and dice and abuse it.

I will take the literally true and inerrant Word of God over the illogical musings of Rollins any day.

peter rollins the postmodern pharisee

In short, such an approach reveals that Christianity exhibits the structure of a religion without religion. Belief thus has an important place; however, it is ultimately subordinate to the event that it points toward. The result is the idea that living within the event that is testified to in Christianity is more important than the affirmation that one is a Christian, or in other words, the event contained in the affirmation of God is more important than the belief in God.
Rollins, Peter (2009-01-29). Fidelity of Betrayal (Kindle Locations 1555-1558)

Look at what he's saying here--"living within the event that is testified to in Christianity is more important than the affirmation that one is a Christian...the event contained in the affirmation is more important than the belief in God". What is he saying?

Unlike the former reading, which sees Christianity as a worldview that can somehow be compared and contrasted with other worldviews, this latter approach questions the idea that Christianity can be approached as a religious worldview at all; rather, in this approach Christianity operates within all worldviews, at least in those places where people’s lives reflect love, hope, and passionate commitment to one’s neighbor. While the first interpretation sees Jesus as the founder of the one true religion, the latter interpretation sees in Jesus one who would set an axe to all religion.
Fidelity of Betrayal (Kindle Locations 1487-1491).

Because a miracle takes place at a radically subjective level that cannot be objectified or analyzed, it is not, strictly speaking, something that is believed in. Rather it is lived. Indeed it can easily be lived and not believed in.
Fidelity of Betrayal (Kindle Locations 1746-1748).

Instead of rendering God present to the understanding, this way of reading the text interprets the phrase ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh as a means of describing the nature of God’s presence among us. Here God is presented neither as reducible to the status of other objects, nor as outside the world and eternally distant from it, but rather as one who is received by us without ever being directly conceived by us. Here the mystery of God is revealed as an incarnated mystery, that is, the mystery of God is revealed in the midst of God’s presence. God is here being presented as saying something akin to, “Do not try to name me. my name is above all names; I am present to you beyond all names.” Here we find a different way of approaching God: here we come across the idea that God is made manifest as a happening, an event, a blessing. God is here revealed as one who is made present through the acts of love and liberation rather than through the categories of human understanding. This does not mean that we will come to an understanding of God through closely observing the actions of God. Here the text goes further: God is made known only in action, only as blessing.
Fidelity of Betrayal (Kindle Locations 1276-1275).

When Jesus spoke of being “born again” he was not referring to some proposition that could be considered through logic, religious sermons, Bible reading, or through some kind reflection on religious experience; rather he was speaking of an event that opens up a whole new world of experience. Religious experience, in its fundamental form, is not then an experience at all but rather a counter-experience, one that transforms our mode of being in the world rather than being reduced to some strange feeling. With the incoming of this truth nothing necessarily changes in the physical world, no new object enters our horizon. But in its aftermath the person is never the same again, for everything has changed. This luminous life can never be captured, contained, or pulled apart; it is lived. This event in which nothing changes is an event so radical that nothing remains the same.
Fidelity of Betrayal (Kindle Locations 1346-1352).

Look at how he denigrates belief. This is a common theme throughout the book. He is constantly playing games with belief, claiming that belief in the truth claims of the Bible or even in God are not important, and even the questions of whether or not the Bible is true or if there is a God are not important. Something else is, something he calls the "miracle", and is something that, as he says in one of the quotes above, can "easily be lived and not believed in".

Looking at Rollins' words about this "miracle" and conversion, one is struck by a complete lack of the things the Bible places as central to this conversion--repentence from sins, belief and faith in Christ who was crucified as a sacrifice for our sins. Instead, he goes on about change and experience, using nonsense phrases about nothing being changed but everything being changed.

In his own convoluted way, he's simply repeating what the Pharisees in Jesus' day believed. His definition of righteousness is some combination of works and experience, that for example in regards to worldviews those worldviews are acceptable "...where people’s lives reflect love, hope, and passionate commitment to one’s neighbor".

But what does that mean? God cannot be understood, so he says. Thus, beliefs are essentially meaningless. What the Bible says about God is essentially meaningless; indeed, God cannot even interpret His own Word, because that would somehow be an untrue interpretation. There are no answer, only questions. Believe in Christ, or not; believe in God, or not; put your faith in the gods of Greek mythology, for all that it matters.

All we have are works that somehow God is pleased in, though we don't know how we know that or why. Why, after all, should a god about whom we cannot know anything by reason or logic be a god who wants us to be kind to people. Mankind has had many gods who wanted their priests to take other people and sacrifice them in bloody rituals. Why should not that be how this unknowable god is? Or why should people not worship this god in that way, as other do so through kindness? How can we know that this god prefers one or the other, because if the priest who sacrifices captives from another tribe thinks he being kind to his neighbor in doing so, then what argument can be made against it?

As soon as we start looking at Rollins' claims, that we can learn little or nothing about God through His Word, that God did not really speak to the prophets, that it's really not important whether or not Christ really died and rose again, then we are simply brought up against Rollins' own opinions and beliefs about what this god approves of. And let us be clear, they are simply the biases and presuppositions of Rollins and those like him. Why the bloody Aztec gods should be shunted aside is simply a matter of preference, not of any standard that says human sacrifices are wrong.

Rollins is playing as a Pharisee, but at least the Pharisees had the Law of Moses, even if they abused it and misused it. At least they would have claimed that belief in Jehovah was important, even if it was more a belief in their own supposed righteousness. All Rollins has is his own law, his own beliefs that no beliefs are important, yet somehow love and hope and caring for others is important, simply because the Christ he doesn't believe in said so, even if He may not really have said those words at all. And why this god spoke through Christ more than through the bloody Aztec prophets is not a question that can be answered.

peter rollins ridiculous

In this parable we are reminded that a religious approach to the text is not one in which we attempt to find out its definitive meaning, but rather where we wrestle with it and are transformed by it. The parable tells us not that a God’s eye view is impossible, but rather that even if it were possible it would not be wanted. Why? Because a God’s-eye view of the truth would not be the truth. We can thus say that any interpretation of a verse that is given to us by God is not a true interpretation of the verse and must be rejected as such. For the problem resides not in having an interpretation but rather in the place that we give to our interpretation. No matter how wonderful our interpretation is, if it occupies an authoritative place then it undermines its own status.
Rollins, Peter (2009-01-29). Fidelity of Betrayal (Kindle Locations 1778-1784). Paraclete Press. Kindle Edition.

Really? A parable? Maybe one Jesus told? Well, let's see...

Is this not the wisdom that is contained in the Jewish parable that speaks of a heated debate taking place in a park between two old and learned rabbis? The conversation in question revolves around a particularly complex and obscure verse in the Torah. It is not the first time that these two intellectual giants have crossed swords over this verse; in fact they have debated it for years, sometimes changing their opinions but never finding a consensus. God is, of course, known to have the patience of a saint, but even God begins to tire of the endless discussion. So finally God decides to visit the two men and tell them once and for all what the parable means. God reaches down, pulls the clouds apart, and begins to speak: “You have been debating this verse endlessly for years; I will now tell you what it means. . . . ” But before God can continue, the two rabbis look up and say, in a rare moment of unity, “Who are you to tell us what the verse means? You have given us the words, now leave us in peace to wrestle with it.”
Fidelity of Betrayal (Kindle Locations 1771-1778).

Umm...no. Nope, not one of Jesus'. In fact, we aren't told where it comes from, just that he calls it a "Jewish parable", which raises the eyebrows, as by and large the ancient Hebrews were noted for their great respect for the Scriptures, except when they were following all the rest of humanity in worshiping idols. One could well imagine that, for example, some ancient false prophet getting honked off at Jeremiah, and making some kind of argument like that.

But, well, moving on...

In my lack of researches, because only modernists care for verifying whether a historical statement is true or not, I've discovered in my imaginative reinterpretation of a biblical account of a time Jesus told a parable and then interpreted it for his disciples the nuclear shadow of an event (or is that an Event) that happened but for whatever reason (probably the fault of those nasty Nicenes) it didn't make into the Bible. But, thanks to me and my ability to deconstruct and find messages hiding in the gaps in the wounds of the text, here is a summary of it.

In Matthew 13, we have the account of Jesus telling several different parables. Verse 36 says that he left the multitude, and went into the house, and his disciples came unto him, say, "Explain unto us the parable of the tares of the field"

Jesus is just getting ready to explain it when there was a sudden commotion, a strange throbbing noise and weird lights, and suddenly a strange, pale man appeared in their midst, wearing strange clothes, and he was speaking very loudly.

"Stop!!" The man said, and yes did so with two exclamation marks. "You can't do that!" This caused some consternation among the disciples, as he was speaking in the English language, which had not yet made it's way into the world. Jesus appeared unfazed.

"My name is Peter Rollins." Said the strange man. "And I've come from the future, because you cannot explain that parable, Jesus.

"No, you can't explain it to them, because if you do, your disciples and all the rest of us will not wrestle with it and be transformed by it. Don't you know that a God's eye view of your parable is impossible, even though you as God told the parable to the people. Even though they have asked you to explain it to them, they don't really want that, because even if it were possible, it is not really wanted. Because any explanation or interpretation you can give would not be the truth, even if you as God give them the God's eye view of the truth. Any interpretaion you as God give to your disciples is not the true interpretation, and so they would have to reject it. Because any interpretation you as God would give would be authoritative, and thus because it is authoritative it would undermine its own status as an authoritative interpretation.

"So, no, Jesus, you cannot explain your parable to them. I command you to be quiet, you traitor! Why, I know about your conspiracy, I know who the really hero of Bible is! It's Judas, I tell you, not you! Oh, no, I know about your conspiracy! You and Lilith and Pee Wee Herman and her little dog, too, and..."

Suddenly, something went "boink" in the time machine this strange man who called himself Peter Rollins was using, and he was shot back to the future very suddenly and more-or-less intact, though there are rumors that parts of his mind have been found floating around in the Mariachi Trench.

So, after a rather startled moment, the disciples looked among themselves and then finally turned to Jesus. Jesus began to speak, answering their original question, and said, "He that sows the good seed is the Son of Man, and the field is the world. The good seed are the sons of the kingdom, the weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed the weeds is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the world. The reapers are the angels. As the tares are gathered and thrown into the fire, so will it be at the end of the world. The Son of Man will send forth his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all thing that cause stumbling, and those who do iniquity, and cast them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And the righteous will shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear."

So, yes, I did detect the nuclear shadow of a time-traveling Peter Rollins in that account. Hey, it's just as likely as the myths of Lilith and his conspiracy theory about Judas.

To be plain (I was serious, even in mocking), can one imagine the hubris and arrogance of Rollins' statements? Can you imagine him saying such a thing about any other person? If, let's say, he were a lawyer arguing a case in a courtroom, and he were to claim that the testimony of an expert witness should be ignored and discarded because it is the testimony of an expert? That a professor should be ignored for the simple reason that he's educated and experienced in his field? That, let's say, Gary Kasparov's analysis of a chess game should be discarded because it is given by a former world chess champion and one of the greatest players of all time?

To say that an interpretation that God would give would not be the truth is absolute nonsense, and let's be honest, it's blasphemy.

sojo supports filth

And not just any old Sojrone, either, but the Head Sojrone himself.

Statement from Jim Wallis on Friday’s “Cleaning” of NYC’s Zuccotti Park

Bloomberg’s office has said that this “cleaning” action, scheduled for Friday (10/14) morning, is not a shutdown of the protest and that Occupiers can return after the cleaning and if they agree to follow a set of rules. But these rules ban sleeping bags or tarps from the park and it is not clear if even laying down will still be allowed.

This is effectively a shutdown of the #OccupyWallStreet demonstration, which the Mayor Bloomberg promised just a few days ago not to do.

A group of clergy has decided to join that circle and is planning a press conference at 11 am at Judson Memorial Church to report on the morning’s events at the #OccupyWallStreet demonstrations in Zucotti Park, as well as to issue a multi-faith statement of support for the Occupiers.

Abuse of power should never be met with violence. We urge demonstrators to continue their principled and peaceful actions.

Sooooo...

The notion that asking or even telling the protestors to leave the park for a while, so that it can be cleaned up of the filth they have scattered about, is an "abuse of power"? A threat to shut down the protests, even if they will be allowed to return after the cleaning?

This is one of the sickest examples of illogic I've ever seen. But, then again, things like liberalism and postmodernism are founded on irrational philosophy. They couldn't survive in a world where people actually tried to make sense, so they have to try to create a world of nonsense.

Well, for what it's worth, this protest against cleaning has succeeded. The protestors are free to lie in their own filth, even as they deny others the freedom to enjoy the park they are trashing, cause traffic problems for others, and basically make brats of themselves.

Here's an addendum to the battle cry for Generation Brats, "Don't you dare change our diapers!!!".

ched myers and twisting peter's statement

At the structural center of Marks story is Jesus famous double question to his disciples, upon which all Christian theology turns:

"Who do the people say that I am?...
Who do you say I am?" (8:27, 29a)

Here Mark boldly transforms teh foundational declaration of Hebrew faith--"God said to Moses, 'I am who I am!" (Exod. 3:14)--into a query. Significantly, Peter sees in this remarkable solicitation a happy occasion for confessional orthodoxy: "You are the Christ!" (8:29b). Yet Jesus responds to Peter as if he were merely another demon attempting to "name" him--he silences him (8:30; cf. 1:25, 3:12, 9:25).

This precipitates what I have called the "confessional crisis" in Mark (8:31-33). Jesus repudiates Messianic triumphalism by invoking the political vocation of the Human One; Peter attempts in turn to repudiate such a "negating" theology. Jesus then utterly problematizes the matter by aligning the Petrine confession (which was, let us not forget, the creed of the churches to which Mark wrote, aand which still read him today) with Satan! The struggle conclude with Jesus' invitation to his disciples to a practice of the cross (8:34ff). Mark thus displaces Peter's confession with Jesus' quandary about losing life in order to save it.
Ched Myers, in his entry """I Will Ask You A Question": Interrogatory Theology", in the book "Theology Without Foundation", edited by Hauerwas, Murphy, and Nation, pp. 100-101

It seems like a theme is starting to pop up here, dealing with some rather bizarre scriptural twistings. I don't know if I can say that the above is among the most bizarre, as the so-called apostles and prophets are among those who regularly go to some strange places, but it may be among the most distasteful.

First, the passage in question.

Mark 8
27And Jesus went forth, and his disciples, into the villages of Caesarea
Philippi: and on the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Who do
men say that I am? 28And they told him, saying, John the Baptist; and
others, Elijah; but others, One of the prophets. 29And he asked them, But
who say ye that I am? Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the
Christ. 30And he charged them that they should tell no man of him. 31And
he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and
be rejected by the elders, and the chief priests, and the scribes, and be
killed, and after three days rise again. 32And he spake the saying openly.
And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. 33But he turning about, and
seeing his disciples, rebuked Peter, and saith, Get thee behind me, Satan;
for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men. 34And he
called unto him the multitude with his disciples, and said unto them, If any
man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and
follow me. 35For whosoever would save his life shall lose it; and
whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s shall save it.
36For what doth it profit a man, to gain the whole world, and forfeit his
life? 37For what should a man give in exchange for his life? 38For
whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and
sinful generation, the Son of man also shall be ashamed of him, when he
cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

First, Myers tries to say the Jesus silenced Peter as He silences the demons in other passages. But is that so? Emphases mine.

Mark 1
40And there cometh to him a leper, beseeching him, and kneeling down to
him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 41And
being moved with compassion, he stretched forth his hand, and touched
him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou made clean. 42And straightway the
leprosy departed from him, and he was made clean. 43And he strictly
charged him, and straightway sent him out, 44and saith unto him, See thou
say nothing to any man: but go show thyself to the priest, and offer for
thy cleansing the things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto
them. 45But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to spread
abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into a
city, but was without in desert places: and they came to him from every
quarter.

Mark 8
31And again he went out from the borders of Tyre, and came through
Sidon unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the borders of
Decapolis. 32And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an
impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to lay his hand upon him.
33And he took him aside from the multitude privately, and put his fingers
into his ears, and he spat, and touched his tongue; 34and looking up to
heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.
35And his ears were opened, and the bond of his tongue was loosed, and
he spake plain. 36And he charged them that they should tell no man: but
the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it.
37And they were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all
things well; he maketh even the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.

Mark 9
1And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There are some here of
them that stand by, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the
kingdom of God come with power. 2And after six days Jesus taketh with
him Peter, and James, and John, and bringeth them up into a high mountain
apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them; 3and his
garments became glistering, exceeding white, so as no fuller on earth can
whiten them. 4And there appeared unto them Elijah with Moses: and they
were talking with Jesus. 5And Peter answereth and saith to Jesus, Rabbi, it
is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee,
and one for Moses, and one for Elijah. 6For he knew not what to answer;
for they became sore afraid. 7And there came a cloud overshadowing them:
and there came a voice out of the cloud, This is my beloved Son: hear ye
him. 8And suddenly looking round about, they saw no one any more, save
Jesus only with themselves. 9And as they were coming down from the
mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what things they
had seen, save when the Son of man should have risen again from the dead.
10And they kept the saying, questioning among themselves what the rising
again from the dead should mean.

From these passages, we can see that Jesus did not tell only demons to be silent about who He is or things He had done or shown to them. Jesus telling the disciples to not say anything about Him being the Christ at that time does not mean He was equating Peter's statement with something said by demons; iu fact, I think Myers is falling into blasphemy when he says that.

Also, the incident is mentioned in other Gospels. In Matthew, for example, it does like this:

Matthew 16
13Now when Jesus came into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his
disciples, saying, Who do men say that the Son of man is? 14And they
said, Some say John the Baptist; some, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one
of the prophets. 15He saith unto them, But who say ye that I am? 16And
Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living
God. 17And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon
Bar-jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my
Father who is in heaven. 18And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not
prevail against it. 19I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of
heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 20Then
charged he the disciples that they should tell no man that he was the
Christ.21From that time began Jesus to show unto his disciples, that he must go
unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and
scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up. 22And Peter took
him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall
never be unto thee. 23But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind
me, Satan: thou art a stumbling-block unto me: for thou mindest not the
things of God, but the things of men.

Interesting that this pasage contains all the elements Myers appeals to, but has other things that perhaps Myers wouldn't like; for example, rather than Jesus repudiating Peter's statement that He is the Christ, Jesus says that he is blessed for making it, that the Father is the one who has shown that to him.

A far cry from Myers' attempts to make Peter's statement the problem, isn't it?

Myers' statement that Jesus tried to align Peter's statement with Satan is simply blasphemy. Peter's statement that Jesus is the Christ was revealed to him by God, yet Myers' says it is aligned with Satan. Would it not be logical, then, that it is Myers who is speaking the words of Satan here, since they contradict Jesus' own statement that Peter's insight was given to him by God?

a self-serving tale

So, finally getting back to Rollins...

Not that I've read every clever story in his little book, but I skipped a bit, and read the last clever little story, which he calls "The Heretic", pp 179-184.

The story is about a man who is being tried for teaching heresy. After being sentence to death, the man asks the judge to allow that he himself should pick the person from the crowd of onlookers who will set the fire that will kill him. The judge agrees, and on the day of his execution, the man puts his choice in this way:

"I stand before you now, helpless as a child, condemned to death for heresy. I am guilty as charged, for I have held a distorted, muddied, and inaccurate view of the divine. I have only one request: that I be set alight by one among you who is innocent of this charge."

And the moral (if 'moral' is the right word for it) of this tale is...

Here the issue concerns the idea of distorting the image of God. This young man has been found guilty of propogating a false vew of the divine, and yet the young man knows this and freely admits it. However, he refuses to repent, for to do this would imply that there is a view of God that is not distorted, namely the view of the religious authorities at the time.

In this story we are led to ask whether knowing and admitting that one speaks inaccurately about God would actually be preferable to the claim that we can speak accurately about the source of faith. People may respond that this is all very well, but that some ways of describing God are healthy and some are unhealthy. Here I would wholeheartedly agree. The question here, however, is not how we judge between orthodoxy and heresy, but rather how we judge between good heresy and bad heresy. Another way of putting this is that we must question the difference between the heresy of orthodoxy, in which we dogmatically claim to have the truth, and the orthodox heresy, in which we humbly admit that we are in the dark but still endeavor to live in the way of Christ as best we can.

And so endeth the book.



So, basically, his claim is that there is no such thing as orthodoxy and heresy. There is no way of knowing if what we say about God is true or not. We can't say that anything we say about God is not distorted, we can have no true knowledge of God, we can never know if anthing we claim to think about God is really true or false. The only thing we can really do is stumble along blindly, never knowing if what we believe is true, all beliefs about God being equally valid or invalid, and we should not claim that anything we say or believe about God is really true.

So, anyone else ready to slit their wrists? Well, me, neither, but if I really believed this hopeless drivel of Rollins', I might just find it tempting.

Because, really, if anything I believe or say about God is just as valid anything else I may say or believe, than there is no point. If I believe that God is a space alien from the far-off galaxy of XRginTEanoapfOHPQps, then how is that any less valid than believing that God is beyond the material world, the maker of the Universe? If I believe that God wants us to burn all kittens in a big bonfire, how is that less valid than say that God cares about the created world?

And that last part brings up the cheat Rollins tries to sneak in. He talks abot how we blindly "endeavor to live in the way of Christ as best we can", but if there are no valid beliefs about God or about Christ, if all we say or believe about them is heresy, than how can we know what this "way of Christ" is? How can we know the best way to live it? Or, for that matter, how do we know that is the best way for us to live?

We cannot say that. By his own definition, Rollins forbids us to dogmatically say that we know the truth, and that excludes even the claim that we know the way of Christ, that we know the best way to live that way, and that it is the best way for us to live. It is simply a choice, and if others choose other ways--the ways of Mohammed, the ways of Kali, the ways of Rasputin, the ways of Hitler--than we are forbidden to say that they are wrong.

Oh, sure, Rollins tries to sneak in the idea that there are healthy and unhealthy ways of describing God. But then, we have to say that we know what the standards for health are, that they can be universally agreed upon. But if one group believe that it is healthy to have a god of new-agey love and acceptance, and another believes it is healthy to believe in a god who glories in blood and death and destruction, how are we to say that one is acceptable and the other isn't, or if either is acceptable? If one group thinks God likes diversity, but another thinks God would like it best if all people looked the same, then, pray tell, how are we to decided which is really God's preference?

Finally, notice what is completely missing from Rollin's little spin. There is no notion that we have an acceptable, reliable source of information concerning God. There is no mention the God has revealed Himself to us, has told us things about Himself, has in times past directly spoken to prophets, and those prophets put His words on whatever they had available to write upon, that those words have been divinely preserved, have been translated into our tongue so that we can know God, so that we can have true and reliable knowledge about Him, so that we can indeed distinguish true things to believe about Him and false, heretical things.

We have the Bible, God Holy Word. We have reliable knowledge about God. We can know for sure the some thing said about God are rank nonsense, because we have what God has revealed about Himself.

So, I find Rollins' clever little story and commentary to be incredibly self-contradictory, and in the end self-serving to his own ends of not being held accountable for the heresies he teaches. But he chops off his own feet, for if all words about God are equally valid, then Rollins has no right to say that his views are better or worse than anyone else's.

no reward is worth this? or just no reward, period?

Dealing with Rollins' "The Orthodox Heretic" has been a bit puzzling to me, mostly because of the time I currently don't have much of. But in reading through a few of his 'tales', I'm finding a few similar themes. That is to be expected. In reading the works of authors I like, such as Louis L'amour, Terry Pratchett, and David Weber, all of whom were or are quite prolific writers, they too have similar themes from book to book.

One theme I've noticed in some of Rollin's clever little stories has to do with reward. It comes up in one he calls "Being the Resurrection", and in another form in "The Reward of a Good Life" and "Mansions", and maybe some of the others I haven't yet read.

Here is what one of his characters says in "Being the Resurrection".

Each day we have forsaken our very lives for him because we judged him wholly worthy of the sacrifice, wholly worthy of our being. But now, following your news, I am concerned that my children and my children's children may follow him, not because of his radical life and supreme sacrifice, but selfishly, because his sacrifice will ensure their personal salvation and eternal life.
p 69

Here's what Rollins writes in his commentary to this 'tale'.

In order to explore this theme the story creates a type of prolonged Holy Saturday experience...In the liminal space between witnessing the Crucifixion and hearing of the Resurrection, the members of the community described above have given themselves wholly to the teachings of Christ. In this wa, they follow him without thought of some future reward, and thus they follow him in a truly sacrificial way.
p 71

Let's leave aside the problematic aspect to this story that people who took Jesus' teachings so seriously while He was alive would have known about His teachings concerning His death and resurrection, that they would have been familiar with his teachings on rewarding faithfulness, or how a group of people leaving on foot could have outdistanced the news of His resurrection. Let's focus, instead, on his concept that only sacrifice without any hope or desire of reward is real sacrifice, and that the hope of reward somehow corrupts a sacrifice.

Is this biblical?

During what we call the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls some kinds of people "Blessed". One of those He says this about are those who are reviled and persecuted and slandered for His sake. In mentioning them, He says that they should rejoice, for "great is your reward in Heaven".

Nor is this the only place He speaks of rewards in the life to come. Right before His death, He tells His disciples that He is going away to prepare a place for them, a mansion in His Father's house. His parables often deal with rewards for those who are ready, those who serve well and faithfully.

I intend to bring in C.S. Lewis again here, but here is a bit that seems to apply here.

Indeed, if you consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignoant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum, because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
The Weight of Glory, pp 3-4

Was Jesus wrong to make such grand promises of reward to those who are faithful? Does it make us mercenary, as Rollins seems to say, if one reason we follow Christ is that we have the hope of eternal life, not to mention all the other blessing Christ has given to us, and will bless us with? If we did not have the hope of reward, would we be more faithful Chistians?

As I've been thinking about this, I've come to notice how much Rollins comes off like Satan in the book of Job. In Job 1, Satan tells God that the only reason Job fears God is because God has blessed him a whole lot, and God protects Job and all he has. In other words, Job was bought off, Job's love and fear of God was strickly mercenary.

Satan was wrong, as the further course of the story of Job shows. And I think Rollins is wrong, too.

Here's a bit more from Lewis in The Weight of Glory.

The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and to nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics an is no part of the Christian faith.
p 3

Whatever the source may be for Rollins, I think his notion is equally no part of the Christian faith.

In the following pages, Lewis deals with desires and their right and wrong rewards--a man who marries for money is mercenary, but a man who marries because he loves his bride is not. In a similar way, the Christian's desire for Heaven, to be where God is, to be a source of real pleasure to God, to be known by God, to even be such a source of pleasure to God as to be rewarded by Him, is quite good and proper.

No doubt, one can find some people for whom such desires have become mercerary or a bribe, but I would contend that that is rather a very few. I can think of when I read Puzo's "The Last Don", and the old Don at one points things about all of the ways his corruption and violence have made his present life so very well, and how due to his occasional nods to his Catholic faith, he could also look forward to a pleasant afterlife, too. For such a man, it may be said that he is but a mercenary, but for several reasons he would not be a Christian. For real Christians, Heaven is not a bribe.

In fact, it is not Christianity that teaches that desires are evil, but Buddhism. For the Buddhist, desires are one of the causes of suffering. The Bible teaches no such thing. There may be times when we must accept that our desires will, at least for the time, not be fulfilled, or that God may choose to take away the thing we have desired, but at no point is desire ever considered a bad thing.

We are not inhuman automatons, who must forsake our desires. There may be times that, like Job, we must say "The Lord give and takes away, blessed is His name". We will, no doubt, have many times when God takes away from each of us, we will have times when grief and disappointment will overwhelm us. But let us suffer those things as human beings, who acknowledge the loss and pain and still cling to faith in God, and not a an emergent like Rollins, who seeks simply to beat down the desires and to not expect anything better.

the delusional heretic

Oh, the joy of used book stores. They are one way to purchase at a bargain price books one would simply not want to pay full price for. One must be patient, but patience is a good thing.

Anyway, at one of said such stores recently, I found a copy of Peter Rollin's "The Orthodox Heretic". Reading through a part of it, what it seems to be is little more than a bunch of his clever little stories, with a bit of commentary. It may be better to wait for the movie.

Rollins likes to think he's clever. His intro, for example, is called "Dis-courses", with the clever little dash right there, and subtitled "The Sacred Art of (Mis)communication". Ah, yes, those clever little parentheses are really there.

And what is "Dis-courses" about? Well...

Parables subvert this desire to make faith simple and understandable. They do not offer the reader clarity, for they refuse to be captured in the net of a single interpretation and instead demand our eternal return to their words, our wrestling with them, and our puzzling over them.
p xi

Parables. Oh, no, he's not linking his little stories to those of Jesus, is he? Oh, of course not. More on that later.

But, really, does his little characterization above describe Jesus' parables?

What's notable about some of Jesus' parables is that sometimes He did give their meaning. For example, the one we call the parable of the types of soils, in Matthew 13. In that same chapter, His explanation is also given for parable of the wheat and weeds. In Matthew 21, we have the account of Jesus telling a parable about tenants of a vineyard, who beat the servants of the vineyard owner and then killed his son. We are told that the chief priests and the Pharisess knew very well that Jesus was talking about them, saying they were like the tenants in the parable, and that it was one reason that they wanted to have Him arrested

We don't have such interpretations for all of Jesus' parables, of course, but this is enough to put paid to the notion of Rollins' that parables do not have a single interpretation.

In contrast, parables represent a mode of communication that cannot be heard without being heeded, in which the only evidence of having "heard" its message is in the fleshly incarnation of the message. The parable is only heard when it changes one's social standing to the current reality, not one's mere reflection of it...Rather, the parable facilitates genuine change at the level of action itself.
pp xii-xiii

Yet, we have the distinct statement in Matthew 21 that the chief priests and Pharisees knew what and whom Jesus was talking about. They heard Him very clearly, and hated Him all the more.

And what does "changes one's social standing to the current reality" mean? Or where are we told that parables "facilitate genuine change at the level of action itself"?

Well, let's take Jesus' parable of the talents. Let's consider, for example, that one wanted to take that parable, and use it to "facilitate genuine change at the level of action itself". Perhaps one would find those who were producers, those who worked hard and created wealth for themselves and others, and then rounded up the lazy and unprofitable, took everything from those loafer and deadbeats, kicked them to the curb, and gave all they had to the workers and creators and wealth-producers.

That is certainly a viable interpretation, don't you think? If not, why? Is that not what the parable could be said to be about, rewarding the hard-working and profitable and getting rid of those too lazy even to invest what they had been given?

But do you think this is an interpretation Rollins would approve of? Of one that he would like to see people act upon?

What about the parable of the missing coin? It's about money, and the money certainly looked hard enough to find it. Would that not be about making sure you keep track of all you have? The same could be said about the parable of the lost sheep.

Because of this, I hesitate to call what I have written within these pages 'parables' at all and have thus, in the title, opted for the safer word 'tales'. It is not for me to christen these short stories with the name 'parables', for who am I to say that they will do the job that I have called them into being to perform? For some they may be parables, while for other they may be nothing but a string of inconsequential stories. For just as one person's idol is another icons, so one person's fable is another's parable.
p xiii

So, no, Rollins is just far too humble to call his stories 'parables' his own self, but of course if you want to, or if they are parables to you, well, who is he to say otherwise.

And, really, he says about these stories that he "called them into being"? Really? Well, arrogant much, Mr. Rollins?

Finally, but, sorry, an idol is an idol. It is always an idol. For a Christian to bow before a Buddha is to bow to an idol, and thus to sin.

twisting

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

the unfaithful god of emergent village

In praise of an unfaithful God

This is just pathetic. When you have to go here, you may as well just fall on your own sword (metaphorically, of course).

If Hosea were written today, God should be the harlot, and Hosea the church, with God forever slipping out at night, undressing in the alleys and making holy love in hell to the beggars, infidels and outcasts. God is a street walker, with too heavy mascara and the smell of a thousand lovers on those divine lips, a clandestine whore who returns home at sunrise, sneaking back into bed without a shower but with a lingering wine-soaked kiss on the sleeping bride, their toes touching until morning, unashamed. And God whispers the divine confession, but only while Hosea slumbers.

God the Harlot invites us to be corrupted by love but is content to let the bride sleep, whispering reality only within the realm of deepest dreams. But God waits, hoping all things, for Hosea to be awakened from the myth of God’s monogamous love for the Church, the bride.

It's short, so by reading it yourself, you won't have wasted too much of your valuable time.

One can only imagine what this EV writer would do if he were to re-write the whole Old Testament. I can see him being ok with the whole David and Bathsheba thing, and maybe making her husband ok with it, too. Or maybe re-writing the rules about sex and marriage, making the prostitutes ok and the regular wives the outcasts. In the prophets, he would make all the statements about Israel's harlotries to be paeon of praise, not statements of condemnation and coming judgment. All the statements of God's faithfulness would be removed. Wisdom in Proverbs would be the harlot and not the good woman.

One good thing here, though, is that I get to reference Tim Stoner's book in a good way. That's that one I was a bit critical of a few posts earlier. But it's a good book, and I'm happy to say that he puts paid to his blasphemous emergent tale.

The marriage vow is a promise that ruthlessly puts to death every other rival. It puts a symbol of mutual ownership on the fingers of two people who now have covenanted to belong to each other, categorically, exclusively. Wedded love is a jealous love, and rightfully so, for the beloved's love is not to be shared. The heart of the beloved is to be capivated exclusively by her lover. This, all of us who have been in love, understand. This is how romantic love works.

This is also how the divine love affair works, too.
Timothy Stoner, The God Who Smokes, p 126

imagination gone wild

When we got to the front of the autograph line, we claimed our own place in the pastoral guild and commented that we believed the kind of serious wonder Price advocates is a skill that all Bible readers should hone.
Conder and Rhodes, Free For All, p 233

The co-authors were at a book store, attending a reading. The author doing the reading was Reynolds Price, who seems to be a quite proficient author. The book of his that he was reading from was "A Serious Way of Wondering". Here is a bit of what the "Free For All" co-authors wrote about Price's book.

At the center of the book are several brief stories Price imaginatively crafts, focusing on Jesus' response to three profoundly contemporary ethical dilemmas: meeting a gay man, encountering Judas Iscariot in the act of suicide, and a conversation with a woman caught in a sexual liaison with a man who is not her estranged husband. A scandalous trilogy to say the least.
pp 232-233

So, it got me curious about what Price was writing. But how? Sorry, but I don't like spending hard-earned funds on books I'm sure will not be worth the funds involved. Getting them from used book stores is another thing, but frankly, I regret paying full price for emergent nonsense like McLaren's "A New Kind of Christianity". I have better things to waste my money on.

Enter the library. No, really, go right on in.

Anyway, I found out that a library in a nearby city had a copy of that book, so I made a brief trip to that city, for that and other reasons, found it, and read through those three stories.

I find it odd that Conder and Rhodes mention Judas only in regards to one of the stories, because he is the focus of two of them. In the first story, Judas is a young man not yet twenty years old, and he's a gay man whose main desire was to have a sexual relationship with Jesus. The resurrected Christ visits Judas first, as he's hiding in a cave working up to hanging himself. This Judas betrayed Jesus because he loved Him, and Jesus seemed quite fine with his love and desires, even saying to Judas that he'll not go to hell for what he's done.

In the second story, one independent of the first, Judas is preparing to hang himself. Jesus comes along, makes a bit of an effort to try to talk him out of it, but in the end helps him tie the rope and climb the tree so he can hang himself.

The third is based on the account of the woman caught in adultery, who is spared by Jesus and told to not do it again. Price gives this woman, unnamed in the Bible, the name of Rahab. He puts her in a bad, abusive marriage, and seems to hint that adultery may not have been all that wrong.

So, is this one thing Conder and Rhodes mean by "the kind of serious wonding...is a skill all Bible readers should hone"? Make some kind of bizarre story, only marginally related to the biblical account, and then use it to say that good is evil and evil good?

One fo the remarkable aspects of the evening, however, was simply the author's repeated acknowledgement that his imaginative musings were forbidden by the church and established Christianity.
p 233

Really? Wow, I wonder why.

I don't know what else he's written in his "imaginative musings", but if these short musings are a example of what he's doing, then I'm not at all surprised that they have been forbidden, and good for the churches that have done so. And it's rather pathetic that he has to try to play the "poor poor presecuted me" act because of his "imaginative musings".

no hypocracy at all

It is hypocritical to oppose abortion while simultaneously opposing the vast support system such a ban would require. That would include full and free prenatal care of poor and uninsured pregnant women, of unemployed and unwed mothers, so that they might care for their uninsured children. It would further include a comprehensive system of government-supported adoption agencies in order to place newborn children in welcoming families when the birth mothers are unable or unwilling to cae for their children. It would include a comprehensive system of day care that would support working unwed mothers who wish to keep their children and a dramatic increase in suport for the public schools in the poorest neighborhoods that these children will attend, instead of letting these children fall off the radar as soon as they are born. All that would require funding, which means taxes, which conflicts with the greed of the Right, religious and secular. Beyond that, the working families into which children are born need to be protected by fair labor laws, living wages, medical and vacation benefits, and good pension funds. The latter in turn need to be protected from corporate criminals who run companies into the ground while giving themselves extravagant salaries and severance packages and letting the hardworking employees wo lose their jobs and their pensions end up paying for the criminal's misdeeds.
John Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct, p 114

Well, I guess that's pretty clear--in Caputo's view, unless you're a big-government let-the-government-control-everything kind of person, a cradle-to-grave-government-support sort, then, well, you've no business opposing abortion.

Funny, isn't it, though, that it's exactly those kinds of people that want to keep abortion safe, legal, and common.

Well, there goes personal responsibility. If a woman decides to not have her unborn child murdered, well, it's up to everyone else to make sure her life is cushy. Fund her and her child, fund the family, make sure the public dole is open to her. More than just a mere hand up, we're talking hand outs, in fact hands to carry so that said mother and child should not have to do much of anything. In fact, his rhetoric seems to hint that he not only wants those things for mothers with children they chose not to abort, but for all families.

One wonders how families survived before the modern big-government state. Such a heinous, difficult life, it must have been. Couples needed to actually be married to each other, and single parenthood was frowned upon. Fathers actually needed to work to provide for the woman they've married and any children they were to have, and not have to rely on the government dole to give the mother money so he can live a care-free life and have children by other women without societal consequence. Mother's actually had to take care of the children themselves, without having to rely on government-provided child care or government-funded public schools to schlop them off on so they can sit around all day and watch soaps. Children had parents they could actually respect, and even fear when need be, parents who could show them things like dignity and self-respect, and not have societal leaches who can't even escape a hurricane even when given a few day's warning, who have not done a thing in their lives, and who live only for the arrival of the next monthly government check.

I remember reading "The Tragedy of American Compassion", and seeing how they did things way back when, when private organizations provided care for the needy and not the government. Most of them were firm in making sure that the people they were to help were people worth helping, or were willing to behave themselves, which at time meant they weren't drunkards, weren't criminals, and weren't sexually active outside of marriage, but who were in their dire situations through no fault of their own. Even if one wants to say that it was a far from perfect arrangement, it does seem to have bene a better one than what we have now.

Because what we have now is what Caputo prescribes, to a large degree, and the results are ugly. Welfare mothers, who have more and more kids so they can get more and more money from the government; deadbeat fathers, who see no reason to take back the responsibility the government has taken off their shoulders; children for whom the command to honor father and mother must be an especially difficult command, because those two people (assuming they even know who father may be) are simply not people worthy of honor, and who are simply not taught how to live and provide for themselves.

Caputo tries to make one of his patented cheap shots at the Right, and as may be expected, it is a lie. The Right is not greedy for wanting lower taxes, or for expecting people, even pregnant women, to be responsible beings. We know there are people who truly need help, or are willing to do better, and we are very willing to help them. We are rather less inclined to help those who insist on messing up their own lives, continue to act in those ways, and want only that others should provide for them while they make their lives more and more a living example of self-destruction.

There is no hypocracy in saying abortion should be made illegal while not supporting the government nanny state.

sojo's patriots

My father was in the military. My brother was in the reserves. I've known other people who have been in those and other branches of service. I've known ministers and others who have served their country in that way and others, and not necessarily just those in the US. As someone who was at one time in missions, I've known people from other countries who were in their home country's military.

That isn't even mentioning those like ministers and missionaries who have been concerned for the spiritual state of a country, their own or a foreign one.

So, when a writer for Sojo writes this...

You, my countrymen and women, are true patriots.

...who do you think she considers to be "true patriots"?

This morning I learned about a website and a letter signed by more than 3 dozen millionaires (folks who have earned over $1 million in a year either now or in the past) asking the President to allow tax cuts for people making over $1 million to expire at the end of the year. They don’t need it, they don’t want it, they know that they won’t create jobs with it, and they know it will blow a whole in the deficit a mile wide. They are asking the President to let them pay their fair share.

Yep, the real patriots in the mind of this Sojo writer is the rich guy or gal who, instead of taking responsibility for the money they earned to make sure it is used wisely and as they see fit, wants the government to tax it from them.

Actually, I may be all for this, with one stipulations--that only those who sign this letter (which, strangely, is not linked to by the writer, though she does say it's on the internet) are the only ones subjected to the taxation. Why should the person willing to take responsibility be penalized because a bunch of others want to let the almighty gubment do it?

And what will happen now that I am bringing this up? I will be accused of class warfare.

Umm...if you're engaging in class warfare, then why should you be surprised when you're accused of it?

taking more, in the name of religion

Laws may or may not be just in fact, and they may very well start out just and become unjust when the circumstances change but the laws do not. Thes there might once have been circumstances in which the personal right to bear arms was justified, although one would expect a Christian to have a very delicate conscience about such things; but to support such laws today, when the dangers to life and limb from the proliferation of such weapons is as plain as the nose on your face, defied comprehension, especially for Christians.
John Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct, pp 63-64

Could you imagine, for example, a similar argument concerning any other of rights or freedoms of the United States? Let's say that, for example, one thinks that the "proliferation" of free speech--all those books of so many and varied opinions, liberal tv editorial shows and conservative talk radio, not the mention the chaotic riot of the internet--is simply too dangerous, and that it is the Christian duty of all good Christians to stop supporting the laws of free speech, and that it defies comprehension that any Christian should not be in support of some form of restriction of free speech.

You can pick any other right or freedom, and plug it in--freedom of the press, freedom of religion, right to life. It really doesn't matter, but in doing so, one can see two very real facts.

One--Such restrictions are not only ridiculous, but dangerous. And this idea of Caputo's, that Christians should not supports the right of regular people to keep and bear arms, is similar. Such a stand would not make us safer, but would simply put us more in jeopardy--from criminals who will not obey such laws, from those who have the 'privilege' to handle such weapons, mostly from the rulers who can restrict such freedoms as they will.

Second--Such things are already taking place, or have been attempted, or the ideas put forth. Consider, for example, the right to life. One does not need to dig far into history to see how there have been people who have found all kinds of reasons to try to deny that right to certain kinds of people--the sick, those with mental or physical defects, those of other races. Nazism comes readily to mind, but so does eugenics, not to mention abortion.

Or consider the freedom of speech, then look at this quote from an essay called Repressive Tolerance by one Herbert Marcuse...

Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left...

The whole post-fascist period is one of clear and present danger. Consequently, true pacification requires the withdrawal of tolerance before the deed, at the stage of communication in word, print, and picture. Such extreme suspension of the right of free speech and free assembly is indeed justified only if the whole of society is in extreme danger. I maintain that our society is in such an emergency situation, and that it has become the normal state of affairs.

Given this situation, I suggested in 'Repressive Tolerance' the practice of discriminating tolerance in an inverse direction, as a means of shifting the balance between Right and Left by restraining the liberty of the Right, thus counteracting the pervasive inequality of freedom (unequal opportunity of access to the means of democratic persuasion) and strengthening the oppressed against the oppressed.

...and now, bear in mind some of the things that have been done in the past and are even now being tried, to try to silence some people--things like the Fairness Act, or hate speech laws, or political correctness.

These examples are a few of many, concerning those and other rights and freedoms.

Almost all of these attempts to restrict freedoms comes from the left, or those how only pretend to be on the right but are really a part of the political left. Is it any wonder, then, that Caputo, who is on the political and religious left, should say that a further restriction, the disarming of the populace, should to him be considered not only a good thing, but something that he thinks is a Christian's responsibility to support.

Well, Mr. Caputo, should you ever descend from on high to read this, I will only say that I do not agree with you. While I have very rarely used a firearm myself, I support the rights of those who have them and use them--to hunt, to practice, to defend themselves, their loved ones, their property. You say that the 'proliferation' of such weapons makes them too dangerous, and likely you mean things like gun violence in the mean streets of the big cities, most of that likely coming from criminals who would not be much effected by such restrictions anyway. What are laws to the lawless but mere obstacles to be worked around?

the move to make truth into myth

I count Chesterton as one of my teachers, though he died long before I was born, and I have doubts about Catholicism as he had about Protestantism. Plus, I'm not as negative about capitalism as he was. Still, in reading him, I'm struck very often with how he wrote about things that we seem to be dealing with now. The forms may be a bit different, and certainly they call themselves by different names now as then, but there does seem to be some very strong similarities.

Among emergents, and more so among progressives, there is the idea of viewing parts, often huge portions, of the Bible as myth. The Creation account in Genesis is a favorite, as they have sold their minds to the fiction that their uncle was a monkey. Progressives have pretty much sold into a brand of materialism that makes all the miracles in the Bible mythic, and even say that the real historic Jesus is almost completely different than anything in the Bible, though their proofs for that idea seem almost nonexistent, more speculation than real.

I have seen them write such ideas as that the reality of whether Jesus walked on water or His resurrection is not as important as whatever lessons may be learned from the story. Let me give this from Chesterton to show why I think this is wrong.

Paganism lived upon poetry; that poetry already considered under the name of mythology. But everywhere, and especially in Italy, it had been a mythology and poetry rooted in the countryside; and that rustic religion had been largely responsibile for the rustic happiness. Only as the whole society grew in age and experience, there began to appear the weakness in all mythology already noted in the chapter under that name. This religion was not quite a religion. In other words, this religion was not quite a reality.
The Everlasting Man, p. 158

This is one of the dangers of this attempt to turn truth in myth--the truth becomes less real. It becomes easier to pick-and-choose what one wants to believe, and doesn't want to believe. So, when the Gospels become mere myths made up by the early church, it becomes easy for people like the Jesus Seminar to say that the Gospels contain only a very few things that Jesus really said.

But it is more than that. Again, from Chesterton.

I do not believe the mythology must begin with eroticism. But I do believe that mythology must end in it. I am quite certain the mythology did end in it. Moreover, not only did the poetry grow more immoral, but the immorality grew more indefensible. Greek vices, oriental vices, hints of the old horrors of the Semitic demons, began to fill the fancies of decaying Rome, swarming like flies on a dungheap...There comes a time in the routine of an ordered civilization when man is tired of playing at mythology and pretending that a tree is a maiden or that the moon made love to a man. The effect of this staleness is the same everywhere; it is seen in all drug-taking and dram-drinking and every form of the tendency to increase the dose. Men seek stranger sins or more startling obscenities as stimulants to their jaded sense. They seek after mad oriental religions for the same reason. They try to stab their nerves to life, if it were with the knives of the prients of Baal. They are walking in their sleep and try to wake themselves up with nightmares.
p. 159

In this day when things seem to be completed almost before they are started, we may well say that this process is already well into its happening almost before people have seen it coming. Rather, perhaps it could be asked of today which came first, the love of eroticism or the need to mythologize. At any rate, the view of Bible as myth, of the so-called and unproven historical Jesus, is enlisted by the ranks of those who are obsessed with eroticism, among other vices.

a (couple of) heretics' guide to heresy

I have a slight taste for horror.

It's not my favorite genre, though often when horror elements are added to other genres, they add a good bit to them. I have no taste at all for slasher horror, or anything Saw or Hostel. Silent Hill was ok, and probably the creepiest recent movie I've seen was I Am Legend. The sci-fi/horror Alien movies are favorites, too.

One of the more interesting horror writers was Lovecraft, he who brought us Cthulhu and his ilk. While not matching King or Koontz in his writing volume (which may be a good thing), his stories did have some interesting elements, including glimpses into realms that are essentially other-dimensional, where our laws of physics are trumped by others, where the lines and angles of structures just don't behave like they do in our world.

Reading Burke and Taylor's "A Heretics Guide to Eternity" felt a lot like that. Attempts to find reason and sanity are too often lacking, and one is left trying to make sense of...well...what???

For example, consider these two statements.

One of my other earlier titles for this book was I'm a Universalist Who Believes in Hell.
p. 196

And a couple of pages later.

I may be a universalist,...but I also believe in Hell. Do I mean a place filled with fire, brimstone, and flames that burn bodies forever in eternal torment? No.
p. 198

So, he's a universalist who isn't a universalist, who believes in Hell but doesn't believe in Hell.

While you're making sense of that, I need to go feed my Puppy of Tindolis.

spinnin' da misunderstandin'

There must be an element of something like fun, maybe the mockery of real fun, in how some people use postmodernism. Consider this, from the pomo discussion forum Open Source Theology.

While my “straight” conservative Christian friends readily argue that “gay” people can be converted through various therapeutic means, they never mention what this logically entails for their own sexual orientation. Simply stated, it seems reasonable to say: If a “gay” person can be converted into a “straight” person, then a “straight” person can be converted into a “gay” person. Even though my conservative friends don’t explicitly talk about this concern (that they might be converted to “gay”), it does seem to come through in their everyday practices. This fear of conversion helps explain why many “straight” conservative Christians keep their children away from people who are openly “gay”—I’ve seen instances in the news where “straight” conservative Christians don’t want “gay” teachers in the classroom teaching their kids, they don’t want “gay” daycare providers or babysitters, they don’t like “gay” politicians and “gay” actors and actresses setting bad examples or celebrating the “gay” lifestyle. All these fears, in seems to me, are related to a fear that their children might be converted to a “gay” sexual orientation.

One might think, from this person's view, that he or she had never been around parents, or adults in general. Perhaps not, but that would be quite remarkable. Considering he cites examples he has seen on the news, he must have had at least that much exposure to parents.

Because nothing is more natural or understandable than the parents should show concern for whom their kids are around. If, in the paragraph above, we substitute, let's say, "drug use" for "gay", we would find nothing remarkable about the parent's concerns for any of those things.

In an interesting way, “straight” conservative Christians who advocate the notion that sexual orientation is changeable are implicitly taking a social constructionist view of sexuality and gender, which is much closer to a postmodern way of thinking than most are apt to admit. On this view, sexual orientation is in whole or at least in part, a product of various choices and ways of thinking and acting.

No, they're acting no different than parents have since probably not long after the Fall--parents know that children can influence by those around them, particularly authority figures. The only "new" thing about all of this is that the homosexual lifestyle is "politically correct", and to try to ward one's children from it would likely be considered a hate act.

deconstructing Jesus???

I think Jesus is right because I believe God was in Jesus in an unprecedented way.
McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 77

God was in Jesus???

So, what is Jesus in this?

Is the divinity of Jesus being dismissed here??? God was only in Jesus, not Jesus being God???

Even his explanations over the next few pages leave me unsatisfied in regards to what he thinks here. Rather, after some kind of lengthy politically correct apology about the use of masculine terms in regard to God and Jesus, we get this...

...the experience of God in Jesus was so powerful that it forever transformed what followers of Jesus meant when they said the word God. What was God like? What was God about? When they thought about what they had learned, seen, and experienced in Jesus, their understanding was revolutionized. Eventually, after a few centuries of reflecting on God as revealed and experienced through Jesus (in the context of some major controversies with varied forms of Greek philosophy), the church began to describe God as Father-Son-Spirit in Tri-unity or the Trinity.
p. 84

Is he really trying to say that the Church had no idea of the divinity of Jesus until a few centuries after the Scriptures were completed? Is he trying to say that the early church was unitarian, or thought that Jesus was just some kind of good man, a great ethical teacher, or some kind of ascended master?

Seriously, as I'm writing this, I'm feeling sickened. Why would anyone who names themselves Christian listen to this man? Doesn't this absolutely disqualify him from being any kind of Christian teacher? His ramblings about Marxism and liberation theology and pacifism could maybe be relegated to non-essentials (though I stress the 'maybe'), but this cannot be, and for him to say what he's saying and to infer what he's inferring is heretical to the core.

Look it up. The page numbers are up there. Look at things in context, and confirm or not that what I'm saying is real.

what's wrong with being right?

Jesus at one point claimed to be "the way, the truth, and the life". Jesus was not making claims about one religion being better than all the other religions. That completely misses the point, the depth, and the truth. Rather, he was telling those who were following him that his way is the way to the depth of reality.
Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, p. 21

John 14
14:1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
14:2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if [it were] not [so], I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, [there] ye may be also.
14:4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.
14:5 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?
14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

So, let's see...

Jesus is talking about going away to prepare a place for the disciples, but returning for them and us so they can be where He is. Thomas basically says he doesn't understand, but Jesus explains that He is the way, and that no one comes to the Father except through Him.

In saying He's going away, Jesus is talking either about His death or more likely about His ascension. His words about coming again are much the same as the angels' at His ascension, "this same Jesus...shall come in the same manner as He has gone into Heaven".

In other words, Jesus tells this to His disciples, giving them hope concerning the things they were to soon experience.

Bell clouds the issue somewhat, by making it about religions. It's may not be about any religion that calls itself Christianity (as Mormons may try to sell themselves), but it is about people being true Christians.

Perhaps a better question than who's right, is who's living rightly.

No, it's about believing in Christ, which does have to do with who's right. The Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, all would have said they were living rightly. In a sense, it wasn't their attempts at moral living that were wrong, it was that they didn't know Him when He came.

As Paul says, in Romans 9

10:1 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.
10:2 For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.
10:3 For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

Strange, that Bell says it's not about being right, but Paul says that his people's problem wasn't their zeal for God, but that they didn't have or didn't exercise the knowledge they needed for the zeal to be good. Paul as Saul was zealous, but he was wrong, so it's likely he knew a bit of what he was talking about.

The question is still "Who's right", because it's only when that question is answered that one can determine who's living rightly. It make the question "Who's living rightly" presupposes that one has already determined what are the standards for 'living rightly', that one's standards are in fact the right ones, or to put most plains, that one is right.