Dear Fred,
I enjoyed your "Ernst" exchange with Laura. http://www.thinkinghousewife.com/wp/2014/11/joni-ernst-farm-girl-and-soldier/
I was mildly surprised by her willingness to "go after" Ernst, although when you're comfortable calling Pope Francis "Bergolio" and "sloganeering papal impostor" I suppose fangs will be bared for almost anyone.
Except the katharoi.
Here's the litmus: "Is the pope Catholic?" (Apparently not...)
The Thinking Housewife exhibits wallflower gentility cheek-by-jowl with un-lady-like determination to condemn -- even damn (with the full weight of self-ascribed deity) -- any individual or group who does not live up to her infallible standards.
Lately, I've been pondering the "woman taken in adultery" and how the tale resolves with Jesus not condemning her despite being caught "in flagrante delicto."
John 8 New International Version (NIV)
1 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared.
(Four chapters later, John records Jesus saying: "I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.")
Laura's eagerness to pronounce "on high" reminds me of the best thing ever said by a Jesuit: "You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out God hates all the same people you do." Tom Weston S. J.
Recently, Laura posted the following observation by Augustine:
"If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself."St. Augustine
I was so startled by her "out of character" promulgation of The Gospel (?!?) that I wondered if she were flirting with metanoia.
Poke around any "red-lined" edition of The Gospels -- http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-gospels-with-words-of-jesus-in-red.html -- and it is soon evident that every Christian "takes what s/he likes" and "rejects what s/he doesn't" --- conservative Christians more than most.
Do you know anyone Fred who "loves his enemy," who "does good to those who hate him," or "not resisting evil, turns the other cheek?" http://paxonbothhouses.
"You have heard it was said to people in olden days, 'You shall not murder', and anyone who does must stand his trial. But I say to you that anyone who is angry with his brother must stand his trial; anyone who contemptuously calls his brother a fool must face the supreme court; and anyone who looks on his brother as a lost soul is himself heading straight for the fire of destruction."
If I read Laura aright, she "sees" more "lost souls" in a day than God Almighty does in a googolplex of kalpas.
I'm quite sure "The Gospels" are a dangerous place for Laura.
Better off -- and safer by far -- gouging eyes for eyes and smashing teeth for teeth.
Especially when there are so many dark-skinned skulls in need of whacking.
"The Thinking Housewife And Closeted White Supremacy"
Or maybe we can resurrect patriarchal bride-price paid with Philistine/Palestinian foreskins. http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_early_palestine_name_origin.php
Now there's "lady-like."
Conservative Christians are more at home in the vengeful tracts of the Old Testament... or the roiling remonstrations of Paul... or the brimstone poetry of Revelation, an impenetrable thicket of metaphor that seems more damaging than instructive, lending itself to ego-driven judgment masquerading as "The Word of God."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation
In any event, conservative Christians are not at all comfortable in The Woe Passages.
A word to the unwise: Beware The Gospels!
Yeshua Excoriates Fellow Pharisees: "The Woe Passages"
Laura concludes her appraisal of Ernst noting that "the world is drained of life and depersonalized by female ambition."
While there is "something" to the depersonalization that accompanies ambition, it is violence -- and, even more to the point, the self-justified intent to work violence -- that is most depersonalizing of all.
"Terror And The Other Religions"
Blessedly, The Master prescribes the cure:
"Love Your Enemies. Do Good To Those Who Hate You," Luke 6: 27-42
Do we care?
Or does simian chest-thumping mean that much to us?
Are we interested in a "kingdom" that is not of this world, or do we prefer the perverse consolations of righteous crusades and the elimination of federal agencies that keep our water and air clean?
Pax on both houses,
Alan
PS Speaking of clean...
"Bush's Toxic Legacy In Iraq"
"Love Your Enemies. Do Good To Those Who Hate You," Luke 6: 27-42
Do we care?
Or does simian chest-thumping mean that much to us?
Are we interested in a "kingdom" that is not of this world, or do we prefer the perverse consolations of righteous crusades and the elimination of federal agencies that keep our water and air clean?
Pax on both houses,
Alan
PS Speaking of clean...
PS Speaking of clean...
"Bush's Toxic Legacy In Iraq"
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