Comments on: Accursed they were not here!

By: Hill

Hill — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:25:19 +0000

I’m in total agreement. I think it goes the other way just as much, though, as in: “Jesus kicked the money-changers’ asses, so I was just following his example when I beat up the ref at my kid’s soccer game.” It only gets uglier when we start talking about waging war as being fit for comparison to this biblical tableau.

So I’m not saying we shouldn’t ask hard questions in these situations, just that an appeal to certain instances of Christ’s behavior frequently serves only as a kind of theological Rorschach test. In this circumstance, I think Christ’s direct teaching regarding our manner of engagement with our mistaken brethren is a little clearer. My point all along is that the actions of the signatories, however misguided they may be, nonetheless come from the church, according to some rendering of the concept, and immediate excommunication isn’t really the appropriate response.

By: Auggie Webster

Auggie Webster — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:38:09 +0000

Careful here Hill. The allowance “well, Jesus was________ or Jesus did ________, but he was the Son of God after all” explains the less than Christ-like behaviour (yeah, I added a “u” because I’m classy) of much of Christendom as well that of the signers of the Declaration. It’s just crazy to use Jesus ontology to absolve our lack of Jesus praxis. This kind of theological schizophrenia explains the existence of abortion doctor assassins and rabid pro-lifers who would like to bomb the Middle East into the Stone Age and rename it “Texas II”. Jesus died for the Gospel. Because of his “special status” or because he is the Pattern? The apostles and martyrs believed the latter.

By: Hill

Hill — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:03:26 +0000

Right. My point is that asking “what would Jesus do” is pretty stupid. Jesus can judge because… he’s… you know… sinless and the son of God. The point being that we are not, a status that specifically renders us incapable of judgment or the “casting of stones,” as it were.

By: d. w. horstkoetter

d. w. horstkoetter — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:51:13 +0000

Based on the smell coming from your room, no you can’t. And this is something no one can abide — even in small, occasional doses.

By: Auggie Webster

Auggie Webster — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:41:34 +0000

Apparently WWJD means he would in fact judge and say some pretty nasty things about the cultural and religious powers and principalities of his day. Halden believes that, by and large, these are today represented by the signers of the Declaration.

By: Hill

Hill — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:03:21 +0000

In other words, the “What would Jesus do?” hermeneutic has failed you here.

By: Hill

Hill — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:02:07 +0000

This isn’t a slight to Halden at all, but most of the people in the blogosphere, including him and myself, look a lot more like the Scribes and the Pharisees in this passage. I know I’m much more comfortable identifying with them. This verse might be more appropriate:

1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

By: Auggie Webster

Auggie Webster — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:38:39 +0000

I’m going to have to cast my lot with Halden on this one. Perhaps it is that Hill doesn’t like polemical speech. But certainly Hill realizes that is one of the five marks of this blog.(I’ve forgotten the other four, but apparently Hill believes they are assholes, assholes, assholes, and assholes) There is a long tradition of Christian polemicists going back to Jesus. Jesus came “to cast fire on the earth” should his followers be different. Look what he says about the establishment Pharisees in Matt 23:

15Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. 24Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. 27Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. 28Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. 29Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, 33Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? 34Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: 35That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.38Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

For example, here’s a polemical syllogism:

A: I love Jesus.
B: Jesus was a polemicist
C: Therefore, I love polemicists
D: Hill doesn’t love polemicists
E: Therefore, Hill doesn’t love Jesus

By: james

james — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:37:17 +0000

Yes but at least I can change my own diaper.

By: d. w. horstkoetter

d. w. horstkoetter — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 04:42:16 +0000

Grampa, the nurse said you aren’t supposed to go off the oxygen. She warned us you’d get senile like this.

By: roger flyer

roger flyer — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:25:50 +0000

Thanks Scott.

By: Scott Coulter

Scott Coulter — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:57:34 +0000

The skinny paragraphs go away if you click on the title of the post (so it has its own page) instead of reading the comments on the main page (with all the other posts).

By: dan

dan — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:36:24 +0000

I’m still waiting for the answer to APS’s question…

By: james

james — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:54:56 +0000

Hill, good to see you are babysitting the kids. This blog’s utterly sincere, so-post-evangelical, I’m NOT a Republican, twenty-somethingness is so cute I can only handle it in small, occasional doses. Sorry I can’t be of more help against these goddamn hippies trying to radicalize our coffeeshops. Carry on.

By: Daniel Imburgia

Daniel Imburgia — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:13:46 +0000

Tyler suggests that the MD may just fade away and have little impact, one can hope. But do not mis-underestimate the efficacy of even much more trite but effective slogans like “drill here drill now,” or “fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here,” etc. I often work on a job with fund. Christian sheet-rockers and they were discussing it at breaktime already. There’s a bumble-bee like network among a lot of these folks and the MD has a conciseness and sort of intellectual aroma about it that is effective and appealing among us ‘GED equivalency,’ working-class schmucks. Me and the Jehova’s Witness guy have learned to just keep our mouth’s shut during these discussion. I am already under suspicion for the rosary collection hanging from my rear view mirror, and the JW got a verbal beat down a while back on the existence of ‘Hell’ and has stopped leaving “Awakes!” in the Port-a-Potty ever since. I’m kinda hoping they just hurry up and get raptured already so I can change the freaking radio station. obliged.