'Lousy' and 'thick'

Watching Justin Welby has done wonders for my blood-pressure. On the positive side, he seems rather affable, a smooth operator, in touch with the world’s thinking (though always cautiously a step behind), just kind of nice.

Notwithstanding Justin Welby’s ingenuous self-designation as a "conservative believer in biblical truth" (c. 31:28), he is all over the place, which means ‘neither here nor there’, but then Anglicanism is a broad church, though less so – and thankfully – in Africa.

His misplaced egological humility (my apologies to Uriah Heep; at least Charles Dickens cannot sue me!) on the clear teaching of biblical sexuality may be forgiven since on his own admission, he is a ‘lousy theologian’ (c. 1.17), and I really do not wish to contradict him at all. He is also, on his own admission, just 'thick' (c. 36:34). I always used to think that ’thick’ people do not know they are ‘thick’! I just don’t get it, I guess! 

But Welby is not 'thick'! He is fully versed in what Jesus Himself teaches about human sexuality (c. 34:53), i.e. ‘Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve’, but audaciously goes on to contradict what is clearly taught in Scripture. He is ashamed, fearful and untruthful, speaking with a forked tongue. His conscience certainly is not bound to the Word of God, but to the spirit of the age.

Bird is for the birds and Wright is wrong

 

Watching these two men discussing the resurrection (see c. 7:04) makes Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s attempt to synthesise opposing truths look positively dumb. Bird and Wright seem more muddled than Marcus Borg and Rudolf Bultmann combined! The two latter ones were not at all muddled but explicitly, if not wilfully, opposed to clear biblical teaching! And ignorance cannot be pleaded, either!

But is it ‘both-and’ or ‘either-or’?! Can it be ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ at the same time? Either Jesus did rise or He did not. Who is deluded? The issue is not just the empty tomb, but also the authority of Scripture which is being questioned if not attacked, or viewed as non-essential, not pertaining to the substance of faith, though I have no idea what that might be according to Bird or Wright.

To put it differently, how can one harmonise biblical Christianity with theological liberalism? Belief in the physical resurrection – if I may be permitted to be tautological – is not a peripheral matter, but lies at the very epicentre of the Gospel (see 1 Corinthians 15:1ff.). No one can be saved without believing it according to Romans 10:9! It really is kindergarten theology already enshrined in the earliest creeds. Yet 1 Corinthians 15:14 has been ignored. There can be not Gospel without the cross and the empty tomb!

R. Bultmann, like all liberal theologians, who owes more to Kant than to Christ, rejects a supernatural Christianity, which of course leaves us with Feuerbach’s god, an idol of our own making that fits in with the creed of anythingism. No divine revelation, no creation ex nihilo, no space-time fall, no devil, no incarnation, no miracles, no resurrection, no ascension, no parousia, no heaven, no hell. All rejected as unhistorical! What the mind cannot grasp can not, must not, be allowed to exist! ‘Causa finita est’! And we have not even looked at the atonement which cannot be understood without the resurrection!

It seems to me that Bible-believing Christians are now the true heretics that need to be ejected from the Church of England; it was so in 1662! One must be nice, respectable, appealing and not frighten people with the Gospel!

Bird is for the birds and Wright is wrong; in the name of God I must protest! Who will rid us of these troublesome priests who are paid to destroy the “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints ” (Jude 3)?

Deader than dead!

 

Time to apologise to all the Llamas!

Lee Anderson's recent 'contribution' to a non-sensical debate raises lots of other questions:

1. Should human llamas be fed animal food and be locked up in a zoo? 

2. How does one get rid of insane politicians? Should they be allowed to stand for parliament in the first place?

3. Is common sense really all that common?

4. How does one define or recognise insanity? 

5. Are we insane for rejecting insanity? 

FINAL QUESTION - WHERE ARE MY PILLS?!

 

 

When I find myself in trouble, mother Mary does not come to me – so let it be!

One acknowledges that Mr. Rees-Mogg (R-M) always has something interesting to say. Today’s podcast [Merry Christmas, one and all!], which majors on Mariology (8x ‘our Lady’), with a non-Jewish looking Madonna in the background, is no exception. But my spiritual alarm bells are ringing in my head even now, as I write.

Whilst not wishing to entirely dismiss R-M’s contribution as floccinaucinihilipilification, I have been seriously left discombobulated, and a few things need to be said to put restore my equilibrium. R-M needs to be put right! (I am not referring to his political position, of course!) Before I proceed, I wish that R-M would have read from an English translation rather than some kind of Brevier!

But let’s move on. For starters, spoiler-alert, there is no historical evidence of the annunciation having taken place on March 25^th. We also know for a fact that Jesus was most definitely not born on Dec. 25^th. The emperor Constantine can explain that better than I can.

We take note that Mary is told, not asked (contra R-M), what is about to take place (Luke 1:26ff.). Grace precedes and obedience follows. God’s plan of salvation does not hinge on Mary’s willing response! After all, she was not a Semi-Pelagian!

And there is more! R-M maintains that Mary “is no different from the rest of us” (sic). Well, recent Roman dogma insists that “she far surpasses all creatures, both in heaven and on earth!" (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, in loc.). Not a mere human then, but less than divine, of course, somewhat reminiscent of Arius’s Christology! Which brings me on to Mary’s supposed intercession, unheard of in the early apostolic church! Never commanded, and never practised! Yet, R-M remarks that “our Lady is the great, the best intercessor for us all" (sic). This presupposes, if my logic is right, that the mediatrix is both omnipresent and omniscient, to say the least. How else could she hear our prayers?! Somewhat divine, after all! R-M fails to notice that the New Testament exclusively ascribes the ministry of intercession to both the Son (Romans 8:34, Hebrews 7:25) and the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:27), the Son being the sole Mediator between God and man (John 14:6, 1 Timothy 2:5)! On a side, I do not read in my Bible that Mary “who persuaded Christ to turn water into wine” (sic). It is clear from Jesus’s abrupt response that his mother’s attempt to mediate, or shall we say, to meddle, meets with a gentle rebuke (John 2:4). A careful study of Jesus’ relationship with his mother, as recorded in the four gospel narratives, shows that Jesus, not Mary, is at the forefront of everything!

I have no idea what R-M means when he says that “the perfect son will always do what his mother asks him” (sic). But then I would not understand, as I never was a perfect son and neither was my late mother (Mary would have understood that as she was a sinner saved by grace, though according to papal teaching, Christ need not have died for her). May be it’s different in R-M’s household, though I doubt it!

R-M finishes, in his penultimate sentence, by denying that the Christ-child is our only Saviour. Instead it is, Jesus plus Mary! Being a good papist, his hope, of course, forbids any assurance (presumably the sin of presumption!), and at the end of his life it will be purgatory, or worse, but that is not for me to say! R-M’s video, sadly, is off-message altogether, “pariet autem filium et vocabis nomen eius Iesum IPSE ENIM SALVUM faciet populum suum a peccatis eorum” (Matthew 1:21). And let us not bury the cross under the cradle: Incarnation and atonement belong together!

R-M needs to repent, no, no, not another ‘hail Mary!’. Not penance, but faith alone in Christ alone, who is the one and only Saviour of the world!

Christus Victor!

 

A friend of mine has drawn my attention to the above and thus provoked a response. 

The statement, as it stands, makes little sense, as does the incoherent / sound-bite counter attack of atheism, which is 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'. Or, to quote Richard Dawkins' fav. book from the Bible, 'all is vanity' - which is true when viewing life as 'under the sun'. I'd imagine that John Lennon was not all that original after all! But pious claptrap does not help the cause, either! But who cares about truth these days, which was put to death over 2.000 years ago. Ultimately Christianity sprung to life from an empty tomb connected to the most hated man in the world. If that is not true then it would be the greatest lie that needs to be debunked. As yet, no one has succeeded. At any rate, Nietzsche certainly did not have the last word. Atheism offers no hope, and neither does a watered down religion.

 

 

 

Jesus Creating A Scene (A School Assembly Talk by Yours Truly - many years ago!)

 

Mark 11:15-19

The Bible translation before me has a heading which reads, ‘Jesus clears the Temple’. I would like to change it since it is not in the original text, ‘Jesus creating a scene’. It all seems a bit more wild to me – quite unexpected.

Not all like this kind of Jesus. Some prefer Him to be a helpless babe in a manger – cute and cuddly. Others see Him as the greatest of all teachers, a wonderful communicator, a teacher, a story teller. There are also those who claim Him to be a popular miracle worker, a nice person healing the sick and helping the poor. Most people perhaps, know Him, as the man of Galilee who died on a Roman cross as a common criminal to forgive us our sins.

But what is it that Mark is telling us about Jesus? It seems to me that the Jesus of the Bible is ‘wholly other’ – you need to find out for yourself. You can find out for yourself – if you wish. Jesus is so different from the way the majority see Him, who hate Him and use His name as a swear word.

Notice how Jesus is extremely displeased with the religion of His day. Mark points us to the time and the place. It’s Passover time when thousands upon thousands of Jewish people are flocking to Jerusalem, the temple, the most holy place on earth – to some Jews, the very centre of the universe. Mark tells us how Jesus had planned it all very carefully – we read about it in v.11 (11a-b). Done quite deliberately - on purpose – and to my mind ‘to create an unforgettable scene’. It was there (in the temple) and ‘then’ (at Passover time) that Jesus did what he did and said what he said.

The temple area – where people are supposed to worship God – was being turned into a market, where people were buying – animals for sacrifices and selling – at a huge profit. Religion, we may say, can be a dangerous thing as it so often takes advantage of the poor and the gullible. Jesus says, “I don’t want it; it must go!” And so it did – in A.D.70, when the temple was destroyed by the Romans, as Jesus had predicted.

Jesus was against the religion of his day. We see it in his action when he overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. Imagine being ripped off – financially, I mean, by religious leaders for wanting to worship God. The temple itself had become a den – that is a cave where robbers meet to share their spoils. The robbers are the religious leaders – common criminals cloaked in religious garb. That’s what was happening and it is still happening today. There are many places even today where you have to pay to pray! That is not the religion of Jesus!

But Jesus doesn’t just act – He also speaks, v.17. His words explain His actions: He quotes from the Jewish Scriptures – 11:17b. May I paraphrase it for you? Church is for everybody and you cannot worship God in a place that resembles a zoo. Imagine all the animals – lots of them. Think of the noise, and worse still, the smell. Worse than a bunch of students who haven’t washed for a week!

There was no respect for God in that sort of religion! I hope then, you can see how Jesus and religion don’t always easily mix. I think Jesus is still displeased when religious people take advantage of the poor and hinder others from finding God.

But also notice not only how Jesus acts and speaks – expressing His displeasure. Did you not also notice from our reading that it happened publicly? There is nothing secret about it. It is not possible to misunderstand Jesus. He criticises the Jewish leaders for allowing it to happen. Jesus didn’t say ‘you keep your religion’ and ‘Ill keep mine’. No – he would not stand idly by - doing nothing.

He was inviting conflict, asking for trouble – and getting it. The Jewish leaders, so Mark tells us, were seeking to destroy Him (11:18). Jesus’ words and actions had consequences resulting in His death. He paid with His blood to set people free from the slavery of a religion that had turned evil! Imagine following a religion designed to keep you from God!

So what about you and what about me? What is your religion? Is religion your God or is God your religion?