Tag: Christianity

Matt muses over what I would call “churchianity” rather than “Middle Class Christianity”, but the point is essentially the same:

A lot of what is called Christian morality today is not necessarily Christian, but more accurately described as Middle Class Christianity. It is the Christianity influenced by the Victorian era politeness and the rather quiet in door working spaces of many Christians, who tend heavily towards the middle class.

Here are examples of the difference:

Middle Class Christianity: Don’t be harsh and use mean words to those who come to you, especially if they are in need.

Christianity: Jesus said to the Syrophoenician woman: You don’t give the children’s food to the dogs (Matt 15:21-28, Mark 7:24-30).

Middle Class Christianity: It is wrong to even insult those who reject the message of Jesus.

Christianity: Jesus said to the disciples to shake the dust of their feet when leaving an unbelieving town or even home (Matt 10:14). A visible and very offensive gesture in his day. Use your imagination to think of similar offensive gestures

Middle Class Christianity: Quiet kindness and addressing your audience in calm smooth tones is the way to address people. Don’t use ad-hominins, stereotypes, or harsh language.

Christianity: Jesus in the gospel of Matthew: Woe to you Pharisees, you brood of vipers, you snakes, you white-washed tombs, you rotten corpses twice dead, you sons of hell (Matt 23).

Your average Churchian is the modern equivalent of a Pharisee, wrongly thinking himself superior to Jesus Christ and shaking his head in judgement of what he sees as the Son of Man’s inferior comportment.

The Vatican is discussing the possibility of married priests… and other things:

This Sunday kicks off a three-week meeting of bishops at the Vatican to discuss, among other things, ordaining some married men as priests to help alleviate a shortage of Catholic clergy in the nine countries of the Amazon region.

Pope Francis convened the meeting, called a synod, to discuss environmental and religious issues in the Amazon and give special attention to the needs of indigenous communities there. The region includes parts of Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Surinam and French Guiana. The Vatican has invited 184 bishops and priests from those countries and from around the world to participate in the synod and vote on measures. Thirty-five women, mostly religious sisters and nuns, have been invited but will not have voting rights.

There will be 17 representatives of the Amazon’s indigenous populations, including 9 women, will attend as well.

But before it even begins, the synod has become the center of controversy for both conservatives and liberals.

The Pope told bishops from the region to “be bold” in their proposals for the meeting and Bishop Erwin Krautler, the church’s Secretary for the Commission on the Pan-Amazon Region, says he hopes the meeting will address not only ordaining married men, but women too.

“We don’t just speak about men because it’s exclusionary,” Krautler told CNN. “We also want to include women.”

The possibility that centuries of Catholic tradition of a celibate priesthood might be overturned has caused conservative outrage.

Since I’m not a Catholic, I don’t believe my opinion matters here. But, for those who happen to be interested, I don’t think the abandonment of the traditional celibacy requirement for priests would be a bad thing. Married priests, even with the concomitant risk of nepotism, are vastly to be preferred to gay priests, which has been the reality since at least Vatican II.

Furthermore, the Biblical requirements for a deacon not only don’t preclude marriage, they actually require it, and the fruits of priestly celibacy have not been generally positive.

Considerably more troubling is the possibility that this Amazonian synod will be used to push the ordainment of women, which would mark the beginning of the end of the Roman Catholic Church.

Pope Leo XIII explains why it is important for Christians of an intellectual bent to read The Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas.

Whoso turns his attention to the bitter strifes of these days and seeks a reason for the troubles that vex public and private life must come to the conclusion that a fruitful cause of the evils which now afflict, as well as those which threaten, us lies in this: that false conclusions concerning divine and human things, which originated in the schools of philosophy, have now crept into all the orders of the State, and have been accepted by the common consent of the masses. For, since it is in the very nature of man to follow the guide of reason in his actions, if his intellect sins at all his will soon follows; and thus it happens that false opinions, whose seat is in the understanding, influence human actions and pervert them.

Whereas, on the other hand, if men be of sound mind and take their stand on true and solid principles, there will result a vast amount of benefits for the public and private good. We do not, indeed, attribute such force and authority to philosophy as to esteem it equal to the task of combating and rooting out all errors; for, when the Christian religion was first constituted, it came upon earth to restore it to its primeval dignity by the admirable light of faith, diffused “not by persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the manifestation of spirit and of power,” so also at the present time we look above all things to the powerful help of Almighty God to bring back to a right understanding the minds of man and dispel the darkness of error.

But the natural helps with which the grace of the divine wisdom, strongly and sweetly disposing all things, has supplied the human race are neither to be despised nor neglected, chief among which is evidently the right use of philosophy. For, not in vain did God set the light of reason in the human mind; and so far is the super-added light of faith from extinguishing or lessening the power of the intelligence that it completes it rather, and by adding to its strength renders it capable of greater things.

We know that there are some who, in their overestimate of the human faculties, maintain that as soon as man’s intellect becomes subject to divine authority it falls from its native dignity, and hampered by the yoke of this species of slavery, is much retarded and hindered in its progress toward the supreme truth and excellence. Such an idea is most false and deceptive, and its sole tendency is to induce foolish and ungrateful men wilfully to repudiate the most sublime truths, and reject the divine gift of faith, from which the fountains of all good things flow out upon civil society.

For the human mind, being confined within certain limits, and those narrow enough, is exposed to many errors and is ignorant of many things; whereas the Christian faith, reposing on the authority of God, is the unfailing mistress of truth, whom whoso followeth he will be neither enmeshed in the snares of error nor tossed hither and thither on the waves of fluctuating opinion. Those, therefore, who to the study of philosophy unite obedience to the Christian faith, are philosophizing in the best possible way.

The best way back from the Jesuit Church of Reason that has replaced the traditional Roman Catholic Church is a rejection of its surrender to the world and its prince. And the intellectual foundation for this rejection and subsequent reformation will be found in the Church Fathers.

In La Nuova Chiesa di Karl Rahner, Stefano Fontana soberingly traces the genealogy of Pope Francis’s “open Church” back to Rahner, the towering radical suspected of heterodoxy under Pope Pius XII. As Fontana shows, Rahner negotiated a “surrender to the world” which is being registered in this pontificate’s signature agendas—from Communion for adulterers and the ordination of married men to the enthronement of “conscience” and the rapid abandonment of evangelization.

Historian Roberto de Mattei likewise calls Rahner the Pope’s “grandfather,” arguing that the two Jesuits are linked through a third—Carlo Cardinal Martini, leader of the St. Gallen mafia and Pope Francis’s “father.” “The agenda of Cardinal Martini, which is the same as Rahner’s, offers us the key to understanding the papacy of Pope Francis,” says de Mattei, pointing to the Cardinal’s fiery last interview calling for the autonomy of conscience and Communion for adulterers.

I was asked my thoughts on the Baptist church, in which I was raised, on the Darkstream the other night, and this Babylon Bee article pretty much summarizes the full extent of my opinion on it:

Sources at Biloxi Seventh Baptist Church confirmed Tuesday that the entire church body is still pretending never to drink alcoholic beverages. Based on the church’s strong convictions, every member of the church is staunchly committed to pretend to abstain from alcohol while in the presence of other Baptists.

“It’s important to avoid the appearance of evil,” said church member Fred Myers. “That’s why I committed a long time ago to never let on that I love downing a few craft beers during a ball game on the weekends.” Myers always orders a Diet Coke when with his Baptist friends and family, though he’s been known to order a beer on tap as long as he’s in another state where no one can recognize him.

Other members of the church share the same commitment. Take Ethel Carver, 82. She credits her long life to her zealous dedication to the Lord, eating lots of fruits, vegetables, and casseroles, and pretending not to down two shots of whiskey before bed every night.

“Ever since I was a little girl, my parents raised me right, the Baptist way,” she said. “We don’t smoke, we don’t chew, we don’t drink alcohol unless no other Baptists are around. Just like the Bible says.”

Baptists and Southern Baptists chose the Churchian path back in 1880. Perhaps that didn’t matter as much then, when society was predominantly Christian. But it definitely matters now. Prohibition is a man-made dogma and has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity. But growing up amongst rampant Baptist hypocrisy did provide me with an effective anti-BS radar as well as an instinctive contempt for Bible-lawyering, as the ridiculous contortions involved in asserting that all the references to “wine” in the Bible actually refer to “non-alcoholic grape juice” made the divide between Christianity and Churchianity hard to miss, even for children.

Southern Baptists had worked at least three decades to secure legal prohibition. They saw the 18th Amendment as a culmination of their labor. They also had come to view prohibition advocacy as a defining mark of Baptist identity…. Since 1934, the SBC has adopted at least 35 statements opposing alcohol, the latest in 2006.

Now they see opposing racism, nationalism, identity politics, and patriotism as defining marks of Baptist identity. And they’ll oppose those things even less successfully than they opposed alcohol, which is why the Baptist identity will fade away over time in the same way that the Abecedarian and Episcopalian identities have.

Churchianity is rapidly descending into open blasphemy, as wolves in sheep’s clothing attack Christianity and the nations:

Dozens of Christian theologians condemned Christian nationalism in an open letter, highlighting a sharpening divide among Christians over the subject of nationalism.

The letter, published in the liberal Catholic magazine Commonweal on Monday, distinguishes between nationalism and patriotism, arguing that the former “forges political belonging out of religious, ethnic, and racial identities, loyalties intended to precede and supersede law,” whereas patriotism “is love of the laws and loyalty to them over leader or party.”

The signatories, which include Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant theologians, “reject nationalism’s tendency to homogenize and narrow the church to a single ethnos,” arguing that “[i]f the church is not ethnically plural, it is not the church.” They also condemn the “xenophobia and racism of many forms of ethno-nationalism…as grave sins against God the Creator.”

The authors also contrast how nationalism and the church view migrants.

“We reject nationalism’s claim that the stranger, refugee, and migrant are enemies of the people. Where nationalism fears the stranger as a threat to political community, the church welcomes the stranger as necessary for full communion with God,” the authors say.

It won’t be long before they reject Christianity’s claim that the Devil is the enemy of Man too. If you ever wondered why I despise theologians and hold them in naked contempt, this letter should help you understand why.

Theology is the dark and deceptive art of explaining why the Bible means the opposite of what it actually says.

At this point, I’m extremely dubious about the genuine faith of any so-called “Christian leader“. All they ever seem to do is subvert and sabotage the clear message of the Gospel and the unmistakable meaning of the Bible while preaching the word of the world:

Marty Sampson, a prolific worship music writer known for his work with Hillsong Worship, Hillsong United, Delirious and Young & Free, revealed he is losing his faith and believes Christianity is “just another religion.”

“Time for some real talk,” the Australian writer wrote in a since-deleted post on Instagram. “I’m genuinely losing my faith, and it doesn’t bother me. Like, what bothers me now is nothing. I am so happy now, so at peace with the world. It’s crazy.”

“This is a soapbox moment so here I go … How many preachers fall? Many,” he continued. “No one talks about it. How many miracles happen. Not many. No one talks about it. Why is the Bible full of contradictions? No one talks about it. How can God be love yet send four billion people to a place, all ‘coz they don’t believe? No one talks about it. Christians can be the most judgmental people on the planet—they can also be some of the most beautiful and loving people. But it’s not for me.”

What these lukewarm Christians need is to be confronted with the full face of evil. Let them personally witness human sacrifices, black sabbaths, and elite sex rituals. Perhaps then they will begin to understand that Christianity concerns, first and foremost, never-ending conflict with the fallen world, not peace with it.

Or it will be infiltrated by evil and it will be destroyed:

A lawsuit announced Tuesday against the Boy Scouts of America alleges a former Scout was sexually abused as a young boy in the organization for years. The unnamed plaintiff is the latest in a long line of men who say they were raped and assaulted by pedophiles whose actions were ignored or covered up by the Boy Scouts.

More than 800 men have joined a movement called “Abused in Scouting,” started by a group of lawyers who worried that the Boy Scouts of America were planning to file for bankruptcy, cutting short the timeline for victims to bring sex abuse claims against the organization in court. Those attorneys filed a lawsuit Monday on behalf of one ex-Scout identified as “S.D.,” who said he was assaulted hundreds of times as a Boy Scout in Pennsylvania in the 1970s. The suit demands $50,000 in damages from both the Boy Scouts organization and the alleged abuser.

The extent of the Boy Scouts’ sex abuse problem first surfaced in 2010 when a judge ordered the organization to release its so-called “Perversion Files,” which listed complaints of abuse in the Scouts. In January, a child abuse expert hired by the Boy Scouts to analyze the files testified that she found 12,254 boys had reported experiencing sexual abuse at the hands of at least 7,800 alleged assailants between 1944 and 2016.

Now, hundreds more men are claiming they were abused by men who do not appear in the published “Perversion Files.” “It’s the largest pedophile ring on earth,” Tim Kosnoff, one of the lawyers representing alleged victims, said during a press conference on Tuesday. “The numbers we’re talking about now dwarf what we’ve seen in the Catholic Church cases.”

“The recipe is there for an abuser to take advantage of boys alone out in the woods at night, at their homes, at their apartments,” added another of the lawyers, Stewart Eisenberg. “Many of the boys have reported drugs and alcohol being given to them when they were minors. This abuse is baked into the culture.”

The nearly 800 members of the Abused in Scouting campaign, who hail from across the country and range in age from 14 to 88, have given their attorneys the names of 350 men who never appeared in the Boy Scouts’ internal files. The lawyers said they’d done their best to verify each of the alleged victim’s claims, based on records of their participation in the Boy Scouts and other evidence the accusers have been able to provide. But they decided to not make public names of all the newly accused men until law enforcement can confirm the legitimacy of the allegations.

This is why Christian organizations need to keep out those who are unrepentant and take pride in their sins. It’s particularly important for organizations that have child members, because predators always go where the prey is.

I was a Boy Scout for a number of years and reached the rank of Star Scout before dropping out at the age of 15, being more interested in sports and chasing girls. It was a very good experience for me and I learned a lot of useful skills; I even first encountered Tolkien in the form of The Two Towers at a Boy Scout overnight. I was fortunate and never experienced or witnessed even the slightest form of abuse myself, but it’s not hard to see how easily an infiltrating predator could have taken advantage of the boys entrusted to him.

Sadly, the BSA is now a fully converged organization, so the sooner it dies, the better. And the more pedos that are exposed and held accountable for their crimes, the better.

Once men who should never have been pastors fall to temptation, they fall hard:

So let’s get this straight. Josh Harris poses with his wife to announce a divorce. Several days later, he announces on Instagram that he has renounced his faith with a “heartfelt” apology to the LGBTQ community. Now, he’s seen marching in a gay pride parade wearing rainbow gear and eating rainbow food. Is there another announcement he will be making soon?

One certainly assumes so.

It’s very clear what the next rhetorical battle will be:

A group formed by Christian leaders is warning against the rise of “Christian nationalism,” saying the merging of Christian and American identities poses a threat to U.S. democracy and religious communities.

“As Christians, we are bound to Christ, not by citizenship, but by faith,” Christians Against Christian Nationalism’s statement reads.

“Whether we worship at a church, mosque, synagogue, or temple, America has no second-class faiths. All are equal under the U.S. Constitution.”

The statement is endorsed by at least 17 Christian leaders from various churches and organizations, according to the group’s website.

It won’t be even remotely surprising to discover that their funding is coming from distinctly not-Christian sources, most likely the same people who fund the (((Edmund Burke Institute))) Nationalism is under attack by the globalist gatekeepers and Christian nationalism will be targeted by the Churchians.

Well and good. We have the truth, the Bible, history, science, and Jesus Christ on our side. They have lies, usury, and elite pedos on theirs. I like our odds.

Notice how they can’t even bear to state the name of Jesus Christ. That’s because they serve a very different god.

Especially not media whores.

Josh Harris, author of the bestselling 1997 book I Kissed Dating Goodbye, announced on Instagram Friday that he had kissed Christianity goodbye, as well. He is also divorcing his wife. In recent years, Harris has rightly repented of his extraordinarily stringent and slightly heretical teachings in the evangelical purity movement, but he seems to have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Ironically, the evangelical ex-pastor went from preaching one worldly dogma dressed up in Christian garb to fully embracing another worldly dogma clearly opposed to Christianity.

Last week, Harris announced that he and his wife of 21 years would be separating. This is significant in part because Harris made himself the model of the promises of a pure Christian life in his book. He essentially promised young Christians that if they keep themselves pure for marriage — he even suggested refraining from kissing until the wedding day — they will find the perfect spouse, enjoy the frequent satisfaction of desire, and the blessings of children.

That didn’t seem to work out for him, and in his Instagram post, Harris wrote, “I wish you could see all the messages people sent me after the announcement of my divorce. They are expressions of love though they are saddened or even strongly disapprove of the decision.⁣⁣”

Yet the former evangelical Christian made an even bigger announcement in the same post. “I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus. The popular phrase for this is ‘deconstruction,’ the biblical phrase is ‘falling away.’ By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian. Many people tell me that there is a different way to practice faith and I want to remain open to this, but I’m not there now,” Harris wrote.

As Owen has said, never trust anyone who puts himself forward as a prophet. Even if he claims to be a Christian. Especially if he claims to be a Christian.