Feeling Blue

 

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/the-quiet-revolution-of-the-sabbath

The article presents a very interesting mix of the value of keeping the sabbath both from  personal and legal viewpoints.  Strictly nostalgically, I cannot help but recall the joy of Sundays. We didn't go to church very often, which I preferred to avoid, but it was the day for the Sunday papers to arrive. It was a day for me to read through the comic pages with full page presentations instead of mere strips (and also in full color not black-and-white). Then I would go to the political pages which similarly went in depth and at length rather than the brief snippets that had been presented during the week.   Finally, I hit the arts pages, which always interested me.

It was a day when my mother used her cast-iron cookware to make Sunday breakfast. I recall it as an extensive and rather elaborate meal, although honestly I can only really remember her carefully spooning hot oil on top of the egg yolks so they could be flipped over without breaking and sitting in my favorite spot at the kitchen nook I could glance at the window at the playground surrounded by the apartments in which we lived in Germany.  

But even as a child what I really resented about Sunday was the blue laws. I did not appreciate the idea of not being able to go to the store.  

At the time it never occurred to me, but now I have to wonder, if Sunday is so utterly sacred and precious how is it that the priests, ministers, and pastors get away with working on that day? 😏

God Save Our Wimpy God!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2iiZSgu5Uqw

Although there were only eight or nine people involved, I think it is reasonable to call them a mob. They came into an area that had been rented and in which they had no right to interfere. But they came to save the chapel for Jesus.

One of the leaders  (Napier) declared, "We didn't go  there out of hatred of these people. We went there because we wanted to make sure the House of the Lord wasn't being disrespected … there was about eight or nine of us… The people in the chapel said they were doing nothing wrong, and I asked if they were there to worship Jesus, and a few started raising the voices at me, so I told him just to get their stuff-that we weren't there to argue and I even help gather the things and pack them to their cars.

... if they want to do that stuff, they can do it in their own homes or buildings or wherever else, but it's not happening in Jesus house as long as I'm around to defend it…"

What was 'that stuff'? It was using the chapel as a retreat and safe space for members to meditate or pray according to their own individual desires and beliefs. Why were the crusading Christians in a panic and defending God from the horrible attack that God could not defend himself against? (It is funny how wimpy and weak their God is.  He can't do anything for himself and he requires mobs to do it for him yet somehow he's all powerful?) Someone had placed an ohm symbol in the chapel in case anyone wanted to meditate in the Buddhist fashion. Obviously Jesus would be totally destroyed by that. You know, kind of like a vampire and a cross.

I would certainly have felt threatened and would not have welcomed this interference in our rented property. It's a public venue but it was being rented by a private organization. This is the kind of fundamentalist activity you expect from the Taliban, but that's not surprising. These individuals are the Christian Taliban.

Also unsurprisingly,  the leader of the mob who is quoted above is an ex-con.

I remind everybody once again that I am not opposed to Christianity. I am a Christian.  But I'm tired of having to say to people that I'm not one of that kind of Christian. The world does not need a single one of that kind of Christian to be found anywhere on the face of the planet.

Targeted

 Regarding a post on target pulling some LGBTQ merchandise due to death threats from neo Nazi groups I made the following post:

Me:  Target is trapped in the crossfire. If the stores support LGBTQ rights and sell merchandise indicating this, they are subjected to death threats from neo-Nazis. If they submit to the neo-Nazis and withdraw the materials or just plain don't support the movement, then they are sharply criticized by the tolerance crowd.

Not sure target has a way to win in this scenario.

L:  In trouble from all directions , so why not just sell shirts and whatever in basic form . Why do business have to make statements  everyone is a potential customer  , leave the printing to some after market shop . 

Me:  Targeting a particular group of customers to please them is a critical part of any business venture. What you're proposing is a business produce nothing but bland thoroughly generic merchandise. If they manage to get any funding to open such a store, it won't last a single quarter.

If you don't like what Target is doing, just don't shop there. Although I would certainly not support such a boycott. Nevertheless I would support your right to boycott them. But death threats? Surely you can cab condem that.

L:  Boycott never good idea , each person make own mind for what ever reason .

S:  Death threats to sales clerks? Seems to me that the nazi threat makers are the problem. Shouldn't be that hard to track them down and throw them in jail. For a long time. They are dangerous creatures.

S: I really meant it when I said that Trumps red hats are the programs of The Duce's black shirts or Hitler's brown shirts.

In fairness not all red hats are that extreme, but plenty of them are.

Let Us Prey For Guidance

As the Catholic Church is in turmoil and dissent over the issue of politicians who do not oppose abortion rights receiving communion (read Biden), they might consider looking back in history to find some interesting suggestions as to ways to resolve the issue.

 A few of these examples from history (and various unspecified Internet sites) that we could consider adopting today are listed below. 

Example one:  >On July 16, 1054, Patriarch of Constantinople Michael Cerularius was excommunicated, starting the “Great Schism” that created the two largest denominations in Christianity—the Roman 

Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faiths.<

So how about an American Orthodox Church? The Pope would still be unhappy, but least the bishops would get their way. Although, thinking about it, Biden would probably stay Roman Catholic and continue as a communicant in the churches which remained loyal to Rome in our second Great Schism.   Still, the bishops could declare a moral victory.

Example two:  Henry VIII is not allowed to get a divorce because the Pope doesn’t think it’s moral. Henry declares a schism that establishes him as the head of the “real” church. Yes, technically, the Queen of England is the head of the Anglican church.  (The Archbishop of Canterbury is subordinate to her and is merely the chief cleric.)

This could work out really well for the Christian nationalists, if they declared Donald Trump the head of the new American Church. That sounds better than Anglican doesn’t it?

Example three:  Henry declares that Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, is being disrespectful to him angily wonders why no one will stop this “lowly cleric” from insulting their king? Angry at this lese majeste; a group of knights take action.Thomas is murdered in the cathedral!

Then the king is forced to perform an extremely humiliating pilgrimage to show his penance and regret.

The difficulty with with this one is, I can’t think of who would get murdered and why. Also, I don’t like murder. Not really a good solution for today.

Example four:  >Western Schism, also called Great Schism or Great Western Schism, in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, the period from 1378 to 1417, when there were two, and later three, rival popes, each with his own following, his own Sacred College of Cardinals, and his own administrative offices.<

This is an interesting solution. However, we would have to find a third Pope.  Any suggestions?  How about volunteers?

Example five: > Luther became increasingly angry about the clergy selling 'indulgences' - promised remission from punishments for sin, either for someone still living or for one who had died and wasbelieved to be in purgatory. On 31 October 1517, he published his '95 Theses', attacking papal abuses and the sale of indulgences.<

No one is selling indulgences anymore (or any of the other practices Martin Luther decried so sharply).  Still, there is a big disagreement about who should or should not be allowed to receive communion. That might be sufficient justification for creating an entirely new branch of Christianity.

Since he was protesting the practices of the established Church, his new branch was called Protestant. The new branch today could be named… I’ve run dry here, I have no idea what could be called. Politicianism?

I could go on because the history of Christian belief and practice is very complex and involved. Nevertheless, I think that five examples are sufficient unto the day.  Dare I say, five suggestions?

12th Century Georgia On My Mind

 Copy of a Facebook post. I’ve been really neglectful of the blog I’ll try to keep up with it although a lot of it for a while maybe simply re-posts. They tend to be short but, I think, valuable.

In response to Georgia’s attempt to pass a law giving special privileges to right wing religious extremist Christians I posted:

Special laws for the religious, well, at least for the religious who are members of the exactly correct sect in the exactly correct religion. Sounds familiar for some reason. Oh, I remember. The Dark Ages.

From Wiki:

> In English law, the benefit of clergy (Law Latin: privilegium clericale) was originally a provision by which clergymen could claim that they were outside the jurisdiction of the secular courts and be tried instead in an ecclesiastical court under canon law.

...Over time, this proof of clergy-hood was replaced by a literacy test: defendants demonstrated their clerical status by reading from the Latin Bible... <

It all started with Henry II murdered St.Thomas and eventually went so bad that the illiterate could memorize a single Bible passage and pretend to be reading it so as be exempt from civil law.

Just as, thanks to right wing media and Q anon, we are returning the middle ages as we hunt imaginary devil worshiping cannibals, we are also returning to civil versus canon with special rules for the clergy.

I’ve been warning since the days of Reagan that if we didn’t watch it we would follow the same path as China and the great Islamic empires. Once the wealthiest and most powerful countries in the world, they became Third World countries is they turned inward, away from reality and into fundamentalism.

We’re still making “progress“.

Anti- Evangelism

 

Copy of a Facebook post which I think is worth repeating here. The article is by an atheist who was raised as a right wing evangelical.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/white-evangelicals-made-a-deal-with-trump-now-what.html

>Evangelicals, Galli added, “are deeply suspicious of human authority,” but only to a point. What they may fear, really, is authority they don’t control. “Paradoxically,” he continued, “they are a group that’s attracted to authoritarian leaders, whether that person be a pastor of a megachurch or a dictator.”

... This, too, is something the modern GOP has in common with the Christian right. Democracy is the enemy. People can’t be trusted with their own souls. Leave them to their own devices, and they make the wrong choices, take the easy way out, threaten everything holy. They need a savior, whether they like it or not.<

This is the problem with Christ as king. He’s an absolute ruler. Morality is whatever he says it is. Right and wrong or whatever he says they are. There is nothing forbidden as long as he wills it. Deus vult!

It is this extremism which is making evangelicals into anti-evangelicals. They are driving people out, not only out of their churches, but of all religion.

From a couple of weeks ago

So studies now show that the wealthy tend to be more selfish and greedy than the non-wealthy. It is also shown that this tends to apply even when people who were poor suddenly become wealthy, for example by winning the lottery. Those of us who have worked in poverty-stricken neighborhoods are not surprised by this discovery. When we used to work with the Salvation Army collecting food baskets for Christmas and Thanksgiving, representatives of the charity always informed us that they got better food items, and more of them, from Adelanto, the poor city, than from other areas of the High Desert. Those who could least afford it, were those who gave the most. Items donated in areas which were better off economically tended toward obvious throwaways from their pantries which were not being used by their own families.

All of which makes you wonder about the details of human nature. We can be a very puzzling species. I don't do very well in this area myself. Clearly, I and others who call ourselves Christians, are obligated to take good care of the poor. All I can say that I do is provide a meal for those of ask when I'm out shopping. This happened yesterday. A couple of young men and a very beautiful dog asked for a meal; so of course I bought them a couple of meals at Del Taco and provided five dollars to purchase a can opener, since the dog's owner said he had the dog food, but was ruining his knife opening the cans the hard way.

For this I was thanked and praised, but I should have been criticized.  Like so many who are doing better than others, I give sporadically and give less than I should.  Humans, got to love us, but we don't make it easy, do we?