I was reading through the Bible's Leviticus today. Among the things it's illegal to do: consult with fortune tellers, get a tattoo, be a priestly dwarf, look at your aunt when she's naked, sleep with your parents or a goat. These things create confusion, God says.
I wasn't surprised that you're not supposed to sleep with your goat or get a tattoo or consult with wizards or boff your parents. I was especially surprised by the interdiction against dwarves becoming priests. Come to think of it: I don't think I've ever seen a dwarf priest. Do they exist? I'm not so sure what I think about dwarf priests but I'm sure I haven't seen one. I have, however, seen a midget nun. It was in the summer of 1987, and I was walking on Montmartre in Paris, and way on the back of the hill, I saw her climbing a short set of steps. It seemed normal.
Leviticus 21:18-21: For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose... Or crookbakt, or a dwarf..."
48 comments:
it used to be that any physical abberration like a lost finger was enough to disqualify soemone from the roman catholic priesthood
recently i attended mass and the celebrant was in a wheel chair
he is dying of some lou gherig type syndrome
on his last legs at is were
and i've attended mass where the priest was blind
nuns with guns
dwarf priests with handgrenades
whatstheworldcomingto
JH -- about when did the deformities begin to be accepted?
This is the big push now -- all weirdness should be accepted.
Back then, there was a perfection and an idealized form. Now, it's anything goes.
People and individuals come before the LAW.
I find it to be a very curious shift.
Kirby: Back when Jesus was around.
Note: we no longer abide by Levitical laws.
We must love God and love each other--and that's it, irrespective of whatever rules folks like to impose.
GM, that not only doesn't make any sense because it isn't possible and also uses the evil l. word, but it is evil because it is so messy.
What a whack job.
Or wack job.
You're just so wrong.
There are all kinds of rules still extant, beginning with the big 10. But there are many many in the first three books and in Leviticus. Whoever cut it down to 10 was out of their minds.
Geez, talk about the terrible simplifiers!
I wish you would read your Bible, Kirby.
From the Second Letter of John:
And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment just as you have heard it from the beginning—you must walk in it.
Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh; any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist! Be on your guard, so that you do not lose what we have worked for, but may receive a full reward. Everyone who does not abide in the teaching of Christ, but goes beyond it, does not have God; whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. Do not receive into the house or welcome anyone who comes to you and does not bring this teaching; for to welcome is to participate in the evil deeds of such a person.
GM, the verses you cite wipe out everyone who isn't Christian. Is that love? It's quite separatist. It's easy to love people who believe exactly as we do. I don't have any problems with that, but outside of that, in a pluralistic society, we have to obey the law. It's the best we've got in a multicultural society in which witches, sorcerers, and secularists, are together with Jewish, Christian, and other religious groups.
Not sure if Jesus says who can be a Christian leader and who can't. His disciples were all ordinary sized men. Not sure if there were any dwarves in his posse.
Stu, good luck with your proposal.
He was clearly kind to Zaccheus--who was, after all, a wee little man.
Actually Kirby they wipe out those who "go beyond" the teaching of Christ--that is, those who would put rules on life and salvation beyond loving God and loving each other.
zaccheus he
did climb a tree
our lord to see
bob of the fine frozen film of ice
According to Wikipedia it was a sycamore tree, a crummy tree, and he (a mighty tax collector) had to lower himself in climbing up, but by humiliating himself, he came to see God. Quite a neat set of paradoxes.
The tree was meant to be a foreshadowing of the cross.
Zack
Is
Back
In
Basic
Black
If the
IRS
Report
on
Trump
Would
Show
Us
His rump.
Don't forget to vote in the public conveyances poetry contest below. Right now we're all tied up. Deadline for voting is this evening at 11:59.
We have a three-way tie in the public transportation contest. One more vote could yield a winner. Please do vote. Dwarves get two votes to make up for the past discrimination.
One more vote could yield a winner.
Or not. GM voted, and thereby created a four-way tie.
Maybe Frankie, or Dim Lamp, or Coitus, or someone else will yet cast the winning vote. We have two more hours. I'm watching the Mavericks vs. the Heat. Tied with five minutes to go in the second. There is now a five way tie for first in the poetry contest. We must be kidding.
There's now a 5-way tie for winner. Brett, Frankie, Curtis, Helen, WW, JEP, Dim Lamp, or someone else may yet emerge to vote before midnight -- 21 minutes away, or else it looks like we'll all be riding this bus together, people, all as second class citizens, and no one to lord it over the others.
I'm afraid my transportation masterpiece was waylaid by unexpected demands. But I thought you had to submit an entry in order to vote. Is that not so?
I would have voted for Stu. I especially liked the rhythm and beat of his poem, although it’s difficult to resist jh.
I do not have much of a religious background, but I’m puzzled by all this other discussion. Wouldn’t it rather un-Christian-like and uncharitable to exclude from any type of Christian participation those who have physical imperfections, deformities or handicaps, even historically? It’s this type of hypocrisy that repels me from even wanting to investigate Christianity.
Please convince me otherwise.
Frankie, this is kind of what my mom said when I said no dwarves allowed into the altar area in Leviticus. She said, "well, it's not their fault, and anyway, didn't God MAKE them dwarves?"
These were good points. I'm just reporting on the book.
I think belief in God is a mystery of some sort.
All through Numbers (comes after Leviticus) the Jews don't believe. Some of them get leprosy because they don't believe. One woman is turned snow-white with leprosy in a twinkling. Whole armies are smashed, because they lack belief.
It appears that not getting what you want or being what God wants is some kind of test of belief, and if you believe in spite of the fact that you get nothing from it, and are even scorned for your belief, is the only way to get God's favor.
Doubting Thomases are routinely trashed.
Once Christ comes, things get easier.
But in the OT not only do specific people suffer quite instantly and disastrously for their lack of belief, but so their sins are visited upon their children for generations.
The logic is quite unlike our own which is routinely inclusive, and forgiving, with very few standards. We are supposed to love every weirdo, and every weird thing they do, in order to be seen as loving.
In the OT, we are supposed to love God and His standards, and despise anyone and everything that doesn't fit.
I was talking about this with my pastor the other day after church, and he said, "Well, we don't take those standards so seriously as we once did."
I said, "But we still do. Some do. We still think for example that homosexuality is wrong, or at least some do, and they quote Leviticus as back-up."
He said, "But there's a distinction between moral wrongs and social wrongs."
"How do you know the difference?" I asked.
"You debate it," he said.
That's what everybody does, is debate. There's no debating with God in the OT, I note. He lays down the law, and if you don't like it, He'll turn you into a pillar of salt, or turn you snow-white with leprosy (how terrifying is that?).
But with Christ I think there is more of a sense of dialogue.
It's the beginning of a new kind of parenting where the kids can sass back instead of getting instantly creamed.
Every denomination is different. The Unitarians believe that our reason is sufficient, and we can figure things out on our own.
Others hold to the old rules irregardless of how unreasonable they seem.
But should everything be made up by individuals? Manson thought it was ok to kill. Some people deserve it, he says.
Elizabeth Smart's tormentor (rapist, recently sentenced to life in prison) thought she loved him.
Ditto with the Garrido creep who abducted the 11-year old in California.
Someone has to set some standards.
God did do that. I rather like it. Is it a bit pinchy at times?
You bet.
We are always caught between the extreme universalists (God in the OT is nothing if not an extreme universalist) and the extreme relativists (today's secularists).
Jesus Himself said it was a narrow road that went to heaven.
Everyone else is on the highway to Hell, trundling along with all the refuse.
Dwarves can, I think, attain heaven. They just weren't supposed to serve at the altar.
Was it because of something they did?
In Hindu faith you get this notion of karma. You did something in another life to deserve your station.
I have no idea why God created dwarves just to diss them.
It's weird.
But perhaps it's a test.
There's this teeny guy named Zaccheus in the NT who Christ rather liked, but He didn't choose him to be a disciple.
The disciples were all able-bodied men of a certain age.
Frankie, We have a few superliberals here, and I talked one of them, Stuart Kurtz, into discussing this matter with you. He's got a proposal he needs to deal with until midnight this evening, but when he arises fresh tomorrow morning, shall treat you to the liberal view of things (which to my mind is the same as the secular view of things, so your viewpoints will probably mesh).
Let us see.
No need to post this unless you want to, but “irregardless” is one of those words to me that’s like fingernails on the chalkboard. Since you and your blog can be so intelligent and instructive, I thought I’d pass this along to you as a return favor(?). Sorry to be so pedantic (not a trait I want to cultivate), but in this instance I cannot control myself.
Irregardless: An erroneous word that, etymologically, means the exact opposite of what it is used to express, attested in non-standard writing from at least 1870s (e.g. "Portsmouth Times," Portsmouth, Ohio, U.S.A., April 11, 1874: "We supported the six successful candidates for Council in the face of a strong opposition. We were led to do so because we believed every man of them would do his whole duty, irregardless of party, and the columns of this paper for one year has [sic] told what is needed."); probably a blend of irrespective and regardless. Perhaps inspired by the double negative used as an emphatic.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010Douglas Harper
I will be deeply appreciative of anything Stuart would like to share. If I'm remembering correctly from what I've read on your blog, Stuart is devout, isn't he (Catholic?)? I'll be interested to learn how he reconciles his liberalism with his religious beliefs.
You might be surprised at how much my secular positions coincide with many religious assertions, at least superficially. One big difference is that I don't feel compelled to evoke God's laws in establishing my rules of conduct. Does that make me any less moral? I would argue just the opposite.
Oops. Meant to write:
"Wouldn’t it BE rather un-Christian-like and uncharitable . . . "
I never understood irregardless and am amused by its etymology. I love to use words like that which seem totally senseless.
It's one of the many reasons that I hope Palin enters the fray and somehow wins over BO.
Think of how she will enrich our language with her bizarre verbiage.
Althouse thinks the cutest one always wins.
That means either Romney or Palin. Would either of these be cuter than BO? Is anyone in politics cuter than BO?
Couple things:
1) As we debated last year, the correct justification for the preclusion of homosexuals from church office is Romans not Leviticus (and yes, Stu, I know that "correct" might rile you but what I mean is that if you want to make that preclusion your defense is Paul not Moses).
2) There were more followers of Christ (up to 120 at the beginning of Acts) than then inner 12 of the Disciples (a number long favored for completion)--we've no idea how much Zacchaeus was involved other than the feast at his house--it's entirely possible he was a supporter/follower/etc.
It's clear, however, why the disciples were the men that they were--though Jesus (irrespective of Catholic and Pauline opinion) was glad to have women as important members of his coterie it would not have done either in Palestine, the Greek-influenced world, or ultimately the Roman-influenced world to allow a woman such a position of power--Jesus had to make some concessions to the time.
It seems, however, by the time of Paul (Priscilla et al) that this was no longer a pressing concern. How unfortunate that such attitudes were soon reversed.
An obvious play on words is fun, but who's to know when you insert a word like "irregardless" in an otherwise sober post whether you're being playful or otherwise.
Romney isn't cute, he's freakish, so according to Leviticus he should be banned from the altar. Palin . . . well, why not reinforce the negative perceptions many have of Americans? She does carry a certain perverse entertainment value.
Obama's appearance is presidential, not cute. Tallness is good in a leader. Let's face it, these superficial markers matter. Perhaps that's what Christ understood when he chose his disciples, even though that seems a bit un-Christ-like.
Frankie,
Peace be with you.
I am a practicing Lutheran, and have been my entire life. Faith is at the center of my life, and my self-understanding is that I'm a social liberal because God calls us to seek justice, and to be his stewards. It is faith that leads me out of common human patterns of selfishness and self-absorption, and faith that leads me to seeing the people around me as they are, God's children, in all of their beauty, complexity, and confusion.
Judaism is and was the faith of the people of Israel. It is not just a religion, it is a nation and an ethnicity. The Jewish view of the world is that they are God's chosen people, and that their role in the larger world is as a model of purity/holiness. They see the ten commandments as God's law for all nations, but they themselves are bound by many more laws which emphasize their purity/holiness in body and thought.
Christianity has often thought of itself as the "new Israel." This is a dangerous claim, in that it has lead some astray through the belief that the Jew's are no longer God's people. Setting aside such errors, Christianity might be better thought of as the "new Israel, and the new Rome," because it draws its distinctive identity from central claims of both. First, Christianity as a religion is rooted in Judaism, and in particular in the belief that there is one God, the creator of the Universe, and that he revealed himself to the Jews, but even more fully through the life, message, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But Christianity also makes claims of universality, as Jesus himself did in reaching out to the Samaritan woman, which it sets up in opposition to Rome's attempt to use a state religion based on emperor worship as a means to control conquered nations. You rightly invoke this universality against Kirby's erroneous appeal to Leviticus as a way to limit the priesthood.
There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:28)
Let's take on the specifics of the matter. The Israelites saw life as God's gift (as we do too), but they drew from this the further moral consequence that no life, not even animal life, could be taken except by God's will. So, eating meat, which involves the slaughter of animals, necessarily became built into their religion. The Levitical priests were, to put it plainly, butchers and cooks as much as intercessors between God and man. In this light, the Levitical restrictions can be seen as eminently practical: being a priest was a job that had physical as well as genealogical qualifications.
Christians understand the priesthood differently. We are all priests:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9)
Our priesthood comes with different qualifications, qualifications that seek to include rather than exclude. Indeed,
For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well. (Hebrews 7:12)
If dwarves and hunch-backs profess faith in Christ, then they join us as a part of the priesthood of all believers, under the new law,
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:1-6)
I'm only reporting as I go through the OT. Not using it as justification for limiting the priesthood. But of course it has been used in that way.
Frankie's analogy of presidential is quite good. BO said he doesn't look like the men on our coins and bills (mostly presidents with the exceptions of Franklin, Hamilton and Susan B. Anthony).
So now we have all these firsts which break the mold of what came before. But we still need the first hunchbacked president, the first quadroplegic, the first woman, the first homosexual, the first transgender, the first Eskimo, the first Hispanic, the first sufferer from Lyme Disease, the first blind president, deaf president, etc. And of course dwarf fits that rubric of firsts.
Now technically the only requirements are that the president be born in the US of A, and that they be over 35.
But all this other unconscious baggage also helps us to limit the presidency to someone who we think sounds smart, looks good, will not embarrass us, is wise, and knowledgeable, and will be reasonable, and almost all of our presidents have expressed faith in God, which means they are one of "us." And yet somewhat better.
Why was Moses chosen?
His only qualification seems to have been that he killed an Egyptian slaver who had been brutal. Then he had hid out for forty years. His number seems to have been forty. That number kept coming up.
Forty came up a lot in that era. I wonder what its significance was.
One of the things with Palin is that she doesn't strike us as presidential. She's a bit short, and her language isn't pulled back or bureaucratic. It's alive, and rather inappropriate at times.
But what is appropriateness? This seems finally to be the question.
Must be from Harvard/Yale is another of the "appropriateness" grids through which most of our presidential timber must pass. Palin went to some place in Idaho. Reagan to some place in Indiana. Bush 2 did attend Yale, but the left never said enough about the Cs he received there.
Passing through our supposedly high-caliber institutions!
In Freudian terms, the father (superego) is now more and more on the cutting room floor. The father of the OT is hooted at.
It's the son (the ID) that is all the left cares about now.
Let's get rid of the paternal, they scream. Let's let go of all standards and just live within pure feeling. If it feels good, do it, and so on.
I think God is conservative, and that nature is too.
Stu and many on the left obviously see Christ as anything goes as long as there's love, love, love.
Love for the law: the law of the father, is not part of this.
Love is now something that allies fun, will to power, and personal kicks.
This however is not true in the life of the actual liberals I know: many of whom have been married for many years, and hold themselves (but not others) to high standards.
It's just that to come out with any standards at all is to be accused of Nazism, fascism, etc.
Nobody wants that.
So all borders, boundaries, and anything that smacks of law, is sinister.
But there are laws nevertheless. The law of gravity was overthrown by the left as a social construct in a famous paper called the Sokal Hoax.
It didn't mean it didn't exist.
It just meant that it was a fictive social construct.
But I think all the old laws in the OT are still in force.
As is the law of gravity.
It's just that God likes to give us a chance to mend our ways ourselves before He pummels everybody.
But I think all the old laws in the OT are still in force.
Got any 50/50 clothes in your closet, infidel?
GM,
I appreciated your note, which I thought was well and fairly expressed, even though I don't agree with all of your positions.
As we debated last year, the correct justification for the preclusion of homosexuals from church office is Romans not Leviticus (and yes, Stu, I know that "correct" might rile you but what I mean is that if you want to make that preclusion your defense is Paul not Moses).
I honor you for the clarification, which amounts to taking an inconvenient position in rejecting the relevance of the Levitical warrants. I see no reason to try to refight that fight—it is better just to acknowledge that we've evaluated the same evidence, but have come to different conclusions in good faith. So there's not much to be gained by rehashing the matter unless there's new evidence or a change in one of our positions.
"Little-O" orthodox Christianity has a balanced view of the Old Testament, in that it finds in the Old Testament authentic insight into God and the relationship between God and man that augments and grounds New Testament understanding, but it places the Old Testament below the New in terms of authority, and it distinguishes between the law as given to Israel, and the Law of the Kingdom of God, jots and tittles notwithstanding. But in unorthodox Christianity, one finds the reciprocal errors of Marcion (who viewed the God of the Jews as distinct from the God of the Christians, the modern equivalent of which is a rejection or dismissal of Old Testament) and the Judaizers (who argued for strict obedience to Mosaic law as incumbent upon Christians, and so place Old Testament law above New Testament gospel).
In terms of the present company, I believe that you present as the most Marcionite, whereas Kirby, with his obsession on the law, presents as the most Judaizing. This isn't to accuse either of you as being outside of orthodoxy, but it is intended as a bit of a challenge to both of you to clarify your views in these terms. Or at least to you. Kirby's views, regrettably, seem all too clear.
It seems, however, by the time of Paul (Priscilla et al) that this was no longer a pressing concern. How unfortunate that such attitudes were soon reversed.
Indeed.
I might be amenable to changes, but I'm new to the ballgame. I don't want to throw out any rules until I've thoroughly understood them, and their ramifications. This might take about ten more years. Right now I'm reading through the OT again (just finished Numbers where the Medianites bite the dust, and Balaam's ass starts to speak -- I mean his donkey begins to dispute with him!).
Later, Balaam himself bites the dust, but I don't know what happens to his ass!
There has to be SOME kind of set of standards.
It can't all just be based on feelings of love.
Love is fickle, love is strange, love changes in a twinkling, and is gone in a fortnight, and then it reemerges.
You need instead a RUBRIC.
And God does provide that in Leviticus.
No doubt it's too harsh for contemporary sensibilities. No doubt dwarves would complain.
As well as people with flat noses.
(I'd like a precise gradient listed rather than leaving this up to subjective impression!)
Yes, anyone with too flat a nose cannot be a priest.
Did God just not like flat noses, as in, this was a personal thing, or what?
After they conquer the Medianites, God has yet a further rubric. Any woman who has lain with a man must be killed (did this require gynecological examination of the 300,000 women that were captured?).
Numbers, and the scoring rubrics, fascinate me.
Of course there is always someone who is going to say: that's arbitrary. And to some extent all scoring is arbitrary.
Why in football does running across a line count for six points, while in basketball if you do exactly the same thing, you are considered out of bounds?
That's just the way the game is played.
I don't think you can play any kind of game without some kind of rules and laws, and very precise boundaries.
As arbitrary as they may seem, rules and laws and rubrics make it possible to play a game.
If you're just dependent on a feeling of love, on the other hand, you leave yourself open to the Garridos and Mansons and other people with freaky notions of love.
Like everything else, love has to be carefully and objectively defined. This is what the left is so allergic to doing.
Not (in many cases) in their own lives, but in terms of an overall rubric.
But the smarter members of the left are also finding that they need these guidelines to function.
Obama (I grant that he got OBL) doesn't obey laws, and when he does he makes huge muddy treatises with unclear lines (stealthcare) which frighten everybody from getting into the game.
He crossed into Pakistan in the night with stealth copters.
This messes everything up, although it may have short term gains.
Not only is all clarity disappearing in the left (which is why I had to get out) but they are moving into the churches and also trying to break down all walls, laws, and rubrics that help us to make any sense of things. I grant that some of the laws seemed somewhat obscure or arbitrary, but then, what law isn't?
why 60 mph instead of 61?
Why does the border of Pennsylvania and New Jersey follow a river?
why does all the landfill on Liberty Island belong to New Jersey, while the original land belong to NY?
Under the law of love everything is everybody's, and that's what the left really wants: matriarchal communism with no distinctions, no laws, just a feeling of love.
It's a mess. That's why I am against it.
Kirby,
You're looking for love, which is to say, justification, in all the wrong places:
For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. (Romans 3:28)
Or, at somewhat greater length:
We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing. (Galations 2:15-21)
So tell me, do you believe that Christ died for nothing? If not, why do you seek justification through the law?
The law helps us understand how to be together in a community. I didn't say anything about justification.
I'm not justifying anything.
You're moving the goal posts.
Kirby - you're against a small counterculture that exists within a larger political viewpoint, and you ascribe the views of the small counterculture to the larger political viewpoint.
It's the fundamental flaw in your thinking, and you keep doing it over and over again.
I'm sure I've said before: The movement of boundaries and laws is not the same as the destruction of all law.
Yet you seem to think because there are a few boundaries and laws that the general left wants to move (and has moved), that they're against all law. And you use the viewpoint of a small, specific, unrepresentative counterculture that Does basically want to eliminate all sense of law in order to tarnish the whole.
It would be like saying that you've gone swimming when you dip the tip of your finger in a cup of water.
If Obama is representative of the left, I mean him, Brett. He's a mess, and turns everything he touches into a mess. OBL: messy way to get him. Stealthcare: huge mess. Is he Christian: mess. Birth certificate: couldn't be bothered with details. Mess.
His language is vague and confused.
I'd prefer Palin. At least I have some idea what she's saying.
I never know what Obama is saying. It's one obfuscation on top of another.
Sneakily, underneath all the obfuscation, he is getting stuff done. He did kill OBL. He is deporting illegals.
But nothing is above board.
Above board everything is camouflaged.
Beneath that, he does have standards, but he doesn't want anybody to know what they are. The left has forced him to act like that, because any clarity in that area, and they get all riled up.
The left still does use law, but they do it sneakily, so that no one can see what they're up to. Russell Saltzmann describes the quota system that was forced on the ELCA a few decades back. Decisions were no longer to be made by theologians, but 60% of the laity. The whole thing became a democracy of know-nothings:
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/06/unraveling-the-ELCA
It's for this reason that I'm extremely careful about wanting to change the Bible, or change anything about it. I haven't even got a seminary background. It's very easy for outsiders to just come in and trample everything and say hey!
That's not right!
without understanding for instance the original context.
Basically, I think Brett is confused as to whether his supposed counterculture is a smaller viewpoint, or whether it's running the show.
I'd say 90-20 it's running the show.
Kirby - You've just been infected by an obfuscating filter.
What Obama does and says is pretty clear.
The fact of the matter is that our Democracy is messy - Things are always messy.
Look at how messy Iraq and Afghanistan are.
Look at how messy Bush's past in the military was, and his connection to oil dealings, and on and on... If you buy that line of rhetoric (I don't. But you buy the analog on the right.)
If you take at face-value the obfuscators, without looking directly at the person, of course you'll be confused.
And if you somehow think that long bills and a messy process are the exception rather than the rule of our democracy, then you's just dern ignunt.
So no - there's not much 'under the table' that Obama does, and especially not compared to his predecessor and other presidents.
I don't see how Obama's doing anything under the table wrt the border - he said he'd focus on criminal illegals and he did. Taking out OBL was going to be messy no matter what.
The fact that the right created a nontroversy about his birth certificate, and that he didn't respond to the crazies, has nothing to do with him.
I mean, look at all the messiness Bush caused! People everywhere still think he was involved with 9/11!!! If he hadn't sheltered the bin Ladens and been directly connected to them...
ayda yada. You get my point. The fact that people on the right make things that don't matter messy for the president doesn't have anything to do with the president's actions. The opposition will always do that, as is their wont.
What you should do is that you should be smart enough to realize that the messiness over his place of birth is a really f'n idiotic stupid-rightie kneejerk nontroversy created by vitriol and stupidity, and you should be dismissive of it and not somehow blame Obama for people being crazy... The certificate of live birth should've been enough, but nooooo, the idiots kept pounding and Trump of the Hair made it a national issue again so Obama had to buck the normal rules to release the birth certificate.
And then you'd probably say oh look, Obama's above the law now! blech.
You need to check your dentures - your arguments no longer have any teeth. They just sound like less zingy early-JADL recitations of talking points, without any of the Latin or cutting turns of phrase.
Stu--John (the Epistoler) is pretty clear on it (as I quoted).
The Law may be interesting but was fulfilled by Jesus and we are therefore under a new covenant (as Jesus says) which is the summation of the law: i.e. love God and love each other.
Going beyond that is heresy.
GM,
Stu--John (the Epistoler) is pretty clear on it (as I quoted).
The Law may be interesting but was fulfilled by Jesus and we are therefore under a new covenant (as Jesus says) which is the summation of the law: i.e. love God and love each other.
Going beyond that is heresy.
:-)
I think it is the fate of the successors of Luther and the successors of Müntzer to confront one another with a regrettable incomprehension. But let us hope no longer enmity, and I acknowledge in this the regrettable intolerance and rage of my theological fore-bearers, and accuse only myself.
A problem with scripture, as beautiful and compelling as it is, is that it resists being mined for one-verse proof texts, especially against a well informed opponent. You quote 2 John 6ff, and I'll quote 1 John 5:2ff. My daughter's baptismal verse was the first two sentences of 1 John 3:10. I have to look up the citation, forgetful as I am, but not the words: "See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God. And so we are."
And so we are.
Let me suggest that, if you live a life informed by love (as I truly believe you do), you'll live much the same life as I do, informed as I am by gospel and law, which I would not say is different from love, so much as it is a different way to explain and understand what is essentially the same attribute of God. For do not the commandments rest on God's love for man? Are they not intended to guide us as to how best to live? There is one foundation to the law, as there is one foundation for gospel, and that is God's love for his creation. For us.
And let me further suggest that the distance between you and me seems large, but is in fact is small. We use different words, but are using them to say very much the same thing. And the irony in this is that the distance between Kirby and me may seem to you to be small, but it is in fact by far the greater, for he and I use the same words, but use them to mean very different things.
Kirby sees love as a weak word, and law as God's cudgel for him to wield. But much as "peace" in bible does not mean the absence of conflict, but rather the presence of justice, so too, love does not mean some dewey-eyed infatuation and counter-productive enabling, but instead the vision that "the other" has a life animated by the same God who animates our life, and that "the other" is no less a child of God than we are, and neither more, nor less, valuable in his eyes than we are. Pope or prostitute, God loves us all. "One Lord, one faith, one baptism," Paul might as well have spoken of love...
I think, though, that for the world it is far more dangerous (or less useful or less loving) to use the law as a crutch or explanation;
I think the law can be useful--but it is "not all" as Edna St. Vincent Millay would say (interesting that her bohemian poetry runs toward the selfish--"it is not food nor drink," etc.)--love is.
Kirby's right in his criticism that the hippies (and their predecessors) co-opted love--but no more than witch-hunters co-opted the law.
Both are dangerous and destructive.
We are, of course, the children of God--but that is shown through our love (and works); the attitude that one must follow the law (or be lead by the law) does not "put it on you" that you have to live and walk in love--that your works must follow your spirit.
That's why I prefer the lesson of love over that of the law (well, that and those Johannine passages).
GM,
Kirby's one-side "law-only" Lutheranism presents an extra-ordinarily distorted view of Lutheran thought.
For us, Law and Gospel are in balance, Law shows us what we should be, and how we fail (in traditional terms, it guides and condemns us), while Gospel places our confidence in salvation on our relationship with God (in traditional terms, that we believe in his promises to us).
Law and Gospel represent a tension that we find useful, the tension between expectations and forgiveness. Moreover, by naming both sides of this tension, we find it easier to explain when people aren't getting it right, e.g., the hippies -- too little Law, the witch-hunters -- too little Gospel.
I don't think that government and Gospel coincide. It's not that I don't believe in the Gospel. ?
Where did that come from?
I just don't think the government and the Gospel either can or should coincide.
Communists believe it can and should.
Normal people don't.
But the law doesn't show us what we should be--according to Paul the law shows us how we have failed.
That's why we have the new covenant and new commandments.
That's why in/since Jesus there is neither Jew nor Gentile.
GM, this is true, that each individual has to decide for themselves how to live, and how to treat others. We ought to try to bring ourselves in line with the standards that the Gospel preaches.
But we can't ask this of the government. First, we live in a pluralist democracy in which there are many different kinds of belief (first amendment guarantees this).
So, what we have in government is the law.
And as members of the government we have to act according to the law (you and I are teachers, and we can't just give everyone an A out of love -- we have to give them the grade that they have merited, while of course treating them as a soul with infinite merit).
It's hard to get this straight.
I think, then, that you need to make it clear (as you seem to be doing now) that you're distinguishing between people and the government.
IMO the state can't "be saved" and is really to be ignored as much as is practicable (render unto Caesar and what-not).
GM, I'm with you.
I'm not sure I'm with you, but I hope you're not with Stu, and I hope you two are not forming a heresy against LS. The law is important even within and for us. We need it. We are not saints who can naturally abide without it.
Paul is not entirely antinomian:
Acts 24:14
English Standard Version (ESV)
14But this I confess to you, that according to the Way, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the Law and written in the Prophets.
paul just needed to prove himself to the jews
maybe we're all religiously marked paradigmatically with his words
i'm sure glad we have the old testament the old words jesus' words would lack context almost completely withoot ( as the canadians say) the historical and semantic intentions from the israelite narrative
and the laws
but you don't eat your chickens kosher slaughtered do you.?..i mean if you're going to be persistent about one aspect of the law you should be persistent about every aspect of the law knock yourself out send your woman to the mikva and be done with it
otherwise
let us pagan goyim fend for ourselves
benighted misbegotten boorish lovestruck oo so feel good lovey liberals like we uns
the world you prescribe cannot exist without gods to challenge the one true god...ok the first commandment is out the window
and for graven images and for sabbath and for family dishonosty and for legal theft and for avarice and for falsity everywhere you go...OK so people try to get it right but the stories in the halls of justice about people getting the shaft because of some preconfigured idea about the essential nature of law and why it is good no people have been shafted shafted and oK so charles manson gets life that's a good thing but there have also been numerous innocents that have been murdered because of a mishandling of the law and the nature of the law is the culprit not the interpreters
if adultery is a joke why bother with law
the law is
adultery happens
now deal with it
now there's a statement that is little used these days but used to run favorably amongst intellectuals and legal experts a formal adjectival term - jesuitical - referring to the jesuitic form of argumentation - which stood a very good chance of yielding truth and innocence so it's a method not so popular anymore
so
how did god love us
how does he continue to love us
that's the question for the law
if god has not loved us we are under no obligation to recognise morality interpreted in a christian vein
is god's law an act of love
i don't know
i sure hope so
if not
i'd say
we're phuqqed
as it were
lutherans tend to think love might turn into art like those gaudy catholics who love and nurture the most decadent artists in the world the musicians and the painters and designers those people are so decadent disgusting overexpressive people making beautiful music and beautiful spaces for worship and who knows what they do in their free times...fornicate probably fornicate
the law is not the protector of truth rather it is a intermediary machine which moderates truth and cuts a deal for truth when the truth can't be had...clever enough
lawyers are mechanics in expensive suits
i agree
we can get too much
love love love
give me a gritty substantial scripture based commentary on the modern world anyday before i have to eat the lvoe love love sermon
but in the end
deus caritas est
you're not free until you let it go give it away release oneself into the utter transitoriness of material things and then let it all fly a way
you'll be OK
gd zz lv
jh
Post a Comment