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April 6, 2006Fight between light and dark, playing before our eyesI have noticed that for the past week or so we’re being treated to stories in the press which seem designed to foment doubts about the tenents, stories and beliefs of Christianity and the efficacy of prayer. Today we get the Judas just did what Jesus asked him to do story from the NY Times and here. Yesterday it was, Jesus walked on Ice, not water (complete with an article illustration using “The People’s Jesus” from a few years ago. Ugh.) A few days before that it was oh, yeah, and by the way, prayer? It does nothing. Can’t help but wonder if some of this is meant to be a prelude to the release of the Da Vinci Code movie - advance work, if you will. Here we have a plethora of stories trying to debunk common Christian understanding, and I am wondering if it is all part of the movement to mush-up soggy Christians - to foment doubt - and to soften up the non-believers to the idea that if everything Christians believe is worthless, well then, their influence is to be discounted or even disdained, lessened and disresepected. There is a game afoot - already in play, I think. The gameboard is so huge that we can’t see all the pieces. Chesterton used to write about the paradox of a man riding on the back of a beast so big he didn’t know it was a beast and merely thought it was the world. Is it about time to gird up our loins? I suspect so. Cardinal Martino is certainly not helping out with his latest pronouncements. All the name of “dialogue” and “sensitivity” of course. The response from the Islamists makes it clear that they are interested in neither. D’Hippolito’s piece is a must-read, and an upsetment, too. As quoted: “The words of Cardinal Martino on a host of highly important questions constitute a position clearly antithetical to the one repeatedly and vigorously marked out by Benedict XVI. One could even say that these words form a sort of embroidered design of a real and proper anti-Ratzingerian manifesto.” So, Martino is a loose cannon, for sure - but the press LOVES to quote him - and they LOVE to give the impression that his pronouncements come from “the Vatican.” Benedict had better do something about him, and soon. As I said…this is a game with many pieces, many players - we can’t even see the players at the edges and in the corners - we just have to play with what is before us, in our little spaces. And can I just say this? If you haven’t been praying for the president in a while…it might be a good time to start again. If things continue as they are, expect some ugliness that goes beyond impeachment, and a true tearing apart of our nation. Prof. Bainbridge thinks bringing up this old Gnostic “Gospel of Judas” is all about The Da Vinci Code release. And also, you know, it’s typical Easter “counterpoint.” Related: Jesuit says Gospel of Judas is not a “Gospel” http://theanchoressonline.com/2006/04/06/fight-between-light-and-dark-playing-before-our-eyes/trackback/ 21 Responses to “Fight between light and dark, playing before our eyes” |
April 6th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
And of course, as Christianity is mocked and debunked by our intellectual/media/academic elite, Islam will be treated with kid gloves as the Chardonnay swillers cower in fear of offending the sons of Muhammad. Notice in Britain already, stories on Islam are reported in a factual tone with no qualifiers (eg: The Koran was dictated by the Angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad PBUH), while stories on Christianity and Judaism are alwasy filled with: “according to tradition,” “allegedly,” “believed to have” etc. Its like Christopher Hitchens (a socialist and an atheist no less) once observed, “For Islam to succeed the intellectual elite of the West will have to load all of the bullets in the revolver aim it at the temple of Western Civilization and pull the trigger.” Those bullets are sliding into the cylinder as we speak Madame.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
That’s a great quote from Hitchens, Bob.
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And just think, they’ll go ahead and pull the trigger…mostly simply because they hate GWB, and therefore cannot side with him, even if it means their own deaths.
Golda Meier said “we must hope the Arabs love their children more than they hate the Jews.” The left hates GWB more than they love their own civilization. But then, after a few generations of “America is bad,” being indoctrinated into them…they are tumbling easily. And taking the rest of us with them.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
I think that many of us are starting to feel bent under the weight of the various things that have been happening. If W & co. have some cards to play, they might consider playing them soon.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
I agree.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
I think it is dangerous to place too much of one’s faith in either miracles or the infalibility of a man made institution such as the Catholic Church.
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Only one miracle in the New Testament really matters, the resurection of Jesus, all the rest could be false, misunderstandings, allegories or myths and it wouldn’t matter. The truth of that miracle is not confirmed by it being written of, but by the Holy Spirit.
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Jesus could have told Judas to betray him, and the resurection wouldn’t be changed by that. Jesus could have had a wife and kids, and the resurection wouldn’t be changed by that or made less significant. Jesus could have walked on ice, or water, or the entire incident could have been a misunderstanding of a parable and the resurection wouldn’t be changed by it.
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Similarly, if your faith is in a human institution, such as the Catholic Church, your faith is doomed to fail. Humans are fallible weak creatures and it is undeniable that the Church has made mistakes and human politics had a role in both the formation of the Church and its methods of dealing with dissent. God can of course work with such flawed materials, and one can certainly believe in the authority of the Catholic Church while acknowledging that God gives the humans in control of it agency and they therefore will make mistakes.
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True faith isn’t based upon miracles, or perfect institutions. It is based upon something entirely different and far more sublime.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
Anchoress,
Off subject, I’m afraid. But I’ve been meaning to ask you something. Do you Catholics have to obey your Bishops when they tell you, for example, not to obey US law on illegal immigration? Or can you tell them to go fly a miter?
And, yeah, darn right I’m praying like a sonovagun.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
The point being, of course, David, that my faith is NOT in “the church” or in “the miracles” but in the Lord. While your admonishment is a valuable one, it ignores the fact that every little drip is another means of fomenting doubt among those who are not perhaps as clear about what it is they believe - who have perhaps not had the opportunities to really develop a sound sense of Christianity. This sort of stuff is profoundly damaging to them, and it cheers up those who literally hate Christianity.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
#6 - no, we don’t have to obey a bishop who tells us not to obey our nations laws. “Fear God but honor the king” and “render unto Ceasar” still matter.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
As far as Jesus walking on a piece of ice - deduced 2000 years later by a scientist who determines it happens once very 1000 years, blah, blah, blah - yeah, well, I know for a fact that it was water wings for the tootsies that Jesus used. My deductions are based on human nature and the ability to invent nifty things that happens once every day.
Make sense? Exactly. Putzes!
Moving on the to Gospel of Judas: Oy!
“The Gnostics’ beliefs were often viewed by bishops and early church leaders as unorthodox, and they were frequently denounced as heretics. The discoveries of Gnostic texts have shaken up Biblical scholarship by revealing the diversity of beliefs and practices among early followers of Jesus.” Those texts reveal the ‘diversity of beliefs and practices among’ the Gnostics. They reveal nothing about the rest of the Believers. Why this idiot can’t ‘get’ the connection, I don’t know.
‘”You can see how early Christians could say, if Jesus’s death was all part of God’s plan, then Judas’s betrayal was part of God’s plan,” said Ms. King, the author of several books on the Gospel of Mary. “So what does that make Judas? Is he the betrayer, or the facilitator of salvation, the guy who makes the crucifixion possible?”‘ - Once again, this is not new thought. None of it is startling or unexpected! This is a line of thought I have followed, too. And nobody on this earth can claim any great intellectual prowess for me! It’s rather easy to bring to a conclusion: GOD uses all of us for HIS own purposes. By using Judas Iscariot to betray the Messiah to the Jewish authorities, GOD simply moved HIS plan along. You can say that Judas, therefore, facilitated the Resurrection. By this kind of intellectual navel-gazing you can also credit Satan with facilitating the Resurrection. Not exactly deep thinking, is it?
Exciting, because old manuscripts are, by their very rarity, exciting? You betcha! Nothing more.
Moving on to Cardinal Marino - why the heck hasn’t Rome brought the boob back to Rome for a nice quiet retirement, where he won’t hurt people? The man is a fool.
The MSM is eager to repudiate Christianity any way possible. We know it. And it will avail them nothing. GOD will not be mocked for long. That’s why Christians don’t worry about these ‘revelations’. We know the truth. And we know the future.
April 6th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
#8. Whew! That’s a relief! I was beginning to like the Catholic Church. Not enough to actually sign up, but more than happy to snarl at her many tormenters.
April 6th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
#10…and now…you don’t like us any more?
April 6th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
Anchoress said “every little drip is another means of fomenting doubt among those who are not perhaps as clear about what it is they believe - who have perhaps not had the opportunities to really develop a sound sense of Christianity. This sort of stuff is profoundly damaging to them, and it cheers up those who literally hate Christianity.”
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I think that this may be true, but it is a result of too much emphasis on the part of many Christians on miracles. The sort of stories linked to should not be viewed as a threat, knowledge and truth (and even wild speculation) does not harm the Word of God. It is only when new knowledge (for example that some early Christians thought Judas was a part of God’s plan) is viewed as a threat that it in fact becomes a threat.
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I would advise making your weakness your strength, accepting that human knowledge is limited, man is fallible, and that our histories will have weakness in them.
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And if anti-Christian people find joy in the fact that man is fallible, that cannot hurt you, it only hurts them.
April 6th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
#5… fortunately for us, though, the Church is not some man made institution… unless you consider Christ just a man.
April 6th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
Excellent post.
Think of it as the commercialization of Christ- follwing the commercialization of Christmas, Easter, etc.
You know, so we can all just ‘get along.’
April 6th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
#11. No, no, A, you’re reading me wrong. There’s a great deal I like and admire about you RCs; I was afraid that your bishops could just order you all to go and be silly like them. You say they can’t and that’s good enough for me.
As for all those hit & runs this week against Christianity, well, it’s the Easter Season, so it’s time to give us the finger. Besides, boy, did They get burned bad last year by Mel Gibson’s movie!
April 6th, 2006 at 8:49 pm
The Gospel of Judas
Reports the NYT: ‘Gospel of Judas’ Surfaces After 1,700 Years. If anything, the documents are a remarkable find:
The entire 66-page codex also contains a text titled James (also known as First Apocalypse of James), a letter by Peter and …
April 6th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
Wait, maybe some missed that this comes to us from the NY Times. How foolish to not see that it must then be true. And of course National Geographic would never have anything to do with something that in any way placed doubt on Christian faith. By the way, did either of these institutions find truth in the New Testament or any other part of the Bible. If some old parchment shows up from the 4th century that would dispute any of the accepted truths of Christianity it would find a welcome audiance waiting on the left. If they found a parchment that has always been clearly tied to the apostles that walked with Christ or from those that walked with these apostles, and that had never been lost or hidden, that they would attack forever.
I wonder if the Times would report a parchment that was found that clearly labeled the Koran as filled with lies and Mohammad a child abuser if they would publish it with praise or attack it as false?
Of course this is all about the Da Vinci Code coming out soon. It is one of the ongoing attacks on the Christian faith by those who are part of and those who are leading the culture of death. Of course the focus of all Christian attacks are those that hit on the Catholic Church. That has been going on for over 2000 years.
April 6th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
If things continue as they are, expect some ugliness that goes beyond impeachment, and a true tearing apart of our nation.
Over what? And by whom? Hillary Clinton? Charles Schumer? Harry Reid?
We are certainly inching closer and closer to a major Congressional election victory for the Democratic Party. I suppose in some quarters such a thing would be viewed as “ugliness that goes beyond impeachment, and a true tearing apart of our nation” but I certainly don’t pay such quarters much mind. After all, every once in a while parties do win elections.
Parties win elections for reasons and, if the Democrats do happen to win [they really haven't been all that proactive about trying to win], it will be for the simple reason that the elected officials of the party currently in power are inept when they are not corrupt.
Beyond that, I frankly don’t see much of the Hand of Satan in the current American political scene. Or, for that matter in the entire American scene.
America is just like the polls say it is, a big, lazy-minded, country where most people have a vague belief in Divinity, if asked, but are not inclined to do that much about it.
There is really very little “hatred” for Christianity here and what is there is confined to groups [from college professors to bikers] who are essentially marginalized from the mainstream in one fashion or another.
But what is very widespread is a strong distaste for exaggerated public display on the order of all the wailing and caterwauling that went on when the Ten Commandments Rock was dragged out of the Alabama courthouse.
Of course, there are always those who can’t tell the difference between these two social phenomena.
That said, we can set a few basic parameters for the “Clash Of Civilizations”.
It may be perfectly possible, and even desirable, to keep Islam at arms length [As I presume Benedict wishes from what I read here], but it is not going to be possible to expel it from the planet.
So it simply won’t do to pretend that it is possible.
Some accomodation or other to it will have to be made. What we work out by trial and error will likely satisfy no one, Muslim, Christian, or Secular, but it will be far better for everybody than the alternative.
In a similar vein, a country like many in Europe with an established church which allows “toleration of religous dissent” rather than “free exercise of religion” can perfectly well return to the old practice of disenfrnchisement of dissenting religious minorities, whether Muslim or not, if they so choose.
The only question is whether they will tolerate the police invasiveness of a Cardinal Richeleau or the forced conversion laws of Ferdinand and Isabella to manage the social strains imposed by large disenfranchised minorities.
It will not be possible to shut European Muslims out of political social participaton without essentially authoritarian governments.
So it won’t do to pretend that it is possible.
If you want the goods, you have to pay the price, and it does none of us any good to act otherwise.
And the abridgement of “free exercise of religion” here where it is constitutionally protected, for anybody, Muslim or Christian, will require far more emotional inflammation of those Americans who are religiously indifferent in practice, whatever hazy beliefs they may have in principle.
I don’t think any view informed by common sense would expect this to occur any time soon.
So it really won’t do to pretend otherwise.
April 7th, 2006 at 8:26 am
[...] Then the Anchoress had this to say "There is a game afoot - already in play, I think." [...]
April 8th, 2006 at 7:55 pm
[...] Then the Anchoress had this to say "There is a game afoot - already in play, I think." And this showed up on Newsbusters - NBC has no problem offending Christians. [...]
September 27th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
[...] POTSHOTS AT JESUS: “Fight between light and dark, playing before our eyes” …. (theanchoressonline) [...]