Category Archives: Religion

Religion

What an odd story

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As C.S. Lewis says somewhere, the first generation of Christians spread all over the Roman empire with one doctrine–that the Lord has risen.

Assume it’s all a lie. (A mistake seems to me out of the question, at least for the first believers. You don’t go to the stake or the lions because Cousin Gaius passed a rumor on to you.) So assume that it’s a lie–what an odd lie. It’s a crime without a motive. A suicide pact whose participants aren’t bitter and sick of the world, but full of joy and charity for others. A conspiracy with no plan for seizing power. A Ponzi scheme that promises poverty.

Poetry, Religion

"Thou hast appointed repentance unto me"

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O Lord, Almighty God of our fathers,

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of their righteous seed;

who hast made heaven and earth, with all the ornament thereof;

who hast bound the sea by the word of thy commandment;

who hast shut up the deep, and sealed it by thy terrible and glorious name; whom all men fear, and tremble before thy power;

for the majesty of thy glory cannot be borne,

and thine angry threatening toward sinners is importable:

but thy merciful promise is unmeasurable and unsearchable;

for thou art the most high Lord,

of great compassion, longsuffering, very merciful,

and repentest of the evils of men.1

Thou, O Lord, according to thy great goodness hast promised repentance and

forgiveness to them that have sinned against thee:

and of thine infinite mercies hast appointed repentance unto sinners,

that they may be saved.

Thou therefore, O Lord, that art the God of the just,

hast not appointed repentance to the just,

as to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,

which have not sinned against thee;

but thou hast appointed repentance unto me that am a sinner:

for I have sinned above the number of the sands of the sea.

My transgressions, O Lord, are multiplied:

my transgressions are multiplied,

and I am not worthy to behold and see the height of heaven

for the multitude of mine iniquities.

I am bowed down with many iron bands,

that I cannot lift up mine head, neither have any release:

for I have provoked thy wrath, and done evil before thee:

I did not thy will, neither kept I thy commandments:

I have set up abominations, and have multiplied offences.

Now therefore I bow the knee of mine heart, beseeching thee of grace.

I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned, and I acknowledge mine iniquities:

wherefore, I humbly beseech thee, forgive me, O Lord, forgive me,

and destroy me not with mine iniquities.

Be not angry with me for ever, by reserving evil for me;

neither condemn me to the lower parts of the earth.

For thou art the God, even the God of them that repent;

and in me thou wilt shew all thy goodness:

for thou wilt save me, that am unworthy, according to thy great mercy.

Therefore I will praise thee for ever all the days of my life:

for all the powers of the heavens do praise thee,

and thine is the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

“The Prayer of Manasseh,” written 200-100 B.C., as translated in the old King James Bible

1 Or “relenting at human misfortunes”

See more notes and a different translation of this ancient poem.

Religion

Luther on Meditating on Christ's Suffering

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Martin Luther (1483-1546)

[Some] so sympathize with Christ as to weep and lament for him because he was so innocent, like the women who followed Christ from Jerusalem, whom he rebuked, in that they should better weep for themselves and for their children. Such are they who run far away in the midst of the Passion season, and are greatly benefitted by the departure of Christ from Bethany and by the pains and sorrows of the Virgin Mary, but they never get farther. Hence they postpone the Passion many hours, and God only knows whether it is devised more for sleeping than for watching. And among these fanatics are those who taught what great blessings come from the holy mass, and in their simple way they think it is enough if they attend mass. To this we are led through the sayings of certain teachers, that the mass opere operati, non opere operantis, is acceptable of itself, even without our merit and worthiness, just as if that were enough. Nevertheless the mass was not instituted for the sake of its own worthiness, but to prove us, especially for the purpose of meditating upon the sufferings of Christ. For where this is not done, we make a temporal, unfruitful work out of the mass, however good it may be in itself. For what help is it to you, that God is God, if he is not God to you? What benefit is it that eating and drinking are in themselves healthful and good, if they are not healthful for you, and there is fear that we never grow better by reason of our many masses, if we fail to seek the true fruit in them?

… St. Bernard was so terror-stricken by Christ’s sufferings that he said: I imagined I was secure and I knew nothing of the eternal judgment passed upon me in heaven, until I saw the eternal Son of God took mercy upon me, stepped forward and offered himself on my behalf in the same judgment.

Religion

Real dragons

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St George (dc303), the

I’m going to go off on the subject of dragons again today, but I want to open my argument out a bit, and consider it in the context of the Christian holiday we’re entering this weekend.

Liberals reject (I’m speaking generally, of course—there are liberals who believe in these teachings) the doctrine of Christ’s substitutionary (that means acting as a substitute) atonement, as well as of His physical resurrection. This rejection is not based (I think) merely on a materialist rejection of miracles—though of course socialism (the true religion of the left) is a materialist philosophy, assuming and promoting the world-view that man lives by bread alone.

The atonement and the resurrection are an existential threat to the central morality—that is, relativism—of the left. Continue reading Real dragons →

Non-fiction, Religion

The opiate of intellectuals

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Mark Tooley at Front Page Magazine reviews Between Faith and Compromise by Momchil Metodiev, a new book about Communist infiltration in the World Council of Churches in the 1970s and ’80s.

But a new book by a Bulgarian author reveals that the KGB and its Bulgarian intelligence affiliate exploited the Bulgarian Orthodox Church for direct influence on the WCC and the Conference of European Churches. In “Between Faith and Compromise,” Bulgarian historian Momchil Metodiev chronicles how the Soviets and their Bulgarian proxies employed the Bulgarian Orthodox and WCC to promote Soviet strategic goals globally.

You kids aren’t old enough to remember this, but back in those days (and back in the ’60s, in my own experience), we brainless Fundamentalists were screaming from the rooftops that the WCC was shot through with Communists. Smarter, more sophisticated churchmen laughed at our ignorance and bigotry.

Of course, we were completely right.

And of course, we will never get credit for it.

Non-fiction, Religion, Reviews

A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years

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I think I can give a rough outline of church history, and I don’t mean the founding of my own church. The BBC has a six DVD set which promises to fill in many of the details I would miss. It’s called A History of Christianity: the First Three Thousand Years. Hosted by Dairmaid MacCulloch, professor of history of the church and fellow at St. Cross College, Oxford, this historical overview looks well-worth your time, though I can’t tell if MacCulloch will lead viewers down a dark road of doubting the supernatural and God’s testimony in the world or leave the faith examined but uncondemned. After watching only the first disc, I believe he will remain respectful, if nothing else.

Here’s a list of disc titles:

Program 1: The First Christianity

Program 2: Catholicism: The Unpredictable Rise of Rome

Program 3: Orthodoxy: From Empire to Empire

Program 4: Reformation: The Individual Before God

Program 5: Protestantism: The Evangelical Explosion

Program 6: God in Dock

I received the first disc for review. Ambrose Video is distributing the DVDs and has a trailer on their product page.

“The First Christianity” was beautiful filmed, as you’d expect. Professor MacCulloch says he won’t shy away from controversy, but he doesn’t delve deeply into it either. His explanation of the major argument over the divine vs. human nature of Jesus did not attempt to settle it with Scripture. He only presented the proponents with their claims and described how the arguments fell out.

In this part of the series, MacCulloch describes what he calls the eastern road out of Jerusalem. Continue reading A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years →

Religion

Fighting for Purity

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The Anchoress talks about the scandal, if that’s the right word for it, in the news over abuse in the Roman Catholic church. She states:

Pope Benedict has taken ownership and control over a heavy burden that his predecessor was too ill to manage. As detailed in this piece by John Allen, Benedict’s time-lapsed clarity on this issue has inspired him to do passionate and done profound work, in order to bring the church to repentance for these sins. I’ll never forget one of his earliest speeches as pope, when he vowed to rid the church if “the filth.” He has taken resignations from bishops, presided over substantial and enforced reforms and has personally met and ministered to the victims, who need not only validation, not only justice, but also the healing ministry of a shepherd who loves his flock.