Cliff Tossing

In this Sunday's reading from Luke 4:21-30, Jesus enrages his home town's people to the point that they were ready to toss him off a cliff.

Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ He said to them, ‘Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!” And you will say, “Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.” ’ And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

By comparing himself to Elijah and Elisha, the crowd concluded that Jesus was guilty of blasphemy. Therefore, Jesus was to be tossed.

People have considered which cliff Luke was writing about, and many felt that it was Mount Precipice, but a more likely place would be found in the town itself. The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges gives this explanation (taken from Erik Manning).

"'…the brow of the hill whereon their city was built,' The ‘whereon’ refers to the hill not to the brow. Nazareth nestles under the southern slopes of the hill. The cliff down which they wished to hurl Him (because this was regarded as a form of ‘stoning,’ the legal punishment for blasphemy) was certainly not the so-called ‘Mount of Precipitation’ which is two miles distant, and therefore more than a sabbath day’s journey, but one of the rocky escarpments of the hill, and possibly that above the Maronite Church, which is about 40 feet high. This form of punishment is only mentioned in 2 Chronicles 25:12; but in Phocis it was the punishment for sacrilege. (Philo.)" - Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Blasphemy laws are still quite common as shown by Pew Research, 

"A new Pew Research Center analysis finds that 79 countries and territories out of the 198 studied around the world (40%) had laws or policies in 2019 banning blasphemy, which is defined as speech or actions considered to be contemptuous of God or of people or objects considered sacred. Twenty-two countries (11%) had laws against apostasy, the act of abandoning one’s faith." 

 While we in the U.S. do not have blasphemy laws, we have "woke" culture which will throw you from a cliff if you dare to say, write, read, view, or listen to anything that might offend certain groups which the woke have made protected species. Go ahead and offend conservative politicians, Christians, WASPs, and conservative bloggers all you want because they have blasphemed against the zeitgeist. 

I better find a parachute before they toss me. Oh, that's right, I have one in Jesus!

Denominos II

 

Back in 2011, I posted the religious version of the "Domino" theory. I called it the Denomino theory because one denomination after another seemed to be falling due to the same sex marriage problem. I think it is time for an update as two more denominations are leaning the same way as the Episcopal organization (TEC) and the Evangelical Lutheran organization (ELCA).

The story comes from Juicy Ecumenism

"Forty-Three congregations of the Reformed Church in America (RCA) are breaking away from the denomination to form a new Alliance of Reformed Churches (ARC) with the expectation that others will follow, including additional churches from outside of the RCA fold. The process of separating the church into two may be an instructive example for United Methodists preparing to vote upon a negotiated split of their own at the General Conference scheduled for late summer.

Unlike its Mainline peers, the RCA is a small denomination reporting a total of 877 congregations in 2016 and a 2019 membership of 194,064, down from a high of 949 congregations in 1997 and 384,751 members in 1967 (a decline of nearly 50 percent) according to numbers from the Association of Religion Data Archives.

The initial group of departing churches represent about 5% of RCA congregations, and potentially a disproportionate share of both denominational revenue and evangelistic energy. ARC leaders have outlined different roles from the RCA in denominational governance, theological convictions and the funding of mission priorities.

Religion News Service coverage by Kathryn Post reports that at least 125 churches from various denominations are in conversation with ARC leaders about joining – some from other reformed bodies including the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and Christian Reformed Church (CRC).

A statement on the ARC web site affirms the Bible as God’s written Word, reading that 'those who follow Jesus live under the Bible’s authority as written.'”

Now the realignment that began in the Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is reaching the Dutch Reformed – but without the lawsuits and acrimony that characterized some of those prior splits. Delegates to the RCA General Synod in October approved recommendations that allow transferring churches to retain assets and church buildings.

The move potentially presages how an expected split in the United Methodist Church (UMC), America’s second largest Protestant denomination, could unfold with a minimum of disruption and rancor. The UMC has also seen a significant decline in the number of Americans worshiping in its pews, dropping from 11,026,976 U.S. members in 1967 to 6,268,310 in 2020, a decline of 43 percent.

The RCA is unusual as an institution in bridging mainline and evangelical Protestant Christianity: it shares affiliation with both the National Council of Churches and the National Association of Evangelicals. Scholars of American religion sometimes include it alongside the “seven sisters” of mainline Protestantism, pointing to the organization of North American congregations beginning in 1628 in the New Amsterdam colony – making the RCA the oldest continuously existing Protestant church ministering within the United States. Those congregations as a classis (a governing body equivalent to a presbytery) effectively gained independence from the Dutch Reformed Church in 1754.

This isn’t the first split in the RCA: in 1857 the Holland, Michigan-based CRC split from the denomination, later adding additional congregations from the RCA in 1882. Other reformed churches with a nationwide presence include the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) that split from the PCUSA’s southern predecessor body, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) that split from the PCUSA’s northern predecessor body, and the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians (ECO) that split more recently from the PCUSA. All three denominations have reported growth across the past decade as the PCUSA has declined."

As the zeitgeist finishes its work on the mainline Protestant denominations, it needs to feed on the smaller ones like the Reformed Church.

The only glimmer of hope in all of this is that there are faithful churches that are willing to  leave their long established wayward denominations. I wish them well. 

The Part Jesus Left Out

 In this Sunday's reading from Luke 4:14-21, Jesus goes to the synagogue and reads from the prophet Isaiah, but he cuts the passage short,

"Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

   because he has anointed me

     to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

   and recovery of sight to the blind,

     to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ (Isaiah 61:1-2a)

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’"

Note that Jesus did not read aloud the rest of the text,  

"...and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn." (Isaiah 61: 2b)

Jesus did not come to proclaim the date of the day of vengeance of God so Jesus stopped there,  but we are assured that day will come in due time. 

 

Drag Advent Service?

Last year I saw that a United Methodist Church had put forward a drag queen as a candidate for ordained ministry. I did not post anything about it waiting to see if the backlash would knock him/her/it back to pewsitter status. Well, nothing of the sort has happened, and the candidate has been hard at work, maybe not studying his Bible, but doing the drag queen thing in church, 

 From WMBD in Bloomington, Illinois,

"One pastor wore her Sunday best for service at Hope Church in Bloomington on Dec 12.

Associate Pastor Isaac Simmons made an appearance as Miss Penny Cost for the church’s first Drag Advent service.

'[It’s] everything that I’ve ever aspired or dreamt of in my wildest imagination to be able to do drag in a church and to be surrounded by folks who accept it and celebrate it too,' Simmons said.

Simmons said Penny’s presence serves as LGBT+ representation in the United Methodist Church, which he said is divided right now.

'It’s like a way to say that sacred spaces and these lovely liturgies that we have belong to queer folks too,' Simmons said.

Miss Penny Cost made history as the first LGBT+ candidate for ordained ministry. WMBD previously reported that Penny Cost went viral.

'So I am the first drag queen in the world, reportedly, to be allowed into the ordination process of the United Methodist Church,' Simmons said. 

The Lead Pastor at Hope Church, Rev. Dr. Jennie Edwards Bertrand, said the drag service was also in response to the firing of an Indiana pastor, Rev. Craig Duke, after he appeared in drag on the HBO show, 'We’re Here.'

'Well our prayer statement is that we are a church for absolutely everyone,' Edwards Bertrand said. 'And to incorporate drag as an art form into our worship kind of said no, we really mean that.’

She said that Simmons/Cost has a connection with Rev. Duke, and that over the past week, has received a 'fresh round of hate.'

'It gets really hard,' Simmons said. 'So back when I was first brought into the like national spotlight, I received a bunch of hate, some threats, and it was just all around badness and sorrow and it was really messy and ugly.'

In response to the negativity, Miss Penny Cost celebrated Advent with a drag performance to close out the service.

'Using the privilege of my voice and my drag here, I think it shows that anyone can be a part of a church if they so choose,' Simmons said. 'It changes the narrative, and it re-centers queer folks.'

Edwards Bertrand said the theme of the service was to highlight the messy and ugly parts of life, while also realizing the moments of joy.

'Yes there’s mess, yes there’s hate, there’s injustice. And there’s joy and there’s hope,' she said.",

What a mess all right. 

My brother in law goes to a UMC church that had a recent mess with a lesbian minister who was less than celibate. They are now looking for someone new. Obviously, Miss Penny Cost need not apply. My brother in law has asked for my advice. I went through the "stay and fight" versus the "shake the dust from your feet" arguments with him, and pray that he follows the latter, or that his church splits and goes with the conservatives in the upcoming UMC division.

 

Turning Water Into Wine

I know people have a hard time believing this, but this is what is reported in John 2:1-11 and was heard in many churches today,

"On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him."

I think that I have heard every argument that tries to explain how Jesus pulled this one off. The only one that holds water is that a miracle really did occur. That won't stop the scoffers, but try to understand the root of their problem with this and other miracles. They either do not believe in God, or they believe in a God that cannot or will not interfere with nature. Therefore, they probably don't believe a whole lot of other things that Christians believe. If they call themselves Christian, you may want to point out that to deny miracles is to deny God the power to perform them, and it means that Jesus was just a trickster. 

As long as He doesn't change my shower water into wine, I'm okay with Jesus doing this one again.

 

The Dreadful Curse of Modernism

I know that people argue about the terms "Modernism" and Post-Modernism", and disagree as to in which era we live, but that, nor the fact that the author is writing from a Roman Catholic viewpoint, should not distract you from some of the truths to be found in the essay, "Tradition is No Dead Thing" by Anthony Esolen.

"The dreadful curse of the Old Testament is that a people’s place will know them no more. That curse is modernism’s demand. If I say, 'You are graduating people with degrees in English who do not recognize the name of George Herbert,' the modernist response is to shrug and say, 'So what?' or to cock the head and say, 'Exactly.'

But there is a terrible self-contradiction here, one that many people have noted. You cannot consign your forefathers to irrelevance without instructing your son to do the same to you. The blade turns against the hand. See what that implies. We have set aside polyester bell-bottom trousers in their loud colors. They are an embarrassment now. So is Jesus Christ, Superstar. Who sings that pleasantly trivial song by Soeur Sourire, beginning Dominique-nique-nique s’en allait tout simplement? Let it go. But then, let go also of all the would-be revolutionary social understandings that come from that time. Liberation theology? Mold is growing on it. Nothing can lay claim to permanence...

;...Move away from the arts to the natural human things that all cultures must accomplish. Here our colossal failure is like a dead beast in the yard, stinking under the sun. We have not one wholesome custom to get the boys and girls together. Our marriage rate has sunk into the cellar, even as nearly half of marriages end in divorce. People who do not venerate their fathers bring fatherless children into the world; and the boys and girls, each sex in its own way, go bad.  Our children will see a hundred pornographic videos for every innocent kiss they take. That may be an underestimate.

Our churches, like our children, are few, and not innocent. The secular hope that people would be united once they gave up belief in God has been shown as the anthropological absurdity that human culture and history could have demonstrated. Man is united from above, not below.  Appetites are boundless—for sex, vengeance, wealth, rank, fame, and power; but self-denial, humility, forgiveness, and divine worship allay the rage of the appetite and its frustrations, and they raise the mind to higher things, where the old saying really is true, the more the merrier.

To say that the Church should be 'acculturated' is to assume that there is a culture to begin with. There is not. There are mass habits, developed by the mass phenomena—mass schooling, mass entertainment, and mass politics, perhaps three forms of the same thing. The Church must then do the hard, patient work of building up a culture where there is none. 

As the ad for Progressive insurance says, Progressive can't protect you from becoming your parents, and I pray that Modernism can't either.

The Revised Common Lectionary Removes All Fear of the Lord...Again

This Sunday's reading from the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) used by many churches is Luke 3:15-16,21-22. Note that verses 17-20 are omitted. On these pages we have documented the numerous edits to scripture undertaken by the editors of the RCL most of cuts appear to be intended to soften the Word to Sunday pewsitters. This week is a most blatant example. 

First, read the expurgated version that most people heard,

15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

That sounds nice enough, but John the Baptist's actual words sound much more ominous, 

17 His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’

18 So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. 19 But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, 20 added to them all by shutting up John in prison.

I am afraid that the chaff that are sitting in the pews on Sunday mornings are going to burn because they are not being taught a full and true Gospel. The blame falls on the creators of RCL, the churches that follow it, and the people who do not go home and read and study what they missed at church, which is usually a lot.

 

The BBC is #3 on the antisemitism list

The Simon Wiesenthal Center produced a document listing the top antisemitic organizations and The BBC ranked #3 behind the usual suspects. I have long been suspicious of the BBC and find that most of its programs are geared to promoting sinful behavior, namely homosexual acts. I have seen an increasing number of Muslim characters being given roles, but I cannot recall any Jewish parts.

Here is some of the report, 

 "It takes a lot to bring 250 protesters to BBC headquarters in London, but British Jewry has had enough. On Chanukah, a group of Muslims attacked a bus filled with Jews in the center of London. BBC falsely reported that anti-Muslim slurs could be heard from within the bus, deftly turning the victim into the victimizer. Subsequently, BBC has been accused of breaking the law in its reporting of the incident and is being sued, the claimants stating that the passengers on the bus are being discriminated against in the BBC’s reporting of the incident.

Senior BBC producer Alaa Daraghme shared a video on Twitter he captioned, 'An Israeli settler ramming a Palestinian man near the Lions Gate.' In fact, the car drove onto the sidewalk after an attempt by Palestinians to lynch the Jewish driver, who then lost control of the vehicle.

BBC reporter Tala Halawa tweeted, 'Hitler was right.' Halawa said that Israel should be moved to the US, that 'Jerusalem is Palestinian" and 'Zionists can’t get enough of our blood.'

The Jewish Chronicle reports that the BBC interview with Youtuber Mohammed Hijab who has half a million+ followers, and who has stood beside Palestinian flags declaring that he 'loves death" was asked by journalist Tom Brada how to 'promote a sense of harmony, specifically with the Jewish community.' Hijab replied that the answer lay in 'bringing people together' though he emphasized that 'if someone who is an apologist for Israel or Zionism, that should be delineated from Jewishness.' The BBC journalist said he 'completely agrees' with Hijab’s statement.

BBC Arabic-language broadcasts often refer to all Israelis as 'settlers' – even those not living in disputed territories.

The UK Jewish community is reeling from attacks. Britain’s Jewish Community Trust (CST) says that the Israeli Hamas war in May led to 639 anti-Jewish hate incidents, the highest monthly incidents ever recorded. There were 1,308 anti-Semitic incidents nationwide between January and June 2021, a 49% increase over 2020."

The BBC hopes to move up in the rankings by hiring a Muslim to run the BBC’s religion and ethics department of Channel 4 according to this report by Christians Together, 

"Channel Four’s Aaqil Ahmed has been selected to run the BBC’s religion and ethics department as part of the second round of Knowledge appointments – in which four of the key commissioning jobs have been handed to existing BBC staff.

Mr Ahmed’s previous commissions for Channel Four included the Emmy short listed two part series ‘The Cult of the Suicide Bomber’, the two hour documentary ‘The Qur’an’ and the genre breaking series ‘Priest Idol’ and ‘Make me a Muslim’. He was moved to the BBC after Roman Catholic priests raised the issue that his Channel Four documentaries appeared to contain a pro-Islam bias and failed to give enough attention and respect to Christianity."

 How much of this sort of thing is going on in the U.S. media? Well, you don't have to look very far because you will find it on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC to name a few.

Thankfully you can still find reruns of Gilligan's Island and Andy Griffith out there somewhere.

His mother treasured all these things in her heart

In this Sunday's reading from Luke 2:41-52, the twelve year old Jesus gets left behind in Jerusalem by his earthly family. 

Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.’ He said to them, ‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.

 I have to wonder if this story was passed on to Luke by Mary herself or a close friend of hers. Mary treasured this event in her heart and probably did not dare talk to others about it in Nazareth as it would have been gossip material for her neighbors and could have made teenage life difficult for her son.