On "Christ Is King" is Anti-Semitic

My take on the Daily Wire / Candace Owens "Saying 'Christ Is King is anti-Semitic" brouhaha --

Shorter version: "A pox on both their houses!"

Longer version:

I think that Candace Owens is a grifter. EDIT (as I wasn't clear on this): I do believe that Candace Owens was attempting a more genteel version of what Fani Willis did in standing in the pulpit of that (black-church) and trying to wrap herself in the Bible and in the cloak of martyrdom.

I think that Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing are grifters.

I think that Matt Walsh has auctioned off his balls to DW. EDIT: Of course, he had that stupid tattoo (seeking recognition by decorating your body with "art" reflects an immature, and decidedly non-manly, mindset) even before he joined DW, so there is that.

I think that Michael Knowles too much plays the "Isn't it cute how I intentionally give off this ghey-vibe, even though I'm not. Tee-hee!" card.

I think that Andrew Klavan doesn't understand the Christianity he professes to embrace: it's one thing to love your son who has made the perverse things he does with his dick into his identity, it's quite another thing to joke about it as though it is no big deal, as though there were no eternal consequence to treating any sin as one's identity.

I think that the purpose of Daily Wire is:

1) to hoover up money from "conservative-ish" people into the pockets of Shapiro and Boreing;

2) (and, as with Dave Rubin) to act as a fifth-columnist to insinuate the Ghey Agenda into conservatism.

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On the "Jew thing" --

As I have mentioned more than once, I am a Christian, and I have Jewish ancestry. Specifically, my paternal grandmother's grandmother was a Jew. My Jewish great-great-grandmother's first husband was also a Jew, and they had Jewish children. After she was widowed, she married my non-Jewish great-great-grandfather, and they had children, their son being my grandmother's father.. Also, one of the Jewish descendants of my Jewish great-great-grandmother married my paternal grandfather's non-Jewish half-sister. Mind you, this was in the rural South -- everyone amongst my father's "people" (i.e. kith and kin) knew these things about our family.

I tell you those things because:

1) I am in no wise ashamed to have Jewish ancestry;

2) to give the anti-Christian Jew-haters the excuse they need to play the "Motivation Game" about my philo-Semitism;

3) to inform the Christianity-hating leftist-atheists-with-Jewish-grandmothers that I don't give a damn about the accusations they will inevitably toss at me.

SO --

Jesus of Nazareth claimed to be God-Among-Us. This claim is true, or it is false.

Jesus of Nazareth claimed that "No man comes to the Father, but by me." This claim is true, or it is false.

Now, if these claims are false, then:

1) according to the New Testament, my faith in Jesus is worthless, and I am still trapped in my sin;

2) according to the Old Testament, I am an idolater, or worse.

But, if these claims are true, then:

1) persons who *actively* reject Jesus *as* Christ are almost certainly still trapped in their sin (*);

2) persons who *actively* work to prevent others from accepting Jesus *as* Christ are assuredly still trapped in their sin. This applies to almost every Rabbi (**), for the main concern of most Rabbis is to keep their flocks ignorant about and fearing Christ (***).

(*) To say that "No man comes to the Father, but by me" is not the same as to say "No man comes to the Father, but by joining a human bureaucracy". What I mean is that Christ's own words inform us that some people who claimed to be Christians will be among the Damned, and that some people who did not claim to be Christians will be among the Redeemed.

(**) A person of Jewish ancestry can be a Buddhist -- no problem, the Rabbis still accept him as a Jew.

A person of Jewish ancestry can be wholly indifferent to the reality of God -- no problem, the Rabbis still accept him as a Jew.

A person of Jewish ancestry can be a demon-dabbling occultist -- no problem, the Rabbis still accept him as a Jew.

A person of Jewish ancestry can be a pornographer -- no problem, the Rabbis still accept him as a Jew.

A person of Jewish ancestry can be a rabid, fire-breathing, Judaism-hating atheist -- no problem, the Rabbis still accept him as a Jew.

But, let a person of Jewish ancestry be a Christian -- Whoa! That is a bridge too far!.

(***) A certain sort of "Jew" -- typically, they are leftist atheists, and they claim Jewishness only for the "victim points" -- like to gas on about the Jews being forced into ghettos in European cities. BUT, the truth is that it was the Jewish leaders themselves who demanded the setting aside of ghettos when they negotiated with non-Jewish rulers and magnates to establish a new Jewish settlement in one of the cities they ruled. And the day-to-day reason -- which is to say, the most important reason -- that the Jewish leaders wanted to segregate their fellow "common" Jews from the "common" Christians is that Christianity has always been appealing to Jews who want their worship of God to be deeper than ritual.

"Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord"

I pass a Disciples of Christ church nearly every day. Recently, for Easter, they put up the slogan: "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. (*)"

Now, of course, the Biblical text is: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." (Psalm 118:26)

And Christ applied this to himself in Matthew 23:37-39 -- "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ " This is a horrible prophesy/curse against "Jerusalem" (i.e. Judaism, the Jews)

But, my point here is not the prophesy/curse that Christ pronounced, but rather the feminist/leftist twisting of the verse itself.

Feminism, like leftism in general, is rebellion against God. It is the attempt to dethrone God ... and claim his place.

To be sure, feminists (and leftists in general) hate men and masculinity. But, they also hate women and femininity. They hate the Image of God, as God created us: male and female; and they hate the Image of God because they hate God.

So eager are "woke" pseudo-Christians to denigrate masculinity (and femininity), that they are now trying to erase the masculinity of Jesus Christ.

(*) Hmmm ... don't they know that 'Lord' is masculine?

God Will Supply the Lamb

This post is about a new-to-me insight concerning the Sacrifice of Isaac and the Sacrifice of Christ. I certainly am not saying that no one has ever expressed this thought before, but rather that I have never heard/encountered it before it came to me (due to a phrase in a song).

I expect that most of the one readers of my little blog are familiar with the idea that the Sacrifice of Isaac is a 'type' of the Sacrifice of Christ (which is the 'architype'). Here is another aspect of that --

Recall, after Abraham passes the test God had set him, how his earlier answer to Isaac concerning the sacrifice was fulfilled:

And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

In the ancient Near East, and consequently throughout the Bible, an animal's horns represent strength and power, and by extension, authority and kingship.

So, the ram was able to be made a fitting sacrifice because he was held in the thicket by his strength and power.

Similarly, Christ, the Lamb of God, was able to be made a fitting sacrifice because he was held in the thicket of our sins by his strength and power, by his authority and kingship.

No man taketh it [my life] from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

A New Kind of New

Douglas Wilson: A New Kind of New

In which we learn that I am a heretic

In which we learn (in the comments) that I am a heretic -- Kristor: Good Friday

... but, since I'm right on this one (as explained, which means that the orthodox position is wrong, as explained), I'm not going to sweat it.

Real Temptations

Douglas Wilson: Real Temptations

God’s saints are often troubled by the mere fact of their temptations. Sin is one kind of trouble, but we know how to seek forgiveness for sin committed in the past. But what about the constant volley of suggestions that seem more than a little attractive, to which you have not given way, but which trouble you nonetheless? How could a real Christian be anything but repulsed by the thought of that, or that?
...
But returning to the issue of temptation, the Lord experienced true temptation in His own right. He was buffeted by suggestions from the devil, and He experienced them as true temptations, ...

But this means that for you to feel disqualified from this Supper because of your many temptations means that you are trying to be holier than Jesus. Your sins do not keep you back, because the broken body and shed blood are here for just that reason. And your temptations do not forbid you because since temptations did not corrupt the sacrifice itself, how much less would they corrupt the ones for whom the sacrifice was made?

So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.

I don't exactly agree with this statement: "... the Lord experienced true temptation in His own right. He was buffeted by suggestions from the devil, and He experienced them as true temptations, meaning that they were things He wanted to do. He wanted to turn the stones to bread, He wanted to throw Himself off the temple, and He wanted to bow down and worship the devil."

Yes, Christ experienced real temptations, just as we do (I've discussed this idea in the comments here). But, as is frequently the case in our lives, it wasn't the sin that was the temptation: the sin, the wicked act or result, was the "payload", but the temptation was some thing good in itself. For example, worshipping Satan was a temptation to Christ, not because he wanted/desired specifically to worship Satan, but rather because of the promise that in doing so he could accomplish his mission -- to take up the rule of the world -- without having to be murdered on a tree.

On an athestic response to Easter

For Easter, Michael Egnor put up a small post, wherein he quotes an essay of one Nathaniel Peters concerning a recent reflection of Pope Francis concerning grace and Pelagianism:

On this greatest of holidays, Nathaniel Peters has an essay on Pope Francis' beautiful reflection on grace and pelagianism.

Peters:

One of the greatest theological diseases we find in contemporary Catholicism [Ilíon: and amongst Christians in general] is pelagianism, the notion that we’re all basically good people whose moral improvement and salvation is the result of our good actions. In this mindset, God’s grace becomes less consequential because it’s less necessary. [On this false view,] At its heart, Christianity is about doing good things.

Throughout history, great theologians have combated pelagianism: Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and, in our own time, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Benedict XVI. They have reminded us that, at its heart, Christianity is a love story in which God seeks us out and draws us closer to himself. The first move belongs to God, and any real good we do is a gift from him, enshrouded with his own love. In this understanding, God’s grace has the primacy and priority. ...

As we seek the Lord and His grace, Francis reminds us that our encounter with Him is a gift, freely given to us and unearned by us. Our good works are not what earn us grace. They are grace, working in us.

His gift to us was earned, but not by us.

Happy Easter to all.

Naturally, a certain of the foolish and self-contradictory lying atheist-and-leftists who infest Engor's blog just had to spout off:

What a lovely religion Christianity is! Asserting that basically all humans are totally depraved.

Frans de Waal has recently published a book 'the Bonobo and the Atheist' dealing with the evolution of morality in social animals, including wolves, elephants, whales, gorillas, common chimps and bonobos.

Were he not an atheist, he'd be an adherent of pelagianism. He notes that the human urge to help and cooperate is innate. On neuroimaging studies, activation of centres to cooperate occur earlier and more easily than those causing self serving actions.

Thomas Huxley ("Darwin's bulldog"), were he not an agnostic, would have been an adherent of utter depravity, insisting that humans are basically selfish and egoistic, with only a thin veneer of altruism for show. 'Scratch an altruist, and a hypocrit[e] bleeds'.

He'd fit nicely in the Catholic Church were it not for the fact that he'd be unlikely to seek a relationship with God.

I'm glad I don't belong to a religion that insists that I have to seek 'grace' before I can do any good. And even then, I'm not responsible for any good I do.

'bachfiend': "What a lovely religion Christianity is! Asserting that basically all humans are totally depraved."

One has merely to observe other human beings to see the truth "that basically all humans are totally depraved" One has merely to be honest about oneself to admit the truth that one, too, is totally depraved.

So, what 'bachfiend' is here objecting to in Christianity is that it demands honesty concerning human beings ... and concerning one's own self. Ultimately, this self-idolaty, this refusal to admit that oneself is morally depraved, is at the root of all anti-Christianity.

BUT NOTICE: 'bachfiend' -- an explicit-and-rabid God-hater -- is asserting a moral objection to Christianity! TO WIT: that Christianity is morally depraved because it insists that all human beings are both morally depraved and utterly helpless to make themselves moral, that we are unable to lift ourselves by our own bootstraps to a "higher moral plane".

Consider this carefully: 'bachfiend' explicitly denies that there is any such thing as a moral obligation, that there is such a thing as moral goodness, that anything can possibly be morally wicked. But, that doesn't stop him from constantly making moral assertions (*).

His religion, both in its metaphysics (that is, God-denial) and in its practical application (that is, evolutionism), demands that he deny the reality of morality.

Well, as luck would have it, no one ever said that 'atheists' were logically or rationally consistent.


(*) All 'atheists' -- just as all other human beings -- constantly make moral assessments and moral assertions. It doesn't matter whether the 'atheist' is a rabid God-hater, as 'bachfiend' or as most of the regulars at Skeptical Eye, on the one extreme, or a more measured or low-key 'atheist', who can generally keep his disdain under control, as Jordan or Bede. Human beings cannot *not* make moral judgments.


'bachfiend': "Frans de Waal has recently published a book 'the Bonobo and the Atheist' dealing with the evolution of morality in social animals, including wolves, elephants, whales, gorillas, common chimps and bonobos.

Were he not an atheist, he'd be an adherent of pelagianism. He notes that the human urge to help and cooperate is innate. On neuroimaging studies, activation of centres to cooperate occur earlier and more easily than those causing self serving actions."

Which is to say, morality s not *real*: what we call 'morality' is just certain behaviors, supposedly evolutionarily advantageous -- in the past, but we're all over that, now, now that we have 'Science!' -- caused by the way our neurons generally fire, for most of us, most of the time. If 'Evolution!' had just happened to go a different way than it just happened to go, well then, our ideas of "morality" might well be different.


'bachfiend': "Thomas Huxley ("Darwin's bulldog"), were he not an agnostic, would have been an adherent of utter depravity, insisting that humans are basically selfish and egoistic, with only a thin veneer of altruism for show. 'Scratch an altruist, and a hypocrit[e] bleeds'.

He'd fit nicely in the Catholic Church were it not for the fact that he'd be unlikely to seek a relationship with God."

Apparently, Thomas Huxley understood the meaning of the metaphysics he was pushing.

A 'Jealous God'

Be thankful that our God is a 'jealous God'; for Easter is precisely because God is Jealous -- "What's mine is mine" -- and he does not give up easily on getting back what is his.

Consolidating a couple of comments made here:

… the Incarnation and Passion (and Resurrection) rightfully ought also to be seen as a "type" of what God has *always* been doing for his creation. ALL Creation -- including God-haters such as [insert name] -- has *always* lived one moment to the next by feeding off the life of The Son. The Son didn't put himself into the hands of his rebellious creation only during the Passion, he has *always* been doing this: we could not exist otherwise.


It was something a Rabbi wrote, in reference to the (often-times intellectually dishonest) objection: "Where was God in the Holocaust?" which lead me to think about, and begin to comprehend, what it means to say that "God is the ground of all being." [Or, expressing the same thought in language from the Bible: "In Christ, we live and move and have our being".]

If one is interested, the Rabbi's answer was (to paraphrase): "God is right there, being murdered with the Jew ... and murdering him with the Nazi"

God isn't watching our lives, as though we were a program on television. God is participating in our lives, in all ways, in all things -- our sins, all our sins, even the most 'petty', are offences against God precisely because in sinning we compel the Sinless One to experience sin: we compel Truth Himself to experience the Lie; we compel Life Himself to experience Death.

God didn’t have to create us, and he knows what we do to him; he knows that our creation must introduce He-Who-Is-Integral to non-integration; and still he loves us so much that he creates us and continuously upholds our existence.

God is jealous: we are his and he does not lightly give up what is his. Because he loves us so much, beyond expression, because we are his and he is jealous, he does everything to redeem us out of Death and back into Life. And, because he loves us so much, beyond expression, if what we finally set our faces toward is Death, then he shall let us go, he shall let us have what we will.

God desires us, desires you, so deeply, that Life Himself subjected himself to Death so that he might redeem us, might redeem you, out of Death. But, Kyrie eleison (*), Death isn’t big enough to hold Life Himself, and now, “death works backwards” (the sound-quality isn’t the best, but do give it a listen).

(*) I know what the Greek means, it's precisely what I meant to write.

The meaning of the Resurrection

Edward Feser: The meaning of the Resurrection

As with Christ’s Passion, people are always trying to attach to His Resurrection various counterfeit meanings. But it is, in this case, harder to do it with a straight face. Were you present at the crucifixion, you would have seen what on the surface required no supernatural explanation – a man nailed to a cross, as so many had been before by the Romans. Were you present at Christ’s tomb on that first Easter Sunday, you would have seen a corpse returned to life. “Keep hope alive!” “Jesus is still with us in our hearts!”“You can’t keep a good man down!” and all the other banalities liberal pastors will waste their congregations’ time with today rather fail to convey this central fact about the Resurrection. It was a divine suspension of the natural order, a miracle, or it was nothing. “If Christ is not raised,” St. Paul tells the Christian, “your faith is worthless.” And by “raised” he meant raised – reanimated, brought back from the dead – not eaten by wild dogs but remembered fondly, or whatever it is the John Dominic Crossans of the world want to put in place of what Christianity has always claimed. The Christian faith has, historically, laid everything on that line: Accept the Resurrection, and you must accept what Jesus Christ taught; reject it, and you must reject Him too as a fraud.

Thus, while the Resurrection is an affront to naturalism, it is not primarily that...
...
The Resurrected Christ will not be dialogued with. He will be worshipped, and obeyed, or He will simply be rejected as one would reject the ravings of a Jim Jones or David Koresh. Politely rejected, perhaps, at least this side of the grave; we can concede to the dialoguers their good manners. But rejected, and in no uncertain terms. “Let your Yes be Yes and your No, No.” Unless you are prepared to call Him your Risen Lord, seek no religious meaning in His life and teachings. Nor in His death; for the Passion is what it is only in light of the Resurrection. If we who did not know Him in the flesh worship at the foot of His cross, it is because we have worshipped first at His empty tomb.