Points to Ponder:
A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouths of fools pour out folly. [Proverbs xv,1-2]
Friday, March 29, 2019
Points to Ponder:
[O]nce you decide to respond to a conspiracy theory, you have a very basic problem: the people who believe in this theory didn't reason their way into it, so it's extremely difficult to use reason to convince them that there's nothing to it. [John Hawkins (as posted to Facebook March 28, 2010)]
[O]nce you decide to respond to a conspiracy theory, you have a very basic problem: the people who believe in this theory didn't reason their way into it, so it's extremely difficult to use reason to convince them that there's nothing to it. [John Hawkins (as posted to Facebook March 28, 2010)]
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Sunday, March 24, 2019
On Certain Pharisee Parallels Amongst the "More Faithful Than Thou" Crowd:
(A Lenten Reflection)
It helps in the Lenten season for folks to reflect more on themselves and their particular tendencies to better get a grasp of where improvement is needed spiritually as well as otherwise. With those who at sundry times and in in divers manners label themselves various ways and have a certain more faithful than thou disposition, they not infrequently get angry when others refer to such people as Pharisee-like in their behaviour. The initial reaction is understandable. However, is this claim really one without merit?
Consider this: who spends much of their time "thanking God they are not like other men" (cf. Luke xviii,11), extolling their perceived "orthodoxy" and "faithfulness", who is so concerned with "tithing the mint and ignoring weightier matters of law" (cf. Matthew xxiii,23), "straining gnats and swallowing camels" (cf. Matthew xxiii,24), etc? On Amoris Laetitia, who are like the folks who ask Pope Francis what should be done with the "people caught in adultery" (cf. John viii,3)? When it comes to the liturgy, who likes to "widen their phylactyries and lengthen their tassels" (cf. Matthew xxiii,25) so as to ensure everyone sees how "devoted" they are?
Who acts indignant as the son whose father said "Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fatted calf and kill it, let us feast and celebrate" (cf. Luke xv,11-32) in reference to the prodigal son? Or who acts as the day labourers who grumbled to the landowner that "These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat" (cf. Matthew xx,11)? In short, who kvetch frequently about the priority of the present pope in his attempts to reach out to the lost sheep? The mentality of the Pharisees who saw in everything Jesus did somehow something wrong or undesirable because it did not conform to their own puffed up self-righteous way of looking at things is shared by these folks who do the exact same thing to Francis who similarly does not act as they think a pope should act: namely, to ego stroke people like them. It is almost as if Jesus deliberately sought to poke the Pharisees in the eye to make a point to them. Should it surprise that his Vicar might from time to time do the same thing?
Now to be clear, I am not broad brushing here. There are folks who consider themselves faithful who do not act like Pharisees. But it seems right now they are in the minority. I do not even have a problem with someone having issues with a position or two taken by a pope -indeed it would be odd to find someone who did not. But there is respectful disagreement and there is acting like a pompous blowhard braying ass about such things. There is a difference between legitimate difficulties respectfully expressed and brazenly acting as if they are the determiners of orthodoxy or that they are the ones to "formally correct" the pope or whatever rather than actually being willing to be taught by the Vicar of Christ. It is true that not every statement is of equal weight and there is room for divergent views in different areas to certain extents. But the seeming attitude of many is that if the pope has not spoken infallibly on dogma that it means something is up for grabs. I guess that means at Nicaea only the divinity of Christ was required belief and everything for the first 325 years was optional. That is not how it works and the so-called "paragons of faithful orthodoxy" should know that if they are what they claim.
I admittedly have my own issues with Pope Francis. However, I am more and more seeing his election as a needed church corrective. The idea that only some traditional or conservative outlook is orthodoxy is wrong but for two prior pontificates this is what many of these folks deluded themselves into thinking. Now we have another pope but he is a bit more liberal. And rather than presume the orthodoxy of the pope and consider that maybe God wanted him to teach them some things, they presume if the pope does not fit their preconceived mould that the problem is him instead of perhaps them and certain deficiencies in their outlook. There are those who literally engage in the idolatry of worshipping a liturgical form much the way liberals often make an idol out of uninformed and overly autonomous notions of conscience. In the political realm, folks of these temperaments too often make an idol out of their particular preferences and wrongly equate them with the faith. The faith is conservative but its also liberal: these labels really do not do it justice and attempting to look at it this way is to too thoroughly confuse the City of Man with the City of God as St. Augustine might put it.
It would seem appropriate for folks this Lent who consider themselves of a a more faithful than thou disposition (i.e. traditionalist, conservative) to honestly examine themselves and see if their attitudes really do match that of the biblical Pharisees or other figures in Jesus' parables who also considered themselves more devout than thou.
(A Lenten Reflection)
It helps in the Lenten season for folks to reflect more on themselves and their particular tendencies to better get a grasp of where improvement is needed spiritually as well as otherwise. With those who at sundry times and in in divers manners label themselves various ways and have a certain more faithful than thou disposition, they not infrequently get angry when others refer to such people as Pharisee-like in their behaviour. The initial reaction is understandable. However, is this claim really one without merit?
Consider this: who spends much of their time "thanking God they are not like other men" (cf. Luke xviii,11), extolling their perceived "orthodoxy" and "faithfulness", who is so concerned with "tithing the mint and ignoring weightier matters of law" (cf. Matthew xxiii,23), "straining gnats and swallowing camels" (cf. Matthew xxiii,24), etc? On Amoris Laetitia, who are like the folks who ask Pope Francis what should be done with the "people caught in adultery" (cf. John viii,3)? When it comes to the liturgy, who likes to "widen their phylactyries and lengthen their tassels" (cf. Matthew xxiii,25) so as to ensure everyone sees how "devoted" they are?
Who acts indignant as the son whose father said "Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fatted calf and kill it, let us feast and celebrate" (cf. Luke xv,11-32) in reference to the prodigal son? Or who acts as the day labourers who grumbled to the landowner that "These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat" (cf. Matthew xx,11)? In short, who kvetch frequently about the priority of the present pope in his attempts to reach out to the lost sheep? The mentality of the Pharisees who saw in everything Jesus did somehow something wrong or undesirable because it did not conform to their own puffed up self-righteous way of looking at things is shared by these folks who do the exact same thing to Francis who similarly does not act as they think a pope should act: namely, to ego stroke people like them. It is almost as if Jesus deliberately sought to poke the Pharisees in the eye to make a point to them. Should it surprise that his Vicar might from time to time do the same thing?
Now to be clear, I am not broad brushing here. There are folks who consider themselves faithful who do not act like Pharisees. But it seems right now they are in the minority. I do not even have a problem with someone having issues with a position or two taken by a pope -indeed it would be odd to find someone who did not. But there is respectful disagreement and there is acting like a pompous blowhard braying ass about such things. There is a difference between legitimate difficulties respectfully expressed and brazenly acting as if they are the determiners of orthodoxy or that they are the ones to "formally correct" the pope or whatever rather than actually being willing to be taught by the Vicar of Christ. It is true that not every statement is of equal weight and there is room for divergent views in different areas to certain extents. But the seeming attitude of many is that if the pope has not spoken infallibly on dogma that it means something is up for grabs. I guess that means at Nicaea only the divinity of Christ was required belief and everything for the first 325 years was optional. That is not how it works and the so-called "paragons of faithful orthodoxy" should know that if they are what they claim.
I admittedly have my own issues with Pope Francis. However, I am more and more seeing his election as a needed church corrective. The idea that only some traditional or conservative outlook is orthodoxy is wrong but for two prior pontificates this is what many of these folks deluded themselves into thinking. Now we have another pope but he is a bit more liberal. And rather than presume the orthodoxy of the pope and consider that maybe God wanted him to teach them some things, they presume if the pope does not fit their preconceived mould that the problem is him instead of perhaps them and certain deficiencies in their outlook. There are those who literally engage in the idolatry of worshipping a liturgical form much the way liberals often make an idol out of uninformed and overly autonomous notions of conscience. In the political realm, folks of these temperaments too often make an idol out of their particular preferences and wrongly equate them with the faith. The faith is conservative but its also liberal: these labels really do not do it justice and attempting to look at it this way is to too thoroughly confuse the City of Man with the City of God as St. Augustine might put it.
It would seem appropriate for folks this Lent who consider themselves of a a more faithful than thou disposition (i.e. traditionalist, conservative) to honestly examine themselves and see if their attitudes really do match that of the biblical Pharisees or other figures in Jesus' parables who also considered themselves more devout than thou.
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