Christianity

[Walker]

Btw on the sunny side of the street wuz my gramma and grampa's favorite song and I used to see em dance to it. Oh how my gramma adored my grampa when they danced. That's how I learned how to treat a lady, ya know... my grampa.

That's the hottest female trumpeter I've ever seen tho. Not my gramma... she didn't play the trumpet. I mean in the video above. May even be the only female trumpeter I've ever seen.

At the least, apparently a sincere interest keeps at bay some of the disrespectful versions of Mad Dogs and Englishmen, at least for awhile of respite as required by fishpie, who rarely bares a serious side.

[henry quirk]

Immanuel, Henry, do you two keep to the sunny side of the street?

Not me. The sunny side, all the time, is boring.

Gimme some dark now & again: keeps things spicy.

[Harry Baird]

Gimme some dark now & again: keeps things spicy.

That sounds a little like something an old workmate and friend once said to me:

"A bit of black and you'll never go back."

He was, however, referring to his appreciation for African lovers.

[henry quirk]

Gimme some dark now & again: keeps things spicy.

That sounds a little like something an old workmate and friend once said to me:

"A bit of black and you'll never go back."

He was, however, referring to his appreciation for African lovers.

Brown sugar:

[Alexis Jacobi]

. . . Oh Jesus . . .

[henry quirk]

. . . Oh Jesus . . .

I was thinkin' more of a youngish Pam Grier.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I see it differently but very simply:

Simplicity, reduction, attempting to define things in reference to fundamentals -- this is a useful exercise. I think I well understand the attraction, and indeed the usefulness & fruitfulness of returning to fundamentals. And there could certainly be great benefit and a great deal of interest in dedicating oneself strictly to research about the *real Jesus* within that specific historical period.

The first question is, did the man Jesus of Nazareth live approximately 2,000 years ago, or is his existence a myth? I think the mythicist case fails, and I understand that so do you, so we agree that he is a real historical person.

In fact I think it is rather obviously both. There definitely seems to have been a real man named Jesus who as you say had a profound effect on those around him. And at the same time there is certainly a 'mythical' figure, a figure who was extremely mythologized. I would say that it is impossible to separate the two. Not at this point.

But let's cut to the chase here so we don't get dragged into useless territory. To speak about American Evangelical Christianity is to speak about a social and cultural phenomenon that has nothing to do with that historical frame in Judea 2,000 years ago. And in fact every manifestation of Christianity, in every locale, can only realistically be examined by examining it separately from the Biblical time as well as from the perspective of the Story (the enveloping sense that one gets when one reads the Gospels).

Apologists argue that the "confusion" of which you speak was simply due to the promulgation of false testimonies, but that the true testimony was sensibly selected and compiled into the Bible as the New Testament.

No, I think you have misunderstood my term 'confusion of ideas' and 'confusion of peoples'. The first centuries were times of tremendous mixing of peoples and mixing of ideas. Everyone who would encounter the idea of a divine avatar (though they would not have used the term avatar: a descent of God into the material, phenomenal world) would have had no choice but to receive the idea, to imagine the notion, within the existing structure of their 'worldview'. So a clear example can be cited when the Hebrew *world* encountered the Greek *world*. The philosophical Greeks had a very different location and let's say 'mental process' and orientation when compared to the Hebrews. But in the encounter the *idea* of a savior, or the fact of the arrival of a savior, had to be (necessarily) *translated* into terms of ideation that could be made sense of.

I have another strong example which is well expressed in an interesting book: The Saxon Savior: The Germanic Transformation of the Gospel in the Ninth-Century Heliand (G. Ronald Murphy, S.J.)

This study is an interpretation and appreciation of the art of the Heliand, the 9th century Saxon epic poem in which the Christian Gospel of the four evangelists is translated in Germanic terms. Murphy examines in detail the ingenious and sensitive poetic analogies through which familiar texts--the Nativity, the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer, the Passion and Resurrection--are transformed into Germanic settings and concepts. The first book in English on The Heliand, this study offers a new socio-political explanation of the possible motives of the unknown author in undertaking this enormous and brilliantly realized poetic task.

No matter who confronts the larger sense of concept that is communicated in the Gospels, and we might well reference those Johannine texts that have recently been quoted, the ideas have to be confronted by a specific individual within a specific context.

So allow me to mention an anecdote from my own experience: years ago I traveled in extremely rural Oaxaca way up in the Sierra Mazateca. I wound up through a strange accident (bad directions) in a very remote Indian village which never got any tourism. I was traveling with a German friend and we decided to stay there for a while.

In that village there was an American Evangelical family, and the father of the family was there to translate the Gospels into Mazateca. You probably have never read Peter Matthiessen's At Play in the Fields of the Lord but our encounter with this American Evangelical in this extremely remote village of Indians who had very little conception of the *outside world*, reminded my of scenes from Matthiessen's book. There was also a rather colorful but doctrinaire Catholic priest who lived there and managed the small Catholic church. And a doctor from Mexico City doing his public service before he would be granted his license to practice. And the Evangelical preacher had two very attractive teenaged daughters who were, despite themselves and the control of their parents, very curious about the two of us. (And they were raised there and spoke fluent Mazateca).

But anyway one day my friend and I explored a mountainside just outside of the village and we had to trudge for a long while through the forest. Everything that we did became the talk of the village since no sense could be made of why we were there. My friend slipped and strained his ankle and this too became the talk of the village. And I learned that the locals understood that the reason why this happened was because up there on that mountain there lived somewhat malicious spirits that the locals, when they were told about the malicious Jews who thwarted Jesus's mission and put him to death, associated the Jews with these devilish mountain spirits. See? They had to receive an idea, a notion, and an image, and translate it as best they could into terms that made sense to them in their world.

The true Christianity as determined by the words, deeds, and life of Jesus Christ, whatever those actually were.

You are dealing in a sort of imitation of mathematical logic, aren't you? Yes Harry, in that sense you have a point. But the real facts of the matter is that whatever *Christianity* is can only be understood by examining it in specific contexts, by those who receive it, interpret it, and mould their lives in respect to their interpretations and conceptions.

Sure, there have been treatises, commentaries, debates, books, theological arguments, theodicies, etc, etc - and, to the extent that all of that is compatible with the body of teachings of Christ, it's probably fine to consider it a part of Christianity - but my point remains, that the essence of Christianity is determined by the body of teachings (etc) of Christ. I don't see how it can be argued otherwise for the religion bearing his very name!

Yes yes yes, Harry. You will at the end of this win a substantial prize for your searing logic! Not only does your point remain I may even carve it into a giant block of marble so that it can be immortalized for all time!

Excuse the bit of sarcastic humor . . .

I am much more interested in what is going on within the contemporary social, political and economic scene (my focus is obviously American society) and the radical upset in the way that people *define their world*. We are in a time that could be said to correspond to the *confusion of peoples* and the *confusion of ideas* that was so prevalent in that early Roman imperial period. One of the most strange and really bizarre events is the entire Trump phenomenon and the radical divisions that have arisen which certainly seem to spread out from there to the rest of the world. The American Evangelical support for (whatever it is that they see when they contemplate) Donald Trump, and the backdrop of an utterly strange *Christian conception* that dovetails into vast conspiratorial, somewhat hallucinated, projections onto a *world* that many of them (it seems) do not know how to interpret, causes me not to care so much for strict doctrinal theology, but rather to observe and try to understand what people do with this.

Now where is Jesus of Nazareth in this do you suppose? Surely he is up there in that heaven-realm twisting & turning as his chosen vehicles down on the Earth are preparing his Kingdom! And then -- soon? -- he will come thundering back on flaming phosphorescent clouds to incinerate His enemies and, while he is at it, cart your sorry confused ass off to hellish prison since you never did, and you likely never will, bend your knee to the Lord! And now you tell me that you will be walkin' on the darkened sides of the street meditatin' of black (greasy?) phallus with quirky Henry.

What am I to think Harry?!?

I actually really strongly suggest -- for all concerned -- that we stop dealing in bizarre hallucinations and projections of imagined content and begin to think, if we are going to think at all, is somewhat more realistic terms.

Just for fun some quotes:

“It was a gringo; in the remote corners of the world the short-sleeved flowered tourist shirt, the steel-rimmed glasses, khaki pants and bulldog shoes had become the uniform of earnest American enterprise. Moon recognized the man as the new missionary. His head was cropped too close, so that his white skull gleamed, and the red skin of his neck and jaw was riddled with old acne; his face was bald with anxiety and tiresome small agonies.”

“Holding his breath, swaying drunkenly beneath a bulb which illumined little more than grime and moisture, Moon stared awhile at the cement wall; it took just such a hopeless international latrine in the early hours of a morning, when a man was weak in the knees, short in the breath, numb in the forehead and rotten in the gut, to make him wonder where he was, how he got there, where he was going; he realized that he did not know and never would. He had confronted this same latrine on every continent and not once had it come up with an answer; or rather, it always came up with the same answer, a suck and gurgle of unspeakable vileness, a sort of self-satisfied low chuckling: Go to it, man, you’re pissing your life away.”

― Peter Matthiessen, At Play in the Fields of the Lord

[Immanuel Can]

Sure, there have been treatises, commentaries, debates, books, theological arguments, theodicies, etc, etc - and, to the extent that all of that is compatible with the body of teachings of Christ, it's probably fine to consider it a part of Christianity - but my point remains, that the essence of Christianity is determined by the body of teachings (etc) of Christ. I don't see how it can be argued otherwise for the religion bearing his very name!

Yes yes yes, Harry. You will at the end of this win a substantial prize for your searing logic! Not only does your point remain I may even carve it into a giant block of marble so that it can be immortalized for all time!

That's awfully smug, AJ...

The important point is merely this: Harry's right.

I am much more interested in what is going on within the contemporary social, political and economic scene

Right. So you're not interested in real Christianity, the one that goes by the definition Harry offers, but on the pseudo-Christian world of "Christendom" in Europe and pseudo-Christian America. You're interested in indicting social phenomena, not in unpacking the actual meaning of Christianity.

We get that. We're just not sure it's profitable to do, without first recognizing that what you're indicting is essentially a secular ideological phenomenon, centered on the goal of using the label "Christian" as a propaganda tool to sanctify secular political projects of dubious moral value. And one couldn't get a better description than that of the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Pogroms, Hitler's use of pseudo-Christian themes alongside his Aryan occultism, or the American Prosperity 'Gospel.' They're all merely secular propaganda strategies for making the unholy look holy, especially to a populace that thinks it remains at least nominally "Christian" but doesn't know any better, and whose understanding of, and commitment to real Christianity is no deeper than a mud puddle.

But why you would want to "conserve" any such things, or think about how Western culture could return to such manifestations, would be beyond me. They're neither Christian nor moral. If they have any preserving effect on society, it's no more than the "solidarity" of a common delusion.

[Walker]

That's a big reason why we Christians take this passage very seriously.

- Anything precious is subject to harsh treatment, which is why proselytization of Christianity is an interesting part of the religion, although it’s likely a part of many religions. Speaking of Christianity makes it a target of inequity from many angles. Throws it into the Lion's Den.
- Should not Christians protect the precious temple, as did Christ, and not subject it to inequity?
- I can understand that when folks are awakened to receiving the compassion of redemption through Christ, then their own self-discovered compassion has a need to share, so that others may also know peace from their torments and their small, narrow views.
- Proselytizing Christianity is an act of sharing goodness so that folks can get along in peace, with the life they have now.
- The hope of something better after death of the body is part of what gives peace now for a Christian.
- In fact, for many folks it is a big part.

- Do you agree?

[Immanuel Can]

- Should not Christians protect the precious temple, as did Christ, and not subject it to inequity?

I have no idea what you mean.

"Inequity" is an idea found absolutely nowhere in the Bible. It's a Marxist-propaganda coinage, intended to get us to confuse their idea for "inequality."

But "inequality" is a fact of life, not an injustice. That, too, is mere Marxist nonsense. People are always "unequal." The only important question is how they ought to treat one another.

..their own self-discovered compassion has a need to share,...

Really? Do you suppose that people have a "self-discovered" compassion? I think that's a stretch.

They're actually pretty brutal to each other, by nature. Some have a desire to experience the sentiment of compassion, or to signal their compassionate "virtue" to others; but they have little manifest desire to exercise any. You can see this from, for example, the Femnists. They scream loud and long about their own rights, but what have they ever done for the women in the Islamic world? Where's their "compassion" for women who are really brutally oppressed, or, for that matter, for women in utero? They're all about themselves, despite all the "compassion" talk they use.

- Proselytizing Christianity is an act of sharing goodness so that folks can get along in peace, with the life they have now.

Ummm...I have to say, no.

It's about having a different kind of life. See John 3.

- The hope of something better after death of the body is part of what gives peace now for a Christian.

Well, that's part of the equation, but far from all.

Peace, for the Christian, comes from his or her peace with God right now. "Peace" is a state of ongoing, living, harmonious interrelationship, not a mere detente with an enemy. And it changes all the Christian's priorities in this life, not merely in the next.

[Alexis Jacobi]

The important point is merely this: Harry's right.

Oh he is surely right in a way and I granted him that. There is a tremendous value to be gained from examining the core material. I certainly would not deny, either, that a person could make the study and meditation on Jesus of Nazareth into a religious practice. To pray, to meditate, to think on the figure of Jesus. What seems to bother you, and to a degree Harry, is that I do not *locate myself* solely or exclusively within that relationship. Certainly for you this is a total deal-breaker. And as a result of the choice I make I will, according to you, fry in hell (you reinterpret 'hell' to be a state of alienation from God but reject seemingly the pictures from cartoon-hells).

Harry could just as well place his focus on Vishnu, Shiva, Buddha or any other god-image that is entertained in the mind and in the imagination. He could find 'god' within also. This is more my point than to undermine Christian belief. The focus on God (whatever one means when the word is used) can occur in many different ways. What seems to bother you is just that: I violate a primary precept and edict of rigid (Hebrew) Christianity because I do not deny and reject the pagan conceptions. The God of Israel is real -- but I see it as a psychological nexus not as a 'real' description of God. You on the other hand have an avowed and fanatic relationship to whatever the God of Israel represents to you. As I say you are, it has seemed to me, a Christian who is actually more of a Jew. You are deeply invested in Hebrew idea-imperialism. I reject Hebrew idea-imperialism.

But what you notice is that by doing that you assume that I am rejecting the meaning of the descent of an avatar into our world. It is nearly impossible for me, as a modern, to 'believe' that such a thing is real & possible, that is true. But I am merely speaking as all moderns do speak (and perceive). We simply cannot believe these things as if they are historical events (such as Satan flying around mountain-tops with Jesus of Nazareth and tempting him with the Jewels of the World).

You see, once you step out of these bizarre pictorial representations, and once you have done it a few times, it gets easier & easier Immanuel! The only real alternative, for us, is to extract the real sense of meaning -- if indeed one is there and *exists*.

His Eloquence AJ intoned: "I am much more interested in what is going on within the contemporary social, political and economic scene.

Right. So you're not interested in real Christianity, the one that goes by the definition Harry offers, but on the pseudo-Christian world of "Christendom" in Europe and pseudo-Christian America. You're interested in indicting social phenomena, not in unpacking the actual meaning of Christianity.

Notice that you immediately jump into a cynical interpretive mode. This is your standard procedure, is it not? You have to interpret what I say (the ideas I work with) in the most negative sense, and that sense is, essentially, the standard Christian sense. I am acting like an anti-Christ. The ideas I am working with are *evil*. This is how you see things. You have no other choice!

Now we go on to the meat of the matter:

We get that. We're just not sure it's profitable to do, without first recognizing that what you're indicting is essentially a secular ideological phenomenon, centered on the goal of using the label "Christian" as a propaganda tool to sanctify secular political projects of dubious moral value. And one couldn't get a better description than that of the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Pogroms, Hitler's use of pseudo-Christian themes alongside his Aryan occultism, or the American Prosperity 'Gospel.' They're all merely secular propaganda strategies for making the unholy look holy, especially to a populace that thinks it remains at least nominally "Christian" but doesn't know any better, and whose understanding of, and commitment to real Christianity is no deeper than a mud puddle.

So let me get this straight: The *we* you employ here is you & Harry? Are you so sure you & Harry are on the same page? Harry, are you on the same page as Immanuel? (Forum political games are really really stupid I personally think . . . but have at it if it works!)

First, whatever I do cannot be said to be unprofitable. But I will agree that in regard to your *project* I am sataning and thwarting what I take your *project* to be. I am aware that any unconventional deviation from the established doctrine that you work with and live in can only be interpreted in this way!

The rest of what you say in this telling paragraph is standard hermeneutic. It is you who are compelled to indict secular ideological phenomena which you directly associate with evil machination: "the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Pogroms, Hitler's use of pseudo-Christian themes alongside his Aryan occultism, or the American Prosperity 'Gospel." This again shows how you operate within a limiting binary conception. Those who do not think and believe or act as you believe it necessary to are, in your view, doing the Devil's work. And you trot-out your List of Horrors to support your views and assertions.

But why you would want to "conserve" any such things, or think about how Western culture could return to such manifestations, would be beyond me. They're neither Christian nor moral. If they have any preserving effect on society, it's no more than the "solidarity" of a common delusion.

Here, you have set up your Straw Man and imply that I am advocating for things you determine are evil.

But the real fact of the matter is that I am, intellectually and as a researcher, and to some degree with a personal interest and involvement, interested in exploring and understanding the perspectives of those who oppose people who think like you. I am very aware of general European rejection of Christianity and have read extensively about Germanic reinterpretation. I am also aware that the Germanic world adapted Christian concepts to a different, and particular, existential platform.

You are deeply involved in and committed to what I describe as Hebrew idea-imperialsm. This is an intolerable observation & assertion for you if it became a successful and valid critique. And I mean this literally. Literally, it is intolerable as an idea to oppose Hebrew idea-imperialism. Doing that is ur-evil, is it not?

Think this through Immanuel. But go slowly. I will help you to the degree that you are open to help!

[Walker]

- I can understand that when folks are awakened to receiving the compassion of redemption through Christ, then their own self-discovered compassion has a need to share, so that others may also know peace from their torments and their small, narrow views.

Really? Do you suppose that people have a "self-discovered" compassion? I think that's a stretch.

As I phrased it here, rather than as you phrased it when quoting me, yes. Really.

[Immanuel Can]

I certainly would not deny, either, that a person could make the study and meditation on Jesus of Nazareth into a religious practice.

I did not ask you to do that.

I just pointed out that Harry was right: to discuss "Christianity" without reference to Christ is absurd. So now that you've conceded that, we're good.

His Eloquence AJ intoned: "I am much more interested in what is going on within the contemporary social, political and economic scene.

Right. So you're not interested in real Christianity, the one that goes by the definition Harry offers, but on the pseudo-Christian world of "Christendom" in Europe and pseudo-Christian America. You're interested in indicting social phenomena, not in unpacking the actual meaning of Christianity.

Notice that you immediately jump into a cynical interpretive mode.

That's your interpretation. I'm just stating the facts.

We get that. We're just not sure it's profitable to do, without first recognizing that what you're indicting is essentially a secular ideological phenomenon, centered on the goal of using the label "Christian" as a propaganda tool to sanctify secular political projects of dubious moral value. And one couldn't get a better description than that of the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Pogroms, Hitler's use of pseudo-Christian themes alongside his Aryan occultism, or the American Prosperity 'Gospel.' They're all merely secular propaganda strategies for making the unholy look holy, especially to a populace that thinks it remains at least nominally "Christian" but doesn't know any better, and whose understanding of, and commitment to real Christianity is no deeper than a mud puddle.

So let me get this straight: The *we* you employ here is you & Harry? Are you so sure you & Harry are on the same page? [/quote]
In the issue of Christianity being defined by Christ? Yes, we agree.

But why you would want to "conserve" any such things, or think about how Western culture could return to such manifestations, would be beyond me. They're neither Christian nor moral. If they have any preserving effect on society, it's no more than the "solidarity" of a common delusion.

I am, intellectually and as a researcher, and to some degree with a personal interest and involvement, interested in exploring and understanding the perspectives of those who oppose people who think like you.

Well, that's not something you actually know much about. You seem not even to know what a "Christian" really is. But if you listen to what Harry is saying about how to do it, you might get there one day.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I just pointed out that Harry was right: to discuss "Christianity" without reference to Christ is absurd. So now that you've conceded that, we're good.

But I do not concede that, so I hope that we remain un-good.

AJ: Notice that you immediately jump into a cynical interpretive mode.

IC: That's your interpretation. I'm just stating the facts.

You are unable to see and understand the degree to which your hermeneutics always force their way in. It seems to be outside of your control. But I assert that it is possible to *see* that this is done. Beginning to do that is difficult but once it is done a few times it gets easier. I do not say it will immediately clarify anything or make things easier, and especially not for you given your investments, but nevertheless it can be done. With fruitful results.

[Immanuel Can]

- I can understand that when folks are awakened to receiving the compassion of redemption through Christ, then their own self-discovered compassion has a need to share, so that others may also know peace from their torments and their small, narrow views.

Really? Do you suppose that people have a "self-discovered" compassion? I think that's a stretch.

As I phrased it here, rather than as you phrased it when quoting me, yes. Really.

Hmmm...

Too polyannish, it seems to me.

But for the moment, let's assume that somewhere, down in the welter of other stuff that exists in human beings, "compassion" dwells too. I don't really believe that, but I'll play along for the moment.

If we assume that, then where does the other stuff come from? I mean what you call "torments" and "small and narrow views" -- from whence their lack of "peace"? And from where do deception, envy, hatred and greed proceed? Where do "rape" and "murder" dwell? Who invented "slavery" or "prostitution," or "tyranny," or "violence against women and children"? From whence came "war," or "pandemics"?

I think you can see that if they did not come from inside the "self-discovery" of men, they would not exist at all.

Animals know nothing of them, so far as we know; and plants certainly don't. The world would be free of all such things, were they not sourced in that same wondrous "self" to which you look for "compassion."

So I'd say you should look carefully, and look at it all...not stop with looking at the mere appearance of the first positive thing you think you find there.