The Super Wealthy are Super Greedy

Via Matthew Coomber-

The Pastorate: A Parable

Fishing for men… some among the flock respond-

A Very Happy Mom’s Day to All The Moms of Every Sort

• Biological moms
• Adoptive moms
• Spiritual moms
• Emotional Support moms
• Neighborhood moms
• Moms who long to be moms but aren’t
• Step moms

They’re all real moms.  And never let someone tell you otherwise.

A Prayer for the Government (Legislative and Executive Branches) of the United States

Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?   In arrogance the wicked persecute the poor– let them be caught in the schemes they have devised! For the wicked boast of the desires of their heart, those greedy for gain curse and renounce the LORD.

In the pride of their countenance the wicked say, “God will not seek it out”; all their thoughts are, “There is no God.” Their ways prosper at all times; your judgments are on high, out of their sight; as for their foes, they scoff at them. They think in their heart, “We shall not be moved; throughout all generations we shall not meet adversity.”  Their mouths are filled with cursing and deceit and oppression; under their tongues are mischief and iniquity.

They sit in ambush in the villages; in hiding places they murder the innocent. Their eyes stealthily watch for the helpless; they lurk in secret like a lion in its covert; they lurk that they may seize the poor; they seize the poor and drag them off in their net.  They stoop, they crouch, and the helpless fall by their might.  They think in their heart, “God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”

Rise up, O LORD; O God, lift up your hand; do not forget the oppressed. Why do the wicked renounce God, and say in their hearts, “You will not call us to account”?

But you do see! Indeed you note trouble and grief, that you may take it into your hands; the helpless commit themselves to you; you have been the helper of the orphan. Break the arm of the wicked and evildoers; seek out their wickedness until you find none. (Ps. 10:1-15)

Amen, and amen.

Signs of the Times

“snicker”

Sardis- a.k.a., American Christianity

“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write,`These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. “Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. “Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. “You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. “He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”‘  (Rev. 3:1-6)

Graduate School Sin

Graduate departments that accept more students than they have faculty retiring are guilty of using the lure of the PhD to fill unnecessary slots to boost their public profile. They use students for their own self aggrandizing purposes and they won’t admit it. And it’s wrong to promise careers in higher ed when these departments know full well that no positions are available. it’s immoral. It’s sin.

More on the Wesley’s Childhood and the Philosophy of their Mother

Susanna Wesley, wife of a pastor and mother of 19 children, has gone down in Christian history as the ideal mother. In spite of poverty, sickness, disappointment, she managed her household well. She early drew up for herself some rules and observed them:

(1) No child was to be given a thing because he cried for it. If a child wanted to cry, “cry softly!” In her house was rarely heard loud cries by children.
(2) No eating and drinking between meals, except when sick.
(3) Sleeping was also regulated. When very small, a child was given three hours in the morning and three in the afternoon. This was shortened until no sleeping was allowed during the daytime.
(4) Punctually, the little ones were laid in the cradle and rocked to sleep. At 7 PM, each child was put to bed; at 8 PM she left the room. She never allowed herself to sit by the bed until the child sleeps.
(5) The little ones had their own tables near the main table. When they could handle fork and knife, they were “promoted” to the family table.
(6) Each one must eat and drink everything before him.
(7) Children must address each other as “Sister ___” or “Brother ___.”
(8) She never allowed herself to show through her ill-temper or by scolding. She would always explain and explain.

Thus, when John Wesley was in college, he wrote asking his Mother what books to read. And her recommendation influenced his life.*

Geesh.  Controlling mommy issues, John?

________________
*Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc., 1996), 849–850.

How The Wesley Kids Were Raised…

No wonder they turned out the way they did… they were terrorized!

John and Charles Wesley, were reared by a God-fearing mother (of seventeen) who laid down some excellent principles for child training. They appear in John Wesley’s Journal:

“When turned a year old (and some before), they were taught to fear the rod, and to cry softly; by which means they escaped abundance of correction they might otherwise have had; and that most odious noise of the crying of children was rarely heard in the house; but the family usually lived in as much quietness as if there had not been a child among them.

“In order to form the minds of children, the first thing to be done is to conquer the will and bring them to an obedient temper. To inform the understanding is a work of time, and must with children proceed by slow degrees as they are able to bear it; but subjecting the will is a thing which must be done at once; and the sooner the better. For by neglecting timely correction they will contract a stubbornness and obstinacy which is hardly ever after conquered.

“Whenever a child is corrected, it must be conquered; and this will be no hard matter to do, if it be not grown headstrong by too much indulgence … I cannot yet dismiss this subject. Self-will is the root of all sin and misery, so whatever cherishes this in children insures their after-wretchedness; whatever checks and mortifies it promotes their future happiness.”

In sum, crush them, and crush them hard.  I bet they didn’t get her a Mother’s Day Card…

Here, Washington Post, I Fixed Your Headline

WAPO going full bore defense contractors toady with this one-

Nothing is enough to stop the flow of arms.  No matter how many innocents are killed.

Anyway, here’s the headline that should have been-

“Israel uses American weapons to kill innocent men, women, and children- but that doesn’t matter, since there’s money to be made by defense contractors”

The Northern Lights Paid a Visit to Our House

And our neighbor got a picture.

One of the Few Things Barth Got Right Was the Hermeneutical Circle

Which he got right from Paul-

The natural person has no room for the gifts of God’s Spirit; to him they are folly; he cannot recognise them, because their value can be assessed only in the Spirit. The spiritual person, on the other hand, can assess the value of everything, and that person’s value cannot be assessed by anybody else. For: who has ever known the mind of the Lord? Who has ever been his adviser? But we are those who have the mind of Christ.  (1 Cor. 2:14-16)

Like it or not, Paul’s assertion that only those gifted with the Spirit understand the gifts of the Spirit is true.  Dwelling outside the hermeneutical circle doesn’t mean one is a bad historian.  But it does mean one is a terrible theologian and a worse exegete.  All protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.

Barth’s Wicked Sense of Humor

Karl Barth had a very lively sense of humour. And at times his humour was decidedly wicked (in the best sense of the word), not least of all when he made fun of other theologians with whom he disagreed. He was, for instance, always making fun of his old friend Rudolf Bultmann. One of the most entertaining features of CD volume IV is Barth’s constant lampooning of Bultmann—while Bultmann himself is almost never named, he is the object of numerous wicked jokes about mythology, hermeneutics, self-understanding, demythologising, and so on.

Barth’s published letters also contain many funny characterisations of other theologians. For instance, after reading Pannenberg’s new book Jesus—God and Man, Barth wrote to Helmut Gollwitzer that “even the ravens I see on the top of a high tree from my seat here, though they do not do ‘biblical work,’ … do not regard this work on christology as a good book.”

But funnier (and more wicked) still is his characterisation of Dorothee Soelle. In another letter to Gollwitzer, Barth describes Dorothee Soelle as a woman “of great brilliance and even greater lack of understanding!” And in a letter to Karl Rahner, Barth says that Soelle is “a lady of whom the only thing one can really say is that that woman should keep silence in the church.” Ouch!

Posted originally by Ben Myers back in 2006.  That’s before most of the people in America who talk about Barth these days were out of High School.

Barth Doesn’t Have Time For Your Theological Dilettantism

🙂

Ex opere operato And Karl Barth

If ever there were proof of the validity of the Roman Catholic concept of Ex opere operato, Karl Barth is it.

Mutatis mutandis of course.

Ex opere operato refers, in Catholic theology, to the fact that the sacraments are efficacious in and of themselves and do not depend on the efficacy of the Priest administering them.  The Priest might be a womanizing swine, but the Sacraments remain sacramental.

Mutatis mutandis, Barth’s theology is and remains brilliant in spite of the fact that he was a womanizing swine.

If God were waiting for the perfect vessel through which to speak and act he would have needed to wait till August 29, 1960.  Let the reader understand.

Anyway, Barth was a pig.  But his theology is divinely inspired.

On The Anniversary of The German Book-Burning of 10 May, 1933

It may be important- nay- it is important to learn that

Doch anders als viele Menschen denken, wurden sie nicht von der NSDAP oder einem Ministerium organisiert, sondern von der Deutschen Studentenschaft, die sich, so vermuten Wissenschaftler, damit den Nationalsozialisten andienen wollten.

German students came up with the bright idea to burn all those books.  Remarkable.  One of the most senseless acts of Nazi history wasn’t thought up by the leadership- it was an act of University students…  the very people who ought to know better.

The essay from which that snippet is drawn is very much worth reading it its entirety.

Fun Barthian Facts

After Charlotte von Kirschbaum moved into Barth’s house, Barth signed his notes to her in the following ways¹:

• ‘I am having such joy! And I love you so much!’,
• ‘I just love you so much’,
• ‘I am so happy! I l. you so much’

or, later, simply

• ‘I l. y. s. m. (sure? sure!)’ or ‘Oh you…..’, ‘Oh you!’, ‘D. L. … you know’,

from 1931 occasionally:

• ‘I am constantly thinking of you and I love you much more, even much more than…

for example, on 1 August.

• Although already then I liked you quite a lot, after all. You!’.

In 1934, he writes from Rome:

• ‘Be, dearest, a thousand greeting and kisses, by your d. Karl’,

and finally, in a language style of a modern text message, apart from ‘I l. y. s. m.’ once also

• ‘L. d. L. I l. y. s. m.’.

______________
¹Biography and theology. On the connectedness of theological statements with life on the basis of the correspondence between Karl Barth and Charlotte von Kirschbaum (1925–1935), by Susanne Hennecke

Karl Barth as Foe of Naziism

Der Schweizer Karl Barth gilt als das theologische Genie des 20. Jahrhunderts. Er hat die Bekennende Kirche mit am stärksten beeinflusst – auch dort, wo man sich seiner Radikalität nicht anschloss. Obgleich konsequent reformierter Theologe hat er doch über die Konfessionsgrenzen hinweg den evangelischen „Kirchenkampf“ maßgeblich bestimmt, zunächst als Theologieprofessor in Bonn, später von Basel aus, wo er für viele Angehörige der Bekennenden Kirche die prominenteste Bezugsperson blieb.

Geboren am 10. Mai 1886, war Barth fest im religiösen Milieu seiner Heimatstadt Basel verwurzelt. Schulzeit und Anfänge des Theologiestudiums verbrachte er in Bern, wechselte später nach Berlin, Tübingen und Marburg. Nach Vikariat und Examen 1908 kam er als Redaktionsgehilfe zur Marburger Zeitschrift „Die Christliche Welt“. Von nachhaltiger Bedeutung wurde ab 1911 seine erste Pfarrstelle in Safenwil im Schweizer Kanton Aargau, wo er mit den sozialen Problemen des Arbeiteralltags konfrontiert wurde. In dieser Zeit intensiver Unterrichts- und Predigtarbeit erfolgte der endgültige Bruch mit der Liberalen Theologie und die Initiative zu einem neuen theologischen Modell – in Gestalt von Barths dort niedergeschriebenem „Römerbrief“ (1918/19). Dieses Buch gilt als Gründungsdokument der Dialektischen Theologie, die den unendlich großen Abstand zwischen Gott und Mensch betont. Noch einflussreicher wurde die zweite Fassung, die Barth 1922 als Honorarprofessor in Göttingen schrieb. Dort gründete er mit Freunden die Zeitschrift „Zwischen den Zeiten“ als Organ der neuen Richtung. Von 1925 bis 1930 folgte eine Professur in Münster, ab 1930 in Bonn, wo die jahrzehntelange Arbeit an der „Kirchlichen Dogmatik“ begann.

Nach der nationalsozialistischen Machtübernahme wurde Barth rasch eine führende Autorität des Kirchenkampfes. Seine Schrift „Theologische Existenz heute!“ (1933) trug maßgeblich zu einem Rückgang der nationalen Begeisterung unter protestantischen Pfarrern und zu einer Rückbesinnung auf Bibel und Bekenntnis bei. Die „Barmer Theologische Erklärung“ (1934) ist wesentlich von ihm bestimmt. Doch bald mochten große Teile der Bekennenden Kirche Barths radikale Absage an die nationalsozialistische Kirchenpolitik und generell an Hitlers Staat in der von ihm eingeforderten Konsequenz nicht mehr mitvollziehen. Als ihm wegen Eidesverweigerung ein Dienststrafverfahren angehängt wurde, blieb öffentlicher Protest der Bekennenden Kirche aus. Barth zog sich, nachdem er 1935 vorzeitig in den Ruhestand versetzt wurde, auf eine Professur nach Basel zurück. Als „Schweizer Stimme“ ermunterte er die Deutschen fortan nachdrücklich zum aktiven Widerstand.

Nach dem Krieg führte Barth die theologische Arbeit fort, vor allem in Gestalt seiner „Kirchlichen Dogmatik“, die er allerdings nicht mehr abschließen konnte. Bis zu seinem Tod am 10. Dezember 1968 blieb er eine der gefragtesten Autoritäten des Protestantismus.

What is War? Karl Barth’s Answer

via

Or, more thoroughly,

Unterdessen hat gerade die überhandnehmende kalte Sachlichkeit des militärischen Tötens, das Raffinement und die massenhafte Wirkung, zum Teil auch die Abscheulichkeit seiner Methoden, Instrumente und Maschinen und seine Ausdehnung auf die feindliche Zivilbevölkerung dafür gesorgt, daß, wer Krieg sagt, wissen müßte, daß er damit schlicht und eindeutig töten sagt: töten ohne Glanz, ohne Würde, ohne Ritterlichkeit, ohne Schranke und Rücksicht nach irgendeiner Seite. Der Ruhm des sogenannten «Soldatenhandwerkes», das eben heute beiläufig zum direkt oder indirekt ausgeübten «Handwerk» eines Jeden geworden ist, kann in unseren Tagen nur noch von den Resten jener alten, schon damals fadenscheinigen Illusionen leben. Es wäre schon viel gewonnen, wenn man sich angesichts der Tatsachen endlich ganz nüchtern dazu bekennen würde, daß, was auch der Zweck und allenfalls das Recht des Krieges sein mag, sein Mittel heute jedenfalls ohne Hülle und Scham dies ist, daß nicht nur Einzelne, nicht nur irgendwelche «Heere», sondern die ganzen Völker als solche sich gegenseitig mit allen Mitteln ans Leben wollen. Die Möglichkeit der Atom- oder Wasserstoffbombe hat eigentlich nur noch gefehlt, um die Selbstenthüllung des Krieges in dieser Hinsicht vollständig zu machen.  — Karl Barth, KD III/4, 518f

I Genuinely Love Karl Barth

After Zwingli, Brunner, and Luther he is my favorite theologian of all time.  4th place is pretty good.

So, then, why do I harass his followers and sycophants?  Because admiring and loving Barth too often become slathering over and idolizing Barth.  Barth would hate that.  Any theologian should hate that.

Any theologian worth their salt says with the Angel of Revelation- ‘don’t worship me, worship God’.  Barth’s followers seem exceedingly likely to forget that little truth.

Icons are made to be destroyed.  Iconoclasts do that.  And I can’t help it.  I was born this way.

I really do love Barth.  I just don’t love his worshipers.