TRUMP - Some people think......... How do you feel?

[crazyheart]

Unvirtuous Abbey
· 1 hr ·
Jesus said, "I am the #Covfefe of life. All who cov and fefe in me shall have eternal life."(FaceBook)

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

I wouldn't be surprised if Stephen Colbert does a "werd" segment using "covfefe" tonight.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

Hillary made a wisecrack that it was secret code to the Russians.

 

[GeoFee]

It's very difficult for a society to overcome ignorance and apathy when it has no honest information to work with, and when it senses it has no input.

Hi,

We begin with the person who seeks information. It can be found. Requires decision and determination. Qualities contrary to acceptance and conformity.

Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson had differing perspectives on a free press. Jefferson favoured freedom of the press to educate for responsible government. Hamilton favoured a managed press serving to instruct the population for conformity to the agenda of capitalizing interest. He noted that common persons lacked the intelligence to think for themselves. Hamilton prevailed.

There is a wide gap between those who are educated for liberty and those who are instructed for conformity.

Where are our Gideons? Our Deborahs?

George

 

[Graeme Decarie]

Revsdd toward the end of p. 216 started me thinking all day. I'm not getting anywhere with it. and it won't go away. To look at today's world is to be struck by the widespread evil that makes us hate, murder even children. destroy whole nations, inflict dreadful attacks all over the world It couldn't be done without our consent. Surely, most of our Christian world supports what is going on.
Many of the Naziis who took Jews to the death camps were devout Christians. These things happen because many of us, probably most, support them.
One conclusion to leap to is that we are all evil. However, I am not at all sure that is true.
Churches are certainly passive in their attitude to all this. But, if they weren't, most Christians would probably be angry at their churches. So we end up with churches which ignore many of the fundamental principles Jesus spoke of, and end up emphasizing the indescribable joy in heaven at clapping hands for Jesus for eternity. And that way, the "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam crowd" is happy.

I really don't understand what all this means, or where to go from here. We certainly don't live in a world that is even remotely Christian. But I'm not sure it's the churches that have failed. It could well be something in us.

 

[GeoFee]

Hi,

It could well be something in us.

Pogo comes quick to mind.

It may be more of a matter of something lacking in us. That which Socrates presses for in his pain in the ass approach to politics in Athens. He essentially goes about as a midwife provoking the birth of critical consciousness in the encountered person. This is what is needed. I was in the seminary for some years. Saw little evidence that critical consciousness, understood in the light of Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed", was high on the agenda.

Then there is Jesus in a similar vain. Count the cost and take on responsibility for your destiny. Choose between the one way leading to life and the multiplicity of ways leading to annihilation. This is an alternative available only to the person. Loyalty to the diverse institutions or fear of reprisal by those institutions is a principal inhibitor of human hope. I am assured by history that those who will stand out in the face of the rising authoritarian power will suffer negative consequence. Hence the need for counting the cost.

Hoping those who choose not to make the decisive commitment will not hinder or otherwise deter those who have.

George

 

[Luce NDs]

Ignorance is bliss and god said man must die ... thus a rest period on earth before that second breath ... sometimes referred to aspiration ... a wind of a differing kind of sucking it all in falsely ... an Eire avarice, from the aggregates of Avalon ... and the Ca congeals into bone of the myth ... bullfights in that Spanish aria ... much whining and Ba'aL'M! Balochi s very common in places! Luce lies with this as balls 've pyre ... developing into that funny Greek word for emotional words ... without the Rez part ...

Heaven is bliss? Only partly seen to be true for those not liking piles of word that are a pain in the ass to limite authority ... mo'rael leaders?

 

[Seeler]

So we end up with churches which ignore many of the fundamental principles Jesus spoke of, and end up emphasizing the indescribable joy in heaven at clapping hands for Jesus for eternity. And that way, the "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam crowd" is happy.

The churches you are familiar with certainly seem to be a lot different than the one I attend, or the ones I've attended in the past.

 

[Jaebius]

The churches you are familiar with certainly seem to be a lot different than the one I attend, or the ones I've attended in the past.

Some churches, in my experience Baptist ones, err in emphasizing too much things to come. Other churches, in my experience United ones, err in stressing too much the here and now. What churches should do, imho, is to have timely things to say about both today and tomorrow.

 

[revsdd]

The churches you are familiar with certainly seem to be a lot different than the one I attend, or the ones I've attended in the past.

Graeme's picture of a church is a ridiculous caricature that doesn't fit the description of any church I've ever experienced anywhere in my life.

Oh I forgot. Graeme thinks we're only in touch with reality if we actually repeat this ad nauseum the way he does: the Americans have killed more innocent people than anyone else; there was no real substantive difference between Trump and Clinton - or Obama or Bush, etc. etc; the church has often been co-opted by secular society; the whole system is rigged for the wealthy. All true. Wouldn't want Graeme to accuse me of never saying that or not understanding it.

And his picture of the church is still a ridiculous caricature that doesn't fit the description of any church I've ever experienced anywhere in my life.

I should add that because it's a caricature doesn't mean there aren't come churches that fit the description and fail miserably to live by the principles of Jesus - and some of them are very "successful" in attracting people.

 

[Luce NDs]

Are caricatures like attributable icons ... destroyed by powerful people wishing to alter high story and myth?

Thus Rome burned all those libraries years ago, to place republicanism there instead of Libra ...

 

[GeoFee]

Hi,

Graeme's picture of a church is a ridiculous caricature that doesn't fit the description of any church I've ever experienced anywhere in my life.

Graham, as do the prophets, offers a categorical impression of the church largely passive before the rise of iniquity. We see the historical example in the rise of the Nazi agenda in Protestant and Catholic Germany. This is not to suggest that the passive accommodation to the rise of tyranny was rooted in the bad character of the German people. They, like the folk in our churches, were decent persons living decent lives. Some were involved with charitable institutions. Some were involved with the education of children and the care of the sick. They were folk just like the folk in our pews. They were passive before the rise of totalitarian authority.

I have been in rural and urban faith communities in the East, the West and in the Prairie. My observations suggest a near universal lack of awareness specific to the text and tradition at the heart of our shared experience. This is complicated by a near universal accommodation to the values of liberal democracy under the sign of capital interest. If we are to learn from history we ought notice that our patterns of behaviour are much like the patterns noticed in the prophetic critique of compromise by leaders and people leading to social distortion and incrementally decline.

Speaking to the United Church I will notice a small sentence in the Manual: "The Church is under the most solemn obligation to provide for their Christian instruction." [Article XVI, 2.3.16.1] I see negligible evidence that this "most solemn obligation" has been satisfied. The level of biblical illiteracy in the United Church is conspicuous. By this I do not intend to suggest that we have failed to indoctrinate. We have failed to educate for critical consciousness specific to the spirit of Christ and its contradiction of the spirit animating the powers and principalities by which the earth and its peoples are being exploited and oppressed. In its place we have been offered doxologies and benedictions by which the structures of our age have been endorsed and blessed. The church has not offered an alternative imagination of life rooted in the prophetic witness of Jesus and the apostolic community in the face of religious and political collusion bringing advantage to the few at the expense of the many.

I think of Jesus and the sign of Jonah. Most take this as reference to the resurrection. I take it as reference to Jonah first refusing to pronounce the judgement of God concerning Nineveh. Then repenting and speaking out. We notice that the King of Nineveh pronounced a fast. A break from the routines and habits of daily living to focus solely on the way of remedy. I would think that Graham's persistent presentation of the abominations perpetrated by the powers of our day should lead to deep soul searching. This said I am not surprised that we would prefer patting ourselves on the back and indicating that we are not really all falling far short of the mark.

I say these things fully aware of my own complicity in the banality of evil now leavening our lump. The slow duplicitous advance of exploitive and oppressive power in service to profit, pride, privilege and prestige.

George

 

[Graeme Decarie]

I see I must be more direct since revsdd seems to know nothing and understand nothing and say nothing.
1. In all of Canada, I know of only one church that is sheltering a refugee from our police.
2. For many years, I was on the board and then chairman of Quebec's English rights group. We were frequently hit with demonstrations, death threats, the rest. One night, our offices were torched, and many of us got death threats. The president of the group could go out only in heavy disguise, and accompanied by an armed guard. Guess how many churches offered us a place to meet. In fact, the only ones to offer any help were Catholic nuns.
3. In the early days of the anti-nuclear movement, I was a member of the leading group in montreal. I was one of only three or four gentiles in the group. We often met in synagogues. Guess how active the Christian churches were in the movement.
4. Trump's strongest support for his racism comes from the "bible belt". (Do you, by any chance, have a list of Canadian and American churches that are openly opposing the massacres that Americans call war?)
5.George Bush, who killed a million and a half people in Iraq, regularly attends a Christian church - Methodist, I think. He gets God blessed every Sunday. And guess what topic is never in the sermons.
6. A friend has just spent most of his life as a missionary (Pentecostal) in Congo. Thanks to the Christian world, Congo has been a horror for almost a hundred and fifty years. But that - the abuse and exploitation of children, the murder, the looting by international capitalism - was of no interest to my missionary friend. Nope. All he had to do was to get them into heaven.
8. In research, I often had occasion to read diaries, etc., of leading clergy in Canada and the British Empire. They adored the empire, nicely ignoring it was one of the most murderous empires in history. It murdered millions in China and India. It killed and impoverished all over the world. But British and Canadian clergy thought it was just wonderful. A Canadian clergyman wrote, "God bless our valiant generals, adding here and there bits and pieces to our glorious empire."
One of my favourites was the president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in Canada. At the outbreak of war in 1914, she said, "We shall win because the Son of God is our commander-in-chief."
The presence and support of God is woven into the patriotic songs of the world greatest looting and murdering nations.
"God bless America". (This one is so powerful it is probably a majority view that God wants the U.S. to conquer the world. They call it manifest destiny) The British empire held that same view for itself in the days when "Britain rose at Heaven's command." And I can recall no great clerical opposition to those views.
I frequently conducted services. But when I suggested a current events group for the church, the minister was very alarmed. You know, something controversial might be said.
9. Many Christians will line up at hospitals to protest abortions. Where are those Christians when their tax money is being used to murder babies all over the world?
10. Jesus was crucified for his views. Most (almost all) of the world's Christian clergy are quite safe from crucifixion.

Christ was a person of challenging ideas. That's why I don't think He would attend one of our churches.

(But you'll say I'm just repeating things over and over and over and over- unlike our clergy. How very unlike our clergy.)

 

[Graeme Decarie]

Seeler - does New Brunswick strike you as a society governed by Christian principles?

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

About Trump: Nigel Farage is now a person of interest in the Russia investigation.

Russia, it seems, has been trying to upend the world order - and they're no better an 'empire' than the U.S.

 

[Graeme Decarie]

The world is changing very, very quickly. unlike 1 945, the U.S. is no longer the only superpower. It's sharing a spot with Russia and China. And the U.S. is the one that's in decline. This relative decline has been coming for a while. But it became very marked with Bush. It has maybe ten, maybe twenty years left as a superpower at all. Then it's game over. And, as that happens, we may also be watching the collapse of the American empire in Latin America.
However, before that, it's quite possible that the U.S. will opt for measures very dangerous to all of us.
We also have to fit that in with unforeseeable developments re climate change. Rising water levels could quite likely displace hundreds of millions of Chinese refugees who might, as northern regions warm, head for Siberia, provoking a war with Russia.
That climate change will also displace millions in in Latin America and Africa - so many that the great wall of America won''t stop them. Then there is the climate change in the southwest U.S. which will displace millions - ????? - Canada with lots of water and a warming north. Of course, that could also attract displaced Chinese. And it will certainly make hash of Canada's claim to the Arctic.
At this point, the only sign of planning I've seen is building more weapons - as Canada is building more ice breakers for the north. And that kind of planning is a waste of time - unless our seven or so ice breakers can sink the whole American navy. - and the Russian one.

 

[Waterfall]

Graeme's picture of a church is a ridiculous caricature that doesn't fit the description of any church I've ever experienced anywhere in my life.

Oh I forgot. Graeme thinks we're only in touch with reality if we actually repeat this ad nauseum the way he does: the Americans have killed more innocent people than anyone else; there was no real substantive difference between Trump and Clinton - or Obama or Bush, etc. etc; the church has often been co-opted by secular society; the whole system is rigged for the wealthy. All true. Wouldn't want Graeme to accuse me of never saying that or not understanding it.

And his picture of the church is still a ridiculous caricature that doesn't fit the description of any church I've ever experienced anywhere in my life.

I should add that because it's a caricature doesn't mean there aren't come churches that fit the description and fail miserably to live by the principles of Jesus - and some of them are very "successful" in attracting people.

I'm afraid that I would have to agree with Graeme. Yes there are churches that do things to help people around the world and at home, but by the very fact that evil seems to be overwhelming the churches, the world and the people of this planet seems to be unnervingly evident.
We are unnerved and resigned to having little effect on terrorism/evil and there seems to be almost an acceptance that things have gone too far to be reversed in the world, so we tend to nurture the tiny area we live in and act appalled as we lamely watch how other countries are suffering, thanking God we don't live there and refusing to visit. We cannot imagine that sort of evil within our own borders, even as we witness Europes struggles, but someday it will come here too, if our voices don't get louder no matter how repetitious this message sounds or grates on our ears over and over again.

 

[Seeler]

Provinces or countries are not Christian (or any other religion); people are.

Some people in NB follow Christian principles, and follow the teaching and example of Jesus to the best of their ability. Some don't.

Jesus was a Jew. Did he follow Jewish principles?
Did he rebel against the government? raise an army? overthrow the government? turn against his religion because some leaders were colaborating with the foreign rulers?

Or did he go about doing good and urging others to do the same? Things like feeding the hungry, offering shelter to the homeless, encouraging the discouraged, befriending the outcast, sharing with the poor? All the while within the country of his birth and in the Jewish religion.

You may not see the churches doing much. Take a walk into my church on Wednesday noon or Saturday night and see hungry people being fed, and befriended. Check with the people volunteering at the food banks and community kitchen and see how many are Christian. Go to a demonstration against fossil fuels or supporting aborginial rights and see how many are Christian (you might not recognize them - very few wear clergical collars). And see who writes letters to their governments (city, provincial, federal) to support Christian principles -- I don't personally but I've added my signature to a good many. Ask people if their Christian principles affect how they vote (and not all Christians will vote for the same party or agree on how to solve every issue).

NB has its problems - unemployment and poverty and an aging population are some of the biggies. If I knew the answer to these I would be a genius and I would consider it my duty to run for office. But I don't. So I live my life as a follower of Jesus within the framework of my church.

Your opening statement reads: 1. In all of Canada, I know of only one church that is sheltering a refugee from our police. I just read yesterday of a man who has been living in sanctuary in a church in Moncton for two years. Since Moncton is your home, I presume you must be referring to that church as the only one you know of. I don't know of any others either, but I presume that there are some. I didn't know about that one until yesterday.

But I realize that I am saying the same things 'over and over' so I will withdraw from this discussion.

 

[Luce NDs]

Got an email on "paraprosdokians" .. sort of resembling equivocations as dealt by the advocate to teach real people about words and their contrariness ...

They are defined as figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected and is frequently humorous. God as a dark work would love them as did Winston Chrurchill.

Here are a couple of my favorites that might apply to Trump (which way we don't know; common people are not meant to know or understand):

1. Where there's a will I want to be in it.
2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you ... but it is still on my list!
3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
4. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still believe they are sexy. (the last portion is critical for those not believing in preparing for critics early)
5. I'm supposed to respect my elders ... but they are getting harder and harder to find ... wisdom's like that ... stand all alone ...
6. To steal an idea is plagiarism, to steal many is research ...
7. We never really grow up ... only to act in public ... tis a stage ... life!

It' ill pas ...

 

[Seeler]

Waterfall, you were posting while I was preparing my post to Graeme. Don't give up hope. There are good people in the world, struggling to make a positive difference one step at a time.