MATHETΩN

“What power executed Jesus?”

“The Roman Empire.”

“What was the Roman imperial religion?”

“Paganism. Christianity eventually.”

“And you are Christian?”

“I am.”

“You have chosen the Roman imperial religion?”

“Are you trying to be funny? Look here, Rome converted.”

“What was the change? Was the empire no longer Roman–did the ruling race pass off the scene?”

“No.”

“Then were they no longer an empire?”

“Of course not.”

“And so you belong to the religion of the power that executed Jesus.”

“I am a Christian.”

The history of human knowledge has been less one of true and false than of truth and lies.

I had a realization today while reading the news. Australia has had a tie in elections to parliament — between the major parties, I mean — and the reporter blithely informs us that this is “the worst possible outcome for the markets”. The economist she interviews, however, says only that the stock markets may drop by as much as a cent in the next few weeks. But here is the realization I had: what a joke to relish it is that the Devil has nowadays got even opinions monetized. He no longer needs to say, Do this or that and I will reward you, but merely, Think this or that and I will reward you. Of course his reward is death, but this is no less a joke to relish.

This talisman the Evangelicals flaunt, that they have said words to make Jesus their personal savior, is easily debunked with a little observation.

So Jesus you have contracted as your own personal rescuer? Then what are these bills for house insurance, health insurance? What is this record of your having called the fire department, the police? On this date you begged your banker for a loan. At this meeting you demanded a teacher improve your daughter. You have turned to counselors to keep your marriage and to lawyers gainfully to end it. Every November, you petition governments with votes, and every May, you hang a flag hoping an Army will remember you.

Everywhere I read a Christian writing about God, these days, she seeks miracles. She dwells upon whether God may have intervened in her life in some forgotten way or whether God can be made to intervene in her life in future. Have Christians never read, “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign”?

Yesterday I even read a pastor declare that, if only he were faced with an event from no explicable cause, he would find it easy to believe God the cause of it. Could he be less logical?

God planned the universe. It revolves at his will by his laws. Were he always to be crossing himself with miracles, surely this would cast doubt on his plan’s prudence.

(And what is so special about a Christian, anyway?)

As long as the church translates scriptures, scriptures are much in danger of sounding like the church.

Have you noticed that the unique Evangelicalist symbol is the three crosses? Whether on church side or letterhead, it is the symbol that other religious groups will not be found to share. I have never given this much thought, or have perceived it vaguely as a slap at Rome; but now I think it is important. That third or second cross, elevating the “saved thief”, symbolizes all their preaching and praxis: it might be said their belief in him is the way they believe in Him.

I was just reading up on a theologian who calls himself a Deconstructionist. At any rate, I noticed among his bibliography a book titled After the Death of God. Mind you, I have no notion of the contents of this particular book — but the title struck. Really with just such casual arrogance do most of the post-modernisms replace Modernism. I would rather see a hundred generations of believers dismissed as stooges, in the good old Modern way, than sneered and soothed as “belovers”. Proud and impious are their manipulations, in my opinion.

The anti-Semitism that for over a century now has passed as Biblical scholarship has taken a blow. After a year of study, researchers have been forced to admit that a pottery shard and its inscription are very ancient — and that they are material proof the Hebrews were capable of written language hundreds of years before the scholarship has generally allowed. The shard comprises fragments of text that seem to be paraphrases of Isaiah, psalms, and others and of which the language, while unique, is inarguably Hebrew.

More can be read here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/…ertextsuggests

The modern Biblical scholarship, which began in earnest in German “new schools” in the nineteenth century, has generally maintained that the Hebrews were much inferior and dilatory imitators of surrounding cultures and that their scriptures were late pastiches of oral myth made to look like early history and prophecy.

Bonnie’s only begun her first term in college, and it seems to me she’s already been plunged neck-deep into the strident we-don’t-know-anything dogma that is reportedly pop-postmodernism. For example, the first lesson in her writing class is about how there can be no good writing — and a teacher forbade the class to critique grammar, making the curious dodge from fiat of calling it “inborn”.

I want to laugh, but something in it all seems deadly earnest.

I wonder how many more generations can find fuel from nothing but relief at having escaped modernism? But perhaps that is not what is happening at all; perhaps I really mean to be asking, How long will it take the Boomers to die?

Ask not thyself that question very often, or risk night-scares of Boomers living forever, grimmer and loucher with each century.