Catholic and Enjoying It!
The more you assert something obviously in diametric opposition to both the letter and spirit of Scripture, the more certain you are to hail yourself as highly intelligent and the person allied with the normal reading of Scripture as “ignorant, pathetic, and simplistic”. So, for instance, if you decide to array your intellectual artillery against the proposition that the New Testament teaches that Jesus is God or that he ever claimed to be God, you say things like
Jesus was not God, Gareth.
Like I know.
He was a human being on earth with a mind limited to the worldview of his time.
Whereas *I* see with unlimited clarity because I am not conditioned by the worldview of apostate Episcopalianism in the slightest.
The synoptic gospels are theologized histories with the meaning written in;the Gospel of John was an historicized theology.
My history is not theologized in the slightest. I SEE!
It was a different time, different world view.
By which I mean it was a barbarous time of crude mythologizing, whereas I stand on the final and permanent platform from which to look down on such primitive savagery with a benevolent paternal eye and sneer at it.
I see God through Jesus, but to say he was God is something Jesus – as a faithful Jewish man – would have heartily rejected.
All the I AM statements in John were the beliefs of the early Church, not Jesus’ words.
Does that include the “I AM” statement that got him condemned to death in the gospel of Mark, the earliest gospel? Why *was* he condemned to death anyway? And that whole “forgiveness of sins” thing? What was that about? How *did* his contemporaries, both friend and foe, all get such a radically mistaken idea that he was claiming to be God? Seems like a word or two could have cleared up that rather extraordinary misconception, doncha think? Especially is, as you say, he would have heartily rejected it. So, f’rinstance, when on trial for his life and asked, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed” it would seem that a good hearty, “What? No way! Who told you *that*?” and a gust of laughter or some rolling eyes would have done the trick much better than “I am! And you shall see the Son of Man coming at the right hand of the Power.” That, you have to admit, is pretty poor communication skills if your goal is to heartily reject the notion that you are God.
Your claim answers nothing; just exposes ignorance, and a pathetic, simplistic, interpretation of scripture.
“You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!!!” All those viewing of Plan Nine from Outer Space are really paying off.
Time to get real here, both historically and theologically – and to differentiate between the two.
Ernest W. Cockrell+
El Camino Real
Given that this guy is a Piskie priest, I think Chris Johnson is perfectly sensible to wonder what that guy imagines he’s doing on Sunday mornings. At least *our* apostates go get respectable teaching gigs instead of continue to preside at worship when they go all “Jesus’ corpse was eaten by wild dogs” on us.
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