{"id":56339,"date":"2014-12-16T12:01:36","date_gmt":"2014-12-16T19:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=56339"},"modified":"2014-12-16T12:01:36","modified_gmt":"2014-12-16T19:01:36","slug":"real-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2014\/12\/real-men.html","title":{"rendered":"Real Men"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Another popular lie of the Torture Defender is enunciated by a manly laptop bombardier in my comboxes:<\/p>\n

War is dirty business. I guess there are people out there willing to do the dirty work so the rest of us can go about pursuing the American Dream. OK, libbys, bring on the tough love!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In contrast, Pope Francis declares that torture is a mortal sin<\/a>. \u00a0But the Greatest Catholics of All Time know he is a damn librul, so his teaching\u00a0doesn\u2019t matter, even though it is the teaching of Holy Church on a matter that spells the difference between salvation and the everlasting fires of hell. He lives in an ivory tower and knows nothing of the brutal realities (having only lived through the Dirty War in Argentina). Only Real Men who play Call of Duty<\/em>\u00a0in their mom\u2019s basement and watch 24<\/em> understand Reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the marks of People of the Lie in their advocacy of mortal sin is that they tend to describe their love of mortal sin as an act of courage<\/a>. \u00a0Further evidence of their courage is their habit of sending other people\u2019s children to live out their vengeance fantasies and bear the psychological consequences, and (in the case of \u201cprolife\u201d torture defenders) of using unborn children as human shields for their advocacy of anal rape, threats to murder children, and freezing innocent people to death as human sacrifices to their vengeful bloodlust.<\/p>\n

In case any real men are interested, here is what a Real\u00a0Man has to say about the choice between saving\u00a0your cowardly skin and sinning mortally against God Almighty:<\/p>\n

\n

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice in so far as you share Christ\u2019s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or a wrongdoer, or a mischief-maker; yet if one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but under that name let him glorify God. For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? And
\n\u201cIf the righteous man is scarcely saved,
\nwhere will the impious and sinner appear?\u201d Therefore let those who suffer according to God\u2019s will do right and entrust their souls to a faithful Creator.\u00a0(1 Pe 4:12\u201319).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As we see from the first pope\u2019s response to brutal persecution (a persecution in which he himself would be killed), one option the faith proposes to\u00a0us that most Americans disregard with utter contempt is, well, martyrdom. \u00a0And, (which is my point) he does so as his *first* option while we commonly express an eager willingness to commit the filthiest sins to avoid it.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh sure, easy for you to say! \u00a0But when these monsters take over the world in the coming Jihad you\u2019ll be singing a different tune! \u00a0We have to stop these bastards by any means necessary. The pope should have called a Crusade! This is the same sort of pantywaist stuff you spout when you mewl and puke about Hiroshima. \u00a0Thank God that *real* men do\u00a0what is\u00a0necessary to win!\u201d<\/p>\n

Several things:<\/p>\n

To begin with,\u00a0it\u2019s not easy for me to say. \u00a0I don\u2019t want to die and I don\u2019t want other people to die either. \u00a0Indeed, I still hold to just war teaching and don\u2019t have any particular objection to the use of force to stop enemies. \u00a0But I\u2019m also aware that Just War teaching is specifically designed to make it\u00a0really hard<\/em>\u00a0to go to war due to the Church\u2019s preferential option for life. \u00a0But torture is not just war. \u00a0It is a war crime.<\/p>\n

Second: when you call for war crimes to save your skin, you demonstrate as clearly as can be the vast gulf that lies between you and Peter\u2019s response.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the deal: While the Church\u2019s developed teaching allows a place for just self-defense, it by no means\u00a0allow a place to unjust self-defense. \u00a0Peter is very clear: \u00a0better death than mortal sin, better the first death than the second death.<\/p>\n

Jesus says the same thing:<\/p>\n

\n

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.\u00a0(Mt 10:28\u201329).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And so\u00a0the guy who once thought it his mission to kill people to defend Christ seems to have, as the passage from 1 Peter\u00a0indicates, decided it was better, not only for him, but for his flock, to die without sinning than to sin without dying. \u00a0It was\u00a0far more important to Peter that Christians not be\u00a0murderers, or thieves, or wrongdoers, or mischief-makers, than that they not light Nero\u2019s gardens as human torches, or be ripped apart in the arena for the delectation of the mob. \u00a0Consequently, when he writes to a Church facing its first really vicious imperial persecution, he says\u00a0not one single word<\/em>\u00a0about fighting back, about how any kind of real man would protect his family, about how the pagan bastards deserve to have\u00a0their<\/em>\u00a0heads cut off. \u00a0Instead, he counsels his flock to suffer well and specifically tells them not to so much as back talk on their way to gruesome deaths that would make any modern, including me, curl up in a fetal position and blubber like a child to avoid:<\/p>\n

\n

For what credit is it, if when you do wrong and are beaten for it you take it patiently? But if when you do right and suffer for it you take it patiently, you have God\u2019s approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin; no guile was found on his lips. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he trusted to him who judges justly.\u00a0(1 Pe 2:20\u201324).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If he were saying that stuff today, he would shrieked at as a dhimmi wuss by the laptop bombardiers.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another popular lie of the Torture Defender is enunciated by a manly laptop bombardier in my comboxes: War is dirty business. I guess there are people out there willing to do the dirty work so the rest of us can go about pursuing the American Dream. OK, libbys, bring on the tough love! In contrast, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[174,650,374,186],"class_list":["post-56339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-mortal-sinfalse-courage","tag-na","tag-pope-francis","tag-torture-is-evil"],"yoast_head":"\nReal Men<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Another popular lie of the Torture Defender is enunciated by a manly laptop bombardier in my comboxes: War is dirty business. 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