That would be the finding of the very ummm\u2026let me be kind here\u2026intellectually incurious, so-saturated- with -political correctness that they can no longer think, or view anything but through their narrow, narrow prism \u2013 Anglican Church of Canada<\/a>:<\/p>\n The Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) has published a Lenten reflection that portrays Jesus as a racist who saw the error of his ways after being challenged by the Canaanite woman in Matthew\u2019s Gospel. The ACoC was long ago taken over by politically correct bores but, as Anglican Samizdat notes, this \u201creflection\u201d turns Jesus into a sinner \u2013 in Christian terms, a pretty basic heresy. Here\u2019s the reflection. Sick-bags at the ready:<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026 a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, \u2018Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.\u2019 He answered, \u2018I was sent only to the lost sheep of the houseof Israel.\u2019 But she came and knelt before him, saying, \u2018Lord, help me.\u2019 He answered, \u2018It is not fair to take the children\u2019s food and throw it to the dogs.\u2019 She said, \u2018Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master\u2019s table.\u2019 \u201d \u2013 Matthew 14:22-27<\/em><\/p>\n This not a story for people who need to think that Jesus always had it together, because it looks like we\u2019ve caught him being mean to a lady because of her ethnicity. At first, he ignores her cries. Then he refuses to help her and compares her people to dogs.<\/p>\n But she challenges his prejudice. And he listens to her challenge and grows in response to it. He ends up healing her daughter. What we may have here is an important moment of self-discovery in Jesus\u2019 life, an enlargement of what it will mean to be who he was. Maybe we are seeing Jesus understand his universality for the first time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Yay! A marginalized woman made Jesus see the light! The perfect narrative for the 21st Century!<\/p>\n The Man-God is once again being deconstructed to appear only human \u2013 faulty and human and sinful, just like the rest of us.<\/p>\n Suits the narrative. And it IS the season of Lent\/Easter, so hone your sense of humor. You\u2019ll be seeing a lot more of this silliness for the next 40 days or so.<\/p>\n I know that particular story in scripture<\/strong> has bothered some of our more enlightened, \u201cprogressive\u201d friends. Almost ten years ago I had a discussion with a man who insisted that this story \u2013 and Christ\u2019s admonition that his disciples, when rejected, \u201cshake the dust of that town off their feet\u201d \u2013 proved that Christ had moments of dark malevolence \u2013 he wasn\u2019t really any better than the rest of us.<\/p>\n Well. We all know people will believe what they want, so I frankly wouldn\u2019t waste time trying to convince anyone of anything. I\u2019ve always taken a line through Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes, who told her disbelieving church and secular leadership, \u201cit\u2019s not my job to convince. Only to inform.\u201d<\/p>\n And of course, how you receive something<\/a> is entirely up to you.<\/p>\n The problem with embracing evangelical\/fundamentalis secularism \u2013 and that is what this Canadian Anglican group is offering up, make no mistake \u2013 is that like most fundamentalisms, there is no room for broad-minding pondering. There is no opportunity to imagine that Jesus could possibly be motivated by anything, in that scene, but \u201cprejudice\u201d and \u201cmeanness\u201d.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always loved that story because in my view, Jesus is challenging that woman to deliver her authentic self to him. As I wrote here<\/a>:<\/p>\n [Jesus] He never \u201cloves us too much to challenge\u201d us.<\/strong> The scene above is a good example. I have read some commentators suggest that Jesus\u2019 exchange with this woman is an occasion of Jesus being \u201cdark\u201d or \u201cunloving,\u201d but I have never received it that way. Rather, he seems to me to be acting here as a good teacher who wants his student to \u201cstand and deliver,\u201d so to speak.<\/p>\n I know, I know, \u201cstand and deliver\u201d is the catchphrase of highwaymen and thieves but what it really breaks down to is, \u201chand over the goods, deliver to me what is valuable.\u201d<\/em> I believe in Jesus\u2019 case, he wants us to expose and bring forth to him our inmost selves.<\/p>\n Remember, Jesus is the Divine Teacher, and a good teacher finds the way to bring out the very best in students, not simply to teach them rote answers (although that has its place) but to make them \u201cdeliver of themselves,\u201d to put something more behind their answers. He does it over and over in the Gospels \u2013 makes people declare what it is they want, why they are coming to him. His challenge says, \u201cstand and deliver \u2013 to be more fully the man or woman you are, and not some prostrate creature.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Consider, had the story played differently, had Jesus simply said, \u201cokay, fine, your kid is healed\u201d it would not not have been as memorable and a key bit of info would not have been passed along (the important message to the Gentiles \u2013 do not be afraid to seek your salvation here, it\u2019s for you, too<\/em>) but perhaps more importantly, on a personal level, the woman would not have been lifted up, would not have had her cleverness (the gift of her individuality<\/em> and mind<\/em>) acknowledged. She would have been one more woman ducking her head and lowering her eyes. Instead \u2013 after that encounter with Christ \u2013 she had dignity and could hold her head up. I believe THOSE are the reasons Christ challenged her.<\/p>\n This is a wonderful story and Jesus made here a wonderful challenge to a woman who had been raised in a culture that thought of her as mere chattel: show me who you are. Stand up tall. Be yourself. Speak your piece.<\/em><\/p>\n There is nothing \u201cdark\u201d in any of that, and there could not be, for He is all Light. I love it. Jesus rocks!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There is nothing nefarious in Jesus telling the apostles<\/strong> to \u201cshake the dust of that town off your feet,\u201d either.<\/p>\n \u201cWhoever will not receive you or listen to your words\u2013go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet. Amen, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. It\u2019s cultural<\/em>. And we\u2019re supposed to be fascinated and celebratory about cultural things, aren\u2019t we? You \u201cshake the dust off your feet\u201d to indicate that nothing there has \u201cstuck\u201d to you; you do it to declare yourself in no way connected to that place. Since the apostles had been rejected, that would have been a reasonable statement to make: \u201cYou do not belong to us; even your dust does not belong, and we do not belong to you \u2013 nor does your fate touch us.\u201d<\/p>\n But if you want to put an Eastern spin on it \u2013 because everyone knows that the Eastern religions are much, much more enlightened and palatable<\/a> than either Christianity or Judaism \u2013 you can suggest, as a Taoist I know has, that Jesus was simply telling them to \u201cshake the negative energy off of themselves, not take it with them in their travels.\u201d<\/p>\n Because, again, you don\u2019t want that negative energy following you \u2013 you don\u2019t want their karma stuck to you.<\/p>\n Seems a Taoist can have a more open and tolerant mind about Jesus than the people who incorrectly call themselves \u201cliberal\u201d these days. A Taoist can look at the words of the Christ \u2013 in whom he does not believe \u2013 and say, \u201cyeah, I get it.\u201d<\/p>\n But a \u201cbroad-minded\u201d intellectual type can only see \u201cdarkness\u201d. Can only see Jesus being \u201cmean\u201d instead of \u201cnice.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBe nice\u201d is what intellectualism has been reduced to.<\/p>\n A friend of mine sent me a quote<\/strong> by Chesterton, one I hadn\u2019t seen before:<\/p>\n Ambition narrows as the mind expands<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For once I disagree with the big man. It almost seems to me that a mind narrows, as ambition expands. In the quest to socially mandate \u201cniceness\u201d \u2013 the ambition to be \u201csensitive, tolerant and compassionate\u201d to everyone, all the time, in that vapid \u201ceveryone-is-special\u201d manner \u2013 the broad ambition has narrowed the minds. And apparently stultified them, too.<\/p>\n Fundamentalism can do that \u2013 shut down the mind and forbid wondering \u2013 whether it is Christian, Jewish, Muslim\u2026or even secular-humanist and politically correct<\/a>.<\/p>\n Related:<\/strong> That would be the finding of the very ummm\u2026let me be kind here\u2026intellectually incurious, so-saturated- with -political correctness that they can no longer think, or view anything but through their narrow, narrow prism \u2013 Anglican Church of Canada: The Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) has published a Lenten reflection that portrays Jesus as a racist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,104,230,231],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-feminism","category-scriptural-stuff","category-secularism"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n \u2014 Matthew 10:14-15<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nQuestions the Dalai Lama is never asked<\/a>
\nThey do not love Jesus<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"