31 May the glory of the LORD endure for ever;
may the LORD rejoice in his works —
32 who looks on the earth and it trembles,
who touches the mountains and they smoke.
33 I will sing to the LORD as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
34 May my meditation be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the LORD.
When I turn to the lectionary every morning — the time varies, the place I do it varies, but I do this over the coffee.
Which may offend some: for some see any stimulant as evil. I consider it a mercy: by nature I am an evening person, and doing this most mornings has a benefit, that I do not interact with humans until my snark has been neatly bashed into place by prayer and meditation on the word. The coffee kickstarts the brain.
For we can offend by our rituals, our diet, our days, our theology: we can offend by our lack of restrictions, our lack of rituals, our lack of days — coming again from our theology. I work using the reformed model of theology because I consider this — and I have worshipped, over the years, with both the Anglo-Catholics, the pentecostals and the emerging church people — is closest to scripture.
But in that move to minimalism there are aesthetic things I lose. I love evensong and the book of common prayer: the Presbyterians do not use it. I also love the music and fervour of pentecostal worship (but not their theology — too much holiness and prosperity heresy) but in the bleak plain diet of the reformed that does not exist either.
And we are told, today, to accept such variations. The Papists do have this wisdom (though in their deviation into the liberal swamp they almost lost it) — they have eastern and western rites: the old mass and the new. Sitting on the other side of the Tiber, I can see the same thing with my Anglican friends, who tend to prefer the book of 1667, the authorized version — where the poems are indeed prayers — than the grating, ugly, regional book that the bishops have ordered to replace it.
And Paul tells us on these issues not to judge each other.
ROMANS 14:1-23
Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables. Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat; for God has welcomed them. Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand.
Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the Lord. Also those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God.
We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.” So then, each of us will be accountable to God.
Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of another. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. If your brother or sister is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died. So do not let your good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The one who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and has human approval. Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for you to make others fall by what you eat; it is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother or sister stumble. The faith that you have, have as your own conviction before God. Blessed are those who have no reason to condemn themselves because of what they approve. But those who have doubts are condemned if they eat, because they do not act from faith; for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
In Christ, those who have the spirit of peace and joy and righteousness form functional alliances. The Papists and Wee Frees should speak as one. For there is evil in this world, and we share a theology of salvation (Ratzinger wrote on this quite well when discussing this with the Lutherans) and that we should be influencing our culture.
But we have let ourselves be separated, divided: we have let the liberals run our structure. We have lost moral suasion over the nations where we live. And this is now bearing fruit.
What the Belgian Parliament has done exceeds even the boundaries of common insanity. It is evil in its purest form. Evil shouted out in a very loud manner, and sugarcoated with Satan’s favourite weapon: a fake good-ism, a parody of mercy unable to mask the atrocious reality of a boundless cynicism, and an ice cold disregard for everything sacred, even the life of a six years old child. Or four, or perhaps three. The law has no minimum age. Belgium perfectly epitomises the ruthless cruelty of men who have forgotten God.
A child of, say, six years old can do very little of his own. He will be told when to eat and when to sleep, when to speak and when to be silent, when to play and when to do his homework. He will seldom even cross the road without an adult being there. He will – very obviously – be unable to drive, or vote.
But he will now be able to decide if he wants to have his life terminated. If he lives in Belgium, that is.
Evil. Pure evil. The culture of death has become a religion.
As always in these cases, revolutionary evil clothes itself with the mantle of good sentiments. In the same way as divorce and abortion and euthanasia, this new measure allows for a child to decide – imagine that! – that he wants to die only when the “extreme cases” which always make for bad laws, are present. The poor child must be terminally ill and suffering. I they they do it with horses, too.
Make no mistake:as with divorce, abortion, and euthanasia, the exceptional cases will become less and less exceptional; the “suffering” more and more widely interpreted, and extended to mental/moral/immoral suffering; the criteria for “moral suffering” will be reduced to the will to die, as already seen by the will to divorce and the will to abort, and as it is happening in this disgraceful Country for euthanasia already. I have read in Belgium one death in twenty is now more or less officially the product of euthanasia. The existing euthanasia law is around a decade old. Satan’s harvest is very rich already.
Mundabor, who wrote this, is Catholic. Tridentine in his practice, and he and I would disagree on almost everything around how to run a service. But he has an eye, he as been to Belgium, where he described a priest grooming a boy in what was supposed to be a Mass.
Due to the beauty of Vatican II, I don´t understand a goddamn word. The priest is young, very trendy. At a certain point he starts with the homily, and explaining a point takes a coin. There is a young boy among the 41 people present (including myself, the priest, two altar boys, the chap at the portable organ and an old lady who fancies herself the director of a non-existent orchestra, but is so satisfied with herself it seems in bad taste to tell her she makes an ass of herself). The boy is around 15, blond locks, tall and slender, looks like a cherubim from a Hans Memling painting.
The priest goes to him, and poses him a question. He answers, correctly as it seems. Creepy, thinks yours truly. After a couple of minutes, the “scene” happens again, the priests walks the entire space to pose a question to him. Goddamn creepy, thinks yours truly; but we are in Belgium, and no one notices.
The homily ends, and after a while the organists plays an Elvis Presley song, “Can´t stop loving you”, whilst the priest pronounces the consecration prayers. I am not joking, and this is not a movie.
Now, this is offensive. And this inversion: this turning to looking at the ideal, youthful version of yourself, this reduction to trendiness: this lack of confrontation of our sins, this lack of fervour, our beauty, or the gospel (I will accept that the service was in Flemish: when I went to a Catholic church in Vienna last year — well they are trinitarian and I could not find a Protestant one — my German is such that I understood one word. But the service was not for a Presbyterian visiting who would not receive out of respect for the rules of that place).
It means that the church is gelded.
And gelded things you can kill with impunity.
But Christ is not castrated: nor do we do such a deed to our children, but to the beef we will eat, and our pets we choose not to let breed. What Belgium has done is evil. The world needs to protest this. When things are this evil, any person of faith, of any theology, will stand out for they are not like the rest of the nation. For they are alive, and most of the nation are dead, but living.