Christ has enemies, both inside and outside the church. Outside, a recent example was in Argentina, where a group of 700 men stood, arm in arm, around their cathedral to stop it having anti catholic slogans spray painted on it by a mob of women attending a state-sponsored feminist meeting. [Warning: the link contains a distressing video — and that is the censored version].
Extremely disturbing video footage from Argentina shows a mob of feminists at a recent protest attacking and sexually molesting a group of Rosary-praying Catholic men who were peacefully protecting the cathedral in the city of San Juan from threats of vandalism.
The women, many of them topless, spray-painted the men’s crotches and faces and swastikas on their chests and foreheads, using markers to paint their faces with Hitler-like moustaches. They also performed obscene sexual acts in front of them and pushed their breasts onto their faces, all the while shouting “get your rosaries out of our ovaries.” (Note: Some of the most graphic content has been removed from the video. Uncensored footage is available here. Viewer discretion strongly advised.)
According to InfoCatolica, some of the women chanted a song, with the lyrics: “To the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, who wants to get between our sheets, we say that we want to be whores, travesties and lesbians. Legal abortion in every hospital.”
During the attack some men were visibly weeping. None of them retaliated against the abuses heaped on them.
While the site of the protest was the front of the cathedral, InfoBae reports that “the whole city awoke to graffiti in favor of abortion.”
Inside the cathedral, 700 people were also in prayer accompanied by their bishop Mos. Alfonso Delgado.
After unsuccessfully trying to get into the building, the women burned a human-sized effigy of Pope Francis. “If the pope were a woman, abortion would be legal,” they shouted.
The attack took place on Sunday, November 24th during the National Women’s Encounter, which annually brings together Argentinean feminists who support “women’s rights.”
The police reportedly told the media they were unable to intervene because “they are women.”
This group then burned the Pope in effigy. Despite him being Argentinian, caring for the poor, and being soft on many issues in the hope there will be inclusion. There is no inclusion. Instead there is the sense that he must destroy. What scripture tells us that there is nothing new here. Consider today’s readings: you have the death of a martyr (Antipas) and a warning of external persecution. You also have a warning about the sins of Balaam and the Nicolaitans being tolerated in the church, and finally you have a warning about dead legalism.
8“And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of the first and the last, who was dead and came to life:
9“I know your affliction and your poverty, even though you are rich. I know the slander on the part of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. 10Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Beware, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison so that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have affliction. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. 11Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Whoever conquers will not be harmed by the second death.
12“And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: These are the words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword:
13“I know where you are living, where Satan’s throne is. Yet you are holding fast to my name, and you did not deny your faith in me even in the days of Antipas my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan lives. 14But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the people of Israel, so that they would eat food sacrificed to idols and practice fornication. 15So you also have some who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16Repent then. If not, I will come to you soon and make war against them with the sword of my mouth. 17Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give a white stone, and on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.
13“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. 15Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
16“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.’17You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? 18And you say, ‘Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath.’ 19How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; 21and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it; 22and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it.
23“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. 24You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!
25“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.
Now there are two interpretations of the Nicolaitans and they both make some sense. I’m using Wiki here to get old quotes. From Clement of Alexandria.
Such also are those (who say that they follow Nicolaus, quoting an adage of the man, which they pervert, ‘that the flesh must be abused.’ But the worthy man showed that it was necessary to check pleasures and lusts, and by such training to waste away the impulses and propensities of the flesh. But they, abandoning themselves to pleasure like goats, as if insulting the body, lead a life of self-indulgence; not knowing that the body is wasted, being by nature subject to dissolution; while their soul is buried in the mire of vice; following as they do the teaching of pleasure itself, not of the apostolic man” (Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, ii. 20
And from very early on, an alternate suggestion has been made from the three words that are in his naome. Nikos — to triumph, Laos — the people (ton, a genitive — meaning of, belonging to) thus the conquest of the laity.
In its ecclesiastical setting, Nicolaitans means the bishops and prelates of the Church have gained a triumphal victory or conquest over the LAITON, the laity. Members are compelled and forced to submit to the arbitrary dominion of men who have become that thing which God hates:
“The elders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed: Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; NOR AS BEING LORDS OVER THOSE ENTRUSTED TO YOU, but being examples to the flock” (1Peter 5:1-3).
The teachings and preaching of the Nicolaitans are in religious and secular dictionaries. When we look for the definition of the term we find it is a “hierarchy: the power of dominion, government by ecclesiastical rulers” we find the following, which is offered as evidence:
Now, the two explanations make sense when one looks at the church and people who desire power (and with it, change, so that their name is remembered, and they are called a leader). These people often want to get the title, they want the role, but they do not want to serve. They either become overly permissive in their teaching — for leaving the Nicolaitans alone, the error of Balaam in the Pentateuch was sexual immorality — or they become very legalistic.
In our current time, the liberals do both. They do not want any restriction on how the favoured class (that is women and homosexuals) express their sexuality. They can do what they want without shame. But woe betide you if you do not recycle, or use a car for a short journey, or use a styrofoam cup. This 2010 advertisement was meant to be satire, but it is far too close to the truth.
SSM has an excellent post on how this is working out in the churches. As she comments, this desire to rule over people, often using the poor and oppressed as a wedge, takes people away from the gospel and destroys churches.
We are the average sorts of people – married or single, male or female – whose churches are being overrun by either overt or covert feminism. We’re expected to foot the bill for this. We’re supposed to pay the Pastrix’s salary. We are supposed to pay for baby shower after baby shower for the same single woman without ever daring to breathe a word of rebuke. We’re supposed to accept it when our pastors teach the unbiblical concept of mutual submission in marriage.
And it all becomes so confusing. Our pastors tell us that husbands should be submitting to wives, and Jesus said we were supposed to take care of the poor and He forgave that adulterous woman, although the pastrix tends to leave out the last verse in which He told her to go and sin no more. And we know that none of how this plays out in the church seems quite right but we just end up going along to get along, not realizing that we are going along a path that will eventually lead to the destruction of our churches.
She then goes on and gives an example.
My husband and I church shopped for several years at the beginning of our spiritual journey and I promise you the small ones were no better. We attended a Vineyard church for a while and it was full gospel, charismatic, etc. The head of the children’s program was an unrepentant baby mama. We attended a Free Methodist church for a while and watched a single baby mama welcomed by the church get knocked up again and a another single mother (not sure if she was divorced or never married) demand that people babysit her children for free. It’s no better than in the mega-churches, which are also bad.
Now, we need to get back to some simple things. The church is not a big corporation. (And, yes I know the church is often incorporated for tax reasons in the AngloSphere but the church will exist. Underground if needed). It is there to proclaim the gospel, which involves both intellectual rigour and mercy. It involves some plain talking.
And it requires that those who have been involved in babymommahood or divorce — and that includes me — to not lead. I’m lay: I sit in the pews. I don’t even take part in the music ministry even though I play in community orchestras. I have lost that right. For I have seen my marriage break, and my role over the last few years has been to raise my sons.
I would not seek eldership, and I would refuse it if offered. Because I no longer meet the requirements of Titus and Timothy (if I ever did). At present the enemies are within the church trying to destroy it — for the same enemies tried to ban the church last century, and it became healthier.
But we need to pray for our young men and women, that the young men will be strong and lead, and the young women will also be strong and choose to follow, raising a Godly generation to replace our relative infertility.
Besides, Mommas are too grounded and too busy to, in general, follow feminist nonsense unless it’s continually rammed down their throats. Which, of course, is why the organs of the elite (the Mass Media, the courts, the government, and the committees of the church) are doing exactly that.
