We are now post storm and the internet has been restored, which led to general rejoicing and raiding of Steam accounts in Casa Pukeko. I have not done a quotage and linage post over the last few days, but now that things are settling down.
I’ve just had dinner with a friend and we discussed the Eich case. He pointed out that if he only had friends who agreed completely with him he would be lonely. I concurred, pointing out that in my ideal world the state would be so small that a capital would require no more administration than a small village.
But too many people appease when they should confront.
Pope Francis has symbolically endorsed the conquest of Europe by Muslims twice during the last two Holy Weeks. The man is a menace.
— Dark enlightenment (@enlightdark) April 19, 2014
I also noticed that the Muslims all pointed out that orthodox Christians, Jews, Mormons, etc. also put their religious laws above the civil laws. That is true. I absolutely agree. We all try to get along with the others, but when it comes down to the wire, the only thing that counts is eternal life. Amen.
This is not what makes our religions different from Islam, but rather that our religions have an easier time mixing with a civil government because they simply don’t require the same amount of meddling in the running of the state and the state’s monopoly on violence. Our religions are just… more flexible and peaceful. And, on the rare occasion that we do interfere in the state, then mostly to promote universal rights, and less to win special privileges for our fellow believers.
Alte even managed to quote revelations in her post. But Mark Steyn expanded on this in discussing one of Mel Gibson’s movies — interestingly, Mel remains one of the people it is safe to hate, and is shunned in Hollywood in part because of his Catholicism.
That’s the real argument over The Passion Of The Christ. It’s not between Christians and Jews, but between believing Christians and the broader post-Christian culture, a term that covers a large swathe from the media to your average Anglican vicar. Some in this post-Christian culture don’t believe anything, some are riddled with doubts, but even the ones with only a vague residual memory of the fluffier Sunday School stories are agreed that there’s little harm in a Jesus figure who’s a “gentle teacher”. In this world, if Jesus came back today he’d most likely be a gay Anglican bishop in a committed relationship driving around in an environmentally-friendly car with an “Arms Are For Hugging” sticker on the way to an interfaith dialogue with a Wiccan and a couple of Wahhabi imams. If that’s your boy, Mel Gibson’s movie is not for you.
Indeed, although Mel is Catholic, his Passion became a hit thanks to evangelical Protestants – those who believe the Bible is the literal truth and not a “useful narrative” culminating in what the Bishop of Durham called a “conjuring trick with bones”. Instead of Jesus the wimp, Mel gives us Jesus the Redeemer. He died for our sins – ie, the “violent end” is the critical bit, not just an unfortunate misunderstanding cruelly cutting short a promising career in gentle teaching. The followers of Wimp Jesus seem to believe He died to license our sins – Jesus loves us for who we are so whatever’s your bag is cool with Him.
Strictly as a commercial proposition, Wimp Jesus is a loser: the churches who go down that path are emptying out and dying. Those who believe in Christ the Redeemer are, comparatively, booming, and ten years ago Mel Gibson made a movie for them. If Hollywood was as savvy as it thinks it is, it would have beaten him to it. But it isn’t so it didn’t. And as most studio execs had never seen an evangelical Christian except in films where they turn out to be paedophiles or serial killers, it’s no wonder they were baffled by The Passion’s success.
It is not good to sit and agree with those who oppose you. We are called to be men, not jellyfish: to be women, not doormats. We need to know what we believe, and be prepared to defend this. To do this, we have to accept a certain degree of offense and mockery. Because what Christians believe is offensive. The torture and death of Christ was a travesty, and injustice. But to Christians, it is the great work of atonement, for his punishment was for me, for my sins, and only by that act can the wrong I have done reach any form of atonement.
There is no scales, no measure to weigh evil. It corrupts everything. One theft makes you a thief, one affair an adulterer, one bribe corrupt. And thus we are all damned. We cannot pay back. Christ took that away from us, and in doing this he opened a way to a new freedom in which redemption is possible.
But the elite don’t believe this. You should read Mark’s essay, but he ends with people saying that Gibson’s movie should, in effect be banned, because it is too violent, or not approved, or suggests that there such things as standards.
Which is not where the elite want us to be. Bill Price points out that Putin’s anti-gay stance is fairly popular, and in making homosexuality the issue of the day there may be a degree of over-reach.
Again, institutionalized homosexuality is only one issue, but it may have been the one that finally crossed a red line. Considering that even in my very liberal state of Washington legalization of gay marriage passed by only about one percentage point in late 2012, and then only after enormous campaign donations from the globalist billionaires in the state, it is probably too costly even for the US to successfully convince the rest of the world that it is a good idea. But for whatever reason, progressives have made it their defining cause and staked their movement’s claim to the future on it. This act of hubris may prove to be progressivism’s Achille’s heel, but in the long run what matters – and hurts – the most for those of us more traditional Americans is our dramatic loss of faith in our own nation.
To see the US reduced to little more than a platform for the greedy and licentious when it used to be a beacon of liberty and common decency in a savage world is profoundly unsettling. It is also why I am all but certain that our decline is a fait accompli rather than an imminent threat.
At this point, we can only hope that nihilistic radicals like Masha Gessen refrain from plunging, us into a catastrophic war on their behalf, sacrificing our sons for ideals that we despise from the bottom of our hearts.
There is a dissonance between the rulers and the ruled in America at present. It is less in New Zealand, but even here the PM donates his salary to charity (he made his money as a bankster) and the leader of the opposition is also independently wealthy. Even here, the elite bureaus treat everyone else as peons to be educated.
But in their blindness, they have over reached. It is time to mock them: to not comply, to not be jellyfish. For if mockery is banned… we have tyranny, and tyrannies generally do not end well.
