It is interesting how things work in parallel, My Papist Brother’s last blog post is a perfect introduction to the text for today, and I would happily agree with his sentiment. For I am no elder. I sit in the pew. Although I have some (rusty) Greek and (creaking) Latin, I am no theologian. What I try to present, particularly in the lectionary posts, is the gospel.

Straight, no chaser.

This blog is written by someone who is not a theologian. But then again this someone does not say that he is a theologian. Therefore, everyone can make his own decision whether the blog is worth reading or not.

This blog is also written by someone who is not entirely stupid, or actually ignorant of Catholic things. So much so, that many suspect him of being, actually, a Catholic priest. Of the Catholic sort, I mean.

This blog also does not have any heterodox material published. What you read in this blog has hands and feet. It is solid, time-proofed, no-nonsense, Traditional Catholic fare.

This blog is written by someone who does not earn any money from it, does not ask for donations or memberships, and is content with the readers’ prayers for him if and when they, in their charity, feel so inclined.

This blog is also written by someone who does not ignore a huge elephant in the room just because this particular elephant is dressed in white, drinks mate, and insists on black shoes.

Perhaps it is not so bad that this blog is written by someone who is not a theologian.

But, the reader, says, You are a theologian. So is Munabor. You get readers. You are responsible: you are a priest.

No. No. No.

I do not make my living teaching doctrine: I make my living talking to the broken and doing clinical epidemiology. I am not a theologian. But then, neither was Nehemiah.

Now when Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies heard that I had built the wall and that there was no breach left in it (although up to that time I had not set up the doors in the gates), Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, “Come and let us meet together at Hakkephirim in the plain of Ono.” But they intended to do me harm. And I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?” And they sent to me four times in this way, and I answered them in the same manner. In the same way Sanballat for the fifth time sent his servant to me with an open letter in his hand. In it was written, “It is reported among the nations, and Geshem also says it, that you and the Jews intend to rebel; that is why you are building the wall. And according to these reports you wish to become their king. And you have also set up prophets to proclaim concerning you in Jerusalem, ‘There is a king in Judah.’ And now the king will hear of these reports. So now come and let us take counsel together.” Then I sent to him, saying, “No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind.” For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done.” But now, O God, strengthen my hands.

Now when I went into the house of Shemaiah the son of Delaiah, son of Mehetabel, who was confined to his home, he said, “Let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple. Let us close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you. They are coming to kill you by night.” But I said, “Should such a man as I run away? And what man such as I could go into the temple and live? I will not go in.” And I understood and saw that God had not sent him, but he had pronounced the prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. For this purpose he was hired, that I should be afraid and act in this way and sin, and so they could give me a bad name in order to taunt me. Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, O my God, according to these things that they did, and also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who wanted to make me afraid.

So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty-two days. And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God. Moreover, in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and Tobiah’s letters came to them. For many in Judah were bound by oath to him, because he was the son-in-law of Shecaniah the son of Arah: and his son Jehohanan had taken the daughter of Meshullam the son of Berechiah as his wife. Also they spoke of his good deeds in my presence and reported my words to him. And Tobiah sent letters to make me afraid.

(Nehemiah 6 ESV)

Let us list the kind of opposition that Nehemiah had.

1. The bureaucrats . The other rulers around him opposed him, wrote letters to the emperor stating that he was a threat to the nation, and fomenting rebellion. We see this, over and over, when the multicultural and internationalist elite say that tolerance and open borders are a New Zealand, or Australian, or British, or Canadian trait, and to oppose them is against the culture of these nations. We see it with Merkel saying that not accepting the enemy within our midst and not building a wall around our culture is un-European. I need say nothing about the biases of the media, calling the immigrant of one week a native son, or hiding risk by lumping the civilized with the barbarians.
2. The ministers of religion Those who say ‘Thus saith the LORD’. The told Nehemiah that he had a conspiracy against him and that he should hide in the temple. We are told by many that we should fear — it may be global warming, it may be mass migration, it may be inequality in our nation — and we need to listen and be part of this block, this party… and if we do not ascribe to these things (because we may know more of the data than the preacher, or the preacher, like the Argentinian on the seat of Peter, falls into error) we are told to shut ourselves into our prayer closet and be silent. This is different from the secular: they want us silent regardless. But never think that all ministers and preachers speak the truth: test all teaching.
3. The corrupt and compromised. Those who are traitors to the cause: whose alliances (in Nehemiah’s time, because the clan had married with Sanballat’s clan) are with the enemy. Who do not look to the LORD, and do not build up the people of God, but look instead at the agenda from the pit. You can mark them by the hyphen in their self description: feminist-christian, nativist-christian, socialist-christian, neotraditionalist-christian, homosexual-christian… They see not their identity in Christ, but in the hyphen. This is a fundamental error that this age makes:: we are supposed to fit into the colour of the rainbow that the progressive coalition want us to be… and accede to the demands of each colour within. The politics of identity is the politics of the elite and the agenda of those petunias who are neither for society, nor justice nor the warrior. In Christ, we acknowledge our broken state and weaknesses: the Straight man praises God he hath not the temptations his Homosexual brother faces, and his brother praises God he is not tempted by the drink or gaming machines. We talk about repentance, not sin-as-identity. For our loyalty, our alliance, is with God.

Our alliances are with God, and with those who seek the kingdom of God and its righteousness. Perhaps it is to the best that neither Mundabor nor I am theologians.