I had an early appointment this morning. The fiancée was painting casa pukeko and stressing about the time remaining before the first marketing visit and open home. The list for today is long.
So, as I am starting to read the lectionary I look in the local paper and find this.
The Atheist Pride March in Dunedin yesterday was something that had to be seen to be believed.
Waiheke Island artist Dr Craig Hilton, who was dressed as his alter-ego Sahelanthropus the ape, led about 50 people wielding placards from the School of Dentistry to the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral yesterday.Marcher Mandy Mayhem made ape-like calls, with low-pitched hoots transitioning into a series of quicker, higher-pitched noises, as she walked along George St holding the placard reading ”Thank God! I am an atheist”.
As Sahelanthropus led the march, he roared chants through a megaphone, including ”Uga uga uga chuga” and ”free bananas for primates of all beliefs”.
Shoppers and retailers stood with stunned smiles as they watched the primal procession, some accepting free bananas from marchers.
On the steps, Sahelanthropus, armed with a bone and a microphone, gave a sermon about the genealogy of mankind, with the audience interjecting with ”different schools of thought”.
After the march ended, the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, the Very Rev Dr Trevor James, met Dr Hilton in the cathedral entrance.
Dr James joked about how primate was a title bestowed on some archbishops in certain Christian churches.
”It’s good to have you here … a conversation between science and faith is not a bad idea,” Dr James said when welcoming Dr Hilton.
Dr Hilton said the performance art was funded by Creative New Zealand and aimed to celebrate the proud atheist, someone who was not obnoxious and lived in harmony with those people who believed in a god.
Can I have the old atheists back. Those who fervently hated the faith, and would never have shaken the hand of a bishop. Those who believed they had the truth. For they could be evangelized: the truth was their weakness, for the truth is of God.
What we have now is people claiming to be atheists without the courage of that believe and faith that there is no God. And we have bishops who accede to a mockery of truth. There are consequences of this; for the priest and the congregation
.
“And now, O priests, this command is for you. If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it. So shall you know that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi may stand, says the LORD of hosts. My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name. True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts, and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction.”
Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the LORD, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. May the LORD cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the LORD of hosts!
And this second thing you do. You cover the LORD’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”
(Malachi 2:1-16 ESV)
There are many who say that politics is downstream from culture. That is incorrect. Note that this parade, this mockery, was funded by the taxpayer. It was considered a form of art by Creative NZ, which entered a post modern convergence a decade or so ago and is unlikely to emerge from it.
It is also worth noting that we have a theology: it is the treaty of Waitangi. Which I blasphemed yesterday, saying that it did free the Maori slaves and should be respected for that, but it is not a founding document, regardless of what Parliament legislates our the courts rule.
The correct structure is Priest influences King influences Court and culture influences the people. In the passage from Malachi you see that firstly the priests are not keeping to the rules of teaching wisdom and truth, as their ancestor Levi did. Then the king and aristocracy have married outside of the nation — which is forbidden to the Jews by the Law (Yes I know about Ruth, but she aligned herself with Israel first) — and then the oppression moves to the men, who leave the wives of their youth, committing violence upon them.
And this has shut heaven to them. The earthquakes we have had should lead to repentance, not mockery of those who call for it. Brian Tamaki is a local televangelist, he is Maori, and his congregation is working class. He looks at Leviticus and the prophets and sees teaching on earthquakes and preaches upon it. Like me, he is a modern blasphemer, for he mentioned sin. So he is told to go and join Trump and the deplorable in hell.
On he goes about the land speaking to God, and some tripe about Abel and the weight of human sin, and you’d be forgiven for thinking you’re watching the next Zoolander.
The so-utterly-messed-up-it-can-only-be-parodied sermon is horrific enough to listen to, but the people audibly cheering from the crowd gave me a fright.
It means that unless The Muppet Tamaki got someone to add the sound of supporters in post-production (because no actual human could actually be cheering along to that, could they?), there are people out there who agree.
It made me think about how we have to live among these people. You might know some of them. They could be anywhere.
Like the unfathomable number of humans who voted Trump into power last week, they may or may not verbalise the fact they share the views of Tamaki, but what do we do as a society about the fact that these views exist?
We know that in times of disaster, people find solace in blaming. That Trump marginalised minorities to explain away economic problems and it resonated. He bloody won.
As a society, we tend to marginalise the “deplorables”, because – and in this case, especially – that’s what they are. But where has it got us?
The elite is now the cathedral: they have subverted King and Country for global progressivism. The priests are now the journalists: the bishop is mocked, for they only fear the Mullah who preaches a duty of violence. And the people have been told to leave the husband of their youth because Duluth says that if he tries to lead it is violence, and therefore we will take your children.
We are far more fallen than the Israel of Malachi.
And God will not be mocked. His patience is because he knows his people have not all come to him. Yet. But that time will end, if not with the return of Christ, with the death of an individual and the destruction of a nation. For this elite forget that it is God who plants nations and uproots them.
And that he is active in this world.
If they believed they would, like the demons, tremble.
Update.
The fascist gay rainbow brigade are petitioning the PM. I think that they need some memes and Pepe.
Brian Tamaki was preaching scripture. It offended people, showing that the word of God is living, and divides us.
This I am not signing. The list of signatories may need to be added to the SJW list.