In the Voice of the Soup Nazi: ‘No Communion For You!’

The Associated Press notes

A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him “constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil.”

Oh I bet he’s going to get an earful!

The Rev. Jay Scott Newman said in a letter distributed Sunday to parishioners at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenville that they are putting their souls at risk if they take Holy Communion before doing penance for their vote.

I wonder how many people have done penance for voting for George Bush (once or even worse, twice)?

“Our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president,” Newman wrote, referring to Obama by his full name, including his middle name of Hussein.

That’s one miffed Priest!

“Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ’s Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.”

Yikes…  If this isn’t a clear example of overstatement I don’t know what is.  I like it!  Hyperbole was one of Jesus’ favorite methods and so it’s nice to see his priests doing the same.  Away with the mamby pamby hand holding hand wringers.  ‘If your hand offends you, hack it off!  If your eye offends you, pluck it out!  If you voted for Obama, you eat and drink your own condemnation!’  As the kids say, sweeeettttt….

Where in the World Is Chris Tilling Now?

Here, manfully taking part in what can only be described as the most bizarre of activities.  Of course he didn’t quite win, but he did eat an awful lot of the awful stuff.  Fresh from his most recent escapades of Zwingli bashing (may his name forever be spoken as a blessing), Chris took the train from London to Hunterville. 

I only have one word for Chris to pass on to Anja…  Do make sure he scrubs his teeth!!!!

Quote of the Year

‘You aren’t naked, and you aren’t an archaeologist’  –  Aren Maeir to Simcha Jacobovici

Na’aman on Kh. Qeiyafa

In the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, here.

She May Be Pregnant Again, But She’s Still Not a Man

Thomas Beatie, the so called ‘pregnant man’ granted fame by Oprah and the Oprahanityites is with child again.  And once again, it must be said, so let it be said, that ‘he’ is not a man.  ‘He’ is a woman with the reproductive tools of such.

ABC News reports

Thomas Beatie, a transgender, welcomed a baby girl, Susan, June 29. Since sharing the story of Susan’s birth with ABC News, he and his wife, Nancy Beatie, hadn’t spoken to the media until they sat down last month with Walters. Thomas Beatie, who is in his first trimester, tells Walters he did not go back on the male hormone testosterone after Susan’s birth so he could have another baby.

In spite of ABC’s unwillingness to rightly name her a woman, it is in fact a woman, and a woman alone, who is with child.

More on the ‘Bible’s Buried Secrets’

The publicity machine for NOVA is in full speed ahead mode these days with a lot of press coverage for their upcoming (next Tuesday) special, the Bible’s Buried Secrets.  A brief piece in the Orlando Sentinel today has a bit more information than preceding press notices, and hence, is worth a glance.

Naturally the writer of the piece has to push the ‘controversy’ angle.  It seems odd to be discussing ‘controversy’ before the thing is even viewed by the public or the academics who will be, in large part, the only ones capable of judging the program’s accuracy and therefore its worth.  But controversy sells.

George Beasley-Murray on Revelation

Rob Bradshaw has posted an essay by Beasley-Murray written a number of years back which is still worth reading (as is everything by that great, and sadly departed, scholar).  How Christian is the Book of Revelation?  Read the essay and you’ll know.

By the way, let me just say at this point that Rob is doing really important things by posting these essays.  They might not be ‘new’- but they are, in large part, extraordinarily superior to the rubbish appearing in so many biblical and theological journals these days.

New In the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

The Midianite-Kenite Hypothesis Revisited and the Origins of Judah, by Joseph Blenkinsopp

Deuteronomy 16.18–18.22: Meeting the Challenge of Towns and Nations, by Mark O’Brien

Yahweh versus Baal: A Narrative-Critical Reading of the Gideon/Abimelech Narrative, by Vince Endris

Naboth’s Vineyard and the Foundation of Jezreel, by Nadav Na’aman

Being as Breath, Vapor as Joy: Using Martin Heidegger to Re-read the Book of Ecclesiastes, by Martin Shuster

Jonah’s Transformation and Transformation of Jonah from the Bakhtinian Perspective of Authoring and Re-authoring by Sung Uk Lim

Stupid Secular Humanist Tricks

CNN tells us

Ads proclaiming, “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake,” will appear on Washington buses starting next week and running through December. The American Humanist Association unveiled the provocative $40,000 holiday ad campaign Tuesday.

Alas, poor secular-humanists, if only you knew one simple fact: apart from the mercy and grace of God, goodness is not only an impossibility, it is self-delusion.  It is, theologically speaking, impossible to be good and godless simultaneously.  Godlessness manifests itself in that self being ‘curved in on itself’ in Luther’s fantastic phrase.  There is no selfless philanthropy, no ‘good’ or ‘goodness’ apart from godliness.  And singing a little ditty to the tune of ‘Santa Claus is coming to town’ or putting adverts on buses won’t change that fact.

NB- if you comment and your comment doesn’t seem to appear, it’s only because I don’t believe you really exist.

Fred Phelps- His Gay Counterparts

You probably didn’t know that the lunatic nutjob Fred Phelps had counterparts in the gay community, but he does, and there are a lot of them coming out of the woodwork doing exactly the same thing that they have rightly denounced in Phelps.

Funny, isn’t it, that Phelps’ disgusting behavior and that of his little group of followers has now been adopted by those who have been the object of those denunciations.

The Los Angeles Times reports

“I think the No on 8 forces have devolved into mob justice,” said Jeff Flint, a campaign strategist for the Yes side.  …  “The protests are an important vehicle for expressing a community’s feelings, and I applaud that,” said [Michael Weinstein]. Still, he added, “ultimately we will have to decide what our strategy is going forward. . . . We need to show we can win in the court of public opinion.”

If protests against Churches are ok, why aren’t Phelps’ protests applauded as well by Mr Weinstein?  Both are hate-speech so what makes them different?

Whether the current protests will help or hinder that effort remains unclear, said Bruce Cain, a political science professor at UC Berkeley.  “It can backfire,” he said. But, he added, a well-done protest is “an important signal.”  The key, he said, is that the protesters not irritate or alienate the people they are trying to persuade by appearing too out of the mainstream or by tying up traffic for hours.

There’s a world of difference between the peaceful protests modeled by MLK and the violent, rude, abusive, abrasive, hate-speech modeled by Phelps and his homosexual counterparts.

“This activity shows great disrespect for the will of the voters,” said Andrew Pugno, the lawyer for the Yes on 8 campaign. “It also shows religious intolerance,” he said, adding that his Catholic church was vandalized.

When protesters stoop to vandalism, they become nothing more than a herd of animals acting as such.  I don’t recall hearing any news of Churches vandalising gay bars during the campaign in California.  So, again, how are the homosexual activist vandals any different than the vile disgusting murderers of Matthew Shepard?