Soul Survival, continued: Iffy on Biffi

Hmm… I'm beginning to get the knack of pushing the hotter buttons. Yesterday's posting on a blog from Friday by a fellow named TrulyEqual garnered me a couple comments (including from that author); I'm moving them – and my responses – to today's posting. Take it away, TE:

Hey, thanks for linking to my blog. Here's my response. Afraid you're not gonna like it!

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"Supposed to love everyone Cardinal. Ever heard of the 10 Commandments?"

You haven't heard of them. Nothing about love in them.

I was brought up in a Catholic school, kinder to high school, and in catholic catechism we were taught that the first commandment is "you should love god above everything". But according to Matthew2:37-39: 

Jesus said to him, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." 

That is taught to little kids around here, at least in Spanish… the 10 Commandments down to their irreducible essence. I thought "thou shall not lie" applied here, but the guy really believes what he is saying, even if he is nuts.

By saying, "yeah, the Antichrist will be a pacifist, an ecologist" you know he is not showing love to certain folks. He means it with a certain elitist disdain. Forget the philosophical argument, we got the message Cardinal.

So guess what? I also read the Bible and therefore am qualified to make such comments. The counter-argument "are you really qualified to make such statements?" is a snide insult, as in "if you were a real, God-fearing Christian you would watch your mouth." It's a smear disguised as a critique. I'm already highly educated so it's not like I can't parse a couple of thoughtful sentences together. Just because I called the guy what he is - a conservative idiot - doesn't mean I'm emotional and not rational.

I personally like and believe in liberation theology, but some in the U.S. believe in Christianity a la James Dobson or Jerry Falwell: we're right, they're wrong, screw everyone else, they're going to hell anyway, and we will be saved.

My main point is that religion in general can be used either as a bridge or as a wedge, i.e., we can form bonds even if we disagree on certain things, or create division by saying, "hey, if you don't believe what I just said, then you're not a real Christian and I know you don't want to be left out, right?"

This guy is using it as a wedge. If you want to form a bond with me, that's not the way to start, with his dumbass comments. I rather teach my children "love everyone like you love thyself and learn to forgive" than "remember the Sabbath", because with loving God and others, you're covered. You're not going to kill or lie or cheat if you respect yourself and others. But people seem to forget that… they pick and choose a part of the Bible that is more sensationalistic, like the book of Revelations and the apocalypse, or the Antichrist, but forget about the simple, beautiful lessons that tra[n]scend cultures. I was taught "amar a Dios sobre todas las cosas y al projimo como a ti mismo", which translates into "love God above all things and others like you love yourself". Go ahead and tell me that by following that you're not a good Christian. You will be. You can believe the other stuff if you want to. Basics, basics, basics.

If they guy wants to use religion as a wedge, well, I got his wedge right here.

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He quickly followed that with this one:

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Ooops, that above comment was a response to all the comments in my thread, not just yours, but hey, we do what we can.

I responded:

First, to brother TrulyEqual:

Nothing unlikable in your response. You and I are on roughly parallel tracks, though not precisely an identical path. Thus we see, at times, somewhat different things when looking out our windows. (This is where it helps to compare views with fellow travelers, in the hope of getting a better picture.)

Christianity came along with the dawn of a new era (pardon honey-sweet cliché), christening (pardon the pun, too) the present era with a focus on love, compassion, and mercy (which are also foreshadowed in the OT). My intuition suggests that may mean we are to put a heavier weight on what Jesus taught than on what God's finger carved into Moses' tablets.

NB, though: Jesus explained he'd come not to tear down Judaism, but to fulfill it (you'll note that in death he served as the ultimate scapegoat, in function bridging humanity and divinity). So covenants made between God and humanity (e.g., with Abra(ha)m, Moses, etc.) still stand.

Much of OT Judaism was rough and brutal (eye for an eye, etc. — lots of blood and slaughter), but so were the times. Thus rules for living had to be on those terms first, until we were capable of a moral evolution beyond blood sacrifice, and the slaying of our enemies. (Note how, by the first century CE, Judaism dropped temple-sacrifices.)

Biffi does come across as a "conservative idiot". But it's quite possible that this is how he was quoted; it's not above any media channel — secular or ecclesial — to slant information to fit the readers they wish to reach, or the editors they have.

You and I both favor religion-as-bridge, versus as wedge (PS re your last line: LOL!). Mother Angelica: "The essence of evangelization is to tell everybody, ‘Jesus loves you!'"

But note also that Jesus himself says "Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man ‘against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's enemies will be those of his household'." 

So even love can be divisive.

Agree also re folks (mostly, but not entirely) on the Protestant side of the road who build houses of intolerance and hatred on their "interpretation" of the Bible. This I feel is one of Luther's lasting legacies that grievously afflict all of Christianity: sola scriptura — i.e., that I can read the Bible and interpret and understand it all by myself and on my lonesome.

Thus hypocritical televangelists with wads of money and open tabs at the whorehouse down the road. Thus cowards in sheets and white hoods, burning crosses and lynching our brothers of color. Thus the flow of blood and poisoned Kool-Aid and the smell of bombed and burning buildings at the hands of devils convinced they are all following the Word of God.

Indeed it's possible that Biffi was speaking from a similar down-the-nose worldview. But I wasn't there on the Vatican retreat to hear him, and I assume you, my friend, weren't there either. So we don't know what was actually said, and we certainly don't know on our own where Biffi stands — realizing this, is what led me to withdraw my smart-aleck complaint toward the end of my posting.

Re the Antichrist, though — he may be onto something. Think the "Pied Piper", playing a tune everyone will want to hear; and so we all march out like lemmings behind him. The Antichrist may be one man, or may be an actual movement; we don't know. But we can be on guard against calls to act without thinking; and as Christians, against calls to abandon Jesus's message of love.

Turning the other cheek does not mean mooning one's enemies.

Take care, Truly Equal — and keep pricking the balloon-egos of the demagogs where you find them!

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Next came a rather vague comment that, the more I thought on it, became increasingly troubling. It's from someone with a nom de Net "Amalekite":

Zionism (of the Judaizer) is the force that seeks to be higher then the most high. The zionist is he who seeks a pervese dual-covenant with god. Zionism is god, and god is zionism: the jewish people are their own Messiah, "Israel is our best friend", believed by the likes of our President and Pat Robertson.The anti-christ is identified, no further speculation or numerology required, it should be obvious to any Christian that these Zionists are our Satanic Agent Provocateurs.

I gave him the consideration of a response also:

Now, on to our Amalekite:

Uh, yeeeeessss… 

So… Zionism isn't that current in Judaism, at one time to refound (and now to maintain) a Jewish state where it had historically stood?

The Jews still seek their Messiah, not out of Zionism itself, but as a fulfillment of the ancient faith-tradition. This they were promised from the beginning of their long history.

God's covenants with us (see Noah, Abram, Moses, and others) were of a dual nature, that God was holding Himself obligated to that covenant's fulfillment; nothing perverse to this — but rather a manifestation of His great love for us, His wayward and short-sighted children.

I'm no fan of Robertson or George Jr. Yet the Jews still are our elder kindred in faith and culture (shoot; I have some in my family, for that matter; they're awesome), and for the past few centuries (aside from disturbing anti-Semitic movements) we've stood arm-in-arm.

They can be a great force for good and resolution of conflict in the Middle East and around the world… except that they've been sitting on the bullseye and in the crosshairs for just about sixty years now.

Or would you rather encourage Ahmadinejad and his friends? Too much innocent blood has been spilled in the name of intolerance.

According to Britannica, the Amalekites were "described in the Old Testament as relentless enemies of Israel". To be honest, this disturbs me — and also compels me to point out to you that the Amalekites don't exist anymore (see the first book each of Samuel and Chronicles… their end was not pretty), but our Jewish/Israeli cousins remain. Babylon fell, Athens fell, Rome fell, the Nazis fell… personally, I'd hate to embrace the moniker of "enemy of Israel" — the track record is rather, ah, discouraging.

Perhaps (and this is only a guess) you are one of my Muslim cousins. If so, it would seem to me that you are not heeding the words of Allah and the Prophet. Most of the books/chapters of the Qur'an consistently begin with "in the name of Allah the compassionate and merciful"… yet what sense I can make of your words seems to be lacking in mercy and compassion. This would suggest in turn that perhaps you consider yourself wiser than Allah. (I must be wrong; THAT would be a perversion!)

If you are a Muslim, remember that the word means that you surrender (islam) to will of Allah; and within the word "islam"/surrender is the word (a)salam: peace. 

The Muslims are younger cousins to the Jews and Christians — and, like their older cousins, need at times to meditate on what the will of God/Allah is, to which they are called to surrender. Remember that Ishmael lived a long, long time ago, and there is no longer any need for that ancient grievance. Peace, mercy, compassion, my cousin. Inshallah.