Category: church life

Argentine Diocese Posts, Then Deletes, ‘Prayer to Pachamama’

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Argentine Catholic diocese apologizes for prayer to Pachamama

What’s with our churches? Did someone tell them God now blesses idolatry?

A Catholic diocese in Argentina recently posted on its website a “Prayer to Pachamama,” a pagan “goddess” worshiped in the Andes (https://www.ncregister.com/cna/argentine-diocese-apologizes-for-prayer-to-pachamama). They deleted it Aug. 3 and “apologized” for putting it there in the first place… after multitudes of Catholics objected.

Hey, c’mon, chill out! sez the Vatican. It’s not really idol worship! It’s spiritual, man. And it’s sort of kind of like the Virgin Mary.

Meanwhile there are plenty of Protestant seminaries–and churches–teaching goddess worship and “feminist theology,” whatever that is  We Protestants have even got “Clergy For Choice,” evangelizing for abortion. We live in a glass house, so let’s not throw stones.

An image of Pachamama was brought into the Vatican in 2019 as part of–oh, I don’t know! Some angry Catholics brought it back out and tossed it into the Tiber. The Vatican rescued the idol from the river and the Red Pope apologized for the brusque behavior.

There is no room in any Christian denomination for a pagan goddess.

I am not sure Church leaders understand this.

 

Ducking the Nooze

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How to Lightsheet for Moths | Natural History Museum

Y’know what? I don’t think I want to hear any nooze today. I’d like to follow the example of Judah the Maccabee, who never fought on the Sabbath unless he and his men were physically attacked and obliged to defend themselves.

Anyhow, there’ll be a fresh crop o’ crap tomorrow. For one day of the week we can live as if the world were clean and sane. We believe our God will cleanse it and heal it, in His time.

Moving on, what about that picture?

Okay–try to identify what kind of bug that is, and say whether or not the person whose hand it’s resting on has anything to worry about. Don’t look it up–try to work it out via pure observation and deduction, like Sherlock Holmes.

And now I have to go and see if there’s a new chapter of Oy, Rodney available.

Clueless–in the Bible (Judges 17-18)

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Sumerian Ceramic Idol Figure w/ TL sold at auction on 30th August | Bidsquare

Every now and then, the Bible tells us a story that makes us raise our eyebrows and say “What???”

Judges 17 tells of a man of Ephraim who steals a great sum of silver from his mother, then gives it back; and they’re both so happy, they decide together to use some of the silver to create a molten idol. So much for the Second Commandment.

Next, they hire a Levite to be the priest for their shelf-full of idols. The Levites were entrusted with God’s word. There’s no hint that anybody involved in this transaction took that seriously.

In Judges 18, along comes an army of Danites looking for new land. They steal the silver idol and for good measure make off with the hired Levite, too: he’s looking to move up in the world. Once they get to where they’re going, they set up the silver idol as a god that they can worship, and the bent Levite settles in as their priest.

Dig the last verse of Chapter 17:

“Then said Micah [the idiot who stole the silver and set up the idol in the first place], Now know I that the LORD will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest.”

Wow. Even in this present age, spiritually polluted beyond anything many of us thought possible, you can’t beat that for sheer cluelessness!

He steals from his mother. They set up an idol, to worship it. They find a corrupt Levite who doesn’t know the Ten Commandments, or just completely disregards them. And “the LORD will do me good”??? Really?

Churches, take warning. This bell tolls for thee.

 

‘Harvesting Organs’–Think Again

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Harvesting Organs & Cherishing Life: What Christians Need to Know About Organ Donation and Procurement : Klessig H, Bogosh C: Amazon.in: बुक्स

This will not be a full review, but I do want to call attention to this book co-authored by Christopher Bogosh and our own esteemed colleague, Dr. Heidi Klessig–Harvesting Organs & Cherishing Life.

Organ harvesting is a big, fabulously lucrative business in our fallen world. Most people think of it as a way of saving a patient’s life by transplanting into that patient an organ from another patient who has just died.

Except it isn’t. I am reminded of a line from Jurassic Park: “The point is, you’re still alive when they start to eat you.”

A major point in this book is that “brain death” is not exactly real, irreversible death–like when your heart stops beating and can’t be made to start again. But “brain death” lets them start cutting you up while you’re still a little bit alive.

This is a shocking book, and it should certainly move us to reconsider the whole business of organ harvesting.

Note the subtitle: What Christians Need to Know About Organ Donation and Procurement. I agree: we need to know these things.

I don’t think I’ll sign up as an organ donor anytime soon.

[Note: If you were here earlier, you may have noticed a headline that had nothing to do with this post. My bad! Management regrets the stupid error.]

‘How Religious Reprobates Defend Abortion’ (2015)

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False prophets

I wonder how many so-called churches, this very Sunday, are defending abortion and the politicians who promote it.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

How Religious Reprobates Defend Abortion

As hard as it is to believe, false prophets, clothed in the sheepskin of the church, have beguiled untold numbers of people who think of themselves as Christians into supporting the murder of babies in the womb. Well, no one ever said false prophecy was anything but a growth industry.

There are many of those Mene, Mene, Tekel moments.

This is one of them.

By Request, ‘Be Thou My Vision’

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This hymn was being sung by Christians when Charlemagne was a baby in a stroller and the whole Western Hemisphere a legend–Be Thou My Vision, an Irish hymn from the 8th century. Requested by “thewhiterabbit” and entered into the hymn contest.

Sung by the Lebanon County Youth Choir. Background sets by God the Father.

‘Is the Bible Ambiguous?’ (2018)

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Image result for images of clergy for choice

How many commandments are they breaking here?

I’m re-running this post as a public service. When abortion-loving Kamala Harris tells us that “the Bible says” we should all get shot up with some experimental COVID drug. The day we need religious advice from that source will be a sad day indeed.

Is the Bible Ambiguous?

St. Peter tells us that the Bible is not ambiguous. It does not tell us we can perform abortions, teach little children that they should be “transgender,” and “marry” a man to a man, a woman to a woman, a human to a toaster-oven.

There is no “private interpretation” of Scripture–none that’s allowed, at least.

Steer clear of anyone who claims to have one.

Who Pulled Down London Bridge?

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London Bridge being pulled down in the Viking attack led by Olaf The Norseman in 1014 by Peter Jackson | London bridge, Historical pictures, History images

(Thanks to “thewhiterabbit” for suggesting biographical sketches)

Who doesn’t know the song, “London Bridge is falling down”? Ah–but why did it fall? Did someone pull it down?

In 1014 Olaf Haraldsson, a viking from Norway, joined a wider coalition of vikings–we would call them armed robbers, but to the Norse peoples in the 11th century, it was a perfectly respectable way to earn a living–and invaded England, attacking London. During the battle for the city, Olaf tied his ships to some of the bridge’s support beams and had his men row like mad. The beams were pulled loose and the bridge fell down. The defenders couldn’t get from one part of the city to the other to reinforce each other.

This Olaf Haraldsson is known to us today as St. Olaf, patrol saint of Norway and one-time king of Norway.

Olaf’s claim to the throne was no better and no worse than many chieftains’. He got to the top and made it stick for a little while–until King Canute the Great of Denmark engineered a revolt. In 1030 Olaf died in the Battle of Stiklestad. In 1031 he was canonized locally, and in 1164 the Church recognized his sainthood as having universal application.

Yes, yes, there is and always has been endless controversy as to Olaf’s character, his Christianity, his government, and everything else about him. But the fact, the indisputable fact, is that very shortly after his death, people all over the Northlands revered him as a saint and attributed miracles to him. A blind king of the Bulgars swore he “saw” Olaf, by then many years dead, rallying the Byzantine army against him. No one else could see him, but no one accused the Bulgar king of making up a story. Why, after all, should he have done that?

It is recorded in the sagas that Olaf insisted that the men who fought for him should all be Christians. After Stiklestad Canute was not able to hold Norway for long. For a thousand years St. Olaf’s holiness has been a spiritual anchor for Norway.

Not quite what you’d expect from a man who pulled down London Bridge.

‘Are Americans Ignorant of the Bible?’ (2015)

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One of many vain substitutes

(Hint: Yes.)

When I was a little boy, there were at least three Bibles in the house–not counting my own, given to me in 1958 at Sunday school–and I don’t know how many books of Bible stories. My Uncle Bernie was a Methodist Sunday school teacher, and my Aunt Betty was a teaching nun. Yes, the kids in our family knew who their Savior was. The family saw to that.

Now look at us.

Are Americans Ignorant of the Bible?

Throughout the Bible we are exhorted to teach our children God’s word, God’s ways. Today we send them off to public schools to learn about 40 different “genders” and being guilty ’cause you’re white.

Bible illiteracy has consequences.

Just look at our culture.

‘Build Back Better,’ Eh?

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Beautiful background with ancient ruins and Sunny summer day. The old ruined walls of the ancient city . ⬇ Stock Photo, Image by © mcherevan #153134038

Somehow that “Great Reset” slogan rubbed people the wrong way, so the self-anointed elites don’t say it anymore. Their new buzzword is “Build back better!” Like King COVID has given them the chance to scrap all that messy freedom stuff and create a statist utopia… with no more germs in it.

And I got to wondering, “Where have I heard this before?”

In the Bible, Isaiah Chapter 9. God has just warned the tribe of Ephraim and the city of Samaria that He is highly displeased with them and is going to make them feel it. But do they listen?

Verse 10: Ephraim and Samaria, “who say with pride and arrogance of heart, The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.”

You gonna punish us, God? Huh? Well, go ahead–and we’ll just build back better!

This is generally the kind of thing that precedes total ruin. This is the pride that goeth before a fall.

Too many of our leaders have no fear of God.

That’s how we wind up being governed by fools.