Who will be the next Pope?
We’ll probably know by next Sunday, but for now:
JD Vance, it seems, is responsible for the death of Pope Francis. In this case, I believe that to the victor should go the spoils, and Vance should be the next Roman pontiff. The circumstantial evidence is beyond doubt: Vance and Pope Francis had a public disagreement over the concept of ordo amoris, and then the pope died shortly after they met for the first time. There are no coincidences. This isn’t even without precedent: Pope Sergius III (allegedly) killed his two predecessors Pope Leo V and Antipope Christopher. Don’t we want a return to tradition? The tradcath convert Vance could take the name Sergius, and then even have one of his sons installed after him, just like his namesake. Besides, there’s nothing in the Constitution that says the vice president can’t also be the pope. Maybe in a few years Pope JD can also be President JD. This would also be very traditional and return secular power to the papacy, and I look forward to a return of Renaissance-era political intrigue in the Vatican. (Virginia Aabram)
…
David Bentley Hart’s election as pope would give the Church a leader who is sure of his own infallibility. As a dogmatic Catholic, I would welcome such a development. I would also be glad to have a pope with a first-class theological mind, a due appreciation for Robert Louis Stevenson, and a desire to heal the schism between East and West. There is of course a risk that Hart would seek to suppress people with my conservative theological views. But I believe that his doctrinal chief, Roland, would help to ensure a just and liberal policy. If Hart concludes that he must refuse the burdens of the papal office, I could reconcile myself to the election of Cardinal Sarah. (Matthew Schmitz)
Okay, sex fiends, answer me these:
I was doing some computer housekeeping Thursday and came across this. It reminded me of one of the weirdest things I ever heard a fringe Christian say: “It would have been perverted if Mary and Joseph didn’t have sex after Jesus was born!”
For those who think it’s obvious that Joseph and Mary had normal marital relations, and younger brothers and sisters of Jesus, because the scriptures refer to his “brothers”:
- When you say that they were his brothers, do you mean that they had the same parents?
- If so, are you saying that Joseph was Jesus’ father?
- If Joseph was not Jesus father, then wouldn’t any brothers spoken of in scripture be half-brothers?
- Have you ever considered the possibility that Joseph and Mary were not teenagers in love, but that Joseph was an older man, a widower, with children by a prior marriage?
- Did you know that this is the tradition of the orthodox church? (I believe it is the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church that the brothers and sisters were more like cousins.)
- If the Orthodox church is right, then the brothers referred to are older stepbrothers, right?
- Is it any stranger calling stepbrothers “brothers” then it is calling half-brothers “brothers”?
- If not, and since Christians believe that Joseph was not Jesus father, but rather that Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, why not just accept that they were stepbrothers?
- Considering the times when Jesus brothers tried to stage a sort of intervention, wouldn’t it make sense that they were older stepbrothers, rather than younger siblings?
- Does it bother you at all that all of the protestant reformers believe that Mary remain a virgin, the rest of her life, after giving birth to Jesus as a virgin?
Transhumanism: Christianity without all those God parts
The Silicon Valley agenda, the transhumanist agenda, is extremely utopian, and actually very religious. I think it’s like if you took the Christian religion — which they’re all sort of steeped in because they’re in America — and you take out the actual bits about God and Jesus and things, you’re left with a desire for transcendence and utopia and life after death, living forever and universal justice — all of which are sort of Christian notions — and so they’ve decided they’re going to build those themselves.
Paul Kingsnorth, interviewed by Freddie Sayers
A pagan century?
We seem to be entering a pagan century. It’s not only Trump. It’s the whole phalanx of authoritarians, all those greatness-obsessed macho men like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. It’s the tech bros. It’s Christian nationalism, which is paganism with worship music. (If you ever doubt the seductive power of paganism, remember it has conquered many of the churches that were explicitly founded to reject it.)
… Christianity is built on a series of inversions that make paganism look pompous and soulless: Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the poor in spirit. The last shall be first. The poor are closer to God than the rich. Jesus was perpetually performing outrageous acts of radical generosity, without calculating the cost.
David Brooks, How to Survive the Trump Years With Your Spirit Intact
Brooks’ impression will be hard to vindicate if we continue with our “religious revival,” so very much of which is crypto-pagan.
Ordinary
You have permission to be ordinary. To live a quiet life. To go for a walk without turning it into content. To do good work without chasing viral. To be present with your people instead of always ‘building something.’ Your life doesn’t have to be optimized to be meaningful. The Ordinary creates space for what truly matters.
Thanks
Weep
If you can,
Weep,
But do not complain.
The way chose you –
And you
must be thankful.
(Dag Hammarskjold)
Religious ideas have the fate of melodies, which, once set afloat in the world, are taken up by all sorts of instruments, some woefully coarse, feeble, or out of tune, until people are in danger of crying out that the melody itself is detestable.
George Elliot, Janet’s Repentance, via Alan Jacobs
[N]one of the things that I care about most have ever proven susceptible to systematic exposition.
Alan Jacobs, Breaking Bread With the Dead
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Tipsy Teetotaler ن 