One of my facebook friends regularly re-facebooks (re-posts? re-tweets-except-facebook-not-twitter?) a Tea Party feed. Evidently, our neocon friends are all bent out of shape. Obama mansplained to the National Prayer Breakfast that ISIS wasn’t so bad because . . . The Crusades.
Suppose you decided to respond to Obama. How might you? Scorn and ridicule over Obama’s historical illiteracy would seem to be the best response. After that, perhaps an explanation that the Crusades were nothing like ISIS, that they were actually a lot more like fighting ISIS. Responding provides an opportunity for the right clearly to distinguish itself by forthrightly endorsing the Crusades. By positioning ourselves as the defender of the West. By, like, getting to the right of the cultural marxist freak in the White House. A good example of how to fail at this is provided, as so often, by Jonah Goldberg: “Christians aren’t quite as evil as you think, especially now that their faith has been eviscerated and they are powerless, cringing pansies. Muslims, on the other hand, retain some moxie and are therefore terrifying.”
Anyway, back to facebook and the Tea Party. The Tea Party feed / facebook page / fanclub / whatever links to this list of 20 “epic” responses to Obama. These are, in no particular order:
- The Crusades were a long time ago.
- ISIS is homophobic.
- Obama is an effeminate, muslim follower of James Cone.
- The Crusades were a long time ago.
- ISIS is not feminist.
- Our ancestors were evil Crusaders, but, you see, Jesus hates our ancestors even more than we do. Muslims, not only do they love their ancestors, but the founder of their religion approves!! See how that makes us better?
- I, Franklin Graham, have some trouble using a calendar, especially if I have to subtract right after, or compare three digit numbers to four digit numbers. But, never mind that, Jesus really hates my Crusading, Christian ancestors. Also, notwithstanding the calendar thing, people I trust tell me the Crusades were a long time ago. Hey, has anyone here ever heard of “regression to the mean?” People keep emailing me about it. Bill Kristol, my go-to guy on intellectual stuff, doesn’t know what it means either. Maybe I should ask Ben Stein? Wasn’t that the name of a TV show? Or was it win Ben Stein’s soul? “The Devil went down to the Upper East Side // He was lookin’ for a soul to steal // An’ he was runnin’ way behind ” . . . “Side-behind:” that rhymes, right? Hmmmm, can you go down to the Upper East Side . . . Well, maybe if you started in Connecticut . . . Megadittoes to number 6 by the way. Is there a trademark issue with saying Megadittoes? Maybe it’s a single, incidental use? Get me H Lee Levin; I mean Mark Levin. He’s a lawyer, you know.
- The Crusades were a long time ago. Did I mention this one already?
- Summarize Obama’s message; point-and-splutter; provide no explanation whatsoever of what you are spluttering about. (If you have to ask, you’re probably an effeminate, muslim follower of James Cone. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
- Dumping on the Crusades is bad electoral strategy. (Because Americans really like the Crusades? Because Ohio is a swing state and the Columbus Crusaders’ parents vote? Because absolutely everything reminds me of the GOP and elections?)
- Thumbs up on genocide and Flavor Flav.
- The Crusades were a long time ago x 7.
- And, my personal favorite, Dr Marty Fox (who absolutely has to be a twitter troll account), whining how it is mean of Obama to say that Christianity is worse than Islam when, as we all know, they are both murderous death cults.
- Gavin McInnes, winning strange new respect from me, with a good reply. Notice the mysterious lack of cringing. Notice not one insult directed at those mean Crusaders. No aimless babbling about what a nice, nice man that Jesus guy was and how he would never approve of scene-making, nastiness, sieges, Knights Hospitaller, or any of that icky man stuff. Dude ate his Wheaties this morning.
The Orthosphere 
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Hahaha, lol. No wonder Sam Francis referred to the Republicans as the Stupid Party. The mainstream Evangelical/Catholic base can’t seem to realize that they are being had. In fact, I have started to find the bs spewed out by the base Republicans to be far more tedious than the drivel spouted by the Democrats.
Also, is it any wonder that Jonah Goldberg would be relieved that Christianity has lost it’s teeth and is full of pansies? Besides, Jonah Goldberg is a bit of a moron himself driveling on about “liberal fascism”. The fact that he thinks that he can compare a political movement in inter-war Germany to modern-day politics in America is laughable.
Either way, this is all to be expected when you’re political movement decides to shove out the Buchanan’s, Peroutka’s, and Sobran’s in favor of Stein’s and Kristol’s and Goldberg’s.
I’ve quoted it once and I’ll quote it again: “The GOP must die for conservatism to survive” – Clyde Wilson
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Good ol’ neocons always trying to outdo the opposition. I’m not the racist… You are! (rant about Allen West follows) Actually, I care about the poor more than you do! (list something about the free market)
I figured out the defense for the Crusades when I was in like 4th grade (when 9/11 happened for me), How do these half-witted dolts pass as rightists? I mean, any intellectually competent, self-respecting, conservative Christian should be able to recite the facts (the outlines, if not the dates and specific events) from Gavin McInnes’s tweet. The namby pamby garbage from mainstream Christians needs to stop and they need to start standing up for themselves before we lose everything. We will be left as destitute as a Western Roman peasant in 500 AD if the masses of Christians won’t stand up for themselves.
Modern day Conservativism looks down upon intellectualism. They would rather out left the left
It’s enough to make you physically ill if you have any sort of respect for the ideals of Christendom.
What are you talking about Svar? With geniuses like Glenn Beck at the helm. the conservative movement is undergoing an intellectual renaissance previously unseen in its history. Did you happen to catch this recent special on Alexander Dugin? Russian Fascism! Very scary stuff!
@Ita Scripta Est – yes, I actually caught that out of interest, since Aleksandr Dugin is an ideological cousin of the Reactionary Right.
So many factual errors. The chaos star being a ‘ancient pagan magic symbol’ when it was actually invented sometime in the 1960s by science fiction author Michael Moorcock. Beck judges Putin not to be a Christian (but take his word for it, he definitely is one. lol). He also said Dugin was a professor at Moscow State, which he no longer is. He then said PEGIDA were being financed by Dugin and that they were neo-nazis!
Charlatan faith-huckster Beck reminds me of an old song
“You have a friend in Jesus
And you have a friend in me
Others may say
That crime doesn’t pay
Well, maybe they don’t watch T.V.”
I figured out the defense for the Crusades when I was in like 4th grade (when 9/11 happened for me),
Oh good. So you repudiate the traditional Protestant attack on the Crusades? Because that’s ultimately where the modern view comes from, filtered down through the Enlightenment.
“Oh good. So you repudiate the traditional Protestant attack on the Crusades?”
What do you mean by the “traditional Protestant attack on the Crusades”? As far as I know, the only thing negative a Protestant must say about the Crusades is the offer of indulgence for your sins if you participated was a bunch of nonsense. Nor is there any particular need for the Pope to be the one calling the Crusade.
“Because that’s ultimately where the modern view comes from, filtered down through the Enlightenment.”
Oh, yes, the Protestants are to blame for all that has gone wrong with anything.
Luther refused to help Catholics under attack by Moslems with the argument that war was evil. So Obama is pretty much on the same page with him.
“Luther refused to help Catholics under attack by Moslems with the argument that war was evil. So Obama is pretty much on the same page with him.”
Where did you get this nonsensical garbage? He specifically wrote a tract called “On War Against the Turks” calling for war against the Turks. Now, he did oppose the idea of Holy War, which I suppose I too am technically against, at least in the sense of a Christian Church itself waging war. However, I do support the idea of states waging war on religious grounds, which Luther appears to have opposed.
I got it from Martin Marty’s biography.
What do you mean by the “traditional Protestant attack on the Crusades”? As far as I know, the only thing negative a Protestant must say about the Crusades is the offer of indulgence for your sins if you participated was a bunch of nonsense. Nor is there any particular need for the Pope to be the one calling the Crusade.
Its amusing reading many Protestants on here who condemn Islam and see an alliance with Islam as out of the question when it fact that is precisely what their ancestors did.
“…precisely what their ancestors did.”
Right, because we must always repeat the mistakes of our ancestors.
As you do, ISE.
As for your favorite hobby horse—”it’s Protestantism’s fault!”—I’ll just trot out a little Chesterton:
“Its amusing reading many Protestants on here who condemn Islam and see an alliance with Islam as out of the question when it fact that is precisely what their ancestors did.”
Allying temporally with an Islamic State is different from allying ideologically with Islam. I have no problem with allying with anyone if it would advance a just cause. Such also has nothing to do with whether the Crusades were just or not.
Where did you get this nonsensical garbage? He specifically wrote a tract called “On War Against the Turks” calling for war against the Turks. Now, he did oppose the idea of Holy War, which I suppose I too am technically against, at least in the sense of a Christian Church itself waging war. However, I do support the idea of states waging war on religious grounds, which Luther appears to have opposed.
Luther originally saw the Turks as the instrument of God’s divine punishment on Christendom and so condemned military action against them. It was only until the Turkish threat became serious that he changed his tune.
History is replete of Muslim-Protestant cooperation. Whether it was the Hungarian noble men fighting along side the Ottoman invaders or the Dutch “better a Turk than a Papist” was common refrain for centuries. I guess there is a certain justice in the fact that modern Holland is now flooded with Muslims.
negative a Protestant must say about the Crusades is the offer of indulgence for your sins if you participated was a bunch of nonsense. Nor is there any particular need for the Pope to be the one calling the Crusade.
I’d say those two principals formed the very essence of Crusading. The English in particular warped the Crusader ideal badly by viewing it through the prism of their own 19th century liberal colonialism. They then passed this false narrative on to their colonial subjects and we are still living with the consequences.
Tsk Tsk Dr. Bill with all this blatant Illiberal Catholicism in your post I do hope you realize you are liable to undo all the ecumenical “progress” made in the culture wars these past few decades! Lydia McGrew would not be impressed with the contents of this post. John Zmirak says we need to need to keep electing Tea Party Constitutionalists like Rep. Renee Ellmers. Perhaps next time, the Tea Party will sell out pro-lifers two months instead of just one month into their terms. One can only hope that we make such progress. Then again in Rep Ellmer’s defense, maybe she was just too busy preparing for more important matters like Bibi’s 25th speech to the U.S. Congress.
I think most here recognize that liberals are very selective in their history. Somehow liberalism’s massacres and wars never quite invalidate the liberal ordo the way the Crusades narrative undermines Catholicism’s. Indeed there are those who push this false narrative here.
They have a very typical defense, and that is that their Modernity isn’t an ‘ideology’ so nobody kills in the name of it. A clever way of insulating themselves from any relation to their various spawned mass murderers.
I’m going to say something that is going to be controversial (like always lol): Screw the Constitution. That’s right, screw it. It has failed to protect against tyranny and Marxist infiltration. It is time for it to go the way of the Articles.
” Lydia McGrew would not be impressed with the contents of this post. John Zmirak says we need to need to keep electing Tea Party Constitutionalists like Rep. Renee Ellmers. Perhaps next time, the Tea Party will sell out pro-lifers two months instead of just one month into their terms. One can only hope that we make such progress. Then again in Rep Ellmer’s defense, maybe she was just too busy preparing for more important matters like Bibi’s 25th speech to the U.S. Congress.”
I don’t know how I feel about the Prots. It seems that they would rather prostrate themselves to the Jews that hate and fear them even with all of the blind idiotic support the Evangelicals give the “Chosen people” (silly goyim cattle) than ally with “pagans” like us Catholics.
They are like the Eastern Orthodox Christians who said that they would rather have the Turkish turban instead of the Roman mitre in Constantinople. And then they acquired centuries of just that. The Evangelicals/Protestants would rather live underneath the Star of David than under the Roman mitre. Maybe they too deserve their fate. The Chinese say be careful what you wish for and perhaps the Chinese are right.
“I don’t know how I feel about the Prots. It seems that they would rather prostrate themselves to the Jews that hate and fear them even with all of the blind idiotic support the Evangelicals give the ‘Chosen people’ (silly goyim cattle) than ally with ‘pagans’ like us Catholics.”
As far as Protestants and Jews go, not all are into the whole Dispensationalist State of Israel worshiping cult (a product of the 19th century, and the spread of a Spanish Catholic priest’s texts amongst Protestants in England). After all, was it not a certain Martin Luther who wrote “On the Jews and Their Lies”?
They chose the Turkish turban because that only brought earthly subjugation, not the apostasy that would come with the Roman mitre.
Well yes, and of course, I admire Luther for his honesty on the subject but how many modern day Prots fall over themselves to condemn Luther? At the same time, yes, Catholics have individuals like the late Father John Neuhaus who are the same way in condemning any criticism, mild or not, as anti-semitism. And I’m sure that many Catholics go out of their way to condemn King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, the Crusades, and Franco.
@ John Hartley
So the fact that Turkey is Islamic as are parts of the Balkans don’t count as apostasy? Atleast with the Roman Mitre they would still be Christian. But hey, if you’d rather your descendants become Saracen janissaries and harem-girls is what you’d prefer to Roman Papery than you can say they got what they wished for.
Can you provide a link to what you are talking about here? I’ve taken Scofield and Darby as being the important early guys in Dispensationalism. Who is the Spanish priest and what did he do?
The Luther reference is apt. Luther’s attitude toward the Jews seems to have changed once he figured out that they were never going to stop hating him. It’s interesting how little experience actual, flesh-and-blood Dispensationalists and Christian Zionists generally have with actual flesh-and-blood Jews—Jesusland on US maps is pretty much disjoint from the places where Jews live. What are these guys going to do once they grasp what the Jews think of them?
“I’ve taken Scofield and Darby as being the important early guys in Dispensationalism. Who is the Spanish priest and what did he do?”
Darby was influenced by Francisco Ribera, a Jesuit theologian of the Counter-Reformation Era, whose works had been translated into English in the 1830s as Darby’s eschatology started to leave the reservation. Ribera came up with a Futurist eschatology as a means of countering the common Protestant interpretation (it was called “The Protestant Position” up through the 19th Century) that the office of the Papacy had become the seat of the Antichrist sometime in the Middle Ages and that the Book of Revelations was about the broad sweep of inter-advent history.
“What are these guys going to do once they grasp what the Jews think of them?”
I don’t think they’ll ever find out. The ones that do find out tend to soften their support for dispensationalist theology, if not abandon it. It all depends on if they rationally interpret Romans 11 or continue reading in a whole bunch of nonsensical garbage into it (likely because their theology of the Jews has nothing to do with it in the first place, even though it should be the foundation for any Christian though about Jews).
Protestant affinity for Jews long predated Dispensationalism despite Luther’s teachings.
@nathanjevins
Thanks!
Svar,
You can call me and my co-religionists “Prots” if I can call you and your co-religionists “heretics.”
Is it a deal?
@ Wm. Lewis
We are co-religionists. Prot is just short-handed for Protestant I don’t know it was offensive. As a Papist, I guess I don’t get it.
Forgive me for misunderstanding you, Svar. I have only ever seen it used pejoratively.
“I have only ever seen it used pejoratively.”
Ditto.
Well I haven’t, but I suppose it is. Many words that are offensive like “Jap” are only shortened versions of longer words. Btw, I do use the term “Jap” and I like the Japanese.
There are differences between Catholics and Protestants but I don’t think those differences are too, too great.
My elderly father, to whom Jap is a neutral, descriptive term, recognized decades ago that society deemed it inappropriate, so he stopped using it.
As for the differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics, there are many in both camps who consider the beliefs of the other side to be so far afield as to disqualify them from the term Christian. I’m glad that you do not share this view, as it all too often leads to antipathy and an inability to see the value of working together, the latter being especially important in this age, when the Western world is more hostile to Christians than it has been in centuries.
Well, Mr. Lewis, think about this. Was it society that deemed the term “Jap” to be inappropriate or was it professional grievance mongers like we have now?(who I can be assure were not even Japanese). It’s like with the Washington Redskins. “Redskins” wasn’t offensive for the longest time and even now 90% of Natives don’t care. It’s just those disruptive social revolutionaries that make these issues because they’re always prying, always trying to deconstruct something.
I don’t see the point in Catholics, Orthodox, or Protestants antagonizing one another. That being said, I will go after groups of Christians who would rather ally with non-Christians than with fellow orthodox Christians like those Evangelicals who shill for the Jewish gangster state.
Yeah, I’m messing up our productive alliance with Jonah Goldberg. Or whatever.
What’s a Renee Ellmers, by the way? I confess my ignorance.
She is former darling of the tea party who recently helped sink an anti-abortion bill:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/01/22/conservatives-go-to-war-against-renee-ellmers-over-abortion-immigration/
Thanks. Why are they surprised? The whole point of the Tea Party from the beginning has been to de-emphasize social conservatism in favor of giving Lloyd Blankfein and the Koch brothers more money. I loved this quote:
Yeah, honey, you just keep stamping your wittle feet. That’ll scare them.
I don’t understand what is wrong with these people. They’ve been going through this cycle of supporting the GOP, getting betrayed, having a little temper tantrum, and then supporting the GOP since, like, Sandra Day O’Connor back in 1981. That’s more than thirty years. Of course, I was going through that cycle for quite a while, too, so I should be more sympathetic. Why don’t they just sit out an election season to see what happens? Or pick someone from their candidate stable and run him as a pro-life democrat against, say, Renee Ellmers.
“Why don’t they just sit out an election season to see what happens?”
Quite a few of them did in 2012. The only thing that has happened since is recrimination from the liberals running the party.
“Or pick someone from their candidate stable and run him as a pro-life democrat against, say, Renee Ellmers.”
Renee Ellmers is vulnerable to a primary challenge, and she will get one and there’s a decent chance the challenger will win. A challenger last year lost ~21,000-15,000, despite the fact that he only had $25,000.
I think the right-wing of the Republican Party has stuck around mostly because the GOP throws them bones on a few occasions. Obama has not, and will not let the mainstream GOP throw the right-wing a single bone during his tenure. It remains to be seen whether that will yield the right’s capitulation or, perhaps, renewed vigor on the right in the United States.
Well, if they really sat out an election cycle, the GOP would lose every state. Almost every state.
@ Svar
Methinks you confuse lands with people. Outside of Albania, the Janissaries, and opportunists, the Orthodox did not stray from Holy Orthodoxy. While the Turks were a yoke, they gave the legal institution of the Rum Millet that allowed the Church to survive in those lands. Embracing Papery would still be Christian, but at the cost of apostasy and heresy. John VIII Paleologus thought the empire more important than his soul, but thank God for the laity of Constantinople.
Dagnabbit, I posted that in reply to the wrong post.
Not really. What about the Bosnians and Western Turks? On top of that all Turks have quite a bit of Greek and Balkans blood.
And what heresy? You like the Eastern Orthodox are splitting hairs. You both made the perfect the enemy of the good.
Since Obama said nothing even remotely like “ISIS wasn’t so bad because . . . The Crusades”, you are lying. Honestly, I don’t get it — aren’t there enough real things you hate about Obama without having to tell transparent falsehoods?
His general theme was that religions are generally forces for good, but sometimes go through regrettable fits of beastly behavior. I think we may suppose that he was not, at that moment, staring at the Dali Lama. He was, presumably, alluding to another religion that is going through a rather bad patch right now, acting not at all like its true self. Then, to show that no one has reason to feel superior to this wayward religion, the President pointed to the Crusades and the Inquisition. So, you are right to point out that he didn’t say, or even suggest, that “ISIS wasn’t so bad.” What he did suggest is that “no one is in a position to feel superior to ISIS,” most especially Christians.
What the President did was modify John Bradford’s remark and said “there, but for the grace of God, go you. Somehow, I find that this sentiment loses power when expressed in the second rather than the first person.
Anyhow, the President didn’t say “Isis wasn’t so bad because . . . The Crusades,” but what he did say was at least “remotely” like that.
Who hates Obama? Hating Obama is as stupid as hating Bush. Dogs, leopards, and hunters and all you know.
Shorter Obama: ISIS isn’t so bad because . . . The Crusades
JMSmith points out that Obama might also have been saying, like Dr Marty Fox, that ISIS and Christianity are both murderous death cults. As is my practice, I gave Obama’s comments the most charitable interpretation possible.
I’d return the favor and call you a liar, but you must actually believe. Why else call me out when the facts are so easily provided and so damning for your case? So, you’re nuts. You remind me of the pinheads to try to deny that Chomsky denied the Cambodian genocide and said that North Vietnam was the most democraticest country evah. Are you one of those pinheads?
I am going to try to be charitable and assume you aren’t lying and can’t actually tell the difference between saying “Other groups have been as bad as ISIS” and “ISIS isn’t so bad”. Being called a pinhead by someone incapable of grasping this not-very-subtle distinction doesn’t bother me a bit.
The text is quite clear. The bit after the elipses serves to blunt the moral critique of the bit before. That’s what it’s there for. It says exactly that ISIS isn’t so bad, that it is less bad than you might think. In fact, it’s kind of like Christianity when you stop and think about it.
It’s quite clumsily written. The bit about the horse makes it impossible to dodge some ugly interpretation. The only question is which ugly interpretation.
And, as I said, whether my interpretation or your current one is right depends on whether you think Obama is claiming that Christianity, too, is a crazed death cult. That seems uncharitable to me.
I’m not sure why leftists rally around Obama when dealing with radical Traditionalists. Obama is a gnat to the Traditionalist, just a cog in the machine. He’s not the primary focus of anyone’s loathing. He’s just not amazingly important. Ignorant, self-absorbed, and corrupt, but in the end not too much different from the long list of secular presidents who have added to society’s degradation over hundreds of years.
I would hate Obama if he were anything near as important as FDR. In all honesty he is nothing more than our first Affirmative Action president
a.morphous, you don’t belong in this dispute, so get out. This is between christians and Protestants; I mean, this is between Catholics and christians. Or is it Chrestians? Who knows. We know that you don’t belong in any event.
“Obama is a gnat to the Traditionalist, just a cog in the machine. He’s not the primary focus of anyone’s loathing. He’s just not amazingly important. Ignorant, self-absorbed, and corrupt, but in the end not too much different from the long list of secular presidents who have added to society’s degradation over hundreds of years.”
I’m not sure adopting this approach is a winning strategy for a traditionalist. In order to grow the movement, they must first attract fellow rightists who haven’t taken the reactionary plunge yet. Those people, in general, loathe Obama. I’ll admit, I too find Obama particularly loathsome compared to most of his predecessors. I wouldn’t pin all of the worlds ills on him, but I will say his particularly radical left-wing agenda is the manifestation of a degenerate democracy. Perhaps bashing him and his ilk will help aid us reactionaries to convince ordinary right-wing people to take the reactionary plunge.
Christian leaders should decline invitations to any National Prayer Breakfast because to attend is to blaspheme with prayers to the Unitarian god. Or maybe they should say that it isn’t really breakfast if there is no bacon.
You use the term Christian leaders unironically. I think you mean “Christian” “leaders”.
A few points, and yes I actually HATE how American conservatives are oblivious to their own tacit acceptance of Modernist dogma.
This can be seen when fraudster talk show hosts like Glenn Beck for example are outraged at comparisons between Islam and Christianity and say “We had a Reformation!”
First of all, the Reformation changed who church authorities were, it did NOT change the actual nature of political Christianity in this sphere. The Salem Witch Trials (much maligned by Modernists) were conducted by Protestants.
What Beck and other shills like him are actually saying is “We had a Modernization!” Which is true, but he won’t say that because that betrays one of the most horrible facts about the Modern age. Christians are largely NOT practicing Christianity anymore. They are practicing some spinoff cult that conforms to the will of the de-Christianized state and the pop culture.
I reject Islam and I also reject the Christianity they are talking about here. It’s fake. The Crusaders and the Inquisitionists, whatever ‘crimes’ you might point to were far better Christians than these frauds today who due to their effective apostasy are second class citizens in their own country from which every vestige of their influence is slowly being purged.
Christians, here is the rule on the Crusades:
If you begin your dismissal of the comparison between Radical Islam and Traditional Christianity by denouncing Traditional Christianity, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!
So the secular left talks about these terrible crimes committed by ISIS, and then scolds Christians for their so-called terrible crimes in the past. Why does NO Christian respond with the questioning of atrocities committed by the Modern Secularists? No mention of mass starvation, eugenics, abortion, great leaps forward, killing fields? As soon as you falsely acknowledge the past wrong, you are on the defensive, they’ve got you. Pretty soon its not about Islam anymore and its all about the crimes of Christians. Republicans actually aid and abet these attacks on Christianity with their mind-numbing ignorance of history, and their desperate need to uphold the underlying values of the opposing party.
You forget to mention how Beck isn’t even a Christian but a member of some proto-UFO cult
“A few points, and yes I actually HATE how American conservatives are oblivious to their own tacit acceptance of Modernist dogma.”
For quite a few of them, it isn’t even tacit. Mark Levin blathers on his show about the ideals of the “Enlightenment” on a regular basis. He will even list the Enlightenment as part of the traditional values we are supposed to uphold. Does one laugh or cry at such tomfoolery?
“This can be seen when fraudster talk show hosts like Glenn Beck for example are outraged at comparisons between Islam and Christianity and say ‘We had a Reformation!'”
I’ve been listening to too much talk radio recently. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard some “conservative” call in to tell whatever host it is that Islam needs to have its “Reformation” to bring about a kinder, gentler Islam. Because, you know, all of us Christians now hate what our ancestors believed (except of course for mythical early church pacifism) and that has something to do with Luther because teacher told me.
“Christians are largely NOT practicing Christianity anymore. They are practicing some spinoff cult that conforms to the will of the de-Christianized state and the pop culture.”
I will say that I do believe there is still a sizable minority amongst Christians which steadfastly upholds the Faith, even if marginalized by their Church leaders. What I mean is that I think that there are a lot of Christians who instinctively wince when someone starts bashing things like the Crusades, even if they cannot articulate why. It is our duty to bring the message to as large a Christian audience as possible to reach such people. I think those people represent a larger proportion of the population than one might think.
Exactly. It’s like Al Gore’s mother told him before his first political debate “Smile. Relax. Attack.” Thanks, mom!
I’m not sure why you need to think about the Crusades when there are murderous Christian groups operating right now. The question of whether these groups are truly Christian is quite parallel to the debate over whether Islamic terrorism is a true manifestation of Islam or a distortion of it.
Probably because of the fact that it’s Sub Saharan Africa. Africa and Africans will always be violent regardless of whether it’s Christians, Muslims, Pagans, or Atheists in charge. Either way, a.morphous since you’re making the charge, prove to us that ISIS is any different from historical Islam in either behavior or ideology.
Then prove that the Lord Resistance Army is the same as orthodox historical Christianity. Until then, screw off.
Joseph Kony claims to be a prophet and a “spirit medium,” which is downright heretical. The religious movement he has belonged to has long had syncretic elements within it. He doesn’t just appeal to orthodox Christian doctrine. The Islamic terror groups appeal to commonly accepted orthodox Islamic positions. They do not have new prophets of Islam claiming to bring new revelation of what Islam is about the way Joseph Kony claims to bring bring about new revelations from God and the spirit realm.
Did you seriously just post a link to the ‘Lord’s Resistance Army’??? As Svar says, the burden of proof is on you now to show how this group is a representation of Traditional Christianity, and not in fact the result of a psychopathic African warlord taking advantage of the weakness in Central African states for his own material gain.
The two cases seem roughly similar to me, standing outside both religions. In both cases there is a wide variety of beliefs and groups with peaceful or murderous intent. Certainly enough to support the original point of Obama’s which was that no one religion has a monopoly on brutality.
So I see you try to back up your claim
with your opinion. I expected historically based objective facts but I got your opinion. Color me shocked.
The question of whether these groups are truly Christian is quite parallel to the debate over whether Islamic terrorism is a true manifestation of Islam or a distortion of it.
a.morphous has a point. Islamism is a modern aberration of traditional Islam. Did traditional Islam spread through the sword?- Yes (so did Christianity), but the nature of the violence was different. One major area of difference is the iconoclasm of modern Islam. Consider that many of these radicals not only destroy churches and other shrines but they also destroy their own.
This thread is getting a little long in the tooth, but I feel compelled to clarify for the record regarding a snippet from this discussion about which I may shed some light.
To nathanjevans, 2-8-15 @6:53pm:
Your summary of Luther’s thinking “On War Against the Turk” (1529) was accurate, as far as it went. In Volume 46 of Luther’s Works, “Christian In Society III,” the editor’s introduction contains this paragraph:
“Luther’s concern throughout the book is to teach men how to fight with a clear conscience. In so doing he develops two major points. There are, he says, only two men who may properly fight the Turk. The first of these is the Christian, who by prayer, repentance, and reform of life takes the rod of anger out of God’s hand and compels the Turk to stand on his own strength. The second man who may wage war is the emperor. The Turk has wrongfully attacked the emperer’s subjects, and by virtue of the office to which God has appointed him, the emperor is duty-bound to protect and defend the subjects with whose care God has entrusted him.”
In no event was a military operation led by the church defensible, as your comment suggests.
To thrasymachus33308, 2-8-15 @8:04pm:
Martin Marty’s writings represent Lutheranism from an ELCA perspective; that is to say, he defends the apostate church. And therefore, his comments should be considered in that light.
For anyone interested in the landscape of Lutheranism in contemporary America, I would recommend “What’s Going On Among Lutherans?: A Comparison of Beliefs,” by Patsy. A Leppian and J. Kincaid Smith, Northwestern Publishing House, Milwaukee, WI (6th printing 1994).
That one-sentence middle paragraph was dreadfully written. It should read: You are correct to suggest (assert?) that according to Luther a military operation led by the church was indefensible.
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