This world is damned; and instinctively we all know it. We admit it all the time: "Damned truck!" "Damned job!" "Damned situation!" We are all damned, and we cannot seem to wait to get in on the judging: "Damn him!" "That damned SOB!" I am a trucker most of the time, and I hear it every day. Either the truck is damned, the loader is damned, the sugar beets are damned, our employer is damned, the weather is damned; I do not think that there is a situation or an entity on the face of the earth that has been justly condemned by my fellows. Even Mother Nature is damned. Oh, and of course, God is damned; or is it the other way around? Is it that God ultimately is the one that we want to do all of this damning.
Several years ago, I got a bit fed up with all of the damning. After all, damning is depressing. If everything is damned, how can one be productive? How can one experience any joy? How can one find any deep meaning and purpose? So, in the midst of a whole host of damning, I called out on my two-way radio soimething like this, "You know, God blesses things also. And I would much rather live in a blessed world than in a damned world any day of the week."
Dead silence. It killed the conversation for over an hour. I think that people were thinking. Either that or they were stunned. Most of them likely didn't know what to think. They had probably never realized what they were actually saying; after all, damn is just an interjection. It is used for emphasis, to say something like, "This is not just sort of bad, but it is really bad!" Or, that person is really worthless -- what we do not realize that we are saying is that they are so worthless, we wish God would terminate them right here and now, and that He would send them to hell.
I would like to be a person of blessing rather than damning. I was just thinking about the Beatitudes, "Blessed are you . . ." In the law, there are the curses, and there are the blessings. I would like to live in the blessings. I am tired of this damned world, where things break down, where you cannot get ahead, where corruptiion eventually ruins everything, and where the Second Law of Thermodynamics always comes into play. So, I have decided to live in the land of the blessing, by honoring God, by living in a manner pleasing to Him, by trusting Christ to save me from all of the damnable destructiveness of the world in which I am living.
Does it change the world? Not that much, I suppose. But it sure does change my orientation to the world. It helps me to understand that God has ordered this world for a purpose, to teach me to trust Him, and to call upon Him for the solution to my every need. You have this opportunity too; you can live in a damned world, or in a blessed one; that is, as long as you are willing to submit your life entirely to Christ. After all, He is the source of blessing; He is the Blessing itself.
So, have a blessed day, and stop living in this damned world that is going to hell in a handbasket.
Friday, May 10, 2013
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Extolling the Worship of Women?
I am now reading through Jaroslav Pelikan's third volume in his series The Christian Tradition: A History of Doctrinal Development. This volume is entitled The Growth of Medieval Theology. One of the doctrinal development that Pelikan explores in this volume is that of Mariology, or the cult of Mary, which sprang up within the Medieval church.
This blog is not intended to critique Mariology, per se, though I have to admit up front that I do not believe that Mary should be either venerated or worshiped. Our veneration and worship should be kept for God alone; anything other than that, in my mind, constitutes idolatry. What I am more interested in here in the development of the doctrine and practice, which as Pelikan notes, should be considered an outgrowth of liturgical theology.
Pelikan notes that some have criticized the rise of the Marian cult as being a revival of the ancient fertility religions which were present in Mesopotamia. In Medieval literature, Mary is referred to as the Fertile Virgin, the one who redeemed fertility from the curse, the one who opened heaven's doors by the opening of her womb to the Messiah, and the one who released femininity from the curse by bearing the Messiah without disrupting her virginity, and without suffering any physical pain.
Mary Magdalene was incorporated into the cult of Mary as well. Mary Magdalene symbolizes "the bride of God who was drawn from the paganism of the heathen to the source of [true] grace." The Virgin Mary was likened to the Second Eve. "Just as through Saint Mary the Virgin . . . the gates of Paradise has been opened, so also through Saint Mary Magdalene the shame of the female sex has been undone, and the splendor of our resurrection . . . has been granted to us by her." "David's beloved kinsmaid (the Virgin Mary) cast out the curse of Eve and elevated the status of women. Eve had been the instrument through which folly had been mediated to her descendants, but through Mary wisdom had one more been mediated to the human race" (all quotes page 167).
It was this latter provision which, in the mind of some medieval theologians, placed Mary in the role of Mediatrix, as it was taught that her special intercession mediated the way between Christ and mankind. Humanity's return to God was given by Christ to her. "Mary," it was stated, "Had been chosen by God for the special task of pleading the cause of men before her Son" (page 168). And on and on it goes -- this Medieval attraction to Mary, who, as the Queen of heaven, became the idolization of the masses.
I wrote in the column of Pelikan's book that "I almost wonder if this is the fulfillment of the romantic male who has suppressed his human romanticism due to asceticism and celibacy." The worship of the feminine doesn't surprise me, for men have always been captivated by women. I have told my wife several times that I do not understand the feminist movement: "Women have always ruled the world," I told her. "They rule the world through the men that they have in their clutches."
Another thought came to me as well. We are now in the clutches of the worship of an infertility cult. The goddess in this worship is not fertile, nor dare she be fertile, for fertility is verboten. I made another comment in my margin referencing this: "So often the men who 'rule the world' worship at the feet of a woman.'" Barack Obama is no different with his femininistic manifesto to ensure 'women's reproductive rights,' which has become a code-word for birth control and abortion. In the Medieval days, men worshiped Mary for her productivity. In our modern day, men worship women for their infertility. In the Medieval days, Mary was extolled for her chastity. In our modern day, women are revered for their 'in-chastity,' for their availability, for their sexuality, for their degradation. In the Medieval days, Mary was venerated, for "blessed is the fruit of your womb." Under our modern day worship of women, cursed is the fruit of the womb, so cursed, in fact, that we kill it!
Barack Obama is closing the gate of heaven by shutting the wombs of our women. No longer are women exalted; they are now degraded and given over to exploitation and to subjugation. Women are so often now simply considered a piece of meat in an overly indulgent and sex-crazy culture. If it is true that men will always be worshiping women, then give us a 'religion' that will worship the fullness of the woman in all of the mystery of her femininity, mother and womanhood. For if I have to worship the woman, I strongly prefer the fertility cult of worshiping Mary to the infertility of Obama. Thus I say, tongue in cheek, "Hail Mary, mother of Grace;" and let's do away with "Hail Obama" and his cult of infertility, hostility and murder.
PS. Lest anyone misunderstand, I am not advocating the idolatry of Mariology. The Scripture commands us to worship the true God and to worship Him alone. This is one of the many reason why I am a Baptist and not either an Eastern or a Western Catholic.
This blog is not intended to critique Mariology, per se, though I have to admit up front that I do not believe that Mary should be either venerated or worshiped. Our veneration and worship should be kept for God alone; anything other than that, in my mind, constitutes idolatry. What I am more interested in here in the development of the doctrine and practice, which as Pelikan notes, should be considered an outgrowth of liturgical theology.
Pelikan notes that some have criticized the rise of the Marian cult as being a revival of the ancient fertility religions which were present in Mesopotamia. In Medieval literature, Mary is referred to as the Fertile Virgin, the one who redeemed fertility from the curse, the one who opened heaven's doors by the opening of her womb to the Messiah, and the one who released femininity from the curse by bearing the Messiah without disrupting her virginity, and without suffering any physical pain.
Mary Magdalene was incorporated into the cult of Mary as well. Mary Magdalene symbolizes "the bride of God who was drawn from the paganism of the heathen to the source of [true] grace." The Virgin Mary was likened to the Second Eve. "Just as through Saint Mary the Virgin . . . the gates of Paradise has been opened, so also through Saint Mary Magdalene the shame of the female sex has been undone, and the splendor of our resurrection . . . has been granted to us by her." "David's beloved kinsmaid (the Virgin Mary) cast out the curse of Eve and elevated the status of women. Eve had been the instrument through which folly had been mediated to her descendants, but through Mary wisdom had one more been mediated to the human race" (all quotes page 167).
It was this latter provision which, in the mind of some medieval theologians, placed Mary in the role of Mediatrix, as it was taught that her special intercession mediated the way between Christ and mankind. Humanity's return to God was given by Christ to her. "Mary," it was stated, "Had been chosen by God for the special task of pleading the cause of men before her Son" (page 168). And on and on it goes -- this Medieval attraction to Mary, who, as the Queen of heaven, became the idolization of the masses.
I wrote in the column of Pelikan's book that "I almost wonder if this is the fulfillment of the romantic male who has suppressed his human romanticism due to asceticism and celibacy." The worship of the feminine doesn't surprise me, for men have always been captivated by women. I have told my wife several times that I do not understand the feminist movement: "Women have always ruled the world," I told her. "They rule the world through the men that they have in their clutches."
Another thought came to me as well. We are now in the clutches of the worship of an infertility cult. The goddess in this worship is not fertile, nor dare she be fertile, for fertility is verboten. I made another comment in my margin referencing this: "So often the men who 'rule the world' worship at the feet of a woman.'" Barack Obama is no different with his femininistic manifesto to ensure 'women's reproductive rights,' which has become a code-word for birth control and abortion. In the Medieval days, men worshiped Mary for her productivity. In our modern day, men worship women for their infertility. In the Medieval days, Mary was extolled for her chastity. In our modern day, women are revered for their 'in-chastity,' for their availability, for their sexuality, for their degradation. In the Medieval days, Mary was venerated, for "blessed is the fruit of your womb." Under our modern day worship of women, cursed is the fruit of the womb, so cursed, in fact, that we kill it!
Barack Obama is closing the gate of heaven by shutting the wombs of our women. No longer are women exalted; they are now degraded and given over to exploitation and to subjugation. Women are so often now simply considered a piece of meat in an overly indulgent and sex-crazy culture. If it is true that men will always be worshiping women, then give us a 'religion' that will worship the fullness of the woman in all of the mystery of her femininity, mother and womanhood. For if I have to worship the woman, I strongly prefer the fertility cult of worshiping Mary to the infertility of Obama. Thus I say, tongue in cheek, "Hail Mary, mother of Grace;" and let's do away with "Hail Obama" and his cult of infertility, hostility and murder.
PS. Lest anyone misunderstand, I am not advocating the idolatry of Mariology. The Scripture commands us to worship the true God and to worship Him alone. This is one of the many reason why I am a Baptist and not either an Eastern or a Western Catholic.
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