disputably Andrew Sullivan takes on, in few words, the “Prosperity Gospel” – the Bad News – and gives some real spiritual teaching. It’s staggering really that modern American Christianism supports wealth while Jesus demanded total poverty, fetishizes family while Jesus left his and urged his followers to abandon wives, husbands and children, champions politics while Jesus […]
Category Archives: Religion
“Jesus was poor so we could be rich.”
29-Nov-09Star Maker.
25-Nov-09Vadlapūdi MOYERS: So the old story, so long known and transmitted through the generations, isn’t functioning, and we have not yet learned a new one? CAMPBELL: The story that we have in the West, so far as it is based on the Bible, is based on a view of the universe that belongs to the first […]
Victim Mentality.
03-Nov-09I distrust anyone who attempts to portray themselves as a victim. Some people are victims, certainly, but a managed, well-researched self-presentation as such is almost always a sign of some kind of derangement. Especially when you’re one of the most powerful people in the most powerful country in the world, of course. http://www.archny.org/news-events/columns-and-blogs/blog—the-gospel-in-the-digital-age/index.cfm?i=14042 We have […]
Silence and Rejection
20-Oct-09Astonished by a piece about the writer Shusaku Endo, about the role of failure and rejection and suffering in Christianity. This he sees as the sense of failure in life and the subsequent shame and guilt that leave a lasting impact upon a person’s life. Such theological notions as love, grace, trust, and truth are […]
Monastic Life.
18-Oct-09When I arrived on top of Giant Ledge late this afternoon I found three people enjoying the view. Their conversation had some strange inner weight to it which I could not quite fathom, but I could tell that there was some real experience behind it, despite their obvious youth. It turns out all three were […]
Those Who Live By the Law…
18-Oct-09The man in the photo with the Leviticus quotation tattooed on his arm, who clearly sees it as a justification for violence against gays, got some great treatment from a pastor who reads Andrew Sullivan’s blog: Too bad the guy with the passage from Leviticus tattooed on his arm didn’t read the next chapter: “You […]
From the Bizarre Catholicism Department…
15-Oct-09This was too good not to comment on: French Priest Traveling In U.S.A. With Relics of St. Mary Magdalene. Apparently a priest is going on tour with some bits of bone, purported to be those of Mary Magdalene. And she’ll be making an appearance in New York City, at St. Vincent Ferrer, on Monday. I […]
Helen Luke and Dante.
15-Oct-09Time spent among people reveals just how difficult it is, even for the most worthy and competent, to be capable of real love and relationship. Developing this capacity is in truth the sole bifocal commandment of the Christian religion, all others being mere ancillae; and it is also the goal of Jung’s school of psychoanalysis, […]
As you grow older you learn that a key dimension of all religious narrative is that these are stories which you will, by virtue of being human, almost certainly reenact in your own life. Andrew Sullivan, who has been leading one of the most impressively public Christian lives, describes in few and eloquent words his […]
Into the Cave.
14-Sep-09A friend alerted me to the following Sullivan post, which I highly recommend reading in full: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/09/not-racism-projection.html#more One of the lessons of the spiritual life which can be put in brief form, is this: If you think of evil as something that someone else is or does, you don’t understand it and you don’t understand […]