misery-en-scene

I have tried twice to post something this weak and failed, or been denied, yea, these 3 times.  So.  No; I don't just send any old thing.  I foresee that I will be more discerning in the future, hopefully without the complete loss of playfulness and spontaneity.

2Cor4 is something I am studying for the last two days.  My conclusion is that everything is proceeding normally.  It is normal for people to want to make a religion  out of  everything that they personally or publicly can. Idols are merely representative of an overweening and controlling soul; It is normal for us to put ourselves at the center of these religions, that "me and mine" may have absolute hegemony over the entire universe, if only in principle. It is normal that these ambitions will be almost 100% frustrated.  Hence the world is a very dissatisfied, angry, and warlike place.  Pacifists, too, insist on being right, and will use the Fist to bring it about.  In our own minds we are mostly, most of the time, "coercive utopians."  (As H.G. Wells demonstrated in most of his stories but never applied it to himself.  "This....is...typical..." (Basil Fawlty.")

Some have noticed, on a note of woe, that Christians in many if not most countries, are the "New Jews," a term used by a Jewish journalist who is or was an atypical contributor to the New York Times.  Paul notes the normality of that lowly state when he says that those who actually follow Christ are "jars of clay."  You probably recall the Dalit cups of clay from a previous blog. They are made to be thrown away after one use.  But only to protect real people from contamination from those considered also to be human untouchable throw-aways.  (people fail to realize that this practice is a logical extension of the core of Hindu philosophy)

Whatever we may take away from that observation, I can safely say that the persecution worldwide of Christians has stripped the overall rise in population.  A conservative estimate is that over 60% of religious persecution  world wide is against Christians, mostly in places like Egypt--or New York City; where mocking any faith other than Christian is politically and morally forbidden.  Rare is the insight that comes from such a unified team of super-aggressive secularists. They in fact prefer Islam; if only because Islam also, and officially, despises Christians--a confederacy of dunces, truly...who don't mind self-contradiction and theism if it's militant enough.

So things have taken up again where the 1st Century left off. In many areas, most of the believers
are being considered what Paul said-"the offscourings of the world."  In many ways we should thank the rest of my family of origin who have, in their rabidity of their anti-Trinitarianism--which I find odd indeed--for contributing mightily if rather ignorantly, to this present stated of affairs. In other words, their attitudes have, by the support of many thought- leaders just like themselves, ushered in a new-old-age condition of normalcy for most believers.

Let us hear the hear-t of the matter from Paul himself: "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from ourselves. We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed; we always carry around in our bodies that death of Jesus, so that the Life of Jesus may also be revealed in our bodies."


Recall that in Paul's age, Jews were already greatly despised by nearly all other countries, barely withstanding many attempts to wipe them out, even up unto our own age. Christians then like Paul had no home in the world at all--no country, no tradition, and only a partial heritage from folks like Isaiah. They were then a despised minority within a despised minority--a larger minority who also thoroughly repudiated the lesser and newer one.  This is in fact a normal Christian condition--and hope.  Such that we would lean entirely on Christ; and less and less on culture, society, politics and its nasty bed-mate, religion.  Christ is not a religion,(I say again--Rejoice!!!) He is the opposite of religion and politics, which look only to man and his "goodness" for power and solace. I cannot say that enough; but unless you know Christ you simply cannot see this most basic of God's wisdoms--which by very definition of God would have to be the far opposite of most of what worldly/religious systems and forms must dictate. Rather like  two parents, one of whom wants to control the child forever--bad cop-- and one who nurtures us only to push us on to genuine liberty.

As the song goes, "You can have the whold world, just give me Jesus." Amen.