Month: September 2023

Criminal and immoral

eejoseph

When does malignant behaviour reach heinous and utterly abominable levels? It has to be beyond lying, stealing, homicide, covetousness, sabbath profanation, dishonouring parents, marital infidelity, idolatry, perjury, swearing falsely, and worshipping the created world.  In addition to these Yahwistic definitions there is the history of counting how many strikes cook a person’s goose making the discovery of heinous and abominable somewhat convoluted.   A completely frank businessman might reckon that seven times is sufficient to put distance between a perpetrator and judicial grace, however, there are too many examples of the book thrown at a single indictment and there are centuries of individual and systematic transgressions going unpunished. It would seem that we are permanently precariously perched on the precipice of tyranny disguised as patriotism and religious integrity. Based on our observations of religious and secular governments we can safely conclude that criminality will never be equal to morality.

Punishment and correction

New standards are nowhere in sight. The powerbrokers are all still killing people to end the reign of evil. It is just as evil to deny people rights to services and even their identity. No punishment has yet been found for the slave traders and colonialists. The difference between White Europeans exploiting Africans for 400 years and Black Caribbean leaders failing to secure prosperity for all island people over the last 189 years explains why. They might think we do not notice that their political parties are always focused on workers or labourers, as if the value of work supercedes the value of humans. For the criminal and immoral there is neither punishment nor correction is in sight, because no cohesive vision inspires the people these days.

One arrogance, many boasts

eejoseph
Arrogance, a deadly sin

Boasting is typically forbidden behaviour.  The thing boasted about can disappear in a flash. Then what?  Giving God or anyone else a hallel (from the Hebrew verb halal, he praised) is also highly recommended.  It brings honour to God when someone boasts about divine attitudes and actions.  Compliments of our peers are also highly valued.  Here are a few examples.

  • Mary is a poet whose work you should read
  • I yell to God for help and he answers me
  • The elders will vindicate the righteous person

When you have only two witnesses

Since the word for boastful pride – alazonEIa – appears only twice in the New Testament we have to carefully draft the lexicon entry for it.  When the translation varies we have one simple problem, but when the writers diverge significantly, as do James and John, we have some explaining that goes beyond translators’ preferences.

“Arrogance” is plural, “boastful pride” of life is singular

Let us read James 4:16 as “you boast in your boastful prides” and 1 John 2:16 as “boastful pride is not of the Father”.

Conversely we could propose that James 4:16 says “you boast in your arrogances” and 1 John 2:16 says that “arrogance is not of the Father”. 

There is something shady with making plurals of concepts like hatred, honesty, righteousness or gentleness. How many kinds of hatred might there be? How does that matter to those charged with guarding society from hatred?  Is there a version of gentleness that people need to be aware of? It is highly improbable that arrogance or empty boasting comes in designer or perpetrator versions.

We are not covering for the bigoted Pharisees

Since we are not writing lexicons, but rather interpreting a pair of sentences, we can extrapolate from the theological priorities of our two writers. James, a Pharisee and strict follower of Moses, has an interest in labelling behaviours for the purpose of indicting people. The law of Moses is not setting anyone free from their trespasses and violations. John, a dedicated companion and witness of Yeshua’s majesty, has an interest in setting buoys to help people steer clear of the rocks that can stymie Christian growth.

If James were telling his audience about the Advocate they have in heaven one might understand the dire consequences of “arrogances”, or deeply entrenched arrogance. Is God counting sins? The raised head of arrogance or boastful pride grieves God, and we can be sure that our resident Help, the Holy Spirit, is always pointing the way to the healthy patterns of living the eternal life God gives.

Aw shucks! Great again?

eejoseph

It is not only the racist, “small government for a huge country” club that looks back for the time they want to bring back.  All the religious movements of the last three centuries have either fabricated a conversation about what God takes pleasure in or they have presumed not to take ancient writings as settled spiritual nourishment.  They all major in minors: patriarchy, misogyny, food and drink, impoverished observances and rituals, shadows instead of substance.

We cannot improve the church

We can make ourselves grow at a faster rate by being more diligent to study God’s word and work for others’ advancement.  We can lose weight, gain weight, stop behaviours, start behaviours, fast or feast.  The church will always be an organism with weeds and grain.  The church will always be a graphic representation of God’s Son in his incarnate majesty, composed of both divinity and humanity. Since we are incapable of making one lock of our hair black or white it is futile to talk about bringing back the church from some kind of catastrophic fall.  Nothing prevails against the Church.

MAGA is a dying dog

Used to be great? What happened? Someone will have to explain what is great about males circling wagons to deny women to their place in society. The Taliban will never be the benchmark for a decent society, no matter what miracles or how many wise prophets they pull out of their hat.  Some nations and tribes would like us to believe that their thousands of years were not sufficient to put a cap on hate, corruption and bigotry.  When the record smacks of conspiratorial malevolence three strikes are too many, and another kick at the can for any such perpetrator is not in the cards.  We do not imagine Israel revisiting Sinai or the Plains of Moab to rewrite the covenants.  Americans have shown that they are not ready to stand up for their Constitution. The greatness that comes out of looking back had to be catastrophic.